All posts by n8rngtd.top

Mickey Arthur’s departure as South Africa coach is confirmation of where the power lies in the dressing room. Coaches might pick the team but they certainly don’t have total control or accountability for team affairs

John Stern26-Jan-2010We have a running joke at Towers that whenever we put someone on the cover of the magazine, some terrible fate befalls them – generally that they get injured. The jinx started with issue one in September 2003 when a cover interview with England’s rising star James Anderson coincided with him losing form and then getting injured.Now the curse appears to have struck not once but thrice. I travelled to Johannesburg in the hope of seeing England clinch the Test series against South Africa. We know what happened there. Two days before the Test I interviewed Graham Onions. The following evening he was dropped for Ryan Sidebottom.I also met up with Mickey Arthur, coach of South Africa, to discuss a piece on the umpire review system. Last night I learned that Arthur had resigned. As my deputy editor is wont to say: “Good work, team.”On Twitter, Jonathan Agnew reckoned he saw Arthur’s demise coming, Bumble said the opposite. Who knows?The word is that his relationship with captain Graeme Smith had broken down. I had no inkling of this from speaking to Arthur two days before the Johannesburg Test.What I did glean was that pressure he was under given that his side were 1-0 at that time. He joked about losing his job. He also talked candidly about the politics involved in South African cricket at the board level and the sensitivities of the decision to leave out Makhaya Ntini for the third Test.He did talk about how there had been a sense of ‘what next?’ after South Africa reached No.1 in the world rankings in Tests and ODIs. They lost at home to Australia, messed up the Champions Trophy and there were IPL distractions for some players.Arthur indicated that there had to be a re-evaluation of goals, a reminder of the players’ true ambitions and priorities.I’m only speculating here but maybe this is where the clash came, a difference of opinion about the best methods to achieve individual and collective success.Arthur had earlier written about the importance of the relationship between captain and coach. This was in response to England’s Kevin Pietersen-Peter Moores breakdown but it has a certain resonance now.Arthur’s departure is confirmation of where the power lies in a cricket dressing room. There is no Alex Ferguson in cricket. Coaches might pick the team but they certainly don’t have total control or accountability for team affairs.A successful cricket captain, as Smith assuredly is, will always win in a power struggle with a coach and Arthur will have been well aware of that.Moores once said a coach can either change himself or change the team. Cricket coaches can’t change the team in the way football managers can so that leaves them with one option.Arthur may not have anticipated it ending like this, only a days before leaving for a major tour, but he’s been doing the job four and a half years and he leaves with the fist-pumping win at The Wanderers still fresh in the memory.He’s a young man, in his early 40s, with a good CV. He shouldn’t be short of offers whether from an English county or the IPL. For now, he can sit back and enjoy the Natal Sharks rugby team and following his daughters on the local tennis circuits.

For all the flaws in the Asia Cup, there lies a positive for India: it provides their fast bowlers with a constructive challenge

Sidharth Monga in Karachi01-Jul-2008

For all the flaws in the Asia Cup, there is a positive for India: it provides their fast bowlers with the challenge of improving their bowling on cruelly lifeless subcontinental pitches. There will be no better place to learn than in Karachi: nine of the last 14 ODIs here have featured totals over 300, and three over 280. With this tournament in off-season conditions, the pitches have lacked the little life they usually do. The heat has rendered the bowlers even more ineffective and the evening breeze has rarely brought swing.In all this the Indian fast bowlers, who look close to being the best bowling attack on helpful pitches outside the subcontinent, somehow lack the nous required to prise out wickets. It might be a harsh criticism but this is one of the weaknesses of an Indian team that has threatened the world order with its recent performances. “After all they are the same bowlers who did exceptionally well in Australia in conditions more conducive to bowling,” Gary Kirsten, India’s coach, said after the training session at the National Bank of Pakistan Stadium ahead of Wednesday’s Super Four clash against Pakistan.A case in point was RP Singh’s transformation from being incisive in Australia to innocuous in home Tests against South Africa. Admittedly the pitches, bar the Kanpur Test, were not great, but that is the area where the great subcontinental fast bowlers manage to play a role. While Ishant Sharma and Praveen Kumar haven’t played enough in the subcontinent, the statistics of RP, Sreesanth and Zaheer Khan are revealing: in 30 ODIs in Asia RP has given away runs at 5.43 per over, while in 10 matches in Europe his economy-rate comes down to 4.50. Zaheer’s economy-rate of 5.10 in Asia comes down to 4.47 in Africa and 4.67 in Australia and New Zealand. In England and Ireland, though, he has given away runs at 5.01 per over.In Tests, the contrast becomes even more stark. RP averages 47.33 in Tests in the subcontinent, as opposed to an overall 39.10. The corresponding figures for Zaheer are 37.46 and 33.60. Although Sreesanth has more consistent stats for ODIs, he averages 38.84 in Tests in Asia. His overall average is 31.46. Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram, two of the greatest bowlers to have come from the subcontinent, managed to stay just as good in Asia as outside – their stats in fact were better in Asia.”The wicket is very flat,” Kirsten said. “It is not easy to strike on this wicket. But yes we have come up with certain ideas on what we need to do. We have spent some time with the bowlers, and we believe in these bowlers. We need to do some hard work on these wickets, and we are sure the bowlers will do that.”This new crop of Indian fast bowlers is an antithesis of their predecessors, who were good at home, but were unable to use the conditions as well as opposition bowlers when away. One of the reasons could be that most of the current lot were picked at a fairly young age, not having had to bowl for hours on flat pitches in domestic cricket. There are tricks to be learnt in domestic cricket that they might have missed out on. Also, their forte has been the conventional swing, as opposed to reverse-swing. And in the subcontinent conventional swing at times doesn’t even last ten overs, which in part explains India’s problems once the ball in 30-overs old.These bowlers have now been thrown into the worst possible conditions for pace bowlers. In 72 overs so far in the Asia Cup, they have given away 398 runs, and have taken only six wickets between them. They haven’t looked like getting early breakthroughs at all, but surely by the end of this they would have learned a thing or two about bowling in the subcontinent. Wasim and Waqar are doing commentary, and shouldn’t mind their brains being chewed either.India were the favourites going into the tournament, and going into the final stages they have lived up to the billing. The only concern has been the bowlers, and if they do manage to win on Wednesday, it will be a sweeter feeling if it’s the fast bowlers who set it up.

The upcoming Dhaka Test will be the first in seven years to have a rest day. A look at the passing of an international institution

Paul Coupar24-Dec-2008

No Test match since 2001 has had one, though the 1938-39 timeless Test had two. Tom Graveney, Jeff Thomson
and the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson came to grief during one. Over the years, they have made writers rage and Buddhist monks riot. But in the end they were forgotten with barely a whimper.It is now over 10 years since the abolition of the rest day in English Tests. It seems longer – the blank Sunday already entering the blurred middle-distance of memory, alongside the Scoop bat, the Cornhill Test and the Vauxhall Viva. But why did they stop? What used to happen on them? And did the abolition change the game?If 1997 was the year of extinction, the English rest day had been endangered for many years. The first Sunday of Test cricket in England was at Trent Bridge in 1981, soon followed by Old Trafford and Edgbaston – where the crowd were treated to Ian Botham’s famous 5 for 1. In each case the start was at mid-day, supposedly to
allow churchgoing. But at Lord’s tradition ruled: no Sunday play and a chilly reception for Botham after he completed a pair with a misjudged sweep.The same applied at Headingley in 1981. This allowed Botham’s infamous eve-of-rest-day barbecue. Held at his Yorkshire home, 40 minutes in a sponsored Saab from the ground, it ended with an elderly woman being pushed round the darkened garden in a wheelbarrow, as England drowned in ale the sorrows of what seemed certain to be defeat. “It was always on a Saturday night or Sunday,” recalls John Emburey. “That wasn’t necessarily a rest day, actually.”Those early Thursday-to-Monday Tests were an experiment, the TCCB hoping to introduce a second big-attendance day. They were judged a failure. Staff costs rocketed on Sundays and extra gate money did not compensate. By 1984 it was back to Thursday-Tuesday.But in 1991 the idea was dusted off and since then it has ruled almost entirely. The exception was always Wimbledon men’s final day. But by 1997 the new-look ECB’s outgoings were ballooning faster than their income.
As well as trying to get cricket delisted as a television “crown jewel”, they went head to head with the tennis, and the rest day vanished.So the end slipped by almost unnoticed, largely because the battle had been won by the modernisers years before. But it had been a long slog.The first barrier was religion: the day of rest, many said, should be just that. In a 1937 issue of the , EAC Thomson recalled playing jazz-hat games on a Sunday: “Some of us were sheepish in carrying our bags through the streets. We used to leave them at a railway station cloak-room adjacent to the ground and wait till it was dark before we went home.”

Some players refused to play any form of Sunday cricket, including Jack Hobbs on his Indian trip of 1930-31, and Peter Harvey, who played 175 matches for Nottinghamshire in the 1940s and ’50s and the organ in his local chapel. But they were in the minority.The second barrier was custom. Quiet Sundays were supposedly woven into the fabric of England, a fabric the end of the rest day would somehow unpick. In 1981 Alan Gibson in the raged that the Test match, “that symbol of what we used to think of as dignity and majesty”, had adopted “the Continental Sunday, simultaneously
giving the tradition of England an extra kick in the backside”. He was thinking of his Sunday lunch as much as the Church.The final barrier was the law. The Sunday Observance Act prevented paying spectators attending Sunday sports events. The authorities turned a blind eye to a bucket being passed round at an “unofficial” game. But it was not the sort of Sunday collection the Church approved of – nor the England selectors. In 1969, Tom Graveney drove to Luton to play a benefit game during the rest day of the Old Trafford Test. He made £1000 but lost his Test career. “A miserable way to finish,” he later recalled.By 1968 there was Championship cricket on a Sunday (entrance free, expensive programme compulsory). In 1980 the John Player Sunday League (seen as less objectionable because of its 2pm start) drew in 258,423 spectators, 135,000 more than the total weekday Championship attendance. It was only a matter of time before money overcame morals.

Even Gibson covered Sunday county matches in the end – often, as recalled, “nursing a gigantic whisky, cleverly diluted so that it looked like a half of lager”. He bit the bullet for the same reason pros had played Sunday benefit games for decades: he needed the money.Not that every rest day was a Sunday. England’s fifth Test in India in 1951-52 lost the second day because of the death of George VI. A total eclipse had the same effect during the Golden Jubilee Test between England and India in 1980. In 1970 the Lord’s “Test” against Rest of the World started on a Wednesday, with Thursday off
for the General Election. The match was won by Rest of the World, the election by the Conservatives, captained by Edward Heath.But what did players get up to on all these days off? It was golf, according to most. “Guys would end up playing golf on the rest day in the middle of a Test, which seemed strange,” recalls Emburey. “Or they’d go fishing. It’s to get away from the stresses of playing. Some would stay in their room and read. Others would go down to the pool and lie in the sun.” Clyde Butts, the West Indian, on the rest day of his Test debut in April 1985, got married, though arguably, for an offspinner in that fearsome West Indies attack, most days were a rest day.”At Adelaide we went to a winery,” continues Emburey, “and some players would have a little bit too much.” During the 1974-75 Ashes the vineyard trip succeeded where England failed, by stopping a raw but rapid Jeff Thomson. Thommo had 33 wickets in four and a bit Tests, within a nose of Arthur Mailey’s Ashes-series record of 36. Then came Yalumba. Later the same day Thommo tried to play tennis, tore shoulder muscles and missed the rest of the series. He never got close to the record again.Five years later the Australians led the way in doing away with the effeminate day off. But for many years they had Christmas Day off at Melbourne, the Test starting on Christmas Eve. And, in a curious inversion, commercial pressures led to the scheduling of a rest day in 1995-96: the Test broadcasters, Channel 9, wanted to avoid
a clash with the Adelaide Grand Prix.Elsewhere the pattern was patchy. Sometimes the absence or presence of the rest day tipped a series. In 1994-95, Australia beat West Indies in a seminal contest. After 15 years and 29 series West Indies lost and the Aussie reign began. But it might easily have been different. In the decisive Test, West Indies were battling to save the
match and series. They might have managed it but the prayed-for rain fell on the rest day – and the rest is history.

There has been only one rest day since 1997. In December 30, 2001, Zimbabwe’s Test in Colombo halted for a Buddhist full-moon celebration. At the same ground two years later agitated Buddhist monks tried to storm the stadium and force an impromptu day off. They were angry at a supposed lack of respect for a well-known colleague, who had died the previous week. They failed, though England probably wished otherwise, after they slithered to defeat in Test and series.Has all of this had much meaningful effect? It made players less tired, says a veteran observer, the ‘s Scyld Berry, somewhat paradoxically. “Players – pace bowlers in particular – have to
be half as fit again. The abolition of the rest day made it all the more necessary for players to improve their fitness. No one gets out through tiredness any more.”Emburey agrees and goes on to say that it did not make much difference to English players’ overall tiredness. “The end of the rest day meant you ended up having a day off after the Test. Before, you could play for five days, be pretty knackered at the end of it, finish at six o’clock on the last day and end up driving from Yorkshire to
Taunton for a Wednesday county game.”Another big effect has been on the follow-on, or so Mark Taylor believes. The former Australia captain argues that captains are now more wary of enforcing the follow-on and tiring out their bowlers. Both Berry and Emburey agree, as did Ricky Ponting when he spared his attack in the Brisbane Ashes Test in 2006-07. Four years previously the
Aussie bowlers were so shot after bowling for two successive innings in Melbourne that they were still knackered as England won in Sydney.Certainly medical research suggests that more bowlers are injured when tired. But did the rest day really affect this
dramatically? According to Emburey, recalling some of the wilder rest-day antics, it rather depended on what you got up to. “You might be more knackered after the rest day than you were before.”

A look at the important numbers from the run-fest in Christchurch, where 726 runs were scored from 95.1 overs

S Rajesh08-Mar-2009

• The match aggregate of 726 is the second-highest ever in ODIs, next only to that unforgettable game in Johannesburg almost exactly three years ago, when Australia and South Africa combined to score 872 in a day.
• India’s total of 392 for 4 is their 11th 350-plus score, and their second-highest in ODIs, after the 413 for 5 they scored against Bermuda in the 2007 World Cup. It’s also the highest by any team in New Zealand. In fact, of the 16 highest scores in the country, 15 have come since 2005, an indication of just how good conditions have become for batting in New Zealand over the last four years.
• Sachin Tendulkar’s unbeaten 163 is his 43rd ODI century, but his first in New Zealand. As he remarked after the game, Tendulkar hasn’t played in that country so often – out of 415 innings, only 22 have been in New Zealand, where he averages a respectable 39.09. It was his 31st hundred in a win – he has been involved in 213 ODI wins, in which he averages a superb 56.96, at a strike rate of almost 90. The innings also gave him his 58th Man-of-the-Match award, which is easily the highest, and 12 clear of the second-placed Sanath Jayasuriya.
• New Zealand ended up on the wrong end of the result, but their opening partnership gave them plenty to cheer: the 166-run stand is their fourth-highest for the first wicket, and Brendon McCullum and Jesse Ryder have been involved in two of the top five first-wicket stands. In only 13 innings, McCullum and Ryder have already put together 757 runs for the first wicket at an average of 63.08. (Click here for New Zealand’s top opening pairs.)
• There were 31 sixes struck in the match, which is a record – the next best is 26. India contributed 18 of those, which equals the mark for an innings. It’s also the second time they’ve struck so many in an innings.
• Tendulkar and Yuvraj Singh added 138 in 100 balls, a run rate of 8.38 runs per over. Among century partnerships in New Zealand, this one ranks in fifth place in terms of run rate. In fact, three out of the top eight quickest hundred stands in all ODIs in New Zealand have come in this series, with the 166-run opening wicket partnership between Brendon McCullum and Jesse Ryder in eighth place.
• There was little to cheer for any of the bowlers, but none had it as bad as Tim Southee, who became only the third bowler – and the second from New Zealand – to concede more than 100 runs in an ODI. The only other New Zealander was Martin Snedden, though he bowled 12 overs to concede 105 against England in the 1983 World Cup.

He skis, he speaks broken Japanese, he plays the sax, he keeps McGrath out of the side. Delhi Daredevils’ Dutch import via Australia opens up

Interview by Nagraj Gollapudi14-May-2009What’s your claim to fame?
Being Jack of all trades, master of none.So what are the trades you’ve tried your hand at?
I’ve tried my hand at music, business, skiing, and now cricket.What sort of music?
I always wanted to be a musician growing up. I played saxophone but gave up after a while.And the skiing and snowboarding?
I was a mobile skier – basically freestyle skiing – and I represented Australia at the World Cup, the most prestigious tournament in the sport.Is there any sort of correlation between skiing and cricket?
Absolutely none.What’s the most dangerous thing in skiing – the closest to facing a 100mph delivery?
That would be going off a massive jump for the first time. My personal best was 30 metres long and eight metres high.You speak Japanese, we’ve heard.
I speak it, but very broken if at all. I can’t put a sentence together.What would you tell your grandchildren about keeping Glenn McGrath out of the team?
I would tell them their granddad once got picked ahead of the best fast bowler in history. And for one day at least, I was better than the best fast bowler – even though he was retired.If you were batting to McGrath, what do you think would be the first ball he’d bowl to you?
Chest-high full-toss or bouncer. I wouldn’t score, but I wouldn’t be dead either. I would cut it away with my glove maybe …If you were teaching Jesse Ryder to ski, what would your first instruction be?
Try and stand up [with the skis on].What’s the one thing in your cricket career that you regret?
Dropping about 50 catches over my career.Do you still have butterfingers?
No, I’m okay now, but I used to s**t myself under catches years ago.Who’s your favorite commentator and why?
Michael Holding and Damien Fleming. Fleming takes the piss out of everyone and I enjoy it and laugh all the time. He talks sense as a former fast bowler.What’s the one sledge you’re tempted to use on the field but can’t?
I can’t really use it in an interview either. I would love to be an angry fast bowler and just abuse people, but I really don’t have it in me to do it.What’s the dumbest nickname anyone’s given you?
“Dirty Dirk”. I just hate it. I don’t know how it came about.Tell us something we don’t know about you?
[] My wife says I’m an excellent father and I’ve always got time for my kid.When you’re being belted around the park, who do you think of?
Brad Hodge. Six years ago he took 29 off one of my overs. Even it if it was in some practice game in Victoria, I remember it and it does trouble me.If not for cricket what would you use cricket balls for?
Use them for lawn bowls for my son.What are you are a proud owner of?
Five musical instruments, five computers, and 600-odd CDs.Complete this sentence: When in Australia, don’t forget …
To use sunscreen.What do you like to drink when celebrating a win?
Beer.When you travel to a foreign country, what do you look for?
Something unusual that I wouldn’t see in my country. Vietnam, Japan are places with cultural differences that I have visited.Do you own any unique cricketing record?
I’m probably the only fast bowler to have figures 0.1-0-2-1. I bowled a knee-high full toss, which was caught at point. The next two deliveries were full-tosses past the head and were called no-balls, and I taken off the attack. There’s another one where I bowled the first ball and faced the first ball for Victoria against Queensland at the Gabba in 2006-07.What’s the best compliment you have received so far?
The best thing various people have told me is I’m far better than what I think I am – that I belong at this level.

The allrounder, playing his first game of the tournament, made sure his name remains in the selection mix with a disciplined bowling effort that earned him a maiden five-wicket haul

Siddarth Ravindran in Dambulla22-Aug-2010When usually talking about a match-winning Sri Lankan bowling performance, it’s all about the unconventional. Unorthodox actions, mystery bowling, doosras. On Sunday, though, it was old-fashioned line-and-length bowling with hardly any frills that undid India. The sturdily-built allrounder Thisara Perera, playing his first game of the tournament, made sure his name remains in the selection mix with a disciplined bowling effort that earned him a maiden five-wicket haul.Previously, the only impact on the international circuit made by Perera, a 21-year-old who had seven wickets at 44.85 coming into the game, was through a couple of hard-hitting cameos which gave him an eye-popping strike-rate of 136.26.He was under plenty of pressure coming into the match, given the strong competition for places in the Sri Lankan team. Angelo Mathews has already sealed one fast-bowling allrounder’s spot, and with Lasith Malinga and Nuwan Kulasekera also being automatic picks, Perera is restricted to being the fourth quick bowler in the team. For that he has to beat the likes of Dilhara Fernando, Thilan Thushara and Farveez Maharoof, Sri Lanka’s allrounder of choice till a couple of years ago. Then there are upcoming allrounders like Jeevan Mendis to deal with, and vying for the No. 7 slot are yet another bunch of contenders.If that was weighing on Perera’s shoulders, he would have been buoyed by the slightly fortuitous wicket of Suresh Raina as early as his second delivery. There wasn’t any prodigious movement for him but he worked up a decent pace, up to the mid-130s, for the bulk of his spell.There was more encouragement in his second over, tricking Indian captain MS Dhoni into nicking a couple of deliveries past the keeper to third man. After the top-order flopped, Dhoni was the batsman Indian fans put their faith in to right the nosediving innings. It wasn’t to be as Perera had him caught behind for 10 in his third over, when Dhoni waltzed down the track and tried to work the ball from well outside off to the leg side.Sri Lanka and Perera were cock-a-hoop with India at 71 for 5, but things were to get even better for both very soon. Ravindra Jadeja and Praveen Kumar went for ducks off consecutive deliveries, and Perera found himself on a hat-trick, which Ashish Nehra managed to avert, much to the boisterous Sunday crowd’s disappointment.They were cheering again when Perera rounded off his dream day with a lovely delivery to clean up Ishant Sharma and complete a five-for. Kumar Sangakkara was thrilled the experiment to pick Perera paid off. “It was not just the conditions, we knew there was a bit of rain about, we also wanted to lengthen our batting a bit,” Sangakkara said after the match. “He is also a quality seamer, very successful against India in all his outings, so we thought it would be the right move, and it really worked for us.”Perera is yet another product of Sri Lanka’s famed school system, winning a string of prestigious awards for St Joseph’s College in their annual Big Matches against traditional rivals St Peter’s College and, as a result, earning places on Sri Lanka’s squad to the Under-19 World Cups in 2006 and 2008. Next stop was the Colts Cricket Club, where an unbeaten 113 with eight sixes followed by a five-wicket haul in a Premier Championship match against Moors Sports Club last December expedited his entry to the national team.Today’s performance marks the highlight of a success-filled career so far, but as Sangakkara stressed at the post-match conference, consistency is what needs to be achieved. Pitches like the ones in Dambulla may allow for a seam-heavy attack but on more traditional subcontinental tracks, unless he continues to make a compelling case, Perera will be overlooked.Maharoof’s recent form should be a cautionary tale; he took a hat-trick on course to a five-wicket haul against India in the Asia Cup, but after just one more failure – an anonymous performance in the final of the tournament – he has been shunted out of the squad.

Greg Chappell performed superbly in different conditions against all opposition, and remains the best No. 4 batsman Australia have produced

S Rajesh28-Nov-2010Even among the many outstanding talents that Australia have produced, Greg Chappell remains special. He achieved fabulous numbers as a batsman, scoring over 7000 runs in Tests and more than 1400 in the World Series Supertests at 50-plus averages, but with Chappell, the process was as fulfilling as the outcome: his sheer grace and technical excellence at the crease meant watching him bat was an exhilarating experience, no matter how many he scored. His all-round strokeplay helped him adjust to the demand of one-day internationals quite easily too, as he averaged more than 40 and scored three hundreds in 74 games.There were more arrows to his bow, though. With his medium pace he took 47 Test wickets – including a solitary five-wicket haul in Sydney against Pakistan – and 72 ODI ones. Chappell also led Australia in 48 Tests, of which they won 21, and held 122 catches, mostly in the slips, where he excelled.It was as a batsman, however, that he truly stood out. A feat he will forever he remembered for is scoring hundreds in his first and last Test matches. He started with a bang, scoring 108 against England in Perth, and finished even more emphatically, with 182 against Pakistan in Sydney. Only three others – Reggie Duff and Bill Ponsford of Australia, and India’s Mohammad Azharuddin – have achieved this feat, but Chappell remains the only one to have batted just one innings in each of those matches. His last knock helped him go past Don Bradman’s Australian record for most Test runs and made him the first from his country to the 7000-mark, while the three catches he took made him the most prolific catcher among non-wicketkeepers.The Chappell name was a familiar one for Australians even before Greg entered the scene – his brother Ian was already an established Test player – and Greg ensured he lived up to expectations right from his debut. In fact, one of the features of his career was his consistency: in the 12 calendar years in which he played more than one Test, he averaged more than 40 in every year except his first; in 21 series of three or more Tests, only five times did his average dip below 40. Similarly his record against and in each country was wonderfully consistent: his lowest average against an opposition was 45.94, versus England; against everyone else it exceeded 50. His lowest in a country was again in England (40.80); in every other country it was more than 48.Thanks to his consistency, Chappell’s cumulative stats graphs show no major peaks or troughs. After 44 Tests his average was 55.78, and it stayed within the narrow band between 52.50 and 56 through the rest of his career. Chappell himself believed that World Series Cricket toughened him considerably and made him a better cricketer, but in terms of averages the difference was negligible.

Throughout his career Chappell had a sense for the big occasion. The hundred on debut is the obvious example, but his next century came in his debut innings at Lord’s: a fine 131, the only hundred of the match, which helped Australia to an eight-wicket win. It was to be his only Test century in eight innings at the ground. When he took over as captain, Chappell celebrated by scoring 123 and 109 not out in another eight-wicket win, this time against West Indies at the Gabba. Four years later, when he returned from Packer exile, Chappell nearly repeated the feat against the same opponents at the same ground, scoring 74 and 124.Despite playing during a period when there were several high-quality bowlers around, Chappell finished with an average of almost 54. During the 15 years he played, only one batsman – Pakistan’s Javed Miandad – scored more than 4000 runs at a higher average. How tough batting was in that era can be gleaned from the fact that only five batsmen scored more than 4000 runs at an average of more than 50.

With his brother Ian, Greg Chappell was part of a formidable Australian batting combination at Nos. 3 and 4. In the 43 matches they played together, the two Chappells amassed more than 7000 runs at a combined average of 52.10, with 23 centuries between them. At The Oval in 1972, they became the first pair of brothers to score hundreds in the same innings of a Test, when Ian made 118 and Greg 113 in a five-wicket win. Less than two years later, in Wellington, they became the first pair of brothers to score centuries in innings of a Test, with Greg scoring 247 not out and 133, and Ian 145 and 121.Through much of his career Greg batted at No. 4, and it was clearly the position that brought out the best in him. He batted at No. 3 on 38 occasions, mostly after Ian retired, but only managed an average of 43.39, with five hundreds and as many ducks, including two golden ones in successive Tests when he was in the midst of a terrible slump in 1981-82.As a No. 4 batsman, though, his stats were outstanding, as he scored more than 4300 runs at an average of almost 60. In the entire history of Test cricket only two batsmen – Jacques Kallis and Mahela Jayawardene – have scored 4000-plus runs at a higher average. Among Australian No. 4 batsmen, Greg clearly has the best stats: Mark Waugh has scored more runs but at an average of less than 43, while Allan Border’s eight hundreds in 88 innings compare poorly with Greg’s 15 in 86.

As mentioned earlier, Chappell began his captaincy stint with a century in each innings, and thereafter maintained a pretty high level with the bat, not allowing the extra burden to impact his run-making ability. In the 48 Tests he captained in, Chappell averaged more than 55; in the 39 Tests when he didn’t lead, he averaged less than 52. Chappell is one of only seven batsmen to score more than 4000 runs as captain, and among those seven only Brian Lara has a higher average.

Of the 87 Tests he played, Australia won 38, and in those games Chappell’s contributions were immense: he scored more than 3500 runs at an average exceeding 70. Like in his overall Test career, his first and last innings in wins were also centuries. As the table below shows, his numbers in wins are among the best in the game.

Forty percent of the Tests Chappell played were against traditional rivals England. He had his share of victories in those battles, scoring five hundreds in the 13 Tests Australia won, but overall his stats against England were slightly below par: against an overall average of almost 54, his average against England slipped to under 46 overall, and to 40.80 in England. Not surprisingly the two bowlers who dismissed him most often are both from England – Derek Underwood (13) and Bob Willis (nine). Despite those relatively average stats, Chappell remains the fifth-highest run-getter for Australia against England, and only Steve Waugh and Don Bradman have more centuries against them.His other great battles came against the pace attack of West Indies, including some of his best and worst moments. In the home series in 1975-76, Chappell scored 702 runs at an average of 117; his aggregate is the highest by an Australian in a series against West Indies, and the fourth-highest by any batsman against them. In 1981-82, though, the story was completely different, as Chappell managed 86 runs in six innings, which included two first-ball ducks. That was easily his worst performance in a series.Chappell’s battles against the West Indies pace attack extended beyond the Test scene; he tackled them in the Supertests in World Series Cricket as well, and performed superbly. In 14 matches he averaged more than 56, which was significantly more than any other Australian batsman.

Chappell’s move to Queensland from South Australia in 1973-74 helped his new home state enormously, but another huge benefit was that it familiarised him with the conditions at the Gabba, the Test venue in Queensland. In seven Tests there, he struck five centuries and four fifties. Only Bradman scored more than 1000 runs at a higher average at a single venue. However, at the Adelaide Oval, the Test venue for South Australia, Chappell struggled, scoring only one century in 19 innings, and averaging less than 36. It was clearly his least favourite, in terms of numbers, of all home venues.

Chappell played only 74 ODIs, but was clearly at home in the format. His tally of 2331 runs doesn’t seem like a lot today, but when he played his last game, in April 1983, he was the leading run-getter in the format, and the only one with more than 2000 runs. Both his average (40.18) and his strike rate (75.70) were very acceptable too. Arguably his finest ODI innings was at The Oval, in a challenging run-chase: England scored 242 in a 55-over game, and Chappell’s unbeaten 125 guided Australia home with two wickets and 10 balls to spare. Apart from opener Richie Robinson, who scored 70, no other batsman scored more than 12, but Chappell stayed firm even as wickets fell around him.He could be pretty useful with the ball too, as the Indians found out in Sydney in 1981, when Chappell’s spell of 5 for 15 skittled them out for 63. The fact that he won nine Man-of-the-Match awards in 74 ODIs indicates just how comfortable he was with the format. Chappell also led Australia to 21 wins in 49 ODIs, and he performed much better when he led (average 45.21) than when he didn’t (30.65), but his ODI captaincy will probably only be remembered for that underarm incident in Melbourne in 1981, when he instructed his brother, Trevor, to roll the ball along the ground when New Zealand needed seven off one ball.

You’ve got to have the stomach for Delhi – in more ways than one

Peter English18-Nov-2010Two weeks in Delhi was both too long and nowhere near enough. It’s that sort of city. Or cities, new and old. At the same time, the place is maddening, inspiring, suffocating and unforgettable. To Westerners it’s most famous for its severe treatment of visiting bellies; for locals it’s a place of historical wonderment that has become a bit busy. Like much of India, a traveller’s experience depends on what he wants to see.From the sixth floor of a simple hotel next to the chaotic station, it was possible to view a huge chunk of the city. Emotional conflict was a feature of the trip. Some moments I couldn’t stop looking at the slums, full of hungry people, living next to rubbish and with the mind-altering soundtrack of hundreds of nimble auto-rickshaws. Then, peering further away, there was a magical mosque, with its bulbs and minarets almost floating towards the clouds. A beautiful building, literally breathtaking, whatever your religion – and it wasn’t on any sightseeing list.One of the things Delhi does best is buildings. For travellers, arming yourself with a copy of William Dalrymple’s City of Djinns is a good start. Head to the Red Fort, the centrepiece of Old Delhi, and stare. It was here that the Australians posed for their World Cup team photo in 1987, the front row sitting up tall, with hands on knees, in front of the mighty sandstone walls. Attempting a two-man version of the shot didn’t feel that silly.Once inside, stay there for a day. Laze, gaze and read. If you stay towards dusk, when the haze creeps back in, the colours of the walls change and the shadows broaden from the structures that used to house harems, royal meetings, riches and battles. My biggest regret of the fortnight there was being at the fort for less than an hour because we had to go to dinner at the Australian embassy.Bird fly around the Jama Masjid•AFPLike in London, Paris or New York, stunning buildings are everywhere. The auto-rickshaws offer excellent viewing with their open sides, and the bouncy seats of the Ambassador taxis help raise you that little bit higher. Ask the driver to slow down when nearing the Presidential Palace and India Gate, which were both designed by Edwin Lutyens, the English architect. The roundabout of Connaught Place is always worth a couple of circles, on the inner and outer rings.My favourite structure of them all was Qutub Minar in south Delhi, a 72m tower built around the 12th century. Originally put up for protection, it now stands in a quiet garden, protected by its world heritage listing, and visited by locals and tourists who wonder how such a perfect structure could have been built so long ago. If you hire a driver – or you go with a local mate – it’s possible to do Qutub Minar, the Lotus Temple, and the Red Fort in a day, although most travel in Delhi is measured in hours.It is an exhausting city – tiring and polluted, yet rewarding. The Lotus Temple is a domed building that has similarities to the Sydney Opera House and is home to followers of the Bahai faith. Raj Ghat, which is not far from the cricket ground, is the memorial to Gandhi, and translations of his outlook are signposted in many languages.With all this amazing architecture, the Feroz Shah Kotla is a huge letdown. Delhi was my base for a fortnight, with stays in bustling Karol Bagh, the more relaxed Green Park, and the accommodation near the station. There were also visits to the other world of the team’s hotel, an oasis of luxury. It was a shame to spend six of those days at the Kotla, as it’s known locally.Built on a fortress – it’s virtually impossible for touring teams to succeed there as well – the ground is surrounded by some ruins, but is not enchanting. It’s a hotch-potch of stadiums, some not facing directly at the pitch, much like the Gabba before its redevelopment. Entry was via a dirt path with hessian barriers, giving the feel of a music-festival trek at the end of a weekend, and then past the back of the stands and through many security checks. By the end of the game my knees were bruised from bumping against the seat in front.A plane flies over the world heritage site of Qutub Minar•AFPThe pitch, traditionally helpful to the spinners, has been poor recently too. (It was here that Anil Kumble dismissed all ten Pakistan batsmen in 1998-99.) The Australians don’t like the venue much either, having won only one Test there, in 1959-60, and two ODIs in 1998 (one of those was against Zimbabwe). Usually they get to spend a long time in the field, like when Cameron White was the No.1 spinner in 2008 and Gautam Gambhir and VVS Laxman posted double-centuries.If you’re fortunate you’ll get to watch with a friend, and you’ll be even luckier if that person is a local. Stay close and get taken to the restaurants with the best , or eat with them at home. That sort of experience is a travel treasure, and I still remember the midnight feast spent discussing India’s literature beyond Aravind Adiga and Arundhati Roy.As a western tourist, some days the beauty of Delhi is moving, and other times the harshness is hard to stomach. But just like the athletes and visitors who opened their eyes and minds during the Commonwealth Games, there is plenty to enjoy in a city of contrasts.

A statistical analysis of the trends across the four 500-Test periods

Madhusudhan Ramakrishnan20-Jul-2011Exponential increase in the number of matches
The most noticeable trend has been the proliferation of Test matches in recent times. While the 1000th match was played only as far back as 1984, nearly 107 years after the first match in 1877, the next 1000 matches have been played in 27 years at a rate of nearly 37 Tests per year. The first 500-Test period was spread across 83 years (10 years lost due to war) with an average of just over six Tests per year, while the second and third set of 500 Tests were played in 24 and 16 years respectively. However, the rate of Tests per year in the second (20) and third periods (31) is much lower than the extraordinary rate of nearly 45 Tests per year in the last 11 years.Better batting conditions
In the early phase of Test cricket, a number of matches were played on uncovered pitches, and hence the period witnessed a number of low-scoring games. In 408 completed team innings before the first World War (1877-1913), there were 53 scores below 100 (13% of total completed innings). In contrast, in the last phase of 500 Tests (2000-2011), teams have been bowled out for less than 100 on only 43 occasions out of 1265 completed innings (3.3%). Till the turn of the 19th century, teams were scoring at just over 22 runs per wicket, a figure that gradually rose to over 33 in the 1920s. Except for the 1950s, the runs-per-wicket figure has generally remained above 30 in every decade after the 1920s. In matches before the first World War (1877-1913), the average rate of hundreds was one every 36 innings, whereas in the second phase of the first 500-Test period (1914-1960), centuries were scored at a much quicker rate of one every 20 innings. As batting got a lot easier in the subsequent decades, centuries were scored at a rate of one every 20 innings in the second and third 500-Test periods. In the fourth one, the innings-per-century figure is the lowest (17.02), a rate nearly 20% quicker than the overall average (20.39).The other major change has been the scoring rate. What used to hover around the 2.50 mark till the mid-1980s has soared to more than 3.20 runs per over, thanks largely to the advent of limited-overs cricket.

• Don Bradman scored 29 centuries in 80 Tests (innings-per-century figure of 2.75). Among batsmen who have scored at least 15 centuries, Clyde Walcott (4.93), Herbert Sutcliffe (5.25) and Everton Weekes (5.40) follow Bradman. Tendulkar is fifth, with a century every 5.68 innings.
• Bradman also has the best conversion rate of fifties to centuries (hundreds to fifties ratio of 2.23 ) followed by Walcott (1.07) and Mohammad Azharuddin (1.04).
• Charles Bannerman’s innings of 165 out of a team total of 245 in the first Test constituted 67.34% of the completed team total. This still remains a record for the highest percentage of runs in a completed team innings.
• In the second 500-Test period, 12 batsmen scored 2000-plus runs against a particular opposition. Among these batsmen, Sunil Gavaskar has the best average (65.45 against West Indies) followed by Ken Barrington and Garry Sobers, who have averages of 63.96 and 61.28 against Australia and England respectively.

*Result percentage on the rise
The reduction in the number of drawn Tests has been one of the biggest changes in Test cricket over the last decade. In the 499 Tests that have been played since June 16, 2000, only 128 have been drawn, which is a percentage of 25.65. That’s easily the lowest among the four periods. In particular, the percentages have been very low for matches played in Australia and South Africa – in both cases they’re well under 20%. Steve Waugh, who led Australia in 57 Tests, won 41 and drew just seven (12%).Only eight of the 129 Tests played in Australia between 1877 and 1960 were drawn, but this was mainly to do with the fact that most Tests played in Australia in the years before the second World War were Timeless Tests. A few matches in England, West Indies and South Africa were also played to the finish, but these do not significantly affect the draw percentages in those countries. The runs-per-wicket figure was highest in the West Indies and India in this period, which also corresponds with fairly high draw percentages in these countries (54% and 46%).Even after the Timeless Test concept was abandoned, the draw percentage in Australia continued to stay much lower than in other countries. In the second 500-Test period, India and Pakistan had the highest averages and draw percentages. West Indies’ top-class bowling attack meant that the draw percentage in the Caribbean fell rapidly in the 1980s and early 1990s, but over the last decade it has gone up again.

• Clive Lloyd led West Indies to 23 away wins in Tests, the most by an individual captain. Ricky Ponting and Steve Waugh are joint second, with 19 wins each.
• Among head-to-head contests that have featured at least 20 matches, the lowest draw percentage is 21.29% in Australia-West Indies Tests followed by Australia-South Africa (21.68%).
• There have been eight occasions when teams have reversed a lead of 200 runs or more at the end of the second innings and gone on to win the match. Apart from the 2006 Oval Test which was forfeited, the highest deficits overcome have been 291 by Australia against Sri Lanka in Colombo in 1992 and 274 by India against Australia in Kolkata in 2001.

** The low draw percentage in Australia in the first period is predominantly due to the Timeless Tests.
* In the second period (1960-1984), only ten Tests were played in Sri Lanka, of which two were draws.Australia’s dominance and West Indies’ sharp fall

In the initial years when Australia and England were the dominant sides, matches against the other weaker sides, including South Africa, India and West Indies, were hardly challenging. While England dominated the head-to-head contests before the first World War, Australia were the better side between the wars predominantly due to the extraordinary batting achievements of Bradman, who scored 15 centuries at an average of 91.42 against England in the same period. In the years after the second World War, West Indies became a force to contend with and set the precedent for a highly-successful period by contesting a closely fought series in Australia in 1960-61. West Indies completely dominated the second half of the 1970s, and the 1980s. They won two consecutive series against England by 5-0 margins in 1984 and 1985-86 and did not lose a single Test series between 1980 and 1995. Following their historic series win in the Caribbean in 1995, Australia embarked on a remarkable run. They maintained a win-loss ratio of 3.37 in matches played since 2000, and set a record for winning 16 consecutive Tests on two different occasions.Until Sourav Ganguly took over the captaincy, India were a dominant side in home Tests, but a very poor team in away matches. Following their return from the ban, South Africa dominated every team except Australia before finally winning their first ever Test series in Australia in 2008-09. On the other hand, West Indies endured a torrid time in the 2000s with their win-loss ratio of 0.23 among the worst in cricket history. Australia, by far, have been the most successful team across the four periods and their high average difference (difference between batting and bowling averages) and excellent win-loss ratio shows how strong they have been.

• Between 1980 and 1995, West Indies played in 29 series without a single series defeat, a record for most consecutive Test series played without a single series defeat. Australia are second with 16 consecutive series between 2001 and 2005 without defeat.
• Among teams that have played at least 20 matches at a particular venue, Pakistan have the best win-loss ratio of 10.50 in Karachi (21 wins and two losses). Australia are next, with a win-loss ratio of 4.00 in Brisbane (32 wins and eight losses).
• Australia have successfully chased 300-plus targets on eight occasions, the most by any team. West Indies are second, having achieved the feat on five occasions.

Spin back in favour
A combination of uncovered pitches and quality spinners meant that spin contributed significantly to the wickets tally in the first 500-Test period. Nearly 34% of the total wickets fell to spinners, and almost 14% to bowlers who bowled a mix of pace and spin. The classification of bowlers was much more distinct and acccurate in later years, and hence the low percentage of wickets contributed by the bowlers in the ‘mixed/unknown’ category. From the second 500-Test period onwards, pace bowlers dominated the wickets tally and picked up over 60% of the total wickets to fall. In the period between 1984 to 2000 (Tests 1001-1500), pitches were more pace-friendly, and there was a dearth of quality spinners. As a result, the role of spin was drastically reduced and fast bowlers picked up more than twice as many wickets as spinners in that period. However, the presence of Shane Warne, Anil Kumble and Muttiah Muralitharan ensured that the contribution of spinners rose again to nearly 33% in the last 500-Test period.

After the first period of 500 Tests (1877-1960), most grounds in Australia and England offered little support for spinners. In the years before the first World War, five of the top ten bowlers were spinners, and the success for spinners continued in the years between the two World Wars. Between 1914 and 1939, Clarrie Grimmett and Bill O’Reilly formed a highly potent spin combination for Australia. They picked up over 65% (169 out of 259) wickets to fall in the 15 matches they played together between the wars. Hedley Verity, a victim of the Second World War, was another outstanding spinner in the same period. He dismissed Don Bradman eight times in 17 Tests, the most times that Bradman has been dismissed by a bowler. However, spinners lost the hold in the second 500-Test period. Their percentage contribution fell under 30 in Australia and just over 21 in England. Pace bowlers dominated the wickets tally in New Zealand, South Africa and West Indies too in the same period. India and Pakistan, however, remained the best for spin, with spinners picking up over 47% of the total wickets in these two countries. The spin quartet from India picked up 853 wickets, contributing over 18% of the total wickets picked up by spinners in the same period.Even as spinners’ contribution fell in England and South Africa in the subsequent phase (1984-2000), the corresponding number rose to nearly 55% in India. The rise of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis in the late 1980s meant that pace once again dominated the scene in Pakistan. Warne, who made his debut in 1992, picked up nearly half the total number of wickets that fell to spinners in Australia in Tests between 1992 and 2000. Muralitharan, Test cricket’s highest wicket-taker, was utterly dominant in home Tests. He picked up 364 wickets in 48 Tests at an average just over 18 in the fourth 500-Test period. In the 1970s and 1980s, West Indies relied almost exclusively on pace, as only 16% of wickets fell to spin. But with the quality of their pace attack declining and the pitches becoming more docile, spinners were much more effective on West Indian tracks in later years and picked up close to 30% of the total wickets.

• Muralitharan is the only bowler to pick up 100-plus wickets at a single venue. Remarkably, he has achieved the feat at three different venues (SSC, Kandy and Galle).
• Shane Warne has picked up 195 wickets against England, the most by a bowler against an opponent. Dennis Lillee and Curtly Ambrose are next, with 167 and 154 wickets respectively against England.
• Javagal Srinath holds the record for the best match bowling performance in a defeat with 13 for 132 against Pakistan in Kolkata in 1999.

Mitchell Johnson is struggling, and while it is not clear why, it could have something to do with his uneasy bowling action

Daniel Brettig in Colombo18-Sep-2011Mitchell Johnson runs up now, he bowls, it’s angled across the right-hander, left alone outside the off stump, no run …So runs a description of a typical Johnson delivery, one that has been on offer all too often lately. When Johnson is in full flow, the delivery is interspersed with regular wickets, gained through pace, occasional swing and a vicious, armpit-seeking short ball. Presently, though, he is not in full flow, and is increasingly mired in the sort of Test-wicket drought that no one would want to endure, especially not as they near their 30th birthday.Nine months have passed since Johnson caught lightning in a bottle in a Test match. At the time, his six first-innings wickets against England in Perth carried the whiff of a happy accident: having not swung the ball an inch in Brisbane, he was dropped for the second Test in Adelaide, before suddenly beginning to swerve it around corners. Regrettably, the next five Tests have proven that a freak event is precisely what it was. Across these matches, he has taken only 11 wickets at a cost of more than 50. When he walked off the WACA ground his bowling average was 29.00, it is now nudging 31.00. They are the sort of figures that get a bowler dropped, no matter how senior or potentially dangerous.In subsequent Ashes jousts in Melbourne and Sydney, Johnson was taken for four an over as he struggled for swing or even basic direction. His last contribution to the series was to lose his bails first ball to Chris Tremlett, as the Barmy Army sang mockingly from the stands. Aiming to make amends, Johnson appeared to do all the right things in the off-season that followed. He chose to forsake the Twenty20 Big Bash League to concentrate on Test matches, trained hard in the nets, and developed a relationship with his new bowling coach Craig McDermott – the enigmatic Troy Cooley had moved on to the Centre of Excellence. Rested from the tour match that preceded the Tests, Johnson even swung the odd delivery on the practice pitches at P Sara Oval, McDermott collecting them watchfully in a baseball glove.Yet, on the resumption of Test cricket against Sri Lank in Galle, Johnson’s bowling seemed curiously muted. Though he was no less accurate than usual, and played his part as a member of the bowling ensemble that secured a meritorious victory on a difficult pitch, a certain spark was missing. Australia’s fielding coach, Steve Rixon, had predicted that Johnson had the potential to run through the hosts on a pitch with uneven bounce, but he took only two wickets in the match. There was no swing discernible, even though Ryan Harris and Shane Watson gained enough to pose consistent problems for batsmen young and old.The pattern has continued on less helpful strips in Pallekele and Colombo, as Sri Lanka played him with some care but also took advantage of plenty of opportunities to score. His only wicket so far at the SSC involved a meaty drive intercepted at short extra cover by Ricky Ponting: not exactly the bowled, lbw or slips catch he has seemed to be looking for. Johnson’s offspinning slower ball is excellent, but even that could be delivered with more regularity, to provoke the sort of miscue that nearly ended the innings of Tillakaratne Dilshan on the third morning. By the afternoon he was being treated with some contempt by Angelo Mathews, and Ricky Ponting was offering frequent advice.Why Johnson has struggled for wickets is a matter of debate. He has not swung the ball, but that has not stopped him from discomforting and dismissing batsmen in the past. He is not bowling with the greatest control, yet, there have been times when he has bowled far worse. Johnson’s top pace here is around the 145kph mark, which is consistent with his upper register over the previous four years. And his mind and heart seem to be in the right space, as evidenced by a friendly, chatty visage across the tour.Johnson’s nadir took place during the first Ashes Test at Lord’s in 2009. At the time he was expected to be Australia’s best threat with the ball, yet over the course of that match he was the tourists’ greatest liability. Dirty family laundry aired in the press did not help. Ever since he has worked at being at once tougher and happier, and also a little thicker-skinned. No such problems have been evident in 2011, and so cannot be considered central to his present torpor.The answer, if there is one, may lie in the place where Johnson is most vulnerable – his bowling action. Johnson’s method has always had something to it, but something missing as well. It is inherently difficult to judge how well Johnson is bowling, simply because his action does not exist in the easy space between instinct and training that most quality international bowlers inhabit. Save for days like that one in Perth, every ball can seem a battle, and Johnson is in the habit of holding up his left arm in subtle rehearsal immediately after most of his deliveries.With the handicap of his technique, Johnson has often relied on the confluence of environmental factors for his most telling moments. He first emerged as an international bowler of note on a damp, humid night in Kuala Lumpur in 2006, skittling four India batsmen, including Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar, in a handful of overs. The planets aligned then, as they did again in Perth. When they will next is anybody’s guess, not least the national selectors’. They must now decide how long is too long to wait between stand-out spells, and at the moment the gap is starting to yawn. One more series may be all he has left.For the moment, the location of that series is a source of hope. Australia’s next Test assignment is in South Africa. This, of course, was the scene of Johnson’s most triumphant performances. In 2009 he swung the new ball and dished out blood and thunder, proving the ideal spearhead as the tourists enjoyed an unexpected 2-1 victory. The effort was striking for both its swing and its hostility, and the consensus was that Johnson had formally arrived. He has been coming and going ever since.