Tillakaratne Dilshan scored his first Test century in a year, negotiating testing spells of bowling and providing Sri Lanka with a positive start

Kanishkaa Balachandran in Galle22-Jun-2012When Tillakaratne Dilshan reached his century in the second ODI in Pallekele, his celebration seemed like a release of pent-up frustration that had accumulated for months. He had battled for close to 50 overs, some of them with cramps, to carve out a match-winning century after five ordinary scores. His celebration after his century in Galle today was relatively subdued. After sweeping Abdur Rehman to the boundary, there was no war cry or leap, just a simple acknowledgement to his team-mates and the average weekday crowd. Dilshan’s modest celebration hid the fact it was his first Test century at home in three years and also the first since he quit the captaincy.Midway through the one-day series, Dilshan had spoken of how his decision to resign as captain was taken based on his batting form. The fluency of his run making had become sporadic, so he had to take some tough decisions, which meant giving up the leadership to allow him to focus on scoring freely, which is his strength.Dilshan’s century came after a year – his last was his personal best of 193, at Lord’s. Since then, he scored three fifties, including 92 against Pakistan last year in Sharjah. Mahela Jayawardene said on the eve of this Test that the opening combination didn’t look as settled as the middle order. While Dilshan occupied one slot, his partners like Tharanga Paranavitana and Lahiru Thirimanne have rotated. What the team needed was consistent scores from at least one of them. Dilshan did exactly what his captain had asked for.His innings in Galle gave Sri Lanka an advantage that they kept through the day. Dilshan wasn’t flawless, though. He couldn’t resist the urge to slash at deliveries wide outside the off stump. Junaid Khan beat the bat a few times, and almost induced a leading edge with a delivery that bounced a bit more than Dilshan would have liked. In the half hour before lunch, he also survived a few lbw appeals against the spinners. He had release when Junaid came on for a second spell and pitched short on a slow wicket, allowing the freedom to pull.The turn and bounce in the opening session could have unsettled Sri Lanka after Paranavitana’s dismissal, but Dilshan’s aggressive style ensured it did not. He raced to 50 off 49 balls. His approach forced the Pakistan captain Mohammad Hafeez to change his fields. Saeed Ajmal, who had settled into a round-the-wicket line, had a rather defensive set up, with three fielders deep on the leg-side. Abdul Rehman had a long-off and a short cover against Dilshan.Dilshan was more conservative after lunch, setting himself up for a long innings. He gave credit to the bowlers for that. “After lunch, they bowled to their fields, bowling good line and lengths,” he said. “That’s why I slowed down a bit.”However, Dilshan did not let the pressure of tight lines and close fielders get to him. It helped that he had Kumar Sangakkara, who ended the day unbeaten on 111, for company. The fields for Rehman were unorthodox, because he had a silly mid-off, a long-off and two slips. Dilshan found a way to get past that security cordon, with powerful drives through extra cover.Ajmal changed ends and returned for a new spell, bowling with the sea breeze. He had a slip, short leg and leg gully in place, and bowled a leg stump line. It didn’t work, though, as Dilshan swept past leg gully and sped towards his hundred. It was an innings of three parts – he began aggressively, settled down to respect the bowling and then accelerated as his landmark neared. His last five scoring shots to reach his 13th Test century were boundaries.The end of day score – 300 for 2 – might suggest Sri Lanka were batting on a featherbed pitch, but Dilshan disagreed. “We expected the pitch to start turning from the second day but it started taking turn from the first session itself,” he said. “It was not the easiest wicket to bat on. I thought myself, Mahela and Sanga handled the pressure and bowling unit well.”Dilshan did not carry on after reaching his century, but his approach put Sri Lanka on course for 500.

As more and more money flows into the game, managing players has taken on more importance than ever before

Firdose Moonda07-Jul-2012In the film of the same name, Jerry Maguire described them as “poets of emptiness”. Player agents spend their time constructing couplets of commercialism, scripting sonnets with sponsors and writing rhymes for riches – some of them perhaps for themselves. As sport becomes a product rather than a game and the players turn into commodities instead of people, business has overtaken the basic principles of a pastime that has turned into a profession.In the film, Maguire believed he had figured out how to stop money from gobbling up the game. In a manifesto called “The Things We Think and Do Not Say” he wrote about “less dancing, more truth”, “fewer clients, more personalised”, and concluded with an emphatic “the secret to this job is personal relationships”. Cricket’s better player agents seem to be on the same page. Most agree trust is the one thing they cannot do their job without.The other point of concurrence is to do with the growing amounts of money in the game. Although cricket does not yet have the same levels of cash as some other sports, particularly football, player management has become crucial in the game.Having first come into the game in the UK as middlemen between counties and overseas players, agents now do everything from overseeing players’ national contract negotiations to helping them buy houses. For their troubles they are entitled to between 7.5% and 20% of the value of the agreements they negotiate, depending on the country they operate in: England and Australia have higher percentages for agents. Usually commercial endorsement contracts (as opposed to national board ones) carry the highest rate for an agent. Other services, from financial assistance to life coaching, are performed for set fees.Arthur Turner, a former Western Province chief executive, who is a director of One World of Sport, a management company that has Vernon Philander, Alviro Petersen and others on its rolls, explains that his agency’s key areas of focus are contract negotiation, career planning, sponsorships and endorsements, lifestyle and financial services, and investments. “There are many opportunities in cricket now and there are also many people looking to take those opportunities,” Turner says. “So you have to have someone to help you manage them.”Turner looks at cricket through a long-term lens, from an administrator’s perspective. His agency identifies players in the amateur competitions and signs them up, taking a gamble on how far their careers will progress. “Not everyone is going to succeed but we sign up guys that we think will be able to become good franchise players,” he says. The arrangements usually start off as two-year deals but extend far beyond because most players are signed young. “We act as their support system. It’s good to see their progression and help them make big decisions.”One of those had to be made when Petersen was dropped from the South African Test squad last November. The opening batsman considered a Kolpak deal with Glamorgan, which he then needed to get out of when he was recalled to the national team. Turner helped him through that phase and says it was one of his proudest moments as an agent when Petersen scored a century in his comeback match, against Sri Lanka in Cape Town. “He was under pressure and in some ways it was a way of saying we made the right decision.”The personal touch is what gives Charlie Austin, an agent in Sri Lanka, satisfaction. Austin moved to the island for work with an environmental NGO, then started a travel agency and even worked for this website. He became friends with Mahela Jayawardene through his involvement in cricket and that opened the door to Austin’s agency career. The combination of the absence of professional athlete management companies in Sri Lanka and Jayawardene needing assistance with his off-field affairs resulted in Austin being asked to step in. In a market where the domestic game is largely amateur, he had to operate part-time until 2006.Austin compares the role to celebrity management almost. “It’s not easy for Asian cricketers, given the huge expectations and pressure they have to contend with every day,” he says. “There are also plenty of controversies. There have been a lot of issues over the years and I have aged quite rapidly during certain periods.”To prevent premature grey hairs the Essentially Group in the UK spreads the job among many people. Being in the country with the most sophisticated commercial cricket business, theirs is a more complex set-up. “There’s not one individual doing everything for the players,” Rich Hudson, Essentially’s Head of Cricket in the UK, explained. “We’ll have a commercial manager, a lawyer, an accountant and general assistants, so at any one time you could have four or five people working on a player’s affairs.”The UK is also the only cricket market where agents have to be accredited by the cricket board. “We have to sit an exam and we’re asked questions about the rules of qualification for cricketers, ECB central contracts and anti-doping amongst other things. It provides a level of security for players, knowing the individual representing them is of a prescribed standard,” Hudson says.Because county cricket is still one of the biggest marketplaces for the game, Hudson estimates that around half the cricketers he deals with are overseas players. He admits, though, that it is becoming more difficult to secure players from other countries for county stints because of the increase in cricket, particularly 20-over competitions, worldwide. “Most of the time we have to sign two contracts to get one player. Players pull out because of different schedules or injuries. County cricket is now tending to look towards players who are not necessarily the most glamorous but who offer reliability and consistency in availability. Someone like Steve Magoffin from Western Australia, for example.”On the other hand, the T20 game has also benefited agencies. “The more money in the game, clearly the better for majority of the stakeholders, including us,” Hudson says. Other agents agree, although they admit that the club-versus-country debate that accompanies the growth of T20 cricket can become tiresome.Emma Everett manages West Indies captain Darren Sammy, Dwayne Bravo, Kieran Powell and other players. She says she grew up around the game through her father, who was friends with many West Indies legends. Since Chris Gayle’s much-publicised spat with the WICB and his reputation as a T20 mercenary, players from the region have been associated with similar behaviour but Everett was quick to counter the notion that it applies universally. “We constantly have people approaching us for my players to participate in various global tournaments that may sometimes clash against the West Indies tour calendar and team commitments, but that is an inevitable thing,” she says. “My players and I never seek to compromise their position in the West Indies team, as that comes first.”

It is becoming more difficult to secure players from other countries for county stints because of the increase in cricket, particularly 20-over competitions, worldwide

Often, large sums of money are involved. A recent example is of South Africa A’s series with Sri Lanka A. Faf du Plessis was withdrawn from the Friends Life T20, where he would have represented Somerset, because CSA wanted him to captain South Africa A and work on his long-form game. Du Plessis ended up losing around half a million South African rand (approximately US$ 62,500).Despite the assumption that all agents are in for is the money, there are self-prescribed limits. “We have a rule that our players can endorse a maximum of three products each,” Turner says.The agent scouts around for companies that are, as Austin describes, a fit for the personality of the player concerned. Austin pitched Angelo Mathews as the face of an ice-cream brand in Sri Lanka highlighting keywords and attributes such as “youthfulness”, “fun-loving” and “dependable allrounder”, which matched the company’s brand image.Occasionally more than one player on an agency’s roster could fit a certain brand and agents may have to choose. Hudson says that in such cases the agency then presents both players “as equal options” and lets the company decide who appeals better to them.Usually a player only becomes attractive to companies looking for brand ambassadors once he is established and has built a marketable profile. Mathews’ deal, for instance, was signed last year, when he was fairly well-known. “Unknown players are practically impossible to sell,” Austin says. “It’s the top players that are wanted.” There’s no better example of the truth of that than MS Dhoni. The Indian captain endorses over 20 brands, earned US$23 million from that sort of work over the last year, and was named the world’s richest cricketer by magazine.While endorsements can become a full-time job for the top players, agents are aware of the need to draw the line carefully, so as to not allow them to overload the schedule. “You have to remember that international cricket is hard and so they have to spend most of their time concentrating on that,” Turner says.Austin advises that young players “do not rush into a management relationship” while they are still breaking into the international game. “It’s the top-level players that really need agents, because they have so many obligations. The younger players just need an equipment deal and some general advice and encouragement now and then,” he says. “The only exception to that is when someone is clearly super-talented and you need to help them prepare for life as a star.”And what about when that star starts to shine all too bright? Neil Maxwell, agent to Brett Lee among other players, talks of another role agents are sometimes called on to perform. “It is very important that managers are true to their values and advise players accordingly,” he says. “I see examples of some players being allowed to do whatever they feel is best. If a player is being a goose then he needs to be told.”

Azhar Mahmood is not as flashy as Shahid Afridi but he was far more reliable and won the day for Auckland in the most emphatic of ways

Firdose Moonda in Centurion10-Oct-2012There was something symbolic about Azhar Mahmood slog-sweeping Shahid Afridi onto the grass embankment at SuperSport Park in Centurion. The shot brought up Mahmood’s half-century, ensured Auckland would seal a big win over Hampshire and secure a spot in the main draw of the Champions League. It also made a small statement about Mahmood’s prowess when compared to that of his countryman.Afridi is thought of as one of the top Twenty20 allrounders. He can smoke the ball a long way, demolish stumps and has the attitude to match the boom-boom. In contrast, Mahmood has spent a long time being under-rated, but he is massively efficient. He was Kent’s player of the season in 2011, and ended IPL 2012 with 186 runs at an average of 23.25 and 14 wickets at 23.50 for Kings XI Punjab.On Wednesday, against Hampshire, Mahmood became only the sixth player to take five wickets and score a half-century in a Twenty20 match. Any MVP status he would have had must have increased exponentially in those few hours, with scouts from the world’s Twenty20 leagues taking notes, but for Auckland it was a performance they always saw coming on a big stage.”This is how Azhar has played for us in our domestic competition and we think he is a world class allrounder,” Auckland captain Gareth Hopkins said. “He brings a confidence and a security for our batsmen and he understands how to go about setting and chasing a total. That experience with our younger batters is great.”Mahmood’s ushering of Auckland through a fairly straightforward chase was the most notable difference between his performance and that of Afridi. Mahmood was beaten by the first ball he faced, and took seven more to settle in. Afridi tried to pull the first ball he faced, which was not short enough. And the second. And the third.He was beaten on his fourth attempted pull as well, and was caught at mid-on. The bowler? Mahmood. He worked out Afridi’s plan, kept bouncing him, and got his reward. Afridi has not been in top batting form recently. In six matches at the World Twenty20 he managed a top score of 14 against India, but his reputation as someone who dictates the course of a match by sheer willpower precedes any notion of form.Afridi can come off without warning and today would have been an ideal occasion to do so. With Hampshire struggling with the bat, Afridi’s urgency to get on with it was understandable. His method was not. Juxtapose his flashy attempts with Mahmood’s level-headed grind and the differences between the two are highlighted.Afridi is a show jumper, the kind that is not spurred by the sight of a bar placed too high but by the thought of it. He does not always respond to calls to action but he always thinks he will, and that is what makes Afridi so entertaining. When his thought process and his actions are in sync, there is no other cricketer in the world who is more arresting to watch.Mahmood is the workhorse. Season after season, he has produced. Not of all it has been good produce. Just like in this innings, where he got lucky when he charged Liam Dawson and managed to get the ball just over midwicket, Mahmood has not always had it good. He fell out of favour with Pakistan and is not an automatic choice when discussing reliable, talented, go-to players.As a measure of how forgotten his vast experience can be, consider that when Hopkins asked every member of his dressing room who had played at the Wanderers before, he also put the question to Mahmood. “Yes, I’ve been here before,” he answered calmly. “I scored a Test hundred here.” Mahmood’s 136 against South Africa in February 1998 came a week before he brought up three figures in Durban as well.Even the Hampshire Dimimtri Mascarenhas, whose fury with the pitch could not be masked, had a kind word for Mahmood. “It was a great performance and he is a class cricketer even though he is a bit slow in the field these days,” Mascarenhas joked. “And he is also a genuine bloke.”

David Hopps in Colombo20-Sep-2012A kindly message to the future mother-in-law of Danny Briggs, proud husband to be and excited England spinner: when he remarked in Colombo that the World Twenty20 was a priority compared to his wedding, the words probably just got tangled up and it did not quite come out as it should have.After all, he had just taken three Pakistan wickets in England’s final warm-up in Colombo and can now anticipate playing a central role in their defence of the trophy. If he did not seem entirely abreast of the detailed arrangements for his wedding, it was probably just a touch of the sun.He might be flighty as spinners go, but he does not seem at all flighty off the field. He is a softly-spoken, polite lad who still lives on the Isle of Wight and travels over for Hampshire matches on the ferry.If Briggs’ future wife, Linsey, was naïve about the itinerant life of a professional cricketer, she was naïve no longer when their wedding, scheduled for the end of September, was postponed until October so England’s up-and-coming young spinner could take part in World Twenty20.Actually, even the rearranged wedding date is far from perfect as it clashes with Hampshire’s qualification matches in the Champions League, meaning that Briggs will only fly out if Hampshire reach the final stages. For cricket obsessives, it is a bit of a shame that it was not postponed for a second time, but priorities can be tricky things.Briggs himself, the first of Isle of Wight cricketer to represent England, shrugs it off manfully. “It is so busy with cricket, you never know where you are going to be,” he said. “I do miss the Champions League qualification because of the wedding, but I changed wedding plans once for World Twenty20, which was obviously the priority. I will fly out if Hampshire qualify.”It is to be hoped that the Champions League does not cause the honeymoon too much disruption.England’s World Twenty20 campaign begins in earnest at the R Premadasa Stadium on Friday and instead of his wife-to-be whispering sweet nothings in his ear under candlelight, he is likely to be faced by the wanton aggression of Afghanistan’s batsmen under floodlights. He cannot be sure of selection, though, so early in the tournament on a Premadasa surface that will favour the pace bowlers more than spinners before the pitches tire, but his time will come.The wedding is in Taunton, but his thoughts after he had seen off Pakistan were with cricket and he was not noticeably eager to discuss family arrangements with a bunch of journalists. “My wife to be and her family are organising everything,” he said. “It’s their choice, I just go along with it.”The English tabloids raised a toast with the story. The headline had him assuring the family that he would turn up on the big day under the headline: “Aisle Be There.”

While Rob Quiney sat and watched the rain in Brisbane, Usman Khawaja was emphatically pushing his Test case in Hobart

Brydon Coverdale at the Gabba10-Nov-2012On a day when little of consequence happened for Australia’s Test squad at the Gabba, something of significant interest was unfolding 1800 kilometres away. On a treacherous, green seaming pitch at Bellerive Oval, Usman Khawaja’s simmering start to the Sheffield Shield season suddenly began to boil. His timing may not have been perfect – a ton last week might have earned him a place in the Brisbane Test – but he has given Australia’s debutant Rob Quiney reason to look over his shoulder.Of course, Quiney is yet to bat for his country and can lock himself into the Test side by succeeding at the Gabba, and there is also the matter of Shane Watson’s potential return from injury. But should Quiney fail on debut and Watson remain unavailable, Khawaja will at least have given the selectors something to ponder. He finished the county season with Derbyshire by scoring three consecutive half-centuries and his first few matches for Queensland have brought several more. Khawaja needs a sustained period of Sheffield Shield form, but the signs are positive.The most impressive thing about his innings in Hobart was that it came in such difficult conditions. The Bellerive Oval wicket block has been relaid and Ricky Ponting spoke earlier this week about how difficult it has been to bat on. By all accounts, the pitch for the current match looked as much like a tennis court as it did a cricket wicket. Tasmania, the home side, survived only 25.1 overs on it and made 95. Khawaja batted for more than twice that long and was finally dismissed for 138.Not that runs were the only thing Khawaja was told he needed when he was dropped from the Test side last December. The Australian management wanted Khawaja to show more in the field and more of an inclination to rotate the strike. Khawaja’s 138 in Hobart contained 21 fours and only 13 singles. All the same, Australia’s coach Mickey Arthur said he had been impressed with the progress Khawaja had made over the past year.”A couple of the messages around Usman were intensity when he bats, ability to rotate strike, ability to get ones,” Arthur said. “We thought Ussie had played really well and he had a good defensive game, and he could hit a four. His ability to get off strike was something that we were worried about just a little bit, and Ussie generally in the field.”What I’m saying is no secret – Ussie knows that. I’ve been very pleased with his progress. He’s come into the season, he’s got runs and his runs today were gold-dust on by all accounts a very seamer-friendly Bellerive wicket.”It is not clear just how far away from the Test side Khawaja is at the moment. He was not picked for last weekend’s Australia A game against South Africa and despite his consistent starts and fifties recently, his Hobart century was his first hundred in a first-class game in Australia since October 20 of last year. But his off-season move from New South Wales to Queensland has not been a bad one – he sits on top of the Shield run tally this season – and he remains as confident in his own abilities as ever.”I think I was always ready to play Test cricket,” Khawaja said after scoring 54 in each innings of last week’s Sheffield Shield game at Allan Border Field. “I think I’m ready to play Test cricket now. But in saying that, there are a lot of other players who are doing well as well. To see guys like [Alex] Doolan score a lot of runs. He’s played well this year. [Rob] Quiney has played quite well this year as well. There is a lot of competition out there.”The same thought might have run through Quiney’s mind today.

Mitchell Johnson is enjoying his time as Australia’s stand-in Test bowler, sans the pressures of being their pace spearhead

Daniel Brettig at the MCG28-Dec-2012Mitchell Johnson is the supporting actor who walks away with the movie. As he basked in the afterglow of a ripping performance with bat and ball in the Boxing Day Test, Johnson reflected on how his current walk-on part in the national team is working better for him than the role of senior spearhead, which he carried like a millstone for much of the two years that followed a pair of arresting series against South Africa in 2008-09. He is no certainty to play for Australia in the third Test in Sydney, and that suits him just fine.Last summer when Johnson lost his place due to a foot injury at a time when he would probably have been dropped anyway, he was as close as an Australian cricketer can get to being thoroughly sick of the game and all that came with it. His increasingly erratic performances reflected a lack of enjoyment and the fact he had let the voices of doubt – both within and without – control his thinking. Given a year away, Johnson rebuilt his confidence, made a few subtle changes to his bowling method, and has returned not as a put-upon lead character but as a formidable reserve.While they cradle their assortment of broken bones, Sri Lanka’s batsmen will marvel at the fact that Johnson is only playing against them because as many as seven other bowlers ahead of him in the queue are injured. For Johnson, this competition for places means he is unlikely to play long sequences of matches in a row, and he is quite happy to get away in order to be rested and refreshed at the next time of Test match asking.”It just comes down to belief and trusting my ability,” Johnson said. “In the time I’ve had off I’ve been able to reflect on a lot of things. [Previously] I had probably got to the stage where I listened to a lot of outside influences, that doesn’t affect me anymore. I’m just happy with how I’ve come back, and making the most of the opportunities I get.”It’s not every day you get to play for your country and I’m pretty proud of the fact I’ve played 49 Tests now. You’ve just got to look to the future and, if you get picked, go out there and make the most of it. That’s what I’m doing … and playing with a smile on my face.”I’ve always been happy playing for Australia, it just got to the point where I was feeling the pressure. It happens in professional sports, you can feel the pressure and start to believe in things that are said or outside influences, and it just got to that point for me. I’ve moved past that. I’m 31, I’ve been around the game for a long time now and I think I’ve matured in that I have belief in myself and just go out there and play my game and do the best job I can.”That job in Melbourne was to put the wind up Sri Lanka’s batsmen with a series of withering short balls that wrecked their chances of doing decently in the first innings and all but ended the match in the second. The first ball he whirred down at Tillakaratne Dilshan clipped the glove and resulted in a catch to short leg, and after lunch another lifting delivery broke Kumar Sangakkara’s hand. These were intimidatory blows, pure and simple.

“It’s not every day you get to play for your country and I’m pretty proud of the fact I’ve played 49 Tests now. You’ve just got to look to the future and, if you get picked, go out there and make the most of it. That’s what I’m doing … and playing with a smile on my face.”Mitchell Johnson

“The last couple of days in Hobart the boys went pretty hard at their batters with the short ball and they didn’t like it,” Johnson said. “So that was another plan through this Test match, to get up their batters. Unfortunately for them they got a few injuries out of it. I’ve done it in the past and it definitely helps, you don’t have to get those last couple of wickets.”I think that intimidation factor definitely worked out there today, and we bowled really well as a team through this whole Test match and beat them very well. To be able to have a good game out there was nice, but we’ve got to look forward to this next Test and hopefully keep driving it into them and win 3-0.”The other major factor in Johnson’s star-turn at the MCG was the man bowling so fastidiously at the other end. Jackson Bird made the most compelling seamer’s debut this side of Stuart Clark, who claimed 9 for 89 against South Africa on a seaming Cape Town surface in 2006. While Bird’s figures were not quite as spectacular, his combination with the faster, less predictable Johnson was irresistible, leaving the Sri Lankan batsmen uncertain of their off stump at one end, and fearing for their safety at the other.”His control with the new ball is an area that I think we’ve been looking for,” Michael Clarke said of Bird. “He probably filled the role of Ben Hilfenhaus. To be able to swing the ball away from the right-hander with the new ball and then take it across the left-hander off the wicket is a great strength. The one thing I really like about Jackson is you know what you’re going to get.”He bowled into the breeze the whole game and did a fantastic job for us. On any given day you take your own wickets or score your own runs, but what gets forgotten is the work the guy does up the other end, and I think Birdy played a huge part in Mitch’s success in the first innings, and it allows a bowler like Mitch to be able to attack.”Johnson took this licence to attack with rare fervour, and could do the same in Sydney. That’s if he gets the part, of course.

From Vipul Gupta, India
I do not think that many people would have been surprised by Symonds conduct

Cricinfo25-Feb-2013Vipul Gupta, India
I do not think that many people would have been surprised by Symonds conduct. As I am sure not many people would have been shocked when Harbhajan slapped his ‘younger brother’ Sreesanth in an IPL match last summer. The one trait that is comman to all these 3 gentlemen is that they are of a ‘slightly’ volatile temperament and believe me I am trying my best to put it very mildly.All three have been involved in on field controversies on numerous occasions in their careers. Things had already started to heat up in India itself and it came to a head with Roy alleging that Bhajji had passed a racist comment against him in the very eventful Sydney Test Match. Unfortunately the only person who displayed any grace and dignity in this entire unsavoury episode which threatened to derail the series was Kumble, the Indian skipper who personally requested Ponting to withdraw his appeal. But the Aussie skipper was adamant and he felt that he could not let his ‘mate’ Roy down by withdrawing the appeal and it was his stand which put both the CA and the BCCI on a collision course which threatened to fracture the entire cricketing fraternity.Come to think of it, the crazy juvenile antics of these players was about to bring this great game to its knees. Such mavericks are found everywhere and it is up to the people who are occupying the positions of power to control them and not allow the events to get out of hand. I am afraid that the subsequent events have only put a big question mark on Ponting’s wisdom and judgment and by that token of logic even the CA cannot be spared. I am sure that by the end of his career Ponting will be regarded as a great batsman and a good captain, but as a Statesman, not at all, which Anil Kumble proved that he was in that series.One also cannot help but wonder that things might have been different for the unity in the Aussie dressing room were it not for the IPL’s Twenty20 tournament held in India. I am sure that the salary offered to Roy must not have gone down well with some of the greats in the Aussie team because compared to them he was just a toddler starting out in the Test arena. It was amusing to see the sensitive Symonds lament the fact that how the CA had bowed in to the BCCI’s financial power when he himself did not think twice of accepting the Deccan Chargers offer, which itself is a brain child of the BCCI.It might be argued that it is in the nature of the beast that such players have serious temperamental flaws and although they might be adorning this great game as jewels it is very important for the authorities concerned to recognize this particular breed of players and to understand that they cannot be allowed to hold the game of cricket as hostage by their actions and any incident should be nipped in the bud itself before it snow balls into anything major. Surely, as a die hard cricket fan this is not asking for much , or is it?

A fundamental tenet of learning is that it is pointless, because in the long run we will all be dead

Andy Zaltzman25-Feb-2013A few quick thoughts ahead of the Mumbai Test, which, personally, I am childishly excited about. It will be my first experience of watching Test cricket in Asia, and the cheapest per-minute entertainment I will have experienced since paying 10p to see the whole of read aloud in a slow drawl by an ageing tortoise from Texas. My ticket cost Rs 500 rupees – just under £6. For the whole match. The same price as around 20 minutes of a Lord’s Test. In fact, an ill-timed toilet break at next summer’s Ashes showdown at HQ could in effect cost you more than the whole of the Mumbai match.● Since the end of the Ahmedabad Test, much has been said, written, painted and sung about how England need to learn their lessons about playing in Asia (Lady Gaga been regularly addressing the issue in her live gigs, according to a well-placed source). Those advocating that England should belated learn the lessons they ought to have learned after the Dubai debacle at the start of the year are, however, chasing the wrong mongoose into the wrong exhaust pipe.Recent history suggests that learning from their experiences is, in fact, the last thing that Alastair Cook and his men should be trying to do. Excluding two series wins in Bangladesh, England have lost six and drawn two of their last eight series on the world’s biggest and spinniest continent. They have won only two Tests in those series, drawn nine and lost 11.They have toured Asia more regularly this millennium than at any point in their cricketing history. Their last successful series away in any of the three main Asian Test nations were when they scored back-to-back wins in Pakistan and Sri Lanka in 2000-01. Before then, they had played four Tests in Asia in the previous 13 years.In fact, England have played more Tests in Asia in 2012 than they did in the 15 years between their series wins in India in 1984-85 and Pakistan in 2000-01. In that time, England played just seven subcontinental Tests – three bad-tempered, finger-pointing, umpire-sqaubbling matches in Pakistan in 1987-88, and three ineptitude-fuelled selectorially nonsensical dodgy-prawn-aggravated games in India, plus a bonus defeat to Sri Lanka in 1992-93, which helped rectify the MCC’s erroneous assumption that Sri Lankans did not know which end of a cricket bat, or ball, to hold.Clearly the best recipe for English success in Asia is not only to not learn lessons, but not to even turn up to school. Amongst the fundamental tenets of educational philosophy are that learning is pointless as we’ll all be dead within 100 years anyway, that it is better to learn no lesson than the wrong lesson, and that chalk has ballistic properties that the marker pen cannot hope to emulate.England have a few winters off before their next Trial by Tweak in Asia. But when they next set foot there, they should do so with 11 debutants. They will romp to victory.● The Mumbai Test begins today, with the two sides most recently deposed from the top of the Test rankings casting half an eye at the current leaders being battered like a suicidal calamari by the team who were No.1 before the whole rankings relay began. The No. 1 ranking seems to have been touch-passed from team to team like a volcano-roasted potato at a Fijian rugby practice, and on a staggering first day in Adelaide, South Africa started displaying several of the classic symptoms of a team suffering early-onset ranking slippage. Injuries, weaker links ruthlessly exposed, stronger links out of form.The last few years of Test cricket have been, frankly, barking mad, with teams suffering wild extremes of form ‒ perhaps in an effort to raise global public awareness of how global warming could let to an increase in the amount of catastrophic weather. The world’s cricketers might be confusing their supporters, but they are selflessly safeguarding the long-term future of the planet that has been so influential in the development of the sport.● Both teams at the Wankhede have their innings co-started by a left-handed batsman. England’s is so sure of his place in the team that, were the planet to be obliterated by a colossal asteroid strike tomorrow morning, he would probably still find a way of adding a few more Test caps to his collection. This is partly because the second Test would probably still go ahead despite the devastation of the world’s end ‒ the Wankhede Stadium would likely be the only part of the planet to survive the impact, after the BCCI refuse to allow the asteroid access to the ground.India’s southpaw opener is rather less inkily inscribed in the selectors’ good books. Gautam Gambhir is not alone amongst Indian batsmen in having had a lean time in Tests of late, but the World Cup-final hero has not reached three figures in a Test since January 2010, a run of 23 matches in which he has averaged a less-than-impressive 28. In the ten Tests before that, he had scored eight centuries and averaged 91. This followed his first 18 Tests, in which he averaged 36, and which were adorned by a solitary hundred (against Bangladesh), and a 97 against Zimbabwe.If you exclude the minnows, he had averaged a less-than-impressive 29 before his spectacularly purple patch. In terms of career graph, Gambhir has one of the most extreme and pointy “sombreros” in Test history, putting the likes of fellow purple-patchers Michael Vaughan and Mike Gatting in the most Mexican of shades.The old cliché argues, “form is temporary but class is permanent”, which may be true, and applies equally to decent players in brilliant form as to great players in the middle of a slump.So is Gambhir: (a) a world-class player who has been woefully out of form for most of his Test career; (b) a good player who has been slightly out of form for most of his Test career, but played above himself for one stellar 15-month period; or (c) rubbish, but swallowed a snooker ball covered in Don Bradman’s DNA that he found in Ricky Ponting’s kit bag in the Mohali Test in October 2008, before nervously coughing it back up when he saw Dale Steyn charging in at him in Nagpur in February 2010? Answers on a postcard showing a contraband photograph of Gambhir batting in the Ahmedabad Test, to the BCCI. (The correct answer is B. In the opinion of the Confectionery Stall Player Class Analysis Committee.)● Tim Bresnan seems unlikely to play, barring injuries or illness to others. He was England’s lucky charm whilst they were winning every single one of the first ten Tests he played in, and, more pertinently, whilst he was bowling brisk swing, incisively and economically, and chipping in with useful lower-middle-order runs. He took 27 wickets at 17 runs apiece as England mercilessly whizzed Australia and then India into an easily digestible soup. Having completed the recipe to perfection, England then sat down to enjoy the soup. And promptly spilt it all over their trousers.In December last year, Bresnan had surgery on an elbow injury. Since then, he has bagged just 16 more wickets in seven Tests, averaging over 50, often bowling far from briskly. And he has chipped in with not very many useful lower-middle-order runs. Bresnan’s last 107 overs in Tests have brought him 2 for 416 – not figures to write home about, unless you are writing “Help! Please rescue” on a bit of paper, shoving into a bottle, and throwing it out to sea.Following on from this rather jet-lagged blog, I will be posting daily articles throughout the Mumbai and Kolkata Tests, and doing a podcast after each match. If you have any questions you would like me to answer in the podcast, please twitter them to @ZaltzCricket.

From TS Trudgian, Canada

Cricinfo25-Feb-2013
Michael Clarke, a man ready to assume leadership•Getty ImagesI had the bitter-sweet pleasure of watching Michael Clarke bat on the fifth day of the 2009 Ashes series, at Lord’s. Australia were set what would have been a world-record run chase of 522 to win. The day’s play started with Australia 5 for 313, with Clarke and Brad Haddin unbeaten on 125 and 80, respectively. Midway through the fourth day Australia were 5 for 128 and we looked for all money to be preparing to spike our guns and pull the flag down for what had been 70-odd year fortress at Lord’s … but now the indomitable Australian fighting spirit was coming to the fore. A mere trifling 200-odd to win, with two batsmen well set, both of whom had shown limited weakness against the relatively innocuous Lord’s wicket. But my Dad, forever the pessimist, resorted to the age-old maxim that ‘everybody is vulnerable when starting again’. And so it came to pass that Haddin was dismissed in the second over, and the paternal pessimist decided that we had best open our pre-packed lunch soon (as well as the first of our permitted four pints of beer [thank you MCC members]) as we ‘probably won’t make it that far anyway’. Lamentably, he was right. With two-dozen schoolkids behind us cheering incessantly, and thinking that every player with a hat was Andrew Strauss, Dad and I watched as Australia were dismissed before the lunch interval, entitling us to the poor-man’s consolation prize of a 20% refund.Though Clarke batted on for only another 10 overs before missing a straight Swann’un, it was the manner of his batting which was most impressive. Two-hundred runs to make in a day with No. 8 new at the crease is not a batsman’s idea of a good time: he faces criticism for doing anything short of pulling off a Botham-esque barrage by landing on Chance a few times and managing to get out of jail, free. Clarke rotated the strike, allowed Mitchell Johnson (who, despite having a crisis of confidence and overestimating the dimensions of the pitch while bowling, is one of the better No. 8s since Lawrence Dallaglio) to get settled, left well alone the still swinging ball which was Haddin’s undoing, and with furtive, yet frequently cheerful, looks at the scoreboard, he was setting the stage for the biggest run-chase of all time. In short, he showed ‘maturity’; this is not used in the weakened, cabbage-water fashion to say that someone who was hot-headed is no slightly less so (KP Pietersen, anyone?), but to say that he has stepped into the breach, earned his spurs and become what was expected of him: a man ready to assume the leadership.A hundred on debut and a fairytale 6-9 in his fourth Test signalled, or rather trumpeted, the arrival of MJ Clarke. His salad days were to last for a couple of years, before he was told that a stint back at Shield cricket would ‘do him the world of good’. It is out of this demotion that the focused, yet freely playing Clarke arose. Clarke has shown, not merely in Test matches, but in his stand-in stints as one-day captain, that he has a mind for the game. That he captains the side in Twenty20 cricket is, to some degree, of no real importance for this discussion, and his much-maligned ‘inability’ to change gears in between the Test and hit-and-giggle format is something to be addressed another day. Clarke has been both playing lieutenant in leadership and acting as heir presumptive for the position of No. 3.At the moment he is able to enter (I hope!) as the ball is becoming old, the field begins to spread and spinners try an over or two. That is where I wish to spend at least one paragraph: Clarke’s footwork against spin. It was said of the batsmen in the Golden Age of cricket (Ranjitsinhji, Trumper and Hobbs in particular) that one of their defining qualities was the ability to score off both the front and the back foot, with no pre-determined preference. The advice of ‘if in doubt, push out’ is sound enough, and I was bowled by a grubber at Blenheim Palace on a wet May wicket after throwing this caution into the wind. But most of us are not good batsman (I am certainly not, as evinced by a mate’s coining the verb ‘grim-reapered’ to be used in the phrase ‘You just grimreapered the stumps’, after I had been dismissed hit-wicket following an overly lusty and ultimately one-handed pull-shot), and so the adages we need are not those for the big-game players. Clarke pushes forward, sure, and when he does he is quicker on his feet than most. He does not thunder after balls, the pitch of which he can not possible reach, but rather all front-foot shots (not necessarily to half-volleys) be played according to the length he wishes. When the ball is a trifle shorter, in the zone of indetermination (which is not so ominous sounding as ‘corridor of uncertainty’) and he is in doubt, he does not slavishly adhere to our pushing-out epithet. The right-foot goes back and to his left, the front leg straightens and the ball is hit mere inches before the stumps and driven for what might be called a late cover-drive.Pup is due some runs again, and although his form against England was great in July 2009, he will be keen to settle the so-near, so-far innings at Lord’s. And if in say, the Sydney Test, Australia needs three wickets with two overs to spare, who better to have a trundle?

What’s not to like about competition boiled down to a crazed cocktail of skill and luck?

Andy Zaltzman25-Feb-2013The World Twenty20 belatedly blasted into life yesterday, as the Super Eights power-launched what has become a ten-day bunfight. For the third global tournament in succession, the last eight could have been predicted at least 20 years ago, as the first eight Test nations eased their way through a group stage that will live as long in the memory as a goldfish’s tax return. Whilst this may raise concerns about the prospects of cricket ever truly extending beyond its historic boundaries as a global sport, even via the pimped-up high-speed vehicle of T20, what it has left us with is a week and a half of unpredictable high-stakes showdowns between old rivals, a rare commodity in any sport.What do we know about the teams after the first week? Little more than we knew before the first week – in this format, on their day, or off their day, any of them could beat, or be beaten, by any of the others. South Africa, in essence, have not played yet – a facile ten-wicket defrocking of Zimbabwe and a seven-over microtonk against Sri Lanka offer scant evidence. All the other teams left in the tournament have both scored and conceded totals of more than 160, apart from Australia, who shipped 191 against West Indies but were well on the way to rocketing past it with ease when the rain intervened.England look more likely to be bouncing up and down on the Being Beaten end of the see-saw, busily trying to work out which way up to read their manual, but even they cannot yet be entirely discounted. An incapacitating dose of food poisoning affecting only mystery tweakers could easily strike at any moment. Or they could adopt the revolutionary tactic of giving more, rather than less, time at the crease to their best T20 batsman (or at least their best T20 batsman who is not cooling off on the selectorial naughty step [oddly located in a commentary box]).The major talking point of the tournament has been the runaway success of yesterday’s Super Over, or One1, showdown between the hosts and the Kiwis, a glimpse into cricket’s rapid-fire future when the tedious longeurs of the T20 game are considered too much for the action-hungry TV consumer. On one level – with no boundaries and just two wickets in the entire match ‒ the Super Over match was eerily reminiscent of an entire day’s play in a 1950s Test. On another, it was a joyous celebration of how intense pressure can leave the minds of hardened sporting veterans as scrambled as an egg in a bobsled careering down an erupting volcano.Kumar Sangakkara, one of the greatest and most influential players in recent cricketing history, an ice-cool man of competitive steel in his 482nd international match (or 482nd-and-a-bitth match), gave a two-ball exhibition of wicketkeeping ineptitude that even Kamran Akmal at his most creative would have struggled to surpass.First, he fumbled a straightforward take to allow New Zealand two byes – 14% of their required runs in one clumsy-handed bloop. Next ball, he shelled an edge from McCullum, dropping New Zealand’s most likely six-tonker and allowing another unearned run, in one of the most clueless sequences of his stellar and largely clued-up career.The McCullum drop completed one of the most error-strewn single deliveries that cricket has ever seen. Lasith Malinga, one of the universe’s leading T20 bowlers, needing to concede fewer than nine in three balls, flang down a half-volley far enough outside off stump that it would have been called wide had not McCullum, one of the solar system’s top T20 batsmen, slashed wildly at it, and connected with it enough only to (a) prevent it being called wide, and (b) snick a simple chance to Sangakkara, an undisputable cricketing legend with more than 500 wicketkeeping dismissals under his international belt, who, with hands as soft as a saucepan, clanged it. Amidst this mayhem of mistakes, it is a wonder that Umpire Taufel did not raise the finger and give non-striker Guptill out lbw due to sheer confusion, before awarding a free kick and telling the Sri Lankan fielders to stand ten yards away, giving Malinga 9.3 for artistic impression, and breaking down in tears.This one-ball festival of universally achievable cricket had followed hot on the burning heels of the last ball of Sri Lanka’s chase, when, with the hosts needing just one to win, Southee bowled a long hop, Thirimanne hoicked and missed it, Franklin shied at the stumps and missed, a throw that Taylor, with unpasteurised butter-fingers, fumbled at the bowler’s end. Physics finally intervened to whip the bails off with a fortuitous ricochet, prompting the Super Over slapstick. Classic. I am an unashamed Test match devotee and lover of the classical aesthetic of cricketing tradition. But this was top-level international sport at its jumble-headed, panic-stricken, mistake-addled, incompetent best, entertainment fit to stand alongside the madcap climax of the 1999 World Cup semi-final when Australia and South Africa went throat for throat in cricket’s greatest simultaneous choke.The Super Over is the future. The over rate was not up to much, the tactics were curious – Why did Sri Lanka hold back Dilshan at No. 3, and why did New Zealand keep McCullum off strike at No. 2? Were they waiting for the latter part of the over, when the opposing bowler would be tired? ‒ and, personally, I would like to see a two-ball Powerplay at the start of each over to add a bit of variety and excitement to what will, no doubt, become a tactically moribund format, but this was competition boiled down to its essence. In fact, it was competition boiled down beyond its essence, to a crazed cocktail of skill and luck where nothing mattered but the result.● Sri Lanka’s innings in the curtain-raising T20 game that warmed up the crowd before the 12-ball frenzy of fun was one of the most educational in cricketing history. It began as a pitch-perfect object lesson in How to Chase 175 to Win a T20 Match. They then switched strategies to give the watching world a masterclass in How Not to Chase 62 off Nine Overs With 9 Wickets in Hand, culminating in a textbook demonstration of How Not to Close Out a Match by Scoring Eight off The Final Over. Four balls into this, Thirimanne launched into a one-man exhibition of How to Score Five off Two Balls, but could only sustain this for the first of those two balls, before putting on a scientific exposition of How Not to Chase One off One Ball. The world is a wiser place today.● Whilst experienced, established T20 batsmen flourished in yesterday’s Super 8 matches, a couple of unfamiliar bowlers have also prospered – West Indies’ Samuel Badree, in his third T20 international after a ten-year career doing not much in West Indian domestic cricket, conceded 20 from four overs against England; and Akila Dananjaya, who was plucked from youthful obscurity by Sri Lanka after a no-year career, removed both New Zealand openers. This could prove to be a revolutionary new tactic – if familiarity breeds contempt, or at least, contemptuously spanking a proven international paceman over extra cover for six, then unfamiliarity clearly breeds uncertainty. By the 2014 tournament, expect teams to pluck supporters out of the crowd minutes before the start of a match to open the bowling. By the time the opposition have realised that 47-year-old Nigel is, in fact, an account manager for a stationery delivery firm, who has not played cricket since school, he will have sent down three overs for 15 and control will have been established.● I may have given the impression in last week’s podcast that the format of this tournament was to be admired and cherished. I admit I had not scrutinised it as thoroughly as I might have done. As it transpired ‒ with group position meaningless, no carry-over of points to the Super 8, and the gap between the Haves and Have-Nots of the cricketing world widening as the various T20 leagues give the former more and more experience, skills and know-how ‒ the first week of the tournament was made up of predictable hammerings and meaningless exhibition matches. Or, in the case of England against India, both simultaneously.