The Surfer
Domestic help needed
The thrilling Ranji Trophy final between Mumbai and Karnataka would perhaps have been spicier with the availability of the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan, Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid
Judhajit
25-Feb-2013
The thrilling Ranji Trophy final between Mumbai and Karnataka would perhaps have been spicier with the availability of the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan, Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid. The absence of the best players reduced the opportunity to test upcoming talent against experience, leaving their performances open to scrutiny. Writing in Outlook magazine, Rohit Mahajan feels the tournament cramps players, and that Indian domestic cricket needs a refit.
Travel isn’t a joy ever since the Ranji Trophy was converted into a two-tier event. Earlier, neighbouring teams from a zone would compete with each other to qualify for the national level, logging in fewer travel miles. Now, the Elite and Plate divisions separate the top teams from the whipping boys, but it involves tiring journeys across the country—for instance, Punjab could be playing Tamil Nadu in Chennai and then sprinting back home for the next match.
Rahul Dravid proposes the reduction of one or two domestic tournaments, to help space out the crammed Ranji schedule - just one of the suggestions he mentions, while talking about how things could improve in the premier competition. Read the full interview in the same magazine.
Full postEngland's winners and losers in South Africa
Andy Bull, in his blog The Spin in the Guardian , rates England's players in the recently concluded series against South Africa
Siddhartha Talya
25-Feb-2013
Andy Bull, in his blog The Spin in the Guardian, rates England's players in the recently concluded series against South Africa. Alastair Cook, Graeme Swann and Ian Bell are among the star performers while Kevin Pietersen and Ryan Sidebottom take a step backwards.
Kevin Pietersen
It is easy to forget that Pietersen's 81 at Centurion had everyone waxing lyrical. Maybe he was knocked out of his stride by the idiotic run-out that cut that innings short, but the talk of his slump in form which had dogged him ever since his first innings on the tour seemed to become a self-fulfilling prophecy
Lawrence Booth, in his blog Top Spin in the Daily Mail, sums up the England side after their 1-1 draw in South Africa - a decent side with the priceless ability to punch above their weight and the occasional tendency to fall flat on the canvas after neglecting to tie up their shoelaces.
Full postMorgan confirms growing reputation
The US$220,000 bid for batsman and occasional wicketkeeper Eoin Morgan, the only England player to be sold in the IPL auction, is a sign of the rapid strides he's made in international cricket, writes David Clough in the Independent .
Siddhartha Talya
25-Feb-2013
The US$220,000 bid for batsman and occasional wicketkeeper Eoin Morgan, the only England player to be sold in the IPL auction, is a sign of the rapid strides he's made in international cricket, writes David Clough in the Independent.
The 23-year-old Morgan's 67 from just 34 balls as England knocked South Africa out of their own Champions Trophy last September was doubtless the innings which alerted the money men at the IPL to his potential.
Many others already knew, of course, that – despite a meagre first-class average – Morgan was going places.
Read Dileep Premachandran's take on the IPL auctions in the Guardian. The story of the day was the franchises' snub of the Pakistani players; a decision based on political realities than on form.
Full postPietersen has been irresponsible and extravagant
Jamie Alter
25-Feb-2013
Andy Flower and Andrew Strauss should be embarrassed about England's display at the Wanderers, writes Geoffrey Boycott in the Daily Telegraph. There's no shame in getting beaten: it's how you lose that matters.
I get the feeling that Flower and his staff believe Pietersen is untouchable. He shouldn't be, because the only thing that matters is whether you can get runs and wickets. If you can't, you should make way for somebody else.
I have always been a great admirer of Kevin, and I still think he is one of the most talented batsmen in the world. The fact is, though, that he has struggled since he came back from his three-month injury break. His whole approach has been wildly off the mark. He has only faced about 350 balls in the series, because he starts playing irresponsibly and extravagantly from the first ball.
Full postDiverse in style, Indian openers a hit
Jamie Alter
25-Feb-2013
The Hindustan Times' Anand Vasu speaks to another Indian pair making a noise in New Zealand, and this time it is the opening pair of Rahul Kannaur and Mayank Agarwal. Both Bangalore boys, one has modelled his game on Virender Sehwag and the other idolises Rahul Dravid.
"It's great to be compared to the player you've looked up to all your life," says Kannaur, even speaking a language that's uncannily similar to his idol. "I think of it as an honour to be compared to one of the best players India has ever produced."
"The timing and aggression are a gift I've been given by God," says Agarwal.
Full postStrauss wise to skip Bangladesh tour
Andrew Strauss's decision to skip the Bangladesh tour raised a few eyebrows, but he has a firm backer in Mike Selvey, who writes that the decision is justified after an exhausting year
Kanishkaa Balachandran
25-Feb-2013
Andrew Strauss's decision to skip the Bangladesh tour raised a few eyebrows, but he has a firm backer in Mike Selvey, who writes that the decision is justified after an exhausting year. He also backs Alastair Cook's appointment in the interim. Read on in the Guardian.
He is jaded: not close to cracking up, but sufficiently so to lend an impression that the calm common sense that characterises him could give way to a simmering anger at the slightest thing. Only in his first innings of the series, when he trail-blazed the forthright approach he wished his side to follow and in so doing pretty much put the lid on the career of Makhaya Ntini, was he approaching his best.
In the Times, Michael Atherton disagrees and says that Strauss should not be resting, He also shares his views on the Test squad.
The selectors have been following Tredwell for a while now but his selection means England have two off spinners and that is not ideal. By all accounts Tredwell has really impressed in the nets and has looked dangerous, but from a captain's perspective it leaves England short of variety.
The Trott and KP conundrum
Kanishkaa Balachandran
25-Feb-2013
The heavy defeat at the Wanderers highlighted flaws in England's approach, but one of the biggest concerns through the series is the declining form of two players - Jonathan Trott and Kevin Pietersen, writes Duncan Fletcher in the Guardian. Fletcher points out flaws in Pietersen's technique and Trott's mental approach.
Firstly, he has been getting too low in his stance at the crease. He is bending his knees too much. In any game played with a moving ball, it is crucial to keep the head and the eyes still. In cricket a batsman needs to keep his gaze as parallel to the ground as possible. Because Pietersen is dropping so low, he has to rise up again as the ball is coming at him. His eyes are travelling in the opposite direction to the trajectory of the delivery, moving up as the ball is coming down. This is affecting his ability to properly judge line and length.
Ponting puts Australia on right path
Peter English
25-Feb-2013
Peter Roebuck believes Ricky Ponting can look back with satisfaction upon his team's performances this season. A side shattered by the Ashes defeat at The Oval, with poor selections and calamitous run-outs rubbing salt into the wound, might easily have gone awry, Roebuck writes in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Ponting is entitled to feel that most of the gaps have been filled. Australia has found its opening pair. A year ago, Shane Watson was a struggling player already with an unreliable body. Now he is a forthright opener and an adaptable seamer able to deliver probing stump-to-stump swingers of the sort that proved so effective at Bellerive.
Andrew Strauss gets it wrong
Jamie Alter
25-Feb-2013
David Gower, writing in the Sunday Times, believes England captain Andrew Strauss should definitely lead the side to Bangladesh after their South Africa tour ends. Bangladesh should not be treated as a glorified club team, and Gower does not think a hiatus helps the team dynamic.
Once you get the job, my view is that you stick at it. Those of us who have been sacked know that the England captaincy can be a precarious position. When you have achieved a position of some strength, as Strauss has with an Ashes win and a decent showing here in South Africa, you should be keen to improve things further. Apart from anything else, there are issues that still need to be resolved in this team.
Burn-outs and lucrative Twenty20 deals
Daniel Vettori’s appearance for the Twenty20 Big Bash in Australia despite a tight international and domestic schedule for New Zealand has led Michael Donaldson to believe there may be an element of hypocricy to the argument over packed schedules
Nitin Sundar
25-Feb-2013
Daniel Vettori’s appearance for the Twenty20 Big Bash in Australia despite a tight international and domestic schedule for New Zealand has led Michael Donaldson to believe there may be an element of hypocricy to the argument over packed schedules. Writing in Stuff.co.nz, Donaldson believes that “modern cricket is a massive pub crawl”.
Soon, it will be the other way around, players will be saying how much they'd like to play as much test cricket possible, as long as Twenty20 doesn't get in the way.
I have a lot of sympathy for the players. In their shoes, I'd do the same thing, and I bet most of us would. Who in their right mind would turn down extravagant sums of money for less work?
But these are the same players who cry foul when their travel and match schedules turn them zombies, carrying their coffins from one airport to the next. It's a burden when the ICC imposes it on them, but if it's in their own time, suddenly nothing is too hard.
Full postMost Read
Writers