The Invention of Individual Responsibility

 

How much can a captain influence short-term performance?

Ed Smith in Cricinfo

People who don't believe that the media indulges honeymoon periods should consider the relative treatment of Alastair Cook and Eoin Morgan. Having survived a media storm as Test captain in the summer of 2014, Cook was eventually sacked as ODI captain at the 11th hour before the World Cup. Most pundits felt this was a good idea, even though it left Cook bereft of his dream of captaining in a World Cup, and left Morgan very little time to put his stamp on the team.

Now Morgan has scored three noughts in his last four innings and four noughts in his last seven. Many of those who called for Cook's sacking seem very relaxed about this, citing's Morgan superb natural talent and better track record as an ODI match-winner. Yet Cook's resilience and capacity for enduring pressure was equally well-established. In short, I'm less convinced that Morgan's bad form exists in a different category from Cook's.

The reasons given for Cook's sacking were: 1) his poor form with the bat, and 2) the need to protect his long-term prospects as an England player. The selectors felt that continuing with Cook for the World Cup might radically deplete his resources. Effectively it would burn through too many miles on the clock, racing Cook towards a hastier exit from the English game. Though no one seemed to notice at the time, exactly the same arguments could have been presented as reasons for not making Morgan captain either. If Cook was in danger of ending the World Cup exhausted and short of confidence, Morgan might end it disillusioned and disengaged, one step closer to a career oriented to the roving life of a T20 specialist. It is far too early to be certain - England could still win the competition with Morgan as its hero - but it is a very real possibility that in sacking one captain England will end up undermining two careers.

There is a much deeper question. How much does the captaincy, over the short term, affect performance? Morgan or Cook? Bailey or Clarke? Everyone has a view and can marshal the evidence to support their prejudices. It makes a nice "talking point", as the saying goes. That does not, however, mean the decision under review is important in explaining events.

Put differently, what if England would have lost anyway on Saturday, whoever was captaining? And suppose that Australia would have won, whichever of their strong captaincy candidates was in charge? In obsessing about the psychodrama at the top, we ignore the underlying fundamentals.

There are two central trends in the evolution of professional sport and its coverage. The odd thing, however, is that the two movements are contradictory, indeed irreconcilable.

The first is the cult of personality the hero, the champion, the winner, the master of mind games, the tactical wizard, the leader of men, blessed with the Midas touch. This is the way elite sport is frequently presented and analysed. Why? First, because it fits the modern obsession with celebrity; secondly, because it is endlessly useful as a media "talking point" - big personalities are always easier to discuss than systems or ideas.

Then there is the underlying reality of how professional sport is actually evolving. Every top team now employs a massive backroom staff of coaches, physios and analysts, all of whom are trying to find a tiny incremental advantage, a fraction of 1% here or there, to help their team. The idea that one single mind controls the whole team is laughably out of date. Even in football, where the manager is like the cricket captain, coach and selection panel rolled into one, he actually sits atop a vast coaching machine. Yes, he steers the wheel, but there are many more cogs in the machine than ever before.

In cricket, the captain's power and control are increasingly shared with other influences on the team. He can still make a difference, of course. But he exists in a highly professional context in which control is shared widely.

I was recently asked to write a new introduction to the reissue of Mike Brearley's iconic book The Art of Captaincy. One thing that struck me was how much more control Brearley had over his teams than any captain would have today. On being recalled as England captain in 1981, one of his first acts was to restore the pre-match warm-up and stretching routine. It is unimaginable today - given the number of physios and trainers - that this area of team life would be the preserve of the captain.

Critics of captains today lightly ignore a contradiction: modern captains certainly have less power than ever, yet they are still held overwhelmingly accountable for decisions and tactics that usually originated in discussions with the team's whole top table.

We have not yet mentioned by far the biggest constraint of all on any captain: the form and quality of the players.

In his post-match interview, Morgan was asked by Andrew Strauss why the England death bowlers favoured the bouncer over the yorker. Morgan's answer was that the boundaries at the MCG are shorter straight (65 yards) than square of the wicket (85 yards). Yorkers tend to be hit down the ground, whereas short balls are often hit square of the wicket. So as the fielding captain, Morgan was trying to force batsmen to play the harder, riskier shot. Had England bowled well, this would have sounded shrewd and canny. Because England bowled badly, it sounded too clever by half. In other words, it is the bowlers who make and unmake the success of tactics, not captains.

I will always believe in the power of great leadership, especially by gradually improving team culture over the long term. Right now, however, the correct answer to the question "Bailey or Clarke?" and "Morgan or Cook?" is: "Nice talking point, but it doesn't explain very much about the result."

I is the most important letter in a cricket team

By Girish Menon

In a recent article in The Telegraph, Geoffrey Boycott mentioned, there is no I in a cricket team and hence implying that Kevin Pietersen should kowtow to the diktats of the team's leaders. In this piece I will argue that I believe the individual, I, is the elephant in a cricket team's dressing room and by ignoring it won't we be behaving like an ostrich burying its head in the sand?

In cricket there are three principal activities viz. batting, bowling and fielding and in each activity the individual player is the most important actor. Let me try to explain this idea by contrasting it with football. In football, a defender can ask for help from another teammate to police and control a forward from the opposite team. Other players can pass the ball, run into open spaces etc to help a team mate come out of a sticky situation. The goalkeeper appears to be the only individual in this team sport.

In cricket, while batting no team mate can help a batter combat the aggression of a Morkel or the wiles of a Murali. The individual has to face the ball delivered by a bowler. A team mate may take a single of the last ball of each over and shield his partner, but there is no way he can face the ball for his partner should he find himself at the receiving end. In contrast, defenders in football can act in pairs to ward of an  attack by an opposing forward.

It gets even more individual when it gets to bowling. The bowler has to run up and deliver the ball on his own accord. The rest of his teammates enter the game only subsequently after the batter has reacted to the delivery. In football, a forward can pass the ball to a team mate thereby beating the goalkeeper and creating an open goal situation for his teammate to score.

Similarly whilst fielding too it is the individual who is responsible for delivering the goods and any discussion of individualism in cricket will not be complete without a discussion of the role of the most important individual in a cricket team viz. the captain. The captain's individual idiosyncrasies affect not only the fortune of the team but also the careers of the other team members in the squad.

In the book, One More Over, Erapalli Prasanna talked about how under Bishen Bedi's captaincy he was brought on to bowl only after the batsmen were well established at the crease. I'm sure that cricket watchers and players will have innumerable stories about the decisions of captains that have affected a game as well as individual careers.

In a recent article Ed Smith talked about TheBresnan Effect on the English team's outcomes in recent cricket matches due to the inclusion of Tim Bresnan in the team. While admitting the difficulty of measuring Bresnan's impact on England or more famously that of Shane Battier on the Houston Rockets; Smith implicitly recognises the individual's role in the fortunes of a team. My thesis therefore is that the absence of an adequate tool to evaluate an individual's performance should not therefore lead us to conclude erroneously like Boycott that there is no 'I' in a cricket team.

After all if there is no 'I' in a cricket team; then why are some individuals from a losing team retained while the less fortunate ones dropped. If there is collective responsibility then like the voting out of a political party all members of a cricket team should be dropped in case of failure. Since that does not happen it would be  foolish for anybody, and especially Boycott, to argue against individualism in cricket.