Different Strokes (old)
A forgotten duel, and anecdotelessness of ex-players
Javagal Srinath
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
Javagal Srinath. Nasser Hussain. Names that may perhaps induce some cricket lovers from England and India to sift through their memory bank for glimpses of the 1996 series between India and England, the one that launched Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid in Test cricket amongst four other rookies.
None will vote for this series if it were to compete for the ‘greatest ever’ tag. Nevertheless it featured some memorable moments of attritional cricket. Most of it happened in the decisive 1st Test of the series through a duel between Hussain and Srinath. Hussain was on a comeback and showed no inclination to let go of his chance to book a long run in the England side. Srinath approached his peak as a fast bowler.
When the Indian batsmen capitulated in the 1st innings, Srinath guided the total past 200 with a useful lower order 50. More importantly, he followed it up with probing spells in tandem with the impressive Prasad. Most English batsmen struggled against the Indian seamers, particularly Srinath and his mix of inswingers and straight ones.
Hussain came in early and found himself separating Srinath from an English collapse. The gangly Bangalorean saw his chance and greeted Hussain with his full bag of tricks. Ball engaged bat in a fascinating contest till a leg side caught behind decision went against Srinath with the Hussain innings still at a nascent stage.
Full postThe Gold Rush
A young fast bowler (YFB) enters an interview hall
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
A young fast bowler (YFB) enters an interview hall. YOS, off-spinning mate from his state team, crosses him at the door. Some batsmen are seen exchanging heated words with security personnel at the gate. A banner outside the hall reads "Recruitment of bowlers for Indian Test team". A few good men (FGM) are waiting. They stop shaking their heads and face him.
FGM-1: I must say that you look impressive, boy. Tell us what you can do for the team.
YFB: (clears throat) Good morning gentlemen. I came across your newspaper ad for this walk-in. Sir I am a fast bowler. After working up a rhythm I bowl at a pace that batsmen do not relish. I own a deceptive slower, a kicking-off-good-length bouncer and an accurate yorker. I mix all of these weapons sparingly and generally stick to an off stump line.
FGM-2: Anything more?
Full postTender treatment
If the cricketing nations of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh were a design company looking to bid on a printing contract for a multinational organisation, they would by now have been told to pack up their printing press and hit the road.
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
If the cricketing nations of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh were a design company looking to bid on a printing contract for a multinational organisation, they would by now have been told to pack up their printing press and hit the road.
But the ICC is not your everyday multinational and this is cricket not commerce, meaning the World Cup 2011 bid submitted by the Asian nations has been generously allowed to remain in contention despite falling foul of the guidelines generated by the ICC.
The first deadline was missed altogether so the ICC created a second deadline for the four countries to submit a proposal. This new second deadline was met; however the content of the proposal was non-complying in several key areas and therefore could not be considered.
One of the bid guidelines created by the ICC concerned the maximum number of venues to be used in the competition. They stipulated that 15 should be the absolute limit. In their wisdom, the Asian bid ignored this seemingly straightforward condition and suggested within their bid proposal a whopping 37 different venues across the four countries to be used.
Full postWaiting for GOTOT
No it is not a typo
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
No it is not a typo. It is not meant to be Godot, but GOTOT.
Waiting for Godot is a play by Samuel Beckett about two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, waiting for someone named Godot. Who exactly Godot is, why they want to meet him, etc is never revealed. The repititive plot just has the two tramps conversing, and waiting for Godot, who incidentally, never turns up.
Waiting for GOTOT is a "play" that has been in progress for almost 17 years now. GOTOT stands for "Grand Outstanding Tendulkar-Owned Test".
For years, Tendulkar's fans have been waiting for him to decisively and unarguably stamp his authority on a test match, a test match which will forever be remembered as his own. Several batsmen in the Indian time have "owned" their own test matches.
Full postThe Pitch!
Lost in the din of Dravid's wrong toss and the Tendulkar Boo-Boo is a story no one has paid any attention towards - the Wankhede pitch
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
Lost in the din of Dravid's wrong toss and the Tendulkar Boo-Boo is a story no one has paid any attention towards - the Wankhede pitch. The previous test match at Wankhede lasted barely two days, and a pitch which would have made minefields look like beach resorts was held responsible.
This time though, the pitch has made absolutely no news....and that in itself is good news. The Wankhede ground staff has gone a fair distance towards redeeming itself after the 2004 nightmare.
The pitch had a grassy look to it on the first morning, tricking Dravid into electing to field. Though the Indians picked only 3 wickets, it must be said that the pitch had bounce, and the bounce persists even now on day 4. The English seamers were able to get bounce and movement off the seam and reduced India to a mess. But once a batsman played himself in, he was able to play quite comfortably and only a rash shot or bad luck would dismiss him as Dhoni, Pathan, Yuvraj and Dravid would testify.
Day three onwards the pitch has deteriorated a bit and the roughs have formed, but the surprising bounce persists, and the pitch is well suited for a bat-vs-ball contest. As I write this post, England are all out towards the end of Day 4 and India will be chasing 313 at a runrate of around 3.
Full post'Even contest' grounds
Australia score 434 in fifty overs at Johannesburg and South Africa hunt them down with a wicket and a delivery to spare
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
Australia score 434 in fifty overs at Johannesburg and South Africa hunt them down with a wicket and a delivery to spare. Thrilling indeed - because they made a match of it as the script progressed, because none dared guess the result till it came.
Sri Lanka struggle to 130 all out against Pakistan at the Premadasa in the 2nd ODI and then hit back to have their opponents at 82/6. They made a match of it too.
We all loved the matches - the 872 one, and the 264 one too. Yet so few will put their hands up if asked to say a few words in praise of the groundsmen of those pitches. "It was not a fair pitch", the common refrain. These people, the groundsmen, have the only job on the ground that is more thankless than the wicketkeeper's.
What is a fair pitch? Limiting the scope of discussion to a one-day match, curators prepare one-day pitches for both teams to play on them for just one day. The surface may be a spinners delight, a paceman's dream or a batsman's paradise, as their administrators legitimately or otherwise want it to be. They just follow the orders. The weather and local factors also play a big part in their craft just as the ambient moisture does to Hoggard's. Their main duty to the one-day sport then is merely ensuring that the surface, of whatever nature, plays more or less the same for that one day. In other words, play fair.
Full postBring the left handers up the order
A player making his 100th Test appearance can expect a few lines to be written in praise of him
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
A player making his 100th Test appearance can expect a few lines to be written in praise of him. Rahul Dravid already got more than his fair share of it. I saw no harm in doing the ‘in’ thing and put up a piece about his current assignment as Indian skipper. That was a sucker and I got completely off the topic thereon. On second thoughts the current duscussion on one of his major concerns befits the occasion better than a retrospect of past laurels of a man who never finds the time or inclination to rest on them.
The Indian top order collapse in the Nagpur Test was alarming - less for the occurrence and more for its familiarity. We have now seen one such in all but one of the Test matches since Dravid took over - and that includes the 1st Test of the Sri Lanka series where play started on 4th day. Stats will tell you that India have lost only one of the eight Tests (the ongoing one is excluded) but fortunately for Dravid his team has pulled off more rearguards in the past three series than skipper Tendulkar had seen in the two tenures he served at the helm.
A great many of these fightbacks featured left-handed bats in starring roles. Cricket pundits have long argued that the batting is a lesser rigour for those who show the other half of their persona to the bowlers. Dravid’s team does nothing to rubbish this one-eyed stance on left-handed batsmen.
Even the now-untouchable Sourav Ganguly produced no less than four 80 plus partnerships (two of them over hundred - surely a rarity these days with the Indians) in the five innings he played under Dravid’s stewardship. Pathan and Yuvraj contributed their valuable bits in both series against Sri Lanka and Pakistan following top order failures. Pathan did it again in a decisive knock versus England at Mohali.
Full postWhere did all the quicks go?
If I say “Golden Arches”, you think “McDonalds”
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
If I say “Golden Arches”, you think “McDonalds”. If I say “Bill Clinton’s cigar”, you think…..well, you get the idea.
Unfortunately, if I say “West Indies”, you are unlikely these days to think “4 frightening quicks” and the reason is painfully obvious when you watch their pitiful performances of late.
New Zealand have just wrapped up the second Test and thus the series inside four, weather interrupted days and as I watched Ian Bradshaw open the bowling with his medium pace dibbly-dobblers, I realised that West Indian cricket is not just in bad shape, it is positively insulting its ancestry.
The history of great fast bowling in the Caribbean dates back to well before the West Indian domination of the 1980’s. Great fast bowlers have emerged from the Caribbean like coffee from Colombia. A seemingly endless supply of talent with each generation. Except this one.
Full postKicking a dog when he’s down
It seems a fashionable moment in time to be having a crack at England
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
It seems a fashionable moment in time to be having a crack at England. Sir Viv Richards has proclaimed the criteria for “greatness” (and to be fair, he’s one of only a handful of people that can get away with doing so) and has found England wanting.
John Stern has calculated that on current form England are probably the fourth ranked team in the world and despite England’s second placing in the ICC Test Championship table, he’s probably right. There is a lag in the table that masks England's undeniable slippage.
By their own performance measurements too, England are way down in the belly of the doldrums. Immediately following the Ashes victory, the England camp announced that their goal was to beat every team in the world over the following 2 years. England’s record since they announced this goal; played 5, lost 3, drawn 2. Injury woes aside, it makes unattractive reading for an England fan.
As fans though, do we really (come on now, really) care. We’re midway between two Ashes campaigns and whatever England do or don’t do against Sri Lanka, Pakistan and in the ICC Champions Trophy, I sense that all will be forgiven if the little urn is retained in Australia. And isn’t that still the Holy Grail? Yeah, of course it is.
Full postStuff that sticks
Poor old Mick Lewis
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
Poor old Mick Lewis. None for 113 is the worst ever bowling performance in a one day international. That kind of statistic has a habit of sticking to a player like a teenage girl to a Kevin Pietersen fan site.
Some players are lucky enough to be remembered for the highlights of their careers, whilst others get to be remembered for spectacular failures. Lewis is the first bowler to make a century in a one day international (although Murali came close with a 99) and I wonder whether he will be able to shake the mantle of ‘most expensive bowler’?
Australian selectors are not known for leniency and I would be surprised if Australia’s inability to protect a world record score does not yield a casualty.
With captain Ricky Ponting already talking about scars from that game, Lewis may well be in the firing line.
Full post