All posts by n8rngtd.top

The reason English viewers aren’t all that interested is not because the IPL is Indian

Andy Zaltzman25-Feb-2013Kevin Pietersen clobbered his first Twenty20 hundred yesterday, clinching the match for the Delhi Daredevils, and passing three figures with a characteristic six. It was a startling innings by a startling player, although startling things happen so often in the IPL that their startle capacity is less startling than you might expect of cricket so startlingly startling.Last week Pietersen, who is admirably open, passionate and forthright in his media utterances, bemoaned the lack of English interest in the IPL, and the sometimes negative publicity it receives in the press here, attributing some of these problems to “jealousy”. From the selected quotes reported, it is hard to know who is supposed to be being jealous of the IPL – ex-players in the media who missed out on its glamour and financial bounty, or supporters who feel it takes the sun-kissed multi-million-dollar glitz and glory away from the April skirmishes in the County Championship, or the prime minister, who secretly wishes he was an IPL dancing girl.However, the reason for any lack of English interest in the IPL is simple. It is not because the “I” stands for Indian. The same would be true if it was the Icelandic Premier League or the Idaho Premier League. More so, probably. Idaho has no business muscling in on cricket. They have snowmobiles and processed cheese. They should leave cricket well alone.Nor does this relative lack of interest have anything to do with the format of the cricket and England’s general national preference for the longer game. Nor does it reflect on the quality of play, which although variable (as in any league in any sport), is often spectacular and dramatic. Nor even is it because the rampant hype and commercial insistence of the IPL might grate with a sport-watching public unaccustomed to having branded excitement blasted into their faces with the relentless determination of a child who has just discovered the joys of banging an upside-down cereal bowl with a spoon.It is simply that, in an already saturated sports-watching market, the IPL does not, and I would argue cannot, offer enough for the English fan to actively support.As a sports fan, you cannot force an instant emotional attachment to and investment in a team with which you have no geographical or familial link, and which has little history or identity with which to entice you. A Mongolian football fan might support Barcelona, or a Tanzanian baseball nut could develop a passion for the New York Yankees, for what those clubs are, what they have achieved, and what they stand for, and be drawn into their historic rivalries that have evolved over 100 years or more; but an English cricket fan is, as yet, unlikely to find the same bond of attraction to the five-year-old Chennai Super Kings. Supporting sport requires more than guaranteed entertainment and being able to watch great players competing.Perhaps, in time, this will develop. The process was probably not helped by the franchise teams being largely disbanded and reconstituted before the 2011 season, so that any identity that had been built in the first three IPL seasons was fractured or destroyed.It is also not helped by the fact that the star players might represent three or four different T20 franchises, and a country if time allows, over the course of a year. What if I love the Barisal Burners but am non-committal about the Sydney Thunder, scared of the Matabeleland Tuskers, unable to forgive Somerset for a three-hour traffic jam I sat in on the M5 ten years ago, and absolutely viscerally hate the Royal Challengers Bangalore (how dare they challenge our Royals, in Jubilee year especially) (despite any lingering historical quibbles)? What am I supposed to think about Chris Gayle? Is he hero or villain?English cricket fans, even if sceptical or ambivalent about Twenty20, can admire the range of skills on display, appreciate how the format is expanding human comprehension of what mankind can and will do to small round things with flat bits of wood, and relish the high-pitched drama and tension of the endgames. They can simply enjoy seeing dancers jiggle their jiggly bits for no obvious reason, and be moved and uplifted by the sensation that unbridled commercialism is slowly destroying everything pure about sport and the world.But, without teams and identities for which English supporters can root, and thus the emotional commitment that makes supporting sport such an infinitely rewarding experience, the IPL will continue to struggle to find active support in England. Not that the IPL, or Pietersen, or any of its other players and protagonists, should give two shakes or Billy Bowden’s finger about that.I’d be interested to know your views on this, from English, Indian and other perspectives. I love cricket. I think I have probably made that abundantly clear in the three and a half years I have been writing this blog, and in the 30 years I have been boring my friends and, latterly, wife about it. I have tried watching the IPL, I have enjoyed some of it, but it just does not excite me. Am I normal, or should I see a shrink?● At the opposite end of the scoring-rate see-saw, a curious but increasingly intriguing Test match in Trinidad found itself donning its Wellington boots and staring forlornly at a dark and soggy ending. Not for the first time in its annoying history, The Weather intervened to spoil a potentially thrilling Test match denouement.Much of the cricket had been on the stodgy side of gloopy, and the seemingly endless behavioural idiosyncrasies of the DRS continued to irritate more than resolve, but another trademark jaunty Michael Clarke declaration had set the West Indies 215 to win in 61 overs. The stage was perfectly set for Chris Gayle. Or Dwayne Bravo. Or, at a stretch, Marlon Samuels.They were, regrettably for Test Match fans, otherwise engaged. A full-strength West Indies would not be world-conquering, but they might at least conquer the occasional Test match. Selectors, schedules and squabbles look set to conspire to ensure that the world waits an extremely long time to see a full-strength West Indies Test XI again.In the absence of proven hitters, Darren Sammy, the West Indies captain, after a largely ineffective match in which he had raised further questions about his suitability as prong four of a four-pronged bowling attack, promoted himself from 8 to 3 in an effort to kickstart the chase. Many things have been written about Sammy as a cricketer, but the words “reliable batsman” are not amongst them. At least, not unless preceded by the words “no one’s idea of a”. He is, however, a potent thwacker of a cricket ball, and knew that, on a pitch that had been a connoisseur of slow-scoring’s dream, a swift blast from him could potentially enable the eternally crafty and virtually impregnable Chanderpaul to shepherd the rest of his fragile team to victory.Sammy promptly clonked a rapid 30 before the gloom intervened. Victory was still distant, but had become possible, and it was refreshing to see both captains striving to concoct a positive result from a somnolent surface.● If Clarke’s declaration was enterprising, his team’s batting had lacked the positivity that had become its trademark in the early part of the millennium. The Baggy Greens plinked their runs at 2.39 per over – their slowest batting match since the Galle Test of 1999. In their 147 Tests since then, Australia had averaged 3.59 per over. Their first innings of 311 in 135 overs was their slowest score of 300 or more since 1989. During it, four different West Indies bowlers bowled more than 15 overs for less than two runs per over – the first time any team had done this against Australia since 1961. Watson’s 56 off 172 and Hussey’s 73 off 207 were respectively the second-slowest 50-plus and 70-plus scores by Australians in Tests this millennium.The pitch was awkward and the bowling admirably disciplined, but Australia plodding along at under 2.5 runs per over is further proof that the apocalypse is nigh ‒ alongside economic collapse in Europe, political upheavals around the world, the unstoppable rise of reality television, the branding of time-outs in the IPL, anything to do with Silvio Berlusconi, Vernon Philander’s Test bowling average, and the current state of the world cricket calendar.

David Miller’s ability to hit boundaries in clusters on his way to a 38-ball century led to panic among the RCB bowlers

Abhishek Purohit07-May-2013A sense of inevitability had come over the PCA Stadium midway through the Kings XI Punjab chase. Sitting in the dugout, Adam Gilchrist, amid helpless glances at the scoreboard, was complaining about poor umpiring decisions his side had received over the season. Royal Challengers Bangalore were bowling and fielding with the look of a side that puts up a monstrous total in a Twenty20, strikes early in the chase and then waits for the remainder of the game to play itself out. The usual questions were being asked. Did Kings XI have the pace to bowl short at Chris Gayle? Was it possible to stop AB de Villiers at the death?David Miller hit many of his boundaries in the ‘v’•BCCIRoyal Challengers had reason to feel safe. The last proper batting pair was at the crease, to be followed by a bowling allrounder who had had about the worst tournament debut you could imagine with the ball. Situations can approach the improbable quickly in T20. Nearly 14 an over needed from the last seven. What do you do? If you are David Miller, you hit the cover off the ball, mostly in the ‘V’, and hand out rhyming threats to bowlers – V, tree, arc, park. If you are Royal Challengers, you do not drop him.Miller had taken 14 off his previous three deliveries when Virat Kohli missed a skier and copped a blow to his jaw. Soon, the RCB big three were feeling the pressure. De Villiers, of all fielders, fumbled in the deep to allow a second, and his throw arrived exactly in the middle of the pitch. Gayle took a couple of steps and floated his first delivery down the leg side. Kohli argued with the umpire about calling a no-ball that wasn’t.Hard as it was to take your eyes off Miller’s assault, you couldn’t ignore the panic spreading like wildfire among the RCB bowlers. Three successive boundaries hemmed in by two dropped chances were enough to start it.Allan Donald had said that Gayle’s 30-ball century left his Pune Warriors players scared. That was the first innings of the game and Gayle went after Warriors without a care in the world. This was a chase that began at nearly ten an over. Royal Challengers were not far away from getting into the Kings XI tail. Instead, within a few minutes, theirs was between their legs.The more RP Singh caves in under pressure, the farther he seems from the bowler who shone briefly in India colours. The more Vinay Kumar bowls short with absent venom, the harder it seems to fathom how Praveen Kumar continues to get ignored.Perhaps Royal Challengers were unlucky to run into Miller on the night he finally pulled off what he had been threatening to in the past couple of games. He had half-centuries in unsuccessful, but close, chases against the might of Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings. He was Man of the Match when Kings XI chased 186 in Mohali against Warriors, coming in at 58 for 3 and blasting 80 off 41. It hadn’t been all power-hitting, though. He’d also guided a modest, but tricky, chase against Delhi Daredevils with an unbeaten 34. In August last year, he almost single-handedly clubbed Yorkshire to the Friends Life t20 title.Miller has this ability to hit boundaries in clusters. It can quickly unnerve the fielding side, as Royal Challengers found out. Not only does it make the bowlers lose their lengths and feed Miller, but the odd good delivery also gets taken for runs. There was nothing wrong with a shortish Ravi Rampaul ball on off, but amid all the straight sixes, Miller was able to wait on it and guide it very late past short third man. By the time RP Singh came on, Miller had hit the zone. When you can stand in the crease and drive a short of a length ball for six over long-off, you are really killing it. “Killer Miller” fittingly read a placard in the crowd.It’s been three years since Miller made his international debut for South Africa. Though always noted for his big-hitting, he is not exactly a regular yet. He wasn’t part of the squad for the World Twenty20 last year but has made it to the Champions Trophy side in the absence of Jacques Kallis.Tonight, he used his father’s advice about hitting in the V to make a hundred in 38 balls and dedicated it to his cousin on her birthday. Yusuf Pathan took one delivery less to make one in 2010, an innings that drew extraordinary praise from his captain Shane Warne . Gayle took eight less to get one, and a cartoon suggested a radical new field setting, with players flying around quidditch-style on brooms to stop Gayle’s monster sixes. That won’t be out of place for Miller, too, only the area above the V would be crowded with flying brooms.

The best way to survive and flourish on a pitch with variable pace and bounce is to adopt a more aggressive approach

Aakash Chopra at Sabina Park 01-Jul-2013Sample this – 11 maidens out of the 97 (completed) overs and 347 dot balls (59%) out of the 586 bowled in an ODI. Those are appalling stats coming from a match played between two sides that boast of the world’s most dynamic players. Was it poor batting, were there demons in the pitch, or was it simply exceptional limited-overs bowling?If it was poor batting then what explains 46 boundaries, including as many as 11 sixes, in the interim? Who was hitting those big ones? If there were indeed demons in the pitch, then it’s difficult to fathom how batsmen from both sides lasted that long. And, it wasn’t the last option either: the bowling, at no stage, looked menacing enough to architect those statistics.So, what was the mystery behind some of the better stroke-makers of the cricket ball playing an altogether different brand of cricket? Well, it was indeed the pitch that dictated a certain kind of play, at least till the batsmen chose to take a little bit of risk. While there were no apparent demons in the pitch, the variable pace and bounce off the pitch ensured that getting away was really difficult.Believe it or not, at Sabina Park during the second ODI between India and West Indies, hitting a four or a six was a lot easier than taking a single to rotate strike. The moment the batsman tried to place the ball in the gap, he ended up either offering a dead bat because the ball either arrived a little quicker or later than he expected or he couldn’t hit the ball hard enough to beat the inner ring. Also with the new laws, the mandatory extra fielder inside the 30-yard circle added to the misery.This pitch reminded me of the one I batted on in the Dhaka Premier League, a 50-overs-a-side tournament between clubs. The team batting first struggled through their quota of overs and managed only 175 runs on a slow and sluggish pitch that offered spinners a fair amount of assistance. Still, chasing less than four-an-over might stretch us a bit but should be achieved, or so we thought.I opened the batting with the knowledge that scoring was going to be a little tricky, yet I knew if I spent time on the pitch, batting would eventually become easier for that’s what I’d been conditioned to believe. I waited for the loose balls to come my way. On a pitch that offered variable bounce and pace, the margin of error was larger for the bowler, resulting in fewer hittable balls. My plan B was to take singles and rotate strike till I gauged the pace and bounce but that didn’t happen either. I kept finding the fielders instead of gaps.Then came the trickiest bit – a first in my career. Even when the loose balls were bowled begging to be punished, I couldn’t hit them for boundaries. I was playing proper cricketing shots but the rewards weren’t proportional to the effort. The cover drive wasn’t traveling quick enough and the cut wasn’t piercing the off side field either. I scratched around for a little longer before perishing.That innings and the subsequent chat with a few players who were regulars in the Bangladesh circuit did much to decode these sort of pitches, and of course the way to deal with them. On such batting surfaces, rotating strike is difficult because the pace and bounce off the pitch is so inconsistent that you don’t know when to bring the bat down to find the right timing or control the pace and direction of the ball off the bat to hit the gaps. If you keep trying to play the ball on its merit, you’ll end up hitting it directly to the fielders all the time unless it’s a rank long hop or a full toss.The only way to score on such pitches is to adopt a slightly more aggressive approach and shelve the percentages on the balls that are in your hitting zone. You ought to take the odd risk, take the aerial route and hit a few boundaries to not only release but also transfer the pressure to the bowler; just sticking around will be playing into the bowlers’ hands. That’s exactly what Dinesh Karthik did against Marlon Samuels.Rohit Sharma in the first innings and Johnson Charles in the second showed that if you are willing to take calculated risks, the rewards were forthcoming. Of course, you would also need a bit of luck to succeed but taking that punt is the best and perhaps the only way to succeed on such a pitch.The pitch for the second ODI was the same one on which the first match between West Indies and Sri Lanka was played. If the same pitch is going to be used for the last match of the series in Jamaica on Tuesday, another laborious day for batsmen is in the offing.

Plays of the day from the first ODI between India and West Indies in Kochi

Devashish Fuloria21-Nov-2013Heavy load
It’s not often that you see a player being hauled off the ground on a stretcher, unlike, say in football. So it is understandable that the two paramedics who ran in after Chris Gayle had gone down on the pitch were a bit underprepared for the task. The two men had walked only a few steps before one of them realised that Gayle was not an average-sized cricketer, and had to quickly ask the two West Indies players, who had come from the dressing room, to give them a hand.Grubber – I

Marlon Samuels had been introduced to the dual nature of the pitch early. In the first three overs, he saw a couple of deliveries reach MS Dhoni on the second bounce before being hit on the gloves by one that reared up from a length. But even that didn’t prepare him for the shock that he got from Suresh Raina. As he went back to cut a shortish delivery in the 14th over, the ball almost scooted along the floor to strike the middle stump only a couple of inches above the base. A flabbergasted Samuels waited for a few seconds before slowly trudging off the pitch.Grubber – II

By the time Mohammed Shami was brought back to bowl the 38th over, 69 out of the 75 deliveries Darren Bravo had faced were from the spinners, and he had done well against them. The assured footwork he had shown against spin, however, went missing when he stayed rooted to the crease off the second delivery he faced from Shami in that over. The ball stayed low and uprooted the offstump.The first-ball surprise

All day, it was the lower bounce that had been causing batsmen problems. Rohit Sharma immediately checked the toe of his bat after defending the first ball of the second innings from Ravi Rampaul, but it was the first ball from Jason Holder that surprised everyone. First, Rohit, who was squared up as it bounced extra and flew past the shoulder of the bat; then the keeper, who was not able to hold on to the ball as it swerved away after crossing the batsman and went to the boundary; and finally, the slip fielders, who were perplexed by where that came from.The sweepsOn a pitch that had afforded generous help to the Indian spinners, Sunil Narine was expected to play a part too. He did get a few to turn sharply during his spell. But with Rohit in the form of his life, that wasn’t going to make a difference. Twice, in Narine’s first two overs, Rohit intentionally swept in the air. The first one was behind square and it spun past the fine-leg fielder; the second was a dare to deep midwicket which went over the fielder for a six. The mini-battle was won by the batsman

The plays of the day from the fourth ODI between New Zealand and West Indies, in Nelson

Siddarth Ravindran04-Jan-2014The six
Corey Anderson’s New Year’s Day splash means that his arrival at the crease produces a buzz among the fans, who expect more massive hits. Anderson had provided the Queenstown spectators 14 chances to win a $100,000 jackpot if they caught any six with one-hand, and wore the sponsor’s shirts. This time, they had to wait till the last ball of the innings for an opportunity. A monster hit from Anderson nearly cleared the grass banks beyond long-on, though that didn’t stop two fans from enthusiastically diving for it on the downslope behind the viewing area. Both were dives for the camera, though, as neither of them had a chance of catching it.The run-out
Chadwick Walton picked up a third duck in his four-ODI career after a mix-up in the first over. He steered the ball in front of point, where Kane Williamson swooped on the ball. Walton was already a long way out when he saw that his partner was not coming through for the run. Williamson realised he didn’t have to go for a difficult direct hit and threw it to the wicketkeeper who was charging towards the stumps. Like a football cross, it was perfectly timed for Luke Ronchi to collect and take the final steps to tap off the bails.The boundary rope
One delivery that highlighted the difference between the two sides was the second ball of the fifth over in the chase. Kirk Edwards punched the ball down the ground and was ambling, expecting the ball to go through. Nathan McCullum had other ideas, though, sprinting after it and putting in a headlong dive to try stopping the ball from reaching the rope. He would have succeeded too, had it not been for a kink in the boundary rope, which was pulled in about a yard around the sightscreens. Medium-pace bowlers are often told they need an extra yard, but this time it was the fielder who needed it.The drops
West Indies’ batting and bowling weaknesses could be blamed on the absence of senior players, but there’s no excuse for the fielding standards observed in the match. Three regulation chances went down off Jason Holder’s bowling, leaving the 22-year-old distraught. Denesh Ramdin dropped a thin edge that came through just above waist height, and barely needed him to move. Dwayne Bravo tried the reverse-cup as he let the ball burst through his fingers at first slip, and Nikita Miller reprieved Brendon McCullum first ball by putting down a sitter.The over
Tino Best is a bowler who guarantees entertainment, through his raw pace or his uninhibited celebrations or his lack of control which leads to loads of runs. The 44th over of the innings showed why he has earned the nickname ‘El Tino’. The first ball was a trademark Ross Taylor hit to midwicket for four, the next a pacy delivery that was outside edged past the keeper for four. Two balls later, an inside edge raced to the fine leg boundary. Best was willing on his fielder to hold on to a catch at deep midwicket next ball but it landed just short of Lendl Simmons. Best then fired in a full toss, which Brendon McCullum top edged and the ball swirled to McCullum’s left. Best charged through hoping for a caught-and-bowled, but the ball just evaded him. Already frustrated, his mood worsened when the umpire called it a no-ball for height. That meant he had to bowl another ball in the over, which was promptly dispatched over cover for six by McCullum, ending an over of drama, and dismay for Best.

Australia’s success against England and South Africa is down to the arresting form of their most talented players – David Warner and Mitchell Johnson

Daniel Brettig in Cape Town04-Mar-2014In examining Australia’s resurgence against England and South Africa, many possible catalysts can be tossed up for consideration. The arrival of Darren Lehmann as coach stands as one signal moment, and the collective hunger for success that had built up in Australian cricket over some years lurching between mediocrity and ineptitude offers another explanation. So too does the fact that in Australia and South Africa, Michael Clarke’s team have largely found fertile conditions for their preferred approach to the game, favouring velocity with the ball, initiative with the bat and high energy in the field.Yet the most fundamental marker of the team’s success can be found in contrasting personal narratives for a handful of cricketers in each of the three countries. Australia’s two most outsized talents, David Warner and Mitchell Johnson, are at a peak of fitness, motivation, skill and mentality that has allowed Clarke to unleash them at their very best. In contrast, England and South Africa have grappled with the reality of pivotal figures beyond their peak as players, leaders or team-men, time and tide having caught up with them.It is quite a list, of those senior men reaching a moment of personal crisis or retirement realisation when confronted by Clarke’s team. Jonathan Trott, Graeme Swann, Kevin Pietersen and now Graeme Smith have all passed from Test match view across these two series. Andy Flower, England’s erstwhile team director, also slid from his role in that time. Australia, grown increasingly bold in their outlook as they witnessed the feats of Johnson and Warner, have meanwhile remained happily settled, all team members equally focused on the task at hand and not feeling any need to think beyond it.This is not to say that Australia’s show of strength has been the deciding factor in any of the decisions made. In Smith’s case it was just one of many, from a young family with roots in two nations and a career now 12 years old, to the labyrinthine politics and distractions of leading a cricket nation of such diversity. Trott was overwhelmed by stress and dark thoughts he had largely been able to manage over his time in an England cap, Swann felt the increasing effects of a chronic elbow problem, Pietersen exhausted his state of détente with team management, and Kallis recognised the dulling of his reflexes even before battle was joined, leaving an enormous hole in his team.Yet the sight of a hungry horde rushing headlong into one’s path has the tendency to crystallise any encroaching desire for the quiet life. It has been Johnson and Warner leading that charge for Australia, playing a kind of muscular, intimidating cricket that is thrilling to watch and disheartening for an opponent unable to summon the resources to match it. On day four at Newlands, both men offered up passages of their most brazen play, no doubt providing Smith with a certain reassurance that he had made the right decision – so swift and sure were Warner and Johnson that only the most alert and committed of combatants could be expected to hold them.Warner’s finest batting of this match and series had already been and gone when he walked out to bat in the morning, his first-innings hundred the best and most complete since he compiled a first, against New Zealand on a seaming Bellerive Oval wicket in 2011. But the disdain he exhibited in crashing the hosts to all parts of a ground they had been accustomed to dominate on was still breathtaking. Among the most compelling qualities Warner can offer a team is the confidence he inspires in other batsmen. Morne Morkel has been terrifying at times in this series, but his treatment by Warner has made every other batsman think him a little more mortal.For Smith, setting a plan to claim Warner’s wicket has been perhaps the most maddening on-field exercise of his entire captaincy. The more Warner has matured, the more adept he has become at manipulating a field and a bowler to his advantage. Morkel is often criticised for dropping too short – against Warner the bouncer has often seemed his only option to prevent a boundary or a single. Similarly Smith has not been able to win through either attack or defence. The lopsided battle between captain and batsman reached its climax when Smith sent all nine fielders to the Newlands fence, only to watch Warner squirt a boundary fine of third man.The only time Warner did not crash through Smith’s fields was when JP Duminy pursued a line wide of the stumps into the footmarks with his part-time spin. This seemed more a matter of Warner stubbornly unprepared to fall for such a stratagem than a sudden aversion to scoring; after lunch normal service resumed, and the opener’s familiar leap toasted his second century of the match. Instances of batsmen cracking more than 500 runs in a three-Test series are few. To do the trick in this series, on foreign territory, is an achievement Warner may never quite top.Mitchell Johnson troubled Graeme Smith all series, and he dismissed him in his final innings•Getty ImagesJohnson has of course had a previous peak on South African shores, his 2009 series the ideal he was striving to return to when taking an extended break from the game in 2011-12. On both occasions his furious speed has been allied to accuracy, leaving batsmen with nothing loose on which to feed, and nowhere to hide. His command over Smith in this series has been near total, and it was fitting that the captain’s final innings ended with a short ball, a fend and a catch at short leg – grateful no doubt to have avoided another broken hand from a Johnson bullet. Dean Elgar was then no match for a facsimile of the ball that castled Alastair Cook in Adelaide, pace and just enough movement to beat a groping blade before dismantling the stumps.At 32, Johnson is older than many fast bowlers at their peak. But as Michael Holding has previously observed, the earlier break from the game and a wayward career before it leaves Johnson fresher than he might otherwise have been, and the better to accompany Warner on further ransackings of international opposition. Pondering how he and Johnson had met England and South Africa at an opportune moment, Warner recognised now was their time, a fruitful phase that will eventually meet its end.”It’s always handy when someone bowls 150kph, but I just think where we’re both at in our stage of our careers, we don’t go out there and think these guys are going to retire,” he said. “Whether it was form that might have brought that down with Graeme Swann or Graeme Smith, we’ll never know, all we can do is keep playing to the best of our ability. It’s going to happen in time as well, India with Dravid and Laxman retired as well. We’re coming to the age where the older guys are starting to push on a little bit and look for other careers after cricket.”Australia have numerous key components far nearer to the end than the beginning; Brad Haddin, Ryan Harris and Chris Rogers to name three. Yet Warner and Johnson were both followed up on day four by cameos from others who can ensure a continuity of success from one generation to the next. Steven Smith’s impish talent took him to 36 runs from 20 balls as the declaration ticked near, before James Pattinson’s pace and reverse swing accounted for Hashim Amla in lengthening evening shadows. For Johnson and Warner the moment is now, but there is enough around them to suggest the sun can shine on Australia’s cricketers for some time yet.

Steven Davies on the pain of keeping to Stuart Meaker, rainy days in the Surrey dressing room, and who’d play him in a movie

Interview by Jack Wilson24-May-2014You have shared a dressing room with legends of the game, like Graeme Smith and Ricky Ponting. What have you learned from them?
The beauty of having these guys around is, I can tap into their experience. Graeme has immense leadership abilities and I’m trying to pick things up about that from him. Ricky has played in all sorts of conditions all around the world that I could pick his brains about.How do you rate your England career?
Pretty brief, to be honest with you. I’m looking to change that and get back into it. I think I’ve got a good chance to break back in, providing I start the season well.Which bowler hits the gloves the hardest?
Definitely Stuart Meaker. He’s an absolute nightmare. He’s 5ft 5in, tiny, but bowls at 92mph and swings it and wobbles it. I’m standing pretty close too, because he doesn’t get much carry.Who is the tidiest gloveman in county cricket?
James Foster.Which of your team-mates would you least like to be stuck in a lift with?
Jason Roy would be a nightmare. He’s all over the place. He has a lot of energy and I don’t – and it wouldn’t mix well.Who would play you in a film?
Leonardo Di Caprio.You wear the squad number nine. Why?
I’m a striker.When it’s tipping down with rain, what’s going on in the Surrey dressing room?
A lot of messing around. We’ve played a lot of indoor cricket recently too. I’d like to say gym work but no, chilling out and messing around.Who do you least want to be near during a rain break?
He’s not boring but Zafar [Ansari] has always got his head in his books. He went to Cambridge and is always studying something. We leave him to do his thing.What’s the toughest thing about being a wicketkeeper?
Standing up to seamers who are pretty quick. It can be pretty daunting at times.If you weren’t a cricketer what would you be?
A tennis player.You are a big Arsenal fan. Do you want Arsene Wenger in or out?
I think it’s time for a change. I’m getting rid of him. I want to freshen things up.You have to choose a five-a-side football team for Surrey. Who would you have in it?
My team would be Davies to captain the side, obviously. I’d be running the centre of the park. Rory Burns, Dom Sibley, Jack Winslade, and I’ll put Jason Roy in there too.And who would be nowhere near it?
Tim Linley.

Huge sixes and great costumes at Edgbaston on T20 Finals Day

Ali Merali24-Aug-2014Choice of game
The T20 Finals day is arguably the best event in the domestic cricketing calendar and therefore not one I wanted to miss. Whilst I would have loved to have seen my home county, Middlesex, sadly the final was competed by Lancashire and the hosts, the Birmingham Bears.Weather
It always seems to be raining on big match days at Edgbaston and today was no exception. Luckily the interruptions were brief and while one semi-final was played under Duckworth-Lewis, the final itself was unaffected.Face-off I relished
With Freddie Flintoff returning to his Lancashire side for the final, I wanted to see how he would fare against the international class of Ian Bell. I needn’t have worried as his first delivery was chipped into the air by Bell before being caught well by Karl Brown.Key performer
Laurie Evans may have won the official Man-of-the-Match award for his stunning half-century off 28 balls, but I would have given it to his team-mate Chris Woakes, who added some useful lower-order runs in the first innings, but it was his sublime death bowling that sealed it for the Bears. After a slow-ball bouncer ended up as a rank long-hop, dispatched easily for six by Brown in his penultimate over, Woakes responded superbly to bowl him with a perfect yorker two balls later. Bowling the final over, with Lancashire needing 14 to win, he gave nothing away.One thing I would have changed
It seems a shame that many of the overseas players weren’t able to play on finals day. Lancashire were deprived of Junaid Khan and Birmingham of Shoaib Malik. While this may be an inevitable by-product of the scheduling, which gives a three-week break between the group stage and the finals, it was disappointing to not get to see some of the star talent.Drop of the day
While Evans was brilliant with the bat, his drop of a simple catch from Brown, then on 1, could have proved costly. Brown hit a huge six in the same over, this one sailing over Evans’ head at the midwicket boundary, and added three more in his half-century, which nearly made him the match-winner.Shots of the day
With 26 needed of just eight deliveries the game seemed over, but Flintoff changed that with two towering sixes. The first was smashed over the bowler’s head while the latter was clubbed just over deep midwicket.Fancy-dress index
T20 Finals Day always seems to attract some fancy dress, and the usual groups of superheroes, giant hotdogs and Smurfs could be spotted around the ground. The best came from a group with a Yogi Bear, Pooh Bear and a grizzly, who had unsurprising come to support the Birmingham Bears.Marks out of ten
9. Overall it was a great day of cricket and the crowd was in good voice to support the respective teams. I would definitely like to go again next year, hopefully this time supporting the Panthers to glory.

The home of Australia’s first – and possibly last – full-time dealer of his kind is a treasure trove of cricket literature amassed over 45 years

Russell Jackson25-Nov-2014″Cricket has one of the richest literatures,” said John Arlott, “yet often the invitation from a good friend and cricketer to ‘come and see my cricket library’ strains tact to the limit.” Though he’s a lover of Arlott’s works himself, veteran cricket book dealer Roger Page might disagree with that particular aside.Though some nominative determinism might have played a role too, a love of cricket and cricket books has remained constant throughout Page’s life. Nestled on shelves that line every available wall space in his hybrid shop-cum-home in Melbourne’s north-east is a treasure trove of cricket literature, amassed over a remarkable 45 years (as of last month) as Australia’s first and only full-time cricket book dealer.Visitors expecting a crusty old septuagenarian will be surprised and maybe inspired by Page’s enthusiasm, energy and passion for his cricket pursuits. For 38 years and counting he has been scoring for Victorian Premier cricket side Fitzroy-Doncaster. (I probe him for recollections of Abdul Qadir’s late-’90s season in those ranks and he admits, “I haven’t seen anything else like it.”) And in addition to his primary concern of selling books he also edits a new Australian journal, , named in honour of his former acquaintance and titan of Australian cricket writing, Ray Robinson.As the business creeps towards its half-century, Page recounts that the wicket was actually a bit dicey early on. The A$300 worth of profit from his first year of operation was swallowed by the taxman and it was four years before the full-time business started making money. “It took longer than I thought to really become established,” he says, but by then he’d dug in for the long haul.In those formative years Page travelled to England for stock, stashing books (“three or four bob each”) in “ridiculous” large cabin trunks at his grandmother’s house in London. Those were then ferried on to his Tasmanian home for the princely sum of £10 each and arrived at his Tasmania home a few months later.On those early treasure hunts the Epworth Press in London, and Charing Cross Road, were ripe for plunder, as was a small bookshop Page spotted as he alighted from a train in Leeds. In that instance he was drawn inside by a row of 1930s that would complete his own personal collection. Moments later, the shopowner was heading upstairs to dust off a pristine copy of Pelham Warner’s , unknown to Page at the time.The shopkeeper mistook Page’s reservations about lugging the hefty volume home as haggling and halved the £3 asking price. It couldn’t be left behind for a deal like that, and sits in Page’s collection to this day. In those early days he could buy a full run of original (from 1891 through to 1970) off John McKenzie for £150. Now the same set would pay off the best part of a luxurious holiday house.Since the recent passing of his wife and business partner Hilda, Page’s only visible sign of slowing down is the help he gets in on Fridays to pack the orders that now flow a little more regularly again since the creation of his website, a nod to modern business that he credits with saving the shop over the last half-decade.

Neither the state of the publishing industry nor of the game itself particularly ruffles him, neither does the fact that the completists and obsessives of yesteryear are not being replaced by younger collectors. He now sells far more new books than he does old ones

Many of the consignments end up at the MCG, on the shelves of the Melbourne Cricket Club library, whose librarian, David Studham, marvels at Page’s longevity and exacting service. “All our cricket books come from Roger,” says Studham. “He’s amazing, really.”At regular intervals meticulously wrapped packages will arrive at the ground – as they do for scores of private collectors – bolstering the collection with the latest journals, magazines, elusive limited-edition releases and obscure periodicals from around the globe. All are sourced through Page’s extensive overseas contacts in England and the subcontinent. Without his services, acquiring them would be a logistical nightmare or impossible. “Service” is a word Page himself uses often, perhaps unknowingly, and his brand of it is old-fashioned and reliable.A quick glance at one of his early-’70s price lists is good fun. Back then tour guides went for 30 or 40 cents apiece, Arlott titles for $1.50, and classics by the likes of Robertson-Glasgow and Alan Ross barely a dollar more. When I pick up one of Ross’ early tour diaries in the shop, Page smiles and says he’s “one of my favourites too”.Otherwise his tastes, perhaps predictably, lean towards the cream of the cricket writers whose books have passed through his hands in epic quantities. “The books in my collection, aside from the annuals, have got to be written with style and power,” he says. “I just can’t read the stuff that’s poorly written, with hackneyed and clichéd expression, which drives you up the wall.An advertisement for Page’s wares that appeared in the in 1987″It just varies depending on my mood. A year or two ago I went through some of EW Swanton’s tour books of the ’50s and found them interesting because he could sum up a game so very well. I like the Cardus works and the Arlott works, and Gideon [Haigh] is a favourite, of course.” His other contemporary likes include David Frith, Rob Steen and George Dobell.Though I shouldn’t be, I’m a little surprised when Page says he’s an ESPNcricinfo devotee on account of his passion for county cricket. In the middle of his book-lined office space sits a gleaming iMac, the only noticeable concession to modern times.Page foresaw none of this when he started selling books in 1969 as a means of furthering his own collection, back when he was an English master at Parklands High School in Burnie, Tasmania. At 22, while juggling an arts degree, he wrote and published a history of Tasmanian cricket. Before he and new wife Hilda, once a fashion designer, left the Apple Isle to make a full-time go of the cricket book business in Melbourne, he had also found the time to form the Tasmania University Cricket Club, now a mainstay of the TCA competition.”There was no cricket club, so I called a meeting and became their first secretary,” he says. Later he also became their first life member.Thus, in a literal sense, our hour-long chat covers births, deaths and marriages. Page no longer struggles for stock, though this is a bittersweet scenario, because many of the collections he once helped swell – extensive and lovingly compiled ones – have arrived back on his doorstep as older collectors sell up and slowly die out.Some older collectors even worry that Page will drop off the perch before them, a suggestion that makes him laugh. Neither the state of the publishing industry nor of the game itself particularly ruffles him, neither does the fact that the completists and obsessives of yesteryear are not being replaced by younger collectors. He now sells far more new books than he does old ones.Still, so many of the older volumes Page stocks contain stories separate and sometimes every bit as poignant as the actual texts themselves. “I just acquired a collection from a bloke from South Australia,” he says. “It was marvellous because he kept a record of pretty well every book he got and all about it. Going through that year by year, it became obvious that the love of his life was the cricket books.” Like many collectors, he found a kindred spirit in Roger Page.As for anyone else taking up the baton and continuing what Page has started, the man himself is doubtful. “I’m sure no one at the age of 30 is going to start a business like I did, so that’s the end.” With a laugh and a wry smile he concludes, “I’m sort of the last of the Mohicans”.

In the first episode of Contenders, a special ten-part buildup to the 2015 World Cup, Rahul Dravid and Graeme Smith discuss the impact of local conditions on team compositions and the issues surrounding the format of the tournament

ESPNcricinfo staff20-Jan-201531:02

Spinners can be effective in Australia – Smith

As the 2015 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand approaches, excitement is building about what the tournament holds. Who are the players to watch for? Which teams start favourites? Contenders, a ten-part ESPNcricinfo special series, examines the strengths and weaknesses of each team in depth, with two legends of the modern game – former South African captain Graeme Smith and former India captain Rahul Dravid. To kick off the series, Smith and Dravid reflect on the importance of a World Cup for a player, the impact of local conditions on team compositions, the issues surrounding the format of the tournament and the likely effects of the new ODI rules on the games.

What they said about…

Importance of playing a World Cup
Dravid: You want to make a mark in the World Cup, simply because you felt that the best players in the world were playing that tournament.
Smith: I was fortunate enough to play in three of them and never got to win one but have some great memories of those occasions.Memories of the 1992 tournament
Dravid: I had just started playing first-class cricket. One thing that we observed was the players’ colourful uniforms. We used to look at them and think, ‘Yes it would be nice to wear one of those someday.’
Smith: That was my first ever sort of exposure into international cricket. When I was 9 or younger, we used to lie on the bedroom floor, wake up at odd hours of the morning and watch television.Impact of local conditions on team composition
Dravid: You can’t have one set formula. Even if you are confident enough to qualify as one of the top eight teams, you can never predict where your quarterfinal will be. You’ve got to have a squad that covers all bases.
Smith: The unique thing about playing in Australia is the size of the grounds, it’s one thing that most other nations aren’t really used to. You have to put emphasis on scoring singles and running twos and threes.The format of the World Cup
Dravid: You can almost predict who the top eight teams are going to be. There comes a time in the tournament, when everyone starts to wait for the quarterfinals, because you know that those are the big games.
Smith: The experiences I’ve had with the football World Cup and the rugby World Cup is that every weekend, there’s a big challenge, and you’re looking forward to the next game. I think that’s crucial for us to create to keep cricket on the map and keep it competitive.Impact of new ODI rules
Dravid: When you have five fielders in the ring, it’s very hard to play a part-time bowler, you are almost forced to play five specialist bowlers. You’re going to be forced to attack and look for wickets than just sit back for long periods of play and see part-timers bowl.
Smith: You need to sum up the batting conditions with the two new balls in Australia and New Zealand. You need to set more of a platform and you can catch up in the last 20 overs if need be. The key is not to go three or four down for nothing.