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For Allan Donald, the draw at Old Trafford in 1998 felt like a gut-wrenching loss

Firdose Moonda26-Jun-2012Allan Donald remembers the sight of his feet on July 6, 1998. “They looked like World War Two,” he said. He also remembers the noise from the opposition camp. “That England change room celebrated like they had won the match, and on our side it was like we had lost.”But there was no victor that day. England had pulled off a remarkable Houdini act to save a match that had swung towards a South African triumph with each of the six wickets Donald claimed. Having followed on, England needed 369 runs to make South Africa bat again. The match ended, heartbreakingly for South Africa, with England at 369 for 9. England went on to win the series 2-1.Donald remembers it as the “series of my career”. He was the leading wicket-taker by some distance – with 33 at 19.78, nine more than the second-highest, Angus Fraser. Out of his four five-wicket hauls in the five Tests, Donald picked the 6 for 88 in this match at Old Trafford as his favourite.”What I learnt about myself as a bowler and as a leader of the attack for that amount of time was immense,” Donald said. “We were just in the field for so long and we bowled so many overs that it really tested everything about our attack. To make it worse, Lance [Klusener] and Jacques [Kallis] were injured, so it was basically me and Makhaya [Ntini] as the seamers at the end. Even Hansie [Cronje] came on to bowl a bit to give us a break.”As a full-strength attack in the first innings, South Africa had dealt with England swiftly and severely. But then Klusener’s ankle problems, which caused him to drop pace in later years, began, and Kallis’ injured hamstring caused him fade out in the last hour of play on the final day. Despite the injury, Kallis bowled close to 50 overs in the two innings.Donald bowled 53 of the 253.1 overs South Africa sent down over the better part of three days, an exercise that stretched him to the limit.”The most important thing was patience, because they kept us at bay for so long,” Donald said. “They” primarily being Michael Atherton, who defied Donald for over six hours for 89 runs, and Alec Stewart, whose 164 took seven hours. Their third-wicket stand of 226, in hindsight, almost took the match away, Donald said.”That is what I remember most from that match and the series as a whole. The battle with Athers – that was just a great contest. There were never any words but you could feel it was there.”At the end of the day’s play he was the first person in our change room with a beer. People say he is grumpy, and he is and he knows it too, but we get on very well. We’re actually going to do a lunch together in London this year as part of a celebration.”On July 16, ten days after the 14th anniversary of the last day of that Old Trafford Test, Donald and Atherton will appear together to celebrate the ‘s 150th year of publication. “I’m sure we’ll talk about that match and Trent Bridge and the many battles we had against each other,” Donald said.But in Manchester that day it was Kallis who removed Atherton and gave South Africa the opening they needed. Then Donald’s persistent use of the short ball paid off when Stewart was caught at deep backward square, and the wickets began to tumble. “There’s always an element of aggression for me but in that innings I had to also do a lot of waiting,” Donald said. “I knew that if I just kept putting the ball in the right areas, kept thinking about what to do, we could possibly win the match.”Wicket No. 9: Donald gets Darren Gough•Getty ImagesThe desire to succeed in England spurred him on. “I’ve just always wanted to do well against England in England – don’t ask me why. I don’t know if it’s because I played county cricket there or if it’s because of the history between the two countries. There’s just always been a great rivalry. And with that there was a great desire in me to perform well there. I love the cricket culture and the people and their knowledge of the game, and I gave it everything every time I was there.”Donald wonders what might have been had he taken the final wicket at Old Trafford. “There was definitely a momentum shift after that match, because we came so close and they managed to get away with it,” he said. England won the fourth Test by eight wickets and the final one by 23 runs.When Donald returns to England in a few weeks’ time, it will be as part of the team management, so he is hesitant to be drawn into a slugging match about who could win the series. “I don’t want to say too much beforehand and add to the hype. But there’s going to be a good contest between the two bowling sides, and whoever manages their aggression well will have an edge.”

In the decade or so that it has been around, how have players adapted to the rhythms of the shortest format? We asked a batsman, a spinner and a fast bowler for their views

Interviews by Nagraj Gollapudi19-Sep-2012

The batsman

Brad Hodge
The main difference from 2003 to now is learning what the game is all about. Back then it felt like T20 was extremely quick and you did not really have the time to think about where the match was headed. You just played on instinct.You know now that the game has definite structures: you know there is a Powerplay period in the first six overs, then you have the middle overs, where you can slow down a little bit, before the hectic pace of the final overs. Back when I started playing T20, you did not really know a great deal about it and you would think you needed to score ten runs every over – lots of people lost their wickets trying to score at the perceived rate. It was about seeing how far you could hit it. To me, T20 now does not seem as quick-paced as when it was first started. For me, it is just like a shorter version of one-day cricket.You know you need to get your eye in, and the quicker you get your eye in, the more likely you are to score. The big change is, people now have more knowledge about what is a good score. Also, bowlers have become better equipped to defend those scores.Pick your windows
There are periods in a match where you can do damage, and you’ve just got to try and find those throughout the game. There are little fluctuations throughout the match. There are going to be times when the bowler is going to be on top, but you know that he has got only four overs, so if you can attack another guy while a good bowler is in a good spell, you nullify the damage.In the 2012 IPL I came late down the order when we [Rajasthan Royals] were chasing 197 to win against Deccan Chargers, who had Dale Steyn. Generally when you chase 15 an over, ten years ago you would have thought there was no chance of doing that. Now the bar has been raised. My game has not changed but the knowledge about how to achieve the target has got a lot better. When I came in, there was a spinner on, but I waited for Steyn to come on. I knew I was going to attack him. You’d rather win the contest there and then or not. You have to wait for the person you think you can attack. You need to pick your bowler. That is another change in T20.Thoughtful slogging
There is no wild slogging now, as in earlier years. There is a technical side to it now. When T20 first came, batsmen slogged across the line, over the midwicket fence, and they got out by hitting cross-batted strokes over midwicket. Now there are different methods, where batsmen look to hit sixes in different areas – going inside-out over extra cover or just presenting a straight bat.People are dangerous due to their cultured slogging. Take Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers, to name two: they are not huge hitters of the ball, but they are just as dangerous. Remember that the ball has to only get over the fence; it does not need to clear it by 50 metres.Using the pace of the ball, cut shots, little dabs past the keeper – those are useful. There are two sides: the art of being delicate and finding the gaps, and then using brutal force that beats the guy by a metre. You know if you beat the guy at short cover or short midwicket with enough power, you can beat the guy on the boundary. If you hit the spinner with 80% power, you know you can clear the ropes. So definitely the percentages are in favour of batsmen.

“I had to think and learn things I had never done before, do dirty things, bowl quick, bowl from different angles, pitch at different lengths”Murali Kartik

The spinner

Murali Kartik
When T20 started, spinners were an easy target. They started bowling with the mindset of one-day bowlers, which did not help. They were happy bowling balls in good areas. Batsmen would only run you down the odd ball in ODIs, but that is not the case in T20, where they will punish you every ball.In this format everything is loaded against the spinner. Everybody wants to see only sixes and fours, and the pitches are mostly dry. The ropes are pulled in to 65 yards. So spinners have realised that to stay in the game, you have to experiment.In my first-ever T20, in 2007, a domestic match in England, I went for 39 runs off my four overs. I realised then that I could not be thinking like a four-day or a one-day bowler. I had to think and learn things I had never done before, do dirty things, bowl quick, bowl from different angles, pitch at different lengths. I learned to think even more about what the batsman might do at any given time. For me, as a spinner in T20 cricket, it is the art of bowling the right ball to the right batsman at the right time.Spin as a weapon
When T20 started, the strategy was to have seamers bowl in the Powerplay overs. Now you see about three to four overs of spin in the first six. Another big change is, spinners play a more prominent role in the end overs, where you see someone like a Sunil Narine successfully putting on the brakes and taking wickets. It is not just the slower pace of the ball – for a batsman to do something against spin, he has to leave the crease, and that is a risk.You would not normally think of a left-arm spinner bowling from round the wicket to a left-hand batsman, or an offspinner coming from round the wicket against a right-hander. Spinners now vary the areas, angles, speed. Some stop and bowl, hurl it in more round-arm, some deliver with a side-arm action. It is not necessary to try and spin every ball. You need to mix it up with a quick one, a yorker, bowl it wide if somebody is charging you – do all those things to distract the batsman. Every ball has to be different, and you need to keep thinking on your feet.The mental game
If I am bowling the first over, I can try to flight the first two balls, but you cannot allow the batsman to line you up. You have to know what shot he might play, what his go-to shots are, what he is capable of, what he has done to you in the past, what you have done to him – it is a mental game and you need to be on top of that because that helps minimise the damage.Shane Bond: “Back when I started, it was about landing a yorker, but now it is about where you land that yorker”•Indian Premier League

The fast bowler

Shane Bond
When I first started playing first-class cricket, we had Max Cricket, with two innings of ten overs each. It was similar to T20 in that it was all about run preservation and bowling yorkers early in the innings to try and stop getting hit. In the early years of T20 cricket, I figured not a lot had changed with regard to fast bowling. If there was a change, it was in the mindset: you knew the batsman was going to attack you, so for a fast bowler it was about maintaining an attacking mindset and not a defensive one.During my time with the Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL, I had good chats with our bowling consultant, Wasim Akram. We spoke a lot about mindset. He said: you are playing on flat wickets and you are under constant attack, but you still have to take an aggressive, attacking attitude into your bowling. By bowling a slower ball, it does not necessarily mean you are being defensive.It is very easy to back off if a good batsman comes hard at you. During such a time, I find it enjoyable to see guys like Dale Steyn and Brett Lee steaming in fast and trying to swing and attack – there’s still space for that in T20, because if you get wickets early on, you can capitalise.Mix it up

Straight pace is one thing but you really need to have variations. You have to move away from the traditional method of running in quick and trying to get six deliveries in the blockhole. Back when I started, it was about landing a yorker, but now it is about where you land that yorker. Now the fast bowler needs to create an armoury of different deliveries for different situations. He needs to have more than one slower ball, bowl wide yorkers, leg-stump yorkers, straight yorkers, the slow bouncer…The importance of being slow
On flat pitches, with shorter boundaries and big, meaty bats, pace can be an enemy. Fast men now have more than one slower delivery. The back-of-the-hand ball, the legcutter, the offcutter, the split-finger ball and the knuckle ball are types of slower delivery that fast bowlers deploy.I remember a league match during the 2010 IPL. The Knight Riders were playing Deccan Chargers. It was a very slow wicket at Eden Gardens. Andrew Symonds was looking strong in the chase, but I remember, we were bowling six slower balls in a row at times, and it frustrated him. That is the big change: you can run in and bowl as fast as you can and try and swing the ball at quick pace, and then almost do the opposite, where you run in and bowl slow with different variations.The pull and the hook shots are instinctive, and you want the batsman to commit early to them. I tried two slower balls: one that was fairly easy to see but was used as a set-up for the one that was not as easy to pick. That was the element of surprise.Getting the length right
This is an area where bowlers have needed to quickly adapt. In the past, a yorker was used to try to stop the batsman from scoring. But batsmen started countering it cleverly by moving around in the crease. The yorker is a very hard ball to land consistently, and the margin for error is minimal. Bowling length or short of length is the norm now in T20 cricket. That allows the bowler not only variation in length, he can also vary the bounce. This forces the batsman, at times, to take a chance. Sometimes it looks bad if the length goes wrong and the bowler gets smashed, but it more often than not works out well. What I coach bowlers to do is to try out a combination of deliveries to double-bluff the batsman and keep him on his toes. You have to mix your lengths and bowl in areas that he is not good at responding to.

Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene on what his team will be looking to do at the World Twenty20, the new faces in the squad, and his captaincy plans

Andrew Fernando10-Sep-2012How was the SLPL as a lead-in to the World Twenty20?
I was a bit scared with the SLPL being played so close to the tournament, whether we’d have more injuries, but everything went pretty well. A lot of the guys had good preparation and hit good form, now we just need to fine tune a few areas, we need to assess certain teams, conditions and formulate a game plan.You got a good look at the pitches in Pallekele and Colombo. How big an advantage is that?
In Pallekele and Colombo it gave us a good idea of how it would play under lights and during the daytime, so it will definitely help our guys, since we know exactly what to expect and can prepare for that. Hambantota is the only place we haven’t played much cricket, so we have to be mindful when we play the first two games there.Were you surprised how much seam movement there was, particularly in Pallekele?
I was a little surprised, but the strips that we played on were the outer strips that aren’t being used for the World T20, and haven’t had many matches played on them. Under lights, Pallekele seems to do quite a bit. Khettarama [the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo], I thought was a true track, with a bit in it for everyone, but if a batsman gets in, they can score runs as well. The ball comes onto the bat a lot more than the slow, sluggish wickets we’ve had in the past. Our batsmen enjoy that, because strokeplay becomes much easier for us as well. We just need to adapt and I’m quite confident we can do that.The SLPL brought two new talents into the limelight: Dilshan Munaweera and Akila Dananjaya. What are you expecting from them?
Dilshan’s been on our radar for quite some time. He has been in the A team, touring and doing quite well. I think he has struck a rich vein of form in the last 12 months. The SLPL gave us an opportunity to watch him live, under pressure, and he batted really well. He looks a very exciting prospect for us in the future.Akila is someone that I felt, “Let’s give him an opportunity to play in a provincial tournament.” I never expected him to do well, I just wanted him to get the exposure and the confidence that he can play at that level. Everyone was surprised at how well he bowled and how composed he was. I think the selectors were quite happy with him being in the squad, which I was surprised at as well. Hopefully he gets an opportunity to play, but even if not he’ll still get a lot of experience and it will be a good investment for us for the future.Dananjaya has only played a handful of professional games. Is there concern about exposing him to international cricket too early?
That’s a decision we have to take. We have to see how he reacts and handles himself around the squad. From what I’ve seen in the provincial tournament, he doesn’t look scared at all. We’ll assess him in the next two weeks. We’ve got two senior spinners [Rangana Herath and Ajantha Mendis] in the squad who can do the job, but if Akila is up to the task, we will use him.Is the prospect of bowling Dananjaya in tandem with Ajantha Mendis a tempting one?
(Laughs) That will be a very interesting prospect, definitely. But first we’ll have to formulate some game plans and see how we execute them, and then take a call on how comfortable we are with that combination.What makes Dananjaya such an exciting find?
He has got the variations, the control and he’s difficult to read as well. He has got a pretty similar wrist action to Murali, so he gets a lot of rip on the ball, and he varies his pace, which is more like a conventional spinner compared to Ajantha. Ajantha is a lot more accurate, has a bit more pace on the ball and it’s difficult to pick him. Both of them will give us different options with different teams and conditions, so that’s what we’re looking out for.

“For me the job [captaincy] is to try and build younger leadership in the unit. It’s important that while Kumar [Sangakkara], Dilshan and I are still there that we help out those future leaders, so that when we leave, we don’t leave behind a team that has no direction.”

You batted mostly at Nos. 3 or 4 in the SLPL, but you usually open the batting for Sri Lanka. With Munaweera in the side, will you move down the order?
I’ve been opening for Sri Lanka, but we’ll have to figure out what our best batting combination is by looking at who’s in form and who we can use in different situations. We’ll have to see where I fit into that, whether it’s three, four, five, or whether I open the batting.You have your first match against Zimbabwe in Hambantota, which can be one of those tricky venues that can throw up a freak result. How are you approaching that?
I think everyone in the team understands the challenges Hambantota poses, and we need to assess the conditions and play a good game of cricket. It’s T20 and I’ve always said this format is about making fewer mistakes. You can’t come back into the game if you’re making frequent mistakes, so we’ll just be trying to limit that.What do you see as Sri Lanka’s strengths going into the tournament?
We have the advantage of knowing the conditions and that the crowd will be behind us. Other than that, we’ve also got two or three very good allrounders in Angelo [Mathews], Thisara [Perera] and Jeevan [Mendis], so we’ll be looking to maximise that. They give us a lot of options in our team combination, so we can pick more batsmen or more bowlers to suit conditions and opposition, and still have a balanced team. Also we have a young unit that has been together for a while, and everyone knows their role in the team. We’ll get the two new guys to fit into that.You’ve also got Tillakaratne Dilshan and Nuwan Kulasekara, who can contribute in both disciplines. Are you concerned, having so many allrounders, that players will lose focus on their main skill?
Dilly’s got a different role in the side. What he’s going to contribute with the ball is going to be a plus for us. Kule, we need to see how he’s going with his rhythm. He was injured and only started bowling a couple of weeks ago, so we’ll give him a few games and see how he feels. I don’t think there will be a problem with that because everyone knows what they have to do and what their focus is. If I have all those guys it gives me options; if you have some guys who aren’t hitting their stride, I can keep rotating the bowlers and one bowler having an off day won’t hurt us.Which teams do you expect to be difficult to beat?
In T20 cricket everyone has a chance. Pakistan, South Africa and Australia look good. West Indies have a really good line-up, and India has a very strong batting line-up. New Zealand has good all-round strength as well. That’s a difficult question to answer in T20 cricket, because the game is shorter and it gives a big opportunity for teams like Zimbabwe and Bangladesh as well.Sri Lanka has been in two World Cup finals and a World T20 final in the last five years, but have been runners-up each time. Is there a psychological hurdle there?
I’ve always said that playing in big tournaments and playing well is a big plus. Yes, we’ve stumbled in a few finals in the last five years, but I look at it in a positive way and say ‘we’re getting there and doing the right thing’. Preparation has been going well, so next time we get to that situation we will try not to buckle, and look to execute and finish a good game. The important thing is for us to be as consistent as possible.In the past, you’ve seen yourself as a caretaker captain in this stint at the helm. Is that still the case?
It is still the case. For me the job is to try and build younger leadership in the unit. It’s important that while Kumar [Sangakkara], Dilshan and I are still there that we help out those future leaders, so that when we leave, we don’t leave behind a team that has no direction. I’ve told the selectors that I’ll be there till the end of the tour of Australia [in December-January]. I’ll assess where we are as a team then, and what the younger guys are capable of, and make a call.

While Rob Quiney sat and watched the rain in Brisbane, Usman Khawaja was emphatically pushing his Test case in Hobart

Brydon Coverdale at the Gabba10-Nov-2012On a day when little of consequence happened for Australia’s Test squad at the Gabba, something of significant interest was unfolding 1800 kilometres away. On a treacherous, green seaming pitch at Bellerive Oval, Usman Khawaja’s simmering start to the Sheffield Shield season suddenly began to boil. His timing may not have been perfect – a ton last week might have earned him a place in the Brisbane Test – but he has given Australia’s debutant Rob Quiney reason to look over his shoulder.Of course, Quiney is yet to bat for his country and can lock himself into the Test side by succeeding at the Gabba, and there is also the matter of Shane Watson’s potential return from injury. But should Quiney fail on debut and Watson remain unavailable, Khawaja will at least have given the selectors something to ponder. He finished the county season with Derbyshire by scoring three consecutive half-centuries and his first few matches for Queensland have brought several more. Khawaja needs a sustained period of Sheffield Shield form, but the signs are positive.The most impressive thing about his innings in Hobart was that it came in such difficult conditions. The Bellerive Oval wicket block has been relaid and Ricky Ponting spoke earlier this week about how difficult it has been to bat on. By all accounts, the pitch for the current match looked as much like a tennis court as it did a cricket wicket. Tasmania, the home side, survived only 25.1 overs on it and made 95. Khawaja batted for more than twice that long and was finally dismissed for 138.Not that runs were the only thing Khawaja was told he needed when he was dropped from the Test side last December. The Australian management wanted Khawaja to show more in the field and more of an inclination to rotate the strike. Khawaja’s 138 in Hobart contained 21 fours and only 13 singles. All the same, Australia’s coach Mickey Arthur said he had been impressed with the progress Khawaja had made over the past year.”A couple of the messages around Usman were intensity when he bats, ability to rotate strike, ability to get ones,” Arthur said. “We thought Ussie had played really well and he had a good defensive game, and he could hit a four. His ability to get off strike was something that we were worried about just a little bit, and Ussie generally in the field.”What I’m saying is no secret – Ussie knows that. I’ve been very pleased with his progress. He’s come into the season, he’s got runs and his runs today were gold-dust on by all accounts a very seamer-friendly Bellerive wicket.”It is not clear just how far away from the Test side Khawaja is at the moment. He was not picked for last weekend’s Australia A game against South Africa and despite his consistent starts and fifties recently, his Hobart century was his first hundred in a first-class game in Australia since October 20 of last year. But his off-season move from New South Wales to Queensland has not been a bad one – he sits on top of the Shield run tally this season – and he remains as confident in his own abilities as ever.”I think I was always ready to play Test cricket,” Khawaja said after scoring 54 in each innings of last week’s Sheffield Shield game at Allan Border Field. “I think I’m ready to play Test cricket now. But in saying that, there are a lot of other players who are doing well as well. To see guys like [Alex] Doolan score a lot of runs. He’s played well this year. [Rob] Quiney has played quite well this year as well. There is a lot of competition out there.”The same thought might have run through Quiney’s mind today.

Just another day in the life of the talented New Zealand batsman

Trish Plunket13-Jan-2013Choice of game
It was a classic Wellington summer’s day. That is the clouds were low, the winds were high, and I was given a refund stub because everyone thought it was going to rain. What better day to watch The Hell Wellington Firebirds take on the Northern Knights at the Basin Reserve? (Don’t answer that.)Team supported
Wellington.Key performer
Theo Doropoulos may have a name that sounds like he was a visitor from the A-League match down at the Stadium, but he was the difference in the game. His bowling was precise, he got a couple of wickets on what looked like the flattest pitch in cricketing history, and he did a very good job bowling at the death.One thing I’d have changed

The weather. What should have been an amazing day was humid, windy and a bit sad. More sun would have meant more crowds. As it was those of us who had returned to Wellington from our holidays wondered if we could have taken another few days.Face-off I relished
One of my favourite things is toys that don’t need batteries. Jesse Ryder definitely fits that profile. He got into it with Darryl Tuffey when he was batting, with James Marshall when he was bowling, and with himself when he felt he wasn’t doing quite well enough. NZC should keep him around for his entertainment value as well as his spectacular hitting.Close encounter
Being unsure where Doropoulos was actually from, one of my companions strolled down to ask Cameron Borgas. She was told, “Originally Perth, but latterly from Adelaide.”Wow moment
Anton Devcich had been revving up to deal to the bowling. Then Luke Woodcock totally flummoxed him with a beautiful piece of spin and the bails went flying. Suddenly the Knights chase came to a spluttering halt.Shot of the day
Ryder smashed Steven Croft out of the Basin and across the road, where the ball narrowly missed a hipster who was on his phone. The only thing that could have made that shot any more perfect would have been if it had actually hit the hipster.Crowd meter
Wellington, I am disappointed. There were significantly fewer people at the ground than the game deserved, enough that only one of the bars was open.Entertainment
The DJ, along with amusing song choices, made a nice faux pas when announcing the score. Rather than being one wicket down, suddenly he called the Firebirds as being five down. Now, I understand he announces for the Firebirds, whose tradition of top-order collapses is long and distinguished, but really…Product placement
The Knights have those wonderful pink uniforms. Truly only one thing could have made them more disturbing, and that is the advertising placed squarely on the trouser seats. We were confused. Who on earth thinks to themselves “Where’s the best place to advertise our men’s clothing brand? I know, on the baby-pink backsides of a cricket team!”And I can hardly be told off for checking it out. It’s like they think we need the encouragement.ODIs v Twenty20s
This is kind of like Sophie’s Choice, only in reverse – which of my children do I dislike least? I’ve never been a great fan of Twenty20, but I do think they have snuck just past ODIs in my estimation, because they are over quicker so I can get out of the cold. Both of them are vastly inferior to Test matches, of course.Overall
With the Knights needing 15 off the last over, I hardly dared to hope. Surely we would find a way to lose… but no! Wellington won, securing a home semi-final in the HRV cup, making it easily the best game I’ve seen this summer. But then, I follow the Black Caps.Marks out of 10
9. Only one off for the bloody wind.

From Matthew Davies, United Kingdom

Cricinfo25-Feb-2013In picking Jade Dernbach, England have taken a gamble, and a good one•Getty ImagesIt would be easy to downplay England’s achievements in this World Cup. For the victories against South Africa and West Indies, you could point to their defeats against Ireland and Bangladesh. It is equally easy to forget that England came into this World Cup perhaps the most fatigued of all the sides, and this may have affected their performances so far, as they can only raise their strength to beat the top teams. This fatigue may or may not have played a part in the number of injuries and loss of form that have hindered England during this tournament.With Stuart Broad, Ajmal Shazhad and Kevin Pietersen all out of the World Cup, Eoin Morgan being absent from the start before his return, Graeme Swann and Andrew Strauss perhaps not being 100% fit due to niggles and illness and James Anderson, Matt Prior and Paul Collingwood suffering from a horrific loss of form, England could have easily crashed out of the World Cup with a whimper. England, however, have defied the circumstances and now find themselves in the quarter-finals, armed with the knowledge that they can beat anyone on their day.What has been really impressive about England though is who has stepped up. Luke Wright, who often causes bafflement amongst supporters with his repeated selection, showed his worth against West Indies, as did James Tredwell, a man whose credentials as a possible international player have been doubted. Ravi Bopara has made some telling contributions with bat and ball, and Chris Tremlett, despite being hammered by Chris Gayle and Andre Russell, still took an excellent catch to dismiss Kemar Roach. These were not the names that opposition coaches would have studied for weeks beforehand, and perhaps this has contributed to their success, but there may be another reason.Showing trust in these relatively unproven cricketers was a gamble, but one that has been rewarded with a place in the quarter-finals. England have now taken a gamble on another man. It would have been easy to call up Chris Woakes, who has already made his international debut and was relatively impressive given the horror show of the one-day series in Australia. Likewise, Steve Finn has taken international wickets and gave a decent showing in the subcontinent against Bangladesh, though he has maybe been deemed to be guilty of bowling too many four-balls. Yet England have gone with someone who has an economy rate of 6.33 per game, in a country where pitches are meant to assist the seam bowlers.Granted, Jade Dernbach plays his cricket at the Oval for Surrey, where the flat pitches maybe a contributing factor, but he still goes for runs. At first, to anyone who has never seen him bowl or doesn’t look at his statistics closely, it seems like madness. His strike-rate in List A cricket however is exceptional, at 25.8, which means that for every ten overs he bowls he will pick up over two wickets on average. That’s an impressive record, especially because it is equal to that of Ajantha Mendis, who bamboozles many a cricketer at domestic level. He is also a skilled death bowler, and this is most likely the reason for his selection. He can bowl bouncers, yorkers, cutters and cleverly disguised slower balls, and picks up wickets by bowling straight. What England would have given for someone who could have landed a yorker to Shafiul Islam. Dernbach might not even play a game, should Andys Flower and Strauss put their faith back in Anderson or persevere with Tremlett, but to recognise a skilled wicket-taker shows that England want to win this World Cup, rather than just avoid embarrassment. They want to adopt the same aggressive approach as Australia: win, or die trying. There is no safe option.

Thilan Samaraweera reflects on his international career and looks ahead to an enriching county stint with Worcestershire

Tim Wigmore24-Apr-2013Thilan Samaraweera may have played for 12 years for Sri Lanka but his first season in county cricket, where he is fulfilling “one of my dreams”, is bringing its own challenges. Samaraweera’s enthusiasm, after fielding for Worcestershire, is in stark contrast to Manchester’s rain, wind and unrelenting chill, which are enough to make anyone question the sanity of organising first-class cricket at Old Trafford in April.”You get tougher and tougher when you field in this cold weather,” he said. “It’s not easy. You get tougher and tougher living away from home.”Samaraweera’s international career may have been overshadowed by those of Sri Lanka’s big beasts, Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara. Yet in his own charmingly unobtrusive way he averaged 48.76 in Tests and there is a very legitimate case for him being Sri Lanka’s third-best Test batsman, even ahead of Aravinda de Silva and Sanath Jayasuriya.He earned a deserved reputation as Sri Lanka’s stylish man for a crisis – their VVS Laxman – cemented by a pair of centuries in South Africa in 2011-12, including 102 and 43 in Sri Lanka’s Boxing Day Test win. Not bad for someone who began cricketing life as an offspinner.While Samaraweera laments neither winning a Test Match in Australia nor scoring a hundred against them, what particularly grates – because it was so out of character – is the way his Test career ended: an aberrant slog when on nought in Sri Lanka’s defeat in Sydney in January.”Because of desperation I came down the track and tried to hit over the top and got caught at mid-on,” he said. “Every time I go to Sri Lanka people ask and remind me about that shot – that’s a little annoying because I did a lot of things for Sri Lankan cricket but still people remember that shot. Because every time the team needed me I did better every time – in South Africa, Pakistan, New Zealand.”At the time, no one thought it would be Samaraweera’s final Test innings. He had been looking forward to playing Test series against West Indies and South Africa this summer, and then retiring after playing Pakistan in December. The series against West Indies and South Africa were both cancelled.

“We are a little bit weak on our system – 20 first-class teams, I believe that is too much. It should be six, maximum seven to eight. And we have to encourage playing four-day cricket. At the moment it’s only three-day cricket”

“That’s six Test matches, a tough six Test matches and definitely the selectors [would have] looked at me because of my experience. Unfortunately we cancelled because of the shorter-format cricket and after that I had a big chat with the selectors and they said they would go with two senior players [Jayawardene and Sangakkara] with the youngsters against Bangladesh, and then Zimbabwe in October.”The selectors tried to persuade Samaraweera not to retire from Test cricket – “They said they need me in December in Pakistan” – but he decided against waiting ten months between internationals.The rescheduling is just the latest piece of evidence that the Sri Lankan board is not prioritising Test cricket. “Definitely I’m worried about the future in Sri Lanka. If you play 12 years of international cricket, you have to play 100 Test matches but in Sri Lanka if you play 12, you end up on 75 [he finished on 81 Tests].”Samaraweera always regarded Tests as the ultimate goal but it is perhaps not a view shared by many of those involved in Sri Lankan cricket today. One issue is the Sri Lankan first-class structure. “We are a little bit weak on our system – 20 first-class teams, I believe that is too much. It should be six, maximum seven to eight. And we have to encourage playing four-day cricket. At the moment it’s only three-day cricket.”Another – perhaps more significant – factor is the proliferation of T20 cricket. “If you send a bad message to the youngsters [about] playing the shorter formats, I think that’s kills their technique. You never find good spinners, you never find fast bowlers because of that mindset.”He calls for restrictions on T20 in age-group cricket: “You have to stop Under-19-level T20 cricket in Sri Lanka. If you play T20 cricket at 18, 19, there’s no point.”Samaraweera’s first-class debut came in 1995-96, months before Sri Lankan cricket was transformed with their victory in the World Cup. But he feels that the legacy could have been so much better.”The biggest, saddest thing is, after the 1996 World Cup win the board got money, a lot of money. We did well but financially we were very mismanaged. Unfortunately mismanagement happens but people don’t take action. That’s the way sometime our system goes – we can’t control those things.”There are few better players of spin on the county circuit than Samaraweera, whose adroit footwork against Simon Kerrigan’s left-arm spin was one of the highlights of the first day of the new season at Old Trafford. It was a matter of considerable surprise and, to all but the most parochial of Lancastrians, disappointment when Samaraweera misread a quicker delivery to edge a back-cut for 28. In seaming conditions in Cardiff last week he made a four-ball duck, but a second-innings 79 illustrated his technical fortitude.It also illustrated Samaraweera’s enduring capacity for self-improvement, nowhere seen better than in his performances in England.”I travelled here in 2002 with the Sri Lankan team, but I didn’t get a game here. In 2006 I had an awful national tour. After that I was dropped. I came in 2008 on a Sri Lankan A team tour and did really well. And in 2011 I averaged 52 in the Test series here.”If that trend continues, county bowlers will suffer this season – though it will be damage of the most gracefully inflicted sort. Samaraweera only wishes that his county chance had come sooner.”If I got this chance ten years before, I would be a better cricketer definitely.”

Lancashire will expect to bounce straight back to Division One of the Championship but their bowling attack looks heavily reliant on veteran Glen Chapple

George Dobell01-Apr-2013Last year: Eighth (relegated), CC Div 1; Group stages, T20; Semi-finals, CB402012 in a nutshell: To suffer relegation the year after winning the Championship title was a major disappointment. Lancashire started slowly, losing three of their first four games, and never really recovered. They won just one Championship match all season; no team in either division won fewer. The problem was two-fold: the top-order batting failed to fire – Ashwell Prince was the only member of the top order to average over 30 and, along with Steven Croft and Paul Horton, one of only three men to make a Championship century all season; and Stephen Moore, so influential in 2011, failed to pass 50 – and the bowling remained over-reliant on Glen Chapple. Their CB40 form was far better. They topped Group A with more wins than any side in the country, but then came unstuck against Warwickshire in the semi-finals. They also started well in the T20 but then fell away sharply, failing to win any of their last four games. Ajmal Shadzad and Sajid Mahmood were released at the end of the season. Gary Keedy moved to Surrey.2013 prospects: Lancashire have never spent more than a season in the lower division and will be expected to win an immediate return to Division One. With a newly develop ground and big-money naming-rights deal, they will have a large budget advantage on some of their Division Two rivals, but competition for those top two places is likely to be extremely competitive. The level of expectation could become a burden. Lancashire have taken steps to strengthen the areas of weakness from last year: they have retained Ashwell Prince as a Kolpak registration and signed Simon Katich as overseas player, which should add substance to the batting; and they have signed Kabir Ali and Wayne White to add some pace and bite to the seam bowling. But the bowling remains a bit of a concern. Kabir’s fitness record is not encouraging and White, while he has pace, is not the most consistent. The club remain uncomfortably reliant on Chapple, who was 39 in January. The plethora of allrounders should prove an asset in the limited-overs formats, though a lack of bite from the seamers is a concern in the Championship. In the longer-term, there may be growing concerns about the quality of players developing through the club. The production line that used to produce fine seam bowlers has ground to something approaching a halt in the last few years.Key player: It is only three years since 32-year-old Kabir was signed by Hampshire in a big-money transfer from Worcestershire. The move didn’t really work out due to a serious knee injury sustained early in the contract and Kabir joins Lancashire with some doubts over his long-term fitness. If he is injury-free, he remains a high-quality bowler and could prove a valuable acquisition. But if he misses vast chunks of the season, Lancashire are left with a batch of bits and pieces allrounders and useful medium-pacers to support Chapple.Bright young thing: Such was Simon Kerrigan’s influence on the Championship success of 2011 it may appear he has been around too long for inclusion in this category. But he is only 23 and remains a work in progress. A relatively fast, aggressive left-arm spin bowler, he could well be pressing for Monty Panesar’s England spot before the year is out.Captain/coach: Last year’s relegation was a rare setback for Peter Moores at county level. Having won the Championship at two clubs, he remains a major asset as head coach. Chapple is the captain, with Mike Watkinson the director of cricket.ESPNcricinfo’s verdict: The players brought in should help Lancashire challenge for promotion, but that will not mask longer-term concerns about the quality of players developing at the club. Should remain competitive in limited-overs formats.

India’s top-order batting has been the biggest success story of the tournament, but on Sunday they’ll be up against an incisive fast-bowling attack

S Rajesh22-Jun-2013Whichever way you look at it, India and England have been the two best teams in the 2013 Champions Trophy. India have won all four of their matches; England have won three and lost one – these two are the only sides in the tournament who’ve won more games than they’ve lost. India’s average of 65.46 runs per wicket is by far the best of all teams in the tournament, while England’s 35 is comfortably the second-best; ditto with the run rates of 5.93 (India) and 5.65 (England). As a bowling unit, India have taken the most wickets in the tournament – 37 – followed by England’s 30. The difference between the run rate and the economy rate is 1.27 for India, the highest, and next-best for England (0.32). It’s only fair that these two teams will compete for the right to be called the champions of the last edition of the Champions Trophy.India’s top-order batting has been the biggest success story of the tournament. Shikhar Dhawan has already amassed 332 runs in four innings – the third-highest by any batsman in any edition of the Champions Trophy – and has scored two out of three centuries in this tournament. India’s batsmen have also accounted for three of the seven century stands in the tournament so far – two by the openers Dhawan and Rohit Sharma, and one by Dhawan and Dinesh Karthik.England’s top three haven’t been as prolific, but they’ve also all been among the runs. Jonathan Trott has scored 209 runs – the third-highest in the tournament – at a strike rate of amost 90, which aren’t bad stats for a batsman who supposedly can’t score his runs quickly, while Alastair Cook and Ian Bell, the openers, have three fifties between them. England’s middle order is in form too, with Joe Root looking impressive almost every time he has come out to bat in scoring 166 in four innings, while Ravi Bopara has been explosive at the finish, scoring 88 runs off only 61 balls in the tournament.The flip side of the smashing form for India’s top three is the fact that the rest of their batsmen have hardly had a bat. Karthik has faced 84 balls in the entire tournament, Ravindra Jadeja 29, MS Dhoni 26, and Suresh Raina 10. India’s top three have accounted for 78% of the bat runs for India; the corresponding percentage for England is 59. It’s fair to say that India’s middle order hasn’t been tested yet, and Sunday could well be an occasion for them to prove their worth.

The bowling comparison
As a bowling unit, there isn’t much to choose between the two sides. England’s bowlers had one poor game, when they completely dominated by Kumar Sangakkara, while India conceded more than 300 against South Africa (though they won that one). India’s bowlers have taken more wickets at a better average and economy rate, thanks largely to their spinners. Led by Jadeja, India’s spin attack has taken 16 wickets at an average of 20.75 and an economy rate of 4.15, figures which even the most optimistic Indian fan wouldn’t have bargained for in June in England.England’s star in the bowling department has been James Anderson. He has taken twice as many wickets as the next-best for England, while his economy rate has been outstanding as well. India’s most consistent seamer has been Bhuvneshwar Kumar: his 32 overs have gone at only 3.68 per over, though Ishant Sharma is the leading wicket-taker with eight. The disappointment for India has been Umesh Yadav, who has leaked plenty of runs after taking a five-for against Australia in one of the warm-up games. Similarly, Tim Bresnan has been the most expensive among the regular bowlers for England, going at almost a run a ball.

The Powerplay factor
India’s openers have been so strong that the team hasn’t yet lost a wicket in the mandatory Powerplays, making scores of 66, 53, 45 and 40 – all without loss – at the ten-over mark in their four matches so far. England’s top order has done pretty well too, but it’s their bowling at the start which has stood out: they’ve taken six wickets in the mandatory Powerplay overs, and have conceded only 4.14 runs per over. On Sunday, they’ll be up against the best top order of the tournament, and how that mini-battle turns out could well determine the outcome of the final.In the batting Powerplay, India have the better numbers with both bat and ball. Most teams have lost plenty of wickets during this period, which has impacted their ability to score quickly, but India aren’t one of those sides: they’ve lost only two wickets, and their run rate is the second-best (after New Zealand) among all teams during this period. England, on the other hand, have lost five wickets in 87 balls during the batting Powerplay.

England’s strong home record
England’s one advantage, though, is their head-to-head record against India at home in the last nine years. In their last 15 such games – going back to 2004 – they have a 9-4 win-loss record, including three wins in the 2011 bilateral series.India have had a few setbacks against England in their recent encounters, but in the only tournament final played between these two teams in ODIs, India came out on top in a memorable match, when they chased down 326 at Lord’s in 2002. Come Sunday, and England will want to set that record straight.

Rob Moody’s obsession with recording matches in Australia and collecting archive footage has led to him becoming a folk hero to cricket lovers across the world

Russell Jackson06-Dec-2013At the start I’ll assume that the reason you are reading this is that you’re a cricket fan and you have an internet connection. Therefore it’s also not a stretch to assume that if you don’t know a man named Rob Moody by his full name, you probably know him by his Youtube moniker, Robelinda2.I couldn’t name every member of the ICC board from memory but I know who Rob Moody is, and among cricket fans that puts me in the majority. Moody is a kind of cricket historian, an archivist, a DIY publisher, a superfan and a superfreak. By any measurement he’s one of the unsung heroes of the game.The Melbourne-based cricket lover draws upon thousands and thousands of hours of lovingly recorded cricket footage to edit and publish Youtube clips of fantastic and forgotten moments of cricket history; thousands of videos with millions of views.Certain reoccurring themes tend to permeate the Moody oeuvre and give a small indication of his likes and dislikes as a connoisseur of the game. His obsession with Inzamam-ul-Haq’s travails has resulted in works like “72 funniest Inzamam Ul Haq LBW’s” and “23 funniest Inzamam run outs”. One of his most-watched clips, 2,096,051 views and counting, is of a viciously rearing David Saker bouncer to the head of South Australia’s Jeff Vaughan on a lively Bellerive wicket. That moment was broadcast on a long forgotten Australian cable channel and didn’t even rate a mention in , which his sister would record.Moody’s cricket video archive has been both helped and hindered by the emergence of decidedly more sophisticated recording technologies than were available when his hobby started. His first digital recorder, purchased in 2004, cost A$4000 (approximately US$3600). It only had a 10GB hard drive, and at that point the cost of blank discs to transfer his recordings to was prohibitively expensive (up to $10 each).”Then the problem came that they were too cheap and they were rubbish, “he says. Fortunately he was in the habit of backing up his digital conversions, as hundreds of the newer, cheaper discs proved to be of such poor quality they didn’t last even a decade. Ironically enough, the VHS tapes he stopped using in early 2004 have proven indestructible and still play at the same quality even 30 years after the initial recording. By contrast he says he throws out 500 DVDs per year that have simply stopped working. “It’s a massive effort to keep everything from just fading away, because the technology is unreliable. Even with hard drives they just die, he laments.”Moody played club cricket as an opening batsman for five years in the ’90s before finger injuries started to endanger his burgeoning career gigging in various bands around Melbourne. Now he teaches guitar.So far his biggest hurdle in maintaining his Youtube channel has not been the stiff arm of authority but moderating long and unwieldy comment threads that veer into bizarre and legally problematic tangents. “Every day there is close to a thousand comments to go through. Heaps of them are abuse and threats,” he says. He’s remarkably calm about this imposition, which he calls “par for the course”.”In that first year it definitely was pretty insane. I actually couldn’t believe the absolute torrent of abuse and pretty crazy threats.” He received abusive messages by email and phone, and to his horror, one unhappy viewer even showed up at his work to issue a threat. “He can’t have been much over 18 and he ended up happy to speak to me. That was kind of weird,” Moody says with remarkably good humour.Contrary to my own impressions, he says the worst of the threats came not from Indian fans of Sachin Tendulkar, who Moody often jokes over and ribs, but his own countrymen. “Initially there were a lot of angry Aussies, believe it or not.”

Moody has footage of virtually every game played in Australia for the last 30 years. They’ve been transferred onto CDs that are stored in around 25 folders in his home. Each folder contains 1000 discs

That the Robelinda2 channel still exists is down to caution, and good luck. Moody says the key to its survival is tending towards older material when making new uploads. He has a precise and nuanced understanding of the various rights holders of more recent footage, and is keenly aware of what he is and isn’t likely to get away with.Youtube’s copyright detection system is automated, so Moody’s reputation amongst fans would count for nothing if he transgressed. The threat of three strikes and the complete termination of his channel remains, and such an eventuality would take with it his entire archive of material. Friends of Moody’s have not been as lucky, and he says thousands of videos that didn’t breach any of the site’s regulations have been lost as collateral damage.”When it goes I’m certainly not going to put it up again, because it would be way too much work to do it all over again,” he says with a shrug of resignation. Moody is pragmatic about the right of cricket boards and broadcasters to enforce copyright regulations and focuses more of his energies on the content he provide to fellow fans.Right now his children are too young to understand their dad’s remarkable hobby, but when he mentions that his wife had “always known” about the obsession, he says it with a hearty laugh, as if it could be construed as a dark secret to some.When asked about his flair for editing compilation videos, it’s surprising to learn that most of them were made long before he converted to digital formats. At a young age he took note of the way Channel Nine’s highlight packages were edited and used his own homespun production techniques to create similar reels for himself. Much of what Moody has uploaded was created not on modern digital editing software, but through a laborious manual process, using two VCRs. It also pays to bear in mind that he never foresaw a time or technology that would allow for the end product to be viewed on any screen other than the one in his own living room.Moody says these self-created highlights packages include every half-century and century televised in Australia in the time he has been recording games. He estimates that he owns every commercially produced VHS cricket video ever released in England and Australia, including obscure subscription-only titles like , which were advertised in cricket magazines in the ’80s and ’90s. The latter cost around $100 per video, an almost laughable sum in hindsight, but many yielded gems he never would have seen otherwise.Moody says some of those titles now sell in online auctions for four-figure sums. For instance, not even Cricket South Africa has copies of a collection of rare videos he has from the South African rebel tours, which remain a lost world of cricket history. He says that copies have sold on eBay for up to $4000, and he has even fielded requests from players who featured in the games to provide them with footage from the tours. Want to see Sylvester Clarke hit Peter Kirsten with a bouncer in 1983-84? Thanks to Moody, you now can.Moody says he throws out 500 DVDs per year that have simply stopped working•Rob MoodyMoody still talks with a boyish enthusiasm of the days when rain delays in Australian internationals saw Channel Nine delve into its archives to show some old gold. He bemoans the current trend in which Nine will “return to normal programming, which of course means an Elvis movie we’ve all seen a million times. I don’t understand how that is normal programming.”Moody’s views on the game are trenchant and often surprising. His decision to record the ever-expanding schedule of T20 games in a lower-quality format than he uses for Tests and one-day cricket is as much a philosophical one as to do with practicalities. He says the newest format is “mildly entertaining when it’s on but there’s obviously a different vibe about it… I certainly don’t dislike it to any great extent but it’s clearly an inferior type of cricket.”Unusually for a Melbournian with such a famous interest in sport, Moody calls himself a “massive footy hater” and takes no interest in any other sport (“and thank god, because I don’t have any time”). His early interest in cricket was kindled by the sight of Australia’s mid-’80s one-day international clashes against West Indies. The passion in his voice is clear when he enters any discussion about West Indies cricket, and he retains a deep knowledge of their golden era.There are few gaps in his collection other than some games from Australia’s 1994 tour of South Africa, but he is always on the look-out for overseas tour footage from before the advent of Australian cable TV in the mid-1990s. He also makes the valid point that between the 1991 and 1999 Indian tours of Australia, the only ways for fans like him to fully appreciate the talents of Sachin Tendulkar was through those early wonder years of Australian cable TV.Moody is philosophically opposed to claiming advertising revenue from his videos, adding that he dislikes watching advertisements on videos uploaded by other users, and so would feel hypocritical putting them on his own. “It just seems really dodgy,” he says. “It would also be extra hassles with legal matters.”With the sheer volume of video footage in his collection, Moody doesn’t have a lot of room for cricket books but says he owns a hundred or so. He narrows his focus on historical tomes and particularly enjoys the work of Christian Ryan, Gideon Haigh (“clearly the best”), Mike Atherton and Mike Coward. He laughs heartily recalling an incident where he sat in a Melbourne cinema watching Max Walker deal admirably with heckling from a series of fellow patrons on account of the former Australian fast bowler’s literary output.One room of Moody’s house dedicated to both music and his cricket DVDs, and – this would be familiar to collectors everywhere – the overflow ends up in “the other room”. Soon enough his children will outgrow their shared bedroom and claim the space.For fans like me, Moody’s videos have filled the gaps on half-remembered events and resulted in remarkable journeys down digital rabbit holes, sometimes for hours on end. They are full of greatness, happiness, badness and madness, and his enthusiasm for the game is infectious. I don’t doubt that his willingness to share his collection has encouraged others to adopt some of his passion and selflessness and upload their own forgotten gems. For that we should all be thankful.Brushing aside the suggestion that he is a kind of folk hero in the world of cricket, Moody says, “It’s just a Youtube channel. It’s one amongst millions. I don’t think it’s as big a deal as people think.”On that point alone, he couldn’t be more wrong.