I've obviously been in a bit of denial about the whole cricket thing, which is partly the whole "if a wicket falls in a foreign land and is not broadcast on free-to-air TV, did it really happen?" thing, partly the whole "if this is the start of the cricket season then this year is definitely done and dusted and what have I done with my life?" thing, and finally, obviously, the whole "Oh God, Australian cricket" thing. I can barely look.
I will, tomorrow, because the start of the cricket season is a ritual unto itself, and that's something to be observed even when the actual watching doesn't promise much fun. Let's play Polyanna again: New Zealand can be a dashing lot and I'll have my jar out for all the new bugs.
And let's sink the whole "cricket book-Chinaman" thing, too, to start the season off with a clean slate. It was so offhand and breezy when it first popped up in my life, but has grown concrete feet.
A couple of things I'll salvage:
1. I was talking to a (non-cricket-watching) friend how the elusive figure at the centre of Chinaman could only be a spinner, that there were no "mystery fast bowlers", though in the course of that I did find myself "explaining" to her (it's good when your friends know nothing about cricket, you can tell them anything) that bowling in general was the more cerebral art in cricket. When I started being interested in cricket, my father "explained" to me that bowling was the "working class" art in cricket, and at the intersection of those two ideas lies a whole history of cricket, class and colonialism, which Chinaman partly draws on. PS I also just enjoyed reading it, it's funny and well-written.
2. I bought a little secondhand Pelican paperback from 1964 called "Learning to Philosophize" by E.R. Emmett, because it's always interesting how people approach these things, and I suppose I had to buy it when I flipped it open and in a chapter on "value judgements", saw this:
It's very interesting what Emmett says about this. He starts off by talking about what we mean when we say "A is better at chess than B". Because "Chess is a game and the object is to win", being better at chess is about winning more often. There's a bit of debate about whether "winning more often" means "has won more games in the past" or "will win more games in the future" - and therein lies a selector's debate in itself - but ultimately when we say someone is better at chess, we mean their aptitude for winning, and it would be using the term "better" in an "odd and irrational" way if we were basing our judgement on stylistic considerations, eg. that A was a "lively, attacking, enterprising player" whereas B was "dull, stodgy and safe", regardless of who won.
Then comes the comment pasted above. In cricket, a better batsman might have made more runs or potentially make more runs, but aesthetic considerations also come into play: I might call A a better batsman "because I find his style more pleasing, attractive", so this is an extra thing to analyse out when you're working out what someone means when they say "better". Learning to philosophise yet? Such fun people.
What's interesting to me is that, working backwards, Emmett is implying that, to a certain extent, and to its observers at least, cricket is not a game and the object is not to win, and I can't decide if there's another class issue here. Is this Gentlemanly hauteur with regard to vulgar concerns like winning? Or an acknowledgement that cricket is a spectacle as much as a contest?
That was all. Bring on the dancing boys.
No comments:
Post a Comment