To bat right, get your mind right

Footwork may be crucial to the batsman's art, but a mind rooted in the present moment is just as great a weapon

Martin Crowe in Cricinfo

March 20, 2014

Don Bradman: maintained a clear mind on his way to a mind-boggling batting average © Getty Images

Mind and body are undoubtedly connected, go hand in hand. I looked at the importance of footwork in batting last week; that leaves the more intangible, more controversial, mindwork to look at.

Of all the sports I have attempted to play - tennis, golf, rugby, soccer, and many others - the greatest challenge of all, I believe, is that of batting in cricket, where one ball can be enough to end the contest. One lousy ball.

It is this mental challenge of dealing with one ball at a time, knowing one mistake and it's over, that is the focus of this piece.

----Also by Martin Crowe

It's all down to the feet - The cornerstone of batting technique is foot position and movement

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When it comes to batting, which is based on reacting to the release of a ball by a bowler, the mind is on full alert. At the moment the ball is released, the eyes start feeding the brain, which then directs the body to respond, all in a split second.

Succeeding at Test cricket over a reasonable period is not a thing you can fluke. Realistically, at some stage in a career, the batting mind-body challenge will get you. It can play with your thinking, and mess with your responses, resulting in a failure to move properly causing the runs to dry up.

I will assess the mindsets of two batsmen I have studied over time - Don Bradman and Sachin Tendulkar, two positive examples - and my own.

Bradman had the greatest record and legacy of all batsmen. His footwork became legendary and influential for generations to come, but it was surely his mind and his ability to clear his thoughts away that was his greatest attribute. Bradman, there is no doubt, became a misunderstood human being, especially by team-mates who stood shoulder to shoulder with him. They couldn't work out the mechanics of his mind, nor his beliefs and ability to perform beyond the norm, and some of them became envious of his record-breaking run-making.

Bradman was brought up in rural New South Wales, where much of his upbringing was spent playing out by the back of the house, on his own, hitting a golf ball against a water tank with a single stump. When he joined the higher ranks at a young age, he took with him a single-mindedness and a natural naivete. As he began to taste more worldly experiences on his travels, his mind stayed true to his dreams. He only wanted to bat. And the only way he knew how to do that was to trust his conditioning, his beliefs and his thoughts. He saw the ball and moved accordingly.

Bradman was a private, single-minded man. He didn't drink, smoke, or really socialise much during his playing days, unlike those he played with. He was different and he quickly became alienated due to his unexampled existence.

In a recent address at Lord's, his son John shared writings from his father's diary, in particular to do with the first few weeks of the 1930 England tour, when Bradman played outside Australia for the first time. After a long boat trip, during which he often lay sick in his bed, he stepped out on to the Nursery at Lord's to prepare for the long five-month tour.

Bradman had only a couple of nets to acclimatise before walking out to bat in Worcester for the opening match. In fresh, green, bowler-friendly conditions, he scored 236 in under five hours. For a 21-year-old it was an extraordinary innings, given it was his first outside of his homeland. It was a clear precursor to the mesmeric run of form to come throughout that unprecedented summer. In essence, no matter what the conditions, his thinking was sharp and focused; he saw the ball, reacted and moved accordingly, and that fearless mindset never left him. For one with no experience whatsoever in foreign conditions, it was a breathtaking performance.

Despite the accolades and the expectation that grew from innings to innings, Bradman remained grounded and resilient. He never deviated from the original day-to-day thinking of his upbringing. He was not tempted to break out and let his hair down, on or off the field; instead, much to the annoyance of some of his more outgoing team-mates, he kept his eye on the ball. No innings meant more than the one he was about to play, no matter the size of the last score he had made. Unemotionally he moved from one match to the next with a consistent hunger to express his art. It was unrivalled thinking.

Bradman prepared for matches by attending musical shows. His favourite to watch was opera singer Dame Nellie Melba. The night before his monumental 254 in the second Test on that tour, at Lord's, in his words the greatest innings of his life, he was inspired by Dame Nellie's performance. For Don, it appeared music and cricket went together; the footwork his movement to the beat. He danced at the crease like no other, because in his mind he heard the sound of the moment. It steadied him mentally for the body to exert wondrous movement.

	Fear of getting out is really an illusion, a negative thought with feeling added to it, about past failures and / or future ones. It needn't be there at all. The fact is, you will get out, so there is no need to fear it

Bradman had the advantage of only playing in two countries throughout his Test career, England and Australia. It meant he never had the mental and physical burden of travelling and coping, especially with problems to do with health, in more foreign lands. His overall average would have dropped perhaps a little, had he played in more places, but probably not by much. The point is that he stuck to his beliefs, he maintained a clear mind, and even at the age of 40 his mental aptitude was astonishing as it adjusted to the natural slowing down of a body and an immune system that had been tested enough. Only Bodyline in 1932-33 affected his psyche somewhat, as it actually threatened life and limb. Without question, Bradman had the greatest mind of them all.

Next to him on that scale would be Tendulkar. To endure 24 years, in all parts of the globe, against all measure of bowlers, under epic expectations, with the distraction of three different formats, required a mind that simply had to be strong and resilient to succeed. He never buckled for any period. Sure, he had rare moments of despair, but the quickness with which he bounced back with a clear mind, fleet of foot, to notch another century, was his hallmark.

Tendulkar, from the age of 16, spent his first 21 Tests playing away from home, bar one. He learnt quickly to absorb and adjust, and cement a mindset that would serve him unwaveringly for a staggeringly long time.

Expectation gone wrong is a mind-killer. The adoration he received on a daily basis would have worn him down at times, yet he always responded with a smile, a graciousness, a humility pure and natural. His mind, from an early age, was fuelled with love for the game, love for his father's wisdom and advice, and his thoughts flowed with positivity and assuredness. If you wondered how he played so calmly, so fluently and so straight, given the weight of expectation, it was because his mind never strayed from the humility he breathed, and the mindfulness, that acute awareness, of where his genius came from. Tendulkar was a centred soul, spiritually aligned, and he breathed a tranquility and stillness, a trait displayed by the wise sages.

From my own perspective, my mind was often filled with thoughts, coupled with underdeveloped emotions. It wasn't a great mix in which to take on the art of batting at the top level. My footwork was sure and a priority, yet I quickly realised that footwork and mindwork go hand in glove. I needed some mental crutches and so I sought out the new phenomenon of sports psychology to deal with an overflow of desultory musing.

I learnt techniques of visualisation, of playing the future out in the mind first, using pictures. I learnt concentration - turning on and off to conserve energy, and encouraging a fierce focus for each ball for five-second periods. I tried removing negatives with Bruce Lee tips, imagined screwing an imaginary piece of paper up with my hand, tried to stay in the now by activating one of the five senses in between balls.

Most of all, I learnt to repeat affirmations one after the other ("Head still, head still, watch the ball, watch the ball"), slowly and deliberately, to block out any unforeseen random thought ("What if I get out?") that might jump into my head and trip me up again. Yet using these techniques was akin to a lost man trying to find his way to safety.

I learnt to remove emotion, by forcing my body language so strongly as to bluff the opposition that I was "on" on any given day, in the zone. Faking it until I made it helped overcome confidence lapses. I sought help from those who could help me calm down. I never engaged in gamesmanship, in sledging.

Overall, the mindwork I did proved exhausting - having to disguise a contaminated flow of thoughts. Not surprisingly, the lack of natural positive thinking, of authenticity, got me in the end. Ten years of "performed" mind control was my limit.

The key, from what I have learnt, from what I now believe, is that no matter your experiences and circumstances, your reality is in the present moment - what you are living in the feeling of your thinking in the present moment. That's your truest reality. It is not the memory of what went before, or the concern of what may come in the future, that is real. In batting, it is the clear-minded thinking of watching and moving to the present ball being bowled that is real.

I realise also that visualisation worked only when I was truly in the moment of seeing images of me thinking and batting positively. It prepared me for the event to come. When it came together, like at Lord's in 1994, when I was well prepared from visualising positively, then I easily settled into thinking and batting positively in the present. It worked, but it couldn't be sustained.

Fear of getting out is really an illusion, a negative thought with feeling added to it, about past failures and / or future ones. It needn't be there at all. The fact is, you will get out, so there is no need to fear it; simply delay the inevitable for as long as possible.

You can succeed if you clear away everything that's not to do with the present moment, the next ball, if you remove old baggage or concern about what might happen in time. Just think about watching the ball leave the bowler's hand. That's it.

Simplicity.

That is what Bradman and Tendulkar did. During their teenage years they developed a resilience about keeping their minds present and consistent. That age is a key time of one's thought development. They mastered the moments. They didn't get confused. They went from one ball to the other, one match to another, exploring its possibility and expressing their own potential, and that's why they went on and on at such a high level.

Perhaps Mahatma Gandhi says it best. "A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes."

Tendulkar - David to a thousand Goliaths

  

Tendulkar has become a national symbol of optimism and pride but when he bats, we still see him as an underdog

Mark NicholasNovember 14, 2013

 

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The airwaves fizz every time Tendulkar walks out to the middle © BCCI

 

For the past two decades, the fall of the second Indian wicket has created an unparalleled frenzy. This comes first from the crowds, who at once animate a mild sadness at the departure of one man and an unbridled joy at the entrance of another. In homes all around India, families alert one another to the moment and gather close to their television screens.

At the ground itself, the cameramen have switched their focus from the pitch to the Indian dressing room, where a small, strong man is reacting. Still sitting, he pulls on his arm guard and rubs his hands as if drying the palms. Before standing he puts the first batting glove on his right hand and then, as he rises to his feet, he carefully positions a protective helmet upon his head, eases the strap under his chin and tucks almost 3lbs of bat under his left arm. As he begins the walk to the middle he pulls on his right batting glove. He is now ready for the calling that has been his life.

Sachin Tendulkar is 40 years old. He first played for India when he was 16. He made a hundred for India when he was 17 years and 112 days old. He has made 51 Test hundreds and 49 one-day hundreds. He, along with his captain MS Dhoni and a couple of film stars, is the best known person in a land of more than a billion people. But even his recognisable peers do not carry the hopes of that nation each minute of every day. Tendulkar is a victim of himself and so powerful is the impact that adoring followers hyperventilate around him.

He is unarguably a great cricketer and a near-perfect ambassador for modern, progressive India. He likes popular music, clothes and cars, and he has worn jewellery. Yet he retains an old-fashioned perspective. His wife is a doctor, his children like cricket. The family takes holidays behind walls or disappears into cities on faraway continents. He is unfailingly polite, angelic almost. He is as much a part of the fabric of India as the Red Fort, the Pink Palace, the Maharajas, and Diwali. Indians like cricket but they truly love Sachin Tendulkar. He has been David to a thousand Goliaths. He may, or may not, be the second-finest batsman to have played the game. To many Indians, he is a god. Or God. And now he retires from the game that has defined him.

Twenty yards from the pavilion, he stretches his back and rocks his torso from side to side. He rolls his shoulders and swings his arms before linking his bat to his body with a series of left- and right-handed movements. He rehearses some strokes. The bat looks too big for his body. It always has. He twists his mouth and contorts his jaw. He squints and then opens his eyes, wide as they will, to the brighter light. He looks to the heavens, as if acknowledging a friend.

The television director brings the statistics of a life's work to the screen: 15,837 runs at an average of 53.87; 67 fifties, 51 hundreds; highest score 248 not out. The commentators talk lavishly of his achievements and of the legacy. The excitement is at fever pitch. The spectators stand and roar their appreciation. The airwaves fizz. The viewer feels a shiver through his spine.

“There is no single thing that can be attached to Tendulkar. You cannot say he has a style and he reveals little of his personality

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Tendulkar takes guard, marking a line in the crease with a forceful rip of the spike in his shoe. I think back to Karachi in 1989 when he did this for the first time in a Test match. The attack against him was Imran Khan, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Abdul Qadir. He may have never faced better. He looked boyish then because he was a boy. He still appears boyish now. In those days, he had set records at school, club and state level. India wondered if the kid could cut it. Now they know. In the fourth Test of that first series, Imran floored him with a short ball. Tendulkar refused the idea that he should retire hurt, dusted himself down and made a fifty. He may never have achieved more. But he did.

Now, in Kolkata, in the only innings of his 199th Test, he looks around the field. Is this for fielders or for gaps? He blocks convincingly off front foot and back. Then he drives Shane Shillingford through the gap at midwicket. The ball rolls over the boundary rope. Two balls later, he hits the same gap. The ball speeds over the same rope. The crowd goes apoplectic. He fiddles with his thigh pad, pushing one way and the other and then he squats, stretching out his groin, before repositioning his protective box and settling deliberately back into his stance. These fidgets, these idiosyncrasies, have never changed. Ball after ball, match after match, year after year they have remained the same. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

I think back to the catch at Lord's on his first tour of England. An athletic, running effort that hinted at real talent. I think of his match-saving hundred in the next Test, at Old Trafford, when, aged 17 years and 112 days, remember, he appeared to marshall his senior partner, Manoj Prabhakar. I think of the way in which hard-bitten Yorkshire embraced him as their first overseas cricketer. I think of his smile and of the sense of fun that burst from his youth.

Oddly, this makes me think of his bowling, which always looked like a release from the strain of true responsibility. I think that I remember him saving a match with the ball. I look it up. He did, using a quirky mix of swing and spin to restrict South Africa to just three runs when six were needed from the last over of the Hero Cup semi-final in Kolkata. Mohammad Azharuddin was his captain then.

Tendulkar plays quietly forward. It is an aesthetically pleasing push/punch. His hands hold the lower part of the bat handle, revealing the butt at the top of the grip to be covered by a different colour of rubber. In the push/punch the blade of the bat is exactly straight, showing its whole face to the bowler. It was ever thus.

A primeval instinct: the upper cut off Shoaib Akhtar in Centurion in the 2003 World Cup© Getty Images

He went to that first hundred at Old Trafford with a wonderful boundary past mid-off from his back foot. It is about the most difficult stroke there is and it is a Tendulkar trademark. That, the straight drive that misses leg stump at the non-striker's end, and any number off wristy leg-side moments that draw intakes of breath from opponent and audience alike. Then I think about theslaughter of Shoaib Akhtar during the 2003 World Cup in South Africa and the almost primeval approach to that innings that set him apart. Even Virender Sehwag has not played an innings of such brutality. Tendulkar has said that he was once like Sehwag. But we all run out of years.

He dips at the knees in that squat once more, shuffles his box and settles into another perfect stance. Side-on, eyes level, bat tucked behind the right foot. He watches the ball closely of course, a prerequisite of good batting, and has uncanny balance in all his strokes. I think of the systematic attack on Shane Warne and the Australians in India in 1998 - pre-planned, well practised and brilliantly executed - a performance of which Ian Healy said: "Bradman must have been good if he was better than him." I think of the double-hundred in Sydney - a considered and controlled performance that came from a chronic elbow injury and the desire to succeed in spite of it.

A tweet from Brian Lara flashes across the screen: "The only man I would pay money to watch," says Lara of his old adversary. Was one a better batsman than the other? Perhaps the West Indian was the greater match-winner; the Indian, the greater technician. I think of two innings at the Kensington Oval in Barbados. Lara'sunbeaten 153 to outwit the Australians and Tendulkar's 92 on a really bad pitch, a dangerous pitch (one of the few on that fine field) against Curtly Ambrose and Ian Bishop. The most revered right- and left-handed batsmen of the age. I imagine them at the wicket together, a kind of nirvana.

The age of Tendulkar has seen five unarguably great batsmen. Lara had an arrogance, Viv Richards an aura. For Jacques Kallis' statesman think Ricky Ponting's streetfighter. But there is no single thing that can be attached to Tendulkar. You cannot say he has a style and he reveals little of his personality. Perhaps this is a conscious approach, designed to give the opponent no clue. Summarising his emotion is impossible, he doesn't do drama. If anything there is sense of vulnerability that makes him attractive. We still see him as the underdog, and this a man who has become a national symbol of optimism and pride.

Now he is in his stance again. Shillingford rolls in and delivers the doosra. It beats our hero on the back foot and hits him around the upper thigh. Shillingford and other West Indians appeal ferociously. The English umpire, Nigel Llong, gives it out. Ye gods, Nigel, what were you thinking!

My mind goes to Cape Town in 1997 and the post-lunch partnership with Azharuddin. I have never seen such batting. Nor, one suspects, had President Mandela, who had come to say hello. Of the first 12 balls of the session, 11 were hit for four or six. In 40 overs they put on 222. It took a remarkable catch to finish Tendulkar at 169. I was as disappointed then with the man who took the catch, Adam Bacher, as I am now with Umpire Llong. (Editor's note - I have always felt that batting was never better as in the Cape Town partnership.)

I stay in a Cape Town sort of mind for the innings less than three years back, when a spiteful pitch encouraged Dale Steyn and company. I asked Sachin about this and he rated the 146 that day among the best. I asked if the standard of bowling had diminished during his time in the game and he thought it had changed in method rather than quality. The bowlers defend better than earlier, thus his own game has retreated from aspiration towards attrition.

I recall Perth in 1992, when the free-thinking 18-year-old model flayed Merv Hughes and Craig McDermott on the world's fastest pitch. Incidentally, he thinks Steyn is as good as anyone, which, given a list that begins with Imran and incorporates Malcolm Marshall, Wasim Akram and Allan Donald, is high praise.

The crowd reacts with shock to Llong's decision. Tendulkar appears resigned to the moment, as if he has seen it before. The DRS would have saved him but he and colleagues have not supported it. With typical dignity he begins the long walk to the dressing room. The crowd rise to applaud, more than aware of the dying light. It is hard to be sure when greatness slipped away from Tendulkar but the World Cup win in 2011 seemed to provide the perfect final chapter to an extraordinary story. He chose to write an epilogue but it has lacked the possibilities of the previous narrative.

Suddenly he has gone from view. As he will next Monday, for ever. A piece of us goes with him. I have seen, either live or on television, every one of the innings remembered here and many more. Each of his journeys to the wicket has led to a nervous excitement and each performance has given immense pleasure. India's most precious son has been a gift to the rest of the world too.

Tendulkar: not a players' player

OCTOBER 16, 2013

Samir Chopra in Cricinfo 

Did Tendulkar make most use of his "soft" power?  © Mumbai Indians

Enlarge

Our evaluations of our favourite cricket players do not stop with a cold statistical assessment of their playing records, or a passionate recounting of the aesthetic pleasures afforded us by their efforts on the playing field. We often hope, sometimes unreasonably, that they will not disappoint us in other dimensions. Perhaps they will also be great captains; perhaps they will not embarrass themselves during their retirement phase; perhaps they will not turn into one-dimensional blowhards on television.

For a very long time now, I have entertained an abiding hope that an Indian cricket player of sufficient sporting stature would become, by dint of action and deed during his career, an advocate for Indian players. Someone who would - to borrow the language of labour relations and industrial action - organise the workers in his workplace and campaign for better treatment by their management. 

Perhaps he would lead the initiative to form a players' union - an effort that has been tried in the past and has failed, or rather, has not been allowed to succeed; perhaps he would take up cudgels on behalf of other players treated unfairly by the national board; perhaps he would, by singular acts of defiance, engender relationship-transforming showdowns with "The Man". He would speak up boldly and act accordingly. He would thus bell the BCCI cat and introduce some much-needed professionalism into a relationship - the BCCI-player one - that still bears depressing traces of the feudal.

The BCCI-player relationship is an unequal one in many ways. We do not know the terms of the contracts the players sign with the BCCI; we do not whether they accord with the legal standards that professional sportsmen in other domains are used to; we do not know whether they would pass muster with employment and labour legal regimes. Indian players, as they found out during the ICL saga, do not enjoy something approximating "free agency".

Cricket boards worldwide collude with the BCCI, of course; they run cricket like a cartel and make sure that a player affiliated with one national board cannot ply his trade elsewhere without the right sorts of permissions (like the no-objection certificates needed to play in county cricket and in the IPL.)

The BCCI has often had cause to crack down on the players it controls: whether it has been Lala Amarnath sent home from England in 1936, Vinoo Mankad facing difficulties in playing for Haslingden in the Lancashire Leagues in 1952, the banning of several Test cricketers for playing "unauthorised" cricket in the US in 1989, placing restrictions on Indian players' presence in county sides or in the Sri Lankan Premier League, and lastly and most infamously perhaps, the brutal crackdown on the ICL. When the BCCI takes on the players, there is only one winner; more often than not, it is a no-contest.

Perhaps fighting the BCCI, as this history indicates, is a losing battle, one not to be engaged in by any sane man. But if it was ever going to be taken on, it would have to be a player whose fame would be such that his battles with the BCCI would be backed by the passion of his extensive fan following, someone on whom the BCCI could not crack down on without enraging millions across the land who could take up cudgels on his behalf. I would thus allow myself to dream about a player who would recognise the rhetorical advantage that the passion of his fans afforded, who would ably manipulate the gigantic megaphone his cricketing feats had afforded him, and sally forth to do battle with the BCCI.

This absence of a confrontational streak, this refusal to engage in reform, this unwillingness to be drawn into battles off the pitch, do not sully Tendulkar as a cricket player

Sunil Gavaskar had fired a few shots across the BCCI's bows in his playing career, some of which can be found in his intemperate autobiographySunny Days, but he did not take those battles to their logical conclusion. And since his retirement, he has drawn ever closer to the BCCI. Perhaps someone even bigger than Sunny was required. After his retirement, only one Indian player has met that requirement: Sachin Tendulkar.

Tendulkar has been one of Test cricket's greatest batsmen. His strokeplay brought us many, many hours of pleasure; statistically, some of his records will, in all probability, never be broken; his discipline and dedication and the spirit in which he played the game have been an inspiration for other players and spectators alike. But, as has been evident through his playing career, he was never going to be such an aggressive advocate for Indian cricket players. Indeed, if anything, by virtue of his famed reticence and refusal to be drawn into controversy, he has, perhaps wittingly, perhaps not, become an establishment man. It was only appropriate then, that this retirement announcement would be issued as a statement by the BCCI.

This absence of a confrontational streak, this refusal to engage in reform, this unwillingness to be drawn into battles off the pitch, do not sully Tendulkar as a cricket player; these lacunae do not diminish his records or lead us to think less of him as a human being. He has borne the burden of unreasonable adulation for very long and still managed to perform at a very high level. And all too many of us would not seek out battle with our bosses.

But the lack of a Tendulkar-led or -inspired player action against the BCCI is still cause for regret, for the sense of a missed opportunity is, for me at least, palpable. During Tendulkar's tenure the BCCI became ever more powerful and wealthy; it became ever more entrenched as the absolute controller of Indian cricket (a fact it asserted with a brutal display of heavy-handedness during the ICL saga). In this same period, Tendulkar, by dint of his extended career, became a kind of Grand Old Man of Indian cricket, moving from fresh-faced teenager to wizened veteran. His voice had acquired considerable sagacity. If any sand could have been thrown in the wheels of the BCCI juggernaut, it would have best originated from Tendulkar.

That moment has now passed. It is unclear whether any Indian player in the future will ever command such "soft" power as Tendulkar did. MS Dhoni, for all his fame, does not meet the bill. (And indeed, as is already evident, he can be just as tight-lipped as Tendulkar.)

So as I prepare to bid farewell to this great batsman, my wistfulness will be coloured by a sense of another kind of loss, of a seemingly singular moment in time - with respect to player-BCCI relations - having come and gone.

The problem with Indian cricket academies

Increasingly young players (and their parents) look at them as ways to generate returns on investment

Harsha Bhogle

April 5, 2013

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	Can a modern academy allow the talent of a Tendulkar to flourish? Unlikely © BCCI  Enlarge
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A few years ago my son was protesting about the way he had to prepare for his ICSE exams. "I won't be tested on my knowledge anyway…" he started. "They only want to check if I can reproduce the answers that someone has already written." He was right, our education system seeks to produce homogeneous masses, production lines of identical students. This reduces us to excellent followers of a particular system.

I was reminded of that when I read Greg Chappell's thought-provoking article in the Hindu about how modern batsmen are struggling to "survive, let alone make runs, when the pitch is other than a flat road where the odds are overwhelmingly in the batsman's favour". He thinks it could be a result of academies that "do not produce the creative thinkers that become the next champions", and whose "highly intrusive coaching methods… have replaced those creative learning environments".

Even as academies mushroom everywhere, there is little proof that they are enriching Indian cricket and not merely providing another source of income to retired cricketers. It is a good exercise at social events to say, "You know, my son goes to such and such academy run by so and so former cricketer", but it does little else. My fear is that it thrusts eager children into another school of regimented learning; instead of the unfettered joy of hitting and chasing and bowling a cricket ball, they are checking out their stance, their foot movement and the alignment of the shoulder. That is like answering a question on five aspects of the architectural layouts of 16th century temples, instead of learning history. Sport can run the risk, as my friend Shyam Balasubramaniam says, of "becoming an industrial time and motion study".

You can see why academies flower in urban jungles like Mumbai, where playgrounds are cruelly encroached upon. With no place of your own, you get pushed into camps; cramped, crowded factories where you pay to become nobody. When you pay a stiff fee, you very quickly start looking for returns on it. Playing cricket becomes an exercise where returns are sought on monetary investment. Mumbai understands that language well, and so, caught between no space, long journeys and expensive gear, potential cricketers become insecure and feel the need to produce results quickly. The fun goes out of it, and fun is such a vital ingredient in producing a champion. When you are growing up, when you are learning, you have to play for no reward, and it is my thesis that that is where a financially driven city like Mumbai loses talent early.

And so as playgrounds vanished, as time began commanding a premium, as academies flourished and as experiential learning diminished, Mumbai started going downhill. They still win the Ranji Trophy but the only genuine international Mumbai have produced since Sachin Tendulkar is Ajit Agarkar in one-day cricket. One in 24 years is poor.

Chappell also talks about MS Dhoni, and of how he evolved his own style, unfettered by a curriculum. That is how it should be, with a player free to play in the way that comes naturally to him. Academies can then become finishing schools where you nudge a player a bit here, prod him a bit there but largely let him remain the natural player he is. I think that is best done when a player is around 16. I know that is the age when Tendulkar played international cricket but he was a freak; you cannot hold him up as a product of a system. Critically, Tendulkar was not over-coached; his heavy-bat, bottom-handed style would never have survived otherwise. What Ramakant Achrekar did was make him play matches, face different bowlers, different situations, and though his arm was on his ward's shoulder, though they talked cricket, Tendulkar learnt to play it by himself.

And so, accepting that Tendulkar is an aberration, and almost from another era, I am convinced that the best talent will come out of the small towns, where time and space are not rapidly perishable commodities; where a young Harbhajan Singh wants to bowl late into the evening with a revved-up scooter providing light. There are academies there too, but players who emerge from those places seem to talk fondly about their coaches, amateur sports lovers who give freely of their time.

If academies can retain joy, and provide time, they will give themselves a chance of producing unique cricketers. But if coaches and parents are looking at academies for a quick return on investment, they will continue to gobble up talent.

Is sport an art?

Ed Smith

In the early 1990s, there was a famous Reebok t-shirt with the simple slogan: "Sport is an art." Nice idea, but is it true? Can sport - which, by definition, is practical (score runs, take wickets) and competitive (beat the other guy) - belong to the same sphere as painting, literature and music?

The debate is not helped by the fact that sport and the arts are usually portrayed as antagonistic opposites - athletes v aesthetes, hearties v arties, jocks v thespians. From school to adult life, it is often (wrongly) assumed that there is little overlap between artistic creators and sporting competitors. (Writers, in fact, are often just as fiercely competitive as sportsmen.)

And yet no one (well, almost no one) disputes that sport can be beautiful. Last month, I tried to describe the aesthetic pleasure of watching David Gower bat - or just seeing him stand languidly and unhurriedly at the crease. When we watch Sachin Tendulkar turn his wrists at the very last moment, flicking the blade of the bat towards the on side just as the ball arrives under his eyes, we have experienced something beautiful: not just poise and grace but also concision and completeness. Nothing can be added or taken away from that Tendulkar flick that would not diminish the shot. Within its own terms, it cannot be improved upon.

A couple of years ago I watched Arsenal play Barcelona. The game finished a draw, but it was the spectacle rather than the result that left the deepest impression on me. Judged in terms of pure beauty - the physical grace of the players, the inventiveness of their movement - the match was surely the equal of any artistic or cultural event taking place in London that evening. Only someone with his eyes closed could pretend that the match had been defined completely in terms of goals scored and points bagged.

Occasionally I still hear arts-lovers complain that all sport is dull or anti-aesthetic. They are watching the wrong stuff. Anyone who loves ballet must surely recognise Roger Federer as one of their own. Again, elegance is matched by economy: the Federer effect is created not only by what he does but by what he avoids doing. There are no false brush strokes, no unnecessary chords, no superfluous sentences. There is no straining for effect, nothing is artificially tacked on.

There is another parallel between sport and the arts. In each sphere, the greats often have golden, productive spells late in their careers - periods when the insecurities have faded, when the urgent confusions that follow from deep ambition have receded. In his essay "Late Style", the academic Edward Said described how "age confers a spirit of reconciliation and serenity on late works". Yes, the artist may have been at the peak of his powers in his middle or "High" phase. But there is something even more moving about the final creative outpouring. (If you take only one thing from this article, listen, as I am doing now, to Richard Strauss'Four Last Songs - true Late Style.)

Said was writing about the arts, but the same principle applies to sport. The discerning fan will know the feeling of having watched a great player near the end of his career play sport on a higher level - without the fear and frantic-ness of his younger, restless days. We saw Late Federer in the Wimbledon final this summer, conjuring victory despite being outplayed for most of the first two sets. Late Zidane, too, seemed to grasp the whole football pitch before he made even the simplest pass. There was greatness in the small things - especially the small things.

But being beautiful does not make something an art. Many things are beautiful that cannot be classified as art. In The Principles of Art, the English philosopher RG Collingwood (no relation) set out to define the difference between an art and a craft. A skilled worker in a furniture workshop might be highly skilled - and might derive deep satisfaction from his work - but he is not an artist. He is a craftsman. A carpenter assembles bits of wood according to a plan for a table and, usually, the more exact the plan the better the table.

In contrast, art (according to Collingwood) demands a separation of means and ends. There must be an act of alchemy, the emergence of a creative vision. A poet "converts emotions into poems". Unlike the assembly of a table, the final poem is more than - and different from - the sum of its parts.

	A great sportsmen, very occasionally, does something that transcends the activity of scoring a goal or making a shot. He taps into a deep instinct that he cannot quite understand

Where does this leave sport? I would say sport usually has more in common with craft than art. The batsman practising in the nets over many years is honing his craft. He is searching for a technique that is reliable, consistent, resilient and robust. And if one bit breaks or becomes damaged, he hopes the rest of his game will function adequately while he makes running repairs. The job of a good craftsman is to create a finished article that can be repaired without the whole thing always needing a structural refit.

But sport is not limited to being a craft. A great sportsmen, very occasionally, does something that transcends the activity of scoring a goal or making a shot. He taps into a deep instinct that he cannot quite understand, let alone articulate. But I suspect this artistic strand can only be achieved by accident. If I was a coach, I would be worried if my star batsman said, "Today I am going to bat beautifully." Far better that he tried to bat as simply and naturally as possible - and the beauty happened along the way, as a happy but unintentional by-product.

Sport, I think, can momentarily touch the arts. But it cannot permanently belong as one.

But sports certainly fulfil some artistic roles. In the classical world, the arts had a defined religious purpose. For the Greeks, watching a play was a communal act of piety, a form of shared worship. Modern sport achieves something similar. What do we feel when we walk among the masses to a vast sports stadium? We are part of the crowd, we share a purpose and sense of hope with the thousands around us - we belong to a broader congregation. That religious language follows naturally. The art critic Robert Hughes famously wrote that train stations were the cathedrals of the industrial age. To update Hughes: sports stadiums are the cathedrals of the post-industrial age.

Above all, sport provides us with timeless stories. It reveals, in dramatic ways, essential elements of the human condition. A few years ago, speaking at a BBC debate called "Sport v the Arts", the classical scholar Edith Hall made this startling claim: "Sport has only two narratives - either you win or you lose - how boring!"

The truth could not be more different. A moment's reflection reveals that within the overarching narrative of victory or defeat (there are also draws and ties, Edith), there are countless twists and subplots - often far more interesting and affecting than the headline-grabbing result. Sometimes you have to look more carefully to see the real story.

Sport can be experienced at many different levels. Just like the arts.

Former England, Kent and Middlesex batsman Ed Smith's new book, Luck - What It Means and Why It Matters, is out now. His Twitter feed is here

It's not just about the results

More important than the numbers you chalk up as a player is gaining personal mastery of yourself - as a cricketer and a person

Paddy Upton

September 25, 2012

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	Gary Kirsten: "When the heat is on in Test cricket, it's not your skill but your character that is being tested" © PA Photos  Enlarge
Related Links Players/Officials: Hashim Amla | Gary Kirsten | Sachin Tendulkar Teams: South Africa

As cricket advances into the entertainment industry, so the celebrity limelight shines more brightly on the players. Cricketers today enjoy more money, more glamour, more exposure than ever before. It's fun, the party is on, but are they sufficiently prepared for the hangovers that lurks in the shadows?

These come in many forms and manifest themselves in the form of scuffles in nightclubs, drink driving, sexual indiscretions, drug abuse, cheating and match-fixing - sometimes driven by a celebrity's sense of being above the law, invincible, and sometimes even immortal.

Cricket stars are easily seduced into defining themselves, their self-confidence and their happiness, by their name, fame, money and the results they produce: happy when they do well in these regards, grumpy and anti-social when not. A darker shadow of the limelight is where players buy into the image of fame (of being a special person) that fans and the media create for them. As they do this, they become more alienated from themselves, losing touch of who they authentically are. They begin to see themselves as superior to ordinary mortals, not only better at the skill that made them famous but also better and more important as people. They struggle to be alone, uncomfortable in their own company. Yet while surrounding themselves with others, they become incapable of genuine relationships.

A loneliness and creeping discontentment begins to shroud the star. This inner emptiness drives the celebrity to wear their "happy", "tough" or "I'm okay" masks while looking to find temporary happiness out there, in more success, fame, money, sex, drink or drugs.

Cricket has plenty of known instances of depression and substance abuse, one of the highest suicide rates of all sports, and a divorce rate to match.

It's about who you are, not what you do
There is another road, less-travelled by superstars, which leads out of the shadows of the limelight and into the light of personal and professional success, sincere relationships, lasting contentment and an all-round fulfilling life.

Speaking to me in 2004, Gary Kirsten said: "I'm searching for the authentic Gary Kirsten - someone who is accepting of his shortcomings and is confident in the knowledge of who he is. One who is willing to have a positive influence and add value to society in my own unique way. I want to make a difference to people's lives and give them similar opportunities that I have had. My perception of success is not about how much money I can earn in the next ten years but rather what impact I made on people I came into contact with."

Gary spent thousands of hours mastering his strokeplay, which had brought him great success and recognition. To this pursuit of professional mastery, he added personal mastery. He often says that when the heat is on in Test cricket, it's not your skill but your character that is being tested.

In life as in cricket, it's who you are inside, your character and your values, rather than what you do, what results you achieve or possessions you gain, that will determine your contentment, enduring success and how you will ultimately be remembered.

Personal mastery is many things. It is a journey towards living successfully as an all-round human being, a tapping into your full potential. It is a commitment to learning about yourself, your mind and emotions in all situations. It is a strengthening of character and deepening of personal values. It is an increased awareness of self, others and the world around; living from the inside out, not the outside in. Peter Senge, one of the authors of the concept of personal mastery, defines it as "the discipline of personal growth and learning".

This idea may already sound too touchy-feely for the John Rambos and Chuck Norrises out there, but before dismissing the concept, know it translated to Kirsten's most successful international season, that it underpins Hashim Amla's remarkable performances, and grounds Sachin Tendulkar's extraordinary fame.

Conversely, the lack of personal mastery has undermined the personal and professional lives of many celebrities. Have you heard about the guy who was a brilliant batsman but whose peers think he is an idiot, and who after retirement had no mates? Or the one who had great talent and opportunity but never managed to deliver? We will never know the truth about all the cricket failures that may seem to have been caused by technical errors but which were actually caused by a lack in character or strength of mind, causing the player to repeatedly succumb to the fear of failure and how it would reflect on them. We all know how the likes of Hansie Cronje, Mike Tyson, Ben Johnson, Mohammad Azharuddin, Diego Maradona and Tiger Woods might be remembered.

The road to personal mastery

Personal mastery is a shift in attitude that drives a shift in behaviour.

From over-emphasising results to placing importance on the processes that set up the best chance of success; from defining one's contentment by results, to deriving contentment from the effort made in the pursuit of that result.

From worrying about what others think about you, to knowing that what others think about you is none of your business. There are people who don't like Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi or Mother Teresa, so what makes you so special that everyone should like you?

From focusing on the importance of looking good outwardly, to the importance of inner substance and strength of character. It is not about trying to be a good person but allowing the good person in you to emerge;

Personal mastery is a shift from thinking you have the answers, to knowing you have much to learn. From balancing talking and telling with listening and asking. People who think they're "important" seldom ask questions;

It is a shift from pretending to be strong and in control, and from covering up ignorance, faults and vulnerabilities, to acknowledging these human fallibilities while still remaining self-confident. The current South Africa team now openly acknowledges that they have choked in big tournaments in the past, and they're not choked up by this acknowledgement;

When things go wrong, personal mastery is a shift from pointing fingers and blaming others, to taking responsibility. It is first asking "What was my part in this?" before looking elsewhere. It's a shift from being reactive, to being proactive; from withdrawing or getting pissed off by criticism, to accepting that it's one of the few things that helps us grow.

It is about developing social, emotional and spiritual intelligence, in addition to building muscle and sporting intelligence - in the way that Kirsten added the journey of personal mastery to that of professional mastery.

It is a shift from an attitude of expecting things to come to you, to earning your dues through your own effort; and then being grateful for what does come.

It's a shift from focusing on yourself, to gaining awareness of what is going on for others and the world around you. Not everyone is naturally compassionate, but everyone can be aware.

	When things go wrong, personal mastery is a shift from pointing fingers and blaming others, to taking responsibility. It is first asking "What was my part in this?" before looking elsewhere

Personal mastery is a shift from expecting to be told what to do, to taking responsibility for doing what needs to be done. A shift towards becoming your own best teacher as you learn more deeply about your game, your mind and your life, in a way that works best for you. Kirsten insists that players make decisions for themelves, that bowlers set their own fields, and batters take responsibility for their game plans, decisions and executions. Off the field there are no rules to govern behaviour, no curfews, no eating do's and dont's, and no fines system. Players are asked to take responsibility for making good decisions for themselves, at least most of the time.

Personal mastery is about pursuing success rather than trying to avoid failure. It is an acceptance that failure paves the path towards learning and success. It's important in this regard that leaders are okay with their players' mistakes. Almost every sports coach I have watched display visible signs of disappointment when a player makes a mistake. I wonder if these same coaches tell their players to go and fully express themselves? If they do, then their words and their actions do not line up - and their reactions speaks more loudly than their words. Show me a coach who reacts negatively to mistakes, and I will show you a team that plays with a fear of failure.

It is about knowing and playing to your strengths, rather than dwelling on your weaknesses, knowing that developing strengths builds success far more effectively than fixing weaknesses does. If you're a good listener, it's about being even better, for instance.

It requires an awareness of how you conduct yourself in relation to basic human principles, such as integrity, honesty, humility, respect and doing what is best for all. It means having an awareness of and deliberately living personal values as one goes about one's business. It's about knowing how one day you want to be remembered as a person - and then living that way today.

When you, as a top athlete, do well, it's about receiving the praise fully, and expressing gratitude in equal proportion, knowing that no athlete achieves success without the unseen heroes that support them. Praise plus gratitude equals humility. One only need listen to Amla receiving a Man-of-the-Match award to witness humility.

Personal mastery is a path that leads through all of life, bringing improved performances on the field and a more contented and rewarding life off of it. It's a journey out of the shadows of the ego and into the light of awareness; it's a daily commitment, not a destination. It may not be for John Rambo or Chuck Norris, but it works for most.

The bonus is that while personal mastery leads to a happier and more rewarding existence, it also leads to better sport performance. Kirsten adds: "I spent years fighting a mental battle with my pereived lack of skill. Towards the end of my career I dropped this, as well trying to live up to others expectations. I went on to score five Test centuries and have my best year ever. As a coach, I now know that managing myself and others well, being aware of who I am being and why I do things, is of far more importance than technical knowledge of the game."

Another fairly successful and likeable international cricketer who knows the importance of personal mastery states: "Who I am as a person, my nature, is permanent. My results on the field are temporary - they will go up and go down. It is more important that I am consistent as a person. This I can control, my results I cannot." He adds that "people will criticise me for my results, and will soon forget them, but they will always remember the impact I have on them as a person. This will last forever." His name is Sachin Tendulkar.

Paddy Upton is South Africa's performance director.