Birds, bees and cricket

It's not about entomology, merely an advisory on a taboo subject.

Sex,” began a speaker at a conference on an insipid subject years ago. The large hall froze, the hum of networking suddenly silent. “And now that I have your attention,” the speaker continued, “we can talk about how to address the logistical gaps in the supply chain of retreaded condoms”.

All right, Umpire’s Post made up that last bit. It is impossible to remember the subject. It was so boring it could chill your spine, but everyone present heard it for at least the next two minutes.

And so it is that Gary Kirsten, who as a player amassed runs in an earnest and unobtrusive manner, has the world’s attention as the coach of the Indian cricket team. Not because of the team’s results, which, to be fair, have been unusually impressive in the last two years. Kirsten has always been steadfast in shunning limelight, emerging into a press conference only when necessary, and speaking very much like he batted.

But now, in a country where pregnant wives are still described in many parts as being under the weather, Kirsten appears to have extolled the virtues of sex before matches. Such activity ostensibly raises testosterone levels and improves performance — on the field. The four-page dossier was meant only for the team. So, quite naturally, it was leaked to the media.

It is a full-frontal challenge to one of sport’s oldest theories, that abstinence boosts performance. Robert de Niro, playing boxer Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull, swore off sex before combat and in one scene poured a jug of ice water down his shorts to cool his desire. Muhammad Ali is said to have believed that abstention turns boxers into warriors by making them mean and angry.

Both would have been happier in Indian cricket’s dressing room, now that it is embellished by the vision document. The section on sex asks: “Does sex increase performance?” And the answer begins: “Yes, it does, so go ahead and indulge.” India’s players were told: “From a physiological perspective having sex increases testosterone levels, which causes an increase in strength, energy, aggression and competitiveness.”

As Kirsten’s effigies were set alight in Indore by supposed BJP supporters for being an affront to Indian culture (now you know what we mean by wives under the weather!), and BCCI privately demanded an explanation, Kirsten made the ‘unique’ statement that he had been quoted out of context. He suggested that the dossier was only to provide players with information and was not an advisory. He also said that the article was not compiled by him but by his fellow South African Paddy Upton, the team’s mental conditioning expert. But no one is listening anymore, certainly not your columnist, who is wondering how this team full of young bachelors would cope with the advisory. Man-woman relationships in this country still rely on social sanction, which one can obtain only by publicly confessing one’s private intentions. There would be rampant speculations about the Bollywood dalliances of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan and others, but we still like to keep them inside large cars with tinted windows. So, will good performance on the field raise eyebrows at home?

But there is no worry. Kirsten, or Upton, or whoever wrote the ‘vision document’, is also believed to be high on self help. “If you want sex but do not have someone to share it with, one option is to go solo whilst imagining you have a partner, or a few partners, who are as beautiful as you wish to imagine.”

Mahendra Singh Dhoni, India’s captain, was asked whether the advice had been taken on board. “No comment,” he said, smiling. “You knew when you asked that I wouldn’t be able to say anything about that.”

See, we told you so!