Prospects for Pakistan in 2023

 

On Ben Stokes - Do sportsmen have a responsibility to the sport?

Suresh Menon in The Hindu



One of the more amusing sights in cricket recently has been that of England trying desperately to work out a formula to simultaneously discipline Ben Stokes and retain him for the Ashes series. To be fair, such contortion is not unique. India once toured the West Indies with Navjot Singh Sidhu just after the player had been involved in a road rage case that led to a death.

Both times, the argument was one we hear politicians make all the time: Let the law takes its course. It is an abdication of responsibility by cricket boards fully aware of the obligation to uphold the image of the sport.

Cricketers, especially those who are talented, and therefore have been indulged, tend to enjoy what George Orwell has called the “benefit of the clergy”. Their star value is often a buffer against the kind of response others might have received. Given that the team leaves for Australia at the end of this month, it is unlikely that Stokes will tour anyway, yet the ECB’s reaction has been strange.

Neither Stokes nor Alex Hales, his partner at the brawl in Bristol which saw Stokes deliver what the police call ABH (Actual Bodily Harm), was dropped immediately from the squad. This is a pointer to the way cricket boards think.

An enquiry by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) would not have taken more than a few hours. Given the cctv footage, the players’ own versions, and the testimony of the victims, it is unlikely that there could be any ambiguity about what happened. Yet the ECB has chosen to bring in its independent Cricket Discipline Commission only after the police have completed their inquiries.

Top sportsmen tend to be national heroes, unlike, say, top chartered accountants or geography teachers, and they have a responsibility to ensure they do not bring the sport into disrepute. It is a tough call, and not everybody agrees that your best all rounder should also be your most ideally-behaved human being. But that is the way it is. After all, sport is an artificial construct; rules around it might seem to be unrealistic too.

Stokes brought “the game into disrepute” — the reason Ian Botham and Andrew Flintoff were banned in the past — and he should not be in the team. The ECB’s response cannot be anything other than a ban. Yet, it is pussy-footing around the problem in the hope that there is a miracle. Perhaps the victims will not press charges. Perhaps the police might decide that the cctv images are inconclusive.

Clearly player behaviour is not the issue here. There are two other considerations. One was articulated by former Aussie captain Ian Chappell: Without Stokes, England stood no chance in the Ashes. The other, of equal if not greater concern to the ECB, is the impact of Stokes’s absence on sponsorship and advertising. Already the brewers Greene King has said it is withdrawing an advertisement featuring England players.

Scratch the surface on most moral issues, and you will hit the financial reasons that underlie them.

Stokes, it has been calculated, could lose up to two million pounds in endorsements, for “bringing the product into disrepute”, as written into the contracts. It will be interesting to see how the IPL deals with this — Stokes is the highest-paid foreign player in the tournament.

And yet — here is another sporting irony — there is the question of aggression itself. Stokes (like Botham and Flintoff and a host of others) accomplishes what he does on the field partly because of his fierce competitive nature and raw aggression.

Just as some players are intensely selfish, their selfishness being a reason for their success and therefore their team’s success, some players bring to the table sheer aggression.

Mike Atherton has suggested that Stokes should learn from Ricky Ponting who was constantly getting into trouble in bars early in his career. Ponting learnt to channelise that aggression and finished his career as one of the Aussie greats. A more recent example is David Warner, who paid for punching Joe Root in a bar some years ago, but seems to have settled down as both batsman and person.

Stokes will be missed at the Ashes. He has reduced England’s chances, even if Moeen Ali for one thinks that might not be the case.

Still, Stokes is only 26 and has many years to go. It is not too late to work on diverting all that aggression creatively. Doubtless he has been told this every time he has got into trouble. He is a rare talent, yet it would be a travesty if it all ended with a rap on the knuckles. England must live — however temporarily —without him.

BME teachers often given stereotypical roles in schools

Richard Adams in The Guardian

BME teachers say they face ‘microaggression’ in the staff room and low expectations from seniors. Photograph: Alamy



Black and Asian teachers in the UK say they are often saddled with stereotypical roles in schools and want more support from senior staff in handling incidents of racism, according to a survey.

The Runnymede Trust’s poll of more than 1,000 black and minority ethnic teachers found that they were most likely to be told to organise school events such as Black History Month, or tasked with behaviour responsibilities rather than being given more challenging teaching or leadership roles.

The survey’s authors said that black teachers in particular feared being labelled troublemakers or being viewed as “aggressive” if they challenged any decisions.

Zubaida Haque, a research associate at the Runnymede Trust, said: “Our survey found that BME teachers were not only overwhelmed with the mountain of paperwork but they are also beaten down by the everyday ‘microaggressions’ in the staff room and the low expectations and support by senior staff in their schools.

“This has led to BME teachers feeling undervalued, isolated and disillusioned with their careers. If BME and white pupils see BME teachers being treated unequally, this sends out unacceptable signals to the next generation. For this reason, both schools and the government must do everything in their power to tackle the barriers faced by BME teachers in schools.”

The survey was conducted for the National Union of Teachers annual conference, which starts on Friday in Cardiff.

The survey’s authors concluded that “institutional racism – often manifested in subtle and covert ‘microaggressions’ by senior staff – still plays a key part in the barriers to career progression for black teachers in many British primary and secondary schools”.

While Asian teachers reported “casual stereotypes” and Islamophobia from both staff and students, the authors said “it does suggest that the experience of racism is particularly insidious and persistent for black teachers in this study”.

In interviews conducted alongside the survey, teachers said that racist comments and attitudes from students were often not dealt with, although others reported a zero tolerance to racism from senior leadership.

Many of the teachers questioned were positive about their treatment, although those working at schools with few other black or minority ethnic staff reported the highest levels of dissatisfaction.

Several teachers said that the government’s Prevent strategy, aimed at tackling extremism in schools, placed an additional burden on Asian and Muslim teachers.

One black British secondary school teacher told the researchers: “Students feel they can be blatantly racist, and there are no consequences for them. These extremist views are not covered in the Prevent agenda because they are not seen as extremism.”

Some 60% of those surveyed reported that they were considering leaving the profession altogether, while more than half said their school was not a welcoming environment for BME children.

Kevin Courtney, the NUT’s general secretary, said: “This report shows us the cost of the gap between the proportion of BME teachers and BME pupils, which is getting wider because diversity in teaching is not keeping pace with pupil demographics. Alongside a proper strategy to recruit and retain enough teachers, the government needs a credible strategy for attracting sufficient BME teachers.”

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.

News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier

News is bad for your health. It leads to fear and aggression, and hinders your creativity and ability to think deeply. The solution? Stop consuming it altogether

• Rolf Dobelli
• The Guardian, Friday 12 April 2013 20.00 BST

Out of the ­10,000 news stories you may have read in the last 12 months, did even one allow you to make a better decision about a serious matter in your life, asks Rolf Dobelli. Photograph: Guardian/Graphic

In the past few decades, the fortunate among us have recognised the hazards of living with an overabundance of food (obesity, diabetes) and have started to change our diets. But most of us do not yet understand that news is to the mind what sugar is to the body. News is easy to digest. The media feeds us small bites of trivial matter, tidbits that don't really concern our lives and don't require thinking. That's why we experience almost no saturation. Unlike reading books and long magazine articles (which require thinking), we can swallow limitless quantities of news flashes, which are bright-coloured candies for the mind. Today, we have reached the same point in relation to information that we faced 20 years ago in regard to food. We are beginning to recognise how toxic news can be.

News misleads. Take the following event (borrowed from Nassim Taleb). A car drives over a bridge, and the bridge collapses. What does the news media focus on? The car. The person in the car. Where he came from. Where he planned to go. How he experienced the crash (if he survived). But that is all irrelevant. What's relevant? The structural stability of the bridge. That's the underlying risk that has been lurking, and could lurk in other bridges. But the car is flashy, it's dramatic, it's a person (non-abstract), and it's news that's cheap to produce. News leads us to walk around with the completely wrong risk map in our heads. So terrorism is over-rated. Chronic stress is under-rated. The collapse of Lehman Brothers is overrated. Fiscal irresponsibility is under-rated. Astronauts are over-rated. Nurses are under-rated.

We are not rational enough to be exposed to the press. Watching an airplane crash on television is going to change your attitude toward that risk, regardless of its real probability. If you think you can compensate with the strength of your own inner contemplation, you are wrong. Bankers and economists – who have powerful incentives to compensate for news-borne hazards – have shown that they cannot. The only solution: cut yourself off from news consumption entirely.

News is irrelevant. Out of the approximately 10,000 news stories you have read in the last 12 months, name one that – because you consumed it – allowed you to make a better decision about a serious matter affecting your life, your career or your business. The point is: the consumption of news is irrelevant to you. But people find it very difficult to recognise what's relevant. It's much easier to recognise what's new. The relevant versus the new is the fundamental battle of the current age. Media organisations want you to believe that news offers you some sort of a competitive advantage. Many fall for that. We get anxious when we're cut off from the flow of news. In reality, news consumption is a competitive disadvantage. The less news you consume, the bigger the advantage you have.

News has no explanatory power. News items are bubbles popping on the surface of a deeper world. Will accumulating facts help you understand the world? Sadly, no. The relationship is inverted. The important stories are non-stories: slow, powerful movements that develop below journalists' radar but have a transforming effect. The more "news factoids" you digest, the less of the big picture you will understand. If more information leads to higher economic success, we'd expect journalists to be at the top of the pyramid. That's not the case.

News is toxic to your body. It constantly triggers the limbic system. Panicky stories spur the release of cascades of glucocorticoid (cortisol). This deregulates your immune system and inhibits the release of growth hormones. In other words, your body finds itself in a state of chronic stress. High glucocorticoid levels cause impaired digestion, lack of growth (cell, hair, bone), nervousness and susceptibility to infections. The other potential side-effects include fear, aggression, tunnel-vision and desensitisation.

News increases cognitive errors. News feeds the mother of all cognitive errors: confirmation bias. In the words of Warren Buffett: "What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact." News exacerbates this flaw. We become prone to overconfidence, take stupid risks and misjudge opportunities. It also exacerbates another cognitive error: the story bias. Our brains crave stories that "make sense" – even if they don't correspond to reality. Any journalist who writes, "The market moved because of X" or "the company went bankrupt because of Y" is an idiot. I am fed up with this cheap way of "explaining" the world.

News inhibits thinking. Thinking requires concentration. Concentration requires uninterrupted time. News pieces are specifically engineered to interrupt you. They are like viruses that steal attention for their own purposes. News makes us shallow thinkers. But it's worse than that. News severely affects memory. There are two types of memory. Long-range memory's capacity is nearly infinite, but working memory is limited to a certain amount of slippery data. The path from short-term to long-term memory is a choke-point in the brain, but anything you want to understand must pass through it. If this passageway is disrupted, nothing gets through. Because news disrupts concentration, it weakens comprehension. Online news has an even worse impact. In a 2001 study two scholars in Canada showed that comprehension declines as the number of hyperlinks in a document increases. Why? Because whenever a link appears, your brain has to at least make the choice not to click, which in itself is distracting. News is an intentional interruption system.

News works like a drug. As stories develop, we want to know how they continue. With hundreds of arbitrary storylines in our heads, this craving is increasingly compelling and hard to ignore. Scientists used to think that the dense connections formed among the 100 billion neurons inside our skulls were largely fixed by the time we reached adulthood. Today we know that this is not the case. Nerve cells routinely break old connections and form new ones. The more news we consume, the more we exercise the neural circuits devoted to skimming and multitasking while ignoring those used for reading deeply and thinking with profound focus. Most news consumers – even if they used to be avid book readers – have lost the ability to absorb lengthy articles or books. After four, five pages they get tired, their concentration vanishes, they become restless. It's not because they got older or their schedules became more onerous. It's because the physical structure of their brains has changed.

News wastes time. If you read the newspaper for 15 minutes each morning, then check the news for 15 minutes during lunch and 15 minutes before you go to bed, then add five minutes here and there when you're at work, then count distraction and refocusing time, you will lose at least half a day every week. Information is no longer a scarce commodity. But attention is. You are not that irresponsible with your money, reputation or health. Why give away your mind?

News makes us passive. News stories are overwhelmingly about things you cannot influence. The daily repetition of news about things we can't act upon makes us passive. It grinds us down until we adopt a worldview that is pessimistic, desensitised, sarcastic and fatalistic. The scientific term is "learned helplessness". It's a bit of a stretch, but I would not be surprised if news consumption, at least partially contributes to the widespread disease of depression.

News kills creativity. Finally, things we already know limit our creativity. This is one reason that mathematicians, novelists, composers and entrepreneurs often produce their most creative works at a young age. Their brains enjoy a wide, uninhabited space that emboldens them to come up with and pursue novel ideas. I don't know a single truly creative mind who is a news junkie – not a writer, not a composer, mathematician, physician, scientist, musician, designer, architect or painter. On the other hand, I know a bunch of viciously uncreative minds who consume news like drugs. If you want to come up with old solutions, read news. If you are looking for new solutions, don't.

Society needs journalism – but in a different way. Investigative journalism is always relevant. We need reporting that polices our institutions and uncovers truth. But important findings don't have to arrive in the form of news. Long journal articles and in-depth books are good, too.

I have now gone without news for four years, so I can see, feel and report the effects of this freedom first-hand: less disruption, less anxiety, deeper thinking, more time, more insights. It's not easy, but it's worth it.

Cricket - Pataudi on field placings for Prasanna

 

 

S. DINAKAR

   

The Hindu ArchivesVIGNETTES FROM THE PAST: From left: Bishan Singh Bedi, Abid Ali, Mayor of Melborune R.T. Talbot, Erapalli Prasanna and skipper Tiger Pataudi during India’s tour of Australia in 1967-68.

 

Technically and strategically brilliant, Tiger Pataudi was a path-breaking captain for India; he was always a move ahead of his adversary.

An aggressive skipper required an equally attacking bowler as his sword arm. In this context, off-spinning wizard Erapalli Prasanna and Pataudi were kindred spirits.

In the historic clash of 1968 in New Zealand, where India registered its first overseas series triumph, Prasanna claimed 24 wickets in four Tests at 18.79.

In the earlier leg of the tour against a strong Australia team, Prasanna grabbed 25 wickets in four Tests at 27.44.

Pataudi, as Prasanna revealed to The Hindu, was a huge influence on him. The off-spinning great provided us with a fascinating insight into how Pataudi discussed field placings with him.

“His logic was that a right-handed batsman must play a leg-spinner on the off-side and an off-spinner on the on-side. He also used to say that unless I turned the ball too much, which would allow the batsman to play me fine, there was no need for a fine-leg.”

Scientific reasoning

Prasanna elaborated, “Initially I had a deep fine-leg and he modified it into a deep square-leg to the right of the umpire.

“If you draw a straight line between the two short-legs, forward and backward which he stationed for me, you would reach the deep square-leg which Tiger had suggested. Everything he said had a scientific reasoning. Then I had a squarish mid-on in the 30-yard circle and a mid-on.

“By making the batsmen reach out for the ball on the off-side with flight, he told me I could have them caught on the on-side if I imparted the right amount of spin,” the off-spinning great said.

Coming up with an example, Prasanna recalled how a silly point was removed for all-rounder Bernard Julien in the dramatic Test at Chepauk in the 1974-75 series. “This was done to provide the batsman a sense of space on the off-side since there was no silly point. Julien reached out and I got him caught and bowled on the on-side.”

Prasanna said, “Tiger made me visualise the field. I asked him why he was not having a long-on for me.

“He answered, ‘if the batsmen try to hit you from down the pitch, the ball, because of the revolutions on it, would travel at a 30-degree angle to be picked up near the 30-yard line at the squarish mid-on. And he said if the batsmen attempted to scoop me out of the park, the drift on the ball would see them play too early and force them to sky it between mid-on and mid-wicket.”

Tiger and Prasanna relished hunting down batsmen. The illustrious off-spinner remembers, “He would have four fielders on the off-side and rarely had a point for me. He would tell me that if the batsmen tried to cut me then I could get them.

“Tiger usually posted a silly mid-off, almost in line with the popping crease, a slip, an extra-cover and a short third-man or a gully for me. He would attempt to lure the batsmen with the large gap to the left of extra cover.”

Bold customer

Pataudi and Prasanna came across an equally bold customer in Ian Chappell during India's tour of Australia in 1967-68.

“Tiger told me that Chappell would jump out to smother the spin. We thought about it and decided on a short mid-on since I could make the ball hang in the air. Chappell had his moments but we also had him picked up at short mid-on on the uppish drive.”

Prasanna recollects how Pataudi made him aware of a batsman's blind spot.

“I was bowling round the wicket to the left-handed Australian Bill Lawry. Tiger asked me to come over the wicket and enlightened me about a batsman's blind spot, between the leg and the middle stumps. From a bowler's angle, it would appear to be on the right of the leg-stump. I pitched it in the right spot and the obdurate Lawry was finally dismissed.”

On another occasion, during the 1975 Test against the West Indies in Madras, Pataudi anticipated that Clive Lloyd would come after the bowling. “He still implored me to flight the ball. Lloyd thundered down the track, I got the ball to dip, and the batsman was stumped by a mile,” said Prasanna.

The gifted off-spinner had only one word to describe Pataudi. “He was a ‘genius',” he said in admiration.

Viv Richards is 60

Sir Viv Richards: the personification of grace and menace combined

Happy 60th birthday, Sir Viv Richards – one of the finest postwar batsmen of them all who could reduce an attack to rubble

• 
• • Mike Selvey
  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 7 March 2012 11.59 GMT 
  • 
    

Sir Viv Richards on his way to 138 not out as West Indies retained the Prudential World Cup at Lord's in 1979 after beating England by 92 runs. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

This I can see as clearly now as if it were only yesterday: pitch at Lord's, under covers for a week and more and as green as Paddy's Day, me with a new ball, and the start of a much-delayed, postponed and greatly reduced domestic limited-overs semi-final. The first delivery was spot-on, bang on length and line and, on pitching, it jagged back sharply off the seam and sank into the unprotected inside of the thigh of the batsman pushing forward.

The next was all but identical (the pitch marks, scarred on the grass, were within six inches of one another) and again the batsman came forward at it. Only this time he changed his mind midway, shifted his weight on to the back foot, and, clean as you like, thumped it with a vertical bat and high elbow not just over mid-off, or even the boundary rope, but over the corner of what is now the Compton stand and on to the Nursery. It remains the single most devastating shot I have ever seen. And Vivian Richards played a few in his time. What would he be worth today?

It is more than a year since last I saw him. Or rather he saw me, across an airport transit lounge, me en route to the Ashes, he for a tour of King and I shows with Rodney Hogg. "Hey Selve, what's happening, man?" He looked dapper, a porkpie hat perched rakishly in place of the familiar maroon cap, a little thicker round the face but still that Big Bad John "kinda broad at the shoulder and narrow at the hip" appearance that made him look as much like a top middleweight as the greatest batsman of the modern era. Even as he reaches three score years on Wednesday, he looks fighting fit.

So, from Singapore to Sydney, we supped a little and chewed the fat. There were things I wanted to ask him that I never had. Which of all the great West Indies fast bowlers of his time would he pick for his dream quartet? Andy Roberts, he said, his fellow Antiguan with an astounding cricket brain who was there at the start of it all; and the brilliant, much-lamented Malcolm Marshall. Then came Mikey, the great svelte Holding. And finally not the rumbling faithful Big Bird Joel Garner, but instead the brooding stringbean Curtly Ambrose. But, Richards admitted further, if he wanted someone to blast him a wicket, without fear, favour or consequence, there was none more chilling than Colin Croft.

Now tell me, I asked him, since it's a long time over, how do you think that bowlers – or specifically, me – should have approached the task of bowling to you. I had successes, but generally they would have been early on in an innings as he sought the upper hand and took calculated risks. Hard graft after that. You had to be aggressive, he said with some passion, aggressive. It mattered not if fast, slow or medium, spin, swing or seam, you had to demonstrate positive intent or you were shot from the start.

When, after he took guard, he wandered down the pitch, tilted his head back and, looking down his aquiline nose to eyeball the bowler, it was almost as if he was sniffing the air through his flared nostrils for the scent of fear. He wanted to feel the ball "sweet" off the bat from the off, and then he knew it was his day. Yeah aggressive, he repeated, he respected that.

But this was always easier said than done because of the way he set it up. There is an analogy with the buzz in a theatre before the curtain goes up on a great thespian. The wicket falls, but he allowed things to settle, waiting for the arena to clear, the celebrations (more muted in those days) to die down. The theatre lights dimmed and expectation became electricity. Everyone knew who was coming. And when he finally made his entrance, swaggering down the steps, cudding his gum, and windmilling his bat gently, first one arm then the other, it was a personification of grace and menace combined, the walk as unmistakable as had been that of Garry Sobers, to my mind his only rival as the finest postwar batsman of them all.

I put on a performance, he told me, it was part of my act. He wanted to dominate and the genesis of that process happened even before he closed the dressing-room door behind him. His reputation preceded him like an advance guard. It continued with the languid wicketwards saunter, the slow precision with which he took guard, the way he ambled down the pitch to tap down an imaginary mark, all the while looking for, and not always finding, eye contact with his adversary. Then he would smack the end of his bat handle with the palm of his right hand, a final intimidatory gesture.
There have been giants of the game contemporary and since, batsmen of vast pedigree and achievement: Greg Chappell, Lara, Tendulkar, Ponting, Dravid, Kallis, Sangakkara, Hayden and others. Each on his day could reduce an attack to rubble. But Richards had an aura given to no other. Truly he was scary. Happy birthday, Viv.

' Nice Guys Finish Last'

I didn't get where I am today by being nice...

Richard Hall

Monday, 05 December 2011

It is a phrase that millions of good-natured people around the world will consider so obvious that it hardly deserves to be questioned. Nonetheless, a team of business experts claims to have proved the pessimistic notion that "nice guys finish last" – at least where money is concerned.

A study has found that a person's "agreeableness" has a negative effect on their earnings. "Niceness", according to the research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, does not appear to pay.
"This issue isn't really about whether people are nasty or nice," said Richard Newton, business author and consultant. "A better way of putting it might be a willingness to fight your corner."

While agreeable traits such as compliance, modesty and altruism may seem conducive to a good working atmosphere, the study found that managers are more likely to fast-track for promotion and pay rises "disagreeable" people – those more likely to "aggressively advocate for their position".

The study, by Beth A Livingston of Cornell University, Timothy A Judge of the University of Notre Dame and Charlice Hurst of the University of Western Ontario, interviewed 9,000 people who entered the labour force in the past decade about their career, and gave personality tests which were then measured against income data.

The findings are bad news for nice guys, but worse still for women of all temperaments. They show that, regardless of their levels of agreeableness, women earned nearly 14 per cent less than men. Agreeable men earned an average of $7,000 (£4,490) less than their disagreeable peers.

"Nice guys do not necessarily finish last, but they do finish a distant second in terms of earnings," the study noted. "Our research provides strong evidence that men earn a substantial premium for being disagreeable while the same behaviour has little effect on women's income." Reasons offered for the difference include a better success rate for disagreeable types when negotiating pay rises, suggesting stubbornness is a key for success.