Tony Deyal
WHEN I saw an article headlined 'Another Warrior Gone' about Vivian Richards resigning as chairman of the Selection Committee of the West Indies Cricket Board, I could not help thinking about perspectives and how we all see the same thing in different ways from different viewpoints.
Even for people with binocular vision, the pictures from their left and right eyes are not exactly the same. This difference in perspectives is one of the major strengths of being human, but like all other strengths, when overdone, it becomes a major weakness.
The best (and several times repeated) example I have of differences in perspectives is the following letter from a young lady at university to her parents.
"Dear Mom and Dad: I'm sorry to be so long in writing again, but all my writing paper was lost the night the dormitory was burned down by the demonstrators. I'm out of the hospital now, and the doctor says my eyesight should be back to normal sooner or later.
GRANDPARENTS
"The wonderful boy, Bill, who rescued me from the fire kindly offered to share his little apartment with me until the dorm is rebuilt. He comes from a good family, so you won't be too surprised when I tell you we are going to get married. In fact, you always wanted a grandchild, so you will be glad to know that you will be grandparents next month."
She signed her name and then added a post-script.
"Please disregard the above practice in English composition. There was no fire. I haven't been in the hospital, I'm not pregnant, and I don't even have a boyfriend. But I did get a 'D' in French and an 'F' in Chemistry, and I wanted to be sure you received this news in proper perspective.
Love Mary."
This is why when journalist Vaneisa Baksh laments the departure of Richards, poignantly echoing David Rudder's 'Rally Round the West Indies' with, 'Another Warrior Gone', I could not help thinking, from my perspective, it was 'Another Worry Gone' and not a moment too soon.
Hopefully, the rest of the selection panel, and the executive for life that constitutes the Board, will all follow Richards out of direct control of any aspect of the game. Richards himself has given different versions of his reasons for leaving.
On the one hand he said that the Board had decided that he would not travel overseas with the team, something that should not have happened in the first place; on the other, he is quoted by Wisden as bemoaning the "lack of fight, commitment and passion" of the present 'mob'.
GREAT PLAYERS
His recipe is, "Let the guys at the academy watch tapes of some of the great players of the past until they fall asleep and then wake them up again and say: 'This is what you are representing and this is how we want you to go about representing it'."
I would be more concerned with the fact that the players are not analysing tapes of their present opposition. In fact, there is a report that they did not think of getting a tape of Nasser Hussain batting until the recent series in the Caribbean had already started.
Another of my media colleagues described the departure of Richards as a 'mixed blessing'. I might consider the departure of Cable and Wireless funding in that light but when it comes to Richards, I would leave out the word 'mixed' altogether, saving it for the classic definition of a mixed blessing which is "seeing your mother-in-law going over a cliff in your new jaguar."
SWEET AND SOUR FATE
The best example of such a sweet and sour fate is from Winston Churchill. As a young man, he was asked by a friend about a London dinner party he had attended the night before.
"Well," replied Churchill, "it would have been splendid if the wine had been as cold as the soup, the beef as rare as the service, the brandy as old as the fish, the chicken as tender as the maid, and the maid as willing as the duchess."
It would have been interesting to see Churchill's reaction to England's loss to Portugal in football. While the foreign-born coach is philosophical, the English are at the point where they would take out the 'mixed' from any call for turfing David Beckham out of the team and the captaincy. Not since Beckham was sent off the field during a World Cup game in Argentina in 1992 has the British public been as angry with him. A recurring question on the Internet is, "What do the England football team and Posh Spice (Victoria Beckham) have in common?" They've both been screwed by David Beckham. Another is, "What's the difference between Bill Clinton and David Beckham?" Clinton can score from anywhere.
Some people believe that the problem with Beckham as a leader, as it might be with Richards, is that his undoubted genius is limited to the mechanics of the game.
There is a story that Beckham was on the plane bound for Portugal when Michael Owen asked him, "If this plane turns upside-down will we fall out?" 'No," affirmed Beckham, "we'll still be friends."
When asked if he thought that he was a volatile player, Beckham said, "Well, I can play in the centre, on the right and occasionally on the left side."
He also came up with, "Pele was a complete player. I didn't see him live obviously, because I wasn't born."; "My parents have been there for me, ever since I was about seven", and "I always used to go for blondes and quiet girls, but Victoria is the total opposite - dark and loud."
Hopefully, the BBC will find out, early rather than late, that Vivian and Victoria have as much in common as Richards and Beckham.
Tony Deyal was last seen saying that in spite of his failure as chairman of Selectors, Richards would qualify for the praise heaped on Argentine soccer star, Oswaldo Ardiles by commentator Jimmy Magee who said, "Ardiles strokes the ball like it was a part of his anatomy."
