The Surfer
How to beat the Aussies
Australia have only one specialist spinner, Nathan Hauritz, but have two batsmen, Michael Clarke and Marcus North, who can bowl decent spin, so I expect them to pick a four-man pace attack and bat very deep, writes South Africa coach Mickey Arthur in
George Binoy
25-Feb-2013
Australia have only one specialist spinner, Nathan Hauritz, but have two batsmen, Michael Clarke and Marcus North, who can bowl decent spin, so I expect them to pick a four-man pace attack and bat very deep, writes South Africa coach Mickey Arthur in the Sunday Times.
I guarantee I will be glued to my TV back home in South Africa watching the Ashes for two reasons: first, this is going to be a competitive, exciting series; second, England are coming out to South Africa in December, so I want to see how they are shaping up.
Australia are in a building phase but proved when they came to South Africa after Christmas just what quality and depth they have. We had recently beaten them 2-1 in Australia but I was impressed with the way they came back hard at us to win the return series 2-1. It just shows they will never lie down.
Full postOn the fast track
It's time to rewind back to the Ashes of old
Judhajit
25-Feb-2013
It's time to rewind back to the Ashes of old. Jim White catches up with Dennis Lillee in Sydney Morning Herald as the fast bowler goes on to talk about his will to win, white-line fever and Mitchell Johnson.
"Right from a young kid, it was always Australia versus England, the only thing that counted. I grew up by that. I guess obsessed is too strong a word, but it played a huge part in my cricket life.
"To me, it was battle. Australia versus England was a war. You wanna try to smash them into the ground … One of my teammates told me I had white-line fever. Soon as I stepped over that line on the field my personality changed."
First, send the Australians to quaint Sussex by the sea, which is so genteel even the seagulls wear blazers. Then, when the Ashes start, the baggy greens, soaked in Pimm's and politeness, will be totally unprepared for a war, phoney or otherwise. Rupert Bates in the Sunday Age soaks up the atmosphere, but believes it's all part of the English master plan.
Full postThe Max effect
Judhajit
25-Feb-2013
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From talking to each player individually, to group discussions and exercises like 'rock and roll', the Pakistan team's psychologist, Max Babri, shares his experiences throughout the World Twenty20 and how he helped shape a famous chapter in the country's cricket history. Waqar Gillani has more in the News on Sunday, the Pakistan daily.
'In our daily life, we interact with each other through our masks. Unless you have a one-on-one interaction you cannot help build mutual trust. I told them to be honest and frank. Gradually, they began to open up. Some of them even cried during the session.
'On the second day of our session, I started hypnotising them. Players were nudged into a trance and urged to understand and envisage themselves as the very best.'
Not a great deal of talent
Dylan Cleaver assesses New Zealand's list of centrally contracted players for the year 2009-10, and writes that the number of strugglers in the list provides an indication of the dearth of cricketing talent in the country
Siddhartha Talya
25-Feb-2013
Dylan Cleaver assesses New Zealand's list of centrally contracted players for the year 2009-10, and writes that the number of strugglers in the list provides an indication of the dearth of cricketing talent in the country. Read his article in the New Zealand Herald.
Can you honestly say Aaron Redmond, Craig Cumming, Scott Styris, Peter Fulton, Kane Williamson, Nathan McCullum, Daryl Tuffey, Mark Gillespie, Peter Ingram and Jamie How lose much in comparison to the stragglers on this list? That does not equate to depth either, just the fact New Zealand has become adept at churning out middling cricketers.
The cricket I grew up watching has ended
Noted British journalist Simon Heffer says, in the Daily Telegraph , that he could attempt to get his children interested in the new form of cricket if he wished to be cruel to them
Jamie Alter
25-Feb-2013
Noted British journalist Simon Heffer says, in the Daily Telegraph, that he could attempt to get his children interested in the new form of cricket if he wished to be cruel to them. Heffer believes watching cricket causes one to scrutinise life more exactly and that the guardians of our game – men in blazers in committee rooms – are not necessarily always well suited to the job.
Full postYears ago, before everyone wore helmets and pyjamas, I used to go and sit in the emptiest stand at Lord's after work and watch the last hour of play, and revel in the desolation of the surroundings and the timelessness of the spectacle before me. And Francis Thompson's lines – "And a ghostly batsman plays to the bowling of a ghost/ And I look through my tears on a soundless-clapping host/ As the run-stealers flicker to and fro,/ To and fro: / Oh, my Hornby and my Barlow long ago!" – would drift into my mind, and it was no longer the 1980s, but the 1880s. Never let anyone tell you that there are no comforts to be had in a sense of continuity.
The walker, the keeper
Adam Gilchrist hit rock bottom after Australia lost the 2005 Ashes
Nishi Narayanan
25-Feb-2013
Adam Gilchrist hit rock bottom after Australia lost the 2005 Ashes. Four years on though, he has perspective and a fitting new ambassadorial role. The Observer's Anna Kessel meets him:
Only reflecting on that intense period now does Gilchrist realise how isolated he felt at the time. Those around him barely knew what state he was in. "No one else really knew what was going on. Team-mates, not really. We were all going through such similar rides, anyway. All on the same journey. All away from home. Mel [his wife] was trying to make me aware of it at the time. I was becoming more moody when I'd never been a moody, bring-the-game-home person. Cricket had never before affected my life and my mood and my thoughts, but through that time it began to. My moods and my mindset were being dictated to by results: low-score life was bad, big-score life was good. I had never been that type before." In the aftermath of the defeat, why did the team not share the loss and support each other? "I've come to the conclusion that we don't do that enough, or we didn't when I was playing. It might be against the male instinct. I'm probably a little bit the other way. I've always been keen to express my emotions and my feelings. There was the odd time when I felt a little bit alienated from the group."
In the same paper, Emma John interviews Mitchell Johnson on relationship counselling, expensive jewellery, driving a truck full of plumbing supplies and more.
When you were trying to make it as a state cricketer you used to drive a truck. What was in your truck?
Plumbing supplies. I'd be up from 4.30am till midday and do my deliveries then train in the afternoon. My truck was more like a ute [pick-up] and you had the toilet pipes on the top. And I didn't have an accident - [Australian-born West Indies cricketer] Brendon Nash did the job before me, and one time he didn't tie the pipes on to the roof tight enough. When he braked they came off all over the road.
Full postIs cricket becoming something we see between advertisements?
Harsha Bhogle, who has gone from radio to television commentary, fears commerce is driving us towards cricket becoming that little something we see between advertising
Jamie Alter
25-Feb-2013
Harsha Bhogle, who has gone from radio to television commentary, fears commerce is driving us towards cricket becoming that little something we see between advertising. He admits that advertisements pay for his livelihood yet believes we are reaching a stage where administrators, as custodians, need to draw a balance between propagating sport and selling it. Read on in the Indian Express.
Full postIf we price the product so high that the buyer has no choice but to recover his cost with advertising at every opportunity, we run the risk of diminishing the spectacle of sport for those that follow it. We cannot make the watching of sport clinical when it is meant to be enjoyable. So here is a debate that is crying out to be heard; one forum for people who sell rights, for those that buy them and for people who watch the final product.
Win does not mean Pakistan can host teams
Pakistan's win in the World Twenty20 must be celebrated for many reasons, not the least for what it means for cricket
Nishi Narayanan
25-Feb-2013
Pakistan's win in the World Twenty20 must be celebrated for many reasons, not the least for what it means for cricket. But no one can argue that now that they are world champions, all cricketing nations should tour Pakistan, writes Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times.
Let us celebrate the win for what it is. It just goes to show that Pakistan cricketers despite setbacks, still retain the zest and passion for a game in which they are talented and if they were to vanish from the cricketing tournament, it would be a sad day for the fans.
Pushy Chawla wins Sussex over
Piyush Chawla, the Indian legspinner, has enjoyed his stint with Sussex where he won a lot of fans and been hailed as the county's new Mushtaq
Nishi Narayanan
25-Feb-2013
Piyush Chawla, the Indian legspinner, has enjoyed his stint with Sussex where he won a lot of fans and been hailed as the county's new Mushtaq. Devendra Pandey interviews him in the Indian Express:
The biggest compliment for Chawla came during his game.Ashe started the county stint with six-wickets in an innings, the Sussex fans couldn’t believe their luck. Mushtaq wasn’t just replaced a similar looking short leggie but the new recruit also seemed to have a knack of taking a bagful of wickets. “After that game I heard the fans calling me ‘Pushy’.
Woman on a winning run
English cricket is riding a tide of success, but it's the women, not the men, taking home the trophies
Nishi Narayanan
25-Feb-2013
English cricket is riding a tide of success, but it's the women, not the men, taking home the trophies. Captain Charlotte Edwards welcomes the challenge - and the long overdue recognition. The Guardian's Emine Saner meets her:
This 29-year-old batsman (batswoman sounds weird, doesn't it?) can't remember cricket ever not being a part of her life. Her father, a potato farmer, and her uncle both played for clubs in Cambridgeshire, where she grew up, and she remembers watching at the boundary edge with her brother when she was three. "My mum would be there making the teas, and the choice was either help make the tea or play cricket. Cricket became my life." She practised in the garden with her brother and father, and was encouraged to play at primary school. She was lucky that her secondary school took cricket so seriously, a rarity in state schools; she was the only girl on the team and became captain. "Those days were brilliant. The boys had grown up with me and I was treated like one of them. I didn't get any special treatment."