The Surfer
Time for England and India to step up
While Australian dominance over the past 13 years has been based, like West Indies before them, on a happy confluence of a number of great cricketers in one generation, Australia's strength as a cricketing nation over a longer period of time has
Nishi Narayanan
25-Feb-2013
While Australian dominance over the past 13 years has been based, like West Indies before them, on a happy confluence of a number of great cricketers in one generation, Australia's strength as a cricketing nation over a longer period of time has been systemic, which should ensure that its recession is a relatively shallow one, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.
Top-class batsmen and fielders, unlike great bowlers, can be mass-produced and the strength of Australian school, club and state cricket will ensure such a production line continues. Excellence in batting and fielding has become, as Ian Chappell once said, institutionalised.
But he goes on to say that while Australia are scrapping rather than dominating, India and England are the likeliest candidates to commit themselves to producing the kind of sustained excellence that West Indies and Australia managed over a long period.
Full postGet off Ricky's back
Steve Waugh was one of the former captains who said Ricky Ponting made the wrong decisions in Nagpur
Brydon Coverdale
25-Feb-2013
Steve Waugh was one of the former captains who said Ricky Ponting made the wrong decisions in Nagpur. But in the Daily Telegraph, Waugh says people should get off Ponting's back and explains that captaincy is much harder than many people realise.
When things are going along smoothly, the automatic pilot virtually switches on but when things start to go amiss you are at the coalface making decisions under intense pressure. Invariably there will be decisions that won't be right.
In Ricky Ponting I saw a leader who had been under mounting pressure, a result of injured and out-of-form players, an inconsistent selection policy, an Indian team that no longer were intimidated or afraid to speak their mind in the media or on the field, pitches that made results difficult, slow over rates and bad luck calling the toss. In reality they were clinging on and rarely occupying the high ground, scrambling to stay in the match.
In the New Zealand Herald David Leggat warns against the theory that Australia are in decline and ripe for a surprise beating from New Zealand.
Full postSouth African guide to subcontinent success
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
Mickey Arthur, the South African coach, reveals a ten-step guide to succeed in the subcontinent, a task that awaits England in India. South Africa have won series under Arthur in Pakistan and Bangladesh in the past 12 months, and also drew a three-Test contest in India earlier this year.
Two of the ten factors he highlights in the Times:
Full postGibbs: The flawed genius
Judhajit
25-Feb-2013
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Dropped for the ODI series at home to Bangladesh after breaking the team curfew, this may well be the end of the road for Herschelle Gibbs. While the flawed genius does not have age on his side, his Test career is as good as over.
The question must be asked how long is a piece of string and for how long will Cricket South Africa be prepared to tolerate this behaviour. Arthur Turner in Sport24.com believes this type of behaviour and attitude needs to be rooted out of the team.
He needs to be given an ultimatum that if he transgresses again he will play no further part in the national team. The national players’ are role models for the country and earn huge sums of money from the game, he needs to start taking responsibility for his actions.
The killer blow?
Is the Australian cricket team being written off too soon?
Judhajit
25-Feb-2013
Is the Australian cricket team being written off too soon?
Aakash Chopra agrees with the thought, since it would be too premature, considering that the Australians had held top spot for more than a decade. Dominic Cork, in his rebuttal, believes that the spat between Ponting and Lee is just the tip of the iceberg. Read the engaging debate in thier blog on the Guardian website
Full postPunter v Peter
In Ricky Ponting’s new book, Captain’s Diary 2008 , he explains his frustration at Peter Roebuck’s highly critical column following the Sydney Test
Brydon Coverdale
25-Feb-2013
In Ricky Ponting’s new book, Captain’s Diary 2008, he explains his frustration at Peter Roebuck’s highly critical column following the Sydney Test. The Sydney Morning Herald has some extracts from the book.
Peter Roebuck … had written a lengthy piece that demanded I be sacked. The message in page one was loud and emphatic: Ponting Must Go. He was scathing in his criticism, which of course he is entitled to be, but to me he was so far over the top it was ridiculous.
It was as if we'd started World War III. He suggested that the entire cricket community was 'disgusted' and 'distressed' by our performance, but that was hardly the feedback I was getting. It was quite extraordinary how, when I walked down the street or stopped for a coffee in the day or two after that story appeared, people would come up and ask, 'What's going on? What's Roebuck on about?'
Ponting also says the players felt angry and totally let down by Cricket Australia over its handling of the Harbhajan Singh racism row.
Full postWhy a benefit year hurts
Robin Martin-Jenkins explains in the Wisden Cricketer how the distractions brought about by a benefit year cause a player's form to deteriorate
Cricinfo
25-Feb-2013
Robin Martin-Jenkins explains in the Wisden Cricketer how the distractions brought about by a benefit year cause a player's form to deteriorate.
Full postSuddenly, having only ever been good at playing cricket, he is thrust into the cut-throat world of the local business community. He has to become an expert networker, party planner and public speaker all at once. He has to buy a laptop and a printer. Most alien of all to him, he has to buy a diary and fill it with appointments to meet sponsors, caterers and tie designers. He has to plan his life and it becomes more complicated than at any time since those long-gone school days.
One for the road
The taxis in Mumbai are part of the city's heritage, and in a quirk of Indian contradiction, are all the same, yet each different in its own way
Judhajit
25-Feb-2013
The taxis in Mumbai are part of the city's heritage, and in a quirk of Indian contradiction, are all the same, yet each different in its own way. And it is this distinctness which shows that individualism and creativity thrives in a city where it would be so easy to blend in and just become a population statistic. Alison Mitchell in her blog on bbc.co.uk drives home the point.
Drivers take great pride in their yellow roofed vehicle, and every single car has a stamp of individualism about it, whether it be the red hub caps, the decorative mud guards over the rear wheels, the swirling pink letters painted onto the side, the fully carpeted interior or the colourful stickers adorning the bonnet.
Sniffing an opportunity
Australia’s 2-0 defeat was their first in a series since 2005 and their biggest since 1988-89, and has perhaps offered England hope of exploiting Australia’s frailties in the Ashes
Judhajit
25-Feb-2013
Australia’s 2-0 defeat was their first in a series since 2005 and their biggest since 1988-89, and has perhaps offered England hope of exploiting Australia’s frailties in the Ashes. For that, England will have to build the same momentum this winter that they did when overcoming West Indies and South Africa in 2004 writes Christopher Martin-Jenkins in the Times. He also believes Monty Panesar might prove to be the trump card both in India and against Australia.
Anyone rushing to take yesterday’s shortened odds of 15-8 against England regaining the Ashes next year should remember how Ponting responded to his team’s previous defeat in a series. They won 19 of their next 20 Tests, including five out of five against England.
The advantage of having Warne
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
When the Australian cricket team was at its best, it followed process, but also hunches and inspiration, writes Greg Baum in the Age.
In concentrating all its thinking on its incredibly slow over rate on Sunday night, Ricky Ponting's team appeared to obsess itself with crossed Ts and properly dotted Is and neglected the essence of its mission in India. It failed where it was once infallible, in its imagination.