“There are only three things wrong with the English team – they can’t bat, they can’t bowl, and they
can’t field.” The journalist Martin Johnson’s famous and amusing assessment of England’s 1986
cricket team in Australia is often repeated when describing the failings of a particular cricket team,
whereby the humour and irony in the statement is in the fact that those three things are actually the
only things that a team has to do! His use of the word “only” made the reader think that there are
more but cricket is made up very simply of batting, bowling and fielding; a successful cricket team
has to perform all three tasks well. Similarly, they need to bat, bowl and field well in all three
sessions of the day, not just in one or two.

In a similar vein, we might be tempted to claim that there is perhaps only one (not three) thing
wrong with Zimbabwean sport but we must realise that that one thing is the key thing to which
Martin Johnson’s statement alludes. Any coach, any player knows that balance is absolutely essential
for a sportsman. A player must be well-balanced in order to complete a shot, a pass or a hit. If a
player is caught off balance, he will not execute the task well; if a player is suffering from an injury to
one leg, he will limp and as a result will be ineffective.

It is equally true to say that in many sports, an all-rounder is considered to be an invaluable asset to
the team – the cricketer who can bat, bowl and field is at the heart of the team. In fact, increasingly
every player is being required to be an all-rounder; it is not enough simply for a player to be able to
contribute in only one area. In rugby, forwards are required to have the same handling skills as a
back while the three-quarters are required to have the same strength as a forward – all are expected
to run fast and long. In soccer, all players need to know how to defend as well as to score.

So in school sport, we must ensure that the one thing, the only thing, we do is provide balance for
our children, is develop ‘all-rounders’, is give our children the right balance needed to perform at a
high level consistently. As schools, we are committed to developing an all-round, balanced child.
Schools must seek to ensure that there is a proper balance between academic, sporting, cultural,
social and spiritual matters. If we focus purely on academics, we are like a weight-lifter only working
on strengthening his upper body, which not only would be an ugly sight (huge upper body and
spindly legs) but also an ineffective one, as much of the weight-lifter’s power must come from the
legs. If we focus greatly on sport, we are like a man who simply eats ‘nyama’. Just as a balanced diet
of food is essential for a healthy life-style, so a balanced diet of each of these activities is what is
needed if we are to educate our child properly and healthily. Balance is essential.

Not only should the same time be given to these different areas of life but also the same amount of
attention, kudos, finance and praise. Too often schools do not balance their sports but give far more
attention to one or two sports; too often they give far more attention to boys’ sports than to girls’,
to First teams than to ‘junior’ teams. Balance is required in all these areas. Furthermore, schools
must also seek to ensure that there is a proper balance between results, performance and attitude.
Purely announcing, recording or promoting results is contributing to an imbalanced child, whose
view of sport (and therefore of life) will simply consist of the importance of winning above all else.
Bill Shankly, the Liverpool manager who started their great run of success in the 1970s, made the
infamous statement that “Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it’s
much more serious than that.” We laugh at his comment but there is obviously no balance in such a
view. In 2012, Fabrice Muamba, a Bolton Wanderers soccer player, put that view in sharp contrast
when he suffered a cardiac arrest during a cup match and his heart stopped beating for over an
hour, though amazingly he recovered; the match was, however, abandoned (as was his club’s next
match) as life is far more important than sport. Another soccer manager Luiz Felipe Scolari, the
manager of the Brazilian World Cup winning team in 2002, made the important observation that
“the more important something gets, the harder it is to do well… sport matters too much and the
mattering gets in the way”. We must not allow the mattering to affect our children’s balance.