Plays of the day from the IPL game between Delhi Daredevils and Pune Warriors in Raipur

Siddhartha Talya28-Apr-2013The glitch
There was some worry for the staff at Raipur’s Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh Stadium just 13 minutes into the venue’s first game, as play was held up for a while in the second over due to sightscreen trouble. Seven minutes were lost, until play resumed and proceeded smoothly thereafter.The debut
Kane Richardson played his first game of the IPL and he was visibly nervous when brought on to bowl in the second over of the day. It was one he’ll remember, for bowling wide and producing an outside edge for four past third man. He went on to concede 38 in his four-over spell, not the best start for someone who sold for $700,000 at the auction.The surprise
Robin Uthappa is not a specialist wicketkeeper but his glovework was impressive today, with three catches. The best among them was a nick he snapped off Ben Rohrer’s bat while standing up to Abhishek Nayar. Rohrer slashed hard, got a thick edge and Uthappa reacted well, moving quickly to his left and wrapping his gloves around a sharp one.The escape
Aaron Finch had a huge slice of fortune in Pune Warriors’ chase. The first ball of Morne Morkel’s second over, Finch got a leading edge that landed smack in the middle of the patch between mid-off and extra cover. He took off for the single and would have been miles out of his ground had Mahela Jayawardene aimed accurately at the non-striker’s end.The error
Finch was at the receiving end of some bad luck later in his innings when he was given out caught behind, the umpiring thinking it flicked his glove down the leg side when in fact it had brushed his thigh. The luck was in favour of Irfan Pathan, who picked up two wickets that over with deliveries bowled down leg.

Television can also compress and shrink distance. But to fully digest Gayle’s brute force in its enormity, come to the ground and become a speck in the stand

Sharda Ugra at the Chinnaswamy Stadium23-Apr-2013Chris Gayle is a big fellow. When he walks down a corridor, he makes bystanders back onto the sidelines and turn into wall-paper. When he enters a room, he fills a door and in about five seconds, the entire room itself, no matter how large.On Tuesday evening, he filled a stadium. To the point at which he emptied the opposition and the contest out of Bangalore’s Chinnaswamy Stadium. At some stage of Gayle’s record-buster, reality-bender and bowler-muncher of an innings of 175 not out, it was like the field had cleared of all other players. There was only Christopher Henry of Jamaica, a series of cricket balls heading towards his bat and departing from it in perfect trajectorial arcs heading towards the International Space Station with tens of thousands of fans around him shrieking, cheering, laughing and waving red flags.Gayle’s batting had deflated and destroyed Pune Warriors’ intentions well within the first hour of the match. Around the time their harassed captain Aaron Finch came onto bowl his dolly-left-arm-whatz-its. By the time he was done, or rather Gayle was done with him, four sixes and a boundary in an over, Royal Challengers Bangalore had reached 124-0 in 9 overs and Gayle had leaped from 67 to 95. He was given a free-hit full toss from Ashok Dinda to get to his century off a ridiculous 30 balls. A record had been broken – is there a man in cricket today, apart from the owner, who could break this one?For all that it must have been on television, the real power and glory of Gayle the batsman can be witnessed and understood only from the stands. The spectator sees him emerge from the recesses of the dressing room, clad in his golden helmet, black bandana flapping over his shoulders. By the time he has reached the stumps, he towers over the keeper, his batting partner, the fielders, the umpires. It is only when he brings his bat down on the ball with a clean swing that must groove on a golf course, that the force of his batting is truly understood, experienced and celebrated.

Between Gayle making room for his bat to come down against Ali Murtaza and the ball landing hard, flat and past the long-off boundary, slow motion is notional. Between those two instants, eyes cannot blink

Television, for all its technological advantages cannot show how fast the ball travels off the bat. TV’s two-dimensional perfection and detail hides an element that is very central to cricket and to its best practitioners – speed. Between Gayle and his bat swing making room against Ali Murtaza and the ball landing hard, flat and past the long-off boundary, slow motion is notional. Between those two instants, eyes cannot blink.Similarly television can also compress and shrink distance, as much as it measures it. Gayle’s six to reach his century off Dinda hit the roof. When in his 120s, he launched Murtaza again, out of the ground. The trackers have measurements for those things – 119m. Explain 119m to a kid. Or imagine in the mind’s eye how far even 100m must be. How far the ball has gone.But come to Chinnaswamy, become a speck in the stand, watch the man so far away in the middle have the curve of his bat meet the ascent or descent of the ball. Watch it travel, propelled through his torso, shoulders, arms in clean, sharp, crescents away from our sight and onto a place where there must be moving vehicles or scattering pedestrians or shaken shrubbery.The television viewer marvels at the 119m, the spectator witnesses a batsman cover distance in its palpable, visible scale. Gayle’s sixes were definitions of gigantism and enormity turned into physical form. The child in every spectator will never forget how everything soared with that six – the ball, the heart, the day itself. We don’t need to hear the commentators shout, “And that’s a huuuuuuge one” “oo, it’s a biggie” “this is outta here.” We can see it, we’re shouting ourselves, thankyavermuch.Gayle’s innings was physics lesson, with music and noise. Momentum is mass times velocity.It was biology class. This is what forces of nature can do.Between the Bangalore crowd and Gayle, the chemistry was crackling.Just before the rain interruption, lightning streaked over Chinnaswamy. That was a news flash: the thunder was coming.The diet of a power-hitter

“Last night, I was up all night, couldn’t sleep, ordered room service, ordered breakfast, 6.30am in the morning before I got a chance to sleep, plain omelette and two pancakes and hot chocolate, so I went to bed at 7.30am, this is how things go for me, I don’t really get a chance to sleep at night, so I went to bed around 7.30, that’s all I had to eat for the particular day, and nothing else, hopefully I get something to eat now.”

What Gayle produced was not so much strokes, (other than his delicate dabs for singles) but shots. The ball spat off the middle of his bat to all corners, turning into parabolas that the crowd was hollering for. Gayle faced more than half the balls bowled by the Warriors and produced a compressed 20-over highlights package. At the other end, Tillakaratne Dilshan was struggling with his timing, Virat Kohli tried to cash in on the momentum and AB de Villiers’ 31 off 8 balls was a sweet tribute to Gayle. But those were minor flickers when held against Gayle’s approach through his innings. Detached, in a state of repose even as he carved up a line-up of bowlers who must bowl to him again in just over ten days.It was an innings that led to spontaneous posters being produced: “When Gayle bats, fielders become spectators and spectators become fielders.” The man writing up clever slogans over the PA booth produced around the 15th over: “Declare?”In 2008, I had turned up at the Chinnaswamy for the first-ever IPL match and watched Brendon McCullum produce an innings of 158 that had blown away the boundaries of what T20 batting was capable of. Chris Gayle’s 175 not out has once again extended the frontiers not merely of the IPL but of T20, making every other high-speed big-hitter look small.Crowds at the IPL are part of the television experience. They can be controlled to a degree as to how they respond to the sound of the tournament bugle, when they chant. But on Tuesday night, Gayle controlled the crowd with the pace of his innings. Spectators were left breathless, applauding his post-100 slow-down. When the ground announcer asked them to launch into Mexican waves during the game, as many as three times, no one listened, no one moved.Their waving and moving and hollering was restricted to the man at the centre who had fallen to his knees after hitting the fastest century in T20 and acknowledged every stand each time he crossed any landmark.His own last words to the crowd were as expansive and magnanimous as his innings had been to the audience. “God’s blessings,” said Gayle, at the presentation, “to everyone.” Hallelujah.

Adama Voges provides something to smile about in a week of despair, loss and hilarious stupidity

Jarrod Kimber12-Jun-2013Australia have been living the sort of week that country music stars love. Despair, loss and hilarious stupidity. You can almost hear a twangy banjo as you think about Australia getting smashed by England, losing their captain for their next game and then finding out their opening batsman has punched an opposition player in the face.Only a humiliating loss to New Zealand, with an embarrassing collapse could have made their song of woe any better.Thankfully Adam Voges was there. Adam Voges has been almost there for years. He announced himself with 62 ball hundred on TV against New South Wales. He became WA captain. He made runs in county cricket. His first three ODIs were on three separate continents. He once gave up the chance to represent Australia because he was getting married.Voges is safe, reliable and a throwback to the better days when the backups averaged 50, were technically solid and well-rounded cricketers.Voges also averaged 25 with that bat in Shield Cricket this year. Had it not been for lengthy and respectable career, and finding form just as all the Big Bash cameras were pointed at him, his international career would have been over.Luckily for Australia, he had been picked. His comeback is only a few games in, but he has been quality in a weak and misfiring line up. Today he took some good work from George Bailey and Matthew Wade, and turned it into the sort of score that was going to be hard to reach. At the very least this bad country song ended without Australia losing a match by being bowled out cheaply and losing before the rain did end it.While Voges was at the crease, he contributed 71 out of 122 runs. It was effortless compared to how Bailey and Wade had survived. Very much an old style ODI knock, picking up every agreed-upon single, hitting only the worst balls for four, pushing hard to create second runs and generally milking the middle overs as best he could.It wasn’t the innings of a journeyman who was lucky to be back in the side, or a guy who’s only played five matches since 2011, and only 20 altogether. It made him look like a 100-game veteran.In county cricket, Voges is very experienced, and he’s probably played on a slowish used Edgbaston wicket before. He seemed to pick early on that Vettori was the player Australia had to fear the most, and simply played him out, knowing that he could score at ease against most of the others.It seemed like Voges was going to make his second hundred since his comeback, and ensure that Australia had not just a par score, but a score that in the conditions would have been hard to reach. Instead he sliced a full toss straight to short cover. An innings of that quality deserved a slightly better end than it got.In the end, whether Australia’s total was a match winning one, or just a par total that New Zealand might have chased, is the sort of late night conversation that you can’t agree on at the Walkabout.This game will be forgotten as the dreary wash out on the turgid pitch it was. Voges made sure his story kept getting better, and for at least one innings, Australia’s song didn’t have a depressing end.

England’s first Test collapse has has become a recurring failure and one that should be keeping Andy Flower and company awake at night

George Dobell in Brisbane22-Nov-20130:00

‘England weren’t good enough today’ – Carberry

When does a string of aberrations become a pattern? When does a blip become the norm and when does continuity of selection become rigidity of selection?These are the questions England need to answer after a painfully weak display of batting left them requiring something approaching a miracle to avoid defeat in the first Test of the Ashes series.On a pitch that remains sound and true, England collapsed from 82 for 2 to 91 for 8 in a session that brought back memories of the dark days of England cricket in the late 1980s and 1990s.There are, as ever, some excuses. First and foremost, they came up against a fast and unpredictable left-arm bowler who rattled them in a hostile spell of sustained fast bowling. Mitchell Johnson deserves great credit for this.England might also point out that rain has robbed them of time in the warm-up games and training sessions and that both Kevin Pietersen and Matt Prior’s preparations were somewhat disrupted by injury. It is true, too, that this pitch was some way quicker than anything they experienced in the recent series in England.But most of those excuses are pretty thin. It’s not as if they could not have been predicted. It’s not as if England have not faced Johnson before or as if they have no experience of these conditions. They knew what was coming and, by the evidence to date, had either not prepared adequately or failed to execute those plans.Nor is it the first time they have started series with a poor batting display. They have failed to reach 400 in the first innings of their last nine Test series – a run that stretches back to the start of 2012 – and on five of those occasions have failed to reach even 200. If an event keeps occurring it cannot be described as a one-off. It has become a recurring failure and one that should be keeping Andy Flower and company awake at night. This has been, for several reasons, an accident waiting to happen.On paper, this is England’s strongest batting line-up for many years. Pietersen and Alastair Cook have scored more Test centuries than any men who have previously represented England and may both be remembered as greats of the game; Ian Bell and Jonathan Trott have averages in excess of 45; Prior averages in excess of 40. Each one of them have played top-class innings under pressure in the not too distant past. If there are better batsmen in England they have not made themselves obvious.

England first-innings totals in the first Test of series since January 2012

• 192 v Pakistan, Dubai, January 2012

• 193 v Sri Lanka, Galle, March 2012

• 398 v West Indies, Lord’s May 2012

• 385 v South Africa, The Oval, July 2012

• 191 v India in Ahmedabad, November 2012

• 167 v New Zealand in Dunedin, March 2013

• 232 v New Zealand at Lord’s, May 2013

• 215 v Australia at Trent Bridge, July 2013

• 136 v Australia, Brisbane, November 2013

Yet England have failed to reach 400 for 17 Test innings – a run that extends back to Wellington in March – and several of their leading players – Cook, Trott and Prior in particular – are enduring runs of poor form too long for comfort and too long to be easily excused. It is no good living off past glories; Hobbs and Hammond have fine records, too. No-one would pick them now.No expense has been spared in preparing this side. They have three batting coaches – Andy Flower, Mark Ramprakash and Graham Gooch – to work with here, they have brought in a couple of left-arm fast bowlers to face in the nets – Harry Gurney and Tymal Mills, who may well be the fastest bowler in England – to replicate Johnson’s line of attack and they arrived in Australia four weeks before the Test series began. Some sides complete whole tours in that time.The most galling aspect of this collapse was how easily England succumbed to Australia’s plans. It took only two balls well angled across Joe Root to lure him into a horribly loose drive; it took only one spell of short bowling to have Trott, jumping around and playing almost exclusively to the on-side, caught behind. Pietersen flicked to the man placed for the stroke at midwicket and Cook, reaching outside off stump, soon nicked one angled across him. Wickets came far too easily for Australia.But it would be simplistic to state that England were simply blown away by pace and bounce. Another nemesis also came back to haunt them: their weakness against spin bowling. On a day two pitch that remains utterly blameless, they made Nathan Lyon appear like Muralitharan on a dustbowl, with Bell and Prior departing to successive deliveries playing across balls that bounced and turned a little as if they had never seen an offspinner before.

Carberry confident of England response

Michael Carberry admitted the bowling of Mitchell Johnson was as fast as any he had experienced, but insisted England could fit their way back into the first Test of the Ashes series in Brisbane.
Carberry, playing his first Test since March 2010, top-scored with 40 but could not prevent England being routed for 136.
“In terms of pace he’s up there with some of the quickest I’ve faced,” Carberry said. “More importantly, he put the ball in the right areas. That’s tough for anyone.
“It’s always hard starting out against a bowling unit that has its tail up, which was the case for some of the guys who came in before tea. Australia had good plans. Early on you can be vulnerable, and we weren’t quite good enough.
“I wouldn’t say shell-shocked. These guys are proven world-class performers. You don’t become bad players overnight. It was just a bad session, which can happen to any team.
“We weren’t up to it today but I’m confident we can prove ourselves tomorrow. Any batsmen, whether it’s in first-class cricket or Test cricket, the first couple of balls are the toughest phase of an innings. If there are some good balls flying around, unfortunately sometimes if it’s not your day, your name’s on it.

Indeed, it might provoke England to reflect on the homogenised strips of lifeless sludge on which too much cricket is played in England. Rarely do developing players experience pitches that aid spin or pace in England, with far too much emphasis given to nagging seam and swing. It is a systemic failure that continues to hold back the international side. The pitch in Perth may be even quicker.Equally, the ECB may reflect on the work permit regulations that they fought for and the central contract situation which has robbed the county game of many of the fastest bowlers. Even the absence of relatively obscure seamers – the likes of Johan van der Vath and Garnett Kruger – has limited the exposure of England players to the pace and aggression they can expect in international cricket. The gap between county and international cricket has grown considerably over the last couple of years.Pace and bounce did not actually account for many of the top-order wickets. But it had left England rattled and it may well have resulted in their footwork being slower and their bats being less straight than they should have been. They looked, just as they had at Perth in 2010-11, more than a little shell-shocked.History tells us that England can rescue themselves from this position. You only have to look at the Brisbane Test of 2010-11 or the Auckland Test of this year to see that. They are unbeaten for a year. But they have given themselves a mountain to climb here and, even if they do somehow salvage a draw – and with so much time left in the game, they may well need some help from the weather to do so – they will know that they have squandered a wonderful chance to take control of this series.

Stats preview to the Boxing Day Ashes Test at the MCG

S Rajesh25-Dec-2013The last 15 Tests at the Melbourne Cricket Ground have all produced decisive results – the last draw here was in 1997, against South Africa. Given this stat, and the clear weather forecast, the series scoreline will probably read 4-0 or 3-1 before the new year dawns. Australia have a 12-3 record during this period, but England are the only side to win more than one Test since 1997 – they beat the hosts in 1998 and then again in 2010. The 2010 drubbing was especially embarrassing for Australia, and they were bowled out for 98 in their first innings and saw England finish the opening day on none for 157, which also turned out to be the margin of the innings victory for England. That was Australia’s first innings defeat at the ground since 1986.The memories of that embarrassment will surely keep Australia hungry and motivated despite having already sealed the series with two matches to go. Also, despite Australia’s imposing overall record here, they’ve been beaten twice in their last five Tests: before England’s comprehensive win in 2010, they’d also lost to South Africa by nine wickets in 2008. (Click here for the results at this ground since 1990.)Despite those two recent defeats, Australia’s stats here since 2000 are still utterly dominant – they’ve averaged more than 40 runs per wicket with the bat, and conceded less than 26 with the ball. Their batsmen have scored 16 centuries in these 13 Tests, while opposition batsmen have scored only five.

Tests at the MCG

MatchesWonLostDrawnBat aveBowl aveAustralia (overall)10560301532.2827.31England (overall)542027727.5929.42Australia (since 2000)13112040.2125.73England (since 1990)624025.5434.12The MCG is one of two home venues where Shane Watson has scored a Test century – in fact, it’s the ground where he scored his first century, 120 not out against Pakistan in 2009. For Michael Clarke, though, it hasn’t been such a great batting ground: he scored his first Test century here last year, in his 13th Test innings; in his previous 12 innings here he’d averaged 36.50.The MCG has also been a poor venue for two of England’s top batsmen. Kevin Pietersen has managed 73 runs from three innings, while Ian Bell has scores of 7, 2, and 1 from his three innings here.

Australian batsmen at the MCG (more than one Test)

BatsmanTestsRunsAverage100s/ 50sMichael Clarke847142.811/ 2Shane Watson335588.751/ 3Mitchell Johnson517844.500/ 1Brad Haddin414323.830/ 1David Warner210434.670/ 1Peter Siddle has the least wickets among Australia’s fast bowlers so far in this series, but at the MCG he has been the top star, taking 21 wickets in five Tests at 22.19. The last time the two teams played at this ground, Siddle was the only Australian to emerge with his reputation enhanced, taking 6 for 75 from 33 tireless overs, even as England amassed 513. Mitchell Johnson went for plenty in that match – 2 for 134 from 29 overs – but he achieved his best MCG figures when he last played there, taking 6 for 79 against Sri Lanka in 2012.

Australian bowlers at the MCG (more than one Test)

BowlerTestsWicketsAverageStrike rate5WI/ 10WMPeter Siddle52122.1946.11/ 0Mitchell Johnson51926.5253.30/ 0Nathan Lyon2432.5045.70/ 0In the last eight Tests at the MCG, fast bowlers have done much better than spinners, averaging 27 runs per wicket with five five-fors, two of those by Dale Steyn in one match. Spinners have conceded more than 41 runs per wicket, and two of the three five-fors taken by them during this period were by wristspinners, Shane Warne and Anil Kumble. Nathan Lyon, Australia’s specialist spinner in the current team, has bowled only 30.3 overs in the two Tests he has played here, which indicates how dominant Australia’s fast bowlers have been in these matches.

Pace and spin at the MCG in the last 8 Tests

WicketsAverageStrike rate5WI/ 10WMPace19827.4153.95/ 1Spin5441.5579.23/ 0Teams winning the toss have batted first seven times in the last eight Tests, but have won only four of the seven times when they’ve chosen to bat. In these eight games, teams batting first and fielding first have won four times each, which suggests the toss hasn’t had that much impact on the result of the match.The average runs per wicket is the highest in the second innings, which suggests the second day is the best one for batting at this venue. In the last eight Tests, teams have topped 330 five times in the first innings, but there’ve also been three scores of less than 160. In the second innings, four times in the last eight years teams have topped 400, with England’s 513 in 2010 being the highest. However, the averages have dropped significantly in the third and fourth innings, with the fourth-innings average dropping to 23.

Runs per wicket in each innings at the MCG since 2005

1st innings2nd innings3rd innings4th innings30.5636.2228.0223.04

The work on the India quicks’ legs finally began to show, but their fate in this series now depends on how their batsmen fare on a challenging final day

Sidharth Monga in Durban 29-Dec-20130:00

Persisted with old ball for reverse swing – Trevor Penney

India can’t have gone into the fourth day thinking of a win. Their plan would have been to delay South Africa’s attainment of a sizeable lead as much as possible. The Ravindra Jadeja threat in South Africa’s minds would have helped India. It had showed in how the hosts didn’t push for quick runs towards the end of the third day. However, there were two ways of going about it.The first was to actively try to take wickets. The second was to bowl with an old and soft ball for as long as they could because it would be hard to score off on a slow and slightly two-paced pitch. There was no right or wrong decision; it was a matter of having a feel of the conditions, the fitness and the intensity of the quicker bowlers, who would have to bowl with the new ball, and how much threat the possibility quick runs posed.As it turned out, India bowled with the old ball until they were literally not allowed to use it anymore. It was an extreme step, but MS Dhoni must have felt that was the way to go. For 146 overs, India went on with a scuffed-up ball that did almost nothing for the bowlers, except not travelling off the bat.You wonder if India thought they should have done otherwise when they saw Dale Steyn and Vernon Philander do things with the new ball, but you also wonder how much the workload of the fast bowlers at the Wanderers played in this decision. They came into this Test having had only three days’ recovery, saw India bat first and weather delay their turn a bit, but the intensity – especially from Zaheer Khan, from whom you could not snatch the ball at Wanderers – was visibly lower.When Graeme Smith was asked before the second Test whether South Africa would look to bat first to put the India bowlers back on the field as soon as possible, he didn’t sound too desperate to do that because he expected the tired legs to show up at some point in the Test. “I think that workload will be in their legs somewhere in the Test match,” Smith said. “I think especially if we can get a good partnership somewhere in our top order.”With the fast bowlers fatigued, Ravindra Jadeja did most of the bowling for India•Associated PressThe three India quicks bowled 86 overs at Kingsmead for 315 runs and three wickets, two of which were lower-order batsmen who had already done the damage. It wasn’t easy. Durban has been hot and humid when it isn’t raining, and the wicket is not as helpful as the one at Wanderers, but it still has something in it, especially as it deteriorates.Most of India’s work was done by the unwavering Jadeja. He bowled 58.2 overs, a rarity for a spinner in South Africa. No spinner has bowled more than 50 in an innings here in the last seven years. Jadeja was difficult to get away even when South Africa showed more intent on the fourth day. As the ball grew older, though, Jadeja got less and less bite from the pitch. The big debate around the new ball was whether India should have taken it as soon as a wicket fell, to not allow the new batsman time to settle in.Robin Peterson, who teed off for 61 off 52, said the old ball was much more difficult to get away, and that all the new ball did was give the quicks some extra bounce, but not much in terms of sideways movement. It probably didn’t make too much of a difference to India. Had they taken the new ball as soon as Faf du Plessis came in, they might have taken a wicket or two and slowed South Africa down. The new ball might also have flown to all parts, and they might have been looking at a deficit of 200 as opposed to the eventual 166.The difference, though, was in how the South Africa quicks bowled with the new ball. They were clearly fitter and more intense. The two wickets taken before stumps would have buoyed South Africa, and India now need a good third innings, after their hard work on both their previous tours was undone by ordinary third innings’ efforts. They would hate to lose the series after having done so well in Johannesburg and having got a pitch in Durban that arguably suited them more than the hosts.It will be a tough examination on the final day should rain not intervene. It is not just about batting time, even runs will come into the picture if they come close to wiping off the deficit. Their two best batsmen are at the wicket. It won’t be a bad call to promote Ajinkya Rahane, who can bat time, ahead of Rohit Sharma, who must be low on confidence and has shown previously his ability to bat with the tail. The tail, though, is almost non-existent on the evidence of the first innings. It will be a test of character for this young team should there be a full day’s play on Monday.

Many past Sri Lankan victories have been because of one or two great cricketers shining, but this had strong performances from virtually everyone in the side

Andrew Fidel Fernando in Mirpur30-Jan-20140:00

Fernando: SL used the short ball well

Mathews settling into captaincy

Captain Angelo Mathews said he has become comfortable in his position as captain, in the year he has been in charge. Under his leadership, Sri Lanka have won three Tests, drawn two and lost one.
“The players make me comfortable because if they perform, it always makes the captain better. It’s about the team. We work as a team. We help each other and enjoy each other’s success, so that’s been the secret for all of us.”
The series is against Bangladesh is Paul Farbrace’s first as head coach. Mathews said this of him: “Paul is doing a good job. He’s just joined the team so you can’t really say much, but his thoughts, ideas and input within the team are quite big. He always gives a lot of confidence to the younger guys and he shares his thoughts with the younger guys as well as the seniors . He’s just getting into the groove and we’re happy to have him.”

As cricket fans outside the two competing nations wind down after the boardroom histrionics at the ICC meeting in Dubai, they might note with an eyeroll and a harrumph that Sri Lanka have handed Bangladesh an almighty clobbering in Mirpur. For all their cash and covert planning, the Big Three boards still could not pull off the most one-sided showdown in cricket this week. The only way they might have matched Sri Lanka’s bullying in this innings-and-248-run result, is if they had secretly put whoopee cushions under the seats of the Small Seven directors.Like any bully, Sri Lanka will be mighty pleased at their work. Angelo Mathews said he did not know what his team would do with the extra day they have earned, but if the warm-down football game they played after the match is any indication, they will spend it in good spirits.The scoreline appears impressive, but given the paucity of the resistance their opponents offered, Sri Lanka will be wary of over-congratulating themselves. For the batsmen, 730 for 6 is a once-in-a-career total. The bowlers will probably not expect a scoring rate of 4.82 from a team effectively batting to save the Test, in future.But the victory did show something of the new Sri Lanka that is beginning to emerge – a team that thrives as a collective, not just as hangers-on to a great cricketer’s coattails. This trend is most evident in the bowling, where one man has dominated their history, with help from one capable other.Sri Lanka’s bowling cards from around 1995 to 2010 feature protagonists Muttiah Muralitharan, Chaminda Vaas and a conveyor belt of also-bowleds. The likes of Pramodya Wickramasinghe, Ravindra Pushpakumara and Kumar Dharmasena plugged gaps in the XI in the 90s, before giving way to the likes of Dilhara Fernando, Upul Chandana and Farveez Maharoof in the most recent decade. Many of these bowlers are now more remembered for their quirks, than their exploits. Pushpakumara was a baby Waqar Younis, Dharmasena had a killer appeal, Fernando bowled a lot of no-balls, many while emitting a loud grunt. Rarely was it unclear who Sri Lanka’s real pivots were.That trend persisted even after Murali hung up his bent elbow. Before this year Rangana Herath had been the architect, or at least a prominent co-star, in each of Sri Lanka’s triumphs since Murali. In the last series Sri Lanka played against Bangladesh last March – when, incidentally, the opposition had shown considerably more spirit and application than in this performance – Herath’s 12 wickets had formed the major gulf between the sides.But in Mirpur, Sri Lanka’s quicks not only preserved the discipline they had found in the UAE series, they struck out with more ambition and discovered their armoury had expanded. Even Vaas in his pomp rarely bounced out oppositions, but blessed with height and pace that their bowling coach never had, Shaminda Eranga and Suranga Lakmal battered the Bangladesh top order, twice. There is no doubt the batsmen were generous with their wickets, but this was the first occasion a short-ball plan had been formulated by this attack, and their emphatic execution says much about their confidence. Eranga’s brute to dismiss Shamsur Rahman on day four might have had the better of any batsman.”Our bowlers have improved quite a lot in the last few games,” Mathews said. “They’ve been bowling brilliantly. The fast bowlers were in really good rhythm, and they set it up for us in the first innings. They are delivering with the new ball and with the oldish ball, so I’m very happy with them at the moment.”Dilruwan Perera extracted bite and bounce from the day-four surface to finish with a maiden five-wicket haul in his second match, suggesting he can bring balance to the attack, just as he had lengthened Sri Lanka’s batting in their previous Test. Suddenly, in this win and the last one in Dubai, Herath finds himself providing support as the others go hunting for scalps.”I haven’t been in a team where we had all four bowlers equally good,” Mathews said. “I’m really pleased with the way Dilruwan bowled in the second innings because we had to give him that exposure. We knew he was going to deliver. We needed that extra spinner who supports Rangana, and he did the job today.”Even beyond the bowling, Sri Lanka are discovering a chorus of players clamouring to be part of its future. Mathews and the senior players have fostered an environment where humour and good vibes abound. Two weeks ago Kaushal Silva was the protagonist in a challenge against physio Steve Mount, which culminated in a bellyful of laughs for the team and the support staff at the Sharjah nets. Not many international teams have such a keen sense of fun embedded in their identity. It’s no wonder then, that valuable contributions have come from almost every spot in the XI, in this match. Happy, and improving, Sri Lanka appear to be forming new dimensions to their cricket.

Australian batsman Michael Klinger on being stranded on 99, facing Shoaib Akhtar, and nightlife in Bristol

Interview by Jack Wilson26-Apr-2014Do you consider yourself unlucky never to have played for Australia?
Yes and no. In one-day cricket I’ve been successful and still hope to play for Australia. So maybe yes, I do, in that form of the game. In terms of Test cricket, there have been times I may have been close but there are a lot of good players in Australia and I probably haven’t got the runs at the right time. I’ve had opportunities and haven’t taken them, which is down to me.What are you looking forward to most about working with Justin Langer at Western Australia?
I have heard such good reports about him from guys that have played with him, but not just about his cricket coaching. It’s also about the way he has brought sides together and his caring nature for the players. He looks out for them in their lives away from cricket, and for me, with a wife and two little kids, that’s very important. I can’t wait to work with someone like him at the back end of my career.Think back to March 3, 2001. Can you remember what happened?
() Ah, the declaration! I was on 99 not out for Victoria in Hobart and Paul Reiffel decided to declare.Did you hit him?I didn’t! At the time I was happy to be playing and scoring a few runs. Now, looking back, it would have been nice to get one more ball to get one more run, but I think he wanted 15 minutes to bowl at them just before lunch. I didn’t even face that many balls that morning.Your nickname is Maxy. Why?
There was a show called that was on before I was born, I think. The name was given to me by an underage coach at the time. There was a person in the show called Corporal Max Klinger, who was a cross-dresser. Hopefully it’s because of my surname that they called me that.Who is your best mate in cricket?
When in Victoria, Bobby Quiney. In South Australia, Callum Ferguson.Who is the best fielder you have shared a dressing room with?
Cameron White, for Victoria, is a good all-round fielder, whether it’s as a catcher in the slips or in the inner ring.Who has bowled the best spell you have ever faced?
Shoaib Akhtar, in a World XI game against Victoria, was outstanding. He bowled some fast bouncers and fast yorkers at me, so him.What represents Gloucestershire’s best hope of silverware this season?
The one-day tournaments. We’ve got a pretty good young one-day team that showed promised last season.Where’s the best place to go in Gloucestershire for a night out?With two kids, I don’t get much time to go out. There was a couple of times I did after a good win last year, and a pub called Racks is a place I enjoy. A few of the younger lads dragged me to the Mbargo nightclub last season. It’s not my scene but they definitely love it.The Gloucester lads are lined up for a 100m sprint. Who would win?
I’d say Hamish Marshall. He’s the oldest guy in the squad but probably the fittest and quickest.And who would lose?
He won’t like me saying this but Alex Gidman isn’t the quickest over the ground.You have played over 300 matches but have bowled six balls. How many did you go for?
It’s probably six more than I should have bowled. Did I go for three in the over?Correct.
I knew it. George Bailey was too scared to get out to me.Describe your bowling action.
I try and bowl legspin but I’m happy if they land on the pitch somewhere.What is your guilty pleasure?
Ice cream.Coca Cola or Pepsi?
Coke.Where do you do your weekly shopping?
In England, Sainsbury’s.

Aditya Verma used to stand outside the BCCI’s offices, trying to get his case heard. These days he and his powerful friends are rather more of a nuisance for the board

Sidharth Monga29-Apr-2014Most reporters start their careers standing outside the big iron gates of big offices. Their first friends in the profession are security guards outside those offices. Legal reporters spend their early days standing outside courts, political reporters outside party offices, crime ones outside police stations. The idea, at least in the days before the mobile phone, was that the people who mattered would be hard to get hold of otherwise, and that they should know your face, should know you are working hard for information. Old-school editors still demand reporters spend hours outside courts, political party offices and police stations. Admittedly cricket reporters don’t do work as important, but they spend a sizeable number of hours outside the BCCI office.In 2007 and 2008, as cricket reporters stood outside the BCCI office in Churchgate, Mumbai, shooting the breeze, making friends with security guards, making their faces known to officials, they would notice a non-journalist standing there, holding some papers. Sometimes he would be granted an audience with the big men, but mostly he would be shooed away. Those few meetings didn’t yield much either.Nobody then paid much attention to the man, Aditya Verma, the secretary of the unrecognised Cricket Association of Bihar (CAB). He was fighting, legally and personally, for full-member status for Bihar in the BCCI, though he wasn’t himself the undisputed representative of the state’s cricket. Two other bodies had laid claim to such status.A bitterly disappointed Verma is now the face of the legal battle that has brought the mighty, brazen even, BCCI to its knees. How the board might love a quiet meeting with Verma today, to set everything right. How they would love to have settled the issue back then. However, to be fair to the BCCI, it was and is not such a straightforward issue. And it involves a state that is anything but straightforward.Once was Bihar
Bihar, the ancient seat of learning, is the third-most populous state in India. It used to be bigger before 2000, which is when the Indian central government divided three states into two each. Uttar Pradesh gave up Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh yielded Chhattisgarh, and Bihar let go Jharkhand.When it came to cricket, though, the BCCI, mostly independent of the government, continued with the same bodies. So there arose an uncomfortable situation of one body controlling cricket in two states on the one hand and on the other three teams each coming out of the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat, and amorphous bodies such as the Cricket Club of India and the National Cricket Club having voting rights.Like UP and MP, Bihar too stayed a Ranji team – one that India’s most successful captain used to represent. MS Dhoni played the last first-class season Bihar played, in 2003-04.The problem with Bihar cricket, though, was that it was always dominated by Jamshedpur, in Jharkhand, and Tata Steel. Jamshedpur provided a ground and facilities, and employment for players came through Tata. Most of the big Bihar players weren’t Bihari at all; they were Tata employees stationed in Jamshedpur. None of Ramesh Saxena, Daljit Singh and Hari Gidwani was from Bihar.Under Jagmohan Dalmiya, around 2004, the BCCI tried to change the name of the Bihar Cricket Association (BCA), a BCCI member since 1935, and in 2004 led by the controversial chief minister of Bihar, Laloo Prasad Yadav, to Jharkhand State Cricket Association (JSCA), a move that didn’t sit well with Bihar, the bigger state.According to Ajay Sharma, secretary of the BCA, this happened because their vote was never going to go to Dalmiya, who favoured Amitabh Chaudhury, an officer in the Indian Police Service, who led JSCA. Legal wrangling followed, committees were formed, external investigations came about, the BCCI’s rule moved from Dalmiya to Sharad Pawar and then to Shashank Manohar. And then another body – Association of Bihar Cricket (ABC), led by former India cricketer Kirti Azad – came up, claiming to represent Bihar.Azad and the ABC settled for associate status in 2005, as former election commissioner TS Krishnamurthy recorded when conducting the controversial BCCI elections of that year. That, Sharma says, allowed the BCCI to prey on the division in the ranks.Two years later, the BCA suffered a bigger blow. This was when the rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL) came around. Yadav was the union Railways Minister by then. The ICL was struggling for venues to play its tournament in. Yadav promised them grounds owned and maintained by the Indian Railways. The ICL tasted the BCCI’s vengefulness soon, as has Bihar since.Another two years on, a third representative of the cricket of Bihar emerged, the CAB. Its secretary, a man self-admittedly often mocked as “habitual petitioner”, and considered by others to be “” (mischievous), determined and stubborn, was Verma.

Verma says the lowest point of his current fight came when his son, who plays U-19 cricket for Bengal, asked him how he would play at higher levels if his father antagonised everyone who has any sort of power in the BCCI

The making of a thorn
Patna is a tough place, meant for tough people. It is 40 degrees in April, and summer proper is yet to arrive. The Ganga is dry as far as you can see. The (bungalows) you saw in Prakash Jha movies have long since given way to apartment buildings coming up unplanned out of nowhere. The distance between A and B is never straightforward here because you have to keep going around these buildings that have sprung up. You need a thick skin to survive here, and you need to know your way around obstacles.Verma and his family moved here from Chapra, a district 80km from Patna. In Patliputra Colony on the outskirts of Patna, he and two of his brothers live in three two-bedroom apartments in the same building. During the frequent power outages, they walk up six floors. Inside Verma’s apartment, the dull green paint is coming off in many places, and the minimal furniture has seen better days. A treadmill suggests sporting leanings. There is nothing flashy about this house, nothing that evokes the headquarters of the operation that has pushed N Srinivasan, albeit perhaps only temporarily, out of the BCCI.Except for one wall in the living room. It has many pictures of Verma with cricketers, politicians, Bollywood actors. Three of them are of him with a young Ravi Shastri, the man Verma recently accused of always reading “Srini Chalisa” when Shastri was proposed as a member of a panel to probe the BCCI scandal.Srini is Srinivasan, are songs written to glorify Hindu gods.What is Shastri doing on the Verma wall?”Ravi used to be a good friend,” Verma says. “I had him down in Chapra for the prize distribution for a cricket tournament I had organised around 1993-94. But I don’t have anything personal against him, I am just fighting for principles.”Verma is 51 years old. Like Shastri, he has put on some weight, which shows on his face, but he is on the light side of stocky. With hair dyed brown and a thick moustache, he looks a quintessential Indian middle-class man pushing 50. His voice is loud, crisp and clear, and his tone slow and deliberate. He wouldn’t be out of place in a college, as a professor.Before he organised tournaments in Chapra, Verma played for his college, and was the only man from his district to have represented Bihar University in the All-India Universities meet.The cricket gene he got from his father, a wealthy wholesaler and retailer of pharmaceuticals in Chapra. Verma says his father used to fly out to watch Test cricket, staying in the same five-star hotels as the teams. It was unheard of in a small town such as Chapra. When he got back, he would listen to commentary on the radio. That was Verma’s introduction to cricket. “That’s where I learned that if you turn the wrists on the ball, it is called a flick.”On 12 April 2005, Verma senior shut shop early to come home and watch the ODI between India and Pakistan in Ahmedabad. Two of his favourite players shone that day. Sachin Tendulkar scored a century, and Inzamam-ul-Haq hit the winning runs in his unbeaten 60. “While watching that match, sitting on a sofa, without any indication, pain or noise, he passed away,” says Verma. The four sons – one of them is a lawyer and doesn’t live in the same apartment building as the others – then moved to Patna for a better education for their kids.Verma played cricket and worked for Tata for ten years. When they put him on the night shift, Verma says, he took his kit and left because he had got the job on the sports quota and now “some people who didn’t like me” were not letting him play sport. Verma says the lowest point of his current fight came when his son, who plays U-19 cricket for Bengal, asked him how he would play at higher levels if his father antagonised everyone who has any sort of power in the BCCI.Over the years, the inter-Tata meets used to take Verma to Mumbai, where he went up to and made friends with Bollywood actor Shatrughan Sinha just because he too is a Bihari. When Sinha moved into politics, Verma became his press co-ordinator during an election campaign. He did the same for Yashwant Sinha, a one-time finance minister of India, and for another actor, Shekhar Suman.Verma admits to having good networking skills. Slowly he built enough contacts for “some bureaucrats” to back him enough to come up with the CAB in 2007. The president of CAB now is a member of the state legislative assembly, Prem Ranjan Patel.Verma claims Sharad Pawar helped him when he ran into legal trouble in the course of trying to get the association registered. Once the CAB was registered in Patna, he had a leg to stand on.The best the BCA could muster from the BCCI was associate status, which got the association a total of Rs 50 lakh (about US$82,000) in cash, and equipment worth Rs 1 crore ($164,000). Full-time members are granted close to Rs 25 crore every year by the BCCI, and this could rise to Rs 40 crore a year if the ICC reforms are ratified.Verma says he was never going to settle for anything less than full membership, and continued to stand outside the BCCI’s offices.Being an annoyance, though, is one thing. To be able to hire three of the biggest lawyers in India to fight a long Supreme Court case is quite another. Litigation in India is infamous for its slowness and its cost. Verma says he was once stranded at Mumbai airport because he was Rs 5000 short and couldn’t buy a ticket. How does he afford such big cats for his lawyers?One of Verma’s lawyers, Nalini Chidambaram, was the counsel of Srinivasan’s Tamil Nadu rival AC Muttiah. Another counsel, Harish Salve, was also Lalit Modi’s legal aide.About the lawyers, he says, “If you are looking at these connections, why don’t you look at who Harish Salve’s father was? I emotionally blackmailed him into fighting to clean up the board whose president once upon a time was his father, NKP Salve. Why don’t you see NKP Salve was a Congress minister? Why don’t you see Nalini Madam is Congressman P Chidambaram’s wife? Why don’t you see Abhishek Manu Singhvi [another of the lawyers] is a Congress spokesperson?”Why don’t you look at how my friend and godfather Subodh Kant Sahay has convinced them to fight for me? He is also a Congress minister and MP.”He looks after the lawyers. I haven’t paid them a penny. I don’t know what he does. I don’t ask him what he does. Why should I question the one man who is helping me?”Verma on Shastri: “I don’t have anything personal against him, I am just fighting for principles”A friend in a high place
Sahay is a Congress MP from Ranchi. He was the cabinet minister for tourism till 2012. His house in Ranchi, humble by an MP’s standards, is decorated with posters of the “Incredible India” tourism campaign. One of his opponents for the Ranchi constituency in the current general election is the JSCA’s Amitabh Chaudhury.Sahay has also served a term as the president of the unrecognised CAB. He says he has always loved sport. He oversaw the National Games in Jharkhand, and talks of the hockey potential of schoolgirls in Khunti, a town 50km from Ranchi. He talks of the Gumla Rural National Games in 1978, when the girls from Khunti impressed, playing almost barefoot. He says he is in this for the cricket, and cricket only. “I never mix my politics and sport,” he says.”How can they give this membership to a smaller state just for the votes? And I am not happy that cricketers from Bihar have to go to other states and play like refugees,” Sahay says. “It has now moved on to a larger fight. How can you be allowed to run cricket when your company owns a team and your son-in-law is one of the accused in the scandal? How can you be expected to run a fair probe?”Verma says Sahay books him into guest houses, gets him his flight tickets, and takes care of the lawyers, who all have a Congress connection. Verma says Chidambaram, who once saw a client of hers lose a legal battle to Srinivasan, was so impressed with his doggedness that she drafted his first public-interest litigation document, which he filed in the Bombay High Court.Sahay says it is the well-wishers of the game who have come together to launch this fight. “We have been able to mobilise and motivate people. Obviously you need lawyers. But the way the lawyers approach normal cases and this is different. I haven’t yet paid Manu [Singhvi]. If I say, ‘Manu, just see this’, he doesn’t treat us as clients, he treats us as colleagues. Same with Mr Salve. Madam Chidambaram has always been supportive.”Point him to the Salve-Modi and Chidambaram-Muttiah connection, and he says: “The names that you are taking, they have never been in touch with us. We keep communicating with board members. And the board people who were suffocated in the BCCI, they have given us moral support, and they are benefiting from our action.”Suffocated people such as?”Such as everybody. Many people. Sharad [Pawar]. Shashank [Manohar]. Dalmiya. Even Dalmiya was not happy. Srinivasan’s sight is set on becoming the next president through nominations from east zone.”Sahay says the assistance stops at moral support. Such moral support and such big lawyers were absent when the fight was only about Bihar.In 2011, just after Srinivasan had assumed office as BCCI president, the CAB thought it had hope. Sahay was invited for a meeting in Chennai. He was asked to stay in a hotel close to Chennai because Srinivasan was also flying in. He took Verma along.They never heard from Srinivasan. “Don’t know when his flight landed and left,” Sahay says.”Sahay is a very serious person,” Verma says. “He has never let the disappointment of that day show, because he was such a big minister.”Sahay jokes it is good that he never met Srinivasan, because “now knowing the kind of man he is” he would soon have wished he hadn’t. Verma says, “I bet Srinivasan regrets that day when he called him to Chennai but didn’t meet him.”Cleaning cricket up incidentally
The BCCI will point out that Verma is merely a pawn for the board’s bigger enemies. Verma and Sahay will deny it, but even if Verma is doing somebody’s bidding he is still doing something for cricket that no one else has had the gumption to do. Of all the state associations, none has found Srinivasan’s conflicts of interest and the farce of a probe into corruption objectionable enough to move court.”Who knows what my considerations would have been,” Verma says when asked what he would have done if he was the secretary of a recognised, full-member CAB. “Who knows, even I might be in some conflict of interest, if only to safeguard cricket in Bihar. I can’t exactly say what would have happened, but somewhere it is possible I would not have had the same passion that I have today.”The Bollywood adaptation of , Vishal Bhardwaj’s , is set in Mumbai’s underworld. The three witches are two corrupt police officers, who through the movie side with whoever is powerful, while making sure the opposition is not completely destroyed, so that it can periodically resurface to check the ruler’s power. “Balance of power is very important in this world,” they repeatedly say. “Fire should always be afraid of water.”Even as Srinivasan has moved towards absolute power, streamrolling the opposition, winning the unstinting loyalty of a majority, and possibly planning another stint as BCCI president through two east-zone allies – Ranjib Biswal, the IPL chairman, and Chaudhury, the representative of what once was Bihar – the circumstances, those witches, have left open one door: the CAB’s court cases. There is a high chance now that the balance of power might be restored. The cleaning up of cricket, if it happens, might be incidental.

ESPNcricinfo presents the plays of the day from the match between Netherlands and New Zealand

Alan Gardner in Chittagong29-Mar-2014The milestoneBrendon McCullum has lost two Twenty20 records in the last year, his international and domestic high scores overtaken by Aaron Finch and Chris Gayle. But there is one milestone that looks like being his for a long while to come, as McCullum became the first batsman to score 2000 international T20 runs. He is around 600 clear of the next best, Mahela Jayawardene, who is retiring at the end of the tournament, and at 32 years old, he should have the opportunity to pile up booty for some time to come.The steady startIn their five previous matches, Netherlands had finished the batting Powerplay with the following scores: 63 for 1 (against South Africa); 15 for 4 (Sri Lanka); 91 for 1 (Ireland); 38 for 4 (Zimbabwe); and 67 for 0 (UAE). Peter Borren has called for more consistency and responsibility from his top order and the openers, Stephan Myburgh and Michael Swart, appeared to have taken that on board. Myburgh’s strike rate was just 69.56 when he fell in the sixth over, as Netherlands ended the Powerplay on a relatively sedate 37 for 1.The fumbleWhen Borren hesitated after pushing a Nathan McCullum delivery short into the off side, it should have been the end of him. Luke Ronchi nipped forward from behind the stumps and threw to McCullum, standing ready to complete the dismissal at the other end. Borren hadn’t even begun to throw himself for the line when the ball arrived, only for it to bounce off McCullum’s wrist and pinball out from his grasp, giving the batsman time to scramble home.The limitJimmy Neesham managed to concede just one run off the penultimate over, bowling a series of wide deliveries that got about as cosy to the return crease as possible. Ben Cooper left the second ball of the over but went after the next three, failing to get bat on ball as Neesham pitched full and wide. The final delivery, as Cooper moved across to try and get closer to the line, Neesham sent a couple of inches past leg stump. All of which appeared to be to the satisfaction of the standing umpire Bruce Oxenford.The warm-upThis was another sweltering day for those outside in the sun at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium but professional sportsmen can’t just lounge around and hope the heat will seep through into their muscles. Logan van Beek, perhaps expecting to be promoted up the order for a dash, spent a few minutes jumping over a skipping rope by the boundary boards before returning to sit in the shade.The reunionVan Beek was born in New Zealand, played for the Under-19s team before switching allegiance and turns out for Canterbury in the Plunket Shield. He didn’t get to bowl to Corey Anderson or Neesham, team-mates at the 2010 U-19 World Cup, but did pick up one of us countrymen, Kane Williamson, in his first over.