Faced with a relatively gettable target of 266, India’s opening combination ensured that there would be no early tremors in the dressing-room

On the Ball with S Rajesh11-Feb-2006Faced with a relatively gettable target of 266, India’s opening combination of Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar ensured that there would be no early tremors in the dressing-room. Yuvraj Singh may have top-scored with an unbeaten 82, but the win was set up the first-wicket stand of 105 in a mere 15 overs.Sehwag has been under the cosh for his poor one-day form, but today he approached his knock just right. The first four overs were meant to gauge the pace and bounce of the track, as India managed only 12, of which Sehwag contributed six off 13. Then, it was time to open the floodgates, as Sehwag launched a vicious onslaught, slamming Rana Naved-ul-Hasan for 20 in the fifth over, including an audacious slapped six over third man.The over-by-over graph shows just how the Indian openers pressed the accelerator after a circumspect start. What’s also interesting is the way each batsman played second fiddle when the other was blazing away: from overs five to ten, Sehwag creamed 41 from 28 balls, while Tendulkar’s contribution was a mere six from 12. Then, from the 11th over, Tendulkar took charge, with 31 from 20, while Sehwag cleverly looked to turn the strike over, scoring just seven from 11. It was the perfect start, and though both were dismissed in quick succession, they had done enough to ensure that there would be no hiccups.

A few suggestions about how the BCCI can spend its money

Ashok Malik03-Apr-2006Indian cricket is a funny animal. It has the instincts of a business enterprise when it comes to maximising revenue. In terms of the way it is run and what it offers its stakeholders, however, it is about as professional and efficient as a government hospital in a district town. In the long run, this mismatch is not sustainable.This season, a collection of overwhelming sponsorship deals has made the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) richer than any cricket body anywhere and ever. So now what will the board do with its fat bank balance?It has committed itself to enhancing prize money in domestic competitions, paying higher fees to international and first-class players, and introducing a pension fund. Beyond these baubles, it has no spending plan. Here are four suggestions for it to ponder.

Corporates could be roped in to help finance stadiums, as has happened in Delhi and Mohali © Getty Images

Greenfield stadia
India is currently in the middle of a wrenching debate on the state of its airports. Private airlines are adding more and more flights, but the airports remain stuck in the 1970s, seeing the passenger as an inconvenient interruption and clean toilets as a luxury.The crisis with India’s cricket stadia is very similar. For the ordinary ticket-buying spectator, the experience of watching a match is, frankly, hellish. A modern stadium with turnstiles, numbered seats, polite ushers and stewards, appropriate necessities in terms of toilets and food access is a dream.The problem is many of the stadia – Kanpur and Indore are random examples – are owned by the government and leased out to the local cricket authority, the BCCI’s state-level affiliate, on sufferance, almost as an act of patronage. A stadium that the BCCI – or its constituent state unit – doesn’t own becomes, in effect, an orphan. The BCCI needs to deploy some of its money into a seed capital fund to buy off existing stadia from the government and take charge of its own properties. That aside, in smaller cities or suburban centres at the periphery of big cities, it could go straight to the real estate market and build model greenfield stadia.As the examples of Mohali and Delhi – where the Ferozshah Kotla is finally beginning to resemble the showpiece stadium it should be – bear out, local corporate houses will gladly share the BCCI’s burden. Selling off boxes and getting particular gates or stands named for or otherwise sponsored by big business is hardly rocket science.Cricket, in any case, is an overheated market, with too much money chasing too few worthwhile investment options. Why not divert some of the attention towards infrastructure? Each stadium can be defined as a separate profit centre, building into itself facilities that will be used to generate revenue in fallow months.As the planet’s most passionate cricket country, India should have the world’s best stadia. That is the bottomline. The BCCI has the money; it has to find the will to deliver.Spreading the gospel
The Maharajkumar of Vizianagram, India’s most undeserving Test captain, had some rare moments of insight. One of his inspired suggestions was that India should look for fast bowlers not in big cities but in smaller towns, even rural settings, such as, for instance, the agricultural belts of the old Punjab.In a sense, the emergence of Munaf Patel validates this idea. India’s newest fast bowling hope comes from rural Bharuch, a rain-deprived, hope-scarce region in Gujarat.Cricket today is more than just a sport in India. It may be an indulgence for the elite. For the broader middle and lower middle classes, however, it is an aspirational vehicle, a route to social mobility, replacing, for example, hockey as the game to play and follow in rural Punjab.There is untapped potential and latent energy that needs a channel. India’s engagement with cricket needs to be deepened and institutionalised. Again Punjab and its district cricket network may be instructive.In essence, the BCCI needs to put in place a proper outfield, quality nets, and a set of trained – perhaps BCCI-accredited – and salaried coaches to be available round the year in each district HQ. In bigger districts, which have more than one large town, there could be two or three such arrangements.Given that India has about 600 districts, we are not talking very large numbers. A pyramid structure – with genuine talent scouts rather than former cricketers sent out on desultory junkets – will need to link these grassroots units and monitor their progress and needs. These district-level BCCI bridgeheads can become the pivot around which to build a strong schools cricket programme. This process will throw up new talent; it will also expand the social base of Indian cricket and help the BCCI “give back” to the society it feeds on. To use a fashionable expression, it is part of the board’s corporate social responsibility.It would be easy for the BCCI to pretend that such an evangelical mission lies in the domain of the state associations and that it has no role to play. This is nonsense. Each district has to be integrated into an all-India matrix. Visiting faculty – say, specialist fitness trainers or spin bowlers – will need to drop in on districts regularly. This will require centralised coordination.When the BCCI gets down to hiring its professional managers and paying them corporate-level salaries (all of which it says it will do once Tata Consultancy Services has drawn up a blueprint for it), it should set aside money and human resources for a centrally managed (or at least supervised) districts cricket programme.

India’s injuries could be treated at home if a sports medicine centre was established © AFP

Cricket pharma
Every time an Indian cricketer has a semi-serious injury, he is flown off to Britain or Australia or South Africa for treatment. This has become a regular feature, endearing the BCCI to its travel agents but leaving ordinary cricket fans wondering why – in this age of “medial tourism”, when the world comes to India for treatment – sports medicine is deemed so inadequate here.The BCCI needs to invest in a flagship, national-level sports medicine centre, which will have a permanent nucleus of expert staff as well as educational facilities for sports trainers and physiotherapists. It can run courses – say four times a year – for physios and those responsible for a cricket team’s fitness and well-being. It can invite specialists from other countries. It can undertake research on how to nurture, say, fast bowlers in Indian conditions, given the quantum of cricket being played these days.This idea is not new. It is understood that Andrew Leipus had proposed something similar to Jagmohan Dalmiya when he was the BCCI’s president. Hopefully the sports medicine centre will find a new patron.That heritage thing
Indian cricket, it is often lamented, has no sense of history. Other than a few mad buffs, scarcely anybody attempts to link India’s ascension to cricket power and the prodigious heritage that the sport is blessed with. Certainly, the BCCI couldn’t care less.In the 18th century America’s founding fathers saw their nation as an inheritor to the civilisational legacy of the Western world. They built cities and institutions, invented mythologies, and created literature to sustain that continuity.As cricket’s new torchbearer, India must be similarly alive to its obligations. The BCCI needs to build an Indian Cricket Museum – actually it could do with four such museums, given the geographical spread of India, but even one will do for a start. The museum has to be conceived with sensitivity and enlightenment. It must have a curator who is knowledgeable about cricket’s past – not an unctuous BCCI hanger-on. It must record the history of cricket in India – its sporting and social aspects, its role in shaping this country, and India’s greater role in reshaping a leisurely English pastime. The museum will need a corpus to acquire artifacts and memorabilia, buy them where necessary. It would help if the curator were alive to alternative fund-raising methods and not wholly dependent on grants from the BCCI.As it grows, the museum can become India’s – and the BCCI’s – statement that it does not see cricket as just a money-making racket and a proxy for nationalism. Like the other suggestions in this article, it perhaps calls for a new cricket sensibility.Is the BCCI up to it?

The three-Test series between England and India had plenty of statistical highlights. Cricinfo analyses some of the interesting ones

S Rajesh14-Aug-2007

He wasn’t always tidy behind the stumps, but Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s contribution with the bat was crucial to India’s series win © Getty Images
The value of partnershipsEngland’s batsmen scored three centuries in the series to India’s one; there were four century partnerships for England, twice as many as the Indians managed; yet, the series scoreline read India 1, England 0.India’s triumph in the three-Test series was a victory for collective effort over personal heroics. There were as many as 14 half-centuries, and 16 half-century partnerships, which ensured that England rarely had the luxury of getting two quick wickets in succession.The list of average partnerships for each wicket also shows that England’s top order didn’t do badly. The Indian opening pair was a revelation, but England’s first three wickets did better than India’s, while the middle order (partnerships for wickets 4-6) put together healthy partnerships as well. Where they lost out in comparison to India was in the lower-order batting – their last four wickets averaged ten runs per dismissal, which means they were as good as all out when six down. The Indians scored 17 more per partnership for the last four wickets, which translates into 68 extra runs per innings.Apart from Anil Kumble’s heroics at The Oval, the difference was the performance of the wicketkeepers. Matt Prior, apart from letting through 71 byes and dropping crucial catches, also failed with the bat, averaging 14.60. Mahendra Singh Dhoni wasn’t always tidy behind the stumps, but he was superb with bat in hand, scoring 209 runs at 52.25. Without his match-saving contribution at Lord’s, India would have only managed a drawn series.

Partnerships for each wicket

Wicket Ind – Runs Average 100s/ 50s Eng – Runs Average 100s/ 50s

First 322 53.67 1/ 1 260 43.33 0/ 2 Second 163 27.16 1/ 0 319 53.16 1/ 2 Third 223 37.16 0/ 2 268 44.67 0/ 2 Fourth 336 67.20 0/ 4 300 50.00 2/ 1 Fifth 181 36.20 0/ 2 144 24.00 0/ 1 Sixth 241 48.20 0/ 3 348 58.00 1/ 2 Seventh 181 45.25 0/ 2 51 10.20 0/ 0 Eighth 95 23.75 0/ 1 52 10.40 0/ 0 Ninth 36 9.00 0/ 0 32 6.40 0/ 0 Tenth 103 34.33 0/ 1 73 14.60 0/ 0

Partnerships for each cluster of wickets

Wicket Ind – Runs Average 100s/ 50s Eng – Runs Average 100s/ 50s

1 – 3 708 39.33 2/ 3 847 47.05 1/ 6 4 – 6 758 50.33 0/ 9 792 44.00 3/ 4 7 – 10 415 27.67 0/ 4 208 10.40 0/ 0Working out the angles”We’ve been asked different questions against the left-arm angles which we haven’t seen before,” Michael Vaughan admitted after the series, which was a tribute to the splendid bowling performances of Zaheer Khan and RP Singh. With Sreesanth off-colour through most of the series, the two left-armers were easily India’s stand-out bowlers, confusing the batsmen with their line of attack and the swing they generated. Zaheer became only the third Indian fast bowler – after Javagal Srinath and Sreesanth – to take 18 wickets in a three-Test series. As the table below shows, England’s batsmen weren’t comfortable against them no matter which side of the wicket they bowled from.

Indian left-armers, over and round the wicket

Bowler Over – balls, runs* Wickets Average Round – balls, runs* Wickets Average

Zaheer 695, 290 14 20.71 125, 63 4 15.75 RP Singh 404, 221 7 31.57 154, 110 5 22.00The swing-and-seam factorThe only batsmen who handled India’s three fast bowlers with a measure of success were Alastair Cook and Kevin Pietersen. Pietersen was immense throughout the series against all bowlers, but Cook blotted his book by falling twice to Kumble and Sourav Ganguly, against whom he managed a miserable seven runs in 41 deliveries.

England batsmen v India’s three fast bowlers

Batsman Runs Balls Dismissals Average

Alastair Cook 176 314 2 88.00 Kevin Pietersen 223 367 5 44.60 Andrew Strauss 150 376 5 30.00 Michael Vaughan 140 345 5 28.00 Ian Bell 109 141 5 21.80 Paul Collingwood 84 185 5 16.80 Matt Prior 42 117 4 10.50 Sourav Ganguly’s series was spoilt by a couple of poor decisions, but despite that he averaged nearly 50 and handled England’s three fast bowlers better than any of his mates. Whether getting into line to defend, weaving out of the way of bouncers, or caressing drives through the off side, Ganguly was mostly comfortable against the three-pronged attack of Sidebottom, Anderson and Tremlett, which bodes well for India’s next two Test series, against Pakistan and Australia.

Indian batsmen v England’s three fast bowlers

Batsman Runs Balls Dismissals Average

Sourav Ganguly 160 315 3 53.33 Dinesh Karthik 197 399 5 39.40 Sachin Tendulkar 151 416 4 37.75 Mahendra Singh Dhoni 112 176 3 37.33 VVS Laxman 149 304 4 37.25 Rahul Dravid 90 221 3 30.00 Wasim Jaffer 156 348 6 26.00 Spin supportWith the fast bowlers doing the bulk of the damage, the two spinners on show played largely a supporting role. That wasn’t quite so unexpected for England, but Kumble would have expected to play a bigger role with the ball, especially on the last day at The Oval. He did finish with 14 wickets in all at a respectable average of 34.50, but those numbers are slightly flattering, as half those wickets comprised the four bowlers in England’s line-up. Against the specialist batsmen, Kumble was distinctly second-best. On the other hand, he also ensured that India didn’t have to suffer any of the lower-order partnerships that have become the norm when they play overseas.

Kumble v England’s batsmen

Runs Balls Wickets Dismissals

Top seven 402 724 7 57.43 Last four 70 150 7 10.00 Panesar was even more ineffective against the Indian top order, but he too benefited from getting lower-order wickets. His series average of 50.37, though, is his second-worst: the only occasion he has been more ineffective was in his first series, also against India. (Click here for Panesar’s series-wise bowling averages.)

Monty Panesar v Indian batsmen

Runs Balls Wickets Dismissals

Top seven 320 605 3 106.67 Last four 83 180 5 16.60 Head-to-headsThe table below lists five of the more interesting head-to-heads: Ganguly was supposed to be susceptible to pace and bounce, but he handled Tremlett pretty well; Pietersen had a good time against Zaheer, but found RP Singh more difficult to handle; Ian Bell and Andrew Strauss had no such luck against Zaheer, while Anderson can legitimately claim to have Tendulkar’s number.

The key head-to-heads

Batsman Bowler Runs, balls Dismissals Average

Sourav Ganguly Chris Tremlett 74/ 151 0 – Kevin Pietersen Zaheer Khan 72, 143 1 72.00 Kevin Pietersen RP Singh 86, 124 3 28.67 Andrew Strauss Zaheer Khan 69, 173 4 17.25 Ian Bell Zaheer Khan 17, 30 4 4.25 Sachin Tendulkar James Anderson 69, 142 3 23.00

A timeline on the career of Dilip Sardesai

Cricinfo staff02-Jul-2007

Sardesai is best remembered for his meaty contributions in the 1971 series in the West Indies © Cricinfo

August 8, 1940: Born in Margao, India.November 1960: Scored 87 in his first-class debut in Pune for Indian Universities against the visiting Pakistanis.January 1961 : Notched up his maiden first-class century, in only his second match, at Bangalore for Indian Board President’s XI against Pakistan.February 1961: Selected to represent Bombay in a Ranji Trophy game against Delhi. It was a quiet debut, he scored 21.December 1961: Made his Test debut against Ted Dexter’s England side at Kanpur and was out hit wicket for 28.1964: Scored an impressive 449 runs, including five fifties, in a five-Test home series against MJK Smith’s England side.1965: Scored 200 not out, his first Test century, and helped India stave off defeat after they followed on against New Zealand at the Brabourne stadium in Bombay. Amassed 360 runs at an average of 120 in the three-Test series.1967: Dropped from national squad after averaging just 10 through the year.1969: Recalled for the first Test against Australia at Bombay. He was discarded after he failed in both the innings.1970: Awarded the prestigious Arjuna award for his exploits on the cricket field.February 1971 to April 1971: High point of his career as he made a fairytale comeback and scored a colossal 642 runs, including three centuries, to help India win their first Test and series against the West Indies. His 212 in the first Test, a record for an Indian on foreign soil at that time, set the tone for the series as it enabled India to enforce the follow-on against West Indies for the first time. In the next Test, his century in the first innings led India to the famous victory at Port of Spain. He also played a vital role in the fourth Test at Barbados; stroking a superb 150 after coming in at 64 for 4 (soon to become 70 for 6) in reply to West Indies’ mammoth 501.August 1971: Played two crucial innings of 54 and 40 at The Oval to help India win a historic first Test series against England in England.1972: Played the last of his 30 Tests, at the Feroz Shah Kotla, against England. He scored 2001 runs at the Test level at an average of nearly 40.1973: Retired from first-class cricket. Between 1961-1973, he appeared for Bombay in 10 Ranji Trophy finals, emerging victorious on each occasion.

Jenny Thompson spends a day in the commentary box with the Sky team

Jenny Thompson08-Jun-2006

Nasser Hussain and Michael Holding in full flow © BSkyB Broadcasting

It’s 10.28am. I’m in the deceptively small Sky commentary box at Trent Bridge. Fewer than 30 cubic metres are stuffed with seven Test legends, three production crew – and me. I am one privileged sardine.Questions come thick and fast. “Vandort’s the tall one, isn’t he?” “What does Kapugedara do?” “How do you pronounce Jayawardene?” They all help each other out, with Barney Francis, the cucumber-cool producer, verifying matters calmly. And you do need to be calm around here.Notes are shuffled, throats cleared and last-minute facts are shouted out by Rich, the stats guru who sits with the commentary team on the front row, just off camera. His information supplements the fruit-machine, a glittery screen offering all manner of facts and figures and just one of eight shiny monitors. At the back sit Francis and the graphics operator, Steve, who records where every single ball ends up throughout the day. No wonder he’s hoping for a three-day Test.It’s time to go to air. “Good luck, everyone,” says Francis. The opening music kicks in and then there’s silence; a rare hush amid a bustling hive of work. Pre-recorded packages are played out, including Nasser Hussain’s dart against the spin machine Merlyn. Gamely he came out of retirement for the feature – and now he prepares himself for the inevitable onslaught from his colleagues. “Go on, let’s have a joke, how not to play spin.”They may have 34,746 Test runs, 632 wickets and 592 Test caps between them, but nobody is beyond a bit of ribbing. Hussain is usually the target. “As a player he was so heart on his sleeve,” explains Francis. “Because he so easily gives it away, they know that and just rib him.” But the man who captained England for five years takes it well – and gives it back, too, with punch and panache.”It’s a long day and they have to concentrate,” says Francis. “Even when they’re mucking about. The way they get through it is to rib each other all the time.” You can say that again. As David Gower says, “It’s the old’uns versus the young’uns, Ian and myself versus Nasser and Mike.” Just like a Test dressing room, then – and just think what a Test line-up they’d make. “There’s a lot of cross-generational banter as well as pure dressing-room banter,” Gower continues. “It helps pass the time of day, really.”Do you play tricks on each other? “No, that’s more Jonathan Agnew’s line,” says Gower. So, instead you just settle for stitching each other up when live? “Yes, that will do,” he laughs. Hussain goes on to demonstrate, with an on-air dig at Lloyd. “What’s going on with your tie today, David?” Lloyd fingers the lurid Donald Duck number and asks: “What’s wrong with my tie?!” He grins.It’s hard not to be happy around here. With such good banter it’s easy to forget you’re there to do a job, as Francis explains. “It’s a very fun place to work. It’s very easy to get caught up in that.” Yet he doesn’t, and neither does anyone else – it’s a slick operation. The second it’s time to go live, each person clicks into gear, a seamless shift, as if getting ready to face a delivery. There are similarities to playing, says Gower. “It’s a performance of sorts. You have days when things click into place and happen.”But nothing will quite match up to the buzz, or the gut-wrench, of being out in the middle.
“Playing is more emotional. There’s not really an equivalent of getting a hundred or of getting a duck. If I get my first word wrong at 10.30 you don’t have to wait till the next morning to come back.”

David Lloyd … in one of his more demure ties © BSkyB Broadcasting

It’s a great life, is this – and I have the proof: if you can tell a tree’s age by its rings, you can tell who’s been commentating for Sky the longest by how deep their tan is, and I put this to a very brown Botham. In a Benaud-esque touch, he can’t remember the last winter he saw. He pauses to think and at last says: “It was playing football” – which means that he’s since missed out on more than two decades of British winters. Way to go.The newest boy Atherton is commensurately the palest, but there’s a reason for that, Botham suggests: “Atherton’s anaemic!” Ah yes, it’s a constant, brilliant banter-fest all right, and there are all the nicknames under the sun. Some are self-explanatory or familiar – Bumble, Nass (or Nasty), Ath and the Cake (Beef-Cake, geddit). Then there’s Lubo, for Gower. Why? “I went to a restaurant in Adelaide 237 years ago,” he begins, then tails off. “It’s a long story!” Mikey Holding is too cool for a nickname – Whispering Death is a bit of a mouthful here, Death would be plain wrong.But of course the commentators are just one part of the story, the royal icing on a very rich cake. A constant reminder of this is the information which burbles through a mic from the director Mark Lynch who is in a far-off truck, busily controlling his troops in mystical terminology: “Standby 8. Roll B. Wipe B.”Francis and his gang are in constant communication with Lynch and the other crew dotted around the ground, from trucks to cameramen to floor managers. As Lloyd says, “Everybody’s very conscious that we want to make it work. It’s fascinating – there are teams everywhere. You just want it to work.” And work it does, all right.

A review of Paul Smith’s autobiography,

Will Luke27-May-2007Wasted? by Paul Smith (Know the Score), 240pp, £11.20

Paul Smith had a bit of rock-n-roll about him. The long hair, the long run-up, the extravagant follow-through and the swashbuckling strokeplay, his cricket was energetic and unorthodox. But his is a sad story: one of regret, disappointment, depression and turmoil. Even homelessness. is a rare insight into the trappings of fame, the inadequacies of the authority’s handling of drugs – but moreover one man’s mission to transform his life.It was in 1997 that Smith was banned by the ECB for his use of “recreational” drugs: a fair cocktail of cannabis, cocaine and speed. But in the early chapters of his book, he goes at great length to tell of the double standards that he felt he fell victim to. He was not alone in being a user: there were, Smith says, other high-profile county and Test cricketers in England regularly taking recreational drugs. The ECB’s policy was, in Smith’s eyes at least, entirely inconsistent. The ban ruined him, his life turned upside down, emotionally and financially. Drugs were the treat afforded to him by his success for Warwickshire, yet they ruined him. Although acutely aware of how the effect they had, and although he now wants to prevent others falling into the same trap, the anger he feels at the authorities and some former colleagues and friends is clear and painful.And to that end, there is a strong sense of victimisation that pervades much of the book. Other players – Shane Warne, Keith Piper, Dermot Reeve to name but three – have since suffered similar fates, but none to the extent Smith feels he had to endure. It isn’t all about the drugs though: Smith’s tumultuous personal life receives extensive dissection too, and it is no less chaotic. His very good friend, Piper, had a four-year long affair with Smith’s partner, the mother of his five-year-old daughter. Given the messiness of the subsequent break-up, Smith was denied custody.

Smith tearing into bowl for Warwickshire in 1988 © Getty Images
Even now, in 2007, he hasn’t seen or heard from his daughter in two years and doesn’t even know where she lives. And in fact, it is this constant reflection of the past and comparison to his present life now which makes this book so different. So often, autobiographies are gushingly sentimental, reminiscing about past glories with rose-tinted spectacles. Smith is understandably misty-eyed – a factor not helped by the drugs, of course – but there is a refreshing honesty to his words.The prose and flow become a little disjointed though, which makes for a bumpy but stimulating ride through the 204 pages. He lurches from the 1980s to the 2000s to the 1990s and back again, citing an anecdote here and a flashback there. Much like in his playing days, there isn’t much rhythm or predictability, but it’s always entertaining. It is almost like reading his diary or a notebook, not an autobiography, such are the frequency of quirky anecdotes and yarns.Besides his rocky relationships, perhaps the most interesting section of the book is the time he spent in America. Financially ruined and often homeless, he went for days without meals and in the process met a kaleidoscope of different people. And it was in here, in Los Angeles, that he forged to turn around his life and put his experiences to good use. Cricket Without Boundaries was formed, a scheme to divert wayward kids from the dangers of guns, drugs and crime into something meaningful; using the spirit and tradition of cricket to teach them a new way of thinking.It seems to be working for the kids, but also for Smith. If anything, this venture might act as Smith’s strongest (and most addictive) substance yet. is far from a conventional read but, written by one of cricket’s more avant-garde characters, nothing less should be expected.

Kumar Sangakkara rues his lack of preparation that partly led to his hamstring injury thus keeping him out of the first Test against Australia in Brisbane

Sa'adi Thawfeeq12-Nov-2007

That’s where the problem lies… Sangakkara opts to blame no one but himself © Getty Images

There is nothing more frustrating for a cricketer than to sit out a match through injury knowing fully well that he should have been out there in the middle helping his team beat the opposition. When the opponent you are playing against happens to be the best team in the world, the frustration can become two-fold.For Kumar Sangakkara, the Sri Lankan vice-captain and their leading batsman, the past 14 days have been full of disappointment and exasperation. Bad luck arrives in many ways and for Sangakkara, one of the fittest players in the team, it came in the most unexpected manner.Against Cricket Australia Chairman’s XI, in Sri Lanka’s opening match of their tour of Australia, Sangakkara had to wait for three-and-a-half hours before going out to bat. He had faced only three deliveries before disaster struck.”We had a great opening stand in that game [Jayasuriya and Atapattu put on 195]. I was sitting around doing a few stretches while waiting to go into bat. It was a cold day and I should have probably paid a little more attention to warming my muscles up before I went in,” Sangakkara said.”It [hamstring] went off on the third ball I faced. As soon as it happened, I knew I had pulled something. I felt a completely new sensation which I had never felt before. I hoped it was nothing serious.”I wanted to make use of a runner and keep batting, but Tommy [Simsek, the physio] was smart enough to realise that I had to come off the field quickly enough. It stopped the bleeding and the injury to the muscle and at that point I was pretty lucky to have Tommy around with his experience knowing exactly what to do. I walked away to the dressing room angry and disappointed that it had happened,” he said.Sangakkara blamed the injury partly to his negligence and to the fact that he had to wait for a long time before going out to bat. “It was an unusually cold day in Adelaide. We had a fantastic start and I can’t remember in the last two years when I had my pads on for so long waiting to go
into bat. It was also a practice game. Sometimes when you are in that situation you can forget to pay attention to some of the other details that are important. Usually I have a routine that I follow with my stretching.

We had a fantastic start and I can’t remember in the last two years when I had my pads on for so long waiting to go into bat. It was also a practice game. Sometimes when you are in that situation you can forget to pay attention to some of the other details that are important

“Fitness is something that I take a lot of pride with. I’ve been working very hard on it, in my weight training, my running and my conditioning. You can have all of those perfectly planned but a little slip-up somewhere can be costly.”When you don’t get injured for some time you kind of feel invincible. When you start thinking like that, you think your body is fine. Suddenly you get one [injury], you feel really bad. Tommy said that it has made me come crashing down to earth. From now on, I know I’ve got to pay a little more attention to making sure my muscles are warm when I go out to bat,” he said.In his 67-Test careers, it is only the first time that Sangakkara has missed a Test due to such injury. “I looked to this tour [of Australia] for a long time. Australia is a place I love to come to and play cricket. To sit out and watch the other guys get on the field and be involved in the competition, I feel a bit jealous.”Cricketers have to sit out at certain periods of their career. I had to do that through injury this time. But I have an opportunity to contribute by having a chat and encouraging our players from outside making sure that everything is taken care of off the field. I am still involved in it but I rather be out on the field.”Good news being that Sangakkara is making good progress and is hopeful he will be fit enough to be selected for the second Test starting at Hobart from November 16.”The key was the first 24 hours after injury. I had ice on every two hours on the affected area to curtail the bleeding into the muscle. I didn’t get any sleep that night icing the area for a minimum of 20 minutes every two hours. I did it throughout the night till about seven in the morning. That’s what set about the foundation for a good recovery.”I am back to about 70 percent speed-wise. I’ve been batting for three days with absolutely no pain or any other sensations. It is just a case of making sure that I am 100 percent with running between wickets to stand a chance of playing because the pressure of running against the ball and the fielders is when you put extra stress. That’s when a recurrence of a hamstring injury can take place. I’ve got to make sure that there is no chance of that happening because we’ve got Test cricket coming up a week after we get back to Sri Lanka.”Asked how the team took up his loss, Sangakkara said: “There was a lot of support from the team. They were very disappointed for me and it was nice to have all the guys coming and saying ‘well, hard luck we would love to have you, take care of yourself’. The other thing is that it presented a nice opportunity for someone to go and play a Test match for the country. It is good to see that we have the strength to refill the position. No player is indispensable and that is something I believe in very strongly.”

Twenty20 may be a new format but it’s still true to cricket’s roots, and there is no substitute for class. By Will Luke

Will Luke09-Sep-2007

Ramprakash: “You’ve to think very quickly on your feet about how you are going to go about scoring the runs” © Getty Images
“You have more time than you think,” said Owais Shah, the Englandbatsman, earlier in the summer. He wasn’t referring to Tests, nor washe talking about 50-over ODIs, but the new kid on the block, Twenty20.The sweat hadn’t yet dried from Shah’s forehead, his heart was still racingfrom urging England to a tense win over West Indies at The Oval. Hadthe adrenalin of victory masked Shah’s common sense? Twenty overs is, after all, not enough time to bed in a new bat, let alone construct an entire innings.Shah has a point, however: teams build huge innings in a mere 120 balls, and the batsmen need not be the carefree, wild bullies that many assumed they would have to be in order to succeed in this format. Quite the contrary in fact, and a quick glance at the leading Twenty20 run-scorers makes for instructive reading.Brad Hodge tops the list with 1383, followed by Darren Maddy (1278), HD Ackerman and Martin van Jaarsveld. Maddy apart, these are traditional batsmen who look to play straight wherever possible. Also in the top ten are Phil Jaques, DavidHussey, and those embodiments of English orthodoxy, Mark Ramprakash andGraeme Hick. From the stands Twenty20 might feel like a carnival, but the cricket is pure and the purists are winning.”You are weighing up a lot of when out in the middle: the pace of the pitch, the size of the boundary,” Ramprakash says. “Personally, I try to decide which bowler I can get after. You’ve to think very quickly on your feet about how you are going to go about scoring the runs – if the ball is quick then you can deflect it using its pace, and if the spinners are on you can try and hit the ball out of the ground.”Initially when I played Twenty20 I just wasn’t up with the pace of the game, because the fielding team are charging in to get their overs [finished] very quickly and every ball is a very big event. And so as a batsman I had to get with the pace of the game, I had to weigh up the situation, decide in what areas I was looking to score and that was a very big adjustment for someone who was playing four-day cricket or a 50-overs game.”A big adjustment mentally, then. Look at Ramprakash build an innings in 50 overs as opposed to 20 and there are very few differences, other than his urgency at the crease. There is no substitute for class, which probably comes as a relief to the sceptics who muttered and moaned when Twenty20 first appeared that the format diluted cricket’s essentials. Ramprakash’s cricket – the cover drive; standing tall to cut past point; smiting down the ground – remains, essentially, the same. The myth that the new format requires inventive, crazy batsmanship is just that. Aggressive cricket need notbe suicidal or ugly.Though England are beginning to show a one-day renaissance, their troubles (and in particular those of Michael Vaughan) in the past decade were perplexing. How can a batsman of Vaughan’s talent in Tests appear so out of his depth in the shorter format? Vaughan averages 27.15 and, in 86 matches, is yet to reach three figures, which contradicts the Australian mantra that any Test cricketer should, by virtue of hisability, be more than capable of succeeding in one-dayers. Stuart Law, a Pom by marriage but an Australian at heart, is one such believer.

Law: “There’s no secret formula; you can’t wake up one morning and say, ‘Right, time to put on my Twenty20 head.'” © Getty Images
“Not a truer word has been spoken,” he says. “I remember talking to a guy in the club I played in when I was growing up, an ex-senior player, who said to me: ‘One-day cricket is just an extension of two-day and four-day cricket, but it’s an opportunity to express their talent and expand on what they normally do.’ And it’s so right. There’s no secret formula; you can’t wake up one morning and say, ‘Right, time to put on my Twenty20 head.’ It’s cricket. If you can adapt quicker, sum up the conditions of the pitch as quickly as you can, then you can expand into what looks to be really aggressive cricket.”There’s no real secret formula. In Twenty20 cricket you haven’t got the time to play yourself in like you have in 50-over cricket. You’ve basically got to get out there and do it from ball one. I wouldn’t say you change the way you play your game. It’s about getting to that point where you think you can accelerate the run-rate as quickly as you possibly can.”But let’s face it. With lifeless pitches, an international schedule to make grown men weep and the continued shortening of boundaries, cricket is a batsman’s game. The poor, puce-faced bowler doesn’t have a hope in Twenty20s.”Every bowler hates Twenty20 cricket,” Law says, with a hint of glee in his voice. “If a bowler says Twenty20’s great, it’s fantastic, ‘I love it’, they’re kidding themselves … as they watch their best deliveries sail over the fence at a regular interval. It’s not much for any of them.”But once again, it’s about summing up the pitch, different paces, different lengths, bumpers and yorkers, and then [it’s up to the spinners] to change their pace a great deal. Gary Keedy’s been very successful for us [Lancashire]. He either bowls it extremely slow or as quickly as he possibly can.”And that has been one of Twenty20’s biggest surprises: the impact and success of spinners. Nayan Doshi, the former Surrey spinner, has taken 53 wickets at 14.66 – more than anyone else in the history of the format. Mushtaq Ahmed is hot on his heels, with 42 at a typically miserly 13.80. Much as Law is convinced of batsmen’s need to change their mental approach to batting, so is Harbhajan Singh, the Surreyoffspinner who is making his international comeback for India next week, with regard to bowling.”You can’t really change things. You just have to adapt your mindset,” he says. “You know that you are going to go for runs, but still you must look to get wickets. It’s a 20-over match, so you have to bowl according to that. You just get four overs to bowl, so you have to make sure you bowl four overs the way you want to bowl.”

Harbhajan: “You just get four overs to bowl, so you have to make sure you bowl four overs the way you want to bowl.'” © Getty Images
There is a hiccup to this logic, however. Spin has been a revelatory success on Twenty20 in English cricket, but next week’s inaugural World Twenty20 in South Africa carries a couple of uncertainties. And the pitches are chief among them.South Africa have never hosted an international so early in their season (their domestic competitions don’t even begin until October) which could produce somedeathly dull, slow, low pitches. “Spinners do well in Twenty20 in England because they play in June and July when the wickets are mostly dry, and they play on big grounds,” Harbhajan says. “There will be a big difference between international and domestic Twenty20.”Secondly, this is Twenty20’s international debut. How will the crowds react? Will Matthew Hayden bully the bowlers from the off, or will Australia’s slightly lax attitude toward the format cost them? The fewer the overs, the greater the chance of an upset.And yet, as Law, Ramprakash and Harbhajan have said, adaptability is the fundamental key to any player in Twenty20. If they can alter their game plan to suit a Jeremy Snape “moonball” for example, or bowlers running in off one step, they can surely cope with inclement Cape Town weather and a peaty pitch.These are professional sportsmen, after all. The grounds might appear to be dressed in candy floss and drowned in a cacophony of music, but Twenty20 cricket in the middle remains true to its roots.

A statistical look at the spin pair of Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh

Mathew Varghese05-Apr-2008

	Spinning together for the 50th time © AFP

A pitch with a tinge of green was perhaps not the ideal setting for Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh to play their 50th Test together. South Africa’s fast bowlers wrecked India, and the duo hardly made an impact as AB de Villiers and Jacques Kallis piled on the misery.Harbhajan himself was forthright with his take on the Motera strip on offer, and indicated how home pitches should have been conducive to spin. After all, the Indian bowling line-up consisted of what perhaps is the most experienced spin pairing of all time.Although the 50 Tests for Kumble and Harbhajan is far behind the most experienced bowling pair of all time – Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne tormented batsmen for over 100 Tests, a factor in Australia’s phenomenal success – they are one of the longest-serving spins pairs in Tests.

Bowling pairs featuring in most number of Tests

Tests	Bowler	Wickets	Average	Bowler	Wickets	Average
104	Shane Warne	513	24.87	Glenn McGrath	488	21.38
95	Courtney Walsh	373	24.30	Curtly Ambrose	389	21.11
93	Shaun Pollock	377	22.61	Jacques Kallis	170	33.48
88	Muttiah Muralitharan	545	21.70	Chaminda Vaas	294	27.54
89	Courtney Walsh	315	25.70	Carl Hooper	95	47.52
79	Kapil Dev	243	31.73	Ravi Shastri	151	40.66
77	Jacques Kallis	159	32.74	Makhaya Ntini	297	28.57
70	Carl Hooper	76	47.60	Curtly Ambrose	291	21.95
63	Shaun Pollock	235	24.70	Makhaya Ntini	255	27.67
61	Wasim Akram	282	21.33	Waqar Younis	277	22.92
60	Garry Sobers	181	32.60	Lance Gibbs	237	29.00
60	Bob Willis	222	24.62	Ian Botham	254	25.67
58	Glenn McGrath	274	20.52	Jason Gillespie	210	26.27
53	Shane Warne	269	25.78	Jason Gillespie	176	28.57
52	Anil Kumble	225	27.94	Javagal Srinath	187	29.30
51	Ray Lindwall	195	22.47	Keith Miller	150	23.68
49	Andrew Flintoff	167	30.06	Matthew Hoggard	200	28.32
49	Derek Underwood	161	28.09	Tony Greig	119	31.41
49	Anil Kumble	272	26.95	Harbhajan Singh	197	32.52

Perhaps only one spin pair has played more Tests together than Harbhajan-Kumble; the word “perhaps” is used since the combination in question includes Garry Sobers, whose bowling styles included left-arm fast-medium, slow left-arm orthodox and slow left-arm chinaman. Sobers played 60 Tests alongside offspinner Lance Gibbs. With the Motera Test, Kumble and Harbhajan move ahead of another dubious spin combination – Derek Underwood and Tony Greig played together in 49 Tests, but Underwood could lay as much claim as to being a left-arm spinner as Greig could to being an offspinner.Three Indian spin pairs come in next, all featuring a left-arm spinner. The first two include Bishan Bedi, who played alongside offspinner Erapalli Prasanna and legspinner Bhagwat Chandrasekhar in 43 and 42 Tests, while Chandu Borde combined with the miserly left-arm spin of Bapu Nadkarni in 40 Tests.

Spin pairs featuring in most number of Tests

Tests	Bowler	Wickets	Average	Bowler	Wickets	Average
60	Garry Sobers	181	32.60	Lance Gibbs	237	29.00
49	Derek Underwood	161	28.09	Tony Greig	119	31.41
49	Anil Kumble	272	26.95	Harbhajan Singh	197	32.52
43	Erapalli Prasanna	162	31.03	Bishan Bedi	169	29.04
42	Bhagwat Chandrasekhar	184	28.70	Bishan Bedi	184	27.22
40	Bapu Nadkarni	88	27.46	Chandu Borde	37	47.51

Harbhajan wasn’t too off with his suggestions on the pitch, as in the 32 home Tests together for Kumble and Harbhajan, India have won 14 and lost only five. Both average below 20 in home victories.However, they fare far worse in away conditions, though Kumble has been the better of the two both home and away.

Kumble-Harbhajan home and away

Venue	Tests	Wickets for Kumble	Average	Wickets for Harbhajan	Average
Home	32	200	24.51	148	28.64
Home wins	14	114	16.87	77	19.89
Away	17	72	33.76	49	44.24
Away wins	6	28	21.35	19	27.63

In the 49 Tests they played together prior to the Ahmedabad Test, Kumble and Harbhajan have been part of 20 wins, with 20 matches ending in a stalemate and nine ending in defeat. Their averages in victories are less than half of the corresponding figures in draws, an indication that when they have failed to get going, opposition bowlers too haven’t been able to dismiss India twice.

Kumble-Harbhajan by match result

Result	Tests	Wickets for Kumble	Average	Wickets for Harbhajan	Average
Won	20	142	17.76	96	21.42
Lost	9	47	34.53	38	34.42
Drawn	20	83	38.40	63	48.30

While Kumble’s averages 16.91 in the fourth innings of a match – with 48 wickets in 12 innings – Harbhajan only manages a third of those wickets, at an average of 37.18. The offspinner gives away more than 40 per wicket in the first, but he outdoes Kumble when it comes to averages in the third innings of a match, with both bowlers having taken 77 wickets.

Kumble-Harbhajan by match innings

Innings	Tests	Wickets for Kumble	Average	Wickets for Harbhajan	Average
1st	30	83	32.61	60	42.20
2nd	19	64	26.01	44	33.38
3rd	31	77	27.90	77	23.53
4th	12	48	16.91	16	37.18

While the inclusion of Harbhajan works favourably on Kumble’s statistics, the same doesn’t hold conversely. One prime reason for Harbhajan’s better performance in the absence of Kumble has to be the 2001 home series against Australia, when India, without Kumble, turned the series on its head. Harbhajan was one of the stars in that series, with 32 wickets at 17.03 apiece in three Tests.

Harbhajan with and without Kumble

	Tests	Wickets	Average	Strike-rate	5WI/10WM
Overall	64	264	31.45	66.1	21/4
With Kumble	49	197	32.52	69.3	16/2
Without Kumble	15	67	28.29	57.0	5/2

Kumble with and without Harbhajan

	Tests	Wickets	Average	Strike-rate	5WI/10WM
Overall	126	607	28.98	64.6	35/8
With Harbhajan	49	272	26.95	59.0	19/6
Without Harbhajan	77	335	30.62	69.2	16/2

With the debacle in Abu Dhabi, West Indies officials are at their wit’s end to know how to revive standards. Their proposals with respect to player selection are well meaning, but they are also patently unrealistic and unworkable, if not laughable

Tony Cozier17-Nov-2008
The non-performance of Carlton Baugh in the ODI series against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi reflects poorly on the West Indies selectors whose proposals are anything but unrealistic and unworkable © Getty Images
There are any number of instances of the muddled thinking that presently pervades West Indies cricket. The latest – not counting the bloated, sub-standard, expensive, non-sponsored regional one-day tournament in Guyana, last week’s meeting of the Caricom sub-committee on cricket that did not involve a single cricketer and Carlton Baugh’s disappointing run in Abu Dhabi – concerns a shift in selection policy.Although enunciated separately over the past month by the chief executive of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and by the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA), the stated transformation is so similar in content and timing as to suggest collaboration.At a time when West Indies officials are at their wit’s end to know how to revive standards, their proposals are, no doubt, well meaning but they are also patently unrealistic and unworkable, if not laughable. Here is the WICB man Donald Peters’s take on the issue, as delivered at the opening of the Trinidad and Tobago’s High Performance Centre last month:”If you decide that you are an opening batsman, we will expect you to occupy the crease for at least 75% of the time you go to bat and your batting average will be between 40-60 over at least ten first-class matches.”If you are a top order batsman we will expect you to have a batting average that is consistent with international players at that level/position.”The West Indies selectors, he indicated, would be guided by a first-class average that “should be similar” to that of Mike Hussey, Ricky Ponting, Kumar Sangakkara, Kevin Pietersen, Virender Sehwag and Shivnarine Chanderpaul.The theory, presumably, is that if you’re aiming high, go for nothing but the highest. No Ian Bell, Hashim Amla, Ross Taylor or others of that ilk in there. Only the top performers.The problem is that Chanderpaul and Chris Gayle are the only ones among active West Indian batsmen who meet such qualifications. Clyde Butts and his fellow selectors will find impossible to scrape together an eleven, unless, of course, they simply ignore such nonsense.A few days after Peters made known the WICB’s plan, the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA) issued a lengthy, detailed document entitled ‘Selection Policy Guidelines’, covering such aspects as attitude, fitness and commitment. Under the heading ‘Performance Levels’, this is what it states: “All players seeking to represent Barbados at the regional first-class level shall maintain a First Division (club) average of 40 or higher as a batsman or a bowling average less than 15 with at least 35 wickets as a bowler.”All players seeking to represent Barbados at the regional one-day level shall maintain a batting average of between 35 and 40 or higher as a batsman or a bowling average under 20 as a bowler.”It goes further. Those in the Barbados team who don’t maintain the required averages at club level “shall appear before the director of coaching with their club coach to give reasons for their non-performance”. If, “after further monitoring”, the standard still isn’t met then the player won’t even get into trials. The text, the BCA surprisingly revealed, was prepared “in consultation with the selectors” whose initiative it would obviously compromise.All they need do in future is to pick batsmen and bowlers who meet the given statistical specifications and argue over the wicket-keeper, the only category for which none are set.All the West Indies selectors need do in future is to pick batsmen and bowlers who meet the given statistical specifications and argue over the wicket-keeper, the only category for which none are set The problem, short of bringing back Garry Sobers, Seymour Nurse, Charlie Griffith, Joel Garner and others from the generations of greatness, is where to find them.The BCA directive offers no discretion to the selectors. The players “shall maintain” the given averages, full stop. Peters’ plan is slightly more flexible – the WICB would simply “expect”.What both should expect is a mass resignation of those self-respecting selectors whose roles are rendered redundant by such edicts. They are all former players who have been chosen specifically because of their knowledge gained from years of experience in the game. They are not strictly guided in their judgement by runs and wickets but have an eye for the intangibles behind the numbers such as talent, competitiveness and mental toughness.While they get it right more often than not, they inevitably get it wrong sometimes for which they are crucified, especially in these small, scattered, insular territories. Now they would be able to hide behind the bland figures. Had the WICB and the BCA come up with the same ludicrous idea in the past some of our finest players might never have had the chance to rise to stardom.One example suffices to illustrate how absurd these new guidelines are.For the tour of India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan 34 years ago, the panel of Clyde Walcott (chairman), Joe Solomon and J.K.Holt picked a precocious young Antiguan batsman for the first time. His average after 15 first-class matches over three seasons of regional cricket was 26. He had yet to score a first-class hundred.His name was Vivian Richards.