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England have a habit of raising, then dashing, everybody’s hopes that they have finally cracked the formula for one-day cricket

Will Luke at Lord's28-Jun-2008

England have a habit of raising, then dashing, everybody’s hopes that they have finally cracked the formula for one-day cricket. In falling to New Zealand by 51 runs, they lost the series 3-1 – a generous result, some might say, had fortune not been on England’s side at Edgbaston. Today, chasing a gettable 267, they were rolled over for 215 in 47.5 overs – a batting performance that Kevin Pietersen, in his, first match as England captain, was at a loss to explain.”I really don’t know. I can’t answer that question, I don’t know,” he said. “It’s a very difficult question for me to answer for how the batting has gone. When you get to 20s, 30s and 40s…the key to it is to go on. I don’t mind if a guy gets nought or whatever, but when you get in, it’s definitely the key to take the responsibility. The onus on the individuals is there for the taking – to become a hero at the end of the day. That’s what we’re after.”There were no heroes today, and apart from Pietersen himself – whose scorching 110 led to their Chester-le-Street win – there have been precious few in the series. Owais Shah again proved his aptitude for a fight with a courageous 69, combing the deft with the explosive in pleasing measure, but his was very much the dying embers of an innings that never truly caught alight. And how often have we had cause to say that in this series?The situation was far more promising earlier, however. Alastair Cook returned from injury, replacing the banned Paul Collingwood, and together with Ian Bell staged a solid opening stand of 53 in 11 overs. That this was England’s highest opening stand of the series tells a sorry tale, though not one that should necessarily cut short the career of Luke Wright, Ian Bell’s partner at No.2 for the first four matches. Wright is impetuously youthful and needs a run in the side, but it is Bell, a man of such obvious gifts, who most frustrates. Scores of 46, 0, 20, 46 and 27 may indicate a batsman who has struggled to time the ball, or at the very least found conditions at the top of the order difficult. Yet with the exception of his duck at Edgbaston, in each of his stylish innings he has batted with the poise of a demi-god.Today, he was off the mark with the creamiest of fours through midwicket. Another gift on his legs was happily accepted before he played the day’s most orthodox stroke off the back foot through extra cover. He, and England, were cruising very nicely until he walked across his stumps. However, Bell is not alone: England’s woes with the bat was a collective failure all series, and one Pietersen insists needs addressing.”It’s very easy to say you need to get hundreds because the wickets are flat. In England, it nibbles,” he said. “New Zealand didn’t get a hundred. I’d like to see the stats from the New Zealand top six and compare [to England’s]. It’s hard because in England you don’t see many hundreds, so it’s hard to say you’ve got to get hundreds to win a series.”But I have said you need to get 70s, 80s, 90s…those are big scores in the UK. It’s an area we can improve but I don’t think it’s a catastrophe by any stretch of the imagination.”It wasn’t just with the bat that England struggled. Without their captain and allrounder, Collingwood, England also lacked a fifth bowler. And Pietersen’s decision to opt for Owais Shah’s part-time off-breaks ahead of Ravi Bopara’s neat seamers cost them dearly. Jacob Oram – who gives such balance to New Zealand’s side – had eased himself to a breezy 36, and welcomed the introduction of Shah like a cold beer on a roasting hot day. Oram heaved him into the Mound Stand over midwicket and over long-on before depositing a third into the Edrich Stand. Shah’s three overs had cost 30 and England had again let New Zealand escape.”I think Owais’ job today was good,” Pietersen said, forthrightly. “He had a dart in New Zealand. I’ve bowled in Tests but not much in one-dayers, so I thought the option of Shah bowling was good. You realise your options and, unfortunately, Colly was banned and we don’t have Andrew Flintoff. So you’ve got to look at your options and say ‘right. This is the England team I’m captaining. And this is what I have to do to make a good go of it.’ And that’s what I tried to do.”England’s defeat casts a shadow over their preparations for South Africa, who they face at Lord’s on July 10. Pietersen, however, remained confident that their feeble one-day effort will have no impact on the outcome of the forthcoming tough Test series.”It’s not a case of drawing a line under what’s happened. In the Tests we played fantastic, fantastic, amazing cricket against New Zealand,” he said. “We really cleaned them up, and that [a Test match] is what we have got against South Africa in two weeks. When we come to play in that week, we can have our heads held up really high. The captaincy of our big man, Michael, and everything will be great.”

Kanishkaa Balachandran on how Beau Casson, Bryce McGain and Jason Krejza are trying to stake their claim for national selection via the A team’s tour to India

Kanishkaa Balachandran in Hyderabad 08-Sep-2008

“I’m never going to be a Warne or a MacGill. They’re absolute geniuses.” Those words, from Beau Casson, the only one of Australia A’s spin trio with Test experience, shouldn’t be mistaken for a defeatist attitude. Almost every spinner trying to break into the Australian squad will have to accept with humility, as Casson did, that Shane Warne and Stuart MacGill will be hard acts to follow.Warne retired with 708 Test wickets, a feat unlikely to be matched in the near future; MacGill quit the game, within the year, as the fourth quickest to reach 200 Test wickets. The retirement of Brad Hogg last summer forced the Australian selectors to dig deeper to find new treasures.Assuming the selectors have got it right, Casson, Bryce McGain and Jason Krejza are the three best Australian spinners at the moment. The three are vying for two spots on the Australian Test team to tour India, which will be announced shortly. All three are aware of their limitations and expectations from the public following those high-profile retirements. All three are distinct in their disciplines. All three know that the prime aim is not to shatter records, but to stay in the Australian team for as long as possible. And all three are, most significantly, determined to carve out their own identities and not live under the shadow of any of Australia’s spin legends.McGain’s rise gives hope to late bloomers in any field. For 15 years, he played club cricket in Melbourne, juggling his hobby with a more lucrative day job in a bank as an IT officer. He played just three Pura Cup matches from 2001-02 to 2003-04 but fortunes changed three seasons later when he replaced fellow legspinner Cameron White in the Victoria squad. Soon enough, he claimed a six-wicket haul against New South Wales. He quit his job after earning a state contract and ended the 2007-08 season as the leading spinner in the Pura Cup, with 38 wickets at 34.15. He may be 36, but if the selectors place ability over age, McGain could be in Australia whites soon. This would delight his eight-year-old son, Liam, who’s gained quite a reputation at school for having a famous dad.”My first goal was to make the state side, which I did, and had a steady season,” McGain said. “From there the possibilities seemed endless. My son’s very excited. His dad’s going ok (laughs). He’s getting a bit of notoriety around the school yard.”Only time will tell if McGain can be just as effective as his predecessors, and his access to Warne, his former state team-mate, should come in handy if he eventually steps into his shoes. “I’ve been in contact with Shane regularly,” he said. “I really don’t feel any pressure. I’m trying to be the best I can be.”

McGain doesn’t believe in unnecessarily overexerting himself in trying to match Warne’s mesmeric variations. He thinks there’s no point in bowling six different balls in an over and if needed only for a containing job, he’s fairly content with that.Casson, a left-arm chinaman bowler, looks to be the first-choice spinner having edged out McGain for a slot in the Test side in the West Indies. He made his debut in Barbados, contributing in no small way to Australia’s victory there. His migration from Perth to the more spin-friendly Sydney was a brave move, given that MacGill was first-choice spinner there. However, he stepped up in MacGill’s absence the last season, taking 29 wickets and finishing as his side’s second-highest wicket-taker. Add 485 runs at 60.62 and you have a useful allrounder.Is he bogged down by the pressure and expectation back home? “The pressure is more on yourself,” he says. “I’m just trying to develop a role for myself in the side, whether taking wickets or drying up one end or making useful runs. You have to put that expectation on yourself if you want to play for your country.”I had a chat with Stuey (MacGill). I’ve seen him go about his work and that’s the best way to learn. I’m a bit of a cricket tragic so I’ve loved watching him bowl.”Casson doesn’t believe that there’s a formulaic method in keeping batsmen in check, especially on the subcontinent. The best, including Warne, have used flight to deceive batsmen off the air and the wicket and he feels that’s what every spinner should strive to do.Casson’s is also a story of hope. A congenital heart defect hasn’t prevented him from launching a career in sport and it’s a testament to his will that he’s risen through the ranks of the most competitive domestic cricket circuit in the world, enough to knock on the doors of national selection.

Krejza lived under the shadow of Casson, MacGill and Nathan Hauritz in New South Wales, but the competition for spots compelled him to move to Tasmania from the 2006-07 season. The move, he says, helped him “brilliantly” and he relished the challenge of bowling at the Bellerieve Oval in Hobart, not the most conducive venue for spinners.A practitioner of flight, Krejza says he’s adding variations to his armoury. “I’m a very attacking spinner and that’s my mentality,” Krejza said. “I’m not really intimidated by the batsmen here in India. In fact I’m quite excited about this challenge. I’m keen to develop more variations now. This experience here is going to build on that.”Interestingly, Krejza had discussions with Michael Clarke on a three-day camp in Australia before setting off and one of the things he learnt was the importance of staying patient on a tour like this.He admits, like his spin rivals, that the departure of Warne and MacGill has left a tinge of sadness. On the bright side, he notes that this is probably the best time to be a spinner in Australia.The most refreshing part about their Indian challenge is that each has a shot at selection, despite Casson being technically one step ahead with his Test experience.
“Do we have one spinner who can put his hand up and walk into the Australian team? Not yet,” coach Simon Helmot said. “It’s all very open.”For years, MacGill was forced to live with the ‘No Vacancy’ sign virtually staring blankly at his face while Warne creditably hogged the only slot in the Australian line-up. Fortunately for Australia’s new hopefuls, it’s not just one slot they’re competing for. The cupboard has suddenly swung open to a new era of Australian spin and time will tell if the search for replacements ends here.

Australia’s leading cricket export to the subcontinent talks about his experiences in Asia with Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and now with Indian junior sides

Interview by Kanishkaa Balachandran13-Sep-2008

You’ve had quite a rollercoaster year and a half after being in contention to coach India, Pakistan and West Indies. Now you’re in charge of an interesting bunch of Indian youngsters. What has the journey been like for you?
It’s been extreme (). Extreme in missing out on positions you thought you might get, being away from family… I was unemployed for a few months and made a return thanks largely to the efforts of Ravi Shastri, who was appointed NCA chairman. He was confident I could do the job for him.You seem to have this special affinity for subcontinental teams, having coached Sri Lanka and Bangladesh before. What keeps bringing you back here? Does the culture fascinate you?
Definitely. There’s no question I’m very comfortable in this environment. I was very close to getting an interview with Cricket Australia. It was a case of receiving an offer and accepting it, and it so happened that it came from India.One of the challenges of a foreign coach is to interact with players in a language he’s not familiar with. How did you tackle that?
They may not be fluent in English but they understand bits and pieces. I’ve been threatening to learn Hindi, to get a teacher to come three days a week or so. But they [the players] can feel my personality. I don’t think it’s as much of an issue as people think. A lot of the Bangladesh players struggled. But generally there are enough people to ensure the message is understood.You made a quick transition from coaching senior teams to U-19 ones. What are the differences?
In many ways they are similar. The more mature the group – not necessarily in terms of age – the less time you spend in the development and technical phases. You do, of course, need feedback and modification from time to time. For the less mature players you need to constantly feed them with technical stuff in order to turn them into well-rounded players.Some youngsters often have attitude issues, with respect to training and handling fame especially. Have you ever had to deal with that?
I don’t think so. When it comes to training, the attitude from all of them has been positive. Nothing jumps out in my mind as an example.People are different. Some are more confident, some withdraw in life, but that’s to be expected.Do you think it’s a must for players to attend seminars on how to handle the sudden attention from the media and public?
Absolutely. The U-19 team that’s just finishing up their two months or nine weeks with us had an introduction to handling media with [the broadcaster] Charu Sharma. They also had a similar session on handling finances. We only had three-and-a-half weeks with the emerging players and A team, and there’s not a whole lot you can do in that time.As far as the core programme with the senior guys goes, we’re trying to blow that up to six to eight weeks. It’s extremely important to understand just how the media works. A lot of these guys just don’t know.The U-19 World Cup was the perfect tournament – you were undefeated throughout. What gave India the edge?
I thought India were better prepared. I’m not saying that because I was involved. Long before I came along, somebody had the decent vision to prepare these guys well, invest in practice matches, and I understand they went on five tours. The experience of travelling and winning is very important when a World Cup approaches, especially at the U-19 level. These guys had done more of that than the other teams. They’d had a lot of exposure to domestic cricket. The higher your cricket is domestically, the better you are at representative cricket.There are cricketers who have to endure the disappointment of not being picked, especially if it’s through the duration of a tournament. How do you, as a coach, sit down and tell a player he’s not good enough?
It takes care of itself in most cases. If you pick the right team, people generally know. Generally, in the cases where we’ve announced the playing XI the day before, I always make it a point to have a word with the players who’ve missed out before the news goes public. Nearly all the time in the U-19 set-up it took care of itself because we were winning. People understood it was difficult to make changes. We made a tactical change in the second match against South Africa, bringing in a spinner-batsman, but after that we reverted to our original combination, for good reasons. There weren’t any openings for reserves to come in.

What sort of working relationship did you have with Virat Kohli and the rest?
I thoroughly enjoyed working with a bunch that had the desire and potential to go all the way – which they did. It was great to feel their belief in wanting to get somewhere. Virat’s getting terrific opportunities, and we hope he continues that way. He’s got belief in his own ability and the confidence to go with it. I think he’ll have a long career as a senior Indian player. He just needs to channelise his mental strength in the right areas.These days the support staff is almost as big as the playing XI. Does their presence relieve you of a lot of your responsibilities?
Definitely. In Bangladesh we had a fantastic local guy who’d organise fielding drills. He would take over after numerous little management meetings with the physio, fitness trainer and myself. That was very useful to me from the fielding aspect as I did not have to worry too much about that. Sometimes we’d have fielding sessions either during or after the nets. All that has to be decided in advance, and it’s very important to get the right man for that job.There’s a proliferation of Twenty20 tournaments now with the IPL, ICL and the World Twenty20. Is it healthy for so many young players to get introduced to Twenty20 so early?
We’ve got to be careful. It generates much-needed funds. There’s enough evidence that cricket boards want to put Twenty20 into perspective. It’s a good debate, about youngsters taking to the game. Though it’s essentially a young man’s game, there’s still room for some experience. It demands you to be good at more than one skill, to be able to contribute. The shorter you play, the more strength you need to clear the boundaries. I think U-19 players should play it, but not at the expense of their development in the four-day game. They should have an idea of how to go about it.One bunch of raw youngsters struggling to cope with the demands of five-day cricket is Bangladesh. What are your observations on that?
It’s clearly a reflection of the standard of domestic cricket. It’s sometimes difficult for cricket boards to spend lots of money if the returns simply aren’t good enough. Somewhere down the line they have to back their judgment. You just have to start paying your players well, and for that you’ve got to pump in a lot of money.You should have team meetings the day before. You’ve got to employ a computer analyst, physio etc. The more money you pump in, the more you can use to push the players to perform better. Some of Bangladesh’s one-day performances in the past have been a reflection of the financial rewards that exist in the shorter format.

Bangladesh did invest in building cricket stadiums across the country.
Those stadiums sprouted due to the U-19 World Cup. The ICC did a great thing by bringing in the infrastructure – the pitch covers, grass-cutters etc. But as I’ve said before, you’ve got to pump in money into the four-day format and make the guys want to play that format.Maybe it’s too much to expect such a young bunch to compete at the Test level. Do you think they need a few more years at the domestic level?
There is a good argument for that. The cricket board had to step in because the clubs and provinces weren’t doing enough for the players. So they created the academy, an A-team structure. Those boys were trained well, physically and technically. You’d want players, thoroughbreds, who’ve been through the grind of domestic cricket – like Badrinath and Michael Hussey. But for that you need to have a proper domestic structure and you need to pump in money for that.Sri Lanka struggled for many years, but you managed to turn their fortunes around.
Well, for a start, I took over just after they won their first away Test series, in New Zealand. I didn’t really tamper with their senior players. I just played seven Tests and these guys had played a lot more. The least I could say was, “You know, you might want to get the elbow up a bit more”, or something like that. I worked more with the juniors. With the older guys the feedback was more frequent. The people appreciated the fact that the training sessions were more structured and organised. We had access to the players seven days a week. We kept our sessions brief. There was a reason for having a hard session one day and not the next day.

That Netherlands conquered a complacent England was not simply arrogance on the part of their hosts, but the benefits of relying on the basics

Will Luke06-Jun-2009Well. Of all the teams to beat, they beat England. Of all the teams to lose to! How was it Netherlands? Those questions and much more besides will be ringing joyfully in Dutch ears, painfully in England’s, after the lowly amateurs rudely nudged the sleeping professionals. The Netherlands’ four-wicket win yesterday at a gloomy Lord’s is an
unlikely chirrup for Associate cricket.The Associates – known as “lesser nations”, “minnows” or simply “who?” – are often given an unfair rap, that the vast gap in quality simply doesn’t warrant their inclusion in tournaments. Or, worse, that their very existence is somehow fortuitous and sneaky; the charity cases of international cricket waiting for handouts. Sometimes these are fair
criticisms: despite their lack of money, each country bickers and rumbles with controversies as frequently as England or India. But then days like yesterday happen, just as Ireland shocked Pakistan in the 2007 World Cup and, briefly, the light is shone on a level of cricket much under-rated.No one gave Netherlands a chance and, if they’re honest, they wouldn’t have expected to win yesterday’s match either. That they conquered a complacent England was not simply arrogance on the part of their hosts, but the benefits of relying on the basics. As Kenya’s coach, Andy Kirsten, told Cricinfo last year, all Associate cricketers can hit the ball just as sweetly as those from India, Australia, England or wherever else. Their technique might be agricultural and impure, or not sufficiently watertight to produce longer innings or memorable hundreds, but when chasing small totals none of that matters.As Netherlands showed today, the sheer basics of cricket, learned in parks or schools or in the back garden, remain the most fundamental aspect of a team’s success. Tom de Grooth, Darron Reekers and Ryan ten Doeschate – perhaps the best Associate batsman of them all – lack the purr of Ponting, the sheer power of Sehwag, but in Twenty20 cricket, it’s not how that matters. It’s how many, how quickly.As Associates, Netherlands (and Ireland and Scotland) have so little to lose. Twenty20s are done and dusted in just 240 balls, so they might as well dispense with pragmatic thinking and overly complicated preparation and simply thwack the ball when it’s there to be thwacked. The basics still apply, never more so than in this format. Some of de
Grooth’s strokes were as brazen as the luminous orange kit he wore, but the most obviously evident tactics were of simple cricket: keen running, picking the gaps, turning ones into twos.”Today I was just in the zone, it worked for me,” said de Grooth. “I came in at No. 4 – I was supposed to come in at 7 – but after a few early wickets I came in at 4, and said to Bas [Zuiderent] after a few balls: ‘I’m just going to play my game and keep going’. It works. I think we went out there today to play brave cricket, and make England sweat. That was my natural game, how I like to play it.”We have seen so often with England in 50-over cricket their tendency to revert to the 1970s funereal method of scoring runs in the middle overs, nurdling it around asthmatically. And again today (though thanks to Netherlands’ tight bowling) they only managed a below-par 73 from the final ten overs. Not so much a case of seeing the ball,
hitting the ball, as evidence of minds cluttered and confused with apparently inventive plans and tactics.

Some of de Grooth’s strokes were as brazen as the luminous orange kit he wore, but the most obviously evident tactics were of simple cricket: keen running, picking the gaps, turning ones into twos.

Twenty20 offers the big guns a chance to utterly demolish Associates. But in turn, the shortest format offers these so-called fledglings to hone in on the absolute basics, and give it a proper go. Such intrinsic simplicities are often disregarded when playing Associate nations, with the fair assumption that they will not sustain such basics over
the course of a match. Shorten the match to 20 overs, however, and the chances of an upset – especially against a one-day side so confusingly inconsistent as England – suddenly become deliciously possible.Ironically, it could be Associates’ background that spurs them to produce these occasional and thrilling upsets. Ireland managed it in the 2007 World Cup, beating Pakistan, and now Netherlands have stunned England. Both teams contain players who have full-time jobs away from the sport, and this is so often their handicap in developing from
amateurs into professionals. It pays to remember, too, that Netherlands and Co. simply don’t play Twenty20s regularly, and if they do, only against a really rusty club side or two, and often on matting wickets.”It costs a lot of money to qualify, because we have to take extra days off,” admitted Jeroen Smits, the captain, “but we really don’t mind. I’d love to take extra days off.”Amateur status is a constant blight on their development and
Netherlands, in particular, remain angry at the ECB that they are not
included in the Friends Provident Trophy along with (the England-feeder sides) Ireland and
Scotland. Ireland, in particular, are the Associate team to beat
nowadays, and their exposure to county cricket cannot simply be a
coincidence. “I don’t know [of] any cricket reasons not to be in that
competition,” Smits said. “This [win] speaks for itself.”For now, Netherlands are mere temporary visitors to England, but they
have given their hosts the most enormous of wake-ups. Their victory
today is a cautionary tale against complacency; that no matter who a
side is up against, be they baggage handlers or bursars, even minnows
occasionally like to win. Sometimes, they richly deserve it, too.

An inexplicable strategic error cost Mumbai Indians the IPL final, and it will haunt them for some time

Cricinfo staff26-Apr-2010A couple of moves cost Mumbai Indians the IPL. Both were loaded with nothing but risk. The first was to send Abhishek Nayar at No. 3. If that was not a gamble, whatever Robin Singh and the rest of the think tank thought before asking Harbhajan Singh to walk in to bat next was hard to comprehend especially when Ambati Rayudu, Saurabh Tiwary, JP Duminy and Kieron Pollard, batsmen who had played a crucial role in Mumbai reaching the final, should’ve been given the preference.Even before Mumbai had won the semi-finals against Royal Challengers Bangalore, they were aware that Sachin Tendulkar, their captain and star batsman, was fighting to get fit for the ultimate game. It was only appropriate then that the management put faith in the team’s most trusted lieutenants – a responsibility carried out successfully and admirably by the pair of Rayudu and Tiwary all season. Such has been the importance of that pair that they have easily been the Indian success story of IPL 2010.On numerous occasions, both Rayudu and Tiwary had allied grit with instincts and smart strategy to put Mumbai in a winning position. They couldn’t have asked for a better teacher than Tendulkar, who deserved to win the orange cap, a belated birthday gift. Perhaps, the biggest lesson they seemed to have learnt from the master was pacing the innings.As a fresh example, refer to the semi-final against Bangalore. Mumbai had lost Tendulkar in the second over and though Nayar hung around staunchly to guard any collapse, it was Rayudu and Tiwary who pushed the opposition back and regained control before Pollard slashed ruthlessly. His 13-ball 31 allowed Mumbai ransack 77 runs in the last five overs, easily the biggest turning point in the semis. In the final, Mumbai needed the same vigour.This does not mean that Nayar, a proven allrounder, was not up for the job. But he had his limitations. He was only playing his third match of the season, having spent most of the time recuperating from a wrist injury. Though he hung around tenaciously, Nayar failed to answer to Tendulkar’s call to up the ante in the first ten overs. As a result there were a few airy swings and cheeky singles, but that did not force the issue. Ideally Nayar was suited in the lower order, a role he had managed successfully last year in South Africa.”They tried to push their big hitters down the order so that may be my left-arm spinner can’t bowl with the left-armer at the crease,” was how MS Dhoni read Mumbai’s strategy, but it was not just about big hitting. It was more about playing percentages and then picking the bad ball to get easy runs. Importantly, with Tendulkar in pain, the other guy needed to dominate.That is what Rayudu did as soon as Harbhajan went back swinging his bat wildly. Immediately, he picked the loose balls to hit over the inner circle into the wide gaps and found the ropes easily. His positive approach allowed Tendulkar, who till then appeared cagey, to free his arms. The partnership prospered fast and 27 were scored off 14 balls before Tendulkar’s punch landed in the hands of M Vijay at long-off.Though hopes still lingered with Tiwary and Pollard still to bat, Mumbai’s fightback had started late. The asking rate hovered in the ten-an-over mark which meant the following batsmen were under pressure and the margin for error was minimal. They had to accelerate from the first ball and take chances. Duminy and Tiwary failed, but Pollard nearly answered the rousing calls of the full house and threatened to pay back the (undisclosed) big purse the Ambanis had bought him for in one night. It was also an evening heavy with the uncertainty of IPL chairman Lalit Modi’s future. Pollard’s cameo seemed to lift the gloom pervading the IPL as it enlivened the atmosphere and brought cricket back to the centrestage. Except the miracle never happened, and Mumbai had to pay for their fallacy.Explaining his batting line-up for the day, Robin said Mumbai wanted to play Pollard kin the final overs when he could take on the fast bowlers. Obviously, he did not mention Pollard’s discomfort against spin and hence it was no point exposing him against Chennai’s trio of spinners. But it would have been more viable to put faith in Rayudu and Tiwary in the top order and leave the finishing role to Pollard and Nayar. It was inexplicable strategic error that will haunt the league’s richest franchise for long.

Compared to the Indian batting and bowling, New Zealand’s squad looks distinctly lightweight

Madhusudhan Ramakrishnan03-Nov-2010New Zealand, who are coming off a terrible tour of Bangladesh, go into the Tests against India as clear underdogs. They have not won a Test in India since their triumph at Mumbai in 1988, and given the lack of form and experience of this squad, the winless streak is likely to continue. They start the series at a venue that is one of India’s less successful ones over the last decade, but that is unlikely to bother the home team too much. In matches played in Ahmedabad since 2000, India have won one Test, against Sri Lanka, but lost to South Africa by an innings. The last game played in Ahmedabad was a dull high-scoring draw in which seven centuries were scored. New Zealand had a more settled outfit when they drew at this venue in 2003, but with an inexperienced team this time around, they could struggle to compete with an in-form India, who are fresh off a 2-0 series win over Australia.Ahmedabad has proved to be a batting-friendly venue in matches since 2000. Apart from the one occasion when India were bowled out for 76 against South Africa, batsmen have generally found the going quite comfortable across all four innings of matches. The average in the first and second innings of matches is 37.86 and 44.90 while the averages in the third and fourth innings are 36.41 and 35.36. Visiting teams have done slightly better than India in both the batting and bowling departments in matches played since 2000. New Zealand bowlers average 54.34 in all Tests in India since 2000, which is the worst among all Test playing nations. Their record at Ahmedabad is even poorer and the inexperienced attack is likely to face a stern test against the powerful Indian batting.

Dale Steyn’s 5 for 23 in April 2008 is the best performance by a pace bowler in Ahmedabad since 2000. At a venue that has traditionally suited spinners better, fast bowlers average over 43 with just one five-for, while spinners have averaged 39.02, with five five-wicket hauls and two ten-wicket hauls.

After a horror tour of New Zealand in 2002-03, Indian batsmen have done well against the New Zealand bowlers both home and away. In the last series played in New Zealand, Gautam Gambhir was the best batsman, aggregating 445 runs including a superb match-saving hundred in Napier. Rahul Dravid, who hasn’t been in top form in 2010, has been India’s best batsman in matches against New Zealand since 2000. Virender Sehwag, surprisingly, averages only 27 in seven matches with one hundred.

Among New Zealand’s batsmen, Daniel Vettori, Ross Taylor and Jesse Ryder all average more than 50 against India since 2000, though Taylor and Ryder have played only three Tests. Vettori’s numbers clearly show his growing stature as a batsman. Ryder and Taylor shared a record 271-run partnership for the fourth wicket in that Napier Test, and their form will be crucial to New Zealand’s chances.

Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan have been India’s most successful bowlers over the last two years in Test cricket. Zaheer was exceptional in the series against Australia, troubling most batsmen with reverse swing. Ishant Sharma, who missed the second Test against Australia, has been quite inconsistent, though, and averages over 40 in the last two years.Vettori has been New Zealand’s best bowler for almost a decade now and his experience and consistency stands out in an otherwise weak bowling attack. Chris Martin, who picked up 14 wickets at an average of 32 in the series against India at home last year, leads a highly inexperienced pace attack.

Indian batsmen have handled the best spinners comfortably over the years. Given that Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan average over 40 in Tests in India, Vettori would be fully aware of the huge challenge ahead. He has picked up 12 wickets at 58.25 in seven Tests against India since 2000, but his average goes up to nearly 67 in Tests in India in the same period. Among Indian batsmen, Gambhir and VVS Laxman have handled him best while he has had some degree of success against Sachin Tendulkar. Sehwag, who has a strike rate of almost 82 in Tests, has managed to score at just over two runs per over off Vettori.

The WACA pitch has felt like another planet for most of the batsmen on show in this game, but this stretch of soil is Michael Hussey’s home

Peter English at the WACA18-Dec-2010Michael Hussey’s pulling power has dragged Australia to the verge of a series-levelling win and reacquainted him with the mountainous numbers he achieved in his Test youth. Without Hussey’s 116, his fourth Ashes hundred, Australia would have faced a couple of days of nerves, but the hosts need only five more wickets to head to Boxing Day on level terms.The WACA pitch has felt like another planet for most of the batsmen on show in this game, but this stretch of soil is Hussey’s home. He is safe here. Those running into him have been the ones in discomfort, feeling the cracks and slaps of his driving and cross-bat shots. Hooks and pulls often disappear from view in tense times due to the extreme risk of dismissal.Playing like this in Perth creates more physical danger because of the speed and bounce of the wicket. Hussey doesn’t care.He is among the most calculated batsmen in the game so it would seem a contradiction that he relies so heavily on a method with such little room for error. Except it’s not a risk for him, because he’s been hooking and pulling in Western Australia for three decades. He calls the shots instinctive, but they are ingrained, like chewing nails during tense chases, or roaring when an edge flies behind.Hussey couldn’t stop if he spent weeks in hypnosis. Should an opening batsman who has waited a decade for a debut hook when his only Test earning is a single? Should he let his mind convince him to pull when he’s meant to saving the second Ashes Test on an unpredictable Adelaide wicket? To most batsmen the answers are no.Hussey said yes to those times and thousands more because he knows the shot will pay off more often that it sends him bust. It has boosted his account considerably in this series, which started with him playing for his place. Since then he has hooked and pulled his way to heights not reached since the opening three years of his career, when his numbers were as close to Bradman as any mortal can reach.The cross-bat smacks have been pivotal and productive, creating doubts for the bowlers over their length, and showing he will not be a target for overs of short balls. Seven of his 13 boundaries and plenty of singles and twos came from the shots in a masterful home-ground display. In the middle session England tried an at-the-body approach through Chris Tremlett but quickly gave up.”Mike Hussey is probably not a player you want to bowl too short to,” Peter Siddle said. “He showed that again today, same as he did in Brisbane when they attacked him with it.”Hussey is a traditional player and spent most of the first hour of the day adjusting to the conditions. Once he had, not even a long disruption for a jammed sightscreen could distract him. He also wasn’t put off by three men in the deep at times, an attempted pull that caused an under-edge and a bruised hip, or the frightening short-ball treatment directed at his team-mates.His first punched pull came off Tremlett when he moved to 40, the opening blast of a string of aggressive swipes. The most precise cross-bat effort came when he split fine leg and deep backward square with another cracking strike off Tremlett that landed him on 96. It was appropriate that a pull brought up his hundred, from only 136 balls, and as he ran to the stumps at the bowler’s end he leaped and punched the air.A similar celebration occurred four years ago when his 103 on a sweaty day also put his side in sight of a hugely satisfying victory. Back then he was near his peak; this display provided him with more statistical stardom. He is the leading run-scorer in this series with 517 at 103.40, and he has increased his Ashes record to six consecutive innings of scores of 50 or more. A man who spluttered for much of the past two years has achieved unrivalled consistency again.Equally importantly, his innings built on Mitchell Johnson’s day-two demolition and ensured Australia set England a now unreachable target of 391. Hussey was last out and his innings finished with a pull to Graeme Swann at deep forward square leg, but that didn’t worry him. He knows the risks, and the rewards.

A stats review of the second quarter-final between India and Australia in Ahmedabad

Madhusudhan Ramakrishnan24-Mar-2011India had never beaten Australia in a major tournament while chasing. Their last win over Australia in a World Cup was also way back in 1987. In this game, though, India’s strategy to rotate their bowlers throughout the innings did not allow any Australian batsman other than Ricky Ponting to settle down. Faced with a stiff target of 261, India pinned their hopes on their strong batting and the key to the victory was the way they constructed partnerships at the top of the order. While Australia had two decent stands in the beginning of their innings, they lost few wickets in the middle, which limited their score to 260. India, despite not having any huge partnerships, had stands of 44, 50 and 49 for the first three wickets and scored at a healthy run-rate throughout.With the dismissal of MS Dhoni, Australia had a sniff when India required 74 runs off 75 balls. What happened next was stunning. Yuvraj Singh hit three fours off a Brett Lee over and with Shaun Tait gifting five wides in his next over, India were back in the contest. Yuvraj and Suresh Raina scored 27 runs off the 40th and 41st overs, bringing down the equation to a much more manageable 41 off nine overs. The partnership featured seven fours and a six, but more importantly 22 singles and five twos. Yuvraj Singh made his fifth fifty-plus score in the World Cup. His tally in a single tournament is second only to Sachin Tendulkar’s seven in 2003.From the batting worm for both teams, it is clear that India started their innings at a higher run-rate than Australia and maintained the difference till the end. The crucial sixth-wicket stand between Yuvraj and Raina pushed the scoring-rate up at a point when it looked like Australia would control the game. India’s decision to open the bowling with R Ashwin was a brilliant move as it did not allow Shane Watson and Brad Haddin to get away to a flying start. Regular bowling changes throughout the innings produced wickets and slowed the rate of scoring. In contrast, the Australian attack was erratic and gave away 16 wides.

Australia’s decision to go with a pace-heavy bowling attack proved a little costly in the end. However, the performance of their slow bowlers on a track assisting spin was far from convincing. Australia’s spinners averaged 61.00 in the tournament, the highest among the eight quarter-finalists. Despite conceding less than five runs per over, the Australian spinners picked up only one wicket. The Indian spinners in contrast picked up four wickets in the Australian innings.Some of the other stats from the game are highlighted below

• Ricky Ponting scored his fifth century in World Cups and his sixth against India in ODIs. It was his first score over fifty in the tournament.
• Ponting’s century was only his fifth in an ODI defeat and his second in a World Cup defeat after his 102 against West Indies in 1996.
• Sachin Tendulkar went past the milestone of 18,000 runs in ODIs. He also made his 20th fifty-plus score in World Cups which is comfortably higher than the second-placed Ponting, who has 11.
• Yuvraj Singh became only the fourth player to score over 300 runs and pick up ten wickets in a single World Cup. Kapil Dev was the first player to do it when he achieved the feat in the 1983 World Cup.
• The win is India’s first in a major tournament against Australia in a chase. Their earlier six chases had ended in defeats.
• It is also the first time that Australia have failed to reach the semi-finals since the 1992 World Cup.
• India won their first game in Ahmedabad after four consecutive losses.

At the age of 29, James Anderson is finally achieving the status that seemed pre-ordained when he was plucked from league cricket in Burnley as a 20-year-old

Andrew Miller at Edgbaston14-Aug-2011In the course of his seven years as England coach, there was no single bowler who caused Duncan Fletcher more head-scratching than James Anderson. Steve Harmison had his frailties and Matthew Hoggard never received the full endorsement of his boss, but both men nevertheless grew to become integral cogs in the last England team to challenge for world domination.Anderson, by contrast, remained a stranger within the bosom of Fletcher’s squad – a muted personality with a muddled mindset, whose precocious arrival on the scene in December 2002 soon gave way to over-coaching and under-use, as a succession of England management staff tried in vain to work out what exactly made him tick. It was fitting, therefore, that on the day England finally attained the status that Fletcher had yearned for throughout his tenure, it was Anderson’s irresistible morning spell that provided the final leg-up to the top.In an extraordinarily one-sided session on the fourth morning, India’s batsmen showed they had fewer answers to the Anderson question than Fletcher himself, as they poked and wafted at a flotilla of off-stump screamers. At one stage Anderson had figures of 4 for 34 in ten overs – and this in a contest in which Alastair Cook went 188 overs without offering so much as a chance. The zipping, harrying, relentless examination was more than India cared to deal with, and at 116 for 6 at lunch, all that remained was a face-saving tonk from the tail.With 18 wickets in the series to date, Anderson has cemented his place as the No. 2 bowler in the world Test rankings – behind South Africa’s Dale Steyn for the moment, but unquestionably the first pick in a pack of English fast bowlers that has propelled their team to the summit. Anderson and his acolytes may lack the sheer terror of the West Indian quartet of the 1980s, but the totality of their methods is cut from the same cloth. Relentless, suffocating pressure is their modus operandi, and the fact that Anderson – who once answered to the unflattering nickname “Daisy” [“some days he …”] – is central to that approach speaks volumes of the distance he has come.”He’s been an integral part of our development as a side,” Andrew Strauss said at the end of the Edgbaston Test. “We’ve all seen his onfield exploits with the swinging ball, and even when it hasn’t swung, he’s become a very effective campaigner. He’s not an out-and-out quick bowler now, but he’s very smart in what he does, and also, off the pitch, he’s become an increasingly important part of the working of our side, the way he interacts with other bowlers, the example he sets, and he’s really matured as a person.”We’re hopeful his best years are still ahead of him, but we’re obviously delighted with what he’s achieved in the last couple of years.”At the age of 29, Anderson is finally achieving the status that seemed preordained when he was plucked from league cricket in Burnley as a 20-year-old, and sent to reinforce England’s ailing one-day squad in Australia in the aftermath of the 2002-03 Ashes. His achievements on that trip included a spell of ten overs for 12 in a one-dayer in Adelaide that led, in turn, to his call-up for the World Cup, where four wickets under the lights at Cape Town provided England with their one true highlight of the tournament – a memorable win against Pakistan.Five wickets on Test debut soon followed against Zimbabwe, as well as another starring role against Pakistan, a one-day hat-trick at The Oval. But Anderson’s premature stardom torched his credentials almost before they’d been established. A red “go-faster” stripe through his hair attracted the sort of media attention that no young sportsmen needs to bring upon themselves, but more worrying for the management was his sheer unreliability. The knowledge of what he was capable mitigated the days when his radar would go awry, but only up to a point, and after his first 12 Tests, his average and run-rate (36.40 and 3.75) both had him labelled as a liability.Even at this senior stage of his career, with Alec Bedser now among the English legends whom his wickets-tally of 237 has eclipsed, Anderson hasn’t quite been able to write off those shortcomings of his youth. His average, for instance, still hasn’t managed to dip below 30, but the font of experience that he is able to bring to the equation is invaluable. No-one else in the squad – not even the captain, Andrew Strauss, whose debut came a year later in 2004, and whose career trajectory has suffered just a solitary blip in the winter of 2007-08 – knows half as much about international failure, and consequently, what it really takes to succeed.James Anderson is now No. 2 in the ICC Test bowling rankings•Getty ImagesSuccess for Anderson was deferred until the end of Fletcher’s reign. In the interim he suffered the ignominy of being overlooked throughout that epic summer of 2005 – Chris Tremlett was England’s designated 12th man for the first four Tests, while Paul Collingwood’s solid character was trusted ahead of Anderson’s flair for the crucial decider at The Oval. Meanwhile, his performances overseas made him out to be the little lost boy of the world game. In his first eight Test tours, he was selected for seven matches, but would invariably appear to bowl at a single stump during lunch breaks, honing his technique for the day that would never come.All the while, something strange was happening to Anderson’s action. Troy Cooley’s success with the likes of Steve Harmison and Andrew Flintoff was legendary, but his attempts to iron out Anderson’s habit of peering into his left armpit at the point of delivery proved disastrous. The meddling robbed an instinctive cricketer of the natural swing that had earned him England recognition in the first place, while transferring new stresses onto previously ungrooved parts of his body. His back duly gave way in May 2006; an injury that wrote off his season but at least gave him the excuse to dispense with the tinkering. By the following summer, with Fletcher coincidentally now out of the picture, he was at last ready to be his own man.Peter Moores’ reign as England coach proved to be short and bitter, but aside from calling in Graeme Swann and Ryan Sidebottom from the cold, his one lasting triumph was the manner in which he turned Anderson into the attack leader for a new generation. He showed glimpses of what lay in store during the 2007 home series against India, when his seven wickets at Lord’s all but wrapped up a rain-saved match, but his true second coming was at Wellington in March 2008.One game earlier, while Harmison and Hoggard had been bowling their way out of the team during an abject display at Hamilton, Anderson had been released from the squad to go and play for Auckland – a controversial arrangement, but one that was infinitely preferable to yet another round of single-stump practice in the lunch breaks. He responded to the fine-tuning with a crucial five-wicket haul in a series-turning display, and from that moment on, he has scarcely looked back. His last 42 Tests have reaped 175 wickets at 27.45 and an economy rate of 3.04.”I want to be the bowler that the captain can throw the ball to when we need a wicket,” Anderson stated after that Wellington performance, and sure enough that’s exactly what he has become. Even so, the final aspect of his development has required a certain degree of regression, because it has been the solidity of his stock performances rather than the dynamism of his breakthrough moments that have defined his role in the second half of his career.In short, he has given up trying to bowl the “magic ball” – the sort of jaw-dropping jaffa that Yousuf Youhana received at Cape Town in 2003, or Aaron Redmond at Trent Bridge in 2008. Under the tutelage of David Saker, a bowling coach who cares more about tactics and mindset than technique, Anderson has resolved never to offer up anything that can be cut, which means beating a tattoo on a good length on and outside off, and conforming to an orthodoxy that is far removed from his maverick beginnings.His methods have been too subtle for a host of recent opponents, from Pakistan last summer via Australia in the winter, where, on Saker’s watch, a new “wobbly seam” delivery gave him a weapon that enabled him to transcend the vagaries of the Kookaburra ball and transform his own reputation in unresponsive conditions. The truest challenge for Anderson’s methods now lies in the subcontinent this coming winter, where Pakistan and Sri Lanka will be expecting to thwart England’s formidable momentum. But like the team that he has helped to haul from mediocrity to the top of the tree, he’s ready for the challenge. Anderson knows the taste of failure, and he wants nothing more to do with it.

When he was not picked in the original squad to tour South Africa, Thilan Samaraweera thought he would have to start looking for things to do other than cricket. After two centuries, he wants to continue for a while yet

Sa'adi Thawfeeq15-Jan-2012For Thilan Samaraweera, it has been a topsy-turvy few months. He averaged 50 in Sri Lanka’s away Test series against England last summer, only to have his form fall away badly in the home Tests against Australia in September, when he scored 86 in four innings. He was dropped for the Tests against Pakistan in the UAE that followed and, after being initially ignored, added to the Test squad that toured South Africa as cover for Mahela Jayawardene, who had picked up a knee injury prior to the series.He responded with a typically dogged century in the second Test, in Durban, which set Sri Lanka up for their first Test victory in South Africa. He scored another hundred in the third Test, albeit in a losing cause, to finish the series with 339 runs (almost twice as much as the side’s second-highest scorer Kumar Sangakkara) at an average of almost 68. This, against a fiery pace attack that included Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel, Vernon Philander and Marchant de Lange in various combinations.Samaraweera had sensed that he might get an opening for the South Africa tour after Sri Lanka lost to Pakistan, and he was prepared. “[After being dropped] I thought that I might miss another four to five weeks of cricket because in the UAE you get flat tracks and I thought no-one will remember Thilan Samaraweera. But suddenly we had a bad Test and ODI tour.”So I thought I would have another chance to get back into the team against South Africa. I trained hard with Romesh Kaluwitharana [the Sri Lanka A team coach and former national wicketkeeper] and his management, and they encouraged me. However, when the team to South Africa was picked and I was not in it, I thought that was the end of my career. I will have to start looking for other things to do.”Samaraweera had been honing his skills against short-pitched bowling with Kaluwitharana. He had had Sri Lanka A’s bowlers dish out fast, short deliveries to him at indoor nets sessions, and once he heard that he would be going to South Africa, he chose to continue working with the A team. “I was really surprised when I learnt that I was going to South Africa. I was at home, with my kids, when at around five in the evening [the captain, Tillakaratne] Dilshan called me and told me to get ready to go to South Africa.”I had seven days to train [before leaving for South Africa] and I resumed practice with the ‘A’ team. This time, Marvan [Atapattu, the Sri Lanka batting coach] was around. I thought this was another opportunity to prove myself.”Samaraweera had just one worry: he had not had an ideal amount of match practice in the lead up to the series. “When I arrived in South Africa, the Sri Lanka dressing-room atmosphere was fantastic. Coach Geoff Marsh, the team management and the players said that I deserved to stay in the dressing-room. That kind of welcome helped me clear my mind. I had only one doubt in my mind going into the Test series: I had not played any cricket after the second Test against Australia [in September]. The three-day practice game was washed out and I managed to bat for only 20 balls.”

“In the UAE you get flat tracks and I thought no-one will remember Thilan Samaraweera. But suddenly we had a bad Test and ODI tour. So I thought I would have another chance to get back into the team against South Africa.”Thilan Samaraweera on why he kept working on his game after being dropped for the Pakistan series

The coach, though, helped calm that fear. “On one of those rainy days, Geoff told me of an instance when Jesse Ryder had got 175 against Australia A in a side game, but didn’t get many runs in the Test matches. He said when you go into the Test match and if you hit a four, you’ll get the confidence you need.”In the first Test, I got 36 and 32. I gained a lot of confidence after those two innings because it was one of the most difficult pitches I have played on and against one of the toughest bowling attacks in the world. The South Africa bowling was close to, if not on par with England.”In the second Test, in Durban, it was a good batting track and I took time to settle down and get to fifty. At that time I was desperate to score a hundred. After the hundred, I was so relaxed that I batted really well in the second innings and went out and played my shots. But I reckon my best innings was in the third Test, in Cape Town, on a very difficult track.”It was his performance on the tour of England though that gave him the confidence he needed to perform in foreign conditions, Samaraweera said. “When I toured England in 2006, I finished the Tests with an average of 4.25, but when I went there again five years later I averaged over 50. That I believe was the changing point, where I thought I could bat on any kind of surface. We played at the Rose Bowl and I missed a hundred because of the rain. There was another 40 overs to go and we had five wickets in hand. I was 87 not out.”Samaraweera’s aggregate of 339 is the highest in a series by a subcontinent batsman in South Africa, and his two hundreds on the tour made him only the third Asian after Azhar Mahmood and Sachin Tendulkar to score two centuries in a Test series there. Exceptionally, 260 of those runs were scored against the pace bowlers, and Samaraweera faced 150 deliveries against the current No. 1 Test bowler, Steyn, without being dismissed. He said Morne Morkel was the most challenging of the South Africa quicks.”Everyone is now talking highly of Philander; he is a very difficult bowler to face but I rate Morne Morkel as one of the most difficult bowlers I’ve faced. Morkel is quick and he gets more bounce than the others. Dale Steyn is an unbelievable bowler, he runs at the same pace at 4.30 or 5 in the evening as he was at 10 in the morning.”One of the reasons for Samaraweera’s success against these fast bowlers was an adjustment he made to his batting when working with Atapattu. “I spoke to Marvan and I made a slight change to my batting. My initial movement was going across the stumps but I changed it to going back, to give me more time to see the ball as well as any late movement. I practiced that adjustment in the nets and, luckily, my footwork turned out fine.Above all, it was the yearning to prove himself that inspired Samaraweera, and the resultant success has left him confident about his future in the game. “After the Australia series, I wanted to prove myself again and worked hard at my game. I think I have another two-and-a-half years of cricket ahead of me.”