A sportsman's naivety is part of his magic

The media wants constant access to players, and insights and honesty from them, but this desire can only cheapen the experience of sport

Ed Smith in Cricinfo

January 15, 2014

 

	Sportsmen may not always be able to or want to articulate how they did what they did. What's wrong with that? © Getty Images  Enlarge

Indulge me a splash of global economics before we get to the serious question of cricket. My theme is the imbalance between inflated surface value and underlying reality - and how that imbalance can have serious long-term consequences.

In 2006 the measured economic output of the world was $47 trillion. In the same year, the total market capitalisation of the world's stock markets was $51 trillion - 10% larger. And the amount of derivatives outstanding was $473 trillion, more than ten times larger. In other words, the spin-off industry - finance - that is derived from the actual economy had become ten times bigger than the underlying economy itself.

"Planet Finance," in Niall Ferguson's phrase, "dwarfed Planet Earth." With size, clout followed, as finance established a hold over government and policy. The financial services industry, once a utility that sustained other industries, had learned to serve itself instead. We know how that story developed: crash, crisis, recession.

A similar trend is happening to the relationship between sport - real sport - and the sports media. The sports media, which once served sport by bringing it to a wider audience, has become the master of that relationship. Sport now addresses the question of how it must serve the media far more often than the media asks how it might serve sport.

I am arguing, to a degree, against my own interests. Part of my living is derived from sports broadcasting and sports-writing - this column, for example. But I hope I am close enough to my playing days, and sufficiently detached from the whole scene, to observe independently how sport is evolving.

Here are some concerns I have about the relationship between the media and sport. First, there is an assumption - no, an imperative - that sportsmen will be at the beck and call of broadcasters and print media. Secondly, this hunger for access and "personal insights", far from settling at an appropriate level, increases voraciously. When television cameras are allowed into the dressing room, it is only a matter of time, surely, before they begin following athletes into the bathroom. Thirdly, sportsmen are constantly called upon to explain what they do, as though the creative art of self-expression through sport follows a road map that can be fished out of a pocket and draped onto the screen. Fourthly, the familiar clichés that athletes fall back on in interviews are subsequently held against them, the classic "gotcha" approach of people who imagine that is how "tough" journalism operates. Fifthly, all this is sustained by a big lie: that when athletes reveal themselves constantly they become personally popular and the game is enhanced as a whole.

I challenge all of those assumptions. At the very least, I think that the balance has swung too far (though it will surely swing further still). Let me take each of my concerns in turn.

The expectation that players should be interviewed immediately before, after and now even during the match, is absurd. I thought we had reached the nadir with professional tennis' pre-match interview in the corridor on the way out to court. If you are fortunate enough not to have seen one, let me summarise pretty much every exchange: "Really looking forward to the match, he's a good player, but I'm just thinking about my own game right now." But, inevitably, T20 cricket easily plumbed new depths by attaching microphones to players when they are in the heat of battle. At this point cricket veers away from legitimate sport and approaches a circus act. To administrators and broadcasters who say, "But look how many Facebook 'likes' it inspired", my response is that wrestlers/actors in faked American wrestling get a lot of social-media attention, too. I am safe, I trust, in assuming that cricket does not aspire to become the new wrestling?

	There is a demand for "insights" about what it feels like to be out on the field. Imagine the reaction if they admitted the truth - that they sometimes feel bored, scared, lonely and unmotivated?

The vast scale of the sports media has the effect of hardening rumour into historical truth. Since rejoining the sports world as a commentator, I have noticed how a scrap of gossip can be passed around behind the scenes until it reaches the status of an established fact. I've also watched how a few strong voices in the media - especially legendary players - have the power to make or break careers that are hanging in the balance.

Meanwhile, the content of the actual historical record - the ubiquitous athlete interview - is often criticised as bland and clichéd. That is understandable. I certainly switch off when losing captains, after each defeat, promise to "work harder". (As an aside, an athlete's ambition should not be to work harder, but to work optimally hard - after that point, more work becomes counter-productive, a failure of nerve.) But the wider issue is that clichés evolve for a very good reason. They are a form a self-protection. There is a demand for "insights" about what it feels like to be out on the field, insights which athletes quite rightly are very reluctant to offer. Imagine the reaction if they admitted the truth - that they sometimes feel bored, scared, lonely and unmotivated? And that is not a criticism - the same emotions are felt by elite performers in the arts and indeed in all businesses. No wonder they prefer to stick with the usual clichés. It is a compromise position for everyone involved.

But there is a cost in recycling half-truths and untruths, however understandable they might be. It tampers with a sportsman's deepest need: to play with authenticity and naturalness. DH Lawrence was not a noted sportswriter. But one of his aphorisms, in Studies in Classic American Literature, captures a central truth about sport.

"An artist is usually a damned liar," he argued, "but his art, if it be art, will tell you the truth." Now change the word "artist" for the word "sportsman": "A sportsman is usually a damned liar, but his sport, if it is real sport, will tell you the truth."

We should not blame sportsmen for using clichés to evade the truth. Sportsmen are an adaptive bunch, quick on their feet, and they have learnt to say things that appease the media, while trying to protect their true feelings from the spotlight. A sportsman, like the artist, seeks authenticity. Being forced to analyse his work in public makes that search for authenticity much harder. "If I could say what a painting meant," as Edward Hopper said, "then I couldn't paint it."

The same applies to sport. Sport is not all about the execution of a pre-arranged plan. There must always be room for instinctiveness, space for your true voice to emerge. Being able precisely and truthfully to answer the question "How will/did you approach the game?" is not a sign of strength or preparedness. It is a symptom of over-prescriptive narrowness.

One day, I hope, we will accept that sportsmen do not always know what they feel. And that their naivety is part of their magic. As Matthew Arnold wrote in this untitled poem:

Below the surface-stream, shallow and light,
Of what we say we feel - below the stream,
As light, of what we think we feel - there flows
With noiseless current strong, obscure and deep,
The central stream of what we feel indeed.

Powerful lobbyists and fawning ministers are corroding society

The lack of regulation and legislation for which wealthy lobbyists press is mostly a form of welfare for big business

• 
• • Will Hutton
  • The Observer, Saturday 11 January 2014 19.07 GMT

The UK drinks industry lobbied vigorously against a minimum price. Photograph: Johnny Green/PA

It was a classic exchange. Neil Goulden, chair of the Association of British Bookmakers, did his best to defend the indefensible. We must place the problem of addictive fixed-odds betting machines in context, he told Radio 4's Today programme last week. They constitute only a small part of the industry's total revenues; there are very few problem gamblers. Britain has the best regulated and most socially responsible gaming industry in the world. Obviously voluntary efforts, which had already achieved much, needed to go further. But there was no need for more intervention.

Later, in the House of Commons, the prime minister, keenly aware that Ed Miliband has thrived when combining the cost of living crisis with example after example of predatory capitalism, was not going to allow himself to be painted as the friend of the betting and casino industries. But equally, he had to keep alive his deep conviction that regulation, always " burdensome", should be avoided as a matter of principle and, if conceded, kept as minimal as possible.

Yes, he understood the leader of the opposition's concern that ordinary high-street betting shops were being turned into mini-casinos via these machines and were proliferating in some of the most deprived parts of the country. But a "review", he claimed, of unspecified provenance was under way. There was no need to support the Labour party's proposals. The issue was kicked into the long grass.

Last week witnessed a procession of examples where successive industries demonstrated their unnerving and effective capacity to block efforts at making them work more in the social and public interest. The British Medical Journal revealed in a powerful article that the UK drinks industry had enjoyed no fewer than 130 meetings with ministers in the run-up to last July's abandonment of the commitment to set a minimum price of 40p for an unit of alcohol. The evidence from Sheffield University's alcohol research department is unambiguous: the higher the price, the less is consumed, lowering crime and death rates alike.

Yet purposeful intervention even for these high stakes is not what Conservative ministers or rightwing thinktanks believe in. Better a world of voluntary codes of practice and forums promoting responsibility than anything with teeth that might "burden" business or – shedding crocodile tears – "penalise the poor". Indeed, it was in precisely those terms that the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, discussed minimum alcohol pricing with Asda chief executive, Andy Clarke. In case we were in any doubt, the public health minister, Jane Ellison, spelled out the Conservative position, preferring a " collaborative approach on public health" in a "voluntary way" in which business is a "partner".

Collaboration, voluntary, partnership and social responsibility are good words. Regulation, legislation, quotas and tax are bad words, for, it is alleged, these are just the sort of things to raise prices and disadvantage hard-pressed consumers. Thus already the sugar industry, confronting the newly created Action on Sugar Campaign to lower the sugar content in food, is reaching for the same Goulden armament. British housebuilders, fighting off proposals to landscape new developments so that rainwater runs off naturally, plead that house prices will rise as a result, and thus four years after the 2010 Flood Defence Act, requiring such development to improve our much-depleted flood defences, there is still no agreement.

Part of the problem is that in the indiscriminate drive to create a smaller government, the Department of the Environment, reeling from cuts, has not the manpower to follow through on legislation. But the problem is made worse because the environment secretary, Owen Paterson, believes, like Jeremy Hunt at health and many other colleagues, that essentially their job is to do whatever business says.

Obviously in a capitalist economy, private business is a principal driver of growth. Great entrepreneurship in action is fabulous, but crucially it never emerges from private action alone. There is always some pubic agency involved in, and often leading, the risk-taking. Yet the fiction of our times is that all business is entrepreneurial, all business aims to behave well, all business accepts that it should pay the social costs of its activities and that any effort to shape business activity is counterproductive. These are the propositions that underpin the stance of the business lobbyist – and of the minister welcoming him or her. The public, if it only knew, would surely despair.

The lack of regulation and legislation for which the business lobbyists press is rarely to support entrepreneurship; in most instances, it is a sophisticated form of corporate welfare. It will not be British bookmakers who pick up the costs of addictive gambling in welfare bills and housing benefit; no drinks company will foot the NHS's bill for alcohol-related illness or police bill for crime; no sugar company the bill for obesity. Housebuilders will cheerfully direct rainwater cheaply into the sewerage system and the water companies will then raise water charges and expect state guarantees for improving the system.

The deal is clear: pass on the maximum cost to the state, minimise one's own obligations including tax payments, and insist anything else will cost jobs and penalise consumers. Corporate welfare works. Bookmaker William Hill, for example, declares £293m profit on a turnover of £1.3bn, and pays a mere £48m in tax. Drinks multinational Diageo pays £66m of UK tax on its £1.75 bn of UK turnover. Executive pay is stunning; indeed, it even provoked a shareholder revolt at William Hill last year.

The low regulation lobby is in effect creating high-return, low-risk business fiefdoms largely free of social and public obligations. Worse, shareholders and investors set these returns against what they might expect investing in frontier technologies and innovation. Why do that when you can make more certain and higher profits in pay-day lending, bookmaking or the drinks business? The Cameron-Osborne-Hunt-Paterson mantra leads straight to a low innovation economy and a high-stress, low-wellbeing society, while offering unnecessarily high returns to those at the top.

Reality is very different. Business is part of the society in which it trades. Regulation and legislation, far from burdens, are crucial grit in the capitalist oyster. They are proposed in our democracy because they will reduce public and social costs that otherwise society has to bear. By obliging business to accept the costs it creates, it raises genuine innovation. It is time to call time. We don't want ministers acting as surrogate corporate lobbyists. We need them to fashion a new compact between business and society.

Hair is the western woman's veil

The west is fixated on Muslim veils, but all women's hair is bound in ideals of femininity, and a source of male judgment

• 
• • Arwa Mahdawi
  • theguardian.com, Friday 10 January 2014 15.23 GMT

'The time and money women spend on their hair isn’t just the free exercise of personal preferences, it’s part of a broader cultural performance.' Photograph: Ruslan Kudrin/Alamy

Packing for a winter holiday in The Muslim World can be tricky. Is the same outfit that dazzled a Shia fundamentalist in Iran going to be considered passé in Afghanistan? Does a classic black niqab work across all regions, or should you occasionally flash a little face?

These are all difficult questions. Luckily, however, the Pew Research Center has combined data visualisation with clip-art Orientalism to create a one-glance guide to female fashions in Muslim-majority countries. Pew has managed the impressive feat of reducing millions of women across markedly different regions down to just six stock "Muslim woman" cartoons. I don't want to oversimplify, but the overall conclusion from the visual is that some Muslims find faces acceptable, but most Muslims hate hair.

The Pew illustration is based on data from a wide-ranging survey conducted by the University of Michigan across seven predominately Muslim countries. While the survey looked at a number of topics, it is veiling that has been most seized upon by the press. As an article in Foreign Policy says: "Researchers investigated public perception of several hot-button issues … [but] one of their more interesting findings had to do with veiling."

Really? I mean, are veils really that interesting? As far as I can see the most interesting finding from the study is that it is yet another demonstration of the west's bizarre fixation on what Muslim women wear and how they cover their hair.

In part, this obsession seems to stem from the importance hair holds as a social and sexual signifier in non-Islamic countries. Back in 2001, Hillary Clinton gravely told the Yale College graduating class: "Your hair will send significant messages to those around you: what hopes and dreams you have for the world, but more, what hopes and dreams you have for your hair. Pay attention to your hair, because everyone else will.'' Clinton was being sarcastic. But in vitriol veritas: hair matters. Particularly if you're a woman.

Studies have found that the average woman in the UK spends £26,500 on her hair over her lifetime, with 25% of respondents saying they would rather spend money on their hair than food. And women don't just spend serious money on their hair, they spend serious time on it. On average, British women spend just under two years of their lives styling their hair at home or in salons.

Whether it's covered by a veil or coloured by Vidal Sassoon, hair is a feminist issue. Indeed, hair is so bound up with ideals of femininity that, to some degree, the measure of a woman is found in the length of her hair. In the semiotics of female sexuality, long hair is (hetero)sexual, short hair is non-sexual or homosexual, and no hair means you're either a victim or a freak. When Natalie Portman shaved her head for a film role she summed up these stereotypes with the observation that: "Some people will think I'm a neo-Nazi or that I have cancer or I'm a lesbian." But Portman also added: "It's quite liberating to have no hair."

Involuntarily losing your hair is an incredibly traumatic thing. When I was anorexic it was the fear of going bald that prompted me to get better, rather than, you know, the possibility of osteoporosis or infertility or death. Pulling out clumps of your hair is like pulling out clumps of your identity. But isn't it a little worrying that a bunch of dead cells on your head holds this much power? And isn't it odd that we should talk about chopping off our locks as "liberating?"

In a sense, women's hair in the west functions as it's own sort of veil, one which most of us are unconsciously donning. The time and money women spend on their hair isn't just the free exercise of personal preferences, it's part of a broader cultural performance of what it means to be a woman; one that has largely been directed by men. Rather than fixating on what the veil means for Muslim women, then, we should probably spend a little more time thinking about our own homegrown veils. Because it's still an unfortunate fact that, across the Muslim and non-Muslim world, women are often judged more by what is covering their head that what is in it. 

The NHS is on the brink of extinction – we need to shout about it

Government policy and privatisation mean the NHS as we know it will be gone in as little as five years if no one speaks up

• 
• • Kailash Chand
  • Guardian Professional, Wednesday 8 January 2014 08.30 GMT

The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has introduced policies that open up the NHS to private organisations. Photograph: Neil Hall/PA

In school, I remember being part of a play called The Emperor's New Clothes.

The plot revolved around a king who was tricked into believing that he was wearing a special outfit when, in fact, he wore nothing at all. His sycophants complimented him for his wonderful choice of clothing, and on the street scared commoners praised the invisible suit until an innocent little kid screamed: "Look, the Emperor has no clothes!"

The one loud proclamation sent the entire town into shock. However, since it was the truth, nobody could deny it any more. And eventually, the Emperor came back to his senses.

The NHS desperately needs that kid. Someone who could stand up and shout: "Look! The NHS is at the brink of extinction. And David Cameron and Jeremy Hunt are facilitating its demise on the back of an unmandated NHS Act 2013!"

I've got 35 years experience of working in the NHS, from a junior doctor to a GP, and then chair of a Primary Care Trust and now deputy chair of the BMA council. This has taught me that most things can be made to work – even across organisational and local authority boundaries – if you have the right working relationships which develop over time through honesty, openness and trust.

The way this NHS is being managed by Hunt and the government is a stunning example of how not to do things. The roadmap of their policies is leading to the complete privatisation of the NHS, a process that has deep roots in Thatcherite ideology.

Aneurin Bevan once said: "No society can legitimately call itself civilised if a sick person is denied medical aid because of a lack of means." The new NHS Act has not just repealed society's contract with the health service, but it has made the NHS a repository of privateers with the mindset of venture capitalists.

For the entire length of 2013, the NHS came under relentless attack on grounds of "quality" by politicians and the right-wing press, driving the privatisation agenda.

I believe it will be a completely different healthcare system in five years time – one which will be much worse in terms of access, equity, health outcomes and cost.

We are inexorably moving toward a system ruled by bogus choice, competition, market forces and diversity of suppliers. By opening every NHS corner to "any qualified provider", the whole service can be taken over by private companies, with a few token charities and mutuals. NHS hospitals, faced with the consequences of cherry-picking by private consortia, risk bankruptcy when left to deal only with complex cases.

In the past two years, £11bn worth of our NHS has been put up for sale, while 35,000 staff have been axed, including 5,600 nurses. Half of our 600 ambulance stations are earmarked for closure. One-third of NHS walk-in centres have been closed and 10% of A&E units have been shut. Waiting lists for operations are at their longest in years as hospitals are consumed by the crisis in A&E.

The morale of the NHS family is at rock bottom. Their pay has been frozen for two years under the coalition, and they have been forced to accept a major downgrading of their pension benefits. Freezing and squeezing pay is heaping financial misery on more than one million NHS workers.

The NHS will just be a logo; a most cherished institution reduced from being the main provider of health services in England with one of the biggest workforces in the world, to a US-style insurance scheme, divorced from the delivery of care. Fewer treatments will be available to people as cuts start to bite, with wealthier people able to "top up" treatments. It's not just a postcode lottery – it's also a tax code lottery.

Patients are being denied prompt hip or cataract operations – and the list of hard-to-get services will grow and grow, reducing the NHS to a skeleton. Money that could be spent on patient care is being spent on unnecessary bureaucracy, debt interest and dividends. Meanwhile, Hunt blames individual cash-strapped trusts for making "bad choices".

Since 2012's Health and Social Care Act scrapped the government's duty to secure a comprehensive health service, Hunt is now legally – if not morally – able to wash his hands of the entire mess – a situation that must be reversed urgently, and democratic accountability restored.

We need to fight for universal healthcare as a basic human right, regardless of whether we live in flourishing suburbs or inner-city deprived areas. Passionate supporters of the NHS and ordinary people alike must speak out about their discontent with the government's reforms, just as the kid did to avoid further embarrassment to a narcissistic Emperor and a nation that would have suffered the consequences of self-indulgent behaviour.

The time has come to show that the NHS is not for sale.

The Ascent of the Maami

(courtesy Rishikant Singh)

The terror of being accosted by the TamBrahm Maami at family functions has persisted right from the dawn of the Madisaar Ages to the times of the Churidaar (aka. Punjaabi dress) to the Jeans era. When Darwin said, ‘it is not the strongest of the species that survives nor the most intelligent but it is the one that is the most adaptable to change’; he was alluding to the TamBrahm Maami.

Not unlike Jane Goodall who spent decades studying her subject in the forests of Tanzania, this seminal work on the TamBrahm Maami is a result of years of keen observations at countless Kalyanams, Seemanthams, Nischayathaarthams, Poonals, Valaikaapu, Shashtiyaptapoortis, Sadabhishekams and Punyajanam functions. Much knowledge of the various types has been gathered by silently observing Maamis over yellai saapaadu, lots of patient listening and steadying twitching nerves with tumblers of piping hot Kumbakonam degree coffee. 

The TamBrahm Maami, scientific name; genus maamium mylapoorum; can now be seen across the world – from the narrow lanes of Mylapore to Australia to both sides of the Atlantic. Irrespective of where you are accosted by her, a quick study of this treatise will help you understand the consequences of such an encounter, help you take precautionary measures – like running away – far away – from the TamBrahm Maami.

The Visa Maami 
Is one of the most commonly found maamis. Just say‘Boston’ or the name of any American city within this Maami’s earshot and be prepared for a long discourse from this walking Lonely Planet America edition. The Visa Maami is a resident expert on all things American – from Visas to getting a Green Card to American Universities to American geography to Indian stores in any part of the States. Owner of a 1,000-page passport, a true citizen of the world, when she bumps into other Visa Maamis in India she fixes her next meeting at ‘Frisco or LA. 

Try inviting her to a Ganapathi Hoomam next week; chances are that she will decline as she has to catch a flight to visit her son in Texas. Nine out of ten Visa Maamis have a Hotmail email account and most definitely have a Skype id – they are always the early adopters of technology and in the future when teleporting becomes a reality – this clan is the best segment for tech companies to target. Boredom with the unsolicited America cram session or teeth-gnashing due to the late realization of being the only TamBrahm left behind in India are the usual effects of an encounter with the Visa Maami.

The Pin-code Maami 
Is a study in contrast to the Visa Maami. She is only aware of the streets, shops and temples within her pin-code. So for example, if she is from 600004 (that’s Mylapore’s pin-code) this Maami will only know East Mada Street, Kapaleeswarar Temple, Tank and Luz Corner. And if you dare compare her locality with another – you will be assaulted with so much tripe that if Copernicus were alive he would willingly admit that the sun indeed revolves around Mylapore. The Pin-code Maami is always accompanied by a family member to functions – she simply can’t get back to her pin-code by herself.

Centum Maami
Let’s say you cracked the JEE, you ooze confidence and walk six-inches above the ground. Avoid the encounter with the Centum Maami at the Shashtiyaptapoorti. She will wrestle you to the ground– slam dunk, coz, she is the Centum Maami. She is the one who’s children have scored centum right through school or have cracked a first rank at JEE or have passed through MIT (with straight As). Studying at REC are you? That’s no good– it’s IIT Madras or nothing. Studying at XLRI are you, its IIM – Ahmedabad or nothing – you get the drift? Encounters over lunch with this kind will instantly curdle your paal-payasam, force you to rush through straight from the first course of sambar rice and escape without eating curd rice.

Mother-of-black-sheep Maamis 


Are the tragi-comedy of the clan. 


Until a few decades ago, mothers of TamBrahm boys who married Russian girls or mothers of thirty-one year old single TamBrahm girls would be classified as such. 


But times have changed, these days, parents are grateful that at least their sons are getting married to a girl and have not run off with another boy. 


Mothers of TamBrahm sons or daughters who-have-done-what-cannot-be-said are called mother-of-black-sheep Maami. They skulk into family functions, look furtively, stare at the groom or bride wistfully and sniffle despondently into their sari paalu. This Maami stays normally aloof, but in case she accosts you the music in the background instantly changes to a 60’s Sivaji Ganesan tragedy.

And then there is Interrogation Maami. 


This one is the T-Rex of her kind. For her, nothing is kosher. If you are her unfortunate prey, she will ask a zillion questions – loudly – for the benefit of everybody within a 20-mile radius. Weren’t you hugging (katti pudichifying) that Christian girl – Lisa –in Coffee Day yesterday? Abishtoo. Why did you hide behind the car and pretend you didn’t see me when I saw you smoking last Monday? What were you carrying in black plastic bags I saw you hauling near the TASMAC shop last night? Be very afraid of the Interrogation Maami – if she is at the function you are in, run for cover – to the farthest other Punyajanam or don’t-care-what-function there is.

And then there is the Temple Run Maami 


Who either runs off visiting temples or talks about her visits to them. Delhi or Wisconsin or Toronto or Alaska or even the moon – it really does not matter where or who she is visiting. With MS’Suprabhatam the most commonly used mobile ring tone this maami has an innate ability to discover temples you didn’t know existed. Severe boredom or sheer exhaustion from visiting temples or listening about temples or a sudden surge of bhakti is the effect of an encounter with the Temple Run Maami.

The Google Maami 


Always has her search mode on – for a bride or a groom for her son or daughter. Settled in America is a constant in her search algorithm. She looks at every eligible boy or girl in the Poonal function with her search function on, enquires about their background, discusses nakshatrams, raasis, gothrams and candidates rejected in the match-making sessions. If you are married and have been caught by a Google Maami, you can escape her clutches by providing references of unmarried friends or cousins but in case you are unmarried – there is nothing else but getti melam in store for you.

The Aadi-Sale Maami 


Normally found feverishly shopping wherever the word ‘discount’ is seen, is single handedly responsible for the economic fortunes of T-Nagar – from Pothys to Chennai Silks to Nallis. She drops into Seemanthams usually on her way for shopping. If you are her unfortunate prey, you will have to drive her to Renganathan Street, become a coolie and carry her shopping bags. 

Caution, avoid accompanying her and make excuses about needing to check on the Caterers or whip out your phone, yell ‘Hello. Hello’ and walk away muttering about the poor quality of the mobile signal inside the Hall.

And finally there is the mmm…Mmmmaami – the TamBrahm edition of the yummy-mummy is an extremely rare kind. 

Think of her as Simran and Shobhana kneaded into one. Seen with a fat balding potbellied Maama – who is usually taken to be her father but turns out to be her husband. Encounters with this kind of Maami are extremely pleasant, laced with the fragrance of malli poo and end with you imagining how she may have looked during her college days or salivate imagining what did they wear to college in those days –paavaadai-daavini? 


This is the only kind of TamBrahm Maami you really look forward bumping into. But the odds of this encounter are as bright as the odds of seeing butter-chicken on the Kalyanam lunch menu.

Grave doubts are being cast on the ability of the TamBrahm Maami to survive the current age. After all, when Tamil boys are marrying Harpreets or Janets how will the next generation find TamBrahm Maamis? 

But hope and the taste of vaddu maanga are eternal. The TamBrahm Maamis are a hardy lot; they will persist and continue to evolve. After all the hand that mashes the thaiyir saadam rules the world.

What's a good pitch anyway?

 Michael Jeh

The 2013 Delhi Test was finished in three days. Ergo, was it a poor pitch?  © BCCI

Enlarge

Cricket is one of those games where a question does not necessarily require a definitive answer. Merely exploring the parameters of the question provokes enough meaty debate to justify the question being asked in the first place. So on that basis, in the wake of the Ashes Test in Sydney, I pose this question: what defines a "good" Test pitch?

As this is a truly global forum, I expect a varied and sometimes passionate response from the four corners of the world. Assuming we can put aside the obvious patriotic bias, what are some of the qualities of a pitch that define it as good, bad or indifferent? Is it ultimately a question that can only be answered retrospectively, at the end of the game when the result is known, or is it possible to make a judgement call on it on the very first day (or relatively early in the match)? 

 Not long ago, a talkback caller on my weekly radio programme on the ABC was scathing in his criticism of all the pitches in India on Australia's most recent Test tour there, and similarly disdainful of most pitches in England on the last Ashes tour. When I pointed out some facts, he reluctantly conceded that his bias had been fed by lazy cricket writers who were looking for a populist audience, and we then enjoyed a more useful debate about how easy it was to succumb to an argument based on jingoism rather than cricketing knowledge.

So what defines a good pitch then? Is it a pitch where:

Plenty of runs scored at a rate of 3-plus?

Barring bad weather, a game reaches a conclusion some time after tea on day four?

Fast bowlers and spinners have equal opportunities to take wickets (proportionately of course, given that it's usually three quicks and one spinner)?

A few centuries but not too many are made?

The ball carries through to the keeper until about day four, after which uneven bounce becomes more prevalent? (And if there is no uneven bounce late in the game, is that a sign of a poor pitch?)

Conditions do not favour either side to any great extent (keeping in mind the accusations of "doctored" pitches sometimes levelled at home teams)?

The toss of the coin doesn't effectively determine the outcome of the match?

I personally believe home teams are entitled to prepare pitches to suit their strengths. It is up to the visitors to select a team that can cope with those conditions. If the game goes deep into day four and beyond, it suggests a relatively even contest, not necessarily in terms of an outright victor but at least the possibility of a draw. The common thinking that associates "good" with bounce, carry, pace is one of the great misnomers. Cricket's complex global appeal lies in the fact that trying to tame Mitchell Johnson at home on a bouncy deck is as much of a challenge as coping with wily New Zealand seamers on a greentop, or using your feet against three slow bowlers on a pitch that turns from the first day. The notion that it should do plenty for the fast bowlers through the match but shouldn't turn for the spinners from the outset is a theory clearly propounded by those unable to bowl spin or bat against it.

Let's look then at the most recent home Tests played by every country and leave it up to the readers to decide which of these Tests were played on "good" pitches. Remember that this is only a small sample size and invariably favours the home team, but is that enough of a reason to refer to the pitches as "doctored"? Don't most teams struggle to win away from home? In this list (below), not one visiting team won a game but how many of the local media outlets made excuses about "home-town" pitches?

Bangladesh v NZ, Mirpur. Match drawn. Bangladesh 282 all out, NZ 437 all out, Bangladesh 269 for 3. No play on day five.

Zimbabwe v Pakistan, Harare. Zimbabwe won by 24 runs. Zimbabwe 294 all out, Pakistan 230 all out, Zimbabwe 199 all out, Pakistan 239 all out. Match concluded just after lunch on day five.

West Indies v Zimbabwe, Dominica. West Indies won by an innings and 65 runs. Zimbabwe 175 all out, West Indies 381 for 8 decl, Zimbabwe 141 all out. Match concluded after lunch on day three.

Sri Lanka v Bangladesh, Colombo (Premadasa). Sri Lanka won by seven wickets. Bangladesh 240 all out, Sri Lanka 346 all out, Bangladesh 265 all out, Sri Lanka 160 for 3. Match concluded late on day four.

South Africa v India, Durban. South Africa won by ten wickets. India 334 all out, South Africa 500 all out, India 223 all out, South Africa 59 for 0. Match concluded after tea on day five.

England v Australia, London (The Oval). Match drawn. Australia 492 for 9 decl, England 377 all out, Australia 111 for 6 decl, England 206 for 5 (21 runs short). Match concluded day five, close of play.

India v West Indies, Mumbai. India won by an innings and 126 runs. West Indies 182 all out, India 495 all out, West Indies 187 all out. Match concluded before lunch on day three.

New Zealand v West Indies, Hamilton. New Zealand won by eight wickets. West Indies 367 all out, New Zealand 349 all out, West Indies 103 all out, New Zealand 124 for 2. Match concluded after lunch on day four.

Pakistan v Sri Lanka, Abu Dhabi. Match drawn. Sri Lanka 204 all out, Pakistan, 383 all out, Sri Lanka 480 for 5 decl, Pakistan 158 for 2. Match concluded day five, close of play.

Australia v England, Sydney. Australia won by 281 runs. Australia 326 all out, England 155 all out, Australia 276 all out, England 166 all out. Match concluded after tea on day three.

At first glance, I would nominate The Oval, Harare, Colombo and Durban as examples of excellent pitches, but does that necessarily make the others poor? Sydney, for example, barely lasted three days and clearly favoured the home team, but there should rightly be no talk of doctored pitches. England inspected the pitch, selected their best team, won the toss and were still thrashed by a vastly superior Australian outfit. Despite fine centuries from Steve Smith and Chris Rogers, 24 wickets fell on the first two days. Would the Australian media have been silent if that happened in Galle or Chennai? The resoundingly better team triumphed in Sydney, regardless of conditions that clearly favoured their strengths. Similarly when Australia toured India in 2013, despite winning all four tosses, they simply weren't good enough on pitches that suited India's skills. Delhi was the only venue that saw a result late on day three, and was labelled a disgrace by the Australian media, who will now be deafeningly silent about the early finish in Sydney, no doubt. Hence my earlier question - do we only judge a pitch retrospectively after we see who wins?

The recent Ashes series in England was written up by many in the Australian media as being played on "blatantly doctored pitches". Most of these cricket writers are journalists who never really played cricket to any significant level and are therefore sucked into the trap of making excuses that they think will resonate with readers who are supposedly dumb and easily seduced by an appeal to blind patriotism. But they misjudge us badly - the true Australian cricket fan understands the nuances of this great game and can appreciate skill, however it is wrapped, pace or spin. There will, of course, be that small vocal minority that only wants to read about good news (or excuses) but fortunately they are unlikely to be reading a global cricket website like this - the local tabloids will cater adequately to their coarse needs and hoarse voices.

Technology didn't kill middle class jobs, public policy did

The story is that innovation rapidly reduced the need for factory workers and other skilled labor. The data just doesn't support it

• 
• • Dean Baker
  • theguardian.com, Monday 25 November 2013 15.17 GMT

Unionisation has shrunk in the US from over 20% in the 1970s to less than 7% today. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

A widely held view in elite circles is that the rapid rise in inequality in the United States over the last three decades is an unfortunate side-effect of technological progress. In this story, technology has had the effect of eliminating tens of millions of middle wage jobs for factory workers, bookkeepers, and similar occupations.

These were jobs where people with limited education used to be able to raise a family with a middle class standard of living. However computers, robots and other technological innovations are rapidly reducing the need for such work. As a result, the remaining jobs in these sectors are likely to pay less and many people who would have otherwise worked at middle wage jobs must instead crowd into the lower paying sectors of the labor market.

This story is comforting to elites, because it means that inequality is something that happened, not something they did. They won out because they had the skills and intelligence to succeed in a dynamic economy, whereas the huge mass of workers that are falling behind did not. In this story, the best we can do for those left behind is empathy and education. We can increase opportunities to upgrade their skills in the hope that more of them may be able to join the winners.

That's a nice story, but the evidence doesn't support it. My colleagues Larry Mishel, John Schmitt, and Heidi Sheirholz, just published a paper showing that the pattern of job growth in the data doesn't fit this picture at all. This paper touches on a wide variety of issues related to technology and wage inequality, but first and foremost, it shows that the story of the hollowing out of the middle does not fit the data for the 2000s at all.

Since 2000, the increase in employment has occurred almost entirely in low-wage occupations. There has been a decline in relative employment for both workers in middle wage and high wage occupations. If this "occupational shift story" explained trends in wages we should expect to see sharply rising wages for retail clerks, custodians and other workers employed in low-paying occupations.

Of course, we see the opposite. Workers in these occupations continued to lose ground in the 2000s as they did in the prior two decades. Their wages barely kept pace with inflation over the last three decades.

The paper makes an impressive case that technology is not the main explanation for the rise in inequality that we have been seeing. In fact, even MIT economics professor David Autor, the leading proponent of the occupational shift story concedes this point. He was quoted in a New York Times column saying of the view that technology explains inequality:

It can suck all the air out of the conversation … All economists should be pushing back against this simplistic view.

Given the evidence compiled by Mishel et al, it would be difficult to maintain that technology has been the main culprit in the upward redistribution of income that we have seen.

It is not difficult to identify other potential culprits – trade would certainly rank high on the list. A trade policy that quite deliberately puts factory workers in direct competition with low-paid workers in the developing world, while protecting doctors and other highly paid professionals, would be expected to redistribute income from the former to the latter.

The weakening of unions is likely also an important factor. The private sector unionization rate in the United States has shrunk from over 20% in the 1970s to less than 7% at present. In the same vein, the deregulation of major industries like airlines, telecommunications, and trucking has been another factor putting downward pressure on wages. The higher unemployment rates we have seen, not just in the last five years but in the last 35 years, compared with the early post-war decades, has also weakened the bargaining power of workers at the middle and bottom of the pay ladder.

We have also seen big changes that contributed to growth of income at the top. The highlights in this category would be deregulation in the financial sector and the changes in corporate governance that pretty much allow top management to write their own pay checks.

The big difference between the items listed above and the occupational shift story is that this is a list of items that involve policy changes. If this list (which could be extended) explains the growth in inequality over the last three decades then, it means that inequality was a result of policy. It was not something that just happened; it was something that we did or was done to us.

That presents a very different policy agenda for addressing inequality. No one would quarrel with the idea that our children should get a better education, but if a lack of skills was not the cause of inequality, more skills will not be the solution. Rather, we might look at an agenda that would rein in finance and CEO pay, restore the strength of labor unions, and include a more balanced trade policy.

This agenda wouldn't just mean empathy from those on top, but also lead to them losing some of their gains from the last three decades. Therefore we are likely to keep hearing stories about technology destroying middle wage jobs for some time, even if the evidence doesn't back up the stories.