Magical Realism in Cricket Part IV – Great Expectations

“There you have it, Gentlemen,” says the old Essex and England warrior, Graham Gooch taking the stage, weathered, stooped and coiled by tendon-tightening age like the veteran of many a campaign that he is.

“What your beautiful mother told you on her bended knee, Cookie; what your father bowling endlessly to you on the Cape repeated time and again, Trotters; what your teacher drummed into you in that posh school Skip; what your coaches yelled at you during all those throw downs, Belly … was wrong!”

“From now on it’s not ‘watch the ball’, gentlemen, it’s ‘expect the ball’.”

At this point Andy Flower takes up the theme. “It’s increasingly clear to us that the Indians have been perfecting predictive techniques for years, imagining the ball so intensely that they’re able to cheat time a little; learning to opening their minds to let the future in.” 

“Blessed if I know how else we can explain Sunil’s mastery of West Indian pace all those years ago?” interupts Gooch.

“Very good, Goochie. For every long hour that Sachin spent in the nets, we think Achrekar had him spending two more sharpening his ability to read those visual cues and make the right predictions.  What moving ball hitters have been doing instinctively for centuries, what according to C.L.R. James a batsman like George Headley did through the night before each innings, the Indians have begun to do deliberatively, scientifically, systematically.”

In what is obviously a choreographed presentation, Strauss seamlessly takes the floor.  “We are fairly certain that the Aussies have been using their time in India this winter to work up their own knowledge and put into effect drills to enhance the predictive capacity of their batting.”

“Looks to be doing them a lot of good, Skip,” interrupts the iconoclast, Bresnan.

“It may not appear to be working well, but we should expect a period of transition, is that right Doctor?”

“What’s the evidence base for this?” asks the team boffin, Collingwood.

“Dr Kuhn here is pretty sure that they have their own magician and illusionist working with them.”

“Yes,” adds Kuhn.  “I feel sure that they have been using the rather controversial work of  Mark Changizi.  We’ve been looking through all the recordings for any glimpse of him but we’ve drawn a blank so far, although, there are indications from peeps through to the back of their dressing room that various practices are being used.”

“Have we tried to get anyone into their camp?” asks Morgan.

“I’m sure you know why I can’t answer that, Eoin.” “We do, however, have someone keeping an eye on their Centre for Excellence for us, but I’m not at liberty to reveal any names at present.”

“Right then, enough of this idle speculation,” concludess the old Essex warrior. “I want all you batsmen down stairs, full equipment, in five minutes.  We have some new tricks to show you don’t we, Dr Kuhn?”

“And remember what Nelson flagged at Trafalgar, ‘England Expects …’”

The Vanishing Cricket Ball Illusion – Seeing into the Future

The England squad to tour Australia this winter, excepting KP, are upstairs at the National Cricket Performance Centre staring into space as a cricket ball, tossed into the air by the Master Magician, Gustave Kuhn, vanishes before their very eyes.

For those who missed Parts I and II, they can be read here and here and the illusion which is at the centre of this experience can be witnessed again below:

Hiding behind a basket of fruit, Third Man looks on as the men, mouths open wide, blink and go over the experience again in their heads.

Enthralled as they are by what they have seen, or not seen, they fail to notice as Kuhn’s place is taken by Ben Tatler of the Dundee University’s Psychology Department.  With accustomed ease and nothing of the stage about it, Doctor Tatler finesses a pen-drive into a laptop and begins an explanation.

“You have just seen a ball rise from Gus’ hand and disappear into thin air.  How is this done, you may ask? Using an eye-tracker we can plot what is going on.  First the typical observer watches the hand of the illusionist, then, his face and, then, moves to a spot above the illusionist’s head before returning along with the ball to the hand.”

“When the process is repeated the observer’s eyes once more follow this path; from the hand to the face, to a point above the illusionist’s head and back to the hand.” 

“On the third throw the observer’s eyes leave the hand and look at the face, but this time, although the brain experiences the illusion and ‘sees’ the ball rise into the air, the eyes are not fooled and remain focused on the magician’s face.”

“It is the expectation in the brain of what should happen that is important.  The illusionist uses strong visual cues that encourage these expectations.  If, on a third throw, Gus were to continue to look at his hand rather that to look up, half as many of you would seeing the ball rise and vanish.”

“What we see,” explains Kuhn, reappearing, “is what we expect is going to happen in the future.”

“You mean that we typically see events that may not have happened?” asks the England captain.

“Yes, Andrew.  In many situations, we just don’t have enough time to wait for the brain to make its 150 millisecond calculations.  So at those moments we function on expectations rather than on reality.”  

“Magical,” says Monty.  “Effing far out,” says the wide eyed Cook.

Projecting a new image onto the screen, Andy Flower takes over centre stage.   “The way we see the world is often based on predictions.  But there may be something else going on too.”  (Third Man has placed a copy at the top of the page.)

“In this so-called Hering illusion, the straight lines near the central or ‘vanishing’ point appear to curve outward. The illusion occurs because our brains are predicting the way the underlying scene would look in the next moment if we were moving toward the middle point.”

And as fifteen pennies drop there a single hushed utterance is heard, “You mean …we can see into the future?”

“Well,” says Flower, “what we want you batsmen to realize is that you may get a glimpse of events at least one-tenth of a second before they occur and some of you, picking up on visual cues can cheat time even better.”

“Or think you can,” says Swann, clearly getting it.

For those for whom seeing is still believing , someone has kindly posted a recording of Dr Tatler on YouTube

Magical Realism Part II – Cricket in the Dull Village

Following yesterday’s intriguing revelations,  and as ever in Search of the Truth, Third Man has taken the Mark III back in time and space to Car Park F across the road from the National Cricket Performance Centre just as the Magic Bus arrived there for the first time, waived through the secure reception procedures of Loughborough University as if it were expected.

Two men get out of the Magic Bus; from the driver’s side a man who could be thought both old and young at the same moment dressed as he is in plain black slacks and matching polo neck with nothing up his sleeves.  From the passenger’s side steps a short man with slightly long hair and a smart collar, tie and jacket with a velvety look. 

They make their way across the bridge to the glass doors of the Centre where they are met by Andy Flower, Andrew Strauss and Geoff Miller.

Third Man, dressed for the occasion in the Loughborough University Conference Services uniform follows them, carrying a large tray of fruit.  Unchallenged, he too crosses the bridge and enters the Centre. 

With his head down and walking purposely Third Man nods to reception and walks up the stairs immediately in front of him.  Straight ahead are the long lines of nets quiet, forlorn and abandoned at this time, full of prospect and potential, still as a swimming pool before anyone has arrived.  Turning onto a landing he follows the noise of much banter into an open room with full length windows looking back out on the car park and the visually disturbing Magic Bus which continues to hum quietly to itself.  Third Man makes a show of arranging the fruit, disappears into the background and listens in.

Geoff Miller speaks first in his droll Derbyshire monotone. “Now settle down lads.  Settle down.  Stuart, will you please concentrate for just a moment or two?  Thank you.  Now, then, I’d like to introduce to you the celebrated prestidigitator, Mr Gustave Kuhn, formerly of the stage and now of Brunel University Psychology Department … (“Not another Shrink?” mutters Jimmy Anderson) … and Doctor Ben Tatler of the University of Dundee … (“As if we don’t have enough of our own.”) …  Please show them a warm ECB welcome and Matty Prior, try to stay awake for once, you never know you may learn something.”

The man in black, his sleeves rolled up steps before them.  From his pocket he takes a cricket ball and in silence tosses it above his head, his eyes following it to its zenith and back to the palm of his hand.  Again he tosses the ball, again his eyes follow it to the zenith and back as it falls to his hand.

As the film above reveals, a youthful Gustave Kuhn appears to toss the ball for a third time.  Third Man sees it leave the hand and disappear in mid air.  The magician presents both hands to his quietened audience to prove that the ball has indeed vanished …

Yesterday, Neil MacGregor introduced No. 97 of his History of the World in a Hundred Objects, “In the Dull Village” (pictured at the top of the page), one of the ‘Illustrations for Fourteen Poems by C.P. Cavafy’ by David Hockney, published in 1967 and, referring to such lines as these,

he goes to bed tonight full of sexual longing,
all his youth on fire with the body’s passion,
his lovely youth given over to a fine intensity.
And in his sleep pleasure comes to him;
in his sleep he sees and has the figure, the flesh he longed for…

MacGregor proposed that in Hockney’s illustration the man on the left, stretched on his back, eyes closed and hands behind his head may be imagining the young man to his right looking intensely at him – that it is an illustration of an illusion. 

Magical Realism Part I – Intrigue and Speculation as Ashes Preparations Escalate

As the photograph above shows, and as regular visitors here are already aware, Third Man keeps a weather eye on comings and goings at the ECB’s National Cricket Performance Centre on the campus of Loughborough University. 

He’s recently noticed a strange camper bus coming and going most days.  As you can see it’s weirdly psychedelic and visually challenging.  Out of shot and in big star bangled letters are painted the words ‘Gus the Marvellous Magician’.

Now, two things are odd about this.  First, the very same van is often to be seen parked outside Loughborough’s Psychology Department.

And secondly, as this photograph taken from the starboard porthole of the Mark III Time Machine PROVES there is one exactly similar outside Cricket Australia’s Centre of Excellence.

Magic Bus glimpsed outside Cricket Australia Centre of Excellence, October 2010

What’s going on …?

Figures in for the Season

Statisticians have been working day and night to bring us the numbers that matter – House Martins.  Regulars here will recall that Third Man for half the year shares his humble cot on the Squire’s estate with these engaging fellow residents – see  South African Tourists Arrive  and Departing Visitors.

The British Trust for Ornithology has just published its results for their 2010 House Martin Survey.   One fact that stands out is that the number of respondents has fallen dramatically this year.  So … if you can, Third Man is sure that your help in 2011 will be much appreciated.

The average number of nests per respondent is also down which was in line with the experience here.  2009 was a bumber year but this year’s figures must be a worry.  The northerly winds that brought volcanic ash to our skies earlier this year also made the northward progress of many of these birds particularly demanding.

Here is the BTO newsletter with some of the results.  There is a wonderful photograph of the eaves of a farmhouse with a nest between every beamend in a total of 35 active nests for the entire building.

On many grounds these good friends are an intrinsic part of the cricketing experience.  KP is not the only one who has headed for Southern Africa this autumn.  Let’s hope the House Martins have been more successful.

Time and Chance Under the Sun

A couple of mornings ago, Third Man returned to Sky, and saw under the sun in Bangalore, that the race was not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill. 

No, time and chance happened to the new guy.

As the mighty Tendulka and Murali Veejay made the Australians wail, ‘all is  vanity, emptiness, futility and meaninglessness,’ the Indian Test debutant, Cheteshwar Pujara  got a bad case of pad-rash waiting 91 overs, 308 runs and over 24 hours for his turn.

There was some inconsistent bounce but that was almost all to worry about.  Johnson, bowling left arm round, might cause the batsmen to wonder whether ‘this one’ would bounce hip high or higher, but more likely he’d bowl it full and three sets wide of off stump.

These were the 258^th and 259^th days of the young man’s 23^rd year.  He went to Bangalore averaging 60 with the bat from his 50 first class matches with a Triple already to his name.

When his time came to bat, Tendulka, gave him a warm welcome to Test cricket with plenty of back slapping and elbow squeezing encouragement.  Johnson was almost as generous, serving up a straight ball that he blocked and then one that was full and wide which he drove through the covers to the boundary with one knee bent as if he’d being playing Test cricket for as long as his partner.

Nor yet favour to men of skill

But if all is vain under the sun, it is also fleeting, warns Ecclesiastes.

Bowled from wide of the crease and with Johnson’s sinister round arm making the angle even wider the 85mph third ball pitched short and shot along the ground striking the helpless, grovelling batsman low on the pad. 

The angle was so wide, the impact so much in line with leg stump that it looked for an instant as if providence would look kindly on him.  But Bowden’s rheumatic, time-gnarled finger rose above his head. 

Look up, look up, look above the sun.

VVS Relaxman

“Not in his fascinating collection of strokes, nor in his frank and open execution merely, lay the charm; it was a man playing away a power which was himself rather than in him …”

That was how, a hundred years ago, A.E. Knight of Leicestershire and England described Victor Trumper, but who would disagree with it as a description of Vangipurappu Venkata Sai Laxman, with or without the back injury that forced him even further down the order, restricted his range of movement and caused him to use a runner in the dramatic  run chase in the final innings of the first Test against Australia in Mohali that took place earlier this week.

It is a bright star indeed that can find notice in a constellation where Ganguly, Dravid and Tendulka shine, but Knight’s definition of Trumper’s difference explains why Laxman nevertheless illuminates the sky. 

Eyes looking through the back of the bat to the contact point like a Federa

“Dada”, “The Wall” and “God” all in their way and to the highest degree play ‘away a power that is in them’.  The one with no ‘nick-name’ plays ‘away a power which is himself’ – an intriguing and discerning difference.

Here are some observations:  at the crease Laxman is perfectly still.  If we must find a trigger then it will be in something as imperceptible and miniscule as a blink, a discrete tightening and relaxing of the grip or a slight cock of the wrist. 

He sees the ball early and well, judging length to perfection and therefore moving without hurry into a precisely positioned and wonderfully firm base in which skeleton and musculature form a bastion of a two legged tripod worthy of any Zen master (as illustrated by the photograph at the top of the page).

He times the ball extremely well, demonstrating that the fine motor movements that direct the detailed execution of shots are as skilful as the large ones which have built the strong foundation. 

He watches the ball at the point of contact through the back of the bat, a surprisingly important technique adopted by the best tennis players and explained by Third Man in a posting on see-thru bats here.

A top of the handle batsman, a rare sight in modern 90 mph cricket.

He plays more shots than most modern batsmen with a dominant top hand and with both hands at the top of the handle in a way which increases the length of the levers, but is used now by very few batsmen who reply much more on the bottom hand.  Yet from that grip he still has the strength to whip the ball with the that bottom hand when necessary to find wider angles of the leg side.

He is able to make the telling fifty as well as the huge score. His 281 against Australia at Kolkata is justifiably celebrated but less well remembered were the two fifties scored in the final Test of that series at Chennai and the 51 he made on debut when he came in against South Africa in Ahmedabad at  61 for 4, watched Dravid depart soon after.  There are countless more match-saving or match-winning sub-hundreds played on tormenting surfaces that had dismantled the top order.

Which is not to say that he entirely forsakes the bottom hand, but he knows its place in an innings.

He can bat with the tail in a way that perhaps only Sobers has equalled.  It is a special person who has the self belief, phlegm and dedication to his team to accept and relish the No 6 position. 

In the Ahmedabad match mentioned above he inspired and empowered the tail in taking the score up to 190 when he was eighth man out on a wicket where the Spring Box were subsequently bowled out for 105 in the final innings.

All this was surely but a preparation for the innings on 5^th October.  He came in at 76 for 5 when India required 216 to win.  Had a partnership with Tendulka of 43, which appeared to be taking India to victory. Watched as 4 batsmen went meekly at the other end and when India looked beaten still a daunting 92 runs short of their target with only Ishant Sharma and Pragyan Ojha to keep him company.  Went quietly, resiliently, even angrily at times when the running looked fraught with confusion, but always capably about his task in a trance-like state of focus. Watched  as, with just 6 to win, Ojha, bewildered by a huge Australian appeal, appeared to wander down the wicket giving Steven Smith just yards away the chance to run him out.

Time appeared to stand still, then, the ball missed the stumps and gifted India four overthrows.  Two balls later it was all over as Ohja played it down to third man for the two that sealed victory in one of the closest and most dramatic Tests of all time.

How thoroughly Relaxman, then, that VVS did not at the end score the winning runs nor was he named Man of the Match which went to Zaheer Khan for his 8 wicket haul in the match.

If Test cricket has moved a step closer to regain the support of Indian spectators over shorter forms of the game, it will be because of this relaxed man playing away a power which was himself.

(Norman) Wisdom at Lord’s

In the early Nineteen Sixties the Lord’s Taverners* played an Old England side at Lord’s.  Keith Miller among others played for the Taverners.  One such other was Pete Murray, a rather smooth and brillianteened disk jockey.

Imagine Pete’s dismay when. at the fall of a wicket at the other end, he looked up to see a misfit with a vague little boy lost look on his face trip down the pavilion steps onto the field of play trying but, confused by choice, failing to carry half a dozen bats to the middle.  A Lord of Chaos was on his way to the wicket. 

Was this the 47 year old Norman Wisdom or was it his alter ego and Man of the Moment, the hapless Norman Pitkin, whose life and times, captured on film, were making more at the box office than Sean Connery’s block busting Doctor No?

Yes, No, No, No, Are you sure of that?

Murray soon made way for Roy Castle and, after blocking a delivery, the tap dancing trumpeter found a perplexed and perplexing Norman advancing down the wicket in search of a run.  Isn’t that what you do in cricket?

As anyone who has ever seen Wisdom on film, at the theatre or in his garden on the Isle of Man (where he entertained passing coach loads stopping to view the star’s house) would know, it was about to end with a pratfall.  In fact in partnership with Castle it would end with two pratfalls.

A tissue a tissue, we all fall down.

Norman was famously ‘big’ in Albania (did his confusion in the face of choice and abundance play particularly well there?). He was said to be  Chaplin’s favourite clown and, according to Wikipedia , in 1991 a French speaker in an agriculture committee of the EC called for the communities to show “la sagesse des Normands”, which was translated by a wag as a plea for Norman Wisdom to sort out Europe’s problems.

Born and bred down the road from the cricket ground in Marylebone, Norman’s early life was very hard indeed.  His father once threw him across the room and Norman remembered his head touching the ceiling in the process.

As a fourteen year old he walked all the way to Cardiff to run away to sea.  He slept rough in the streets of London.  He was saved when he joined the army as a bands-boy. 

Wisdom made people laugh at his plight and then made them laugh again at their own temporary morbidity, but just as importantly, he once played at Lord’s.

Norman Wisdom 1915 – 2010.

* The Lord’s Taverners are celebrating their 60th anniversary this year and trying to raise £500,000.  Taverners, who typically come from the arts and creative industries,  believe sport and recreation are essential for young people.  Their charity’s mission is to give a “sporting chance” to those in need by  focusing on youth cricket in disadvantaged areas and sports and recreational equipment for young people with disabilities and special needs, including specially-adapted minibuses.

The Patron Saint of Wicket Keepers or ‘Put out Behind the Yold’

If stumpers had a Patron Saint it would be William ‘the Yold’ Yalden and their Saints Day would be today, October 6^th.

A Surrey v Hambledon fixture seems to have been a regular finale to the season with the two sides often meeting in late September or even in October.  It was during their match in 1778 that ‘the Yold’ became the first keeper to be credited with stumping a batsman. 

The scorecard for Hambledon’s second innings reads: Bonham stumped Yalden 9.

The match was played at Laleham Burway, a tract of meadowland besides the Thames at Chertsey, where in fact Yalden had been born in 1740.  It was also on this same ground, six years before, that Thomas White caused a furore when he brought to the wicket a huge bat, wider than the stumps.  The first stumping may have been equally controversial.

Yalden, was later described by Nyren as he “who would resort to trick”.  He was obviously an early example of those wicket keepers who specialize in getting under the skins of their opponents.

‘The Yold’ gave up cricket for a time because of failing eyesight but, after a season out of the game, the Earl of Tankerville persuaded him to give it another go.

“Try again, Yaldon.”   He did and astonished everyone by being even more successful than before.  He was a fair bat, too.

Yalden’s career spans the period in which ‘length’ bowling came into being.  Before this, ‘keepers (and long stops) would have had to field the ball hurtling towards them along uneven ground.   

The well known picture of a match at the Artillery Ground at around 1740 may give a fair idea of how wicket keepers went about their business, crouching close to the stumps with one leg forward.  A similar style is shown in a number of different illustrations around this time. 

As length bowling developed, the number of catches would have increased and, as batsmen began to play forward and to leave their crease to counter length bowling, the bowling side would have demanded opportunities for ‘keepers to ‘run out’ or ‘put out behind’.

For Nyren and the men of Hambledon the wicket keeper par excellence was, not unnaturally, their very own Tom Sueter who, of course, was scrupulous and gentlemanly in his appealing.

But surely you can be a Saint even when you are not a saint.

One Side Still Playing Cricket

Third Man received an interesting reply to his question:  Was Anyone Still Playing Cricket Last Weekend?  And it wasn’t from the Isle of Wight where the cricketers of today have apparently become too sensitive to withstand the rigours of October cricket (or too obsessed with football).

A Mr Alistair Lloyd, a vet from the village of Ambridge, emailed to say that their village played Edgeley at the weekend. 

Third Man travelled down to Borcetshire yesterday to see whether he could find out the result.  No luck, though.   The village pub, The Bull, was very quiet and not a local to be seen.  And there doesn’t appear to be any reference to it at Cricket Archive either, which is strange.

If a tattered fixture list on the village notice board is to be believed, Ambridge C.C. has a fixture next weekend too.

Tony Archer pushes forward looking rather like a celebrated former Norfolk wicket keeper.

The village has a good website , but you’ll need Flash and a facility with imaginary numbers to get the best from it.

According to the site, the cricket club’s revival in the 1960’s was down to the vision and drive of just one man, Sid Perks, the landlord of The Bull. 

Sid has recently died and attention is centring on his bereaved son, James, for whom cricket may be a way both of grieving for his lost father and coping simultaneously with the loss of a perennially selfish step father call Kenton – not to mention all that goes with being a boy in GCSE year.

It is a pity that the scriptwriters are running out of time.  Nevertheless, Third Man hopes that The Cricketer Wisden will list next weekend’s Ambridge outing as the last ‘proper’ match in the season.

The photograph at the top of the page shows Ambridge at home earlier this year in their grudge match with Darrington.

Update: Inga McVicar has kindly posted on her excellent and helpful site Pondering the Archers  saying that she thinks Ambridge won last weekend and has promised to wander across to the village cricket ground next weekend to see how Jamie, Al, Tony, et al get on.  They may have to have the thermals on, Ingar, even if they are from stout farming stock. Thanks.

SUPER UPDATE: Adam (injured shoulder) received a text message from Alistair on 10.10.10 to say that Ambridge had sneaked a 2 run win to finish a disappointing mid-way up/down the league table.  There being no other offers, it would seem that Ambridge CC played the last official match of the 2010 season.  Imagine that!