The annual outing to a century-old cricket contest in Colombo

Jonathan Francis14-Mar-2014Choice of game
While the sun blazed on a typical March Thursday, shouts of T-H-O-R-A, blaring trumpets and the crack of leather on willow greeted me at the Sinhalese Sports Club. Here, in Colombo, the month of March marks the second-longest uninterrupted cricketing series in the world, between Royal College, Colombo and S Thomas’ College, Mount Lavinia. Popularly known as the “Battle of the Blues”, this is the 135th year of the contest.Key performer
With Royal reeling at 59 runs for the loss of eight wickets, in walked 18-year-old Harith Samarasinghe to join Thiran Danapala. What transpired within the next hour and even before my friend could return after collecting his change from a beer counter was astounding. The duo added a record ninth-wicket partnership for 96 runs with Royal recovering to 158 all out.But the mayhem had begun earlier in the day when Thomian party starter, the left-armed pacer Abdul Carder steamrolled the Royal top order while also shifting Thomians from work desks to the SSC.Filling the gaps
During lunch, friends chatted, sales of beer and Chinese rolls increased. The security guard made a quick buck. People went for walks on the grounds. The popsicle salesman did good business. My friend assumed it was the end of the day’s play, while another tried to corrects him – it’s tea break, he said. All this, while I sat enjoying the afternoon breeze and bit into my chicken nugget.Wow moment
Watching two ten-year-olds from the two schools switch flags summed up a rare feature seen at the Royal-Thomian for over a century and a quarter. How the two competing powers have synergised to create an experience can be encouraging to a nation in reconciliation.Shot of the day
Thomian batsman Rashmika Optha opened his Royal-Thomian account with three conservative fours, including a straight drive that passed the bowler. It was a rare treat despite 13 wickets falling on day one.The madness
The feverish excitement, a week before the match, had now transformed into an epidemic. Masses of blue gold and blue black marched to and from the venue. The long lines of pavement hawkers, selling everything from flags to masks added a festive air. There were girls in shorts, guys with straw hats, most of them loud, some drunk.Overall
With two more days to go, I couldn’t have asked for more. At the end of it all despite whatever the scoreboard may suggest the words of former Royal College principal Mr Bogoda Premaratne will stay with me: “There is no Royal without Thomas and no Thomas without Royal”. Esto perpetua

Plays of the day from the match between Chennai Super Kings and Sunrisers Hyderabad in Ranchi

George Binoy22-May-2014The boundary glut
The Chennai Super Kings openers did not run much; their first six scoring shots were boundaries. Dwayne Smith began the flurry, carving over cover, driving straight and square driving behind point to take three fours off Bhuvneshwar Kumar. Faf du Plessis matched him in the second over – from Dale Steyn – by flicking, driving and chipping over midwicket for boundaries. Twelve runs had come off each of the first two overs and the batsmen had barely broken a sweat.The mix-up and the run out
In the third over, du Plessis pushed the ball to mid-on, and Smith hared down the pitch for a single. Du Plessis had taken a couple of steps forward before he said no; Smith turned but was so far out of his crease that he gave up in the hope that Shikhar Dhawan would miss the stumps. He was reprieved. In the next over, Smith smashed the ball back at the bowler Karn Sharma, who dived to his left and grazed the ball with his hand before it uprooted a stump at the non-striker’s end. Du Plessis had backed up too far and there was no reprieve for him.The welcome
In his second game, Parvez Rasool experienced how harsh the IPL could be for a rookie. Bowling the final over of the Powerplay, he watched Smith dispatch his first three balls for six – two straight and one over midwicket. The shots were characterised by great balance and minimal flourish. Despite conceding 21 in his first over, though, Rasool bounced back to finish with 4-0-35-0.The mistake
Boundary riders have taken some stupendous catches in this IPL but the opportunity Aaron Finch had to catch MS Dhoni at long-on required no extreme heroics. Dhoni had pulled Bhuvneshwar flat and hard, timing it well but without the height to comfortably clear the fielder. Finch back-pedalled and positioned himself on the edge of the boundary to take the catch but the ball bounced off his palms and over the boundary. Sunrisers paid dearly for Finch’s error.The slaughter
Dhoni and AB de Villiers once shared the record for hitting the most runs in an over off Steyn – 23. Not anymore. Dhoni was scoring at less than a run a ball at the start of the 20th over but he finished with a strike rate of 139. Steyn disappeared for two sixes, two fours and a brace of twos as Dhoni converted a competitive total into a formidable one by plundering 24 runs in the over.

Plays of the Day from Zimbabwe’s victory against Netherlands in Sylhet

Abhishek Purohit in Sylhet19-Mar-2014The second false endingBrendan Taylor gave Logan van Beek the treatment in the 17th over•ICCThere is a point towards the end of the Zimbabwe national anthem where the music tapers off and it appears to have run its course. Before the start of Zimbabwe’s first match against Ireland, the crowd started clapping and cheering at what they thought was the end, only to be cut short as the anthem picked up rhythm again. They were lulled into making the same mistake this afternoon as well, their roar terminated prematurely as the anthem rebounded after the dip.The brain fade IWith his side two down early and in need of rebuilding, Michael Swart pushed one close to the pitch and trotted out. The bowler, Tendai Chatara was on the ball in an instant. Swart did manage to stop and turn back slowly, but he was in an awkward position. He neither had enough momentum to dive in, nor was he close enough to stretch himself and plonk his bat in. He could only watch in disappointment as Chatara hit the stumps.The brain fade IINetherlands captain Peter Borren had made no secret of his frustration with his batsmen’s successive, collective meltdowns in the warm-ups. What Borren did today was no less infuriating. With Netherlands in desperate need of sense at 35 for 3, he stepped out to Prosper Utseya, reached nowhere near the pitch of the ball but still went after it and only found mid-on. He walked away muttering, clearly frustrated again.The failed promotionBrendan Taylor had said after the Ireland defeat that there was a case for moving the aggressive Elton Chigumbura up the order to give him more deliveries to bat. Accordingly, Chigumbura walked in at No 4 in the 14th over, but lasted two balls. He defended his first delivery and slapped the second, a full and wide one, straight to extra cover.The blowsThe asking rate had reached ten by the end of the 16th over. Zimbabwe had wickets in hand, but they also needed someone to start hitting. Brendan Taylor stepped up. He first made room and powerfully lifted Logan van Beek over extra cover for four. Next ball was a slower bouncer outside off with third man up. Taylor waited, got on his toes and forced it past the fielder for four more.The takeBorren wasn’t going down before giving Zimbabwe a flutter or two. In the 19th over, Taylor tried to loft Timm van der Gugten over extra cover. He would have thought he had cleared Borren in the circle, but the Netherlands captain jumped, stretched his right hand over his head and pulled off a blinder of a catch.

Pakistan staged two impressive comebacks in the match to trounce Australia, reviving an old act of creating a win from a difficult situation

Abhishek Purohit23-Mar-20141:19

Umar Akmal rates his 94 as the best knock of his career

Like the World Twenty20 2012, Pakistan came up against Australia on Sunday right after a meek display against India. Once again, they played like the Pakistan side fans expect, showing that it was the pressure of an India game that brought out all the diffidence two nights ago. The intensity was not close to the levels of the Premadasa in October 2012, but the similarities were there.That evening, Pakistan had to win, and win big, to make the semi-finals ahead of India. This evening, a loss would not have knocked them out of the tournament, but would have still left them teetering on the brink. Both times, Pakistan batted first. In 2012, they made 149 and defended it with such ferocity Australia were out of it long before their chase meandered to a feeble end. In 2014, Umar Akmal sent them rocketing to 191. Then Australia lost two wickets in the first over. This is where the similarities would end.Umar Akmal dragged Pakistan from the abyss they were threatening to sink into after the defeat against India•Getty ImagesPakistan are usually all over the chasing side after such a batting effort and a successful start with the ball. Until Glenn Maxwell happened. He swept six after six, each blow hacking away at Pakistan’s spirit. Not even Saeed Ajmal and his doosra were spared. Bilawal Bhatti went for 30 in one over. The asking rate had come down to 7.5. When anything and everything your bowlers come up with is swatted for six, it is an understatement to say that it is demoralising. And Pakistan did what probably any side would have done in the face of such an assault, for a while at least. They were rattled. They dropped catches.Akmal had already brought them back once in the match, after a rather weak start. Are two comebacks possible in a T20 match? Maybe they are, when Pakistan are making the comebacks. The asking rate for Australia was still extremely manageable, around eight, when Maxwell finally hit one that failed to clear Ahmed Shehzad in the deep.Suddenly, it was as if the elusive combination of a safe had been cracked. Suddenly, bowlers who had cost so many runs until now found suffocating lines and lengths. Suddenly, fielders who had been fumbling and putting down straightforward chances seemed to spring up wherever the ball went and pounced on it. A gigantic wall had sprung up out of thin air to block Australia’s smooth progress. All Australia’s batsmen were managing against it were scores of 4, 2, 8, 0, 3 and 3.When you come from a generation that grew up watching Pakistan conjure wins out of sheer will, you expect that to happen even now. Everything has changed – times, personnel, the game itself. That expectation, though, refuses to go away. And although the frequency may have dipped, Pakistan are still capable of conjuring such victories, as they showed tonight.Amid such vintage Pakistani thrill at the end, what Akmal achieved at the start should not be overlooked. He caught Pakistan by the scruff and dragged them out of the abyss they had fallen into against the Indians, and one they threatened to slip further down into at 25 for 2. Akmal had all the intent and aggression that had gone absent against India.It is tempting to the see the patterns for Pakistan in this match – from Akmal’s dominance with the bat to Babar’s controlled opening with the ball to the commanding closing by the team. There is the small matter of Maxwell’s massive scare in the middle. To the faithful, Pakistan were always going to find a way around him. To those who aren’t, Australia gave it away under pressure. Either way, there is no denying the swiftness, the finality and the thrill of that wall Pakistan constructed.

A stats review at the end of the fifth ODI between England and India at Headingley

Bishen Jeswant05-Sep-20145 England had lost five consecutive ODIs heading into Leeds. Since 1994, England have had six losing sequences of six or more in ODIs, the longest of those being the 11 straight games that they lost in 2001. The last time this happened was in 2009, when England lost six consecutive ODIs to Australia.63 ODIs in which Alastair Cook has captained England, an English record. The previous record of 62 ODIs as captain was held by Andrew Strauss.2 ODI centuries scored by Joe Root, the most by an English batsman by the age of 23. David Gower and Eoin Morgan also scored as many tons. The record for the most centuries by the age of 23 is held by Virat Kohli, who had 13 tons, followed by Sachin Tendulkar, who had 11.0 Batsmen who scored at least 200 runs in this series, the first time it has happened in a bilateral series of four or more matches between India and England. At least one batsman had collected 200 runs in the previous nine bilateral series between the two teams.11 Hundreds scored by English batsmen while batting at No. 4 in ODIs, the fewest for a top-eight team. South Africa are second from bottom in this list – their No.4 batsmen have collectively made 20 hundreds. India and Pakistan lead the way with 29 hundreds.87 Runs scored by Ravindra Jadeja today, the second highest ODI score in England by a player at No. 7 or below. Mohammad Kaif scored 87 as well while batting at No. 7, during the NatWest series final at Lord’s in 2002. Jos Buttler’s 121 in a losing cause against Sri Lanka earlier this summer is the highest ODI score by a player batting in these one of these positions in England.7 James Anderson has dismissed Virat Kohli seven times in international cricket in the last two years. The only batsmen who have been dismissed more often by a bowler in this period are Mohammad Hafeez and Misbah-ul-Haq. Dale Steyn dismissed Hafeez ten times, while Rangana Herath removed Misbah on eight occasions.3 Wicketkeepers run out on 49 in ODIs. The list includes two England players, Geraint Jones, who currently plays for Papua New Guinea, and now Buttler. Andy Flower was also run out on 49, against Pakistan at Sharjah in 1993.55 Runs scored by England in the batting Powerplay, their highest score since 2011. The best Powerplay score of this series was by India – 62 in the second ODI in Cardiff.

The allrounder splits opinion; awash with IPL cash and with three first-class triple hundreds. He is an in-your-face-cricketer trying to establish a Test career and took Lord’s by the scruff of the neck

Sidharth Monga at Lord's20-Jul-2014He wears gloves with fluorescent lines to Lord’s. He could play in a singlet and denim shorts at Wimbledon. He looks like a bundle of nerves at the crease. The bat taps down three times, the leading sleeve is rolled up like Kevin Pietersen’s, he shrugs his leading shoulder as the bowler starts to run in, then he squats in his stance, the top half of the body almost leaning out of the rest of the frame, the back lift high as if he were a Lara. You can smell fidgetiness.Within the first 10-15 minutes at the wicket, he has played awkwardly in front of his body, he has charged at quick bowlers, he has looked hopeless playing straight balls across the line, he has called for ridiculous singles, he has charged down against spin and played a worse shot than his predecessor did and perished doing, he looks like he does not belong yet when you look at the scoreboard he is 23 off 20.These are not any 23 off 20. These are 23 off 20 in a tense Test on a pitch that has done a bit throughout the Test. These are 23 off 20 from a time when India are effectively 179 for 6, in the middle of what looks like a collapse, and with new ball around the corner.You can see why he is so annoying to the opposition. A man who clearly has no business batting at Test level, but the ticker he has in abundance. Shane Warne on commentary talks about how he loves adversity. The Indian fans in the crowd go with a chant that has become a bit of a cult: “Ooooo Raavi Jadeja, ooooo Raavi Jadeja.” A chant so catchy, the man himself has amended his Twitter handle to reflect it.Get out of the way, Ravindrasinh Anirudhsinh Jadeja is taking over Lord’s.England, in response, are going helter skelter. They do not like disorder; you cannot get on a bus here without an Oyster card and simply pay in cash. Jadeja with the bat in hand is anything but order. He is India’s Jaad In The Box. This is incredibly high-risk strategy. He can easily nick off, get hurt, run out, get caught at mid-on, or even trip over so awkwardly in his charging at the fast bowlers.This strategy is not for everyone, but for Jadeja it is life as usual. Back home, at his farmhouse in Jamnagar, he resides with his Doberman Rocky and four horses. He rides them without a saddle, forget knee caps or a helmet. Flashy cars, look-at-me sunglasses, RJ or Ravi inscribed on most of his belongings, he is a bit of a king, a warrior king, befitting the name Jadeja. He does not like the pedigree Arabian horses you get in England. He does not like James Anderson either. Anderson does not like him. They could both be banned for the next Test.

Back home, at his farmhouse in Jamnagar, he resides with his Doberman Rocky and four horses. He rides them without a saddle, forget knee caps or a helmet. Flashy cars, look-at-me sunglasses, RJ or Ravi inscribed on most of his belongings, he is a bit of a king, a warrior king, befitting the name Jadeja

So when Anderson comes out to bat on day three, the chant goes up in the stands. MS Dhoni yields to the demands and brings Jadeja on. Anderson reverse-sweeps first ball, a shot that has brought him runs at Trent Bridge. This pitch is different, though. The ball bounces a little extra, and Anderson is caught at first slip.A day later, the new ball is taken, Jadeja is batting like Jadeja does, and England call upon Anderson, who removes the amazingly disciplined M Vijay just short of a century. There has been no effect on Jadeja, though. The second ball he faces from Anderson he dances down and swings, gets a big inside edge that goes in the air, and just out of the reach of square leg. Anderson responds with a short ball, but this time Jadeja is in the crease and defends.In the next over, bowled by Stuart Broad, Jadeja moves a touch across, plays across the line, is nearly lbw and nearly caught off the leading edge to the same ball, but that still does not pull him back. He gets a shortish ball, into the hips, around middle and leg, but because he is moving across, he can tuck it fine for four.If they bowl short, he pulls in front of square, with no pretence of elegance and so hard as if the ball is an object to be hated. In the next over he charges at Anderson again, without warning or rhyme nor, and somehow – not off the middle of the bat – drives him through cover for four. Two balls later an inside edge saves him from being plumb lbw.TwitterAnderson is in his ear, he is mock-clapping Jadeja from mid-off as Broad runs in to bowl from the Nursery End. He then lofts Broad back over his head, his first correct and elegant shot. And follows it with a pull. The pièce de résistance comes when he punches Anderson off the back foot, through point, for a get-out-of-my-face four. He is already 40 off 29. The lead is now 236. India already have a fighting total, and England are demoralised.The field has spread, singles are available, and Jadeja strolls his way to his Test best and his first fifty. Upon reaching there he gets into a sword dance, his bat brandishing like a naked sword. He is the king, the warrior king, Lord’s his subjects, watching in awe, standing up to applaud. Those who laughed at him once laugh with him now.Jadeja has not always been the king. He is as working class as it gets when he bowls. Bowling ball after ball on the same spot hoping for some natural variation with no pretence of being the spinner today’s Jim Laker would conjure when dreaming of paradise. If MS Dhoni asks him to switch to round the wicket, he switches round; if the captain wants over, he goes over. In the field he chases after every ball in a manner you would not associate with royalty. In the nets he painstakingly bats for longer than any other batsman. One extra throwdown, one extra hit, anything to do to become valuable to the team.If the batsman represents the flashy royalty he has now become, Jadeja the bowler and the fielder are the real Jadeja. He was not always this rich. He used to go to cricket, away from home, with only Rs 10 in his pocket. Forget exotic pets and feeding them and providing a playground, the young Jadeja did not know where his next meal would come from.Jadeja gets out for 68, his job as royalty is done. Twenty minutes later, the working-class hero is back on the field. As early as the seventh over of the innings, his captain calls upon him. The first ball slides in, hits Sam Robson on the pad, and appeals. The bat is awfully close to the pad, the batsman seems to have been hit outside the line of off, but Kumar Dharmasena raises his finger after long internal deliberation. Replays show the ball has hit the pad fractionally before hitting the bat, Hawk Eye says a smidgeon of the ball is inside the line when it makes contact with pad, and that Dharmasena is right.This is Jadeja’s day. Just give in. Resistance is futile. Go into the stands, or out in the streets, and sing, “Ooooo Raavi Jadeja.”

Stats highlights from the fourth day of the first Test between Pakistan and New Zealand, in Abu Dhabi

Bishen Jeswant12-Nov-201415 Number of years since a Pakistan opener made 90-plus scores in both innings of a Test. Pakistan have had five such instances in all. Mohammad Hafeez scored 96 in the first innings and 101 in the second. The last man to do it before this was Wajahatullah Wasti, who had scored twin hundreds against Sri Lanka in Lahore in 1999.5 Number of back-to-back Test innings where Pakistan have declared, their longest such streak. The longest sequence is six consecutive declarations, by England in 2009. Pakistan declared both innings of this Test, and the last three innings of the preceding Test series against Australia.69 The opening standing between Hafeez and Azhar Ali, Pakistan’s fifth 50-plus opening stand in 2014. The only team with more such stands is West Indies, with six.188 The most overs that New Zealand have batted in the fourth innings of a Test match. They need to play out 144 overs to save this Test, unless, of course, they pull off a win before that.15 Number of innings between New Zealand’s last 50-plus opening stand and the 57-run opening partnership during New Zealand’s second innings. This was new Zealand’s first 50-plus opening stand in 2014.175 The score at which Pakistan declared their second innings. This is the sixth lowest score at which Pakistan have declared a Test innings, and their lowest against New Zealand.43.3 BJ Watling’s batting average in Tests. This the fifth highest for a wicketkeeper who has played at least ten or more Test matches, with those higher than him on the list being Andy Flower, Adam Gilchrist, Les Ames and AB de Villiers. Watling scored 42 in New Zealand’s first innings, but a duck in the second.1 Number of previous instances in the last 22 years of New Zealand’s Nos. 6 & 7 making ducks. Watling and James Neesham made ducks during New Zealand’s second innings.

Twelve years on from masterminding the introduction of professional Twenty20 that revolutionised cricket, Stuart Robertson says that full grounds are essential in any successful format

Interview by Freddie Wilde13-Jan-2015Ten years on from leaving the ECB, are you happy with the direction in which English T20 has gone?I’m happier now but I wasn’t happy for a while. I think the game got greedy. So we had a format. I think I am right in saying the first season of the competition lasted 11 days. It was a real short, sharp festival in the middle of the summer, which grouped all the best players together and all of that. Now the smaller grounds, who had huge gate receipts, thought ‘We want more of this’ and they could almost fill the ground all the time with 3000, 4000 seats. But the bigger grounds, even a really good cricket ground – a crowd of 15,000 at Lord’s, the ground is half empty. And as we got greedier and the game got greedier, we were asking the same customer to come two or three times in a wage packet … and it’s too many.Tomorrow in our T20 debate

George Dobell: How to make things work

Mark Butcher: Change or die

Jarrod Kimber: A night at the Big Bash

I think what we’ve seen is over the years, every year bar one, the total number of people watching T20 cricket has increased but the average attendance has been falling for a while because there’s been more and more of it. So yes, you’ve got more people coming, but the average attendance has been going down. And one of the beauties of sport and what makes people go to sport as a social occasion is feeling and looking popular and then it creates its own atmosphere and it becomes self-perpetuating. The minute you start losing the atmosphere at a live sporting event people become more fickle and they look for something else to perhaps spend their leisure pound on. So I wasn’t happy for a while, the game got greedy, they overegged it, they were playing too much of it and it was losing some of that fizz.I think there were two alternatives. One was to drastically cut the number of matches and concentrate it into a small period. Or, if they were going to play as much as they’ve been playing, then spread it out over the season and that’s what we’re now doing. So the last couple of seasons we have developed this schedule which is predominantly Friday nights and it is spread out a bit further and I think that’s a decent compromise and I’m really looking forward to seeing how that beds in. I think we can do something quite exciting with that.Ten English inventions that saved cricket

1701: Seed drill (Jethro Tull): Tull, an Oxfordshire farmer, invented a seed drill pulled by a horse and the best cricket outfields began to benefit.
1823: Waterproofs (Charles Macintosh): Macintosh, an amateur chemist, invented the material that has been the salvation of cricket crowds; particularly invaluable in the English climate
1827: Lawnmower (Edwin Beard Budding): What could be more English than a neatly-striped cricket outfield. Buddings invention meant lawns were no longer the preserve of the rich and cricket misfields became less common.
1837: Electric Telegraph (Charles Wheatstone/William Cooke): Cricket reports were still being filed to England via telegraph from India in the 1970s.
1863: Steamroller (William Clark): France might say they have a prior claim, but William Clark’s design was the first to be sold commercially after tests in Hyde Park. Improved pitches, although not always as much as might hope.
1880s: Cricket bat (Charles Richardson): The current design of a cane handle spliced into a willow blade through a tapered splice was invented by Richardson, a pupil of Brunel and chief engineer of the Severn railway tunnel.
1892: Thermos Flask (Sir James Drewer): Dewer, a professor of chemistry at Cambridge University, invented it for his experiments on cooling gases. Little did he know it would sustain county cricket watchers through rain and shine.
1925: Television (John Logie Baird): Baird shares this claim with several, but he was the first to transmit moving pictures, only for rival versions to prove superior, no doubt imaging the Rights Deals for cricket that would one day ensue.
1989: Worldwide web (Tim Berners Lee): Where would you be without Cricinfo?
2003: Professional Twenty20 (Stuart Robertson): It had been around in amateur leagues for years but Robertson’s ambitions were the start of a revolution.

And the idea of franchises? Basically cutting the number of teams in half – is that something that ever appealed to you?It absolutely did and there are lots of merits to doing that. If we did it properly, if we fully invested in it, if we had the best players in the world coming over to play, a la IPL and Big Bash, yeah I think that would be fantastic. I think the game could grow generally and there would be more cash to share out amongst everybody. Politically, though, with the way the game in the UK is set up, I can’t see it happening … there would be too many eggs broken. It’s 18 firsts-class counties and a franchise system would pretty much take out half of them and for all the sensible side of doing it I think the heart side of it, the emotional side of it and the political side of it would make it difficult.Initially T20 was seen as something to “save” county cricket but now tournaments in India and Australia generate their boards huge amounts of money, without the international market and reliance on the subcontinent. The purpose of T20 is shifting and perhaps the ECB should be considering a standalone TV deal for the domestic competition?Yes, I think there is now sufficient value in the format to think about it as a separate element. Whether it is a TV deal, which is the biggest part of where the money is, or the centralised sponsorships that the ECB do, the advertising packages – because there is a big audience and it appeals to a big demographic. One thing that I am still frustrated a bit with is that we as a game are yet to really attract a fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sponsor into that space. There is KFC in Australia, Pepsi in India – we’ve got banks and services still. No disrespect to NatWest, they’ve put in huge amounts of money into the game over the years, they’re a good supporter of the game, as are most financial services and businesses that have been involved. But you’re thinking this should be on the breakfast table, on the supermarket shelf, as a partner to drive attendances and increase the popularity of this whole thing. A franchise system might be a better way … but are we maximising the commercial opportunities that T20 has given us? I don’t think we are.The original survey was targeted it at the demographics that weren’t interested in cricket. But a couple of years ago the ECB did another survey, which has produced the current format, and it was generally put to existing cricket fans. In 2002, you were looking for new demographics and it feels like they are running away from that idea. Is it not the point of T20 to attract new fans to the sport?Stuart Robertson was the driving force behind the creation of the Twenty20 Cup•Getty ImagesOf course it is. The ECB do laud that last piece of research as the biggest piece of customer research that the game has ever done – it usurped the one we did for T20. But you’re absolutely right, it was predominantly about people who were already involved in the game and they were asking some pretty technical questions in there as well, about start days of Championship cricket, all sorts of really thorough questions.What should drive the schedule? What is the most popular form of the game? If it is T20, after internationals, that should drive the schedule and fixtures. Which it is doing in part now – if you speak to Alan Fordham, head of first-class cricket operations at the ECB, the internationals go in the first part of the schedule and the next thing that goes in are the T20s. We need to think about what does the consumer want? What does the cricketer want? And we have to think of them because we have to make sure the playing programme means the quality of the on-field entertainment is as high as it can be. We don’t want to be burning players out but sometimes things were being scheduled because it was difficult for players, when actually, the players are the entertainers and it should be positioned to meet the expectations and requirements of the customer. They should come first in all that we think about.In the eyes of serial pessimists, 20 years down the line international cricket has receded away, the Ashes are played as a relic and T20 dominates, with players hopping from league to league. How do you see the future unfolding?I think there’s a danger of that. But what I usually say to that question is that market forces will determine it. We are a business at the end of the day, we have income and we have expenditure and we rely on people spending their money on cricket, whether that’s people subscribing to TV or paying for tickets, ultimately the customer will decided.I don’t want to see Test cricket disappear, I think it is a fantastic format of the game but I think it needs a bit more context. The contextual element of it seems to be missing. It becomes a bit of a treadmill. I really liked the idea of the World Test Championship and I was sad to see that dropped because I thought that would’ve helped give each series and each match context, if every game was working towards something where the top two teams play off for the World Championship of Test cricket, then fantastic. The flip side of that is, if the game is going to grow globally, is Test cricket the format by which the game will grow in Affiliate and Associate nations? No it is not. T20 is the format that will happen in, so you talk to Afghanistan and around the world … these smaller nations, these emerging nations, a format like T20 is perfect for them to cut their teeth in international cricket. So to protect the game and grow the game globally, I think that T20 should and will continue to dominate in that emerging context.I would love to see Test cricket always as the pinnacle of the game but I think it needs context to do that. But if Test cricket withered and died without T20 beneath it, and the game withered and died then that is disaster and carnage. But if Test cricket withered and died but another format stepped in behind it and kept the game flourishing, with 22 people involved, with a bat and a ball and some stumps – well, it might look a bit different and feel a bit different but if it keeps the game going for another 100, 150 years, then what’s wrong with that?

England’s late change of line-up, batting order and new-ball bowling undermined their recent preparations and seemed to affect the players on the pitch

George Dobell at the MCG14-Feb-20155:03

Insights: England’s death-bowling woes

In the end it was less a contest and more of an execution. On the ground where, not so long ago, England retained the Ashes, they sunk to one of the worst defeats in their World Cup history. There have been more competitive seal clubbings.To some extent, you can’t blame England. As Australia’s players took a succession of outstanding catches – catches even more impressive than their brilliant batting and hostile bowling – it became undeniable that they are simply a far better side than England. Quicker, stronger, better. The margin of victory, although diluted by an admirable but never threatening seventh-wicket partnership, did not flatter them. You might even call it a Valentine’s day massacre.But they are better than this. And the fact remains that, had Chris Woakes clung on to a relatively simple chance in the first over of the match before Aaron Finch had scored, things could have been very different.It was not the only error England made early on. Moeen Ali was also slow to move to a chance offered by David Warner, meaning England could have dismissed both Australia openers within the first five overs. Some nervous throws necessitated desperate dives to avoid over-throws. It looked as if the occasion had got to England.Chris Woakes picked up the wicket of Steven Smith bowling first change but his drop of Aaron Finch proved crucial•Getty ImagesThe example of Woakes is instructive. With hard hands and slow feet, Woakes gave every indication of nerves. He gave every indication that he was not quite as focused on the moment as he might have been, as if his thinking was just a little distracted. It is a catch he would expect to take nine times out of 10.Was it simply the occasion that had bothered him? Perhaps. But it is also quite possible that disruption within the England squad added to the sense of discomfort and unsettled Woakes and co just at the moment they should have been secure and confident in their plans and roles.England changed their plans at the last minute. Not just by dropping Ravi Bopara, but by shifting James Taylor in the batting order and demoting Woakes from his role as new-ball bowler.In a format where role definition is vital, it indicated panic within the England management to make such changes at so late a stage. And it cannot have filled the players involved with any confidence to know that the management were so lacking in faith that they felt the need to make alterations at the 11th hour.One of the few signs of progress in recent times had been England’s ability to play a settled side. It meant that individual players could specialise in their roles and grow more comfortable in performing them.Woakes, for example, had opened the bowling in every ODI England had played since the start of the Sri Lanka tour, 13 in total. In the only warm-up match he played, against West Indies, he took two wickets in the opening over of the match and 5 for 19 in all. Afterwards, he said he expected to take the new ball throughout the World Cup.There are knock-on effects of such a decision. With Stuart Broad taking the new ball instead, it meant that England’s two senior seamers had delivered 14 of their 20 overs by the time England had delivered 29 overs. In other words, they had only six overs between them to deliver in the last 21 of the innings. It may well have been a contributory factor in England conceding an eye-watering 102 runs from their final nine overs and 76 from the last six. England’s death bowling is killing them.Taylor, meanwhile, had spent the last few months familiarising himself with the No. 3 position. He had batted there in every ODI he had played except one – where he went in No. 5 – since coming back into the team in Colombo in December and right up until the warm-up match he played a few days ago. He had never batted at No. 6 in an ODI before. Asking him to go from the No. 3 position to playing the role of finisher is akin to asking your dentist to do your plumbing.Equally, Gary Ballance was hardly given the best chance to succeed. While he had impressed in the warm-up match against Pakistan, he had not played a List A game since September 2. He was not in the ODI squad that toured Sri Lanka and it was hardly surprising that he looked off the pace here.It is not that any of these decisions are necessarily wrong. Ballance may well develop into a fine No. 3, Taylor an excellent No. 6 and Woakes a fine first- or second-change bowler.The problem is the timing. England have been preparing for this World Cup for months. It has not crept up on them. To be changing plans at this late stage makes a mockery of their preparations. It sends an uncertain, equivocal message into the dressing room from the management just at the time when nothing should distract, or create doubts.The job of the coach is less about suggesting technical adjustments than it is about creating an environment in which players can perform to the best of their ability. By making such changes so late in the day, Peter Moores destabilised the dressing room and invited doubt into the minds of his players. It seems that, on the eve of his biggest match since he returned to the coaching role, he panicked.So perhaps it is not surprising that Woakes’ mind was clouded when that ball flew towards him. Perhaps it was not surprising that he was not in the perfect frame of mind. Perhaps it is not surprising that England looked nervous and skittish. On the biggest stage of all, they suffered stage fright.

The World Cup’s unique pressure causes teams to over-think and South Africa could be best served by keeping things as simple as possible

Firdose Moonda08-Mar-2015Six months of preparation. Enormous expectation.A consultant for every technical aspect of the game to make up the largest support staff contingent of the competition. A head of elephants in the room.A team who claim to have exorcised the ghosts of the past. Great pretenders.The first half of each of the above pairs are the things South Africa have done in the lead up to this World Cup. The second half is the result of all of those things. Juxtaposed, they reveal what happens when desperation overrides determination: it leads to a build-up of pressure that does not happen outside of a major tournament.If this was a bilateral series against any of Zimbabwe, India, West Indies, Ireland or Pakistan, South Africa would have likely won with games to spare. They have done that against of four of those five countries in the last 18 months. They promised they would treat the World Cup in the same way as one of those series but were never given the opportunity to do that because of the continued obsession around winning a World Cup.Ultimately that leads to overthinking, which, as Sian Beilock, a psychology professor at the University of Chicago, wrote in her book Choke, “can destroy our ability to perform at our full potential”. Overthinking while under pressure, she wrote, “can cause us to fail when performing tasks that we’d normally consider to be relatively easy.”Chasing a target is a “relatively easy,” thing for South Africa. They’ve had to do it 268 times and of those, they have won 60% – 162 matches. But since the 2011 World Cup, where the quarterfinal loss was perhaps their worst example of failure in a chase, it has become relatively difficult. South Africa have batted second 31 times after their loss in Dhaka and won just 15 of those matches. Their success rate has dipped significantly and at this tournament, dipped entirely. They’ve chased twice and lost both, which points to their state of mind.Making a statement is not South Africa’s issue, responding is. When they are under the cosh, they do the wrong thing. They play shots they should not play – JP Duminy’s pull against Pakistan is a case in point, the run-out of AB de Villiers against New Zealand in 2011 is another – but those lapses in clear thinking stem from the stresses of the demands placed on them.Before this group left the country, they received orders in the same way troops going to war would – “March on, you skillful warriors,” was the president’s message – without the gentler touches that remind teams this is not actually a war. The sports minister, Fikile Mbalula, was present at an over-the-top squad announcement and the razzmatazz send-off less than a month later where he told de Villiers to return with a “bunch of winners” – a loaded phrase in a South African context it is loaded. Shortly before the cricketers left, the national football side, Bafana Bafana, returned from the African Nations’ Cup after a first round exit. The minister had previously called the footballers a “bunch of losers,” and those words have a way of stinging.

It takes not panicking. It takes not playing the big shot when slow progress will do. It takes forgetting about all the times it has not worked before but remembering that this is a World Cup, not a bilateral series.

At the same send off, the squad heard an impassioned pleas from the CSA president Chris Nenzani not to break the more than 50 million hearts they were representing and a message from three former captains, Kepler Wessels, Shaun Pollock and Graeme Smith that this team’s destiny will find out who they really are at this tournament. Of course all of that was little more than showboating but subconsciously, it soaked South Africa in pressure that does not exist in a bilateral series.Perhaps that’s why South Africa can sail through those while the teams that have done well at a World Cup – the subcontinent sides for example – thrive. Whereas competition against the same team in game after game can possibly bore them, they thrive on the one-offs at a World Cup. South Africa struggle to figure out how to deal with them.After a low-key start against Zimbabwe in sleepy Hamilton, they had a week before playing India. Other teams have had similar stop-start schedules and de Villiers encouraged the team to use the time in between, but that was difficult to do when India loomed early in the agenda. There is no such thing as a quiet build-up to an India game, especially not in a World Cup. South Africa felt so bombarded by the large Indian media contingent they went into a shell and they seemed unable to come out of it on game day.The alarm bells de Villiers heard almost two weeks later when South Africa were gearing to up to play Pakistan and he could sense an absence of “electric vibe” were likely echoes from what happened at the MCG. That was where South Africa lost Vernon Philander to a hamstring injury he has not yet recovered from and where their implosion with the bat exposed an age-old problem. Even with seven specialist batsmen, South Africa remain vulnerable for no other reason than because this is a World Cup.With successive totals over 400, it cannot be said South Africa’s line-up lacks quality or commitment. Scoring that many runs, whoever the opposition is, takes skill. Where South Africa are found wanting is when they chase, because that takes more than skill. It takes strategy – where South Africa have been showed up in primarily because of selection, which has left them without a genuine allrounder and by implication short of a fifth-bowler – but most of it all it takes stomach.It takes not panicking. It takes not playing the big shot when slow progress will do. It takes forgetting about all the times it has not worked before but remembering that this is a World Cup, not a bilateral series. There is only one chance against each opposition, not three, or five, or seven, and it takes not being overawed by that. It takes putting the paranoia away.Kyle Abbott probably had it right when he said “no-one is going to remember the group stage.” Except South Africa themselves if it leads to another knockout situation where they trip over their own feet because they thought too far ahead while bluffing about trying to focus on the immediate task.