WIN OR LOSE

WIN OR LOSE,

1987 12 December 28-29 WIN OR LOSE, (735) IT’S THE GAME THAT COUNTS “As far as I am concerned, it doesn’t matter who wins or who loses so long as it was a good game. And I am always on the side of the team that wins!”

In the semi-finals of the World Reliance Cup Cricket match between Pakistan and Australia at Lahore on November 4, 1987, Pakistan was defeated. This news proved so shocking to the Pakistanis that many of them suffered heart attacks, and one of them actually died of heart failure.

The following day, India lost its match to England, and the repercussions were even more disastrous. The fans of both the Indian and Pakistan teams clashed with one another and there were many serious casualties in the ensuing ‘match riots’, as they were headlined in none of the national dailies.

What has happened to our sense of sportsmanship?

Where is that old spirit of gallantry which used to enable players and spectators alike to accept a loss or defeat without complaint and a victory without gloating? As we remember the sportsmen of yesteryear, they treated their opponents with fairness, generosity and courtesy and gave credit where it was due. This showed a healthy state of mind, more preoccupied with excellence of performance than with personalities or national images.

One of the baneful consequences of the 1947 revolution is that this healthy mentality has disappeared from India and Pakistan. It is no longer possible for the peoples of these two countries to enjoy a game of Cricket for the sheer thrill of the sport. They have so determinedly built it up into a grim test of national superiority, that their only concern is with the victory of their own side. They are still concerned with excellence of play, but are not prepared to applaud it unless it is displayed by their own team. It is only their own victories that they will celebrate, for a defeat sends them into a state of total shock. This is surely a sign of diseased thinking, rooted in narrow communalism. It is unfortunate that this failure to be objective is so obscured by mass hysteria on sporting occasions, that excellence of performance becomes lost in the projection of national images.

A good corrective to this approach is the example set by modern Japan. Instead of being nation-conscious, or community-conscious, the Japanese are single-mindedly quality-conscious. Undeterred by issue of national prestige in terms of their defeat in World War II, the Japanese gave their entire attention to producing top Quality goods. Anything in the slightest degree sub-standard was abhorrent to them. It was this dogged concentration on high standards which ultimately led to their capturing world markets.

Similarly, the character of a nation is reflected in its attitude to sports. What kind of a nation is it which exults in the defeat of its opponents, reviles their positive qualities as evils, learns nothing from their performance and is ready to riot on a cricket score? A nation with a true sense of sportsmanship should surely be able to accept victory without jubilation, and defeat without acrimony. The perfect example of the correct attitude has been handed down to us by a defeated Jewish wrestler who, in a bout organised just before the birth of Israel as a nation surprised his Indian Muslim opponent by rising from the floor to embrace him. “It is not your person”, he said, “which I appreciate, but your skill. The art you displayed in defeating me was of an order which I had never thought possible”.

This Jewish wrestler’s mentality was such that he could see good in his adversary, he could learn from him, and he was not afraid to acknowledge these facts. This is the kind of mentality which will spur a man on to greater and greater heights, whereas allowing everything to become coloured by communalism deflects a man from seeking true excellence.

We need to return to the days of being able to play and watch a game for the pure enjoyment of its skills, without allowing it to assume political and nationalistic overtones. A friend of mine, a Mr. Shakeel Ahmad Khan, an Indian engineer working in the Arab Emirates, has the correct attitude, On a visit back to India shortly after the Reliance Cup matches, he was asked his opinion of the ‘match riots’, Professing his inability to understand why they should have taken place at all, he said, “As far as I am concerned, it doesn’t matter who wins or who loses so long as it was a good game. And I am always on the side of the team that wins!”