Different hats, different thinking? Technocracy, globalization and the Indian cricket team

Abstract

This essay analyses the public debate and the controversies surrounding Australian ex-Test cricketer Greg Chappell during his tenure as coach of the Indian cricket team between 2005 and 2007. It uses the media discourse on Chappell to delineate emerging trends in Indian cricket culture in the context of contemporary Indian society, globalization and relations between East and West within the global economy. Chappell's tenure as coach of Team India emerged as an important marker in the evolution of a global cricket technocracy which flattens out, or threatens to flatten out, what have been perceived as historic differences between national cricket cultures.

Notes

¹ Ajit Parker, ‘Greg Chappell is India's new cricket coach’. http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/2788.asp.

² Suggested by co-author, Indian cricket writer Sharda Ugra, email to SW, February 18, 2007.

³ http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/other_international/south_africa/4562945.stm.

⁴ Mike Selvey, ‘Chappell Rides Bumps on Road Paved with Passion and Pop-star Idolatry’. http://sport.guardian.co.uk/englandinindia/story/0,1720518,00.html.

⁵ ‘Chappell Asks Players to Make Their Own Destiny’. http://www.hindu.com/2005/07/14/stories/2005071404312000.htm.

⁶ ‘Chappell Asks Players to Make Their Own Destiny’. http://www.hindu.com/2005/07/14/stories/2005071404312000.htm

⁷ ‘Chappell Asks Players to Make Their Own Destiny’. http://www.hindu.com/2005/07/14/stories/2005071404312000.htm

⁸ ‘Chappell Asks Players to Make Their Own Destiny’. http://www.hindu.com/2005/07/14/stories/2005071404312000.htm

⁹ ‘Team India readies for mind battles’. http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/jul142005/sports1746312005713.asp.

¹⁰ http://www.answers.com/topic/sourav-ganguly.

¹¹ http://in.rediff.com/cricket/2005/sep/23gang.htm.

¹² http://www.smh.com.au/news/cricket/text-of-greg-chappells-email/2005/09/26/1127586778800.html.

¹³ http://cricket.expressindia.com/fulleistory.php?content_id = 55946.

¹⁴ http://cricket.expressindia.com/fulleistory.php?content_id = 55946

¹⁵ Sharda Ugra, ‘Recipe for Disaster’. India Today, December 10, 2005, 70–1.

¹⁶ Sharda Ugra, ‘Recipe for Disaster’. India Today, December 10, 2005, 70–1, 76.

¹⁷ Sharda Ugra, ‘Recipe for Disaster’. India Today, December 10, 2005, 70–1, 78.

¹⁸ Sharda Ugra, ‘Team 2007 will be a Flexible One; We're Not trying to Sweep the Cupboard Clean’ (interview with Greg Chappell and Rahul Dravid). India Today, December 12, 2005, 58.

¹⁹ http://www.indianexpress.com/res/web/pIe/full_story.php?content_id = 86108, January 18, 2006.

²⁰ http://www.indianexpress.com/printerFriendly/5825.html, June 6, 2006.

²¹ http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20061013/sports.htm#2.

²² Ajay S. Shankar, ‘Politicians Bay for his Head but Chappell Looks to Future, Won't Say No to Post-World Cup Stint’. http://www.indianexpress.com/story/17276.html, November 25, 2006.

²³ Ashok Chatterjee, ‘Lame Duck Pitch?’. Calcutta Times, December 5, 2006.

²⁴ http://cricket.expressindia.com/fulleistory.php?content_id = 77982.

²⁵ http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID123885&category = Sports&catID = 5.

²⁶ Hughes, Yakking Around the World, 209.

²⁷ http://www.sportstaronnet.com/stories/20061202010701200.htm, December 2, 2006.

²⁸ Said, Orientalism.

²⁹ Beckles, The Development of West Indies Cricket.

³⁰ See Hector, with Stephen Wagg, ‘One Eye on the Ball, One Eye on the World: Cricket, West Indian Nationalism and the Spirit of C.L.R. James’.

³¹ Ugra, ‘Play Together, Live Apart: Religion, Politics and Markets in Indian Cricket since 1947’, 89.

³² Selvey, ‘Chappell Rides Bumps on Road Paved with Passion and Pop-star Idolatry’.

³³ Ugra, ‘Play Together, Live Apart: Religion, Politics and Markets in Indian Cricket since 1947’, 86.

³⁴ Thompson, ‘Time, Work-Discipline and Industrial Capitalism’, 57. Quoted in Nick Couldry, ‘Reality TV, or the Secret Theatre of Neoliberalism’ available on Nick Couldry's web page http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/departments/media-communications/staff/couldry.php.

³⁵ Thompson, ‘Time, Work-Discipline and Industrial Capitalism’, 57. Quoted in Nick Couldry, ‘Reality TV, or the Secret Theatre of Neoliberalism’ available on Nick Couldry's web page http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/departments/media-communications/staff/couldry.php

³⁶ ‘Money too good, Ian hints at Ganguly spot’. http://cricket.expressindia.com/fulleistory.php?content_id=55946, 5 December, 2006.

³⁷ Wright, with Ugra and Thomas, John Wright's Indian Summers, 241.

³⁸ http://www.smh.com.au/news/cricket/text-of-greg-chappells-email/2005/09/26/1127586778800.html.

³⁹ McGregor, Greg Chappell, 263.

⁴⁰ Khilnani, The Idea of India, 147–8.

⁴¹ ‘Cricket Legend Greg Chappell's Coaching is Now Available to All Indians’. http://www.1888pressrelease.com/cricket-legend-greg-chappell-s-coaching-is-now-available-to-pr-13ieu6u31.html, March 24, 2006.

⁴² Samyabrata Ray Goswami, ‘Pay & Chappell Way is Yours – Australian Company Sells Cricket Training Package’. http://www.telegraphindia.com/1060331/asp/frontpage/story_6038422.asp, March 31, 2006.

⁴³ Samyabrata Ray Goswami, ‘Pay & Chappell Way is Yours – Australian Company Sells Cricket Training Package’. http://www.telegraphindia.com/1060331/asp/frontpage/story_6038422.asp, March 31, 2006

⁴⁴ See, for example, Joseph Hoover, ‘Chappell Blames “Haughty” Seniors’. Times of India (New Delhi Edition), April 2, 2007.

⁴⁵ Vinay Nayudu, ‘Stranded on Chappellway’. Times of India, April 2, 2007.

⁴⁶ See Indranil Basu, ‘Clean-Up Act? Seniors Join War of Words with Chappell’. Times of India (New Delhi Edition), April 3, 2007; Ajay Naidu, ‘It Hurts if Coach Questions Our Attitude, says Tendulkar’, and Ajay Naidu, ‘Greg Pushed Indian Cricket Back’, both in Times of India (New Delhi Edition), April 4, 2007.

⁴⁷ ‘Indian board on horns of a dilemma’. Times of India, April 4, 2007.

⁴⁸ Ajaysshankar, ‘Dirt Piling Up, The Covers are being Drawn’. http://cricket.expressindia.com/fulliestory.php?content_id = 27725, April 7, 2007.

⁴⁹ Geoff Lawson, ‘Drama and Greg!’ http://www.mid-day.com/sports/international/2007/may/156675.htm, May 4, 2007.

⁵⁰ Rohit Brijnath, ‘Your Team, Skip!’ http://www.mid-day.com/sports/national/2007/june/159705.htm, June 21, 2007.

⁵¹ Roberts, Essaying Cricket: Sri Lanka and Beyond, 2.

⁵² Guha, A Corner of a Foreign Field: The Indian History of a British Sport, 352.

⁵³ Lawrence Booth, ‘Vaughan Sorry After Bitter Defeat’. http://sport.guardian.co.uk/englandindia2007/story/0,2138960,00.html, August 1, 2007.

⁵⁴ Lawrence Booth, ‘Vaughan Sorry After Bitter Defeat’. http://sport.guardian.co.uk/englandindia2007/story/0,2138960,00.html, August 1, 2007

⁵⁵ Guha, India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy, 737.

⁵⁶ Amit Jugran, Press Release: ‘Greg Chappell Inaugurates the Future Cricket Academy on Behalf of Ad Factors’. October 1, 2007.

⁵⁷ Amit Jugran [[email protected]] Press Release: ‘Greg Chappell Inaugurates the Future Cricket Academy on Behalf of Ad Factors’. October 1, 2007

⁵⁸ Amit Jugran [[email protected]] Press Release: ‘Greg Chappell Inaugurates the Future Cricket Academy on Behalf of Ad Factors’. October 1, 2007

⁵⁹ Amit Jugran [[email protected]] Press Release: ‘Greg Chappell Inaugurates the Future Cricket Academy on Behalf of Ad Factors’. October 1, 2007