Fending Off Vulgarity

Devotees of cricket consider it to be less a game than a pinnacle--perhaps the last remaining one--of genteel civilization. In the past few weeks, most of them were reacting as if a hairy Visigoth had strolled onto one of the sport's immaculately manicured pitches. Reason: an upstart Australian entrepreneur had signed up 51 of the world's best players, and was threatening to turn the hallowed institution into--gad, Sir!--another vulgar spectator sport. Quipped London's Guardian: "The world as we know it is about to end."

Not quite yet. The six-nation International Cricket Conference (ICC)* was still battling to ward off Communications Tycoon Kerry Packer, 39, who lured away the game's brightest lights with promises of filthy lucre. That is a rare commodity in cricket, where even playing for England, a superstar can aspire to no more than $35,000 a year and a run-of-the-mill professional only $6,600 a season. Packer offered far better salaries and planned a televised international all-star series matching "the rest of the world" against a formidable Australian side.

What drove many fans to fury was the fact that a major defector to Packer was none other than the colorful captain of England's own international team: gangling (6 ft. 7 in.) South African-born Tony Greig, who justified his action by saying that he was fighting "for a principle." The tradition-minded barons of the game did not see it that way; they quickly stripped him of his title. One cricket commentator offered a huffy explanation for Greig's behavior: he was "an Englishman not by birth or upbringing, but only by adoption. It is not the same thing as being an Englishman through and through."

Last week the ICC warned that Packer's players had until Oct. 1 to return to the fold, or be banned from officially sanctioned competition--a punishment equivalent in cricket to excommunication from the church. The threat brought immediate results. Several of the stars immediately announced that they were reneging on their deal with Packer, and others were having second thoughts. At week's end Packer had not admitted defeat, but it began to look as if cricket would successfully weather his brash effort to inject show biz into its Edwardian reverie.

*Representing England, Australia, New Zealand, India, Pakistan and the West Indies, which regularly play one another in five-day international Test matches.

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