 |
February 6, 2010
Cricket needs to stop thinking defensively
Posted 3 days, 13 hours ago in Cricket
Cricket remains the most controversial of games. At times it is hard to remember that it is only a game and supposed to be fun. The Afridi controversy, the pitch invasion at the WACA and the argument over John Howard as a candidate to serve as the ICC’s deputy president in 2010 can make the followers of the game despair. Cricket needs to stop thinking defensively and cast itself as breeding ground for diversity and toleration, writes Peter Roebuck in the Hindu.
But, then, cricket stopped being merely a recreation long ago and instead became both an industry and an expression of national pride. Once its leading nations became independent it was only a matter of time before they began asserting themselves.
February 1, 2010
The balls do matter
Posted 1 week, 1 day ago in Cricket
A layman may wonder what difference does the ball make, especially when the shape, size and weight remain the same, but let me assure that there's a massive difference in how different balls behave in the air and off the surface, writes Aakash Chopra in the Hindustan Times.
Let me begin with SG Test ball. It has a more pronounced seam, which stays that way for almost the entire length of the innings. It helps the quick bowlers release the ball in an upright seam position, as it doesn't wobble much after releasing, and helps the spinners grip the ball better and get more purchase off the wicket as the seam grips the surface well. The ball doesn't swing much when new, but starts swinging when one half becomes shinier than the other. As the shine stays longer, it enables quick bowlers get the swing and slower bowler the drift. The quicks who `release' the ball instead of hitting the deck are more successful with the SG ball as they can get it swing and seam the whole day. The Kookaburra ball, on the other hand, also has a pronounced seam, but it fades away quickly.
January 29, 2010
Nine cricketers to avoid in a dark alley
Posted 1 week, 4 days ago in Cricket
|
|
|
It's the eyes. Those damn eyes!
© AFP
|
|
As much as he loves a handy dark alley in which to hide, Luke Tagg draws the line at finding himself face to face with certain cricketers in the dead of night, with nobody but Dead Gran to hear him scream. Writing on boundaryrider.com, Tagg picks one cricketer from each Test playing nation who he would least like to meet in that dark alley. It is his fervent wish that you never meet them there either.
This one is a complete no-brainer. In case you haven't figured out why Viru may be a problem in a dark alley, allow me to elucidate: He'd hit you. With his bat. Again and again and again and again and again and again and again. He just wouldn't stop hitting you. If you died it would make no difference - he'd just keep hitting you and hitting you and hitting you and hitting you, until even your corpse begged for mercy.
December 23, 2009
Switching styles
Posted on 12/23/2009 in Cricket
Peter Roebuck observes the interesting trend of ‘switchovers’ – his moniker for batsmen who choose to bat with their wrong hands. Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, Roebuck notes the increasing number of left-hand batsmen who are natural right-handers and a few such as Sachin Tendulkar and Michael Clarke who went the other way, a phenomenon that heralds the need for a “coaching revolution”.
Consider the call-ups for the Perth Test match. Narsingh Deonarine bowled some tidy off-breaks with his right arm, and batted left-handed. In that regard, he was following in the footsteps of Shiv Chanderpaul and Chris Gayle. According to the Cricket Australia season guide, 12 of the 30 Caribbean cricketers named as candidates for the tour are switchovers. It is an extraordinary statistic demanding an explanation.
Cricket has always been regarded as a two-handed game but all the manuals insist on placing the stronger hand at the bottom of the willow. The mood is changing. Already Langer has broken ranks. He believes his mixed method helped him. Asked on ABC Radio how he'd advise a five-year-old child with a stronger right hand to bat, he replied, ''left-handed''.
December 21, 2009
Australia always seem to get away
Posted on 12/21/2009 in Cricket
Whatever their transgressions on the field, invariably it is their opponents who end up paying a price. Somehow or the other, teams playing against the Aussies seem to invite the match referee’s wrath, writes Anil Kumble in the Hindu.
In the Delhi Test against us, my last, the one that earned Gautam Gambhir a ban for having a go at Watson, the same umpire and the match referee were officiating. At that time, the umpire Billy Bowden didn’t see it fit to report Simon Katich who had later obstructed Gautam and the match referee Chris Broad too didn’t bother to act on his own or follow it up with the onfield umpires even though it was very much evident on TV. And as on that occasion, the provocateurs got away in Perth too, with Haddin and Johnson receiving minor reprimands. There doesn’t seem to be any punishment forthcoming for someone who provokes and that to me is against the principles of natural justice.
December 4, 2009
Why it is essential to safeguard Spirit of the Game
Posted on 12/04/2009 in Cricket
The much argued-over concept has relevance in the context of a long and rich history that informs the game, argues Robert Griffiths, QC, in the Times.
The word “spirit” is key. It connotes more than a formalistic application of laws. It conjures up more than the playing of a game in accordance with its rules. It extends to not only how a game is played, but the context of the game itself.
November 22, 2009
International Cricket Council or Indian Cricket Council?
Posted on 11/22/2009 in Cricket
The International Cricket Council will not be faulted if they change and call themselves the Indian Cricket Council, because it has now come to pass where the ICC has a penchant to dance to the tune of the BCCI, says an editorial in Sri Lanka's Sunday Observer.
The ICC should have had the backbone to stand straight and tell the guys who were against it, that they are the ones running the game and calling the shots and that the Referral System stays and be played accordingly. But what did the ICC do.? They were as meek as lambs and without a murmur bent backwards to please the cricketers who objected to that system, like they did during the Australia- India series when the Indians threatened to pull out of the series if action was taken against Harbhajan Singh.
November 16, 2009
Does Sir Viv need head(gear) examining?
Posted on 11/16/2009 in Cricket
|
|
|
"Imagine if they changed the ruling and someone was killed"
© Getty Images
|
|
Following up to Sir Viv Richards' interview with the Observer yesterday, in which the legend lamented the wearing of helmets and body armour and the effect it has on some modern batsmen, Alan Tyers writes on Cricket365.com that it's hard to see how helmets could now be outlawed. You can't un-invent technology, and it's inconceivable that the ICC could forbid the wearing of something that could save a batsman's life, he says.
Of course, Sir Viv, who famously never wore a helmet himself, has got more right to speak than almost anyone else alive about the matter. But it must have made batting a bit easier, knowing that you had Andy Roberts, Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner et al on your side - not just because you didn't have to face them - but because you knew that they could return with interest any punishment that their Windies batting colleagues received. Maybe if he'd had to play for England in the 1980s against the West Indies he might have considered, even for a second, the merits of the lid.
November 11, 2009
Tedious World Cup still too long
Posted on 11/11/2009 in Cricket
Malcolm Conn says in the Australian the World Cup is still too long and remains cluttered with meaningless matches.
The tedious format of the International Cricket Council's showpiece may have been changed and reduced by a week but the schedule released for 2011 in the subcontinent is another damning example of television ruling sport. While the missionary zeal of opening the tournament to lesser nations may have been well-meant in the comfortably paced, almost amateur 1970s, the hectic nature of modern international cricket has made matches against the minnows irrelevant.
Conn also writes about Jane McGrath Day, which will be held during the Sydney Test to raise money for breast cancer care.
October 15, 2009
Spirit of the game distilled by golden memories
Posted on 10/15/2009 in Cricket
Mike Atherton doesn't think cricket occupies a higher moral plane to other games. Nothing in its history suggests that it does. In his column in the Times, Atherton attempts to articulate what the game means to him, and begins by describing two images that first come to mind.
When Patrick Eagar was on a “booze cruise” during the tour to the West Indies in 1974, he passed Accra beach, Barbados, as the sun was setting and saw a game being played with, as it turned out, a young Gordon Greenidge.
The other image is of three urchins playing a game of street cricket in Mumps, Oldham, with a dustbin for the wicket and the narrow, cobbled street for a pitch. It suggests that cricket was once, more so than it is now, an essential part of the fabric of the British way of life.
October 12, 2009
Spirit of the Game still upheld at highest level
Posted on 10/12/2009 in Cricket
The ICC Champions Trophy had its fair share of incidents which re-opened the debate on fairplay and the Spirit of the Game. Mike Atherton suggested that the preamble to the Laws of Cricket is superfluous. John Woodcock feels that it may need rewriting and Simon Barnes that cricketers are in need of clarification about the game’s moral code. Christopher Martin-Jenkins, writing in the Times, says it is the law in question that needs tweaking, not the preamble, or the spirit behind it.
Once an umpire feels that a few pointed comments have become an attempt to undermine a batsman’s concentration, he is provided with a clear course of action. The preamble, no less clear and concise, also leaves little room for doubt about what is and is not acceptable. It is true that it is pretentious in referring to the game’s “unique” appeal because its beauty is in the eye of the beholder and not everyone reveres it. Nor is cricket different to any other sport in needing honourable conduct as well as a set of regulations.
July 31, 2009
Players can't be spoon-fed all the time
Posted on 07/31/2009 in Cricket
As experts weigh in on Mitchell Johnson's bowling woes Harsha Bhogle, in the Indian Express, recalls a comment made by Wasim Akram. According to the fast-bowling legend, bowlers nowadays are pure lazy and are happy with whatever they are being given on a platter. Troy Cooley, who was credited as the mastermind behind England's devastating use of reverse swing during their 2-1 series triumph in the 2005 Ashes, has been under the scanner as he attempts to get Johnson back to his best. But how much can one man do, asks Bhogle.
Good cricketers become great when they hone their instinct, when they study the opposition they have to compete against rather than wait for notes or video clips to be handed to them. And that is why this is not Cooley's test but Johnson's test.
July 23, 2009
Cricket's past is its best future
Posted on 07/23/2009 in Cricket
It has been a hundred years of cricket's governing body. Commemorating a century if the ICC , Tehelka, the Indian weekly magazine, has attempted to deal with a history which is encyclopaedic, a history that generates an intense passion.
Despite 100 years of a tumultuous journey, cricket still thrills millions, says ICC president David Morgan looking back on the century that shaped international cricket.
Cricket’s survival lies in its social meaning, not business opportunities, says Brian Stoddart, author of Saturday Afternoon Fever. The writer believes the men who matter should cut some of the top-tier games and focus on local clubs.
Tradition is a powerful force in most cultures and protecting tradition in cricket is important in order to guarantee it a future. Most tours now, however, do little to stimulate local interest. Ashes tours of old, in both England and Australia, had a series of state and county matches that were well-attended and gave good exposure to a wider range of players. They attracted more people to matches at cheaper prices. Tradition comes at a premium these days – a ticket to a day at the Lords test now costs more than $100. We need to have more people watching at lower prices if cricket is to remain a relevant and accessible sport.
In the same edition former ICC president Ehsan Mani says the IPL and Twenty20 cricket are changing how the game does business. It is a case of overkilling the golden goose?
MCC president Tony Lewis asks, is there place for the game's original custodians in the Twenty20 world of today?
Adam Chadwick, curator of the MCC musuem, says the history of the gentleman’s game must be compiled and chronicled.
Tehelka's editor Tarun J Tejpal says cricket today reflects the frenetic, fleeting nature of our times. It is tight, tinselly and explosive – designed, in an age of hype, marketing and advertising, for television. In an age devastated by the whims of the mythic audience — the collective spectator — it pursues the spirit of entertainment above the spirit of excellence and contest. The bowler is no longer Hadlee or Holding. He is just a bunny boy who sets up the sixers that the helmeted batsmen can send flying into stands of screaming fans. In an age leached of all centralities, in which 24-hour news has made everything a blur, it caresses at no memory, merely fuels desire. Millions of my generation can recall, 30 years later, every great innings of Sunny Gavaskar, every great spell of Bedi and Chandra. Not one of today’s will be able to tell you what happened in the match between India and Australia month before last.
July 18, 2009
Testing times for the longer game
Posted on 07/18/2009 in Cricket
There are still plenty of people to fight back and say Test cricket is a much better game than any of the shorter formats, but that is just a matter of opinion, says Simon Barnes in the Australian. There is no ducking the matter - Test cricket is under threat. Its decline has begun. Perhaps extinction is inevitable.
Let's strive for a little objectivity. What does Test cricket have that the shorter forms don't? Tests last longer. A Test series is the stuff not of an afternoon but an entire summer. Its plot lines are longer and more intricate. The examination of character is more leisurely and more searching. Test cricket asks more questions. It brings us more duels.
June 30, 2009
Fifty-over cricket will survive
Posted on 06/30/2009 in Cricket
In an interview to Sharda Ugra of India Today, the ICC president David Morgan talks about various issues regarding the future of cricket - the primacy of Test cricket in the face of Twenty20, the changes mooted to spice up Tests, the survival of the 50-over format and the Champions Trophy, plus the prospect of more freelance players in the T20 leagues.
Let me take you back to India's last tour in the UK in 2007. There were seven ODIs and at the Oval, India were 2-3 down and India won a marvelous match at the oval on a beautiful sunny day and the ground was packed. It was 3-3 and there were Indians throughout the UK who wanted to buy tickets to the last match a few days later here. And for anybody to say that fifty over cricket is finished internationally, they only have to look back to that seven-match series. It was electric, wonderful, skilful, and of course it provided a whole day's entertainment as opposed to requiring two T20 matches to provide the same duration of entertainment.
June 27, 2009
Is cricket becoming something we see between advertisements?
Posted on 06/27/2009 in Cricket
Harsha Bhogle, who has gone from radio to television commentary, fears commerce is driving us towards cricket becoming that little something we see between advertising. He admits that advertisements pay for his livelihood yet believes we are reaching a stage where administrators, as custodians, need to draw a balance between propagating sport and selling it. Read on in the Indian Express.
If we price the product so high that the buyer has no choice but to recover his cost with advertising at every opportunity, we run the risk of diminishing the spectacle of sport for those that follow it. We cannot make the watching of sport clinical when it is meant to be enjoyable. So here is a debate that is crying out to be heard; one forum for people who sell rights, for those that buy them and for people who watch the final product.
June 24, 2009
Gilchrist talks the walk
Posted on 06/24/2009 in Cricket
In the Times, Adam Gilchrist talks about his celebrated habit of 'walking' and its orgins. Gilchrist plays hard, is fond of a sledge, speaks bluntly - but he has had this moral code since childhood that it is wrong to dupe the umpire, writes Patrick Kidd.
"Back in Australia in a second XI game for New South Wales, I got a thin edge, didn't walk and went on to make a hundred. I felt so bad afterwards that I went to apologise to the bowler, who was a 38-year-old veteran. He said, ‘Don't worry, this game obviously means more to you than it does to me.' And I thought, ‘Yeah, but still. At what cost?'” From that point, he decided he would always walk if he had hit the ball.
June 12, 2009
Cricket rakes in the moolah
Posted on 06/12/2009 in Cricket
Cricket is growing increasingly lucrative, and the players don't seem to mind it, despite the adverse impact on Test cricket and the danger of dwindling national loyalties, writes Greg Baum in the Age.
Gayle helped to popularise T20 cricket, then progressively to refine it. The Bash for Cash is the latest and most exciting form yet, known as One-one, or — imaginatively — O1. "One ball each," explained Gayle. "Minimalisation to the max. Takes out all the tedium and dreariness. Game's over in no time. The kids love it." Symonds loved it; all he ever wanted to be growing up was a kid. Brett Lee was not so sure: he bowled a no-ball and went out in the first round.
May 19, 2009
Graeme Pollock wary of commercialisation in cricket
Posted on 05/19/2009 in Cricket
Graeme Pollock, one of the finest left-hand batsmen the game has ever produced, believes that cricket has become too financial. Speaking to the Independent's Peter Bills from his home in Johannesburg, Pollock says he's not one for Twenty20 and says 50-over cricket changed Test cricket because players started hitting over the top. Does Pollock still like just watching cricket, surely one of the great pleasures of life for the sporting male? His reply surprises me. "I don't get the same pleasure. Cricket has become far too financial and I am not a 20 overs a game guy. If it wasn't for the big money, I'd be surprised if any of the guys said they enjoyed 20/20.
"It's a huge money making thing but it's just a slog and it's out of proportion to the game itself. I was talking to Barry Richards about it and he said, why not just have a bowling machine and see who can hit the ball the furthest."
April 15, 2009
Putting ’keeping in the forefront
Posted on 04/15/2009 in Cricket
In the Hindu, S Dinakar wonders whether the specialist wicketkeepers are a dying breed and if the modern-day game places too much importance on depth in batting.
Someone like Bhagwat Chandrasekar, a freakish legspinner, posed searching questions to ’keepers. Farokh Engineer (66 catches and 16 stumpings in 46 Tests) — an aggressive batsman and a flashy ’keeper — says, “Nine out of ten times, Chandra did not realise which way the ball would spin. Chandra really gave it a rip. His wrist would almost turn around completely. “Keeping to him called for split second coordination. His quicker delivery was really quick. The one that darted through the leg side could provide a stumping opportunity. You had to be quick and alert.”
March 27, 2009
Golden slippers
Posted on 03/27/2009 in Cricket
With Rahul Dravid in world-record catching territory, Andrew Stevenson, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, takes a look at the worth of the slips.
Some reckon it looks as easy as shelling peas. You stand in the slips, the ball comes your way, you generally don't have to move, you make the catch and the batsman begins the long, slow march to the dressing room. While few who've ever stood in a slips cordon for a Test match would rate it easy, Cricket Australia fielding coach Mike Young has the bar up much, much higher. "I truly believe slips catching in Test cricket, mentally, is the hardest thing I've ever seen in sport, when you consider you're out there all day and that you've got to be ready every ball.”
March 20, 2009
The bad and the ugly
Posted on 03/20/2009 in Cricket
|
|
|
The verdict's out on referrals
© Getty Images
|
|
The ICC is now discovering that the umpire referral system, thought it had merit, isn’t the solution to every moment of discontent in the game. The world criticised them for not using technology and now that they are, they are being criticised for everything that comes along with it.
Speaking of outcries against the system, the extraordinary language used by a newspaper in New Zealand against the Indian manager, calling him a 'goon' is certainly unacceptable,
These are two issues Harsha Bhogle focusses on, in his column in the Indian Express.
I don’t think anyone was referring to the last meaning but to call anyone a thug or a gangster is not on. It reminds me of the words used by visiting journalists against Indian umpires from the days when there were no replays. It shouldn’t have been acceptable then and it cannot be acceptable now. Have we gone beyond disagreeing with people without calling them names?
Staying with the referral system, to see the umpire’s decision - and the reaction of 25,000 fans - overturned, negates the excitement and expectation of the game, points out Arthur Turner in Sport24.com.
The excuse that that technology is not always foolproof must be dispelled once and for all. If the ICC wants to make use of technology they must go all the way with it, if not, rather abandon it. This quasi approach will not work and is only complicating matters further.
March 17, 2009
India aim for cricket control
Posted on 03/17/2009 in Cricket
Mihir Bose, the BBC's sports editor, writes in his blog that the ICC never has, and never will, have the powers to come up with a solution, let alone impose it. While the world waited to hear how the cricket's governing body would deal with the security threat posed by sport being targeted for the first time since the Munich Olympics in 1972, the ICC told us where the next Champions Trophy, a 50-over tournament that many feel has outlived its usefulness, will be held. The trio that effectively run cricket, says Bose, is India, Australia and South Africa. But India, the economic powerhouse, needs to show it can live up to universally accepted international standards in terms of timing, location and security arrangements.
March 15, 2009
Featherbeds are futile
Posted on 03/15/2009 in Cricket
WV Raman writes in his column for Sportstar that the decline in the quality of pitches can contribute to the decline of cricket. The pitch is an integral part of the game, says the former Indian batsman, and as such the quality of pitches needs to be good if a game of cricket has to provide real entertainment to the public.
There is some merit in the ICC wanting pitches across the world to be reasonably similar but I believe the idea behind this is to eradicate under-prepared pitches that the countries in the sub-continent sometimes dish out for Test matches. However, there is still room for every nation to retain its uniqueness when it comes to the nature of pitches that international matches are played on.
|
|
RSS Feed
