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Home , Geoffrey Boycott, Graham Gooch, Keith Fletcher, Learie Constantine, Michael Atherton, Michael Holding

What do they know of who only cricket know? Michael Brearley For 3 November 2011 at Indigo 2, Millennium Dome

INTRODUCTION

CLR James, who died aged 88 in 1989, was a Trinidadian historian and social theorist. In his exceptional 1963 book on cricket – Beyond a , he puts this challenge to us: ‘what do they know of cricket who only cricket know?’ by having it as a quote underneath the title.

The book is amongst other things a celebration of the appointment in 1960 of as the first black man as of for a whole series. As Editor of the Trinidad newspaper, The Nation, CLR had campaigned for this for two years. But Beyond a Boundary is far wider and more embracing than this.

One way of characterising the book is: it offers an account of the significance of cricket for a whole society. He describes WG Grace as the most famous Englishman of the Victorian age, unifying the country in a way that nothing else could. Through him, ‘cricket, the most complete expression of popular life in pre-industrial , was incorporated into the life of the nation’. In parallel to this, James shows how important the game was in the variedly coloured strata of Trinidad, how vital for the pride of the black man. It shows how success for individuals represented a victory over the colonial and class-ridden upper ranks; how such successes enabled the man and woman in the street to walk taller, to conceive that they have a right to regard themselves as the equals of their social superiors. ‘They are no better than we’, the great Trinidadian all-rounder, later the first black man in the , said to James in the early 1930s. And James himself wrote: ‘The cricket field was a stage on which selected individuals played representative roles charged with social significance’.

He showed how British values also included the idea of fair play, and (to greater or lesser degrees) embodied it on the cricket field. He linked such values of fair play to the qualities of English literature he studied at school. One might sum up Beyond a Boundary in terms James himself used: ‘Something is required and someone steps in. This someone thereby breaks new ground.’ Their arrival is not a matter of pure chance. James again: ‘You wouldn’t call Shakespeare or Michelangelo an accident.’ This is true of Grace, of Worrell, and of James himself.

I could go on. I suggest you read the book for yourselves. But the point I want to make is that the book itself is an example of its own epigraph. James knows a lot more of cricket than only cricket, and it is his wider historical and social understanding that gives depth and force to his arguments about Worrell.

KNOWLEDGE OF CRICKET?

But this question prompts further questions: ‘what is “knowledge of cricket”?’ James poses a Socratic question, inspired by Socratic irony. For an implication of it is that the person most devoted and experienced in cricket, as player or coach or commentator, doesn’t, without other knowledge, know what cricket is. This was Socrates’ mode of approach. He persuaded generals to admit their ignorance of what courage is, priests their ignorance about piety, rulers and judges about justice. At the end of the discussions, the experts, reduced to perplexity by the Socratic examination, agree with his conclusion that no one knows what courage, piety or justice are.

Partly this was an outcome of Socrates’s logical sleight of hand (the fact that no definition of these complex concepts covers all cases doesn’t entail that no one knows what these things are). But Socrates goes beyond this, forcing his interlocutors (and us) to realise how hard it is to be courageous, pious, just or virtuous; like Kirkegaard, who says that in all Christianity there is no (real) Christian, he challenges all ordinary claims to excellence or virtue. He raises questions that are more radical than the ordinary ones about our practical identities and roles. James does not go quite so far; but if we take his question seriously we, like Socrates’ generals and priests, have to interrogate our assumptions about knowledge of cricket, and about what it is to be a cricketer. (J Lear: unpublished book)

But is this right? For one thing, there is a range of possible forms of knowledge here. There is, first, practical knowledge (how to play, how to be a batsman, bowler, fielder). Second, there is a coach’s or commentator’s knowledge (including the making of critical judgements and the spotting of real talent). And third, James may have in mind a more reflective knowledge (being able to say what cricket’s importance is, socially and psychologically, being able to relate cricket to other matters, as he does in Beyond a Boundary). Are the first two kinds of knowledge not really knowledge? Are they somehow too limited to count as knowledge? What does being practically knowledgeable, or critically knowledgeable, call for?

THE PLAYER’S KNOWLEDGE

Let’s first consider those in my first category, the players, who may be said to know cricket neither in the philosophical or comparative way evinced by James himself, nor in the overall way of the coach or commentator?

I would say that even here James has a point. For the player needs to understand more than his own particular niche within the game. One thing I liked about the old tradition in cricket was that players were brought up to think about the game as a whole. By contrast, I heard recently of an international bowler at fine leg in a One-Day international. At a break in play he had no idea of the situation of the game, how many overs were left, what sort of -rate the opposition were faced with. All he could think of was whether his wrist was at exactly the right angle in .

Thus professionalism in sport atrophies into a narrow focus on one’s own task, so that each player is imbued with guidelines about his own performance, based perhaps on computerised print-outs on each opposition batsman, at the expense of an appreciation of and emotional involvement in the tactics of the game and/or in the problems and skills of his team-mates. He becomes a cog in a machine, rather than a thinking performer. In a game like American football, entire teams change when a defensive role is replaced by an offensive one. The division of labour is extreme. The role of the defensive lineman, say, can become so specialised and limited that the person fulfilling it need know nothing at all about the play of or the strategy of the team. Such developments can rob one of his full humanity. No longer having to consider the process as a whole makes it impossible for him to understand how his own world makes sense. Like Charley Chaplin in Modern Times the defensive lineman becomes a conveyor belt attendant whose task is reduced to a small range of repeatable, automated skills

As captain, I tried to turn players into a team of potential captains, of thinkers about the game. Their responsibilities did not cease when they were not involved in their individual first-order skills of or . I wanted them to be thinking about the whole situation, and about each others’ strengths, weaknesses, vulnerabilities. They might then be able to offer ideas or advice to others or to the captain or to the team as a whole. No one (in any organisation) knows where the next good idea will come from. I believe too that the effort to see things from other peoples’ points of view helps in the development of the individuals’ own skill – as a batsman he can see the anxieties and doubts that even great bowlers are not exempt from, as a bowler he can appreciate the nervousness behind the strut even of the great batsman.

A batsman however skilful and correct is not fully a batsman unless he can build an innings, turn promising starts to big scores, fight his way through unpromising starts, and pace a run-chase; unless he can assess early on, and convey to the team, what a good score on a particular pitch might be, unless he has a good sense of when to risk his in the interests of the team, and when by contrast to conserve his wicket even if then his performance risks being interpreted in some quarters as selfishness. The excellent bowler can make the best of difficult circumstances - a pitch that doesn’t suit him, or being put on at the wrong end (from his own selfish point of view). Both batsmen and bowlers can become more creative in their development of a broader range of options, in their craft.

And all cricketers, like all sportsmen, have to deal with ‘those twin impostors’ - success and failure; some do it better than others.

So at this first level (what does a performer have to know in order to know his cricketing onions?) the ideal player is capable of understanding more than how to hit a cover drive or bowl a fast out-swinger. He who (in a narrow sense) only cricket (only cricketing technique) knows is not going to be as good a player as he might be. He needs to be more broadly understanding (though not necessarily be able to articulate), and be capable of a greater range of assessments; he needs to have strengths of character that go beyond flamboyant or exceptional personal ability.

THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE GOOD COACH OR COMMENTATOR.

What then about those in my second category?

A person may, as Ranjitsinjhi put it, ‘grow grey in the service of the game and learn nothing’; but I’m not talking about such people, the narrow or bigoted or unimaginative. I’m talking about those who are rooted in the game, in its techniques, its lore, its values, its character and the characters of those playing it. Some of the most perceptive in this category are ex-players who have devoted a lifetime to the game. Once they retired, in their late thirties or early forties, they went into coaching or commentary or umpiring. People like Ian and , , , , , , are steeped in the practice and observation of the game and its players.

In what sense might one say that these people know only cricket?

An expert of this kind can know cricket through and through, without understanding its actual and potential social role. But of course such a man would understand a lot about character, about relaxation and concentration. This expert knows the game tactically and psychologically as well as technically; he is shrewd in his assessment of who to pick, who (for example) can be relied on in a crisis. In his day to day coaching he would constantly be switching between on the one hand talking to the players at a technical level and on the other making suggestions or opening up discussion about matters of character and personality. An old coach said to me once, noticing how tense I was, why did I frown when playing shots with his walking stick? Did I think I would hit the ball harder? He was questioning my unacknowledged assumption that doing well is based on trying harder, which itself seemed to imply to me a sort of rigidly tense effort of concentration. In fact one can’t hit a ball well when one’s body is tense. This coach understood all this. , England’s batting coach, says that he coaches not batting but run-scoring; by which I think he means it’s not so much technique as the whole approach to batting, so that the batsman gets used to making big scores, or recovering from bad patches. Gooch is coaching more than batting per se.

Gooch and others understand risk and safety, teams and individuals. The true coach or leader recognises the importance of personal qualities, and draws on intangible and hard to describe sources of ambition and dedication in members of the team, including proper pride, that which motivated West Indians during their glory days, and which in some degree lay behind their utter determination to be the best. They may not be able to express such knowledge in James’ fluent prose, but it would be there, in their attitudes. Like a good parent or teacher, they know something about the balance between telling and consulting, about the need for respect for others’ opinions whilst holding on to one’s own.

James has a good point. Knowing cricket and cricketers does call for knowledge of more than cricket’s technicalities.

This general point has application far beyond cricket, beyond sport. I imagine that in your various roles and jobs there are always other skills and understandings required beyond the narrowly technical ones. We have a good idea, but can we get it across? We have particular skills, but can others tolerate us being part of their team? If we put others off, they won’t want to hear what we have to say.

FURTHER THOUGHTS

One is that we need both narrow and wide focus. In the Middlesex team, the person I always got good advice from about what to do next, or right now, was Clive Radley. He was perceptive, down to earth, pragmatic. Moreover if I didn’t follow his suggestion, and things went wrong, he would still be open to my request for help an hour or a day later. He was the perfect person to check out my immediate plans with. Mike Smith was very different. He was less direct, more vague when it came to what to do now; but he had often helpful suggestions on more strategic matters, on wider issues of which younger players had class, what the balance of the side should be, the longer-term prospects of the side. He was more reflective, almost, one might say, more philosophical. A third player, Roland Butcher, was even more wide-ranging in what he noticed. I remember two comments he made. One was when I called a team meeting after we had lost four games on the trot (after winning the first eleven completed matches in the season). Many people had opinions, including me, and several of them were relevant. Roland said something like this: ‘I think we have started to count the trophies on our mantelpieces at the end of the season. We are speaking as if we only have to turn up to win. Our attitude has become complacent, very different from what it was early in the season. We have to stop thinking about the distant future and concentrate on each ball, each over, each hour, each session.’ And on another occasion, when I was unhappy about one or two players sulking when dropped, or when not given the prominence they thought was their due, Roland came in with: ‘but do you appreciate what it feels like to be left out of this side? One minute you’re part of the set-up, the next minute you’re changing down the corridor, and no one really talks to you in the same way.’ No wonder, he might have added, one or two are prone to sulking.

Here are three valuable contributions, none more or less useful than any of the others. For a full understanding of a team at work one would need each kind of intelligence, each kind of contribution. Socrates (or Plato) with their elevation of verbal intellect, might place the three in a hierarchy, Butcher on top, then Smith, then Radley. A pragmatic professional might reverse the order. I see them as having equivalent weight. Sometimes one needs more of one than the other, but all are needed. It is rather as if one were to ask which kind of scale is of most value in a map. The answer is: it depends what you need at the moment. The closer the map is to a replica of the environment, the less it becomes a map, but also the more one can see detail. The larger the scale, the more one sees one’s route in relation to other places, other journeys, the less detail one can pick up. Sometimes one needs one kind of scale, sometimes another.

The microscope and the telescope, the minute particulars and the panoptic vision – each complements the other.

Perhaps there is an analogy here to the values of professionalism and amateurism. The typical professional knows the game close to. He has to; his living depends on it. He has to put in time at the technicalities; he practises and trains assiduously. The old pro can read a pitch, since he’s seen similar and different pitches over many years. He knows cricket from having known and played in and watched games played in a wide variety of conditions, of pitch and atmosphere. He has ideas of how to a wide range of opponents. The amateur may be less closely acquainted with the detail, but at best he plays with a spontaneity that comes from love of the activity. He can, we hope, take risks and be more independent; his livelihood doesn’t depend on it. He can relax. He has other things in life so cricket can be seen as not the be-all and end-all of life; failure is not perhaps so devastating.

Both sets of qualities are invaluable, and need to be held in balance. In fact I should really make my point in terms of attitudes and temperaments, rather than differences related to whether or not one is paid to play; there are plenty of people who did not and did not need to get paid to play cricket whose approach was of the former kind; and vice versa. Think of ’s batting (the amateur who played like a professional) and ’s (the professional who batted like an amateur). Think of the two professionals Gooch (who emphasised work, training, practice, dedication) and (elegant, lazy; hating training, not much time for practice, with an ironical attitude which could at times veer over into the lackadaisical, but whose batting was a delight of timing and touch).

Finally, an analogy. I’m talking to you about cricket. You are not, or not primarily, cricketers. Yet we assume (or I at any rate hope) that what I’m saying may have echoes, resonances, with your situations. But the analogy I want to end with is this. I read recently of Mozart’s support for democracy, not in politics itself, but in the music of his operas. How so? Mozart gave his minor parts complex characters, with complex music. They are not just pawns, neither in the plot (content) nor in the music they are given to sing (their form). He shifted music away from a hierarchical tradition; his music gave each instrument and voice a unique line of its own, rather than there being a totally dominant top line, with others in unison beneath it, supplementing, harmonising, fitting in; in short, serving the dominant tune.

If all this comes together, we have synergy.