Do we want our children taught by humans or algorithms?

Zoe Williams in The Guardian


 

Parents ‘have been galvanised by the … sight of their children in distress’ over the tests. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA



It is incredibly hard for a headteacher to shout “rubbish” in a crowded hall while an authority figure is speaking. It is like asking a lung specialist to smoke a cigarette. Yet that’s what happened when Nicky Morgan addressed the National Association of Head Teachers conference yesterday. They objected partly to her programme of turning all schools into academies by 2020 and partly to her luminously daft insistence that “testing”, “improving” and “educating” are interchangeable words. 

Her government “introduced the phonics check for six-year-olds, and 100,000 more young people are able to read better as a result,” she told the BBC when she first became education secretary, and she has been trotting out the same nonsense ever since. No amount of disagreement from professionals in the field dents her faith or alters her rhetoric. Indeed, since the Michael Gove era, teachers have been treated as recalcitrant by definition, motivated by sloth, their years of experience reframed not as wisdom but as burnout. When they object to a policy, that merely proves what a sorely needed challenge it poses to their cushy lives. When they shout “rubbish” in a conference hall, it is yet more evidence of what a dangerous bunch of trots they are.

On Tuesday, parents enter the fray, with a school boycott organised by Let Our Kids Be Kids, to protest against “unnecessary testing and a curriculum that limits enjoyment and real understanding”. Some have been galvanised by the bizarre and unnecessary sight of their children in distress, others by solidarity with the teachers – who inconveniently continue to command a great deal of respect among people who actually meet with them – and others who can’t join in the boycott because of minor administrative details such as having to go to work, but have signed the petition. It is the beginning of a new activism – muscular, cooperative and agile because it has to be.

The boycott is in protest against ‘unnecessary testing and a curriculum that limits enjoyment and real understanding’. Photograph: Barry Batchelor/PA

If the only problem is that it causes anxiety to a load of pampered under-10s, shouldn’t they just suck it up? Isn’t that the best way to learn what the world is like? The framing of this debate is precisely wrong. No serious educationalist thinks that the way to drive up standards among children is to make tests more frequent and more exacting. Nor does anybody of any expertise really believe that teachers need to be incentivised by results. It is an incredibly tough, demanding, indifferently remunerated job, which nobody would do except as a vocation. It is not for the profession or the parents to explain what the tests are doing to the kids; it is for the education secretary to explain what these tests are for. 

By coincidence, at the end of last week, Randi Weingarten, head of the American Federation of Teachers, was in London to hand in a petition to Pearson, the education company and provider of curriculums and test delivery. The petition protested against two perceived issues: concerns about over-testing in US schools and alleged profiteering in the global south. The trajectory in US education, from universal public provision with local accountability to mass outsourcing and centralised control, is strikingly similar to what has happened here. It begins with the creation of a failure narrative, “that both the Democrats and the Republican bought into, which is, the sky is falling, the sky is falling, the sky is falling”, Weingarten told me. That creates the rationale for testing, since, without data, you can’t tell whether you’re improving. Those tests are consequential: the results can be used to fire teachers, close down schools, hold pupils back a year. All the most profound decisions in education can suddenly be made by an algorithm, with no human judgment necessary.

Simultaneously, says Weingarten, Charter schools were introduced, originally – like academies – “as part of a bigger public school system where you could incubate ideas”, but very soon remodelled as a way to supplant rather than supplement the existing system. “And in between all of this, you started seeing the marketisation and the monetisation.” Until things can be counted, there isn’t much scope to create a market.

I was never fully convinced that academisation and hyper-testing were undertaken to create the market conditions for privatisation down the line; I thought it more plausible that the testing was merely a politician’s wheeze to create data out of humans that could then be stuffed into manifestos to persuade other humans that the policies were going in the right direction. Yet the parallels between the US and England are insistent – it has become impossible to ignore the idea that our government is mimicking theirs for a reason.

Whether all this is a prelude to privatisation or a PR stunt for a chaotic government doesn’t actually matter in the medium term: to put seven-year-olds under intolerable pressure for either of those ends would be equally abhorrent. In the long term, the mutation of schools into joyless exam factories won’t be halted by resistance alone, we also need to make a proper account of what education is for.

As Weingarten describes, “We have to help kids build relationships. We have to address their life skills, so they can negotiate the world. We have to help kids build resilience. We have to help kids learn how to problem-solve, how to think, how to engage. So tell me, how are any of these things tested on a standardised test?” That’s a test question for the tin-eared secretary of state herself.

People who buy expensive cars enjoy killing pedestrians

Bridget Christie in The Guardian

Illustration: Nishant Choksi for the Guardian

 

As a standup comedian, I have a heightened sense of other people’s behaviour. In a room of 500 people, I can sniff out the one checking their watch, yawning and stretching their arms above their head. There are a myriad ways an audience member can display their apathy towards you. One standup friend, Joe Wilkinson, saw a piece of chewing gum fall out of a man’s open, dribbling mouth while he was doing his best stuff. I’ve had a man in the front row order himself a takeaway.

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I think society is ruder than it used to be, and I’m not alone in thinking this. Paul Piff is an assistant professor in the department of psychology and social behaviour at the University of California. Last year, he wrote a paper titled Higher Social Class Predicts Increased Unethical Behaviour. In layman’s terms, what Prof Piff is saying is, rich people are more likely to behave like twats than poor people are.

Piff proved his suspicions in a number of ways, many of them involving the use of hidden cameras. One of his experiments, which he shared during an unintentionally hilarious TEDx talk, meant getting some of his mates to stand at pedestrian crossings and monitor which cars stopped and which didn’t. Normal cars (ie ones that look like their sole purpose is to transport people safely from A to B without exploding) stopped – which, incidentally, they were legally obliged to do. “Status cars”, such as 4x4s, convertibles, sports cars, chariots and the Diamond Jubilee State Coach, did not. Piff had proved, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that people who buy expensive cars enjoy killing pedestrians, which definitely qualifies as unethical behaviour.

Another of Piff’s films showed two young men playing a rigged game of Monopoly. One player was given an unfair advantage: more money, two dice, a crash course in Received Pronunciation, a massive throne to sit on, an ermine cloak and the Sovereign’s Orb. The behaviour of this player changed rapidly. He started playing in an incredibly annoying, obnoxious way.

The most fascinating part, for me, was that, even though he knew he was at an unfair advantage, the player still believed he had won the game through personal skill. I thought immediately of George Osborne cutting the maintenance grant for Monopoly players from low-income families, and how this meant that working-class kids would now always lose at Monopoly, so won’t even bother trying to play any more.

Piff believes that being wealthy can make people less ethical, more selfish and less compassionate. “The rich are way more likely to prioritise their own self-interests above the interests of other people,” he says. “It makes them more likely to exhibit characteristics that we would stereotypically associate with, say, assholes.” Yes, that’s right. There is a professor, called Piff, who used the word asshole in an academic study.

I’ve encountered a lot of assholes recently. And I have noticed, with alarmingly regularity, that when I call people out for, say, walking into the road in front of my car without looking because they were on their phone, I am verbally abused in return. The man who ordered his takeaway during my show seemed genuinely baffled as to why I even brought it up. He was hungry and needed to eat. What the hell was my problem?

We are living in an age of narcissistic entitlement, and I don’t think this is purely down to wealth or privilege. Technological advances, easy credit, bad parenting and pizza restaurants’ willingness to stock every conceivable topping has created a world in which everything is possible and available, where there is immediate and unlimited choice – except in the case of the Labour leadership, where our options have been severely limited.

In a recent documentary about the police, a female officer said she’d noticed a big change in young people’s behaviour, which she put down to bad parenting, a lack of discipline and contempt for authority figures. She said that because we don’t say “no” to our children, and instead use tantrum-averting language (“Well, I’d rather you didn’t punch me in the face repeatedly, darling, because it makes mummy upset”), young people don’t know how to respond to being reprimanded: they go into meltdown.

We interact with each other less and less. We shop online, communicate online, we watch bands and sunsets through our iPads and don’t care about the people standing behind us. We’re forgetting how to behave in the physical world. I don’t know how we address this. But a good place to start might be to call our children assholes when they’re being assholes. I’d also suggest arresting anyone who orders a takeaway during the punchline of a show.

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.

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Sledging in cricket - Pump up the volume

It's time to turn the stump mikes all the way up, and leave them that way

Rob Steen

December 4, 2013

	The next time two players discuss the weather in detail, we'd love to hear what they're saying © BCCI  Enlarge

Taking issue with a pair of sage judges of humankind like George Orwell and Mike Brearley might not be the wisest intellectual venture, but into the valley of the ridiculed here I come.

In his 1945 essay "The Sporting Spirit", Orwell decried the competitive arts as "war minus the shooting" (international sport, that is, not sport per se; his incandescent response to a UK football tour by Moscow Dynamo is so habitually misquoted). Given the quotidian deluge of pain inflicted in its name, not to mention the occasional death, "war minus the looting" might be nearer the mark. Or better yet, as the latest renewal of Ashes mania appears bent on reaffirming, "war plus the loathing".

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Doesn't Sledging Hurt Anyone?

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More recently, this very week, Brearley wrote a typically astute article for the Times, lamenting the intolerably abrasive atmosphere of the Brisbane Test, observing that there was "a narrow line" between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. This struck me as being overly generous.

What distinguishes sport from every other branch of the entertainment industry is its relationship with its audience, enforcing as it does an acute awareness of its constant (and constantly annoying) dancing partner - sportsmanship. Nobody talks about actorship or poetship or dancership; musicianship and authorship relate, respectively, to craft and rights, not conduct. But what do we actually mean by sportsmanship? It certainly tells us something about its complexities that no feminist I know has ever demanded that we refer to sportspersonship, let alone sportswomanship.

It seems reasonable to define this slippery virtue, broadly, as the willingness, even determination, to a) win fairly, honestly and modestly, and b) lose gallantly, graciously and, almost needless to add, unintentionally. Liable as they are to be copied in playgrounds, backyards and parks, any antic that even smacks of cheating or disrespect sets the most erroneous of bad examples, primarily to the impressionable young millions who invest so much of their emotion in, and glean so much of their joy from, the curious world of ballgames.

Sure, the older and wiser we get, the more we understand the unique nature of athletic battle and its impact on even the coolest of tempers. On the other hand, sports watchers of all ages are resolutely intolerant of relatively trifling misdemeanours such as time-wasting, feigned injury or even a withheld handshake. And woe betide those perceived to be cowardly, whether in the form of a tackle shirked, a risk untaken or an opponent tongue-lashed. And rightly so.

That's why, even as we grow ever more inured to violent images, and admiring of murderous on-screen drug lords and mobsters, sledging still disturbs disproportionately - because it tells us the perpetrator has given up trying to prevail through skill. There's banter and there's sledging, of course, and it is to the spite-rich, wit-free latter that one takes exception. To many, the Brisbane Test was sickening, not because of the savagery of the bowling but the vile viciousness of the verbals. One of the odder things about the three-for-the-price-of-one product cricket has become is that the least frantic variety is the likeliest to arouse indefensible behaviour.

Before we get to the remedy, a dose of perspective seems in order. Amid the same Gabba gabfest that saw Messrs Anderson and Clarke reiterate how far cricketers are prepared to go - and always have been - in quest of an edge, the media ridicule meted out to Jonathan Trott was equally if not more offensive. How sobering, moreover, to open a magazine that weekend and snuggle up with cuddly Mike Tyson.

Interviewed, helpfully, by a woman with whom he clearly felt more comfortable not being Mr Macho, here was a champion whose brutality inside and outside the ring is now matched by a self-flagellating honesty that somehow arouses compassion if not pity. Call it a salutary reminder of sport's capacity to simultaneously thrill and disgust. Call it the hidden price of admission. Still, when it comes to ranking the meanest, baddest-assed sportsmen of them all, Iron Mike the Ear-Cruncher was a spayed pussycat next to Ty Cobb.

When Charlie Davis, that endlessly creative Australian statistician, devised a formula to calculate sporting greatness, he focused on one solo endeavour, golf, and four team games - baseball, basketball, cricket and soccer. Using average and standard deviation (σ), the top three emerged as Don Bradman (4.4 σ above the norm); Pelé, whose goals-per-game superiority over other net-bulgers was 3.7 σ; and Cobb, the early 20th century diamond dazzler whose batting average soared 3.6 σ above the baseball mean. But while the Australian and the Brazilian played sport, the American, like Tyson, warred it.

	Denied the release of physical contact, it was inevitable that a cricketer should coin as dastardly a term as "mental disintegration"

"A red-blooded sport for red-blooded men" was how the perpetually snarly Detroit Tiger described his calling. Professional baseball, he insisted, was "something like a war". In acknowledging that the summit of his own profession was "pretty much a war", Alastair Cook at least had the grace to sound a teeny bit bashful.

Cobb was the ultimate ballplayer-warrior: think Steve Waugh, now multiply by a smidge under infinity. Here was a fellow who brazenly and showily sharpened the spikes on his boots, intimidating opponents and making fielders think twice about blocking his ferocious spurts down the baseline. In 1912, he assaulted a one-armed spectator who'd had the temerity to call him a "half-nigger". An enthusiastic racist, he packed a gun wherever he went; he was also reported to have pistol-whipped a man to death. And yes, he was also a mightily accomplished sledger.

The publicity tagline for Ron Shelton's admirably unmanipulative biopic Cobb was perfect: "The Man You Love To Hate". While no cricketer I can think of has ever warranted such a billing, personally speaking, the one who came closest was Matthew Hayden, whose incessant references to his devout Christianity were contradicted so expertly and shamelessly by those crude and cruel on-field tirades.

Sledging is as fertile a field for baseballers as it is for cricketers, because they, too, go about their labours at a leisurely pace; Tom Boswell, the revered Washington Post baseball correspondent, once described his job as "pondering inaction". Sledging seems so unnecessary. After all, another of the many characteristics the two games share is the extent to which they stack the odds. At any given moment, either nine or 11 men are ganging up on one, the avowed aim to negate, nullify and, ideally, exterminate.

Whereas baseball encourages physical contact and even indulges brawls, its more sedate brother from another mother is a subtler beast, albeit no gentler. What it most assuredly is not, has never been, is a game for gentlemen. Officially, that word itself denotes English peerage's lowest rank - below 80-odd others, even Master in Lunacy. When one's place in the pecking order is so insignificant, it is nothing if not pragmatic to be respectful, courteous, well-mannered and occasionally even honourable.

Denied the release of physical contact, it was inevitable that a cricketer should coin as dastardly a term as "mental disintegration". Whether it's Fred Trueman bullying a cowering Cambridge undergraduate, Dennis Lillee and Javed Miandad exchanging goads, Glenn McGrath spewing bile at Ramnaresh Sarwan or Merv Hughes foul-mouthing Graeme Hick, when it comes to rubbishing the game's reputation for civility the exhibits are largely verbal.

Trash-talking is all very well for boxers and those muscular clowns who have made WWE our least credible form of athletic competition. Is it naïve to expect ballplayers to rise above the sort of gratuitous personal abuse that would be stamped on in any other socially conscious workplace? Yes. Are we surprised that Darren Lehmann all but laughed off the suggestion of a "sledging summit"? Definitely not. Transgressors should therefore be pilloried as loudly as possible.

The name of the game must be shame. Shame the sledgers. Shame the needlers and the ranters. Shame the cowards. And the best way to achieve this noble end is not only to keep those stump mics on permanent duty but pump up the volume. Censorship is as pointless as it is dishonest. Why should the guilty be protected? Why shouldn't the audience, spectators as well as viewers, hear every sling and arrow of outrageous verbiage, preferably in Led Zeppelin-esque, Dolby-clarified, Marshall-amplified, 5.1 Surround Sound? They are part of the show. If turning the dial all the way up to 11 encourages wit, splendid. If it exposes nastiness and callousness, even better.

According to international protocol, of course, this ought to be a non-starter rather than a no-brainer. Still, judging by SABC's freewheeling deployment of the stump mic during last week's ODI against Pakistan in Port Elizabeth, let alone the 2006 Durban and Cape Town Tests, which saw Tony Greig and Mike Hussey take bilious exception to such eavesdropping, this doesn't seem to bother the state broadcaster unduly. Regrettably, I cannot report precisely what choice words the fielders selected after Quinton de Kock had given Junaid Khan a gentle shove for invading his space; my command of Urdu, shamefully, is on a par with Shane Warne's acumen in the shrinking-violet department.

Such is the precarious mutual dependence between sport and its most industrious sponsor, the reality is that behaviour will only be improved by stealth. Someday soon, a stump mic will be "accidentally" cranked up, not merely at a heated moment but for an entire day. Technical gremlins will be blamed. Innocence will be asserted. Apologies will be tendered. But the damage, with luck, will have been done. If there really is such a thing as the spirit of cricket - or even The Spirit of Cricket - I can't think of a better way to define what it isn't.

Cricket - Andersen, England's Saviour

Angus Fraser in The Independent.

So who is the best fast bowler in the world – South Africa’s Dale Steyn or England’s Trent Bridge match- winner James Anderson? Statistically, it is a no contest. Whatever way you look at it Steyn’s figures are far superior to those of Anderson. But would Alastair Cook, the England captain, exchange his spearhead for any other fast bowler in the world? The answer would be a big, loud, resounding no.

It was clear at Nottingham that Anderson is Cook’s go-to man, the fast bowler he believes will produce a moment of inspiration or supreme skill when his team needs it most. Cook trusts Anderson implicitly. He knows he is the man who can make him look good as a supreme captain. Between the pair a field and plan  are set, Anderson bowls to them and they produce results. It sounds easy but consistently bowling to a plan is a talent very few bowlers possess.

And this is why I couldn’t give a damn about the rankings and who people think is the best. The table is a bit of fun but the conclusions the mathematicians reach are largely irrelevant. I am sure in their calculation Anderson gained more points for knocking over New Zealand’s top order in seamer-friendly conditions at Lord’s in May than for dismissing Australia’s lower order at a steaming-hot, pressure cooker Trent Bridge on Sunday. We know what was more valuable and all that is important is that James Anderson is British and he  continues to win games of cricket for England.

Of far greater interest is what actually makes Anderson the world-class performer he is. Fast bowlers need a number of assets and characteristics to compete in a game that is largely geared to favour batsmen. It is, for example, extremely advantageous for a fast bowler to be tall, fast and intimidating. Yet these are not the resources that stand out in Anderson’s profile. At 6ft 2in he is not small but many of England’s other bowlers – Stuart Broad, Steven Finn, Graham Onions, Chris Tremlett and Boyd Rankin – tower above the 30-year-old. Neither is he lethally quick. Anderson generally checks in at between  80 and 85 mph. He doesn’t snarl like Merv Hughes either.

Although Anderson is a wonderful athlete it is his personal rather than physical qualities that make him stand out. Cricket history states that the great Sydney Barnes was an unbelievably skilful bowler yet it is hard to believe he possessed greater qualities than Anderson.

Nowhere were Anderson’s skills highlighted more than during a Sky Sports Masterclass filmed last year. Now I thought I had pretty good control of a cricket ball but during this session Anderson was producing staggering precision – attention to detail I struggled to comprehend. The fact that he was able to control which way the new ball swung by a simple, last-minute movement of the wrist; that he could deliberately hit the seam of the ball on an intended side and also release the ball with the seam wobbling, a skill that means the ball could move either way, was breathtaking. It was fascinating and illuminating to watch a master showing and explaining his craft.

But a fast bowler would be ridiculed and hopelessly exposed if he did not have a big heart and an unbreakable desire. Bowling is an unbelievably tough job, especially in the climate the first Ashes Test was played in. Anderson will have pushed himself as hard as he did at Trent Bridge on numerous occasions in the past and had very little to show for his efforts. But the reason why you go through the tough, unrewarding days is because you believe that somewhere along the line you will get what you deserve, and Anderson received just that in Nottingham.

The lesson to be learnt for many aspiring young fast bowlers and coaches is that Anderson’s rise to the top has not happened overnight. I clearly remember him making his England debut in a one-day  international against Australia at the MCG in December 2002. The Ashes were already lost and England were on the wrong end of a mauling from  Adam Gilchrist and Ricky Ponting, who both scored hundreds in a total in excess of 300.

Anderson went for 46 in six overs but even then there seemed a spirit in him. He was not overawed by a huge crowd and great players. Gilchrist became his first international wicket when he bowled him for 124.

He then spent the next five years on the periphery of the Test side and with coaches trying to change his bowling action. I recall interviewing him at New Road, Worcester ,when he was at his most frustrated. We just sat talking bowling for an hour or so, and I take no credit for what has happened since.

At the time Anderson was obsessed with taking wickets and he chased them recklessly. To him they were all that counted. It was the only way he felt he would force his way in to the England side. I told him he was going about things the wrong way, and that what he should attempt to do was bowl consistently well and to trust the game. The number in the maiden column was just as important as the number in the wicket column. The aim should be to bowl with consistency so that even on a wicketless day he was still doing a job for the team. It is not a coincidence that Anderson now consistently concedes fewer than three runs per over, offering his captain control as well as a cutting edge.

As impressive as anything is his adaptability. As he proved this week he is a threat in any conditions and on any type of pitch. This is achieved through conventional or reverse swing, by subtle changes of pace and angles or by simple seam movement. Basically, he is the complete package.

The England team know what an asset they have and, when possible, will handle him like a Ming vase. Without him this Ashes series could take a different road to that many predicted.

Are Footballers cleverer than PhD students? Think again

Ability is dictated by what we need to succeed. A chimp would fare better than me in a jungle – that doesn't make it smarter

• Dean Burnett
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 1 February 2013 17.12 GMT

'How can a test accurately measure something when there is no certainty as to what is being measured?' Photograph: Nick Potts/PA

A recent study has shown that footballers can perform better than PhD students on certain cognitive tasks. This is being interpreted in the mainstream media as evidence that footballers are smarter than PhD students. While this is something of a considerable extrapolation, it is a perfect example of how our views and ideas about what counts as "intelligence" are a lot more flexible than most would think.

Scientifically, there is no real consensus per se on what intelligence can be accurately defined as. IQ tests may seem like an obvious way to assess intelligence, but in psychology their use remains controversial. How can a test accurately measure something when there is no certainty as to what is being measured? When you've got demonstrating that intelligence is dependent on working memory capacity, or arguing whether it's supported by singular or multiple processes, you need to be reasonably intelligent to keep up with the varying theories about what that even means.

Intelligence is also strongly influenced by culture. What's considered smart in one culture could well be considered foolish in another. We are all guilty of this bias to some extent. In the UK, a detailed knowledge of science is considered intelligent by many, whereas a detailed knowledge of football usually isn't. But there's nothing to say someone's football knowledge isn't just as or more complex and diverse than someone's knowledge of science. But football is everywhere, you don't need a degree to know about it, children play it all the time – so an in-depth knowledge of it is, perhaps unfairly, not considered an achievement.

Of course, knowing a lot of detailed information about something is only part of intelligence. It's also important to consider how this information is used. This division is referred to by some as crystallised and fluid intelligence, or information you retain and your ability to use it, respectively. Think of it like a computer: you've got your hard drive (data storage) and your processor (data usage); you need both to create a truly useful device.

This is reflected in changes to the structure of the brain, as the brain adapts and dedicates more resources to this constantly occurring demand. Therefore, it shouldn't be surprising that professional footballers would be better at certain mental abilities than non-footballers.

Whatever you think of the sport, a professional football match is undoubtedly a challenging context to be in. With so many variables to consider in a constantly changing scenario, it would be hard enough to keep on top of without thousands of people screaming at you for various reasons. Footballers have to be able to do this if they wish to get to the top of their field, so of course they'd perform better in tests that assess rapid thinking, attention and any other ability that isn't so crucial for other disciplines.

Footballers are stereotyped as being a bit thick, based on their unrefined behaviour and lack of social/cultural awareness. But these things haven't exactly held them back, so why would they have learned otherwise? Our abilities and skills are largely dictated by what we need to do in order to succeed. A chimpanzee would be far better equipped than I to survive in the jungle and would undoubtedly perform better than me in tests that assessed this. Still, I wouldn't let one fill in my tax return.

Perhaps intelligence is the wrong term to use, perhaps it would be fairer to say footballers and PhD students have differing mental abilities. But which of these abilities is considered "intelligent" seems to be a lot more subjective than most people realise.

Hockey - The untold story of how India lost world supremacy

by Minhaz Merchant in the Times of India

Pakistan’s hockey stars have been forced out of the lucrative new Hockey India League, patterned on the cash-rich IPL. I will leave debate on the rights and wrongs of this to a later post as a sequel to Make Pakistan pay. For the moment, let’s stick to hockey – how India lost its global supremacy and how we can regain it.

One afternoon, as I watched the late Tiger Pataudi, India’s former Test cricket captain, playing a hockey match at Bombay Gymkhana, I realized that few were aware how good a hockey player Tiger was. He had long retired from Test cricket but played a brilliant game for the club that afternoon.

Later, chatting casually, he remarked, pointing to the lush green field: “The tragedy of Indian hockey is that we no longer play on grass like this.” Tiger was appalled that the international game had switched to astroturf, putting Indian players at such a disadvantage.

Between 1928 and 1980, India won 8 Olympic gold medals in hockey. After 1980, we have not won a single hockey gold. At the 2012 London Olympics, India’s hockey team finished last in a field of 12.

The reasons for this are complex. But a principal cause is the betrayal of the country’s national sport by those elected to guard it and the ruthless duplicity of European and Australasian hockey authorities.

Till the early-1970s, hockey globally was played on grass. Indian players, bred on the fields of Punjab, Kerala and Goa, were unbeatable. Only Pakistan, with a similar lineage, offered competition.

All that changed in the mid-1970s. The International Hockey Federation (FIH) altered the rules to make synthetic astroturf the mandatory playing surface for international hockey tournaments.

The 1976 Olympics in Montreal was the first Games in which astroturf was used in hockey. For the first time since it began playing hockey in the 1928 Games in Amsterdam, India did not win even a bronze medal. The Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) should have objected. Whether through collusion or apathy, it did not. All Olympic Games henceforth were played on hard astroturf.

India has few astroturf grounds. They are expensive to lay (over Rs. 8 crore) and difficult to play on. While grass, on which hockey had been played internationally for nearly a century, allowed skilled Indian and Pakistani players to trap the ball, dribble and pass, astroturf suits the physicality of European and Australian hockey players based on raw power rather than technical skill.

Affluent Western countries like Holland, Germany and Australia have hundreds of astroturf grounds. The advantage is palpable. Not surprisingly, since 1980, Europe and Australia have dominated world hockey. India and Pakistan have slipped out of the world’s top five hockey-playing nations.

Indian sports administrators must share the blame. Not only were they complicit in allowing the change in playing surface from grass to synthetic astroturf, they were slow to adapt to it once the rules had been changed. Astroturf grounds were not laid. Local tournaments continued to be played on grass. When India played abroad, it started with a huge handicap.

As Sardara Singh, currently India’s best hockey international, said in a television interview, “Hockey players in India play on astroturf for the first time at the age of 19 or 20 and find it hard to adapt.”

What is the way forward? While astroturf cannot now be wished away, India can use its growing commercial influence to host a separate annual field hockey tournament. The game would be transformed. Just as tennis is played on different surfaces (grass at Wimbledon, clay at the French Open and hard courts at the US and Australian Opens), there is no reason why hockey can’t have two optional surfaces: astroturf and grass.

Like tennis players adapt to grass, clay and hard courts within a span of months (between the French Open in May, Wimbledon in July and the US Open in September), so can professional hockey players. Grass is hockey’s natural surface. It tests skill not just strength.

India’s hockey authorities, fractured by internecine rivalries, have little global clout. It is India’s corporate sector, with an interest in future Olympic gold medals, which must lead the campaign to restore natural turf as one of two alternative playing surfaces of choice in future international hockey tournaments. The new Hockey India League could set the example in its next edition. Sponsorships for field hockey tournaments would follow.

India has begun winning Olympic medals in individual sports since the Beijing Games but none in team sports like hockey. That must change. In India less than 0.1% of the population (around one million) has access to the facilities, nutrition and training athletes from Western countries and China do. In “sports-access” terms, our population is equivalent to New Zealand’s. It is no shame to win fewer medals than smaller, richer countries. But it is a shame not to give our national sport, hockey, a level playing field.

Shakeup of A-levels

Reforms expected to include eventual scrapping of A-level modules and introduction of dissertations of up to 5,000 words

• Nicholas Watt, chief political correspondent
• The Guardian, Wednesday 17 October 2012

Michael Gove's plans have been criticised by Labour, who say they ignore important subjects such as computing and engineering. Photograph: Gideon Mendel/Corbis

The education secretary, Michael Gove, is to shake up the A-level system as he moves to introduce the principles of the international baccalaureate (IB) to schools in England.

Students hoping to attend the elite Russell Group of universities will be expected to write dissertations of up to 5,000 words and to show an academic breadth of knowledge.

Anyone studying arts subjects, such as English and history, would be expected to choose a "contrasting" subject in the sciences or maths. Those studying the sciences would be expected to take a "contrasting" arts subject. The changes are designed to answer universities' complaints that too many students have a narrow outlook and often lack basic literacy skills.

Gove's latest move follows his announcement last month that he is to scrap GCSEs in favour of what he regards as a more academically rigorous English baccalaureate (EBacc) system.

In the next stage of reforms, Gove is not planning to scrap A-levels, but is hoping to drive up standards by developing an overall framework known as the ABacc. Students would still sit A-levels, but there would be major changes:

• It is expected that A-level modules would eventually be scrapped. Gove has done this with GCSEs and is minded to do so again with A-levels, though he is expected to move at a slower pace.

• Students would be stretched by being asked to write dissertations of up to 5,000 words. This would probably be in addition to their A-levels and would give them a higher overall ABacc grade. Many universities have complained that students often struggle to write longer essays.

Liz Truss, the new education minister who campaigned in favour of improving the teaching of maths in her days as a backbencher, has advocated longer essays.

While Gove is introducing the principles of the IB, he does not want to introduce the actual IB system across English schools, although it is favoured by many public schools. The qualification is managed from abroad and demands a breadth of subjects that would stretch many schools.

A Department for Education spokesman stressed that the plans, first disclosed in the Times, were at an early stage. "A-levels will not be replaced under any circumstances. There are public consultations about reforming A and AS-levels. There are also numerous suggestions about new ABacc league table measures but no decisions have been made." The Times said the mix would also include voluntary work.

Stephen Twigg, the shadow education secretary, said: "We support the concept of an ABacc. However, Labour would ensure it includes a broad range of subjects and sits alongside our proposed vocational courses. If these changes include community work, an extended project and a wider range of courses, then that is welcome.

"Unfortunately, Michael Gove seems to be ignoring important subjects like computing and engineering which are critical for the modern economy. The government must address the big challenges to ensure a One Nation education system – ensuring a gold standard route for vocational education and every pupil studying English and maths until the age of 18."

The case for flexibility in the Pietersen saga

Sambit Bal in Cricinfo

Watching Test cricket live always makes me happy, and Lord's, where affection for Test cricket wafts through like a gentle fragrance, is always a treat. But though the cricket has been thoroughly absorbing, it has been hard to shake off a sense of sadness. The value of cricket diminishes when the best players are not on stage, and though England can win without Kevin Pietersen, cricket is undoubtedly poorer without him.

Poignantly, Jonny Bairstow, the man who took Pietersen's place in the team, provided the most compelling individual story of the match, passing a searing examination that tested not only his skills but also his character. As he battled though, fighting nerves, and a hostile reception from two of the quickest bowlers in the world, and his innings grew, what was on some people's minds became almost audible: Good riddance, KP.

Of course, it is never as simple as that. Life without Pietersen might be easier, but can it be better? Or can it even be as good? The last week was an extraordinary one for English cricket, but that is the question the administrators and selectors must ponder as they contemplate the future beyond this series. Pietersen polarises opinion, but there are no blacks and whites in this case: the challenge is to find the right shade of grey.

Unity and stability are two words that have been used a lot in the last few days to justify Pietersen's removal for the deciding Test of the series. The truth is that all success stories create their own buzzwords, and all buzzwords are somewhat exaggerated. England became the No. 1 Test team mainly because they managed to put together a bowling attack that was perfect in their conditions, and because their batsmen prospered not only at home but also in Australia.

Unity and stability weren't of much use when their technique fell to pieces on turners in the subcontinent, and it was only a masterly innings from Pietersen that helped them draw level against Sri Lanka. Every team must aspire to having a healthy dressing room, for it can create an environment for achieving and savouring success in, but skills are much the greater pre-requisite. Success can be achieved without unity and stability but rarely without skills. Occasionally a team might punch above its weight with perseverance and spirit, as New Zealand have sometimes done, but rarely does a team achieve sustained excellence, let alone greatness, with those qualities alone.

I had the opportunity to have a long chat with Michael Holding, who rarely equivocates, last week, and without going into details it can be recorded that the dressing rooms of the great West Indian teams of the '70s and 80's were far from being oases of harmony. "We did," Holding said, "what was needed to win Test matches." Everyone knows those were teams that burst with greatness.

"Australianism" became the catchphrase for success when Australian teams built their aura of invincibility, but behind their very public mateyness was a team of strong individuals who didn't pretend to be friends once they stepped off the field. Shane Warne was quick to sympathise with Pietersen because he lived through his differences with his team-mates - and much more publicly, with his coach.

As long as Australia's reign lasted, the Australian method continued to be regarded as the template for breeding and sustaining excellence. The Australian system was hailed for creating tough, battle-ready cricketers, and the egalitarianism of Australian society was credited for instilling in them confidence and a reluctance to defer to those who ought to have been regarded as superior. And for years, as England's cricket team wallowed in misery, the English system was condemned as wretched and outdated.

But back-to-back Ashes defeats prompted the now-famous Argus review, which found that not all was well with the system. In fact, some of the recommendations mirrored those of the Schofield report, commissioned by the England board in 2007.

The point is that success creates its own stories, and over-analysing success can give birth to theories that somewhat obscure the simplest truths. Of course, individuals should never be greater than the team, but by the same measure it should never be forgotten that individuals make the team. It is true that a great player alone cannot make a great team, but the bigger truth is that there has never been a great team without great players.

The trouble with great players is that they often happen to be difficult characters. Some are narcissists, with an exaggerated sense of self-importance and entitlement. They can be highly strung and intense. Their single-minded drive towards excellence can make them insular and selfish. Because the game comes easy to many of them, they may be truant at practice. And because the money tends to chase them, they may be led to believe that they deserve even more of it than they get. They can present as much of a challenge to their own team off the field as they do to their opponents on it.

Good teams find ways to manage them. It starts with the recognition that special players often need special care, even if that means bending the rules, for at their best they can provide something so powerful and so breathtaking that it can transcend the team. A lot has been said about Pietersen's ego, but it is the need for that ego that powers him: it drives him to impose himself on a situation rather than submit to it; it allows him create his own reality-distortion field to bludgeon a hundred when lesser players would have fought for mere survival.

	Good teams recognise that special players often need special care, even if that means bending the rules, for at their best they can provide something so powerful and so breathtaking that it can transcend the team

In his last five Tests he has twice done what none of his team-mates would have had the daring, imagination and skill to even attempt. His hundred in Colombo came on the back of a spirit-destroying run of defeats and allowed England to return from Sri Lanka with their dignity salvaged. And without his hundred at Headingley, England would perhaps have come to Lord's with nothing to play for apart from pride.

Of course the Pietersen issue is complex. From the beginning, his relationship with the England national team has been based on mutual, but uneasy, convenience. The team has tolerated him, the fans have accepted him grudgingly, and the media has been ambivalent. Though he has turned more matches for England than Andrew Flintoff - whose folk-hero status was earned through only a handful of performances - did, Pietersen has remained the outsider, the genuineness of his display of hyper-loyalty to the English always in doubt, his faults always scrutinised with extra rigour.

A full season of the IPL over Tests for England? What was he thinking?

No one has emerged with credit from the happenings of the last ten days. Pietersen has been petulant, and his bosses have come across as petty. Pietersen has felt let down by his employers for betraying his confidence, and Andrew Strauss has felt let down by the apparently derogatory text messages sent by Pietersen.

The media, a section of it at least, has played a curious role. On Sunday more details emerged about Pietersen's alleged text messages to the South African players, with a specific Afrikaner word becoming the subject of delighted dissection in the media box. When do private messages become worthy of publication? Perhaps when they serve public or national interest. In this case, it's hard to imagine what interest is served beyond the prurient.

Strauss, by all accounts a decent man with a calm disposition, has every right to be aggrieved. But imagine how many friends each of us would have lost and how many of our colleagues would have turned against us if every unkind word we uttered about them in moments of pique had reached their ears.

So as those charged with safeguarding the interest of English cricket ponder Pietersen's future in the national team, here's their case against him: He is greedy, not much of a team-man off the field, not liked much by his team-mates, has been indiscreet with his comments in public, perhaps doesn't like his captain much and been privately disrespectful of him, and has been seen drinking with the opposition. But is that enough to hang him?

Now let's examine the defence: There has never been any evidence of Pietersen giving anything less than his best on the field. He was crucified for not being able to resist the pull that brought him down at The Oval, but he played no differently at Headingley, where his innings was hailed as being among the best seen at the ground. He is not known to lead his young team-mates astray or to have plotted a rebellion in the ranks; and he has publicly apologised for some of his mistakes.

The whole squalid drama has produced no winners. And no conceivable good can emerge by dragging it further. Big players are often hard work and players don't need to be mates to fight for the common cause. We don't quite know what Stuart Broad, England's T20 captain thinks of Pietersen the man. But should that matter?

If Pietersen were never to play international cricket again, the loss would be greatest for the fans, to whom the administrators owe the biggest responsibility.