The Ashes 2013: Of being English and Indian - a singularity of exchanges

Predictably, there was a huge furore once it came to light about the saga of English cricketers urinating on the Oval pitch after the English victory at the Ashes. It was a huge revelation indeed – considering it was the Australian media that reported the incident in the first place – that blew off the English reputation of playing the ‘Gentleman’s game’ thoroughly, and amplified Sir George Bernard Shaw’s statement about fools playing (in this case, a game of an altogether different sort) and fools watching them play from around the stands.

Speaking of fools and foolishness, cricket as a sport has always struck me as funny; if not foolish. As reiterated earlier, it is supposed to be a gentleman’s game, but is rarely ever played in a manner befitting a gentleman. There are so many instances where the idealistic and lofty expectations of playing as gentlemen has gone in for a toss, leaving others to pick up and assemble the pieces of the sport.

James Anderson of England receives the ball from Stuart Broad during day three of the First Test match between New Zealand and England at University Oval on March 8, 2013 in Dunedin, New Zealand. (Photo by Hannah Johnston/Getty Images)

Players sledge left, right and centre so much so that even sledging has gone on to take a primary pedestal amongst the game’s do’s and don’ts. If players don’t sledge, they go on to take the next extreme. They take money – on top of what is given to them professionally – and cheat. With sophistication and attitude never seen before. And those who don’t cheat by taking money off the field, they cheat while the game’s in play by not walking off the pitch. Cue Stuart Broad in this case, whose affinity with the pitch, both at the Oval and at Trent Bridge, is sure to go down in Ashes history.

I, however, am digressing from what I intend to convey. Overlooking the fact about the irony of the sport’s expected and actual conduct, this is what the three English cricketers’ fascination to attending to nature’s call on the pitch looks like. At least to an Indian, it does so. Note that in this case, I am speaking out merely as an Indian and not as a sports fan. Sports, in this scenario, doesn’t make an appearance at all but is rather a by-the-by event without any actual significance or import.

In India, there is a lot stored by way of displaying openness. Certain things are however supposed to occur behind closed doors or rather euphemistically behind two extremely close flowers; but for the men in the country, openness abounds.

Wherever a person travels in India, be it a semi-developed, semi-urban or a rural township or even an uber-suave and developed metropolis like Mumbai, one can always find men  doing what the three English cricketers infamously did at the Oval. So much so that even if one wants to avert one’s eyes and look in the opposite direction, one stands the possibility of finding some random guy doing the same thing at the other end as well. By this, I do not mean to connote that India is a land of evil, but the simplest fact that as good as India is, the predominant nature of most of its populace at times makes life a living hell for the rest.