by Aubrey Joachim

Sydney, 8 Jan 2012

 

As per the Urban Dictionary: White men (or man), can't jump is used to communicate to someone (of any nationality) that they are as unathletic and terrible at sports as a white person; white men can't jump is used interchangeably with the words "unathletic" and sometimes "uncool". Note: in usage you are referring to others as white man or white men and telling them they can't jump.

In light of the slaughter of the Indian and Sri Lankan cricket teams in their current test matches against Australia and South Africa respectively as well as other recent test series, the idiom White men can’t jump is perfectly apt to describe the two Asian cricketing ‘giants’ who are strong on paper but wilt on the field. The recent displays on the field amply demonstrate that brown men can’t bat, bowl or field and make mediocre aging white men look sporting gods!

What is it that makes these players the laughing stock of the sporting world? Their ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory or crumble like a sand castle is unbelievable. Cricket is perhaps the only sport on the planet that offers the opportunity for non-white or non-black athletes to compete on a level playing field as skill, strategy and perseverance rather than brawn are the main competencies of the game. Manny Pacquiao the Filipino in the sport of boxing may be the exception. Yet with some of the best exponents of the game the Indian and Sri Lankan cricket teams just do not seem to be able to perform against the white masters. The Indians are giants in their own backyard but are mere minnows on the international stage as has been shown in their recent pathetic performance in England and the impending debacle in Australia being already down 2 nil against an opposition that is struggling to re-build with over-the-hill players and some debutants who are yet to find form. The Sri Lankans cannot even perform at home. The missing ingredient is passion.

Such below par performance provide ample opportunity for commentators and onlookers alike to level humour, pour scorn and ridicule not only at the players on the field but at the wider brown audience as well. Not only are the players on the field seen as below par performers but all who relate to them as well. When a TV commentator is prompted to discuss the poor baggage handling statistics of the airlines in India during the course of his commentary, or when an ABC commentator compares the Sri Lankan cricket captain to a Columbian drug lord it is patently obvious that it is not just the players on the field who are seen in a poor light. The players must realise that they represent a tribe. Under-performance by the sporting teams even reflects in other contexts. This is what the players who are multi-millionaire beneficiaries of the game fail to realise. Bankers and ponzi scheme architects are like saints in comparison to the cricketers who let down entire nations.

‘Fire in Babylon’ is a Stevan Riley directed feature documentary about the West Indies cricket teams of the 1970’s and 1980’s. It tells the story of a band of cricketers who were referred to as ‘calypso cricketers’ who were only seen as being there to be flogged by the Englishmen and the Australians. After all that was the lot of slaves. Tony Greig as the English captain of the time saw fit to want to make the West Indians “grovel in the dust” (only to be made to do that himself by a well-directed delivery by a West Indian quick!). Australians Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thompson took pride in sending them off the field on stretchers in the early 70’s. During the Kerry Packer ‘World Series Cricket’ the boys from the West Indies were made to wear pink – and referred to as ‘the poofthas in pink’. Things would change because of the pride and passion that these one-time slaves possessed.

Every sub-continental player must be made to watch this movie and take the moral and philosophical lessons from it.

The West Indians had had enough as the laughing stock of the white cricket playing world and Clive Lloyd set himself a vision and mission of building a cricket team that would not only be feared by every cricket playing nation but “would beat the white masters at their own game”. And so Clive Lloyd brought together the likes of Vivian Richards, Michael Holding, Andy Roberts, Colin Croft, Desmond Haynes, Gordon Greenidge, Joel Garner, Malcolm Marshall, Larry Gomes and others from across a group of islands whose total population was perhaps a million and whose fields of glory were the sandy beaches on which they practised their skill. There wasn’t a cast of a billion plus people to pick from unlike the India of today. Yet the West Indians ruled the cricketing world for fifteen years! Lloyd’s strategy was not only to harness skill and brawn but to also drive the fire in their bellies with passion and pride.

These men were not the high earning advertising poster boys like today’s cricketers are. They were paid a pittance for playing for their country. Their challenge and satisfaction however was sheer passion, determination and moral fortitude driven by the ‘fire’ of oppression by their white masters who brought them as slaves from Africa. While many of today’s cricketers – irrespective of what colour they are or what nation they come from would commit cricketing treason for the big bucks, Vivian Richards turned down an offer of over a million dollars (then) to play a single game in an apartheid dominated South Africa. In his words he represented, and had to stand by a people he related with on another continent with whom he shared the same roots. The tribal instincts were there.

Cricket may have been a gentlemen’s game at some point in history, but in my view changed not in the last few decades, but when bodyline bowling was introduced (by white gentlemen!). And in recent times, the Australians have made sledging a competitive advantage in their game. Yet, a little brown master brags that he has ever sledged only once in his cricketing career. Virtue, folly or fear? Vivian Richard’s red blood-shot eyed glare was sufficient to put in place a rowdy sledging bowler. Yet the Asians merely cower and look aside being allowed to be dominated by the white master. Is it not time for the brown men to give bit of their own back and show their moral fortitude in the face of aggression? Where is the fire in their bellies? After all even the global economic balance is shifting from west to east from the developed to the developing. Why not on the cricketing fields? Is it that brown men cannot even swear?

It is far easier however for the brown men to stand at podiums and in eloquent lingo shift the blame and point their fingers at all but themselves as players. It may earn them their little place in the sun and perhaps even fiduciary benefits, but little do they realise that they are missing the satisfaction of moral and philosophical rewards. Sadly, brown men can’t bat, can’t bowl, can’t field … and can’t swear! What a pathetic bunch.

 

About the author

Aubrey Joachim is a speaker and presenter in strategy and business management across the globe. He is a passionate follower of cricket and writes opinion pieces on the game. He is a regular contributor to Cricketcrowd.

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