Must
England sack Moores to regain Ashes?
It looks as if we are about to witness an unprecedented moment in sport: the
sacking of a coach by a player. As the row between Kevin Pietersen, the
England cricket captain, and Peter Moores, the head coach, begins to
establish some kind of rhythm, it seems increasingly likely that Moores will
have to go.
Why? Simple: because Pietersen wants him gone. Throughout the history of
sport, cricketers, more than most athletes, have been considered inferior to
such people as selectors and chairmen and tour managers.
A lack of deference to such people used to cost players their places, as Fred
Trueman, among many others, learnt the hard way.
But now, it seems, the captain is about to sack the coach, much as a writer
sacks the editor or the lead violinist sacks the conductor. Fire the boss!
What a thrilling concept - how wonderful it would be, whenever our careers
seem to be developing along unpleasing lines, to sack the boss.
Can you imagine a Manchester United player trying to sack Sir Alex Ferguson?
Why, yes you can because David Beckham took him on wholeheartedly enough and
ended up leaving the club. In football there is no machinery for making this
happen. Michael Owen, for all his disappointment at not being picked for
England, is not going to sack Fabio Capello, the manager.
True, there have been plenty of times when “player power” has destabilised a
football manager. That is not the same as Pietersen's case. Such things are
not sackings but simple mutiny, and when there is a mutiny you first hang
the mutineers, then promote the captain to a job running a lighthouse in the
Outer Hebrides.
No, here we have an unprecedented example of a captain believing that a coach
is not good enough and the world shrugging its shoulders and saying: “All
right, then, Kev, if you say so, he'd better go, then.”
The one thing we can be sure of is that Pietersen is not taking this step
because of personal animus or a new and even more virulent attack of
egomania. The point of Pietersen, behind the pouting, is that he is almost
frighteningly dedicated to the task of winning cricket matches - and he
doesn't believe that Moores is helping England to do such a thing.
Moores's lack of international experience as a player cuts deep in a sport
that, more than most, operates on the “show us yer medals” principle. A
taste for boot-camp training and quirky selections do not help. But what
matters is that England are consistently playing below their abilities - and
that is a coach's responsibility. But is it a captain's job to say so? It
never has been before. The job of cricket captain gives a player more
responsibility than any player shoulders in any other team sport. It can be
said that Pietersen is simply expanding his circle of responsibilities in a
serious effort to win cricket matches. We are witnessing the traditions of
one of the most tradition-bound sports changing before our eyes. Can a
captain sack the coach? All the signs point to one conclusion as I write: he
can now.
Time has come to go for broke and gain entry into ring of one
The more deeply you penetrate any organisation, the more you find that there
are circles within circles, rings within rings within rings. That is
especially true in sport, where these rings tend to reward tangible
achievement. But - and here is the crucial point - they also reward the
ability to belong; more precisely, the ability to believe that you belong.
That has been the story of Andy Murray over the past few months. He moved from
the ring of the promising young player to that of top-20 player, then to
that of a natural top-tenner who will, as a matter of course, take the odd
scalp.
But now he has penetrated the second-highest ring of all: players for whom a
grand-slam title would not be a surprise. With Murray's weekend victories,
albeit in a sexed-up exhibition event, over Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal,
he has demonstrated again that he believes that he belongs among the best.
Two thoughts from this. The first is that, to confirm this self-promotion,
Murray needs to win a grand-slam tournament, preferably this year. And
second, that there is one even higher ring. It is the circle of one, the
circle of the undisputed and untouchable champion. Federer had that role and
let it slip after a glorious run.
It is up for grabs.
Human follies get racy airing
Sport should never get into the hands of lawyers - that is certainly true -
and nor should any other aspect of life. But that's why law exists, for the
times when the system fails. The fallibilities of human beings, their
oppositions, egomania, dishonesty, idiocy, blindness to truth, insane belief
in their own rightness - these are the things that keep lawyers in business.
So why should sport be immune? Lawyers shouldn't get their hands on, say,
marriage, but, alas, frequently they are required to do so. Lawyers should
never be involved in the fun and games and trivialities of sport, but again
and again they do.
I have a fine book on my desk: Sporting Justice: 101 Sporting Encounters
with the Law, by legal standards racily put together by Ian Hewitt, a
lawyer who was involved with the foundation of the FA Premier League. This
book is a treasure trove of human folly.
You can find, for example, the Tonya Harding case, in which Nancy Kerrigan,
Harding's rival Olympic skater, was beaten with an iron bar. You can find
the time when Ian Botham sued Imran Khan for libel and lost. You can find
Lester Piggott's tax case; Sir Alex Ferguson's attempt to sue John Magnier
over the breeding rights to Rock of Gibraltar, the brilliant racehorse; you
can find Oscar Pistorius and Jean-Marc Bosman.
It's sad thing when lawyers get involved in sport. But, alas, the person who
told you that sport was cut off from the rest of life, in its own magical
little world, was lying.
Annual gloat is unedifying
Lord, how we love an upset. It's a myth that the FA Cup is about glory; it's
an exercise in humiliation. Those clubs battered and bruised by the third
round over the course of the weekend can reflect on what is perhaps a
uniquely British taste for isolating big names and taking them down a peg or
two.
It is a largely alien concept in, say, the United States, where no one wants
to see big names lose, ever. The natural tendency there is to will the
“ossum” to get even more “ossum”. But we British love the drama of failure
that is inherent in the FA Cup.
There are other cup competitions in other football nations, but no country
pursues them with the same relish, the same rabid enthusiasm to see the
mighty fallen. I sometimes wonder if this isn't an anti-excellence thing, a
feeling that the failure of the big names lets us all off the task of
seeking excellence because - well, we're all excellent, really, aren't we?
But at other times I wonder if this isn't a more healthy business - a taste
for democracy, a proof that the reputation of the best must be put
repeatedly to the test. The pricking of pretension is a good thing, the avid
seizing of an opportunity to sneer is less edifying.The weekend just gone is
an annual stocktaking of mockery and gloating in which we all can reassure
ourselves that anyone who aspires to high achievement deserves everything
they get.
