Better than his dad: For a long time Ryan Sidebottom was level with his dad on one Test cap, now he is England's leading bowler © Getty Images

Angus Fraser in the Independent looks at the different face of cricket from the time Arnie Sidebottom was playing to his son Ryan’s era.

The careers of Arnie and Ryan top and tailed my own but it is the cold, overcast days at Headingley in the late Eighties on pitches where the ball nipped around, when Middlesex used to regularly get the better of a grunting, disharmonious Yorkshire, which bring back the fondest memories. A day of hard cricket was followed by a short drive to the Three Horseshoes pub in Headingley, where Bairstow, Sidebottom and Mike Gatting would trade banter next to the bar over a couple of pints of Tetley. Gatting would then lead his Middlesex team next door to Bryan's, a wonderful fish and chip restaurant, where baby haddock, chips and mushy peas were consumed by everyone, washed down by a pot of tea.

By the time Ryan came on the scene in the late Nineties attitudes had changed dramatically. Fraternising with the opposition was no longer encouraged and very few evenings were spent in the pub. Pasta, rehydration drinks and ice baths were in vogue. Undoubtedly cricketers are now better prepared when they turn up for a day's play but it seems a far duller existence.

Over in The Guardian, Mike Selvey says it's too early to write off Michael Vaughan but he needs to build some big innings, not just pretty 30s and 40s.

And thus does the spotlight fall on the England captain, who promised anew with an incredibly determined century last May, on his return to the Test side after yet another operation on his dicky knee, but who has gradually allowed the curve to dip. He averaged 62 against West Indies a year ago, 49 against India with another hundred at Trent Bridge, but then 35 in Sri Lanka and 20 in New Zealand. As declines go it looks pretty convincing.

Yet with the first Test due to start at Lord's today, weather permitting, these are early days to be writing him off, as some have done. He is still 33, young by the standards of today's career cricketers, looks slenderly fit, although in his very best years he appeared to weigh significantly more, and - you could put the inheritance on it - is hitting the ball sublimely in the nets.

The downfall of Marlon Samuels

Posted 1 day, 11 hours ago in West Indies cricket

	Marlon Samuels will not be seen in West Indies colours for at least two years © AFP

The Jamaica Gleaner has carried an editorial about the disgraced Marlon Samuels, who has been banned for two years for giving team news to an Indian bookmaker.

For all his talent, Marlon Samuels remains a boy-man; someone who remains arrogantly juvenile, seemingly incapable of either understanding or coming to terms with his own talent. In that regard, he may mirror an image of a generation of politically and culturally estranged West Indians, about whom social scientists ponder so much. For this group, talent is a personal asset, a mere gift possessed by minstrels.

Jamaicans, unwittingly, perhaps, abetted in arresting Samuels' development. We not only forgave his many alleged disciplinary indiscretions, but usually cast any accuser in the role of villain.

Leave team-building to the captain

Posted 1 day, 12 hours ago in Indian Premier League

	Vijay Mallya has cracked the whip after the Bangalore's poor performances © Bangalore Royal Challengers

Dileep Premachandran, writing in the Guardian, criticises Vijay Mallya, the owner of the Bangalore Royal Challengers, for using the IPL as a vehicle for his self-promotion, as well as for his comments about team captain Rahul Dravid.

Before everything went up in smoke, perhaps appropriate given their TV commercial, the owner of the Indian Premier League's Royal Challengers lapped up the attention. No matter what the function or the photo-shoot, Vijay Mallya's portly frame would be there, providing stark contrast to the athletic physiques that surrounded him. He even drafted in cheerleaders from the Washington Redskins, missing no opportunity to be photographed with them.

In response to Mallya's statement: "Unfortunately in cricket, unlike in any other sport, the captain is the boss," Premachandran says…

Unfortunately? Is Mallya suggesting that he was better equipped than Dravid to select a side? Things may not have gone Bangalore's way for a variety of reasons, but Dravid has forgotten more about cricket than Mallya and his number-crunchers, some of whom have allegedly been sitting in on team meetings, will ever know.

When I spoke to Dravid in Mohali on Monday, hours before another humiliating defeat against the King's XI from Punjab, he was still in shock at the owner's outburst. Weeks of being ridiculed over the "Test" team that he was leading had clearly taken their toll, but he would not be drawn into a riposte.

May 14, 2008

Why Noffke should face West Indies

Posted 1 day, 19 hours ago in Australian cricket

	Could Ashley Noffke play his first Test next week? © Getty Images

Robert Craddock, writing in the Courier-Mail, argues the case for Queensland’s Ashley Noffke to make his Test debut against West Indies next week. It is almost certain a reshuffle will have to occur to replace Michael Clarke, who stayed home due to a family death, and Simon Katich is also a contender for the spot.

Given the emotional strain Clarke has been under and the marathon two-day trip from Australia and his recent lack of cricket, the Test selectors may be reluctant to play him. If he is unable to play then Noffke, because of his valuable batting ability in a side which would feature a five-man tail, would be the logical inclusion.

New South Wales have found Josh Hazlewood, a 17-year-old bowler, who reminds officials of the young Glenn McGrath, the Daily Telegraph reports.

"If you look at Josh's height, action and his background, it's hard not to draw comparisons with McGrath," Dave Gilbert, New South Wales’ chief executive, said. "You never like to saddle a young bloke with enormous expectations, but I think you'll see some really big things from this kid in the next few years."

In the Herald Sun Jon Pierik writes Simon Taufel, the world’s No. 1 umpire, has not yet signed a new contract with the ICC.

England's trouser troubles

Posted 2 days, 10 hours ago in English cricket

	England's new Test strip has caused some concern for its players © Getty Images

The Independent's Nick Harris writes about the stand-off between the England board and their kit suppliers, Adidas, over advertisements on the players' trousers. The situation has arisen since the players have previously worn trousers from different manufacturers, which allowed for the particular company’s logo to be placed on each players' left thigh. The board's "all-inclusive" contract, which allows Adidas to place to small logo on the same spot, was reportedly signed without the players' consultation.

The colour of England's new kit further complicates the issue. Historically, cricket whites have always been off-white – a cream colour – but the clothing Vaughan's side will wear for the first time at Lord's is brilliant white. The trousers have red piping down each leg, too.

In an attempt to avoid the embarrassment of players wearing trousers that are different in colour to the shirt and sweaters they don, kit manufacturers such as Gray Nichols have sent Alastair Cook, Andrew Strauss and James Anderson identical whites to those issued by the ECB with their company logo replacing that of adidas. If the kit they are sent does not look right, they may yet wear their official trousers, but with tape covering the sponsor's logo.

Ramprakash's quest for a hundred hundreds

Posted 2 days, 11 hours ago in English cricket

	Mark Ramprakash is all set to become the 25th batsman in first-class cricket to score a hundred hundreds © AFP

The Guardian's Paul Weaver meets Mark Ramprakash, the Surrey batsman who is all set for his 100th hundred in first-class cricket, while still hoping to earn an England recall at the age of 38.

It is still his first century that Mark Ramprakash remembers most vividly. And he thought of it again yesterday morning as he packed his bags for the Rose Bowl where today he may become the 25th and probably the final cricketer to score 100 first-class centuries.

"It was for Middlesex against Yorkshire in 1989. Batting at Headingley can be challenging at the best of times and I was up against [Paul] Jarvis, Sidebottom - not Ryan, but his dad Arnie - and [Phil] Carrick. The ball was moving about, I got 128 and we won the game."

As Surrey go into their match against Hampshire today the England batsmen - all substantially inferior players, from a technical perspective - will be finalising their preparations for a Test at Lord's, cricket's grandest stage. It is a poignant backdrop to Ramprakash's potential piece of history-making.

Money talks in the IPL

Posted 2 days, 12 hours ago in Indian Premier League

Shantanu Guha Ray, writing in Tehelka, analyses the perform-or-perish mantra that has been on display in the IPL.

The leaguing of cricket has ushered in corporatisation, fabulous salaries and high voltage drama on the playing fields, but it’s come at a price — punishment for non-performance is swift. Worse, the execution is very, very, public. Midway through the IPL season, the first CEO axing has been effected: liquor baron Vijay Mallya pulled the plug on his Royal Challenger team boss, Charu Sharma, who resigned last week, citing ‘personal reasons’.

With the Challengers bottoming out the points table, with two wins in seven matches, you didn’t need rocket science to know what those personal reasons were. Coach Venkatesh Prasad (also India’s bowling coach) could also face the axe. Hours before the firing, Sharma called his counterpart in Kolkata, Joy Bhattacharya, and asked whether he was facing tension from Shah Rukh Khan or Jay Mehta. The Knight Riders, with two wins in six matches, are ahead of Bangalore, but not by much.

Makarand Waingankar, in the Mumbai Mirror, says the bottom-placed teams are suffering as they are constituted more of ”sifaarshi (recommended) players than of performers.”

The Indian Express’ Sandeep Dwevedi reveals how old friends L Balaji and Ashish Nehra, who last played together on the tour to Pakistan in 2004, have enjoyed each others’ success in the IPL.

May 13, 2008

Ray of hope from Samuels’ guilty verdict

Posted 2 days, 18 hours ago in West Indies cricket

	Guilty: Marlon Samuels © Getty Images

Jon Pierik writes in the Herald Sun that while the Marlon Samuels scandal is a blight on cricket, the guilty verdict is more a win than a loss.

It proves the ICC's anti-corruption unit is doing its job, despite there being few high-profile victims in recent years.

Ask any anti-corruption officer at an international match if there are investigations in progress, and most will suggest there are.

Pierik writes that while Samuels has been a failure with the bat, his greatest success may be now. “He has served as a warning to all cricketers to remain true to themselves, and their sport.”

A girl in demand

Posted 2 days, 18 hours ago in Australian cricket

Ellyse Perry, the dual international, is a teenager with cricket and soccer vying for her long-term attention. The Sydney Morning Herald reports the battle between the sports is intensifying after she was named in the football squad for the Women's Asian Cup in Vietnam.

The call-up comes amid speculation Perry, 17, will be used as the promotional face for the Women's Cricket World Cup, to be held in Australia next March. However, the Matildas coach Tom Sermanni says Football Federation Australia won't be pressuring Perry to choose between the two games.

West Indies selectors wasting time and money

Posted 3 days ago in West Indies cricket

Writing in the Jamaica Gleaner, Tony Becca is baffled by the West Indies selectors.

I still believed, up to a few days ago, that a selector should travel with the West Indies team, that the regional selectors should travel around the islands to see the players in action, and that although he played for the West Indies while living in England, Lloyd, in spite of his greatness and his knowledge of the game, should not be a selector as long as he lives outside the region.

The reason why I have changed my opinion is that, based on the selection of the squad for the coming series against Australia, it seems, it is a waste of money flying the selectors around, paying their hotel bills, and offering them out of pocket expenses and whatever else they may get from a board that is short of money.

Apart from the waste of time and money to transport and to accommodate those who do not have the chance of a snow ball in hell to make the team, in selecting 17 players plus 'sure picks' Chris Gayle, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Dwayne Bravo, the selectors have baffled the fans.

Angry call for Ramprakash for England

Posted 3 days, 6 hours ago in English cricket

Frank Keating is almost apoplectic at the England selectors’ continued refusal to include Mark Ramprakash in a Test squad. Ramprakash is one century away from a hundred first-class tons, and Keating would relish it if he could bring up the landmark (becoming only the 25th player to have done so) in Surrey’s match this week while, in Keating's ideal scenario, England’s batsmen collapse in the first Test at Lord’s. Writing furiously in the Guardian, not even Keating's fellow journalists are safe from his anger:

It was (and continues to be) infuriating, almost shaming, how for the past half-dozen years successive Lord's mandarins (the dreaded po-faced politburo of Graveney-Fletcher-Hussain-Vaughan-Moores) have with such wantonly brazen impenitence refused, it seems, to so much as even glance at the batting averages. Those in the media who closely follow the game have, to my mind, been just as grievously culpable at kowtowing to, and finding simpering excuses for, the official party line. The exasperated, knowing public laugh at them as well.

Over in the Telegraph, Steve James is also irate. He has taken issue with the proliferation of Kolpak players, a subject he has touched upon regularly but his ire is deepening by the day. It was "too much” for him to see so many non-English-qualified players in a county match on the weekend:

Most fair-minded observers agree there are too many counties. And these Kolpak-kitted counties are merely emphasising the point that not enough English-qualified cricketers can be produced to fill eighteen counties. So the number will have to be reduced.

Back to the first Test for a second, and NZPA have analysed how the English press have considered New Zealand’s arrival.

Let's stop embarrassing the umpires

Posted 3 days, 8 hours ago in ICC

In the Age, Greg Baum gives his view on the ICC's move towards player referrals to the third umpire.

It is perverse that within seconds of an umpire's decision, the only interested parties who do not know whether it was right or wrong are those most affected by it. It was this dynamic that embarrassed the umpires in the Sydney Test earlier this year and contributed to the escalating nastiness.

This technology will not be resisted, and nor should it. In this, other sports also are instructive. Tennis teaches that players used their limited referrals wisely. Experience teaches that the pause in play, as long as it is not protracted, adds an agreeable tension. But the cricket committee was wise to exclude from consideration the more speculative aspects of technology, such as what would have happened to the ball after it had hit a batsman's pad.

May 12, 2008

Do or die for Afghanistan

Posted 4 days, 3 hours ago in Miscellaneous

The Australian’s Tim Albone looks at cricket in Afghanistan and finds their coach, Taj Majik Alam, desperate for his side to qualify for the 2011 World Cup and with bigger things to worry about than rain delays:

Alam has been threatened by a suicide bomber for not picking a particular player, one of the star bowlers has been shot in the chest and his training facilities amount to four nets.

The piece also contains a link to Albone’s video documentary of the team’s bid to make it to their first World Cup.

Rookies make up for lost time

Posted 4 days, 4 hours ago in Australian cricket

This Tuesday marks the 140th anniversary of the first team to play under a national Australian banner. The 1868 side completed a six-month long tour of England, a trip which Jamie Pandaram looks at in the Sydney Morning Herald, while also considering the new generation of emerging talent:

The players have not been recognised as being among Australia's 399 Test cricketers - no full-blooded Aborigine is on the list - but they would have been proud to know that nearly one-and-a-half centuries later, the new generation of indigenous cricketing talent is as proficient with books as bats.

NSW's top male and female Aboriginal prospects, Josh Lalor and Samantha Hinton, plan not only to excel on the cricket field but in the fields of business and medicine. Lalor has just started a Business/Commerce degree and Hinton will begin a nursing course this year.

May 11, 2008

'You'll never be good enough at cricket'

Posted 5 days, 3 hours ago in English cricket

When Ryan Sidebottom was 14 he was told to go and find something else to concentrate on as he'd never make it in cricket. This week he will lead England's bowling at Lord's after a memorable year where he has burst back onto the international scene and quickly established himself as his country's key weapon. As he tells the Mail on Sunday he is determined to make the most of his time at the top level.

Ryan's mother Gillian thought something was up as he was unusually quiet in the car on the way home. When she stopped to drop off one of the other Huddersfield-based boys, she found out why — between the sobs and gulps and tears.

'I cried my eyes out,' admitted Sidebottom. 'I was just a schoolboy like any other, wanting to do well for my mum and dad and my grandad, who had been driving me all over the place to play. It was hard enough to be told I had no chance of making it. But to do it in front of all the other lads, that was unnecessary.'

Are we naming the coach in question? 'No. He knows who he is,' is all Sidebottom will say.

An eye on the Ashes

Posted 5 days, 6 hours ago in English cricket

	Michael Vaughan knows he needs runs but is focussed on leading England through to the next Ashes series © Getty Images

England are preparing to embark on 14 months of cricket that will lead into next summer's Ashes series. Even though that includes the forthcoming series against New Zealand, a tough series against South Africa then winter assignments in India and West Indies it is difficult not to let the mind drift towards next July.

Michael Vaughan begins this summer under pressure, his form with the bat has not impressed in recent times and early-season hasn't been easy. But as he tells Stephen Brenkley in The Independent on Sunday he has no intention of moving aside yet and is enjoying a period of his career where he is pain-free.

By the time the 2009 Ashes are done, he might conceivably have led England in 65 Test matches. The whole topic is complicated by his long lay-off with a knee injury that still requires careful management. He missed 16 consecutive matches, but the selectors still insisted he was captain. It was an odd period of limbo which led to a 5-0 Ashes reversal and paradoxically reinforced Vaughan's position. Around the team now he exudes easy authority, but you wonder if this might stray into the divine right of kings territory.

There is no question that Vaughan wants to hang on and that he believes he is doing so for the right reasons. "Part of this job is dealing with a lot of the external stuff, and a lot of that is people writing and saying stuff about the captain," he said correctly. "They're possibly not looking at it in the best interests of the England team. There will be a time when there is a right time but I honestly feel this isn't it.

Meanwhile, in his column in the same newspaper, Ian Bell says England can't afford to take the New Zealand team lightly and that it's time he kicked on to the next stage of his career.

I came away with a great deal of respect for them from that tour. They have a lot of players who would get into a lot of teams. They probably aren't as good as many other Test sides, but they have a lot of fighters in there who won't budge easily, and you have to work hard to beat them. So it's important that we start the summer off on a high and take that momentum into the rest of the summer and the Test series beyond that.

Taylor-made for success

Posted 5 days, 6 hours ago in New Zealand cricket

New Zealand aren't blessed with an array of world-class cricketers and begin the series against England as distinct second favourites. However, in Ross Taylor they have a batsman capable of forging an successful career and the top level. He already has a Test century against England, 120 in Hamilton, and produced some powerful hitting in the Indian Premier League.

In The Sunday Telegraph, Scyld Berry profiles Taylor and why he goes against the mould of many New Zealanders.

Blessed with a role model in Taylor, New Zealand can now spread cricket far more quickly among the one-third of their population which is not of European ancestry. To date, out of the handful of non-white Test cricketers they have had, only the wicketkeeper on their last tour of England, Adam Parore, can be said to have had a fair go.

The silent assasin's warning

Posted 5 days, 10 hours ago in New Zealand cricket

Sir Richard Hadlee, New Zealand's greatest player, tells the Observer's's Will Buckley that Test cricket should never be compromised by the shorter versions. He also talks about New Zealand's forthcoming series against England.

'The players we have are more suited to one-day cricket. We have made five World Cup semi-finals and the Twenty20 semi-finals. Tactically we are pretty good in the one-day game. We believe we can go and win. But in Test cricket we are inconsistent. You have to bat time, not overs, in Test cricket, whereas in the one-day game you bat overs, not time. We might score well in the first innings, but then be bowled out for a paltry score in the second innings. We may surprise, but England are hot favourites.

Mark Richardson, writing in the Herald on Sunday, is also not very optimistic about New Zealand’s prospects against England and thinks their best chance of winning a Test is at Lord’s.

John Bracewell has repeatedly called the current tour the second part of a six-match series and right now I can't see anything other than 5-1.
…

One thing the team can draw strength from is that England doesn't have a particularly dominant record at the venue for the first test, Lord's. That can be put down to the motivating effect the occasion has on touring teams.

It's all in the IPL family

Posted 5 days, 13 hours ago in Indian Premier League

Four of eight teams in the ongoing Twenty20 are owned or managed by individuals with links to either BCCI or IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi, writes Shriniwas Rao in the Indian Express.

One of the owners of Kings XI Punjab is Mohit Burman of the Dabur family. His brother Gaurav, who is based in UK, is Modi’s step son-in-law. When contacted, Mohit Burman said: “It’s not just me alone, there are three other investors and naturally they won’t be putting their money because I am related. The IPL is a good business opportunity and the relationship with Modi is a mere coincidence.”

The Hindustan Times' Pradeep Magazine feels a corporate culture will leave cricket shaken.

Meanwhile the Hindu's KP Mohan asks if there is any relevance to dope testing in IPL?

In rushing through with an anti-doping code, the IPL has exposed younger domestic players to some risk.

Also read Anand Vasu's piece in the Hindustan Times where he mentions the punishment precedents that the board can lean on in the Harbhajan - Sreesanth row.

Beauty in the beast

Posted 5 days, 14 hours ago in Indian Cricket

With his IPL success, Rohit Sharma has jumped the queue to take the tag of Indian cricket’s ‘next big thing’. Sandeep Dwivedi, writing in the Indian Express, profiles a youngster who has retained his grace in this slam-bang format.

Also read Rohit's interview to the same paper, where he says: ‘People don’t remember you for the number of innings but for the number of years you played’.

May 10, 2008

English cricket's 'Special One'

Posted 6 days, 11 hours ago in English cricket

From the moment he arrived at Middlesex as a precocious 17-year-old in 1987 and won the man-of-the-match award in the 1988 NatWest Trophy final, he has always been English cricket's 'Special One' writes the Daily Telegraph's Simon Hughes of his former county team-mate Mark Ramprakash.

Viv Richards came up to me in 1994 and said: 'You seem to have just about everything, but there's something missing. I feel you don't quite believe you're good enough to play at this level.'

Just enjoy the game

Posted 6 days, 13 hours ago in Indian Premier League

	Kapil Dev: worries for the future of cricket © Getty Images

It's too early to predict the future of cricket but it is quite likely that competitive Test cricket will draw an audience comprising both the hoi polloi and purists, writes Ronojoy Sen in the Times of India.

Shah Rukh Khan, India's most successful actor and the owner of the Kolkata franchise, speaks to the Calcutta Telegraph on how he has won the confidence of the side.

The Guardian's Barney Ronay is confused about whether he should join the IPL or not.

Imagine my excitement, then, when I received a call at home from Shahrukh Khan this week. At first I was suspicious. How could I be sure this was indeed Shahrukh Khan, the brightest star in the Bollywood Milky Way and the driving force behind the IPL's blend of excitable showbiz and showbiz excitability.

In the Hindu, Kapil Dev laments the frills associated with the Indian Premier League.

“In times to come you would see teams struggling to survive even 50 overs to save a match because of the mindset of the modern batsmen. I don’t think you will ever get a player like Sunil Gavaskar or Rahul Dravid now."

Herschelle Gibbs speaks to the Cape Times about the standard of the IPL, playing with his new Aussie team-mates and those black boots.

May 9, 2008

Watch out for Beau leggies

Posted 1 week ago in Australian cricket

In the Age, Chloe Saltau meets Beau Casson, Australia’s second spinner on their Test tour of the West Indies.

Casson started bowling leggies for a simple reason — Warne — and with three brothers and three sisters was never short of someone to try out his new tricks on. "I tried everything, bowled a few offies, but I just found leg-spin a bit more exciting. We could almost play a Test match out the back of our house. I loved it," he said.

Casson's talent was obvious from the moment he shone for WA in a tour game against England in 2001, and NSW officials wanted him from after he captured the wickets of the Waugh twins and Michael Slater. They later found he had the work ethic to complement his talent and the discipline to manage a congenital heart problem, which he says does not affect his cricket.

Understanding the IPL’s financial levers

Posted 1 week ago in Indian Premier League

	Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the most valuable player at $1.5 million can, technically, be bought by another franchise © AFP

Raghuvir Srinivasan, writing in the Hindu's Business Line website, says that the IPL’s financial structuring remains a mystery to the larger public who heard and read about the astronomical sums that a Dhoni or a Symonds was bought for. Srinivasan draws up two simple tables and analyses the way the IPL has been structured, sizing up the main revenue streams for the franchisees - the sale of broadcast rights, sponsorship, gate receipts in matches at their home grounds and team sponsorship - with two big ticket expenses - player costs and the franchise fee payable to IPL - before asking the question: will the franchises break even in the first year itself? Read on to learn more.

The real action will begin from the next edition in 2009. That is when the franchisees will get a grip on the concept and build on the experience of the first year.

Besides, trading of players could start in right earnest, especially if the BCCI decides to remove the cap of $5 million that is now placed on player purchase. The final proof of the success of IPL will come when the franchisees decide to list their teams. This is a live possibility at least by the third year of the IPL, which is 2010, assuming the concept succeeds.

The more successful teams could be prime candidates for listing, especially if player trading takes off aggressively. That is when the franchisees will feel the need for more capital and what better place to raise it than the stock market.

Sharda Ugra, the deputy editor India Today, says the Royal Challengers owner Vijay Mallya has responded to his team's defeats like a disgruntled fan.

Crowe and the art of captaincy

Posted 1 week ago in Miscellaneous

	"If you make decisions, then the game will move forward at the right pace and you’ll be on track" © Getty Images

Martin Crowe, the former New Zealand captain, was a fine batsman in his time but also proved a shrewd leader, most notably for tossing offspinner Dipak Patel the new ball during the 1992 World Cup and for telling Mark Greatbatch to belt the cover off the ball.

Speaking to Kolkata's The Telegraph, the 45-year-old Crowe says that captaincy requires one to articulate thoughts and ideas and handle people well. Interestingly, he also ranks the current Test captains and reveals that he learnt from Ian Chappell and Mike Brearley’s The Art of Captaincy. And that Stephen Fleming was the captain who impressed him most.

The Indian selectors, in particular, have made a smart move by appointing Dhoni as the one-day captain… This will allow him to grow into the full job step by step… Dhoni has charisma and has a manner… He’s learning from the Sachin Tendulkars… New Zealand Cricket should’ve done the same thing as India instead of rushing and giving Vettori everything all too soon. Fleming could’ve been the Test captain for a couple of years more. Definitely one year, if not a couple… England have Paul Collingwood in the ODIs… He’s a fighting cricketer, yes, but is tactically inept… Tactically, I haven’t seen a worse captain but he’ll try and make up for that by fighting performances.

May 8, 2008

Ponting takes a liking to the big screen

Posted 1 week ago in Australian cricket

Most cricket fans love watching Ricky Ponting on television and the batsman has joined the craze. A big screen was wheeled in while Ponting was in the nets during the camp in Brisbane so he could play a shot and then see how he did it, the Daily Telegraph reports.

"It's the first time I've used that, it is the best little coaching session you can have," Ponting said. "It's good to have a coach or someone standing by that knows your game. But to have it explained to you is one thing, to see it for yourself and be able to identify yourself what you are doing during a shot is fantastic."

Can sabermetrics transform cricket?

Posted 1 week, 1 day ago in

Sabermetrics has helped transform baseball, and Andy Bull in the Guardian wonders if it could do the same for cricket, which is known for its scorers and statisticians.

The statistics traditionally used in baseball weren't necessarily much use, and as such they were ripe for re-evaluation. It was [David] Barry who pointed me towards the work of one man who had been recalculating the measures applied to cricket statistics in an effort to find fresh, objective, information on the game, Charles Davis. His book, The Best of the Best, was published in 2000. In it Davis spends a chapter debunking "the myths of cricket".

It is fascinating reading (for a cricket fan). Amongst other things, Davis objectively proves that using a nightwatchman is fundamentally flawed (you can read his analysis here). Ultimately though the book led me to think that there is a third major factor hindering cricket sabermetrics. Cricket is excessively obsessed with its past, and the majority of Davis's book is spent comparing players from different eras and trying to determine who is best. Which is all good fun, but it means that the statistical innovations he makes - such as the calculation of an 'under-pressure average' for batsmen - are squandered on pub-table debate. What Billy Beane did - by contrast - was to take such stats and actually apply them to team training and selection.

No reason to rush Flintoff

Posted 1 week, 1 day ago in English cricket

Mike Atherton in the Times weighs into the Andrew Flintoff debate and suggests the England selectors should let him find form in county cricket before letting him return to Tests.

And what is the rush? England should beat New Zealand with the most frequently invoked relative in broadcasting - Geoffrey Boycott's mum - at the helm. Why not let Flintoff continue to bowl for Lancashire so he can take time to build confidence in his body and try to find some batting form before the tougher questions that South Africa will ask in the second half of the summer? Flintoff's bowling is rock solid, but his batting is flaky and he needs matches and runs under his belt before he takes Test-match examinations again.

Lord's needs the common touch

Posted 1 week, 1 day ago in English cricket

In his Guardian blog, Mike Selvey believes Lord’s needs to be more accessible to the general public.

Test matches, in particular, are fine occasions at Lord's, where decorum reigns over the need to dress up as nuns or whatever, there is the buzz of conversation rather than raucous chanting and applause is polite and wholehearted. This, without being po-faced about it, is refreshing at times. But Lord's is also elitist, and hideously expensive. It caters too much for the corporate market and scarcely at all for the casual spectator, restricted as it is by size: it is too small for the demands of international sport. A day out for a family, say four people, will cost around £250 just for tickets, if you can get them, so well ahead do they tend to sell. You cannot blame them for cashing in, but it hardly goes out of its way to being accessible.

Seeking a level playing field

Posted 1 week, 1 day ago in ICC

The laws regarding bat composition were changed by the ICC this week and Angus Fraser in the Independent believes the move is long overdue.

The balance between bat and ball is fundamental to the game. Inevitably, there will be times when conditions allow batsmen to have a better time of it than bowlers, and vice versa, but it is not in the interests of the game for one component to dominate the other totally. It is meant to be an even contest. Golf has similar problems, although they do not concern one element suffering a disadvantage. Modern clubs and balls are reducing many of the world's greatest courses to nothing more than a pitch and putt, and in an effort to keep up with technology and preserve relatively high scores the game's administrators are having to amend courses. Holes are being lengthened and the layout changed by placing bunkers and water hazards in unfavourable positions. Cricket does not have such luxuries. Most grounds are arenas and the size of boundaries is limited by the presence of stands.

An editorial in the Guardian also looks at the new bat-handle regulations, and concludes that: “anyone who loves the classic contest of bat and ball will surely applaud.”

How technology could have changed history

Posted 1 week, 1 day ago in Australian cricket

	Would a referral have saved Michael Kasprowicz in 2005 and won Australia the Ashes? © Getty Images

Peter Lalor argues in the Australian Ricky Ponting could have made a ton on debut, Australia should have won the 2005 Ashes and India may have won the Sydney Test if the proposed ICC rules on umpire referrals were already in use.

Errors have at times changed the course of a match and a career. Ponting was given out lbw on 96 in his debut Test at Perth against Sri Lanka to a ball clearly going over the stumps.

Andrew Symonds was given not out in Australia's first innings of the Sydney Test against India this summer when he admitted he hit the ball. That and a number of other decisions in the match had many Indians believing they had been robbed. And, of course, England may never have won the 2005 Ashes had the umpire seen that Michael Kasprowicz's hand was not on the bat when the ball hit his glove, with the Australians three runs short of a remarkable victory in the second Test.

In the Age Chloe Saltau looks at the rise of Brad Haddin, the son of a Gundagai publican.

May 7, 2008

Broad desire

Posted 1 week, 2 days ago in English cricket

In the Daily Telegraph, Simon Hughes meets Stuart Broad, who is hoping to make himself a permanent member of England's Test side.

Discipline is undoubtedly the root of his success. You can see it in the way he prepares to bowl, placing his feet meticulously on his bowling mark, planting his fingers carefully on the ball, standing tall and briefly contemplating his delivery before setting off. He idolises Glenn McGrath, and he seems also to have been born with McGrath's other major attribute - desire. There is a bristling, apparently unshakeable determination which has enabled him to leapfrog more experienced practitioners.

Hayden turns a new leaf

Posted 1 week, 2 days ago in Indian Premier League

	Matthew Hayden perfects the art of 'moving on' © Getty Images

The Indian Premier League has been a journey of self-discovery for Matthew Hayden, who's come a long way from the infamous "obnoxious little weed" remark on Harbhajan Singh, part of a confrontational summer against India. What Maharishi Mahesh Yogi did for The Beatles, the IPL has done for Hayden, writes Phil Lutton in the Brisbane Times. Read on in stuff.co.nz

"We're quite subtle and we'll give each other a high five and a bit of a hug. Generally speaking, our levels of celebration are quite subdued. From our point of view, we've always looked at the other side and thought 'that's a bit over the top'. But that's the melodramatic nature of their sport - the belief that they have in their culture - and they love success equally as much as Australia."

Bright Lights and Big Money

Posted 1 week, 2 days ago in Indian Premier League

The IPL has got heads turning and Somini Sengupta, attempting to strip down the Twenty20 tournament for an American audience in the New York Times, says it is "is trying to spin off India’s colonial inheritance into a money-making symbol of a brash, emerging nation". The writer throws in the views of fans of different ages (a flustered mother with a front-row seat, a bored 20-year old), CNN-IBN's Rajdeep Sardesai, yet to convert, and Ramachandra Guha, also dwelling briefly on the cheerleader brouhaha and how loyalties are yet to be formed.

At the game between the Mumbai Indians and the Deccan Chargers, Ambani was in his box with his wife, Nita, and their three children. The whole family wore blue, the team color. Nita Ambani had slapped a Mumbai Indians sticker on the back of her flowing chiffon salwar kameez. The team logo, she pointed out, was a ball of fire, a divine weapon known as a chakra lifted from Hindu mythology.

No matter. Mumbai was losing badly. The Ambanis’ children looked ashen. “I have to keep reminding myself, it’s only a game,” she said.

May 6, 2008

Bat makers enter carbon trading

Posted 1 week, 2 days ago in Miscellaneous

The MCC is in the news as it contemplates changing the laws relating to the make-up of bats. In the Australian Peter Lalor looks at the recommendations to limit the amount of carbon in a handle.

The law will state it must feature 90% cane, rubber and glue. However, Gray-Nicolls is already one step ahead and has developed a bat which replaces the rubber with 10% carbon. The company said it believed the handle for the Fusion II was within the proposed new law.

Read Cricinfo’s story on the changes here.

Simon Jones rediscovers his venom

Posted 1 week, 3 days ago in English cricket

It's too early to say for certain, but Simon Jones has shown encouraging early season form (in spite of his stiff neck), writes Steve James in today's Daily Telegraph:

He did, and faced his mates early in the season, as all movers seem to. In truth he didn’t bowl that well, recording so-so figures of 6-0- 43-1 in a shortened game, but the more important pointer was that the venom appeared to be back. A couple of slippery bouncers to Glamorgan skipper David Hemp showed that. The accuracy will come, just as it suddenly appeared in 2004/05 after his wayward early years.

Elegance in turmoil

Posted 1 week, 3 days ago in Indian Cricket

VVS Laxman has wowed fans across the globe, not least in Australia, with his wristy elegance and sweetly-timed jabs and cuts. And despite his struggles in the Twenty20 format, fans in Hyderabad are buzzing to get a glimpse of their hero, finds out K Shriniwas Rao of the Indian Express.

Today, the fever of Twenty20 has gripped Hyderabad. Both the Indian Cricket League (ICL) and the Indian Premier League (IPL) have seen fans queuing up at the stadiums. Players such as Shahid Afridi, Adam Gilchrist, Andrew Symonds and Herschelle Gibbs have been recruited as ‘locals’.

And yet, it is VVS Laxman who happens to be cheered the loudest. The Deccan Chargers website has seen some anti-Laxman messages, but not once has the right-hander been booed at the ground — even as his team lost three matches at home and he’s struggled to come to terms with this extremely short format.

“He’s not one for masala cricket. We’re sure he’s playing here because he is Hyderabad’s biggest name in cricket,” says a fan at the Rajiv Gandhi International stadium.

May 5, 2008

The IPL's rich and the successful

Posted 1 week, 4 days ago in Indian Premier League

In the Rediff website, Srinivas Bhogle, Purnendu Maji and Arthur D'Silva crunch numbers to figure out the most valuable player in the IPL so far.

The chief value of the MVP is that it factors in a lot of performance indicators (runs scored, strike rate, wickets taken, economy rate, fielding prowess) into a single index. Better still, the MVP value can be looked upon as a simple "run equivalent". If Shane Watson has a MVP of 292, it means that his combined effort as a batsman, bowler and fielder is equivalent to having scored 292 runs.

An afternoon in dullsville

Posted 1 week, 4 days ago in New Zealand cricket

Stephen Brenkley in the Independent assesses New Zealand’s chances in England, with a side bolstered by the return of their five players who were competing in the IPL.

Now they are fully assembled, it is still not a prospect to float many boats. No doubt this is grossly unfair - and it may also play straight into the tourists' hands - but to think of New Zealand cricket is to think of an afternoon in dullsville.

Gower on cricket and royal antics

Posted 1 week, 4 days ago in English cricket

David Gower puts forth some candid views on a range of topics, mostly cricket, in an email conversation in the

Independent. A sample of the questions and answers is here:

Does the IPL spell the end of Test cricket and should England's players be allowed a crack at it next year?
What? Six weeks razzle-dazzle enough to consign over a hundred years of Test cricket to the dump? You must be off your rocker. Twenty20 is here to stay and will energise the game around the world, but players, however grateful for IPL and, in the future, EPL cash, still know that they will be judged by their record as Test players. The ECB might well make some concessions to their contracted players re the IPL, but a lot depends on how plans for an EPL develop. Until those are clear we need to hold fire.

Some of your peers have been playing beach cricket Down Under. Would it interest you?
The second word is "off".

How did you feel about Prince William's recent flying antics?
Can't fault him. His equipment is a bit too modern for me – you can't beat the old Tiger Moth for real flying – but I like his spirit!

Michael Atherton, meanwhile, has also been dealing with emails, this time those that have come in to him at the Times Online, having just completed his first full week as chief cricket correspondent for the Times.

Leg before wicket

Posted 1 week, 4 days ago in Indian Premier League

In the Indian Express, Leher Kala writes on the demands placed on the IPL cheerleaders.

"On the first day we didn't understand cricket at all. Now we get it a litte," says Evgenia Guseva, who is a trained gymnast, ballet dancer and who's been a cheerleader for four years for football matches in Russia. Currently she's learning hip-hop and salsa in Moscow and plans to open her own dance school soon.

The IPL is in desperate search of a new grammar where emotions are on a raw edge and everyone is so passionately involved that he needs to hit to opponent to prove his commitment, writes Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times.

In the same paper, Varun Gupta writes on the mystery over Shane Warne and his love for No.23.

May 4, 2008

Jostling for Jordan

Posted 1 week, 5 days ago in English cricket

In the Sunday Times, Richard Rae meets the Barbados-born Surrey fast bowler Chris Jordan, who at 19 is already impressing good judges.

Dennis Lillee, who saw Jordan bowl in Perth last winter, has no doubt he will play Test cricket. The question is, for which country? Like Kevin Pietersen before him, Jordan needs to fulfil the residency qualification, meaning he will not be eligible to play for England until 2010.

If they have any sense, West Indies will come calling long before then. If they do, Jordan faces a difficult decision. “I’m a Barbadian and I would have loved to play my cricket in the West Indies, but England has given me opportunities. This is where I’m playing my cricket, I feel comfortable here. It could be hard to choose.

The ICC's Speed bump

Posted 1 week, 5 days ago in ICC

In New Zealand’s Sunday Star Times Richard Boock makes the very pertinent point that the criticism that has been leveled at the ICC is actually aimed at the wrong target.

“The invective has flown thick and fast. Murderers and rapists have escaped with lighter criticism. The world body has been charged with endorsing corruption and racism, of being broken-backed and weak, and by one writer, of being amoral, unprincipled, shallow, self-centred, ill-informed and contemptible. Oh yes, and pathetic.

But the point is, it doesn't make any sense for the cricket community to roast the ICC over this, because the ICC is the cricketing community. The world body's voting members are the chairmen and presidents of the 10 test-playing nations. They are the face of world cricket; a representative image. Buffoons maybe, but what does that say of us?"

Boock goes on to say that rather than the faceless ICC who protected Zimbabwe and ousted Malcolm Speed, it was the heads of the national boards … our national boards.

“I understand that it would be nice to imagine the world body as a separate entity, a mythical bogeyman that we could tar-and-feather and pelt with fruit, but the reality lies a little closer to home. If we want to think of them as a pack of idiots, that's fine - but we should always remember that they're our idiots, and we chose them.”

Land of the big shots

Posted 1 week, 5 days ago in Indian Premier League

Three weeks into the IPL, James Robinson of the Observer makes his observations on cricket's traveling circus and catches up with a few fans along the way.

Exhaust fumes rise, mixing with the smoke from a spectacular firework display, but through the haze and smog the floodlights glimmer in the distance, soaring high above the street vendors and crowds of spectators swarming into the stadium. When the cacophony of engine noise and police sirens subsides, the rhythmic beat of traditional Punjabi Dhol drums floats through the night-time air.

When McCullum kept out a future rugby legend

Posted 1 week, 5 days ago in New Zealand cricket