His father, who managed a salt factory and owned a petrol station and a small hotel, was only a modest club cricketer and the hand-eye co-ordination with which Wazir and all his brothers were blessed was inherited from their mother, a champion badminton player.
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Yet no cricketing family has ever rivalled the quartet of Wazir Mohammad and his three brothers, all of whom played for Pakistan, notching up 173 Test appearances between them. They might have been a quintet too but Raees Mohammad — the second of the five brothers and rated by Wazir as the most stylish — had to make do with being the 12th man against India in 1955.The oldest of the five,
Yes, yes, newly emergent nation, small middle class playing an amateur game and all that. And yet still, one in the eye for the blank slate enthusiasts…..
Steve Sailer – probably the best journalist writing in English today – has an unfortunate interest in baseball statistics. But he did say one thing that took my eye – the principal physical requirement to be a good baseball player is eye speed. I imagine the same is true in cricket for batting and slip-catching.
I do know that I was in my forties before I faced a bowler so quick that I hardly had time to see the ball. The idea that I might see his seam position was laughable. But at 17? Decent slip fielder.
Dad had been a successful batsman and ‘keeper in club cricket and had a cabinet full of the sports trophies he’d won in his youth. And his father …
And another thing … we none of us had any musical ability. That’s heritable too.
There’s a good econtalk episode about that (link below). Baseball batters have average reaction times and way above average eyesight. It’s not even about reading the flight of the ball, it’s reading the throw.
One of the other facts I enjoyed in that podcast is that if you’re American and 6’10”, you have a 3.2% chance of being a current NBA player.
https://www.econtalk.org/david-epstein-on-the-sports-gene/#audio-highlights
It’s definitely a thing, but as a sport gets bigger, the effects are smaller. There’s lots of families in sports with no money (like showjumping) far less in football and basketball.
In football, you have the Charltons and the Nevilles but not many others. What you often see is that the son of an England capped player still goes into football but doesn’t have quite such an illustrious career, or perhaps turns out to be a great manager.
And one can only assume that Alan Carr is a lot like his mother. His father is Graham Carr who is a bit of a legend to Northampton Town fans.
Cricket has lots of examples like (in alphabetical order, off the top of my head) Bedser, Broad, Compton, Cowdrey, Curren, Grace, Graveney, Hutton, Root.
Laila Ali won three world titles …
Sure, and cricket is not as competitive as football. Football has always had a lot more money in it.
But professional boxing is the most competitive of sports and there’s lots of $millions at the Ali level.
Regression to the mean. Parents who are exceptional in some way, height, ball skills, IQ, usually have kids who may be better/taller than average but not as good/tall as the parent.
But then what you can get is some factor from the other parent meaning they fit better with things, especially as markets change.
Like maybe aspects of Mrs Renoir made Jean a film director, which is a bit different to being an artist like his dad. Sure, you’re making art, but it’s more about team work, storytelling, and not purely visual.
Darwinian evolution theory essentially states that in response to competitive pressure, species evolve to maintain and enhance their position in the ecological order, and this evolution includes both physical and behavioural characteristics. Lefties and progressives seem content with this, and rail against the religious who prefer other explanations.
And yet those same lefties and progressives refuse to acknowledge that humans – primates, all – are subject to the same evolutionary pressures and evolve in the same way as all other species. They come up with shit like Blank Slates, men can be women, human nature can be changed, New Man, etc. etc.
Also, no-one out there denies things like the genetic effect of people from certain parts of Somalia and Ethiopia on long distance running.
But you start to suggest that minds are different and they get outraged.
It is, really, why you get “good schools” and why private schools get such great results. It’s not the schools, it’s the kids they get. It’s why sons of footballers don’t do that great at private school. Footballers aren’t thick, but what they’re especially good mentally doesn’t fit with exams, like doctors do. The people who complain about private schools are the most valuable ads for private schools, as parents with mediocre kids will sacrifice everything to send their kids to them. But we know the numbers based on socioeconomic groups and private school makes almost zero difference.
the genetic effect of people from certain parts of Somalia and Ethiopia on long distance running.
I suspect that’s not entirely genetic and nurture (growing up at high altitude) is an important element. How many of Somali/Ethiopian extraction who grow up at sea level become outstanding runners?
If that’s true why aren’t a lot of champion log distance runners coming out of Bolivia for instance? I suspect with E. Africans it’s heat management. They’re built attenuated to dissipate body heat. That body plan will favour long distance running.
Probably because, for the same reason Tibet doesn’t produce long distance runners, the elevation is much higher and the climate colder than East Africa. In short, not conducive to running as an activity.
Also Tibetans are little dumpy fuckers, as are Bolivians. I ain’t seen an example of either with the physique of Mo Farah.
Yes. Heat management is a limiting factor in marathon running. Which leads to short skinny runners (generally) doing better. Paula Radcliffe was 5’8″, much taller than most female marathon runners. Pretty much everything she won was in cold weather, and in hot weather she was nowhere near. Too tall to effectively manage the heat produced by her body.
(Again, from the Econtalk podcast)
Mo Farah. Left when he was 4. Had no running culture until he was at school at 11 or 12 in the UK and a teacher noticed his potential. Within 2 years he was running at the highest level.
IVF mixups are telling us a lot about nurture vs nature. Sporty kids born into musical or literary families. Then when the mixup is discovered, turns out the Dad’s a seriously sporty guy.
Well, referencing another thread, we’re rapidly breeding more wankers, then.
To add to the sporting families, we have some notable squash players…