BOMBAY, 7 March 2003 — It is always interesting to read the papers in another country and to see how the sporting teams are supported or criticized. There are some countries, which absolutely do not have interest in any other country’s sport and write only about sports in their country. We in India are the other way, for we cover sport in countries other than ours, including their domestic competitions and not just the internationals. Part of this is obviously to fill up spaces but a great part was because of the colonial mentality where it was important to be seen as taking an interest in another sport in another country. Why, even today we have papers writing about some sports that not are followed in the country and if at all, then by not even a few thousands. There are some Indian papers who in their columns about the week’s fortunes write and inform their readers as to which foreigners’ birthdays are in that week, rather than those of Indian celebrities.
The most parochial press is probably in New Zealand, where the obsession with the national teams is to be read to be believed. In that, the visiting team is invariably downplayed and hardly given credit and just about everything the home team does is given prominence. Not too far behind is South Africa, but here one can understand the desire to show that the sanctions and boycotts imposed during apartheid have not affected the country and if that boycott and sanctions weren’t there, then they would have been the best sporting nation in the world. For some time, the country couldn’t even countenance the possibility that their team could be out of the World Cup competition though Sri Lanka’s shocking defeat to Kenya did throw the hosts a lifeline. Again, since the hosts got a foot in the door courtesy that defeat of Sri Lanka, there’s no speculation about the cause of the loss, but if it had affected South Africa’s chances, then you could be sure that there would have been lots of wild speculation about how and why the Lankans lost. Every time a team from the subcontinent loses unexpectedly, there’s wild innuendo, but perhaps after the manner in which the South Africans lost in the semifinals of the Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka last year after being in the driving seat, that speculation is not that much and thank God for it. Amazingly, the developed countries still believe that honesty and integrity is only in their countries, forgetting that if that were so, then there would have been absolutely no crime in their countries. But since there is lots of lawlessness in these countries too, it’s about time they got off their high horses and stopped looking down at the people of developing nations. Coming back to the media here in South Africa, the nationalistic mood can be seen by the way one of the senior sportswriters here asked his countrymen to support every team that played Sri Lanka after the home team’s loss to New Zealand left then in a position of vulnerability. In the print media too, there are columns by current players from the home team and after the loss to New Zealand, there were some who questioned the leadership of Pollock and compared it with Cronje. There are some others who have declared before the World Cup began that they would be dedicating the Cup to the departed disgraced captain. The support for Pollock, before the team’s exit following the rain-ruined match against Sri Lanka, got louder and louder as the South Africans tried to bond together and give an impression of unity. They have lots of problems and it is not just on the field but off it too, as there’s a growing clamor for more players who are non-whites to be included in the team. This may take a while, as it is only in the last few years that blacks and coloreds have started taking to the game in real earnest and some of them will no doubt be good at the international level soon, but to simply pick them because of color is not going to help the team nor its unity. The difference between the Australians and the rest of the teams is just that there is a commonness of purpose and mateship in the Australian side that is hard to see in any other side, who all have some of the same problems that South Africans have, excepting these are either class, language or region-related.
