Tag Archives: cricket

Manufacturing a cricketing spectacle

10 Monday Jun 2019

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How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

Scholars are divided on whether Elizabeth Barrett Browning was writing about Robert Browning or about cricket but her words came to me as I pondered my experience as a spectator in the crowd at the England V Pakistan World Cup match last Monday at Trent Bridge. (An intelligent, passionate poet, I think Elizabeth might have enjoyed cricket – although would have struggled with eight hours in the opium-free stand.)

Anyway. Her words dropped into my brain as I sat quietly watching the match while the Pakistani supporters leapt around me with ineluctable vigour. While there is no doubting their love of the game and their team, it became apparent that much of their more outrageous dancing and chanting came at the same time as the appearance of a TV camera.

And it wasn’t just the Pakistan supporters. The England-supporting schoolkids in front of us were frequently briefed by the cameraman to perform on cue. The camera didn’t just happen to capture some 10 year olds playing air guitar along to the terrible guitarist who was playing live during breaks in play, it captured them doing it because the cameraman had told – and shown – them what to do and when to do it, each of them performing on cue as he pointed at them one by one. The camera then moved away and they settled down to resume watching quietly and eating sweets.

Beyond the choreographed enjoyment, the simple presence of the camera changed the crowd dynamic. When it pointed at anyone, they leapt up to cheer and shout and wave. When it pointed at the Pakistan supporters, they launched into chants and dances.

We’re sophisticated enough to know now that just because something is on the TV or t’internet, that doesn’t mean it’s a true record of events. Selective editing, angles, re-takes and so on all mean that we are being shown a version of the truth. But live TV – most people would surely assume that what you see is exactly what you get? Well, it’s not. And not only that but the camera is not just a recorder of events but a shaper of events; not a neutral, objective presence but a presence that is an active part of the very spectacle it purports only to record.

As part of a broader picture that sees 4 and 6 cards and thundersticks handed out to everyone, that sees the Cricketeers hyping up the schoolkids to sing and chant, that sees music played in the ground to get the crowd singing along, and the picking out of anyone in fancy dress on the big screens for everyone to cheer – we are encouraged to express our pleasure at the spectacle and our support of our side in a very particular way. It’s a way that feels distinctly at odds with how many people might want to enjoy it but it’s the only way the authorities appear to want us to enjoy it. It’s not a 90-minute football match, it’s an 8-hour cricket match: we really don’t need to pretend that every minute is action-packed, every spectator is out of their seat with excitement, do we?

Without wanting to sound too curmudgeonly, I wonder if there is anything wrong with enjoying the game of cricket for what it is rather than feeling like you’re in a piece of performance art? In an era where scores of 300 are the norm and 400 is regularly within reach, and when so many truly thrilling players are showing spectacular skills, is this not enough? It feels as if cricket-the-product has become more important to the powers-that-be than cricket-the-game.

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Why are flawed heroes so hard to take?

05 Tuesday Apr 2016

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I was quite cross after the West Indies blitzed the last over of the World T20 final and snatched it from England’s grasp. I admired Brathwaite’s hitting of course and I sympathised with Stokes, who was a matter of inches away from being on all the front pages with head held high rather than on the back pages with head bowed. Still, I was cross that England had allowed me to think this was a done deal and we were six balls away from being world champions.

Then within seconds of the amazing West Indies win, we had TV pictures of Marlon Samuels tearing off towards the England dug-out, ripping his shirt off, seemingly spoiling for a fight. In a moment when you’d expect the emotion to be delight, joy and gratitude, he appeared angry, aggressive and ungrateful. His anger subsided – a little – but the posturing remained throughout the ceremony afterwards and the press conference after that. It was, I felt, ugly and unbecoming. Judging by social media, I was in the majority.

But then I wondered, why do we need our sports stars to be perfect heroes? Why should I or anyone else begrudge Samuels his moment or the way he chose to use it? Does our reaction say more about us than about him?

Yes. And this may be why…

Unwittingly, our sporting heroes represent order and morality. In the sporting arena, we expect good things to happen to good people. Sportsmanship, fair play, hard work, talent – these are the ingredients that bring reward aren’t they? Not always, they’re not.  Ben Johnson, Lance Armstrong, Hansie Cronje, Diego Maradona…all quite brilliant and all fatally flawed in different ways. The fall from grace is so spectacular because we expect so much. With each fall, an illusion is shattered.

It turns out that good is not always rewarded, iniquity not always punished. Suddenly the world is not as ordered and fair, it is arbitrary and amoral. Individuals are flawed, arguments are nuanced, stories are not black and white. We can’t take this dissonance as it makes life too complex, decisions too hard, certainty impossible, so our heroes must either remain elevated with the gods or vilified with the devil.

Another part of the problem is that very early in our lives we buy into scripts to which we expect everyone to conform. Fairy tales, Hollywood movies, Roy of the Rovers…we get a sense of where these stories will go, where the moral will be delivered, where right triumphs over wrong. Have you ever read a story to a young child where the ending wasn’t happy ever after or the good guy didn’t win? Utter bemusement and not a little fear. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be…this isn’t how the world is ordered.

Making our heroes superhuman also protects us in another way. They are not like us, they are achieving things we could never achieve, they are born to it. Well, not really. These are flawed human beings just like us. They have succeeded through talent, yes, but mainly through hard work, ambition, risk-taking, audacity, self-belief, practice. The painful thing is that they have succeeded where maybe we could have too. But we did not. They are more like us than we care to admit. So when they show their flaws, it makes us angry – angry at them for not behaving as their elevated position demands and angry at ourselves for not having succeeded as much as we might.

Finally, and returning to Marlon Samuels, it is easy to vilify a caricature. It is also easy for the person behind the caricature to adopt it as a persona, as the only way to take control of the way they are seen. I know nothing of Marlon Samuels off the field or of his upbringing but I do know that people don’t just get as angry as Samuels is for no reason. They don’t choose confrontation, they don’t need their ego boosting all the time, they don’t adopt an iniquitous persona from nowhere. I have no idea what made Marlon Samuels into the man he is today but I’m pretty sure that if I – and you – knew, we’d see him differently. We all have a story, even our heroes and villains, but of course it’s easier not to know it, easier to have a narrative free from ambiguity, where we know what is right and what is wrong. But the other night, Marlon Samuels helped to demonstrate that this is untenable. This is a world where the boorish, angry, unlikeable Samuels is the hero. Life is no fairy tale, and Marlon Samuels shouldn’t have to apologise for that.

The three-year itch

08 Friday Jan 2016

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Unsurprisingly, there’s chat about Alex Hales and whether he should get another chance opening the batting. This debate is as premature as it is predictable. The man has played two tests, averages 25, scored a good 60 in one of his four innings, and with a strike rate of 37 he is clearly reigning in his attacking instincts in order to make a good fist of the test opening job. He averaged 50 in the Championship last year. It’s worth noting, too, that in each of his four partnerships with Cook, it has been the skipper’s dismissal that has come first.

With all the talk of Cook’s run of unsuccessful opening partners, my mind turned to Graham Gooch’s rather slow start to his test career. He managed 0 and 0 in his first test and soon disappeared back to county cricket, only to return with considerably more success three years later.

Saeed Anwar had the same experience, coming back from a pair on debut to score 169 three years later. And as any cricket aficionado of a certain age will tell you, Marvan Atapattu is the poster boy for ropey beginnings followed by sturdy careers. He made 0 and 0, 0 and 1, 0 and 0 in his first three tests (admittedly rather unhelpfully each about two years apart). This is a less than solid performance for a test match opening batsman. Hales’ average of 25 looks pretty good compared to Atapattu’s 0.16 (and even his one run was rumoured to have come off his pads not his bat). Atapattu was then dropped for three years before coming back to have a distinguished 90 test career that included 16 tons of which six were doubles.

It was only as I began to research this article, which was ostensibly to be about Alex Hales (with a side helping of self-congratulation on my previous post calling for Mo to be kept at 8, Compton to be recalled and Bell to be dropped), that it dawned on me that all the players mentioned above were dropped for around three years before they made their successful comebacks. I wonder what the significance of those three years is? Is this the amount of time it takes to refine your game or work out whether you’ve got the hunger to play for your country?

It worked for James Taylor too. Much as I believe he deserved his recall sooner, the fact is that he had a three-year hiatus from the team and has returned a transformed player. He says himself that not being picked drove him on. Are the selectors on to something here? Do they possess a psychological insight that we hadn’t credited them with?

Nick Compton’s absence was approaching three years too. Undoubtedly a better player now.

There must be something in this three years thing (I think I’ll call it the Campion Rejuvenation Formula©) because Boycott even dropped himself for precisely that length of time before his glorious return with a ton against the Aussies in 1977.

Then there’s Adil Rashid, who spent six years in the international wilderness and judging by his form in the Big Bash, he’s now twice as good as he used to be.

(If I’ve missed anyone you can think of in the three-year club, do shout up.)

It’s impossible to know whether being dropped was the right decision, of course, because we can never know how players’ test careers might have turned out had they been retained. Other teams, with scarcer resources, might be forced to find out whether a player could learn on the job. Certainly when England’s own options have been limited, they’ve had to be patient. Look at Gatt – it took him seven years and 54 test innings to make his first hundred. Hales has had four knocks in his test career. I reckon he should be allowed a few more.

Yeah but no but yeah but…

23 Friday Jan 2015

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Now this is frustrating. For so long, I’d been certain that following England at the World Cup would be quite straightforward. We would stumble along in the Pool matches, win a game against one of the big boys and be full of optimism – then have a stinker against Scotland, Bangladesh or Afghanistan and not even make it to the quarters.

I was determined to enjoy the World Cup simply as an opportunity to see some great matches and if England did, by some miracle, make it to the quarters then my cup would have runneth over.

And then England did the decent thing and relieved Cook of his position. Morgan came in and talked straight and talked sense. He scored a ton. Then England smashed India. And I could feel that sensation again, that feeling that I thought had been banished when it came to England in ODIs. Hope.

They beat India by nine wickets. Surely that meant they could beat anyone? Nine wickets!

I sniffed a chance for England. So back to their squad for a quick look…

Morgan – Positive skipper, solid bloke, evident new energy in the side since his appointment, always gets runs as skipper.

Moeen – Rapidly becoming a legend. Free-flowing bat, fearless smasher of the ball from the start, rapidly improving and important bowler.

Anderson – Still the swing king, four cheap wickets the other day, well rested and raring to go.

Ballance – A real find last year, adaptable player, great cricket brain.

Bell – 187…141…smooth stroking, late cutting, cover driving, finally delivering.

Bopara – Finally found his role with the bat and has an ability to smash it miles; canny bowler.

Broad – Experience, pace, accuracy with the ball; mercurial ability with the bat; loves showing Aussies what he can do.

Buttler – Was the first of England’s new generation to seal his place. Plays shots that appear to be impossible; feared by opponents; secure in his position; improving with the gloves and pretty decent now.

Finn – Tall, quick, awkward. A five-for to boost his confidence the other day. Has stopped raising his arm, smoothing his hair and looking bemused after every delivery that the batsman misses. Finny’s back!

Hales – Devastating opener who scored a spectacular T20 ton for England and scored county runs for fun last year. Exciting.

Jordan – What a find. Lively bowler with a knack for picking up wickets, top catcher and half-decent biffer. A ‘makes things happen’ kind of cricketer.

Root – Looks utterly at home for England in all formats now they’ve allowed him to bat in the right position. A pivotal player in the middle order, and handy fill-in offie.

Taylor – Talk about taking your chance. He basically got one knock to secure a place and nailed it. Looks a great option at no.3. Whacks it harder than he used to and is pretty  inventive.

Tredwell –  As inconceivable as it is to imagine him in his whites for England, it’s equally hard to  imagine another specialist spinner usurping his one day spot. Solid performer.

Woakes – Another fella who’s taken his chance. Looked far too weedy and military medium when he debuted for England but now looks a nailed-on pick and fully deserving of his place. Very decent bat too.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is quite an exciting line-up. So, let’s have a look at that fixture list. So Australia first up. Who have they got? Oh…Warner and Finch. Ah. Smith, Bailey, Maxwell…Johnson, Faulkner, Starc. Well, maybe if we get Warner early. And Finch. And Smith. And hope Maxwell doesn’t come off. And Clarke’s hammy goes. And Johnson’s having an off-day…

Alright, so if we lose that one, who’s next?

New Zealand. OK, well we usually have a chance against the perennial overachievers. So who have they got? McCullum, scorer of four test tons including a triple last year;  Anderson a revelation in recent months and holder of the quickest ODI ton until a few days ago; Elliott – ton today; Ronchi – 170 today coming in at no.7 today…Taylor, Vettori, Williamson, Southee. Hang on, this is a damn good side. This is not a team of underdogs.

Who else? Sri Lanka – just lost to them comfortably. Scotland? Afghanistan? Real banana skins.

So I look at our side again…

Morgan – Until his ton a few days ago, hadn’t scored a run for ages with a recent record worse than Cook’s. Golden duck today.

Moeen – Whack whack whoosh. I fear quick 20s and 30s will be more likely that match- defining tons.

Anderson – If it doesn’t swing, he’s in trouble. On a flat deck – fodder.

Ballance – Unproven. Possibly a bit stodgy for ODIs.

Bell – Surely flattering to deceive. Spent 150 matches promising much and delivering little.

Bopara – Had more drinks at the last chance saloon than anyone. Not as good as we hope he is (average in ODIs 28.3 since 2013, 40.88 with the ball. (Hat-tip for the surprising stats @NickSharland.))

Broad – Injury-prone, has lost the snap in his bowling and underperforms with the bat

Buttler – Hit and miss. Inexperienced.

Finn – Still not firing on all cylinders. His five wickets the other day came from poor shot not great deliveries. Just one of those lucky days. Still bowling well below express pace.

Hales – Selected but not trusted. Limited technique has been found out by international teams.

Jordan – Expensive, inconsistent, inaccurate; has a run-up and action that could go very wrong at any moment.

Root – Playing well, if a little slowly.

Taylor – Unproven against world-class bowlers. Early shuffle across the stumps could prove his undoing.

Tredwell – Best of a bad lot. If a team decides to take him apart, they generally do.

Woakes – See Anderson. No swing = absolute fodder.

I’m trying to persuade myself that the second assessment of the players above is the right one and I should retreat to my position of no expectation of success. But really, I know it’s not true. They could do something at this World Cup, England, couldn’t they? Even if it’s unlikely, it’s not impossible.

I can’t wait for it to start now…Damn you, hope, damn you.

Stephen Parry – it could all have been so different…

06 Tuesday Jan 2015

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It has been announced today that Lancashire spinner Stephen Parry has joined Australian Big Bash League side Brisbane Heat for the rest of the tournament. Researching an article for All Out Cricket magazine, I spoke to Stephen recently about his early days and how it could all have been so different. 

Stephen Parry made his England debut in March 2104, playing a handful of ODIs and T20s. This achievement would have been unthinkable when he was trying to make his way in the game. John Stanworth, Lancashire’s Academy Director, says Parry ‘didn’t quite get it as a younger player’ – a charge Parry readily admits:

“I was in and out of the age group sides until I made a breakthrough in the under 16s. I had a decent year and then at under 17s, I had a really good year. I bowled well and I batted at four. I was the leading wicket-taker by far. I got picked for the Academy and then I think I kind of believed it was just going to happen. Well, it didn’t and Stanny [John Stanworth] kicked me off.

“It was a bit of a wake-up call. I’d been on top of the world the year before and now I was off the Academy. I hadn’t pushed on enough. No-one wanted it more for me than Stanny and he was probably disappointed. I was upset and disappointed too at the time but now I know it was for my own good.

“I could’ve gone either way then. I decided to postpone university and I went to Australia to play cricket – and I think I probably grew up a bit. When I came back, I went trialling all over the place off my own bat and then eventually I got a chance of a game for the Academy after another player got injured. I got 96 not out. This was half way through the season and I then had a run in the side and got a contract at the end of that year, when I was 20.

“You could argue that 20 is quite late but I think sometimes it’s important to go through the experiences. Having been dropped, it was all about how I reacted. I could’ve walked away but, as my Dad says, I was like a bad smell – always hanging around! It helped that I’ve always really enjoyed my cricket and whether I’m playing for my country or my league club, I just try and bowl my best ball each time.”

We’ve got all the ingredients but need to sack the Cook

16 Tuesday Dec 2014

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Peter Moores’ rather equivocal ‘support’ for Alistair Cook after his, and England’s, failure a couple of days ago (not to be confused with their failure today)  was an unexpected speck of light at the end of the tunnel.

Though Moores and now Downton keep insisting publicly that Cook will lead at the World Cup, it must be only them, the selectors and Cook himself who believe he is the right man to lead England into the World Cup. The problem is that the selectors and Moores have gone down a Cook cul-de-sac and can’t find a way out.

They backed Cook and continue to back him largely because they backed him before, and each time they do it they make it harder to go back on that decision. It’s a self-annihilating circle demonstrating the utmost lack of self-awareness.

As for as I can tell, they backed Cook for three reasons – desperate hope, convenience and a sense of him being the right kind of chap.

Desperate hope – he did score a few decent runs when he first took over as ODI skipper. He looked ok. However, he averages under 30 in 2014, has scored one 50 in his last 22 ODI innings, hasn’t scored a ton in 45 and has made next to no runs in this current series. And now he’s dropping catches. It’s not that he’s suddenly turned into Mike Brearley either. His captaincy doesn’t make up for his lack of runs. We’ve just lost this series.

Convenience – it really is ideal if one skipper does all the formats of the game or even a couple of them. But not if it’s all going so very wrong. It’s even counter-productive for Cook himself, who seems to be taking his increasingly shaky technique and crushed confidence into the test match arena.

The right kind of chap – he is the anti-Pietersen. He may be gauche, fumbling and awkward at times, he may be an uninspirational leader, he may to batting what Ed Miliband is to statesmanship but he’s a good egg.

Most infuriating of all is the realisation that the selectors, management and Cook are prepared to jettison England’s chances at the World Cup in order to save face on a poor decision to retain Cook as ODI captain. And ‘infuriating’ just doesn’t cover it if there is truth to the generally-accepted rumour circulating that Cook will quit as ODI captain after the World Cup.

Basically the selectors are saying, ‘We wait four years for this opportunity and players put their hearts and souls into getting in the squad and playing – and this year we’ve even planned six months of our international cricket schedule around it – but, hey, let’s write it off this time so Alistair can play in a tournament he’s always wanted to play in and the selectors won’t be forced to publicly acknowledge they’ve got it completely wrong.’

It makes me furious just thinking about it.

I’d love to dissect the 30 man England World Cup squad in minute detail, wondering what our best eleven is but it feels so pointless. Which is a shame because it feels like we have some players who are starting to show what they can do.

The bowling seems steady rather than spectacular but we can rely on Tredwell, Moeen and Broad when he’s back. Anderson isn’t a given in ODI cricket for me – if it doesn’t swing he gets tapped. Woakes is increasingly, and surprisingly, impressive; then there’s hopefully a resurgent Finn, with Jordan as back-up.

Batting line up should be Hales, Moeen, Taylor, Root, Morgan (assuming he remembers how to bat), Bopara, Buttler. I’d like to drop Morgan as his recent record is as unimpressive as Cook’s but I’d need to be confident that his replacement from the squad of 30 would definitely be better. There are no guarantees.

Having said that, I really wouldn’t mind if the selectors were bold for once and went for Ballance or Bairstow, Samit Patel or Adil Rashid. They won’t of course. (With quite a few dashers in the order I probably wouldn’t risk Jason Roy as well.) Stokes, unfortunately, has lost his way – probably not helped by the management not being able to decide if he’s an all-rounder, a batsman who bowls or a bowler who bats. I wouldn’t be averse to Vince getting a go, while Luke Wright is in there for old times’ sake only.

Unfortunately it looks like Cook will take up a valuable place in that order so some poor sod who deserves a game won’t get one.

There really are some exciting players in the squad – mainly batsmen – but I just feel utterly deflated before we even set off on our World Cup run-in.

The question is, will the powers-that-be find a weaselly way out of this – like Alistair Cook having a sudden flare-up of his back trouble. I wouldn’t put it past them. What they won’t do, of course, is admit they were wrong and actually drop Cook for the World Cup. Fingers crossed for 2019.

UPDATE: Info on the BBC’s live feed of the ODI today provides more crushing evidence:

England’s ODI captains have departed their roles after each of the last four World Cups. 1999: Alec Stewart sacked. 2003: Nasser Hussain resigned. 2007: Michael Vaughan resigned. 2011: Andrew Strauss resigned.

Since the Champions Trophy in 2013, England have completed 27 ODIs against Test-playing opposition (ie not counting Scotland and Ireland) – they have won nine of those, and lost 18.

And even more depressing…

Alastair Cook, speaking to Sky Sports: I’m working as hard as I can, I’m as hungry as ever to score runs, so I’ll go on. “I’ve always had an attitude to play cricket and compete. Yes, it hasn’t gone well over the last 12 months both personally with the bat and in one-day cricket. “I would feel very wrong to walk away from it. If it’s taken away from me, I’ll feel very disappointed, but I certainly won’t be giving it up.”

Pfftt.

Beyond Tuesday

08 Monday Dec 2014

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When the Australian players walk out to begin the test match in Adelaide in a few hours, they will still be hurting like hell.

The rawness of Phillip Hughes’ death will barely have abated, and they will need to find their own way to get through the game, to take that necessary step that allows them to get on with their own lives while still leaving space to mourn the hole in their lives where Phillip Hughes used to be.

The unpredictability of grief means we should expect and accept pretty much any reaction. There may be players who simply can’t allow themselves to contemplate the grief and will put it to one side for the whole game, while others may be overwhelmed by it. There is no one-size-fits-all response to the fathomless loss of a loved one. As spectators, our response to the players should be only compassion.

But where does cricket go beyond this test match when it comes to remembering Phillip Hughes?

So far, the reaction has been extraordinary. Much of its intensity has come from the genuine, heartfelt and remarkably beautiful words written and spoken by those close to the young batsman and to the game. I can’t remember the last time such a rush of perfectly-chosen words came flowing from the pens of cricket writers, bloggers and even tweeters. And Michael Clarke’s eulogy? Well, that was something else.

People have revealed their true selves in recent days, inspired by sheer grief to throw off the shackles of expectation and societal norms. Suddenly the fragility of human existence and the flimsiness of the masks we wear were there for all to see. We are all the same beneath the differently-coloured caps and sport is, after all, sport. Hughes’ team-mates and the wider cricketing fraternity grieved openly and with dignity for the life that will remain unlived.

I hope this honesty can remain. My fear is that it will be overtaken.

In our modern society where anomie and despair make uncomfortable bedfellows and result in ostentatious displays of collective grief, we may find the visceral, searing, truth-telling honesty of Clarke et al’s reaction is subsumed by grand, calculated, institutionalised gestures.

Of course collective grief is useful and necessary sometimes. It allows communities to find a shared understanding and consequently some much-needed consolation. Clearly what has happened since Phillip Hughes’ death, such as the putting out of bats in solidarity, has been of great comfort to his family, friends and team-mates who can never be in any doubt that he was loved.

But with Cricket Australia planning a series of events to remember Phillip Hughes, I find myself urging them to play it low-key, to give people opportunities to grieve but not to create an unstoppable institution, not to make it into 63notout the brand. Once it reaches this corporatised level, then the connection with the real feelings expressed so eloquently in recent days is lost. Suddenly everyone will find themselves obliged to behave and react in a certain way, and the natural rhythms of their own grief process will be lost.

It’s not hard to picture batsmen in a few months’ time, reaching 63 and feeling they ought to raise their bat to the sky for fear of being the first not to do so, and risk showing disrespect where none was meant. Similarly the spectator who would rather share a tacitly-understood glance with a friend or simply have their own private thoughts is obliged to stand and applaud because that is what everyone else in the ground is doing. And suddenly Phillip Hughes’ death is no longer about Phillip Hughes but is about people being anxious to be seen to be doing the right thing.

Everyone has their own way to deal with these things. They don’t need other people to tell them how. Just look at the events since the tragedy happened. Leave people to express their own thoughts in their own way, and we hear the truth. Truth about them, about their friends, about cricket, about life.

Dhoni needs to reignite the fire

19 Wednesday Nov 2014

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There were times last summer, during the England v India test series, when I wondered whether MS Dhoni had lost it completely.

Times like when he stood back to the spinner, much to the utter befuddlement of almost everyone (including Nasser Hussain and Shane Warne on commentary) and, even worse, he barely even bothered to move to take some deliveries and fielding returns. It looked like he simply couldn’t be bothered to raise his arm to stop the ball.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5HnQ8fLVVU

Admittedly, he livened up again for the ODI series, as he often does. But it struck me, as he watched some more byes fly past with a total lack of concern on his face, that he had actually bought in to his public and media image of Captain Cool, and bought into it so much that he was now playing it cool, even when the situation demanded action. He had joined Chris Gayle in the ‘too cool to be seen to be making an effort’ gang.

The thumb injury that is keeping him out of the Sri Lanka ODIs and first test against Australia will give him – and India – time to take stock. India can now, perhaps, finally see a Dhoni-free future. For so long, he has been the glue holding the team together, the bridge between generations, the calmness around the impetuosity of the young bucks.

For many years, we have been astonished by the composure with which Dhoni greeted the vicissitudes of international cricket. Whether India has won emphatically or lost embarrassingly, his press conferences and interviews are measured affairs, his temperament – like his batting when he has an ODI to win – ice-cool.

This coolness has also always been apparent on the pitch. However, of late there has been something different about it. His calmness has become very studied, very deliberate. Martin Crowe’s excellent article on the masks we wear comes to mind – Dhoni has become his mask of coolness. His persona has overtaken his personality.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/693959.html

The danger is that his coolness no longer belies the fire inside but that it has extinguished it.

I’m glad he’s got a sore thumb. He needs a rest. He is still a remarkable cricketer and though the next generation is nearly ready to take the reins, India – and all cricket fans – are surely not done with him yet. Relieve some of his burden, let him remember his passion, let’s see the fire burn again.

Smiles better

09 Tuesday Sep 2014

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First Posted 22nd August 2014

He reaches his hundred, takes off his helmet and the smile spreads across Joe Root’s rootface, the sort of smile that makes you feel warm inside. It’s the kind of smile you might see on a young child who’s just finished their nativity play, remembered all their lines, not dropped Jesus and then seen his proud Mum and Dad in the front row. It’s a smile that simply won’t stay on the inside.

After a long old summer, finally the England cricket team appear to be enjoying themselves again.

For those of us who have only ever dreamt of playing for our country, of creaming a cover drive to the boundary at Lords, of uprooting off stump with an away-swinger at Trent Bridge, seeing the players smile is more important than it might first appear.

It’s not that we don’t recognise the hard work, rare talent and total dedication that’s needed. Nor do we ignore the constant pressure on the players, 300 days a year away from families, and the almost insurmountable physical and mental challenges of today’s draining schedule. Sure, it’s hard work being a professional cricketer. Despite all this, though, there’s a phrase that keeps ringing through my head: ‘But, you’re playing cricket for England!’

So to see the ingénue young faces of Root, Jordan, Buttler – even the rejuvenated Cook – smiling again, smiling broadly and unguardedly from the sheer pleasure of playing cricket for England and playing well strikes a chord with us as cricketers and supporters. This is precisely how it should be – not all frowns, snarls and weary resignation.

Beyond the irrepressible youngsters, there are the semi-smilers. Gary Ballance is tempted to, and does, crack a smile occasionally but he’s clearly wary, having let down his guard once and paid disproportionately for it. Moeen is just too serene to beam. Chris Woakes and Liam Plunkett would like to but don’t feel comfortable enough in the side yet to let it all out. Ian Bell is busy trying, unconvincingly, to play the part of gnarled, senior pro.  Jimmy is…well, Jimmy.

Stuart Broad, on the other hand, seems to be cheering up all the time. Maybe it’s the chronic injuries that have precipitated this change in outlook. Although he must be fed up with them a lot of the time, the injuries must also have given him the perspective that comes from realising your career is finite.  He might succumb to a career-finishing injury at any time so, dammit, he’s going to enjoy it while it lasts. Wickets these days are usually greeted with a delighted smile rather than a cynical, world-weary send-off or the ‘This is just what I do’ face that smacks of an over-deliberate display of disinterest.

Winning helps, of course, and so does rotation. The schedules these days are increasingly acknowledged as absurd and it pays to keep players fresh, to take them out of the arena, to make them miss playing. They perhaps remember again what it is to be excited and desperate to play rather than exhausted and desperate for a break.

We all started playing cricket – including the England players – because we love it. And we still do. All we want is to see the best players in the land loving it too. So, keep up the good work lads, keep enjoying your cricket and keep showing us what a pleasure it is to play for England.