Is Over Expectation To Blame For English Cricket?
Much has been written but who is actually to blame for the England’s current form? Selectors or Players? Well here’s a thought. Maybe it’s the media.
Not only in cricket but in all sports we heap untold expectation on the players and coaches. With cricket, whoever is selected as wicket keeper is under immediate pressure to score runs. Reid, Prior, Jones and now Ambrose have all come in and been hounded out by the media (who now interestingly want Reid, Jones or Prior back!), and are expecting excellent glove work, coupled with an average of 40 plus with the bat. Not every country can produce an Adam Gilchrist so let the selectors decide who is the best prospect long term and then the media should get off his back. Playing in the intensity of a Test match must be hard but when you know that 99% of the people reporting on the game are practically willing you to fail to give them copy makes it 100 times harder.
The same argument holds with Collingwood. He hasn’t suddenly become a bad player. His summer average is poor admittedly, but it was only 12 months ago he was made One Day captain, so he must be a decent player just out of form. Dropping him, then bringing him back with the entire media writing that he shouldn’t even be in the side just makes it even harder for him to find form. He was clearly short of confidence yesterday, and it was hardly surprising that he didn’t score. However, he and all batsmen have been there before and as the saying goes “form is temporary but class is permanent”. It was only a few Tests ago, that people in the media were questioning the inclusion of Bell, but now he is scoring again its not mentioned.
The bottom line is that it is unlikely that all players in ANY team will all perform well in a Test match. The problem is that the media make such a song and dance about the slightest under performance that it unsettles not only the out of form player(s) but the entire team. Perfection is always worth striving for but there has to be an acceptance that it can rarely, if ever be achieved, and we are not masters of all sports as we once were. Our expectations are perhaps too high.
on July 31st, 2008 at 3:59 pm
You are assuming here that all cricketers (and sports people in general) gather together the papers/watch the TV in order to feel the weight of this pressure.
I suspect most players are either sheilded from the media or will turn a blind eye. Don’t forget they will also be surrounded by people saying how wonderful they are. Plus, to get where they are today, they’ve not only got to have discipline, but a certain amount of faith in themselves.