The man who hailed Cool Britannia in 1996 believes the Great Recession heralds an era of decline
Stryker McGuire
Even in the decades after it lost its empire, Britain strode the world like a pocket superpower. Its economic strength and cultural heft, its nuclear-backed military might, its extraordinary relationship with America — all these things helped this small island nation to punch well above its weight class. Now all that is changing as the bills become due on Britain’s role in last year’s financial meltdown, the rescue of the banks and the ensuing recession. Suddenly the country is having to rethink its role in the world — perhaps as Little Britain, certainly as a lesser Britain.
This is a watershed moment for the UK. The country’s public debt is soaring, possibly doubling to a record 100 per cent of GDP over the next five years, according to the International Monetary Fund. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research forecasts that it will take six years for per capita income to reach early 2008 levels again.
The effects will cascade across government. Budgets will be slashed at the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office, affecting Britain’s ability to project power, hard and soft. And there’s little that can be done to reverse the trend, either by Gordon Brown or by David Cameron. As William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, said in a recent speech: “It will become more difficult over time for Britain to exert on world affairs the influence which we are used to.”
History has been closing in on Britain for some time. The rise of China and India always meant that Britain would have a smaller seat at the increasingly crowded top table of nations. It also meant that the US would recalibrate the so-called special relationship as it sought new partners and alliances, inevitably shrinking the disproportionate role Britain has long played in world affairs.
Tony Blair made a final stab at greatness with what amounted to a 51st-state strategy: by locking Britain into America’s wars — on terror, in Afghanistan, and in Iraq — London achieved an importance it hadn’t had since Churchill. But whatever advantage Britain gained in the short term was wiped out by the political damage Mr Blair’s strategy caused at home. Ordinary Britons and even members of the Establishment grew critical of what they saw as London’s subservient relationship with Washington. Mr Blair’s authority was diminished, his political agenda at home suffered and it became clear that Britain’s geopolitical default setting would no longer be to follow America’s lead automatically. Mr Blair may merely have postponed the inevitable: a lesser Britain is a consequence of world events.
The global recession has hit virtually every country, but Britain more than most. The great engine room of British prosperity, the financial sector, now feels like an anchor. The IMF believes that Britain’s slump will be deeper and longer than that of any other advanced economy. The number of Britons claiming unemployment benefits has jumped from 1.3 million (4.6 per cent of the workforce) in 1999 to more than two million and is on track to top three million.
The OECD says Britain’s recovery may begin this year, but will lag behind those of other rich countries. At the moment, Britain is arguably saddled with the worst public finances of any leading nation, thanks to voracious spending in recent years and to borrowing that is growing faster than in other developed nations. Britain is so heavily indebted that one political commentator dubbed it Iceland-on-Thames, suggesting that Britain could follow that nation into bankruptcy.
What makes the British case stand out even more is that it is the only country of its size in recent history that has sought such a disproportionately large role on the world stage. During the Cold War, Margaret Thatcher saw herself as second only to Ronald Reagan as a leader who helped to bring down the Soviet Union. During Mr Blair’s decade in office, Britain fought three wars — in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq — in which its military participation was right behind that of the US. Now that’s changing.
The UK still maintains one of the largest defence budgets in the world, but probably not for much longer. As the number of British deaths in Afghanistan has risen dramatically, both Labour and the Conservatives have felt obliged to say they would not reduce defence spending, so as not to put troops at greater risk. But in the longer term experts say big cuts are inevitable.
A Royal United Services Institute paper estimates that the MoD budget will be cut by 11 per cent in real terms over the next six years. Other estimates are much higher. Paddy Ashdown, a former Royal Marine, has said the annual £35 billion MoD budget might have to be cut by almost a quarter, which would put Britain more in line with traditionally lower-spending continental powers. Britain’s role in the world will shrink with its budget.
The future of Britain’s nuclear force, the ultimate symbol of a great power, is also uncertain. Britain’s submarine-based Trident missile system is due to be replaced over the next decade at a cost of some £20 billion. But according to a recent poll 54 per cent of the British people say that Britain should give up its nuclear deterrent altogether. That’s unlikely, but it may force the next government to find a cheap way to extend Trident’s lifespan. Traditionally, being a nuclear power was one way of securing permanent membership of the UN Security Council, and any downgrading of Britain’s deterrent could strengthen the demands of big emerging powers that they should have more seats on the council, possibly at the UK’s expense.
The glory days of the City of London are now grinding to a halt, too. London stole the march on Wall Street by seizing the highest growth areas, such as hedge funds, exotic derivatives and the like. Unluckily for London, these areas were also the hardest hit by the financial crisis. But now London, like New York, awaits a slew of new national, regional and global regulation that appears likely to diminish its role in the world for years to come. The EU has already endorsed the creation of a systemic risk board with oversight powers that will include the City. Britain has sidestepped such intervention in the past, but this time is different. Germany and France appear intent on restraining the excesses of Anglo-Saxon capitalism and may seek to engineer reforms that steer a greater share of global capital flows into more cautious continental hands.
London, as the glitzier icon of laissez faire, will pay a steeper price than Wall Street in the financial new world order. Ever since the Big Bang of the 1980s, London has regulated the banking industry with a light touch. If European regulations are harmonised to include London and if London’s light touch gets a little heavier, the City could suddenly become “more antagonistic to the institutions that are being regulated”, as Andrew Hilton, of the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation, puts it. In that event, financial centres such as Singapore and Hong Kong could draw business away from the City.
Britain’s bout of reflection on its last gasps of empire comes at a natural point in its history. The Great Recession came as a surprise and has accelerated the trend, but the rise of China, India and Brazil, and the changing ties to a declining America, have been visible for many years. As America turns to building new ties with the advancing powers of Asia and Latin America, Britain can only feel less special. The nation is in the totally predictable grip of the ennui and grumpiness that accompany the end of a political era.
Eleven years ago, the year after Mr Blair swept to victory, he spoke in Dublin of a Britain that was “emerging from its post-empire malaise”. Phrases such as “new Labour” and “new dawn” and “new Britain” were not yet curdling on the tongue. Today, Mr Blair is two years out of office and Mr Brown suffers from a grey, been-there-too-long aura. Long gone is the cultural ferment of Cool Britannia that made London the capital of cool in the early Blair years.
Pity the prime minister who takes over from Mr Brown. A Conservative victory at the next election would have little of the game-changing feeling that accompanied Mr Blair’s triumph 12 years ago. Then, Britain bought into Mr Blair’s mantra because it was real enough: the economy had already begun a period of unprecedented growth, immigration was enriching the country, an entrepreneurial fervour crackled across even the old industrial heartland. Today that has evaporated. The great test of the next prime minister will be not only to redefine Britain’s place among great nations but also to renew the kind of spirit that has ruled Britannia in the past.
Stryker McGuire is contributing editor of Newsweek magazine. A longer version of this article appears in the current issue
'People will forgive you for being wrong, but they will never forgive you for being right - especially if events prove you right while proving them wrong.' Thomas Sowell
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Tuesday, 4 August 2009
10 places women want to be touched
Forget a woman's cleavage, there are more erogenous spots that you can now explore to get your lady sexcited. Read on to discover her ten most Know her trigger points and enjoy sexual bliss like never before(Getty Images)
sensuous body parts waiting to be discovered.
Women are sensuous creatures and they love being kissed and caressed. What guys often mistake is that they go straight for the woman's breasts or other private parts, without concentrating on her other moan zones. So, if you want to get your gal into the mood, stimulate some of her often-neglected body parts.
Touch these places during foreplay and sex, or just give her some pleasure after a hard day and she'll surely reward you with brownie points in bed.
Tresses
All guys like women with gorgeous locks. But what you need to know is that women love being touched on their head. It's quite a stress reliever. Running your hands sensuously through her tresses is likely to send shivers down her spine. Massage her temples to the nape of her neck and she’ll be game to your desires.
Nape of her neck
In ancient Japan, the back of a woman’s neck was considered extremely attractive by men as it was one of the few zones that were not covered by the elaborate kimono. Today, very few men focus on the nape of the neck, but we suggest you build up the pleasure by gentle touching and kissing your lady love from her hairline down to her shoulders. It will make her reach dizzying heights of pleasure.
Collar bone
A well-defined collarbone is what men find irresistible. So, why not touch and kiss her there. Unbutton her shirt just a little and stimulate her collarbone with your touch. Create circles with your tongue and give her love bites right there, just to remind her of how much you want her.
Small of her back
Most women love it when their guy places his protective hand against the small of her back as it shows that he feels very strongly about her. So, why not incorporate this gesture into your foreplay routine, by kissing or licking down her spine to end up with a kiss on the small of her back. It will definitely get her into the mood for more!
Behind her knees
This area is a power house of sensitive nerve endings. You can gently caress the back of her knee under her skirt while the two of you are in an open public space as it is sure to get her excited by the time you reach home.
Palms of her hands
We use our hands to please our partners, but have you ever thought that you could arouse a woman by stimulating the palm of her hand? Run your finger along her palm as that will make her feel relaxed and ready for a sexy rendezvous ahead.
Her earlobes
This is one of the most erogenous moan centers of a woman's body. Touching, kissing and even gently biting her earlobes will send her into a sexual tizzy. If you are getting extra adventurous, simply nibble around the outside of the rest of her ear as well, but don't put your tongue inside her ear. That's a major turn off!
Happy feet
There's nothing more sinfully seductive than a foot massage. It will help her relax, especially if her job requires her to be on them all day. Get yourself some aromatic massage oil or lotion. Pay extra attention to the pressure points such as her toes, ankles and the sides of her feet too. Some women love enjoy having their toes sucked, but others find it repulsive, so ask your babe what she would have you do before putting them in your mouth.
Soft thighs
Touching a woman's inner thighs without touching her private parts is the most sensual tease that is sure to get her all charged up. Employ your hands and mouth to caress and kiss the insides of her thighs, remember to pull back before going all the way.
sensuous body parts waiting to be discovered.
Women are sensuous creatures and they love being kissed and caressed. What guys often mistake is that they go straight for the woman's breasts or other private parts, without concentrating on her other moan zones. So, if you want to get your gal into the mood, stimulate some of her often-neglected body parts.
Touch these places during foreplay and sex, or just give her some pleasure after a hard day and she'll surely reward you with brownie points in bed.
Tresses
All guys like women with gorgeous locks. But what you need to know is that women love being touched on their head. It's quite a stress reliever. Running your hands sensuously through her tresses is likely to send shivers down her spine. Massage her temples to the nape of her neck and she’ll be game to your desires.
Nape of her neck
In ancient Japan, the back of a woman’s neck was considered extremely attractive by men as it was one of the few zones that were not covered by the elaborate kimono. Today, very few men focus on the nape of the neck, but we suggest you build up the pleasure by gentle touching and kissing your lady love from her hairline down to her shoulders. It will make her reach dizzying heights of pleasure.
Collar bone
A well-defined collarbone is what men find irresistible. So, why not touch and kiss her there. Unbutton her shirt just a little and stimulate her collarbone with your touch. Create circles with your tongue and give her love bites right there, just to remind her of how much you want her.
Small of her back
Most women love it when their guy places his protective hand against the small of her back as it shows that he feels very strongly about her. So, why not incorporate this gesture into your foreplay routine, by kissing or licking down her spine to end up with a kiss on the small of her back. It will definitely get her into the mood for more!
Behind her knees
This area is a power house of sensitive nerve endings. You can gently caress the back of her knee under her skirt while the two of you are in an open public space as it is sure to get her excited by the time you reach home.
Palms of her hands
We use our hands to please our partners, but have you ever thought that you could arouse a woman by stimulating the palm of her hand? Run your finger along her palm as that will make her feel relaxed and ready for a sexy rendezvous ahead.
Her earlobes
This is one of the most erogenous moan centers of a woman's body. Touching, kissing and even gently biting her earlobes will send her into a sexual tizzy. If you are getting extra adventurous, simply nibble around the outside of the rest of her ear as well, but don't put your tongue inside her ear. That's a major turn off!
Happy feet
There's nothing more sinfully seductive than a foot massage. It will help her relax, especially if her job requires her to be on them all day. Get yourself some aromatic massage oil or lotion. Pay extra attention to the pressure points such as her toes, ankles and the sides of her feet too. Some women love enjoy having their toes sucked, but others find it repulsive, so ask your babe what she would have you do before putting them in your mouth.
Soft thighs
Touching a woman's inner thighs without touching her private parts is the most sensual tease that is sure to get her all charged up. Employ your hands and mouth to caress and kiss the insides of her thighs, remember to pull back before going all the way.
Saturday, 1 August 2009
Private Airlines in India - A case of Market failure
Yesterday, under the leadership of showman Vijay Mallya, the Federation of Indian Airlines (FIA) ratcheted up the pressure on the Indian government to help these private airlines to avoid the consequence of unpaid bills and loans. They threatened a day's strike on 18 August and promised more of more to come; in an attempt to browbeat the Indian government. If the FIA wins, it will be one more instance of 'privatisation of profits and socialization of costs'.
On the CNN-IBN news programme at six pm last evening, an expert mentioned that most of these private airlines were offering flight tickets at $60 when the actual cost to the airline was $ 100. These lower fares may have been a part of the price penetration strategy that is taught at business schools. The beneficiaries of such a strategy are the new entrant airlines and the passengers that availed of this freebie. The moot question therefore is why should the majority of Indians bail out this minority group when none of them have obtained any benefits of the profusion of loss making airlines.
In a free market, a firm that makes losses will quit the market thereby lowering supply and will raise prices resulting in better bottom lines for the survivors. Why is this basic principle of the market being ignored by Mallya and co? It is because in India the FIA believes they can bully the pliant government to support their profligate ways. Praful Patel, the civil aviation minister, himself has not been a neutral arbiter in the civil aviation industry, acceding to arbitrary rules that supported incumbent airlines.
I think the private airlines should not be offered any handout other than what they have obtained so far. If they go bust, so be it and India may have a better civil aviation industry.
On the CNN-IBN news programme at six pm last evening, an expert mentioned that most of these private airlines were offering flight tickets at $60 when the actual cost to the airline was $ 100. These lower fares may have been a part of the price penetration strategy that is taught at business schools. The beneficiaries of such a strategy are the new entrant airlines and the passengers that availed of this freebie. The moot question therefore is why should the majority of Indians bail out this minority group when none of them have obtained any benefits of the profusion of loss making airlines.
In a free market, a firm that makes losses will quit the market thereby lowering supply and will raise prices resulting in better bottom lines for the survivors. Why is this basic principle of the market being ignored by Mallya and co? It is because in India the FIA believes they can bully the pliant government to support their profligate ways. Praful Patel, the civil aviation minister, himself has not been a neutral arbiter in the civil aviation industry, acceding to arbitrary rules that supported incumbent airlines.
I think the private airlines should not be offered any handout other than what they have obtained so far. If they go bust, so be it and India may have a better civil aviation industry.
The art of staying in the present
Concentration is about living in the moment - which unfortunately isn't as easy as it sounds
Aakash Chopra
July 30, 2009
Did Tendulkar never once think of playing the cover-drive during his 241 in Sydney? Unlikely.
Ever since I started playing cricket I've been told about the importance of concentration and how it's the key to batting for a long time and scoring a lot of runs. There has always been plenty of emphasis on this aspect of the game. I'd often hear a commentator say that a lapse in concentration cost the batsman his wicket, or a coach telling me to concentrate harder whenever I couldn't put the bat to ball.
Though I understood the importance of concentration fairly early in my career, I didn't entirely understand the concept itself. And I wasn't the only one.
What exactly is concentration?
A few years ago I was selected to play in the Challenger Trophy (before I made my international debut). We had an interactive session with Geet Sethi, the billiards player, whose definition of concentration remains etched in my memory. He said that concentration is simply remaining in the present. The longer you can remain in the present, the greater your span of concentration. Sounds easy, right?
Nearly two decades of playing cricket has taught me that it isn't. The mind has the peculiar ability of wandering off at the first available moment, and it doesn't need any permission. You might be in the middle of an important match, playing an important knock or bowling the most crucial over, but the mind has a mind of its own. Two places it likes to wander off to are the past and the future.
I'd either start feeling bad or good about what had happened in the past - the ball before - and get disconnected from the present, or I would start worrying about or prematurely celebrating events in the future, getting away from the task at hand.
Whatever happened in the past or might happen in the future does not have, or at least should not have, any bearing on the ball you're going to bowl or play next. All that matters is what you do with that particular ball. Remaining in the present is the only way to concentrate.
One needs to start concentrating once the bowler starts his run-up and the concentration has to be at its peak from the time of delivery till the ball hits the bat. (Of course, this changes for fielders, who need to be alert till one of them fields the ball.)
How can you improve your concentration?
Most games of cricket go on for at least six hours at a time, with occasional breaks. Now concentrating for a few minutes at a time is quite difficult, let alone six hours. So the idea is to switch off after every delivery and then switch on before the next. Switching off means allowing the mind to wander away for a few seconds before getting it back on track. This is not restricted to only batting and bowling; fielders do it too. One needs to relax before starting to concentrate again.
Batting or bowling in the nets can be instrumental in improving concentration, since one needs to concentrate ball after ball in that situation, with very little time in between (as there are usually about six or seven bowlers operating at all times).
The trigger movement
Most players follow a set routine - adjusting the equipment, or something else - that acts as a trigger to snap them out of wander mode and back to the game. Greg Chappell would look at the crowd after playing every ball; MS Dhoni fiddles with his bat and gloves; I scratch the leg-stump mark on the pitch with my shoe; Jason Gillespie used to stop for a few seconds and take a deep breath at the top of his run-up.
Staying in the game
While it's important to switch off and allow your mind to wander, one still needs to ensure that it doesn't drift too far away. For example, a captain has to still think about the field placements and plan his course of action, like bowling and fielding changes. A fielder is supposed to always be looking at the captain or bowler for instructions on any possible changes in the fielding position before starting to concentrate again. A batsman weighs his options of scoring runs off the next ball. I call this not-so-focused form of concentration "staying in the game".
The zone
Then there are some - we call them geniuses - who seemed to get into the zone at will: the state of mind where everything flows automatically. You don't consciously switch on or off, your mind doesn't wander into the past or the future, you're constantly aware of your surroundings and almost always play the ball on its merit or bowl where you want to bowl. We all have times when we get into such states, but to do it on a consistent basis is an art that only a few have mastered. Sachin Tendulkar seemed to get into the zone more regularly than the rest.
How can one attain that state at will?
Honestly, I don't know for sure. I've gathered over the years that even the greatest minds can wander. Thoughts keep coming into your head regardless of whether you want them to. The best way to deal with them is to acknowledge their presence rather than trying to ignore them. Trying to push the thoughts away gets you involved and takes you away from the task at hand. When you leave them unattended, they disappear. Tendulkar's innings in Sydney in 2004 is the perfect example of not paying heed to the thoughts that try to intrude. He didn't play a cover-drive for most, if not all, of his innings of over 200, and I refuse to believe that the thought of playing the shot didn't cross his mind, especially once he was set.
Sunil Gavaskar once told me that when you reach a milestone your mind takes you to the ones you love most. You feel an immediate connection to those close to you who are watching you achieve the feat and your heart goes out to them and with it your mind too, which results in a loss of concentration
When are we most vulnerable to losing concentration?
I used to think that staying in the present was important only at the beginning of the innings. After all, it's only at the start, when we're plagued with self-doubt, that we are most susceptible to failure; once we get that elusive start, everything falls in place. But I've learned that I was mistaken. A loss of concentration can occur at any point during an innings, and most often does when you're feeling good, like after going past a milestone, when you drop your guard a bit.
I once asked Sunil Gavaskar about it, and he said that when you reach a milestone, the mind takes you to the ones you love most. You feel an immediate connection to those close to you who are watching you achieve the feat and your heart goes out to them, and with it your mind too. You thank everyone on the ground by raising the bat, thank God for his blessings, and your family members in your heart. At such times the mind is anywhere but on the cricket field, and you often end up taking the long walk back before realising what's happened. His advice to me was to recognise that emotional surge and allow yourself a little time to regroup; perhaps spending a few overs at the non-striker's end at such times is a good idea.
The external factors
Bowlers and fielders, especially the ones close to the bat, often try to talk the batsman into playing a poor stroke. Few batsmen succumb to the tactic and lose focus; the majority have their own ways of dealing with it.
Sunny bhai told me that the best way is to ignore the comments and even avoid eye contact with the talkers. On the contrary, someone like Matthew Hayden relishes a chat with the bowler and the fielders. Then there's Brian Lara. The Indian team would decide before the start of a series against West Indies to leave him alone, because if you try to get under his skin he starts concentrating harder and then is almost impossible to dislodge.
Even the crowd has a role to play. But contrary to popular belief, a hostile crowd doesn't have as much of an impact as a cheering crowd.
I remember getting hit on the helmet in Melbourne during the Boxing Day Test in 2003, and 70,000 people cheered Brett Lee and Co to do it again. But the only effect it had on my game plan was to make me more determined. On the other hand only 30,000 people egging me on to hit another four off Daniel Vettori in my debut Test, in Ahmedabad, was enough to lure me into a false stroke. I got ahead of myself and was dismissed.
We now know that regardless of whether we know the definition of concentration or not, whether we play cricket - or any other sport or for that matter - remaining in the present is the essence to being successful. We all do it unconsciously, and perhaps that's why we slip out of it without knowing, but if we manage to do it consciously, at will, keeping close tabs on our mind, we'll be able to control it a lot better and produce better results.
Former India opener Aakash Chopra is the author of Beyond the Blues, an account of the 2007-08 Ranji Trophy season. His website is here
Aakash Chopra
July 30, 2009
Did Tendulkar never once think of playing the cover-drive during his 241 in Sydney? Unlikely.
Ever since I started playing cricket I've been told about the importance of concentration and how it's the key to batting for a long time and scoring a lot of runs. There has always been plenty of emphasis on this aspect of the game. I'd often hear a commentator say that a lapse in concentration cost the batsman his wicket, or a coach telling me to concentrate harder whenever I couldn't put the bat to ball.
Though I understood the importance of concentration fairly early in my career, I didn't entirely understand the concept itself. And I wasn't the only one.
What exactly is concentration?
A few years ago I was selected to play in the Challenger Trophy (before I made my international debut). We had an interactive session with Geet Sethi, the billiards player, whose definition of concentration remains etched in my memory. He said that concentration is simply remaining in the present. The longer you can remain in the present, the greater your span of concentration. Sounds easy, right?
Nearly two decades of playing cricket has taught me that it isn't. The mind has the peculiar ability of wandering off at the first available moment, and it doesn't need any permission. You might be in the middle of an important match, playing an important knock or bowling the most crucial over, but the mind has a mind of its own. Two places it likes to wander off to are the past and the future.
I'd either start feeling bad or good about what had happened in the past - the ball before - and get disconnected from the present, or I would start worrying about or prematurely celebrating events in the future, getting away from the task at hand.
Whatever happened in the past or might happen in the future does not have, or at least should not have, any bearing on the ball you're going to bowl or play next. All that matters is what you do with that particular ball. Remaining in the present is the only way to concentrate.
One needs to start concentrating once the bowler starts his run-up and the concentration has to be at its peak from the time of delivery till the ball hits the bat. (Of course, this changes for fielders, who need to be alert till one of them fields the ball.)
How can you improve your concentration?
Most games of cricket go on for at least six hours at a time, with occasional breaks. Now concentrating for a few minutes at a time is quite difficult, let alone six hours. So the idea is to switch off after every delivery and then switch on before the next. Switching off means allowing the mind to wander away for a few seconds before getting it back on track. This is not restricted to only batting and bowling; fielders do it too. One needs to relax before starting to concentrate again.
Batting or bowling in the nets can be instrumental in improving concentration, since one needs to concentrate ball after ball in that situation, with very little time in between (as there are usually about six or seven bowlers operating at all times).
The trigger movement
Most players follow a set routine - adjusting the equipment, or something else - that acts as a trigger to snap them out of wander mode and back to the game. Greg Chappell would look at the crowd after playing every ball; MS Dhoni fiddles with his bat and gloves; I scratch the leg-stump mark on the pitch with my shoe; Jason Gillespie used to stop for a few seconds and take a deep breath at the top of his run-up.
Staying in the game
While it's important to switch off and allow your mind to wander, one still needs to ensure that it doesn't drift too far away. For example, a captain has to still think about the field placements and plan his course of action, like bowling and fielding changes. A fielder is supposed to always be looking at the captain or bowler for instructions on any possible changes in the fielding position before starting to concentrate again. A batsman weighs his options of scoring runs off the next ball. I call this not-so-focused form of concentration "staying in the game".
The zone
Then there are some - we call them geniuses - who seemed to get into the zone at will: the state of mind where everything flows automatically. You don't consciously switch on or off, your mind doesn't wander into the past or the future, you're constantly aware of your surroundings and almost always play the ball on its merit or bowl where you want to bowl. We all have times when we get into such states, but to do it on a consistent basis is an art that only a few have mastered. Sachin Tendulkar seemed to get into the zone more regularly than the rest.
How can one attain that state at will?
Honestly, I don't know for sure. I've gathered over the years that even the greatest minds can wander. Thoughts keep coming into your head regardless of whether you want them to. The best way to deal with them is to acknowledge their presence rather than trying to ignore them. Trying to push the thoughts away gets you involved and takes you away from the task at hand. When you leave them unattended, they disappear. Tendulkar's innings in Sydney in 2004 is the perfect example of not paying heed to the thoughts that try to intrude. He didn't play a cover-drive for most, if not all, of his innings of over 200, and I refuse to believe that the thought of playing the shot didn't cross his mind, especially once he was set.
Sunil Gavaskar once told me that when you reach a milestone your mind takes you to the ones you love most. You feel an immediate connection to those close to you who are watching you achieve the feat and your heart goes out to them and with it your mind too, which results in a loss of concentration
When are we most vulnerable to losing concentration?
I used to think that staying in the present was important only at the beginning of the innings. After all, it's only at the start, when we're plagued with self-doubt, that we are most susceptible to failure; once we get that elusive start, everything falls in place. But I've learned that I was mistaken. A loss of concentration can occur at any point during an innings, and most often does when you're feeling good, like after going past a milestone, when you drop your guard a bit.
I once asked Sunil Gavaskar about it, and he said that when you reach a milestone, the mind takes you to the ones you love most. You feel an immediate connection to those close to you who are watching you achieve the feat and your heart goes out to them, and with it your mind too. You thank everyone on the ground by raising the bat, thank God for his blessings, and your family members in your heart. At such times the mind is anywhere but on the cricket field, and you often end up taking the long walk back before realising what's happened. His advice to me was to recognise that emotional surge and allow yourself a little time to regroup; perhaps spending a few overs at the non-striker's end at such times is a good idea.
The external factors
Bowlers and fielders, especially the ones close to the bat, often try to talk the batsman into playing a poor stroke. Few batsmen succumb to the tactic and lose focus; the majority have their own ways of dealing with it.
Sunny bhai told me that the best way is to ignore the comments and even avoid eye contact with the talkers. On the contrary, someone like Matthew Hayden relishes a chat with the bowler and the fielders. Then there's Brian Lara. The Indian team would decide before the start of a series against West Indies to leave him alone, because if you try to get under his skin he starts concentrating harder and then is almost impossible to dislodge.
Even the crowd has a role to play. But contrary to popular belief, a hostile crowd doesn't have as much of an impact as a cheering crowd.
I remember getting hit on the helmet in Melbourne during the Boxing Day Test in 2003, and 70,000 people cheered Brett Lee and Co to do it again. But the only effect it had on my game plan was to make me more determined. On the other hand only 30,000 people egging me on to hit another four off Daniel Vettori in my debut Test, in Ahmedabad, was enough to lure me into a false stroke. I got ahead of myself and was dismissed.
We now know that regardless of whether we know the definition of concentration or not, whether we play cricket - or any other sport or for that matter - remaining in the present is the essence to being successful. We all do it unconsciously, and perhaps that's why we slip out of it without knowing, but if we manage to do it consciously, at will, keeping close tabs on our mind, we'll be able to control it a lot better and produce better results.
Former India opener Aakash Chopra is the author of Beyond the Blues, an account of the 2007-08 Ranji Trophy season. His website is here
Warne, Cricket and Poker
The spin legend is attempting to turn a lifelong hobby, poker, into a career every bit as illustrious as the one he is leaving behind on the cricket field
Andrew Miller
July 31, 2009
"I see a lot of similarities between poker and cricket, and I thoroughly enjoy them both" © 888.com
When great sportsmen retire, they often find it hard to carve a new niche in life. Some find solace in coaching or commentary, but many drift listlessly into middle age, unable to find a suitable outlet for the competitive instincts that drove them to the peak of their professions. Not for the first time in his life, however, Shane Warne has taken it upon himself to buck convention. His 40th birthday is fast approaching at the end of the summer, but far from dwelling on past glories, he has immersed himself in a second career that promises a whole new wave of fame, fortune and razor-sharp gameplay.
The world of professional poker is where Warne's passions reside these days, and it's hard to imagine a cricketer more likely to succeed in such a glitzy and unfamiliar world. While his punditry during Sky Sports' Ashes coverage has been lauded for his acerbic opinions and typically keen insight, his absence from last month's historic first Test in Cardiff was ample proof of his new priorities. Instead of fronting up at Sophia Gardens, Warne spent the week holed up in the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, competing in the World Series of Poker - the single most prestigious tournament on the circuit - and coming within a whisker of taking the event by storm.
It's a safe bet that, somewhere in a quiet corner of the England and Australia dressing rooms on a frustrating first day at Edgbaston, a deck of cards and a stack of chips were brought out of someone's coffin, as the players whiled away the washed-out hours in traditional fashion. In his retirement speech on the eve of the Ashes, Michael Vaughan said that the England squad's regular poker games at the back of the team bus were an aspect of his professional life that he would particularly miss, while in London last month, Warne and Darren Gough brought the two pastimes together under one banner, and led their respective countries in the inaugural Poker Ashes, a contest that finished in a familiar 4-1 Australian victory.
"I see a lot of similarities between poker and cricket, and I thoroughly enjoy them both," Warne told Cricinfo. "People associate poker with gambling, but that's not actually the case. Tournament poker, which is what I play, is completely different to playing at home or in a re-buy tournament, and it has actually been deemed in a court of law a sport and a game of skill. It's all about reading your opponents, it's all about when you think they are bluffing and when they are not, it's about table image, and position on the table, and playing the percentages. There's a real sense of satisfaction about risking your chips and making a great call, or making a great lay-down when you're behind, Playing your cards right gives a massive sense of satisfaction."
Poker, like cricket, has a wealth of jargon designed to baffle the uninitiated, but when you cut through Warne's complicated turns of phrase, it's self-evident why he is so well suited to this alternative form of cut-and-thrust. When you think of the traits that turned him into arguably the greatest match-winner of his generation, there's more at play than merely his peerless ability to spin a cricket ball on all surfaces. There was the showmanship that he brought to his game - the strut and confidence with which he set his fields and controlled the tempo of the innings, the look of incredulity after each delivery that failed to take a wicket, the absolute confidence that he, and only he, had the power to dictate the direction of a match.
"It's all about reading your opponents, it's all about when you think they are bluffing and when they are not"
There was his ability to seize the slightest moment of weakness in a team (especially England, who were in thrall of him from the very first ball he bowled in Ashes cricket) or an individual (for instance, Daryl Cullinan, who was effortlessly out-psyched throughout their jousts in the mid-1990s). And there was his ability to adapt his game to suit the needs of the hour, never more memorably than at Adelaide in 2006-07, when he took his licks from Kevin Pietersen during a humiliating first-innings return of 1 for 167, only to strike with lethal speed and intent on that irresistible final day, when at last the cards fell in his favour.
"There's a huge element of skill and tactics involved in poker, and that's one of the things I enjoyed with cricket," said Warne. "The tactical side, the gamesmanship involved, when to push your opponent around and when not to, when to huff and puff and when not to. I'd like to be as successful on the poker table as the cricket field, but I think I've got a few years to go before that happens.
"Days at big tournaments are pretty tough," he added. "Before my first World Series [in 2008] I played in three or four Aussie Millions, a tournament in South Africa and a European World Series, and they are all long days in which you have to concentrate from first hand to last, and in that respect it's just like cricket as well. You have five two-hour sessions, and every two hours you have 20 minutes off. That adds up to 12- or 13-hour days, which start at 12pm and finish at 1 o'clock in the morning." His Test-match instincts could hardly have honed him to better effect.
The basic rules of Texas hold'em poker, the world's most popular form of the game, are simple enough to grasp. Each player is dealt two cards, upon which they make an initial judgment on whether to bet or to fold (and as a rule, picture cards or pairs are the likeliest route to success). After an opening round of betting, the first three of five community cards are dealt in the middle of the table ("the flop"), followed by "the turn" and "the river", each punctuated with another round of betting. The aim of the game is to create (or give the impression you've created) the strongest five-card hand from the seven cards available, just as the aim of cricket is to score more runs than the opposition. But as with both games, the devil is in the details.
"The more tournaments you play, the more you get to understand the tactics, and you don't get intimidated when the big heavies are at play," said Warne. "One of my tables [at the WSOP] was described as the table of death. I started on 19,000 chips with six really aggressive pros at the table, but I managed to get down at 100,000 and then walked away at the end of the day in 24th position overall, and more than 173,000 in chips. You don't just do that by luck. There's a lot of strategy at play."
Dealing with aggression, particularly of the batting variety, is something Warne proved long ago he was a past master at. While fast bowlers have their own aggressive tendencies to throw back at belligerent opponents, Warne could only rely on his innate skill and deeply considered strategies to stay in command of the situation. Given that he has been a card-player for as long as he can remember (he and his brother Jason used to play for matchsticks while their parents hosted Friday-night card games) you sometimes wonder in which direction his skills have travelled.
You've gotta schmooze: Warne with Matt Damon at the World Series of Poker © 888.com
But even Warne was not an instant success at Test level. On debut against India in January 1992, he was clattered around the SCG for figures of 1 for 150, and it wasn't until the tour of Sri Lanka eight months later that he came up with the performance that confirmed he could mix it with the big boys. His final-day figures of 3 for 11 inched Australia to a remarkable 16-run victory, and from that moment on there was no stopping the momentum of his career.
"I had to try and hide my nerves in my first Test, and in poker the same thing applies," he said. "When I played my first Aussie Millions tournament in 2004-05, sure, I was nervous, but I pulled off a bluff on the flop, and won my first pot, and once I'd got over that, I started to feel okay. After that, you can start to understand the tables a bit more, and establish your own table image, and then you can begin to work out who the pros are, and who the weak players on the table are. Hopefully the weak players steal the good players' chips, and then you steal the weak players' chips! But it takes a while to work all that out."
And when it comes to stealing weak players' chips, that is where the bluff comes into its own. "A bluff is all about telling a story," said Warne. "You have pick the right opponent, and set it up right from the word go, pre-flop. It's about representing strength. You have to fire again on the flop, and fire again on the turn, and expect some action on the river, and actually have the strength to do that. It takes a fair amount of skill to actually back your bluff up, or if you're halfway through a bluff and you realise you haven't got the best hand after all, you have to have the skill to know that too, and lay it down."
Once again, the parallels with Warne's Test career are self-evident. Take, for instance, the occasions (usually before an Ashes series) when he would announce to the world that he had developed a new and mysterious delivery, such as the zooter, which nobody to this day is sure ever actually existed. "I vary my play depending on what table I'm at," he said. "If I'm at a super-aggressive table, I just play tight, and try to pick my mark, and wait for someone to try to take me off a hand that I've actually hit. But if I'm at a tight table, I play aggressive, because I'm a pretty aggressive player full stop, which probably doesn't come as much of a surprise!"
All the same, there's a subtle difference between aggression and blind recklessness, and as far as Warne is concerned, the greatest pride he takes from his play comes on the occasions he actually has to admit defeat - which he never knowingly conceded on the cricket field. "It's really tough to do, but it gives you great satisfaction when you make a great lay-down," he said. "Sometimes you don't find out whether you were beat, but usually, about five seconds after a hand has finished, you generally get an instinct or a gut feel that it wasn't on, just by your opponent's reaction. He'll look down at his chips or he'll swallow, all those little tells that say you got away with one, and actually made a great decision."
Sometimes, however, even the best calls don't work out in your favour - as Warne, to his chagrin, discovered in Las Vegas this month. The manner in which he was eliminated on the third day of the World Series still brings him out in a grimace, but typical of his sporting career, he refuses to take a backward step. Here, in his own words, is his tale of World Series woe:
"Hopefully the weak players steal the good players' chips, and then you steal the weak players' chips!"
"About an hour into the day's play, a guy in middle position raised four times the blind, I called on the button with J10 hearts. The flop came 7, Q, K hearts. I think I'm good. He checks, I bet the pot, he calls, the turn card comes a spade. He bets the pot, and has about 70,000 left in his chip stack. I put him all in. He calls and turns over a set, he's got three kings. I'm good, I'm miles ahead, but then he beats the bullet with a queen on the river, and that crippled my stack."
In layman's terms, Warne was brutally unlucky. After the first four cards of the crucial hand had been dealt, he was sitting pretty with a king-high flush, which meant, at that stage, the only hand that could have beaten him was one involving two further hearts, one of which had to be an ace. When the two players laid their cards out on the table for "the race", the only way his opponent could escape was if the river produced the last remaining K, to complete four-of-a-kind, or paired up with one of the other cards on the table, for a full house. The odds were therefore roughly 4 to 1 in Warne's favour, and had he won the pot of 300,000 chips, he would have been propelled up to fifth in the chip count, from an initial field of nearly 6500 competitors.
"People say poker is all about luck, but it's not about good luck, it's about not getting unlucky," he said. "Four out of the five times I risked all my chips at the World Series, I actually had the best hand. The fifth and final time came right at the end of my tournament, after I had waited an hour with my last 20,000 chips. I went all-in with a pair of eights, and when the flop came 4 2 6 rainbow [a variety of different suits] I was looking pretty good. But I ran into a pair of aces, and that summed my day up. I copped some pretty ordinary beats."
There's no question, however, that Warne will be back for another crack next year. With the best players in the world, a buy-in of $10,000, and an outlay of US$70 million in sponsorship and TV rights, the World Series of Poker is a massive event, and as prestigious in its own way as any cricket contest he's ever played in. "The winner of the WSOP gets more than $10 million, and I can't think of any individual sporting prize in the world that pays out that amount," said Warne. "You might get a million dollars for winning Wimbledon, or three or four million for a golf tournament, but $10 million is massive."
So too is his desire to turn a lifelong hobby into a career every bit as illustrious as the one he is leaving behind on the cricket field. In only one aspect does his outlook to poker seem to differ, however. "I just stick to my game, and don't worry much about the verbals," he said. "If a conversation comes up I might get involved, but usually I just stick my headphones on, and that's it." If, one day, we spot Warne goading Phil Ivey to "have a go, go on, you know you want to," in the manner in which he destroyed Mark Ramprakash at Trent Bridge in 2001, then maybe we'll know for sure that he really has arrived as a poker star.
888.com is offering cricket lovers the opportunity of a lifetime - a net session with Shane Warne. The king of spin will visit one lucky cricket club and put the players through their paces as he shows off the skills that earned him 708 Test wickets. Warne is looking for a group of cricketers who share his passion for poker. For full information on how to enter, please email Shanewarne@888.com
Andrew Miller is UK editor of Cricinfo
Andrew Miller
July 31, 2009
"I see a lot of similarities between poker and cricket, and I thoroughly enjoy them both" © 888.com
When great sportsmen retire, they often find it hard to carve a new niche in life. Some find solace in coaching or commentary, but many drift listlessly into middle age, unable to find a suitable outlet for the competitive instincts that drove them to the peak of their professions. Not for the first time in his life, however, Shane Warne has taken it upon himself to buck convention. His 40th birthday is fast approaching at the end of the summer, but far from dwelling on past glories, he has immersed himself in a second career that promises a whole new wave of fame, fortune and razor-sharp gameplay.
The world of professional poker is where Warne's passions reside these days, and it's hard to imagine a cricketer more likely to succeed in such a glitzy and unfamiliar world. While his punditry during Sky Sports' Ashes coverage has been lauded for his acerbic opinions and typically keen insight, his absence from last month's historic first Test in Cardiff was ample proof of his new priorities. Instead of fronting up at Sophia Gardens, Warne spent the week holed up in the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, competing in the World Series of Poker - the single most prestigious tournament on the circuit - and coming within a whisker of taking the event by storm.
It's a safe bet that, somewhere in a quiet corner of the England and Australia dressing rooms on a frustrating first day at Edgbaston, a deck of cards and a stack of chips were brought out of someone's coffin, as the players whiled away the washed-out hours in traditional fashion. In his retirement speech on the eve of the Ashes, Michael Vaughan said that the England squad's regular poker games at the back of the team bus were an aspect of his professional life that he would particularly miss, while in London last month, Warne and Darren Gough brought the two pastimes together under one banner, and led their respective countries in the inaugural Poker Ashes, a contest that finished in a familiar 4-1 Australian victory.
"I see a lot of similarities between poker and cricket, and I thoroughly enjoy them both," Warne told Cricinfo. "People associate poker with gambling, but that's not actually the case. Tournament poker, which is what I play, is completely different to playing at home or in a re-buy tournament, and it has actually been deemed in a court of law a sport and a game of skill. It's all about reading your opponents, it's all about when you think they are bluffing and when they are not, it's about table image, and position on the table, and playing the percentages. There's a real sense of satisfaction about risking your chips and making a great call, or making a great lay-down when you're behind, Playing your cards right gives a massive sense of satisfaction."
Poker, like cricket, has a wealth of jargon designed to baffle the uninitiated, but when you cut through Warne's complicated turns of phrase, it's self-evident why he is so well suited to this alternative form of cut-and-thrust. When you think of the traits that turned him into arguably the greatest match-winner of his generation, there's more at play than merely his peerless ability to spin a cricket ball on all surfaces. There was the showmanship that he brought to his game - the strut and confidence with which he set his fields and controlled the tempo of the innings, the look of incredulity after each delivery that failed to take a wicket, the absolute confidence that he, and only he, had the power to dictate the direction of a match.
"It's all about reading your opponents, it's all about when you think they are bluffing and when they are not"
There was his ability to seize the slightest moment of weakness in a team (especially England, who were in thrall of him from the very first ball he bowled in Ashes cricket) or an individual (for instance, Daryl Cullinan, who was effortlessly out-psyched throughout their jousts in the mid-1990s). And there was his ability to adapt his game to suit the needs of the hour, never more memorably than at Adelaide in 2006-07, when he took his licks from Kevin Pietersen during a humiliating first-innings return of 1 for 167, only to strike with lethal speed and intent on that irresistible final day, when at last the cards fell in his favour.
"There's a huge element of skill and tactics involved in poker, and that's one of the things I enjoyed with cricket," said Warne. "The tactical side, the gamesmanship involved, when to push your opponent around and when not to, when to huff and puff and when not to. I'd like to be as successful on the poker table as the cricket field, but I think I've got a few years to go before that happens.
"Days at big tournaments are pretty tough," he added. "Before my first World Series [in 2008] I played in three or four Aussie Millions, a tournament in South Africa and a European World Series, and they are all long days in which you have to concentrate from first hand to last, and in that respect it's just like cricket as well. You have five two-hour sessions, and every two hours you have 20 minutes off. That adds up to 12- or 13-hour days, which start at 12pm and finish at 1 o'clock in the morning." His Test-match instincts could hardly have honed him to better effect.
The basic rules of Texas hold'em poker, the world's most popular form of the game, are simple enough to grasp. Each player is dealt two cards, upon which they make an initial judgment on whether to bet or to fold (and as a rule, picture cards or pairs are the likeliest route to success). After an opening round of betting, the first three of five community cards are dealt in the middle of the table ("the flop"), followed by "the turn" and "the river", each punctuated with another round of betting. The aim of the game is to create (or give the impression you've created) the strongest five-card hand from the seven cards available, just as the aim of cricket is to score more runs than the opposition. But as with both games, the devil is in the details.
"The more tournaments you play, the more you get to understand the tactics, and you don't get intimidated when the big heavies are at play," said Warne. "One of my tables [at the WSOP] was described as the table of death. I started on 19,000 chips with six really aggressive pros at the table, but I managed to get down at 100,000 and then walked away at the end of the day in 24th position overall, and more than 173,000 in chips. You don't just do that by luck. There's a lot of strategy at play."
Dealing with aggression, particularly of the batting variety, is something Warne proved long ago he was a past master at. While fast bowlers have their own aggressive tendencies to throw back at belligerent opponents, Warne could only rely on his innate skill and deeply considered strategies to stay in command of the situation. Given that he has been a card-player for as long as he can remember (he and his brother Jason used to play for matchsticks while their parents hosted Friday-night card games) you sometimes wonder in which direction his skills have travelled.
You've gotta schmooze: Warne with Matt Damon at the World Series of Poker © 888.com
But even Warne was not an instant success at Test level. On debut against India in January 1992, he was clattered around the SCG for figures of 1 for 150, and it wasn't until the tour of Sri Lanka eight months later that he came up with the performance that confirmed he could mix it with the big boys. His final-day figures of 3 for 11 inched Australia to a remarkable 16-run victory, and from that moment on there was no stopping the momentum of his career.
"I had to try and hide my nerves in my first Test, and in poker the same thing applies," he said. "When I played my first Aussie Millions tournament in 2004-05, sure, I was nervous, but I pulled off a bluff on the flop, and won my first pot, and once I'd got over that, I started to feel okay. After that, you can start to understand the tables a bit more, and establish your own table image, and then you can begin to work out who the pros are, and who the weak players on the table are. Hopefully the weak players steal the good players' chips, and then you steal the weak players' chips! But it takes a while to work all that out."
And when it comes to stealing weak players' chips, that is where the bluff comes into its own. "A bluff is all about telling a story," said Warne. "You have pick the right opponent, and set it up right from the word go, pre-flop. It's about representing strength. You have to fire again on the flop, and fire again on the turn, and expect some action on the river, and actually have the strength to do that. It takes a fair amount of skill to actually back your bluff up, or if you're halfway through a bluff and you realise you haven't got the best hand after all, you have to have the skill to know that too, and lay it down."
Once again, the parallels with Warne's Test career are self-evident. Take, for instance, the occasions (usually before an Ashes series) when he would announce to the world that he had developed a new and mysterious delivery, such as the zooter, which nobody to this day is sure ever actually existed. "I vary my play depending on what table I'm at," he said. "If I'm at a super-aggressive table, I just play tight, and try to pick my mark, and wait for someone to try to take me off a hand that I've actually hit. But if I'm at a tight table, I play aggressive, because I'm a pretty aggressive player full stop, which probably doesn't come as much of a surprise!"
All the same, there's a subtle difference between aggression and blind recklessness, and as far as Warne is concerned, the greatest pride he takes from his play comes on the occasions he actually has to admit defeat - which he never knowingly conceded on the cricket field. "It's really tough to do, but it gives you great satisfaction when you make a great lay-down," he said. "Sometimes you don't find out whether you were beat, but usually, about five seconds after a hand has finished, you generally get an instinct or a gut feel that it wasn't on, just by your opponent's reaction. He'll look down at his chips or he'll swallow, all those little tells that say you got away with one, and actually made a great decision."
Sometimes, however, even the best calls don't work out in your favour - as Warne, to his chagrin, discovered in Las Vegas this month. The manner in which he was eliminated on the third day of the World Series still brings him out in a grimace, but typical of his sporting career, he refuses to take a backward step. Here, in his own words, is his tale of World Series woe:
"Hopefully the weak players steal the good players' chips, and then you steal the weak players' chips!"
"About an hour into the day's play, a guy in middle position raised four times the blind, I called on the button with J10 hearts. The flop came 7, Q, K hearts. I think I'm good. He checks, I bet the pot, he calls, the turn card comes a spade. He bets the pot, and has about 70,000 left in his chip stack. I put him all in. He calls and turns over a set, he's got three kings. I'm good, I'm miles ahead, but then he beats the bullet with a queen on the river, and that crippled my stack."
In layman's terms, Warne was brutally unlucky. After the first four cards of the crucial hand had been dealt, he was sitting pretty with a king-high flush, which meant, at that stage, the only hand that could have beaten him was one involving two further hearts, one of which had to be an ace. When the two players laid their cards out on the table for "the race", the only way his opponent could escape was if the river produced the last remaining K, to complete four-of-a-kind, or paired up with one of the other cards on the table, for a full house. The odds were therefore roughly 4 to 1 in Warne's favour, and had he won the pot of 300,000 chips, he would have been propelled up to fifth in the chip count, from an initial field of nearly 6500 competitors.
"People say poker is all about luck, but it's not about good luck, it's about not getting unlucky," he said. "Four out of the five times I risked all my chips at the World Series, I actually had the best hand. The fifth and final time came right at the end of my tournament, after I had waited an hour with my last 20,000 chips. I went all-in with a pair of eights, and when the flop came 4 2 6 rainbow [a variety of different suits] I was looking pretty good. But I ran into a pair of aces, and that summed my day up. I copped some pretty ordinary beats."
There's no question, however, that Warne will be back for another crack next year. With the best players in the world, a buy-in of $10,000, and an outlay of US$70 million in sponsorship and TV rights, the World Series of Poker is a massive event, and as prestigious in its own way as any cricket contest he's ever played in. "The winner of the WSOP gets more than $10 million, and I can't think of any individual sporting prize in the world that pays out that amount," said Warne. "You might get a million dollars for winning Wimbledon, or three or four million for a golf tournament, but $10 million is massive."
So too is his desire to turn a lifelong hobby into a career every bit as illustrious as the one he is leaving behind on the cricket field. In only one aspect does his outlook to poker seem to differ, however. "I just stick to my game, and don't worry much about the verbals," he said. "If a conversation comes up I might get involved, but usually I just stick my headphones on, and that's it." If, one day, we spot Warne goading Phil Ivey to "have a go, go on, you know you want to," in the manner in which he destroyed Mark Ramprakash at Trent Bridge in 2001, then maybe we'll know for sure that he really has arrived as a poker star.
888.com is offering cricket lovers the opportunity of a lifetime - a net session with Shane Warne. The king of spin will visit one lucky cricket club and put the players through their paces as he shows off the skills that earned him 708 Test wickets. Warne is looking for a group of cricketers who share his passion for poker. For full information on how to enter, please email Shanewarne@888.com
Andrew Miller is UK editor of Cricinfo
Friday, 31 July 2009
What might the world look like if the bailout works? Like Sarah Palin.
She was the last clear expression of capitalism-as-usual. And if we waste this chance, it will be back to drill-baby-drill
Naomi Klein guardian.co.uk, Thursday 30 July 2009 19.30 BST
The US bailout is a robbery in progress, the greatest heist in monetary history. But consider for a moment: what if it actually works, what if the financial sector is saved and the economy returns to the course it was on before the crisis struck? Is that what we want? And what would that world look like?
The answer is that it would look like Sarah Palin. Hear me out – this is not a joke. We're so busy laughing at her we may not have given sufficient consideration to the meaning of the Palin moment. Think about it, Sarah Palin stepped on to the world stage as vice-presidential candidate on 29 August 2008 at a McCain campaign rally. Two weeks later, on 15 September, Lehman Brothers collapsed, triggering the global financial meltdown.
So in a way Palin was the last clear expression of capitalism-as-usual before everything went south. That's quite helpful because she showed us – in that plain-spoken way of hers – the trajectory the US economy was on before its current meltdown. By offering us this glimpse of a future, one narrowly avoided, Palin provides us with an opportunity to ask a core question: do we want to save that pre-crisis system? Or do we want to use this crisis, and the electoral mandate for serious change delivered by the last election, to radically transform the system? Progressives need to get clear on our answer now because we haven't had the potent combination of a serious crisis and a clear progressive democratic mandate for change since the 1930s. We use this opportunity, or we lose it.
So what was Sarah Palin telling us about capitalism-as-usual before she was so rudely interrupted by the meltdown? Let's first recall that before she came along, the US public, at long last, was starting to come to grips with the urgency of the climate crisis, with the fact that our economic activity is at war with the planet, that radical change is needed immediately. We were actually having that conversation, and polar bears were on the cover of Newsweek magazine. And then in walked Sarah Palin. The core of her message was this: those environmentalists, those liberals, those do-gooders are all wrong. You don't have to change anything. You don't have to rethink anything. Keep driving your gas-guzzling car and keep going to Wal-Mart. The reason is a magical place called Alaska. Just come up here and take all you want. "Americans," she said at the Republican National Convention, "we need to produce more of our own oil and gas. Take it from a gal who knows the North Slope of Alaska, we've got lots of both." And the crowd at the convention responded by chanting: "Drill, baby, drill."
Watching that scene on television, with its weird creepy mixture of sex and oil and jingoism, I recall thinking: "Wow, the RNC has turned into a rally in favour of screwing Planet Earth." Literally.
It's not a question of whether Americans are nuts enough to elect Palin in 2012. What Palin was saying is what is built into the very DNA of capitalism: the idea that the world has no limits. She was saying that there are no such things as consequences, or real-world deficits. Because there will always be another frontier, another bubble, another Alaska. Just move on and discover it. Tomorrow will never come.
This is the most comforting and dangerous lie that there is: the lie that perpetual, unending growth is possible on our finite planet. And we have to remember that this message was incredibly popular in those first two weeks, before Lehman collapsed. Despite Bush's record, Palin and McCain were pulling ahead. And if it weren't for the financial crisis, and for the fact that Obama started connecting with working-class voters by putting deregulation and trickle-down economics on trial, they might have actually won.
The president tells us he wants to look forward, not backwards. But in order to confront the lie of perpetual growth and limitless abundance that is at the centre of both the ecological and financial crises, we have to look backwards. And we have to look way backwards, not just to the past eight years of Bush and Cheney, but to the very founding of the US, to the whole idea of the settler state.
Modern capitalism was born with the so-called discovery of the Americas. It was the pillage of the incredible natural resources of the Americas that generated the excess capital that made the Industrial Revolution possible.
Early explorers spoke of a New Jerusalem, a land of such bottomless abundance, there for the taking, so vast that the pillage would never have to end. This mythology is in our biblical stories – of floods and fresh starts, of raptures and rescues – and it is at the centre of the American Dream of constant reinvention. What this myth tells us is that we don't have to live with our pasts, with the consequences of our actions. We can always escape, start over.
These stories were always dangerous, of course, to the people who were already living on the "discovered" lands, to the people who worked them through forced labour. But now the planet itself is telling us that we cannot afford these stories of endless new beginnings anymore. That is why it is so significant that at the very moment when some kind of human survival instinct kicked in, and we seemed finally to be coming to grips with the Earth's natural limits, along came Palin, the new and shiny incarnation of the colonial frontierswoman, saying: Come on up to Alaska. There is always more. Don't think, just take.
This is not about Sarah Palin. It's about the meaning of that myth of constant "discovery", and what it tells us about the economic system that they're spending trillions of dollars to save. What it tells us is that capitalism, left to its own devices, will push us past the point from which the climate can recover. And capitalism will avoid a serious accounting – whether of its financial debts or its ecological debts – at all costs. Because there's always more. A new quick fix. A new frontier.
The question that we face is whether our job is to bail out this ship, the biggest pirate ship that ever was, or to sink it and replace it with a sturdier vessel, one with space for everyone? One that doesn't require these ritual purges, during which we throw our friends and neighbours overboard to save the people in first class. One that understands that the Earth doesn't have the capacity for all of us to live better and better. But it does have the capacity, as the Bolivian president, Evo Morales, said recently at the UN, "for all of us to live well".
Because make no mistake, capitalism will be back. And the same message will return, though there may be someone new selling that message: You don't need to change. Keep consuming all you want. There's plenty more. Drill, baby, drill. Maybe there will be some technological fix that will make all our problems disappear.
And that is why we need to be absolutely clear right now. Capitalism can survive this crisis. But the world can't survive another capitalist comeback.
This is an edited version of a speech from The Progressive's 100th anniversary conference. A longer version is in the August edition of the Progressive magazine
Naomi Klein guardian.co.uk, Thursday 30 July 2009 19.30 BST
The US bailout is a robbery in progress, the greatest heist in monetary history. But consider for a moment: what if it actually works, what if the financial sector is saved and the economy returns to the course it was on before the crisis struck? Is that what we want? And what would that world look like?
The answer is that it would look like Sarah Palin. Hear me out – this is not a joke. We're so busy laughing at her we may not have given sufficient consideration to the meaning of the Palin moment. Think about it, Sarah Palin stepped on to the world stage as vice-presidential candidate on 29 August 2008 at a McCain campaign rally. Two weeks later, on 15 September, Lehman Brothers collapsed, triggering the global financial meltdown.
So in a way Palin was the last clear expression of capitalism-as-usual before everything went south. That's quite helpful because she showed us – in that plain-spoken way of hers – the trajectory the US economy was on before its current meltdown. By offering us this glimpse of a future, one narrowly avoided, Palin provides us with an opportunity to ask a core question: do we want to save that pre-crisis system? Or do we want to use this crisis, and the electoral mandate for serious change delivered by the last election, to radically transform the system? Progressives need to get clear on our answer now because we haven't had the potent combination of a serious crisis and a clear progressive democratic mandate for change since the 1930s. We use this opportunity, or we lose it.
So what was Sarah Palin telling us about capitalism-as-usual before she was so rudely interrupted by the meltdown? Let's first recall that before she came along, the US public, at long last, was starting to come to grips with the urgency of the climate crisis, with the fact that our economic activity is at war with the planet, that radical change is needed immediately. We were actually having that conversation, and polar bears were on the cover of Newsweek magazine. And then in walked Sarah Palin. The core of her message was this: those environmentalists, those liberals, those do-gooders are all wrong. You don't have to change anything. You don't have to rethink anything. Keep driving your gas-guzzling car and keep going to Wal-Mart. The reason is a magical place called Alaska. Just come up here and take all you want. "Americans," she said at the Republican National Convention, "we need to produce more of our own oil and gas. Take it from a gal who knows the North Slope of Alaska, we've got lots of both." And the crowd at the convention responded by chanting: "Drill, baby, drill."
Watching that scene on television, with its weird creepy mixture of sex and oil and jingoism, I recall thinking: "Wow, the RNC has turned into a rally in favour of screwing Planet Earth." Literally.
It's not a question of whether Americans are nuts enough to elect Palin in 2012. What Palin was saying is what is built into the very DNA of capitalism: the idea that the world has no limits. She was saying that there are no such things as consequences, or real-world deficits. Because there will always be another frontier, another bubble, another Alaska. Just move on and discover it. Tomorrow will never come.
This is the most comforting and dangerous lie that there is: the lie that perpetual, unending growth is possible on our finite planet. And we have to remember that this message was incredibly popular in those first two weeks, before Lehman collapsed. Despite Bush's record, Palin and McCain were pulling ahead. And if it weren't for the financial crisis, and for the fact that Obama started connecting with working-class voters by putting deregulation and trickle-down economics on trial, they might have actually won.
The president tells us he wants to look forward, not backwards. But in order to confront the lie of perpetual growth and limitless abundance that is at the centre of both the ecological and financial crises, we have to look backwards. And we have to look way backwards, not just to the past eight years of Bush and Cheney, but to the very founding of the US, to the whole idea of the settler state.
Modern capitalism was born with the so-called discovery of the Americas. It was the pillage of the incredible natural resources of the Americas that generated the excess capital that made the Industrial Revolution possible.
Early explorers spoke of a New Jerusalem, a land of such bottomless abundance, there for the taking, so vast that the pillage would never have to end. This mythology is in our biblical stories – of floods and fresh starts, of raptures and rescues – and it is at the centre of the American Dream of constant reinvention. What this myth tells us is that we don't have to live with our pasts, with the consequences of our actions. We can always escape, start over.
These stories were always dangerous, of course, to the people who were already living on the "discovered" lands, to the people who worked them through forced labour. But now the planet itself is telling us that we cannot afford these stories of endless new beginnings anymore. That is why it is so significant that at the very moment when some kind of human survival instinct kicked in, and we seemed finally to be coming to grips with the Earth's natural limits, along came Palin, the new and shiny incarnation of the colonial frontierswoman, saying: Come on up to Alaska. There is always more. Don't think, just take.
This is not about Sarah Palin. It's about the meaning of that myth of constant "discovery", and what it tells us about the economic system that they're spending trillions of dollars to save. What it tells us is that capitalism, left to its own devices, will push us past the point from which the climate can recover. And capitalism will avoid a serious accounting – whether of its financial debts or its ecological debts – at all costs. Because there's always more. A new quick fix. A new frontier.
The question that we face is whether our job is to bail out this ship, the biggest pirate ship that ever was, or to sink it and replace it with a sturdier vessel, one with space for everyone? One that doesn't require these ritual purges, during which we throw our friends and neighbours overboard to save the people in first class. One that understands that the Earth doesn't have the capacity for all of us to live better and better. But it does have the capacity, as the Bolivian president, Evo Morales, said recently at the UN, "for all of us to live well".
Because make no mistake, capitalism will be back. And the same message will return, though there may be someone new selling that message: You don't need to change. Keep consuming all you want. There's plenty more. Drill, baby, drill. Maybe there will be some technological fix that will make all our problems disappear.
And that is why we need to be absolutely clear right now. Capitalism can survive this crisis. But the world can't survive another capitalist comeback.
This is an edited version of a speech from The Progressive's 100th anniversary conference. A longer version is in the August edition of the Progressive magazine
Thursday, 30 July 2009
Join the Army, be a Batman
Manas Gupta
Tuesday July 28, 2009
It's one way to serve the country. Join the Indian Army as a soldier, train to be a lean, mean fighting machine, and spend half your time polishing shoes of officers, serving their wives tea or taking their dogs for walks. And they call you a Batman.
Unfortunately, you aren't the caped crusader from Gotham City with a million gadgets and a fancy car…unless your uniform includes a cape while watering the colonel sahab's plants.
It may have been a colonial hangover in the beginning, but it's something the Army has steadfastly refused to do away with. The parliamentary standing committee hit the nail on the head when it said "the committee hardly needs to stress that jawans are recruited for serving the nation and not to serve family members of officers in household work, which is humiliating.''
Seriously? You mean soldiers actually have to learn to fire weapons and guard our borders. And all this while I thought they were being groomed for the hospitality industry.
Unfortunately, even our government wants these soldiers to continue working as officers' 'maids'. The centre has rejected the parliamentary committee's recommendation that officers should make do without orderlies.
There's no denying that our Army is professional and well-trained and prides itself on its war record. But fighting abilities somehow don't seem to go with dish-washing talents. But with an employment crunch staring India in the face, perhaps institutions could come up with diplomas in sweeping, gardening, car-washing, dog-walking etc and the gentlemen holding these diplomas could get a direct entry as brave Batmen ready to show 'courage under fire'. I guess the only fire some of them may face may be in the kitchen.
The army feels an officer gets a sahayak for the upkeep of his uniform, weapons and other equipment, as also act as his radio operator and ''buddy'' during combat. So, let me get this straight. An Army officer, who undergoes such rigorous training and is responsible for a large body of men under his command, can't even take care of his own uniform? He needs his 'sahayak' to polish his shoes and iron his clothes? Anyway, why would your 'radio operator' be with you 24x7 dusting your drawing room or getting 'baba' from school. Maybe he'll radio from school to inform 'sahab' that his son has reached school.
I don't want to deride the courageous officers of the Indian Army. We all know how bravely many of them fought on the borders. But that doesn't mean his perks should include treating a fellow soldier as a personal servant. All Army formations have been told to ensure sahayaks are not employed for ''menial household work'' since as combatant soldiers they should not be used for anything which adversely impacts their dignity and self-respect. Question is who's following this new rule?
In the late 90s, I was staying in Army Cantonment, Jaipur. The Army Chief came on a visit and in his speech advised the officers to avoid treating soldiers as orderlies and misusing Army rules and benefits. At that very time, barely a km from the venue, three tents had been set up outside a 'separated family accommodation'. In these tents were staying 4 soldiers of a particular regiment sent from J&K by the commanding officer of their unit to look after his family in Jaipur. What medals would they have taken home?
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