Plays of the day from the fifth day of the second Test between Sri Lanka and New Zealand at P Sara Oval

Andrew Fernando at the P Sara Oval29-Nov-2012The mix-up
Sri Lanka’s overnight pair had negotiated the early overs without much worry, but they concocted trouble of their own to see the downfall of one of their most experienced batsman. Thilan Samaraweera pushed a Doug Bracewell delivery to cover and set off immediately for a quick single. Perhaps not expecting to scamper runs at this stage in the game, Angelo Mathews was slow to respond at the other end, and as he saw Jeetan Patel swooping in on the ball, he decided to send Samaraweera back. By that stage though, his partner was too far down the track, and his cause was not helped by an extremely slow stop-and-turn that resembled the Titanic trying to avoid the iceberg. Samaraweera was run out by a good two metres.The eager cricketers
Knowing conditions were unlikely to allow them to bowl all the scheduled overs in the day, New Zealand’s cricketers were extra eager to resume their hunt for wickets after lunch, and took the field minutes before the scheduled restart. They had even assumed their fielding positions before the umpires arrived. Sri Lanka’s batsmen were predictably last to come to the middle, two minutes late.The delivery
When Mathews was batting alongside Prasanna Jayawardene, it seemed as though only the new ball would be able to part them. New Zealand’s seamers struggled to get much out of the aging ball on a wearing pitch, and the spinners didn’t get much help from the surface either. But almost out of the blue, debutant Todd Astle produced the ball of the day to dismiss Jayawardene, when he drifted one in then got it to leap off the pitch, turning away. Jayawardene presented a firm defence, but as the ball had bounced more than he had anticipated, it took the edge, high up on the bat, and broke the partnership.The double dive
So keyed up were New Zealand to complete the win that when no. 11 Rangana Herath gloved a short ball from Trent Boult into the off side, two fielders came in and leapt forward, despite the fact that neither of them had a hope of getting there. Brendon McCullum ran forward from third slip and Tim Southee from backward point and the pair performed a futile synchronised dive almost side-by-side, before getting up and smiling it off.

The career of Bruce Reid, a cautionary tale in Australian cricket, has not been forgotten by those seeking to preserve the latest crop of young fast men

Daniel Brettig05-Feb-2013Bruce Reid. The mere mention of his name conjures memories and regrets, of a rare Australian pace-bowling talent apparently cursed by a slender body and a haplessly fragile back. Billy Birmingham may have immortalised him as the fast bowler who “snapped in half”, but Reid’s Test digits were startling enough – 113 wickets at 24.63, strike rate 55.20 – without a comedian’s touch. They gain gravity and tragedy when you add the fact that Reid played the last of 27 matches in 1992. He was 29.Consider for a moment the words of Bob Simpson, the national coach for most of Reid’s career: “My biggest ‘if only’ is Bruce Reid. If he had stayed fit, there is no doubt at all that Australia would have been recognised as world champions two or three years before we were able to claim that position, simply because he was a great bowler, one of the finest bowlers I have ever seen.”Like most at the time, Simpson considered Reid’s demise to be unavoidable, reasoning that Reid and his doctors did all they could to reinforce his body and his back.It was a popular view that Reid was simply too fragile for his craft. There was more to it than that, of course, as Reid himself has alluded at times. His early career has become, alongside those of Dennis Lillee, Craig McDermott and Jason Gillespie, a major influence on the path trodden by Australia’s coaching and medical staff to develop the likes of James Pattinson, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins. Avoiding a repeat of the Reid case study is at the forefront of their minds.Perhaps the greatest misconception about Reid is that he was injury-prone from the start. When asked about him recently, one former Australia fast bowler and sometime Test team-mate of Reid’s exclaimed, “He never played two Tests in a row” as though it were incontrovertible fact. The truth is quite different. Before he started to become a frequent visitor to hospitals and orthopaedic surgeons in late 1987, Reid played his first seven Tests in succession and 15 of a possible 16 before he broke down against New Zealand with the first of innumerable back complaints. During that time, he also played 41 ODIs.When he left the field on the first day of that Adelaide Test match, Reid was 24 years old. From there he would play only another 12 Test matches and 20 ODIs over five years. In between, recurring and debilitating problems forced the removal of two discs from his back and the insertion of a metal plate.Those few matches included Reid’s greatest days as a Test bowler: 13 Ashes wickets against England at the MCG in 1990 and 12 against India on the same ground a year later. But his appearances became increasingly sporadic, as other parts of his body broke down due to the changes made to his action to lessen the pressure on his rebuilt back. The damage, regrettably, had been done.The early demands on Reid were heavy for any bowler, let alone a young paceman with a slender and still growing body. Partly due to his early aptitude for Test match bowling, partly due to the paucity of options left to the national selectors due to the rebel South Africa tours, Reid was cast as a stock bowler well before his frame was entirely ready for the task. It is highly likely those early exertions, un-tempered by a wider plan, contributed greatly to the injuries that would blight him later on. Reid has noted ruefully that he played in an era when there was not much science or precision to training methods either.

Most Test balls delivered by Australian fast bowlers under the age of 23 since 1970

• Craig McDermott 3035 (505.5 overs)

• Dennis Lillee 1471 (equivalent to 245.2 six-ball overs)

• Bruce Reid 1407 (234.3 overs)

• Mitchell Starc 1379 (229.5 overs)

• Jason Gillespie 1370 (228.2 overs)

• James Pattinson 1254 (209 overs)

“We were in that era where it was semi-professional. We weren’t earning the big bucks they’re earning now. Some of us were still working, then trying to go to cricket and play and try to fit in as much as you could,” he said in a 2010 interview. “In the old days, if the boys ran 15 laps around the oval then everyone did it, and you were expected to run time trials at the same pace as the batters and all that sort of stuff. It’s a lot different now, where things are done to suit every body shape, and there’s no doubt that would’ve benefited not only me but probably a lot of guys in that era.”A comprehensive review of the formative years of fast bowlers is one of the less-trumpeted but more valuable pieces of work conducted by Cricket Australia’s team performance regime. In their research, which covers the past 40 years, the bowling undertaken by pacemen up to the ages of 23-25 is placed in the sharpest focus. The data suggests, overwhelmingly, that bowlers are likely to face a range of injury problems until their bodies mature fully, around the time they turn 25. “We’ve got data showing us that fast bowlers are very resilient between the ages of 25 and 30 – that’s when they’re at their best,” Alex Kountouris, who has been working as a physio with the national team since 2003, says. However, it is quite possible that by overloading a young bowler, his body can be scarred to a point that even after 25 is reached, injuries will worsen.Kountouris spoke of how Reid and others provided priceless knowledge about what can befall a young bowler if pushed too hard, too soon. In the cases of Starc and Pattinson, careful management is particularly necessary, for they have already reached a volume of Test-match bowling at a young age that only four other Australia bowlers had reached since 1970.”Mitch Starc and James Pattinson are both around 23 and they’re in a group that have bowled the most deliveries in Test matches at that age in the past 40 years,” Kountouris says. “Those others are Craig McDermott, who is way above anyone else after debuting at 19, Dennis Lillee, Jason Gillespie, and Bruce Reid. The interesting thing about that is, Gillespie, Lillee and Reid all had injury problems in the years subsequent to that, and Craig was done by 31.”We’ve got history behind us saying this is what happens when these guys get to this age, so be careful. So we’re trying to look after them. As far as how we do that, no one’s got a magic bullet for it, it’s something we’re learning about. But our goal is not to go down the same path as what happened in the past. Craig retired at 31 – we’d like to think our guys are going to go for a bit longer than that, and that’s what the expectation is these days.”This is the statistical and historical background to why Starc and Pattinson have their bowling workloads and progression from format to format monitored closely by Kountouris; the team performance manager, Pat Howard; and the pace bowling coach, Ali de Winter. It is also why Howard and the Sydney Sixers fell out last year over Pat Cummins’ bowling at the Champions League Twenty20 in South Africa, when the 19-year-old complained of back soreness during the event but played on until its conclusion, whereupon a stress fracture was revealed.”Before the age of 25 they’re prone to having certain injuries, after 30 they’re prone to certain injuries, and we see that players fade away,” Kountouris says. “But that period, the sweet spot, is where players are at their best. There’s a couple things that happen: one, their bodies have matured; two, they have a history of bowling, they’ve built up their workloads and they’ve got a good base because they’ve done it from the age of 20-25.”But also they’re more experienced and they know their bodies well. So any athlete in that age group knows when to go hard and when to back off. That’s no different to Peter Siddle, Ben Hilfenhaus, Mitchell Johnson, who are all around that age group and all very reliable. It’s not necessarily individualised to a particular player, it’s just that Jason Gillespie at 28 is better than Pat Cummins at 19. Will Pat be as good as Jason Gillespie at 28? We’d like to think so.”Lessons learned from Dennis Lillee’s playing career may help James Pattinson prolong his•Getty ImagesJohnson’s slingy, streaky action will always ensure he holds an enigmatic place in Australian cricket. But in terms of longevity, he fits the profile of a young bowler battling injuries before developing into a reliable campaigner, at least physically, in adulthood. From an early point when he was considered too injury-prone to hold a state contract, Johnson matured into a constant presence in Australia’s team from 2007 to 2011.”He played 46 Tests straight, he played 110 ODIs, and that’s as good as anyone in the history of the game for durability,” Kountouris says. “We know when they get to a certain age, they’ve built this tolerance, and we don’t know exactly what it is, but for whatever reason they become resilient at that age. It’s our job to get the young guys to that stage as injury-free or as smoothly as possible.”It’s like having a 15-year-old, and saying, ‘I know he’s going to grow but I want him to be six foot four, can he hurry up and be that height?’ He will get there eventually because he’s tracking to be that height, but it’s not going to happen before time. And that’s what we’re finding at the moment.”Such thinking arrived too late for Reid’s generation, leaving his story as a cautionary tale for the current coterie of sports scientists, coaches and medical staff to learn from. But there is one area that Reid did not have to contend with – the leap from T20 to Test matches and back again, which Kountouris admits is the greatest challenge facing those seeking to adequately prepare cricketers in general and fast bowlers in particular.”We’ve now got a Champions League before the start of our domestic season, and a Big Bash in the middle of our domestic season, and those tournaments alone don’t do anything but it just creates a reshuffling of games,” Kountouris says. “Bowlers’ workloads go from really low to really high, so it is a significant challenge. And it is new, it is something that’s only been around in this volume for the last couple of years. And we’re learning from our experiences, we’re getting better and we have to get better managing it, because it’s part of life.”I recently bumped into a former AFL footballer and coach, now commentator, and he said, ‘What’s amazing about your sport is it’s like playing three different sports at the same time. It’s unbelievable.’ He’s from outside the game and he saw it as T20, one-dayers and Tests are all virtually different sports, and we’re trying to juggle them at the same time. Some guys are trying to play all of them, some are trying to play one, some two, and it is something unique to cricket.”Among the problems presented by the T20 age is the lack of history from which to form a method for better practice. In that way, Starc, Pattinson and Cummins are unwitting case studies for future generations, just as Reid once was. It is to be hoped none of them are snapped in half by the schedule.

From Pradeep Ramarathnam, USA

Cricinfo25-Feb-2013From Pradeep Ramarathnam, USATwo men experienced similar turnarounds in a Ranji ODI back in 1994. One of them has gone on to become an all-time great. The other never played for his state again•AFPLast year, some 500 people saw the Ranji finals at the ground. The ones who didn’t turn up have no idea what they were missing. Away from the glare of international media, with dirt cheap ticket rates and questionable security, a domestic game is a great chance to get up close with cricket. And if you are lucky, you might witness something close to what I saw in 1994.The winter of ’93 was an unusual time for Tamilians in Bangalore. After years, no decades, of a seamless, unobtrusive civil orchestra with the local Kannada populace, there was a simmering undercurrent of uneasy tension.A first attempt at resolving the Cauvery water dispute was made by the British Government in 1890.Mysore and Madras gave way to Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, but like Cromwell’s warts, the problem refused to go away. Instead, it lurked menacingly, threating to spill blood the instant anyone would so much as stoke it. After a tribunal verdict went against Karnataka’s favor in ’91, large scale riots broke out across both neighbouring states. Some counts put the urban Tamil population in Bangalore at a staggering 38%, with a healthy number of Kannada speakers in Chennai. Bellicose politicians on an unabashed publicity binge only added fuel to the fire. Buses were stoned, shutters were down, but the 1994 Subbiah Pillai Trophy tie – Ranji ODIs for South Zone teams – was on schedule between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in January 1994.I remember this game like it were yesterday, because it was the last game I saw at a ground with my grandfather .It was also the first domestic game I saw live. The plan was to take off to Rex theatre in the afternoon if the game got boring. I was 13, and I was fairly sure I was going to see Madhuri Dixit on the big screen that day, or, at the very least, get a nice nap in the sun and a chance at some autographs on the boundary.Nothing prepared me for what was to happen later. It was, at the end of the day, a game of such relentless drama and one I can never forget.Between them, Karnataka and TN had 10 players who were picked for India at some point. For Karnataka, there was Rahul Dravid , a most affable senior from my coaching camp, who I was particularly looking forward to watching, Javagal Srinath, Venkatesh Prasad, Sunil Joshi, Anil Kumble and not to forget Syed Kirmani who, while past his prime, was still a heavy contributor with the bat, almost making it to the ’91-92 tour to Aus. Tamil Nadu had WV Raman, Robin Singh, the cavalier VB Chandrashekar , Sunil Subramaniam – now back in the news for coaching R Ashwin to 22 wickets in his debut series – and the fierce M Senthilnathan. But the one person who will never forget this day, is Shyam Chandra Bhat, the young Karnataka opener.Bhat had shown enough promise in his debut season to be seen as a viable long-term replacement for seasoned domestic contributor Carlton Saldanha. His one-day career got off to a promising start with a 50 on debut, but in a line-up including Dravid, Kirmani and captain Kartik Jeshwant, Bhat was not expected to steal the headlines.As it turned out, Karnataka batted first and young Bhat rode roughshod over TN with a chanceless 124. He particularly took to Robin Singh, who conceded the most runs. Bhat was well supported by Dravid, who finished unbeaten on 81.Between them, they scored the bulk of Karnataka’s total score of 284. After two innings, SC Bhat averaged 87 – it was that easy for him.There were more people that day at the Chinnaswamy stadium than at the three India v West Indies Tests put together. After Bhat and Dravid’s masterpieces, people streamed in as entry was made free. River water was a grey area, but at least a cricket match would be won against the arch rivals.Tamil Nadu’s VB Chandrashekar had grabbed everyone’s attention in the 1988 Irani game. Hooking helmetless against a line-up of India fast bowlers , VB let rip an innings of staggering brilliance and ferocity. He had ended up with a 100 off 56 balls, the fastest first-class hundred by an Indian. Sadly VB’s international career never took off, ending abruptly in a slew of single-digit scores. Against arguably the best bowling line-up in the domestic scene, a washed out VB was unlikely to make any sort of impact. If things went well, I thought I could catch the 2.00 pm show after Srinath knocked over VB.As it turned out, VB chose that day to try out the forward defensive. In an innings of sustained aggression, he weathered Srinath and Prasad early on, and scored heavily off the spinners, especially Kumble, who went for 58 off his 10.When Kumble did get VB stumped for 88, TN were 170/2, with Robin Singh walking in to join the fluent WV Raman.With four top-notch India bowlers, all Karnataka had to do was find a half decent fifth bowler. Back in those days, Jeshwant did the job, bowling left arm spin. That day, however, he decided to let the two youngsters Bhat and Dravid , brimming with confidence after their superlative batting display, have a bowl. Unmitigated disaster followed.Raman and Robin went on to make half-centuries, falling to the fast bowlers after taking TN mighty close. Bhat bowled two overs. His first one went for 16 and his second, which he bowled well into the slog overs, went for 25. Dravid sent down three overs for close to thirty. Jeshwant went for just under five runs per over in his spell.TN had the combative D Vasu at the crease for the last over. Karnataka, with Srinath, Prasad, Joshi and Kumble having bowled out, tossed the ball to Dravid. The game ended half way into the over. Dravid, after his 81 in the morning, ended with 3.3-0-36-0.The game was lost. What followed next was mayhem.As the players trudged back to the pavilion, chairs were hurled into the field. Not one, not two, dozens of pieces of fine KSCA property were pelted down the path of the Karnataka fielders, many of the projectiles hurled at one man – the centurion and hero of the morning, Shyam Chandra Bhat. After a good fifteen to twenty minutes of sustained abuse (I was 13, I made notes), the cops finally got into the act to restore some sense of sanity. In the stadium at least.The Bodyline series is truly one of the most romantic episodes of cricket. Harold Larwood never played a Test after that series, and eventually moved to Australia, the very team, and country he traumatized in 1932. He would later become a softdrinks salesman. Dravid probably doesn’t even remember this game, has over 20,000 international runs , and is still going strong. Bhat never played a game for Karnataka after that season, and that 124 was to be his last limited-overs knock.In one game, he had seen enough. For seventeen years now, SC Bhat remains an honest banker living somewhere in Chennai, probably watching his erstwhile partner in crime carve hundred after Test hundred, and wondering what might have been.

A friend gets agitated every time someone refers to Tendulkar as Sachin. “It’s always Ponting, Lara, Dravid, Kallis … and Sachin,” he cribs. He then rants about how this clouds the world’s assessment of a man is who, at best, “above average”

MV Swaroop25-Feb-2013A friend gets agitated every time someone refers to Tendulkar as Sachin. “It’s always Ponting, Lara, Dravid, Kallis … and Sachin,” he cribs. He then rants about how this clouds the world’s assessment of a man is who, at best, “above average”. He makes detailed tabular columns and excel sheets with statistics, painstakingly compiled from ESPNcricinfo’s Statsguru, and forwards it to all of us who refer to the man as Sachin. And he insists, “Stop calling him Sachin, and you’ll see him more clearly.”I started watching cricket seriously in 1990. I don’t remember cricket before Sachin. In other words, for me, Sachin is as much a part of the game as bats, balls, bails, wickets, pads and gloves. I’m more familiar with his batting than I am with my own. When I watch him these days, I can almost predict his response to the bowling.So, I explained to my friend that this familiarity meant that I couldn’t call Sachin anything but Sachin – I know him that well. He scoffed and told me off for being a romantic fool. The hundredth international 100 then began. My friend first prayed that it shouldn’t happen at Lords’ – he didn’t want a ‘Hundredth 100 at the Mecca of Cricket’ celebration. Sachin obliged, and continued to oblige at every potentially historic occasion. Finally, he scored it in a losing cause in an ODI against Bangladesh. Again, my friend was quick to point out that this perhaps led to India’s exit from the Asia Cup.Anyway, the century came. The world celebrated the man even more than it did when he reached far more significant milestones. He was criticised (on this very website) for his media blitz since that century. But this needless publicity hasn’t stopped even now.He was made a Member of Parliament, in what was possibly an unconstitutional appointment. (Article 80[3] of India’s Constitution allows the President to nominate 12 persons who have knowledge or experience in literature, arts, science or social service. I am tempted to say his batting is an art, but the Constitution will disagree with me.) This has only put him more in the public eye than he ever was. More pointless interviews, more empty sound bites.A case in point is the recent interview, which happened in Germany, at the Adidas walk of fame. Through ten questions and answers, one of the interviewers asks nothing new, and Sachin says nothing new. We still ask him what keeps him going, what the ODI format means to him, if he will bat like the Sachin of old. And he still gives us the same answers – he’s been a cricketer all his life, he still enjoys the game, cricket is a team game.The media must remember. For many, he isn’t Tendulkar; he’s Sachin. We know all these things about him. We could answer that interview as well as him, and we would largely be right. Whatever there is to be said about Sachin, has been said. Evocatively. Eloquently. Many times over. Maybe it’s time they just moved on.

Let us now praise the most unanticipated Test century of all time

Andy Zaltzman25-Feb-2013Tino Best’s batting average when he strode to the wicket at Sogbaston last Sunday for his 24th Test innings.A couple of hours of outlandishly brilliant batsmanship and one history-shattering slogswipe later, Best’s average stood proudly at 13.85, after perhaps the most startlingly unexpected innings of all time, an innings of panache, style and, perhaps most surprisingly control, that left cricket’s collective flabber well and truly gasted.What the hell happened? Had Tino drunk a pint of strawberry milkshake laced with the DNA of George Headley? Had he borrowed Gordon Greenidge’s central nervous system for the day? Was this the first time he had ever batted without distracting himself worrying about whether the Large Hadron Collider at CERN near Geneva might prompt the instant destruction of the planet? Or was he hallucinating, and finally responding to Freddie Flintoff’s famous “Mind the windows, Tino” goad at Lord’s eight years ago, by trying to repeatedly smash a window he thought he had seen at ground level on the extra-cover boundary? Who knows. Actually, Who probably does not know. It is beyond the understanding of humanity.Best’s innings, regardless of the match situation or the relative placidity of the pitch, was a staggering, glorious performance, a beacon of hope to tailenders the world over. He fell annoyingly five runs short of a century and cricketing immortality. I was very excited at the imminent prospect of seeing a No. 11 score a hundred in a Test match. It had taken 135 years of Test cricket for any No. 11 even to come close to it. If it takes another 135 years for it to happen again, I probably will not be around to see it.If Andrew Strauss had been thinking of the legacy to the sport-watching world, instead of his professional responsibility as an international cricketer, he would have contrived to “accidentally” trip over and head the ball for six.Instead, he wrote himself into the , alongside the likes of Stewart Cink, the prosaic American golfer who snatched the 2009 Open from 59-year-old legend of the game Tom Watson, thus scuppering what would have the most remarkable story of superannuated sporting success in human history; and the Italian 1982 World Cup football team, who so rudely and needlessly knocked out a ludicrously exciting and supernaturally stylish Brazil side, when, for the good of football, sport, humanity, and all that is good and beautiful in the universe, they should have had the decency and honour to knock in a couple of late own goals. I am sure their manager and fans would have understood.Best’s would unquestionably have been the most unanticipated Test century of all time. More so than Ajit Agarkar’s thunderbolt from the bluest possible shade of blue at Lord’s in 2002. Agarkar began with a Test average well below Tino’s 9.8 – a dismal 7.47 ‒ but his first-class record suggested this was a case of significant underachievement, as The Bombay Botham had registered a first-class century and averaged in the mid-20s. More so than Jason Gillespie’s Chittagong double-hundred, as he had posted a couple of Test half-centuries, four more 40-plus scores, and a four-hour blockathon against Kumble and Harbhajan in Chennai. And he was playing against Bangladesh. And more so than Jerome Taylor (previous average 13.6, highest score 31) smashing New Zealand for a sparkling hundred in Dunedin in December 2008, because Taylor was batting eight and had at least put together a run of useful 20s in Tests over the previous year.(Incidentally, Taylor also painted his unexpected tail-end masterpiece on the fourth day of a rain-affected match, and the universe was so flabbergasted that it promptly sent a deluge to wash out the fifth day. Which suggests that West Indian tailenders clobbering brilliant innings against the statistical odds could solve all future droughts. I look forward to Devendra Bishoo being deployed by the United Nations to sub-Saharan Africa with a squad of club bowlers under strict instructions to feed him wide half-volleys.)Best’s innings trumps all of these. Not only had Tino never passed the nervous 20s before in Tests, but also he had averaged 8 in first-class cricket over the previous two years, had a first-class highest score of 51, had effectively been out of Test cricket for seven years (if you exclude his two appearances in the dispute-ravaged pseudo-West-Indies team’s series with Bangladesh in 2009), and was facing a high-class England attack of proven internationals.If Tino Best had scored a Test century, it would have stood high in the list of Most Extraordinary Sporting Achievements, alongside Beryl the Three-Legged Donkey winning the 1936 Grand National, actress Hattie Jacques’ driving a Ford Cortina to victory in the 1973 Monaco Grand Prix, and Ravindra Jadeja’s tax return. He scored 95, the highest by a No. 11, the highest by any West Indian batting 9, 10 or 11. (Honourable mentions for other unexpected batting successes: Glenn McGrath [average 6.5] taking 61 off New Zealand at the Gabba in November 2004, an experience so soul-crushingly embarrassing and psychologically ruinous that New Zealand were promptly bowled out for 76; and Kiwi paceman Bob Blair [career average 4.2, one previous double-figure score in 25 Test innings, out of Test cricket for four years, eight years after the second of his two previous first-class half-centuries] coming in at 96 for 7 in Wellington in 1962-63 and spanking 64 undefeated runs off a Freddie-Trueman-spearheaded England attack.And one bowling startler: Allan Border – previously 16 wickets at 47 in 100 Tests, including 1 for 242 over his previous 49 Tests in six years ‒ taking 7 for 46 and 4 for 50 at the SCG in January 1989, against West Indies [that’s West Indies of 1989, not West Indies of 2012 transplanted back to 1989].)9.8 is also: Jimmy Anderson’s average in opening spells in his last five Tests.In the third Test against Pakistan, the two games in Sri Lanka, and the first two Tests of this summer before he was consigned to the exercise bike by the selectors, Anderson took 15 wickets for 148 runs in 64 overs in his opening spells. In the remainder of those five matches, he took seven wickets in 162 overs at an average of 53.7. Conclusion: Anderson is only effective with the new ball.Objection, your honour. I wish to present Exhibit B to the court. In Anderson’s previous six Tests (the India series last summer and the first two against Pakistan in the UAE), he took just four wickets at 50.5 in his opening spells, but 22 wickets at 22.7 in the remainder of those matches. Conclusion: Anderson is only effective with the old ball. Or the second new ball.Objection sustained. Verdict: if you are approached by a friendly-looking stat in the street, be wary of it. It might not mean what it says. Or know what it means.9.8 is also: Denesh Ramdin’s score on the Scrantworthy-Humberscule Scale (the internationally accepted calibration of the silliness of gestures) for his four-word scribbled micro-rant in response to Viv Richards’ statistically justified criticism of his performance for the West Indies.Ramdin (averaging 22 in Tests before his excellent if Tino-Best-and-himself-overshadowed century at Edgaston) would have been excused his questionable use of an innocent sheet of A4 paper if, after the many innings in which he has not scored an excellent century for the West Indies, he had trudged back to the pavilion brandishing a handwritten note towards the TV cameras and press box, reading: “Yup, you’ve got a point. Oops.”

It is hazardous to go by bowlers’ figures in T20, but his figures of 4-0-17-1 in defence of just 115 were possibly an accurate reflection of how well he bowled

Sidharth Monga12-May-2013Bowling analysis is a term used synonymously with bowling figures. That usage doesn’t work here. Twenty20 is a hazardous place to “analyse” bowlers. You can get wickets without doing anything, like when AB de Villiers reverse-swept L Balaji through to the keeper. In IPL, what with the inconsistent fielding standards, it becomes even worse. Ask Ravi Rampaul, who did everything right when opening the bowling in a small defence, but saw Abhimanyu Mithun make a right mess of a sitter at long leg. The beneficiary, Jacques Kallis, scored 38 after that reprieve, and possibly cost Rampaul’s side the match.Bowling figures usually prove crucial in the IPL, because, well, somebody has to get the wickets when the batsmen go kamikaze, but the bowlers are often incidental to what happens. More often than what is ideal, at any rate. Sometimes you just see batsmen do inexplicably crazy things, and bowlers walk away with excellent figures. Sometimes you see top edges fly for sixes and your fielders letting you down, and you take home dubious records. However, Murali Kartik’s figures of 4-0-17-1 in defence of just 115 were possibly an accurate reflection of how well he bowled.And Kartik was hit for the longest six of the match off the first ball he bowled. It was a pitch where all batsmen had struggled to time, and the other two sixes, hit by Chris Gayle and AB de Villiers, had just about cleared the rope. It can be demoralising when you run in, and see Yusuf Pathan, a hit and miss player on current form, smack one out of the ground.Kartik, a veteran of Twenty20 in a variety of conditions and against a variety of batsmen, didn’t respond with darts. He didn’t go for ultra defensive fields. He trapped Yusuf in his next over with a left-arm bowler’s offbreak, and then went on to show his mastery over Manoj Tiwary. Once again, it has to be seen through the tunnel of Twenty20, which has caused panic among better and more accomplished batsmen.For the best part of Kartik’s bowling, and perhaps the match, we need to go to the 13th over, which began with Kolkata Knight Riders needing 48 off 48. It wasn’t quite Shane Warne, but there was drama all around. On more than one occasion, he pulled out of the delivery looking back at the non-striker. The batsmen, Tiwary and Jacques Kallis, weren’t backing up too far, and it would have taken extraordinary work to mankad them, but Kartik was playing his small tricks to get under their skins.Kartik might have too, because the batsmen did look indignant from afar. The bigger tricks, though, were seen in the actual bowling. Tiwary is known to play a wild shot as soon as he faces a few dot balls, but this time he responded with a flick over mid-on. The captain, as with almost all Twenty20 captains, sent mid-on back immediately. Sitting back and waiting for the batsmen to make the inexplicable mistake is the preferred way in T20. And it has happened more often in this IPL than makes for exciting cricket.Kartik, though, called the mid-on back up. He wanted Tiwary to play that shot again. He was telling Tiwary he wasn’t impressed. Tiwary nearly responded to the taunt, jumping out of the crease next ball. Kartik beat him in the flight, but couldn’t go past the bat. Then he fired one in. And then he saw Tiwary make room, and tossed one up wide outside off. Despite the boundary, only six had come off that over. Despite that six first ball, Kartik had gone for just 15 in three.Kartik was kept back after that over. He was to make the impact. And what a cruel game. You get one over to make the impact. And that one over can easily be played out when the asking rate is six an over. So on he came with 31 required off 30. The over was full of moral victories. You could argue Kartik would have won this if the contest had gone longer, you could have argued Tiwary would have behaved more like a batsman had this been a longer contest.It was clear Tiwary was charging too early because with three consecutive deliveries Kartik saw him and bowled wide twice, and cramped him up once. On one of those occasions, he nearly had Tiwary stumped. Just two runs came off the over, Knight Riders now needed 29 off 24, but Kartik was bowled out. He had done his bit, though. It was up to other bowlers now.And Kallis got a massive top edge to the next ball, which sailed over the keeper’s head. All pressure gone. Knight Riders won.

Gary Kirsten may not have had the longest of tenures but he took South Africa to the top and, of particular pride to him, helped several rookies take their first steps in international cricket

Firdose Moonda10-May-2013Gary Kirsten sent a message to every South African player he currently coaches when he decided not to renew his contract. He wanted to let them know, personally, he would no longer be around.It was a typical Kirsten way of doing things – intimate, caring and sensitive. Every one of them responded. Never one to disclose too much, Kirsten would only say the replies were “incredible.” Most of the men who sent them would likely use the same word to describe Kirsten and the influence he had during his time in charge, which they will likely agree was too short.
Just two years. That’s all the time Kirsten was able to give to South Africa. He changed them substantially in the first of those.Kirsten’s anniversary on August 1, 2012 was followed 19 days later by what will be remembered as his biggest achievement. South Africa beat England at Lord’s to claim the Test mace.
It confirmed that taken the step from nearly men and champions by accident – which Graeme Smith said they felt like after their first short stint at No.1 in 2009 – to rightful owners of the label “best in the world.” They proved they could win in various conditions, against a range of opponents and in trying circumstances: all the ingredients required at the beginning of the road to greatness.But did they actually ascend those heights during Kirsten’s time? Or did they simply get the best foundation possible to one day be counted among legends? The evidence, and Kirsten himself, would suggest the latter.In numbers terms, Kirsten’s 12 wins, five draws and two losses from the 19 Tests he was in charge for make him the most successful coach in the longest format the country has ever had. It’s a small sample size though, especially when compared to Mickey Arthur’s tenure of 45 Tests, Bob Woolmer’s of 44 and Graham Ford’s of 33, so it may be going too far to say the team would have continued as strongly.The evidence that they were a cut above the rest came in the things the figures couldn’t prove – the maturity, the nuances and the caring Kirsten brought, especially in the Test side. He convinced them life was not about cricket and cricket alone. He asked them to think outside of the sport and in so doing, fostered them getting better at the sport as a whole.Last year showcased that spectacularly. South Africa’s 2012 was travel heavy as they competed in New Zealand, England and Australia. They won all three Test series they played and emerged out of them far more human than ever before. Kirsten said it felt as though they had become a “family.”He led the way when he decided to run a marathon as an extra-curricular activity in Auckland. He encouraged the rest to use the time between Test matches to explore areas like the Waikato Caves and Lake Taupo.Before the series against England, he took them on gruelling obstacle-course of a trip to Switzerland where explorer Mike Horn oversaw their trips up mountain passes. The squad agreed that it was the most strenuous physical activity they had to do but that it showed them what was possible if pushed to the extreme.That excursion helped them deal with the horrific eye-injury that ended Mark Boucher’s career and contributed significantly to their success in beating England. Sprinkled with trips to the Olympic Games and dress-up parties, they also dominated to emerge a deserving No.1 side.Confirmation of that came when they travelled to Australia three months later and defended their title even though they took a week’s break on the Gold Coast. Kirsten proved a winning team is not one that spends all its time in the nets but one that has players who can be held accountable for their actions and can take responsibility for when they want to do things.It helped that he introduced these concepts at a time when several senior members of the squad were going through major life changes. Graeme Smith was recently married and had just become a father, Jacques Kallis accepted the end may not be far away and allowed his personality to come through more and AB de Villiers and Hashim Amla were learning how to deal with leadership.Kirsten provided them with some of the tools to embrace these events without panicking. “One of my primary activities was to facilitate in growing people,” he said. “We created a culture that allowed players to thrive.”Of particular importance to him was the way rookies stepped up and played important parts in South Africa’s success. From Vernon Philander to Faf du Plessis, the new caps all looked ready to play international cricket not only because they had done well domestically but because they felt welcomed by the national side.

Tributes

Chris Nenzani
I would like to thank him for his tremendous contribution to the well-being of the Proteas over the past two years. It is obvious to all of us the standard of excellence that he has brought to our national team and it will be wonderful if he can complete his tenure by bringing home the ICC Champions Trophy next month.
Mohammed Moosajee
Although the decision is painful and disappointing, it reflects the authenticity of the man. Gary, you have brought a sense of calmness and consistency that focuses specifically on growing others. Your vision has always been for the team culture to be independent of any one person. We hope you will not be lost to the Proteas and South African cricket.
Mark Boucher, former South Africa wicketkeeper and batsman
Protea crickets loss today with Garys decision,but a life lesson in itself..always put family first! take a bow Gaz! Thanks for all ur work!
Explorer Mike Horn
Personal growth stops if you stay in the same surroundings. @Gary_Kirsten you have taken experience but left behind a chapter of history!

Kirsten listed as one of his highlights “the comments that a lot of the young players have made about how comfortable they feel in the environment and how they feel straight away they can make significant performances.”It was that which told him he had achieved the aims he wanted in his two years. “I am not in coaching for performance even though I am measured by that. I want to help people be the best they can be. While I am measured by whether the team do well or not, to me that is not as relevant as the influence I can have over individuals in the team.”That’s why Kirsten’s one-day and T20 record does not affect the way he views his time with the team. They were in transition in both formats with a new captain in de Villiers and uncertainty, especially in the batting department. They failed to find consistency in the fifty-over game and crashed out of the 2012 World Twenty20 without making the semi-finals.After that tournament, the first signs came that Kirsten was feeling the strain. He relinquished the role as T20 coach, and handed it over to his assistant Russell Domingo, who is also his likely successor. In the travel that followed, to Australia, he made a whistle-stop tour back home to South Africa, even though he had to cross many time zones to spend just two nights with his children.What was suspected at the very beginning when Kirsten took the job was confirmed – he was reluctant to travel and reluctant to spend significant chunks of time away from home. With three young children, one of whom was born during his first series in charge, that was to be expected.In the end, Kirsten picked them over his other charges and it is a decision many will respect. “I won’t miss the time away from my family but I will miss is the environment and the players,” he said. “We really are moving positively in the right direction in all issues that exist within our cricket. I leave a happy man.” But he will be happier if South Africa can build on the start he gave them.

ESPNcricinfo presents the plays of the day from the opening day of the Ashes series

George Dobell and Jarrod Kimber at Trent Bridge10-Jul-2013Telling moment of the dayThe checked swipe that Jonathan Trott aimed at his stumps the moment after his dismissal spoke volumes: he knew he had squandered a golden opportunity to contribute a match defining innings and he was furious with himself. Trott had looked in superb form: there had been nine fours in his 48, several of them caressed to the boundary with beautifully sweet timing. But, drawn into driving at one well outside off stump by the deserving Peter Siddle, Trott inside-edged the ball on to his stumps. The bowler, varying his angle of delivery on the crease intelligently, undoubtedly deserved some credit, but Trott knew he had been the chief architect of his own downfall.Ball of the dayOn a day when most wickets owed more to batsman error than bowling skill, it was Michael Clarke’s misfortune to receive a peach of a delivery from James Anderson. Angled in but moving away off the pitch to beat Clarke’s perfectly respectable forward defensive stroke and clipping the top of off stump, it was a delivery of which Fred Trueman, the man whose Test wicket tally of 307 Anderson surpassed with this wicket, would have been proud. Now only Sir Ian Botham, with 383, and Bob Willis, with 325, have more Test wickets than Anderson among England bowlers.First impressions of the day
Steve Harmison and Michael Slater have ensured that the first ball of the Ashes is a big deal. James Pattinson obviously agreed, and despite his hairstyle suggesting the opposite, he is an aggressive man who wants to leave his mark. Clearly he decided that one way to do it was by knocking Cook’s head off first ball. Instead his masculine opening ended up sailing comfortably over the Cook’s head and ended up being a wide. It wasn’t a ‘Harmy’. But the next few balls were almost as bad as the Harmy second slip effort.Review of the daySteven Finn once batted for what felt like 28 days. It only felt like that if you were watching it, but at times grass stopped growing. With Swann at the crease an innings of turgid determination from Finn was what England would want. Instead Finn wafted at his first ball like he was trying to fit in with England’s top order batsmen. Then he reviewed his waft. It looked no better using the hot spot camera. Finn may have believed that he had hit the ground and indeed he had, but he had also nicked the ball. In the end, he spent far more time reviewing the ball than he did actually batting.Bowling change of the daySiddle had made a decidedly underwhelming start to his day when Clarke swung him around to the Radcliffe Road End. With figures of 4-0-27-0 to his name, Siddle charged in at Joe Root and produced a ball that was fast, full and bending treacherously late. It was much too good for Root, who tried to jam down it but played inside the swinging line, his off stump tilting back as Siddle charged down the wicket towards his captain. Another four wickets proved Siddle’s value to Australia, but they may not have happened at all without the change of ends.Flight of the dayUnderlining the significance of this series in England in both cultural and marketing terms, the Red Arrows – the Royal Air Force’s aerobatic team – staged a nine-plane ‘flypast’ just as Alastair Cook and Joe Root emerged from the pavilion to start the first innings of the series. Meanwhile the band of the Coldstream Guards entertained the full house crowd – a somewhat ironic choice bearing in mind Nottinghamshire’s decision to stop Billy Cooper, the Barmy Army’s trumpeter, from playing his instrument – while opera singer Lesley Garrett sang the national anthems.

How the Pakistan champions made it to the Champions League is a tale out of the movies

Hassan Cheema17-Sep-2013The Champions League Twenty20 is an idea that works on paper, but its iterations so far have been unloved and not that profitable, making it the useless younger brother of the IPL. Yet the presence of the Faisalabad team, which will now receive some much-deserved attention, provides the competition with the sort of narrative the IPL can’t. The story of how they got here is reminiscent of a typical sports movie.A digression here. Pakistan has two major domestic T20 competitions. In the first half of the season, we have the Faysal Bank T20, a typical 14-team affair, like many elsewhere in the cricketing world. In the second there is the Faysal Bank Super 8 T20 (no one has yet attempted to abbreviate it), where the best eight teams from the Faysal Bank T20 play each other. This was the tournament that Faisalabad won to make it to the Champions League.The two-competition calendar ought to be considered too much of a good thing, and would probably have Pakistan’s old Test-loving-journos in a tizzy were it not for the fact that it makes complete sense. The second tournament came into being in 2010-11 (which is why Pakistan have had 12 domestic T20 champions in nine years), because of the complete absence of international cricket in a country where the three most popular sports are cricket, complaining and cricket. Furthermore, neither of these competitions takes more than ten days to finish. So, bizarre as it may sound, the PCB got something right.All good sports movies require an interesting and dominating antagonist; in this case there were three. Antagonist No. 1 was Karachi Dolphins (the better of the two Karachi teams). They are a combination of Real Madrid, because they have half the country’s media rooting for them, and Liverpool, because their fans always tell you that this is going to be their year, and it never is. Dolphins have been perennial bridesmaids, having lost the finals in six of the 12 competitions held so far (only Sialkot have more appearances).Antagonist No. 2 was Lahore Lions (the better of the two Lahore teams, and locally referred to as the Lahore Loins), who had had recent success – including winning the T20 competition in the first half of the season – and the best team on paper. Their top five – Ahmed Shehzad, Nasir Jamshed, Mohammad Hafeez, Kamran and Umar Akmal – are pretty much the top order of the national team. You could even argue that this wasn’t their best possible batting line-up since the arrival of Hafeez led to two better players, Mohammad Yousuf and Abdul Razzaq, withdrawing from playing for Lions. Rest assured, a full-strength Lions team (with that batting line-up and a pair of teenage left-arm quicks) would have been Pakistan’s best option for any significant performance in the Champions League.Antagonist No. 3 was the Great Empire itself, Sialkot Stallions. Few, if any, teams have dominated their country quite like Stallions. They had won seven of 11 competitions going into this event, including a run in the late noughties where they won five years in a row, going unbeaten for 25 matches. Their success was based around the batting of Shoaib Malik and Imran Nazir, and more recently Haris Sohail – players who excel on Pakistani pitches, especially when the bowling is below international standard. Sialkot also understood the golden rule of T20 cricket: that it is better to have a quality bowling attack than a quality batting line-up, and their colours had been donned by the likes of Rana Naved, Mohammad Asif, Abdur Rehman and Raza Hasan.Meanwhile our protagonists, Faisalabad Wolves, had once been mighty, having won the first edition of the domestic T20 in 2004-05, and followed that with a win in the predecessor to the Champions League – the International 20:20 Club Championship, held in England in 2005, featuring the best two teams in England and the champions of Sri Lanka, South Africa and Pakistan. Nobody remembers it because this was in the days before India cared about T20.

In the movie version, Misbah will probably be played by Kevin Costner or Nicolas Cage, reprising the role of a man devoid of human emotions such as love or happiness

Between then and this season’s domestic championship, Faisalabad didn’t win a trophy. Prior to the start of this season they lost their third-best player, Hafeez, and for this competition (until the final) they didn’t have the services of their best player, Saeed Ajmal. Their second-best player now is Khurram Shehzad, a poor man’s Hafeez (which really is saying something; except that Shehzad realises he isn’t an opener). Their fast bowling trio (Sami Niazi, Asad Ali and Ehsan Adil) is more English than Pakistani – no blood, sweat and tears for them. Their captain, unsurprisingly, is Misbah-ul-Haq, often characterised as the antithesis of inspiration, and they have ten role players who had till then won a combined total of less than 20 international caps. In the movie version, Misbah will probably be played by Kevin Costner or Nicolas Cage, reprising the role of a man devoid of human emotions such as love or happiness. But like in all fairy tales, this ragtag group gelled under the old has-been to achieve the improbable.In the group stage they took on the highly fancied Dolphins, who set them a target of 158 and had them at 21 for 2 in the fifth over. Misbah responded with a match-winning 85 off 47 balls and Faisalabad qualified for the semi-finals. A day later, Wolves lost after Misbah did the most Misbah thing ever: he top-scored before getting run out off the last ball with the scores tied. Faisalabad lost the Super Over, so they had to next play the winner of the other group, Lahore Lions.Misbah failed against Lahore, so Faisalabad could only put up 125. Lions were comfortably positioned at 70 for 1 in the ninth over when they had an almighty collapse in front of a surprisingly non-partisan crowd (the whole tournament was held at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore).Misbah’s boys went about exploiting Lahore’s weaknesses, like in the 11th over when Imran Khalid bowled his left-arm spin to Umar Akmal and Misbah brought midwicket up, inviting Akmal to go across the line and hit over the top. You would think that with the required rate under five an over, Akmal wouldn’t take the bait, but after three dot balls, he charged down the wicket and chipped over midwicket for a boundary. Next ball he charged again and was stumped. Lahore went from requiring 45 off ten overs with eight wickets in hand to losing the match.Misbah looked more animated during that victory than he has ever seemed in Pakistan colours. In fact, during the whole tournament Misbah was a more imaginative and aggressive captain than he ever is for Pakistan – make of that what you will.In the final, Faisalabad, of course, took on Shoaib Malik’s Sialkot Stallions. This time Misbah played second fiddle to Asif Ali and Faisalabad put up 158. True to a Hollywood climax, a half-fit superstar, Ajmal, came to help his team over the final hurdle. But unlike in a movie, here it turned out that he wasn’t needed. Sialkot never came close. The sellout crowd overwhelmingly supported Misbah and Faisalabad, although that might have to do with them rooting against Malik rather than for Misbah. Misbah ended the tournament as the leading run-getter and six-hitter.So as you watch Faisalabad in the Champions League T20, marvel at how they came to be here.

Since Habibul Bashar’s retirement, Bangladesh haven’t had a regular at one-drop. Marshall’s debut Test may not have been extraordinary, but there were indications that he has the mettle for Test cricket

Mohammad Isam19-Oct-2013Marshall Ayub’s Test debut didn’t get the level of attention as his entry into the squad for the New Zealand series. Mominul Haque and Sohag Gazi hogged all the live air and column spaces while the result of the Chittagong Test itself, only Bangladesh’s second drawn Test against New Zealand, warranted more interest. Come Monday in Mirpur for the second Test, his crisp driving and sound technique will be under focus once again.The home team is banking on their batsmen’s good form and Marshall is one of them who has come in to the side with plenty of runs behind him. His last innings in a longer-version match before his Test debut was a 150-odd during a practice game which reportedly impressed the Test captain Mushfiqur Rahim, who was keeping wicket behind Marshall throughout the knock.But even a long run of good form from early 2012 wasn’t convincing enough for the selectors. They questioned whether he would be able to withstand the initial pressure of batting in a Test match. The climb from Bangladesh’s domestic structure into international cricket is a steep one, and the trepidation was similar in his case too.According to sources, Mahmudullah, currently out of favour in Test cricket, was asked whether he would take over the No.3 role. He wasn’t too keen, it was learned. There were also thoughts of promoting Mominul or sticking in Jahurul Islam, as Anamul Haque would be opening the innings with Tamim Iqbal.It was Marshall’s innings in Khulna, few weeks before the Chittagong Test, which convinced the selectors to keep their focus on him, despite the fact that he isn’t even a regular No.3. Since Habibul Bashar’s retirement, Bangladesh haven’t had a regular at that position and there’s no clarity on who they’re looking for. This, despite Bashar being in the current selection committee.There was no debut Test fairytale for Marshall, but it was still a pleasant experience for the 24-year old. Until he was caught behind off a very wide delivery from fellow debutant Corey Anderson, he was involved in a third-wicket stand of 126 dominated by Mominul. In the second innings, he was more comfortable as he drove the spinners with ease.”I am enjoying the batting position,” Marshall said. “I should be ready to play anywhere, and I have played at No.3 a few times. I scored a 150-odd recently at three, so I have belief that I can do well here. The only thing that is different at three is playing the new ball. You have to do that more regularly.”I tried to bat [in the Test match] like I do in domestic cricket. I have faced such situations there too, so the pressure at that particular point seemed similar. I tried to play normally, but I didn’t score much. I was having some trouble early in the morning. The bowlers are usually fresh, they were bowling well. I played a bad shot, chased a ball that was some way outside the off stump.”His record in Mirpur wouldn’t excite him but he has a century here in the Bangladesh Cricket League back last December. He followed it up with three low scores, but he looked in good form nevertheless.He should also avoid looking at the eastern galleries where he was, just under four years ago, hammered for six sixes in an over by Naeem Islam in a Dhaka Premier League match.His sense of humour got him through that terrible spell of bowling in 2009, and get over a career-threatening knee injury a few months later. His sustained batting form in domestic cricket has got him to Test cricket, so it would be wise to look past his record in Mirpur and the lingering doubts over his mettle. A good showing in the second Test can put all of that to rest.