Nice try madam but no cigar
"Indignation is the highest form of love," So wrote George Sand, the French all-rounder, more than 100 years ago
19-Nov-2007
"Indignation is the highest form of love," So wrote George Sand, the
French all-rounder, more than 100 years ago. It is a beautiful phrase
and has the additional value of being true. We do not care for those
people and things whose fate leaves us indifferent; we care for that
which moves us. It is something those who administer English cricket
would do well to ponder.
That thought occurred last week when it became pleasingly clear that,
so far as the people high up in the game are concerned, Henderson of
the Telegraph is regarded as public enemy No 1. What a badge of
honour! I shall wear it with pride, in the knowledge that, so long as
it is pinned to my chest, I must be getting some things right.
They are not such a difficult lot to annoy and, however much I would
like to claim it, there is no exclusivity in my recent criticism,
general or particular, of England's cricketers. But in the Telegraph!
That's "our" paper. Who does this chap think he is? Well, one thing
he is not is a cipher for the England and Wales Cricket Board.
Almost every observer responded to the team selection for Old
Trafford with bafflement, and to the subsequent performance with
scorn, though it is quite true that only one person called for Graham
Gooch and Mike Gatting to stand down before the game. The fact that
they were sacked afterwards echoed the call that appeared in this
column two weeks ago.
Almost every observer, note. There has been one notable exception, a
man with a good name, a deep love of cricket and a reluctance to
upset anybody who plays it. Because recent events have demanded
stronger words than he feels comfortable with, and because he has
been perplexed by the way others have used them, he has come across
like the chap in Ballad of a Thin Man: "Something is happening here
and you don't know what it is. Do you, Mr Jones?"
It is a mystery he is in any doubt. The Gooch and Gatting business is
such a cinch to explain that it is hard to imagine anybody
misunderstanding the story. By selecting Graeme Hick for Old Trafford
they were effectively telling the public: "We just don't know what to
do." Fair enough. In that case let someone else have a go, who might.
With that one pick they signed their own release papers.
The public response to the defeat at Lord's and the rain-assisted
draw in Manchester has been unmistakable. Clearly, though, there are
still a few pockets of doubt. So my thanks go, as Cyril Fletcher used
to say, to Miss Davison, of Horsham, for her bracing letter, which is
worth quoting in part, if only to present a more charitable view of
proceedings.
Miss Davison doesn't like what has been written about our cricketers.
Indeed, she goes a good deal further than that. "English players,"
she writes, "courtesy of the media, are reared in a culture of abuse,
vilification and criticism - how on earth is this supposed to inspire
the next generation?"
Nice try, madam - but no cigar. The first thing to consider is the
identity of some of those abusers, men who, it goes without saying,
know next to nothing about the game. Ted Dexter, in a brilliant piece
in this paper last week, scrutinised the technical deficiencies of
batsmen who cannot even pick up the bat properly. E W Swanton, who
has been watching cricket for 80 years, has admitted that he never
left Lord's as heart-sick as he did on the Saturday of this year's
Test.
In the ideal world of this lady's dreams, England players would
probably wake up to admire supportive articles in the public prints,
and go out full of vim to make hundreds and take wickets by the
barrel-load. But it doesn't work like that. Journalists are not
cheerleaders. We do not bump up players just to make them feel happy.
We try to tell the truth, by our lights.
A friend rang up after the last Test, dismayed at what he had seen on
the box. Robert Tear is a distinguished tenor who sang at the first
night of this year's Proms and was recently in Munich, performing in
Richard Strauss's Elektra. "I turned up at 10 o'clock for a rehearsal
and at seven minutes past - I checked my watch - that was it. I
hadn't sung the role for two years, and I hadn't met any of the other
singers, which would have been nice. That night, when I walked on
stage, I nearly fell into the orchestra pit."
Yet he didn't. He sang the role like the trouper he is because, for
the last 40 years, he has repeatedly refined his art through hours,
days, months of serious practice. That is what being a performer
means and, as he said: "It gets harder, love, not easier." If he made
as many errors in a night's work as some England players have done
this summer he would never set foot on another stage.
It was instructive to think of his story when recalling how an
England batsman, knocking up in Manchester, stood at the crease like
a first-time skier at the top of a slope, knees locked into a
snowplough. How can a young man who has come through school, club and
county to Test cricket look so untutored? No amount of support from a
pack of scribblers is ever going to help him amend his technique.
However much it may surprise some people, those who follow the
England side for a living take no delight in their never-ending
struggle. The human instinct is to wish them well but that does not
mean writing favourable things when they do not. Journalists cannot
ever see the team in the first person plural, nor would the players
thank us if we did.
Like shipwrecked sailors dreaming of passing vessels, we scribes see,
in our idle moments, English batsmen flaying opponents to all parts,
and bowlers ripping out stumps. When England go to the Oval this week
it would be a boon to report on a home victory. But, for the time
being, you must forgive this observer if he remains indignant. It is
the price of his love for the game.