Who decides who’s a gentleman?
“You’re a disgrace”
In a recently concluded IPL match, Eoin Morgan, captain of KKR calls Ravichandran Ashwin from Delhi Capitals a “disgrace”. The reason? Ashwin took a single after the ball ricocheted of DC’s other batter. The run was within the rules of the game. The altercation has now shifted to social media.
“It’s pretty simple — it’s disgraceful and should never happen”, opines Shane Warne in his tweet.
Ashwin has retorted back -
“Did I fight? No, I stood up for myself and that’s what my teachers and parents taught me to do and pls teach your children to stand up for themselves. In Morgan or Southee’s world of cricket, they can choose and stick to what they believe is right or wrong but do not have the right to take the moral high ground and use words that are derogatory”
What’s interesting here is the subtle nuance that Ashwin brilliantly points out as to who defines how people should behave — whether it’s a sport or in an organization or anywhere in the world.
“Cricket is a gentleman’s game. What Ashwin did is un-gentlemanly”
The spirit of cricket is a term that’s often used by cricketers to define what they think is right and wrong — outside the rules of the game. Who defines what’s gentlemanly in cricket? Who gets to define what is “spirit of a cricket” is? What nations and cultures contribute to these “unsaid rules” of cricket?
While the altercation between the English and the Indian player might look like a sport tussle, the underlying “moral ownership” of the sport by players from certain playing nations exposes the bias that’s perpetuated in the name of moral superiority.
Harish is the co-creator of Konvos — extended cognition for emotional processing.
