Failing the Tebbit test - Difficulties in supporting the England cricket team

by Girish Menon





The article by second generation British writer Kishan Koria applying the 'cricket test' to examine the behaviour of Britons of Asian origin was interesting and revelatory but it may be a case of blaming the victim and not the perpetrator. So, I am going to raise some issues which are never raised in the politics of Tebbit's followers. 

Firstly, why should it be a natural assumption that if you have resided in England for years you must support the English cricket team? If England's home advantage against India is reduced to fixing the pitch to suit its bowlers then so be it. The English cricket team must earn the support of the ticket buyers with its acts on and off the pitch.

The spectator in a cricket match has paid a high price to be there. That s/he should cheer for the England cricket team was never a condition of the contract. She is a free agent and can support whoever she pleases. 

The manner in which the English cricket establishment has treated players like Pietersen and Panesar gives the outsider an impression that they don't care about the views of their followers in any case. I'm sure even Bopara may be surprised at the number of times he has been in and out of the England team. 

The cricket blog The Full Toss has often highlighted the uncaring way the ECB deals with the supporters of the English cricket team. So, will it not be natural for cricket lovers to express their disgust in manifold ways? 

As far as citizenship in a land goes so long as residents pay taxes and obey the laws of the land then they are free to do what they like with the rest of their lives. This is usually the argument of free marketers like Tebbit, so why then do they wish to deny choice to these consumers of cricketainment with the nanny state telling them who to support in a cricket match? 

So, the likes of the ECB should be happy that it is the English citizens of Indian origin who are putting the bums on stadia seats and the brown pounds in their coffers. Many English bums (pun unintended) stay away from cricket stadia for a variety of reasons  including ticket prices, poor team selection policies etc. Hence the ECB should not further risk their luck by telling these high fare paying spectators who to support. Instead they should earn their support by fair minded policies and listening to the voices of their dwindling support base.

Personally, I fail the Tebbit test every time England play India and I have been unable to understand why. This is funny because in my growing years I supported the Mumbai team against other Indian teams even though my parents were immigrants from the state of Kerala (far away from Mumbai), and despite there always existing  a violent campaign against immigrants in Mumbai. 

It maybe out of alienation in a land where me and my family's future fortune lies. It maybe the jingoism in the highly conservative media. It maybe the 'institutional racism' referred to in the Macpherson report. It may be the 'barging of Gavaskar by Snow'; the negative lines bowled by Giles; the Zaheer Khan jelly beans incident; the failure to criticise Anderson for his foul mouthed pronouncements in the quest for victory; the failure to understand the invalidity of the predicted path in a DRS while castigating the non believer as a Luddite; or invoking the spirit of cricket argument selectively.  As for the booing of Moeen Ali, a fine prospect, to my mind this appears to be a continuation of the Indo-Pak rivalry which has been carried forward by the diaspora. 

However, I have also noticed periods when I begin to like the English team but then something happens and the old English superiority biases surface in the commentariat and I am driven once again to dislike the team, probably wrongly, probably not due to the players' actions. But, most importantly, the overriding reason is the brand of cricket the team plays. I have for long been a fan of the Pietersen, Botham and Gower brand of English cricket. But, so long as the clones of Boycott and Tavare dominate the approach to batting it is a trifle difficult to stay awake let alone support the England team. 

Why Cook's right for England

Or: the merits of long-term character over short-term flashiness

Ed Smith

April 3, 2013

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	Cook: not a "natural" leader, and that's perfectly fine © PA Photos  Enlarge
Related Links Players/Officials: Alastair Cook | Brendon McCullum Matches: New Zealand v England at Auckland Series/Tournaments: England tour of New Zealand Teams: England

Alastair Cook took on the job of England Test captain with a reputation as a man unlikely to spring many surprises. In fact, he has produced two shocks already: a series win over India, coming back from 0-1 down, and then a scramble to avoid series defeat against eighth-placed New Zealand.

Captaincy being what it is - a convenient mechanism for pundits to shoehorn their general opinions of a team into a judgement of a single human being, as though the captain actually is the team - Cook has already experienced an accelerated cycle of ups and downs. Lauded in India, he was immediately widely criticised for his tactics in New Zealand.

Both judgements were hasty and incomplete. India first. England did superbly to win the series. But it was, in fact, a moment of hubris that let them back into the series. India prepared an ultra-turning pitch for the second Test, in Mumbai, mistakenly believing they were attacking England's weakness. In fact, the decision empowered Monty Panesar, who helped swing the series. On flat pitches, as we later saw in New Zealand, Panesar would have been unlikely to challenge the Indian batsmen. If India hadn't got cute with their pitch preparation, England would have struggled.

Then, in New Zealand, though Cook clearly made some mistakes, I saw nothing to challenge my initial view that Cook possesses the tools to become a very considerable England captain. In fact, after one winter in the job, I think it is more likely than ever that Cook will prove to be the right man for the job. If the England management takes a single lesson from the tour, it should be to do everything possible to provide Cook with as much support as possible. Here are three reasons why England should feel optimistic about backing Cook:

A huge question mark about all captains is how office will affect their individual performance. A captain has a short shelf-life if he doesn't produce his fair share of runs and wickets (invoking the example of Mike Brearley does not buy much time in the modern game). Cook's form, if you take the whole winter as a whole, has been spectacular. Seven matches, four hundreds, all of them scored in critical situations.

Ah, but we always knew he could bat. Can he set a field? Many successful captains have been widely regarded as tactically unremarkable. Allan Border was never talked about as a captain who set innovative, surprising fields. He relied on leading by example through his personal resilience and tenacity. It worked. Andrew Strauss led England to two Ashes victories, throughout which time a standard view in the media was that he was "tactically naïve". I challenge anyone to reach 35 years old as a professional sportsman and remain "naïve". No, the word is "cautious", or, if you're feeling more generous, "conventional".

The crucial point here is that you never get everything with one captain. Imagine having to choose between two leaders. The first is a talented, adventurous tactician who is personally unreliable and a flaky performer. The second is a strong, reliable player and a courageous person but a cautious and unsurprising tactician. Give both captains 50 matches in charge with the full support of the management. I know where my money lies about who will achieve the better results.

	I asked Geoff Boycott if he could remember an England batsman who had a more admirable talent-to-performance ratio. Boycott had to go back to David Steele before he could think of someone who had squeezed more from his ability

The media generally overrates captains who are exciting and interesting to watch. That is partly because such captains provide more talking points, hence making the media's job easier. Alpha-male captains also receive disproportionate praise. Pundits are quick to credit the work of "natural captains" - by which they usually mean people with gladiatorial body language - even though a moment's reflection reveals that the whole concept of a natural captain is undermined by the extraordinary diversity of characters who have become successful captains.

We saw the "alpha male/pro-adventure" bias at work in the reaction to Brendon McCullum's captaincy. The experts loved him because he was bold, intuitive and original. And I would generally agree. But a bandwagon effect emerged in which everything McCullum tried was greeted with gasps of admiration, while many tactics Cook used were written off without first considering whether it was the fault of the tactic or simply the fault of the execution by the bowler.

Let me give two examples to balance the ledger. On the last morning of the final Test, in Auckland, McCullum, searching for a victory, opened the bowling with the part-time offspin of Kane Williamson rather than his best bowler, Trent Boult. The batsmen at the crease were Ian Bell and Joe Root, both accomplished players of spin. By that point in the series, however, it had already been decided that McCullum was "a brilliant tactician", so the mistake slipped by mostly without criticism.

A second example came in the over before the second-last one of the match. After the fourth ball, McCullum seemed undecided about whether to bring up the field or leave it out. It seemed to me that everyone in the New Zealand team had an opinion and McCullum was finding it difficult to navigate events. Finally, watch again the last over of the match. Many arms were waving around in the field, not all of them belonging to McCullum. Had it been Cook, this would have been taken as evidence that he was insufficiently "in charge".

My point, far from attacking McCullum, is two-fold. First, the incredibly challenging role of captaincy demands constant decision-making, not just "natural leadership". Secondly, any captain can be easily criticised if you are minded to search for mistakes.

We already know enough about Cook to be sure he is an exceptionally balanced and accomplished young man. At the age of 28, he has more hundreds than any other Englishman. More revealingly, he has batted with more prolonged calmness and self-awareness than any English player I have seen. In New Zealand, I asked Geoff Boycott if he could remember an England batsman who had a more admirable talent-to-performance ratio. Boycott had to go back to David Steele before he could think of someone who had squeezed more from his ability, and Cook, of course, has far more ability to squeeze.

In making predictions, we should be guided by past achievements. Cook has a proven record of self-improvement. After one winter of varied, difficult Test cricket, there is no evidence to overthrow the presumption that Cook the captain will follow a similar path to Cook the batsman. Put differently, English cricket should back long-term character not short-term flashiness.

****

A favourite theme of this column is the tension, in both sport and life, between rationality and intuitive judgement. There is no doubt about the orientation of Trouble With the Curve, Clint Eastwood's new film about baseball. It is a manifesto for homespun wisdom, experience and intuition, and a thinly veiled attack on data, innovation and novelty.

Eastwood's film is the inverse Moneyball. Michael Lewis' story was full of liberal optimism, how the scientific method could shine a light on sporting success. It lampooned the faux-wisdom of old baseball scouts, the crusty old men in baseball jackets with their arch-conservatism and imperviousness to the evidence. Now, with Trouble With the Curve, we have the conservative rejoinder. These flash guys with laptops: phonies, charlatans, lightweights. The old men in the stands: sages, gurus, keepers of the flame.

You do not have to take sides to enjoy both interpretations of sport. Indeed, perhaps not taking sides ideologically is a prerequisite for a full enjoyment of sport. Five years ago I wrote this in my book What Sport Tells Us About Life:

We are what we want to see when we watch sport. The angry fan finds tribal belonging; the pessimist sees steady decline and fall; the optimist hails progress in each innovation; the sympathetic soul feels every blow and disappointment; the rationalist wonders how the haze of illogical thinking endures.

What I failed to point out in that paragraph is that we all, to some degree, take on each of those perspectives within one lifetime. One individual sports fan can be all of those people, sometimes simultaneously.

Sport provides us with a never-ending conversation about the nature of experience. Not only do we constantly change our minds, we never reach a final judgement. We are right not to.

Why England's spinners are better

	Swann and Panesar have been more impressive than the Indian spinners, despite theoretically having had to bowl to batsmen more adept at playing spin © Getty Images Enlarge

A look at why Panesar and Swann have outbowled Ojha and Ashwin in India

Aakash Chopra in Cricinfo

December 13, 2012

There were times in India when the sight of a spinner running in to the crease was intimidating for the batsman. The close-in fielders hovered, standing by to take the catches that would inevitably be produced. Back then Indian spinners sent out strong signals - that they were as lethal as the Caribbean quick bowlers, and no second fiddles. Invariably India's spinners were superior to those from other countries, and the land of Bedi, Chandrashekhar and Prasanna kept producing quality spinners, so much so that some of them didn't even play for India - for these three kept going for years. 

Today, though, even on wilting, dusty turners, Indian spinners don't hold the same threat. For the longest time, dishing out a dustbowl guaranteed success, for India's batsmen would score a mountain of runs and the spinners would bowl the opposition out twice, double quick. But since the retirement of Anil Kumble, things have changed.

The signs of the downward spiral have been there for everyone to see. The lowest ebb has been reached in the ongoing series against England - probably the first time in Indian cricket's history that a visiting team from outside the subcontinent has had the services of better spinners, and the decision to dish out a rank turner has been more likely to backfire on India than guarantee success - as happened in Mumbai.

Why is it that Monty Panesar and Graeme Swann are extracting a lot more out of the tracks than their Indian counterparts? (Remember also that they're bowling against a batting line-up that is known for its proficiency against the turning ball.)

Panesar has been the most impressive bowler in the series, operating at a pace ideally suited to the tracks provided thus far. He bowls at least 10kph quicker than is usually recommended for spinners. While that extra pace goes against him on good batting surfaces - because he doesn't keep the ball in the air long enough to create deception - it's working absolutely fine on slow Indian pitches. The extra pace in the air doesn't allow the batsman the luxury of stepping out or of waiting on the back foot. It is this extra pace that made Panesar unplayable at times in Mumbai, because handling a viciously turning ball at high speeds is extremely difficult.

If it was only about the pace, then why didn't India's spinners crack the code and bowl quicker too? After all, how difficult could it be to increase your pace as a spinner?

That's where the basics are important, for speed can work in your favour only if the ball comes out of the hand properly, with enough revolutions on it. That's precisely where Panesar has scored over Pragyan Ojha.

Panesar's action is that of a classical left-arm spinner, with the bowling arm very close to the ear, which enables him to not only get the wrist position slightly tilted (about 45 degrees) at the point of release but also to extract more bounce off the surface with the higher point of release.

He delivers from the middle of the box, which allows him to bowl a lot straighter. Bowling closer to the stumps makes his arm ball a lot more effective, for it is always pitching and finishing in line with the stumps. Also, his follow-through takes him towards the batsman, which means the body momentum is heading in the direction of the ball; that translates into him getting a fair bit of zip off the surface.

In contrast, Ojha releases the ball from the corner of the box, and his bowling arm is further away from the ear than in Panesar's case. Ojha's position on the crease creates an acute angle, which might give a false impression of the ball drifting in. It also means he needs a lot of assistance from the pitch to generate spin off the surface to compensate for that angle. His wrist position is slightly more tilted than Panesar's at the point of release, which negatively affects not just bounce off the surface but also his chances of turning the ball. Finally, there's no follow-through whatsoever: Ojha stops as soon as he delivers the ball, which indicates that his bowling is a lot about wrist and shoulder instead of being about hips and torso as well.

Swann is technically superior to R Ashwin too. His bowling is all about using every limb to impart more revolutions on the ball. Since he plays most of his cricket on unresponsive English pitches, he has learnt the importance of putting revs on the ball every single time, which creates deception in the air by making the ball dip on the batsman, and also produces bite off the surface.

	In Test cricket there needs to be a stock ball that one should bowl, ball after ball. You need to create deception in the air by varying the lines and speeds ever so slightly

Swann doesn't have too many variations; in fact he has got only two deliveries - the one that spins in to the right-hander and the arm ball that goes straight on. Having fewer variations has led him to become more patient, and made him rely on changing the point of release, speed and flight without compromising on length. He has struck a fine balance between being aggressive and being patient.

His lines of operation to right-handed batsmen are slightly outside off, challenging the batsman to play against the spin. Against the left-handers, he bowls a lot closer, cramping them for room. Like with Panesar, Swann's body momentum too takes him towards the batsman.

Ashwin, on the other hand, has a lot of tricks in his bag. He can bowl the traditional offspinner, a doosra and a carrom ball at will, and with a reasonable amount of control. His high-arm action gets him bounce off the surface too. But while having so many options works wonders in the shorter formats, where the batsmen can't line him up, it works against him in Test cricket.

Wickets in Test matches are a result of setting up a dismissal, and for that you need to be patient, almost bordering on being boring and predictable. There needs to be a stock ball that one should bowl, ball after ball. You need to create deception in the air by varying the lines and speeds ever so slightly. The longer you keep the batsman occupied with one kind of delivery, the better your chances of the variation catching him off guard. Ashwin, with all the weapons in his armoury, feels obliged to bring them out at regular intervals. This hampers his consistency with line and length, and results in him offering up boundary balls often.

Technically, while his wrist and arm position are good, like Ojha he too doesn't put his body behind the ball as much as he should; he falls towards the left after delivering the ball, instead of taking the momentum towards the batsman.

The quality of India's spinners was one of the reasons the team became a force to reckon with in Test cricket. The remarkable records at home were all courtesy spin. India may have had a pantheon of quality spinners but the current crop does not seem to have been able to master the craft. There are plenty of former players around who were masters of the skill. Time India got these veterans to guide the youngsters on how to spin a web around teams again.