On War Footing.
In the recent past there were two shocking
incidents of cricket. On one incidence, a batsman was hit by a bouncer and
collapsed during medical attendance. In a second case, an umpire was hit by the
ball, off the bat. He too collapsed. Two lives lost in very short span.
This is not the first incident of its type.
There were a few before, but we didn’t learn from the occasions. Recently Brian Lara
and also Virendra Sehwag have stated that bouncers should not be banned in the
cricket. This will pull out charm from the cricket.
I don’t know whether we are playing on war footing or of
fighting a war on the sports ground. Doing things on war footing doesn’t mean waging a war with the
opponent. I understand, it means your preparations must be of the level of a war, where you won’t miss any chance favouring the opponent making us weak.
There were players like Richie Beno, Graem Polak
and Peter polak ( Polak Brothers from South Africa), Sobers, Viv Rechards & others and so on to name – including our own
Gundappa R Vishwanath, Ajit Wadekar, Gavaskar the little Master and others who
had skills more than physique to control the ball and score the runs. The art
of the game seen with these players is missing in present generation. Not only
in cricket be it any sport, the skill has taken the back seat and physique &
stamina has come affront as leader and this has transformed the games’ face
value itself. See on football (Soccer) how physique is used to its climax and
that’s allowed now in the rules of the game. How Diego Maradona was handled in
his last few games? Hockey too is no way better than these.
It hurts. Notwithstanding who loses or who wins the game
has to be of standards. Spectators should be able to enjoy the game and not
start to hoot for “my club / country” wherein the games quality deteriorates.
I wish if sports
bodies think on it and do things to bring back the glory to the art and skills
in the games rather than turning them into real wars not war-like games.
M.R.Iyengar
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