The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Beauty of skill over silly posturing

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Wednesday, Oct 10, 2007
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Sport - Cricket

Beauty of skill over silly posturing

Dhoni’s stumping of Ricky Ponting was simply beautiful, writes
Rohit Brijnath

— PHOTO: S. Subramanium

MAGICAL GLOVEwork: Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s brilliance would have had Ricky Ponting stumped, figuratively too.

In the Australian newspapers, it was controversial. In the Indian newspapers, its legitimacy was mostly unquestioned. Sometimes nationality has a strange way of affecting the eyes. And sometimes in the drama of “out” or “not out”, we forget about beauty. And Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s stumping of Ricky Ponting off Irfan Pathan was simply beautiful. This, surely, is why we watch sport.

Beauty makes a tedious week of double standards (Ponting lectures on spirit then stages a muttering dharna at the crease; the Indians brag about aggression then carp about “vulgar” words) worthwhile. It brings the most uncontaminated rush of pleasure, and it is a reminder that the best advertisement for sport is not chest-beating, but an act of skill.

Dhoni’s sleight of hand (repeated when he stumped Hodge down the leg side off Harbhajan) was followed by a question as old as sport: how did he do that? And it is asked in a sort of smiling bewilderment, for while we may have square-driven our neighbourhood Brett Lee for four on a perfect Sunday of our childhood, a stumping off a fast bowler (with even a dry tennis ball) is beyond most repertoires. This we cannot do. It is why we wait impatiently for the replay, to convince ourselves yes, what the eyes suggest, actually happened.

Pathan, a shining fellow with a face built to smile, will be thrilled but understandably have one reservation about the stumping. When a wicketkeeper stands up to you, it says only that you are not that fast but he is.

Symphony of movement

Stumping is an elaborate, high-speed composition, a sort of symphony of movement, where Dhoni was bending, rising, collecting, watching Ponting, making a decision, his hands responding, so alert and quick that it would have earned him instant membership in any union of pickpockets.

Sport is so cluttered these days, the air so thick with allegation and controversy (in the middle of the series the Indian chairman of selectors and team manager are fencing), that skill tends to get lost, or somewhat underappreciated. The craft of the athlete apparently is not news, it doesn’t sell. In cricket, we add runs, divide them, mark out averages, list strike rates, but these days we mostly forget how these runs are made.

Hayden’s runs, on Monday, were coated with arrogance, he walked out one ball as if on his way to a conversation with the non-striker and en route casually flicked Zaheer for six. Symonds’ runs were constant, he is a muscular machine that never stills. Tendulkar’s runs were dyed in a becoming stubbornness. Uthappa’s runs were simply loud, his age cheerfully evident in every brassy stroke. But there are no paeans to batsmen any more, only marks given out of 10 in some dry evaluation.

Effect of nationalism

Appreciation for skill should have no borders, yet across the globe the cheering for visiting teams is becoming softer. Nationalism, in all sport, is getting shriller and the end result is a black and white view of an activity that is unendingly colourful. Winning matters, of course it does, but skill is why we first started watching sport, didn’t we? To be enraptured, to gasp, to see men (from any country) do what we can only imagine?

Skill is also why India won on Monday, their cricket was tough, intense, exuberant. Perhaps now the team will figure it is the superior option to talking and posturing. The Australians should heed that, too, for every disdainful word they hurl only subtracts from their strapping beauty.

When Dhoni’s inspired act dismissed Ponting, the Indian captain could have followed it with a verbal send-off. Just, you know... to make some artless point. He didn’t. There was no need. His skilful hands had spoken enough.

Ponting will have heard and stay in his crease next time.

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