The Surfer
Mad scientist looks for a scrap
"The secrets to decoding Australia's top order are scribbled on Kleenex, scrawled on coasters and written on top of utility bills
Jamie Alter
25-Feb-2013
"The secrets to decoding Australia's top order are scribbled on Kleenex, scrawled on coasters and written on top of utility bills. Technical flaws are highlighted. So, too, bowling strategies, field settings and other annotations. Viewed as a collection, they just might be the most important body of cricketing work produced in a decade. Finding them, though, might prove difficult."
That is not a description of South Africa's coach or any member of the support staff, nor is it what the inside of some hackneyed laboratory looks like. That's what Dale Steyn's two-year analysis of the Australian batting line-up, charting everything from trigger movements to temperament, appears like. Alex Brown tries to pin him down in the Sydney Morning Herald.
In the Age, Charles Davis says that Michael Clarke's numbers don't add up. Clarke's average when Australia loses is a respectable 38, but the pattern is one of moderate scores, often reaching 20 but with a top score of 81.
Full postChilled by deaths of Mumbai friends
With a rare weekend off, Ricky Ponting says cricket won't be too far from his mind
Jamie Alter
25-Feb-2013
With a rare weekend off, Ricky Ponting says cricket won't be too far from his mind. There is plenty to think about, some good, some not so good. While Ponting has to think about tactics fr the big series against South Africa starting next week, he cannot stop thinking about the tragic events in India recently. Read his column in the Australian.
Whenever you go to an Indian hotel they always have the same staff and it's chilling to think that the people who looked after us so well may have been, in fact almost certainly were, among the dead. It is incredibly sad that something like that has happened in India. It is a country I have really enjoyed touring over the years, even though personally I have never had the best results over there, I think all the players have always enjoyed the place. It's certainly the centre of the cricketing world at the moment, so the attacks are upsetting for the players and for the game as well.
Multi-dimensional players are now a necessity
The concept of bits and pieces cricketers is a thing of the past in limited-overs cricket and it's time to develop multi-dimensional cricketers with substantial skills in more than one discipline, writes Harsha Bhogle in the Indian Express
Kanishkaa Balachandran
25-Feb-2013
The concept of bits and pieces cricketers is a thing of the past in limited-overs cricket and it's time to develop multi-dimensional cricketers with substantial skills in more than one discipline, writes Harsha Bhogle in the Indian Express. He suggests that India's National Cricket Academy should step up in this regard and hold batting camps for bowlers.
Full postThis development of a second skill has long been practiced by good companies who, for example, get excellent software engineers to learn communication skills which will come in handy later on in their careers. I believe cricket is ripe for such specialised second skills coaching. It might have been a hindrance all along when the academy didn’t have either the desire or the manpower to do anything significant.
It's all about handling pressure
Anyone using statistics, form, or any other measurable factor to predict South Africa’s chances on the approaching cricket tour of Australia, is on a fool’s errand, says Mark Smit in Business Day .
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
Anyone using statistics, form, or any other measurable factor to predict South Africa’s chances on the approaching cricket tour of Australia, is on a fool’s errand, says Mark Smit in Business Day.
What a tour of Australia by SA is about is raw courage and mental steel. Are the South Africans tough enough? Are they able to gain the psychological upper hand over the Aussies? Are they able to grit it out to the last ball of a Test without giving up? Will they be able to stand up to the enormous pressures of touring a country that is mad about cricket and withstand the onslaught of a media known widely as Australia’s 12th man, they are so biased
Bracewell admits he failed to realise goals
He says he gave it an "honest shot" but John Bracewell admits his stats as New Zealand coach are far from impressive in an interview to Jonathan Millmow in the Dominion Post .
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
He says he gave it an "honest shot" but John Bracewell admits his stats as New Zealand coach are far from impressive in an interview to Jonathan Millmow in the Dominion Post.
"I feel as though I've given it a honest shot but in terms of pure statistics or results New Zealand Cricket wanted us to be No1 in world cricket in both forms of the game and we didn't reach that, so if you look at it like that I've been a failure."
Don't bet against it
The match-fixing scandal at the turn of the decade led to the downfall of Hansie Cronje and Mohammad Azharuddin, among others, and brought home to officials and the public just how big the issue was
Andrew McGlashan
25-Feb-2013
The match-fixing scandal at the turn of the decade led to the downfall of Hansie Cronje and Mohammad Azharuddin, among others, and brought home to officials and the public just how big the issue was. Over the past few years it has almost disappeared from the agenda - but hasn't gone away, Peter Roebuck writes in the Sydney Morning Herald. The game, especially the Twenty20 format, is once again in danger of being overrun by bookies and match-fixing, he says.
But 20-over cricket has lured them from their hideaways. Conversations with Indian Cricket League players confirm that the bookmakers are running amok in the rebel league, and it'd be the height of folly to assume that the Indian Premier League has remained intact. These players talk about strange events in matches, and one thinks he played in a match both sides were trying to lose. Others speak about batsmen suddenly playing out a maiden or padding up to a spinner, an odd technique to use in a 20-over contest.
Counting the cost of cricket
The price we may have to pay for international cricket at a time like this cannot be measured simply in terms of rupees or dollars, writes Nirmal Shekar in the Hindu .
Jamie Alter
25-Feb-2013
The price we may have to pay for international cricket at a time like this cannot be measured simply in terms of rupees or dollars, writes Nirmal Shekar in the Hindu.
Can a starry-eyed kid who has dreamed all his brief life of shaking hands with a Pietersen or a Ponting or a Tendulkar ever hope to proffer his shivering, sweaty hand to his idol near the pavilion without a duty-bound commando brushing him aside quickly?
Can a visiting player who has always enjoyed soaking up the local culture through leisurely evening visits to the bazaars and malls and eating places ever think of doing it anymore, unmolested and unguarded and without a million fears haunting him?
Full postWhy England must tour
Mark Lawson writes in the Guardian that England must tour India for the same reasons that they boycotted Zimbabwe and apartheid-era South Africa
Cricinfo
25-Feb-2013
Mark Lawson writes in the Guardian that England must tour India for the same reasons that they boycotted Zimbabwe and apartheid-era South Africa. He also explains how the Mumbai strikes are different from the London bombing during the 2005 Ashes and lists some of the challenges facing England's cricketers when they tour India.
The traditional features of the sport - length, leisureliness and lack of physical barriers between players and crowd - conspire to make it irrelevant in the aftermath of a bloodbath. Of all sports, cricket allows most time for thinking, and the negative thoughts that some of the squad will be suffering can not simply be dismissed
In the same paper, Mike Selvey says that there is a recent trend of players feeling the need for excessive security.
While the England team wait for the security report to give them the all-clear, Angus Fraser makes a strong case in the Independent for tour to go ahead.
Full postIf there is one thing in India that can help heal the horrific damage that has taken place it is cricket ... India cannot and should not forget what took place last week but it needs cricket to help it recover. If normality is to return conversation has to go back to Sachin Tendulkar and Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
Why cricket diplomacy works
Should India tour Pakistan or not
Kanishkaa Balachandran
25-Feb-2013
Should India tour Pakistan or not? Pakistan may still be at the receiving end of the blame game after the atrocities in Mumbai, but it doesn't necessarily mean that India should snap cricketing ties with them in haste, writes Dileep Premachandran, in the Guardian.
Does the cancellation of a cricket tour make the jihadis go away, or does it merely strengthen the hawks on both sides? What does the average Pakistani have to do with Lashkar-e-Taiba or the Taliban? About as much as the normal Indian has to do with lunatic right-wing groups like the Bajrang Dal. Nothing at all.
He also justifies why Pakistan isn't as dangerous as people think it to be.
I've been kicked in the ribs with Doc Martens as a child growing up in England, been treated like vermin by a thuggish Croatian restaurant owner in fashionable St Kilda in Melbourne and nearly mugged in Johannesburg. Pakistan is the one place I have no bad memories of.
Not all countries up for big events?
Whether or not England’s cricket team returns to India, the Mumbai massacre kills off the idealistic view that sporting events can be hosted by anybody, Jonathan Harwood writes in the First Post .
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
Whether or not England’s cricket team returns to India, the Mumbai massacre kills off the idealistic view that sporting events can be hosted by anybody, Jonathan Harwood writes in the First Post.
In an uncertain world, the idea that the global and unifying nature of sport can be reflected in all the venues at which it is practised no longer holds true.
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However, the problems are not just related to cricket in Asia. In 2010 South Africa is due to host the biggest sporting event on the planet: the football World Cup. But its ability to do so safely and successfully remains in doubt.