For those who believe that sport brings out the best in people the past few months have been rather unsettling. The Olympic games have been tarnished by allegations of bribery and corruption; the professional basketball season in America was delayed by a dispute over player salaries; Rupert Murdoch tried to buy Manchester United for ?625m, amid accusations that he will rig the television schedules to make sure that it is money well spent; the international cricket establishment was faced with allegations of bribery and illegal betting by senior Australian cricketers; an earbiting former boxing champion was invited to re-enter the ring; and Flo Jo dropped dead at 38, presumably as a result of her apparent abuse of performance-enhancing drugs.
Once, of course, sport was seen as a civilising force. For the Victorians, sport was meant to encourage leadership, teach team-work and form gentlemen. Ungentlemanliness, let alone cheating, was considered almost treasonable. In a sense, it was: Britain needed honest civil servants to sustain its empire, and sport was invented to provide them. To bend the rules was to miss the point. Sport was about honour and duty, and winning without them was not winning at all. If the Victorians were to sustain their self-image as the carriers of law and decency to the darkest corners of the globe, they needed moral reassurance from the games field. Sport was believed to forge national character, so if the boys were cheating on the playing fields of Eton, what might the adults be up to with the tax returns in India?
Since then, so much has changed. Today's sportsmen make money-often, lots of it. Now sport is a proper career: an end in itself, not just a way of becoming a better adult. Sportsmen, like doctors and lawyers, are "professionals." But the rhetoric of "professionalism" has undermined sport's moral purposes. Instead sport is seen as entertainment-and in entertainment, within the bounds of law, anything goes. It is thought to be old hat to harp on too much about sportsmanship and honour-too much stress on sportsmanship is even held responsible, by some, for Britain's alleged sporting decline.
But we would still like to believe that sport remains a force for good; as a result, we continue to have mixed feelings about its commercial excesses. Is it right, our Victorian conscience pipes up, for sportsmen already earning millions of pounds to hold out for more cash? How should we weigh individual sporting glory against personal honour? Has sport really become just another branch of the entertainment industry, subject only to the rules of the free market? Or can it still have a moral purpose?
most people may now see sport as pure escapism, but in Los Angeles a project has been launched which would have delighted the strictest Victorian headmaster. Appropriately, it features cricket, the game with which the British hoped to civilise the empire. More surprisingly, it is based in the crime-ridden ghetto of Compton.
The scheme's architect is Ted Hayes, a flamboyant social campaigner with greying dreadlocks, whose exploits on behalf of the Los Angeles poor have made him a local celebrity. He is educated and articulate, seeking to combine the radicalism of Malcolm X with the persuasiveness of Martin Luther King. Having lived voluntarily on the streets for 12 years, Hayes founded the Dome village-a colony of igloo-shaped huts in downtown Los Angeles where homeless people can find shelter, give up drugs, and learn everything from computer skills to cover drives. Introduced to cricket four years ago by the high society Beverly Hills team, Hayes loved it so much that he decided to set up his own team. He soon converted enough Dome village residents and new recruits from Compton to found the "LA Krickets." His team's patron is Prince Edward, and it has already completed a tour of England. But this is not just fun. Hayes argues that "cricket is a civilising force in the local community, even an ennobling one." If he has his way, the chatter of gunfire in Compton will soon be replaced by the sound of leather on willow.
Taking cricket to the Americans sounds like an unlikely dream. Although it has become the world's second most popular sport, and has spread throughout the commonwealth, cricket still leaves most Americans unmoved. Some confuse it with croquet or lacrosse; others see it as baseball's poor relation-needlessly long, intolerably slow and socially exclusive. But, contrary to what most Americans might expect, cricket stumps were firmly rooted in American soil long before anyone had dreamed of bases and pitchers-in fact, during the last century cricket was a popular American sport. The first ever international cricket contest was not, as everyone supposes, a battle between England and Australia, but the 1844 cricket match between Canada and the US. By the late 19th century, the Philadelphia team was good enough to play against the full-strength Australian sides. In 1908, JB King, playing for the touring Americans, topped the English bowling averages with 88 wickets. America itself was also a favourite tour location. When the Australians toured New York in 1932, Babe Ruth royally entertained Don Bradman and his teammates in his private box in Yankee Stadium-so the two great hitters of a moving ball got a rare chance to compare notes. By that time, however, it was Ruth's sport rather than Bradman's which had captured the American imagination. Baseball-cheaper, quicker, easier to grasp-had pushed cricket to the wealthiest pockets of American society, where it almost withered. There are still leagues in New York, Philadelphia and California-and the large number of software engineers from India and Pakistan in silicon valley has triggered a small cricket revival there-but in most of the US cricket remains a game for expatriates and eccentric enthusiasts.
Until now, perhaps. For Ted Hayes is determined to make cricket a hit in America the second time around. He predicts that within his lifetime there will be an international cricket stadium in Compton, and Test matches in Los Angeles. Disney is set to make a film about his team, and his son, Theo, has produced a rap record about cricket. Meanwhile, the LA Krickets practise three times a week and have set up a new California cricket league.
When I met them on a Sunday morning just before Christmas they were determined to play against a local expatriate team, despite unusually chilly weather. Even when the pitch was deemed too wet for a proper match, they set up a practice session so that I could see them in action. (They do not, after all, meet many people who, like me, play cricket for a living.) Their enthusiasm is matched only by their eccentricity. They combine studied antique Englishness with occasional baseball-style swipes. (Imagine Mark McGwire trying to play cricket like Jack Hobbs.) But they hope to iron out all the American tell-tale signs. They talk animatedly about "keeping the left elbow up," "rolling the wrists," and "keeping bat and pad close together." Sergio, a spin bowler who used to be in a gang called the "Killer Society," now shyly admits that he wants to be "the WG Grace of the 21st century." An all-rounder saw himself as "the new Ian Botham."
Englishmen, perhaps flattered by the team's anglophilia, have certainly been keen supporters. The notice board in the Dome village is covered with congratulatory letters from Buckingham Palace, 10 Downing Street, and the British consulate-general of Los Angeles. For Hayes, these acknowledgments from the English establishment mean even more than the note he received from the White House.
Now, reassured by the support of his new English friends, Hayes hopes to promote cricket in protest against the dominance of commercially-orientated US sports. "There have been player strikes in every major American sport over the past five years," Hayes points out. "Cricket could benefit from a reaction against the commercialism which has ruined our national games. Even when our millionaire sports stars do manage to get on the park, I see them spitting, jeering and taunting. What kind of message does that send to American kids?" Muhammad Ali, Hayes unfashionably states, undermined the ethical basis of sport. "Ali was the first famous athlete to legitimise arrogance and materialism. Now, most black sportsmen are braggarts." Hayes thinks that cricket can provide better role models. "In cricket, you don't argue with the umpire, you don't show dissent, you don't ridicule your opponents if they lose or your team-mates if they make a mistake." Even the rules of cricket, Hayes argues, breed humility. "Because a batsman only has one chance at the wicket, even the best player is bound to fail sometimes... and almost always it is down to his own fallibility. Learning to cope with disappointment is built into the game." In other words, Hayes believes what every English schoolboy used to be told-that cricket is a "character-building game." Now he hopes to use it to prepare people for adult life in the ghetto.
many people in Compton, of course, never make it that far. With a homicide level which equals San Francisco's, a city seven times its size, Compton is the "drive-by" shooting capital of the world. No wonder it was the birthplace of "gangsta-rap," and provided the inspiration for John Singleton's despairing film, Boyz N the Hood. For most people, Compton is an urban nightmare. But contrary to its wild reputation it seems at first sight remarkably normal. Most families have a detached house, a small garden, and at least one car. It looks more like the downbeat parts of Brighton than the Bronx. But Compton's bourgeois living conditions are not complemented by middle-class careers. Local businesses have fled to safer communities, leaving Compton stripped of employment and almost devoid of commercial life. For those who are not independently-minded, there is simply nothing to do during Compton's long sunny days. The problem, then, is cultural nullity as well as economic decline. Compton's inhabitants look not so much angry as vacant, and entrenched boredom has devalued the currency of human life. For people with little to do and nothing to lose, violence has become the favourite hobby. So if you can kill the boredom, Ted Hayes thinks, you can stop the killings. He is not rhyming flippantly when he urges his team "to swap the gat-[LA slang for a gun]-for the bat": by introducing kids to cricket, he is trying to protect them from the superficial glamour of riskier forms of entertainment. It might even work. For people on the fringes of trouble, with countless hours to fill and endless sunshine to enjoy, what could be a more appropriate pastime than cricket?
But machismo is far from dead in Compton. Hayes has had to make sure that cricket is not seen as "the sissy's choice." At one practice, he threw a cricket ball in the direction of a surly-looking spectator: "If you're so tough, catch that without a baseball mitt." When the boy side-stepped, Hayes quipped: "I thought you were hard, I thought you were from Compton!" The spectator, Emidio, is now wicket-keeper and star batsman of the LA Krickets. Hayes has tried to make cricket both fashionable and ethical; he has translated old-fashioned English manners into street slang. He roller-blades in Central Park, listens to rap music-but respectfully quotes the Queen Mother. He is a surrogate Englishman dressed in baggy African American clothes. He is an advocate for the homeless, but hates the "nanny state." He claims to be a capitalist, a monarchist and an anglophile. His conversation moves freely from common sense to the outer extremities of eccentricity.
Perhaps you need to be a bit mad to live on the streets through choice, build a synthetic igloo colony, and then come up with cricket as the solution for LA's social problems. But there is something inspiring about Hayes's audacity. "Just think of the irony," he says. "A group of homeless people are bringing the noble English game of cricket to the notoriously gang-infested ghettos of LA. If we can do that, it shows that anything is possible."
there is another irony, too. As Compton's cricketers try to evoke the genteel spirit of the British empire, English cricket is looking to business to secure its future. By appointing Ian MacLaurin, the former chief executive of Tesco, as chairman, the English Cricket Board has recognised that some clear commercial analysis is needed if cricket is to retain its place in English national life. At last, the English county championship is being split into two divisions, in order to create a more dynamic and competitive domestic season. Club cricket, too, is being reformed to enable county sides to select players directly from club level. All this, it is hoped, will create stronger county teams, making the national side more likely to succeed. If that happens, cricket can expect renewed spectator interest and increased revenue from commercial sponsorship, which can then be used to promote the sport at its grass roots. All sports now fight for their share of public attention and money, and cricket has finally recognised that it is no exception.
Accordingly, it looks to US-style razzmatazz to get fans through the turnstiles. Coloured clothing, big-money sponsorship, television advertising and animal mascots have been grafted on to the modern game. At last year's illuminated day-night games at the "Foster's" Oval you could have heard The Eye of the Tiger accompany Surrey's players to the wicket. In this professional era, the players, too, are expected to look and speak differently. Today's cricketers are encouraged to be surly, not polite or articulate; still less gentlemanly. Being tough is the highest accolade. It is a business, after all; smiling might suggest you don't care. Amateurish is a term of abuse, a synonym for sloppiness and self-indulgence. Cricket has joined the entertainment industry; people want to see not only furry mascots, but hard-working professionals.
In fact, when they watch professional sport, paying spectators increasingly want a piece of Compton street drama. They want "shoot-outs;" they want eyeball to eyeball action; they want "throat balls," and "sledging" (verbal intimidation). One of the most compelling sporting moments of 1998 was the 30-minute Test match duel between England batsman Michael Atherton and South African fast-bowler Allan Donald, in which Donald bowled repeatedly at Atherton's head. Sport is mass voyeurism, and the domesticity of modern life has made its melodrama still more exciting. As the standard of living has risen-ironing out life's discomforts-we have increasingly projected our fascination with physical hardship and heroism on to the other side of the touchline, terrace or boundary. In this peaceful age, sport fulfils our need for tribal conflict.
The cricketers in Los Angeles, for whom tribalism is a daily reality, see no reason to recreate it on the sports field. Like the armchair rugby fan who loves a good punch-up, they too see sport as escape from the monotony of their daily lives. But escape for them means gentility, not conflict; that is the explanation for their fascination with cricket. They talk about afternoon tea at Lord's with the same awe with which Englishmen describe Shane Warne's googly or Curtly Ambrose's bouncer. In fact, English cricket, for them, offers the same romantic appeal as the world of "gangsta rap" for white English middle-class boys. Our sporting obsessions, then, offer up the inverted reflection of our souls.
Meanwhile, the sports industry should think twice before abandoning its heritage of self-impro-vement. If professional sport is overrun by cheats and show-offs and is no longer seen as a civilising force, parents will eventually stop buying those replica shirts or the ticket for the family enclosure. Perhaps the industry has something to learn from Compton, Los Angeles.
