All posts by h716a5.icu

Less flashy, more substantial, maybe a little boring – Tillakaratne Dilshan has matured into one of Sri Lanka’s most reliable run-scorers

Andrew Fidel Fernando in Melbourne26-Feb-20152:06

‘We have to come back strong’ – Dilshan

There is nothing in the world more like Tillakaratne Dilshan than the shot he brought to cricket in 2009. Like the man, the stroke treads the line between daring and embarrassment. If he wears the ‘Dilscoop’ on the helmet, nothing looks so foolish. If he connects, he sends stadiums into raptures. It’s a shot that has the feel of a heist. Modern captains have never put men behind their wicketkeeper. They probably never will. By hitting to this part of the ground, Dilshan is almost cheating.In some part of his mind, though, this roguish, dashing 2009 version of himself still exists, because Dilshan still talks a big game. “If you compare my performance with the others,” he said recently, “I have a better batting average in ODI cricket.” The “others” in that sentence are Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene, and the statement is not quite true; Sangakkara outstrips his average year-on-year.But what is important is that Dilshan himself believes it. The facts about Dilshan’s batting are not nearly so important to his team as the bluster that underpins him. In 2011, Dilshan became captain and ditched the designer beard and bad-boy gold chains, only to enter some of the leanest months of his career. In 2014, he launched a clothing line, the advertisements for which featured himself, shirtless, in a quarry, lying suggestively on a pile of jeans and abseiling on a rock face. That year, he hit more than a thousand runs.But his head is perhaps the only place where bad-boy Dilshan still exists, because the batsman who was reformed in 2009, has now been refined again in the least thrilling fashion imaginable. Sometime in the last two years, and perhaps unbeknown even to himself, Dilshan has become a steady hand. He’s an engine-room player, when he used to be a sports car with switchblade doors and a spoiler.Tillakaratne Dilshan has pared back his batting as he has got older•Getty ImagesMuch of his 161 not out off 146 balls against Bangladesh was everything an ageing one-day opener should produce. The beginning was not quite sedate, but it was measured. While Lahiru Thirimanne, no attacking batsman by nature, was sliding out of his crease to the quicks and aiming big blows to the legside, Dilshan pinned himself in the crease. Only the half-volleys and half-trackers went to the fence. Of Sri Lanka’s first 50 runs, Dilshan had scored 15 (though that was partly due to having had less of the strike as well).The Dilshan of the past outmatched partners shot for shot. His feet flitted about where now they plod. Sri Lanka were not exactly motoring after 18 overs, having scored at 4.61 an over, but Dilshan was startlingly unambitious as Taskin Ahmed delivered a maiden to him in the 19th. No booming drives came after the first few dot balls. There was no self-chastisement when he failed to pierce the field.His pace quickened soon after, but Sangakkara made better use of Bangladesh’s wayward bowling. Not so long ago, Sangakkara was the more reticent of the two, while Dilshan flashed away. Only at the death did Dilshan find the top gear Sangakkara had been in since he arrived at the crease.”Just after taking a start, I want to bat as long as possible,” Dilshan said. “The thing is I know that in the last 10 overs, I can catch up easily, especially with the four fielders outside. I started very slowly, but caught up with Kumar in the last five overs. In the last 10, we took more than 120 runs. We know if we keep wickets in hand, we can score more than 100 the last 10. I think that’s why we got 300 plus today.”All through the recent series, those halting starts have been fruitful for Dilshan. This knock was his highest score, and the record at a World Cup for Sri Lanka, but he also has four tons in his last 10 innings. Among those outings is an 81 and a 44. For so long, Dilshan was a flagbearer for Sri Lanka’s attacking tradition at the top of the order but, in his new avatar, he is almost an ’80s throwback.All three Sri Lanka seniors have hit hundreds at this World Cup now, suggesting the batting experience will begin to pay off in matches to come, though the bowling remains wayward. It will almost certainly be Dilshan’s last World Cup – his energy and optimism notwithstanding – in addition to Sangakkara and Jayawardene’s, and he is playing like a man who knows that.Dilshan is taking stock of options. He’s playing percentage cricket. He’s mature. He’s 38. He’s a little boring. And he’s probably never been better.

Stats highlights from Chris Gayle’s record-breaking 215 against Zimbabwe in the Group B match in Canberra

Bishen Jeswant24-Feb-2015215 Runs scored by Chris Gayle, the highest by any batsman in World Cups. He broke Gary Kirsten’s record of 188, against UAE in 1996. This is also the third-highest score by any batsman in ODI history.4 Number of batsmen who have scored ODI double-hundreds; Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Rohit Sharma and Gayle. Rohit has made two such scores.5 Number of years since the first ODI double hundred was scored. Tendulkar was the first man to this mark, on 24th February 2010, exactly five years ago. He faced 147 balls to score 200 runs on that day. Gayle played 147 balls for his 215 today.138 Number of balls in which Gayle reached his double-century, the fastest for any batsman. The previous record was 140 balls, by Virender Sehwag. Tendulkar got his double-hundred in 147 balls, while Rohit got to his two double-tons in 151 and 156 balls, respectively.16 Number of sixes hit by Chris Gayle, the joint-most by any batsman in an ODI innings. AB de Villiers and Rohit have also hit 16 sixes each.9136 Number of ODI runs scored by Gayle, the second-most for any West Indian batsman. Brian Lara is the only other West Indian batsman to score over 9000 ODI runs. Overall, Gayle is the 16th batsman to reach this milestone in ODIs.22 Number of ODI hundreds for Gayle, the most for any West Indian batsman. He has now equaled Sourav Ganguly (22) and Virat Kohli (22) to go fourth on the overall list of batsmen with the most ODI hundreds.372 Runs scored by West Indies, their highest ever in an ODI. This is also the fifth-highest score by any team in World Cups. This is also the highest score by any team in an ODI in Australia.372 The second-wicket partnership between Gayle and Marlon Samuels, the highest for any wicket in ODI history. The previous record was 331, between Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid against New Zealand in 1999. This is also the highest partnership for any wicket in List A cricket (includes domestic one-dayers).165 The previous record for the highest second-wicket when the first wicket has fallen without a run being scored. This partnership was between Mohammad Azharudding and Sunil Gavaskar, against Australia in 1987. Samuels and Gayle more than doubled this record with their 372-run partnership.298 Number of balls faced by Samuels and Gayle during their partnership, the most for any ODI stand. The previous record was 278, once again by Tendulkar and Dravid against New Zealand in 1999.20 Number of innings since Gayle’s last ODI century, against Sri Lanka in June 2013. He had only made one 50-plus score in the intervening period.3 Number of 275-plus scores for Zimbabwe in this World Cup, the most ever for them in a single edition of the World Cup. Zimbabwe made two such scores each in the 2003 and 2011 editions.

Afghanistan’s rapid climb up cricket’s world order created plenty of excitement and expectations around the team. The World Cup gave them a chance to gauge their strengths and they strengthened their case for more exposure

Abhishek Purohit16-Mar-2015How their tournament panned out
Afghanistan ended their first World Cup with a one-wicket win over Scotland and five losses. Four of those defeats were pretty comprehensive. Afghanistan’s rapid climb up the world order has created plenty of excitement around them, and also brought with it some expectation. From that perspective, there is reason to feel let down with their displays in the tournament, particularly with the batting, for the side is definitely capable of better performances. However, it must also not be forgotten that coming into the World Cup, Afghanistan had played all of ten ODIs against Full Member opponents, and five of those games had come against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. They were expected to beat Scotland, which they did, but anything else would have had to be a bonus. They did give Sri Lanka a proper scare, and if anything, that made a case for greater exposure against the bigger sides.The high point
Undoubtedly the match against Sri Lanka in Dunedin. Afghanistan posted their highest score of the tournament – 232 – and tellingly, it came without a standout contribution from any of the batsmen. Their three fast bowlers took an early wicket each to reduce Sri Lanka to 18 for 3. Mirwais Ashraf kept the scoring down from one end, and Hamid Hassan took out the centurion Mahela Jayawardene. At one stage, Sri Lanka needed 45 from six overs with four wickets remaining. Then Thisara Perera cracked an unbeaten 47 off 26 but Afghanistan’s fight had Jayawardene remarking that there was “not a big gap between the top countries and these guys.”And the low
The start of their chase in the opening match against Bangladesh, when they slipped to 3 for 3. Afghanistan had beaten their opponents the only time they had faced them in an ODI before, in the Asia Cup last March. If they were to win a second game, this seemed to be the likeliest. But their top order just froze after Bangladesh posted 267. Mashrafe Mortaza and Rubel Hossain were hustling and accurate, but by no means unplayable or even express. But their batsmen’s feet simply refused to move, and they were easy targets. It was catch-up for the rest of the batsmen after that.Top of the class
Samiullah Shenwari gave Afghanistan their first and only World Cup win. With single-digit scores littered above and below him on the scorecard, he all but took Afghanistan home in their chase of 211 with his 96. Afghanistan were 97 for 7 and 132 for 8 but Shenwari did not give up. He is a powerful hitter but buckled down to tackle the situation at hand. Shenwari was the lone light in a badly misfiring batting unit, with 254 runs in the tournament at an average of 42.33, more than twice the number of runs the next-best Afghanistan batsman managed.What we learnt about Afghanistan
We had only caught a glimpse of Afghanistan’s fast bowlers in the past, but after a month at the World Cup, we know they have a seriously good and even versatile attack in Hamid Hassan, Dawlat Zadran, Shapoor Zadran. Better sides won’t mind having such fast bowlers. No less a batsman than David Warner was impressed by the zip they generated at the WACA. The Australia match was the only game where Afghanistan leaked a flood of runs, but it was more a case of an inexperienced side running into a fearsome line-up than poor bowling. The number of yorkers Afghanistan got in at the death that afternoon in Perth was commendable. The slow bowlers were quite steady, but Afghanistan missed the control the injured medium-pacer Ashraf brings in the middle overs. That they still managed to compete as a bowling unit over 50 overs shows their tenacity.What they learnt from the World Cup
However well you bowl, it will be futile if your batting falls apart almost every time. Afghanistan’s up-and-down batting was their weak link coming into the World Cup, and it failed them massively. They averaged 17.14 per wicket with the bat in the tournament, the worst among all teams (as on March 13). The one time they gave their bowlers some runs, the attack tested the might of the Sri Lankans. Afghanistan’s batting strike-rate of 60 was also the poorest in the tournament, also indicating that the line-up was always under pressure as wickets fell regularly. In stark contrast to their bowlers, their batsmen were just not able to show that they could build a challenging score over 50 overs. In their defence, it is rather difficult for batsmen to adjust to changed conditions, especially a group that has not had much experience in them, again pointing to the need for more exposure.

A deficit of 296 could have been reason to be bogged down, but Tamim Iqbal led Bangladesh into a fighting position in the Khulna Test by reprising his firebrand approach to batting

Mohammad Isam in Khulna01-May-2015Tamim dedicates hundred to late aunt

Tamim Iqbal dedicated his century on the fourth day to his aunt, who passed away in the early hours of Friday in Chittagong. Fatima Hossain was the sister of Tamim’s father and being from a close-knit family, her sudden demise shocked Tamim.
He had wanted to go to Chittagong but decided against it as he would have already missed the janaza and burial.
“I got a call from my brother early in the morning,” Tamim said. “I was very shocked. All I can do is dedicate this hundred to her. It is a very sad day for my family as she was not ill or anything. Her children are very close to us.
“I asked the manager if I can leave after my batting finishes today. But then I realized that I wouldn’t be able to attend the janaza or the burial. When you play for the country, you sometimes have to think differently. Family is also important, but so too is cricket.”
Tamim relayed an emotional story from his childhood about his father and aunt Fatima.
“She used to cook for me and my father, who loved to eat. There used to be an Indian cooking show called Khana Khazana where I saw something and told this aunt to cook that for me. It was my last meal with my father.”

The Khulna-Jessore highway adjacent to the ground was emptier than usual. Like a weekend siesta. The crowd was light, weather hot and Tamim Iqbal was batting at the Sheikh Abu Naser Stadium.His seventh Test hundred, third in successive matches, was a sign of Bangladesh’s change in thought, action and spirit during the first Test against Pakistan. Having chosen to bat and a flat pitch to exploit, both he and his opening partner Imrul Kayes had adopted a conservative approach. Today though, they amassed 273 runs at a run-rate of 4.47.Tamim looked quite assured, like he had inside knowledge of the bowlers’ plans. If there was the need for a cover drive, he was leaning into it with aplomb. When it was short, he got on top of it and never let it out of sight. Every gaps, big or small, offered by Misbah-ul-Haq was pierced with ease. He picked up boundaries quite frequently because his defensive game has improved.The unbeaten 138 on the fourth afternoon was a better example of how Tamim bats than the 74-ball 25 in the first innings. He was able to maintain his usual tempo without having to charge the bowler unnecessarily. Last year, those flays had invariably taken the outside edge. So the they were done away with. Many of his shots did take the edge but when a batsman is doing the right things at the right time, luck becomes his friend. That’s how it was for Tamim.Another impact of his batting was Imrul, who had kept wicket for 120 overs, was filled with renewed vigor. Their unbroken 273-run opening stand is now Bangladesh’s best for any wicket, beating the 267-run fifth wicket stand between Mushfiqur and Mohammad Ashraful in Galle in 2013.The five hours from mid-day to early evening was a transition of energy from one side to another. Bangladesh began 296 runs behind but are now 21 runs away from wiping the deficit off. With the final day left to play, the hosts couldn’t have asked for a better position. Tamim reasoned his attacking approach was needed to unsettle the Pakistan attack and keep them on the field for a longer period. He also said that the stodgy first-innings approach wasn’t going to help them against scoreboard pressure.”When we were chasing 318 against Scotland in the World Cup, our coach [Chandika Hathurusingha] told us that if you look at the scoreboard, we won’t get anything but pressure,” Tamim said. “There were two ways to look at it. We could have played defensively in a bid to play out 150 overs, but they would have got us out due to our negative mindset. The other way was to attack, [which is] the best defense. We knew that we could have been caught in the boundary trying to hit those sixes or when I played the reverse sweeps [and] there would be a lot of talk about it. We just didn’t want them to settle down. They are a good bowling attack.”Imrul and I didn’t really talk about going after them. We just wanted to bat in our way. They will get you out if you give them the upper hand. They bowled well in the first innings, the wicket wasn’t conducive to stroke play. As a result, we also played a bit defensively. Saving this match would be difficult if we go out of character.”Tamim hardly played anything through midwicket or mid-on, but he speared cuts away and timed his cover drives to pick up five boundaries. Two more boundaries came with a turn of the wrists through square leg and a flat-batted pull over midwicket. And then there were the four straight sixes, the first off left-arm spinner Zulfiqar Babar and the next three off his nemesis Mohammad Hafeez, who had dismissed him five times previously in international cricket.Tamim said he hadn’t premediated his attack on Hafeez, that it simply tied in with the plan to remain positive.”Hafeez is very dangerous against left-handers. If I was defending him, he would find a way to get him out. He would get confused if we attacked him, but he is a really good bowler. Today I was successful.”However, Tamim admitted Wahab Riaz’s second spell, six overs for 14 runs, had tested him so much that he could only think of survival. During this spell, Pakistan spent their second review after the umpire declined Wahab’s appeal for a leg-before in the 28th over. Replays showed it pitched outside off-stump, ensuring it went the batsman’s way.”Wahab Riaz’s second-last spell was high quality pace bowling in this wicket where there wasn’t any pace. He was reversing the ball. These are small battles that build to something big. It has happened in my career before where a quality pace bowler is reversing the ball, and I am surviving,” said Tamim.Once he had survived, Tamim latched on to Junaid Khan in the 40th over to move from 93 to 101 with a cover drive and an edge through third-man, both times going on the charge. It was the first time that a Bangladesh batsman has scored three hundreds in as many matches.”I am very proud of the effort. It feels good to have made three hundreds. The hope is to extend this form as long as possible. Even two weeks ago I didn’t think I would score three centuries in this tour. I try to remain confident despite what people are saying about me.”But he was aware that there was still work to be done. “We have to start afresh. Tomorrow I will think I am starting from zero, not 138. If we can cross the first session and the second new ball, the situation will be in our favour. But it won’t be easy,” he said.Tamim and Imrul had also added 224 in Bangladesh’s last Test, in November against Zimbabwe in Chittagong. The only other time that a Bangladesh opening pair had batted longer was when Javed Omar and Tamim’s brother Nafees Iqbal played out 83 overs against Zimbabwe in 2005 to ensure Bangladesh’s first-ever Test series win. When it comes to rearguard actions, the Javed-Nafees partnership is still ranked as one of the best in Bangladesh’s history.The Tamim-Imrul pair showed the other way of a rearguard, a more modern method of taming a bowling line-up. Tamim was the fire starter and when Imrul found his groove, he became the anchor. At 11:50 am Bangladesh were precariously placed. By 5:00pm, they were taken over the treacherous second and final session of the fourth day on Tamim’s shoulder. Bangladesh would now be more comfortable riding on Tamim’s speed.

Stats highlights from an unusual Ashes series in which the winning team didn’t necessarily have the better stats

S Rajesh25-Aug-2015In every way, this was a bizarre series. Out of a possible 25 days of cricket, there were only 18, making this the joint-shortest five-Test series, along with the England-West Indies series of 2000; there were only 7920 balls bowled in the entire series, the third-lowest in a five-Test series with results in all five matches; for the first time in a five-Test series, no match went into the fifth day.It wasn’t the most compelling Ashes series of recent times, though. The team which took the early initiative in each Test invariably dominated the rest of the game and won by a huge margin. The only fightback was on the opening day of the series, when Australia had reduced England to 43 for 3 and then dropped Joe Root, who led a magnificent recovery and allowed England to finish the day on 343 for 7. Through the rest of the series, neither team was able to recover from early setbacks.Even so, the matches were largely action-packed – wickets fell in a hurry, and yet both teams continued to score at a frenetic run rate: England’s series run rate was 3.74, and Australia’s 3.72. The overall series run rate of 3.73 is the third-highest in Ashes history, next only to those in 2001 and 2005. A wicket fell every 49 balls, and the average score in a full day’s play (90 overs) was 336 runs for the loss of 11 wickets.Australia lost their fourth successive Ashes campaign in England, but in two of those series – in 2009 and 2015 – they ended with a higher batting average than England. The 2015 averages were obviously influenced by the dead-rubber last Test, when Australia scored 481 for 10 wickets compared to England’s 435 for 20; after four Tests of the series, England averaged 31.63 runs per wicket to Australia’s 29.77. In 2009 Australia averaged 40.64 to England’s 34.15, despite losing the series 2-1, while in 2013 England had an advantage of only three runs despite winning by a 3-0 margin.

The last four Ashes series in England

YearTeamRuns scoredWkts takenBat aveResult2015England23658029.193-2Australia25658132.062-32013England28568933.603-0Australia27358530.730-32009England28697134.152-1Australia28868440.641-22005England29628931.842-1Australia28109331.571-2England’s middle-order mightEngland’s average score at the fall of the second wicket was 43; Australia’s was 131. The opening partnership was one of the success stories for Australia, while Adam Lyth’s lack of runs – he had one of the poorest series for an Ashes opener – meant England always lost at least one early wicket. Rogers and Warner, on the other hand, put together 514 runs, one of only 12 instances when an opening pair has added more than 500 runs in an Ashes series.Australia’s problem, and England big advantage, was their middle and lower middle order. For wickets three to seven, England, on average, added 184; Australia managed just 115. That turned out to be the key difference between the two teams. Root got enough assistance from England’s middle and lower order to stitch together useful partnerships almost every time – Moeen Ali made useful runs down the order, while Ian Bell and Ben Stokes made a couple of vital contributions (though Bell’s overall series numbers were very ordinary). For Australia, middle-order wickets consistently fell in a heap. England’s No. 4 to No. 8 batsmen scored 1228 runs at 30.70, with two hundreds and eight fifties, while Australia managed just 737 runs at 18.89, with four half-centuries and no hundreds. Australia had more players who topped 400 runs in the series – three to England’s one – and more batsmen who averaged 40-plus, yet in the final analysis that didn’t count for much. (Click here for England’s player-wise batting and bowling averages in the series, and here for Australia’s.)

Partnerships for each wicket

EnglandAustraliaWktInngsP’ship runsAve stand100/50p’shipInngsP’ship runsAve stand100/50p’ship1st914716.330/ 01056562.773/ 32nd923726.330/ 1961468.221/ 33rd931439.250/ 4918122.620/ 14th848560.622/ 1826933.621/ 05th831739.621/ 1814317.870/ 16th819824.750/ 1822828.500/ 27th816220.250/ 289812.250/ 08th822327.870/ 2833141.370/ 39th823529.370/ 27689.710/ 010th8476.710/ 07689.710/ 0The bowling comparisonComing into the series, Australia claimed they had the best fast-bowling attack in the world, but in this series there’s no doubt that they were second-best to England. Until Peter Siddle came into the line-up at The Oval, Australia’s pace attack consistently leaked runs at an uncomfortable rate – the combined economy rate of the two Mitchells, Starc and Johnson, and Josh Hazlewood, was 3.76 runs per over, compared to 3.24 for England’s five fast bowlers – Stuart Broad, James Anderson, Steven Finn, Mark Wood and Stokes. Both Starc and Johnson averaged more than 30, which, in the context of a low-scoring series, wasn’t quite good enough, especially when Broad’s 21 wickets came at just 20.90 each.Nathan Lyon was clearly the more skilled of the two specialist spinners on view in the series, but Moeen Ali made some vital contributions with the ball, dismissing Warner four times and Smith twice.

Pace and spin for each team

PaceSpinTeamWicketsAverageSRWicketsAverageSREngland6427.2349.91642.5657.4Australia6327.7446.61729.1151.2The head-to-head battlesFive-Test series allow a lot more time for batsman-bowler rivalries to develop, and there were a few interesting ones in this series as well. Root was the only batsman from either side who scored more than 100 runs against three opposition bowlers – Starc got him out three times, but against Johnson and Hazlewood he averaged more than 50, and those battles went a long way in defining the series. Cook was very good against Johnson and Hazlewood, but not quite as successful against Starc and Lyon. Moeen clearly preferred the spin of Lyon to the pace of Johnson – he may have lost the battle of offspinners, but won his personal duel against Lyon. Lyth, meanwhile, struggled against most of the bowlers he faced in the series – he was dismissed three times each by Starc and Hazlewood, and against Siddle in the last Test, Lyth faced 20 balls, didn’t score a run, and was dismissed twice.

England batsmen v Australian bowlers

Batsman Bowler Runs Balls Runs/over Dismissals AverageJoe Root Mitchell Johnson 115 168 4.10 2 57.50Joe Root Josh Hazlewood 104 146 4.27 2 52.00Joe Root Mitchell Starc 102 155 3.94 3 34.00Moeen Ali Nathan Lyon 89 120 4.45 0 – Alastair Cook Mitchell Johnson 83 143 3.48 1 83.00Joe Root Nathan Lyon 83 111 4.48 0 -Alastair Cook Mitchell Starc 75 137 3.28 3 25.00Alastair Cook Josh Hazlewood 68 159 2.56 0 -Moeen Ali Mitchell Johnson 63 90 4.20 4 15.75Alastair Cook Nathan Lyon 59 186 1.90 3 19.66Adam Lyth Mitchell Starc 44 94 2.80 3 14.66Adam Lyth Josh Hazlewood 28 63 2.66 3 9.33Jos Buttler Nathan Lyon 18 41 2.63 4 4.50Among the Australian batsmen, Rogers scored 100-plus runs against Anderson and Broad, but while Broad dismissed him five times, Anderson couldn’t get him out even once. On the other hand, Anderson had plenty of success against Rogers’ opening partner, Warner, but Broad failed to dismiss him all series. Broad, though, was generally superb against Australia’s top order, dismissing Smith three times and Clarke twice. In fact, Clarke fell twice each to Broad, Wood and Finn, suggesting that Broad wasn’t his only nemesis. In fact, he faced only 12 balls from Anderson in the entire series, indicating how insignificant his batting was through the summer.

Australian batsmen v England bowlers

Batsman Bowler Runs Balls Runs/over Dismissals AverageChris Rogers Stuart Broad 113 216 3.13 5 22.60Chris Rogers James Anderson 109 181 3.61 0 -Steven Smith Stuart Broad 77 122 3.78 3 25.66David Warner Moeen Ali 69 77 5.37 4 17.25David Warner Stuart Broad 66 134 2.95 0 – Steven Smith James Anderson 63 112 3.37 0 -Steven Smith Steven Finn 42 69 3.65 3 14.00David Warner James Anderson 32 72 2.66 3 10.66Michael Clarke Stuart Broad 29 57 3.05 2 14.50Michael Clarke Mark Wood 29 55 3.16 2 14.50Michael Clarke Steven Finn 4 33 0.72 2 2.00

A look back at 1988, which is up there in the ranks of England cricket’s most shambolic periods

Alan Gardner26-Sep-2015What is your favourite memory of England dysfunctionality from the late 1980s until the turn of the century? Defeat at home to New Zealand in 1999, sending them bottom of the Test rankings, perhaps. The 1994-95 Ashes tour, on which even the physio got injured and the one-day series final was contested by Australia and Australia A, was pretty painful. It is hard to look beyond the summer of 1989, when England lost 4-0 and used 29 different players against “the worst team ever to leave Australia”.A front runner – if that is not an oxymoron – would have to be the season that Neil Robinson documents in . Although less referenced these days, perhaps because it featured another heavy defeat to a predictably dominant West Indies rather than the old Ashes enemy, perhaps because the hokey-cokey selection issues were to be surpassed the following year, 1988 offered up some vintage material and deserves its spot in the crowded annals of an era of incompetence.It was, as the book’s subtitle explains, “The year of four England cricket captains”. Not to mention 23 players over five Tests against West Indies, plus another five – including four debutants – in the one-off match against Sri Lanka that followed. In all, 34 players were selected in England’s Test and ODI squads and 31 of them were capped. Playing for the national team was a lottery with very few winners.Mike Coward is critical of the TCCB’s decision to appoint Gooch as captain for the Oval Test•Sydney Morning HeraldThese were the good old bad old days, when an appreciation of black comedy was what got England fans through. The ‘s Mike Selvey always seemed to be ready with a quip – Monte Lynch’s inclusion in the Texaco Trophy squad prompted “a theory that it was lunch Gatting wanted” – but Robinson, the MCC librarian, plays a fairly straight bat in his retelling, using interviews with most of the key actors as well as a wealth of contemporaneous reporting to reconstruct the narrative.To be fair to Peter May and his selection panel, they were not done many favours by the players. Under Mike Gatting, England had won the Ashes in Australia in 1986-87 – Martin Johnson’s gag that the only three things wrong with the team were “they can’t bat, can’t bowl, can’t field” proving premature – but then lost at home to Pakistan. The following winter included a World Cup on the subcontinent as well as tours to Pakistan and New Zealand but England would not be able to call on Ian Botham, who was playing Sheffield Shield cricket with Queensland, or David Gower, who settled instead on “a trip to Africa, a skiing holiday in Europe and a visit to the Winter Olympics in Calgary”. Graham Gooch, with a young family to consider, only made himself available for the first half of the programme.Monte Lynch is run out for a duck in a Texaco Trophy match at Edgbaston•PA PhotosEngland did manage to reach the 1987 World Cup final but lost one and drew six Tests on their travels; from the Boxing Day Test of 1986, their winless run eventually extended to August 1988, encompassing 18 matches. Such poor form, not to mention controversies including the Shakoor Rana affair, all contributed to the pressure on Gatting ahead of the first West Indies Test.Although England managed a draw at a suspiciously lifeless Trent Bridge, ending a run of ten consecutive defeats to West Indies, Gatting was about to be bombed out regardless. He was undone by another staple of the times, a tabloid sex scandal. With Botham injured, the England captain was a prime target for the red-top press and Gatting’s alleged activities with a barmaid called Louise Shipman at the Rothley Court Hotel gave the selectors their excuse.Robinson actually goes to the length of tracking down Shipman and exposes the anatomy of a tabloid fit-up – for that was exactly what it was, given how Shipman’s “testimony” was misrepresented. It was five years before Shane Warne arrived in England to leave an instant mark on the Ashes but Gatting was never more a victim of spin than here.Amberley PublishingThereafter came the brief reign of John Emburey and the even briefer captaincy of Chris Cowdrey. An encouraging start in the second Test, at Lord’s, where West Indies slipped to 54 for 5, ultimately ended in another defeat, and by the time the teams convened at Old Trafford, the correspondent of the had settled for England winning the over-rate battle. Cowdrey, appointed by his godfather, “Uncle Peter”, took over for Headingley – with Emburey dropped altogether – but injury ruled him out of the final Test, at The Oval. Cowdrey had been told he would lead the team on their next tour, to India; he ended up never playing for England again.Gooch was next in the firing line, though an injury sustained in the field meant England ended the series being led by their fifth captain, Derek Pringle. For all involved it was, as Robinson writes, a period in which “young hopefuls would find themselves loaded into the breach as the selectors aimed a series of long shots towards the seemingly bulletproof West Indies”. Humiliation was complete when BBC viewers were denied seeing the winning runs in England’s only Test success, against Sri Lanka, because Australian soap was still being broadcast. Long shit summer might have been more apt.Long Shot Summer
by Neil Robinson
Amberley Publishing
224 pages, £14.99

He hasn’t fit the usual Pakistani archetypes, but when he leaves he will have set a distinct example for those coming after to aspire to

Ahmer Naqvi13-Oct-2015During the recent domestic T20 tournament, two fellow journalists were trying to track down Younis Khan for an interview. They found him at the end or start of a game, and he asked them to “come over to my hotel room later tonight”. As he sped past them, they realised he hadn’t mentioned the room number, or indeed the hotel. They asked a few others for Younis’ phone number and pretty soon ended up with about 16 different numbers for him. All of them were switched off.The next day, they ran into Younis, who asked them where they had been. They told him about the room number problem and then the 16 phone numbers, which made him laugh and repeat a famous Bollywood dialogue, “” (You know what they say: capturing the don isn’t just difficult – it’s impossible.)The charming anecdote captures some important things about the player – his sense of humour, his frankness, his tendency to go incognito. What I like most is that the film reference made me think of characters – those larger-than-life creations of masala movies that are such a big part of South Asian culture.I have often felt that the collapse of the popular film industry has been a major cause for the superstardom of Pakistani cricketers. They have filled a void of sorts in the popular imagination.The Pakistan cricket team has had its fair share of absolutely mad characters, but Younis is the maddest, or most to have emerged with a great reputation as well as superb statistics. Indeed, he is now the greatest run scorer in Pakistani history, and yet I still can’t help but feel that he can be better “imagined” in both Pakistan’s and cricket’s popular narrative.

What has made him extremely Pakistani is his desire, his obsession, to prove a point. Like Imran Khan seeing red after being hit for a boundary, or Javed Miandad aping the keeper, Younis has always had that desire to compete to the end

The word has negative connotations (describing someone who is melodramatic), but to paint him as such is not at all my intention. My use of it here is to celebrate the barely believable, twisting and turning career of a marvellous player. After all, Younis has spent all this time playing the long con.The character I pictured when thinking about him in a reference was Keyser Soze from – the guy no one expected to be there at the end; the guy everyone underestimated.Younis began his career amid the dying embers of the #Mighty90sSide, which was fighting its demons and court cases as much as it was its opponents. He came of age in the Bob Woolmer era, where with Mohammad Yousuf and Inzamam-ul-Haq he formed the mighty triumvirate that was Pakistan’s middle order. Even there, his feats were often overshadowed, largely because the other two had been archetypal in a way he never had been – Inzamam was the unknown youngster who had arrived from nowhere to grab the world by surprise, a typical Pakistani cricket myth. Yousuf had his moments in his golden run in 2006, where he played into the English myth about the classy subcontinental batsman who was an aesthetically pleasing run glut.Record- and stereotype breaker: Younis is not a player who fits the many clichés and stereotypes of Pakistan cricket•AFPYounis’ story was always more bizarre. Around about the time of his golden run as a Test batsman, Pakistan did not play Tests for a year, and he was then kicked out of the side months after leading the country to a world title, in 2009. The annus horribilis that was 2010 laid waste to many careers in Pakistan’s batting stocks, and an entire generation of players that were meant to finally come of age were instead out of the team. The fixing scandal meant that an old-timer was brought back to lead a team of fresh-faced youngsters. The only other old face was that of Younis, whose spat with the board meant that he had been absent from the horror tours of Australia and England that had caused all these changes.Yet once again, Younis was in the shadows, as the era came to be defined largely by Afridi v Misbah debates. That debate didn’t apply in Tests, but even when Misbah’s team showed how formidable it could be, the plaudits went largely to the captain and the bowlers. Younis wasn’t seen as a leading act, let alone a superstar.But now that he is at the top, now that he has the numbers irrefutably in his favour, we realise that playing out someone else’s story was never an option for Younis Khan – he was always going to be the basis for his own myth.So what will his myth be?For me, the parts of Younis’ career that are most intriguing are the ones that subvert certain narratives about Pakistani cricket and reinforce others. He wasn’t blessed with abundant talent; he lacks a penchant for spectacular match-winning feats; he hasn’t been prone to being lazy and unprofessional when things aren’t going his way. And yet, what has made him extremely Pakistani is his desire, his obsession, to prove a point. Like Imran Khan seeing red after being hit for a boundary, or Javed Miandad aping the keeper, Younis has always had that desire to compete to the end.For most of his career, Younis has been sidelined because there haven’t been any clichés or narratives that fit him. But whenever he leaves, he will do so as an example, an ideal that others will aspire to. It’s a legacy that few others can manage.

They lost the chance to bargain with the board on equal footing in the matter of World Cup earnings, but they cannot ignore the need for a proactive players association

Tristan Holme19-Nov-2015When Zimbabwe’s national players refused to turn up for training in August 2013 and announced that they were forming a union, their main goal was to get the money that Zimbabwe Cricket owed them. Over the years it had come to be expected that match fees would be paid several months late, but when monthly salaries stopped arriving, the players decided enough was enough. Higher match fees were also among their stated demands, but at that stage the idea that their collective heft might be able to secure a lasting future for cricketers in Zimbabwe was almost an afterthought.In March 2014, however, the process towards that idea was set in motion when ZPCA representative Eliah Zvimba presented ZC with a Memorandum of Understanding and Collective Bargaining Agreement, which drew on agreements in place between other player bodies and their boards. Zimbabwe’s cricketers had been dictated to for almost a decade, but the MoU was designed to balance the scales of power. Not surprisingly, ZC was in no hurry to sign.A Bulawayo labour lawyer, Zvimba had caught the eye of the players when he managed to extract payments towards medical bills from a reluctant ZC on behalf of a Matebeleland player who had been involved in a car accident. When I met him in Harare in May last year, Zvimba said that repeated attempts to get a meaningful response from ZC on the MoU had been fruitless, and claimed that he was largely being treated with contempt. He produced a text conversation in which a ZC human resources manager responded to his query over certain player payments with nothing more than a series of emoticons.Over the course of the year his frustrations continued, although a ZC spokesman denies that there was a reluctance on the board’s part, saying the MoU was “undergoing our due process”.Yet as the World Cup drew near, time was running out for the governing body. ZC needed the players to sign participation agreements for the tournament, but the players, who were being advised by the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations (FICA), first wanted a commitment to the MoU as well as US$2m from ZC’s World Cup earnings. As ZC dragged out the discussions, the players knew that they had a World Cup-sized bargaining chip.Prosper Utseya (left) a surprise pick for the World Cup was blamed for Zvimba’s exit from the players association•Getty ImagesThe stand-off was summed up by Ian Smith, FICA’s chief operating officer, in an email to the ZPCA executive, which Prosper Utseya included in his infamous racism letter. “My take on the current state of ZC,” Smith wrote on January 2, “is that, as far as they’re concerned, as long as they send a team to the World Cup and get their ICC payment, the rest can go to hell – that is tomorrow’s problem and that includes how the professional game will be funded for the next few years. ZPCA’s leverage only exists in your ability to determine whether a team goes to the World Cup… This is a crucial juncture in the history of cricket in Zimbabwe and how it proceeds is largely in your hands.”This was not news to the players, but Smith had good reason for impressing the importance of the situation upon them: Utseya, in his capacity as the ZPCA committee’s vice secretary, had informed Smith that the association intended to release Zvimba because of a lack of communication around funds that FICA had been supplying. FICA for their part had clearly come to respect Zvimba, inviting him to their annual general meeting in Australia to discuss the ZPCA’s potential FICA membership, and agreeing to pay $1500 per month towards the ZPCA’s office expenses. Yet the latter gesture became the bone of contention around which the entire project fell apart. Utseya says that the players were unaware of the payments until some time in December, and two other ZPCA committee members back his claim up.Zvimba points out that the five players on the executive were the only signatories on the association’s bank account, that a Harare office was indeed set up, and that invoices for expenses were sent to FICA as proof. Furthermore, he claims that his relationship with some of the players on the ZPCA executive broke down when they demanded that their wives be employed by the association.Nevertheless Zvimba’s contract was not renewed when it expired at the end of 2014. According to the ZPCA’s own constitution, the decision ought to have been voted on by the entire membership, but it wasn’t put to a vote until after Zvimba’s contract had already expired and those picked for the World Cup had signed up to ZC’s terms, which promised $650,000 to be shared among the World Cup squad, rather than $2m for the wider player pool. Tony Irish, FICA’s executive chairman, is in no doubt about why that happened, saying that the work put in by FICA and Zvimba “was undermined by a very small group of players who got rid of Zvimba and did a separate deal with ZC to enrich themselves at the expense of the wider player group”.If Zimbabwe players choose to tour countries that other teams won’t, they need an organisation behind them that will look after their interests•AFPThe spotlight falls on Utseya, who had been banned from bowling offspin in October 2014 when he was found to average 51 degrees of flexion, and only cleared to bowl legspin in December, but was nevertheless picked in the World Cup squad in early January. In a report in the , a colleague accused Utseya of orchestrating Zvimba’s dismissal in return for a place in that squad, a charge Utseya denies. “My selection was criticised, but when I look at it, none of the spinners performed in Bangladesh [in late 2014], and I did better than the other spinners against Canada,” he told the earlier this year. “No one can tell me that I didn’t deserve to go to the World Cup, because it was based on statistics.”Yet what is undeniably true is that without a representative, talk of the MoU and a $2m share of the World Cup earnings fell away, and after eleventh-hour discussions as they waited to board their flight at Harare airport, the 15 World Cup squad members agreed on a formula for how they would split the $650,000 pie amongst themselves. In turn, FICA withdrew its support because, Irish says, “it believed that little could be achieved in an environment where players were divisive and not prepared to stand together for the greater good of the overall current player system and for its future generation of players”.Masakadza, the ZPCA’s president, insists that FICA “didn’t listen to our side of the story – they heard Eliah’s side of the story and took that as gospel truth”. But aside from Utseya’s emails to Smith, the players don’t appear to have gone to great lengths to present their point of view. Irish says that he emailed Masakadza after things went sour in January, but is yet to receive a reply.With Zimbabwe increasingly travelling to parts of the subcontinent where other teams are not willing to venture due to security threats, a functioning players association seems like a crucial decision-making body.While Zimbabwe’s national players are reasonably well paid, the majority of their franchise counterparts do not earn enough to maintain the sort of professional lifestyle required of players aspiring to international cricket. For Zimbabwe to move forward, that needs to change so that the level of franchise cricket can rise accordingly. But it won’t happen unless the players formulate a coherent plan and stand together as one.

Being trained to put the hard yards in and be match aware at all times from a young age has helped the young Guyanese bowler excel under crunch moments

Mohammad Isam in Mirpur13-Feb-2016Like the rest of his West Indies Under-19 teammates, Keemo Paul listens to Hall of Fame for motivation before a game. They will all do so, again, on Sunday morning, ahead of their Under-19 World Cup final against India in Mirpur.”One particular video that we see as a team is a song called Hall of Fame by will.i.am. It is just a motivational song. It teaches you that if you train and work hard, you will be sitting in the hall of fame,” he said.While the song is their heartbeat, Shimron Hetmyer, the captain, said Paul, his deputy, was the last person to need external motivation at crunch moments. While the pressure of the occasion could get to a few players, Hetmyer is sure his deputy’s confidence and tactfulness will be vital.”Keemo Paul is probably one of the smartest bowlers we have here,” Hetmyer said. “He could probably bowl at any time for me – open if possible, in the middle or in the end. He is not really the death bowler for me but I think he handles pressure better than most of the players in this team, if not all. Pressure doesn’t get to him that much. He can play his natural game, as you saw against England. He stood out in that pressure game for us. He handles pressure as good as anyone I know.”Against England in their first group stage match, Paul took the key wicket of Sam Curran, who was batting on 39. West Indies later slipped to 103 for 5 in the 23rd over when his counter-attacking 58-ball 65 nearly won West Indies the game. Against Zimbabwe, he kept things tight before he effected the Mankad that took West Indies to the quarter-final. In the first of their knockout clash, he dismissed the dangerous Hasan Mohsin. Then when the chase was getting tight, his unbeaten 16-ball 24 hastened the victory.In the semi-final against Bangladesh, he got injured while trying to save a boundary at third man, but returned to bowl in the last five overs. He first bounced out Mehedi Hasan Miraz before bursting through Mohammad Saifuddin next ball. “I think it was very big over in the game. I think I had a clear mind and executing the basics,” Paul explained. “He [Miraz] was batting really well. I think he was settled. My plan was to bowl good length balls. He was going deep in his crease so I just decided to pop a short one. I caught him half yard. It was a very important wicket,” he said.Both set batsmen were removed and he added a third wicket of big-hitter Saeed Sarkar in his next over. Bangladesh could have scored 240 but they were cut down to 226. The difference was huge in the context of the game.So how does Paul, at the age of 17, handle pressure moments?”I think it is just knowing the game from an early age, and being around a lot of experienced people. You just gain as much intelligence from them and use it in the game,” he said. “You just have to know how to manage the pressure, just know how to be confident. Learn from it. You have to take in some things. Just stay focused and do what you are doing. In pressure situation, I just clear my mind. It motivates me. I always want to win and do well in the game. Pressure situation motivates me.”West Indies manager Dwain Gill believes Paul is the “brain” in the team and has a way to get everyone together in the dressing-room and in the middle. “He is our vice-captain, and it is because he is our most intelligent cricketer,” Gill said. “Off the field he is the one who brings the players together. He is the brain in the team, and everyone relates to him.”Paul is from Guyana where he “looks up to Shiv Chanderpaul”. He comes from the Essequibo Islands where he belongs to a logging community called . Paul said that Chanderpaul guides him, and owes much of his cricketing acumen to the West Indies legend.”I played with Shiv. I get a lot of advice and intelligence and guidance from him,” he gused. “I am very good friends with his son too, we are both Under-19 cricketers.”Paul didn’t show signs of pressure even if he was feeling it. Sunday is another chance for him to execute his plans in his ice-cool manner.

Plays of the day from the game between Gujarat Lions and Rising Pune Supergiants in Rajkot

Nikhil Kalro14-Apr-2016When Jadeja bowed to DhoniThere aren’t too many secrets between Ravindra Jadeja and MS Dhoni on the field. They’ve been team-mates for over seven years now and Dhoni knows only too well how Jadeja rushes through his overs in limited-overs cricket. So after Steven Smith holed out to deep cover in the 17th over, Jadeja tried to take his opportunity, but Dhoni did not let him. Jadeja hurried in, Dhoni pulled out of the delivery. Jadeja tried again next ball, and was even quicker, but Dhoni had not even taken his stance. He finally bowled, but on Dhoni’s terms. Bhatia’s lucky break When Dhoni is at the striker’s end in the slog overs, the non-striker is expected to keep him there. Off the second ball of the final over, Dhoni hit to long-off and returned for the second run. Rajat Bhatia, his partner, was not interested but Dhoni powered through regardless. Bhatia finally went but had no chance until a poor throw at the bowler’s end reprieved him. Luckily for Dhoni, Bhatia rose to the challenge and they completed a brace of twos that left the latter panting. RP’s banana swing Despite standing outside his crease, Aaron Finch had shimmied down to RP Singh’s first delivery, a nippy inswinger that caught the batsman off guard. The ball swerved in after angling across the right-hander from over the wicket and struck Finch on the pad with no shot offered. A big appeal ensued but Finch had been hit too high. Or was he? No one was sure, but the umpire was convinced the ball wouldn’t have hit the stumps. When Bravo foxed Pietersen Like with Mustafizur Rahman’s offcutters, the batsmen know what’s coming from Dwayne Bravo. His slow, dipping cutters have been mighty effective in recent times. After Glenn Maxwell and David Miller in the previous game, it was Kevin Pietersen’s turn today. In the 14th over, Bravo brought out four of those deliveries in succession. The last of those slower ones flummoxed Pietersen, as he brought his bat down late only to drag on to his stumps, bringing a switch in Supergiants’ momentum.