THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST SPEECHES IN CRICKET HISTORY AND I COULDN'T STOP MYSELF POSTING IT IN MY BLOG.
Thank you for inviting me to deliver the Bradman
Oration; the respect and the regard that came with the invitation to speak
tonight, is deeply appreciated.
I realise a very distinguished list of gentlemen
have preceded me in the ten years that the Bradman Oration has been held. I
know that this Oration is held every year to appreciate the life and career of
Sir Don Bradman, a great Australian and a great cricketer. I understand that I
am supposed to speak about cricket and issues in the game – and I will.
Yet, but first before all else, I must say that
I find myself humbled by the venue we find ourselves in. Even though there is
neither a pitch in sight, nor stumps or bat and balls, as a cricketer, I feel I
stand on very sacred ground tonight. When I was told that I would be speaking
at the National War Memorial, I thought of how often and how meaninglessly, the
words ‘war’, ‘battle’, ‘fight’ are used to describe cricket matches.
Yes, we cricketers devote the better part of our
adult lives to being prepared to perform for our countries, to persist and
compete as intensely as we can – and more. This building, however, recognises
the men and women who lived out the words – war, battle, fight – for real and
then gave it all up for their country, their lives left incomplete, futures
extinguished.
The people of both our countries are often told
that cricket is the one thing that brings Indians and Australians together.
That cricket is our single common denominator.
India’s first Test series as a free country was
played against Australia in November 1947, three months after our independence.
Yet the histories of our countries are linked together far more deeply than we
think and further back in time than 1947.
We share something else other than cricket.
Before they played the first Test match against each other, Indians and
Australians fought wars together, on the same side. In Gallipoli, where, along
with the thousands of Australians, over 1300 Indians also lost their lives. In
World War II, there were Indian and Australian soldiers in El Alamein, North
Africa, in the Syria-Lebanon campaign, in Burma, in the battle for Singapore.
Before we were competitors, Indians and
Australians were comrades. So it is only appropriate that we are here this
evening at the Australian War Memorial, where along with celebrating cricket
and cricketers, we remember the unknown soldiers of both nations.
It is however, incongruous, that I, an Indian,
happen to be the first cricketer from outside Australia, invited to deliver the
the Bradman Oration. I don’t say that only because Sir Don once scored a
hundred before lunch at Lord’s and my 100 at Lord’s this year took almost an
entire day.
But more seriously, Sir Don played just five
Tests against India; that was in the first India-Australia series in 1947-48,
which was to be his last season at home. He didn’t even play in India, and
remains the most venerated cricketer in India not to have played there.
We know that he set foot in India though, in May
1953, when on his way to England to report on the Ashes for an English
newspaper, his plane stopped in Calcutta airport. There were said to be close
to a 1000 people waiting to greet him; as you know, he was a very private
person and so got into an army jeep and rushed into a barricaded building,
annoyed with the airline for having ‘breached confidentiality.’ That was all
Indians of the time saw of Bradman who remains a mythical figure.
For one generation of fans in my country, those
who grew up in the 1930s, when India was still under British rule, Bradman
represented a cricketing excellence that belonged to somewhere outside England.
To a country taking its first steps in Test cricket, that meant something. His
success against England at that time was thought of as our personal success. He
was striking one for all of us ruled by the common enemy. Or as your country
has so poetically called them, the Poms.
There are two stories that I thought I should
bring to your notice. On June 28, 1930, the day Bradman scored 254 at Lord’s
against England, was also the day Jawaharlal Nehru was arrested by the police.
Nehru was, at the time, one of the most prominent leaders of the Indian
independence movement and later, independent India’s first Prime Minister. The
coincidence of the two events, was noted by a young boy KN Prabhu, who was both
nationalist, cricket fan and later became independent India’s foremost cricket
writer. In the 30s, as Nehru went in and out of jail, Bradman went after the
England bowling and, for KN Prabhu, became a kind of avenging angel.
There’s another story I’ve heard about the day
in 1933, when the news reached India that Bradman’s record for the highest Test
score of 334 had been broken by Wally Hammond. As much as we love our records,
they say some Indian fans at the time were not exactly happy. Now, there’s a
tale that a few even wanted to wear black bands to mourn the fact that this
precious record that belonged to Australia – and by extension, us – had gone
back. To an Englishman. We will never know if this is true, if black bands were
ever worn, but as journalists sometimes tell me, why let facts get in the way
of a good story.
My own link with Bradman was much like that of
most other Indians – through history books, some old video footage and his wise
words. About leaving the game better than you found it. About playing it
positively, as Bradman, then a selector, told Richie Benaud before the 1960-61
West Indies tour of Australia. Of sending a right message out from cricket to
its public. Of players being temporary trustees of a great game.
While there may be very little similarity in our
records or our strike-rates or our fielding – and I can say this only today in
front of all of you – I am actually pleased that I share something very
important with Sir Don.
He was, primarily, like me, a No.3 batsman. It
is a tough, tough job.
We’re the ones who make life easier for the
kings of batting, the middle order that follows us. Bradman did that with a bit
more success and style than I did. He dominated bowling attacks and put bums on
seats, if i bat for any length of time I am more likely to bore people to
sleep. Still, it is nice to have batted for a long time in a position, whose benchmark
is, in fact, the benchmark for batsmanship itself.
Before he retired from public life in his 80s, I
do know that Bradman watched Sunil Gavaskar’s generation play a series in
Australia. I remember the excitement that went through Indian cricket when we
heard the news that Bradman had seen Sachin Tendulkar bat on TV and thought he
batted like him. It was more than mere approval, it was as if the great Don had
finally, passed on his torch. Not to an Aussie or an Englishman or a West
Indian. But to one of our own.
One of the things, Bradman said has stayed in my
mind. That the finest of athletes had, along with skill, a few more essential
qualities: to conduct their life with dignity, with integrity, with courage and
modesty. All this he believed, were totally compatible with pride, ambition,
determination and competitiveness. Maybe those words should be put up in
cricket dressing rooms all over the world.
As all of you know, Don Bradman passed away on
February 25, 2001, two days before the India v Australia series was to begin in
Mumbai.
Whenever an important figure in cricket leaves
us, cricket’s global community pauses in the midst of contests and debates, to
remember what he represented of us, what he stood for, and Bradman was the
pinnacle. The standard against which all Test batsmen must take guard.
The series that followed two days after
Bradman’s death later went on to become what many believe was one of the
greatest in cricket. It is a series, I’d like to believe, he would have enjoyed
following.
A fierce contest between bat and ball went down
to the final session of the final day of the final Test. Between an Australian
team who had risen to their most imposing powers and a young Indian team
determined to rewrite some chapters of its own history.
The 2001 series contained high-quality cricket
from both sides and had a deep impact on the careers of those who played a part
in it. The Australians were near unbeatable in the first half of the new
decade, both home and away. As others floundered against them, India became the
only team that competed with them on even terms.
India kept answering questions put to them by
the Australians and asking a few themselves. The quality demanded of those
contests, sometimes acrimonious, sometimes uplifting, made us, the Indian team,
grow and rise. As individuals, we were asked to play to the absolute outer
limits of our capabilities and we often extended them.
Now, whenever India and Australia meet, there is
expectation and anticipation – and as we get into the next two months of the
Border-Gavaskar Trophy, players on both sides will want to deliver their best.
When we toured in 2007-08, I thought it was
going to be my last tour of Australia. The Australians thought it was going to
be the last time they would be seeing Sachin Tendulkar on their shores. He
received warm standing ovations from wonderful crowds all around the country.
Well, like a few, creaking Terminators, we’re
back. Older, wiser and I hope improved.
The Australian public will want to stand up to
send Sachin off all over again this time. But I must warn you, given how he’s
been playing these days, there are no guarantees about final goodbyes.
In all seriousness, though, the cricket world is
going to stop and watch Australia and India. It is Australia’s first chance to
defend their supremacy at home following defeat in the 2010 Ashes and a drawn
series against New Zealand. It is India’s opportunity to prove that the defeat
to England in the summer was an aberration that we will bounce back from.
If both teams look back to their last 2007-08
series in Australia, they will know that they should have done things a little
differently in the Sydney Test. But I think both sides have moved on from
there; we’ve played each other twice in India already and relations between the
two teams are much better than they have been as far as I can remember.
Thanks to the IPL, Indians and Australians have
even shared dressing rooms. Shane Watson’s involvement in Rajasthan, Mike
Hussey’s role with Chennai to mention a few, are greatly appreciated back home.
And even Shane Warne likes India now. I really enjoyed playing alongside him at
Rajasthan last season and can confidently report to you that he is not eating
imported baked beans any more.
In fact, looking at him, it seems, he is not
eating anything.
It is often said that cricketers are ambassadors
for their country; when there’s a match to be won, sometimes we think that is
an unreasonable demand. After all, what would career diplomats do if the result
of a Test series depended on them, say, walking? But, as ties between India and
Australia have strengthened and our contests have become more frequent, we
realise that as Indian players, we stand for a vast, varied, often unfathomable
and endlessly fascinating country.
At the moment, to much of the outside world,
Indian cricket represents only two things – money and power. Yes, that aspect
of Indian cricket is a part of the whole, but it is not the complete picture.
As a player, as a proud and privileged member of the Indian cricket team, I
want to say that, this one-dimensional, often cliched image relentlessly
repeated is not what Indian cricket is really all about.
I cannot take all of you into the towns and
villages our players come from, and introduce you to their families, teachers,
coaches, mentors and team-mates who made them international cricketers. I
cannot take all of you here to India to show you the belief, struggle, effort
and sacrifice from hundreds of people that runs through our game.
As I stand here today, it is important for me to
bring Indian cricket and its own remarkable story to you. I believe it is very
necessary that cricketing nations try to find out about each other, try to
understand each other and the different role cricket plays in different
countries, because ours is, eventually, a very small world.
In India, cricket is a buzzing, humming, living
entity going through a most remarkable time, like no other in our cricketing
history. In this last decade, the Indian team represents more than ever before,
the country we come from – of people from vastly different cultures, who speak
different languages, follow different religions, belong to all classes of
society. I went around our dressing room to work out how many languages could
be spoken in there and the number I have arrived at is: 15, including Shona and
Afrikaans.
Most foreign captains, I think, would baulk at
the idea. But, when I led India, I enjoyed it, I marvelled at the range of
difference and the ability of people from so many different backgrounds to
share a dressing room, to accept, accommodate and respect that difference. In a
world growing more insular, that is a precious quality to acquire, because it
stays for life and helps you understand people better, understand the
significance of the other.
Let me tell you one of my favourite stories from
my Under-19 days, when the India Under-19 team played a match against the New
Zealand junior team. We had two bowlers in the team, one from the north Indian
state of Uttar Pradesh – he spoke only Hindi, which is usually a link language
for players from all over India, ahead even of English. It should have been all
right, except the other bowler came from Kerala, in the deep south, and he
spoke only the state’s regional language, Malayalam. Now even that should have
been okay as they were both bowlers and could bowl simultaneous spells.
Yet in one game, they happened to come together
at the crease. In the dressing room, we were in splits, wondering how they were
going to manage the business of a partnership, calling for runs or sharing the
strike. Neither man could understand a word of what the other was saying and
they were batting together. This could only happen in Indian cricket. Except
that these two guys came up with a 100-run partnership. Their common language
was cricket and that worked out just fine.
The everyday richness of Indian cricket lies
right there, not in the news you hear about million-dollar deals and television
rights. When I look back over the 25 years I’ve spent in cricket, I realise two
things. First, rather alarmingly, that I am the oldest man in the game, older
to even Sachin by three months. More importantly, I realise that Indian cricket
actually reflects our country’s own growth story during this time. Cricket is
so much a part of our national fabric that as India – its economy, society and
popular culture – transformed itself, so did our most-loved sport.
As players we are appreciative beneficiaries of
the financial strength of Indian cricket, but we are more than just mascots of
that economic power. The caricature often made of Indian cricket and its
cricketers in the rest of the world is that we are pampered superstars.
Overpaid, underworked, treated like a cross between royalty and rock stars.
Yes, the Indian team has an enormous, emotional
following and we do need security when we get around the country as a group. It
is also why we make it a point to always try and conduct ourselves with
composure and dignity. On tour, I must point out, we don’t attack fans or do
drugs or get into drunken theatrics. And at home, despite what some of you may
have heard, we don’t live in mansions with swimming pools.
The news about the money may well overpower all
else, but along with it, our cricket is full of stories the outside world does
not see. Television rights generated around Indian cricket, are much talked
about. Let me tell you what the television – around those much sought-after
rights – has done to our game.
A sport that was largely played and patronised
by princes and businessmen in traditional urban centres, cities like Bombay,
Bangalore, Chennai, Baroda, Hyderabad, Delhi – has begun to pull in cricketers
from everywhere.
As the earnings from Indian cricket have grown
in the past 2 decades, mainly through television, the BCCI has spread revenues
to various pockets in the country and improved where we play. The field is now
spread wider than it ever has been, the ground covered by Indian cricket, has
shifted.
Twenty seven teams compete in our national
championship, the Ranji Trophy. Last season Rajasthan, a state best known for
its palaces, fortresses and tourism won the Ranji Trophy title for the first
time in its history. The national one-day championship also had a first-time
winner in the newly formed state of Jharkand, where our captain MS Dhoni comes
from.
The growth and scale of cricket on our
television was the engine of this population shift. Like Bradman was the boy
from Bowral, a stream of Indian cricketers now come from what you could call
India’s outback.
Zaheer Khan belongs to the Maharashtra
heartland, from a town that didn’t have even one proper turf wicket. He could
have been an instrumentation engineer but was drawn to cricket through TV and
modelled his bowling by practising in front of the mirror on his cupboard at
home, and first bowled with a proper cricket ball at the age of 17.
One day out of nowhere, a boy from a village in
Gujarat turned up as India’s fastest bowler. After Munaf Patel made his debut
for India, the road from the nearest railway station to his village had to be
improved because journalists and TV crews from the cities kept landing up
there.
We are delighted that Umesh Yadav didn’t become
a policeman like he was planning and turned to cricket instead. He is the first
cricketer from the central Indian first-class team of Vidarbha to play Test
cricket.
Virender Sehwag, it shouldn’t surprise you,
belongs to the wild west just outside Delhi. He had to be enrolled in a college
which had a good cricket programme and travelled 84kms every day by bus to get
to practice and matches.
Every player in this room wearing an India
blazer has a story like this. Here, ladies and gentlemen, is the heart and soul
of Indian cricket.
Playing for India completely changes our lives.
The game has given us a chance to pay back our debt to all those who gave their
time, energy and resources for us to be better cricketers: we can build new
homes for our parents, get our siblings married off in style, give our families
very comfortable lives.
The Indian cricket team is in fact, India
itself, in microcosm. A sport that was played first by princes, then their
subordinates, then the urban elite, is now a sport played by all of India.
Cricket, as my two under-19 team-mates proved, is India’s most widely-spoken
language. Even Indian cinema has its regional favourites; a movie star in the
south may not be popular in the north. But a cricketer? Loved everywhere.
It is also a very tough environment to grow up
in – criticism can be severe, responses to victory and defeat extreme. There
are invasions of privacy and stones have been thrown at our homes after some
defeats.
It takes time getting used to, extreme reactions
can fill us with anger. But every cricketer realises at some stage of his
career, that the Indian cricket fan is best understood by remembering the
sentiment of the majority, not the actions of a minority.
One of the things that has always lifted me as a
player is looking out of the team bus when we travelled somewhere in India.
When people see the Indian bus going by, see some of us sitting with our
curtains drawn back, it always amazes me how much they light up. There is an
instantaneous smile, directed not just at the player they see – but at the game
we play that, for whatever reason, means something to people’s lives. Win or
lose, the man on the street will smile and give you a wave.
After India won the World Cup this year, our
players were not congratulated as much as they were thanked by people they ran
into. “You have given us everything,” they were told, “all of us have won.”
Cricket in India now stands not just for sport, but possibility, hope,
opportunities.
On our way to the Indian team, we know of so
many of our team-mates, some of whom may have been equally or more talented
than those sitting here, who missed out. When I started out, for a young
Indian, cricket was the ultimate gamble – all or nothing, no safety nets. No
second chances for those without an education or a college degree or second
careers. Indian cricket’s wealth now means a wider pool of well paid cricketers
even at first-class level.
For those of us who make it to the Indian team,
cricket is not merely our livelihood, it is a gift we have been given. Without
the game, we would just be average people leading average lives. As Indian
cricketers, our sport has given us the chance do something worthwhile with our
lives. How many people could say that?
This is the time Indian cricket should be
flowering; we are the world champions in the short game, and over the space of
the next 12 months should be involved in a tight contest with Australia, South
Africa and England to determine which one of us is the world’s strongest Test
team.
Yet I believe this is also a time for
introspection within our game, not only in india, but all over the world. We
have been given some alerts and responding to them quickly is the smart thing
to do.
I was surprised a few months ago to see the lack
of crowds in an ODI series featuring India. By that I don’t mean the lack of
full houses, I think it was the sight of empty stands I found somewhat
alarming.
India played its first one-day international at
home in November 1981, when I was nine. Between then and now India have played
227 ODIs at home; the October five-match series against England was the first
time that the grounds have not been full for an ODI featuring the Indian team.
In the summer of 1998, I played in a one-dayer
against Kenya in Kolkata and the Eden Gardens was full. Our next game was held
in the 48-degree heat of Gwalior and the stands were heaving.
The October series against England was the first
one at home after India’s World Cup win. It was called the ‘revenge’ series
meant to wipe away the memory of a forgettable tour of England. India kept
winning every game, and yet the stands did not fill up. Five days after a 5-0
victory 95,000 turned up to watch the India’s first Formula One race.
A few weeks later I played in a Test match
against West Indies in Calcutta, in front of what was the lowest turn out in
Eden Gardens’ history. Yes we still wanted to win and our intensity did not
dip. But at the end of the day, we are performers, entertainers and we love an
audience. The audience amplifies everything you are doing, the bigger the crowd
the bigger the occasion, its magnitude, its emotion. When I think about the
Eden Gardens crowds this year, I wonder what the famous Calcutta Test of 2001
would have felt like with 50,000 people less watching us.
Australia and South Africa played an exciting
and thrilling Test series recently and two great Test matches produced some
fantastic performances from players of both teams, but were sadly played in
front of sparse crowds.
It is not the numbers that Test players need, it
is the atmosphere of a Test that every player wants to revel in and draw energy
from. My first reaction to the lack of crowds for cricket was that there had
been a lot of cricket and so perhaps, a certain amount of spectator-fatigue.
That is too simplistic a view; it’s the easy thing to say but might not be the
only thing.
The India v England ODI series had no context,
because the two countries had played each other in four Tests and five ODIs just
a few weeks before. When India and West Indies played ODIs a month after that
the grounds were full, but this time the matches were played in smaller venues
that didn’t host too much international cricket. Maybe our clues are all there
and we must remain vigilant.
Unlike Australia or England, Indian cricket has
never had to compete with other sports for a share of revenues, mind space or
crowd attendance at international matches. The lack of crowds may not directly
impact on revenues or how important the sport is to Indians, but we do need to
accept that there has definitely been a change in temperature over, I think,
the last two years.
Whatever the reasons are – maybe it is too much
cricket or too little by way of comfort for spectators – the fan has sent us a
message and we must listen. This is not mere sentimentality. Empty stands do
not make for good television. Bad television can lead to a fall in ratings, the
fall in ratings will be felt by media planners and advertisers looking
elsewhere.
If that happens, it is hard to see television
rights around cricket being as sought after as they have always been in the
last 15 years. And where does that leave everyone? I’m not trying to be an
economist or doomsday prophet – this is just how I see it.
Let us not be so satisfied with the present,
with deals and finances in hand that we get blindsided. Everything that has
given cricket its power and influence in the world of sports has started from
that fan in the stadium. They deserve our respect and let us not take them for
granted. Disrespecting fans is disrespecting the game. The fans have stood by
our game through everything. When we play, we need to think of them. As
players, the balance between competitiveness and fairness can be tough but it
must be found.
If we stand up for the game’s basic decencies,
it will be far easier to tackle its bigger dangers – whether it is finding
short cuts to easy money or being lured by the scourge of spot-fixing and
contemplating any involvement with the betting industry.
Cricket’s financial success means it will face
threats from outside the game and keep facing them. The last two decades have
proved this over and over again. The internet and modern technology may just
end up being a step ahead of every anti-corruption regulation in place in the
game. As players, the one way we can stay ahead for the game, is if we are
willing to be monitored and regulated closely.
Even if it means giving up a little bit of
freedom of movement and privacy. If it means undergoing dope tests, let us
never say no. If it means undergoing lie-detector tests, let us understand the
technology, what purpose it serves and accept it. Now lie-detectors are by no
means perfect but they could actually help the innocent clear their names. Similarly,
we should not object to having our finances scrutinised if that is what is
required.
When the first anti-corruption measures were put
into place, we did moan a little bit about being accredited and depositing our
cell phones with the manager. But now we must treat it like we do airport
security because we know it is for our own good and our own security.
Players should be ready to give up a little
personal space and personal comfort for this game, which has given us so much.
If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
Other sports have borrowed from cricket’s
anti-corruption measures to set up their own ethical governance programmes and
we must take pride in belonging to a sport that is professional and
progressive.
One of the biggest challenges that the game must
respond to today, I believe, is charting out a clear road map for the three
formats. We now realise that the sport’s three formats cannot be played in
equal numbers – that will only throw scheduling and the true development of
players completely off gear.
There is a place for all three formats, though,
we are the only sport I can think of which has three versions. Cricket must
treasure this originality. These three versions require different skills,
skills that have evolved, grown, changed over the last four decades, one
impacting on the other.
Test cricket is the gold standard, it is the
form the players want to play. The 50-over game is the one that has kept
cricket’s revenues alive for more than three decades now. Twenty20 has come
upon us and it is the format people, the fans want to see.
Cricket must find a middle path, it must scale
down this mad merry-go-round that teams and players find themselves in: heading
off for two-Test tours and seven-match ODI series with a few Twenty20s thrown
in.
Test cricket deserves to be protected, it is
what the world’s best know they will be judged by. Where I come from, nation
versus nation is what got people interested in cricket in the first place. When
I hear the news that a country is playing without some of its best players, I
always wonder, what do their fans think?
People may not be able to turn up to watch Test
cricket but everyone follows the scores. We may not fill 65,000 capacity
stadiums for Test matches, but we must actively fight to get as many as we can
in, to create a Test match environment that the players and the fans feed off.
Anything but the sight of Tests played on empty grounds. For that, we have got
to play Test cricket that people can watch.
I don’t think day-night Tests or a Test
championship should be dismissed.
In March of last year I played a day-night
first-class game in Abu Dhabi for the MCC and my experience from that was that
day-night Tests is an idea seriously worth exploring. There may be some
challenges in places where there is dew but the visibility and durability of
the pink cricket ball was not an issue.
Similarly, a Test championship, with every team
and player driving themselves to be winners of a sought after title, seems like
it would have a context to every game.
Keeping Tests alive may mean different
innovations in different countries – maybe taking it to smaller cities, playing
it in grounds with smaller capacities like New Zealand has thought of doing,
maybe reviving some old venues in the West Indies, like the old Recreation
Ground in Antigua.
When I was around seven years old, I remember my
father taking a Friday off so that we could watch three days of Test cricket
together. On occasions he couldn’t, I would accompany one of his friends, just
to soak in a day of Test cricket and watch the drama slowly unfold.
What we have to do is find a way to ensure that
Test matches fit into 21st century life, through timing, environments and the
venues they are held in. I am still convinced it can be done, even in our
fast-moving world with a short attention span. We will often get told that Test
matches don’t make financial sense, but no one ever fell in love with Test
cricket because they wanted to be a businessman. Not everything of value comes
at a price.
There is a proposal doing the rounds about
scrapping the 50-over game completely. I am not sure I agree with that – I
certainly know that the 50-over game helped us innovate strokes in our batting
which we were then able to take into Test matches. We all know that the 50-over
game has been responsible for improving fielding standards all over the world.
The future may well lie in playing one-day
internationals centered around ICC events, like the Champions Trophy and the
World Cups. This would ensure that all 50-over matches would build up for those
tournaments.
That will cut back the number of one-day
internationals played every year but at least those matches will have context.
Since about I think 1985, people have been saying that there is too much
meaningless one-day cricket. Maybe it’s finally time to do something about it.
The Twenty20 game as we know has as many critics
as it has supporters in the public. Given that an acceptable strike rate in T20
these days is about 120, I should probably complain about it the most. The
crowd and revenue numbers, though, tell us that if we don’t handle Twenty20
correctly, we may well have more and more private players stepping in to offer
not just slices of pie, but maybe even bigger pies themselves.
So I’ll re-iterate what I’ve just said very quickly
because balancing three formats is important:
We have Test cricket like we have always had,
nation versus nation, but carefully scheduled to attract crowds and planned
fairly so that every Test playing country gets its fair share of Tests. And
playing for a championship or a cup, not just a ranking.
The 50-overs format focused around fewer,
significant multi-nation ICC events like the Champions Trophy and the World
Cup. In the four-year cycle between World Cups, plan the ODI calendar and
devise rankings around these few important events. Anything makes more sense
than seven-match ODI series.
The best role for Twenty20 is as a domestic
competition through official leagues, which will make it financially attractive
for cricketers. That could also keep cricket viable in countries where it
fights for space and attention.
Because the game is bigger than us all, we must
think way ahead of how it stands today. Where do we want it to be in the year
2020? Or say in 2027, when it will be 150 years since the first Test match was
played. If you think about it, cricket has been with us longer than the modern
motor car, it existed before modern air travel took off.
As much as cricket’s revenues are important to
its growth, its traditions and its vibrancy are a necessary part of its
progress in the future. We shouldn’t let either go because we played too much
of one format and too little of the other.
Professionalism has given cricketers of my
generation privileged lives and we know it, even though you may often hear us
whining about burn-out, travel and the lack of recovery time.
Whenever we begin to get into that mindset, it’s
good to remember a piece of Sachin’s conversation with Bradman. Sachin told us
that he had asked Sir Don how he had mentally prepared for big games, what his
routines were. Sir Don said, that well, before a game he would go to work and
after the game go back to work. Whenever a cricketer feels a whinge coming on,
that would be good to remember.
Before I conclude, I also want to talk briefly
about an experience I have often had over the course of my career. It is not to
do with individuals or incidents, but one I believe is important to share. I
have sometimes found myself in the middle of a big game, standing at slip or
even at the non-strikers end and suddenly realised that everything else has
vanished. At that moment, all that exists is the contest and the very real
sense of the joy that comes from playing the game.
It is an almost meditative experience, where you
reconnect with the game just like you did years ago, when you first began, when
you hit your first boundary, took the first catch, scored your first century,
or were involved in a big victory. It lasts for a very fleeting passage of
time, but it is a very precious instant and every cricketer should hang on to
it.
I know it is utterly fanciful to expect
professional cricketers to play the game like amateurs; but the trick, I believe,
is taking the spirit of the amateur – of discovery, of learning, of pure joy,
of playing by the rules – into our profession. Taking it to practice or play,
even when there’s an epidemic of white-line fever breaking out all over the
field.
In every cricketer there lies a competitor who
hates losing, and yes, winning matters. But it is not the only thing that
matters when you play cricket. How it is played is as important for every
member of every team because every game we play leaves a footprint in cricket’s
history. We must never forget that.
What we do as professionals is easily carried
over into the amateur game, in every way – batting, bowling, fielding,
appealing, celebration, dissent, argument. In the players of 2027, we will see
a reflection of this time and of ourselves and it had better not annoy or
anguish us 50-year-olds.
As the game’s custodians, it is important we are
not tempted by the short-term gains of the backward step. We can be remembered
for being the generation that could take the giant stride.
Thank you for the invitation to address all of
you tonight, and your attention.
