The Surfer
Is Rob Key the answer?
While there has been plenty of speculation about a shock recall for Mark Ramprakash, Duncan Fletcher writes in the Guardian that Kent batsman Rob Key could solve England's middle-order troubles in case they decide to leave out the struggling Ravi
Cricinfo
25-Feb-2013
While there has been plenty of speculation about a shock recall for Mark Ramprakash, Duncan Fletcher writes in the Guardian that Kent batsman Rob Key could solve England's middle-order troubles in case they decide to leave out the struggling Ravi Bopara.
Nasser Hussain disagrees in the Daily Mail saying that Key should come into contention only if there is more than one change. He doesn't think Ramprakash should be recalled either.
And in the Independent, Stephen Brenkley says the expectations on Ramprakash, if picked, would be so great as to be unsustainable.
Full postIt's all things Fred Flintoff
Flintoff is reportedly 'devastated' that England chose to rest him for the fourth Test despite him claiming full fitness
Ashwin Achal
25-Feb-2013
Flintoff is reportedly 'devastated' that England chose to rest him for the fourth Test despite him claiming full fitness. But James Lawton, in the Independent, asks questions about the reasoning behind Flintoff's possible selection for the fifth and final test. Is it right to rest all hopes on a half-fit Flintoff just because this is his final stint in Tests?
Yes, fine, but did this assume that England, so grateful to have his at times Herculean services, would suspend all the normal rules of selection, not to mention the obligation of care that normally attends the training and preparation of both human and equine sports stars? One racing insider was aghast yesterday at some of the comments from the Flintoff camp. "In any decent yard," he said, "what was being proposed for Freddie Flintoff just wouldn't, couldn't happen to a horse."
In the short break between Edgbaston and Headingley it was reasonable to take for granted Flintoff and his people's understanding of the basic point that no one, not even Andrew Flintoff or his injured team-mate and fellow superstar Kevin Pietersen, could ride indefinitely over the laws of nature. Indeed, many of Maradona's post-game agonies are attributed to years of being filled with painkillers, and then taking the hits to a body stripped of its ability to make proper reports to the brain.
Martin Samuel echoes those sentiments in the Daily Mail, saying that Flintoff doesn't seem to realise that the Ashes is about the team, and not only about him.
Full postCricketers have chance to improve anti-doping policy
Indian cricketers have been criticised for their refusal to sign the ICC anti-doping policy which includes a clause by which they must inform of their location for an hour each day for a period of three months
Nishi Narayanan
25-Feb-2013
Indian cricketers have been criticised for their refusal to sign the ICC anti-doping policy which includes a clause by which they must inform of their location for an hour each day for a period of three months. However Rajyavardhan Rathore, an Olympic silver medallist in shooting, believes by standing its ground the cricket establishment has a unique opportunity to help improve a system that has worldwide compliance and protects athletes who commit years of training to compete at the highest level, from being cheated by dope-criminals. He writes in his blog:
WADA spends millions of dollars on research. So why isn’t it possible to come up with an alternative way for out-of-competition testing? The practical issues around administering out-of-competition testing are also amusing, considering many of India's sportspersons have their roots in villages and often visit them, the addresses given out could be as unidentifiable as taal no 3, or quila no 6, near jhulli walan gali, Gandhi Nagar. Indian villages are not completely mapped or on GPS like the western world and finding such locations is quite impossible without the entire village knowing about outsiders looking very lost.
Diplomatic love for cricket
Can you write a book on India-Pakistan cricket without ever having watched a match in Pakistan
Nishi Narayanan
25-Feb-2013
Can you write a book on India-Pakistan cricket without ever having watched a match in Pakistan? India's Minister of State for External Affairs and former diplomat Shashi Tharoor can, and that too without seeming out of depth, writes Clayton Murzello in the Mid-Day.
Tharoor proudly claimed that he wrote about Sachin Tendulkar in the late 1980s in the Club Cricketer magazine in England, after Sunil Gavaskar had talked to him about this young gun who could become a great. Tharoor told a few of us how he wrote that Gavaskar had led very poorly during the home series against David Gower's Englishmen in 1984-85.
The editor of the magazine he was writing decided to amplify things after Tharoor filed in his "tough but fair" piece. The next issue rolled out with the headline: "OUT! Is Gavaskar the worst captain India's ever had?" Naturally, it created a sense of apprehension when he came face to face with Gavaskar. After all, he did not write what the headline said. The name of the author just didn't ring a bell, "it sprang", but Tharoor stressed Gavaskar took it sportingly.
Full postAustralia's no-names strike a blow for team ethic
Australia have a willingness to subsume individual identity for the greater good, and the point is made by fixing a light on Marcus North or Ben Hilfenhaus, two comparative no-name graduates to a team deprived of its celebrity sheen
Jamie Alter
25-Feb-2013
Australia have a willingness to subsume individual identity for the greater good, and the point is made by fixing a light on Marcus North or Ben Hilfenhaus, two comparative no-name graduates to a team deprived of its celebrity sheen. Writes Paul Hayward on his Guardian blog:
The yard-dog ethic and the need to stick to the masterplan were both known to North and Hilfenhaus as they seized another chance to gild their Test careers. Modesty and intensity were their offerings as well as previously underrated skill. Badge-kissing is not to everyone's taste, but when North removed his helmet and planted lips on crest after swiping a six to bring up his second hundred of the series, there was no hint of contrivance.
Justin Langer's dossier detailing England's Ashes weaknesses is not the first attempt by cricketers to pigeon-hole their opponents, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian.
Writing in the Times, Shane Warne says all the fuss over leaks, dossiers, Ashes files sounds very dramatic, but before MI5 gets on the case, let’s look at it from another angle. Warne would have been amazed if Langer hadn’t been asked to pass on a few tips to the boys. He’s been in England for long enough now to be a pretty good source of information.
Full postFans 'doing their bit'?
Australian supporters - the Fanatics - have confessed to having set off the fire alarm in England's team hotel on the opening day of the Headingley Test
Nishi Narayanan
25-Feb-2013
Australian supporters - the Fanatics - have confessed to having set off the fire alarm in England's team hotel on the opening day of the Headingley Test. The players got out of the hotel at 4am and had to wait 20 minutes before firemen would let them back in. In the morning England were bowled out for 102. Though one does not necessarily lead to the other, the Fanatics claimed they had done their bit for Australia. Is that the new role that fans have appropriated for themselves, Suresh Menon asks on dreamcricket.com.
Is everything fair game – from fraudulent messages that cause players mental agony to blackmail to threat of physical violence? All in the name of “doing their bit” for the team? Just ahead of a Ranji Trophy match years ago, some “fans” attempted to beat up Tamil Nadu’s star all rounder Robin Singh to prevent him from playing. But he escaped, and although shaken played the match. Is that the direction in which fandom is heading?
Faith, hope and Freddie
Jamie Alter
25-Feb-2013
Despite such an emphatic defeat, England should not panic. All they need is a result pitch, a returning hero, and a miracle, says Mike Atherton in the Times. In Atherton's view the must-pick players for an Oval shoot-out are faith, hope and Andrew Flintoff.
In his post-match press conference yesterday, Strauss said that Flintoff had to be able to fulfil his duties as a bowler to be considered. In other words, he has to be able to bowl three spells in the day, which Strauss, presumably under medical advice, felt he would not be able to do at Headingley. Even so, Flintoff’s presence at No 7 would have stiffened a flimsy-looking line-up and the player himself is surely the best judge of whether he can get through a match or not. If he says he is fit at the Oval, he must play.
The Independent's James Lawton says that in the absence of their crippled talisman Flintoff and their most talented batsman Kevin Pietersen, England haplessly shed all semblance of being a team.
Full postThey were a rabble, an ill-tempered bunch of no-hopers and the decline was so steep, so unbroken in every phase of the match that mattered, it was impossible not to conclude that it will take a lot more than a miraculous flight to Lourdes by Flintoff and Pietersen to restore the damage – and any competitive balance to an Ashes series which some of the more romantically inclined believed was within England's grasp on Friday morning.
The seven stages of a cricket fan
Pakistan’s famously volatile cricket team repeatedly tests the resolve of even the most committed fans
Jamie Alter
25-Feb-2013
Pakistan’s famously volatile cricket team repeatedly tests the resolve of even the most committed fans. The euphoria of a world Twenty20 title sandwiched between terrorism in Lahore and embarrassment in Sri Lanka has left supporters spent and exhausted, writes Saad Shafqat in the Dawn. The writer breaks down the various types of Pakistan fan, from fair-weather to die-hard to sceptics and malcontents.
Full postA category closely related to the theorist is the obsessive, whose signature trait is an insatiable appetite for anything to do with the game. Like the theorist, the obsessive too has mastery over the details of cricket. But unlike the theorist, who maintains a healthy interest in the game, the obsessive overdoes it, becoming consumed with cricket to the exclusion of everything else. You know you’re an obsessive when your preoccupation with cricket starts interfering with the course of daily life. A moment eventually comes when you run into trouble, and the excuses you can come up with are all somehow cricket-related.
Pup is becoming Australia's heartbeat
Michael Clarke was at his most sparkling and creative on the second day's play at Headingley, writes Peter Roebuck in the Sydney Morning Herald
Jamie Alter
25-Feb-2013
Michael Clarke was at his most sparkling and creative on the second day's play at Headingley, writes Peter Roebuck in the Sydney Morning Herald. Australia's position required consolidation and the vice-captain served with distinction with an important innings.
In the Sunday Times Simon Wilde writes that Clarke's chances of becoming captain have been enhanced by his gritty displays, especially at Headingley.
An obviously class act as a batsman, intelligent and without the skeletons in the cupboard that put paid to Shane Warne’s captaincy ambitions, he has merely had to sit at the right hand of the man at the helm and listen and learn. When the time comes, though, Clarke’s elevation to the captaincy may be seen as a departure as he lacks the spit-and-sawdust style of Ponting, Waugh and Border.
There is no mystery about Clarke, writes Stephen Fay in the Independent, but who is this Marcus North who has partnered Clarke in fifth-wicket stands of 149 in Cardiff, 185 at Edgbaston and 152 yesterday? In the space of a week this odd couple have been the principals in saving one Test and propelled Australia into a comfort zone from which they have become favourites to retain the Ashes.
Full postDan the man to lead Test future
Daniel Vettori has emerged from a systems shake-up a more powerful figure in New Zealand cricket since, and possibly including, Stephen Fleming, writes Dylan Cleaver in the New Zealand Herald
Jamie Alter
25-Feb-2013
Daniel Vettori has emerged from a systems shake-up a more powerful figure in New Zealand cricket since, and possibly including, Stephen Fleming, writes Dylan Cleaver in the New Zealand Herald. As he has given himself until 2011 before handing over captaincy, most likely to Brendon McCullum, Vettori will be working quickly to establish a blueprint for success at Test level.
Full postThe one area where Vettori would no doubt like more influence is in selection. This has previously been seen as a big no-no because of fears it can lead to factionalism within the side and perceptions of favouritism can create problems in the dressing room.