Michael Jeh
Australia's grassroots problem
Is it worth forking out the equivalent of a month's mortgage for your ten-year-old to play for a representative team?
Michael Jeh
06-Oct-2013
For young Australian cricketers with ambition, this time of the year can be an exciting one. Those who are ten years and upwards begin to taste the life lessons that come with trialling for various representative teams, learn to perform under pressure, cope with disappointment, occasionally savour triumph, and most importantly, realise that this is a long process that has very little relevance to what happens a decade later at first-class or international level.
My ten-year-old son is in the first stages of this education process. He is only moderately talented, so I'm guessing the end of the line is nigh. Thus far, he has made it through a few selection trials and the lessons learned have been useful, especially in staying composed in those tense moments when team selections are being read out, where one boy's disappointment is another's chagrin. We prepared him for both scenarios and he came through the process with reasonable grace and humility when he was lucky enough to be among the 12 selected for his district team.
As someone who has been through the system (albeit in the 1980s, when things were different), I was at some pains to point out to him that his future success will have little to do with junior teams. At the end of the day, it will be runs and wickets in senior (grade) men's cricket that will count. Yes, the extra coaching may help to improve some player's prospects of making it into first grade but they still need to put numbers on the board. No one gets selected to play Sheffield Shied cricket based on what rep teams they made at 10, 12, 14.
Full postInjuries could decide the Ashes
Both sides are similarly matched in batting and bowling, so it may come down to who can stand up on the field longer
Michael Jeh
24-Sep-2013
So it's all done and dusted then. Put away the glasses. The forthcoming Ashes series in Australia is a foregone conclusion. Boof has worked out all the England batsmen and has plans for them all.
England's squad was described by Darren Lehmann as "dour". Whilst I would have to agree with him that it's not exactly full of flashy strokeplayers, in the Test series just concluded they were, generally speaking, no slower than Australia's batsmen. They scored quickly when it mattered and played with caution when the situation called for circumspection. Exciting it may not have been but I'm sure Lehmann would have happily traded some of that dourness when Australia collapsed spectacularly at Lord's and Durham.
Isn't that what Test cricket is all about - adapting to the conditions and match situation, playing ugly when you have to and scoring freely when circumstances dictate? Like that final session at The Oval when England almost chased down the target created by a brave and desperate Michael Clarke. Dour? Sour perhaps. Grapes, that is.
Full postCan liability be enforced in sport, like in business?
Umpires and referees make mistakes, but challenging them legally in the name of professionalism would be taking things a step too far
Michael Jeh
18-Sep-2013
Rugby league is a sport played seriously only in Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain. For those of you unfamiliar with the rules, it can be simplified thus: take 26 hulking brutes, split them up evenly, throw a ball in the middle and allow all manner of mayhem to evolve. Pretty much anything goes, on and off the field. Unlike in cricket, the referees are only charged with ensuring that any thuggery is restricted to anything that falls within the remit of what "real men" do. It's kind of like football, wrestling and boxing combined, but played with deadly serious intent, with plenty of beer consumed afterwards in a time-honoured ritual. Even at junior games, it is not uncommon for spectators, including women, to engage in all-in brawls, as witnessed recently in Brisbane. It's all very quaint, much like gladiatorial Rome. Lions and Christians are optional.
The latest case in Australia involves a rugby league match in the finals of the national competition. Without going into too much detail, the six match officials (on-field and off) appeared to have lost count of the number of tackles and the team that went on to win the game scored a try in that extra phase of play when they should not have been in possession of the ball. Similar to a batsman being bowled off the seventh ball of an over, I suppose.
Howls of protest and outrage followed. Local news bulletins ran it as a lead story, despite pressing global issues that threatened mankind. Many fans called for the match to be replayed or awarded to the losing team. For a fan base that treats scandals involving alcohol and disrespect for women with relative insouciance, the outrage reserved for what appears to be an honest mistake is laughable. This is the same sport where fans and commentators roar with approval when a player king-hits somebody, shrug nonchalantly at eye-gouging, fingers up the rectum, and testicle-twisting, but they want a replay when a referee makes a mistake?
Full postIs spin Australia's future?
Going by the number of spinners in a recent U-11 trial in Brisbane, it looks like Australia's attack might come to be dominated by slow bowlers in the future
Michael Jeh
13-Sep-2013
Wednesday's not-so-surprising decision that the WACA ground in Perth will not host a Test against India in the 2014-15 season comes at a time when some uninformed commentators have been bemoaning pitches that have apparently been tailor-made to suit home teams playing against Australia. Losing 4-0 in India and 3-0 in England (which didn't really do justice to Australia's combativeness) were accompanied by howls of protest from some Aussie fans, led by lazy tabloid writers who wrote darkly of sinister plots to prepare pitches that would nullify Australia's traditional strengths.
In that context, those in the conspiracy camp will be cursing Cricket Australia's decision to abandon Perth as a venue against the might of the Indian batting line-up. The 2008 match notwithstanding, India have generally struggled on that fast, bouncy pitch, although I can't see any reference to that pitch being described as sub-standard or "doctored", especially in the most recent Test between the two countries, which finished inside three days. Nor should it be. Australia comprehensively beat India throughout that summer on excellent cricket pitches, relying on their skills being superior to India's in Australian conditions. David Warner showed that the Perth pitch was superb to bat on if you had those skills, in much the same way that Shikhar Dhawan, Murali Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara showed similar skills on turning pitches on which the Australians struggled on this year, despite winning all four tosses.
The Perth decision needs to be viewed in a purely financial context, hopefully for just one season, because of the tight World Cup schedule in 2015. Cricket Australia had a tough choice to make and it predictably went for the choice with the best dollar returns. In that context, it was a no-brainer and the board should be commended for making a decision that was fiscally responsible instead of one that may have enhanced Australia's chances of winning a Test match. As predictable as the WACA's disappointment was, had Adelaide or Brisbane missed out, those administrators and fans would have been equally vocal in their protests. For Cricket Australia, it was one of those "damned if you do and damned if you don't" decisions. No doubt it anticipated a backlash from the WACA and was prepared for the inevitable yelps from the west.
Full postAshes myths and realities
An amateur stats analysis of the recent series, and a look at what we could expect Down Under at the end of the year
Michael Jeh
03-Sep-2013
England prepare doctored pitches that crumble like dry biscuits after day one. Australia's fast bowlers prey on loose English techniques outside off stump. England focus on playing defensively from the outset. ECB instructs curators to prepare pitches to suit a team that scores heavily in first innings of the Tests.
These sort of headlines or generalisations are all too easy to produce but do they really stack up? Being the cricket tragic that I am, I've done an amateur analysis of some stats from the recent Ashes series to see what conclusions can be drawn. It will be interesting to compare these numbers to those in the forthcoming series in Australia and gauge how pitch conditions or a change in tactics may significantly affect these patterns.
Coin toss: England 3, Australia 2. All teams winning the toss chose to bat first. No team that lost the toss (batted second) won.
Full postWhat to do when you feel frustrated
If you're like Lehmann, you could swear, be comical, and not worry about having to think before you speak
Michael Jeh
25-Aug-2013
Remember the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy? The gods are bonkers again this week in Australia, just having fun with us earthlings. In the AFL we have a rip-roaring comedy where coaches who deny their guilt in a performance-enhancing supplements scandal are outraged by the fact that they may not be 100% guilty. According to them, guilt is a percentage thing, so presumably anything less than 100% means you're not guilty. It's like a batsman saying he only slightly nicked it so that shouldn't count as an edge.
In rugby, prominent Australians have been imploring the New Zealand crowds to stop their booing of Quade Cooper, an Australian player who has previously incurred the wrath of the Kiwis for thuggish behaviour on the field against their demigod Richie McCaw.
And on the same day that we're pleading with the Kiwis to stop dishing out abuse from the grandstand, Australian coach Darren Lehmann was asking Australians to do the very same to Stuart Broad when he visits down under for the Ashes later this year. These gods love ironic humour!
Full postDo nasty guys finish first?
Snarls and frowns can never guarantee success. Only the right combination of players can. So why criticise a captain for being gracious?
Michael Jeh
20-Aug-2013
I wonder which Michael Clarke we'll see at The Oval. If he's been reading any of the press from both sides of the world, he might be confused as to which persona to adopt as Australia try hard to avoid a 4-0 scoreline that won't really do justice to their fighting spirit and to his excellent leadership under duress.
Wayne Smith, writing in the Australian, was eloquent and informed in his analysis of Clarke's captaincy. Most good judges of cricket have applauded his attacking instincts in the field, clever bowling changes and innovative field placements. At the end of the day, though, two relatively evenly matched teams have contrived to produce a scoreline that reads 3-0, despite Clarke's captaincy, not because of it. The difference has been that when Australia have played poorly, they have done so badly enough to virtually surrender a game in a session. England's poor patches have been limited by some effective damage control to the extent where they haven't allowed the slide to become terminal. They have shown a bit more resolve in not allowing a mini-collapse or wayward bowling to spiral to the point where the game is irretrievable from that point on.
The Times' Alan Lee took a different tack in his post-match analysis after the fourth Test. His view was that Clarke (and by association, Australia) needed to cultivate more mongrel and stop being such a "nice guy". The basic tenet of his piece was that Clarke was smiling too much and was not putting on enough of the Mr Nasty act. Clarke's apparent cheerfulness, perceived by many as a sign of dignity and good grace, was now being written up as possibly a reason why those Tests were compromised. Lee cited Ian Chappell's truculence and Allan Border's grumpiness as prime examples of Australian captains who were successful because they were curmudgeonly.
Full postGive the umpire a break
Despite all the criticism that has been turned on them, the on-field officials are doing a decent job
Michael Jeh
12-Aug-2013
This gripping fourth Ashes Test in Durham hasn't been without small controversies, most of them focused again on the poor old umpires. Well, Tony Hill in particular. It's no secret that Hill has had a shocker in this game, but as Brydon Coverdale points out in his excellent article, he's not the first umpire to do so and nor will he be the last. More to the point, he's not the first person on the field to have made numerous mistakes in this game. Throughout this series, many of the players have been guilty of gross errors of judgement, both with bat and ball in hand as well as when reviewing umpiring decisions. Whilst Hill has had a forgettable match, his error rate may actually be lower than that of many of the players.
Yes, the Ryan Harris lbw was a shocker and that may have been a sign of a man low on confidence. But many of the other contentious ones given by Hill that were subsequently overturned were 50-50 calls. Chris Rogers' caught-behind in the first innings was close enough to not be deemed a howler. Just before that decision, Hill correctly picked up a tiny bottom edge off Usman Khawaja, so let's not forget that he got one of those tight decisions correct too.
Rogers' eventual dismissal, caught by a tumbling Matt Prior off the tiniest soft contact with the glove, barely even visible on Hot Spot, was certainly the correct decision, you could argue. If you have doubt (which Hill must undoubtably have had), give it not out. So that decision too was not an unreasonable one.
Full postIt all evens out in the end
If you don't walk when you know you've nicked it, there's no reason you should feel aggrieved if the umpire makes a mistake (with or without DRS)
Michael Jeh
03-Aug-2013
After the first day's play at Old Trafford, I was asked to speak to a national audience on ABC Radio to discuss the Usman Khawaja incident. In my preview notes to the producer (before day two's incidents involving David Warner and Tim Bresnan), this is what I said:
"My summarised viewpoint on this is that we can't get too caught up in the seeming injustice of it. Assuming we accept that umpires are neutral and that any mistakes they make are not motivated by bias, then Australia is no worse off than any other country. It will even itself out in the long run. I can think of many examples where Australia (or any country) have benefited from an umpire's mistake. When that happens, we're quick to shrug our shoulders and say, 'Mistakes happen, it all comes out in the wash, take the good with the bad' etc.
"We've also been very vocal in our criticism of India for refusing to use DRS when they play in India. The Indians have long argued that DRS is unreliable and we've been one of their loudest critics, arguing that it is still better than not using DRS. So now, we've just got to suck it up and live with human fallibility.
Full postAshton Agar's big challenge
Can he enjoy a sustained career at the top and still retain his essential core?
Michael Jeh
31-Jul-2013
The career of Ashton Agar will be a fascinating study of nature v nurture. On the face of it, we have a fresh-faced kid who appears to be a helluva nice lad. He's good-looking, modest, talented, and is imbued with strong family values and an admirable sense of perspective for one so young. His reaction to being dismissed for 98 on Test debut spoke volumes for how firmly grounded he is, though he would have been forgiven for daring to have his head in the clouds if he so chose.
On the flip side, he now enters a profession that can so easily corrupt absolutely. In Australia, and perhaps around the world, male professional sport can take a most charming young man and spit out a grizzled, surly, decadent old one. In some celebrated cases, you don't even need to wait that long; the system can change you before you are long in the tooth. The question I pose is whether Agar can enjoy a sustained career at the top and still retain his essential core personal brand despite a career in professional sport rather than because of it.
His will be a fascinating case study for me to follow. When I'm not hunting lions (with a camera) in Africa, I spend my days working with professional athletes from a variety of different sports in Australia. I've witnessed thousands of young men come through the system, find their feet on the big stage, slip up spectacularly now and again, and emerge from the other end of the sausage factory. What I've seen is a phenomenon that almost makes me wish that my sons won't ever make it in professional sport, despite the obvious pride I will have if the unthinkable happens - unthinkable only because they will have the weight of genetic disadvantage to contend with!
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