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Graeme Smith and Neil McKenzie mounted the most monumental of fightbacks on the fourth day at Lord’s. Even if South Africa do lose the Test, they wouldn’t have gone down without a fight. And more than anything else, Test cricket is alive and well, argues

Sambit Bal at Lord's13-Jul-2008

Seen in isolation, this was a pitifully dull day, the kind that can be used to illustrate why the longer form is an anachronism in these pacy times. Runs were scarce, wickets scarcer. Fifty-four runs came in the first session, 61 in the second; fours were occasional and there was no hint of a six. But Test cricket is all about context, and in the context of this match, and the series, it was a compelling day: slow, but always simmering; lacking in action, but not plot and intrigue. It was just the kind that makes watching Test cricket a varied, rich and rewarding experience. If South Africa manage to draw this Test, it will be counted among the greatest of escapes in the history of the game, and this seemingly dull day will be regarded as the one that made it possible.Graeme Smith and Neil McKenzie mounted the most monumental of fightbacks. The wicket remained benign but the pressure was so enormous that it tested the character of these batsmen to the limit. Batting is only half about skills; it was the mental aspect that made the contribution of the opening pair remarkable. All through their vigil, they played with the knowledge that their team was only a mistake away from disaster, and they fashioned their response accordingly.Smith’s application was particularly remarkable. And in some ways, he owed it to his team even more than what would be expected in normal course. He would have consulted the team management for sure, but ultimately, the decision to insert England was his; and his captaincy on the second day, when he didn’t choose the right bowlers or place the best fields, had been diffident and tentative. South Africa didn’t merely need runs from Smith: they needed him to bat and bat.Smith is no stranger to long innings. He batted for more than five hours while scoring each of first four Test hundreds, three of which were doubles. In fact, two of those were back-to-back doubles scored on his first tour to England and on both occasions he batted for more than nine hours. But he had then batted imperiously, repeatedly muscling balls from on or outside off-stump to the midwicket boundary and scoring virtually four runs an over throughout. The situation today demanded him to bat against his natural instincts and he tempered his game admirably. The product was an industrious hundred, and perhaps the most valuable of his career.Smith had spoken of his maturity before the start of the Test, and this innings stands as an eloquent confirmation. Last evening, he even exchanged a smile with Kevin Pietersen after Pietersen, in his new role as England’s opening bowler in the dying light, had cheekily appealed for a catch off Smith’s pad. And he was still smiling when he walked off the ground in the dying light, his side with a mountain left to climb. The image was of a man who had come to terms with his job and to the realisation that life doesn’t begin and end on the cricket field.So out of character was his innings today that it shone with character. Against the quicker bowlers he resisted playing across the line, focussing on scoring his runs square of the wicket on the offside, watching the ball late. But against Panesar, who was turning the ball sharply into him from the rough outside the offstump, he was quick to jump outside the line, almost exposing all three stumps to negate the possibility of a leg-before. Most of his runs against Panesar came on the leg-side. But more than scoring runs, his innings was about denying England a breach, and Smith stuck to task with the solemnity it demanded. The stroke – a cross-batted swat against the new ball — that brought about his dismissal didn’t do justice the rigorous application that preceded it.Smith was only half of the story though and mercifully for South Africa, the other half is unfinished yet, and in a sense, it is even more stirring. Turning 33 later this year, few would have blamed McKenzie had he taken the easy route to join the multitude of South Africans in taking the Kolpak route to England after four years of wilderness. But, as demonstrated by his latest hundred – the third since his comeback seven Tests ago – patience is a quality he has in abundance.And on the evidence of his run so far, it would seem he was an opener trapped in a middle-order batsman’s role. Sometimes, awareness of one’s own strengths eludes you until an unfamiliar challenge presents itself. McKenzie now resembles the classical Test opener, an endangered tribe in a world enamoured by breathtaking starts. In fact, despite all the evidence pointing against it, there was a degree of consternation in the South African media about the absence of Herschelle Gibbs in the squad.

It was self-evident that South Africa needed McKenzie’s watchfulness today. He possesses more strokes than he allowed himself, relying instead on the compactness of his technique to see the day through. For a Test opener, his manner of leaving the ball – drawing the bat inside the line of the ball – might project a lack of assuredness, but it is clear that McKenzie has keen awareness of his offstump. Though he did edge the ball once while playing a defensive stroke, his judgement was impeccable throughout the day.When the ball reverse swung for a short period after lunch, James Anderson induced a degree on uncertainty, and even a wild swipe, by moving the ball both ways, but composure never deserted McKenzie. Michael Vaughan pried on his nerves by setting fields that denied him the drive, his most preferable scoring option, but McKenzie wouldn’t be driven to distraction. Nor did he allow the slow clapping from an impatient crowd to disrupt his resolve. It was a slow and low pitch, and the situation demanded watchfulness, which McKenzie supplied unwaveringly.South Africa aren’t out of it yet, but they can now be called the favourites to draw the Test. Of course, it’s a comedown from the pre-match hype, but it is a huge turnaround from the hole they had dug themselves in three successive days of under-performance. Even if they do lose the Test, they wouldn’t have gone down without a fight.And more than anything else, Test cricket is alive and well.

Tendulkar and Laxman’s contributions helped India save the Test and will rank among their more significant

Cricinfo staff13-Oct-2008

In time, the innings played by Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman today will be forgotten among their more glamorous conquests. It shouldn’t be so; their contributions, though humble in purely numerical terms, are immense when seen in context – they helped India save the Test – and will rank among their more significant.Tendulkar is the elephant in the fourth-innings room. His repeated failures in the final leg of a Test have forced admirers to look towards Rahul Dravid and Virender Sehwag for a saviour. He averages 33.60 in the final innings with three half-centuries. His hundreds are so rare that they are easily recalled: Old Trafford 1990, Chennai 1999.Tendulkar had started the tour of Sri Lanka needing 172 runs to break Brian Lara’s record but after six innings he was still 77 short. He wasn’t clueless against Ajantha Mendis and Muttiah Muralitharan, like some of his team-mates, for he often began confidently only to get out in unorthodox ways or to soft shots. It was the same in the first innings in Bangalore, when a spooned drive to short cover off a slower ball brought about his dismissal.The situation when he walked out this morning hinted at India’s bugbear: a calamitous final-day collapse. Sehwag and Dravid had been dismissed and 74.3 overs remained. Tendulkar received his routine rousing welcome from the crowd but the half-empty ground, on a day when he needed only 64 runs to become Test cricket’s leading run-scorer, was perhaps a sign of the times. If this was 1998, the Chinnaswamy Stadium would have been packed, irrespective of it being a Monday.Tendulkar did not face Stuart Clark in the first innings. When he did in the second, Clark had Haddin stand up to the stumps, a tactic he used successfully in Sydney. Tendulkar was immediately bowled on that occasion while coming forward but today he negotiated Clark primarily from his crease, using his wrists to open the face and steer the ball through point for his first boundary.Mitchell Johnson operated with the first-innings trap in place: a slip, two men at short cover and a point waiting for the lofted drive or the outside edge. Tendulkar was able to slip right through it, square-driving his first ball from Johnson through point for four. He then fended a couple of short balls awkwardly towards leg gully but, when Ponting moved himself into that position, Tendulkar found other ways to counter that line of attack.Apart from one ambitious appeal from Michael Clarke, the bowlers barely had a chance against him. His three-hour vigil spanned the decisive passage of play – the post-lunch session – and included partnerships with Gautam Gambhir and Laxman that virtually ensured India’s safety.The Australians don’t sledge Tendulkar because they think it fires him up. Watson, though, had a go at Laxman after bowling several short balls. Laxman didn’t respond but Tendulkar walked towards Watson and had a word. He was in a mood for battle.Tendulkar’s well-knit innings began to fray as the light deteriorated during the final session. He played out 11 balls on 48 and talked with umpires, presumably about the conditions. His concentration lapsed moments later and a lofted drive to cover gave the debutant Cameron White his first wicket. His contribution was immense but he had left the job of saving the Test, and the quest for the world record, incomplete.Until then Laxman had batted in Tendulkar’s shadow but now he was critical to India’s chances. He had found scoring opportunities difficult against a strong leg-side field in the first innings. They remained hard to come by in the second for Ponting had two men at short midwicket, a leg gully, a silly mid-on, a conventional mid-on, and a square leg at various times but patience underlined Laxman’s approach.He wore down the fast bowlers with terrific defence and, once the fading light ensured only the spinners could operate, Laxman was at ease. Four men hovered around the bat – leg slip, first slip, silly point and short leg – for Clarke and White but Laxman’s supple wrists and swift footwork nullified the threat.Between them, Tendulkar and Laxman scored only 91 runs but they blunted Australia’s attack for 268 balls and spent nearly six hours at the crease. Their gritty, unfashionably restrained efforts are the reason why the series is still level.

The Netherlands have played three World Cups, but their biggest moment in cricket only came 10 days ago. One veteran has been there all along

Nagraj Gollapudi15-Jun-2009It was bittersweet for Bas Zuiderent when on June 5 the Netherlands recorded the biggest triumph in their cricket history, shocking hosts England in a World Twenty20 thriller. As the team made merry that evening, at the back of Zuiderent’s mind was the thought of the money he was losing.Zuiderent runs a physiotherapy practice back home in Holland. “I don’t get any wages if I’m not working in my day job. We get a daily allowance and no match fee,” he reveals, on the eve of their next game, against Pakistan. (They lost by 82 runs to exit the tournament).It is a harsh reality for the cricketers from the Associate nations, who have to keep motivating themselves to script such improbable wins in the hope of being able to raise a platform from which they can start dreaming big. Cricket is a minority sport in their countries and the boards don’t have the finances to run professional set-ups. The players are in the game for love not money. Zuiderent is a fine example of that sort of devotion.He started when he was 10. “My cousin played cricket at the time and I remember that my mother asked whether I was interested in playing as well. I didn’t think much of cricket initially. Those funny white outfits…”Then my mother took me to a local club in Rotterdam. I can recall bursting out in tears because I didn’t want to join in! After she calmed me down, I joined in the training session and I got hooked on to the game straight away. I never looked back.He was still in school when he made his debut for Holland as a 16-year-old in the World Cup qualifiers played in Kenya in 1994. His first international came in the World Cup two years later. “I was 18. It has been a long journey,” Zuiderent says as his eyes look up staring in the distance. “I’m actually playing the best cricket of my life now. The older I get, the better cricket I’ve started to play.”Zuiderent thinks it has to do with the team ethic, where there has been a radical turnaround from the laidback fashion popular in his early days in international cricket. “Luckily I’ve been part of the transformation,” he says. “It has changed in the way the team operates, trains, eats, sleeps and looks after themselves. It has become a professional set-up.”The Dutch still have only three pros, Dirk Nannes, Ryan Ten Doeschate and Alexei Kervezee, but they are inching towards the level of a professional sports team. The results have been there to see, in the World Cup qualifiers and in the World Twenty20.Zuiderent provides an example of the changing face of Dutch cricket. “In my first years, a past player, in his 40s, would arrive at the ground, inspect the field, do his own thing, like hit a few balls, go back to the hotel and wait for the evening when he could drink five or six whiskies. These were the old-school cricketers, who did not take things seriously and were super unprofessional.”

“I didn’t think much of cricket initially. Those funny white outfits… “

It took at least 10 years before things really changed. “We are a very, very tightly wound team unit, very proud team,” he says. What he doesn’t come out and say is that he would have loved to have today’s team environment when he started. That might have given him more of a chance at realising his potential.In his second international game, against England in the 1996 World Cup, Zuiderent became the second youngest player in World Cup history to score a half-century; Sachin Tendulkar, the youngest, was about 200 days younger when he did. Zuiderent points out the fact with a shy smile. “That was massive for me [the fifty], but it is a shame, really, that I never kicked on and went for bigger things than that.”He still remembers it clearly. “What was most impressive was to walk out and rub shoulders with the likes of Jack Russell, Mike Atherton, Alec Stewart, Dominic Cork… I was just loving it. It was almost unreal,” Zuiderent says. Later that evening, still on cloud nine, he ran into Geoffrey Boycott in the team hotel, who tapped him on the shoulder to say “Well played, son.” Zuiderent won’t forget that. “It was so nice of him to say that.”Zuiderent says that it was only when he started to think more about cricket that he ended up complicating things, and went through a period where he put pressure on himself with expectations. “In the last few years I’ve allowed myself to settle. It allows me to just relax,” he says.A couple of months after his first World Cup, playing for Holland against Worcestershire he hit 99, and was offered a contract. He decided to finish his studies in economics instead, but soon gave that up. “One morning I woke up in Amsterdam and suddenly realised what I was doing was not what I wanted to do. I sort of had an epiphany, where someone was literally talking to me and told me to use the talents I was given.” Within a week he flew to England and signed a contract with Sussex.The 2003 World Cup was Zuiderent’s third•ReutersThe first Dutchman to represent Holland in English county cricket was PJ Bakker, who opened the bowling for Hampshire with Malcolm Marshall. Roland Lefebvre played for Somerset and Glamorgan, and Andre van Troost, who played at Somerset, was rated by Desmond Haynes as the “quickest white guy” he ever faced. Zuiderent was the first specialist batsman. What are the moments that stand out from his county cricket days, I ask him.He talks of his maiden one-day and first-class centuries, which came in the space of two days. The one-day hundred made him the first centurion at the Rose Bowl. “No one can take that away from me,” Zuiderent says with a big smile. The four-day hundred came against Nottinghamshire, against a bowling attack that featured, among others, a certain Kevin Pietersen. Zuiderent smiles when he speaks of lofting Pietersen over mid-off for a six. “He was as cocky as he is today, and that is his massive strength.”That statement illustrates the divide between the top professionals and amateur cricketers. Zuiderent is not embarrassed to admit it. I ask him what the difference is between him hitting a straight drive and Tendulkar doing the same. Zuiderent rolls his eye at Tendulkar’s name, before saying the difference lies in the execution. “Sachin can hit a Brett Lee 98mph delivery at will. We can do it as well, but we don’t control it as well, because Sachin is used to doing it continuously.”Unlike the players from the top cricket nations, who spend most of their waking hours training, much of Zuiderent and his team-mates’ time is spent at their dayjobs. “Because I work 40 hours a week, I cannot afford to practise every day. Our skills are there, but we can’t execute those skills enough to be like Yuvraj Singh or Irfan Pathan, because they can hone their skills much more every single day against the best.”So when victories like the one against England come, they are hard to forget. Zuiderent has been there for Dutch cricket’s peaks: qualifying for the World Cups in 1996, 2003 and 2007, and this World Twenty20. But the England win takes prime spot on the list. “It was our first victory against a full-member country in an official game,” he says with pride.The fact that England took the contest as a bout against a featherweight is not lost on Zuiderent. “England would always believe that they are far superior to the Dutch, and in a way rightly so, because they would win 95 out of 100 times. But never, never take a team lightly that is hungry to win. That is a big mistake you can commit. And England did exactly that. [They thought] we are a Mickey Mouse team. We are way better, and we’ve shown that.

Twenty years ago, a fresh-faced youngster was being hailed as the next big thing. Would he play for India, the cognoscenti asked themselves

Harsha Bhogle12-Nov-2009Sportsworld”Once I get set, I don’t think of anything”•UnknownAll of Bombay’s are a stage. Where every cricketer has a role to play. And his seems to be the blockbuster. Ever since he unveiled Act One early last year, audiences have been waiting, a little too eagerly at times, to watch the next scene. Sachin Tendulkar is only, so far, acting in a high-school production. Yet critics have gone to town. And rave reviews have not stopped coming in.I guess it can only happen in Bombay. That a schoolboy cricketer sometimes becomes the talk of the town. Why, at the end of every day’s play in the final of Bombay’s Harris Shield (for Under 17s) everybody wanted to know how many he had made. For he does bat three days sometimes! And for all the publicity he has received, Sachin Tendulkar is really still a kid. He only completed 15 on 24 April. And is very shy. Opening out only after you have coaxed him for some time. As his coach Mr Achrekar says, “” [He’s started talking a bit now]. And it’s then that you realise that his voice has not yet cracked.His record is awesome. He has scored far more runs than all of us scored looking dreamily out of the window in a boring Social Studies class when we were his age.For a prodigy, he started late. When he was nine years old. And it was only in 1984-85 that he scored his first school-level fifty. But 1985-86 was a little better. He scored his first Harris Shield hundred and played for Bombay in the Vijay Merchant (Under-15) tournament. And 1986-87 was when he blossomed. Still only 13, he led his school, Shardashram Vidyamandir, to victory in the Giles Shield (for Under-15s). He scored three centuries – 158*, 156 and 197 – and then in the Harris Shield scored 276, 123 and 150. In all, he scored nine hundreds, including two double hundreds, a total of 2336 runs.By now everyone had begun to sit up and take notice. The beginning of the 1987-88 season saw Sachin at the Ranji nets. Once again the top players were away playing Tests and perhaps the Bombay selectors felt it wouldn’t be a bad idea to give Sachin first-hand experience of a higher category of cricket. He was named in the 14 for the first couple of games, and manager Sandeep Patil kept sending him out whenever possible – for a glass of water or a change of gloves. All along Sachin probably knew that he was still at best a curiosity, and that while Bombay was giving him every blooding opportunity, he had to prove himself on the .And that is exactly what he did. Season 1987-88 was a purple patch that never ended. Playing in the Vijay Merchant tournament he scored 130 and 107 and then at the Inter-Zonal stage he made 117 against the champions, East Zone. Then in the Vijay Hazare tournament (for Under-17s) he scored 175 for West Zone against champions East Zone.Then came the avalanche. A 178* in the Giles Shield and a sequence in the Harris Shield of 21*, 125, 207*, 329* and 346*! A small matter of 1028 runs in five innings! And in the course of that innings of 329* he set the much talked-about record of 664 for the third wicket with Vinod Kambli, who, it is not always realised, scored 348*. Perhaps the most fascinating of them all was the innings of 346*. Coming immediately, as it did, in the shadow of the world record, a lot of people were curious to see him bat. Sachin ended the first day on 122, batted through the second to finish with 286, and when the innings closed around lunch on the third day, he was 346*. And then came back to bowl the first ball. In April’s Bombay summer.

“People don’t realise that he is just 15. They keep calling him for some felicitation or the other. The other day he was asked to inaugurate a children’s library. This is ridiculous. These things are bound to go to his head. He will start thinking he has achieved everything.”Tendulkar’s coach, Ramakant Achrekar

But when did this story begin? Like all children, Tendulkar took to playing cricket. His brother Ajit was a good player and persuaded Mr Achrekar, probably Bombay’s most famous coach, to look at him. Achrekar recalls, “When he first came to my net four-five years ago, he looked just like any other boy and I didn’t take him seriously. Then one day I saw him bat in an adjacent net. He was trying to hit every ball but I noted that he was middling all of them. Some time later he got a fifty and a friend of mine, who was umpiring that game, came and told me that this boy would play for India. I laughed at him and said that there were so many boys like him in my net. But he insisted. ‘Mark my words, he will play for India.’ My friend is dead now but I’m waiting to see if his prophecy comes true.’Tendulkar is taking first steps towards getting there. He discovered that his house, being in Bandra, would not allow him to be at Shivaji Park whenever he wanted. He now spends most of his time at his uncle’s house, just off this nursery of Bombay cricket. When he is not actually playing, that is.Quite often, he is playing all day; important because it has helped him build the stamina to play long innings. “I don’t get tired,” he says, referring to them. “If you practise every day, you get used to it.”And what about that world-record innings? “I could bat very freely then because my partner Vinod Kambli was batting so well that I knew that even if I failed, he would get enough runs for the side.”Isn’t there a lot of pressure on him now? Everyone assumes he will get a big score? “Only in the beginning. Till I get set. Once I get set, I don’t think of anything.”Wasn’t he thrilled at being invited to the Ranji nets? “Definitely. After playing there I got a lot of confidence.”Everything in Tendulkar’s life has so far revolved around cricket. Including his choice of school. A few years back he shifted to Shardashram Vidyamandir, only so that he could come under the eye of Achrekar. “It helped me tremendously because ‘sir’s’ guidance is so good,” he says.Strangely his parents were never very keen about cricket. His brother Ajit says, “They were not very interested in the game, though they gave him all the encouragement. You see, in our colony all parents were training their children to be engineers and doctors. And they would say, ” cricketer ?” [You don’t become a cricketer by playing in the alleys]. I am so happy he is doing well because now people think he is doing something.”The question that arises then, given all the publicity is: Just how good is Sachin Tendulkar?”For his age, unbelievable,” says Sharad Kotnis, Bombay’s veteran cricket watcher. “He is definitely comparable to Ashok Mankad, who had a similar run many years ago. But remember Ashok had cricket running in his family and his father often came to see him play. I think Tendulkar’s strongest point is that he is willing to work very hard.”Luckily for Sachin, there is a calming influence over him, just so he doesn’t get carried away by this acclaim. His coach Achrekar knows exactly what he is talking about. “He is not perfect yet. Far from it. In fact, I would say he is not even halfway there. He still has a lot of faults, particularly while driving through the on, which is an indicator of a class batsman. He still has a long way to go, but what I like about him is his ability to work hard. I don’t think we should get carried away by his scores. After all, one has to take into account the nature of the wicket and the quality of the bowlers. By his standards the quality of the bowling he faced was not good enough.”His real test will come this year when he plays in the ‘A’ Division of the Kanga League. [Sachin will play for the Cricket Club of India, which for him has waived the stipulation that children under 18 are not allowed inside the Club House!] He should get 70s and 80s there and not just 20s and 30s; particularly towards the end of the season, when the wickets get better.”Tendulkar as a wee thing with coach Ramakant Achrekar•UnknownAchrekar, in fact, is quite upset about the publicity Sachin is getting. “People don’t realise that he is just 15. They keep calling him for some felicitation or the other. The other day he was asked to inaugurate a children’s library. This is ridiculous. These things are bound to go to his head. He will start thinking he has achieved everything. I hope all this stops so he can concentrate and work hard.”Yet both Achrekar and Kotnis agree on when they think Sachin will become a Ranji regular. “I think he should be playing the Ranji Trophy next year. I think it is unfair to compare him to the [Lalchand] Rajputs and [Alan] Sippys yet, but I think he should play next year,” feels Kotnis. And Achrekar adds, “Inspite of what I said about him, if he maintains this kind of progress, he should play the Ranji next year.”Clearly the curtain call is still a long way off for Sachin Tendulkar. He has a lot of things going for him. Most importantly he is in Bombay, where the sheer atmosphere can propel him ahead. In how many cities would a 15-year-old be presented a Gunn and Moore by the Indian captain? And in which other city would the world’s highest run-getter write to a 15-year-old asking him not to get disheartened at not getting the Best Junior Cricketer award?Sunil Gavaskar wrote to Tendulkar to tell him that several years earlier another youngster too had not got the award and that he didn’t do too badly in Test cricket. For him the letter from his hero is a prized possession. Another great moment was a meeting with him where “… he told me that I should forget the past every time I go to bat. I should always remember that I have to score runs each time.”He is in the right company. And the right environment. The next few years will show whether he has it in him the mental toughness to overcome the over-exposure. If it does not go to his head, surely there is a great future beckoning. This is really just the beginning and I will be watching this little star with avid interest for the next three years.If he is still charting blockbusters, I’d love to do another review then.

Plays of the Day from the first day of the first Test between India and New Zealand in Ahmedabad

ESPNcricinfo staff04-Nov-2010The face-saving drop of the day
Only a brave man would have called it a dropped chance. Virender Sehwag lashed one hard at Jeetan Patel and for a moment you feared for the bowler. The ball was screaming towards his face when Patel just about managed to get his hands in the way. The ball crashed into his palms and fell. Patel’s family would have sighed in relief, some fans might have sighed in disappointment at the drop, and cosmetic surgeons might have sighed at the loss of a potential customer.Ouch. And the slap of the day
It was Motera. It felt like Mirpur. The ball, from Hamish Bennett, leaped from the middle of the track and Rahul Dravid started to go down. Like in Mirpur, he had misjudged the bounce. Like in Mirpur, he ducked straight into the ball. Unlike in Mirpur, this one crashed first into left shoulder before hitting the helmet. That strike on the shoulder, luckily for Dravid, had cushioned the blow. The next ball was another bouncer but well outside off; Dravid let it go. The follow-up delivery, too, was a gentler bouncer. Blink. The ball was picked from the midwicket boundary.The smile of the day
Batsmen usually are slightly disappointed when they get close to 200 and are dismissed. Not Sehwag. He put his arm around his runner Gautam Gambhir’s shoulder, shared a joke or two and was seen laughing as he walked off. Did it get tough to focus for so long on this pitch and against an easy attack? “Yes, it can happen sometimes. I was losing focus after tea. I couldn’t concentrate. The knee was also paining a bit (hence the runner) and I thought let me go for a few shots and get some quick runs before I get out.”The signal of the day
When Chris Martin bowled a no-ball in the first session, Sehwag signalled a free-hit. It isn’t there in Test cricket but he later said, “We should enjoy Test cricket also. After my signal everybody laughed and we got ready for the next ball.” He whacked the next delivery to the boundary of course.

There has been speculation that AB de Villiers’ new responsibility as wicketkeeper will affect his batting, but he actually averages higher when he is wearing the gloves than when he is not

Firdose Moonda in Delhi 25-Feb-2011South Africa’s bowlers emerged as the men who made it happen in their World Cup opener against West Indies. The spinners were lauded, first for strangling the life out of the gasping West Indies and then plucking them one by one. Make it happen, they did, but make it happen, they did not.Four overs into the South African chase, someone else came out and made the rest happen. AB de Villiers walked to the crease with his team teetering on 20 for 2, with Sulieman Benn doing a similar job to the one Johan Botha did upfront, and with the knowledge that if another wicket went down it would give West Indies’ bowlers a sniff of the inexperienced middle order and it may all go down in flames for South Africa.He waited an over before facing a ball and when he did it was with the typical feistiness that audiences have become used to seeing from him. He rushed out of the crease to create a full toss of a normal Benn delivery. The result was one, the intention was many more. Of the next 12 balls he faced, four reached the boundary and he had, singlehandedly, released the pressure.Graeme Smith was not feeling well, and between trying to breathe through his blocked nose and call from his hoarse voicebox, he welcomed not having to bear the responsibility of steering the innings as well. “AB played a fantastic knock, he is a great one-day player and I was able to just hang in there with him,” Smith said.By the time de Villiers got to 50, Smith had scored a laboured 32 off 56 balls. His batting was uglier than usual to watch and even he admitted it “wasn’t the best” knock he has played, but with de Villiers doing the driving – both literally, to exquisite effect, and figuratively – Smith could allow himself to relinquish control. It was de Villiers who did the bulk of the work – the nudging and nurdling, the well placed sweeps and fine dabbles and lashing out when necessary while Smith poked, pushed prodded and occasionally inside edged.”He played like a senior player,” Darren Sammy, the West Indies captain, said after the match. He didn’t elaborate much but what he probably meant was that de Villiers was the one who first wrestled the match away from them and then strategised on timing the victory. It was his way of saying that de Villiers was the big daddy on the night and de Villiers’ knock was his way of showing, yet again, that he is capable of doing the job of wicketkeeper and being one of the best batsmen in the side.Corrie van Zyl, the South Africa coach, always knew that de Villiers would have no problem with the dual role. “I don’t think there has been any doubt in our mind or in AB’s mind that he can do it. Other people have had doubts,” he said. “We understand that it’s not easy but it is something that AB is willing to do.”The decision to use de Villiers in the role that previously belonged to Mark Boucher has faced a barrage of criticism with some saying that it robbed of the team of its best fielder at point, while others that it will affect his prowess with the bat if he has to hold the gloves as well. He has proved, for the fifth time since taking over as one-day wicketkeeper that that is simply not true.In 27 of his 115 ODIs, he has been the wicketkeeper and has an average one-and-a-half times better than his average when he doesn’t have the responsibility of carrying the gloves. He has scored 10 centuries in his one-day career, five of them in the 27 matches in which he has been the wicketkeeper. Three of them have been against Zimbabwe and two against West Indies, the context of which may make that statistic look a little less impressive, but he also has an unbeaten 82 and a score of 60 against Australia in the role of wicketkeeper batsman. It may still take a big innings against tougher opposition before the detractors will be willing to admit defeat, and at the rate de Villiers is going, that knock isn’t far off.

The Kingsmead pitch was as green as advertised and Dale Steyn took full advantage with some high-class swing bowling

Firdose Moonda26-Dec-2010When the covers came off the Kingsmead pitch early this morning, bowlers the world over would have felt like many men do on their wedding day: the world’s most beautiful bride had been unveiled. It was as green as it was talked up to be, almost living up to that legend about the only difference between the Durban pitch and outfield being the painted lines. With gloomy overhead conditions that appeared to have made themselves comfortable for at least a day, it was a bowler’s paradise. We’d seen this movie before. Ten days ago. In Centurion.The psychological mind- games reached their climax when Allan Donald said the pitch looked “exactly the same” as the one on which India were shot out for 66 and 100 in 1996. “Exactly” is probably an exaggeration, but it was a surface that the South Africa bowlers would have relished bowling on and the India batsmen would have felt jittery batting on, especially with memories of Morne Morkel’s SuperSport Park destruction fresh in their minds. It wasn’t Morkel who would be a worry this time, though.Durban is known for swing and Dale Steyn’s arrived like the 1960s. He showed his ability to move the ball away from the first over and exploited the conditions to his advantage. “We had big bounce and a little bit of movement off the seam,” Steyn said at the end-of-day press conference.At the other end, Morne Morkel, with height on his side, was trying to produce something similar to what he did in Centurion, but had no success this time around. While the short ball comes quite naturally to him and has earned him much success, he wasted it today. He used it too often and didn’t execute his follow-ups with the same strategic smartness as he did in Centurion. When Sehwag hit him for four off a fuller ball, Morkel returned to the short ball in defence. His line was questionable, on off stump, or just outside and his first spell was aborted after three overs. Things didn’t improve when he returned, and he bowled an over in which M Vijay did not have to play at a single ball.The bowling at the Old Fort Road end remained gentle and while Morkel and Lonwabo Tsotsobe were posing little threat, Steyn was following the gospel Graeme Smith had preached earlier in the week. Smith emphasised the importance of bowling well, even if conditions are favourable. He went as far as to say that the pressure is greater on the bowlers to perform well when the pitch offers them something.”Everybody is expecting wickets and we knew something would happen,” Steyn said. He usually bowls an opening spell of five or six overs, but he knew patience would pay off and insisted on bowling an extended spell. “I always knew there was a wicket just around the corner. I kept saying to Graeme saying one more, one more.” It was during one of the “one more” overs, that he dismissed Virender Sehwag, with slight away movement. Steyn kept begging. His next over went wicket-less, but then another “one more” and Vijay, who had left so well, poked at one. The wickets came at crucial times, just when South Africa may have started to worry about wasting the new ball.Tsotsobe got Sachin Tendulkar to poke at a wide one in the first over after lunch, but Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman came together to steady India and it was up to Steyn to intervene again. Dravid received a beautiful ball, bouncing steeply and moving away a touch, although it was the bounce more than the movement that got Dravid out. Steyn’s movement was the highlight of his bounce and he admitted that it was the right tool to bring out on this occasion. “I’m very lucky that I can get the ball to do that. I don’t try and do it all the time. You have to be able to do it on certain days. If it doesn’t work you going to get clipped through midwicket and sent to the leg-side boundary. You don’t want to be a hero every ball.”Steyn was certainly was not the hero for his fourth wicket, Tsotsobe was. An outrageous dive to his right at midwicket saw him snatch Laxman’s pull out of the air. ‘It was unbelievable,” Steyn said. “I only got three wickets today and he got a great catch. He can fall asleep sometimes in the field but that was unbelievable. I am actually pretty jealous of that catch.”Tsotsobe came into this match under pressure to keep his place, although with Wayne Parnell having contracted chicken pox, it now seems as though Tsotsobe would have played no matter what. He was fairly mediocre up front, barely hovering around the 130kph mark and showing a desperate need for some more pace. Although he was pinpointed as the weak link, Steyn denied this. “I thought he bowled nicely at SuperSport Park.”Tsotsobe captured the scalp of Tendulkar and also picked up the wicket of Cheteshwar Pujara late in the day, which went a long way towards backing up his selection. “He got another opportunity today and he’s proved that he can bowl,” Steyn said. “He is definitely somebody who is going to be around this team for a long time.”Steyn said that Tsotsobe should be open to learning from everyone, as he became about 18 months ago. “Before, I thought I could do things on my own and let my own skills take over. But it’s a team sport, and if you can take in as much information as you can and listen to the guys around you that have been around for 150 matches, that can make a difference in your career.”India still have four wickets in hand and Steyn has stressed the importance of focusing on knocking them over. “We will treat their bowlers like we treat their top-order batters. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves.”

ESPNcricinfo presents the Plays of the Day from the IPL match between Chennai Super Kings and Royal Challengers Bangalore in Chennai

Nitin Sundar16-Apr-2011The knuckle ball that never cameThe last time Michael Hussey faced Zaheer Khan was in the World Cup quarterfinal. Back then, Zaheer had foxed Hussey with his newest invention, the ‘knuckle ball’ that is pushed through at a slower pace and with a barely discernible change in action. That dismissal would have been in the back of Hussey’s mind as he took guard against Zaheer. He was watchful in the first over, cautiously steering the first ball to third man, before defending from the crease as Zaheer angled a couple in, and landed two balls just outside off stump. With the knuckle ball not making an early appearance, Hussey charged Zaheer for a four off the first ball of his next over, and did not look back from there.Butter fingers galore for BangaloreThey say Twenty20 cricket lifts fielding standards, but things went the other way today. It all began in the third over, when a lazy throw from Cheteshwar Pujara sailed well over AB de Villiers’ head and resulted in an overthrow. From there, it just kept going downhill: Mohammad Kaif, one of the best fielders India has produced, ran back from mid-off and got into a good position to take a mis-hit, but grassed it. Countless misfields ensued and Chennai were bounding towards a tall score when Asad Pathan missed a swirler at third man. The fielding misses left Virat Kohli swearing in disgust, but he did not complain after the next drop: Kohli flicked his first ball uppishly straight to square leg during the chase, where another sitter went down. The culprit – Michael Hussey, who was the beneficiary in both instances of Bangalorean butter fingers.Six and out – IRyan Ninan belongs to a breed rarely seen in Twenty20 cricket: the offspinner who relies on flight. M Vijay skated out of the crease to his second ball and dumped him over long-off. Ninan’s reply was to give the ball even more air. Vijay jumped out again, but this time failed to reach the pitch and holed out. Later, Ninan nearly repeated the dose to Suresh Raina. After being pummelled for 16 off the first four balls of his third over, Ninan tossed another one up, and fooled Raina in the flight to have him slicing into the deep. This time, though, the dismissal did not come immediately after the six.Six and out – IIMS Dhoni was winding up for the big finish when Zaheer Khan returned for his final spell in the 17th over. Dhoni carted the first ball over point, before brutalising the second with a furious bottom-handed thump that sent the ball towards the sight screen. Zaheer shifted to round the wicket, and sent down a slow offcutter. Dhoni waited for it, looked to play a cut and got a barely evident feather to the wicketkeeper. He did not look behind, he did not look disappointed, he just showed his bat to the umpire and swaggered his way back to the dug-out.The dead-ball that had some life in itIn the eighth over of Bangalore’s chase, AB de Villiers decided to pull out of facing a ball from Shadab Jakati due to some disturbance near the sightscreen. Jakati was already in his delivery stride, though, and went on to deliver a loopy ball just outside off. Even as he was pulling out of his stance, de Villiers calmly batted the ball away with just one hand on the handle. It was still ruled a dead ball, everyone smiled, and Jakati had to bowl it again.The UDRS U-turnIn the next over, R Ashwin sent down his carom ball, full on leg stump and got it to straighten and hit de Villiers’ pad as he missed the flick. Dhoni and Ashwin went up in spontaneous appeal for the lbw, but umpire Kumar Dharmasena was unmoved. Dhoni, half in jest, made the signal for an umpiring review. Yes, you read right – the same Dhoni who has been almost bull-headed in his opposition of the UDRS for three years now.The dance and the whistleM Vijay hared in from long-on to take a running catch when Cheteshwar Pujara miscued a lofted drive in the 17th over. It was one of the key moments of the game, and Vijay was thrilled to bits. He continued running in, spread his arms wide and then broke into a dance routine as he high-fived with his team-mates. The music came later, after Chennai sealed the win, when Kris Srikkanth stuck two fingers into his mouth and delivered his own rendition of the popular Chennai Super Kings song, .

The semi-final scenarios for group B

S Rajesh04-Oct-2011Royal Challengers Bangalore big win over Somerset has given them a shot at the semi-finals•Associated PressRoyal Challengers Bangalore’s emphatic victory on Monday means that Kolkata Knight Riders are now depending on the weather gods to make further progress in the Champions League Twenty20. Royal Challenger’s 51-run victory – the biggest margin of the tournament so far – has boosted their net run rate to +0.438, well clear of Knight Riders’ +0.306. This means that whatever Royal Challengers’ margin of victory against South Australia on Wednesday (assuming they win), it’ll still ensure that their NRR remains above that of the Knight Riders. On the other hand, if South Australia win, they’ll jump up to five points, which is more than Knight Riders’ four.If that game is washed out, though, South Australia will move to four points, but their NRR is much poorer than the Knight Riders’, while Royal Challengers will remain on three. That will be the best chance for the Knight Riders to sneak through.At least one of the two other teams playing on Wednesday – Somerset and Warriors – will go past Knight Riders on the points table regardless of the result. A win for either team will push that side ahead, while a washout will take Warriors to five points. There’s also the possibility of both teams being ahead of the Knight Riders, if Somerset win by a small margin (for instance, if they score 140 and win by fewer than eight runs).For the other teams, the equation is now fairly clear:Warriors need a win to be certain of a semi-final slot. If they lose, they’ll have to hope that their margin of defeat is tiny, so that their NRR doesn’t fall too much below its current +0.592. In such a case, if Bangalore win by a very small margin, their NRR will stay below that of Warriors, and Somerset and Warriors will make the semi-finals.If their game against Somerset is washed out, then Warriors will be certain of making it to the last four regardless of the result in the other match.South Australia’s problem is their dismal NRR of -0.775. Nothing less than a win will do for them. If they win, though, they’ll be assured of a semi-final slot regardless of the margin of victory or the result in the other match.Somerset’s position is exactly the same. Their heavy defeat against Royal Challengers has brought down their NRR to -1.133. A win will take them through, a defeat or a washout will end their tournament.Royal Challengers Bangalore have an excellent chance of qualifying if they win, for their NRR will stay above that of the Knight Riders. Warriors have a better NRR, though, and if they lose to Somerset by a small margin, it’s possible that they’ll stay second in the table if Royal Challengers have a very tight victory.The margin of the result on Monday has brought Royal Challengers right back in the mix. All they need now is for a similar performance on Wednesday, and for the Bangalore weather to stay clear.

Graeme Swann’s autobiography has plenty of jolly japes but not too much else besides

Sahil Dutta15-Jan-2012Graeme Swann has all he needs to rip a good yarn: he’s quick-witted, irreverent, and possesses a career story that continues to astonish. With both him and the England team entering a legacy-defining phase, there may well be more to say when he retires. It’s a pity he didn’t hold back his autobiography, The Breaks Are Off, until then.The fact he didn’t says plenty about his motivations for writing the book. On more than one occasion Swann berates cricket boards for masking money-making intentions behind grandiose claims – like when England returned to India after the Mumbai atrocity in 2008. Fair point though this is, it is difficult to see Swann’s book as anything other than a cash-in itself.Nonetheless, in an age where players regurgitate off-the-peg quotes to feed 24-hour news, Swann is a relief. He is honest and amusing, styling himself as a proper “lad”, who is quick to take the piss, see the funny side and play the rogue. Anyone who has followed England over the last few years will know that already. The book’s biggest flaw is that he tells you no more.Reading it feels like being pinned at the bar while Swann regales you with tale after tale of drunken japes: “Remember that time we got hammered at the Under-19 World Cup and rugby-tackled Allan Border? Remember that time we got obliterated in Lincolnshire and got punched in the face? Remember that time Gough lamped me in South Africa?”Swann emerges as a likeable, if sometimes annoying, bloke. Being jettisoned by England for seven years clearly hurt him, but at no point does he betray any bitterness. Still, if the cliché about cricket revealing inner character holds true, there must be more to Swann.By the time he made his Test debut, traditional offspin felt drab, but – in what was meant to be the age of mystery spin – Swann made the orthodox cool again. No longer do you see a young finger-spinner like George Dockrell and wish he was something else. Bowling spin needs personality, and the way Swann plays suggests he has it by the shed-load. Peter Moores, the coach who brought him back into the England fold, has talked about Swann creating a “theatre of pressure” out in the middle, and how it is through Swann’s strength of character that he is able to assert himself on the game.It would be interesting to know where Swann got such confidence, or how he thinks about the game. A glimpse is offered when he recalls spotting a glitch while watching Marcus North compile a century in Cardiff in 2009. “Because he had a big, high backlift I suspected he would be susceptible to the ball that went straight on from around the wicket.” Sure enough, in the next Test at Lord’s, Swann was “proved right by a delivery that chipped the pad and cleaned him up”. It’s one of the few insights into the mechanics of his art Swann gives. He says he “always found bowling very instinctive” and doesn’t decide what he’s going to bowl “until he’s at the crease”. Maybe he thought delving into the mechanics would be a touch too serious for his public persona, but expanding on his thoughts about the game would have helped his book greatly.What does emerge is the back-story to Swann’s gnarled competitiveness. His father, Ray, was a stern secondary-school teacher, high-quality club player and filthy sledger, who demanded high standards from Graeme and his brother (former first-class cricketer) Alec. Despite their successes, he was disappointed more often than not. Swann’s mother, Mavis, was also strong-willed, banning both sons from playing Northamptonshire age-group cricket after Alec was unfairly accused of abusing an umpire. It meant Graeme played adult club cricket between the ages of 12 and 16, which he sees as integral to his development.Though there is no intense introspection, Swann is clear about the problems he has had with management. From youth cricket through to the recent pre-Ashes “bonding camp”, which he described as “degrading”, he has never much cared for authority or guidance. Until Andy Flower, the only coaches he respected were the ones who allowed him to act how he pleased.Given the frenzy whipped up about the book’s criticism of Kevin Pietersen, the actual passages in print are quite mild. Pietersen was “not a natural leader” and England “have the right man” in Andrew Strauss. If anything, it’s the rest of the book that suggests Swann’s simmering dislike for Pietersen – hardly surprising, considering both men have had issues with authority, crave attention and can claim to be the top dog in the team.Following the popularity of Swann’s Ashes video diaries and his widely followed tweeting, an autobiography was probably the obvious progression. After all, it’s what celebrities do. While Swann’s is probably more entertaining than most, it is not much more enlightening.The Breaks Are Off: My Autobiography
Graeme Swann
Hodder & Stoughton