Anyone for cricket? A Metaphor.

Posted on | January 10, 2010 |

Every so often I read the British cricket reports, since it is the national game of my erstwhile homeland. This season’s matches against South Africa have shown an England side that has had some success, but is at the moment chiefly praised for its tendency to hang on, white knuckled, and force a draw in matches that looked as if they were going to collapse in defeat.

The British have been moved, relieved, and divided on this.

One camp snorts derisively at these failures to win, and calls a draw a feeble effort.

The other camp looks on these drawn matches as substantial efforts in their own right, where a team refuses to capitulate even when all hope seems lost, clinging on being seen as an achievement in its own right.

I am in this latter camp. Winning and losing are so black and white; while holding on and saving the day if one possibly can is much closer to one’s actual life struggle, and therefore has the greater power to move me.

Living is emphatically not a series of victories. It is a slow wearing down of the body as we move ever closer to extinction. When this happens we have some choices - we can give up and become helpless, perhaps. We can also choose not to give in, to say (in the words of the Guardian’s sports writer)
“No. No thanks. Not today. Not ever.”

Some so-called defeats turn out to be far more important statements about the resilience of the human soul than a mere ‘win’.

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