Gareth Southgate has led a revolution that has produced better results and entertainment while England’s cricketers have also benefited from a more aggressive attitude
Among the myriad skills that are employed in different sports one that is shared by all is risk assessment. Though it sounds like some dark art practised by insurance agents, it is the basic cost-benefit analysis that most competitors make intuitively and upon which all coaches are fixated. Namely, does a given action increase the likelihood of gaining an advantage more than it increases the likelihood of suffering a setback? That is the question a full-back has to ask each time he sprints down the wing. Or a tennis player when she rushes the net.
And overall it is this matter that governs how a sport is played: the style, attitude, tactics and strategy. You can see this most clearly with football and cricket, two sports that, aside from team size, have little in common. Yet both have been transformed in recent years, particularly in England, by a new approach to risk.
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A series of foreign coaches changed the way football was thought about and played at the top level in the Premier League
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