The rotten New Zealand cricket administration - among others!

Martin Crowe in Cricinfo

Cricket has stood the test of time as a great sport. Its worth is obvious when the sun comes out and a contest between two teams can be enjoyed hour after hour, day after day.

Many play because of the unique nature of individual expression, bowler against batsman, inside a team environment. Eleven-a-side offers plenty of variety in personality and character, which is required, given the different roles and skills that are called upon. Cricket is a fine all-round sport: healthy for the body but without direct contact, and healthy for the mind as it makes you think and concentrate for long periods.

It's no different in New Zealand, despite our national game being rugby. Of course our climate is more suited to the winter code, but you still can't beat a summer afternoon Down Under playing cricket, either professionally or as a pastime. For a century we have embraced our favourite summer sport. It has added worth to our landscape, our culture, and to our international reputation as a nation.

Not anymore. When an organisation like New Zealand Cricket starts stripping the self-worth (and I don't mean monetary worth) from talented athletes, when a young player enters the system and leaves it disillusioned and dispirited, the the sport becomes worthless.

In a previous article I wrote about why I thought we struggled to score more Test hundreds compared to any other nation. I named a large group of batsmen through the last ten years who have come and gone through our appalling system, and no doubt most have departed feeling a certain disenchantment with their treatment.

It's sad to see young people chase their dreams only to miss out. Of course that is part of life and its challenges. But in New Zealand the cricket environment is failing more players than ever. In short, that is why we are now ninth below Bangladesh in ODIs, and eighth in Tests and T20.

Cricket is tough on the individual; you can spend half your life playing only to retire in your mid-30s with no other skills to offer in the workforce because cricket has consumed all your time and energy.

Over the last week NZC destroyed the soul of Ross Taylor, easily our best player. They have apparently apologised for the way his sacking from the captaincy was handled. Nevertheless they have amputated his spirit and there is no prosthetic for that. And yet NZC goes unaccountable. They continue to strip the worth from players and, therefore, as an organisation, they have definitely become worthless.

The leadership has been poor in the past, but the fish head couldn't smell any worse now. From the chairman to the CEO to the coach to the manager, they have all played their collective part in what is arguably the most botched administration in New Zealand sporting history.

	This week the game in New Zealand has been severely damaged. Those who have contributed to this debacle may as well stay on because they have done such a murderous job that the next lot, no matter how good they are, will always be playing catch up

Some are saying that the removal of Taylor as captain was an orchestrated coup, stemming back to when John Wright resigned in April. No one will know, and who really cares whether it is by design or by incompetence? The fact is, the execution is rotten enough for accountability to be demanded and for all four positions be given to more transparent, more competent and more worthy men.

Taylor is such a resilient character that he will bounce back. But he will probably never trust NZC again. Coaches will come and go and it won't affect his batting, which has been amazing while he has been captain.

When he was told by the management just days before the first Test in Sri Lanka that he was useless, he didn't say anything, he didn't react; instead he went out and won the second Test off his own bat. Knowing the circumstances, I have no hesitation in saying that his 142 and 74 on a turning pitch, plus his winning captaincy, were the equal of Richard Hadlee's 15 wickets in Brisbane in 1985. These two performances stand out to me as the greatest in our Test history.

During New Zealand's next Test against South Arica in the New Year, Taylor will be on a beach somewhere, playing with his young family. It is extraordinary to think this could happen but NZC had no hesitation to make it so. Not one kid that I know in New Zealand understands it. They are confused.

And they are the future. They will be subconsciously wondering if playing cricket beyond school is worthwhile.

Everyone knows that the more New Zealand play badly, the less their players will be recruited to the likes of the IPL. The present players are thriving in it, but over time the money and opportunity will dry up for nations who drift into the backwaters. The next generation may not see the lure in playing unless the present players create an attraction that is good enough. This present bunch have acquired a reputation for looking after their own and forgetting the future.

This week the game in New Zealand has been severely damaged. Permanently, I believe. Those who have contributed to this debacle may as well stay on because they have done such a murderous job that the next lot, no matter how good they are, will always be playing catch up. But those directly accountable should go, simply as rightful punishment.

No matter what happens, who comes or goes, NZC has shown that it is not safe for a young person to risk the journey knowing that the likelihood of his or her worth being stolen away is odds on. If there is one thing in life that is always valuable and important, it's your feeling of self-worth. With cricket in New Zealand I wouldn't risk it; it's just not worth it.

The secret to an enduring sex life - cups of tea

Making love with a long-term partner is less about sex toys and snatched passion and more about sharing time, intimate moments – and cups of tea, says the marital therapist Andrew G Marshall. He explains how couples can keep the spark alive

Celia Dodd in The Independent

Tuesday, 24 January 2012

Sex life a bit lacking? Take heart: the answer lies not in scary-sounding toys or tantric techniques, but a nice cup of tea. That's the comforting view of leading marital therapist Andrew G Marshall. He explains how it works: "If you stop in the middle of love-making to have tea and talk to each other, it shows how desire comes and goes – that sex isn't just a race to the end. It allows you time to be intimate with each other. Sex which used to last 15 minutes suddenly lasts an hour and a half. Sex doesn't have to involve going out of your comfort zone – although challenging yourself is good."

Marshall is on a mission to reclaim monogamous sex for couples who are puzzling out how to feel sexy with the partner who shares the frankly unsexy business of domestic life and bringing up children. As a marital therapist with practices in London and Sussex, Marshall has enjoyed a rare insight into the love lives of ordinary people over the past 25 years. His latest book is, How to Make Love Like a Prairie Vole: Six Steps to Passionate, Plentiful and Monogamous Sex (Bloomsbury, £12.99), published both as a book and an app.

In his view, too many couples resign themselves to little or no sex after the first few years and pretend they don't mind while secretly yearning for better sex – or resorting to an affair. "Too often people leave a relationship at just the point when sex has the potential to get much better," Marshall says.

"One myth I particularly want to challenge is that after the first few years it's downhill all the way and once you get past 40 that's about it – you've got one last chance and you'd better grab it quickly. That encourages all sorts of stupid affairs.

"However, if couples make love rarely it leaves the relationship pretty vulnerable, because we don't lose our need for sex. It's a wonderful way of feeding a relationship. It's not just about orgasms: what's particularly restorative is that afterglow, where you hold each other and feel cared for. But if you don't feed your relationship it dies, or someone else comes along and feeds your partner. I don't think people get divorced because they have a bad sex life, but I certainly think it's a contributing factor."

Marshall encourages couples to reinvent their sex lives every few years. It's not about spicing things up superficially with new techniques and toys but about building confidence and openness. If couples can pull this off – in the face of undeniable pressures like kids and careers – sex gets better and better. Yet the very glue that binds long-term relationships can hamper progress, because individuals are naturally wary of suggesting changes for fear of rocking the emotional boat and as time goes on there's so much more at stake. And while it's all very well for sexperts to bang on about the importance of communication, most couples haven't got a clue where to begin.

Too often sex has become the elephant in the room; a subject far too scary to bring up because it feels like criticism. So much easier to bite your tongue and put up with things the way they are.

Marshall's advice is to avoid bringing up problems, which will make your partner feel defensive. Instead start by talking about what you like about your sex life and remembering what was wonderful in the past. That should to break the ice for further discussions about how to bring more good stuff into the relationship now.

Marshall is also keen to bust the myths about sex which hold couples back: that it has to be spontaneous and that both partners have to be equally turned on at the same time. "That puts people under extreme pressure," he says. "What's needed is a bit of give and take and accepting that sometimes one person is in the spotlight, sometimes the other. If you wait until you both feel in the mood you'd probably only have sex once a year, on holiday. That's not to say you can't have spontaneous sex, just that you can't rely on it. The rest of the time you need to plan."

And he urges couples to treat sex as a priority, rather than the last thing on the minds of two exhausted individuals. Parents, whether their children are teenagers or toddlers, should take note: "If anything is causing problems in our sex lives, it's the sense that we have to be super-parents who are available to our children 24/7," he says.

"I can't tell you how difficult it is to persuade couples to put a lock on their bedroom door, although they wouldn't dream of barging into their kids' bedrooms! If your kids hear you making love, Hurrah! It says you are sexual creatures and I think that's incredibly reassuring because it gives children the message that their parents love each other – and that is a wonderful bedrock for them to have."

SEXUAL HEALING

* Take the pressure off by having a break from sex for a few weeks. Focus on touching instead.
* Develop habits that give you a head start, such as going to bed at the same time as your partner and keeping distractions such as computers and phones away from the bedroom.
* Simple communication also helps: if you're going to bed, then make a point of telling your partner, so they know you haven't just gone for a bath or whatever.
* If you've got children, put a lock on your bedroom door. If you're worred about being overheard, play music.
* Don't wait to be in the mood. Sex doesn't always have to be spontaneous. Plan sex.
* Communicate. Bringing up the subject of sex can easily be taken as a criticism. Don't focus on problems but talk about what's good about your sex life and what you enjoyed in the past.

Beware of Corporate Psychopaths

Brian Basham in The Independent

Thursday, 29 December 2011

Outlook Over the years I've met my fair share of monsters – rogue individuals, for the most part. But as regulation in the UK and the US has loosened its restraints, the monsters have proliferated.

In a paper recently published in the Journal of Business Ethics entitled "The Corporate Psychopaths: Theory of the Global Financial Crisis", Clive R Boddy identifies these people as psychopaths.

"They are," he says, "simply the 1 per cent of people who have no conscience or empathy." And he argues: "Psychopaths, rising to key senior positions within modern financial corporations, where they are able to influence the moral climate of the whole organisation and yield considerable power, have largely caused the [banking] crisis'.

And Mr Boddy is not alone. In Jon Ronson's widely acclaimed book The Psychopath Test, Professor Robert Hare told the author: "I should have spent some time inside the Stock Exchange as well. Serial killer psychopaths ruin families. Corporate and political and religious psychopaths ruin economies. They ruin societies."

Cut to a pleasantly warm evening in Bahrain. My companion, a senior UK investment banker and I, are discussing the most successful banking types we know and what makes them tick. I argue that they often conform to the characteristics displayed by social psychopaths. To my surprise, my friend agrees.

He then makes an astonishing confession: "At one major investment bank for which I worked, we used psychometric testing to recruit social psychopaths because their characteristics exactly suited them to senior corporate finance roles."

Here was one of the biggest investment banks in the world seeking psychopaths as recruits.
Mr Ronson spoke to scores of psychologists about their understanding of the damage that psychopaths could do to society. None of those psychologists could have imagined, I'm sure, the existence of a bank that used the science of spotting them as a recruiting mechanism.

I've never met Dick Fuld, the former CEO of Lehman Brothers and the architect of its downfall, but I've seen him on video and it's terrifying. He snarled to Lehman staff that he wanted to "rip out their [his competitors] hearts and eat them before they died". So how did someone like Mr Fuld get to the top of Lehman? You don't need to see the video to conclude he was weird; you could take a little more time and read a 2,200-page report by Anton Valukas, the Chicago-based lawyer hired by a US court to investigate Lehman's failure. Mr Valukas revealed systemic chicanery within the bank; he described management failures and a destructive, internal culture of reckless risk-taking worthy of any psychopath.

So why wasn't Mr Fuld spotted and stopped? I've concluded it's the good old question of nature and nurture but with a new interpretation. As I see it, in its search for never-ending growth, the financial services sector has actively sought out monsters with natures like Mr Fuld and nurtured them with bonuses and praise.

We all understand that sometimes businesses have to be cut back to ensure their survival, and where those cuts should fall is as relevant to a company as it is, today, to the UK economy; should it bear down upon the rich or the poor?

Making those cuts doesn't make psychopaths of the cutters, but the financial sector's lack of remorse for the pain it encourages people to inflict is purely psychopathic. Surely the action of cutting should be a matter for sorrow and regret? People's lives are damaged, even destroyed. However, that's not how the financial sector sees it.

Take Sir Fred Goodwin of RBS, for example. Before he racked up a corporate loss of £24.1bn, the highest in UK history, he was idolised by the City. In recognition of his work in ruthlessly cutting costs at Clydesdale Bank he got the nickname "Fred the Shred", and he played that for all it was worth. He was later described as "a corporate Attila", a title of which any psychopath would be proud.

Mr Ronson reports: "Justice departments and parole boards all over the world have accepted Hare's contention that psychopaths are quite simply incurable and everyone should concentrate their energies instead on learning how to root them out."

But, far from being rooted out, they are still in place and often in positions of even greater power.
As Mr Boddy warns: "The very same corporate psychopaths, who probably caused the crisis by their self-seeking greed and avarice, are now advising governments on how to get out of the crisis. Further, if the corporate psychopaths theory of the global financial crisis is correct, then we are now far from the end of the crisis. Indeed, it is only the end of the beginning."

I became familiar with psychopaths early in life. They were the hard men who terrorised south-east London when I was growing up. People like "Mad" Frankie Fraser and the Richardson brothers. They were what we used to call "red haze" men, and they were frightening because they attacked with neither fear, mercy nor remorse.

Regarding Messrs Hare, Ronson, Boddy and others, I've realised that some psychopaths "forge careers in corporations. The group is called Corporate Psychopaths". They are polished and plausible, but that doesn't make them any less dangerous.

In attempting to understand the complexities of what went wrong in the years leading to 2008, I've developed a rule: "In an unregulated world, the least-principled people rise to the top." And there are none who are less principled than corporate psychopaths.

Brian Basham is a veteran City PR man, entrepreneur and journalist

' 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.
 

It's not how you begin...Players who failed to light up their debuts but went on to shine later in their careers

by Steven Lynch

	When he started out, Shane Warne didn't give any hint he would become the greatest legspinner in the game © Getty Images Enlarge
Related Links Players/Officials: Marvan Atapattu | Shane Warne | Sir Leonard Hutton | Sir Viv Richards | Merv Hughes | Graham Gooch | Michael Holding | Jeff Thomson | Gautam Gambhir | Brad Hogg | Saeed Anwar Teams: Australia | England | India | Pakistan | Sri Lanka | West Indies

Marvan Atapattu
As an opening batsman you can't do much worse than begin your Test career with scores of 0 and 0, 0 and 1, and 0 and 0 (and, reports suggest, even that one run was actually a leg-bye). That was the nightmare start that Sri Lanka's Atapattu endured in three Tests from 1990 to early 1994. It was - perhaps not surprisingly - more than three years before he got another game, when at last he got into double figures. But he did very well after that, finishing a 90-Test career with 5502 runs and 16 centuries, no fewer than six of them doubles.

Shane Warne
In January 1992, when Warne was rather rounder than he is today - Ian Healy commented back then that Warnie's idea of a balanced diet was a cheeseburger in each hand - the great legspinner made an undistinguished Test debut in Sydney, taking one Indian wicket for 150 in 45 overs: his victim was Ravi Shastri, out to what Wisden called "a tired shot" after having amassed 206 in 572 minutes. After no wickets in the next Test, and 0 for 107 in the first innings of his third one, in Colombo in August 1992, Warne had a bowling average of 335.00 when he was handed the ball again in the second innings as Sri Lanka closed in on a probable victory. Suddenly things started to get better: he secured an unlikely win, taking three wickets for no run in 11 deliveries. The rest, as they say, is history.

Len Hutton
England tried out a new opening pair against New Zealand for the first Test against New Zealand at Lord's in 1937. James Parks (the father of the 1960s England wicketkeeper Jim) made 22 and 7, while a young Yorkshireman - he celebrated his 21st birthday on the rest day - made 0 and 1. Only one of them was named for the next Test - and, you've guessed it, it was Hutton who was retained. He scored 100 at Old Trafford, and the following year made 364 against Australia: in all he won 79 caps, and scored nearly 7000 runs. Poor Parks, however, never played another Test.

Viv Richards
One of the most intimidating batsmen of all time, Richards made a less than scintillating start in Tests, managing only 4 and 3 against India in Bangalore in 1974-75, falling in each innings to the whirling legspin of Bhagwat Chandrasekhar. But any thoughts of a weakness against spin were banished in the next Test, in Delhi, where Richards slammed six sixes in an imperious 192 not out to set up an innings victory. That was the first of 24 Test centuries for the "Master Blaster".

Merv Hughes
After taking just one wicket for 123 in his first Test, against India, Hughes was pasted all round the Gabba by Ian Botham in the 1986-87 Ashes opener. After the next Test Merv had a bowling average nudging 50, and hadn't even looked like scoring a run. You'd have got long odds on him achieving the Test double of 1000 runs and 100 wickets, but he turned himself into a serviceable batsman and did just that. And his bowling improved out of sight too: he finished up with 212 Test wickets, most of them celebrated by squeezing a few well-chosen words through that famous bushy moustache in the general direction of the departing batsman. Probably Hughes' greatest sledge came not long after Pakistan's Javed Miandad had labelled him "a fat bus conductor". A few balls later Hughes dismissed him, and charged past, yelling "Tickets please!"

Graham Gooch
On his Test debut against Australia at Edgbaston in 1975, Gooch had a moustache to rival Merv's - and his batting was as productive as Hughes' in his early Tests. Gooch departed for 0 and 0, tickling a couple of catches to the predatory Rod Marsh, and after one more match returned to county cricket for three years to tighten things up. He re-emerged, tightness personified, to kickstart a Test career that ultimately brought him 8900 runs, still the England record.

Michael Holding
We remember Holding now as just about the perfect fast bowler - athletic, graceful, and above all scarily fast. But it wasn't all plain sailing at first: he took 0 for 127 in his debut Test, in Australia in 1975-76, and finished that chastening series - which the Aussies won 5-1 - with just 10 wickets at 61.40, being reduced to tears at one point as things went against him. Things began to look up later in 1976, though, when Holding blew England away with 14 wickets on a slow pitch at The Oval. "Whispering Death" had arrived.

Jeff Thomson
One reason the England tourists Down Under in 1974-75 didn't take much notice of Thomson's pre-series bluster about how much he liked to hurt batsmen was that they knew he had played just one previous Test, against Pakistan in 1972-73, and finished with 0 for 110 in 19 expensive overs. But what Mike Denness and Co. probably didn't know was that Thommo had been nursing a broken foot in that match - he thought he'd better play, in case he never got another chance. The next call duly came in Brisbane two years later, and Thomson shook England up with 6 for 46 in the second innings, then 5 for 93 in Perth in the next Test, both of which Australia won comfortably. By the time he ruled himself out of the series by injuring his shoulder playing tennis, Thommo had taken 33 wickets in four and a half matches, and the Ashes were back in Australian hands. He ended up with 200 Test wickets, exactly 100 of them against England.

	Saeed Anwar: nothing impressive about him, eh? © ESPNcricinfo Ltd Enlarge

Gautam Gambhir
Test stardom - and multi-million IPL contracts - probably seemed a long way off for Gambhir after his first Test for India, against Australia in Mumbai in November 2004, produced scores of 3 and 1 on an admittedly dodgy pitch (India won in three days, bowling Australia out for 93 in their second innings). The selectors stuck by Gambhir, who repaid them by making 96 in the next Test, against South Africa, and 139 against Bangladesh a few weeks later. Despite trouble with injuries, he now has more than 3500 Test runs.

Brad Hogg
Cricket's most famous ex-postman made his Test debut in Delhi in October 1996, replacing Shane Warne, who was recovering from surgery to his hand. Hogg, an unorthodox left-arm spinner, had an undistinguished start: his 17 overs cost 69, although he did claim the wicket of Sourav Ganguly. He didn't play another Test for six and a half years, although he did have a long run in Australia's one-day side. One story has it that Hogg had longed all his career to hear Ian Healy growl from behind the stumps, "Well bowled, Hoggy" ... but bowled so indifferently that it was never actually said.

Saeed Anwar
Given Pakistan's capricious selection policies, the deliciously wristy opener Anwar might never have played again after he bagged a pair in his first Test, against West Indies in Faisalabad in November 1990. As it was, he didn't win another Test cap for more than three years - but made it count when he did, with 169 against New Zealand in only his third match. Anwar ended up with 4052 runs in Tests - and more than double that (8824) in one-day internationals.

Steven Lynch is the editor of the Wisden Guide to International Cricket 2011.

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Advice to cricketers: get a life

Having a pastime outside the game - say, writing a diary - can set you free from the tyranny of results and often make you a better player

Ed Smith

November 7, 2011

I'd like to tell you a story about two cricketers preparing for a new season. It's a true story, but it's also a parable about success and failure. 

The first player gives up almost everything outside cricket. There will be no distractions, he has told himself. He has decided that this will be his breakthrough season; everything else must be relegated to the status of an irrelevant distraction. Cricket is not just the main thing, it is the only thing. He becomes fitter than ever, he spends all his days in the nets and studying televised cricket matches; he even obsesses about the bowlers he will face in the first match, weeks before the game arrives. His quest is to become a machine-like player. He is so eager to learn that he soaks up every piece of advice he can find. Everyone praises his "professionalism".

The second player approaches the season in a more shambolic, human state. He moves house just before the season begins, and spends the first night in his new home without even a lightbulb to help him find his toothbrush. He breaks up with his girlfriend and finds for the first time that he is relying on the warmth of the team life, with its mischief and mickey-taking. Previously he has always been very self-contained; strangely, he is happy to find himself less so. Off the field, he is busy and engaged, having agreed to write a book. The arrival of the season - what season? - comes almost as a surprise, before he is quite in control of his life. He finds that uncertainty - am I ready or not? - energising rather than depressing. Above all, he knows that a life fully lived will make for a good book. He desperately wants to succeed, but he knows that even failure will have its uses.

The first player scores 415 first-class runs at an average of 23. The second player scores 1534 runs at 53. That doesn't prove anything, I hear you say. But what if I told you that they were the same player? It was me - first in 2000, when I dropped off the map as a promising player, then in 2003, when I scored seven hundreds in nine innings and played for England. I learnt my lesson the hard way. I had to feel alive to play cricket properly. I needed a life outside the game to play at my best. The player derives from the man; the man does not emerge from the player.

I am not the only cricketer to have had a purple patch while engaging with life beyond the boundary. Steve Waugh told me that writing a diary coincided with his best seasons. Peter Roebuck produced his best season (1702 runs with seven hundreds) in the year he wrote It Never Rains. Mark Wagh was one of only five Englishmen to score 1000 runs in the first division in 2008, while he was writing Pavilion to Crease… and Back.

And now, best of all, the Tasmania and Australia A opening batsman Ed Cowan has produced a happy ending to top the lot. He kept a diary of his 2010-11 season for Tasmania, now published as In the Firing Line. I'm not spoiling the ending (the scorecard is just a click away on ESPNcricinfo) when I let on that the last page of the book describes Tasmania winning the Shield final. Man of the Match? EJM Cowan, with 133. Both Cowan and his publishers would have settled for that narrative arc when they agreed the deal.

It's also a very good book - honest, analytical, perceptive and brave. You get to know the author and you come to like him. He is not falsely modest, but he looks for the good in others. In years to come, when he reopens his own book, he may find he was a little too generous - but that is all part of the book's warmth and spirit.

	What is it about writing a diary that helps cricketers play at their best? You might expect it to lead to over-analysis and too much self-absorption. Paradoxically, writing a diary has the opposite effect: it seems to set cricketers free. Instead of a burden, writing becomes an exorcism

He embraces the tensions that every reflective sportsman must face - between growing up and staying immature, between self-obsession and team-spiritedness, between honesty and denial, between clear-eyed analysis and the wilful illusion of mastery and control.

I couldn't resist a smile of recognition at one inconsistency. Cowan describes his admiration for Nassim Taleb's books on randomness and the power of forces outside our control. Then he goes out to bat in his lucky socks, having had a lucky haircut, eaten at his lucky Italian restaurant, drunk lucky coffee made for him by his wife (did he choose the wife on the grounds that she was lucky, one wonders!). Analytically Cowan understands randomness. In practice, he clings to superstition. Madness? Maybe. Perhaps we all need to be a little bit crazy, especially if you are an opening batsman.

What is it about writing a diary that helps cricketers play at their best? You might expect it to lead to over-analysis and too much self-absorption. Paradoxically, writing a diary has the opposite effect: it seems to set cricketers free. Instead of a burden, writing becomes an exorcism.

There is an even broader point. Every sportsman lives on the knife-edge of outcomes. He either wins or loses, on a daily basis. For the writer, it is very different. All experience, however uncomfortable, contributes to the well of his material. A writer is necessarily an alchemist, and no metal is too dull for him to turn into gold.

Here's a radical thought. Perhaps every sportsman should try to find the pastime that releases him from the tyranny of results. Writing will only work for very few. But almost every athlete, I suspect, would benefit from a complementary challenge of some kind. Michael Bevan told me that once you are a seasoned cricketer, poor form is almost never caused by technical failings. Instead, the root cause is always emotional. So you've got to sort out how you are feeling before the backswing can be corrected.

Professionalism, when it is properly understood, is having the discipline to attend to your whole personality as well as your game. They are, after all, inextricably intertwined - as Ed Cowan has shown us once again.

Former England, Kent and Middlesex batsman Ed Smith is a writer with the Times.

Graduates in Science, Engineering and Maths are more versatile than others

The versatility of science graduates should be celebrated not criticised. What's the problem if science graduates end up in alternative careers? If anything, we need more of it.

Imran Khan guardian.co.uk, Friday 9 September 2011 13.33 BST larger

'If you study engineering, physics or chemistry as your first degree, you're almost 90% likely to be in either full-time employment or further study three years later.' Photograph: Martin Shields/Alamy

The Guardian reported that "only about half of all science graduates find work that requires their scientific knowledge" – a fact that "casts doubt on the government's drive to encourage teenagers to study [science]". Yet year on year, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) reports that its members are finding it difficult to get enough staff with science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) skills. This year more than two in five employers had trouble. The Science Council has just released a report showing that a fifth our workforce is employed in a scientific role. So what's going on?



The concerns come from the paper, Is there a shortage of scientists? A re-analysis of supply for the UK. Its author suggests there is no shortage of scientists and engineers in the UK, despite what the CBI says and contrary to the messages of successive governments. However, both the paper and the Guardian's reporting are based on some pretty odd assumptions. While it's true that about half of Stem graduates end up in careers outside science, that's not an argument to say that too many young people are studying science.



For a start, a Stem degree is a fantastic preparation for a huge range of careers. We should celebrate that fact, not mourn it. Statistics show (table 7) that if you study engineering, physics or chemistry as your first degree, you're almost 90% likely to be in either full-time employment or further study three years later. Those figures compare with 73% for the creative arts, and 78% for languages and historical or philosophical studies. The average across all graduates is just above 80%. That's because a Stem degree gives you a huge range of skills that are in demand in wide variety of jobs, not just in science. Isn't that a good thing? We could "fix" it by training science graduates to be useless in the wider economy, but at the moment we have a higher education sector that is successfully producing young people equipped with highly transferable skills.



Moreover, what's the problem if Stem graduates end up in careers outside science and engineering? If anything, we need more of it. We're crying out for more scientists and engineers to teach in schools, get into politics and the civil service, and become involved in running companies. The scientific method should be more embedded in society, not less. In the UK, we have only two MPs with a PhD. China, the most populous country and fastest growing economy in the world, has been led for the past eight years by two men who are professional engineers. I'm not saying it's better – but wouldn't it be nice to have some diversity among all the lawyers and economists?



We don't worry when law graduates don't become lawyers, history graduates don't become historians, or English graduates don't become … er … So why be concerned about the versatile engineer or chemist? True, we do need more people going into research and development if the UK is to successfully rebalance its economy. To achieve that we must increase investment in research and skills so that employers have a reason to come here, and in turn attract our science and engineering graduates into science and engineering jobs. Yes, each company and lab leader will be looking for the very best staff, so with the best will in the world you're not going to get every single engineering graduate into their first-choice profession. But how is that different from any other type of graduate?



It's a shame that the Guardian's report focused on the misleading figures when there was much else of value in the study. We see that there is far too much social and gender stratification in the people who actually go into science and engineering. This is unacceptable, given the benefits that those subjects give to their students. It's 2011, and yet we still only have around one in 10 female graduate engineers. You're more likely to take science and maths A-levels if you attend an independent school, with pupils at state-maintained schools over-represented in arts and humanities subjects instead.



There is emphatically still a need for more scientists and engineers – and, far from retrenching support for science and engineering, we should be concentrating on making these subjects more accessible to everyone.

Divorce cases in Mumbai soar 86% in less than 10 years

Viju B, TNN | Jul 27, 2011, 01.09AM IST

MUMBAI: As the stigma around divorce dissolves steadily, an increasing number of couples in the city are choosing to end their marriage, sometimes soon after exchanging their wedding vows. Between 2009 and 2010, the number of divorces in Mumbai rose from 4,624 to 5,245, a spike of over 13%. Last year's figure is even more startling when compared to 2002's statistic of 2,805 - this means that the number of divorces has climbed by more than 86% in less than a decade.

Social scientists and psychiatrists explain this as a sign that the till-death-do-us-apart class of marriage is under strain. "Young couples marry impulsively and separate equally spontaneously. Divorce is now seen more as a corrective mechanism and a way to move forward in life," says psychiatrist Harish Shetty. Shetty states financial independence, multiplicity of relationships and ample career opportunities as some of the reasons for the increase.

"Gone are the days when the mother-in-law was the villain. Now you alone can save or break a relationship," he says. 'For today's women, divorce no longer carries a stigma'

As the number of divorce cases in the city rise, psychiatrist Harish Shetty cites financial independence and more career opportunities as some of the reasons behind this trend. There are enough instances to back Shetty's assertion.

Varsha Bhosle, who is in her late 20s, decided to end her two-year marriage after she realized that she and her husband "did not have any time for each other". Both of them worked in an IT firm at Malad. What proved the catalyst for the divorce was the husband's choice to move cities. "He wanted me to shift to Pune too. But I felt I had better career choices here. We were both ambitious anyway," Varsha says.

Kusum Singh, a financial consultant, got separated from her husband in January. "It was not that my husband was a bad person. But somehow we just drifted apart and I began seeing someone else. I felt bad for my husband, but after the initial heartburn even he understood ours was a loveless relationship," Singh says.

Lawyers say a major reason for the rise in divorces is that women have become more independent, financially and emotionally. They do not feel that ending their marriage would bring upon them a lifelong stigma. A majority of young couples these days, in fact, separate by mutual consent. "This saves them from the headache of going to court many times. One can get a divorce within six months and maybe two hearings," says Sajal Chacha, a family court lawyer.

Chacha adds there have been cases where young couples have divorced within six months or a year of marriage. "Elders in the family have become more accommodating and do not force their children into a second marriage if the first one fails," she says.

Bowling At The Death

Cricket's stars are a ruthless lot, many have crashed and burned at its hallowed pitch

ROHIT MAHAJAN, SMRUTI KOPPIKAR, SUGATA SRINIVASARAJU, CHANDER SUTA DOGRA, DOLA MITRA, AMBA BATRA BAKSHI
The game that begets a few stars is also father to thousands of disaffected, depressed men
Cases of suicide


Rambabu Pal: A prolific batsman from UP, he couldn't make use of the few chances he got in first-class cricket. Committed suicide at 34 in 2007.


Manish Mishra: Was acutely depressed after he failed to make the Uttar Pradesh Ranji Trophy team, committed suicide at 24 in 2007.


Subhash Dixit: One-time captain of India U-17, his career stalled before the Ranji level. Committed suicide at 22 in 2007.

Jhuma Sarkar: A regular in Bengal Under-19 women's team, failed to progress. Committed suicide at 23 in 2007.

***

The Enveloping Blues
Mohan Chaturvedi, 38: Was told he'd be touring Pakistan in 1989, but was left out. A wicketkeeper, he went into depression, says he was saved by his faith in God.
Obaid Kamal, 36: One of the best fast bowlers to never play for India. Was frustrated, says he was saved from suicide because of the Islamic injunction against it.
Suhail Sharma, 27: The all-rounder played for Delhi in Ranji Trophy, but struggled to find a job and was depressed for four years.
Dilraj Atwal, 21: The fast bowler was injured after being invited to bowl in the Delhi Ranji Trophy camp last year. Used to cry himself to sleep.
Feroze Ghayas, 36: One of the fastest bowlers who never played for India. Was depressed for some time, says he hurts even now.
Sumit Kundu, 21: Was Haryana Under-17 captain one year, on the sidelines the next. Went into a depression, gave up cricket forever.
Saikat Ganguly, 17: Was named the best junior cricketer of Bengal in 2006; was dropped at the trial stage even before the first tournament. Still in a slump.
Vinayak Samant, 36: For this lower middle-class boy who played for Mumbai and Assam, the India call never came. Went through lows.
***

Message In A...
Maninder Singh, 43: Hailed as a very special talent, played for India at age 17. Couldn't handle stardom, lost his rhythm, his career unravelled...and he took to drinking.
Sadanand Viswanath, 46: In 1985, he was a superstar in the making. Then he was dropped, took to drink and, lost his way, and lost everything.
Vijay Dahiya, 36: Still wonders why he was dropped from the Indian team, took to drinking and clubbing. Lost his way.
Reasons
Little room at the top
Only a select few can play first-class cricket, about 400 in India. Number of aspirants runs into lakhs.
Limited career options
Being onfield for hours a day, years on end, leaves little time to acquire other vocational skills. So no fallback options.
Arbitrariness of selection
Selection can be arbitrary at any level, and are often very biased. Players can’t come to terms with this.
Early success
Too much too early can distract you. Beginning of the end?
Injuries
Can end a career at any age, at any time.
***

Solutions
Keep expectations in check
Cricket must be a passion, not the career option.
Counselling
From very early, players must have access to sports psychologists who can guide them.
Fair selection
Save players from trauma, ensure that the selection process is absolutely fair.
Sports medicine
Still a developing science in the country, many careers are destroyed due to the lack of it.
More other jobs
The BCCI, with all its money, could assist players above U-17 to develop vocational skills, as is done in England.
(Outlook accessed many others who narrated their experience of confronting the dark side of cricket—but they didn’t want to be named.)

***

"The others become drunkards, slip into depression or just fade away into inconsequential careers, where they remain unhappy forever" —Yograj Singh, Cricket Coach

"Cricket can never be a career prospect. Disappointment is guaranteed. Success is not. Once that is established, depression cannot defeat you."—Arun Lal, Former Test cricketer

"You get selected 10 times and then you are dropped for no obvious reason. You see yourself as a failure. Even at the first-class level, it’s a gloomy life." —Aakash Chopra, Ex-India opener

***


Vijay Dahiya, 36, India
Last played for India in 2001, he couldn’t fathom why he was axed. "When you realise you won’t be chosen, the sacrifices you made earlier seem futile," he says. Started visiting nightclubs and drinking. No more bitter, he says all he has today is because of cricket.

In the alleys of old Lucknow, where the affluent share a wall with the indigent, there’s a three-storeys-high dwelling which houses 22 people of one extended family. In a second-floor room which betrays the lower middle-class background of its owners, Manish Mishra grins back at you, his eyes glinting. But it’s only a photograph, and Mishra’s siblings don’t smile, because he hanged himself here two years ago. In life, he overdosed on a passion for cricket. In death—apparently triggered by a tiff with his estranged wife over the phone—he embodies what is very often the fruit of that passion: the lingering frustration of failing in the game and a deep regret for having spent so much time at the nets that it left him with little else in the end. Not even time to escape with some other minimal skills that could help him pitch his tent in some other field.

"He used to say he wished had worked so hard in some other field... for he'd have found a good job..."

Mishra joined the Agra cricket hostel for coaching at the age of nine. He worked hard at his game, ultimately playing for Uttar Pradesh in the junior teams. Early morning, he’d walk to the field, often in borrowed trousers. That’s approximately where his cricketing career got stuck, and he ended up with a fourth-class job in the Railways, a whole world away from his dream of wearing the Indian colours. "He used to say he wished he had worked so hard in some other field...," his cousins say.It didn’t stop there. Bad luck dogged him, his mother died, there was marital discord. Then, without warning, came the night when he dragged the bed across to block his door and hanged himself from the fan.

Mishra didn’t die just because of cricket. No doubt, he took the extreme step because of circumstances at home also. But his frustration at the abject failure in his chosen field, at real or perceived injustices done to his talent, his anger at the venality of system, it all played a part till one day he snapped. In our cricket fields, this anger and frustration is shared by tens of thousands of boys and men who’ve played cricket. The game that begets a few dazzling stars also fathers thousands of disaffected, depressed men.

There are too many guileless, potential ‘cricket victims’ out there for us to ignore it any more. Raw, underage and prone to being felled by the game’s vicissitudes. Lots of cricketers and coaches Outlook spoke to testified to the fact that depression is a major malaise. Some confessed to suicidal thoughts. The list of 15 cricketers who admitted to suffering the ‘cricket blues’ isn’t exhaustive—they are just a few who agreed to go public with their stories, in the hope that the Indian cricket establishment would be prompted to help the young cope with the dark side of the sunny sport.

Former Test player Arun Lal, who runs the Bournvita Cricket Academy in Calcutta, admits that "depression exists in a big way in cricket". Coach Yograj Singh, who played one Test for India, admits a plain professional truth: only a handful among the hundreds of hopefuls have it in them to make it big in cricket. "The others become drunkards, slip into depression or just fade away into inconsequential careers, where they remain unhappy forever."


Saikat Ganguly, 17, Bengal
Jrs Named the best junior cricketer of Bengal in 2006, he was dropped at the trial stage before the first tournament. Slipped into depression, still avoids visitors. Flips through his scrapbook filled with clippings reporting his rise and fall in cricket. Advises his cousin to not play cricket.

The really disturbing thing is, the opposite of a life of glory is often not just a life of misery—some simply terminate. The gloom that descended upon Subhash Dixit’s house in Kanpur two years ago will probably never dissipate. In 2007, the family lost Subhash, the family’s beloved as also its main hope for he was at one time the junior India cricket captain. He was then 22, when cricketing dreams often start to die and a search for livelihood begins. But Subhash lacked the skills of the usual job-seeker. Aunt Sushma, her voice trembling, says he just couldn’t find a job. "He used to say he would have been selected for the Ranji team if we had the money or the contacts," she told Outlook. "Earlier, he used to pledge that he’d ‘do something in life’. Now I just wish he’d come back somehow."

In 2007, the family lost Subhash Dixit, their lone hope, for he was at one time the India Jrs cricket captain.

But Subhash isn’t coming back. He jumped to his death after leaving home, ostensibly to practise at the Green Park grounds in the city.

Obaid Kamal, who played for UP and Punjab and now coaches in Lucknow, says "people don’t know how frustrating it is to become a cricketer. (I found life in the jaws of death)." A swing bowler, Kamal was a regular feature in the Duleep Trophy teams of the 1990s. "Even when I got the most wickets, I did not get a call.When (Javagal) Srinath was injured in New Zealand in 1994, everyone said I should be sent to replace him. A spinner was sent instead!" he recalls. He declares he’s now put it all behind him, yet there were moments of despair when Kamal contemplated suicide; he says his mother’s words when he was a child—that suicide is "haraam, a sin that won’t be forgiven"—is what saved him.


Mohan Chaturvedi, 38, Delhi
Hailed as India’s best keeper, he went into depression after he was not chosen for the ‘89 Pak tour. Seen in Delhi’s Connaught Place with his pads and keeping glove on; he’d keep awake at night, crying. Says he’ll never let his son take up cricket.

Faith saved Mohan Chaturvedi too, who teetered on the edge for a while. Chaturvedi, a Delhi wicketkeeper, had been measured for the team gear before the 1989 tour of Pakistan. But he was not picked up; for an 18-year-old it was shattering. Always the standby, he gave up the game at 24. Depression ensued. "I withdrew from the world, I confined myself to my room," Chaturvedi, who’s now with the Income Tax department, says. "I stopped watching cricket, I hated the game, I had no hope." What saved him was his faith in god. Chaturvedi says, "God gave me the power to come out of depression. I used to go to the holy shrines every year, and that saved me."

It's emotionally sapping to play a game where luck has such a crucial role. The strain breaks cricketers.

Cricketers seem more vulnerable to depression than other sportspersons because the game, as writer David Frith (see column) puts it, "is unique in its propensity to take over a man’s psyche". In recent times, there have been many reports of high-profile cases of depression, including England’s Marcus Trescothick, Australia’s Shaun Tait and New Zealand’s Lou Vincent. For it’s emotionally sapping to play a game where luck has such a crucial role. The strain can break cricketers. Take the case of fast bowler Firoze Ghayas, who took 13 wickets on his first-class debut. Yet he struggled to become a regular for even Delhi, forget playing for India. "For a player with skill and ambition, sitting on the bench is like being in jail," he says now. "It still hurts, this pain will never go away. Why did it happen? Eventually, to make peace with yourself, one comes to the conclusion that it’s fate. Even if you are good and have performed well, if you don’t have luck or someone backing you, it all adds to nothing." Some, unlike Ghayas, are never reconciled.


Feroze Ghayas, 36, Delhi
Javagal Srinath once told him, "You’ve got raw pace, man!" Dennis Lillee thought he was a hot prospect. But he never played for India. His frustration in the mid-1990s bordered on depression. A coach now, he hopes to protect his wards from what he went through.

Cricket is also unique among team sports because of the clout the captain or the coach enjoys. In football, basketball or rugby, a player’s talent can’t be hidden, despite any level of scheming. "If the captain doesn’t like you, he can restrict you to a short bowling spell, or ask you to bowl when the batsmen are completely set, or to bowl only against the wind," says a former Delhi junior player. And heard of this? A Delhi cricket official whose son is a left-arm spinner managed to get all his counterparts dropped from the junior teams. The reason: so that there’s no competition for his son when he’s old enough to play first-class cricket. Then there are the debilitating injuries that nip the careers of hundreds of hopefuls.

All this, naturally, begets cynicism and frustration—always a close ally to depression.Many give up the game to brood indoors, cursing their fate or the system. Like Sumit Kundu, 21, for whom cricket was life for 10 long years. He was captain of the Haryana under-17 team, but in 2007, when he was preparing for the state’s under-19 team, he was told he was not good enough. Kundu slipped into depression. "I stopped going out with friends, used to cry for hours," he says. Kundu was wise enough to relinquish his dream early, providing him time to prepare for an MBA course. "I’ll never go back to cricket again. It’s too painful," he says.


Suhail Sharma, 26, Delhi
Couldn’t cement his place in the Ranji team. Went through torrid times for two years. "I feared I’d have to give up cricket and work crazy shifts like some of my friends, who start work at 4 am to oversee newspaper distribution, with no time for cricket," he says. A job with ONGC helped.

Outlook cited a few of these cases to Nimesh G. Desai, head of the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences in Delhi. He confirms that the symptoms do indicate depression, but adds that no study has been done to gauge the incidence of depression among cricketers specifically. He also explained why the impact of failure in cricket is more severe than in other fields of human endeavour: "In cricket, as also in the movie industry, the stakes are very high, expectations are high, and there’s a high degree of emotional and physical investment. At stake is a high degree of social adulation, or retribution for that matter."

"In cricket, the stakes are very high as are expectations. There's a high degree of emotional, physical investment."

Often, budding cricketers chase their dreams till the very end, unable to read the writing on the wall. Some, like Vinayak Samant, 36, have managed to survive the trauma. From a lower middle-class family from the Mumbai suburb of Virar, this gritty wicketkeeper-batsman had had his share of lows—but never slipped into the darkness of depression. It’s only now, after 20 years of hoping, that he’s reconciled to his shattered dream of playing for India. Former India opener Aakash Chopra, who’s no stranger to disappointment, told Outlook, "Young players have big dreams, sometimes you are not good enough, other times you realise you need more than just performance on the field. You get selected 10 times and are then suddenly dropped for no obvious reason. You see yourself as a failure. Players, even at the first-class level, live gloomy lives, away from the glamour and money associated with cricket."


Sadanand Viswanath, 46, India
A rising superstar in early 1985, dropped from the team the same year. His father committed suicide; mother died soon after. He went "over the limit" with alcohol. A qualified umpire now, he says "too much expectation at a young age leads to disaster. Better to have delayed gratification".

In a sense, the Indian Premier League (IPL) is a welcome development for the forgotten, poor men of Indian cricket, for it has opened up new avenues for them. "It’s a boon," agrees Chopra. "First-class level players have worked very, very hard to reach where they are. Now more of them can make a better living from the game."

To succeed at the top, youngsters need endless passion, ambition and absolute confidence. For doubt is fatal.

But most are doomed to suffer in the shadows. Maninder Singh, a prodigy who faded away, says it would help if the coaches were honest with the parents."The coach’s conscience has to be clean and pure," he told Outlook. "They must be honest with a player, ask him to focus on studies if he has little talent or no future in the game." Adds Arun Lal, "Disappointment is guaranteed. Success is not. Once that is established, depression cannot defeat you. Cricket can never be a career prospect. It should be a passion and if it happens to become a career one day, great! But don’t count on it."

For the young players, the algebra for success is baffling: to succeed at the top, they need endless passion, ambition and absolute confidence. For doubt is fatal. This must be accompanied by maturity, for disappointments must and will buffet them at every step. It’s a very rare blend that succeeds, most don’t have it in them. All the more reason why parents must prepare their children for heartbreak...and a career in other fields.