Cash Changes Everything: Michael Jeh on all that's cricket

BrisbaneBorn in Sri Lanka senior education and cricket in Australia professional cricket career in England played cricket all over the worldFor a belowpar firstclass cricketer I have experienced cricket all over the world but writing about my true love for a broadly Indian audience carries a word of warning I carry no bias whatsoever My brief is to wax philosophical poke fun at hypocrisy and ask questions of the system without any patriotic bias It is a cricket journey without borders often seeking to polarize and always trying to play against the spinUnique perspectiveLiving in Australia for the last 30 years has given me a unique perspective on the narrow lens through which cricket in the subcontinent is viewed It was not so long ago when the 12th Man skits by Billy Birmingham parodying the Asian cricketer were all the rage in popular cultureEven if you were an accidental victim of it as I was growing up in the brutal environment of grade cricket you were expected to laugh at yourself even when the racial stereotypes hinted at a cricketing supremacy that went beyond cricketAustraliarsquos Michael Slater stands his ground after being stumped by Mumbairsquos Sameer Dighe c on February 23 2001 PicGetty ImagesAny weakness or sensitivity was pounced upon as a sign of a thin skin associated with the inability to also play shortpitched bowling and play the game like ldquoreal menrdquo Cricket in that era was a subtext to the way colonialism was meant to work ndash as long as the damn colonials played by those rulesTouring the subcontinent was a mission to be endured through gritted teeth The odd loss was usually attributable to biased umpiring doctored pitches poor hotels and foreign food as if lasagna was a native Australian delicacy Undeniable feats of courage like Dean Jonesrsquo epic innings in Madras were spoken of in hushed tones as if no cricketer coming to Australia had ever faced similar hostileconditionsThe legends that were Sunil Gavaskar Gundappa Vishwanath and Kapil Dev were written off as mere local champions no allowance made for their amazing record against the West Indies the benchmark of that eraThat was before satellite television and the rise and rise of the Indian middleclass educated and mobile spreading their talents across the globe Fast forward a few years and India is now the new darling of world cricket No longer is a tour of India greeted with a groan and a predictable joke with a fake accent and an exaggerated shake of the head It is the beating heart of cricket for the players coaches medical staff and even for writers like myself Ironically my Asian heritage once a millstone for being taken seriously as a cricket writer is no longer a disadvantage even in Australia India is the new black but exclusively so ndash the other Asian cricket nations are still viewed much as they always have been ndash with a mixture of exoticism suspicion and a hint of that first world arroganceThe winds of change began to blow long before the Indian Premier League was born Perhaps it coincided with Sachin Tendulkarrsquos career and the mass marketing that followed turning Indiarsquos love of the game into a global marketing opportunity for anyone prepared to shed the cloak of colonial superiorityCricketers like Allan Border and Steve Waugh kickstarted that revolution and you get the feeling that their affection for the new heart of cricket was totally genuine Perhaps that was one of the reasons why they played so well on Indian pitches ndash their mindset was already positive before they took guard Love was in the air and India was more home than honeymoon The IPL is the ultimate symbol of the willing surrender to the arranged marriageDonrsquot get me wrong ndash the affection is not yet sealed with an unconditional kiss For those in cricket who are not feeding from the fruits of Indian trees there is an acknowledgement that the new world order is upon us but do not confuse that withadorationWait till you listenYou only have to play lower grade cricket or listen to conversations at BBQs to realise that there is still a yearning for the days when men were men and sheep were nervousThe cricketers themselves dare not even contemplate a future without India but their narrow focus is entirely pragmatic ndash the other South Asian cricketing centres may as well be from another planetAt board level this has now become a shameless policy where it is now essential to survival to pick and choose the partners you wish to dance with even if the tune is Bollywood and the goddam pitches still turn square on day one Losing to India is still worth banking onLooking amusedly from afar at this seismic shift in attitudes I recall a friend of mine who came along to watch a Test match at the Gabba between Australia and Sri Lanka in 1990 His comments that day came from the heart Irsquom sure and reflected an uncompromising view of the way cricket should be played ndash the Australian way Years later watching him succeed in India on the field and in the boardrooms I smiled wryly at how quickly those attitudes were calibrated to reflect the new reality Itrsquos the new lsquobromancersquoIt is a theme I will explore in this column as we seek to expose hypocrisies and marriages of convenience that have everything to do with commerce and little to do with what is good for cricketIndians no doubt are familiar with arranged marriages but this is more like a shotgun marriage with the gun now firmly in the other hand Dowries are paid in rupees and the poorer inlaws still pretend that they had a choice Sledging is still rife but it can no longer cut across racist boundaries as if the stuff that happened when the West Indies were ruling the world didnrsquot really matterAnd therein lies the difference Itrsquos one thing to win cricket matches but itrsquos an entirely different matter when you control television rights Reggae is now Bollywood and wersquore all singing along to the words of Cyndi Lauperrsquos 1980s anthem ldquoMoney Changes EverythingrdquoMoney changes everything We think we know what wersquore doing We donrsquot pull the strings Itrsquos all in the past now10 The number of years it took Australia to tour India again after the 196970 seriesMichael Jeh a former firstclass cricketer will write a fornightly column for this newspaper