All posts by h716a5.icu

In 16 previous ODIs against Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka, there’d been only one century for South Africa; in three matches in this series, there were four

S Rajesh12-Jul-2014 Before the ODI series began, South Africa had played 13 ODIs against Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka since 2000, and had won exactly one; their 1-12 win-loss record was as bad as Bangladesh’s in Sri Lanka. With this 2-1 series win, they have improved that record considerably, and also won their first ODI series against Sri Lanka in that country. They had drawn their first series 1-1, in 1993, and then lost the others quite handily. The big difference for South Africa this time was their batting: in three games they averaged 41.15 runs per wicket, and 5.95 runs per over; in their previous series here, they had never gone beyond 25 runs per wicket, and 4.55 per over. Twice in three games they went past 300, whereas their previous-highest in all visits to Sri Lanka had been 264. There were four centuries for them in three games, with Hashim Amla getting two, and Quinton de Kock and AB de Villiers scoring hundreds in the decider. In 16 previous matches against Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka, they had had only one centurion: Jacques Kallis made 101 in Colombo in 2004. This time, ironically, Kallis was the one batsman who couldn’t buy a run, with scores of 0, 1, and 4 in three games. As a bowling unit, South Africa conceded 5.60 runs per over, which is their poorest economy rate a series in Sri Lanka, but they took wickets regularly, averaging 25.10, and their batsmen outperformed Sri Lanka’s as well. The hosts, on the other hand, were hampered by the lack of big scores from their top-order batsmen. While South Africa’s top seven batsmen scored four hundreds in 21 innings, Sri Lanka’s top order played exactly the same number of innings, but managed only three fifties, with a highest score of 88, by Kumar Sangakkara. Tillakaratne Dilshan’s 86 in Pallekele was their only other score of more than 60.

TeamInngsRunsAverageStrike rate100s/ 50sSouth Africa2175144.1795.544/ 1Sri Lanka2166331.5788.400/ 3 The highlight of the final game of the series was South Africa’s batting. Their total of 339 is their third-best in Asia – the two higher ones were both in India. They also had two centurions in the match, which was the 15th such instance for them in ODIs. For the third time in a row, one of those two batsmen was de Kock: he had also scored centuries against India in the second and third ODIs of the series last season, with Amla in the second, and with de Villiers in the third. The total of 339 ultimately turned out to be more than enough, but in the first ten overs of the run-chase it seemed Sri Lanka might do a repeat of Johannesburg 2012, when South Africa scored 312 with hundreds from Graeme Smith and de Villiers, but lost by two wickets with a ball to spare, as Kumar Sangakkara scored 102 off 97. After ten overs of the chase here, Sri Lanka were 99 for 1, which is the highest ten-over score for any team in an ODI in Sri Lanka since 2001. The next two are both by Sri Lanka against Bangladesh – 93 in Hambantota last year, and 82 in Dambulla in 2010. One of the disappointments for Sri Lanka was also Lasith Malinga’s lack of effectiveness: in 23 overs he returned figures of 4 for 161 – an average of 40.25, and an economy rate of seven. He was the most expensive among all the Sri Lankan bowlers in the series. In Hambantota he went for 85 in his ten overs, the most runs he has conceded in a home ODI, and the second-highest in all ODIs. With two centuries in three innings, Amla was the batting star for South Africa, and finished with an aggregate of 258 runs, the highest for a South African in an overseas ODI series of three or fewer matches (or in a series in which a player has played no more than three games). De Villiers’ aggregate of 212 is the fifth-best. Among the bowlers, Ryan McLaren was similarly outstanding with the ball, taking nine wickets at an average of 13.11, and an economy rate of 4.91. He joined Allan Donald as the only South Africans to take nine in an overseas ODI series of three or fewer matches. Donald took nine in South Africa’s first ODI series upon readmission, in India in 1991-92.

Papua New Guinea have impressed, despite their limited resources and talent. Now, as they head into their first ODI, they’re hoping for a brighter future

Tim Wigmore07-Nov-2014On November 8, Papua New Guinea will become the 23rd country to play a one-day international. One Papuan village will be watching especially closely.Hanuabada is on the northwestern outskirts of the capital Port Moresby. Houses are made of corrugated iron, lifted above the sea by stilts. It has no electricity and safe running water is hard to find. The coastal village is the home of cricket in PNG. Members of the London Missionary Society introduced the town to the sport in the late 19th century, and it has exerted a powerful hold on Hanuabada ever since.In an essay on Papuan cricket, Gideon Haigh recounts the former Tasmania legspinner John Watt’s observations of the sport in the early 1900s. “If you visit any native village about Port Moresby, small boys can always be seen playing cricket right on the water’s edge, with material of their own make,” Watt wrote. “Every other hit the ball goes into the water, while the two batsmen ‘run them out’.”A significant majority of all those who have worn the PNG baggy black have hailed from Hanuabada, which still dominates the national side today.”They just play on the road, and if you hit one house, you could be out. If you hit that house, it’s six,” explains Greg Campbell, the former Australia Test player who is now the CEO of Cricket PNG. “They have their own markings on the road, sometimes games are played with back-to-back to stumps. They’re just cricket-mad in the village – they grow up in it, they raise money to buy their own uniforms.”While the vitality of Hanuabada is remarkable for a village of 20,000, it also speaks of some of the obstacles cricket faces in PNG. Geography prevents easy transport links: the only way to travel between Port Moresby and Lae, the second largest city, is by air. “With the average wage, a lot of boys and parents can’t afford their kids to come from Lae to Port Moresby,” Campbell explains. Eighty seven per cent of the population lives in rural areas, and enthusiastic cricketers often endure arduous journeys by boat, bus and foot to play.Geography was not the only challenge Campbell faced when he arrived in PNG almost four years ago. On the day he arrived, initially as Cricket PNG’s operations manager before later becoming CEO, he stayed in a flat that had neither a bed nor electricity. He admits that for the first six months “there was a thought every week I should be out of there, but I always pride myself on not giving in”.

As far as the Barramundis have come, they remain hampered by inconsistency and a penchant for collapsing like a 1990s England cricket tribute act

His patience has been vindicated. Four years ago the Barramundis were ranked the 23rd best one-day side in the world. Now they are 16th. In January, they defeated Kenya, Uganda and Namibia in the World Cup Qualifiers. They finished fourth in the tournament, two places short of a World Cup berth, but gained ODI status for the next four years. And, as Campbell notes, while the squad used to “get there at 9.30 for a 9 o’clock training” they now arrive in time.

****

In the 1982 ICC Trophy (the qualifier for the World Cup) PNG beat Bangladesh in the third-place playoff, effectively making them the tenth best side in the world. It should have been the Barramundis’ springboard, but as Campbell reflects, “there was nothing in the future for them”. This was a world without ICC regional officers or any coherent programme for non-Test sides. They essentially existed only to play in the ICC Trophy every four years. When PNG resurfaced in the 1986 ICC Trophy, Netherlands promptly thumped them by 219 runs in their first game.At least this time PNG have a decent base of fixtures to build on. Their performances in the World Cup Qualifiers ensured their place in the World Cricket League, and even more intriguingly, the Intercontinental Cup. In theory, this offers the winners the prospect of playing in the Test Challenge and earning Test status. In preparation for that, PNG are also playing a three-day game against Hong Kong this month: their first ever multi-day match against another international side.PNG have some recent experience of multi-day cricket. A couple of years ago, South Australia wanted to form a Premier League to bridge the gap between club and state cricket, and were keen for sides outside of the state to be included. Campbell put together a proposal and successfully lobbied his old Tasmania team-mate Jamie Cox to invite PNG to participate in the inaugural South Australian Premier League in 2013-14. “I guaranteed that we’d be very competitive in the T20 and 50-over games, and said when we start playing the two-day games, it will be a learning curve for us, because our boys have always been set up to play T20 and 50,” Campbell explained.Kids play cricket on the street in Port Moresby•International Cricket CouncilSo it proved. While PNG found two-day cricket a challenge, struggling to maintain their fielding intensity, they won the T20 competition. Participation in the South Australian Premier League does not come cheap – it involves around 50 days away and costs 380,000 kina (about US $150,000) – but no one disputes its value to PNG cricket. “You can only train so much but actually playing matches is the best way to improve your game and your cricket awareness and mental strength,” explains Chris Amini, the current national team captain. “We’ve come up against some international and first-class players and have learned a lot from them – just watching them go about constructing their innings or their approach to their game and how they prepare themselves.”Links have been cultivated with Australia in other ways. The most obvious is in personnel. Bill Leane was CEO from 2009 to 2011 and did much of the heavy lifting in transforming PNG cricket, including creating an annual Legends Bash tournament, which has hosted Arjuna Ranatunga, Dwaye Bravo, Kemar Roach and numerous Australians. One of Leane’s first steps was to appoint Andy Bichel as head coach. Bichel “provided the foundation” for PNG’s rise with his relentlessly high standards, according to Chris Amini. Peter Anderson, who was coach until he stepped down this year, is yet another Australian influence.The Brian Bell Future Stars Programme allows up to 14 players a year to play abroad for up to six months, with Australia by far the most common destination.Big Bash franchises have also cultivated Papuans: several have been signed, though a Papuan is yet to play a game. Thanks to some smart lobbying from Campbell with Cricket Australia, Papuans might not count as overseas players this year, increasing their chances of being selected. Lega Siaka, a 21-year-old opener from a fishing family in Hanuabada who scored two belligerent centuries in the World Cup Qualifiers in January, will sign for Melbourne Renegades this year.Links are being established with New Zealand too. Former Test offspinner Dipak Patel was appointed as Papua New Guinea coach in July. He is the first Barramundis coach to live in the country full time and have day-to-day contact with the squad.On September 1 this year, 16 leading players became full-time cricketers for the first time. PNG are not stopping there: they hope to pay a development squad of around 20 young boys and girls from next year, smoothing the transition to professional cricket. Campbell hopes that “in two or three years’ time, we’ll have a squad of 25 people that can play in our national team”.An A side is being formed to give the team more depth. Yet Campbell also remains conscious of the need to equip players with jobs beyond cricket. “We can help them with that, whether it’s learning to be a mechanic, accountant, driving a truck, working in a bakery, we’ll go out and do the player-welfare thing for them.”Increased professionalisation is one by-product of PNG’s increased financial clout. Tim Anderson, the ICC’s head of global development, praises their “ability to source their own income”: the ICC provides under 30% of PNG’s income, much less than for many comparable Associates. Cricket PNG has 14 sponsors, reflecting the skill of Campbell and Leane but also cricket’s huge national appeal. It survives on around 6.5 million kina a year (about $2.5 million).

“We could build something like the Allan Border Field, just a nice little ground which can hold 10-15,000 people but with great facilities”Greg Campbell

“We make sure that money goes a long way, and the money we get is tagged for specific projects,” Campbell explains. The money is sufficient to fund a significant development operation. Nearly 200,000 children a year participate in the BSP School Kriket program, a sort of Papuan version of Kwik Cricket. “They have a huge junior participation base and are working hard to transition those big numbers into regular hard-ball players,” notes Adam Cassidy, the ICC’s regional project officer for the region.

****

When the Barramundis make their ODI debut, they will do so in Townsville, in Queensland. This reflects one of PNG’s most fundamental problems: no ground in the country has yet obtained ODI status. Campbell is optimistic that this will soon change and Amini Park (named after the brother of Chris Amini’s grandfather for his Australian Rules prowess) will soon be granted ODI status. It has only acquired turf wickets in the last four years.”We could build something like the Allan Border Field, just a nice little ground which can hold 10-15,000 people but with great facilities,” Campbell believes. “We need to have something concrete that we have an international team coming in, because then you can push the right people in PNG to make it happen.” ODIs against the lowest-ranking Full Members would help to convince the Papuan government to invest in a flagship national ground: it is remarkable that the Barramundis’ progress to ODI status has come without any direct investment from the government. “It’s only an hour and a half from Cairns, so we could look at a Zimbabwe or a Bangladesh coming out to PNG to play,” Campbell says. “We want to hold these games in PNG to get crowds in and showcase our players.”One member of the side will not be celebrating his first ODI but his 50th, 3052 days after his 49th. Former England keeper Geraint Jones spent the first six years of his life in Papua New Guinea until the deteriorating security situation led to his parents uprooting from the capital. “It’s not got a great reputation, Port Moresby. But from what I understand from the guys it’s getting better,” he said.After the end of his England career, Jones began playing for PNG at the start of 2012. His second international career could hardly be more different from his first: he receives only a modest allowance, accommodation and travel fares for playing for the Barramundis. “He doesn’t want money,” said Campbell. “He wants to give something back, and he enjoys playing.” While Jones bats in the middle order, his role is almost akin to that of a player-coach. “Jonesy’s there to calm them down and say, ‘Right, now, just think through this,'” Campbell explains. “They feed off him big time.” The hope is that Jones will be involved in a coaching or ambassadorial capacity in PNG when he eventually retires.Cricket in PNG is at an intriguing juncture. While rugby league continues to outstrip it in terms of crowds and media attention, cricket is narrowing the gap. It may now even be the biggest participation sport in PNG. Although cricket is strongest in Port Moresby and the surrounding Central Province, it has a genuine cross-class appeal. Thousands of children play Lik Lik cricket in tournaments on roads in Hanuabada every Saturday. Wealthier families like the Aminis have also embraced cricket: both Chris and his brother Charles benefited from spending three years in Melbourne when their father worked for Shell. He himself also played for the Barramundis, and his father, Brian, was the first native Papuan to captain the national team in 1977. With the exception of Jones, the side today is completely made up of indigenous players.The challenge now is to expand the cricket-playing base beyond Port Moresby and establish an infrastructure to harness PNG’s copious talent. Training facilities, including an indoor centre, synthetic nets and more turf wickets are all being developed. Campbell believes Test cricket “could be ten to 15 years away from us, and it might be longer. We’re realistic: you’ve got to have the facilities, you’ve got to have the set-up to do it in the country. We just want to climb that ladder of the rankings.”Cricket PNG’s most pressing aim is to retain ODI status in the next four-year cycle.As far as the Barramundis have come, they remain hampered by inconsistency and a penchant for collapsing like a 1990s England cricket tribute act. PNG lost a playoff to reach this year’s World T20 despite reducing Hong Kong to 19 for 4. “The boys were very disappointed, you saw a few of them had tears,” Campbell reflects. “It was a case of probably not knowing how to do it or what to do, when to do it, and just playing some bad shots at certain times.” After a sterling start to the World Cup Qualifiers this year, PNG lost their last three matches.Lega Siaka, a rising PNG star, will soon feature in the Big Bash•ICC”The boys haven’t played enough top-quality cricket to understand that the tour goes from day one to the end of the day,” Campbell said. “They start really well, then they have a bit of a downward pattern, and that could be homesickness, so we’ve got to work on that, and all that comes with experience of playing more and being at the top level.” Charles Amini, who was in the Sydney Sixers squad last year, admits: “We have to be smarter for longer periods of time”.PNG’s location in the world is also problematic. They are easily the strongest Associate side in the East Asia-Pacific Region. Cricket PNG made overtures to try and join the Asia region – which would also open up the possibility of qualification for the Asia Cup – but are now resigned to staying where they are. Extra emphasis will be put on maximising gains from the geographical proximity to Australia and New Zealand. PNG are lobbying to be included in future A team tournaments in Australia, and the Papuan prime minister, Peter O’Neill, will attend this year’s Australia-India Test at the Gabba.The sense is that more achievements are within tangible reach. Campbell believes that the effect of a Barramundis player thriving in Australian cricket could be transformative. “We just need a boy to crack a KFC Big Bash game, or even a Shield game, and then it’s like everything – once you see someone playing on telly, you keep saying, well, I want to play that game.” Qualification for a global event could have a similarly galvanising effect on the game, although with the 2019 World Cup reduced to ten teams, making the 2016 World T20 in India is PNG’s only realistic chance of doing so this decade.Cricket has already had a profound impact on Papua New Guinea. “Make a lifestyle for these boys, change their lives that way, make a better life for their family – that’s what cricket can do,” Campbell asserts. His first night working for PNG, bereft of a bed, now seems an age ago. “I definitely make sure that doesn’t happen to anyone else who comes up here to PNG. We’ve moved on a long way since then.” If exactly where the Barramundis go next remains unclear, theirs is a tantalising future.

Over-coached, over-analysed, overwrought and, very often, over all too soon. The enormity of the entire cricketing structure in England and Wales is the burden these young men must carry. If they succeed, it is despite of it

George Dobell28-Feb-2015England can still qualify for the quarter-finals of the World Cup if they lose to Sri Lanka. Such is the bloated nature of the tournament, they can even qualify if they lose by a similar overwhelming margin as they did against New Zealand.But if England are going to move into the knockout stages with any confidence, with any credibility, with any realistic hope, then they have to start winning games now. Expecting to turn up for a major game and suddenly find form is naive. And a multi-million pound organisation that has supposedly planned for this event for several years should really not be trusting to luck.If England were to produce a highlights DVD of their last five-and-a-half World Cup campaigns it would be found in the horror section of any shop.The unvarnished truth is that, since losing the World Cup final of 1992 in Melbourne, England have only won five games against teams from the top eight of the Test rankings and none against Australia, India or New Zealand. Their other 12 victories have come against the likes of Netherlands (three times), Kenya (twice), Canada, Scotland, Ireland, UAE, Namibia, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. And there have even been some defeats along the way.The usual suspects are blamed for such a record: the coaches, the players, the standard – and amount – of county cricket, the draining international schedule. Perhaps there is a grain of truth in each of them.But a detailed analysis does not support such a conclusion. In between World Cups, England have played some very good limited-overs cricket. In 2012, they topped the ICC’s ODI rankings. In 2013 they contested – and probably should have won – the Champions Trophy.They won a tri-series in Australia in 2006-07 and the four-nation Sharjah tournament in 1997. They beat Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka in 2007 and made the final of the Champions Trophy in 2004, which they probably should have won too. In 2009, they got the better of South Africa in South Africa. It is a patchy record, certainly, but it is not as hopeless as their recent World Cup record.That suggests, perhaps, a propensity to underperform on the biggest stage. Just like their counterparts in the national football side, when England’s cricketers find themselves in global events, the 2010 World T20 is an obvious exception, they seem to not so much revel in the spotlight, but become frozen in it.While players from other teams seem inspired, England seem overawed. They seem more likely to buckle and cower than flourish. Fear of failure may well be at least as big an impediment as domestic structure or any inherent lack of talent.It is not hard to see why. Put yourselves in the shoes of these young men for a moment: imagine your 24-year-old self addressing a press conference. Imagine your words being used against you. Imagine having a net while a member of the England support staff makes notes on a clipboard. While members of the media judge you.Imagine, too, the last time any of this England squad played this great game for fun. Just for fun. Many of these players were talented -spotted before they were 10 and have been hot-housed ever since.Peter Moores wakes to another destruction of his methods most mornings•Getty ImagesOh, sure, they’ve enjoyed it many times. They will have enjoyed success. But they will also have been expected to lead the way for every team they have represented. They will have been promoted beyond their age group and, at every level, felt pressure to perform and to climb to the next rung of the ladder. Most of them will not have played a game for years without their dismissal being analysed by the media, their opponents and their own coaching team.Add to that the layer of coaches and analysts and support staff – some excellent, some looking to justify their own existence, nearly all well-meaning – at every level. School, county age-group, England age-group, Academy, Lions… all with their views and their advice and their note-taking.One recent England player observed that the England dressing room during Andy Flower’s tenure was the most claustrophobic environment they had experienced. An environment where every movement was catalogued for dissection. The environment where a member of the support staff was told not to celebrate their birthday lest it create a distraction.Those of us in the media do not help. Our scrutiny, propensity to over-praise and over-criticise – neither benefits in the long term – and, most of all, the sense that we are always there: watching training, watching games, watching in press conferences and on Twitter.Former players are often the most critical. While some simply tell it as they see it – Geoff Boycott and most of the Sky team, for example – others have a clear agenda or need to produce hard-hitting comments to ensure they remain commercially popular.Peter Moores wakes to another destruction of his methods most mornings. It must be hard for him not to ignore that and not pass on his anxiety to the team.In recent days, “stories” have circulated about England players enjoying nights out and Eoin Morgan declining to sing the national anthem. Some even complained that, following the defeat to New Zealand, the coach and some players were seen smiling as they walked through the airport.None of these things is the reason England have been losing. And none of them would be much of an issue if England were winning. But, coming now, they tighten the noose a little more. They increase the sensation that every move is analysed; that the world is closing in; that they’re under pressure.Cricket, in England at least, is a serious business.And while England’s joyless methodology can still work, up to a point, in Test cricket, it is an impediment to limited-overs success. For while success in Tests can be earned by denial and discipline, in limited-overs cricket success requires other skills. It requires freedom and raw skill. It’s ever more about allowing instinct to take over. It’s ever more about allowing the joy to suppress the pressure.Ah, but players of every other country have the same issues, I hear you say. But no other team carries with it the same press pack. No other team has to stage an almost daily press conference. No other team has such a deep professional structure, meaning their players never develop without the complication of coaching. No other team is under quite the same sort of constant, unyielding, joyless pressure.And we tell them to relax and be themselves? It’s the last thing they know how to do.Over-coached, over-analysed, overwrought and, very often, over all too soon. The enormity of the entire cricketing structure in England and Wales is the burden these young men must carry. If they succeed, it is despite of it.

He is small. He is quiet. He is flabbergastingly good. Little in sport is more enchanting than this confluence of raw talent and tireless refinement

Andrew Fidel Fernando23-Mar-2015They speak in whispers across the nation. There is high regard, but it rarely climbs to reverence. His cricket is sensational now, “But wait and watch a few years,” fans say. “Just how good do you think he could be?” No bad words are spoken. The admiration is unreserved, but like the man himself, restrained. He is small. He is quiet. He is flabbergastingly good. Welcome to the cult of Kane.It is a sports following like few others, because although Williamson can rarely be prodded to speak on his likes, his peeves, his desires or his background, his fans feel they understand him. Often, they give descriptions that are at once entirely simplistic, but profoundly appropriate. “Kane just loves to bat,” some say. “He was born to do it,” say others. Many more lead with: “He’s one player that doesn’t just rely on his talent. For a young guy he’s hit so many balls.”Little in sport is more enchanting than this confluence of raw talent and tireless refinement. Williamson is prodigious and professional; the lifelong love of the craft of batting as irrepressible as his century celebrations are muted. In an age in which maiden Test tons spark whoops, hollers, leaps and flailing, Williamson’s trip to triple figures on debut inspired only a bashful bat-raise in Ahmedabad. In 13 hundreds and a match-flipping double-ton since, he has been no less measured. But that cover drive radiates affection for the game. The back-foot punch is simple but well-rehearsed. Fans love that. How refreshing for a sportsman to convey so much while saying so little.Only so much is known of his beginnings, save to say New Zealand’s cricket fraternity was alerted a new star may be on the horizon when Williamson was piling up centuries for his high school in Tauranga. His hometown is beautiful, unassuming and disproportionately favoured by the aged: the perfect setting for cricket’s youngest old soul. “He’s only 24, but in our group, he’s already a leader,” Brendon McCullum keeps saying of him. Williamson’s locker of strokes has begun to expand dramatically. He is becoming an all-format performer of the modern age. But timeless sensibility underpins his cricket. The risks are wise and his go-to shots well worn. This is almost impossible not to appreciate.He plays in a team flaunting impetuosity and skill, but watching Williamson bat is a different experience entirely, because his work always seems a reverie. All the great players of large innings enter a batting trance they say, and when Williamson enters his, little seems to exist for him but the next ball and the next run. Once, while saving a Test against South Africa at the Basin in 2012, Williamson blew a bubble with the gum he’d been chewing all day, just as he stroked Morne Morkel through the covers.And then there is that cover drive•Getty ImagesWilliamson is dropped more often than other batsman, which Martin Crowe feels is a result of passive body language. “Fielding sides are not sharp when he is at the crease, often spilling catches that would otherwise be taken if a sharper focus was created,” Crowe says. Perhaps that is true, but his admirers need no more reason than karma. “Who deserves the luck more than Kane?” they ask.There is the fielding too, which is the surest way into a New Zealand fan’s heart. At gully, Williamson is now almost surely peerless. Fully-flung and airborne, almost every tour he takes a catch there, like a cartoon character clinging to a speeding train. These are the moments in which he is most animated – when his teammates crowd around to ruffle his hair and lift him off the ground. Dwarfed sometimes by everyone but Brendon McCullum, he seems like the beloved kid brother. When he struck that six to win a tight World Cup match against New Zealand’s most rivalrous opponents, he was kid brother to a nation.On Tuesday, as New Zealand prepared for their seventh World Cup semi-final, Brendon McCullum batted away suggestions their opponents were chokers. “Both teams have grown up in the past four years,” he said – their last World Cup meeting in Mirpur having been a dogfight of the cricketing and verbal variety. New Zealand have now embraced a philosophy of respect, selflessness and unrelenting commitment to the team cause. For men like McCullum, Tim Southee, and even Ross Taylor, whose ego had understandably been bruised by the captaincy fiasco, these virtues have been adopted over time; they were not innate.Of all the reasons to admire Williamson, perhaps this is what fans find most compelling: he will be among the youngest to take the field on Wednesday, but he ties together humility and excellence and epitomises this new New Zealand culture. He has not yet played five years of top cricket, but by just being himself, he has shown a struggling team the way.

His current game is extremely premeditated, so as to delay taking risks, and it robs the innings of all natural flow

Sidharth Monga in Ahmedabad19-Apr-2015Chennai Super Kings’ first match of this IPL, against Delhi Daredevils. They lose their third wicket in the ninth over, with the score on 71. It is an okay Twenty20 start, far from a disaster. In fact, a proper batsman sees this as a base where he get his eye in and then looks to explode and aim for 180. No proper batsman here. Out comes Ravindra Jadeja. He scores 17 off 18. Super Kings barely double the score at the end of the eighth over, but thanks to a poorly planned chase and some excellent fielding they win by one run.Their second match, against Sunrisers Hyderabad. They lose their second wicket in the 14th over, for a score of 135, and out comes MS Dhoni, the batsman who didn’t walk out at 71 for 3. He scores 53 off 29, par for the course in T20 cricket after such a start. Super Kings win comfortably.It is not as though Dhoni is shrewdly picking and choosing his position – go in early after a great start and late after okay ones – just because he can. In the third game they lose their second wicket at 115, but he doesn’t come out to bat at No. 4. The reason is, the second wicket has fallen before the 10th over. When the third falls, in the 12th over, duly Dhoni comes out to bat.In the fourth, a one-sided whopping at the hands of Rajasthan Royals, Super Kings lose their third wicket for 39, in the seventh over. Out comes a man who has never scored a half-century for this team, Dwayne Bravo. When the next wicket falls, in the 10th over, Dhoni duly walks out.Dhoni is well known, and celebrated, for going blank into matches, not letting meetings and macintoshes cloud his thinking. Of late, though, there is hard to find a more stubborn and premeditated cricketer than Dhoni the batsman. Everything is sorted in his head. Since the start of the last IPL, he has played 26 matches for Super Kings. Only once has he batted before the 10th over, when he has actually taken charge of an innings the way a proper batsman would. That was in the 10th match of the last IPL, when he came in to bat at 64 for 3 in the ninth over against Rajasthan Royals. He scored five off eight.On other occasions, Mithun Manhas, Jadeja, David Hussey, Bravo, even R Ashwin, have batted ahead of Dhoni because he shall not bat before the 10th over. There is merit in having a role, in not batting early if he can help it, but Dhoni has at times gone to unreasonable extents to stick to a fixed strategy. Just extend this to international Twenty20 cricket and ODIs, and you will find he is similarly reluctant to bat with more than half the overs to go. But he is no Kieron Pollard. Once in a while he can expect himself to build an innings. By avoiding it, Dhoni is selling himself short as a batsman.Or is he? Has he seen a fall in his own batting? For a lot of premeditation has crept into Dhoni’s batting nowadays. Just like with the batting order, he has fixed slots of when to attack, when to preserve, when to take singles. Again, if you are able to manage this successfully, you are the most efficient batsman there ever will be. Just flick the switch, and bat in a certain matter. Batting, though, is more instinctive. More worrying than his batting order, he is not batting by instinct.When playing ODIs, Dhoni is bogged down by the fact that India are forced to play five bowlers with new regulations. He forces himself to delay the assault, getting obsessed with being there at the start of the 41st over, in the process robbing the innings of all natural flow. Looking for that elusive efficiency he has delaying taking risks. He only hits bad balls now. Other Nos 6 are hitting good balls for boundaries. He is banking on those bad balls when the pressure is on, when it is one on one in the end. He is looking to bully bowlers with his reputation, which works sometimes. Presence counts sometimes. But he is not batting naturally.Sunday’s premeditation was the charge at the bowler. Dhoni must have seen something sitting in the dugout that impressed upon him that the only way to bat on that pitch was to charge at the bowlers. Fair enough. You have a plan, but when you see it is not working you drop it, and let your instinct take over. He came in to bat 2.5 overs after Bravo did, but at the end of the innings he had played one more ball than Bravo, for exactly half the runs. Both were not out.”I ate too many deliveries,” Dhoni said at the presentation. “I should have rotated more freely.”Dhoni was not asked what went wrong in his opinion.Dhoni backs himself to win matches if he is there at the end, but instances of that not happening are growing with every passing game•BCCIThis is what might have gone wrong. Of the 19 dots that Dhoni played – out of 37 – he was down the pitch nine times. He also took 14 singles, which is not an ideal result if you have played 19 dots in an innings of 37 balls. He had left his crease on seven of those occasions. Some of these deliveries were full tosses that got too big on him because he had left the crease. Some of these were long hops he converted into those cramping short-of-a-length deliveries by walking at them. Even to the penultimate ball of the last over, Dhoni had set his base back and in front of leg to try to get under a yorker, but once the ball was wide he left it alone.Twenty20 is a ruthless format. If you are not getting runs easily, you have to take crazy risks. You can’t back yourself too much. Lesser batsmen fall into that trap fairly early, others hold out for a little longer. Dhoni, though, took no risks. He backs himself to win matches if he is there at the end. Yet, instances of that not happening are growing, especially in T20 cricket. An absence of risks here meant Super Kings had registered the 13th-lowest IPL target for the loss of only four wickets at the completion of 20 overs. Six of those 13 belong to Super Kings. This can’t be a coincidence.There is a lot of merit to what Dhoni does. He has brought his teams a lot of limited-overs success by operating the way he does. It shows he backs himself to finish matches. It shows he doesn’t panic. The game has moved on, though. Bowlers have wisened to him. He has himself reached an age where he has peaked as a pure batsman. It shows in how bowlers know nowadays that if they bowl short of a length, without letting him hit with a horizontal bat, there is little chance of going for a boundary. For other batsmen in the last few overs, this is not the ideal length. They slog those balls over midwicket or punch it over point. Dhoni struggles to do so.Maybe Dhoni has always batted with more than normal premeditation. Even when he was young he used to tell Greg Chappell he will win India the match if he bats, say, 15 balls. Or that they will win if they have reached a certain score at the end of the 30th over. With his game deteriorating a little and with others catching up with him, the lack of instinct has become more glaring.We know he doesn’t like meetings, but Dhoni the batsman can do much worse than sitting with Dhoni the limited-overs captain, a man who reacts purely to situations without any preconceived notions, who sometimes pushes himself up with more than 25 overs to go to seal games with a six. The man who tries things, who takes a risk here or there, before it is too late. That’s what a lot of batting is.

A short quiz to test your IPL 2015 quotient

27-May-2015

Leading the middle order in the former Australia captain’s Ashes XI: a dashing batsman from England (or South Africa)

Ricky Ponting09-Jul-20151:59

Kevin Pietersen

“He was a match-winning player and the tougher the situation, the better he played: a bit like Glenn McGrath. He was one of those guys who loved to win the defining moments that decide a series like the Ashes”

StatsOVERALL: Matches 104 Innings 181 Runs 8181 Average 47.28 100s/50s 23/35
ASHES: Matches 27 Innings 50 Runs 2158 Average 44.95 100s/50s 4/13Best performance158 at The Oval, 2005
The final day of the final Test of an Ashes Test, and England’s batsmen had one simple task against McGrath, Lee, Warne and Tait: make sure not to lose the Test. Kevin Pietersen’s first ball – McGrath was on a hat-trick – looped to the slips off his shoulder and umpire Bowden correctly ruled not-out. He survived two more chances and at lunch, England were only 133 ahead with five wickets left. Post lunch, it was Pietersen’s session as he raced to his maiden Test century off 124 balls. Brett Lee pumped up the pace, but Pietersen pulled off some outrageous shots. His 158 effectively sealed England’s conquest of the Ashes in 2005.TriviaKevin Pietersen has twice made scores of 158 in the Ashes.

Some easy ones were put down, some cost their team a lot, and some came with a second chance. A few drops from the three Tests between Sri Lanka and India

ESPNcricinfo staff02-Sep-2015Saha puts down a sitter
Sri Lanka were already reeling at 66 for 5 in Galle, and it would have become 66 for 6 had Wriddhiman Saha held on to a simple chance after Dinesh Chandimal edged one off Ishant Sharma. Boosted by the drop, Chandimal went on to score 59, putting on a stand of 79 with Angelo Mathews to steer the team to relatively safer shores.Mubarak drop makes Rahul a centurion
Probably the costliest drop of the series. Sri Lanka had taken two wickets within five overs on the first day at P Sara Oval before Dushmantha Chameera had KL Rahul edge one straight to gully, but Jehan Mubarak let this one pop out of his hands. Rahul, then on 11, scored his second Test hundred and earned himself the Man-of-the-Match award.Dhawan drops Silva before catching Silva
A straightforward catch to Shikhar Dhawan at first slip, in Galle, which didn’t cost India much. Kaushal Silva sent an outside edge flying to Dhawan, who tried to pouch it with his fingers pointing up, but did not succeed. Thankfully for India, Silva fell in similar fashion, caught by Dhawan off Varun Aaron, soon after.Rahane’s rare drop
Ajinkya Rahane was having a dream run in the slips. Then, in Sri Lanka’s first innings at the P Sara, Sangakkara edged a ball off R Ashwin that flew to first slip where Rahane tried to grab it with his left hand and then again on second attempt, but failed. Sangakkara, however, added only eight more before edging another one from Ashwin to Rahane.Thirimanne gives Dhawan a life
Dhawan had marched on to his hundred in Galle and was on 122 when he struck a full toss firmly into the covers towards Lahiru Thirimanne. The fielder leapt to his left, went almost parallel to the ground, and got both hands to it, but it wasn’t enough.

R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja have taken the bulk of India’s wickets against South Africa, but Amit Mishra has played an important role too, chipping in with key strikes at important junctures

Sidharth Monga in Delhi01-Dec-2015On pitches straight out of spinners’ fantasies, the record book shows that Amit Mishra has taken only seven wickets in the series, which is only two more than South Africa’s opening batsman Dean Elgar, and puts him fifth on the list of wicket-takers so far. Mishra is not getting fooled by cold numbers, though. In the four innings he has been used in, he has taken out the South African innings’ top-scorer three times, and the best-looking batsman on the other occasion. He has bowled only half the overs sent down by Ravindra Jadeja, who has taken two more than double Mishra’s wickets. There is a role for him in the team, and he is quite aware of it.Mishra’s wickets are: AB de Villiers twice in Mohali, JP Duminy in the first innings in Nagpur, and both Hashim Amla and Faf du Plessis at the end of South Africa’s longest partnership of the series. On pitches where flight and guile in the air hasn’t been mandatory, teams rely on bowlers who can spear the ball in accurately. That R Ashwin has been just as effective while continuing to flight the ball speaks volumes of the form he is in, but the pitches have led Virat Kohli to be judicious with using Mishra. He is usually called upon when more is required than just the misbehaviour from the pitch.Mishra is proud he has delivered. In Mohali he bowled de Villiers with a legbreak that was flat, giving him the impression it might be pitched short and sending him back into the crease, and turned little, enough to beat the bat but not too much, thus not missing the off stump. It is a variation he has developed in his time outside the team. He says one big legbreak is not enough at Test level. You need those less-turning legbreaks to take the edge or hit the stumps.”In the second innings in Mohali when I bowled AB de Villiers, that was the best wicket I took,” Mishra said, two days before the start of the last Test of the series. “At that time we had a small total to play with, and they had wickets in hand.”Mishra was actually asked if the Amla wicket in Nagpur was his best. “That was my second-best. If we hadn’t taken that wicket we could have lost the match or it could have been drawn,” Mishra said. Drawn? Perhaps Mishra has taken to heart team director Ravi Shastri’s comments of “to hell with five days” and thought it was a three-day Test.Kohli had said earlier how Mishra had asked to bowl him when India were struggling to find a way past Amla and du Plessis. “Virat came to me and asked me what we should do,” Mishra said. “I said let me bowl, I feel like I can get a wicket here. He said okay. I was already confident, I knew we needed to get a wicket there and I felt I could use my variety.”Mishra then got the wickets, Amla with a legbreak that took the shoulder of the bat, and du Plessis with a wrong’un that shot along the surface. That he has been striking at key moments has given Mishra satisfaction despite being left out of the side when the team management felt it needed just two spinners in Bangalore. “It is more important to take wickets when it matters,” Mishra said. “When you take important wickets and your team wins, it gives you more satisfaction rather than bowling 15-15, 20-20 overs [for more wickets]… If in short spells you bowl well, say six to seven overs and take one or two wickets, it helps the team a lot.”Mishra says he understands his role in his team, a smaller team of three spinners within the big team. That is one of the big reasons why India have done so much better than South Africa in the series, he said. “Not only are we bowling well, we are bowling well at the same time,” Mishra said. “We have a great combination going. We understand each other’s games and game plans. We are sharing our knowledge and our ideas. It is important for any team to win matches and series, for bowlers to trust each other, to keep talking to each other and helping each other.”There has been one big disappointment for Mishra, though: that with all the talk around the kind of pitches prepared for the series, the success of the spinners is not being celebrated as much as it would have been otherwise. “If the spinners are bowling well then the talk should be that spinners are bowling well,” Mishra said. “Rather than focussing on the pitches. We can bowl well outside too.”

The team is currently paying the price for basing their selections on a tour of Bangladesh which was heavily disrupted by rain, and left them with more questions than answers

Firdose Moonda in Nagpur26-Nov-20152:05

What should be South Africa’s batting approach?

Let’s put aside Nagpur’s nastiness for a second. There are several other stories scrutinising it. This is about turning the spotlight on South Africa, whose slump to their lowest score since readmission, is the result of more than just a snake pit of a surface and shrewd spinners for opponents. A spaced-out schedule, questionable team selections, and a gulf in skills are the factors mainly responsible for their implosion, and should have been mitigated against before they embarked on this tour.South Africa knew they were set for a Test tour of India many months ago, but this series would only have entered their sphere of focus when the fixtures were confirmed on July 27. Then, the attention was on the duration of the tour – 72 days – rather than the content of it.Once the idea of ten weeks away from home was fully internalised, emphasis turned to the content. The trip would start in October with three T20s, which would serve as good preparation for next year’s World T20. Five ODIs followed, and then the main course, a first four-Test series in six years. That the Tests were last was seen as a positive because most touring teams get better with time, which would mean South Africa would be as well acclimatised to conditions as they could hope for by November. It did not quite work that way.The limited-overs matches were played on entertainment pitches which provided plenty of runs. South Africa’s only experience of red-ball cricket was a placid two-day practice match in Mumbai where everyone but AB de Villiers meandered through the motions. They should have known they needed more than that as preparation, especially given the gap between the Tests.South Africa’s last completed five-day Test was in the first week of January, eleven months before the first Test in India. In between that, South Africa went to Bangladesh but only had four days of Test cricket out of a possible ten in a series where weather was the winner. That small sample only served to show them there were snags in their long-form play, but it seems they ignored them.The Bangladesh Tests were played without de Villiers, who was on paternity leave, or any great intensity from South Africa. Only Temba Bavuma, the reserve batsman, managed a contribution of significance with a half-century in the first innings of the first test. South Africa totaled an unremarkable 248 and then conceded heavily against a spirited Bangladesh. They were 61 without loss in the second innings when rain ended play, trailing by 17 runs, and regarded that as proof that their new top two could take shape.The reality was far removed from that. Stiaan van Zyl, the opener on trial, was promising but hardly convincing enough to be promoted permanently. The lower middle-order received a new layer of uncertainty after wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock was dropped on batting form and Dane Vilas, an outside candidate for the job, debuted. South Africa returned from Bangladesh with more questions than answers and no game time to find alternatives.Stiaan van Zyl has looked completely out of his depth in this tour•BCCISo they had to turn to the last time they played competitive Test cricket, against Sri Lanka in mid 2014 – the three home Tests against West Indies were extremely one sided – to mentally prepare for this series. That visit would have brought back good memories. Dean Elgar scored a century, Dale Steyn found reverse swing to win the first Test, and a blockathon in Colombo secured the series. That was South Africa’s first series since the retirement of Graeme Smith and first under Amla, and it was successful enough to convince them their transition was taking place as planned.Now all of that had been throw into disarray. South Africa look under-prepared and unsure. The above would explain why they may not have been ready enough. Their choice of players may explain why they have not been competitive enough.In an attempt to follow protocol and give players a proper chance to prove themselves, South Africa stuck with the men they promoted in Bangladesh. Van Zyl kept his spot at the top, Dane Vilas kept his behind the stumps, and Simon Harmer remained the first-choice holding spinner. Of those, only Harmer is doing the job better now than he was then.Van Zyl appears completely out of his depth, inexplicable for the player who led the domestic first-class run charts two summers ago. Vilas has struggled behind and in front of the stumps and South Africa have been left wondering if they should have turned to more experienced players for a tour of this magnitude and left the blooding for later. Stephen Cook could have been an option for the opener’s spot, Thami Tsolekile for the keeper’s role, and Morne van Wyk could have done both jobs, opening a space for another player lower down the order.These issues would not be so glaring if South Africa’s most experienced batsmen were doing what is expected of them, but Hashim Amla, Faf du Plessis, de Villiers and JP Duminy are not. De Villiers and Duminy, to a lesser extent, have at least shown signs of form but du Plessis is more present when he is providing advice to Amla and the bowlers on the field than he is with bat.Amla himself is preoccupied. He is captaining in fast-forward – he has to because the game has been moving so quickly – but he is batting that way too. His rush to get runs is not working and his footwork has suffered as a result.The only player who has evoked some memory of Galle is Elgar. He has shown staying power through the struggle, but then something slips. If he is the class of player he is suspected to be, he will push through that ceiling soon. But for South Africa, soon needs to be very soon.Elgar and Amla carry their last real hope of squaring the series. If they fall early on the third morning, India will be able to see straight through. Even if they survive a little bit, the ask may still become too much. South Africa not only have to score their highest total of the series, but the only one over 300. On a crumbling pitch, perhaps even the South Africa of old could not do it. But few thought they could do what they have done before – like draw in Adelaide, win in Perth, beat the clock in Port Elizabeth and stage a coup in Galle – and they will have to remember that now.