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On the couch / Old and New World games By Jerrold Kessel Tags: sports There's always hope, I suppose, when authority shuns political correctness. Like Italy's highest appeal court. Though staffed largely by elderly male judges, the court ruled that married women who commit adultery are entitled to lie about it to protect their honor. The landmark decision came in the case of a 48-year-old woman convicted of giving false testimony to police by denying she'd loaned her mobile phone to her lover. The court said that bending the truth was justified to conceal extra-marital relationships. What's the sporting relevance? Lots - since this is doubtlessly the world's most popular game if we're to trust a recent IHT report about sexual promiscuity being "rampant in nature" and "true faithfulness a fond fantasy" since "almost every species seems to finds monogamy a bore." Don't the French call it sport en chamber and, doesn't adultery require all the top-notch sporting attributes - agility, flexibility, speed and, above all, stamina? Now that television has conquered our sporting world, we're truly into the global sports era. So it's quite understandable that the two sports which are associated primarily with a specific sports culture, cricket and baseball, are trying their level best to transform themselves into genuinely acceptable world games. Advertisement Of the four major U.S. sports, basketball is way ahead: The one sport which was invented in North America, has already transplanted itself famously onto the world scene. The NBA is regarded everywhere with the same kind of reverence that fans normally reserve for local leagues. And, given TV's global reach, we're all also now under the spell of March Madness and the final stages of the great NCAA tournament. What, incidentally, makes college basketball viewing so endearing is just how much human frailty is exposed - the fact that these are normal people playing with all the foibles and the faux pas of regular folk and not the superhuman heroics of the pro-game. Now, baseball's following the hoopsters down the same global highway. Who could have imagined that, courtesy of ESPN, we would be watching - just as if it were Boston or Oakland - the opening pitch of the Majors' season in Tokyo Dome with the native Japanese star, Daisuke Matsuzaka, taking the mound to spark the Red Sox World Series title defense and spearhead them to an electric extra-inning win over the A's. That the much-maligned U.S. sporting isolationism is headed for the dug-out is also underlined by a short news item informing us that the next World Classic, baseball's fledgling bid to nurture a World Cup, will have a truly global flavor. Mexico City, San Juan, Tokyo and Toronto will host the first round of the Classic, thus showing, said officials, "baseball's global appeal." It's also clearly designed to get baseball re-admitted as an Olympic sport. (After Beijing, insanely it's due to be eliminated from the Games.) The Indian breakaway league Cricket, on the other hand, is desperately knocking on the Olympic door and has just taken its first step into the Olympic Movement. In point of fact, cricket was once in the Games - way back in Paris in 1900. That was a bit of a swizz though since there were only two teams and one of them was made up largely of ex-pats. For the record, England beat France for the gold medal. But just when it was trying to impress as a game that can transcend boundaries, cricket is having to ward off a potential lethal challenge from within - the money-driven Indian breakaway league that's been recruiting top stars from all around the world at an alarming rate and for outlandish sums of money (in cricket terms, that is), thereby threatening the traditional structure of the game with its non-stop merry-go-round of international tours. Amidst this major power play which could jeopardize the whole future of the most sophisticated of all team games, one of the top cricketing nations is doing its level best to play itself out. More than a decade after the magical graduation beyond the evils of Apartheid, a major debate is wracking post Mandela-era South Africa: Did the mighty man put too much emphasis on reconciliation at the expense of transformation? The argument clatters into sport with a determination to alter "unbalanced representation" on national teams by giving preference to players of color over previously privileged whites. When affirmative action indeed helps the lot of non-white sportsmen and women by advancing their opportunities and boosting role models, then that's very definitely the way to go. But when it just amounts to lip-service to "quotas" - as South Africa's cricket authorities are currently doing - then all that happens is that South Africa's performance on the field suffers. There's no gain on any front - not even to the player who ostensibly benefits from positive discrimination. Part of the S. African sport The latest farcical episode involved the dynamic fast bowler, Andre Nel. He was dropped from the Proteas team for the series against India that began on Wednesday. The 14-man squad for the three Test tour includes six non-white players. After the just-completed tour of Bangladesh, two non-white players, fast bowler Charl Langeveldt and spin bowler Robin Peterson were selected while Nel and fellow white bowler Johan Botha were both discarded. Nel had reason to feel aggrieved. He is ranked 22nd in the world among Test bowlers whereas Langeveldt had not played a Test since January 2006. Joubert Strydom, the convener of selectors, insisted that "targets [a pre-determined number of non-white players] and transformation was one of the issues of which we were aware when we took on the job as selectors. It's part of South African sport, as it is in politics and economics." Nel was so angry he reportedly threatened to withdraw from the match against Bangladesh. Then, because he was so upset by the controversy, Langeveldt himself withdrew from the tour. Tony Irish, chief executive of the Players Association, said: "South Africa could be losing two of its best cricketers. The players believe in the goals of transformation. But all of them, black and white, are adamant that this should not be achieved by interfering in the selection of the national team." Bookmark to del.icio.us   My land, my country Israeli Arabs mark 32nd Land Day in demonstrations across the country. One voice on Israel It's hard to find differences in U.S. candidates' promises on peace process.

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