There is a battle within a battle, though a friendly one, when the Indian batsmen take on England in the seven-match one-day series starting on November 14

Ajay S Shankar12-Nov-2008

There is a battle within a battle, though a friendly one, when the Indian batsmen take on England in the seven-match one-day series starting on November 14. Sourav Ganguly has vacated a middle-order spot in the Test team, and indications are that it will go to the man who makes the most of the opportunities in the one-dayers.The Indian selectors have made it clear they will be guided by current form, even if it is in the shorter format, and the competition is between Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma and M Vijay. The first three can expect to be in the starting line-up on Friday, and the fourth is expected to get his chance at some point during the series.The other contender, S Badrinath, was part of the India squad for the recent Australia Tests but did not play a match and, having lost his place in the ODI team for the first three matches against England, will hope that a recall later in the series will help him state his case once again. Then there’s Virat Kohli, the Under-19 World Cup winning captain who, it is felt, is still some way away from the Test grade.Yuvraj is a proven performer in the one-day arena but his stocks have depleted following a poor series in Sri Lanka; Raina has made an impressive comeback after a season in the sidelines; and Rohit, though not consistent enough at the highest level, has left no one in doubt about his pedigree. But it is the speed with which Vijay has moved from a Ranji Trophy double-century in Nasik to the Test XI in Nagpur and the one-day team that has added an intriguing turn to this race.Apparently, the selectors are impressed by the assurance with which Vijay handled Brett Lee and Mitchell Johnson in Nagpur, especially the time he seemed to have facing balls at 140kph. He has been highly recommended by Dav Whatmore, the India A coach, and he happens to be the only Test player in this group apart from Yuvraj.Then there is Raina, who caught Greg Chappell’s attention with a match-winning 81 against England in Faridabad two-and-a-half years ago, and has resurrected his career after a horror tour of South Africa in late 2006 that led to his banishment. His left-handedness is an advantage, and he is seen as a No. 6 Test batsman for his ability to absorb pressure and shift gears.Rohit, meanwhile, is well on his way to becoming the complete batsman his batting prowess shows he can be. But then, after a convincing ODI debut in Australia early this year, he has struggled to string together more than two good scores in one sequence. Consider his recent scores in the Challenger Trophy: 2,117*, 1. If it was not for this bewildering lack of consistency, due to what some feel is a lack of focus at times, Rohit would have been the obvious choice to replace Ganguly. But not any longer, unless he finally starts to match the hype and immense potential with a string of consistent scores. And so, it’s back to the queue.Finally, Yuvraj. “What do we do with this boy?,” a selector from the previous committee had once wondered aloud, shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders. “He has played for eight years, he has played in 23 Tests, but just when we think he is the man, he starts losing focus, or gets injured.”Yuvraj is currently going through an appalling run of poor form, which began during the ODI series in Sri Lanka where his sequence of scores read 23, 20, 12, 0, 17. Though he managed a second-innings century in the tour match against Australia, he slipped again in the Challenger Trophy, scoring 6, 3 and 8. He will come in to this series with a duck and 38 in the Ranji Trophy game against Delhi. He has also been battling injuries which have restricted his mobility in the field, and now faces one the biggest tests of his career.As of now, Raina and Rohit are the front-runners for the job. But a lot could happen in the next three weeks.

Everybody hopes that the next three matches go the full distance, but don’t rule out contingency plans for rain intervals being discussed in team meetings

Sidharth Monga in Wellington06-Mar-2009
Blame it on the rain: The repeated shower interruptions have given the captains plenty to think about © Getty Images
So one-day cricket has become predictable, eh? It’s not the same old formulaic stuff when there’s rain around. With constant rain intervals, as at the Westpac Stadium tonight, teams have to keep thinking on their feet. Equations and circumstances keep changing with every drop that hits the green.Take a look at this scenario. Before the rain arrived the first time, India were 130 for 1 and looking at a 300-plus score. After two brief stints and three rain breaks, if the game had started, India would have had to defend 165 in 20 overs. On a pitch that Daniel Vettori said was much better than the one for the Twenty20 last week, with a wet outfield and ten wickets in hand, New Zealand would have fancied a win. So from being the favourites at one stage, India would be forgiven if they thought they escaped tonight. Such are the shenanigans of the Duckworth-Lewis system.It is always tricky to bat after a rain interval. All of a sudden the overs are reduced, the batsmen have to think of a target that is safe, and they have to change their style. Let’s not forget that they have to play themselves in before they can go for the big hits. Not to take the credit away from Vettori and Kyle Mills, but India came out a little distracted after the first rain break, and lost two wickets for 21 runs in five overs before rain struck again.The strategising for games when rain is forecast – and the forecasts in New Zealand have been fairly good so far – begins at the toss itself. Does a team want the runs on the board? Or does it want to chase a target? It is often tempting to go for the latter, but Mahendra Singh Dhoni looked at the other side of it before he chose to bat.”If it rains for the amount that you lose eight, 10 or 15 overs, the side which has batted first has a bit of advantage,” said Dhoni said, “but in the same way for the side batting, if they are given a target in 20 overs, it becomes very easy. For New Zealand today, if it was a 20-over game, they would have required around 166-odd runs, but if it was a 28-over game they would have needed about 217-odd runs.”Also the side batting first stands to gain in terms of Powerplays from a situation when the game has been reduced. Today India got 15 overs of Powerplays before the rain interval, and with the game reduced to 34 overs, got three more overs of batting Powerplay. Had the rain not intervened, New Zealand would have got only 13 overs of fielding restrictions as opposed to India’s 18. It will be one complex system that takes all this into account and then reworks the target. In a similar scenario late last year, India got 18 overs of Powerplays as opposed to England’s nine, in the Bangalore ODI that had to be reduced to 22 overs a side.Generally the shorter the match, the more it favours the fielding side. But like Dhoni said, who can predict how much it will rain? It helps, though, to have a Virender Sehwag at the top of the order to take the pressure that the duo of Duckworth and Lewis put on a batting side.India knew it would rain in Napier and they knew it would rain in Wellington. Both times they decided to bat, so it seems like a policy decision. “It’s like a gamble because you don’t know how much it would rain,” said Dhoni. “That’s a gamble you take more often, and we are a good batting side so we back ourselves on that. If we get a good start we can get a decent score if the amount of overs are reduced by 15 or 20. And definitely, in 30 overs the opposition will get a big target to chase.”Vettori would have batted too if he had won the toss, but for a different reason. “The wicket was a lot better than it was for the Twenty20 game, so we wanted to make sure we could put a score on the board,” he said. “And in a way, try and put the pressure back on India because they have done so well with batting at the start.”India’s tour of New Zealand so far has been shorn of mind games and quotable quotes, but the rain breaks have added an interesting twist to both off-field planning and on-field implementation, especially when dealing with factors beyond one’s control. It is not always fair, but like the batting Powerplays they add a whole new dimension.Everybody is hoping that the next three matches will go the full distance, but you can be sure contingency plans for rain intervals will be discussed in team meetings.

An umpire watches Ross Taylor and Brendon McCullum’s furious hitting – not from the other end, for a change

James McGillivray13-May-2009Team supported
Bangalore Royal Challengers. I had the pleasure of umpiring one of their warm-up games and I resolved to support them from then on. (As an aside, I was also lucky to do a Mumbai Indians practice game last week, so that made my decision for the second game easy too)Key Performer
Ross Taylor. There have been few innings as destructive in either season of IPL as his knock. He settled himself in and then just unleashed the fury.One thing I would have changed about the match
Two things actually: If I’d been Kolkata, I would have selected Charl Langeveldt in place of Angelo Matthews. A bowler with Charl’s experience and big-match temperament would surely have made it harder in the last few overs. I would also have given Taylor the last four balls in the Royal Challengers’ innings to see if he could have scored his hundred – it would have been the fastest in IPL history.Face-off I relished
I think the biggest was the respective contributions of the two out-of-form Kiwis. Both the innings were excellent, and it was a pity that Brendon McCullum had to end on the losing side.Star-spotting
I never noticed any celebrities on any of the big screens, but the game was very exciting so maybe the cameramen were only interested in the cricket.Wow moment
Again, two: McCullum’s catch off Jacques Kallis was one of the best catches I have ever seen. And every time they replayed it, it got better. Taylor hit one of the biggest sixes I can recall. It sailed high over my head and carried on going for a long, long way (it may still be travelling).Cheerleader factor
This category has to be shared. The Kolkata girls were more energetic and flashier, but the Bangalore girls definitely tried harder to get the crowd behind their team. Both teams were well polished but I was informed by a friend who actually knows something about dancing that Bangalore definitely had the more difficult routines (something to do with them building a pyramid).Crowd meter
The ground was a little barren at the start, but considering that it was a mid-day, mid-week game, that was not entirely surprising. There was still a nice vibe, with the majority of the crowd supporting the Royal Challengers. It probably had to do with the free flags, shirts and caps being given out at the gate.In an abysmal comment on South African sporting prowess, not a single six was caught by the crowd as far as I could tell.Local hero
Jacques Kallis and Mark Boucher were the South African players in the game. When Jacques came out to bat he got a rousing reception. Dale Steyn and Roelof van der Merwe took a very slow stroll around the ground and accommodated the thousands of requests for autographs and photos. Jonty Rhodes was in the ground for the later game, and he also obliged the requesting hordes.Entertainment
A large variety of music – local, international and Indian- played throughout the game. Local acts DJ Ossewa (Ox-Wagon) and Dozi performed live, to the delight of the crowd.Banner of the day
It says a lot about the dearth of quality witticisms on show, that “Yuvraj, you make me Singh” was the highlight of the posters on show (in the second game).Overall
Though the game was between two of the bottom sides in the IPL, it was certainly the most entertaining game I’ve been to so far. The game was only decided in the last two overs, and it was full of twists and turns. It had everything that could be asked of it: brilliant batting, some wonderful and some awful fielding, and a close finish. Thoroughly enjoyable.Marks out of 10
9. The only thing that would have improved the experience was if the stadium had been packed to capacity. The grass was nice and full but the grandstands were quite empty.If you’d like to contribute to this section during the World Twenty20 in England, write to [email protected] with a brief (100 words tops) description of yourself, telling us what you do, mentioning which city you’re going to be in, and anything else you think may be relevant. Unfortunately we can’t pay you for your efforts, but you will be read by a large audience, and we’ll be happy to publish a thumbnail picture of you and a brief bio, with a link to your blog or other webpage if any.

It’s not all wham, bam, thank you ma’am; there’s a science to batting successfully in the shortest format

Aakash Chopra22-Oct-2009We’ve heard it ad nauseam: the Twenty20 format belongs to batsmen. Bowlers are more than bowling machines, serving up balls to be hit to all parts of the ground. If you go by the number of runs being scored in Twenty20, and the economy-rates of bowlers, you’d side with that opinion as well. But let’s look at this game from a batsman’s perspective as well. This is the first part of a mini-series on batting, bowling and team strategy in the shortest format of cricket. I shall be writing about bowling in the next article.Does the quality of the bowling deteriorate in Twenty20?
No, it doesn’t. But good and great bowlers still go for plenty because getting out, which scares the batsmen in other formats, is considered insignificant in Twenty20. In an ODI the top six or seven batsmen are supposed to bat 50 overs, so we see a conservative approach to batting, even in the Powerplay overs, but there’s no such responsibility in Twenty20. In any case one decent partnership is enough to consume the major part of 20 overs, and then the rest of the batsmen can go completely berserk. It’s astonishing to see the kind of shots batsmen – and in some cases even bowlers – pull off when they do not have the fear of getting out.More time than it seems
Let’s look at how batsmen prepare for and look at this format. David Hussey, a successful Twenty20 player, says that there’s more time in a Twenty20 game than one thinks. When a batsman walks in to bat and knows that his team needs nine an over, the natural tendency is to become adventurous from the first ball. But it’s not often that he can hit the first ball for a four or a six. Besides, attempting a big shot before he can see the ball properly would mean a greater risk of getting out and hence putting the team in further trouble. That’s where Hussey’s advice comes handy.You should give yourself at least a couple of balls before exploding. You can always take a couple of singles to rotate strike, and get the blood flowing in the veins. This, in turn, might also ease the pressure and help you assess the situation objectively. There are 120 legal deliveries to be bowled in every game, and if you can reduce the number of dot balls, the pressure that comes from thinking you’ve been holding up the strike and need to hit a big shot is drastically reduced.Balls at a premium
In Test cricket the batsman gets a few overs to get his eye in, in a 50-overs match he gets a few deliveries, but in Twenty20 it is only the matter of a couple of balls. That’s the reason why batsmen in the dugout are always padded up and glued to the game. Information is vital in a Twenty20 game, and hence a batsman, after getting out, informs the remaining players how the track is behaving and what the par score would be. Most batsmen, while waiting for their turn to bat, also make a mental sketch of the areas they would target while facing certain bowlers.

Twelve runs an over from the last three might sound extremely difficult, but 36 off 18 scoring opportunities doesn’t sound that ominous. If you can manage six hits to the fence in those 18 deliveries, you need only singles from the remaining balls

Since balls are at a premium, players who can hit boundary shots are valuable. You can only go so far with just rotating strike; ultimately you should be able to clear the fence.Calculated risk
While it is good to consume a couple of balls before going big, there are certain situations that demand a different strategy. For example, if your team is chasing over 160 runs, it’s imperative to go after the bowling in the first six overs. In such cases the strategy of the fielding team is to form a ring and bowl on one side of the wicket, which makes piercing the field along the ground extremely difficult. That’s why players like Brendon McCullum, Matthew Hayden and Virender Sehwag, who aren’t scared of taking the aerial route, are more successful in the Powerplay overs.It’s not easy to take singles when seven fielders are inside the circle; it’s either a boundary or a dot ball. Batsmen who manage to play with the bowler’s mind are also more successful than the rest. Gautam Gambhir does that effectively. He walks down the track regularly to get the bowler thinking, and then waits on the back foot for the short ball.Identifying the weakest and strongest links in the opposition bowling is important. For example, if it can be avoided, you wouldn’t want to go after Muralitharan or Daniel Vettori in subcontinental conditions. And in seamer-friendly conditions you’d like to play it a little safe against quick bowlers while targeting spinners.A stable base, and staying away from the ball
Keeping a stable base is extremely important when hitting a long ball. Kieron Pollard, Andrew Symonds and Rohit Sharma are good examples of keeping a stable base and head while hitting the ball in the air. Most batsmen, including myself, are guilty of losing the shape of the shot when we try to manufacture shots or slog, which eventually end up looking ugly.Since there isn’t much time in Twenty20, batsmen in the dugout are always padded up and glued to the game•Getty ImagesUnlike Test cricket, where the batsman is supposed to use his feet to get close to the ball, the batsman is better placed if he stays away from the ball in Twenty20 cricket. Staying away from the ball allows him to free his arms and also get under the ball to get elevation.Go-to areas
Every batsman must identify his “go-to” areas and shots, at least one each on both sides of the wicket. Once you have mastered these strokes, which could be over covers on the off and over midwicket on the on side, you either wait for the ball that can be hit in those areas or make room or walk inside the line to create that shot. Hussey says that one should back oneself, especially when it comes to hitting balls in his go-to areas. The idea is that if the first ball is bowled in your area you shouldn’t be afraid to go for it.Thinking in balls, not overs
Another thing that batsmen agree on is thinking in terms of the balls remaining, not overs. One must try to break it down even further. For example, 12 runs an over from the last three might sound extremely difficult, but 36 off 18 scoring opportunities doesn’t sound that ominous. If you can manage six hits to the fence in those 18 deliveries, you’ll only need singles from the remaining balls. Putting it that way makes it sound easier, yet we all know it isn’t; but it surely is slightly less difficult than thinking in terms of scoring two runs per ball.Twenty20 has also taught the batsmen to never give up. Even if the asking rate is 15 runs an over in the last five overs, batsmen have started to believe that it can be achieved.There can be a number of theories when it comes to batting in Twenty20 format, but it boils down to how an individual reacts to the situation when he walks in to bat.

West Indies started the year on a high, plunged into crisis, and seemed to revive at the tail-end

Vaneisa Baksh02-Jan-2010West Indies played 12 Test matches during 2009 – two series against England, one against Bangladesh, and one, Australia. Thanks to a spectacular spell by Jerome Taylor (5 for 11 in nine overs) they won one match, the first against England, which enabled them to put their hands on the Wisden Trophy after more than a decade. It was soon returned as, two months later, the English reclaimed their prize. Several argued that the two-match series, following so soon after the five-match one, illustrated the insensitivity of the ICC in devising schedules.With England all out for 51, that first Test win may have squeezed some optimism into West Indian minds that the year was going to be a better one. After all, 2008 had closed with Chris Gayle scoring his first century in a couple of years. Brendan Nash was promising to join Shivnarine Chanderpaul as an anchor, and between Taylor and Fidel Edwards, a bowling attack of pace seemed to be forming.Whatever stability fluttered in the wind was soon blown away as, yet again, off-stage events rocked the foundations. Early in February rumours had begun circulating that Allen Stanford was pulling back on his substantial investments in the game. They would turn out not only to be true, but far more innocuous than the eventual scandal. Having made a deal with the ECB to take part in a quadrangular Twenty20 tournament in England, Stanford backed away as news broke that he was being investigated by the American authorities. Fraud charges were speedily laid, leading ECB chair Giles Clarke to admit that their deal had been an error of judgment. The ECB had collected its money for the previous year’s tournament, but the West Indies Cricket Board revealed that they had not been paid the US$3.5 million fee by Stanford. With Stanford ending up in jail, West Indies cricket faced a significant loss to its already depleted coffers.As it blustered its way to a defence after the Stanford news broke in February, the board faced the added embarrassment of the second Test in Antigua against England being abandoned because the sand-based outfield was deemed unsafe. Sir Viv Richards was apoplectic as the stadium bearing his name was dragged through the mud – though the ICC lay blame at the WICB’s door.In March, Dinanath Ramnarine, president of the West Indies Players’ Association (WIPA) tendered his resignation as a director of the WICB, as yet another contract dispute threatened to get out of hand. It did.

That Bangladesh whitewashed the team was not as disturbing as the farce that preceded it and the one that followed, with Chris Gayle being expediently returned to the captaincy – throwing all the imaginary principles for his removal out the door – as the WICB again demonstrated the jelly of its belly

Indeed, the West Indian year was dominated not by the 12 Test matches, or the spectacular flurry of Twenty20 matches, but by an extraordinary bout of hostility between WIPA and the WICB. Arbitrations and interventions could not staunch the flow of animosity as even the heads of regional governments and every possible influential figure tried to get the parties to end the war. It reached the point where players again threatened to strike: the first time was during the ODIs against England; they relented. The second was just before the Bangladesh series. This time the WICB responded by mustering another group of players and installing Floyd Reifer as captain for the two Tests. Bangladesh won, both the Tests and the ODIs, and made their own mark on history.In May, Gayle had declared that he wouldn’t be unhappy if Test cricket was replaced by Twenty20, and that he was reconsidering captaincy in any case. Saying it took too much from him, especially socially, he hinted at dropping the mantle. Perhaps the furore raised by his remarks caused him to back-track, and he hastily acknowledged his debt to cricket and captaincy, adding that he was happy to lead and to play. But his remarks had penetrated deeply, and the strike fuelled enormous debate over who should be the next captain. Daren Ganga, Trinidad and Tobago’s highly successful leader, was seen as the obvious contender, but under the cloud of the strike he could not be selected.It didn’t help that in October he led T&T to an impressive and consistent string of successes in the Champions League. The underdogs were the only unbeaten team until their final clash with New South Wales, and they riveted viewers around the world, adding the emotional and spirited dimension that these encounters had come to lack for all their hype.The T&T performance reopened another troubling question, of whether the regional team should call it a day and let national teams vie for Test status. Whatever the aspirations of supporters of that notion, few would recommend it as a pathway to anything substantial. Fresh from his success in India, Ganga himself shouted down the idea, but even he might have nurtured a hope that his brilliant performance might have earned him another shot at the captaincy as the three-match Test series against Australia loomed.Perhaps mercifully for him, it was not to be. Gayle was invited to take the reins again, and the team went off to Australia, carrying Dwayne Bravo, who had been out with a bad ankle for most of the year, and rookies like Kemar Roach and Adrian Barath.The first Test was another West Indian nightmare, with only the breathtaking beauty of Barath’s maiden century offering redemption. Although it was in a lost cause, its quality resonated and called to mind elegance of times past.The year ended precariously and perhaps perplexingly. For the following two Tests unearthed a team who were resolute and disciplined enough to provide interesting and competitive cricket worth watching. Dwayne Bravo’s century and his captain’s power knock were reminders of the team’s potential. Nash proved his grit and Travis Dowlin looked ready to fly. In the absence of Taylor and Edwards, Roach was a joyous find, and Sulieman Benn seemed to befuddle batsmen with success. The Australian team may have been climbing off their formidable platform, but it was heartening after all the fighting off the field to see West Indies put up a fight.Barath: one for the future•Getty ImagesNew kids on the block
Undoubtedly Roach and Barath are the ones who have piqued the most interest. Both carry the confidence of youth and its aura of invincibility; hopefully they will spread it rather than absorb the prevalent culture of losing. Barath has strokes aplenty and a charming aplomb that has set him apart, and although he is new on the block and so young, he has been apprenticing for nearly 10 years. Mastery can come shortly. Roach’s approach has been likened to Malcolm Marshall’s and his ferocity and speed suggest he is the real deal.Fading star
He had faded before and only had a cameo performance in this year, but what a cameo! Poor Reifer seemed more hard done by than he deserved when he was named to captain a second-string team against Bangladesh.High point
The resilience of the last two Test matches of the year, against Australia, was as agonising as it was comforting. How could a team that surrendered so shabbily one match ago suddenly become a purposeful unit? How many times has the team made us wonder if egos have to be punished to improve performance? Whatever: it was Test cricket from West Indies, and coupled with the Barath century, enough for a high.Low point
Perhaps the lowest point was when the WICB proffered an alternative team for the Bangladesh series and tried to convince West Indians that it was the honourable thing to do. It was not a Test-standard team and it was dishonourable to pretend it was. That Bangladesh whitewashed the team was not as disturbing as the farce that preceded it and the one that followed, with Gayle being expediently returned to the captaincy – throwing all the imaginary principles for his removal out the door – as the WICB again demonstrated the jelly of its belly.What 2010 holds
Only three Test matches, against South Africa, fill the home season for West Indies in 2010. But there will be a lot of other cricket.Zimbabwe arrive in February for five ODIs and a Twenty20. The World Twenty20 will occupy just over two weeks, from April 30 and May 16, and will be played in Barbados, St Lucia, Guyana and St Kitts.And following T&T’s performance at the inaugural edition of the Champions League Twenty20, there is said to be the possibility of yet another Caribbean team joining the line-up for the next edition.

Cricinfo presents the Plays of the day from the match between Deccan Chargers and Royal Challengers Bangalore in Nagpur

Sriram Veera in Nagpur13-Apr-2010Pre-ordained part 1
“I was thinking this morning in fact that I would take a duck (I didn’t think first-ball duck of course) if we go on to win the game,” Gilchrist said at the end of the match. Even throughout the 2009 IPL, he shared his pre-game thoughts and most of them, eerily, came through. Perhaps that’s why Gilchrist walked so fast after he nicked it today. He flashed at a length delivery, which angled away from him, and walked even before it reached Robin Uthappa.Pre-ordained part 2
Bounce the Indians. It’s been Bangalore’s mantra. Other teams have also followed suit but not with Bangalore’s success. Dale Steyn let rip a bouncer, a brute that climbed sharply at a pace too quick for the hapless T Suman. A hurried ugly fend and the ball lobbed to the man placed exactly for that at a square short-leg. Thanks for coming Suman.Slow motion
Perhaps inspired by Steyn, Vinay Kumar bowled a short ball. Everything seemed slower. The pitch seemed to suck the pace out of the ball and Gibbs seemed to play his pull too early. The ball lobbed towards square-leg where Ross Taylor expected it to come at him with more pace than it did. And so he jumped quickly only to find the ball had not arrived yet. He tried to adjust, even as gravity brought him back to earth, but he couldn’t and ended up palming the ball down. Two balls later, Vinay tried the short one again. Blink. Someone returned it from beyond the midwicket boundary.The DJ’s warning
Anil Kumble had overstepped in the ninth over and Monish Mishra was about to face the free hit. The DJ issued a warning: “Watch the ball folks. It might be coming to you”. Kumble zipped it across and Mishra could only punch it back to the bowler. What a letdown. The DJ didn’t have to worry though as Mishra charged at the next delivery, a legal one, and heaved it over the midwicket boundary.Respect
The big screen flashed the word “Respect” after Rahul Dravid played a classy on-the-up boundary off the third ball he faced. Whoever chose the word couldn’t have said it better for it oozed class. It wasn’t a bad delivery; it rose from short of length outside off, Dravid leaned forward and across to play it through cover point. Just a firm punch. The crowd near the VIP enclosures forgot their Bollywood stars and actually clapped. Okay, maybe they didn’t. But they should have.

Anything less than 20 wickets won’t suffice if the No. 1 side in the world is to go back home with their faces saved

Sidharth Monga at the P Sara Oval02-Aug-2010The P Sara Oval is a quiet old-world ground built on what used to be marshy land in Borella, beyond which, it seems, lies nothing. Somewhere around is Sri Lanka’s largest prison, the maximum security Welikada, spread over 48 acres of land. India are playing the series-decider in fitting surroundings. For they are themselves in jail. The batsmen put them there through their show in Galle, and the bowlers now need to become escape artists. Anything less than 20 wickets won’t suffice if the No. 1 side in the world is to go back home with their faces saved.It has been a tour full of woe for India. They lost Zaheer Khan even before boarding the flight, Sreesanth was gone on the first day of training, Harbhajan Singh and Yuvraj Singh have been battling flu, and Gautam Gambhir’s series lasted only five deliveries before a knee injury came calling. Ask MS Dhoni about team news, and he says, “Injury list, you mean?”That they would have been resting at home, nursing tired bodies, had the BCCI not agreed to this out-of-FTP tour is likely to have crossed their minds. Especially since India haven’t fielded a full-strength team in any form of the game since Sri Lanka’s tour of India last year.Injuries are just the start of the story though. India’s bowling, Harbhajan included, has scarcely looked like troubling batsmen, even in the tour game. Take away one session on an overcast day on a pitch under covers and rain for a day, and the bowlers have only endurance and fitness to show for their efforts so far. The fast bowlers don’t seem to have the skill for these pitches – swing, both conventional and reverse. They both hit the deck, and need seam movement, which is all but absent in Sri Lanka. That India stuck with the same attack for the first two Tests shows the kind of confidence the team management has in Munaf Patel and Amit Mishra.All this made the role of the batsmen even more important, and they crumbled in Galle against an inspired out-going Muttiah Muralitharan and a dangerous in-coming Lasith Malinga. Still, they had no business losing that match in three-and-a-half days of cricket. Virender Sehwag refused to leave wide deliveries when India were batting to save the Test; Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and Sachin Tendulkar made different kinds of errors in the first innings, and under immense pressure when following on, India could just not hang in.On a tour such as this, it isn’t surprising that the team is holding on to little crumbs of comfort, like the updating of the ICC tables that secured their No. 1 ranking. “Of course, being the captain, I have reason to feel proud, but all credit to the team… To the players… After all, it’s a team effort,” Dhoni told the Kolkata-based after he came to know India can’t lose their top spot in Sri Lanka.Before the ICC updated their tables, the batsmen upgraded their application and made sure they didn’t break under the pressure of 642 runs on the SSC scoreboard. After their bowling show, the best the batsmen could have done was keeping the series alive, and despite the odd nervy moment they managed it.Now India need something that has looked out of their reach. They haven’t taken 20 wickets in the series so far, and they need them – fairly cheaply too – in one Test. To make things more difficult, Harbhajan is unlikely to play thanks to a calf niggle. However ineffective he might have proved so far, Harbhajan will be missed.The P Sara Oval gives touring sides, and also sides that lose the toss, the best chance to do well. That said, these are still some of the toughest conditions for visitors. Obviously there won’t be too much assistance from the pitch since Sri Lanka know that India desperately need it, and also since Sri Lankan bowlers are better suited to bowling in unhelpful conditions. Fair enough too. Away Test wins shouldn’t come easy.This one won’t be easy either. In fact it will be a grand achievement, a great show of character, if India can win this Test to level the series with such a depleted line-up. They will need every trick they can muster: early movement (almost none so far), reverse-swing (ditto), fresh ideas, fresh menace in the attack (not quite visible on the surface), flawless fielding (can’t be accused of that so far). And then some special batting. India’s predicament is such that all of those put together would amount to just an escape. The inmates of Welikada would approve.

The story of Michael Holding’s life as a West Indian quick and a TV commentator is related with typical honesty and vibrancy, but it could have been explored in greater detail

David Tossell11-Jul-2010Few figures in the past three or four decades of cricket have been less suited for the two-dimensional medium of the printed word than Michael Holding, one of the great West Indies fast bowlers. No description could do justice to the effortless beauty of his 40-yard glide to the wicket and the fluidity of his progress through the crease. The thick treacle of his Jamaican accent as a commentator has subsequently become one of the defining sounds of the English summer.Considerable credit is therefore due to Holding and his collaborator Edward Hawkins for producing a book that at times achieves full-bodied vibrancy in recounting a career that produced 249 Test wickets, and which transmits the character and tone of one of the game’s most popular and relevant observers.His early life offers some nice snippets. The accuracy that earned him eight first-innings wickets at The Oval in 1976 without the aid of a fielder was born of his mother’s early warning that he bowled too fast to rely on adolescent team-mates being able to catch any edges. He is entertaining, too, on Jamaican colleagues such as the quick-witted Renford Pinnock.It is when Holding, who never harboured any great cricketing ambition, was selected for the 1975-76 tour of Australia that the pace picks up. He describes the “poisonous atmosphere” during a 1-5 defeat, lays much of the blame on Clive Lloyd’s detached captaincy, and recalls how he sat and wept after an unsuccessful appeal against Ian Chappell. “I felt as though I had gone back in time to my childhood,” he writes, “with kids refusing to hand over the bat when it was clear they were out.”Ironically, though, it is speed that is the book’s one flaw, with barely 100 pages covering his 12 years in international cricket. Many storylines could have been mined for even greater insight and discussion: the transformation in Lloyd’s leadership, the evolution of the four-man pace attack, controversial assaults on Indian and English batsmen at Sabina Park and Old Trafford, World Cup triumphs and upsets.When Holding digs deep, his memories are rewarding. World Series Cricket benefits from greater detail, beginning with his relief when he checked his savings account and found a comma in the balance, confirming that Kerry Packer was for real. His stump-kicking in New Zealand, followed by a threatened West Indian boycott in protest at the umpiring, was, he believes, a reaction to cricket’s increasing discomfort over the extent and manner of the growing dominance of Lloyd’s men. He argues that such prejudice persists when it comes to discussion of the sport’s greatest teams.Too quickly, though, he became disillusioned with the teething troubles of Viv Richards’ captaincy and retired. That takes us into the second half of the book, which is given over to commentary-box anecdotes and thoughts on the game’s new era. Unsurprisingly he tackles his subjects with the ferocity with which he bowled at Geoff Boycott and Tony Greig. His thoughts on Allen Stanford are revealing and unflattering, his verdict on West Indian cricket’s administrators and players damning. He voices frustration at the politics of the ICC, which he demonstrated by resigning from its cricket committee, and debates the threat of Twenty20 and the merits of two divisions at international level. The global esteem in which he is held adds weight to such opinions, yet the feeling persists that you can get many of them by listening to his TV commentaries.Perhaps Holding felt pressure not to retrace too many steps from his 1988 book . Or maybe it is his innate modesty that denies the reader the extra pages his on-field achievements deserve. Holding admits he does not like to look back and it is with reluctance that he devotes a chapter to his famous Barbados over to Boycott in 1981. He is charming and provocative, funny and forthright, but – unlike the batsmen who stood quaking as he approached – some readers will wish there had been even more of the great bowler coming in off his long run.No Holding Back: The Autobiography
by Michael Holding
Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Stats highlights from the second Ashes Test in Adelaide

S Rajesh07-Dec-2010Marcus North fell to Graeme Swann for the fifth time as Australia went down by an innings to England at home for the first time since 1986•Associated Press

• Only five times in their entire Ashes history have England achieved a more comprehensive innings victory in Australia. The last time they won by an innings in Australia was in the Boxing Day Test in 1986, when a first-innings total of 349 was enough to secure victory by an innings and 14 runs. For Australia, it was their fourth innings defeat since 1990, and their third in a live series. And the last time they lost by an innings at the Adelaide Oval was – hold your breath – 118 years ago, when England beat them by an innings and 230 runs. This is only their second innings defeat ever at this ground.
• The gulf between the two teams can be seen in their series batting averages so far: England’s overall average is 87.31 runs per wicket; Australia’s is 36.67. Four England batsmen – Alastair Cook, Ian Bell, Kevin Pietersen, and Jonathan Trott – have 100-plus averages, while only Michael Hussey has managed it so far for Australia.
• Graeme Swann was England’s best bowler in the match, and he continued his domination of Marcus North and Simon Katich. North was dismissed by him for the fifth time, and Katich for the fourth. Both have struggled to counter Swann – North averages 26 against him and Katich 18.75. With Katich ruled out and North likely to be dropped, Swann might have to miss out on bowling to his two favourite batsmen.
• Of the five batsmen Swann has dismissed most often, four are left-handers. Swann’s overall average against left-handers is 21.86; against the righties he averages 33.78. With Phillip Hughes or Usman Khawaja likely to replace Katich, Swann will still have enough left-handers to bowl at.
• Swann’s second-innings figures of 5 for 91 are the best by an England spinner in Adelaide since Derek Underwood’s 7 for 113 in 1975. In fact, those are the only two instances of England spinners taking five-fors at this ground since 1930.
• One of the few silver linings for Australia was the form of Michael Hussey and Shane Watson. Both scored fifties in each innings – the fourth time they’ve made 50-plus scores in each innings of a Test – but none of those knock were converted into hundreds. In fact, that’s been another big difference between the two teams: Australia have scored only two hundreds and eight fifties in the series so far, while England have five centuries – two of them being double-hundreds – and four fifties. Clearly, when the batsmen have got their eye in, Australia’s bowlers have struggled for penetration.

For more stats nuggets from the Test, read Andy Zaltzman’s Confectionery Stall

How a clan from Amritsar made Chennai their own through three generations of record-making and -breaking cricketers

Nikita Bastian11-Feb-2011Think iconic cricketers from Chennai and your thoughts immediately drift towards the Srikkanths and Venkataraghavans. But look much further back and you’ll find an unexpected family name running through the cricket lore of the Madras Presidency and, later, the Tamil Nadu state side: the “AG” Singhs, a family from Amritsar that migrated to Madras in 1904 and went on to be the first family of Tamil Nadu cricket for over six decades.”It all began with my dad, AG Ram Singh, a first-class player and coach,” says 69-year-old AG Milkha Singh, a left-hand middle-order batsman who went on to represent India in four Tests between 1960 and 1961. “We picked up the finer points of the game from him. My granddad migrated to Madras to take up a job and my dad was born here, so this has always been home to us. We even added the initials AG to our names to give them a more Tamil feel!”Milkha, the fourth of Ram’s five sons, started playing cricket at 13 and was the vice-captain of the All India Schools team that toured Sri Lanka in 1955. He was the top run-getter and wicket-taker in that tournament. “Back then, we lived on Wallajah Road, so the stadium [MA Chidambaram] was just across the road from us. Dad used to pull me up by my ears and take me to practice,” Milkha chuckles.Ram Singh retired from first-class cricket in 1945, with the distinction of being only the second cricketer and one of the quickest to reach that coveted double – 100 wickets and 1000 runs – in the Ranji Trophy. He was a part of the Madras team that took on Mysore in the very first Ranji Trophy match, played in Chennai in 1934.”My dad took 11 wickets in that game and it finished in one day instead of the stipulated duration of three days [Madras won by an innings and 23 runs]. In those days people had to go to the railway station to pick up the day’s newspaper, it was not door-delivered. When fans of the Mysore team went to pick up the paper that was to carry the report of the first day’s play, they were greeted by their team, alighting from the train!” laughs Milkha.At that time there were few Tests and the Ranji Trophy was a knockout tournament, so cricketers did not get to play much during the year. “And we were not paid anything. If we played, our bank account was minus Rs 100 at the end of the game, due to taxi fares.” A job was a must for financial security and Milkha joined the State Bank of India in 1962, after playing one Test each against Australia and England and two against Pakistan.Milkha’s oldest brother, the late AG Kripal Singh, a right-hand batsman and offspinner, also played Test cricket for India (14 Tests between 1955 and 1964, and scored an unbeaten 100 on debut against New Zealand in Hyderabad), while the youngest brother, Satwender, played first-class cricket for Tamil Nadu.When Kripal and Milkha played together for India against England in 1961-62, it was the first instance of three players from Tamil Nadu (the third being Vaman Kumar) being in the national playing XI.”Kripal was a very good manipulator. He once even talked his way into having the Ranji Trophy final postponed so that he did not have to miss it to appear for his board exams!” laughs 64-year-old Satwender. “That was the first time Tamil Nadu [Madras] was in the final and we went on to win that game.”Milkha adds, “When my elder brother and I batted together, we tricked the opposition into thinking that we found mediocre bowlers hard to manoeuvre. The idea was to smack the bowler for four once an over, but knowingly play and miss a couple of balls too, giving the opposition captain the false idea that the bowler could get us out. So he would keep him on and we kept getting our runs without much effort. We had a family code – if my brother thought it was time for me to go after the bowler, he would tell me to get four [Indian currency of the time, equivalent to pennies], that being our code for hitting a boundary.”Playing alongside siblings was a lot of fun if you went by the brothers’ accounts. “When I was in class VII and Milkha in class XI, he was the captain of our school team and he drafted me into the team. Back then I didn’t wear a turban, and used to plait my hair. He got a lot of slack for letting a girl in the team,” grins Satwender.The fun continues with the next generation, as is evident when their 41-year-old nephew, Arjan Kripal Singh, enters the conversation. “You guys play with full body armour,” Milkha tells Arjan, who retorts with a mischievous grin, “Bowlers used to apologise after bowling a bouncer in your time. What was the point of that?”Arjan, Kripal’s son, was the last of the family to play first-class cricket – he twisted a knee just before a Ranji semi-final in 1996 and never played again – and with him ended the family’s remarkable record of having at least one representative at the state level for 62 years.”My sister, Malvika, was in the Indian women’s team in the 70s, while my elder brother, Swaran, also played first-class cricket in the late 80s,” says Arjan. “A cousin, Harjinder, played Ranji Trophy, for the Railways and Tamil Nadu. In 1987 I was named vice-captain of the Indian Under-19 team for the inaugural Under-19 World Cup in New Zealand and Australia. Brian Lara, Michael Atherton, Mushtaq Ahmed and Narendra Hirwani [just after he took 16 wickets on Test debut] were all there.”Arjan scored a triple-hundred in his second Ranji match. “WV Raman also made 300 in that game, against Goa – the only instance of two triple-hundreds in the same innings – and we went on to have a record partnership and make a record total of 912. Arjan is captain of the Madras Cricket Club team and has just been appointed match referee by the BCCI.Their adopted city took to “the only Sikh family in the world that can speak perfect Tamil” quite well. “I remember I had to get a letter signed by the tahsildar to play for Tamil Nadu,” Satwender recounts. “He was very suspicious for obvious reasons – here was a turban-sporting sardar asking him to sanction him to play cricket for Tamil Nadu. But then his clerk told him, ‘This is Ram Singh’s son.’ That’s all it took. He seemed very pleased to do anything for me after that. That said a lot about how well-known and loved my dad was here.”Milkha agrees. “In our time, league matches were huge,” he says. “The Marina ground gallery used to be full, and on the beach side you would find people standing behind parked cars to catch a glimpse of the action. A lot of these people flocked in to ‘see one of the sons of Ram Singh doing well’ and that felt special.”The family praises the state’s cricket infrastructure, compared to that of the rest of the country. “Tamil Nadu had a great cricket structure in place. It’s even better than Mumbai. It all started with a few interested individuals who encouraged cricketers back in the old days and offered them jobs, allowing them to pursue the game with a sense of security. Over the years it has blossomed and turned quite professional,” says Milkha.Veteran journalist and cricket writer Partab Ramchand puts the Singhs’ contribution to Tamil Nadu cricket into perspective: “Ram was the first great allrounder from Madras, a pioneer. He played two ‘unofficial Tests’ for India and dreamt of his three cricket-playing sons representing the country at the highest level. Only a knee injury [courtesy a scooter accident] kept Satwender from following in his elder brothers’ footsteps in Test cricket. At that point Satwender was the best batsman in the state and would have made it to the national side but for that injury.”After he retired, Ram became a coach and father figure to big names like [Srinivas] Venkataraghavan. Through the generations, the Singhs have had a big impact on cricket in Tamil Nadu, no doubt.”Milkha concludes our chat by telling us about a possession that is something of a family heirloom. “Stop by our niece’s place and you’ll see a framed newspaper photograph of Satwender and me batting together for Tamil Nadu, in the Gopalan Troply in Sri Lanka, in the 60s. Tamil Nadu had lost a few wickets for a low score when my brother and I got together, and we batted the team out of trouble. The piece is headlined ‘When the Sikhs go marching in,'” he says, brimming with pride.