England's women have retained the Ashes in Australia after a hard-fought win in the one match being played in Australia. The stars for England were Isa Guha with the ball, and Claire Taylor with the bat.
Needing only a draw, England were never really in much danger having bowled Australia out for 154 in the 1st innings of the match. You can see the scorecard here.
Open top bus ride through central London?
England's batting has been decidedly fragile in the first 3 ODI's in New Zealand and my thoughts on that the other day were to move Mustard down the order. This piece by Mike Selvey in the Guardian got me thinking about Bell though....I've never been a huge fan of Bell as my previous posts show (Bell sums himself up in one innings), possibly because England chose to leave out their best batsman over the previous 12 months going into the 2005 Ashes for him. There is just no comparison between Graham Thorpe and Ian Bell as far as I'm concerned, but it's not Bell's fault he got picked for that series and worked over by the Aussies.
A certain other Cricket Burbler, Dave McCabe, has previously laid out the positive arguments for Bell: Ian Bell, but I've still not been converted, despite Bell's decent ODI record which has also been burbled about before (Positives for Ian Bell). Selvey's article sums up many of my reservations about Bell, and it was interesting to hear the radio commentary team describing watching Bell in ODIs as being like watching Nasser Hussain - the pressure builds and builds until he has to play a get out of jail shot which he either gets away with, or is his downfall. What the article doesn't mention - but perhaps is implicit in the opinion that Bell can't pace his innings correctly - is his shot selection. I continue to fear that Bell will give his wicket away at any stage in his innings (admittedly he was done for by another wrong decision in the last ODI). He is also renouned as the person that always plays great shots for 0 as his placement lets him down.
You can read the full article here. Michael Vaughan or Owais Shah for number 3 in the ODI set up anyone?
The biblical pair Daniel (Vettori) and Jacob (Oram) got me thinking about names and I certainly can't think of any other Test players with those first names. That of course led me on to the England side and I bet there has never been a Dimitri or an Owais in a Test or International side before. Then you looked at the whole England side and I reckon that of those who played in the recent win I could only remember name-twins for four - James (Anderson), Philip (Mustard), Kevin (Pietersen) and Paul (Collingwood) - I can think of no other Alastairs, Ians, Lukes or Ryans.
Jesse has got to be unique too.
Who have I forgotten ?
Australia were this afternoon bowled batting first. This is the second consecutive match this has happened after the Indians bowled the Aussie's out in just 45 overs the other day. When is the last time this has happened to the Aussie's in consecutive matches? It can't have happened too often in recent times.
By the way, the are currently making a good fist of defending a below par total with SL 4/82 in the twentieth over.
Perhaps I'm being a bit over-sensitive, but have the BCCI lost their mind? If this report is correct, they intend to propose that the ICC stop all sledging. How exactly do they expect anyone to differentiate between banter and sledging? Are we going to have to have every player miked up? Or complete silence on the pitch?
Apparently this brainwave came about after the Sydney debacle, and readers of Cricket Burble will know my views on that. There are cultural differences apparently creating issues for match referees when it comes to interpretation of potential offences - doesn't that suggest that the regulations need tightening up, rather than we try to do something impossible - ban "sledging" - however the word is defined?
Some of the most famous cricketing tales come from those comments made by players designed to get one over their opponent psychologically - long may it continue.
As an aside, one of my (admittedly poor) "sledges" came back to haunt me a few years ago - with a large batsman having blocked about 20 balls, I suggested that this would be "the longest duck ever". The next ball went for six and he scored 90 not out to win them the game....
Ricky Ponting today said there is a risk players may be lost to international cricket in favor of the IPL unless a space is cleared in the international calendar. With the huge money on offer, I can understand his point. It is much easier said than done however. The international cricket calendar is already so heavily packed that players have been complaining of burnout for years. Under the current system I can't see how any more space can be cleared unless the Future Tours Programme is expanded from five years to six.
Stephen Fleming has just announced his retirement at the conclusion of the home series against England. He is the latest in a long list of senior NZ players to have called it a day in the last couple of years. Chris Cairns, Nathan Astle and Craig MacMillan have all walked away recently while Scott Styris has retired from tests to concentrate on ODIs and Shane Bond appears unlikely to play in the near future due to his involvement in the ICL.
The loss of so many of their more experienced players is sure to test the depth of the Kiwi national side. They are a team who have traditionally struggled with depth of talent at international level. Even in their golden era in the mid-eighties their success was largely based on two star players in Richard Hadlee and Martin Crowe. This makes their performances against England in the first two ODIs all the more remarkable.
I'm sure the Kiwi management will be praying the younger members of the side will develop quickly, but I fear a fairly major kiwi slump over the next few years at least while they re-build.
A little while ago I posted about finger spinning in Australia and the lack of success finger spinners seem to have here. As promised I've done some statistical analyses on the subject and my verdict is this........yes, finger spinners do struggle in Australian conditions when compared to wrist spinners and fast/medium bowlers. Here are the numbers to back it up (I used cricinfo's Statsguru engine and the good old fashioned calculator for this crunching of numbers). All stats are limited to tests played in Australia after WWII.
Fast/medium bowlers have taken 5,636 wickets at an average of 30.65 and a strike rate of 65.57. Spin bowlers have taken 2,208 wickets at an average of 37.76 and a strike rate of 87.57. There is also a third category of bowler which covers bowlers who bowled a mixture of pace and spin such as Andrew Symonds, Garfield Sobers and Derek Underwood, and also part time or occasional bowlers who do not have a bowling style listed on Cricinfo. These mixture/unknown bowlers have taken 532 wickets at an average 33.22 and a strike rate of 76.54. These figures show that in general fast/medium bowlers have significantly out performed spinners over the years in Australian conditions.
Now to compare finger spinners with wrist spinners. The wrist spinners have taken 1,165 wickets at 34.47 and a strike rate of 76.42. This leaves 1,043 wickets for finger spinners, which compares favourably, but these wickets have cost 41.44 runs a piece and 100.10 balls are bowled per wicket. Wrist spinners have also taken five wickets in an innings 59 times and ten in a match 12 times. Fingers spinners have just 37 five-fors and incredibly just 3 ten-fors despite having bowled over 15,000 more deliveries than wrist spinners.
You might argue that for the last fifteen or so years the best wrist spinner in history has been bowling for Australia which must skew the numbers. If you take Warne out of the equation, the wrist spinners still out perform finger spinners with 846 wickets at 37.51 and a strike rate of 82.29. They still have 44 five wicket hauls and 11 tens.
One very interesting point I noticed when doing this research was that Australian's use wrist spinners far more than finger spinners, while the reverse is true for visiting teams. Australian wrist spinners have bowled 71,328 balls compared to 26,464 for finger spinners. For visiting teams the respective numbers are 17,704 and 77,666. In fact the last time Australia played a specialist finger spinner in a home test was Tim May's last test in the 94/95 Ashes. Of course, having Warne and MacGill around has severely limited opportunities for finger spinners, as has a steady supply of useful part timers including Symonds, Clarke, Lehmann and Mark Waugh. But that aside, having followed Australian domestic cricket closely over this period, I can not think of anyone who was really up to international standard. Nathan Hauritz and Dan Cullen have played a few one day games and a test each overseas, but neither appear to be really up to it. There was a guy about ten years back called Brad Young who I thought had a bit of talent, but he just seemed to fade away.
The top five spin bowlers on the Australian wicket takers list are all wrist spinners. So the question is, do Australia not produce good finger spinners because the conditions are not conducive, or do the conditions appear unconducive because we do not produce quality finger spinners. Well, Australian fingers spinners, while largely unsuccessful do have a better average and strike rates than their overseas counterparts (38.22 and 96.19 compared to 42.60 and 101.39). This would perhaps suggest our finger spinners can hold their own, we are just more reluctant to select them due to the conditions.
The obvious thing to blog about is England's latest debacle, so starting with something else....could the IPL be about to make Simon Taufel an offer he can't refuse? It seems that some observers think so, and from his comments it sounds like Taufel is keen not to travel so much and look at some other opportunities. Why not make a shed load of money for a few weeks away each year and then look at what options you have back home for the rest of the year - I'd go for it.
It's not possible to avoid the England performance any longer - what a disaster! I was in favour of keeping the team the same for the last match, but there's not much choice but to make a change - or changes - now....this piece on Cricinfo is particularly harsh on Bopara, even though he made the 3rd highest score. Bopara's main sin was running out Cook, but then his team mates have hardly proved great runners, with 6 run outs in 2 games, and the England set up have overlooked Bell's weaknesses in that area for years.
Looking at the failings in each department, the batsman have failed twice, and the bowlers once, so somehow it seems a little strange to consider changes from number 7 downwards, but that's perhaps what is required. The obvious change is to bring Mascarenas in for Bopara, but I can't help thinking that the batting is more of a concern, and most of the batting places are sown up. The constant loss of Mustard before we've scored 50 is something that could be addressed now, whether it's him that plays, or Ambrose. So how about a refreshed line up of:
Cook
Bell
Shah
Pietersen
Collingwood
Wright
Mustard/Ambrose
Mascarenas
Broad
Sidebottom
Anderson
with Swann coming in for Wright, Broad or Anderson if it's a wicket that demands a spinner.
I still have faith in Bopara to come good - his running has never been great - he ran out Dalrymple on debut - but he has shown that he can bat sensibly under pressure. By dropping him after such a short time in the Test team, we seem to have somehow ruined a young man's confidence that was sky high after the series against India last English summer. The question is when he'll come good again, rather than if.
Facebook has turned up some gems tonight as I looked to see what sort of cricket groups existed on the social network with over 8 million members, and over 60,000 that have stated they like cricket in their interests....
German women living in England who are members of county cricket clubs (above) seems to have just 4 women in it out of 30 members. "I have a fetish for German women living in England who are members of county cricket clubs. Coooor!" and "hello ladies..... we all love ze germans! especially the big butch ones.... mmmmm buff stuff" seem to be the comments from this small group.
Through looking at the group "Cricket is rained off sex is the best you will ever have" - a group that was started by a girl called Olivia and with 21 members - I found another group called "10 reasons to date a cricket player" - thanks to the 20,294 members there are now many more than 10 reasons, but number 1 is "cricketers always wear protection" and it gets worse from there!
Alas for Shane Warne, the Shane Warne appreciation society on Facebook has just 12 members (while "I hate the Australian cricket team" has 790) and yet the group "Brian Charles Lara: the messiah of cricket" has 940 members. That leaves Sachin in 2nd place amongst recent batting heroes as the group "Cricket is my religion and Tendulkar is my god!!!!!" has only 661 members. None of these cricketers match up to the "Corridor cricket appreciation society" who have over 1,300 members....which puts "BYC (Back Yard Cricket) - the world game" to shame as they have less than 300 members.
"Cricket would be more exciting if hot women in bikinis played it" doesn't fare well as they only have 726 members despite their catchy group name, but perhaps the most surprising is a Scott Styris appreciation group. There must be hundreds of blind people on Facebook as 368 people have joined the group "Scott Styris - the best looking man in cricket", or perhaps that group has a tinge of irony!
Time to start up a Cricket Burble group on Facebook? No, I don't think I'll bother....just yet.
When India toured England last summer, I accused MS Dhoni of having no brain. Having hit Pietersen for two sixes, when on 92 and with his team on over 500 batting first in the 3rd Test, needing only a draw for a series victory, Dhoni perished on the boundary going for hatrick of sixes. Given the dominant position Dhoni and India were in, the post inspired a few comments of disagreement! As it turned out, the game was a boring draw and India won the series.
In between that series and now, Dhoni captained India to victory in the Twenty20 with some really attacking captaincy in a game which is generally considered to be about containing the batsmen. Dhoni kept attacking fielders in place, particularly slips, when other captains didn't, and reaped the rewards as wickets once again proved to be the best way of reducing the batting sides' run rate.
Today, Dhoni captained India to victory over Australia in the latest Commonwealth Bank ODI. Chasing only 159 India were going well at 89-2 in the 22nd over, with Tendulkar well set, but 3 wickets fell relatively quickly and India found themselves at 102-5 in the 29th over when Dhoni came to the wicket. In the end Dhoni and Sharma, who was the more dominant batsman in their partnership, took India to a 5 wicket victory with 25 balls to spare.
What impressed me was the fact that Dhoni was content to play defensively, knowing that if he and Sharma could see their way past the main 4 bowlers, Ponting would have to use Clarke and Symonds to finish off the overs, so while he only scored 17, the fact that he used up 54 balls to get that 17 was the key. If he'd scored 17 in 2 overs and then exposed his tail to Lee et al, India may well have lost, but Dhoni used his head and - along with Sharma - saw his team to victory.
So I take back my comment that Dhoni doesn't have a brain! It will be interesting to see how he does when he takes over the Test captaincy, assuming he does, after Kumble.
Only a couple of days ago I posted about how refeshing it was that England followed up a convincing Twenty20 victory with another convincing Twenty20 victory - all too often, one good result seems to be followed by a bad one. So, as an England supporter it doesn't come as much surprise that we imploded once again in the 1st ODI.
There seem to be a few comments floating around about England's selection, but I have no grumbles with it. Cook walks straight in for ODIs and Wright seems the obvious person to make way for him. Bopara has proved that he's a level-headed player to come in at 7, able to score quickly when required, or steady the ship as necessary, although he wasn't able to do that today. Mascarenas had to make way for Bopara and can certainly consider himself unlucky, and I'm sure England will be considering options for the number 7 position for the 2nd ODI, although I'd personally like to see them stick with Bopara. If they aren't going to use the number 7 to bowl, then it's more likely a choice between Wright and Bopara, if they want a bowler then it's a choice between Mascarenas and Bopara.
Looking at how the wickets fell there were a couple of guys who chopped onto the stumps, and 3 run outs, so there's no reason to panic in terms of selection - the same team just needs to play better!
You can see the disasterous scorecard here.
It seems that an Indian woman's family are claiming that Shoaib Malik, the Pakistan captain, deserted her after exchanging vows over the phone. Given international cricket schedules, perhaps this is the future for professional cricketers - relationships carried out over the phone and the internet!
Apparently, "Some school of thought of the Islamic Shariah laws recognise the exchange of marriage vows over the telephone", which is interesting - I wonder who witnesses it and who carries out the marriage? If you know, comment below.
Unsurprisingly, Malik says he just wants to concentrate on his career....
Mascarenas is proving to be a pretty handy six hitter late in Twenty20's and ODIs, although he's had immense help from Yuvraj Singh and Jeetan Patel who seem to like bowling half-volleys! It's still pretty special to be able to consistently hit sixes though, whatever the size of the ground. View Mascarenas' sixes in the first Twenty20 by clicking here.
Usually England seem to follow up a good performance with a bad one so it was refreshing to see a decent performance in yesterday's 2nd Twenty20 too. New Zealand seem pretty depleted, but hopefully England can keep winning emphatically in the ODIs coming up. If they do no doubt the English press will start saying the Collingwood should be captain of the Test side instead of Vaughan!
Nice to see England, whose first two games were played at the superbly named 'Village Green' Ground, coping so well with something more familiar to the likes of us mere mortals - namely a funny shaped ground for their Twenty 20 victory today. It seemed like a widened coffin with the 'feet' at coin de vache. The contrast was that whereas we look at the short boundary and worry about protecting that, the pro seems to look at the odd shape as a benefit and reckon that the batsman might not reach the deeper corners so puts men there for the catch (see Anderson's excellent example) from today's game.
The other contrast is that whereas we bowl slow bowlers into the wind ostensibly because it's supposed to help them (and more to the point the faster man doesn't want that end) England seemed to bowl Swann with the wind at his back so that the batsman hitting straight had to hit against the conditions - canny !
This morning, the ECB are going to announce their recommendation to the ICC that Lords and The Oval will be two of the three grounds where ICC Twenty20 World Championship matches will take place during June 2009.
A recent highlights show had a shot of the umpires signalling 4 or 6 for every single boundary. Now there are all sorts of ways that the ball can be hit or nicked to the boundary but even if you're Billy Bowden there's a limit to the number of different ways that you can raise your arms above your head or wave one across your stomach and it's not as if they're doing something unpredictable. So more cricket and fewer umpires' signals please.
An interesting article here following up on the Harbajan issue. The Indian author argues that India is one of the most racist contries in the world and that needs to change. Many of the comments on the article - mostly from Indian's - also give some insight into Indian culture....one guy complains that his own family don't want him to play cricket because it will darken his skin colour and a light skin tone is desired.
Whatever your viewpoint on the Harbajan issue, this article makes interesting reading.
Brett Lee dominated the abandoned one-dayer in Australia today, and he was man-of-the-series in the recent Test series v India. Suddenly, he appears to be Australia's best bowler, having for years looked like an also-ran. His 100% commitment and his handy runs from number 9 (he averages over 20 with the bat in Tests) have never been in doubt, but there have been times when I've questioned Australia's determination to pick him seemingly without question. There's no doubt he's in the form of his life at the moment though.
Brett Lee came in at number 24 in Shane Warne's top 50, ahead of Steve Waugh. I'm not sure than anyone other than Warne would argue that Lee should really come above Waugh, but it's interesting that someone like Warne rated Lee so highly. Perhaps only now that he's had the support of McGrath and Warne taken away, he can really have the confidence that he is one of the best - if not the best - Aussie bowler.
As an Englishman, perhaps my view is clouded by the fact that Lee seems to have underperformed against us Poms. In his first 3 series against England he averaged 55, 41 and 41, which is hardly the sort of form that gets you placed 24 in a list of leading international cricketers. Even in the thrashing of England in Australia last year, Lee averaged 33 which, while good, did nothing to elevate his status above that of a whole-hearted trier, which is how many Englishmen see him.
But Brett's certainly come good. Which is more than we can say for his attempt at a pop career in India, although I gather this effort did pretty well in the charts!
Loyal readers of Cricket Burble will remember John Wright's post about alternative ways of working out averages, many months ago: "A Mean Average". And of course you'll also know about Cricket Burble's attempts to reduce the role of luck with "real" averages. This post on a Cricinfo blog also talks about alternatives, the suggesting being to create an "EBA" or Extended Batting Average. It's equally - or perhaps even more - flawed but interesting nonetheless.
Not the least odd part of the whole overblown story is the revlation today that the judge who handed out his 50% match fee fine, John Hansen, was unaware that he had 'previous'.
Firstly 'why not ?' as it's public knowledge but far more importantly 'so what ?' since he should only have been judging the facts of the incident (and there seems to have been very few of them).
A conversation in the pub a couple of months ago turned to the lack of success of finger spinners in Australia. This conversation came just after the Sri Lanka series and Murali's lack of success (I know most people don't consider him a finger spinner these days). Thinking back its hard to rember any finger spinners taking large hauls on Australian soil. Vettori has had his moments, but not many. Going back further Peter Taylor and Tim May for Australia did OK without ever setting the world on fire, and I seem to remember reading about Ashley Mallett having a good season in the seventies. Talking to a few old timers it appears even Bishan Bedi found it difficult on Aussie soil.
It's interesting that the footage of the players around the time of Harbajan Singh's alleged comments has now come out, and you can hear what the players say, with the exception of the vital bit - when Harbajan allegedly called Symonds a "monkey"!! Nevertheless it shows the conversation around that time and I have to say in my opinion, and it's only an unproven opinion, Harbajan has been lucky. I've previously said on Cricket Burble that unless it can be proven through a microphone or one of the umpires hearing the comments, then Harbajan should be assumed to be innocent.
I stand by that, but the conversation doesn't appear to be contrived to try and get a guy into trouble. If the Aussies wanted to frame Harbajan then why not just say he said it, and without all this chat that was recorded? You can watch the video and hear the comments here.
What is said is:
Symonds: "Go and yell at your team mates" (obviously there has been some sort of conversation before that point which isn't heard)
Singh appears to say something back but the comments aren't picked up.
Symonds: "You called me monkey again?"
Hayden: "You've got a witness now champ. That's the last time."
Harbajan: "No, listen, he started it."
Hayden: "Doesn't matter mate, it's racial vilification mate. It's a sh*t word and you know it."
There is no doubt that in a world where everyone should be innocent until proven guilty, Harbajan should not be found guilty. But that's different to saying that he's innocent. I believe that in Scotland they have verdicts of "unproven" in court cases which basically means they think the guy or girl did it, but can't prove it. The fact that Harbajan was found guilty of a slightly lesser charge (compared to racist comments) of obscene language, just goes to show that is the view of all concerned - there is no evidence of obscene language either, but it was a desperate attempt to keep the peace and punish him for something that it seems he probably did. He should have been let off entirely or found guilty of making racially abusive comments.
Anything in between, in the absence of any evidence, is farcical.
If you read Cricket Burble, you will have heard my views on using technology to help make decisions before, but now a few people that don't read Cricket Burble have also been subjected to that view. In the latest edition of The Wisden Cricketer you'll see my letter in the letters section near the start. Of course it was an email rather than a letter, but that's not important!
The end of a brilliant career. Cricinfo have highlighted Gilchrist's best 5 innings. A very special player with over a decade of cricketing achievement at the highest level. Spectators will miss him for the excitement he brought whenever he batted, and we will all have to listen to every wicket-keeper/batsman under the sun being called "the new Gilchrist" for a long time to come....
Yes, I know what you're thinking....that's a while off yet and England should concentrate on New Zealand. But in fact, the Ashes start next Friday with a Twenty20 - the women's Ashes that is. The good news from an England point of view is that the Aussie keeper has just broken her thumb. Come on England!
It was an amazing match that not only brought to an end Australia's winning streak, but also gave India a great win. It's got to be good for everyone if Australia's dominance in world cricket is reduced, and it sets up a tantalising 4th Test. For 5 minute highlights, click here. (It takes a while to load as no doubt the most of India is watching.)
Not surprisingly, the change by the ICC to use Billy Bowden instead of Steve Bucknor in the 3rd Test between Australia and India resulted in no less mistakes by the official. Like Bucknor, Bowden made two definite mistakes in all and, like Bucknor, one came at a crucial stage on the final day. The reduction in wrong decisions actually came at the other end, with Asad Rauf also making two wrong decisions, compared to Mark Benson's four* in the 2nd Test (*although 4 is harsh on him - it was really 3 as the "catch" by Clarke of Ganguly was given on the basis of the agreement between the sides that the fielding captain would be trusted to say if the ball carried - it wasn't Benson's mistake).
Bucknor made no secret of the fact he was disappointed to be replaced, but yesterday said that he's happy to continue for another year if the ICC want him. On the basis of the wrong decisions in the 3rd Test being no less than the 2nd, the ICC need to apologise for the way they treated him and continue with him in all matches as scheduled, whether India are involved or not.
But the damage has now been done and India will feel that they can change umpires when they aren't happy with them. All it takes is for this to happen:
"We have asked our team management to lodge a protest to the ICC match referee against the wrong umpiring decisions made today by Steve Bucknor. The wrong decisions made by Bucknor have been commented upon by all cricketers and analysts alike," said BCCI vice president Rajiv Shukla."I am sure the International Cricket Council will be monitoring the matter in Dubai and take appropriate actions," Shukla said.
Funnily enough there doesn't seem to be any mention of India complaining about the wrong umpiring decisions now that they've won, so presumably there will be no pressure on the ICC despite their replacement making the same number of definitely wrong decisions as Bucknor.
(Incidentally, I've finally found video footage of some of the 2nd Test controversial decisions - click here to see them on YouTube).
I'm all for ex-cricketers making money however they can, but it seems strange that such a huge talent as Shane Warne would choose to reduce his Hampshire cricket rather than make the most of his last year or two of professional cricket. According to the Guardian, Warne's new poker playing agreement will mean he misses a fair bit of the season, but given the money in gambling, the assumption is that Warne is making serious money from his role on the world poker circuit which is why he's put it ahead of cricket in his priorities.
As this article says, poker's gain is cricket's loss.
Is Ishant Sharma, currently playing for India, the possessor of the largest adam's apple in first class cricket ever?
Next time you hear him talking about playing straight or correctly or in an orthodox style it's nice to remember that in The Cricketers Coggeshall there's a fine photograph of a very youg Ian Botham playing a reverse sweep!
MEDIA RELEASE - From the International Cricket Council for immediate release (especially in India).
The ICC has announced several changes to the playing conditions for the forthcoming 3rd test in Perth between Australia and India. These changes include:
* India must win.
* The umpires shall be nominated by the Indian team. It will be acceptable if reserve Indian players rotate as umpires.
* During the game all appeals shall be referred to the Indian management team and the Indian media contingent prior to any decision being made. (This includes where an Indian player may appear, to the naked eye, to have been bowled.)
* When the Indian team is batting the boundary rope shall be moved inwards 20 metres.
* Australian bowlers shall bowl under arm.
* India must win.
* Any time Ricky Ponting is on the field he shall be restrained in a full length strait jacket and muzzled.
* Any Australian spin bowler must advise the batsman in advance what type of delivery is going to be bowled.
* At any time Andrew Symons is on the field he must wear a gorilla suit and accept any sledging in the light hearted manner that
this is intended.
* India must win.
* Harbhajan Singh will be cleared on appeal and be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.
* Indian batsman may be permitted to use larger bats.
* Australian batsmen may use a bat every fifth over.
* Australian fieldsman should praise every batting attempt by the Indians by saying "Good shot chaps." Apart from this Australian players are not permitted to speak.
* During the lunch and tea break both teams shall get together and have a cup of tea.
* India must win. The ICC and the BCCI hope that all Australians will understand these minor changes are intended in the best interest of the game.
The ICC would also like to announce that Steve Bucknor has been appointed as the ICC's new cricketing ambassador to Kazikstan. The ICC wishes Steve all the best in this important, newly created role.
RIP International Cricket
Why does W H Smith at Waterloo station keep The Wisden Cricketer on the top shelf with all the other magazines you'd expect to see there?
Why did Chris Gayle need a runner in the last test for a broken thumb?
Why do they measure the speed of a cricket ball in miles per hour when it will never go for a mile or for an hour ? What we need is a measure based on how deep it would go into a hedge at that speed or how many fingers it would break.
I've checked all the reports I can and can find no "proof" that Ganguly wasn't out caught by Michael Clarke in the last Australia v India Test. And yet someone who saw the replay on Sky suggested that it was definitely, without doubt, not out and the ball didn't carry.
Anyone with Sky care to comment? At the moment the Ganguly decision isn't on the wrong decisions list.
I'm trying my best not to make every post about wrong decisions but it's pretty tricky right now with the amount of them. You can read Cricinfo's view on the Australia v India match here, along with reader comments. I'll say no more. Except that the wrong decisions list has been updated again!
While I don't necessarily think that there is anything wrong with the squad on paper, as I mentioned yesterday, I'm worried about the inconsistency in England selection. Don't think Prior can cut it as international level? OK, so make the number 2 on the previous tour the first choice keeper - Mustard. And yet all the press seem to think that Ambrose will be first choice keeper.
And I feel very sorry for Bopara. It looks like he might have to follow the path previously trod by Collingwood. A proven pressure player in ODIs who is assumed not to be able to step up but he will deliver when he gets a proper chance. The poor guy has only had 5 innings in Tests and was given out when he wasn't in one of them and run out in another - it's far too early to be casting him aside. I hope it's not too long before he gets another go.
The next question is, what number will Strauss bat?
I've nothing against Strauss at all, but in many ways I hope this report that Strauss may come back for the New Zealand series is wrong. It would be back to the bad old days of reactionary England selections. Bopara or Shah would be the obvious people to go, but neither of them has done anything to warrant exclusion based on the Sri Lanka trip, and Strauss has done nothing to warrant inclusion having been left out of the squad for Sri Lanka - as far as I know he hasn't even played although he is going to play for Wellington in New Zealand.
One of the few successes in Sri Lanka was the opening partnership which was more solid than recent times so there seems no rationale for bringing Strauss back, and to bring him back would be to admit that the selectors think they made a mistake in their squad selection for Sri Lanka.
Cricket Burble has now reached it's half-century of wrong decisions following Ponting's LBW today where he got a big inside-edge. Over 50 wrong decisions since May - that's a pretty worrying strike rate considering that the Cricket Burble list of wrong decisions is likely to be an underestimation as I can't watch all Test and ODI cricket around the world on TV, much as I might like to!
Anyway, 50 not out and expecting to power our way to a century pretty quickly given the rate of wrong umpiring decisions.
Later note: in fact the 50th wrong decision in the list is now Ponting's edge down the leg-side that wasn't picked up, leaving the subsequent wrong LBW, mentioned above, as the 51st wrong decision.
It must be because professional sport offers such a short career that so many ex-players end up in administrative positions after their retirement. After all, it would be pretty tricky to take up a completely different career, so no-one can blame them. However, presumably ability to do the job must come first in the selection criteria, and the fact that they used to play the game a distant but advantageous second, I would hope.
But time and again players move into admin roles all around the world. And it's not necessarily the down to earth business like players that get these roles - it's often the more outspoken players like Gaveskar and Miandad. This time it's Ranatunga in Sri Lanka who is changing his role within Sri Lankan cricket. I hope that he does well, but I can't help feeling that he may be another who's ego comes first, and his job requirements come second - I hope I'm proved wrong.
It's taken a while but I've finally got round to pulling together the "real" averages from the Sri Lanka v England series. Somehow a 3 match series doesn't seem to do justice to the players - someone like Pietersen was only actually out 4 times but even his real average is only 31.5, with his official average being 25.2 after the catch that never was, meaning that officially, he was out 5 times. Likewise Bopara undoubtedly goes down as a failure in his first 3 Test matches having officially averaged 8.4 and only slightly more than that with his real average. But of the 5 times he was out, one was not out where he was given LBW, and one was run out, so in effect he was got out by the Sri Lankan bowlers only 3 times. I hope he isn't discarded based on his performances in Sri Lanka.
For Sri Lanka, Sangakarra only has a "real" average of 48.3 as opposed to an official average of 72.8, and Vandort suffered a poor decision so while his official average is a highly respectable 53.3, his "real" average is 71.
England will be hoping that the New Zealand series brings a better set of batting averages - only Bell and Prior had a "real" average of over 40, with the next best being Collingwood at 32.8.
Check out the latest "real" averages here.
As captain Michael Vaughan received the heaviest fine for slow over rates in the final Test in Sri Lanka - 40% - but the other players also lost 20% of their match fees. I've always been a fan of Vaughan's captaincy but even he must be kicking himself for the way he ignored some of his "lesser" bowlers who would have got through their overs quicker.
Of the 148.5 overs that England bowled in Galle, 22.5 were bowled by Collingwood, Bopara and Pietersen, and none by Vaughan himself. It would be really interesting to know how much input Moores' has had in the bowling tactics and whether it has been stipulated that Vaughan shouldn't bowl himself to prolong his career. In the absence of knowing that though, it can only be assumed that Vaughan himself chose to rely on his "specialist" bowlers which in Sri Lankan conditions not only reduced England's chances of winning, but also cost the team money.
Owais Shah, Andrew Strauss and......................Simon Hughes. Whilst never a great fan of Simon when a player (remember him being carted for a huge six off the first ball of the last over of a Lord's Final?), I think all his books are splendid and now having got away from that cramped analysts box he's been a fantastic addition to the commentary summariser team.
Several of his colleagues are very good at the bl**ding obvious but Simon always seems to have something new to say and the beauty is that only some of it is peculiar.
...have impacted on the first day of the final Sri Lanka v England Test. It seems that England are 2-1 up in terms of wrong decisions, but I assume there will be a few more to come. Click here to see the latest wrong decisions.
When India toured England last summer, Karthik was rumoured to be the better keeper above Dhoni. Having got his chance in the latest Test v Pakistan, he's managed to concede 31 byes and the innings isn't near to complete yet. I don't think Dhoni has much to worry about...
...to see that DJ Harper referred a catch to the 3rd umpire, despite having full view of the incident in the Sri Lanka v England match today. You can read more at Cricinfo. When umpires ignore the regulations suggesting that they can't refer catches to the 3rd umpire unless they are unsighted, it's pretty safe to say that there is a problem.
Along with Vaughan's unlucky dismissal where he middled the ball only for short-leg to hold on to the catch, England also suffered two wrong umpiring decisions today - Pietersen and Cook, so can consider themselves a little unlucky. Only a couple of days ago, I mentioned how pleasing it was to hear Clive Lloyd's views on using technology, and now Michael Vaughan has also said that technology should have been used to ensure the correct decision was made today when Pietersen edged the ball to slip.
The question is...why are we resisting the inevitable? If the game of cricket was invented today, it would be considered rediculous not to use what technology we have to ensure that the correct decisions are made. But given that cricket has survived for so long without the use of technology, there is an understandable reluctance to accept change. In a business context, it's inconceivable that the senior management team of a company wouldn't embrace change - if they did it would cost their company money and, probably, cost them their jobs. There aren't the same financial impacts for not embracing inevitable change in cricket, but it really should cost people their jobs if they can't make the decision to use technology at the right time and manage that change appropriately.
It seems that Hoggard is doubtful for the 2nd Test v Sri Lanka and the chances of him playing seem to be reducing rather than increasing. So who do England turn to to fill that slot in their XI? I'd like to see a wholesale change of bowling tactics.
England seem to be largely ignoring the likes of Vaughan, Collingwood and Bopara, who bowled 20 overs in the 1st Test between them. Admittedly the Sri Lanka 1st innings didn't require many overs in total, so no surprise that of the three Bopara got just one over in the first innings. But in the second we chose to bowl Anderson for 23 overs compared to 19 in total for the three "part-timers". I reckon that Bopara, Collingwood and Vaughan are all just as likely as Anderson, Broad or Harmison to get wickets, so we need to use them - not using them is the equivalent of batting a specialist batsman at 10.
Given Hoggard's injury, our best line up is:
Cook
Vaughan
Bell
Pietersen
Collingwood
Shah
Bopara
Prior
Sidebottom
Anderson
Panesar
If England utilise all their options, this leaves us with 6 bowlers. A more radical step would be to use Swann instead of Anderson and open the bowling with Bopara as he did successfully in the warm-up game. I wouldn't be upset to see England do that, but I think it's a step too far given the restricted thinking about who is considered "a bowler" to date.
It's great to hear that Clive Lloyd supports the use of technology to aid umpires to make the correct decisions! I was beginning to wonder if anyone in authority had any sense, or if it was a simply a case of wanting to stubbornly resist change. Given his comments below, I hope he can persuade others of his opinion sooner rather than later.
"We want to have the best team winning, with the least amount of mistakes possible; that's what the game should be about. If the technology exists to get a close-up on a catch or to show that the ball's hit going down the leg side, we should use it. You can't tell me that the umpire is going to pick up every bat-pad with the naked eye. No man can do it. So sometimes he's going to end up looking stupid. All I would like to do is to stop guys getting exposed and looking bad."
I'm sure that Asad Rauf and Billy Doctrove, who have both made clangers in the last week, would agree.
While cricket would benefit greatly from using technology, other sports also stubbornly refuse to use technology when it's there to be used. Rugby lovers may have noticed on the weekend that New Zealand narrowly beat Fiji in the Dubai sevens and their last try (after Fiji had scored 3 in a row and had all the momentum) came after a knock-on.
Oh for more Clive Lloyds across the senior administration of all sports.
Interesting to hear Murali's comments on who the hardest batsmen were to bowl against following his record. Brian Lara heads the list, but an Englishman was next on the list along with Andy Flower of Zimbabwe. Who? Graham Thorpe was apparently right up there as the hardest player to bowl at, according to Murali - I've always felt that we didn't quite realise what a great player Thorpe was while he was playing, so it was interesting to hear Murali's thoughts.
