by Tanya Jonker-Bryce

Created on: July 13, 2008

Gimme blood and tantrums any day ...

Forget about stale old yardsticks like commitment, team spirit or even individual brilliance. I like to think a professional athlete's true merit can be readily deduced not from how well they perform, but rather from how well he or she wears what is inevitably an utterly ridiculous game-day outfit.

Take football. Any top-dollar pro willing to don shoulder pads in the name of sport is already a hero in my book, performance notwithstanding.

Ditto baseball. It takes a lot of guts for seven foot legends of the ballpark to stride out there with their heads held high, knowing their buns are doing the dance of the merry jelly donuts in their too-tight ball pants.

And spare a thought for poor Martina Navratilova, now mercifully retired, who was forced for 20 friggin' years to play in a SKIRT, when all the poor woman wanted to do was pull on some sensible stretchy shorts.

But cricket, surely, takes the cake, albeit it for the exact opposite reason: Next to the wide-shouldered football giants, and the squashy bunned ballplayers, cricketers look ridiculously ... well, ordinary. They're wearing dress pants, for goodness sake, neatly pressed and flatteringly wide-bottomed (though, it must be noted, portly Shane Warne took unpleasant liberties with his rather unglam bellbottoms). And pleasant, loose-fitting shirts; shirts that do none of the show-offish sporting things like riding up Roger Federer's sixpack or clinging seductively to Lance Armstrong's bony ribcage. Just shirts. Like the kind your father wears to the office of casual Friday.

And it's white. Completely white, from floppy hat down to ribbed leg pads and sensible pseudo-sneakers. What self-respecting gladiator wears all-white on his big arena day? I always expect, when the teams take to the field in their snazzy whites, that an equally snazzy butler will go jogging up behind them with a large basket of de-crusted cucumber sandwiches for a pleasant communal nibble in the middle of the pitch.

OK, so it's the gentleman's game and all, the original stiff upper lip of sport, but it's hard to take seriously a game in which competitors get their marching orders from an umpire who sends them packing with a raised finger. It's the cricketing equivalent of Mean Mike Tyson sending a hapless rival to his corner by, um, scowling at him.

Yes, the shorter versions of the game, especially Twenty20 cricket, have injected some much-needed excitement. But, really, if there's no shoving, no tantrums and not even a little trickle of blood, frankly, I'm not interested. If I want to watch a bunch of over-dressed guys being gentlemanly, I'd rather watch a spirited game of darts. At least they have projectiles and the distinct possibility of a stray throw drawing some of the real red stuff.

Learn more about this author, Tanya Jonker-Bryce.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.