Category: Cricket

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Farewell D’Oliveira, a man who changed the system

BASIL D’Oliveira died on November 19. I remember him because of the fact that he was a principal actor in what was the first international series of cricket which I followed on the radio. Later, when I was much older, I realised the significance of the role that he had played in exposing apartheid for the evil it is.

The year was 1968 and I was 11 years old. Back then Sri Lanka — which was known as Ceylon — was not yet an international cricket-playing country. That would take another 13 years. But the interest in the game was phenomenal, so much so that the local radio station was able to find a sponsor to cover the charges of broadcasting BBC commentary on the Ashes series that year.

Before the series even began, the South African prime minister John Vorster had told Lord Cobham, a past president of the MCC, at that time the body administering the game in England, that if D’Oliveira was selected for the forthcoming tour of South Africa, the tour would be cancelled.
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In the battle of captains, Dhoni comes out ahead

ON SATURDAY, India won the World Cup cricket tournament, defeating Sri Lanka and becoming the first team to win the competition at home. But the more remarkable aspect of the win was the way it showed how a captain can lead and accept responsibility, even in this day and age when people are loath to do just that.

India was set a target that wasn’t overly intimidating but not easy to get either; batting second and scoring 275 at Bombay’s Wankhede Stadium isn’t a walk in the park. One needs someone to play a long innings, or two or three people to play knocks of about 60 or 70 to get to this kind of target.

India’s captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni had batted at number 6 right through this tournament. He hadn’t made any decent scores, his best effort being in the low 30s. But he had led the team with his usual calm approach and the final saw him display his leadership qualities.

When India faced Pakistan in the semi-finals, Yuvraj Singh, a batsman who had been a model of consistency, fell for a first-ball duck. Perhaps the intensity of the occasion overcame him – there is no bigger game for either country, and this was a World Cup semi-final to boot.

Had Yuvraj been sent in during the final – India was 114 for three at the stage when he would normally have come in – and not performed, India would have been under immense pressure. The load on Dhoni would have been that much greater. There was also the matter of retaining a left-right hand combination to make it difficult for the Sri Lankan spinners to control the flow of runs.

But Dhoni was in woeful form. He had made some team changes – pulling in the non-performing Shanthakumaran Sreesanth, and leaving out the capable off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin – and if he had failed, then it is unlikely that anyone would have allowed him to forget his decisions in a hurry.

Dhoni could have sent in Suresh Raina, a capable if young player, to retain the right hand-left hand combination. Raina showed immense maturity in partnering Yuvraj during the quarter-final against Australia, taking the team from 187 for five, a position when things could have come unstuck if a wicket had fallen, to the 261 needed for victory.

But no, Dhoni came out himself. He looked in terrible nick, but kept making ungainly strokes and taking singles and twos here and there. Gradually, he grew in confidence and his form returned. He is never a pretty batsman to watch, but can hit the ball with great power.

One must bear in mind that the two men who were expected to do great things in the final, veterans Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendular, had both fallen by the time the total reached 31. Gautam Gambhir and Virat Kohli added 83 before the latter fell.

Then Dhoni took over. He and Gambhir took the total to 221 and then Dhoni and Yuvraj took India to victory, with Dhoni hitting a majestic six to seal the win.

One can contrast his actions with those of the Sri Lankan skipper, Kumar Sangakkara, who failed to implement the team’s strategy which has been uniform throughout the tournament – throttle the opposition, and then take wickets when they are trying to increase the scoring rate. Sangakkara left out one of the premier spinners, Ajanta Mendis, based on the logic that India plays spin well. Yet another spinner, Suraj Randiv, was included.

Sangakkara normally bowls his best speedster, Lasith Malinga, in spells of three, three and then four overs. This time, when Malinga was brought back midway through, to obviously try and take a wicket, he was given just the one over. Sangakkara’s other trump card, veteran Muthiah Muralitharan, did not even complete his quota of overs.

And long before the end appeared to be nigh, Sangakkara’s body language told the wrong tale – he looked beaten, his shoulders were hunched, he looked really agitated and in a panic.

I have commented some years ago on the way Dhoni goes about his captaincy; leadership comes naturally to this man who hails from one of the most under-developed regions of the country.

He hasn’t completed a college degree. He doesn’t know the latest buzzwords. He is verbose during TV interviews. He isn’t terribly good-looking. But he shows, time and again, that leadership is a natural trait. You can’t create leaders – they are born, not made.

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Hosts to fight for honours

INDIA went into the World Cup semi-final against Pakistan depending on its batting. Pakistan, on the other hand, was banking on its bowling. On the day, things came out in reverse.

For the first time since 1983, the final of the World Cup cricket tournament will be contested by non-white teams. In 1983, India met the West Indies and registered a famous victory; on April 2, India will take on Sri Lanka, both teams bidding for a second win in the tournament, Sri Lanka having won in 1996.

After getting off to a flying start – Indian opener Virender Sehwag took 21 off the third over of the match, bowled by Umar Gul, a medium-pacer who has been one of the Pakistan’s star performers in the tournament – India did not exactly sparkle. Despite reaching 114 for one off the first 18 overs, India finished with 260.

Gul fared poorly on the day, giving away 69 runs off eight overs, the occasion probably getting to him.

The only Pakistani bowler to give away less than four runs per over was off-spinner Mohammed Hafeez who went for 34 in his 10 overs. Wahab Riaz took the wickets, five of them, but gave away 46 runs in his quota of overs. But India made life difficult for themselves; scoring ws not unduly difficult but no batsman could dominate apart from Sehwag.

India had an anchorman in veteran Sachin Tendulkar who made 85 after being dropped four times. Many of the other batsmen got starts but did not go on. Young Suresh Raina made an unbeaten 36 as the innings fell away, ending with 260.

After a start when the run-rate was around 9 during the first five overs, with Sehwag in a ferocious mood, it was a middling effort at best. Had Pakistan held their catches, India would probably have struggled to reach 200.

When Pakistan began the chase, things seemed to be on track until Asad Shafiq fell for 30 at 103. He was the third man to go and the scoring rate was, at that stage, on par. But after that there was nobody to keep Misbah-ul-Haq company.

Pakistan had no decent anchorman – Misbah made a painful 56 but did not hang around long enough and, more importantly, could not lift his scoring rate. Pakistan’s best batsman, Younis Khan, made only 13. And the two who could have scored faster when the asking rate increased – captain Shahid Afridi and youngest Umar Akmal – fell for 19 and 29 respectively. On the day, a quick 50 or 60 was called for from either of them.

Surprisingly, India’s bowling and fielding was disciplined. Ashish Nehra, coming back into the team to replace young offie Ravichandran Ashwin, was the pick with two for 33 off his quota of 10 overs.
And though Zaheer Khan and Yuvraj Singh went for nearly six an over, each took two wickets.

If India wins the tournament, it will be the first time that a host has won at home. If Sri Lanka triumphs, it will be the country’s second win as host, but neither would have come at home. Sri Lanka defeated Australia in the 1996 final which was held in Lahore; India’s win in 1983 over the West Indies was at Lord’s.

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Surprising loss but no hint of foul play

WHEN Australia played Zimbabwe in the World Cup cricket tournament preliminary rounds, the openers, Shane Watson and Brad Haddin, took an awful amount of time to score their runs.

Haddin, one of the more adventurous openers in one-day cricket, took 66 balls to make 29 while Watson made 79 off 92 balls. Their opening stand of 61 took 18.5 overs.

As a result, soon after the match the International Cricket Conference. world cricket’s governing body, began an investigation to see whether the slow scoring had been done to aid the good work done by bookies in the subcontinent.

Spot betting is big business during tournaments of this kind and the Australian pair is not normally known for anything other than aggression.

The story was broken by an Indian paper, the Indian Express, and made big news all over the cricketing world.

As it turned out, there was smoke, but no fire and everything settled down as well as it can when a cricket tournament is being played in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

As the tournament is still running through its preliminary games, most of which are quite lopsided as they pit established sides against minnows, there was much interest last week when India played South Africa.

The Indian batsmen got off to a good start and at one stage the board read 267 for the loss of one wicket with about 13 overs left. The lower-end estimate by observers was that India would get 350. The more ambitious evaluations were that 400 was within reach.

But 29 runs later, India was all out. Most of the batsmen played really stupid strokes and threw away their wickets. The top three batsmen, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar and Gautam Gambhir scored 73, 111 and 69 respectively.

The remaining 43 runs were scored by other eight men in the team. South Africa, which has a reputation for being a side that chokes when confronted by a task such as it faced that day, held its nerve and chased down the 297 it needed for victory.

Surprisingly, nobody has even raised the possibility that there might have been something more in the game than just careless batting. It smacks of double standards.

Both countries involved have a history of being involved in match-fixing; India’s Mohammed Azharuddin, Ajay Sharma, Ajay jadeja and Manoj Prabhakar had to end their careers after being found guilty.

South Africa’s former captain, the late Hansie Cronje, was found guilty and two other South Africans, Herschelle Gibbs and Nicky Boje, have avoided going to India after Cronje was caught.

The ICC has not raised even an eyebrow at the way the Indian innings collapsed. Such are the mysterious ways of the world’s cricket administrators.

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Sexism reigns in AFL commentary box

FOR all the talk about the number of women involved in Australain rules football, better known as AFL, there are fresh indications that, like many other things in the country, it is run by, and meant for, middle-aged and old white Australian males.

The latest indication of this comes in the dumping of commentator Kelli Underwood by Channel 10, one of the two free-to-air channels which won the right to broadcast the game in the last bidding contest for TV rights.

Underwood was given a two-year trial and has now been relegated to doing the job of boundary rider; an all-male team will call the games for this season and, conceivably, for the foreseeable future.

The decision smacks of sexism. It was made after a local tabloid, the Herald Sun, published the results of an online survey that ranked AFL commentators according to the annoyance factor. That anyone could take an online poll seriously is surprising; further the Sun’s readers cannot be exactly said to be at the high end of the IQ spectrum.

My rating of Underwood comes from nearly 43 years of listening to sport on radio and watching various kinds of sport on TV. Among the many commentators I have listened to are Bob Harvey (Sri Lankan – rugby union), Dicky Rutnagur (Indian – cricket), Alan McGilvray, Jim Maxwell, Glen Mitchell (Australian – cricket), John Arlott, Brian Johnston, Don Mosey, Christopher Martin-Jenkins (all British – cricket), Tony Cozier, Reds Perera, Fazeer Mohammed (West Indies – cricket), Dennis Commetti, Gerard Whatley, Drew Morphett, Mark McClure, Stan Alves, Rex Hunt, Anthony Hudson, Sam Newman (Australia – AFL), and many more whose names do not come to mind immediately.

Underwood is no better and no worse than any male commentator employed by a TV channel or a radio station; in fact, several of the men who commentate on the game are much worse than her. She has the right approach to communicating the state of the game, and never allows herself to go overboard. Instead, in the manner of top commentators like Brian Glanville, she builds up the excitement, never indulging in the kind of yelling and verbal diarrhoea that many of the men do.

Hudson, one of the Channel 10 commentators, should not be allowed anywhere near a commentary box. His delivery is poor, he gets excited all the time and screams, and for him every goal is “unbelievable.” But he has the characteristics which Underwood lacks – he is white, middle-aged and male.

This isn’t the first time that a woman has ventured near the commentary box of a predominantly male sport: in 1983, actress Kate Fitzpatrick joined the cricket commentary team of Channel 9. She did not last long, only until the end of that season. There are other women like Rebecca Wilson (who lasted one episode of the National Rugby League’s footy show) and Caroline Wilson, who appears on Channel 9’s Footy Classified and has done so for some time.

The commentators of today indulge in a lot of hyperbole, in the belief that they have to jazz up the game that they are covering. They use tired, worn phrases all the time and try to outdo each other in the use of superlatives. For the most part these days, I turn off the sound if I watch an AFL game.

Australians are willing to endure Bruce MacAvaney (who when describing young Hawthorn footballer Cyril Rioli gushed “what a delicious young player he is), Hudson (who shoots off at the mouth all the time), and Hunt (who is prone to the occasional racist gibe and whose commentary is mostly understood by an audience of one – himself).

At a time when even a country like Pakistan has put a competent woman in the commentary box – sadly, after the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in 2009, she has not been able to commentate because international cricket matches are not being staged in the country – it seems absurd that a country like Australia, which claims to be oh-so-progressive, cannot do as much.

But then, on reflection, why am I surprised? Graphic evidence of the sexism in the country was provided when elections were held last year. One shouldn’t be surprised that a smaller subset of the population expresses the same sentiment.

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Ashes to Ashes: Australia left in the dust

AT LEAST one Australia could have been happy after the catastrophic defeat in the fifth and final Ashes Test – but even that didn’t happen.

Ricky Ponting, forced to stand down due to an injury, would have been happy that the team had not done better under Michael Clarke than under him – but then any happiness would have been washed away when the chairman of selectors, Andrew Hilditch, refused to say whether Ponting would be captain again when Australia resumes Test cricket in August.

Poor Ponting will have to keep biting his nails and spitting on his hands and rubbing them together for the next seven or eight months.

At the end of a series in which Australia was humiliated, becoming only the second team to lose three Tests by an innings at home, Hilditch said he had done a good job. You’d have to wonder what would have happened had he done a bad job.

Maybe if Australia had lost all five Tests, Hilditch would have been a mite more modest and said that he had done an average job. One never knows with such an unassuming gentleman.

The coach, Tim Nielsen, backed players like Phillip Hughes (who lacks even the semblance of technique and insists ‘but that’s how I play”). Steven Smith (who spent the last morning of the series making cow-shots against England) and Michael Beer Australia’s future looks bright, especially given that Nielsen has had his contract renewed until 2013.

Nielsen still said he had done all he could, but did not specify whether it was all he could to destroy the team or to make them able to win Test matches.

The selectors, who have been clearly unmasked as a bunch of jokers, also said they had done a good job. Australia needs a couple more series like this and it could well end up in a battle for ninth place in the ICC rankings with Bangladesh.

Three innings victories in a Test series down the years:

1928 – England 3 home innings wins in a row v West Indies
1931 – Australia 3 home innings wins in a row v West Indies
1931 – Australia 3 home innings wins in 5 tests v South Africa
1936 – Australia 3 away innings wins in 5 tests v South Africa
1947-8 – Australia 3 home innings wins in 4 tests v India
1957 – England 3 home innings wins in a row v West Indies
1958 – England 3 home innings wins in 5 tests v New Zealand
1959 – England 3 home innings wins in 5 tests v India
1994 – India 3 home innings wins in a row v Sri Lanka
2007 – Sri Lanka 3 home innings wins in a row v Bangladesh
2010-11 – England 3 away innings wins in 5 tests v Australia

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Final Ashes Test: Ponting’s mixed feelings

RICKY Ponting faces five very difficult days ahead. Days when he will be torn between wanting Australia to do well in the final Ashes Test and also fully aware that any improvement will be put down to the stand-in captain Michael Clarke.

And any improvement will also decrease even the smallest chance he has of regaining the captaincy when Australia next plays Test cricket in August. Thus in a perverse way, Ponting will probably be happy if Australia suffers another defeat.

Would Ponting play under someone else as captain? He really wouldn’t have a choice – if the selection panel decides that a new captain must take over, then he will have no choice. And the new captain wouldn’t have much choice to having Ponting in his team if he merits a place on form.

Ponting is anxious about the captaincy and also highly insecure. This is evident from the fact that he wants to be in the dressing room for the fifth Test even though he is not playing. He wants to be around so that he can claim some credit in the event that the team fares better than it did in Melbourne.

Clarke must be feeling as though he has a millstone around his neck. It is highly unusual for a situation like this to develop but both the selectors and Clarke are being diplomatic about it. Nobody wants to make it appear as though Ponting has played his last Test as captain.

But that is what is very likely to happen. Ponting has some years left as a batsman but the team needs some rejuvenation and the long gap between Tests is exactly what is needed to blood new players.

The selectors have to look seriously at trying to regain the country’s ranking in Test cricket – it now stands fourth, thanks the weather in Sri Lanka that caused both Tests in the two-Test series between the West Indies and Sri Lanka to end in draws. Lanka thus slipped back from fourth to fifth and Australia moved up a notch.

It is always a touch tragic to see a good batsman come to a fork in the road as Ponting has. He is desperate to hang on to the captaincy and does not see that his time as captain is up. If he were to step down voluntarily it would be good for him. He could then continue as a player as long as his form warrants.

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From good to bad in the space of a week

AUSTRALIA’S national cricket team seems to swing from bad to good to bad in the space of a few weeks or sometimes even a week. The team was thrashed in the second Test of the ongoing Ashes series, bounced back to win the third by 267 runs, and today, the first day of the fourth Test, was bowled out for 98.

Yes 98, the lowest score at the MCG for an Ashes Test. Australia was bowled out for 83 by India in 1981 at the MCG and has been dismissed for scores below 120 in home Tests four times since 1990.

At the close of play, England is 59 runs ahead with all its wickets intact. A miracle is required for Australia not to lose this Test and with only sporadic showers forecast for one remaining day of the Test, even the weather can be counted out as a saviour.

But why do these dramatic swings of fortune take place? In Perth, Mitchell Johnson bowled very well, aided by a pitch that was helpful to fast bowlers. The scores were not high – the highest innings total was 309 by Australia in its second innings. England made one run more than this in both its innings combined.

Johnson managed to produce quite dramatic late swing which brought him a number of wickets; he took nine in all for the match. Elated by his success, this was put down to changes in his action. Nobody factored in the easterly wind that blows in Perth and tends to make the ball swing. Nobody also thought about the fact that Perth is an open ground, allowing the wind to sweep over it, not a cauldron like the MCG, venue for the fourth Test, where the imposing structure prevents any wind from sweeping through.

Everyone expected Johnson to repeat his heroics. A little less was expected from the other hero of Perth, Ryan Harris, who also took nine wickets, though a number of them came after England had thrown in the towel in its second innings and had resigned itself to defeat.

Neither bowler has been able to do a thing on the MCG track. And when you have only 98 to defend, you need wickets fast to put pressure on the opposition. Skipper Ricky Ponting, who is likely to lose the captaincy if the series is lost, gave Johnson three overs but saw the paceman leak 17 runs. As the England batsmen kept scoring steadily, Ponting fell back on the more economical bowlers.

Whenever Australia is caught on a wicket where the opposition can make the ball move sideways, its batsmen stand exposed. They do not know which ball to leave and which to hit. They dab at balls that can be well left alone; only Mike Hussey seems to know where his stumps are. But today, Hussey also failed; by the law of averages he was due a low score, having scored more than 500 runs in the series to date.

One of Australia’s openers lacks technique (Phillip Hughes) and the other is a makeshift opener (Shane Watson) who would be much more comfortable batting at six. Ponting is no longer the best batsman in the side and therefore should not be at one-drop. But his deputy, Michael Clarke, cannot handle the pressure of the one-drop and hence bats at four.

After the success of Perth, Australia chose to go into the MCG Test with four pacemen, the first time in decades that the country has played without a regular spinner at this ground. It appears that Ponting was ready to insert the opposition if he won the toss and had picked four pacemen for that reason. Given that one only has a 50 percent chance of winning a toss, it looks as though the Australian captain had left his brains at home.

Even if Australia manages to pull the chestnuts out of the fire in this Test and go to the final Sydney Test level at 1-1, it is unlikely to win the series. As the holders of the Ashes, England only needs to draw the series in order to carry that precious little urn back home again. The prospect of rain affecting the game in Sydney is very high, given the existing weather patterns.

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What Australia needs is a new cricket captain

A MOUNTAIN of sorts has been scaled by the England cricket team by defeating Australia by an innings and 71 runs in the second cricket Test in Adelaide. The last time Australia suffered an innings defeat at home was in 1993 when the West Indies were the victors.

The loss has put Australia in a position where it needs to win two of the remaining three Tests and ensure that England does not win any more. Judging by the cricket that has been on display in the first two Tests, this is wishful thinking of a very high order.

England owes more to its inspirational captain Andrew Strauss than anyone cares to document; when nobody notices a captain, it can confidently be said that he or she is playing the role of leader to perfection.

Much praise has been lavished on the batsmen like Alastair Cook, Jonathan Trott and Kevin Pietersen who have scored heavily for England; the bowlers like James Anderson, Steve Finn and Graeme Swann have earned their share of praise too.

But nobody has bothered to remark that when England was up against it, facing a deficit of 221 on the first innings in the first Test, it was the captain, Strauss, who put his head down, scored a century and led the way out of the woods.

Strauss was coming off a third-ball duck in the first innings and was nearly out off the first ball of the second. That makes his achievement all the more creditable.

By the time he was out, for a well-made 110, Strauss had ensured that Australia would have to bat again; the deficit was only 33 when he was dismissed. As a true captain should, he led from the front.

On the final day of the second Test, when Swann was troubling the Australian batsmen the most, with the home team four wickets down and looking like it had a decent chance to save the game, Strauss took the decision to take the new ball.

This, despite the fact that Anderson, one of his new-ball bowlers, had bowled badly in the innings up to that point and his other new-ball bowler Stuart Broad had been ruled out of the game and the series due to a stomach muscle strain.

It was a bold move but his instincts proved him right. Finn got rid of the danger man Mike Hussey, Anderson took two wickets and when the ball was about seven overs old Swann came back into the attack and wrapped up the innings.

His counterpart, Ricky Ponting, has been a woeful failure. His field placings have been bizarre. He has backed the wrong players – Xavier Doherty is no Test-class spinner – and has played only one innings of note, an unbeaten 51. In the second Test, he made 0 and 9, hardly the contribution that a captain should make when the team has its back against a wall.

Yet Australia is looking at everything other than replacing him in order to try and do better in the remaining three Tests. There will be a few changes in the team for the third Test – Doherty will be dropped and Doug Bollinger may be sidelined as well. The same fate may befall Marcus North. Yet Ponting will remain.

Tacking the effects without dealing with the cause is common in today’s world. It is harder to cut down a tree than to remove the branches. Until Ponting is replaced, Australia will continue to plumb the depths of world cricket.

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Bowlers pay the price, batsmen get off scot-free

PREDICTABLY, Australian left-arm paceman Mitchell Johnson has been dropped from the team to take on England in the second Test in Adelaide.

Johnson returned figures of 0-66 and 0-104 in the first Test, was dismissed for a duck when he batted, and also dropped a catch.

When a team fares well below its best, someone has to be made the scapegoat. Ricky Ponting wasn’t exactly the wisest of captains in the first Test but he has escaped scrutiny.

But what of Marcus North? The left-hander has been having a dreadful time with the bat – but nobody is talking about the possibility of bringing in someone to take his place.

Let’s have a look at the two players, going back all the way to the middle of the year. In two Tests against Pakistan (played in England because of the security threat in Pakistan), North made 0, 20, 16 and 0. He got 6/55 in the second innings of the first Test and did not bowl in the other three innings. Johnson returned figures of 1/31, 0/74, 1/71 and 1/41. His best effort with the bat was 30. North was marginally ahead.

Australia then played a two-Test series in India. North made 0, 10, 128 and 3. He bowled in the first Test, getting 1/39 and 0/8. Johnson got 5/64, 0/50, 3/105 and 0/42 and scored 47 in one of the Tests. I would say that Johnson was clearly ahead in this series if one matches the two players’ performances.

Johnson’s performance in the first Ashes Test has been detailed above. North got 1, did not bat in the second innings, and took one wicket in England’s second innings, the only wicket to fall. Hence, that wicket was of no relevance; the only difference would have been that England would have finished with 0-517 instead of 1-517 and the England openers, Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook, would have become the holders of the record for the first wicket partnership in Tests, displacing Nick McKenzie and Graeme Smith of South Africa who hold the current record of 415, set against Bangladesh in 2008.

Remember one thing: North is primarily playing as a batsman and Johnson, despite having made runs on occasion, is considered the main strike bowler.

Has Johnson fulfilled his primary role? No. Should he be dropped? Well, yes, one can make a case for that. But then the same logic should apply to North. He has done as much as Johnson over the last five Tests, in fact, less.

The argument used to justify North’s inclusion is that there are not many options to fill his spot. Rubbish, there are plenty of batsmen – David Hussey and George Bailey, to name just two – who can fill the role of a number six. Hussey is 33 and Bailey is 28 – but remember, Australia once played a 38-year-old, Bob Holland, to try and defeat the West Indies in 1984-85. And who can forget Colin “Funky” Miller who made his debut for the country at the ripe age of 34?

Age is not a problem. Neither is the lack of batsmen. No, the problem is that cricket has been and will always be a batsmen’s game. The bowlers always bear the brunt when punishment is doled out.