Colourful dawning of our very own rainbow nation (15 June 1999)

15 June 1999

Colourful dawning of our very own rainbow nation

Sybil Ruscoe

Fans have few opportunities to enjoy the warped pleasure of supporting the enemy. As a teenager, if you liked David Cassidy, you could never enjoy a Donny Osmond record. In adolescence, if the Clash were your band, you couldn't reasonably appreciate the Sex Pistols.

If there has been any salvation from England's early exit from the World Cup, it has been the strange joy of becoming a temporary fan of another cricketing nation.

Never has this peculiar state of sporting mind created more joy than watching Australia beat South Africa at Headingley on Sunday. A defeat for the Aussies would have seen Zimbabwe progress - that would have been a travesty. That freakish win over South Africa should not obscure the fact that they were outclassed by Australia and Pakistan last week, and even against England in the first round it was boys against men.

So with a clear conscience, we could support Australia on Sunday. We licked our wounds and ignored the bruises inflicted by another winter Ashes defeat, and were able to relax and admire the guts of the old enemy.

How many times has our collective heart sunk as Steve Waugh came to the crease to wreck another promising position for England?

But this time we could relish Waugh's magnificence. From the very moment he took guard, even though the scoreboard read 48 for three, there was no question that the captain was taking his men anywhere but the semi-finals. There was no thought of a ticket home as Waugh displayed a cussed refusal to let Hansie Cronje's men get the better of him. It was not just his stamina or athleticism, or his remarkable flexibility in being able to switch from grafter to slogger, that impressed. It was his sheer strength of character and will to win.

Waugh's innings is not the only consolation from the Super Sixes. Despite what happened to England, this World Cup may have been the coming of age of multi-cultural Britain.

A whole generation of cricket fans has had the freedom and confidence to rejoice in its cultural identity. If the game of cricket is the barometer with which to measure the health of a nation, then the competition has shown to the world what a diverse and exciting place Britain has become.

I've often felt a sense of shame over our colonial past. Lands stolen, people uprooted, the arrogant imposition of our culture and religion on nations often older and richer than our own. But now, in the summer of 1999, I have been able to feel just a little pride in those planters, labourers and missionaries who took our curious national sport to the far corners of the earth. The green, dew-soaked cricket fields of England transplanted to dusty, sun-baked patches of ground in India, the Caribbean, arid Australasia.

We should all be rejoicing that when cricket came home at the dawn of the new millennium, it returned as a global game; a sport healthier and more dynamic than when the first stumps and bails left these shores in ships that sailed the Empire. Cricket came home to young Bangladeshis, who nipped out to Chelmsford from their tight communities in East London. West Indians took the carnival to Southampton; the lime green of Pakistan electrified Headingley, and young Indians, their faces painted sky blue, saw records smashed in the sunshine at Taunton.

Even with the ominous background of the political problems in Kashmir, the much-feared trouble, when India met Pakistan, just did not happen. That is testimony to a strength of character in the young Asians of Britain, and the challenge for cricket is to tap into that at a playing level. You cannot tell me that somewhere in this country there is not a Tendulkar, Shoaib, Muralitharan or Ganguly waiting to be discovered.

But the bigger point is that in Britain today, happily, there is room for everyone. Asian children born here can support the team of their ethnic background and cricket and the nation is richer for it. Their parents have had the courage to treasure, preserve and pass on their culture. Thankfully, they stubbornly refused even to sit the odious 'Tebbit Test', let alone pass it.

Finally, as a footnote, it seems the Carnival of Cricket has attracted an entirely new following to the game, but still has some way to go towards educating them.

A make-up artist I met at Lord's for a publicity shoot said to me: "I think it's great the way cricket has changed the whites for the coloured kit - it looks so much better." I gently explained that the coloured kit is just for the one-day game and that cricket is not quite ready to swap the whites for pyjamas permanently.

But perhaps next time the World Cup comes around, England should apply to the authorities to change to a new style of strip that features all the colours of our emerging, rainbow nation.

Source :: The Electronic Telegraph