ANOTHER VOICE murray swart Ruining the game

WHILE its sponsors have never encouraged the healthiest of lifestyles, there are few greater success stories in terms of youth development than mini cricket.

Without exception, every member of the Proteas squad learned some of the basics by smashing a glorified red tennis ball with a modified plank handed to them by corporates that, in actual fact, do more to enrich cardiologists than cricketers.

Once the fundamentals are in place, the games really begin and picking up a cricket ball for the first time is a genuine right of passage.

I vividly recall this milestone in my own childhood and at this point I would like to thank a certain bunch of tourists, from a certain former British penal colony, for bringing back fond memories of a simpler time, at the dawn of the new South Africa.

It’s a daunting but exciting prospect and to all the cricketers out there, past, present and pretending alike, take this opportunity to think back on that first practice when you were handed that heavy ball. Just close your eyes and allow the memories to come flooding back.

Do you remember? Rub the leather against your fingers and look at the solid red surface. Can you see it? How does it feel? Just as you remember it, right?

Now ask yourself. Any signs of tampering?

I might be wrong to envision a future where the number of players on a cricket field is sold as synonymous with the number of herbs and spices listed in a secret recipe; and maybe I’m wrong to recall very few net sessions where a half polished and half perforated cricket ball didn’t pass through my hands.

In retrospect, those isolated incidents that I can recall only happened late into my teens, when I had already convinced myself that I knew better than everyone and instructions from coaches were defied rather than desired.

You see, a brand new cricket ball is a rare and expensive thing, generally reserved for the more established players or those with pockets deep enough to see a piece of sandpaper disappear without a trace.

Fresh from the factory, a ball is generally brought into circulation having first been put into the hands of a competent opening bowler. At this stage, it has an even gloss which is soon left somewhat scuffed by the finest English Willow.

With every passing delivery, in every game, more damage is inflicted while the fielding team is actively encouraged to ensure that only one hemisphere is ever shown any TLC.

The other is deliberately disregarded, as per the laws of the game and discreetly destroyed, in contravention thereof.

Much like global politics, this is all done under the watchful eye of voluntarily blind authority figures, by culprits who place personal glory and gratuities ahead of grace and the greater good. All in the name of the game.

The ritual of slaughter and salvage is repeated with every changing set of hands and by the time a new ball is called for in a Test match the contrasting condition of the leather on opposing sides of the seam is evident, and that is on a ball that has not seen 600 deliveries.

Every over of every match sees the ball distance itself from the limelight of its initial introduction and more often than not, it sees out its days in a box of outdated equipment.

This is usually when it ends up in the hands of someone with less experience, knowledge and resources who is still learning to love the game.

Sadly, this passion is built by tools that carry all the signs of how those who should be role-models to those participating at a lower level are instead ruining the game.