Alison Mitchell
Garfield Robinson is unrepentant about wanting to see something more than just runs and wickets
How can cricketers deal with the changes retirement brings?
Do we watch sports hoping only to see our team win, or are we also concerned about attractive play? “Winning isn’t everything,” said famed American Football coach Vince Lombardi,“it’s the only thing.” But is that really true? Aren’t aesthetics a vital part of sports, too?
Famed Uruguayan football writer, Eduardo Galeano, spoke of his craving for beautiful football:“I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football. I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead,‘a pretty move, for the love of God’. And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
Galeano, then, must have liked Arsenal and the philosophy espoused by their coach Arsene Wenger. For years one of the top clubs in English football, the Gunners, at the direction of their long-time manager, play with style.
“If I could give you only one of these things,” asked an interviewer on the anniversary of Wenger’s 20 years with the London club,“playing beautiful football or winning ugly, which one would you select?”
“You don’t think like that,”Wenger replied.“You think the best way to win is to play football where everybody expresses his talent in the game.
“You cannot be a big club and say to everybody,‘look my friend buy season tickets because we want to win ugly’. That will not go far. So you have to, of course, have the desire to win, but you need the ambition to win with style.
“People want to come and see an experience that fulfils them for the game they love.”
Those of us who love cricket not only want to see runs scored and wickets taken, we rejoice also in invention and elegance. Productivity is vital but so, too, is artistry.
Michael Holding’s long approach to the wicket was smooth, silent, and it culminated in a picture-perfect side-on action that propelled a bullet of a delivery to the other end. Not for nothing was he called “Whispering Death”. He was always compelling viewing, whether he captured five for few or none for plenty.
Dale Steyn’s late away movement and Jimmy Anderson’s discernment of the mysteries of swing are not just displays of skill that batsmen find testing, they are also instances of exquisite beauty to those who love the game and deeply appreciate the work of its masters.
But, one need not be a world beater to possess an artistic flair. And a highly pleasing performance need not be one of great magnitude.
One very memorable innings I saw live was by Ian Bell during England’s 2008-09 tour of the West Indies. He made four. Totally undermined by Jerome Taylor’s 5-11, England crumbled for 51 in the second innings to lose by an innings and 23 runs. Bell fell before lunch and before the mayhem unfolded.Yet his brief 22ball knock is difficult to forget because of the ease and skill with which he played. Taylor had already begun shifting the ball this way and that, but Bell seemed to comfortably meet everything with the very middle of his bat.
No English batsman really distinguished himself in that debacle. For me, however, Bell’s innings was like finding something of worth in a mountain of rubble. I was there supporting the West Indies and was left, like most of the crowd, giddy by Taylor’s performance.
But Bell left a mark, too, and he soon became a favourite player.
The sheer weight of an athlete’s record says a lot about his value to his sport. Still, it doesn’t give the total picture. Bradman’s numbers are unmatched in cricket and he had a huge following in his time.
And yet many Australians would unapologetically voice their preference for Victor Trumper, who came a few years before Bradman and had nothing like the stats of the great man.
“So often have I listened to stories of him,” wrote Bradman teammate Jack Fingleton, referring to Trumper,“so often have I seen a new light come into the eyes of people at the mention of his name.”
Jamaican batting marvel of the Seventies and Eighties, Lawrence Rowe, had a similar effect on many. Even today, you notice the reverential tone that comes to the fore whenever his name comes up in any conversation on batting.
To some degree, names like Gower, Zaheer, Hooper, Ramprakash, and Jayawardene, among others, evoke a similar kind of reaction. They don’t all have stellar records, some are often dubbed underachievers, but what they had in large quantities were methods of play that were massively appealing.
In many ways, the vulnerability added to the allure. Since you never knew what you’d get you remained expectant. If you got nothing you’d go away disappointed. If you got a grand performance you’d feel satisfied and privileged. Either way, you’d be eagerly awaiting the next occasion because you knew there was a possibility
Aristocrats of the game offered the viewer something beyond mere runs or wickets. In their hands, cricket became high art
of witnessing something out of the ordinary.
If you were a huge fan of Carl Hooper you’d have had to endure more than your fair share of frustration. He undoubtedly had it in him to perform great feats. All too often, however, he’d whet your appetite with a few enchanting strokes, only to get out soon afterwards leaving you unsatisfied. But then on a few rare occasions he’d play like he did in Antigua in May 1993 when he made 178 beguiling runs against the might of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis. Those moments of plenty made up for the long periods of famine.
I was powerfully drawn to the batting of VVS Laxman. I suspect most cricket fans were. Many were the nights I’d forsake sleep waiting for his turn at the crease, and if those batting above him were sticking around for too long, I’d secretly wish them to get out. And it wasn’t that I didn’t like watching them either for they were all batsmen of high pedigree.
But Laxman was something else entirely, and any substantial innings by him would be worth whatever sacrifice you had to make.You endured the hardship because you knew the reward, when it came, would be substantial.
“Cricket,” said CLR James,“is first and foremost a dramatic spectacle. It belongs with the theatre, ballet, opera and dance.” Nobody seeing Brian Lara or Hashim Amla at their best, or Malcolm Marshall or Dennis Lillee in full flight, could possibly disagree.
They, and the other aristocrats of the game offered the viewer something beyond mere runs or wickets. In their hands a bat or a ball was a paintbrush and cricket became high art.