Gentleman's game?

 Watch a typical football match. Adrenaline runs high. Every minute, the whole stadium, including the actual sports arena, is like a minefield. Passions pole-vault sky-high. The fans often get rowdy.

In a brilliant essay entitled "The Sporting Spirit", George Orwell, ever the conscience of the twentieth century Western world, talks of this downfall of the concept called fair game.

Currently, it is going downhill in other sports as well. Remember Sania Mirza's match in Hyderabad? More than Sania's game, it was the populace in the stadium who decided with their aggressive heckling which way the match would go.  

 Bereft of such underhand "deal"ings, cricket was clean, and was supposed to the gentleman's game. It used to be so played and so appreciated. The five day test matches used to be a FINE AND FAIR display of high quality talents. G. Vishwanath, Eknath Solkar, and others were true achievers, not to forget the 'great's like Gavaskar.

With the Packer's circus in the late 1970's, the game changed drastically. 'Professional' it became. As the formats kept on transforming till they reached the contemporary IPL one, money entered the game in a big way. It became the center stage player. 

Hardly hence it remains the typical traditional gentleman's game. Bookies and punters, they say, now determine the way a match would swing. In a country like India, where cricket is almost a religion, what with temples built to individual players, such malpractices are a danger.

Given the sheer size in India of cricket as big business, 'stakes' are high. Anyways, there are constant rumours of match-fixing, beginning with Sharma's toss winning tactics to the tampering of the pitch, all sorts of accusations fly thick and high! Such conspiracy theories are hardly the tonic for the game.

Hope the match tomorrow is not thus 'fix'ed. Hope the M-tonic does not make it artificially healthy/wealthy! Hope it is fair play by both the teams, the host and the guests! Hope punters are not the pundits tomorrow. Hope the game wins as it used to, when it was the gentleman's game! 

Pratima@ Money matters! And how much? And which all ways? Should/Must it though? Fingers crossed! May the art of the sport win!