The Surfer
Unfocussed India
As a country India has begun to achieve a lot and grow in confidence so it is no longer appropriate for the cricketers to lose focus after every famous victory, writes Peter Roebuck in the Hindu .
Nishi Narayanan
25-Feb-2013
As a country India has begun to achieve a lot and grow in confidence so it is no longer appropriate for the cricketers to lose focus after every famous victory, writes Peter Roebuck in the Hindu.
Nothing in India’s performances after the triumph in the World Twenty20 or after taking the one-day spoils in Australia suggests that the cricket culture is strong enough to sustain success. On the contrary, India immediately looked flabby. It is not entirely the players’ fault. Locals seem to relish awards. Pictures of people shaking hands are widely featured in the newspapers. It is well intended. No-one wants India to be a boring place full of people talking about property prices. But when joy turns into delirium it becomes corrosive.
How to spot a sprouting star
Jamie Pandaram, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald , looks at how New South Wales’ talent scouts have found players such as Brett Lee, Michael Clarke and Phillip Hughes
Peter English
25-Feb-2013
Jamie Pandaram, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, looks at how New South Wales’ talent scouts have found players such as Brett Lee, Michael Clarke and Phillip Hughes. The next big thing is tipped to be Josh Hazelwood, a 17-year-old fast bowler.
Those in the know at the state’s high performance unit believe they can tip a future champion before he or she is old enough to get a driver's licence. "It's the X-factor," the department's manager, Alan Campbell, said. "They look like they want to be there, they keep bouncing back after all the tests we put them through. And they have the ability to perform when it really counts.”
In the Herald Sun Ron Reed writes Geoff and Shaun Marsh, who was picked in the one-day squad to tour the West Indies, are in line to become only the second father-son combination to represent Australia.
Full postStart spreading the news. They're playing cricket in New York
Fewer than 1000 people play cricket in the Big Apple even though it hosted the national championships in 2006, reports Timothy Williams in the New York Times
Peter English
25-Feb-2013
Fewer than 1000 people play cricket in the Big Apple even though it hosted the national championships in 2006, reports Timothy Williams in the New York Times. However, the game has been introduced as a school sport and about 600 students are joining in. Despite the interest, Williams says nobody is expecting it to overtake baseball, football or soccer.
“In my travels around the city, it became clear that in the major parks around the city a lot of people were playing cricket on weekends,” the Department of Education’s Eric Goldstein said. “The old baseball field I used to play on in Cunningham Park in Queens is now a cricket pitch. It’s amazing to see.”
Parks on the edges of the city — Van Cortlandt, Soundview and Ferry Point in the Bronx; Canarsie Beach in Brooklyn; and Baisley Pond in Queens — are filled with cricket players on summer weekends, their crisp white uniforms presenting a vivid contrast on the grass fields. Some 650 adults play in the city’s six leagues.
And no story about cricket in the United States is complete without a description of the game.
Full postRichie enters more halls of fame
Richie Benaud will be one of the first inductees into New South Wales’ Hall of Fame, but he tells the Daily Telegraph he would be 12th man if the dozen selected ever played in the same team
Peter English
25-Feb-2013
Richie Benaud will be one of the first inductees into New South Wales’ Hall of Fame, but he tells the Daily Telegraph he would be 12th man if the dozen selected ever played in the same team. Don Bradman, Victor Trumper and Steve Waugh will also be honoured.
"When this side was first announced back in January, I recalled seeing Bill O'Reilly listed at No. 12 on the list,” Benaud said. "And had that been the case [in a match], I can assure you I would have been on the end of a blasting from Tiger O'Reilly."
Full postNew Zealand running out of options
On Monday New Zealand will name their squad to tour England and in the Waikato Times , Ian Anderson looks at how few options the selectors have.
Brydon Coverdale
25-Feb-2013
On Monday New Zealand will name their squad to tour England and in the Waikato Times, Ian Anderson looks at how few options the selectors have.
This season's programme has shown us we don't have 15 players who can automatically make claims for Test squad selection. We have ten then it's a scramble for the remaining spots. Batting is the major achilles heel – there's still no definitive opening combination and the top six has more obvious holes than a hastily-invented alibi.
British Pakistanis to protest at Shoaib ban
The British Pakistani cricket fraternity are to voice their anger at the banning of Shoaib Akhtar in a Southall curry house this evening
Will Luke
25-Feb-2013
The British Pakistani cricket fraternity are to voice their anger at the banning of Shoaib Akhtar in a Southall curry house this evening. The Times’ Patrick Kidd has the full story at Line and Length:
Tonight at 7pm, members of the British Pakistani community will be gathering in Chaudhry's TKC, a restaurant in Southall that has been catering for Pakistani touring teams to Britain for more than 30 years, to air their displeasure at the five-year ban handed down to Shoaib Akhtar for criticising the Pakistan Cricket Board.
Dalawar Chaudhry said that more than 100 guests were expected to attend the protest meeting - "everyone who is important in the Pakistani cricket fraternity in England" - and that they want to air their displeasure at the PCB's actions. "The PCB should support their players," Mr Chaudhry said. "The penalty really does not fit the crime. Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif can be forgiven after criticising the Pakistani government, but Shoaib, who has some of the best Test statistics by any fast bowler, is not forgiven. It is very harsh when you consider that far more sacrilegious crimes, such as match-fixing, get lesser penalties."
In the Age Alex Brown looks at the fall – and excuses – of Shoaib.
Full postWhere have all the Victorians gone?
Brydon Coverdale
25-Feb-2013
Victorians have traditionally felt their players get overlooked for national selection to accommodate New South Wales cricketers. Australia’s 15-man Test squad to tour the West Indies features eight New South Wales players and no Victorians, although both teams made the Pura Cup final. In the Herald Sun, Ron Reed reports.
For the first time, Victoria has no cricketer considered good enough to be picked for an overseas Test tour. The Australian selectors, including Victorian Merv Hughes, yesterday ignored the Bushrangers in naming 15 players for the three-Test trip to the West Indies next month. Cricket Australia statistician Ross Dundas said the only other time this had happened was in 2003, when champion spin bowler Shane Warne was serving his year's suspension after failing a drugs test.
Serial offender
Shoaib Akhtar has been banned from international cricket for five years and the Times ' Richard Hobson believes the Pakistan board have saved themselves many hours of disciplinary hearings in the year ahead.
Nishi Narayanan
25-Feb-2013
Shoaib Akhtar has been banned from international cricket for five years and the Times' Richard Hobson believes the Pakistan board have saved themselves many hours of disciplinary hearings in the year ahead.
The only surprise in the PCB losing confidence in Shoaib is that it took them so long. Yes, at a time when bat is dominating ball his record of 178 Test wickets at little more than 25 apiece places him among the leading pace bowlers in the world. He was indulged by captains and coaches because he was special.
In his blog for the Times, Dileep Premachandran writes that by banning Shoaib, the Pakistan board has taken another step on the road to oblivion.
Full postThe most under-rated cricketer in the world?
After Virender Sehwag plundered his second Test triple-century, Jaideep Varma argues in holdingwilley.com that Sehwag is the most under-rated cricketer in the world
Cricinfo
25-Feb-2013
After Virender Sehwag plundered his second Test triple-century, Jaideep Varma argues in holdingwilley.com that Sehwag is the most under-rated cricketer in the world. Only one batsman in the modern age, Adam Gilchrist, has numbers to match Sehwag's eye-popping strike-rate of 77 allied with the astounding average of 53. Varma contends that Sehwag has already done enough to be considered an all-time great and that he is a shoo-in for a spot among the top five Indian Test batsmen of all time.
Sehwag’s uncluttered and simple see-ball-will-hammer approach has been more than just effective. It has a brought a different way of looking at the game, because before him, no one in the history of the game has had as much success doing this. If cricket was film, fiction or music, Sehwag would be a genre of his own.
Gatting slides into desk job
Matt Pryor meets Mike Gatting who's undertaking his first desk job within the bowels of the ECB: managing director of cricket partnerships.
Will Luke
25-Feb-2013
Matt Pryor meets Mike Gatting who's undertaking his first desk job within the bowels of the ECB: managing director of cricket partnerships.
“That goes through from grassroots to first-class cricket,” Gatting said. “It encompasses MCC, PCA [the Professional Cricketers’ Association], [Lord’s] Taverners and charities, National Playing Fields Association, Sport England, premier leagues, age-group cricket, up to the first-class game. My first job was going round to all the first-class counties and talking to them about everything from issues with their county boards to academies and Kolpaks.”
But he has been at the other end of the scale, too. “I was down at a place called Englefield Green not so long ago, next to Wentworth Golf Club,” he said. “A guy had written to us to say ‘this is outrageous, we’ve got this funfair and it keeps ripping up our outfield.’ It’s one of these nice things; you go down and have a chat with the local council and hopefully there will be a compromise. So you do get out and about a bit.”
Read the full story at the Times
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