April 9, 2016

What's in a press conference?

Journalists look for headlines, while players usually hope to get away with saying nothing - though sometimes they make grand statements. Mostly, a balance is struck

MS Dhoni doesn't go by the book in his refreshing interactions with the media © ICC

The cricketing press conference is more often than not a picnic of platitudes, a gentle tick-boxing of taking the positives. Despite players being more geekily erudite than, let's say, footballers in their technical self-assessments, those shoved in front of mics or, increasingly, smartphones generally aim to be amiable but unflavoured. Mike Brearley, a man not given to being unforthcoming with words, put it thus: "These meetings with the press were, in fact, games in which one tried to keep one's balance like a cat on a wall without falling off either on the side of indiscretion or on that of vapidity".

Although one of Brearley's successors, Mike Atherton, famously toppled into indiscretion's back garden when labelling one of his inquisitors a "buffoon" during the 1996 World Cup, the majority of press conferences slant towards the latter ill. This leaves the world's media, particularly after an uneventful day on the field, having to perform journalistic alchemy, trying to turn sound bites into engaging copy.

The recent World T20 has therefore been something of a delight for poor scribes, beginning with Associate captains laying waste to the game's hegemony and ending with the winning one, Darren Sammy, laying siege to his own board. Marlon Samuels in victory took questions with his pads still on, legs up on the desk like a maroon-clad Ron Burgundy. Anyone who manfully anchors two innings for his side in world finals deserves to choose how he postures, but it was hard to imagine Jos Buttler doing similar had the result been different.

Stuart Broad graced the front pages of Brisbane's Courier Mail during the 2013-14 Ashes © Getty Images

After India's exit, MS Dhoni, who it could be said holds court rather than press conferences, got in on the current trend for flamboyance by demanding a journalist, who had somewhat bravely asked about retirement plans, join him in the spotlight. Duly seated, the gentleman had the look of a fan pulled up on stage at a Slipknot gig, thrilled but slightly terrified, as he was interrogated by the Indian captain in a sort of media switch hit. In truth, such a stunt was not entirely unexpected, the home nation's skipper long having tired of the quit question, and a month before, in another press conference, he offered one of his caustic fortune-cookies quotes in response to it: "If you ask the question, 'What is your name?', I'll say MS Dhoni. It will remain the same for a considerable period of time unless you give me a new name."

You suspect media training forms little part of his diary, and so delightfully unfettered is Dhoni that he once even publicly berated his own BCCI press handler: "If the media are happy, you're not a good media manager," he joshed, which was bad news for the spin doctor in question as the world's press are invariably more than satisfied anytime Dhoni speaks.

The press conference, though rarely as grandly handled as by MS, can occasionally be the place for grand gestures, and especially, it seems, for those tinged with lordliness. It's rumoured that in his first encounter with the home media after disembarking the boat for the Bodyline tour of 1932-33, Douglas Jardine remarked that the only thing he liked less than Australians was journalists and then promptly exited stage left. This may be apocryphal but given his famously imperious antipathy to both groups, its credence is not too hard to accept. David Gower, another English leader hewn of contemptuous refinement, adopted a similarly lofty approach during the 1989 Ashes, walking out of a testy press conference at Lord's telling the assembled media he had tickets for the theatre. The Home of Cricket was similarly stunned, for rather weightier reasons, when placard-wielding protesters burst into then ECB chief executive Tim Lamb's announcement that England would be fulfilling their controversial fixture against Zimbabwe in the forthcoming 2003 World Cup.

Michael Atherton had to endure innumerable press conferences where he had to explain yet another England defeat Adrian Murrell / © Getty Images

Sometimes, conversely, words need not be spoken for a cricketer to make their point at a press conference. Ahead of the 2013-14 Ashes, Stuart Broad was subjected to a relentless character assassination by Brisbane's Courier Mail in the wake of his not walking against Australia a few months earlier. His response was to take a five-for on the first day at the Gabba, then greet the media by walking in, purposefully, with a copy of the paper under his arm. Broad also offered a few tips on negotiating both old and new media in his autobiography, My World in Cricket, musing that: "I'm not going to swear in front of 200 press, so why would I swear on Twitter?" This sound advice is generally adhered to, although Broad's captain, Alastair Cook, did let out an expletive on live TV during a press conference when a girl doing work experience at Lord's fainted at the back of the room. The England captain gathered his poise and gallantly made use of the mics in front of him to call for medical aid. "I must be boring," he joked after the girl in question had recovered.

It can all get too much, being under pressure sat in front of the world's media. Kim Hughes cried the most notorious tears in cricket when resigning the Australian captaincy in 1984. It wasn't easy being KP in either the England dressing room or at his press conference at Headingley in 2012. These darker moments, along with the occasional insults, flounces, feet-ups and table-turning, nevertheless remain the exceptions to the rule. Brearley's cats, though often leaning dangerously towards vapidity, normally do keep their balance.

James Marsh writes Pavilion Opinions. He is also a Tefl teacher whose students learn superlatives by being shown Graham Thorpe videos

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