Sport Today

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/2625193.stm

On Sat, 4 Jan 2003 22:31:30 -0800, "Raghu Jetley"

Big deal. He wants what he was promised.

At the time that Gatting went to South Africa lots of big
multi-nationals were doing business in SA. How do you think we got
petrol, for example, or computer software?

I never saw the sense of the justice in making sports people the
polecats of the world when a lot of countries would allow big business
to continue to deal with and in SA. Economic sanctions against SA were
more advanced in 1990 than they were in 1982 when the Gooch-led tour
took place, but international trade could and did still go ahead.

The contradictory nature of things was actually shown up in a way by
events at the time of the Gatting tour.

You had the players in the rebel team receiving bans for touring a
country that businesses in their own country could still take money
from.

More pertinently you had an "official" England team in the West Indies
led by a man, Gooch, who had strong cricketing connections in SA
including having led a previous tour there. When Gooch toured the West
Indies with England in 1986 his presence sparked demonstrations and a
minor diplomatic problem. Now he was accepted by the Caribbean
governments. The team he led had included Lamb and Smith who were both
born and learned their cricket in SA and had played in SA (and not as
overseas players) after 1982 and Philip de Freitas who had signed to
go to SA and then reneged on the deal. Included in the opposition was
Ezra Mosely who had participated in two rebel tours in SA.

Quite a muddle.

Things are never quite clear cut.

I agree with most things you say, but I think you missed the background of
my
post - I will summarize it here.

Just a couple of days back Mike Gatting opposed Englands visit to Zimbabwe.

At that time, some posters said that it was double standards because he
himself went to RSA when the blacks were suffering but now doesn't want
England to play in a country where the whites are suffering. At that time,
the counter-argument to this was that Gatting was foolish in going for the
RSA tour, but he afterwards realized the folly of what he did & then
repented
for it. The counter-arguement to this was that Gatting profitted from
apartheid
& hence he should donate the money he made to charity before making such
sanctimonious statements. And then this happens.

Which is at least partly supposition.

Well it hasn't just happened. It seems that Gatting has been after that
money for some time and that the UCB have been disputing it for some time.

In fact the article quotes Bacher as saying "The matter has been in the
hands of the lawyers for several years".

Also it's the squad as a whole who are taking action, not Gatting as an
indvidual. Not quite the same thing.

I think what Raghu Jetley wants to point out in a subtle way is that Mike
Holmans gave a bit of a sermon a few days ago about how it was possible
for Gatting and Graveney to change their opinions and that if they were
wrong back then, it is still possible for them to change their minds and
make the correct m***decision *now* without being charged with hypocricy.

If you think the rebel tours were justified, there is no more to be said. But
if you write what Mike Holmans wrote about reformation and change of
opinion, then this report is a bit of a slap in the face because not only is
it a past error of judgement, but a current proactive effort to get even more
financial gain out of it.

Saying it is the whole squad who is involved in the litigation is no excuse.
The morally awakened about whom Mike Holmans waxed so lyrical can
show consistency by pulling out of the claims.

Your suggestion that the rebel tours weren't morally wrong because other
businesses were operating with South Africa at the time and cricketers
shouldn't be charged in isolation is a valid opinion. I partially subscribe to
that point of view myself. But Zimbabwe doesn't have any trade sanctions
levied against it by the Commonwealth or the UN, so it is still contradictory
behaviour on the part of the objectors like Gatting and Graveney if they are
taking refuge behind that excuse.

Basically there are 2 types of opinions -

1) There wasn't a total trade embargo against SA, so why single cricketers.
    The rebel tours were ok. In that case, the rebels like Gatting shouldn't
    be making anti-Zim noises today because there are no embargoes/sanctions
    against Zim either and we shouldn't single out cricket, right?

OR

2) The rebel tours were a mistake and the rebels have now realised this and
    are taking a more m***stand against an oppressive Zim regime. In which
    case, the rebels look like the biggest bunch of hypocrites for fighting
    with the SACB for more financial benefits... from what they supposedly
    consider was a m***mistake.

Whichever theory you subscribe to, their stands are self-contradictory. These
guys are just media ***s, if you ask me, making statements to get good
press while they try every trick in the book to line their pockets and further
their political ambitions. What bugs me is that the apologists for these guys
put forth completely nonsensical theories to explain away the
charge-of-the-day.

Sure Zimbabwe has a bad problem. Sure something needs to be done. But
the Commonwealth and the UN are the fora to determine what action if any
needs to be taken. People like Gatting and Graveney going on a personal
self-serving crusade in the press doesn't impress me one bit.

- Gussie

Actually I wasn't trying to suggest that the tours were right, I think
you can argue that one all kinds of ways. I just think it was a bit
hypocritical for politicians to want Gatting made an example of when
they allowed big business to continue to profit from trade with South
Africa.

I think the same thing about the proposed boycott of CWC fixtures in
Zimbabwe. Pull your team out of those fixtures, but only as part of a
broader package of sanctions - like telling your constituents that
they can't smoke all those ciggies that contain Zimbabwean tobacco.

Also I happen to think that in THIS CASE the correct thing to do is to
punish the regime and not the country.

Sure.

True. But then if somebody sticks a microphone in their face and asks
for an opinion, or says "Mike, our readers want to know what you think
about Zimbabwe" then what are they to do?

Gatting impressed a lot of people over here in 1990 as being a brave
and sincere (although possibly misguided) man. He didn't strike
anybody as being a rocket scientist.

I also find it completely consistent with what I know about Gatting
that as the captain of that team he would still be leading the action
to get what that team considers to be their due. I really don't know
what anybody expects from him.

(Augustus-Fink-Nottle) tapped the keyboard and brought forth:

Please explain what you mean by a "crusade".

To me, a crusade involves taking positive action, not just responding
to the media when they ask questions on what is obviously a burning
issue in Britain at the moment. When you have government ministers
making statements to the effect that they don't think the English team
should go to Zimbabwe, how realistic is it to expect the chairman of
selectors to have no opinion on the subject?

You appear to be calling it a crusade because the editors at CricInfo
have chosen to pick these people's comments from the British media out
of the dozens and dozens of people from politics and sport in Britain
who are mouthing off in all sorts of directions about it.

It's on every news bulletin, in every edition of every newspaper which
covers cricket at all, this controversy. Yet Cricinfo does not report
each and every statement by each and every former or current cricketer
or minor (or even major) political figure who expresses an opinion -
just the people they feel are interesting enough to the rest of the
world. And because Cricinfo make that editorial decision, Graveney and
Gatting get accused of running a crusade when all they've done is
respond to questions put to them by journalists amongst the hundreds
of people whose opinion has been solicited for public consumption.

I also don't quite see what is so horrible about going back to the
people who sponsored the rebel tour and screwing them for all the
money they said they were going to part with in the first place. Not
to do so seems to me like a donation to the sponsors of the rebel
tour, and I don't really see why Gatting's Indian critics want him and
his fellow twits to make such a donation.

Cheers,

Mike

We are in perfect agreement.

I suppose someone with a controversial past might just choose to be
diplomatic and defer to whatever solution the government came up with -
which is precisely what the England team seems to have done and
belatedly, the ECB.

- Gussie