Sledging in cricket - Pump up the volume

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

Rob Steen

December 4, 2013

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

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

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

-----Also Read

Doesn't Sledging Hurt Anyone?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Doesn't sledging hurt anyone?

Michael Jeh in Cricinfo

 

Who decides what the line is and when it is crossed?  © Getty Images

Enlarge

"You might be a lone voice but keep at it and especially at youngsters. Tell them that sledging does not make them better cricketers, and definitely not better men."

My recent piece, trying to understand the tenuous link between sledging and manhood, between trash talk and improved performance, attracted lots of feedback, much of it offline, to my own website or private email. The encouraging message above came from one of cricket's true greats, someone who would probably feature in an all-time World XI. He played (and tamed) the very best cricketers of his era, so his comments carry some weight because they come from someone who succeeded at the highest level. 

Jimmy Anderson attributes some of his bowling skill to also being a skilled sledger, although I'm not convinced he understands that merely doing something regularly, no matter how tasteless, equates to necessarily being proficient at this dubious dark art.

What intrigues me about this debate is the complete unwillingness of anyone to admit that sledging affects them adversely. It flies against machismo to admit that it actually gets to you, but the same held true about admitting to depression; fortunately we have now moved beyond that immaturity and many are willing to confront this issue with courage, by speaking out. No one in the England camp has dared to concede that sledging gets under their skin, but curiously they have asked the Australians to refrain from making comments about Jonathan Trott. Why? If sledging is irrelevant and doesn't penetrate your veneer, what does it matter what they say about Trott, your wife, your mum or whatever? It doesn't affect you, remember? And Trotty's not even there to hear it, and even if he was, it didn't affect him either (apparently).

The Australians have long held this view, but nonetheless they took deep offence when Andrew Symonds was allegedly called a monkey. Not just Symonds but even the other so-called "hard men" got involved, though they regularly engaged in "banter" that might have caused equal hurt to other professional colleagues. How can you have your cake and eat it too? If on-field sledging doesn't hurt anyone, what does it really matter what is said? Or are they now admitting that it does actually cut to the bone but no one's actually going to be man enough admit it?

Of course words hurt. We wouldn't be human if they didn't. In the violence-prevention work I do, it is a clearly established truth that there is a clear continuum from verbal to physical violence. The Test cricketer quoted above thinks it is a matter of time before we'll have a physical confrontation on the field, unless we just revert to playing the ball and not the man. See Warne v Samuels or Styris v Johnson as recent examples of those lines almost being crossed. So at the risk of being vilified, I'll prosecute this side of the debate and wait for the vitriol that will inevitably follow.

Just this week in Australian sport, we have a case of a star AFL player who is alleged to have broken a team-mate's jaw outside an LA nightclub, an incident that began with insults being thrown. So there's the first bit of evidence linking the continuum from verbal to physical. These men are accustomed to sledging (and being sledged) on the field but they can't cop it off the field? Another man died on the Sunshine Coast, after being bashed outside a nightclub a few days ago, an incident triggered by verbal violence that spilled over into the physical realm. I could go on but the evidence is so overwhelming that it is hardly necessary.

Sunday's Australian Open golf was a magnificent sporting spectacle. Neither Adam Scott or Rory McIlroy needed to abuse each other to prove their manhood

Those who argue that the sporting field is a special place, immune from the normal rules, risk blurring the reality. Some of the rubbish that is spoken on the field, if repeated on the streets, especially when combined with alcohol and male bravado, can lead to tragic consequences if one of the parties doesn't quite buy into the axiom that what happens on the field stays on the field. Look at the case of David Hookes - on the field, the sort of language he allegedly used was deemed acceptable, but outside a restaurant late at night, angry words can precipitate an unnecessary tragedy. Even sportsmen sometimes forget that they have crossed the white line.

Another great irony, pointed out by an ESPNcricinfo reader, was that both Mitchell Johnson and David Warner were sporting moustaches as part of the Movember charity, aimed at shining a torch on the dark corners of men's health issues (including depression) when Warner, especially, targeted Trott's precarious situation. Warner will argue (truthfully) that he was unaware of Trott's personal demons, but isn't that the point? Depression is a disease that is often hidden and masked; men, especially, have difficulty owning up to it until someone or something pushes one button too many. There is more to being a real man than being able to grow a moustache for charity.

The notion that sledging is okay so long as players know not to cross the line is ludicrous. What is that line, who agreed to it, does it change from day to day and from person to person? I've been racially insulted on the cricket field hundreds of times but that line of abuse just washes over me (when you've got a face like mine, anything that draws attention away from that is a bonus!). It clearly got under Symonds' nose, though, despite him not being averse to dishing it out himself. Each day is different, things change depending on form, personal circumstances and the dark demons that haunt men in their private moments. Will the ICC now get captains to exchange a list of acceptable sledging topics when they exchange team lists at the toss? "Don't mention XYZ's wife this week because she is ill, but his daughter is fine so that's okay. Check again tomorrow for a family health update."

We've already seen how one of the worst serial sledgers of our time, Glenn McGrath, reacted when Ramnaresh Sarwan mentioned McGrath's sick wife (who Sarwan most likely didn't know was sick) in response to some ugly words from McGrath. So the very people who sledge mercilessly and reckon they can cop it have soft underbellies too? Who gets to choose what topics are off limits? Why not just play cricket as best you can and forget all the trash-talking?

It's not enough to say that men need this artificial fillip to fire themselves up for heightened performance. There's no suggestion that Rafael Nadal or Roger Federer deal in this currency, yet they are playing for high stakes too, at the pinnacle of their sport. Sunday's Australian Open golf was a magnificent sporting spectacle; neither Adam Scott or Rory McIlroy needed to abuse each other to prove their manhood. Both athletes displayed a grace and dignity that in no way detracted from their manhood, yet they were locked in combat for 18 holes, playing shot for shot.

So why do some cricketers (and fans) still think that our great sport needs this? By all means bowl fast, bowl short, glare at the batsmen if you need to, but ask yourself honestly if this actually has any effect. It seems that no one admits to being affected by it but we're all swearing by it (literally) anyway. And then someone crosses that invisible line and all hell breaks loose and we act surprised, as if we didn't see this train smash coming. Cricket deserves more from us but I sometimes wonder if we deserve cricket.

The lies behind this transatlantic trade deal

Plans to create an EU-US single market will allow corporations to sue governments using secretive panels, bypassing courts and parliaments

• 
• • George Monbiot
  • The Guardian, Monday 2 December 2013 20.31 GMT

A nuclear power plant in Biblis, south-west Germany. The investor-state dispute settlement is aready 'being used by a nuclear company contesting Germany's decision to switch off atomic power'. Photograph: Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters

Panic spreads through the European commission like ferrets in a rabbit warren. Its plans to create a single market incorporating Europe and the United States, progressing so nicely when hardly anyone knew, have been blown wide open. All over Europe people are asking why this is happening; why we were not consulted; for whom it is being done.

They have good reason to ask. The commission insists that its Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership should include a toxic mechanism called investor-state dispute settlement. Where this has been forced into other trade agreements, it has allowed big corporations to sue governments before secretive arbitration panels composed of corporate lawyers, which bypass domestic courts and override the will of parliaments.

This mechanism could threaten almost any means by which governments might seek to defend their citizens or protect the natural world. Already it is being used by mining companies to sue governments trying to keep them out of protected areas; by banks fighting financial regulation; by a nuclear company contesting Germany's decision to switch off atomic power. After a big political fight we've now been promised plain packaging for cigarettes. But it could be nixed by an offshore arbitration panel. The tobacco company Philip Morris is currently suing Australia through the same mechanism in another treaty.

No longer able to keep this process quiet, the European commission has instead devised a strategy for lying to us. A few days ago an internal document was leaked. This reveals that a "dedicated communications operation" is being "co-ordinated across the commission". It involves, to use the commission's chilling phrase, the "management of stakeholders, social media and transparency". Managing transparency should be adopted as its motto.

The message is that the trade deal is about "delivering growth and jobs" and will not "undermine regulation and existing levels of protection in areas like health, safety and the environment". Just one problem: it's not true.

From the outset, the transatlantic partnership has been driven by corporations and their lobby groups, who boast of being able to "co-write" it. Persistent digging by the Corporate Europe Observatory reveals that the commission has held eight meetings on the issue with civil society groups, and 119 with corporations and their lobbyists. Unlike the civil society meetings, these have taken place behind closed doors and have not been disclosed online.

Though the commission now tells the public that it will protect "the state's right to regulate", this isn't the message the corporations have been hearing. In an interview last week, Stuart Eizenstat, co-chair of the Transatlantic Business Council – instrumental in driving the process – was asked if companies whose products had been banned by regulators would be able to sue. Yes. "If a suit like that was brought and was successful,it would mean that the country banning the product would have to pay compensation to the industry involved or let the product in." Would that apply to the European ban on chicken carcasses washed with chlorine, a controversial practice permitted in the US? "That's one example where it might."

What the commission and its member governments fail to explain is why we need offshore arbitration at all. It insists that domestic courts "might be biased or lack independence", but which courts is it talking about? It won't say. Last month, while trying to defend the treaty, the British minister Kenneth Clarke said something revealing: "Investor protection is a standard part of free-trade agreements – it was designed to support businesses investing in countries where the rule of law is unpredictable, to say the least." So what is it doing in an EU-US deal? Why are we using measures designed to protect corporate interests in failed states in countries with a functioning judicial system? Perhaps it's because functioning courts are less useful to corporations than opaque and unjust arbitration by corporate lawyers.

As for the commission's claim that the trade deal will produce growth and jobs, this is also likely to be false. Barack Obama promised that the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement would increase US exports by $10bn. They immediately fell by $3.5bn. The 70,000 jobs it would deliver? Er, 40,000 were lost. Bill Clinton promised that the North American Free Trade Agreement would create 200,000 new jobs for the US; 680,000 went down the pan. As the commentator Glyn Moody says: "The benefits are slight and illusory, while the risks are very real."

So where are our elected representatives? Fast asleep. Labour MEPs, now frantically trying to keep investor-state dispute mechanisms out of the agreement, are the exception; the rest are in Neverland. The Lib Dem MEP Graham Watson wrote in his newsletter, before dismissing the idea: "I am told that columnists on the Guardian and the Independent claim it will hugely advantage US multinational companies to the detriment of Europe." We said no such thing, as he would know had he read the articles, rather than idiotically relying on hearsay. The treaty is likely to advantage the corporations of both the US and the EU, while disadvantaging their people. It presents a danger to democracy and public protection throughout the trading area.

Caroline Lucas, one of the few MPs interested in the sovereignty of parliament, has published an early-day motion on the issue. It has so far been signed by seven MPs. For the government, Clarke argues that to ignore the potential economic gains "in favour of blowing up a controversy around one small part of the negotiations, known as investor protection, seems to me positively Scrooge-like".

Quite right too. Overriding our laws, stripping away our rights, making parliament redundant: these are trivial and irrelevant beside the issue of how much money could be made. Don't worry your little heads about it.

Matt Damon on Civil Disobedience

'Standing up to the wicket is what keeping is all about'

Former England keeper Bob Taylor talks about what you need to be world-class behind the stumps

Interview by Scott Oliver in Cricinfo

December 2, 2013

 

	"You've got to try and concentrate until the last ball of the last over has been bowled" © PA Photos  Enlarge

You obviously started in an era long before specialist coaching. Did you ever have a mentor or coach to bounce ideas off?
Not really. I used to talk to George Dawkes, the wicketkeeper at Derbyshire when I started. And I used to learn by talking to other wicketkeepers. If we played Northants, I'd talk to Keith Andrew, whom I idolised; if we played Somerset, I'd talk to Harold Stephenson, and just try and learn by talking to them.

Harold told me: "When you're standing up, try and stand as close as you can, because the closer you are, the less deviation off the bat when the batsman nicks it, the more chance of it hitting your palm rather than the outside of your thumb." Obviously, it still takes a lot of skill. You've got to get your hands outside the line of the ball. But pieces of advice like that - I thought it was wonderful, and it made sense.

One thing that can be difficult when standing up is when a batsman's backlift obscures your view of the ball. How did you cope with that? Did you ever move your feet wider of the stumps? 
Not really, no. In my day, Notts had Basher Hassan and Derek Randall, both of whom, when they picked their bat up, had it right across your line of vision, which, as you say, makes life very difficult. Depending on the height of the bat, you can either look over the top of it or underneath it. I felt that when you look over the top it makes you come up too quick, which can be fatal, so I always used to try to get below the bat, so it kept me down.

What are the other key aspects of good wicketkeeping?
The main things are staying down, anticipation, and above all, concentration. I've read lots and lots of articles and books about wicketkeeping coaching, and not one has mentioned the most important part: concentration. Any successful person, whatever walk of life, the name of the game is consistency: being able to do it day in and day out. They are successful because they are focused, and they concentrate on what they are doing. I'm not blowing my own trumpet here, but nobody but me mentions concentration.

That's the hardest part of wicketkeeping. Because when you're playing on the subcontinent - in India, Pakistan or Sri Lanka - on those pitches, when you've got a good batsman in front of you, the wicketkeeper becomes almost redundant. You can be keeping for five hours and 55 minutes and not see the ball, then in the last over of the day a world-class batsman - a Sunil Gavaskar or Javed Miandad, say - gives you a chance that, if you don't take it, you can guarantee that the following day they're going to get a hundred in their conditions. That's what wicketkeeping's all about. You've got to try and concentrate until the last ball of the last over has been bowled.

What can you do to instil that concentration?
The only practical way I know of getting the wicketkeeper to concentrate is, every time the batsman plays the ball - and, as I say, on a good wicket, a good batsman will play the ball more often than not - you should, in that split-second when a batsman plays it, imagine the ball comes through to you and actually go through the motions of taking it. Every time. It stands to reason that if you've got into those habits, when the batsman goes out of his crease and misses the ball, you're halfway there. Your hands will be in the right place and you're watching the ball all the time.

When wicketkeepers miss stumpings, the two mistakes they make are they get up too soon, so their arms and hands come above their waist, and they anticipate that the batsman is going to hit the ball, and are looking to where they think he's going to hit it. The only way I know to correct that is, when you come up from the crouch position and straighten your knees, keep your hands below your knees so if the ball keeps low you can take it, and if it bounces you can come up in the air with it.

I notice you're already talking about keeping as if it was solely a question of standing up to the stumps.
Standing up to the wicket is what keeping is all about. At first-class level, any competent catcher - a decent slip fielder - can put the gloves on, like Marcus Trescothick, or Graeme Fowler and Graham Gooch when I was playing. They can all keep wicket to a degree. But up to the stumps sorts the men out from the boys. That's where you can see a true wicketkeeper.

	"The only practical way I know of getting the wicketkeeper to concentrate is, every time the batsman plays the ball - you should, in that split second, imagine the ball comes through to you and actually go through the motions of taking it"

You mentioned keeping on flat Asian pitches. Is that a bigger challenge than standing up on a green top in England? 
It's a difficult one. It's about the movement, which you want because it actually helps you concentrate. I said to Ian Healy, who was a terrific keeper, that keeping wicket to Shane Warne must have been a fabulous experience and I'd have loved to have done it. I said to him that it takes ability to keep to someone like Shane Warne, someone who's turning the ball a lot, because you're expecting it to come to you all the time. But to me that's easier than keeping on the subcontinent on flat wickets against top batsmen, when you're almost redundant.

You wouldn't have kept to much mystery spin.
No, but I did keep to Derek Underwood. He was a great bowler.

The most difficult bowler you kept to? 
People often ask me that question. For me, it wasn't anybody in particular. It was when you were standing up to a right-arm over - someone who was normally an away-swing bowler to a right-hander - bowling to a left-handed batsman. It's more natural to go down the leg side to a right-hander, for the simple reason that there are more of them in any team. You get used to it. It becomes natural. So, even though a ball down the leg side to a left-hander means I'm going to my stronger hand, my writing hand, it's still more difficult, less natural. You don't do it as often. It's about your foot movement, not which is your strong hand. I saw Ian Healy stump Mark Butcher down the leg side off Shane Warne. They might have rehearsed it, I don't know, but it still takes some doing.

So you recommend practising that then?
The message I try to get over to boys is that at nets they should try to practise more against left-handers than right-handers, because that helps to build up confidence. And when you're at the top of your game, you enjoy that challenge. It's an opportunity for a stumping. And if you're predominantly right-handed, before the match starts, take ten catches into both hands, diving and what-have-you, then ten into your right hand, then 20 in your left. So that gives you confidence with your weak hand, to take that half-chance when it comes.

It was a bit unfortunate for you that you had Alan Knott around for much of your career, until World Series Cricket came along, really. Was it difficult being a permanent understudy? 
I'd always got confidence in my ability; it's just that there was someone else who was better than me. His batting record speaks for itself. You have to be philosophical about things.

Did you and he discuss the finer points of wicketkeeping, or was there too much rivalry for that?
We did do, and we have done subsequently. Not that we always agreed. I used to coach Jack Russell, Paul Nixon and people like this at Lilleshall, while Knotty coached Alec Stewart down at Lord's. Then Knotty became more full-time with England and I think that's when Jack started to get all his idiosyncrasies. Whether they were standing up or back, Jack and Alec were facing cover for a period, but at the last second they were turning to be square-on. I asked Jack, Alec, and eventually Knotty what the theory was behind this, and he said that, if you're standing up, particularly if the ball bounced, your hips were out of the way.

I said to Knotty, "Well, if the ball bounces, it's an automatic reaction for your hips to turn, anyway. They've got to try and take the ball. I can see where you're coming from, but doesn't it make it harder for a normal wicketkeeper - not a Test wicketkeeper, who's got ability, or a county keeper even - to take the ball down the leg side?" He'd have to over-correct his position. There was no automatic explanation, so I thought it's just a theory that's being passed on. I said to Alec Stewart, "You stand open, but to take the ball you correct your position. Why do it in the first place?" He said: "Because Knotty told me."

	"Next to the captain, the wicketkeeper is the second most important player on the field. You're the inspiration to the rest of the fielders" © PA Photos  Enlarge

What about taking the ball in front of the stumps and knocking the bails off on the back-sweep of the hands?
It's all well and good - I used to do that years ago - but you're very reliant on accurate throws from the outfield, otherwise you can lose where the stumps are.

And why do wicketkeepers take the ball like a matador with his cape, taking their body away from the ball? It's all come from Australia. They take the ball away from the body. I've talked to Rod Marsh, I've talked to Ian Healy, I've talked to Adam Gilchrist, and I can't get a straightforward answer. I've spoken to Bruce French - who's teaching the theory as well - and he can't give me a proper answer, other than: "It inspires the rest of the fielders." I'm sorry, I don't understand.

I coached Frenchy when he started at Nottingham. I said, "Bruce, we've always been taught - particularly standing back - that you get your body behind the line of the ball, so you've got a second line of defence. It encourages you to move your feet". Particularly in this country, where the ball will dip and swerve after it goes past the bat - that's all the more reason why you have to get your body behind the line of the ball.

Which keepers of your era did you rate? 
Outside of me and Knotty, Paul Downton, David Bairstow, Jack Richards and Roger Tolchard were all good keepers.

And of recent times?
I think Dhoni's been fantastic. He's a superstar in India, a multi-millionaire, but to captain, to keep wicket, and bat - it's phenomenal.

I think the best English keepers over the last ten years have undoubtedly been James Foster and Chris Read. Duncan Fletcher did a lot of good for English cricket, I'm sure, but he had his favourites, and I think Geraint Jones was probably one of his favourites. The only thing I can think of [why Read didn't play more] is that he wasn't a good tourist. He was playing second fiddle to Alec Stewart, and I've had enough experience of that.

You've got to be philosophical, and when you're playing against New South Wales or Queensland, you've got to try your best. If I played well then it would push Alan Knott, keep him on his toes, which is the objective of a reserve, and only benefits the team. You've got to do your best - both on and off the field. As 12th man, in a hot climate, you've got to make sure players who are flogging themselves in 90 degrees of heat and 80% humidity are looked after. I don't know, but perhaps Chris Read wasn't doing his duties properly and it upset Duncan Fletcher - I don't know. But he was never really given a chance. And the same with James Foster. And they are both, I think, the top wicketkeepers - and that's in front of Matt Prior, Steven Davies, Craig Keiswetter, whoever.

And finally, your nickname was "Chat", so what about the keeper as the voice on the field? 
I say to schoolboys: if you want to improve, forget about all this sledging. If you're concentrating on sledging the batsmen, then you're not concentrating on the job you're supposed to be doing. Next to the captain, the wicketkeeper is the second most important player on the field. You're the inspiration to the rest of the fielders. You have to be neat and tidy to set the tone. That's what a wicketkeeper should be concentrating on. That and concentration.

The real cultists are CEOs

The real cultists are not Maoists, they're CEOs

It is not only in religious or political circumstances where people are made to follow a leader unthinkingly

• 
• • Nick Cohen
  • The Observer, Saturday 30 November 2013 18.04 GMT

Fred Goodwin is portrayed as a tyrant in a new biography. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod for the Observer

The great leader's followers know he goes "absolutely mental" at the tiniest deviation from the party line. He screams his contempt for the offender in public so that all learn the price of heresy. Go beyond minor breaches of party discipline and raise serious doubts about the leader's "vision" of global domination and that's the end of you. "You're toast," he says, and his henchmen lead you away.

In private, his underlings mutter that the leader is a "sociopath" with "no capacity for compassion". Even though he terrifies them, their hatred of him is far from complete. When he relaxes, the great leader can be charming. His favour brings reward. The further you move up the hierarchy, the more blessings you receive, and the more you believe the leader's propagandists when they hail his "originality" and "rigour". History is vindicating the leader. His power is growing. The glorious day when the world recognises his greatness is coming.

I could be describing Stalin's Soviet Union or the "Church" of Scientology. With last week's allegations that Maoists in south London kept women as slaves, I could be going back into the lost world of Marxist-Leninism. The British Communist party demanded absolute intellectual conformity. Vanessa and Corin Redgrave's Workers Revolutionary party and the Socialist Workers party wanted absolute submission, including sexual submission from women. The UK Independence party meanwhile is looking like a right-wing version of a Marxist sect. Nigel Farage's cult of the personality allows no other politician to compete with the supreme leader and no Ukip official to talk back to him.

As it is, the portrait of a tyrant comes from Iain Martin's biography of Fred Goodwin(one of the best books of the year, in my view). Like a communist general secretary or religious fanatic, he was enraged by the smallest breach with orthodoxy: not wearing the company tie; fitting a carpet in a Royal Bank of Scotland office that was not quite the right colour. The propagandists who praised his rigour and independence worked for Forbes magazine, the Pravda of corporate capitalism. Goodwin took RBS from being a sleepy Scottish bank to a global "player". So history did indeed seem to vindicate him – for a while.

With Britain hobbling in to 2014 like a battered beggar, we should accept that corporations can be as demented and dictatorial as any millenarian movement. People resist the comparison because businesses seem such modest enterprises. The godly persecuted heretics and apostates and the communists punished all dissent because they believed the kingdom of God or workers' paradise could be theirs if believers followed the one true course.

Businesses don't want Utopia. They just want to make money. Dennis Tourish, Britain's best academic authority on how hierarchies enforce obedience, has no problem with the comparison, however. His latest book, The Dark Side of Transformational Leadership,puts the Militant Tendency alongside Enron, the mass "revolutionary suicide" by Jim Jones's followers at Jonestown with the mass liquidation of Britain's wealth by the banks. The ends of an L Ron Hubbard or Fred Goodwin may be incompatible, he says, but the means are same.

In any case, the language of business has become ever more cultish. In the theory of "transformational leadership", which dominates the business schools, the CEO is a miracle worker. In Transformational Leadership, by Bernard Bass and Ronald Riggio, he is described, not by some gullible Forbes hack, but by two supposedly intelligent American academics. The transformational leader "inspires" his follower to "achieve extraordinary outcomes", they say. He "empowers them" to "exceed expected performance" and show ever greater "commitment to the organisation".

I don't see why anyone should find the comparison with fanatics so hard to accept and not only because the idea that CEOs can manufacture new and better subordinates matches Trotsky's belief that the revolution would create a "new man who raises himself to a new plane".

The nearest you are likely to come to experiencing life in a dictatorship is at work. Unless you are fortunate, you will discover that the management is the source of all ideas and all power. Executives will have privileges that bear no more relation to real achievement than the fat and ugly cult leader's expectation of sex. In 2012, the median pay for CEOs in the USA was $14.4m, the average salary for employees $45,230. In Britain, the High Pay Commission found that the average annual bonus for FTSE 300 directors had increased by 187% in 10 years even though the average year-end share price had gone down by 71%.

Above all, whether you are in the public or the private sector, John Lewis or Barclays Bank, you will learn that if you challenge authority you will lose the chance of promotion and if you challenge it in public, you will lose your job. To prosper in the workplace, as in the dictatorship, you must tell leaders what they want to hear.

Since the richest executives on the planet brought the west down, there has been an understandable interest in the psychology of corporate power. One experiment stays in my mind. Researchers divided volunteers into groups of three and gave one the title of "evaluator". Half an hour later, they gave each group a plate of biscuits. The evaluators grabbed more cookies and sprayed crumbs as they ate with their mouths open. After just 30 minutes, the conviction that they were managers produced greed and the belief that normal rules did not apply to them.

I do not doubt that, if required, the courts will deliver justice to the alleged victims of the Brixton Maoists. Justice is harder to find elsewhere. It is not merely that the banking scandals have not led to one prosecution. With the honourable exception of the coalition's push to protect NHS whistleblowers, there has been no interest in making public and private hierarchies less cultish. The left is not saying loudly enough that we need worker directors on all boards as a non-negotiable minimum. The right does not admit that the old way of doing business failed.

In these dismal circumstances, you must look after yourself. If you work in an organisation where you cannot challenge your superiors without fear of the consequences, get out. Stay and you will become a paranoid flatterer. You will suffer all the psychological consequences of living a frightened life in a playground run by strutting bullies. Dennis Tourish's words should be your prompt: the corruption of power may be bad, but the corruption of powerlessness is worse.

Is Britain's economy really on the path to prosperity?

Osborne's autumn statement will likely present a rosy picture of growth. But is it to be short-lived?

• 
• • Heather Stewart, economics editor
  • The Observer, Saturday 30 November 2013 23.12 GMT

George Osborne is expected to be in bullish mood when he delivers his autumn statement on Thursday. Photograph: Goh Chai Hin/AFP

Brightly coloured New Balance trainers are beloved of celebrities, from Ben Affleck to Heidi Klum. But if you buy a pair of the US firm's shoes in Europe or Asia they are most likely to have been made on the edge of the Lake District. From its British factory in Flimby, on the Cumbrian coast, the hi-spec trainer-maker will turn out more than a million pairs of shoes this year, with more than a third of those made from scratch – cut out and intricately stitched by its 245 skilled staff, who spend more than a year learning their trade.

Since the great recession of 2008-09, when production of the high-value "lifestyle" lines that occupy most of its machinists' time was slashed in half, factory manager Andy Okolowicz says things have gradually improved: "We have had three or four years now of very steady business, both in the UK and for export." It has stepped up output of these fashion shoes by 24% this year and hired more than 10 new staff.

This is the US firm's only European factory, selling to markets across the world, including Germany, France, Japan and Australia – and with the union flag stitched prominently on to the back of many of the models, it's exactly the kind of Made in Britain success story the chancellor hopes to see more of as economic growth picks up.

In George Osborne's 2011 budget speech, he laid out a stirring picture of a new model for the British economy: one driven by a "march of the makers", such as Flimby's trainer-stitchers, instead of what he called "debt-fuelled" growth: buy-to-letters, non-stop shoppers and high-rolling City gamblers.

Two-and-a-half years later, as he prepares to deliver his autumn statement on Thursday, the chancellor can finally boast that the long-awaited economic recovery has arrived: growth has rebounded sharply, unemployment is falling, and business surveys suggest confidence has been restored. As Simon Wells of HSBC puts it, the economy has moved "from a state of despair, to repair".

In March, the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, which draws up the forecasts Osborne uses to plan his tax and spending policies, was expecting negligible growth of 0.6% this year. City experts now forecast more than double that. Similarly, the OBR's 1.8% projection for 2014 now looks far too pessimistic. New forecasts, to be published alongside Osborne's statement, are expected to be rosier and the chancellor is likely to repeat his claim that the UK is now set firmly on the "path to prosperity".

In fact, with a number of eurozone countries barely out of recession, it would hardly be surprising if the chancellor allowed himself a Gordon Brown-style bout of economic Top Trumps, comparing the relatively upbeat outlook for the UK with the gloomy prognosis elsewhere.

"Osborne is probably looking forward to this autumn statement, because he doesn't have to announce that growth forecasts have been revised down for the umpteenth time," says Lee Hopley, chief economist at manufacturers' group the EEF.

Yet, as James Meadway of the New Economics Foundation puts it, "this is definitely not the recovery the coalition wanted or forecast". The breakdown of the latest growth figures showed that business investment – critical for rebuilding a new-style, more productive economy – is down by more than 6% year on year; exports are all but flat, despite the 20% fall in the value of the pound since the crisis; and manufacturing output remains 9% below where it was in 2008, despite the successes of the likes of New Balance and Britain's rampant car-makers.

In Flimby, Okolowicz explains that, while it's undoubtedly a success story, his factory is the final remnant of a much larger shoemaking industry in the area: K shoes and Bata once had plants locally, employing several thousand staff, instead of fewer than 300 at New Balance. Britain is a long way from recapturing its role as an industrial powerhouse.

Hopley, of the EEF, says for her members, this year has been, "good, but not spectacular".

Meanwhile, consumer spending is expanding strongly, borrowing is up and house prices are reviving across a swath of the country. Meadway says: "This is not a recovery, it's essentially a reversion: we're going back to the same kind of economy we saw in 2004 or 2005." Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, recently said he expected three-quarters of growth over the next year or so to come from consumption or housing – but many economists fear that's a risky model.

In the capital, some of the worst excesses of the property boom years are back. Aggressive estate agents are pushing leaflets through homeowners' doors and lining up scores of buyers to jostle with each other at "open days". Penthouses in the lavish Battersea Power Station redevelopment are expected to go on sale – most likely to overseas buyers – for £30m. And official figures show the UK now has a record number of estate agents.

In many parts of the country, the housing market is barely stirring from a five-year slumber. But the Bank's financial policy committee – the 10 people with the job of bursting future bubbles – have become so concerned about signs of froth that they have scaled back the government-backed Funding for Lending scheme so that it will no longer subsidise mortgages.

Some lenders have said the removal of the Bank's support, which Carney described as "taking our foot off the accelerator", will make little difference because the market has now gathered momentum of its own. But others believe the rise in mortgage rates that is likely to result will be enough to pour cold water on the growing mood of optimism.

As for consumer spending – the other major support for economic growth over the past six months – since wages have continued to lag behind inflation this latest shopping spree appears to have been fuelled not by consumers' growing spending power, but households dipping into their savings or taking out loans – including the short-term, high-cost payday loans that have caused growing political controversy.

"It feels as if there's a significant lag factor between the economic indicators and what it means for real people in their real lives," says Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, whose advisers see two million people with debt problems each year. She says that the spread of insecure, short-term contracts and part-time work, together with benefits cuts and paltry wage growth, have meant that many people in work are struggling to make ends meet.

That's a picture echoed by Chris Mould, executive chairman of the Trussell Trust, which runs 400 food banks up and down the country, providing three days' worth of emergency produce for people in dire straits. "We're seeing more and more people in crisis coming to food banks and we anticipate the numbers of people who find themselves in financial crisis as a proportion of the population to go up in the next few months. Generally, people are being severely squeezed by price rises – energy costs, rent, food – and the price rises in these areas are running way ahead of inflation."

Osborne hopes that, as the recovery gathers pace, employers will start to loosen the purse-strings, hiring new staff and offering more generous pay, helping to ease the squeeze for consumers and validating the mood of rising optimism. But both Guy and Mould fear it may be a long time before the people who come through their doors are able to make ends meet; and if rising real wages fail to materialise, the consumer upturn could prove short-lived. There's no doubt that the backdrop to the autumn statement is far rosier than anyone, not least Osborne himself, could have hoped six months ago. But Britain's economic resurgence is far less of a victory for the likes of Flimby's highly skilled machinists, and more of a blast from the "debt-fuelled" past than the coalition would have wished – and, as yet, there's no telling how long it will last.