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MARCH 30, 2013

Cricket news

The instinct of walking away

As a lifeskills coach, one of the things that Michael Jeh teaches young cricketers is knowing when to walk away from a provocation fuelled by alcohol or drugs - situations that can quickly spiral out of control and end tragically for the people involved. In the aftermath of the assault on Jesse Ryder, Jeh, writing in the Mid day, says that recognising these situations is also an instinct that is honed over time.

It is this life lesson that I try to imbue in the minds of these young athletes who are used to living on razor- sharp instincts because that is the source of their sporting genius. And yet sometimes, there is that fine line between acting instinctively, and knowing when to defy instinct. Depending on the circumstance, either option could be a life-saver but the hard part is to know which button to push in which situation.

That is where repeated practice comes into play. For cricketers who are used to hitting a thousand balls a day, they often rail at the notion of sitting through workshops that simulate real life at a pub or a nightclub. Their young brains, still in the formative stage where neurons are making permanent connections, cannot readily grasp why it is necessary to practice life itself.

MARCH 12, 2013

Australian cricket

Making sense of Australia's troubles

In the Daily Mail, Lawrence Booth believes Mickey Arthur's decision to sack Shane Watson, James Pattinson, Mitchell Johnson and Usman Khawaja hints at larger issues within the team.

It's been a fragile arrangement, and in India the second half of the equation has been rendered less potent by the pitches. This won't matter so much in England this summer, where Australia's seamers may just win them a Test. But the defeats in Chennai and Hyderabad have confirmed a long-standing hunch: Australia just ain't that good any more.
And there's the rub. A nation that for 20 years grew accustomed to winning Test matches, sometimes from ludicrous positions, has been obliged to look in the mirror. Understandably, it isn't enamoured with what it sees.

Chris Barrett in the Canberra Times believes the sacked players are guilty of failing to be accountable within the team set-up.

Requesting players to put together arguments about their selection and value might seem wacky to many. People might scoff at the wellness reports too. But whatever the case, this point is inescapable. The players in question have not done what they were told.

In the Indian Express, Aditya Iyer believes the move to sack players is simply a case of bad man-management and the team think-tank would have done better to simply help the team through a tough series.

All said and done, isn't it the captain's job, or the coach's, to be coming up with the answers when their players -- who just collectively happen to have near-zero experience of playing in the subcontinent -- are asked difficult questions by the conditions? If not breakthrough solutions, then shouldn't they at least do their bit to uplift the morale as a young team spirals through a harsh learning curve? Not in this Australian set-up.