Members End: Cricket is not a funny game - especially if your name is Robson Sharuko

Sunday Times

TELFORD VICE, Wellington

AND we thought cricket was a funny game. Turns out, it’s not. At least, not if you are the International Cricket Council (ICC) - who have revoked the Alternative Commentary Collective’s (ACC) accreditation to cover the World Cup. The ACC are a bunch of Kiwi comedians and “self-confessed cricket tragics”, among them two of the founders of the “Beige Brigade”, who during their radio commentaries spend almost as much time drinking beer and swearing as they do talking about the cricket. None of which bothered New Zealand Cricket when they offered the ACC all manner of support, nor the ICC when they decided to accredit them. But when one of the members of the ACC gang stepped onto the field at McLean Park in Napier during a drinks break in New Zealand’s game against Afghanistan, the suits’ sense of humour failed them and the ACC had their passes withdrawn.

FURTHER indications that cricket is determined to distance itself from the idea that is a game to be enjoyed by all who play and watch it has come from India, where fielders near the boundary will no longer be allowed to sign autographs for spectators. Who do we have to thank for this? Match-fixers, apparently. “We have asked cricketers not to give autographs while the match is on during the Indian Premier League, the Champions League T20 and all other matches organised by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI),” one KS Madhavan, who is part of the BCCI’s anti-corruption unit, told the Times of India. “This could be a method through which bookies may connect with cricketers.”

PLAYING cricket is a good way to acquire a drinking problem. So playing cricket while also being Irish is a passport to alcoholic oblivion. Which makes any Irish cricketer who is able to pull back from the brink of drink and drunkenness a remarkable human being. Someone like John Mooney, who has overcome alcoholism and depression to play for Ireland. But, for Robson Sharuko of the not at all august Zimbabwe Herald, Mooney’s challenges were reasons to attack his integrity because he may have stepped on the boundary to take a crucial catch during the World Cup match between Zimbabwe and Ireland. “Alcoholic dumps Zim out of WC” ran the headline, while the story asked “is it possible for a person like Mooney to be trusted?” And this from a so-called journalist who was banned from football for life for his involvement in the Asiagate match-fixing scandal. Better for Sharuko that he takes the advice he dispensed then: “There is a danger that in anger you end up losing your focus and by opening your mouth to let loose you end up making a lot of monumental blunders that are not necessary at this sensitive period ...”