Nick Compton on his experiences with a group of 18 amateur and professional cricketers on Mount Everest

Nick Compton25-Nov-2007

‘It was only once we reached above 4000m did the effects of the altitude really become apparent’ © PCA

Mount Everest is not a place you would normally associate with a game of cricket. Having now played one up there, I can see why.The Professional Cricketers’ Association (PCA) had organised a trek from Kathmandu to Everest Base Camp as a fundraiser for the PCA Benevolent Fund. Our group consisted of five professional cricketers and 12 other men and women who are connected to the sport in some way. We had included in our kit a “Kwik-cricket” set with a few bats and balls. The match we played on our last day was a great way to connect with the locals, illustrating how sport can bring together people from all lifestyles. The sherpas had been carrying our bags and had been at our service for the duration of trip. Once we entered the cricket domain, all that was forgotten. Sherpas v PCA could have been England v Australia at Lord’s.We played in what looked like a big crater. It was dusty and not dissimilar to some subcontinental wickets. The sherpas batted first and ran an impressive number of quick singles. The PCA, blaming nausea and exhaustion for our lack of running between the wickets, were relieved when Essex’s Graham Napier hit the winning boundary. It was a great way to end our trip.But first, before we even played our game of cricket on top of the world, we had to reach Base Camp. That first glimpse of Mount Everest was a bit like scoring that breakthrough hundred you wait a long time for. The colossal tower of rock and earth reaching almost 9000 metres into Nepalese air is a magical sight and one I will savour for a time to come. Even after two weeks of constant nausea, a headache that felt like a thousand bulls charging through my skull, and legs of jelly, I still would not have swapped the experience for anything.When I embarked on the journey, I never in my wildest dreams expected it to be so tough. The breathtaking views and the experience of camping for two weeks in the Himalayas, home to the three tallest mountains in the world, were at the forefront of my mind. What followed would be a great lesson in both respect and humility.We left Kathmandu in a small 17-seater aircraft that swirled high into turbulence before it dive-bombed onto the side of a small runway cut into the mountainside. Despite having left half my stomach in the plane, I began to experience real excitement. The lush green mountainside with snow-covered peaks in the distance and the cool, thin, fresh air were a welcome reprieve from smoggy London.

‘Higher up our energy levels dropped and the priority became simply getting to the next camp’ © PCA

At first we simply absorbed our surroundings, chatted to locals and got to know the rest of the group. I was also keen to learn more about photography. Napier, my tent mate, was already an enthusiast, so I badgered him most of the time – I still cannot work out why he always wanted to walk on his own! The enigmatic landscapes were a photographer’s dream. Huge, snow-covered mountains, glittering glaciers, and sinuous rivers all had me snapping away at every available opportunity in search of the one shot that would propel me to stardom. Soon my memory cards were running low, and once I realised that the mountain wasn’t going anywhere, I calmed down.As conditions worsened, the landscape turned from mountain green to something resembling the moon. The air got thinner and our steps heavier: soon I was counting each one and resting after every 50. Our focus had shifted to what mattered most, simply walking and breathing, activities one usually takes for granted. When survival mode really kicked in, I could draw parallels with the people the PCA Benevolent Fund helps. This is what some of them have to contend with on a daily basis. The Fund assists those cricketers whose careers and lives have been shattered, be it in an accident or through illness. That realisation helped propel my consciousness away from myself.Higher up, our energy levels dropped and the priority became simply getting to the next camp. The fluctuations in temperature gripped us. As soon as the sun went behind a mountain, it became incredibly cold. At around 4 pm, we would be pulling on thermals, beanies and protective gear, preparing ourselves for a long and freezing night. There were no camp-fires to huddle around; the warmth came from a cup of the local brew and some conversation with my fellow trekkers.Two of these were Adrian Morgan and Cameron King, who are the assistant groundsman and dressing-room attendant respectively, at Lord’s. Before the trek, I would have exchanged little more than a friendly “Good morning” and a look at the wicket with “Morg”. On this trip I discovered he had a keen interest in bird-watching and I suddenly found myself looking for Morg every time I saw a bird and relying on him to tell me what it was.It was only once we got above 4000 metres that the effects of the altitude really become apparent. Before the trek a doctor had explained about altitude sickness, the symptoms and warning signs. As she ended the talk with a sinister “You might not wake up”, it was hardly surprising that we got little sleep that night!

‘Five overs each and unsurprisingly very few quick singles were taken’ © PCA

Regardless of fitness and training, once you enter the realms of Base Camp, altitude sickness can catch anyone. We were all affected in some way, and morale took a knock when Cameron had to be airlifted off the mountain just a day from Base Camp. When you entrench yourself as deeply as we did in nature, you realise everyone’s equal up there. Nature has a way of bringing one back to earth. The pace of nature and its balance is something that become very apparent; you cannot escape it, nor do you want to. You needed to respect the enormity of the task and the conditions.Amid the brutality of some very serious climbs, there was time to soak up the culture. The Nepalese people display a calm and contentment that is strengthened by their deep Buddhist beliefs. We came across Buddhist monuments and places of worship, which one has to walk around to the left of to show respect to the gods. Watching Sherpas carry packs of between 50 to 80kg on their backs up enormous mountains was a very vivid image – to the point where one of our trekkers asked, “Is that heavy?” You can imagine the reply, had they only spoken English! What for us would seem a harsh way of life is normality for them. It really put our incessant moaning in context.The sight we had all been waiting for loomed ahead eventually. Everest has mysticism to it. Even at Base Camp only the peak is visible, as though to see it all you have to keep climbing. To think we were standing less than three km below the highest point in the world, looking at the route to the summit that so many had gone to, yet so many had failed to reach, was incredible. But I won’t be suggesting to Middlesex that we should be practising our six-hitting up here for the pre-season training trip!To donate to the PCA Benevolent Fund click here

Ajantha Mendis is the latest in a long line of unusual spinners who kept batsmen and spectators guessing

Gideon Haigh28-Apr-2008

Sri Lanka has had an illustrious line of freakish bowlers, from Murali to Malinga to, most recently, Mendis © AFP
Watching Sri Lanka’s Ajantha Mendis bowl is like trying to hold a conversation with a naturally quiet person in a noisy pub. What was that again, Ajantha? Didn’t quite catch that – can you repeat it? Sorry pal, I thought you said something else. Hey, can we go outside? Can’t hear myself think in here.Mendis’s run-up is plain to the point of innocence, but his fingers are all subtlety, inscrutably resistant to sharing their secrets. The batsman is left groping, searching for cues and clues. Eh? Come again? What was that? Can you give me that once more? And finally: what happened?His mixture of legbreaks, offbreaks, , googlies and topspinners is a perplexity for statisticians too. Cricinfo is calling him “right-arm slow-medium” at the moment, but cricketers translate “right-arm slow-medium” as “bowls in the nets if he’s lucky”. If he plays county cricket, Playfair will have to consider a designation like ROBLB or RSM@#&%?!Others have already settled on the designation “mystery spinner”, the epithet conferred almost 60 years ago on the Australian Jack Iverson. Mendis and he certainly seem to share prodigiously strong middle fingers. The ball settled into Iverson’s grip like a marble for the squirting. Mendis, likewise, looks simply to caress the ball as he propels it, barely involving the palm of his hand at all, and holding one particular variation as delicately as an entomological specimen. Both bowlers possess the cardinal virtue of accuracy, and a liking for long spells.Where they differ seems to be in variety and spin. Iverson spun his stock ball, a googly, massively, but his variations considerably less: batsmen finally figured on playing him as an offbreak bowler, albeit one who looked like he was bowling legbreaks. Mendis doesn’t spin any of his options enormously; it is the combination of them, and the difficulty distinguishing one from the other, that makes him a handful.There is always excitement when a bowler like Mendis appears. Batsmen scratch their heads. Captains and coaches confabulate. Cricket’s telephone exchange buzzes.The original “mystery ball”, and still perhaps the most delicious, is the googly itself, the offbreak delivered by the legbreak action conceived on his family billiards table before being hazarded on the sward at Lord’s by BJT Bosanquet – and thus sometimes known as the “bosie”, and also the “wrong ‘un”. It’s somehow fitting that such a double agent of a delivery should have multiple aliases.At first the googly posed more preposterous difficulties than its progenitor: the first to take a first-class wicket bounced four times. But it soon swept the world: the South African XI of a century ago included no fewer than four specialist purveyors, and the Australian team of 1910-11 featured perhaps the best exponent of all. Certainly it was the view of Johnnie Moyes, who saw all its antipodean advocates, Arthur Mailey, Clarrie Grimmett and Bill O’Reilly included, that no Australian mastered the googly more thoroughly than “Ranji” Hordern.

Ramadhin surprised himself with the discovery that his quicker one seamed away with an ounce of extra effort © PA Photos

[Hordern] was without doubt an amazing bowler. He took a long run, brought his arm right over, was a length as well as a spin bowler, and of medium pace. He didn’t seem to be flighting the ball, yet did so, as the batsman discovered when he tried to move down the pitch to him. That wasn’t easy as Hordern was slightly faster through the air, but the temptation was there, as I found to my cost in Victor Trumper’s benefit game, only to hear Sammy Carter say, “Got you, son”… Sometimes you could see the tip of the little finger sticking up skyward like a periscope of a submarine, but only if you were concentrating on it. If you did see it, you recognised the approaching “bosie”.

The first googly in Australia bowled Victor Trumper; a googly was also the last ball to defeat Donald Bradman in a Test match. Simply by existing, it had an effect on cricket’s ecosystem. “If this sort of bowling becomes general I’m packing my bags,” threatened Archie MacLaren, before deciding he could live with it. It even enjoyed an oriental translation into the “chinaman”.No other delivery, in fact, has had quite the same impact on cricket, and by never really being improved on, it also caused cricket to revert to being a batsman’s game. In an incisive 1950 critique of Bradman’s impact on cricket, the ‘s cricket correspondent WE Hall observed.

In due course we shall come to see Bradman as an inevitable part of the evolution of the game. From Grace’s integration of forward and back-play the art of batting advanced until, in [Jack] Hobbs, a technique was perfected to master the “new” bowling, as it has been called. It was the last of the qualitative changes in cricket, a fact realised by one writer who said that the game needed a new type of ball to do what the “googly” once did. But there has been no new type of ball, and the only development left to batsmen between the wars was the quantitative one which followed, as surely as mass production followed the start of the Industrial Revolution.

Of course, mystery bowling is classically an individual pursuit, the result of lone experiment and lateral thought. Iverson is the archetype, his bowling having originated in a lifetime of nervous finger flicking with a table tennis ball; likewise were Iverson’s protégé Johnny Gleeson, double-dealing Sonny Ramadhin, and whizz-banging Bhagwat Chandrasekhar self-taught cricketers.Ramadhin and Chandra made the most of their bowling’s hidden depths. Delivering a stock ball that spun from the off, both buttoned their sleeves at the wrist, as though to deflect the curious glare. Ramadhin bowled his offbreak with the middle finger down rather than across the seam, to sometimes startling effect. Ken Archer described playing with Ramadhin for a Commonwealth XI in September 1954 at seaside Hastings, when the bowler discovered that his quicker one seamed away with an ounce of extra effort; he could hardly bowl for his delighted laughter. Chandra’s right arm was so withered from childhood polio that he could hardly hold a cup of tea to his lips. But with it he bowled googlies and legbreaks that seemed to set his whole body whirring like a child’s spinning top. And like no other bowler, he haunted Viv Richards:

Iverson was the original mystery spinner, and originator of the ‘marble-squirter’s grip’ © PA Photos

It took me a long, long time to come to terms with Chandra. He was the most teasing bowler I ever had to face, and I never quite knew whether I was in charge or not. That was his greatness. His ability to lure opponents into a false sense of security was deadly. How is a batsman supposed to dominate such a man? How can he build his own confidence when he does not know whether the bowler is faking or not? … To this day he probably remains the one bowler for whom I have most respect. He could do things with the ball that seemed supernatural.

In the last two decades, Muttiah Muralitharan has been perhaps the most mysterious of bowlers, and certainly the most paradoxical: a wrist-spinning offbreak bowler. Indeed, to the interminable debate about Murali’s action, a modest proposal might be worth making. One key exhibit in the case for Murali’s legitimacy is footage of him, taken by Channel Four, bowling with his arm in a cast and spinning the ball every bit as far. What might be even more instructive would be if his wrist were immobilised instead – I suspect it would draw much of his bowling’s sting, and in doing so demonstrate the locus of his energy.Curiously, too, the , the ball the offspinner has perfected to go the other way, might well predate him. Jack Potter went on Australia’s 1964 Ashes tour as a right-hand batsman, but his part-time finger spin was just as impressive, for he varied his offbreak with a ball going the other way without apparently changing action. “If I had a ball like that,” Richie Benaud told Potter, “I’d be practising at Lord’s before breakfast.” As a batsman, Potter preferred to keep it as a party piece, to flummox county pros, and amuse his keeper, Wally Grout, who wrote:

You had no chance of detecting it from the hand and could only hope to pick the direction of the spin through the air, a dicey business, particularly on the many English grounds with sightscreens … [Gloucestershire’s David] Allen muttered to me one day after Jack’s wrong ‘un had him swiping fresh air: “What’s this fellow doing?” and though equally fooled I did my best to convince David that the ball had hit something on the wicket. In later matches the appearance of Potter at the bowling crease prompted a conference among the batsmen, one I should have been allowed to join. I was as much in the dark about Jack’s pet ball as they were.

Potter’s chief contribution to the history of mystery would be as a teacher, for it was he who, at the AIS Cricket Academy, inducted Shane Warne into the enigma of the flipper, a back-spun legbreak that zaps from under the hand, and burrows straight ahead like a commuter running headlong for a departing train. This ball came in line of descent from Clarrie Grimmett through Bruce Dooland, who imparted it to Richie Benaud at Trent Bridge in May 1956. For a time, when Warne bowled it the flipper was so popular it seemed to be on the brink of getting its own talk show.In time, however, Warne turned out to be the cricketer who best demonstrated that mystery is temporary, mastery permanent. Warne talked a good mystery ball, but in action he was quite the opposite, generous to the point of exhibitionism in the way he shared his art. Perhaps no bowler in cricket history has been replayed more often: the legbreak to dismiss Mike Gatting at Old Trafford in June 1993 has been viewed more than half a million times on YouTube alone. But study was no substitute for the experience of Warne’s predatory presence.For any modern bowling enigma quickly flushes out an army of Alan Turings: about they are soon saying . The googly of the last 20 years has been reverse swing, a decided advantage for Pakistan in the late 1980s and early 1990s but increasingly exoteric since then – to the extent, in fact, that Australia did not think it a skill worth mastering, and came a cropper against Simon Jones and Freddie Flintoff during the 2005 Ashes series.

Warne: demonstrated that ‘mystery is temporary, mastery permanent’ © Getty Images
The Australians are not usually so careless. Even when the confounded them for one golden day at Bellerive Oval in November 1999, Saqlain Mushtaq taking 6 for 46, it was not through the lack of a plan so much as the forgetting of one. As Steve Waugh explained:

Fair enough, this is a special ball delivered with the skill of an illusionist, but it’s also one we have talked about in detail and always have a plan to. We believe that Saqlain hardly ever turns his offbreak, and that his stock ball is the mystery delivery that turns like a legbreak. To counter him, we believe that early on, until you’ve got accustomed to the difference in flight and bounce of this ball, you should play him as a legspinner and use your pad to neutralise the occasional offbreak. However, for some reason we completely forgot about this strategy and paid the price, losing wicket after wicket to his “freakish” skill.

Saqlain took 4 for 205 in the next three innings as Australia swept the series clean. In other words, when mystery wears off, there must be a residue of skill and resilience. Indeed, many international cricket careers now unfold like whodunits solved in the first 30 pages; after that, the player is a quarry on the run, trying to stay a step ahead of his opponents.The mysterious, or at least the unorthodox, can still have powerful short-term impacts; indeed, it is possible that the homogenising influence of television and coaching has enhanced the value of the unusual cricketer. It was noticeable that the four most effective bowlers in last year’s World Cup were all gifted with decidedly homespun methods. None from the spinners Murali and Brad Hogg, the pacemen Lasith Malinga and Shaun Tait obsessed about “the channel” or “getting it in the right areas”. They either spun the ball as much as they could, or slung it as fast as they were able.None, however, has really prospered since, even Murali being below his exalted best in Australia and the West Indies. Malinga hasn’t lingered; Tait is gone temporarily, Hogg permanently. The acid test of Ajantha Mendis, then, is not what he is doing now, but how his game is standing up in two years’ time.

He has taken 78 Test wickets at 16 since May last year. The ratings say he’s the world’s best quick. TWC spoke to him before the England series

Interview by Lawrence Booth25-Jul-2008

‘When I get a bit of fire in my arse I can really get it through’ © Getty Images

How excited are you about your partnership with Morne Morkel?
I expect something big from Morne on this tour. He’s just getting better, bigger, stronger, faster. He’s even starting to scare me. I know he’s done well for Kent and Yorkshire and in English club cricket, and he’s starting to make that opening partnership with me his own. He’s been bowling really well in the nets during our training camp, too, but I don’t want to talk him up too much.So who’s quicker?
That’s a tough call. It’s funny, because when I get a bit of fire in my arse I can really get it through, but we’re different kinds of bowlers. I’ve done so well recently swinging it late. I watched Jimmy Anderson against New Zealand and he showed his class with that late swing. I don’t know who’s influenced him but, if I can find out, I’d like to have a word with the guy too. Morne is tall, fast, and gets unbelievable bounce. To have him towering over you from a few yards away can’t be nice. He’s a bloke who can get it down at 145 clicks [90mph], and at the other end is a skiddy guy swinging it at 145 clicks. We’re two different arsenals, if you like, and we can both be quicker than the other on our day.Daryll Cullinan has said he thinks you’re “far better” than Allan Donald was at the same age, 25. What do you say to that?
It’s nice when someone like Daryll says something like that. We had a season together at Titans, where he was my captain, and he was a massive influence on my life. I did everything for him he wanted me to do, so I probably kept in his good books. I’ve got over 100 Test wickets now and it’s nice to be compared with a legend like Allan Donald, but at some point the comparisons have got to stop and people have to start talking about me in my own right.Are you in touch with Allan Donald?
Not a lot. Sometimes when he does a bit of commentary I see him and we’ll bump into each other on the outfield and he’ll say something about the way I bowled yesterday or whatever. But the guy who has been unbelievable is Shaun Pollock. It’s all the advice you ever need just to be able to watch him. Just as importantly, he’s my shoe sponsor. We have the same size feet, so he has thrown a lot of second-hand shoes my way. I bought a house recently which has three bedrooms, and one of them is dedicated to shoes. There are about 30 to 35 pairs of cricket boots in there and about half of them have been sponsored by Shaun. He has a garage containing about 70 pairs, so we can always find a pair that fits.The stats say you have the second-best strike-rate behind George Lohmann of any Test bowler to have taken 20 wickets. How much attention do you pay to statistics?
It’s nice but what gets me going more than wickets in the record book is when your captain comes up to you and says, “I expect a wicket from you now.” To have the respect of your captain and your team-mates is the most important thing. That’s bigger than any record.Would you rather end up with lots of Test wickets or lots of Twenty20 cash?
Money comes with cricket, and cricket is what I want to do. I’d rather play it than sit in an office. Financially I’ll always be okay, though I’m never chasing the top dollar. At the end of the day you want to be remembered for who you are as a person, and then as someone who had good stats. You want to be remembered as someone who was hard to play against but was able to share a chat at the end of the day. We’re all human beings after all.

	I’ve got over 100 Test wickets now and it’s nice to be compared with a legend like Allan Donald, but at some point the comparisons have got to stop and people have to start talking about me in my own right

Is Twenty20 good for the game?
The money is starting to make cricketers feel like footballers, and the game is quick, easy, people like it, and it’s bringing more spectators to the stadium for Tests. On a Sunday in South Africa now people will go and watch the Test rather than go down the beach or stay at home playing PlayStation. In that way, Twenty20 is helping.Will you feel the pressure this summer of being a potential series-winner?
No, there’s no real pressure. If I do the basics, I know I’ll get wickets. I love the thought that my captain wants to throw me the ball. I really thrive on responsibility. And it’s nice to be known as someone the opposition is wary of.Have you played against Kevin Pietersen before?
I played a one-day game for Warwickshire against Hampshire in the semi-finals of the FP Trophy last year at the Rose Bowl but I only bowled two balls to him and he got himself out at the other end doing something a bit unusual. But he’s a great player. He’s everything you want to play against and I’m sure he’s looking forward to playing against us as well. He’s the kind of guy who won’t block six balls – that’s for sure. But then, if he hits the first five deliveries of my over for four and then gets out to the sixth, look who’s laughing. The fact that he’s ex-South African has got nothing to do with his ability or skill. Unfortunately it’s one of those things that a couple of guys have chosen to leave us.How important in that case is it to show South Africans that you’ve got a sport worth hanging around for?
Yeah, that’s what’s happening right now. We’ve had a good meeting in the training camp and we all agreed that the South African team speaks for itself now. We’ve had six series wins out of seven and one draw. We feel our cricket is really going somewhere and we want to get the message across that people don’t have to leave the country. We don’t want them running away to England. We want to keep them here with our performances and we want them to play for us and to fight for the country of their birth. That’s the way it should be in international sport.

Plays of the day for day three of the third Test between New Zealand and India in Wellington

Sidharth Monga in Wellington05-Apr-2009The wiles of McCullum
When Rahul Dravid premeditated a paddle sweep off Daniel Vettori, Brendon McCullum started moving even before the shot was played but could not reach the ball. Dravid tried the same shot again later in the over but this time McCullum was quicker in moving down leg side and took the catch. It was a moment of amazing alertness from the wicketkeeper with the opposition on 184 for 1, leading by 366. It brings to mind a shot played by Manoj Tiwary in the Ranji Trophy quarterfinal but, on that occasion, it was the batsmen who won the battle of the bluffs. Reproduced below is Cricinfo’s commentary of that shot:88.1 Suresh to Tiwary, FOUR, Bluffmaster, Manoj is premeditative in going for paddle sweep, Badrinath at first slip sees it, and starts running towards leg slip, Manoj feels it, and withdraws from the sweep and opens the face towards where the slip would have been. Shot of the dayHot dessert
Gautam Gambhir went into lunch on 96 not out, in sight of his sixth Test century. Off the first ball he faced after the break, Gambhir stepped out to Tim Southee and crashed it through covers to bring up his hundred, his second of the series. There must be a bit of Virender Sehwag in Gambhir.The revelation and the elevation
Sehwag said on television at the start of the day that Zaheer Khan, in Napier, had promised the batsmen a five-for in Wellington if they managed to draw the match. Zaheer kept his word yesterday.The upper-cut has been one of the most profitable shots in this series. Even Dravid is playing it. But what if the ball is wide and too high to reach? If you are Gambhir, you jump a foot in the air and then guide it over slips. For a six.Museum still saves daylight
There has been enough confusion around the end of daylight-saving in New Zealand. But like museums often do, the New Zealand Cricket Museum held on to time. They didn’t pull their clock back by one hour, so according to them, the game started at noon.

Cricinfo’s experts look back on the key issues that dominated 2008

31-Dec-2008In this seven-part year-end audio special, Tony Greig, Ian Chappell, David Lloyd, Sanjay Manjrekar, Daryll Cullinan and others look back on the key issues that have dominated 2008: Australia’s struggles and the teams that have emerged as likely challengers, the crises and scandals, the captains who made a difference, the entertainers who bid the game goodbye, and the innovations that came into the game. ‘Australia have never been more vulnerable’
Ian Chappell looks at the decline of a champion side Listen (5:06) | Download (2399k) | Podcast | iTunes ‘India is the No.1 team’
Which team will end 2009 as No.1? Cullinan, Lloyd, Shastri, Manjrekar and Chappell discuss Listen (10:26) | Download (4893k) | Podcast | iTunes ‘Dhoni looks to win every game’
Who’s the captain to watch out for? Lloyd, Manjrekar and Chappell predict Listen (6:19) | Download (2969k) | Podcast | iTunes ‘We need a bigger panel of Elite umpires’
Umpiring errors, a racism row, and is cricket becoming a contact sport? The scandals that rocked 2008 Listen (3:02) | Download (1422k) | Podcast | iTunes ‘Zimbabwe and Bangladesh need their status reviewed’
Osman Samiuddin, Aamer Sohail and Derek Pringle on the problems facing some of cricket’s teams Listen (4:52) | Download (2284k) | Podcast | iTunes ‘Goodbye to the greats’
Daryll Cullinan, Ian Chappell and Sanjay Manjrekar pay tribute to the year’s key retirees Listen (4:51) | Download (2274k) | Podcast | iTunes ”Twenty20 will take players out of Test cricket’
David Lloyd, Geoff Boycott, Ian Chappell and Sanjay Manjrekar look at how cricket changed in 2008 Listen (8:24) | Download (3940k) | Podcast | iTunes

Bangalore may see this win as a turning point – it lifted them off the bottom of the table – but the result can’t paper over the obvious flaws in the way they play

Karna S29-Apr-2009The game ended in the last over but it didn’t have to come to that. The target wasn’t huge but Bangalore stumbled after a good start and the match hurtled towards a somewhat artificially created close finish. Bangalore may see this win as a turning point – it lifted them off the bottom of the table – but the result can’t paper over the obvious flaws in the way they play.The team, it seems, is aware of those flaws – coach Ray Jennings had, on Tuesday, spoken to Cricinfo at length about some of the problems that were on view today.Most important, perhaps, and what almost cost them this match, is the batsmen’s shot selection. They needed 75 off 60 – with all wickets intact – when things went awry. The plan must have been for young Shreevats Goswami to go after the bowling while Jacques Kallis stayed till the end. Goswami, who’d done a fine job despite struggling with Ishant Sharma’s bounce, fell to a slog sweep and Kallis the next over fell to a mistimed pull.Kevin Pietersen and Virat Kohli tried to steady the chase and when Kohli hit Brad Hodge for a six, they needed a very gettable 34 off 27. Kohli then did what his coach despairs about: he tried a cute dab to third man but ended up edging it behind. In so doing, he underlined Jennings’ opinion of him. “Kohli sometimes thinks he is better than the game,” Jennings had said. “He is a very talented kid but needs to understand he has to put in performances on the field.”Bangalore still had their skipper, Pietersen, in the middle. It was his chance to finish the tournament on a high before leaving for England. He’d done the hard stuff: earned his teammates’ trust, taken them out for dinner meetings and even learned a smattering of Hindi. And, earlier today, even taken a wicket off the first ball of the match. Everything but scoring runs. His dismissals have usually been tame and, worse, robbed his team of momentum. Today, the pressure told on him. A gently flighted delivery from Hodge, Pietersen tried a chip stroke but could only push it weakly to long-on.At that stage they needed 33 from 24 and had six wickets in hand, but Bangalore weren’t done. After a brief period of stability, Roelof Van der Merwe went for a wild slog but edged it to the keeper (debutant Morne van Wyk’s fourth catch of the innings, which itself tells a tale). It was left to Mark Boucher to hold his nerve and steer them through with a ball to spare.The batting – especially of Pietersen and Kallis – seemed to confirm Jennings’ theory. “Our international cricketers are letting the team down. They have not produced the goods. To me they should be our leaders in runs and wickets. But here we have a situation where Dravid has been streets ahead of them all. He will be back with us in a few days so I looking forward to having him in the side again.”If this win does mark a turning point for Bangalore, it will be a reward for the effort they have put in, something that has pleased their famously tough coach. On Tuesday they had two practice games, morning and afternoon. They’ve cut down on the partying.The final word, though, to Kolkata Knight Riders, the new occupants of the foot of the table. At the end of the game, a distraught captain Brendon McCullum was frank in his assessment of his team – nothing was going right for the team, he said. However, he did show he had his wits about him. As the press conference ended, someone handed him an envelope; he peered into it, saying, “Any ideas in there for us?”He can take a leaf out of Jennings’ book. There are ideas and theories galore there.

Dhoni has adapted his game superbly to the needs of his team over the last couple of years, and it was again evident in a blazing century

Sidharth Monga in Nagpur28-Oct-2009The ball was full, but not quite a half-volley. The shot that followed was something of a topspin forehand hit on the half-volley, bouncing close to the baseline. The knees were not bent like a tennis player’s but the bigger bat and massive twirl did the job, depositing the ball wide of long-on for one of the flatter sixes you’re likely to see. MS Dhoni can still play those shots.That he does not do as freely or as often as he used to is not lost on fans and colleagues alike. When Dhoni hits big shots in the nets, Virender Sehwag is usually quick to point out, in banter, “MS, ? [Where do these big shots disappear in the matches?]”It should also not be forgotten that Dhoni refrains from such audacious shots because he has explosive batsmen all around him, and his solid batting in the middle allows those flashers to play their flashier game. Nor should it be forgotten that Dhoni has managed to maintain a respectable strike-rate in one-day cricket while tempering his approach.Since becoming captain, Dhoni has played 63 ODIs with a visibly more responsible approach. In that time he has hit 34 sixes compared to 71 in 84 prior ODIs, and 160 fours to an earlier 206. In fewer matches, though, he has scored more runs at a slightly lesser strike-rate and hugely improved average. In the last two years, Dhoni has become a complete and remarkably consistent one-day batsman. Still he can’t keep everyone happy, as Dhoni readily reminded: “At some of the venues, people still expect me to hit those big sixes every time, so it is different.”Today was the best of both of Dhoni’s worlds. When he came in at 97 for 3 in the 16th over India were threatening to have aimed too high, and thus losing too many wickets too early. The first ball he faced hit him on the back of his head. He had taken his eyes off the ball, and found it following him. “It went blank,” said Dhoni. “That’s what happens when you get hit on the head. “It was a good delivery. It’s not like I was hit in the head for the first time. I am quite used to it. If you want to put together a package, you’ll get at least 15 shots of my getting hit in the head. It’s not the best way to start the innings.”He still had the presence of mind to steal a leg-bye. The first half of the innings was all about stealing and haring between the wickets; the robbing could wait. Ricky Ponting tried to make that stealing difficult, keeping mid-off and mid-on in for the best part of first 40 overs. The boundary riders stayed off the ropes, trying to cut the twos on a huge ground. At that point Dhoni didn’t feel the need to clear mid-off or mid-on; he kept taking ones and twos despite a proactive approach from Ponting.Suresh Raina, a younger man with a lesser workload and fresher legs, kept raising his bat and patting it in appreciation of every scrambled single, and every one turned into two. It is this sort of commitment, this attitude of doing it first before demanding it of others, that earns Dhoni his team-mates’ respect.Dhoni hit one boundary in the first 28 balls he faced and two more before he raised his half-century off 55 balls. That is the new Dhoni for you. “You play by instinct, but at the same time there is a cautious attempt to see what the demand actually is,” he said. “If there is a youngster playing at No. 4, and he tries to play a big shot and gets out, its okay, people say he will learn and he will improve. But when it comes to a senior who has played around 100-odd international games, people rip him apart.”At times that’s in the back of your mind. Earlier when you went for a big shot, you backed yourself and went for it. It’s not the same as I was three or four years ago, less responsibility and more flair. But now I have more responsibility every time I turn up on the field. A lot depends on what kind of pressure you are handling.”Still some yearn for the old Dhoni, especially when the situation asks for it, during a difficult chase or while setting targets. He has managed that, like he did in the West Indies earlier this year, having promoted himself to No. 3 and scoring a 34-ball 46. Amid his nudging and nurdling, which is not the most pleasant sight on a cricket field, such innings get forgotten. Even Kris Srikkanth, the chairman of selectors, couldn’t hide his glee when announcing that the old Dhoni was back.And back the old Dhoni was. Walking down and hitting Shane Watson, heaving and slapping Mitchell Johnson, hitting three bottom-handed sixes in two overs, he scored 54 runs in his last 27 balls, putting it past Australia, barring a freak innings or poor bowling. Even as the crowd went wild, it couldn’t be escaped that this man had earned the right to go berserk after having built an innings, having worked hard through the most part of his piece.India need both the Dhonis, but there are other batsmen who can compensate for the old Dhoni, and more often than not it’s the new Dhoni that nobody else evokes. Dhoni, more than anybody else, knows that.

India’s ascent to the No.1 position in the ICC Test ratings is largely due to their much-improved performances overseas

Cricinfo staff06-Dec-2009India’s ascent to the No.1 position in the ICC Test ratings is largely due to their improved performances overseas. There used to be a time, not very long ago, when India hardly won anything when they went abroad – in the 1990s, India played 39 Tests overseas, and their win-loss record was a miserable 1-15, with their only win coming in Sri Lanka. In the 2000s, though, they’ve won as many games as they’ve lost, with series wins in England, New Zealand, Pakistan and West Indies, and Test wins in Australia and South Africa.

India’s decade-wise win-loss record overseas

Period	Tests	Won	Lost	W-L ratio
1960s	16	3	13	0.23
1970s	30	6	12	0.50
1980s	39	3	12	0.25
1990s	39	1	15	0.06
2000s	56	19	19	1.00

During this period, their home record has remained pretty solid, with 21 wins and eight losses. In the 1990s their win-loss ratio was slightly better, but their hopeless stats overseas meant they were hardly ever taken seriously as a contender for one of the top spots. In the 2000s, though, their record is more well-rounded, and their stronger displays overseas have helped them gain respect among the pundits and rating points in the ICC rankings.

India’s decade-wise win-loss record at home

Period	Tests	Won	Loss	W-L ratio
1960s	36	6	8	0.75
1970s	34	11	7	1.57
1980s	42	8	9	0.88
1990s	30	17	5	3.40
2000s	47	21	8	2.62

The table below indicates India’s batting and bowling have both contributed to their improved displays overseas. In the earlier decades the batting lacked the consistency and depth to cope with the extra bounce and seam movement in conditions generally prevalent in England, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia. The lack of depth in fast bowling meant opposition batsmen scored off the Indian bowlers pretty comfortably.In the 2000s, the batting has moved up a notch, while the bowlers have stepped up as well. In the 1990s, the difference between the batting average (30.78) and the bowling average (40.78) was exactly ten runs; in this decade, the difference has come down to 1.50, with both the batsmen and the bowlers contributing almost equally.

India’s decade-wise stats in overseas Tests

Period	Bat ave	100s/ 50s	Bowl ave	Strike rate	Diff in ave
1970s	29.76	24/ 71	39.38	88.0	-9.62
1980s	30.12	30/ 91	39.79	84.9	-9.67
1990s	30.78	43/ 66	40.78	88.5	-10.00
2000s	34.43	56/ 134	35.93	65.2	-1.50

The four batsmen who’ve led the batting display overseas have been Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman and Virender Sehwag. Dravid averages 57.08, with 37 fifty-plus scores in 56 Tests. Tendulkar’s average is slightly lower, though he has scored as many hundreds as Dravid. Laxman and Sehwag both average in the late 40s, with runs scored all over the world.Among the bowlers, the difference has primarily been in the pace attack. Many of them have done better overseas than at home, which has made the attack more potent abroad. Zaheer Khan averages almost 38 at home, but his away average drops to 32.08. Sreesanth’s average of 35.47 in India drops to less than 29 overseas. Irfan Pathan averages less than two wickets per Test at home, but takes almost five per Test abroad (though some of those away games have been played in Bangladesh and Zimbabwe).

Indian fast bowlers home and away since 2000 (Qual: 25 wickets)

Bowler	Home Tests	Wickets	Average	Away Tests	Wickets	Average	Home – away ave
Zaheer Khan	27	71	37.91	41	149	32.08	5.83
Irfan Pathan	14	27	50.33	15	73	25.57	24.76
Javagal Srinath	12	31	30.90	12	43	31.30	-0.40
Ashish Nehra	1	1	66.00	15	42	40.61	25.39
RP Singh	2	0	–	11	40	33.22	–
Sreesanth	7	21	35.47	9	37	28.86	6.61
Ajit Agarkar	8	10	63.00	15	35	50.25	12.75
Ishant Sharma	9	33	27.41	10	21	45.42	-18.01
Munaf Patel	4	13	33.23	8	21	38.00	-4.77

During the 2000s, India’s win-loss ratio in overseas Tests is third-best, with only Australia and South Africa doing better. Pakistan and England, teams which have traditionally done pretty well abroad, have both slipped below India.The numbers are slightly different in the last three years, which also indicates Australia’s fall from their lofty heights. During this period South Africa have by far the best win-loss ratio, while India and Australia have both won as many Tests as they’ve lost.

Win-loss ratios in overseas Tests in 2000s

Team	Tests	Won	Lost	W-L ratio
Australia	53	31	13	2.38
South Africa	54	21	18	1.16
India	56	19	19	1.00
Pakistan	44	14	19	0.73
England	57	16	22	0.72
Sri Lanka	43	13	20	0.65
New Zealand	38	8	18	0.44
West Indies	54	6	37	0.16

Australia haven’t lost a Test to New Zealand in the last 17 years, and they have an opportunity to further extend that sequence at the Basin Reserve

S Rajesh17-Mar-2010New Zealand won a couple of matches against their neighbours in the Chappell-Hadlee ODI series, but they’ll be far more hard-pressed to notch up a win in the two-Test series, which starts in Wellington on Friday. New Zealand have won only seven of 48 Tests against Australia, and even though their overall record at home is better – five wins in 22 – their recent stats are anything but impressive: since 2000 they haven’t won a single Test in 13, losing nine. In fact, you’d have to go much further back for the last instance when Australia lost to them: it happened in Auckland in March 1993, an era when Allan Border led the team, and Craig McDermott and Merv Hughes shared the new ball for them. In 19 Tests since then Australia have won 13, including five out of six in New Zealand.During this period of utter domination, Australia have played only two Tests in Wellington. They won by six wickets in 2000, and drew in 2005. Five out of eight Tests between these two teams at the Basin Reserve have been drawn, but over the last few years this venue has been result oriented, with only four out of 15 Tests since 2000 being drawn.

Tests between New Zealand and Australia

TestsNZ wonAus wonDrawnOverall4872417In New Zealand225107Since 200013094Since 2000, in New Zealand6051In Wellington8125New Zealand’s biggest worry is their inexperienced batting line-up. Of their main batsmen and allrounders, only four have played Tests against Australia, and two of them have struggled: Brendon McCullum has scored only one half-century in 13 innings against them and averages 22.50, but even that’s much better than the numbers for Mathew Sinclair, who averages 14.13 from 15 innings.

New Zealand batsmen in Tests against Australia

BatsmanTestsRunsAverage100s/ 50sRoss Taylor216040.000/ 1Daniel Vettori1544323.310/ 2Brendon McCullum727022.500/ 1Mathew Sinclair821214.130/ 1Sinclair has done much better in Wellington, but even here his stats are uneven. Out of his 497 runs in 13 innings at this ground, 214 came in one innings, on his debut against West Indies. Since then, in 12 innings he has managed one half-century.The batsman who has consistently played well here is Ross Taylor, with a lowest score of 30 in six innings. His scores here read: 53, 55, 42, 107, 30 and 97. Martin Guptill and Tim McIntosh have struggled, though, with McIntosh scoring 42 runs in four innings.

New Zealand batsmen at the Basin Reserve

BatsmanTestsRunsAverage100s/ 50sRoss Taylor338464.001/ 3Mathew Sinclair849741.411/ 1Daniel Vettori1857426.090/ 4Brendon McCullum934824.850/ 2Martin Guptill28120.250/ 0Tim McIntosh24210.500/ 0Among the Australian batsmen, Ricky Ponting has enjoyed playing in New Zealand, averaging almost 98, but Michael Clarke, who is back in the country after sorting his personal problems, hasn’t enjoyed it much here, with a highest score of 22 in three innings..Meanwhile, New Zealand’s bowlers haven’t had much success against Australia either, which isn’t surprising considering the number of Tests they’ve lost. Vettori heads the way with 56 wickets in 15 Tests, but for Chris Martin Australia have been a monster opponent: in eight Tests against them he has taken 14 wickets, and in three home Tests against them he has two. Daryl Tuffey hasn’t taken any wickets in two Tests against Australia.

New Zealand bowlers against Australia

BowlerTestsWicketsAverage5WI/ 10WMDaniel Vettori155633.986/ 1Tim Southee2545.000/ 0Chris Martin81474.141/ 0Daryl Tuffey20-0/ 0The New Zealand fast bowlers have done much better at the Basin Reserve, which suggests the team will play only one spinner for the first Test. Martin has taken 51 wickets in 11 Tests here, while Tuffey averages less than 26. Vettori, on the other hand, averages almost 40 here, with only 50 wickets in 18 matches.

New Zealand bowlers in Wellington

BowlerTestsWicketsAverage5WI/ 10WMDaryl Tuffey31025.600/ 0Chris Martin115126.314/ 0Daniel Vettori185039.061/ 1Tim Southee1276.000/ 0And if further proof was required to dissuade the notion of playing two spinners, the table below provides it: in the last ten Tests at this ground fast bowlers have taken far more wickets at a better average than the spinners.

Pace and spin at Basin Reserve since 2003

WicketsAverageStrike rate5WI/ 10WMPace26227.4052.014/ 1Spin6434.2973.72/ 2

Delhi suffered a defeat against Punjab because of a failure to assess what was needed on a tough pitch at the Kotla

Jamie Alter at the Feroz Shah Kotla11-Apr-2010Paul Collingwood and Daniel Vettori were dismissed by Piyush Chawla•Indian Premier LeagueApplying the squeeze: From the time he cut the first ball of the match, from offspinner Ramesh Powar, for four, David Warner wanted to dominate. As a destructive Twenty20 opener, it’s what he does. However, he didn’t have a back-up plan against Powar, whose gagging tactics with the new ball worked. Powar persisted with a leg-stump line to the left-hand batsman, inducing false strokes from impatient charges. Flight followed by spin had Warner stretching forward, pushing and missing. The zip and extra bounce Powar generated off the pitch didn’t allow Warner to cut without risk. After that first four, Warner relied solely on the cut and was beaten off the last two balls of the opening over. His frustration was evident.A big turn off: Paul Collingwood and Daniel Vettori had extended net sessions against spin during training yesterday. Whatever they learned facing Amit Mishra in the nets, however, didn’t bear fruit in the middle because both failed to read Piyush Chawla’s spin. Collingwood went back instead of forward, when the ball was staying low and was trapped plumb in front, and not too long after it was Vettori who committed the same mistake. Chawla pitched the ball on middle and Vettori went back, presumably to play the legbreak, but was outfoxed by the googly.Not relying solely on the bounce and slowness of the track, Chawla introduced a surprise element: sharp turn. The batsmen were perplexed, their frailties exposed. And when the ball didn’t spin and went straight on, the results were all too similar. Chawla utilised the bowler’s footmarks but mostly it was the curator’s generosity that he manipulated. Batsmen were frustrated when they cut and missed, inside-edged uncertain prods and swept with hard hands to fielders.Failing to adapt: The pitch wasn’t conducive to Twenty20 strokeplay, for it played slow and low and offered generous turn. However, it wasn’t a minefield and, with a bit of application, Delhi’s batsmen would have fared better. There will be more such days when the ball does a bit off the track and batsmen cannot thump every ball to the boundary. A feature of the matches played at the Kotla during the Champions League Twenty20 last year was how well the Australians adjusted difficult surfaces. Simon Katich, Phil Hughes and Rob Quiney contributed match-winning innings from the top three spots while under pressure. The Sri Lankan Michael Vandort also played one from No. 3 during Wayamba’s 15-run win over Victoria in another low-scorer contest, and Eagles opener Riley Roussow was forced to reassess his horizontal-bat tactics. He still produced a crucial 62-ball 65 in a tense winover Sussex. Delhi’s former overseas signing Owais Shah also judged the conditions while compiling a match-winning unbeaten 39 from 38 balls, after the hosts were 46 for 4, against Cape Cobras. What these innings did was strengthen the purist’s theory that playing orthodox cricket is more beneficial than all the innovative fireworks of the Twenty20 format. Today, none of Delhi’s batsman appeared to have an alternative to stand-and-deliver.No wickets in the bank: On this pitch a total of 140 would have been challenging but Delhi failed to achieve that because they lost too many wickets. With no clear solution for a flagging run-rate, attack seemed the apt riposte. Apt but not effective, as Dinesh Karthik realised. When Irfan Pathan began the 14th over, Delhi had five wickets left. Karthik, on 17, didn’t wait to see what the bowler had to offer. He hung on the back foot and thumped the first ball straight to long-off. At the start of the 16th over Farveez Maharoof – no mug with the bat and certainly better than a No. 9 – shoved the bat at his first delivery and was bowled. Delhi hadn’t preserved enough resources to even attempt a late charge.