It looked like he had been passed over in favour of his former team-mate Matt Prior. Not quite. Tim Ambrose is England’s surprise choice for the wicketkeeper’s spot in the squad for New Zealand

Andrew Miller05-Jan-2008

Tim Ambrose and Matt Prior have been friends and rivals ever since
they first played together at Sussex in the summer of 2001, but deep
down they always knew that, as two men competing for the same
wicketkeeping position, one of them would have to win out in the end.
In the summer of 2005, when Ambrose packed his bags and left for
Warwickshire after two difficult seasons in Prior’s shadow, it looked
as though the argument had finally been settled. At Lord’s on Friday,
however, the tables were turned in spectacular fashion.”I’m a little bit surprised but thrilled,” said Ambrose, after
learning that he had been earmarked for a Test debut at Prior’s
expense, when England begin their three-match series against New
Zealand on March 5. “I’m a little bit numb and for now I’m just
letting it sink in before focusing on the job. Matt and I have always
had a healthy competition – I wouldn’t call it a rivalry because he’s
a good friend of mine, so I feel for him and I’m sure he’ll be very
disappointed at the moment.”Prior’s performances in Sri Lanka were wholehearted but sadly flawed,
with the nadir coming at Galle where he dropped three crucial chances,
all diving to his right. Despite his undoubted success with the bat –
he has averaged in excess of 40 in his first ten Tests – those misses
took his tally for the year into double figures. For the selectors who
are still intent on finding a long-term successor to Alec Stewart, it
is a catalogue of errors that cannot be ignored any longer.Mind you, Prior has never pretended that wicketkeeping was his first
love – batting was always No. 1 for him, and he only stumbled on the
keeping role by accident as a teenager, when a junior team-mate failed
to turn up for a match. Ambrose, on the other hand, presents himself
as a gloveman first and foremost. “I’ve always kept since the first
game I played, so it’s always been a major, major part of my game,” he
said. “I take a lot of pride in it, and I thoroughly enjoy it. It’s why I play the game.”A glance at the bald statistics would tend to tell the same tale.
Ambrose has managed just four first-class centuries in seven seasons,
and none at all in his final three years at Sussex. In 2003, the year
in which the county secured their first Championship title, he played
a vital role with 931 runs and a top score of 93 not out, but in 2004
and 2005 his form fell away as Prior seized the role of top dog. “We
knew from a long way out that one of us would have to go elsewhere to
try and pursue our dreams,” said Ambrose. “The opportunity came up for
me at Warwickshire and I received good support in making that move.
Sussex were very helpful and understood the situation, and it’s worked
out well for us.”It wasn’t, however, the first time that Ambrose had upped sticks to
further his career. He was born and brought up in New South Wales,
the son of an English mother and Australian father, but at the age of
17 made a leap of faith and emigrated to England. “I had played
junior levels for NSW U17s, but I always felt the opportunity to keep
wicket and bat in that situation was against my favour, so when the
opportunity came up to come over here I grabbed it.”Ambrose sent off letters to various counties asking for a trial, and
received replies from Hampshire and Sussex, with whom he spent his
first three days in England after landing from Sydney. “My trial
started the morning after I got off the plane, so it was a pretty
shotgun thing,” he said. “I was looking to explore the world really,
and experience new things, and also to play some cricket. In that
first year Sussex asked me to play and offered me a contract, and
obviously I’d have to be a fool to pass up. It’s resulted in me having
a great life here for the last seven or eight years.”The Ashes are looming in 2009, and are the obvious target for every
English cricketer with international aspirations, but Ambrose insisted
there would be no conflict of allegiance if he ever got the chance to
play. “I’ve lived all my adult life here, and this is my home,” he
said. “All my friends are here, and I haven’t even been to Australia
for a few years. I’ll be very pleased and proud to have opportunity to
represent my country.”My mother and all her family were born in England and went to
Australia to seek opportunities,” he added. “She was fairly young,
around 15 or 16, so it’s similar to the age I was when I came back
here. I’ve spoken to quite a few of them this morning, as they’ve been
very supportive of me for the last seven or eight years.”

How equipped for success is Ambrose likely to be? If any man
should know, it would have to be England’s head coach, Peter Moores,
the man who offered that Sussex contract back in 2001. “I’m a big fan
of Peter, as everyone who’s worked with him is,” said Ambrose. “He’s
an excellent manager and coach, and he’ll be great to help with my
keeping, confidence, and every aspect of the game. I’m very much
looking forward to reuniting with him.”It was to Moores that Ambrose turned when he realised his time at
Sussex was running out. “He was very supportive, because he realised
that it was going to be the case for one of us,” said Ambrose.
“Obviously he wanted to make sure that whichever one of us did make
the move, it was the right thing to do, at the right time and the
right place. I spent five or six years under his guidance, and I
attribute a lot of my success and learning experience in the early
part of my career to him.”And yet, because of Prior’s claims, Moores was never able to offer
Ambrose a long-term role as wicketkeeper. Judging by the drama of this
selection, he still hasn’t quite made up his mind. Once again, the
spotlight is set to burn furiously on England’s latest No. 7 when the
New Zealand series gets underway.

From just another item of kit to an emblem of Australian excellence – the baggy green cap has come a long way

Gideon Haigh16-Jun-2008

Twenty years ago, when somebody at an auction bought the baggy green in which Clarrie Grimmett played the Bodyline series, for A$1200, it probably seemed a lot of money. “You spent what?” you can hear his wife saying. “On a cap?” Pleas that it was an “investment” would hardly have placated her – why, the damn thing wasn’t even fashionable.Twenty years later, one can only dip one’s own metaphorical lid. The 121 caps sold at auction since have fetched an average $17,254, and selling that Grimmett green would knock a fair dint in any family’s school fees. Particular windfalls have awaited custodians of Don Bradman baggies: five have fetched an average $160,000.In Bowral last Friday night the Bradman Museum hosted a function to celebrate that capital appreciation, and also to ponder its meanings. An audience of 200 heard Mark Taylor speak in honour of an excellent new book, , a joint project of memorabilia entrepreneur Michael Fahey and veteran cricket writer Mike Coward, and a fascinating exhibition grouping 28 caps, no two of which are alike. For a symbol so storied, the Australian cap has been subject to relatively little historical inquiry; this book and exhibition fill the gap both snugly and appealingly.Taylor, who is shaping steadily and surely as the next chairman of Cricket Australia, introduced himself cheerfully as a “cap tragic”, sharing some samples from his collection of 100, including the distinctive headgear of the Lake Albert CC from Wagga Wagga, and of the Riverina Secondary Schools Sports Association, to illustrate his point that a cap is a repository of memories, of games and places and people. He is well placed to testify: Fahey and Coward speculate that he is one of only two 100-Test veterans to have played their whole career in the one cap. Justin Langer, to whom the cap was as his blanket to Linus, is the other.Two other Australian captains, Brian Booth and Ian Craig, and former Test men Gordon Rorke, Grahame Thomas and Greg Matthews chimed in with their own reflections. Having consulted his diary of the journey, Booth was able to report that he was presented with his cap in the Launceston hotel room of Australian team manager Sydney Webb QC on 14 March 1961. “It’s a bit hard to remember back that far,” he commented. “I did well to remember to come along tonight.”In interviewing 45 past and present Australian players, however, Coward has refreshed the memories of others. Ian Chappell, for instance, divulges the origin of his habit of removing his cap while on the way back to pavilion: the experience of having his headgear snatched at the Wanderers in February 1970 as he ascended the steps. A couple of years ago, he adds, he met the cap’s current Zimbabwean owner. “You’re not the bastard who took it off my head?” Chappell asked. “No,” came the reply. “But I might have bought it from the bloke who did!” At current exchange rates, it is probably worth 500 billion Zimbabwean dollars.

The exhibition, meanwhile, is comfortably the most complete of its kind, gathering caps as antique as Victor Trumper’s, as recent as Adam Gilchrist’s and as ugly as Tony Dodemaide’s from the Bicentennial Test 20 years ago – a white cap ribboned in green which looks better suited to a Dairy Queen dispensary. The exhibition, brainchild of the industrious cricket collector and publisher Ron Cardwell, gives the lie to the idea of the cap’s precise historical continuity, while actually making it a richer historical artefact.This is overdue. In his speech, Fahey described the baggy green, rather artfully, as “an icon and a sacred cow”. For despite the fashion for lachrymose expressions of loyalty to it, the cap belongs less to the world of antiquity than to the realm of what Eric Hobsbawm called “invented tradition”: a set of practices which “seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past”. So it is that faithfully reports the evolution not just of the symbol but of the reverence inhering in it – to the extent where, under Steve Waugh, it became like the Round Table to Australian cricket’s Camelot.We learn not only of the rituals established by recent Australian XIs – the numbers, the tattoos, the corroborees – but those indulged in by their forebears. “In my day, they were just caps and flung into our bags,” Bill Brown muses; like his fellow Invincibles Sir Donald Bradman and Arthur Morris, he gave all his away. Neither Richie Benaud nor Ian Chappell owns a cap between them. “I don’t ever remember having one discussion about the cap during my playing days,” Chappell insists. His contemporary John Inverarity, in fact, recalls an apathy about the cap that occasionally shaded into hostility. When he donned a baggy for the traditional Duchess of Norfolk’s XI game at Arundel, he found he was the only player wearing it. “I felt a little self-conscious,” he recalls, “but felt I wasn’t in a position to share that thought for it was a little too earnest or conscientious.”It’s not as though the players’ elders taught them much differently either. Ken Eastwood recounts how before his Test debut in February 1971 he was asked to try on caps by Australian Cricket Board secretary Alan Barnes. The first one didn’t fit; the second did; he was allowed to keep both, thus obtaining the unique record of one Test for two caps. Similarly, veteran administrator Bob Merriman recalls Barnes scattering caps among the team on its way to tour India almost 30 years ago “as though he was delivering newspapers from a moving vehicle”. No wonder then that when Len Pascoe found a mislaid cap in an Australian dressing room at Lord’s during his career, nobody claimed it.These brisk and practical reflections are seasoned with some regrets – Doug Walters laments not having worn his more often – and some surprising differences of opinion. Incongruously, Steve Waugh comes in for as much blame as praise, especially his consecration of a cap in what, had it been a fashion accessory, would have been described as “distressed felt”. Waugh’s former captain Geoff Lawson says it was “disrespectful not respectful” for Waugh to wear his cap until it was so battered, his erstwhile coach Bob Simpson that the cap should always “be in pristine condition”. Keith Stackpole expresses bafflement: “I can’t understand why they mean that much when they don’t bat in the things.”

Deliciously, the players are now having reflected back to them their own public avowals of unswerving allegiance. When the Australians wore a sponsor’s blue practice caps into the field against a Jamaican Select XI last month in the pipe-opener to their Caribbean tour, it must have been one of the few occasions in sports marketing where a corporation has been embarrassed at their logo’s visibility. In a typically trenchant column in the , Greg Baum saw CUB as muscling in where corporates should fear to tread: “Plainly, they [the Australian team] were playing not for us, but for yet another franchise. This was a breathtaking contempt, not just morally, because of the campaign against binge-drinking, and not just aesthetically, because it made the Australian team look like a pack of Sunday afternoon pub players.” Tabloid headlines reverberated; talkback radio hummed for days. There might not have been the same fuss had the players turned up in identical rainbow tams.Even by the eccentric standards of Australian cricket controversies, this was a most peculiar incident. Team protests that they were simply acting out of solidarity with Brad Haddin, not yet capped at Test level, cut no ice: you tamper at your peril even with the totems you help create. Yet nobody seemed much bothered by the publication in April of an Australian Cricket Association survey revealing that almost half of Australia’s contracted players would consider retiring prematurely from international cricket in order to maximise their IPL earnings potential. No wonder players are confused if the substance of change no longer bothers Australians so much as its symbols.Perhaps, then, we are at a historic hinge point. Hitherto there has been a synergy between the advance of the baggy green cult and the rise of the players as commercial commodities. But is the time coming when the cap will be a brand in competition with the players’ , restricting their commercial freedom, scrambling their individual messages? A survey last week by polling company Sweeney Research reported that six of the ten most “marketable” Australian sportsmen were cricketers: Ricky Ponting (1), Adam Gilchrist (2), Brett Lee (5), Glenn McGrath (6), Steve Waugh (9) and Andrew Symonds (10). How readily does a backward-looking symbol of collective purpose reconcile with the forward-looking promotion of standalone stars? All the more reason to check out , to check on where we’ve come from in readiness for where we’re going.

Repeated bunglings by WICB officials have embarrassed West Indies cricket

Tony Cozier13-Apr-2008
Jerome Taylor has his name spelled incorrectly during the first ODI against Sri Lanka © AFP
The West Indies Cricket Board made its draft strategic plan public last week. It is a weighty document, full of grandiose plans and expectations – and good intentions.It is, president Julian Hunte stated in his foreword, “intended to elucidate and operationalise our vision of the future, a future in which the West Indies will once more be a major, if not the dominant, force in world cricket”.”The one thing the plan recognises is that we need the support and active participation of all sectors of Caribbean society if we are to succeed in restoring the pride in our cricket,” he added.The president must know that all with the well-being of West Indian cricket close to their hearts, share such hopes. But the WICB won’t get “the support and active participation of all sectors of the Caribbean society” if the functionaries employed to administer the plan continue to embarrass West Indies cricket with their repeated gaffes.If they cannot get team shirts with the correct spelling of their players’ names, or any name at all, on the back; fail to raise an XI to fulfill a scheduled fixture against the visiting international team, cause play to be delayed in a ODI for lack of a computer with the details of the essential Duckworth-Lewis system and fluff any one of the dozens of their simple chores as they have done in recent years, how can they be expected to manage a programme of development the strategic plan estimates will cost US$138 million over the next five years?The sight of our premier fast bowler, with one of the most common surnames in the English language, running into the batsman with “Tayrol” written across his back during the first ODI on Thursday was demeaning – unless Jerome Taylor was now sponsored by the newest miracle cough mixture.As he delivered, a fielder crouched at slip had the back of his top swathed in as much plaster as to treat an Iraq war veteran. He was, we were made to understand, Devon Smith who had to borrow Sewnarine Chattergoon’s shirt because his was not ready. And this for a match programmed for months.Later, as play was about to resume after lunch, there was a delay of a quarter-hour while someone tried to get the Duckworth-Lewis details for match referee Chris Broad. And so on and so forth, ad infinitum.”What do we say to those who state that all this is just nit-picking,” Fazeer Mohammed asked rhetorically on his radio/TV show during the week.What we say is that nits can make life very uncomfortable and a plague of them has undermined West Indies cricket for too long.

A speculative look at what cricket’s next decade has in store – from floodlit Tests to international teams in the IPL

Simon Wilde06-Feb-2009

Teams like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka could conceivably play more one-off Tests against each other in future as longer series become unviable for them© PA Photos
Just how radical cricket’s future might be is clear from looking at the past. Imagine we are back in early 1999 and ask who would have thought then that an as-yet uncapped 20-year-old batsman from Delhi, Virender Sehwag, would over the next 10 years maintain as an opener a scoring-rate in Tests of almost 80 runs per 100 balls while averaging more than 50 per innings. Who would have imagined, either, that an England batsman (having already gained fame for winning the Ashes while wearing a skunk on his head) would have introduced switch-hitting into five-day cricket? And who on earth would have said that 20-over matches would take the world by storm? Logically we are in for one hell of a ride between now and 2019.The advent of Twenty20 will prove one of the seminal moments in cricket history. Its major effect will be the end of internationals as the primary goal of every professional player. Instead many players will essentially be free agents, more independent and wealthy than they have ever been. They will be granted seats, and an influential voice, on national boards and the ICC.There will be several Twenty20 leagues around the world – in India, England, Australia and possibly South Africa – plus more exhibition events, like the Stanford Super Series, sponsored by super-rich patrons. These will enable 100 players a year to earn million-dollar salaries from this format alone. All major international cricket is suspended when these events take place.The Champions League, however, may take several years to take root and, given the exorbitant prices for TV rights paid at the outset, may even be junked as a victim of the credit crunch.The popularity and wealth of these events will force Test and traditional 50-overs internationals into change. Test matches will be condensed to four days because five days will seem too long, the tempo of the games will inevitably get faster due to Twenty20, and everyone will regard the chance to save a day and open up valuable space in a crowded calendar as too good an opportunity to miss.In every country outside England most Test matches will be played under floodlights once manufacturers provide a coloured ball that does not misbehave too much. At a stroke this will revitalise spectator interest in Australia and South Africa, but problems with dew will influence which venues stage Tests and when these matches are played.In England day-time attendances will remain strong but this means England will find it harder to win Tests overseas because they will have less experience of Test cricket at night. Generally Test matches will see faster scoring, with the best batsmen achieving strike-rates in excess of 100, and teams will not blanch at being asked to chase down 450 in the fourth innings.Another seminal event is the decision taken by ICC members that from 2012 they will play the World Twenty20 and 50-overs World Cup every three years. These tournaments make up two of international cricket’s three “majors”, the other being the world Test Championship.The Test Championship is basically run on the existing rankings system but with a playoffs season every third year, the main attraction being two semi-finals and a final. These are “special” Test matches, played as two-innings limited-overs matches of 180 overs per side so that draws are eliminated. These games originally take place in London as this is regarded as the most cosmopolitan centre, though the security bill eats up most of the revenue.In defiance of predictions Tests will continue to provide some of the most enthralling matches and remain much loved by television companies anxious to fill their airtime. Test cricket is exciting because, thanks to the influence of Twenty20, batting sides think almost no task impossible and are prepared to risk losing in the quest for victory.The speed at which batsmen score will help keep a balance between bat and ball, with runs per wicket staying at around 30-35, as it has for many years. Those appearing for the main Test-playing nations will continue to record striking personal aggregates. Among those to reach 10,000 runs in Tests will be Australia’s Michael Clarke and AB de Villiers of South Africa, while Kevin Pietersen will be followed to this milestone for England by Alastair Cook. Many players will essentially be free agents, more independent and wealthy than they have ever been. They will be granted seats, and an influential voice, on national boards and the ICC But less Test cricket will be played. Outside the big five who play each other regularly – England, Australia, India, South Africa and West Indies (the latter’s cricket rejuvenated by the disciplines and money brought in through the annual Stanford matches, once Allen Stanford gets the modernised West Indies board he wants) – priorities will lie elsewhere.Under the new Future Tours Programme, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and Bangladesh are permitted to play one-off Tests rather than the existing minimum of two.After the disastrous example of Zimbabwe no new countries apply for Test status but several new countries start playing official Twenty20s, including the United States and a well-funded Chinese team.Sri Lanka and New Zealand among others will be relieved not to play so many Tests because TV companies and sponsors there had less interest in covering matches and the national boards found the games expensive to stage. Most of their leading players, in any case, will be happy concentrating on Twenty20s and ODIs. These countries will rarely deny players a No-Objection Certificate for domestic Twenty20s for fear of losing them altogether.The way for the Pakistani players was led by Sohail Tanvir’s decision in December 2008 to sign to play Twenty20 for South Australia. Pakistan will stage what few home Tests they host in Abu Dhabi or London (security permitting), as Pakistan itself continues to suffer from a boycott on security grounds. The Pakistan board will fulfill foreign tours, but results are poor as they struggle to put out a full-strength XI.Pakistan also have what are effectively national teams in the ICL and IPL, as do Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. This means that their players can make up for their smaller earnings from Test cricket. Even without so many opportunities against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, Ajantha Mendis, the Sri Lankan spinner, will have little trouble passing 500 Test wickets.The experience of playing so much Twenty20 will help the Asian nations, Bangladesh included, dominate the World Twenty20 and World Cup, thanks to their strength in unorthodox spin, inventive fast bowlers, and greater use of the muscle-building supplements like Creatin.All round, India, their talent base enlarged through the inspirational effect of the short formats, become indisputably the best team in the world. They have one of the strongest packs of fast bowlers, several of whom are left-armers. The best of them is Ishant Sharma. India’s new breed of batsmen includes Murali Vijay, who blends a solid technique with the strength to smite big sixes.Australia will win fewer trophies. Their Test cricket will suffer from their board allowing so many leading players time to play in the Twenty20 leagues and their sloth in integrating ethnic minorities, who may follow the example of Moises Henriques, a former Under-19 captain born in Madeira, who signed for the IPL in 2008.

Switch-hitting is set to become as big as reverse-sweeping is now, and the likes of David Warner will see their value rise© Getty Images
South Africa remain strong in fast bowling – led by the world’s best new-ball pair, Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel – but pay the price for being unable to produce world-class spinners and lacking imagination when it comes to limited-overs cricket. Their team is bolstered by expatriate Zimbabweans with nowhere else to go.West Indies produce several dazzling strokemakers but their most reliable batsman is likely to be Adrian Barath, a low-wicket player from Trinidad in the style of Shivnarine Chanderpaul. England become a strong Test side thanks to a rich seam of Asian-extraction slow bowlers – led by legspinning allrounder Adil Rashid – who can win them day-time matches at home. These spinners will not be as one-dimensional as Monty Panesar, as multi-faceted cricketers are strictly de rigueur. Because they continue to play more Tests than anyone else, England lag behind in the shorter forms of the game.Spin bowling will generally have a big part to play as it is seen as the best way of slowing down the scoring. In turn the challenge for batsmen will be to find ways to break the shackles. Switch-hitting will become as common as reverse-sweeping is today. The United States team, in particular, is keen on switch-hitters. In the Twenty20 leagues every team will have at least one switch-hitter, a pattern begun by David Warner of New South Wales, who can bat with almost equal facility left-handed or right-handed. To this end it is common for players to use double-sided bats, which are currently being developed by Gray-Nicolls in Australia.Wristy batsmen will prosper but what will underpin the games of the vast majority of batsmen will be raw muscle. The open-chested stance will be more common, as batsmen look to free their arms for baseball-style swings. The number of six hits will rise to record levels; in Twenty20s more sixes will be hit than fours, as batsmen go aerial to ensure they elude fielding that is more athletic than ever.Yellow and red cards will belatedly be introduced for slow play, indiscipline and physical contact, all of which will rise in response to the greater financial rewards on offer. The ICC will also consent to on-field umpires acting in unison with the third official.

Stats review of the West Indies-England series

S Rajesh11-Mar-2009A total of 5279 runs were scored for the loss of 113 wickets – an average of 46.72; the batsmen helped themselves to 17 hundreds, while the bowlers managed only four five-fors and had to wait, on an average, 88.2 balls per wicket. Whichever way you look at it, this was a series completely dominated by batsmen, with little joy for bowlers. The batsmen averaged 43.50 in this series (excluding extras), which is the second-highest in a series in the Caribbean. The only instance of a higher series average is when South Africa toured there in 2004-05 in a series in which 44.18 runs were scored per wicket. The number of centuries scored is second-highest in a series in the West Indies.The home team won’t mind those numbers – they won their first series since 2004, and their first against a team other than Bangladesh and Zimbabwe since June 2003 – but in terms of compelling cricket, there wasn’t much to recommend throughout the series.West Indies held firm through tricky passages in the second Test and the last one, but England will feel they might have, with some luck, returned home with a 2-1 result in their favour. They were one wicket short of victory in Antigua, and two short in Port of Spain. Thanks to those two collapses, West Indies’ runs per wicket is lesser than England’s. In fact, most of the numbers favour the England team, despite the final series result not going their way – they’ve also scored more centuries and fifties.

The partnership stats further reinforce the dominance of bat over ball. Apart from the odd blip, most of the top-order wickets put together meaty partnerships: West Indies had a reasonable average for the first wicket despite Devon Smith’s ordinary form, while England’s top two were prolific. England’s only problem was the No.3 slot, where they tried two batsmen (and a nightwatchman), but met with little success. West Indies struggled similarly when Ryan Hinds batted at the No.4 slot: with 41 runs in three innings, he gave the slot no solidity at all.

The highest batting average was almost the same (104 for England, 104.33 for West Indies), but the difference was that while Ravi Bopara batted just one innings for that average, Ramnaresh Sarwan played the entire series. It’s his highest average in a series in which he’s played more than two Tests. It was also the highest aggregate by any West Indian since Brian Lara scored 688 in three Tests against Sri Lanka in 2001-02.There used to be a time when the West Indies used to be an excellent venue for fast bowlers, but those days are long gone. In this series, fast bowlers toiled hard for their 63 wickets, averaging almost 48. Spinners were only slightly better, thanks largely to Graeme Swann, who took 19 wickets at 24.04, easily the best bowling average from both teams. (Click here for the series averages of England, and here for those of West Indies.)

Head-to-head contestsThough the batsmen dominated the bowlers overall, there were a few interesting head-to-head contests where the bowlers came out on top. Swann had a complete hold over the hapless Devon Smith, but perhaps more surprisingly, Stuart Broad had excellent numbers against Shivnarine Chanderpaul, conceding only 26 runs and dismissing him thrice from 114 deliveries.The main spinners from both teams, Swann and Sulieman Benn, both had uneven stats against the right- and left-hand batsmen. Benn preferred bowling to the right-handers, as you’d expect, while Swann was much better against the lefties (though that was also because West Indies’ right-hand club largely consisted of Sarwan, who averaged 63 against him).

Sri Lanka’s ace spinner has had a poor tournament, a solitary wicket and bundles of runs leaked at pace

Osman Samiuddin in Johannesburg26-Sep-2009If emotions and the rest of it didn’t come into it, Kumar Sangakkara wouldhave some straightforward decisions to make for the game against NewZealand, which they must now win to make the semi-finals. But human beingswithout emotion are not human beings at all, and so whatever decisions hedoes take between now and Sunday will likely be among the most difficultones he has had to make the short time he has been captain.On the face of it, Muttiah Muralitharan should be dropped; he has had a poor tournament, a solitary wicket and bundles of runs leaked atpace. He has not looked quite with it, truth be told; probably if you stoodclose by you might not even hear the low, ominous whir of his usualdeliveries. He has missed that very thing that makes him – that snap in hisspin, in his wrists, the devil in his eyes. Perish the thought but has heeven looked robotic? England played him comfortably, even daring to goafter him, and that can never be a good sign for any spinner.And the Wanderers in this mood simply demands another pace option. Not often do you drop your fast bowler when he is in the form of his life, but such are the peculiar dilemmas of Sri Lanka’s depth that Thilan Thushara has not so far played a part here. Sangakkara must know he has to play him against New Zealand, if conditions and the surface are as they weretonight. Ajantha Mendis has looked the better spinner and the rest of theattack has performed so who to drop but Murali?But Muttiah Muralitharan – Murali, legend, icon, great, national hero -cannot be dropped so easily. One of the downsides of greatness is notknowing how much rope to give it as time nears its end; in greatness whendoes a momentary lack of form become a more permanent and fatal condition?He’s done it so many times before after all, and the odds that he does itagain cannot be that long.Sanath Jayasuriya’s place may not be as much a predicament simply becausethe space he occupies in Sri Lankan cricket is altogether different;anyway he is at a more advanced point in his career than Murali. Andconcerns about his form are not new. If we want to be ruthless about it,then he averages barely over 10 outside the subcontinent over the last twoyears and half that here. To a lesser degree, the Jayasuriya question issimilar to Murali’s. What if one of those prods outside off takes an edge,goes over point for six and sparks carnage?

Not often do you drop your fast bowler when he is in the form of his life, but such are the peculiar dilemmas of Sri Lanka’s depth that Thilan Thushara has not so far played a part here

The matters are delicate, and tellingly the question wasn’t raisedpost-match though Sangakkara did allude to it. “We’ll have to sit down andhave a think. There are lots of good players on the bench waiting to havea look. Come training tomorrow, we’ll have a think, worry about it a bitmore, a bit longer and probably make the obvious decision when the timecomes to make that decision.”The smoothness of Sangakkara does have an edge to it. You can imagine himbeing gung-ho about it and taking the decision, though until he makes it,it is just that: imagination. Whatever decision he takes will in theprocess reveal a fair bit more about him and his leadership.None of this is to apportion blame for triumph and failure are collective.The top order failed today and Sri Lanka’s fielding was some way off itsown energetic standards. Whatever was right about Sri Lanka came from theyoung, a signal maybe to Sangakkara of which path to take. “[Thilina] Kandamby and[Angelo] Mathews have been very impressive for the whole of the last year, andthey’ve been great in the A and international side. We’ve sort of sortedout the middle order problem, now we have to get everyone firing at thesame time.”But haste is of essence. It is one of the painful beauties of thistournament that one match can bring upon such headaches. There is no timefor sentiment or emotion. Get the team wrong again on Sunday and you mightbe out.

The IPL gurus have always pitched the tournament as an opportunity for young Indian talent to make their mark – and, at the same time, reaped the benefits of seniors trying to come back to international cricket. Tonight they had Manish Pandey and Herschel

Sriram Veera in Centurion21-May-2009The IPL gurus would be very happy with Friday’s late match. They have always pitched the tournament as an opportunity for young Indian talent to make their mark – and, at the same time, reaped the benefits of seniors trying to come back to international cricket. Tonight they had Manish Pandey and Herschelle Gibbs as cases in point and on both counts they were right.If Pandey goes on to bigger things, he will look back at this knock as where it all turned around for him, the innings where he began to express himself at the international level. Self-expression has never been Gibbs’ problem; self-destruction has. Through this season’s IPL, he has shown that he retains the hunger to play cricket at a high level.This is certainly the biggest night in Pandey’s career. Often, an innings like this kickstarts a career. Pandey was behind the likes of Virat Kohli in the list of players who emerged from the India team that won the Under-19 world cup last year. Kohli had the swagger, the extra confidence that separated him from his teammates. He got the India cap first and acquitted himself creditably against the likes of Muttiah Muralitharan and Ajantha Mendis. Pandey remained in his shadow so far. Till today. So far, he hadn’t done much in IPL or for that matter in the last domestic season, when he played for Karnataka. He was spoken of highly by the people in the know; they had no doubt about his talent, they were merely waiting for him to start expressing himself.It was fascinating to see Pandey progress through the innings. It wasn’t the shots he played that stood out as much as the intent and confidence behind them. He swung his bat merrily at the end but showed plenty of brain earlier on when, time and again, he threaded the vacant spaces on the leg side to rotate the strike. There were a couple of big hits even early on in his innings but there was no visibly aggressive body language. He was sailing along quietly.There were three moments later that brought out the real Pandey. Against Pragyan Ojha, he played his trademark half-flick half-sweep that one has seen him play in the age -group and domestic cricket. He lunged forward to fetch it from outside off and transported the ball towards the wide midwicket boundary. Ross Taylor charged across for the runs but Pandey stood at his spot before finally taking a couple of steps down the track. A short while later, he hit another one, this time off Jaskaran Singh, to the boundary. This time around, he didn’t step out an inch. . The young man was beginning to feel that he belonged there. Soon afterward, he swung RP Singh over the ropes and this time held his pose for a long time. One baby step at a time; one giant leap in confidence.It’s difficult to draw any definite conclusions about the quality of Pandey’s batsmanship from this one innings but this was the first clear sign of self-expression from him.It’s all in contrast, of course, to Herschelle Gibbs. After months in the wilderness, he made his comeback in the home series against Australia, held just before the IPL and it’s safe to say he was under scrutiny by the national selectors through this tournament. He is on trial not to showcase his talent but to confirm that his mind is in the game. Whether he is in control of himself. Whether he is really hungry for cricketing success. He has proved it so far it in the tournament. And continued it today.That great ball sense was once again on display. His signature swat-flick – a thing of beauty – was repeatedly deployed; he kept flicking Praveen Kumar with nonchalant ease. In the bar, a teammate of his from the under-19 days told a story from that time. One day a coach overseeing practice asked Gibbs, who was sauntering off, to return to the batting nets. He picked up the bat and, though it was a fast-bowling nets, went in without pads or gloves. Gibbs signalled for the bowling to start and proceeded to demolish the nets bowlers. “He used to play that flick even then. It was always the question about his head.” Gibbs has always comes with that asterisk. If he can continue batting as he has done in this tournament, one can see him opening for South Africa in that 2011 World Cup.

Sussex fans are taking the opportunity to expand their horizons through the first international cricket club championship

Nagraj Gollapudi in Delhi11-Oct-2009Colin Bowman and Bryan Cox were watching the Premiership game between Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur a few months ago. Bowman, an insurance broker, put ₤10 on Jermaine Defoe scoring the game’s first goal and United winning 3-1. The bet came in and Bowman won ₤1700. Instantly the pair, high on bubbly, decided to buy tickets to India to follow their club side Sussex in the Champions League Twenty20 the next day. Did Bowman wake up the next day to regret his impulsive decision?”Not at all. It is a month’s salary so I’d rather spend it here than on household stuff,” Bowman said, laughing. Bowman said he spent the money following Sussex because it was his home club and he was here to show support – a sentiment echoed by every one of the 30-strong Sussex fan club that reached India earlier this week. About a dozen of them form part of the Grand Cru Cricket tour group and the rest have come to follow their team.Bowman and Cox admit they are not as dedicated as the others who move around the UK to follow Sussex’s fortunes, but they love visiting big sporting events – they went to the Beijing Olympics last year and plan to visit South Africa for the FIFA World Cup next year.It is uncommon to see cricket fans travelling around the world following their clubs, something football fanatics have been doing for decades. But since the Champions League is the first proper international club championship in the sport, people are optimistic that the concept will encourage fans from various countries to cross borders and encourage their players.”It is not normal for a cricket club’s fans to come overseas,” Clive Roberts, who runs Grand Cru, told Cricinfo. “But you have to bear in mind this is the first time that English club sides have been given an opportunity to play in other countries. This shows since people are now prepared to travel abroad to follow their club and one would hope these people would go back home and tell their friends what a good time they had and that would spread the message.”But aren’t the Grand Cru charges – 1350 pounds per person for the five-star hospitality for a week’s stay in Delhi – steep even for well-off fans? Jenny ‘Pip’ Kirtley, mother of former England fast bowler James, agreed she had to do some calculating before boarding her first flight to India. “I thought maybe it is a bit expensive but the dates were just right,” Kirtley said while swaying to the Bollywood music in the background. “And I’d never been to India so it was too good an opportunity to miss.”For Kirtley, an event like the Champions League carried greater importance than just the pleasure of watching her son play. “The event is very special and the difference is these are teams (Sussex, Somerset, New South Wales and the other domestic sides) as opposed to the IPL sides who are a group of people. They play together all season so there is huge family feeling. James has played with Sussex for 15 years…the allegiance is important.”The Sussex management ensured the fans got good seating in the ground and also invited them to a “supporters’ night” that was attended by the players, as well as former India captain Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, the Indian who’s played the most county games (88). “The players were quite impressed and delighted that people have taken the pains to come to India to support to them,” Roberts said.Ed Joyce, the stand-in Sussex captain, said he could heard the loud chants of the home fans from the stands. “I could even hear them singing the verses from [the Sussex anthem]”, Joyce said.Kirtley is flying back home in three days but, given the costs, is not optimistic about returning later in the tournament. “I don’t think they [fans] will be doing it very often.”There are some, though, like Paul Elford, a civil servant, who said he may return if Sussex reach the knockout stages. An avid fan of the county from the days of Pataudi, Tony Greig and Imran Khan, Elford still rues the fact that he missed a Championship game last season. “It is a small cub and for it to take part in such a big event, which is the world club championships, it is a proud moment for us.”

He may have seemed a trigger-happy dasher, but he also had the sharpest of cricketing brains

Rajan Bala15-Oct-2009For the sheer pleasure that he gave the world as a batsman, Rohan Bholalall Kanhai is my favourite cricketer. Averaging fractionally under 48 in a distinguished Test career that saw him rise to become the captain of West Indies, Rohan had Bradmanesque qualities. This implies that he was ruthless, uncaring of the reputations of bowlers, and daring in his strokeplay. But at the same time he was a crafty batsman who understood the finer points of technique better than most. The great Sunil Gavaskar shares my view that he is the best he has watched and learned from. How many people know more about batting than Sunil?Rohan was by no means a big man. He had a feline grace about him, rather like a leopard stalking its prey. Suddenly he would spring into action and devastate a bowler, taking him completely by surprise.He scored in excess of 6000 runs, with 15 centuries and 28 half-centuries, and had the capacity to make batting look very easy. I first saw him in 1958-59 when I was a schoolboy and he caned the rather elderly Indian attack for 256. Garfield Sobers and Basil Butcher too made centuries in that Test, but Rohan’s strokeplay was almost incandescent. I was not very old then – in my 13th year and already a cricket addict – but I remember his batting to this day. It was in vivid contrast to his scratchy effort of 90 in 1966-67, in Calcutta again, when he could not do a thing right. The pitch at the Eden Gardens was one of uncertain pace and bounce; the ball would stop after it hit the ground and Rohan’s timing was all awry. He was dropped a couple of times.However, there was one incident that remains engraved in my memory. He was playing the final over before lunch on day one. It was from the debutant Bishan Singh Bedi, whose first over in Test cricket it was. Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, the Indian captain, had brought the new boy on for the first time, thinking that he would be able to ease himself into the big league. Rohan played defensively the first five balls and it seemed almost certain that Bishan would start his career with a maiden. It was not to be. Rohan hit the last ball straight for six and walked away to lunch. Later he said to me: “The lad looked good from the beginning. I was not going to give him a maiden to start with. He must have been thinking of what I did to his final delivery during lunch.”There were numerous occasions when Rohan and I chatted, both in the West Indies and in India. We have a common friend in Tony Becca, a respected Jamaican sportswriter. Rohan can be garrulous when the mood seizes him. And from various conversations, one could understand the depth of his knowledge. I remember asking him about his batting and he explained, “You have to develop a sound technique and, especially, a tight defence. It is not that the defence should be the basis of your game, like it was in the case of a couple of Englishmen. A defensive stroke can get you a single if you learn to place the ball. As far as stroke-making is concerned, you have to put every poor delivery away to the boundary and sometimes even hit a few good ones too. It is when you do the latter that the bowlers are made to think. The odd risk is worth taking, provided the percentages are on your side.”

Rohan was by no means a big man. He had a feline grace about him, rather like a leopard stalking its prey. Suddenly he would spring into action and devastate a bowler, taking him completely by surprise

He played a stroke that is unique in the annals of the game – the falling sweep. After hitting the ball, he would fall to the earth as the ball flew out of the ground. “I suppose I played it to waken myself,” he remarked with a chuckle. “There was no risk at all but I had to do something different.”Rohan initially played with the three Ws, all knighted by the Queen of England – Frank Worrell, Everton Weekes and Clyde Walcott – and was said to have had a lifelong rivalry with another knight, Garry Sobers.”My rivalry with Sobie might have been there initially but then Frank Worrell talked to us about how we were both bulwarks of the batting,” Rohan said. “Sobie is the greatest allrounder ever. But I like to think I had a role to play in influencing batsmen like Clive Lloyd and Alvin Kallicharran.I loved to hear tales about Rohan’s batting. And one I heard in Guyana is the best. It seems he got a double-century for Guyana against Barbados in a four-day Shell Shield tie. Barbados had an attack comprising Wes Hall, Charlie Griffith, Sobers, offspinner Tony White, and left-arm spinner Rawle Brancker. It was a formidable line-up on what was a lively pitch. An old cricket fan said, “The way Rohan hooked Hall and Griffith, maan, was spectacular. They were after him but our Rohan was just too good.”Contrast the daredevilry of his batting with his sedate and thoughtful effort in the World Cup final against Australia in 1975. His half-century in the company of Lloyd, who eventually made a punishing hundred, steadied the ship. It was an almost white-haired Rohan who played his lone World Cup and finished on the winning side. A match-winner, the best player I ever saw, and a friend.

The first two editions of the IPL made heroes out of players without reputations – Yusuf Pathan, Manish Pandey and Swapnil Asnodkar to name a few. Cricinfo looks at the dark horses to bet on during IPL 3

Nitin Sundar11-Mar-2010

Thissara Perera

Thissara Perera is fresh to international cricket, but is already looked upon as Sri Lanka’s batting Powerplay specialist. In his third ODI, against India in January, Perera showed exactly why he is held in high regard by the Sri Lanka think-tank. Walking into a tight chase that needed a further 54 off 39 balls to reach fruition, Perera’s 15-ball 36 sealed the match with two overs to spare.That is the kind of explosive impact that Chennai Super Kings could do with in their middle order, which in past seasons has struggled to capitalize on the momentum provided at the top, by Mathew Hayden and Suresh Raina. Perera’s handy seamers, which wreaked havoc in the recent Inter-Provincial Twenty20 tournament where he picked 9 wickets at 13.11, provide MS Dhoni the option of a strike bowler in the middle of the innings. Given Albie Morkel’s poor form, Andrew Flintoff’s absence and Jacob Oram’s injury woes, Perera could well emerge the key allrounder for Chennai this season.

Mitchell Marsh

His IPL captain Adam Gilchrist has been raving about him recently. Many in Australia hold him as the best young player in the country. Mitchell Marsh, brother of Shaun, is a powerful batsman and a medium pacer who recently led Australia U-19 to victory in the World Cup.In 2008-09, at the age of 17, he became the youngest ever player to feature in Australian domestic one-day competition and was also the youngest debutant for Western Australia in 70 years. He announced himself the following summer with a a 29-ball 60 against NSW in an FR Cup game. Expect sparks to fly in this IPL.

Michael Lumb

Shane Warne has the knack of unearthing heroes from the most unexpected quarters and Michael Lumb could be his next surprise discovery. A hard-hitting batsman from South Africa, Lumb made his way through the junior ranks in Transvaal before moving to England. After an initial high, his abilities seemed to have plateaued and he was dropped by Yorkshire in 2005.A couple of uneventful seasons later, Lumb moved to Hampshire in 2007, and thereafter the stars aligned perfectly. He found his calling in the youngest format of the game, and peaked in 2009 with 442 runs in 11 games, a performance that caught the eyes of Warne as well as the national selectors. An England Lions call-up followed, but Lumb’s biggest break yet could be the Rajasthan Royals’ contract. After the heroics of Yusuf Pathan and Kamran Khan in past seasons, Lumb may well emerge as the new poster boy for a side that regularly punches above its weight.

R Satish

At the age of 29, R Satish’s journey to prominence has been one full of dead-ends, detours and determination. Hailing from a modest background, from the town of Trichy in Tamil Nadu, Satish had to cycle 20 km everyday during his formative years just to have a chance to play the game. Despite breaking into the Tamil Nadu team in 2000-01, he was unable to become a permanent fixture in the side and migrated to Assam in 2003. Playing for a relatively weaker side, he averaged over fifty through two strong seasons, the highlight being an unbeaten 204 against his earlier team. He later broke away from the mainstream and joined the Indian Cricket League where he made waves with the Chennai-based franchise, and as the captain of the ICL India XI.He returned to the Tamil Nadu side after BCCI’s offer of amnesty to the ICL players and his second wind has been pivotal in the state’s ascendancy in the domestic scene. A hard-hitting batsman who can hold his own with the ball, Satish is also a livewire in the field. He shone in all three facets of the game, as Tamil Nadu clinched the recently-concluded Vijay Hazare Trophy, and goes into the IPL in the middle of a purple patch.

Eoin Morgan

Michael Lumb smashed 442 runs in 11 games last year•Getty ImagesPurchased by the Royal Challengers Bangalore for $220,000, Morgan is undoubtedly the biggest steal of the 2010 auction. An Irish import to England colours, he brings to the table the rare ability to play innovative, yet risk-free, shots under pressure. He announced himself on the international stage with a breathtaking 67 off 34 balls that eliminated South Africa from the Champions Trophy in 2009, followed by a mauling of the same attack in a Twenty20 fixture in Johannesburg.While those knocks proved that he could come up trumps against the best bowlers in the world, his contrastingly calm and collected century in an ODI chase against Bangladesh epitomised his ability to adapt to the situation. The stand-out feature of his innings was the ability to manufacture shots, such as the powerful, yet carpet-bound, reverse-sweeps in front of square, through packed off-side fields. Such innovation will come in handy for Bangalore, who have their share of correct batsmen in Jacques Kallis and Rahul Dravid.

Mohnish Mishra

Mohnish Mishra is a hard-hitting batsman who made a name for himself as a T20 opener while playing in the ICL. He rejoined the BCCI fold last year to play first-class cricket for Madhya Pradesh. In six T20 games for Madhya Pradesh, he averages 41.80 at a strike rate of 155.97 and from 16 List A games, he averages over 50 at a strike rate of 97.Gilchrist, his IPL captain, has already said he is really impressed with Mishra’s batting prowess but it’s to be seen whether Mishra gets a chance to make a name for himself in this IPL.

R Ashwin

In 2009, R Ashwin’s role in the IPL was limited to one excellent spell against Punjab, but circumstances suggest he could be crucial to Chennai’s campaign this year. While his bowling has crossed the barrier that separates adequate from effective, he has improved immeasurably with the bat. The highlight of his domestic season was the Duleep Trophy semi-final where he struck two fighting half-centuries apart from contributing six vital second-innings scalps.While Ashwin is at the peak of his powers, it helps his cause that there may be a slow-bowling vacancy in the Chennai ranks with their first-choice spinner, Muttiah Muralitharan, not in the best of form. Shadab Jakati stepped up well last season with his incisive left-arm spin, which could be complemented by Ashwin’s off-breaks delivered from a high trajectory. If Ashwin is included ahead of Murali, it will also open up an overseas slot for Chennai.