KP and the English cricket establishment

They got him in the end. Not before he became England's highest-ever runscorer. Not before he was part of a No.1 team, three Ashes wins, a World Twenty20 title and victory in India. And not before he entertained millions in a way no other Englishman could. But finally, after a decade of mistrust and suspicion, English cricket has dumped Kevin Pietersen.

I say “they” because as collateral from the Ashes mauling mounts, it feels as though an old rift in English cricket is rupturing once more. The establishment, with its management systems, conservatism and ruthless profiteering seems suddenly so distant from the many outsiders whose love and money fuels the sport.

Pietersen is a talisman. An Englishman who epitomises “outsider”. After nearly a decade in the England set-up he is left with no friend in the dressing room and no supporters at the ECB. His restless innovation and calculated daring made him one of the most magnetic batsmen to have ever taken guard, but also an individual utterly convinced of his own way. A self-obsessed genius. Most are.

Though the runs he scored and series he won were gleefully accepted by captains, coaches and administrators whose lofty reputations he helped establish, they never seemed to accept the man himself.

It might well be that his dressing-room presence was untenable. His rumoured put-down of James Taylor offers a glimpse of what off-field life was like with Pietersen. Though it reveals something about the nature and utility of managerial thinking if the best player is sacked for being unmanageable.

But if there is a reason compelling enough to deprive England fans of Pietersen, the ECB has to spell it out. Allowing lawyers to gag them speaks of how far the ECB have distanced themselves from the public. So far, a struggling captain, a new managing director and an unappointed coach have made the decision without explanation.

All the while, the outsider fans that pay the salaries of the suits, coaches and players have been told nothing beyond obfuscation and innuendo. Parts of the paper press, meanwhile, are quick to sanctimoniously remind us of our ignorance, but far less willing to provide the clarity we pay them for.

For the second time in a month the ECB have taken a monumental decision without explanation. When they helped sever cricket's global development and establish the Big Three cabal, much of the print media (Atherton & Berry apart) were silent, before eventually spinning a story about the pragmatic “realities” of the grown-up world. The entire issue passed without the ECB fielding significant public scrutiny.

It speaks of a deeper and more longstanding narrowness in English cricket. The ECB executive board is dominated by well-to-do white men, the England team is dominated by private-school boys, and even in 2014, there is no non-white coach of any county team or in the National Cricket Performance Centre.

The broadcast media may provide the best of any sport coverage in the country, but it is still dominated almost entirely by ex-pros. Test Match Sofa, an amateur upstart, is being quietly suffocated by an establishment needlessly wary of outsider voices.

The danger is that such suspicion creates myopia. From WG Grace to Pietersen -  via Tony Grieg and David Gower – English cricket has long had an institutional suspicion of free-wheeling mavericks. Though, at least Grace et al got a chance. It is the less celebrated, like Maurice Holmes, who really suffer from the reflex for orthodoxy that festers in the English game.

If England want talk of a “team ethic”, “rebuilding” and new “philosophy” to be more than MBA buzzwords, they should look a little deeper and think a little broader about the way they approach the game. A “fresh start” would be to embrace the irritants, freaks and non-conformists.  

But the market can't count

On Monday, Misbah-ul-Haq angled a single to point to seal Pakistan's remarkable day-five heist against Sri Lanka and one of history's great Test runchases.

A match that had meandered for four days exploded into a classic finish. Great cricket, but was it financially viable? According to the ICC commercial rights working group, probably not.

Their leaked position paper revealed much about the dysfunctional governance of world cricket but it also showed just how impoverished an arbiter of sporting worth “the market” really is.

The paper speaks hopefully of things like “self sufficiency” and “independence” for national cricket boards, but proposes a system where the richest boards take an even bigger slice of world cricket's revenue.

It reasons that the countries with the biggest broadcasting markets – India, Australia and England – are cricket's biggest wealth-creators and deserve the greatest rewards. That's supposedly the law of the market.

A law that decrees Azhar Ali's matchwinning century almost worthless because, in commercial terms, Pakistan playing Sri Lanka in UAE is trivial.

But has the market miscounted? What if Azhar takes this experience to help Pakistan thrive in Australia? What if Junaid Khan uses skills honed against, say, New Zealand to deliver an eyecatching series in India? The kind of series that draws viewers and sponsors in even greater numbers. Where, then, was the value created?

The sporting drama, romance and historical significance of matches like Shajah are easily overlooked by the market. But even in the hard-nosed terms the working group thinks it deals in, the market is a faulty calculator.

Cricket's value is captured when broadcast rights are sold, but it is created well before then. The Big Three feel themselves worthy rulers of the sport because they have a cricket-watching population which advertisers are prepared to pay broadcasters vast sums to reach.

Yet people choose to watch cricket (or follow it online) for its history, its culture, its personalities, its skills and the closeness of its competition. This is where “revenue generation” actually happens and why talk of “independence” is so dishonest.

For all lipservice paid to meritocracy, the proposals also reveal how markets work by limiting, rather than embracing, competition. In the two-division future it suggests, The Big Three can't be relegated. And, despite cricket's desperate needs for global growth, it suggests money be taken from development and funnelled back to the centre.

Given the opportunity, there could be millions of new fans in China for example. But the country has one turf pitch and barely any international fixtures. The ICC reported $1,564 million revenue in its last cycle three-quarters of which is handed back to 10 Test-playing countries. Some of this is money that could be used to foster the sport in countries like China.

Though in the short run a cost, in the future it would provide a bigger cricket-loving population and a sport with a global outlook. The kind of thing advertisers might one day like.

Yet, as Russell Dengan points out, the proposals suggest the opposite. In the 'cost-savings' proposed, if ICC revenue reached $2 billion, the Big Three would pocket 108% of the increase. As usual an appeal for 'market rule' is in fact a call for cartels and cabals.

Apologists for the paper tell the world to take commerce seriously. But it's less about money than it is about power.

Cricket's governance coup: A disgrace but not a shock

We've failed. News that cricket's financial Big Three are planning a coup is a disgrace. It's hopefully a call to arms too. But it's certainly not a surprise.

The signs were clear when the BCCI severed India's tour to South Africa. They were clear when the ECB and CA watched on silently as it happened. They were clear when the only five-Test series being scheduled involved India, Australia and England; when cricket's potential Olympic participation was quietly aborted; when the Woolf Report was ignored.

The Big Three had veto power in all-but name already. Now they are formalising their grip on the game and forcing an even greater concentration of wealth upon themselves. In effect the seven other Test-playing nations – including the best team in the world – are being flung onto the scrapheap with the ICC's other 96 members.

All the while, bar some very determined and important exceptions, much of cricket's fan base and press have stood by idly. Maybe governance just isn't interesting enough, maybe the news cycle is too immediate, maybe it's just easier not to bother. But as a cricketing public we've failed to hold the powers that run our sport to account.

The Guardian's cricket coverage often sets the bar to which others to aspire. According to Mike Selvey, they had this story for a while, but didn't feel it newsworthy. Really!?

There would outrage if the Premiere League proposed a rule preventing the biggest three clubs from ever being relegated. Yet even now there is very little comment on this ICC story.

Broadcasters, meanwhile, are more the partners of administrative power than they are its investigators. Skysports are entirely silent on this news and the BBC have barely raised a whisper.

Maybe it's as much our failure as it is theirs. If we care about our sport we should be screaming from the rooftops. Or at least Tweeting about it.

Jarrod says all that needs to be here. And there is a petition to sign here.

Unthinkable? An England team without managers

If the Ashes mega-series taught us anything, it was that management was absolutely right until it was wrong. That Andy Flower's professional, marginal-gains micromanagement was superior to Darren Lehman's more old-fashioned, tell-a-joke; be-a-bloke style. Until the opposite was true.

As England now decide on what to rescue and restore from their wreckage of a winter, there will be much focus on Flower and his squadron of backroom assistants. But where does responsibility lie? Are the players accountable for their own performance or does the environment they're in matter too?

Andrew Strauss articulated the puzzle perfectly when trying to defend England's management team. Flower, he said, deserves support because he has overseen so many successes. Equally he shouldn't be blamed for this series, because it's the players who take the field.

Management science relies on the myth that results can be achieved if the correct processes are developed. The moral of the Moneyball story was that there are no barriers to success. Given enough information and enough analysis, strategies can always be found.

Team England seem staunch believers in the management ideal. It means they place enormous importance in their pre-cooked plans and enormous faith in their ability to control. So better young players develop under their tutelage at Loughborough than out of view with the counties. Better menus are determined by the experts than let individuals decide what's good for them.

Players are required to be automators, delivering the agenda developed by the centre.

It made England incredibly proficient against middling teams. As long as there was no outlier x-factor that could elude management planning, England were ruthless. But whenever mystery struck – a doosra, a counter-attack, Mitch - England got derailed. 

It's not that players took the field and unthinkingly performed Gooch or Saker's instructions. But they imbued a culture of management control that drained them of autonomy, accountability and the ability to think on their feet.

Though England are more extreme in their fondness for managerialism, they aren't unique. It's the direction all teams are moving. But it wasn't always this way.

The plethora of coaches is a fairly recent development in the sport. As Michael Atherton wrote recently: “On my first Australian tour, in 1990-91, we travelled with a manager, whose job it was to sort out travel arrangements and hand out disciplinary fines, a coach, a scorer and a physiotherapist.

“A player... could ask the coach or captain for advice; he could ask a senior player to have a watch in the nets; he could ring home and speak to a trusted adviser; or he could sort things out for himself. It meant that there was no less advice available than now, but it was less structured, less formal.”

The great West Indies and Australian teams got by without the dense layers of management England use. As recently as 2007, an Indian side led by Rahul Dravid and packed with senior pros secured a historic series win in England without a coach.

It won't happen now but as England ponder their new era it's worth wondering what would happen if they did away with a management team altogether.

Finn: England's missing paceman

Cricket doesn't often offer much for adrenaline junkies, but when fast bowlers find fast pitches, it's intoxicating. Pace is the most visceral and unforgiving part of the game. Weakness against spin can be tolerated as a technical failing; falling to pace is invariably a moral problem.

It was Mitchell Johnson's pace that made the first Test the most pulsating Ashes match since 2005. Until Jonathan Trott's departure from the tour, the post-match talk was all about the unique challenges real quick bowling presents. Curious then, that England's fastest bowler – Steven Finn – was entirely absent at the Gabba.

Finn is not quite as explosive as Johnson - his orthodox action means he'll never feel quite as raw - but he's equally volatile and just as potent. Like Johnson he was spotted early, promised much but never seemed settled. And like Johnson his reputation belies his record.

From 23 Tests Finn's strike rate is 48.3, better than James Anderson and Stuart Broad by 10. His average (29.40) also shades England's senior bowlers. He was England's highest wicket taker in the tour matches leading into the first Test but also their most profligate. And therein lies the problem for the selectors. England deem Finn too pricey for their parsimonious preferences.

Yet it is interesting to contrast Finn's development with England's Gabba standout, Broad. Finn made his debut an equally willowly quick in Bangladesh three-and-a-half years ago. Since then he has added bulk to his body and speed to his bowling but has been dropped six times. Some of these were horse-for-course changes where England preferred a second spinner. But many were not and they speak of enormous instability.

It took Broad less than two years to play the same number of Tests and by his own acknowledgement he had to learn on the job. Unlike Finn, he was allowed to. Broad has been dropped for poor form only twice in his Test career. At the equivalent stage to Finn he had 23 less wickets at an average – 36.14 – that was much worse.

Part of the reason Broad was allowed to develop in the team was the presence of a fourth seamer. Andrew Flintoff played in 10 of Broad's early Tests which meant if Broad had a shaky day his overs could be found elsewhere. After repeated batting malfunctions it is unfair to focus on the bowlers, but England miss a fourth seamer. Not just to free Broad and Anderson up, but maybe most significantly to allow Finn to develop.

England's obsessively detailed management has been well documented and their devotion to professionalism has undoubtedly lifted standards. But while they focus on the marginals, Finn is quickly becoming their biggest failure.

He has all the attributes of an outstanding fast bowler. His second-innings spell at Lord's against South Africa last year was every bit as devastating as Johnson at the Gabba and before his difficult Ashes outing at Trent Bridge in July he troubled New Zealand's batsmen.

It's unlikely Finn will be recalled at Adelaide. England are desperate for the steadier Tim Bresnan to return. But genuine pace is a rare commodity. Finn might soon prove more expensive out of the team than he would in it. 

Piercing the hot air - Sachin's 38

It was tough trying to wade through the torrent of saccharine sentiment. Of course it had to be like this, the entertainment industry loves instructing people how to feel.

Cricket, ever more so, is no exception. Though the Test format is less malleable to the banal storytelling of marketeers, Sachin Tendulkar's final Test was an easy sell.

And boy they sold it. Cricinfo was bursting with Sachin, while Twitter was melting from tedious twos-and-fros between those lauding Sachin and those taking the piss.

Tendulkar's final Test innings (and with that shambolic West Indies outfit it was always going to be his last) was a massive occasion. It was just that being told over and again how important the man and the moment were made me numb.

I understood why so many said so much. I've long been struck by the gloriously earnest instinct in India for both sentiment and categorisation. Tendulkar's career and retirement tapped both. His many feats meant he was No. 1 runscorer, No. 1 century-maker, No. 1 match-player. And having watched him live his entire adult life as a champion on the pitch, people had every right to feel emotional.

So I did not belong with the curmudgeons grumbling about the quantity of the coverage. It is just that I could not engage with it. The noise - visual, aural and mental - that cluttered Tendulkar's final moment made me immune to it.

But it just so happened that I was home when the moment came. Cricinfo told me Murali Vijay was out and that the crowd had erupted. The only video coverage I could get was through my mobile. A small screen pathetically at odds with the occasion.

The sound of the crowd as he sped out the middle, the chaotic slog-sweep to get off the mark, the half-volley stroked through cover. That punch drive down the ground. Of his 15921 Test runs, the 38 he made that evening must count among his least significant.

But those 20 overs were among the most dramatic I'd seen. As was always the way with Tendulkar, the guff was cleared aside to make way for the sport.

It was 20 overs that snatched the moment from the promoters and returned it to the fans. For that I #thankyousachin.

Let the umpire call it

What makes a good umpiring decision? Thirteen years ago England were chasing an unlikely late-evening victory, against Pakistan in Karachi, in light that was manifestly poor. Conditions were unfair to the fielding team, who couldn't see the ball, and dangerous for the batsmen. Yet the umpires - Steve Bucknor and Mohammad Nazir - got approval from the batsmen and stayed on. Their reasoning was that Moin Khan, the Pakistan captain, had deliberately wasted time and so had no right now to complain.

Last month Michael Clarke's self-indulgence combined with Kevin Pietersen to gift a capacity crowd a stirring Sunday-evening finish. A middling Ashes series was set for a spectacular denouement. Yet with the climax in sight, the umpires pulled the plug on the party and sent everyone home four overs from the finish. Why? Because the light had dipped below a benchmark level.

In Karachi the umpires used their common sense. Strong-willed and sensible, they spat on the rule book but ensured a fair and memorable result. At The Oval the umpires were consistent. The precedent was set earlier in the series and no matter the context, rules were rules and needed respecting.

It seems that when it comes to umpiring, you can have consistency or common sense but you can't always have both. Our inability to decide which we prefer means umpires get berated for making the wrong decision and similarly pilloried for making the right ones too.

Whether Saturday league cricket or a Test match, players at all levels often seem to value umpiring consistency more than correctness - the odd decision may go wrong, so the thinking goes, but it is forgivable if the reasoning is consistent. At the highest level that demand for ever more consistency, though, has meant stripping umpires of the ability to exercise their judgement in the way Bucknor did.

By necessity rules are written in the abstract and when put into practice may not be appropriate in every situation. Because cricket sprawls over five days and encompasses so many variations and contingencies, its laws are incredibly intricate and open to interpretation.

It is this ability to tailor the laws to the situation that makes umpires so important. Bowlers, for example, normally have enormous leeway for wides in Tests, but on the exceptional occasions when a chase enters the final afternoon, it makes sense for umpires to intervene and tighten up the margins. Though not necessarily consistent, few would deny its appropriateness.

Yet the more professional cricket has become, the more players' demands for consistency have been met, and the more umpires have been robbed of authority and discretion. Andy Flower, for instance, suggested after the Oval Test that there could be a universal benchmark for bad light. This would clarify any grey area but reduce the umpires' role in the matter to meter readers. And could a one-size-fits-all approach really cope with the nuances of every situation? Absolutely not.

The DRS is another area where umpiring judgement has been curtailed. The system was introduced to account for the outliers (howlers) that human umpires will occasionally make. Given that players and spectators will use all technology available to judge the quality of umpires, the officials deserve similar resources. By demonstrating just how many deliveries can go on to hit the stumps, the DRS has also helped even the balance between bat and ball and bring fingerspin back into the game. For that it should be celebrated.

The trouble is that by forcing players to decide when to use technology, it necessarily becomes tactical. It is that marginal use of the DRS that too often makes a mockery of umpires. Reasonable decisions get overturned, and umpires are reduced to go-betweens in a process dictated by players and the technology. Not only does that needlessly undermine umpires, it means reviews can get used up on marginal calls while being unavailable to correct the really poor decisions.

Better would be to give the third umpire three opportunities an innings to review what he considers to be howlers. The existing protocol for suspected edges makes a sound place to start. Through consultation with the third umpire, the on-field official gleans all information and then decides whether to change the original decision. Like in rugby, the officials' reasoning could be explained live to the public and players, and their authority upheld.

The Ashes summer was marred by some extraordinarily poor umpiring, especially by the third umpires. There is, though, no legislating for such incompetence and neither should there be. Professionally trained, well-paid and well-rested umpires must be trusted to make good decisions. Their independence also allows them to safeguard the wider interests of the sport in a way players cannot.

When empowered, umpires would then be in a better position to act in other areas of the game. The scandalously poor over rates could be tackled with much stronger umpiring. Similarly, the issue of low catches being obscured by camera-lens shortening, which often leads to the wrong not-out decision being made for the sake of consistency, could be resolved by on- and off-field umpires collaborating to try to make more positive judgements more often with clear explanation.

No matter how hard they strive, cricket's administrators can never deliver faultless decision-making. Broadcasting technology has helped, Elite umpires too, but the game is just too peculiar to guarantee perfection. Yet in a choice between more rules telling umpires how to act, or more trust in them to do what's best for the game, it's the umpires who should be supported.

This blog was first published on Cricinfo's Cordon