Monthly Archives: February 2009

India as Usual in New Zealand

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mahendra singh dhoni

If anyone was expecting the Indian team to be behaving different on this tour of New Zealand, they would have been disappointed, but not surprised. If India was Australia’s Final Frontier, then New Zealand is India’s Collective Train Wreck. Not withstanding the Kiwi’s recent tendency to drag matches to the last over, this was a comprehensive defeat of India in both matches.

There is no silver lining in the results of these T20 matches, however Dhoni may think the opposite. No new player has broken out of the pack. Most of the batsmen played poorly and that will give them little confidence for the one-day matches. These Twenty20 matches, by their very nature, offer little practice for the ODI matches, serving mostly as entertainment for fans.

We had previously posted about the different India squads for the three forms of matches that would be played. The one person selected only for T20’s, Ravindra Jadeja, got a single look-in for the 2nd Twenty20 match, and is probably on a plane home.

The one-dayers may provide more time for the Indian team to accustom themselves to the conditions. However, 6 members of the Test squad are not in the ODI team and two of them (Laxman and Dravid) will definitely be playing without any exposure to the real match environment in New Zealand. Tendulkar, although included for the ODIs, is unlikely to play most of them.

Therefore, I am not too sanguine about the potential of India carrying the Test series. Of course, there are 3 Tests and a more confident Indian team, so anything could still happen. New Zealand hasn’t announced their Test squad yet. Once that is available, we will try another analysis based on the team composition and ODI performances.

[Photo licensed from lensmate]

The New Australian Team

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Australia have made a confident start to their effort to regain the No.1 Test ranking from South Africa by first posting an above-average Wanderers score of 466 and then reducing the South Africans to 85 for 3. The Test could still go the other way, but there is no disputing Australia’s dominance at this moment. But what may not be so evident from the scorecard is that the Australians are a new-look team with 3 players making their debut and two others with experience of 5 Tests or less.

Take a look at the following chart of the last 3 Tests (including the current one) played by Australia. I have ignored the first Test of the previous series against South Africa as the team was essentially unchanged.

                                  Total Tests   Avg. Tests/Player
2nd Test vs. SA (in Australia)           464               42.18
3rd Test vs. SA (in Australia)           373               33.91 (2 debutants)
1st Test vs. SA (in SA)                  276               25.09 (3 debutants)

In comparison, the South African team has a total experience of 630 Tests in the current Test, almost twice the experience, and only Duminy has played less than 15 Tests. Of course, that would not count for much, if the new Australian players are very talented. Let us take a look at the five players who may either be the future of Australian cricket or just be having their 15 minutes of fame.

Marcus North: With a century on debut, the 18th Australian to do so, North’s stock is pretty high. He has played for various teams, including Australia A. North has a good record in first-class matches with almost 9000 runs and 22 centuries.

Philip Hughes: Heaven for some, hell for others. Hughes made a golden duck in his first Test innings, but this 20-year old is extremely talented, being the youngest man to score a Pura Cup final century.

Benjamin Hilfenhaus: Another golden duck on debut, he denied Johnson his maiden century. He must have been relieved when he scalped Amla off his 2nd ball in Test cricket. He has been around in international ODIs and T20′s since 2007.

Andrew McDonald: An all-rounder who made his debut in Australia’s previous Test, he has to improve upon his duck and so-far wicketless performance in this Test. His first Test was not great either. Most likely to dropped at this moment in time.

Peter Siddle: Compared to the rest, he is a veteran. Took 13 wickets in the previous series against SA and helped win the Sydney Test. Young, hasn’t played much in first-class cricket, but has shown enough to be playing Tests.

Ewan Chatfield and Money in Cricket

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Ewen Chatfield played 43 Tests and over 100 one-dayers for New Zealand, forming a lethal opening bowler combination with Richard Hadlee. He gained fame in the most painful way, hit in the head by a deflected ball from Peter Lever. I was sad to read about his present situation, earning his living by driving a cab around Wellington, NZ.

And that is just one story. There are literally tens of thousands of cricketers playing professional cricket across the world who are not making any money worth talking about. If it weren’t for the love of the game, cricket would have been dead today.

That is why the rise of Twenty20 and the efforts (however poor) of the ICC in  promoting cricket around the globe should be applauded. The increasing popularity of cricket and the influx of money is not just good for the superstars, but also for the cricketers at the bottom of the food chain.

In this context, the BCCI’s attempts to destroy the ICL is contemptible. What we want is not just more cricket sanctioned by the governing bodies, but simply more cricket everywhere. Has anyone thought about why the ICL exists at all? If cricketers could make enough money playing “official” cricket, the ICL would have no supporters today.

It is an affront to justice that a cricketer can play for his country or state for years bringing joy to millions of viewers and finally have to live in poverty. They are not looking for a handout. All they ask is that they be allowed to participate in opportunities when they have the health and capability to do so.

Triple Century-Makers in Cricket Tests

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Younis Khan, playing the captain’s knock of a lifetime, scored a triple century to help Pakistan avoid a follow-on against Sri Lanka and overhaul the enormous Lankan total of 644/7. While the pitch is a graveyard for bowlers, fast and spin, that should not detract from the enormous achievement of batting for over 2 days against a good opponent. There have been flat tracks before, there will be flat tracks in the future, but very few people have managed to get a three in the hundreds column. In over 1900 Tests, there have only been 23 triple centuries.

Here are the century makers (the bolded scores were the record at the time)

  1. Andy Sandham, 325, England v WI, Kingston, 1930
  2. Don Bradman:
    1. 334, Australia v England, Leeds, 1930
    2. 304, Australia v England, Leeds, 1934
  3. Wally Hammond, 336*, England v NZ, 1933
  4. Len Hutton, 364, England v Australia, The Oval, 1938
  5. Hanif Mohammad, 337, Pakistan v WI, Bridgetown, 1958
  6. Garfield Sobers, 365*, WI v Pakistan, Kingston, 1958
  7. Bob Simpson, 311, Australia v England, Manchester, 1964
  8. John Edrich, 310*, England v NZ, Leeds, 1965
  9. Bob Cowper, 307, Australia v England, Melbourne, 1966
  10. Lawrence Rowe, 302, WI v England, Bridgetown, 1974
  11. Graham Gooch, 333, England v India, Lords, 1990
  12. Brian Lara
    1. 375, WI v England, St. John’s, 1994
    2. 400*, WI v England, St. John’s, 2004
  13. Sanath Jayasuriya, 340, Sri Lanka v India, 1997
  14. Mark Taylor, 334*, Australia v Pakistan, Peshawar, 1998
  15. Inzamam-ul-Haq, 329, Pakistan v NZ, Lahore, 2002
  16. Matthew Hayden, 380, Australia v Zimbabwe, Perth, 2003
  17. Virender Sehwag
    1. 309, India v Pakistan, Multan, 2004
    2. 319, India v South Africa, Chennai, 2008
  18. Chris Gayle, 317, WI v South Africa, St. John’s, 2005
  19. Mahela Jayawardene, 374, Sri Lanka v South Africa, Colombo, 374
  20. Younis Khan, 313, Pakistan v Sri Lanka, Karachi, 2009

Only three batsmen have hit two triple centuries: Don Bradman, Brian Lara and Virender Sehwag. Other than Lara, no one with over 10,000 runs has hit a triple century. At the other end of the spectrum, Andy Sandham scored just 875 runs in his entire career.

England leads the way with 5 triple century-makers, followed by Australia and West Indies with four each, Pakistan with three, Sri Lanka with two and India with Sehwag. New Zealand is unlucky to miss out with Crowe getting out on 299. South Africa are also yet to open their account.

St. John’s and Leeds have the most triple centuries (3 each). England has conceded the most triple centuries (7) while Australia, perhaps not surprisingly, only just one. Except for Hanif Mohammad’s rearguard match-saving effort against the West Indies, all the triple centuries were made in the first innings of the respective teams.

Graham Gooch is the only person to hit both a triple century and a ton in the same match. Virender Sehwag hit the fastest 300 off just 278 balls. He may still do it again. Wonder who the next victim will be.

Don Bradman’s Stance

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bradmanOne interesting peculiarity of how Don Bradman stood at the crease was to place his bat between his feet rather than behind the rear foot, as most players do. If I am correct, the only other batsman I have seen doing that was Mohammed Azharuddin. Most cricketing manuals seem to always show the behind-rear-foot stance. And since most players also follow that, they teach youngsters to follow the same way.

One site I read suggests that the reason for using the rear foot is to avoid hitting the pad during your backlift. This would be true if you stood the same way, sideways and lifting the bat straight backwards. However, the way for playing with the bat between the feet is different:

  1. You have to use a open stance. Instead of aligning both your feet at right angles to the pitch, your front foot may be slightly turned.
  2. You will bring your bat backwards towards the slips. This will obviously affect the ball placement differently.

I have tried this stance in matches and it is extremely convenient to play both front-foot and back-foot shots easily, as you have a greater balance between both feet. Keeping the bat behind the rear foot means an earlier commitment to a shot.

Raising the bat towards the slip means a longer travel distance for the bat, which makes it much easier to time powerful shots along the ground. It is riskier to attempt skied shots as the bat is probably hitting the ball at an angle which can put a spin on the ball while in the air, creating a greater chance of getting caught out. To explain that in clearer terms, a spinning ball stays in the air longer and travels shorter. When you want to hit a six, you want to hit it flat so that it moves as quickly out of the ground as possible.

Brian Lara is another person who uses a high bat to hit extremely powerful strokes, though he keeps  the traditional stance of keeping bat behind feet. Notice how he raises his bat to almost touch the back of his head.

South Africa’s Miserable World Cup Luck

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South Africa must be the unluckiest, star-crossed team in the World Cup competitions, this despite the fact that they missed out on the first four Cups because of the apartheid boycott. New Zealand lags a distant second with their frequent semi-final appearances, but for sheer drama, terrible luck and self-inflicted wounds, there is no beating the South Africans.

1992 World Cup: South Africa showed little sign of having been in the wilderness for two decades, as they marched confidently into the semi-finals while pre-tournament favorites Australia were knocked out. The South African team became popular with cricket fans, not least because of Jonty Rhodes’s amazing runout of Inzamam ul-Haq. The semi-final lineup (NZ, Pakistan, England & SA) was indicative of the innovations in the 1992 tournament, such as pinch-hitting openers, and spinners as opening bowlers.  All four teams were favored in contrasting ways to win the Cup, even Pakistan who squeezed into the finals, but were clearly on the ascendancy.

The semi-final match between England and South Africa would turn out to be a thriller, until it disintegrated into a farce. Set a target of 253 in 46 overs, South Africa were 231/6 when rain intervened. The rain rules, at that time, lopped off the lowest scoring overs of the first team batting, which meant that when 2 overs were taken off, South Africa now had an impossible target of 21 runs from a single ball. This was perhaps the worst sports moment until Zinedine Zidane would end his international career in the 2006 soccer World Cup with a head butt.

1996 World Cup: As the 1996 tournament went on in the subcontinent, most people expected Sri Lanka and South Africa to face off in the finals. While Sri Lanka confounded all expectations by using the hitherto unused combination of two pinch-hitting openers, they were still a new force on the international scene. South Africa, on the other hand, had proven their mettle with good ODI and Test performances since the 1992 Cup.

Everything was set until in their first knock-out match in the quarterfinals, South Africa met a 1-man army, namely Brian Lara. The South African bowlers were dispatched to the cleaners as Lara hit a stunning 111 runs off just 94 balls. The target of 265 (at that time, a pretty hefty one) would prove too large for SA who fell 19 runs short. This would be among the first matches that would earn them the unflattering moniker of “chokers“.

1999 World Cup: And the last match for South Africa in this World Cup would cement the chokers reputation. South Africa would once again top the tables in their preliminary group, although with an unexpected loss against Zimbabwe (that would knock out England). And they would beat everyone in the Super Six round except against Australia, that would turn out to be as consequential as NZ’s loss to Pakistan in the 1992 group stage.

The semi-final match between the two teams would remain the cliff-hanger to beat all cliff-hangers. Australia restricted to a modest 213 seemed beaten as the SA openers raced to 48 for no loss in the first 12 overs. Then Shane Warne came on, reprising his 1996 semifinal heroics against the West Indies, to take 4/29 as South Africa kept losing crucial wickets. But when all seemed lost, Lance Klusener started hitting some lusty blows taking SA to the verge of victory.

At the start of the last over by Damien Fleming, South Africa needed 9 runs to win with Klusener on strike. The first two balls were dispatched to the boundary with immaculate strokes. At this point, no one would have given Australia any hope. The third ball had Allan Donald backing up too far and almost getting run out. On the fourth ball, Klusener sets off on a single, while Donald starts late (perhaps because of the memory of the last ball), drops his bat and is run out at the wicketkeeper’s end. Although the match is tied, Australia go through into the finals having won the previous encounter between the teams.

2003 World Cup: Surprise, surprise! Kenya would crash into the next round as the hosts South Africa failed to qualify. They could blame two persons from other teams: Lara, once again, with a century helping WI pip SA by 3 runs and Fleming leading NZ to victory with an unbeaten 134 in a rain-curtailed match. But the real villains would prove to be two of their teammates who could not read a piece of paper properly.

Once again, the rain rules in this World Cup would prove to be the end of South Africa, though this time it would be the more respected Duckworth-Lewis. As rain threatened to stop the match, the South African team gave the batsmen a table that provided the number of runs required to equal the opposition total. The two batsmen in the middle, Mark Boucher and Lance Klusener (yes, him again!) would misinterpret it as the runs required to win, thus avoiding a single off what proved to be the last ball in the match. The match was tied (yes, again!) and South Africa would miss the knockout round by a single point.

2007 World Cup: South Africa has the misfortune of peaking too soon (Gibbs’s 6 sixes, anyone?) and then having to face Australia at the height of their supremacy. Although Australia had won the 2003 World Cup without losing a single match, there were quite a few matches that could have gone either way. Not so in the 2007 World Cup, as Australia swept away every opposition in sight, big and small teams alike.

There was a lot of talk about South Africa besting Australia because they had beaten them in that amazing ODI in Johannesburg where they overhauled Australia’s then record score of 434/4 and won the 5-match series. Unfortunately, they did nothing of that sort with the semi-final turning to be an utter disaster, SA slumping to 149 all out and Australia romping home with 7 wickets and almost 19 overs to spare.

Will it be different in the next World Cup? Wait and watch!

Australian Cricket’s Biggest Problem

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In one word, “bowling”. Take a look at the runs per wicket for each innings in the last few matches by Australia (in reverse chronological order):

Test #1904: 32.70,  27.20 (v SA)
Test #1902: 45.90, 183.00 (v SA)
Test #1899: 28.10, 103.50 (v SA)
Test #1896: 27.00,  20.30 (v NZ)
Test #1894: 15.60,  17.70 (v NZ)
Test #1892: 44.10,  29.50 (v India)
Test #1891: 61.30,  41.60 (v India)
Test #1889: 46.90, 104.67 (v India)
Test #1887: 36.00,  44.25 (v India)
Test #1879: 21.60,  38.70 (v WI)
Test #1877: 35.20,  53.20 (v WI)
Test #1875: 31.20,  19.10 (v WI) 

Only thrice in the last 12 Tests has Austrlia been able to bowl the opposition out for less than 200. In 7 of those Tests, their bowling in the 2nd innings has been worse than the bowling in the first innings, even though the pitch conditions should be more favorable to their bowlers. This explains how they were not even able to defend the huge target of 414 they had set for South Africa in the Perth Test.

West Indies were able to draw against the Australians and keep them out for large periods of the matches. In the last Test of their series, the West Indies made a tremendous effort of 387 against the huge 475 run target. If there had been a large century-maker, they would have walked away with a Test series draw. One should also not forget also how Sri Lanka made 410 chasing Australia’s 507 runs and may have got there if Sangakkara had not been wrongfully dismissed. 

Australian batting has not been terrible, although not upto their earlier standards. But the bowling definitely needs a close lookup, even if Australia starts winning matches on the strength of their batting. The most recent match by Australia, against the SA Board Presidents XI shows that the bowling has not improved much, allowing a first-class team to post 403/7 declared. 

Somewhere, that should be turning on warning bells.

IPL Schedule and Calendar for 2009

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Here is the IPL schedule in a convenient calendar format. Here is the key

  • BAN = Bangalore Royal Challengers
  • KOL = Kolkata Knight Riders
  • PUN = Kings XI Punjab
  • CHE = Chennai Super Kings
  • DEC = Deccan Chargers
  • MUM = Mumbai Indians
  • DEL = Delhi Daredevils
  • RAJ = Rajasthan Royals

Since the matches are taking place in South Africa, there is no home team or away team with respect to the venues. The final will take place at the New Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg.

All matches are at 4 pm and 8 pm Indian Standard Time (10:30 am GMT and 4:30 pm GMT respectively). If there are two matches on a day, the first one is at 4 pm IST and the second at 8 pm IST. If there is only a single match on a day, it takes place at 8 pm. To make that clearer, I have put a placeholder for the “missing” day match on a particular date.

April to May 2009
S M T W T F S
 
 
 		  
 
 		  
 
 		  
 
 		  
 
 		  
 
 		 18
CHE v MUM
BAN v RAJ
19
DEL v PUN
DEC v KOL
 20
-
BAN v CHE		 21
PUN v KOL
RAJ v MUM		 22
-
BAN v DEC		 23
CHE v DEL
KOL v RAJ		 24
-
BAN v PUN		 25
DEC v MUM
CHE v KOL
26
BAN v DEL
PUN v RAJ		 27
DEC v CHE
KOL v MUM		 28
-
DEL v RAJ		 29
BAN v KOL
PUN v MUM		 30
DEL v DEC
CHE v RAJ		 May 1
KOL v MUM
BAN v PUN		 2
DEC v RAJ
CHE v DEL
3
PUN v KOL
BAN v MUM		 4
-
CHE v DEC		 5
PUN v RAJ
DEL v KOL		 6
-
DEC v MUM		 7
BAN v RAJ
CHE v PUN		 8
-
DEL v MUM		 9
DEC v PUN
CHE v RAJ
10
BAN v MUM
DEL v KOL		 11
-
DEC v RAJ		 12
BAN v KOL
PUN v MUM		 13
-
DEC v DEL		 14
BAN v CHE
MUM v RAJ		 15
-
DEL v PUN		 16
CHE v MUM
DEC v KOL
17
DEC v PUN
DEL v RAJ		 18
-
CHE v KOL		 19
-
DEL v BAN		 20
KOL v RAJ
CHE v PUN		 21
DEL v MUM
BAN v DEC		 22
-
1st Semi		 23
-
2nd Semi
24
-
Final		  
 		  
 		  
 		  
 		  
 		  
 

Village Cricket Tips

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Sports Dictionary has some good tips on how to captain your village (or town) cricket team:

  1. Make sure you have 11 players on the field at the start of play!
  2. Give priority in selection to those who come to nets and turn up religiously to matches.
  3. Know what you’ll do if you win the toss.
  4. Attack in the field.
  5. Have a team plan when batting

[And more...]

Bowling tends to get neglected in village cricket as everyone wants to be a big hitter and gain glory. But if you have at least 3 good bowlers who can contain and take wickets, you have more options to play with. You can successfully defend low scores and thus there is less pressure on your batsmen.

Although your “little league” matches don’t have international grade players, your opponents are at the same level too. Use all the strategies and tactics you can get your hands on. And keep practising as much as you can. Watching more cricket wouldn’t hurt as long as you watch the batting and bowling of the better team.

[Also read some of our other posts on unofficial cricket: Street cricket, Book cricket, French cricket, Tennis ball cricket]

[Photo licensed from Steve Parker]