The Hindu : Sport : England starting to pull its weight

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Sep 01, 2007
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Sport

England starting to pull its weight

Within a decade, a cosmopolitan England may prove hard to beat

PETER ROEBUCK

England is finally beginning to make the most of the rich and varied cricket talent at its disposal. After decades of struggling along as a predominantly Anglo-Saxon team, the game’s most self-important but least effective force is starting to pull its weight.

A combination of commercial ambition, religious zealotry and seafaring power meant that vast tracts of land came to be ruled from London, an opportunity not to be missed. Whether Whitehall or Marylebone bestowed greater favours upon its subdued peoples is a hotly-debated point.

As far as cricket was concerned, Empire created an opportunity to spread the game, a chance that was not spurned. Sub-continentals and the people in the Caribbean took to the game with enthusiasm, and presently started to play it by their own lights. Cricket moved easily across the continents. Straight bats and stiff upper lips did not always travel quite so well.

Another opening

End of Empire gave England another cricketing opening, one that it has taken an unconscionable time to exploit. After the Second World War, immigrants arrived from Barbados and Bombay, from Jamaica and Lahore. Many brought with them a love of this game of bat and ball. Not that they immediately dropped their bags and rushed to the nearest village green.

By and large the Indians led shy, independent lives, staying within their own communities, seeking to rise through education and viewing sport as a waste of time and energy. Such are the joys of settlers.

Different perspective

However the Africans saw things differently. Held back for centuries in other areas, they realised that sport gave them a chance to improve their lives. Although they took time to find their feet, before long black Africans were making their mark on British athletics and football. But cricket remained beyond the pale. Partly it was a question of facilities. Inevitably early generations of immigrants gather in poorer parts of town, surrounded by smoke and soccer.

Accordingly English cricket could not make the most of its new resource. The large Indian community was especially unproductive. Although a few black fast bowlers broke through, Gladstone Small and Devon Malcolm amongst them, they proved to be isolated cases. And brown faces were thinner on the ground than pancakes at a health club.

Doubtless obstacles were encountered in regions of stubborn nationalism but elsewhere efforts were made. If anything the selectors have in recent times tried too hard, choosing gifted Asians still awaiting the arrival of maturity. Doubtless the decline of old England, with its unique blend of stoical and classical, helped to concentrate minds on finding fresh fertility

Varied construction

Anyone watching Paul Collingwood’s side scrape home against a leaden footed Indian outfit on Thursday must have noticed the varied construction of the home side. Nor was it merely those born or raised in robust and privileged white Africa. Monty Panesar displayed his customary combination of spirit and skill. Owais Shah, a late bloomer blessed with a hint of the exotic, bolstered the middle-order. And England was taken to an exhilarating victory by an illuminating lower-order partnership featuring a youngster steeped in the game and a pugnacious competitor called Ravi Bopara.

England has a long way to go, and still needs to attract the attention of black youngsters. But within a decade, a cosmopolitan England may prove as hard to beat as the more clipped combinations sent onto the field between and before the wars. In the modern world domination will go not to elitists but to democrats who leave no stone unturned in their search for talent.

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