Peter Kettle |
George Dobell of The Cricketer magazine yesterday painted Joe Root’s press conference at Lord’s, where the second Test is being held against Pakistan, as showing real – admirable – leadership. In extolling the virtues of Root’s speech, Dobell saying:
“He provided just the sort of leadership England have been lacking in recent months. This is what leadership looks like…It’s fronting up, it’s stating uncomfortable truths, and it’s taking on responsibility at a time when others have gone missing.”
Well, what Root actually said about his looked-for behaviour off the field from the England players amounted to this, said in a number of slightly different ways:
- I’ve made it abundantly clear to my players what standards of behaviour I expect from them off the field at all times, and how we need to go about things moving forward.
- We have had “very robust” discussion on the matter.
- It’s okay to have a drink (of alcohol) in celebrating a result, but we have to behave as responsible adults in doing so – including reference at some point to having a “sensible beer” (which Monty Python could make great fun of).
- This latest episode (of Brydon Carse being handcuffed by the Police at around 4 am, just before the venue was closing) is yet another regrettable one of a whole series of them. It is very disappointing and distracting for everyone connected with England Test cricket and it must stop.
“It’s not the isolated (Carse) incident itself. It’s the fact we continuously keep making stupid mistakes away from the game, and it’s detracting from what we are doing on the field.”
- Root said he’d been encouraging his players to think of this – his reappointment as captain – as a new start and a new chance to win over disenchanted supporters.
- Then came a critical slant: The sought after improvement in off-field behaviour won’t, of course, happen immediately or even quickly he said, as it’s a pattern of behaviour that cannot be reversed overnight. “It is something we have to work towards over a long period of time.”
This last statement reflects a resignation that there’s an ingrained streak of unnecessary waywardness in the England players as a group. And it also cuts his players some slack (apart from saying that we all make mistakes occasionally).
Root is rather like a bather at Polzeath on the North Cornwall coast, at first gently paddling in the shallow and rather cold water, then wading in and slowly getting his legs wet, before immersing his genitals with a gasp – jumping up and down – yet still not taking the plunge. It’s all rather obvious words so far. Not even any reference to warnings about what if…So George Dobell, usually on the money, has it seems mislead us this time.
To elaborate: there was no hint from Root of what the consequences would be for a player who continues to transgress his guidelines, or rules, about being suitably responsible off the field of play. Nothing on the possibility of hefty fines, or other sanctions such as having to face a wigging by the Chairman of the ECB plus Richard Gould and Robert Key…perhaps with the former tyrannical Goochie also present for good measure, or the possibility (or likelihood) of dropped from the squad. None of that sort of thing emerged! It was all rather evasive, instead of being explicit, about some of the stuff that really matters.
As I have argued in these columns two months ago, a far better – more effective – approach would be what I regard as “enlightened laissez-faire, allied to player self-determination”. In short select, retain or drop players on the basis of whether they are performing up to their existing potential. Then there would be no inquests into “incidents” and everything that goes with them (apart from Police investigations where warranted). Yet it is a velvet hand in an iron fist, as the implicit message to a player is that if we – the selectors – realise you’ve been abusing your mind or body it will show in the level of your on-field performance, as would various other factors at work. These assessments are, of course, in substantial part subjective, and so the players themselves cannot argue their case on objective information alone.
This approach would, or should, I feel be highly motivating to someone like Harry Brook, despite having an excellent Test batting average (53.6 from 67 innings as we speak). The selectors would probe the matter of whether his batting could be considerably better if he didn’t get into scrapes such as being punched by a nightclub bouncer, as occurred in late-October last year on the evening before an international match took place, or indulge with some other members of the team in boozing in public places – as with a multi-day drinking session during a team break at Noosa as part of the last tour Down Under.
