Herding Cats Read online

  A last word about age. The captain’s age will shape the team. Many of the others will be from the same stage of life. In their twenties, the skipper will select friends from university and work; a decade later and the top order may all have children at the same school; another ten years on, and the children will have displaced their parents in the batting order. Earlier this season we played a wonderful game in Suffolk, in which a team long on experience and short on youth overcame the local side. Afterwards we stayed in accommodation that had until recently been a retirement home. As I looked round the breakfast table at the weary, hungover cricketers, I wondered how soon we’d be here again. There could be worse fates but I would have to select that XI very carefully.

  How much ability as a player is called for?

  When asking this question, Brearley had the Maharaja of Porbandar in mind – perhaps the worst player to turn out in first-class cricket. Once again class was a factor. When India toured England in 1932, it was felt that the side should be led by a prince. The Maharaja of Patiala was the original choice. He had made many of the arrangements for the tour and was a decent, if not exceptional, player. After he succumbed to injury, Porbandar took on the role. He was not a strong batsman and had the good sense not to select himself most of the time. He played four of the 26 games, and made a top score of two. My team-mate Tom was once mocked for owning more bats (four) than he’d scored runs in an innings that season (three). Porbandar’s critics pointed out that his garage housed more Rolls-Royces than he’d made runs on that tour.

  The likes of Grace and Bradman captained from the position of best player in the team. Making a century is the most straightforward way of inspiring your team to victory but the amateur dressing-room will usually be happier if the heroics are shared around. If we want to watch high-class cricket, we know where to go. We are here to play, not applaud the same team-mate each week. There is nothing more unifying than the unexpected match-winning contribution from one of the lesser players. There are few more joyful things than seeing someone making a century or taking five wickets for the first time. In a game on Warborough Green against the Bodleian Library, one of our players was wondering just why he’d bothered to take a day off work, when he hadn’t batted and, halfway through the second innings, hadn’t bowled either. Football and hockey were his sports, not cricket. Usually he’d be at a Premiership stadium on a Saturday, dashing off another match report. But he’d turned down work to stand in this field as the game went on around him. Twenty overs later, Jonathan was buying jugs of beer in the pub, talking everyone through every single moment of his five-wicket haul – the dip, the turn, the top-spin – with the zeal of the sportswriter who now has a feat of his own to recount to the world. This wasn’t his finest performance, however. That saw him take four wickets, make extraordinarily good sandwiches for tea and then do all the washing-up. In Sunday cricket a true all-rounder does so much more than bat and bowl.

  Is he likely to be a batsman or a bowler?

  In the professional game it is generally accepted that batsmen make the best captains, with a few fine exceptions. You don’t really have to make tactical decisions when batting, but you do when bowling and so it is harder for bowlers to manage. However, in Sunday cricket we still ask what type of player should a captain be. As in the rest of life, most are guided by what we perceive as our own qualities when we make pronouncements like this. We usually want to see a leader in our own image. Batsmen think captains should bat. God forbid you have a skipper who wins the toss and puts the opposition in. In the same way, if you bowl, you want your skipper to understand your craft. After all, he’s setting the field for you. For the first over at least.

  The captain should always seek to understand the facets of the game that he doesn’t specialise in. My own weaknesses begin with opening the batting and end with setting the field for spin bowlers (taking in much in between). I don’t fully understand either métier, as my team-mates can testify. I can grasp the idea of playing oneself in and that the first ten overs with the new ball from the opening bowlers are the most dangerous. But I despair when the rocklike opener stays there, blunting the attack in the 20th over when he should be attacking. Why would anyone play cricket like that? Eventually he perishes and the middle order is left with a huge task if we are to make any sort of total. We don’t and return to the pavilion, hoping that batsman might have fled the country in the second half of the innings or used the revolver we left on top of his kitbag. We take the field, having given our spin bowler nothing to defend. I make the situation worse by arguing with him in his first over when he tries to move two fielders on the leg side out of the ring to the boundary. Neither of the fielders in question can catch, and the batsman will easily be able to take two – if not three – to them, since they can’t throw either. The bowler looks at me in horror, as I break the cardinal rule of captaincy, in acknowledging players’ limitations publicly. I can see him thinking, “If he says that about them, what does he say about me?” I’m much better at setting a field to my own bowling. Then at least I know what I’m trying to do. All too often the captain has one plan and the bowler another.

  So who do you choose? Brearley suggested that a slow-bowling all-rounder made the best leader – he named Richie Benaud and Raymond Illingworth as examples of this. Certainly slow bowlers need good captaincy, better than mine. Even Test spinners complain that their skippers don’t understand what they’re trying to do. Making the spinner captain means no one can be blamed when it all goes wrong. Rightly loved as a commentator, Richie Benaud was just as popular as national captain, leading Australia out of the post-Bradman doldrums. A hard-hitting leg-spinner, he was admired for his tactical brain, willingness to experiment and always adhering to the finer principles of the game. What gives us hope is that neither he nor Illingworth were born leaders. Illingworth wasn’t made captain of a first-class side until he left Yorkshire and moved to Leicestershire, at the age of 36. He turned out to be a brilliant leader, and there were moments when almost every one of his bowling changes seemed to produce results. He was notorious on the county circuit, however, for not bowling himself in unhelpful conditions. He was also fond of being not out at the end of an innings. Both of these qualities are familiar to anyone who’s played Sunday cricket.

  The problem you face is that almost all of your players see themselves as slow-bowling all-rounders. Even the keeper will fancy turning his arm over from time to time. The exceptions object to the word slow, seeing themselves more in the Ian Botham or Imran Khan mould. As a rule, you are fortunate if the player has mastered one discipline, let alone both. The challenge that you face as skipper is how much to bat and bowl yourself. In The Art of Coarse Cricket, Spike Hughes wrote that you should always open the bowling and bat 11. (He also advocates placing the more elderly fielders in front of the bat because they lack the reflexes to get out of the way of the ball.) Most years we play a team where the captain bowls almost unchanged at one end. That is his privilege. But if he fails to get wickets, he gets steadily angrier as the game progresses and I would be wrong if I said this made the day more enjoyable. I would also be wrong if I say that I’ve never done this myself.

  There is a school of thought that says fast bowlers lack the cool detachment necessary to lead effectively on the field. The quick’s key qualities are aggression, hostility and a bit more aggression. What is more enraging than having a good-length delivery hit over your head for a one-bounce four? When it happens twice more in an over, the bowler is hardly going to suggest someone else has a go. A true quick will roar in again and try to knock the batsman’s head off and onto his stumps. The match situation is forgotten in favour of single combat. Rage is just part of the paceman’s arsenal. He will berate fielders for grassing yet another catch, mock the batsman for missing yet another perfect outswinger and once he’d edged one might follow him towards the pavilion with some well-chosen abuse. Jeff Thomson and Dennis Lillee led the Australian attack in this way and were perhaps the
most awe-inspiring pair of bowlers ever. If facing them was frightening, captaining them must also have been intimidating. Kim Hughes said “there were some days when Dennis wanted 25 on the field”.

  Standing at slip or mid-off, batsmen coolly assess those standing at the crease and devise plans to get them out. They will have faced their bowling attack in the nets often enough and should know their strengths and weaknesses, what they can and can’t do. And not being caught up in a personal duel with the batsman, they won’t allow their tempers to get the better of them. But batsmen are not immune to losing their rag. A batting captain who has been dismissed cheaply is quite capable of staying in a state of fury all afternoon. The times I’ve opened the batting, I’ve been run out without facing a ball, having been called for an ill-judged single in the first over. I’ve been out first ball. I’ve probably been out second, third and fourth ball, too. In all of those cases I’ll have barely given the game another thought for the next 30 minutes, as I fumed on the boundary’s edge. It is then that one of your team-mates wanders up to ask where he’s batting. The first to do this gets put at 11, always. Depending on the foulness of your mood, you might even send him out to umpire until then. Wiser heads wait until someone has gone first, before asking their position in the order.

  Of course, the captain might be a keeper, rather than a batsman or bowler, but most agree that keeping is a challenging enough job without the added burden of captaincy. Like the skipper, you have to be alert the whole time. You have the best seat in the house, able to study the batsmen better than anyone. At the end of the over, the batting pair will wander towards each other and talk their strategy through, as if you can’t hear what they’re saying. Who better to advise the skipper on what to do next? The best keepers are loud in the field, encouraging fielders and keeping energy levels up. In our level of cricket they have to do so much more, tidying up after the fielders and making their throws look slightly less terrible. Those captains who kept wicket usually gave up the gloves quite quickly. Brendon McCullum, Kumar Sangakkara – even Brearley was a keeper once.

  The final category of captain – a non-batting, non-bowling version – is commonly found in the natural habitat of Sunday cricket. It is much easier to keep your players happy if you aren’t competing with them for overs or a position in the batting order. Most captains struggle to find a player who genuinely doesn’t mind batting at 11. If you are happy there, then you can put the others where you please. They will complain less when you are below them in the order. These captains might be hopeless players in the Barrie mould but quite often they are good, experienced cricketers who play on Saturday and captain on Sundays, to bring through the youngsters and ensure they enjoy their cricket. But this requires a level of dedication that’s beyond all the most enthusiastic amateur cricketers.

  Taking Stock

  The Sunday game is not known as an arena in which players strive to better themselves. The books written about it have mostly gloried in their players’ uselessness. J. M. Barrie described his players practising on the train – doing so on the pitch would only encourage the opposition. Marcus Berkmann’s Rain Men and Zimmer Men are two of the best and funniest books written on amateur cricket but victory is a largely alien concept to his side. Yet if the aim in Sunday cricket is to win while involving the whole team, surely it is possible to find failure amusing and yet try not to experience it too often. The key is planning, preparation and practice, the latter being something that amateurs rarely do well, if at all.

  What programme does he advocate for the players’ pre-season training and practice?

  It is a dark and stormy night. Even worse, it’s rush hour. I walk to the Tube with my cricket bag and wait on a crowded platform for the next train. Harassed commuters glare at me as I manoeuvre myself and my bag through the crush and into a corner. I get off at the right station and walk to the ground where I get changed, ready for the net session I’ve been looking forward to all day. Seasonal affective disorder hits the cricketer hard. In September we are taking every opportunity to play cricket that we can, only too aware that we will soon be engulfed in seven months of darkness. Persephone had nothing on the amateur cricketer. The only respite we have from Hades is these nets. We aren’t really there to improve, so much as to stay in touch over the winter with the game that we love and with our team-mates.

  Not that you’d think it, to listen to the other players there that evening. My group is late, which is not unusual, and I’m in the changing room with a particularly awful lot, none of whom I’ve seen before. They don’t seem to love anything, certainly not cricket. I used to play against a side called the Nihilists, who, disappointingly, didn’t play in black nor believe that life was essentially meaningless. These guys do, to hear them talk. Net sessions provide you with a fascinating glimpse into other teams. Each side has its own dynamic, its own shared ethos. We’re at the pretentious end of the scale, obviously, as a team of writers. Short of a side of conceptual artists, it doesn’t get worse. I often wonder what others make of this team of bespectacled historians, novelists and the odd poet. League sides are brought together by geography, and many Sunday sides are formed by friends after school or university. We are an exception, with our qualification that you need to have been published to play.

  Listening to this lot, I question the romantic idea that sport brings people together. These guys really don’t seem to like each other. I’m reminded why so many of us stopped playing team sport as soon as we could. The irony is that we returned to it some decades later, when our bodies were on the wane. These cricketers are waxing rather than waning. The most obese among them is complaining about his wife. I feel for her. His belly hangs low, surely removing the need for a box, and a shriek from his team-mate suggests he’s urinating in the shower. “Oi, Monkey”, they shout – for that is his name. I change even faster than usual and leave the changing room, thankful that I’m extremely unlikely ever to see Monkey on a cricket field. I look at the notice board which tells you which team has booked which net and make a mental note never to arrange a fixture against any of them.

  We spend an hour bowling and batting badly. According to the 10,000-Hour Rule, we have a way to go before we can be considered world class. I’m not convinced that another 9,999 hours of practice will do it. Anyway, our net sessions are not really about improving so much as bonding. If there wasn’t a pub to go to after nets, I don’t know that everyone would turn up. The cricket we play indoors bears no resemblance to the game that faces us at the start of the season, when the cold, uneven bounce and nagging accuracy of the openers will cause our batsmen to wonder why they bother. Amateur cricketers shamelessly imitate the professionals in a variety of ways but the one thing we do avoid is serious practice. We regard it with suspicion and tend to get it wrong. Our favourite players (Viv Richards, David Gower or Ian Botham) rocked up and flayed the bowling attack effortlessly to all parts and so why shouldn’t we? Practice was what the players with glasses did. Growing up, no one dreams of being Peter Roebuck, Chris Rogers or David Steele. So the average net session contains little that will actually help anyone improve as a player. Batsmen play their shots freely from the start, refusing to acknowledge a dismissal that doesn’t see three stumps splayed. In their imagination, all their uppish shots into the netting race all the way to the boundary. Whereas in reality, they would have been out half a dozen times in ten minutes. April will be a cruel month for them. Meanwhile, bowlers can’t settle into a rhythm. Just as they’re starting their run-up, a team-mate wanders out to throw down some utter filth. He doesn’t bowl usually and nor should he. But he quite fancies trying out that new doosra he’s seen in the IPL. Most batsmen are just there for their turn at the crease, after all. Helping others improve is not at the forefront of their mind. An amateur captain wishing to impose a pre-season training programme on his team will find himself sorely disappointed. But perhaps that is his own preparation for the season ahead.

  How much attention has been give
n to the state of the nets?

  As a wandering side, we are luckier than most in where we can practise over the winter. Instead of shabby nets, where a fierce cut or pull endangers the batsman in the next lane, we have the excellent facilities of the MCC Indoor School at Lord’s. This allows us fewer pre-season excuses. But nets are cricket-lite. The sting has been taken out of it. There is no real risk – no first-ball dismissal, no steepling catch at long-off that you will drop, no unending over of wides and no-balls. And on a good, docile surface, you’re as successful as your imagination allows you to be. Some players are much, much better at nets than they are when summer comes. They enjoy them more and nerves don’t come into play. Some bowl consistently and well in the winter and yet can barely hit the cut strip in the summer, forever sensitive to a bout of the yips. In boxing these fighters would be described as shot. In cricket they play on, as a batsman, keeper or specialist fielder.