How tolerant are you of cheating in sport?
I suppose the first response for quite a few to a question like that is another question: What do you define as cheating in sport?
That is the sort of query that opens up a whole new debate about values and ethics, and whether these are flexible and open to interpretation based on different societies, cultures and circumstances, or should be hard and fast no matter what.
Okay, so let’s look at a specific situation.
A batsman edges to the wicketkeeper but doesn’t walk. Whether the umpire subsequently gives him out or not, is that player a cheat?
Some will say yes, without question, because it is part of the unwritten spirit of the game to acknowledge when you’re out, just as it is the obligation of a fielder to be honest about whether or not he has taken a clean catch. Not so at all, others will counter. The umpire is there as the ultimate arbiter and his decision is final and must be respected, so you accept the verdict whatever it may be, if it’s “not out” despite a blatant edge into the ’keeper’s gloves or “out” LBW even if the ball came virtually off the middle of the bat into the pad.
It’s easy to pass judgement in a vacuum, but nothing happens in isolation. There is always a context, a frame of reference that colours opinion. So let’s put some flesh on the bare bones.
Forget the present poor form of the West Indies in One-Day Internationals and imagine that the team has upset the odds in reaching the 2015 World Cup final and are taking on hosts Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground with 95,000 packed in, the vast majority urging on the home side to annihilate the Caribbean team. But the underdogs are putting up a tremendous fight. In pursuit of 268 for victory, the last pair are at the crease and have taken their side to within five runs of a stunning reversal, when the incident mentioned previously occurs. So close to glory, should he walk because he knows he’s edged it or leave it to the umpire because so much is at stake?
Not so straightforward now is it? Oh, and those of you sermonising and moralising about right being right no matter what, it’s the easiest thing to be judge, jury and executioner from the comfort of the living room or with the benefit of years of experience and wisdom which bring the realisation that games people play—whatever the context—are not nearly as important as honesty and integrity, even in the face of the greatest temptation to veer off the straight and narrow.
Sport, as a subset of life, is really about an endless series of compromises for the participant and the fan, to say nothing of the so-called media experts covering the event who, as a collective, are the reservoirs of more biasness and hypocrisy than the players and supporters put together. At the end of the day, it’s up to the individual to determine at which point down the slippery slope towards the acceptance of the “By Any Means Necessary” philosophy that he or she is not prepared to go. Of course, the mere fact that there is a “By Any Means Necessary” philosophy suggests that a significant number of people through the years in various circumstances have had no problem whatsoever sliding all the way down in pursuit of a particular objective.
One of the coaches of our tinymites group at the end of the football programme in Aranjuez last December was telling me that children five and six years of age were pulling on each other’s jerseys to stop one another going forward during practice sessions as if it was the most normal thing in the world. We both shook our heads in despair because we are from an earlier era—not a better era, an earlier era—when the journey of compromise had not reached so far.
What do you expect impressionable youngsters to do when they see superstar players whom they idolise dragging an opponent back via his shirt, or feigning injury and rolling around all over the place to try and get someone sent off, or going down in the penalty area the moment a defender gets anywhere close in the hope that officials will be fooled and the referee will point to the spot?
For all that, football remains the most popular sport in the world and the anticipation ahead of next year’s World Cup finals in Brazil is as palpable as ever, in the same way that the excitement will be at fever pitch for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro whatever the suspicions over who is taking what.
There are some who will say they don’t even watch so-and-so sport anymore because it’s not like in the good old days when it was hard but fair, when you didn’t have all these pampered prima donnas prancing about the place and being hailed as the greatest thing since sliced bread when they wouldn’t have been good enough to even be on the same field with such-and-such player from so long ago.
Ah yes, the good old days, when drug testing wasn’t so sophisticated as to require masking agents, when a “Hand of God” helped Argentina on the way to a World Cup triumph, and when West Indian legends chose World Series cricket over Test cricket.
Glory days indeed.