The Surfer
The coach shouldn't come free
It has been three months since Andy Moles was sacked as New Zealand coach and his replacement is still nowhere in sight
Kanishkaa Balachandran
25-Feb-2013
It has been three months since Andy Moles was sacked as New Zealand coach and his replacement is still nowhere in sight. Mark Richardson, in the Herald on Sunday, feels that if the players should be given a major say in the kind of coach they want, they should share the cost as well.
It's unlikely, I know. But they are independent contractors, are they not? They seem to be able to make decisions over where they play, who they play for and what they play and now they want the say on who coaches them.
In the same paper, Paul Lewis fears that when Australia arrive, there will be no coach, nor team director, psychic, horse whisperer or whoever it is New Zealand Cricket is trying to get. Daniel Vettori will continue to call the shots and it's hard to say if John Wright's the ideal man for the job.
There's just one thing. Who minds the minders? When it all goes pear-shaped and the wheels fall off and all the other disastrous cliches start to apply ... what will Vettori do? Will he ditch trusted lieutenants? Will the hard decisions be taken or will he circle the wagons?
New Zealand's four-point plan to counter Australia
How can New Zealand win a test against Australia next month
Judhajit
25-Feb-2013
How can New Zealand win a test against Australia next month? Finding another bowler, reinforcing the top order, nabbing Shane Watson and Daniel Vettori's dual role are on Andrew Alderson's four-point plan. Read on in the Herald on Sunday.
Full postCoping with despair
Yet another Test series against Australia has seen Pakistan swept cleanly aside and many people have announced they will stop following Pakistan cricket forthwith
Jamie Alter
25-Feb-2013
Yet another Test series against Australia has seen Pakistan swept cleanly aside and many people have announced they will stop following Pakistan cricket forthwith. You can't blame them, writes Saad Shafqat in the Dawn, because frustrations have to be vented somehow, and one does what one can.
Full postUltimately, the failure in Australia is Mohammad Yousuf’s to own. He was the best batsman and the captain but he wilted. Even schoolboy captains would not have set the defeatist field that he configured on that fateful fourth morning in Sydney. Yousuf may be capable of the most silken and sublime batting strokes, but as a leader he is simply not good enough.
Trading secrets with the enemy
Jamie Alter
25-Feb-2013
The Ashes are 11 months away, but a buzz is gathering in Australia. The Sydney Morning Herald looks at how over the past 10 years, about half of the players likely to represent England in the 2010 Ashes series have padded up for Australian club sides. Most were as good, if not better, at socialising than playing cricket. But they each had a good attitude, made plenty of friends and learnt a thing or two about playing cricket in Australia.
Pietersen joined the club [Sydney University CC] through connections with Greg Matthews. He played 14 games and, although he had not played for England yet, was dominant, scoring 785 runs at an average of 56. Club official and player James Rodgers said Pietersen was ''quite obviously a Test player of the future''.
As with most 18-year-olds, drama followed Cook during his time in Perth. The day before one game, he joined friends for a trip to Rottnest Island, fell off his bike and suffered a big gash to his leg. Rather than pull out of the game, he battled on and, batting at No.8, scored a few runs to help salvage a draw. A few days before his stint, he was snapped by a speed camera, but didn't pay the penalty. He received reminders for two years afterwards.
Full postUDRS has avoided obvious blunders
England’s grizzles about the umpire Umpire Decision Review System (UDRS) are wide of the mark
George Binoy
25-Feb-2013
England’s grizzles about the umpire Umpire Decision Review System (UDRS) are wide of the mark. Likewise Mark Benson’s hasty withdrawal after the first day of the Adelaide Test was self-indulgent. Darrell Hair’s outburst about the betrayal of umpires was hot-headed, writes Peter roebuck in the Hindu.
Six Tests in Australia were enough to confirm the value of the new-fangled system. Of course it is a work in progress. Especially in these early seasons, third umpires can make mistakes. For that matter the replays and sounds are often inconclusive. Third umpires are obliged to act quickly so that the game can go on.
What sets the Mumbai player apart?
Makarand Waingkankar, writing in the Times of India , explains why Mumbai remain virtually invincible in the domestic circuit
Siddhartha Talya
25-Feb-2013
Makarand Waingkankar, writing in the Times of India, explains why Mumbai remain virtually invincible in the domestic circuit. The trials and tribulations of daily life, he says, is a huge factor contributing to their mental toughness and the stubbornness that has characterised their approach to the game for many years.
Everyone who’s ever heard of train travails in Mumbai knows it’s a survival game in itself: you have to board the train in barely a few seconds even as hundreds are trying to get in; you have to jostle for leg room inside, where there is no place even to plant your feet; more importantly, you have to make sure you are not thrown out of the moving train by the rush of humanity. Prithvi, and many such kids, have to undergo this battle everyday, with a huge kit-bag in tow.
It’s this type of travelling that makes a Mumbai cricketer mentally tough. Vijay Merchant may have initiated the monsoon league to prepare the player for all the vagaries of weather and pitch; but even he wouldn’t understand the kind of impact it had on the psyche of the aspiring youngster. There are times when scores of boys start early in the morning, from far-flung Dahanu, Boisar or Kalyan, to play in the Kanga League; they leave in bright sunshine but by afternoon incessant rains bring the city to a halt and disrupt the train services too. The boys have to trek all the way back home... on foot.
Karnataka's Abhimanyu Mithun and Manish Pandey are the two players to watch out for in the years to come, says Satish Viswanathan in the same newspaper. But their rise is a study of contrasts.
Full postIPL stoking crass nationalism
Siddhartha Talya
25-Feb-2013
Pradeep Magazine, in the Hindustan Times, says it was insensitive on the part of the IPL and the franchises to put the Pakistan players on the auction list but then ignore them. The strong protests in Pakistan have gone further in intensifying the differences and bode poorly for relations between the two countries and the game itself.
The Pioneer's Ashok Malik believes there are two ways of looking at the decision of the eight franchises to not bid for a single Pakistani cricketer. The first is to resort to the old cliché that “sports and politics must not mix”. The second is to consider a broader phenomenon - the increasing role of Indian business in both shaping and reflecting foreign policy and its concerns.
Full postAfridi has had a blast in Adelaide
While Pakistan were busy making a meal of the Test series in Australia, in the same country Shahid Afridi has been dining out royally — on both the cricket and local hospitality, writes Jenny Roesler in the Dawn .
George Binoy
25-Feb-2013
While Pakistan were busy making a meal of the Test series in Australia, in the same country Shahid Afridi has been dining out royally — on both the cricket and local hospitality, writes Jenny Roesler in the Dawn.
In the grip of a heatwave, Adelaide has caught Afridi fever. Home games have sold out and he has been swamped at practice with dining invitations from the local community, which have included lavish 10-course meals at strangers’ homes.
When out and about relaxing, however, the public have otherwise only offered him the occasional nod, wave or handshake upon recognition. Used to being mobbed in Pakistan, India and England, for Afridi it is a change to be able to sit in a cafe or buy his favourite Armani gear in peace.
Full postGuilty pleasure of the cave-dwelling heretic
Jamie Alter
25-Feb-2013
To admit even a slight tolerance for Twenty20 is, in these leather arm-patched circles, a sporting heresy, says Richards Hinds in the Age. Worse, it makes you susceptible to the type of snobbish social stereotyping that will have your accusers wondering if you also harbour an opinion on the long-running Holden versus Ford dispute. But at the risk of never being invited to imbibe port in the member's dining room again, Hendricks is willing to admit it.
As the wise men of the game's establishment - even those who would rather be dragged by their MCC egg and bacon ties along cobblestoned streets than perform the Mexican wave - have observed, Twenty20 is not the death of Test cricket but potentially, its saviour. In the same way children learn skills through modified forms of the game, many enticed by the thrash-and-dash appeal of even-more-limited-over cricket will then gravitate to Test cricket.
Former international player Adam Parore, writing in the New Zealand Herald, says he expects IPL-type tournaments to sprout round the globe because they are the moneyspinners and right now the more of them the merrier.
Full postInternational cricket will go the same way as international soccer and league. That is, country v country cricket will still be played, but I see the sport becoming increasingly dominated by franchises or clubs, in the same way soccer and league are. Put it this way: you see England or Brazil play perhaps 10 or 12 soccer internationals a year; but you can watch their best players turn out 40 or 50 times for Real Madrid or Chelsea. And look for a change in attitude from the leading players.
The growth of Virender Sehwag
The emergence and evolution of Virender Sehwag as a batsman is the stuff of dreams
Nitin Sundar
25-Feb-2013
The emergence and evolution of Virender Sehwag as a batsman is the stuff of dreams. Pradeep Magazine interviews the dasher from Najafgarh in the Hindustan Times, where he recalls his earliest memories, his family's emigration closer to Delhi and other events that shaped his destiny.
The oldest memory Virender Sehwag has of his childhood is a borrowed one. “My mother tells me that when I was one or two years old, I would calm down once a bat or a ball was given to me. I would cry for hours if my wish was not fulfilled,” he says.
In Sehwag’s narration of his mother’s memory, lies a belief that he may have been destiny’s child, born to dominate the cricketing world one day.
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