On Warne, and another great spinner

Reviews of On Warne by Gideon Haigh and Chinaman by Shehan Karunatilika

So it came to pass that the greatest cricket writer of his generation tackled the greatest spin bowler of his generation. I expected a weighty tome - that it's a slim volume of 'essays' rather surprised me. How would Haigh tackle a life imbued with so many moments of shame, triumph, embarrassment, glory - not to mention the small matter of over 700 Test wickets - in so few pages?

He does so successfully. One section of the book which received heavy trailing, having been featured in the Times, is a masterful description of Warne's bowling action. Here is Warne at the start of the run up, flipping the ball from hand to hand – “languidly, voluptuously, like somebody feeling warm sand run through his fingers”. And sometimes it's the simple lines that work best: "There was a leg break, and then there was a leg break from Shane Warne."

This incredible section is really all we get to see of Warne in action on the field of play. There's hardly any mention of his batting and fielding. Haigh makes the oft-repeated point that Warne only had two balls - the leg break (with different degrees of overspin), and variations of a straight one (though fuck me if it felt like he had another 17 when bowling to Alec Stewart). He mentions the fact that Warne changed his style a little after the shoulder injury. But really, that's it. If you want a description of exactly how Warne operated on the field of play, you'd be better off turning to Amol Rajan's Twirlymen. A little later he discusses the moment when Warne talked his viewing audience through a wicket, but pauses only to make the point that as a piece of bowling, it's a fairly unremarkable trick.

He's right - if it was another bowler, it's unlikely that clip would have received half the coverage it has. That's why Haigh is probably right to dedicate most of his attention not to Warne the cricketer, but to Warne the man. And on this, he's predictably insightful. He posits Warne as a certain kind of Australian - the boy from the suburbs, perhaps never more at home than when guest-starring in Neighbours - and from this he begins to look at how Warne created himself - and sought confidence - by aligning with the likes of Ian Chappell and, of course, Terry Jenner.  He shows how he therefore could never have really got on with the likes of John Buchanan and Steve Waugh - because cricket came to him (through what was a very good development system) and not the other way around. Boot camps and uptight professionalism don't square easily with such a mindset.

Haigh's particularly good at spotting instances of the "Rashomon" effect -  whereby different players' autobiographies give somewhat varied impressions of different incidents. Ponting's decision to bowl at Edgbaston in 2005 either elicited some murmurs of disapproval or outright dressing room warfare, depending on whose autobiography you read. And he's even better on Warne in the context of his bowling partnerships - one with MacGill (Warne was always outbowled by him) and one with McGrath.

The only problem is that for all the intricate research and beautiful prose, there's a sense that when you scratch beneath it the book has nothing new to offer. Haigh is strong in defence of Warne's various scandals - particularly on how the ACB mishandled the approaches made by a bookmaker to him and Mark Waugh in 1994. But we kind of knew all that: the Barmy Army had a (by their standards) rather amusing song on the subject only a few years later. He's likewise strong on the hypocrisy of the media when it comes to Warne's adultery, but there's nothing new under the sun here either: public figures who are serial adulterers usually understand the price of the game they're playing. And while Haigh's good on Warne's cricket brain, pointing out (though again, he's not the first) that Warne predicted Gibbs' infamous 1999 World Cup dropped catch, he doesn't do enough on this. I rather wish he'd written about Warne's leadership of a young Rajasthan Royals side in the early days of the IPL. As cricket achievements go, it was something else, but barely gets a mention.

The weird thing is that for all these flaws, you come away from the book feeling you understand the man a great deal more than from any ghost-written autobiography. No interviews, no research beyond flicking through a few tomes that were sitting on his shelves - and yet the whole thing just works. I guess it's the power of good writing.

*

Speaking of spin bowlers, how well do you know Pradeep Mathew? What do you mean you don't? He's the greatest spinner who ever lived! Have a look at this website about him, for a start. Mathew could bowl equally well with either hand, and was possibly his country's best bowler whether bowling quick or slow. He did have 17 different deliveries, including a ball that pitched twice, and which spun both ways on each bounce. He once took 10-51 against New Zealand, but the record was disallowed due to the security situation at the ground. Among the batsmen to have been clean bowled by him were Border, Chappell, Crowe, Gatting, Gavaskar, Gower, Hadlee, Imran, Kapil, Lloyd and Miandad.

Of course, he didn't exist at all. He's the subject of Shehan Karunatilika's Chinaman, a novel about W.G Karunasena, an alcoholic, middle-aged hack who sees Mathew bowl a couple of times in the 1980s, is staggered by his talent, and then wonders why he's disappeared, never to be seen again.

The man may have been involved in match-fixing. He may have been forced out because he was the product of Tamil and Sinhalese parents. Who knows? W.G. is drawn deeper and deeper into his country's underworld as he attempts to get to the bottom of the mystery and, of course, Mathew's story becomes something of an objective correlative for his country's history. Just as the web link above might suggest, fact and fiction blur - we see Sri Lanka win the world cup in 1996, and we see all that hope soon betrayed. Meanwhile, the war to the north rumbles on in the background. 

It's a quite brilliant novel. The ending is, it must be said, rather trite. But the writing just prior to this conclusion, when W.G. defends his life and his obsession with fripperies like the game of cricket, is among the very best few pages of prose I've read in years.

And that goes of the whole book. Line-by-line it's moving, hilarious, and foreboding. By any measure it's a great piece of literature. For a first novel, it's simply incredible.

Sir Viv vs the forgotten demon

Othelloesque. What I love is that Viv is clearly struggling, clearly past his best - but his swagger's even more exaggerated - for once it really looks like he's desperate to show he's not scared. And you get this sense - just for a flash - that behind all the great innings there was a whole load of bullshit and bluster, that actually he was just as scared as everyone else. I love the little narratives the game produces.

Waqar explains fast bowling

Essential reading.

Bonus - Jayawardene speaks for a nation.

In praise of Hashim Amla

It's easier for batsman than fast bowlers to achieve a certain kind of legendary status. This status is hard to define, but you know the one I mean. It's the kind of reputation that seeps beyond our mere appraisal of the cricketer, and into our appraisal of the man.

Above all, of course, it's about ability. But there's so much beyond that; a wealth of attributes that make a player a "great". Did our athlete play in the right spirit? Did he show respect for his opponents, and for the spirit of the game? And: the indefinable. Was there something over and above the very good - a degree of artistry, a hint of magic? Often, it seems, this goes hand-in-hand with something else, something our cricketing tribe is blessed with - thoughtfulness. Political engagement. We're fortunate to have players intelligent enough to write and speak in such a way that they can calmly place their achievements in a broader, socio-political context. Men like Rahul Dravid and Mahela Jayawardene.

It's not that bowlers can't meet these criteria. Has there ever been a cricketer more attuned to the spirit of the game than Courtney Walsh, the man for whom sledging consisted of a tongue-in-cheek glare, who worked tirelessly for charities after retirement? For artistry, how many batsmen can hold a candle to the intricate coordination that afforded Richard Hadlee or Malcolm Marshall such supreme control of accuracy and movement, along with their searing pace - the product of 'mere' athleticism?

But it's easier for batsmen to take this kind of place in our affections; for them to quickly be seen as great men, as well as great cricketers. Perhaps it's because theirs is a reactive art. Fast bowlers start it. They must. They try to hurt people, sledge people, tamper with balls. For a great bowler, supreme fitness is the starting point; for a great batsman, it's almost an optional extra. Skill is the very first attribute we consider when thinking of a batsman - for a fast bowler it's likely to be speed.

And from skill, there's an unconscious connection we tend to make to the intellect. I've named Dravid and Jayawardene. I can quickly add Constantine and Sangakkara to the mix. Perhaps Gower too.

There are many greats we view differently - Kallis, Ponting, S.Waugh - great batsmen for whom we readily use the word "skill", but more rarely the word "artistry". One could crudely claim these are less sophisticated men than the first group, and perhaps draw some sort of correlation between the art of batting and living. But I won't, because for every example there's a counter example, and nor would I pretend to have a window into any of these men's souls. To further muddle things you have the second tier - the roundhead cricketers and talented writers - the Ed Cowans, the Athertons - players about whom there's a suspicion that intellect augmented a lesser talent (deeply relative use of the word 'lesser', I stress).

So it's better to say this: there has long been a breed of batsman, venerated by the fans, whose class (how often we deploy that noun in these cases) seems to extend off the field.

All of which brings me to Hashim Amla's Twitter feed. I saw he was on Twitter, and decided to have a look. I rarely bother following cricketers, or indeed any sportsmen, if I can help it. But I had a feeling Mr Amla might be different. What's the first thing I see staring back at me? Why, a charming Mark Twain quote. And what do I see next? Well, this. Yup. He's one of those. 

So let's talk, then, about the batting. And let's start with two minutes of wonderful analysis by Nasser Hussain.

Good job Nasser: less to type. But I'd just like to add a little bit to his analysis. He's spot on about the timing of the bat 'twirl' before Amla hits the ball. What we can see is that it comes from a pick-up which originally had the bat pointing to second slip. You can see how that might have caused problems with LBWs.

But what I find interesting about the twirl - also, for that matter, about the fact that his is a technique built not for hitting sixes - in fact it's not for hitting the ball at all, but rather timing it - is that I only know of one other batsman renowned for such a tic. Allow me:

And from this excellent Wikipedia article:

"In his 2003 book Bradman Revisted, Tony Shillinglaw utilised a biomechanical analysis of Bradman conducted by Liverpool John Moores University in England. Shillinglaw concluded that Bradman’s initially perceived weakness was actually the key reason for his success – it created a "rotary" action in his swing of the bat that delivered extra power and ensured that he kept the ball along the ground.^.This was summarised as follows:

...he levered the bat up by pushing down with the top hand, whilst using the bottom hand as a fulcrum. As it neared the top of the back-lift, Bradman manoeuvred the bat through a continuous arc and back towards the plane of the ball during the downswing in preparation for impact.

Additionally, his backswing (according to former Australian captain Greg Chappell) kept his hands in close to his body, leaving him perfectly balanced and able to change his stroke mid-swing, if he was initially deceived by the flight of the ball."

So if you're wondering why Amla's so good - well, it's because he bats like the best. Like the Don, he's an accumulator. Like the Don, not necessarily a beautiful batsman to watch until you really start to pay attention to the good stuff - the minute adjustments to flight or movement, the tiny, last micro-second alterations to a stroke that allow him to pick a gap. He's a batsman to watch on a cold Thursday morning at Lord's with a coffee in your hand and a quiet, contemplative crowd. Not one to watch, as I did, in front of a boozy Oval mob on a Friday evening. This is my favourite Amla video on YouTube, if you've six minutes spare. That shot at 1.08 - it's not a thick edge, it's a last-minute opening of the face. Note, also, how late he plays the swinging ball at 3.46.

But let's get back to the man. The Twitter feed, of course, tells us much about him, doesn't it. Those of us with Muslim friends or a knowledge of Islam have, for the last decade or so, despaired at the overwhelming media emphasis given to various empty vessels here and around the world, many of whom could barely be described as Muslims at all. It's not a version of Islam we recognise. Not the shouting and screaming. What we recognise is a religion that stresses humility, modesty - above all the importance of a batting necessity: patience. In Islam, it's called Sabr.

Amla's batting is, of course, a model of this. He started his career, and word got round he couldn't play the bouncer. So the first class bowlers bumped the shit out of him. He just parried them, and waited. Sabr. He's a man who many muttered was only in the SA team due to quotas,. They'd soon see. Sabr. He's a man who couldn't even bring himself to score at over four an over against Holland. But what are you going to do? They bowled well that day. Sabr. 

^{And of course, he's a man who was described as a "terrorist" by Dean Jones, on air.} 

Amla: "The teaching of Islam has always been that if somebody apologises, you forgive them. And this is the basis of Islam."

McRae: "I think the way you handled it with diplomacy and dignity was perfect, but inwardly it must have hurt a little bit."

Amla: "When somebody calls you something it's never nice... but if a person's remorseful for something they did, then who's to judge except the Almighty?"

Sabr.

Then you read of the Indian community in Natal, of how it's rarely produced cricketers (Peter Roebuck says: "During the apartheid years the Indians tended to lie low. Shy by nature, resourceful by disposition, aware of their origins as indentured labour, they were caught in a racial no-man's land, and so concentrated on making money and gaining a good education"), and you wonder what the upshot of all this patience will be. Me, I seem to end up thinking about W.H. Auden’s sonnet on Edward Lear, which ends with the line, “And children swarmed to him like settlers. He became a land.”

End of season tour: Corfu

Well now, I've been wanting to come here for donkey's years. It's a long, illustrious history cricket has on this island - stretching back about 200 years - and unlike the other ex-pat cricket hot spots around Europe, you're guaranteed to play locals, who have their own tradition and attitude to the game. Brief history here.

Trepidation as we arrived at the marina ground, to find a big Asian dude waiting for us ahead of his team mates. He didn't look very Greek. He wasn't. He was Pakistani. And it was 32 degrees, with not a cloud in the sky. And we were hungover to hell.

I opened, and his second ball rocketed into my glove. Wondered if my finger was broken, but didn't dare look. We were on astroturf so I wasn't worrying too much about seam movement, but he was getting some nasty bounce. Boy could certainly play, but I'd felt in good nick throughout the second half of the season since the outside-of-cricket-but-actually-totally-about-cricket issues had been resolved.

I shifted my guard out of the crease and to leg stump so I could trigger move back and across, and within a few balls he'd clocked what I was up to and started pitching the ball up a couple of yards fuller and swinging it back into me, forcing me to rock from there onto my front foot. Fortunately I'd actually worked on this bit of my game in nets this year, in anticipation of playing some higher level games that never happened. One KP/Viv ping through midwicket from outside off got a nod of approval from him. It's the little things, innit.

Lots of ok seamers at the other end, all Greek, all of whom I reckon would have been dead handy in England as they presented a good seam and hit a decent length; on astro there were no real terrors. However, but for a stern rule on wides down the leg side, we'd have been going pretty slow: wickets were going at the other end and I wasn't timing too much. After 12 or so overs, I figured it was time to get a move on, which turned out to be pretty easy on the astro. In about three or four overs I'd gone from 20-odd to my 50; but for a perfect yorker I was already fancying my chances of hitting a rather unexpected ton before the 30-over innings was over.

Moral of the story is I didn't know how to bat on astro before and I don't know now. The problem is this: you can basically smoke any ball on a good length out of the park. You'll probably get out sooner or later, but it's rather hard to say when, and in the mean time you're liable to hit so many I wonder if the correct approach isn't for nos 1-6 to smash everything they see and for 7-11 to eke out whatever they can if there are too many wickets down, since you're hardly likely to get beaten playing defensively.

My plan was pretty much the standard one of trot along off the bad balls then get a move on in the last 10 overs, but conscious of the fact it was tour, like a twat I'd already managed to run someone out, and people either needed a go or wanted to see some fireworks, I probably hit the accelerator a bit early.

It didn't work - new, unset, batsmen came and went, we didn't set enough, and Mr Pakistan smashed our bowling to absolute fuckery (minus him it would have been a different game, but I'm not sure who'd have won). Not quite sure what level he'd played but I've rarely seen a club level guy hit it that hard. Still, it was a pretty decent game given that on a weekend like this the cricket's only half of it.

Then I got repeatedly bitten by a mosquito, went into anaphylaxis, and ended up in hospital.

Not too much to say about this, other than that it was rather horrible to start with, got very scary at about 2am, Greek nurses are angry, shouty people, and you should always remember to take out travel insurance unless, like me, you're a total fucking idiot.

The next day I was released, whereupon I made the final three balls of the second game, which apparently wasn't very good as they were very bad, but I did get to sit in the central square, surrounded by the stunning twin Venetian and British architectural testaments to the island's history.

Nice. Some Afghan kids came over and challenged us to a game of tapeball, which I would absolutely have LOVED to have played, but sadly I was still feeling pretty fucking dreadful. Another little insight into a recurring theme on this blog - the way cricketers do live up to their national cricketing stereotypes. These kids bowled nicely, one definitely from the flowing-Akhtar-locks-and-try-to-hit-100mph school, and all of them wanted to send that ball HOME and clearly considered any other result a massive failure on their part. One of them did so, repeatedly - he made 73 from eight (8!) overs, looked absolutely class, and surprisingly we failed to chase the 100 total.

Doubt I'd have made much difference but I'd have loved to have given it a go. The fact you can bump into some people from a country your own has been systematically fucking over since, well, 1842ish and bond over a ludicrously esoteric sport in the middle of a Mediterranean town is just extraordinary, isn't it. And if you want to know the story of where they're coming from, here's a cracking long form piece for you.

Yeah, it was shit, the whole slightly life-threatening, bank-balance-ruining side of things. But disregard that 15 hour period? Loads of fun with some good mates, a beautiful place, wonderful weather, great food, excellent night spots and some decent cricket. If your team hasn't been on a foreign tour yet then a) I have literally no idea what you're playing at and b) Go to Corfu.

This film is going to be fucking amazing

http://deathofagentlemanfilm.com/

'Tis all.

10/09/2012

Since the last post, I've played twice, and scored 4 and 0. Why? In clear order of importance:

1. I bought some new kit. Partly this was due to excitement over scoring a ton, partly it was because I could smell my kit when I was in the flat. And the kit was in the shed outside. Since buying this new stuff I've received a loopy inswinging yorker that rebounded off my brand new pads onto the leg stump and a short ball that ramped up as I tried to pull it, flicked my brand new glove and flew through to the keeper. All I need is to kick the stumps over with my brand new boots and I'll have made use of the full set.

2. My bat is too heavy for me at the best of times, and I'm suffering from rather nasty elbow tendinitis at the moment. Having a really heavy bat (3lb) is lots of fun when you're facing crap spin down the order, less sensible when facing swing bowling up the order and needing to make last-minute adjustments to bounce and movement. The one thing I didn't buy was a new bat.

3. Not very good at cricket. 

4. Life. Life isn't neat and tidy. This season and its blog would have been nicely wrapped up with the last diary post, wouldn't it - start the year with high hopes, a big loss of confidence and some dark times, then triumphant redemption. Standard film script stuff. Instead, the season overstayed its welcome, the CC carried on playing while feeling increasingly fat and old, and the sense of resolution with regard to all the stuff that had gone on over the years reverted back to a lingering sense of regret. Even this weekend I was emailing the captain to say 'Oh bat me down the order, so and so's playing and he's better than me, I opened last time etc,' before asking myself what the hell I thought I was doing (n.b. if you want to do well whatever your form you should always try to open the batting, unless playing Test cricket - new CC rule).

And this leads us to the subject of this post, which has been coming for some time - the great KP situation. Everyone's got an opinion, of course. And this is part of the problem. Because there is no ultimate truth: this is clearly about personalities and emotions as much as it is about professionalism and contract negotiation. Which means we're all qualified to talk about this stuff - as I pointed out in my review of Eddie Cowan's autobiography, the most surprising thing about it is how eerily similar it turns out the professional game is to the amateur one - behind the scenes at least.

Now cricket, more than any other sport, is a test of personality; of this I am quite sure. It's not a team game. Except it's the teamiest game there is. You rely on your team mates all the time - to not run you out, to not drop catches off your bowling, in friendly cricket not to trigger you - and unlike most team sports, you're spending the best part of a day in their company.

I refer you to to point four, above. Life isn't neat and tidy. People rarely, if ever, draw a line under things. They certainly try to. And they certainly say they have. But emotional wounds take longer to heal than physical ones - a nasty little truism. That's why I don't think this is about fake Twitter accounts, or the IPL, or leaked conversations, or any of these things. Well, it is - now - but really, I think this is about what happened in 2009.

I don't believe Pietersen should ever have been made captain, but actually, it's worth reconsidering his short tenure (three tests and 10 ODIs). Let's remember that, following the 2009 Mumbai attacks, Pietersen was somewhat inspirational. He was vocal in saying the tour should continue, that there was a need to stand up to terrorism - and it gained his team many deserved plaudits on the subcontinent.

And let's remember the circumstances of his removal. A quick C&P from Wikipedia will do the job:

On 7 January 2009, Moores was removed as England's coach by the ECB, and Pietersen unexpectedly resigned as captain. In the immediate aftermath of Pietersen's resignation, several commentators connected with English cricket indicated that they believed that Pietersen had miscalculated by openly advocating for the removal of Moores, particularly in making their dispute public. In an interview several days after his resignation, Pietersen revealed that he had not intended to resign as captain, but was told by ECB officials that he was resigning. Dennis Amiss, the vice-chairman of the ECB, went on record backing up Pietersen in his statement that the story of the rift with Moores had not been leaked to the media by him, saying, "We don't believe Kevin Pietersen leaked the information, we understand his frustration at it being leaked by other parties."

No doubt we'll read more on this over the years, once all the biographies come out. But it's always seemed to me that he was treated particularly shabbily by his employers. Having realised they should never have given him the job in the first place, it strikes me they saw a golden opportunity for a clean-out. And the replacements were, of course, hugely successful. But now the chickens have come home to roost. 

And to return to my earlier point, everyone has an opinion. I've just given mine, and it's easy to hold an opinion when verifiable facts are at a premium. So Brearley can talk about the insight he gained when sharing a plane with KP, Atherton can analyse what he sees as a sort of borderline personality disorder, and so on. Of course there's some truth to all these readings, but it's impossible to reduce a person to a piece of prose. What does so and so think? Half the time, he doesn't know himself. That's why Virginia Woolf's writing is a) Bloody hard work and b) The most realistic depiction of character in the English language. On top of that, we have the constant dribble of stories of various degrees of importance - the latest being that KP thinks Swann and Anderson had a part to play in the fake Twitter account.

George Dobell - an excellent journalist - has admitted he doesn't think these stories help the situation, but you can hardly blame him or anyone else for breaking such developments; it's his job to relate the latest twists in what's a fascinating soap opera. But let's not kid ourselves that this constant cataloguing of developments and analysis amounts to any kind of objective truth.  You point to any number of things that show Mr Pietersen's somewhat hubristic. I point to the fact the ECB is the management team that felt Allen Stanford could resolve the issue of T20s. You point to the fact KP is the kind of guy willing to dedicate 20 pages of his autobiography to a PE teacher he didn't like. I point to the fact Swann's Twitter feed isn't half as funny as he thinks it is. And so on.

So what are we supposed to take from all this? Well, again we return to the top. Personalities are complicated things. Profound, I know. My second team has resentments, slights and envies that have festered, unchecked, since 1989. Fortunately its players don't spend enough time in the closeted bubble of top sportsmen for these things to realy blow up. We once went on tour and one drunk player started shouting - genuinely, shouting - at another about the way he was eating his soup. Except it wasn't really about how he was eating his soup, was it. Do these things ever get "fixed"? No. We just sort of muddle through. If I say it's the best we can wish for, I consider it realism, not pessimism.

There's nowt for us to do but enjoy the soap opera. And for my part? I need to buy a 2lb 8oz GM 1885 or M&H Harlequin, obviously.