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Kanpur has a lot to thank Ahmedabad for. Had India come into this match leading the series, a draw would have been as likely as the haze in the Kanpur winter

Sidharth Monga in Kanpur10-Apr-2008

Pitch reading is a hazardous occupation at the best of times. But from the look of it, the surface at the Green Park stadium in Kanpur is designed to yield a result. The question, however, is how long the match will last. One-down in the series, India would have hoped for a turner, and South Africa would have expected it. But neither team would have quite bargained for what they have got.Greame Smith has described it as the least-prepared pitch he has seen in his playing career, a view shared by a senior Indian player who said it was unlike anything he had seen.Underprepared, dry, and cracking already, there is no telling what this pitch might do. Let alone spin, it might make any bowling dangerous to face. While Tests like the one in Mumbai
against Australia in 2004-05 are fascinating once in a while, especially
when quality batsmen like Jacques Kallis and VVS Laxman negate extremely
difficult conditions, this one might not be just a regular crumbler but one
with completely unpredictable bounce. And that might not necessarily be advantage India:
South African pacemen can be deadly too.The ball might dart around, bounce unevenly, spin alarmingly; no-one really
knows. And both the camps are concerned with the wicket. Just after India’s
capitulation ended in Ahmedabad, reports
started pouring in that they had already stopped watering the track at Green Park, which turned out to be close to the truth [there hasn’t been
any heavy watering for the last four-five days]. This is also the first Test in Kanpur being played in summer [all the other 19 have been played
between November and February]. As a result the wicket is flirting with the
line that separates an average crumbler from a substandard wicket.Shiv Kumar, the curator, promised a “wicket that will surely produce a
result and assist spin”. Daljit Singh, who’s part of the BCCI’s ground and
pitches committee, chose to call it – perhaps for novelty’s sake – a
“sporting track”.This one looks nothing like it. Mickey Arthur, the South Africa coach, was
perhaps closer to the actual description. “The wicket will go through the
top very early, but we are prepared for it,” Arthur said. Graeme Smith joked
at the pre-match press conference that it had already started cracking a day
before the game, leave alone the third and fourth day. Kumar says it will turn from day three onwards, but South Africa expect it to start breaking anytime after the first ball is bowled.Ever since India suffered an innings defeat at the hands of West Indies in
1983, Kanpur has not produced a
track that has favoured fast bowling. It has mostly been a slow turner, like
the one in 2004, something Kumar says will not happen this time, believing the dry heat will ensure it breaks up in due time.And if the Green Park track does crumble – and that’s an important “if”
because these are all predictions that can go wrong – it will be because of
a situation India have been forced into. Their fast bowlers have taken a
total of three wickets in the series so far. Ishant Sharma missed both those
Tests, RP Singh has looked completely out of sorts, and Sreesanth hasn’t
given South Africa sleepless nights either. A genuine sporting track, as
Ahmedabad was, will definitely not suit India, given the form their pace
bowlers are in. Being 1-0 down in the series, they can’t afford a
Chennai-like sleeping beauty either. As a result they have put all their
eggs in the spin basket, perhaps the only basket they had.The hype and anticipation built around the pitch is not less than the one in
Perth created earlier this
year when Adam Gilchrist was reportedly not sure how far was too far when
keeping to Shaun Tait. Perth did not turn out to be the terror it
promised to, Green Park just might.

Stats preview to the third Test between India and Australia

S Rajesh28-Oct-2008

Already buoyed by a terrific victory in Mohali, the Indians couldn’t have chosen a better venue to further consolidate their position and perhaps seal the series. The venue for the third Test is the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in Delhi, a ground where India have won each of their last seven Tests, and haven’t lost in the last 21 years. The last team to beat them here were the formidable West Indians, and even they had to fight hard: chasing 276 for victory, they’d slumped to 111 for 4 before Viv Richards spanked an unbeaten 109 off 111 balls to see them through. That remains the highest fourth-innings score by an overseas team in India.Three of those seven wins for India were against Zimbabwe, but they’ve beaten much tougher opponents here as well: Australia were vanquished in 1996, while Pakistan and Sri Lanka were the latest sides to succumb in Delhi. For Australia, the venue won’t bring back fond memories: of the five times they’ve played here, only once have they tasted victory, but in their last four Tests Australia have lost twice.India have excellent recent results here, but the Feroz Shah Kotla wasn’t always such a favourite for India: in 11 Tests here between 1972 and 1992, they lost five times and didn’t win once. Since then, though, the script has changed completely.

The one player who has relished the conditions here more than any other is the Indian captain. Anil Kumble has grabbed 55 wickets at this ground in just six Tests – including that ten in an innings against Pakistan in 1999 – at an incredible average of 15.41, which is his best among venues where he has played more than one Test. Of his ten Man-of-the-Match awards in his Test career, three have come in Delhi, including the last two times he played here. Harbhajan Singh hasn’t done badly either, though his numbers pale when compared to Kumble’s.

Kumble has also been helped by the fact that the batsmen have all been among the runs here. Sourav Ganguly heads the list, with four 50-plus scores in six Tests here and an average of more than 60, while Rahul Dravid, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and VVS Laxman all average more than 50. The only one among the big four who hasn’t quite enjoyed the pitch here is Sachin Tendulkar – his average in Delhi is a relatively ordinary 44.Among the Australians, Ricky Ponting is the only one from the current squad to have played a Test here. He managed just 27 runs in two innings.

Traditionally, the Feroz Shah Kotla has been a delight for spinners, which is why Australia might not relish the prospect of needing a win here to level the series. Spinners have taken 141 out of 217 wickets in the last seven Tests, at an average of less than 28. Fast bowlers average nearly 40 per wicket, with Javagal Srinath the only one to take a five-for. Among the spinners, Kumble (four times), Harbhajan, Saqlain Mushtaq (twice) and Muttiah Muralitharan have five-wicket hauls in the last seven matches here.

With spinners having such a say in proceedings, it’s hardly surprising that the captain winning the toss has batted first in each of the 29 Tests here. What is surprising, though, is the fact that only five out of 16 decisive results have gone in favour of the team winning the toss. On four of those five occasions the team winning the toss was India; the only overseas team to win a Test here after winning the toss is England, way back in 1976.

The table below suggests that batting first hasn’t made a huge difference in recent Tests in Delhi. Come Wednesday, though, and the captain winning the toss will still almost certainly choose to put the runs on the board.

West Indies cricketers better be down to business from ball one this morning in Leicester if they are to make the most of the busiest lead-in to a Test series away from home for nine years

Fazeer Mohammed20-Apr-2009So, is this a case of fete over back to work, or work over back to fete?Whatever the attitude here after the Fifth Summit of the Americas, the West Indies cricketers better be down to business from ball one this morning in Leicester if they are to make the most of the busiest lead-in to a Test series away from home for nine years.It’s ironic isn’t it? On the last campaign to England in 2007, West Indies had just one three-day fixture scheduled ahead of the first match of a four-Test series. This time around, for a series of just two Tests that was only possible after the Sri Lankan authorities announced last year that they were pulling out of their team’s scheduled trip due to most of their top players being contracted to the second season of the Indian Premier League, the visitors have been assigned three first-class matches encompassing ten days of competitive cricket before the first ball is bowled at Lord’s on May 6.Of course, it is quite possible, and indeed almost expected, that inclement weather will affect the build-up. Still, West Indies can have no complaints on this occasion about preparation time, especially as that lone warm-up match two years ago against Somerset was reduced to just 48 overs by bad weather.In fact, the last time a West Indian side had as many as three first-class fixtures preceding a Test series was on the 2000 tour, also of England, where the team led by Jimmy Adams swept to an innings victory inside three days in the first Test at Edgbaston but went rapidly downhill thereafter and surrendered the Wisden Trophy in losing the rubber by a 3-1 margin.Now they are back there as holders of the prize, thanks to a determined effort in the four-match duel in the Caribbean just a few weeks ago and, it has to be acknowledged, a measure of complacency by an England squad that was looking too far ahead to the Ashes battle with Australia.It would therefore be the height of criminal sporting negligence by Andrew Strauss’ side to again be less than fully committed to the two Tests against West Indies. Anyway, the English can deal with their own stories however they want. What West Indies head coach John Dyson has to do is ensure that the side he is moulding into an increasingly competitive unit can continue making these encouragingly incremental improvements in a series that is so brief that there will be little opportunity to make amends for one bad period of play.Try as they did over the next three matches, England could not redress the balance after two nightmarish hours on the fourth day of the first Test at Sabina Park, so it has to be appreciated that the margin for error at Lord’s and then at the Chester-le-Street ground up in Durham will be considerably narrower.With captain Chris Gayle, along with fast bowler Fidel Edwards, involved with their respective teams in the IPL in South Africa over the next ten days, tour vice-captain Denesh Ramdin takes on the responsibility of captaincy from today against Leicestershire and also for the following three-day match at Chelmsford against Essex and then the final warm-up, a four-day encounter against the England “A” team, which carries the title of the “England Lions”, at Derby.While he will have team management for support and someone like former captain Ramnaresh Sarwan available for on-field consultation, this will be another test of the 24-year-old wicketkeeper-batsman’s credentials as a future senior West Indies captain, a challenging position that no less a personality than Sir Vivian Richards has already suggested he is capable of taking on.That senior batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul and another pacer, Jerome Taylor, have been given a few extra days leave before joining the squad later this week, no doubt makes Ramdin’s stand-in job a bit more challenging. Then again, he should be looking upon it as an opportunity to shine in the same way that other members of the squad must do in the absence of the senior quartet.For the uncapped trio of opening batsman Dale Richards and fast bowlers Andrew Richardson and Nelon Pascal, together with Lendl Simmons (Test debutant just last month at Queen’s Park Oval), these are chances not to be squandered. In working towards being more and more competitive again at Test level, having players banging on the selectors’ door on tour is one of the best ways to create the sort of environment where complacency is not allowed to take root.Make no mistake. West Indies will face a real battle on their hands to retain the Wisden Tophy, especially if it is cold and miserable. If it is also rainy, well, that may actually help the tourists’ cause. However, praying for rain doesn’t actually fit into the strategy of any serious team, even in England. And if the former undisputed champions of the game want to confirm that the recent triumph in the Caribbean was no fluke, a concerted effort in the two Tests will do just that.In pursuit of that objective, every single day of play leading up to May 6 should be approached with the sort of intensity and purpose that sends the message that, in the same way the hemispheric leaders in Port of Spain surely would have recognised, performance is the most effective way to respond to the critics.

There’s Steve Waugh and Brian Lara. And then, a notch above, there’s Sachin Tendulkar

Allan Donald13-Nov-2009I had been watching Sachin Tendulkar on and off before we (South Africa) were readmitted in 1991. People were always talking about him so I was aware of what we were going to come up against, and I remember Craig McDermott telling us that he was going to be the best in the world.Our first engagement was in 1991, in Calcutta, in front of 90,000 people. He made 62. And it was blatantly clear then that he was going to be a player to remember.Before I played against him I was always looking forward to having a crack. Then I realised just what I was up against. When someone like Tendulkar walks to the crease, you have to know what you are going to do. You can’t just run up and bowl. You have to have planned your attack, your line, a week in advance.Everything about him is just so exceptional. He is wonderful technically and he has everything – class, speed, all the shots, and he is cool under pressure. Cricketers always talk about his amazing balance, even the Aussies. I’ve seen tapes of Sunil Gavaskar and if you split the screen between him and Tendulkar, they look virtually identical. I have never seen a man with such immaculate balance – it is freakish.People go to a Test match just to watch Tendulkar. I, for one, would rather watch him than bowl against him. Actually, I’m glad I’ll never have to bowl to him in a Test match again, though I’ve been quite successful against him. He is No. 1 in my book – the best player I have ever had the privilege of bowling to. There’s Steve Waugh and there’s Brian Lara, who was wonderful in 1995, but Tendulkar is a class above, consistently special.Your margin for error against him really is marginal. If you get him on a flat track, when he is, say, 50 not out off 24 balls, then you know that you have a very long day ahead and the situation can be very, very demoralising. The best knock I can remember him playing was at Newlands in 1997, when he was just unstoppable. We only got him thanks to a blinding catch by Adam Bacher off a hook shot, otherwise he would have gone on and on.Under Hansie Cronje we studied hard for a Tendulkar weakness. We thought he might be vulnerable, especially early in his innings, to the ball that is bowled from wide of the crease, coming back in off a good length. He might then be bowled through the gate, or be lbw, especially on English wickets. We also tried peppering him with short balls – not many top-class batters like that – but it didn’t really seem to bother him. The one thing that might rattle him is being restricted. He loves scoring, and scoring quickly, and if he is frustrated, sometimes he goes out and looks for the big shot.I don’t think he really gets rattled by sledging. Glenn McGrath tried it and Tendulkar just kept running at him and hitting him back over his head for four. I think that, like Steve Waugh, sledging just makes him more focused: I don’t think it is a good idea to have a word.The ball I bowled to him in Durban in 1996 was the best ball I have bowled to any cricketer. I think he hit the first two balls after lunch for four, then I came from wide of the crease and the ball really went a long way to bowl him. I don’t think I’ve ever celebrated like that – you save those for the big ones. We had discussed how to bowl to him, and I knew what I was trying to do, but I never expected it to go so far off the seam to knock out the off stump. It was a great sight. That series was billed as the Donald-Tendulkar battle, but he got his own back at Cape Town with one of the best knocks I’ve ever seen.Tendulkar is already a legend so I’m not sure how he’ll be remembered – what comes after legend? He is still young and if he plays till he is 35 who knows what he’ll achieve. He’s the best in the world, one of the most magnificent players there’s ever been. He’s also a nice guy, a soft-hearted bloke who gives 110% and just loves playing cricket.

On the night, Chennai were the better team by a margin rather greater than eight wickets

Telford Vice in Johannesburg26-Sep-2010″The sheep are so thin this year,” goes a joke among Eastern Cape farmers, “we can fax them to the abattoir.” The jibe, like the farmers themselves, is a hardy perennial. It has to be. Without a robust sense of humour, nothing survives, much less prospers, in the Eastern Cape.A province that bulges like a bicep along South Africa’s wind-whipped south-eastern coast, beyond which lay the skeletons of so many stricken ships, is no place for the soft of heart, mind, body or soul.Any team representing it faces critics as prosaic as they are stoic. So there will be no tears in the wake of the Warriors’ implosion in the Champions League Twenty20 final at the Wanderers in Johannesburg. Besides, they’ll tell each other unblinkingly down on the farm, this was no accident. On the night, the Chennai Super Kings were the better team by a margin rather greater than eight wickets. More like the 300 kilometres that separates Port Elizabeth from East London.To Chennai, undeniably, goes the accolade of the best franchise Twenty20 team in the world. Whoever said this format of the game doesn’t deliver worthy champions? Fact is, Chennai have spent the Champions League gliding to victory after victory as effortlessly as Fred and Ginger. Not for them the sweaty scramble of the close-run thing. They lost just once, to Victoria. That is if ending up on the wrong end of so dubious a yardstick as a one-over eliminator can rightfully be called losing.Chennai’s closest scrape with authentic defeat came at the hands of the same Warriors in their Port Elizabeth backyard. R Ashwin and Muttiah Muralitharan got them out of that jam, and they won by 10 runs.The Wanderers pitch is an entirely different animal to the one that spends its lazy days stretched out in the sun at St George’s Park. However, quality bowlers remain just that, whatever the surface, and Ashwin and Muralitharan were again key to Chennai’s success on Sunday.The sting of the match was drawn as early as the sixth over, when Davy Jacobs lurched into a reverse sweep off Ashwin, got it badly wrong, and was trapped smack in front having scored 32 of his 34 runs in furiously hit fours. Jacobs has carried the Warriors on his spare frame these past two weeks. He maintained a defiant, bristling presence, and was never shy to show the guts required to chase glory. But on Sunday, he needed to score twice as many runs as he did to give his men a fighting chance. That is unfair to him given that cricket is played by teams and not individuals, a point Jacobs has made himself when he has read between the lines of questions asking indirectly whether he is bigger than the side he leads.In the Warriors’ sumptuous win in their semi-final against the hitherto unbeaten South Australia Redbacks, that most certainly was not the case. Against Chennai just 24 hours later, it most certainly was. Ashwin, L Balaji and Muralitharan tied the Warriors down for 25 balls after Jacobs’ dismissal. The 26th brought a dodgy boundary as Colin Ingram’s thick edge off Muralitharan squirted to the ropes. But Murali laughed his wild laugh last, dismissing Mark Boucher and Justin Kreusch in the space of five deliveries to reduce the Warriors to 82 for five. Game, as they say in the comics, over.Chennai’s run chase was not unlike the last stage of the Tour de France, a ceremonial chore conducted on the Champs-Elysees during which no one challenges the man who has, in the eyes of his opponents, already won the race. So it was as Chennai whittled away at their small target, of which M Vijay and Michael Hussey scored all but 26 in a deeply blue-collar stand. Whoever said Twenty20 cricket couldn’t be boring?The fact that Jacobs tossed the new ball to Makhaya Ntini, who went for 22 runs in two bilious overs in the semi-final, seemed in itself an acceptance of an impending thrashing. You might say the Warriors went like lambs to the slaughter.

At one of the world’s great fast-bowling venues, Chris Tremlett turned in a performance that declared he belongs

Andrew Miller at the WACA16-Dec-2010The first thing that needs to be said about Chris Tremlett is that he is huge. He’s not just willowy tall like Steven Finn, or freakishly out-of-proportion like Pakistan’s seven-foot seamer, Mohammad Irfan. He is properly stacked in a rugby lock-forward sense, and even when he has not been playing during this Ashes tour, he has been the most instantly recognisable cricketer in England’s squad. On the outfield at the Gabba, or in the nets at Adelaide, or wandering around the foyer of Perth’s Hyatt hotel, he has stood out from the crowd simply because he has towered above it.Who better, then, to have lurking on the bench as the ultimate “impact” player? In hindsight the question seems ridiculously rhetorical. Last week, Tremlett was described by the Victoria opener Michael Hill as delivering the ball from above the roof of the MCG, no less, and with all the pre-Test chatter centring around the quickest WACA wicket for the best part of a decade, it would have been an extraordinary indictment of his apparently flaky temperament had he not been given this chance to run amok.Under previous regimes, England might well have hedged their bets and gone for the dependable Tim Bresnan, the sort of nuts-and-bolts cricketer who could have covered for the absence of Stuart Broad with a bit of Yorkshire grit and a handy second string as a batsman. But that is not the way that the current management operate. No England touring team in living memory has successfully channelled so much confidence into so many varied areas of its squad without, as yet, allowing it to spill over into arrogance. Tremlett was trusted because he was the best candidate for the vacancy, and today he repaid that faith superbly.”It was a big step in my career to hit my straps straightaway and contribute to an important game, so I’m very happy,” said Tremlett. “There was a bit of a green tinge at the start of the day, and we made the most with the new ball, picking up those early wickets. When I woke up this morning I was very nervous, but when I got into my stride and got my wicket I felt at ease and tried to enjoy the experience. I think it’s been shown that the wicket has bounce, I felt I hit the right areas on this wicket, and that I was the man to pick.”Officially, Tremlett’s selection as Stuart Broad’s replacement was confirmed at England’s final nets session on Wednesday afternoon. To all intents and purposes, however, he has been inked in for this fixture for months. As long ago as July, in a pub in Nottingham during England’s Test series against Pakistan, the England bowling coach David Saker spent an evening outlining his vision for this Ashes campaign. He had yet to see Tremlett bowl in the flesh for his new county Surrey, but his ear had been to the ground ever since the start of the season, and he was liking the vibes coming through. It didn’t matter to him one jot what previous coaches and pundits had to say. He was simply adamant that Tremlett had to be on that plane.Mind you, he’s not the first England coach to regard Tremlett as a mighty prospect. In the epic summer of 2005, Duncan Fletcher watched Tremlett bounce a hat-trick delivery off Mohammad Ashraful’s bails on his ODI debut against Bangladesh, and was so sure of his potential that he kept him in the dressing-room as England’s 12th man for the first four Tests against Australia. But when push came to shove with the injury to Simon Jones, he baulked at the notion of pitching him in at the deep end, and opted instead to recall the teak-tough Paul Collingwood.Then in 2007, Fletcher’s successor Peter Moores marked his first summer in charge by calling up Tremlett for a debut Test series against India, and he performed with some panache to claim 13 wickets at less than 30, including three scalps in seven overs in a losing cause at Trent Bridge. But aside from an isolated one-day outing against New Zealand the following summer, that appeared to be the end of the opportunities. Too many niggles and too little ambition seemed to have fatally undermined his prospects.A move from Hampshire was the catalyst for change. His father, Tim, was a former stalwart of the county who moved up the ladder to become Director of Cricket, and everything had simply been too cosy for his son, even when Shane Warne came in as their high-profile captain. “I tried everything to get Tremlett to be more aggressive,” said Warne.”I was nice to him and supported him. I tried to be nasty by batting him at No 11 to make him angry. But he was just a bit soft. He was a great fella but he needed to toughen up, because his body language was awful. If he has learned his lesson he could be the No. 1 bowler in the world. He is that good.”With Chris Adams welcoming him into the Surrey dressing-room with the promise that the mocking nickname of “Goober” would no longer be tolerated, Tremlett bounced back from a dismal 2009 season to claim 48 wickets at 20.18 for his new club. “When I went to Surrey I went with a fresh head,” he said. “People can say what they want about my temperament – that I’m a gentle giant or whatever – but it all comes from within. If you want something bad enough, you work out what to do and try hard enough to get it. I think I figured that out over the years.”It wasn’t too hard a decision,” he added. “I wanted to get away from the comforts at Hampshire and all the same people, and the thing I wanted to do was to move away from all that, to a new county, a new pitch, a new place, and straightaway I felt very welcome at Surrey.
I’ve grown up a bit. I’m more experienced as a cricketer, I know my game more, and I’m just a better bowler than I was three years ago.”At the WACA on Thursday there was not a trace of dodgy body language.
Charged with the second over of the match from the Prindiville End, and fuelled by the extra responsibility of Andrew Strauss’s apparent gamble at the toss, Tremlett purred to the crease with an exquisitely uncomplicated action, and left Phil Hughes ruing the accuracy of his own pre-series assessment, that it’s not the short ball that gets a batsman out, but the follow-up. A whistling bouncer, and a bail-trimming length ball, and Australia’s innings was off to another dreadful start.Inevitably it will be the follow-up performance that determines whether Tremlett has turned a corner in his career, but there’s enough circumstantial evidence to suggest he’s ripe for a regular berth at the age of 29. Crucially, he bowls within himself these days, letting his height and natural rhythm do the donkey work to take the strain off his previously fallible body, and though he went wicketless on a dead deck at Melbourne last week, he still conceded a mere 57 runs from 24 overs – a performance that reassured the management that he would not be a liability if the conditions were not in his favour.In the end Broad was missed by the England attack, but only because the 21-year-old Steven Finn looked tired after a draining first half of the series, and had the circumstances been different, he might well have rested for this game. Tremlett on the other hand looked the real deal, and the three-card trick that did for the rookie Steven Smith – drawn forward, pushed back, lured forward again to find the splice – was the work of a bowler with a brain as well as brawn.
The days of ‘Goober’ cannot be written off just yet, but at one of the world’s great fast-bowling venues, Tremlett turned in a performance that declared he belongs.

ESPNcricinfo looks back at some famous defeats South Africa have slumped to in global tournaments

Liam Brickhill and Siddhartha Talya25-Mar-2011South Africa’s remarkable defeat in the Mirpur quarter-final was their fourth loss in six World Cup games against New Zealand and the fifth time they have crashed out of the tournament during a knockout stage. ESPNcricinfo looks back at some other famous defeats South Africa have slumped to in global tournaments.1996 World Cup quarter-final v West Indies
South Africa stormed into this game as clear favourites, having won all of their group games in the midst of a 10-match winning streak that stretched back to their home series against England earlier that year. West Indies, on the other hand, had just slumped to a humiliating loss to Kenya’s amateurs in Pune, and were a team in seemingly terminal decline. The pitch was expected to take turn – and it did – but South Africa made what was, in hindsight, a fatal error in omitting Allan Donald and instead playing an extra spinner in Paul Adams. Brian Lara feasted on both Adams and offspinner Pat Symcox, carrying West Indies to 264 with a blistering hundred. South Africa may have fancied Roger Harper’s and Jimmy Adams’ offerings after watching their own spinners get tonked in such emphatic fashion, but they combined to take seven wickets, Harper nipping out three in one over, as South Africa collapsed from 140 for 2 to lose by 19 runs and set a trend that continues, inexplicably, to this day.1999 World Cup semi-final v Australia
On a midsummer’s day at Edgbaston that will live in infamy – for South Africans, at least – South Africa and Australia slugged out a game of remarkable twists and about-turns, culminating in one of the most memorable finales in limited-overs history. Chasing Australia’s 213, South Africa were scuppered by the single-minded intensity of Shane Warne, who took four wickets, before being brought back from the brink of oblivion by a death-or-glory innings from Lance Klusener. When he bludgeoned consecutive off-side boundaries to take the scores level with four balls remaining, the game was South Africa’s to lose … and, incredibly, they did just that. Klusener ran, Donald didn’t, and an ecstatic Australia took South Africa’s place in the final. The tie meant that South Africa, for the third World Cup in a row, failed to reach the final despite looking like the team of the tournament in the early stages.2002 Champions Trophy v India
Perhaps the most remarkable of all of South Africa’s crumbles in major matches. South Africa had won the inaugural version of the Champions Trophy in 1998 – their only ICC title success to date – and were coasting towards a place in the final of the 2002 edition. Having limited India to 261 for 9 in Colombo, South Africa were cruising at 192 for 1 in the 37th over, the result seemed a foregone conclusion. The easy task ahead may have prompted Gibbs to retire hurt after suffering from cramps, convinced as he may have been that the others would take his team home. But they were to let him down, and with 21 required off the final over, Sehwag survived a first-ball slog-swept six from Kallis to grab two wickets and leave the South Africans with that familiar feeling.2003 World Cup v Sri Lanka
The build-up to the 2003 World Cup in South Africa had been massive. Nelson Mandela had featured in the promos, Cape Town hosted a sparkling opening ceremony and this was the country’s biggest sporting spectacle since the Rugby World Cup in 1995. It was to end in utter despair. The much-vaunted national team slipped up to lose against West Indies and New Zealand in the preliminary stage and their fortunes hinged on a do-or-die game against Sri Lanka in Durban.That fatal run•PA PhotosSet a target of 269. Gibbs put them on track with an attacking 77, and even when captain Shaun Pollock was dismissed in the 43rd over to reduce them to 212 for 6 with bad weather swiftly closing in South Africa would have believed they could win. Klusener walked in but made just one in eight balls and as the weather deteriorated, a message was sent to the pair from the dressing room that the score needed to win, according to the Duckworth-Lewis method, had to be 229 at the end of the 45th over with four wickets to spare. What seemed like the decisive blow came off the penultimate ball of that over as Boucher danced out to Muttiah Muralitharan, smashed him over long-on for a flat six, and punched the air in the heavy rain, convinced that South Africa had it covered. The next ball, he gently nudged to midwicket and the umpires called for the covers. Elation was to turn to disbelief in a matter of a few seconds once the realisation dawned upon South Africa that the instructions were wrong. The score of 229 was meant for a tie, not a win. Andrew Hudson, on TV commentary, summed up the feeling. “42 million South Africans are going to bed tonight hoping it was a bad dream”.2007 World Cup semi-final v Australia
Yet again South Africa reached a World Cup knockout, another semi-final, but this time they succumbed to nerves at the gravity of the occasion at the very start of the match rather than during a crunch finale. South Africa’s stage fright took shape in a batting display that fell to pieces in wild swipes and mindless adventure. Australia showed they had well and truly won the pre-match mental battle, and the visibly skittish South Africans were demolished by Glenn McGrath and Shaun Tait before Michael Clarke’s unbeaten half-century finished the job to hand South Africa their fourth knockout defeat.2011 World Cup v England
A game of slightly lesser importance but thrilling nevertheless, largely due to another of South Africa’s incredible capitulations. The pitch at the MA Chidambaram Stadium may have been tricky but not one deserving of a score of 171, which is what England managed. Hashim Amla and Graeme Smith, in their 64-run opening stand, showed exactly that. The rest of the team, however, was adamant on proving otherwise. Carefully built-up starts were squandered and when, from the seemingly impregnable position of 124 for 3, four wickets fell for three runs in five overs the tide turned. There was still a glimmer of hope for South Africa, Dale Steyn’s spirited batting bringing them to within 12 runs of victory with Morne van Wyk. But panic prevailed over determination as van Wyk was snared by Tim Bresnan, and Stuart Broad, in a superb spell, removed Steyn and Morne Morkel in four deliveries to inflict upon South Africa their only defeat, one that kept England’s hopes alive, ahead of the quarter-finals.

Fast bowling has been Sri Lanka’s weak suit historically, but they need to step it up over the next four weeks in England

S Rajesh24-May-2011Sri Lanka have never won a series of at least two Tests in England, Australia or South Africa, but over the next four weeks they’ll get an opportunity to start rectifying that statistic when they take on England over three Test matches. The hosts obviously start favourites after their fantastic Ashes campaign in 2010-11, but Sri Lanka have sounded a warning by winning both their warm-up games, including a superb come-from-behind victory against England Lions last week. One of the most encouraging aspects of that win was the performance of the fast bowlers – Dilhara Fernando, Thisara Perera and Nuwan Pradeep took 15 out of 18 Lions wickets, returning combined figures of 15 for 388. They, and the other fast bowlers who play, will have to maintain those kind of figures if Sri Lanka are to win the series, especially given that this is the first half of the summer in England, when conditions are most likely to favour fast bowlers and not offer so much assistance to spin, traditionally Sri Lanka’s favourite suit.Pace could also play a bigger role in Sri Lanka’s campaign this time because they can no longer fall back on the wizardry of Muttiah Muralitharan. In his absence, the spin mantle will be borne by Ajantha Mendis, Rangana Herath and Suraj Ranjiv, but it’s quite likely that the series result could hinge on how well Sri Lanka’s inexperienced fast bowlers fare: among their frontline fast bowlers, only two – Dilhara Fernando and Farveez Maharoof – have played Tests outside the subcontinent, and their numbers aren’t flattering: together they’ve played 18 Tests, and taken 29 wickets at an average of 62.38 runs per wicket.In fact, the lack of incisiveness in the bowling, especially among the fast men, has been one of Sri Lanka’s biggest drawbacks on overseas tours. The bowlers’ inability to take wickets and restrict opposition totals has put their own batsmen under tremendous pressure almost every time they come out to bat. Sri Lanka’s overall bowling average in England since 2000 is more than 45, while their fast bowlers have conceded more than 63 per wicket – both are easily the worst among all teams except Zimbabwe. With Lasith Malinga not around either to help their cause, Sri Lanka’s bowlers could be severely tested over the next month.

Usually conditions in South Africa, England and Australia are more favourable for fast bowlers, but Sri Lanka’s numbers don’t suggest so. In all three countries, their pace bowlers concede more than 47 runs per wicket, while in most other countries they average in the 20s or 30s. What has also hurt their cause is the sheer lack of opportunities to play Tests in these countries: in the last 11 years, Sri Lanka have played only 15 Tests in Australia, England and South Africa.

The lack of matches has also hurt the batsmen, for it gives them little opportunity to acclimatise to conditions which are completely different from what they face at home. Looking at the stats of all teams in England since 2000, Sri Lanka slot in somewhere in the middle with an average of 28.10, while compared to their own record in other countries, their stats in England are fairly ordinary.Among the batsmen in the current squad, Mahela Jayawardene is the only batsman to score a century – he has scored one in each Lord’s Tests on the last two tours, and averages more than 45 in six Tests. In fact, his four innings at Lord’s reads 107, 14*, 61 and 119. However, Kumar Sangakkara has been a huge disappointment, with a highest of 66 in 12 innings, and an average of 30.54, which is almost 27 fewer than his overall career average.

The good news for Sri Lanka, though, is that they have won Tests in England, unlike in Australia and South Africa, where they haven’t won any. They won the one-off Test in 1998 on the back of outstanding performances from Sanath Jayasuriya and Muralitharan. On their most recent tour, they lost at Edgbaston, but fought back superbly to level the series at Trent Bridge, with Muralitharan again winning the Man-of-the-Match award for an 11-wicket haul. Both their wins in England have thus been engineered by Murali; in his absence, it remains to be seen who will take on the mantle of strike bowler.

England will be full of confidence coming into this series: their last series was a magnificent triumph in Australia, and they also have an outstanding home record in the last decade. Since 2000, they’ve lost only three home series out of 22 – once each to Australia (2001), India (2007) and South Africa (2009). During this period, their win-loss ratio at home has been 2.68 (43 wins, 16 defeats), which is third only to Australia and India.England’s batsmen were in fine form in the Ashes, and they’ll want to continue that run. Among those in England’s current squad, only three have played a home Test against Sri Lanka: Kevin Pietersen has enjoyed himself, with two hundreds in three matches, but Andrew Strauss only managed a highest of 55 in five innings.

England’s partnerships for the top five wickets, though, have almost all been productive, and that’s helped them stay on top in most home Tests against Sri Lanka since 2000. The average stands for the top three wickets are all more than 60, with the average for the first wicket being 72.55, which again illustrates Sri Lanka’s lack of fast-bowling firepower. On the other hand, Sri Lanka’s average first-wicket stand is 23.25, with a highest of 59, which is significantly lower than England’s average partnership.

Mark Higgs made it to the fringes of the Australian team a decade ago, before fading away. Now he’s understanding more about what went wrong as he guides Nathan Lyon to the big league

Daniel Brettig27-Aug-2011Nathan Lyon stands a far greater chance of making his name as an international cricketer because his mentor Mark Higgs was unable to do so.Among those who have guided Lyon on his road less travelled, from Young in country New South Wales to the Australian team, Higgs’ influence has been the most seminal. Yet in the process of moulding Lyon’s looping offbreaks, Higgs has learned almost as much about himself as his pupil has about bowling. He has resolved the muddle of thoughts, doubts and pressures that beset him as his own playing career faded into obscurity from a starting point remarkably similar to Lyon’s.Eleven years before Lyon became a somewhat left-field choice to bowl spin for Australia on their current tour of Sri Lanka, Higgs was an even more lateral selection to replace the injured Shane Warne at the ICC Trophy in Nairobi. At that point Higgs was far from a fixture in the New South Wales side, but the Australian captain Steve Waugh saw something in his hard-spun left-arm orthodox and impudent batting, and he was thrust into the national squad.”I was [picked out of the blue], same age or a bit younger than Lyonsy, but it was a great experience for me, and it was tough for me as well because at that stage we had a strong side and there were good players around everywhere,” Higgs told ESPNcricinfo. “You don’t realise how close you are when you’re actually playing first-class cricket.”I had good performances that year in the one-day competition, and it still came out of the blue. I learned a lot playing in NSW with a lot of the idols, but then to be among the full Australian team was a great experience.”The Australians were eliminated in the first round by India, courtesy a teenager called Yuvraj Singh, and Higgs was never chosen again. Often cited as a wasted talent who could be more prolific at the bar than in the middle, Higgs carved out a moderate career with the Blues and later South Australia, but gradually lost interest in the game and all its attendant pressures.”One thing I struggled with was the runs side of things,” Higgs said. “I couldn’t score the runs I wanted to. I put a lot of pressure on myself to do that, and cricket is a statistics game. If you average 35, you’re not holding your spot in the team.”I knew that and was working hard to try to change my game enough to get to a place where I could score runs consistently, but to be honest I wasn’t able to do it as well as I would’ve liked. I learned more when I got away from the game, but the pressure I put on myself to do well was undoing my talent I guess.”All the guys train pretty hard; it’s whether they train enough on the mental side of the game. The great players all talk about it being 90% mental, and to be able to learn that sort of stuff is more important than having a great cover drive or a great stock ball.”Cut more or less adrift from cricket in Australia, Higgs moved to England and was only called back in 2006 at the behest of a former Canberra Comets team-mate, who reckoned Higgs’ talents, and misadventures, would be useful in aiding the development of a younger generation.It was in the middle of this return that Higgs had his first glimpse of Lyon, then a quietly spoken teenager from country NSW with plenty of ability and the desire to learn more, who soon graduated from the ACT Under-19s team into the senior side, which takes part in the Futures League second XI competition. Together with Higgs, Lyon developed his philosophy on spin, moving beyond the natural tendency to bowl darts at the first hint of attack.”He came in pretty raw, but had natural loop with the ball and had good fingers and was able to turn the ball. That was the thing that was really noticeable – he was able to turn the ball, and he was happy to bowl and ask plenty of questions,” Higgs said. “We had a couple of spinners before that who moved on, and Lyonsy got thrown into the deep end a bit with us.”His ideas about bowling to good players were okay, but I thought they could use improvement and we tried to get his fields right and also get him a game-plan that went to those fields, so he was able to hold good players first of all and then get them out as well.”The ideas of lines of attack, and where we want to get players out and where we want to stop them from scoring, was really important.

“I’d like to see him get an opportunity at some stage. Hopefully he will do well. I think he will – he’s got a great personality for it”Higgs looks forward to seeing his protégé Lyon get a game during the Sri Lanka series

“I think when Lyonsy first came to us his idea when guys were attacking was to get it into the wicket and try to stop them on the crease, which we know on Australian wickets is like facing a medium-pacer. Once they get used to that, it’s even harder to stop them because it opens up more of the field. So the idea was to get them to hit where we want them to hit, and to get them to play on our terms. That was the early work we did, and also to get his action right.”Believing they had a talent on their books in need of wider exposure, ACT Cricket took Lyon down to Adelaide Oval last winter in the hope of securing him a start with South Australia. Surprisingly, SA’s high performance director, Jamie Cox, and the then coach, Mark Sorell, were not overly impressed by Lyon, and baulked at the suggestion of a state contract. Instead, a compromise was reached whereby Lyon would be transferred onto the SACA ground staff but would still play for the ACT.”We said, ‘We’ll take him on again’, and luckily enough he was able to come back and play for us last year and then he came away with us during the Baby Bash [Under 23 Twenty20 competition],” Higgs said.”That was when Chuck [Darren] Berry saw him bowl and he was lucky enough in the match we played against SA to get the chance to bowl to some left-handers. He held them really nicely and used some flight in that match,and Darren took him on from there.”From this point Lyon’s tale is more widely known. He and Higgs still converse regularly, and most recently have dealt with the question of how to handle the mass of additional media interest Lyon’s national selection has stirred. Higgs is optimistic about Lyon’s prospects in Sri Lanka, provided his coaches and the captain, Michael Clarke, handle him correctly.”It’s hard to say if you’re ready until you get in there and have a go,” Higgs said. “Every hurdle that’s been set in front of him he’s been able to get over and get over it well, so I can’t see why he wouldn’t do it again. He’s still got a lot to learn, I’d say that.”I’d like to see him get an opportunity at some stage. If he’s ready now, he’s ready now. If they need him on a turning wicket I think he can be effective. We’ve seen a lot of guys get picked for Australia on a few opportunities and Nathan’s now another one of those, and hopefully he will do well. I think he will – he’s got a great personality for it.”For Higgs, the sight of Lyon bowling for Australia would make his own journey seem worthwhile. He has learned as much about cricket being captain and coach of the ACT as he ever did as a precocious young allrounder, and is now at peace.Lyon’s success would make Higgs’ own unfulfilled journey seem worthwhile•Associated Press”I think the big thing I teach the lads growing up is that I didn’t succeed as much as I would like to and here’s some of the reasons why,” Higgs said. “I wasn’t able to control my emotions, I took a lot of baggage home when I went home from games, and it put me down a bit.”Also from not playing so well as a player and showing glimpses that I could do it but to not succeed the way I wanted to… looking back now, it was the pressure I put on myself to succeed, and the statistics show I wasn’t good enough. I had a great time in the game, I’m still having a great time coaching, but I think I learned a lot more from not being successful as well, and that’s helped me for my future life.”Higgs’ knowledge of spin bowling, too, has only grown with experience. He now thinks himself a better bowler than he was when playing, as instructive a detail about the slow-burning art of spin bowling as any technical advice can possibly be.”I’ve learned more about spin bowling in the last three or four years than when I was playing, just by talking to people and being around spin bowlers more often,” Higgs said. “My own bowling is better now than it was when I was playing, purely because I’ve learned more from talking to a lot of people about it, and spending time [with] people about different ways of getting people out.”When you’re a captain and a coach, you’re analysing how they go about the game, but you’re also looking at ideas for how they can do things better, and the learning curve of that has been great for me. If you spoke to most spinners, I think you learn more post 27-28. You very rarely have players who come onto the scene young and are very successful straight away.”I think they need time to learn how people will play them – different players around the world play spin so differently from the way we play. It’s great Lyonsy is in the system so young, but I think he needs the time to learn the craft and learn what it takes to be successful at all levels.”

Stats highlights from an incredible ODI as India chased down 321 in just 37 overs

Madhusudhan Ramakrishnan28-Feb-2012Virat Kohli’s strike rate of 154.65 is the third-highest for an Indian batsman in a century scored in an ODI chase•Getty Images

• Kohli scored his ninth ODI century and his second against Sri Lanka. It is also his sixth century in ODI chases. Kohli’s strike rate of 154.65 is the third-highest for an Indian batsman in an ODI chase (centuries only) after Virender Sehwag and Mohammad Azharuddin.
• The run-rate during the century stand between Kohli and Suresh Raina (13.56) is the highest ever for India for a 100-plus partnership in ODIs, and the highest against major Test teams. The highest overall is 17.73 during the 136-run stand between Nathan Astle and Craig McMillan against USA in 2004.
• Gautam Gambhir and Kohli were involved in their fifth century stand in ODI chases. In the second innings (min. 1000 partnership runs), the pair averages the highest (75.33).
• Lasith Malinga conceded over 90 runs for the first time in his ODI career. His economy rate of 12.52 is the highest in ODIs for a minimum of five overs.
• India batted second for the eighth time in the series. There have been only four previous occasions when teams have batted second more often in an ODI series. The target of 321 is the second-highest successfully chased target in ODIs in Australia and also the third-highest target chased by India.
• India become only the second team after Sri Lanka (Headingley 2006) to chase a 300-plus target in under 40 overs. Sri Lanka had scored 324 in 37.3 overs, which makes India’s effort the fastest chase of a 300-plus target. In fact, India’s run-rate of 8.75 is the second-highest for a 250-plus chase in ODIs after South Africa’s chase of 434 in Johannesburg in 2006, when they achieved a rate of 8.78.
• India hit 33 fours in their innings equalling the highest number of boundaries hit in a team innings in Australia. The number of fours hit in the match (54) is the joint fifth-highest in a game in Australia.
• Both Tillakaratne Dilshan and Kumar Sangakkara scored their fourth ODI century against India. Only Sanath Jayasuriya (7), Ricky Ponting (6), Nathan Astle and Salman Butt (5) have scored more ODI centuries against India. Dilshan, who equalled his highest ODI score (against India in Rajkot), also becomes only the second batsman after Jayasuriya to make a 150-plus score on two occasions against India.
• The 200-run stand between Sangakkara and Dilshan is the fifth double-century stand for the second wicket in ODIs against India. It is also the highest partnership in ODIs in Hobart surpassing the 165-run stand between Nick Knight and Marcus Trescothick in 2003. The double-hundred stand is also the 11th in the history of the Australian tri-series and the second for Sri Lanka in the competition.
• With both Sangakkara and Dilshan scoring centuries, it is the 15th instance of two batsmen scoring a century in the same team innings against India. For Sri Lanka, this is the 11th instance overall of two batsmen scoring a century in the same innings and the third such occasion since the start of the 2011 World Cup.
• Sangakkara’s century is his 13th in ODIs and his fourth against India. it is also his second century in Australia after the 128 against India in Adelaide in 2008. His strike rate of 120.68 during his century is his highest for a 100-plus score.
• Sri Lanka’s 321 is their ninth total of 300 or more against India in ODIs. They have, however, gone on to lose five of the nine matches. It is also the 56th time that India have conceded 300-plus runs, the most for any team.
• The match aggregate of 641 is the third-highest in an ODI in Australia. The highest is 678 in the game between Australia and New Zealand in Perth in 2006-07. The match run-rate of 7.39 is the highest for a completed ODI in Australia.

Edited by Siddarth Ravindran