Is it possible to bat with the conviction of Ben Duckett yet talk with the bleak defeatism of the average England fan?

6 minute read

Conviction. It’s what Ben Stokes’ England Test team is all about. This is great to watch but cringe-inducing to listen to. Is there any chance they could play the same way without… saying all of those things?

The most obviously groansome comment arising from England’s 434-run defeat to India in the third Test was Ben Duckett’s response when asked what England would be happy chasing in the fourth innings.

“The more the better. This team is all about doing special things and creating history. They can have as many as they want and we’ll go and get them.”

England in fact only ‘got’ 122 of the 557 they needed for victory. Maybe they’d have got closer if they’d been chasing 900.

Duckett’s batting had been bold and unrestrained and his comments followed suit. Let us tell you now, overseas readers, this is actually quite hard to palate if you support the team he plays for. Self-confidence is not actually something Britons really celebrate. We in fact tend to view it as crass, needy and even pitiable.

The exact ratios of those three things vary, but that’s your basic mix. And England cricket fans arguably inhabit an even harsher subculture. To support the England cricket team is to never truly feel sure of victory, even when it is basically assured. In 1938, they made 903-7 against Australia and bowled the opposition out for 201 and then 123. We are positive there will have been fans catastrophising defeats until that last wicket was taken and mentally preparing themselves for the resultant humiliation.

In England, we do not like cockiness in our cricketers. If that sounds like a single rule, it actually stems from two:

1. If you’re no good, don’t be cocky – you’ll only look like a pillock
2. If you’re good, don’t be cocky – no-one likes a show-off

Duckett’s hundred was characterised by conviction. His words were too. Are these two sides of the same 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup 50p?

Cobblers

Because we’re sure you’re already aware that Duckett’s comment was only really the latest verbal sortie from a squad that is fast developing a bit of a reputation for voicing this kind of brassy nonsense.

“I think even sending in a nightwatchman when you’re 330 ahead shows that they’re slightly wary of us,” was another from the opener from that same interview. And despite stating that it had been, “one of those days when I feel we have to give credit to India,” Duckett also couldn’t restrain himself from acknowledging Yashasvi Jaiswal’s innings by saying: “When you see players from the opposition playing like that, it almost feels like we should take some credit that they’re playing differently than how other people play Test cricket.”

Duckett’s by no means alone. There are any number of examples.

One of the more infamous comments from recent times was Zak Crawley’s “I think we’ll win by, I don’t know, 150 runs?” during the Ashes – albeit that was perhaps more knowingly ludicrous than most are willing to acknowledge.

For a purer example, we’re better off turning to Ollie Robinson.

“We’ve entertained the world, and we’ve put the Aussies on the back foot,” he wrote in his Wisden column… shortly after England had lost the first Ashes Test.

Nor is he going to let something like ‘not actually playing’ get in the way of his strutting bombast. “I don’t think India have ever experienced a team that’s come at them in the way that we did in that first Test,” he said after the first match of this series.

The vibe is a group of England cricketers who are just certain that they’re going to prevail. Could they perhaps play a totally different game in front of the dictaphones? How about a bit of 1990s defeatism? Is that too much to ask?

Conviction (and delusion)

Robinson did a bit of a John Tavner on Brendon McCullum when he reported that the coach told his charges, “It feels like we’ve won, lads,” after that Edgbaston Ashes defeat. That seemed a very “for your ears only” comment and not at all intended for the wider world.

‘Know your audience’ is the crux of it. You might tell a toddler you’re going to leave the house without him if you think it’ll persuade him to put his shoes on. Similarly, you might tell Ollie Robinson that defeat feels like a victory if you feel the actual outcome of the match might result in counterproductive second-guessery from him in the next Test. (Credit to McCullum for not explaining that, by the way, which would have totally undermined the message.)

That alleged quote nevertheless sheds light on the psychological mechanics that are being employed to develop the stripped-back, unencumbered, in-the-moment mindset England are striving for. (Here’s a piece about how England’s philosophy is not about mindless positivity so much as it’s about clear-mindedness and here’s a piece about how reductive language has allowed people to lose sight of that.)

The central aim is to mould cricketers who play shorn of outside pressures and preconceptions. This of course first requires renouncing those outside pressures and preconceptions. The benefits of doing so are arguably hard to come by without also sounding like complete wingnuts from time to time.

Here’s another example: Robinson about England’s win in the first Test of this series.

“The best thing about us in that first Test was that when we came off and they were 190 ahead, you wouldn’t know that they were 190 ahead. The mood in the dressing room, the morale, our confidence that we could win the game was as high as ever. The moment you stop believing is the moment that you’ve lost the game.”

There’s a broad and muddy no-man’s land between confidence and delusion. The far narrower dividing line can only ever be uncovered afterwards – and crucially it will have been shifted one way or another by the attitudes of those involved.

Many of the greatest sports stars were basically delusional because that’s often something of an entry requirement for delivering improbable feats. It’s why these characters so often play on for too long or make ill-advised comebacks. They’re fundamentally impervious to evidence.

Is the rhetoric from ‘England’ or is it from ‘some England players’?

Duckett’s “the more the better” was the most bullish in a series of comments from England players about chasing down fourth innings targets.

Looking back, when Jonny Bairstow was waiting to see what England would be chasing against the same opponents in 2022, his words were open-minded rather than silly.

“Whatever they set, they set and we’ll go about it in the same manner,” he said. “Why not?”

This was one game after his Kingsman church scene innings against New Zealand and he and Joe Root did in fact then get England to a lofty target of 378 with ease.

So maybe you don’t have to be utterly convinced that you will definitely triumph in order to play with conviction. Maybe you just have to be open to the possibility that things might pan out for you, because why not?

Or maybe it just manifests in different players in different ways. For every Ollie Robinson, there’s a Joe Root, self-effacing to a fault. Given an opportunity to say something about his incredible record as a batter, Root is more likely to deflect towards his dreadful record as captain.

And for every Duckett, there’s a Mark Wood, saying that Sarfaraz Khan “doesn’t know unlucky he was” to get run out by “the worst fielder in the team”.

A lot of these other quotes aren’t nearly so memorable. Asked whether England would get a first innings lead, shortly after Duckett’s spectacular hundred and shortly before England’s spectacular implosion, Wood went with, “I’m a bowler, so I want every lead we can get. That’s not quite how the game goes, so we’ll have to see what happens tomorrow.”

As a long-serving England fan, we knew – just knew – that they’d collapse the next morning, surrender another 400 to India in their second innings, and then find themselves 50-7 chasing 557.

Conviction: it’s available to everyone.

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