ABSTRACT
It is by now apparent that one dominant narrative about cricket believes that there is a higher order to the game, a ‘true’ meaning of cricket, one which was practised in the days of yore. Here sportsmanship was the gentlemanly code of conduct followed by one and all and the Laws, if anything, simply reflected, reinforced and supported the higher and truer game. This is clearly the ideological sub-text which informs Denning’s and ‘Dante’s’ imageries of cricket heaven and hell. It is also the narrative to which we refer when we impose an obligation on the bowler to ‘show the ball’ before Mankading the batter who backs up too far. It is the story we tell about how we ‘know’ what chucking is and perhaps why we condemn and harass Ian Meckiff and finally it is the history to which we refer when we condemn today’s players for excessive ‘professionalism’.
