Lewis A: Tenacity that provides the right example (Feb94)

Tenacity that provides the right example - by TONY LEWIS

So Allan Border, passing 11,000 Test runs, further confirms his achievement of having scored more runs than anyone else in Test cricket and Kapil Dev, with 431 wickets after India's Test in Bangalore, has now equalled Sir Richard Hadlee as the bowler who has taken most wickets. He will have the chance to go one better against Sri Lanka in Ahmedabad next week. Both are extremely tenacious characters. Both were slighted by the authorities along the way and were made more determined by their critics. Both understand the technical side of their game and their own limitations and, as a result, could apply their skills when and where required with confidence. Anyone who saw Allan Border's long, last-wicket partnership with Jeff Thomson, to England's discomfort in Melbourne in the 1982-83 Ashes series, knew that we were seeing a batsman with talent enough to manipulate a Test match. It is no accident that Border has made runs when Australia most needed them. He has an extra gear of concentration and skill when it is needed. His batting technique has been excellent, though his skills nowadays are in decline. His footwork has been crisp, right back or right forward and his balance at the crease superb. Kapil Dev's career may well have been prolonged by the absence of strong rivalry in the Indian fast bowling department. These days he is not hostile. On the other hand his method is classical. His run up, though shortened, is full of rhythm and he delivers the ball from very close to the stumps. His front leg is splendidly braced and the follow-through a lesson for all. He bowls straight, on or around the off-stump, and when there is movement, in the air or off the pitch, he gets it. No-one, not even the most punishing batsmen, scores runs off his bowling without due care and attention. In one-day internationals he is still most frugal. Good methods and strong minds endure - that is their message. But there is another observation to make, and that is the length of their careers. They represent the modern game for which there is a full calendar of Test cricket these days. In school, cricket can now be put on a career master's list. The cash rewards are improved. Both Border and Kapil Dev have made handsome livings: not in the professional golfer's class maybe, but still a livelihood worth pursuing. Their records will, of course, be overtaken as more and more school-leavers concentrate on cricket as a job. Golf, football and tennis are among many other careers on which schools should be able to advise. This is an observation, I hope, which will lend thrust to the Sports Minister's argument that team games should be compulsory in schools. Apart from instilling in girls and boys crucial competitive habits for a lifetime ahead, the games themselves offer shining careers for the successful. Though, it is a thought, that whenever young persons of the flair, resolution and stickability of an Allan Border or Kapil Dev come along, maybe we ought to make them the teachers, because without a staff room of balanced interests and competitive spirit, there will be no students to match. When writing such generalisations it is always best to recognise that life was never perfect. We had a devoted master at Neath Grammar School in the 1950s, Ronnie Williams, teacher of history and economics, who refereed at rugby and umpired at cricket. Cricket was difficult for him, however, because he had to be on the 3.45 James bus to Gwaun-cae-Gurwen every Saturday afternoon to make sure he caught the shops with his wife just before closing time. Quarter past three was a good time to come on to bowl. Leg-breaks pitching a foot outside leg stump had every chance of getting a batsman out 'leg before' even though it was against the law. After 3.30 a hat-trick might well be a distinct possibility and for these reasons we tried to bat first. There were awkward moments, as when the master of the visiting school asked why Mr Williams was running away from him, over the gate at the bottom of the field and we had to explain that he was not doing a runner because he had given out five batsmen in seven balls but because he had spotted the James bus easing over the Neath river bridge and had to sprint for it. These days, are we a country locked into theories of education which produce the sport ingly naive? One young England cricketer was said to be forced to tears by Australian sledging. In the corridors of British education, where no-one is supposed to feel a failure, I suppose he would get a house point for that - simply for turning up! Which reminds me of a school story from South Africa. In 1989 I visited Atteridgeville near Pretoria. On the rough ground that passed for a cricket field at Patogong High Primary School I watched 32 youngsters, all turned out neatly in mini-cricket T-shirts and tracksuits for practice in two nets. One net was supervised by Russell Cobb, the young Leicestershire professional and the other by Charles Kekena, a black teacher at the school. The nets were good, a level, artificial surface and the netting flawless. How come, I wondered? Facilities in black schools, if they existed at all, were usually appalling. Charles told me that Fanie de Villiers, the Northern Transvaal fast bowler, had helped them dig out the ground and lay the impressive nets. Which is why I decided to raise a glass to de Villiers the other day, when he took 10 Australian wickets for 123 to win the New Year Test for South Africa in Sydney. (Thanks: Daily Telegraph)