Ed Vulliamy in The Guardian
For many of our readers and potential readers, the Labour leadership result was a singular moment of hope, even euphoria. It was the first time many of our young readers felt anything like relevance to, let alone empowerment within, a political system that has alienated them utterly.
The Observer – a broad church, to which I’m doggedly loyal – responded to Jeremy Corbyn’s landslide with an editorial foreseeing inevitable failure at a general election of the mandate on which he won. For what it’s worth, I felt we let down many readers and others by not embracing at least the spirit of the result, propelled as it was by moral principles of equality, peace and justice. These are no longer tap-room dreams but belong to a mass movement in Britain, as elsewhere in Europe.
It came as a disappointment – as I suspect it did to others who supported Corbyn, or were interested – to find such a consensus ready to pour cold water on the parade. To behold so little curiosity towards, let alone sympathy with, why this happened.
Of course the rest of the media were in on the offensive. Our sister paper the Guardian had endorsed a candidate who lost, humiliated; the Tory press barons performed to script. Here was a chance for the Observer to stand out from the crowd. But instead, we conjoined the chorus with our own – admittedly more progressive – version of this obsession with electoral strategy with little regard to what Corbyn says about the principles of justice, peace and equality (or less inequality). It came across as churlish, I’m sure, to many readers on a rare day of something different.
I accept that we are a reformist paper, and within those parameters one has to get elected. But that should not mean a digging-in by, and with, the parliamentary inside-baseball Labour party whose days and ways of presenting politics like corporate management selling a product (or explaining a product fault) have just been soundly rejected by its membership. Why embed with MPs in a parliament no one trusts against the democratic vote outside it?
And anyway, what if? Who, five years ago, would have predicted Syriza’s victory in Greece or bet on Podemos taking Madrid and Barcelona, now preparing for a role in government? It’s not as though the Observer’s accumulated editorials disagree that much with Corbyn.
During Ed Miliband’s Labour, the Observer robustly questioned the health of capitalism – our columnist Will Hutton calls it “turbo-capitalism”. We urged support for a living wage and the working poor, and the likes of Robert Reich and David Simon have filled our pages with more radical critiques of capitalism than Corbyn’s.
Anyway, how much of what Corbyn argues do most voters disagree with, if they stop to think? Do people approve of bewildering, high tariffs set by the cartel of energy companies, while thousands of elderly people die each winter of cold-related diseases? Do students and parents from middle- and low-income families want tuition fees?
Do people like paying ludicrous fares for signal-failure, delays and overcrowding on inept railways? Do people urge tax evasion by multinationals and billionaires, which they then subsidise with cuts to the NHS? Post-cold war, who exactly are we supposed to kill en masse with these expensive nuclear missiles? What’s so good about the things Corbyn wants to drastically change?
Even more fundamental is the appeal to principle and morality – peace, justice and internationalism – which drove the Labour grassroots vote, and was spoken at the rally for refugees which Corbyn made his first engagement and for which this newspaper stands absolutely. Why not embrace those principles, or at least show an interest in the fact that hundreds of thousands of people just did? Which better reflects the Britain we want: Corbyn’s “open your hearts” or Cameron’s “swarm”?
The parliamentary bubble – and our editorial – calculate that we cannot fundamentally change Britain on the basis of these aspirations, even if many people yearn to. In the acceptance speech, Corbyn should have appealed beyond the party in which he is steeped; perhaps he too inhabits a different echo-chamber.
But this isn’t about Corbyn, it’s about why he’s suddenly there. And what an appalling lesson to draw: someone is overwhelmingly elected to falteringly but seriously challenge that stasis and order of things – by urging peace, justice, republic and equality – only to be evicted by the deep system into a lethal ice-storm the moment he leaves the tent, like Captain Oates, though not of his own volition.
And even if middle England is more adverse to radical politics than middle Spain or Greece, does that mean we have to align with this mainstream stasis, just because it is so? What’s the point of principles if their trade-off for power is a principle in itself? Why have principles at all?
The legal philosopher Costas Douzinas argues for a separation of words: using “politics” to describe horse-trading between parties, which feign differences but actually agree, and “the political” to describe antagonisms that really exist in society. On that basis, why start with the stasis of “politics” to approach “the political”, rather than the reverse: invoke “the political” to challenge the stasis of “politics”? Especially alongside Greece, Spain and elsewhere.
Instead of a stirring leader, which did not have to endorse Corbyn but could celebrate the spirit of the vote along with those who delivered it, we’ve left a lot of good, loyal and decent people who read our newspaper feeling betrayed.
“There’s something happening in here / What it is ain’t exactly clear”, wrote Stephen Stills in 1967. It’s a good description of where we are with all this – we don’t as yet have the map whence this came, where it’s going or even what it is.
Dave Crosby sang: “Don’t try to get yourself elected” (from a mighty number called “Long Time Gone”). Along with almost half this country, I was inclined to agree, but Corbyn’s election throws Crosby’s dictum into question, just as to cut Corbyn down would prove Crosby right. “We can change the world” sang Graham Nash. But are we only allowed to try if middle England, the media and parliament try too?
Sunday 20 September 2015
Saturday 19 September 2015
Jeremy Corbyn won't stop until everyone in Britain is offended
Mark Steel in The Independent
As he’s been leader for five days now, the press are calming down a bit. By tomorrow headlines will only say things like, “Cor-Bin Laden will force pets to be Muslim”, followed by an interview with 89-year-old Vera, who says: “It’s not fair because my hamster’s scared of burqas. That’s the last time I’ll vote Labour.”
The Telegraph will be even more measured, reporting: “Corbyn plans to introduce women-only gravity. Men will be left to float through space, making it harder to arrive on time for work, costing Britain £40bn.”
This could go alongside the genuine report in The Times on Monday, that Jeremy Corbyn’s neighbours “often see him riding a Chairman Mao-style bicycle”. A less thorough reporter might only mention that he rides a bicycle. Luckily this one knew the country where lots of bicycles are ridden is China, which was once ruled by Chairman Mao, which means Corbyn is planning to force us all to work in rice fields and eat dogs.
One problem with this excitement is that it’s hard to increase the hysteria when they’ve gone so wild in the first week, but they’ll rise to the challenge. By November, we’ll be told he’s forced Mary Berry to eat an Arctic roll full of blackbird sick as revenge for selling her book about scones via corporate tax-avoiders Amazon.
Then Panorama will reveal Corbyn appeared at a conference with Satan, who he described as an “old pal”; the evidence is a dream their informant had after falling asleep in a cowshed after drinking a bottle and a half of Sambuca.
You could tell how chaotic his leadership would be from the start, when he gave some important jobs in his party to people he agrees with. This provoked outrage. If he was being inclusive, instead of appointing John McDonnell as shadow chancellor, he’d have given the job to Jeremy Clarkson.
The other complaint about his Shadow Cabinet was the low number of women appointed, only 16 out of 31 rather than the half he promised.
The Sun complained of an “equality blunder”, and you can understand their frustration as they’ve always been uncompromising with their feminist demands, devoting every day’s Page 3 to poems by Mexican women’s rights campaigners, no matter how strong the protests to stop.
He didn’t even give a job to Yvette Cooper, on the grounds that she’d said she wouldn’t take it. But if he really cared about women’s equality, he’d have said “you’ll do whatever job I bloody well give you, love”, and the problem would be solved.
But none of us can have guessed the unspeakable horror to come next, when he didn’t sing the national anthem at a Battle of Britain memorial, ruining the efforts of everyone who fought in the Second World War. Commentators told us: “Those pilots did more than anyone to stop Hitler, and now Jeremy Corbyn has literally opened the cockpit of every Spitfire and smeared dog mess on the seats.”
It’s no wonder people called phone-in shows to make comments such as “I’ve taught myself to snore the national anthem, so I don’t insult the pilots during my sleep.”
It’s understandable for people to see it as an insult when someone didn’t sing “God Save the Queen” at the memorial, because the Queen played a major part in the battle, as a wing commander who shot down five enemy aircraft over Folkestone.
Even so, it’s hard to see how the national anthem is the song that most directly commemorates the RAF, so one suggestion to avoid a similar incident in future is to sing a different song at each memorial. Next year it could be “The Omen” by The Prodigy. Anyone not joining in by screaming “The writing’s on the wall” in St Paul’s cathedral will be arrested for treason.
Once again it was The Sun that seemed most furious about this lack of respect for dead servicemen. But if Corbyn gets his way it won’t even be possible to insult the armed forces, because, according to The Sun, he’ll “abolish the army”.
It didn’t make clear how he’d do that, especially when he appears at Prime Ministers’ Questions seeming mild and reasonable, reading out questions sent in from around the country. Most people seem to feel this was a healthy change, though it may be even better if he puts all the questions in a bucket and draws them out at random.
This would strengthen our democracy further. “Prime Minister, Tina from Exeter asks, who would win in a fight between Godzilla and a giant tarantula?” At first, Cameron would insist the mutant spider had no chance against a seasoned monster with wide experience of destruction, and his front bench would yell “hear hear hear” as usual. But eventually a calmer atmosphere would prevail, and Parliament would become a forum for reasonable debate. That’s when Corbyn will strike to abolish the army.
He’ll introduce a similar system, so instead of weapons, our soldiers will march to the front line of a battle, and call out to the enemy: “Alan from Doncaster has asked what are you going to do about all the fires in the city you’ve just demolished.” Then in 50 years’ time, when there’s a memorial for all our troops that are captured, he won’t even sing at it.
That’s how much of a danger he is.
As he’s been leader for five days now, the press are calming down a bit. By tomorrow headlines will only say things like, “Cor-Bin Laden will force pets to be Muslim”, followed by an interview with 89-year-old Vera, who says: “It’s not fair because my hamster’s scared of burqas. That’s the last time I’ll vote Labour.”
The Telegraph will be even more measured, reporting: “Corbyn plans to introduce women-only gravity. Men will be left to float through space, making it harder to arrive on time for work, costing Britain £40bn.”
This could go alongside the genuine report in The Times on Monday, that Jeremy Corbyn’s neighbours “often see him riding a Chairman Mao-style bicycle”. A less thorough reporter might only mention that he rides a bicycle. Luckily this one knew the country where lots of bicycles are ridden is China, which was once ruled by Chairman Mao, which means Corbyn is planning to force us all to work in rice fields and eat dogs.
One problem with this excitement is that it’s hard to increase the hysteria when they’ve gone so wild in the first week, but they’ll rise to the challenge. By November, we’ll be told he’s forced Mary Berry to eat an Arctic roll full of blackbird sick as revenge for selling her book about scones via corporate tax-avoiders Amazon.
Then Panorama will reveal Corbyn appeared at a conference with Satan, who he described as an “old pal”; the evidence is a dream their informant had after falling asleep in a cowshed after drinking a bottle and a half of Sambuca.
You could tell how chaotic his leadership would be from the start, when he gave some important jobs in his party to people he agrees with. This provoked outrage. If he was being inclusive, instead of appointing John McDonnell as shadow chancellor, he’d have given the job to Jeremy Clarkson.
The other complaint about his Shadow Cabinet was the low number of women appointed, only 16 out of 31 rather than the half he promised.
The Sun complained of an “equality blunder”, and you can understand their frustration as they’ve always been uncompromising with their feminist demands, devoting every day’s Page 3 to poems by Mexican women’s rights campaigners, no matter how strong the protests to stop.
He didn’t even give a job to Yvette Cooper, on the grounds that she’d said she wouldn’t take it. But if he really cared about women’s equality, he’d have said “you’ll do whatever job I bloody well give you, love”, and the problem would be solved.
But none of us can have guessed the unspeakable horror to come next, when he didn’t sing the national anthem at a Battle of Britain memorial, ruining the efforts of everyone who fought in the Second World War. Commentators told us: “Those pilots did more than anyone to stop Hitler, and now Jeremy Corbyn has literally opened the cockpit of every Spitfire and smeared dog mess on the seats.”
It’s no wonder people called phone-in shows to make comments such as “I’ve taught myself to snore the national anthem, so I don’t insult the pilots during my sleep.”
It’s understandable for people to see it as an insult when someone didn’t sing “God Save the Queen” at the memorial, because the Queen played a major part in the battle, as a wing commander who shot down five enemy aircraft over Folkestone.
Even so, it’s hard to see how the national anthem is the song that most directly commemorates the RAF, so one suggestion to avoid a similar incident in future is to sing a different song at each memorial. Next year it could be “The Omen” by The Prodigy. Anyone not joining in by screaming “The writing’s on the wall” in St Paul’s cathedral will be arrested for treason.
Once again it was The Sun that seemed most furious about this lack of respect for dead servicemen. But if Corbyn gets his way it won’t even be possible to insult the armed forces, because, according to The Sun, he’ll “abolish the army”.
It didn’t make clear how he’d do that, especially when he appears at Prime Ministers’ Questions seeming mild and reasonable, reading out questions sent in from around the country. Most people seem to feel this was a healthy change, though it may be even better if he puts all the questions in a bucket and draws them out at random.
This would strengthen our democracy further. “Prime Minister, Tina from Exeter asks, who would win in a fight between Godzilla and a giant tarantula?” At first, Cameron would insist the mutant spider had no chance against a seasoned monster with wide experience of destruction, and his front bench would yell “hear hear hear” as usual. But eventually a calmer atmosphere would prevail, and Parliament would become a forum for reasonable debate. That’s when Corbyn will strike to abolish the army.
He’ll introduce a similar system, so instead of weapons, our soldiers will march to the front line of a battle, and call out to the enemy: “Alan from Doncaster has asked what are you going to do about all the fires in the city you’ve just demolished.” Then in 50 years’ time, when there’s a memorial for all our troops that are captured, he won’t even sing at it.
That’s how much of a danger he is.
Imran Khan - Pakistan's Donald Trump
Pervez Hoodbhoy in The Dawn
Even his fellow Republicans have labelled him insane. But, defying the predictions of all soothsayers and political pundits, Donald Trump’s still surging popularity with Republican voters suggests that he could become America’s next president. The first step, now within reach, will be winning the Republican Party’s nomination.
Articulating the ‘mad as hell’ anger felt by many Americans towards Washington’s putatively liberal policies, Trump knows it pays to be outrageous and wickedly racist. He follows the black-hating governor of Alabama in the 1960’s, George Wallace, who would famously shout “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” at rallies. Some of Trump’s claims are breathtaking: Mexican immigrants are mostly criminals and rapists, and President Obama is a foreign-born Muslim.
An American political commentator, John Dean (of Watergate fame), describes Trump as “a near perfect authoritarian leader” with a personality type that is “intimidating and bullying, faintly hedonistic, vengeful, pitiless, exploitive, manipulative, dishonest, cheat to win, highly prejudiced, mean-spirited, militant, nationalistic, tell others what they want to hear, take advantage of ‘suckers’, specialise in creating false images to sell self, may or may not be religious.”
Made of the same stuff but packaged differently, the Trump-Khan duo has thrilled extremists.
Take away the “faintly” and this neatly fits Trump’s Pakistani counterpart, cricketer Imran Khan, who burst upon Pakistan’s political scene with his mammoth Lahore jalsa of 2011. With a lavish lifestyle and his playboy past neatly tucked away in some closet the reformed Khan promised the moon as he cavorted on the stage, loudly praying towards Makkah for success.
Khan’s support base is diverse: college-educated “burger bachas”, brigades of bejewelled begums, hysterical semi-educated youth, and wild-eyed TTP supporters. Delighting them all, he unleashes from time to time a steady stream of abuse upon his political rivals who threaten to sue him but are ultimately deterred by Pakistan’s labyrinthine court system.
Made of the same stuff but packaged differently, the Trump-Khan duo has thrilled racial and religious extremists. The former leader of the Klu Klux Klan, David Duke, declared that of all presidential candidates, Trump is “the best of the lot”. Khan received still greater appreciation. He was nominated by the TTP as their representative to last year’s (cancelled) peace talks, the reward for leading massive “peace” marches protesting American drones. Resolutely refusing to condemn any Taliban atrocity, Khan would seek to shift the blame on the US.
Worshipful followers love aggressive leaders. Trump, said to be the most abrasive politician in American history, uses barbs and insults while Khan menacingly swings his cricket bat. Use of indecent language invites no penalties. Last month, Trump crudely remarked that Fox anchor Megyn Kelly, who had aggressively confronted him in a CNN interview, had “Blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever.” Khan went yet further. From the top of his dharna container, he screamed that a panicking Nawaz Sharif had wetted his shalwar.
Why do such leaders attract followers? First, each can confidently claim that he is his own man, a top-of-his-game type. He can convincingly label political rivals as midgets, corrupt, or incompetent (Khan’s job is easier than Trump’s). The self-made Trump earned a fortune through real-estate business and now owns acres of expensive Manhattan land. His personal worth, though modest on the scale of today’s billionaires, is around $4 billion.
Khan too is self-made. He ranks as one of the world’s best cricket professionals who could bat, bowl, and captain. His cancer hospital is a model of professional management and an important public service, even if his contribution pales before that of Abdus Sattar Edhi.
A second reason: both men are unabashed narcissists. But shouldn’t this turn people off rather than on? In normal life narcissism is considered a personality disorder, but not so in politics. Exceptionally vain and self-absorbed men, who see themselves as deserving attention and power, are often the winners in political contests. Explaining this anomaly is a challenge for those who study group psychology.
A recent issue of Harvard Business Review carries an article intriguingly titled, ‘Why we love narcissists’. The author, Prof Tomas Premuzic of University College London, summarises recent research in psychology that explains how narcissists get ahead in all domains of life. Premuzic distinguishes between “productive narcissists” like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, who actually created great new industries, with “charismatic narcissists” who use charm to push personal agendas.
Charismatic narcissists, says Premuzic, are masterful impression managers. They dress to impress, disguise arrogance as confidence, and are superb social networkers. Convinced they are never wrong, they take credit whenever things go well. But when things go awry, they blame colleagues and subordinates. Premuzic notes that “It is always easier to fool others when you have already fooled yourself; it is always harder to feel guilty when you think you are innocent.”
Even with wild schemes, the charismatic narcissist can whip up enormous enthusiasm. Trump has vowed to build a wall along the US southern border with Mexico, likening it to the Great Wall of China and has even dubbed it “The Great Wall of Trump”. What he doesn’t know — and doesn’t want to know — is that even the Ming Dynasty’s 13,000-mile wall failed to keep out the Manchurians.
Khan’s ideas make even Trump’s hare-brained schemes look tame. Once I’m in power, Khan declared, I will end corruption in 19 days and terrorism in 90 days. The 19 was subsequently changed to 90; the need for an additional 71 days remained unexplained. But let’s put that aside. It’s now 887 days since Khan’s PTI took over the reins of the KP province. The end of corruption and terrorism should be nigh, right? But don’t hold your breath.
To conclude: charismatic narcissists are much hot air but very little substance. Unfortunately, they can be very dangerous. If running a country they can take it to war, waste resources, and increase internal violence. On the other hand, real leadership requires building high performance teams, emphasising altruism over egotism, and competence over confidence. Until the public understands this, it will continue inviting narcissists to the top while overlooking more reasonable alternatives.
Thursday 17 September 2015
Databall
Big data is already reshaping on-field tactics and team selection. It may not be too long before it changes the game as we know it
Fast-bowler slayer: Rajasthan Royals' use of Brad Hodge down the order defied conventional wisdom, but it paid off © AFP
More famously Ajit Wadekar and Mohammad Azharuddin used Sachin Tendulkar to open the innings in ODIs in 1994, a move that lasted 18 years, multiple captaincies and brought India 15,310 runs and two World Cup finals. Arguably, it also paved the way for two other middle-order batsmen, Sourav Ganguly and Virender Sehwag, to open in ODIs.
Note the difference between Bharucha's explanation for the Hodge tactic and the other examples. Buchanan's explanation was based on an understanding that a specialist batsman's methods are useful against faster bowlers. Gavaskar's educated guess was down to his reading of Kapil's approach. Bradman surmised that the surer methods of specialist batsmen would yield greater results on a drier pitch. The "data", such as it was, that Wadekar and Azharuddin had to go on, had to do with Tendulkar's ability to attack the bowling, and Tendulkar's enthusiasm for the job. Bharucha had nothing to say about Hodge's technique or approach. His reasoning was based entirely on a new kind of measurement - the measurement of outcomes, based on events that had been recorded.
It would be a mistake to think that tactical choices were not based on data before the IPL or before Buchanan became Australia's coach. Data was used. It was data about technique and approach, not outcomes. It may not have been tabulated into percentages or frequency distributions or probabilities, but technique has always been based on propensities. The history of the game is littered with stories of eagle-eyed slip fielders who could see a batsman and work out his weaknesses - which good bowlers could then exploit. The use of logical inference based on observed fact to improve performance and make tactical choices is as old as the game itself. What is new is the type of data being collected.
"Moneyball", the data revolution in baseball, is about getting better value for money. As Jonah Hill's character in the movie about Oakland Athletics explains, teams have to think in terms of buying runs and outs, not players. The argument in Moneyball is an argument between two types of data: data from scouts, who observe players and reach judgements about their potential, and data about outcomes - runs, outs, walks, strikeouts and the like.
In baseball, the basic use of data about outcomes is to identify inefficiencies in the way players are valued. The returns on this approach should logically diminish with time; an inefficiency is only an inefficiency until other teams also see it as one. For example, if Mumbai Indians decided to use their deeper pockets to ensure the most favourable match-ups for as many of the 20 overs as possible, Royals would no longer have a competitive advantage. If Mumbai Indians looked at the same data as Royals, and made sure that a spinner was held back until Hodge came in to bat, they would be able to somewhat negate Hodge's effectiveness. Before long the quest to eliminate inefficiencies will merely keep teams from falling behind, instead of giving them a competitive advantage.
LA Dodgers manager Don Mattingly runs the show from the dugout, involving himself before nearly every pitch © Getty Images
This could play a big role in the kind of players that teams will select. Royals provide a glimpse into the future. Their decision to open the batting with Dravid (and later with Ajinkya Rahane) was the result of a combination of insights. The data showed that being 45 for 1 after six overs was better than being 60 for 3 at the same stage, and so Royals, according to Bharucha, "wanted someone who could hit good cricketing shots along the ground and pierce the gaps". Between 2011 and 2013, Dravid was an above-average IPL opener, scoring quickly and surely. After the Powerplay his scoring rate often dropped and his efforts to score at pace led to his dismissal far too regularly. Both Dravid and Bharucha told me that the idea of Dravid throwing caution to the wind after the sixth over, instead of trying to anchor the innings, was considered. The data suggested that it was more advantageous for Dravid to get out trying to score quickly than to develop his innings in the conventional sense after the Powerplay. In other words, it was better for Dravid to be replaced by a player who is, say, exceptionally good at hitting legspin, but not so good at other aspects of batting, or eventually by Hodge, the late-overs specialist hitter of pace.
It is possible to imagine a future where players develop their game in such hyper-specialised directions. The IPL already rewards players who are exceptionally skilled at hitting medium pace over the infield - though their game has not developed in other directions. Teams may soon try to ensure that these hyper-specialists are not used in situations that require other talents. Platooning - the idea of using specific players against specific opponents - is a time-honoured practice in baseball. Many baseballers focus on enhancing specific skills for specific situations - like left-hand relief pitchers going up against left-hand batters late in the innings.
Compared to Bharucha, Buchanan met with less success in implementing his ideas at Kolkata Knight Riders. His attempt to rope in a fielding coach with a baseball background (John Deeble) wasn't as successful as his path-breaking use of Mike Young with the Australian side. During his two-year stint as director of cricket in New Zealand, Buchanan says, a couple of economists used a huge data set to produce an "in-game analysis which gave information to the coach and team what tactics should be employed on the next delivery or next few deliveries to control the game, and thereby influence the probability of winning". The idea never took off and was resisted by coaches and players.
Buchanan makes the point about how a data-based approach to on-field strategy requires players to be accountable for each of their decisions. If the coaches don't know exactly what a bowler is trying to do with a given delivery, it is impossible for them to know whether the bowler's plan was successful (irrespective of the outcome). "If we [the team and coaching staff] know what the set play looks like, then we are all tuned to how well that is executed." Buchanan says players are resistant to this kind of accountability, and perhaps also to giving up autonomy.
The central question teams need to tackle is whether or not a coach has a legitimate role as a tactician when a game is in progress. The architecture of cricket grounds sets up many constraints. During T20 games players sit in dugouts - an innovation borrowed from American sport and football. However, in baseball and football, the dugout serves a specific purpose: the coach or manager runs the game from there. Not only does Don Mattingly, the coach of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, instruct his players before nearly every pitch, he also has an elaborate system of signs that is constantly updated so that it remains secret.
Peter Moores was criticised for being data-driven but so are many teams and coaches © Getty Images
In cricket, the relationship between those off the field and the active players has traditionally been distant. When Bob Woolmer tried to get Hansie Cronje to wear a earpiece he was not merely ahead of his time, he was trying to subvert the architecture of the sport. Cricket has traditionally had a different approach to accountability compared to baseball or football. This is no surprise. Baseball and football have been played for profit for far longer than cricket has, and consequently are mature big-money sports. It is unlikely that baseballers and footballers - often young men with little professional experience - are going to be left to their own devices when so much money is at stake. Every play has to be managed and every effort has to be made to get the most out of every play, or at least, teams need to be seen to be getting the most out of every play. Cricket may eventually get there but it will need both a change in attitudes, and there will need to be a means for coaches to get involved in each on-field decision.
The effectiveness of the use of cricket data is limited by how often new information can be conveyed to players and also by how often players can be substituted during a game. In baseball only nine players are in the game at any time, but each team's bench holds a further 16, of whom about 12 are usually available for use.
The use of match data in cricket is still in its infancy. Here is an example of software used by Cricket Australia (CA). It is developed by a company called Fair Play, and many cricket teams (franchise and international) use this system.
© Fair Play
Currently data is entered manually, in real time. The time available to make a record of each delivery is limited to the time it takes for the bowler to deliver the next one. As CA's Team Performance Information Manager Brian McFadyen observed in an email, it is much harder to capture data when spinners are bowling than when fast bowlers are bowling. A total of 166,006 balls were delivered in men's international cricket alone in 2014. Collecting data for 60 or 70 variables for each delivery would take about 5500 hours, assuming that it takes, on average, two seconds to record each variable. As you can imagine, this is an expensive and labour-intensive proposition.
Cricket might go the way of Major League Baseball's Statcast, a tracking technology used by many baseball franchises and now also available on broadcast. According to the MLB website, Statcast "collects the data using a series of high-resolution optical cameras along with radar equipment that has been installed in all 30 Major League ballparks. The technology precisely tracks the location and movements of the ball and every player on the field at any given time."
The data is mined using algorithms on the raw video data, and hence a large amount of data is captured for every single pitch. It is not only used by franchises for analysis but also in broadcasts to help fans develop a better understanding.
The use of data promises to change not only how cricket is played but also how it is watched and analysed. It is possible to foresee new types of television shows presenting data-based insights, and new types of fan engagements, like fantasy leagues, enhanced by the use of data. Perhaps conventional wisdom about risk-taking and probabilities of success will be refined. Today's television broadcast is littered with statistics like WASP, the Batting Index, the Bowling Index and the Pressure Index. What is missing is a critical mass of experts who are competent enough to discuss the merits of these measures and educate fans on how they work.
The first decade of franchise-based cricket saw the language and grammar of long-form cricket being adopted wholesale to describe the new game. Spinners, we were told in the early days, were deceiving batsmen the same way they did in Tests. This despite the fact that batsmen were often of a different mindset facing spin in T20s than in the middle of a Test. It is now clear that the 20-over game has little in common with the longer versions, and perhaps the use of data to maximise each player's productivity will provide the impetus for a new language.
The larger question is how this will affect the way the game is played. Buchanan's dream of using data and technology to systematically develop ambidextrous players - polymath super-cricketers - may well have to give way to developing thousands of players who loft the ball better than Tendulkar ever could, but can't play the short ball at all. Instead of super-cricketers, big data might produce mini-cricketers run by super-managers.
We have already seen how things can go pear-shaped for super-managers. Peter Moores had two stints as England's head coach. Kevin Pietersen, the England captain during Moores' first stint, would later ridicule him for constantly emphasising metrics. In his autobiography Pietersen suggested that the central effect of all the data input was to irritate the players. Moores' second stint ended farcically when an innocent comment, after England were eliminated from the 2015 World Cup, was used as proof of his unhealthy obsession with data. The subtext was obvious: sport is played with heart and brawn, so who does this guy think he is to assume numbers are important? For fans humiliated by a big defeat, this type of chauvinism is too delicious to resist. Data - facts - would just complicate their catharsis.
At the same time, data is central to every team's preparation for matches. In an interview to the Cricket Monthly, Ricky Ponting observed that matters have reached a point now where every player has a laptop, and every player has to study before games. Whatever Moores' critics might say, every team pores over vast amounts of data and studies their opponents.
What remains to be seen is the effect of big data on cricket's evolution. Will the overall quality of the game improve? Will the coach emerge as match-manager and chief tactician? Will tomorrow's average cricketer be fitter, stronger, more skilful, more versatile than today's? Or, despite the best intentions of coaches, captains and players, will the data ensure that new types of tail-enders proliferate?
Time will tell.
KARTIKEYA DATE in Cricinfo | SEPTEMBER 2015
In 2012, Rajasthan Royals signed Brad Hodge, one of a generation of high-quality Australian cricketers who spent years on the fringes of an all-time great side. Given Hodge's pioneering T20 efforts, above and beyond his first-class and Test experience, this was a major signing by IPL standards.
Conventional wisdom held that Hodge should bat early in the innings. But Royals used Hodge deep in the order, preferring lesser local players at Nos. 3, 4 and 5. Observers were perplexed. ESPNcricinfo's S Rajesh wrote that their decision defied logic because Hodge had better overall numbers than those who batted ahead of him.
Zubin Bharucha, Royals' director of cricket, explained the rationale behind Hodge batting at No. 6 or even 7 in an email interview. He said Royals had "nobody better to play the role against the fast bowlers, and with those last four-five overs deciding the course of a majority of games, wouldn't you want the player having the best stats against fast bowling to take on the responsibility for that phase?"
According to Bharucha, they found that Hodge had done brilliantly against pace (a strike rate of 157) but relatively poorly against spin (strike rate 115). Why use him at No. 3 when he would almost certainly have to face the full spells of the opposition's specialist spinners? Even if a spinner was bowling late in the innings, Rahul Dravid, then Royals' captain, told me in a Skype interview, the instructions to Hodge were to avoid taking chances, play the over out if need be, and save himself to attack the faster bowlers. Hodge's batting position was incidental. The point was to use him against fast bowling at the end of the innings. Data showed that this would be a better use of Hodge than the more conventional approach.
In 2012, Rajasthan Royals signed Brad Hodge, one of a generation of high-quality Australian cricketers who spent years on the fringes of an all-time great side. Given Hodge's pioneering T20 efforts, above and beyond his first-class and Test experience, this was a major signing by IPL standards.
Conventional wisdom held that Hodge should bat early in the innings. But Royals used Hodge deep in the order, preferring lesser local players at Nos. 3, 4 and 5. Observers were perplexed. ESPNcricinfo's S Rajesh wrote that their decision defied logic because Hodge had better overall numbers than those who batted ahead of him.
Zubin Bharucha, Royals' director of cricket, explained the rationale behind Hodge batting at No. 6 or even 7 in an email interview. He said Royals had "nobody better to play the role against the fast bowlers, and with those last four-five overs deciding the course of a majority of games, wouldn't you want the player having the best stats against fast bowling to take on the responsibility for that phase?"
According to Bharucha, they found that Hodge had done brilliantly against pace (a strike rate of 157) but relatively poorly against spin (strike rate 115). Why use him at No. 3 when he would almost certainly have to face the full spells of the opposition's specialist spinners? Even if a spinner was bowling late in the innings, Rahul Dravid, then Royals' captain, told me in a Skype interview, the instructions to Hodge were to avoid taking chances, play the over out if need be, and save himself to attack the faster bowlers. Hodge's batting position was incidental. The point was to use him against fast bowling at the end of the innings. Data showed that this would be a better use of Hodge than the more conventional approach.
A journeyman Ranji Trophy batsman could work on one aspect of his attacking play to the exclusion of all others and become useful for his franchise as a hyper-specialist
This strategy seemed to work during Hodge's second season with Royals. He remained unbeaten seven times in 14 innings and scored 293 runs in 218 balls. Interestingly Hodge played for two other T20 sides between 2012 and 2014 - Melbourne Stars and Barisal Burners. Both used him in one of the top three spots and he did just as well in terms of strike rate and batting average. However, the success of Royals' experiment lay not just in Hodge's numbers but in the success of other players and of the team as a whole.
Royals was not the first side to make such a tactical choice. Don Bradman famously reversed his batting order on a drying pitchin Melbourne in the 1936-37 Ashes. Sunil Gavaskar has written in One Day Wonders about holding back Kapil Dev while Lance Cairns was bowling in the semi-final of the 1985 World Championship of Cricket. Gavaskar felt Kapil was better off taking on the pace of Richard Hadlee rather than the deceptively tempting mediums of Cairns. Kapil made 54 in 37 balls and saw India home.
There have also been more systematic tactical choices. During the 1995-96 Australian domestic season, John Buchanan, then the Queensland coach, used Jimmy Maher and Martin Love to take on fast bowlers in the last ten overs. As Buchanan explained in an email interview, "I wanted skilled batsmen who could also run well between wickets to take advantage of this period. It did mean we might sacrifice some scoring possibilities earlier, but I backed our top order as well as the fact that we chose some batting allrounders who could bat higher."
This strategy seemed to work during Hodge's second season with Royals. He remained unbeaten seven times in 14 innings and scored 293 runs in 218 balls. Interestingly Hodge played for two other T20 sides between 2012 and 2014 - Melbourne Stars and Barisal Burners. Both used him in one of the top three spots and he did just as well in terms of strike rate and batting average. However, the success of Royals' experiment lay not just in Hodge's numbers but in the success of other players and of the team as a whole.
Royals was not the first side to make such a tactical choice. Don Bradman famously reversed his batting order on a drying pitchin Melbourne in the 1936-37 Ashes. Sunil Gavaskar has written in One Day Wonders about holding back Kapil Dev while Lance Cairns was bowling in the semi-final of the 1985 World Championship of Cricket. Gavaskar felt Kapil was better off taking on the pace of Richard Hadlee rather than the deceptively tempting mediums of Cairns. Kapil made 54 in 37 balls and saw India home.
There have also been more systematic tactical choices. During the 1995-96 Australian domestic season, John Buchanan, then the Queensland coach, used Jimmy Maher and Martin Love to take on fast bowlers in the last ten overs. As Buchanan explained in an email interview, "I wanted skilled batsmen who could also run well between wickets to take advantage of this period. It did mean we might sacrifice some scoring possibilities earlier, but I backed our top order as well as the fact that we chose some batting allrounders who could bat higher."
Fast-bowler slayer: Rajasthan Royals' use of Brad Hodge down the order defied conventional wisdom, but it paid off © AFP
More famously Ajit Wadekar and Mohammad Azharuddin used Sachin Tendulkar to open the innings in ODIs in 1994, a move that lasted 18 years, multiple captaincies and brought India 15,310 runs and two World Cup finals. Arguably, it also paved the way for two other middle-order batsmen, Sourav Ganguly and Virender Sehwag, to open in ODIs.
Note the difference between Bharucha's explanation for the Hodge tactic and the other examples. Buchanan's explanation was based on an understanding that a specialist batsman's methods are useful against faster bowlers. Gavaskar's educated guess was down to his reading of Kapil's approach. Bradman surmised that the surer methods of specialist batsmen would yield greater results on a drier pitch. The "data", such as it was, that Wadekar and Azharuddin had to go on, had to do with Tendulkar's ability to attack the bowling, and Tendulkar's enthusiasm for the job. Bharucha had nothing to say about Hodge's technique or approach. His reasoning was based entirely on a new kind of measurement - the measurement of outcomes, based on events that had been recorded.
The central question teams need to tackle is whether or not a coach has a legitimate role as a tactician when a game is in progress
It would be a mistake to think that tactical choices were not based on data before the IPL or before Buchanan became Australia's coach. Data was used. It was data about technique and approach, not outcomes. It may not have been tabulated into percentages or frequency distributions or probabilities, but technique has always been based on propensities. The history of the game is littered with stories of eagle-eyed slip fielders who could see a batsman and work out his weaknesses - which good bowlers could then exploit. The use of logical inference based on observed fact to improve performance and make tactical choices is as old as the game itself. What is new is the type of data being collected.
"Moneyball", the data revolution in baseball, is about getting better value for money. As Jonah Hill's character in the movie about Oakland Athletics explains, teams have to think in terms of buying runs and outs, not players. The argument in Moneyball is an argument between two types of data: data from scouts, who observe players and reach judgements about their potential, and data about outcomes - runs, outs, walks, strikeouts and the like.
In baseball, the basic use of data about outcomes is to identify inefficiencies in the way players are valued. The returns on this approach should logically diminish with time; an inefficiency is only an inefficiency until other teams also see it as one. For example, if Mumbai Indians decided to use their deeper pockets to ensure the most favourable match-ups for as many of the 20 overs as possible, Royals would no longer have a competitive advantage. If Mumbai Indians looked at the same data as Royals, and made sure that a spinner was held back until Hodge came in to bat, they would be able to somewhat negate Hodge's effectiveness. Before long the quest to eliminate inefficiencies will merely keep teams from falling behind, instead of giving them a competitive advantage.
LA Dodgers manager Don Mattingly runs the show from the dugout, involving himself before nearly every pitch © Getty Images
This could play a big role in the kind of players that teams will select. Royals provide a glimpse into the future. Their decision to open the batting with Dravid (and later with Ajinkya Rahane) was the result of a combination of insights. The data showed that being 45 for 1 after six overs was better than being 60 for 3 at the same stage, and so Royals, according to Bharucha, "wanted someone who could hit good cricketing shots along the ground and pierce the gaps". Between 2011 and 2013, Dravid was an above-average IPL opener, scoring quickly and surely. After the Powerplay his scoring rate often dropped and his efforts to score at pace led to his dismissal far too regularly. Both Dravid and Bharucha told me that the idea of Dravid throwing caution to the wind after the sixth over, instead of trying to anchor the innings, was considered. The data suggested that it was more advantageous for Dravid to get out trying to score quickly than to develop his innings in the conventional sense after the Powerplay. In other words, it was better for Dravid to be replaced by a player who is, say, exceptionally good at hitting legspin, but not so good at other aspects of batting, or eventually by Hodge, the late-overs specialist hitter of pace.
It is possible to imagine a future where players develop their game in such hyper-specialised directions. The IPL already rewards players who are exceptionally skilled at hitting medium pace over the infield - though their game has not developed in other directions. Teams may soon try to ensure that these hyper-specialists are not used in situations that require other talents. Platooning - the idea of using specific players against specific opponents - is a time-honoured practice in baseball. Many baseballers focus on enhancing specific skills for specific situations - like left-hand relief pitchers going up against left-hand batters late in the innings.
When Bob Woolmer tried to get Hansie Cronje to wear an earpiece he was not merely ahead of his time, he was trying to subvert the architecture of the sport
This trend could create new opportunities in cricket. A journeyman Ranji Trophy middle-order batsman, who will never challenge Rahane for a slot in India's Test team, could work on one aspect of his attacking play to the exclusion of all others and become useful for his franchise as a hyper-specialist. The logical conclusion of Hodge's story would be for Royals to leave him out of the XI against a team playing no fast bowlers, even if he was in fantastic form. Instead they might select a local batsman who is extremely skilled at hitting spinners. The data might eventually show that a $35,000 local player is better than a $350,000 international in a big final.
Developing such hyper-specialists runs counter to generations of coaching wisdom. This tension came through in my interview with Bharucha, who was keenly aware of the different emphases involved in training a Test player and training an IPL specialist. Royals say that their ambition is to produce cricketers for India. But they need to balance the necessity of training specialists - to make the most of their limited resources - against producing well-rounded Test cricketers. Bharucha, a former first-class batsman who learnt his cricket under old-school coaches in Mumbai, points to the development and ambitions of Rahane, Sanju Samson, Stuart Binny and Karun Nair (who hit a triple-hundred in the 2015 Ranji final) as all-format players. "The way we teach and instruct," Bharucha wrote, "will always be to tighten technique and play quality cricket shots, even though it is T20 we are talking about. I feel coaching has always got to be something far deeper and must include the overarching goal of improving the quality of cricket played around the world."
The cerebral coach: John Buchanan's method revolved around making players accountable for their decisions on the field © AFP
Bharucha is aware of the contradiction. On the one hand Royals take a radical approach to batting. As he explained with regard to Hodge, "There are no batting numbers at Royals, only an over in which a batsman could potentially go in."
On the other hand, Bharucha also said, "At Royals one always weighs all of this up against the promotion of Indian talent, as year on year we look to shape the life and career of someone who could be a valuable contributor to the country. It's never just a shallow decision of who should bat where."
Winning in the IPL may well require cold-blooded platooning and the pursuit of hyper-specialists. But it would be a mistake to ignore the way longer currents of history shape the work of coaches and tacticians, whatever the data might say.
Acombination of technology and vast sums of money on offer has played a big part in creating the basis for a data-centred approach to tactics and specialisation. Some, like Bharucha and Buchanan, see data in match play and coaching as a boon. Buchanan visualises the role of the cricket coach evolving into one of a tactician and match-manager. But like all change, progress has been interrupted by older conventions and attitudes.
This trend could create new opportunities in cricket. A journeyman Ranji Trophy middle-order batsman, who will never challenge Rahane for a slot in India's Test team, could work on one aspect of his attacking play to the exclusion of all others and become useful for his franchise as a hyper-specialist. The logical conclusion of Hodge's story would be for Royals to leave him out of the XI against a team playing no fast bowlers, even if he was in fantastic form. Instead they might select a local batsman who is extremely skilled at hitting spinners. The data might eventually show that a $35,000 local player is better than a $350,000 international in a big final.
Developing such hyper-specialists runs counter to generations of coaching wisdom. This tension came through in my interview with Bharucha, who was keenly aware of the different emphases involved in training a Test player and training an IPL specialist. Royals say that their ambition is to produce cricketers for India. But they need to balance the necessity of training specialists - to make the most of their limited resources - against producing well-rounded Test cricketers. Bharucha, a former first-class batsman who learnt his cricket under old-school coaches in Mumbai, points to the development and ambitions of Rahane, Sanju Samson, Stuart Binny and Karun Nair (who hit a triple-hundred in the 2015 Ranji final) as all-format players. "The way we teach and instruct," Bharucha wrote, "will always be to tighten technique and play quality cricket shots, even though it is T20 we are talking about. I feel coaching has always got to be something far deeper and must include the overarching goal of improving the quality of cricket played around the world."
The cerebral coach: John Buchanan's method revolved around making players accountable for their decisions on the field © AFP
Bharucha is aware of the contradiction. On the one hand Royals take a radical approach to batting. As he explained with regard to Hodge, "There are no batting numbers at Royals, only an over in which a batsman could potentially go in."
On the other hand, Bharucha also said, "At Royals one always weighs all of this up against the promotion of Indian talent, as year on year we look to shape the life and career of someone who could be a valuable contributor to the country. It's never just a shallow decision of who should bat where."
Winning in the IPL may well require cold-blooded platooning and the pursuit of hyper-specialists. But it would be a mistake to ignore the way longer currents of history shape the work of coaches and tacticians, whatever the data might say.
Acombination of technology and vast sums of money on offer has played a big part in creating the basis for a data-centred approach to tactics and specialisation. Some, like Bharucha and Buchanan, see data in match play and coaching as a boon. Buchanan visualises the role of the cricket coach evolving into one of a tactician and match-manager. But like all change, progress has been interrupted by older conventions and attitudes.
The use of logical inference based on observed fact to improve performance and make tactical choices is as old as the game itself. What is new is the type of data being collected
Compared to Bharucha, Buchanan met with less success in implementing his ideas at Kolkata Knight Riders. His attempt to rope in a fielding coach with a baseball background (John Deeble) wasn't as successful as his path-breaking use of Mike Young with the Australian side. During his two-year stint as director of cricket in New Zealand, Buchanan says, a couple of economists used a huge data set to produce an "in-game analysis which gave information to the coach and team what tactics should be employed on the next delivery or next few deliveries to control the game, and thereby influence the probability of winning". The idea never took off and was resisted by coaches and players.
Buchanan makes the point about how a data-based approach to on-field strategy requires players to be accountable for each of their decisions. If the coaches don't know exactly what a bowler is trying to do with a given delivery, it is impossible for them to know whether the bowler's plan was successful (irrespective of the outcome). "If we [the team and coaching staff] know what the set play looks like, then we are all tuned to how well that is executed." Buchanan says players are resistant to this kind of accountability, and perhaps also to giving up autonomy.
The central question teams need to tackle is whether or not a coach has a legitimate role as a tactician when a game is in progress. The architecture of cricket grounds sets up many constraints. During T20 games players sit in dugouts - an innovation borrowed from American sport and football. However, in baseball and football, the dugout serves a specific purpose: the coach or manager runs the game from there. Not only does Don Mattingly, the coach of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, instruct his players before nearly every pitch, he also has an elaborate system of signs that is constantly updated so that it remains secret.
Peter Moores was criticised for being data-driven but so are many teams and coaches © Getty Images
In cricket, the relationship between those off the field and the active players has traditionally been distant. When Bob Woolmer tried to get Hansie Cronje to wear a earpiece he was not merely ahead of his time, he was trying to subvert the architecture of the sport. Cricket has traditionally had a different approach to accountability compared to baseball or football. This is no surprise. Baseball and football have been played for profit for far longer than cricket has, and consequently are mature big-money sports. It is unlikely that baseballers and footballers - often young men with little professional experience - are going to be left to their own devices when so much money is at stake. Every play has to be managed and every effort has to be made to get the most out of every play, or at least, teams need to be seen to be getting the most out of every play. Cricket may eventually get there but it will need both a change in attitudes, and there will need to be a means for coaches to get involved in each on-field decision.
The effectiveness of the use of cricket data is limited by how often new information can be conveyed to players and also by how often players can be substituted during a game. In baseball only nine players are in the game at any time, but each team's bench holds a further 16, of whom about 12 are usually available for use.
The use of match data in cricket is still in its infancy. Here is an example of software used by Cricket Australia (CA). It is developed by a company called Fair Play, and many cricket teams (franchise and international) use this system.
© Fair Play
Currently data is entered manually, in real time. The time available to make a record of each delivery is limited to the time it takes for the bowler to deliver the next one. As CA's Team Performance Information Manager Brian McFadyen observed in an email, it is much harder to capture data when spinners are bowling than when fast bowlers are bowling. A total of 166,006 balls were delivered in men's international cricket alone in 2014. Collecting data for 60 or 70 variables for each delivery would take about 5500 hours, assuming that it takes, on average, two seconds to record each variable. As you can imagine, this is an expensive and labour-intensive proposition.
Cricket might go the way of Major League Baseball's Statcast, a tracking technology used by many baseball franchises and now also available on broadcast. According to the MLB website, Statcast "collects the data using a series of high-resolution optical cameras along with radar equipment that has been installed in all 30 Major League ballparks. The technology precisely tracks the location and movements of the ball and every player on the field at any given time."
The data is mined using algorithms on the raw video data, and hence a large amount of data is captured for every single pitch. It is not only used by franchises for analysis but also in broadcasts to help fans develop a better understanding.
The use of data promises to change not only how cricket is played but also how it is watched and analysed. It is possible to foresee new types of television shows presenting data-based insights, and new types of fan engagements, like fantasy leagues, enhanced by the use of data. Perhaps conventional wisdom about risk-taking and probabilities of success will be refined. Today's television broadcast is littered with statistics like WASP, the Batting Index, the Bowling Index and the Pressure Index. What is missing is a critical mass of experts who are competent enough to discuss the merits of these measures and educate fans on how they work.
Instead of ambidextrous players - polymath super-cricketers - big data might produce mini-cricketers run by super-managers
The first decade of franchise-based cricket saw the language and grammar of long-form cricket being adopted wholesale to describe the new game. Spinners, we were told in the early days, were deceiving batsmen the same way they did in Tests. This despite the fact that batsmen were often of a different mindset facing spin in T20s than in the middle of a Test. It is now clear that the 20-over game has little in common with the longer versions, and perhaps the use of data to maximise each player's productivity will provide the impetus for a new language.
The larger question is how this will affect the way the game is played. Buchanan's dream of using data and technology to systematically develop ambidextrous players - polymath super-cricketers - may well have to give way to developing thousands of players who loft the ball better than Tendulkar ever could, but can't play the short ball at all. Instead of super-cricketers, big data might produce mini-cricketers run by super-managers.
We have already seen how things can go pear-shaped for super-managers. Peter Moores had two stints as England's head coach. Kevin Pietersen, the England captain during Moores' first stint, would later ridicule him for constantly emphasising metrics. In his autobiography Pietersen suggested that the central effect of all the data input was to irritate the players. Moores' second stint ended farcically when an innocent comment, after England were eliminated from the 2015 World Cup, was used as proof of his unhealthy obsession with data. The subtext was obvious: sport is played with heart and brawn, so who does this guy think he is to assume numbers are important? For fans humiliated by a big defeat, this type of chauvinism is too delicious to resist. Data - facts - would just complicate their catharsis.
At the same time, data is central to every team's preparation for matches. In an interview to the Cricket Monthly, Ricky Ponting observed that matters have reached a point now where every player has a laptop, and every player has to study before games. Whatever Moores' critics might say, every team pores over vast amounts of data and studies their opponents.
What remains to be seen is the effect of big data on cricket's evolution. Will the overall quality of the game improve? Will the coach emerge as match-manager and chief tactician? Will tomorrow's average cricketer be fitter, stronger, more skilful, more versatile than today's? Or, despite the best intentions of coaches, captains and players, will the data ensure that new types of tail-enders proliferate?
Time will tell.
Tuesday 15 September 2015
The spirit's in the laws
Joe Yates in Cricinfo
Spirit of Cricket? - Laws be damned!
Once again, following Ben Stokes' obstructing-the-field dismissal in an ODI at Lord's, the spirit of cricket debate reared its ugly and pretentious head. Ugly because there is a general lack of consensus on what the spirit of cricket actually is and pretentious because of what certain players, past and present, contributed to the discussion. One player said, 'I would have withdrawn the appeal.' Another said, 'we wouldn't have appealed in the first place.'
Really? The self-righteousness is nauseating!
First, let's deal with the basics. Ben Stokes intercepted a ball with his hand that was seemingly headed for the stumps with him well out of his ground. Under the laws, this action was grounds for an appeal, which the Australians rightfully did. The only question now was intent, which was for the umpires to decide. Upon consideration of the available evidence, the umpires concluded that, under law 37, Stokes had indeed obstructed the field and gave him out.
Spirit of Cricket? - Laws be damned!
Once again, following Ben Stokes' obstructing-the-field dismissal in an ODI at Lord's, the spirit of cricket debate reared its ugly and pretentious head. Ugly because there is a general lack of consensus on what the spirit of cricket actually is and pretentious because of what certain players, past and present, contributed to the discussion. One player said, 'I would have withdrawn the appeal.' Another said, 'we wouldn't have appealed in the first place.'
Really? The self-righteousness is nauseating!
First, let's deal with the basics. Ben Stokes intercepted a ball with his hand that was seemingly headed for the stumps with him well out of his ground. Under the laws, this action was grounds for an appeal, which the Australians rightfully did. The only question now was intent, which was for the umpires to decide. Upon consideration of the available evidence, the umpires concluded that, under law 37, Stokes had indeed obstructed the field and gave him out.
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So where exactly does the spirit of cricket come into this?
The only real way to settle this tediously endless debate on the spirit of cricket is to fall back to the MCC's preamble to the laws of cricket. The essence of this preamble is thus: The captain is responsible for the conduct of his players; all players must play fair; the umpires are the sole arbiters of what is fair; you must respect the opposition, your captain, the umpires, and the game's traditional values (whatever they are in this rapidly evolving age of protective equipment, cameras, microphones and DRS).
The problem comes when someone says something like this: "That may have been within the laws of the game, but it wasn't within its spirit."
Come again? How is that possible? Is this to suggest that the spirit of cricket is independent of, or even contrary to, its laws? Never may that happen!
The spirit of cricket is guided by principles - principles of fair play and honourable conduct. It has much less to do with how a batsman is dismissed. Violations of the spirit of cricket, such as ball-tampering, time-wasting, aggressive or dishonest appealing, and dissent are not dealt with by the umpires on the field as much as they are by the match referee after the game. Although even these offences can be handled on field by the umpires under Law 42, which legislates specifically for fair or unfair play.
So the only way to invoke the spirit of cricket in Ben Stokes' dismissal is in the validity of the appeal. Since there was deemed sufficient evidence to give him out, there was clearly enough evidence for an appeal. Ergo, spirit of cricket intact.
The spirit of cricket debate invariably surfaces when there is an unusual or rare dismissal, such as obstructing the field or running out the non-striker, a.k.a. mankading. Strong opinions were voiced when Ravi Ashwin mankaded Lahiru Thirimanne but the appeal was withdrawn 'in the interests of the spirit of cricket.'
Many believe that when a batsman backs up too far, he is gaining an unfair advantage. An advantage, certainly, but why is it unfair? It would only be unfair if the fielding side could do nothing about it. There is absolutely nothing in the laws of cricket stating that a batsman cannot leave his crease before the bowler bowls. There is a law (Law 38), however, that states that if a batsman is out of his crease when the ball is in play, which it is when the bowler starts his run-up (Law 22), he can be run out. Simple. Elegant. Balanced.
It is the same with obstructing the field. There is nothing in the laws of cricket stating that a batsman cannot interfere with the fielding side. However, there is a law that states that if he does, he can be given out. Where the most harm comes to the game of cricket is when the laws are flouted or ignored in favour of this intangible and mysterious spirit. The spirit of cricket is harmed when fielding teams are forced to think twice before raising a legitimate appeal or running out a batsman who is out of his crease when the ball is live.
The spirit of cricket was damaged far more when Steven Smith's integrity and maturity were called into question by not withdrawing the appeal than by the appeal itself. Where was the respect for the opponents or the umpires there?
Cricket is an invented sport. Like all sports, cricket has rules, or in cricket's case, Laws. If there is a law whose existence or application is widely seen to be against the interests, or spirit, of the game, then change or abolish that law. But we all know that is not going to happen. The laws of cricket have been developed and refined over many decades across three centuries - and are very clear.
The spirit of cricket should not and cannot exist separately from the laws of cricket. It is contained within its laws. Anyone who feels differently should either start a rigorous campaign to get the laws changed, or rethink what they consider to be in the game's spirit. And it most certainly should not be considered against the spirit of the game if the laws are correctly applied.
Knowing, accepting and playing within these Laws IS the Spirit of Cricket.
So where exactly does the spirit of cricket come into this?
The only real way to settle this tediously endless debate on the spirit of cricket is to fall back to the MCC's preamble to the laws of cricket. The essence of this preamble is thus: The captain is responsible for the conduct of his players; all players must play fair; the umpires are the sole arbiters of what is fair; you must respect the opposition, your captain, the umpires, and the game's traditional values (whatever they are in this rapidly evolving age of protective equipment, cameras, microphones and DRS).
The problem comes when someone says something like this: "That may have been within the laws of the game, but it wasn't within its spirit."
Come again? How is that possible? Is this to suggest that the spirit of cricket is independent of, or even contrary to, its laws? Never may that happen!
The spirit of cricket is guided by principles - principles of fair play and honourable conduct. It has much less to do with how a batsman is dismissed. Violations of the spirit of cricket, such as ball-tampering, time-wasting, aggressive or dishonest appealing, and dissent are not dealt with by the umpires on the field as much as they are by the match referee after the game. Although even these offences can be handled on field by the umpires under Law 42, which legislates specifically for fair or unfair play.
So the only way to invoke the spirit of cricket in Ben Stokes' dismissal is in the validity of the appeal. Since there was deemed sufficient evidence to give him out, there was clearly enough evidence for an appeal. Ergo, spirit of cricket intact.
The spirit of cricket debate invariably surfaces when there is an unusual or rare dismissal, such as obstructing the field or running out the non-striker, a.k.a. mankading. Strong opinions were voiced when Ravi Ashwin mankaded Lahiru Thirimanne but the appeal was withdrawn 'in the interests of the spirit of cricket.'
Many believe that when a batsman backs up too far, he is gaining an unfair advantage. An advantage, certainly, but why is it unfair? It would only be unfair if the fielding side could do nothing about it. There is absolutely nothing in the laws of cricket stating that a batsman cannot leave his crease before the bowler bowls. There is a law (Law 38), however, that states that if a batsman is out of his crease when the ball is in play, which it is when the bowler starts his run-up (Law 22), he can be run out. Simple. Elegant. Balanced.
It is the same with obstructing the field. There is nothing in the laws of cricket stating that a batsman cannot interfere with the fielding side. However, there is a law that states that if he does, he can be given out. Where the most harm comes to the game of cricket is when the laws are flouted or ignored in favour of this intangible and mysterious spirit. The spirit of cricket is harmed when fielding teams are forced to think twice before raising a legitimate appeal or running out a batsman who is out of his crease when the ball is live.
The spirit of cricket was damaged far more when Steven Smith's integrity and maturity were called into question by not withdrawing the appeal than by the appeal itself. Where was the respect for the opponents or the umpires there?
Cricket is an invented sport. Like all sports, cricket has rules, or in cricket's case, Laws. If there is a law whose existence or application is widely seen to be against the interests, or spirit, of the game, then change or abolish that law. But we all know that is not going to happen. The laws of cricket have been developed and refined over many decades across three centuries - and are very clear.
The spirit of cricket should not and cannot exist separately from the laws of cricket. It is contained within its laws. Anyone who feels differently should either start a rigorous campaign to get the laws changed, or rethink what they consider to be in the game's spirit. And it most certainly should not be considered against the spirit of the game if the laws are correctly applied.
Knowing, accepting and playing within these Laws IS the Spirit of Cricket.
Awaiting India’s Corbyn moment
Jawed Naqvi in The Dawn
LIBERAL politicians in India could speak like Jeremy Corbyn once, and, like him, believe in what they said. Take his speech at the refugees’ rally in London moments after the brilliant win as Labour Party chief. He spoke with conviction about a man-made human plight because he could feel like an ordinary, caring person, a man of reason with a hundred selfless concerns. What he said, in fact, was so straightforward and untangled in its simplicity that he made one wonder why today’s liberal leaders in India can’t be like that.
Refugees are not illegal people, Corbyn said. They are men, women and children rendered homeless, searching for the dignity and warmth which we took away from them. Does it take too much to say it that way? Refugees are made by wars we wage, he said. Indian leaders have said all this, and with conviction too, but much of that is in the past.
A disturbing moment that failed to evince a sound response from Indian liberals came when Prime Minister Modi churlishly welcomed non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan and Bangladesh. He was in violation of the constitution, but his opponents were busy not heeding. A Corbyn moment would have found someone speaking up: ‘Every community in India’s neighbourhood, regardless of their faith, in need of refuge from oppressive regimes, or who face threats to their lives from vigilante groups or other terrorists, are welcome in India.’ Indira Gandhi did open the doors to Gen Zia’s Pakistani victims.
Did the Indian left turn a Nelson’s eye to the communally fraught Modi musings because of its own past problems in West Bengal? Did the influx of Muslims from Bangladesh into West Bengal during its 30 years in office influence the left’s silence?
The religious revival we are witnessing worldwide, riding on the upsurge in right-wing politics, has seen upright thinkers and liberal groups wilt under the blow. This luxury could not be allowed to the communists. For years, Indian followers of the dominant Marxist party were led to believe that the annual Durga Puja festival religiously staged by the comrades in West Bengal was a cultural rather than a religious event. Perhaps it was the same cultural quest that saw the comrades in Kerala this time celebrating ‘Krishna Lila’.
Reports say last week’s act of unprecedented public devotion was necessitated by the need to prevent families of communist comrades from joining similar celebrations to Lord Krishna organised by Hindutva groups who are hoping to ease out the left from its oldest bastion in Kerala. With close to half the West Bengal cadre having defected to the Bharatiya Janata Party in Bengal since the recent poll debacles, the left, it seems, has yet to learn the lessons of mixing religion (in the garb of culture) with politics.
How would a Corbyn-like approach pitch the mosque versus temple politics that has dominated much of liberal Indian politics in recent decades? Indian rationalists, including Marxists, have scurried to look for ideological compromises so as not to offend the majority Hindus nor unduly rile the Muslim groups. In playing it safe, India’s liberals are hiding away what would have been their attraction. The much-maligned Indian state offered to rescue the enlightened politicians out of the horrible mess, but they continued to wallow in it.
What did the Indian state do, which was so out of character with its known political inclination, for it to deserve kudos? In the midst of a political controversy over a mythical bridge three years ago, the Manmohan Singh government plainly told the Supreme Court that there was no historical evidence to establish the existence of Lord Ram or the other characters in Ramayana.
In an affidavit filed before the apex court, the Archaeological Survey of India rejected the claim of the existence of the Ram Sethu bridge. It was a bold rejection of Hindutva’s claims.
Referring to the Ramayana, the Indian government’s affidavit said there is no “historical record” to incontrovertibly prove the existence of the character, or the occurrences of the events, depicted therein. This should ideally have been the position of Indian Marxists, not in their closed study circles, but on public platforms. What harm could have befallen the left had they played it straight, instead of deflecting the argument to perhaps woo certain constituencies? They would have lost the polls, perhaps. Did they win by being less than forthright?
India-Pakistan ties were a major issue on which the left and liberal voices counted for much. In recent days, other than an uncharacteristic nationalistic statement about terrorism that came from the Communist Party of India, there was little by way of a nudge much less an argument for peace from the left. They were busy dethroning the foreign minister, unsuccessfully eventually, when they were needed on the streets to stop the consolidation of fascism. They could have put their foot down on the hounding of Teesta Setalvad, the freeing of the accused in Gujarat pogrom cases, the gagging of NGOs.
Now we are watching the left — all five or six communist parties — hurtling into a potentially disastrous election mode in Bihar. They claim they are jointly fighting (which they should have done in Jawaharlal Nehru University) on all the assembly seats to challenge Narendra Modi’s quest to conquer Bihar. In reality, they will be cutting into the votes of Modi’s secular opponents. What would Corbyn have reasoned? ‘Granted that the secular alliance is tainted with corruption and deep-seated anti-Dalit prejudices. This needs to be corrected at the earliest. However, first we have to remove the fascist threat. Else we are all doomed.’
LIBERAL politicians in India could speak like Jeremy Corbyn once, and, like him, believe in what they said. Take his speech at the refugees’ rally in London moments after the brilliant win as Labour Party chief. He spoke with conviction about a man-made human plight because he could feel like an ordinary, caring person, a man of reason with a hundred selfless concerns. What he said, in fact, was so straightforward and untangled in its simplicity that he made one wonder why today’s liberal leaders in India can’t be like that.
Refugees are not illegal people, Corbyn said. They are men, women and children rendered homeless, searching for the dignity and warmth which we took away from them. Does it take too much to say it that way? Refugees are made by wars we wage, he said. Indian leaders have said all this, and with conviction too, but much of that is in the past.
A disturbing moment that failed to evince a sound response from Indian liberals came when Prime Minister Modi churlishly welcomed non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan and Bangladesh. He was in violation of the constitution, but his opponents were busy not heeding. A Corbyn moment would have found someone speaking up: ‘Every community in India’s neighbourhood, regardless of their faith, in need of refuge from oppressive regimes, or who face threats to their lives from vigilante groups or other terrorists, are welcome in India.’ Indira Gandhi did open the doors to Gen Zia’s Pakistani victims.
Did the Indian left turn a Nelson’s eye to the communally fraught Modi musings because of its own past problems in West Bengal? Did the influx of Muslims from Bangladesh into West Bengal during its 30 years in office influence the left’s silence?
The religious revival we are witnessing worldwide, riding on the upsurge in right-wing politics, has seen upright thinkers and liberal groups wilt under the blow. This luxury could not be allowed to the communists. For years, Indian followers of the dominant Marxist party were led to believe that the annual Durga Puja festival religiously staged by the comrades in West Bengal was a cultural rather than a religious event. Perhaps it was the same cultural quest that saw the comrades in Kerala this time celebrating ‘Krishna Lila’.
Reports say last week’s act of unprecedented public devotion was necessitated by the need to prevent families of communist comrades from joining similar celebrations to Lord Krishna organised by Hindutva groups who are hoping to ease out the left from its oldest bastion in Kerala. With close to half the West Bengal cadre having defected to the Bharatiya Janata Party in Bengal since the recent poll debacles, the left, it seems, has yet to learn the lessons of mixing religion (in the garb of culture) with politics.
How would a Corbyn-like approach pitch the mosque versus temple politics that has dominated much of liberal Indian politics in recent decades? Indian rationalists, including Marxists, have scurried to look for ideological compromises so as not to offend the majority Hindus nor unduly rile the Muslim groups. In playing it safe, India’s liberals are hiding away what would have been their attraction. The much-maligned Indian state offered to rescue the enlightened politicians out of the horrible mess, but they continued to wallow in it.
What did the Indian state do, which was so out of character with its known political inclination, for it to deserve kudos? In the midst of a political controversy over a mythical bridge three years ago, the Manmohan Singh government plainly told the Supreme Court that there was no historical evidence to establish the existence of Lord Ram or the other characters in Ramayana.
In an affidavit filed before the apex court, the Archaeological Survey of India rejected the claim of the existence of the Ram Sethu bridge. It was a bold rejection of Hindutva’s claims.
Referring to the Ramayana, the Indian government’s affidavit said there is no “historical record” to incontrovertibly prove the existence of the character, or the occurrences of the events, depicted therein. This should ideally have been the position of Indian Marxists, not in their closed study circles, but on public platforms. What harm could have befallen the left had they played it straight, instead of deflecting the argument to perhaps woo certain constituencies? They would have lost the polls, perhaps. Did they win by being less than forthright?
India-Pakistan ties were a major issue on which the left and liberal voices counted for much. In recent days, other than an uncharacteristic nationalistic statement about terrorism that came from the Communist Party of India, there was little by way of a nudge much less an argument for peace from the left. They were busy dethroning the foreign minister, unsuccessfully eventually, when they were needed on the streets to stop the consolidation of fascism. They could have put their foot down on the hounding of Teesta Setalvad, the freeing of the accused in Gujarat pogrom cases, the gagging of NGOs.
Now we are watching the left — all five or six communist parties — hurtling into a potentially disastrous election mode in Bihar. They claim they are jointly fighting (which they should have done in Jawaharlal Nehru University) on all the assembly seats to challenge Narendra Modi’s quest to conquer Bihar. In reality, they will be cutting into the votes of Modi’s secular opponents. What would Corbyn have reasoned? ‘Granted that the secular alliance is tainted with corruption and deep-seated anti-Dalit prejudices. This needs to be corrected at the earliest. However, first we have to remove the fascist threat. Else we are all doomed.’
Prime minister Jeremy Corbyn: the first 100 days
Chris Mullin in The Guardian
Thursday 7 May 2020. The polls have closed and, to general astonishment, a BBC exit poll is predicting a narrow victory for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour-Liberal Democrat-Green alliance.
From the outset, it is clear that there has been a huge increase in turnout among the young and the disaffected. As one commentator puts it: “Generation Rent appear to be taking their revenge on middle England.”
As usual, Sunderland South is the first seat to declare, less than an hour after polls close. Unsurprisingly, the Labour candidate is returned, but the swing is modest, causing commentators to suggest that perhaps the exit poll is mistaken.
The first sign that the earth is about to change places with the sky comes just after midnight when Labour begins picking up home counties seats it hasn’t held for a decade. Ipswich, Harwich, Harlow, Dover, the Medway towns and Plymouth Sutton fall in quick succession. Two Brighton seats and one in Bristol go Green, along with the hitherto safe Tory seat of Totnes.
At dawn, the result remains unclear. Most of the traditional Tory strongholds have held firm. In Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire and North Yorkshire, Tory MPs are returned with increased majorities. The outcome hangs on what happens in the 40 seats in which Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens have agreed not to oppose each other.
2am: All eyes are on Islington. Upper Street has been blocked since early evening by crowds chanting “Jeremy, Jeremy” and “Jez we can”. Of the Bearded One, there are only intermittent glimpses: at the declaration of his own result and, later, when he appears on the steps of Islington town hall. His demeanour, as ever, is downbeat and, as is his habit, he joins in the applause. “We must await events,” is all he says, before disappearing back inside. A large screen outside the town hall relays the results. The cheering and the chanting intensify with each new gain. By dawn, a delirious crowd is blocking the entire street from Highbury Corner to the Angel tube station. Large screens relaying the results have been erected at intervals along the entire length of the street. The atmosphere is more Glastonbury than Islington.
Meanwhile, commentators who only hours earlier had been predicting a Labour meltdown are now opining knowledgably on the causes of the earthquake. There is general agreement that the Tories overdid austerity. The collapse of just about all non-statutory services, the outsourcing of parks, the boarded-up theatres and youth clubs and the sporadic outbreaks of inner-city rioting have finally triggered a political backlash beyond the Labour heartlands. That, plus the growing realisation that an entire generation of young people have been priced out of the housing market by overseas investors and ruthless buy-to-let landlords.
There is general agreement, too, that attempts by the Tories and their tabloid friends to paint Corbyn as an agent of Hamas and Hezbollah have spectacularly backfired. Not least as a result of the revelation that MI6, with ministerial approval, has been talking to Hamas all along.
The tabloid press has gone bananas. “BRITAIN VOTES FOR LUNACY”, screams the Sun, without waiting for the final result. “STARK RAVING BONKERS” is the Mail’s considered opinion. The broadsheet press is only mildly less hysterical. The front page of the Telegraph is headed “CIVILISATION AS WE KNOW IT: THE END”. There is much talk of assets being evacuated. Florida seems to be the preferred destination.
From Chelsea to Chorleywood come reports of panic buying. Cue TV cameras panning empty shelves in the King’s Road branch of Waitrose.
Only on Friday morning, when the rural results come in, is the outcome clear. Former Lib-Dem strongholds in Devon, Cornwall and Northumberland have returned to the fold, along with Richmond Park and Twickenham, which declared overnight. Corbyn’s controversial decision not to contest these seats has paid off.
By noon, it has become clear to everyone that Corbyn is in a position to form a government. In Tatton, Cheshire, an ashen-faced George Osborne is shown on TV conceding defeat. “I have just telephoned Mr Corbyn to congratulate him,” he says through gritted teeth. A statement from the Scottish Nationalists, who have retained all but three of their seats, welcomes the outcome and says they look forward to working with the new government.
An hour later, Corbyn, looking cheerful and well-rested makes his way with difficulty by bicycle through the crowds in the Mall to the palace, where he is to be annointed. In deference to the occasion, he is wearing a smart sports jacket with a red-flag lapel button, but no tie. His majesty, unlike many of his courtiers, is said to be not too distressed by the outcome. In fact, say some, he is positively gleeful. Indeed, there are rumours that he has for some months been engaged in private correspondence with the Labour leader on a range of issues.
The sun shines. From all over the country there are reports of impromptu street parties.
Friday, 1pm: Corbyn, hotfoot from the palace, enters Downing Street pushing his bicycle. By now, he has acquired a police escort that, with difficulty, carves a path through the crowds to the door of No 10. “The dark days of austerity are at an end,” Corbyn says, before chaining his bicycle to the railings and disappearing inside.
News of his government trickles out slowly over the weekend. Many of the names are unfamiliar, but there are some surprises. Chuka Umunna is to be chancellor of the exchequer. Immediately the share index, which had been plummeting, stabilises.
Week one: In a statement to the House of Commons, the new defence secretary, Major Jarvis (as the press have taken to calling him), announces that plans to renew the Trident missile system are to be scrapped resulting in a saving to the public purse of many billions. Part of the proceeds will be invested in equipping and expanding conventional forces. He is at pains to emphasise that there are no plans to leave Nato. Major Jarvis adds that a modest expansion of the armed forces is to be undertaken in anticipation that British forces will have an increased role to play in UN peacekeeping. Immediately, a retired field marshal and a number of retired generals pop up to say that this represents a long overdue outbreak of common sense. Which largely trumps the howls of outrage from the military wing of the Tory party.
Week two: the King’s speech. Some observers affect to notice a spring in his majesty’s step. Among the highlights is a media diversity bill that places strict limits on the share of the British media owned by any single proprietor. As expected, the railways are to be taken back into public ownership, at no cost to the public purse, as the franchises expire. A state energy company will be established to compete with those in the private sector and a state investment bank will be set up with a mandate to invest only in productive and environmentally friendly activity. Plans to renationalise the energy companies are to be put on hold “for the time being”.
The flagship of the legislative programme is to be a housing bill reintroducing rents controls, and encouraging local authorities to build affordable housing. There is to be an indefinite moratorium on the sale of public housing.
Finally, a bill to enact reform of the House of Lords. Life peerages will be converted to terms of 12 years; likewise, the remaining hereditary peerages will be converted to a fixed term, allowing the hereditaries to die out. To sweeten the pill, former peers are to be allowed life access to the club facilities. Resistance, however, will not be tolerated. If necessary, up to 1,000 new peers will be created to force through the new arrangements.
Week three: the new chancellor’s pre-Budget speech. Words such as “caution” and the phrase “fiscal responsibility” feature frequently. Behind the scenes, there are reported to have been some differences between the prime minister and his chancellor, but come the day they are all smiles.
The new chancellor devotes some time to mocking the efforts of the previous administration to deal with the deficit. “The right honourable gentleman,” says Chancellor Chuka as he points an accusing finger at the former prime minister Osborne, “promised to pay down the deficit in five years, then in nine, then in 10, and all he succeeded in doing is collapsing much of the public sector while leaving half the deficit unpaid.” Osborne shifts uncomfortably. Gone is his trademark perma-smirk.
Then, radiating calm, the chancellor proceeds to announce a “carefully managed” programme of quantitive easing to help revive the main public services. “I am advised that this will result in a small increase in inflation, but – to coin a phrase – that will be a price worth paying in order to repair the damage that the right honourable gentleman and his friends have inflicted on our social fabric.” He goes on: “There will be no more deficit fetishism. The remaining deficit will be ringfenced and paid down over 20 years, as one might repay a mortgage.” At every point, he is careful to announce that he has acted in close consultation with the new governor of the Bank “and other leading economists”.
To the relief of the southern middle classes, the chancellor announces, with a sideways glance at Corbyn, whose expression is studiously neutral, that there is to be no increase in the top rate of taxation. And plans for a mansion tax have been abandoned. Instead, there will be “two and possibly three” new council tax bands, raising much-needed revenue for local government.
The budget is well received in most quarters. In the City, relief is the prevailing sentiment. Share prices remain buoyant. The pound regains some its earlier losses against the dollar. Talk of relocation to the far east has faded. Only the Barclay brothers, following news of a review of their tax arrangements, announce that they will be abandoning their rock in the Channel Islands and relocating to Tuvalu.
As for the Tories, they remain shellshocked. George Osborne has announced his resignation. A long and bloody leadership election is anticipated.
To general astonishment, among the early visitors to Downing Street is a grim-faced Rupert Murdoch. He is closeted with the new prime minister for more than an hour, at the end of which the following announcement is made: “Mr Murdoch has asked the government to allow 21st Century Fox to extend its holdings in Sky PLC. I have agreed to this subject to two conditions. First, that the Broadcasting Acts are amended, requiring Sky to compete on a level playing field with the main terrestrial TV channels. And secondly, that he relinquishes control of all his British newspapers which will, in future, be managed by a trust in which no single shareholder will have a controlling interest. Mr Murdoch has accepted these conditions. Our discussions were amicable.”
And so it came to pass that Jeremy Corbyn, serial dissident, alleged friend of Hamas, scourge of the ruling classes (to say nothing of New Labour), was seamlessly translated into a saintly, much-loved figure. Much to the new prime minister’s embarrassment, mothers began to name their sons after him. Corbyn-style beards became fashionable among men of a certain age and waiting lists for allotments shot up, following a much-praised appearance on Gardeners’ World. How long the honeymoon would last was anyone’s guess, but it was wondrous to behold.
Most astonishing of all, in an interview to celebrate 100 days of the new administration, was this testimony: “I guess I was wrong about Jeremy. Perhaps we all were.” The author? No lesser figure than Tony Blair.
Thursday 7 May 2020. The polls have closed and, to general astonishment, a BBC exit poll is predicting a narrow victory for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour-Liberal Democrat-Green alliance.
From the outset, it is clear that there has been a huge increase in turnout among the young and the disaffected. As one commentator puts it: “Generation Rent appear to be taking their revenge on middle England.”
As usual, Sunderland South is the first seat to declare, less than an hour after polls close. Unsurprisingly, the Labour candidate is returned, but the swing is modest, causing commentators to suggest that perhaps the exit poll is mistaken.
The first sign that the earth is about to change places with the sky comes just after midnight when Labour begins picking up home counties seats it hasn’t held for a decade. Ipswich, Harwich, Harlow, Dover, the Medway towns and Plymouth Sutton fall in quick succession. Two Brighton seats and one in Bristol go Green, along with the hitherto safe Tory seat of Totnes.
At dawn, the result remains unclear. Most of the traditional Tory strongholds have held firm. In Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire and North Yorkshire, Tory MPs are returned with increased majorities. The outcome hangs on what happens in the 40 seats in which Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens have agreed not to oppose each other.
2am: All eyes are on Islington. Upper Street has been blocked since early evening by crowds chanting “Jeremy, Jeremy” and “Jez we can”. Of the Bearded One, there are only intermittent glimpses: at the declaration of his own result and, later, when he appears on the steps of Islington town hall. His demeanour, as ever, is downbeat and, as is his habit, he joins in the applause. “We must await events,” is all he says, before disappearing back inside. A large screen outside the town hall relays the results. The cheering and the chanting intensify with each new gain. By dawn, a delirious crowd is blocking the entire street from Highbury Corner to the Angel tube station. Large screens relaying the results have been erected at intervals along the entire length of the street. The atmosphere is more Glastonbury than Islington.
Meanwhile, commentators who only hours earlier had been predicting a Labour meltdown are now opining knowledgably on the causes of the earthquake. There is general agreement that the Tories overdid austerity. The collapse of just about all non-statutory services, the outsourcing of parks, the boarded-up theatres and youth clubs and the sporadic outbreaks of inner-city rioting have finally triggered a political backlash beyond the Labour heartlands. That, plus the growing realisation that an entire generation of young people have been priced out of the housing market by overseas investors and ruthless buy-to-let landlords.
There is general agreement, too, that attempts by the Tories and their tabloid friends to paint Corbyn as an agent of Hamas and Hezbollah have spectacularly backfired. Not least as a result of the revelation that MI6, with ministerial approval, has been talking to Hamas all along.
The tabloid press has gone bananas. “BRITAIN VOTES FOR LUNACY”, screams the Sun, without waiting for the final result. “STARK RAVING BONKERS” is the Mail’s considered opinion. The broadsheet press is only mildly less hysterical. The front page of the Telegraph is headed “CIVILISATION AS WE KNOW IT: THE END”. There is much talk of assets being evacuated. Florida seems to be the preferred destination.
From Chelsea to Chorleywood come reports of panic buying. Cue TV cameras panning empty shelves in the King’s Road branch of Waitrose.
Only on Friday morning, when the rural results come in, is the outcome clear. Former Lib-Dem strongholds in Devon, Cornwall and Northumberland have returned to the fold, along with Richmond Park and Twickenham, which declared overnight. Corbyn’s controversial decision not to contest these seats has paid off.
By noon, it has become clear to everyone that Corbyn is in a position to form a government. In Tatton, Cheshire, an ashen-faced George Osborne is shown on TV conceding defeat. “I have just telephoned Mr Corbyn to congratulate him,” he says through gritted teeth. A statement from the Scottish Nationalists, who have retained all but three of their seats, welcomes the outcome and says they look forward to working with the new government.
An hour later, Corbyn, looking cheerful and well-rested makes his way with difficulty by bicycle through the crowds in the Mall to the palace, where he is to be annointed. In deference to the occasion, he is wearing a smart sports jacket with a red-flag lapel button, but no tie. His majesty, unlike many of his courtiers, is said to be not too distressed by the outcome. In fact, say some, he is positively gleeful. Indeed, there are rumours that he has for some months been engaged in private correspondence with the Labour leader on a range of issues.
The sun shines. From all over the country there are reports of impromptu street parties.
Friday, 1pm: Corbyn, hotfoot from the palace, enters Downing Street pushing his bicycle. By now, he has acquired a police escort that, with difficulty, carves a path through the crowds to the door of No 10. “The dark days of austerity are at an end,” Corbyn says, before chaining his bicycle to the railings and disappearing inside.
News of his government trickles out slowly over the weekend. Many of the names are unfamiliar, but there are some surprises. Chuka Umunna is to be chancellor of the exchequer. Immediately the share index, which had been plummeting, stabilises.
Jeremy makes his way through the cheering crowds to his meeting at the palace.
Hilary Benn is to be foreign secretary. Dan Jarvis, a former major in the Parachute Regiment, defence secretary. The Green MP Caroline Lucas will be secretary of state for the environment. Tom Watson becomes deputy prime minister and secretary of state for culture, media and sport. John McDonnell, who two years earlier had been dramatically deposed as shadow chancellor in what came to be known as Corbyn’s night of the long knives, takes education while Diane Abbott gets local government. The ever affable Charlie Falconer, a veteran of the Blair administration, is to lead the Lords.
It is, however, the subsequent non-political appointments that cause the most comment. The US economist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman is to be governor of the Bank of England. The new head of Ofcom, the media regulator, is to be the former Lib Dem MP Vince Cable.
The name of Jeremy Corbyn appears in the in-tray of President Trump at 8am Washington time. The president at once convenes an emergency meeting of his closest advisers. He is not a happy bunny. “I thought you assholes told me that this couldn’t happen ... So, what’s your advice? Sanctions? Do we send in the marines?”
The head of the CIA replies: “Cool it, Mr President. It’s early days yet.”
This result is the following statement by the White House press secretary: “The United States respects the will of the British people and looks forward to working with Mr Corbyn.” Her facial expression suggests otherwise, however. Later, it emerges that the US ambassador to London has been recalled for urgent consultations.
Having named his cabinet, the new prime minister spends Sunday afternoon tending to his allotment. Monday brings the first trickle of policy announcements and they prove popular with middle England. The proposed high speed railway, HS2, is to be abandoned in favour of investment in existing railway lines and the reopening of some scrapped by Dr Beeching. The expansion of Heathrow and Gatwick airports is also to be abandoned. “Demand management, rather than predict-and-provide, is the future of aviation policy,” says the accompanying statement. Squeals of outrage from the vested interests are largely lost in the accompanying celebrations. Suddenly, Corbyn has friends he didn’t know he had, in deepest Buckinghamshire and parts of Sussex hitherto off-limits to the Labour party.
Hilary Benn is to be foreign secretary. Dan Jarvis, a former major in the Parachute Regiment, defence secretary. The Green MP Caroline Lucas will be secretary of state for the environment. Tom Watson becomes deputy prime minister and secretary of state for culture, media and sport. John McDonnell, who two years earlier had been dramatically deposed as shadow chancellor in what came to be known as Corbyn’s night of the long knives, takes education while Diane Abbott gets local government. The ever affable Charlie Falconer, a veteran of the Blair administration, is to lead the Lords.
It is, however, the subsequent non-political appointments that cause the most comment. The US economist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman is to be governor of the Bank of England. The new head of Ofcom, the media regulator, is to be the former Lib Dem MP Vince Cable.
The name of Jeremy Corbyn appears in the in-tray of President Trump at 8am Washington time. The president at once convenes an emergency meeting of his closest advisers. He is not a happy bunny. “I thought you assholes told me that this couldn’t happen ... So, what’s your advice? Sanctions? Do we send in the marines?”
The head of the CIA replies: “Cool it, Mr President. It’s early days yet.”
This result is the following statement by the White House press secretary: “The United States respects the will of the British people and looks forward to working with Mr Corbyn.” Her facial expression suggests otherwise, however. Later, it emerges that the US ambassador to London has been recalled for urgent consultations.
Having named his cabinet, the new prime minister spends Sunday afternoon tending to his allotment. Monday brings the first trickle of policy announcements and they prove popular with middle England. The proposed high speed railway, HS2, is to be abandoned in favour of investment in existing railway lines and the reopening of some scrapped by Dr Beeching. The expansion of Heathrow and Gatwick airports is also to be abandoned. “Demand management, rather than predict-and-provide, is the future of aviation policy,” says the accompanying statement. Squeals of outrage from the vested interests are largely lost in the accompanying celebrations. Suddenly, Corbyn has friends he didn’t know he had, in deepest Buckinghamshire and parts of Sussex hitherto off-limits to the Labour party.
Week one: In a statement to the House of Commons, the new defence secretary, Major Jarvis (as the press have taken to calling him), announces that plans to renew the Trident missile system are to be scrapped resulting in a saving to the public purse of many billions. Part of the proceeds will be invested in equipping and expanding conventional forces. He is at pains to emphasise that there are no plans to leave Nato. Major Jarvis adds that a modest expansion of the armed forces is to be undertaken in anticipation that British forces will have an increased role to play in UN peacekeeping. Immediately, a retired field marshal and a number of retired generals pop up to say that this represents a long overdue outbreak of common sense. Which largely trumps the howls of outrage from the military wing of the Tory party.
Week two: the King’s speech. Some observers affect to notice a spring in his majesty’s step. Among the highlights is a media diversity bill that places strict limits on the share of the British media owned by any single proprietor. As expected, the railways are to be taken back into public ownership, at no cost to the public purse, as the franchises expire. A state energy company will be established to compete with those in the private sector and a state investment bank will be set up with a mandate to invest only in productive and environmentally friendly activity. Plans to renationalise the energy companies are to be put on hold “for the time being”.
The flagship of the legislative programme is to be a housing bill reintroducing rents controls, and encouraging local authorities to build affordable housing. There is to be an indefinite moratorium on the sale of public housing.
Finally, a bill to enact reform of the House of Lords. Life peerages will be converted to terms of 12 years; likewise, the remaining hereditary peerages will be converted to a fixed term, allowing the hereditaries to die out. To sweeten the pill, former peers are to be allowed life access to the club facilities. Resistance, however, will not be tolerated. If necessary, up to 1,000 new peers will be created to force through the new arrangements.
Week three: the new chancellor’s pre-Budget speech. Words such as “caution” and the phrase “fiscal responsibility” feature frequently. Behind the scenes, there are reported to have been some differences between the prime minister and his chancellor, but come the day they are all smiles.
The new chancellor devotes some time to mocking the efforts of the previous administration to deal with the deficit. “The right honourable gentleman,” says Chancellor Chuka as he points an accusing finger at the former prime minister Osborne, “promised to pay down the deficit in five years, then in nine, then in 10, and all he succeeded in doing is collapsing much of the public sector while leaving half the deficit unpaid.” Osborne shifts uncomfortably. Gone is his trademark perma-smirk.
Then, radiating calm, the chancellor proceeds to announce a “carefully managed” programme of quantitive easing to help revive the main public services. “I am advised that this will result in a small increase in inflation, but – to coin a phrase – that will be a price worth paying in order to repair the damage that the right honourable gentleman and his friends have inflicted on our social fabric.” He goes on: “There will be no more deficit fetishism. The remaining deficit will be ringfenced and paid down over 20 years, as one might repay a mortgage.” At every point, he is careful to announce that he has acted in close consultation with the new governor of the Bank “and other leading economists”.
To the relief of the southern middle classes, the chancellor announces, with a sideways glance at Corbyn, whose expression is studiously neutral, that there is to be no increase in the top rate of taxation. And plans for a mansion tax have been abandoned. Instead, there will be “two and possibly three” new council tax bands, raising much-needed revenue for local government.
The budget is well received in most quarters. In the City, relief is the prevailing sentiment. Share prices remain buoyant. The pound regains some its earlier losses against the dollar. Talk of relocation to the far east has faded. Only the Barclay brothers, following news of a review of their tax arrangements, announce that they will be abandoning their rock in the Channel Islands and relocating to Tuvalu.
As for the Tories, they remain shellshocked. George Osborne has announced his resignation. A long and bloody leadership election is anticipated.
To general astonishment, among the early visitors to Downing Street is a grim-faced Rupert Murdoch. He is closeted with the new prime minister for more than an hour, at the end of which the following announcement is made: “Mr Murdoch has asked the government to allow 21st Century Fox to extend its holdings in Sky PLC. I have agreed to this subject to two conditions. First, that the Broadcasting Acts are amended, requiring Sky to compete on a level playing field with the main terrestrial TV channels. And secondly, that he relinquishes control of all his British newspapers which will, in future, be managed by a trust in which no single shareholder will have a controlling interest. Mr Murdoch has accepted these conditions. Our discussions were amicable.”
And so it came to pass that Jeremy Corbyn, serial dissident, alleged friend of Hamas, scourge of the ruling classes (to say nothing of New Labour), was seamlessly translated into a saintly, much-loved figure. Much to the new prime minister’s embarrassment, mothers began to name their sons after him. Corbyn-style beards became fashionable among men of a certain age and waiting lists for allotments shot up, following a much-praised appearance on Gardeners’ World. How long the honeymoon would last was anyone’s guess, but it was wondrous to behold.
Most astonishing of all, in an interview to celebrate 100 days of the new administration, was this testimony: “I guess I was wrong about Jeremy. Perhaps we all were.” The author? No lesser figure than Tony Blair.
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