In 1976, Western Australia and Queensland, the two best state sides at the time, played a one-day match at Perth. WA had been bowled out for a mere 77. Rod Marsh, the captain, tried to encourage his disconsolate players. “Let’s at least put up a show for our home crowd,” he said, “and get a few of them out.” Dennis Lillee, the great fast bowler, burst in angrily. “Put up a show? We’re going to fucking win.” In the first over of the innings, he clean-bowled star opponent Viv Richards for zero (after several vicious bouncers); quickly got Greg Chappell caught behind for two and ended up with four wickets for 19. Queensland were all out for 62.
“Putting up a show,” to Lillee, meant something like going through the motions in order not to disappoint. It meant looking as though we think we can win, while knowing underneath that we can’t. For him the idea of a “show” was an expression of inauthenticity, an avoidance of full, visceral competitiveness, a chickening-out.
To Lillee, there might have been analogy between Marsh’s attitude and the wrestling competitions that used to prevail on television decades ago—which were no doubt in part contests of skill and strength, but were also in part scripted with previously cast roles. Genuine sporting competition degenerated into pantomime.
At a more ordinary level, I knew of one or two cricketers who would be bored when playing at windswept Derby on a damp Thursday, but would put on a show against the Australian touring team at a well-populated test ground on a sunny Saturday. The show included exaggerated gestures of energy and involvement that were different from the apparent apathy at Derby.
The performer becomes less than spontaneous. He acts his enthusiasm. In the Wimbledon final earlier this year, commentator Marion Bartoli said of Novak Djokovic, when he went 2-0 down to Carlos Alcaraz in the second set having lost the first, “His brain has gone missing: he’s watching himself play.” He managed to get his “teeth into the contest” for the third set, but, conceding it more narrowly, lost the match.
There is a continuum from performers in this mode to players who raise their game for the biggest challenges. Ted Dexter, for example, tended to get out in county matches to part-time bowlers, people he thought couldn’t bowl. He was at his best against the best.
Not that authenticity is always a matter of overt boldness
One aspect of the skill of selection is to get a sense of those who have the confidence and ability to make the transition to a higher level. A radio commentator recently recalled noticing the young Andy Murray in the changing rooms at Roland-Garros in Paris. Murray, he felt at the time, stood out as a new boy who wasn’t satisfied merely to be there; he already conveyed his determination to do more than just show up. He was already making his mark. Joe Root, who has recently been in marvellous form, also showed how ready he was for the top level when he arrived at Nagpur, India, for his first test (as a replacement player) in 2012, came out to bat and perkily asked Kevin Pietersen, “What’s going on out here?” He scored 73 and 20 not out, helping England win the series.
All the players mentioned by name here were, or are, performers in a full visceral sense. There was nothing half-hearted about them, and they wore their hearts on their sleeves.
Captains and groups of players can have a similar impact. At Middlesex, we had a talented bowler who was liable to do something eccentric to divert attention from his insecure moments. For instance, after bowling an expensive over, when fielding in the deep, he would hurl the ball way above the keeper’s head. We worked out that his unconscious aim was to get a laugh from members of the team. Having noticed this pattern, we, his team-mates and I as captain, determined not to gratify him by reactions either of illicit amusement or too much irritation when, without conscious deliberation or decision, he played the fool in this way. Instead, we took pains to encourage him when he started to become disconcerted and acknowledged his efforts whenever he fielded well. Gradually, this provocative cover-up by means of clowning became rarer.
Similarly, Keith Fletcher, who captained Essex for many years, would quietly point out the way some of his batsmen, rather than sussing out the best but perhaps less dramatic policy for winning in a run-chase, might try to impress the rest of the team by exaggerated, even reckless, boldness: “Glory shots again,” he’d remonstrate.
Ben Stokes, too, has a powerful and usually benign effect on batters who might be felt to be taking too many risks—though, in his case, he would be more likely to challenge not the glory shot but any timidity revealed in curtailing such shots.
Not that authenticity is always a matter of overt boldness. Equally authentic was batsman Virat Kohli’s approach when facing Jimmy Anderson, now sadly absent from the test arena, bowling with a new-ish ball. Kohli’s orientation was defensive. He would aim to leave as many balls as he safely could (though his skill was such he was able to play safe attacking strokes whenever Anderson erred marginally in length or direction). Both these cricketers were great performers in the most natural and benign sense of the term.
The difference between the two types of performance—authenticity on one hand and seeking glory, warding off criticism or going absent on the other—is echoed in the contrast between honest but skilled rhetoric and insinuating, seductive manipulation and incitement. It is the difference between being fully in the zone and struggling with a kind of absence—brain “gone missing”, no teeth in the contest.
At an extreme, there are, as we know, politicians who play up to the lowest instincts of the crowd, whipping them up and inciting violence. Lillee’s was a benign version of this: he drew out from team-mates their deepest commitment.
