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Questionable behaviour

This season's Ranji Trophy final had everything - much drama, an excruciatingly close finish and a result in four days. The game also had several moments of ultra competitiveness with tempers running high, which meant that it was no holiday for the match referee, Sadagoppan Ramesh.

Those who did not have much emotional stake in either team could watch the end dispassionately even if there may have been a tug or two of feeling in favour of the underdogs who were fighting back after being left behind in the first innings on a seamer's pitch.

The chase was even more dramatic than many a tight finish in a limited-overs game. It was a matter of keeping the collective nerve in doing which there could be no better combination than that of Mumbaikars who are so accustomed to winning in national cricket that it is second nature to them.

The kind of ultra competitiveness demonstrated by some of the players was not to be seen as a very bad sign signifying deterioration in standards of behaviour in national cricket. Ramesh is himself was such a laidback cricketer that he may have not wished to act as he did in fining so many players, even docking some of them their entire match fees. But, given a manual and a brief to be strict, the match referee had to act.

Some scenes were certainly not sights to savour, especially when Dhaliwal was giving the sendoff to batsmen he had dismissed at the business end of the match. Having done so well as to swing the match in Mumbai's favour, he did not have to rub it in. Departing batsmen can do little except to walk off angrily, suffering silently this addition of insult to injury.

Even in that great final of two decades ago in which Haryana beat Mumbai by two runs at the Wankhade Stadium, there was no show of ill temper, no sign that it was anything more than a great cricket match, which two teams were trying desperately to win. That there were giants of the game like Kapil Dev and Dilip Vengsarkar in that game may have helped.

Even so, not all such competitive behaviour is to be seen as anathema to the game's spirit. Some of it might reflect the keenness with which the modern player seeks wins in prestige tournaments because it can enhance his career in what are now very valuable times in which the rewards are commensurate with effort.

Of course, it was disappointing that this kind of demonstrativeness was not confined to some of the callow youth playing in the final. When the likes of Ajit Agarkar and Robin Uthappa were taking each other in the behaviour stakes, they are certainly egging others on to act in similar vein. The ones with international experience should have known better.

The international game has to be much more conscious of image since it is topflight cricket that is seen by most viewers on global television. If there is any crass behaviour at that level it doesn't take long for it to trickle down as youngsters only tend to follow the trend.

There may be a clear case for keeping the standards of behaviour high right across the spectrum, from Tests down to national and local cricket. Even so, it would be nice of the younger players are given a bit of leeway because we would like their attitudes to harden and their personalities to develop. The moment they reach the higher stages, they will know the rule book will always be thrown at them.

It was refreshing to see some of the old primacy of the national championship shine through in a final that seemed to be a throwback to earlier eras. Never mind if the questionable behaviour was more out of the intensely competitive modern age.

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