spinoff

On Radio Four several weeks ago this particular Spinoffite was listening to the Feedback Programme. Amongst the interviewees was Lord David Steel, the former SDP wonk (please, just stick with it) someone from whom – thankfully – we have not heard for a long time. Hopefully, we shall not do so for a long time to come.

       

Steel was complaining about Radio Four’s long wave (LW) service. He is one of a small, traitorous, cowardly group that wants to get cricket coverage off Radio Four long wave. Off. Gone. For ever. This nothing short of poisonous point of view was backed up with the claim that some people cannot receive Radio Four FM and so rely on LW for their dose of Radio Four. The cricket gets in the way, and so has to go.

          

And then came the clincher. Steel, ignorant and fuelled by some inner, secret idiocy uttered the dread words. In describing cricket, he used the word “minority”. It is a minority sport. Cricket. “Minority”, he said. The word hung in the air, its hateful, disgusting implications fussing about it like a cloud of nasty, spiky, stingy hornets. I shook my head in disbelief, shamed by the thought that our country ever elevated this man to the heights of elected office. A “minority” sport?

        

Firsly, Lord Steel, you may like to note that the game of cricket is played in: Australasia, Asia, Africa, Europe, South America and the Caribbean. This is, surely, by no means what one would consider a “minority” spread of interest. Hopefully we can assume that by classifying the great sport as a “minority” one, Lord Steel does not mean to imply that it is “favoured by minorities”, i.e. funny little brown people. We must hope that, though he may be a cricket-hater of the first and most disgusting order, that Lord Steel is not a Nazi.

         

This struck me as reflecting a most unfortunate and introverted, parochial world view. Certainly, in his native Scotland, Steel would be hard-pressed to find a degree of interest in the sport equal to that found in the rest of mainland Britain. Indeed, there is the fine old ground at the Grange in Edinburgh, and more besides of course, but that country favours almost exclusively football. Does Lord Steel’s world view not extend beyond those boundaries though? Is he hermetically sealed inside a Scottish world view where all that matters is dressing either in blue, or in green and white hoops?

          

The – what will surely now become – notorious Oval test versus Pakistan provides the final step towards exposing the Steel stupidity. Pakistan is a Muslim country, and one with which the England Cricket Board, the England team and their management all have very cordial relations. The players are close, and indeed many Pakistan players have played in the English county game. Surrey currently has two former Pakistan players in its side.

           

One look at the roster of all major international sporting events, however, will show us that it is the only Muslim country that an England squad of any discipline is ever likely to meet. England, Scotland, N.Ireland, Wales – none of these will ever challenge the Muslim East on the football, rugby or hockey fields. There is no sporting exchange. And come to think of it, there is no social exchange at all. We know nothing of one another’s cultures. Those Arabists that read this page aside, could you name a Pakistani writer? Or maybe a musician, or poet? Film director? Could you point to Islamabad in a map? Anything?

           

Pakistan’s cricketing greats, however, are world famous heroes. We all know the name Imran Khan for instance; some because he married Jemima Goldsmith, but much, much more importantly because of his brilliance in captaining Pakistan during the 80s. We don’t know anything, but we know their cricketers.

             

Cricket is the only cultural exchange the UK has with the Muslim world. And has there been any more vital a time for East and West to be brought together in peaceful, joyful circumstances than now? With global tensions at sauna heat, and in an environment where misinformation and media exaggeration make enemies out of every man and women with a Koran, how unutterably vital it is to see that yes, there may be differences, but we are here, now, and we are friends and we are all on the field together playing a game and we can enjoy one another’s talents. This of course makes it all the more saddening that the final test at the Oval – and the final domestic Test of 2006 – has ended in a farce.

        

However, there is a one day international series to be played, and at the time of writing neither the Pakistan Cricket Board or our domestic equivalent wants anything other than for that series to progress. Spinoff hopes it does go ahead, and also that Radio Four LW continues to broadcast ball by ball coverage. This way the popularity of this most excellent of games can increase, and it will continue to entertain, and bring people together in friendship and warmth in a way that other sports – football for instance – seems unable to do.

        

So no, Lord Steel, this “minority” sport, watched around the globe by billions of people on five continents, and which offers a vital and far-reaching cultural interface, is not to be removed from the radio. The world’s population is running out of things that it wants to share. We can’t lose cricket as well.

     

Yours etc.,

     

Spinoff.