Monthly Archives: August 2009

The Incredibly Shrinking Ravi Bopara

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From Zero to Hero to Absolutely Freezing Zero in just a few short months.

Here is Ravi Bopara’s Test career to date:

8, 34, 0, 0, 0, 104, 143, 108, 35, 1, 18, 27, 23, 1, 0

And now he seems to be doing something similar with his ODI and Twenty20 career. Out for a duck against Ireland in the sole ODI. And out for a single against Australia in the Twenty20 match. If he continues at this pace, surely his international career will be over, or at least, put on the back burner for a long time. Even if England cricket is overflowing with talent.

Bopara has never been even a decent player (batting averages of 33.46, 28.93 and 22.71 in the three forms), but his three centuries seems to signal that maybe he was turning over a new leaf. He had done enough against the West Indies to survive until the fourth Ashes Test, but then his poor form was too much even for England.

If he hasn’t been dropped already for the next match, Bopara should be on a very short rope. He needs to come up with something to justify his selection.

The Sad Plight of New Zealand Cricket

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New Zealand slumped to another miserable Test defeat against the Sri Lankans. I don’t know if you can call a 2-0 defeat in a 2-Test series a whitewash, but that is exactly what happened. At no point in either match did the Kiwis have any hope of winning the match. It was just a matter of when they would give up the fight.

Winning in Sri Lanka is never easy, but this has been a long slump in the fortunes of the New Zealand team. Ignoring Bangladesh, they are probably tied with West Indies at the bottom of the Test nations ladder. Unlike the West Indies, who have shown some resurgence in their non-striking team, New Zealand seem to be going from bad to worse.

This was bound to happen at some point. The problem with New Zealand is that they are a small nation (in area and population), but for a long time, overperformed because of their status as a developed nation with better infrastructure. This even though the playing season in New Zealand is truncated because of weather conditions during the winter.

Now, as the Indian subcontinent (India mostly, but also Sri Lanka and Pakistan) become more developed, the edge enjoyed by New Zealand has been wiped out by the sheer number of cricket players available in the former countries. Numbers are not enough, but statistically speaking, you will find better talent if there are more players.

That is the reason why the United States and China enjoy dominance at the Olympics, and why India, Australia and South Africa dominate cricket. It is a combination of population and GDP. What we will see is the continued fall of countries like New Zealand and West Indies. England seems to be an anamoly, but that is perhaps because the major English sport today is soccer, not cricket.

Make Ireland a Test Team

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Zimbabwe became a Test team after winning a match against England in the 1992 World Cup.

Bangladesh became a Test team after winning a match against Pakistan in the 1999 World Cup.

Ireland beat Pakistan in the 2007 World Cup, beat Bangladesh in the 2009 T20 World Cup and have been generally giving all their opponents major heartaches when they play against them. Latest piece of evidence: their near victory against England a couple of days ago.

So why is Ireland still an Associate Nation?

Has this to do with the fact that Ireland is in Europe and not part of the Sub-Continent Cricket Mafia? Will Nepal and Bhutan get Test status before Ireland?

Needless to say, this is ridiculous. If Bangladesh can go years without winning or even drawing Test matches, why cannot the ICC grant Ireland Test status and prevent its players from leaving to England and other nations?

Spread the word!

Why It is Difficult to Respect Sri Lankan Players

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99.94 has some praise for Thilan Samaraweera who has notched his second century of the series. Samaraweera’s average stands at 52.25, a figure that would find him a place among the great batsmen of all time. That is, if he had actually done something against a strong team.

Here are his “away” averages against a few teams:

22.66 in Australia
10.50 in India
4.25 in England
Never played in South Africa

His overall averages against Australia are 31.22 and against South Africa (2 home Tests) are 24.66. Compare that with 66.66 against Bangladesh, 84.66 against Zimbabwe, and 83.33 against New Zealand, against whom he has played 31% of all his Test matches. Also a home average of 59.29 versus 44.80 playing away.

This is just an example of the inflated averages of the Sri Lankan players. Take Jayawardene who made his debut in 1997. In 12 years, he has played a total of 4 Tests in Australia and 5 in South Africa. Sangakkara (started in 2000) has played only 6 Tests (both home and away) in almost a decade. Compare that with Tendulkar who has played almost 49 Tests against Australia and South Africa in two decades.

Sri Lanka have shown improved results when compared to the ’90s, but much of it has been at the expense of weak teams like Bangladesh & Zimbabwe, and others who have been declining, like West Indies and New Zealand. They have yet to perform credibly against Australia, South Africa and India.

They may well get there, but so far Sri Lanka has done nothing to justify the high rankings of their team or the high averages of their players.

Ashes Predictions in the Dust

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Like Ducking Beamers did, I took a look back at my Ashes predictions. It was not a happy experience as I got most of them wrong. Surprisingly though, I got 4 out of 5 Test results right, the only one wrong being the Lord’s Test which went England’s way instead of Australia’s. The caveat is that I thought the last Test would be a dead rubber instead of a decider.

So what went wrong and what went right?

  1. Hughes being dropped after the second Test despite the presence of Hussey who was even worse and did nothing to help Australia.
  2. Pietersen out because of injury. This was somewhat predictable, but I thought Flintoff was more likely to be out by injury than Pietersen.
  3. The two 5-wicket hauls of Stuart Broad. Given enough chances, such performances are perhaps inevitable. I still don’t think he should be in the team, but with Flintoff gone, England do not have any other all-rounder.
  4. I was not wrong about Johnson’s batting, because his South African performances were way beyond his lifetime accomplishments. So it had to regress towards the norm. But his bowling also had a turn for the worse, which I didn’t expect. Nevertheless, he still took 20 wickets, two less than the top wicket-taker, Hilfenhaus.
  5. I didn’t expect Michael Clarke to do as well as he did. But his failures usually mirrored Australian’s failures. So in a way, his contribution to the series was less than what would be suggested by his averages.

Other points were more-or-less a roll of the dice. So I am not too bothered about them.

Homer Quits Blogging

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Homer has had enough of dead pitches and predictable Test series:

Because I cannot be bothered anymore.
What point pontificating about the game when the outcome of a marquee series can be predicted so far in advance?
What point talking about the nuances and the vagaries of the game when the only nuance is the pitch being rolled twice instead of thrice and the only vagary is the wicket having four blades of grass instead of one?

Because I cannot be bothered anymore.

What point pontificating about the game when the outcome of a marquee series can be predicted so far in advance?

What point talking about the nuances and the vagaries of the game when the only nuance is the pitch being rolled twice instead of thrice and the only vagary is the wicket having four blades of grass instead of one?

It is a sad day for cricket fans. I enjoyed reading “Do Paise Ka Tamasha” which was as much informational as it was spot on in its analysis. What set DPKT different from other blogs was that Homer spent time to do actual research by reading stuff before providing his opinion. In many cases, I found him more reliable than Cricinfo in explaining the nuances of some obscure facet of the game.

But let me make a prediction. I am sure that someone with such a deep passion for cricket will be forced to break his promise and will return back to providing his insights. At the very least, we hope to see the progress report of Mini Homer as he starts clubbing boundaries.

Thanks for the memories!

Should Hussey Be Retained After His Century?

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Everyone is talking about how Michael Hussey, a la Hayden 2005, has saved his career with a century in an Oval Test. And that may very well be the case, as the Australian Board may give him a few more opportunities to see if he has indeed returned to form. And if he can turn that into a good streak of form, it would indeed be a career-saving century.

The problem is that, unfortunately, Michael Hussey has been the weakest link in a strong Australian top and middle batting order. Circumstances have conspired to keep him in the team when a similar form by another team member would have found them out of the team long ago. These include the retirements in the team that meant giving a senior player like Hussey more rope than usual.

One has to take Hussey’s century in the full context of the series. What if he had made the century in the first innings of the Cardiff Test and followed it up with the rest of the other scores he made? Would we still be talking about his continued tenure in the team? Most of Hussey’s runs were made in two partnerships (with Ponting and with Haddin) and didn’t make much difference to the outcome.

It does seem unfair to Hussey to drop him after he just made a century. But it also doesn’t make sense to keep someone who will surely retire in the next few years on the basis of performances made just when he is about to be dropped from the team. And while players like Hughes are dropped for far less.

England Win the Ashes

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Incredible as the title seems, that is what happened today as England won by 197 runs, after bowling out a sometimes obstinate Australia. A few weeks ago, such a result would have been unthinkable as Australia seemed to have overcome their retirement woes with a new set of world beaters. In a sense, that is still true as Australia have been the better team for much of the series, but England came on top by winning the big moments.

Australia would have retained the Ashes by the fourth Test if only they had found one ball to end the Anderson-Panesar partnership that saved the first Test. They were clearly on the ascendancy in the third Test and may have won it if much time had not already been lost to rain. The story of this Ashes loss has been about two poor first innings at Lord’s and the Oval.

As Ponting pointed (pun intended) out today, the series stats would seem to show Australia as the clear winner. Only 2 centuries for England versus 8 for the Australians. No English bowler crossed 20 wickets in the series, but three Australians did. Except for Mike Hussey, all the Australian batsman ended with a good average for the series.

But the devil is in the details. As Homer explains, the England bowlers took 4 five-for’s when compared to 2 five-for’s for the Australians. And they were bowled out twice a match only in one Test. Also, four of the centuries came in the first Test, two others came while trying impossible chases of record targets never before accomplished in Test cricket and one came in the washed Test. Only one Australian century came when it mattered. England, in contrast, made both their centuries count.

It is a different series than the 2005 one. Partly because the wins have been by huge margins and there has been a see-saw effect throughout the series. Although England had to fight hard to secure their wins, it was only because Australia was chasing that one even gave them a hope against such huge targets. In the 2005 series, the wins were by a nail-biting 2 runs and 2 wickets. This series couldn’t compare to that.

Also, there was nobody like Shane Warne who took 40 wickets in that Ashes tour and hit a lot of runs too. Clarke, North, Siddle and Hilfenhaus had their moments, but nobody dominated the losing team like last time, when Shane Warne tried to do almost anything to prevent England from getting the crown.

On the English side, only Strauss dominated and the other players contributed bits and pieces at different times. Collingwood’s Cardiff moment was almost forgotten by the time we reached the final Test. Flintoff did little of note after Lord’s. Panesar and Bopara were dropped. Pietersen left before the series reached mid-way. Anderson and Swann ended up with 40+ averages, even though they had pivotal moments.

So a series without any big heroes. But that may be good for England as they rely on a team effort to build for future series. Enormous credit must be given to Strauss and Flower that they were able to achieve this result with, let’s admit it, an average team. They kept their cool when things got rough and stuck to their original gameplan.

Spare a thought for Ricky Ponting. One of the greats of the game, but who ends up as the first Australian captain in a century to lose twice in England. He had the unlucky fate to be presiding over the transition of the team. There are quite a few excellent players in the group, but getting them to deliver consistently has been enormously difficult. Will Ponting be able to achieve that before he retires?

Surprising Disintegration for Sri Lanka

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Maybe a few years later, someone looking up the stats on Cricinfo would see this Pakistani tour of Sri Lanka and note how Pakistan lost the Test and ODI series and won the one-off Twenty20 match. If they don’t look deeper, they may get a quick impression that this was a really poor tour for Pakistan and that Sri Lanka walked all over them.

But at this moment in time, we know that is not really true. After three consecutive crushing victories in the last two one-dayers and the T20 match, Pakistan will return home, if not happy, at least in reasonably good spirits. Because in a sense, Pakistan has been playing against themselves in this tour.

Let us call them Serious Pakistan and Sleepy Pakistan. When Sleepy Pakistan played, they had spectacular batting collapses, inept fielding and toothless bowling. When Serious Pakistan played, they were unplayable. Unfortunately, Sleepy Pakistan dominated much of the tour until Serious Pakistan got going in the final matches.

Exactly the same thing can be said for Sri Lanka in reverse. But luckily for them, they didn’t get to sleep tightly until the tail end of the tour. But when they did, they were routed like minnows.

In the final analysis, Sri Lanka only benefited from a high-level reading of the series results. If you look closer, they were very close to losing 0-2 or even 0-3 in the Test series and also losing the ODI series. The usual suspects made runs. Mendis disappeared as a future bowling threat. The fast bowlers did well, but we will see how they perform in the long run.

It has been a see-saw series. But I suspect it has to do more with inconsistency than the strengths of either team. Compare it with the 2003/04 series by India in Australia. That was a series between two well-matched and in-form teams. In contrast, this series was about collapses and even more collapses.

A Weird ODI Series Comes to an End

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Pakistan win the final ODI match against Sri Lanka, thus ending the series at a respectable 2-3. This after losing the series by the third match. Like the Test series, it is difficult to figure out which the better team is.

Take a look at Pakistan’s scores: 196 all out, 168 all out, 288/8, 321/5 and 279/8. From miserable batting performances to formidable scores.

Take a look at Sri Lanka’s scores: 232/9, 169/4 (chase), 289/4 (chase), 175 all out and 147 all out. From so-so to controlled chases to collapses.

The other side of the coin is the bowling. The Sri Lankans who bowled out Pakistan for 168 could not restrict them from crossing 321. And same for the Pakistan bowlers who allowed Sri Lanka to chase 288, but in the last match bowled them out for 147.

I don’t care much for series like this. The victories and defeats are so random. The results defy any pattern. Few players have been consistent in this series. It is almost as if both teams are sleepwalking through the series, with some players waking at times, doing their stuff and going back to sleep.