Different Strokes (old)
The supremely light feet of Suresh Raina
A great many batting artists of our age - Virender Sehwag, Damien Martyn, VVS Laxman - bat in a way that makes us admire the work of their hands rather than their feet
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
A great many batting artists of our age - Virender Sehwag, Damien Martyn, VVS Laxman - bat in a way that makes us admire the work of their hands rather than their feet. Batting was traditionally was thought to begin with, and indeed rest upon, a batsman's footwork. But the thickness and striking force of modern-day bats sometimes makes precise footwork redundant. Where ten years ago a batsman would push a good-length ball on the front foot to cover, he now stays put and flays the ball through point; even tail-enders now routinely manage this. It has been a pleasure, then, to watch the two splendid half-centuries made over the last week at Faridabad and at Goa by young Suresh Raina, and to observe how much his batting owes to his supremely light feet.
Unusually, the swiftness of Raina's footwork is visible less in his play to his spinners - although he is good here - than in two or three of his strokes to the quicker bowlers.
One is his drive on the up to seam bowling. Usually a batsman essaying this stroke makes a large stride forward to get his weight into the stroke "on the rise". Distinctively, Raina seems somehow to manages one-and-a-half steps instead of one - in getting forward he makes a delicious little shimmy that takes him a metre or two out of his crease in his follow-through. Thus he often converts length balls into drivable ones. This stroke, and his sumptuous cover-drive, are Raina's two most attractive strokes.
Full postInzi or Younis?
Two days ago Osman Samiuddin asked "Heart or head?"
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
Two days ago Osman Samiuddin asked "Heart or head?". A bit of both perhaps I thought. Because at heart, I'm a big fan of Inzamam. I can't perceive how any one cannot be. I adore the man, his batting, his understated, often cheeky sense of humor and laid back personality, I absolutely adore him for all this. But that kept aside, I do have some reservations, pretty serious ones at that, about his leadership style.
While Inzi's leadership style fulfils the requirement of a captain leading from the front (if you ignore his fielding, and I know this is tough, but just hypothetically speaking lets do it for a while), there is not much more he can to do inspire others than become, as Osman points out, the 3rd most successful batsman as captain, behind Don Bradman and Ricky Ponting.
Then there is also his "calming influence”, which one might argue has helped other players, players who were previously under performing, to stand tall at their heights. The likes of Shoaib Malik and Shahid Afridi for one have been on record saying their improved consistency in recent times late is in no small part down to the confidence "Inzi Bhai" has in them. I could well go and prove that almost each and every member of the team from Shoaib Akhtar to Mohammad Yousuf to his deputy Younis Khan him self and even the likes of Kamran Akmal have benefited from Inzi's leadership style, the same style that at times leads even the most die hard of Inzi fans like me to become some what skeptical.
After all, no one can possibly deny that there are serious questions marks over his tactical awareness, his blunders some times have cost Pakistan matches (in the ODIs against India) and at other times nearly done so (the 2nd test vs. NZ in 2003). In recent times Inzi has also shown a peculiar reluctance to go for the kill when he has his opposition on the book foot.
Full postNew Zealand's Mr Nearly
Domestic cricket is splattered with players that have flirted with an international career having never managed to turn the romance into a marriage.
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
Domestic cricket is splattered with players that have flirted with an international career having never managed to turn the romance into a marriage.
Matthew Sinclair, the Central Districts batsmen, is one of those players and he is currently contemplating an offer from Eastern Province in South Africa. If Sinclair accepts, he stands a reasonable chance of ending his sporadic one night stands with international cricket, at least while John Bracewell remains in charge.
Clearly there is more to Sinclair’s likelihood of playing for his country again than his form at domestic level. Form which has seen him proclaimed first class batsmen of the year at the recent NZ Cricket Awards.
Sinclair’s first obstacle is the selection policy of John Bracewell, which as observed by Andrew McLean would seem to favour persevering with new blood rather than recalling previous experiments.
Full postDarrell Hair receives death threats?
Just finished watching a news briefing on Geo, a local news channel, about tomorrow's second test at Kandy
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
Just finished watching a news briefing on Geo, a local news channel, about tomorrow's second test at Kandy. Darrell Hair was originally in line to stand in this test. He, as many of you might know, is famous or infamous rather, for his aversion to spinners. He no-balled Murali in a test in Melbourne. And given Kandy is Murali's home ground, him standing in this test with Murali in line to play was always going to create an interesting situation. But his unilaterall withdrawl from the test right on the eve of its start has prompted speculation on him having received death threats.
Geo's reporter said "inside sources" are suggesting Hair received a phone call from some one threatening to kill him if he dared stand in the test. Hair him self has not specified any reasons for his withdrawal as yet and Steve Davis has been drafted in as replacement, but it's a dangerous sign if these rumors are true. There ought to be no room for umpire intimidation in the sport. If indeed Hair was threatened, I hope the men or women who were behind this are brought to task.
Cross posted from Sundries
Full postOn the bowling of Ramesh Powar
Ramesh Powar is that rare thing: the genuinely slow bowler, someone whose bowling never quite "arrives"
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
Ramesh Powar is that rare thing: the genuinely slow bowler, someone whose bowling never quite "arrives". One knows that Powar is a tease even before he rolls his arm over: the substantial Powar waistline, the zany red Powar sunglasses, the glimmer of a Powar grin that appears on the ten-step Powar gambol to the wicket, all convey to the batsman the air of a seriously unserious cricketer having a bit of a lark. But there is no harm in all this. Spin bowling, after all, is basically about subterfuge.
But beneath the air of the court jester is a seriously good off-spin bowler. Powar's lack of speed (he bowls under 50 mph; as comparison, Harbhajan Singh bowls at around 55) has little to do with the speed of his arm and everything to do with how high he tosses the ball up. This makes it difficult to play him from the crease, not just because he gives you so little pace to work with but also because he gets bounce from flight.
Batsmen have to come down the pitch to "fetch" him, which is of course just what he wants (the dismissal of Andrew Flintoff today, stumped, was an example of how Powar exasperates batsmen). In the warm-up game at Jaipur last weekend, Powar bowled 10 overs for 35 for the Rajasthan President's XI. Twelve of these runs came from the two times batsmen succeeded in hitting him for six; from his other 58 deliveries, he conceded 23 runs; the batsmen were scarcely able to get him away at all.
At Faridabad today it was fascinating to watch his tussle with Kevin Pietersen, who possesses the most intimidating forward stride to spin bowling in international cricket today. Powar's tactic, as always, was the traditional spinner's gambit: to invite the drive by tossing the ball high and then beat the stroke by making it dip.
Full postLearn from thy neighbours...
I am quite an Afridi with the 'remote' in hand, checking out on every channel once every 15 minutes so as not to miss out on this great movie or that NatGeo / Discovery program or a cricket match that suddenly turned into a thrill-a-minute affair
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
I am quite an Afridi with the 'remote' in hand, checking out on every channel once every 15 minutes so as not to miss out on this great movie or that NatGeo / Discovery program or a cricket match that suddenly turned into a thrill-a-minute affair. You'll probably agree that it always is a sick feeling to learn next day from mocking pals with wide grins that you were in front of the television and yet missed out on 'the' event.
Not that the just-finished Pak-SL match turned any such brilliant corner at any stage on this 5th day. Yet my fingers insisted on taking a break every time I passed by it. It sure is a pleasure to see any cricket team, even your rivals, getting it right under pressure as the Pakistanis did today.
Former Indian Test cricketer and fielding great Yajurvindra Singh was asked to remove butter from fingers of our Test fielders in the pre-Test preparation camp. Surely neither Singh nor the person who thought of the idea is to be blamed for the catastrophic Indian fielding that followed in the Test matches. Maybe it is time for Dravid, Greg Chappell and BCCI to put on their 'constructive thinking' caps once again and summon Messrs. Inzy and co. to share a few words of wisdom with their Indian counterparts on the right mix of aggression and defence that constitutes fourth innings batting.
If you think of it, this Test match at Colombo's SSC ground went exactly the way of the Karachi Test a few months back. That is, till Pakistan showed why they are the best Test team in the sub-continent at the moment.
Full postCricket reporting made easy
Take a 5th day match report of Mumbai Test and perform the following precise operations:
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
Take a 5th day match report of Mumbai Test and perform the following precise operations:
Find 'Mumbai Test', replace with 'Delhi ODI'.
Find 'Dravid at the toss', replace with 'Flintoff at the toss'.
Find 'Yuvraj Singh', check for phrase 'bad match', replace with 'Owais Shah'.
Full postClearing the ropes from an armchair
"Hell
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
"Hell! He had just this one over to play and it would be tea."
Viewed from outside the boundary ropes, cricket can often be an easy game to play. Everything the players attempt on the field is but child's play to the majority of us watching from the stands, peeping at the internet scorecard, and gazing at the idiot box. We have seen ex-players failing the temptation to step into this armchair-critic mode.
"C'mon pal, you simply cannot afford to have such an ordinary yorker at this level."
England are 23/2 chasing India's 203 in the 1st ODI. How's this one for the barmy army to boo their dismissed batsmen?
Full postSomeone please teach Andre how to sledge
Whether you love it or loathe it, sledging is a part of the game
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
Whether you love it or loathe it, sledging is a part of the game. Some cricketers have carved slices of history out of classic sledges and others.....well....some others just don’t get it.
The first rule of sledging is “you don’t talk when you’re getting whipped”. The second rule of sledging is (in my best Brad Pitt voice) “you do not talk when you’re getting whipped.”
When Adam Gilchrist spanked Andre Nel for 22 in a single over, Graeme Smith should have given the yappy bowler a clip in the ear and told him to shut up. His incessant muttering only served to make him look foolish.
A bowler can sledge when a batsmen gets a lucky edged four. He can sledge when he bowls a brute of a bouncer that pings the helmet badge or a ripper that turns square. But when he’s getting thrashed about the park from the middle of the bat, it’s time to close trap and bowl better.
Full postWhy I love Inzi
In many ways Inzamam ul Haque epitomizes everything I love about cricket it self
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
In many ways Inzamam ul Haque epitomizes everything I love about cricket it self. So languor apparently, yet so exciting, at times so truly spectacular yet inherently so simple. Perhaps that’s precisely why Inzi’s been such a pillar of success and achievements; the intrinsic nature of the game complements his innate personality almost perfectly. I can’t for once imagine him being a sportsperson in another other capacity.
For starters, he never could have been that great on any individual sport, so that more or less automatically rules him out of possible careers in tennis, badminton, squash, or even long jump or golf for that matter. Everything about Inzi suggests he’s a team player: the large overbearing figure, the unkempt hair, the Hakuna Matata philosophy on which he seems to live on, each of these traits, one could argue, suggests a preoccupation with a greater purposes.
It suggests as much a simple lack of time to dwell on trivial matters like keeping his Body Mass Index in check or brushing his hair or get pressurized in a tricky situation, as much as it indicates of a particular paterfamilias sort of figure, who has a calming influence on his fraternity and that will remain like that come no matter what (although the odd three minute session in front of a mirror with a comb in hand could do no harm).
Perhaps also, individual sport would have been too self-centered for him, (how possibly could he survive a post match press conference without having to “thankzzz” every person in his back up staff, whatever the result of his match might have been, without referring to them as “boyzzz”).
Full post