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An overpowering bleakness
By Will 2 years ago, at the end of November, 1 Comment »
Tragedies like the strikes on Mumbai often produce extraordinary writing. Compelled by grief or shock, outrage or justice, there have been a number of great pieces but none better than this by Sambit Bal, my editor at Cricinfo.
I should perhaps be writing a piece assessing the impact of the terrorist attack on Indian cricket, and consequently on the global cricket ecosystem. But I can’t bring myself to. I feel compelled, instead, to write this. I am not sure if Cricinfo has any use for this. I will let my colleagues make the call. It’s been that kind of day.
I was on the streets of Bombay covering the communal riots in 1992, and the serial bomb blasts in 1993. I have seen a mob with swords chase a man and sever his arm from his body; I have seen rioters set an old man alight after garlanding him with car tyres; and I have faced the prospect of being burnt alive myself. For days I left home kissing my small child goodbye with thoughts of the worst. Those days return to haunt me sometimes even today.
But somehow I felt I understood what was happening then. I couldn’t relate to it, but I understood the thirst for retaliation and revenge, the hatred and the frenzy that temporarily consumed ordinary people. I even wondered about a foreseeable future when I could sit down with some of the rioters and talk about what drove them to such madness.
It’s worth five minutes of your time.
1 Comment »Just the facts, Ma’am
By Scott 4 years ago, mid-December, 5 Comments »
There’s an old saying where you only believe half what you read. Sadly, that applies to cricket journalism, too. For example, in the Times, Simon Wilde is writing about Ricky Ponting, and how to thwart him. Wilde thinks Ponting’s temper is his weak spot, and he writes:
And only three months ago, in a meaningless one-day tournament in Malaysia, he lost his rag so completely when umpire Asad Rauf made a call of “wide†that he was fined his entire match fee. Revealingly, the Sydney Daily Telegraph reported the story under the headline “Ponting’s bullying tactics: here we go again.â€
In fact, Ponting didn’t lose his temper at all. I was watching it on television. What actually happened was that Ponting reacted to umpire Asad’s call with a mixture of disbelief and scorn. It was the sort of scorn that doesn’t look good and it was that disrespect that he was fined for. Not ‘losing his temper’.
Why did Wilde make this blunder? I rather doubt it was from malice. I think he just read about the incident in the Australian papers, and took them as gospel. It is remarkable how gullible cricket writers are towards other writers, just as great salesmen can not resist other salesmen.
But who are you going to believe? Me, or your own lying eyes?
5 Comments »This week last year
By Will 4 years ago, mid-May, No Comments; be the first!
Now that I’ve been mumbling here for some time, I thought it’d be interesting to see what I said a year ago. On the right left, if you scroll down, you’ll see a “This week last year” heading with a list of what I scribbled, well…you get the idea. Quite interesting (for me), and shows how far my self-subbing has come on. I like to think I wasn’t too shoddy back then, before joining Cricinfo – and I’m by nowhere near where I ought to be yet! – but it’s fascinating reading things and thinking “ARGHH no. No no no. That’s poor English, Will”.
Hmm…I wonder if people who read Cricinfo are aware how seriously we take our writing. Are you aware? Well you should be! We are fallible, of course, but we take it very seriously and it was the outstanding aspect of my first week there, last July, just how very important an erroneous comma is; the Cricinfo House Style (more on that another time) and so on. It’s all thoroughly exciting for us, and for those who enjoy words, wreading and riting and things. Lukily, my sppeling haz immprooved to.
Anyway, I’d forgotten what I used to call Glenn McGrath. Remember the kerfuffle about Lord’s tickets on eBay? And what about Kevin Pietersen missing out to Ian Bell?! It was all getting very Ashesy too.
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