Friday, Feb 07, 2003
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Cricket
By G. Viswanath
It has now chosen the medium of cricket to demonstrate to the rest of the world that the `Rainbow Nation' has advanced in a gradual manner from the abhorrent past and is looking ahead to becoming a developing nation. While the nation's high profile soccer and Olympic administrators failed to get the Summer Olympics and World Cup soccer to South Africa, the cricket administrators have succeeded in making the South Africa the principal host of the eighth World Cup. South Africa could not have got a bigger stage to promote and boost its image as a country of `one people'. A dozen years might be too short a time to bridge the gap that has existed between the blacks, whites, coloureds and the Indians. The nation's history changed with the release of Nelson Mandela and the first steps were taken for the re-emergence of a unified South Africa. A black walked alongside a white, shopped in the same mall and saw sporting action from the same stands. The cages in soccer, rugby and cricket fields were dismantled and the borders were opened for all people to visit South Africa. Soon after his release from the Robben Island prison in 1990, amidst riotous celebrations on the streets of Cape Town, an emotional Nelson Mandela exhorted the majority i.e. the black people to `seize the moment of change'. The bleak days were over. The cricket administrators had already started the process of unification of the black and white cricket bodies that controlled cricket. India played its part in South Africa's return to international cricket, a fact that the latter always acknowledges. Images of the tumultuous welcome the South African cricketers received on the streets of Calcutta and Eden Gardens still linger in the minds of both players and administrators. There were cricketers who suffered because of the South African government's apartheid policies. "I paid the price for apartheid,'' said Barry Richards, who played only one series (against Bill Lawry's team in 1969) before apartheid cut short his international career. Others like Graeme Pollock, all-rounders Eddie Barlow, Mike Proctor and Clive Rice were also unlucky. Though a generation suffered in silence, the rebel tours kept their interest alive to an extent. The dismantling of a political system brought smiles on the faces of a new generation of cricketers who had taken up to the game in the hope that a time would come when they could rub shoulders with the cricketers from countries and show their mettle. A Test between South Africa and the West Indies marked the former's return to international cricket. Kepler Wessels' team made a tremendous impact in the 1992 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, defeated only by the vagaries of nature in the semifinal at Sydney. Though the cricketers from the Veldt have fallen only to the mighty Australians, Shaun Pollock's team is regarded as the favourite to win the World Cup on March 23. Everything looked rosy for the South African cricket before Hansie Cronje's connection with bookmakers and cricket's underworld embarrassed the nation in general and its cricketers in particular. The country has recovered from those traumatic times and Pollock's team, a side that managed to upstage Australia in the Test championship rankings, is expected by its 27 million people to beat all the odds and win the Cup. His team will be cheered and supported by all sections of the people. A lady at a shop counter near Newlands said "Of course I will be backing the South Africans". This might have been unheard of even in 1996 when the Indians were here for a Test and tri-series. The country, which has received all the 14 participating countries with open arms, had refused to accept Basil D' Olivera as replacement for Tom Cartwright in the England team some 33 years ago. D' Olivera was one of the first persons Nelson Mandela met after his release from jail. Well, things have indeed changed. The `new' South Africa wants to advertise itself to the rest of the World and it has planned to do so right from the opening ceremony pageantry and in the 54 matches that follow. Everything will televised across the world into the homes of an estimated audience of over billion people, making it the biggest ever cricket World Cup as regards the number of teams taking part, number of matches scheduled from the preliminary phase to the final and the number of people viewing it.
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