Tag Archives: england

The Revenge Series Is Going Well

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India secure the return ODI series with a win and now lead by 3-0. Dhoni is leading the rout with another unbeaten innings. Although today’s match was close, with 5 wickets in hand towards the end, it was going to be very tough for England to win. And unless they are able to make significant improvements all around, it looks to be a 0-5 rout.

Which would have been great for India if the ODI series had been coupled with a Test series. Unfortunately, it is going to be another year before England tour India, and much of this would have been forgotten. England, on its part, are going to have tough times before then, playing Pakistan and Sri Lanka. And most likely would have lost their No. 1 ranking by then. India, also, have a tough tour of Australia coming up. Therefore, the next Test series may not be the battle at the top that we saw with the India tour of England.

Anyway, be that may, it is a welcome turnaround of fortunes for MS Dhoni. After the miserable England tour, Dhoni had another terrible tournament, the Champions League, where his team, Chennai Super Kings, ended up at the bottom of the league. And people have been talking about the end of his Midas Touch. That would not be a good thing for India, but hopefully that is not the case, and the last few months have been just a deviation from the norm.

Update to Surprising Fact of the Day

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A few weeks back, I had linked to Cricinfo’s stats article about captaincy records, showing how Dhoni had the best win-loss ratio among captains who have lead their team in at least 25 Tests. Well, after where we stand now (with 3-0) in the series, things have changed a bit. And here we are:

Dhoni 30 matches, 15 w, 6 l, 9 d. W/L ratio = 2.50
Strauss  38 matches, 20 w, 5 l, 13 d, W/L ratio = 4.00

Unless Dhoni wins 12 more matches without additional losses, he will not overtake Steve Waugh. However, he still has a splendid home record (10:1) though the best seems to be Mike Brearley (12:0). I don’t think Strauss’s ratio will stand after a few trips to the sub-continent, but for the moment, it is his run.

In general, the way the series has progressed, it is as if England were the team under-prepared for the first Test, as they only won by 196 runs on the final day. With more of the England team members finding form, what is in store for the last Test? In the 3rd Test, Cook who was missing in action found form and how! I guess the only person remaining is Swann.

Strangely, unlike many commentators, I find myself quite calm at India’s defeat. Many have found excuses and others have found various actions of India to blame. But if you take a step back and look at the big picture, India as a collective unit has been outclassed by England. You can quibble about lack of preparation or Sehwag’s brainless batting, but ultimately the gap between the two teams kept growing as the series went on.

I would relate this to another series played by India, long back in the early 1990s against Australia just before the 1992 World Cup, which India lost 0-4. That Indian team was supposed to be the best batting lineup in the world. It had a lot of superstars too. But in the Test series, the team batting performances were abysmal. There were a few gems (including from Tendulkar and Azharuddin), but time and again, it was the lower order that lent respectability to the scorecard.

Something similar happened on this tour. Everybody knew that India’s bowling was not that great, but we all expected great things from the batsmen. Unfortunately apart from Dravid, there hasn’t been much. We don’t know what the English team’s tactics are, but planned or not, they have been able to target the Indian lineup successfully. And that has made all the difference.

Also, I was very wrong. As always with my predictions about any England series.

Duncan Fletcher Presiding Over India’s Demise?

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Dileep Premachandran has some good points to make here:

How do you succeed someone who could walk on water? That might be a question that Duncan Fletcher asks himself on dark nights as India lurch from one mishap to another on this tour. Gary Kirsten left the coaching job at the perfect time – with India ranked No.1 in the Test arena and 50-over World Cup winners. The only way was down, especially with the nucleus of the batting the wrong side of 30 and the bowling so reliant on an injury-prone individual who turns 33 in October.

Captains also have the same problem. As I have written several times, Ricky Ponting’s tragedy is that he happened to be the captain at a time of declining Australian fortunes and will forever be remembered as the captain that lost the Ashes thrice.

But is India in such dire straits? After all, these gloomy predictions are being made in the context of India’s failures in the first two Tests against England. But it needs to be remembered that England are not a poor Test side! Under Andrew Strauss, they have had 19 wins to 5 losses (compared to 15/5 for Dhoni) with two of those series against Australia home and away, and an away series against South Africa. This was a tough tour. People forgot that.

I think England’s sustained failures in limited overs cricket is partly to blame for this lack of respect for the Test side. While their matches in the World Cup were entertaining, no one in the right minds thought that England could be winners and rightly so, as they crashed out in the Quarter-finals. Whereas an opposition like Australia or South Africa is strong in all 3 formats, England’s pushover status in limited overs makes a Test series against them seem easier than it actually is.

As for India, yes, Laxman, Dravid and Tendulkar are on their way out. But all three are in good form and they are (for the most part) playing only in Tests. So prediction – I am assuming that they will be there at least until early to mid-2013 when India hosts Australia for four Tests. Tendulkar turns 40 (forty, gulp!) in April – a good time to call it quits and against his best opponent? Laxman too, even though he is two years younger.

What about replacements? A possible batting order would be Sehwag, Gambhir, Virat Kohli, [somebody], Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina and Dhoni. The [somebody] is the person who will replace Tendulkar (please God, not Rohit Sharma!) and I am not sure who that can be in the middle order. But apart from that, it is a competent batting lineup and should deliver good results against most teams. The idea, of course, should be to build a better base in the meantime.

Stuart Broad’s Time in the Sun

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For the second successive day, Stuart Broad spoiled India’s day. On the first day of the Test match, he helped England reach a respectable 221 from the depths of 124 for 8. And today took five of the last 6 wickets of India to fall for a mere 21 runs. Well done!

I am not a big fan of Stuart Broad. England could perhaps do with a better allrounder (batting average of 28.68 and bowling average of 33.49). It is however amazing how Broad continues to stay in the team with performances at the right time. This is the guy who got taken by Yuvraj Singh for 6 sixes in an over and he is still around!

For that matter, there are a few in this English side that I thought wouldn’t last this long. Ian Bell is one. He had some miserable performances and was dropped at one point. Alastair Cook is another. I even thought that about Strauss at one point. It is interesting how the winning habit of a team makes you reconsider your thoughts about the team members.

When it comes to the Indian team, Sreesanth is the obvious candidate. It is ridiculous that he is still around despite all the craziness. He even got to bowl in the World Cup final! And going by his performance in the first innings and Zaheer Khan’s continued absence, he may even be there for the rest of the Tests in the series, outlasting his frenemy Harbhajan Singh who looks completely out of form.

I also wondered much about Ishant Sharma, who seemed to be coasting in the team without doing much except for that spell against Ricky Ponting sometime back. But it looks like the West Indies tour was his coming-of-age. He is doing some seriously good stuff with the ball leading the attack.

England Pull Out Another Surprise

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I hadn’t planned to stay in on Memorial Day Weekend, but we were tired after a long day at the beach yesterday. Having nothing better to do, I tuned in on the England-Sri Lanka match. It was obviously going to be a draw. I thought that England would bat on for a few overs and then declare with 75-odd overs to be bowled. Then it seemed it was raining. I wondered what would happen if it rained the whole day and Bell missed on his century. Finally, they were going to play.

Contrary to some commentators, I didn’t think that Strauss made any mistake in letting Bell get to his century. At that point, it seemed that there were too few overs left in the match to bowl out a team that had already made 400 in the first innings on a pitch that allowed both teams to surpass 400. And England had only 3 full-time bowlers. Should Strauss have denied Bell to make a point about being a tough captain determined to win at all costs? How would that helped in having a motivated team?

In the few instances where captains have tried to make such a point, it either went nowhere or did not matter to the final result. For example, when Dravid declared and left Sachin short of a double century, India won the match against Pakistan 12 balls into the final morning (i.e., lots of time left). When an England captain last declared with someone on 98 not out, he didn’t win the match. I am also reminded of Mark Taylor’s declaration on 334 not out (that equaled, but didn’t exceed Bradman’s score) in a match against Pakistan that they didn’t even come close to winning.

As for the match itself, what to say? This once again illustrates how despite all their achievements, Sri Lanka has never truly broken into the top tier in Test cricket. Just as they are showing promise, they deny themselves a breakthrough. This was the case against India in their last tour. It was the case today after doing so well on the tour matches and in the first couple of days in this match.

I also agree with Slipstream Cricket’s take on the England team. This is a team that can beat anyone, but can also be beaten by anyone. Michael Vaughan’s side looked formidable, but Strauss’s side seems fragile. Even if they have been racking up impressive results such as the three innings victories in Australia.

As for England’s proclivity for matches in recent years that end with the last pair at the crease trying to save a match: 3 of them with England saving the match, 2 with their opponents:

Also technically, not a last pair, but England were 2 wickets away from a win (and series draw) against West Indies in that same series in the final match.

First English Cricket Tour of North America (150 Years Ago)

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Dreamcricket has a post on the very first tour made by an English team to North America in 1859. This was the second international tour ever, the first being a 1844 between USA and Canada. This was even before the Ashes or the first tour of Australia. It is amazing how cricket has declined in both USA and Canada that you have to explain cricket in baseball terms for someone to understand the game.

A crowd of 3,000 roared their approval for the first match in Montreal between September 24-26, 1859. A crowd of several thousand spectators including 1,000 ladies witnessed the proceedings on the last day of the tour. Sporting tours became a way of life with this event.

The 1859 tour was the brainchild of Robert Waller and WP Pickering. Mr. Pickering had captained Eton before emigrating to Canada in 1852. He represented Canada in the USA vs Canada match of 1853.

The article has an amazing scorecard between the English and the Americans. The latter fielded 22 (Twenty-Two) members against the standard 11 of the English team. And they still lost by an innings and 64 runs! The second match was not too bad, the Twenty-Two losing by “just” 7 wickets. You can also see some strange bowling figures with one English bowler taking 16 wickets in a single innings.

Irony of the Day

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Achettup at BCC!:

Great, now we depend on Pakistan even for the slightest chance of making it to the semis.

Just like Sri Lanka depended on England! As was more than adequately shown today, England had no interest in letting Sri Lanka through to the semi-finals via the back door. They couldn’t even make it seem not too obvious that they were throwing the match, what with Andrew Strauss leading the way with a duck. And New Zealand prolonging the misery of every Sri Lankan who tuned into the match by throwing away a few wickets towards the end.

Giving hope is the worst form of giving!

Turning to my blog reader, I find that Ducking Beamers has already made the point:

Pakistan fans will root for a victory against Australia, but in doing so, they will inadvertently root to increase India’s chances. Meanwhile, Indians will tune in for, of all things, a Pakistan victory. It’s a real cumbaya moment, but I’d hate just to mock it. This is the fun of sport, when love for the game supersedes even 60 years of mutual hatred — if only for a match against the White Man.

Meanwhile, I am waiting for Arm Ball to root for Pakistan tomorrow after writing this dreck:

Losing to Pakistan is a shame anywhere. We wont mind losing to Kiwis or Windies or even England, but no losing to Pakistan.

Curtains for Sri Lanka

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All those calculations would have been useful if England were the least bit interested in having Sri Lanka join them in the semi-finals. They weren’t. If England had to choose between Sri Lanka and New Zealand to play again in the finals, the Kiwis would be the natural choice. So it was not a big surprise to see the Poms do their best to grant them an easy berth to the semis.

I suppose not all the English players were in on the charade. Ryan Sidebottom for one. Perhaps Stuart Broad for another. But the rest were pretty obliging. Even with that, the Kiwis managed to lose 6 wickets while getting to the target.

Of course, there is no real *proof* that England threw the match. There wouldn’t be. After all, you don’t want to be censured by the ICC.

But consider the circumstantial evidence: By losing today, England gained a lot. They will not play on this pitch for the semifinals. They will have an additional rest day for the finals. They have eliminated Sri Lanka, the most dangerous ODI team after Australia.

I suppose New Zealand missed a trick. They should have thrown away their wickets after going past the required runs to reach the semis. They could have avoided the pitch and gained the rest day. But maybe it was the safe solution. You don’t want to do a 2003 WC South Africa, misread some figure and then lose out by one measly run.

So my predictions for Group B have been totally destroyed. But Australia should reach the semis tomorrow and they remain the favorites to win the Trophy.

How New Zealand Can Qualify If England Bats First

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Common sense would suggest that since New Zealand is behind Sri Lanka in the NRR (Net Run Rate), a loss would set them further back and destroy their chances of reaching the semis. But the twist here is that both NZ and SL have negative NRR and so although NZ cannot obtain a positive NRR, it can still generate a negative NRR that is higher than Sri Lanka and qualify.

So here is a graph that explains this. New Zealand must restrict England to a score that is 260 or below and then get very close to the score. This can range from between 14 runs if England is bowled out for 30 runs (impossible) to 4 runs or less if England goes above 200. If England cross 270, New Zealand have to win the match to reach the semis.

new zealand margin of loss

Obviously, New Zealand will qualify if they win the match. They cannot and should not attempt to lose the match by a few runs. This chart will only come into play in situations if and when New Zealand is close to the English target and only have a few wickets in hand.

For example, if England were bowled out for 180. New Zealand can only afford to lose by 5 runs. Let us say that they are in the final over with 3 balls to play, 7 runs to get and one wicket in hand. Instead of trying to smash a boundary to win the game, they should take that critical single to ensure the semifinal spot and then go for the win, if possible.

Hope somebody in the Kiwi team has this calculation done and not miss out by a few runs.