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With the Mumbai atrocities still fresh in the mind, the incredible chase, and Tendulkar’s fourth-innings century made everybody smile – and not just Indians

17-Dec-2008

Finally Tendulkar slays his fourth-innings demon © AFP
“My dream has come true. I have won a Test for India with Tendulkar.”
Yuvraj Singh has played 222 ODIs, scored 10 centuries, won 17 Man-of-the-Match awards, but came of age in this Test“I’ve scored a hundred in the second innings, but to actually win a match, play the winning shot, that was something I wanted to do. This makes it really, really special.”
Times”Make no mistake, this will be a bitter pill to swallow.”
“At this stage, when the whole country was demoralised after what happened in Mumbai, India needed something symbolic to lift their spirits, and this wonderful victory will make everybody feel a little better, although the wounds of Mumbai won’t heal completely.”
Sunil Gavaskar, another Mumbaikar, on what the victory means to India“Ravi Shastri interviewed Tendulkar and Yuvraj after the match was over, and Shastri said Tendulkar’s hair was standing when he said he did this for Mumbai … Cricket has been a terrific healer – ask the 35,000 people who were in the ground today.”
David Lloyd is wide-eyed with wonder“Yuvraj played his perfect part, but the day, the match and the country demanded it belong to Tendulkar. It could not have been scripted more perfectly: a boundary to win the match and complete a century. It had to have been preordained. Had to be.”
Some things are just meant to be, Mike Selvey says“This Test was a great advertisement for Test cricket. It is probably the best possible time that we could have had a Test like this. As you can see, a Test win is somehow more memorable than a Twenty20 or one-day international win.”
“The humdinger of a match […] embodied the essence of cricket, maybe of all sport.”
Independent

After 79 ICL players decided to withdraw, it has become obvious that the league, in its original avatar, is no more

Ajay S Shankar02-Jun-2009It is a question that has been snapping at their heels ever since the momentous launch in Mumbai two years ago. And now, it’s a question they can no longer run away from. Will the ICL survive? Tony Greig, the face and voice of the private venture, says the battle is not over; Himanshu Mody, the brain behind it, says the league will emerge stronger. But after 79 of its Indian cricketers decided over the last month that they don’t want to be tagged as rebels any longer, it has become obvious that the Indian Cricket League, in its original avatar, is no more.Of course, cricket might still spring back to life under the ICL banner, possibly this October. But that would, at best, be a diluted version of what was once hailed as a revolution in world cricket. For now though, it looks like it will be a long haul back, if at all.What are the options?
ICL officials say that the current exodus of players is part of a larger plan where they will first trim the losses – running costs, including a wage bill that runs into millions of rupees – and then start with a clean slate. They say that they still have around 40-odd players on the rolls and can recruit new talent whenever they need to. In the meantime, they are hoping that the economic recession will let up, and that they will also succeed in getting the courts in London to force the ICC into granting the ICL recognition, citing restrictive-trade-practice clauses, as it happened in the famous Kerry Packer-versus-the-establishment tussle in the 1970s. Such an outcome, they claim, will lead to two things: sponsors will be back with money, and the players will only be happy to sign up for the official version.But for now this is just a scenario. The reality is that the official IPL, and the BCCI’s sponsors, are mopping up whatever money is left in the market; and the players are now wary of signing up for a league that will shut them out of all official cricket, thanks to the BCCI’s all-pervading ban. In fact, in the middle of the last ICL season, a senior player revealed the trauma and frustration he was going through, after even his local college refused to let him use net facilities. As for the players who are still with the ICL, only a handful are Indian; the rest are foreign players, most of whom, as Greig admitted, have retired from international cricket and so are driven by a “different motivation”.What went wrong?
The ICL claimed that their mission was to promote domestic Indian talent, and they did succeed to an extent, at least in shining the spotlight on talented players like like R Sathish, G Vignesh and Alfred Absolem, who may have slipped under the radar otherwise. But overall, the league’s cricket was inconsistent, and the foreign players failed to sparkle – Brian Lara, their biggest signing, failed to even turn up after a season. They were unable to sustain the initial buzz, having struggled with sparse crowds in the first season, and found comfort later only in Ahmedabad, a cricket-crazy city that was kept out of the IPL loop. Besides, the league, which was launched with a projected three-year budget of Rs 100 crore (US$ 21 million approximately), struggled to evolve a profit-making model.Then again, within months of the ICL’s launch, the IPL swept through cricket, with the full backing of the powerful BCCI and their sponsors, drowning whatever hopes the ICL may have had of carving a niche for itself in the business of Twenty20 cricket. More than anything else, it was the vindictive attitude of the BCCI that finally broke the ICL’s back. Players were banned, and the dues they were officially entitled to from the BCCI were kept on hold; sponsors were aggressively persuaded to stay away; and the ICC network was used to ensure that other national boards shut their doors on their ICL players. Not only did the Indian board ignore worldwide protests against their aggressive and monopolistic crackdown, they also pushed the ICC’s board to refuse recognition to the ICL, leaving the world body vulnerable to a legal challenge.The BCCI even led David Morgan, the ICC president, to believe that the issue could be sorted out amicably but ended up having two “compromise meetings” with the ICL that yielded nothing. The BCCI’s offer? Shut down the ICL and take up an IPL franchise instead, or similar variations, including a suggestion that the ICL operate as a veterans’ league. The ICL, not surprisingly, rejected these offers.Walking back into their state Ranji teams may not be so easy for many•ESPNcricinfo LtdWhat does this mean for the players?
Some of the ex-ICL players that Cricinfo spoke to were confident that they would be selected to play for their states again. This could be true for established players like Bengal’s Deep Dasgupta and Abhishek Jhunjhunwala, Hyderabad’s Ambati Rayudu and Uttar Pradesh’s Shalabh Srivastava. But it may not be such an easy road for others. Some state officials are still seething at the way these players walked out on them two years ago – the Hyderabad Ranji team was almost wiped out. Return tickets, obviously, will be at a premium. Besides, as one state association official asked: what will they do with the players who stepped up to fill the breach two years ago?Then there’s the IPL. The BCCI initially said that those who returned from the ICL would be eligible to play domestic cricket immediately (the IPL is a domestic event), but seems to have developed second thoughts since. They have clarified that the norms for IPL eligibility will be revealed later, and suggested that they may apply a year’s cooling-off period on these players before they are let into the official league. But according to some ICL players who have returned, the event that they are really hoping to be a part of is the BCCI’s soon-to-be-launched inter-corporate tournament, to be conducted in 50-over and Twenty20 formats – the winners will take home Rs 1 crore (US$ 213,000 approximately), and the runners-up half that amount.The word on the street
Naturally, the ICL’s willingness to release their players without much fuss, and the BCCI’s open welcome, have led to intense speculation in Indian cricket circles. An ICL official privately suggested that these moves are part of a compromise that could see Zee TV, ICL’s parent company, get a share of the official broadcasting pie when the BCCI’s TV rights come up for renewal next year. Zee TV is currently blacklisted by the Indian board, and one of the reasons why Subhash Chandra, the owner of Zee, started the ICL was that he was denied the opportunity to broadcast India matches in 2004, which led to a long-drawn legal battle with the BCCI. Incidentally, Chandra also shares a good personal rapport with Sharad Pawar, the former BCCI president, who still has the final say in Indian cricket matters.The buzz doing the rounds among ICL players, meanwhile, is that they will be part of an IPL auction now, with a cap of US$ 50,000 per player. But, of course, all these suggestions have been dismissed as “wild speculation” by BCCI officials who claim that the ICL is simply crumbling under its own financial burden.

England had the chance to grasp the series on the second day at Newlands, but they loosened their grip

Andrew McGlashan in Cape Town04-Jan-2010England had the chance to grasp the series on the second day at Newlands. It was nearly theirs for the taking, but nearly isn’t close enough. Andrew Strauss wanted his side to show ruthlessness with South Africa down in the series, but they couldn’t manage to keep their foot on the home side’s throat. It hasn’t been terminal to their hopes, but it has been frustrating.When they blew away South Africa’s four remaining wickets in 17 balls, the stage appeared set for them to dominate the day and take a stranglehold on the series. The cloud and drizzle of the opening day had dispersed to leave the clearest of Cape Town skies and everything said it was batting time. However, it didn’t work out that way, and the balance of this match could not have been finer at the end.Of all the performances that nearly came off it will be Ian Bell’s that will provoke much of the debate. He had ducked and dived; played and missed; driven and cut for nearly three hours after coming to the crease with England tottering on 73 for 4. It was the moment for Bell to silence his doubters once and for all. If he’d followed his elegant Durban hundred with another here then claims of ‘doing it easy’ would have been thrown out the window.Then it ended when he couldn’t resist having a dip at his 121st delivery. The ball was asking to be put away, a wide long hop from Jacques Kallis, but instead of whistling to the cover boundary it ended up in JP Duminy’s hands at point. Bell knew what he had done as he stood in the crease and looked skywards before hauling himself off.Cook’s 65 was England’s best of a frustrating day•Getty ImagesBut it wasn’t a day to single out Bell. He wasn’t the only one to succumb to South Africa’s suffocating grip. Jonathan Trott had settled in nicely for 20 before chopping Dale Steyn into his stumps and Paul Collingwood was trapped playing across the line. The two batsmen who fell early, Strauss and Kevin Pietersen, erred in their shot selection as well. Getting out is no shame, but you don’t want to offer the opposition a helping hand.The application certainly wasn’t lacking. England battled hard against the most disciplined South African bowling of the series, but it was that increased pressure that led to a few shots that will leave a bitter taste. Six batsmen reached 19, but so far Alastair Cook’s 65 is the highest score of the innings, and that effort ended with a weak pull to midwicket straight after tea.”It’s frustrating, when you do all the hard work. But it’s one of my shots, and I obviously didn’t execute it very well today,” Cook said. “A lack of pace is what has probably done for me. It’s very disappointing, but you’ll take 60-odd rather than less.”However, if one of the starts had been converted into three figures England, if not in full control, would have put South Africa on the back foot. “Obviously, we’re slightly disappointed with the nature of a couple of the dismissals,” Cook said. “But I think you’ve got to give credit to the way South Africa bowled. They didn’t bowl many bad balls at all, kept us under constant pressure and when you’re not scoring, it sometimes builds.”What the day has achieved, though, is to move the game forward. The draw is now almost out of the equation and the third innings will become vital. A straight shoot-out could suit England, who will be able to prey on the pressure South Africa face to keep the series alive. It’s win or bust for the hosts.Any lead England can muster will be precious and with Matt Prior at the crease that is still possible. He scored as freely as anyone managed all day – which wasn’t very at all – as he moved to 52 off 96 balls. Once again, the long batting order is proving immensely valuable. “Lower-order runs really helped us in the summer against Australia,” Cook said. “It helps any team if you can do that.”England, though, will have to do it the hard way. The third day is forecast to hit 100 degrees in the Cape which will be a draining experience for England’s four-man attack. If they are able to keep the visitors in with a chance of winning this Test, and with it the series, the batsmen should be the ones buying all the post-match drinks.

It’s the lack of technology that should be the crux of any further debate, not the gaining back of a lost review

Andrew McGlashan in Johannesburg16-Jan-2010The dark clouds that have surrounded the Wanderers each afternoon of this Test are not the only storms brewing in Johannesburg but, unlike the thunder showers, the latest controversy over the review system won’t disappear in a matter of minutes. England have created more than a few rumbles after escalating their anger at Graeme Smith’s reprieve on the second day by asking the ICC to reinstate the lost review.While England’s frustrations at seeing Smith survive and score a hundred are understandable, trying to gain compensation makes them out to be desperate. It would set an impossible precedent if the ICC were to grant England an extra review, especially with so much time having elapsed since the incident. Umpiring errors have never been corrected in retrospect and this, for all the controversy involved, is just another of those. What has irked England the most, however, is a belief that pre-series agreements haven’t been adhered to.The ICC, unsurprisingly, have defended Daryl Harper’s role in the whole affair, but if he really did just forget to turn up the volume on his TV set then there is no defence. But the ECB knew it couldn’t go in all guns blazing against Harper – outright criticism of an umpire just isn’t cricket – so it has had to find another route to make its displeasure clear.The ECB needs to be careful how they handle this whole affair because technology in decision-making isn’t going away. They don’t want to be alienated and besides, it isn’t as though England haven’t benefited in this series. Without a review, Paul Collingwood would have fallen to the first ball in the second innings in Cape Town, and England would have lost the Test – and maybe even the series.Yet, there is a strong feeling they would quite happily do away with the whole system, having been the one board opposed to its implementation in the first place. “Until the technology is applied correctly we are better off with our oldest method,” said Giles Clarke, the ECB chairman. “If the umpire is as deaf as a post and as blind as a bat at least it’s the same for both sides.”Such is the ECB’s anger that Clarke may try and convince the two touring teams that England face in the summer – Bangladesh and Pakistan – to shelve the review system. India, even though they voted in favour of it, set a precedent when they didn’t use reviews for the recent Test series against Sri Lanka.Amid all the rancour, however, it is worth remembering that even if Harper had heard a noise there is no guarantee he would have reversed Smith’s decision. Without Hotspot and the Snickometer, edges are very difficult to rule on – although the noise on the Smith replay was loud and at the precise moment that ball passed bat.It’s the lack of technology that should be the crux of any further debate, not the gaining back of a lost review. That has been and gone. The only way the system could be tweaked in the future would be to adapt it such that, if a bowling side asks for a review and the replays show a no-ball was missed, therefore rendering the review null and void, they won’t lose one off their quota. That is something that can happen in the instant of an appeal, not a day later.

In truth, a situation like this has been on the cards. The ECB has never been a fan of the review system, mainly because it doesn’t like the players being in control of questioning the umpires’ decision.

In truth, a situation like this has been on the cards. The ECB has never been a fan of the review system, mainly because it doesn’t like the players being in control of questioning the umpires’ decision. Speaking at the Wanderers, Clarke was at pains to say how he felt it impacted the basic fabric of the game – that the umpire’s decision is final – and expressed his concerns about the effects at lower-levels in club and children’s cricket with players replicating what they saw at international level.Yet there has always been questioning of umpiring decisions, and one impact of the UDRS has actually been a reduction in the levels of dissent. If anything, the system is improving player behaviour which was one of the aims the ICC was hoping to achieve. However, Clarke has already made his displeasure of this “blasted system” known at “the highest levels” of the ICC, and the matter will be on the agenda for the next meeting in February. But having lost out 9-1 in the original vote, there is little hope of him being able to changing many minds.And rightly so, because the system has shown it can work. It’s a point worth emphasising because, in light of all the recent events, that simple fact appears to have been forgotten. But what the last 48 hours has reiterated is there can’t be a half-way house where the use of technology is concerned, and that is where the ICC must take a leading role. Clarke confirmed that Hotspot will be used during the English season, but it remains unclear how many aids will be available for England’s next Test series against Bangladesh in March. This issue won’t be dying away any time soon. The ECB will make sure of that.

Two cricket stadiums in South Africa have been opened up for football fans, and hardly a soul cares about Graeme Smith and Co over in the West Indies

Firdose Moonda27-Jun-2010Three weeks ago, the Wanderers Stadium, usually left to rest at this time of year, was being invaded. The queue to get in at 3pm on a Tuesday snaked at least 100 metres up Corlett Drive, and an hour and a half later more than 33,000 people were crammed into the Bullring – which this time was not a ring, as it had semi-circular sections marked off on either end to form a rectangle. The hallowed ground that is the square was a blur and instead of 11 players in white sedately strolling about, two blustering storms of men in yellow and red marched onto the pitch.One of those men only stepped onto the field after an hour of play. The noise that greeted him was louder than the cheers that reverberated around Johannesburg when Makhaya Ntini stole that sneaky single during the 438 game four years ago. That man was Cristiano Ronaldo, and his Portuguese team beat Mozambique 3-0 in a friendly match that was played at the home of South African cricket on the 8th of June. The Wanderers probably made more money and saw more people pass through its gates on that day than it does in an entire season of domestic cricket.”You can’t even begin to compare the amount of support that football receives to what cricket gets,” said Dave Emslie, chief executive officer of Eastern Province Cricket. “We have to be realistic about the amount of people we can get to a cricket game versus the people interested in attending the football World Cup.”Since cricket authorities in the country know they will struggle to attract the numbers football does, they’ve jumped on the soccer bandwagon and found a way to get involved in the World Cup. Both St George’s Park in Port Elizabeth and SuperSport Park in Centurion are official FIFA Fan Fests, which means they open their doors to football fans who want to watch the matches on a big screen in a communal environment.It also means they are being used outside of their usual season, and that they will have two months instead of four to recover in time for the Champions League Twenty20, which starts on the 10th of September. It’s still ample time, but with a bitter winter cold seeing the grass turn dry and brown in Centurion and rain make a mud bath out of St George’s, there has been some concern over the two venues.Neither of their CEOs shares the anxiety. Emslie acknowledged that the rain has not been kind to his stadium but said he believes they have “gone through the worst of it”. He also said the weather may have had an impact on crowd flow, with St George’s no longer experiencing “massive crowds”, especially now that South Africa are out of the World Cup. By contrast, Elise Lombard, CEO of the Titans said the crowds have been flooding Centurion. “For the South Africa games, we had 30,000 people for the opening, 23,000 for the second match, and about 15,000 for the third game.”Centurion is on the Highveld, where winter is harsher on grass, and Lombard said they are being careful to ensure that there is no damage. “The square is covered and while the grass has a lot of feet trampling it, it is actually lying dormant. It has gone brown but it usually looks like this anyway because of the frost that covers the grass in winter. We will make sure it is clarified, fed and nurtured after the football World Cup, which will keep us on track to be ready for the Champions League. We would never have offered our stadium as a Fan Fest without the consultation of our curator, who assured us that we would be able to manage.”Lombard said SuperSport Park is hoping to build its own profile after it was selected as an official Fan Fest. “FIFA was to decide between us and the Union Building [the main administrative offices of the South African government, which has large gardens] and we passed all the tests. We have the infrastructure to cope with large crowds on a daily basis, which the Union Building may not have had. I think being at a stadium is more than just about the game you are watching but about the experience as a whole. SuperSport Park wants to make sure that from the time people park their cars when they come in, to the time they leave, the amenities are up to standard and able to cope with any size crowd.

CSA staff learnt the Diski dance, the soccer sequence that puts together moves like heading and chesting a ball culminating in scoring a goal, and Graeme Smith has even showed off his moves for a television advert

“The passion of the supporters has been so tangible, particularly when South Africa are playing.” So does she feel a little envious that cricket doesn’t often yield the same results and generate the same level of income for the stadium from the public? “Depending on which tour we get given, cricket doesn’t always pay for itself. I don’t think cricket is doing anything wrong, but football are rugby are the two dominant sports in the country.”That said, the cricket team are probably pleased that they are not playing a series at home, like their rugby counterparts, as they may have fallen even further under the radar than they are now. The Springboks have played three Test matches in South Africa, one against France and two against Italy, since the football World Cup started, and while there were plenty of spectators at the games, the matches’ profile outside of that was wanting. Similarly the Proteas are on the verge of whitewashing the West Indies, and harsh as it may seem, few sports-loving South Africans know or even care.Cricket South Africa has been active in reminding fans that the team has chalked up many achievements on their current tour, such as Mark Boucher becoming the first wicketkeeper to 500 dismissals. The board has also been mindful of the public’s distraction with football and have been one of the forerunners in showing their support for Bafana Bafana. CSA staff learnt the Diski dance, the soccer sequence that puts together moves like heading and chesting a ball culminating in scoring a goal, and Graeme Smith has even showed off his moves for a television advert.It’s a pity that Smith and his men have spent most of the football World Cup in the Caribbean, because they seem genuinely interested in the tournament. They’ve offered their support, and empathy, to Bafana Bafana, and made time to watch the team’s matches. Smith posted pictures of his team gathering around a big screen at their hotel to watch South Africa play France. AB de Villiers tweeted after the match, which saw South Africa exit the tournament despite beating France: “Great fighting spirit Bafana!!! Awesome effort. Proud of you guys!!!” The Proteas are set to return on the third of July, in time to catch the two semi-finals and the final.

Australia’s bowling line-up for the World Cup could get a wicket with every ball, but they could also go for plenty

Brydon Coverdale14-Feb-2011Shaun Tait, Brett Lee, Mitchell Johnson, Doug Bollinger, Jason Krejza. Rarely has the word “attack” been more appropriate for a one-day bowling group. Australia have gambled on a wicket-taking line-up as they search for their fourth consecutive World Cup, but it’s a strategy fraught with risk. As the former-fast-bowler-turned-commentator Damien Fleming said, “We could be bowling teams out for 50 or chasing 500”.To some extent, Australia have been steered down this path because of injuries to other bowlers. The economical Clint McKay and Ryan Harris would both have been hard to leave out but for foot and ankle problems respectively. Krejza came from outside the 30-man preliminary squad because Nathan Hauritz (shoulder), Xavier Doherty (back), and Steve O’Keefe (calf) were laid up.But whatever the cause, it has left doubts as to whether their attack can also defend. When they triumphed in the Caribbean in 2007, Tait sizzled and lived up to his “Wild Thing” nickname, but he had the metronomic Glenn McGrath and Nathan Bracken to keep things tight at the other end. A serious knee problem has ended Bracken’s career, and he believes Shane Watson is now the man for his old job.”As we saw through the summer, if Brett Lee gets it right and gets early wickets, he can bowl very tightly,” Bracken told ESPNcricinfo. “But they’re probably going to look at someone like Shane Watson to play that sort of role. He’s going to be the one who’s going to have to shut down an end and put the pressure on that way. When the squad was first picked they had Nathan Hauritz for that sort of role.”That means enormous responsibility for Watson, who will also open the batting. John Hastings will do a similar job with the ball if he makes the starting XI, and Ricky Ponting will look to David Hussey’s part-time offspin for some economical overs. But as for the fast men, as lethal as Johnson and Tait can be, control is not their forte, so Lee and Bollinger must avoid leaking runs.It’s an unfamiliar responsibility for Lee, who in a past life provided the super-quick yet unpredictable option that Tait now offers. At 34, this must surely be the swansong for Lee, who has spent much of the past two years injured but was desperate to play in this tournament, having missed the 2007 World Cup due to a dodgy ankle. Eleven wickets at 24 against England was a good comeback and although his economy rate was over five, Ponting was impressed.”Brett’s been able to turn himself into bit more of a defensive-minded bowler with his changes of pace and a bit more nous,” Ponting said when the team landed in India. “He’s a different bowler than he was three or four years ago. Shaun Tait, I just want to let him go, let him run in and bowl fast and take wickets. He’s probably not his absolute best yet but he’ll work his way up there.”The Tait factor is difficult to quantify. If any bowler at this tournament is to break 160kph, it will be Tait, but he has never played an international match on the subcontinent, and on the slower pitches he might not be at his most dangerous. He no longer plays first-class cricket, and even sending down his maximum allotment in a 50-over game is sometimes too much.He will be used in spells of two or three overs, but along with the stumps that he will shatter, expect plenty of wides and balls flying to the boundary. And while he’s catching his breath at fine leg, the wides could remain a problem if Johnson is bowling. Johnson’s inconsistency makes him a hard man for a captain to use, but the expectation to swing the ball won’t be as great in Asia, and his one-day record in India of 28 wickets at 23.60 is excellent.”He and Bracken have probably been the most dominant one-day bowlers, even ahead of McGrath and Warne, over there,” Fleming said. “The expectation seems to be that you’re not going to swing the ball much over there, so you just run in and bowl fast, hit the deck hard. He uses his slower ball more over there, which is a beauty, and if he continues that record over there, he could have a real dominant series.”Part of Australia’s challenge is working out what constitutes their best attack. Bollinger played all but one of the recent ODIs against England and along with Watson could be a more economical option, but he might be the man to miss out from the pace line-up if Johnson, Tait and Lee all play. That also depends on how Australia treat the spin role.Steven Smith and Hussey could combine for 10 overs but a frontline tweaker is always a good idea on the subcontinent. That means playing Jason Krejza, who in his previous incarnation as an international bowler was seen as an aggressive offspinner who could take wickets but couldn’t contain. It’s a problem he has been working on and Fleming, who commentates on domestic cricket for Fox Sports, has seen a vast improvement.Jason Krejza is Australia’s wow spinner•Getty Images”We’ve been watching him a lot and his economy rate has come down significantly, even in the Big Bash,” Fleming said. “He bowled a couple of half-trackers the other night in Perth, but the Krejza we’ve seen, the criticism was that he leaked too many runs and he’s certainly answered that at domestic level.”The big test is against the subcontinent players, but he got 12 wickets in a Test there. He’s the offspinner in Australia who, when he bowls his good delivery, you go ‘Wow!’ It flights, it drifts in and it turns a mile. With Hauritz and Doherty and Aaron Heal and those types, their variations are more subtle and they don’t have that wow factor.”Wow factor is a common theme in this bowling group, and it could make for some fearsome performances.”If everyone is right and everyone fires, you could see wickets tumbling left, right and centre,” Bracken said. “Then all of a sudden the next time, if they don’t, then the opposition could get away very quickly.”And if that happens, can wow become whoa? Reining in a runaway opponent like Virender Sehwag or AB de Villiers will be an enormous challenge, but Australia’s World Cup hopes could depend on it.

Yuvraj Singh has had to be strong to get past a difficult 2010; to get past a stomach bug that hampered him during his hundred in Chennai; to carry a failing middle order. It’s time for the rest of the team to hang tough too

Sharda Ugra at the MA Chidambaram Stadium20-Mar-2011Yuvraj Singh spent the best part of the last year climbing out of a trough. He was dropped from the Test and one-day teams, was struggling with fitness and injury, and found his career crash landing. Had he been younger, Yuvraj once said, he may even have considered giving up the game. Within the course of this last month, he is fast approaching what could become his finest hour as a one-day cricketer. Strangely, that does not even depend on how far the Indian team goes in the World Cup because if India looks around their dressing room to identify its most improved cricketer in 2011, it would have to be him.If the team were to pick their totem for the kind of cricketer they need as their sport’s biggest event goes into its most oxygen-depleting stage, it would also have to be Yuvraj again.Other than the opening game, every match won by India at this World Cup has featured their heavy-hitting, loose-limbed, floating middle-order man as Man of the Match. Ireland and Holland may not be the strongest of opposition, but without Yuvraj, India would have floundered, both with runs and wickets.Against West Indies, in the gorgeously renovated Chepauk, India needed an emphatic performance in their last group game, and their 80-run win was led by Yuvraj’s first one-day century since July 2009. The century did not contain Yuvraj’s signature big shots crashing around the ground like waves on the nearby Marina. It was a slow, long, quiet haul, the hundred buttressed by two dropped catches (at 9 and 13), 45 humble singles, stomach cramps, retching and the dehydrating demands of an intestinal bug.In the latter half of his innings, Yuvraj began to squat on his haunches; the hardships focussed his mind to a point where he found a way to push on. Two sixes in 123 balls is docile by his standards, but he clung onto the big picture: bat till the end.It meant keeping the ball on the ground and making the most of having come in at No. 4. “I wanted to get to the 100 mark because this was the opportunity, batting at no. 4,” he said afterwards. He began his media conference by sinking an entire bottle of Gatorade down his throat, and then making wisecracks. At No. 5, Yuvraj said, he never faced enough deliveries to hit his way to three-figures. “I just wanted to bat till the end today … I just wanted to get to the 100 mark, because it’s been a while.”Yuvraj must look around the dressing room and realise that, in this World Cup, it has been an alarming while since India’s middle order has showed up as a collective unit that can build from his singular performances in the tournament. With Sachin Tendulkar walking off early and Virender Sehwag sitting out the West Indies match due to a nagging knee injury, this was the best stage for the next clutch of batsmen – Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina and the captain MS Dhoni himself – to treat this particular game as a stage on which to make a statement, rather than merely show off their skill.The batting order suited everyone in the line-up; the team didn’t have to choose between Raina and Yusuf Pathan in the XI, Gambhir could open, and Kohli could bat at No. 3 and have 49 overs in which to “express” himself. Kohli’s two-hour innings, in which he scored 59 off 76 balls, was promising. He built a 122-run partnership in which he gave Yuvraj large swathes of the strike. Yet Kohli’s departure, caused by a missed attempt at a cross-batted shot against the probing and incisive Ravi Rampaul, with 18 overs left to play and his older partner visibly struggling, was a moment that makes coaches want to bang their heads in bathrooms.Ever since they battered Bangladesh’s bowling attack in Mirpur, India seems to have picked the 40th over as the moment their line-up must go down in spectacular flames. In Mirpur, they added 94 in their last 10 overs for the loss of two wickets. After returning home though, they have gone in the opposite direction. In Bangalore against England, India scored 91 runs for the loss of seven wickets from the 40th to the innings close; against South Africa, they managed 28 for 8, and against West Indies, on Sunday, they got 56 for 7.In the previous three matches, it was believed India had taken the batting Powerplay too early; they took it from the 35th to the 39th over against Bangladesh, from 37 to 41 against England, and 39 to 43 against South Africa. Against West Indies, they left it for the very end, and still it trapped them, as they failed to bat out their full quota of overs. Little appeared to have changed since the weeks post Mirpur, yet one thing did: for the first time since the first match of the World Cup, India won big.Their flailing middle order must now realise they have run out of all room for what the tennis folk call unforced errors. Yuvraj was replying to a question about crowd support, but produced what could be a handy dressing room speech to his middle-order partners going into the knockout phase. “You are playing the World Cup quarter-finals for your country. This is the moment of your life. This is the moment you live for as a cricketer.”During his annus horribilius, he said he had hung onto an idea: that tough people outlast tough times. Well, at least now the batting around Yuvraj knows what they need to do to push this team through the World Cup. Be like him. Keep hanging tougher.

Of the 23 wickets to fall on the second day, four of them were given out with the assistance of DRS. Nine decisions were reviewed in total, six that were initially called not-out

Firdose Moonda at Newlands10-Nov-2011Some Test matches produce such compelling contests, are filled with intrigue or are simply so unusual that they need to be named. Test No. 2016 played at Newlands, the first in Cape Town in November in 90 years, is one of them. It will be called the Technology Test.Of the 23 wickets to fall on the second day, four of them were given out with the assistance of DRS. Nine decisions were reviewed in total, six that were initially called not-out. Cricket has not seen this many wickets fall on a day’s play in over a hundred years, and that number would have plummeted today had it not been for the presence of technology.The day’s play was remarkable for many reasons. For three hours and 45 minutes between between the morning and evening session, the Cape Town’s cricket field appeared to have been transformed into Johannesburg’s high-speed Gautrain. Wickets whizzed by at the rate of one every 11 and a quarter minutes. Every ball was at risk of being appealed and referred, no batsman was safe and anyone who could bowl would have backed themselves to try and add to the carnage.Then, technology had it say, turning deliveries that would have previously been judged as close but no cigar, into wicket-takers and showing why moving cricket into the modern age can only be a positive thing.It started when Hashim Amla was struck on the pad by Shane Watson and on first glance, the not out decision did not appear to be obviously questionable. The replays were comprehensive in showing that the naked eye can sometimes err in the worst way possible, and that Amla was not only struck in line but the ball would have gone on to hit middle and leg. The hackneyed expression about technology eliminating the obvious errors has found a way into this piece, largely because of that.It was the next two referrals that may become the DRS’ best case studies of why the system works and should be used. Neither Jacques Kallis nor AB de Villiers would have been given out had technology, and Hot Spot in particular, not been available.Watson was convinced that Kallis had got bat on ball when his attempt at a pull went wrong. At first glance, it looked as though the ball brushed his shoulder, which it did, and nothing else. Hot Spot knew better and the white mark showed a massive edge. It symbolises a major development for the equipment, which has now progressed to picking up when the ball has made contact with the bat, even when the bat is in rapid motion.”Our main problem, over the last year or so, has been the blur, particularly when the player swings quickly,” Warren Brennan, managing director of BBG Sports, the company who pioneered Hot Spot, told ESPNCricinfo. “On the dead bat shots, I don’t think we’ve missed many of those. That [Kallis decision] surprised me. It still was quite blurry but he obviously smacked the cover off the ball so there was a big Hot Spot. But on the ones where they swing quite hard and get a very small tickle are hard to pick up for us. We’ve been trying to improve that.” The Hot Spot camera was the only one at the ground that picked up Kallis’ edge, rubberstamping its worth in the game.de Villiers may not even have faced a review, had Australia not been in such a dominant position at that stage. The appeal for lbw seemed optimistic and it looked like South Africa’s No. 5 had inside-edged onto his pad. Hot Spot immediately dismissed all notion of that, leading to a decision an umpire would likely had been criticised for making if there was no evidence to back it up. “It was quite clear that it hit the pad before it hit the bat,” Brennan said.Mark Boucher, later, had questioned the height of the ball that would give Watson his fifth wicket after being hit above the roll on the back pad. That time it was ball-tracking and Hawk-Eye that showed that the ball was destined for the top of the stumps and so endorsed the on-field call. Brennan said that decisions like that show that, “if you are not going to technology [fully], don’t use all of it.” “Hot Spot with the ball-tracking covers most of it,” he said.The absence of ball-tracking had bothered Brennan, who covered the four Test series between England and India earlier this year, with only Hot Spot. The series resulted in a renewal of the BCCI’s suspicions about the DRS system as a whole and ICC U-turning on their decision for it to be a mandatory part of all Test and one-day series. It was a testing time for Brennan and his team, who felt Thursday’s play in Cape Town was vindication for their work. “In the UK, in the middle of the year, we probably had a couple of bad days where we missed a couple,” he said. Over the last three months, we have tried to do a lot of things to try and improve it like changing different settings on the cameras. There’s a lot of pressure on us to get everything right.”Now, there is also pressure on the players to know when and how to use the technology. Shane Watson could have avoided being the first Australia wicket to fall in their second innings had he reviewed his lbw decision against Dale Steyn – replays showed the ball was going over the stumps. Ricky Ponting asked for his to go to the third umpire, which turned out to be a waste of an Australia review. Vernon Philander called for a review when he thought he had trapped Shaun Marsh lbw, only to be turned down.With players from both sides appearing stunned at the sheer volume of events that took place on the second day of what will become a truncated Test, the one positive thing they agreed on was that the use of technology benefitted the game. “For the big inside edge or the big caught behind with Hot Spot, its working well,” Michael Clarke said. Jacques Rudolph, who had a catch he had taken checked by the third umpire, agreed. “I like it [DRS], because I think if you can bring technology into the game and maybe help the umpires a bit that’s a good thing.”

Boxing Day at the MCG is one of cricket’s grand traditions. For some it’s about being at the cricket, for some the Long Room, for some drinking themselves silly, for others a time with family

Greg Baum09-Aug-2011Matthew Engel argues that the most enduringly successful Test matches are those fixed in a time and place. In a period of chaotic upheaval in world cricket – call it the Big Bash Bang – that dependability becomes more important than ever to the classical game’s viability. In Melbourne, the tradition of the Boxing Day Test, though not old, has the stature and gravitas of a feast day.Like any day of religious observance it has its own rites, texts and traditions – even vestments. The obligations, celebrations and repasts of Christmas Day have finished at last. The new day dawns, with its new temper. Each interprets it in his or her own way. The order of service is flexible. There is ceremony, but it is not much stood upon.It begins invariably with the morning procession. For some that means a suit – probably pinching at the stomach – a breakfast, a guest speaker and a reprise of old lies, no less cherished for their yearly retelling, by the heroes of Boxing Days past. Boxing Day is a celebration of cricket, but also of cricketers.For some it means the Long Room. In the old MCG it was a place of patrician portraits, leathery chairs, musky scents, loud, even raucous chatter, obscured views, and from early in the day, the sickly smell of spilled beer and sticky carpet. In the new MCG it is the same, but roomier.In the old Long Room it was said that the first day of the Boxing Day Test was for being at the cricket, the other days for watching it. In the new Long Room, the same applies.

For some the cricket is the same every year, and that is why they are here. For some it is subtly and infinitely different every time, and that is why they are here. Because it is a Test match, there will be no result at the end of the day, but rather a position and a set of possibilities to contemplate. Hopefully the prospect will be delicious

For some, Boxing Day is a boisterous bar, a group of mates, and in the corners a couple of television screens, dumbly updating the day’s play. In the old MCG the bars were called Mezzanine and Bullring. In the new MCG the lines are cleaner and the names more august – Percy Beames, Frank Grey Smith – but the atmosphere is as ripe as ever.One long-ago Boxing Day, Australian coach Bob Simpson, in team tracksuit, chanced a look into one of those bars while on an errand, and spotted the then-uncapped Shane Warne, pie in one hand, beer in the other, whiling away the day with his friend Dean Waugh, the younger brother of Steve and Mark. Simpson’s stare could not have been more reproving, but history would not be denied. The next week in Sydney, Warne made his debut. The next Boxing Day Test, he was the star.For some, Boxing Day is a morning at the pub, then the outer. Once, it was distinctly different from the members’: more exposed to the elements, more heathen. There were no seats but long wooden benches; both they and the people on them tended to peel in the sun. There were fewer police, no closed-circuit television and the so-called ”limit” was 24 full-strength cans per person.There were famous days and infamous. In 1986, denizens rained bananas down on England medium-pacer Gladstone Small, accompanied by monkey noises. Shameful to report, no authority intervened. This day still, some come to drink themselves into a stupor, to strip almost to the point of indecency, to flirt with eviction, to taunt others as they are evicted, to generate Mexican waves, to make long chains out of plastic beer cups – in short, not simply to have fun but to inflict it. It is as well the beer now is strictly light.Mostly, though, these are mellower times. The outer on Boxing Day is crowded, certainly, but not as on grand final day. Folk come in parties, knots of mates or families, still together from Christmas Day. Some stay all day, some to lunch, some until the sun has done its damnedest.Former British prime minister Tony Blair in the MCG Long Room•Lucas Dawson/Getty ImagesTypically, one has a book. She does not know or particularly like cricket, but loves the cheerful and convivial, and yes, even humorous, atmosphere. For her this is a place of repose and meditation. For her the Boxing Day at the cricket is a hardy annual, cricket its most incidental and least important aspect.For some, an indeterminate number, Boxing Day is about the cricket. It is not about that day especially, but that day as the first of five or thereabouts. There is the toss, and the moment of pregnant suspense just before the first ball is bowled. Dependably, it is short of length outside the off stump, and the batsman lets it go, and then scuffs his guard again, and the fieldsmen squawk like the seagulls still grazing on the outfield, and off we go again.For some the cricket is the same every year, and that is why they are here. For some it is subtly and infinitely different every time, and that is why they are here. Because it is a Test match, there will be no result at the end of the day, but rather a position and a set of possibilities to contemplate. Hopefully the prospect will be delicious. Sometimes, like last year, it will be bleak and interminable. Whatever it is, fewer than half will be back; other duties and pleasures call.In that sense, Boxing Day is like Melbourne’s other secular feast days, Melbourne Cup day and AFL grand final day; it is for the once-a-year fan, the partygoer, the enthusiast of convenience, the spectator who comes not to see but to be seen. But the same can be said of the churches on Christmas Day, too. The one certainty is that they will come for their anointing.The scale of Boxing Day mostly is independent of Australia’s fortunes. In the good times the crowd will be huge, in the dog days still very big. For 15 years it has acted as a stage upon which indomitable Australia and its fans – who also supposed themselves indomitable – could exchange end-of-year salutes, their majesties reciprocating felicitations. Now soberer times have arrived. All that can be said with confidence this year is that the Boxing Day Test still is on. Fortunately it will be enough.

ESPNcricinfo presents Plays of the Day for the match between Australia and India in Sydney

Sidharth Monga at the SCG26-Feb-2012The break
Before the start of the 10th over of the Australia innings, the game stopped for about five minutes. Upon closer observation, the wicketkeeper was missing. Music played, drinks arrived, players joked around until Dhoni came back. By all evidence, he went to answer nature’s call. When a man’s got to go, a man’s got to go.The misfield
Had Suresh Raina not let one through at cover, who knows how much India would have had to work to get Michael Hussey out? There shouldn’t have been a run, but Hussey saw it go past Raina and charged off. David Warner called him for a second, saw Irfan Pathan was a little too quick in the outfield, and sent Hussey back. India had a run-out.The collision
This was nasty. These often put players out for weeks. In the 21st over, Warner swept Ravindra Jadeja, got a top edge, and Raina and Irfan converged towards the chance. Raina ran back from the infield, Irfan came in from the boundary. Raina was closer to it, Irfan was the man running in. So who should call for it?Neither man did in this case. Raina completed the catch, and then the two ran into each other. Raina’s hands hit Irfan’s face, but he did well to not lose the ball on impact. He grabbed it as it was about to fall. The two lay flat after the catch, though. The whole team rushed to check on them, and when the two got up, they patted each other’s back for the effort.The run-out
It was a day of potentially controversial runs and consultation with the rulebook. After the David Hussey incident, another potential incident happened with Tendulkar. Gautam Gambhir bunted one down to point, and Tendulkar set off for the single straightaway, only to find Brett Lee, the bowler, in his way, near the striker’s end, with his back to the non-striker’s end. According to the law, it is the batsman’s responsibility to run around the bowler; not the bowler’s to make way. The only way a batsman can get away with such a run-out is if the fielding side withdraws the appeal. Australia were in no mood to. The supporters of mankading can stretch the point and raise the question why the umpires didn’t ask the fielding side to reconsider this appeal.Edited by Abhishek Purohit