The Teesra

Category: cricket

  • Review — Football, The People’s Shame: How to Revolutionise a National Sport

    Review — Football, The People’s Shame: How to Revolutionise a National Sport

    A fascinating read on the “theft” of a national sport, and how the “People’s Shame” could be reversed.

    Football has always been the people’s game, so how can we reclaim it from the corporations and oligarchs who have stolen it from us?

    Micky P Kerr, in “Football, the People’s Shame”

    Starting with an historical perspective on the (professional) game, and how its governance has diverged so far from the fans, Kerr presents a radical proposal to reclaim the game for the people, and a discussion of the political climate needed to facilitate such a radical change.

    I am not an economist or a political scientist, so I don’t feel at all qualified to comment on Kerr’s proposals to reclaim the people’s game. Do read the book!

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  • “…and 10 of your own”

    For reasons too mundane to detail, I have paid several visits to the Nursery Pavilion at Lord’s over the last fortnight.

    The Nursery “Pavilion“ isn’t really a pavilion, in the cricket sense, but actually a corporate hospitality venue, tastefully decorated with a selection of cricketing quotes, insightful, funny, and satirical.

    One, attributed to G H Hardy, caught my attention.

    Cricket is the only game where you are playing against eleven of the other side and 10 of your own.

    And I felt obliged to defend the honour of the game I have played for more than 50 years, and coached now for 15.

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  • Where does the “meta-learning” & socialisation happen? Or — there has to be more to cricket coaching than hitting and bowling.

    Where does the “meta-learning” & socialisation happen? Or — there has to be more to cricket coaching than hitting and bowling.

    Back in the day, schoolboy cricketers (and it was, almost exclusively, boys, back then) played ay school, and were invited to play “adult” cricket, initially to make up the numbers and do the running around for the older players.

    But a lot of essential learning happened in the game, talking and watching, often in the bar after the game.

    Understanding how to win. How not to lose so often. Why a bowler might prefer an unorthodox field setting. How to get on with the rest of the team.

    But that learning opportunity has largely been lost.

    Partly because young players are not being led astray, into the bar, as used to happen. Probably not a bad thing!

    But also as the organised pathways develop, and more youth cricket is played, young players possibly get to play less with more experienced players.

    And I think that loss of exposure to more experienced players might need to be addressed.

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