The Surfer

Greg Chappell on ending a lean batting spell

Cricinfo — 2012-02-09T05:50:36+00:00

In the Hindu, Greg Chappell has a column on what top batsmen should do when going through a poor run of form. He says that instead of obsessing over replays and looking to tweak their techniques, batsmen will be better off if they "take a deep breath, start watching the ball again and trust their instincts".

The human brain is multi-layered; in simple terms, the ‘conscious' mind is the hardware that deals with the big-picture whilst the ‘sub-conscious' mind is the software that runs the physical programme.

When all is well, the player allows each part of the brain to do its job. This could be as simple as saying to oneself ‘watch the ball' — which gives the conscious mind something to do while letting the sub-conscious mind get on with what it does best.

DRS has changed the game

Cricinfo — 2012-02-09T05:05:11+00:00

The Economist's sports blog Game Theory looks at how DRS has altered many aspects of cricket - the way batsmen play spinners, the increased boldness of umpires when it comes to lbw decisions, the reduction in the tension between teams, and the introduction of a new tactical angle to the sport.

DRS has also made cricket more civil. Because the teams themselves now have a stake in the decision-making, captains can no longer berate an umpire’s perceived bias or accuse a batsman of poor sportsmanship. If they are convinced of their case, they can refer it to a higher authority. It is now unthinkable that play might be halted for a day because of accusations of umpiring impropriety, as happened following the Shakoor Rana affair during England’s tour of Pakistan in 1987. The recent series was played in a fine spirit even though the two sides have a long history of cricketing acrimony.

It's crunch time for England's top five

Kanishkaa Balachandran — 2012-02-08T07:06:51+00:00

With tours to Sri Lanka and India coming up, Andy Flower has plenty to work to do with England's batsmen. With the exception of the relatively inexperienced Eoin Morgan, dropping even one of the senior players will be a big call because if one of them's left out now, the chances of a comeback are slim, writes Michael Vaughan in the Telegraph.

For the next eight months before India, Flower will be working on improving how the players pick off ones and twos. A lot of net sessions will be geared so the lads can play in the subcontinent. They have boundary options, but you have to be able to go down the wicket on these slow low wickets. You cannot punch the ball off the back foot as the old way of working the ball off a length for ones and twos is dangerous because of the pace modern spinners bowl at – Abdur Rehman was bowling at 56mph.

Dropped from the one-day squad after averaging just 8.50 in the three Tests in the UAE, Ian Bell is itching to rectify his game and make a strong comeback. In his column for the Independent, Bell wants to get to Sri Lanka ten days before their first warm-up game and work on his game against spin.

Physically, I don't feel as though I need a break. Some of the younger English players have been playing domestic cricket there and, if it's possible, I'd jump at the chance to do something similar. When you play on the subcontinent, it's vital to get used to the climate and the conditions. In Sri Lanka, I expect it to be hot and humid, so practising there would be far more useful than doing batting sessions in an indoor school.

Fleming recalls back-from-dead tales

Kanishkaa Balachandran — 2012-02-08T05:54:39+00:00

Australia's Damien Fleming was involved in probably two of the most famous death overs in World Cup history, in 1996 and 1999. He recounts those nerve-wracking moments to Aditya Iyer of the Indian Express.

When it was one to win off four, Fleming says an interesting incident occurred on the field. “I told Tugga that I wanted to come over the wicket to change the line and bowl a yorker. But Steve didn’t even look at me. He said ‘Yeah, whatever.’ The captain knew that the ship had already sunk,” reckons Fleming. The pacer did so eventually, and the rest as he says is ‘bizarre history’.

Can England retain their top six for Sri Lanka?

Nikita Bastian — 2012-02-07T04:59:32+00:00

Jonathan Agnew, writing for the BBC, says after the debacle in the UAE, England now have some serious thinking to do before the two Test matches in Sri Lanka in March and April.

I simply don't think its right that players can be picked match after match if they are not performing, and it would not be remotely right if the same top six rock up and play in the first Test in Galle because they have failed here. They need to give someone else an opportunity, because Sri Lanka would be a good chance to blood a young player.

Expectations of a run-soaked series on docile pitches were confounded by Pakistan's underestimated spin bowlers writes Vic Marks in the Guardian. Now, the England batsmen may be wondering, whether their Test careers are secure.

Batsmen, even the best ones, may be afraid of the odd unplayable delivery, but they fear even more not being able to work out how they are going to get their runs. Especially in an age when runs frequently gush at four per over they cannot bear the prospect of suffocation at the crease. On these surfaces – against highly skilled practitioners – the England batsmen could not fathom where they could score. That breeds a certain panic

Doubt can accrue in a batter's psyche like unwanted freight, and spin is often the greatest cause says Jon Hotten, writing in the The Old Batsman blog.

The UAE whitewash does not make England's batsmen bad players, writes Nasser Hussain in the Daily Mail. It means, Hussain writes, that they are not the finished article, and just because they have bashed Australia and India around, it doesn’t mean they have sorted out the game. Cricket has a habit of hitting back and biting you on the backside.

The case of Kevin Pietersen confounds me because he has performed against great bowling but in recent times has struggled against decent bowling. And I haven’t liked the sight of him and others staring at the big screen, shaking their heads after DRS verdicts. It’s the same for both sides. Work it out and get on with it.

Pakistan are in such an improbable high at the moment, in order to sustain their achievements they would have to wait months, writes Osman Samiuddin in the National. Their next assignment is in Sri Lanka in May and after that there is nothing until Tests against Zimbabwe and South Africa early next year.

By then, Misbah will be close to 39 and others such as Younis, Ajmal and Abdur Rehman are also getting on. In any case, a year is a particularly long time in Pakistan's cricket, and a stretch of inactivity unravels the tightness of a side like little else.

BCCI's high-handedness must stop

Kanishkaa Balachandran — 2012-02-07T03:51:36+00:00

In the Mumbai Mirror, Deepak Narayanan likens the IPL to a big family seen in Indian TV soaps, with the powerful patron, successful uncle, bratty teenagers, earnest youngsters, uncared-for step sons, and even an exiled producer. As with those families, irrespective of occasional rifts, he proclaims that the show will go on.

As it often happens with longrunning soaps on TV, the mistake many viewers make is they try and judge this IPL family by the standards that apply to real life. They get angry when one of them gets out-ofturn favours, they are appalled by the high-handedness of some of the elders, they are stunned by the spineless acceptance of arbitrary decisions. In the real world, this would be unacceptable behaviour, the experts fume, forgetting that this isn’t the real world.

In the wake of Sahara's pull-out and the India team's slump, the BCCI has to buckle down and chart a roadmap for the game rather than get entangled in legal battles, writes Sahan Bidappa in Deccan Chronicle.

On a number of occasions in the past, many of the IPL franchises have openly questioned whether the board respects the rights of all the league's stakeholders. At one stage, Royal Challengers Bangalore owner Vijay Mallya, who has served on various committees in the board, had gone to the extent of asking if the franchisees were merely slaves of the BCCI.

What next for Yuvraj

Cricinfo — 2012-02-06T05:28:12+00:00

In Mid Day, Clayton Murzello talks to former South Africa allrounder Dave Callaghan, who beat cancer in the early 1990s.

"Yuvraj will do well to tell himself, 'by the end of my treatment, I would like to play... for example... next year's IPL (Indian Premier League). A target to work towards is important," said Callaghan. "I told myself (in 1991) that at the end of my treatment which was four to six months, I would like to play one first-class match again."

India's failed tactics

Cricinfo — 2012-02-06T05:22:17+00:00

In the Mumbai Mirror, Sriram Veera wonders why MS Dhoni decided to leave out fast bowler Umesh Yadav and go in with three spinners in the first ODI at the MCG.

“Our loose deliveries were too loose. That was the difference,” Dhoni said at the end of the game. Ah, oh ok. Case solved then. Dhoni also talked about the lack of resources. It’s not clear why he rested Umesh and he also went on to say that “we don’t have a fast-bowling all-rounder”. How does the team view Irfan Pathan? A batsman? A bowler? What?

Following a splendid start to his Test career in India, R Ashwin's stock has dropped in Australia, partly due to his own undoing and partly owing to unimaginative captaincy and dropped catches by his colleagues. In his hurry for instant results, he overused the carrom ball, and eventually his line became predictable, writes G Unnikrishnan in Deccan Herald.

It was quite disappointing to see Ashwin continue to operate in the same way as he did in Tests. Strangely, Ashwin seemed incapable of doing anything different to keep the batsmen under check, as there simply was no urge to fight back – a trait he often showed in the past when batsmen took him on.

Indian trinity at the crossroads

Cricinfo — 2012-02-06T05:00:01+00:00

Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman may have failed in Australia, but that's no reason to scoff at the legends, writes Suresh Menon in the weekly magazine Outlook.

Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman have an influence well beyond runs made and victories achieved.

For one, it is entirely possible that Indian cricket itself might have taken a long time to recover from the match-fixing allegations a decade ago. Skipper Mohammed Azharuddin confessed to having manipulated results and without the obvious integrity of men like Dravid and Laxman, and those who have retired like Ganguly, Anil Kumble, Javagal Srinath and Venkatesh Prasad, the game might have been destroyed.

Significantly, these batsmen brought to the game an Indianness, the inherited technique and uniqueness of a nation that is sometimes reduced to the cliche, ‘oriental magic’.

One-off Tests serve no purpose

Kanishkaa Balachandran — 2012-02-04T09:42:47+00:00

In the New Zealand Herald, David Leggat writes that anything less than a three-Test series is meaningless, for the sake of protecting Test cricket. Three in the ongoing home series against Zimbabwe may be pushing it too far, but one Test isn't enough to prepare either team for further challenges in the season.

Remember the great majority of money comes from broadcasting deals, and put this in a New Zealand context. The turnstiles weren't exactly whirring at McLean Park last week. Would more people have turned up if admission was free? Would the loss in paying customers have made such a huge dent in the NZC coffers?

In Stuff.co.nz, Mark Geenty charts the rise of Tom Latham, son of former New Zealand international Rod.

When he left school and Canterbury Cricket pounced, Latham also had to shed some weight. Fletcher estimates he lost 10 to 15kg under the eye of their trainers. A hooker's build no more. His batting, glovework and outfielding stepped up another notch. Fletcher says his wicketkeeping is good enough to be a backup on tour, and if required could even follow BJ Watling's recent example and step up to a fulltime role.

A Test match for the Twitter generation

Kanishkaa Balachandran — 2012-02-04T08:43:15+00:00

The frenetic fall of wickets and early finshes to the first two Tests in the UAE will have done little for the bank balances of the Pakistan Cricket Board or the local organising authorities, but the golf clubs of Dubai have probably done all right out of them, with the travelling supporters finding plenty of time to kill, writes Paul Radley in the National.

Is someone sat on the fast-forward button? This Test series was always supposed to be brief, with three matches to be played back to back, and at venues barely 80 miles apart. But this is getting ridiculous now. If this morning brings the same havoc as yesterday’s first session did, this could become the first Test match for the Twitter generation: all over in 140 overs. Hash tag: shockingbatting.

The search for a dignified end to a sporting career

Akhila Ranganna — 2012-02-01T08:51:10+00:00

Osman Samiuddin in the National writes that in sport, the business of retirement can be an unsettling one, not only because it is not easy to know whether something irreversible has set inside a player or whether it is merely a temporary slip. While they make make adjustments as they recognise the approaching of the end, what the sportsmen are really doing, writes Samiuddin, is battling the conceit of the rest of us who think we know that it is time for them to leave.

Why should sportsmen care what people say? Why should Dravid, Laxman, Federer go at any time other than of their own choosing?

It is not for them to understand they are past it. This is all they have known. It is what they have sweated towards their entire lives. To expect them to leave voluntarily and suddenly, when others think the time is right is presumptive nonsense.

A divorce that split Australia

Kanishkaa Balachandran — 2012-02-01T06:09:21+00:00

In the early 20th century, Australia was gripped by a sectarian conflict between Catholics and Protestants, one which was believed to play a part in Donald Bradman not being so popular among some of his team-mates. Before Bradman's time, cricket wasn't free of this divide and it was captured through a sensational divorce trial between a Test cricketer, Arthur Coningham and his wife Alice Dowling, who he claimed was seduced by a Catholic priest Denis O’haran in Sydney. It was a trial which changed Coningham's life, for the worse. Sriram Veera chronicles that passage in Mumbai Mirror.

So the ingredients for a pot boiler were set: A fascinating character, a divorce, a catholic priest, and a nation split in its loyalties. Alice confessed to Coningham about her affair and that the father of their third son was actually O’haran. Coninham saw it as an opportunity to make some money; he tried to blackmail the priest for compensation but when that didn’t work, he went for divorce, naming O’haran as co-respondent and claimed £5000 damages for loss of honour.

Where's India's next generation coming from?

Kanishkaa Balachandran — 2012-02-01T05:15:20+00:00

After India's twin debacles in England and Australia, Makarand Waingankar in The Hindu asks if there are any solutions in sight to improve Indian cricket. The Talent Resource Development Wing (TRDW) which was successful at one time in fast-tracking Indian players, was inexplicably scrapped.

The BCCI must appoint a fact finding committee under Ganguly. As he is still playing, he will know the ground realities and can decide better. He should be allowed to choose his committee members and present his report of solutions in two months. Asking seniors to retire is no solution. We need to find replacements and start India ‘A' tours immediately.

In the same newspaper, former Australia captain Greg Chappell writes that until fielding and fitness are given more importance, India cannot be successful.

Before the series there appeared to be very little between the two teams but, once they walked out onto the MCG, it was obvious that Australia was the team prepared to do the hard work necessary to win.

Successful teams are just that, a team. They bat and bowl in partnerships and they support their bowlers with a committed fielding effort that leverages the bowling performance

'Bowling to Don one of my greatest moments'

Akhila Ranganna — 2012-02-01T05:14:35+00:00

Former Australia fast bowler Jeff Thomson talks to Rohit Bhaskar on bowling to Sir Don Bradman, meeting George Best and the best batsmen he bowled to. More from the Hindustan Times.

It was at Adelaide in 1977-78, when India was touring Australia. Sir Don was batting in a suit, no pads, no gloves, just a bat. He must've been around 70 and hadn't batted for almost 30 years and he was still so good. It was a turf wicket, and I bowled within myself, but there were a couple of young blokes who were bowling at full speed and he was carting them all over the place. Along with meeting Georgie Best, bowling to Bradman is the greatest moment of my life.