The Surfer
County sides need time to recharge
The disappointing performances by Somerset and Sussex in the Champions League was only confirmation of the inferior standards of county cricket
Kanishkaa Balachandran
25-Feb-2013
The disappointing performances by Somerset and Sussex in the Champions League was only confirmation of the inferior standards of county cricket. This could reopen the idea of introducing the franchise system, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian. Next year, counties will hopefully prepare better.
The only English batsman to play with freedom and freshness was Wes Durston, who produced two cameos when he replaced Marcus Trescothick in the Somerset side. Durston had barely played a first-team game for Somerset throughout the 2009 season, yet he scored runs more effortlessly than anyone. Durston was fresh. The rest of the batsmen of Somerset and Sussex were jaded. And it showed. They doggedly searched for the magic elixir but there was nothing left to give on pitches that often negated easy strokeplay.
Andy Moles is on borrowed time
New Zealand coach Andy Moles may fly out with the squad to the UAE on Tuesday - depending on the state of negotiations - but he won't be around for much longer, writes David Leggat in the New Zealand Herald
Jamie Alter
25-Feb-2013
New Zealand coach Andy Moles may fly out with the squad to the UAE on Tuesday - depending on the state of negotiations - but he won't be around for much longer, writes David Leggat in the New Zealand Herald. It is understood the process is at a point where the two parties are settling on a number to pay out Moles for the remainder of his contract. Leggat believes there are three foreseeable options ...
Full postMoles walks away with a satisfactory payout, perhaps in the region of $300,000, and a short-term stand-in installed for the five limited-overs internationals against Pakistan. If a settlement is not reached, Moles goes to the UAE, on a "business as usual" basis. Or New Zealand could go to UAE with a manager, support staff and the players, with captain Dan Vettori carrying on in an enhanced leadership role.
How cricket became boring
Judhajit
25-Feb-2013
Cricket has reached a stage where even committed watchers don’t know which teams are playing, when they are playing, who’s playing for whom, and, because they’re playing all the time, why they are playing at all. Rahul Bhattacharya in his column in Mint believes the game has become an embarrassment of riches.
From an average of 12 Tests a year over the last eight years, India was down to three in 2009. There is nothing still confirmed for 2010, which is normal practice with the Indian board, but particularly worrisome in the new age. In March comes IPL 3, thereafter the World Twenty20. Perhaps it is a cunning strategy to prepare audiences for IPL 4, where 94 games are to be stuffed senseless into six weeks. Nausea.
The unkindest cut of them all
Did the Indian selectors value Rahul Dravid on his own merit or was he a stop-gap arrangement
Judhajit
25-Feb-2013
Did the Indian selectors value Rahul Dravid on his own merit or was he a stop-gap arrangement? Pradeep Magazine in his column in the Hindustan Times, believes the batsman's non-inclusion for the series against Australia has been grossly unfair.
Full postTime for Moles to walk away
Jonathan Millmow writes in the Dominion Post that Andy Moles needs to understand that his position has become untenable and must therefore resign as New Zealand's coach.
Brydon Coverdale
25-Feb-2013
Jonathan Millmow writes in the Dominion Post that Andy Moles needs to understand that his position has become untenable and must therefore resign as New Zealand's coach.
Mediation begins today and Moles needs to read the signals. He has the lost the dressing room and, no matter how great his love for the game, he must walk away, albeit with some sort of financial settlement.He was contracted through to the 2011 World Cup so, in the short term, should not be fumbling for a bus fare on a wet day.
What a disaster it will be if Moles digs his toes in and takes the team away next week for the one-day series against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi. What good can come of a setup where the coach can no longer speak with conviction? Why prolong the agony? A caretaker coach will not be hard to find among a cast of thousands at NZC.
NZC backed Moles yesterday but, with mediation 24 hours away, what else was it to do? Moles remains a competent coach but the floodlights and the big crowds have caught him out, much the way they do with an average first-class player.
Full postDravid a victim of whimsical hire and fire policy
By picking Rahul Dravid and then dropping him after two tours for no real justifiable reason, the Indian selectors are sending wrong and confused signals to the youngsters, that it is okay to play only in favourable conditions and that you don’t
Kanishkaa Balachandran
25-Feb-2013
By picking Rahul Dravid and then dropping him after two tours for no real justifiable reason, the Indian selectors are sending wrong and confused signals to the youngsters, that it is okay to play only in favourable conditions and that you don’t really need to learn how to play elsewhere, writes Harsha Bhogle in the Indian Express.
That is why Suresh Raina had to be number three in South Africa. But if indeed he was assessed and found inadequate, then he must bide his time. The future belongs to him, to Rohit Sharma, to Virat Kohli but for that these young men have to prove that they can play anywhere; like Dravid did, like Laxman and Ganguly did.
Ganga's T&T show how West Indies can heal their rifts
Caribbean cricket could splinter into individual nations if it does not learn from Trinidad & Tobago's spirited run in the inaugural Champions League Twenty20, writes David Hopps in the Guardian
Jamie Alter
25-Feb-2013
Caribbean cricket could splinter into individual nations if it does not learn from Trinidad & Tobago's spirited run in the inaugural Champions League Twenty20, writes David Hopps in the Guardian. Twenty20 cricket can be the salvation of West Indies cricket, satisfying its need for a quick sporting fix, just as it dominated one-day cricket in the early years, winning the first two World Cups in the late 1970s.
Full postT&T's impressive captain, Daren Ganga, has spoken intelligently about the "great legacy" of West Indies cricket and how proper investment is long overdue to respect and continue that legacy. It cannot be guaranteed that the G&T-sipping crowd are listening to T&T. But the warning could not have been starker, with Ganga visualising a break-up of West Indies cricket into individual nations if the various stakeholders do not get their act together.
Australia in a spin over worsening figures
Peter English
25-Feb-2013
With Australian slow-bowling a growing concern, the Age’s Chloe Saltau runs through the official numbers that show the percentage of deliveries sent down by spinners in the Sheffield Shield competition has almost halved in the past four decades.
The figures were prepared for Cricket Australia and presented to the board's annual general meeting last week, at which chairman of selectors Andrew Hilditch was reappointed for two years, despite the recent Ashes defeat. Hilditch and his panel have been criticised for sending five spinners through a revolving door to the Test team since Stuart MacGill retired in June last year. But in his report to the AGM, Hilditch said the selectors were placed in the impossible position of having to pluck a spinner, Nathan Hauritz, out of grade ranks for last summer's Adelaide Test because of the dearth of slow bowlers in first-class cricket.
Born to run: how sporting seasons determine success
Is life really a doddling cinch if you're born in the right place at the right time
Jamie Alter
25-Feb-2013
Is life really a doddling cinch if you're born in the right place at the right time? Perhaps, but not in British sport, argues Frank Keating. After half a day's work poring over parchmenty old reference books in proving it, Keating in the Guardian says it's all down to whether your birthday falls in the football or cricket season that dictates sporting prowess.
Full postTake Wisden's list of England's all-time top-scoring Test batsmen – from Gooch's 8,900 runs to Thorpe's 6,744 via Stewart, Gower, Boycott, Atherton, Cowdrey, Hammond, Hutton and Barrington. All but three were born during British summer time (this year from 29 March to 25 October) – Atherton (born 23 March, by less than a week), Cowdrey in December, Barrington in November. Still, seven out of 10 makes for a fairly conclusive argument. On second thoughts, make that eight out of 10, because Cowdrey was born at Ootacamund on Christmas Eve 1932 in the very middle of a literal Indian summer. In fact, make it nine out of 10 because dear Kenny B, Berkshire-born soldier's son, always told you he'd actually been conceived under the southern stars of Africa when ma and pa were garrisoning the Empire.
Where are all the IPL teams?
Malcolm Conn calls the failure of India’s teams to reach the Champions League semi-finals an “embarrassment” for the Indian Premier League
Peter English
25-Feb-2013
Malcolm Conn calls the failure of India’s teams to reach the Champions League semi-finals an “embarrassment” for the Indian Premier League. In the Australian Conn writes about the first staging of the tournament and talks to Stuart Clark about New South Wales’ huge game with Victoria.
Ben Rohrer, the New South Wales batsman, stole Australia’s domestic prize from Victoria earlier in the year, and he speaks to the Age’s Jesse Hogan about not being a Twenty20 specialist.
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