Dialogue: Why don't they let our sportspeople grow up?

By GORDON McLAUCHLAN

Have you ever wondered what batsmen say to each other when they wander into the middle of the crease between overs? Well, I've been eavesdropping.

Batsman A: "Jeez, did you see that?"

Batsman B: "Yep, but clearly you didn't. You should visualise each stroke the way the shrink tells you to."

A: "I did. I visualised it into the stand over mid-off."

B: "Well, the bowler must have visualised it through to the wicket-keeper and he's obviously a better visualiser than you are."

A: "I don't care. My motto is, If you slashed and missed, blame it on Trist; if you're beaten badly, blame it on Hadlee; if life's a bitch, then blame the pitch; but the big scores are all yours."

B: "That's pretty composed, and composure's the theme this week. What's coming through on your helmet receiver to settle you down?"

A: "Brahms."

B: "I think with bowling this fast you should call for Dixieland."

After the following over.

B: "Welcome to the battleground."

C: "Sorry about A but he wouldn't listen to instructions. We've got a few problems but were working on them and staying positive."

B: "Yeah, it's a shame. He's got his money on fixed deposit for six months. I told him the way things are it's best to keep it on call."

C: "We've got a few problems but were working on them and staying positive."

B: "What are you doing for composure?"

C: "Deep breathing and some passages I've learnt by heart from Khalil Gibran. And although I have some problems I'm working on them and staying positive."

B: "Don't sweat, mate, well get an early night tonight."

It's just outside my comprehension how a batsman can see a ball for a fraction of a second before making up his mind how to play.

At the moment most of our batsman seem to share my perplexity. I played enough of the game to know that technique is the bedrock on which batsmanship is built but, nevertheless, a finely executed stroke is a masterpiece of hand-eye coordination built on technique and swift decision-making.

Cricket is the most marvellously complicated and intellectually demanding of the games that attract a large public following. If it produced anything more than a scoreboard you would say it was a craft rather than a sport.

And, especially in its one-day televised form, it's so often wonderfully exciting because - as long-ago sports writer and music critic Neville Cardus wrote - of its glorious uncertainty.

In New Zealand right now, sadly, it's neither glorious nor uncertain.

Why?

Well, I think one reason is that sportspeople are not encouraged to grow up. Their personalities etiolate inside the darkness of corporate cocoons.

When they were amateurs, they could claim privacy as a personal right. Now that they are earning high incomes as public figures in the entertainment industry, they are to some degree at least public property.

They represent New Zealand and we are therefore entitled to call them to account.

But cosseted inside corporate structures, their judgments on behaviour and attitude seem too often made for them. Take Craig McMillan and Nathan Astle, senior batsmen who have had an abysmal run of form. Commentators were hinting one or the other might face the axe.

Someone inside the cricket cocoon should have told them that's the way the world works. But when in a match shortly afterwards they each made reasonable scores, one slammed the media like a spoiled child and the other petulantly refused to attend the press conference.

Had they been allowed to grow up, they might have said something like, "I'm having a tough time with my form at the moment but I'm keen to hang in there and fight on." They would have gained respect.

The shrinks and motivators among the Black Caps' handlers should help the players to mature inside themselves, both as players and personalities, and not try to control them. You have only to watch the Australians through one match to respect their mental toughness and to watch a press conference to note their personal maturity.

And that's a team representing a country so rich in cricket resources that every player knows a fall from form will mean losing his place.

A while ago, the dropping of Mark Waugh became a widely discussed probability after a run of failures within a few months of his being rated one of the best two or three batsmen in the world.

The All Blacks are also strictly cosseted. A Wellington sports journalist was lately told by the rugby union's PR mouth that he'd be dead if he published certain information. Well, he ought to be professionally dead.

Take Tana Umaga, who has twice been reported as too intoxicated to be responsible, once outside New Zealand and incurring international publicity.

What sort of bloke is Umaga? You don't have to have a long memory to know that as a young man you might drink too much too often and still be basically a sound and decent man. But we're not allowed to know anything about Umaga or any other of the big-name players.

What worries me is that some sports journalists will give you the bully privately but are frightened to write or speak up for fear of retribution by sports management.