Routed – A History of the 3rd Test

There is no other way to describe the beating that Australia took in the 3^rd Test at Edgbaston last week. And the causes for this apparent reversal of fortune from the ‘triumph’ at Lord’s were gross errors of management and selection.

Here are some thoughts:

First, the mis-reading of events at Lord’s. The talk of featherbeds has seemed to get the better of everyone. The Lord’s wicket provided bounce and pace. They were ideal conditions for Australian bowlers against England batsmen, many of whose technique has not been tested in such conditions.

The difficulties with consistency of length and direction that Australian bowlers, especially by the two left armers, had at Cardiff were forgotten. The middle order batting weakness was obscured by the two big hundreds from Rogers and Smith. Nevill batting 7 arrived at the wicket with score at 450 and followed this enjoyable batting practice with some comfortable catching courtesy of Lyth et al.  Anderson feigned disinterest.

Australia moved on to Derby but seemed to fail to notice the rain that was making pitch preparation at Edgbaston ‘complex’ with the covers remaining in operation throughout the process. Arriving at the ground, Clarke commented that he had seen nothing like the wicket – the seaming track that England yearned for – yet the Australian High Command chose to leave out the experienced and accurate Siddle, for whom conditions were ideal, drop their Vice Captain, mascot and counter-attacker , Brad Haddin, and, to compound it all, decided to ‘have a bat’ in conditions ideal for Anderson, Broad and Finn. It was as if Australia were totally ignorant of the England v India Test match played on the same ground, the year before. But isn’t that what management and analysers are for?

What then was going on? Or what IS going on? Has Rod Marsh arrived with ‘ideas’ and worse still favourites? Sure there are reasons to question Haddin’s form and Watson’s technique. But what they have in common is membership of the old family business, which is now under new management. If so, England could not have dared hope for these changes and this disruption in the wake of their own dismal performance just a week before.

The Australian batting was woeful. England bowled very well, but the visitors’ middle order, starting this time at No 3, folded and only Rogers coped with the conditions. On the basis that England would bat in similar conditions, 225 might have been a decent score in the circumstances . A bit of grit and, of course, a counter attacking innings from Haddin might have got them there. As it was, the score board froze at 136 just as Napoleon’s advance had frozen at the walls of Moscow.

England arrived at the wicket with an opener whose bat doesn’t come down straight, a number 3 on notice that failure would see the end of his international career and great bowling conditions.

By Starc’s second over, with the ball being sprayed around like a garden hose in the hands of an infant on a very hot day, the bowling coach was dispatched to the fine leg to ‘support’ the bowler. He was followed rapidly by Siddle in his day-glow bib. At the other end Hazlewood found the conditions too helpful and adjusted his line rather than his position at the bowling crease with the inevitable result. (For a tutorial from Mike Hendrick, see this.)

The unpredictable left armers returned to their Cardiff form. On field the captain’s fielding positions and bowling changes became more and more bizarre, resembling those one might make facing a stand of 500 rather than when bowling on a wicket where a score of 150 might have been expected from England. Bell, the condemned man, escaped, the gallows. After a heart-in-mouth start he made a plucky 53 and left the noose that had been round his neck on a hook in the dressing room like a mislaid jock-strap.

England’s first innings ended at a mighty 281, a mammoth and intimidating lead of 145. The game was up. The retreat inevitable.

And finally, what of Johnson and Clarke? The former began Day 2 with two wonderful steeply rising deliveries that disposed of Bairstow and Stokes, and inexplicable decided that that was that as far as this kind of delivery was concerned. Wither Captain Clarke? And in the second innings, defending a lead of just 120 the Captain waited until England were well on their way to victory at 47 for 1, before bringing Johnson into the attack.

One has to ask whether these strange decisions and this poor bowling in wonderful conditions from the quicks would have occurred had the Vice Captain been on the field, organising the seam attack and steadying Clarke’s experimentation.

On the field, rout comes from disorder as much as anything. If morale falls away and capacity evaporates, it is more than anything a failure of command. It is hard not to imagine that players and management are now even more at odds. Lions and donkeys come to mind. But for management to make the necessary changes, it would have to admit their errors of the last week.

That does not seem likely.

HT:JR

Hurting – Or About that Second Test

Some of you will know that Third Man keeps a lightweight aluminium extendable ladder under a bush in the garden of the dilapidated house at the bottom of Cavendish Avenue, by which he generally gains access to Dark’s Cricket Ground*.

Even at 6 am on Day One of the Second Test, England v Australia, there were a fair few members lining the Avenue and forming an orderly queue. No-one notices an old cricketer with a window-cleaner-look-about-him carrying a ladder and so, in a trice, the ladder was unearthed, hoisted against the wall and drawn up behind Third Man as he dropped into the ground and headed for Mick’s warm kitchen for a well deserved cuppa.

“What’s this about an email Mick?” Third Man asked.

“Not true Third Man. But one of those dodgy young ECB types did sidle up the other day. You can imagine the earful I gave him.”

“Some ripe old Hambledonian stuff, I take it, Mick.”

“It’s a good track TM – not quite as good as last year’s for India. But a cricketers’ track.”

“What’s that noise Mick. Is it the hover covers coming off?”

“No, it’s Mark Nicholas using the Misses’ hair dryer.”

True to his word, there was a fair green tinge on Mick’s masterpiece. TM regretted failing to bring so much as a brolly or a MacIntosh, but it was no Massey day. The wind stiffened the flags and whirled about a bit down at pitch level.

He made his way into the Pavilion and up the flights of stairs to Dressing Room 7**. A few of the old hands were already there, dozing mostly. There was full agreement; bat, bat, bat. “Difficult, but do-able,” said Timmy O’Brien, and no-one, not even the Doctor, argues with Timmy.

*     *     *   *

The advantage of being at a match is that there is no mediation. It is the watcher and the game. No bad thing. You move around during the day, but basically, your only equipment is the vantage point. No hype. No cod-piece narrative. Anyone who voluntarily dons a small radio ear-piece is taking a drug that they do not need.

Dark’s is perhaps the only venue that can afford for there not to be a ‘day five’ with its income of booze and grub. If there are slow plodding tracks in this series it is because of the tendering system and the number of grounds now competing ruinously for the chance to host internationals. The rule of thumb is bid what you can make in four days and hope for a fifth.

But this Test can be different. Wealth is independence. Third Man for his visit to the village of St John’s Wood had not packed a fifth shirt.

Where do all these memes come from? Hear this, Clarke called it “a very good pitch”. More than likely Chris Rogers had had a word with Mick over the practice days and that assessment by the captain was correct. It is difficult to exaggerate the degree of respect and affection everyone has around here for young Rogers.

Anderson’s second over, the third of the day, seems key.

Ball 1 fullish length, a hint of shape, no more than that. Ball 2 down leg. Doesn’t count in any self-assessment. Ball 3. Middle and off and played to mid-off. Ball 4 Rogers across and clips to square leg. Ball 5. Length outside off, Warner tries to leave but is late. Ball 5. Pitched up, Warner drives straight for 3.

Anderson makes his assessment. His decision shapes the match. From fifty yards, TM senses the lever pivot and Planet Cricket shifts its orbit. Gradually but relentlessly the length is brought back. The Bowlers’ Club follow his lead. The decision consigns England to ten hours in the field.

In sport, in cricket, you either hurt or are hurt. Time is either slow or quick.

Anderson surrenders the initiative seized in Cardiff where England inflicted the pain. In the afternoon he will bowl with a 8-1 field.

How does Rogers see it?

In his first over he has shown intent. Driving and edging over third slip but then following it up with 4 through the covers. “In front of square”. “Through the covers.” “Hitting the Duke where it is going”. “Late and with the swing”. Boof’s license, Rogers’ extensive English experience. This is the key: wait and play with the swing and not against the swing. It is exactly what the Australians (barring Rogers) didn’t do in the First Test.

The effect of this one shot in the dressing room is game changing, perhaps series changing.

Another one’s doing the hurting. This time the other one’s being hurt.

*Those who played on this ground 180 years ago, know that it was Mr Ward and dear ol’ Dark who saved the ground for all of you to enjoy today. It is a travesty that it is called Lord’s when Lord wanted to sell it for development. Ward stepped in and bought. Dark ran it. It was his baby. He dedicated his life to this ‘theatre’ for the game.

** They converted the lovely Dressing Room 6 sometime ago, but the old ghosts that haunt this building have managed to hide the existence of Dressing Room 7. It is filled by them most of the time – smoking and scraping the marks of the ball off their old bats with razor blades. There’s a welcoming smell of linseed oil and horse liniment. If you tell the Club’s Chief Executive cum Secretary about its existence, you’ll be cursed for life.

*** Image thanks to Aakash Chopra whose piece on Rogers is well worth a read. TM wishes he could enlarge the image but WordPress system changes seem to prevent it.

While My Bat Gently Weeps

There comes a time in a young age-group county cricketer’s cricketing experience when he or she may find him or herself selected for an ECB Development Programme. It is now  as much as a 50:50 chance that this player will one day gain a county contract of some kind. This is the measure of their potential in the meat market that professional cricket development has always been.

As they sign tri-partite ‘contract’ with the ECB and their county, they will be given a diagram of a pyramid. On the bottom rung is the young hopeful. At the apex is a player who is called ‘World Class’ or top ten in the ICC rankings.

Organisations like the ECB have all the stats. They know just how many of these young hopefuls there have to be to find one world class player. Actually they know ‘down stream’ how many people have to pick up a bat and a ball when they are seven or eight to make a world class player.

They think they know a lot about what world class players will be doing at 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21. It is all charted. A world class player is able to do x in test y at z years. By 21 the meat assessors know all they need to know about the potential of the carcass.

As a young cricketer, Third Man only ever played with one world class player and everyone ‘kind of’ knew it at 16. Internationals were a grade or two down –  awkward sorts: awkward to get out, or awkward to face. But world class … something obvious.

So, it really matters just how many eight year olds are playing cricket. Sure, it is necessary to provide them with age-appropriate coaching and it would be good to get the psychological development right as much as the technical but that base, that sheer number of players coming in at the bottom of the triangle, matters most.

There was a boost in the numbers following the 2005 Ashes victory and the impact of that series, shown free to air, persisted. But actually, the top class product of that era is already in the game. The players coming in during the next few years come from a generation deprived of free to air cricket. This generation will have come in on the echoes. Soon it will be a privileged generation: in the main sons/daughters of club cricketers and sons of parents able to afford a very expensive education, or sons able to win scholarships to such institutions.

Is that enough? No, and hasn’t been enough for years. Where would England have been without Mr Smith shepherding his boys to England, or Mr Lamb, Mr Hick and Mr Pietersen enriching the cricketing gene-pool of England cricket?

Sky provides the wealth and reduces the size of the base.

That is the truth. It ensures that the players of the future will predominantly play their earliest cricket elsewhere, find ‘polish’ from scholarship to English ‘public schools’ and ‘top up’ the home grown players emerging from a narrowing base drawn from the clubs.

The ECB is taking for granted that people will accept such teams as ‘their’ national side. Their England. Spectators want to believe they are watching England, but there is just so much and no more disbelief that they can suspend.

What a shame. Third Man’s bat gently weeps.

Richie Benaud, Nation Builder

For people of a certain age this is Richie Benaud:

It is 1961, Old Trafford. The 4th Test. The Series poised at 1-apiece. England chasing 256 in 3hr 50 minutes (not even 20 overs in last hour then). Eng 150 -1. Twenty minutes to tea. 105 minutes for 106 runs. 9 Wickets. 9 wickets.

England’s hero is the dashing Dexter, Lord Ted, 76 in 84 minutes – the finest u will ever see – cutting hooking driving – total exhilaration.

Benaud is Nemisis – and will always be so to young and aching hearts. In an example of genius he mocks the conventional. “Cumin roun’ the wickettt” he tells umpire Phillipson.

40 years before Warne, my little ducks, round the wicket, a leg spinner round the wicket into Fiery Fred’s Mad Jack Flavell’s footmarks*. The lion-tamer, the whip across the face of the bat …

Dexter’s fall: ct Grout, ct Grout, ct Grout, ct Grout – nail after nail after nail …

If a Lord had fallen, now came a Prince. PBH May. How can he be described? Agamemnon? Perhaps Agamemnon. Spic an span, hair as oiled as his Stuart Surridge bat. Facing that unfamiliar line with which Benaud now taunted the England Establishment.

May is bowled ’round his legs, 0. A nation humiliated.

Now Close. Brian Close. There is history. With May and authority. Close returning cannot but rub against authority. Who told him to smack it? Did May passing the Yorkshireman on the steps of the pavilion say, “Take him on, Brian.”?

Close drives and clears the boundary. Upon whose authority? Reckless rogue or private soldier obeying instructions? Cricket’s secrets. And a nation’s future gambled on a game of pitch and toss.

And then …

High into the deep behind square leg. Close ct O’Neill b Benaud. And Subba Row bowled Benaud, bowled Benaud, bowled Benaud, nail after nail.

Four for chips as youngsters now would say.

Then tea. 93 required, 5 wicks, 85 minutes. The batsmen: Solid Barrington a Wall before the Wall, light gloved Murray. Was it on?

Slasher Mackay trapped Kenny B lbw 4 & the Simpson & Benaud show did for Murray & Allen, for Richie’s figures  32.11.70.6

England lose by 54 runs.

Looking back and above at the black and white photograph from that afternoon, England cricket has never recovered. Never worked out what it is about. Certainty, like the Empire, was lost in Trueman’s Flavell’s footmarks that afternoon.* That afternoon the sun set.

Each summer Richie returned with the weird job of describing and explaining this decline. High priest to Stonehenge he came, in robes like stone itself, officiating over the drawing in of days.

Australia never looked back – certain of its place.

England swung from public school amateur to utilitarian pro and back again. Sevenoaks (Downton) was sacked this week but Uppingham (Whittaker) remains, as if it were  jolly jazz hatted Chapman still.

Looking at it this way, Australia may just have lost its Nation Builder.

But a Nation Builder is another Nation’s Slayer in our zero sum game, and an English youngster of ’61 cannot quite forgive him for getting Dexter out. Dexter in full flow. All England roaring. All England silenced by that snick.

*HT Man in a Barrel – see comment below.

David Warner, Trauma and a Test for Cricket

The former New Zealand fast bowler Iain O’Brien has published an important article at ESPN Cric Info endeavouring to understand the Australian forceful opener David Warner’s recent on field displays of heightened and destructive emotions.

O’Brien writes, “I look at David Warner. A wonderful talent. Certainly the best opener cricket has currently. He is an awesome force. There are parts of his game that are beautiful. There is also a lot of brutality to it. He is his own man. But something is up. We can all see that.”

“As a cricket consumer (a radio listener, reader and TV watcher) I can hear or see what is happening … I like to know why these things happened. I like to delve a little deeper. And when I’m commentating I like to explore a player’s psyche. I enjoy attempting to give insight into their current behaviour and state of mind. I like to explore options open to them, discuss shot/delivery selections, and compare current performance to previous outings.”

So O’Brien endeavours to share with his readers his insight into Warner’s psyche, with the added advantage of having shared a dressing room with him when both played for Middlesex, “He has always been bullish, he has always been brash. He has always been close to the edge with his on-field behaviour. He has changed a lot in his off-field life, and he gives credit to his wife for a lot of that, but I feel he’s only going one way on-field. I don’t just see him as a serial offender, as Crowe wrote; I see him as an escalating offender.”

O’Brien notes, “the growing frequency and the level of these indiscretions, increasing since late last year.” And asks, “Is it wrong to try to find a reason for this?

He is, in effect, asking whether Warner is suffering from a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?

Earlier this morning, Professor Jamie Hacker-Hughes, Director of the Veterans and Families Institute at Anglia Ruskin University, and President Elect of the British Psychological Society, on the Today Programme (19.15 mins in http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0501jlv ) was interviewed on some recent finds in the texts of 3,000 year old Assyrian tablets that revealed soldiers suffering PTSD and Hacker-Hughes pointed out that, although these warriors were experiencing the same syndrome, the symptoms and the ways humans express PTSD change according to the cultures in which the subject lived and the ways in which that culture found acceptable for their expression. For instance PTSD was expressed as mutism and tremours in the First World War, which was different from the symptoms experienced by those surviving the Vietnam War and more recent conflicts.

Batsmen face a symbolic form of annihilation each time they walk to the wicket. Cricket has its own culturally generated ways of expressing reaction to dismissal and indeed reaction to bringing an opponent’s innings to an end.

Perhaps this is why ‘celebrations’ were more muted on cricket fields after the first World War. Soldiers and cricketers who had experienced the Second World War reacted differently again.

In our present competitive, individualistic and market based culture, players are conditioned to express greater levels of aggression. Which is why the aggressive send off is much in the news and the aggressive reaction of batsmen is escalating.

In his article O’Brian steps with care, “Is it wrong to possibly suggest that the tragic death of his good mate Phillip Hughes – Warner was on the field when Hughes was fatally hit – is having an unwanted affect on the decisions he makes, and contributing to his involvement in conflicts?”

Is it wrong also to see Warner as suffering from some kind of survivor syndrome, itself a significant symptom of post traumatic stress disorder, and expressing it as only a cricketer can? Is he, with his increasing recklessness, seeking relief from his torment in the only way that a fearless batsman can without showing weakness? Charmed with talent and form, the more reckless his batting the more effective he seems to have become. It is as if he knows that only the authorities can remove him from the field.

Is the lesson cricket needs to learn quickly that Warner needs help, that his opponents as well as his team mates, umpires and administrators need to be aware and to give him support and space, and that other players may be suffering similar effects, but at different stages of manifestation and expressed in different terms?

It is difficult to see Warner as a victim, or Australian cricketers in general, but in the coming weeks opponents, officials and the commentariat  must demonstrate understanding. A lot of support and care is necessary. This is another test for cricket.

Whitaker, Engage the Enemy More Closely

When Third Man met James Whitaker last summer at Loughborough he seem resolved to act. He appeared to know what the players wanted and what was needed. They wanted to be left to their own professional resources, to be free to take responsibility for their individual and team performances.

They wanted to be in control from the moment of their selection. They wanted clear permissions to play the game their own way, to express their own talent. As an ex-pro with a good mind he knew the value of this.

But he and Downton seemed to have accepted that they had to work within the framework given to them by Clarke viz, the Flowers managerial, incremental improvement philosophy.

It might be the way Flower thought cricket should be managed. But he had lost sight, in his development as a coach, of how he himself had flourished as a remarkable player. The captain/manager in him took control of the batsman in him.

And Flower had convinced The Powers That Be, and of course he had recruited an army of ‘staff’ to back him up and impose his methodology. Those who couldn’t play within this regime either suffered chronic loss of form or were discarded as potential destabilizing forces. Moores was and is a Flower cipher.

Whitaker and Downton didn’t think they could challenge this power and those decisions. They were wrong. They spent 15 months assuaging that force instead of taking it on.

If they have now been ‘forced’ into change for defensive reasons rather from seeing experience the falsity of the efficacy of the Flower approach, then, there will be no further change. And England’s agony will continue in every form of the game in the months to come.

But if together they have seen that change must happen then they will be planning a total transformation of the England set up; in a way that puts talent first and the requirements of talent as the first consideration.

No longer will players fear the laptop and every other assessment of their performance. They will see the evidence of analysis as an aid and not as an inquisition. The information gathered will be theirs to exploit or to reject if they so wish. Nothing must get in the way of their instincts, of their mental and physical reactions which they have honed over the years.

They must be allowed to wear themselves rather than forced into some identikit of a ‘world class cricketer’ produced by Big Data.

The new England cricketing culture they produce must be Nelsonian: “Engage the enemy more closely”. The purpose of cricket: joy. The first requirement: zeal. The means: Attack!

It requires a team of Millennials and their job is to create opportunities for these young blades to play without fear. The cricket of tomorrow will grow from T20. The up-coming World Cup will be as ‘revolutionary’ as the world cup won by Sri Lanka in 1996. It will be the first World Cup that truly expresses the lessons of T20 innovations. Batting and bowling attacks will stand toe to toe with never a step back by either.

This is the new cricketing world into which England will either dash or dither. Not in the next six weeks but in the next six years. If transformation is continuous, all concerned must be given time, becuase it will take time.

Let’s hope today was a first step and not a tactical retreat in-order to advance again over an unimportant bit of No Man’s Land.

And a sign that this is happening? That change is endemic? For a start, a dressing room which during the hours of play is the privileged preserve of 12 players and one coach.

Fordism in a Post-Fordist Cricketing World

@DavidMutton rings the Great House from Stateside today to tell the Squire about James Morgan’s  important, powerful, damning, accurate demolition of Paul Downton’s dismal diving, ducking response to Simon Mann’s reasonable good-natured inquiries.

It has to be said that the Squire has been mortified by things that have happened prior to and during the Tour of Sri Lanka.

“It is vital when dealing with organisations to ask the question: ‘where’s the power?”

True. The Squire keeps to hand his ECB Power Map. It is spread out on an ancient map-table in the Great Library. He takes Third Man thither.

“Look here TM. Where’s the source? Is power in the hands of Cook … of James Whitaker … of Downton …. of Moores … even of Giles ‘Tradesman’ Clarke?   No it’s still Flower’s power.”

“Every dumb decision that the ECB has made over the last 18 months originates from that man, Flower, his beastly managerial culture that stamps on Flair and Improvisation with the Hammer of Conformity. The decision to keep Flower and his Odious Culture of Compliance with its Fearful Clientism has extinguished the Very Life Force of cricket in England.”

“No-one other than Moores would a) have been acceptable to Flower and b) have accepted the limited scope of the coaching job on offer in the first place. England chose a local lad when someone of world class was essential.”

“Flower and Moores have to have Cook until Root is thought ready. Ditto Morgan. So having inked those three batsmen into place others have to be batted out of position, and yet others excluded from the side completely. It is the price of having a compliant Captain and paramount Flower.”

“The whole rickety edifice is bolstered by carefully distributed access to information that produces a compliant (client status) mainstream media that uses what intelligence it has to invent ways of justifying in the unjustifiable Though Mann did a better job than most with his opportunity.”

“Carefully distributed access to cricketing development opportunities from 15 years of age onwards, isolation of the England development programmes from counties creates, client-like and compliant cricketing talent to the exclusion of those who do not pass the Flower Entrance Exams and regular Performance Reviews ensures that no one can develop let alone get themselves selected who has not come through this factory.”

“How many Maxwells, Warners and Finches are out there ready in our Green and Pleasant Land to tan the leather and mock the mighty?”

“It’s Fordism in a Post-Fordist cricketing world. It’s anathema to our Generation Y cricketers which is why so many of them are failing to express their full potential in this stultifying regime.”

“It’s the business strategy dictating the cricketing strategy, dictating the development strategy, dictating the selection strategy, dictating the communications strategy to the utter frustration everyone and which James demolishes in his excellent piece.”

“Get me Downton and Whitaker on the Dog and Bone, TM. If they have anything about them, after an ear battering from me they’ll have those numpties out on their ears immediately after the World Cup. They could do a bit of recruiting while they’re over there. Can’t they see what’s been happening in Yorkshire? In Yorkshire, Third Man.”

“And get me a cold towel while you’re at it.”

“And a brandy”

“A large one.”

Factory of Fear

Cricket is a competitive occupation.

Cricket as Occupation? England players get paid a lot, along with the attendant opportunities, it’s a life transforming lot.

Competitive? Each player competes against the opposition, against rivals for his place, against himself (his demons).

Fear is the Hobgoblin of cricketers.

Fear can be manufactured by a conflict between Team Orders and instinct, between responsibility and freedom from responsibility. England players are expected to both accept responsibility and play with freedom. These are twin masters who rarely can both be satisfied.

Some call it a style of cricket but it is more than that it is CULTURE built on a foundation of fear.

The Moores/Flower/Moores culture creates a conflict between caution/consolidation and confidence/attack; This conflict creates uncertainty and fear. The England set up? It’s a fear factory.

Michael Vaughan rightly exposed player fear created by Flower and the backroom for England’s failures in Oz this winter.

Vaughan also nailed the old lie about selectors and captains. The Coach gets HIS team. He is the Boss … not the selectors, not the captain.

Flower and Moores believe in the same culture, use the same Play Book/Team Orders

The ECB did not remove the source of the conflict between Team Orders and Instinct when they replaced Flower with Moores and entrenched Flower at Loughborough.

The ECB first invested in this Culture in 1999, that’s why it had no intention of changing the culture last winter. It finessed the Flower difficulty.

Continuity/loyalty/strong-leader/obedient players is an integral part of the Culture

The shorter the form of the game the more fear debilitates; the more damaging is internal conflict. It is this that has meant England perform relatively better at Test cricket. . Relatively being the operative word.

The India Test Series? It was a fix. The Duke ball and some English-bowler-friendly surfaces papered over the cracks. Just extraordinary they didn’t beat India 4-0.

Case Study of Cultural Change: Lehmann’s arrival at the Oz camp in 2013 transformed the culture in which the team operated; freeing the players from internal conflict and fear.

Lehmann provided clarity of approach, a confidence that those trying playing that way would be supported and a CULTURE that was in tune with how players dream of being able to play.

It will be harder to sustain this culture in the future. It’s very Generation X. Generation Y, the Millennials, don’t do the Moores/Flower/Moores Culture,

Millennials have less fear; their competition is with their opponents, not with themselves,

Millennials learnt at their mother’s knee: they can never fail; they can achieve anything

But even Millennials can be worn down in The Fear Factory.

The players themselves are probably the last people to see how they are being affected adversely by this culture. In the ‘bubble’ it is not obvious at all and Moores and Flower generate loyalty.

Changing the side and issues over captaincy are all second order ones.

While the CULTURE is wrong nothing will be known about the real potential of players qualified to play for or lead England.

What a Nut Case or Tilting at Windmills

Mrs Broad did a great job bringing up Stuart. The cricketing nation owes her a debt of gratitude. He is one of life’s great optimists. Every ball will take a wicket, every spell will be one that changes the course of a Test match. Every appeal for LBW is out (except every appeal when he is batting). Every ball he receives as a batsman will be stroked to the boundary. Every innings will produce a century.

There is more than a little of the Don Quixote about Stuart, though with a lot better eyesight.

Some have even compared his batting to that of Gary Sobers, though TM has struggled in vain to see any resemblance. Confidence is infectious. But it can carry the day.

Last winter, Stuart’s hubristic nature encountered its Nemisis (to mix metaphorical allusions). Mitchell Johnson inevitably exposed Stuart to harsh reality. He (and what was worse the world) suddenly saw Stuart’s vulnerability to the short stuff. This series against India has repeatedly illustrated his awkwardness when trying to cope with the rising ball aimed at his throat. TM has squirmed when watching his paralysis; unable even to duck, it seemed.

Now this is a crisis for someone like Stuart; as indeed it was in a different way for Jonathan Trott. Trott reached deep into his mind and came up with a tactic of moving to the off side of the ball and endeavouring to ‘pick’ up the ball and send it over the boundary. It looked desperate. It was desperate.

Stuart, perhaps delving less deeply into his psyche, or having a less deep psychic pool than Jonathan Trott, obviously came back to the surface with a more orthodox though no less desperate idea: that he needed to hook the short stuff and give a lie to this inconvenient alternative universe that was so persistently intruding upon his world view.

One can imagine how Stuart saw the ball sailing ten rows back into the stand.

“I will do it.”

He did it. The shape of the shot was perfect. The timing just a fraction off as any less confident cricketer might have predicted before rejecting the idea.

And a less confident cricketer embarking on such a risky venture might have double checked the gap between visor and helmet. But not Stuart.

The question arises as to whether Stuart would have risked all this in the days before helmets. There is reason to suggest others would not. But there again … in Stuart’s world probably he would.

Unleashing the Blue

Reflecting life and the society in which it is conducted, cricket is experienced by its players as a system of distributed opportunities.

To play cricket is to be given or to be deprived of possibilities for development, chances to become familiar or practised, chances to realise potential, chances to get better, chances to make progress for self and for team.

Today, more than one club cricketer will ask, “Why am I batting 8?” or “Why am I not in the 1stXI?” “Why am I not bowling?” “Why this end, against the wind?” Those who compete for places and opportunities at the highest level that the game is played are no different.

Common sense suggests that the optimum system for the distribution of such opportunities is by merit. To the best should go the chances, because once those chances are allocated the playing field is no longer level. But that is seldom what happens and advantages are given to some and deprived to others.

The ideal, if fleetingly achieved, seems quickly to morph into some new system of privilege, as power over the distribution of opportunities collects around a different set of unequal relationships.

Be you subject or cricketer, to avoid disappointment, do not look for justice.

Yesterday on the third day of the fourth Test between England and India, Cheteshwar Arvind Pujara, who strangely can call to mind the spire of Salisbury Cathedral, took a long stride forward to the off-spin of Moeen Ali. The ball bounced and turned – this is Old Trafford you see, where bounce and quick turning wickets can be produced as a matter of course, even within a couple of seasons of a comprehensive revolution of the ground’s orientation.

The stretching Pujara was struck on the knee roll, the ball ricocheted into the hands of a close fielder. England players appealed, some for a catch, some for LBW. Umpire Rod Tucker, with little time for reflection, gave the batsman out LBW.

Pujara froze in disbelief, disorientated for a moment, like an intoxicated Lancastrian spectator waking from a deep afternoon slumber and forgetting that things have changed in the old ground.

Any other Test match Number 3 in any match between any set of teams except a set containing India would instantly have been able to rebalance himself and call for a review of the decision. Such a review would have shown the ball turning enough to miss the leg stump and, adding insult to injuring, bouncing well above stump height – remember this is Old Trafford, where despite 35 cm of rain falling on average each year a pitch can be produced that is more akin to one in Perth, Western Australia, than one in Hove, Sunny Sussex.

That Purara could not appeal for justice to a system of referral which is open to every other Test cricketer and indeed was open, within seconds of the event, to everyone who could hasten to a TV monitor, is because administrators of cricket in India have ruled it so.

Like all autocracies, the aptly named Board of CONTROL for Cricket in India fears reason as reason would deprive it of its power.

Why, whatever next? Merit in the allocation of playing opportunities?

This is not the best team that India could send to England, it is the product of strange choices following the retirement of its golden generation, nor, for almost all of this and the last Test, was Dhoni’s allocation of opportunities anything other than capricious. India squanders its talent and subjects those it does select to debilitating inconsistency.

The players looked like those who serve a tyrannical master and, weary of injustice, decided to lay down their tools in protest.

India should take a lesson from Old Trafford, start a revolution and unleash the blue.