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.

Praveen Kumar’s tidy performance against Sri Lanka showed up the misery of Munaf Patel

Dileep Premachandran26-Feb-2008
Praveen Kumar’s tidy performance contrasted with another miserable day for Munaf Patel © Getty Images
Watching Munaf Patel bowl in his first Test match at Mohali was a bit like reading the first page of a novel that hinted at greatness. It wasn’t thatIndia hadn’t produced fast bowlers before him, but here was a young man taking his first steps on the big stage as though he belonged there.After his retirement, Javagal Srinath admitted that it had taken him years to learn the right length to bowl. Munaf, by contrast, seemed to have an instinctive feel for which length to bowl to which batsman. He took seven English wickets in the game, and showed off many skills along the way.Seeing an Indian bowler nudge the speedometer past 145 kph was rare enough, but in Munaf’s case, it was accompanied by movement with the new ball, reverse-swing, lethal yorkers and even a clever slower ball. With a wiry frame and an easy rhythmic action, India appeared to have stumbled on the man who could lead their attack for the best part of a decade.Watch him bowl less than two years on, and you find it hard to believe you’re not watching an impostor. The pace is gone, the yorkers are nowhere to be seen, and the only movement on view is the swing of the batsman’s bat before the ball disappears. Apart from one over where he had Kumar Sangakkara edging over slip and then inside-edging just short of the ‘keeper, Munaf’s spell was an exercise in listlessness.Even when he returned to the fray with only Chamara Kapugedera and the tail to bowl at, he was ineffectual, merely bowling length and getting hit for his troubles. At times, the pace dropped to 120 kph, sad when you consider that it wasn’t even an attempted slower ball.It’s hard to put a finger on where things have gone wrong for Munaf. After that superb debut, he went on to excel during a tour of the Caribbean. Since then though, he has seldom been anything more than a passenger. The headlines he’s made have been for poor fitness and dismal fielding, and a whole assortment of pace bowlers had gone past him in the pecking order.Munaf’s travails at the Bellerive Oval were in stark contrast to the success enjoyed by Praveen Kumar. A star at domestic level, Praveen might have been lost to international cricket if he hadn’t been selected in the squad for the Pakistan series last November. At the time, he had an offerfrom the Indian Cricket League, and he would most likely have said yes if the door had been shut on him yet again.Born into a family of wrestlers, Praveen has had to grapple for every chance that’s come his way. He’s no Brett Lee and his batting skills are rudimentary at best, but he’s made the most of whatever ability he has. Asked to open the batting for Uttar Pradesh when they won the Ranji Trophy two seasons ago, he often produced telling cameos, before returning topick up key wickets with the ball.This season, he played a huge part in the team’s run to the final, picking up eight wickets against Delhi, albeit in a lost cause. It was that performance, against a team that included Gautam Gambhir, that probably clinched his seat on the plane to Australia.He hadn’t taken a wicket in his previous two one-day outings, and there was certainly an element of complacency in Sangakkara’s leisurely charge down the wicket. It wasn’t a great ball, but his opponent’s impetuousness gave Praveen the breakthrough that he must have dreamt about for two seasons at least.After that, he bowled like a man with belief. Mahela Jayawardene’s wicket arrived gift-wrapped thanks to a wonderful low catch from Rohit Sharma at point, and was followed by a magnificent delivery to Chamara Silva. From just short of a length, it kicked like a mule and moved away a touch to take the outside edge. A splendid catch from Mahendra Singh Dhoni was the last act, and Praveen had his first three-wicket haul at this level.What it also did was set the game up for India. From 1 for 72, Sri Lanka lost 6 for 21, and only Kapugedera’s defiance saved them from abject humiliation. And while Praveen took the wickets, it was Irfan Pathan that tightened the noose, giving nothing away in a tremendous spell that alsosnared Sanath Jayasuriya.With Ishant Sharma and Praveen going on to pick up four-fors, Munaf’s woes were even more painful to behold. There was the customary misfield too, and the cruel barb from the commentary team, and watching him, you couldn’t help but think of an explorer without a map.India’s pace stocks may be in rude health right now, but it simply cannot afford to let Munaf slip through the net. When he takes charge in a few days time, Gary Kirsten, along with Venkatesh Prasad, the bowling coach, must make his rehabilitation top priority. The eyes certainly weren’tplaying tricks on that March morning in Mohali two years ago, and such special talent must be allowed to find its way.

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.

What does a specialist spinner have to do these days to get a fair chance in the West Indies side?

Fazeer Mohammed04-Apr-2008
It makes sense to have a frontline spinner like Sulieman Benn is the XI on a pitch that is hosting a Test match for the first time © AFP
Hopefully the water cart attendants at the Queen’s Park Oval were sensible enough not to place any napkins near the drinking glasses when they were first called into action yesterday. Things are bad enough for West Indies without the further setback of players being hospitalised for cuts from wet paper.It felt like the vengeance of Moko had descended upon us, obliterating almost any semblance of good fortune, producing fundamental errors from fairly decent cricketers, questionable decisions by selectors and even poorer judgment from one of the umpires. It’s probably just as well that hardly anyone had turned up to watch the first hour of this second Test, in itself a telling reflection of the inescapable reality that the traditional form of the game is barely surviving around here, to the extent that even some of the diehards’ appetite for the standard fare has waned considerably.We’ve seen some action-packed opening exchanges of Test matches at the Oval over the years (the late Roy Fredericks would not have had happy memories here, being bowled first ball by India’s Abid Ali in 1971 and second ball by another Indian, Madan Lal, in 1976) but the drama had actually started unfolding long before the start of play when the selectors chose to omit both specialist spinners from the home side’s final XI.No doubt they would have been influenced by a pitch with a healthy tinge of green, in stark contrast to the lifeless brown track in Guyana last week. Still, in omitting both specialists, Sulieman Benn and Amit Jaggernauth, and preferring to rely on Chris Gayle to turn his arm over slowly every now and then (or maybe longer, you never know), the utter disregard by key personnel in the Caribbean game for the art of spin bowling is now confirmed.Even if you argue that Jaggernauth’s ten wickets last weekend at Guaracara Park were against some of the jokiest Barbadian batting ever seen, even if the general consensus that Benn’s three wickets in the second innings at Providence were only because the Sri Lankans were taking more than a few chances in the quest for quick runs, surely it makes sense to have the option of a frontline spinner on a pitch hosting a Test match for the first time ever, the square having been re-laid a few months after the last Test on this famous venue three years ago (Brian Lara 196, Makhaya Ntini 13 wickets… remember?).Given this considerable element of the unknown in such a vital aspect of the game, you would have thought that the benefit of local knowledge was essential. Yet there was former Test opener and long-time Queen’s Park coach and official Bryan Davis informing schizophrenic radio interviewer Justin Dookhi at the water-break that no-one in the West Indies team set-up felt it necessary to seek his opinion on the playing surface. Maybe others were consulted. At least you hope so.Still, you have to ask, what does a specialist spinner have to do these days to get a fair chance in the West Indies side – migrate to a country with a higher quality of domestic cricket, take wickets and then hope that the selectors back home are noticing? Maybe then the contention will be that they need to succeed in home conditions to really judge them. So we should shift the Australian domestic competition to our part of the world, play the spinners, and then pick them if they perform.Parochial sentiment surrounding Jaggernauth (40 wickets so far this season) notwithstanding, it should be noted that this sentiment also covers Benn, a player set to join the lengthening list of practitioners of flight and guile who have come to associate a career as a West Indies Test cricketer as a succession of one-match spurts spread over several years. Well, at least he, like Rangy Nanan, got a game.Hardly anyone seemed to be on their game in that weird first hour yesterday.Only a loss of concentration could be explained for Billy Bowden not giving Michael Vandort lbw to the second ball of the match from Daren Powell. Despite the comments coming from the Constantine Stand, the New Zealander is not a thief, nor is he completely incompetent, although the preoccupation with showmanship, amusing at the best of the times, are infuriating when seen in the context of the occasional critical error. It’s probably just as well that hardly anyone had turned up to watch the first hour of this second Test, in itself a telling reflection of the inescapable reality that the traditional form of the game is barely surviving around here, to the extent that even some of the diehards’ appetite for the standard fare has waned considerably Then we had Dwayne Bravo putting down a sitter at third slip off Jerome Taylor to let Malinda Warnapura off the hook and Powell failing to snare a sharp caught-and-bowled chance presented by Vandort. That’s three catches floored already by the usually flawless (certainly in the field) allrounder, while there weren’t too many around feeling sorry for Powell, especially after he suffered yet another delusion of batting grandeur at the end of the first Test.In that context, it was probably expected that Sri Lanka would have raced away to 60 without loss by the water-break, thanks to a succession of loose deliveries that facilitated the crashing of 12 boundaries by the two left-handers.At least Fidel Edwards justified his recall immediately with two wickets in the hour before lunch. A third scalp for the Barbadian pacer before the heavens opened up in the early afternoon may have made further amends.Still, it’s only the start of a Test match, and therefore way too early before the Oval doubles vendors alter their policy of serving West Indies cricketers the delicacy on plastic instead of moistened brown paper.

With 619 on the board for New Zealand, the third day was going to be one where the pitch would be taken out of the equation. It was going to be a day decided by mental and physical battles

Sidharth Monga in Napier28-Mar-2009Tea break on the third day. Chris Martin had just nicked out Yuvraj Singh. Both teams went off McLean Park to rest, but two men stayed out, bowling to one of the assistant coaches who wore a baseball glove. Martin and James Franklin had smelled blood, and they didn’t want to let their meal cool down in the shade. It was just one part of the lesson that the No. 8 Test team in the world handed out to the one aspiring to be No. 1 – a lesson on how to bowl and field on flat pitches.With 619 on the board for New Zealand, the third day was going to be one where the pitch would be taken out of the equation. It was going to be a day decided by mental and physical battles.The pitch was the same batting beauty as on the first two days, but India needed to play with a free mind, not under the pressure of the New Zealand score. The hosts knew there would be partnerships, given the quality of the Indian batting line-up and the pitch, but they would need to be smart, with the ball and in the field, and not relent.In the mind and in the body, New Zealand were fresher than their opponents. While India seemed to have made their minds up that this match would be a draw as early as on the first day, New Zealand persisted even during India’s batting onslaughts. They didn’t attack unwisely, though. The field placements were not too different from those used by India. Daniel Vettori started the day with a sweeper-cover, and employed one almost throughout. But the fielders were alert and ready to help out the bowlers when they needed them the most.When Sachin Tendulkar took apart Jeetan Patel for 14 in one over, the offspinner was not taken out of the attack. He bowled a smart drifter first ball next over, and got his reward. Before that the fast bowlers had busted their gut, keeping Rahul Dravid on the defensive with short-pitch balls that pinned him to the crease.”[It was] just a tough grind,” Martin said later. “The results showed the discipline that we bowled with today. Sachin and dravid were batting really well at the start of the day. So we had to keep plugging away at them during those phases of the game.”For two hours or so after Tendulkar fell, Dravid and VVS Laxman looked inseparable. The legend seemed to be repeating itself; the second-most prolific fifth-wicket pair in Tests was churning out the runs again.It would have been tempting for the bowlers to give up then. No one would have complained, for Dravid and Laxman have brought the best attacks down to their knees. But the bowlers stuck to their disciplines in the middle session. Some of the wristy shots that Laxman played today can be demoralising, but the bowlers just kept bowling to their fields. The first 25 overs of the middle session cost only 55. Vettori even bowled one over with the wicketkeeper standing down the leg side. The deficit, despite close to two-thirds of a day of good batting, still read 373.Test cricket is as much about persisting for long periods as it is about seizing the precise moment. Jesse Ryder, in his first over, provided New Zealand with that moment, drawing a false shot from Dravid, and Vettori seized it. Twelve balls had to be bowled with the old ball, and Vettori couldn’t have been more eager to take the new ball once it became due.Martin charged in, the most aggressive he has looked all series, sensing that a tentative Yuvraj Singh was there for the taking. And then Yuvraj edged. The difference between the two teams over the last three days became most apparent: when Zaheer Khan had created an opportunity soon after Ross Taylor’s wicket, Yuvraj dropped James Franklin. New Zealand held on to every opportunity after that, and India gave them plenty. In the end, eight wickets in a day was more than what New Zealand had expected when the day began, but they fully deserved those rewards. “It’s quite difficult to picture getting eight wickets on that pitch in a day,” Martin said. “For us to actually end up with that result is something we weren’t expecting at the start of the day.”India received criticism over the last two days for employing defensive fields too early but New Zealand’s fields weren’t too different. They even bowled restrictive lines at times. Their aggression lay within. They seemed to know when to raise the intensity. No doubt they were helped by a mountain of runs that they could lean against.Zaheer had said yesterday that the Indian bowlers had done the best they could. If he had watched New Zealand operate in the field today, he would have seen a lesson or two for India’s attack, especially when nothing was going their way.

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.

These are tough times for Australia’s bowlers. While the side’s overall return is diminishing, the fast bowler’s collection improved slightly with his first two-wicket haul in the series in the third Test

Ali Cook03-Nov-2008
Brett Lee: “In the last Test we tried new things and watched what India did. Sometimes they bowled short stuff, then put the ball up and tried to get the nick or lbw.” © AFP
The public confidence in Australia’s squad is so high it would be easy to think they were the team heading to Nagpur with a 1-0 lead instead of facing the prospect of losing the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. In modern sport, keeping up positive appearances during times bordering on despair is essential for sending all sorts of messages – to opponents and team-mates – but it masks what is actually happening.Brett Lee is adept at following the company line and after being the leader of a wobbling attack in the first three Tests believes a change of results is imminent. It has been a popular message over the past month.What the sports-speak doesn’t reveal is that Australia took 14 wickets in Bangalore, 13 in Mohali and 12 in Delhi. While the side’s overall return is diminishing, Lee’s collection improved slightly with his first two-wicket haul in the series on Sunday. These are tough times for Australia’s bowlers.Despite the lack of penetration, Lee is confident of a swift turnaround and convinced this unit is one for the long term. “The bowling squad we’ve got now is great,” he said. “We’d like to keep that going past the Ashes, or even further on. You’ve got to trust the guys around you and trust that we are, as a bowling group, not far away from taking those 20 wickets. It’s hard work in India.”Mitchell Johnson leads the series wicket tally with 12 at 34.58, but the next most-successful Australian is Lee with seven at 57.71 before Shane Watson’s five at 47.40. India have four bowlers with eight or more victims and the tourists will attempt to copy some of their methods in the final game.”We’ll try and experiment with new things,” Lee said. “What we’ve done in the first two Tests probably hasn’t worked. If you’re being critical about not taking wickets, we haven’t achieved that goal. In the last Test we tried new things and watched what India did. Sometimes they bowled short stuff, then put the ball up and tried to get the nick or lbw.”Lee has just finished his third Test in India and said he was still learning and adjusting to the conditions, which were “a lot tougher than anything we’re used to around the world”. In the first two games he got a wicket in each innings before match figures of 3 for 167 from 47 overs in Delhi. It is a big switch from 2007-08 when he picked up 58 wickets in nine Tests.”I was lucky the last couple of seasons to have success, and then when you look up at the scoreboard and you haven’t got many wickets in the first couple of matches, it’s easy to think is it my action? Is it because the ball isn’t swinging? Is it because I’m not fit enough? But you’ve just got to trust your own ability,” he said.Following a tense and at times angry contest, Lee supported Johnson’s bowling and verbal aggression against V.V.S. Laxman on the final day after the batsman had described Australia’s approach as “defensive”. He also felt Johnson was doing a good job of carrying the attack.”He’s bowled well, whether it’s because he’s a left-hander and gets the ball to angle across or not,” he said. “Everyone has patches where they take a bag full. Everyone has been backing Mitch up and he’s really carried the side and done a great job. Why? He’s put the ball in the right areas.”Australia will consider making changes to the line-up for Nagpur, with the legspinner Cameron White likely to make way for Jason Krejza and fast bowlers Doug Bollinger and Peter Siddle coming into contention. Stuart Clark bowled economically in Delhi, going at around two an over, but Ishant Sharma was his only wicket. It will be revealing to see where the team stands on tying up an end versus the potential for more breakthroughs.”It’s very tough to sit there and judge and say Stuey hasn’t taken many wickets – he’s a world class bowler,” Lee said. “We’d have Stuey Clark in the side at any stage.

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 opening day of the first Test was transformed from one of promise to one of disappointment, if not despair, by a flurry of missed catches after tea

Tony Cozier07-May-2009It is a recurring and irritating storyline, and one which the West Indies have done nothing to change. The opening day of the first Test was transformed from one of promise to one of disappointment, if not despair, by a flurry of missed catches after tea. There were six in all, none especially difficult, two downright dollies. They made the difference between an all-out England total of around 220 and their close of play 289.The source of the problem, as it has been through the decade of decline, is the lack of attention paid to fielding and catching practice and the continuing absence of a specialised coach in that critical area.To watch a West Indies fielding session, with its lack of intensity and its slackness, is to understand why their effort is so often undermined by yesterday’s errors. Australia have had Mick Young, an American with a baseball background, as their fielding guru for years. South African have brought in the legendary Jonty Rhodes to sharpen up an already brilliant fielding outfit. Most other Test teams employ professionals in the post.In contrast, the West Indies have spasmodically contracted the highly regarded Englishman Julien Fountain. They have no one here. Fountain was watching from the stands yesterday and it was not difficult to imagine his sentiments.It is obvious that such a coach can only have an impact with the full backing of the captain and the head coach and the cooperation of the players. It also is an ethos that needs to be infused in regional teams from age-group level.Yesterday’s shambles once more had Fidel Edwards at the centre. As he does with increasingly regularity, the fiery fast bowler with the slingshot action bowled with pace, control, swing and spirit to rip out the heart of England’s batting in one irresistible spell.Sent in, they were coasting at 92 for 2 a quarter-hour after lunch when Edwards removed the left-handed Alastair Cook and the dangerous Kevin Pietersen with successive balls and Paul Collingwood a couple of overs later.Cook chopped into his stumps off the inside edge, Pietersen and Collingwood were undone by perfect pitched, late outswingers. Ironically, in view of what was to follow late in the day, both fell to quality catches. Wicketkeeper Denesh Ramdin’s take at full stretch with the right glove to remove Pietersen was exceptional.With Edwards rested, Jerome Taylor well below his best and, seemingly, below full fitness and Lionel Baker and Sulieman Benn still feeling their way at the highest level, a partnership of 74 developed on a flat pitch between Ravi Bopara and Matt Prior, both with hundreds in their preceding Tests in the series in Caribbean.Recalled right after tea, Edwards immediately struck again, removing Prior and threatening a final demolition only for his fielders, true to form, to betray him as they have so often done. In the Kensington Oval Test in February, six missed catches were so costly they allowed England to amass over 600. Four were off him.Here, the tally was three in the space of four overs. The most critical was Brendan Nash’s midrift muddle at square leg when Bopara was on 76, a relief for a batsman on trial in the pivotal No.3 position. He proceeded to an unbeaten 118 at close.It was Bopara’s second let-off. He was on 40 when the umpire Steve Davis somehow ruled not out on a clear lbw dismissal for Benn. But West Indies could only blame themselves for the day’s remaining mistakes. The left-handed Broad was put down by Benn at gully and captain Chris Gayle at first slip, both off Edwards. By now, the rash had reached pandemic proportions. Broad had a couple more let-offs before one catch finally stuck as he cut Benn to gully. There was also another for Bopara, right after he raised his hundred, Devon Smith at second slip denying the persevering Baker his first wicket.Catches win matches is one of the oldest maxims in the game. The trouble is West Indies don’t seem to appreciate it.