Line & Length
R Mohan
Of Muppets, jokers and court jesters
November 22, 2007
They have been called various names over the years. Being called 'Muppets' after characters created by Jim Henson (who combined marionette and puppet to make his famous Muppet) is new. Sri Lankan opener Marvan Atapattu must be thanked for his creativity in hurling such an invective at selectors and thus bringing the colourful term into the cricket lexicon also.
Treated unfairly by selectors as he was ever since they dethroned him to install Mahela Jayawardene at the helm, Atapattu has held a very poor opinion of the former players who form the think tank that picks teams. For some reason the opener thought the chairman, Asantha de Mel, deserved worse and so called him the 'Joker who heads the Muppets' in Sri Lanka.
The jury is still out and the verdict is awaited on which is worse - to be called a Muppet or a Joker. Wait - here is another derogatory term from cricket history - 'court jesters'. Having described them thus in his first book, Sunil Gavaskar has never aspired to be a selector even though he could have been chairman of the caboodle anytime he wished.
While 'joker', 'jester' and 'Muppet' sounds civilised enough to trigger innocent laughter, there are names hurled in closed rooms at selectors that are considerably worse. There are many great players like Gavaskar who would undertake any assignment in the game except that of the thankless task of being a selector.
They probably dislike the idea of exposing themselves as targets for current players to throw names at. Mohinder Amarnath who once called the selection committee a 'bunch of jokers' after he was left out of the Indian team in 1989, is probably another on whose head the selector's hat would not sit too well.
There are two types of chief selectors. There are chairmen like Andrew Hilditch who prefer to go about their job as quietly as possible, hardly seeking the limelight and coming through as the sort who carries out his functions like a true professional.
And then there is the talkative type who loves to feed the media sound bytes. Ted Dexter once got sucked into the maelstrom when he suggested, back in 1993, that England were losing in India because of the smog in Kolkata, or because the position of Venus was malefic in their collective horoscopes.
The self-effacement of a Hilditch does not, however, come easily to anyone holding a comparable job in Asia. The cricket circus makes an inconspicuous style of functioning quite impossible. But then what do you make of our chief selector Dilip Vensgarkar who seemed to insist on his right to write a newspaper column while also being the highly visible chairman of the Indian selection committee?
At some point in a potential standoff Vengsarkar may have been told either to be a selector or resign if he wished to continue his column. At a time when the Board was, quite unwisely it must be said, placing restrictions on selectors even speaking to media people, it seemed strange that the chairman could be allowed to pen a column, though the column after the gag order only appeared in the limited space of a language newspaper rather than in the mainstream English media.
Had Vengsarkar been the self-effacing type who believed in doing his job in the committee rooms, his column might have made some sense. But being the active type who went on foreign tours with the team and was seen as an interfering sort who also brought about a change in captaincy, he could hardly expect sympathy.
There is so much happening in an Indian team that has at least four super senior players and several others with at least seven years' experience on the world stage who are mixing with very young cricketers. Handling such a transition phase takes a lot more diplomacy than the chairman has shown himself in possession of. Vengsarkar's challenging words to the seniors in the wake of the T20 World Championship victory sounded too much like triumphalism. Regardless of the ups and downs in team performance, it is his perceived role of an active chairman taking a hand in field matters that may have brought the whole selection wing into scrutiny. The BCCI had to crack the whip before more names were hurled.
While selection sagas in the long running cricket soap opera will no doubt continue to provide earthy humour in the form of former cricketers being called names in public, Indian cricket might just be in a celebratory phase after reasonable success on the field in England, South Africa and at home. It is best that at such a time the Muppets, jokers and jesters sink to the background, leaving the matter of providing the entertainment to the actual performers.
Republished with permission from The Asian Age
Treated unfairly by selectors as he was ever since they dethroned him to install Mahela Jayawardene at the helm, Atapattu has held a very poor opinion of the former players who form the think tank that picks teams. For some reason the opener thought the chairman, Asantha de Mel, deserved worse and so called him the 'Joker who heads the Muppets' in Sri Lanka.
The jury is still out and the verdict is awaited on which is worse - to be called a Muppet or a Joker. Wait - here is another derogatory term from cricket history - 'court jesters'. Having described them thus in his first book, Sunil Gavaskar has never aspired to be a selector even though he could have been chairman of the caboodle anytime he wished.
While 'joker', 'jester' and 'Muppet' sounds civilised enough to trigger innocent laughter, there are names hurled in closed rooms at selectors that are considerably worse. There are many great players like Gavaskar who would undertake any assignment in the game except that of the thankless task of being a selector.
They probably dislike the idea of exposing themselves as targets for current players to throw names at. Mohinder Amarnath who once called the selection committee a 'bunch of jokers' after he was left out of the Indian team in 1989, is probably another on whose head the selector's hat would not sit too well.
There are two types of chief selectors. There are chairmen like Andrew Hilditch who prefer to go about their job as quietly as possible, hardly seeking the limelight and coming through as the sort who carries out his functions like a true professional.
And then there is the talkative type who loves to feed the media sound bytes. Ted Dexter once got sucked into the maelstrom when he suggested, back in 1993, that England were losing in India because of the smog in Kolkata, or because the position of Venus was malefic in their collective horoscopes.
The self-effacement of a Hilditch does not, however, come easily to anyone holding a comparable job in Asia. The cricket circus makes an inconspicuous style of functioning quite impossible. But then what do you make of our chief selector Dilip Vensgarkar who seemed to insist on his right to write a newspaper column while also being the highly visible chairman of the Indian selection committee?
At some point in a potential standoff Vengsarkar may have been told either to be a selector or resign if he wished to continue his column. At a time when the Board was, quite unwisely it must be said, placing restrictions on selectors even speaking to media people, it seemed strange that the chairman could be allowed to pen a column, though the column after the gag order only appeared in the limited space of a language newspaper rather than in the mainstream English media.
Had Vengsarkar been the self-effacing type who believed in doing his job in the committee rooms, his column might have made some sense. But being the active type who went on foreign tours with the team and was seen as an interfering sort who also brought about a change in captaincy, he could hardly expect sympathy.
There is so much happening in an Indian team that has at least four super senior players and several others with at least seven years' experience on the world stage who are mixing with very young cricketers. Handling such a transition phase takes a lot more diplomacy than the chairman has shown himself in possession of. Vengsarkar's challenging words to the seniors in the wake of the T20 World Championship victory sounded too much like triumphalism. Regardless of the ups and downs in team performance, it is his perceived role of an active chairman taking a hand in field matters that may have brought the whole selection wing into scrutiny. The BCCI had to crack the whip before more names were hurled.
While selection sagas in the long running cricket soap opera will no doubt continue to provide earthy humour in the form of former cricketers being called names in public, Indian cricket might just be in a celebratory phase after reasonable success on the field in England, South Africa and at home. It is best that at such a time the Muppets, jokers and jesters sink to the background, leaving the matter of providing the entertainment to the actual performers.
Republished with permission from The Asian Age
