Tony Deyal
IN 1997, in Barbados, two orbiting worlds were in conjunction - the rising star of opera, Luciano Pavarotti, who with the Three Tenors had rekindled interest in classical music, and Brian Lara who was still in the ascendancy with a West Indies team that had not yet become a black hole, draining and sucking into its bottomless pit all our emotions and passions. Now, the West Indies team has become a comic opera and a beleaguered Brian is being made to look like the Phantom of the Opera. While, in the interim, their fortunes have diverged and even more differences have emerged between Pavarotti and the Prince, they still have a lot in common.
In terms of their differences, it is true that in music the conductor uses a baton and the cricketer a bat. In opera, while the person in charge of the music, the conductor, yells at the players, in cricket, the players yell at the person in charge, the umpire. There are uproars in cricket while there are only operas in music. Cricket has been described as "organised loafing". Opera has been described as being "like a husband with a foreign title: expensive to support, hard to understand and therefore a supreme social challenge."
SIMILARITIES
However, consider the similarities. In music and cricket, "form" is extremely important. In music, it is the plan of organisation which a composer follows in assembling his musical materials. In cricket it is everything for the player, whether batsman or bowler. If you are out of form in cricket, like most of the West Indies team, you can only pray for someone else to have worse form than you. If you say that aloud, it is not considered good form and hence not cricket. It is the same with "pitch". In music, this is the height or depth of a sound. In cricket, it is center-stage, the point where the crucial action takes place. Nowadays, losers in cricket generally blame the pitch. A pitch that is "flat" is not desirable in cricket. However, in music, a flat is a note played below the natural note. Some notes are also "double flat" like the pitches in Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad. This created considerable discord with the players. Many have voiced their concern, demanding that our groundsmen change the tenor of their ways.
"Runs" are also very important to both music and cricket. In music, a "run" is a series of notes, usually part of a scale, which is played or sung quickly. In cricket, it is the unit of measurement of performance. Brian Lara made history by setting a record of 400 runs in Test cricket, the most runs in an over, and 501 in first-class cricket. Pavarotti, who has made many records (tapes and CDs), also made history by singing nine high "C's" in a row, night after night in the opera "La Fille du Regiment". Runs in cricket make up a team's "score", the all important total that is the target for the opponents. Scores in cricket, comprising all the different runs, are generally tabulated and placed on a page in a score-sheet.
In music, the score is also paramount. It is all the parts for the different instruments and voices needed in a piece of music shown together, one above the other, on the same page. However, in music, unlike cricket, it is not considered good form, and may be dangerous, to shout out during a performance "What's the score?" A conductor, like Sir Thomas Beecham, would be highly offended and offensive. He once said to a lady in his band, "Madam, you have between your legs an instrument capable of giving pleasure to thousands and all you can do is scratch it." She played the cello. However, many batsmen who scratch around for runs are also guilty of the same crime.
FUNDAMENTALS
"Beat" is fundamental to music and cricket. It is the rhythm to which you tap your foot in time to the music or of each bar which may be counted. In cricket, it is the glue that binds the game together. Each team is trying to beat the other, the batsman is trying to beat the bowling and the fielders, the runner is trying to beat the throw, and the bowler is trying to beat the batsman. Worse we are now getting beat by everybody.
In looking at how low we have sunk in the past seven years, I see it as moving from opera to light opera, from 'Der Rosenkavalier' to 'The Mikado', from Strauss to stress. Our new anthem has become, "A wandering minstrel I, A thing of shreds and patches" and on the same ironic note and theme from Gilbert and Sullivan we hear, "But if patriotic sentiment is wanted/ I've patriotic ballads cut and dried;/ For where'er our country's banner may be planted,/ All other local banners are defied!/ Our warriors, in serried ranks assembled,/ Never quail - or they conceal it if they do - / And I shouldn't be surprised if nations trembled/ Before the mighty troops, the troops of Titipu!"
Tony Deyal was last seen saying that the one performer who deserved an encore is appropriately named Bravo.
