An affair they cannot refuse

There is something amiss with the new generation of cricketers when it comes to priorities.

In Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, the holy treatise on how to live life, big time studio boss Jack Woltz refuses to give Johnny Fontaine a film role even though Fontaine is perfect for it. Fontaine happens to be mafia boss Vito Corleone’s godson. Corleone steps in and sends his consiglieri, Tom Hagen, to resolve matters. Hagen, upon meeting the studio boss, realises that he had been nursing a grudge: Fontaine had run away with a starlet Woltz had been grooming and also lusted after. Hagen finds it unbelievable that men would allow a woman and her sexuality to interfere with business.

 

Looking at the plight of young Australian cricketers, one feels tempted to tell them to read the book. Not so long ago, the fate of the Ashes seemed to hang on a feud between Mitchell Johnson’s mother and his fiancée. The Ashes series was to establish Johnson as a premier all-rounder in world cricket by building on his stellar show in the series win in South Africa. He was the heralded leader of the new-look Australian bowling attack, in the process of rebuilding after the retirement of some long-serving stalwarts. But two Tests later, with Australia down 0-1, there were murmurs that Johnson would be dropped.

These are the times when the world begins to look hostile and you need support from family and other loved ones. What followed was a three-way, not-so-kind conversation between the bowler, his mother Vikki Harber, and his fiancée Jessica Bratich — through the media. Johnson, the hot-blooded, pace bowling spearhead of the tough-as-nails Australian cricket team, opened his heart to a women’s lifestyle magazine. Australia duly lost the series.

On Australia’s current tour to New Zealand, the biggest headache Australian players have is one of their own, or, rather, the fiancée of one of their own: Michael Clarke. Clarke, who happens to be deputy to captain Ricky Ponting, flew home midway through the tour to attend to his relationship with model Lara Bingle (at least there was no need to drag in that first name, as it happens to be the second name of arguably the most beautiful batsman ever). After a public breakup, Clarke has rejoined his team and scored a Test century.

He may brandish the century as a sign of redemption, but there is something amiss with this new generation and the priorities it gives to work and play. Luckily for Clarke, the two are the same, and yet he chooses to ignore them for something that should stay private.

Thankfully, our lot is better. At least two of the Indian team, once the captain and vice-captain, are said to move seamlessly from one relationship to another without any of it affecting their performance. There is no resolution in the media, either.

The Australians, to quote Corleone’s advice to a whining Fontane, “can act like a man”.

(suveen.sinha@bsmail.in)