"But I Digress ..." (28 page)

Martina Navratilova

BUSINESS DAY, 30 JANUARY 2003

I
AM NOT ORDINARILY
someone who admires lesbians. Lesbians and I, historically, do not get along. We struggle, you see, to find common ground. We are often trying to meet the same women, we squabble over the same pool tables and I am always afraid to take off my denim jacket in case a lesbian tries it on. Have you ever tried retrieving a denim jacket from a lesbian? You could lose an arm that way.

So no – by and large, lesbians and I are like icebergs and cruise liners. We may occasionally share the same waters, but it is usually better for all concerned if we do not bump into each other. And yet there are some notable exceptions. It would be my very great honour to bump into Martina Navratilova. Of course, if I did, I know who would come off second best. She may be 46 years old, but that is one tough old broad.

Back in the 1980s I was never a Navratilova fan. Chris Evert-Lloyd was my gal. I used to sigh for her little frilly skirts and her slender wrists and I used to lie awake at night gasping with pleasure at the thought of her two-fisted backhand. She was slight and feminine and I could imagine one day when I was older taking her to the matric dance. If Chrissie was the good princess in the morality play of women's tennis, Martina was the ogre, the beast that kept cropping up to deny virtue its rewards. She stalked the courts like a panther stalking Bambi. “It is not fair!” we used to cry. “Martina's too muscular and fast! She must be cheating. Real women are just not built that way!”

Martina today is as strong and muscular as she has ever been, but when she steps on court in the presence of today's lady tennis players – Davenport, the Williams, the other Williams – she looks as Chrissie once did. She looks like a girl playing men. And who would have predicted, 20 years ago, that it would be Martina who staked the lasting claim in the affections of those who follow, however peripherally, the world of tennis? Yet it was Martina who turned out to have the personality, the charm, the intelligence. And it is Martina who is still winning tournaments.

Last weekend, at the age of 46 years and three months, Martina Navaratilova won the Australian Open mixed doubles title, playing with Leander Paes. That is 29 years – 29 years! – after her first Grand Slam mixed doubles crown, and provided her with the final title in her collection. She has now won the singles, doubles and mixed doubles titles at every single Grand Slam tournament. It is scarcely credible. And despite having returned to competitive doubles tennis “for the fun of it”, and despite having found a full and active life outside the game, she is as fiery, focused and competitive as ever in her long career. It is inspiring to watch.

Martina is one of those rare, life-affirming stories that the soulless world of professional sport still manages to produce, despite itself. Like George Foreman in the 1990s, or Steve Redgrave's heroics for the English rowing team, or Roger Milla playing for Cameroon, or Courtney Walsh almost single-handedly carrying the West Indies through their lowest ebb, Martina is a parable of commitment and intensity that defies the youthist propaganda of a commercial world that all too easily forgets its real heroes. Martina reminds us of the days when the money meant less than the winning.

A World Cup protest

BUSINESS DAY, 6 FEBRUARY 2003

Y
OU MAY NOT
have noticed, sitting so far away, as you are, but I am writing this with no clothes on. Yes, you heard me – no clothes on. Naked, in other words. This is not just because I made a number of unwise decisions at the J&B Met last Saturday, not least the decision to carry on betting even after the seventeenth complimentary glass of the sponsor's product in the sponsor's marquee. The last I remember is yelling, “I'll put everything I have on The Badger in Race 10. See! Even my shoes!”

But no, it is not just for reasons of poverty that I sit here writing all draughtily, feeling very thankful that modern technology allows me the safety of the personal computer, rather than the perilous keys of the old-fashioned typewriter. No, indeed, I am naked because I have gotten political. I am making a protest, damn it all.

I was inspired by the footage on the television news this week of a gang of flabby lady journalists who apparently whipped off their kit and lay down on a deserted patch of Cape Town to protest against Bush going to war. Now, there are too many obvious jokes to be made at this point, so I shall constrain myself to saying that once I had stopped laughing, my own political conscience was pricked. I too believe there is a pressing issue worth protesting, and so I am.

I shall remain in my pristine naked state as a statement against the commercial branding of cricket and sport and everything I hold dear. I do not mind the sportsmen themselves selling their faces and their names and spaces on their bats to large companies, but I most vehemently object to the principle of being told by the ICC what I may or may not wear to the ground during this year's Cricket World Cup. All you good businessmen reading this column can tell me all you like how the money generated by exclusive rights is necessary so that we can afford all the fireworks and the giant cardboard zebras at the opening ceremony, and so that Ali Bacher can buy a nice houseboat when he retires, but I do not care. It is a matter of personal freedom.

If, after I have paid the better part of two grand to a scalper to watch the opening game on Sunday, I choose to go to the ground dressed like that clown from McDonald's, bouncing on a giant inflatable waving a banner saying “I only drink Fanta Grape”, I should be able to, dagnabbit. And then, of course, the guys on the bank behind me should have the right to smack me around a bit for obstructing their view.

But I should most certainly be able to eat and drink whatever I please. For years now it has been almost mandatory to bring your own tasty treats to Newlands, otherwise you end up having to buy your sustenance from Anil's Fine Boerie Rolls, or some such similar house of pain. No longer. Now, the only takeaway you are allowed to bring into the ground is apparently “a litre-bottle of unbranded water”. Vodka, in other words. Security is certainly going to be a thing to behold. If you get caught sneaking in a pipe bomb, you will be summarily ejected. If you get caught sneaking in a box of Nando's flame-grilled chicken, you will get roughed up and
then
summarily ejected. Heaven help you if you get caught with a pipe bomb inside a box of Nando's flame-grilled chicken.

Well, I will not stand for it. In two days the World Cup begins, and I shall not be a stooge of the multinationals. When the anthem plays I shall be at home, naked, standing to attention, one hand over my heart, the other hand clutching any item of fast food it feels like clutching. I will not be branded, I tell you. I will not be herded. I will stay home and clutch my freedom. Plus, I do not have tickets to any of the games.

World Cup opening ceremony

CAPE TIMES, 10 FEBRUARY 2003

P
ERHAPS YOU HAD
to be there. I have spoken to a number of people who were at Newlands for the opening ceremony of the Cricket World Cup, and most seemed amiably impressed. “It was colourful,” said my friend Dan, “and, you know, loud.” He paused. “And there was a good feeling in the stadium.”

I was glad to hear that, because there was not an especially good feeling in my living room. The ceremony on television was underwhelming. It was so underwhelming it would have had to borrow platform shoes and stand on tippy-toes just to reach the whelming mark.

The problem was that it suffered by comparison – not with the Sydney Olympics, but with the 1995 Rugby World Cup. In 1995 we were less determined to produce a two-hour musical infomercial about why tourists should come to South Africa. The 1995 opening was not an extravaganza – there were speeches, PJ Powers, some people running around clutching lengths of crinkle-paper, but then there was that single, simple image that lives forever in the imagination: the airliner passing low over the stadium and stirring, shaking,
moving
everyone who experienced it.

Memorable ceremonies need a defining image: the archers lighting the flame in Barcelona; a trembling Muhammad Ali bearing the torch in Atlanta. Saturday's ceremony had no such moment, and for all the rah and razz about Africa, it had no real identity. It was a bafflement of people in leotards and plywood costumes, a fussy, jumbly, interminable medley of local music, and the longest, pushiest, most expensive travel brochure ever produced. It was as if the budget had been taken from the Cape Tourism Authority, and they were determined to get their money's worth. Look! We have a mountain! And the sea! And a fashion industry! And … and animals! And the first heart transplant! And we invented the Rooivalk helicopter! Come visit us! Bring dollars!

An important advantage of being at the stadium is that you did not have Robert Marawa's witless voice-over. “Welcome to untamed Africa!” gurgled Robert Marawa. Untamed Africa? Since when has Newlands been untamed? Have they banned lawnmowers below Main Road since last I visited? Have the bears escaped from Tygerberg Zoo?

Still, at least Robert Marawa didn't have to be Marc Lottering. Hasn't that poor man suffered enough? For some reason, Lottering had to pretend to be a safari guide taking a gormless posse of tourists around the field. (Yes! Tourists! With foreign currency! Hint, hint!) Every so often we cut back to Lottering's gang of mugs, lined up and dancing for the camera like extras in a Boney M video. At first I was puzzled. What on earth were they doing? Ah, then it became clear – that mechanical dancing, the laughable clothing, those clenched jaws and rictal grins … they were a subliminal sales pitch. Yes, you prospective tourists, in addition to all its other attractions, Cape Town has a ready supply of recreational drugs!

It was surreal, especially after I discovered that SABC3's coverage lagged five minutes behind Supersport's. If you really liked those crêpe-paper meerkats, you could duck over to the SABC and feast your eyes a second time. If the SABC maintain this time-lag policy for the games, we can make a fortune calling friends without DStv and betting big money on what is about to happen.

There was a maritime sequence. I watched agog as a giant octopus and a whale squared up belligerently. “The octopus and the whale battle for control of the seas,” explained Robert helpfully. At last! Some action! But who do we root for? Who is the good guy? In balletic slow-mo the whale poked the octopus in the belly with its nose. Then they drifted off again on their own currents, papier-mâché beasts passing in the night. Now I'll never know who has control of the seas.

The low point was the tournament anthem. It was so nondescript, so utterly without hook, that by the time it was over I could scarcely remember hearing it. It was as though I had overheard it being played at a low volume on the neighbours' television while asleep.

Like the anthem, the ceremony wound to an end without any highlights. It just did not work on television. There was no rhythm to the evening, no heart. There was no drama, no Madiba, no magic. A lot of work went into the occasion, but not much imagination. I do not say this to dull a joyous mood. I am proudly South African. I am as proud as I was before the ceremony. But the ceremony did not make me any more proud than I already was, and that is a shame.

Cricket World Cup 2003: A toast to the minnows

BUSINESS DAY, 20 FEBRUARY 2003

I
WAS SHATTERED WHEN
we lost to the West Indies in the first match, but even had we won, I could not have been more genuinely delighted than I was watching Kenya beat Sri Lanka this week. What happened in that match was a triumph for sport, and for the dream of what sport used to mean.

Amid all the fluster and hullabaloo of the World Cup so far, I have been finding solace in the smaller teams. I watched in raptures as the Canadians beat the Bangladeshis in their first match, this team of part-timers, this hodge-podge gaggle of plumbers and builders and high-school teachers from a frozen land, tubby, elderly and not uniformly fleet of foot, expecting nothing of this tournament and with nothing but the joy of the game in their hearts. I was just as delighted with the Netherlands slugging it out with the Indians, the Namibians hanging tough with Pakistan.

There is something reassuringly pure in watching the small teams pitting themselves against insuperable odds merely to stand tall with giants. With the exception of Bangladesh, the most undeserving test nation under this or any conceivable heaven, they all deserve to stand tall. It is soothing to watch them. There are no cross-currents or clouds to obscure your pleasure. There are no doping scandals or salary wrangles; there are no power plays or petty politics; there are no niggling rumours that so-and-so is about to quit to play county cricket, or that such-and-such has lost his passion for the game. It is just 11 men doing their best to play well a game they still love, a game that has not become just another way of earning a living.

And how they are performing. John Davison of Canada, in an innings out of
Roy of the Rovers
, scored the fastest century in World Cup history. John-Berry Burger of Namibia cracked an even-time 80-odd against England. And then the Kenyans smacked Sri Lanka. Of course Collins Obuya's 5-24 was the highlight, but it was not Obuya who won that match. The Sri Lankans were simply blown away by the most passionate team performance of the tournament so far.

The Kenyans fielded like South Africa used to field. They threw themselves around; they sprinted after balls from which no runs were likely to accrue; they encouraged and congratulated and consoled and urged each other on. Two images will live with me from that game: the Kenyans gathering after each wicket, their arms around each others' shoulders and jumping up and down at the joy of being together and fighting together; and Collins Obuya, having dismissed Chaminda Vaas, sprinting from sheer exuberance towards the boundary ropes like an English football player.

For me, the biggest game of the World Cup will be Kenya against Bangladesh. It is a clash that represents for me the fundamental tension in world sport: commerce versus the game itself. Bangladesh should not have test status ahead of Kenya. Compared with the fire and heart and passion of the Kenyans, the Bangladeshis are like a mini-Pakistan. They were only given test status because the bean-counters at the ICC calculated they could make more money from the larger Bangladeshi market. For a few extra bucks they turned their backs on the Kenyans and left them to flail about on their own.

When Kenya beat Bangladesh and move into the Super Sixes they will have made a firm point on behalf of the so-called minnows that have given me so much pleasure these past weeks. I have, I realise now, been feeling my own passion for the game dwindle as I watch the jaded self-absorption of some of the big teams, treating each match like just another day at the office, their minds on their endorsement contracts or the golf course, all romance and wonder drained out of their games. It has taken the minnows to remind me of how it used to be.

“We play every game as though it's the World Cup final,” said the Netherlands captain this week. The Canadians will not only not be paid for their time here, but they have had to take annual leave from their day jobs back home, and they did it willingly, for the simple love of cricket. Along with the bravehearts of Namibia and the heroes of Kenya, they remind me of what is glorious about the game, and how much we have lost since becoming professional. On behalf of sport lovers everywhere, I want to thank them all. The World Cup would not be the same without them.