All posts by h716a5.icu

At his best, Daniel Vettori wasn’t just one of the most economical bowlers around, but won New Zealand matches with his wickets too

Shiva Jayaraman31-Mar-2015Daniel Vettori took a wicket every 62 balls in international cricket and he took 705 of them. Only one other bowler of those who took at least 60 balls for each of their wickets bowled enough balls to take at least half as many. By the time he called it a day to a career spanning over 18 years, Vettori had bowled 43661 deliveries – the fourth-most anyone had bowled in international cricket. Among New Zealand bowlers, only Richard Hadlee bowled at least as many deliveries as Vettori did.Vettori took 305 ODI wickets, the most by any left-arm spinner apart from Sanath Jayasuriya, who picked up 323. Vettori took 297 playing for New Zealand – eight of his wickets came playing for the ICC XI – the most by anyone from his country. Outside Asia, in conditions generally regarded as not conducive to spin, Vettori took 228 wickets – Shane Warne (237) is the only spinner with more wickets in these conditions.Vettori’s value to the New Zealand ODI team was not as much as a strike bowler as it was in drying up the runs for the opposition. Among spinners to bowl at least 1000 overs in ODIs since 1997 – the year he made his debut for New Zealand as the youngest to play for his country – only two others – Muttiah Muralitharan and Mohammad Hafeez – have managed to be more economical. In more than half of the ODIs in which Vettori bowled at least five overs, he finished with an economy rate of four or less. His percentage of such innings is the fourth-highest among spinners who have bowled at least five overs in 100 or more ODIs.

Going under four an over (min 5 overs bowled in 100 ODIs)

Spinner Inns eco <=4 %Mohammad Hafeez 116 66 56.9Muttiah Muralitharan 328 183 55.8Ravi Shastri 119 64 53.8Daniel Vettori 255 131 51.4Shane Warne 188 89 47.3Saeed Ajmal 106 49 46.2Vettori took on the role of strike bowler for his team on a fair number of occasions too. When Vettori took more than two wickets in an ODI, New Zealand won more often than not: 26 of his 32 hauls of three wickets or more in ODIs came in wins. Among spinners with 20 or more three-plus-wicket hauls, Vettori's win percentage in those matches is the fourth-best – a significant achievement considering he didn't always play for a New Zealand side that was as strong as the one that played the World Cup. No surprisingly, Vettori averaged nearly 20 runs less in wins than when his team didn't win. He took 188 wickets in wins at an average of 24.04 and 117 at 44.05 in other ODIs.

Three wickets or more in wins (min 20 hauls, ODIs)

Spinner 3+ wkts in wins 3+ wkts total %Brad Hogg 23 24 95.8Shahid Afridi 39 42 92.8Shane Warne 32 38 84.2Ajantha Mendis 22 27 81.4Daniel Vettori 26 32 81.2Anil Kumble 22 29 75.8Muttiah Muralitharan 51 68 75.0Sanath Jayasuriya 24 33 72.7Saqlain Mushtaq 34 48 70.8Abdur Razzak 21 30 70.0Vettori was at his very best in the middle years of his ODI career – from 2003 to 2010 – when he took 196 of his 305 ODI wickets at an average of 27.90. During these years, he was the second-highest wicket-taker in ODIs among spinners after Muralitharan and among 55 bowlers who bowled at least 3000 deliveries during this period, of whom only three – Shaun Pollock, Glenn McGrath and Ray Price – were more economical. He took both his five-fors and five of his four-wicket hauls during these years including 5 for 7 in an ODI against Bangladesh in 2007 – one of the best match figures by a captain in ODIs. Vettori was hampered by injuries during the last part of his career – he played only 47 of the 109 ODIs New Zealand played since 2010 – but was still was one of the most economical bowlers. Among bowlers who bowled at least 200 overs since 2010, he was one of only two with an economy rate below four runs an over, the other being Mohammad Hafeez.

Daniel Vettori – ODI career split

Span Mat Wkts BBI Ave Econ 4w/5wTill 2002 95 81 4/24 39.36 4.48 2/02003-2010 168 196 5/7 27.90 3.96 5/22011-retirement 32 28 4/18 36.25 4.03 1/0Vettori’s ODI career culminated with the 2015 World Cup, in which he was one of the best spinners, if not bowlers, on display. Vettori bowled one of the best restrictive spells of the tournament in the league game against Australia. He finished the tournament as the most economical spinner (minimum ten overs). His 15 wickets – equalling the most by any spinner in the World Cup – ensured he also ended his career as the spinner with the second-highest number of wickets in World Cups.Vettori played his last Test in November last year, after a two-year gap. It was his 112th Test, which made him the most capped New Zealand Test player ever, ahead of Stephen Fleming. His 361 Test wickets for New Zealand are the second-highest after Richard Hadlee’s 431. Among spinners, Vettori ended up as the fifth-highest wicket-taker, and the only left-arm orthodox spinner with 300 Test wickets. He is one of only three non-subcontinent spinners – the others being Shane Warne and Clarrie Grimmett – to take 20 or more five-wicket hauls in Tests.Vettori reserved his best for New Zealand’s trans-Tasman rival, taking 65 wickets in 18 Tests against them when playing for New Zealand (he took one wicket in the only Test he played against them for ICC World XI). Among New Zealand bowlers, only Richard Hadlee took more wickets against the Australians than Vettori, though Hadlee took twice as many wickets in just five more Tests.Vettori’s career-high in Tests came against Australia in Auckland in 1999-00, when he took 12 for 149, taking five-fors in both innings and becoming the youngest spinner and the second-youngest bowler after Kapil Dev to 100 Test wickets. This was also the first time that a spinner had taken two five-fors in a Test against Australia outside the subcontinent in 23 years. Vettori ended his career with six five-wicket hauls in Tests against Australia. Only five other spinners had as many or more such hauls against them.As in ODIs, the middle part of Vettori’s Test career was his best. Between 2004 and 2008 he took 136 wickets at 30.12, including 11 of his 20 Test five-fors. Two of his three ten-wicket hauls came in this period, including a 12-wicket haul against Bangladesh in Chittagong. He took five five-fors in 2008, which equalled the most five-fors by any bowler that year and with 54 wickets from 14 Tests was thesecond-highest wicket-taker among spinners in that calendar year.

Daniel Vettori – Test career split

Span Mat Wkts BBI BBM Ave SR 5w/10wTill 2000 31 106 7/87 12/149 32.61 78.20 5/12001-2003 19 44 6/87 8/229 43.40 88.70 2/02004-2008 39 136 7/130 12/170 30.12 68.90 11/2Since 2009 24 76 5/70 8/141 39.15 95.20 2/0Vettori made significant contributions with the bat as well in Tests with 4531 runs at an average of 30.00. He is one of the three players in Tests with 4000 runs and 300 wickets and the only spinner among them. He hit four hundreds and 2227 runs batting at No. 8 in Tests – both the best by anyone from that position. He produced his best against Pakistan, scoring three hundreds and one fifty in nine Tests.He captained New Zealand in 32 Tests – the third-highest but was not very successful at it, losing 16 of them. His win-loss ratio of 0.375 as captain is one of the worst among Test captains who have led in 30 or more Tests. Four of his six Test wins came against Bangladesh. His 9 for 133 against them in Chittagong in 2008 are the best bowling figures by a New Zealand captain in Tests.

Unlike the usual lean, mean and salty back bacon, streaky bacon is more entertaining, sometimes disappointing but difficult to give up, much like Stuart Broad

Ayelet Haimson Lushkov08-Jun-2015People have used many adjectives to describe Stuart Broad, of which ‘blond’ and ‘tall’ are only the more polite examples. But ‘streaky’ is a word that comes up a lot, and it always puts me in mind of bacon.See, the humble bacon comes in many forms, of which the two main are back and streaky. The English have a preference for back bacon, which is a lean, mean, salty, Geoffrey Boycott kind of bacon. Lovely on a bap, lays a proper platform for the fried egg, and never lets you forget that it is there, doing all the work.Streaky bacon is a whole different animal. It comes from the belly: it’s a gutsy sort of bacon, and its got these lovely seams of fat and meat and smoke and wood. It’s greasy, and crisps up in the pan, and really it’s more than a bit American, which is fine, and, more importantly, it’s wholly addictive. Once streaky bacon gets going, there’s no having just one strip, or even one pound. No, streaky bacon takes 7 for 44 on an afternoon, or 6 for 25, or scores a 169 at Lord’s. And struts around while doing it.And then, just when you think streaky bacon is the thing for you, and you can marry it and serve it with all your eggs, streaky bacon runs out of mojo. It just sits there. Alone, congealing, and broken. Corners come off. You snap it in half, in a frustrated sort of anger. It’s a bit burnt in the edges. And there’s a squeamish feeling in your gut about just how expensive it’s all been.So you wonder. Should you have it again? Surely, health must come first. But no. You can’t. There’s no going back on bacon. Bacon, friends, is the gateway meat. And so you come back to it. Every single time. And you’re disappointed. And wish your grocers had more proper bacon. And maybe you try some different eggs. Duck, or an heirloom chicken. Or sausage. Or pie.And then, somehow, without knowing it, streaky bacon is back. Out of habit. Out of boredom. Out of nothing. One minute it’s just there, and the next, it’s ruling the roost.And that’s how you know Stuart Broad’s the bowler for you.If you have a submission for Inbox, send it to us here, with “Inbox” in the subject line.

A defeat overseas on a sluggish pitch was a familiar situation that brought familiar words from Michael Clarke, but the Australians have to do more than talk

Daniel Brettig in Cardiff11-Jul-20154:01

Five things we learned from Cardiff

Oh what Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon would have given for a mere 11 overs to save this Test. When speaking about erasing the memories of Cardiff 2009, Australia’s cricketers did not quite have this scenario in mind. Not only were they beaten, they were obliterated.An England side still finding their way with a new coach in tow will gain as much confidence from this result as Australia did in Brisbane 19 months ago. An Australian team who had been confident, if not outright haughty, are left to ruminate on a very evident mortality.It will be acknowledged that they could have bowled better and, on the first morning, caught better. Brad Haddin will forever be clutching Joe Root’s edge with two gloves in his sleep, having failed to do so when it mattered. Nevertheless, this was a batting calamity, a collective failure of such magnitude as to match Lord’s two years ago, another week when the top six showed all the survival instinct of lemmings.They would do well to run their eyes over these words from Michael Clarke before the match. He laid out, more or less, what would be required of the batsmen in English climes.”Once you get in as batsman over here, you have to go on and make a big score,” he said. “You’re never out of the game as a bowler, there’s always something there – whether it’s the slope at Lord’s or you get some overhead conditions, or you take the second new ball, there’s always an opportunity with the Dukes ball. So as a batter you need to know that. In Australia when you feel like you’re batting well and get to 40 and 50, things become a little bit easier. Sometimes here it’s not the case, you’ve got to work your backside off for your whole innings.”Clarke has uttered similar words at other times, from the 2013 India tour and the visit to England that followed it, to a match against South Africa in Port Elizabeth and a two-Test sojourn in the UAE against Pakistan. The words come easily, and Clarke clearly knows them instinctively. But whatever the reason, the actions that should flow from them do not.Australia’s batsmen did not work their backsides off in either innings at Cardiff. On the second day they made a passing effort, getting established and pushing through the early period before relaxing into a rhythm and getting themselves out. On the fourth day, faced with a record Ashes target, they did not even do that. Like the crayon lodged somewhere up Homer Simpson’s nose, there is something that repeatedly affects Australian cognitive function on pitches such as Cardiff’s, and against bowling that requires a measured response.Part of it is a belief that pitches such as these are not a true test of their skill, and that the way the game is best played on them is a version of cricket they would rather not engage with. This was certainly true of Australia’s bowling on the opening day, when the desire of Mitchell Starc and Mitchell Johnson to see the ball flying through to Haddin saw them offer Root far too much short stuff, a diet on which he completely changed the complexion of the morning. Peter Siddle had looked Australia’s best bowler for this surface in the two training days before the match, but at selection time he was thought inferior to others with more Antipodean methods.With a more balanced bowling attack England showed, in a quite exhilarating fashion at times, that slow surfaces must not always be associated with stodgy, risk averse play. In 2009 and 2013, the ways of Andy Flower had England playing the percentages with conditions in their favour.This time they allied their conditional knowhow to courageous, inventive and intelligent cricket, of the kind Trevor Bayliss used to be a part of with the NSW teams of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The mentality was aggressive, and the game kept moving, but the cricket was smart rather than foolhardy. One exemplar of this was Ben Stokes, who played a pair of positive and influential innings while also playing an understated but important role with the ball – his dismissal of Adam Voges via variation off the pitch was Australia’s point of no return.Stokes’ opposite number was rather more problematic for Australia. By the time of what was surely Shane Watson’s last lbw review Passion play, the match had well and truly gone. But his Australian method, plonking the front foot down the wicket and not allowing himself room to combat any movement or variation, speaks as bluntly of bowling machines and flint-hard pitches as anything else in Clarke’s team.Much like in the first innings, numerous batsmen played shots untempered by any sense of the match situation, nor the plans of the bowlers to outsmart them. Clarke’s vague waft at Stuart Broad will not be appearing on any of his highlight reels, and Haddin’s mow at Moeen Ali rivalled his infamous slash during the 2011 Cape Town Test.Clarke said batting for long innings was all about hunger. If so, then his team showed little interest in being fed at all. “The hardest part about batting is getting to 20 or 30,” he said. “Once you get there you’ve got to have that hunger inside you to want to go on and make a big score. Once you get to 50 turn it into 80, once you get to 80 turn it into 100 and look to make a big hundred.”But that’s the game as well. You get a good ball whether you’re on zero or you’re on 50 it can get you out. It’s the hardest part about batting. When you’re in form cash in, when you’re out of form find a way to scratch your backside off to get in form. I think the shot selection wasn’t as good as it needs to be. The fact that we all got starts especially in our first innings we need to have more discipline there. At least one, maybe two of those guys – me in particular – we need to go on and make a big score.”There’s nothing wrong with these words. Like those Clarke said before the match they make perfect sense. But they are just words, and for a long time now Australia’s words have not matched their actions on foreign surfaces. To win an Ashes series in England for the first time since 2001, and to do so from behind for the first time since 1997, Clarke’s men have to show a hunger that goes beyond the homilies.

Stats highlight from the second day’s play from the first Test between Sri Lanka and West Indies, in Galle

Shiva Jayaraman15-Oct-20151:35

By The Numbers: Chandimal on Aravinda’s trail

152 Dimuth Karunaratne’s highest score in Tests before this 186. His 152 came against New Zealand in Christchurch in 2014. This was Karunaratne’s third century in Tests and all of them have been 130-plus scores. He now has 1457 runs in Tests at an average of 36.42.372 Runs Dinesh Chandimal has made in his last three innings in Galle. This was Chandimal’s second consecutive 150-plus score at this venue. He had made a match-winning 162 not out in the second innings of the last Test here in Galle. Chandimal has now made 614 runs in Galle at an average of 76.75, with three centuries and one fifty.0 Double-century stands by Sri Lanka against West Indies in Tests before the one between Karunaratne and Chandimal. Sri Lanka’s previous-highest partnership for any wicket in Tests against West Indies was a 170-run stand between Thilan Samaraweera and Kumar Sangakkara that had come in 2010.22 Number of Tests it has taken Chandimal to make five Test centuries. He is the second-quickest Sri Lanka batsman to make five Test centuries. Aravinda de Silva had taken one fewer Test to hit his fifth Test century.59 Runs scored by Sri Lanka’s last six wickets. This is the least their last six wickets have scored in an innings after their top-four had posted 400 or more runs. It is also only the fourth time they have been bowled out after their first-four wickets scored 400 or more. The last such instance was in 2005 when Sri Lanka collapsed from 407 for 4 to 498 all out in their first innings in Napier.2011 The last and the only time in Galle that Sri Lanka’s last-six wickets made a lower contribution to their total than they did in their first innings of this Test. On that occasion, they had collapsed from a score of 87 for 4 to 105 all out in their first innings against Australia.2007 The last time there was a double-hundred stand for Sri Lanka’s third wicket in Tests. Mahela Jayawardene and Michael Vandort had added 227 runs against England at the SSC. Overall, this was only the ninth time that Sri Lanka had added 200 or more runs for their third wicket.1 Number of partnerships higher than the one between Karunaratne and Chandimal in Tests in Galle. Mohammad Ashraful and Mushfiqur Rahim had added 267 runs for Bangladesh’s fifth wicket in 2013. Including the stand in this Test, there have been only seven 200-plus partnerships in Galle for any wicket. The last one was between Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli, who added 227 runs for India’s third wicket in August this year.2010 The last time two Sri Lanka batsmen hit 150-plus in a Test innings before Karunaratne and Chandimal in this match. Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara had hit 174 and 219 respectively against India at the SSC. Overall, this was only the 12th such instance for Sri Lanka.1 Number of double-centuries by a Sri Lanka batsman against West Indies in Tests. Hashan Tillakaratne had scored 204 not out at the SSC in 2001. Karunaratne fell 14 runs short of becoming only the second batsman to do it. His 186 is now the second-highest by Sri Lanka batsman against West Indies. Chandimal’s 151 is fourth on this list.2 Number of times before Bishoo that a West Indies spinner had taken a four-wicket haul in Tests in Sri Lanka. The last such instance came in 2010, also in Galle, when Shane Shillingford took 4 for 123 in Sri Lanka’s first innings. No West Indies spinner has taken a five-for in Tests in Sri Lanka.3 Number of times Devendra Bishoo has taken four or more wickets in an innings in just the three Tests he has played in 2015. His best Test figures of 6 for 80 had come the last time he bowled in a Test, in Australia’s first innings in Dominica this year. Bishoo has taken 14 wicket this year at an average of 30.85. His 40 wickets before that had come at 39.55 runs apiece.

Plays of the day from the second ODI between Sri Lanka and West Indies in Colombo

Andrew Fidel Fernando04-Nov-2015The inswinger
Sri Lanka might have studied Sunil Narine’s knuckle ball, arm ball and offbreak, but Tillakaratne Dilshan and Narine himself seemed unprepared for a fourth variation. Brought into the attack in the fifth over, Narine delivered a seam-up ball that was perhaps meant to just go on with the arm, but ended up taking substantial late swing. Dilshan was too late to make the adjustment, and having shaped to flay it on the off side, found the ball traveling between bat and pad to take his off stump.The “too little too late”
No one likes to run out the captain, particularly if he is batting on more than 50. So when Carlos Brathwaite realised his mistake in the penultimate over of West Indies’ innings, he seemed to want to reverse it. He called Samuels through for a second run, but the captain didn’t venture far from the non-striker’s end. Both batsmen ended up at the same end, and realising his plight, Brathwaite tried to run back past Samuels so he would be the man dismissed. It wasn’t to be, however. Sri Lanka had already whipped the bails off.The drop
Samuels has a history of hurting Sri Lanka when reprieved, on this ground. In the 2012 World T20, Samuels was dropped in the deep for 20 and went on to hit a match-winning 78. Samuels was spilled again in the deep on Wednesday, this time on 38. He showed glimpses of his destructive potential, lofting Malinga into the sightscreen soon after, but was not able to have such a dramatic impact on the match this time.The superman
Lasith Malinga’s bowling had been uncharacteristically modest for much of the year. His fielding, though, had been almost diabolical. Often Malinga has seemed incapable of making direct hits even if he was throwing from inside the stumps, but on Wednesday he made a high quality manoeuvre most athletic men would be proud of. Seeing Narine bunt the ball back down the pitch in the 38th over, Malinga took off in the direction of the stumps, picked up the ball while diving, and effortlessly threw down the stumps in one elegant move. The non-striker was run out by a distance.

The idea of Pakistan’s own T20 league first emerged in 2007, but it was not till eight years later that the project finally materialised

Umar Farooq05-Dec-2015What is the Pakistan Super League?The PSL is a franchise based Twenty20 competition organised by the Pakistan Cricket Board, and approved by the International Cricket Council. It is meant to be a three-week tournament scheduled for February 2016, and will feature five teams, from Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, Quetta and Islamabad. A total of 24 matches are scheduled to be held between February 4 and 23. Each team will play a double round-robin format before playing an eliminator during the knockout stages.Whose idea was it?The idea of Pakistan’s own T20 league emerged during the regime of Dr Nasim Ashraf, who served as the chairman of the PCB between 2007 and 2008. The league was mainly inspired from the now defunct ICL, and the successful IPL. However, the idea never materialised and till it found its feet, the PCB set-up suffered an impasse as the then chief patron Pervez Musharraf resigned in August 2008, with Ashraf also resigning on the same day to leave the country.It was reported then that during Ashraf’s term, the PCB reserves had fallen from $42 million to $19 million. As a result, the next chairman, Ejaz Butt, pulled out every hefty project from the system and shelved it, including the T20 league. But a year later, the following chairman, Zaka Ashraf, revived the project by announcing a lucrative business model in which top player could earn up to $1 million in two weeks.Ashraf’s brainchild was to hold the league within the country, but since the tournament’s schedule clashed with the 2013 general elections, the government refused to take responsibility, which led to the league being postponed again. There was the option to take the league to the UAE, but Ashraf was determined to launch it in Pakistan as a tool to revive international cricket in the country.The project then took off under Najam Sethi, then an executive board member with the PCB, after Ashraf was removed by the ruling government led by Nawaz Sharif. It took nearly five months for the present set-up to once again blow life into the project. With Shaharyar Khan, the PCB chairman, taking a backseat, the project was left exclusively to Sethi, who was entitled to use the PCB budget. Still, the project appeared dicey for five months until the PSL found a new shape when five teams were sold for $93 million.What was the confusion about Qatar and UAE hosting the PSL?Finding a country to host the PSL remained a pain for the PCB as until this August, Pakistan was without a venue. The entire project nearly crumbled after the UAE was taken by another party, who planned on hosting the Master Champions League in the same dates as the PSL.The PCB then explored Qatar as an alternative venue, but once again, it was not straightforward business. Qatar has just one stadium, which is not up to international standards, and lacks basic facilities for players. The PCB, though, reluctantly entered into a deal with the Qatar Olympics Association to host the league in the country. However, with their hearts still set on UAE as the venue, the PCB later locked horns with the Emirates Cricket Board to work out a deal for the UAE to accommodate both the MCL and the PSL.In September, the PCB pulled out from Qatar, ditching them to sign a new deal with the ECB, who offered a solution to manage both leagues simultaneously in three venues in the country.The PCB’s preference for UAE was because the country had anyway been hosting Pakistan’s international matches for many years.The PSL finally took off under the wing of Najam Sethi after the removal of Zaka Ashraf as PCB chairman•AFPWho are the franchise owners, and what are their links with cricket?The response for the PSL franchises was not as big as hoped, but the PCB still managed to attract several companies to bid for the five teams. The deal they locked was for $93 million for 10 years, with any given team costing $9.3 million per year.Salman Iqbal, the CEO of Abdul Razzak Yaqoob (ARY) Group, a holding company with various business ventures including the TV network, bought the Karachi franchise for $26 million. An Oil Company from Qatar, a new in cricket circles, which pitched the second highest bid, won the Lahore franchise for $25 million. Haier Group in Pakistan, a consumer electronics and home appliances company who are already dealing with the PCB to sponsor domestic cricket, acquired Peshawar for $16 million.The franchise from the capital, Islamabad, went to Leonine Global Sports, an entity created specifically for the PSL by a group of Pakistani investors, for $15 million. Omar Associate, a Karachi-based holding company with various business ventures, secured Quetta for $11 million. Omar Associate already have past links with cricket, having fielded a Grade-2 cricket team and recruited various women cricketers from the domestic circuit.Who owns the broadcasting and title sponsorship rights?The PSL’s title sponsorship belongs to Habib Bank Limited for three years, while Ten Sports and state broadcaster PTV Sports are the official broadcasters. The value of the broadcasting deal is $15 million, with the PCB selling the production rights to Sunset + Vine. The PCB itself will bear all costs. Global television rights have been given to Tech Front, a UAE-based media rights acquisition company. The sponsorship deal, including the title sponsorship, is estimated to be more than $6 million.How will franchises earn from the PSL?At least 80% of the revenue from the broadcast rights will be split equally among the five PSL franchises. Similarly, at least 50% of the revenue from the sponsorship rights, and 50% of the revenue from ticketing sale and the gate money will be equally shared among them. Interestingly, tournaments like the IPL and BPL give their franchises 100% of the revenue collected at the gate. But for the PSL, that chunk is only 50% because the PCB is bearing the cost of the venue in the UAE.How will the players be picked for the PSL?There won’t be any player auction, with more than 100 players, including foreigners, picked through a draft. Each franchise has a salary-spending cap of $1.2 million, including the signing of players, coaches and support staff. A total of 16 players will be picked up from five different categories – Platinum, Diamond, Gold, Silver, and Emerging.Each team will have a right to pick five foreign players, with only four allowed to make it into the playing XI. Each of the five PSL teams will get one selection per round to pick a player, and there will be 16 rounds. The draft will be accordingly managed to ensure that one team does not get to pick all the top players from the two top categories. Apart from the 16 players, a team is also allowed four supplemental picks to add to their 20-man squad.Normally, the team with the worst regular-season record gets to pick first. But since this will be the first edition of the PSL, a lottery system will be used to determine which team gets opportunity to pick first and in the later rounds, the order will be set randomly accordingly to the strength of the prior picks.

South Africa’s Test victory at Centurion cannot disguise the team’s problems but it gives them a basis from which to start the rebuilding process

Firdose Moonda in Centurion26-Jan-2016In the same way that we wonder whether a tree that falls in a forest devoid of people makes a sound, we question whether a match won in a series already lost really counts a victory. South Africa will tell you that it does.Centurion was a catharsis for them because it showed that, contrary to AB de Villiers’ thoughts after the Wanderers Test, all hope is not gone. That is not to be confused with the opposite: all hope has not been regained.South Africa won the match against a team who had already secured the only tangible thing there was to play for and at times lacked intensity as a result. Who knows how differently England’s attack would have approached their task on the first day. Who knows how much more value England would have placed on their wickets if there had been two more Tests, or how much care they would have taken with their catching.Because we don’t know, we have to credit South Africa for picking themselves off the floor and putting on a performance they can be proud of. If nothing else, that says they have made some progress.Van Zyl keeps up the pressure despite Cook success

Stephen Cook has secured his spot in South Africa’s Test side for the foreseeable future after he “played fantastic cricket, looked at home from the word go,” as AB de Villiers put it.

However, Stiaan van Zyl, the man he replaced, will continue to push for a place at the top of the order despite being given the option of moving down to No.3 at domestic level.

“Speaking to Stiaan van Zyl, he wants to continue opening the batting in franchise level. He loves it and he thinks he can do it,” Russell Domingo, South Africa’s coach said.

“There were phases were he looked really good. The middle order seems to be pretty jam-packed and there are also guys who are not playing like Faf du Plessis and Rilee Rossouw. Stiaan has to work out where he feels he can fit best. You don’t just give a player one or two opportunities. Chopping and changing breeds nothing but insecurity and adds more pressure.”

While South Africa consider the make-up of their team, de Villiers feels they have made some strides in this match. “It’s definitely a step in the right direction,” he said. “We didn’t play good cricket at the Wanderers but now there is something brewing. There’s a bit of confidence. a bit of experience, mixed with good youth.”

Two of those younger members are Temba Bavuma and Kagiso Rabada, who are changing opinions about transformation in South Africa. The importance of their development has not been lost on de Villiers

“For Temba and KG to come through – we know how South African’s history has gone – to see two guys step up is fantastic. It’s one of the highlights of my career.”

In the personnel department, they have certainly made progress, after a merry-go-round series in which their squad swelled to 17. In that mix were six fast bowlers, three wicketkeepers, two captains, a bowler who bats, a batsman who bowls and, only for the last match, a second specialist opening batsman.The addition of Stephen Cook brought immediate stability not just because South Africa’s top two had struggled up until then. Cook added experience – he has played 15 years in the first-class set-up – and assurance. Every shot Cook played was the stroke of a man in form. As a result, he has, in the words of Russell Domingo “secured the opening berth” for the immediate future.South Africa’s next Tests don’t come for six months but keeping Cook around beyond that will ensure South Africa have a solid top two for tours to Australia and England. It will also give Stiaan van Zyl the chance to develop into an opening batsman, assuming that is what he wants.At one-drop, South Africa have their No.3 back. Hashim Amla’s stepping-down as captain freed him up to be a batsman and it showed. With the decision made at Newlands, he scored a match-saving double-hundred. His innings at Centurion showed the Amla of old – the smooth drives, the wristy flicks, the mind that will not be hurt by a sore thumb – all that was there.But then we get to de Villiers and that’s where the problems start. South Africa’s new Test captain could be a former Test captain come August, by which time the selectors will have decided on a permanent skipper. No-one really knows if de Villiers wants the job, not even de Villiers himself.His series started with a story that he was considering early retirement, which he denied by saying all he wanted was a lighter workload. That came in the same match in which he was asked to keep wicket. So, for the next Test, de Villiers handed the gloves over but by the third one, he accepted the leadership. In essence, de Villiers wants to captain, but not keep, but he does not know how long he wants to do that for.His indecision will become South Africa’s irritation, as it did when Jacques Kallis neared the end and veered between being unavailable for bilateral ODIs to quitting Test cricket to focus on ODIs ahead of the 2015 World Cup, but he retired before the tournament. De Villiers is facing similar conundrums. His mixed messages are creating confusion and until South Africa obtain clarity on his situation, they will continue to face a conundrum.One of the reasons they’re allowing him this yo-yo period is because he is the best batsman in the world. Another is that he is one of very few senior players left and will be one of even fewer judging by how Faf du Plessis and JP Duminy are performing. They were both dropped in this series after lean patches that could no longer be tolerated. “No-one is sure of a place in the side,” de Villiers said afterwards. Now, du Plessis and Duminy know.They also know they are replaceable. Temba Bavuma has shown promise that has given South Africa a reason to look forward to the future. His groundbreaking century at Newlands and his gutsy innings at Centurion are the foundations of a career. Now he has to go and build the house.Like Kagiso Rabada, every brick Bavuma lays down is not just for himself. As the first black African batsman to play for the country, he is representing a huge majority and he knows it. “I know when I walk onto the field, it’s not just me walking onto the field,” he said. On the day of his century, the KFC kids from the township he was born in, Langa, were chanting his name and telling journalists how they wanted to be batsmen. Bavuma will inspire many more.Rabada will inspire them differently. At 20 years old, he is already a record-breaker. He has taken the most number of wickets by a South African in a Test, a figure he holds jointly with Makhaya Ntini and Hugh Tayfield. When Rabada took the 13th, Ntini was on his feet, passing on his baton.Kagiso Rabada is all smiles after dismissing Jonny Bairstow cheaply•Getty ImagesDale Steyn was in his lounge, passing on another baton. Rabada will become the new spearhead of the South African attack which may allow Steyn, when he regains fitness, to take on more of a Shaun Pollock-like role. Cut down on the extremes, focus on the accuracies and maybe South Africa will still get more of Steyn too.They need to, because the rest of the attack is as unsettled as the batting line-up. Morne Morkel has proved himself a workhorse and the best supporting actor South Africa could ask for. He has remained more injury-free than Steyn but it may not be that way forever. He is 31, which means in the next few years, South Africa will need someone to take over his role.At the moment none of Kyle Abbott, Chris Morris or Hardus Viljoen inspire that confidence. Abbott has not been the same since the World Cup, when he was left out of the semi-final XI in favour of Vernon Philander, Morris looked a better batsman than a bowler and, after Viljoen’s wicket off the first ball, he faded. South Africa still have to look for others.The search has not been made easy by the growing gap between franchise cricket and the international stage. Its causes have been put down to everything from the increased quotas which have affected franchise squads’ balances to the search for coaching expertise in an era of the declining Rand. Those complications will eventually flow upstream and affect the national side.The Centurion win cannot change any of that. It has given South Africa some reassurance, some reasons to smile, some relief. It has given the team its tree that fell in the forest, but it cannot guarantee how many people heard the noise.

Bereft of confidence, R Ashwin continues to be used sparingly by MS Dhoni as Saturday’s loss marked the tenth time in his last 19 T20s that the offspinner didn’t bowl his full quota

Nikhil Kalro in Bangalore08-May-2016R Ashwin finished 2015 as the No. 1 ranked Test bowler and the top-ranked Test allrounder. His carrom ball, among other variations, befuddled the best. Many considered him the best spinner in the world and his numbers backed their claim. In February 2016, his 4 for 8 against Sri Lanka became the best bowling figures for India in T20s. Ashwin was indispensable – to state and country.Why then has Ashwin taken just 11 wickets in 19 games since? He has bowled 59 overs in his last 19 T20s and has completed his four-over quota on just nine occasions. Should one of the world’s best spinners have been used more? A common denominator in Ashwin’s previous 19 games has been MS Dhoni, his captain for India and Rising Pune Supergiants.A reluctance to use an offspinner with two right-handers at the crease seems the most plausible reason. Ashwin was not brought on till the 17th over in Supergiants’ seven-wicket loss to Royal Challengers. Left-handed Travis Head came out to bat in the 16th. He bowled the solitary over and conceded seven – the second time this season. Before this, with 89 required off seven overs, the game had been blown open in overs 14 and 15, where 39 runs were plundered off Thisara Perera and Rajat Bhatia.”I’m guessing it’s because two right-handers mostly in the whole time, spinning in. He got the opportunity with the left-hander in, but they didn’t have too many left-handers. Limited opportunity for him,” legspinner Adam Zampa said of Ashwin’s under-utilisation after Supergiants’ loss to Royal Challengers.Against Sunrisers Hyderabad, Ashwin returned figures of 1 for 14 from four overs – his most economical returns since February. He was introduced in the 8th over with Sunrisers tottering at 29 for 3 – with Shikhar Dhawan and Naman Ojha at the crease – and bowled in a spell through the middle.A right-handed batting order is not atypical to Royal Challengers. Most teams – domestic and international – are dominated by right handers.However, Dhoni has used Ashwin even in the end-overs if a left-handed batsman is at the crease. Shouldn’t one of the world’s best bowlers, equipped with variations to straighten or take a ball away from a right hander, bowl without condition? Ashwin has been used extensively in T20 powerplays, but has bowled one over in that period this season.The boundary-hitting ability of batsmen has increased multi-fold over the past few years. Yet, there is a precedent of teams confronting an opposition’s best bowler with caution, irrespective of the type. Dhoni has primarily used M Ashwin and Bhatia through the middle period of a T20 innings. Would using India’s leading bowler during that stage, if not crunch moments, make more sense than not bowling him at all? In a team plagued by injuries and lacking potent end-overs specialists with the ball, R Ashwin has not been utilised to the extent that he could have.”It’s a subject, like revealing strategy. Ashwin is a mature bowler. He can bowl at any point of time,” Dhoni had said at a promotional event earlier this year. Why not, then, when Supergiants are defending 191 against one of the best batting line-ups in the tournament at a favourable chasing ground?Against Royal Challengers, Ashwin came out to bat at No. 8 and struck a five-ball 10 to help Supergiants to 191, but hasn’t batted at a position higher this season. If Ashwin, bereft of confidence, is continued to be used sparingly and to take the ball away from left-handers’ hitting arc, he may not have much to do this season.

In a race against time to bowl out West Indies on day five, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Ishant Sharma probed away with ruthless efficiency to help secure victory with a session to spare

Karthik Krishnaswamy in St Lucia 13-Aug-20162:36

Manjrekar: Young WI batsmen are not trained to be Test players

Batting is simple. If it’s full, you go on the front foot. If it’s short, you go back.Batting becomes increasingly difficult as you move up the quality ladder and come up against bowlers who test your judgment by hitting an in-between length with increasing frequency. At Test level, bowlers do this more often than anywhere else. Batsmen who get that far are the ones most adept at dealing with this challenge. They judge length better, and are better able to identify which balls pitching in that great grey area known as a good length need to be negotiated on the front foot and which ones by staying back.On Saturday, faced with the task of surviving 87 overs to save the third Test against India, West Indies kept failing this test.India bowled well to bowl them out, but at times it felt like they only had to keep hitting a good length to induce errors from the batsmen. It is exactly how a team must bowl on a pitch such as this one, with true pace and bounce and offering no extravagant seam movement or turn. Yet, even bowling at their best, India must have expected to fight for their wickets, expected the fight to last at least halfway into the final session. Instead, they bowled West Indies out in 47.3 overs and won a match that lost an entire day to rain, by 237 runs.West Indies’ troubles started right at the top. Kraigg Brathwaite is among the more solid batsmen in West Indies’ line-up: patient outside off stump, willing to wait for balls in his strong areas, and can bat long periods. But his technique isn’t without its faults. Bhuvneshwar Kumar exposed two of them with a full ball angling into the stumps and straightening just a touch. The ball was certainly full enough to play on the front foot. Brathwaite did not make any kind of stride towards the ball and remained camped in his crease.To add to his problems, Brathwaite plays with open shoulders, and is nearly chest-on to the bowler at times. This leaves him at risk of playing across the line even when he is notionally trying to present the full face of the bat. He certainly attempted to do this against Bhuvneshwar. But instead of starting roughly over off stump, or even from the direction of first slip, and finishing pointing down the V, Brathwaite’s bat came down from third slip and finished pointing wide of mid-on. A bit of movement and the ball missed his outside edge and would have the stumps. End result: out lbw.The lack of footwork compounded the skewed alignment. Had Brathwaite been closer to the pitch of the ball, he would have been at less risk of missing it, or even edging it, even if he had played slightly across the line.Marlon Samuels is another batsman who camps in his crease. On Saturday he camped in the crease and made life more dangerous for himself by attempting limited-overs shots. Against Bhuvneshwar, he tried a shot straight out of the T20 manual: clear front leg, ignore the length of the ball, and biff it over the top. He was lucky to miss, and lucky the ball was wide of the stumps.Then, having somehow survived 26 balls, he tried to cut Ishant Sharma off his stumps. The ball was at that in-between length, seaming in towards off stump, and Samuels has often had trouble playing those kinds of balls even with a straight bat. He tried to cut it, with his back foot staying stuck on leg stump, and did this with his team trying to save a Test match. Samuels missed, Ishant hit.Ishant does not hit the stumps anywhere near as much as he should, and has often been criticised for it, even in the days leading up to this Test match. It is only appropriate to praise him, then, on a day when he bowled a length and line that allowed him to threaten the stumps far more often.Ishant Sharma’s improved accuracy in the second innings made him a handful to West Indies’ right-hand batsmen•ESPNcricinfo LtdIn the first innings of this Test, Ishant’s pitch map against right-hand batsmen showed most of his deliveries distributed along a line parallel to the pitch, outside off stump. In the second, his deliveries were distributed along a line slanting into the stumps, suggesting he was frequently bowling from wider on the crease. By doing so, he created an angle that exaggerated the movement of his incoming delivery, and heightened the effect of the odd ball he could straighten. He was, quite simply, the batsman.In the second Test in Jamaica, Roston Chase had been able to leave 17 of the 38 balls he faced from Ishant during the course of his unbeaten, match-saving second-innings 137. Here, all but one of the eight balls he faced from the same bowler were on course to hit the stumps, or threatening to hit them. The eighth ball actually hit them, after seaming in and finding the gap between bat and pad.Ishant attacked Roston Chase’s stumps far more in the second innings at St Lucia (right) compared to Jamaica (left)•ESPNcricinfo LtdOnce again for a West Indies batsman, Chase’s footwork was at fault. Pause the replay of his dismissal at the point where the ball goes past his inside edge and note the position of his front foot. It is coming forward, but the stride is short, and it has only just landed, on its heel. Chase was a split-second slow with his footwork. Other batsmen may have transferred their weight fully on to the front foot by that point, and narrowed the angle of the seam movement enough to be able to negotiate it.It was perhaps the least worst of the errors West Indies’ batsmen committed on Saturday. But in conjunction with the rest, it painted a troubling picture.

After several years of relative scarcity of international fixtures in India, the BCCI is attempting to forge a definite home season and has begun on a grand scale

Sharda Ugra09-Jun-20161:26

India set for bumper home season in 2016-17

Maybe this is what hyperventilating commentators mean when they say, “It doesn’t get any bigger than this!”The BCCI has unveiled the opposition and venues for its 2016-17 home season more than three months in advance. And told us India are to play 13 home Tests over seven months, the most crowded season in 37 years. With it came the news that there is to be a five-Test series at home for the first time in two decades. The last time those two happenings happened, I was in middle school and then in junior college. Eons ago.These are landmark announcements by the BCCI: a calendar filled with so much Test-match love, it could be considered antiquarian, and the announcement made so far in advance of the season that the work of good-natured impostors could be suspected. Usually India’s fixtures are capsules of mystery and suspense, released not long before the visitors pass through immigration at an unspecified Indian airport.Yes, but what are the specific dates of the series? Where do fans buy tickets? Does the BCCI care about the fans? Patience, people.It is being said that the complete itineraries will be released within two weeks. In the face of such abundant pre-season information, let’s be charitable and give the BCCI four. It will still leave well over a month to spare before the first match against New Zealand. It may be too much to hope that the eternal shenanigans to do with ticketing will also be sorted out by then, but there is already much to look forward to.The country that gave cricket its ultimate T20 pyjama party in the IPL is going to stage the biggest home season in 37 years. The mind boggles.The 13 Tests against New Zealand, England, Bangladesh and Australia are also meant to be the first step in the entrenchment of a clear, regular Indian home season – with Test cricket at its core. Until now, India’s home Test calendar has been, at best, capricious. It has oscillated between a moderate diet and scarcity.Since September 2005, India have had 46 home Tests; the 2012-13 season had eight home Tests, the next one had two, and 2014-15 had none. The 13 scheduled for 2016-17 is only one fewer than the total of the previous four home seasons put together. This lopsidedness has led to colourful diversionary stats: India have played only four Tests at home since the retirement of Sachin Tendulkar. (Yes, the nation wept, but still…)The BCCI’s home season has, for the second time, been named ‘India Cricket’, a branding exercise first undertaken in October 2015. “Every country has focused on its domestic season,” Anurag Thakur, then the BCCI secretary, said to . “We all get to know when England and Australia play the Ashes or New Zealand travel to Australia. India is the powerhouse of world cricket, but our season does not have such status. The ‘India Cricket’ campaign is to promote the start of the season, both domestic and international, in India.” The first sighting of this new brand was when the words ‘India Cricket’, all in capitals, and not the BCCI logo, were spotted on commentators’ shirts. The 2015-16 season of India Cricket offered only four Tests, though.It is reasonable to assume that this 13-Test season is not expected to be a rigid template for the future but a rough guide. It indicates that the BCCI is going to hunker down on a certain number of months for cricket at home. Maybe around the Diwali festival, much like South Africa’s and Australia’s home seasons are centred around Christmas and the New Year. Every summer, England unfailingly play seven home Tests and Australia around six. For India, eight home Tests a season seems a manageable number.This does not mean that India will never play a Boxing Day Test in Melbourne or a New Year’s Test in Cape Town. They often return from their southern hemisphere tours in January and can host home series in February and March. The Season of Plenty could just ensure that India’s touring itineraries will be arranged around their home season in the future, and not the other way around.The 2016-17 season – with its emphasis on Tests (13) as opposed to limited-overs fixtures (eight ODIs and three T20Is) – was arrived at by the BCCI’s tour and fixtures committee after examining operational issues at three ends: first the curators, for a best assessment of ground conditions at the many international venues; then the broadcasters, for logistical convenience of moving equipment from one venue to the next; and finally the three rotation ladders for venue allocation for Tests, ODIs and T20Is. India’s climate allows for cricket in different parts of the country between September and March – the IPL occupies the previously unused summer months – and world-class grounds at various venues have empowered the BCCI to take advantage of such a large window.How 2016-17 will tower over recent seasons in India•ESPNcricinfo LtdTwo questions remain. What of the day-night Test? And when exactly will Bangladesh finally play a Test in India, more than 15 years after their debut in the format? The Hyderabad fixture against Bangladesh is expected to take place after England leave and before Australia arrive; the BCCI’s hospitality somewhat limited despite Bangladesh’s long wait but fortunately no more delayed.The day-night Test is not a given as yet. It will depend on how the pink ball behaves during the remodelled Duleep Trophy in September, when India’s Test batsmen are expected to participate in six first-class matches under lights. They will provide feedback on the pink ball and the dew factor, and only then will a decision be taken on the possibility of a day-night Test.The coming season will be an adventure and an experiment for cricket in India. The crowd response at six new Test venues – against first-rate opposition – will tell us whether it is feasible to take the longest format of the game to new places, or whether it is best played at traditional centres. We will also know if the focus on Tests will translate into better financial remuneration for long-form players, as has been promised.This new season gives the Indian fan much to savour. And if the fans in the stands finally get their due, in terms of the ease of buying tickets and in-stadium comforts over long and warm days, the BCCI will have earned itself a mighty standing ovation.