From Raghu, India The curtain is ready to fall on one of the most colourful chapters in the history of Indian – nay – world cricket

Cricinfo25-Feb-2013Raghu, India
The curtain is ready to fall on one of the most colourful chapters in the history of Indian – nay – world cricket. Saurav Ganguly was an often mis-understood man and so it was ironically befitting that his departure from the international cricket scene was also tinged with some controversy.Did he retire on his own terms? Was he forced by the BCCI? And disgusting as it may sound, did a threat to kidnap his daughter have anything to do with his announcement? Nobody knows… and it’s possible nobody will ever know. But what we can say for sure it that Indian cricket will never quite be the same without the mysterious, aristocratic Ganguly.Nobody, and just nobody in the history of Indian cricket has evoked the kind of bipolar emotions that he has consistently done throughout his career. For every glorious extra-cover drive he played to every short ball he awkwardly fended; for every time he danced assuredly down the track to the spinners to every time he misfielded, for every silken boundary he hit to every single or two he refused – people either loved him or loathed him. But there was something more.Saurav Ganguly fed the Indian teams he led with a potion, an elixir which captains before him had not dared to touch. It was called aggression. And happily for us, team India has since then not stopped consuming it. Who can forget his adrenaline-fuelled shirt twirling on the Lords balcony, when he mocked not just the English cricketers but Lord’s tradition itself? Or India’s amazing run to the World Cup final in 2003? Or his captain’s innings of coruscating brilliance at the Gabba?No chronicle of his legacy would be complete without a reference to his captaincy and his ability to get the best out of his players, particularly the younger ones. Whether it was the inspired decision to convert Sehwag to an opener, or the rather painful decision to make Dravid keep wicket, or the decision to bring Harbhajan back from relative obscurity for the 2001 Australia series, or the decision to promote Laxman to no.3 in THAT match at the Eden – most of his decisions were taken by putting his players directly in the cauldron – and almost all of them came off.Saurav Ganguly will be remembered as, statistically and otherwise, India’s greatest ever left-handed batsman, an exceptionally good Test match player who never allowed his average to dip below 40 and one of the all-time greats of the one-day game. But most of all, he will be remembered for his brand of captaincy that quite simply changed the face of Indian cricket. The curtain is ready to fall … but there is one act of the play still left to witness. As Shah Rukh Khan would have said, “Abhi thoda picture baaki hai mere dost”. Farewell Saurav. And thank you for the entertainment.

From Alfred Moore, Ireland
Sometimes it takes an outsider to show you what ought to be obvious

Cricinfo25-Feb-2013Alfred Moore, Ireland
Sometimes it takes an outsider to show you what ought to be obvious. My wife is American, and since falling in love with Matthew Hoggard in 2005 she has become an extremely knowledgable observer of the game. You might say this is like a cat who plays tennis: It doesn’t do it very well, but you’re amazed it can play at all. In this case, however, her clarity of vision puts many an Englishman to shame.She made a very sharp point about England’s wicket-keeping conundrum. First, though, a few background facts. The way the English media tells it, the rest of the world have a different class of batsman-wicketkeeper. Newsflash: They don’t.We must stop beating and breaking our wicketkeepers with massively distorted and unrealistic expectations. Rather like the desperate wannabe model who starves herself in the mistaken belief that the photos on her wall actually represent real people, English cricket is damaging itself by trying to live up to an ideal that everybody else ignores. Gilchrist was a one off. Stewart was exceptional. Sangakkara is arguably a better batsman than either, but he has recently given up the gloves. His replacement, HAPW Jayawardene, after 21 tests, averages a mere 27. And by current global standards, that’s pretty good.Let’s take a look at the current keepers of the main test-playing nations. India’s Parthiv Patel is one of the better batsmen. He averages 30 from 20 games. Pakistan’s Kamran Akmal is a shaky stumper but makes 32 each time he comes to the wicket. West Indies’ Denesh Ramdin has the lowest average, a mere 22 from 27 games. Of the antipodeans, Brendan McCullum, considering his fearsome reputation, has a surprisingly modest record: He averages a mere 31 from his 35 games. Brad Haddin, the man with the most illustrious predecessor in the history of anything, averages a respectable 30 from his 3 tests. Time will tell whether he can keep it up. From the candidate with the least experience to the one with the most. From Mark Boucher’s 118 tests he averages just 31.By now it should be clear that if England’s keeper averages 25 it’s far from being a national disaster. It would actually be par for the course. Ambrose’s head is on the chopping block despite averaging only 6 runs fewer than Boucher. Rough justice. Matt Prior averages an outstanding 40, though by one calculation he has dropped more runs than he’s scored in an England shirt. And Chris Read, England’s forgotten man, is still one of the stronger candidates. In his brief run of seven tests in 2006-7 he averaged a thoroughly respectable 27, a considerable improvement on his first eight tests. Which brings me back to my wife.She put it more simply than anybody I’ve heard in England’s cricket commentariat. The ‘offence’ sets the total. The ‘defence’ defends it. Of course, all the bowlers are also part of the offense, and all the batsman play a part in the defence, but this black and white scheme captures an essential truth about the game. And the wicketkeeper, she points out, is obviously part of the defence. He’s a key part of the wicket-taking unit. That’s his primary job. So my wife’s advice? Pick the best keeper. If he can average between 25 and 30 with the bat, then he may not be a new Gilchrist, but he’ll be as good as all the real wicketkeepers in the real world today. And that comes from my wife.

An indisputable assertion from WG Grace kicks off this World Twenty20 special edition of the World Cricket Podcast

Andy Zaltzman25-Feb-2013

Download the podcast here (right-click to save) | iTunesThe music in the podcast is by Kevin MacLeod

Hello, Planet Cricket, and welcome to the Andy Zaltzman’s World Cricket Podcast World Twenty 20 Preview Podcast Cricket World Special. I am Andy Zaltzman, no-time Kent and England opening batsman and non-inventor of the googly and reverse swing. When I was a baby I slept in a cot made of old . I osmosed statistics, and when I cried in the night, my infant wails spelt out Morse Code for Wally Hammond’s batting average.Later in this cricketcast, I will be revealing a statistic that will revolutionise the way international T20 is played. No kidding. This is going to shake cricket to its molten core like a rhinoceros turning up late at the wrong wedding. Things will never be the same again. Cricket might even be blown off its axis so hard that it becomes golf. And not just any golf. Crazy golf. I will also be exclusively revealing who will win the World Twenty20, and why. Amongst the things I will not be doing in this programme are:● Explaining why the ICC remain reluctant to allow a special new T20 Powerplay, in which the batting captain can control the fielding side for two overs.● Reading an epic poem waxing lyrical about the elemental timeless balletic beauty of Johan Botha’s bowling action.● Revealing why the downturn in England’s fortunes this year was down to Andy Flower accidentally sitting on the team’s lucky hamster, Florence, during a team-bonding game of musical chairs at the start of the UAE tour in January. Florence survived but has been cross ever since. A cloning programme is underway at ECB headquarters to ensure a continual supply of Florences for all time.● Explaining how Jacques Kallis’ continuing age-defying quality is down to him relying on a diet of nothing but pasta shaped like cricket bats and drizzled in linseed oil.● Revealing that the paparazzo photographer who took those pictures of the Duchess of Cambridge doing her Sourav Ganguly-at-Lord’s-in-2002 impression was, in fact, Kevin Pietersen. How can he get back in the England team now after this latest breach of trust?So, the cricket world has gathered in Sri Lanka for its biennial quick-fire international quick-fire slug-out. Two quick-fires in that sentence, which explains why the World Twenty20 has considerable appeal, even for those cricket fans, like me, who remain un-entranced by T20’s skittish charms and concerned about the brash grandson of Test cricket deciding to plonk its granddad in a nursing home and forget about it.It’s an intense and unpredictable three-week jamboree of slower balls, yorkers, hoicks, slaps, sploots, and the kind of skied catches that made me fear fielding practice at school more than going to see a sadistic dentist. Which I’m sure my cricket coach dreamed of being. Instead, he focused his efforts on demonstrating to small boys how hard ball plus physics equals “Ouch, that hurt my fingers.”And to kick off the show, looking ahead to the tournament and giving us the kind of insight only a cricketing legend can give, it’s a very special guest, an icon, a celebrity, a former England captain, all the way from beyond the grave, via ESPN’s Ouija-Link phone line to the other side, it’s the late, great WG Grace.AZ: WG, hello.WG: Hello, Andy. Thanks for having me on the show.AZ: The pleasure is all mine.WG: Can we keep this brief? I’ve got to do the Test Match Special podcast with Agnew in five minutes.AZ: Certainly, Doctor. So, WG, you, of course, never had the opportunity to play T20, as you sadly died in 1915, some 88 years before it was launched.WG: Yeah, rub it in, Inspector Insensitive.AZ: Sorry. How do you think you’d have fared as a T20 player?WG: I’d have been bloody amazing, Andy. Sensational. None of the franchises could have afforded me, and I’d have wanted full control of my image rights, but on the pitch I’d have been like Chris Gayle and Lasith Malinga rolled into one.AZ: With a bit of Hashim Amla? On the face?WG: Yup. Fair play to the lad, he knows the importance of chin branding. Got to be recognisable. Do you think I’d have got my megabucks deal to advertise Colman’s Mustard without my massive beard?AZ: Of course not. And you have liked to play, say, the IPL?WG: Damn straight, I would. Sign me up. I reckon I could still do a job. I’m in good shape these days. Good news is, I didn’t stay as the fat old WG when I popped my clogs. I reverted to the buff young WG. I’m ripped, absolutely ripped. I could advertise anything. Apart from shaving foam – might be a bit of a stretch.AZ: I was thinking more about whether you’d enjoy the format of the game.WG: More money, less cricket. I’d have loved it. Four overs max? I bowled 125,000 balls in my first-class career. That’s the equivalent of 300 seasons of the IPL. I could have made billions. I could have bought MS Dhoni and made him spend 12 hours a day, crouching in my garden, wicketkeeping.AZ: Let’s move on to this World Twenty20. So, how do you see this tournament going?WG: Well, you’d have to say, looking at it, that the favourites are India. South Africa. Pakistan. West Indies. Sri Lanka. England. And Australia. And New Zealand. I reckon the winner will come from one of the them. Or one of the other teams.AZ: And what do you think the winning team will ultimately have to do?WG: Win the final, probably. And to do that, they’ll need to hit the ball lots, and try to stop the opposition hitting it as much. Those would be my tactics. The fundamentals of the game haven’t really changed since my day. But mostly hit the ball. India managed to win in 2007 with a bowling economy rate of 7.88, that was seventh-best of the Super 8 teams, of course, Andy, but they hit the ball hard and often enough that that didn’t matter. And that was their tactical masterstroke.AZ: Anything else?WG: Andy, the absolutely crucial thing to do if you want to win a World Twenty20, is start badly.AZ: Hit the ground stumbling?WG: That’s right. India had a no-result, a tie and a loss in their first three in 2007. Pakistan lost two of their first three in 2009, their one win being against Associate team Netherlands. We didn’t have the Netherlands in cricket when I was playing. In fact, in my day, the Netherlands was where you wanted to make sure you remembered to put your box when Charlie Kortright was bowling on a dodgy wicket. And England had a loss and a no-result in their two group matches in 2010. So, really, you want to try to time your run-in to the tournament so you are playing dreadfully from day one.AZ: Good point. In 2007, South Africa, perennial peaking-too-early specialists that they are, had four convincing wins to start, flunked one game in six disastrous overs of batting uselessness against India, and that was their goose baked for another tournament. In 2009, they began with five wins on the spin, then lost the semi-final to an Afridi-inspired Pakistan.WG: Yes. And Australia won six in a row in 2010 but lost the final, just as Sri Lanka had done the year before.AZ: You’ve clearly kept abreast of cricket stats whilst you’ve been dead.WG: Yeah, lots of time to kill. Stats are ideal for passing the time until the end of the universe once you’re dead. You wouldn’t want to waste your time on them when you’re alive, mind.AZ: What? What are you saying about what I’ve done with my life?WG: I digress. So, basically, teams that start rubbishly always win. So expect to see all the teams busting any available gut to be completely useless in the first couple of games, safe in the knowledge that hitting form early is a sure-fire route to failure. In that respect, World Twenty20 tournaments are like World Wars and marriages. You want to time your run late and finish with a bang.AZ: What else do you need?WG: Luck. Always helpful. And for your batsmen to collectively average between 26.5 and 27.3. All three tournaments have been won by teams doing that. Other teams have averaged more than that, but none of them has ever won it. So, bat well, but not too well.AZ: Do you think this will influence the way teams play?WG: Yes. They’ll keep an eagle eye on their team tournament average, and as soon as it starts creeping up towards 30, they’ll start deliberately smashing their stumps to pieces when their team tournament average starts creeping up towards 30.AZ: You cannot argue with statistics.WG: Well, you can, but you’ve probably got better things to do with your time, and statistics can be a rather annoying conversationalist when they’re drunk. Anyhow, better go, AZ, I’ve got Aggers on the other line, and I’ve got a date with Florence Nightingale later. Oh yeah. I love a woman in a nurse’s uniform.AZ: WG Grace, thank you for joining us.WG: Thanks for having me, big horse.Time for your questions now, submitted to my Twitter feed. And we will kick off with that stat I mentioned at the start of the broadcast that will revolutionise all T20 World Cups. Strap in, people. The cricket universe is about to change for ever.samg1231: Statistically, are team scores of an even number defended more often than those of an odd number?Good question, samg1231. Arguably, the greatest question ever asked. For too long, we cricket fans have obsessed on the total number of runs a team has scored. But in World Twenty20s, that is irrelevant. Far more important is whether the team batting first scores an odd or even number of runs. Excluding the one no-result and one tie there have been in World T20 games, teams scoring an odd number of runs batting first have won 19 of 43 completed games – 44%. Teams scoring an even number of runs in the first innings of World Twenty20 games have successfully defended in 24 out of 35 games: 69%. So, scientifically, you are better off scoring 56 than 249.But it gets even more intriguing. And by intriguing, I mean irrelevant. But intriguing. Teams losing an even number of wickets batting first – two, four, six, eight or ten – have won just nine of 34: 26%. Teams losing an odd number of wickets batting first, however, have ended up winning a staggering 34 out 44 matches: 77%. Is it better to lose nine wickets than two? Well, no one has ever only lost two wickets in the first innings of a World Twenty20 match, so we just don’t know. But probably. It is certainly true that teams who have been nine down after their innings batting first have won five out of eight (plus that solitary tie). Teams losing just eight wickets have won only one out of eight. When they have ended seven wickets down – ten wins, four losses. But six wickets down: three wins, eight losses. These numbers are blasting conventional cricketing wisdom into the stratosphere. And I’m not done yet.Teams scoring an odd number of runs for an even number of wickets in the first innings of World Twenty20 matches have won four, lost 18. A win percentage of 18. But teams scoring an even number of runs for an odd number of wickets have won a staggering, mathematics-defying 19 out of 23. Win percentage: 83. So, the unarguable mathematicoscientific conclusion: if you score even runs for odd wickets, you are four and a half times more likely to win than if you score odd runs for even wickets. So, batting first in a World Twenty20 match, 32 for 9 is a better score than 309 for 2. That is a stone cold fact.Tactically, this is a game-changer of massive proportions, equivalent to landmark watersheds in other sports, such as when they stopped doing fencing fights to the death, or stopped using a live chicken in badminton and started using a little fake one instead, or having Olympic javelin-throwing as one-against-one from opposite ends of the stadium. Those were the days. That was a real spectator sport.So the last over of the first innings is where these matches will be decided, as the teams frantically jockey for position – the batting teams blocking out to make sure they remain on a score divisible by two, and standing in the middle of the pitch waiting to be run out, or rugby tackling the wicketkeeper and then appealing in the accent of the opposing team to get themselves out obstructing the field, to make sure they even up one, three, five, seven or nine wickets down; whilst the bowling teams will be hurling down wides and no-balls, or kicking balls over the boundary rope, to try to make sure they concede an odd number of runs and give themselves at least a sliver of a chance.It turns out international T20 is not about skill, power, nerve under pressure, or being any good at cricket. It is simply about ending up on a multiple of two runs for a non-multiple of two wickets. Put that into your cybermetric laptops, all you professional performance-analysing cricket wonks out there. Some people might claim this is just a bizarre coincidence thrown up by a relatively small statistical sample of matches. And those people could be right. They are almost certainly right. But not absolutely certainly. And can the teams afford to take the risk that they might be wrong?GMK3000: Will Brian Close get a recall?Unlikely for Close to get a recall, particularly not into an England team that seems to have trouble accommodating abrasive characters, and at the age of 81, even his cat-like reflexes in the field must have dulled over the years. Plus, with the advent of helmets and body armour, the need to have a player who has the technique and temperament to knock the shine off the ball with his ribs and skull has somewhat departed from the game, and the shiny snooker-ball head which could distract a batsman by glinting baldly in the sun at short leg. In his day, though, he could have been a T20 legend, and there are moves afoot to back-date all cricketers’ pay according to how much they would have fetched at an IPL auction had the IPL existed in their day. So Garfield Sobers can be expecting a cheque for $85 million, and Geoff Boycott will be receiving a single rupee in the post next week.Here’s a question – if you could choose any cricketer from your nation’s past to parachute into your current T20 squad, who would it be? I suppose if you are Australian, Bradman would be high up your list. Alan Davidson would probably have been a tidy T20 allrounder too. India – maybe Vinoo Mankad if you wanted a tidy spin option who could chip in with some runs. Graeme Pollock, Imran Khan, Richard Hadlee, Aravinda de Silva, and Viv Richards would all be contenders for their respective cricketing nations. And for England, well, it would have to be Kevin Pietersen.magicdarts: Can you see any new shots (like the Dil-Scoop) being invented this tournament? The “Morgan Thraggle” might work.Good question, magicdarts. The thraggle is a very good term for the ugly reverse hoick when a batsman stands facing the bowler and flonks it with an ungainly thwack into the off side. Morgan Thraggle, incidentally, the former US Secretary of State for Swearing in the Eisenhower administration.The new shots likely to feature in this tournament include:The Tweet Sweep: a highly technical shot, in which the batsman plays an orthodox sweep shot with one hand on the bat, whilst posting a message on Twitter with his other hand about how well he’s battingThe Kohli Hair Randomiser: India’s star young batsman, who has rapidly elevated himself into one of the world’s most influential cricketers, has no fear of hair-care products. And it is rumoured that, in the Indian training camp, he has been working feverishly on an updated version of the Dil-Scoop. Batting without a helmet, Kohli scoops the ball toward the top of his highly-kempt head, where the carefully gelled peaks will then deflect the ball in unpredictable directions, making setting a field even more difficult. The shot, of course, is fraught with risk, and Kohli has apparently had his high-value face insured for $500 million.The Saloon Bar Door Thwack: To counter the prevalence of slower balls in T20, batsmen will routinely swing their bats forward then back like a saloon bar door that’s just had Clint Eastwood burst through it in a cowboy movie. If the ball is of regular pace, they will thwack it straight down the ground on the forward swing, if it is a slower ball, they will catch it on the slam-shut backward swing, blasting it past a terrified wicketkeeper at high speed.So, I will now reveal, as promised, who will inevitably win this tournament.T20 is notoriously hard to predict when it comes to one-off games… since 2005, the year T20 was birthed messily onto the international scene, in matches between the big eight Test nations that have ended in a positive result, six of those eight teams have a win percentage between 44 and 56; in both Tests and ODIs, only three of the eight teams are close to the 50% break-even point in that 44-56% slot. So, in essence, in T20, anyone can beat anyone.Propping up that T20 table, New Zealand, who have still managed to win 39% of their T20 internationals against the rest of the big eight. West Indies, with the worst record in both Tests and ODIs in that time, have won just 16% of their Tests and 26% of the ODIs. As the betting suggests, all 12 teams in the tournament will probably lose it. Apart from one. Which could be almost anyone.So, instead, we need to look for a pattern from previous tournaments that has nothing to do with cricket, since cricket, it would seem, can offer few clues as to the eventual result. In terms of averages and performances by winning teams, no clear trends emerge, other than not being useless and hitting a streak of form at the right time. But, the odd numbered World Twenty20s, the first and third ones, have been won by teams beginning with vowels, whilst the one even-numbered competition, No. 2, was won by unmistakable consonant-commencer Pakistan. So you can count Australia, England, India, Afghanistan, Ireland and Zimbabwe out of this fourth World T20 straight away. Is Z a vowel these days? I’m a bit out of the loop. Well, count Zimbabwe out anyway, probably safe to.Tournaments one and three were won by countries with odd number of letters in, but tournament No. 2 was claimed by eight-letter P-a-k-i-s-t-a-n. So this time, you can also count out 11-lettered South Africa. Furthermore, no team with two words in its name has ever won, so Sri Lanka, New Zealand and West Indies might as well pack their bags and go home now, or, in Sri Lanka’s case, pack their bags and stay at home, but maybe go to a different part of home. And no team has ever won this trophy twice, so it’s goodbye Pakistan. I can therefore now formally reveal that the winner of the 2012 World Twenty20, according to historical precedent, will be Bangladesh. Strap in, folks, there’s going to be the grandmother of all street parties in Chittagong.History has spoken. Admittedly, history has a well-documented habit of speaking utter bilge, and not just about cricket, so just in case, here is my own personal official prediction for the 2012 World Twenty20 – South Africa to beat India in the final, chasing down 153 to win by four wickets with two balls to spare. Is that specific enough? Good. Because it will definitely happen. That has the Zaltzman guarantee. And if it does not happen, then you can download this podcast again for free.That’s all for the preview show. Thanks for your questions, and enjoy the cricket. And above all, enjoy the format of the tournament and wonder for a second or two how exciting the 50-over World Cup could be if it took roughly the same amount of time. Or at least, not more than twice the amount of time.Thanks to my special guest, WG Grace. I’ll be back next week with a mid-tournament update. Until then, may the cricket be with you. And start counting the number of times a commentator says “That was a proper cricket shot” when a short-arm cross-batted thwoick disappears into the stands at deep midwicket.Bye.

Plays of the Day from the second day of the Auckland Test between New Zealand and England

Andrew McGlashan in Auckland23-Mar-2013Milestone of the day
It was not a flowing cover drive, or elegant clip of the pads but when Jonathan Trott sent a leading edge flying past Bruce Martin, and away to the short boundary, to move to 23 it was significant for more than the near miss. It took him to 3211 Test runs, the most by any batsman who has not hit a six, overtaking Vijay Manjrekar. If there was any ground where he could have ended his six wait it was this one, but Trent Boult’s inswing was too much for him.Stall of the day
At no stage did Peter Fulton get the scoreboard racing; for a time on the second morning it almost went into reverse. In the first hour he added five runs to his overnight score, although when he nudged to 131 he did secure himself a minor record as New Zealand’s highest scorer against England in a Test at Eden Park.Catch of the day
England bowled far too leg side against Fulton, but that was eventually the route that dismissed him. However, it was more catching than bowling skill that ended his marathon innings. Fulton glanced the delivery from Steven Finn down the leg side and Matt Prior leapt full-length to his left to pouch the chance with one glove, clinging on as he tumbled to the ground. He knew it was a good catch and sprinted in celebration towards deep square legDead balls of the day
No, it wasn’t Finn kicking the stumps, although he did to that and was given a warning. Monty Panesar was preparing to bowl to Brendon McCullum but twice the delivery was aborted because Jonathan Trott, stood at slip, was waving his right arm about. McCullum did not appear to notice, but the umpire, Rod Tucker, was having none of it and twice called dead-ball. The suggestion was that Trott had noticed something in McCullum’s stance and was trying to indicate to Panesar where to bowl.Wicket of the day
It used to be said that for a partnership breaker, Paul Collingwood did not break many partnerships in Test cricket. The same is true of Jonathan Trott. But on this occasion he struck a very important blow, having McCullum caught behind – another smart catch by Prior – to end a threatening stand of 68 with Dean Brownlie. It was his fourth wicket, to go alongside the scalps of Jahurul Islam, Tharanga Paranavitana and Younis Khan.Review of the day
It was a good day for the DRS. McCullum overturned an incorrect decision by Paul Reiffel to give him caught behind second ball and later the system worked in England’s favour. Prior was convinced that BJ Watling had edged down the leg side but Reiffel did not agree. Prior immediately told Alastair Cook he should use a review and Hot Spot showed a clear edge. It continued Prior’s good day and gave Finn his five-wicket haul.

Mumbai have finally got their line-up sorted and look good to win the IPL this year. And Pune? Oh well

Nisseem Burkule12-May-2013Choice of game
The glamour boys of Mumbai were visiting. With a modern-day legend in their ranks, this game was quite an obvious choice. Other reasons were that I had never seen Yuvraj Singh play before and that it was my first opportunity to watch an IPL contest with my college friends. With one team firmly establishing their supremacy over others and the other team lying at the bottom of the pile, I predicted a Mumbai Indians win with Pune Warriors at least putting up a decent fight.Team supported
Although Pune is my adopted city, my loyalties stay with Sachin Tendulkar. Since 2008, I have keenly followed the fortunes of Mumbai Indians. This game was not going to be any different. Ricky Ponting’s selfless decision to step down has done wonders to the team. With Mitchell Johnson and Dwayne Smith in the playing XI, the team seems to have finally found the right balance. Its batting looks assured and its bowling never looked this awesome. This might be the year when Mumbai finally win the IPL. Achtung Chennai!Key performer
You couldn’t beat Johnson for his two wickets at two runs an over. But Yuvraj Singh seemed to be in his element today with both bat and ball. India have dropped him for the Champions Trophy but I don’t see them winning the 2015 World Cup without him.One thing I’d have changed about the match
If Yuvraj had batted longer he could have brought the contest to life.Face-off I relished
Yuvraj v Malinga: This mini-battle between the free-spirited batsman and the bowler with the most unorthodox of bowling actions was short but fun. Malinga had just accounted for Robin Uthappa. Yuvraj walked in. It wasn’t exactly a partisan crowd, but everybody applauded when he middled a block-hole-seeking missile that he received first up from Malinga to the midwicket boundary. Malinga tried to wrest the advantage back with an assortment of deliveries, but Yuvraj negotiated them comfortably.Wow moment
The wow moment had to be the wicket of Smith off the first ball of the Mumbai innings. During the mid-innings break, we watched Ashok Dinda, under the supervision of Allan Donald, warm up on the practice pitch near our stand. He hit the solitary stump on few occasions, and my friends and I joked about how his impressive practice sessions hadn’t previously translated into good match bowling. Well, he made us eat our words.Close encounter
Smith was fielding near us when he took a stunning one-handed catch to dismiss Bhuvneshwar Kumar.Shot of the day
The second of the consecutive slog-swept sixes Yuvraj hit was my shot of the day. Given the form he is in, I didn’t back him to hit another one in the same direction. But he did and stayed down on one knee as if admiring his shot.Crowd meter
The crowd was at its noisiest best, with the biggest cheers going to a certain Mr Tendulkar, as is the case anywhere else in India. A certain section of the crowd – if not everybody – was utterly disappointed with the Pune team for not putting up a good show and giving fans their money’s worth. I agree with them. The knowledgeable crowd of Pune deserves better.Entertainment
The fake fight between Yuvraj and Harbhajan Singh had the crowd in splits. Harbhajan, who had just walked in, went straight to Yuvraj at cover. They pretended like they were having an argument, but I bet they were just deciding what should they order for dinner. Harbhajan’s dance, Yuvraj tripping him and faking blows added to the fun. I won’t remember the match as much as I will this incident.Hardship factor
One year on, the parking issue hasn’t been addressed. It’s such a drag. Since the stadium lies well outside the city limits and with no nearby settlements, there is definitely scope to widen roads and to provide easy entry and exit points, but only if the planning committee pays heed.Twenty20s v ODIs
I prefer ODIs. They offer you a chance to score a hundred or to take a five-for.Banner of the day
I was on the lookout for few original lines. Then one showed up on the giant screen. A girl was holding up a poster saying, “Life begins at 40”. No prizes for guessing who she was referring to.TV v stadium
The stadium experience rules. Behind all the razzle-dazzle on television, advertisements, pre-and post-match interviews, there are 22 players fighting it out on the field. They are playing for their country or franchise, and are least concerned with what happens outside the field.Marks out of 10
7, and I am being generous considering the lop-sided contest. I will remember this match for various reasons, but least of all for the cricket.

A few more runs on the board more quickly and a few more overs to bowl England out and Australia might almost have had a sniff of victory at The Oval

Brydon Coverdale at The Oval25-Aug-2013There are times when conservatism kicks in naturally. For Michael Clarke, that time arrived late on the final day at The Oval. Later than it would have for Ricky Ponting, or Alastair Cook, or MS Dhoni. It came gradually. Fielders had been stationed around the bat when Nathan Lyon was bowling, men in close on both sides, a slip and a leg slip. Slowly but surely, as the wickets didn’t come with the rush that he desired, Clarke moved his men back. And back. And back.By the time Shane Watson came on for his first over of the match, the fours were flowing, Kevin Pietersen was nearing fifty, and the last hour was approaching. Five men went back to the boundary. Then six. No slips. For the first time in a long time, captain Clarke was playing not to win but to draw. Such an approach is not his default setting. If it was, he would not have set England a gettable target, he would have told his men to bat for safety and then reassess.In Mohali in March, when India were chasing 133 in a minimum of 27 overs, Clarke pushed unsuccessfully for victory. He could have used delaying tactics, slowed his bowlers down, taken time over his fields. That he did not, that he moved the Australians through their overs quite normally led to a situation in which Australia actually bowled nine overs more than were required. It is just possible that they might otherwise have salvaged a draw.But there, a draw was of no value to Australia, for the series would stay alive only with an Australian win. At The Oval, there was no such series to play for. The urn was gone. Parity could not be achieved. But still there were reasons for Clarke to gamble. His men had not experienced a Test victory since the first week of the year. They had suffered seven losses and one draw in that time. If there was any possibility of giving the team the chance to win, it was worth taking.3-0, 4-0 does it make a difference? Not in any material sense. Clarke could have been the first Australian captain to lead his team to four defeats in an Ashes series without a win, but that is a manufactured statistic. Other Australian squads have lost Ashes contests 5-1 or 4-1. Others – as Clarke well knows – have lost three Ashes Tests by an innings at home. 3-0, 4-0, this was never going to plumb those depths.And so it was no surprise that Clarke tried to manufacture a result, tried to force a match that looked like petering out to a draw into a new direction. He sent Watson out to open with David Warner, installed James Faulkner and Brad Haddin as pinch-hitters, and gave Ryan Harris and Mitchell Starc licence to attack. Not all of those moves paid off. With hindsight, perhaps Chris Rogers might have picked the gaps in the field more effectively than others who tried to clear it.A few more runs on the board more quickly and a few more overs to bowl England out and Australia might almost have had a sniff. By giving England the lure of a 4-0 victory, they enticed enough shots to claim five England wickets. It is difficult to imagine most captains in Clarke’s situation allowing the opposition such a chance. Dismissing a team in one session is a remarkable goal but that Australia attempted it in search of that elusive win was in many ways admirable.It was also symptomatic of Australia’s wider approach. Day in, day out, their Test batsmen play at balls they should leave, lack patience, and try to force things. And when that risk-taking behaviour fails, they are inclined to go for double or nothing, chase good money with bad, as gamblers call it. The pay-offs can be great but the losses crippling.England and South Africa are not the world’s best teams by accident. Often they play for safety first, victory second. England certainly did on a dour day three at The Oval. Clarke often talks about consistency; his men will become a better side if they can adopt a little of that mentality in their general approach to Test cricket. On a day like this, such an approach was of little value to Australia. Clarke’s gamble was necessary at The Oval.”That’s the way I’d like to see cricket played,” Clarke said after the near-loss. “I’d certainly like to lead the Australian team playing in that type of manner. I think we had nothing to lose, obviously 3-0 down. And to me, even if you’re not 3-0 down you’ve got to try to do everything you can to win the Test match. There’s obviously the risk of losing and that was there today as well, but I think it was what we had to try and do.”One team is going to win and one team is going to lose. That’s the way I’ve always played my cricket. I try to win every game. Today there was a risk we might lose but I’m not scared of that risk.”At least, not until Pietersen gets going. Then, even Clarke finds within himself an ounce of conservatism.

Australia were always going to lose this Ashes. A victory in this Test wouldn’t change that. But just by winning this Test they could have proved something to themselves

Jarrod Kimber at Old Trafford05-Aug-2013Michael Clarke is a man with a smile. Whether it’s standing beside his wife on her wedding horse, in his tight underwear on a billboard or as he makes an iconic innings at his home ground, he lights up a picture. In real life, he seems to smile even more. He very rarely looks angry, or upset. He’s composed, calm and happy.None of those descriptions could be used as he barked and pleaded with Marais Erasmus to stay on the ground at the end of the fourth day at Old Trafford. Clarke had carried his team on day one and two. His bowlers had backed him up on day three. On day four they had put themselves in a position to win the Test. Clarke knew it as much as England did. All they needed was time. But when time was taken from Clarke, he exploded.Clarke knew coming off the field that he couldn’t regain the Ashes, and that Cricket Australia’s #returntheurn hashtag would have discarded. It was a culmination of poor preparation, random cricket logic and a team that wasn’t as good as the opposition. Australia were always going to lose this Ashes. A victory in this Test wouldn’t change that. It would have prolonged it.But just by winning this Test they could have proved something to themselves. That they could win a Test against England. That the incompetence of Lord’s and the streakiness of Trent Bridge were only part of their story. That they could compete and beat England when it mattered. And they did everything they could to do it.Chris Rogers’ first innings was the sort of knock that not even Rogers would have expected to play at Test level. It surprised England as well, while setting the scene for Australia. He drove the ball like an eager teenager, not a crusty old opener. He scored freely against a quality attack. He handled Graeme Swann well. As a 34-year-old you only get so many chances, and he may not have cemented his spot, but he will get at least all five of this Ashes based on an innings of that quality.The second innings situation was perfect for David Warner. No matter where he batted in the order, the need to score quickly and not have all the fielders up couldn’t have been more perfect for him. His 41 was not a massive total, or one that will rock your world, but he did his job, looked comfortable doing so and looked like the David Warner Australia want him to be. With the press, Barmy Army and Aussie Fanatics he played with his new pantomime villain status. To use the lexicon, he is definitely a positive to be taken.Steven Smith is a rough batsman. On skill and technique he is not in Australia’s best six. On fight and confidence, he might be. He is a perfect flawed batsman for a flawed team. He scores quickly, believes in himself, and when he plays spin it’s hard to believe he is really Australian. His wickets at Lord’s were handy and his fielding is going to live with us forever on Youtube highlight reels. If this team was better, they wouldn’t need him. He should have got a hundred in the first innings at Old Trafford. And a proper Test batsman would have converted it. Or at least got out in a nicer way. But as a No. 6, or even a seven, he is the sort of junkyard dog cricketer a team like the current Australia can really use.

Ryan Harris’ spell this morning proved yet again that he is one of the best Test bowlers on the planet. He’s quick enough to hurry anyone. He’s smart enough to out-think quality players

It some ways, Brad Haddin is not needed by Australia. His selection in this team was more about team bonding and attitude. Something that Warner’s punch and Arthur’s sacking fixed much quicker. His first innings hitting was exactly what Australia needed. Haddin saves his best cricket for the Ashes, and in two innings he has shown good form and timely runs. His wicketkeeping is not going to get any better – keepers’ hands and knees don’t get better – and Mitchell Starc is not an easy man to keep too. Or on some occasions, even reach. But he’s in form, and clearly is desperate to stay in this team. If nothing else, he’ll force Matthew Wade to improve.Ryan Harris’ spell this morning proved yet again that he is one of the best Test bowlers on the planet. He’s quick enough to hurry anyone. He’s smart enough to out-think quality players. And he does enough with the ball beat anyone. At his best he’s a carnivorous force that will stalk you until you are head. At his worst, he is injured. There is little Australia can do about that. When he is fit, he should be given the new ball and the best medical treatment they can afford.Merv Hughes was a decent Test-quality bowler who helped keep the flame alive between Lillee and McGrath. Hughes’ job was mostly to try hard, bowl the dog spells, bounce out batsmen on flat tracks and use the conditions when they suited him.Peter Siddle also averages 28 and takes four wickets a match. In almost every Test he is used in a different way. He’s bowled with the new ball, come on third change, and will bowl into the wind or with it. But no matter what you do with Siddle, he tries very hard, hits the pitch very hard and makes you beat him. It’s hard to hate a man who went to Euro Disney between series and gave up bacon and steak to be a better player.Starc is capable of amazing feats with the ball, and even the bat. Playing him is a chance that Australia sometimes likes to take. Shane Watson’s comeback at the top of the order might already be over. He also only has one wicket. But his bowling has been very handy, and he deserves more. No cricketer in this series has the ability to improve more than Watson. Usman Khawaja doesn’t look a Test No. 3 right now, but it’s hard to believe a man who bats with that much time can’t make runs at this level.Nathan Lyon is not Graeme Swann. One is a fridge that cools things, and the other an American style fridge freezer that will give you water and ice on demand. Everyone wants the bigger fridge, but life doesn’t work that way. Lyon bowls good dipping offspin outside off stump spun well toward the stumps. But Swann’s straight ball is far more devious. Swann gets more spin. Swann is smarter. Swann is a top fielder and a handy slogger. In some ways, the difference between the two teams is summed up in the spinners. Lyon tries hard; Swann has 19 wickets in this series.Every player in this team has something holding them back including age, consistency, injury and skill. Clarke is their best cricketer. But his back is a problem. When he fiddles with his back, takes a pain pill, or does a stretch, there is little smiling. And while he might have lost the anger he had when screaming at Erasmus, that won’t be replaced with smiles knowing they have already lost their chance to retain the Ashes.This team is not perfect, and it’s not going to be for a while. But they came into this Test as gruesome victims on a hotel bathroom floor, and they outplayed a better opposition for the entire Test. It’s not a win, but it is something to smile about.

The rivalry between India and Australia has acquired a considerable standing of its own. Australia could use this series to face their fears against spin

Abhishek Purohit10-Oct-2013Relevance. Context. Meaning. As administrators continue to fill every small remaining opening in the calendar with more and more cricket, these words have come to be increasingly used by followers of the game. Even as the game tries to win new fans mostly through its chosen route, Twenty20, there is a growing section of existing ones who try to determine their interest in a series by searching for some relevance, context or meaning in it. Often, they are justified in their method, for some contests have long ago been done to death.For instance, what context does the zillionth India-Sri Lanka bilateral ODI series have? Did the last-but-zillionth one have any meaning? Are such games between the two countries in danger of losing all relevance?In the case of rivalries such as India-Pakistan or the Ashes, the history or tradition attached to the contest is so overpowering, that invariably there is no need to hunt for meaning. The rivalry between India and Australia, who are set to take each other on over seven ODIs and a T20, is nowhere close to India-Pakistan or the Ashes but over time has acquired a considerable standing of its own.Little more than a decade ago, it wasn’t too much of a rivalry, before the epic series in the Indian summer of 2001 ignited it. India-Australia match-ups suddenly acquired a certain needle, a certain spark. A reference point had been established, and both teams, one unquestionably great, one unquestionably competent, built on it. Gradually, the greatness evaporated, the competence waxed and waned. Still, India and Australia gave us some memorable games, such as the heart-stopping Mohali Test of 2010 and the pulsating quarter-final of the 2011 World Cup.For all their recent struggles in Test matches, Australia’s ODI record in India is still top-class. They won the World Cup here in 1987, and the Champions Trophy in 2006. They took bilateral series in 2007 and 2009 by identical 4-2 margins. When India routed them 4-0 in home Tests earlier this year, many celebrated it as a reprisal for the 0-4 humiliation Australia had subjected the visitors to on their own territory in 2011-12. While that attitude might not be in the interests of Indian cricket, the point is about the continued existence of the rivalry, and the way the country’s fans have treated such games – television ratings for the 2009 bilateral ODI series comfortably exceeded those for the 2009 Champions Trophy. It is from this background that the ensuing series of seven ODIs to be inaugurated by a solitary T20 must be viewed.There have been suggestions that this trip to India will only serve to destroy the confidence of Australia batsmen suspect against spin just before the return Ashes series. Granted that it is an Ashes year, and a double-Ashes one at that, such a conclusion appears to be alarmist. It is widely accepted that the current set of Australia batsmen aren’t good players of slow bowling but how does avoiding your weakness contribute towards overcoming it, considering that must be the goal? Facing Indian spinners on benign one-day surfaces might not be a bad workout. In Tests, the proposition gets difficult with Indian pitches aiding spin much more. Phillip Hughes won’t have forgotten his travails in India earlier this year, and if he can derive any kind of confidence from the current trip, it will only be an improvement. That can only help Australia, whose ODI outfit isn’t exactly settled with the 2015 World Cup not too far away.”What we have lost is a lot of experience,” said George Bailey, leading the side in the absence of the unfit Michael Clarke. “We are trying to rebuild that. Guys are getting used to being in this side, being used to the scrutiny and pressure of international cricket, and to the different roles within the Australian side that they are playing.”An important such “different role” will be the mentoring one expected to be played by Shane Watson, who brings a wealth of limited-overs and subcontinent experience to this side, but is also someone who has been accused of hurting the cause of team unity.For their part, India have kept renovating their one-day outfit, adding younger players in place of a few veterans, of whom only Yuvraj Singh has forced his way back for this series. Following an unexpected Champions Trophy win, the selectors experimented further in Zimbabwe. Two of the young fast bowlers who went to the African country, Jaydev Unadkat and Mohammed Shami, have found spots in the squad against Australia.The indications have been promising, but how much India have progressed as an ODI unit will become clearer in this extended duel against an opponent who has regularly quelled them in their own conditions in the past. Just under a year ago, India lost to Pakistan, the only other team to have defeated them at home in a bilateral ODI series in the past decade. In that sense, Australia are fitting adversaries, and there is little irrelevance to this contest, which could see the No 1 ODI ranking change hands.

The numbers of BJ Watling and Mominul Haque’s innings offer an insight into the mindset as both batsmen reacted quite differently when faced with a similar kind of pressure

Mohammad Isam in Chittagong10-Oct-2013The striking contrast between BJ Watling’s second Test hundred and Mominul Haque’s highest Test score was evident in their boundary count. Watling struck six fours and two sixes in his four-hour stay at the wicket. Mominul already has 13 fours in a 71-ball 77, which is rather uncharacteristic of his natural game.The numbers said much about their mindset at the crease, which played a key role, as they gathered knowledge of the conditions and reacted to the situation of the match.Mominul arrived with the score at 8 for 2 in the fourth over, with Bangladesh still 461 runs behind. He also had to contend with the possibility that a failure here might mean his exit from the XI with Naeem Islam waiting in the wings.Watling only had tailenders for company since the seventh ball of the day’s play. He had every option to attack, since he had little to lose from that point, and since he would have been forgiven for trying to up the tempo and grab what he could as their innings was starting to slide downwards.Instead Watling chose to grind like the top-order batsmen on the first day, making sure the bowlers came to him rather than him chasing after them. A sound strategy on a slow wicket, considering the majority of the bowler’s successes would revolve around the batsman making a mistake.It came when Watling was on four as he flung at a Rubel Hossain delivery way outside off-stump and Nasir Hossain taking the catch at gully. But it was a no-ball, as revealed by the later TV replay, and Watling tightened his game.”I am obviously feeling rather lucky today,” Watling said. “It happened to one of them [the Bangladesh batsmen] too. It’s great to get that opportunity to keep going and make it count and try to make a decent contribution.”I just tried to switch back on and start again really, learnt from the mistake that I made. It was a pretty rash shot so it was good to get a chance to redeem myself and try to score as many runs as possible.”The 127-run stand for the tenth wicket with Trent Boult was more down to Watling’s doing as he farmed the strike cleverly in the first hour and let Boult free in the second half of their stay at the crease.For Watling, who was playing only his third Test innings in the sub-continent, it was only a matter of getting used to the pitch. The one in Chittagong is a typical Bangladeshi wicket which offers very little bounce to play any horizontal bat shots or any pace to work the ball.”I wanted to be patient and wait for them to bowl some bad balls,” he said. “I think if you bat a lot of time on that wicket you can get used to it and you can score runs when the bowler starts to tire.”For Mominul, this was the sort of innings that would answer some of the questions on his ability to play Test cricket. He has scored two fifties in four matches but he found things difficult in the only Test he played in Zimbabwe, and in the ODI series where they experimented with him at No. 3 for a while. He had also averaged just over 28 on Bangladesh A’s tour of England, which was disastrous for most of the tourists.However, Mominul benefited from some ill-directed bowling. He didn’t have to go out of his way to strike three consecutive fours off Bruce Martin’s first over. It was the same story against Doug Bracewell in the next, and as he moved to a half-century off just 36 balls.Mominul’s innings transferred the pressure back on New Zealand as he and Marshall Ayub added 95 runs for the unbroken third wicket to take Bangladesh through till end of day’s play.The overnight batsmen’s first task is to see out the first hour, whatever the quality of bowling is, especially considering Bangladesh have more often than not lost wickets early after a promising overnight score. Mominul and Ayub should take a leaf out of Watling’s book, for he displayed patience when he could have easily taken the safer route of batting for himself.

Pakistan’s marks out of ten for the series against Sri Lanka

Umar Farooq23-Jan-20149Misbah-ul-Haq (364 runs at an average of 91.00)
Misbah-ul-Haq led by example in the batting department. His unbeaten 68 off 72 balls, scored in the final session of the fifth day in Sharjah, led Pakistan to an astonishing victory and helped them square the series 1-1. His scores of 137, 1, 97, 63, 68* reflect his consistency and the innings in Sharjah showed he could step up the run-scoring when needed. As a captain, he was occasionally conservative.8Junaid Khan (14 wickets at 28.71)
Pakistan’s bowling spearhead put in another good performance. His five-wicket haul in Abu Dhabi gave the side a significant first-innings advantage. He was economical throughout and finished as the joint leading wicket-taker, along with Rangana Herath, on pitches that were not helpful for the bowlers.7Azhar Ali (111 runs at 55.50)
His match-winning 103 in Pakistan’s chase in Sharjah was the best knock of his 32-Test career, making up for the wasted review in the first innings. He was dropped for the first two Tests but bounced back to strengthen a claim for the No. 3 position.6.5Sarfraz Ahmed (134 runs at 33.50)
A makeshift wicketkeeper-batsman who replaced the injured Adnan Akmal, Sarfraz made the best of a sudden chance. His 48 in the second innings in Sharjah played a vital role in Pakistan’s victory and a half-century in Dubai helped the side put up a fight. His glovework, however, was mediocre.6Younis Khan (285 runs at 57.00)
One of Pakistan’s most seasoned contenders, Younis often steadied the innings after a top-order collapse. He began with a century in Abu Dhabi and also scored a fifty in Dubai, but was largely unable to cash in on the flatter tracks. His contributions to the win in Sharjah were limited.5Ahmed Shehzad (273 runs at 45.50)
Made his Test debut for Pakistan in the series and showed promise with a hundred in Sharjah. He won the Test cap on the basis of his ODI form but his patience was often worn down by Sri Lanka’s bowlers. He still needs to work on his temperament in the longer formats.Khurram Manzoor (181 runs at 30.16)
He shrugged off poor form in the Abu Dhabi Test with 73 and 52 in the Dubai and Sharjah Tests respectively, but there are questions over his technique. He was unconvincing in the series and, as a result, the slot for the second opener in the Pakistan Test side is still open.Saeed Ajmal (10 wickets at 42.10)
Played his most disappointing series of the last three years. Ajmal picked up two wickets in Sri Lanka’s first innings in Abu Dhabi and then had to wait 77.2 overs to take another one – a new low for the bowler. The match haul of five wickets in Sharjah came at the cost of 173 runs and he finished as Pakistan’s most expensive bowler in the series.Mohammad Talha was impressive on his return to Test cricket after nearly five years•AFPMohammad Talha (6 wickets at 27.33)
He last played a Test for Pakistan in March 2009 at the Gaddafi Stadium and on his return to international cricket after nearly five years, he showed promise. He spent the first two Tests on the bench but replaced Rahat Ali in the third, and found success in spite of an inconsistent length.Abdur Rehman (5 wickets at 31.40)
With Pakistan opting for Ajmal as their lead spinner, a Test opportunity for Rehman is rare and he made it count this time. Prior to the Sharjah Test, Rehman had last played for Pakistan in September 2013 against Zimbabwe. He took 4 for 56 in Sri Lanka’s second innings in Sharjah, which helped restrict the visitors to 214, setting Pakistan a target of 302.2Rahat Ali (2 wickets at 146.50)
Brought into the side in place of the injured Mohammad Irfan, Rahat Ali toiled away but had little success. He bowled 101.3 overs in two Tests, with a strike rate of 304.5 and was dropped for the final Test.Mohammad Hafeez (113 runs at 37.66)
Recalled to the Test squad on the basis of his ODI form, Hafeez had a poor series. Was dropped for the third Test after scores of 11, 80*, 21 and 1 in the first two matches.1Asad Shafiq (61 runs at 15.25)
One of the most promising young Pakistan batsmen, Shafiq was disappointing. The series was a chance for him to maintain his place but scores of 13, 6, 23, 18, 1* did not help his cause.