8/19/2019 Is Cricket No Longer a Gentlemen

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Is Cricket no longer a gentlemen’s game?

Cricket history is filled with incidents of brutality and chicanery on the field, andmalice off it. W.G. Grace, the game’s first superstar, was a practitioner of the

most devious sportsmanship. Yes, the game was once dominated by the educated

elite gentility, but they rarely played gently.

 Why is cricket referred to as a gentleman’s game? When you think of the phrase so

often used to describe the sport, the image that crops up is of mildmannered men in white flannels with their shirts tucked in and their hair parted neatly. !aybe a pat onthe back, a gentle handshake or a shared "oke while walking back to the pavilion with

opponents at the end of a session. # game that supposedly segregates the classy fromthe crude, the boorish from the benign.

 Cricket is often regarded as uni$ue compared to other sports because aside from the

laws of the game, players are e%pected to abide by the &spirit of the game’. 'o whatconstitutes this intangible spirit?

 Walking when you know you’ve knicked a delivery even if the umpire hasn’tpronounced you out, not claiming a catch that was grassed, abstaining from an lbw

appeal when you know there was an inside edge, refraining from abuse of anopponent are "ust some of actions used to describe cricket’s indefinable attribute.

Common agreement seems to be that the term was associated with the game sincethe time (nglish aristocrats began playing it. )hey determined that the game would

 be played in *a gentlemanly manner*. )he term immediately lends itself to nostalgia

and the reminiscing of a time when things moved at a slower pace and the world wascaptured in black and white. +ut with phases like bodyline, was the sport ever reallygenial?

)he concept of &spirit of the game’ is one that has always lent itself to heavy debate

 what with it having no e%act defining line. )here have been several instances whenthe term has clashed with the defined rules of the sport.

 #ll the young kids glued to their ) sets during that -/ game now unfortunatelyknow that the penalty for using intimidation on the cricket field is a mere warning.

-t’s no surprise then that the ne%t generation’s heroes are the aggressive young guns

 who don’t think twice before using their clout or showing the middle finger.

Can the authorities step in and take a stringent stand that could act as a deterrent?

)he game’s wellwishers would surely hope so, for otherwise &it’s "ust not cricket’.