British sports writer Simon Hughes is caught between verbal volleys after he said in end-March that Sachin Tendulkar is the best batsman to ever take guard. The statement, expectedly, has caused a furore—with Australian fans questioning the objectivity and sanity of Hughes and Indian ones being equally vociferous to fight it out. Whether he is right or wrong is a minor question and the larger issue is that why should an opinion be greeted with so much hostility.
This is not a comparison realising the difficulty of comparing one cricketer definitely against the other when generations separate them. As Donald Bradman himself said: “Dealing with comparisons in cricket is harder and more complex than in most other sports.” For instance, one can compare athletes a bit more easily as the influencing factors do not change significantly. Swimmers, he argued, can be assessed strictly by the clock because ‘the water hasn’t changed’ (he was talking well-before swimsuits became scientifically bespoke)*
Bradman elaborated: “No such comparison is possible in cricket. Averages can be a guide… but are not conclusive because pitches and conditions have changed.” To that can be added innumerable factors: the cricket ball, the bats, all protective gear, laws, demands of the game, formats of the game, the amount of cricket played in a season, the pace at which the game is played (number of overs per hour), public scrutiny, media glare, the money, the live telecasts, the number of grounds, the number of oppositions; one can go on and on about how everything has changed.
And yet with all that hindrance the fact still remains that there is nothing that is as alluring and tempting as making a comparison. Out of respect for complexity and a disdain for reduction the best offer here is a prelude—a long setting of the scene to make a comparison. Compared to Tendulkar or Lara or Kallis or any other modern player, Bradman is a ghost, a phantom, because you can analyze the modern players till the cows come home as there is so much footage available while there is not even enough to watch him for a couple of sessions (at least I haven’t found it).
So we will look at the facts but more importantly listen to the stories as they are more potent and because stories are infinitely more fun they survive longer. What is essential is the care required to weigh a story because our weakness and our gullibility for them can lead us to believe a clever (read false) story used precisely to obliterate the real one.
The Black Swan
My prime purpose is to take you back to the most-important ‘crime scene’ in cricket’s history—The Ashes (England in Australia), 1932-33. It smells like a classic case of a ‘crime scene’ where the evidence has been tampered. So we will reject official versions from all sides and rely only on individual accounts. The individual’s search for truth is much more noble and trustworthy than the mass hysteria of an entire planet. I have picked some invaluable companions for this journey without any scientific basis and their selection is based solely on the relationship of trust I have developed with them as a long-time reader.
The names are in many dozens and where corroboration is needed I would refer to them and also list them at the end but I owe a special gratitude to two of them as they have travelled on a treacherous terrain full of mines and retrieved some lost gems: the two-time winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award Duncan Hamilton and the game’s pre-eminent historian David Frith. Opinions are just precisely opinions and I would love to hear a contrarian point of view in the spirit that it will lead to a better understanding of the truth.
The Bodyline Series, as it has come to be known, was arguably the most-significant series of all times for all that it revealed about the game and the actors that were there in the cauldron. It is a series that even all these years later has a pull with the discerning fan around the world.
I wouldn’t though be surprised if dozens and dozens of professional cricketers making a living out of the game have no idea about it apart from a foggy picture that any lay person with a passing interest has gathered from something heard somewhere. They would for sure know that no more than two fielders are allowed behind the square leg umpire. I don’t particularly-like or agree with the definition of a cricket player that journalist and author Bernard Levin gave but I always laugh heartily when it comes to my mind. “Cricketer: a creature very nearly as stupid as a dog.”
The framework of the argument draws from a few paragraphs by author Nassim Nicholas Taleb and his curiously-compelling book The Black Swan (The Impact of the Highly Improbable).
It is easy to see from personal experience as also from history that life is a cumulative effect of a handful of significant shocks. History and societies do not crawl. They jump. They go from fracture to fracture, with a few vibrations in between. Human experience is the same, dominated by a few major events that shape everything in an individual’s life while the rest is just a fill in the blanks; a vain attempt to understand what really happened. There are two possible ways to approach phenomena. The first is to rule out the extraordinary and focus on the ‘normal.’ The second is to consider that in order to understand a phenomenon, one needs first to consider the extremes.
For instance, if you want to get an idea of your boss’ temperament, ethics, and personal elegance, you need to look at him under the tests of severe circumstances and not under the regular rosy glow of daily life. Can we understand health without considering wild diseases and epidemics? Can you assess the danger a criminal poses by examining only what he does on an ‘ordinary’ day? The normal, in what we are discussing, is often irrelevant.
So if we agree that the Bodyline Series was the most-significant cricketing battle that ever took place then we have a chance to know absolutely everything that we need to know about the lead actors of the series by putting a magnifying glass over their actions as well as their performances. Or by putting the series under a microscope and examining what pressure does to individuals and to the unit called team.
The First Line
There has been so much said on the series that I have used one thousand and sixty six words before this sentence and yet not written the first line of the story. Can you tell me what is the first line of the story of The Ashes (England in Australia), 1932-33? If you want I can call it the Bodyline Series but you still will have to give me the first line.
England won The Ashes (England in Australia) 1932-33, after they defeated Australia in the fifth and the last Test in Sydney by eight wickets chasing the 164 needed to win in 71.2 overs. The emphatic win gave them the series 4-1. England’s Bob Wyatt and Wally Hammond were not out on 61 and 75 respectively. The Gloucestershire batsman Hammond was in his best form and finished the match with a glorious six.
This was for then. It will, of course, be changed now given the benefit or the curse of hindsight.
England won The Ashes (England in Australia) 1932-33, on the last day of the fifth and final Test in Sydney to win the series resoundingly by 4-1. The series was acrimonious and marred by controversies with their tipping point being incidents that took place on the second and the third day of the third Test at the Adelaide Oval in Adelaide. The police had to be deployed to keep the angry crowd from crossing the pickets and bringing any harm upon the players.
(*The Don’s words are taken from Harold Larwood’s biography.)
Connect With Me