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« April 2008 |
May 13, 2008
Posted 6 hours, 28 minutes ago in West Indies cricket
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Guilty: Marlon Samuels
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Jon Pierik writes in the Herald Sun that while the Marlon Samuels scandal is a blight on cricket, the guilty verdict is more a win than a loss.
It proves the ICC's anti-corruption unit is doing its job, despite there being few high-profile victims in recent years.
Ask any anti-corruption officer at an international match if there are investigations in progress, and most will suggest there are.
Pierik writes that while Samuels has been a failure with the bat, his greatest success may be now. “He has served as a warning to all cricketers to remain true to themselves, and their sport.”
Posted 6 hours, 35 minutes ago in Australian cricket
Ellyse Perry, the dual international, is a teenager with cricket and soccer vying for her long-term attention. The Sydney Morning Herald reports the battle between the sports is intensifying after she was named in the football squad for the Women's Asian Cup in Vietnam.
The call-up comes amid speculation Perry, 17, will be used as the promotional face for the Women's Cricket World Cup, to be held in Australia next March. However, the Matildas coach Tom Sermanni says Football Federation Australia won't be pressuring Perry to choose between the two games.
Posted 11 hours, 58 minutes ago in West Indies cricket
Writing in the Jamaica Gleaner, Tony Becca is baffled by the West Indies selectors.
I still believed, up to a few days ago, that a selector should travel with the West Indies team, that the regional selectors should travel around the islands to see the players in action, and that although he played for the West Indies while living in England, Lloyd, in spite of his greatness and his knowledge of the game, should not be a selector as long as he lives outside the region.
The reason why I have changed my opinion is that, based on the selection of the squad for the coming series against Australia, it seems, it is a waste of money flying the selectors around, paying their hotel bills, and offering them out of pocket expenses and whatever else they may get from a board that is short of money.
Apart from the waste of time and money to transport and to accommodate those who do not have the chance of a snow ball in hell to make the team, in selecting 17 players plus 'sure picks' Chris Gayle, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Dwayne Bravo, the selectors have baffled the fans.
Posted 17 hours, 59 minutes ago in English cricket
Frank Keating is almost apoplectic at the England selectors’ continued refusal to include Mark Ramprakash in a Test squad. Ramprakash is one century away from a hundred first-class tons, and Keating would relish it if he could bring up the landmark (becoming only the 25th player to have done so) in Surrey’s match this week while, in Keating's ideal scenario, England’s batsmen collapse in the first Test at Lord’s. Writing furiously in the Guardian, not even Keating's fellow journalists are safe from his anger:
It was (and continues to be) infuriating, almost shaming, how for the past half-dozen years successive Lord's mandarins (the dreaded po-faced politburo of Graveney-Fletcher-Hussain-Vaughan-Moores) have with such wantonly brazen impenitence refused, it seems, to so much as even glance at the batting averages. Those in the media who closely follow the game have, to my mind, been just as grievously culpable at kowtowing to, and finding simpering excuses for, the official party line. The exasperated, knowing public laugh at them as well.
Over in the Telegraph, Steve James is also irate. He has taken issue with the proliferation of Kolpak players, a subject he has touched upon regularly but his ire is deepening by the day. It was "too much” for him to see so many non-English-qualified players in a county match on the weekend:
Most fair-minded observers agree there are too many counties. And these Kolpak-kitted counties are merely emphasising the point that not enough English-qualified cricketers can be produced to fill eighteen counties. So the number will have to be reduced.
Back to the first Test for a second, and NZPA have analysed how the English press have considered New Zealand’s arrival.
Posted 19 hours, 47 minutes ago in ICC
In the Age, Greg Baum gives his view on the ICC's move towards player referrals to the third umpire.
It is perverse that within seconds of an umpire's decision, the only interested parties who do not know whether it was right or wrong are those most affected by it. It was this dynamic that embarrassed the umpires in the Sydney Test earlier this year and contributed to the escalating nastiness.
This technology will not be resisted, and nor should it. In this, other sports also are instructive. Tennis teaches that players used their limited referrals wisely. Experience teaches that the pause in play, as long as it is not protracted, adds an agreeable tension. But the cricket committee was wise to exclude from consideration the more speculative aspects of technology, such as what would have happened to the ball after it had hit a batsman's pad.
May 12, 2008
Posted 1 day, 14 hours ago in Miscellaneous
The Australian’s Tim Albone looks at cricket in Afghanistan and finds their coach, Taj Majik Alam, desperate for his side to qualify for the 2011 World Cup and with bigger things to worry about than rain delays:
Alam has been threatened by a suicide bomber for not picking a particular player, one of the star bowlers has been shot in the chest and his training facilities amount to four nets.
The piece also contains a link to Albone’s video documentary of the team’s bid to make it to their first World Cup.
Posted 1 day, 15 hours ago in Australian cricket
This Tuesday marks the 140th anniversary of the first team to play under a national Australian banner. The 1868 side completed a six-month long tour of England, a trip which Jamie Pandaram looks at in the Sydney Morning Herald, while also considering the new generation of emerging talent:
The players have not been recognised as being among Australia's 399 Test cricketers - no full-blooded Aborigine is on the list - but they would have been proud to know that nearly one-and-a-half centuries later, the new generation of indigenous cricketing talent is as proficient with books as bats.
NSW's top male and female Aboriginal prospects, Josh Lalor and Samantha Hinton, plan not only to excel on the cricket field but in the fields of business and medicine. Lalor has just started a Business/Commerce degree and Hinton will begin a nursing course this year.
May 11, 2008
Posted 2 days, 15 hours ago in English cricket
When Ryan Sidebottom was 14 he was told to go and find something else to concentrate on as he'd never make it in cricket. This week he will lead England's bowling at Lord's after a memorable year where he has burst back onto the international scene and quickly established himself as his country's key weapon. As he tells the Mail on Sunday he is determined to make the most of his time at the top level.
Ryan's mother Gillian thought something was up as he was unusually quiet in the car on the way home. When she stopped to drop off one of the other Huddersfield-based boys, she found out why — between the sobs and gulps and tears.
'I cried my eyes out,' admitted Sidebottom. 'I was just a schoolboy like any other, wanting to do well for my mum and dad and my grandad, who had been driving me all over the place to play. It was hard enough to be told I had no chance of making it. But to do it in front of all the other lads, that was unnecessary.'
Are we naming the coach in question? 'No. He knows who he is,' is all Sidebottom will say.
Posted 2 days, 17 hours ago in English cricket
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Michael Vaughan knows he needs runs but is focussed on leading England through to the next Ashes series
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England are preparing to embark on 14 months of cricket that will lead into next summer's Ashes series. Even though that includes the forthcoming series against New Zealand, a tough series against South Africa then winter assignments in India and West Indies it is difficult not to let the mind drift towards next July.
Michael Vaughan begins this summer under pressure, his form with the bat has not impressed in recent times and early-season hasn't been easy. But as he tells Stephen Brenkley in The Independent on Sunday he has no intention of moving aside yet and is enjoying a period of his career where he is pain-free.
By the time the 2009 Ashes are done, he might conceivably have led England in 65 Test matches. The whole topic is complicated by his long lay-off with a knee injury that still requires careful management. He missed 16 consecutive matches, but the selectors still insisted he was captain. It was an odd period of limbo which led to a 5-0 Ashes reversal and paradoxically reinforced Vaughan's position. Around the team now he exudes easy authority, but you wonder if this might stray into the divine right of kings territory.
There is no question that Vaughan wants to hang on and that he believes he is doing so for the right reasons. "Part of this job is dealing with a lot of the external stuff, and a lot of that is people writing and saying stuff about the captain," he said correctly. "They're possibly not looking at it in the best interests of the England team. There will be a time when there is a right time but I honestly feel this isn't it.
Meanwhile, in his column in the same newspaper, Ian Bell says England can't afford to take the New Zealand team lightly and that it's time he kicked on to the next stage of his career.
I came away with a great deal of respect for them from that tour. They have a lot of players who would get into a lot of teams. They probably aren't as good as many other Test sides, but they have a lot of fighters in there who won't budge easily, and you have to work hard to beat them. So it's important that we start the summer off on a high and take that momentum into the rest of the summer and the Test series beyond that.
Posted 2 days, 18 hours ago in New Zealand cricket
New Zealand aren't blessed with an array of world-class cricketers and begin the series against England as distinct second favourites. However, in Ross Taylor they have a batsman capable of forging an successful career and the top level. He already has a Test century against England, 120 in Hamilton, and produced some powerful hitting in the Indian Premier League.
In The Sunday Telegraph, Scyld Berry profiles Taylor and why he goes against the mould of many New Zealanders.
Blessed with a role model in Taylor, New Zealand can now spread cricket far more quickly among the one-third of their population which is not of European ancestry. To date, out of the handful of non-white Test cricketers they have had, only the wicketkeeper on their last tour of England, Adam Parore, can be said to have had a fair go.
Posted 2 days, 21 hours ago in New Zealand cricket
Sir Richard Hadlee, New Zealand's greatest player, tells the Observer's's Will Buckley that Test cricket should never be compromised by the shorter versions. He also talks about New Zealand's forthcoming series against England.
'The players we have are more suited to one-day cricket. We have made five World Cup semi-finals and the Twenty20 semi-finals. Tactically we are pretty good in the one-day game. We believe we can go and win. But in Test cricket we are inconsistent. You have to bat time, not overs, in Test cricket, whereas in the one-day game you bat overs, not time. We might score well in the first innings, but then be bowled out for a paltry score in the second innings. We may surprise, but England are hot favourites.
Mark Richardson, writing in the Herald on Sunday, is also not very optimistic about New Zealand’s prospects against England and thinks their best chance of winning a Test is at Lord’s.
John Bracewell has repeatedly called the current tour the second part of a six-match series and right now I can't see anything other than 5-1.
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One thing the team can draw strength from is that England doesn't have a particularly dominant record at the venue for the first test, Lord's. That can be put down to the motivating effect the occasion has on touring teams.
Posted 3 days, 1 hour ago in Indian Premier League
Four of eight teams in the ongoing Twenty20 are owned or managed by individuals with links to either BCCI or IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi, writes Shriniwas Rao in the Indian Express.
One of the owners of Kings XI Punjab is Mohit Burman of the Dabur family. His brother Gaurav, who is based in UK, is Modi’s step son-in-law. When contacted, Mohit Burman said: “It’s not just me alone, there are three other investors and naturally they won’t be putting their money because I am related. The IPL is a good business opportunity and the relationship with Modi is a mere coincidence.”
The Hindustan Times' Pradeep Magazine feels a corporate culture will leave cricket shaken.
Meanwhile the Hindu's KP Mohan asks if there is any relevance to dope testing in IPL?
In rushing through with an anti-doping code, the IPL has exposed younger domestic players to some risk.
Also read Anand Vasu's piece in the Hindustan Times where he mentions the punishment precedents that the board can lean on in the Harbhajan - Sreesanth row.
Posted 3 days, 1 hour ago in Indian Cricket
With his IPL success, Rohit Sharma has jumped the queue to take the tag of Indian cricket’s ‘next big thing’. Sandeep Dwivedi, writing in the Indian Express, profiles a youngster who has retained his grace in this slam-bang format.
Also read Rohit's interview to the same paper, where he says: ‘People don’t remember you for the number of innings but for the number of years you played’.
May 10, 2008
Posted 3 days, 22 hours ago in English cricket
From the moment he arrived at Middlesex as a precocious 17-year-old in 1987 and won the man-of-the-match award in the 1988 NatWest Trophy final, he has always been English cricket's 'Special One' writes the Daily Telegraph's Simon Hughes of his former county team-mate Mark Ramprakash.
Viv Richards came up to me in 1994 and said: 'You seem to have just about everything, but there's something missing. I feel you don't quite believe you're good enough to play at this level.'
Posted 4 days ago in Indian Premier League
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Kapil Dev: worries for the future of cricket
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It's too early to predict the future of cricket but it is quite likely that competitive Test cricket will draw an audience comprising both the hoi polloi and purists, writes Ronojoy Sen in the Times of India.
Shah Rukh Khan, India's most successful actor and the owner of the Kolkata franchise, speaks to the Calcutta Telegraph on how he has won the confidence of the side.
The Guardian's Barney Ronay is confused about whether he should join the IPL or not.
Imagine my excitement, then, when I received a call at home from Shahrukh Khan this week. At first I was suspicious. How could I be sure this was indeed Shahrukh Khan, the brightest star in the Bollywood Milky Way and the driving force behind the IPL's blend of excitable showbiz and showbiz excitability.
In the Hindu, Kapil Dev laments the frills associated with the Indian Premier League.
“In times to come you would see teams struggling to survive even 50 overs to save a match because of the mindset of the modern batsmen. I don’t think you will ever get a player like Sunil Gavaskar or Rahul Dravid now."
Herschelle Gibbs speaks to the Cape Times about the standard of the IPL, playing with his new Aussie team-mates and those black boots.
May 9, 2008
Posted 4 days, 14 hours ago in Australian cricket
In the Age, Chloe Saltau meets Beau Casson, Australia’s second spinner on their Test tour of the West Indies.
Casson started bowling leggies for a simple reason — Warne — and with three brothers and three sisters was never short of someone to try out his new tricks on. "I tried everything, bowled a few offies, but I just found leg-spin a bit more exciting. We could almost play a Test match out the back of our house. I loved it," he said.
Casson's talent was obvious from the moment he shone for WA in a tour game against England in 2001, and NSW officials wanted him from after he captured the wickets of the Waugh twins and Michael Slater. They later found he had the work ethic to complement his talent and the discipline to manage a congenital heart problem, which he says does not affect his cricket.
Posted 4 days, 23 hours ago in Indian Premier League
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Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the most valuable player at $1.5 million can, technically, be bought by another franchise
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Raghuvir Srinivasan, writing in the Hindu's Business Line website, says that the IPL’s financial structuring remains a mystery to the larger public who heard and read about the astronomical sums that a Dhoni or a Symonds was bought for. Srinivasan draws up two simple tables and analyses the way the IPL has been structured, sizing up the main revenue streams for the franchisees - the sale of broadcast rights, sponsorship, gate receipts in matches at their home grounds and team sponsorship - with two big ticket expenses - player costs and the franchise fee payable to IPL - before asking the question: will the franchises break even in the first year itself? Read on to learn more.
The real action will begin from the next edition in 2009. That is when the franchisees will get a grip on the concept and build on the experience of the first year.
Besides, trading of players could start in right earnest, especially if the BCCI decides to remove the cap of $5 million that is now placed on player purchase. The final proof of the success of IPL will come when the franchisees decide to list their teams. This is a live possibility at least by the third year of the IPL, which is 2010, assuming the concept succeeds.
The more successful teams could be prime candidates for listing, especially if player trading takes off aggressively. That is when the franchisees will feel the need for more capital and what better place to raise it than the stock market.
Sharda Ugra, the deputy editor India Today, says the Royal Challengers owner Vijay Mallya has responded to his team's defeats like a disgruntled fan.
Posted 4 days, 23 hours ago in Miscellaneous
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"If you make decisions, then the game will move forward at the right pace and you’ll be on track"
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Martin Crowe, the former New Zealand captain, was a fine batsman in his time but also proved a shrewd leader, most notably for tossing offspinner Dipak Patel the new ball during the 1992 World Cup and for telling Mark Greatbatch to belt the cover off the ball.
Speaking to Kolkata's The Telegraph, the 45-year-old Crowe says that captaincy requires one to articulate thoughts and ideas and handle people well. Interestingly, he also ranks the current Test captains and reveals that he learnt from Ian Chappell and Mike Brearley’s The Art of Captaincy. And that Stephen Fleming was the captain who impressed him most.
The Indian selectors, in particular, have made a smart move by appointing Dhoni as the one-day captain… This will allow him to grow into the full job step by step… Dhoni has charisma and has a manner… He’s learning from the Sachin Tendulkars… New Zealand Cricket should’ve done the same thing as India instead of rushing and giving Vettori everything all too soon. Fleming could’ve been the Test captain for a couple of years more. Definitely one year, if not a couple… England have Paul Collingwood in the ODIs… He’s a fighting cricketer, yes, but is tactically inept… Tactically, I haven’t seen a worse captain but he’ll try and make up for that by fighting performances.
May 8, 2008
Posted 5 days, 6 hours ago in Australian cricket
Most cricket fans love watching Ricky Ponting on television and the batsman has joined the craze. A big screen was wheeled in while Ponting was in the nets during the camp in Brisbane so he could play a shot and then see how he did it, the Daily Telegraph reports.
"It's the first time I've used that, it is the best little coaching session you can have," Ponting said. "It's good to have a coach or someone standing by that knows your game. But to have it explained to you is one thing, to see it for yourself and be able to identify yourself what you are doing during a shot is fantastic."
Posted 5 days, 16 hours ago in
Sabermetrics has helped transform baseball, and Andy Bull in the Guardian wonders if it could do the same for cricket, which is known for its scorers and statisticians.
The statistics traditionally used in baseball weren't necessarily much use, and as such they were ripe for re-evaluation. It was [David] Barry who pointed me towards the work of one man who had been recalculating the measures applied to cricket statistics in an effort to find fresh, objective, information on the game, Charles Davis. His book, The Best of the Best, was published in 2000. In it Davis spends a chapter debunking "the myths of cricket".
It is fascinating reading (for a cricket fan). Amongst other things, Davis objectively proves that using a nightwatchman is fundamentally flawed (you can read his analysis here). Ultimately though the book led me to think that there is a third major factor hindering cricket sabermetrics. Cricket is excessively obsessed with its past, and the majority of Davis's book is spent comparing players from different eras and trying to determine who is best. Which is all good fun, but it means that the statistical innovations he makes - such as the calculation of an 'under-pressure average' for batsmen - are squandered on pub-table debate. What Billy Beane did - by contrast - was to take such stats and actually apply them to team training and selection.
Posted 5 days, 19 hours ago in English cricket
Mike Atherton in the Times weighs into the Andrew Flintoff debate and suggests the England selectors should let him find form in county cricket before letting him return to Tests.
And what is the rush? England should beat New Zealand with the most frequently invoked relative in broadcasting - Geoffrey Boycott's mum - at the helm. Why not let Flintoff continue to bowl for Lancashire so he can take time to build confidence in his body and try to find some batting form before the tougher questions that South Africa will ask in the second half of the summer? Flintoff's bowling is rock solid, but his batting is flaky and he needs matches and runs under his belt before he takes Test-match examinations again.
Posted 5 days, 19 hours ago in English cricket
In his Guardian blog, Mike Selvey believes Lord’s needs to be more accessible to the general public.
Test matches, in particular, are fine occasions at Lord's, where decorum reigns over the need to dress up as nuns or whatever, there is the buzz of conversation rather than raucous chanting and applause is polite and wholehearted. This, without being po-faced about it, is refreshing at times. But Lord's is also elitist, and hideously expensive. It caters too much for the corporate market and scarcely at all for the casual spectator, restricted as it is by size: it is too small for the demands of international sport. A day out for a family, say four people, will cost around £250 just for tickets, if you can get them, so well ahead do they tend to sell. You cannot blame them for cashing in, but it hardly goes out of its way to being accessible.
Posted 5 days, 19 hours ago in ICC
The laws regarding bat composition were changed by the ICC this week and Angus Fraser in the Independent believes the move is long overdue.
The balance between bat and ball is fundamental to the game. Inevitably, there will be times when conditions allow batsmen to have a better time of it than bowlers, and vice versa, but it is not in the interests of the game for one component to dominate the other totally. It is meant to be an even contest. Golf has similar problems, although they do not concern one element suffering a disadvantage. Modern clubs and balls are reducing many of the world's greatest courses to nothing more than a pitch and putt, and in an effort to keep up with technology and preserve relatively high scores the game's administrators are having to amend courses. Holes are being lengthened and the layout changed by placing bunkers and water hazards in unfavourable positions. Cricket does not have such luxuries. Most grounds are arenas and the size of boundaries is limited by the presence of stands.
An editorial in the Guardian also looks at the new bat-handle regulations, and concludes that: “anyone who loves the classic contest of bat and ball will surely applaud.”
Posted 6 days, 4 hours ago in Australian cricket
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Would a referral have saved Michael Kasprowicz in 2005 and won Australia the Ashes?
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Peter Lalor argues in the Australian Ricky Ponting could have made a ton on debut, Australia should have won the 2005 Ashes and India may have won the Sydney Test if the proposed ICC rules on umpire referrals were already in use.
Errors have at times changed the course of a match and a career. Ponting was given out lbw on 96 in his debut Test at Perth against Sri Lanka to a ball clearly going over the stumps.
Andrew Symonds was given not out in Australia's first innings of the Sydney Test against India this summer when he admitted he hit the ball. That and a number of other decisions in the match had many Indians believing they had been robbed. And, of course, England may never have won the 2005 Ashes had the umpire seen that Michael Kasprowicz's hand was not on the bat when the ball hit his glove, with the Australians three runs short of a remarkable victory in the second Test.
In the Age Chloe Saltau looks at the rise of Brad Haddin, the son of a Gundagai publican.
May 7, 2008
Posted 6 days, 19 hours ago in English cricket
In the Daily Telegraph, Simon Hughes meets Stuart Broad, who is hoping to make himself a permanent member of England's Test side.
Discipline is undoubtedly the root of his success. You can see it in the way he prepares to bowl, placing his feet meticulously on his bowling mark, planting his fingers carefully on the ball, standing tall and briefly contemplating his delivery before setting off. He idolises Glenn McGrath, and he seems also to have been born with McGrath's other major attribute - desire. There is a bristling, apparently unshakeable determination which has enabled him to leapfrog more experienced practitioners.
Posted 1 week ago in Indian Premier League
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Matthew Hayden perfects the art of 'moving on'
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The Indian Premier League has been a journey of self-discovery for Matthew Hayden, who's come a long way from the infamous "obnoxious little weed" remark on Harbhajan Singh, part of a confrontational summer against India. What Maharishi Mahesh Yogi did for The Beatles, the IPL has done for Hayden, writes Phil Lutton in the Brisbane Times. Read on in stuff.co.nz
"We're quite subtle and we'll give each other a high five and a bit of a hug. Generally speaking, our levels of celebration are quite subdued. From our point of view, we've always looked at the other side and thought 'that's a bit over the top'. But that's the melodramatic nature of their sport - the belief that they have in their culture - and they love success equally as much as Australia."
Posted 1 week ago in Indian Premier League
The IPL has got heads turning and Somini Sengupta, attempting to strip down the Twenty20 tournament for an American audience in the New York Times, says it is "is trying to spin off India’s colonial inheritance into a money-making symbol of a brash, emerging nation". The writer throws in the views of fans of different ages (a flustered mother with a front-row seat, a bored 20-year old), CNN-IBN's Rajdeep Sardesai, yet to convert, and Ramachandra Guha, also dwelling briefly on the cheerleader brouhaha and how loyalties are yet to be formed.
At the game between the Mumbai Indians and the Deccan Chargers, Ambani was in his box with his wife, Nita, and their three children. The whole family wore blue, the team color. Nita Ambani had slapped a Mumbai Indians sticker on the back of her flowing chiffon salwar kameez. The team logo, she pointed out, was a ball of fire, a divine weapon known as a chakra lifted from Hindu mythology.
No matter. Mumbai was losing badly. The Ambanis’ children looked ashen. “I have to keep reminding myself, it’s only a game,” she said.
May 6, 2008
Posted 1 week ago in Miscellaneous
The MCC is in the news as it contemplates changing the laws relating to the make-up of bats. In the Australian Peter Lalor looks at the recommendations to limit the amount of carbon in a handle.
The law will state it must feature 90% cane, rubber and glue. However, Gray-Nicolls is already one step ahead and has developed a bat which replaces the rubber with 10% carbon. The company said it believed the handle for the Fusion II was within the proposed new law.
Read Cricinfo’s story on the changes here.
Posted 1 week ago in English cricket
It's too early to say for certain, but Simon Jones has shown encouraging early season form (in spite of his stiff neck), writes Steve James in today's Daily Telegraph:
He did, and faced his mates early in the season, as all movers seem to. In truth he didn’t bowl that well, recording so-so figures of 6-0- 43-1 in a shortened game, but the more important pointer was that the venom appeared to be back. A couple of slippery bouncers to Glamorgan skipper David Hemp showed that. The accuracy will come, just as it suddenly appeared in 2004/05 after his wayward early years.
Posted 1 week ago in Indian Cricket
VVS Laxman has wowed fans across the globe, not least in Australia, with his wristy elegance and sweetly-timed jabs and cuts. And despite his struggles in the Twenty20 format, fans in Hyderabad are buzzing to get a glimpse of their hero, finds out K Shriniwas Rao of the Indian Express.
Today, the fever of Twenty20 has gripped Hyderabad. Both the Indian Cricket League (ICL) and the Indian Premier League (IPL) have seen fans queuing up at the stadiums. Players such as Shahid Afridi, Adam Gilchrist, Andrew Symonds and Herschelle Gibbs have been recruited as ‘locals’.
And yet, it is VVS Laxman who happens to be cheered the loudest. The Deccan Chargers website has seen some anti-Laxman messages, but not once has the right-hander been booed at the ground — even as his team lost three matches at home and he’s struggled to come to terms with this extremely short format.
“He’s not one for masala cricket. We’re sure he’s playing here because he is Hyderabad’s biggest name in cricket,” says a fan at the Rajiv Gandhi International stadium.
May 5, 2008
Posted 1 week, 1 day ago in Indian Premier League
In the Rediff website, Srinivas Bhogle, Purnendu Maji and Arthur D'Silva crunch numbers to figure out the most valuable player in the IPL so far.
The chief value of the MVP is that it factors in a lot of performance indicators (runs scored, strike rate, wickets taken, economy rate, fielding prowess) into a single index. Better still, the MVP value can be looked upon as a simple "run equivalent". If Shane Watson has a MVP of 292, it means that his combined effort as a batsman, bowler and fielder is equivalent to having scored 292 runs.
Posted 1 week, 1 day ago in New Zealand cricket
Stephen Brenkley in the Independent assesses New Zealand’s chances in England, with a side bolstered by the return of their five players who were competing in the IPL.
Now they are fully assembled, it is still not a prospect to float many boats. No doubt this is grossly unfair - and it may also play straight into the tourists' hands - but to think of New Zealand cricket is to think of an afternoon in dullsville.
Posted 1 week, 1 day ago in English cricket
David Gower puts forth some candid views on a range of topics, mostly cricket, in an email conversation in the
Independent. A sample of the questions and answers is here:
Does the IPL spell the end of Test cricket and should England's players be allowed a crack at it next year?
What? Six weeks razzle-dazzle enough to consign over a hundred years of Test cricket to the dump? You must be off your rocker. Twenty20 is here to stay and will energise the game around the world, but players, however grateful for IPL and, in the future, EPL cash, still know that they will be judged by their record as Test players. The ECB might well make some concessions to their contracted players re the IPL, but a lot depends on how plans for an EPL develop. Until those are clear we need to hold fire.
Some of your peers have been playing beach cricket Down Under. Would it interest you?
The second word is "off".
How did you feel about Prince William's recent flying antics?
Can't fault him. His equipment is a bit too modern for me – you can't beat the old Tiger Moth for real flying – but I like his spirit!
Michael Atherton, meanwhile, has also been dealing with emails, this time those that have come in to him at the Times Online, having just completed his first full week as chief cricket correspondent for the Times.
Posted 1 week, 2 days ago in Indian Premier League
In the Indian Express, Leher Kala writes on the demands placed on the IPL cheerleaders.
"On the first day we didn't understand cricket at all. Now we get it a litte," says Evgenia Guseva, who is a trained gymnast, ballet dancer and who's been a cheerleader for four years for football matches in Russia. Currently she's learning hip-hop and salsa in Moscow and plans to open her own dance school soon.
The IPL is in desperate search of a new grammar where emotions are on a raw edge and everyone is so passionately involved that he needs to hit to opponent to prove his commitment, writes Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times.
In the same paper, Varun Gupta writes on the mystery over Shane Warne and his love for No.23.
May 4, 2008
Posted 1 week, 2 days ago in English cricket
In the Sunday Times, Richard Rae meets the Barbados-born Surrey fast bowler Chris Jordan, who at 19 is already impressing good judges.
Dennis Lillee, who saw Jordan bowl in Perth last winter, has no doubt he will play Test cricket. The question is, for which country? Like Kevin Pietersen before him, Jordan needs to fulfil the residency qualification, meaning he will not be eligible to play for England until 2010.
If they have any sense, West Indies will come calling long before then. If they do, Jordan faces a difficult decision. “I’m a Barbadian and I would have loved to play my cricket in the West Indies, but England has given me opportunities. This is where I’m playing my cricket, I feel comfortable here. It could be hard to choose.
Posted 1 week, 2 days ago in ICC
In New Zealand’s Sunday Star Times Richard Boock makes the very pertinent point that the criticism that has been leveled at the ICC is actually aimed at the wrong target.
“The invective has flown thick and fast. Murderers and rapists have escaped with lighter criticism. The world body has been charged with endorsing corruption and racism, of being broken-backed and weak, and by one writer, of being amoral, unprincipled, shallow, self-centred, ill-informed and contemptible. Oh yes, and pathetic.
But the point is, it doesn't make any sense for the cricket community to roast the ICC over this, because the ICC is the cricketing community. The world body's voting members are the chairmen and presidents of the 10 test-playing nations. They are the face of world cricket; a representative image. Buffoons maybe, but what does that say of us?"
Boock goes on to say that rather than the faceless ICC who protected Zimbabwe and ousted Malcolm Speed, it was the heads of the national boards … our national boards.
“I understand that it would be nice to imagine the world body as a separate entity, a mythical bogeyman that we could tar-and-feather and pelt with fruit, but the reality lies a little closer to home. If we want to think of them as a pack of idiots, that's fine - but we should always remember that they're our idiots, and we chose them.”
Posted 1 week, 2 days ago in Indian Premier League
Three weeks into the IPL, James Robinson of the Observer makes his observations on cricket's traveling circus and catches up with a few fans along the way.
Exhaust fumes rise, mixing with the smoke from a spectacular firework display, but through the haze and smog the floodlights glimmer in the distance, soaring high above the street vendors and crowds of spectators swarming into the stadium. When the cacophony of engine noise and police sirens subsides, the rhythmic beat of traditional Punjabi Dhol drums floats through the night-time air.
Posted 1 week, 2 days ago in New Zealand cricket
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Brendon McCullum played fly-half for his schoolboy representative side
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| Steve James, writing in the Telegraph, reveals how Brendon McCullum, before making his name in cricket, once got selected over a future rugby legend while in school. Click here for the full interview.
We knew Brendon McCullum was talented. And now we discover he once kept Dan Carter out of a schoolboy rugby representative side. For the South Island secondary schools team McCullum played fly-half (or first five-eighth as New Zealanders prefer) and Carter came off the bench to appear on the wing.
In case you aren't aware, Carter, the All Black fly-half, is God's representative on a rugby field. He is that good, and McCullum was once deemed better. Wow.
James contends that McCullum is now in the big league…
He is the story right now. One felt sorry for Daniel Vettori at New Zealand's press conference in deepest Essex last week. After the bog-standard top table stuff where Vettori spoke with customary common-sense, the New Zealand captain was then left waiting alone in a corner, fiddling with his mobile phone while journalists surrounded McCullum, hanging on his every word. McCullum had better get used to it. There will never be another Adam Gilchrist but McCullum is now a pretty exciting alternative
The series against New Zealand will be Peter Moores' second home season as coach of England. He talks to Mike Selvey on the year gone by and the IPL. Read on in the Guardian.
You can imagine Peter Moores on The Apprentice. In fact you can imagine him winning The Apprentice. He is personable (not that that appears a necessary quality), diligent, wonderfully well-organised, enthusiastic, intelligent, innovative, ruthless where necessary, speaks management lingo as a first language and is such a dyed-in-the-wool optimist that he could find a positive at the bottom end of a Duracell.
May 3, 2008
Posted 1 week, 4 days ago in Indian Premier League
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Is Shane Warne really angry or upto one of his masterful mind-games?
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Sharda Ugra, the deputy editor of India Today, doesn't think Warne v Ganguly will mean as much in the context of the IPL.
Yet there is an air of the ho-hum about this Warne-inspired needle-fest. His grouse(s) against Ganguly may be justified but the blond bad boy has, after all, made his reputation not just as the king of spin but also as the master of the mind game. His late-night press conference in Jaipur where he launched his offensive seemed more theatrical than enraged. As fine a piece of theatre as it was, it hasn’t quite generated the frisson of animosity it would have in another context.
That other context is, of course, international cricket; when playing for Australia, Warne may have yet said what he did about an opponent, probably not at a press conference but a syndicated newspaper column. His words would have loomed over every other encounter and involved every man on either side.
Elsewhere, the Telegraph's Austin Peters, reveals how Jeremy Snape, the Rajasthan Royals' performance coach, has impressed the side and won Shane Warne's confidence.
Posted 1 week, 4 days ago in Indian Premier League
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So who's telling the truth now?
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| The Mumbai Mirror, which published a story in which umpire Amiesh Saheba commented about the Sreesanth-Harbhajan, has criticised him after he denied having given an interview to the newspaper. It details how Saheba had made the same comments on a local radio station.
Why Saheba has decided to deny a conversation that took place with his consent at his residence in Ahmedabad over several plates of yummy kesar-pista ice-cream as he happily posed for pictures is a mystery to us.
The conversation with Mirror's Tapan Joshi, in fact, was the third time that day Saheba was going over what had transpired during the Mohali match. Earlier that morning, Saheba was part of a talk show on Radio Mirchi with RJ Dhwanit and Tapan Joshi.
Posted 1 week, 4 days ago in Indian Premier League
Instead of being banned for 11 matches by the organisers of IPL for having slapped Sree Santh, Harbhajan Singh should have been given a medal, writes a cheeky Jug Suraiya in the Times of India.
By giving Sree Santh a high-five across his face, Bhajji not only subsumed the noble traditions of cricket into the even nobler traditions of pugilism, but also brought the sport back into consonance with present-day Indian culture, as manifested by road rage, mob rule and fisticuffs in Parliament, another once-British institution which has been thoroughly indigenised thanks to the vernacular rituals of chappal-throwing and storming the well of the House.
Both Harbhajan and Sreesanth have a history of abuse and both could be in deep trouble, says Shantanu Guha Ray in the Tehelka magazine.
It is now evident that under the guise of this entity repeatedly and tiresomely called “fearless, young India”, all lines of conduct are being treated as mere patterns in the sand, writes Sharda Ugra in the India Today.
May 2, 2008
Posted 1 week, 4 days ago in Indian Premier League
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Simon Katich got up close and personal with Glenn McGrath
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Peter Lalor, writing in the Australian, speaks to Simon Katich about his brief Indian Premier League stint. He faced Glenn McGrath for the first time in a match, judged a talent contest and was reluctant to leave because he was having so much fun.
"There was a lot of hype with the tournament and the amount of money invested at the start," Katich said. "But in a way that has helped the intensity because everybody knows this was high stakes which put extra pressure on the performance.
"The other thing was that you always want to perform in front of big crowds and that spurs everybody on to play really good cricket.”
Posted 1 week, 5 days ago in Indian Premier League
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Muttiah Muralitharan: enjoying his stint in Chennai
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Muttiah Muralitharan says he never wanted captaincy because he felt he didn't have the qualities to be a good leader. R Kaushik interviews him in the Deccan Herald.
It’s essential for the captain to stay cool and not put pressure on the players in the team, even if he is upset. If the captain shows he is upset, the bowlers get upset and commit more mistakes. But if the captain is relaxed, the bowlers will draw confidence from that. Mahela is a lot like that, he doesn’t take pressure and he doesn’t put pressure. But Dhoni is cooler than any other captain because he takes it so easy.
Read the Sportstar for a piece on another spin wizard. More than a year after he retired from international cricket, Shane Warne continues to show he has few equals in making things happen, writes S Ram Mahesh.
However, foreign cricketers have found few takers in terms of brand associations, writes Ratna Bhushan in the Economic Times. Sports management agencies attribute this to most Indian advertisers still preferring local players, there not being enough time in the itinerary of the foreign players and the season not being long enough.
With that in mind read GS Vivek's story in the Indian Express where he speaks to Chennai's two unheralded stars in the IPL.
Posted 1 week, 5 days ago in Indian Premier League
The euphoria of having discovered a new world of cricket cannot be at the cost of certain enduring traditions, writes Rajdeep Sardesai in the Hindustan Times.
Sport is ultimately about a deep emotional connect between players and fans and not about transient pleasures derived from being part of a three-hour extravaganza. There is almost something sacred about this relationship that cannot be diluted by flashy music videos, glamorous cheerleaders and even more magnetic film stars. When on-field tension is matched by off-the-field hype, when the camera focuses relentlessly on the stars and the dancers instead of the cricketers, then questions must be raised about the direction the sport is headed.
Also read Rohit Mahajan in the Outlook.
The IPL's first week has revealed a flaw that could prove fatal, an identity crisis that looks like it will need the last million dollars of the marketing men to be resolved.
Posted 1 week, 5 days ago in Australian cricket
Jon Pierik writes in the Herald Sun cricket is ready to fight off soccer’s push to become Australia's most popular sport in the next 100 years.
Cricket Australia has commissioned extensive research in a bid to protect and promote the sport - and its brand - and is confident soccer will never dampen the interest in cricket. The Cricket Australia spokesman Peter Young has suggested soccer could even work hand in hand with cricket.
May 1, 2008
Posted 1 week, 5 days ago in Australian cricket
In the Australian, Peter Lalor looks at the Australians who have returned home from the Indian Premier League ahead of the Test tour of the West Indies this month.
If there is a queue at the international airport of late, it's because Australia's cricketers are lining up to pay excess baggage fees for the sackloads of rupees they plundered during their brief, but profitable, excursion to India. Cricket has seen nothing like the Indian Premier League and the players' bank accounts have seen nothing like it either.
At least two of the Australians have earned $3000 or more per run scored. And it didn't matter what sort of run. A nice cover drive and an ugly outside edge were equal in the eyes of the benevolent bean-counters.
Posted 1 week, 5 days ago in Indian Cricket
"Sumit Khatri is only a fringe-local featuring on the Rajasthan Royals’ extended roster of 25 and the only chinaman bowler in the IPL," writes Shivani Naik in the Indian Express. "But his oddity may be lost, especially since Khatri might not see any real action in the tournament. Even some cricket websites have slotted the left-armer as right medium-pacer or off-break bowler."
At 20, Khatri has survived the biggest storm for a chinaman spinner. That of retaining his bowling-style, which comes with copious cautionary notes, equal in length to a chinaman’s definition. Predominantly a batsman in his seven years at Sawai Mansingh Stadium’s RCC nets, Khatri was called aside one day by the late Hanumant Singh three years ago. His left wrist had twisted a couple of deliveries prodigiously from off to leg, during what Khatri calls a “faltoo, time-pass practice session”, and Hanumant was impressed.
Posted 1 week, 5 days ago in ICC
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'Despite Malcolm Speed's vehemence that the KPMG report should be published - the obvious course of action, one might have thought - the ICC board voted him down. It was appalling'
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| The Speed affair rumbles on, to the continuing embarrassment of the ICC. In the Guardian, Mike Selvey cuts to the chase.
Speed's early exit is expedient, an exercise in damage limitation at a time when the ICC is in turmoil. He has been made a scapegoat, just as he once made Hair one. Speed had been at loggerheads with the ICC's South African president, Ray Mali, over the non-publication of an independent forensic audit of the finances of Zimbabwe Cricket, an audit that found evidence of irregularities.
Despite Speed's vehemence that the KPMG report should be published - the obvious course of action, one might have thought - the ICC board voted him down. It was appalling. But it was little surprise: Mali has an especially cordial relationship with Peter Chingoka, head of Zimbabwe's cricket board and a supporter of Robert Mugabe. The ICC's president-elect, England's David Morgan, attempted diplomatically to broker a resolution but Mali's refusal to climb down meant Speed could not continue.
Selvey echoes many in the media with his scathing view of the ICC.
But even by its own standards the sacking of Speed, a mightily efficient, calculating administrator, if a little cold to the touch, has opened it up to ridicule.
"I am hopeful," said Mani, "that, with David Morgan taking over, the ICC will come through this." Plenty to read between the lines there, with the possible unwritten codicil being "when we see the back of Mali". The Zimbabwe issue may resolve itself in the not-too-distant future, but Morgan will still have a tough couple of years if he is to claw back lost ground.
Neil Manthorp writing on the Super Sport site also has little time for the ICC’s handling of Zimbabwe’s finances.
Perhaps the tirades of abuse that ZC have received for their alleged abuse of finances have been unfair. The ICC authorised an audit and, upon receipt of it, aknowledged it.
How on earth can people be so cynical about the ICC when they have a) aknowledged the contents of the report and the fact that that are b) taking note of it?
Taking note of things is a gravely underestimated skill. The ICC have 'taken note' that their money is not being spent as it should be. They have have been made aware that the money which is supposed to be revatalising the game in that has been compromised. But at least they have "noted" this anomaly. They can't be accused of doing nothing.
Next to nothing, but not nothing.
Posted 1 week, 5 days ago in Indian Premier League
Michael Atherton, in his first week as The Times’ chief cricket correspondent, casts his eye over the IPL Twenty20 and then the ramifications of the shorter format on all forms of the game. Here he is on the Indian tournament:
Crucially for its future success, the players have taken to it wholeheartedly. This is not surprising when you consider the financial rewards on offer, but when, after the first match, Brendon McCullum, the New Zealander who scored 158 for the Kolkata Knight Riders, said that he could not feel his legs for the first eight balls he faced because of nerves, it was a good sign.
For sports fans are discerning enough to smell a fraud. They need to sense that it matters to players how they perform and whether they win or lose, which is why mere exhibition matches have never taken off. H.L. Mencken's dictum that you never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the public may work for daytime television producers and Hollywood directors, but not for sport. The players care, the public want it and on that basis alone Twenty20 is here to stay. It will drive the finances of domestic cricket the world over.
Over in the Telegraph, Simon Hughes writes that English cricket needs to copy the IPL model. Whatever happens, he says, players will do well financially, concluding: "All in all, not a bad time to be a professional cricketer, eh?"
Posted 1 week, 5 days ago in English cricket
Being backward in coming forward with his opinions is one charge you could never level at Geoffrey Boycott. In the Daily Telegraph he pours forth his opinions on life, the universe and everything… almost. First in his sights is Darrell Hair’s return to umpiring for the first time since Ovalgate in 2006:
The best umpires have a rapport with the players, but Hair's bullying tactics were never going to earn him any respect. Without wishing to rake over old coals, I thought Hair was wrong at the Oval. He was too hasty and too inflexible. Now he has had time to sit down and reflect, I hope he will come back as a better umpire and a better communicator. I have no dislike of the man, nor do I want to see him hounded out of the game.
Here is a sample of his thoughts on another comeback, Andrew Flintoff’s potential return for England:
Flintoff can't be Roy of the Rovers all the time. And let's face it, do we really need him in the side to beat these New Zealanders?
And he pours forth on a hot topic - Twenty20:
There has been plenty of cobblers spoken and written about Twenty20 overtaking Test cricket - a format that has been around for 130 years, and survived wars, revolutions and match-fixing scandals. For me, it's not going to happen. Or, at least, it shouldn't, as long as the people who run the game get their act together.
Posted 1 week, 6 days ago in Indian Premier League
"One of the reasons why the Indians run foul with authorities is because there is very little sledging in first-class cricket in India," writes Mahendra Singh Dhoni in the Hindustan Times. "It's when these youngsters get into the international level that they see and hear what the other teams are saying and some of them try it, but without the expertise of their foreign counterparts. I have said this in the past: sledging is an art, and our players must learn it well before practicing it. Otherwise bans and fines will always be handed out to them."
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