“Spirit” versus “letter”: some thoughts about rules and leeway

The background

Last week, I wrote about cricket and codes, shaken 0ut of my self-imposed Rip Van Winkle reverie away from public writing. One of the comments I received was from Stefan Czerniawski, reminding me about David Weinberger’s talks and writings about leeway.

(Incidentally, if you haven’t read David’s work, please do so, starting with The Cluetrain Manifesto. I cannot believe that soon we will be celebrating twenty-five years since he, Chris Locke (sadly no longer with us), Doc Searls and Rick Levine helped prepare us for what lay ahead.)

On his blog, in 2002, David led us into thinking about the importance of leeway in a digital world. As he says, computers don’t do leeway. He then chose to devote an entire section to the concept of leeway:

The Need for Leeway

Let’s say you a sign a lease for an apartment. It stipulates that you are not to paint without explicit permission. But your dog scratches the bottom of the door, so you buy a pint of matching paint and touch up the dog’s damage. You are technically in violation of the lease but no one cares

Let’s say you’re a client of the Gartner Group. Their latest report says “Do not photocopy” at the bottom of every page. But it’d be really helpful if at an internal meeting you could distribute copies of page 212 because there’s a complex chart on it. So you print up 12 copies and hand them out, warning the marketing guy that he’s not to send it out to the press. If Gartner were to haul you into court, the judge would lecture the Gartner lawyer for wasting the court’s time. In fact, by violating your license, you helped ensconce Gartner more firmly in your company.

You are standing on a street corner when a father takes his young daughter by the hand and jaywalks. You don’t call the cops. You don’t even lecture him about why jaywalking is bad. You don’t do nothin’.

Leeway is the only way we manage to live together: We ignore what isn’t our business. We cut one another some slack. We forgive one another when we transgress.

By bending the rules we’re not violating fairness. The equal and blind application of rules is a bureaucracy’s idea of fairness. Judiciously granting leeway is what fairness is all about. Fairness comes in dealing with the exceptions.

And there will always be exceptions because rules are imposed on an unruly reality. The analog world is continuous. It has no edges and barely has corners. Rules at best work pretty well. That’s why in the analog world we have a variety of judges, arbiters, and referees to settle issues fairly when smudgy reality outstrips clear rules.

Matters are different in the digital world. Bits are all edges. Nothing is continuous. Everything is precise. Bits are uniform so no exceptions are required, no leeway is permitted.

Which brings us to “digital rights management” which implements in code a digital view of rights. Yes, vendors and users should have a wide variety of agreements possible, but the nature of those agreements is necessarily digital. If I agree to buy the report from Gartner with no right to print, the software won’t be able to look the other way when I need print out page 212. The equivalent is not having a landlord install video cameras everywhere in your apartment. It’s having him physically remove your mom when she takes ill because your lease says you can’t have overnight guests. 

If we build software that enables us to “negotiate” usage rules with content providers, the rules can be as favorable as we’d like but their enforcement will necessarily be strict, literal and unforgiving. Binary, not human. 

Leeway with rights is how we live together. Leeway with ideas is how we progress our thinking. No leeway when it comes to rights about ideas is a bad, bad idea.

Stefan’s post builds on David’s, and is itself well worth the read.

“Spirit” versus “letter”

In the post, Stefan tells us:

Leeway doesn’t mean that there are no rules or that some people are entitled to ignore the rules, it means that at the margin it may be more important to respect the spirit of a rule than the letter.

There have been a number of comments about the Bairstow incident suggesting that, when it comes to cricket, “spirit” is invoked whenever the outcome of following the letter of the law is not to the satisfaction of the spirit-invoker. I think that does a disservice both to the spirit of cricket as well as to the letter of the law of cricket.

Take Mankading for example, the act of a bowler running out a non-striker for backing up too enthusiastically. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been involved in discussions about Mankading being unsportsmanlike behaviour, somehow bruising the spirit of the game.

That’s nonsense.

Fairness

The non-striker, by taking off before the ball has been delivered, is stealing distance. He’s giving himself a shorter distance to run. Illegally.

The bowler, by running him out, is acting legally. And the non-striker is out. Legally.

This is where spirit comes in. It’s all to do with intent. Did the non-striker actually mean to steal the yard or two? It could have been a heat-of-the-moment aberration, like a false start in a sprint. And that is how, and why, the idea of a friendly warning probably came into common usage.

Leeway. Judgment. In context.

So it became normal for a bowler to warn the non-striker about his transgression, and to indicate that the next time, he may be run out. Spirit. And in time, letter.

Don Bradman, who I believe was at the crease when his partner was run out by Vinoo Mankad, felt that the non-striker was taking an unfair advantage.

It’s all to do with fairness.

Why do I write this now?

It is possible that we are going to have another right royal argument about spirit and letter and fairness very soon.

Why do I think so? As I inferred at the end of my last post, at Lords in the recent Second Test between England and Australia, the two teams pretty much won the Nobel Prize for missing the daily overs target. This, despite adjustments for wickets and weather and weirdnesses like the Just Stop Oil pitch invasion.

The two teams are up in arms about the potential penalties, since it means that both could land up with negative points from the match.

So the matter is being debated at some ICC meeting somewhere this week, and a ruling is expected shortly.

It’s a hard one. I can understand the sense of unfairness players may feel at having worked hard, creating a wonderful spectacle for all of us to enjoy, and then losing not just their match fees but also earning negative match points.

But.

The rules were clear. And established well in advance of the match. And in place for over two years, including an entire WTC cycle, 2019-2021.

The deficit was reported daily on the scoreboard, for the bowling team, and updated regularly. Neither side can say they didn’t know.

In fact, the same rules were used to pose penalties on both teams for the first Test at Edgbaston. Nobody complained then, probably because the penalties were lighter, which was because the transgressions were smaller.

I’ve seen neither the provisional judgment nor the appeal, so I’m surmising. How can the teams justify an appeal? They’re likely to argue that the modern game has changed, there’s an increased focus on winning, audiences are being treated to more entertaining fare as a result, run rates are running rampant, whatever. Yadda yadda.

The rules were clear. The rules were known. And the rules were broken.

The opportunity

However hard it seems, I think it could be a mistake to change the rules retrospectively. India, England and Australia are probably the three teams that have accrued the most penalty points since the introduction of the rules. Those three teams also probably have the majority of voting power at the ICC. Changing the rules retrospectively could have a very negative impact on the perception of fairness in the game by the other countries. That’s not something that is desirable.

There is, however, an argument that the new WTC cycle has just begun, no team has completed a series, so the retrospection only covers two completed Tests and will therefore be uniform across the whole cycle. A valid argument. But one that relies on how the teams outside the Big Three perceive the action and its fairness.

Whatever happens, there is an opportunity to improve the situation. Let’s step back for a bit. Why was the rule introduced? Because there was a worrying trend in the number of overs bowled in a day, across the whole of Test cricket. Some teams were guiltier than others of this particular transgression, and the penalty approach was seen as a way to improve performance on this front.

Now there is an argument that what matters is the result. I’m not so sure of that. I detest Pink Ball cricket, given how short those day-night Tests tend to be. (There is anecdotal evidence that it has to do with the lacquer used for making the ball pink; for sure something has to be done here).

I’ve also heard rumours and debates about reducing Tests from five to four days, and I’m not a fan of that change either. (I think the Ireland Test early in June was actually advertised as a four-day Test, and I was shocked).

Anyway, this is how I’m thinking. Leave the penalty process for unbowled overs untouched. Instead of changing that, add a few incentives. Add a positive number if the Test ends in a win for either team, with both teams getting that benefit. Add another positive number if the match only completes in the final session of the final day, win, lose or draw, again given to both teams. And add a third, larger, positive number if the match ends in a fifteenth-session tie.

A few other frills may be needed. I think it’s time for a limit on the number of times equipment can be changed, be it the ball, the glove or the bat, per session. A limit on the number of times the run-up and crease ground can be repaired, again per session. I’ve even considered the possibility of bringing in a rule that says once a team is more than x below the over rate (say 3.5), only spinners can be used until the “technical debt” is paid off.

Just some thoughts. Cricket is a wonderful game, and it’s all about fairness. That fairness is brought about by leeways that have been developed over centuries. Sometimes it becomes necessary to convert some aspect of leeway into law. Sometimes it will also become necessary to adjust, amend or even remove some laws.

As long as fairness is seen to be upheld, it will work. Otherwise it’s just not cricket.

How’s that? A rambling post about cricket and codes

The four types of code

Most of my working life, I’ve worked with information in one form or the other. As more and more things became “digital”, I spent time trying to understand how all this would work in society, in the real world, in a physical context. What was different and why it mattered. What I could do about it.

Some of that time was spent reading; some experimenting, seeing what worked; and some talking to people. Learning all the time.

One of the lessons I found most valuable was to think of there being four types of “code” operating in any given space: the law; software; market conventions; social norms. This “lesson” was heavily influenced by reading, listening to, and chatting with, Larry Lessig, and underpinned by the works of and conversations with Howard Rheingold, Cory Doctorow and Amy Jo Kim, amongst others.

Applying the framework to cricket

If you’re reading this, then you know I love cricket. I’ve been travelling to Test matches for over 56 years. This past month alone, I’ve been at Lords for the Ireland match; then at the Oval for India v Australia; then at Edgbaston for the first Ashes Test, and finally at Lords again for the second Ashes Test, which finished last Sunday.

We’ve had two great Ashes Tests: thrilling, packed with action and heroics, speckled with incident and controversy.

I wish I could get away with just “speckled”. My fear is that one of the incidents — the Bairstow stumping — will discolour and overshadow most of the memories people have of the Test. More worryingly, I fear that the incident could have negative ramifications that last for some time, perhaps years.

Some part of me then immediately goes into “root cause analysis” and “prevention of recurrence” mode. Why did this happen? And what can be done to prevent it happening again?

The “facts”

Let’s look at what happened.

  1. Bairstow ducked under a bouncer, which was then collected by the keeper. He then went walkabout.
  2. Carey, the keeper, having collected the ball, lobbed it underhand at the stumps, and hit them.
  3. The Australian team appealed.
  4. The on-field umpires, who had both been distracted, sent the appeal upstairs.
  5. The off-field umpire decided to uphold the appeal.
  6. Bairstow was given out.

Those were the “facts”.

The root causes, as seen using the four codes framework

So we’ve seen the “what”. Let’s now look at the “why”. Why did this happen?

Code as Law: The “Laws of Cricket ” view

What happened could not have happened unless Bairstow left the crease. This leads to one of the commonest observations from experts everywhere. He should not have left the crease until after he had confirmed that the ball was dead. But. Let’s pause there for a moment.

How does a batsman confirm that the ball is dead? To answer that we need to understand how a ball dies.

According to the Laws, a ball “becomes dead” when it is “finally settled in the hands of the wicketkeeper or of the bowler”, or when a boundary is scored, or the batter dismissed, or becomes trapped in clothing or equipment, or if a penalty is due related to improper re-entry or fielding, or if it hits a protective helmet on the ground, or the match ended. (Law 20.1)

In addition, a ball is “considered to be dead” “when it is clear to the bowler’s end umpire that the fielding side and both batters at the wicket have ceased to regard it as in play”. (Law 20.1.2)

To compound matters further, only the umpire can decide whether a ball is “finally settled”. (Law 20.2).

To summarise, the ball can either become dead or be considered to be dead by only one person, the umpire at the bowler’s end.

That’s what the Laws say.

So, if Bairstow had waited until the bowler’s end umpire had signalled Dead ball before meandering beyond the crease, would it all have ended happily ever after?

Possibly. Except. Except that he might have waited a very long time. Godot may have arrived first.

It turns out that the umpire does not have to signal Dead ball. To quote the relevant Law, “When the ball has become dead under 20.1, the umpire may call and signal Dead ball if it is necessary to inform the players”. (Law 20.4.1).

May. If it is necessary.

Now umpires don’t call or signal Dead Ball every ball. For good reason. It would be tiresome. So it only tends to happen when there is doubt. This is not a Laws thing, it is a market convention thing. Informal agreements that make the world work, probably an arcane example of Erik Brynjolfsson’s Theory of Incomplete Contracts.

Was there doubt? Hmmm. The bowler’s end umpire was busy completing his cloakroom-attendant duties, preparing to return Cameron Green’s cap to him. At the point when the ball hit the stumps, his mind appeared to be otherwise occupied. The leg umpire was also busy doing something else, as he prepared to start his next stint at the stumps; he was walking over from square leg. So neither appeared to be watching the action. They were going about their business preparing for the next over. Soft signals that suggest the two of them had already considered the ball to be dead. Yet neither of them said so. Perhaps they weren’t asked. Perhaps what they were asked was a different question, whether “over” had been called.

The argument of whether “over” was called is neither here nor there, other than the fact that it would have proved conclusively whether the ball was dead or not.

The calling of “over” cannot be done until after the ball has been deemed dead. (Law 20.3). “Nether the call of Over (see Law 17.4) nor the call of Time (see Law 12.2) is to be made until the ball is dead, either under 20.1 or 20.4.”

It is theoretically possible that Bairstow had assumed the ball was dead due to the actions of one or both umpires, even though Dead ball had not been signalled and Over not called. But that’s a stretch. Bairstow had been seen going walkabout earlier, he appeared to have a habit of wandering, particularly after ducking. So let’s leave that as a stretch.

It’s not important. Because what Bairstow believed does not have any impact on the umpiring decision, which only had to do with two things. Was the ball dead? And if not, was Bairstow in his crease or not when the ball hit the stumps?

That’s where I hit my first problem. I can’t find evidence that the bowler’s end umpire was actually asked whether he thought the ball was dead. Since it was technically a stumping attempt, the referring umpire should be the square leg umpire, not the bowler’s end umpire. The only person who could have deemed the ball dead may not have been asked the question. I believe Ben Stokes actually raised this point later, but I haven’t seen a formal response.

That’s enough as far as the Laws are concerned. If the ball wasn’t dead (a point that is still in question) and if the batsman wasn’t in his crease when the ball hit the stumps, then the batsman is out. That’s what the off-field umpire ruled. To most people, that’s the end of the argument. And maybe it is. Maybe the off-field umpire did ask the bowler’s end umpire whether he deemed the ball dead and was told he hadn’t. I just haven’t got the info.

Code in the form of software: The replay of the event

There’s nothing much to comment on here. The frames showed what they showed. At the point where the ball hit the stumps, Bairstow was out of his crease. The TV umpire decided that the ball was not dead, and that was that.

A few nuggets of interest remain and are captured in the frames. Did Carey launch the ball at the stumps before Bairstow went wandering? Not an issue from a Laws viewpoint, but potentially of interest from a Market Conventions viewpoint. Was the Bowler’s End umpire in the act of preparing to hand over the bowler’s cap before the stumps were shattered? Could it be surmised that the ball had been considered dead as a consequence. Possibly of esoteric interest from a Laws viewpoint, as and when people work on improving the Dead ball Laws. Until then, it’s interesting but not of much use. The result cannot be changed.

Code in the form of Market Conventions

Let’s assume that issues of Law have been settled, even though they haven’t. Let’s now move to the Letter-versus-Spirit argument.

Most of the debates I’ve seen that go down this route descend into pure whataboutery: what about what Bairstow did earlier in the match, what about Dhoni and Bell, what about Stuart Broad’s snick, and so on. I’m going to avoid those rabbit holes, won’t solve anything.

There are already Laws in place about unfair play and player’s conduct, as detailed in Laws 41 and 42. They deal with unfair actions, threatening behaviour damage to pitch or ball, etc. Some of them lead to outright penalties, and others lead to warnings that precede penalties if the offending behaviour continues.

Where the Law was found to be inadequate, informal conventions arose. For example, it was expected that a bowler would warn a backing-up batsman, one who was too enthusiastic in his backing-up, before “Mankading” him. (I dislike the use of the term Mankad to describe this but have to use it nevertheless). Now, with recent changes to the relevant Law, this may no longer be necessary. Onus has shifted to the umpire, if I’ve interpreted the change correctly. (Law 41.16, Batters Stealing a Run).

This makes sense. Sometimes the Law needs work. And convention evolves to fill the gap until the Law changes.

The Dead ball Laws need a serious upgrade. Conventions have evolved: the informal eye-check between batsman and wicketkeeper; the tap of the bat in the crease before the walkabout; soft signals that evolve to fill gaps. But these signals are still informal conventions, and need validation and formalisation.

The warning mechanisms have hitherto worked on the basis of “mate, you’re taking advantage, and it’s not fair. It goes against the spirit of the game. Please stop or we will take the action available to us, however unsporting it may feel to you”.

It has been reported that the Australians had noticed Bairstow’s behaviour. If, as has been suggested, Carey took a shy at the stumps before Bairstow had left his ground, on the off chance that he repeats his prior behaviour, it suggests premeditation. Premeditation without a warning. That becomes a market convention issue. Are we now to see a Mankading in one of the remaining Tests, one carried out without warning? No! Why? Because the Laws have caught up.

Code in the form of Social Norms

We’ve now had a situation where:

A bowler has bowled a ball which had no possibility of hitting the stumps

The ball sailed over the batsman’s head and was easily ducked

The batsman facing the ball made no attempt to play it

The two primary actions of cricket are missing from the episode

And yet a wicket has fallen.

To make matters worse, there is no argument to be made that Bairstow somehow gained an unfair advantage by doing what he did. (At least with Mankading, or with Running On The Pitch, the perpetrator was seen to seek unfair advantage. No such accusation can be made against Bairstow).

Not cricket.

That’s why there was uproar. No one is arguing about the decision per se, even though some elements of doubt remain. The umpire ruled him out. And that is that. Game over. The argument is whether the appeal should have been rescinded. And that’s really about market conventions and social norms. Spirit rather than letter.

It is possible that the event led to some extra fire in Stokes’s belly, and we could all enjoy the fireworks.

It is possible that even if the appeal was rescinded, the Australians would have won the match. There was still work to do, and England’s performance so far has been patchy.

It is also possible that the event motivates the whole England team, and that we have an even more exciting Ashes series in prospect.

Time will tell.

What is important is that the rancour does not spread, that we don’t see the scenes we saw in the Long Room or in parts of the ground outside the stadium.

Prevention of Recurrence

As John Mayall famously sang all those years ago, The Laws Must Change. (Incidentally, if you’ve never heard this before, I envy you. What a treat you have in store for you. I can say that about the whole album. The Turning Point is one of the finest albums ever made. California. Thoughts About Roxanne. Room To Move. A triplet as worthy as the Deadhead favourite of Help Slip Franks).

Time to improve the Laws related to Dead ball. The umpire’s job is hard enough without all this ambiguity.

When doing the improving, it’s important to come up with mechanisms that don’t slow the game down. Over rates are already appalling, and only made worse by the new entrants such as ball-change shenanigans. I don’t think that the penalties for the second Test have been issued yet, but I was at the game. I think England closed at -8 and Australia at -8 or 9. There were only 12 points at stake in the first place, so the net take from that Test between the two teams might turn out to be negative. (Unless there is some miraculous way to zeroise the under bowled overs since there was a result).

The road to 229, and other stories

Introduction

This is a post about cricket. A post about Test cricket. A boring, mind-numbing post about some of the numbers in Test cricket. Some very particular and arcane numbers. You have been warned.

The scoreboard in my garden

15 March 1877. That’s the day when the first officially recognised Test match began, between England and Australia, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).

3 January 2022. 52,889 days later. Today. Tests #2444 and #2445 are in flight, the first between New Zealand and Bangladesh at Mount Maunganui, the other between South Africa and India at Johannesburg.

Each Test consists of up to four team innings, up to two per team. Each team innings consists of up to 11 completed batsman’s innings (although at least one batsman per innings would remain “not out” at the end of the innings. So each Test match is capable of generating up to 44 completed batsman’s innings.

I haven’t counted all the completed innings so far; my guess would be that there have been over 90,000 such innings so far, perhaps as many as 100,000. (Here, I speak solely about men’s cricket, and solely about the Test variety. While more attention is being paid to the women’s game, I have yet to find good sources of in-depth statistical information that I can use. I’m sure this will be rectified in the next few years. It’s been a long time coming).

The bingo board

Over those 2445 Tests (*and counting), the highest score ever made by a batsman in a single completed innings has been adjusted regularly, as shown below:

During the first Test, at the MCG in 1877, Charles Bannerman, an English-born Australian, scored 165 and set a high bar for everyone else to follow. That record would stand for another seven years, until Billy Murdoch, another Australian, scored 211 in the 16th Test, at the Oval, in August 1884.

Murdoch’s 211 remained the target to beat till 1903, when RE “Tip” Foster became the first Englishman to hold the title. He scored 287 that year, away to the Australians at the SCG. (Incidentally, Tip Foster apparently remains the only person to have captained England at both cricket as well as football).

Foster held the record for another 27 years, till Andy Sandham, another Englishman, went past the magical 300 mark at the 4th Test versus the West Indies in 1930, in Kingston. He scored 325.

Sandham wasn’t to wear the crown for long; barely three months later, Don Bradman whipped it off him, returning control to the Aussies, with his 334 at Leeds. Less than three years later, Wally Hammond reclaimed it for England, scoring 336 versus New Zealand in Auckland.

It stayed with England for a while after that. Len Hutton’s 364 versus Australia at the Oval in 1938 raised the bar again. It would stay that way till well after the Second World War. Hutton’s 364 was only the second time the high score was set by a batsman playing at home. The only previous instance was Bannerman’s 165, English-born, playing in his adopted home.

The first seven holders of the “highest Test score” record were either English (4) or Australian (3). The eighth holder, West Indian maestro Gary Sobers, became the first outside those two countries, with his 365 extending Hutton’s record, which had stood nearly 20 years, by just one run. While it was another “home” achievement, what stood out was that it was Sobers’ maiden century: the 21-year old had never scored a century before, much less a triple.

36 years later, the title moved again, but stayed with the West Indies. Brian Lara became the ninth holder of the High Score record, scoring 375 versus England, at home, at St John’s, Antigua in 1994. Nearly a decade later, Matthew Hayden briefly usurped Lara with a 380 versus Zimbabwe in Perth, to become the 10th holder of the title. Barely six months later, in 2004, the crown settled again on Brian Lara’s head, as he scored 400, again at home, at St John’s, Antigua.

And that’s the story of the men’s cricket single-completed-innings high score trail. Since Bannerman’s 165 in the first ever Test, the sequence has been 211-287-325-334-336-364-365-375-380-400. Eleven stops in all. Just ten holders, including the incumbent, who has held it twice. And no movement for nearly 18 years.

So why 229?

I mentioned a bingo board. If you’ve read this far, you will know that the highest score was slowly yet inexorably taken from 0 (the lowest possible score) to 400, over the 2445 intervening Tests, two of which are still in play as I write.

Now think of all the individual scores that have been achieved in that time. Thousands of Tests, probably a hundred thousand completed innings. We can create a “bingo card” with all those scores: we know that the smallest number is 0 and that the largest is 400. Every time a batsman completes an innings, we scratch that number off. What’s the lowest unscratched number? As of today, that’s 229. And it’s been 229 since Thursday 2nd January 2003, nineteen years yesterday, when Herschelle Gibbs scored 228 versus Pakistan at Cape Town.

Development of the lowest unscratched number

I’m nuts about cricket; those of you who know me would have expected me to do this, to plot the movement of the lowest unscratched number, the history and future of 229. So here it is.

Surprisingly, after just one Test, the lowest unscratched number was 14. By the end of the second Test, it had moved to 16, after Harry Charlwood removed 14 from play. The fourth Test took it further to 25, as George Bonnor scored 16; the next Test, the fifth, moved the needle to 29, courtesy Jack Blackham’s 25.

We then had a brief gap until the 9th Test, which set the bar at 44, when Billy Murdoch (Mr 211 himself), rubbed out 29. That wouldn’t budge till the 24th Test, when 44 was chalked off by Arthur Shrewsbury and replaced by 46. Seven Tests later, 46 became 60, with Bobby Abel’s help. That would last another 10 Tests: the 41st Test saw the record shift to 65: Alec Bannerman saw to that.

Some frenetic activity ensued. Seven Tests later, 65 became 71, thanks to Arthur Hill; after another six Tests, 71 became 76, with Syd Gregory’s help; eight matches later, 76 became 78, in the 62nd Test, courtesy Jack Worrall.

The glacial movements that characterised the later years then become visible. 78 became 110 forty-four Tests later, with Aubrey Faulkner’s assistance; moved to 125 fifty-two matches later, with Bill Ponsford scratching 110; swept to 139 one hundred and thirteen Tests later, with Pieter van der Bijl contributing the 125; and then jumped to 171, taking two hundred and forty-six Tests to make that move, as a result of Everton Weekes’ classic 139.

If you thought that was slow, you’re not prepared for what followed. The bar moved to 186 during the 675th Test, thanks to Ian Redpath, a whole two hundred and seventy-one Tests later; then on to 199 with a gap of two hundred and sixty-seven Tests, with considerable help from Zaheer Abbas.

That brings us to relatively modern times. 218 was set by Sanjay Manjrekar in the 1130th Test, between Pakistan and India, at Lahore in 1989, moving the target to 224. That was then taken by Vinod Kambli in 1993, versus England in Mumbai. The spotlight then moves to Herschelle Gibbs, whose 228 I mentioned earlier.

And we arrived at 229 being the number to beat.

That was Test 1637. Over eight hundred Tests ago. Over nineteen years ago.

A gentle walk from 14 to 16, then on to 25, 29, 44, 46, 60, 65, 71, 76, 78, 110, 125, 139, 171, 186, 199, 218, 224, 228 to bring us to today and 229.

So what’s next after 229?

Plaque at Lords commemorating the quest for 229, courtesy a close friend

There are still 18 unscratched numbers in the 200s, starting with 229. They are: 229 252 265 272 273 276 279 282 283 284 286 288 289 292 295 296 297 and 298.

7 numbers in the 200s were taken out in the last decade alone, so things are still moving along. Alastair Cook’s 294; Ross Taylor’s 290; Adam Voges’ 269; Tom Latham’s 264, Alastair Cook (again) with his 263; Shoaib Malik’s 245; and, most recently, Kane Williamson’s 238.

Pickings in the 300s are somewhat richer, with 76 numbers remaining untouched.

There’s some progress even there: David Warner, with his 335, and Karan Nair, with his 303, took two numbers off the table.

So we now have 94 numbers left in the range 0-400. The lower end of that range will not change unless someone comes up with the daft idea of negative numbers for batsmen. (Given the shenanigans I see in so much of sport, I wouldn’t rule it out, but I live in hope that it doesn’t happen in my lifetime).

The upper end of that range has remained steady for eighteen years, since Lara’s 400.

229 has been around longer.

The last number to be scratched on the bingo card was Kane Williamson’s 238. Exactly a year ago.

This year, for sure I expect to see some of the 94 numbers taken out. But will it be a bumper year? Will we see the 229 moved all the way to 252? Will 252 itself still be around by then? And will 400 remain the upper limit? All with or without the madness of Umpire’s Call, DRS and whatever passes for the technologies in use at the time.

We shall see.

It’s never locked

Excerpt from the script of Local Hero

Introduction

I can’t believe it’s been nearly forty years since I first watched one of my all-time favourite films, Local Hero. if you haven’t watched it as yet, I envy you. You’re in for a treat. (If you don’t feel like watching the film, just listen to the soundtrack).

I’m not going to say anything about the plot just in case. The excerpt from the script is pretty innocuous as excerpts go. One line stands out for me. It consists of just three words.

It’s never locked.

Memory’s a strange thing. I could have sworn that the actual phrase used in the film was “We don’t lock doors here”. But this is from the official script so I’ll live with it.

I was born in what was then the family home in Lower Circular Road, Sealdah, Calcutta, over 64 years ago. When I was a little over two, we moved to Hindustan Park, and spent nearly a decade there. Shortly before my twelfth birthday, we moved to Moira Street, where I spent the rest of my life in Calcutta, until I left for the UK in November 1980.

I can still remember the names of at least of the immediate neighbouring families in Lower Circular Road. We visited that house many times in the years since we left there, it was in the family till the early 1980s.

I think I can still remember the names of all my neighbours in the apartment block in Hindustan Park, and have visited the building at least once since leaving India.

When it comes to Moira Street, that was a whole different ball game. Ten flats. One of them permanently rented by a business during the time we were there. The rest of the building? All families.

The centre of my universe for many years

In the four decades since I left there, I must have visited that building half a dozen times: a couple of times in the 80s, once in the 90s, three times this century. Pretty much every time I went to Calcutta.

Why am I telling you this? Not because I’ve decided to go on yet another nostalgia trip, something I’m quite happy to do regularly.

But because it was a place where we didn’t really lock doors. At least three families there grew up almost as one, with a few others almost-as-integrated. (You know who you are, and I remain forever grateful for the times we had together). We flitted from apartment to apartment at will, through open front doors, up the fire escape and through the back doors, occasionally climbing in through open balconies, and, very very rarely, using well-honed techniques to barge through doors that were apparently shut.

In the main, the doors weren’t shut. We had liberty withal, as large a charter as the wind, to blow on whom [we] [pleased].

Covenant relationships and mutualisation

Even in those days, Calcutta was a very crowded city, and there was physical and pragmatic security-through-transparency. Village-like, everyone knew everyone within their ????? (para) or neighbourhood. People looked out for each other, strangers were noticed straightaway, and usually challenged, in a typically blunt-curious way. The community looked after its own.

Neighbours, particularly children, growing up together, thick as thieves, fast friends forever. Until they grow up a little more. And flap their wings.

That’s the normal plot line.

But it’s not what happened here. The extended family I speak of is in at least four continents, and are still in touch with each other, fifty years after we came together. Social media does have its occasional uses, and has simplified access and connectivity.

The experiences we had (and continue to have) are good examples of covenant relationships, rather than the ersatz contract versions. In a contract relationship, when something goes wrong, when there’s a “breach”, the key question is “who pays?”, closely followed by the how much and the when. In a covenant relationship, the key question is fundamentally different. “How shall we fix it?”. And the critical word is “we”.

The society I grew up in was founded on those principles of mutualisation. The relationships we had were based on a bedrock of shared experiences and an immutable trust. It permeated my family, my friends, my schoolmates, my community-at-large.

The communities were relatively small, Dunbar-like in their compactness, a tight core of 20 or 30 in an extended network of around 150. We had address books, the telephone numbers were there as well, but we didn’t really have to use the address books or directories as a rule. We knew where everyone lived, and, where relevant, knew the phone numbers off by heart. Directories and address books were for “outstation” data.

Phone calls were for people who lived far away, not for people who lived in the same building. And if someone couldn’t be found, the wireless powerless megaphone would come into use: a yell from the balcony, which would then get relayed in some form or the other to wherever the child or children in question were playing, hiding, fighting, whatever. Audible smoke signals transmitted at speed without using up any scarce natural resources.

During my time there, the “building” saw the usual coming-of-age and rites of passage: births, marriages, deaths, “sacred thread” ceremonies, everything. The community came together as one, an integrated family in action. My father died while we still lived there, just over 40 years ago, and I saw that community-in-action “up close and personal”, covering my family in covenant protection in ways I can never forget, ways I will never forget.

Covenant relationships in an environment of mutual trust and respect.

Satisficers and maximisers

Ever since Herbert Simon coined the term “to satisfice”, there’s been a lot of good work done by great people on satisficers, and I’m not even going to try to summarise any of it here. Suffice it to say that a satisficer looks for “good enough” while a maximiser or even an optimiser looks for “the best”. (In doing that, I can be accused of choosing a “good enough” definition rather than “the best” one. So be it).

Years later, in the early 2000s, I was reading a book by Barry Schwartz, called The Paradox of Choice. One of the most interesting hypotheses put up in that book was the suggestion that satisficers were somehow happier than maximisers or optimisers. Over the years, I’ve also seen research and arguments that suggest there is a genetic predisposition to be one or the other, but I’m not yet convinced of that argument. I do like the “happier” suggestion though.

I’ve also come across papers that put forward an intriguing argument that looks at the “transaction costs” of satisficing and maximising and avers that satisficers are happy because they trade some cognitive workload in making their choices. And that gives me a feel for “happier because….” More to think about.

I like that idea. A part of me really likes that idea, because it gives me the chance to link to Janis Joplin singing Me and Bobby McGee. Amazing singer, amazing song.

Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose

While reading Schwartz’s book, I couldn’t help having the Kristofferson-penned words ear worming their way though my head. Except they were ever-so-slightly malformed in the process. What I keep hearing was “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to choose”, a real Marmite statement. Everyone wants to have choice. Until they don’t. And only in places they don’t. In the wrong context, choice can be a tyranny.

When I came to the UK, I had never seen a supermarket, much less been in one. I had no idea what to do when presented with such immense choice for a commodity. (My first visit to a supermarket, I needed toothpaste and came back with some sort of denture cream, grabbing the first thing I saw, dashing for the till and then hurrying out. I wasn’t comfortable there).

In Calcutta, if we ran out of toothpaste in one of the bathrooms at home, one of us would go round the corner to S Stores (which I’m delighted to see is still there, exactly where it was in November 1969). We’d go there and ask for toothpaste. And be given toothpaste. Not a snake. Nor a stone. Toothpaste.

Levels of sophistication did emerge, sometimes one of us would want the “new” go-faster stripes Signal. Or maybe a tip towards the swadeshi, Vajradanti. Most of the time, we stayed uncomplicated. Toothpaste. Thanks.

The conversation was quick and simple, across a single counter, with someone you knew and who knew you. A relationship of trust, a relationship built over time, a covenant relationship. If there were qualifying questions to be had, they would get asked simply and unthreateningly. The shopkeeper was avuncular, and the uncle-ness was part of the relationship. Advice and counsel was part of the deal, and there was no question of being ripped off.

The customers who shopped there were proper customers: they gave the shop their custom. As part of a relationship founded on trust and enriched over time.

Yes, I’ve been a satisficer all my life. I like giving people my custom rather than continually shopping around; maybe I’m trading some cognitive workload in the process, maybe I’m genetically predisposed to do so. I don’t know. What I do know is that I feel good about it.

There is something about the Cheers mentality that I like:

sometimes you want to go

where everybody knows your name

and they’re always glad you came

As the saying goes, people buy from people, people sell to people. It’s all about people and relationships in relatively small communities. Global villages are good, but let’s remember the village part and not just the global part.

Good neighbours

A few days ago, a neighbour noticed something untoward in his garden, told me about it, and helped me answer something that had been bugging me. Why had a particular garden chair been moved from its usual place?

Today, as I walked back from the newsagent with my Sunday paper, I bumped into three different neighbours, and had the chance to speak with each of them. Yes, of course we exchanged pleasantries, wished each other top of the morning and the season and the year (as you do), and then did what everyone in the UK does nowadays. Instead of talking about the weather, we spoke of Covid-19 and masks and boosters. Social objects by another name, I guess.

We knew each other. We knew where everyone lived. We’ve covered for each other, taking parcels in, joining neighbourhood protests, noticing when alarms go off, seeing how we could help if the other(s) needed help. A loose, gentle relationship, but a relationship all the same, more covenant than contract. In no way transactional.

The Calcuttan in me was used to knowing my neighbours. When I left India and migrated to England, I lived in a part of Liverpool for a while. And everyone knew everyone there. And said hello. And smiled. And asked after each other. Civil. Polite. Helpful.

Then I came to London. A very big place, and I have no wish to generalise. But the part of London I was in, everyone was in a hurry, all the time. Disappearing from home while it’s still dark, returning only when it’s dark again. Surfacing occasionally at weekends. And in between, never meeting eyes, never speaking, never engaging. Heaven forfend.

I moved around until I found somewhere in London that still felt like a village, where people did speak to each other, where it wasn’t a crime to be on first-name terms with neighbours. Where everyone wasn’t always on a Danny Kaye schedule.

Phenomena like Nextdoor intrigue me, though I still don’t actually use it. I’m still wrestling with centralised-versus-decentralised, and, in general, tend to find that people conflate distributed with decentralised, and that isn’t necessarily a good thing. I love the neighbour-to-neighbour connect, I love many of the functions Nextdoor appears to have, but I still hum and haw about connections to businesses beyond the neighbourhood; I need to know more before I can truly engage.

Startups like Tredish fascinate me, enough for me to invest in them and to get involved in whatever way I can.

The neighbourhood is a unit of community that makes a lot of sense to me; and while I can see immense value in the ability to discover and share patterns between neighbourhoods, I still think of each neighbourhood as unique and vibrant and alive and deserving of its uniqueness.

So where is all this leading?

If you’ve visited here before you know what to expect.

I’m largely retired now, and have the privilege and luxury of time to observe life around. Time to reflect on what I observe. Time to research whatever I find interesting or at least intriguing.

One of those things is growth, particularly unfettered growth. I believe less and less in the constant need for growth. I spend some of my time learning about what the right minima and maxima should be for a given measure in a given context. Wherever possible, I look to nature as a teacher in this quest, looking particularly at complex adaptive systems.

One of those things is trust. I find the term “trustless” odd, odd enough to discomfort me. So I pull a thread here, remove a scab there, gnaw away at it, trying to understand why such a term should exist.

I have this hunch that these two intriguing things, the quest for unfettered growth and the development of “trustless” systems, that these two are related. So I pull and tear, gnaw and chew. Until I learn more. And then start all over again, refining my start position.

Conclusion

I’m increasingly drawn to a world where the “conquest” of distance and time means less to me than it did when I first heard it. I’m similarly keener on worlds where people know their neighbours and operate in a climate of mutual trust and respect, where communities are compact and coherent. I think ideas of continuous growth and scale need to be re-examined constantly, particularly as we learn to price social and environmental costs in ways we haven’t been able to do before. In much of this, technology can and will play a role; but there are bound to be missteps on the way.

The missteps that intrigue, nay concern, me the most are those where communal trust is weakened. I think the neighbourhood is a fascinating level of aggregation to look at; maybe I should look further into Geoffrey West‘s work on cities and try and tease out the neighbourhood implications, going wherever that leads me.

I want to live in a world where it’s not necessary to lock doors. I want to live in a world where we learn how to do this — again —in a way that we can preserve the valuable bits of technological advancement while filtering out the dross, the detritus. Keeping baby. Throwing out bath water.

I write to elicit and excite conversations about these things. Not with thousands of people. Not even hundreds. Just enough to help me learn that little bit more.

Why I love cricket – A long slow post

Souvenir from the first Test match I attended*

(*I do have the original brochure, which I photographed for this post. But it’s not the one I left the ground with in 1966. I acquired this one at a second-hand at a book fair decades later.)

1. Introduction

I love cricket.

I went to my first Test match fifty-five years ago today. And that’s when I fell in love with cricket, and in particular Test cricket.

I was taken by my father to watch my first-ever Test match. It probably helped that it was at Eden Gardens, one of the greatest Test venues in the world. It probably helped that the Indian team was captained by Mansoor Ali Khan, the Nawab of Pataudi (Junior). It probably helped that the visiting team was managed by Frank Worrell (who, sadly, was diagnosed with leukaemia while on tour and died soon after), captained by Gary Sobers, included Conrad Hunte (who played golf with my father and Sobers during that tour) and Rohan Kanhai and the debutant Clive Lloyd and Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith and Seymour Nurse and Lance Gibbs and a host of others. It probably helped that the Indian team included ML Jaisimha and Abbas Ali Baig and Rusi Surti and Bishan Bedi and Srinivasa Venkataraghavan (who, after a long and illustrious bowling career, became a world-renowned umpire) and Bhagwat Chandrasekhar and another host of others.

The Nawab of Pataudi, Jr, with his wife Sharmila Tagore. Photo credits Saba Pataudi Instagram

It probably helped that the second day’s play was an absolute riot. Literally. I had just turned 9 the previous month. I could never forget that day.

That Test made sure I fell in love with cricket. India lost. I watched India play many times at Eden Gardens, saw many great cricketers in action; but I never saw India win at Eden Gardens.

I heard India win a few times. Radio commentary was a lovesome thing, God wot.

I watched India win for the first time in 1981. I think it was the Bombay Test, when England were visiting. When I say I “watched” India win, I may be accused of stretching the truth. But I stand by my words. I watched India win. On Ceefax. Oh the joy and the agony, when you knew something had happened because the page didn’t refresh, and you knew that someone somewhere was about to type letters and numbers that had such power over you. A wicket? A boundary? An appeal not given? Something ominous, something of import.

An aside. Some years ago, the New York Times carried a piece about petty crimes in London, generating a Twitter storm. I had the chance to remind people about the correct way to watch cricket. Here’s an extract from the piece.

Yes, I love cricket. All forms of cricket, but with the clear understanding that the essence of cricket is encapsulated in a proper Test match. During my lifetime I have watched the emergence of the 60 over game, the 50 over game, the 20 over game, and more recently “The Hundred”. (I shall resist the temptation to say any more about the last in that list. At least for now).

I’m not legalistic about the five-day game per se. In fact this year I went to the “6th day” of a Test match, the “reserve day” set aside for the World Test Championship Final. And yes, I watched India lose. New Zealand were worthy champions.

When I started watching cricket, Test matches were played over six days, there was a rest day (usually between the third and fourth days), and it was normal to go to the match on the rest day to watch the teams practising and to get closer to the action, get autographs, meet friends and generally have a good time.

Which brings me to one of the points of this post.

2. Cricket as a social object

Cricket is more than just a sport. It’s a social object par excellence. (My thanks to Jyri Engestrom and Hugh MacLeod for introducing me to the term, and letting me discover Durkheim et al as a result)

Say you’re lucky enough to be watching some tennis at Centre Court, Wimbledon. It’s a game that tends to be played in what my teachers used to call pin-drop silence. Shhhh. Quiet please. Murmurs of applause between rallies acceptable. Occasionally, appreciative roars. Shouting a player’s name out loud? Not really, though it does happen. You’ll definitely get a “look” from everyone for that. You’re barely able to move. You shouldn’t really be talking, not even to your companion. The only sounds allowed are the grunts of the players and the thud of the ball, and even then at least one of those sounds is “new”… there was no grunting at South Club in the late 1960s when I saw India play Australia in what was then the Challenge Round of the Davis Cup, a final of sorts. Yes, they lost. I must be a real Jonah. But then I was at Tunbridge Wells in 1983, when India played Zimbabwe. Hmmm.

Snooker and billiards are also pin-drop silence sports. I love watching tennis; I’ve enjoyed watching billiards live; though I’ve never been to a snooker tournament, I could make myself, and I’m sure I’d enjoy it. But it’s not the same as watching cricket.

At football, it’s hard to carry on a conversation for the exact opposite reason. You can’t hear yourself think. So you sing along with the club songs, question the parentage of the officials, and, occasionally, exchange very brief words and phrases with the people you’ve come with. You do get a twenty minute break in between, but that tends to get frittered away queueing for the loos or bar or something. It’s not the same as watching cricket.

Someone said to me that football is a game for gentlemen played by louts, and that rugby is a game for louts played by gentlemen. When it comes to watching the game, they have similar characteristics: lots of noise, lots of singing, lots of drinking (at least before and after — it’s not always possible during). Hard to have a conversation while the match is on. It’s not the same as watching cricket.

Cricket is unusual to the extent that it’s all right to chat to your friends during the match rather than principally before and after. Silence is not expected. And you can hear yourself think. That’s the first difference.

There are many more. It is normal and expected at a cricket match that you meet for breakfast before the match – I’m partial to finding the best bacon sarnie at the ground nowadays – but when I was at Eden Gardens it used to be all about finding the “Nescoffee” stall and having some samosas. When in Rome.

It is normal and expected that you take a break for lunch, and another for tea, as part of your day’s entertainment. In which other sport are there scheduled stops for food? Not just one, but two. During the match. During every day of the match. And not counting the parentheses of breakfast and dinner that bracket each day’s play.

(By the way, I don’t count the “Dinner” break that shows up in Pink Ball matches. In order to count Dinner as a formal break, I have to recognise the existence of the Pink Ball, which I have yet to do. My Pink Ball thoughts are kept in the same drawer as my Coloured Pajamas thoughts and my Hundred thoughts. There is no handle to that drawer. The drawer above it has Duckworth-Lewis and Decision Review. I have to treat that drawer with great care, making sure I have my blood pressure pills and GTN spray handy before ever venturing close. Some things are sent to try us).

It is normal and expected that you punctuate your day with breaks for food during a Test match. You can bring food from home, buy a hamper at the ground, queue up at one or more of the wonderful stalls, go and sit down at one of the posh restaurants, leave the ground and go to the pub and come back, any and all of the above. Watching cricket is essentially a culinary experience if you are so inclined. That’s the second difference.

The socialising doesn’t just happen within your own group/circle/clique. Again, because it’s possible to hear others around you, it’s quite normal for people to talk to each other beyond your normal circle, beyond the group you came with. This odd and unusual behaviour, so very at odds with the “look deep into the newspaper and avoid eye contact with anyone else at all costs” technique perfected on public transport in the UK. Talk to the person next to you? Heaven forfend.

This social transgression is also part and parcel of being at a Test match. It tends to happen for three reasons.

One, people around you want to know what you’re eating and where you got it from. A very understandable curiosity, one that is born of the necessity to be better informed — for the next day — so that you can beat the queues and eat the junk food you really want rather than the junk food that happened to be available.

Two, people want to know what just happened. It is natural and normal to miss the action. Ninety overs is a long time, every day. (Assuming of course you get to the ninety overs. I’m less than impressed with recent trends in this respect). Not much happens in a day, even with 540 balls bowled. At best you’ll see ten or fifteen wickets/near wickets and maybe thirty or forty boundaries/near boundaries. Forty or fifty “events”. Spread over six hours. One every ten minutes on average, if that. And it could happen at the very time you went to the loo, got a cuppa, queued up for a snack, whatever. So it’s normal to ask what happened. Nowadays, with big screens and action replays and DRS and all that, some of the magic of not knowing what happened is lost. But there’s a replacement, the opportunity to argue about the pros and cons of DRS. Again, I shall carefully bite my tongue and say no more at this stage.

The commonest reason for missing some of the play? Nodding off to sleep. Cricket is wonderful for that. Ever since I was a child, I’ve conjured up images of moustachioed majors snoring gently, the foliage on their upper lips gently wafting in the breeze from their nostrils, while watching the cricket. Maybe I read too much PG Wodehouse as a child. But one thing’s for sure. People do fall asleep at the cricket. It is natural. It is normal. And it is expected.

Three, people transgress and start talking to strangers because of a “derivative”social object. Statistics. The game is chock-full of data about the game. There is no true equivalent of the collecting frenzy for the annual Wisden in any other sport; there is no true equivalent of the Aladdin’s Cave of data that is cricinfo, especially the statistics sections. Football may have its Playfair and its Opta, golf may have its plethora of numbers about drive lengths and sand saves and fairways hit, American football and basketball and baseball all have their number fiends, but they don’t come into the same county as cricket. Not even close. More on that later, as I describe the Road to 229.

3. Cricket’s unexpected inclusiveness

Photo copyright @LIFE, accessed via @Indiahistorypics on Twitter

It’s very easy to think of cricket as an exclusive sport. And at some level it is, if what you’re talking about is playing at Lords (or Eden Gardens or MCG), wearing pristine whites and with your country’s cap on your head. Fair enough.

But that’s not the kind of exclusiveness I was talking about.

When I was growing up in Calcutta, I saw people playing cricket everywhere. Much of it was on the maidan (often referred to as the city’s lung), a broad expanse of green that I spent a lot of time on and around. (For those who are interested in such things, the maidan is about 988 acres, as compared to the 843 acres of New York’s Central Park, or the 350 acres of London’s Hyde Park. The Oval Maidan in Churchgate, Mumbai, which is probably the densest cricket-playing area I’ve encountered, is only 22 acres).

If there wasn’t a patch of green to play on, any road would do. Stumps were often made of a column of bricks, single-brick width. Traffic would stop for the cricket, if it was an important neighbourhood match. Like the internet, the cars would route around obstacles, never interfering with the field of play.

If there wasn’t a suitable segment of road to play on, any concrete patch would do. Car parks. Back yards. Wherever.

Can’t drive your stumps in? Use the tower of bricks. No bricks available? No space anyway? Draw the stumps on the wall.

There was always something that resembled a cricket bat, though it was unlikely to have the wood or the splice of a “proper” bat. The balls were usually tennis balls, though I’m convinced someone had come up with red cricket-ball-like tennis balls just for Indian children. They didn’t have a classic seam, but for sure they could be made to spin.

If you didn’t have room to play outside, you played inside. And caused havoc with the furniture and fittings of the house. (If I had a dollar for the number of chandeliers that must have fallen prey to indoor cricket in houses all over India…).

If you didn’t even have enough room for that, you played “French cricket”, where you stood with your bat in the centre of a circle while everyone else bowled at you — by flinging the ball at your legs as hard as they could — one “bowler” at a time, varying the angle of attack across the 360 degrees — and you could be out caught (as normal) or bowled (when the ball hit your legs).

If you didn’t have room for that either, you played “book cricket”. You opened a book at random, and the page number determined what happened. The 0-1 page was a wicket; the 2-3 page was a single; the 4-5 page was a boundary; the 6-7 page was a six; the 8-9 page was a dot ball. Sometimes we had other rules to determine “how out” after a 0-1 page. You get my drift.

The point I’m trying to make is that there were no barriers to entry to playing cricket, and that it was played in every way possible: at home sitting down with a pair of books, indoors in a small group with the batter in the middle, in the living room, in a car park, on the street, in a playground, on open green spaces and, where possible, on proper cricket pitches and at proper cricket grounds.

When I was introduced to cricket, I had no idea where Lords was, but I found out soon enough. And soon I knew my Pavilion End from my Nursery End. Finding out about things cricket only required you to know someone who knew a bit, and to have access to a radio.

When I was young, I could always hear what was going on at a Test match, even if I couldn’t see what was happening. If there was a match on, someone would have the commentary on the radio, and it was considered quite acceptable to stop, listen for a while, and then to move on to the next “commentary stop”. When people started carrying “transistor radios” this public facility became wireless, portable and ubiquitous. On a bus, on the train, on the pavement, everywhere. AirBuds hadn’t been invented as yet. Your personal radio was public property when it came to the cricket.

4. The death of Test cricket

Ever since I can remember, I’ve been hearing about the death of Test cricket. I am reassured by the knowledge that it died in 1882, when only two countries played Test cricket, and the foundation of the Ashes was set then. It seems to be doing remarkably well since, all things considered. (Incidentally, try naming the two countries that first played an “international” cricket match, as distinct and different from the two countries that first played a Test match. In fact, try and name just one of the two countries. Then google the answer. You’re in for a surprise).

I used to wonder about the impact of the limited-overs games on the longer-form game, but, having watched that impact over the past fifty years or so, I’m relaxed about the shorter-format variants in the main. (With one exception, the Hundred, which I continue to loathe).

Games like cricket are organic, they evolve, they mutate, they adapt, they adjust. Cricket’s been around for over four hundred years, so we should all expect some change. And continuous change at that. Change itself is not the issue.

Without the shorter-format developments, we may still have seen the development of techniques like the ramp shot, the reverse sweep, hitting with hands switched, relay fielding, “death bowling” and suchlike. All these new techniques have enriched all forms of cricket, not just the format they originated in. Long may this trend continue.

Do I think there is too much cricket on? Possibly. But, over time, that market will correct itself, in a Yogi Berra kind of way. People will limit the time they spend watching cricket, and somewhere a butterfly will flap its wings.

Nobody goes there any more. It’s too crowded.

Do I think limited-overs games have deleterious impacts on the longer-format game? Possibly. I tend to think that modern bowlers just don’t bowl at the stumps enough, trying to get that all-powerful dot ball. There are constraints to try and correct this, in terms of the “wide” rule. But in general I feel that bowlers now try and tempt the batters to play at balls that won’t hit the stumps, bowling on the fifth or sixth stump and hoping it doesn’t become a wide. Only a feeling, not based on enough evidence to be anything more than that.

Do I think DRS could kill Test cricket, and potentially all of cricket with it? Possibly. I think it’s the biggest threat to cricket as I know it. I hope it won’t succeed in killing it. But why do I think it even could?

5. Not cricket

Cricket is more than just a game, more than just a sport, more than just an incredibly inclusive social object, more than just the passion of millions all over the world.

It’s a way of thinking, an essence. Let me change sports for a minute. One of the reasons I love golf is the treatment of solitary golfers on the course.

A single player has no standing and should give way to a match of any kind,” …

One of the essences of cricket is the very idea of “not cricket”.

Something that’s not done. Not to be tolerated in polite society. Not for the clubbable. Whatever.

Cricket is about a set of values.

The epitome of cricket to me is when a batsman walks, despite not being given out by the umpire, because he knows he hit the ball; when a fielder signals he didn’t catch the ball cleanly, even though he may be the only person on the field with that knowledge; when a fielder signals a boundary, even though there was some doubt as to whether he touched the ropes.

All this is about the spirit of the game. It has nothing to do with the letter of the law. Why listen to me? Go watch Brian Lara on the topic. In fact, watch the whole of his lecture from over four years ago.

I remember, many years ago, there was a story about Gundappa Viswanath. He’d made over 600 runs in his previous 8 innings. He went out to bat. And he was out for zero. Came back to the pavilion. Asked by a journalist “what happened” he said “the ball deserved it”.

Walking is about doing the right thing. Not claiming a catch you didn’t take cleanly is about doing the right thing. Not appealing ad nauseam in order to put pressure on the umpire is about doing the right thing.

Cricket is a way of life. A way of life where children can be taught to do the right thing. If the nature of competition changes from that, driven by commercial interests, if winning becomes more important than doing the right thing, then perhaps it’s time for Test cricket to die. After all, it will only be a matter of time before it becomes impossible to distinguish cricket from WWE. And WWE has been evolving for years to become what it is.

The way DRS is implemented, the way DRS is evolving, I worry about the future of the game. I cannot abide by Umpire’s Call, there isn’t the time or space for me to vent my spleen on that particular topic here. Weaknesses in ball tracking don’t really get discussed in the open. Apparent innovations like Hotspot and Snickometer get brought in and out willy-nilly, and I have to watch batsmen given out for a snick when there is a clear gap between bat and ball, without any consideration that the sound picked up may be from bat hitting pad or similar.

From my viewpoint, there is neither true openness nor adequate transparency in the design, architecture, selection and implementation of the technologies involved. I won’t even bring up the issue of the completeness of the “training datasets” because I should really watch my blood pressure before doing that.

I have seen batsman stay at the crease after the most glaring errors by umpires … because the fielding team didn’t have any reviews left. God help me. If that is what cricket has come to, then I’m happy to stop watching the game. This, from someone who watched twenty days of Test cricket this past year, including two whole days of “rain stopped play”. (In similar vein, I shall leave my frustrations with The Hundred for another day, perhaps never. When it comes to the Hundred, never is a good word as far as I am concerned).

6. A numbers game

Lily, our cat, looks at the segment of cricket scoreboard on permanent display in our garden

Sometime in the next week or two I shall write more about the number 229 in Test cricket. For now, here’s a teaser.

Imagine the world of Test cricket to be an interminable bingo session. You have a bingo card in your hand. The current version of the card has all the numbers from 0 (the smallest number any batsman has ever scored) to 400 (the largest). In less than an hour, Test number 2444 is due to start at Mount Maunganui in New Zealand, between the host nation and Bangladesh, a country that bordered the state of my birth, West Bengal.

Every time a batsman completes his innings, you can scratch the number off your card.

229 is the smallest number that hasn’t been scratched off yet. Some batsman or the other has landed on every number below 229 already, and many beyond it. Until Vinod Kambli came along, the magic number used to be 224. On Monday 22nd February 1993, he took 224 and moved the magic number to 228.

Nearly a decade later, Herschelle Gibbs had other ideas and took that number off the board as well.

Since then, since that brilliant single-day double century of Gibbs, since 2nd January 2003, the number to hit has been 229. Many have hovered nearby, some have moved on, but no one has been able to stop there. Therein lies a story, a story I will write about in detail soon.

There are many many strands to write about when it comes to the numbers of cricket, a topic I’m entranced by. I shall be writing more and more about it in days to come, as I make use of relative quietness this New Year.

The statistics of cricket are part of what make cricket something very different from other sports.

7. Some conclusions

Cricket is more than just a game, a sport, a pastime; it is more than a wonderful social object, more than just a truly inclusive low-barrier-to-entry activity; it is a way of life, a way of thinking, a way of practising doing the right thing.

It is good to see the commercialisation of sport. It is right and proper that sportsmen and sportswomen get paid well for what they do (although I think we are still far from gender equality there). With the advent of greater commercial stakes comes an increasing sense of competition, where winning becomes more important than taking part. We see the impact of this in many sports: simulation, diving, pretend injuries, use of prohibited performance-enhancing substances, ball-tampering, various types of grunts and groans carefully timed, walking on your opponent’s path to the hole, stepping on to the pitch after you bowl, slowing the over rate down, challenges against authority on the pitch, time-wasting, concerted appeals, gaining instructions from the dressing room through coded signals, the list is long.

We’re not going to be able to stop people attempting to cheat. We’re not going to be able to keep adjusting the rules quickly enough to adapt to new forms of cheating. There will often be a time lag, regulation is often post-facto.

What we can do is to ensure it is against the spirit of the game. All the time.

Cricket epitomises that concept of spirit.

That’s where the importance of Test cricket comes in. It is the pinnacle of the sport, the peak to which the child on the street aspires. And we must make sure that what she aspires to has value, has values. That the game is inclusive, easily accessible, fair, open, affordable, in ways that no other sport can be.

A match spread over five days, sometimes more, that may not have a result. It could be a draw. It could be a win for either side. It could be that wondrous event, a tie, something that has happened only twice in 2443 instances.

Cricket, by its very nature, is not about winning or losing. It’s too important for that. The grassroots game, the regional/county/state game, the Test, all form part of a brilliant whole. A whole that is about playing the game. Doing the right thing.

Innovations can and will take place, in terms of techniques and tools and rules; new venues will be found; new formats designed; new times chosen; new ways to partake found.

But all these innovations have to be done while not losing the principles that make the game what it really is. What are those principles? We could spend a long time arguing about which particular angels were meant to dance on the heads of which pins, how many angels and pins should be involved, and so on. But that’s not the point.

The Victor Meldrew in me wants to be sure that coloured pajamas are kept away from the field of a Test match; under duress, has accepted the need for coloured stumps (though I still think that modern bails don’t behave as they should); has come to terms with numbers and names on the backs of cricketers in a Test match, albeit reluctantly; at least it makes one part of the game even more inclusive, which is a good thing. (But 5- and 10- ball overs? Give me a break).

Innovations should be additive to the core principles; unnecessary fiddling with the rules in order to maintain some benighted view of “intellectual property” are not additive.

I love the speed at which “batsman” is becoming “batter”. A sensible and worthwhile change. A change that will come into my parlance more and more as I learn to adapt. Which I will.

I love the idea of double-header games where the men’s and women’s games are held in close proximity in time and in the same space. It would be even better if tickets were sold only for the combined event, like the right to watch “a day of cricket at Lords” being equated to the right to “a day’s tennis at Centre Court”. It would be even better if the gender pay disparity issue is solved at speed, similar to what my erstwhile boss Marc Benioff did at Salesforce.

But 5- and 10- ball overs? Not changing ends at the end of each over? Nah. Not for me.

Cricket is about the right thing to do. Test cricket is the pinnacle of that essence.

Test cricket has seen off many challenges, and will see off many more. When I was young, I dreamt of going on a cruise to the Caribbean and catching all five days of every Test in an entire series there. The West Indian team were the team to aspire to in the 60s and 70s. Of course I was influenced by the first team I saw. And of course I loved the very idea of “calypso cricket”.

Not surprisingly, when the Indian team did their magic in the West Indies in 1970-71, and followed up with a win in England, my cup definitely did a lot of runneth-over-ing. (Though I still didn’t ever watch India win in India while I lived there).

Cricket teams and markets ebb and flow. Somehow we still have Test cricket, and every now and then I see a full crowd as well. The crowd matters. Crowds matter. If Covid-19 has taught us anything about sports, it is that crowds matter. I am lucky enough to be able to go to watch sports pretty much whenever I want, be it cricket or golf or football or tennis. Anything that makes it easier for more people to watch cricket “live” is a good thing.

Test cricket is still alive, sometimes because of innovations, sometimes despite them. I hope and pray it will continue to evolve and to thrive. In the meantime, we need to nourish it and protect it and support it. It’s not just a game.

Anything else is not cricket.

And on that note, happy new year.