The aura of a literary meastro that surrounds Roebuck properly belongs to Mukul Kesavan, perhaps the most gifted cricket writer around. His latest blog entry is the best articulation I have read of the South Asian disaffection with cricket’s international establishment. Kesavan is spot on in so many ways that to list them all would be tedious, but the following quote captures one of the most important issues underlying this brouhaha:

[There is] a growing South Asian unease with the successful Australian attempt to claim the moral high ground in world cricket. Australians don’t like it but the country’s cricketers are widely seen as potty-mouthed bullies who manage to get away with murder partly because they sledge strategically and partly because the Australian definition of ‘hard but fair’—filth on the field and a beer off it—seemed to have been swallowed whole by the umpires and match referees who supervise international cricket… They remain convinced that umpires are (un)willing to sanction manly truculence (obscenity, lewdness and intimidation) but not shrill petulance (jack-in-box appeals, visible disappointment) because the former affects players while the latter is directed at umpires. This sense of being hard done by is reinforced by the pattern of bad decisions suffered by touring teams in Australia, Kumar Sangakkara’s appalling decision being perhaps the worst in recent times.

An Australian paper recently dug up tallies of misconduct verdicts slapped on various teams in the last several years, and the fact that India and Pakistan came out on top was flaunted as a big gotcha moment. This is revealing, but not in the way they intended. Those same numbers are viewed by the subcontinentals as reflection of a systemic bias against them, just as American blacks see their disproportionate rates of search, arrest and conviction as proof not of black criminality but of police prejudice.

In all these cases, there is an underlying reality which may agree with one side’s point of view or the other’s (and is more frequently somewhere in between), but it takes delicate analysis to uncover that. The more pertinent point is that people who display a lack of empathy in these matters, an unawareness of the fact that there are competing perspectives through which the “evidence” can be viewed, who are tone deaf to other people’s historical baggage and cultural expectations, are the bulk of modern chauvinists, not stupid hotheads who can’t stay off taboo words. The fact that some major Australian dailies don’t get it even after the Mike Denness and Darrell Hair controversies says a lot.

For a long time, cricket was ruled by MCC’s snooty classism and velvet etiquette. Thanks in large part to their on-field dominance, it has been supplanted to an extent by a very Australian ethos, which combines locker room swagger with a capricious officiousness. Those who think umpires and match referees consciously favor white skinned players are simpletons. The heart of the matter isn’t so much the uneven enforcement of rules, but the officialdom’s (often implicit) formulation of the rules themselves in a manner that enshrines cultural bias. South Asians grow up playing the game with an animated, flailing rowdiness, while young Australians are more accustomed to carrying themselves with a confident strut and snappy insults.

If white match referees and ICC officials cannot see beyond their culturally specific sensitivities, sorting out ethical essence from arbitrary norms, then they have no business sitting on their high horse. Gavaskar (his being a one-note pony notwithstanding) was right in questioning Mike Procter’s neutrality. Procter was quick to vent his apartheid guilt on the use of racial epithets, forgetting that there is the scope for a no less insidious symbolism in his actions – the hanging of a native based on white man’s say-so. That makes him more than incompetent.

Those who say that the BCCI wielded its power irresponsibly are absolutely right. Even if Bhajji lynched and burned Symonds right in front of the cameras, the desi brigade would have shown the same reflexive jingoism and staunch denial. But sometimes two wrongs can make some sort of a right if they raise the possibility of mutual destruction or at least comeuppance. It is wonderful that the cavalier racism of many Indians, that gleeful denigration of the kallus and the ganwars, has been brought under international spotlight. It is also worth a beer or two that the entrenched sense of entitlement of cricket’s traditional powers, their smug cultural assumptions, is having its nose rubbed in a pile of dirty money – that commodity on whose might colonies were once created and empires are still being built.

I am sorry that this matter didn’t come to its proper fruition in an Indian walkout. The Bhajji acquittal has precipitated an enormous whine fest in the Australian cricketing establishment and a scampering for the moral high ground momentarily left vacant by the Indians. The most annoying thing about Ponting is not his gamesmanship or foul mouth, but his incurious and unshakable sanctimony (Kesavan’s comparison with George Bush is very apt). If anyone remembers the opening act of this soap opera – Symonds grumbling about the over-the-top reception to India’s 20-20 stars – you’ll notice a psychological theme has come full circle: financial envy. Many Australian cricketers see it as a great injustice that they win all the games while pampered Indian players roll in the money and adulation.

The sooner these petulant schoolboys are ceremoniously kicked off that gravy train of the IPL, the better.

I quickly did a one-tailed binomial test (check it online) under the null hypothesis that the two teams were equally likely to get the benefit of every error committed by the officials. The probability that eight or more of these errors will go against India is 11.3%. The null hypothesis of unbiased umpiring errors cannot be rejected at 10% level of significance, but it comes darn close. If Bucknor were judging it, he might rule himself out caught.

Of course there are severe sampling bias issues. This game was selected precisely because it was controversial for its one-sided decisions. If reliable tallies of umpiring errors are kept for every test match, it will be interesting to run a test on larger samples. It is not clear how to group the sample, though (e.g., by umpire, by country, by home team, etc.). If it is true that mistakes are tending to add up in the Aussies’ favor of late, there are a number of possible causes to consider – home country bias, strong team bias, etc. and each will have different predictions for the data.

Legal disclaimer: One-tailed tests have been brought up purely for statistical purposes. It is not a reference to the primatological status of any player, official or fan.

First, there were the ultra nationalists and anti-racists. Then came the cultural relativists, followed by lawyers, image consultants and a Bollywood film crew.

Now, it turns out, feminists have joined the party. Fashionably late, as well groomed women are wont to be.

As cricket updates its vocabulary, I’m afraid some archaic terms will have to make way for more sensitive neologisms. After an ugly, lofted slash played by a tailender, connoisseurs must be careful to rue the absence of a deep third person. Commentators must also watch what they are saying. Gone are the days when you could yell: “He pulled that straight down fine leg’s throat” and have a stupid chuckle with your buddies.

There is a whisper around the web that Symonds got Bhajji’s goat with a gay taunt. It raises a difficult question. Which is more insulting – hurling a homophobic slur, or going apoplectic at being called a queen?

Regardless, this blog will be on a gay backlash watch.

Have more triangular contests, even for tests. Rotate the strike, don’t let chauvinism settle into a rhythm by bowling at the same batsman.

Throw as much technology at it as possible – hawkeye, snicko, the works. The solutions many cricketers and commentators keep proposing betray the yearning for a receding nobility – bring in high quality home umpires, take the fielder’s word on catches! What people fear isn’t human error but human bias. There is no point in trying to “get it right” in the God’s eye sense. What breeds resentment is the gap between the decision and the replay induced perception. Remove it.

But above all, cricketers must be relieved of the duty of being cultural ambassadors and moral examples. Peg on them your nation’s pride, but not its honor. Let them be ill mannered jocks and discipline them like errant kids. Allow all chatter and remonstrations. In soccer, red cards and suspensions are commonplace, and while often contentious in a technical sense, are rarely taken as a national slight.

If one team is playing in the old “spirit of the game” it is one team too many. It just isn’t cricket any more, but in many ways, this liberation from upper class stuffiness is a good thing, a refreshing and democratic change.

Some factors suggest themselves immediately. The logistics and time-frame, especially of test cricket, make it uniquely suitable for a slow cooking of simmering resentments. In soccer, even a flurry of ugly tackles and flashing cards doesn’t offer the players’ minds enough time to reflect and bristle – before you know, the match is over. In cricket, a dodgy decision on the first morning could lead to a crass comment on the third afternoon precipitating all out war on the fifth evening. Cricket’s numerous interludes also supply opportunities for mingling and interaction, and consequently mischief. For a relatively cerebral species, body contact doesn’t generate as much friction as the contact of minds.

Cricket is also unique in that it is mostly played in a bilateral format. Two teams and two nations hunker down, sometimes for months, in a clash of skills, wills, ambitions and nationalisms. Wounds fester, misunderstandings multiply, and cultural stereotypes get etched more deeply. Again, in soccer, no sooner have you worked up some lather over Maradona’s sly use of the wrong limb, your indignation is distracted by a new provocation – maybe a marauding Schumacher or a head butting Zidane.

In a motley crew of nations, particular encounters will inevitably be fraught with the memory of past wars and indignities, but the shuffling schedule muddles up which one to focus on – Falklands, Gulf or WWII? Cricket’s charmed little circle is stitched together by a single political theme – British colonialism. Wherever it is played, ghosts of the East India Company, the penal colonies and the sugarcane plantations always linger near the ropes.

Economists and biologists keep reminding us that repeated interaction is the key to social cooperation. Say that to the Israelis and Palestinians! Repetition harnesses the evolved instinct of reciprocity, but also pits it against equally headstrong impulses – tribalism and retribution. The only other sport I can think of which has created prolonged competitive pairings is World championship chess. It is famous for its brutal enmities and blood feuds.

Beyond these structural factors, I think there is a more interesting reason that lends cricket its peculiar volatility at the highest level. Ironically, the culprit is its most celebrated baggage, that of gentlemanly conduct, whose imminent demise has surely been lamented for at least half a century. There is no other professional sport in which participants are loftily expected to sign their own death warrants, or applaud those who may have just destroyed their reputations, careers and dreams.

Cricket’s unreal code of conduct isn’t an invention of ethical giants – the feudal aristocracy who patronized it is not renowned for saintliness – but arises from the elite’s desire to distinguish itself from the peasants through refined behavior and noblesse oblige. It wasn’t a question of morals but manners, and the failure to walk after producing a snick must have been a lot like stabbing at the turkey with the wrong fork. A big part of cricket’s ethos, whether in the construction of the honor code or its gradual crumbling, always had a great deal to do with identity and collective pride.

Two factors make the gentleman’s game an unsustainable anachronism today. First is the vastly increased stakes, not only in prizes, endorsements and adulation, but also in nationalist aspirations and historical score settling – payoffs which the early men in white never knew. More importantly, it just doesn’t sit well with the ongoing de-gentrification of the game and the societies which play it.

At the international level, cricket is caught up in the changing fortune of nations. The shift of its power center from the crusty halls of the MCC to a burgeoning economic giant – the new India of glitzy malls and conspicuous consumption – is now a fait accompli. Within nations too, the social base of cricket has undergone tectonic shifts, from Oxbridge sophisticates to Bradford immigrants, from goody-two-shoes middle class lads to rustic youth from provincial towns or the outback. The emotional drive of cricket’s new clientele is not the showcasing of its delicate class mannerisms, but assertion of a new power and self esteem.

At the heart of modern cricket, therefore, lies a contradiction. It is a rambunctious peasants’ game trapped in an aristocratic body (in a sense, the game may be returning to its real roots). Its sundry frictions are magnified by this confusion. Cricketers are supposed to bear the burden of not only the status aspirations of their supporters, but also carry out cultural ambassadorship and diplomacy.

In the final part, I offer my solution to this Jeckyll-Hyde dilemma: drop Dr. Jeckyll.

This isn’t cricket. This is something far more interesting.

The Indian media’s coverage of the Sydney test shows as much ironic detachment as the Bible’s telling of Jesus’s crucifixion. Added to the injury of the umpires’ Cinderella treatment is the most bewildering of insults – a Surd hailing from the vicinity of Jalianwallah Bagh stands accused and convicted of racism in the hand of sahibs! That’s a doosra the desis never saw coming out of the hand.

The Australian media, initially nodding in sympathy at the havoc wreaked by Bucknor’s deadly finger, is also getting defensive. In a hilarious piece of media sledging, Andrew Stevenson has unearthed a Brahminical conspiracy within the BCCI, to which a certain Tripathi from London dutifully posts a strong patriotic rebuttal  in Cricinfo. Gavaskar’s voice on Star suggests he’d prefer a walkout (has he told Chauhan yet?), whereas Slater clearly hasn’t retired from the old habit of charging from his position, be it midwicket or the commentary box.

Let’s set aside the tedious legalisms of the case and look at the big picture. First, what is the recent record of Indian cricket fans, vis-à-vis racism or sportsmanship?

Tackling this issue poses the same problems as selecting Bradman’s best knocks, but let me draw up a partial list – abandonment of a World Cup semi-final against Sri Lanka due to crowd trouble, hurling of bottles and abuse at West Indian outfielders in several ODIs (even when India was going strong), a chief minister and a speaker of Parliament intervening on behalf of a dropped star (the beloved Dada), vandalism of players’ homes after the World Cup debacle, the stream of invective on News Channels, physical assault on a foreign coach. We are only getting started!

Whatever qualities rush to mind in describing this crowd, the following aren’t uppermost – sense of proportion, fairness, objectivity and humor. Compare the funereal silence that greets a dashing Younus Khan century in Kotla with the gushing adulation Laxman or Tendulkar gets in Sydney. This narrow minded and obsessive parochialism is a much greater shame than any cricketing failures of the alternately adored and vilified heroes, whose last day collapses, lest one forgets, are as frequent as Britney Spears’ scandals.

Some Indians have taken refuge in the fable that “monkey” is an innocent taunt, if not a local term of endearment! Perhaps Darren Lehman’s famous description of the Lankans as black c**ts can be similarly construed as an expression of fondness, given his heterosexual leanings. Those who know India’s recent geography of chauvinism and hatred will also remember Mumbai and Gujarat’s special place in it – the location of stadiums where Symonds was heckled.

Of course, Bhajji should be convicted only on the evidence of his own suspect actions, not that of his fans, but those who see in it a collective affront should also take a close look at their collective behavior and culture.

As an equal opportunity offender, I should also dwell on the combination of sporting excellence, cultural naïvete, trashy behavior and overbearing boorishness that Australian cricket teams consistently display. When an Aussie captain, with typical haughty sense of entitlement, demands that his integrity be held beyond question, one is at a loss as to which pin to use on his balloon. Should one bring up underarm balls, aluminum bats, betting and bookie scandals, doping and sexual harassment, racial epithets, or simply their status as undisputed world champions of not only cricket but also a certain form of oral poetry

Nevertheless, gallery gossip is tiresome. What is interesting about these increasingly frequent imbroglios is that soccer, the truly global game, in spite of its frequent red cards and disputed goals and rampaging hooligans, seldom becomes an extension of identity politics. Cricket, played by a handful of countries and carrying the quaint pretensions of gentleman’s honor, is probably the only sport today which seems capable of precipitating a clash of civilizations. In the Part II of this post, I will explain my theory why this is so, and what I think should be done.