Gentlemen and Players

I was disappointed but not surprised yesterday to observe the latest erosion of standards in cricket. The England batsman Stuart Broad snicked the ball to the Australian wicketkeeper and chose not to leave the field of play.

I have just summarised what happened but there has been a predictable torrent of justification from a host of professional players past and present. Geoff Boycott has cited the umpire as the problem. He argues that if the umpire was of sufficient competence, such errors of judgement would not be made. Another former England captain, Alec Stewart, stated that he always used to walk when he was out without waiting for the umpire's decision. That changed when he went to Australia as a young player and adopted the Australian attitude of only walking if the umpire judged you were out.

On 8th September 1962, the last Gentlemen versus the Players match took place at Scarborough. The match was won by the players being captained by the great Yorkshire bowler Fred Trueman. This match had been a regular fixture in the cricket calendar since its inception in 1806. What made it so special was that it was contested by the two sides of the social divide with the gentlemen consisting of people from the aristocracy and the professions (medicine, law etc). The players by contrast were those who relied upon cricket for their income. With the growth of the professional era, the contests of the twentieth century were mostly won by the players but the matches before that were won more by the gentlemen.

Up until the late 1960s, most county teams would still field an amateur or two to augment the professionals in their team. In fact, the first professional to captain England did so as late as 1953! With an amateur frequently appointed to captain the side, high standards of behaviour were observed on the pitch which served to enhance the reputation of cricket as a game played in the Corinthian spirit. It is hard to imagine it now, but this also applied to football until the early 1960s. Cricket in days gone by was reliant on its membership to provide their professionals with enough money to make a living which would have to sustain them through winter. They made a living which was not much greater than ordinary men and women in ordinary jobs. If they were lucky and loyal, they might be afforded a testimonial game in which to realise a sum of money upon which to retire.

I have watched playing standards deteriorate gradually in cricket during my association with it. I have seen it happen first at a national level and then at a local level. I have coached under 15s and seen behaviour which I hoped I would never see on a cricket pitch. I have witnessed several young players speaking to umpires in a completely unacceptable way. I have even walked off the pitch before now because no umpire should be expected to stand there and be subjected to such vile language and behaviour. He or she is just an arbiter trying their best to get it right. The professional era has allowed money to predominate the game at the expense of basic standards and the result is not pretty and not enjoyable. The case of Stuart Broad therefore comes as little surprise because the youth of today will copy the England players. Broad's father Chris was a fine opening batsman in the 1980s with a foul temper which was regrettably let loose for all to see on several occasions. If England go on to win this match - and I sincerely hope they don't - the victory will not be sweet. If cricket is now more about the money and the winning, it is a very sad day. An England captain with an ounce of decency would have come out straight away to condemn this behaviour. The umpire is there to make a ruling and he will sometimes err in his judgement. He is a human and fallible and that is part of the beauty of the game. We all had bad decisions when we played but they were infrequent and one learned to take the rough with the smooth. So too it is in life.

I would like to know how Geoff Boycott would ensure the umpires are better than they are because they are all highly trained having officiated in many matches before progressing to international matches. What he really means is that he doesn't want any more wrong decisions being made. That is wishful thinking expressed in the heat of the moment. I can understand his frustration because sport can be a frustrating business. Boycott made his Yorkshire debut in the last year of the Gentlemen versus the Players match and is a symbol of the resultant professional era in which winning supercedes all else.

If the Australians are brought up to walk only when the umpire's finger goes up, that is a matter for them. It is a poor moral code which dictates that we adopt a practice because someone else is doing it. It is more logical to first question the rights and wrongs of such a practice before making our own mind up.

The Ashes derives its name from a newspaper article printed in 1882. The satirical obituary of English cricket claimed that English cricket had died and the body would be created and the ashes taken to Australia. I would argue that the body of English cricket died when Stuart Broad chose to stay at the crease knowing that he was out. To lose a match is one thing. To lose your morals and be at peace with your conscience is quite another.