Day: Apr 11, 2015

Pressure

LordCanisLupus100 Comments

Thank you for all the nice comments on the Infamy post. I actually wanted to start a discussion on some of the points raised in the piece in Wisden rather than go for all that praise stuff. I don’t do this for praise.

Since I wrote it I’ve had a piece in my mind about the press and blogs. I am under no illusions. The vast majority of journos who read this blog, and I know a few do, probably think I am what Andrew Strauss called Kevin Pietersen. I get that. I’m not exactly coming to them in an attitude of peace and tranquility. I want to try to hold them to account. Believe me, I know many of the issues that confronts them, I’m not daft. The modern press is also, in many ways, a completely different animal to even 10 years ago. Everyone is a critic, everyone has a voice, and the digital age means clicks and hits drive a lot of the reporting, and time pressures mean deadlines and holding stories back is much more difficult. It’s a modern world, and even I can’t keep up.

The modern media includes podcasts, discussions and analysis of output. To that end, let’s take a look at the podcast on the Lord’s site that some of you pointed me to. I want to refer to it to set up some of the issues for later in the piece.

I’ve listened to a good deal of the Lord’s podcast where Strauss, in my mind, proves his complete unsuitability for the new role in the England line-up. No, it’s not about KP, but it’s about the line about “building towards the 2019 Ashes”. There’s a bloody World Cup in the intervening period, at home. There’s a World T20 in India (?) and a Champions Trophy in England. There’s also other exciting test series against the likes of mercurial Pakistan, difficult South Africa and other such match-ups. We concentrate on the Ashes?

A tweeter on my LCL feed pointed out in response to my “how did building go this winter” pointing out that we did not play test cricket. Of course, I meant how did building to this World Cup, by agreeing to mess the Ashes series about, clearing the decks of test cricket and playing ODIs almost exclusively since the end of August go in building to that aim? I couldn’t get that in 140 characters, so did it here. And that’s the point, just because you have some nebulous concept of “building” towards something, doesn’t mean we will do it. I recall a podcast on 5 Live before we went to Australia in 2013 and Flower was most assuredly building towards that. This is a vacuuous concept, one I want no part of. There are far too many good teams, far too much cricket to be played, rightly or wrongly, to try to get away with saying its OK to lose, and OK to exclude KP, as long as it is in the greater good to winning the Ashes in 2019. What a load of old baloney.

I’ve gone off on a little bit of a tangent, but stick with me. Strauss said that building line, ostensibly to justify not recalling KP post this summer. He earlier said the way to end the KP business was “winning games”. With all due respect Andrew, I’m calling baloney on that too. First of all, building towards something indicates winning in the present is not as high a priority as winning in the future, yet there’s a need to win matches now. I have no idea how those two aims aren’t opposed. And you see, Andrew, we’ve been there. The press told us this after we won against India, with a great comeback, runs for Cook, the bowling looking good, and the new players looking the part. But it hasn’t stuck. Because while you and your ilk are concentrating on this being all about KP, you miss the point. You always miss the point.

Outside cricket? No apology. Full explanation for not picking a team on merit and excluding a talented player? Not forthcoming. Communication with supporters who might be disgruntled at this lack of decency towards them? Pipe down, move on, not at a low ebb. Giles Clarke showed this week how he approaches those who dared criticise and that attitude permeated down the ECB and whether the press cared, had the appetite, or the need to fight on our behalf while also putting the case for termination of KP is for them to tell us. We did not see it.

Here comes that line in Brian’s piece about not being as understanding of the press position:

But the press coverage reflected, in part, the vulnerabilities of cricket journalists, who have a symbiotic relationship with administrators and players: the administrators grant access to the players, who provide interviews and quotes. Most bloggers have no such privileges, yet this very freedom from professional dependence means they can shoot from the hip.

Brian makes our point. The journalists may not have agreed with what was going on, but they didn’t want to risk not getting access (Mark makes this point in the comments too). I’m well aware of this. I know journalists are sick to death of the sponsored interview, and I know the player/press relationship is always a fraught one. So when we take the next logical step that some of them were showing rather too much glee at the dismissal of KP and by extension adopting a selection policy on something other than form or ability, that they had become extensions of the organisation we were so angry at, were we really out of line? Perception is important. The big beast appearances on the Agnew press round up, or on Cricket Writers, became an exercise on putting out the ECB line more often than not. The rush out of press conference to proclaim the KP matter closed, the ability of the empty suit in front of them, or the inevitability of Cook’s return to form was peeled back in an instant. They now sit there thinking KP’s PR team has won the battle, and in the same breath say his book was a disaster. They miss the point totally.

What has, I think, made them really uncomfortable isn’t the lack of access should they side with the great unwashed, but that the great unwashed simply aren’t listening and WILL NOT BE TOLD. I’ve said many times that KP isn’t the issue now, it really isn’t. It’s the ECB and pretty much always has been. It’s the way the press have leaned their way, by and large, and certainly in the immediate aftermath, that’s the issue too. Sure, I would like to see KP play for England again. What I want to see most is a team picked on merit and form. That would mean that England’s openers on Monday should probably be Lyth and Trott out of that squad, and not Cook. This makes me anti-Cook because I’m pro-KP. I’m anti a test opening bat who hasn’t made a test hundred in nearly two years, and has looked all at sea. A century or two in the West Indies does not prove the opposite. It merely proves that some people are picked for memories, not on evidence. Some people are picked because they are from the right kind of family. We did not see that challenged enough. As I said, in some cases, there was a little too much glee.

To me the acid test has been the attitude towards Andy Flower. I see very few pieces bemoaning his overwhelming presence still. I see little questioning his role in the collapse of 2013/14. I see very few pieces questioning if this is of great benefit. Instead it is the greatest coach stuff, world number 1, world T20 winners. Dobell gets it, and his back-seat driver quote last Spring was quite good in capturing the fear. But the press just said it was a good thing, we couldn’t lose his massive skills, and even called impertinent when questioning why he was talking to the Chairman of Selectors. This doesn’t require an understanding of the role of the journalist. It is asking questions that might need to be asked. Flower’s choice to remain silent has never been portrayed as anything other than “dignified”. I feel a little short changed. He played a massive role in what went wrong, it appears he sealed Pietersen’s fate, and then got a job he lobbied for. I think he needed to speak, don’t you?

I’ve done my usual old long-winded piece, and I’m not sure it went anywhere. That’s my prerogative, of course. A journalist has to tighten up, show skills in brevity, be able to convey things in a rapid way. He also has access, he has contacts (and she, of course, because there are very good female journalists out there) and he has a job many of us would love. I think they take this too personally at times. Yes, I’m pretty scathing, but I am because I am angry, and so are you. A faint heart never won a fair maiden and all that.

So while Strauss can babble on about winning shutting us up, he is wrong. The rate of anger went up when we beat India, not down. It seemed to be a reason to brush Sri Lanka under the carpet, and dispose of Pietersen, and it wasn’t fooling me. If Strauss can’t figure out why that win didn’t have us piping down, then he’s not worthy to be Director of Cricket. You aren’t dealing with stupid people here, and we have a voice. A small one, but one that seems to get noticed.

Have a great evening.

Infamy

LordCanisLupus40 Comments

In an act of self-indulgence, I am commenting on the mention of this blog in Wisden. I have a copy of the article, from the editor himself, and I’ll have to say it’s an interesting take on the blog.

One topic dominated the agenda of the English cricket media in 2014.
England’s brutal and irrevocable decision to dispense with Kevin Pietersen, and its deeply unsatisfactory aftermath, prompted serious attention from some of the blogosphere’s best writers. In terms of quantity and passion, Dmitri Old at cricketbydmitri.wordpress.com stood out.

Old wrote thousands upon thousands of words, mostly excoriating the
ECB. While at times the effect was like being repeatedly hit over the head with one of Pietersen’s bats, his blog acted as a valuable conduit for deep resentment at the ECB’s administration of English cricket. This was exemplified by their reference in a press release to people “outside cricket”, intended as a response to one of Piers Morgan’s many incursions into the saga – but which was latched on to by Old as evidence of the board’s lack of empathy with the fans.

First up, thanks to Brian Carpenter for including me in his review. It is interesting to see how your blog is viewed by those outside my usual comment client base. I actually grinned when I read the bit about “repeatedly hit over the head”, but at the time when this blogger was that mad about things, there was always gold in them there hills in which we could pick apart the arguments. I could repeat and repeat, because the press and the ECB repeatedly gave us the ammunition.

I am, by my nature, quite a modest person. I really find praise and that sort of thing awkward. Don’t get me wrong, I like it, but I don’t claim credit often. But I do think this blog (along with TFT of course) has done the most to put “outside cricket” front and centre over the last year. We’ve never let it go, even if it means I’m likened to a bludgeon. Repetition hammers home the message. I don’t apologise for it. I don’t think Brian means me to either, but there are a number who tell me to let it lie. Never. Not until I get the sense that the authorities do anything more than pay lip service to what this small, noisy band of cricket tragics say. This sport does not need to become more exclusive, more insular, more arrogant – it needs, to use their bloody horrible phrase, to reconnect with the public.

However, Old didn’t take aim merely at those in authority: he also trained his sights on the traditional press, some of whom he viewed as Establishment stooges. In one or two cases, he might have had a point. But the press coverage reflected, in part, the vulnerabilities of cricket journalists, who have a symbiotic relationship with administrators and players: the administrators grant access to the players, who provide interviews and quotes. Most bloggers have no such privileges, yet this very freedom from professional dependence means they can shoot from the hip.

This is a really interesting debating point, in my eyes. Let’s go back to when KP got dropped. There is a substantial section of the England fan base that said “good”. Fair enough. I have always said they are entitled to their opinion and I’d never want to shut that down. That part of the fan base, shall we say, was more than adequately represented in the journalist corps. We pick on Paul Newman a lot here, but he’d got the inside track, by hook or by leak, and there appeared glee in reporting the end of his career. The other big beasts, such as Pringle and Selvey, and I’d say Etheridge too, had nailed their colours to the mast.

Those of us who saw a batsman top of the run charts for his team, albeit, we know, not a stellar record, being the main man to pay the price as unfair, and in my case as a fan, antagonistic, weren’t the beneficiaries of much supportive press. KP split opinions. He still does. The main conclusions to be drawn, from totally outside, was that the press had either personal grudges they weren’t prepared to go into, or they were too close to members of the establishment. Selvey was possibly the worst case, with his piece supporting Downton on his appointment, his Cricketer love letter to Andy Flower, and then his praising of Moores. It’s easy to draw the conclusion we have.

Now, I will admit, that at some times I might have gone a bit wild. But as I’ve explained to the Editor, I come from the background of a football club’s message board. Nuance and reason didn’t work. They just didn’t. You needed to put your argument forcefully. If that’s shooting from the hip. then I’ll agree.

The main gripe, as Brian would know (and he’s limited to space) was our frustration with the journalists was the TTT – Tyers Twitter Tendency – which is “we know more than you, trust us, it was the right decision”. That intimated that there was something, but the proles couldn’t know. I still don’t. Innuendo, unattributable briefing and “I’m not going to comment” isn’t going to cut it in this day and age. And yes, I went on and on and on. I still do. But it is interesting to read these views.

Where Old sometimes fell short was in failing to recognise that journalists find themselves in a different position; in any case, the press as a whole weren’t quite the Establishment mouthpieces he felt them to be. But his obsessive refusal to let sleeping dogs lie – together with an urgent, punchy delivery and a nice line in song-lyric titles – was the most distinctive aspect of the blogosphere in 2014, even if it ultimately prompted the feeling that, at some point, he would need to let go. And in February 2015, he appeared to do just that, taking his blog down, his point eloquently made.

That is very kind of Brian, and while I disagree a bit (and I see the Establishment / Press relationship a little differently now to what I did – amazing what speaking to people does) it’s fair comment. I do listen to these things, and I recognise my style is not for all. I am clearing out the spare room at the moment and came across my old school reports. For English language (and my old English teacher follows me on Twitter) I was accused of all sorts of stylistic abominations. My history teacher called my writing style brutal. Maybe I’ve always been a blogger, and my “florid prose” isn’t to all tastes. But it gets the message across.

There is no secret that I was a nobody who no-one talked to 15 months ago, and now I’m a nobody that speaks to lots more people. I don’t over-estimate any influence I have, but I do know this blog resonates, because mainly the posts are backed up by salient, well honed arguments from many similarly angry commenters. It’s a bit raucous, very angry, and yes, we get things wrong. But it has made it’s mark.

I also see this blog as an extension of How Did We Lose In Adelaide (and Brian wasn’t to know that a new blog had taken its place) so excuse me if there is any confusion over which blog is which!

The conclusion to the article on the relationship between press and blogger is also worth a read, but I think that’s for another day. But it is an important discussion that I think I have a different view on.

My thanks to Lawrence Booth for allowing me to “fisk” the article. My thanks to Brian Carpenter for the review of this and other blogs, and my thanks to all who have supported, and all who hate what we say. It keeps the petrol flowing into the engine.

PS – Do you miss the song-titles?