No surprise that Dhoni has retired from Tests

Funnily enough I found myself wondering why MS Dhoni was still playing Tests earlier in the Australia/India series - he's now made the decision to retire from Tests with immediate effect.   He had to miss the 1st Test but it didn't feel there was any great clamour to get him into the side - there was a clear contrast to Michael Clarke who was pictured working with the physio a lot desperately trying to get himself fit.   Clearly an element of that is the way the Western media portrays the two captains, but I couldn't help thinking that in Tests Dhoni is an also-ran where as in ODIs and Twenty20s he's a match winner.   

In ODIs and Twenty20s Dhoni's captaincy also seems to suit the game - the batsmen can't defend for long periods.   In Tests Dhoni's "wait for the batsman to make a mistake" style of captaincy doesn't work, particularly against the tail.   There was an interesting tweet from Andy Zaltzman last night - at that point Australia's first 6 wickets had averaged 44 per wicket against India's 52.4, while wickets 7-10 had averaged 62.4 for Australia versus 14.1 from India's lower order.   I'd love to see the analysis of that over a number of captain's careers - I suspect Dhoni would come off very unfavourably, and I don't think Alastair Cook would fare too well either.

Another potential benefit for the game as a whole, not to mention the Indian team, is that Dhoni has never got behind the use of the umpire review system.   Given that some wrong decisions have gone against India in this series, I wonder if Dhoni was under pressure internally to change his stance and accept it.   One of his strengths is that he has a clear view of things and stays true to that vision - that may be to his detriment on DRS given that his original stance (that it wasn't 100% accurate) didn't reflect the overwhelming cricket majority who just want to see more correct decisions, however they're made.

Kohli's ready so Dhoni can concentrate on the form of the game he appears to enjoy more.   Journalists can look forward to more exciting press conferences, and Dhoni can concentrate on ODIs and Twenty20.   He'll be around one month away from his 38th birthday when the 2019 World Cup is played in England so that could be a realistic aim now he's not playing Tests, but equally Dhoni may feel that he's done enough - he certainly doesn't need to play any format of cricket for the money.

Have we reached overload?

For a long time now I have wondered exactly where cricket is going when we hear that there are now a considerable number of games with attendances that are low compared with a few years ago.

There is a lot of talk about whether there is just too much cricket for either the cricketer or the general public to take in. I can remember playing 9 days consecutive cricket when I was a lot younger and fitter and I was concerned as to how indifferent I became about playing every day and I deny that it was anything to do with too much alcohol or too little sleep.

The main point is that some cricketers hardly get a break and Dhoni can be excused for a poor run in England after five years of non-stop cricket. At least we have got him back into form!

One sign that I have noticed is the enduring perception of Test cricket as the major form with the one day stuff being seen as a bit of a sideshow. Can anybody really suggest that for English people anything matters as much as an Ashes series?

I have gone on but I have become thoroughly disinterested in one day cricket and the last ODI series in India has not been one that I have followed. I have even less interest in the IPL as I see it as a pointless circus with money as the only driving force.

Is my feeling unique amongst burblers or do I have a problem??!!

England tactics to set batsmen with tailenders

I didn't watch any of yesterday's play but I hear that when Dhoni was out England had 8 players round the boundary and Strauss at slip, where he was caught. Dhoni had a wild swish so was presumably trying to clear the rope and came unstuck. I'm torn - I hate the idea of having everyone round the boundary with the opposition in so much trouble, but perhaps Dhoni didn't have the patience to score the occassional boundary, the odd 2 and a 1 of the 5th ball to farm the strike for a bit.....in which case, good tactics.

Difficult to criticise when it works but having everyone round the boundary feels very wrong somehow! Any thoughts...?

Disecting India's performance

Where do I begin?

1) Poor preparation - the wrong balance between rest and play for the West Indies series

2) Lack of warm-up fixtures for the rested players

3) Inconsistent selection - where was Murali Vijay, a like-for-like (almost) replacement for Sehwag, who would have taken the attack to England and possibly force them to change their initial bowling plans.

Where was Virat Kohli? He had a good tour of the West Indies but was jettisoned for Yuvraj Singh, a nothing bowler, a flat track bully of a batsman and a shadow of his old fielding self (before injuries).

4) Poor bowling - if the pitch is not doing anything and if the ball is not doing anything then you dry up the runs by bowling a consistent line outside off-stump and force the batsmen to make the mistake. This is something that England and South Africa have done, and something that India should have yesterday.

5) Abject field placings - that said consistent bowling needs the captain to set the right field. Dhoni not having a third-man for a large part of the innings gave England far too many cheap runs. Not having an orthodox fine leg didn't help either as the bowlers sprayed it. Also even for part-time spinners, you need to have an attacking field to create mistakes, yesterday it was like being at a dairy with all the milking that was going on.

That's just a few areas for development. The last two can be remedied for Edgbaston, but I'm not holding my breath that they will.

Interesting lead up to the 1st Test...

We've all been embarrassed by our parents occasionally, but Harbajan's mum's intervention after Dhoni took part in an advert for a competing whisky brand must take some beating!

Kohli ready to replace Dravid

Virat Kohli claims to be ready to replace Rahul Dravid in India's Test side....it will be interesting to see how Duncan Fletcher and MS Dhoni handle the retirements of some top players over the next few years.

What would you do if you won the World Cup?

It seems that for MS Dhoni, the answer was to cut his hair. Here's a photo of him just after the final. And here's a photo of Dhoni the next day holding his man-of-the-match award and the World Cup.

Clearly he's not a drinker (and he's said as much). But his countrymen are as alcohol sales have jumped with India's success....

A great chase befitting World Champions

Congratulations to India who managed to take all that pressure on them and still put in a good performance in the final. And particularly to Dhoni who captained well throughout the tournament and stepped up with his batting when required. His decision to move to 5 above Yuvraj in the final - apparently made on the basis that Sri Lanka picked two (or three if you include Dilshan) off-spinners who would be more dangerous to left-handers, was inspired as it turned out.

However, there is no-one else as far as I know, who would have considered it as an option, with Dhoni's top score in the tournament being 34 and Yuvraj averaging in the 80s for the tournament coming into the final. He took a big risk and it came off, and he would have known the pressure he was under so you have to give him huge credit for that. He also took a risk playing Sreesanth (who bowled 8 overs at 6.5 without taking a wicket) - I and many others would have expected them to play Ashwin.

But it was Sri Lanka who unexpectedly weakened their team through strange selections. As an impartial observer, I'm gutted that Mathews got injured because I think the match would have been even closer, and Sri Lanka probably wouldn't have been tempted to change their team. I feel desperately sorry for Ajantha Mendis who bowled fantastically in the tournament to go at the least runs of any bowler - 3.14 - and then got left out of the final. Herath had a relatively poor tournament and you can see why the Sri Lankan's were tempted to bring in Randiv for him, putting right what many saw as a wrong in the original selection.

My man Kulasekara - who I would have brought in for Mathews - batted well, but bowled with too much width, demonstrating how hard it is to come into a match cold and play well. I also felt that he could have made a better attempt at catching Gambhir at long-off during the bowling powerplay and that could have been crucial. Perera did what we know he can do - hit the ball a long way and bowl relatively expensive medium pace. If they wanted to drop Silva and/or play Perera I think they needed to take the chance to bat Perera at 6 rather than play Kapugadera who hadn't played all tournament and has never been successful at international level.

How would a team of Tharanga, Dilshan, Sangakkara, Jayawardene, Samaraweera, Perera, Kulasekara, Randiv, Malinga, Mendis, Murali have gone in the final? We'll never know. Personally, I'd have liked them to make just one change to replace Mathews - a side builds up morale and winning momentum through a tournament and then it's partially taken away for the final - it's surely poor selection? Given what they know now, I bet Sri Lanka would have picked Randiv instead of Fernando in their squad, given the pre-eminence of spinners in the tournament.

Overall, I think both sides over-thought things. India played Sreesanth ahead of Ashwin and changed their batting order on the basis of the team Sri Lanka picked. Sri Lanka changed 4 players for the final, only one of them enforced through injury, including dropping the tournament's most economical bowler. Just play your best side irrespective of the opposition!

But Dhoni deserves to bask in glory for now. The pressure on him was immense already before he promoted himself to 5, and even greater then. And he came through, showing immense guts to do so. Congratulations to Dhoni and India, worthy World Cup winners, even if - for the moment - they're still ranked only number 2 in the world in ODIs.

The final most people wanted

India and Sri Lanka have made it through their semis, both relatively easily in the end despite some worries in their matches. So as predicted and as many people wanted, the two home nations in the knock out stages have made it through. Sri Lanka's middle order had to bat under pressure which has been rare in the World Cup, and India had to work hard for their 260 and bowl tightly to take their place in the final.

A lot has been made of Younis Khan and Misbah Ul-Haq's slow batting during Pakistan's chase. It certainly cost Pakistan dear because by the time Razzaq and Afridi came in the run rate was climbing, which meant they had to get going quickly. Having said that Razzaq, strangely promoted above Afridi for the first time in the tournament, was out playing defensively. It almost felt like Pakistan hadn't agreed amongst themselves how they wanted to go about the chase - was it a case of keeping wickets in hand and then looking at 100 off the last 10, as Younis and Misbah seemed to think, or did they want to stay with the rate or even ahead of it throughout, as Umar Akmal seemed to think? Only they can say, such were their confusing tactics but what we can say is that going from 3 an over to 9 is always going to be tricky, where as 5 an over to 7 might be more achievable.

In defence of Misbah, Younis and MS Dhoni in India's innings, batting in the middle order seems like a struggle in the sub-continent, a point made by Mickey Arthur when looking at South Africa's demise. That's why I think the fitness of Angelo Mathews is critical if Sri Lanka are to win the World Cup as I predicted. With Mathews at 7, Sri Lanka's batting looks very strong up to that point, allbeit with the tail starting at 8 with Malinga who averages only 8 in ODIs. Without Mathews the alternatives look worring with Perera the most likely to come in - he's got some quality and can hit the ball miles but an average of less than 15 tells you all you need to know about his batting, and he doesn't have a history of handling pressure at the top-level - he'll be 22 the day after the final.

The other option Sri Lanka have is to play Kulasekera, who can count himself as extremely unlucky not to make it into Sri Lanka's first choice XI. He would be in the side every time outside the sub-continent where it seems a minimum of 3 spinners are needed. With an average of 17 with the bat he doubles that of Malinga but he hardly strikes fear into the opposition, were he to come in at 7.

Perhaps this thinking is why Sri Lanka have called up Chaminda Vaas and Suraj Randiv in case Mathews and/or Murali don't recover from injury. Randiv is a given as he was incredibly unlucky not to be in the squad to start with and Sri Lanka will benefit from a little extra batting if he replaces Murali. But Vaas, despite his poor ODI average of 14, has been batting higher recently, notably opening for Northants in the T20 last season and averaging in the late 20s. Hardly setting the world alight but perhaps they are considering him at number 7 if Mathews isn't fit - it would be an amazing story if they did go back to him. Personally I'd have been going for Maharoof rather than Vaas.

It may seem strange that players might come in from outside the squad and play their only match in the final, but that's how I think it should be - I still have the same objection to limited squad numbers as I had at the start of the tournament.

Much as I want Murali to play, Randiv on the face of it is a quality replacement, where as Mathews would be a big loss with no obvious replacement. The destiny of the World Cup could rest on the fitness of someone who's not yet 24, rather than the man soon to turn 39 and the most successful wicket-taker the game has ever seen.

Fantastic decision by Taufel

Taufel just gave Sehwag out LBW to a short left-arm over ball from Riaz. Quality decision - as Mike Atherton said on commentary the instinct is to assume that from left-arm over, short balls must pitch outside leg. This time Taufel knew different. It would be interesting to know if the umpires review the bowling actions of the two teams coming into the match to check how they tend to shape the ball and how wide of the crease they tend to go. Riaz on this occassion was very tight to the wicket.

On another note, there's been some criticism of Dhoni for batting first but whatever the result I think he's done the right thing. It's by all accounts a good batting track that will get slower as the match goes on which suggests batting first is a good idea, but equally it takes the pressure of the Indian batsmen. As it is the pressure will be on India's bowlers, but most importantly, Dhoni himself as captain of the side bowling second, and I think he's happy to take that role on.

Anderson and England make life difficult for themselves

Looking at the scorecard from England's match against Bangladesh I assumed that Strauss had done his usual and set defensive fields when England needed to take the final 2 wickets, and made a mistake in not letting Collingwood bowl out. It wasn't quite as bad as I feared, but it would be great if bowlers like Bresnan don't have to plead with their skipper to have a slip, as happened in the 48th over. Although there were no attacking fielders in the closing overs, Strauss was quite attacking by his standards as there was a slip in when Raqibal Hasan was bowled by Shahzad and again when Swann bowled Shakib. And taking Collingwood off, even when he was bowling economically, was the right move too. So still some way to go but a slight improvement I reckon.

But what is the skipper meant to do when players let him down with poor performances? Prior cost England several runs with missed attempts to take the ball behind the stumps and, with Prior's help, the bowlers racked up 23 wides. James Anderson's 7th over was one of the worst of all time, and swung the game in Bangladesh's favour....with Broad out England desperately need Anderson to find his range, but it's not looking hopeful. And to make matters worse, Shahzad dropped his caught and bowled and Trott missed a stop at 3rd man as things got tight....Strauss must have been tearing the hair he has left out.

Elsewhere in England's group Ireland felt the cost of dropping Kieron Pollard in the 20s and Asoka de Silva's inability to remember that the batsman can't be out LBW when they're playing a shot and are hit outside the line. England should still qualify if they beat West Indies, but the way they are playing, and with Pollard in form, I can't say I feel confident!

I'd love to see Bopara opening rather than Prior, and Strauss to attack (much) more but, more than anything, Anderson needs to bowl properly and byes, dropped catches and misfields need to be a thing of the past. Strauss had some good company today in going defensive - Dhoni suddenly lost his bottle at the end of India's game against South Africa and suffered the consequences. Harbajan had to bowl one of the last 2 overs with 17 needed and South Africa having 3 wickets in hand. But instead he turned to the expensive Nehra with 13 needed from the final over, and he went for 4,6,2,4 to allow South Africa to win the game with 2 balls to spare.

Will England make it through?

England tactics are worrying for the rest of the WC

I know, I know, England won. And it's not fashionable to criticise a winning team. But I'm afraid I can't help it.

Strauss seems to have a happy knack of turning to the right bowler at the right time, but for the most part I hate his defensive field placings. When South Africa were 7 down he allowed Van Wyk and Steyn to knock the ball around without pressure with a deep field. England had to take wickets - a ring field assumed the only way to get wickets was through a huge batting error, hitting the ball in the air, apart from bowled and LBW.

This Cricinfo piece suggests that Strauss did a good job as captain but his fields drove me quietly insane! When Swann bowled his 10th over - one that England desperately needed a wicket in, there was just the slip and backward short-leg - where was the forward short-leg and silly point?

And when Broad bowled the match-changing 48th over of the South African innings, there wasn't a catcher in site - as Prior took the catch to win the game there was no lone slip next to him, let alone two - what if the edge had been a little thicker?

It seems only Dhoni and Sangakkara in world cricket are advocates of attacking captaincy and backing their bowlers....of course I want England to win the World Cup but assuming they don't, it would be nice to see an attacking captain win rather than one of the conservative camp, which Strauss, sadly for England, definitely falls into. He won't always get so lucky.

P.S. The best England team is still the one that hasn't been played yet, that I put forward at the start of the World Cup...hopefully England will get to it eventually.

UDRS in the spotlight again

The lesser version of the UDRS without hotspot is being used in the World Cup, but I doubt anyone knew there was a rule that if the batsman gets more than 2.5m forwards then the on-field umpire can ignore the technology. That seems strange as the accuracy of the technology, from what I understand, is more variable based on how far the ball travels between bounce and impact, rather than distance to travel after impact, but if that's the case, that's the case.

All that needed to happen was that the replays need to be shown in order - front foot from the bowler, did it hit him 2.5m or more away from the stumps, then the straight on replay (only when everyone is aware that it's likely to be irrelevant).

Not surprisingly, the additional layer on the UDRS annoyed MS Dhoni, and Andrew Strauss admitted he didn't know about it. Slightly worrying that no-one has thought to read the laws and match rules inside out as one misinterpretation can prove crucial - maybe the Bell incident will ensure that Strauss has the appropriate bed time reading.

India lag way behind the rest on UDRS

Time and again India say that they aren't happy with the accuracy of technology and therefore won't use it. But then Dhoni continually criticises the umpires for wrong decisions, and it's proven there are more wrong decisions without the UDRS than with it. The fact that India or any other country are allowed to decide if they use technology leaves the ICC rightly open to criticism, not to mention the fact that the players can use reviews and technology isn't used whenever the umpires want it.

Personally I hope the ICC and India see sense soon because the use of the UDRS in some matches just makes it even clearer when mistakes are made in non-UDRS matches. India won by one run against South Africa in their last ODI match but during the chase South African's Johan Botha edged the ball down to 3rd man for a single, only to be given out LBW despite the fact the ball had missed the pad completely. You could easily argue that just that one wrong decision changed the result and South Africa will now go into the World Cup again trying to get rid of the chokers tag, perhaps unfairly in this case.

And anyone reading the New Zealand v Pakistan bulletins couldn't do so without reading about regular umpiring howlers. The latest of the 7 wrong decisions in the first 3 days was Younis Khan who, with Misbah, was going to open up a significant lead for Pakistan in all probability. Instead, he was given caught off the pad and Pakistan lost 6 wickets for 90odd to finish their innings.

Be patient cricket lovers from all around the world. Even the BCCI and ICC will catch up eventually. It would be great for the game if India go out of the World Cup due to an umpiring howler in a tight match as that might finally get the BCCI out of the dark ages, but assuming that doesn't happen, on present form it may be 2020 before the BCCI and ICC get themselves sorted out....

Kallis and South Africa close in on win

It's brilliant to see Jaques Kallis finally getting to 200 - he's an absolutely class act and unlike many - I'd have him in my all-time international cricket XI. Together with centuries from Amla and de Villiers, South Africa look certainties to take a 1-0 lead against the number 1 side in the world.

India look alarmingly poor in the field. It was their batting collapse in the 1st innings that set up the game but their batsmen will bounce back, although they need to get used to playing on bouncy wickets again. Sreesanth, however, is not a good enough bowler to lead an international attack, and Dhoni seems to have forgotten how he became a successful captain. When de Villiers came in on day 2 he was greeted by not a single catcher. That's right - no slips or gully. Dhoni got the job by demonstrating how he could take calculated attacking risks to get wickets and I hope he doesn't forget that. He simply has to attack more if India are to compete, let alone win the series.

India struggle in South Africa

Australia have had a couple of low first innings totals in The Ashes but compared to India they're doing brilliantly. 136 for 9 isn't quite what Dhoni would have liked, albeit on a wicket that helped the bowlers a bit.

Interesting that Harbajan was quick to defend the fact that India didn't have even a solitary warm up game. The cynic in me wonders if he's thinking about protecting his IPL money there - he doesn't want to play in Test warm ups rather than the IPL, but deep down I'm sure he realises that they needed to give themselves a better chance of getting accustomed to the harder South African wickets. If they come back and don't lose this Test, it will be one of the most miraculous recoveries ever....

Dhoni not a UDRS fan

I like the way MS Dhoni has converted himself to being a flashy batsman to a totally reliable one, making himself more valuable to his team in the process. And the way he captained India to a win in the first World Twenty20 through placing really attacking fields.

But I'm saddened to read he wants to delay the inevitable progress of a full UDRS system, and especially when one of his arguments is cost...an area the BCCI don't have any problems in!

India struggling - debutant Saha under pressure

Looking at South Africa closing in on 500 in the first innings of the match against India with 4 wickets down, I checked the Indian team while considering how they might fight back. No Dravid and Laxman was always going to be a problem...I don't rate Yuvraj Singh so highly but he's also missing.

Vijay and Badrinath have come in for the first two slots, but somehow Saha has come into the side too, despite really being the wicket keeping back up for Dhoni. It does seem that India were very unlucky with Sharma injuring himself in the warm up, but I'm not entirely sure why it's not Dinesh Karthik acting as understudy for Dhoni? It was only 2007 when many suggested that Karthik was a better keeper than Dhoni so he's surely India's keeping number 2, and a more seasoned batsman.

Saha is now under immense pressure - if he can handle it then good on him.

Dhoni's batting position

There's a lot of debate about where MS Dhoni should bat in India but for me number 5 looks spot on, despite the fact that his record at 3 and 4 is even better than at 5. The Indians are in the fortunate position of having a quality top 4 and they're right to leave it as is unless in exceptional circumstances.

It's also interesting to see a couple of England players up there with the best ODI number 5s in the world - Flintoff and Collingwood. They've used a batting index that multiplies average and strike rate, which leaves Flintoff as 2nd behind Dhoni as an ODI number 5 and Collingwood in 5th place.

Extortion threats for Dhoni

You'd think that having just beaten Australia and England, and with the possibility of going 2nd in the world ahead of Australia if South Africa win the last Test in their Australian series, MS Dhoni couldn't be happier.

But unfortunately someone, or some poeople, are trying to extort money from him and his family. What I find particularly weird about this story though is that the man himself has applied for a gun. I hope for everyone's sake that his "Z category" security means that he never has to use it....