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Indian off-spinner and Delhi Capitals’ R Ashwin and controversy seem to be made for each other. This time it’s the run he took after the ball ricocheted off his partner and franchise captain Rishabh Pant in a match against Kolkata Knight Riders in the ongoing second phase of the IPL that had the cricket world divided. KKR captain Eoin Morgan was not amused by it and words were exchanged on the field. Ashwin, a day later, said on Twitter he didn’t see the ball ricochet off Pant’s bat but added that even if he had seen that he would have still gone for the run as he was “allowed to.”
Shane Warne, never one to keep away from a controversy, in a tweet said, what happened was “not cricket”. It’s ironical that Morgan of all players should complain now, having been the beneficiary of a ricocheted boundary in the ODI World Cup final against New Zealand in 2019, which England won in the most controversial of circumstances. This is something both Ashwin and Virender Sehwag alluded to in their tweets.
But this debate on the “spirit” of cricket and its alleged violation is framed under a false notion of a golden past. Even in a more “innocent” and pristine era, where Tests ruled the roost, the game’s “spirit” was followed more in the breach. The infamous Bodyline series in 1932-33 was just one instance. For the record, fast bowlers coming round the wicket and peppering batters with short-pitched stuff with a packed leg side is standard practice these days. Also it was in those “innocent” times where a South Africa under apartheid was part of the cricketing world and teams such as England, Australia and New Zealand used to regularly tour that nation. It was only as late as 1971 that South Africa was banned from world cricket thanks to public outrage and pressure.
This is not to say that everything is right about today’s hyper-jingoistic, uber-commercialised cricket world. But like it or not, cricket, at least in its white ball versions, is beginning to resemble football. As in politics, in cricket too one must beware of “golden pasts”.