Ted Dexter copy for the Cricketer Magazine
Deadline July 7th
I was cordially, if somewhat warily received, when my delayed meeting with the E.C.B. technical staff finally took place, not at Lord's as I expected but in a back office buried in the stands at Edgbaston.
What were they to make of a sixty-five year old blast from the past taking issue with what turned out to be carefully researched pieces of cricket coaching in their official manual? Should they treat him as a well intentioned old buffer who still believed that all our yesterdays were golden or listen seriously to what he had to say.
I was delighted to find that Hugh Morris, Technical Director, and Gordon Lord , Coach Education Manager were perfectly open minded and gave me a good hearing. That is not to say that I persuaded them to change their minds all that much. But they were kind enough to call it a fascinating discussion and to agree that we all held the same aim which was to ensure that “ all support to coaches should be of the highest quality.”
In fact, thinking back, it was I who was the more intemperate particularly over the explanation given for the “eyes level” requirement in the batting stance. I felt I was being blinded with science when the language reached the level of vertical and horizontal receptors. When I talked about “sideways” play, they started talking about biomechanical advantage and at one stage I regret to say that I called their approach a load of balls.
On this subject we basically agreed to differ. I cited the case of the squash player picking up shots in the back corners of the court. How ludicrous it would be to tell him that he had to have his eyes level before he could assess where the ball was going to be. For their part they pointed out that we were talking about cricket, not squash, and were able to quote from an optometrist report. “Balance is effected if the head and eyes are not level. Look at tight-rope walkers and dancers.” Now who was going off at a tangent?!
I return to my central point. Relaxation in the batting stance is essential. This is best achieved by standing with the left shoulder pointing to mid-on and the head turned to the bowler only so far as is comfortable. The left shoulder is then brought into the sideways position as part of the backlift and held there through all the straight bat shots.
This will usually mean that the head and eyes are tilted up to 25 degrees and I believe that attempts to keep the “eyes level” are a major factor in so many modern batsmen playing open-chested, toes pointing up the pitch as in French Cricket. Of course they can get runs. Anyone who wields a cudgel 4 ΒΌ inches wide against a ball of 9 inches circumference should be able to make contact from time to time. But are they as effective as they could be? That is the point.
On the subject of the right elbow position in the backlift, I am prepared to give a little ground when faced with the following .
“ Biomechanical analysis of players, including Greenidge, Tendulkar, Crowe and Richards shows how the unit created by the shoulder, arms, hands and bat retain a figure 9 shape, the plane of which adjusts according to the intended direction of stroke.” So be it. For my part, as long as they get the tip of the bat pointing to the sky with the face pointing to cover rather than at the ground ( see Lara, Gower, Botham ) they can do it any way they like.
Hardest to come to grips with was head position at release point when bowling. Here I maybe gained a point when Gordon Lord writes “there are examples of world class bowlers who clear a path for the bowling shoulder and arm by dropping the head away to the off-side. (see Curtley Ambrose and Darren Gough)
…… by achieving this position I accept that performance in terms of pace or rotation may well be enhanced. Well, now then, isn’t that what I have been saying all along?
Finally I made my point about the hand position for the high catch and the sheer impossibility of making a finger pouch for the ball if the catch is attempted at “eye level”. Here the technicians were prepared to go back to the drawing board but the matter failed to get a mention in the two-page follow-up letter to our meeting.
However there was an oft repeated slow motion sequence of Ricardo Powell being caught off a skier on the boundary at Bristol in the first match of the Triangular Series and it was comforting to see that the catch was made at chest height with the fingers parallel to the ground rather than facing skywards.
There may be a sense that you have to see your hands in front of your face by way of good preparation but that is nonsense. Nobody misses their mouth with a forkful of food. We know where our hands are without having to check before making a catch.
Finally a subject which really gets my goat i.e. when bowlers in the media start pontificating about batting. Simon Hughes is my current bete-noir with his simplistic notion that too much coaching stifles ability.
He cites Aravinda De Silva's precocious ability to whip straight balls through the on-side as evidence. What he seems to miss is that without perfect head and body positions such a move would be doomed to failure. Any coach who knew the most simple basics would recognise such perfection and leave well alone.
Ted Dexter Copy for the Cricketer Magasine
Monday 4th September 2000
I like listening to Angus Fraser on the radio. He is an agreeable man with a dry wit and his attitude to the game seems to have preserved a freshness which long service in county cricket sometimes dulls.
It was intriguing to hear him debating the cricket ball issue, especially the notion that all Test cricket should be played with a standard product. Apparently David Lloyd had suggested the machine stitched Kookaburra as the answer with less prominent stitching. This could mean more emphasis on swinging the new ball and a need for spinners if the “old” ball was no help to the “seamers”.
Angus felt that since batsmen were free to take their pick of the world's best bats, bowlers should have the same opportunity to pick the ball they like best. It is entirely logical and I tend to agree. Where he slipped up was saying that bat technology had progressed while the ball was still the same. Wrong!
Cricket balls are definitely not the same. The main difference is that the core of the ball has changed significantly, from strips of cork bound in layer by layer with twine, to a composite lump of cork and latex which constitutes two thirds or more of the overall sphere. The change was made largely in the cause of uniformity from the administrators point of view and was embraced by manufacturers because the process was less labour intensive.
I heard umpires Shepherd and Harper saying that the balls had lasted well in the recent Test series – not surprising when some of the innings have been rather short – but one reason must be that the core of the modern ball remains unchanged for the whole 80 overs, before a new one becomes due. It is self evident that the ball therefore remains harder for longer and gives the faster bowlers a lot more chance of success with the old ball. More broken fingers is another result.
It may even be that the “discovery” of reverse swing was due to this basic change.The cork and twine ball became too soft for the quick men to bother after 30 overs, so the opportunity to experiment with rough sides, smooth sides, wet sides and dry sides and different seam positions barely came along.
Going back to the bowlers’ free choice argument, they are lucky that the authorities have the need to maintain competition between manufacturers to keep the price down. They stipulate as closely as they can what the ball should be like and then test them to ensure that they conform to a standard. But there will always be variations and bowlers will always find the one that feels smallest in the hand and gives the most chance of swing and seam.
All that is fine until five day matches are reduced to two with thousands of dissappointed spectators. Repayment of hundreds of thousands of pounds for unused tickets is something the game can ill afford so it would be simply bad business not to look hard at the ball and the pitches to ensure as far as possible the right balance between bat and ball.
It is just as well that the Oval Test lasted into the fifth day and it was a delight that the West Indians included the leg-spinner Nagamootoo. Without him they would have hardly fared as well as they did because he broke up the key Engand partnerships in both innings, Trescothick in the first and Stewart in the second. Such a long, thrilling match will at least keep the arguments for change of ball or different pitch construction in perspective.
The series overall confirmed some of the eternal truths of Test cricket. That the outcome is usually determined by the best bowling attack and at long last England were able to put three experienced men together, Gough, Caddick and Cork with three hundred or so Test wickets between them. Often enough in recent years we have gone in with raw talent alone and you only have to see what happened to the promising Reon King to know that is not enough. When Craig White suddenly joined the party with a vengeance, there was no doubt where the advantage lay. Obviously Walsh and Ambrose would have been first pick for either side from the start but the support bowling was not enough to sustain the pressure they created.
It was definitely not a series for fancy stroke making, Lara excepted, with major contributions made by Atherton and Vaughan for England, Adams and Sarwan for West Indies, all of them prepared to defend correctly and wait for the scoring opportunities. It was gritty stuff for most of the time but never dull, all culminating in the full house thiller on the fifth day at the Oval.
A final word for Simon Hughes who made a spirited response to my comments two months ago about bowlers and their views on batting techniques.Simon's gentle barb in my direction was that he took time to accept my view of his bowling “because I was a batsman”.
Sorry to do this to you Simon, but the 1969 Playfair career records section tells me that Dexter.E.R took 419 first class wickets at an average of 29.9 – 5 wickets 9 times, 10 wickets twice.
The 1994 edition reveals that Hughes.S.P took 466 wickets at 32.48 – 5 wickets 10 times and 50 wickets in a season twice. I went back to 1969 to check my own season by season tallies to find that the criteria for a mention in the final column used to be 100 wickets, not 50. I did not get a mention.
Ted Dexter Copy for the Cricketer Magazine June Issue
Development of techniques for limited overs cricket has been going on steadily ever since the first major matches were played under the banner of “The Knock-Out Cup” (sponsored by Gillette) in 1963.
They were 65 0ver matches and the modern player will wonder how on earth there were enough hours in the day to reach a finish. There was ,of course, the famous televised match at Old Trafford in the sixties which went on into the late evening with Jim Laker telling us what was happening in the dark, but that was an exception. Mostly we completed in normal working hours.
The difference is that it is now a ball by ball game rather than over by over. A Captain is not thought to be worth his salt unless he intervenes regularly to reset the field, and if that means walking with due ceremony from slip to the end of the bowler's run-up, then so be it. If a batsman has the temerity to hit a four or six early in an over then it is obligatory to bring the game to a grinding halt while everyone regains their composure.
There were no fielding restrictions except the limitation of two behind square on the leg side but it was not long before circles were drawn and the first 15 over rule came into being. From these artificial impositions came the age of the “ pinch-hitter” with strict instructions to hit the new ball in the air into the open spaces.
But I have moved on too quickly. Individually there was experimentation from both bowlers and batsmen with the one trying to respond to each new move by the other.
“Giving yourself room” by stepping to leg was nothing new, already a feature of run chases in three day championship cricket but the advent of the blockhole ball and the importance of regular changes of pace came along more gradually. Meanwhile the essential agility in ground fielding was leading to longer training sessions and much practice in throwing direct at the stumps.
It was clear enough in the early days that the ball should be pitched up and straight and there is a case for this simple formula to this very day. However, the advent of heavier bats meant that thick inside edges went for twos and threes and pushed the bowling line more to the off-side - hence the sweeper fieldsman on the cover boundary employed by most teams nowadays.
Statistical analysis was perhaps a little slow to get going but it showed soon enough that quality bowling was nothing like the panacea it assumes in Test cricket. With restricted overs it is a fact that wickets are spread pretty evenly amongst the great and the fairly ordinary. Even more surprising is the fairly small differential between the runs per over conceded. The faster bowlers tend to be edged for four on an unlucky day with the slower men containing well for some, but not all of the time.
It was the winning Sri Lankan side that rather confirmed what the figures were suggesting i.e. that the ideal one-day side is made up of eleven batsmen who can all field like Jonti Rhodes and just do the best they can with the ball. Ideally this type of side prefers to bat second and backs itself to get the runs, however large the target.
The latest innovation which only appeared this winter is for the best fast bowlers to mount a full scale attack on the opening batsmen showing scant regard for the more restrictive playing condition regarding short pitched bowling. This tactic is only part of improved awareness of Captaincy which sometimes demands real aggression and quick thinking as opposed to the bad habits of some who kept defensive formulae to the finish, even when defeat was staring them in the face. Shane Warne was seen in a very good light in this respect during the games he captained when Steve Waugh was out of action.
It would be wrong not to mention the reverse sweep, given a rather permanent bad name by the infamous attempt by Mike Gatting in the final against Australia in India.
Less in evidence these days, it remains a powerful weapon in the right hands and it is probably only a matter of time before we see the first of a generation of switch-hitters, equally capable left and right handed. I believe they exist in baseball and there is no doubt that they would have value against the fair number of leg-spinners who are succeeding in tying down the lesser right-handers. How the umpires will deal with switching guard from one over to the next and even from one ball to the next remains to be seen.
Talking of umpires, they have had to move with the times as well, slowly redefining what is and what is not a wide ball, and finding it quite a struggle to achieve consistency between individual umpires and between the various stages of a fluctuating match. What is a wide to one batsman standing still, may not be to another who moves across his stumps and this is only one of a number of anomalies which the experts are trying to sort out in the Laws rewrite which is going on apace behind the scenes at Lord's.
So the shorter game continues to change and develop. On the few occasions when I coach batsmen these days, there is a different session for full scale attack when the only crime is “dot-balls” and getting out is preferable. Those who saw me bat will be relieved to know that I give no instruction on the sweep or indeed its reverse counterpart. Never fancied it myself for fear of getting a top edge into my nose. But if I had had a helmet?
When the first whispers and rumours about match fixing were voiced in dark corners,
I simply refused to believe my ears, treating every allegation with the disdain that I thought they deserved. First of all the mechanics of underperforming as a team seemed to contain far too many uncertainties, totally at odds with what the serious gambler needs. Easier surely to fix a tennis or boxing match with only one intentional loser to pay, and only one to settle with in case of a double cross.
Even now, having accepted with heavy heart that the game has been dragged into the gutter by a few unprincipled players, if you read Mihir Bose in your Wisden Almanack , you may agree with me that neither the cricketers involved nor their gambler counterparts really seemed to know what they were doing. It was as if they were playing some sort of silly game, blissfully unaware of the damage done. Forgive them, for they know not what they do. How horribly apt is that biblical reference in this context.
It is human nature to tear down those things that are most revered – and some might say that reverence for cricket is overdone, out of proportion –all about just another ball game like baseball or hockey. I happen to think otherwise. The facts about cricket and how it all works are pretty clear even if some people still find it all a bit of a mystery. But there remain those who know all the facts, think they understand and yet still totally miss the point.
Let me tell you what I think sets cricket apart.
One. It is not a contact sport, but it remains physically demanding and essentially dangerous.
Two.It is a team game but one in which personal performance is highlighted – also there is a requirement for every player to take personal responsibility. You cannot complain in cricket that nobody passed you the ball. You are often enough on your own.
Three. There is such variation in accomplishment from one day to the next. 200 for mike atherton one day and zero the next. 7 wickets fo Gough and then nothing. It takes a stout heart to deal.with such swings of the pendulum. Nobody tells Tiger Woods for instance that he must go stew back in the clubhouse for a couple of days just because he played one bad shot.
Four. The major games last long enough to deny individuals the luxury of pretending to be what they are not. Cricketers personalities are fully revealed on the field of play.
Ian Botham, the wild spirit, Geoff Boycott, the curmudgeonly Yorkshireman and proud of it, the cash register mind of the late Sir Donald Bradman, the carefree genius of Dennis Compton and so to the delightful Muttiah Muraltharan, a man who was apparently born to the game and the business of bowling a cricket ball.
No wonder the game has a literature beyond compare. There is this great edifice of the games history, carved more deeply by some more than others but solid – something permanent against which every generation can test itself. And then along comes one group of thoughtless dunderheads who virtually aim a canon at the middle of it, apparently not caring a jot if it all comes tumbling down. Well, if it is not in ruins, there are certainly some gaping wounds to be healed – and the question is how?
Match fixing is of course not the only assault on the game. There is orchestrated cheating on a scale never encountered before. It is cheating, plain and simple but the perpetrators simply shrug and say it is the way of the world.
Resist the temptation to cheat your way through life is the very message which cricket was designed to bring home to young and old alike. Accept bad luck – and wrong decisions when they come along. Rejoice when the wheel comes round again and it is your turn to profit from a bit of good fortune.
So what is the way out of this unholy mess? For once I am wholly in tune with one aspect of Mr Blair's policy style of government on the hoof. If you seek a reduction in major crime, get rid of minor criminal activity first. Clean up the graffiti in an area and there will be less muggings as people gain respect for their surroundings and then for each other. So we clean up what goes on on the field first and the off-field misbehaviour will more likely wither and die.
Looking around me there is precious little to be immediately optimistic about. Sir Paul Condon seems to be offering no more than a historical record and a few suggestions on policing to minimise the incidence of this scourge. In the same way as fire and brimstone from the pulpit did precious little to modify human frailty , you can forget about the effect of dire threats or getting people to sign pledges of honesty.
We administrators must, I think, adopt a more evangelical approach. We must paint a picture of a new dawn, a resumption of innocence, if you like, which may grab the imagination of a few young players and then spread around when others see how much fun they are having.
It is hard to get the image of the late Colin Cowdrey out of my mind when I start thinking along those lines. Colin saw clearly the importance of those five little words “The Spirit of the Game” tucked away for so many years in Law 42 “Fair and Unfair Play” and set the process in motion whereby that “SPIRIT” has now been defined and brought forward as a preamble to the Laws much like Etiquette in golf. It is our responsibility now – and particularly mine at MCC – to make sure that every young cricketer gets to know the wording of the spirit of cricket by heart. At Colin's magnificent memorial service in the abbey, there were three youhg captains in the procession. To my shame, none of them had even read the words. They all received a copy personally from me. This, on a hugely expanded scale is a fruitful avenue, to be pursued in concert with the ECB and can only benefit the game.
Looking around further for inspiration , imagine my surprise when I came across it in, of all places, Southern California, a land with more eccentrics per square yard than even, may I make so bold, an MCC AGM. Of all places in the world, can you believe it, they have a National Sportsmanship Day… God Bless those thousands of oddballs, because they talk about “ a day to celebrate the intrinsic value of sport as a source of inspiration”.
They go on to ask simple questions about what is fair as opposed to unfair. Its easy they say. Just look at the rules- Laws- and ask whether any questionable tactic demonstrates a skill the game was designed to measure. Was cricket designed to Test which group of fielders can clap their hands louder than the other teams ? answer –no- so don’t do it.
Finally these definitive words There is no victory without honour. Now if every international cricketer had that logo on his shirt rather than the name of a mobile phone or fast food outlet, then we would be starting to win hearts and minds. Any multi- millionaire with a yen to do good in the world could do worse than to buy and decorate Test Team shirts with such a poignant message
ted dexter copy for the cricketer magazine
3rd november 2000
I received a news release recently from the International Cricket Council headlined “ ICC commits to ongoing fight against cricket corruption”, a statement of intent which had all the impact of a cotton wool ball bowled at a brick wall. “ICC suspends three nations from international cricket for three years” – or “ Seventeen Test cricketers banned for life” would have knocked one or two bricks out of the wall at least.
More earth shattering revelations were to come. “The Pakistan Board intends to pursue a policy of no tolerance to corruption.” Which suggests that prior to the recent ICC meetings in Nairobi, there was a possibility that a blind eye had been turned to certain misconduct in that part of the world. I am amazed that Pakistan could have approved the text of a release with such negative implications.
On a more positive note, it was the first time that I became fully aware of a formal Anti-Corruption Unit under Sir Paul Condon and the existence of individual investigating processes in each affiliated country.
Turn the page, however, and matters seem to descend into pure farce with the reqirement for every Tom, Dick and Harry involved with international cricket – including groundsmen – to sign “honesty” declarations with a pro-forma players’ form attached. It is rather like one of those old-fashioned immigration forms where you were asked whether you had ever been involved in subversive activities for the overthrow of the state.
Is any player seriously going to have a sudden change of heart and admit to match fixing just because he is faced with a new scrap of paper to sign?
Every existing player contract contains a clause binding him to observe the Code of Conduct which already theatens disciplinary action for everything from dissent to drug taking and includes a detailed list of offences involving cricket gambling of any kind. To add a further layer of bureaucracy is surely pure window dressing.
And so to the mention of Alec Stewart's name within the Indian Government enquiry into cricket related misconduct. Some have dignified these mentions with the word “allegations”, but since they emanate from a self confessed criminal corrupter, an Indian bookmaker acting unlawfully in the first place, it is totally irresponsible and odious to do so. If ever there was a need to remember the old maxim of “innocent until proven guilty”, it is now in relation to Stewart. It also strikes me as a total overreaction for a posse of anti-corruption officers to rush over to India in the light of such a totally unsubstantiated linking of the Stewart name to the very serious offences admitted by other individuals.
There is just one more small point of probably academic interest only.
I see that the relevant Appendix to the ICC Code of Conduct dealing with gambling starts with the words “ at any time after the 1st July 1993”. The England Tour to India finished in March 1993.
My off-the-cuff recollection of the 1992/1993 tour to India was of England performing so poorly that there was no possibility of a bet of any kind. We lost all three Tests by such margins that under-performance by one or two of the Indian batsmen would scarcely have made any difference. It is quite scary to note that our two spinners, Tufnell and Emburey took their grand total of 6 wickets in the series at an average of 69 and 72 respectively.
However the 6 match series of one-day internationals was well contested with England and India winning 3 matches each. I have looked at the analyses of each game, not to see what Stewart did or did not do, but to see whether there was any pattern which suggested anything unusual and my conclusion is one of total inconclusiveness. Perhaps that is where the so-called glorious uncertainties of cricket play into the hands of unscrupulous gamblers. 0 one day and 100 the next is commonplace without any help from ideas of match-fixing.
Going back to the ICC release, I was dissappointed to see that the penalties imposed on Herschelle Gibbs and Henry Williams were confirmed. As young players early in their careers, it must have put them on the spot in an unprecedented way to be instructed to underperform by their Captain, Hansie Cronje. Such was the general high level of respect for Cronje before his fall from grace, it was virtually impossible for such juniors to blow the whistle.When I first played under Peter May, his word was law as far as I was concerned and I am sure I would have done whatever he told me to do. It would have been a nice way of emphasising the crucial role of cricket captains in the conduct of the game if those penalties had been suspended by ICC.
It warms my heart just a little to finish by talking actual cricket. Watching the first one-day international in Pakistan, my heart was in my mouth when Hick started to take a swing at Saqlain's very first ball. He was clearly nowhere near the pitch of the ball but miraculously there was a meaty connection and the ball sailed away for six. It was a defining moment which heralded a famous victory just as much as the wonderful clean hitting by Flintoff.
Only a few days later, exactly the same scenario emerged in the Final. Saqlain to Hick, a mighty swing and victory to Saqlain on this occasion. Now who could have bet on that.
