The age of player power

Players, emboldened by free agency, agents and endorsements, are now asserting their rights as never before - and management doesn't like it

Rob Steen in Cricinfo

October 29, 2014

  

Michael Holding is among those who feel the West Indies players have been cast in the role of sinners in the latest saga © BCCI

Big hitter wanted. Must be comfortable handling money, schmoozing Australian media magnates, worshipping at the Church of Broadcasting on an hourly basis, maintaining an unholy trinity of power, changing course at the drop of a hat, staging events that lack context or go on too long, and treating the talent like worker ants (which of course they are). Imagination, a working set of principles and a capacity to think more than five minutes ahead nice but not essential. Cricketing experience would also be nice, but ex-professionals need not apply. Did we stress "no women" enough? All right then, NO WOMEN.

The "Positions Vacant" column at ICC Towers or BCCI HQ could never adopt that precise wording, of course. The sentiments, nonetheless, wouldn't be terribly different, not in essence. Perhaps the fondest and most self-deluding perception we cricket fanciers suffer from is the idea that, as a species, the game's administrators have the game at heart. Or anywhere remotely near it.

This is why a globally respected former player told me last week, after I'd urged him, for the good of the game, to put on his best suit and apply for his mandarin's licence, that he would just as soon buy a return flight to the sun, or even a lifetime's subscription to the Sun. This is also the fundamental reason why cricket in the Caribbean has just been dumped into what may well prove to be the deepest, muddiest, smelliest bogthis grand old game of ours has ever had the nose-holding, arm's-length displeasure to behold.

As Michael Holding related in his column for Wisden India, the roots of the duel between Dwayne Bravo et al and the West Indies Cricket Board lie in the latter's quest for revenge on the uppity West Indies Players' Association. And not over the shenanigans of Chris Gayle or Sunil Narine - or at least, not directly - but over the insistence that the board honour a pay rise to the players approved by its former CEO, Dr Ernest Hilaire.

To be fair, the CEO had been "conned" - as Holding put it - into sending the incriminating email by Dinanath Ramnarine, the former WIPA president and chief executive (indeed, Holding took a current WIPA official out for dinner and made no bones about his anger at such a shameless stunt). That, though, was scant consolation to Hilaire, or the WICB.

There can be little question, given its lamentable track record in player relations - a track record that has made the WIPA one of the most militant players' unions anywhere - that the WICB deserves public humiliation. And public humiliation can propel even the most intelligent and far-seeing fellows to the most asinine of reactions. Trouble is, when it comes to cricket officials - or, for that matter, officials of any sporting, showbiz or political creed - presumptions of intelligence and foresight may be unduly kind.

Holding, it should be added, has never been a rabid advocate of players' rights. That underlying ambivalence - towards the WICB as well as his on-field successors - has been easy to understand. To someone such as him, a Jamaican for whom playing for West Indies meant something more than representing a region, the ever-rising emphasis on financial reward can at times seem odious. When he was skittling all those England batsmen at The Oval in 1976, Holding will assure you, a win bonus or enhanced contract was an additional, minor incentive, not a cause. The revolution he was fighting, though, has been more or less won; now another needs winning.

That's why Holding has been unable to contain his fury, taking up cudgels on behalf of players who he feels (and not without extremely good reason) have been shat upon from a considerable height and cast, inevitably, as scapegoats. That the owner of the calmest, coolest, unshrillest voice in the menagerie we call the commentary box should feel compelled to raise it to such a pitch should not, cannot, be dismissed lightly.

That Bravo et al cannot even trust their own union rep, Wavell Hinds, ironically a long-time friend of Bravo's as well as a pal of Dave Cameron, the WICB president, emphasises how toxic things have got. Likewise Marlon Samuels' non-solidarity.

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One of the under-appreciated benefits of the IPL is that it has empowered the players. Now, finally, the wealthy (and not undeserving) few have a shot at controlling their own destinies, free of club or board interference. This has also led down a bumpy road to a spooky place, a place where national teams, for so long the focus and pinnacle of attention, no longer call all the shots, where the highest levels of the game are merely the hors d'oeuvres, net practice for those whose appetites extend to all-you-can-eat feasts in Mumbai and Kolkata.

Nonetheless, amid all this frantic and often confusing relocation of the goalposts, Bravo and company were still willing to take a pay cut if it meant benefiting those labouring on the lower half of their greasy, treacherous pole. How many of us, in our own jobs, would do likewise? Granted, exceedingly few of us earn anything like as much as Bravo or Gayle (or even Jason Holder), but how many bankers or surgeons are queuing up to take a pay cut to help clerks or nurses? Generosity is generosity. For that, surely, these rebels warrant our admiration rather than opprobrium.

That the WICB appears so eager to paint a diametrically opposed picture testifies to its members' desperation to maintain control at any cost to credibility. Before the forceful Ramnarine resigned in 2012, the board refused point blank to deal with him. Garth Wattley summed up the board's approach to the WIPA as "a mixture of conciliation, intransigence, and more often of late, arrogance".

	That Michael Holding, the owner of the calmest, coolest voice in the menagerie we call the commentary box should feel compelled to raise it to such a pitch should not be dismissed lightly

Once upon a time, at the risk of tooting my own horn, I was party to a similar collective effort to aid less fortunate colleagues. When Robert Maxwell suddenly closed the London Daily News in 1987, after the bouncing Czech had lured scores of journalists from safe jobs to launch the paper just five months earlier, those of us who had been on board from the start voted to take a 50% cut in our severance pay. We decided on this course in order to ensure that the latest appointees, who had left their previous publications but had yet to report for duty at the LDN (of whom there were a fair number), could be compensated. It didn't help them enormously but I like to think they appreciated the gesture. On the other hand, I was single and childless at the time; I'm not at all sure I would have backed such a vote 20 years later.

But let's not get distracted. The bottom line could not be clearer. In the centuries-old struggle between management and players, across all major professional sports, the workers, emboldened by free agency, agents and endorsements, are now asserting their rights as never before - and management doesn't like it one eensy-weensy bit. Particularly not when it breeds season-shortening strikes (witness Major League Baseball in the mid-1990s), let alone season-nullifying strikes (witness the National Hockey League in 2004-05). The abrupt cessation of activities in an ODI series, barely a month after FICA, the international brotherhood, welcomed the signing of a collective bargaining agreement between the WICB and the WIPA, is merely another small landmark on the long, steep, rocky climb to respect.

Nothing proclaims the extent to which the tables have turned over the past half-century than a remarkable statistic from the winter of 2012-13: for the first time since Major League Baseball owners consented to salary and contract arbitration in 1974, not one of the 133 players took his claim as far as a hearing, the upshot of the clubs' increasing willingness to sign younger players to multi-year deals, affording even non-stars a degree of security. Unfortunately West Indies cricket is neither wallowing in record attendances nor benefitting from equitable revenue-sharing.

The funny thing about all this - as in funny-peculiar rather than funny-ha-ha - is that this latest downing of tools should happen in India, where resistance to players' unions, among the players themselves, has been fiercest. For all the vicissitudes of the BCCI, the fact that Sachin, Rahul and Anil never felt much, if any need, to form one says a great deal about their contracts, but must also say something at least faintly complimentary about N Srinivasan and his posse.

By the same token, the reality is unavoidable: without Indian support FICA will remain toothless. Fearless as the WIPA is, the day that MS Dhoni and/or Virat Kohli declare public solidarity with their brothers in charms is the day the WICB, Sri Lanka Cricket and their ilk start pondering the wisdom of their conniving and bullying. Only then will professional cricketers truly feel that the pendulum has swung as far as it needs to swing.

It takes two to tango, but it takes a lot more to stop a rot.

Greg Chappell on playing fast bowling

Ashes 2013-14: Ian Bell leads way in handling Mitchell Johnson barrage

Mitchell Johnson evoked memories of the West Indian attack of the late Seventies, and England need to learn from Ian Bell's example

England's Ian Bell looks on as he loses another partner to Mitchell Johnson of Australia, this time Graeme Swann. Photograph: Jason O'Brien/Action Images

It is often said by those that experienced it that the toughest most uncompromising cricket ever played came not in official Test matches, but in the no-holds-barred World Series Cricket. And it is further said that the most uncompromising of the uncompromising came not on the drop-in pitches of the Sydney Showground but in 1979 in the Caribbean, when WSC toured and played Super Tests. This was bare-knuckle cricket, jeux very sans frontieres, where the MCC equivalent of the Queensberry Rules, or even the Geneva Convention, were for cissies.

The pitches were hard and fast, there was no restriction on short-pitched bowling and in Michael Holding, Andy Roberts, Colin Croft, Joel Garner and Wayne Daniel, West Indies possessed a fighting machine to rival any in the game's history.

It was in the five matches of this competitive furnace that Greg Chappell, already a giant of the game, forged his greatest batting feats. It began quietly in Jamaica, with 6 and 20. But Bridgetown brought 45 and 90; Trinidad 7 and 150; Guyana 113 in his only innings; and finally Antigua 104 and 85 before Clive Lloyd ran him out. A total of 621 runs in the series at an average of 69. No one, legend has it, has played unrestricted fast bowling with such authority.

While Mitchell Johnson was laying waste the England batting at the Gabba and Adelaide Oval, it was hard to not think of this. I talked to him once about it and beyond the physical courage required, his rationale, the game plan that he employed, was fascinating. Twelve overs an hour, he said, is what you received from the fast bowlers and of those 72 deliveries, two thirds, or four balls of every over, would be going at great velocity past his nose. That left 24 balls an hour of which it was reasonable to assume his batting partner would get half. So twelve deliveries then with scoring potential, of which half he reckoned he would be defending. In other words, there were six deliveries from which he knew he needed to score and which he further rationalised, would be pitched up. "I was looking to come forward," he has said, "to drive. It was the percentage shot." All of which sounds counter-intuitive when placed alongside the more obvious back foot technique to allow more time to play the ball.

Whatever they may say, no one relishes facing extreme pace, and few have bowled faster than Johnson is currently managing. At times already in the series, the England top order batting has coped with him: Michael Carberry has done so twice, by letting the ball go in Brisbane and by lining him up from back in the crease in Adelaide; Alastair Cook was watchful in the second innings in Brisbane; and after his usual frenetic start, Kevin Pietersen just looked comfortable in the second innings at the Gabba until the second of three totally indiscreet shots in as many innings did for him unnecessarily. Johnson's real success, certainly in Adelaide, has come in blowing away the lower order. How would these batsmen cope with an incessant barrage such as Chappell received?

Ian Bell though, now there is a player. Here is a strange thing. Back in the days before helmets, when, say, Tommo and Lillee were terrorising England, and the high velocity short ball was a common currency, the number of batsmen who were actually hit, on the head specifically, was remarkably few, certainly compared with these days when scarcely a day goes by without someone "getting one on the lid" and invariably trotting a gentle leg-bye for their troubles. There is a good reason for this. Short of a crack on the head, little was to be gained by taking eyes from the ball and turning away. Instead there were two options, aside from taking on the short ball and hooking or pulling: either watch the ball and duck under; or drop the hands out of harm's way first and foremost, and then sway back to let the ball pass by. Photographs of the ball passing a batsman's nose show excellent judgment on the part of the player rather than a close call.

Bell plays as if a batsman from a bygone era. In the second innings in Brisbane, he swayed back to avoid the short ball like a reed bending in the wind. He does not attempt the legside cross bat shots, but keeps a square cut in his locker just in case. As with Chappell, he looks to get forward if he can ( there has been more opportunity offered on this pitch than the Gabba, and more, you can bet, than will be going at the Waca next week too). There is an unflustered calmness to him as well, as if he sees the ball in a slow motion dimension unavailable to others.

Just for a period, when Monty Panesar was showing a technique and fortitude that had proved elusive to those better qualified, there was the possibility that he might be able to engineer a remarkable century. He had stormed past his half-century by lofting Ryan Harris down the ground and now square cut him witheringly, clipped him to fine leg for four more and finished the most productive over of the match by lofting him elegantly into the crowd at deep extra cover. When Johnson, brought back for the coup de grace, pitched short, he leaned back and clipped the ball precisely over the slip cordon. These were the strokes of a man in control, a counterpoint to his teammates. An object lesson.

Performance Analysis of international cricket teams since 2006

S Rajesh in Cricinfo

After hanging on to the No. 1 spot for a year, England have relinquished it to South Africa, and Andrew Strauss, their captain, was quick to acknowledge that Graeme Smith's team thoroughly deserved the honour, given their recent form. England had an extremely dominant spell when they won eight out of nine series, but since then, they've lost two out of four, and both by convincing margins - 3-0 to Pakistan and 2-0 to South Africa.

South Africa's strong run, on the other hand, has been going on for much longer: since December 2006, in 20 series, they've won 13, drawn six, and lost only one - to Australia at home in 2009, immediately after beating them in Australia earlier in the season. During this period they've won two series in England, and one each in Pakistan, Australia, New Zealand and West Indies. They haven't won a series in India in two attempts, but each time they've won a Test and drawn the series. The only country in which South Africa didn't win or draw their last series is Sri Lanka - they lost 2-0 in July-August 2006.

The big difference between the recent records for England and South Africa has been the teams' overseas performance. During England's powerful run between 2009 and 2011, most of their emphatic wins were achieved in England: Australia was the only major opposition they beat in an away series - their other overseas win was in Bangladesh, while they drew in South Africa. On the other hand, they beat West Indies, Australia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and India at home.

India's ascent to the top spot in December 2009 was also largely based on home wins, though they also had two creditable series wins in England (in 2007) and New Zealand (2009), But out of seven series wins between 2007 and 2009, four were achieved at home - against Pakistan, Australia, England and Sri Lanka - and one in Bangladesh. On the other hand, they lost series in Australia, South Africa and Sri Lanka during this period.

South Africa's move up the table, though, has been based on wins both home and away. In 27 away Tests since December 2009, they have a 14-4 win-loss record, with no series losses. That record dips slightly in home Tests, to 16-9 in 28 matches, with one series defeat in ten.

The table below compares the records for all teams since December 2006, excluding Tests against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. Though Australia have a marginally better overall win-loss record during this period, South Africa have been the overwhelming champions in away Tests: they have a win-loss ratio of 3, while none of the other teams has managed even half that. England, on the other hand, have a ratio of 0.5, exactly the same as India.

Teams in Test cricket since December 2006 (excl. Tests v B'desh and Zim)

Team	Tests	W/L	Ratio	Away Tests	W/L	Ratio
South Africa	51	26/ 13	2.00	25	12/ 4	3.00
Australia	61	34/ 16	2.12	29	12/ 9	1.33
Pakistan	40	10/ 16	0.62	36	10/ 15	0.66
England	69	27/ 21	1.28	31	7/ 14	0.50
India	59	21/ 18	1.16	33	8/ 16	0.50
Sri Lanka	45	13/ 14	0.92	20	3/ 10	0.30
New Zealand	37	4/ 21	0.19	17	1/ 12	0.08
West Indies	46	6/ 22	0.27	23	1/ 13	0.07

A closer look at the overseas stats indicates the major differentiator between South Africa and the other teams: it's the ability of their batsmen to retain the ability to make huge scores even when playing in unfamiliar conditions. Several teams have better batting averages in home Tests than South Africa: India average 47.82, Australia 40.96, England 40.29, and Sri Lanka 39.94, while South Africa are fifth, on 35.62. (All stats exclude Tests against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh).

However, in away games, South Africa's batting is a long way better than other teams: they average 44.93, and the next best are Australia on 35.51. Even allowing for the fact that away Tests for other teams include matches in South Africa, where conditions are toughest for batting these days, the difference is huge. India's batting average overseas falls to 31, while England are slightly better at 33.48.

One of the key stats here is the number of hundreds scored by South African batsmen: in 25 overseas Tests, they've scored 41 hundreds and 55 fifties. That works out to an average of 1.64 hundreds per Test, and a fifties-to-hundreds ratio of 1.34. Both are significantly better than those of other teams. India, for example, average 0.70 hundreds per Test, and have a fifties-to-hundreds ratio of 4.26. That South African ability to convert starts into big scores was evident in the series in England too, when they turned five out of ten 50-plus scores into hundreds, including three scores of more than 180.

Meanwhile South Africa have always been blessed with high-quality bowlers, which means the efforts of their batsmen haven't gone waste. However, three other teams - Australia, Pakistan and England - have bowling averages that are similar to those of South Africa. The key difference has been the ability of the batsmen to rack up huge scores, no matter what the conditions.

Overseas stats for all teams since Dec 2006 (excl. Tests in B'desh and Zim)

Team	Tests	Bat ave	100s/ 50s	Wkts taken	Bowl ave
South Africa	25	44.93	41/ 55	395	34.16
Australia	29	35.51	34/ 79	484	33.37
Pakistan	36	29.05	22/ 90	593	32.66
England	31	33.48	34/ 72	471	35.85
India	33	31.00	23/ 98	487	40.12
Sri Lanka	20	33.45	27/ 37	216	50.09
New Zealand	17	24.87	7/ 30	214	39.93
West Indies	23	29.63	19/ 53	269	45.17

Among batsmen who have scored 1500-plus overseas runs since December 2006 (excluding matches in Bangladesh and Zimbabwe), four of the top eight averages belong to South Africans. Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers have 65-plus averages, while Jacques Kallis and Graeme Smith average more than 54.

Some of the top batsmen from other teams have struggled overseas during this period. Rahul Dravid averaged only 35.10 in 33 Tests, Ricky Ponting 36.82, Virender Sehwag 36.97, and Michael Hussey 37.34. VVS Laxman averaged 70.45 in home Tests during this period, but in overseas games his average dropped to 41.35. (Click here for the full list of batsmen in overseas games, with a 1500-run cut-off.)

Best overseas batsmen since Dec 2006 (Qual: 1500 runs, excl Tests in B'desh and Zim)

Batsman	Tests	Runs	Average	100s/ 50s
Hashim Amla	25	2486	65.42	8/ 11
AB de Villiers	25	2147	65.06	5/ 9
Shivnarine Chanderpaul	19	1607	61.80	5/ 10
Kumar Sangakkara	19	1972	58.00	9/ 6
Jacques Kallis	24	2082	57.83	10/ 6
Chris Gayle	16	1517	56.18	4/ 4
Misbah-ul-Haq	24	1867	54.91	3/ 15
Graeme Smith	25	2286	54.42	8/ 10

A further break-up for these four South African batsmen shows how adept they have been against both pace and spin in overseas Tests. Amla and de Villiers average more than 70 against pace, and more than 60 against spin. Kallis' average against pace, and Smith's against spin, drop below 50, but they're still pretty impressive numbers.

On the other hand, some of the other top batsmen from other sides have struggled against either pace or spin, or in some cases both, in overseas matches. For the Indians, pace has been the problem: Dravid averaged 34.67 against fast bowling, Laxman 35.50, Sehwag 37.93 and Tendulkar 43.40; against spin Tendulkar and Laxman average more than 60, and Dravid 46.42. For England, Pietersen and Cook average marginally more than 40 against pace in overseas matches, but Ian Bell's average drops to 37.68; against spin, Cook averages 73.46, and Pietersen 48.15. Ponting averages 35 against pace and Hussey 30; against spin their averages are 61 and 52. Kumar Sangakkara, Sri Lanka's best batsman, averages 54 against pace and 64 against spin, but Jayawardene's average against pace is only 29.29.

South Africa thus have a core group of batsmen who've proved themselves to be top-class against both pace and spin in overseas Tests. There was a time when India's top four were similarly capable as well, but they didn't always have the bowling support to convert their batting class into victories. Dale Steyn and Co have ensured that South Africa don't face that problem, and the result is a well-deserved top spot in Test cricket. The challenge now will be to ensure they don't slip up like India and England did.

South Africa's top batsmen v pace and spin in overseas Tests (excl. B'desh and Zim)

Batsman	Pace-runs	Dismissals	Average	Spin-runs	Dismissals	Average
Hashim Amla	1457	20	72.85	1029	16	64.31
AB de Villiers	1176	15	78.40	963	15	64.20
Jacques Kallis	950	20	47.50	1107	16	69.18
Graeme Smith	1431	24	59.62	817	18	45.38