Cricket Captains aren't that important anymore. Same for high paid Business Leaders

Tim Wigmore in Cricinfo

It has been a seminal fortnight for the England cricket team. The country has a new Test match captain, and Joe Root's appointment could herald obvious changes to the team's approach, on and off the field. Yet whether the change of captaincy will have any positive or negative effect on results is an altogether different matter.

How much does individual leadership really matter? It's a question valid in cricket, sport and beyond.

"Being in charge isn't what it used to be," writes Moisés Naím in The End of Power. He shows how, for all the focus on the figureheads of teams, the powers of leaders are being eroded, in everything from business to politics and the military. "In the 21st century, power is easier to get, harder to use - and easier to lose," Naím says, arguing that, because of the digital revolution, the collapse of deference, and increased accountability within organisations, the powerful now face more limitations on their power than ever before. In the second half of the 20th century, weaker sides (in terms of soldiers and weapons) achieved their strategic goals in the majority of wars. The tenures of chief executives are becoming shorter, and those in charge also face more internal constraints on their power than ever before.

The most successful leaders have never been more venerated: the leadership-coaching industry is worth an estimated US$50 billion every year, brimming with corporate bigwigs attempting to learn the "lessons" of other leaders' success. Yet there is no real evidence of the enduring superstar qualities of those who cash in. Award-winning chief executives subsequently underperform, both against their own performance and against non-prize-winning CEOs, as research by Ulrike Malmendier and Geoffrey Tate shows. A lot of the lauded CEOs' previous success, in other words, might have been simply luck, and their subsequent underperformance regression to the mean.

The obsession with leadership extends to sport, yet leaders' power is being reduced here also. "In early-modern sports - the late 19th century - there was little or no coaching and hence the captain on the field had a significant leadership role to play," explains the sports economist and historian Stefan Szymanski. "As sport became more organised and coaching strategy developed, the role of the captain on the field diminished."

Compared with other sports, cricket is unusual in giving as much power to the captain as it does. Yet the cricket captain has not been immune to the wider erosion in the importance of leadership across sport. "The role is declining as the potential of coaches to add analytical support based on data analysis has increased," Szymanski says.

It is instructive to compare the responsibility of Mike Brearley to that of Root today. While Root will be supported by a coterie of coaches, physiologists and analysts, Brearley operated before the modern coach, and had to oversee warming up and stretching before each day. In the days of amateurism, captains even had to motivate amateurs to play at all. Today the captain is far more important in club cricket, where they have no coaches to aid them and often face an arduous task to even get a full team together, than in the professional game.

The power of individual coaches has also been diminished, because the responsibilities that were once the preserve of one man are now divided up among a multitude of personnel. In international cricket teams today, what were, 25 years ago, the sole functions of the coach are now divided up among what often amounts to a 2nd XI of support staff.

While the narrative of football's Premier League now revolves around managers, each result explored through the prism of their success or failure, perhaps they have never mattered less. In the 1930s, Arsenal manager Herbert Chapman not merely coached innovatively but led Arsenal to introduce numbered shirts, and build floodlights and a new stand. Unless they are named Arsene Wenger, the average Premier League manager now lasts a year in the job. Given the complexities of modern sport, there is a limit to what they can do. Indeed, studies of poorly performing clubs find that performances improve by an almost identical amount whether or not a new manager is appointed. The new boss, then, is rarely much better or worse than the old boss.

The book Soccernomics finds a 90% correlation between wage bills and league finishes over a ten-year period; just 10% of top-flight managers consistently overachieve when wages are factored into account. So, brilliant leadership can make a difference, but only in exceptional cases. It was not merely modesty that led Yogi Berra, when asked what made a great baseball coach, to reply: "A great ball team."



Joe Root will enjoy the services of several coaches, analysts and managers in his role as England's Test captain, thereby diffusing his leadership responsibilities © Getty Images





The captain in golf's Ryder Cup has a job akin to the coach in other sports. It offers a prime example of how narratives are constructed around the leader, assigning them more power than they really have. In The Captain Myth, Richard Gillis explores how victories or defeats are retrospectively explained through a captain's mistakes or shrewd decisions. Every match must consist of a Good Captain and Bad Captain, and the Good Captain is always the victor. The trouble with this simplistic narrative is that, as Paul Azinger, who led the US to victory in the 2008 Ryder Cup, reflects, "There have been some captains who have micro-managed everything and lost. There have been captains who were drunk every night and won. There is no blueprint on winning."

There is a paradox to leadership in modern sport. Leaders have never faced more scrutiny - but most have never had less power. Professionalism and the explosion of money in sport means that decisions once the sole preserve of a captain or head coach are now influenced by dozens of others behind the scenes: specialist coaches, performance analysts who mine data, dieticians, psychologists and those responsible for nurturing academy players. Perhaps the cricket team that has performed most above themselves in recent years is Northamptonshire in the T20 Blast. Reaching three finals in four years has not just been a triumph for Alex Wakely's astute captaincy, but also for the coaching staff, the data analyst, the physio and all those involved in player recruitment.

The reluctance to recognise the limits of leadership has deep roots. We are a storytelling species. People make for much better stories than underlying, impersonal factors; Soccernomics shows that success in international football can broadly be explained by three factors - population size, GDP, and experience playing the sport - that have nothing to do with leadership. In The Captain Myth, Gillis writes that, because of psychological biases "meshed with our obsession with celebrity, it's easy to understand how the captain has become such a prominent figure in the sports world". In cricket, he tells me that "the decisions of the captain can be significant, but the relationship between the decisions and the outcome is not linear, it's far messier than that, and makes a far less enjoyable tale".

As much as coaches and fans crave inspirational leadership, in modern sport, with huge and complex professional structures to manage, perhaps it is easier for a single leader to make a negative difference than a positive one. "Good captaincy and coaching have far less of an impact on outcomes than bad captaincy and coaching does," believes Trent Woodhill, a leading T20 coach. Bad leadership can marginalise and disempower the backroom team, effectively preventing support staff from doing their jobs properly. Beyond sport, Naím believes that we are in an age of "heightened vulnerability to bad ideas and bad leaders". The analysis extends beyond sport. Disruptive technology has not only changed the nature of power, Naím believes, but also led to an age of "heightened vulnerability to bad ideas and bad leaders".

Root has captained in just four first-class games, yet this is in keeping with modern norms. That Virat Kohli, Steven Smith and Kane Williamson have all been successful after their appointments as captain, despite a derisory amount of prior leadership experience in professional sport, suggests that captaincy experience - and, by implication, captaincy skill - is simply not that important. The absence of specialist captains, at both domestic and international level, also reflects a recognition of the limits of what a skipper can achieve.

"Playing in the middle and understanding the demands is more important than captaincy," Andrew Strauss said when Root was unveiled. The greatest potential boon of a Root captaincy lies not in a new culture he might create, or more enterprising leadership, but the possibility of greater run-scoring: if Alastair Cook is reinvigorated without the leadership, while, in keeping with recent England captains, Root's own batting initially enjoys an upswing.

Leadership is not irrelevant. Occasionally cricketers are particularly suited to a leadership role - Brearley, Graeme Smith, or Misbah-ul-Haq, say; some, like Kevin Pietersen, might be the opposite. But the overwhelming majority of captains are bunched in the middle - and, in any case, a captain's ability to do good is marginal, now more than ever. For all the tendency to focus on a team's figurehead, great leadership is a collective endeavour, and operates against wider limitations. Perhaps this is why Strauss is so unperturbed by Root's lack of captaincy experience. Only rarely does the identity of a captain really matter.

Cricket: How much does captaincy really matter?

Kartikeya Date in Cricinfo


Mike Brearley was fortunate to have captained England when Botham and Willis were arguably at their best © Getty Images



How often have you heard "captaincy" being applauded by professional observers? "Great captaincy", they say. Or "lacklustre captaincy". Mahendra Singh Dhoni has experience of both types of criticism.

The entire concept is bogus. Have you ever heard of a captain being criticised when his team wins? Or have you heard it said, "We saw some superb captaincy from Clarke today but Australia were just not good enough"? No, when Australia lose, it is the other captain who did well. More consequentially, can you think of a good captain of an inferior team beating a better side purely because of captaincy?

Captaincy seems to be a concept by writers for writers. It exists not because cricket is played but because cricket is written about and argued about. There is a difference between noting the mere existence of a captain as the person who decides bowling changes and field settings, and captaincy as a full-fledged art consequential to the game. It is the latter that is bogus. Every time a captain puts a third slip in and a catch goes there, it doesn't amount to "great captaincy". Since a field is set every over, it's just one choice that worked, among many dozens of choices that didn't.

Historically captaincy has also had social significance. The captain had to be someone from a good background. Who are his parents? What social class does he come from? Which university did he go to? Will he look plausible when dignitaries visit? Until 1952, the captain of England had to be an amateur (someone who could afford to play cricket for fun, not as a job, because he had other sources of income). That year, Len Hutton became the first professional cricketer to captain England, 75 years after England first played a Test. As Osman Samiuddin notes in his history of Pakistan cricket, early Pakistan captains were chosen for their Oxbridge pedigree. Today these colonial markers are no longer fashionable. In their place we have vague notions of "leadership" and other such management-speak.

Mike Brearley (Cambridge University and Middlesex) captained England in 31 of his 39 Tests. He made 1442 runs at 22.88 in 66 innings in Test cricket. He played all his innings in the top seven, most frequently as opener.

Brearley did not get picked for England as a specialist batsman alone after the Centenary Test in Melbourne in March 1977. He is Exhibit A for the pro-captaincy set - the most prominent member of the very small set of players who were not good enough to make a Test team with bat or ball, but were picked primarily as captain.
Brearley's reputation rests on his career as captain in Ashes Tests. He led England to two Ashes wins at home, in 1977 and 1981. He also led England to an Ashes win against a Packer-affected Australia side in Australia. Apart from this, Brearley led England to victory against New Zealand at home, and a Pakistan side (also Packer-depleted) in 1978. Add to this an unconvincing 1-0 win at home against an Indian side that had very little fast bowling (Kapil Dev was still raw in 1979) and the tired remnants of their spin quartet. Sunil Gavaskar nearly brought India level at The Oval in that series, despite Brearley's captaincy.

At first glance, it is an impressive record. But in all those series, England were simply the better side, either because they were playing at home or because their opponents were crippled by defections.



Indian captains have been termed "aggressive" usually when they've had quality bowlers at their disposal © AFP


What happened to England against full-strength opposition in that 1977-81 period? They were thumped 3-0 in three Tests in Australia in 1979-80 under Brearley, lost 1-0 to West Indies at home in 1980 and 2-0 away in 1980-81. Brearley did not make the side in the two series against West Indies. In fact, he never faced the strongest team of his era. Without him, under Ian Botham, England did quite well against West Indies in 1980 when you consider what had happened in 1976 and what was to happen in 1984.

It is not uncommon for England captains to be highly successful in England. England have traditionally been very difficult to beat at home. Brearley's successor Bob Willis won six out of nine Tests in England against much stronger India, Pakistan and New Zealand sides that had Kapil, Imran Khan and Richard Hadlee in their prime. England's only loss under Willis came against New Zealand in Leeds in 1983, after Lance Cairns took ten wickets in the match.

Brearley's impact on the English teams he led is questionable. Would they have won just as well with any captain other than Botham in 1981? Was Brearley's value purely that Botham flourished under him? It's clear that under Brearley, Botham was an extraordinary player. He made seven centuries and took 15 five-wicket hauls in 26 such Tests. But his next best efforts came under Bob Willis, in the 1982-84 period. It is plausible to think that Brearley merely had the benefit of having Botham at his best. Perhaps equally importantly, he had Willis at his peak.

The crucial question about Brearley might be: if he was really such a fantastic captain, why did he continue to pick himself in the XI when it was clear that he wasn't good enough to play at Test level? Can you imagine what would happen if a player with an average of 22 was allowed 39 Tests as a specialist batsman today? Why, think of what happened to Botham in 1980. Poor performances against the best team in the world brought its own pressure. Brearley had no such problems.

The idea that the record of captains depends on the quality of their players is generally accepted. But it is curiously discarded when captaincy itself is discussed. There are, for example, rumblings about Virat Kohli being a more "aggressive" captain compared to Dhoni. There is no basis for thinking this. Given turning tracks and opponents who had little experience of batting on them and no high-quality spinners in their ranks to exploit them, Dhoni's India demolished teams with disdain. West Indies, New Zealand and an Australian team in crisis all answered to this description. When Dhoni had quality bowling, he looked a very aggressive captain and India won handsomely. Just as they did under Rahul Dravid. If India have quality bowling under Kohli, he will be remembered as an "aggressive captain".

Much is made of the fact that India's batting didn't do well in England and Australia under Dhoni in the 2011-12 seasons. But we forget that when India won in England in 2007, India's top seven did not make a single century in the series. It was the bowling, led by Zaheer Khan, that made all the difference. Zaheer's series in England ranks alongside those of McGrath, Warne and Murali in the 21st century. The support he got from RP Singh, Anil Kumble, Sreesanth and Ganguly made it one of India's finest overseas performances ever.


Michael Clarke: a "tactically astute" leader, but what do his numbers say in away Tests? © Getty Images


Let's consider Michael Clarke's record. Clarke is widely regarded as the most tactically astute leader of his generation, but that didn't prevent him from losing 13 out of 28 Tests outside Australia. The only place where Australia have won comfortably under him is the West Indies (where the hosts have won only three out of 17 home Test series against major teams in the 21st century, and lost 11).

Look down the list of captains away from home in the 21st century, and you'll find that some of the most highly regarded captains had losing records - Michael Clarke, Mahela Jayawardene, Nasser Hussain.

All this suggests that captaincy is overrated by observers in cricket. If one were to list the essential cricketing skills for a Test and ODI team from the most important to the least, they would be as follows: fast bowling, spin bowling, allrounders, opening batting, middle-order batting, wicketkeeping, catching, ground fielding, overall fitness, captaincy.

A quality team with a nondescript captain would win way more than a bad team with a "good" captain. This is one of the great features of cricket. Despite being an aristocratic sport, on the field, it is a great leveller. To win, you have to bowl well, bat well and field well. At the highest level, tactics are not a mystery. Every club cricketer knows what the best options (or the best three or four options) are for a given team in a given situation.

Kumble once said of his googly, "They pick it, but they still have to play it." That is what makes a top Test team. The ability to play so well that even when the opposition knows exactly what's coming, they have to play very well to cope.

Perhaps it is better to think of captaincy as one thinks of wicketkeeping. A keeper who makes a lot of mistakes or has bad footwork and is repeatedly caught in bad positions is noticed. Similarly, a keeper who has to keep pulling off brilliant diving takes is also noticed. In the first case, the keeper is poor. In the second, the bowling is poor. Similarly, if a captain is being noticed one way or the other, something is wrong with the team.

'A bad captain can make a great team look ordinary'

Sambit Bal in Cricinfo

India's youngest and most distinguished captain on the importance of honesty, transparency and inspiration when leading a side

To measure Tiger Pataudi by his captaincy record is to do him no justice. His true contribution lies in his seminal influence on Indian cricket: the manner in which he lifted it from its abyss of diffidence and negativity and instilled a belief to contemplate victory. He took over the reins as a 21-year-old in the fourth Test against West Indies in 1961-62, and went on to lead in all but six of his 46 Tests. He brought to the captaincy a tactical boldness and an originality of thinking rarely seen in India. Long before Clive Lloyd unleashed four fast bowlers on the world, Pataudi employed four spinners, doing away with the tokenism that characterised Indian new-ball bowling back then.

"A captain has to be honest, to the team and to himself. It should be obvious that the best interests of the team should be top of his agenda"© PA Photos

You once famously said that captaincy is all about either pulling from the front or pushing from behind. We could begin with an elaboration.

What I meant was that you had some captains who were great players themselves - [Don] Bradman, [Garry] Sobers, [Richie] Benaud. They led by the sheer force of their performance. Then there were captains like [Mike] Brearley, [Ray] Illingworth, myself to an extent, who were not the best players in their sides. We had to push the team from behind, get the best players to perform to the best of their ability. Bradman and Sobers walked ahead and others followed. Inspiration flowed from their performances. Whereas a captain who is not a terribly inspiring performer himself has to rely on extracting the maximum from his best players.

Would you say a non-performing captain has a much tougher task because of his over-reliance on others?

Brearley may have averaged less than 25 with the bat, but his great success lay in the way he brought out the best in Ian Botham. Brearley didn't lead in the field, he didn't go out and score 190 and say, "Now you follow my example." He coaxed and cajoled the others to perform. Bradman didn't need to do that. He went out and won matches with his own bat. Sobers wasn't the greatest of captains, but he just did everything himself. In my case, I had to get the best out of [Gundappa] Viswanath. He was our best batsman for a long time. I had to push him to give his best.

And how did you do that?

The first and most critical thing is to make a player realise his true worth - sometimes players themselves don't know how good they can be. Then you make him realise his importance to the team, how the team depends on him, and how he will let his side down if he doesn't perform at his very best. It's not very complicated really, but small things do make a big difference. As I said, you either get the team behind you or in front of you.

There is a management principle that a leader needs to be different things to different people. Doesn't captaincy require similar role-playing? Friend to some, guide to some, father figure to some and taskmaster to some? 

First and foremost, a captain has to be honest, to the team and to himself. It should be obvious that the best interests of the team should be top of his agenda. His team-mates must feel in their hearts that the captain's personal interests come below that of the team. We have had one or two captains who were always more concerned with their own performance.

Would you care to name them?

No, I wouldn't want to go into that, but people will know who I am talking about. When you have a captain who is more bothered about his own performance, it's difficult for him to get the loyalty and respect of his team-mates. Particularly in the Indian context, where there are so many internal dynamics operating, the captain has to be absolutely transparent. At no stage should any player feel discriminated against or feel that there is a bias against him. If a captain is honest and transparent, he can take harsh decisions without creating any ill will. The other thing is to always pick your best team. Pick the best batsmen, pick the best bowlers. It doesn't matter who you are playing or where.

So you are saying team selection should not be based on conditions or opposition?

Absolutely. I have never believed in the horses-for-courses theory. Harbhajan [Singh] will get you wickets on a green top and Kapil Dev will get you wickets on a turner, because they are both good bowlers. A bad seamer will not get you wickets on a green top and a bad spinner will not get you wickets on a turner. I played four spinners because they happened to be the best bowlers around. I had no Kapil Dev, so playing a seamer just for the sake of balance was useless.

And you wouldn't be concerned if a couple of them were difficult characters?

That's what a good captain is all about. If he thinks that the player has ability, it's his job to manage his personality. Every team has a couple of difficult characters - in my time there were a few. Salim Durani was one. I felt I couldn't handle him very well.

Why would you say that?

Because I felt I couldn't get the best out of him. He was an extremely talented cricketer who lacked a certain amount of cricketing discipline. We tried to organise it - me and a few other senior players. But we didn't succeed. He did well, but a man of his talent could have been made to perform much better.

Do intuition and instinct play a role in captaincy? Or is it mostly about method and strategy?

To start with, the fundamentals have to be solid. Intuition comes with experience. Over the years you acquire a certain knowledge and hindsight which help you to play to a particular percentage. You instinctively know that certain things will happen in certain situations and you make your moves. But your basic analysis and basic strategy have to be correct. Most of all, you need to be a good student of the game. Many things could go wrong even if you do the right things because a lot depends on how others perform. But if your basics are wrong, you've got no chance.

"A captain can't make a player perform beyond his ability. That's impossible. But very often, players are performing at only 50% of their ability. A good captain lifts that up to 80% and 90%. And I think Brearley got Botham to perform at 100%"

And the captain must seize the moment…

Yes, the sooner you are able to see the moment, the sooner you act. Sometimes moments come and go. Good captains, experienced captains, know to utilise the smallest openings. Sometimes two overs can change a game.

Is this ability to recognise a moment, see an opening, a gift of nature or can it be developed?

You have to be alert and you have to be thinking all the time. And to be a thinker, you must be familiar with cricket history. Reading a bit of cricket literature, knowing about great players of the past helps. Unfortunately, not many modern players read anything.

Do you think that stunts their growth?

I will say reading helps. It broadens your vision. It gives you perspective. Perspective does not come from watching television.

To be fair to them, modern players have very little time.

Oh, they have plenty of time to do ads. If you want to, you can find the time.

Would you say education plays a critical role in making a successful captain? Is it a coincidence that some of the great captains have been well educated? Imran Khan, Richie Benaud, Brearley, yourself...

Education is important, I wouldn't say it is mandatory. Education gives you some kind of depth, an outlook on your own life and life outside. It makes you less parochial. But there have been exceptions. Lala Amarnath was a good captain and he wasn't highly educated.

But isn't there something called a natural cricket sense, an inborn feel for the game? Most of us thought Tendulkar would be a natural captain.

Great players don't necessarily make great captains. The trouble with natural cricketers is that they never have to think about the game. Everything comes so easily to them. You ask them to coach somebody and they wouldn't know what to do. They have never had to learn, never had to study. Everything is so instinctive for them.

You became captain at 21. How well acquainted were you with the history and traditions of the game?

I had very little idea. I was lucky that the senior players were very supportive. Polly [Umrigar], Jai [ML Jaisimha], they were all very experienced. I borrowed a lot from them. And then I learned. I had captained Sussex previously, but that was a different ball game. Then I captained Delhi. But captaining an Anglo-Saxon side is different from captaining India. The politics here are so convoluted. It takes a little while to get used to.

Captaining India is surely not one of easiest jobs in cricket...

Oh, it's a unique problem in itself. But I was lucky that one or two senior players were retiring at the end of the West Indies tour [1961-62]. And a lot of us were youngsters at the time, going abroad for the first time. Those players stuck with me. Besides, seniors like Vijay Manjrekar, Bapu Nadkarni and others also supported me. There were one or two voices that were sort of unhelpful.

Isn't there a serious case for giving captains and coaches more powers?

Yes, certainly. The captain needs the backing of the board. They should take him into confidence and tell him that we are giving you full charge, get these guys to perform or they are out. I was lucky I got the full backing of the board. But very often captains don't get that kind of backing, and they are hesitant to take strong steps and that hesitancy can be seen very easily in the dressing room. There has to be coordination and cooperation among the captain, board members and selectors.

Did you always get the team you wanted?

Oh, almost always. I got the XI I wanted. You have to make some compromises on the 14 to keep a few people happy. But that was okay. Except when Vijay Merchant was the chairman of selectors. He couldn't even explain why he wanted to change the team. If he had given proper reasons, people would have understood, but he had no reasons.

It was suggested that Merchant's animosity towards you was rooted in his differences with your father, and that he got even by using his casting vote to keep you out of the side in 1971.

I think he found fault with me from the beginning. And a lot of his decisions made no logical sense. I never got the impression it was because of my father; I think it was more personal. The moment I was gone, all the people I wanted in the side were back in the team. All the young fellows he had got when I was captain were gone and the senior players were brought back.

That leads to the question whether the captain should have a greater say in the team selection. Should he have a vote?

The captain's inputs must be seriously considered. And if a captain can have a good understanding with the selectors and reason things out with them, he can have the team he wants. That was true, by and large, in my experience. But no, the captain shouldn't have a vote. It could lead to serious acrimony.

Does a non-performing captain have a place in modern cricket? 

I doubt it very much. Cricket has changed a lot in [recent times]. Not that the quality of cricketers is any better. You would not find an allrounder like Botham today or a fast bowler like [Fred] Trueman. But yes, it has become much more competitive and physically challenging. Not that you could carry a passenger even in those days. You had to contribute something and Brearley did contribute. A lot, in fact. He got Botham's act together. And Botham did play like six players put together in that series [1981 Ashes]. If a captain can do that he certainly deserves a place. So for Brearley to find a place in the side today, you first have to find a Botham.

What do you think Brearley did with Botham?

He talked to him, and he must have talked to him in a way Botham understood. A captain can't make a player perform beyond his ability. That's impossible. But very often, players are performing at only 50% of their ability. A good captain lifts that up to 80% and 90%. And I think Brearley got Botham to perform at 100%. That's phenomenal. I saw those matches. Botham was an inspired cricketer.

"Gavaskar brought pace bowling back into Indian cricket. Kapil's performance in his first few matches was terrible. But Gavaskar showed faith in him" © PA Photos


Going back to an earlier question: different players need to be handled differently. So obviously a captain has to be different things to different people.

Of course. If a player had the kind of ability Botham had, you had to treat him specially. If you treated him like a mediocre cricketer, his performance would be mediocre. You had to give him a little more freedom.

If you were his captain, would you mind if he went to a nightclub the day before the match and came back at 12?

If he came back at 12, I would be very happy [laughs].

A captain can't create talent. But he can lift the spirit of an ordinary team. Motivation is very important. Without it, a good team can become very ordinary. Richie Benaud was a great motivator. He was a great performer himself, great bowler, brilliant fielder, and he had the team behind him. I got to know him very well because we sometimes shared a flat in London. He was the sort of captain whose very presence lifted the spirit of the team. Even when he was injured and not playing, his presence in the dressing room motivated his players.

What about Clive Lloyd? Some say he wasn't so good tactically.

That's because he didn't have to do any captaincy. But Lloyd's greatest contribution was his vision. He brought about the most radical tactical innovation when he decided to use four fast bowlers. It wasn't conventional thinking in those days. And he was hugely respected by his players.

Who would you rate as the best Indian captain after your era?

[Ajit] Wadekar had the results. But it has to be [Sunil) Gavaskar. He was as talented a player as Tendulkar and he had a very good cricket brain. He brought pace bowling back into Indian cricket.

In a sense, he was lucky to have Kapil Dev around.

He had to encourage Kapil Dev. Kapil's performance in his first few matches was terrible. But Gavaskar showed faith in him. He wanted a good new-ball attack, perhaps because he was an opening batsman. He saw the talent and he nurtured it. Some people call him a defensive captain, but you have to analyse the circumstances in which he led.

A good captain must have a fair idea about the limitations of his side. I know a lot of Tests are ending in results nowadays and plenty of risks are being taken. I have always believed that you should play to win, but the approach varies from individual to individual. In Test cricket, it sometimes makes sense to ensure that you don't lose the match. To me, one of Sunil's greatest contributions was that he brought professionalism to Indian cricket.

Cricket, Poker, Luck and Skill

Chris Bradshaw in Wisden India

About the only thing that the Rio Casino in Las Vegas has in common with Lord’s is that it attracts a disproportionate number of men with a liking for bright red trousers. Superficially, there’s little in common between the home of the World Series of Poker and cricket’s traditional headquarters. Dig a little deeper though and there is a surprising amount that cricketers, and especially captains, can learn from their poker-playing counterparts.

Richie Benaud famously said: “Captaincy is 90 per cent luck, only 10 per cent skill – but don’t try it without the 10 per cent.” Despite being more of a horse-racing man than a card sharp (Benaud restricts himself to wagers on things that cannot speak), his adage sounds remarkably similar to something written by Doyle Brunson, one of the greatest poker players who has ever lived.

In his best-selling 1978 strategy book Super System: A Course In Power Poker, the two-time World Series of Poker Main Event winner wrote: “Poker is more art than science, that’s what makes it so difficult to master. Knowing what to do – the science – is about 10 per cent of the game. Knowing how to do it – the art – is the other 90 per cent.” Not identical to Benaud’s line but near enough to warrant a closer look.

Poker players loosely fit into two main playing styles. Tight players proceed cautiously and wait for the best hands. Loose players will play with any two cards. Taken to its extreme, a super-tight player would only play a pair of aces while a hyper-loose player would try his luck with anything, even 7-2 off suit, the worst starting hand in Texas hold ’em. Allied to the tight and loose tendencies are levels of aggression. Aggressive players are always on the front foot, looking to attack, while passive players tend to fear losing rather than trying to win.

In the long run, both tight and loose aggressive poker players can be successful. It’s possible, but much harder, for tight passive types to make much money. Loose passive players might as well set fire to their bankroll.

Those tendencies are often clearly visible on the cricket pitch. A tight captain will wait until he has a ridiculous lead before setting a declaration while a looser leader would dangle a carrot. Andrew Strauss was a prime example of a tight, aggressive captain. The commentary box moaners may not have liked his seemingly defensive fields but by employing a sweeper early in the innings – rather than having an extra slip, say – Strauss preferred to retain control rather than speculate. When and only when, the game was in his team’s favour would Strauss go on the attack.

Brendon McCullum, on the other hand, is much more akin to the loose aggressive poker player and willing to have a gamble. If he sets an attacking field and the ball flies through the vacant cover region to the boundary, so what? An unorthodox bowling change may mean conceding a few runs but it might also pick up a wicket. If the rewards are big enough, he’ll follow that hunch even if the results are costly if he’s proved wrong.

The flip side of that aggressive stance can be seen in any number of delayed England declarations and botched run chases. Take the home side’s 2001 capitulation to Pakistan at Old Trafford. Alec Stewart’s side went from tight aggressive to tight passive with disastrous results. With the score at 174 for one and needing another 196 runs from 45 overs for a famous victory, England lost a wicket then shut up shop. Instead of going for the win, they tried not to lose. One session and eight wickets later, Waqar Younis and co had tied the series.

***

The stereotype of the poker player as a fast-talking, cigar-chomping, road gambler is an outdated one. You’re far more likely to see a softly spoken Scandinavian wearing headphones and a hoodie in a top tournament these days rather than a Stetson-wearing Texan. Technology has transformed poker and the statistically-minded are in the ascendancy.

Virtually every professional poker player now uses a database to log every raise, every bet size, every fold, every call, every unexpected all-in move and just about everything else that happens at the online tables. Crunching the numbers to identify opposition weaknesses and their own technical deficiencies has become a crucial weapon for even semi-serious players of the game.

Cricket’s own statistical revolution has mirrored the one undergone by poker. Every delivery is tracked by an analyst, every shot monitored by a specialist coach and every potential technical frailty probed by the team’s brain trust. The captains in the Sky commentary box (what is the collective noun for a group of England captains? A disappointment? A grumble?) may say that a third man should be in place. The figures in black and white suggest otherwise.

Of course it’s all well and good for a team to have a plethora of stats at their disposal, but if they don’t know how to use them it can cause more confusion than clarity. Despite enjoying some recent success, England have been accused of producing teams full of cricketing automatons, unable to think on their feet or adapt in the face of changing circumstances. If the plan discussed in the dressing-room isn’t working, England’s C-3POs have often seemed too rigid to do anything about it. “The stats said we should bounce them out. We’ll carry on bouncing them, even though the ball is disappearing to the boundary twice an over.”

A good captain, like a good poker player, will use the stats but won’t be a slave to them. He will still trust his feel for the game to assess the strengths and weaknesses of his opponent.

The concept of pot odds is also one that is easily transferable to cricket. A poker player may have to pay to chase his straight or flush draw but if the odds are right, it becomes a mathematically correct move to make. It’s a risk, but in the long run the rewards justify taking that chance. Similarly, a bowler might dish up three half volleys, knowing that they’ll likely be despatched through an extra-cover region deliberately left vacant. The fourth delivery, a fraction shorter and a touch wider, gets nicked and is pouched by the slip fielder who could have been patrolling the covers. The bowler may have given up a few extra runs but has been rewarded with a wicket. A good poker player knows when to take a gamble as if he hits his outs, he’ll make a big profit. A cricket captain should be able to do the same.

“Play aggressively, it’s the winning way,” Brunson writes. Being aggressive isn’t a call to suddenly awaken your inner Merv and start mouthing off at the competition. It simply means taking control and dictating terms. “Timid players don’t win in high-stakes poker.” They rarely win at cricket either.

It sounds obvious but the great captains, like the best poker players, are always thinking one move ahead of their opponent. A successful poker player will recognise when to adapt as the conditions of the game alter. The arrival of a deep-stacked, ultra-loose player can completely change the dynamics of a table, just as a big-hitting tail-ender can totally change the momentum in cricket. An intuitive captain will know when to attack and when to hang back and wait for a more profitable opportunity. “Changing gears is one of the most important parts of playing poker. It means shifting from loose to tight play and vice versa,” writes Brunson.

Andrew Strauss was a prime example of a tight, aggressive captain – who would wait until he has a ridiculous lead before setting a declaration. © Getty Images

The same is true of players going on a hot streak and winning a number of pots in quick succession. “Your momentum is clear to all players. On occasions like this you’re going to make correct decisions and your opponents may make errors because they are psychologically affected by your rush.” Brunson could be writing about any captain whose side has inflicted a crippling batting collapse on the opposition.

To succeed, “you’ll need to get inside your opponent’s head,” writes Brunson. In the modern game, there has been no better exponent of this than Shane Warne (just ask poor Daryl Cullinan). Being able to turn a leg-break a yard was famously Warne’s greatest asset. His mastery of the dark arts of mental disintegration helped shape the aura that accompanied him wherever he played though, especially against England. Before every series there was talk of a new mystery delivery. The zooter, the clipper, whatever you want to call it. The new phantom ball rarely appeared but the seed had been planted, the trap set, the bluff laid. And Warne was ready to collect.

Of course a cricket skipper can utilise the team members he has at his disposal while a poker player rides solo. For Steve Waugh, having Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath in his side was like being dealt aces every hand. Aces make you a favourite, but they do get cracked if they’re not handled properly. Poker players are dealt duff hands most of the time. The best players get the best out of what they’ve been given.

Even though he’s now in his eighties, Brunson still manages to play in some of the biggest cash games around, with thousands of dollars at stake. Successful “old-school” players have welcomed the way the game has changed and adapted accordingly (you won’t hear a Truemanesque “I don’t know what’s going off out there” from Brunson). Like cricketing tactics, poker techniques have evolved over time. If Brunson played the same way now as he did when he won his first world title in 1976 he’d be eaten alive by the twentysomething maths geeks. The basic philosophies outlined in Super System still hold true though. The precise tactics may have changed but the instincts that served him so well at the start of his career continue to do so today.

The poker world these days is peppered with current and former sporting greats. Footballers Tony Cascarino and Teddy Sheringham have earned six-figure paydays on the tournament circuit. Rafa Nadal and Boris Becker act as ambassadors for a major online poker site. Given the storm surrounding match-rigging and spot-fixing, it’s probably understandable that most cricketers have steered clear. The obvious exception is Shane Warne, who regularly clears a couple of weeks from his commentary schedule to play at the World Series of Poker.

In a brief stint as captain of Australia’s one-day side Warne enjoyed great success, winning 10 out of 11 matches. The same formula brought IPL glory to the Rajasthan Royals and promotion and one-day success to Hampshire.

Ian Chappell once wrote that the leg-spinner who most resembled Warne was the feisty Australian Bill “Tiger” O’Reilly, a man who openly hated batsmen. “He thought they were trying to take the food out of his mouth and consequently he was ultra-aggressive in his efforts to rid himself of the competition,” wrote Chappell. “Warne had a similar thought process and he was constantly plotting the batsman’s downfall.” Sounds like ideal card-room strategy. It’s no wonder Warne’s now a pretty good poker player.

Mike Brearley’s The Art of Captaincy is usually the first book off the shelf for budding skippers. Potential leaders could do worse than making Super System their second.

Sledging in cricket - Pump up the volume

It's time to turn the stump mikes all the way up, and leave them that way

Rob Steen

December 4, 2013

	The next time two players discuss the weather in detail, we'd love to hear what they're saying © BCCI  Enlarge

Taking issue with a pair of sage judges of humankind like George Orwell and Mike Brearley might not be the wisest intellectual venture, but into the valley of the ridiculed here I come.

In his 1945 essay "The Sporting Spirit", Orwell decried the competitive arts as "war minus the shooting" (international sport, that is, not sport per se; his incandescent response to a UK football tour by Moscow Dynamo is so habitually misquoted). Given the quotidian deluge of pain inflicted in its name, not to mention the occasional death, "war minus the looting" might be nearer the mark. Or better yet, as the latest renewal of Ashes mania appears bent on reaffirming, "war plus the loathing".

-----Also Read

Doesn't Sledging Hurt Anyone?

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More recently, this very week, Brearley wrote a typically astute article for the Times, lamenting the intolerably abrasive atmosphere of the Brisbane Test, observing that there was "a narrow line" between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. This struck me as being overly generous.

What distinguishes sport from every other branch of the entertainment industry is its relationship with its audience, enforcing as it does an acute awareness of its constant (and constantly annoying) dancing partner - sportsmanship. Nobody talks about actorship or poetship or dancership; musicianship and authorship relate, respectively, to craft and rights, not conduct. But what do we actually mean by sportsmanship? It certainly tells us something about its complexities that no feminist I know has ever demanded that we refer to sportspersonship, let alone sportswomanship.

It seems reasonable to define this slippery virtue, broadly, as the willingness, even determination, to a) win fairly, honestly and modestly, and b) lose gallantly, graciously and, almost needless to add, unintentionally. Liable as they are to be copied in playgrounds, backyards and parks, any antic that even smacks of cheating or disrespect sets the most erroneous of bad examples, primarily to the impressionable young millions who invest so much of their emotion in, and glean so much of their joy from, the curious world of ballgames.

Sure, the older and wiser we get, the more we understand the unique nature of athletic battle and its impact on even the coolest of tempers. On the other hand, sports watchers of all ages are resolutely intolerant of relatively trifling misdemeanours such as time-wasting, feigned injury or even a withheld handshake. And woe betide those perceived to be cowardly, whether in the form of a tackle shirked, a risk untaken or an opponent tongue-lashed. And rightly so.

That's why, even as we grow ever more inured to violent images, and admiring of murderous on-screen drug lords and mobsters, sledging still disturbs disproportionately - because it tells us the perpetrator has given up trying to prevail through skill. There's banter and there's sledging, of course, and it is to the spite-rich, wit-free latter that one takes exception. To many, the Brisbane Test was sickening, not because of the savagery of the bowling but the vile viciousness of the verbals. One of the odder things about the three-for-the-price-of-one product cricket has become is that the least frantic variety is the likeliest to arouse indefensible behaviour.

Before we get to the remedy, a dose of perspective seems in order. Amid the same Gabba gabfest that saw Messrs Anderson and Clarke reiterate how far cricketers are prepared to go - and always have been - in quest of an edge, the media ridicule meted out to Jonathan Trott was equally if not more offensive. How sobering, moreover, to open a magazine that weekend and snuggle up with cuddly Mike Tyson.

Interviewed, helpfully, by a woman with whom he clearly felt more comfortable not being Mr Macho, here was a champion whose brutality inside and outside the ring is now matched by a self-flagellating honesty that somehow arouses compassion if not pity. Call it a salutary reminder of sport's capacity to simultaneously thrill and disgust. Call it the hidden price of admission. Still, when it comes to ranking the meanest, baddest-assed sportsmen of them all, Iron Mike the Ear-Cruncher was a spayed pussycat next to Ty Cobb.

When Charlie Davis, that endlessly creative Australian statistician, devised a formula to calculate sporting greatness, he focused on one solo endeavour, golf, and four team games - baseball, basketball, cricket and soccer. Using average and standard deviation (σ), the top three emerged as Don Bradman (4.4 σ above the norm); Pelé, whose goals-per-game superiority over other net-bulgers was 3.7 σ; and Cobb, the early 20th century diamond dazzler whose batting average soared 3.6 σ above the baseball mean. But while the Australian and the Brazilian played sport, the American, like Tyson, warred it.

	Denied the release of physical contact, it was inevitable that a cricketer should coin as dastardly a term as "mental disintegration"

"A red-blooded sport for red-blooded men" was how the perpetually snarly Detroit Tiger described his calling. Professional baseball, he insisted, was "something like a war". In acknowledging that the summit of his own profession was "pretty much a war", Alastair Cook at least had the grace to sound a teeny bit bashful.

Cobb was the ultimate ballplayer-warrior: think Steve Waugh, now multiply by a smidge under infinity. Here was a fellow who brazenly and showily sharpened the spikes on his boots, intimidating opponents and making fielders think twice about blocking his ferocious spurts down the baseline. In 1912, he assaulted a one-armed spectator who'd had the temerity to call him a "half-nigger". An enthusiastic racist, he packed a gun wherever he went; he was also reported to have pistol-whipped a man to death. And yes, he was also a mightily accomplished sledger.

The publicity tagline for Ron Shelton's admirably unmanipulative biopic Cobb was perfect: "The Man You Love To Hate". While no cricketer I can think of has ever warranted such a billing, personally speaking, the one who came closest was Matthew Hayden, whose incessant references to his devout Christianity were contradicted so expertly and shamelessly by those crude and cruel on-field tirades.

Sledging is as fertile a field for baseballers as it is for cricketers, because they, too, go about their labours at a leisurely pace; Tom Boswell, the revered Washington Post baseball correspondent, once described his job as "pondering inaction". Sledging seems so unnecessary. After all, another of the many characteristics the two games share is the extent to which they stack the odds. At any given moment, either nine or 11 men are ganging up on one, the avowed aim to negate, nullify and, ideally, exterminate.

Whereas baseball encourages physical contact and even indulges brawls, its more sedate brother from another mother is a subtler beast, albeit no gentler. What it most assuredly is not, has never been, is a game for gentlemen. Officially, that word itself denotes English peerage's lowest rank - below 80-odd others, even Master in Lunacy. When one's place in the pecking order is so insignificant, it is nothing if not pragmatic to be respectful, courteous, well-mannered and occasionally even honourable.

Denied the release of physical contact, it was inevitable that a cricketer should coin as dastardly a term as "mental disintegration". Whether it's Fred Trueman bullying a cowering Cambridge undergraduate, Dennis Lillee and Javed Miandad exchanging goads, Glenn McGrath spewing bile at Ramnaresh Sarwan or Merv Hughes foul-mouthing Graeme Hick, when it comes to rubbishing the game's reputation for civility the exhibits are largely verbal.

Trash-talking is all very well for boxers and those muscular clowns who have made WWE our least credible form of athletic competition. Is it naïve to expect ballplayers to rise above the sort of gratuitous personal abuse that would be stamped on in any other socially conscious workplace? Yes. Are we surprised that Darren Lehmann all but laughed off the suggestion of a "sledging summit"? Definitely not. Transgressors should therefore be pilloried as loudly as possible.

The name of the game must be shame. Shame the sledgers. Shame the needlers and the ranters. Shame the cowards. And the best way to achieve this noble end is not only to keep those stump mics on permanent duty but pump up the volume. Censorship is as pointless as it is dishonest. Why should the guilty be protected? Why shouldn't the audience, spectators as well as viewers, hear every sling and arrow of outrageous verbiage, preferably in Led Zeppelin-esque, Dolby-clarified, Marshall-amplified, 5.1 Surround Sound? They are part of the show. If turning the dial all the way up to 11 encourages wit, splendid. If it exposes nastiness and callousness, even better.

According to international protocol, of course, this ought to be a non-starter rather than a no-brainer. Still, judging by SABC's freewheeling deployment of the stump mic during last week's ODI against Pakistan in Port Elizabeth, let alone the 2006 Durban and Cape Town Tests, which saw Tony Greig and Mike Hussey take bilious exception to such eavesdropping, this doesn't seem to bother the state broadcaster unduly. Regrettably, I cannot report precisely what choice words the fielders selected after Quinton de Kock had given Junaid Khan a gentle shove for invading his space; my command of Urdu, shamefully, is on a par with Shane Warne's acumen in the shrinking-violet department.

Such is the precarious mutual dependence between sport and its most industrious sponsor, the reality is that behaviour will only be improved by stealth. Someday soon, a stump mic will be "accidentally" cranked up, not merely at a heated moment but for an entire day. Technical gremlins will be blamed. Innocence will be asserted. Apologies will be tendered. But the damage, with luck, will have been done. If there really is such a thing as the spirit of cricket - or even The Spirit of Cricket - I can't think of a better way to define what it isn't.

Mike Brearley's Bradman Oration 2013 - What is the point of Sport?

	Mike Brearley: "For many people otherwise inclined to be inhibited or self-conscious, sport offers a unique opportunity for self-expression and spontaneity" © Getty Images  Enlarge

Thank you very much for these remarks; and above all for the great honour you do me in inviting me to give the Bradman Oration as No. 11 in the distinguished line-up of speakers. There are those who'd say that this is the most appropriate position for me in the batting order, though I reckon I might get in ahead of Tim Rice.

It is an honour: but an intimidating honour. Following Rahul Dravid, for one thing. And he himself said it made him more anxious than going in to bat at No. 3 for India at the MCG. For another thing, it's not a talk you invite me for, or a mere lecture, or even a speech, but an Oration, no less. An imposing word and an imposing task. And not only an Oration, but what about the other word in the title: Bradman! The greatest batsman the game has known, a tireless administrator, and a man whose words are shrewd and moving.

It is just possible that the names Bradman and Brearley are not indissolubly linked together in the minds of cricket lovers, except perhaps for those who study the alphabetical order of England-Australia Test players, in which list we are separated solely by Len Braund, who played in 23 Tests for England in the first decade of the 20th century. A heckler in Sydney did once link Bradman and me during the fourth Test of 1978-79: "Breely," he shouted, "you make Denness look like Bradman."

However, I have one Test batting statistic that makes me superior to Don Bradman. I daresay many of you don't know this fact, one that is hard to believe, but of his 80 Test innings no fewer than ten ended in ducks: once in eight times he went to the crease in Test cricket, Bradman was out for nought. A remarkable fact. Whereas in my Test career, of 66 innings only six were ducks, one in 11.

I met Sir Donald a few times on my tours of Australia. Doug Insole, Ken Barrington, Bob Willis and I had lunch with him in Adelaide in 1978. I liked him - he was spry, quick, trenchant and modest. He had a twinkle in his eye. I remember best the discussion about fast bowlers. He reckoned that, for about 18 months, Frank Tyson was the fastest he'd seen; and that Harold Larwood was quicker than the bowlers of that day (who included Michael Holding, Andy Roberts, Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson - no slouches you'll agree). He acknowledged that Rodney Hogg was, as he put it, "a bit slippery". I thought he was too.

I come to Australia at a good time for English cricket, and at a key moment, I suspect, for Australian cricket. We are between two Ashes series, unusually close together. As you may have noticed, England have won four of the last five series, though I hesitate, as you'd appreciate, to rub it in. Australians, I gather, are baffled and confused by this scenario, one matched by parallel declines in other sports. It must be a time of soul-searching. I look forward very much to the upcoming series.

So - what to talk to you about, what to orate on? There are so many possible current topics - Test cricket and the threat of T20 domestic leagues, Umpire Review Systems, including the hot spot of Hot Spot, how to fight corruption in sport and in particular in cricket; and so on. But I imagine you might be a little tired of these issues (some of which will no doubt come up in the Panel), and I'm not sure I have anything original to say on them. So I've decided to talk to you now about something that borders on the work I've been doing as a psychoanalyst for the last 30-plus years since stopping playing cricket. I should like to consider the question: what is the point of sport, and in particular of cricket? And how does this link with the Ashes?

So: what is the point of it? Here are two quotes:

"Nothing in cricket has the slightest importance when set against a single death from violence in Northern Ireland."

And, second: ''Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that."

The first quote was from John Arlott, the second, Bill Shankly, the charismatic manager of Liverpool Football Club. What are we to make of this apparent conflict?

	"If human beings were not combative no one would have invented sport. But if human beings were not also cooperative neither team nor individual games would have come into existence"

The roots of sport

For those to whom sport doesn't appeal, it seems futile, pointless. They remember hours of misery at compulsory school games on cold (or indeed hot) sporting fields. They were perhaps physically awkward, and picked last; one can understand what a torment all this must have been for many.

Yet every small child, before self-doubt, and comparison with other children, gets a grip, takes pleasure in his or her bodily capacities and adroitness. Gradually the child achieves a measure of physical coordination and mastery. Walking, jumping, dancing, catching, kicking, climbing, splashing, using an implement as a bat or racquet - all these offer a sense of achievement and satisfaction. Sport grows out of the pleasure in such activities.

Moreover, this development in coordination is part of the development of a more unified self. Instead of being subject, as babies, to more or less random, stimulus-response movements of our limbs, we learn to act in the world according to central intentions or trajectories. We begin to know what we are doing and what we are about. The small child gradually finds a degree of rhythm and control through and in its movements. And there is the pleasure of improving.

So far, dance and sport are barely distinguishable. Sport proper starts to emerge when competition with others plays a more central role alongside the simpler delight in physicality. "I can run faster than you, climb higher, wrestle you to the floor." Aggression enters in more obviously, to combine with the flamboyance that is already in place.

Spontaneity and discipline

Sport is an area where aggression and the public demonstration of skills and of character are permitted, even encouraged. For many people otherwise inclined to be inhibited or self-conscious, sport offers a unique opportunity for self-expression and spontaneity. Within a framework of rules and acceptable behaviour, sportspeople can be whole-hearted. Such people - including me - owe sport a lot; here we begin to find ourselves, to become the selves that we have the potential to be.

In this process, the child and the adult have to learn to cope with the emotional ups and downs of victory and defeat, success and failure. They - we - gradually manage to keep going against the odds, to struggle back to form, to recognise the risks of complacency. We have to learn to deal with inner voices telling us we are no good, and with voices telling us we're wonderful. In sport the tendencies to triumph when we do well, and to become angry or depressed at doing badly, are often strong; we have to find our own ways of coping with them. Arrogance and humiliation have to be struggled against, whilst determination and proper pride and good sportsmanship are struggled towards.

Spectators identify not only with the skills of sportsmen but also with their characters, their characteristic ways of facing those twin impostors success and failure. These scenarios are central dramas of sport.

Sport calls too for a subtle balancing of planning and spontaneity, of calculation and letting go, of discipline and freedom. Greg Chappell wrote in an email to me: "premeditation is the graveyard of batting". And though this is importantly true, it needs qualification or expansion; for two reasons. One is that we need to set ourselves in certain ways. A batsman playing in a T20 match has a totally different orientation to the task from a player in a Test match. In one context he or she is looking to score off every ball; he is aware of the pressure of time, and of the urgent need to evaluate quickly where his side should be in two overs, say, or five. And second the advice may be in some cases a counsel of perfection, aimed at a highly skilled player, and geared to a scenario in which there is infinite time. All batsmen have to do some premeditation, if only in ruling out certain options. Even that mercurial genius Denis Compton looked to be on the back foot when facing quick bowlers. Most players pre-decide whether to go for the hook or alternatively to defend or evade the short-pitched ball; they adopt a policy; they premeditate. In shorter games, all batsmen pre-determine, or at least have a range of possibilities in their minds.

Also one has to train oneself in the sporting skills, form a reliable technique, and work at it. But - and this I think is Greg's point - having disciplined ourselves, having set ourselves according to the situation of the game, we then have to let ourselves go, trusting to our craftsmanship, skill and intuitive responsiveness, without further interference from the conscious mind. Occasionally this leads to that sublime balance between elements that constitutes being in the zone, or being on form. At the peak of performance one is simultaneously alert to possible lines of attack by individual and collective opponents, and able to respond with more or less uncluttered minds to the next play or assault. Like parents with children, we have a complicated job to do in enabling our own selves to find the right balance between self-discipline and free rein. The moments when body and mind are at one, when we are completely concentrated and completely relaxed, aware of every relevant detail of the surroundings but not obsessed or hyper-sensitive to any set of them, confident without being over-confident, aware of dangers without being over-cautious - such rare states of mind are akin to being in love. They involve a marriage between the conscious control mentioned above with the allowing of a more unconscious creativity through the body's knowledge. In such states the role of the conscious mind is, as Greg says, to stand back and quietly watch.

Teams

Sport divides into team and individual sports. One of the aims of team sport is for a group of individuals to be transfigured from a collection into a team, from a group functioning either like a homogenous flock or as a bunch of disparate individualists into a team with a range of different roles, with room for individual expression that is to be kept subservient to the cohesion of the whole team. Team sport calls for the balancing of self-interest and group interest. The members of the team have at times to constrain themselves in the interests of the team; they also have the benefit of the team's support especially when things are hard for them individually.

Cricket is unusual. Like baseball, but unlike golf or football, it is a matter of individual contests and dramas within a team context. When Chris Rogers opens the batting against Jimmy Anderson at Brisbane in a month's time, he will be well aware that what happens next is up to him (and Anderson). But their battle will also at some more subliminal level be influenced by the morale of the two sides.

	Greg Chappell once said "premeditation is the graveyard of batting" Adrian Murrell / © Getty Images  Enlarge

As Bradman said about the Invincibles (the 1948 side touring England): "Nothing can alter the figures which will appear in black and white in the record books, but they cannot record the spirit which permeated the side, the courage and fighting qualities of the players, for these things cannot be measured. They were on a very high plane."

Unlike baseball, cricket's contests between bat and ball can last for very long time periods - days, even - and go through many ups and downs. A weather-vane in the shape of Father Time surveys Lord's, the "home of cricket" - symbolising both the fact that time brings everything to an end and, perhaps, the timelessness of the experience of watching and playing cricket. Cricket is unique in its potential for drawn-out struggles between two people, each with his or her powerful narcissistic wishes for admiration and fears of humiliation, all within this team context. And for the cricket batsman failure means a symbolic death; he or she has to leave the arena, a king deposed.

Team games give people a sense of belonging and a proper pride. And this can happen not on the small scale of a single team, but on a national scale. Sport may be the one place where a country can come together with good feelings about itself. This has happened through cricket in Afghanistan, whose national team have worked their way up from Division 5 in the World Cricket League in 2008, to winning through as qualifiers for the next World Cup in 2015. Imagine what this means to a country devastated by wars, corruption and poverty.

Co-operation and competition

If human beings were not combative no one would have invented sport. But if human beings were not also cooperative neither team nor individual games would have come into existence. For reasons I will come to, rivalry can - and indeed should - be taken close to the limit. But alongside this, cricket also involves the recognition of the unspoken realities of the spirit, respect and generosity of the game. This is not merely a matter of obedience to the laws; it also involves ordinary civilities that oil the wheels of relationships and collegial activities, recognition of limits, consideration and respect, and give and take through a kind of dialogic interplay on the field.

The Latin etymology of both "rival" and "compete" reflect this fact: rivalis meant "sharing the same stream or river bank", competens meant "striving together with", "agreeing together", as in "competent."

Rivalry does not entail lack of respect for one's opponent, whatever the outcome. Test cricket is, like many other forms of sport, rightly a tough business. But there is another side of these tough contests which can too easily be forgotten, and that is the fair-mindedness and sportsmanship between hard, high-powered competitors. One occurred in the last innings of the Centenary Test in 1977, when Derek Randall made his fantastic 174 and Dennis Lillee took 11 wickets in the match (the result of which was precisely the same as the result of the original match, 100 years before, a 45-runs win for Australia). Randall was well past a century at this point, England were something like 250 for 2, Lillee was tired, and there was a serious chance of us winning against all odds. Greg, the captain, was bowling, and a ball squeezed between Randall's bat and pad. Rod Marsh dived forward to take the ball, and the batsman was given out. Picking himself up, Rod indicated to Greg that the ball hadn't carried, and Randall was called back. (Rod says it was also a fact that Randall hadn't even hit it, but that was another matter!)

When at Edgbaston in 2005 England won by two runs, England's hero Andrew Flintoff left the team huddle at the moment of victory and put his arm round his defeated opponent, Brett Lee. He was not only commiserating with the pain of defeat, a boot that could so easily have been on the other foot. He also I think was acknowledging the kinship between rivals. For at the same time as wanting to defeat our opponents, we depend on them and their skill, courage and hostility, in order to prove and improve our own skills, to earn and merit our pride. There is a unity of shared striving, as well as a duality of opposition. The 11 players on each team form bonds through their shared skills and teamwork that are sometimes hard to replicate in the less intense working relationships of everyday life. After wars, the closeness felt with fellow soldiers may make domestic ties for discharged survivors pallid by comparison. Somewhat similarly, the 22 players in a Test match go through it together, in a way that no spectator does.

Envy and jealousy play a part in, and are not always easily accommodated within, ordinary rivalry. In one county match Dickie Dodds, the Essex opening batsman, was out without scoring on a pitch that was perfect for batting. Essex went on to dominate the morning session, and by lunch had reached 150 without further loss. Having had to watch his team's success from the pavilion, Dodds camep to Doug Insole, one of the "not out" batsmen, and said, "Skipper, I hope you haven't been troubled by any bad vibes this morning?" Insole replied, "Can't say I have, Dickie, been too busy enjoying myself - why do you ask?" "Because I've been so full of bitterness I've not been wishing you well." Here is an understandable and very human envy; Dodds' frankness and regret meant there was no chance of it spoiling the relationship.

	"Competitiveness can turn into bullying, uncouthness or superiority. But it can also be perverted in the opposite direction. Some people refrain from competing wholeheartedly because they are afraid of winning, and even avoid doing so"

In 1976-77, I played five Tests in India. One of India's formidable quartet of spin bowlers was Erapalli Prasanna. He was a short, somewhat rotund offspinner, with large, expressive eyes, and a wonderful control of flight. For some reason, he and I would engage in a kind of eye-play. His look would say, "Okay, you played that one all right, but where will the next one land?" And mine would reply, "Yes, you fooled me a little, but notice I adjusted well enough." He had that peculiarly Indian, minimal, sideways waggle of the head, which suggests that the vertebrae of the subcontinental neck are more loosely linked than in our stiffer Western ones. The waggle joined with the eyes in saying: "I acknowledge your qualities, and I know you acknowledge mine."

I found it easier to enter into such an engagement with a slow bowler, who might bamboozle me and get me out, but wasn't trying to kill me. But I had something similar with some fast bowlers, especially when we were more or less equally likely to come out on top. With them I could actually enjoy their best ball, pitching on a perfect length in line with off stump and moving away. I also enjoyed the fact that it was too good to graze the edge of my bat. There was the same friendly rivalry. The spirit of cricket - or more broadly, of sport itself.

Being tested

But how much do we really desire to be tested, in life or in sport? If the opposition's best fast bowler treads on the ball before the start of a Test match (as Glenn McGrath did just before the Edgbaston match referred to above) and cannot play, is one relieved or disappointed? There is no escaping the relief. We all want an easier ride. And it would be easy to be hypocritical, falsely high-minded, and say insincerely that we regret that the opposition team is hampered. But at the same time there is also a wish - in the participants as well as among spectators - for the contest to be fought with each side at its best, not depleted, so that no one can cavil at victory or make excuses for defeat. Similarly, one might take more pleasure in scoring fifty against Lillee and Thomson than in making a big hundred against lesser bowling. Bradman made a parallel point: "There is not much personal satisfaction in making a hundred and being missed several times. Any artist must surely aim at perfection." "Perfection" includes competing with the best, and this offers the opportunity to feel most fully alive, and to find the greatest satisfaction.

Opponents challenge us. If we are up to it, they stretch us, call forth our courage, skill and resourcefulness; they force us to develop our techniques, or else to lag behind. They are co-creators of excellence and integrity. As the old Yorkshire and England batsman Maurice Leyland once said: "Fast bowling keeps you honest." And mountaineer Heinrich Harrrer, in The White Spider, "The glorious thing about mountains is that they will endure no lies." And this is why corruption - fixing of any kind - goes against the essence of sport and is the greatest threat to its integrity.

Visceral truthfulness is part of the process whereby we come to accept the urgency of our own subjectivity, whilst giving room to the subjectivity of the other. It takes courage to risk all in such competitiveness, and courage and generosity to accept the outcome without retreat or revenge. You will agree that this is pat of the appeal of the Ashes to us all.

Avoiding the contest

Competitiveness can get out of hand, turning into cheating and a nasty vindictiveness. Over-valuation of competitiveness can crush and inhibit the growing child. It can spoil relationships, and reduce love to trophy-seeking. It can result in an attitude of "devil take the hindmost".

There is I think no need for "sledging", and I encountered hardly any of it in my career as a professional cricketer, In my experience the great West Indian fast bowlers said nothing to the batsman on the field. One might say: they had no need to - first because of their superlative ability, but second because they were quite able to convey menace by eye contact and strut. It happened that, when I played my first Test match, against the West Indies, in 1976, both teams were staying at the same hotel in Nottingham and I ran into Andy Roberts at breakfast. He gave me a quizzical little look, not crudely unpleasant, but conveying, I felt, something along the lines of "Shall I be eating you for breakfast or for tea?" He gave these looks on the field too. Like the face of Helen of Troy, which launched a thousand ships, Andy's conveyed a thousand words.

	Erapalli Prasanna, says Brearley, would engage the batsmen in eye-play © PA Photos  Enlarge

There are differences that would be hard to define between appropriate shrewdness in undermining an opponent and sledging - a boorish expression of contempt. Cricket is after all not only a physical game; it includes bluff, menace, ploy and counter-ploy. Setting a field is not simply a matter of putting someone where the ball is most likely to go, (though that's not a bad idea; have modern captains forgotten about third man?) but also of making the batsman wonder what is coming next, or making clear to him that we reckon he lacks certain strokes. The aim is that he will be undone by such a "statement" either into loss of nerve or into reckless attempts to prove us wrong. Words may enter into this; a captain might say within a batsman's hearing "you don't need anyone back there for him" - and I would be inclined to see this as a fair enough nibble at the batsman's state of mind. Viv Richards' swagger at the crease and Shane Warne's slow, mesmerising nine-step walk which took up most of his so-called "run-up" were key elements in their unequivocal assertion that this was their stage, a stage their opponents had little right to share with them. Such attitudes, by captains as well as bowlers or batsmen, seem to me to be acceptable, even admirable, but they can tip over into arrogance and superiority - even into a sort of gang warfare. The line is thin.

Superiority and arrogance may be endemic in a person or a culture. The British Empire was not exactly free of it (as you may have noticed). We British had many terms of abuse or disparagement for members of other cultures - racist stereotyping. Such automatic attitudes involved stereotyping. What was remarkable about the rise of West Indian cricket - a rise that culminated in their extraordinary period of world dominance during the 1970s and '80s - is that people who had been enslaved and then released into a world of prejudice, arrogance and power, with many of these arrangements extending into cricket, should have been so open to values that they found in this colonial game.

Self-disparagement is one consequence of racial and other kinds of trauma, yet cricketers like the Constantines (father Lebrun and son Learie), George Headley and Frank Worrell were able through their exploits and attitudes to build up the self-respect of their fellows, so that later generations could be stronger, more determined, more in touch with their proper pride. It seems to me that West Indians of earlier generations were able to be modest (in the sense of knowing they had a lot to learn) without being abject, and proud without being arrogant. They were prepared to celebrate the glass as half-full rather than rage against its being half-empty. They were willing also to wait. It was thanks to their pride and forbearance that the next generation, Roberts and Richards included, could triumph so memorably in what was able to be, by then, healthy competition between true equals.

So: competitiveness can turn into bullying, uncouthness or superiority. But it can also be perverted in the opposite direction. Some people refrain from competing wholeheartedly because they are afraid of winning, and even avoid doing so. One young boy desperately wanted to win the first board game with his father, but then equally desperately needed to lose the second, so that neither party would lose face, or have to bear too much disappointment, or have to deal with any tendency to gloat. One might think, loftily, that the mature attitude to winning in sport is not to mind. The opposite is true. Not minding often means avoiding really trying.

I am aware, of course, that recreational sport played for fun may have other aims and values. Of one social-side captain it was said that "his captaincy had twin aims: to give every player a good game and to beat the opposition as narrowly as possible". I can see the point in this. But something is also lost in such an attitude. In sport we have the opportunity, and the license, to assert ourselves as separate and authentic individuals against others who have the same license; this potential allows us to find our own unique identity, whilst respecting that of others. And this is part of a wider growth of the personality, of which one aspect would be the Quaker capacity to "tell Truth to Power". One element in telling the truth is being able to stand firm against powerful and sometimes bullying forces, without becoming a bully oneself. The more strenuous and spirited aspects of competitiveness enhance self-development, courage and sheer exhilaration. They can also be the occasion and source of the discovery and growth of new methods and techniques. Whereas being less than wholehearted is liable to be, though it may not be, a kind of evasion or cowardice.

I once was a guest player for an English professional side on a short tour involving a number of matches. During the first half of the tour, we had tried our best but lost more than we won. We had been facing talented players, in their conditions. The matches were played hard, even though they were not part of any ongoing competitive leagues or series. In the next game, against a very strong side, we were led by the newly arrived captain. This captain preferred to emphasise the entertainment element in the game, this being a supposedly "friendly" fixture; not wanting to be too serious, he took off his front-line bowlers, allowing the opposition batsmen to display their most powerful strokes. They scored an even bigger total than they would have without his (to my mind misguided) generosity, bowled flat-out against us, and we limped to a crushing defeat. This gesture of "giving" runs patronised the other team and robbed each party of the satisfaction of doing their best in striving properly to win. We did not properly lose (though we did lose face and respect). The gilt on our opponents' win was tarnished.

Such dilution of proper rivalry can also occur out of a wish to look good. One Test captain, whom I won't name, decided during the afternoon of the last day that his batsmen should play for a draw rather than take further risks in going for a win - a perfectly respectable decision. He was, however, reluctant to be criticised for being a defensive captain. This match was the first Test for a young batsman in the middle order; he had been given out (incorrectly) for a duck in the first innings, and given a hard time by the crowd, who'd wanted their local hero selected instead of him. When he went in to bat that last afternoon the captain gave him the following orders: "Play for a draw, but don't make it look as if we're playing for a draw." This was hypocritical and cowardly captaincy; the debutant was in a difficult enough place without having to act a false role. This captain was more interested in how he himself looked than in competing properly or in supporting a young player.

	"It seems to me that West Indians of earlier generations were able to be modest (in the sense of knowing they had a lot to learn) without being abject, and proud without being arrogant"

I even have some doubts about what was from one viewpoint a notable example of nobility and generosity. The great Surrey and England batsman Jack Hobbs said once that as Surrey had a lot of good batsman, and the Oval pitch was usually easy, when he and Andy Sandham had put on 150 or so for the first wicket, he'd sometimes give his wicket to "the most deserving professional bowler". (When the pitch was difficult, or Larwood and Voce were bowling, that was when he really earned his money, he went on). But in making a gift of his wicket, did Hobbs belittle the recipient of the gift, who had not by his own skill and persistence forced an error? Did he treat the bowler not man to man, but man to boy? Was there an element of the feudal in Hobbs' largesse?

When England were about to tour India in 1976, some of us took the opportunity to ask Len Hutton, a Yorkshireman noted for his dry, enigmatic comments, for advice. Len appeared characteristically guarded. He then uttered a single short sentence: "Don't take pity on them Indian bowlers."

In the great battles of sport, no quarter is given and none expected. Some of you will remember the contest between South African fast bowler Alan Donald and Michael Atherton at Trent Bridge in 1998. A great fast bowler hurled all his aggression, power and skill at a defiant, gritty batsman, a battle given an extra tinge of menace by the umpiring mistake as a result of which Atherton had just been given not out, having gloved Donald to the keeper.

These are occasions when observers tremble with awe. Highlights of Test matches in Australia were for the first time broadcast in the UK in 1974-75, after the ten o'clock news. England - this you will certainly remember - were blasted by Lillee and Thommo on bowler-friendly pitches. My Middlesex colleague, opening batsman Mike Smith, reported pouring himself a large gin and tonic and hiding behind the sofa to watch.

In that series, Tony Greig used to provoke Lillee; he believed that Dennis bowled less well the more fired up he got; and Tony himself reacted at his best when the opponent was incensed. Some of the most memorable contests are those where the aggression is raw, but contained, perhaps only just, within the bounds of respect for the opposition and for the rules and traditions of the game. One of the great things about Ashes matches is the absolute commitment of both sides.

Shankly and Arlott

So to return, briefly, to John Arlott and Bill Shankley. Arlott is clearly right about particular moments. Death or serious injury are real tragedies or disasters, compared with which a low score, even a Bradman duck, is nothing. On the other hand, the institution of sport, with its challenges and opportunities, its companionship with team-mates and opponents alike, offers a setting for activities that enrich life, that build character, and that help develop the complex balance between being an individual and being part of a group or team. Both are right.