Most people think ‘The Red Queen Effect’ is a term used to describe the red-faced embarrassment of Her Majesty on those occasions she attended Lord’s to watch the England team play cricket throughout the 1990s.
Not so. In fact, ‘The Red Queen Effect’ describes a biological phenomenon where two competing organisms must constantly adapt and evolve not to gain any significant advantage against the other, but merely to keep pace with one another. Predators must keep getting faster in order to catch prey that continue to get faster so as to avoid being eaten by predators that keep getting faster in order to catch prey that…
You get the idea. Despite each generation becoming objectively better at hunting or avoiding being hunted than their predecessors, there is no relative advantage gained by either side of the hunter-hunted equation. Or, if there is an advantage, it’s a short-lived one that swiftly reverts to an equilibrium. It’s a classic ‘running to stand still’ phenomenon.
At least, that’s what evolutionary biologists (and U2, circa The Joshua Tree album) would have us believe. And we all know we can’t trust those types as far as Shane Warne’s life-creating aliens can throw them.
But on this front, even Warne might be forced to concede that Bono and his neo-Darwinist bandmates may have a point. After all, we see The Red Queen Effect in cricket, too. Most noticeably in limited overs matches, where the known, finite lifespan of an innings fosters the necessary environment for adaptive innovation.
Batsmen develop the courage to premeditatedly swing through the line in the death overs. Bowlers develop the slower ball that uses the batsman’s premeditation against them.
Bowlers develop the ability to bowl yorker after yorker on the same spot. Batsmen develop the Dilscoop to propel those same yorkers over the keeper to unpatrolled areas of the field.
Batsmen develop the ability to use big bats with larger sweet spots so that even mishit shots will fly for six. Bowlers develop the ability to rotate their heads like owls to watch those same sixes fly over them and into the crowd.
It’s beautiful in its way.
Obviously, not all innovations by one side of the cricketing equation will be immediately counteracted by the other side. Sometimes these things take time. After all, batsmen will routinely take off early from the non-striker’s end in order to maximise their chances to complete a run, but bowlers have yet to fully adapt the necessary immunity to the tut-tutting of traditionalists in order to mankad those batsmen without hesitation.
Nevertheless, it will happen. Of that we can be certain.
But there has been one area of the game that, until recently, had remained stagnant on both batting and bowling fronts. The area of sledging.
For how many years have we heard the same tired stories about sledging? If you’re a cricket fan, you can probably recite them all without even breaking a f—en sweat. People spending time between tours eating. Players who are at least the best player in their own family. Putting Mars bars on a length in order to secure a stumping. Fetching balls once you know what they look like. And, of course, wives of players amusingly sleeping with and perhaps giving biscuits to opposition players, before potentially giving birth to retarded children.
Ha ha ha! Classic stuff. But also, y’know, tired stuff.
It’s time for sledging to evolve into something befitting the twenty-first century. And, thanks to one of those aforementioned former players’ wives, we have been given the perfect opportunity to do so. For Kyly Clarke has published her new book True To You, a collection of uplifting mantras and thoughts.
Or, for more lateral-thinking cricketers. a collection of new-generation sledges.
Just imagine. How would Carlos Brathwaite have reacted if Ben Stokes had countered the first six of that legendary World T20 final over by uttering the following phrase:
“To become successful, one must do success things.”
Would Brathwaite really have been able to continue with the ‘success things’ of hitting sixes with Kyly’s words of wisdom ringing in his ears? Doubtful.
Or what about if Mitchell Starc followed up one of his lethal stumps-shattering yorkers with this:
“Feeling sad is bad, so feel happy because it’s nice.”
No need for body language, when you have real language to put the dismissed batsman in his place.
And how would Virat Kohli react when stuck in the nervous nineties, if the opposing keeper was to offer him this thought:
“To reach your goals, all you have to do is reach.”
Would he overreach and find himself dismissed? You bet he would.
True To You is available in both print and ebook form. Although, when I went to buy the ebook in order to write this piece, I was informed that it was ‘not available’. Sold out, presumably. That’s how amazing this book is – it sells out in ebook form. I didn’t even know that was possible!
Nevertheless, I strongly recommend that all players rush out and purchase it as soon as they can. It’s perhaps the most exciting cricketing evolutionary step since the giddy heights of Glenn Maxwell’s impossibly mad and brilliant strokeplay was instantly countered by the bizarre lows of Glenn Maxwell’s impossibly mad and brilliant strokeplay.
And what’s more, we have Kyly’s seal of approval for using her book this way. Because, as she says:
“When someone makes a sarcastic joke at your expense, jump on board and agree with what they say. This gives them nowhere to go, and you can brush it all off with a smile.”
Thanks Kyly. I knew you’d be on board.
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