GAME ON

As international sport resumes behind closed doors, players miss fans and vice-versa. But everyone is ready to roll with the new normal

- KATHAKALI CHANDA

Among the many incredible legacies of WG Grace, one of cricket’s earliest celebrities, is a lore that doesn’t get old even with a century of retellings: Once given out lbw in an exhibition game, he just continued batting, reportedly telling the umpire off, “They came to watch me bat, not you umpire”.

Grace’s quirks may have hit the laws of the game for a six, but in his own way the bearded doctor from Bristol acknowledged an integral element of the sporting experience: The fans. As every sport aficionado would concede, a packed stadium and an involved crowd adds to the story and drama of a sporting contest. Consider that the 1986 soccer world cup is talked about as much for the emergence of Diego Maradona as an all-time great as it is for the Mexican Wave—a celebratory throwing up of hands in unison that was started earlier in the US, but introduced to the world at the tournament held in Mexico.

And players have indulged too. German tennis great SteffiGraf played along when a spectator threw her a marriage proposal in the middle of a match during Wimbledon in 1996. “How much money do you have?” the otherwise shy and reticent Graf replied, leaving the entire stadium in splits.

As international sport resumes after a Covid-19induced hiatus, the new normal of playing behind closed doors has shut the fans out of the stadiums. And the loss has been a two-way street—as much for the fans who’ll miss the live action as it is for the players who yearn for the spurring-on from the stands. Ask English football club Liverpool, which played in deafening silence as they took the field after winning their first league title in 30 years.