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A disappointing World Cup has just got worse. Just when it seemed a World Cup semi- final couldn’t get any lower than the first one, it did

Sambit Bal in St Lucia25-Apr-2007A disappointing World Cup has just got worse. Just when it seemed a World Cup semi-final couldn’t get any lower than the first one, it did. Sri Lanka’s win over New Zealand contained a sublime first half and at lunch the prospect remained of an exciting finish. Today, the game was over as a contest in the first ten overs.The difference between Australia and the rest in this tournament has been even broader than Matthew Hayden’s bat, but they didn’t need to bring out their best today. South Africa beat themselves thoroughly. All the talk about calming the mind and playing with confidence and patience came to a sorry pass in the morning when they batted like wrecks.A positive mindset has been the hallmark of South Africa’s one-day game, but, faced with an opponent superior to them in skill and mind, their batting descended to mindless adventure. They seemed over-wrought and over-anxious, and fell to a succession of poor strokes. Their premier batsmen set the tone.Graeme Smith’s one-day batting is based on bludgeoning. Predominantly an onside player, Smith has, in recent times, acquired the ability to free his arms and hit over the top on the offside. He did so successfully and repeatedly in the second half of his innings against England. But after choosing to bat on a pitch unknown to them, he decided to give Nathan Bracken the charge in the third over. He had faced only four balls.But no dismissal was more symptomatic of a plan gone awry than that of Jacques Kallis. Even though he had been South Africa’s most prolific batsman, the pace of his batting had invited more than a few questions. When these teams met earlier in the tournament, Kallis’ 63-ball 48 was deemed to have terminally halted South Africa’s victory charge. And before this match, Ricky Ponting had launched his own psychological warfare by letting the world know that Kallis was the man Australia wanted to get to the crease early.Kallis did come in early, but obviously he had decided this was the day to change a reputation. The first seven balls fetched merely a single, but off he went with the eighth, stepping out and wide of the stumps to carve, of all people, Glenn McGrath between cover and point. Ditto the next ball. The difference: the ball was full, Kallis missed, and it hit off. “Their top order batted exactly the way we wanted them to,” Ponting said after the match. Inevitably, the “choking” question came up post-match. Smith was expecting it McGrath bowled as well as he always does, but the wickets were earned easily. Ashwell Prince, the other batsman expected to hang around in a crisis, played the daftest of strokes, slashing a wide one to make the score 27 for 4, and when Mark Boucher hung his bat out next ball, the match was up for South Africa. The innings ended fittingly when Charl Langeveldt swung wildly at a full delivery. Six overs remained, and at other end stood Justin Kemp, South Africa’s highest scorer, on 49.Of the Australian bowlers, Shaun Tait, who was drafted in as the strike bowler in Brett Lee’s absence, was the most impressive. He has been Australia’s most expensive bowler among the specialists, but with 23 wickets, he is their most successful behind McGrath, who has a World Cup record of 25. Tait bowled with pace and curved the ball into the right handers. One such ball squeezed between leg stump and the pads of Herschelle Gibbs, one of the two South African batsmen to play with any measure of poise.It was South Africa’s lowest one-day score in a World Cup and, inevitably, the “choking” question came up post-match. Smith was expecting it. “I wouldn’t say we choked,” he said. To him, choking meant blowing a winning situation. But what about freezing on the big stage?Once again, South Africa were not able to play their best game in a big match. Their top order combusted and eight of their batsmen got themselves out. It was a massive under-performance that added to the emptiness of the World Cup. Their reputation will persist.

For the Indians it was a familiar story of top-order failure followed by a late revival

S Rajesh24-Feb-2008
The key requisites of one-day cricket are fitness, temperament, and a range of strokes, and Gambhir showed he has all three in abundance © Getty Images
After being pushed on to the back foot by the bowlers throughout this tournament, the batsmen at last had something to smile about – the flat pitch, lack of seam movement and the quick outfield were all ideal for run-making, but for the Indians it was a familiar story of top-order failure followed by a late revival.Gautam Gambhir’s polished century and Robin Uthappa’s frenetic fifty shouldn’t hide the fact that India’s best batsmen have been worryingly absent in the CB Series, and the team has lived and died by the performance of the lower middle-order. When they have made significant contributions – as they did against Australia in Melbourne and against Sri Lanka in Adelaide – the team has gone on to win; when they have floundered, as they did against Australia in a low-scoring game in Adelaide, the result has been embarrassing.In six out of seven matches so far, India have lost their fourth wicket with less than 100 on the board, leaving Mahendra Singh Dhoni and the rest to do much more than their fair share of work. When the squad for the tournament was announced, there was plenty of concern about the lack of experience in the batting line-up, but ironically, it’s the most experienced ones who have been letting the team down so far.Yuvraj Singh played one exceptional innings against Sri Lanka in Melbourne, but that apart, he has scored 42 in five innings, while the opening act of Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag – both of whom were in smashing form during the Tests – has been even more disappointing: Tendulkar has a highest of 44 from seven innings, while Sehwag has an aggregate of 81 from five. They are the three superstars of the batting order yet they all have an average of less than 20 in the tournament.Tendulkar has been in fine fettle in both forms of the game over the last couple of years, but just like the fourth innings has been a bit of a jinx for him in Tests, the run-chase has caught him cold in ODIs: over the last three years, Tendulkar averages a mere 26.94 in the 39 matches that India have chased, with 18 single-digit scores. During the same period, he has averaged 56.03 in the 32 innings when India have batted first, with four centuries and just seven scores of less than ten. The last time Tendulkar scored a century in a run-chase was nearly four years ago, when he stroked a glorious 141 in Rawalpindi against Pakistan.While the pressure of the run-chase hasn’t suited Tendulkar, it did little to rein in the flair of Gambhir, who has added consistency to his other virtues to make himself an indispensable member of the batting line-up. He scored fourth-innings hundreds in the semi-final and the final of the Ranji Trophy, and under the lights in Sydney showed once again that he doesn’t mind the pressures of a target.For long Gambhir hasn’t been given his due as an ODI player: critics question his technique around off stump and his tendency to open the face of the bat, but the key requisites of one-day cricket are fitness, temperament, and a range of strokes, and Gambhir showed he has all three in abundance.He came in to bat after India had lost Tendulkar, and they soon slumped to 4 for 51, but not once did Gambhir allow the seemingly hopeless situation to faze him. Equally, he didn’t allow himself to get into reckless mode either even though the asking rate was mounting. When the squad for the tournament was announced, there was plenty of concern about the lack of experience in the batting line-up, but ironically, it’s the most experienced ones who have been letting the team down so far Throughout, he kept up an impressive tempo, running hard between the wickets to keep the score moving, and improvising superbly to strike the boundaries which kept the required rate within achievable limits. He had shown the same composure in big-match situations during the World Twenty20, and further experience and exposure at the highest level will only increase his consistency.Uthappa proved his utility at No. 7, and has made a strong case to deserve a promotion up the order. The skills required to combat the new ball, though, are very different to those that are required down the order, and Uthappa’s energetic knock will probably tempt Dhoni to keep him at that slot.After a surprisingly strong start to the tournament, India have fallen away somewhat, with three defeats in their last four games, but thanks to the limp Sri Lankans, they are still the favourites to make the final cut. With the top order floundering like it is, though, Sri Lanka will believe they still have a chance to ensure that they’ll have all to play for against Australia next Sunday.

Cricket is about to take a leap of faith in technology with the trial of a system that allows players to challenge the decision of the on-field umpires

Jamie Alter in Colombo22-Jul-2008Review of umpiring decisionsWhat?
It allows players to seek reviews, by the third umpire, of decisions by the on-field umpires on whether or not a batsman has been dismissed. When?
A player can request a review of any decision by the on-field officials concerning whether or not a batsman is dismissed, with the exception of “timed out”. No other umpiring decisions are eligible for review. Each team can make three unsuccessful requests per innings, which must be made within a few seconds of the ball becoming dead; once made, the requests cannot be withdrawn.Who?
Only the batsman involved in a dismissal can ask for a review of an “out” decision; in a “not out”, only the captain or acting captain of the fielding team. In both cases players can consult on-field teammates but signals from off the field are not permitted.How?
A review request can be made by the player with a ‘T’ sign; the umpire will consult the TV umpire, who will review TV coverage of the incident before relaying back fact-based information. The field umpire can then either reverse his decision or stand by it; he indicates “out” with a raised finger and “not out” by crossing his hands in a horizontal position side to side in front and above his waist three times.Technology
The TV umpire can use slow-motion, ultra-motion and super-slow replays, the mat, sound from the stump mics and “approved ball tracking technology”. Snicko and Hot Spot are not to be used.Click here to read the ICC guidelines in detail.Cricket is about to take a leap of faith in technology with the trial of a system that allows players to challenge the decision of the on-field umpires in the Test series between Sri Lanka and India. The umpire’s word will no longer be final.The system has been tried, somewhat unsuccessfully, and in the relatively obscure environment of county cricket. But,after a shelved proposal to use it in the current England-South Africa series, millions of television viewers now await the sight of the first-ever referral to be made in an international contest. The jury is out on whether the move is designed to undermine the umpires or to assist them, but the acceptance of the system will depend by the decisions it produces.At one level, the referral process is likely to eliminate obvious umpiring errors, such as the reprieve of Andrew Symonds in the Sydney Test last year that led to India threatening to call off their Australian tour, but there are also apprehensions about the exactitude of technology, particularly in the area of catches close to the ground and in the case of faint edges. In light of the Sydney controversy, it was inevitable, however, that the referral system would be trialled in international cricket. The sooner the better.There will be 22 cameras at work at the SSC to help eliminate doubt from the decision-making process and for first time Virtual Eye will be used for line decisions in judging lbws. Even though the predictive aspect of Virtual Eye will not be used, the third umpire will still have visual evidence of the pitch of the ball and the point of impact. Technologies such as Snickometer and Hotspot have been kept out of the pale. Even the broadcast companies that use these aids to enhance television viewing are unable to vouch of their infallibility.Following the tradition set by tennis, the first spectator sport to allow players challenge decisions, each team will be allowed three unsuccessful referrals per innings, and men who will be making the decisions in the match have welcomed the move.The trial has received positive responses from the captains of the two teams which will use it over the next few weeks. Mahela Jayawardene, Sri Lanka’s captain, gave it an enthusiastic endorsement. “I am all for it,” he said. “I think it’s a very good system, what we are trying to eradicate is the obvious mistakes that happen on the field. We [the captains and umpires] had a chat yesterday and I think the umpires are in favour of this as well.”Anil Kumble, India’s captain, pointed out that umpires must understand that technology is there to assist them. “I don’t think we’re trying to say that umpires are redundant,” he said. “They are an integral part of the system and it is very difficult for them in the heat of the moment; it is just assisting them. It is not a question of taking something away from them. It is a mode of assistance.”But of course, there are flaws in the method. As Ian Chappell, who has opposed the referrals, points out, the system would bring justice for some but not for all. “If three referrals are deemed fruitless,” Chappell wrote, “under the recommendations of the proposal a team would then have no further opportunity to ask for assistance from the third umpire. Consequently, the biggest howler ever perpetrated could then enter the scorebook unhindered. This would be classic .”And technology is neither foolproof nor 100% conclusive. Two catches, or non-catches, in the recently-concluded Headingley Test highlighted the problem. Both AB de Villiers and Michael Vaughan claimed catches that were referred to the television umpire. In the first instance, the ball was conclusively grounded. In Vaughan’s case, two camera angles presented different pictures and the batsman was given the benefit of the doubt. The next day, Nasser Hussain demonstrated with the help of the Sky television crew how the camera could lie.But at the same time, there is acceptance that the game needs to adapt. Kumble’s assessment sums it up in a way. “Traditions are important but you need to keep changing. Everybody respects that now. Now millions of people watch the game on television and it is accepted. In tennis, line decisions are accepted now – it is a part of every game. In cricket we have already accepted the third umpire ruling on run-outs and stumpings. It’s moving forward, and we shouldn’t just look at the history of cricket here.”

Australia’s embarrassing defeat to Pakistan stemmed in part from a lack of experience and coincided with the free-scoring form of Gilchrist and Hayden in the IPL

Alex Brown22-Apr-2009Australia’s selectors could hardly be blamed for casting a yearning eye towards South Africa. It is there that two former mainstays of the Australian top-order, Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist, have tenderised IPL bowling attacks at a time when the national one-day batting line-up has struggled for any semblance of authority or consistency.Consider this: in each of their past five one-day internationals, Australia have suffered major batting collapses. Prior to their disastrous passage in Dubai on Wednesday, during which Shahid Afridi and Saeed Ajmal claimed a combined 8-27 between the 19th and 31st overs, the Australians had endured batting sequences of 3-15 (Johannesburg), 3-14 and 4-11 (Port Elizabeth), 3-17 (Cape Town) and 5-19 (Centurion). They have lost four of those matches. No surprises there.In South Africa, Australia’s collapses were born largely out of frustration after extended periods of restricted scoring. In Dubai, the implosion was due to a failure to pick Afridi’s wrong-un and Ajmal’s doosra. The result has been a stunning freefall from the top of the one-day rankings to third. And should Pakistan sweep the five-match UAE series, the Australians will find themselves mired in fourth place, their lowest position since the ranking system was introduced in 2002.The fortunes of Hayden and Gilchrist, meanwhile, could not contrast more sharply with those of their former teammates. A run of low-scoring convinced Hayden to walk away from the international game three months ago, but now, free from the pressures that weighed so heavily upon his shoulders, the veteran opener has powered his way to second on the IPL’s run-scoring list with the Chennai Super Kings. Gilchrist, too, has been in bludgeoning form, thumping five sixes en route to a 45-ball innings of 71 against a Bangalore attack that included Dale Steyn and Anil Kumble – all while the Australians were stumbling to defeat against Pakistan.Much like their spin bowling department, Australia’s selectors are now attempting to rebuild a limited overs top-order in the knowledge that their best and most seasoned candidates are no longer available to them. The recurrence of Shaun Marsh’s left hamstring injury will presumably make that task all the more difficult, and should the intermittent form of veterans Michael Hussey and Michael Clarke continue, Andrew Hilditch’s panel could be faced with further difficult decisions ahead of the next World Cup.Much work is required. High on Tim Nielsen’s to-do list in the coming months will be a thorough review of his batsmen’s strategies to spin bowling. Roelof van der Merwe and Johan Botha were most successful in drying up Australia’s scoring rates in the middle overs, while Afridi and Ajmal confounded them with prodigious turn – the former bowling three batsmen through the gate with googlies, the latter skittling Nathan Hauritz shouldering arms.None of the Australian batsmen – even top-scorers James Hopes, Brad Haddin and Shane Watson – appeared comfortable against the turning ball on a Dubai pitch grown from imported Pakistani soil. Ajmal, like the soil, hails from the Punjab region, and the right-armer could not have appeared more at home as he turned numerous deliveries away from Australia’s befuddled top-order. And Afridi was simply devastating.Cricket scribes have recently learned that writing off an Australian team is fraught with peril, but the troubling signs from an admittedly travel-weary one-day side are impossible to ignore. A massive effort is required to turn this series around and rediscover their batting form of yore. Perhaps a quick glance at the forthcoming Chennai-Deccan match might prove instructive.

Ravi Shastri, India’s glamour boy of the eighties, talks about making it big early, the kind of captain he might have been, and his reputation for stodgy batting

Interview by Sam Collins19-Oct-2009Was playing for India what you aspired to from childhood?
It was a dream initially. The chances of making it are so remote; that is why it is a dream. As a child I played cricket as a hobby. Once you started playing for your school, you became more ambitious. You reckoned you could play for the state. Then you started to think about the country. But it happened so quickly for me, I started playing for the school at 13, for Bombay at 17, and at 18 I was in the Indian side.You took three wickets in four balls on your Test debut, against New Zealand.
I had flown 30 hours to reach Wellington at 9pm. The next morning I was told I was in the starting XI. We lost the toss and were put in to field. There was no time to think, straight off the aircraft, barely a night’s sleep, and before lunch I had the ball in my hand. I got three out in that first innings, then New Zealand were 78 for 6 in the second and I was given the ball. In the first three overs I took three wickets in four balls.Did you consider yourself a bowler at that stage?
I always considered myself an allrounder. My batting took some time to develop – I was batting at No. 10 initially but my bowling took off. I got 15 wickets in that first series, but soon I was making strides as a batsman. I scored my first Test century in January 1983. I opened the innings in the last Test against Pakistan during that series. From there on there was no looking back.As your batting improved did you begin to neglect your bowling?
Not neglect but subconsciously the focus went more on batting. I was not just batting at No. 6 or No. 5, I was opening for India – a specialist position in its own right. People say I was defensive, but at the top you have a role to play, to hold the innings together, see the new ball off, so you were a lot more disciplined and didn’t take chances.What is your proudest moment on the pitch?
Nothing gave me more pleasure than making hundreds at the top of the order: a hundred against West Indies at No. 3, Test century in Barbados in 1988-89; a double-hundred as an opener in Shane Warne’s first Test. It was during that Barbados hundred that Malcolm Marshall went past Lance Gibbs as the leading wicket-taker for West Indies, and the roof came down when he took that fifth wicket. I was at the non-striker’s end. It was a sight, just the noise in Barbados, his home ground, a packed house on a Saturday. It was a great feeling.Kapil Dev once said you had 50% ability but 200% determination. Is that a fair assessment?
If you get more than 10 Test hundreds, you’ve bloody got ability, but he is right. I was a very determined cricketer. I treated the opening position as a challenge. Big names and tough attacks brought the best out of me. That’s why you see the hundreds at the top, against West Indies, England, a double- hundred in Australia, in Pakistan at Karachi – the first Test hundred that changed my career – against Imran Khan, Sarfraz Nawaz, Wasim Raja. There were some serious bowlers there.Weren’t you once pelted with fruit by the Indian crowd for batting too slowly?
Not pelted but there was a lot of jeering. Because you set such high standards at a young age, when you went through a bad patch, the crowd would get on your back. I would stick two fingers up at them. Then it spread from one state to another. It just inspired me to get more runs but it wasn’t easy. In hindsight I could have smiled and got the crowd on my side.A week after you made a 325-ball hundred in a Test against England in Calcutta you hit six sixes in an over – in 1984-85.
It was only a few days after. I don’t know what changed. In the first game I was on 26 overnight and went to lunch on 69, so I had scored almost 50 in the session and was batting beautifully. Suddenly, after lunch I don’t know what went into my head – I just blocked the shit out of it. Then the crowd started jeering, and I thought, “I’m not going to throw my wicket away.” It had to be a mental block. It’s not like they were bowling grenades, it was still [Pat] Pocock and [Phil] Edmonds and the same ground. So it was a great release to be able to go and smash it for Bombay against Baroda. I was already batting on a hundred, when the message came from the dressing room that we were declaring in half an hour.You were in Pakistan when Indira Gandhi was assassinated in 1984. What are your memories of that?
It was sad. She was a great leader. We were introduced to her the three times we played in Delhi, and all three times she at least said a sentence to me. It was disappointing because I was having one of my best tours of Pakistan. I had scored 71 and taken three wickets in the first Test, 139 in the next Test match; but the third one was cancelled.You played for Glamorgan for four seasons between 1987 and 1991. What are your memories?
It was a very young team. It allowed me to relax and get away from India as the press were hounding me. So those six months were a relief. I thought my batting improved tremendously in county cricket in different conditions. Each county had some top players. Greenidge and Marshall at Hampshire, Hadlee and Rice at Notts, Holding at Derby, Desmond Haynes at Middlesex, Gooch and Border at Essex – every side had box office, it was a great time. I thought I should have batted higher. I was at No. 5 when I could have batted at the top of the order.

“When you went through a bad patch, the crowd would get on your back. I would stick two fingers up at them. Then it spread from one state to another. It just inspired me to get more runs but it wasn’t easy. In hindsight I could have smiled and got the crowd on my side”

Is your reputation as the glamour boy of Indian cricket fair?
I think so. It was because I was successful. By the age of 25 I had played over 50 Test matches. I was getting runs, wickets, stick from the crowd. I didn’t hold back, I was no introvert. I just took it in my stride. But cricketers need charisma – it makes a big difference. Some people have it naturally and others develop it as they go along.Did this reputation impact on your captaincy ambitions?
Not really. I won every domestic title that existed in India as captain of Bombay. Sometimes captaincy falls in your lap and sometimes it doesn’t. I’m happy it came to me once in Test matches. It happened to be against West Indies – the best side I ever played against – and we beat them at home for the first time in 11 years. I would have done a good job for India if I had got it full time, let’s put it that way. It’s not my job to say I should be captain, that’s for the selectors. But I would have been ruthless. I would have played to win at all costs. It’s not about drawn games.Who were your biggest rivals in cricket?
Pakistan. Imran Khan, Wasim Akram, Javed Miandad – we played a lot against each other at that time. I hated Javed’s guts on the field, but you had to admire him. He was a street-fighter. He got under your skin but he delivered for his side. I know him now, and he’s a great bloke. Playing against West Indies was a highlight. It’s good to know that you played against them whether you succeeded or not. In my case it was a bit of both.You were Shane Warne’s first Test wicket. Did you have a sense then how good he would become?
I always knew Warne would take a lot of wickets but never thought it would be 700. I already had a double-hundred by the time he got me out. When I first played him, I was impressed by his temperament, his control, and his ability to spin the legbreak. He tossed it up, spun it and focused on his legbreak – that was his stock ball to the end of his career. I keep telling the Australians they should make me an honorary citizen. I gave him so much confidence with that first wicket that he went on to take 700.