A force called Kohli

He's in inexorable form, but his best is still ahead of him, and that is a forbidding thought for the bowlers he comes up against

Martin Crowe in Cricinfo

February 4, 2014

 

	Kohli and Pujara hold the key to India's fortunes in the Tests against New Zealand © Associated Press  Enlarge
Related Links Players/Officials: Virat Kohli | Sachin Tendulkar | Rahul Dravid| Cheteshwar Pujara | Virender Sehwag Series/Tournaments: India tour of New Zealand Teams: India | New Zealand

"The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."
- Anaïs Nin

When I consider this wonderful insight from the great American author, I wonder about what it takes to fulfil one's own "greatness", to blossom, bringing alive the very depths of one's soul. When I read Nin again and she says, "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage", I start to understand what can truly take us forward, beyond the ordinary, into the realm of greatness.

India are a vast energy, a thriving modern-day eruption. They are forcing their will on the world, in particular on the cricket world. Sachin Tendulkar did it for nearly two and half decades with a keen eye and trusty blade, transfixing all of us with his serenity and his strokes. He was the king of great. Around him emerged more versions of it - Rahul Dravid andVirender Sehwag, for example. Yet it was Sachin who spread the word loud and afar.

And with his departure rises Virat Kohli. In some ways this young giant is a combination of all those three, learning a bit from them all to shape his own unique creation. He is the next chosen one. He exudes the intensity of Rahul, the audacity of Virender, and the extraordinary range of Sachin. That doesn't make him better, simply sui generis, his own unique kind.

In many ways, he follows the essence of life: loving what he does and doing what he loves, and learning all he can, often at a rapid pace. Kohli has gone from pupil to teacher quickly, and his next level is to become a master. That he will achieve. It's in his eyes.

I watched this young 19-year-old when he joined Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2008, for the inaugural IPL. He was bursting to impress. Often he fell victim to his own seduction, his growing, glowing image, mixed in with his confusion about who to bat and be like, as he had so many choices. I often encouraged him to simply play straighter, be wiser in shot selection, put the odds more in his favour. Alas, he was too young, and rather than listen to a crusty old stager from god knows where, he was intent on being like the heroes of the day and indulging in the new rage of sending the ball into orbit.

Over time, he found that his own style and his stamp and signature were more than enough for him to hold his own. His ownership of the No. 3 position in the Indian one-day team has secured his legacy long term; now he just needs to go to the well day in and day out, to cement it.

His badge is one of courage. He is fiercely focused. He is often fiery and emotional, possibly a product of his upbringing in Delhi. Yes, a fire burns within, sometimes wildly. His aggressive streetfighting qualities are worn on his sleeve. He looks for a fight. He singles out opposition for face-to-face interrogation; he even confronts officials.

He will need to learn rapidly that to be a true leader and role model to millions all over the globe, the ugly stuff needs to be tamed, even put away, while retaining the right to find that balance of challenge and the correct conduct. It's an important lesson, one Sachin and Rahul will have taughtn him, yet his own restlessness is still dominant. Someone needs to guide him on this vital code.

At present he is a beacon in this rebuilding team, while some of those around him who have come in to fill the void left by the big three struggle to cope. Already he is the leader of the batting line-up, with just 22 Tests to his name, and so a huge responsibility beckons.

Kohli's audacity is shameless. He is bold and beautiful in his shot selection and his style. When in the mood he can carve anyone apart, just as Sehwag did when awoken. Kohli will need to be reminded of Sehwag, that temporary loss of form that came in patches and grew to become one patch at the end. He needs to keep working the engine and stoking the fire. He will, without question.

Not unsurprisingly, Kohli will have learned mostly from Sachin, and even if it isn't so obvious, it's slowly becoming clearer. His stance is more closed than Sachin's, resulting in the leg-side stroke played around the pad, yet it is straightening year by year. By the time he reaches full throttle in a couple of years he will be perfectly aligned, as the master was. His last-second tap of the bat as the bowler gathers is such a classic and vital element from the Sachin book. This last tap sends a spark of electricity through his body and his eyes, then feet, then through his flowing vortex sword, all coming alive as one. Every ball is treated with puissance, a mighty force.

	Kohli's audacity is shameless. He is bold and beautiful in his shot selection and his style. When in the mood he can carve anyone apart, just as Sehwag did when awoken

Kohli is forming an unprecedented record in one-dayers for scoring hundreds. The quest to do so in Test cricket is at hand. He has five so far in 37 innings, and should rightly correct that ratio, to one every six innings at least, as time unfolds. Natural, too, will be the desire to score double-hundreds, big daddies as they have become known. His positioning at four will be the ideal stage in which to show a prowess even Sachin would be proud of.

Helping his cause will be the indestructible Cheteshwar Pujara. They are the same age and have the same hunger to carry India as Dravid and Tendulkar did. They will bat together, carrying each other in the vein of the finest combos in the game. Pujara doesn't have the same range of strokes as Kohli, yet he has a vast reservoir of concentration and resolve. Kohli will pass his final exam, that of scoring the huge scores, by watching his more studious partner. This will complete his finishing-school education. From there, Kohli will master the world.

How will New Zealand dismiss these two in the coming weeks? Higher energy. They have to hit the Indian top order with absolute precision, pace, swing and accuracy, on or just outside stump. They must bowl one side of the wicket, use two lengths - the shoulder-high bouncer with muscle, and the one that hits the top of off stump with pump.

Muscle and pump. Anything else will be dispatched or manipulated. And they will need patience from session to session. Dismissing either Pujara or Kohli in under two hours' batting is a dagger in India's heart. If it doesn't come early on, the energy must not drop. This, in essence, is how you win Test matches.

Richard Hadlee did it with support from honest, resilient lieutenants and a surface with enough juice. He found his arousal level and paced it through the day. His last spell of the day could be just as telling and exacting as his first. This is the mentality Tim Southee, Trent Boult, Neil Wagner and Corey Anderson will need to execute in the two Tests ahead. If they don't, then they'd better learn fast.

It will be a fascinating series. Sadly, just as it hots up it will be over. It's a waste. Another example of wayward administration, but let's not go there. Instead, let's go to the Tests looking to experience a new breed of excellence: Kohli and Pujara against Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor.

Whoever scores the most hundreds between the four will hold the upper hand, for they will deny and dent the ability of the opposition's attack to clear out both innings to win. Whichever pair fails to notch the big scores or partnerships will allow the opposition the chance to penetrate the lesser mortals who surround these elite.

All four are in mesmeric form. It won't help the sleep patterns of the bowlers opposing them. Yet I am predicting the locals will sleep better in their own beds. For India the nightmare might just continue.

But then again there is that maturing force called Virat Kohli.

Did an undercover cop help organise a major riot?

The wrongly convicted activist John Jordan claims the Met helped plan serious civil disorder. An independent public inquiry is now vital

• 
• • George Monbiot
  • The Guardian, Monday 3 February 2014 20.30 GMT

Protesters attack a McDonald's in the City of London during the J18 Carnival Against Global Capitalism on 18 June 1999. Photograph: Sinead Lynch/EPA

From the Stephen Lawrence inquiry we learned that the police were institutionally racist. Can it be long before we learn that they are also institutionally corrupt? Almost every month the undercover policing scandal becomes wider and deeper. Today I can reveal a new twist, which in some respects could be the gravest episode yet. It surely makes the case for an independent public inquiry – which is already overwhelming – unarguable.

Before I explain it, here's a summary of what we know already. Thanks to the remarkable investigations pursued first by the victims of police spies and then by the Guardian journalists Rob Evans and Paul Lewis (whose book Undercover is as gripping as any thriller), we know that British police have been inserting undercover officers into protest movements since 1968. Their purpose was to counter what they called subversion or domestic extremism, which they define as seeking to "prevent something from happening or to change legislation or domestic policy … outside the normal democratic process". Which is a good description of how almost all progressive change happens.

Most of the groups whose infiltration has now been exposed were non-violent. Among them were the British campaign against apartheid in South Africa, the protest movements against climate change, people seeking to expose police corruption and the campaign for justice for the murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence. Undercover officers, often using the stolen identities of dead children, worked their way into key positions and helped to organise demonstrations. Several started long-term relationships with the people they spied on. At least two fathered children with them.

Some officers illegally used their false identities in court. Some acted as agents provocateurs. Seldom did they appear to be operating in the wider interests of society. They collected intelligence on trade unionists that was passed to an agency which compiled unlawful blacklists for construction companies, ensuring that those people could not find work. The policeman who infiltrated the Stephen Lawrence campaign was instructed by his superiors to "hunt for disinformation" about the family and their supporters that could be used to undermine them. When their tour of duty was over, the police abandoned their partners and their assumed identities and disappeared, leaving a trail of broken lives. As the unofficial motto of the original undercover squad stated, it would operate By Any Means Necessary.

The revelations so far have led to 56 people having their cases or convictions overturned, after police and prosecutors failed to disclose that officers had helped to plan and execute the protests for which people were being prosecuted. But we know the names of only 11 spies, out of 100-150, working for 46 years. Thousands of people might have been falsely prosecuted.

So far there have been 15 official inquiries and investigations. They seem to have served only to delay and distract. The report by Sir Christopher Rose into the false convictions of a group of climate change protesters concluded that failures by police and prosecutors to disclose essential information to the defence "were individual, not systemic" and that "nothing that I have seen or heard suggests that … there was any deliberate, still less dishonest, withholding of information". Now, after an almost identical case involving another group of climate activists, during which the judge remarked that there had been "a complete and total failure" to disclose evidence, Rose's findings look incredible.

The biggest inquiry still running, Operation Herne, is investigating alleged misconduct by the Metropolitan police. Of its 44 staff, 75% work for, er, the Metropolitan police. Its only decisive action so far has been to seek evidence for a prosecution under the Official Secrets Act of Peter Francis, the police whistleblower who has revealed key elements of this story. This looks like an attempt to discourage him from testifying, and to prevent other officers from coming forward.

Bad enough? You haven't heard the half of it. Last week, the activist John Jordan was told his conviction (for occupying the offices of London Transport) would be overturned. The Crown Prosecution Service refuses to reveal why, but it doubtless has something to do with the fact that one of Jordan's co-defendants turns out to have been Jim Boyling, a secret policeman working for the Met, who allegedly used his false identity in court.

Jordan has now made a further claim. He alleges that the same man helped organise a street party that went wrong and turned into the worst riot in London since the poll tax demonstrations. The J18 Carnival Against Global Capitalism on 18 June 1999 went well beyond non-violent protest. According to the police, 42 people were injured and over £1m of damage was done. One building was singled out: the London International Financial Futures Exchange (Liffe), where derivatives were traded. Though protesters entered the building at 1.40pm, the police did not arrive until 4.15pm.

After furious recriminations from the Lord Mayor and the people who ran the Liffe building, the City of London police conducted an inquiry. It admitted that their criticisms were justified, and that the police's performance was "highly unsatisfactory". The problem, it claimed, was that the police had no information about what the targets and plans of the protesters would be, and had no idea that Liffe was in the frame. The riot was "unforeseen".

Jordan was a member of "the logistics group that organised the tactics for J18. There were about 10 of us in the group and we met weekly for over six months." Among the other members, he says, was Boyling. "The 10 of us … were the only people who knew the whole plan before the day itself and who had decided that the main target would be Liffe." Boyling, he alleges, drove one of the two cars that were used to block the road to the building.

It is hard to think of a more serious allegation. For six months an undercover officer working for the Metropolitan police was instrumental in planning a major demonstration, which ended up causing injuries and serious damage to property. Yet the police appear to have failed to pass this intelligence to the City of London force, leaving the target of the protest unprotected.

Still no need for an independent public inquiry? Really?

Modern marriages aren’t made in heaven

Gurcharan Das in The Times of India

In the past few weeks, sexual tragedies have blighted some prominent and attractive lives. Sunanda Pushkar, wife of the writer and minister, Shashi Tharoor, died recently in Delhi. Around the same time, the French First Lady, Valerie Treirweiler, had to be hospitalized in Paris. Both events followed revelations of alleged sexual affairs. Sunanda Pushkar accused her husband of an intimate relationship with a Pakistani journalist. Ms Treirweiler was devastated by the French president, Francois Hollande’s liaison with an actress; France’s first family split a few days later. These are not only titillating sex scandals about glamorous celebrities — they reveal something deeper and infinitely sad about the melancholic human condition. 

The standard narrative in such cases is to blame the unfaithful man, calling him 'scumbag’ and 'cheat'. There is another narrative, however, which holds the institution of 'love marriage' equally guilty. Modern marriage combines three idealistic ideas — love, sex, and family — which make distinctive but unreasonable demands on a couple. To raise a family was, of course, the original idea behind marriage. To it has been added the second ideal of romantic love; and a third — that one's partner should also be a great performer in bed. 

We have a sensible institution in India called 'arranged marriage' which we contrast with 'love marriage'. Throughout human history arranged marriages were the norm in most societies. People got married to raise a family. In early 19th century, with the rise of the middle-classes, 'love marriage' emerged in Europe. It coincided with the Enlightenment, which incubated 'modern' ideas such as liberty, equality, individualism and secularism that quickly swept the world. These liberal ideas, along with 'love marriage', came to India on the coat tails of the British Raj. Initially it infected a tiny westernized minority but today it has permeated a larger middle-class. Most Indians received their ideal of 'love marriage' unreliably from Bollywood, which may explain why good old fashioned arranged marriage is still well and alive in India. 


In pre-modern times, men satisfied the three needs via three different individuals, according to the philosopher Alain de Botton's sensitively male perspective. A wife made a home and children; a lover fulfilled one's romantic needs clandestinely ; and an accomplished prostitute or courtesan was always there for great sex. This division of labour served men well. Given a chance, I expect, my grandfather would have lived thus. But today, we make impossible demands on a single person to meet romantic, sexual and familial needs. She feels huge pressure to fulfil all three roles plus make a career outside the home. What she mostly wants is a love marriage with good and faithful husband. 

The insane ambition of modern love marriage to satisfy so many needs places a huge burden and this might also help to explain the tragedies of Sunanda Pushkar and Valerie Treirweiler. It was certainly behind the tragedies that befell the heroines of two of my favourite novels, Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina. Both women had enviable financial security but also loveless marriages. But both had modern, romantic expectations from life, and dared to fulfil them outside marriage. Society did not forgive their illicit love affairs and their lives ended in tragic suicides. 

Human beings may have become modern and liberal but society remains conservative. Who has not been tempted by illicit love? An affair with a beautiful stranger is a thrilling prospect, especially after years of raising children. There is also fear of death if one is middle-aged — life is passing and when will another chance come? But these exhilarating thoughts have to be weighed against hurting another human being. One must always empathize with the victim of adultery. Even the Kamasutra admits that dharma trumps kama. 

Does one betray another human being or oneself ? Either way one loses. If one decides to have a fling, one betrays a spouse and puts one's love at risk. If one abstains from temptation, one risks becoming stale and repressed. If one keeps the affair secret, one becomes inauthentic. Confessing to it brings needless pain. If one places one's children's interest above one's own, one is disappointed when they leave. If one puts one's own interest above theirs, one earns their unending resentment. This, alas, is the unhappy, melancholic human condition.

Arjuna Ranatunga - From 'sarong Johnnie' to national icon

Janaka Malwatta in Cricinfo

 

Ranatunga drew a line in the sand for Sri Lanka when he backed Murali against the umpires  © Getty Images

Enlarge

Sri Lanka always had cricketers who made the world sit up and take notice.

Sidath Wettimuny, refined and understated, and Duleep Mendis, buccaneering and devil-may-care, were the early heroes of a nascent Test nation. Aravinda de Silva, one of the most graceful batsmen to play the game, was Sri Lanka's first true great. In an era of Brian Lara, Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting, Wasim Akram described de Silva as the most difficult batsman to bowl to. More recently, Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara have compiled over 10,000 Test runs each, putting them among the top ten run accumulators in history. And no discussion of Sri Lankan greats could even start without reference to Muttiah Muralitharan, arguably the greatest spin bowler of all time, who carried Sri Lanka's bowling attack almost single-handedly for much of his 18-year career. 

But top-level sport is won and lost in the mind. One man was responsible for changing the mentality of the Sri Lankan team he captained and the individuals in it. In so doing, he forged a team that believed it could defeat all comers. Under Arjuna Ranatunga's leadership, Sri Lanka went from charming amateurs to World Cup winners. It didn't happen by chance.

Arjuna was born in Gampaha, a town outside Colombo, and went to school at the unfashionable Ananda College. In the pre-Test match era, schoolboy cricket was the pinnacle of the sport in the country, and the anglicised elite schools dominated both cricket and the back pages. Ananda College, established by the Buddhist Theosophist Society specifically to counter missionary activity, was the antithesis of the elite schools. It is well documented that a 15-year-old Arjuna was dismissed as a "sarong Johnnie" by an elderly member of the Sinhalese Sports Club when he first arrived. Colonial attitudes run deep in the colonised. Perhaps these early outsider experiences shaped Arjuna's belligerence.

He made his Test debut in the inaugural Test in Colombo in February 1982, at the age of 18. Though still a schoolboy, he led Sri Lanka's first Test fightback. Coming in at 34 for 4, Arjuna hit a fluid fifty, incidentally also Sri Lanka's first Test fifty. It was a mature and assured debut. When the match finished, he went back to school. But it is not for his batting that Arjuna is remembered.

Arjuna captained Sri Lanka on their 1995-96 tour to Australia, a pivotal tour in the team's development. On arrival, they were regarded as a harmless and exotic distraction. By the time they left, they had demonstrated a capacity for a fight. It was an ugly tour in many ways. It is said racial vilification was never far from the surface, and the tour is most remembered for the controversy surrounding Muralitharan.

Arjuna was a constant irritant to opponents throughout his career. His policy seemed to be to go where the exchanges were spikiest, and get stuck in

Murali, already an established Test player, with 22 caps, was called for throwing. Arjuna's response could have come out of the manual that showed you how to forge a unified team. He backed Murali unconditionally, remonstrating forcefully and publicly with Australian umpires. Meek capitulation would not only have imperilled Murali's career, it would have set the self-esteem of the team back severely. Instead, Arjuna demonstrated the fighting qualities of the warrior prince he was named after.

Although Sri Lanka were outplayed by Australia, they knocked out West Indies to make the final of the triangular ODI series. In the process, they honed a strategy that was a vital part of their World Cup win. Romesh Kaluwitharana and Sanath Jayasuriya opened the batting with a blaze of boundaries. Sri Lanka's blitzkrieg approach at the top of the innings was born.

Arjuna was a constant irritant to opponents throughout his career. His policy seemed to be to go where the exchanges were spikiest, and get stuck in. A powerful man, broad in the shoulder and forearm, he seemed immune to intimidation. He was certainly effective at riling opponents. I recall an apoplectic Alec Stewart screaming at his own fielders while Arjuna ambled between the wickets.

Arjuna was also influential in the policy of seeking cricketers from the provinces. At the time, Sri Lanka struggled to harness cricketing talent outside Colombo. Jayasuriya was an early beneficiary of Arjuna's vision. Arjuna brought Jayasuriya from his home town, Matara, to Colombo, and even put him up. Jayasuriya, now chairman of selectors, has given five young cricketers from the north and the eastern regions central U-19 contracts. Arjuna's legacy lives on.

By refusing to back down, by returning all and any insult with interest, Arjuna proved to the opposition, and more importantly to his own team, that Sri Lanka had earned the right to compete as equals. He certainly blew away the last remnants of the post-colonial mindset that had been directed at him at the SSC.

Sri Lanka's two most hailed triumphs, the 1996 World Cup and their first Test win in England, occurred under his leadership. His successors, notably the statesmanlike Jayawardene and the fiercely intelligent Sangakkara, have benefited from his groundwork. Different captains for different times, they had no need of Arjuna's in-your-face bellicosity. The teams they inherited knew they had it in them to stand toe to toe with the best.

Giving the AAP a fair chance

By Gargi Parsai in The Hindu

If the AAP experiment fails then the people will be back to being reduced to fixed deposits in ‘vote banks’ of established parties

It is a convention in Parliament that when a new member makes a debut speech, fellow members greet him or her with a thumping of desks. Normally the person is heard out without interruptions even if it is a hotly debated issue. The Chair is also indulgent even if the member exceeds the time limit. It’s the same for first-time ministers. They are not pounced upon for fumbling or giving inadequate replies. This camaraderie is also visible when contentious Bills are taken up and which the Opposition helps the government pass, sometimes without discussion.

But the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which is learning along the way after forming a minority government in Delhi, is not being given the same chance that the political class would give to “one of its own.” Even those who were indulgent of JP taking the support of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh to defeat a “corrupt and autocratic” Indira Gandhi and of V.P. Singh who sought the help of all including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the wake of the Bofors scandal, are not willing to give space to the new “alternative politics” that the AAP stands for.

Capturing voter imagination

It is grossly unfair that while every government gets five years to implement its manifesto, the AAP government is expected to fulfil its within the first month. Even so, the party has taken crucial decisions on water and power tariffs to give relief to law-abiding citizens; 700 litres of free water per day is being given as a “right” and is on metered usage to encourage people to get meters. Those who exceed the limit (of water conservation) will have to pay for the entire use. Likewise, the decision to reduce the power tariff by half — up to 400 units of usage per month — only restores the balance. Citizens’ cries over abnormally inflated electricity bills generated by private service providers went unheard by Sheila Dikshit’s government. For a housewife, the average saving of Rs.8,000 to Rs.10,000 per month alone on these counts helps take some of the sting out of galloping inflation.

Nursery admission guidelines for private schools as well as the CAG audit of power companies have been upheld by the Delhi High Court indicating that the AAP government’s decisions are solid enough to stand judicial scrutiny. Grievance redress helplines are working, genuine and effective.

The AAP has compelled the so-called mainstream parties to take note of its novel ideas. They are aping it not because they believe in its ideas but because they feel the AAP has caught the imagination of voters with its approach to tackling the menace of corruption and to participatory democracy. That is why the Congress has suddenly gone silent on its “game changer” Food Security Act, and thrust the anti-corruption placard into the hands of Rahul Gandhi. After admitting that the 128 year-old party had much to learn from just-born AAP, Mr. Gandhi recently announced that the party will invite in 15 Lok Sabha constituencies applications from common people to contest on a party ticket — a methodology initiated by the AAP.

The BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi too is now harping on ridding India of corruption.

There can be no two opinions about the overzealous manner in which Delhi’s Law Minister Somnath Bharti took up the case of flesh trade and drug trafficking in his constituency. Even if one overlooks the manner in which policemen on the spot showed hostility to the Minister, Mr. Bharti could have done it differently and at a decent hour without hurting the dignity of the women under suspicion. Neither can one absolve “poet” Kumar Vishwas of his sexist comments. Both need to be reined in. But for agitated women groups to say that it is because of these two men that the entire party needs to be condemned is playing into the hands of those threatened by the AAP’s growing appeal ahead of the general election.

When Mr. Arvind Kejriwal worked on his goal to empower the aam aadmi he perhaps did not contend with the potpourri that would form the fundamentals of his party. So, if you have a Kumar Vishwas and a Somnath Bharti, there are others like a Yogendra Yadav who has been apologetic upfront about inherent contradictions in his political entity. When asked in an interview about people with divergent views such as social activist Medha Patkar and Captain Gopinath of Air Deccan backing the party, Mr. Kejriwal’s answer was simple — “This is the diversity of our country.” In that sense, the party’s initiative towards participatory democracy on the basis of continuous dialogue with common citizens is refreshing.

Open-door politics

With its origins in Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement, the AAP does not shy away from projecting itself as a party in movement mode. Indeed, it is different as a party — not distant, not structured and certainly not white-collared. Those who see politics largely through the prism of a “status quo mindset” and are more comfortable in a “high command” or single leader party structure will perhaps find it difficult to accept the AAP’s open-door politics in which every person counts irrespective of caste, religion, and standing.

In effect, the AAP was truly inclusive when it selected ordinary people, those with no political clout or background, to become MLAs and ministers. With no VVIP paraphernalia — red beacon-light cars, gun-totting security personnel, battery of briefcase-carrying assistants, or the experience — they do not look like nor behave like a conventional VIP.

We have had chief ministers sitting on fasts and organising bandhs, but for the first time the nation saw a chief minister sleeping on a roadside on a chilly Delhi winter night literally metres away from Parliament. He is by no yardstick “mad” as Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde has called him, but, yes, he certainly has the junoon (passion) to force a change in the political system, say his colleagues. And, yes, the change is beginning: Mr. Shinde’s home State, Maharashtra, and another Congress-ruled state, Haryana, have copied Mr. Kejriwal’s decision to reduce power tariffs. Likewise, the BJP-ruled Rajasthan and the Samajwadi Party-ruled Uttar Pradesh have cut down on security for their chief ministers. In Delhi, the police harassing petty shopkeepers, street vendors, three-wheelers, every passing truck etc. is no longer a common sight.

Mr. Kejriwal’s dharna a few yards away from the Union Home Minister’s office was as much against the Central government usurping the powers of the elected government in Delhi, as it was a flashpoint with the Delhi Police seemingly triggered by action against two police constables on charges of corruption. Mr. Kejriwal has realised that without control over the police, his government cannot deliver on its promise of ensuring the safety and security of women. The fight, therefore, appeared more to draw attention to the situation with regard to the police than to anything else. Otherwise, the AAP is the only party which has set up — much before the Bharti episode — a five-member committee on the Vishaka guidelines to look into complaints by women of harassment. The party has a 30-member gender committee headed by Lalita Ramdas, wife of Admiral Ramdas. The only three women MLAs in the Delhi Assembly belong to the AAP party.

With anti-corruption as its plank, the AAP leadership will have to brace itself for even more testing times in the run-up to the general election. Not only will it have to fend off attempts to bog it down politically, it will also have to hold its own against various lobbies, interest groups, mafias, middlemen and even media barons. To its advantage, however, the ordinary people, to whom it has given a voice and primacy, do realise that if this experiment fails then it will be back to their being reduced to fixed deposits of parties in “vote banks” to be renewed once in five years.

Our workplaces are about as family-friendly as a 19th-century mill

Maternity leave, sick pay, the minimum wage – the ability to claim these vital rights has been torched by our zero-hours economy

 

• 
• • Zoe Williams
  • The Guardian, Wednesday 29 January 2014

'The idea that you can plan high-quality childcare or a work-life balance in zero-hours conditions is laughable.' Illustration by Belle Mellor

Crack open a conversation about the family in political circles, and it's like Christmas Day in the trenches. Agreement breaks out: there's nothing more important than security, happiness and high-quality childcare in the early years; every child matters; women deserve their place in the workforce, men deserve their time in the homestead; both genders are desperately welcome – invaluable, irreplaceable! – in all settings; and (altogether now) we all want to be more like Scandinavia.

Delving a little deeper, there are some disagreements between the parties, or – for brevity – between Liz Truss, the childcare minister, and everybody else. Labour and the Lib Dems think the answer to universal, high-quality childcare is to find some equitable way for the government to fund it. Truss still thinks that the market would work on its own, if only big government would step out of the way. Her plan is for childcare workers to be better trained, and therefore allowed to manage more children. It is a stupid plan. No amount of GCSEs will increase your number of arms, hands and eyes. Yet she is to be admired for breaking ranks and allowing her neoliberalism free expression. Nobody else will mention market forces devant les enfants; it's almost as if the market were some kind of swearword.

And yet, despite every advance, every warm progressive statement, every assurance of "family-friendliness", conditions for parents at work worsen; discrimination against pregnant women intensifies . The rather nugatory fortnight of paternity leave goes largely unclaimed among low-income workers, while 80% of those on middle to high incomes take it. Most low-waged mothers go back to work after fewer than the 26 weeks of "ordinary maternity leave", most mothers on medium to high incomes take more than six months.

There is a gulf between the promises made to families by politicians, and the life that is delivered. There is also a gulf between rich and poor, which is then biologised by the likes of Iain Duncan Smith and his Centre for Social Justice, who blame "bad parenting" on poor people who don't love their babies enough to want to spend their first year with them. But we're just going to have to do that another day.

I believe the work situation is substantially down to the way we talk about life in gender silos, where "children", "maternity leave", "pregnancy" and "families" are filed under "women", while "industrial relations", "tribunals", "contracts" and "workplace" go under "men". This has blinded us to the fact that many statutory entitlements can never be upheld. Maybe you have the wrong kind of job or the wrong kind of (zero hours) contract; some rights build up over time and you can't prove unbroken service if you've never had a proper contract. Even if you could, your position is too precarious to insist on the rights you do have; and if it all turns sour you can't take anybody to a tribunal because since last July you've had to pay to do so.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development recently released research on the reality of zero-hours work: 75% of workers didn't know how much money they'd have at the end of the week, and 42% were given less than 12 hours' notice about shifts. The idea that you can plan "high-quality childcare" in these conditions, or a favourable work-life balance, is laughable.

By way of illustration, I saw this advert in Costa Coffee (Eastleigh, Hampshire) the other day: "Staff wanted … 20 hours a week. MUST BE FREE 6AM TO 9PM, SEVEN DAYS A WEEK". Never mind, says the Office for National Statistics – only 0.7% of people are on zero hours; but this amounts to 250,000 workers. Norman Lamb, the care minister, has admitted to 300,000 zero-hours workers in social care. A Working Families report this week finds 7% of women and over 2% of men on zero hours.

The CIPD put the number of zero-hours workers at about a million. But try to stay cheerful – they still have rights: sick pay; minimum wage; holiday pay; maternity leave. Sure, it doesn't stretch to the right to request flexible working, which could explain why requests from fathers on low incomes are so often refused. Nevertheless, it's not like working in a mill in the 19th century.

Except that, often, it is. This employment feels too precarious for people to insist on the rights they do have, and anyway those rights are sidestepped by a week-long break in the job (easily within the employer's command). And let's say your employer reneges on your maternity package: well, it will cost you £1,200 to bring that to a tribunal. The drop in sex discrimination claims has been stark: there were 129 in September – the average for the six months before the charge was brought in was 2,055 . "We have to be careful we're not just talking about paper rights," said Sally Brett from the TUC

Back in 2011, Steve Hilton floated the idea across his blue sky that maybe maternity leave should be abolished, just while we were in recession, so business could get back on its feet, without having to worry about a load of uteruses? And we all (well, I) went nuts, saying: "This recasts women as burdens to work instead of assets, and remakes babies as costs for the tidy, solitary little household to bear, rather than a future for us all to invest in." Well, they goddam did it anyway, and you have to admire their cunning: they didn't torch the right; they torched the ability to claim the right. It became a paper right, and now we watch as it goes up in smoke.

The speed-gun myth

Stuart Wark 

 

 But what does "pace" or "speed" actually mean?

In recent times, the proponents of various fast bowlers often base their argument around the figures generated from the speed gun. While the overall speed readings are very interesting, it would appear misleading to rely solely on these figures, as they don't actually come close to telling the whole story about how "fast" a batsman will consider a bowler to be. It was not uncommon to hear commentators literally jump with excitement about the extreme pace of a certain Johnson delivery that caused a batsman significant problems, only to then see a speed-gun rating show that it was actually slower than the previous ball that the batsman had played easily.

In the most recent Ashes series, a recurring theme among the commentators was that James Anderson was tired and "lacking a yard of pace" compared to his spells during the English summer. This would appear to be supported by raw statistics that show he took 22 wickets at an average of 29 in England, whereas in Australia he took 14 wickets at nearly 44. However, a review of his average bowling speeds across both Ashes series makes for interesting reading.

In the first Test in Nottingham he averaged 84.9mph; in the fifth Test in Sydney he averaged 84.5mph. Anderson's average bowling speed per innings was remarkably similar across the ten Tests, and only varied around three miles an hour. His highest average speed per innings was actually in Perth, the "eighth" Test, where he averaged 85.5mph. Whatever the reasons for his relatively poor performance in Australia, it can hardly be argued that it was due to him "lacking a yard of pace".

At this point, I understand that many readers will no doubt be striking their foreheads on their monitors and shouting, "You idiot - he is a swing bowler and doesn't rely solely on pace." This is precisely why the speed gun is an unreliable measure. Ultimately, does it matter how we judge the "pace" of opening bowlers? Unfortunately, and this was primary reason for this article, the speed gun is becoming a concerning aspect of team selection. It was only a few weeks ago that Australian coach Darren Lehmann outlined that bowlers need to be bowling at 140kph to be considered for the Test team. Clearly the speed gun is becoming a determining factor that helps fast bowlers get selected.

There is a former Australia Test opening bowler, still only 27 years old, who has taken 202 first-class wickets at an average of 25.10, and took 5 for 105 in his last first-class match, but appears to have been forgotten about in terms of national selection. Trent Copeland doesn't bowl at 140kph, and therefore doesn't appear likely to add to his three Test caps. However, players who have faced bowlers such as Copeland, Chadd Sayers or even Glenn McGrathwill note that they are "faster" than they appear. A few years ago McGrath's deliveries were measured as being slower than those of Greg Blewett. However, if you asked opening batsmen which one was "faster", without any reference to the speed gun, Blewett would have struggled to gain a vote.

Phrases such as "hitting the bat hard" or "bowling a heavy ball" are used to describe bowlers who manage to bowl "faster" than someone with an identical speed-gun rating. From discussions with many batsmen over a number of decades, I have concluded that certain bowlers seem faster than others because they force batsmen to make a late adjustment when the ball is not quite where they expect it to be.

From the point when the bowler hits his delivery stride, the batsman starts moving into position to play a shot. With only half a second or so from the bowler letting it go until the batsman plays the ball, the batsman has to move on instinct into the correct position. A bowler who delivers a "heavy ball" is generally one who consistently hits the bat slightly higher than expected, thus leading to a batsman feeling a less than ideal contact and subsequently having less control over the shot.

Likewise, if a bowler has an unusual or strange action that prevents a batsman getting an early sighting of the ball, they will appear faster. The great South African Mike Procter was rated by Tony Greig as one of the "top five" paceman of his era; Greig thought Procter bowled at a similar pace to Andy Roberts, John Snow, Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson. However, it was interesting that in one of the early speed tests, conducted in 1979, Procter came second-last among 12 bowlers, and only managed to beat Pakistan medium-pacer Sarfraz Nawaz. At that time Procter was in his early 30s, but he played first-class cricket for another decade, and he opened the bowling for the WSC World XI.

While the actual speeds recorded in this trial cannot be fairly compared to those of current bowlers, due to differing measuring techniques, the comparative nature of the test showed that Procter was a long way behind Thomson, who led the field. However, opening batsmen of that era would clearly not agree that Procter wasn't a genuine fast bowler. He is an example of how speed can be disguised, as his "wrong foot" action meant that batsmen were not picking the ball up early.

When Brett Lee was bowling at 135kph, batsmen perceived him as far "slower" than McGrath at the same velocity, as Lee had a flat and predictable trajectory. This meant that a batsman was in position to play a shot earlier than against McGrath, who tended to achieve extra bounce or movement off the seam that forced batsmen into a late readjustment. This then made the batsmen perceive the bowler as being faster than a pure speed reading would have given them cause to do.

It would appear clear that Anderson's lack of effectiveness in Australia related more to his inability to move the ball consistently, rather than him being tired and "losing pace", as some commentators argued. Speed is not easily defined, and success does not always equate to high speed-gun measurements. The current No. 1 bowler in the world, Vernon Philander, is a great example of this, but it appears that he would not get a run for Australia as he bowls at a "mere" 130kph.

I hope the Australian selectors and coaching staff are willing to recognise that the speed gun alone does not define the effectiveness of an opening bowler, or just how "fast" he may be.