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May 13, 2008
Posted 7 hours, 55 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.
May 12, 2008
Posted 1 day, 17 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 9, 2008
Posted 4 days, 16 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.
May 8, 2008
Posted 5 days, 7 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 6 days, 6 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 2, 2008
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.
April 24, 2008
Posted 2 weeks, 5 days ago in Australian cricket
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Jack Fingleton opened the batting for Australia in the 1930s
© The Cricketer International
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Philip Derriman writes in the Sydney Morning Herald about Jack Fingleton, the opening batsman and journalist, who is famous for his writing – and a lifelong rift with Don Bradman. The centenary of Fingleton’s birth will be celebrated at the SCG on Monday and a biography about him will be released later in the year.
The feud apparently began in the early 1930s and ended only when Fingleton died in 1981. Nobody has ever got to the bottom of why they disliked each other so much, although everyone has assumed religion had something to do with it. Bradman was a Mason and Fingleton a Catholic.
There was also the question of who leaked a dressing-room story to the press during the Bodyline series of 1932-33. Fingleton was blamed for it, but he always maintained Bradman was the culprit and should have owned up.
In the lead-up to Anzac Day Paige Taylor wrote in the Australian about the fast bowler Tibby Cotter, the only Australian Test player to die in World War I.
It is generally accepted that Cotter was shot on October 31, 1917, by a Turk after the famous charge at Beersheba by the 12th and 4th Australian Light Horse regiments. But in his book to be published in October, Andrew Sproul and co-author Max Bonnell advance a new theory: that the 32-year-old was fatally wounded when a Turk prisoner committed an act of perfidy. "I have felt driven, over time, to get the story right and to tell it," Sproul said.
April 22, 2008
Posted 3 weeks ago in Australian cricket
The use of a pink ball at Lord’s has given Cricket Australia hope of finding a suitable object for day-night Tests. Michael Brown, the board’s general manager of cricket operations, tells the Sydney Morning Herald he will be meeting with scientists and Australian Institute of Sport experts next week.
"We want to try and do a proper, orchestrated research project," Brown said. "If we are serious about this issue - to get a better day-night cricket ball and a ball we could possibly use in Test cricket - we need to understand the constraints, which is what the MCC are doing ... We need to factor in the practical cricket people, the scientists, the people who make the leather, the cricket ball manufacturers. We see this as being a really serious project that could have lots of implications, but you've got to understand, too, it could go nowhere.”
April 12, 2008
Posted on 04/12/2008 in Australian cricket
Brad Haddin doesn’t normally wait by the phone to find out if he’s been selected for the national squad, but this time around he just couldn’t help himself. It was a painful two weeks he tells Alex Brown in the Sydney Morning Herald.
"I just wanted to hear it officially: you've been named in the squad for the West Indies. I was on edge every time the phone rang. I was like a bear with a sore head until I got that confirmation."
April 9, 2008
Posted on 04/09/2008 in Australian cricket
In the Sydney Morning Herald Jamie Pandaram finds out more about Australia's newest fast bowler, Doug Bollinger.
Cricket is the loneliest of team sports, and the backslappers and well-wishers don't usually arrive until after success. Bollinger learned early, nobody would be knocking life's stumps down for him.
So when he decided to take up cricket at 15 after spending his earlier years on the rugby league field with Seven Hills, the son of a Dutchman wasn't taking shortcuts. By 21 he was picked up by the Fairfield grade club, and in quick succession he had managed to knock over three more stumps; the third grade team, seconds, and then firsts in his debut season.
Bollinger featured in the first grade grand final that year, and knocked that stump over too with a premiership win. "After that it just kind of happened," he said.
April 5, 2008
Posted on 04/05/2008 in Australian cricket
The Melbourne club Northcote is hoping to attract Tatenda Taibu for next summer, Chloe Saltau reports in the Sunday Age.
Taibu is expected to relocate to Melbourne and represent Northcote, a move that could position him for future Bushrangers selection, although he will not be considered for a place on Cricket Victoria's contract list for next season. Northcote president Mark Sundberg confirmed the club hoped to recruit the bright young wicketkeeper-batsman, but said he had so far been unable to contact Taibu.
Posted on 04/05/2008 in Australian cricket
Jamie Pandaram, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, looks at how New South Wales’ talent scouts have found players such as Brett Lee, Michael Clarke and Phillip Hughes. The next big thing is tipped to be Josh Hazelwood, a 17-year-old fast bowler.
Those in the know at the state’s high performance unit believe they can tip a future champion before he or she is old enough to get a driver's licence. "It's the X-factor," the department's manager, Alan Campbell, said. "They look like they want to be there, they keep bouncing back after all the tests we put them through. And they have the ability to perform when it really counts.”
In the Herald Sun Ron Reed writes Geoff and Shaun Marsh, who was picked in the one-day squad to tour the West Indies, are in line to become only the second father-son combination to represent Australia.
April 3, 2008
Posted on 04/03/2008 in Australian cricket
Richie Benaud will be one of the first inductees into New South Wales’ Hall of Fame, but he tells the Daily Telegraph he would be 12th man if the dozen selected ever played in the same team. Don Bradman, Victor Trumper and Steve Waugh will also be honoured.
"When this side was first announced back in January, I recalled seeing Bill O'Reilly listed at No. 12 on the list,” Benaud said. "And had that been the case [in a match], I can assure you I would have been on the end of a blasting from Tiger O'Reilly."
April 1, 2008
Posted on 04/01/2008 in Australian cricket
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There was no fairytale Test call-up for Bryce McGain
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Victorians have traditionally felt their players get overlooked for national selection to accommodate New South Wales cricketers. Australia’s 15-man Test squad to tour the West Indies features eight New South Wales players and no Victorians, although both teams made the Pura Cup final. In the Herald Sun, Ron Reed reports.
For the first time, Victoria has no cricketer considered good enough to be picked for an overseas Test tour. The Australian selectors, including Victorian Merv Hughes, yesterday ignored the Bushrangers in naming 15 players for the three-Test trip to the West Indies next month. Cricket Australia statistician Ross Dundas said the only other time this had happened was in 2003, when champion spin bowler Shane Warne was serving his year's suspension after failing a drugs test.
Victoria’s main hope for a Test call-up was the legspinner Bryce McGain. In the Age, Peter Hanlon chats to McGain after he missed the cut.
The Test squad, however, is again bereft of Vics, leaving the Bushrangers some way off meeting their mission statement of having 30% representation in national teams by 2011. McGain by then will be pushing 40, but thinks himself more of a chance than now. He knows he is an unusual story, and has enjoyed people's interest, but is aware that he was essentially a first-year player this summer.
March 27, 2008
Posted on 03/27/2008 in Australian cricket
Simon Katich’s incredible season, which includes a record 1506 Pura Cup runs at 94.12, continues as he pushes to match some of Don Bradman’s records in the Sydney grade competition. Jamie Pandaram, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, looks at Katich’s numbers.
Katich has now tallied 569 runs at an average of 113.80 in grade cricket. If he scores 31 in this weekend's semi-final against Gordon, he will maintain an average of 100. Don Bradman was the last player to post better averages in state and grade cricket in the same season, scoring 1051 runs at 116.77 for NSW, and 549 runs at 109.80 for St George, in 1929-30.
March 25, 2008
Posted on 03/25/2008 in Australian cricket
Greg Baum, writing in the Age, says the ICC might as well legislate to get rid of bad breath and smelly armpits if it wants to cut sledging from the game.
Its proposal is a bureaucrat's solution to cultural problem. Make a rule, press a button, tick a box, all fixed. But what is fixed? No one has properly established even what constitutes sledging.
Ian Chappell bristles to be called the father of sledging; he maintains his Australian teams were noisy, but never personal. Australia has never been anything less than noisy since. No one wants a foul-mouthed cacophony out there. But nor does anyone expect churchy silence.
Simon Katich tells the Daily Telegraph he would have no problems playing under Ricky Ponting if he was picked in the squad for the West Indies tour and has dismissed a report of a rift with the captain.
March 24, 2008
Posted on 03/24/2008 in Australian cricket
Australia have been searching for a new spinner and in the Sydney Morning Herald, Alex Brown suggests Beau Casson, the left-arm wrist-spinner, should be picked for the tour of the West Indies.
Bryce McGain would not seem to fit the job description as set out by Andrew Hilditch's panel. A solid performer for Victoria this summer with 38 first-class wickets, McGain will nonetheless be 36 by the time Australia arrive in the Caribbean. At best, he represents a band-aid solution to Australia's spinning problem.
Casson, on the other hand, has shown rapid improvement this year. After failing to make an impression in his first season-and-a-half with NSW, the 25-year-old was among the Blues' best bowlers in the past two months, claiming 21 wickets at 26.43 in his past four matches.
March 22, 2008
Posted on 03/22/2008 in Australian cricket
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Adults admire him and kids want to be him
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Ricky Ponting may have sold for less than expected during the Indian Premier League auction, but he's making the big bucks elsewhere, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Adults admire him and kids want to be him - and that's adding up to a winning financial wicket for the Australian cricket captain.
Industry experts estimate the Tasmanian-born skipper, who ranked as the most marketable sports star last year, is making about $2 million from his Australian endorsement deals alone.
Taking into account his earnings from cricket, the man nicknamed "Punter" is said to be worth $4 million per year. This includes an almost million-dollar base salary from Cricket Australia.
March 19, 2008
Posted on 03/19/2008 in Australian cricket
In the Daily Telegraph, Chico Harlan gives an outsider's interpretation of the one-sided Pura Cup decider between New South Wales and Victoria.
With the Pura Cup final four-fifths done, the Bushrangers had already sustained enough damage to recognise what would happen in the worst-case scenario (they'd lose), and what would happen with a last-day inspired effort (they'd lose), and what would happen with the intervention of a minor miracle (they'd lose).
Cricket, at least to this American outsider's eyes, delivers a reliable supply of oddities, but it saved the best for last, turning its grand final into a grand anticlimax. At least briefly, sport meant inevitability. NSW defeated Victoria like boiling water defeats lobster.
Michael Horan writes in the Herald Sun that reaching five of a possible six domestic finals in the past two years has brought little joy for Victoria.
Posted on 03/19/2008 in Australian cricket
Christian Nicolussi, writing in the Daily Telegraph, looks at the relevance of the domestic game after small crowds have watched a star-studded New South Wales dominate the Pura Cup final against Victoria.
On Tuesday just 1893 fans - including several school groups - turned up at the SCG as the Blues closed in on victory ... Domestic cricket has failed to capture interest, with just 11,893 fans making their way to the historic SCG the past four days. Not even cheap $10 tickets, glorious autumn sunshine and the chance to watch Australia superstars Brett Lee, Nathan Bracken, Stuart Clark and Michael Clarke could boost numbers.
In the Age Lyall Johnson hears the jokes about whether sport’s “mercy rule” needs a name change to the “Victorian rule” after their treatment at the SCG.
The Adelaide Oval’s A$90 million re-development, which was to be ready for the 2010-11 Ashes, has been delayed due to concerns over costs, the Australian reports.
March 17, 2008
Posted on 03/17/2008 in Australian cricket
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Bill Brown was not only an Invincible but also Australia's last remaining link to pre-war Test cricket
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Robert Craddock writes in the Courier-Mail that he visited Bill Brown the day before he died, as severe pain coursed through his body.
He could barely talk but though breathing heavily I heard him mouth a word which sounded like "whisky". When I asked whether he wanted a drink he nodded, so I dashed to the local bottle shop and got a bottle of Johnnie Walker and two glasses, putting a nip in each.
Then I noticed his eyes were closed and his breathing more subdued. Accepting we had spoken our last words I quietly said: "it's OK old mate, you don't have to drink anything" and I swear I felt my heart slide through the soles of my shoes as I patted his hand.
Then, guess what? His eyes opened and he said: "what do (you) think I am . . . a man or a bloody mouse . . . where's my whisky". His eyebrows arched and his mouth curled up at the corner as it always did when he delivered a cute line. It was one last little treat from the man the cricket world loved.
Mike Coward in the Australian writes that Brown was more than just an Invincible.
Apart from his distinguished playing record, this generous, self-effacing man had further claims to fame. He was the last survivor of the first televised cricket match at Lord's in June, 1938 when he carried his bat for a masterful 206 and identical, controversial run out decisions in successive months against India at Sydney in 1947 led to an immediate addition to the lexicon of the game.
For a man renowned for his fastidiousness on and off the ground it was surprising he repeatedly left the non-striker's crease before the bowler, Vinoo Mankad, delivered the ball. On both occasions in the Australian XI match and the second Test Mankad issued a warning to Brown before removing the bails. Today, this rare form of dismissal is known as Mankading.
March 15, 2008
Posted on 03/15/2008 in Australian cricket
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Stuart MacGill believes he's already on the plane to the West Indies
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Stuart MacGill and Bryce McGain will go head-to-head in the Pura Cup final, which started on Saturday, as the main contenders for a spin spot on the West Indies tour in May. Malcolm Conn writes about the battle in the Australian.
MacGill, 37, and Victoria's McGain, 36 in 10 days, ply the same trade on a cricket field and are the two oldest players in the game but, for all these obvious similarities, have little in common, including their attitude to the West Indian tour.
Despite playing just his second match for New South Wales after a three-month lay-off following wrist surgery, MacGill believes he is already on the plane for what will be his third tour of the West Indies ... McGain, who has exploded on to the state scene in little more than a year following Shane Warne's retirement, says he can't afford to think beyond his next over.
In the Age Chloe Saltau also talks to McGain, who no longer plays the trumpet or works in IT, while Greg Baum interviews David Hussey.
Philip Derriman, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, takes a look back at the 1984-85 Sheffield Shield final between New South Wales and Queensland.
March 13, 2008
Posted on 03/13/2008 in Australian cricket
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Matthew Mott says coming up against Brett Lee wasn't “a hell of a lot of fun"
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Victoria will run into Brett Lee in the Pura Cup final on Saturday and Andrew Stevenson, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, says only four of them have played against Australia’s fastest bowler in a first-class match. Matthew Mott, the New South Wales coach, remembers his experience.
"It was when he was young, and speed was everything, and he'd just come in and try and knock blokes' heads off,” Mott said. “It wasn't a hell of a lot of fun to face him. And he's obviously a lot more accomplished bowler now than he was then." The match will be Lee’s first Pura Cup final.
In the Australian Malcolm Conn says Simon Katich and David Hussey have the most to gain during the decider.
The two leading Pura Cup run-scorers this year are not considered among the best 25 players in the country because neither has a Cricket Australia contract. As a result there is likely to be some soul-searching by the four-man selection panel during and after the Pura Cup final given the number of players without contracts named in the Pura Cup and state one-day teams of the year.
For a look at the domestic all-star sides go here. The Age wonders whether the Sheffield Shield will return next season.
March 11, 2008
Posted on 03/11/2008 in Australian cricket
Peter Roebuck writes in the Sydney Morning Herald the withdrawal of the Australians from the trip to Pakistan is not a surprise.
Truth to tell it would not have been much of a tour. Already the trip had been curtailed, with two Test matches and five ODIs replacing the full program. Every player was to be given a personal guard and asked to remain inside luxurious hotels. Every spectator was to be searched umpteen times by soldiers and policemen. It is not much of a way to play any sport. And local fans hardly flock to Test matches in the best of times.
In the Australian Malcolm Conn says the cancellation of the tour may lead to Cricket Australia staging a short one-day series. If that happens the players signed to the Indian Premier League will be staying at home.
It is unlikely that the coaching staff will want their best players involved in a helter skelter entertainment package without Cricket Australia coaching or medical support in India on the eve of a West Indies tour which contains three Tests, five one-day matches and a Twenty20 game. At the very least Cricket Australia will program a training camp at the Centre of Excellence in Brisbane for the beginning of May before the team leaves later in the second week.
The decision to postpone the tour prevents the possibility of a rift between Cricket Australia and its players, AAP reports.
Posted on 03/11/2008 in Australian cricket
Australia’s Pura Cup final starts on Saturday and the Daily Telegraph reports Victoria will face a New South Wales squad worth more than A$6 million. Brett Lee, Michael Clarke, Stuart Clark and Nathan Bracken have returned while Phil Jaques, Brad Haddin, Stuart MacGill and Simon Katich will also be there. “The multi-million-dollar line-up would hold their own against the likes of England, New Zealand and the West Indies,” the paper said.
In the Sydney Morning Herald Andrew Stevenson writes about how Lee, Clark and Bracken have pushed out the bowlers who carried the team into the final.
March 8, 2008
Posted on 03/08/2008 in Australian cricket
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Ricky Ponting and his team face more tests
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Tim Lane writes in the Age about the end of Ricky Ponting’s glory days and predicts things will be much harder for Australia in the future.
Ponting now leads Australia into the unknown. Were he three years older he, like others, might call time and quit while he's ahead. Were he three years younger, and a recently appointed captain, he could contemplate taking the team through a new era. Time, though, rarely makes these decisions so straightforward. The glory days are over and Ponting's new challenge has begun.
The Pura Cup season is winding down and New South Wales have a dilemma over where to stage the final if they win the hosting rights. A rugby league game is due to be held at the SCG during the decider and Michael Clarke has a test of allegiance, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Damien Martyn has popped up in India, where he will appear in the Indian Cricket League. In the Sydney Morning Herald Alex Brown looks at what he has done since the strange end to his international career.
March 6, 2008
Posted on 03/06/2008 in Australian cricket
Andrew Webster, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, compares Andrew Symonds’ shoulder charge during the second final to other big hits and talks to rugby league players about the tackle.
Trevor Gillmeister believes Symonds should work on his technique. "He didn't drive through properly," he said. "He didn't finish the tackle off. And if he's ever going to make it in rugby league, he might want to put a cheap shot in there somewhere, too."
March 1, 2008
Posted on 03/01/2008 in Australian cricket
With Adam Gilchrist exiting soon, the Sydney Morning Herald sifts through its archives and comes with Peter Roebuck's predictions on the class of '91.
After watching Gilchrist's innings at the MCG, Roebuck says the flamboyant wicketkeeper-batsman seems set to break the usual norm of players leaving the grand stage on a quiet note.
A small crowd was given a rare treat, something to savour long after the final curtain has fallen.
No tears need be shed for the gloveman. Rather, let us celebrate a happy ending. Gilchrist is going on his own terms, and in style.
February 29, 2008
Posted on 02/29/2008 in Australian cricket
Peter Roebuck writes in the Sydney Morning Herald the “moment of decision has come” for Australia and India.
These two cricketing nations must find a way to live together and play against each other without creating these foolish disturbances. A choice must be made. There are only two viable positions: either everything goes or nothing goes.
The Age reports on the reaction to Matthew Hayden’s “obnoxious weed” comments in India and Peter Hanlon looks at the end of an embittered summer.
However, Mark Taylor, speaking to the Daily Telegraph, says this season has been the best he has witnessed as a commentator.
"You'd have to go back to those West Indies days of the late '80s and early '90s where there was fierce competition and also a fair bit of animosity to match the same intense rivalry today."
February 27, 2008
Posted on 02/27/2008 in Australian cricket
Malcolm Conn writes in the Australian the country's players are frustrated with Cricket Australia over its lack of support through a regularly heated campaign against India. The latest incident came when Matthew Hayden was reprimanded for calling Harbhajan Singh an “obnoxious weed”.
The players are annoyed that Cricket Australia continues to kowtow to a constantly threatening and whining Board of Control for Cricket in India despite India maintaining its reputation as the worst behaved team in the world.
February 26, 2008
Posted on 02/26/2008 in Australian cricket
Ricky Ponting’s wife showed off her baby bump as the partners of Australia’s players had their moment on the red carpet at the Allan Border Medal. For the lowdown on the WAGs go here and take a look at our photo gallery. A report on Brett Lee’s medal win is here.
Posted on 02/26/2008 in Australian cricket
Two of New South Wales’ brightest young players have come a long way since Moises Henriques Mankaded Usman Khawaja in the first game they played together. In the Sydney Morning Herald Andrew Stevenson takes a look at the duo’s development, which peaked with a dramatic 90-run partnership against Victoria.
The 21-year-olds - Khawaja was born in Pakistan and Henriques in Portugal - might be an emblematic pair showing off a new face of Australian cricket. They might be great mates who've known each other since they were 10, who've played junior cricket together for Australia and who share a burning ambition to wear the baggy green. But not all the history is good.
"We didn't get along too well to start off," Henriques says in masterly understatement. "The first game we played against each other 'Ussie' kept backing up two or three metres as I was bowling, so, not really knowing the rules, I Mankaded him and he was given out."
Khawaja, who went into the match with two centuries under his belt, didn't say much - and not just because he's too well brought up. "I think he was crying," Henriques says. "Yeah, there might have been something like that," admits Khawaja, who still has a video of the incident. Friendship came soon after.
February 25, 2008
Posted on 02/25/2008 in Australian cricket
In the midst of Ricky Ponting’s century at the SCG, one act of sportsmanship passed almost unnoticed, Peter Roebuck writes in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Ponting could not avoid his partner's shot and diverted the ball into an unpatrolled area. Since the collision was unintentional and the stroke was heading towards long-on, the Australians were entitled to take a run. Instead, the home captain sent his colleague back. It was a small act that passed almost unnoticed. But it showed a sense of fair play. It was the conduct of a man determined to win but not at any price.
Ponting’s men might have fetched big money in the Indian Premier League auction but as Chloe Saltau reports in the Age, they could earn $20 million for a single Twenty20 match if Allen Stanford’s latest plan gets off the ground.
February 23, 2008
Posted on 02/23/2008 in Indian Premier League
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Who wouldn't pay to watch this man in action?
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Andrew Symonds has often been likened to Viv Richards, and the West Indian legend is not surprised by the Australian allrounder's price at the Indian Premier League auction. He tells the Sydney Morning Herald:
"I am a great fan of Andrew Symonds, his fielding and the way in which he plays his cricket, with that sort of aggression. Having people like that on board is certainly going to add to the [Indian Premier League] razzamatazz. So if I was as well-connected as those individuals [the league's franchise owners] in business, with the funds they have, why not?"
The Sunday Telegraph says it discontinuing Symonds' column after Cricket Australia gagged it twice.
In the same newspaper, Stephen Corby recounts his experience of playing park cricket against Brett Lee, Stuart Clark, Nathan Bracken, Darren Lehmann and Stuart MacGill.
Posted on 02/23/2008 in Australian cricket
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"It is time to consider what Victor Trumper achieved, to look at the photographs and piece together the way he batted and ask ourselves have we selected the right hero?"
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Mike Coward, writing in the Weekend Australian, tells the story of David Strange, who wants to create a “Trumper Day”.
Strange, 36, married with a three-year-old son named Victor, after the master batsman of the Golden Age, refers to his Trumper passion as a magnificent obsession. "I have to refrain from talking about it all the time," he said.
That Trumper's name has faded from the consciousness of the contemporary cricket follower distresses Strange and he has the backing of the Sydney Cricket and Sports Ground Trust to organise the inaugural Trumper Day for November 2.
"It is curious we have overlooked Trumper," Strange said. "It is time to consider what he achieved, to look at the photographs and piece together the way he batted and ask ourselves have we selected the right hero? While Don Bradman is deservedly loved and respected and will always have a place in the Australian psyche, there are other batsmen out there who can also fit the bill."
February 22, 2008
Posted on 02/22/2008 in Australian cricket
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The run struggles of Andrew Symonds and Ricky Ponting continue
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It has not been a great time for Australia's batsmen in the CB Series and both Andrew Symonds and Ricky Ponting are suffering from a run drought. In the Sydney Morning Herald, Peter Roebuck details the struggles of Ponting, who "not so long ago a presentable case could be made that he had become the second-best batsman his country has produced."
Now he finds himself scratching around like a backyard chook and relying on more vibrant team-mates to put runs on the board. Doubtless supporters expect more from their captain and heaviest scorer. Old-timers with reliable memories will reflect on their careers and say "welcome to the party!" Hell, Ricky, some of us felt like that all the time.
Just make some runs, is Jon Pierik's advice to Symonds and Co in the Herald Sun.
A report in the same paper says an Australian franchise might be on the cards for the Indian Premier League.
February 20, 2008
Posted on 02/20/2008 in Australian cricket
Peter Lalor, writing in the Australian, looks at the reduction in one-day totals since the Twenty20 World Cup.
It might be the bowlers, the batsmen, the balls or the pitches, but whatever the explanation the facts remain clear: this summer's one-day international series is in the middle of a run drought so severe Al Gore could include it in his next film ... Six months after the ICC introduced a rule to change the ball after the 35th over, an extra power play and allowed a free shot after a no-ball, the batsmen who dominated the game are in such bad touch the administrators might have to ban swing bowling.
February 17, 2008
Posted on 02/17/2008 in Australian cricket
Australia had their bowlers to thank for their victory over India in Adelaide and Peter Roebuck in the Age considers the poor form of the team's leading batsmen.
Ponting was scratchy. Usually, smartly executed pulls are his damper and vegemite. When he is on song, such shots are lost in the crowd. Now the stroke stood solitary owing to the company it was keeping. Cricket is a tough game and captaincy can be the hardest part. Previously a constant scorer, the Australian captain might find reassurance in the ups and downs endured by counterparts such as Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara. But a man cannot sort out his game until he has cleared his mind.
Andrew Symonds was also tentative. Dangerous in the latter stages of an innings, he has been obliged to bat with more circumspection than befits a player of his power. Batsmen capable of changing the course of a match in 30 minutes are not to be wasted.
February 16, 2008
Posted on 02/16/2008 in Australian cricket
The Indian board has warned Cricket Australia not to cancel its team's tour to Pakistan, which seems under threat over security concerns.
Rajiv Shukla, the BCCI vice-president, was quoted by the Daily Telegraph:
There will be serious consequences because you can't just pull out [of] a committed tour when the host board is giving you assurances about security and so is the government.
If the host board and government is willing to give assurances, you have to accept that. You can't just cancel a confirmed FTP [Future Tours Programme] tour.
Posted on 02/16/2008 in Australian cricket
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Adam Gilchrist reaches his 16th ODI hundred
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Adam Gilchrist got to the nets early before his farewell hundred at the WACA, Jon Pierik reports in the Courier-Mail.
More than two hours before play started against Sri Lanka, Gilchrist was working on his timing through repeated throwdowns from coach Tim Nielsen. Frustrated by an unlucky duck at the MCG last Sunday, the soon-to-retire Gilchrist was determined to do well for the last time in his adopted home city of Perth.
Michael Kasprowicz, who retires as a Queensland player on Saturday night, tells the same paper his best ball, sledge and batsman. His biggest regret is never scoring a century.
Peter Roebuck believes Usman Khawaja, who made his first-class debut for New South Wales on Friday, is part of the changing face of cricket in Australia. Read the piece in the Sydney Morning Herald.
February 15, 2008
Posted on 02/15/2008 in Australian cricket
At 17 years and 104 days, Sydney schoolgirl prodigy Ellyse Perry will make cricket history at a fittingly historic venue when she pits her all-round talents against the Ashes holders at Bradman Oval in Bowral as the youngest Australian Test cricketer. The Sydney Morning Herald has more.
"I was in year nine at Pymble Ladies' College, and I like to follow women's cricket as much as I can, so I was at home cheering the girls on"
Posted on 02/15/2008 in Australian cricket
Adam Gilchrist is set to play his final match in front of his adopted home ground, the WACA, when he takes guard against Sri Lanka today. The crowd which booed Gilchrist more than 13 years ago in his first game for Western Australia, as a replacement for local legend Tim Zoehrer, will give him a very different reception. And the emotion is hitting him by the day, says Ricky Ponting. Read on in the Australian.
"He probably won't like me saying this but when I was batting in Sydney during the second game against Sri Lanka, in the middle of one of the overs he came down and had a bit of a chat.
"He looked at me and said, 'I'm going to miss this. I'm going to miss being out here with you and I'm going to miss all the good times we've had on the field'.
February 13, 2008
Posted on 02/13/2008 in Australian cricket
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Perth was not very appealing on the first couple of occasions Adam Gilchrist played there
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John Townsend, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, looks at Adam Gilchrist’s introduction to Perth, the city where he would make his home after moving from New South Wales.
The first time Gilchrist played at the WACA, his New South Wales team was thrashed within two days and team-mate Greg Matthews was badly bashed by a nightclub bouncer. The first time Gilchrist appeared at the ground as a Western Australia player, he was booed all the way to the middle and for much of the match by a home crowd angry that local hero Tim Zoehrer had been axed to make way for him.
However, Gilchrist says the Perth crowd helped mould him for the international scene.
"That instilled in my own mind that I had to earn some respect, not just from my team-mates but from the crowd, the members and the local community," Gilchrist said. "Fortunately, they welcomed me into that set-up after some time. It is amazing how valuable that experience was once I made the transition into the Australian team because it was a case of deja vu, but it was easier because I had that experience to fall back on."
Posted on 02/13/2008 in Australian cricket
A day after Australia’s prime minister apologised to the country’s stolen generations, the Courier Mail’s Robert Craddock says the country’s cricket is also sorry.
Sorry that of the 399 men to represent our wide brown land during 130 years of Test cricket, none has been a full-blooded Aborigine. In fact, no full-blooded Aborigine has come close. Jason Gillespie, a descendant of the Kamilaroi people who once populated northern New South Wales, is the only Test player to publicly acknowledge his Aboriginal heritage.
Cricket Australia is pushing hard to find an Aboriginal role model, with its annual Imparja Cup featuring 28 indigenous teams from around the country who had breakfast together in Alice Springs yesterday to watch the prime minister's apology. The best 12 players from the carnival will be sent to the Centre of Excellence for a week's special attention but history tells us they will then return to the anonymity of club and country cricket rather than springboard into the spotlight.
Posted on 02/13/2008 in Australian cricket
In the Age, Chloe Saltau criticises Cricket Australia's decision to play only three ODIs against Bangladesh in Darwin later this year, citing the clash with the Beijing Olympics.
As Australian players prepared to auction themselves off like paintings to share in the riches of the Indian Premier League, and the national team's tour of volatile Pakistan hung in the balance, it could easily have escaped attention that two Test matches against Bangladesh that were written into the Future Tours Program, the blueprint that is supposed to make the cricket world go around, effectively slid off the face of the earth, or at least were postponed until Ricky Ponting's team next comes up for air some time in 2010.
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It is perfectly understandable that players would seek to maximise their earning power in the IPL, and they should not go to Pakistan if it is not safe, but if cricket is scheduled primarily for commercial reasons then there will be little reason to play anyone except India and England.
February 12, 2008
Posted on 02/12/2008 in Australian cricket
Shane Warne says in his Daily Telegraph column the world should embrace the Indian Premier League rather than fight it.
International cricket for your country must be the No.1 priority, but let's throw the common sense hat on and say the IPL is not going anywhere and it's a wonderful opportunity for players, spectators and all the fans. Let's make it part of the international schedule and the ICC and the boards can create a new future tours program. Let's find a way for it to work rather than finding a way it can't.
Malcolm Conn, writing in the Australian, looks at the current problems with umpiring and speaks to Robin Bailhache, an official from the 1970s and 80s.
February 11, 2008
Posted on 02/11/2008 in Australian cricket
A little more than a month after the furious row about race and sportsmanship exploded at the Sydney Test match, one young cricketer is ready to step up from the grade ranks and step out on to the SCG. Meet Usman Khawaja, 21, born in Islamabad, believed to be the first Australian Muslim to play interstate cricket and all set to fly the flag for a new generation of cricketers Down Under. The Sydney Morning Herald caught up with this "very" ambitious player.
Even Peter Roebuck had something to say about him.
February 10, 2008
Posted on 02/10/2008 in Australian cricket
Outlook's Rohit Mahajan profiles Andrew Symonds: Very melting-pot, very Aussie. Symonds plays by basic laws, with a straight bat.
A close associate of Symonds at Queensland narrates a chilling story. "Well, he got into a slight disagreement with a rugby player in South Africa," he says. "Let’s say they did not see eye to eye on a certain matter—How do you think Andrew sought to settle it? He said he’d prefer to handle it ‘man-to-man’, fight it out!"
What could easily have descended into gladiatorial bloodletting was averted by a cooler man present—the young Michael ‘Pup’ Clarke. "Andrew’s philosophy in life is rather basic," says his associate. "But he’s also a free spirit who likes nothing better than to hook up his boat to go fishing or crabbing."
Posted on 02/10/2008 in Australian cricket
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Andrew Symonds doesn't appear happy with his employers
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News Limited papers say Cricket Australia has gagged Andrew Symonds from writing his Sunday column, but they carry a lengthy interview with the allrounder instead. He is annoyed with the body’s stance on the Indian Premier League.
"Right now a lot of the boys in the Australian side are excited about maybe taking part in the IPL,” Symonds says. "But we can't quite work out what's going on with the chiefs at Cricket Australia, who seem to be trying to run interference by putting up a heap of red tape. To be brutally honest, as players we just can't understand the stance they've taken. We're all keen to have a hit if the tour of Pakistan gets called off, but Cricket Australia have played what looks like a bit of a trick shot.”
Philip Heads asks in the Sunday Telegraph whether Cricket Australia is running a police state or a sport?
The agent of Brett Lee and Michael Hussey has urged Cricket Australia to offer its players longer contracts to avoid the lure of Twenty20 tournaments, Jon Pierik reports in the Sunday Mail.
Amanda Dunn, writing in the Sunday Age, runs through some cricket definitions to help Australians over their summer barbecues.
February 9, 2008
Posted on 02/09/2008 in Australian cricket
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Adam Gilchrist is in demand in India and Australia
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Adam Gilchrist is the man as far as Indian Premier League teams are concerned. Jon Pierik reports in the Courier-Mail on the race to get his signature.
In the Age Tim Lane writes about how Australian players, from the captain down, seem prepared to go to war for the right to play in India.
A lot has changed. Obviously, life for a touring team in India is infinitely better now than was once the case. Even for those used to a five-star lifestyle, many of the big city Indian hotels are eye-opening in their opulence ... For elite cricketers, this rapidly developing nation and growing economic powerhouse has become the most attractive country on earth. The land of the Ganges is a proverbial river of gold.
The Australian’s Mike Coward takes a look at the status of Indo-Australian cricket while his counterpart Malcolm Conn writes about what the game can learn from F1 when it comes to race.
In the Herald Sun Michael Hussey says after Shaun Tait’s exit from the game maybe it’s time for Australia to use sports psychologists more often.
February 8, 2008
Posted on 02/08/2008 in Australian cricket
In the Courier Mail Robert Craddock looks back at the career of Michael Kasprowicz.
Inevitably he was defined by his hard yakka work in India, including the 1998 tour that almost broke him.
One night I rang him in his room and he confessed that minutes earlier he had broken down and cried on the phone to home, so physically and mentally distressed was he feeling. His voice sounded croaky and weak. I thought he was shot for the tour. Somehow he got through to win Australia the last Test. It was some effort.
He was branded a subcontinent specialist but once, with a West Indies tour looming, hinted to the selectors, "I do like pina coladas and coconuts as well, not just curries."
Posted on 02/08/2008 in Australian cricket
Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald Peter Roebuck dwells on the coming together of the old firm - Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist - and their effect on the opposition.
Others might favour playing the ball late and other subtleties, but the bananabender strives to dictate from the outset. It was the approach adopted by the likes of Colin Milburn and Charlie Macartney, a gentleman inclined to crack the ball back at the opening bowler's head at the earliest opportunity. Hayden was soon into his work, driving past the bowler with a restraint that belied the potency of his stroke. Already he was stepping forwards in a manner calculated to make Chaminda Vaas regret his loss of pace.
... Gilchrist took his time against some demanding pace bowling and alert fielding. Not that he dawdled. A bloke called David Hemery used to teach in England. In the 1968 Olympics he won a gold medal in the 400m hurdles. Anyone wanting to talk to him on the move had to break into a trot while the medallist was, by his estimation, walking. Gilchrist is like that. His idea of pottering along is to take only one risk an over.
Posted on 02/08/2008 in Australian cricket
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Ricky Ponting says the new players in Australia's sides have provided extra energy
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Ricky Ponting looks ahead in his column in the Australian, running his eye over the country's fringe and developing talent.
Adam Voges has been around for a while and hasn't had much of a crack at it, but he has done well when he has played. Brad Hodge is one of those who has come in and out of the side but been unable to nail down a spot because there is so much talent in the squad ... Shaun Marsh, Luke Pomersbach and David Hussey and those sort of guys are going to be the next generation of Australian one-day players, and you are starting to see them getting a go in the Twenty20s as a recognition of their efforts.
In the Sydney Morning Herald Andrew Stevenson sees some of Australia’s rugby league players encounter Brad Haddin and Nathan Bracken.
February 6, 2008
Posted on 02/06/2008 in Australian cricket
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Goodbye, old friend: Adam Gilchrist's favourite piece of willow broke during the Twenty20
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