Going in to bat for deaf cricketers

Hands up if you knew the New Zealand deaf cricket team had just beaten Australia. Kathy Graham reports on the sport’s low profile,

The New Zealand cricket team beat Australia at Petone Recreation Ground. You would be forgiven for not knowing the match was on. Media coverage, or rather the lack of it, is a major problem for disabled sport.

If you also find it difficult to recognise the disability, that too is understandable.

Deafness, sometimes described as “the hidden handicap”, can be a big disadvantage in learning and working.

To qualify for the New Zealand deaf cricket team you must be “profoundly deaf” — a loss of 96 decibels — be told about the level of noise made by a jumbo jet during take-off. Even so, hearing aids are banned from the field to ensure all players meet on an equal footing.

The implications of deafness are not always fully appreciated by those of us who can hear but its effects are obvious. Less obvious is the need for separate deaf cricket teams. To be a “hearing” cricketer appears to be only a slight advantage over deafness in this game: for example, when the ball tips the bat.

The disadvantages for hearing-impaired cricketers are not directly related to the physical activity but they are important, explains team manager Martin Holtham of Wellington.

“Hearing people always put the deaf person on the wing, out of the playing order. They say, ‘You can’t do it’.”

Clearly, this is a common experience. Team members nod in agreement.

“One of our players who wasn’t given a chance in his division now plays fourth or sixth batsman in the New Zealand deaf team,” Holtham says. “He is a very good bowler, and because of his head for cricket he is now the captain.”

For both hearing and deaf people, the obstacles to communication can be daunting. For solitary deaf people this may result in a feeling of “no one to talk to”.

It can also mean not knowing why they are moved or taken off the field during play.

The after-match function includes the usual vigorous discussions about the match, expressions about the match, expressions very fluent when held in New Zealand (or Australian) sign language.

Coach Adrian Griffiths is “hearing”, and helps with my questions. As is often the case with communication between the hearing and the deaf, we rely on the deaf players to help us understand their message.

The range and clarity of expression and gesture that is a part of their first language – New Zealand sign language – enhance expressiveness and make for great communicators.

In 1994, a number of deaf players played for the Tawa club. The Deaf World Cup was coming up, and Adrian Griffiths helped the club form its own team in the Wellington B grade. These players were to form a nucleus for the world cup squad.

“In our first game as a deaf team we were very nervous,” Martin Holtham says. “We set ourselves a goal to win the competition.”

In its first year the team came second in the competition. Now playing for Hutt district, the players continue to do well.

They explain, with some amusement, that sign language comes in handy when discussing “tactics”. They can talk without the others knowing what they’re saying.

Michael May, 15, is the team’s youngest player and a promising fast bowler. He played for the New Zealand deaf team in the world cup when he was only 13.

Like many other teams their activities are financed by fundraising and sponsorship, and by the players themselves.

“We are forever running raffles,” says Adrian Griffiths. “Many deaf are low waged and money can be a problem.”

Sport, he says, provides a good focus for the deaf community and is a way to build individual and community self-esteem.

According to Griffiths, the deaf make up a group that the wider community hears nothing from. They would like to change this and hope the international sport they organise will give them a better profile.

The world cup in Australia in the 1995/96 season received national coverage on Australian television and was played at the MCG.

Australian team manager Steve May says, “After all the years of work it took to organise, we were very proud when Australia won.”

Understanding Australian sign language took him a long time and was hard work. However, the pride Steve May felt at this achievement for his country needed no translating.

“We are here now to give support and provide experience for New Zealand deaf cricket at an international level,” May says.

Australia has had deaf teams for 100 years and some play in top clubs. New Zealand, however, still has a long way to go. Martin Holtham says they would like to be accepted as umpires for hearing teams.

“Our eyes are much better and we really follow that ball. But hearing people don’t want us as umpires.”

While the deaf community is supportive, players would also like more support and acknowledgement from the wider community. “For example, it is really hard to get time off work because employers can’t understand why we need to play in a deaf team,” Holtham says.

Although they take their game seriously, there is a very friendly atmosphere. Both teams stay in the same accommodation and friends made during international matches are welcomed at deaf clubs and homes when they travel overseas.

Despite Australia’s current dominance in international deaf cricket at the time, energy and enthusiasm that the New Zealand deaf community puts in its cricket has already made them winners. The hearing community could do a lot worse than to follow their progress toward the next world cup in 1998.

Photo Captions: Players and spectators, above, watch for the score to come up on the mini-television screen and, left, you don’t need sign language to figure out what Australian Mark Pegg, left, and New Zealand’s Karl Chapple are on about.