27.06.2001

Racism and corruption

Mary Godwin discusses the ?Tebbit test

On June 17 at Headingley, hundreds of Pakistan supporters ran on to the cricket field to celebrate their side?s victory over England, not realising that the scoreboard was in error and four more runs were needed. In the chaos that followed, a steward trying to stop the fans from reaching the players was knocked to the ground and kicked in the head and stomach, and needed hospital treatment for broken ribs and a damaged spleen.

Steve Waugh, captain of the Australian team, had repeatedly warned that such crowd trouble would lead to injury to players or officials, and two days later he took his team off the field for 18 minutes after a firecracker thrown from the crowd exploded near a fielder. Then on June 21 the presentation ceremony following the final of the one-day international competition was terminated when a can of beer thrown from the crowd gathered in front of the Lords pavilion hit an Australian player in the face.

A headline in The Times last week stated: ?Mob rule threatens cricket?. But is this really a crisis endangering the future of the game? Every year there seems to be a different controversy threatening cricket, but most are soon forgotten. Stories of unfair intimidatory bowling, biased umpires, drug-taking by players and other scandals are hyped up by journalists who think they will create more interest than reports of the play itself. Nine years ago alleged ball-tampering by Pakistan bowlers was the big issue undermining the game.

The events during the one-day series were hardly unique. In 1985 a pitch invasion at Headingley marred an England test victory over Australia. Steve Waugh himself was hit by a bottle thrown by a spectator in Guyana in 1999. One incident, in Perth on November 13 1982, was reported by the ?cricketer?s bible?: ?About 15 spectators, some carrying union jacks, ran on to the field and the troubles began. One intruder, coming from behind, cuffed Alderman round the head. Giving chase, Alderman dislocated his right shoulder as he brought his man down with a rugby tackle ... the offender was led away in handcuffs and Alderman carried off on a stretcher ... In the fighting that followed on the terraced side of the ground 26 arrests were made? (Wisden 1984, p888).

The unease felt about events at cricket matches this month reflects not simply the violence involved, but also the overtones of racialised conflict, echoing the tension in towns such as Oldham and Burnley. As Ahmer Khokhar puts it, ?The racial violence in Oldham and Leeds has reinforced the view of many in the Asian community that they are not accepted as equal citizens in Britain. Asian youths also feel that they do not have a significant voice in the political and social fabric of the nation. Cricket gives them an opportunity to vent their feelings and frustrations. Sadly some of them choose to ignore their own and the players? safety by invading the pitch? (The Times June 19).

Cricket correspondent Christopher Martin-Jenkins added: ?If invasions in England are a problem confined to youthful and rebellious British muslims, crowd yobbery generally is much more the preserve of the beer-swilling English. Dr Khalid Anis, a GP from Warrington, wrote to Lancashire and the ECB after the Old Trafford test complaining of ?aggressive English support, continuous abuse, foul language and chanting of ?Oldham? - an obvious incitement?? (The Times June 21).

According to Ahmer Khokhar, the frantic nature of one-day cricket is an ideal release for fans? excitement, frustration and patriotism. As in other sports, the fans? choice of a team to devote their loyalty to is determined by a number of factors, and many young Asians choose to support those representing the country of their parents? or grandparents? birth. This causes a problem for some proponents of the unredefined - ie, non-multicultural - ideology of British chauvinism. Foremost amongst them is, of course, former Tory cabinet minister Norman Tebbit, who notoriously suggested that immigrants to Britain and their descendants should switch their allegiance to the England cricket team: failure to do so would call into question their loyalty, and presumably their right to be treated as full British citizens.

However, this was going too far for most adherents of anti-racist British chauvinism. Last year?s Wisden commented: ?? it began to be widely accepted that the ?Tebbit test? ? was inappropriate; their loyalties were an expression of their individuality, and a perfectly legitimate one? (2000, p432). In fact during the 1999 World Cup, held in England, the enthusiastic and colourful support for all the teams was regarded by many commentators as a key part of the success of the ?carnival of cricket?.

England captain Nasser Hussain seemed to revive the ?Tebbit test? last month when he urged young Asians to support England at cricket as ?the way forward?. But his main purpose was to open up a growing pool of talent to the England selectors.

He said: ?We have to ask, for England?s sake, how are we going to get the best out of our country and the wider community. It makes you wonder: are we picking enough of these Asian lads and are they coming up through the ranks? But you also have to ask, are those born here doing enough? Are they making themselves available for their local club sides and country sides and stating their ambitions to play for England?? (The Sunday Telegraph May 27).

Of course, Hussain is exactly the kind of British Asian that the establishment loves. Born in Madras, not only his commitment to the England cricket team, but his patriotism are beyond question. Like the black athletes who drape themselves in the union flag after winning Olympic medals, he epitomises the way black and Asian Britons should behave - not like those unpleasant and unBritish supporters of Pakistan.

For us, their failure to identify with either the UK state or official British sports teams is not something to weep over. At present, for many sons and daughters of Asian immigrants, an alternative unofficial British identity is sought in the shape of their parents? home country. Not that this represents a deep attachment for the various governments and regimes that India and Pakistan have been blessed with - many of the young ?Asian? fans have never set foot in their ?home? country. Some members of the Pakistan team?s entourage have indignantly rejected the idea that those who invaded the pitch were real Pakistanis: they are ?British Asians?, akin to English football hooligans.

However, for communists, the national or team affiliation of youth alienated from the mainstream is not the main question. We need to encourage an additional, overriding, identity - that of the international working class. In order to do so, we and the Socialist Alliance must challenge the bourgeoisie?s nationalistic anti-racism, which attempts to tie black and Asian workers to the UK state, using its multicultural policy of divide and rule. Instead of democratic assimilation and a culturally enriching recreation of British national identity, the UK government and the local authority bureaucracy have institutionalised multiculturalism. Everyone is expected to designate themselves according to a list of racial and ethnic boxes. Each ?community? is expected to compete one with the other for equal treatment and services. Class is forgotten.

Neither crowd trouble nor the failure of Asian youth to support England will throw cricket into crisis. The match-fixing scandal may do. Last week Sir Paul Condon, the former Metropolitan police commissioner hired by the International Cricket Council to investigate corruption in cricket, presented his report to the ICC meeting at Lords. He made 24 recommendations to the ICC, all of which have been accepted.

Wisden 2001 lists over 50 matches in which match-fixing has been alleged, according to previous official enquiries, including, for example, the surprise victory in the 1999 World Cup by Bangladesh over Pakistan. Until this corruption is eliminated from the game, such acts of giant-killing will be regarded with suspicion and thus devalued. Top cricketers experiencing a run of poor form, as they all do at some time in their career, will suffer the additional pressure of worrying that they might be suspected of underperforming for monetary reward.

A relatively innocuous form of match-fixing began in the 1970s in England, when, for example, two teams in a county game would agree to each concede just over 300 runs and lose nine wickets in the first innings to secure maximum batting and bowling points - to the detriment of teams not involved in the match. Often the collusion has extended to contriving a positive result. When that was done in January 2000, in a match between England and South Africa which had seemed to be heading for a certain draw, the now disgraced Hansie Cronje was one of the captains involved, and a famous England victory was tainted with suspicion.

Condon listed many factors which enabled corruption to survive in the game. Crucially, he pointed to the ICC?s lack of openness and transparency. The ?old school tie? culture which permeates the game - and not only in England - meant that some administrators have themselves been involved in corrupt practices, or in cover-ups. The problem was not dealt with as soon as it should have been - the ICC did not even set up the anti-corruption unit until after Hansie Cronje had already been exposed by the Indian police and forced to resign.

In discussing the failure of the ICC to tackle corruption, or to act as an effective ruling body in other matters, many commentators have pointed to the power struggle within it between the Asian bloc - India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh - and the English and their allies who traditionally controlled the game. The Asian Cricket Council has now organised three extra tournaments to be held in addition to the official ICC schedule of matches. According to Mihir Bose, ?The Asian countries resented the way they were grudgingly accepted by England and Australia, who in turn felt that the new kids on the block were ignoring their traditionally gentlemanly ways? (Wisden Cricket Monthly June, p30).

This comment points to a more fundamental conflict regarding the ?ethos? of cricket: what it is basically for. In the eyes of the traditionalists such as the MCC, who still have a powerful grip on the game in England, ?It stands for the central virtues of Englishness - sportsmanship, civilised behaviour, fair play, and a decent pair of flannels? as Magnus Linklater jokingly put it in The Times (May 24). For the new breed of administrator, particularly in Asia, but also increasingly in other parts of the world, cricket is a business, which exists to make money like any other and must shed its stuffy image.

The conflict between these two basic philosophies, combined with the complete absence of democratic accountability, is the root cause of the powerlessness of the ICC. Mike Marqusee, sports journalist and a leading member of the Socialist Alliance, describes the appointment of Lord Griffiths as chair of the ICC Code of Conduct Commission: ?A former president of the MCC and retired high court judge, Lord Griffiths is very much a safe pair of hands and an establishment man ... the ICC, for all the talk of building a new cricket world order, a post-colonial order where everyone was equal, when faced with a crisis, ran back to the most reactionary elements of the British establishment? (Action for Solidarity November 2000).

It has been said that cricket is an Indian game, accidentally invented by the British. This reflects how in Asia cricket is supported with the passion and fanaticism which in England is reserved for football. Ninety percent of all cricket fans live in the subcontinent. The growth of the Indian middle class provides a market for advertisers to tap into. And the spread of satellite television provides the opportunity for cricket to sell television rights for vast sums.

The traditionalists appear to think that this commercialism - regarding cricket as a product to be sold to spectators, advertisers, and especially television companies, and forgetting traditional values - is itself the cause of corruption. Comrade Marqusee rightly points out that these traditionalists are guilty of ethnic and nationalistic prejudice when they claim that collusion with bookmakers is confined to Indians and Pakistanis. Cricketers from all national backgrounds have been involved. It is true, however, that the corrupt bookmakers who make the approaches come mostly from India. Betting is illegal in India and Pakistan and, as with alcohol in prohibition-era America, and other drugs in present-day Britain, illegality allows criminals to take control.

The conservative attitude to cricket - that it is a noble thing incorporating timeless values, which just happen to coincide with the interests of the British ruling class - was famously expressed 100 years ago by MCC president Lord Harris, who played in the first test match between England and Australia in 1878. He said cricket is ?more free from anything sordid, anything dishonourable, anything savouring of servitude than any game in the world. To play it keenly, honourably, generously, self-sacrificingly is a moral lesson in itself, and the classroom is god?s air and sunshine?.

When Harris took over as governor of Bombay in 1890 the semi-official policy of using cricket as one of imperialism?s ?civilising influence? to win the loyalty of India?s ruling prince caste was already well established. The British had discovered in the 1857 mutiny that they could not hold the subcontinent by force alone. Harris faced two major political challenges as governor: increasingly violent riots between the hindu and muslim communities; and the beginnings of organised opposition to British rule from below.

To reduce the violence while keeping the communities divided so as to stymie the resistance to the British occupation, Harris deliberately set up an annual cricket competition, involving teams from the different communities - hindu, muslim, parsee and European. For the Indian elites, cricket was a way of participating in the culture of the imperialist nation, and in the 1930s this competition was still taking place, and still reflecting communal divisions. Anti-imperialists called in vain for players and spectators to boycott the matches.

Cricket might have been a weapon in the imperialist armoury, but the post-colonial government in India soon found that it could be used as a tool to cohere a common identity in a state consisting of many nationalities, and lacking a common language or religion. After partition the government of Pakistan also made equal use of cricket. In August 1954 it declared a public holiday when Pakistan first beat England in a test match. And of course cricket long continued to be employed in England for nationalistic purposes.

A good example of the cricket establishment?s dedication to the constitutional monarchy system appeared in Wisden 1982, describing a test win by England against Australia the previous July: ?At the end, the crowd gathered to wave their union jacks and chant patriotically, eight days in advance of the Royal Wedding? (p327). And until recently test matches had to be shown on terrestrial TV, despite higher bids by satellite channels, because the government decreed that such important national events should be accessible to everyone, whether or not they had a satellite dish.

Sport, like art, is not the exclusive property of either the ruling class or of profit-greedy capital. Mike Marqusee calls for the ICC to be abolished and for the players to take control of their national boards. He is right. Cricket, as with the rest of sport, needs to be fully democratised. Through such a struggle the working class not only transforms sport, but also transforms itself.