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The conditions at The Oval represent the best opportunity for Pakistan’s beleaguered batsmen to regain their form and confidence

S Rajesh17-Aug-2010The conditions at The Oval represent the best opportunity for Pakistan’s beleaguered batsmen to get their form and confidence back after what’s been a wretched series so far. In the two Tests so far, Pakistan have averaged 15.75 runs per dismissal (compared to England’s 32.83), while their top six have collectively averaged 10.20, with a top score of 38 in 24 innings.All that could change, though, at a venue which has traditionally been the best one for batting in England. In the ten Tests played here since 2000, teams have averaged almost 38, with 21 centuries – an average of more than two hundreds per game.

Averages at each venue in England since 2000 (Qual: 2 Tests)

VenueTestsDrawsAverage100s/ 50sThe Oval10337.9221/ 54Lord’s22735.7952/ 101Old Trafford9233.2821/ 32Chester-le-Street4033.087/ 17Headingley10032.9620/ 40Edgbaston10232.6817/ 44Trent Bridge10229.5315/ 45Pakistan’s batsmen have historically feasted on the conditions here: in five Tests played by the team here since 1970, they have averaged more than 57, which is a 72% improvement over their average at the second-best venue in England. In these five matches, they’ve scored more than 500 in their first innings on four occasions. Seven hundreds have been scored in these games, which is more than the number they’ve managed in any other venue in England.

Venue-wise batting stats for Pakistan in England in Tests since 1970

VenueTestsW/L/DAverage100s/ 50sThe Oval52/1/257.207/ 12Old Trafford41/1/233.062/ 9Edgbaston60/3/332.346/ 8Headingley92/4/327.834/ 22Lord’s103/3/426.973/ 18Trent Bridge10/0/113.100/ 1Javed Miandad leads the averages table for Pakistan’s batsmen at The Oval, with scores of 260 and 59 in his two innings there, for an average of 159.50. In 22 innings in other grounds in England, he managed only one century and averaged less than 35. Mohammad Yousuf, Zaheer Abbas and Saleem Malik all hundreds here, though they also performed well at other grounds in England.The same can’t be said of Pakistan’s current opener, Imran Farhat. In his only innings at The Oval, in 2006, Farhat scored 91; in 12 innings in other venues in England, he has scored more than 50 exactly once. Inzamam-ul-Haq is one of the few batsmen to average more at other England grounds than The Oval.

Pakistan batsmen at The Oval and at other England grounds since 1970

BatsmanThe Oval – TestsAverage100s/ 50sOther grounds – TestsAverage100s/ 50sJaved Miandad2159.501/ 11434.731/ 4Mohammad Yousuf1128.001/ 0558.802/ 0Zaheer Abbas1127.501/ 0845.071/ 2Saleem Malik3121.002/ 01057.411/ 5Imran Farhat191.000/ 1623.830/ 1Inzamam-ul-Haq233.000/ 01143.552/ 5Pakistan will surely be encouraged by these numbers, but England will fancy their chances of sealing the series at a venue where they haven’t lost any of their last eight Tests, and have won five of them. A win against Pakistan will give them a hattrick of wins here, following the defeats of South Africa and Australia in the last two seasons. The last team to beat England at this venue was Australia, way back in 2001. Pakistan’s most recent memory, on the other hand, was much more unpleasant, with the forfeiture in 2006 handing England victory after they trailed by 331 in the first innings.England’s current batsmen, though, don’t have such a great record at The Oval. Kevin Pietersen has scored three hundreds, and has topped 90 in each Test that he has played here, but Paul Collingwood only averages 32.62, with no century in ten innings.

England batsmen at The Oval

BatsmanTests RunsAverage100s/ 50sJonathan Trott116080.001/ 0Kevin Pietersen452369.083/ 1Andrew Strauss646842.541/ 4Alastair Cook435244.000/ 3Paul Collingwood526132.620/ 2In the last five Tests here, fast bowlers and spinners have achieved similar numbers: pace has accounted for 111 wickets at an average of 36.02, while spinners average 37.48 for their 43 wickets.

Ryan ten Doeschate’s ability and professionalism shone through in his all-round performance against England

Nagraj Gollapudi at the VCA Stadium22-Feb-2011At the mid-innings break Ryan ten Doeschate, a little weary after scoring the second-highest individual score (119) by an Associate player, said he was a touch disappointed because he could’ve done more. He need not have bothered. Today he played as a consummate batsman: his timing, his placement, his foot movement, his reflexes, his smart working of the field worked magnificently. There were no mis-hits, instead he played on the mistakes, of which there many, committed by the England bowlers.It was an interesting scenario for the Netherlands and ten Doeschate. The Dutch, who rarely play against the top nations, could have started with a nothing-to-lose mindset. But for ten Doeschate, the ICC’s Associate Player of the Year, there was a lot to stand up to. The South Africa-born ten Doeschate was adopted by Essex and brought to England by Graham Gooch, who was taken by his desire and dedication. ten Doeschate worked hard to improve his limited skills, and his discipline to do the things the right way paid off as he became indispensable at Essex as a batting allrounder. Today he had another chance show the world his talent.He understood quickly it was a batting pitch and that the ball was coming slow on to the bat. The key was to not rush. With Graeme Swann and Paul Collingwood operating, it would’ve been tempting to charge them. But ten Doeschate remained patient. It did not matter he had not scored a run off his first 11 deliveries. The next one, angled down the leg side by Collingwood, ten Doeschate moved in and deflected it neatly past the fine-leg ropes for his first four.The middle overs were the biggest litmus test for the Dutch because if they had failed to get the right sort of tempo in that interval, the platform raised earlier would have fallen down easily. “I did not strike well off the first 20 balls. The deck was very good but slightly slow,” ten Doeschate said later. But he did not allow panic to set in. Courtesy Messrs Anderson and Pietersen, who failed to lap up an easy catch when he was on 47 against Swann, ten Doeschate got to his fifty quietly. The crowd was unaware.The boundaries dried up between the overs 17 and 23 and then again between 26 and 35. But not a single opportunity was missed to rotate the strike. That agility put pressure on England, who were shocking in the field. Swann had bowled eight overs and had controlled ten Doeschate admirably. In Swann’s penultimate over, ten Doeschate finally got in a good position to hit a handsome six over deep midwicket. The frustration of the dropped catch in the previous over got to Swann and he kicked the ground in disgust.Swann’s exit allowed the Dutch to assume control. Anderson and Collingwood returned and were erratic. The Dutch cleverly delayed taking the batting Powerplay, which they eventually went for in the 43rd over. Fifty runs were looted in those five overs for the loss of just one wicket and ten Doeschate’s contribution was 26. In the end a stiff target was raised. England, as Andrew Strauss, declared later were “shell-shocked”.If England were still confident, it was because of the flat pitch and the modest Dutch bowling. But it was once again ten Doeschate who bowled wicket to wicket mostly and kept a fuller length to deny England any easy route to victory. He had the larger say in the field settings and constantly egged the bowlers to bowl a disciplined line. But he knew even 293 was not going to be sufficient.”We got the pace slightly wrong in the middle overs,” ten Doeschate said. “We thought 230-240 would be good score, so we set our marker to 270 but if we had worked a little harder, may be, we could have got to 310. When we do come across a good deck like that and when you do get a good team on the back foot you do need to put your foot on the gas a bit early.”You could sense how deep the loss had hurt him. But he couldn’t do much. He was disappointed with the Dutch bowling but was not complaining. The frustrations of playing with a mostly-amateur side were obvious. Therefore, ten Doeschate’s century today is an important one. Also the timing cannot be lost: the ICC have all but told the Associates that their time is up in the World Cup. The moot question is how do we measure a performance like ten Doeschate’s today? He played like a professional, locked horns with a superior opposition and came out on top.At 30, ten Doeschate is too old to use an innings like today’s to audition himself for England or South Africa. But today he was not pondering about his future. “Personally it is about as close to a perfect innings as I want to play in one-day cricket,” he said. “As a team we can take so much away from the game: not only my hundred, other guys, too, scrapped 180 runs together at a pretty good whack. We want to play brave cricket and not worry about the outcome and tonight was a perfect example of that.”At the end of it all one picture remained fresh. Two men sat on their haunches at one corner of the pitch. Peter Borren had his head down. ten Doeschate was consoling him. The feeling on being so near, yet so far, could not escape their minds. The roles in that picture should have been reversed – Borren, the Netherlands captain, putting his arm across ten Doeschate, the man who had cracked one of the best centuries coming from an Associate nation, and later bowled with intensity despite suffering cramps at the halfway stage.But ten Doeschate, one of the only three professionals in the Dutch squad, knows the rest of the players look up to him for guidance and inspiration. He had not let them down. He will do his best in the last five matches the Netherlands play in a World Cup.

The first World Cup to feature coloured clothing, floodlights, white balls and fielding restrictions

29-Nov-2010World Cup 1992 factfileThe nine captains of the 1992 World Cup•PA Photos

Teams 9

Games 39 in 33 days

Hosts Australia and New Zealand

Venues 18

Format A league stage in which every team played every other. Top four qualified for the semi-finals, followed by a final

Winners Pakistan; Runners-up England

Man of the Series Martin Crowe

Attendance for final 87,182

World Cup No. 5Minnows ZimbabweFormat This was the World Cup that thought it was a league. All played all in a qualifying round that went on forever. It was fair but about as exciting as the Nullarbor Plain. The good news was that South Africa joined in for the first time, following the end of apartheid.Innovations Four big ones. The players wore coloured clothing, with names on the back. There were floodlights for most of the 36 games. The white ball – in fact two of them, one at each end (so they didn’t get too grubby), which meant they swung prodigiously. The fielding-circle rules were refined, allowing only two men outside the ring in the first 15 overs; after the first 15 it was as before: a minimum of four the circle. Result: the birth of the pinch-hitter. Ian Botham did the job for England, and Mark Greatbatch was deployed by New Zealand.Early running Australia, the holders and hosts, were such hot favourites that the pressure got to them. They lost the opening game, in New Zealand (Martin Crowe 100 not out), and then faced England in Sydney. Botham sniffed the chance to trample Australia into the dirt for one last time and took 4 for 31 and then made 53 not out as England won by eight wickets. Pakistan started dreadfully, losing to West Indies by 10 wickets, and would have gone out if rain had not saved them in Adelaide after England bowled them out for 74. England and New Zealand were the best teams for a long time, but both had peaked too soon. Imran Khan famously told his team: “Listen, just be as if you were a cornered tiger,” and they moved into top gear.The semis What’s Afrikaans for “We wuz robbed”? South Africa, playing England, needed 22 off 13 balls when it rained in Sydney. By the time it stopped, they needed 21 off one ball. New Zealand’s brave run came to an end as Pakistan successfully chased 263, with the unknown Inzamam-ul-Haq thumping 60 off 37 balls.The final Pakistan were on fire at the MCG, and England were not. Derek Pringle (3 for 22) removed the openers, but Imran Khan and Javed Miandad made 72 and 58 as Pakistan recovered to 249 for 6. England were soon 69 for 4 (Botham 0), and when Neil Fairbrother (62) and Allan Lamb (31) launched a recovery, Wasim Akram snuffed it out, bowling Lamb and Chris Lewis with consecutive beauties. Pakistan won by 22 runs.ControversiesThere was only one of note: the rain rule, drawn up by a panel of experts, including Richie Benaud, for matches affected by bad weather. The idea behind the rule was to avoid the old system – work out the runs-per-over of the first innings and then deduct that for each over lost by the side batting second – which heavily disadvantaged the side batting first. Under the rain rule, the reduction in the target was to be proportionate to the lowest scoring overs of the side batting first, a method that took into account the benefits of chasing, as opposed to setting, a target. The rule raised eyebrows during the washout between England and Pakistan in Adelaide and was utterly discredited when South Africa’s chances of qualifying for the final were shattered by 12 minutes of rain, which changed an achievable equation to an impossible one.

Suresh Raina talks about trying to get better against the short delivery, becoming India captain, and coming back from knee surgery

Sriram Veera25-Jun-2011You are at a critical stage in your career. You became the ODI captain, now you are trying to cement yourself as a Test player. Unlike a few others, your attitude has rarely been questioned. How do you see yourself at this stage?
Gary Kirsten told me one thing when he met me: “Look to be honest with yourself, you have a different kind of approach to the game, you are a brilliant person on and off the field.” It has been my motto to give my 100% on the field every time, and if I think I have done that, then I don’t need to worry about anyone else.I came up the hard way and the eight-nine years I spent in the hostel was really tough, away from family and friends. The quality of food was really low. I used to have a lot of discipline in life because I was studying in a boarding school, and there we needed to sleep at 9.30 pm and get up at 5 in the morning. When you lead India there will be lot of expectations, from family, from friends, and if you remain honest with yourself you can sleep peacefully.So, is it now all about improving your skills as a Test batsman and grabbing that middle-order spot? The opposition bowlers like to target you with the short ball. What you doing to cope with it?
The issue with short balls is in the mind. I have got out to short balls a couple of times in Twenty20s, but I never got out that way in Test cricket. I have worked hard on it (facing short balls) since my debut. When there’s pace and bounce you are bound to get out at times, but it’s not that we [Indian batsmen] are unable to play the short balls.From a personal point of view, I would like to keep my thinking clear and play straight as much as possible, and it’s important because you won’t often play bowlers who have pace of 140-150 kph at the domestic level. So you need to put that extra effort while training. I used to practice at the hockey ground on synthetic surface while I was in the sports hostel. So Test cricket is certainly going to be a challenge for me. It’s an important season with series in England and Australia, so a big chance for me.Have you spoken to anyone?
I have spoken to Rahul Dravid, and he told me to keep the thoughts clear. Try to have a blank mind. Players like Steve Waugh and Brian Lara had problems facing short-pitched balls, so it’s all about your mental approach. It was a great advantage for me that Gary was also a left-hander in his playing days, and it helped me expand my areas as a batsman. I spent a lot of time with him in Dambulla ahead of my Test debut and in South Africa, and those were quality meetings. He taught me the importance of understanding the thought process of bowlers, building an innings and believing in my instincts.Waugh rarely pulled or hooked. He either swayed out of the line or somehow managed to defend it. Have you decided on an approach?
I have not decided on any particular method like Waugh (not to use the pull shot). I have been practicing a lot against short-pitched balls in the nets, and in the IPL also I got some chance to play the short balls. After training with Gary I have learned to keep my pull shot down, as earlier it used to go a lot more in the air. Now I also go behind the ball and play a few taps through the gaps that help me to rotate the strike. I have to try to spend some more at the crease, and it’s important to keep control over little things like head position, footwork, and how to approach each ball.How has Duncan Fletcher helped you in this area?
He was telling me that you have to feel the fear [at net sessions], and you have to double the intensity in the match situations. He’s an interesting person with a lot of different ideas. Once he was suggesting to us that why not take the batting Powerplay in the 20th over, instead of waiting for the 40th or the 45th over. I told him that we didn’t have a great record in Powerplays in the World Cup. He has some ideas to improve our record in the Powerplays, which are very important in the one-dayers.Have you been speaking to a mental-conditioning coach like Paddy Upton to understand the mind process in those moments?
I have spoken to Paddy Upton, and it’s useful to a certain extent. I believe I am the best person to judge my mind, and I have to think about how I need to execute my plans. So, if I don’t understand my mind and thought process, then nobody else can help me. When you watch Rahul, Sachin and Laxman bat, they are in a different zone as they hardly get disturbed by their surroundings, and you have to learn a lot from their sincerity.Those players talk a lot about being in the zone.
I too have been in that zone a few times, when the ball connects with the sweet spot of the bat easily. I was in that frame of mind before the World Cup game against Australia. To be honest with you, when we were going for the pre-World Cup camp, the thought flashed across my mind that we are going to win this tournament. There will be a lot of expectations on you when you play a tournament like the World Cup, and if you can draw inspiration from those expectations then your game goes a notch higher. Sometimes it can add pressure on you, but I like that pressure. If you do well in those pressure situations then you’ll get a lot of respect from your senior players.

“I had no godfather. I came up the hard way and the 8-9 years I spent in the hostel was really tough, away from family and friends. I used to have a lot of discipline in life because I was studying in a boarding school”

What’s your emotional support system? How have you been coping with fame at such a young age?
I am very close to my family. I have learned a lot from my father. He used to tell me to be honest with yourself and not to argue with your seniors. You don’t need to be involved in any quarrel, as sometimes you need to remain silent intelligently.I never have issues in handling the fame. I was in a boarding school as I am from a middle-class family. We didn’t have a lot of money, so we all learned to respect money, and understood its real value. I have four brothers and one sister, and they go through a lot to get proper education. I have always maintained that if you work hard, it won’t go waste, as recognition will come to you at some stage, whether in studies or sports. You need to have good intentions and intent to move ahead in life as well as in sports.You were out of cricket for a year almost. It was feared you might drift away.
I was out of cricket for more than a year after I had the knee operation, and I was walking on crutches. It was a tough period for me and I just stayed at my mother’s house in Lucknow. A lot of people were saying that it’s tough to come back from a knee operation, but I was determined to prove them wrong. After the operation I was struggling with my throw as well, so I used to play a bit of basketball, badminton and table tennis to get a bit of strength back in my shoulder. I also used to play carom so that the nerves on my fingers got stronger. I used to play in my room, as I couldn’t move around a lot, but that training was important because I needed to get some strength back after six months of total inaction.I did all this on my own, looking at books, and it’s an advantage for me because I know my body well. I never was afraid of my comeback because I had a good domestic season. I got some runs in the Ranji Trophy, I became Man of the Match in the Challenger Trophy, and I used to speak to Viru (Sehwag). He’s a very positive person, and he used to tell me go out there and play (without fear) and enjoy the cricket.And now you have not only come back but also became the ODI captain. Are you enjoying it?
I felt good when I got to know about the captaincy from the selectors. It’s a great honour to lead your country, and Sachin too wished me during a function in Mumbai. I also got messages from Rahul and Anil [Kumble]. I was just trying to enjoy the game and stay in touch with the team-mates, and yes it was a dream come true for me.I had a small meeting with Harbhajan. He’s the senior bowler and handles the bowlers well. I have played with Dhoni for some five-six years and I know how his mind works and how he handles each player and respects them. We had a lot of meetings with Gary before the World Cup, and though small, those were quality meetings. I learned a lot of things from those meetings – how to plan, how to dominate a bowler, how to bat according to situations. In Chennai Super Kings, we had meetings where cricketers like Matthew Hayden, Michael Hussey, our coach Stephen Fleming, Ashwin, Badrinath, Vijay and Doug Bollinger used to attend, and those meetings were really useful for me.And now the Tests. After this, the big tours of England and Australia coming up.
I am getting stronger mentally as a player and an individual. As long as I remain mentally strong, nobody can stop me from achieving my goals. At the same time, I have to be disciplined, respectful to my seniors and I have to respect the game. I need to play my natural game but I also need to be clever and realise against which bowler I need to take risks and whom I should leave alone.

England displayed a determination to win at The Oval, and, despite things nearly going badly awry for them, they remain a side on the rise

Andrew Miller10-Sep-2011England are now not going to lose this home series against India, and with seven wins out of seven in completed fixtures on this tour, they’ll consider it quite a failure if they go on to lose at Lord’s and Cardiff to allow their opponents a share of the one-day spoils. Nevertheless, the sense that India are already on their way back from rock-bottom is unmistakeable after an enthralling encounter at The Oval.There is no way on earth that England are going to match their current achievement and win their next seven out of seven against India. That would involve having to complete a 5-0 whitewash on the subcontinent, and judging by the jitters they had to surmount in this match, such a prospect is unlikely to be entertained by even the most optimistic members of a buoyant squad. “We’ve all toured India before, so we know what to expect,” England’s captain Alastair Cook said in a show of strength, but even he admitted to shredded nerves after watching the denouement of this latest match.Cook will travel to India next month knowing that he has not yet lost against a subcontinental team in his three ODI series as captain, with victories in Bangladesh last year and a hard-fought win over Sri Lanka earlier in the summer. And yet, the moments in which India dominated this latest contest – and the methods they used to do so – suggests that this rivalry is about to return to an even keel.”It’s always nervy when you’re sitting and watching, and can’t do anything about it,” Cook said. “We’re delighted to be 2-0 up, but we’ve come here to win the series. We’re another step closer to doing that. It’s a very quick turnaround to Lord’s [on Sunday], but the biggest positive is the way we handled that pressure towards the end – a lot of credit to the way Ravi Bopara played especially, backed up by Tim Bresnan.”Bopara and Bresnan’s 60-run stand for the sixth wicket stabilised the contest but neither man was able to close it out. That was left once again to the calm, lofted driving of Graeme Swann, the man who scraped England to their tie in the World Cup contest in Bangalore back in March – the last time an ODI between these two teams went the distance. It was his first international innings since the end of July, but he scarcely missed a beat, even while the hearts of a packed Oval crowd were throbbing with adrenaline.Right at this moment, England’s tail is their most reliable trump card. The likes of Swann, Bresnan and Stuart Broad have previous this summer, after the manner in which they transformed the Trent Bridge Test with powerful initiative-seizing roles in both innings. Their indomitability is becoming a fact of the sport, much as the likes of Warne, Lee and Andy Bichel gave Australia an armour-plated hide in the early 2000s. As part of the quest for a side that can challenge in the 2015 World Cup, it’s as good a place as any to start, for it’s precisely where many teams fail to finish.But something is lacking further up the order, and it’s something that goes beyond the twin absences of Kevin Pietersen and Eoin Morgan, whose impending shoulder surgery was confirmed midway through the match. Though Morgan’s understudy, Bopara, came through a tough challenge well enough in the end, his 40 from 41 balls still epitomised a middle order that doesn’t know when to stick or twist – when to dispense with the canny accumulation and turn on the after-burners. Besides, England’s understandable penchant for four seamers on a green top left them exposed by India’s own expertise in the death overs.At the moment, England’s solid lower-order is their most reliable trump card•Getty ImagesThrough the virtuoso performance of Ravindra Jadeja, at first with the bat and then, tellingly, with his left-arm spin on an unexpectedly receptive surface, England’s blind spots in this contest almost denied them a clear sight of victory – and given that India had slumped to 25 for 4 and, later, 58 for 5 after being asked to bat first in dank conditions, that would have represented quite some turnaround.In the end, the magnificence of James Anderson’s new-ball spell proved insurmountable, but England won’t be able to bank on such turbo-charged starts in Indian conditions. When the shine went out of the new ball, the menace went out of the attack. And when Jade Dernbach’s variations were decoded in his penultimate over that went for 19, the absence of a second spinner in Samit Patel was starting to look rather acute. “You always think ‘could you have been more attacking to try to get that wicket’,” Cook said. “But we didn’t create another chance. Even if we’d had slips in there for a little bit longer, nothing went through there.”India, by contrast, never looked more in command than during the fraught six-over period prior to the rain break, when Jadeja and R Ashwin came together to spin through the defences of Craig Kieswetter and Jonathan Trott. Upon the resumption, the rookie Ben Stokes wasn’t permitted to settle either – save for one impressive smack for six over long-on – and it was almost certainly to England’s advantage that the chase was curtailed by 17 runs and seven overs. With wickets liable to fall, any means to a quicker resolution was welcome.But ultimately that resolution was reached, and while there’s plenty of pause for thought after a contest that nearly went badly awry, England’s performance was once again brimful of resolve – from Kieswetter’s second commanding innings in consecutive games to Dernbach’s comeback in a ballsy final over that yielded six runs and the key wicket of Jadeja. They remain a unit on the rise, and after a summer stuffed full of achievement, the refusal to yield is impressive.”There’s always stuff to learn, always stuff we can improve,” Cook said. “In an ideal world we’d have got them out for less, but sometimes the opposition are allowed to play well. They probably did get too many, if we’re being really honest with ourselves, because after the Powerplay, they got about 70 or 80 off the last eight overs. It’s slightly stressful being there and not able to control when the ball’s flying to all corners. But it is enjoyable, and it makes it all the more satisfying when you win.”

Two 40-year-olds have been among the key men in the BBL. And they haven’t been alone in the tournament

Alex Malcolm28-Jan-2012Insert your cliché here. Age is merely a state of mind. You can’t buy experience. Forty is the new 30. You never lose it.All these adages were to be tested in the Big Bash League when so many retirees signed up for the tournament.Shane Warne was a major coup, but it was not entirely unexpected. Despite being 42, his signing for the Melbourne Stars came on the back of regular appearances in the IPL for the Rajasthan Royals. Likewise, Matthew Hayden had been playing for Chennai Super Kings as recently as the 2010 Champions League, and had long been interested in representing the Brisbane Heat.But when it was announced that Brad Hogg and Stuart MacGill, both 40, both without any professional cricket at all in over three years, would represent the Perth Scorchers and the Sydney Sixers respectively, the legitimacy of this Big Bash League came under heavy scrutiny. Questions were being raised as to why a highly successful state-based Big Bash had been scrapped for a franchise-basedcompetition that would feature a bunch of “has-beens” looking for a superannuation boost. It was akin to HBO axing at the peak of its popularity for reruns of .And yet it is the two 40-year-olds, Hogg and MacGill, who have been the headline acts.Hogg’s tournament has been remarkable, extraordinary in reality. Between March of 2008 and November 2010 the left-arm wristspinner had played no competitive cricket whatsoever until he returned for his club side, Willetton, in the WACA Grade Twenty20 competition. Thecompetitive urges were not satisfied enough after two games, and he returned to play in the two-day competition in February 2011.Six games later he was back on the WACA ground, playing in the A-grade final, having taken five wickets in the elimination final, and made 144 in the semi. His opponents in the decider, Subiaco-Floreat, had faced the incumbent Test spinner Michael Beer in their semi, and to a man were unanimous in declaring Hogg the far more challenging opponent of the two.Less than 10 months later Hogg has been picked to play T20 cricket for Australia. His form in the BBL has been phenomenal. Going into the final, his 12 wickets at 13.50 are eye-catching enough, putting him alongside Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, James Faulkner, and Mitchell Starc as the most damaging bowlers in the tournament. But his economy rate has been incredible. No player has come close to Hogg’s effectiveness in conceding less than six runs an over.The figures are astonishing, yet Hogg has never had any physical restrictions. Even at 40, he has been one of the fittest and most agile players in the Scorchers side, his fielding still an outstanding feature of his game.The MacGill story is a different one, and yet he has been just as successful as Hogg. MacGill retired in May 2008, mid-Test-tour in the Caribbean, mentally and physically finished. His knees had given way. Carpal-tunnel syndrome was affecting his wrist. Touring had taken its toll. Cricket was a past life and MacGill was ready for a new one.Yet he returned to New South Wales grade cricket in November 2011 for Sydney University. After four T20s and three club matches, his old mate Stuart Clark gave him a job with the Sydney Sixers.There was trepidation on opening night against the Brisbane Heat. But 2 for 21 alleviated any doubts MacGill, or others, may have had about his place in the Sixers side.While the figures are not as eye-catching as Hogg’s – MacGill’s six wickets have cost 24.33 apiece while he operated at 6.95 runs per over – MacGill’s fingerprints have been all over the Sixers’ key wins, as his mastery, guile, and skill proving too good in the big moments.He removed Hayden and Brendon McCullum to set the first game up, and his was against Hobart in the semi-final. The tournament’s leading scorer, Travis Birt, held the key to the match on his broad bat. MacGill unlocked him with the artistry of a safe cracker, removing him with a wrong’un that would have caused even Shane Warne to tip his hat.MacGill, like Hogg, has had so successful a return that he has nominated and been picked up forthe Bangladesh T20 Premier League.Both men have been stars of tournament, but they have not overshadowed the biggest star of all, Warne. The king was expected to perform. We knew he could write his own scripts; only, this time he got to tell us what would happen before it actually happened.

With four forty-somethings having dominated the Big Bash, it is worth asking: are we too hasty to cast elder statesmen aside, or is it simply an indictment of the younger players coming through

At 42 he is as fit as he has ever been, and not surprisingly is still bowling with tremendous control and confidence. Warne may not have the mystery trickery he once possessed, but his powers of deduction, and his ability to break down a batman’s technique or tactics in a short space of time have never been greater.The special part about this year’s BBL is that Warne has taken us through it ball-by-ball with live in-the-run commentary that has been as insightful as brilliant.Hayden, too, has commentated while playing, giving frank and honest assessments of his opponents and cricket generally. His candour has been refreshing in a world where cricketers must tip-toe diplomatically across every single contentious issue.Hayden may have a little less hair these days but he is no less intimidating with bat in hand, and while he was not as dominant has his three former Australian team-mates, he was extremelycompetitive.Which begs the question, is 40 the new 30?Thirty has been a taboo age for cricketers in recent times and yet as these four greats will attest, age is no barrier to success. Michael Hussey’s entire Test career has been played out after his 30thbirthday. Ricky Ponting has more Test centuries and fifties after 30 than he did before, at a better strike rate, while averaging barely half a run less. Both are getting ever closer to the big four-zero mark, and though they have been doubted through periods of poor form, they have proved beyond doubt they are still currently irreplaceable in the Australian Test line-up.With four forty-somethings having dominated the Big Bash, it is worth asking: are we too hasty to cast elder statesmen aside, or is it simply an indictment of the younger players coming through?Whichever way you look at it, the competition has been far better for the presence of the senior statesmen. You can’t buy experience, but you can buy experienced players, and in this instance they have been worth every cent.

Shane Watson has admitted that he finds batting first a greater strain and his struggles at The Oval reiterated the problem for Australia

Daniel Brettig at The Oval01-Jul-2012When asked by George Plimpton which Olympic sport he would have tried his hand at, former US president Bill Clinton offered the decathlon. “It was because,” Plimpton said, “You had ten disciplines that you could concentrate on … And it’s quite evident that he has the ability to do it, too. This is a man who is able to stand and give a speech and not have you-know-who popping up in the back of his head.” The you-know-who Plimpton spoke of was, of course, Monica Lewinsky.Clinton was considered a master of compartmentalisation, a popular term among psychologists and cricketers. The ability to momentarily forget all the other various tasks, issues and worries to concentrate most clearly on the one immediately at hand is an attribute sought by many in the game, not all with the same success. Captains must divorce their leadership from their batting or bowling, allrounders one discipline from the other. All players must forget their batting or bowling when they stand in the field. At The Oval, Australia’s pursuit of a truly testing total for England was undermined by Shane Watson allowing his batting to become clouded. Not for the first time.Australia’s innings began at a healthy clip, and continued to run smoothly despite the loss of David Warner and Peter Forrest. This was because Watson made a fast start, and kept pinging boundaries to keep the run-rate up and prevent the field or the bowlers from closing in completely. At the end of 20 overs, the visitors were 100 for 2, with Watson 53 from 52 balls – all set to go on to a match-shaping tally.But from there, his innings petered out. The loss of his captain Michael Clarke did not help, but Watson failed to find gaps for boundaries, or singles, and was becalmed in the company of George Bailey, who battled to get established at the crease with no outlet for the pressure England began to impose. The stagnation of the Australia innings meant that by the time Watson was dismissed for 66, having taken another 28 balls for those 13 runs, the tally had advanced just 28 runs in 11 overs, leaving far too much ground for the middle order to catch up.Watson’s final act was a frustrated heave at Graeme Swann, held in the deep by Steven Finn, a moment that felt inevitable in the context of an innings now mired in mid-overs mud. It was indicative also, of a wider theme in Watson’s game. He has admitted before that when batting first, he starts to worry about the physical toll of batting given the bowling he may have to do later, and that these thoughts inhibit his ability to keep up his earlier momentum. Only once has he made a century when batting first in an ODI. When chasing he has coshed five.

“Batting first you tend to be out in the heat and I know I might have to bowl ten overs, so it’s physically more demanding”Shane Watson

“I know in my mind that that is the case,” Watson said last year of his greater comfort batting second. “One, it does take a bit of pressure off, I suppose, to know the exact score you’ve got to chase … But alongside that, as well, batting first you tend to be out in the heat, and I know I might have to bowl ten overs. So it’s also physically more demanding batting first, for me anyway, so that’s always in the back of my mind as well.”As demonstrated by that admission, Watson is an admirably frank and transparent character. As an allrounder, he is perennially conflicted. His role in the Australia side has changed too many times to count, batting anywhere from No. 1 to No. 7, and his bowling running the gamut from taking the new ball to not using it at all. A history of injuries has forced Watson to think very carefully about his body and the limits of its exertion – he is a rare cricketer to travel the world with his own personal physio.This background has made Watson into a most versatile cricketer and a critical part of Michael Clarke’s team. But it has also served to entrench patterns into his cricket as well as his preparation for it. Watson worries about his workload every match he plays, and it has long seeped into the way he performs. Ten years into his ODI career, Watson is a far more accomplished batsman when the team bats second, his bowling duties out of the way.The disparity between between first innings and second innings is so vast as to be worth noting by Clarke, as well as Australia’s coach, Mickey Arthur. Across 83 innings batting first, Watson averages a mediocre 32.97, with the aforementioned one century and 16 half-centuries. But when batting second his mean shoots up to 57.10 across 50 innings, five times reaching 100, with 12 half-centuries. Moreover, his strike-rate improves.For Australia to get the most out of Watson, and to salvage something from an ODI series against England that is now slipping well away from their grasp, they need to find a way of closing that gap. It is difficult to tell whether doing so requires the input of a psychologist, a physio or even a former US president, but Australia’s standing as the top-ranked 50-over team in the world will remain at risk so long as the performances of their most destructive player can oscillate so wildly.

The opener’s series in the Caribbean has been characterised by a number of starts but no major score

Daniel Brettig in Port-of-Spain18-Apr-2012Ed Cowan is learning the hard lesson that international cricket requires an international method. Over six Tests, Cowan is yet to play in anything other than a winning Australian team, and has contributed a series of middling scores that have neither defined him as a “walking wicket”, nor gone on to the kinds of totals that won him a place in the Test XI in the first place. To his frustration, he has found it difficult to go on from his carefully compiled starts, and is also wrestling with the fact that two of his most productive shots down under – the pull and the cut – are seldom able to be used with confidence on the low, slow pitches of the Caribbean.On the fourth day of the Trinidad Test Cowan had a dose of good fortune, dropped at slip early from the bowling of Fidel Edwards. He looked safe against the spin of Shane Shillingford, employing the sweep to decent effect. But he was again undone by the speed and line of Kemar Roach, burning his second referral of the match before again departing lbw, and left with some chastening thoughts about how he must improve. The question of whether the national selectors give him the chance to improve is an open one, with eight months separating this series from the home matches against South Africa.”It’s very different to batting back home,” Cowan said of the Caribbean. “It’s been a great experience I guess to play in such foreign conditions. You build your game up to play a certain way back home and I’ve played my entire career playing in Australian conditions so I’ve had to make a few minor adjustments to try to grind out runs however I best see fit over here.”I feel like certain aspects of my game already have improved, for example, playing against off-spin. I feel like I’ve found a way that can now work here and in the sub-continent and you don’t have to do that back home because there aren’t that many wickets that turn. At the same time, my go-to shots, the cut shot and the pull shot, aren’t really in the game either so I’ve got to find a way to score runs elsewhere.”As for the starts, Cowan said he was doubly frustrated by the fact that he has continually played himself in only to be out before breaking into more meaningful scoring territory. He said he had felt clear-headed at the crease and was not filled with dread the moment he reached 20 – though his sequence of scores across this series and at times against India would suggest otherwise.”It’s frustrating, to state the obvious. It’s something I’ve prided myself on in first class cricket – If I get a start, I tend to go on with it; if I get to 30, I get a hundred, so it’s been very frustrating,” Cowan said. “On the flip side, it feels that it’s nice to know you can consistently get in. And if your worse days are 20s and 30s and you start turning them into really good days, you start turning into a really good player.”So I don’t feel like I’m going out there as a walking wicket and that I’m going to get knocked over. So that’s good. I feel like I’m not only good enough to be playing at this level but contributing. And dominating on my good days, it hasn’t quite worked out yet. You need slices of luck and coming up today against a guy who was bowling pretty well. So that’s the game of cricket.”It’s frustrating to get through what’s the hardest time of batting and then to get out when the ball is getting softer. I think in these conditions to ground out 40 or 50 is a bloody good day. To grind out 20 doesn’t look but it still feels like you’ve given some contribution to the team, not just taken the shine off the ball for the other blokes. I’m probably more frustrated about getting in and then getting out that anything else. I feel like my game is in good order. There’s a big difference between being out of runs and out of form and I feel a little bit out of runs.”Cowan’s use of two referrals for the match has not been at any great cost to Australia so far, but it has raised the question of who is best placed to judge them on the batting side. The batsman himself must fight conflicting notions of reason and self-preservation, while the non-striker, however helpful he wants to be, is not in line with the wickets so can be wide of the mark in his estimation of lbw decisions in particular. Cowan suggested the narrow margins for error provided by the DRS had encouraged batsmen to second-guess decisions they had previously considered to be out on instinct.”It felt pretty close, as it turned out,” Cowan said of the second innings. “We’ve seen on the referrals sometimes it felt like it would have been slipping down leg. Even seeing the replay, until that ball straightened from the angle he was on, it probably was missing leg. It’s a great skill to be able to bowl from wide on the crease, around the wicket. It just felt like it was missing leg. I can’t really see the last half a foot of what the ball does but it certainly hit the seam and straightened down the line but if it didn’t it would have been missing leg.”Everyone’s played enough cricket to know if you’re hit on the pad you have that feeling deep inside ‘gee that’s pretty close’. Even from my own experience in the first innings it felt pretty adjacent but it’s half a ball width and the umpire to say not out initially and it’s not out. I think we’re finding with the review system that the margin for error what we consider to be out – even Michael Clarke to Shillingford in the first innings, he just said it felt out. That feeling of ‘I’m out’, I think the DRS is showing that not always is it out. With that in mind if you think you’re out, review it.”

Plays of the Day for the Champions League semi-final between Lions v Delhi Daredevils in Durban

Firdose Moonda25-Oct-2012Selection of the day
When Ross Taylor was named Delhi Daredevils captain for their match against Titans on Tuesday, it was thought of as nothing but squad rotation. New leader Mahela Jayawardene stepped aside for Australian opener David Warner* to be a part of the starting XI. In the semi-final, when Taylor appeared at the toss, it was the real surprise. Jayawardene had dropped himself again and given Warner another go.Tension of the day
There was always going to be some needle when Morne Morkel faced up against a South African side and he had a few things to say to Gulam Bodi. But the real tension came when Pietersen had to bowl to Bodi. Pietersen had named Bodi as the reason he was denied a place in the Kwa-Zulu Natal team of the late ’90s and called Bodi a “quota player”. The hostility was there but Bodi proved his worth when he hit Pietersen for back-to-back boundaries.Under-19 battle of the day
Quinton de Kock and Unmukt Chand will probably know each other from the recent Under-19 World Cup and could become two of the most talked-about players in future. They provided a small glimpse into their battle today. De Kock tried to end a slow run-scoring period for Lions by pulling Umesh Yadav but Chand was waiting at deep midwicket. He did not have to move much to take the catch but lost the ball in the background and it burst through his open palms. Two overs later, de Kock tried to pull again but top-edged and Chand had the last laugh.Drops of the day
With the wind blowing at 50kph, there were bound to be some errors in the field. Daredevils did not fare too badly until consecutive deliveries from Morkel. Birthday boy Yadav put down Neil McKenzie at long-on and then Pietersen dropped him at deep square leg. The latter drew more jeers from what used to be his home crowd. Pietersen was himself dropped later on when Chris Morris could not hold on at long-on.Flop of the day
Virender Sehwag’s tournament was not as dismal as some other openers (Herschelle Gibbs and Sachin Tendulkar come to mind) but he still disappointed on the big day. After a near run-out to get on strike, Sehwag did not justify that action. He holed out to mid-on off the first ball he faced to put Daredevils in trouble early on. Sehwag last scored a hundred in South Africa 11 years ago, in a Test match in 2001 and has never brought up three-figures in a limited-overs game in the country.Promotion of the day
Daredevil’s batting tactics continued to be flexible and they tried something different when they sent Irfan Pathan in at No. 5. With 78 runs required off less than nine overs, Pathan was sent in to bat ahead of Ross Taylor as a pinch-hitter and the move backfired almost immediately. He managed just a single before top-edging an attempted pull off the left arm-spinner, Aaron Phangiso, and was caught at deep backward square.Celebration of the day
Lions haven’t had that much to be cheerful about in recent seasons and this must rank as one of their best, if not their best, moments of the last few years. The Red Thunder, as they have chosen to nickname themselves, stormed the Kingsmead pitch and hugged and high-fived. But the face of their captain, Alviro Petersen, remained unchanged as, in the words of Rudyard Kipling, he met with “Triumph and Disaster and treated those two imposters just the same”.* Oct 26 5.50am The name of the Australia opener has been corrected

From Mahesh, India As Dilip Vengsarkar made way for Srikanth, there was a fair bit of appreciation from the press, and from himself too, of his tenure

Cricinfo25-Feb-2013Mahesh, India
As Dilip Vengsarkar made way for Srikanth, there was a fair bit of appreciation from the press, and from himself too, of his tenure. But is it all true? Today Ponting made fun of the predicament India are in at Mohali where they cant play three fast bowlers on a pacer-friendly wicket because the man ideal for dropping is none other than the team’s captain himself. Pity Vengsarkar didn’t foresee this when he appointed as Captain a man who was in the evening of his career.It should have been obvious to Vengsarkar that sooner or later India would want to play three fast bowlers and in such a situation was Kumble a clear first-choice spinner, given he quit one-day cricket after being dropped for Harbhajan? The problem doesn’t stop here. After Kumble, Vengsarkar’s panel left the current set of selectors with little choice but to appoint Dhoni as captain. (He will have the onerous responsibility of keeping wicket, batting and leading the side in all forms of the game.)In my view many of the good decisions from the selectors were taken only when their hand were forced. For example, the Twenty20 team when the seniors withdrew by themselves. While Vengsarkar and a section of the press may well feel he deserves unstinting praise for a job well done, it’s the current selection committee that is being forced to pay for some of his mistakes.