Do modern cricketers have less fun?

Imran Khan and Zaheer Abbas shared a room when they toured India together.

Given that international cricketers are given single hotel rooms these days, said Sir Viv Richards, slightly ruefully, “they should get more done.”

Bipasha Basu, the Bollywood actress, had just delivered a gushing message to one of Sir Viv’s fellow television panelists, Imran Khan. Cleverly shot in a way that suggested she could either be wearing one of those off-shoulder jobs, or nothing at all, she said she and her mom, and all her friends, and all her mom’s friends, thought Imran was “hot”.

Alan Border and Zaheer Abbas, who made up this four-man “Kings of Cricket panel”, wouldn’t help out either. The conversation nudged its way towards the attention that Imran would get — “from actors and actresses”. Sir Viv pounced, of course, on the “actors” bit. Suggesting with his grin that Imran was an even greater all-rounder than he had believed.

Imran pointed out that the knight was no mean swordsman himself. Being, as he was, the “coolest” of the kings on the show.

Sir Viv, a little bashfully (bowlers: Bashfully is not what you think it means), as one would expect considering what he said, announced: “I stuck to one bone.” At which point, everyone laughed out loud. The studio was short of one of those machines that say: “That answer is…. FALSE!”

Zaheer Abbas, who has family in India (through his daughter’s marriage), had to be asked about the fun times. He was, after all, Imran’s roommate on an action-packed India tour.

But the thing about Zaheer is, even the apocryphal stories are of a different nature. An Indian fan had, apparently, tried to get Z drunk on the eve of an innings. The fan plied him with booze, and drank heartily to boot now that his plan was working. Except that he passed out and wouldn’t have got home, but for the batsman’s grace: Z helped him to a cab. And the next day, Z helped himself to a hundred. (An identical story is told about Sobers, a clear indication that both stories are true.)

Do cricketers these days have as much fun as their twin-sharing predecessors from a previous era?

I would guess they do, but in different, and definitely more surreptitious, ways. Matthew Hayden calls it being less “blokey” in his recent autobiography. There are more spirit-based drinks than beers, he says about cricketers from Gen Y. The Australian dressing room sometimes smells of scented candles rather than sweat: This almost caused Andrew Symonds to have a nervous breakdown. And our modern athletes have ‘stylist grooms’ who prepare them for important events like award ceremonies. This is all ‘fun’.

There’s got to be more to it. We don’t know. But how was it that the kings of the good old days were able to accomplish what they did both on and off the ground? My answer is that in those days, the other 10 guys indulged themselves just as much as the geniuses, making the field even. This had gone on for too long, and one or two of the 10 figured they couldn’t afford it — they were playing many more games with their (relatively) limited ability.

More of these guys followed suit. A word was coined, ‘professionalism’. In football, Gianfranco Zola brought it with him to Chelsea, and some say to the modern English Premier League.

Zola is a legend, but there aren’t that many people who would put him in an all-time world eleven. He wasn’t a genius. He just forced the gifted ones who played against him to play harder on the field and less off it.

This is where the true geniuses were sublimated. They just played at a higher level, no matter what else they did. Or, for that matter, what else anyone else did.

With the retirement of Shane Warne, the last of the geniuses — that broke beds and smoked soothing cigarettes after — are gone.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 23^rd, 2011.