The tournament has found sponsors aplenty and fans have packed the stadiums. The WICB’s decision to sell the league to a private organisation of proving to be the difference

Tony Cozier04-Aug-2013There were a host of inevitable questions hanging over the Caribbean Premier League when Julian Hunte, then the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) president, announced last year that it was selling its annual Twenty20 tournament to Verus International, a wealth management organisation based in New York and Barbados.The extravaganza that the newest, and shortest, form of the game has become on every point on cricket’s map got underway in Barbados and Guyana during the week. These are early days yet but several of the initial reservations have diminished, if not disappeared completely.For four years, the WICB had failed to find a sponsor for any of its three major tournaments. Suddenly, they are falling over each other to have their names attached to the CPL – the Limacol Caribbean Premier League to give it its full, sponsored name. It set out with what it called a “full set of commercial partners”, West Indians and internationals. Even after that, another couple have been added. While the virtually non-existent WICB promotion of its regional matches has seen crowds dwindle to three figures, CPL’s marketing campaign has helped fill stands to capacity. We have to go back to Lawrence Rowe’s triple-hundred in 1974 and Michael Holding’s over to Geoffrey Boycott in 1981 to find the Kensington Oval so jam-packed with West Indians (as opposed to English tourists).Ajmal Khan, Verus’ main man, boasted from the start that it would be “the ultimate cricket carnival”. With the fireworks, the gyrating cheerleaders, the calypsonians and dub artists belting out their hits, and, at Kensington, Mac Fingall and his motley crew performing to the delight of those in the Greenidge and Haynes Stand, that’s what it has been.So too, in their own way, in similar leagues in India, Australia, England and South Africa but not quite as it is such a cosmopolitan mix of cultures as in the West Indies.Competition from Barbados’ long established annual Crop Over celebrations has made no difference to the attendances. Nor has the state of the economies that so concerns politicians but not, it seems, their constituents intent on having a good time. And what about the cricket?Test matches they are decidedly not. That is the purest form of the game, its foundation, and cannot be replaced as such. It’s not even the 50-overs an innings variety. It is simply part of an entertainment package in which what happens in the middle is accentuated by what’s going on beyond the boundary. There have been long sixes and power-laden fours to set off the waving of thousands of ‘6’ and ‘4’ cards, one amazing catch by a fielder with bronze-dyed hair who is usually a wicketkeeper and some tight bowling by spinners.

The message is clear; it sees more value in running an event on its own – especially one of such potential – than tied to the WICB

Also, for the first time, players from other countries are participating in the Caribbean in the same teams alongside the West Indians. The IPL and the Big Bash League have already shown the benefits of such cross-fertilization.All this has come against a backdrop that might well have dimmed the enthusiasm of Khan and others and scuppered the project even before it could get off the ground. There were bound to be doubts from the start over whether the idea could attract sponsors or gain the support of governments, public and media so necessary for success, especially when it gave itself just nine months to get things rolling.Even though Hunte emphasised that the WICB had undertaken due diligence and thoroughly verified Verus’ credentials, memories of the WICB’s bitter experience with Allen Stanford’s collapsed T20 were still strong. The CPL launch coincided with the first whispers of corruption in the IPL and the financial problems of the Bangladesh equivalent.More than just eyebrows were raised by a statement from the Barbados Central Bank warning (as it put it) that Verus International “was not licensed to engage in merchant banking, or any other activity regulated” by the Bank “in or from within Barbados”, adding that anyone transacting business with Verus “did so at their own risk”.The prospects of global television coverage also appeared slim. It would, after all, coincide with the high-profile Ashes series in England and India’s ODIs in Zimbabwe. If the prospects of staging it in the rainy season did not enter the thinking, faltering economies and tiny populations of the small island states that comprise the cricketing Caribbean might have. Still, Khan declared that he would invest “whatever it takes, in the hundreds of millions” to make it work.Millions – if not hundreds of millions – have been invested in establishing the CPL but not by Verus itself. The Irishman Denis O’Brien, head of Digicel, is now listed as its owner; Ajmal Khan as the founder.Significantly, Digicel, the mobile phone company that covers the Caribbean, was formerly title sponsor for West Indies’ international cricket before downgrading to just the team sponsor early this year, no doubt just when it was involved in the CPL take over.The message is clear; it sees more value in running an event on its own – especially one of such potential – than tied to the WICB.Even so, the WICB and West Indian players stand to financially benefit to the overall tune of US$800,000. Retainer contracts worth US$36,000 are reserved for regional players. Teams earn US$25,000 for each victory; US$250,000 goes to the overall champion. Each Man of the Match gets US$1,000, the longest six US$500, the batsman with the highest run rate the same.But what about the up and coming cricketers?Ian Chappell is among the many who believe that too much Twenty20 is spoiling the techniques of young batsmen. Australia’s particularly. Although Michael Holding’s aversion to the concept of Twenty20 is so strong he won’t commentate on it, has agreed to be a CPL ambassador.Holding explains what appears to be a contradiction: “The CPL is looking at a development programme which they will start rolling out in January 2014, I understand. They will have about 60 young cricketers, 10 from each of the six franchise regions, who they will put on contract and create programmes to improve their cricket. That is what I am interested in…if we can develop some young cricketers in the Caribbean, even if a lot of them are tempted to play Twenty20 cricket, then maybe we can still find one or two who are quite happy and even capable of playing Test cricket too.”Nicholas Pooran, at 17 the CPL’s youngest player, made an immediate impact with his six sixes in a 24-ball 54 on Wednesday for Trinidad & Tobago Red Steel against the Guyana Amazon Warriors (brilliant names, these).It makes him one to watch; he might just turn out to be the Test player Holding envisages. But the young Guyanese, Jonathan Foo, then a complete unknown, was a similar sensation in the WICB’s Twenty20 a few years ago. Remember him?

There have been fall-outs and controversies along the way, but Kevin Pietersen has been a central part of one of the most successful periods of English cricket

George Dobell in Brisbane19-Nov-20130:00

Pietersen’s fun with Aussie journalists

“A great journey” was how Kevin Pietersen reflected upon his career so far. It seems an apt description for the man who will, all being well, become the tenth England player to earn his 100th Test cap when the first Ashes Test begins in Brisbane on Thursday.For various reasons, Pietersen has not always enjoyed the praise his success as a cricketer warrants. Perhaps, as he suggested, it is the belief of some that England is his adopted country – he is actually a dual-national that dilutes the praise; perhaps it is the perception of him as arrogant or brash; perhaps he is seen as selfish or a mercenary. Maybe, in a nation that was, until recently, starved of sporting success for a long time, Pietersen’s single-minded nature struck a discordant chord.But what few could doubt is that he had played a starring role in one of the finest chapters in the history of English cricket. With Pietersen in the side, England have won the Ashes regularly – something that seemed almost impossible not so long ago – they have won their first global limited-overs trophy – the World T20 in 2010 – they have won a Test series in India and risen, albeit briefly, to the top of the rankings in all three formats of the game
.It is no coincidence that Pietersen’s career has coincided with a period of such success. He was the Man of the Tournament in that 2010 success, he was the man who supplied the match-defining century when England won back the Ashes at The Oval in 2005 and, over the years, he has played some of the greatest Test innings of the era; three of them in 2012 alone. Only one England player in history – Alastair Cook – has scored more than his 23 Test centuries and only four have scored more than his 7,887 Tests runs.We ask a great deal of our sporting heroes. We expect them to be lions on the pitch and kittens off it. While Pietersen has never been involved in a serious case of dissent, while no-one denies his work-ethic or professional attitude to fitness and while he has never been involved in some of the off-pitch episodes that blighted the careers of Andrew Flintoff and Sir Ian Botham, he has attracted some disproportionately fierce criticism from the media.

Positive signs for Prior

Matt Prior came through another tough training session to further boost his chances of playing in the first Test starting on Thursday.
Prior, who sustained a calf tear less than two weeks ago, suffered no ill effects after his training on Monday and was able to take some outstanding catches during a lengthy session on Tuesday to suggest he has a good chance of being fit to play in Brisbane.

“I call it confidence; you guys call it arrogance because it makes for a better headline,” Pietersen said at the Gabba on Tuesday. “I’ve got to be confident in my ability. Clearly as a South African coming into England I had to really fight some tough battles and I had to be single minded in achieving what I had to try and achieve.”A lot of great sportsman have that little bit of something to them that makes them try to be the best and want to be the best and wake up every single day wanting to improve. It doesn’t get documented how much I train, or how hard I train away from the game where no-one sees what I do.”There have, of course, been some notable bumps in the road. Apart from the inevitable fluctuations in form, there was the clash with Peter Moores which cost both men their jobs and saw Pietersen stripped of the captaincy and there was ‘text-gate,’ which saw Pietersen dropped from the Test side for the only time in his career. If the latter was silly – and probably no more than that – the former was an attempt, albeit a clumsy and possibly ill-judged attempt, to improve the fortunes of the England team. Perhaps, as times passes, neither incident appears quite so Machiavellian as it did at the time. Clumsy, yes; Machiavellian, no.Nor is Pietersen blameless for some of the negative press. There have been times when his relationship with the media has been frosty in the extreme and times – at Nottinghamshire, Hampshire and England – when he appeared ambivalent about his team-mates and team. It is not so long ago that, when asked about the performance of Chris Wood, the Hampshire seamer with whom he had just played a game, he replied “Sorry, which one is Wood?”Kevin Pietersen: ‘Do you ever look at things and think why you’ve done things? We all make mistakes’•Getty ImagesPietersen, in an open, engaging and often lighthearted press conference, admitted he had made mistakes, but suggested that, as he had matured, that he had learned from the experiences and that he was now as happy and settled as he has been at any stage of his career.”We all make mistakes,” he said when asked about the incident involving messages about Andrew Strauss. “Do you ever look at things and think why you’ve done things? We all make mistakes. You learn from the ups. You learn from the downs. I had lunch with Strauss yesterday.”We’re all getting on really well within the team. We’re all winning together, we’ve played a lot of cricket together. These things happen. You have it in all walks of life. You have ups; you have downs. We’re a really good bunch at the moment. We’re going really well. I’m so lucky and so proud to be where I am.”Some credit is due to Andy Flower, Cook and the rest of the England management, too. There were times during the texting incident when it seemed the attitude of the England management was unnecessarily punitive. But, 18 months or so later, Pietersen has been successfully ‘reintegrated’ into the team and, according to all reports, is the model professional on and off the pitch. The help and encouragement he has given younger players on this tour has been admirable.History tends to strip its victims to the bone. Characters become caricatures and lives are summed up by a single incident. So Henry VIII is distilled into the king who beheaded his wives, Churchill is distilled into a cigar-chomping war leader and John Prescott becomes the man who thumped a member of the public. The subtleties and contrasts that make any individual tend to get lost.So how will Pietersen be remembered? Will he, like Tony Grieg or Hansie Cronje, be remembered more for his off-pitch influence, or will he be remembered as England’s finest batsman since Hutton, Hammond and Hobbs?Hopefully it will be his exploits on the pitch that escape time’s filter. Few, very few, players inspire the joy and excitement of Pietersen in full flow and it seems petty to focus on the flaws when the good qualities are so overwhelming. Players should be judged on their performance on the pitch, not on their relationship with the media.The story isn’t over, either. Pietersen’s hunger for the game remains and there are a couple of notable ambitions yet to fulfil. It now seems he will play until 2016 at least.”With this side, we’ve won everything,” Pietersen said. “We’ve won a Twenty20 World Cup, Ashes home and away and we’ve won in India.”The World Cup 2015 is something I’d love to have a go at with England. And I’ve got home and away hundreds against each major nation, apart from South Africa. I think our tour to South Africa is in 2015-16. So if the old man can survive until then, I’d like to get there and I’d like to reach 10,000 Test runs.

Every time I put on an Eng shirt I'm incredibly proud & thankful & I'm so grateful for all ur support & the support of my amazing teammates.

— Kevin Pietersen (@KP24) November 19, 2013

“I know there’s been a lot of people talking about my career and saying that I’m probably going to finish at the end of this series. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but it’s my opinion that I’ll be playing for a while yet. I’m loving playing with this side.”The feelings would now appear to be a mutual. Just as Pietersen cannot succeed without the support of his team-mates, so they have come to accept that they are stronger for his presence. Teams don’t need to be affectionate towards one another; they just need to respect each other.The England team, like the England spectators and the England media, will miss Pietersen when he is gone. He may, at times, be frustrating; he may, at times, be infuriating, and he has, of course, made mistakes. But he is a great batsman and such players come along very, very rarely. To see him express those talents on one of the biggest stages of all – an Ashes series – should be a joy.

West Indies want to correct the wrongs they committed during their 2-0 series defeat in 2011-12 and Darren Sammy is confident his team is Test-ready after a lay-off

Nagraj Gollapudi in Kolkata05-Nov-2013″Saachin. Saachin!” Darren Sammy entered the press briefing by chanting the name of the most popular figure in India at the moment. The West Indies captain does not mind being a cheerleader at the Sachin Tendulkar farewell celebrations. However, that is where the courtesy to Tendulkar and India stops. Sammy is clear: West Indies want to correct the wrongs they committed during their 2-0 series defeat in 2011-12.Although England got the better of India last year with a spirited effort, not many teams in the past decade, barring South Africa, have given India enough stress. However, Sammy’s team will enter this series on the back of a positive stat: West Indies have won their last six Tests, starting July 2012.And this time they have arrived with a much more experienced batting department including Chris Gayle, who will play a Test series in India for only the second time after his maiden tour in 2002. Gayle scored just one half-century on that trip, but in his last Test, against Zimbabwe, he scored 101.Clearly, batting remains West Indies’ strongest suit. Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Darren Bravo have been their best two batsmen in the last two years in Asia while Marlon Samuels is not far behind. Kieran Powell has shown he has the wherewithal to stand strong against the new ball while Sammy himself can play a useful cameo lower down the order.”We went to win six Tests since the India series. We have come back here much more experienced,” Sammy said, summarising the progress West Indies had made since their last trip to India. “Our young batsmen would have gained more exposure and experience playing Test cricket. We are in a better frame of mind and we are playing much better.”According to Sammy, during their previous trip West Indies had managed to apply pressure on the Indian batting and proof of that was they had managed to bowl out the opposition nearly thrice during the three-Test tour. However, this time the challenge for West Indies would be much more considering neither of the two strike seamers – the Barbados pair of Kemar Roach and Tino Best – have had the experience of playing in India.Both men have the aggression and pace to disturb the concentration of the best batsmen, but on slower and flatter surfaces, as would be the case in Kolkata and Mumbai, can they display the patience as well as the skills to worry the Indian batsmen?”We have respect for India. When you look at their recent one-day series their batsmen have been in good nick. No one wicket is the prized wicket. Everybody in the top six minus M Vijay has been playing really good and has been in good form. It would be a tough battle for our bowlers. Last time we were bowling against Sehwag, Gambhir, Laxman, Dravid, Sachin and Dhoni. And we bowled them out three (sic. 2) times with four bowlers. We are going to come confident and look to execute our plans and look to get 20 important wickets,” Sammy said.Interestingly, both India and West Indies have not played Test cricket in the last seven months. India’s last Test series was their 4-0 whitewash of Australia in March. Around the same time West Indies finished their home series win against Zimbabwe. The fact that India, who won the Champions Trophy in June, have been busy playing ODIs in the last month, was not lost upon Sammy.He hoped that the Indian batsmen would still be in their ODI mode for his bowlers to force a mistake quickly. “It was a run-fest the last one-day series (against Australia). So hopefully their batsmen will come out playing a lot of shots and we will get some edges down at slip or some lbws or some bowled outs. So hopefully they will be in that same frame of mind and make more mistakes early in their innings,” Sammy said.As for the challenge to adapt themselves quickly to the longer format, Sammy remained confident about that on the basis of his team’s performance in the drawn game against Uttar Pradesh last week. “We got what we wanted from that practice game. We last played Test cricket in March. So it was about getting used to the red ball again and spending time in the middle and the bowlers getting some miles in their legs. We did really well on a very, very flat wicket. This Test match will pose an even bigger challenge but it is one that we are ready for,” Sammy said.If West Indies win this series by a 1-0 margin, they will jump two places from No.6 to 4 in the ICC Test rankings. That is a good enough prize to gatecrash Tendulkar’s party.

Growing up in the shadow of a tragedy has not been easy, but that has made South Africa’s Corbin Bosch tougher and hungrier for success

Kanishkaa Balachandran in Dubai02-Mar-2014Corbin Bosch was just five when his father, Tertius Bosch, passed away in 2000. Tertius played one Test and two ODIs for South Africa in 1992 and opened the bowling in their first Test since readmittance, in Barbados. He was known to be as fast as Allan Donald but his Test career ended at 26 and his life, cruelly cut short at 33. Tertius was originally said to have succumbed to Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a rare viral infection, but 18 months later, his body was exhumed and a post mortem suggested that he may have been poisoned.Corbin has grown up in the shadow of this tragedy. He has since followed in the footsteps of his dad as a right-arm seamer. February 14 was Tertius’ 14th death anniversary and it coincided with his son’s first appearance in front of a worldwide audience, at the opening game of the Under-19 World Cup against West Indies. The wiry, blonde haired Corbin took 2 for 25 but he saved his best performance in the final, taking 4 for 15 in 7.3 overs to derail Pakistan’s batting.Watching from the commentary box in Dubai was Jonty Rhodes, who had played with Tertius and watching young Corbin bowl was touching for him. “Real lump in my throat watching son of late Tertius Bosch bowling so well in the final,” Rhodes tweeted.Corbin sat alongside his captain Aiden Markram barely minutes after they got their hands on the World Cup trophy, celebrating football style with chants of ‘ole ole ole ole…ole..ole’. Corbin cut a calm figure at the post-match press conference, with the winners’ medal around his neck. Though only 19 and with a promising career ahead of him, Corbin was humble enough to admit that he was still very much in his dad’s shadow.”Growing up, I always felt inferior. Inferior to what he had done,” Corbin said. “Growing up, I wasn’t the best cricketer in the world. Through the years, as I grew as a person and not only just as a cricketer, I think it has made me a bit more hungry just to succeed that much more and then play for him – which is not just an honour but a huge privilege.”It wasn’t surprising that he had dedicated his performance to his dad. Tertius was one half of a feared new-ball pairing with Fanie de Villiers for Northern Transvaal, before moving to Natal. The opening day of the U-19 World Cup was an emotional moment for his son in more ways than one.

“He passed away on the day of my first game against the West Indies and I think just then, everything just catapulted. Inside I had this huge belief that I am playing here because of him. He is the reason why I started cricket and the reason why I love it to this day”Corbin Bosch, on his father

“He passed away on the day of my first game against the West Indies and I think just then, everything just catapulted. Inside I had this huge belief that I am playing here because of him. He is the reason why I started cricket and the reason why I love it to this day.”A common link between dad and son is Ray Jennings, the U-19 coach and former Transvaal wicketkeeper. Jennings, who played with Tertius, remembers Tertius as a “really fantastic human being”. Jennings has known Corbin since he was born and has tracked his development over the last 15 years.”A guy like Corbin is a fighter,” Jennings said. “He has been at university with one of the coaches that I coached and he has passed on my value system on to his players. I use him in our system to groom university students and 5 or 6 of them have been marked there, including Bosch. He (Bosch) has been a prolific South African U-21 hockey goal-keeper, very agile, nice and tough.”He has two or three people he uses as his father figure, with me being one of the coaches and a chap called Anton Ferreira. We have played with his father so we know the background of Corbin. We have been there for him.”Corbin’s accuracy fetched him those four wickets in the final, with three of his four victims dismissed caught behind. The fourth was an inswinging yorker to dislodge a tailender and end the innings. His partnership with Justin Dill in a combined spell of 14 overs suffocated Pakistan as they conceded just 16 and shared five wickets.”Just keeping it simple was the best option,” Corbin said. “Some days you feel that you need to change things up. I think today, just me keeping it simple and executing what I wanted to do was the best.”Corbin had toured India last year but played just one game in the U-19 quadrangular series but didn’t bowl, as he had just come off a stress fracture he picked up in July. He spent most of his time in the gym and Jennings says it was good on him that he peaked in the World Cup, having bowled a full quota of ten overs in the quarter-final against Afghanistan as a sign of his recovery.An area that needs improvement is his pace. “He bowls at 120-125 kph, but he needs to get it up to 140, and then he will be quite a big threat,” Jennings said. “He is one of the guys that lacks focus consistently throughout the game but that comes with experience and growth. Get him in a good environment and good coaches and he will grow.” If he can crank it to 145 and above, memories of his dad should come flooding back.

Australia’s wicketkeeper has repeatedly been the man of the hour and arguably the man of the series

Daniel Brettig at the SCG03-Jan-20140:00

Mitchell Johnson has deservedly attracted accolades such as these, but Brad Haddin has made a huge contribution

“We don’t want to get into a situation where we’re relying on Brad Haddin to drag us out of trouble every time.”When Australia’s batting coach, Michael Di Venuto, said these words in the aftermath of the Boxing Day Test, he was reflecting on an Ashes series in which his team’s top order have proven consistently vulnerable in the first innings. But on the first day of Test cricket in Australia for 2014, as Haddin performed his act of dragging for the fifth time in as many matches and took Steven Smith merrily along with him, a blue-blooded SCG crowd of 45,352 had reason aplenty to ask the question: why the hell not?More sober reflection offers plenty of reasons to worry at how Michael Clarke’s team have repeatedly asked Haddin to man the pumps, not least the thought that South Africa in February and March won’t be anywhere near as courteous to the tail as England have been. Nonetheless, there has been a wonderfully entertaining and carefree air about the way Australia’s platforms for Test victories have been assembled, with Haddin the fearless, fighting and fluent centre of it all.Brad Haddin underlined his central role in Australia regaining the Ashes with another half-century•AFPVisceral though Mitchell Johnson’s contribution to the series has been, epitomised by a three-over burst this evening, he would not have been given anywhere near the sorts of totals he bowled behind in Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth or Sydney without Haddin’s interventions. It has been a common and logical assumption that Johnson will be named Man of the Series. But by lodging a nomination in which he has passed 50 in every first innings while taking sundry catches besides and also serving as Michael Clarke’s most trusted lieutenant, Haddin has made a case for a share of the award at the very least.The SCG’s atmosphere may have been a little more New Year’s festive than Ashes tense, given the series margin, but Haddin’s contribution was very much representative of all he had done in earlier, weightier matches. England’s bowlers used the movement on offer decently after an indifferent start, extracting seam when many might have expected a little more swing under cloudy skies. Australia’s batsmen responded with strokes either overconfident or indeterminate, conveying a porous technique that has now been evident on seaming surfaces for the best part of a decade.David Warner’s feet were nowhere to a Stuart Broad delivery that moved away enough to flick off stump, Chris Rogers let his guard down and dragged a presumptuous pull shot on to his wicket, Clarke pushed too firmly at a ball moving away from him, Shane Watson reminded anyone who had forgotten about his prominent front pad, and George Bailey fiddled and fell, again demonstrating a weakness against steady bowling in the channel outside off stump that will surely be his millstone if pitted against Dale Steyn and Vernon Philander.So Haddin walked out with England’s bowlers seemingly sure of themselves and their plans, rejoicing in a scoreline of 5 for 97 and gaining most of the help they wanted from an SCG pitch similar to that on which Mohammad Asif had filleted Australia for 127 in 2010. Having marked his guard, Haddin negotiated his first five balls from Broad studiously, gaining a rough appreciation for the way the surface was playing and the manner of the bowling, before walking down the pitch at the end of the over to discuss the match situation with his New South Wales team-mate and leadership protege Smith.Often, Haddin’s innings can begin with a starburst of strokes to announce his arrival, to his batting partner, spectators but most pointedly opponents. This time he settled in for a little over half an hour, reaching 12 from 34 balls. In that period he eluded a review for a catch by James Anderson when ball had hit front and back pad rather than bat, before narrowing his focus on Ben Stokes.England’s youngest and most promising bowler, Stokes has won deserved praise this series for showing sterner stuff than some of his more storied counterparts. But here, as in Perth, Haddin used the Durham allrounder’s impatience for another wicket to his advantage, goading him – verbally or otherwise – into the short-pitched bowling that allowed runs to be added crisply and quickly, while coaxing England away from the length that reaped the earlier wickets. In all, Haddin cracked 29 from the 21 balls Stokes hurled at him.

“It was great to sit up the other end. In tough circumstances he comes in and tries to switch the momentum of the game and he’s done it on numerous occasions in this series”Steven Smith on Brad Haddin’s innings

In what seemed like no time at all, Haddin’s fifty arrived, inspiring a frustration among the visitors that Stokes articulated after play. “It’s just the way he comes out and plays his natural game whatever the situation,” he said. “Quite a lot’s gone his way but fair play to him, he’s played his natural game and taken every chance he’s had to get runs and played really well. When he came in today and starts hitting you back over your head you’re almost standing there scratching your head thinking ‘This isn’t meant to happen’…”While Haddin scrambled on, taking increasingly garish liberties against Anderson among others, Smith was able to construct another innings to underline his immense potential to anchor Australia’s middle order for years to come. The WACA Ground again came to mind as Smith grew in confidence as a result of the clarity with which Haddin played. This can be illustrated neatly by the two halves of what became Smith’s third Test hundred. In Haddin’s company, he reached 55 from 95 balls. After he was dismissed, Smith surged, ransacking 60 from his final 59 deliveries.”The way he played his shots today was brilliant, to form a partnership with him and get into the position we’re in was great,” Smith said of Haddin. “We were basically just saying ‘Watch the ball closely and have a clear mind’, and Brad was certainly clear in what he was doing. It was great to just sit up the other end. In tough circumstances he comes in and tries to switch the momentum of the game and he’s done it on numerous occasions in this series.”For numerous occasions, read every occasion that mattered. When Michael Carberry, Alastair Cook and the reluctant nightwatchman James Anderson hopped around in the SCG twilight, now confronted by a score around double the tally hoped for in the minutes after lunch, they were caught in between their two main sources of torment this summer. Ahead of them, at the top of his mark, stood Johnson. Behind them, flashing a pitiless smile while brandishing his gloves, was Haddin.Australia would do well not to rely on him so completely in future, not least because, at 36, they do not know how far into that future he will keep playing. But for this Ashes series, there has been no reason not to. He has been the man of the hour, and arguably the summer.

Plays of the day from the match between Delhi Daredevils and Kolkata Knight Riders in Delhi

Abhishek Purohit07-May-2014The suicidal run
Kevin Pietersen had a hard time negotiating the Shakib Al Hasan, left-arm spinner, who was brought in immediately at the Delhi Daredevils captain’s arrival. He had tried stepping out, he had tried sweeping; nothing was working. Unable to hit out, he became increasingly eager to get off strike. So much that in Shakib’s second over, Pietersen pushed one close to the pitch on the off side and started to run. There was no single to be taken. The wicketkeeper was almost onto the ball, and non-striker M Vijay was going nowhere. But Pietersen kept running regardless and did not even attempt to turn back.The deft dab
There is often a case for batsmen trying too hard to hit Sunil Narine as they have no clue which direction it going to turn. While JP Duminy was able to slog him for a couple of sixes, Kedar Jadhav went the other way. In the 18th over, he stood calmly in the crease as Narine delivered it flat and quick outside off. Even as it turned in slightly and bounced, Jadhav, instead of throwing his bat at it, allowed it to come on and just opened the face of his bat to time it past short third man for four.The double touch
Mohammed Shami dropped it short in the third over of the chase and Robin Uthappa swatted it over midwicket for four with a dismissive short-arm pull. It travelled so fast it seemed to have come off the middle of the bat. It had, but before that, the ball had hit the bat much higher, on the sticker. Had it not been for the slow-motion replay, we might have never known. It was incredible that Uthappa had managed to time it so well on the second touch.The drop
Kolkata Knight Riders had raced to 51 for 0 in the sixth over when Gautam Gambhir tried to dab a slower delivery from Siddarth Kaul. He only managed to feather it, and the ball went towards the wicketkeeper. However, even as he tumbled forward, Dinesh Karthik failed to take it as it dipped in front of him. By the time Gambhir offered another chance, and Karthik held on to a sharp catch, Knight Riders were just ten short of victory.

The manner in which individuals handle pressure will determine how successful Bangladesh are as a unit against India, as they look to turn around their poor showing so far in 2014

Mohammad Isam13-Jun-20142:13

Isam: Bangladesh have gained some confidence

There is a neat division of pressure levels – five to be precise – in the Bangladesh squad ahead of their three-match ODI series against India. The biggest demands will be placed on experienced players who have to tackle lack of form, confidence, and rising expectations, as the team look to start winning after ordinary performances in the year.Most of the pressure will be on the trio of captain Mushfiqur Rahim, Tamim Iqbal and Abdur Razzak, who have all played more than 100 games. As the most experienced players, they will face the most heat for their lack of form and position in the team. Mushfiqur has been the team’s highest scorer in this format in 2014 but he has also overseen a 0-7 ODI record. With a new set of coaches, Mushfiqur’s predominant role will be to coax the best performances from his players.There have been some questions about Mushfiqur’s decisions on the field, particularly when Bangladesh have been on top of situations in a game. His reluctance to use left-arm spinners against left-hand batsmen has been one of the signs of his rigidity. Mushfiqur would hope for Tamim and Razzak’s quick return to form, as it could have a ripple effect on other players facing similar crises in form and confidence.Tamim recently stressed that he was doing everything to return to form, but the pressure will be palpable given the murmurs over his place in the side during the World T20. Razzak, the country’s highest wicket-taker in ODIs, has struggled to cut the runs and pick up wickets. Both Tamim and Razzak have had injuries this year, but they are important to the ODI team and will be expected to perform at a higher level than they did between January and April.Mahmudullah, Nasir Hossain and Sohag Gazi will face the next, slightly lower level of pressure. Their contributions ensured the team had an easy balance when they won the ODI series against West Indies in 2012, drew the one-dayers against Sri Lanka and crushed New Zealand 3-0 in 2013.Mushfiqur Rahim has scored runs but has also had a record of seven straight losses in 2014•AFPMahmudullah, however, has been out of form for some time now and also lost his place in the side. Nasir has suffered his first dip in form since his 2011 debut and Gazi’s form has resembled a yo-yo. When he has found a reason to do well, Gazi has gone all out but there have been times when he has lacked motivation.After a poor Bangladesh A tour to England in mid-2013, he bounced back superbly against New Zealand with a hat-trick and hundred in the same Test and then played a key role in the side’s 3-0 win in the ODIs. This year, however, he has had five poor games, averaging 56 with the ball.The third wave of pressure will be on Anamul Haque, Shamsur Rahman and Ziaur Rahman, who have been in and out of the side. Anamul made a comeback at the start of the year and has slowly got himself into a position where he is now an automatic choice to open the innings with Tamim. He has to improve upon his strike rate of 68.26, in 2014, and 70 overall.With two low scores in the World T20, Shamsur will have to wait his turn. He has started well in all three formats but has given it away as soon as he got going. Given how Anamul has been scoring, Shamsur will have to build on his starts to regain his place in the team. Ziaur can expect a bit-part role in the series, which has been his problem – he is judged by these small opportunities where he is expected to deliver the maximum.Shakib Al Hasan, Mominul Haque and Mashrafe Mortaza will face less pressure as they have shown an ability to deal with expectations. Shakib will be buoyant after contributing to Kolkata Knight Riders’ second IPL triumph. He was in a media storm during the World T20, after a bizarre interview in a local newspaper, but he has always handled pressure and controversy effectively. Mominul, while not at Shakib’s level as a player, has been similarly indifferent to pressure. As an ODI batsman, Mominul has a lot to improve on but his willingness makes him an attractive player to watch.Mashrafe, too, has handled pressure effectively. He has made several comebacks from injury, taking very little time to adjust to on-field happenings and will be looking to improve his wickets tally in this series.The least amount of pressure will be on Al-Amin Hossain, Mohammad Mithun and Taskin Ahmed, and it should remain that way regardless of their performances in the series.Al-Amin has improved rapidly as a bowler and his next target should be to bring down his economy rate, which he tried doing in the World T20. Mithun and Taskin are newcomers and they should be allowed to play freely whenever they are given the chance.As an emotional cricket team, Bangladesh will do well if they can handle pressure at an individual level. The series will be an eye-opener for new head coach Chandika Hathurusingha and bowling coach Heath Streak, but for now, it is Mushfiqur who will have to be the main man, handling his own share of pressure, while helping his side climb out of the rut.

ESPNcricinfo presents the plays of the day from the 4th ODI

Andrew McGlashan at Lord's31-May-2014Tackle of the dayMaybe Joe Root’s motto should be if you can’t get them out take them out. His flooring of Tillakaratne Dilshan was entirely accidental – Root was going for the ball and got into a tangle with Dilshan’s legs – but it could well have played a part in Dilshan’s dismissal. He needed treatment to his ankle after being crunched by Root, his legs getting trapped under Root’s body as they both ended up in a heap at the crease. It also cost Sri Lanka a single and an over later Dilshan fell to James Anderson.Trio of the dayPlaying yourself in can be underrated these days. Kumar Sangakkara took 13 balls to open his account and was not middling much in the early stage of his innings. But then, facing Root, he collected a hat-trick of boundaries. Twice he used his feet to loft him down the ground and then he pierced the offside with another drive. He was up and running.Unusual sight of the dayIn almost every instance of an uncertain catch referred to the TV umpire the decision comes back as not out, so it was something of a surprise when Gary Ballance’s low grab at short fine-leg off Lahiru Thirimanne went the other way. Ballance had made it clear he was not sure over the catch and the England players were back in their fielding positions when the third umpire, Chris Gaffaney gave the decision.Mix-up of the dayYou would like to think that Root and Ballance would have a good understanding batting together, both playing their county cricket for Yorkshire. For a moment during their laboured stand of 84 it did not look like that when, with the total on 50, Ballance cut to point and both batsmen ended up in the middle of pitch. Sri Lanka could have run out either, but managed neither.Gap of the dayEngland believe they have the right mix of batsmen in their one-day line-up. Sometimes it does look that way, but this run chase was not one of those occasions. From the ninth over until the 31st – 130 deliveries to be precise – they did not manage to hit a boundary, chasing a score of 300.

ESPNcricinfo presents the plays of the day from the game between Sri Lanka and New Zealand

Andrew McGlashan and Andrew Fidel Fernando31-Mar-2014The head-shake strike-rateHaving made a brisk start, Kusal Perera’s shock at wrongly being given out caught down the leg side for the second time in as many matches was expressed with a bout of furious head-shaking that almost outstripped his rate of scoring. From the moment the umpire’s finger was raised, until he exited the field, it almost seemed as if Kusal was watching two tennis players at the net. What’s more, it was infectious. Incoming batsman Mahela Jayawardene approached the square in visible disbelief as well.The win some, lose some momentStrength becoming a weakness. Tillakaratne Dilshan scored his first boundary with a scoop off Kyle Mills, but in the next over from Trent Boult he tried to reverse scoop the left-armer over slip and only succeeded in providing a catch to Luke Ronchi.The useful overthrowThere is never really a good outcome to conceding free runs in T20 – a format that can be decided by the narrowest margins – but when Brendon McCullum had a slightly unnecessary shy at the non-striker’s stumps, lulled into by the batsman teasing to leave his ground, and the resulting deflection gave away a single, there was a silver lining for New Zealand. Next delivery, Nuwan Kulasekara drove on the up and picked out Brendon’s brother, Nathan, at short cover to leave Sri Lanka 93 for 7.The not out, then outAll of Rangana Herath’s overs were special – in what would become one of the great T20 spells – but in his second he made Ross Taylor, a very fine player of spin, look clueless. The third ball of the over slid on past the inside and took the pad to short leg (the loud appeal correctly turned down) then the next delivery turned considerably, squared up Taylor and struck him on the back leg. Rod Tucker, again, declined the appeal and this time Sri Lanka were harshly done by as off stump would have been hit flush on. At their third time of asking, however, Sri Lanka got the response they wanted when Taylor was again beaten, this time by one that skidded, and Tucker’s finger went up.The dislocationWhen Corey Anderson failed to hold Sachithra Senanayake’s mow down the ground in the 18th over it was a double blow for New Zealand. Not only did it concede six, but Anderson immediately left the field clutching his right hand and was soon on his way to hospital for treatment for a dislocation. It meant he was not available for New Zealand’s innings, but given the margin of defeat it may not have made a difference to the result.

Australia thought victory over Zimbabwe was a sure thing but they were courting trouble by underestimating their opponents

Brydon Coverdale31-Aug-2014In the early hours of a Tuesday morning in 1983, Australia’s prime minister Bob Hawke famously told the country that “any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up today is a bum”. had just won the America’s Cup. It was one of the nation’s most defining moments of the 1980s, the end of New York Yacht Club’s 132-year hold on the trophy.If that seems a lifetime ago – or more – consider that it was also in 1983 that Zimbabwe last beat Australia in a one-day international. Until today. Any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up to work in Australia today will have other reasons. They might not even believe Australia were currently playing a series, such is the dominance of other sports at this time of year.Michael Clarke and his men won’t mind a bit if this loss, and their subsequent plummet from No.1 in the ODI world to No.4, is buried under the weight of AFL and NRL news in the sports pages. But for the players, coaches and selectors it will serve as a timely reminder that you can be too clever for your own good. It is courting trouble to underestimate your opponents. Better to be reminded of that now than in a World Cup.Trevor Hohns, the selector on duty, looked a lonely figure as Australia slid towards defeat, sitting in an empty bank of chairs in front of the change rooms. He quit as Australia’s chairman of selectors in April 2006, after the team had just won a Test series in South Africa 3-0. Now, on his first tour having been reinstated to the selection panel, he has picked a team that lost to Zimbabwe.Australia thought victory over Zimbabwe was a sure thing. They won’t admit that. But there is no other reason to have left Mitchell Johnson out of the side. There are occasions when fast bowlers need a break, but two matches into a one-day series after a long winter’s break is not one of them. They wanted to see other options. Now they’ve seen them, don’t expect Johnson to rest again any time soon.Not that Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Marsh, Ben Cutting and James Faulkner had much to work with on a Harare pitch that held the ball up more than a clay tennis court. Johnson has shown at venues like Adelaide that he can still make batsmen hop on slow surfaces, and Zimbabwe’s batsmen must have breathed easier when they discovered he wasn’t playing. There was nothing there for the rest of the seamers.

This loss will teach Australia some lessons but will ultimately cost them little. For Zimbabwe, it will make heroes of men like Elton Chigumbura and Prosper Utseya, and will boost the team and their fans immeasurably

All the more reason, you would think, to have chosen Steven Smith. That Australia resorted to two gentle overs from Aaron Finch shows how much they missed an extra spinner. Nathan Lyon couldn’t do it all, though he nearly did enough. Just as importantly, Smith is Australia’s best player of spin besides Clarke. This match proved again that spin-heavy attacks on spin-friendly surfaces will always trouble Australia. Always.A Clarke-less Australia on spinning pitches doesn’t bear thinking about, hence the decision to send him home after the Zimbabwe loss to be assessed after re-injuring the hamstring that kept him out of the first two games. Australia’s next engagements, including two Tests, are against Pakistan in the UAE in October. Getting right for that series must be his only focus.No doubt Clarke was extremely disappointed to lead Australia to their first ODI loss to Zimbabwe in 31 years. But by the end of the summer, or the end of the World Cup, or the end of next year’s Ashes tour of England, he will view it with more perspective. It might be the loss that reminds his men, until today the No.1-ranked ODI side and until recently No.1 in Tests, that they are mortal. That’s no bad thing.Maybe he will even recognise that Australia’s loss was good for cricket. In fact it was great for cricket. There are only ten ICC full members and two have been floundering for years. A win like this for Zimbabwe, in front of loyal and passionate home fans, can only strengthen cricket in Zimbabwe, and that in turn can only be a positive for world cricket.To see the looks of joyous disbelief from the fans at the ground in Harare was to witness that greatest of sporting stories, the broken drought. This loss will teach Australia some lessons but, unless Clarke aggravated his hamstring even more by returning to the field late in the game, will ultimately cost them little. For Zimbabwe, it will make heroes of men like Elton Chigumbura and Prosper Utseya, and will boost the team and their fans immeasurably.No doubt they celebrated like it was 1983. Any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up to work in Zimbabwe on Monday is a bum.