Dave Hawksworth
The artistic bloke
As a player, Darren Lehmann was gifted and a perfect fit in any team. As coach, he could inspire Australia the way he did team-mates and fans for years in county cricket
Dave Hawksworth
27-Jun-2013
Does it seem premature of me to name Australia as winners of the Ashes? Not the actual Ashes; I mean the game of schadenfreude Ashes that Australia and England have been playing on their supporters over the last nine months or so. It's been closely contested - with every mistake made by one side allowing opposition fans a chance to briefly revel in the misfortune before seeing their own team respond by messing up in equal measure.
Ultimately Australia have had England covered every step of the way. England lose the first Test in India; Australia lose their series 4-0. England are bowled out for 167 on the first day of a Test in New Zealand; five days later Homeworkgate dominates the headlines. Punch, schadenfreude, counter-punch. All culminating this week with an England batting implosion during the Champions Trophy final that was followed almost immediately by Australia sacking their coach, Mickey Arthur.
Actually, it's unfair on Arthur's successor, Darren Lehmann, to characterise his appointment as another misstep in Australia's stumbling approach to the coming back-to-back Ashes series. The timing, just 16 days before the Trent Bridge Test, is ridiculous, but Lehmann has built a fine record as a coach, and I know from the time he spent playing for my county, Yorkshire, just how inspirational a figure he can be.
Full postThe perils of social media
Players will always get into trouble with alcohol. It's modern technology that they have to be wary of and learn to use wisely
Dave Hawksworth
15-Jun-2013
Even by the often ludicrous standards of professional sport, the recent David Warner v Joe Root spat is a pretty dumb story. Sure, there's a certain entertainment value to be had from watching cricket writers try to find meaning in an early morning bar argument over fancy-dress accessories, but beyond the revelations that Warner holds some fairly strong views on facial hair and that Root weighs so little he can be held back by Stuart Broad, I'm not sure if we've learnt anything new.
The incident, at its core, is just another example of how, for some young sportsmen, their ability to make judicious, instantaneous decisions under pressure remains a non-transferable skill from the field of play to their personal life. So whilst no one could have predicted Warner's fight-or-flight response would be triggered by a green and gold coloured wig, his subsequent actions had a wearisome familiarity for sports fans.
When the story started to break on Wednesday, the corner of social media occupied by cricket supporters reacted with equal predictability, as they proceeded to pick over the steady drip of fact, innuendo and rumour whilst spending the day endlessly churning over the same handful of played-out jokes based on Root's youthful looks and Warner's indifferent form. The only real surprise being that the large group of current cricketers with Twitter accounts displayed enough common sense to give the incident a wide berth, and those who did comment, managed to do so without making themselves part of the story. But then, Warner himself had provided a recent reminder to his fellow professionals of just how inadvisable it can be for sportsmen to react to news stories on social media.
Full postHeadingley - the '80s and today
Back in 1984, the country was in trouble, as was the cricket in Yorkshire and the national team, but crowds still flocked to Test matches. Things have changed since
Dave Hawksworth
30-May-2013
It's almost 30 years since I first sat on the Western Terraces at Headingley to watch a Test match; only a matter of days since I saw England complete a series win from what has subsequently been renamed the West Stand.
That first Test experience was back in 1984; perhaps not the greatest year for England in terms of cricket, or anything else for that matter.
Britain was in the midst of a deep recession, with Yorkshire on the frontline of a bitter miners' strike. But at the time I was a 16-year-old, enjoying the long summer days between leaving school and starting college, and, as such, largely oblivious to any truth in the old adage, "It's grim up north".
Perhaps if it wasn't for the excitement of attending my first international game I might have paid more attention to the rundown and abandoned factories that lined the railway commute into Leeds. And if it wasn't for my determination to get to the ground early and claim the best viewing my £5 could buy, perhaps I'd have noticed the faded shop signs and walls blackened by exhaust fumes that signal a city in decline.
Full postWho cares for the spectator?
As the game's powerbrokers manoeuvre themselves towards greater influence, they move ever further away from the ordinary supporter
Dave Hawksworth
16-May-2013
There must be subjects that are more tedious than the politics of cricket administration, but I'm struggling to think what they could be. Sure, the history of spoons isn't much of a conversational icebreaker, and I can't remember excitedly high-fiving classmates when we covered the formation of oxbow lakes during geography lessons at school.
Years later I worked with someone whose mind used to wander so much during the afternoon, he once calculated the direction of Mecca from within every lift in our building. He wasn't Muslim - I think he just wanted to be helpful if he was ever trapped between floors with someone who was - but even that guy's tolerance levels for boredom would be overwhelmed by the inner workings of cricket's various boards of control.
It's a subject even the most fervent supporter could happily spend their lives avoiding, yet over the last week or so the machinations of cricket politics have been stalking me on social media as the fallout from Laxman Sivaramakrishnan's election as a player's representative on the ICC cricket committee has continued to clog up my Twitter timeline.
Full postIs cricket slow on the internet uptake?
Fans have been at the forefront of using new media to expand their understanding and enjoyment of the game. It's time clubs and traditional media caught on
Dave Hawksworth
02-May-2013
Cricket and what is sometimes termed "old media" have a pretty good relationship. Newspapers have provided coverage since the beginnings of the professional era, reporting on events, and sometimes, as with the fake obituary that gave birth to the Ashes, being central to them. The game's languid grace and technical intricacies lend themselves to thoughtful prose, and newspaper journalists have, traditionally, provided intelligent copy that comes from a love of cricket's glorious complexity.
Television too is a good match, with the technology used for its coverage having improved rapidly over the last decade or so. Occasionally it can go a little too far - I could personally do without a cartoon duck accompanying batsmen back to the pavilion, and you sometimes worry that those controlling the broadcast rights to the IPL are only a season or two away from allowing umpires to be replaced by a CGI Jar Jar Binks hologram. But with the coverage of international matches, we seem to be in a golden age of innovation where technology is used to inform rather than distract.
That relationship between cricket and the traditional print and broadcast media has matured over decades, so that everyone involved understands the importance of working together to connect the game with its supporters.
Full postWhy cricket needs to make touring teams more effective
It might not seem in their best interests to potentially lessen home advantage but international cricket as a whole needs to increase the effectiveness of touring teams
Dave Hawksworth
18-Apr-2013
Cricket is a sport of contrasts and contradictions. A team game which can be dominated by great feats of individual achievement. One renowned for its aesthetic beauty, yet one which appeals to the statistical nerd in us all. A sport requiring a dedicated mastery of technique but one that is heavily influenced by factors outside of a player's control - pitch and weather - which can differ markedly from ground to ground and from country to country.
Those differences in conditions are an important aspect of the international game. Test cricket is - to borrow John Peel's description of his favourite band, The Fall - always different, always the same. So while the basics remain unchanged, an overcast morning in Durham asks significantly different questions of a player than an oppressively humid afternoon in Colombo.
For international cricket, that is both a strength and a weakness. The differing pitches and weather found around the globe provide variety but mean that while each series poses different problems for the touring side, it also gives a marked home advantage to players whose experience and technique were forged in the prevailing conditions.
Full postIPL, county cricket: you can enjoy both, you know
With springtime comes the fierce debate between the bright lights and loud noise in India or the grey backdrop and tweet of the birds in England. But one need not freeze out one for the other
Dave Hawksworth
04-Apr-2013
For cricket obsessives determined to keep up with all the latest play, the past few months have been a long haul. International tours have been scheduled against each other. High profile domestic tournaments have overlapped them both. A Test match in one country has been followed later that day by a one-day international in another, with a new Twenty20 tournament springing up overnight to fill the couple of hours in between. All narrated by a never-ending human centipede of television commentators ramming home how their match is essential viewing for the discerning viewer who hasn't yet had their cerebral cortex overloaded by the wall-to-wall coverage on offer. For the cricket fan who only needs four hours of sleep a night, we're living in a golden age.
But for those of us who have other things to do - a book to read, a pint to drink, a work anecdote from a family member to pretend to be interested in - it's been a relief over the last week or so to have a break from the relentless schedule of world cricket. A precious few days when the Live Scores section of the Cricinfo Chrome add-on has read "No major matches going on". A rather dismissive appraisal of the Sri Lankan and West Indian domestic fixtures actually being played perhaps, but a reflection of a rare period when Chris Gayle hasn't been bullying a T20 attack or Australia giving out Test caps to players still hungover from celebrating their first-class debut.
But like all lulls, it has to be broken. The sixth season of the IPL exploded into life yesterday, and a week later the County Championship will take a more leisurely stroll to the middle for the start of their five-and-a-half month long competition.
Full postCricket not immune from workplace incompetence
If cricket can truly be said to reflect life, we need to be less judgemental of the misunderstandings and stand-offs that surround the game, as they are just a reflection of the ludicrous situations we've all experienced in our own working lives
Dave Hawksworth
21-Mar-2013
For much of my adult life I've worked in the computer industry, which, like many professions that outwardly appear to be progressive, is in fact populated by people surprisingly resistant to change.
During most of my career I was a developer, designing and writing programs that complied with the prevailing in-house standards set out by my employers. It was work that at times could be fairly tedious. Work where you took greatest pleasure from any moment of genuine creativity you could carve out for yourself. It's for that reason that I tended to view company-wide standards as sensible guidelines to follow rather than hard and fast rules - with that tiny amount of extra flexibility giving me a disproportionate illusion of freedom in how I did my job.
So I wasn't overly impressed when developers at my company received a memo from one of our bright young things informing us he'd written a utility that could scan our work, line by line, to see if it complied with company standards. It checked that every 'i' was dotted, every 't' was crossed, naming conventions were followed to the letter and our work contained absolutely nothing that could scare the horses.
Full postDitch the ball and grab a bat
In the wham-bam era that is Twenty20, Dave Hawksworth urges all parents to reprimand their children for considering a career as a bowler. Just make them watch IPL 6
Dave Hawksworth
14-Mar-2013
I'm not normally one to criticise other people's parental skills, but I'm tempted to call social services whenever I meet someone irresponsible enough to nurture their child's dream of becoming a bowler. Haven't these people watched Twenty20? It's a massacre out there.
Edges flying to the boundary through a vacant slip cordon. Miscued shots disappearing into the crowd. Skied balls falling safely between converging fielders. All followed by grinning batsmen posing knowingly for the cameras, exchanging mid-pitch fist bumps as if their ugly hoick to cow corner had landed in the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Meanwhile, at the blurred edge of vision, the dispirited bowler, trudging back to third man with an economy rate in double figures, and a conviction that all sporting justice has been lost. Is that the future you want for your child?
Do yourself a favour, if you find them in the backyard trying to perfect an unplayable yorker, knock the ball out of their hand and give them a bat instead. And if their cover drive turns out to have all the co-ordination of a unicyclist who's been tasered, you can always find them other interests. Buy them a box set of the Saw movies. Let them play with the kid at the end of the street that enjoys killing rats. Encourage them to join a cult that worships fruit and only eats bees. Something, anything, which will cause less long-term psychological damage than being a bowler in the age of Twenty20.
Full postIndia's No. 1 fanboy
N Srinivasan's apparent affection for MS Dhoni reminds me of a Yorkshire barber I used to know - and is proof that even all-powerful industrialists-cum-cricket-administrators are still fanatics at heart
Dave Hawksworth
26-Feb-2013
I can remember the first time I encountered hero worship of a cricketer. It was when I was growing up in Yorkshire during the 1970s, which should give you a clue as to the subject of adoration, and it happened, oddly enough, at the barbers.
Back then, boys under a certain height were made to balance on a plank of wood placed across the arms of the hairdresser's chair. You spoke when you were spoken to, which you never were, and the style of haircut you got was none of your damn business. It was a pretty miserable experience, one I hated.
Fortunately I had an understanding mother who was willing to traipse me around town from one hairdresser to another until we found the little backstreet barbershop owned by Freddie.
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