BOUNDARIES MATTER

NO, THIS IS NOT ABOUT THE LOC or LAC; even though it would be good to have a linguist educate us about the difference between a line of control and one of actual control. Nor is this about whether Crimea and Donbas are on this side or that side of the Russia-Ukraine border, or about nine-dot and eleven-dot lines marking boundaries in the South China Sea.

- Kiran Karnik

It is not even about the boundary that separates “with-us” from “against-us”, and India’s efforts to persuade the US that there is, in fact, a grey area between black and white. Business, of course, has its own boundary concerns: who is a “related party” and who is not, for example. Or the boundary between the Board Chair of a company and its CEO: should the philosophy of advaita (non-duality) prevail; can it be one and the same person? That too is not the topic here.

Having said niti, niti (not this, for those less steeped in philosophical meanderings) let us clarify that this is about another type of boundary: the one in cricket. Regarded at one time as a “gentleman’s game”, the aristocrats frowned at the entry of professional players. However, it is arguably the spectators – rather than players – who needed to be persons-of-leisure: who else could afford to spend five full days watching 13 people run around on a field in a Test match which often ended with no result! Now, women’s cricket requires removing the gender tag, while fierce rivalries of a now-less gentle game require dispensing with the first part too of “gentlemen”.

PROFESSIONAL AND AMATEUR

Other boundaries too are dissolving or changing. Beginning with the bodyline series in 1932, intimidation became part of an attacking approach by the fielding team. In more recent times, sledging too has become an acceptable form of a team’s strategy.