He did not get reams of coverage in the lead-up to the series and does not have a carrom ball or doosra, but Pragyan Ojha has become a vital cog in MS Dhoni’s bowling attack

Sidharth Monga17-Nov-2012If you had given MS Dhoni six months in a laboratory with all the sophisticated scientists and equipment at his disposal and asked him to come up with a man-made bowler for Test matches in the subcontinent, he would have come out with long, wild hair and Pragyan Ojha walking behind him. Ojha is a Dhoni kind of bowler.Ojha doesn’t bowl mystery balls, he doesn’t give batsmen nightmares, he belongs to one of the least threatening species, but he gives Dhoni what he loves: control. Dhoni has the patience of a hawk. He likes nothing better than a bowler who can bowl on the same spot all day. That lets him set a field and build pressure. He can then wait for the batsman to make a mistake. He didn’t have any such stock fast bowler in Australia and England, and the difference was conspicuous.All this makes Ojha sound like some hard-working mule who turns up and keeps pitching on an imaginary kerchief all day long. He is not. Yes, Ojha is a good control bowler on tracks good for batting. Yes, he may not make it turn the other way, he may not announce new deliveries, but Ojha does more than just land it on a length just outside off, especially when the pitch is helping him.Ojha’s arm ball to trap batsmen who are unfamiliar with spin is well appreciated, but two of the more under-rated aspects of his bowling are his use of the crease and different trajectories. As Shane Warne will tell you, landing it in the same area is only half the job; it’s when you make it take different routes to that same destination that the batsman is deceived. His pitch map shows a circle with a small radius on a length just outside off, but the beehive has a much bigger representation, with varied bounce and turn. With the pitch getting slower, he might need to do more in the second innings, but this was good enough for the first dig.Against England on the third day, he used the angle from wide of the stumps to delightful impact. He let the pitch’s natural variation confuse the batsmen, bowling from wide of the stumps and drawing different degrees of turn. Every now and then he slipped in the arm ball. The England batsmen contributed to their own demise, but Ojha had to work hard for those wickets: this was not a pitch with balls exploding out of the rough and popping up for easy bat-pad catches.Ojha’s dismissal of Kevin Pietersen would have delighted all old-fashioned left-arm spinners. Ojha should have had Pietersen caught and stumped in his first and second overs of the day, but gradually Pietersen started to settle down and reaching the pitch of the balls. Ojha didn’t lose his patience in that 13-over unbroken spell. In the over that he eventually got the wicket, Ojha shortened Pietersen’s stride with one that didn’t turn. The inside edge on that occasion saved Pietersen, but the doubt created was enough for him to not push all the way forward to the next ball that turned enough to beat the edge.The reward for that persistence was doubled one ball later when Ian Bell tried to work him off his rhythm with a charge down the wicket. Ojha didn’t change where the ball would pitch, and the surface did the rest. That spell of 13-5-26-2 provided Dhoni and India all they wanted. There were no loose balls to provide the batsmen the release, there were no wide balls that you could leave alone and switch off for a while, and there was no monotony the batsmen could get used to.Ojha still won’t give batsmen nightmares. He still won’t be the first-choice spinner, although that’s an arrangement that might need revisiting. On a less helpful pitch and against less helpful batsmen, Ojha might not have completed his fourth five-wicket haul – in 16 Tests – but even on a flat track he wouldn’t have gone at more than three an over. His career economy rate of 2.75 before this match says as much. And he doesn’t do it by firing balls into the pads or wide outside off, he does it through his control and subtle changes. For the moment, in the subcontinent, it is good enough for Dhoni.

Michael Clarke has instilled into his own side that it is possible to win from any situation. The attacking mindset was personified by James Pattinson’s fiery spell, for example

Brydon Coverdale in Brisbane13-Nov-2012Over the past five days at the Gabba, Australia and South Africa played out the first draw between the sides in their past 14 Tests. The rain on the second day didn’t prevent Michael Clarke from trying to fashion a route to victory. And in a four-day game on one of the flattest, slowest Australian pitches in recent years, that his men went so close to achieving that goal was a remarkable effort.It also said much about the way the Australians approach the game under Clarke’s leadership. Though he was never captain of Australia’s Test team, Shane Warne always believed Australia could win, from virtually any position. Clarke admires Warne’s mindset and has instilled it into his own side. Since he took over as full-time captain, the only match Australia have drawn that was not rain-affected was the game that gave Australia a series victory in Colombo last year. They have lost only two Tests, and won nine.After the first day, which brought only two wickets, the Australians not only lifted, they showed an intent that the South African camp seemed to lack. Ed Cowan played his strokes and with Clarke rebuilt from a perilous 3 for 40, and when their monster partnership was broken, Michael Hussey ensured the tempo did not slip. From a position of South African dominance, the match turned firmly in Australia’s favour.While he was compiling his third double-century this year, Clarke’s mind was active. How can we win this? Do we declare behind and challenge Graeme Smith to set us a target? Should we push on, build a lead and put South Africa’s batsmen under pressure? The runs came so quickly that Clarke decided on the latter approach, giving his bowlers most of the final day to do their work. They claimed five wickets, but ultimately time beat them.”I thought it was going to be tough if we had to chase 250 or 280 on that wicket on the last day,” Clarke said. “I thought our best chance of winning, especially the way Michael Hussey was playing and scoring quite quickly last night, was to get a lead, come out this morning and be as positive as we could, and then give ourselves enough time in the game to take nine wickets. Unfortunately we didn’t have enough time.”The boys deserve a lot of credit for their attitudes more than anything else. Our intent was the way it needs to be when you’re playing against such a good team. I think the way Ed Cowan and Michael Hussey batted, they certainly showed that intent and our attitude was spot on today with the ball. We were quite aggressive with our approach … We can certainly use the momentum that we take from this game and hopefully take it into Adelaide.”Australia’s attacking mindset was personified by James Pattinson on the final day. In a spell full of venom and verbal aggression, Pattinson was infuriated by Smith pulling away as a bird flew across the pitch with Pattinson in his delivery stride. Pattinson told Smith what he thought in no uncertain terms, and sent down a searing bouncer next ball, and it was the start of short but fiery contest between the two men.It didn’t take Pattinson long to have his man. Coming around the wicket, he enticed a loose shot from Smith, whose edge flew to gully. A pumped-up Pattinson gave Smith a send-off of sorts, but Clarke had no problem with the aggression showed by his young fast bowler. Pattinson collected five wickets for the match, the most by any Australian bowler, and he is rapidly making himself the spearhead of Australia’s attack.”Patto knows the rules,” Clarke said. “Like all the bowlers, I think the aggression, the intent is a big part of the way we play our best cricket. I certainly don’t want to stop that. But we understand there’s a line and you can go to the line but you can’t overstep it. Simple as that.”Patto’s enjoying being out there and playing, being on the park. I’ve said for a while we’ve got plenty of talent, it’s now about performance with the ball. It’s about guys being fit and firing at the right time. This is a great test for our quicks. We’re playing against a very good batting team, as we did against India last summer. It’s been a good start for us, especially after day one.”Day one certainly wasn’t a good start for the Australians. But there is no question they will fly out of Brisbane with more reasons for positivity than their rivals. And as Clarke knows, positive thinking is half the battle.

Well done to the selectors for a choice that is both bold and sensible, and that has added further to the necessary competition for places

Andy Zaltzman25-Feb-2013

This has been a momentous week for English history. The selection of a Test squad that was both surprising and interesting seemed to have been consigned to the bulging dustbin of history when central contracts took hold. England team announcements had mostly become as predictable as the returning officer delivering the results of the latest North Korean elections (at which, incidentally, Darren Pattinson last summer won a seat as MP for Pyongyang West).On Wednesday, however, coach Andy Flower and his selectorial compadres caught the media – and some of the centrally contracted players – unawares with a novel XII for the Lord’s Test against West Indies. There are two brand new bowlers fresh off the splutteringly inefficient production line of county cricket (Bresnan and Onions), a new No. 3 (Bopara, the first current Kings XI Punjab player to be picked for England in 132 years of Test cricket), and a marked failure to base selection on fading reputation.This is a no-lose selection for England. Either they will unearth a couple of new gems to hurl at the unsuspecting Australians, or they will be able to recall and unleash a seething, jilted Harmison, Vaughan or Bell, or even a justifiably peeved Hoggard, bent on proving their worth one final time. In fact, the trickiest scenario may be that the new players do adequately in the Tests, and the old players do adequately for their counties, and England enter the Ashes still unsure of their best team.Well done to the selectors for a choice that is both bold and sensible, and that has added further to the necessary competition for places. In the absence of many world-class performers, it makes sense to select the team with greater flexibility than of late. At times in England’s past, the selectors have given the impression that they would quite like to give WG Grace another crack, for old time’s sake, because there is no substitute for experience, and because they did not want to upset him.This time, however, they have boldly given youth its chance, whilst sending some strongly worded messages to the excluded. The Confectionery Stall’s mole in the ECB post room intercepted some of these strong-worded messages. Here they are:

Dear Mr Bell
Whilst we appreciated your charmingly naive confusion between ‘a good week’s batting’ and ‘earning your place back after an elongated period of irritating failure’, we would like to reiterate that you have been dropped, and properly dropped. Not merely sent to the corner until you’ve cheered up. You are, clearly, a very good batsman. Please prove it consistently and numerically over the next two months. And then keep proving it.
PS: Moving your front foot fully forward might help.Dear Sir Michael
We want to pick you. The public wants us to pick you. Cricket wants us to pick you. Even the Australians want us to pick you. We all want to see that cover drive a few more times before it retires. You scoring a series-winning century at The Oval in August would be one of the greatest stories in sport history. The only thing that doesn’t want us to pick you are the cold hard statistics. And they are arguing their case loudly and annoyingly. If you could find a way of winning them round, we would be most grateful.Dear Mr Harmison
Please find enclosed one official ECB time-machine. It has been set to travel back to early 2004. Please get in it, do some bowling, then set it to return you to Cardiff on July 8. Please. Please.Dear Owais
Call us when you get home. Something’s come up. Bad time to take a paid holiday.

And, finally:Dear Mr Zaltzman
Thank you for your application to fill the vacant No. 3 spot in the England batting line-up. We regret to inform you that you have been unsuccessful on this occasion.After careful consideration, we concluded that your CV demonstrated that you lack the required experience for this highly specialised role. The job of batting first-wicket down in Test cricket essentially requires that the successful applicant be very good at batting, and you fall markedly short of the necessary standard in this regard (notwithstanding your outstanding century for Penshurst Park against Chiddingstone in a Sunday village friendly in 1997, as described in painstaking single-by-single detail in your covering letter).We also noted your congenital fear of fast-moving hard round red objects, and, whilst we acknowledge that this has been assessed by your doctor to be a psychological condition dating from early childhood, we are nevertheless concerned that it would detract from the England team’s performance in the field.Additionally, we felt that your claim to be ‘a dangerous partnership-breaking occasional wrist spinner’ in your spare time was a bare-faced lie, and our research has revealed that every single wicket you have ever taken has been due to either luck or criminally negligent batsmanship.Furthermore, your two referees, whom we contacted, both testified that, given your catastrophic failure to control the audience for 20 minutes at a rowdy Christmas gig at the Comedy Store in Manchester in 2002, you would probably struggle to deal with the intense pressure of five days of Test cricket.And, finally, having dropped Samit Patel due to his over-enthusiastic girthwork, we feel it would be hypocritical to select you.We will keep your details on file, and should a similar vacancy arise in the future, please feel free to apply again. In the meantime, we recommend that you attempt to gain some work experience as a first-class cricketer, and cut down on fatty snacks between meals, to assist your future applications.Regards, G Miller, National Selector.

Matt Prior’s strength is his ability to play in any situation, and according to the needs of his team. His commitment to England’s cause cannot be doubted

Andrew McGlashan in Wellington15-Mar-2013
Matt Prior is one injury away from captaining England. Alastair Cook does not miss Tests – he has only been absent for one since his debut, on his first tour in 2006 – so the odds are against it, but a broken finger is only one rearing delivery or awkward catch away. If misfortune did happen to cross Cook, leading England would certainly not be a role above Prior’s station.He has been elevated to vice-captain for this tour, replacing Stuart Broad who had previously been Cook’s deputy, and it is the official stamping of the leadership position he has had within this team since his second coming as a Test cricketer. Whether it be trying to salvage a disintegrating innings, throwing the bat to bring about a declaration, stealing back impetus as he did today, snaffling catches behind the stumps, geeing up fielders during a long day in the dirt, or running from his position to have a word with the bowler, Prior is rarely far away from the crux of a situation.His leadership qualities shone through last year off the field, too, when he took it upon himself to pick up the phone and call Kevin Pietersen after his meltdown following the Headingley Test against South Africa. Prior had no selfish thoughts and just wanted to try and sort out a mess that was engulfing the England team. His chat with Pietersen did not bring immediate rewards, but it was another occasion when all the thought was about the bigger picture.Selfishness is just not something that comes near Prior’s game. You only had to witness his dismissal in Wellington, reverse sweeping to be caught at short third man shortly before tea, when he was within touching distance of a seventh Test hundred, which would have put him just one behind Les Ames among England wicketkeeper-batsmen.”It’s not the way I play, mate. I try to read the situation as best I can, and adapt my game,” Prior said. That’s all that’s important to me – making sure the team’s in the right position at the end of the day.”I’d be lying if I didn’t say you do walk off and [think] ‘Oh, 18 runs away – it would have been lovely to get a Test century’. They don’t come around that often. But if I get it over his head, it’s another boundary, then get to tea and have another little dart after tea. That’s more important.”Prior and the team’s plan had worked out just about right, especially having been put in. Bat until tea on the second day with more than 450 on the board. Yet when Prior walked in at 325 for 5, following loose shots from Ian Bell and Joe Root, the innings was threatening to be neither one thing nor the other. In fact New Zealand were enjoying the better of the day. However, by lunch he was already into gear with 15 off 21 balls, signing off the session two powerful off drives.Shortly after the interval, Pietersen fell trying to clear mid-off against Bruce Martin, and Broad, whose batting continues to slide to such an extent that Steven Finn will expect the No. 8 position soon, feathered a catch to keeper. At 374 for 7, England could have been kept under 400, not a failure by any means but neither the statement they wanted to make.With Finn at the other end, fresh from his nightwatchman heroics in Dunedin, Prior knew he had someone who would not gift his wicket away so there was no need to go into farming mode, but intent was important. England wanted to dictate the nature of the game. While he plundered the off side there was also a delicate touch as he glided the ball through the slips to bring up the 400. Then he took apart Neil Wagner, the feisty left-arm quick, with two straight drives for six as he set his sights on the team’s aim.But when asked about his display, typically he focused on someone else. “It was nice to contribute. But more important for me today was the contribution from Steven Finn. There was a lot said about his innings in the last Test match. It was a slightly different situation today, and again he stepped up. It’s so important, those guys putting in those contributions at the bottom. Even if he’s just batting time, and someone else is able to score at the other end, it’s so vital.”Of the current vintage of wicketkeeper-batsmen, Prior is one of a few in form. MS Dhoni’s has a recent double-hundred against Australia, to follow his 99 against England in Nagpur, although his average does not match Prior, and AB de Villiers is settling into his new position with increasing effectiveness. Kumar Sangakkara was outstanding, and remains so as a batsman, but no longer keeps in Tests.From those three contemporaries, de Villiers and Sangakkara are top-order batsman while Dhoni has recently moved from No. 7 to No. 6. A move one place up the order would allow Prior the chance for more substantial innings, but it is easy to see why England like the current set-up. The only way it will change is if a bowling allrounder, perhaps Chris Woakes, makes a sustained case for No. 7.Regardless of where he bats, though, Prior can lay a claim to being England’s best ever. His average has pushed ahead of Ames, although he remains behind him in terms of hundreds, and is considerably higher than that of Alan Knott, who Prior does not match as a gloveman, although errors in his work are few and far between now. Alec Stewart also needs to be included in any such debate, but Prior makes a strong case although not one he is yet willing to think about.”As far as I’m concerned, those guys are legends of the game – and I’ve got a long way to go before I class myself alongside them,” he said. “You look at these guys – Stewie has been a mentor of mine for many years – and their stats and the games they’ve played, of course. They’re distant goals. I made the mistake of looking too far ahead once before, and I’m not going to do that again.”Fingers crossed, one day I might be able to say ‘Yes, I had a good influence on the team’.” Of that, there is no doubt.

While trying to come to terms with the end of his playing days, Andrew Strauss tries to see if his interests lie in administration, media, or marathon-running

Interview by George Dobell15-Mar-2013Have you picked up a bat since you retired?
I have, but only for a couple of corporate net sessions. I felt rusty but it was funny: even hitting those part-time bowlers around reminded me how much I love batting. It’s very much part of who I am. There’s no reason why I won’t play the odd charity match in the future, but all those endless nights and all those days worrying about how I was going to perform are in the past. I won’t miss that.You must have considered continuing to play county cricket as a senior pro?
I did, yes. But in the end I concluded that I wouldn’t have had the motivation to play properly. Other people may be able to go back into the game and fulfil a valuable role, but it is a personal thing and I decided it wasn’t for me. I wouldn’t have been in the best position to play well. I would always have been thinking about what I was going to be doing next – how I would set up a business or whatever it might be – and wouldn’t have had the motivation.There is a persistent rumour about you entering politics…
There is, but I don’t know where it came from. It’s not a route I’m considering at this stage. I suppose I am quite interested in politics, but you would have to be so committed to it to consider it as a career. It’s not on my mind, really.No doubt you’ve had the usual offers from the likes of and ?
Yes, I had some polite enquiries from those sorts of shows. They got a pretty short answer in return. That’s not the way I’ll be going.Was it frustrating to retire on the back of the defeat against South Africa? They were a very good side, but England didn’t really do themselves justice, did they?
There is a sense of frustration. You’re right: we didn’t do ourselves justice as a team. We should have scored far more runs in that first innings at The Oval and made that game safe. It wasn’t an easy time for the team. There were a lot of things going on and we came unstuck against a very, very good South Africa side. So yes, on the surface, that is a frustrating way to finish, but hopefully there were enough smiles and good memories along the way to outweigh any regrets.When did you know it was time to retire? Can you explain a little about that process?
There wasn’t a moment when I knew. It was something that dawned fairly gradually. It wasn’t really a very healthy frame of mind to be in: I suppose I knew in the back of my mind for a while that my time was up, but I was trying to stop the thought taking root. Eventually it just became obvious.I suppose it was probably halfway through the South Africa series when I decided: “This is definitely it. It’s time to go.” It had been on my mind for about six months, but only during the last three or four weeks did it come to the forefront.I batted okay in that final season. I scored a couple of centuries against West Indies. But the combination of the batting and the captaincy was feeling more and more difficult and the team weren’t playing as well as they had. I just felt the team needed refreshing. It needed a restart. And I didn’t think I had the energy to lead it. In those situations, a new captain can sometimes come in and refresh things, and I think that’s what we’ve seen happen. Alastair Cook has taken over and he has done fantastically well. That made it easier, as it vindicated the decision.A lot of players struggle for equilibrium when they finish playing. How has it been for you?
It’s not easy. I suppose there is an element of anti-climax about it. It’s almost like going through a grieving process. You wake up in the morning wanting to do something important. And you’re not. That can take time to get used to. I’ve given up something up that has been very important to me for a long time; for most of my life, really. Being a cricketer has been my identity for 15 years and now I’ve got to find something else. It’s not easy to replace that. It’s not easy to replicate that passion. I’ve told myself to relax. I’ve told myself I’ll be doing important things again in the future.Presumably you’re still in touch with various members of the team?
Yes, but the nature of the relationship changes. It has to change. I have had to let go, really, and I know that. I’ve had my time. My journey is over, but it’s just starting for Nick Compton and Joe Root and Alastair Cook as leader.So what have you been doing?
Well, I’m writing my autobiography, which has taken a lot of time, I’ve been working for the ECB a little bit. And I’ve been running a lot. Running has been very good. It has forced me to retain a bit of fitness and it has forced me out of the house. I’ve been training to do the London marathon, which I’m running with my wife, Ruth, to raise funds for the Lord’s Taverners. It’s a special charity that does wonderful work helping disadvantaged people and I’m delighted to be able to support them. As a player most of the fitness work you do is about sprint and weights. I don’t think I ever ran more than about five or six miles. I did 21 miles yesterday.Are you looking to beat Andy Flower’s time – four hours and 45 minutes – from last year?
I might have a bit of an eye on that, yes. I’d like to beat four hours, but it’s probably unwise to make too many bold predictions.

“Being a cricketer has been my identity for 15 years and now I’ve got to find something else. It’s not easy to replace that. It’s not easy to replicate that passion. I’ve told myself to relax. I’ve told myself I’ll be doing important things again in the future”

Can you tell us a little more about the ECB role?
Yes. It’s a very broad consultancy role. It’s involved a bit of marketing, a bit of time with young players and a bit of strategy and planning to help ensure there is a structure in place to help England enjoy sustained success. I’m being used in any way that Hugh Morris sees fit, really. He is giving me a flavour of what it is like to be involved in cricket administration. The majority of my input has involved the England side. Hugh deals with the day-to-day England stuff that no one really sees but is so important in ensuring that things run smoothly.Is that an indication of your future career plans?
It might be. The idea, really, is to dip my toe in various things and see what I enjoy and what I’m good at. I know it’s going to be hard to find something that I’m as passionate about as I was about playing, so the aim in this 12-month period is to give myself a broad range of pursuits and options.Is media work among the options?
Yes. I would like to do some media work this summer. If nothing else, it will just be a fantastic way to get a front-row seat at the Ashes. It’s the same thing, really. I want to dip my toe in the water of the media world and see if I enjoy it.How about following Ashley Giles’ route into coaching, maybe as a director of cricket at a county?
I wouldn’t rule that out, but now isn’t the time for me to do that. I’d like to think it was always an option for me to work within the game, but I’d like to explore possibilities outside the game as well. It’s interesting you use the example of Ash: he’s demonstrated the possibilities and made it look like a great route to go down.Do you have a view on splitting the coaching role?
Yes, I think it’s a great idea. Andy Flower’s role had just become too big. He has done a fantastic job but there are real benefits in getting someone else to come in and ensuring that you’re concentrating equally on Test and limited-overs cricket. It’s so important to do the research and the planning, but it can be impossible to do that if you’re in the middle of a Test and the one-day games are the following week. The challenge is ensuring that the personalities involved are right, but it’s okay if there are different views. The coaches don’t have to see eye to eye on everything, but they do have to be able to work together when required. England have got a really good combination at the moment.Are you grateful for that period where you went to university before becoming a professional player? I mean in terms of coping with the ups and downs of life in professional sport and being able to make the transition afterwards.
Interesting. I’ve not really thought about that. I suppose that when you’re playing for England, you are in a bubble. You really do become divorced from the real world. I’d like to think that by the time I left uni, I was a bit more mature and prepared for the challenges ahead. But it’s hard to draw conclusions because, at the same time, young players have to commit to the game very early if they are going to get to the top. Not many come all the way through if they start late, as I did.As for preparing me for life after cricket… it’s hard to say. I’m not at the stage where I’m getting my CV out and going to interviews, but I appreciate the idea that studying for a degree gave me some sort of perspective and discipline.You were at the other end when Alastair Cook made his Test debut. When did you know that he was going to be special?
Oh, pretty early. He turned up on that tour and I didn’t know him from a bar of soap. But he hooked his third or fourth ball [actually his fifth] for four, and I remember thinking, “Hello, what have we got here?” It was his clarity of mind and method that struck me. He knew what he was doing; he was confident in what he was doing. He has gone through some ups and downs in his career but he is in a great place now technically and in terms of his confidence. He has a huge weight of runs behind him, and in terms of his age, his experience and his leadership, he is probably at his peak.Did you permit yourself a wry smile when you heard the news of the Australian players being dropped?
() In terms of knowing what you were going to get from them, James Anderson was the most reliable.What do you look back upon as your best innings?
It was probably the 129 I scored against Australia at The Oval.When you retired you mentioned you might try to get your golf handicap down. How is that going?
It was four when I retired and it’s still four now. I really haven’t had as much time to play as I thought and the weather has been terrible.Andrew Strauss will be running the London Marathon to help raise awareness and funds for The Lord’s Taverners, the UK’s leading youth and disability cricket charity. More information here

And Gayle went all Boycott

Andy Zaltzman25-Feb-2013The engrossing 2011-12 Test season came to an end last week, as Australia sealed a 2-0 win in the West Indies. The series could have had a different result had West Indies not been undermined by IPL clashes, selectorial squabblings, and top-order batting with the solidity of a blancmange in a 1950s nuclear-weapons test. History will probably judge those three factors to have been interlinked.Standing defiantly amidst the wreckage was Shivnarine Chanderpaul, the best batsman in the series by a significant margin, who became the tenth batsman to pass 10,000 Test runs, returned to the top of the Test batting rankings, and edged his career average back over 50. There may be few cricket lovers who drift off to sleep at night fondly reminiscing about the day they saw Chanderpaul stroke the ball effortlessly around the park, but he has been one of the most remarkable batsmen in an age of remarkable batsmen, a craftsman of infinite resource, capable of breaking out of his physics-defying stance with outbursts of truly sublime timing.Chanderpaul will be remembered primarily as a dogged accumulator, but he was responsible for one of the most extraordinary innings ever played in Test cricket. On day one of the April 2003 Test against Australia in Guyana, he came to the wicket with West Indies wallowing in an especially sludgy mire at 47 for 4. Lara was soon dismissed at the other end to make it 53 for 5.Chanderpaul, ever the man for a crisis, might have been expected to try to graft his team towards a moderate total. Instead, he plumped for an unexpected Plan B – he hammered a 69-ball century, batting as if someone had spiked his morning cornflakes with industrial-strength fireworks, and flaying the Australian bowling attack as if he had just discovered they had each eaten one of his beloved squad of pet terrapins, leaving behind only empty shells graffitied with the word “yum”.For a man with a career strike rate of 40, who less than a year before had ground his awkward way to 136 not out off 510 balls in an 11-hour megavigil against India, to slap what was then the third-fastest Test hundred of all time against the world’s No. 1- ranked team has to go down as one of the most out-of-character innings in Test history. He has compiled some of the most remarkable individual series performances of recent times, but that one innings stands out on his CV like a freshly powerdrilled thumb.At the other end of the “What on Earth Got Into Him?” scale of out-of-character batsmanship is Aravinda de Silva’s epically unproductive performance against Zimbabwe in Bulawayo in October 1994. He followed a 14-ball first-innings duck with a staggeringly negative 27 off 191 balls ‒ the second-slowest recorded innings of 25 or more in Test history ‒ as Sri Lanka ground their way to a draw on the fifth day. It must have felt like watching Michelangelo paint a chapel ceiling in an especially featureless shade of beige.Only Jack Russell’s unbeaten 29 off 235 in Johannesburg in 1995-96 ‒ the Robin of Resistance to Atherton’s Batman of Block ‒ has ever out-turgided de Silva’s innings, and that was an innings that was certifiably in-character, a by one of cricket’s most infuriating batsmen.De Silva, on the other hand, was a cavalier and magician, one of the most bewitching batsmen of his era, capable of destroying the best attacks while under the utmost pressure, in a flurry of untouchable strokeplay. In Bulawayo, the cavalier became a roundhead, and the magician downed his magic wand, gave his rabbits the day off from appearing out of his top hat, and did his accounts.Furthermore, he was up against a bowling attack none of whom had taken more than 16 Test wickets. And three of whom (Jarvis, Rennie and Peall) were so traumatised by the ordeal of bowling to him that they played a combined total of two more Test matches and took a collective one further Test wicket in the rest of their careers.Behind de Silva on that list of epic grinds are some of the all-time legends of strokeless negativity ‒ Chris Tavaré (35 off 240), Trevor Bailey (68 off 427), Trevor Franklin (28 off 175), and the renowned snooze-inducing West Indian stodgemeister, Chris Gayle.Hang on, is that the same Chris Gayle widely regarded as the best Twenty20 batsman in the loud history of the format? The Chris Gayle who hit a 70-ball Test hundred? Who flambéed 117 off 57 balls to register the first-ever century in a T20 international? Against South Africa? Who is third on the all-time list of Most-Sixes-Clonked In International Cricket? Who is one of only two players to have twice hit seven or more sixes in a Test innings (the other being Chris Cairns)? Who in his last two IPL matches has chunk-hammered 86 off 58 and 71 off 42, hitting one in every ten balls over the ropes and endangering innocent passers-by in the streets of Bangalore with his leviathan power? The Chris Gayle who can make bowlers inwardly beg for their mummies with one muscular flick of the shoulder? Yes. That Chris Gayle. That very same Chris Gayle.In April 2001, early in his Test career, at the end of a testing series against South Africa, as West Indies battled towards a consolation fifth-Test victory against the potent Protean pacemen, Gayle anti-bludgeoned his way to a sub-Boycottian 32 off 180 balls. It remains the slowest Test innings of 25 or more ever played by a West Indian. If he batted at the same rate in the IPL, he would carry his bat for 11 not out.Gayle did not find Test cricket an easy game in his early years. In his first 20 Tests he averaged under 30, and it was only in his 37th Test that his strike rate rose above 50. If he found Test cricket difficult then, however, now, he finds it impossible. Albeit for off-the-field reasons. Which is deeply regrettable. In what seem likely to prove his final 18 Tests, between December 2008 and December 2010, Gayle averaged 58, and hit 36 sixes.Would England rather be bowling at Adrian Barath and Kieran Powell when the first Test begins at Lord’s in two weeks’ time? Was Don Bradman good at batting? And would world cricket rather be watching England bowl at Gayle? Ditto.● Strap in for some curious stats. Since Brian Lara retired from Tests at the end of 2006, Chanderpaul has averaged 66 in Tests – the highest average of any Test batsman over that period. In the matches he played with Lara, Chanderpaul averaged 43. Was he cowed by Lara’s presence?Lara, in Tests when he played alongside Chanderpaul, averaged 47. In all the Tests he played without Chanderpaul in the team, Lara averaged 62. Was he cowed by Chanderpaul’s presence? Maybe each was inspired by the extra responsibility of not being able to rely on the other. Maybe it is just coincidence. Maybe not.Conclusion: West Indies should have played and dropped Lara and Chanderpaul in alternate Tests throughout their careers. Leaving out one of their two best players every match might not have been especially popular with the supporters, or with Lara or Chanderpaul, but you cannot argue with statistics. In any case, West Indian cricket has recently shown a relentless determination not to pick its strongest team anyway, so it might as well have done so from the mid-1990s.

Hamish Rutherford, son of Ken, has emerged as New Zealand’s new big opening hope

Andrew McGlashan in Dunedin08-Mar-2013Hamish Rutherford does not like comparisons with, or questions about, his father Ken. He wants to forge his own career and his own name. After a magnificent hundred on debut the signs are he will be able to do that, but he had better get used to hearing a few more comparisons over the next few days.Hamish’s debut could not have been a greater contrast to how Ken began his Test career. Facing West Indies, with a bowling attack including Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner and Michael Holding, a 19-year-old Ken bagged a pair; caught by Haynes off Marshall in the first innings, run out without facing in the second.In fact, it took him seven innings before he reached double-figures with 65 against Australia in Wellington. That, though, was followed by three more ducks in the next five innings. Ken had to wait until his 14th Test for a maiden hundred, which also came against England when he made 107 at Wellington in 1988, whereas Hamish reached the milestone on just his third day as a Test cricketer.It was not a faultless innings – dropped on 52 by Stuart Broad in his follow through and 64 by Kevin Pietersen on the first evening – but, like a rare breed of players can, he looked immediately at home in Test cricket. There was a booming drive on 94 and the ball scooted past the outside edge, but two boundaries in three deliveries off Steven Finn, a well-placed late cut then a firm cover drive which is quickly becoming a signature shot, brought up the hundred. He was just the ninth New Zealand batsman to achieve the milestone and in nice symmetry the previous man to do it, Kane Williamson, was at the other end.

‘Scoring runs, that’s my job’

Hamish Rutherford was a little nervous when he was approaching his debut hundred, but not for what might be considered the normal reason. There was an expensive wager on the line
“I’ve had a couple of 90s this year in first-class cricket and there was an Otago bet that if I got another 90 I had to buy everyone dinner,” he said. “That was in the back of my mind.”
His is a great story of a second chance at cricket and grasping that opportunity. He only returned to the Otago team last March but finished the season in prolific form and, although not among the highest scorers this year, had a timely surge shortly before England arrived. However, it was the realisation that cricket may not be a career that helped him turn the corner.
“There were a few dark times where things go through your head but I started working in a coffee shop and doing some bar work,” he said. “I started to get more life enjoyment through playing cricket as opposed to looking at it from a work point of view. Opportunities came in strange ways with Red [Redmond] getting dropped. I did well through them but that’s the way it happened.
“Cricket is not a be-all-and-end-all. We’re not saving babies at the end of the day. If you nick off you nick off. Scoring runs, that’s my job.”

Having played against Rutherford during the Twenty20s, ODIs and the New Zealand XI match in Queenstown – where he prepared himself for a Test debut with a compact 90 – England had plenty of opportunity to assess what they perceived were vulnerable areas. Like many left-handers he looked prone to giving a catch in the gully (where Pietersen put him down) and there were also questions asked of him against the short ball.However, when England’s bowlers kept the ball full outside off Rutherford kept dispatching it through the off side. When they went for a short-pitched approach Rutherford swayed expertly, did not try the hook and was content to wear the occasional blow. When Monty Panesar tossed the ball up, it was launched down the ground, including two sixes in three balls to move beyond 150. He had problems with his contact lenses during the Queenstown match, but was seeing it like a football now.This innings was not the first time Rutherford had shone at University Oval. Last season he scored 239, a ground record, against Wellington. For a time it appeared he would beat his own mark. Yet it is quite a remarkable story for a player in his 21st first-class match and who was serving coffee in a Dunedin cafe, facing the end of his professional career, barely more than a year ago.Now he should well get an extended run to try and fill one of the most troublesome positions in the New Zealand team. Since Mark Richardson retired in 2004 they have struggled to find one stable man never mind a partnership and plenty have been tried. Outside the two openers in this Test, there are 11 batsmen currently playing in New Zealand who have been given the chance to open.Some, such as Martin Guptill (30 Tests), Tim McIntosh (17 Tests) and Jamie How (19 Tests) have been given a fair run without ever suggesting they really have the quality. Others have just not looked up to the task. Rutherford was not a shoo-in for this Test after Guptill picked up his injury with a domestic summer average of 40.60. Aaron Redmond, whose loss of form last year gave Rutherford his second chance at first-class level, played the last of his seven Tests in November 2008 but has enjoyed a productive first-class season with 941 runs at 55.35 and Michael Papps, who last appeared in late 2007, was also suggested as an option after 810 runs at 45.Hamish Rutherford’s debut was a contrast to his father Ken, who bagged a pair in his first Test•Getty ImagesGut-feeling, though, is a key part of selection alongside statistics. Plus a bit of a luck. If Guptill had been fit he would likely have opened with Peter Fulton. New Zealand will have memories of being on the receiving end of a stunning debut by someone not initially in line to play: Andrew Strauss replaced the injured Michael Vaughan, at Lord’s, in 2004 and struck a hundred in his first innings. Alastair Cook was also a late replacement when he scored a hundred on debut against India in 2006 and more recently Faf du Plessis registered a century after replacing the injured JP Duminy in Adelaide. Right place, right time.Various former New Zealand players, notably Sir Richard Hadlee, have questioned the strength of the domestic game to produce Test cricketers so while Rutherford needs to ensure he builds on this fabulous start to have a sustained career it is an important success on many levels. The Rutherford name is, once again, at the heart of New Zealand cricket.

On the field, Chennai Super Kings produced one of their best seasons yet; off the filed, the franchise was squarely in the spotlight cast by the alleged corruption in the tournament

Nikita Bastian27-May-2013Where they finished
Runner’s up. Chennai Super Kings, in another remarkable showing, reiterated that they are consistently the team to beat in the IPL. For the fifth time in six IPLs, Super Kings made the final. For the second time in two years, however, they failed to clear the final hurdle.In the group stage, they had their most dominant season yet. In contrast to previous editions – 2010 and 2012, in particular – when they had to make a late scramble to make the playoffs, this year there was hardly ever a doubt that Super Kings would progress. They finished at the top of the points table, despite a big loss in their last group game. At one point, they equalled the IPL record for the most number of consecutive wins: seven. A standout feature of their success was the away victories: in a year when several teams were dominant at home, Super Kings were the only side to win more than they lost in away games.What went right
As has been the case across IPL seasons, Super Kings’ biggest strength was that everyone contributed. Michael Hussey might have finished as the tournament’s top run-scorer, with 733 runs (equalling Chris Gayle’s record for the highest aggregate in a single season) at 52.35, but Suresh Raina and MS Dhoni averaged over 40, too. Dwayne Bravo might have led the wickets chart with 32 at 15.53(the record tally for a season), but Mohit Sharma, R Ashwin and Chris Morris totalled 15 wickets or more as well. Hussey, Raina, Dhoni, Ravindra Jadeja, Bravo, Morris … they all produced match-winning contributions at different stages.In the lead-up to this season, both in the auction and while signing uncapped players, Super Kings’ obvious strategy was to strengthen their pace bowling. This noticeably worked for them, with Mohit and Morris becoming regulars in the line-up and adding some sting to what was previously Super Kings’ weakest department.Also, Super Kings seemed to have worked out a solid formula for their batting, and it worked more often than not – begin solidly instead of flamboyantly, build steadily in the first half of the innings, and let the big-hitters loose in the second half. In the final five overs this season, Super Kings scored at 11.29, the best among all the teams. That meant when they batted first, they eased to imposing totals on several occasions; when they chased, they came back to win several times when the match seemed to have got beyond them.What went wrong
In the final, most of the aspects that made Super Kings a force this season were missing, but there’s no denying 2013 was a good year for the team. On the field, that is. Off the field, Super Kings were at the heart of the biggest IPL controversy in six seasons. With top franchise official Gurunath Meiyappan being arrested for alleged betting in the final week of the tournament, the long-standing issue of N Srinivasan’s conflict of interest was raked up. Srinivasan is the managing director of India Cements, the franchise owners, and the president of the BCCI. Meiyappan is his son-in-law, and till now was projected as the “team principal”. Suddenly, Meiyappan is no longer a bigwig in Super Kings, Srinivasan is under pressure for holding on to his post in the BCCI, and the franchise faces the possibility of being disbanded. Will Super Kings, team in the IPL, still exist when the Champions League comes around in October?Best player
Super Kings most often structure wins around their batting, and this year their batting was most often built around Michael Hussey. His 17 innings included knocks of 95, 88, 86*, 86*, 67 and 65* – six of the top ten scores by a Super Kings batsman this year. He was one of only two batsmen in the IPL to aggregate over 700 runs, one of only three to average over 50 (400 runs min.), and scored his runs at a very acceptable rate of 130. While he was as solid as ever, he showed that he could also improvise to up the scoring rate when needed: one of the shots of the season was the ramp he played off a yorker-length delivery from Lasith Malinga, over fine leg, for six, in the first Qualifier. At 38, and without the pressures of international cricket to deal with anymore, Hussey should have at least another good year left in him. If he is not retained by Super Kings, he’ll be one of the buys of the 2014 auction.Poor performer
M Vijay looked the weakest link in the Super Kings line-up this year. His stats were not the worst – he scored 312 at 22.28 – but he inspired very little confidence with the manner in which he batted. There were several swings and misses, and he hardly ever dominated the bowling; his strike rate was just 109.09. And this when so much was expected of him, after his excellent showing in the home Test series against Australia in February-March.Surprise package
Mohit Sharma came into the IPL on the back of a solid Ranji Trophy season, in which he claimed 37 wickets at 23.24. He was one of four Indian quicks signed by Super Kings this year, and had to wait a couple of games before he got his chance. When he did get into the eleven, he bowled an economical spell against Royal Challengers Bangalore and then led Super Kings’ rout of Delhi Daredevils with figures of 3-0-10-3 (including the wickets of Warner and Sehwag). He played every match after that, and finished as Super Kings’ second-highest wicket-taker (20) and most economical bowler (6.43). Apart from his accuracy in keeping the ball on offstump, he impressed with his back-of-the-hand slower ball.Recommended for retention
MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, R Ashwin, Michael Hussey

Plays of the day from the IPL match between Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians in Kolkata

Sidharth Monga26-May-2013The hello
Chennai Super Kings had done half their job when they got Mumbai Indians’ No. 6 in as early as the 10th over, but the warning was immediate lest they relax. Kieron Pollard came in, defended a length ball outside off, on the up, and it flew off the bat, straight of mid-off for four. It was a sign of things to come.The field
MS Dhoni does go with a very straight mid-off for Pollard, a practice he began in the 2010 IPL final, but tonight he took it to next extreme. On this night, Suresh Raina, the mid-off, stood right next to the bowler as he began his run. One move to his right, and Raina would have been invisible to Pollard because that would have taken him right behind the umpire.The placement
In the 17th over of the Mumbai innings, Pollard drove hard at a delivery from Chris Morris. It turned out to be a slower ball, and Pollard was way early into the shot. The bat slipped out of his hand, and flew nearly as far as the ball did. However, there was no midwicket this time, and nobody was hurt.The kiss
Later in the same over, Pollard pulled Morris away for four, which the bowler didn’t like. Or perhaps he liked it in particular because after fielding the next ball in his follow-through Morris blew a kiss at Pollard. The batsman blew a kiss back to Morris. Phone numbers weren’t exchanged.The reluctant batsman
Dhoni doesn’t like batting in the first 10 overs. He took that obsession to an extent where S Badrinath, Dwayne Bravo and Ravindra Jadeja were all sent ahead of him. Mumbai gladly kept taking the wickets, and Dhoni had to eventually come out to bat in the seventh over. The asking rate was nearing nine by now.The send-off
In an earlier sledging contest, M Vijay had told Mitchell Johnson to “take it easy, man” after hitting a four. Johnson, though, came back with a bouncer aimed right at the throat during the second spell, and all Vijay managed was a top edge. Johnson didn’t take it easy this time, man, and celebrated in Vijay’s face.

An authoritative run-down of the Champions Trophy final

Andy Zaltzman25-Jun-2013″Deciding a 50-over ODI tournament with a 20-over match is an empty experience. But, as empty experiences go, it was one of the best”
— Woody Allen, senior cricket correspondent, , 24 June 2013Sunday’s Champions Trophy final could have been one of the most anticlimactic anti-climaxes to a sporting competition. For much of the day, it seemed that the title was set to be shared, as the rain dribbled mercilessly on Edgbaston. ICC chief executive Dave Richardson was seen donning his ceremonial karate kit, preparing to chop the precious silver and gold trophy in half with one brutal swipe.It seemed that the post-non-match analysis would be awash with justified frothing at the myopic lack of a reserve day, whilst official ICC spokesfolk held press conferences in which they claimed that no one could have legislated for such meteorological misfortune. “Our research shows,” they would have giggled, “that it has not rained in England at this time of year since 1838, when the new queen, Victoria, banned all airborne liquids in the month of June after being spat at by a rogue escaped horsie with republican sympathies during her coronation procession.”It seemed that England were about to half-break their ODI tournament duck with a tie in the unthrilling new Zero0 format that the weather, the merciless fixturelust of the international schedule, and the short-sighted absence of a retractable roof over Britain had concocted. (They should have built one in the 1980s, when the North Sea oil money was still flowing. Thank you, Thatcher.)It seemed that a tournament that began with a sequence of gripping matches would, after two undramatically one-sided semi-finals, fizzle out like a poorly timed barbecue on the .As it transpired, the rain reluctantly relented, and the ICC, in their generosity, allowed a degree of clock flexibility – not quite as much as Salvador Dali might have granted had he been a cricket administrator instead of a painter, but enough to allow a cricket match to take place.Fortunately that cricket match proceeded to cram in all the fluctuations, excellence, errors and drama that you could wish for in a major final. Bowlers dominated throughout, although, ironically, the two decisive blows were struck by Ishant, who had conceded a seemingly match-losing 35 in his first 3.2 overs. Fielding bloopers and brilliance had a significant impact on the course and outcome of the match, and ultimately, India’s superior play in the final stages of each innings deservedly won them the tournament. From 67 for 5 after 14, they scored 62 for 2 in the final six overs; then, in those tumultuous panic-stricken/ice-cold (delete according to nation) 18th and 19th overs of England’s innings, Ishant struck with a well-executed slower ball and a tempting bouncer, before Jadeja all but sealed the game by luring England’s undercooked slugger Jos Buttler into swiping at an imaginary ball that was travelling approximately two feet away from the real ball. Buttler had faced 13 balls in the tournament, 13 balls since clouting his 16-ball 47 against New Zealand in England’s pre-tournament ODI series. It was unsurprising that the 14th did not go quite where he would have wanted it to go, nor off his preferred piece of wood.Luck, as always in tight matches, played its part. But it was not decisive. If the spinning pitch favoured India, they were hampered by rain breaks that significantly disrupted the flow of their batting. The third umpire’s decision to give Bell out through the now rarely used “possibly stumped” mode of dismissal was curious, but it brought Morgan and Bopara, England’s two most experienced T20 players, together with sufficient time to consolidate, then build a match-almost-winning partnership, so it cannot be said to have significantly damaged England’s prospects. England paid for their own mistakes, and for the excellence of their opponents at several key moments – Ashwin’s superb deception of Trott with a dipping, hard-turning offbreak being one of the clankiest of those keys.Clearly, a 20-over match was an unsatisfactory way to settle the destiny of what (a) may be or (b) may not be the final Champions Trophy. (I vote for option b). The teams being selected and the toss being tossed several hours before the start, for what was in essence a completely different game, added further to the game’s wonkiness. (Should the regulations of limited-overs cricket be tweaked to deal with such situations? It was a little like a caterer preparing some delicious satay beef sandwiches as snacks to serve at a conference, before subsequently being told that the delegates are all members of SWIVPA (the Society of Wheat-Intolerant Vegetarians with Peanut Allergies). (But only a little like it, admittedly.))

The rain reluctantly relented, and the ICC, in their generosity, allowed a degree of clock flexibility – though not quite as much as Salvador Dali might have granted had he been a cricket administrator instead of a painter

Ultimately, however, it was a game that tested the skills and nerve of the teams and the individuals, and, I think, the better ODI side won. This rapidly reinvigorated Indian team looks set to be a major one-day force. And a hugely entertaining one. In terms of cricket and facial hair. England, assuming Pietersen is restored to the side, will be strong, but would probably benefit from embracing greater strategic flexibility.The other six teams were largely unimpressive, with occasional outbreaks of quality. They all have time to rectify their various problems before the 2015 World Cup, which, like the 2011 version, will essentially boil down to a three-round knockout, probably involving the same eight teams as competed in this tournament. They all have a chance of winning. India have shown how swiftly a team can be transformed. Which should both inspire and concern their opponents.● Dhoni’s captaincy, which was calmly excellent in the knockout stages of the World Cup, was superb again in this tournament, authoritative and intuitive, as you would expect from a man who has now skippered India in 140 ODIs. Pertinently for Sunday’s abbreviated match, he has also led India or Chennai Super Kings in a total of 151 T20 matches, including seven finals (the next most T20 games skippered is Adam Gilchrist’s 83). There can be few scenarios he has not encountered in a 20-over contest.Cook, by contrast, has captained a side in just one T20 match – a T20I in Centurion, against South Africa, in November 2009. That match provided little applicable experience for Edgbaston’s taut classic, given that 13 overs into his T20 captaincy career, he was looking at a scoreboard that read “South Africa: 170 for 0”, on their way to a rather challenging score of 241 for 6, the second-highest score in T20I history.● Thanks to his own scintillating glovework, and a TV umpire with eyesight that was either quirky or incredible, Dhoni became the first wicketkeeper to make two stumpings in the final of a World Cup, Champions Trophy or World T20.● A couple of minor statistical quirks… England have managed to lose two Champions Trophy finals at home without any opposition batsmen scoring 50. India have now won two ODI finals in England without any of their own batsmen scoring 50, and the last two major ODI finals without any of their bowlers taking more than two wickets in an innings.● Some of the Indian players appeared rightly perplexed at the post-match ceremony by the gift of a white jacket, a rather baffling sartorial prize, which resulted in them celebrating their triumph whilst looking as if they would, at any moment, break into an a cappella rendering of a 1950s love song.Perhaps the victory jacket will become more prevalent in world sport – although the various shirt sponsors cannot have been overly chuffed to have their precious logos hidden by the gleaming garb of glory – but I hope it remains restricted to the Masters golf at Augusta. The presentation of the fabled green jacket to the winner, in a log cabin, hermetically sealed from (a) the rest of the world, and (b) the fans who have cheered on the victor in his moment of golfing apotheosis, is a magnificently awkward ceremony that seems more like the induction of a new recruit into a highly questionable cult than the pinnacle of a sportsman’s career. Beware the jacket of triumph, cricket.● Ravi Jadeja in ten ODIs in 2012: with the bat, 105 runs, at an average of 17, with a strike rate of 72; with the ball, four wickets, at an average of 97, and an economy rate of 5.4. Ravi Jadeja in 12 ODIs in 2013: with the bat, 248 runs, at an average of 62, with a strike rate of 97; with the ball, 25 wickets, at an average of 14, and an economy rate of 3.5.