Shane Warne has saved Australia from the prospect of following on before Old Trafford

Andrew McGlashan13-Aug-2005

Old Trafford is not the first that Warne has saved Australia from the follow-on © Getty Images
Australia won’t be following on at Old Trafford, thanks to the efforts of Shane Warne who brought up his half-century in the brief passage of play possible. Being asked to bat again by the opposition is not something Australia has had to contemplate very often in recent times. At Sydney in 2003-04 India had the option to stick Steve Waugh’s men in again, but declined, and during the 2001-02 season New Zealand gave them a real scare at Perth before being thwarted – with Warne again to the fore.In a similar situation to the one developing at Old Trafford, New Zealand amassed a commanding first-innings total of 534 before reducing Australia to 270 for 7 – 65 runs shy of saving the follow-on. Warne and Brett Lee then joined forces, adding 72 to take Australia past that mark with three wickets to spare. Today, in Manchester, it was Warne and Jason Gillespie halting England with an unbeaten stand of 44.Warne eventually fell at Perth within one run of, what then, would have been his first first-class century. He could have nudged a single, but decided to go for glory, and attempted to reach the landmark with a six. However, he was caught at deep midwicket off Daniel Vettori, leaving him to wait until his stint with Hampshire in the early part of this season to register three figures.That 99 at Perth is still Warne’s highest Test score but, given continued support from Gillespie and the remaining two batsmen, Lee and Glenn McGrath, he may yet have another chance to reach that elusive hundred. Warne may think twice about trying to reach it with a six this time, although the manner in which he charged down the track to Ashley Giles, surviving a stumping and then hoisting him for four, suggests otherwise.Warne has never been one to reach landmarks quietly and, in the match in which he has taken his 600th Test wicket, you wouldn’t bet against him having another moment to savour.

A worthy, reasonably priced reference on world cricket

Martin Williamson22-Jul-2007Encyclopaedia of World Cricket by Roy Morgan (SportsBooks Ltd, 2007)
344pp, £17.99
Thanks in part to the ICC’s policy of global expansion, in part to the spread of expats from the traditional cricket-playing countries, and in part to the effort of a relatively small number of passionate individuals, cricket is now played in at least 127 countries, with about 105 taking part in international fixtures.Understandably, the bulk of media coverage concentrates on the Test-playing countries – some would argue only the main three or four – and the rest barely get a mention … despite Cricinfo’s best endeavours!In his excellent guide to life beyond the Test world, Roy Morgan looks to correct the imbalance. In a world where the ghosted and often bland biography prevails, it’s a refreshing change to read a book which will never top the bestseller lists but is necessary, informative, well researched and interesting.The book opens with a thought-provoking essay on why the game has expanded as it has – and the reasons are not as obvious as they might seem – through to fascinating country profiles to which Morgan wisely adds colour with accounts of important matches and biographies of leading players. He also does this for major Test-playing nations as well, but trying to condense, say, Australia’s cricket history into six pages and to include three famous victories by them is rather pointless. He perhaps would have been better advised to leave the Full Member countries alone and concentrate on the remainder.It’s much the same with tournaments and competitions. More on events such as the ICC Trophy and less on the World Cup proper might have been advisable, and at times there is a suspicion that some of this information is included as padding.That might be slightly unfair, though, and the book’s title makes it clear that it is about the game wherever it is played. The only thing is that there already are many in-depth accounts of the game in most of the major centres, and where Morgan succeeds is in highlighting cricket outside those.But those criticisms – to which the absence of photographs ought to be added – should not detract from the book itself. This is an excellent, reasonably priced encyclopaedia of world cricket and adds considerably to the profile and understanding of the game.

Dileep Premachandran comes up with the plays of the fifth day of the Lord’s Test between England and India

Dileep Premachandran at Lord's23-Jul-2007

Show Pony Dhoni shows his class and forms a formidable partnership with the rain as India hold on for a draw © Getty Images

Show Pony Dhoni?: That’s what some have taken to calling India’s
wicketkeeper in these parts. As much as the Fab Four who are no longer
fab, Mahendra Singh Dhoni had a whole lot to prove when he walked to the crease this
morning. His first-innings dismissal had been a shocker, his keeping
patchy, and his technique remains among the most ungainly you’ll see at
this level. But what Dhoni has is heart, and an ability to adapt, and he
showed that with an innings that spanned 159 balls. There was plenty of
flirtation with Dame Fortune, as edges evaded fielders, but he stuck
around for the denouement, rotating the strike and thumping the odd
boundary. India’s hero.Sledge of the day: Gamesmanship standards have undoubtedly
declined, with coarseness and crudity almost completely replacing humour.
Matt Prior came up with a gem though soon after Dhoni had arrived in the
middle on a filthy, grey morning. “Yuvraj is looking brilliant in the
nets, isn’t he Dhoni?” he piped up. Not quite in the Eddo Brandes-Glenn
McGrath- biscuit category, but well worth a chuckle.The big trees also fall: After a calamitous start, India were
starting to dream of a miracle when VVS Laxman and Dhoni stepped up the
scoring after lunch. On came Chris Tremlett, who had looked both incisive
and innocuous on Test debut. A magnificent full delivery that cut back
appreciably crept through Laxman’s defence and pegged back the stumps.
Laxman’s pose was a familiar depressing one, keeling over like a tree
attacked by a chainsaw.So near, and yet so very far: Just before the players went off for
bad light, Monty Panesar had a huge appeal against Sreesanth. Steve
Bucknor, who doesn’t get too many Christmas cards from Indian fans,
pondered long and hard, as he’s prone to, but the finger never went up.
Replays showed that it might have clipped the top of middle stump. A
fortuitous escape for India, though they would argue that there were in
such a mess mainly because Rahul Dravid didn’t get any benefit of doubt.Timing, timing: Unlike the Australians, the English have seldom
seen the best of Laxman. But in one Tremlett over, there were two
signature strokes, little more than wafts of the bat that sent
back-of-length deliveries through point. The fielders gave chase, but even
with the ball going up the slope, it was futile.The forgotten man: One of those watching his former team-mates
strive to save the Test was Aakash Chopra, the Delhi opener who once
forged such an effective combination with Virender Sehwag. Not even a
contender despite his experience of English league cricket, Chopra could
only watch anxiously and hope for rain. Like this Indian team, he had seen
better days, most notably in Australia and Pakistan in the 2003-04 season.Omens and all that: India’s record at the ground some call
headquarters is pitiful, but they can take encouragement from their great
escape here. In 1986, when they won the series, Dilip Vengsarkar’s 126 and
Kapil Dev’s relentlessly accurate swing bowling set up a five-wicket win.
And going back even further to 1971, the defiance of Eknath Solkar staved
off defeat, with India finishing on 145 for 8 in pursuit of 183. A month
later they went to the Oval and clinched the series, with Chandrasekhar’s
Mill-Reef deliveries wreaking havoc.

Peter English profiles Chris Rogers, who is set to make his debut in the Perth Test on Wednesday

Peter English15-Jan-2008

	Better red than dead: Chris Rogers will want to capitalise on a rare opening in the national team © Getty Images

Openings for Australian openers are rare and Chris Rogers must have wondered whether he had missed his chance when he spent the first Test of the home summer in rehabilitation instead of at the Gabba. Rogers and Phil Jaques had been trying to out-stare each other
since the retirement of Justin Langer last January, but the battle between two men who swear they are friends ended in October when Rogers experienced serious stomach pain.The upshot was an operation to take out his appendix and it seemed like his medium-term Test prospects had also been removed. Matthew Hayden’s spot was among the safest in the team and Jaques re-started his Test career with back-to-back centuries against Sri Lanka.While top-order vacancies are scarce, Rogers, a short-sighted Western Australian, didn’t have to look far for role models of patience. Justin Langer had spent years in and out of the team before making the first of many lasting impressions and Michael Hussey chipped away for a decade before becoming an overnight success.Hayden’s leg injury, which ended his 86-Test streak, meant Rogers, who is 30, had to wait only another two months for an opportunity and he will walk out with Jaques, his former Australia A partner, in the third Test. Ricky Ponting confirmed the change at the WACA and the locals will have another left-hander to praise on Wednesday.Rogers, a batsman more like Langer and Hussey than Adam Gilchrist, will become the country’s 399th Test player and the first proud redhead to play for Australia since Craig McDermott finished in 1996. Hair shades in a team of natural and bottle blonds aren’t normally a big deal, but the characteristic features heavily in profiles of Rogers, who is also colour blind and sometimes struggles to pick up the ball in a background of seats.When given three words to describe himself Rogers uses “cheeky, irritating and red” and his personal motto is “better red than dead”. A steak-and-chips man, Rogers also keeps his batting simple and has refined a method that has been successful on the speed of Perth, the seam of England and the low-bouncing pitches of Pakistan.Like Langer and Hussey, Rogers is capable of large scores – he has a triple-century for Northamptonshire and 279 for Western Australia – but his most important innings was 219 for Leicestershire against Australia in 2005. Rogers was such a pain to his country’s side
during the match that the tourists sledged him, saying he should get out in the national interest. He stayed true to himself and remained until dismissed by Stuart MacGill after hitting 32 fours and three sixes.Despite making such a strong statement, he was not elevated to a national contract until posting 1202 Pura Cup runs in 2006-07. Since the operation he has not recaptured his previously outstanding touch, but he picked up 60 in the tour game against India last week and hit a century for his club South Perth on Sunday, which included a six to win the one-day quarter-final against Langer’s team. However, neither innings will matter much when he finally makes his Test debut.

Peter Chingoka, chairman of Zimbabwe Cricket, is confident his country are well on their way to being a Test nation again

Interview by Osman Samiuddin21-Jan-2008

Chingoka: ‘Democracy must rule. That is what it is’ © AFP
Zimbabwe’s Test status is likely to come up for review again this year …
It’s not a general question of coming up for review, we have to be clear. Firstly, in February 2006, after we had problems at the end of 2005 and early 2006, Zimbabwe Cricket took the decision [for suspension] on its own. We initiated this, so it was a voluntary thing. And it’s voluntary to be saying we are coming back in. As soon as we believe we are ready, we will let the ICC know.How far, then, are Zimbabwe from becoming a Test side again? There have been a few four-day matches, some with promising performances.
There has been that, yes, but we must remember, all this time we have really played most of our cricket at home. If not at home, we have played the four-day games in South Africa. This is the first chance we have had to play outside, so after this, after this series in Pakistan, we go home, we regroup and we take stock of where we are.A key indicator of progress will be the domestic system’s ability to constantly produce players for international cricket. How viable is the domestic cricket structure currently? There are reports that standards are not very high right now.
The standard is reasonably good and improving all the time. It is not yet perfect. We do need some additional resources. By that I mean possibly bringing in one or two players from outside Zimbabwe to play so that it helps younger players. Kenya playing last year [in the Logan Cup] was useful. Also, we could look at Namibia taking part and helping us as much as helping themselves as well. We are also playing the South African competition. So we are playing tough cricket where the players learn the hard way.Robin Brown, Zimbabwe’s coach, said recently that schools cricket and the academy and Under-19 structures were doing some good work. Tell us a little more about that.
We have an academy which operates, but the structures were burned down unfortunately. We are in the process of repairing that now. We take youngsters between the age of 17 and 23, those with promise and potential to be high performers, and we take them through not just the different facets of cricket, but we make them rounded people. Things like public speaking, how they control their financial management, know more about diets and nutrition and sports psychology.The U-19s we have over the last three U-19 World Cups have excelled. We got to the quarter-final last time and the time before that we beat both Australia and New Zealand when the tournament was hosted in Bangladesh. At U-19 level we can mix it with the best.Brown was appointed coach in September and that seems to have sparked something in the side. Were there problems for the players with Kevin Curran?
It’s going well at the moment. Under Robin’s care we have done quite well, but I don’t want to over-criticise the predecessor because he could’ve done something to be planting a seed, which Robin also propagated. Robin is doing well, he seems to be enjoying it, he’s doing a good job for the team. We keep monitoring that, talking to the players as well as Robin himself and the technical people around him to see that we are getting the best team around the young players.Do you feel Zimbabwe cricket is in a better state now than it was three or four years ago?
Yes and no. Starting with the no side, the popular question that everybody asks is: what happened to this player or that player. From that point of view, the idea would’ve been for these young fellows to be sort of dovetailing in. In as much as we try to make it an all-inclusive squad, there were people that were against that whole idea. Some people thought it was an elitist sport that must remain elitist. As a policy there was no way we could subscribe to that, so there was a downside to reconstructing. But the reconstruction process also takes care of the fact that a lot of the players people would’ve asked questions about would have reached their sell-by date in any case by now. Some were near 36, 39 – the fullness of time has arrived for them. Zimbabwe must be such an interesting subject that a 2004 story seems to be news still. Why is this? I never hear anybody raking up old quotes about Australia when they had their problems between players and administrators, but Zimbabwe seems to be a topical nation. Fashionable. The positive side is obviously from our administration point of view, that we have a much, much more stable version now. It’s a structure that covers all the four corners of the country, which was not the case before. We now have ten provincial associations that are active. We followed the government in imitation, where we have ten provinces and all of them are active. Most of them are solid first-class anyway, when they are on, and in all aspects they are carrying out serious progressive programmes. From a structural point of view we are better off now and the quality is just what we have to work on now. Before we only had five provincial associations and of those five we had an additional two that were only involved in districts cricket.A player who was involved in the exodus in 2003-04 has said that to a different degree both players and administrators were to blame for what happened. He also suggested that a more serious, mature attempt to integrate black players could have been made by the team. How do you feel about that?
Before I answer your question, Zimbabwe must be such an interesting subject that a 2004 story seems to be news still. Why is this? I never hear anybody raking up old quotes about Australia when they had their problems between players and administrators, but Zimbabwe seems to be a topical nation. Fashionable.Well, that is his opinion and he is entitled to one. I said to you earlier that there were some people prior to 2006 who believed that cricket is a game for only one sector of the community. There is no way one could accept that. There is no way one could accept that you don’t give equal opportunities to everybody who makes himself available to play for their country. That is where the board stood, that is where the board stands now. And I am sure incoming boards in the future will stand for this, to say: equal opportunities for all people that are Zimbabweans.Four years ago no one said that. Four years ago no one in the Western media went to ask him to say what he has said now. Four years ago we were not even given an opportunity to state our side of the story.A number of countries refuse to play Zimbabwe in bilateral competition. What is the best way of dealing with this issue, especially if governments get involved?
I haven’t been given a genuine reason for them saying why they don’t want to play us, so I can’t really respond to that with logic. What we see is people telling us about safety and security concerns, which we have said time and again are not applicable. We can’t comment without knowing exactly why they are doing it.In so far as the game is concerned, all countries have had problems at one time or another. There are times when England has had problems. Before 1999, England were not in the top five. New Zealand in the late 90s were also not there. They were allowed to regroup, reconstruct and move on. Surely, we are entitled to do the same? Surely we are allowed to reconstruct and be allowed to come back into the fold and take our rightful place as we will do when we are ready?By doing so the game will get stronger. By doing so we are true to the vision and mission of the ICC which talks about the globalisation of the game and is not in the business of shrinking the game. It means we have an opportunity of ensuring that Africa becomes the next growth centre … for other countries in Africa to come through and play Test cricket, countries like Kenya, Namibia, Uganda, and I could name a couple more.

Robin Brown’s appointment as coach is “going well at the moment” © Cricinfo Ltd
A couple of incidents in international cricket recently seem to have split the ICC down geographical or racial lines – the Asian bloc coming together on issues, the African countries doing so as well or supporting Asia. How dangerous is that trend?
Democracy. Democracy is that you are allowed an opinion and we respect it. If Zimbabwe want to take a particular line and their mind meets with India, Pakistan, South Africa or anyone, so be it. That is democracy.Given the criticism Zimbabwe cricket comes under, what prevents you from leaving it all behind and getting on with your life outside cricket?
There is no one who has come to us to say exactly where the issues are. If you say so with substance, if you say so with evidence … just general mudslinging in the hope something will stick doesn’t convince me to review my position. You just said now that in hindsight certain people are saying that maybe there are two sides to the story. At the time you people in the media – I don’t mean you personally – only looked at it from one side and went beyond the bounds of just cricket.So coming back to your question, if you say to me that we have failed, for example, in our development programme and that nothing is coming through and you show me a way of doing it better, in a second I will listen to you. If you identify to me areas, other areas in our administration that, with substance, with evidence, you can say, this could’ve been done better, in a second I’ll listen to you. But just generic throwing mud against a wall and hoping it sticks, doesn’t help me, doesn’t help Zimbabwe cricket, because it doesn’t give us a basis on which we can … even if we were to leave now, the people that are incoming must know, with substance, where things could have been done better by the previous administration.What was the reasoning behind the recent removal of lifetime administrators of Zimbabwe cricket, men such as Dave Ellman-Brown?
No one has been removed. You see, we all talk about democracy as a convenience. What has happened is that with effect from 2007 a new constitution for Zimbabwe cricket is in place. That new constitution had to come in place because we are now in a new reality of having ten provincial associations as opposed to what we had, which was five provincial associations plus two so-called associations. The one in Matabeleland, there was no cricket played in the last two years of existence of them being there. So they were just there for political purposes really. There was nothing happening there. The one in Mashonaland, there were only two teams that sometimes played. So we had to get into a new dispensation, with ten new provincial associations. Those ten new provincial associations that we have, there is no way that a constitution that was suitable for five provinces plus two could be adapted for ten provincial associations. That is what has happened. The constitution has come through a democratic process, it is in place, it has a structure, it has got a margin to include certain life members but did not see the need for life presidents and life vice-presidents as we had in the previous situation. Democracy must rule. That is what it is. Nothing personal, just how we move forward.What are the challenges of running cricket in a country where the game was once run by an elite?
It’s taking its natural course now. Selection … there will be some black players unhappy that they have not been selected and there will be some white players unhappy. It’s not because of colour but their ability. It is what we are fighting for: that everybody is given an equal opportunity. Now if you are saying to me that there is a concession from former players that other young black players didn’t have an equal opportunity earlier, then basically you are endorsing what we stand for and what we stand for is equal opportunity.Following on, there are also severe economic problems in Zimbabwe. How does that affect the running of the game?
Yes, there are situations that are tough in general terms and we have to cope like everybody else in Zimbabwe does either in their individual lives or in their business lives. You have to be resourceful, you have to work hard with honest endeavour.There were some people who believed that cricket is a game for only one sector of the community. There is no way one could accept that. There is no way one could accept that you don’t give equal opportunities to everybody who makes himself available to play for their country. That is where the board stood, that is where the board stands now Our situation is even tougher because unlike certain other countries where the infrastructure is already solid for cricket, we are trying to do a balance. We are looking after the top of the pyramid which is hopefully our Test team, but our national team certainly. That is the top and the base is having as many people participate so that we end up with high performers. That pyramid needs to be solid. We have ten provincial associations now; we have to make sure we have activities in each and every one of them. We have to go beyond just the provincial level and have the same at district level and the real grassroots level. There is still a long way to go because of financial constraints but those are the reasons why it is tough to run it anyway. But also the more reason to try and make it a mass sport.There will be better days. Even in the capital now we are drawing a lot of support and goodwill from the corporate world and I am sure that there is no reason why that should not continue for a long time, for as long as the administration is seen to be solid and with the right vision and mission.Malcolm Speed, in a leaked report, revealed that a forensic audit of the Zimbabwe board’s accounts found that they had been “deliberately falsified to mask various illegal transactions”. What is the story there?
We won’t comment on the leak because that is being attended to by the ICC. As far as the report itself is concerned, why is there so much anxiety of pre-empting the report? The report is due to come out. It has not been neutered in any way. Let the report come out and move on from there. And hopefully, if the report is as clean as we are confident it will be, you will give as much space, as much prominence and as much justice and fairness to it as you have done over the last few years. If it comes out, then do justice to that report, give it as much prominence as it deserves and also accept it.What do you want your legacy to be?
That I didn’t do anything personally, that I was, hopefully, a member of a collective that has helped transform cricket from an elite sport to a national sport, which today we can pride ourselves in saying we have taken to second place in terms of popularity. That we have put in a solid enough structure to carry the game in the country, that we have given equal opportunity to everyone to play it, that we have bridged the gap between the haves and the have-nots as far as cricket is concerned. I emphasise this is not me individually but as a part of a collective.

India’s bowlers waited until the last opportunity and ensured that the magnificent work put it over two weeks in Kuala Lumpur was not undone because of three hours of poor batting

George Binoy in Kuala Lumpur02-Mar-2008
The crucial factor that separated India from the rest of the opposition: exposure that U-19 teams have at the international level © Getty Images
After 44 matches packed into 15 days across seven venues in three cities in Malaysia, there’s no doubt that the best team was crowned Under-19 World Champions. India were seeded second coming into the tournament and, although they did not face top-seeded Pakistan, no one can dispute their claim to the trophy.How did India consistently set challenging totals and chase down targets with relative ease compared to the rest of the teams? To say that their batsmen peaked at the right time is only half the answer ; the other half lies in experience, a priceless commodity at this level of sport.Several of their players have played first-class cricket, giving them the experience of playing against older players and against opposition tougher than most of the other Under-19 teams. The two best batsmen – Virat Kohli and Tanmay Srivastava – not only play for their state teams but also represent their zones.The crucial factor giving India the edge over the rest of the opposition, however, is in international exposure. Since the 2006 World Cup, India have toured Pakistan, England, South Africa, New Zealand, Malaysia and Sri Lanka. The tours have helped players understand different playing styles and conditions and, if you speak to them, they cannot emphasise enough the importance of that experience.It’s probably fair to say no other country has invested as much – at least in financial terms – at the Under-19 level. Australia’s coach Brian McFayden said their youth development was part of their state programs and they didn’t feel “the need to take the cream out and spend six months traveling the world”. Ray Jennings, South Africa’s coach, said his team had been put together only in December 2007 and India’s tour to South Africa provided the only competitive matches they had to prepare for the World Cup.The proof of this preparation was seen in Malaysia, where India were not only unbeaten throughout the tournament but also largely untested. It was to their credit that whenever the situation demanded, different players turned in match-winning performances. Their batsmen performed consistently in all the games but failed in the final. However, their confidence was so high that their captain, Kohli, said that if India had struggled South Africa’s batsmen would find it harder.Until the semi-final, India hadn’t lost more than five wickets in any of their games; until the final they weren’t bowled outThere was one external factor that went in India’s favour: they played all their matches at the Kinrara Oval. However, to give undue importance to that factor would be a discredit to the team for they had several difficulties to overcome.Though India’s bowlers won them the final, it was their batting that distinguished them from other teams in the tournament. Until the semi-final, India hadn’t lost more than five wickets in any of their games; until the final they weren’t bowled out.To put their effort in perspective: fellow semi-finalists Pakistan did not make 200 even once; Australia were dismissed for 172 and 129 against the only major teams they played; England did not go past 150 until the play-off stages; and Sri Lanka collapsed for 134 in the quarter-final against New Zealand.Only South Africa’s batsmen showed gradual improvement with 242 and 260 in the knock-out stages but they collapsed in the final, mustering a weak 103 for 8. They had been dismissed by India for 149 in the group stage as well.While bowling and batting are equally important to a team’s success, the majority of the players feel that it’s easier for bowlers to get used to the conditions and sort of opposition far quicker than it is for batsmen to cope to unfamiliar circumstances: for instance quality spinners on slow wickets in Malaysia.While most teams entered the tournament to gain experience against tough opponents in unfamiliar conditions, with a view of developing their young talent, India started with oodles of experience. It was always going to be tough for the rest to challenge them over two weeks of hectic cricket.

Sachin Tendulkar’s has become such a scientific art these days that he has managed to eliminate risk and has almost made batting appear a routine. It’s amazing how he has taken a capricious art and made it look a risk-free activity

Sriram Veera in Chittagong18-Jan-2010Watching Sachin Tendulkar bat these days is almost like watching a re-run of one’s favourite TV show. When the innings is over, one is hard-pressed to remember a single stand-out shot; not because there aren’t any but because, having been essayed so many times over 20 years, nothing screams out. That pull, that cover drive, the slog sweep and those punchy drives invoke a sense of familiarity, which in this case, breeds not contempt but respect.The match situation on Sunday controlled his style. Shakib was trying to trap him lbw but Tendulkar didn’t oblige. He went back, took care not to get the front leg across and played the ball late. Now and then, Shakib would drop his arm rounder or get it higher and try to surprise Tendulkar with a variation in trajectory but didn’t succeed. Time and again, Shakib would slip in the arm-ball and the one that would gently go on with the line outside off stump, Tendulkar played the former with the straightest bat possible and tapped the latter just past silly point.It’s not that his shots are risk-free, in the conventional sense of the term, but they rarely look cheeky or desperate. Yesterday, occasionally, he played the paddle shot and the slog sweep. When Tendulkar plays them, you realize they aren’t employed for the mere sake of exhibitionism, rather, they come out of an extremely calculating mind. You can predict what he is going to do but somehow you don’t think he can be stopped.There were two errors yesterday. The second one was borne out of the circumstance. In the company of the tail and needing quick runs, he top-edged a pull but it fell clear. The first one revealed more; it was a bouncing delivery outside off stump and Tendulkar edged his intended punchy back-foot shot but first slip couldn’t hold on to the tough chance.What happened next was interesting. Two balls later, Shafiul Islam almost sent down the same ball that had caused the error. This time, Tendulkar got his hands high, got himself in a better position for the extra bounce and upper cut it over backward point for a four. It didn’t feel like indulgence, neither did it feel like a statement. It just seemed as the ideal shot for that ball. There were no adrenalin-pumped moments that followed the shot as Tendulkar returned to cautious mode.You could have bet that Brian Lara would have continued to impose himself yesterday, even, and especially, considering the match situation. His ego wouldn’t have allowed him to bat out quiet periods against a Bangladeshi attack; he would have chosen to counterattack. Tendulkar’s seems to be more complex; he doesn’t like to fall prey to his ego. It’s a feature of the almost-maniacal, critical self-control that accompanies the Bombay school of batsmanship. They rarely indulge themselves.Tendulkar’s has become such a scientific art these days that he has managed to eliminate risk and has almost made batting appear a routine. It’s amazing how he has taken a capricious art and made it look a risk-free activity. It’s where he started to drift away from Lara.It was said, early in his career, that Tendulkar was a mixture of Gavaskar and Richards and at some point, he left the Richards persona behind and went the way of Gavaskar.On the way to his 44th Test hundred, he crossed 13,000 Test runs and by the end of the innings, he had reached 13,075. Later, he said about the crossing, “I was aware but not that I was counting.” You bet his fans are and they must be keeping a close eye on Ricky Ponting’s run counter as well: 11,859 runs and 39 Test hundreds. They used to fret about Lara before; its Ponting now. The more the things change, the more they remain the same.

Who, what, when and where: Cricinfo’s dummy’s guide to the Indian Premier League

Cricinfo Staff20-Feb-2008What is the Indian Premier League?
The Indian Premier League (IPL) is a franchise-based Twenty20 competition organised by the BCCI, and backed by the ICC. It features the world’s best cricketers playing – their affiliation decided by open auction – for eight city-based franchises, owned by a host of businessmen and celebrity consortiums. The first season was held successfully in India in 2008, while the second edition, which coincided with general elections in India, was shifted to South Africa. The tournament returned to India for the third edition.Why has the IPL generated such a buzz?
Two main reasons why. One the football-club concept of the IPL, which is unlike anything cricket has known. The best players from across the world playing, not on the basis of nationality but dictated by market forces. Second, the sheer financial scale of the IPL is unprecedented at this level of cricket. The BCCI made close to $ 1.75 billion solely from the sale of TV rights ($908 million), promotion ($108 million) and franchises (approximately $700 million). There are now several players on contracts worth more than $1 million annually. It’s an entire cricket economy – and one unaffected by recession – out there.Who are the top cricketers involved?
Almost everyone who’s anyone in world cricket, from current stars to recently retired all-time greats. Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Adam Gilchrist, Sachin Tendulkar, Matthew Hayden, Shane Warne, Mahela Jayawardene and Sanath Jayasuriya are regulars; while players like Shaun Marsh, Yusuf Pathan and Sohail Tanvir and Dirk Nannes have gone on to accomplish big things after first making a mark in IPL. England went largely unrepresented in the first season but their two biggest stars, Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff, came on-board in the second edition, after signing on for an unprecedented $1.55 million by Bangalore Royal Challengers and Chennai Super Kings respectively. Pakistan’s players missed out after the first edition, while Australia’s top current players Michael Clarke and Ricky Ponting opted out in order to focus on the international game.Who are the franchise owners – celebrities and others?
Mukesh Ambani, the Reliance Industries chairman, acquired the Mumbai franchise for $111.9 million over a 10-year period; beer and airline baron Vijay Mallya, who also owns a Formula 1 team, won the Bangalore franchise for $111.6 million; Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment won the Kolkata franchise for $75 million; the biggest surprise was the Punjab franchise, which went to Preity Zinta, another Bollywood star, and Ness Wadia, together with two other industrialists, for $75 million. Shilpa Shetty, another popular Bollywood star, joined the Rajasthan Royals franchise after the first season. India Cements owns the Chennai-based franchise, while the Hyderabad-based Deccan Chargers franchise is owned by the Deccan Chronicle group.In 2010, two new franchises were added to the IPL family. The Pune franchise was snapped up by Subroto Roy of the Sahara Group for a whopping $375 million, while a consortium of five companies called Rendezvous Sports World shelled out $333.33 million for the Kochi franchise.The teams (for the first three seasons) are: Chennai Super Kings, Delhi Daredevils, Kolkata Knight Riders, Rajasthan Royals (Jaipur), Bangalore Royal Challengers, Mumbai Indians, Deccan Chargers (Hyderabad) and Kings XI Punjab (Mohali).How are the players paired with teams?
The first player auction, on February 20 2008, had franchises bid for a maximum of eight international players from a pool of 89. Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Yuvraj Singh and Virender Sehwag were given ‘icon’ status by the BCCI – they represented the city in which they are based. A similar, truncated process was followed in 2009, with 17 players picked. Kieron Pollard, Kemar Roach and Shane Bond were the big picks in the third auction.Mahendra Singh Dhoni emerged the most expensive player in the first IPL auction, before Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen upstaged him in the second round of bidding•AFPHow did the player auctions pan out?
India’s ODI captain Dhoni and Australia allrounder Andrew Symonds were the big buys at the first auction in Mumbai, with the Chennai franchise buying Dhoni for $1.5 million and Hyderabad bidding successfully for Symonds at $1.3 million. India’s young stars Ishant Sharma, Rohit Sharma and Manoj Tiwary together fetched nearly $3 million. The auction for the second season was on a much smaller scale, with 17 players bought by the various franchises. Pietersen and Flintoff were the most popular buys, and among the relatively newer faces, JP Duminy was snapped up for $950,000 by Mumbai Indians, and Tyron Henderson by Rajasthan Royals for $650,000. The surprise package was Mashrafe Mortaza, who was bought for a whopping $600,000 by Kolkata Knight Riders. Pollard and Bond fetched the upper limit of $ 750,000 in the third auction, while Kemar Roach and Wayne Parnell also went for high amounts.Whose idea is the IPL?
The IPL is the brainchild of Lalit Modi, the vice-president of the BCCI, and is modeled along the lines of club football in Europe, specifically the English Premier League. Though there is a school of thought that the idea came about in the 1990s, the announcement that such a tournament would happen, and that it would be a precursor to Twenty20 Champions League, cricket’s version of the European Champions League, came only after Subhash Chandra, the owner of Zee Televison said, in April 2007 – soon after India’s exit from the World Cup – that he was intending to start an unofficial tournament called the Indian Cricket League, fuelling speculation that is was a reactive idea rather than a proactive one.
The ICL has since fallen off, after failing to attract crowds and running into a host of off-field problems, but the IPL has gone from strength to strength to emerge as the most important Twenty20 league in the world.Who owns the broadcast rights for the IPL?
In 2009, Multi Screen Media and World Sport Group have signed on as the official broadcast partners for the IPL. The nine-year deal, that runs through till 2017, is worth Rs 8,200 crore. The new agreement, gave Multi Screen Media the exclusive audio visual rights (in India) to all the 59 matches of the second edition of the IPL, and subsequent seasons. In 2010, ITV won the rights to telecast the IPL in UK free to air. The IPL broke new ground when it signed an unprecedented deal with Youtube, in the process by-passing the television channel and taking cricket to every single fan with an internet connection.Has it all been smooth-sailing for the IPL?
Far from it. The IPL has been dogged by several off-field controversies. The first of them was the eleventh-hour shift to South Africa for the 2009 season, necessitated by the general elections in India, which meant that the IPL could not have adequate security systems. Pakistan players were not allowed to play in the second season, on account of the souring up of relations between India and Pakistan following the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, in November 2008. Despite being cleared for the tournament in 2010, Pakistan’s players were ignored by all the franchises for the third season. The IPL was also dogged by terror concerns, after an independent report in early 2010 said that the tournament ran the risk of terrorist attacks. Players associations, from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa threatened to boycott the tournament, before changing their minds. Meanwhile, political parties in Mumbai and Hyderabad threatened to disrupt games in the respective cities. The latter threats led to Deccan’s matches being shifted out of Hyderabad to neutral venues. Despite all the controversies, the IPL has been a resounding success thanks to its ability to combine cricket and mainstream entertainment in unprecedented fashion.

An enjoyable stroll through 30 years of one man and his rubbish cricket team

Alan Tyers10-May-2008Not Dark Yet by Mike Harfield
(My Back Pages Press, 149pp) £7.99

This memoir celebrates 30 years in the life of an endearingly hopeless scratch side where the batting averages are a fraction of the waist measurements. The author and a ragtag group of mates, whose abilities range from the largely incompetent downwards, have played one fixture a year against the Oxfordshire village side of Clifton Hampden.The slapstick run-outs, the fights over lbw howlers, the litany of talked-up ringers who turned out to be useless, the desperate struggle to raise 11 players on a Sunday morning – anyone who has played pub or village cricket will recognise and enjoy plenty in this book.Harfield, the team’s captain, traces their triumphs and (mainly) disasters since the first game in 1976, tying the story loosely to current affairs and international cricket in the past three decades.The downside of the book is that the reader will recognise plenty of that material, too: “You guys are history”; Beefy, Lamby, Dickie and the mobile phone; “the bowler’s Holding, the batsman’s Willey”. Much the better stuff is the gentle, droll evocation of the pleasures of cricket and friendship that endure despite the passage of time. encapsulates nicely the “it’s not the winning, it’s the pub after” mentality that keeps thousands of amateurs, and indeed one or two professionals, coming back year after year, convinced against all evidence that this will be the innings where they finally crack that belligerent, buccaneering 50.The book’s title, incidentally, is from the Bob Dylan song, whose opening line: “Shadows are falling and I’ve been here all day” seems pretty much to sum up the feelings of the no-hoper hidden down at long leg, for whom this book will be as welcome as the thought of that keg waiting in the pavilion and the rest of the coronation chicken left over from tea.

There are No.11s who have been known for their incompetence with the bat, but Chris Martin’s lack of skill is legendary

S Rajesh01-Dec-2008
A familiar sight for Chris Martin, as his stumps are splayed yet again © Getty Images
There are No.11s who have been known for their incompetence with the bat, but Chris Martin’s lack of skill is legendary. In the second Test rout against Australia in Adelaide, Martin lasted eight balls in two innings, and was bowled without getting off the mark on both occasions. It was his sixth instance of bagging a pair in only 45 Tests, which is already a record, two clear of the second-highest.There are more dubious batting records that Martin can claim ownership to: in 45 Tests, he has only scored 76 runs – that’s 1.69 runs per match, almost half the number of wickets he takes per match (3.24). His average of 2.17 is the lowest among batsmen who have played at least 20 Tests.Martin also easily takes the title of worst No.11 batsman: in the 61innings he has batted at that position, his average is 2.30 (which is marginally higher than his overall average since he hasn’t scored a single run in the four innings he has batted higher), more than a run lower than the second-placed Maninder Singh of India.

Worst No. 11s in Tests (Qual: at least 25 innings at No. 11)

BatsmanInningsRunsAverageDucksChris Martin61762.3023Maninder Singh30643.369Dilip Doshi361174.3314Neil Adcock351004.348BS Chandrasekhar751644.4319Fidel Edwards33914.559Bruce Reid28734.865Jim Higgs27644.924Alf Valentine461284.9211Lance Gibbs711834.9410Phil Tufnell441075.3511Devon Malcolm491725.3714Venkatesh Prasad26725.536Paul Adams301235.856Henry Olonga261046.118Of the 65 innings Martin has played, he has remained unbeaten 30 times, which means he has been dismissed on 35 occasions, 25 of which were before he got off the mark. As a factor of dismissed innings, Martin’s percentage of getting out without scoring is a whopping 71.43, which again gives him the top spot, more than ten percentage points clear of Pakistan’s Danish Kaneria.

Highest duck factor as a % of completed innings (Qual: at least 15 ducks)

PlayerCompleted inningsDucksDuck %Chris Martin352571.43Danish Kaneria382360.53BS Chandresekhar412356.10Danny Morrison452453.33Phil Tufnell301550.00Devon Malcolm391641.03Glenn McGrath873540.23Merv Dillon652640.00Fidel Edwards411639.02Courtney Walsh1244334.68Martin is still 18 ducks short of equalling Courtney Walsh’s world record, but the rate at which he’s going, you’d expect him to get there pretty quickly. At an average of 1.8 Tests per duck, which is his current rate, Martin will equal Walsh’s record in his 80th Test, 52 fewer than the number Walsh needed to amass his 43 zeroes. Clearly, if the baton passes to Martin, he will – given his current batting prowess – be the rightful owner of that record.