So we didn’t quite witness the brilliance of Headingley 2019 again at the home of cricket this Sunday but my word for a good two hours , we witnessed some high octane drama that only very few special players can conjure and Ben Stokes is obviously one of them. 178 to win with only 4 wickets left and only with (due respect) the equivalent of four no 11 batsmen to follow. In the end, getting to 42 off the total was mightily impressive. However, the final day drama and the Bairstow dismissal masks a pretty immature performance by England.

Clarity was the word referenced by Ben Stokes on numerous occasions in his various media appearances and indeed that has been the mantra of Bazball. What does it mean though? Let’s unpack it a little. If you ask the bazball architects, they would suggest it’s about freeing the batsmen to follow their instincts and not to second guess themselves because indecisiveness is the ultimate sin and of course this school of thought has merit. International test cricket is extremely difficult and as a batsman it doesn’t take much to overcomplicate and overthink your technique (a Rory Burns doesn’t happen overnight…). What the team brass wants is for the players to read and react to the situation without worrying about the end product so much. Process not results. One notion they would strongly push back on is that it’s just about playing attacking cricket. Stokes, himself has played in a variety of gears in this series but watching them bat at lords and it’s quite clear that the perception held by the batsmen is that there is a hierarchy in strategy with boundary hitting being favoured over circumspection. The collapse after Lyon’s injury in the first innings was entirely self created by England it was not just bad execution but also a complete misread of the game. Australia had only one way of winning that spell; they had resigned to bowling short, spreading out the field and daring England to take it on. England, keen to live up to the virtues of bazball ( or atleast their interpretation of it) were very happy to oblige. What would usually be described as a defensive field is actually quite an attacking one against England. They could and should have seen out the spell by taking easy singled and tiring out their impaired bowling attack. A complete misread in my view that ultimately cost them the game.

What’s most disappointing about this is these batsmen have far too much talent to bat the way they are. Being aggressive doesn’t mean being gung-ho. Harry Brook and Ollie Pope trying to hack a hook from off stump does disservice to the talents they possess.

Ultimately, bazball or any new strategy was also going to need refinement and it would be interesting to see how that plays out. For me, it’s important to be clear what the ultimate objective is. If it is to play entertaining cricket and not worry much about results then clearly job done but if it’s to also prioritise winning, it’s going to need refinement. Selections also need to value temperament as much as they do flair and talent.

So the JB dismissal, I’m usually someone who is completely fine with mankading and find the arguments of using spirit of the game quite sanctimonious and illogical against it especially in the shorter formats. How can it be in the ‘spirit’ of the game to allow the batting team to get away with having a massive advantage but have no means to punish them for it.

However, the JB dismissal was a farce. A lot of my friends have pointed out to me that technically it’s out and rules are rules and indeed this was the prevailing wisdom of sky commentators however it ignores that cricket has a lot of funny rules that would technically mean a batsman is out in a lot of situations e.g. if batsman picks up the ball even if to hand it to fielding team , he can be given out if the fielding team appeals. This almost never happens. Second, it’s quite clear to anyone watching, JB was not benefitting from walking down in any way, he clearly thought the over was up and getting out for not knowing the exact moment when the ball is dead between overs is quite an extreme price to pay. Also a lot of people have said to me that he should have waited for the over to be called by the umpires. This doesn’t always happen in cricket even in international cricket so that doesn’t have merit.

Anyway on to Headingley….

So unsurprisingly and inevitably Arsenal are self discombobulating again. Hardly 10 games in and the fans have turned on the manager and the captain.
They aren’t wrong to feel that way of course and I’m not here to lecture anyone on how they express such emotions but this is a good opportunity as any to take a look at Arsenal and the league at large.

So one of the main complaint of the anti-emery gang even when arsenal win the odd games is the lack of flair in the football we see. Fans talk with immense nostalgia about wenger-ball and how they were okay with the results because the team had “identity”.
I usually roll my eyes at such opinions. I mean there is recency bias and then there is some form of memory loss. Arsenal haven’t played attractive football since the Nasri-Fabregas era was disbanded. Sure, there were a few moments of flair when Carzola and Ozil played one touch football but the main criticism of the latter wenger teams had been the lack of creativity. There would be constant sideways passes to the full back without much impetus on how to beat a set defense. We had our moments in transition but even those were rare and few partly because of arsenals inability to press and win the ball.

Now does that mean I believe fans are being spoilt in demanding to be entertained even when arsenal win? No, of course not. I just push back on the notion that we were playing champagne football under wenger.

Another common belief I hear around arsenal fans is that the club has become too corporate and focuses more on successes off the field than on it. Again, I think arsenals current board and management have drastically failed in both ventures by actually not recognizing the two are strongly correlated. They tried to market themselves as a good avenue for companies to bring their clients or guests as demonstrated by the number of corporate suites at emirates, taking advantage of their plush central London location. They gambled on ticket sales etc being their main source of revenue. Of course, the model has turned on its head with majority of a clubs revenue coming from TV and commercial sponsors.

What drives commercial sponsors? Success. What made Manchester United such a commercial juggernaut under Ferguson. It was them successfully building a brand of champions which allowed them to demand premiums from brands that wanted to be associated with Manchester United, the team of proven winners.
Liverpool is enjoying a similar surge in commercial revenue built of their recent successes. Why would a brand want to be connected with arsenal. Sure, they can point to their global reach but surely even they realize most of that strong global brand presence was built off teams from past decades with kids from Mumbai and shanghai admiring the Henry, Pires etc of the world.
But, all blame doesn’t really lie with arsenal. It’s also to do with the structure of the premier league which doesn’t really enable upward class mobilization from the ‘haves’ and ‘have not’ clubs.
Liverpool have managed to do it successfully by excellent player recruitment and finding the right manager at the right time. Is that replicable ? Maybe. Likely ? Hell,no. Ultimately , a club needs a huge wage bill to succeed in the league and some clubs that don’t already offer the brand or champions league have to lure potential star players by paying even more to build a squad capable of realistically targeting league honours.

This ultimately brings me to my main point about the league. What is the actual point of it. If you’re a team in the doldrums of mid table. Is avoiding mid-table relegation enough of an incentive to keep you engaged in the happenings of your club. Enough to follow them up and down the country? Enough to be emotionally invested? Of course, the answer for previous generations was an emphatic yes because supporting their club was a part of their lifestyle, embedded in their culture. However, in an increasingly globalised world with easy access to different forms of entertainment, I doubt this trend continues.
Premier league clubs need to have a coherent strategy of what exactly their fans are buying into. What’s the vision? How do we get to the top? Unfortunately the structure of the league doesn’t really allow for any easy answers.
In American sports leagues, it’s a widely established fact that the worst place to be is in the middle. You either compete for the title or compete for worst place as that allows you a good chance of landing the next biggest star from the draft (Lower placed teams get first dibs at the upcoming draft). This creates fairness and allows for clubs to be honest with their fans on what direction they are going to. It gives fans reasons to be engaged even if they aren’t competing for the NBA championship that year as they become invested in the youth player development. They understand when their window is and they are okay with it.
Compare that to a club like Southampton. What’s their incentive for adapting a youth movement. Sure, a coherent strategy would be , we are going to build from within and develop our farm players into the stars of tomorrow. But unfortunately the economics of the league dictates that any good players they develop will be utilised by other clubs

I think these are serious issues the premier league needs to answer and I think it would be a mistake to assume that fans level of interest and engagement will remain. Apathy is their biggest enemy and lack of engagement could really affect their next TV contract. My next article will be about looking at some drastic solutions to fix this but feel free to suggest some in the comments below.

Has everyone recovered from their cricket world cup hangover? Or like me, are finding themselves ambling around cricinfo a lot more recently, or are on youtube watching old cricket clips or are just replaying events that occurred over the past few weeks and playing the what-if game in their head.

In that regard, the cricket world cup was a huge success. It restored interest in a sport that has long been struggling to compete for attention with other sports. The cricket authorities have been aware of this and have implemented various responsive measures over the years. They did this via the introduction of ODIs, then coloured kits and now T20s along with introducing various batsmen friendly rules to support their long held belief that people love watching huge sixes and fours. Were they right? Well, that depends on your perspective.

I think what they did was turn off a lot of purists who struggle to often recognize the game they played or grew up loving to the one that’s played now especially on some of the more flatter decks around the world ( cough, India, cough). I think it’s not ridiculous to say that to succeed in today’s game you require a completely different set of skill sets than the ones you did in the 90 or early 2000s. However, they did succeed in attracting a new breed of casual fans who could now go to the cricket for an evening of entertainment. It no longer required the same level of commitment as watching a 5 day match or even the esoteric (and often confusing) knowledge needed to enjoy a game so in that regard they were successful.

Overall, I think what this tournament has shown, with a lot of low-scoring contests, is that people really just enjoy drama. We are at an age where reality TV is becoming increasingly popular but what better reality TV is there than sports at the highest level. Sports at the highest level and crucially in high leverage situations can serve up the greatest of dramas. It conjures emotions from fans, players that any odd match wouldn’t. It becomes a contest of not just the skills of opposing competitors but also a test of who manages the pressure better and that makes for gripping television.

This is what made the world cup different. The matches mattered and everyone knew it. The fans, the players, the crowd in the stadium. Throughout the tournament and especially in the semi finals and finals, we heard the pundits make comments such as ” on any other match, the team would be happy with their score but this is different….” .

Cricket shouldn’t have to wait 4 years to give their fans tense gripping situations which actually matter and situations where fans and players feel emotionally invested. The model of playing bi-lateral series with no defined format and crucially any purpose needs to be evolved.

We live in a society where there are multiple outlets competing for our attention and thus people aren’t as slavishly loyal to one sport ( nor should they be) or one source of entertainment. The entertainment industry has thus reacted and evolved, the way we consume media has evolved. It’s time for cricket to make changes too.

It’s also extremely unfair to the players as players make their reputations in high-stress situations. Will anyone that saw the world cup final ever forget Ben stokes’ performance in the final? I highly doubt it. Similar will be said about those who witnessed MS Dhoni in the 2011 finals or Gilly in the 07 finals. It’s unfair to offer these players very limited opportunities as professional sports career has a relatively small shell life to participate in such scenarios.

So you may be reading this and saying ok I agree so what are you proposing.

I think there are two ways to go about it. We either scrap the world cup altogether and come up with a 2 year long format where every team plays each other home and away in a set number of matches, much like the football leagues or the F1 championships. We then appoint the winning team a champion. There are some obvious issues with this. The main one being, India doesn’t want to play Pakistan. The other being, safety in Sri Lanka. It’s difficult to get tough with India but the obvious solution would be that pakistan and sri lanka play their home matches in neutral locations such as Dubai. I know they are trying something similar with test cricket but the format is quite shoddy as different teams are playing different number of matches with each other and they aren’t playing home and away. They also don’t have to play every team in the top 10. They only have to play 6 which introduces all sorts of inherent advantages for certain teams.

The second option is, we stop bilateral series all together except for test cricket and just play T20 and an ODI world cup every year. I honestly, don’t know why we don’t just do that. We could make the tournament longer. Each team could play the other twice. And for the rest of the year, we leave the players to play test cricket and participate in the various domestic T20 leagues around the world.

Personally, I prefer the second option. I am fed up of bilateral series. We are increasingly seeing players being rested for them because there are just no consequences for either the winner or the loser. the ICC rankings mean didly-squat unless you’re on the brink of relegation etc.

I grew up with cricket being my main sport and for the past 4-5 years it’s dropped to 4th or 5th. This world cup reinvigorated interest for me and a lot of people like me. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait another 4 years to enjoy this great and unique sport.