Wood is in again

John Stephenson, the head of the MCC Laws Committee, is due to present a recommendation prohibiting the use of composite material in cricket bats, says a report on Cricinfo. If the recommendation goes through, bats will be made of willow and bat handles with cane, rubber and glue. Did I hear a bowler sigh in expectant relief?

Many an opinion can be expressed on many an aspect of it. Do we have enough scientific evidence to prove that material like graphite and titanium have made an impact on the game? Are we impeding progress? Can we not look at making changes to the ball to help bowlers rather than denying batsmen? Is it the material that is the problem or is it the rules?)

One statement from Stephenson is curious in its intent.

The MCC and bat manufacturers have agreed to an amicable phasing out of bats. There are different time-frames fixed for phasing out, so that manufacturers do not lose financially. From a certain period, the bats cannot be used, from a certain period of time, the bats cannot be sold. Amateur cricketers can use the bats till the natural life period. However, after September, it cannot be used in international cricket.

I don’t understand this phasing out strategy. If a titanium-enhanced bat is not within the laws, it needs to go out with immediate effect, and in all forms of the game. Why does the financial aspect have to come into it? It’s like banning drugs and then giving junkies a month to smoke up their stock. Or two months, in the villages.

The business of cricket

Much has been said about the commercialisation of the game, about how there is too much cricket because sponsors and boards decree so, about how they are possibly killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Without ignoring the grains of truth inherent in all of these moans, what we don’t seem to have is a solution. “Ease up the calendar,” is easy to say, but when there are thousands of pounds (or whichever currency you deal with) to be made with every meaningless (meaningless in what sense?) bi-lateral one-day series, why would administrators desist? It’s a bit like asking a business house to control their sales for fear of a glut in the market. On the other hand, we probably don’t want to Wal-mart’ise the game either. So what do we do?

I suggest we begin with the humble calendar. Let each cricketing nation declare a formal and immutable calendar for the home season. England and Australia already have it, though they have started to stretch into the adjacent off-season weeks of late. Depending on the weather and the probable playing conditions, each team gets a pre-defined three-month window in a year to play the game at home. And with each team playing a full home season and one or two away series, we have steady cricket for each country for about six months in the year. Of the other six months, they play in the IPL or wherever for about three months (call it their incentive time if you will). And they have to compulsorily rest for three months. In the years of the World Cup (any of the three as they exist today), the host nation(s) gives up part or all of its season for the Cup.

So what’s the big deal, you may well ask. This is nothing more than a detailed way of saying, “ease up the calendar.” Yes, this only satisfies the players, in terms of the rigour of the international circuit; it does not cater to the profit motives of the administrators. How do we address that?

Shorn of all self-righteousness and pretence, what do the administrators want out of the game? They want to make the most out of the game, right? Is more cricket the only option? Is the money only on the field and in the corresponding television coverage? May be administrators can bring in business consultants and innovation gurus to analyse how else they can make money from the game? How else can we get a larger share of the spectator’s wallet apart from more and more cricket? How can we increase revenue at the gates and the venues? How can we bring in money on non-playing days? How can we create newer revenue streams and recurring income from the game’s interested followers? I’m sure a tight, focused business brief will generate the right answers. I have some ideas in this regard, but I’ll save them for my own entrepreneurial venture.

It’s time for cricket to apply the theory of constraints. Freeze on the schedule and then focus on generating ideas on how to get more revenue out of the game. Don’t treat the game as being in a single industry; instead, look at it as a conglomerate. If cricket had many profit centres like corporate houses like GE, Tata and Samsung has companies and divisions, would the way the game managed be different and better? I think so.

Umpires as leaders

There’ seems to be more to him than just divine off-side play, abrasive combativeness and inspired captaincy. Sourav Ganguly looks set for a post-playing career in cricket administration or commentary, if this statement is an indicator of how his mind works.

As a cricketer, I feel that if the field umpires get a bit of help in the matter of the front foot no ball from the technology as they have in tennis, that they can concentrate and look only towards the batsman and that can reduce mistakes, because things happen fast in the cricket field.

It’s a comment that forces you to re-look at the role of on-field umpires in today’s technology era. The law book says that the job of the umpires is to control the game as required by the Laws, with absolute impartiality.

So how can we let the on-field umpires control the game? By only retaining the control aspects of on-field play with them. And removing the mechanical aspects of the job. Like announcing lunch and tea intervals. Like signalling mechanical landmarks like over completion. Like swinging or raising their hands for boundaries and sixes. Like giving batsmen out for being patently outside the crease in cases of run outs and stumpings. And like signalling front-foot no-balls. Simply put, remove from the on-field umpires job sheet anything that can be determined with absolute certainty by technology (and the third umpire).

So what will the on-field umpires do, you ask?

Well, for one, everything that technology (hawkeye, snicko, ultra-mo, etc.) speculates on. Like lbw decisions. Like feathers to the wicket-keeper. Like bat-pad decisions. But you may wonder, aren’t these really what the on-field umpires err on for the most part? Precisely, and that’s why they need to concentrate on them. These are decisions and judgment calls that a qualified and experienced human needs to take, and the on-field umpires need to concentrate on these to the exclusion of all else if they were to get more decisions accurate.

Secondly, all the control aspects of the game will be the responsibility of the on-field umpires. Like discouraging time-wasting tactics from either team. Like keeping sledging within limits of decency (it’s a different matter that sledging should perhaps be totally un-banned, but that’s meat for another meal). Like deciding on how much light is enough to continue playing. Like calling off a test match that is meandering meaninglessly. Like, well, being in control of the game.

Think of the on-field umpire as a leader rather than a manager. Who takes decisions on uncertainty and leaves the mechanical / process aspects to the minions. Or to technology.

Corporate governance in cricket

The dust, it appears, will not settle on l’affaire SCG, not for the next few weeks at least, unless a decision is made on what Harbhajan Singh actually said, and what it means in different languages, societies and cultures, and to different arbiters, media personnel, bloggers and sundry other parties.

In the meantime, cricket continues in other parts of the world. After the aberration of the first test loss, South Africa pummelled West Indies in the next two to take the series. West Indian supporters would argue that a 2–1 score line is an upset result, and I for one would tend to accept that, especially considering my pre-series post.

A noticeable moment came up on the third (and what proved to be the final) day of the third test. After making a fluid if slightly chancy century, Marlon Samuels (who finally looks like shaking off the tag of a “nearly man”) was bowled by Dale Steyn. The delivery was an absolute beauty, pitching on off stump and straightening to beat the bat of a settled batsman. The stumps were rattled and the bowler, cock-a-hoop. But what followed is what I am referring to. Samuels, after the initial disappointment, actually looked towards the bowler and acknowledged the quality of the delivery with a nod of the head and a lift of the thumb.

Is this what critics of Australia and the SCG incidents talk of when they refer to “the spirit of the game”? Is this what they expect to see more of in the game? Is it a realistic expectation?

Would Samuels have done what he did if it was the last day of the test and the West Indies had a realistic chance of saving the game? Would Samuels have done it if two of his colleagues had perished earlier to debatable umpiring decisions? Would Samuels have done that if the South Africans had sledged his team mates through the game, and made a few visibly insane appeals?

I think the “spirit of the game” argument is an argument of the past. A past when cricket was a game, when winning was just one of the four possible results, when winning just led to honour and perhaps a ticker tape welcome back home. The present of cricket, and what seems to be its future, is far more straightforward: cricket is as much a business as any other. And success, defined as winning the game, comes above all else. In the process, if some teams approach the game like Enron approached business, so be it. It was for the arbiters to determine whether what Enron did constituted fair practice and act accordingly. And they did, and how.

Is Australia the Enron of cricket? Do the governing bodies have a sufficiently strong and comprehensive “corporate governance” code for cricket that can be enforced consistently and aggressively? Are the punishments for infringements as strict as they are in the corporate world? In the face of such unsolved questions, Indians can whine, the Aussies can preen and the rest of the world can tear its hair in frustration; the game will continue on its merry circus.

The sad truth is that Sydney now, the Oval in 2006 and sundry other matches before these have raised such seemingly unsolvable issues time and time again. Unfortunately, the administrators have been happy just treating the symptoms of the disease and pretending as if all is well. Some day, some one will have to go deep down and cure the disease at its underlying level. Until such time, we can only wait in trepidation for the next Sydney.

The coach that crossed the road

Trevor Bayliss, who used to coach Stuart Clark at New South Wales, is now the coach of Sri Lanka. And as Sri Lanka and Australia square up in the coming months, Clark had this to say of his recent interchanges with Bayliss.

He’s told me that he knows my game inside out and that the Lankans will smash me around the park. I’ve told him that they’ve no chance if he’s basing that on his useless coaching tips.

Hmmm… now that’s a problem with coaches being shopped across the world. The man who spent three years shaping you goes off to coach your opposition, and now he can use all that knowledge against you. Of course we have county colleagues who are national opponents (and vice versa), but a coach is different – he works on tightening a player’s (and team’s) technique and addressing weak spots, so how would a player feel if his coach for a long time were to move over to the opposition? Will he become over-conscious of his weaknesses? Will his old insecurities resurface? In view of this possibility, can countries start getting coaches to sign non-compete clauses for defined time intervals, as tends to happen in corporate scenarios in some circumstances?

On a speculative note, if John Buchanan had been shopped midway through his contract with Australia, would the team that contracted him had better chances of beating Australia? I suppose we’ll never know.

Frenzy20

It’s a pity really, that umpires at the Twenty20 World Cup will “officiate in their normal, stock-standard way,” according to tournament director Steve Elworthy. And here we were, expecting umpires to give seven-ball overs, penalize bowlers for bowling dot balls, send batsmen on their way for conceding maiden overs, disallow direct hit run-outs, award runs for sledging and slam fielding captains for restrictive field-settings, among others.

Twenty20, by virtue of being one-day cricket on steroids, is likely to produce high octane cricket by itself. So why is there so much focus on the trappings? The game can take care of itself, thank you. What next? Cross-dressing match referees? Purple-striped pitches? Psychedelic sightscreens? Variable boundary lengths for different batsmen?

Wake me up when the game begins please.

The West Indies Cricket Board on Song

Discovered, via Lawrence Booth's The Spin in the Guardian Unlimited, a calypso on the West Indies Cricket Board, Take a Rest. At 4:14, it’s not too long, so is worth a listen. And if you can find the lyrics somewhere, please be a dear and pass it on to me.

Inasmuch as the Victory Calypso was a happy song, lauding the efforts of “those little pals of mine Ramadhin and Valentine”, Take a Rest bemoans the fate of West Indies cricket, thanks to the ineffectual functioning of the board.

To listen to some more cricket calypsos, visit The Calypso Tent.

How to resurrect English cricket, vol. ∞

An evidence based approach to the identification and development of England Test cricketers in the County Championship. (including the full stop at the end) is the simple, unprepossessing title of a paper written by Neil Davidson, Chairman, Leicestershire County Cricket Club and released by the club recently. The 69-page paper is available on the county’s web site – click here to access it. (Caution: opens a pdf file.)

Based on an analysis of England test cricketers from June 1996 to December 2006 and of the 2006 County championship season, the author comes out with a “unique development system which will deliver a high quality Test team over a sustained period.”

The development system set out in the paper comprises seven recommendations.

1. The creation of branded ‘Academy Showcase’ cricket to funnel under 17 talented young England qualified cricketers into the First Class system.
2. ‘Senior Academy Showcase’ cricket to bridge the gap into First Class cricket, replacing the current 2^nd XI Championship.
3. A combination of regulation and incentive to ensure that young England qualified cricketers get proper opportunity, across 18 counties, consistent with Phases 1-3 identified previously.
4. A mature and informed debate about the role of unqualified players as part of such a unique development system to create the best standard of First Class cricket in the world.
5. A salary cap to deliver a level financial playing field.
6. Clear communication to all stakeholders by the ECB PR machine.
7. A phased approach.

A couple of reviews have started coming in and more are likely to follow. Better worthies than this blogger will no doubt pore over the report, identify the good points (there ought to be some), slam the bad ones (there might a contest on who finds the most here) and pass overall judgement on the paper. The inevitable comparisons with the Schofield report (and innumerable others of its ilk) are bound to crop up too.

But there is one sentence hidden rather unobtrusively in the report that made one wonder.

Premiership football is now ‘big business’, thankfully cricket has not reached that stage and hopefully it never will.

Cricket is not big business? Ask any Asian cricket administrator. Even in England, isn’t Twenty20 an effort to make cricket big business? Even assuming cricket is not big business yet, why be hopeful that it never will? Is being big business necessarily bad? After all, cricket moved from being amateur to professional long long ago. Therefore, a professional cricketer is as much a businessman as a financial consultant or any other professional. And which businessman would not want to become a big businessman?

Associated with this is the fifth recommendation above: A salary cap to deliver a level financial playing field. What were you thinking, Mr. Davidson? That cricket become a government department, with fixed salaries and pensions?

An alternative cricket league

Pondering over his future, Ashley Giles spent some time at a camp for youngsters. While there, he said, “When you play at the highest level a lot, that love of the game is perhaps taken away from you because of the pressure on you and everything that goes with it…”

Is this Giles statement a throwback to the old era, when amateurs played cricket purely for pleasure? Have the times changed?

How many Australians and South Africans talk of enjoying playing the game? They seem to be more into enjoying the winning feeling, enjoying performing well, enjoying getting under the skin of the opposition, even enjoying the pressure of a tight finish… all performance oriented responses.

May be England can start a breakaway cricket league where the focus is on enjoyment, pleasure and entertainment? Where the results are not declared? Where people are paid for just landing up and feted for the attractiveness of their game independent of the outcome? Ah, Marcus Trescothick can play without pressure, Steve Harmison can grin widely. And yes, Giles can fancy a comeback.

Courting different pitches

The French Open concluded yesterday with yet another victory for Rafael Nadal on clay. The opponent may have been the top-seeded Roger Federer, but Nadal has been well-nigh unbeatable on clay – this was his third successive win at Roland Garros, and his zillionth victory on the surface over the last three years. However, Federer has been close to unbeatable on all other surfaces. And if you look back at men’s tennis over the last few decades, take away Andre Agassi and no one person has won all the Grand Slams in his career – not the incomparable Bjorn Borg, not the feisty John McEnroe, not the phlegmatic Ivan Lendl, not the seemingly invincible Pete Sampras. No, this is not a post about tennis champions.

Tennis is the only game that seems to be played formally on different surfaces. And while true champions tend to play well on all of them, you do have four formal Grand Slam championships every year, played on distinctly different surfaces. It certainly adds to the beauty of the game. Watching a Lendl play those marathon games with Mats Wilander on the red clay of Paris was very different from watching the same Lendl struggle against Boris Becker on the sylvan lawns of Wimbledon. No, this is not a post about tennis champions.

Inasmuch as tennis has clay, grass and synthetic surfaces, cricket has the bouncy wickets of Australia, the swinging conditions of England and the dustbowls and shirtfronts of the Asian sub-continent. I sometimes wonder at the hue and cry about the differences across pitches – especially the “expert” view of the need to prepare bouncy wickets in the sub-continent. Why is there no demand to prepare absolute shirtfronts in Australia? Or spinning dustbowls in England? Why should the Asian pitches alone have to change? Is the trampoline of Perth better for cricket than the dustbowl of Barabati?

So why can’t we leave pitches the way they are? And introduce the concept of playing on different surfaces in the formal sense in cricket? The administrators want to promote the game aggressively. Wouldn’t a pitch-defined definition work better for drawing up schedules than organizing random series at arbitrary times of the year in unsuitable locations? (Of course, this might tempt the ICC to have a World Cup every year, on different pitches!)

It will also preserve the sanctity of the pitch and weather conditions in different nations. For a real cricket fan, I would imagine there is a charm in watching different contests on different conditions. It also preserves an unpredictability that is supposedly inherent to the game.

An approach like this could also lead to different possibilities in terms of team selection. Just as there are clay court specialists and grass court specialists in tennis, cricketers may also prove themselves to be adept on some kinds of surfaces more than on others. Thus leading to interesting team selections and opportunities for different kinds of players. Just as teams increasingly have test specialists and limited-overs specialists (and Twenty20 specialists soon), they may also have pitch specialists. There are odd occasions when teams (especially England) have followed the horses-for-courses approach to team selection, but if we have a formal set of “Shirt Front Series” and “Dust Bowl Tournaments”, we might just have formal specialists for each of these.

And the real world champion emerges out of a composite calculation of performances across all surfaces, not just performance in one World Cup. (Though for now, Australia win every which way, England can at least hope to be the Swing Champions some day. And India, the Dukes of the Dust Bowl.)

More batsman-friendly recommendations

The new-look ICC Cricket Committee has just concluded its first meeting in Dubai and has come up with a list of recommendations for consideration by the Chief Executives Committee.

A couple of recommendations are intriguing.

That the idea of the captain of the batting side being able to choose when to take one of the power-plays be trialed in Australia and any other Member that wishes to do so

So the batting team literally decides the fielding placement during this phase, eh? Isn’t the game sufficiently batting-friendly? What next? Batsmen deciding that a certain lot of overs should be bowled only by the slow bowlers? Or a speed limit for bowlers?

On the other hand, how about some bowler-friendly measures, for a change? Why not let the fielding team decide who the next batsman should be? Or mandate that each team should have a mix of right-handers and left-handers? Or define that for a lot of five overs, batsman cannot score on the off-side? Or offside runs count only for half for that period?

A free hit should be introduced for the delivery that follows a front-foot no-ball

I know this is operational in domestic cricket in England and in the Twenty20 game, but why would you penalize a bowler for a past transgression? Will the same bowler get a free bowl if he has taken a wicket with his previous delivery? Or if a batsman runs on the pitch?

It’s surprising that recommendations like this have come up from such a distinguished group of experts, including bowlers like Michael Holding, Ian Bishop and Tim May, and all-rounders like Tom Moody and Craig Wright.

Defining cricket in the next decade

The print issue of Wisden Cricketer has come out with a list of 10 players who will define cricket in the next decade. CricketNext carried a brief report.

I am sure the magazine has detailed analyses and opinions on how each of these individuals will contribute their mite to the game over the next few years, but I haven’t read it yet. In that delightful ignorance, it’s interesting to spend an idle Friday evening speculating how each of these people will make a lasting difference.

Michael Clarke was apparently touted as Australia’s future captain even before he made his debut. So what kind of an impact when he becomes captain? May be he will preside over the Australian team as it falls off the pedestal it has occupied longer than anyone wants to remember? Thus making the game more competitive?

How do you describe Shaun Tait? As accurate as Harmy one ball, as wayward as Pigeon the next. So will Tait usher in a new rule for bowlers: If you bowl three straight balls in an over, you are allowed one wide? Now that should reduce the disparity between batsmen and bowlers! And extend Harmy’s career in the bargain.

Shane Watson may well come to define the new age versatile cricketer, currently known as the bits-and-pieces journeyman. Middle-order-slogger one day, first-choice-but-injured opener the next, and then fit-again-middle-order-slogger the third. And a sudden test match hopeful in the next interview. With a bowling arm that comes in handy when nine, ten and jack are at the crease.

What’s cricket without commerce? And what’s commerce without personality? We do need personalities for the future, don’t we? Reverse-sweeping the best off-spinner in the world for six in a test match or taking four wickets in four balls against the second best ODI team in the world (but the unquestioned champions in “choking”) in a World Cup game are fine, but where will be our “model” cricketers of the future be if their hair was straight and its colour, plain and monochromatic? Take a bow, Kevin Pietersen and Lasith Malinga.

A loose-limbed action and a test bowling average of 20.12 after 9 matches (as of today) is all interesting to note, but how can you improve on this and make a difference in the next decade? How about being caught in a drug scandal one day and then becoming the vice captain in the next series you play? That’s Mohammad Asif for you.

Playing for one of the weaker teams in the circuit has its own advantages. You need to make a century only once in a season to get noticed. It helps if you are extravagant in your stroke play or if you make the century against the right opposition. And sometimes, if you don’t mind, the result of the game matters. Little wonder then, that Bangladesh’s Mohammad Ashraful is a shoo-in into this list.

The West Indies re-defined fast bowling in the 70s and 80s, where their bowlers reputedly had three types of deliveries – fast, faster and fastest. So what you do say to a West Indian fast bowler (all rounder, at least in the relative sense) who makes his reputation because he also has three types of deliveries – slow, slower and slowest? Welcome him into the list of players who would redefine the next decade, of course. Ladies and gentlemen, Dwayne Bravo.

They are the eternal bridesmaids of international cricket, and their neighbours have always treated them with scant respect. So if New Zealand unearths a young exciting talent like Ross Taylor who spearheads a successful run chase of Australia’s 336 in his very first international season, how can he be ignored? Considering how he performed in the 2007 World Cup, may be Taylor’s role in the future will be only to score centuries against Australia in home ODIs when chasing imposing totals. Thus giving a totally new definition to the term “big occasion man”.

That leaves us with the man the magazine says “had the talent to be a left-handed Sachin Tendulkar but warns that he needs to be handled sensitively by the Indian selectors.” So does Suresh Raina represent the corporatisation of cricket, where the management takes accountability for the performance of individuals?

Running the game

The MCC World Cricket Committee’s meeting on May 14, 2007 seems to have touched on some of cricket’s most common themes of recent years.

International schedules and how hectic they are came up invariably for discussion. While the committee sounds noble when it “recommends a review of the international playing calendar, with the aim of striking a balance between financial gain, player welfare and audience satisfaction”, it is easier said than done. Balancing the needs of stakeholders something corporate organisations strive for all the time. May be we need to find avenues through which boards can make money on non-play days? May be the sponsorship models need to be reexamined? May be the definition of seasons should be more strictly adhered to and optimised? Basketball in the U.S. and football in Europe operate with hectic schedules in their seasons as well. Are there any lessons to be learnt from there?

The committee recommends “regular monitoring of bowling actions under match conditions.” This is a valid point because under test conditions, bowlers of dubious arm angles tend to be extra cautious with their actions. But there needs to be a clear process for and way of doing this, without disrupting the game. Can some technology akin to the hawk-eye be used to enable this?

The committee has also commented on a few other things – shortening of boundaries, gluing of pitches and the length of the World Cup. Nothing original in any of these recommendations either.

But to me, the key is really the composition of the Committee itself. It comprises 14 members, led by Chairman Tony Lewis. It is an interesting mix of players from most of the test cricket playing nations (except New Zealand, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh) and one umpire – David Shepherd. Another aspect of the committee’s composition is that there are only two bowlers – Courtney Walsh and Tony Dodemaide. Considering the kind of issues that have come up, the committee perhaps needs a rethink its composition.

Running the game is not just about managing the on-field action – it is akin to running a corporate organization. So they may do well to consider people from different specialisations as part of the management, like the board of a company. Here’s my mix.

1. Former and current cricketers – one batsman, one fast bowler, one spinner and the odd wicketkeeper (at least two of them should have captained their national side for a considerable duration).
2. An umpire
3. A match referee
4. A groundsman
5. A coach
6. A sports doctor
7. A couple of senior corporate executives
8. A couple of computer technologists
9. A couple of administrators – one from European football and one from the NBA