The Perfect Storm

New words added in the dictionary-by Wordsmith:

            Bucknor n, adj,

1. Temporary blindness leading to missing out on the obvious.
2. To be at the wrong place at the wrong time.
3. Situations leading to grave judgemental errors

Usage: I feel bucknored by my boss; Life often throws a bucknor at you.

Benson n, adj,

1. Something that legitimises a severe bucknor.

Usage. First they bucknored me and then they bensoned it. I am toast.

Mike Procter, an I.C.C. match referee takes the word of 2 Australians over that of 1 Indian and the objective evidence.

Procter n, adj,

1. Something that happens after you have been bucknored and bensoned. The cherry on top of the icing on the cake.

Usage. First they bucknored me and then they bensoned it. I am proctered.
 
Coming on the heels of the Hair fiasco, the administrators must accept some of the responsibility for the tension that pervades modern cricket.
 
Martin Williamson, an executive editor of Cricinfo wrote an article December 19, 2007, calling attention to the fact that the U.S State department had blocked the Sanford twenty/ 20 from having Cuba participate in their tournament. He ends the article with “the bully has taken his ball and gone home”.

The United States behaviour should not come as a surprise to anyone. After invading Afghanistan the U.S. gave new meaning to the Claude Rains refrain in the movie Casablanca, “Round up the usual suspects”. A fifteen year old Canadian citizen and “enemy combatant” was among the hundreds rounded up in Kabul Afghanistan and exported to Cuba , where they languish to this day.

We are told the world economy is booming but so is the incidence of violence globally and in cricket. Perhaps the mortgage meltdown in the American financial markets beginning in the summer of 2007 and continuing into 2008 will trigger a worldwide recession and lower peoples expectations and aggression. Although the pundits are predicting a better second half to 2008, we suggest that  after the American elections in November 2008 the recession will deepen. India and China's appetite for raw materials and oil will continue unabated, driving up costs . In this context I read that the Indian twenty/ 20 cricket has signed a $1.75 billion broadcasting deal to carry the Indian twenty/20 international league and the cost of franchises in the league start at $50 million, salaries for players cap at $400,000.  American values and ethics, trash talk or  “mental disintegration” as espoused by the Australians, the lust after the almighty dollar, the Indian twenty/20 leagues, and the American reach, is pervasive.

Micheal Roberts in an article titled Bomb blasts in Pakistan from Essays in Cricket traces overt acts of violence affecting modern cricket to April 4, 1987. The New Zealanders were playing in Sri lanka. A bomb exploded in the Central Bus Stand in the Pettah in Colombo killing 113 and injuring 700. November 1992, the same New Zealanders now under Martin Crowe were visiting Colombo when a suicide bomber on a motor bike rammed into a car in front of the Taj Samandra Hotel where the cricketers were staying. May 2002 the New Zealanders under Steven Fleming were  wetness to a bomb attack in Karachi in front of the hotel they were staying.. Fast forward now to 2008, Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated, elections in Pakistan have been postponed. The American allies, the Aussies, are about to land at or near ground zero, to take on Pakistan. Money is being laid off that the threat of violence will shut this series down. We doubt it. First, the Indians in Australia have established a good precedent that the show must go on in spite of extreme provocation by the hosts and officials. Second, the fact of violence has become a part of the global condition, a by product of an aggressive American foreign policy. Third, violence and the threat of mayhem sells, puts people in the seats and has people glued to their television. Four, the visitors to the sub-continent want to display their wares to the lucrative Indian twenty/20 market.

All the ingredients for a perfect storm. The Pakistan Australia series will start but it may not finish.

Chris Van Twest