The Colombian
Zuniga’s downing of football’s superstar Neymar that broke the latter’s
vertebra took away bit of sheen from the “Beautiful Game”. The violence of this
kind does not quite mix with sports, be it football or sport of any other kind.
The Brazil game against Colombia was particularly rough with as many as 54
fouls whistled down and of them 31 were committed by the Brazilians. If this is
reckoned as beautiful, one wouldn’t know what beautiful is. Then, of course,
there is the curious instance of Luis Suarez of Uruguay sinking his rather weak
teeth on the fleshy Italian Chiellini only to rue his act later. Photographs
showed that he collapsed on the turf holding his teeth in what seemed to be
acute pain. Reports say, Suarez is in the habit of biting his opposing numbers.
This time, however he couldn’t get away – having been served with a 9-match
ban.
Fouls
are certainly committed in inadvertence but, as one noticed, players were being
pulled away or being deliberately downed to prevent them from carrying on with
the game. And this happened not once, or twice; it happened umpteen number of
times in the games I happened to watch. To me, this does not appear like sport.
One plays a game, after all, for pleasure and to extend pleasure to the
spectators. It is neither a matter of life and death nor is it a matter of
national survival. Then why go and do something like breaking somebody’s back –
literally – or even have a go at somebody’s flesh.
True, Football
and Hockey, Rugby, Ice Hockey, etc. are what are known as “contact sports”
where players of two teams have to have physical contacts with each other. In
Rugby and Ice Hockey players even wear protective gear to ward off injuries.
After all, for retrieving the ball from the opposition and scoring goal is the
objective. In the process players have to tackle those of the opposition and in
doing so they could hurt each other. That would be incidental to the game. But
what we saw in the World Cup matches was some deliberate contacts with the
opposition player only to deprive him possession of the ball or to keep him
away from it. In this act everything seemed to be fair including bringing him
down or stepping on him with one’s nailed boots or, for that matter, kneeing
him on the back. If one thinks of preventing the opposition from playing ball,
in my opinion, why play the game at all? But then, even sports have become
highly competitive and then there is a lot of money and prestige. It is
virtually a soft kind of war, highly hyped up as it is.
I suppose, that
is why some of the no-contact sports like cricket and tennis have been
described as “Gentlemen’s Game”. Cricket used to be and continues to be
gentlemanly. One sees these traits especially in test matches. A batsman or a
bowler attains a milestone and he is congratulated by the members of the
opposition or if a bowler takes more than five wickets in an innings he,
instead of the captain, is made to lead the team back into the pavilion; there
are hardly ever any protests against an umpire’s decision. There are many such
healthy, gentlemanly conventions that are observed till today highlighting the
spirit of sportsmanship. However, aberrations are creeping in and the healthy
traditions are gradually yielding place to aggression, more so in the
limited-overs matches. Expressions of extreme exuberance verging on being
aggressive and intimidating after capturing a wicket have been noticed in
numerous limited-overs international games. Showing the way to the pavilion
haughtily to a batsman after capturing his wicket– a show of brazen immodesty –
is certainly not gentlemanly.
During the
Indian Premier League limited over cricket matches I noticed on any number of
occasions bowlers aiming the ball in “death” overs close to the line that
indicates a “wide” on the Off Side far away from the batsman. On the Leg Side
such a ball would be a called a “wide” but not on the Off Side. There must be
some reason for this what seems like a wacky rule but that is how it is. The
bowlers’ intention is to keep the ball as far away from the batsman as possible
so that it is beyond the latter’s reach. This practice is adopted more in
matches that progress towards a close finish. If the bowler’s intention is not
to allow the batsman to be able to even touch the ball, leave alone score runs
off it, then I ask the same question again: why play the game at all? The
bowlers could well claim to be bowling within the rules but not the spirit of
the, supposedly, gentlemanly game.
Aggression is on
occasions seen even in tennis which is also reckoned as a gentlemen’s game. One
can often see rather assertive exuberance in players after winning a crucial
game or a set. It wasn’t so earlier. With the onset of “boom boom”, serve and
volley game, tennis seems to have lost that softness of yore. But, then today
the game is played with intense passion after years of preparation of the mind
and the body and huge investments in time effort and money. It is all reckoned
as worth it as there is such a lot of money tagged on to professional tennis.
And, yet I find Roger Federer not quite gelling with the crowd. He is
different. A legendary tennis player, having been conferred with numerous
awards– even off the tennis courts – for the qualities of his head and heart,
his equanimity after a win is admirable. His exuberance after hitting a winner
and scoring a point is always subdued, is never jarring or strident. Even after
a win his elation and exultation are mostly composed and are to acknowledge the
cheers and appreciation of spectators and also, probably, to internalise them – to allow them to seep
within.
One supposes
that is how a sportsman should conduct himself. But, that would be idealistic;
all kinds assemble in the sporting arena contributing to the rough and tumble
of competitive sports and that, perhaps, makes things more interesting in
today’s world.
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