The Heavy Ball
If it's summer, it must be England
Come July, old Blighty turns into a Pakistani outpost
Imran Yusuf
15-Jul-2011
Since that match, at The Oval in 1954, when Fazal Mahmood made the ball not just talk but sing Urdu ghazals, Pakistanis have loved it in the green and pleasant land. It must be the weather - as mercurial as the Pakistani cricket brain.
They're all here this summer: Gul, Wahab, Afridi, Ajmal, and the greatest Pakistani cricketer of all time, Rana Naved ul Hasan, a man so great he grew his hair back to shoulder length in an attempt to land the role of Conan the Barbarian in the new Hollywood remake.
Azhar Mahmood is still playing county cricket. He likes the place so much that he married a Brit and put down roots, following in the mighty footsteps of the divine Saqlain Mushtaq and the puny tracks of the more worldly Mohammad Akram. Inzy is also in the country, playing for the famous Lashings of Kent, perhaps inticed by the dictionary definition of the club's name: noun: a copious amount of something, esp. food.
Full postCook proves everyone wrong
Team-mates tell traumatic tales of the one-day captain's strange new behaviour
Alex Bowden
14-Jul-2011
The media were greatly impressed by Alastair Cook's batting during the recent one-day series against Sri Lanka. At first, his team-mates were too, but over time the changes in Cook started to rub people up the wrong way.
I interviewed a few of the players about what has happened to their new one-day captain over the last few weeks. Understandably, given what follows, none wished to be named.
Player A described how Cook had developed a taste for proving people wrong.
Full postFan gets joy out of waving placards
Former banker tells of how holding up signs for fours and sixes has been a liberating experience
R Rajkumar
12-Jul-2011
Martin Ledbetter, a nondescript ODI fan, spoke yesterday of the unbounded joy and sense of achievement he feels holding up the right plastic placard after a batsman has hit a four or a six. Mr Ledbetter, who otherwise works as a banker in Canary Wharf, admitted that the brightly coloured placards with the large white numbers printed on them are the main reason he goes to watch cricket.
"It's a power trip like none other, mate," Mr Ledbetter said between overs during a recently concluded limited-overs encounter between England and Sri Lanka. "Imagine the scenario. A batsman hits a four. What are you going to do?" he asked rhetorically, before reaching down between his legs and pulling a placard out from under his seat.
"Take a guess at what number I have here," he said, showing this correspondent only the back of the placard in his hand. "It's a four, silly!" he squealed happily as he turned the piece of plastic around to display what was, indeed, the number four.
Full postWhere have all the quick bowlers gone?
It's a smear on the good name of Venkatesh Prasad that India haven't produced any top-class fast men recently
Amrith Rajasekaran
08-Jul-2011
I was watching this documentary called Fire in Babylon, about the West Indies cricket team of the '70s and '80s. Apart from the focus on cricket, it also looked at the influence of the cricket team on West Indian culture. The thing that struck me most, though, was the fast bowling. I watched footage of Lillee and Thomson destroying West Indies, and then of Marshall, Holding, Garner, Croft and Roberts obliterating everyone.
I then switched on Ten Cricket, and the West Indies innings had just begun. Praveen Kumar opened the bowling for India. "Right-arm fast-medium", said the graphic. Okay. If you say so.
An avid India fan, I grew up in the late '90s and early 2000s on a staple diet of bone-crunching, short-pitched, toe-breaking yorker bowling by speed demons like Venkatesh Prasad, Dodda Ganesh and, of course, Anil Kumble. And now there is Praveen Kumar. And Munaf Patel. Sigh.
Full postEnforce your bowling average, Stu
Broady as England's tough guy? We'll pass, thanks
Alan Tyers
07-Jul-2011
There is a lot of silliness talked about cricket. For every speech from the admirable polymath Kumar Sangakkara there are a thousand marketing directives, meetings about World Cup formats and tweets from Australian one-day players. But in the pantheon of preposterousness, surely nothing can touch the description of Stuart Broad as England's "Enforcer".
The Enforcer was an excellent title for the mid-seventies Dirty Harry film. It might be a very good brand name for a tough detergent. And beyond any reasonable doubt, somewhere in New Jersey or Naples or Shipton-under-Wychwood, a mid-ranking mafioso is bashing up low-raking mafiosi for their dinner money and numbers-racket takings while they cry, "Please, not my face, Mister Enforcer."
However, other than the irritant qualities he shares with bleach, nothing about Stuart Broad puts him in the same category as these. As his search for a wicket grows ever more frustrating, the title hangs around his neck like an ironic albatross, every untidy none-fer and northward click on the bowling average cawing, "Enforce that" in mocking glee.
Full postTwitter bunfight. Sweet azz
Never-before-seen tweets from the West Indies reveal what really goes on when the WIPA and the cricket board sit down to discuss their issues
R Rajkumar
04-Jul-2011
While Chris Gayle, the WICB and the WIPA have been threatening to ruin everyone's fun with the irksome noises of conciliation they have been making of late, it might yet be worth looking back at the last meeting that was held between the various warring factions.
Especially since ESPNcricinfo has, through exclusive arrangement with periodic contributor Julian Assange (who intermittently takes refuge from the Swedish government in various cricket grounds where an India-Sri Lanka fixture is being played - "the last place anybody will think to find me, mate, or anyone else for that matter") received the transcript of a series of rabid tweets that issued from some of the people involved in that now infamous meeting.
The tweets, now deleted by the respective parties involved, are believed to have been exhumed and sent to Mr Assange by one of his embedded moles at Twitter, "in the interests of serving the greater public interest and its monstrous, insatiable appetite for scandal, bloody scandal".
Full postThe Modi and Mody show
It's that Machiavellian man again. And Taylor's all excited about taking over
Amrith Rajasekaran
30-Jun-2011
In an astonishing display of bravado, openness and poor spelling, Lalit Modi has revealed on Twitter the nitty-gritty of how the BCCI systematically brought down the ICL. He started off by saying that the BCCI arm-twisted every cricket board and the ICC to change there constitution, and added that cricket associations were told not to give there grounds for fear of loosing international matches, and that he would reveal all on his website soon.
The BCCI responded to these allegations in its characteristic off-hand manner. "Hmmm..." BCCI president Shashank Manohar trailed off, going into his usual semi-sleepy-highly-disinterested state. "This is just a classic case of Lalit Modi trying to promote his blog. And what is all this nonsense about arm-twisting? It's nothing new. Arm-twisting is legal, actually. See the ICC rule book. Up to 15 degrees, arm-twisting is allowed. Only beyond that, an umpire can call a bowler for a no-ball."
In similar news, Himanshu Mody, the business head of Zee Sports, which ran the ICL, has said the league could be revived "if everything falls in place". He also said that he was waiting for Lalit Modi to reveal more.
Full postWhat, no runners?
Bring them back at once for comedy's sake
Alex Bowden
28-Jun-2011
The ICC has concluded that the game will be better off without batsmen being able to make use of runners. I, for one, heartily disagree with this assessment and call on them to reverse their decision immediately.
For me, the runner is a key part of this noble sport. It is a game played by professionals, but the arrival of a runner can always be relied upon to inject a welcome note of amateurish slapstick into proceedings. Not only that, the aftermath tends to see breathtaking tantrums and bitter disagreements between team-mates that persist for many years. What's not to love?
It seems so simple. Batsman A can run. Batsman B can't, and so employs Batsman C to do so on his behalf. Yet it always goes wrong. Always. If you disagree with that statement, I have a graph here on my desk that proves that it does. Graphs do not lie.
Full postHow I made the DRS wonderful
The author submits a modest proposal regarding the use of technology in cricket, thereby answering one of the game's most vexed questions
Sidin Vadukut
27-Jun-2011
Over the past weeks cricket has been racked by a scandal that goes to the very heart of the matter. It is an issue that threatens to weaken the foundations of this great game, and unleash unprecedented discord amongst the world's cricketing fraternity. And that scandal is this:
Where are the East Indies? What do people play there?
But we will leave that debate, discussion and investigation for another day. Instead today let us talk about the second-most important scandal in international cricket. Namely:
Full postThe BCCI decides to oppose the BCCI
Indian board says it will work against itself since it is not perfect
Andrew Fernando
24-Jun-2011
In a move to become consistent with their overall rationale, the BCCI said today that it would oppose the BCCI because the BCCI isn't 100% error-free. The BCCI cited the BCCI's sometimes irrational opposition of developments in cricket as one of the primary reasons the BCCI will irrationally oppose the BCCI.
"We realise that by opposing the BCCI, we are being counter-productive and therefore less perfect," said an official of the board. "But by opposing the BCCI, we are being consistent in our opposition of things that are not 100% error-free, which in turn means we are closer to perfection.
"It was kind of a Catch 22 for us and this is the way we decided to swing."
Full post