The Surfer
Flower stamps his influence
England's decision to leave out big names like Michael Vaughan, Ian Bell and Steve Harmison for the first Test against West Indies shows Andy Flower is no respecter of reputations or seniority, says Vic Marks in the Guardian
Cricinfo
25-Feb-2013
England's decision to leave out big names like Michael Vaughan, Ian Bell and Steve Harmison for the first Test against West Indies shows Andy Flower is no respecter of reputations or seniority, says Vic Marks in the Guardian.
It feels as if both Bell and Harmison ... have been kept in detention. A couple of good games for their counties in April are not enough for two of England's most exasperating cricketers to trot easily back into the team. They have been challenged to put together an unanswerable case for a recall. Nor are Michael Vaughan's fine words enough to get him back in the squad. He needs runs. Flower – and Strauss – have sent out a message that a new regime is in charge now.
In the Times, Michael Atherton also feels the shake-up in the squad is a strong message from Flower and the selectors.
Full postIPL as a launch pad
S Dinakar writes in the weekly magazine Sportstar that the IPL has provided many peripheral Indian players a chance on the big stage, and has helped give the national team greater bench strength.
Cricinfo
25-Feb-2013
S Dinakar writes in the weekly magazine Sportstar that the IPL has provided many peripheral Indian players a chance on the big stage, and has helped give the national team greater bench strength.
In the same magazine, Frank Tyson writes: The introduction of Twenty20 cricket into the schema of first-class and international cricket has infused fresh blood, a new dynamism, a wider dimension and sprightlier life into what was the sluggish blood stream of the universal game.
Full postAmerican league doomed to fail
Michael Atherton isn't expecting the American Premier League, a six-team Twenty20 tournament likely to be held in New York in October, to be much of a success
Cricinfo
25-Feb-2013
Michael Atherton isn't expecting the American Premier League, a six-team Twenty20 tournament likely to be held in New York in October, to be much of a success. He points to the failure of the American Professional Cricket four years ago, which folded within a season of its inception, and the Stanford fiasco to prove America will prove hard to crack. More in the Times.
Full postCricket's lack of popularity in America has little to do with the length or complexity of the game - and there is always a faint whiff of anti-Americanism about the sneers that it is just too complex for them to understand - and more to do with the origins of baseball's remarkable story ... The ultimate victory of baseball over cricket was part of the unstoppable tide of patriotism: a new game - democratic and classless - for a new nation. Cricket was damned by association and retreated to the margins, kept going, as it has been since, by Anglophiles and, more recently, those of Caribbean and Indian extraction.
Should Michael Vaughan be recalled?
Opinions are divided and former Test captains Ray Illingworth and Kepler Wessels go head-to-head in the Vaughan debate before the squad's announced
Kanishkaa Balachandran
25-Feb-2013
Opinions are divided and former Test captains Ray Illingworth and Kepler Wessels go head-to-head in the Vaughan debate before the squad's announced. Illingworth feels there's a definite vacancy for Vaughan at No.3, partly because there aren't any other suitable candidates. Read on in the Guardian.
He certainly wasn't right when he played for Yorkshire at the back end of last season and he wouldn't be right for Test cricket if his head was still in turmoil, but he looks refreshed and fit to me. If his knee is as good as it's ever going to be then he gets over the fitness hurdle that we have been preoccupied by for the past few years.
Wessels disagrees.
No team can carry a passenger in a Test series – even less so in an Ashes campaign. If Vaughan is selected on reputation rather than worth, it will give the Australia bowlers a point of focus and they will hunt him down ruthlessly. I'm sure Michael knows that he needs to score at least one hundred for Yorkshire before he can be seriously considered.
The glory days of fearless Don Bradman
In 1929 there was no IPL and no Twenty20 slogathons, just a young Donald Bradman changing the sport for ever, writes Frank Keating in the Guardian .
George Binoy
25-Feb-2013
In 1929 there was no IPL and no Twenty20 slogathons, just a young Donald Bradman changing the sport for ever, writes Frank Keating in the Guardian.
Some smiled when I named D Bradman in The Cricketer's last issue as a strong possibility for the 1st XI. Footwork, and plenty of it, is his basis. He knows the value of getting his feet near the bat when making strokes, and leaves the crease fearlessly to destroy length. He is aged 20 and shows no trace of nerves."
And so, soon, it came to pass. Just a summer later, of course, Australia came to England. In the five Test matches, home "champion" Hammond scored 306 runs with a single century; the boy Bradman scored 974 with one century, two doubles, a world-record triple, and the world was never again the same.
Full postFuture opponents open together
All debutants provoke curiosity but Hughes does doubly so
George Binoy
25-Feb-2013
All debutants provoke curiosity but Hughes does doubly so. Partly because he is so successful, but primarily because of the way he plays, writes Andy Bull in the Guardian.
Andrew Strauss will get his first close-up look at Hughes at Southgate this week. At some point, possibly this morning, the two future opponents will find themselves in the curious position of opening the batting together for Middlesex against Leicestershire. Strauss, like the spectators, pundits and pressmen at Lord's, will be running a few thoughts through his head as he watches Hughes bat. The big difference is, his theories will be tested on the pitch, and the success of their execution will help decide the Ashes.
Australia's new batting sensation is from farming stock that produces hectares of the bendy yellow fruit outside the small New South Wales town of Macksville. He has made an extraordinarily quick journey from there to the brink of cricket's greatest series, writes Mike Dickson in the Daily Mail.
There is only one way to find out whether Michael Vaughan can help England regain the Ashes, and that's by recalling him at Lord's next week, writes Ian Botham in the Mirror.
Full post'Hope my performance won’t go unnoticed'
RP Singh hasn't been part of the Indian team for a while now but the fast-bowler is currently wearing a purple cap in South Africa for being the IPL's highest wicket-taker
George Binoy
25-Feb-2013
RP Singh hasn't been part of the Indian team for a while now but the fast-bowler is currently wearing a purple cap in South Africa for being the IPL's highest wicket-taker. He told GS Vivek, of the Indian Express, that he hopes his performances will catch the Indian selectors' attention.
How frustrating is it for a new-ball bowler to go out of the Indian team because of an injury and then be relegated to the sidelines?
It’s very frustrating when you sit on the bench as the third or fourth seamer, thinking that just a couple of months ago you were the team’s top bowler. I was having a good run for almost two years before I picked up the injury, so you can imagine how I must have felt when I was out of the side. Watching the team playing from the sidelines was disappointing, and to be sitting on the bench for months while I waited for another chance even more so. When I was eased out last year after just two bad matches at home, it was demoralising.
Full post<i>Netherland</i> in line for Cricket Society award
Joseph O'Neill's critically acclaimed novel Netherland ( Review ), which was in the shortlist for the Man Booker prize, is among the contenders for this year's Cricket Society Book of the Year
Cricinfo
25-Feb-2013
Joseph O'Neill's critically acclaimed novel Netherland (Review), which was in the shortlist for the Man Booker prize, is among the contenders for this year's Cricket Society Book of the Year. Other nominees for the award, which will be presented at Lord's on Monday evening are: John Barclay's Life Beyond The Airing Cupboard (Review), Tony Laughton's Captain of the Crowd, and William Buckland's Pommies: England Cricket Through an Australian Lens (Review). Christopher Martin-Jenkins has more in the Times.
Full postHughes makes early impression in England
Cricinfo
25-Feb-2013
Scyld Berry, of the Sunday Telegraph, is highly impressed with 20-year-old Australian opener Phillip Hughes, who made a century at Lord's on Middlesex debut earlier this week. Berry lists two advantages Hughes will have going into the Ashes:
Full postThe first is that his opening partner for NSW is the same as for Australia, Simon Katich, so they know each other's game and Katich, at 33, is content to rein himself in, work the fielders around, and allow the prodigy to go for his shots without competing ...
Hughes's second advantage is that he is attuning to English conditions – rapidly on this week's evidence - more than two months before the Ashes. No English cricketer still playing has ever had the advantage of playing in the Sheffield Shield.
Flintoff must share the blame for latest setback
Simon Wilde writes in the Sunday Times that the latest injury shows Andrew Flintoff is no longer fit for regular Test cricket, and says the main purpose of central contracts - to manage the workloads of the most prized players - has been
Cricinfo
25-Feb-2013
Simon Wilde writes in the Sunday Times that the latest injury shows Andrew Flintoff is no longer fit for regular Test cricket, and says the main purpose of central contracts - to manage the workloads of the most prized players - has been destroyed by the financial muscle of the IPL.
Full postWhy Flintoff should be paid a basic retainer of nearly £200,000 when he is no longer putting England first is a moot point. The same argument applies to the likes of Kevin Pietersen and Paul Collingwood, except that as batsmen they are far less likely to suffer injuries and need less protecting.