The KPL could change the process of talent-spotting in Indian cricket and spread more wealth to a larger section of cricketers

Siddarth Ravindran23-Sep-2009A couple of months ago, a group of cricket officials, businessmen, politicians and the odd impresario put the finishing touches to a Twenty20 tournament, the Karnataka Premier League. Like its inspiration, the IPL, it would be franchise-based, but there the similarities between the two ended. Where the IPL had the best global talent to choose from, and the country’s finest stadiums to stage the tournament in, the KPL seemed to have the makings of a dud: it lacked the stars from the national team (or even, following a BCCI diktat, any players from outside the state) and so would be seen primarily as domestic cricket; there was no fat television deal to bankroll it; and it was born in recessionary times, unlike the IPL, which was clearly a product of the boom days. Nor did it help that Anil Kumble and Javagal Srinath, two of Karnataka’s biggest names of recent times, came out against the way the idea was implemented.Yet, as the first season (if a fortnight can be called a season) winds down with the final on Tuesday night, there’s reason for optimism, if qualified. The fans have turned out (as many as 8000 for the game between the two Bangalore teams on a Sunday), sponsors have stumped up big bucks [Mantri Developers, the title sponsors, will plough in 11.11 crore ($2,306,400) over five years], and the ripples of interest have spread far beyond Karnataka’s borders.And so the stakeholders – those cricket officials, businessmen, politicians and the odd impresario (who are now also franchise owners, commentators and KPL organizers) and the players – have fairly satisfied smiles as their varied interests have been served.For Mohiuddin Bava, a member of the Congress party in the coastal city of Mangalore, buying the local KPL franchise instantly increased his profile in his constituency and helped him spread his message. You’d think his team, Mangalore United, is named after the more famous Man U; it isn’t. In the recent past, Mangalore has been riven by communal tension and violence, which Bava hopes to ease through the KPL. “Cricket will be a ladder to bring back harmony in the society,” he says, a point emphasised by his team’s slogan, “Cricket for unity.”It’s a different ball game for the Brigade Group, a Bangalore-based real-estate major. To begin with, the expenses involved are relatively small change – they shell out about Rs 1.4 crore (US$291,000) a year for the most expensive franchise, the Bangalore Brigadiers. Their campaign to promote their team includes billboards, a snazzy website, a Facebook group to connect with fans, and several big-name team sponsors. They’ve gone about it with a corporate thoroughness: The first day of the KPL saw groups of supporters sporting Bangalore Brigadiers T-shirts.”We did our math, we knew that it was not going to be a profit-making venture, we are fine with that,” says Anil Thomas, the franchise’s deputy CEO. “As of now it is the Bangalore Brigadiers that is building a fan base. At some point the association with the Brigade group will get stronger.”The Udaya network [the KPL’s broadcasters] have a big chunk of the state’s population watching them, and it is a good opportunity for us to use that as a brand vehicle to publicise our company’s work. It’s not the immediate objective, though, which is for the team to do well.”Money is probably not the motivation for Robin Uthappa either. He is the league’s most expensive player, but his Rs 325,000 ($6750) salary is a fraction of the US$800,000 he earns in the IPL. It is more a chance for him to tune-up his Twenty20 game before the Champions League. “I am just looking at it as an opportunity to work on my Twenty20 skills,” he says, “and to get more Twenty20 experience under my belt.”Twenty20 experience is something Indian players are short on, with opportunities restricted to the IPL or the ICL. Even Ranji players like batsman KB Pawan, a regular with the Karnataka side for the past two seasons, have played little Twenty20. “This is my first experience actually,” Pawan says. “There are some club-level matches, and if you play for institutions you may get to play two or three Twenty20 tournaments a year; otherwise you won’t get any Twenty20 matches.”Playing under floodlights with a crowd egging him on (or barracking him) is a novel experience for him. “Initially everybody felt the pressure because of the crowd watching them. It’s important for a player to learn to control himself and learn how to handle the pressure – that’s what I’m looking for from the KPL.”Further down the pecking order the returns can be more dramatic; the tournament, with 120 players involved, provides much-needed exposure to reach the next level. Mangalore’s R Jonathan’s big hits became a talking point, and left-arm spinner Narayanan Vinu Prasad, who played one match for Karnataka last season, has made a case for his re-selection by taking 10 wickets at a miserly economy-rate of 4.97.It could also be a springboard to the lucrative IPL, where a couple of good performances can take an unknown player higher up the ladder, as happened with Manish Pandey, the first Indian to score an IPL century. “Of course, we [franchises] all are [scouting],” says Joy Bhattacharya, team director of the Kolkata Knight Riders. “If anyone tells you they are not watching… well, they are looking at games, looking at opportunities, looking at anyone whom they think will make a difference.”Amrit Mathur, chief operating officer of Delhi Daredevils, is one of those who says he isn’t watching. “I don’t think we have made the effort to look at the performances, at least not this year,” he says. “Ideally, if players from outside the state are allowed to compete, the quality will be higher and one will get a better sense of a player’s quality.”

“About 90% of cricketers give up the game at the age of 18 because of family pressure or to pursue academics. Of the remainder another 90% drop off at 21, and 90% more at 24 because their hopes and aspirations aren’t met. The KPL intends to check that trend by giving a huge number of cricketers a reason to keep hoping, and to stay in the game.”Charu Sharma, TV anchor

That, though, is getting ahead of the game for Charu Sharma, the TV anchor who has brought his IPL experience – he was CEO of Royal Challengers Bangalore in the first season – to help set up the league. More important than being a supply line for either the IPL or the Ranji Trophy, he says, the KPL needs to be a “hopeline” for the state’s cricketers. “About 90% of cricketers give up the game at the age of 18 because of family pressure or to pursue academics. Of the remainder another 90% drop off at 21, and 90% more at 24 because their hopes and aspirations aren’t met. The KPL intends to check that trend by giving a huge number of cricketers a reason to keep hoping, and to stay in the game.”How the league was built
The KPL took shape when the sports-marketing firm Frontiers Group, which owns in-stadia advertising rights to most of India’s big stadiums, approached the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) with the idea. Once the KSCA was sold on it and went public with it, things moved at breakneck pace. Over the next 45 days the franchises were sold, an IPL-style auction of players was held, and sponsors came on board. On September 9 the first ball was bowled at Bangalore’s Chinnaswamy Stadium.Among the challenges in that period was getting a broadcast deal in place, which Sharma says was the “hardest nut to crack”. With interest in the tournament likely to be limited to Karnataka, regular sports channels that beam nationwide weren’t likely to be interested, and there were no local sports channels. “However good the cricket was, it was unlikely to be relevant to someone in, say, Guwahati,” he says. “So we needed a strong local television partner, and there was none dedicated to sports.”To solve the problem, the KSCA decided to produce the feed themselves and signed up with the Udaya network to telecast the matches on its news channel. Unlike the IPL, which was driven by the billion-dollar deal with Sony, there was little money involved here; instead, the franchises were compensated with 3500 seconds of free airtime each (called Franchise Commercial Time or FCT).The decision to go with the franchise system drew some flak, notably from Kumble and Srinath, who both wondered why the KSCA needed external financial support to run the league when it receives a grant from the BCCI. Kumble was typically blunt: “In its current form, it would allow a backdoor entry into the KSCA for people not passionate about cricket,” he said. Sharma, though, defends the concept. “Why not raise the same question about the IPL?” he asks. “What is the harm if the KSCA brings in eight partners who are interested in promoting cricket and unearthing talent?”One of the downsides of bringing in franchises is the need to manage them, and meet their expectations. “We are unable to sell the FCT because of the delay in getting the TV deal in place,” says Joseph Hoover, CEO of the Belagavi Panthers. “This has hit us badly, we are not even getting 50% of what we expected in terms of revenues. We are hoping the KSCA will be large-hearted and offer us a bigger portion of what they earn.”So what does the KSCA earn from the KPL? Its two main sources of income are from the sale of franchises (about Rs 7 crore [$1,450,500] a year), and from sponsors (the bulk of it, about Rs 2.22 cr [$461,000] a year, from the title sponsors, Mantri). Their biggest expenses include the marketing of the tournament, producing the TV visuals (about Rs 2 crore [$415,300]), and the actual running of the tournament (including a costly three days when the whole bandwagon moved to Mysore, the other venue).It costs something in the region of Rs 1.5 crores ($311,500) a year to run an average KPL franchise. While the KSCA will provide them some revenue, the franchises will have to recover most expenses on their own, by selling FCT (which, at most, will net them about Rs 10 lakh) and by bringing on board sponsors.Is such a model, with so much of the onus on the franchises, viable? Mathur thinks so. “Obviously if there is [big] TV money, it’s a huge, huge bonus, but I think even without that it can survive and do well,” he says. “The Twenty20 format is very strong, the product is terrific in terms of three hours of aggressive cricket, but what will differentiate between a successful and unsuccessful tournament will be the quality of cricket.”The KPL could well be a springboard for selection in the IPL, whose franchises have been observing the action with interest•ESPNcricinfo LtdThe cricket itself has been of a decent standard so far. Batsmen have been innovative – NC Aiyappa, one the quickest bowlers in the tournament, watched the Bijapur Bulls’ Praveen Kumar play a Dilshan-like scoop off him – and the bowlers are learning to deal with permanently aggressive batsmen. The big letdowns have been the fielding – boundary-fielders spilling skiers has been a common sight – and the players’ fitness.Bring on the next season
With the first season done, the KPL will look at building on it. One option is to take the game to the smaller cities in the state, given the success of the Mysore leg of the tournament. Mysore usually has to be content with one Ranji game a year, and fans there had never seen a high-profile Twenty20 match. Adding to the novelty factor was the IPL-style razzmatazz – foreign cheergirls and traditional folk dancers rooting for the home side, film songs and team anthems blaring at intervals, and a newly installed giant screen. A 3500-strong, vocal, partisan crowd packed Mysore’s Gangothri Glades stadium for the game between the home team and the Bangalore Brigadiers, creating an atmosphere rivalling – in decibel level and colour, for sure – an international match.While the lack of infrastructure in the districts remains a problem, the KSCA realises the need to move more of the tournament outside Bangalore, which hosted all but six of the 31 games this season. “We are planning to go, from the next edition onwards, to other locations in Karnataka,” Srikantadatta Wadiyar, a descendant of the Mysore royal family and current KSCA president, says. “The idea is to ultimately take it to the respective locations and zones [of the franchises].”He is also hopeful of getting some players from outside the state to feature next year. “This year it was not possible, but next year we shall plan in advance and try and get something organised, but the tournament basically has been marketed as an event ‘for Karnataka, by Karnataka, of Karnataka’.”The franchises are also looking ahead to the next season. Mangalore has announced its plans to start an academy to spot and groom talent. Belgaum is looking at providing equipment and forming teams within its catchment area, and holding intra-zone tournaments. “We are committed to four tournaments a year in Belgaum,” Hoover says. “We will club some areas together and make a team; we plan to have five or six such teams, who will then face off against each other.”If the franchises stick to their promises, it will go a long way towards achieving the KPL’s goal of expanding the game in the rural districts. The league has managed to get people to the grounds to watch domestic cricket ¬- uncommon in India: the Chinnaswamy Stadium wore a deserted look during the final of the Corporate Cup, which finished just days before the KPL, despite the presence of crowd-magnets like MS Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh. If other states decide to replicate the KPL, the KSCA’s gamble could end up revolutionising the manner in which talent is spotted in Indian domestic cricket, besides multiplying the number of players involved in the game at a high level.

Today, Sachin Tendulkar tried to make a laboratory experiment of his constant advice: Under pressure you have more time than you think you have. Delay the charge It was a high-risk approach that was enthralling to watch

Sriram Veera in Durban14-May-2009You ask any modern Indian cricketer or even foreign players in the Mumbai Indians team, they all point to one constant piece of advice given by Sachin Tendulkar: Under pressure you have more time than you think you have. Delay the charge. Today, Tendulkar tried to make a laboratory experiment of it. It was a high-risk approach that was simply enthralling to watch. When is he going to go for it? Surely, he has left it for too late? Tendulkar had squeezed himself and Sanath Jayasuriya in the middle-order as Mumbai had been choking whenever the duo failed at the top.The plan didn’t start off well with Mumbai wobbling at 23 for 3 when Tendulkar entered in the sixth over. If the top three had added more runs, then it would have been understandable but they seemed caught in no man’s land. Tendulkar and Jayasuriya however, stuck to the plan. No shot in rage, nothing flashy, just keep batting and delay the assault. It threatened to cause an implosion. Shane Warne tried his best to shake them off their focus, throwing little temptations their way. The mini-battle between Warne, Tendulkar and Jayasuriya was rivetting. It wasn’t action packed but the gameplans of each of the masters were fascinating to watch. On the one hand you had the sages – Tendulkar and Jayasuriya – and on the other, Warne, the wizard.Warne flighted the leg breaks to Tendulkar who at best looked for singles. Ditto for Jayasuriya. Warne brought the men from the deep and increased the trajectory but there was no change in the batsmen’s mindset. Warne knew one wicket could turn the game in his way. But he wouldn’t have been too displeased with the run rate either. Johan Botha too bowled two tight overs. The pressure was mounting and the two batsmen would have to really need to turn it on consistently for a period of time. The risk might have been too much. And this approach couldn’t be a blueprint for a successful chase for other batsmen. It needed the calibre of Tendulkar and Jayasuriya to pull it off. Would they?At the end of ten overs, Mumbai required 92 from 60 balls. At the strategic timeout the two batsmen remained on the pitch. Jayasuriya stretched himself on the ground while Tendulkar stood. Both were involved in a chat with Shaun Pollock and Praveen Amre. Upon resumption, Jayasuriya tried to slog-sweep Warne but fell. Tendulkar had to do it now. The mind couldn’t but go back to their previous encounters. Tendulkar charging Warne has to be the sight of the 90s for many Indians and one image has frozen into the mind’s eye – Sharjah. The Tendulkar charge. And Warne waving his hand in front of his face almost in disbelief. Would it happen again?Two balls after Jayasuriya fell, Tendulkar jumped out at the flighted legbreak to lift it over inside-out over extra cover. Warne ripped another one even higher but with more work on the ball. Tendulkar came out but ended up miscuing the lofted hit but it fell safely. Tendulkar cranked up the heat. He dispatched Yusuf Pathan over long-on and hit three consecutive fours to the straight boundary off Ravindra Jadeja and the equation came down to 48 from 30. The man seemed to have pulled off his incredibly risky plan.But Warne wasn’t done yet. He squeezed one past Tendulkar’s attempted sweep to claim his man. Game over? Abhishek Nayar didn’t think so and played a fine whirlwind innings till he had a Tendulkar moment of his own. With just six runs needed from nine balls, he dug out a yorker to the leg side and ran, unaware that the ball was with the wicketkeeper. Just like Tendulkar in the 1996 World Cup against Sri Lanka with Romesh Kaluwitharana, the keeper, stumping him. India collapsed then, Mumbai choked now. The Tendulkar shadow refuses to leave Mumbai.

A slow legcutter undid Bangalore’s most destructive batsman this IPL, and clinched the game for Deccan

Sriram Veera at the VCA Stadium in Nagpur12-Apr-2010They say a game can be won or lost in one ball. It’s a lovely cliché that normally produces a cynical chuckle in us, but we secretly hope and wait for the day it rings true. We watch sport for its clichés and sometimes, just some times, a game is indeed lost or won in one delivery. Today we witnessed one such instance, when Harmeet Singh took out Robin Uthappa to seal Deccan’s third successive win. The equation read 18 from 12 and Uthappa appeared to have had one hand on the Man-of- the-Match award, before it happened.You felt Harmeet would bowl the slower one. Not only because, like Rajasthan Royals’ Siddharth Trivedi, that’s his go-to ball under pressure, but also given that Uthappa hadn’t yet faced a slower delivery. And so you wondered how Uthappa would face the challenge. There was a deep midwicket, a long-on and a deep square leg in place. The IPL 2008 version of Uthappa would have shuffled to the off and tried scooping it to the boundary. The 2009 version would have just tried walking down the track and hoped, almost desperately, for the best. The 2010 version was the most mature of them all. Surely, you thought, he would be expecting a slower one.Just before the ball was bowled, there was a delay that added to the drama. Uthappa wanted some water. It was Vinay Kumar, his partner, who frantically signalled the dug-out at the end of the 18th over to come out with refreshments. Uthappa wandered towards the men rushing in from the boundary and Adam Gilchrist was in conversation with Harmeet. Several other team-mates joined in.Meanwhile, the DJ used the break in play to try his best to pump up the heartbeats. The crowd, at least in the enclosure this writer was seated, looked largely relaxed and yet very curious. There were none of the nail-baiting visuals that would have occurred had it been India playing. Or even if there was a state team playing. Parochialism wasn’t in the air tonight. And it was fun to watch. The spectators actually enjoyed the spectacle for what it was. A bowler, a batsman and a game to be won. Or lost.And it was the slower one. What’s more, it was the one bowled like the legbreak. It was something that Sreesanth bowls a lot, but rarely finds success doing so. There are a few things that could go wrong with a back-of-a-hand slower one. The change in action can be easily spotted. It’s difficult to control, as Sreesanth has found out various times. It’s very difficult to hit the right length with, for many a time the bowler tends to either float it too full or drag it too short. But it’s something Harmeet, as he said in the post-match ceremony, has been practicing a lot for this IPL. And so he ripped the ball across.Uthappa, until then, had been working with a very simple technique. Like Harmeet, it’s something Uthappa has worked a lot on. His first move is almost straight back as opposed to back and across. He reckons his big frame is not suitable to be going back and across, as he tends to fall over a bit. He likes to keep things still and this straight-back movement enables that. He presses back and then almost lurches forward, in a movement not unlike a batter in baseball. In the course of this IPL, as was evident in his innings tonight, that is how Uthappa has loaded up for the big hit. Press back, lurch forward and then smoke through the line. Carve. Slash. Blast. Pull. Flat-bat. Slice. And so, Uthappa pressed back.The ball squeezed out of the fingers, slowed up appreciably in the air, and this is where it all started to go wrong for Uthappa. He was forced to wait, forced to halt the bat-swing, forced to slow down his forward movement and the whole balance, so carefully constructed and something that a batsman is so heavily dependent on, began to go awry. The ball landed and skidded like a legcutter towards the stumps. Uthappa could, perhaps, have tried checking his shot and jabbed the ball away, but he may have been too much into his bat-swing and the execution of his initial thought that he tried to compensate for the slowness by dragging his bat across the line. No luck . The bat met thin air and the ball skidded through to find the stumps. Game over. Sometimes, a game is really decided in one ball. Or so they say.

Deficiency in the spin department can hurt South Africa’s prospects in the Test series, and their current spin options haven’t shown much promise

Nagraj Gollapudi02-Feb-2010Some might bill this contest as the world championship of Test cricket, but if you weigh the overall resources available to both contestants the scales are tipped against South Africa in one important area: the spin department. The lack of a good spinner, forget a match-winner, has always kept South Africa almost famous.Just like the chokers tag, South Africa have never been able to convincingly erase another dark spot – the absence of a slow bowler who can support the well-equipped fast-bowling bench. It is to their credit then that they have an enviable record in India, which even supersedes the Australians. A combination of a strong, and deep, batting line-up, lethal fast bowlers and the ability to slip into the saddle quickly has always kept the South African challenge honest. The India series gives them another chance to be No.1, but already the signs are ominous.On the first of the two-day warm-up match, played on a sporting pitch at the Vidarbha Cricket Association stadium, South Africa’s spinners were a troubled lot, as 20-year-olds saw them off with ridiculous ease. Paul Harris was whipped into submission by Manish Pandey in the hour leading to the lunch break. And when he returned, an hour later, Abhishek Nayar swept and cut him, forcing Graeme Smith to dispatch his premier spinner into the deep corners of the field for the rest of the afternoon.Johan Botha flattered to deceive as he began with a quick, straighter delivery that beat the defence of Cheteshwar Pujara. But the offspinner has been rendered largely ineffective after the ICC banned his (in May 2009), a delivery that fetched him large number of wickets during his early years in first-class cricket and raised the aspirations of various South African think-tanks. Today he failed to get any break off the pitch, despite the true bounce, and was unsuccessful in lending flight consistently.JP Duminy, the third spinner, used sparingly by Smith in the past, was left practising the on the sidelines during the tea break, and never got the breadth to exercise his true potential.With Jacques Kallis being reduced to a bits-and-pieces bowler on flat Indian pitches prone to favour turn, the visitors are likely find themselves in a desperate situation unless they fix their spin problems. Fortunately for them, according to two experts, South Africa have the ability to stand strong against the might of the Indian batting order, which has demoralised spinners at home, counting among its victims Shane Warne and, most recently, Muttiah Muralitharan. Murali arrived in India for the three-Test series 17 short of becoming the first bowler to take 800 wickets, but returned home a spent force and still nine away from the historic mark.Daryl Cullinan, one of the few South Africans to work out the menace of Murali in his prime, said Smith needs to admit he lacks the spinners who could catch the Indians in the wake, and opt for a defensive approach. “I don’t think many spinners come to India and dominate. So the best contribution (from the spinners) would be in looking to contain,” Cullinan told Cricinfo. He added the peculiar nature of Indian pitches would only aggravate the visitors’ agony. “They are going to be under pressure but a lot will depend on the wicket. I don’t expect the surfaces to be sporting at all. If that is the case then our spinners might have to battle.”But, quite contrary to Cullinan, Pat Symcox, his former team-mate was positive about the spin combination being a potent force. “There is no doubt that Paul Harris, Johan Botha and even JP Duminy have the wherewithal to pull the job,” Symcox said. “If Botha can mentally overcome what has happened to him over the last two years, he is a good spinner. Duminy is extremely under-rated. The question that remains is whether they can adjust quickly to the conditions that are going to prevail.”Still, the numbers in the past have not been encouraging. Symcox, once South Africa’s premier offspinner, had a forgettable time in India: During the 1996 tour, where India won the Test series 2-1, his six wickets came an average of 54. In the same series, Paul Adams grabbed 14 wickets at 20. But the most successful South African slow bowler in India has been Nicky Boje, who played a winning hand in South Africa’s series win in 2000, picking seven wickets in two Tests at 16, including a five-for.However, Symcox has plenty of faith in the current spin attack. He also does not want to read too much into the performance in the warm-up. “Having experienced it myself I felt we should not read too much into the warm-up because it is about finding the feet, finding the rhythm and getting adjusted to the local conditions,” he said. The winning strategy, Symcox said, would be for the South African batsmen to put enough runs on the board which, then, would allow the spinners to attack for an extended period of time. “If not then they will have to adopt the defensive mode.”The stale form of Harris, though, is a growing concern, a factor acknowledged by both Smith and his bowling coach Vincent Barnes. Symcox is more sympathetic towards the tall left-arm spinner, who he reckons is just as much off the boil as India’s No. 1 spinner Harbhajan Singh had been in the past. “Form comes and goes and that is one of the mysteries of the game. Like Harbhajan Singh, who also has to answer the same questions,” he says. Symcox defended Harris, saying a big factor for his decline had been the chronic lack of support on South African tracks which have little in them for spinners.But even while playing overseas, Harris confronts a tide of numbers against him. There is a significant difference in his home and away averages: in South Africa, he has played 15 Tests, taking 44 wickets at 31, while on foreign surfaces, he has taken 38 wickets in 12 Tests at 36. Incidentally, his record against India is his worst against any opposition: in four Tests he has managed 13 wickets at 45. And his performance in India has been dispiriting – he’s played three Tests, taking eight wickets at 51.Though Harris was consistent in 2009, with 26 wickets in six Tests at 33, he’s experienced a decline since his debut in 2007 when he took 29 wickets in nine Tests at 24. But Cullinan and Symcox remain hopeful. “Both Botha and Harris are not big turners, but on wickets that have irregular turn and bounce they can be effective,” Cullinan said.

Soon after Lasith Malinga joined Thilan Samaraweera in the middle, India stopped attacking the specialist batsman and allowed him easy runs

Sidharth Monga at the P Sara Oval06-Aug-2010This has to be the most annoying bit about modern captains. The moment a tailender and a proper batsman start batting together, they start giving the specialist batsman free singles. No matter the situation, no matter how treacherous the pitch might be, no matter what score that proper batsman might be batting on. Some sort of textbook, which must be burnt if it exists, tells them to attack only the tailender, and not try for the batsman’s wicket. They blindly follow.MS Dhoni is not the first man to do so. He won’t be the last. Look at the situation, though. Sri Lanka had been on a self-destruction mission. India had accepted gifted wickets. Five batsmen had been dismissed for 24 runs. The score read 87 for 7, effectively 76 for 7. Thilan Samaraweera was 4 when Lasith Malinga joined him.One boundary later, Samaraweera was taking an easy single to sweeper cover. On this pitch, with that score. Another hit over mid off and the field was spread irrevocably, and he was given easy singles for the rest of his stay.It is funny how India would have continued attacking Samaraweera had he been batting with Angelo Mathews, but not now, when his partner was Malinga. Now India were happy to attempt a wicket only about twice an over, letting Samaraweera refuse singles for the first three balls and then turn the strike over, or go for the boundary when the field was brought up to keep him at that end. Why not try the same tactics that have brought success so far?There is a chance that the proper batsman – with not much to lose, once the tail is in – might go for and succeed in getting quick runs, but he has to take risks for that. Modern captains, though, are worried about not conceding those runs. With the formats of the game, the hearts of the captains are shrinking too.Mohammad Yousuf was not a good captain, and what he did at the SCG last year is indicative of a modern captain. Pakistan had Australia effectively 51 for 8 in the third innings, having taken the last five wickets for 40 runs, but they stopped trying for Michael Hussey’s wicket. “I think you get what you deserve in life, and from the moment Pakistan came out on the last morning and put their field back, they were in trouble,” Ian Chappell said of that match. “I thought to myself, when you tell the opposition that you are worried, you are nervous, you are frightened, and particularly when that opposition is a good cricket team, then you are in trouble.”Then at least Hussey had scored 59 runs, here Samaraweera was on 4. India deserved the stiff chase they got, and from the moment they set their fields back for Samaraweera, they were in trouble. He was allowed to get himself in easily, he knew he could defend without worrying about edges, because there wouldn’t be anybody to accept them. He knew India were worried.It becomes like a game of basketball, where there is no full-court press. All the action is concentrated at either end of the court, in the middle players move freely with the ball. Spare a thought, too, for the bowler, who gets only a couple of deliveries in an over – if he is lucky – to try and get the wicket. The bouncer tends to fly off target, the sucker ball tends to become too full, there is no time to work on a dismissal, and more often than not the batsmen come out the better in that contest.This is not to devalue the contributions of Samaraweera and Ajantha Mendis, who were outstanding. Perhaps they might still have had a century partnership. India still might go on and win the Test, although that looks slightly unlikely. However, a day after India’s tail tried to exorcise some of the old memories of opposition lower-order contributions running away with the game, another horror chapter has been added. And the worst part was, Dhoni, like his contemporary captains, tried to get only one batsman out.

Harbhajan and Laxman came to India’s rescue against New Zealand in their own contrasting styles

ESPNcricinfo staff08-Nov-2010The way VVS Laxman and Harbhajan Singh ran between the wickets today perfectly captured the differences in their personas, and their knocks. As ever, Laxman never seemed to run, but strolled calmly in his anachronistic way. Harbhajan was different; he often ambled three-quarters of the way down the pitch, before rushing at the end to barely beat the throw. Occasionally, he just walked across. On one instance, he even back-pedalled a few steps on the second run. It suggested a touch of insouciance, a pinch of foolhardiness, a smidgen of showmanship, and a streak of ballsiness. It’s what makes Harbhajan the player he is, and all those attributes were reflected in his batting.Trouble arrived as early as the third over of the day. He drove to the left of Daniel Vettori at mid-off and set off for a single. Had the throw been accurate (it bounced over the stumps), that would have been the end of Harbhajan. It would be the quickest he would run for a single all day. The next Harbhajan moment came an over later: there was a gap of about seven feet between short cover and short extra cover, and he smacked a length delivery from Chris Martin right between them. Was he aiming for that gap or was it a purely instinctive reaction? Was it ballsy or was it foolhardy? Perhaps in his mind there was no choice at to play it.Soon after he played a cheeky reverse sweep off Jeetan Patel, a shot he later described with great delight, perfectly capturing his spirit: “He was bowling outside off and I thought if there is an opportunity I will reverse sweep. I made up my mind to reverse sweep that ball. If I had missed that ball I would have been out,” he said with a laugh. “And that would have been a mess. Glad I connected it.”At the same time, there seemed to be an awareness of the risks he was taking somewhere in the background in his psyche, even if it wasn’t strong enough to overpower his adventurous instinct. “I want to promise to myself that I should not play a reverse sweep in Test cricket again because I have got out playing that shot many times.”Still blocking is not his style. “I know that I will get out if I keep defending,” he said. Of course, that was followed by, “I know if I can play straight, I can score runs; there is no need for fancy shots.” This is from the same man who played the reverse sweep, the hoick over midwicket, the walk-down-the-pitch-and-smack shots, and the lofted hits over long-on fielders. But that’s Harbhajan the batsman for you.Rewind to the first hour of play. Harbhajan walked down the track and swiped Martin from outside off to the leg side. Laxman said something from the other end. At that stage, India were 135 for 6, several runs, and at least an hour’s batting, short of safety. The very next ball he walked out again, got down on his knee, and dragged a delivery from well outside off to the leg side. This time Laxman walked the full length of the pitch to have a chat with his partner, and Harbhajan nodded. Planned or not, the next delivery from Martin was perfect: it was short and slightly wide. A straighter delivery might not have raised temptation in the context of what had already happened in that over. Harbhajan, of course, flashed it over the head of gully, and received a pat on the back from his senior partner.On the other hand, what can be said about Laxman that’s not been said before? It is perhaps easier to define Laxman through the images of other batsmen in crisis situations. If it was Rahul Dravid, you would have seen him fighting; the hands that hold the bat seem to get tighter, the face-muscles tighten, the intensity escalates, self-admonishments increase, and you can feel the battle he is waging. The whole match situation comes alive in your mind when he bats. You can feel the gravitas.If it was Sachin Tendulkar batting in crisis, you can feel his effort in trying to portray that there is no pressure out there and that he is in control. The signature self-nod after playing a shot is done more often and he would look at the bowler or turn away to the leg side with an expressionless face when he is beaten. You can feel him trying to be in total control. You can sense the pressure he puts himself on.With Brian Lara, you just gasped and watched him trying to impose himself. You could feel his fierce desire to win the game on his own. Lara was, and knew he was, the centre of the universe in such situations, and that his team would live or die with him. And he let everyone know it. As he launched into his awe-inspiring counter-attacks, the chats with his partners would increase, and he will look to get inspired by any verbals from the opposition. He was like a boxer priming himself for heavyweight contest. You couldn’t take your eyes of him.With Laxman, you almost don’t see him. You see his partners bat more. Or so it seems. He flows like a becalmed river. The fabulous wristy shots come and go, the singles are always flowing, the gaps are found repeatedly, and his face is calm. There is the ball and his reaction to it. That’s it. Or it appears. These crisis situations seem to help him balance his art with commerce which he, sometimes, tussles with during less-demanding times.The best Laxman tribute came from the opposing captain. “Laxman just did what he always does,” Vettori said “He scores runs.”

New Zealand have struggled to find a fast-bowling spearhead since the retirement of Shane Bond, but Tim Southee’s five-for represents a step in the right direction

Andrew Fernando at Westpac Stadium22-Jan-2011Daniel Vettori shared just one concern for New Zealand’s future as he stepped down from Test captaincy on Wednesday – that the team lacked genuine strike-bowling prospects for the future. “We still need to find fast bowlers coming in,” he said after his last Test at the helm. And on a day where the New Zealand attack failed to bowl out Pakistan on a worn pitch to win the match, it seemed to fit.Since Shane Bond’s retirement, New Zealand have lacked a fast bowler who can lead the attack in all forms of the game. Their abysmal returns in late 2010 confirmed it. A 4-0 drubbing at the hands of cricket’s perennial whipping boys followed by 5-0 whitewash by India laid bare their inadequate attack and emphasised its inexperience. The fast men did not penetrate, and Vettori could do little when teams opted to see him off safely and attack at the other end. New Zealand needed a spearhead who can make the vital breakthroughs and allow the other bowlers to operate around him, and it seemed as though they simply didn’t have one. Today though, on a Wellington pitch that was expected to be a belter, Tim Southee made a sizeable stride towards picking up the mantle.Steaming in from the Northern End, Southee treated the sparse crowd to a rare exhibition of swing bowling. His first spell was one-day magic. Sharp, bouncy, angling in and shaping away beautifully. The batsmen almost looked bemused as ball after seaming ball leapt off the pitch and away from the outside edge. Wasn’t this pitch supposed to be full of runs? The booming cover drives were stashed away in a hurry, and out came the tentative prods and dangled pokes. It had quickly become apparent to the Pakistan top order that Southee’s spell was about survival. Mohammad Hafeez, Kamran Akmal and Asad Shafiq didn’t make it to double-figures.But what made Southee’s spell truly special was astute variation. New-ball spells are tough enough to negotiate when the ball is moving away at close to 140kph, but when skilful away swing is punctuated by vicious inswing and the odd lifter is thrown in, even great batsmen are reduced to guesswork: playing uncertainly and hoping like hell they’ve got the line right. Before long, Southee was beating both edges, and doing it almost every ball. The indippers that the batsmen were good enough to edge, crashed into their pads or whistled past the leg stump and only the men in form could get anywhere close to the ones that were darting away.Hafeez got a few going away to begin with, before the one that jagged in sparked an lbw appeal. Next ball, he managed to edge the one that went away again. Kamran had fished around against Southee for nine deliveries when he decided he’d lash out with a square drive. The resultant edge flew to Jesse Ryder and cricket’s most unlikely athlete completed a typically impressive take. Asad Shafiq must have been watching his team-mates’ attempts to get bat on ball and he looked to be expecting the outswinger. But the third ball from Southee, he got the other one, as it jagged back to rap him on the back leg. Southee’s six-over spell had ripped the heart out of the Pakistan top order, as he collected three of the top four for 16.When he returned to the attack, Afridi was threatening a counterattack. He’d already been dropped looking to slog over the bowler’s head, but the close call had apparently not been enough to sober Afridi. Southee did for him within two overs. Not with extravagant movement this time, but with a little extra bounce achieved via a scrambled seam. Not a bad ploy to a batsman looking to play cross-batted shots. Misbah’s wicket was just the icing on the cake. A well earned five-wicket haul for a bowler who was nigh unplayable for much of his first spell.There was little the batsmen could do against such high-quality bowling. Waqar Younis chose not to deride the Pakistan batsmen for their loss, and instead gave due recognition to Southee for his impact on the game. “Instead of giving any credit to the pitch or anything else, one should give credit to the New Zealand bowlers, especially Tim Southee,” Waqar said. “He swung the ball and made sure the ball was in the right area. It’s one thing to swing it, but when he bowled in the right areas as well, it made it very difficult. We just kept nicking it.”Fast-bowling performances like Southee’s have been a rarity for New Zealand since Bond’s retirement. In fact in 2010, only Southee delivered the kind of spells that turned a match on its head. Brendon McCullum’s epic 116 in Christchurch against Australia last year would have all been in vain were it not for Southee’s yorkers, which halted a rampaging Cameron White onslaught to tie the game. Southee then delivered an incredible Super Over from which only six runs were made to give New Zealand their win of the year. His five-for against Pakistan in the first Twenty20 in December was also such a performance. Pakistan had been rocketing along at 58 for 1 in 5.5 overs before Southee ripped the heart out of the Pakistan innings with five-wicket haul which included a hat-trick, and ensured that Pakistan’s target didn’t stretch New Zealand.His progress in Tests too has not been unimpressive. Daniel Vettori thought Southee’s bowling in the first innings against Pakistan in Hamilton was “his best Test-match performance.” His line and his aggression on a difficult Basin Reserve pitch was also laudable, if unrewarded with wickets. While Vettori is concerned for his side’s future unless they unearth a Bond-like strike bowler, Southee has been slowly improving all along- perhaps not dramatically, but in noticeable increments, enough to repay the selectors’ faith in him despite some forgettable performances.The good news for New Zealand is that at 22 and a disposition to remain largely uninjured, Southee is has a long career ahead. With an ageing, somewhat ineffective pace attack in Tests and a one-dimensional bowling unit that relies heavily on Vettori in the shorter forms, New Zealand needs Southee to stand up and lead the attack, particularly as inexperienced pace prospects like Hamish Bennett and Adam Milne, begin to come into the fray. Southee is a long way from earning the moniker of “spearhead” yet, but a few more rip-roaring performances like today’s and he might eventually get there.

Publishers may be keen to get their Ashes books out as fast as possible. Is that a bad thing? Not if the writer is Gideon Haigh

Steve James09-Apr-2011Not even a month had passed since the final day of England’s triumphant Ashes campaign when the first book about it pounded through my letter box. My reaction? Utter indifference. It was just too early. It was like seeing Easter eggs for sale days after Christmas. For goodness’ sake, this was published when England were still in Australia slogging their way through a seven-match one-day series.So it is fair to say that I approached with a healthy dose of cynicism. Haigh is a brilliant writer, probably the best in the business, but I had read his daily columns in the (he and a chap called Atherton do make the financial leap over their paper’s paywall worthwhile) during the series, and exceptional though they were, I expected not much more than a collection of these pieces. Microwaved journalism to us, money for old rope to the author.What I had not bargained on were daily match reports, filed for Business Spectator, an Australian website. Combined with the column on every day’s play, they provide the most comprehensive and thoughtful review of the Ashes possible. Suddenly I was recalling the sheer excitement that, in cricket anyway, only an Ashes series can provide. It was my first trip to Australia and this book will serve nicely as both reminder and reference.Haigh did, of course, have to commit fingers to keyboard for this. His introduction is laced with warning about the immediacy of his observations, all filed within an hour of each day’s conclusion and left unaltered since. “Caveat lector,” he writes.There really is no need. Not once does hindsight render Haigh foolish. The closest he comes is when writing at the end of day three in the first, eventually drawn, Brisbane Test. “England now need to bat perhaps 150 overs,” he says, “about twice as long as in their first innings, to salvage a draw; it is not beyond them by any means, but nor theoretically is a political comeback by Margaret Thatcher.”Haigh’s unique power of description stands him apart. Take Alastair Cook’s batting: “He wears his method like a shabby but comfortable jacket, too-long sleeves worn through at the elbows, yet imbued with pleasant associations.” Or a poor shot from Shane Watson, “as arrogant and foolhardy as lighting a cigar with a $100 note”. Or the opening partnership of Watson and Simon Katich: “Of Ponting at number three they have been contrasting protectors, Katich stepping across his stumps like a secret serviceman guarding a president, Watson more like a bouncer in a swanky nightclub.”The technical analysis is sharp. On Ricky Ponting’s batting travails: “Anxious to cover off stump, Ponting has been jumping into, and outside of, the line of the ball; moving so far across, in fact, as to expose his leg stump, down which side he has twice nicked fatally.”After the second day’s play in Perth, Haigh used a tale about Keith Miller to begin a piece about the frustrations with Mitchell Johnson following his heroics that day. Having taken 7 for 12 to bowl out South Australia for 26, Miller was asked by a journalist about the spell’s secrets: “There are three reasons,” he answered, “First, I bowled bloody well. Second… Second… Awww, ya can forget about the other two.”
I saw Haigh the next day in Perth. “Nice tale,” I said. “There are plenty more where that came from,” responded Haigh with a glint in his eye. Indeed there are.Ashes 2011
by Gideon Haigh
Aurum, hb
285pp, £12.99

A veteran cricket writer looks back a couple of India’s earliest visits to England, featuring an incompetent prince-captain, a colossal allrounder, and more

John Woodcock19-Jul-2011The first Test match between England and India that I saw was at Lord’s in 1936; the first I wrote about was in 1952. On uncovered English pitches, India’s batsmen, brought up in much blander conditions, had yet to become a force to be regularly reckoned with, and many years were to pass before England considered it incumbent upon them to send a full-strength side to tour India.Of Lord’s itself, pretty well all that remains as it was in 1936 is the pavilion, and even that now incorporates as the secretary’s office what, until 1958, was the press box.As Indian sides always will, those of 1936 and 1952 contained some fine natural cricketers. For no obvious reason their best batsmen in those days seemed more likely to be tall and wristy and elegant, like Mushtaq Ali and Rusi Modi, than small and wristy and insatiable, like Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar.It was during the Lord’s Test of 1936 that artificial methods of drying the pitch after rain were first used, sacks and blankets being rolled into the surface to absorb the moisture. All Test matches in England were still of three days’ duration, except for those against Australia, which were of four, unless it was all-square coming to the last, in which case they were timeless. On average, 120 overs were bowled in a full six-hour day, as against today’s paltry 90.This entirely different tempo is because of the way the game has been commandeered, in most countries and at most levels, by bowlers with long runs. The best fast bowlers have always been match-winners, but until recently they hunted in pairs, not in threes, even fours, as happens now and inevitably slows down the game.In 1936, India were captained, as if by statute, by a prince – the Maharajkumar of Vizianagram – who shot more tigers than he scored first-class runs and was given a courtesy knighthood during the tour. Much his best allrounder, Lala Amarnath, he sent home for insubordination just before the Lord’s Test and a few days after he had scored a century in each innings against Essex. “If a tour by Indian cricketers is to be successful, differences of creed will have to be forgotten,” sternly wrote the editor of Wisden. Many years later Vizzy was to be found writing and commentating on an England tour, a benevolent and widely respected figure, while Amarnath was to go on and lead the first Indian side to tour Australia.

For no obvious reason India’s best batsmen in those days seemed more likely to be tall and wristy and elegant, like Mushtaq Ali and Rusi Modi, than small and wristy and insatiable, like Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar

India had to wait until their 25th Test match before gaining their first Test victory, which came against England in Madras in February 1952. Two months later they left, full of hope, for their third tour of England, only to have a wretched time of it. Of the England side they had beaten in India only two were thought good enough to get a game against them at home, besides which a dismally wet summer put India at a hopeless disadvantage. For the first time they were given five-day Test matches – four of them – and they came to Lord’s for the second after making, in the first, what is still the worst start to an innings in Test history.Although he was doing his national service in the RAF, 21-year-old Fred Trueman was given leave to play in the Test matches in 1952, and his impact was the talk of the season. Beginning their second innings in the first Test at Headingley in reasonable shape – only 41 runs behind England’s 334 – India lost their first four wickets in 14 balls without scoring a run, three of them to Trueman, the other to Alec Bedser.There was a lovely rhythm to Trueman’s bowling, and he swung the ball at a pace equalled at the time only by the two Australians, Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller. On the pitches of that summer, Trueman and Bedser would have been a handful for the strongest of sides. In the event, in their last three innings of the series, India were bowled out for 58, 82 and 98.That they gave England a game at Lord’s was due to an astonishing performance by Vinoo Mankad, who after the Headingley collapse had been released by Haslingden, where he was playing as a professional in the Lancashire League. Having scored 72 on the first day at Lord’s and then bowled 73 overs in England’s first innings, in which he took 5 for 196, Mankad went in again and made what at the time was India’s highest individual score in Test cricket – 184 in just under five hours. By the time England won by eight wickets on the fifth morning his bowling figures for the match were 97-36-231-5. He was India’s first great allrounder, and until Kapil Dev came along 25 years later, the most effective.Mankad was a sturdy and businesslike right-hand batsman and a slow, orthodox left-arm bowler with a low trajectory. Cricket being a symbol of eternity as it was played in India in those days, Mankad personified it. No one else has ever been on the field for anything like as long in a match at Lord’s. Of the 24 hours 35 minutes for which the match lasted he spent 18 hours 45 minutes in the middle. He was 35 at the time and nothing like as physically fit as his counterparts today. It was a prodigious effort.But apart from that, and the emergence of Trueman, and the fact that England were being captained by a professional for the first time in England, the series of 1952 made few headlines. Len Hutton, whose 150 in the Lord’s Test took second place to Mankad’s tour de force, went on to become one of England’s most successful and canniest captains. That neither he nor Don Bradman ever set foot in India was a great pity, albeit a reflection of the times. Had they done so, Brian Lara’s 400 might well not be the highest individual score in Test cricket.

India needed three runs off six balls to win. West Indies needed two wickets. The Test ended in a thrilling draw with the teams level on scores, only the second such instance in history

ESPNcricinfo staff26-Nov-2011Carlton Baugh and Darren Sammy celebrate after avoiding defeat off the last ball of the Test•AFP63.1 FH Edwards to Aaron, no run, 133.7 kph, short of a length, outside off, sharp pace, Aaron is beaten as he looks to dab it.63.2 FH Edwards to Aaron, no run, 145.8 kph, length ball, crisply driven, into the ground, bounces overhead for short cover. Fielded very well. Aaron must be nervous now.63.3 FH Edwards to Aaron, no run, 141.4 kph, heave-ho, heave-ho. No touch on the bat. And Baugh is sensational behind the stumps. Length ball. Aaron swings. The ball swings. Misses the leg stump. Bounces short of Baugh. But he nonchalantly sticks the left hand out. And is ready to throw should they run a bye.63.4 FH Edwards to Aaron, 1 run, 146.3 kph, misfield by Samuels. Length ball again, bounces short of mid-off. Samuels fumbles. Aaron, who hesitated for the single, was a goner of he had collected and thrown.63.5 FH Edwards to Ashwin, no run, 145.6 kph, big lbw appeal. The inside edge saves him. India can’t lose now. This can’t even be a tie. Late swing now. Ashwin looks to work this to leg without taking a big risk, in order to rule out a dfeat.63.6 FH Edwards to Ashwin, 1 run, OUT, 141.8 kph, West Indies salvage a draw here. Fletcher might as well say, “We flippin’ murdered them.” A length ball, pushes his weight back and smashes this down to long-on. It’s as if he has made his mind up there is no second available. Slow to start, slow to turn around. He goes for the second only when Aaron pushes him. Run out by a mile. Did Ashwin miss a trick in the final moment? This doesn’t by any means take away credit from what all Ashwin did in the lead-up