Cricinfo staff20-Oct-2008

It was intimidating to watch. First the openers came out to bat and the heady rhythm of strokes belted out was reminiscent of a manic Keith Moon behind his drum kit. There were 130 runs at five an over in the first session and the rate was maintained later, with 214 runs eventually plundered from 42 overs. It made no difference if it was pace or spin. The leading fast bowler was taken for 72 from his 14 overs, and the spinners were carted for 54 from nine. It would have been exhilarating to watch in a one-day game. As part of a five-day spectacle, it was almost unprecedented.Who else could we talking about but Australia? For more than a decade, while other sides talked of “brave cricket” and then lost their nerve, Australia flattened opponents home and away as a matter of routine. Batsmen came out and walloped 18 runs in the opening over of a series, bowlers thudded deliveries into stumps, helmets and knuckles, and even geriatric stalwarts with avian nicknames threw themselves full-length in the Adelaide outfield to take catches that beggared belief.On Monday morning though, the other side came out swinging and Australia were left bereft of answers. Back in 2001, the juggernaut that had crushed everything in its path for 16 games came to a shuddering halt when India refused to be cowed at Eden Gardens despite the hopeless situation that they found themselves in at the end of day three. By the time the teams reached Chennai for the deciding Test, the aura had gone, and India calmly picked off 510 in response to Australia’s 391 to set up a series win.Since the Ashes were surrendered to an English side that dared to set the tone on an astonishing opening day at Edgbaston, Australia have seldom been challenged. The one time they looked most ill at ease was in Perth last January, when an Indian team seething after the perceived injustices of Sydney pulled off a stunning win at the WACA. Again, someone had wrenched the conducting baton out of Australian hands, and the big boys couldn’t play.His critics can say all that they want to about Mahendra Singh Dhoni being a lucky captain. The toss certainly played a part here, but as his powerful batting displays – such a contrast from the imposter who scratched around at the Chinnaswamy Stadium – have shown, he seems to thrive on the added responsibility. In the first innings, his 92 was the difference between a modest total and an imposing one, and on the fourth morning he decided to trust his shot-making ability after Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir had
pillaged 182.

With the famed middle order looking on, it was a move that would have attracted considerable ridicule if it backfired. Instead, Dhoni thumped 68 from 84 balls, including a six off Cameron White that came to a rest 25 yards inside the field after cannoning into the sightscreen. He made sure India didn’t overdo it either. With runs coming so easily, the batsmen must have been queuing up, but the declaration came well before tea, leaving India with 136 overs to ensure that their dominance of the game was translated into the right result.Australia’s chase was in ruins within 10.2 overs. There had been signs in the morning that they were losing the plot. There was an animated argument between Ricky Ponting and Brett Lee before lunch, presumably something to do with the fact that the leader of the pace pack wasn’t required to bowl until after everyone has finished their and butter chicken. And that simmering rage seemed to afflict the batting as well.Matthew Hayden has never been known for the backward step, but even by his standards, the belligerence shown during a 20-ball 29 was extraordinary. It was as if he wanted to hit every delivery into the cement moat that rings the venue. And it was a reflection of the kind of series that he’s having that he fell to the sweep, the stroke that fetched him hundreds of runs back in 2001.Simon Katich fell to a frankly appalling stroke, while Ricky Ponting got the kind of ball that makes batsmen wake up in a cold sweat. That, and the delivery which darted back to trap Shane Watson in front, crowned a magnificent spell from Ishant Sharma, who must surely now be considered one of the best fast bowlers in the world. India’s pace bowlers now have 18 wickets in the series, while it needed a miscue from Sourav Ganguly to gift Lee his fourth of the series. The times, they certainly are a changin’.

Andrew Flintoff’s career numbers are ultimately underwhelming, but against the best team of his era he stepped it up

S Rajesh25-Aug-2009Numbers can never do full justice to Andrew Flintoff: a Test career which fetches 3845 runs at an average of 31.77, and 226 wickets at a touch under 33 will do nicely for most players, but from a player touted as one of the best allrounders of this era, these are somewhat underwhelming. These stats support Peter Roebuck’s assertion – and Flintoff’s own statements – that his career has been more about competence and stout-hearted performances than about sustained out-and-out greatness.There were periods of his career, though, when Flintoff delivered on his promise and then some. The two-and-a-half year period between January 2004 and June 2006 saw Flintoff at his pomp with both bat and ball – his batting average almost touched 40, with three of his five centuries coming then, the bowling average slipped to below 26, with his average wickets per Test exceeding four, and he picked up four out of six Man-of-the-Match awards. He was the only player to score 1000 runs and take 50 wickets during this 30-month period.Unfortunately for him, though, this span only took him through 33 of his 79 Tests. Over the rest of his career, his numbers slipped drastically. In his first 29 matches, he picked up a mere 52 wickets – less than two per game – and needed almost 16 overs to strike, hardly the kind of stats which reflect a potent strike bowler. Similarly, in his last 17 matches, he took only 40 wickets at an average touching 40. During both these periods, his batting came down a few notches from its peak too.

It’s impossible to talk about Flintoff without bringing Ian Botham into the picture. Both were flamboyant, capable of changing the course of a game with bat and ball, and both relished the challenges of an Ashes contest more than most. Botham had the better average as batsman and bowler, scoring more than 33 runs per dismissal and conceding less than 29 per wicket. However, the difference was much starker in terms of their abilities to put in major performances: Botham had 12 centuries and an incredible 27 five-wicket hauls, compared to just five and three for Flintoff. Botham also had twice the number of Man-of-the-Match awards – 12 to six.Both enjoyed the Australian challenge – exactly half of those awards for them came against Australia. Botham’s batting average dropped a bit against them, but it was still higher than his bowling average.Most of the stats below favour Botham, but one area in which Flintoff clearly stole a march was in performances against the leading team of the era. In Botham’s case, that team was undoubtedly West Indies, and Botham undoubtedly struggled against them. In 20 Tests, he didn’t score a single century – his highest being 81 – and his 61 wickets came at a relatively high average of more than 35. He did win one match award, at Lord’s in 1984, for scores of 30 and 81 and eight wickets in the first innings, though he leaked 117 off 20.1 wicketless overs in the second innings as West Indies chased down a target of 344 losing only one wicket.On the other hand, Flintoff has done much better against the top team of his era, though he did lead the team to a rather sorry 5-0 thrashing in 2006-07.

Flintoff’s bowling average against Australia are good enough to win him fourth spot among bowlers who’ve taken at least 25 Test wickets against them since 2000. Only Dale Steyn, Harbhajan Singh and Muttiah Muralitharan have done better, while two other high-class spinners, Anil Kumble and Daniel Vettori, have both been pushed back. Flintoff, though, is the only one among the top seven not to have a ten-wicket haul against them.

Head-to-head battlesSome of his best moments came against Australia, so it’s hardly surprising that plenty of Australians figure in the list of batsmen he’s dismissed most often in Tests. His head-to-head stats (only since December 2001) indicate he had his share of victories against top-class batsmen. Matthew Hayden struggled against him in 2005, and had an overall average of 31.33 against him, falling six times in 407 deliveries. Mahela Jayawardene was the other batsman who Flintoff dismissed six times, at an even lower average.Five Australians figure in the top seven, which indicates what a force Flintoff was against them. He was especially effective against their left-handers: apart from Hayden, Justin Langer, Simon Katich and Adam Gilchrist all lost more battles against him than they won.He had some success against another high-class left-hander: Brian Lara was dismissed by him four times in 263 deliveries, and averaged a touch over 27. Stephen Fleming fared worse, scoring 75 runs while falling to him four times.Some of the other batsmen had more success against him, but none more than Michael Clarke, who didn’t fall to Flintoff even once in 375 deliveries (62.3 overs, or Flintoff bowling continuously to him without success for more than two sessions), during which period he scored 195 runs. A couple of left-handers from New Zealand and South Africa played him well too – Mark Richardson and Gary Kirsten faced 200 or more deliveries without surrendering their wicket. Inzamam-ul-Haq, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid all averaged more than 50 against him.

In the Ashes series Flintoff has generally been a huge force against left-hand batsmen, but overall in his career, he had more success against the right-handers, averaging 27.34 against them (bat runs conceded only, since December 2001). Against the left-handers he was a touch more economical, but conceded more than 36 runs per wicket.

Daryl Harper talks about Tendulkar lbw decision from 1999, the worst thing a bowler’s said to him, and whether the ICC’s Umpire of the Year award is rigged

Interview by Nagraj Gollapudi21-Oct-2009Have you ever been hit by a batsman’s shot?
The worst hit I took was in the West Indies from a Sanath Jayasuriya square cut. The umpires were standing on the off side to accommodate the television cameras as they had only popping-crease run-out cameras on one side. I had no chance to get out of the way of the fierce shot and it hit me fair and square in the middle of the chest. After the batsmen ran for the single they walked up to me and all Sanath could say was, “You cost me four runs”. I said, “You got a single out of it.” I wore that wound for the next month.We hear you are taking a Hindi course?
Yes, I have the material here. ” [don’t ask me again].” I picked that up from a television advertisement in India.What is the longest flight you have taken?
Recently it took 50 hours from Australia to Sri Lanka, but that was several flights actually, because I detoured to Boston to watch my favourite baseball team, the Red Sox. Luckily they won all their games. And I used my frequent-flyer points for half of the journey.What has been your most embarrassing moment during a cricket match?
Probably at the WACA during the 1996-97 tri-series. I was talking too much to Pakistan captain Wasim Akram. Ijaz Ahmed had just been run out. The ball was returned to me. The bowler, Patterson Thompson, went back to his bowling mark. I gave Moin Khan his guard and went to my normal position, stood there and waited for the bowler to come charging up. I was focussed, prepared to look at his feet, and all of a sudden he called, “No ball, maan.” I thought, what’s he talking about, I’m the one that judges if it is a no-ball. As I went to signal dead ball, all of a sudden I felt a rather large, spherical object in my pocket. I hadn’t given the bowler the ball back. Thankfully the commentators never realised it.Have you ever complimented a batsman or bowler on a shot or ball?
The closest I came was on the last ball of the Chennai Test in December 2008, when Sachin [Tendulkar] turned the ball down to fine leg to get his 41st Test century, which helped India beat England, a fortnight after the Mumbai terror attacks. That was one shot I will always remember.What’s the worst thing a bowler has ever said to you?
One Australian legspin bowler [Stuart MacGill] did suggest that I should be using my brain more often. I had just knocked back a couple of lbw appeals against two West Indies batsmen who weren’t offering a shot.Name one thing you do that Dickie Bird couldn’t?
I’ve done more Tests and ODIs than Dickie.Is there an umpiring record you would like to achieve?
I must admit, doing 100 Tests is something I’m interested in. Only two people have done that so far [Steve Bucknor and Rudi Koertzen], and I don’t mind being the third.Do you think the ICC’s Umpire of the Year award is rigged, considering Simon Taufel has won it five times?
Apparently I’m in the top 12. I’ll almost be disappointed if I win it because I’m not a person who always gives the predictable answers. I don’t mind asking difficult questions of people who are casting the votes. Some umpires are less critical than I am. But Taufel is an outstanding umpire, full stop.Does Taufel still enjoy looking at his hair in the mirror, as you mentioned once?
He has a little hair at the crown, and I’ve suggested to him that he do a Harsha Bhogle treatment and have a transplant. At this stage he is only thinking about it.Why don’t you get one?
Because I’m not so vain that I’m concerned about it – if you look at the crown, it is all growing there. I’ve always told my daughter and son that I have a big forehead.

“I’ll almost be disappointed if I win the Umpire of the Year award, because I’m not a person who always gives the predictable answers”

Name one decision you would like to forget.
One that I would like the world to forget is the Sachin [Tendulkar] one, when he ducked a [Glenn] McGrath bouncer, in Adelaide in 1999. I’ve got the video clip on my laptop still, and you can see it is still out! What I didn’t like was, when I left the ground, a lot of friends were expressing their disappointment. “Hey Daryl, we came to see Sachin bat, not to see you umpire.” So I said, “Sorry, I was just doing my job.” Sunil Gavaskar was the commentator and he agreed, saying it would’ve been out lbw if the stumps were six inches taller. Sachin was the captain and he didn’t mention it in his report – always fair play with Sachin, and he is still a wonderful sportsperson.Have you ever apologised to a player?
No, I’ve never apologised. I’ve made mistakes but there was nothing deliberate about any errors that I ever made. Replays find you out in these times, unlike in the old days, where umpires got away with anything.Why do you take so much time to bring that finger up?
It’s not as slow as some – not as slow as Rudi Koertzen. I did field in the slips when I played cricket and I was quite a good catcher, so I can react reasonably quickly.What’s the best compliment you have got from a player?
I do feature in the opening chapter in Adam Gilchrist’s autobiography, where he recorded a comment I made to him about the manner in which he played the game. I was standing in his final Test, and I said, “When you see your parents next, tell them they got it right, they shouldn’t have done anything different.” In other words, that he turned out to be an outstanding person. He used that in his book.On another occasion, in an ODI at home, I called a wide down leg side and Gilly protested the decision momentarily, as he thought the ball had deflected off the pads. Then he looked up at the replay and as he passed me at the end of the over, he said, “Sorry about that. I guess that’s why you are a world-class umpire and I’m a player.” Do you like guys like him, who walked?
I love the guys who walk. But I don’t blame anyone who doesn’t walk.One question the media should not be allowed to ask you?
“Do you think you should retire?” What’s your most treasured cricketing possession?
I have about a dozen autographs from Sir Don Bradman.

The spin legend is attempting to turn a lifelong hobby, poker, into a career every bit as illustrious as the one he is leaving behind on the cricket field

Andrew Miller31-Jul-2009When great sportsmen retire, they often find it hard to carve a new niche in life. Some find solace in coaching or commentary, but many drift listlessly into middle age, unable to find a suitable outlet for the competitive instincts that drove them to the peak of their professions. Not for the first time in his life, however, Shane Warne has taken it upon himself to buck convention. His 40th birthday is fast approaching at the end of the summer, but far from dwelling on past glories, he has immersed himself in a second career that promises a whole new wave of fame, fortune and razor-sharp gameplay.The world of professional poker is where Warne’s passions reside these days, and it’s hard to imagine a cricketer more likely to succeed in such a glitzy and unfamiliar world. While his punditry during Sky Sports’ Ashes coverage has been lauded for his acerbic opinions and typically keen insight, his absence from last month’s historic first Test in Cardiff was ample proof of his new priorities. Instead of fronting up at Sophia Gardens, Warne spent the week holed up in the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, competing in the World Series of Poker – the single most prestigious tournament on the circuit – and coming within a whisker of taking the event by storm.It’s a safe bet that, somewhere in a quiet corner of the England and Australia dressing rooms on a frustrating first day at Edgbaston, a deck of cards and a stack of chips were brought out of someone’s coffin, as the players whiled away the washed-out hours in traditional fashion. In his retirement speech on the eve of the Ashes, Michael Vaughan said that the England squad’s regular poker games at the back of the team bus were an aspect of his professional life that he would particularly miss, while in London last month, Warne and Darren Gough brought the two pastimes together under one banner, and led their respective countries in the inaugural Poker Ashes, a contest that finished in a familiar 4-1 Australian victory.”I see a lot of similarities between poker and cricket, and I thoroughly enjoy them both,” Warne told Cricinfo. “People associate poker with gambling, but that’s not actually the case. Tournament poker, which is what I play, is completely different to playing at home or in a re-buy tournament, and it has actually been deemed in a court of law a sport and a game of skill. It’s all about reading your opponents, it’s all about when you think they are bluffing and when they are not, it’s about table image, and position on the table, and playing the percentages. There’s a real sense of satisfaction about risking your chips and making a great call, or making a great lay-down when you’re behind, Playing your cards right gives a massive sense of satisfaction.”Poker, like cricket, has a wealth of jargon designed to baffle the uninitiated, but when you cut through Warne’s complicated turns of phrase, it’s self-evident why he is so well suited to this alternative form of cut-and-thrust. When you think of the traits that turned him into arguably the greatest match-winner of his generation, there’s more at play than merely his peerless ability to spin a cricket ball on all surfaces. There was the showmanship that he brought to his game – the strut and confidence with which he set his fields and controlled the tempo of the innings, the look of incredulity after each delivery that failed to take a wicket, the absolute confidence that he, and only he, had the power to dictate the direction of a match.

“It’s all about reading your opponents, it’s all about when you think they are bluffing and when they are not”

There was his ability to seize the slightest moment of weakness in a team (especially England, who were in thrall of him from the very first ball he bowled in Ashes cricket) or an individual (for instance, Daryl Cullinan, who was effortlessly out-psyched throughout their jousts in the mid-1990s). And there was his ability to adapt his game to suit the needs of the hour, never more memorably than at Adelaide in 2006-07, when he took his licks from Kevin Pietersen during a humiliating first-innings return of 1 for 167, only to strike with lethal speed and intent on that irresistible final day, when at last the cards fell in his favour.”There’s a huge element of skill and tactics involved in poker, and that’s one of the things I enjoyed with cricket,” said Warne. “The tactical side, the gamesmanship involved, when to push your opponent around and when not to, when to huff and puff and when not to. I’d like to be as successful on the poker table as the cricket field, but I think I’ve got a few years to go before that happens. “Days at big tournaments are pretty tough,” he added. “Before my first World Series [in 2008] I played in three or four Aussie Millions, a tournament in South Africa and a European World Series, and they are all long days in which you have to concentrate from first hand to last, and in that respect it’s just like cricket as well. You have five two-hour sessions, and every two hours you have 20 minutes off. That adds up to 12- or 13-hour days, which start at 12pm and finish at 1 o’clock in the morning.” His Test-match instincts could hardly have honed him to better effect.The basic rules of Texas hold’em poker, the world’s most popular form of the game, are simple enough to grasp. Each player is dealt two cards, upon which they make an initial judgment on whether to bet or to fold (and as a rule, picture cards or pairs are the likeliest route to success). After an opening round of betting, the first three of five community cards are dealt in the middle of the table (“the flop”), followed by “the turn” and “the river”, each punctuated with another round of betting. The aim of the game is to create (or give the impression you’ve created) the strongest five-card hand from the seven cards available, just as the aim of cricket is to score more runs than the opposition. But as with both games, the devil is in the details.”The more tournaments you play, the more you get to understand the tactics, and you don’t get intimidated when the big heavies are at play,” said Warne. “One of my tables [at the WSOP] was described as the table of death. I started on 19,000 chips with six really aggressive pros at the table, but I managed to get down at 100,000 and then walked away at the end of the day in 24th position overall, and more than 173,000 in chips. You don’t just do that by luck. There’s a lot of strategy at play.”Dealing with aggression, particularly of the batting variety, is something Warne proved long ago he was a past master at. While fast bowlers have their own aggressive tendencies to throw back at belligerent opponents, Warne could only rely on his innate skill and deeply considered strategies to stay in command of the situation. Given that he has been a card-player for as long as he can remember (he and his brother Jason used to play for matchsticks while their parents hosted Friday-night card games) you sometimes wonder in which direction his skills have travelled.You’ve gotta schmooze: Warne with Matt Damon at the World Series of Poker•888.comBut even Warne was not an instant success at Test level. On debut against India in January 1992, he was clattered around the SCG for figures of 1 for 150, and it wasn’t until the tour of Sri Lanka eight months later that he came up with the performance that confirmed he could mix it with the big boys. His final-day figures of 3 for 11 inched Australia to a remarkable 16-run victory, and from that moment on there was no stopping the momentum of his career.”I had to try and hide my nerves in my first Test, and in poker the same thing applies,” he said. “When I played my first Aussie Millions tournament in 2004-05, sure, I was nervous, but I pulled off a bluff on the flop, and won my first pot, and once I’d got over that, I started to feel okay. After that, you can start to understand the tables a bit more, and establish your own table image, and then you can begin to work out who the pros are, and who the weak players on the table are. Hopefully the weak players steal the good players’ chips, and then you steal the weak players’ chips! But it takes a while to work all that out.”And when it comes to stealing weak players’ chips, that is where the bluff comes into its own. “A bluff is all about telling a story,” said Warne. “You have pick the right opponent, and set it up right from the word go, pre-flop. It’s about representing strength. You have to fire again on the flop, and fire again on the turn, and expect some action on the river, and actually have the strength to do that. It takes a fair amount of skill to actually back your bluff up, or if you’re halfway through a bluff and you realise you haven’t got the best hand after all, you have to have the skill to know that too, and lay it down.”Once again, the parallels with Warne’s Test career are self-evident. Take, for instance, the occasions (usually before an Ashes series) when he would announce to the world that he had developed a new and mysterious delivery, such as the zooter, which nobody to this day is sure ever actually existed. “I vary my play depending on what table I’m at,” he said. “If I’m at a super-aggressive table, I just play tight, and try to pick my mark, and wait for someone to try to take me off a hand that I’ve actually hit. But if I’m at a tight table, I play aggressive, because I’m a pretty aggressive player full stop, which probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise!”All the same, there’s a subtle difference between aggression and blind recklessness, and as far as Warne is concerned, the greatest pride he takes from his play comes on the occasions he actually has to admit defeat – which he never knowingly conceded on the cricket field. “It’s really tough to do, but it gives you great satisfaction when you make a great lay-down,” he said. “Sometimes you don’t find out whether you were beat, but usually, about five seconds after a hand has finished, you generally get an instinct or a gut feel that it wasn’t on, just by your opponent’s reaction. He’ll look down at his chips or he’ll swallow, all those little tells that say you got away with one, and actually made a great decision.”Sometimes, however, even the best calls don’t work out in your favour – as Warne, to his chagrin, discovered in Las Vegas this month. The manner in which he was eliminated on the third day of the World Series still brings him out in a grimace, but typical of his sporting career, he refuses to take a backward step. Here, in his own words, is his tale of World Series woe:

“Hopefully the weak players steal the good players’ chips, and then you steal the weak players’ chips!”

“About an hour into the day’s play, a guy in middle position raised four times the blind, I called on the button with J10 hearts. The flop came 7, Q, K hearts. I think I’m good. He checks, I bet the pot, he calls, the turn card comes a spade. He bets the pot, and has about 70,000 left in his chip stack. I put him all in. He calls and turns over a set, he’s got three kings. I’m good, I’m miles ahead, but then he beats the bullet with a queen on the river, and that crippled my stack.”In layman’s terms, Warne was brutally unlucky. After the first four cards of the crucial hand had been dealt, he was sitting pretty with a king-high flush, which meant, at that stage, the only hand that could have beaten him was one involving two further hearts, one of which had to be an ace. When the two players laid their cards out on the table for “the race”, the only way his opponent could escape was if the river produced the last remaining K, to complete four-of-a-kind, or paired up with one of the other cards on the table, for a full house. The odds were therefore roughly 4 to 1 in Warne’s favour, and had he won the pot of 300,000 chips, he would have been propelled up to fifth in the chip count, from an initial field of nearly 6500 competitors.”People say poker is all about luck, but it’s not about good luck, it’s about not getting unlucky,” he said. “Four out of the five times I risked all my chips at the World Series, I actually had the best hand. The fifth and final time came right at the end of my tournament, after I had waited an hour with my last 20,000 chips. I went all-in with a pair of eights, and when the flop came 4 2 6 rainbow [a variety of different suits] I was looking pretty good. But I ran into a pair of aces, and that summed my day up. I copped some pretty ordinary beats.”There’s no question, however, that Warne will be back for another crack next year. With the best players in the world, a buy-in of $10,000, and an outlay of US$70 million in sponsorship and TV rights, the World Series of Poker is a massive event, and as prestigious in its own way as any cricket contest he’s ever played in. “The winner of the WSOP gets more than $10 million, and I can’t think of any individual sporting prize in the world that pays out that amount,” said Warne. “You might get a million dollars for winning Wimbledon, or three or four million for a golf tournament, but $10 million is massive.”So too is his desire to turn a lifelong hobby into a career every bit as illustrious as the one he is leaving behind on the cricket field. In only one aspect does his outlook to poker seem to differ, however. “I just stick to my game, and don’t worry much about the verbals,” he said. “If a conversation comes up I might get involved, but usually I just stick my headphones on, and that’s it.” If, one day, we spot Warne goading Phil Ivey to “have a go, go on, you know you want to,” in the manner in which he destroyed Mark Ramprakash at Trent Bridge in 2001, then maybe we’ll know for sure that he really has arrived as a poker star.888.com is offering cricket lovers the opportunity of a lifetime – a net session with Shane Warne. The king of spin will visit one lucky cricket club and put the players through their paces as he shows off the skills that earned him 708 Test wickets. Warne is looking for a group of cricketers who share his passion for poker. For full information on how to enter, please email [email protected]

Cricinfo presents the Plays of the day of the semi-final between Chennai Super Kings v Deccan Chargers in Mumbai

Cricinfo staff22-Apr-2010Third time unlucky: Compared to last year and his orange-cap heroics, Matthew Hayden has had a poor IPL. The old fluency was missing again on Thursday night, but the Deccan Chargers seemed determined to keep him out there, with RP Singh at cover and and Bodipati Sumanth at gully dropping straightforward catches. There was to be no third life though, with Andrew Symonds showing much safer hands at cover.Neutral crowd, neutered atmosphere: Semi-finals at “neutral” venues don’t work, not when fans of both sides have to trek more than a 1000 kilometres to make it. This wonderful and huge stadium which was packed for the Mumbai Indians game was half empty for this one. The fans that were there made themselves heard, but row upon row of vacant seats told their own story.Big-wicket taker: The slower legbreak that Harmeet Singh bowls isn’t even particularly well disguised, but it’s done the trick for Deccan on a few occasions. It got rid of Robin Uthappa in a game that Deccan had to win to make the semis, and it accounted for MS Dhoni here, with a wide one being cut to gully. He may not take many wickets, but when he does, they usually count.A straight red: When Symonds paddle-swept Shadab Jakati to fine leg, both Albie Morkel and R Ashwin chased it down. As the ball sped to the rope, they both slid in, efforts that would have invited a straight red card had they been on a football pitch. They took each other out, and the ball went for four.

What’s better than watching India beat Australia? Wearing technicolour frightwigs while watching them beat Australia

Yash Jha01-Nov-2009Want to do a Fan Following report for the remaining games in the series? Details here.You want effortless? You got it•AFPIndia v Australia is reason enough for an Indian cricket follower. The added bonus of the game was, it was the first international day-nighter in Delhi. I went with a group of school friends, and was seated in the ONGC Hill Wing A, right next to the ITC End stands.Favourite player from the two sides
In the absence of Rahul Dravid, Yuvraj Singh was the man I had my money, and hopes, on. Even if today’s knock was somewhat subdued by his usual standards, he made sure that all of us admirers left the Kotla satisfied.Key performer
The man himself, Yuvraj Singh. He came in with the game on tenterhooks, and with the Aussies looking to run away with the momentum after Mitchell Johnson’s sensational run-out of Sachin Tendulkar. The nerves were beginning to fray among the crowd, and the fear of another one of those famed Indian collapses was very much in the air. But Yuvraj, along with MS Dhoni, managed to smooth things over with his amazingly responsible knock that won him not only the Man of the Match, but also the hearts of many a Delhiite. His tight spell, which fetched the breakthrough wicket of Shane Watson, was also crucial.Face-off I relished
Yuvraj v the Australian attack. The Australians, for the first half of Yuvraj’s innings, looked as though they had found a way of keeping him quiet, and Yuvi was struggling a fair bit. But the way he clobbered the attack towards the end had the Aussies dumbstruck. So sorry, Ricky. Better luck against the West Indians when you go back home.One thing I would have changed about the game
The pitch, maybe. The Australian batsmen, definitely! Apart from Michael Hussey, none of them looked like they were playing a limited-overs game. For a large part of their innings, we in the crowd thought it was to do with the pitch, but the ease with which Yuvraj and Dhoni batted towards the end of the game made it quite clear that there weren’t too many demons in it.Shot of the day
The six Michael Hussey hit off Ashish Nehra. It takes a herculean effort to smash an Indian bowler into the stands on his home ground and get applauded by the audience. And herculean that effort sure was. Take a bow, Mr Cricket.Wow moment
Our man Yuvraj’s stunning six off Moises Henriques. It was timing at its very best – an almost gentle flick that sent the ball flying over the boundary boards. The pressure was beginning to mount on India’s run-chase, with about 100 runs to get off the last 17 overs, and that shot made us go “wow”.Crowd meter
It was incredible to see the Feroz Shah Kotla jam-packed for perhaps the first time since it was revamped. And there’s no guessing who the 40,000-odd supporters were rooting for. The Oz Army, if there were any of them around, seemed to be on silent mode. We wouldn’t have let them say too much anyway!Accessories
We went fully loaded, with full-sized Indian flags, horns, wigs et al. The wigs were part of our strategy to blind the Australians. As it turned out, we didn’t need to, but nonetheless the orange, green, blue and red spikes, standing approximately a foot tall, endeared us to all those who had the privilege of being in the same stand as ours.Crowd favourites
We screamed and shouted insanely for every Indian player. Sachin, Yuvraj and Dhoni were acknowledged with the loudest cheers. But the clear-cut winners in this category, sorry to say Team India, were the Foster’s girls. And boy, were they worth screaming for!Fancy-dress index
I think it’s fair to say that my friends and I, with our “blink-and-you’ll-not-miss-it, blink twice-and-you’ll-not-miss-it, go anywhere-but-you’ll-still-not-miss it” hairdos managed to occupy the gaze of those around us for a considerable amount of time during the Aussie innings. That guy with Sachin and the Indian flag painted all over him was there too, as he is at all of India’s matches. They say Sachin arranges for his passes. We hope you saw us too, Little Master.Marks Out Of 10
8, I guess. The skeptics might say it was a bit of a boring encounter, but for a true-blooded Indian supporter, nothing beats the thrill of watching the Australians get beaten first-hand. But yes, it wouldn’t have hurt to have a better pitch.Want to do a Fan Following report for the remaining games in the series? Details here.

Paul Collingwood was always supposed to be the player nearest the exit, but he became England’s only World Cup-winning captain and has won the Ashes twice

Interview by George Dobell13-Nov-2010 I recall watching your ODI debut here, at Edgbaston, in 2001. To be honest, I didn’t think you were going to make it.

I don’t blame you. Nor did I. I had come into the England side on the back of one decent year in county cricket. Duncan Fletcher went on gut feeling more than statistics. When I hit international cricket, I struggled. I felt out of my depth. I came up against a couple of strong sides in Pakistan and Australia and I was shell-shocked by the experience. It was horrible. I’d wanted to play international cricket all my life and all of a sudden I realised I was nowhere near good enough.It wasn’t a moment of doubt. It went on for a good few weeks. I was left thinking, “I’m never going to be good enough to play international cricket.” It was a hard thing to take because, from a very young age, I’d always thought: “Right, I’ll
play for England and score lots of runs.” I never thought I wouldn’t be good enough. It really hit me hard.But there are always hurdles. When you make the jump from club to county cricket, you have to jump a hurdle and it’s the same when you move up to international level. It’s a belief thing more than anything. It wasn’t until I played against Zimbabwe [in October 2001] and scored a few runs that I thought I could compete at this level. In retrospect, I was very lucky to have the opportunity to play against Zimbabwe so soon. I gained a lot of confidence from a couple of good innings over there. I had proved to myself I could do this, and everything grew from there.There have been other times in my career when things could have gone either way. There was another game [Edgbaston], against South Africa when I knew it was my last innings. Nobody told me, but I knew. Everybody knew. In a way, that helped. You get so low mentally, so down on yourself. You work harder and harder in the nets. And then I realised that there was only one way to go: that I had to cast off the shackles. I had to go out there and do it my own way. I’ve always
thought that if I had one choice of the way to go, it would be to go down fighting. I guess that’s the way I’d like to be remembered.You seem to be at your best in “backs against the wall” situations…

I think I can adapt. I’d prefer not to be in those situations. It’s just a skill like any other: weighing up the match situation and
adapting your game to suit it. If you play all three forms of the game, you have to be able to adapt. And I feel I can do that mentally. To be honest, I feel I’m getting much better at taking the attack to the opposition. I much prefer that to just blocking it to death, but it’s all about what the team requires.I was fortunate to be picked in the first place. I’d been playing county cricket for five years, but I’d only had one good season. But Duncan Fletcher had seen something he liked. That’s the way he was: he judged people more on how they got through tough situations than whether they could blaze it about when things were easy. He went for guys who showed they had some balls. Trescothick was another one who was selected like that. Michael Vaughan too.

“I was trying to put a bit of pressure on Justin Langer by saying that Phil Jaques was after his spot in the side. But Langer just said, ‘Listen mate, I’m retiring after this series and it doesn’t matter what Phil Jaques does.’ They were playing with no pressure on them”Collingwood recalls the 2006-07 Ashes whitewash

When you made your debut, England were a poor side in both formats. Your career has coincided with a period of sharp improvement.

Yeah, I’ve been through it all. I keep telling the lads: we’ve the best squad together now that I’ve seen in my 10 years in the game. There’s been times when we’ve had some absolutely world-class individuals within the team, who, when they clicked, could win us big series, like the 2005 Ashes. But as a team we’re better now. We’re more consistent and we’re closer knit. I honestly believe that. We’ve got a lot of strong characters in the team, but we’ve a lot of skill too.I remember in my early days Duncan Fletcher used to tell us, “Just bat though the 50 overs in a one-day international,: because we kept getting bowled out in 40 overs. So our aim was just to bat 50 overs! England have never really done very well in one-day cricket. We’d reached a couple of finals but we’d never won anything. It got to the point, last year, when the two Andys said, “Look, we’ve got to do things differently. If we continue to do the same old things, we’ll continue to get the same old results.”They were very good. They really grabbed hold of things and they changed our mentality a bit. It wasn’t just about being
more aggressive. The training changed. There was more emphasis on pressure in training and in the nets and it made it much
easier when we got out in the middle. They looked at what the world’s best teams were doing and learned from them.Duncan Fletcher infamously said he’d seen you bowling at 85 mph. What was the fastest you’ve been timed?

83.5mph. It was in the 2005 Ashes and [Justin] Langer nicked off, but it was too quick for Tresco at slip. But Duncan never said that I bowled at 85 mph. It was just a misunderstanding. Look, I realised quite early on that, particularly on subcontinent pitches, my 70-mph seamers were treated like throw-downs by good batsmen. I had to learn some new tricks, so I’ve worked hard on bowling cutters.When did you start to feel established in the Test side?

Probably in 2006 and 2007. Scoring that double-hundred in Adelaide made me feel pretty comfortable at that level. And then, after the Ashes, I scored a couple of centuries and won the Man of the Series award when we won the CB Series. After the depths of the Ashes, it was great to win that, and even though it wasn’t Test cricket, it really helped me feel comfortable at that level.Michael Vaughan referred to the last Ashes tour to Australia as akin to a booze cruise. Was it really that shambolic?

Nah, you can read too much into those comments. I know people look for reasons why we lost 5-0. People come up with excuses. They say we were boozing or whatever, but I disagree with all that. We were beaten by the better side. They had a lot of motivation to win back the Ashes after 2005 and they were probably the best side ever to have played the game. Langer, Gilchrist, Hayden, Ponting, Warne, McGrath… they’re all great players.”I was fortunate to be picked in the first place. I’d been playing county cricket for five years, but I’d only had one good season. But Duncan Fletcher had seen something he liked”•Getty ImagesI remember a conversation I had with Justin Langer at Brisbane. I was trying to put a bit of pressure on him by saying that Phil Jaques was after his spot in the side. But Langer just said, “Listen, mate, I’m retiring after this series and it doesn’t matter what Phil Jaques does.” They were playing with no pressure on them. They knew it was their last time playing together. They were very good, very motivated, and playing without pressure or fear. That’s why they won.Obviously I’m very proud of having scored a double-century at Adelaide, but it’s not the highlight of my career. The result
just leaves a sour taste. Hopefully I can put that right this time.The last time we went out there, we had a few grey areas in certain positions. There were some injuries. This time around we’ve been playing really solid cricket for 18 months. We’ve been growing all the time and we’ve been getting better. We’re ready for the challenge. The guys are fit and mentally everyone should be pretty refreshed. We’re in the best situation we
possibly could be in. Well, as good as we can be bearing in mind the amount of cricket we play. It’s a long, long winter. We’ve two days at home between the Ashes tour and the World Cup. Then it’s off to the IPL.What should people read into the fact that you quit the captaincy under Peter Moores and took it back under Andy Flower?

I quit for selfish reasons. I quit because I was going to lose my place in the side. As a kid, I grew up wanting to play cricket for England and that was being taken away from me by the effect the captaincy was having on my batting. I never felt I could recharge my batteries. You’re thinking about it all the time – selection, the players coming through, tactics – and mentally I found it exhausting.Andy Flower was a major influence on me taking it on again. He persuaded me. I was quite reluctant. I’m still not performing as well as I want to in Twenty20, but it’s not affecting me in the other formats. When I was ODI captain, it was affecting everything: my Test form, one-day form, Twenty20 form, everything. But this time I knew it was only a three- or four-week period. It wasn’t going to affect me so much. So Andy [Flower] persuaded me I was the right person for the job and I
was happy to go along with that.The two Andys have put a lot of strong values into the team. There’s a strong team ethos now. Andrew Strauss drives home
those values during the majority of the few weeks, and the lads know what is expected of them. I’m not trying to do things in a different way. I just continue what Andrew [Strauss] does the rest of the time. I have an input on selection and tactics and I have ideas about how to build confidence in Twenty20, which is a crucial thing, but it’s not the all-encompassing role
that it was before. It doesn’t take nearly as much out of me mentally.Are you worried about Kevin Pietersen’s form?

Not really, no. We all know he has the talent. He just needs to get that belief back. He just needs to score a big hundred in an
important situation and he’ll be okay. He’s given himself the opportunity by going to play for Surrey and Natal, and he always puts his best performances in on the biggest occasions. We all believe in Kevin. We’re all confident he’ll come good.

“. I’ve always thought that if I had one choice of the way to go, it would be to go down fighting. I guess that’s the way I’d like to be remembered.”

There’s a bit of competition for places in the Test team now.

That’s always been the case. I’m 34 now, so it’s getting harder and harder to keep these youngsters out of the team. It’s something I thrive upon. I always want to be the best at what I do and I’m going to keep working hard. I’m very confident I can keep doing well. You may find it amazing, as I haven’t scored many runs in my last seven innings, but I’ve just had the best year of my international career. It shows I’m improving all the time, and I think I can get better and better.If England were to retain the Ashes and then win the World Cup, would it be a suitable time to think about retirement?

That’s way premature. I’m enjoying it more than I ever have, so why would I give up something I absolutely love? If I knew I was keeping young players out of the side who were better than me, then I’d have a good look at it. But at the moment I feel I’m getting better and better and I feel I deserve a place in the side. My mentality might change if we won the Ashes and the World Cup. I might think, “What else is there to do?” But that would be a massive achievement and I’m not counting any chickens.Is it important for you to win the respect of your opponents?

It’s not something I think about. International cricket isn’t a popularity contest. I only think about contributing to the England team. I know people have said I was having a sledging contest with Warnie, but it was just two players who wanted to do well for their countries. We were both desperate to win. We get on fine now. But if certain players in other teams dislike me, so be it.What were you doing the last time England won an Ashes series in Australia?

It was before I was that interested in professional cricket, to be honest. I loved my cricket but Durham weren’t a first-class
county and my main hero was my brother, who is four years older than me. I just wanted to be better than him at everything.

Stats highlights from the second Ashes Test in Adelaide

S Rajesh07-Dec-2010Marcus North fell to Graeme Swann for the fifth time as Australia went down by an innings to England at home for the first time since 1986•Associated Press Only five times in their entire Ashes history have England achieved a more comprehensive innings victory in Australia. The last time they won by an innings in Australia was in the Boxing Day Test in 1986, when a first-innings total of 349 was enough to secure victory by an innings and 14 runs. For Australia, it was their fourth innings defeat since 1990, and their third in a live series. And the last time they lost by an innings at the Adelaide Oval was – hold your breath – 118 years ago, when England beat them by an innings and 230 runs. This is only their second innings defeat ever at this ground. The gulf between the two teams can be seen in their series batting averages so far: England’s overall average is 87.31 runs per wicket; Australia’s is 36.67. Four England batsmen – Alastair Cook, Ian Bell, Kevin Pietersen, and Jonathan Trott – have 100-plus averages, while only Michael Hussey has managed it so far for Australia. Graeme Swann was England’s best bowler in the match, and he continued his domination of Marcus North and Simon Katich. North was dismissed by him for the fifth time, and Katich for the fourth. Both have struggled to counter Swann – North averages 26 against him and Katich 18.75. With Katich ruled out and North likely to be dropped, Swann might have to miss out on bowling to his two favourite batsmen. Of the five batsmen Swann has dismissed most often, four are left-handers. Swann’s overall average against left-handers is 21.86; against the righties he averages 33.78. With Phillip Hughes or Usman Khawaja likely to replace Katich, Swann will still have enough left-handers to bowl at. Swann’s second-innings figures of 5 for 91 are the best by an England spinner in Adelaide since Derek Underwood’s 7 for 113 in 1975. In fact, those are the only two instances of England spinners taking five-fors at this ground since 1930. One of the few silver linings for Australia was the form of Michael Hussey and Shane Watson. Both scored fifties in each innings – the fourth time they’ve made 50-plus scores in each innings of a Test – but none of those knock were converted into hundreds. In fact, that’s been another big difference between the two teams: Australia have scored only two hundreds and eight fifties in the series so far, while England have five centuries – two of them being double-hundreds – and four fifties. Clearly, when the batsmen have got their eye in, Australia’s bowlers have struggled for penetration.For more stats nuggets from the Test, read Andy Zaltzman’s Confectionery Stall

ESPNcricinfo presents the Plays of the Day from the fifth ODI between South Africa and India, in Centurion

Sidharth Monga at SuperSport Park23-Jan-2011The casual difficult catch
Yuvraj Singh’s USP has been making big hitting look easy, but every now and then he brings that quality to the field too. Morne van Wyk saw that happen when he hit a drive pretty hard to the left of the bowler, Yuvraj himself. Casually, Yuvraj stuck his left hand out, casually he caught it, and casually he walked towards his team-mates.The rain effect
Something seemed to have happened during the rain break at the end of the 42nd over of South Africa’s innings that affected judgement all around. First of all, the match officials chose not to take lunch during that interruption, which lasted close to an hour, and instead took another half-hour break between innings. Had it rained later in the day, washing out the match, the wastage of time wouldn’t have looked good.Then, South Africa played some crazy shots after coming back, and ran mindlessly between the wickets, losing six wickets for 19. Neither of the blunders cost much: The minimum 20 overs of play in India’s innings were completed, making it a match; and South Africa’s bowlers were good enough to defend their score.The run-outs
Tailenders can have brain freezes at times, but two of them having one in the space of three deliveries is a bit much. It was Dale Steyn first, in the 46th over, who missed an attempted big hit and set off for a single to try to get Hashim Amla on strike. MS Dhoni collected the ball, thought of throwing down the stumps, then saw Steyn didn’t seem interested in coming back, and decided to run towards the stumps. Steyn then showed some desperation to get back in, and Dhoni flicked underarm to run him out. Two balls later, Morne Morkel did the same, and was run out in similar fashion.The catch … or was it?
Parthiv Patel looked the most comfortable Indian batsman in the middle, but when he went for a cover drive off Morkel, Faf du Plessis cut his innings short. It was a low catch and he also had to go appreciably to his left. He did that with the reverse cup, and thus had to twist his hands considerably to make sure they remained under the ball. They did so when the ball arrived, but on impact it threatened to pop out, and he somehow got two fingers under the ball. However, the replays suggested the ball might have touched the ground. Full marks on the effort, but you couldn’t have been sure about that one.The reversal
When Yusuf Pathan reverse-swept Robin Peterson powerfully over point, Simon Taufel signalled four runs, and was ready for the next ball. Morne van Wyk, the fielder at sweeper-cover, however, made sure he signalled to the umpire that it was indeed a six. Replays were called in, and the right decision was made.

ESPNcricinfo looks back at some famous defeats South Africa have slumped to in global tournaments

Liam Brickhill and Siddhartha Talya25-Mar-2011South Africa’s remarkable defeat in the Mirpur quarter-final was their fourth loss in six World Cup games against New Zealand and the fifth time they have crashed out of the tournament during a knockout stage. ESPNcricinfo looks back at some other famous defeats South Africa have slumped to in global tournaments.1996 World Cup quarter-final v West Indies
South Africa stormed into this game as clear favourites, having won all of their group games in the midst of a 10-match winning streak that stretched back to their home series against England earlier that year. West Indies, on the other hand, had just slumped to a humiliating loss to Kenya’s amateurs in Pune, and were a team in seemingly terminal decline. The pitch was expected to take turn – and it did – but South Africa made what was, in hindsight, a fatal error in omitting Allan Donald and instead playing an extra spinner in Paul Adams. Brian Lara feasted on both Adams and offspinner Pat Symcox, carrying West Indies to 264 with a blistering hundred. South Africa may have fancied Roger Harper’s and Jimmy Adams’ offerings after watching their own spinners get tonked in such emphatic fashion, but they combined to take seven wickets, Harper nipping out three in one over, as South Africa collapsed from 140 for 2 to lose by 19 runs and set a trend that continues, inexplicably, to this day.1999 World Cup semi-final v Australia
On a midsummer’s day at Edgbaston that will live in infamy – for South Africans, at least – South Africa and Australia slugged out a game of remarkable twists and about-turns, culminating in one of the most memorable finales in limited-overs history. Chasing Australia’s 213, South Africa were scuppered by the single-minded intensity of Shane Warne, who took four wickets, before being brought back from the brink of oblivion by a death-or-glory innings from Lance Klusener. When he bludgeoned consecutive off-side boundaries to take the scores level with four balls remaining, the game was South Africa’s to lose … and, incredibly, they did just that. Klusener ran, Donald didn’t, and an ecstatic Australia took South Africa’s place in the final. The tie meant that South Africa, for the third World Cup in a row, failed to reach the final despite looking like the team of the tournament in the early stages.2002 Champions Trophy v India
Perhaps the most remarkable of all of South Africa’s crumbles in major matches. South Africa had won the inaugural version of the Champions Trophy in 1998 – their only ICC title success to date – and were coasting towards a place in the final of the 2002 edition. Having limited India to 261 for 9 in Colombo, South Africa were cruising at 192 for 1 in the 37th over, the result seemed a foregone conclusion. The easy task ahead may have prompted Gibbs to retire hurt after suffering from cramps, convinced as he may have been that the others would take his team home. But they were to let him down, and with 21 required off the final over, Sehwag survived a first-ball slog-swept six from Kallis to grab two wickets and leave the South Africans with that familiar feeling.2003 World Cup v Sri Lanka
The build-up to the 2003 World Cup in South Africa had been massive. Nelson Mandela had featured in the promos, Cape Town hosted a sparkling opening ceremony and this was the country’s biggest sporting spectacle since the Rugby World Cup in 1995. It was to end in utter despair. The much-vaunted national team slipped up to lose against West Indies and New Zealand in the preliminary stage and their fortunes hinged on a do-or-die game against Sri Lanka in Durban.That fatal run•PA PhotosSet a target of 269. Gibbs put them on track with an attacking 77, and even when captain Shaun Pollock was dismissed in the 43rd over to reduce them to 212 for 6 with bad weather swiftly closing in South Africa would have believed they could win. Klusener walked in but made just one in eight balls and as the weather deteriorated, a message was sent to the pair from the dressing room that the score needed to win, according to the Duckworth-Lewis method, had to be 229 at the end of the 45th over with four wickets to spare. What seemed like the decisive blow came off the penultimate ball of that over as Boucher danced out to Muttiah Muralitharan, smashed him over long-on for a flat six, and punched the air in the heavy rain, convinced that South Africa had it covered. The next ball, he gently nudged to midwicket and the umpires called for the covers. Elation was to turn to disbelief in a matter of a few seconds once the realisation dawned upon South Africa that the instructions were wrong. The score of 229 was meant for a tie, not a win. Andrew Hudson, on TV commentary, summed up the feeling. “42 million South Africans are going to bed tonight hoping it was a bad dream”.2007 World Cup semi-final v Australia
Yet again South Africa reached a World Cup knockout, another semi-final, but this time they succumbed to nerves at the gravity of the occasion at the very start of the match rather than during a crunch finale. South Africa’s stage fright took shape in a batting display that fell to pieces in wild swipes and mindless adventure. Australia showed they had well and truly won the pre-match mental battle, and the visibly skittish South Africans were demolished by Glenn McGrath and Shaun Tait before Michael Clarke’s unbeaten half-century finished the job to hand South Africa their fourth knockout defeat.2011 World Cup v England
A game of slightly lesser importance but thrilling nevertheless, largely due to another of South Africa’s incredible capitulations. The pitch at the MA Chidambaram Stadium may have been tricky but not one deserving of a score of 171, which is what England managed. Hashim Amla and Graeme Smith, in their 64-run opening stand, showed exactly that. The rest of the team, however, was adamant on proving otherwise. Carefully built-up starts were squandered and when, from the seemingly impregnable position of 124 for 3, four wickets fell for three runs in five overs the tide turned. There was still a glimmer of hope for South Africa, Dale Steyn’s spirited batting bringing them to within 12 runs of victory with Morne van Wyk. But panic prevailed over determination as van Wyk was snared by Tim Bresnan, and Stuart Broad, in a superb spell, removed Steyn and Morne Morkel in four deliveries to inflict upon South Africa their only defeat, one that kept England’s hopes alive, ahead of the quarter-finals.