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spiration his best self leamon s choice to avoid a novel that explicitly challenges the relationship between sport and society is interesting whilst we see the effects of everyday life on mac as a sportsman his failures and successes are ultimately determined by his reaction to these and his personal resolve the vagaries of sport are those within the game the pitch the umpire the opposition mac is in the bubble of the elite sportsman this is fascinating in itself and a large part of the appeal of sport seeing an individual cope with the challenges of pressure the difficulties of teamwork the masterful execution of a finely tuned skill are insights into the human condition recognisable emotions and ability beyond comprehension played out before us a novel can do similar things and leamon and raisin s works both raise important questions about what a novel about sport should and can do leamon s choice is to focus on mac as sportsman his novel being an imaginative and impressive realisation of such he looks outside of the simple prism of the match into mac s life and the portrait of the man is richer for it however raisin s depiction of tom and his teammates is far more invested in the social and political asking important questions of the sport itself for leamon the challenges of cricket are ultimately improving for raisin football for all the potential fulfilment it allows is flawed and its homophobia among other flaws ultimately limits it moreover it is representative of an unequal society in which ability does not equal success if your for example gender race or sexuality means you are subject to violence or exclusion aravind adiga s novel selection day similarly challenges implicit meanings of sport it is about cricket but sharply questions its claims to moral value the two teenage brothers that it follows are cursed with cricketing talent in modern india their record breaking success bringing angst pressure and financial exploitation this is a novel that looks at cricket and asks how you could love or admire it adiga presents cricket in modern india as a corrosive force a sport that churns through talented youngsters damaging them and using their passion and ability to enrich others record scores attract unwanted attention the prospect of success attracts unseemly offers this is partly a reflection of changes in indian society the rise of neoliberalism changing value and values and where for adiga the financialisation of cricket has warped any notion of the game offering fulfilment beyond the commercial whilst in the test mac must contend with the stress that professionalism puts on his life beyond the game it ultimately has worth for him whilst he needs to succeed to pay his mortgage he can also find his true self in sporting excellence manju one of the teenage protagonists of selection day finds his success stifling his motivation distant from self improvement unlike mike jackson another literary cricketing prodigy cricket not its absence is a punishment and his dreams of escape are away from the field not onto it moreover like tom in a natural manju s sexuality must be repressed for sporting excellence his social acceptance depends on performing certain ideals of masculinity ultimately the difference between the test and the novels of raisin and adiga is their willingness to place sport within a wider social context leamon s text chooses to focus on an insider a privileged figure if a not untroubled one leamon s level of insight into the professional game is rare for a novelist and lends a realism to the novel and his understanding of the pressures of international sport mean that they are powerfully represented yet his aligning of the text to a certain vision of cricket as moral force is problematic in that mac s position is one in which he has never been excluded from the game itself or required to subvert his identity in order to achieve success whilst he has struggled with personal problems and tragedy cricket if done well offers him escape and salvation as well as moral realisation for manju tom and many others sport can never adopt such a position in their lives the sacrifices they must make to fit into sporting societies that seek to exploit or exclude qualify any success they achieve a discussion of moral worth in sport would seem cruel to them whilst leamon has written a terrific novel about a sportsman it s important to remember that he s writing about one of the lucky ones posted in cricket culture tagged book reviews cricket literature popular culture leave a comment feeling is the thing review posted on january 14 2018 by christian drury sport doesn t lend itself to the surreal yes the comic the incongruous the miraculous even but not the weird or the unreal even then great sport tends to the elevated rather than the transcendental the structures that make games workable both formal and informal discourage revolution sports photography struggles to capture the rare appearance of the surreal often a feeling or personal connection constrained by their inability to control or intrude on the subject it is a mark of patrick eagar s skill as a photographer that he captures the surreal in jeff thomson producing an image both bizarre and essential it is a famous photograph thomson stretching and twisting totally unlike a bowler and the logical endpoint bowling intensified button up shirt unbuttoned prog rock hair face gaunt like dore s satan the ball visible between his legs a freudian hint at the virility of fast bowling it is an image that captures force and grace thomson as gymnast and hitman christian ryan the fine australian cricket writer has previous with thomson the man who he wrote in wisden bowled faster probably than anyone in the universe ever has and faster perhaps than the universe wanted him to bowl for his new book feeling is the thing that happens in a 1000th of a second he has discussed a series of photos from 1975 with eagar exploring their imagery technology and context the thomson one is probably the best known and one which speaks to an era ripe for discussion the english summer of 1975 was in cricketing terms one of the cusp of revolution the helmets floodlights and coloured clothing of world series cricket just a few years away it was the summer of the first world cup and eagar captures both the incipient modernity of the rapidly evolving limited overs game and the vestiges of tradition the cadences of english summers little altered whilst cricket s revolution was yet to come it is striking to see eagar s photographs presented together with those from the rest of the world what eagar sees in front of him are starched shirts heavy sweaters and warm beer even the modernism of the trent bridge office block is municipal eagar s first photo for the cricketer appeared in the cricketer in 1965 a pastoral scene of fenner s complete with suited undergraduates overshadowing trees and fred titmus black and white of course in the very same week sports illustrated published in glorious technicolour a famous photograph of muhammad ali knocking out sonny liston ali yelling gloves scarlet spectators craning in as ryan puts it the timing may be one of the century s strangest sports photography coincidences the contrast is certainly striking but eagar was not simply a reactionary retreating to the comforts of the traditional he received a fine training in photojournalism he travelled to vietnam in 1966 taking photos in military hospitals but he chose to continue to photograph cricket when he returned it seems that this is what ryan is probing questioning what did eagar see in cricket that caught his attention what kept him focussed on the game when he could have chosen to photograph the global great and good the social shifts of the second half of the twentieth century at times the political is inescapable in eagar s photography especially in his images depicting viv richards and other west indians proud black men at the pinnacle of their sport at other times ryan s nostalgia for eagar s photographic pinnacle seems problematic about the only woman in the photos of eagar s selected for the book is one walking past the sightscreen in the fenner s picture the images depict a male world and its homosocial spaces the congratulatory gathering of players at the fall of a wicket the inner sanctum of the changing room the chappell brothers recline moustachioed and smoking captured in their element by eagar the power of the images is undeniable they seem however remote as dated as the helmetless heads and buckled pads in their stern intimacy this intimacy is the main quality of eagar s photography what draws ryan to them now eagar tells him of his affinity for umpires without whom the game unspools the umpire is the person intimately involved with the game who most resembles the observer their slight detachment the mundane nature of many of their tasks counting checking adjusting their physical ability and appearance less intimidatingly distant than that of the players the photographer is necessarily distant the playing area bounded and exclusive unlike the umpire their role as watcher and recorder requiring proximity these roles have become blurred in the age of television line calls and referrals but for eagar in 1975 all his skill and technical expertise were required to capture the intimacies and intricacies of the game eagar might have got lucky occasionally but as ryan recognises he had to dream up the possibilities of the photograph in the first place photographs like the one of thomson contain the magic of possibility of momentary unknowing there is one of phil edmonds bowling a hat trick delivery on debut where the ball hovers inches from his fingers a deep breath that watching live or on television cannot prolong similarly there is one of roy fredericks hit wicket dismissal in the 1975 world cup final the eyes of the batsman and the square leg fielder are fixed on the ball sailing to fine leg but the bails lie disturbed at the base of the stumps it is a similar moment of unknowing one that only a photograph could capture these fragments of play shots of time and possibility are what ryan engages with alongside the emotional resonance of faces captured in action there is a surreal photo again of asif iqbal seeming to laugh as his off stump is knocked out of the ground another which captures ross edwards anxiety as his eyes track the ball towards the slip cordon from his edge the earnest concern of a parent or teacher on his middle aged face it is in these images that ryan searches for art and asks eagar for exposition or additional meaning the text is a rich one and can be read rather like the accompanying essay in the catalogue of an exhibition ryan s prose is characteristically engaging but acts largely as a prompt to consideration eagar s pictures so full of emotion brotherhood nostalgia energy potential and grace both explore a moment and a sport 1975 in cricket the year of the first world cup and the last ashes before world series cricket sits apart from cultural change yet also reflects it but eagar s photography also questions our ways of seeing cricket from the emotions of players to the contortions of bowling actions this is the great strength of feeling in the thing two people who stretch our conceptions of the game question our understandings and literal perspectives in conversation this search for meaning perhaps explains eagar s return to cricket post vietnam a recognition that sport even english cricket in the 1960s can reveal much of the human experience if 1975 seems distant its cast faded in the memory the sharpness of eagar s work retrieves it and continues to ask questions for cricket s present and future of its aesthetics and its meanings posted in cricket tagged art australia book reviews christian ryan cricket england patrick eagar photography sport technology leave a comment at the other end the ashes history and heritage posted on january 3 2018 by christian drury not many sporting encounters can match the pedigree of the ashes it is approaching 140 years of near unbroken competition largely at the pinnacle of the sport with a storied cast of combatants and a grand compendium of anecdote and legend each new series is written into this story is the latest battle for the urn historic trophy foregrounded at first glance the england australia rivalry seems overflowing with history narrative heritage but a closer look reveals each of those concepts plays a different role sometimes overlapping with the others and often to the detriment of the game and how we understand it in a terrific article written during the melbourne test george dobell criticised the standard of media coverage during the ashes and the deliberate attempts to stoke controversy and misinterpret nuanced statements here ashes history feeds into a narrative comprised of controversial incidents providing an explanation for supposedly inevitable skulduggery history leads to rivalry which must in turn lead to controversy manufactured controversy is of course attention grabbing good for viewing figures and clicks perhaps it is a sign of a game unsure of its ability to attract purely as a spectacle where a diverse media environment both swamps test cricket as a background to summer and has to repackage it as moments of partisan debate what retelling history for the purpose of a narrative of rivalry does is elide much of it at the expense of a few supposedly quintessential moments hence the constant references to bodyline the acme of ashes rivalry colonial conflict and blood on the wicket but almost no other mention of pre second world war ashes cricket except perhaps the inception of the urn or wg grace s gamesmanship cricket s history becomes one of ancient hatreds that lazy shortcut to understanding conflict the only other role the past provides besides explaining why it s so important that it all kicks off out there is as a repository of data against which the present can be set alongside the controversy the other great love of modern coverage is the record a neat statistic that can take the place of analytical judgement of a performance to be record breaking is to be notable and can therefore be used to grab attention alastair cook s 244 at melbourne was for example the highest score by a test opener carrying their bat a striking but slightly recondite stat yet this seemed to lead much of the coverage a record breaking performance by the england opener hence little else needed to be said in terms of subjective analysis context or interesting historical background the record is easily conveyed to the audience but genuinely informative coverage is limited so history as part of narrative of controversy or silo of statistical data fails to do the ashes or the game justice at the same time one must beware fetishize the past meaningless nostalgia helps no one the pre war history that bodyline overshadows relates to a g...
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