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August 30, 2007
Posted on 08/30/2007 in Indian cricket
Harsha Bhogle analyses India's poor fielding in the Indian Express
So why have we come to this stage? Because we have always looked upon fielding as an additional degree not as basic education. Not everyone can be a Jonty, or a Ponting or a Symonds or a Collingwood. But if you want to be an economist you must know mathematics, if you want to be an athlete you must know a fair bit about food and diets. That is why I believe, and I remember saying this five years ago, that coaches at India’s hyped but ineffective academies must take most of the blame. If a 17-year-old isn’t told that without being a fine fielder he is compromising on his future, then the teacher is no good. Neither is the student but sometimes you need to be shown what you cannot see.
August 28, 2007
Posted on 08/28/2007 in Commentary
The countdown has begun in the Times. There are two players who never played Test cricket and of course, the usual suspects.
August 27, 2007
Posted on 08/27/2007 in Australian cricket
As Cricket Australia finalises its illicit drug-testing code, Australia’s players have asked for guarantees their privacy won’t be compromised. Chloe Saltau writes in the Age that the demand has come after a news outlet released the details of drug histories and medical records of two Australian Football League players.
Cricket is leaning towards a system similar to the National Rugby League model — a first positive test would see penalties deferred if the player agreed to counselling, while a second would attract a harsher punishment. The system preferred by Cricket Australia has the support of the Federal Government and is tougher than the controversial AFL "three-strikes" policy now in crisis.
August 26, 2007
Posted on 08/26/2007 in Australian cricket
Dean Jones is pushing for a spot on Cricket Victoria’s board but there are concerns over a conflict of interest because of his role in the Indian Cricket League. In the Age Martin Blake talks to Jones, who says the series is hosting “glorified exhibition matches”.
Posted on 08/26/2007 in English cricket
Michael Atherton says in the Sunday Telegraph that England must pick Monty Panesar as he is potentially England's best modern one-day spinner.
Two things must happen over the next three years if England are to go to the next World Cup in India with an attacking spin option and, therefore, a realistic chance of winning. Panesar needs to understand himself that he is an aggressive rather than a defensive option ... he needs experience. Collingwood and the coach, Peter Moores, should now make a pledge to themselves that in all but the most extreme conditions Panesar must play.
And Vic Marks of the Guardian also argues for Monty's inclusion.
August 25, 2007
Posted on 08/25/2007 in
Chandresh Narayanan, writing in the Times of India, traces the origins of the Indian board's own professional league.
The ICL was an idea initially floated by current board vice-president Lalit Modi way back in 1996. He had registered a company called Indian Cricket League with the late board president Madhavrao Scindia as chairman. That ICL was also supposed to be a six-team city-centric league to be played under lights with four foreigners per team. Teams like Mumbai were to be called Mumbai Lions and the stage was set for the league to be rolled.
Posted on 08/25/2007 in Umpires
Richard Boock looks at the practice of denying basic technological assistance to umpires and referees in sports with a jaundiced eye in New Zealand's Sunday Star Times.
One day, hopefully soon, we'll be able to speak with feigned disbelief about a time when the only person who wasn't allowed access to all the information in a multi-million dollar operation, was the one person who was charged with running it competently.
"Why ever did you do that?" the children will chorus, and the answers will surely have them doubled over in near fits: "Well, we wanted to retain a certain human charm ... we didn't want to slow things down ... it would've detracted from the tradition of the game ... haven't you heard of the `glorious uncertainty of sport'?"
And in the Sportstar Ted Corbett wants to know why there isn't a Society for Protection of Umpires in World Cricket.
Posted on 08/25/2007 in English cricket
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Dimitri Mascarenhas's career highlights include a Twenty20 hat-trick, scoring the first century at Rose Bowl and dismissing Rahul Dravid to get his first international wicket
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Sports sections of the London dailies have left Alex Brown rather unimpressed after they failed to mention the successes of Dimtri Mascarenhas, who according to Brown, "might sound like an outdated 1990s dance fad, but is making all the right moves for England's one-day cricket team". He writes in the Sydney Morning Herald:
Mascarenhas's story is one of perseverance, commitment and sacrifice - a kid who left his home in Western Australia to pursue a dream, only to realise it a decade later than originally planned. But, hey, he isn't dating an Atomic Kitten, so good luck finding a mention of him outside the details page.
This week, the latest chapter in Mascarenhas's remarkable cricketing story was penned with the wicket of Rahul Dravid, his first international victim, to seal a comprehensive win for England. For a nation that ought to count limited-overs victories like dogs count years, this should have been a moment to savour (on the Paul Collingwood-MBE scale, there may even have been grounds for knighting).
August 24, 2007
Posted on 08/24/2007 in Indian cricket
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'I can’t say I am an accomplished player'
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After an indifferent Test series, Sreesanth is not in the Indian ODI side playing a seven-match series in England, but he's not short on confidence. Back home in Kochi, Sreesanth says he has a point to prove again, in South Africa, with the Twenty20 side. Read his interview in the Indian Express.
In his column for the same newspaper, Harsha Bhogle says that the Indian board (BCCI) may be forced to look at the reality of Indian cricket in the eye rather than offer it a bored, distracted glance. A good Indian Cricket League (ICL) debut will be good for Indian cricket and best for the BCCI, he feels.
All sport has to be about three things. Revenues and therefore, profits; the players; and the spectators. Normally, in a good competitive environment, the first of those should derive from the second and the third.
If the players are well prepared and play good cricket, the spectators and viewers come in and revenues rise. But in a monopoly, you don’t have to worry too much about players and spectators; just as Indian Airlines didn’t need to worry too much about passengers. But if the ICL does reasonably well, and provides the players and the spectators with an option, the BCCI will be forced to think about them; like Indian Airlines had to with the arrival of private carriers.
August 23, 2007
Posted on 08/23/2007 in Indian Cricket League
The BCCI-ICL face-off continues and who will emerge the winner among two is a favourite question with comment and leader writers.
Aminah Sheikh works out the numbers in the Business Standard
The advantage for ICL players is that the amount in the contract is a guaranteed sum, as opposed to BCCI fees, which require that players be in the team for the match in question.
Therefore, factors like being dropped from the team and injuries could impact the fees of players affiliated to the BCCI. The prize money, however, at Rs 4.2 crore is the same for both sides, though the BCCI revised it yesterday.
The editorial in the Hindu draws a parallel between the Packer affair and ICL.
The Australian media mogul felt spurned by the Australian cricket administrators when he bid for international broadcast rights. The current Indian cricket administration has inherited the problem from its predecessor, which refused Zee’s offer, sowing the seeds of the ICL.
Meanwhile in the Daily Times MU Haq, a life member of the Pakistan board and a former president of the Karachi Cricket Association, wonders why the PCB imposed life bans on its players who joined the ICL.
In a Packer-like situation, the BCCI and the ICL will in all probability kiss and make up sooner or later and lifting of bans on Indian players will be a part of the deal. What would be the status of Pakistan players then?
The ban on players is all the more unjustified as the ICL playing programme does not interfere with Pakistan’s domestic cricket schedule and contracted players will be released for national duty in the event of a clash in dates. So why the fuss. If our players are allowed to play county and league cricket in the UK, why the embargo on the ICL?
Also read Osman Samiuddin's piece on Pakistan and the fallout of the ICl signings on cricinfo.com
Posted on 08/23/2007 in Indian cricket
Rahul Dravid has escaped a grilling over India's defeat in the first ODI against England as his cricket board faces the threat of a breakaway league at home, writes David Hopps in the Guardian. India's one-day squad cannot remain entirely immune from what is happening back at home, says Hopps, and that England, after their victory at the Rose Bowl, should now properly be regarded as favourites to take the seven-match series.
Posted on 08/23/2007 in Offbeat
Germany’s coach is excited by Shane Warne’s passport adventures and has invited him to play for his team. And even if Warne refuses he is still welcome “just for a beer”.
"I was surprised when I heard he was looking into getting a German passport, it's hilarious really,” Keith Thompson told AFP. "I don't know if he would even come here, but we will try and get him over.”
August 22, 2007
Posted on 08/22/2007 in Australian cricket
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Nathan Bracken can watch himself bowl for hours
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Peter Lalor writes in the Australian about Australia’s high-tech computer games that double as training tools. Each squad member has a PlayStation to watch digital footage prepared by the coaches.
Nathan Bracken spends hours studying himself bowling and Matthew Hayden spent an entire flight from St Kitts to St Lucia examining digital images of himself batting against South Africa before a critical return match against the Proteas during the World Cup.
"They can do it on their iPods if they need to, but they found the PlayStation portables have a bigger screen," the coach Tim Nielsen said. "The other thing is they can chuck a game in when they've finished watching the cricket, or they can make out they're watching the cricket and play a game if that's what they want."
Posted on 08/22/2007 in Indian cricket
Nandan Kamath, the director of an advisory firm for sports persons, believes that the competition from the ICL will be good for Indian cricket. D Murali interviews him in the Hindu.
Stating that the BCCI was a completely independent “society” registered under the Societies Registration Act, the majority judgment of the Supreme Court held the organisation not to be “state” under Article 12 of the Indian Constitution. The flipside of this decision is that the BCCI’s practices do not enjoy the immunity from anti-monopoly, competition and restrictive trade practices laws that all state functionaries do. As a result, the BCCI’s actions would be subject to the general competition laws of the land.
Which means the recent reactions of BCCI can be questioned?
That’s right. The player and service provider bans, discriminatory denial of access to stadia and revocation of benefits could be challenged in a court of law by aggrieved parties based on legal principles such as unreasonable restraint of trade, unfair competition and the “essential facilities” doctrine.
The bosses at the ICL meanwhile have a rather unusual problem in their hands. A Bangalore-based entrepreneur seems to have stolen their thunder with a website to rival their own and are looking at all possibilities, including the legal route, to vacate him. Read the piece in the Indian Express.
What’s bothering ICL officials now is not just the fact that it’s Ramesh’s site that first pops up when you type and search Indian Cricket League on Google — apparently, many ICL fans, including some prospective cricketers, have already lost their way on the wrong site, sending queries to the wrong address.
Posted on 08/22/2007 in Pakistan cricket
The folks at Pakistan's the Post newspaper don't seem to be particularly fond of the Pakistan Cricket Board. Here's an editorial lambasting the PCB.
PCB seems to be jinxed. The long and tragic history associated with it speaks volumes of how things have been working over many years. The current state of affairs therefore is no surprise.
And their daily cartoon says much the same
Posted on 08/22/2007 in English cricket
The first ODI against India might've been the perfect game for Paul Collingwood and cohorts, but for Owais Shah, surprisingly dropped before the game, it probably wasn't. Paul Weaver, in The Guardian, tells us why.
The former England captain Alec Stewart was one of a number of people surprised by his omission. "Owais can count himself very unlucky," he said. "I would have started with him. He made real progress in the one-day side this summer and improvised well."
August 20, 2007
Posted on 08/20/2007 in Australian cricket
You must have read the news that Shane Warne is considering applying for a German passport so he can play county cricket as a non-overseas player next year. Aaron Timms takes the mickey out of Warne in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Warne has always been German to his core. So much has been clear from the first day of his Test career. After leaving the field at the end of play, he was asked how he felt. "Sehr gut," he replied. This was misunderstood to be a reference to his gut, and Warne paid the price for being German by having to endure a torrent of humiliating stories about his weight in the 15 years that followed. The signs multiplied. The stump in the air, the battle with nicotine, the incrimination of his mother after it became clear he had taken a diuretic: all were proof of Warne's indisputable Germanness.
August 19, 2007
Posted on 08/19/2007 in Australian cricket
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Tim Nielsen is stepping into John Buchanan's shoes
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Robert Craddock writes in the Courier-Mail about Tim Nielsen, who takes over the hands-on coaching duties when Australia’s contracted players start a camp later in the week. Craddock looks at the challenges ahead for Nielsen, including replacing the wildly successful John Buchanan and dealing with Stuart MacGill.
Nielsen may have a right to feel as if he is singing the next song after Pavarotti or taking to the dance floor after John Travolta but he is a no-nonsense, strong-willed, self-confessed cricket "nuffy" who sees rich opportunity rather than a bar too high to jump over.
Australia has chosen well for Nielsen has the type of bottomless enthusiasm and optimism needed for a year in which the side will play a staggering world-record 22 Test matches.
Posted on 08/19/2007 in English cricket
Scyld Berry has called for the reformation of the ECB. In a robust article in The Sunday Telegraph he attacks the candidates for the chairmanship - Mike Soper and Giles Clarke - and proposes two others who he believes would be far more suitable.
Once an organisation is incapable of organising itself, let alone governing others, the time has come for it to go. The England and Wales Cricket Board have been unable to elect a new chairman. They should be re-formed so they promote English cricket as a whole, not the interests of the 18 first-class counties.
Neither candidate who stood for election to the ECB chairmanship last week was elected. The vote split 9-9 - because neither candidate deserved to be elected. And the record of the two candidates tells you everything you need to know about the ECB.
Posted on 08/19/2007 in Indian cricket
"I would have done the same," says Ganguly in an interview to Debasish Datta in the Mid-day.
You have to judge what was more important — to win the Test or to ensure that we were winning the series. We needed to confirm the series win. You do not get such opportunities every day. It took us 21 years and that’s a pretty long time.
Meanwhile in the Independent, Ganguly talks about his comeback.
"You have to take it in your stride. I could have hung up my boots, said I'd captained for a long time and it's time to do something else, but it's a question of personal satisfaction. I wanted to see if I was good enough to play again. What's past is past and I'm back. Greg has gone back to Australia. I hope he's having a good time."
Posted on 08/19/2007 in New Zealand cricket
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Why can't I have everything?
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Stephen Fleming is in an awkward position following an offer from the Indian Cricket League - willing to pay huge money to have him play two months a year - and his exclusion from New Zealand's Twenty20 sqaud for the inaugural World Championship in South Africa, writes Dylan Cleaver in the New Zealand Herald
Ideally, Fleming would probably like to do both but if he had to choose, then recent events are making the ICL seem a more attractive proposition by the day.
But he hasn't gone all Jacques Kallis on us by threatening an imminent retirement because he's probably been considering it anyway. He's instead kept a silence he probably feels is dignified, though New Zealand Cricket obviously feels it is counterproductive and confusing, judging by their understandable request for him to speak publicly to "clear the air".
August 18, 2007
Posted on 08/18/2007 in Twenty20
Since its inception, Twenty20 cricket has found its supporters and detractors. With the inagural Twenty20 World Championship to be held in South Africa next month Peter Roebuck, writing in the Hindu, feels it is hard to take seriously an event so dependent upon tomfoolery. He says it is causing ruptures in the ranks of several international teams and cites the example of Jacques Kallis, who recently stepped down from the South African vice-captaincy after failing to find a place in the Twenty20 team.
"Greater players even than the South African have been omitted, including several distinguished Indians. They, too, serve at the behest, though hopefully not the whim, of their Board.
What are they missing? It is a pity that the tournament has been called a World Cup, a description that seems to claim parity with tumultuous events in football and rugby. But it is only a salesman’s pitch."
August 17, 2007
Posted on 08/17/2007 in English cricket
 
It was the battle of the search engines at Lord's last Friday, as Google and Yahoo! went head-to-head according to a report at MarketingWeek:
Despite the opposition's selection of an ex-county junior player (who subtly kept his secret weapon-status hidden beneath his old county cap) Yahoo! defeated Google 133-120.
By the time the first ball was bowled in the final the Yahoo! crowd had doubled, which was a measure of the support for the company team and nothing to do with the free booze on offer, of course. There was even a Yahoo! bus that blasted out yodelling from a PA whenever the team hit a four or six.
Just like a sentimental sports film, the outcome favoured both teams as the game ended in an honourable draw. And so the internet company battle continues next summer with all three teams seeking ultimate victory.
Posted on 08/17/2007 in Australian cricket
Requests have already arrived from Indian tourists wanting to visit Shane Warne hotspots when they are in Melbourne for the Boxing Day Test. Chloe Saltau writes in the Age about the suburb of Black Rock joining the sightseeing trail.
If the demand grows, some smart entrepreneur could start a tour bus like the one that carts English tourists down Ramsay Street to inspect the Neighbours streetscape.
Carl Rackemann, the former Australia bowler, has launched a pink cricket ball to raise money for cancer. Robert Craddock reports on the innovation in the Courier-Mail.
August 16, 2007
Posted on 08/16/2007 in English cricket
Owais Shah made his ODI debut in 2001. His Test debut followed five years later, and he's had just two one-off opportunities to prove his worth. This week he's back in the limelight as part of England's post-World Cup one-day line-up, and as he told Mike Adamson in The Guardian, he knows that this time, he's got to make an unanswerable case for inclusion.
There must be a reason why I wasn't given a go. Maybe I wasn't the kind of batsman who fits in to what the team was trying to achieve. I'm not really sure, to be honest. You'd have to ask the selectors. Or the coach. Fletcher's not there now though, of course
August 15, 2007
Posted on 08/15/2007 in Sri Lankan cricket
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Muttiah Muralitharan is "comfortable with what Australia is like"
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Muttiah Muralitharan’s manager believes the bowler will use any harassment he receives on the tour of Australia to perform better, Jon Pierik writes in the Herald Sun.
"He is comfortable with what Australia is like," Muralitharan's manager Kushil Gunasekera said. "He understands the harassment given by spectators will only make him more inspired and motivated.
"It will help him bowl better. He is happy to be taking on that challenge because Australia is a real test. He will come to Australia."
In the Age Chloe Saltau talks to Troy Cooley about how the Australian bowlers should embrace Twenty20.
Posted on 08/15/2007 in South African cricket
Neil Manthorp recalls the messy episode that Cricket South Africa had got into when it rested Lance Klusener for a tour to Bangladesh in a piece on the SuperCricket website. He says the mistake has been repeated again with Jacques Kallis' omission from the Twenty20 squad. Manthorp believes a player of Kallis' stature should have been given the nod, though many may consider his batting style undesirable for the format.
Who is South Africa's leading six-hitter in both test and one-day cricket? Klusener, Justin Kemp? Shaun Pollock? No. Try someone else. Someone who isn't suited to 20-over cricket. Maybe Kallis really isn't suited to this game. But surely his status means he was worth a chance to prove it, a chance to bat without the constant threat of collapse at the other end weighing him down.
Posted on 08/15/2007 in Australian cricket
It's getting hot in Melbourne, and water is in short supply. So too, writes Gideon Haigh in the Herald Sun, is common sense among the bureaucrats of Melbourne.
Mayor John So announced on Monday that Melbourne's fountains would flow and bubble again, thanks to an alleviation of the water crisis. There was no announcement last week, however, when it emerged that the City of Melbourne planned to start ripping out pitches for turf cricket, ostensibly as a water-conservation measure.
The City of Melbourne's attitude to cricket, and community sport in general, is grudging. Cities are for culture, festivals and mayoral personality cults. Sport? That's for ugh, suburbs, and the teeming unwashed multitudes.
"Think of cricket on turf as chess," Haigh writes, "cricket on artificial surfaces as noughts and crosses."
Posted on 08/15/2007 in Australian cricket
One-day internationals could be played at the Telstra Dome instead of the MCG after 2008-09, Chloe Saltau reports in the Age.
The right to host international cricket in Melbourne may be put to tender if Cricket Victoria cannot strike a more favourable commercial agreement with the Melbourne Cricket Club. "The closer we get to the conclusion of the agreement, the more likely it is to go to tender," the Cricket Victoria chairman Geoff Tamblyn said. There is also a possibility that cricket could be divided between the MCG and Telstra Dome, with the MCG continuing to host the Boxing Day Test while one-day internationals are played across town at Docklands.
In the same paper there is a piece on Romesh Kaluwitharana, who has been completing a level two coaching course.
August 14, 2007
Posted on 08/14/2007 in English cricket
The end of a series brings contemplation – but also Geoff Boycott’s (often stinging) end-of-term report. Following India’s series victory, his wrath in today’s Daily Telegraph is directed at England’s batsmen.
Some of the shot selection was poor. England lost six wickets in the second innings and only one guy, Paul Collingwood, was got out by the Indian bowlers. It's quite obvious that we haven't grasped that when you are trying to save a match it needs a different attitude and more application.
Andrew Strauss gave his wicket away twice. We know that he has a technical flaw in his footwork. He doesn't get right forward to the ball, he gets stuck on the crease.
I think he needs to go away and do some work in the nets and then play in some lesser cricket that is not as pressurised and exacting as Test cricket so that so he can think about his footwork while he is batting.
In the same paper, Derek Pringle writes that one should accept the view offered by Michael Vaughan and Peter Moores that England's performances this summer were actually pretty decent.
England can point to absentees like Andrew Flintoff, Stephen Harmison and Matthew Hoggard, who would have played but for injury. Yet with James Anderson, Ryan Sidebottom and Chris Tremlett gelling well in their absence, there will be some steely decision-making to be done in October when the squad for Sri Lanka is picked
Continue reading "Not all doom and gloom for England"
August 13, 2007
Posted on 08/13/2007 in Indian cricket
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Rahul Dravid - In the hot seat
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It's the issue that everyone's been talking about. Here's what the papers had to say.
Lokendra Pratap Sahi lets rip in the Kolkata-based Telegraph:
The safety-first-and-last types would’ve approved, but few others. More than anything else, Rahul Dravid’s decision to not enforce the follow-on at the Brit Oval has given England the chance to save the third and final npower Test. It also enhanced his image as a captain reluctant to be aggressive. Reluctant to set a bold agenda. Barring one or two, others would’ve blindly gone for the kill if they had the luxury of a 319-run lead.
Bobilli Vijay Kumar, of the Times of India, supports Dravid: The sanguine ones clearly saw the reasons behind the move: India were on the verge of a Test series win in England after 20 years. Why squander it? The more impulsive ones, however, were aghast.
Continue reading "The follow-on debate: Were India too defensive?"
Posted on 08/13/2007 in English cricket
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Thorpe: Australia bound
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"The ubiquitous Graham Thorpe, bet you never thought you'd hear that," begins Mark Nicholas in his piece about the former England batsman who has transformed his life (and himself) from the introvert of the 1990s to an extrovert, in The Daily Telegraph.
Having listened harder than we might have supposed of him in the past, Thorpe is now applying all he has learnt to the TMS invitation, studio and live work with Sky, the occasional gig with Fox Sports in Oz and a worthy column in Spin magazine that this month calls for yellow cards and a sin-bin for misbehaviour on the field of play. Go get 'em, Graham.
But Thorpe's biggest deal right now is his life in Sydney with Amanda, the lawyer he was finally able to marry in Bangkok earlier this year. If ever a girl made something of the boy it is Amanda. From the pain of a public and turbulent separation from his first wife Nicky, has come a near perfect after-life. Thorpe was a cricketer for whom the future held much dread and is a now a former cricketer with myriad opportunities at his feet. He has just been appointed assistant coach of New South Wales to Matthew Mott, who took the coaching job when Trevor Bayliss was seduced by Sri Lanka.
Posted on 08/13/2007 in Miscellaneous
Brian Lara's niece was abducted during a gunpoint car-jacking and police believe when the robbers found out who she was they tried to get a ransom.
Police found Adanna Lara, 21, gagged and locked in a room with her hands tied behind her back .
Read more in the Trinidad Express.
August 12, 2007
Posted on 08/12/2007 in English cricket
A round-up of the best the England papers have to offer:
Michael Atherton writes in the Sunday Telegraph that England should stick with Matt Prior
... the harshness of the criticism has been surprising. Prior is in the infancy of his international career and is surely allowed a bad day or two. After seven Test matches he averages over 40 and for the most part this summer his glove-work has been sound. This is surely no time to sharpen the guillotine or to turn back the clock to names already discarded.
While the Observer's Vic Marks feels that despite a likely series defeat to India, England shouldn't go in for wholesale changes
... we could jam our feet on the jugular and call for a few heads. Yet now is not the time for an overhaul. An overhaul has happened anyway. After the 2005 Ashes series Michael Vaughan and Fletcher were bullish that theirs was a young team that could stay together for the rest of the decade; but there are only four survivors.
And in the Sunday Times, Simon Wilde wonders whether Andrew Strauss will lose his place if he fails in the second innings at The Oval.
Since scoring a century, as captain, at Leeds in August last year, Strauss has scored 686 runs in 24 Test innings at an average of 28.6. His biggest innings of 96 came earlier in this series with India at Lord’s, but he was given an easy let-off in the fifties.
Also in the Sunday Times, Dileep Premachandran pays tribute to Anil Kumble who took wicket No. 563 against England to move up to third place in the all-time list.
In the Sunday Telegraph, Steve James identifies a technical fault in Alastair Cook and says that the problem is with his head, not what's going on inside it.
August 11, 2007
Posted on 08/11/2007 in West Indies cricket
On caribbeancricket.com, Peter Montgomery makes a stinging attack on the West Indies team’s management and the way the players have been treated.
[Bennett] King has left the scene but the work environment within the team has not gotten any better under his right hand man and now head coach David Moore. If anything it has worsened considerably and is now fully endorsed by the team manager and the WICB.
Montgomery claims that players were abused and intimidated and that the training and match preparations during the recently-concluded England tour were a shambles.
The stories of the players, confirmed separately by other players, are so remarkable, they are shocking. It is as if the WICB has begun to run an almost slave-like operation. The players have no say, are consulted on nothing and are lorded upon without any recourse to objection. It is no surprise that Dinanath Ramnarine had to be as vigilant and militant as he has had to be. The man is fighting against the plantation mentality still firmly entrenched at the WICB.
This culminated in Chris Gayle being censured for a diary comment that was reportedly approved by the management before publication.
Posted on 08/11/2007 in Indian cricket
For the second time in the series Sachin Tendulkar fell within sight of a century and appears destined to end what is likely to be is final series in England without a hundred. His 82 was a tough, grinding innings but served India's purpose well. In The Guardian Steve James says there were still plenty of glimpses of vintage Tendulkar and we should enjoy them while we can.
From the two balls previous to his demise he had hit boundaries which carried sufficient grace, precision and command to remind us of Tendulkar in his pomp. For a moment the grind of before - and the fortune of Matt Prior's drop with the Indian on 20 on Thursday - disappeared and the clock ticked back to a time when Tendulkar always batted with such authority and verve.
Posted on 08/11/2007 in English cricket
Matt Prior is not having a Test to remember at The Oval. On the first two days he dropped Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman, while also letting through the small matter of 33 byes. In the last few Tests the runs have dried up, too, and coupled with the flak he received after the Trent Bridge match the honeymoon period is well and truly over. In The Times Simon Barnes says the England selectors only have themselves to blame as they continue to search for keepers who bat first and catch second.
But the fact is, Prior is not a very good Test-match wicketkeeper to start with and he has had two days when he has slipped well below his best. So, to look at it logically, he has to bat and bat; show us what he is best at. Which is not keeping wicket. That’s not what he was picked for.
August 10, 2007
Posted on 08/10/2007 in English cricket
Ashley Giles' retirement from cricket was announced during the first day of the Oval Test, almost two years since his efforts on the same ground helped England to win the 2005 Ashes. That match turned out to be his final Test appearance, but in the opinion of Simon Barnes in The Times, Giles is gone but should never be forgotten.
The great thing about Giles is that he became the best cricketer he possibly could have been. He fulfilled the talents he had to their uttermost degree, and how many geniuses can you say that about? He made the most of what he had and no man should be despised for that. It’s what we all try to do, whether we are Picasso or a painter and decorator.
Posted on 08/10/2007 in Australian cricket
Shane Watson has become the victim of a fake MySpace entry and the Australian Cricketers’ Association is upset, Malcolm Conn reports in the Australian.
Under Shane's Blurbs on the site, it says: "I'm Shane Watson, but you probably recognise me cause I'm hot. I like to model … I like to play cricket, but I'm usually injured." The ACA chief executive Paul Marsh claimed the false entries on MySpace were a "pathetic exploitation by people who have nothing better to do with their time".
Posted on 08/10/2007 in Australian cricket
The under-represented Victoria have grand visions of lifting the number of representatives in Australia’s Test and one-day teams, Chloe Saltau writes in the Age.
Brad Hodge and Cameron White are the only Bushrangers in possession of Cricket Australia contracts for the 2007-08 season, and since the retirement of Shane Warne, Victoria does not have a regular representative in the Test side. Under new chief executive and former Australian swing bowler, Tony Dodemaide, Cricket Victoria is taking steps to deal with the issue that has been a source of constant frustration to players, administrators and coaches.
August 9, 2007
Posted on 08/09/2007 in Indian cricket
Zaheer Khan’s performance at Trent Bridge showed that he finally may be the spearhead India needs. His numbers since his return in South Africa are instructive, writes S Ram Mahesh in the Sportstar.
Posted on 08/09/2007 in Indian cricket
The problem lies in the incentives of BCCI officials, which are aligned only towards their own continuance in power, writes Amit Varma in the Mint
Even if the ICL doesn’t succeed, it is clear that BCCI feels threatened by it, and it shows the way to others. That is good for us—and good for cricket.
Posted on 08/09/2007 in Indian cricket
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It all happened too quickly for Vinod Kambli
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With Sachin Tendulkar likely to play his last Test match in England, at The Oval, Derek Pringle spares a thought for a player who may well have upstaged him at the very beginning - Vinod Kambli. Kambli's story, particularly when placed beside that of his childhood friend, is a modern tale of how quickly sport's shining paths can lead to a dead end once the small details are ignored.
In the team meeting beforehand, one of England's pace bowlers had piped up that he could get him out with an orange. When Kambli reached 200 in front of an ecstatic home crowd in Mumbai, Robin Smith turned to the bowler in question and said - "don't you think it's time you pulled out that bloody orange."
Read the full piece in the Telegraph.
August 8, 2007
Posted on 08/08/2007 in Indian cricket
Writing in the Indian Express, Harsha Bhogle expresses surprise at some of the names selected for the ODIs in England and for the Twenty20 World Championship.
I am surprised by the reappearance of Irfan Pathan and Munaf Patel. I have been a huge fan of Pathan but you have to ask yourself if he has done enough to suggest he is on the path back. I am sure he would have been happier himself smashing the door down rather than hanging around and wondering if he should knock. So too with Munaf who must think that a place in the Indian team is as easy as becoming President of India. Maybe he is indeed fit, maybe he is indeed bowling well, maybe he is even bowling quick, but maybe the testing ground should have been elsewhere. And remember we are not talking about the likes of a Sourav Ganguly here, and even he had to wait longer. We are talking Munaf Patel; we don’t know enough and in fact, we don’t always like what we know.
August 7, 2007
Posted on 08/07/2007 in English cricket
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Areas, Monty...good areas
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Rare are the days when a modern cricketer doesn’t mention his sponsor or speak in clichéd tongue in a press conference. But Patrick Kidd, in today’s Times, observed a new Monty Panesar yesterday at a promotion of Urban Cricket in South London.
Most of the important buzzwords were there. “We took positives out of the last defeat” — TICK; “You have to give India credit” — TICK; “It was played in the right spirit” — TICK; mention of npower, the sponsor, every 30 seconds — TICK. All that was missing was that irksome cliché “we bowled good areas”, which may earn Panesar a black mark.
Yet occasionally the PR mask slips. When talking about bowling at Sachin Tendulkar, for example, Panesar’s eyes suddenly widened and he became as animated and enthusiastic as the council-estate children he had just been coaching.
“It is a special moment being out on a field with such a legend of the game,” Panesar said of the India batsman who was his first Test victim 18 months ago in Nagpur. “I’m still learning as a bowler and I was a bit lucky with the decision that gave me his wicket at Lord’s [in the first Test last month] but it got me jumping up and down and doing the bhangra [dance].”
August 6, 2007
Posted on 08/06/2007 in English cricket
"There will be very few, if any, changes to the [England] side at the Oval," says Vic Marks in The Observer. "My inclination would be to replace [Ian] Bell with Ravi Bopara. Initially, this conclusion was reached on purely cricketing grounds. In his last six Test innings his highest score is 31; he has dropped the odd half-chance; he no longer bowls or is no longer invited to bowl."
I was going to stress that this had nothing to do with jelly beans. Bell, it is alleged - and we must be careful here because The Observer can scarce afford a damaging court case on this issue - was the man who stationed the offending pair of beans on a good length when Zaheer came to the crease. You cannot drop a man for that. But if he is so bored with Test cricket that he has to resort to such silly japes to keep his spirits up....
August 5, 2007
Posted on 08/05/2007 in Pakistan cricket
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Geoff Lawson: "There are less concerns than I'd have going to London or New York"
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| Geoff Lawson indicates in the Sunday Telegraph how one letter stood out among all the congratulatory messages he received after being appointed coach of Pakistan.
The letter came from Gill Woolmer, the wife of the late Bob Woolmer.
"It's a lovely letter about how he loved coaching Pakistan, loved the people and she wished me all the best,'' Lawson said. "It comforted me in the fact [Woolmer's family] gave me their support and they don't have any concerns whatsoever.''
Lawson also shrugged off the concerns over security.
"There are less concerns than I'd have going to London or New York. I was in England in 2005 when all the bombs went off, and that was scary. [People] see the Red Mosque shootout there and hear about bin Laden hiding in the hills of Pakistan. But it's like if you're hiding in outback Australia and you live in Sydney.
Lawson has learnt a few tricks of the trade too, marking each point he made when he met the players in June with the Urdu phrase Inshallah, meaning God willing.
Posted on 08/05/2007 in English cricket
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'Certainly, Sreesanth apologised to Pietersen immediately by raising his right hand but he was quick enough to turn to his mark leaving the batsman to dust himself down unattended'
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In the Sunday Telegraph, Mike Atherton says that one name should be missing from the scorecard at The Oval on Thursday - India's Sreesanth. Atherton strongly feels the International Cricket Council needs to send out the message that the beamer has no place in cricket.
Mirroring the ICC's misguided sense of priorities, there was little comment in the media about Sreesanth's 'delivery'. This is partly because only one man, Sreesanth himself, knows whether it was deliberate, partly because a coterie of former bowlers in the press box (Mike Selvey an exception) are inclined to take the charitable view that it was not, and partly because there was so much more, other than the cricket, to talk about. But I have no doubt that Sreesanth's rancorous spell, which included the beamer and the no-ball, was the most glaring example in the match of something that ran completely counter to the spirit of the game. Forget the jellybeans and inane chatter.
England will be under scrutiny in the third Test this week, particularly their openers, writes Simon Wilde in the Sunday Times. The heat has been turned up under Michael Vaughan, whose reputation as one of the most tenacious leaders England have had will be put to the test.
England have yet to lose a series at home under Vaughan, but with a resurgent India taking the honours at Trent Bridge, it is Vaughan's leadership, not batting, that most of the focus has turned to.
Rather surprisingly, though, his judgment has not always passed muster. He has twice been obliged to make public apologies, first for erroneously claiming to have been misquoted in a newspaper interview in regard to the Andrew Flintoff "Pedalo” affair at the World Cup, and then to Zaheer Khan for his team leaving sweets on the pitch when the Indian came out to bat at Trent Bridge last week during a match marred by graceless behaviour from both sides.
The England team received flak from the Independent for their on-field demeanour.
The likes of Sidebottom, Anderson and Prior must stamp out the boorish behaviour which is unsavoury and hard to take seriously
Posted on 08/05/2007 in New Zealand cricket
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Fleming: South Africa bound?
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It is expected that Stephen Fleming's name will be missing when the 14-man squad for the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa in September is read out soon, writes Dylan Cleaver in the New Zealand Herald.
While his probable absence could be put down to routine matters of wanting to blood younger players in this all-action form of the game, says Cleaver, it will fuel conspiracies he will retire from international cricket to take up a contract with the embryonic Indian Cricket League.
With Fleming getting quality match play in England, not being particularly mobile in the field, or one of the game's great sloggers, his spot could be taken by one of the new breed of cricketers the selectors have been eyeing over the past 12 months. At the top of that list is understood to be Wellington's Grant Elliott.
In the same publication, Cleaver also traces Auckland spinner Tim Lythe's remarkable move to relaunch his career after a cancer scare. To rid his body of the bone cancer he was diagnosed with in 1999, doctors sawed off half his left thigh bone, replacing it with a titanium rod and replaced his knee with a complex prosthesis. What was supposed to last ten years lasted six as Lythe returned to his first-class career.
Read on here.
August 4, 2007
Posted on 08/04/2007 in
Bob Merriman, the former Cricket Australia chairman, retires this month from the Cricket Australia and Cricket Victoria boards. He sat beside Kim Hughes as he tearfully read his famous resignation statement, he toured India with the national team during Kerry Packer's peace settlement and was woken up once in February 2003 to be told Shane Warne had taken a banned diuretic. He talks to Chloe Saltau about cricket past, present and future in The Sydney Morning Herald.
"World cricket needs 10 very strong countries, it needs good governance," Merriman says. "[International Cricket Council chief executive] Malcolm Speed steps down next year. That is going to be a really testing time for world cricket."
August 3, 2007
Posted on 08/03/2007 in Zimbabwe cricket
How is it possible that Zimbabwe Cricket has more influence in the governance of the game than the serial world champions, Australia? Malcolm Conn in The Australian has taken aim at the vested interests that control the game's ruling body.
Zimbabwe continues to enjoy the same constitutional power and authority over the running of the game as Australia. Indeed, in the politics of cricket, where the big games are really played, Zimbabwe can be said to be more powerful than Australia because it is part of the Afro-Asia bloc with India, South Africa, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh which ultimately controls the game.
So having destroyed the game in its own country and lost almost all of its good players to professional offers overseas, the Zimbabwe administration remains a central figure of the ICC as one of the so-called 10 Test countries which run the game. Except that because Zimbabwe has "voluntarily" withdrawn from Test cricket, it is no longer officially counted by the ICC on its own ranking system.
Posted on 08/03/2007 in English cricket
Simon Barnes, writing in The Times, is less than impressed with England's new mouthy attitude. "The England cricket team are suffering from confusion. The players believe to a man that behaving like an arsehole makes you a better cricketer. The fact is that it doesn’t. It only makes you an arsehole."
One of the many great things about the Ashes series of 2005 was the respect between the players. The ultimate image of the series was Andrew Flintoff’s moment of commiseration with Brett Lee after England’s narrow win at Edgbaston in the second Test. We liked that – that’s how we want cricket played.
Posted on 08/03/2007 in South African cricket
Neil Manthorp writes in his SuperCricket column that South Africa coach Mickey Arthur has taken a gamble by rubbishing fitness trainer Adrian le Roux's report that states the "use of alcohol is a problem in the national team"
But what if it [Arthur's comments] made some of le Roux's many, many friends really angry and they decided to defend his honour and integrity by providing some evidence of what le Roux observed at close quarters for four years?
Manthorp also feels that denial of the problem is fine if "it is used to buy a little time and privacy to address the issue" but not if "it is used to brush the issue under the carpet."
Posted on 08/03/2007 in Technology
Virtual reality studios, GPS tracking, data mining and neural network software programs - what do all these have to do with cricket, you ask? These are part of a series of technological developments planned to help maintain Australia's domination of world cricket. John Coomber writes in the Brisbane Times:
Cameras will be set up to capture as nearly as possible a batsman's-eye view of the opposition bowlers, and relay the feed to a studio near the Australian dressing room.
Players padded up and waiting to bat will be able to rehearse their innings using images gathered from the middle, and projected life-size back into the pavilion.
Don't you want to hear what Geoffrey Boycott thinks of all this?
August 2, 2007
Posted on 08/02/2007 in Indian cricket
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Wasim Akram has been the inspiration for many, including Zaheer Khan and Irfan Pathan
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| Huw Richards points out in the International Herald Tribune that Zaheer Khan is only the fourth left-arm fast bowler (excluding Garry Sobers) to take 150 Test wickets. He is surprised that the sport has not seen more of Zaheer’s ilk.
It is hard to see why the left-arm quick bowler should be such a rarity. In any adversarial sport there are advantages to being a minority. Southpaw boxers, left-arm baseball pitchers like Tom Glavine of the New York Mets - who is seeking his 300th victory - and left-handed tennis players like John McEnroe and Martina Navratilova all present their opponents distinctive problems. For a cricket team rotating four or five bowlers, there are great advantages to having one or two who test batsmen from a different angle.
With Zaheer, RP Singh, and till recently Irfan Pathan and Ashish Nehra, India have had a fair share of southpaws in their bowling attack. Richards explains:
They were at the perfect, impressionable age to admire and wish to emulate another left-handed cricketer. Wasim's final legacy to cricket may be across a disputed border in another country.
Posted on 08/02/2007 in English cricket
England's antics in the second Test at Trent Bridge continue to cause ripples in the media, not least in The Daily Telegraph, where Michael Henderson takes particular exception to the lippiness of Matt Prior and Alastair Cook, who have both spoken out about the pressures of Test cricket.
As most people know, there is pressure and pressure. To the best of our knowledge neither Prior nor Cook has saved somebody from a burning house, or a sinking boat, faced a gunman, delivered a baby, or talked a troubled soul out of taking their life. That is the pressure that thousands of our fellow citizens are paid to deal with on a daily basis, and not one of them is paid nearly so well as they.
Posted on 08/02/2007 in Indian cricket
The Hindu's S Ram Mahesh applauds the manner in which every one of England’s top seven batsmen has been scouted, softened, probed, and picked up by two Indian left-arm fast bowlers. Zaheer Khan and RP Singh, with their ability to swing the ball both ways, have picked up 25 wickets between them in the two Tests, but the hard work behind swinging it has largely gone unnoticed, the writer feels.
Disguise is everything. Neither changes his action or slants his wrist noticeably: for the batsmen looking for cues, few, if any, appear. Zaheer, at times, drags his fingers down the inside of the ball for the outswinger to the right-hander, but it’s done so fast, it’s barely detectable.
August 1, 2007
Posted on 08/01/2007 in English cricket
The fascinatingly childish antics of both England and India at Trent Bridge this week have been greeted with glee Down Under. Alex Brown, writing in The Sydney Morning Herald, believes that both teams "have forfeited the right to criticise Australia for unsportsmanlike behaviour."
After a Test in which both teams sought to exorcise the spirit of cricket - most notably when England fieldsmen threw jelly beans on the wicket while Zaheer Khan was taking strike - England and India have committed the very sins they have supposedly stood against
Posted on 08/01/2007 in Miscellaneous
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Npowering or ... not?
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Ah, the Npower girls. You’ve got to love them, don’t you?
Tanya Aldred in The Guardian muses over their continuing appeal, but questions if the concept is not just a little outdated:
It just all seems a little bit 1970s, not such a long way from being draped over a car bonnet, promising the spotty youth in accounts the drive of his life.
The Npowered-up piece referred to in the article is here.
Posted on 08/01/2007 in English cricket
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Zaheer Khan gets upset during the jelly-bean incident at Trent Bridge
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"England should issue an immediate, genuine and unequivocal apology to Zaheer Khan for the behaviour of the fielder who scattered sweets near the crease, whether or not it was an attempt to distract the batsman," writes Christopher Martin-Jenkins in the Times.
What really offended during this match was the overt aggression, including chat designed to distract the batsman, chuntering at close quarters from disgruntled fast bowlers, and, in the case of Sreesanth, a beamer to Kevin Pietersen and a bouncer bowled by the same bowler to Paul Collingwood from round the wicket and a yard beyond the popping crease. Sreesanth lost half his match fee for a petty little tilt at Vaughan’s shoulder as he walked past him, but he should have lost the rest of it for that deliberate no-ball and if the senior India players believe the beamer to have been deliberate, he should not play any more Test cricket until they are sure that he has learnt the lesson.
Continue reading "Lessons to be learnt from Trent Bridge"
Posted on 08/01/2007 in Indian cricket
Sachin Tendulkar’s innings in Trent Bridge was stirring, writes Rohit Brijnath, in the Hindu. He feels that the image of Tendulkar in his pomp in the mid-nineties has been replaced by that of the more limited, workmanlike Tendulkar of today in the mind of the cricket public.
Has Tendulkar ‘not’ taken the pressure? Have these 18 years of staying sane and performing as a nation howls for runs been just, you know, a stroll in a Bandra park? Was all that rescuing of India, all those forgotten years ago, when opponents used to say, openly, “Get Tendu out and India’s shoulders droop”, no big deal? Damn, he ate a pressure for breakfast Tiger Woods would have choked on.
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