Sometimes cricket’s pleasure is in the pain

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/feb/24/the-spin-cricket-pleasure-defeats-pain-england-fans

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The great Gay Talese likes to write about losers. “If given the choice,” he says, “of writing about people who personified the Right Stuff or the Wrong Stuff, I would invariably choose the latter.” And in the days when he was working the sports beat for his college newspaper in Alabama, he always preferred to write about “the despair of the infielder whose throw cost the game; the basketball benchwarmer who saw action only during the scrimmages”. When Talese got to the New York Times, he kept pulling at that thread. Floyd Patterson – the man “who was constantly being knocked down, but kept getting back up” – became a particular obsession. Talese wrote 30 separate articles on him, until he felt ready to deliver his final, definitive, profile for Esquire in 1964. He called the article – what else? – The Loser. And it’s one of the very finest pieces of sports journalism ever written.

“Sports,” says Talese, “is about people who lose and lose and lose.” Odd thing is, he never quite managed to explain exactly why. Of course it’s implicit in his writing, not least that Patterson piece, but whenever the matter has been put to him outright, he has never had a good answer. Or rather, his answers never seem quite as good as they should be given his talent. “They lose games; then they lose their jobs,” is his standard reply. “It can be very intriguing.” Intriguing? But then it’s a hard question. Why would anyone take satisfaction in watching someone they like and support – and there’s little doubt Talese liked and supported Patterson, given how close the two of them were – lose? Awkward ground, even for a married man who wrote a best-selling book about orgies with strangers.

So, seven days into the World Cup we caught a first glimpse of one of cricket’s great traditions. Pakistan were hammered by West Indies in Christchurch, and 10,000 miles away in Multan a group of Pakistani fans set fire to an effigy of Shahid Afridi. Well, it wouldn’t be an ICC event unless a snapper somewhere got this shot and sent it out on the wires. In fact, according to the reports they held a full mock funeral for their team, and marched through the streets with a coffin and some cricket bats. Sounds like they put some serious effort into organising the protest, assuming, that is, that the ringleaders don’t just keep a store of effigies out back and swap the faces around to suit the occasion. And here’s the thing: in the photos, the fans aren’t angry, they’re all sporting broad smiles. They’re enjoying it.

Whisper it, for it’s the kind of admission that will shock and appal some, but for a certain kind of sports fan there can be a measure of perverse pleasure in watching your team get hammered. John Etheridge, cricket correspondent of the Sun, touched on this on Monday, after England’s win over Scotland. “Cannot understand the mentality of England ‘supporters’ who wanted Scotland to win today,” John tweeted. He was singling out the ones who were hoping defeat would “provoke some sort of revolution”. That anger is certainly one reason why some people seem to relish the side’s recent failures. The ECB and the England team’s management have alienated so many people in the past 12 months that there are a fair few who just want to see Paul Downton, Giles Clarke et al get their comeuppance for kicking Kevin Pietersen out of the team.

That seems to be a matter of spite, writing perceived wrongs, and being proved right. It’s a temporary state, and one that will be gone as soon as the men in question give way or England start winning, whichever happens first. But I’m sure there’s another type, too: English fans with a masochistic streak. Men and women who have learned, over time, to revel in the worst defeats just as much as they enjoy the finest victories. The Barmy Army, after all, were born on the 1994-95 Ashes tour, when England were battered by 184 runs, 295 runs and, in the fifth Test, 329 runs, and lost the series 3-1. And much as their chanting may have irritated many in their early years, most England fans of that era must have had a least a little barmy streak somewhere in them. You’d have to, else why would you stick with them?

What fun Talese would have had if he’d been working the England cricket beat. Their eight-wicket defeat to New Zealand last Friday was widely reckoned to be one of the worst in the team’s history. “One of the most one-sided international matches I’ve ever seen,” said Jonathan Agnew on the BBC. What short memories we have. Strip out the other two formats, and events such as the twin defeats to the Netherlands in the World T20 in 2009 and 2014 and the pair of 5-0 Ashes thrashings, and you still find that the walloping they got in Wellington only just makes their bottom five list of lowest moments in their recent history.

Think back to final of the VB series in January 2003, for instance, when they were bowled out for 117 and then watched Adam Gilchrist and Matthew Hayden knock off the runs in 12 overs and two balls. Or the time Australia bowled them out for 86 in 2001. Or the defeat to Sri Lanka in Dambulla in 2003, when they spent 46 overs making 88. Or the time at Headingley when Upal Tharanga and Sanath Jayasuriya scored 286 together in 32 overs to complete a 5-0 whitewash. Or the 10-wicket hammering from Brendon McCullum and Jesse Ryder in 2008. Or their defeat in the World Cup quarter-finals in 2011, when they failed to take a single wicket and Tharanga and Tillakaratne Dilshan beat their total between them. Even that match against Sri Lanka at Chester-le-Street last summer, when they were bowled out for 99 chasing 256.

And that’s just a quick selection of the strawberry crèmes in England’s assortment. A lot of Australians are, perhaps understandably, utterly incapable of understanding how anyone could celebrate such ineptitude. But for long-suffering England fans, especially those who grew up in the 90s, there is something comforting about England’s batting collapses, something reassuringly familiar about watching their bowlers get belted to all parts. Fact is, the team have been so bad at times that some of their more committed fans have had to become accustomed to the pain, have grown, even, to like it a little. Because that has been the only way to cope.

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