The Surfer
The folly of the ICC's ways
Writing in the Times , Pat Gibson pretty much sums up what we all suspected about the reasons the unloved Sir Vivian Richards Stadium was ever built
Martin Williamson
25-Feb-2013
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So millions were spent on a new stadium miles out of town that was never going to replace the ARG in the public’s affection any more than the new Trelawny and Providence stadiums in Jamaica and Guyana, which were also built for the World Cup, are going to supplant Sabina Park and Bourda.
Now we are seeing the stupidity of it all. Inside two days, the ARG groundstaff produced a pitch and outfield that mock the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, workmen cleaned up the dilapidated stands and the television company worked wonders in transferring its equipment to beam the evidence around the world.
Full postScary tales
India have had some sort of bogey when it comes to touring New Zealand
Jamie Alter
25-Feb-2013
India have had some sort of bogey when it comes to touring New Zealand. Ahead of what is a gruelling tour of that country, the Indian Express spoke to four players who toured there in the past, asking them about their experiences. Sachin Tendulkar recently spoke about how tough the harsh windy New Zealand conditions are, and here Dinesh Mongia describes how difficult it was to stand still out in the middle while holding a bat. Tinu Yohannan, the former India fast bowler, says he had tears in his eyes when he was bowling in one match.
Full postA century for respect
The start of the third Test in Antigua was important for Andrew Strauss and his century will help underpin the respect a captain needs from within the team, writes Mike Atherton in the Times .
Nishi Narayanan
25-Feb-2013
The start of the third Test in Antigua was important for Andrew Strauss and his century will help underpin the respect a captain needs from within the team, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.
In between his moments of good fortune, Strauss played with the utmost fluency and freedom. It was noticeable that he was not prepared to let Benn settle, skipping down the pitch and smiting him for a straight six – his first in Test cricket in nearly three years. And he approached three figures with a number of resounding strokes, two pulls and a drive off Powell and a launch over mid-on off the left-arm spin of Ryan Hinds.
In the Guardian, Vic Marks writes that by dropping Monty Panesar for the Test, probably with the expectation that the pitch would be seamer-friendly, England have adopted a 'horses for courses' policy rarely employed when Duncan Fletcher and Michael Vaughan were in charge.
Full postThe summer of the cheap cap
The rise and fall of Mark Cosgrove shows that Australia's scattergun approach to selection can do emerging players more harm than good, writes Robert Craddock in the Courier-Mail .
Brydon Coverdale
25-Feb-2013
The rise and fall of Mark Cosgrove shows that Australia's scattergun approach to selection can do emerging players more harm than good, writes Robert Craddock in the Courier-Mail.
This has been the summer of the cheap cap. Allrounder Moises Henriques was chosen for Australia's Twenty20 side last night despite having done nothing for NSW this summer. Adam Voges got a recent one-day call-up when he was one bad match away from being sacked by Western Australia. Shaun Marsh has been fast-tracked into the Australian one-day side despite averaging 34 over eight years as a first-class player.
Luke Ronchi got four one-day internationals last year but now has been dropped to district cricket because he can't fire for WA. Dave Warner still hasn't played a four-day game for NSW despite being rushed into the Australian one-day side and bats like Tarzan on some days and Jane on others.
The obsession with finding the next big thing has prompted Australia to adopt a scattergun policy at the selection table and history tells us that scatterguns rarely work. Which brings us back to Cosgrove, the big fellow who scored a century against Queensland in the Sheffield Shield match at Adelaide on the weekend and is suddenly back in favour after a painful demotion from his state team. Cosgrove is one of the most interesting cricketers of the modern era because he is so different. So - er, how do we say it - fat.
Full postSmith didn't do it to be 'Captain Courageous'
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
In an interview to the Weekender, Graeme Smith says he did not walk out in the second innings in Sydney to win over supporters with his brave act. His personal rivalry with Kevin Pietersen is well known, but Smith says he didn't take "any pleasure from his sacking" as England captain, having got beyond "petty jealousies".
Now that you are ‘Captain Courageous’, and everyone loves you, how does it feel?
Australia's young talent free of excess baggage
Peter Roebuck, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald , feels Australia’s squad to South Africa boasts plenty of young talent, unfazed by distractions
Siddhartha Talya
25-Feb-2013
Peter Roebuck, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, feels Australia’s squad to South Africa boasts plenty of young talent, unfazed by distractions. He says Australia will miss the services of Stuart Clark, though they’ll be hard to beat on pitches likely to favour seam bowling.
Accordingly, the Australians will arrive in Africa without the baggage they have been carrying all season. Youngsters tend not to worry about margin loans, breaking bodies or upset partners. Whereas seasoned campaigners can be thrown off course by outside forces, youngsters can retain simplicity. Part of the trick in sport is to stay young as long as possible while absorbing the lessons time alone can bring. Matthew Hayden, Andrew Symonds and Brett Lee were bogged down by a variety of issues, and it showed. The main recent mistake involved Brad Haddin's gloves and response, conduct that did not stop him ascending to the T20 captaincy.
Meanwhile, in the Weekender, Daryll Cullinan writes that South Africa's team looks in good shape ahead of the series against Australia. He feels Ashwell Prince, though out of the first two Tests, still has some cricket left in him, and opening the batting may perhaps be the best way to make a comeback.
I don’t think Prince’s Test career is over. I think a smart move may have been to open with him. He must, however, be given the assurance that it is a long term move. Prince has built his Test game around good shot-selection and leaving well outside off-stump. His ability to concentrate for long periods was fuelled by a fierce determination to prove himself as a player worthy of his selection.
Can't bat, can't bowl... and can't field
Watching Yuvraj Singh gesture to the Indian dressing room after a century in Sri Lanka last week, SR Pathiravithana and a colleague arrived at the notion that this was a mirror image of the cricketing woes of Sri Lanka in the present context
Jamie Alter
25-Feb-2013
Watching Yuvraj Singh gesture to the Indian dressing room after a century in Sri Lanka last week, SR Pathiravithana and a colleague arrived at the notion that this was a mirror image of the cricketing woes of Sri Lanka in the present context. There is something radically wrong and that had to be fixed not with just paste, but some solid bonding concrete, feels Pathiravithana.
A few days later, after Ashantha de Mel, Sri Lanka's chief selector, mentioned that he had not seen anything amiss in local cricket other than some basic flaws, Pathiravithana and his friend revisited what they had noticed during that ODI match. Read on in the Sri Lankan daily, the Sunday Times.
Full postARG as unready as Sir Viv Richards Stadium
There's been plenty of farce on the tour already but the Sunday Telegraph's Steve James thinks there could be more in store when the third Test gets underway
Cricinfo
25-Feb-2013
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There's been plenty of farce on the tour already but the Sunday Telegraph's Steve James thinks there could be more in store when the third Test gets underway. He says the Antigua Recreation Ground is as unready for Test cricket as the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium was on Friday.
Potential hazards lie in the stands, where the top tier of the famous Double Decker stand will be closed. Full of wonderful memories and history it may be, but the ARG has not seen functional attention for years. It looks tired and decrepit.
The outfield is unfit in a very different way from the SVR stadium. Instead of the beach cricket proposed there, the ARG outfield has been prepared for football. It is bumpier than the island's roads, which is saying something. In the Sunday Times, Martin Johnson takes aim at the ICC for it's "mindboggling ineptitude".
“Sceptrum Est Sceptrum”, should be the ICC motto, which roughly translates into “rules is rules”. If we went through the entire list of pettifogging examples it would run to toilet-roll length.
My own favourite involved Neil Mallender, the English umpire, during the last World Cup in the West Indies, when he was given the maximum mark allowable for decision-making, but docked five points for wearing two sun hats, one his own, and one belonging to the bowler. This, you might think, is not the kind of crime that should earn you lower marks than for raising your finger for a caught behind that’s missed the outside edge by the width of a Kevin Pietersen advertising logo, but Mallender had really no defence to the charge, given that he acted in direct, not to mention flagrant contravention of the regulation that clearly states (and you can’t make this up) that the hanging of extra sun hats should be confined to the official ICC belt clip.
Paul Weaver, on the Guardian website, says that while the Test at the ARG will stir warm memories, it will also unleash an anger, a fury at West Indies administrators who left a great cricket ground out in the cold to die.
Full postMove to the top changes Warner's life
David Sygall writes in the Sun-Herald about how David Warner got his chance to star during Australia’s limited-overs campaigns this season
Peter English
25-Feb-2013
David Sygall writes in the Sun-Herald about how David Warner got his chance to star during Australia’s limited-overs campaigns this season.
Some time after today's final match of Australia's international season at home, David Warner will buy Dominic Thornely a drink. He might also say to his NSW captain words to the effect of: “Thanks Mate. You changed my life."
Thornely will be watching today's Twenty20 match between Australia and New Zealand satisfied in the knowledge that his and Brad Haddin's insistence that Warner open the batting in New South Wales' one-dayers earlier this season presented him with the opportunity to make his name.
In the Sunday Telegraph Kerry O’Keefe, the former Test legspinner, makes some predictions for the Ashes.
Full postSulieman Benn unconcerned by pressure
Simon Wilde of the Sunday Times catches up with West Indies' 6' 7" left-arm spinner Sulieman Benn, who starred in the first Test with an eight-wicket match haul
Cricinfo
25-Feb-2013
Simon Wilde of the Sunday Times catches up with West Indies' 6' 7" left-arm spinner Sulieman Benn, who starred in the first Test with an eight-wicket match haul. Benn credits the camp preceding the Stanford series for instilling the discipline necessary to succeed.
“Being in a camp for that period of time, obviously all you did was eat, drink and sleep cricket,” he says. “It let you know that this was your job, this was what you had to do to be as good as possible. I have tried to maintain those standards since then; so has everyone, even those who were not part of the Stanford set-up. They saw what had been going on and wanted to get to the same level.”
Wilde also finds out how the winners of the Stanford match spent their million dollars.
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