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Players must smile even as they are abused, harassed and vilified. In India it’s worse than elsewhere

Sidharth Monga08-Jun-2010So what exactly is a role model?Mervyn Dillon is called a black bastard by the North Stand crowd at the Wankhede Stadium. Sri Lankan cricketers are repeatedly called worse at the SCG. Justin Langer has to go through “pretty strong abuse that went on for a long time” during the Old Trafford Test. What does a role model do? There is a Test that has to be won, don’t forget.”It is a 100% one-sided contest,” says Langer. “You just can’t react. You have to concentrate on what’s important. Almost like a Zen master.” Langer didn’t react on the field at the time, but condemned the crowd’s behaviour in a press conference. He was called a coward on internet forums. Coward that man wasn’t, as many a mean fast bowler will testify. “People who criticise you for this have no idea what it is like to be in your shoes.”All of it isn’t only on the field. Irfan Pathan remembers what happened at the Mumbai airport when he arrived from the 2007 World Cup, a disaster for India. “Someone swore at me very badly,” Irfan told Cricinfo later that year. “He was in the queue and pushing me and swearing at me. I got upset. But what could I do? Had I reacted, people would say it has all got to Irfan’s head. I am a human being too. Eventually I called the police guy and said, ‘Do something, he’s harassing me.'”Rahul Dravid signs autographs, is never seen drunk, is always on his best behaviour. “Luckily I haven’t been in any incident off the field,” he says. “I have had the odd offensive comment, but I have been able to brush it off.”But that’s not right,” he says, questioning perhaps the unwritten rule that says the player should always walk away. “That’s [abusing a player] unfair. It is cowardly. You know the sportsman has no chance to get back. If the cricketer reacts, he is done for. If he doesn’t, you have had your fun and you have had a laugh. Many people, under the influence of alcohol, have this ego trip, and then they tell their friends, ‘See I went there and I abused this player. What do these guys think of themselves?’ It is a kick for them.”It happens during training hours as well. When India were in New Zealand last year, a senior player was waiting for his car outside the Basin Reserve. A bunch of Indian expatriates, respectable-looking people in their mid-thirties, started to heckle him. They chanted slogans, expecting him to finish the lines. Almost like playing with a kid, or a toy. “” and they would expect the player to say “”. “…” and they would expect him to shout, “” (India will win). There were other slogans too, and this went on until he got annoyed and replied, “If you loved the country so much, why did you leave it?” That shut them up, and now we had a laugh. When told about the incident, Dravid smiles and says, “He was lucky there was no television camera around. This is prime story material.” Welcome to the world of role models. No banter allowed, and keep that smile on.It’s not just the international cricketers either. Indian domestic cricket invites many spectators whose only interest in the match is to swear at the odd player who has been dropped from the national side and is trying to regain his spot. One such player was once asked to sign an autograph in Rajkot during an Irani Cup. The player obliged, and was asked in return, ” [Hey $&*@#&, what’s your name?]”Aakash Chopra has written about this problem, and Ramesh Powar and Praveen Kumar have been at the receiving end in incidents in the recent past.Where does the public persona end and the private person begin?•Getty ImagesThe relationship between sport and abuse is not new. Many of us use the ubiquitous four-letter word in exasperation and in exultation. Players curse each other too. “That’s part of the game,” says Langer. It’s one-on-one, man to man, and both parties stand to gain or lose from it “But it’s a lot easier to abuse from outside, to pay some money and say whatever you like to the players from the comfort of the crowd.”Abuse from the crowd is not new; it was on even before Douglas Jardine annoyed the Aussies with his harlequin cap. But from the often witty sledging of the famous barrackers of the past, it has now mostly deteriorated to racism and swearing.Players have learned to deal with it. There is a lovely eyewitness account by a user called vcfsantos, presumably an Englishman, on a BBC blog, of how Glenn McGrath won over the Bristol crowd in 2005.

“Fielding on the boundary at long-off, he was copping a load of flak, most of it in good nature, and giving it back with interest and with a grin on his face. When one lagered-up fan started to become abusive, GM walked up to him as close as he could get and simply smiled. Didn’t say a word. Remarkable self-restraint, and a touch of class. By this time he’d won most of us over, so a few of us got together and took the abusive fan to the stewards. He then took the time to say thanks and sign autographs for all the kids.”

Ian Chappell, never a man for nonsense, made sure crowd abuse didn’t affect his side. “A couple of times in my career we had a fan abusing a bowler and he was starting to become distracted,” Chappell says. “The next time the fan yelled out, I called back something that got his attention and he started abusing me. As I was prepared for it, the abuse wasn’t a problem, and the bowler was better able to get on and do his job.”Not everyone has the McGrath charm, or the Chappell toughness, but abuse – like packed schedules – is something the players have learned to live with, except for the odd Inzamam kind of incident, where the player takes matters into his hands and ends up being crucified. But when it goes off the field, infringing on a player’s life and personal space, it’s a different kettle of fish.That’s when these superstars, these young millionaires, these icemen on the field, plead with the fans to understand that they are human beings too. “We are always under pressure on the field,” says Dravid. “We need to get away, we need some release to bring a sense of normalcy in our lives. Some people find it in family, some in books, some in music, some people find it in going out. If people are going to become Mr Room Service, it will affect their personality and the way they play.”Chappell had a simple yardstick. “After the game I believed it was my private time. It caused a few fans to become irate when I wouldn’t sign [autographs], but if I was paying for my drinks in a bar, I felt I had the right to some privacy.” He once nearly paid the price. “At The Oval in 1979, some goose became so angry because I wouldn’t sign that he grabbed me by the hair,” he says. “When Rod Marsh arrived on the scene he decided to scarper.”A sound enough argument, but in a different culture, say India’s, this sort of behaviour by a player will be considered the worst form of rudeness. “We are different people,” Dravid says. “We are lot more personal. Pressures on an Indian cricketer are different, unreal. Some of the foreign guys ask me, ‘How do you do it?’ And I think that myself sometimes. But it is the passion, drive, emotion and love of the Indian fan that makes sure cricket is not a minor sport.” There is a clear understanding among the players that it is this passion that makes them what they are, not least financially. Yet just how much of their lives should they give in return for that passion and money, they are not sure.Usually players from outside the subcontinent are spared off the field, but there has been a rise in pub incidents: Jason Gillespie was hit outside one in Traralgon in 2008, and Jesse Ryder has had his troubles.It is sad enough that fans drag cricketers into altercations; it is sadder when it is the other way round. Players are easy targets, but on rare occasions they turn the tables. Alcohol is a big problem with sportspersons across the world, across disciplines, and sporting success itself is a big high. On rare occasions, often while under the influence, cricketers can behave like brats. There have been reports from fans alleging a few young Indian cricketers of causing trouble by making indecent comments about the fans’ female companions.It might be human to make such mistakes at a young age, but there is a certain basic awareness any public figure – sportsman, actor, politician – needs. Malcolm Knox, the respected Australian author, has written about how he – in the pre-IPL days – “saw Australian cricketers coming across Indians sleeping on a railway platform in Jamshedpur and nudging them awake with their feet in order to take a happy snap”. While many tourists can be accused of indulging in such poverty porn, not least Indians who have moved to greener pastures, cricketers are supposed to be better.The other 95%: players know most of their fans give them unwavering support•Getty ImagesAll that said, for every drunk idiot, there are at least 19 others who sacrifice their comfort to sell stadiums out, who are happy just patting a player’s back and letting him know he makes them proud, who forgive and forget and support their team despite losses. Like Dravid says, “I don’t want to sound like being an Indian cricketer is tragic. I wouldn’t want to change for anything in the world. There are more positives than negatives. It’s the other nice people we play for.” For every brat cricketer, there are tens of well-behaved gentlemen.From Langer to Chappell to Irfan to Chopra, they agree. They also concur that the world has changed. Chappell is thankful there were no cell phones with cameras in his day. Adam Gilchrist is thankful the press did not make stories out of the internet rumour that the baby his wife had just delivered was actually Michael Slater’s. “With media becoming bigger and bigger, almost 24×7, they need to find a new edge to everything,” says Dravid. “Incidents of cricketers being heckled by the public are not news; cricketers’ reacting is not new. This has not happened for the first time, but they get blown out of proportion. A small argument becomes a brawl, a brawl a punch-up, a punch-up a full-blown war.”Of course it would help if the fans and the media saw the cricketers as human beings. Humour, charm, mental toughness are a cricketer’s friend, but they don’t always help. Cricket boards can give players talks on how to politely walk away from situations – Cricket Australia does that – but there can’t be one way.David Lloyd, an immensely likeable former cricketer, coach and umpire, endorses the CA way. And he does enjoy his pubs. “I would be disciplined enough to walk away from a situation,” he says. “It just isn’t worth it. There are far more important things in life. I would expect any player in any situation to handle himself in a proper manner, because to some extent we public property. I always told me England lads to not do anything their parents wouldn’t be proud of.”Dravid’s way is pretty effective too. “From the team bus, when I put the curtain down, I often see there are people lined up waiting for you, waving at you,” he says. “There is a young kid on the road, selling magazines. He smiles at you, recognises you through the tiny window, waves at you, does a cricket action for you. That’s passion. That’s what it is about. I always look at it and say, that’s the world game. The whole world’s got to be grateful for that. And when I came across the rare idiot of the other kind, that kid is what I think of.”

Marshmallows can’t withstand. Trap them in a clenched fist and they’re soon squashed. Heat them up and they become gooey and pliable, a little like the South African middle-order

Firdose Moonda at Chennai06-Mar-2011A marshmallow has many redeeming qualities. It’s sweet and light and fluffy and tastes as good dipped in chocolate as it does chargrilled over a flame. That it can so easily get burnt is one of its shortcomings.Marshmallows can’t withstand. Trap them in a clenched fist and they’re soon squashed. Heat them up and they become gooey and pliable. In other words, place them in a situation of pressure and they’re likely to become unrecognisable, a little like the South African middle order.”It’s the first outing they’ve had for a long time,” Graeme Smith said at the post-match press conference. A forgetful outing it was, as seven wickets tumbled for 41 runs, and the flames of spin, swing and attacking bowling them burnt them beyond recognition. Once the top four were gone, they panicked, like Faf du Plessis, who called for a run that simply wasn’t there; they were outclassed, like JP Duminy, who has no answers for James Anderson’s accuracy, and they couldn’t settle like Robin Peterson, who looked like getting out from just about the first ball he faced.Morne van Wyk, a first-class campaigner of 16 seasons, showed a certain composure and maturity to combine with Dale Steyn and then also played a shot in anger – only to play it onto his own stumps. It left Steyn and Morne Morkel, both proficient with the bat, with a simple enough task to complete, but one that was made difficult because of the carnage they’d seen before them. If batsmen at positions five, six, seven and eight had been squashed, what chance did they have?This middle order, particularly from No. 6 downwards, has not spent any time at the crease in this World Cup, so it’s only natural that they would need a period of adjustment. Maybe that period would mean scoring slowly, trying to make sense of the conditions and work out to play on them. Maybe it meant one or two of them perishing in the cause. On a bowler-friendly Chennai surface, they had no such luxury.Conditions favoured the bowlers and even though patience would have been rewarded, the pace of the game at the stage when they entered it demanded a quick adjustment and an immediate plan to shut out the pressure. Such a plan can only be executed with confidence, and confidence will only come with time in the middle, time that they have not had. It’s too early to panic though, according to Smith. “We need to show a little bit more faith in them rather than to just give them one go.”No, it’s not fair to call them melting marshmallows after one collapse. There Smith is correct. Where he isn’t, however, is that it hasn’t been just one. In the last seven ODIs, there have been three collapses, two while chasing. One of them was today. The other two came against India, South Africa’s next opponents in this tournament. Munaf Patel was the man who made it happen both times. He took 4 for 29 in Johannesburg, when South Africa watched seven wickets fall for 29 runs and lost the match by one run. His 2 for 42 was part of a collapse in which South Africa lost 5 for 20 and crashed from 200 for 5 to 220 all out.It’s positions six, seven and eight that are most problematic. This time, they were the domain of Duminy and van Wyk, but Peterson, Johan Botha, Wayne Parnell and Colin Ingram have all been tried, in different combinations, to fill the slot, none with enough success to last. It presents South Africa with a puzzle they haven’t had to solve too many times in the past – with the likes of Mark Boucher and Lance Klusener lurking at No. 7 to steady or surge as needed.These days there is something less solid than the two mentioned above, and it doesn’t look like South Africa are anywhere closer to hardening it up. “I thought Faf and Ab hung in really well. If they could have hung in a few more overs, we could have got home. That was a crucial part of the game,” Smith said when asked about the middle order, not making any reference to the batsmen who come after du Plessis, who was pushed up to No. 5.Inexperience is what undid du Plessis, while Duminy has yet to find a sustained period of form that made him a superstar against Australia three seasons ago. An extended run for van Wyk may turn him into the dependable man South Africa need in that position and if Botha comes back into the starting XI, he may provide stability and security in the lower middle order. Until then, it’s going to remain a cluster of talented players, the kind that look good if their job is to build on what the top order has created but who can still get singed when the heat is really on.

Cricket at Lord’s is some experience, even with overzealous stewards, pedantic umps and lots of rain

Nick Campion22-Jul-2011Choice of game
I picked this game last winter as soon as the tickets went on sale. I wanted to see a Lord’s Test and see some of the best players in the world come together in a potentially explosive and series-shaping day of cricket. But that wasn’t quite how it turned out.Team supported
England.Key performer
The rain, unfortunately. After a very steady 49 overs, it felt like things were about to happen. A jumpy Kevin Pietersen was battling his desire to launch Harbhajan Singh into the stands, while the run-machine Jonathan Trott was picking up the pace. Ian Bell was due next, with his silky smooth strokes, and Eoin Morgan was practising his reverse-sweeps in the changing rooms. Alas, the rain struck before the story unfolded.One thing I’d have changed
Waitress service. Not just to save ourselves trips for beer, food and ice-cream, but so everyone else on our row could do the same, and therefore not keep having to ask us to stand up to let them past. It was more like an exercise class than a cricket match sometimes.Interplay I enjoyed
Between the spectators and stewards. Although unfailingly friendly and polite, the stewards seemed to have developed an obsessive-compulsive ticket-checking disorder. Being on the top tier of a stand, we had to pop downstairs if we wanted to get anything to eat or to use the toilet etc. When we returned five minutes later, the steward we’d just passed asked to see our ticket. Then when we got to the top of the stairs, another one had to see it again! What did they think happened between the bottom of the stairs and the top? The worst was when people were balancing their beer carriers while trying to find their tickets – one man lost all four pints when they slipped from his grasp while he tried to get the ticket out of his pocket. Oh how he laughed as £18 worth of beer ran down the drain. At least he had his hands free to show his ticket to the steward at the top of the stairs.Filling the gaps
During the lunch break we watched the kids play Kwik Cricket, and witnessed the first and only sixes of the day. We also saw some very dubious bowling actions that were clearly more than 15 degrees of bend in the elbow – about 75 degrees more.At lunch I made my choice of food purely by length of queue than taste. The system worked well, as within 15 minutes I had pie, chips, peas and gravy of no little quality.While on the subject, I can confirm that despite stiff global competition, the snack of choice for the nation’s Test match spectators remains the humble, yet great, British pork pie.Wow moment
When the umpires walked onto the field, we finally knew we had beaten the forecasts and were going to see some cricket. Either that or my first mouthful of steak-and-ale pie.Crowd meter
Lord’s just has a different crowd to any other Test match venue in the UK. Blazers and ties sit next to t-shirts and shorts, panama hats next to baseball hats, champagne flutes next to cans of lager – all bonded by the love for the game.The wine and beer were out of the coolboxes before the covers were off, and the next few hours were punctuated by the reassuring pop of champagne corks. One gentleman misjudged his champagne a little, spilling some all over the floor. Another spectator mopped it up with his copy of the .Lord’s is to be commended for treating grown-ups like grown-ups and allowing spectators to take in a reasonable amount of alcohol, unlike other Test grounds. This indulgence is rewarded by spectators enjoying their drinks and having their fun but never letting anything become unsavoury.Entertainment
The best entertainment during the rain break was a group of young lads playing cricket under the stands and using an umbrella as a bat. You had to admire their ingenuity but wonder if their parents would be so pleased next time it rains.Regulation irritation
The authorities seem to be trying harder than before to keep spectators happy, but still they drive us mad sometimes. There was no reason to delay the start until 11.30am today. It should have been 11.15 at the latest. Then, after three hours waiting, we were all geared up for a resumption for an hour at 6.30pm but three small drops of rain fell at 6.26, so the covers went back on and because the restart hadn’t happened by 6.30pm the day’s play was called off. That’s the regulations, you see. Never mind the fact that they could have started at 6.35pm and played for 55 minutes. I think the 10,000-15,000 spectators who had waited three hours in the rain would have appreciated that.Overall
The cricket was absorbing but we were robbed of half the day and a potentially fascinating passage of play. Being there, though, was a pleasure – to experience the ebb and flow of play, the warm embrace of Lord’s, even the rhythm of each delivery: the hum as the bowler walks back, the rising “Wooaaahh…” of anticipation as he runs in, a crescendo followed silence as he delivers, and an “Ooohhh” as it passes the outside edge. Then the hum begins again.Marks out of 10
7. Damn you, rain.

The time invested in the likes of Devendra Bishoo, Kirk Edwards, Kraigg Brathwaite, Lendl Simmons and Darren Bravo, that they were given the space to do their own thing, has paid off for West Indies

Mohammad Isam02-Nov-2011West Indies have won a Test series away from home for the first time in eight years, the previous occasion being the heart-stopping 1-0 win over Zimbabwe in 2003. After several upheavals, changes in leadership, player strikes, suspensions and a dearth of trophies, it fell to a young team to give Caribbean cricket a rare sniff of success.Of course, the 229-run win in Mirpur left captain Darren Sammy pleased no end. “The positives from this tour have to be the way the batsmen went about their business. Not just putting the runs on the board, but also spending time at the crease,” he said. “It feels really good to win. We left home hoping to play well, we achieved our goal. We always knew we were in for a challenge, with the way Shakib [Al Hasan] and Tamim [Iqbal] batted especially.”The discipline displayed by the bowlers, said Sammy, had a major bearing on Bangladesh’s batsmen playing rash shots that brought about their downfall. “In the first innings we didn’t concede any extras. I don’t recall this ever happening before. That shows the discipline in the bowling unit.”Devendra Bishoo, the ICC’s Emerging Player of the Year who picked up his first five-for in Test cricket in Mirpur, heaped praise on his captain and support staff. “When I started off, I was not bowling that well,” he said. “The coaching staff and skipper just told me to believe in myself, to do what I knew best. I just had to vary my pace and just be containing.”It worked for Bishoo, and for the team. The time invested in the likes of Bishoo, Kirk Edwards, Kraigg Brathwaite, Lendl Simmons and Darren Bravo, that they were given the space to do their own thing, has paid off. Now, slowly, they seem to be growing comfortable with their role in the team at the game’s highest level.A series win over Bangladesh wouldn’t have sounded too flash in the last decade, but with their inexperienced top-order and a thin bowling attack, West Indies were always facing a tricky battle against Bangladesh, in conditions that heavily favoured the hosts. The youngsters, though, responded adequately. Following a drawn Test series with Pakistan, they impressed in a lost cause against India before coming to Bangladesh, a team they had lost to in 2009.Simmons led the way with his twin successes in the one-day series, with a little help from the experienced Marlon Samuels and Ravi Rampaul, and a burst of wickets from Kemar Roach in the second ODI. Bangladesh succumbed to their own follies, but one had to applaud the way Simmons efficiently anchored both the limited-overs games in Dhaka. After the blip in Chittagong – where West Indies were shot out for 61 in the third ODI and lorded over for most part of the Test – the opening partnership in Mirpur between 18-year-old Brathwaite and Kieran Powell, a last-minute replacement for Simmons, set the tone for what turned out to be a fine Test win.Edwards built on the platform with a proper No. 3 innings; he held the innings together and strung together a series of small stands as he reached his second Test century in only his third game. Brathwaite had batted to a plan as well, occupying the crease for as long as possible and giving the more attacking Powell a chance to open up his shoulders.Darren Bravo, whose batting style has often been compared to that of Brian Lara, too, came of age in this series. The pressure was on him, with cynics claiming that it was only the mannerisms of Lara that could be found in him, that the comparison ended there. He responded with a knock of 195 in the second innings that set up the big win, with some of his shots – especially the lofted drive down the ground – showing us just why the comparison with the legend was made in the first place.

Top individual scores in the Ranji Trophy finals

ESPNcricinfo staff20-Jan-2012

BatsmanScoreTeamOppositionYearGul Mohammad319BarodaHolkar1946-47Vijay Hazare288BarodaHolkar1946-47Vijay Merchant278MumbaiHolkar1944-45Ashok Mankad265MumbaiDelhi1980-81Denis Compton249HolkarMumbai1944-45Gundappa Viswanath247KarnatakaUttar Pradesh1977-78Ajit Wadekar235MumbaiRajasthan1961-62Chandu Sarwate234HolkarGujarat1950-51Sanjay Manjrekar224MumbaiPunjab1994-95Wazir Ali222*Southern PunjabBengal1938-39KC Ibrahim219MumbaiBaroda1948-49BB Nimbalkar219HolkarBengal1952-53Bapu Nadkarni219MumbaiRajasthan1962-63Phiroze Palia216Uttar PradeshMaharashtra1939-40Rahul Dravid215KarnatakaUttar Pradesh1997-98Hanumant Singh213RajasthanMumbai1966-67V Mohan Raj211*HyderabadDelhi1986-87Vineet Saxena207*RajasthanTamil Nadu2011-12Sunil Gavaskar206*MumbaiDelhi1983-84Vijay Hazare203BarodaServices1957-58CK Nayudu200HolkarBaroda1945-46

After a tough time over the winter Eoin Morgan returned to form and played the type of innings that no other England batsman could have produced

George Dobell at Lord's29-Jun-2012When people talk of the great moments of limited-overs cricket, this match will not warrant a mention. There were no echoes of Sir Viv’s 1984 Old Trafford century here; none of the drama of Allan Donald dropping his bat as he did at Edgbaston in 1999; no comparison with Sachin reaching a double-century or of Gilchrist thrashing a century to win the 2007 World Cup. Nor is there an urn for the winners of this series. In the grand scheme of things, it really does not amount to very much. But, in the years and months ahead, it might just be that we reflect on this game as the day when England started to believe they could win the 2015 World Cup.If that sounds excessive, it is worth reflecting for a moment on the context of this match: England had not beaten Australia at Lord’s since 1997; Australia are the No. 1 ranked ODI side in the world; England, inserted in testing conditions, overcame a disadvantage worth perhaps 20 to 25 runs to win.Make no mistake, this result could, so easily, have gone the other way. Had Brett Lee or Clint McKay taken the edge of the bat rather than beating it regularly in their testing first spells; had Michael Clarke not called Matthew Wade for an improbable single; had the Decision Review System (DRS) not reprieved Ian Bell when he had just three and, most pertinently, had Eoin Morgan not produced a fine innings, Australia could well have won.There are many more hurdles to clear before England can be considered a consistently good ODI side and rumours of their resurgence will be met, in some quarters, with guffaws of laughter until they prove themselves in Asia. But this series is not all about results. It is about building for the future. And, with that in mind, this was a highly encouraging performance from England. For not only did they win, but they demonstrated once again that they have now chanced upon – and the sudden departure of Kevin Pietersen really does mean they chanced upon it – a well-balanced side that is well-suited to the challenges posed by two new white balls, good bowling and testing conditions.Morgan will gain the plaudits, just as tourists only photograph the top of the Chrysler Building. But without the foundations provided by England’s top three, he might not have had the platform to play his wonderful innings.Some might criticise England for a slow start. After all, they scored just 27 in their first nine overs and, after 36 overs, had scored only 151. But, without the defensive ability of Alastair Cook, Ian Bell and Jonathan Trott, England could easily have found themselves 40 for 5 after an hour and out of the game. Instead they remained calm, reasoned that 270 was a competitive total and played, Morgan apart, sensible, percentage cricket. It is what they do best.There are some issues with their method. For one thing, it leaves them overly reliant on Morgan for their acceleration (while Bell, Cook and Trott are all capable of changing gear, none of them can make the destructive contribution Morgan showed here), while they also have to show they can win on pitches where a total of 330 is par.But one step at a time. This is a side that looked worryingly mediocre in India only seven or eight months ago. Who were hit by the “retirement” of their best played only weeks ago. They are not the finished article, but they are heading in the right direction.The return to form of Morgan was particularly pleasing. After an awful tour of the UAE – in three Tests, three ODIs and a T20 in the UAE, he failed to pass 25 runs in an innings – there were concerns about his long-term future. But whatever his struggles in Test cricket, Morgan remains a key component in England’s limited-overs side. The way he changed gear here, scoring 12 from his first 21 deliveries and 77 from his next 42 was immensely impressive. At one stage he struck three successive sixes, punishing Brett Lee’s marginal failure to deliver a yorker with a stunning heave over wide long-on. Pietersen apart, it is hard to think of another England batsman that could have played such an innings.Morgan put his revival down to some technical work he undertook after the tour of the UAE. “It’s no fun when you’re not getting any runs or contributing to the team,” Morgan said. “Today was a big step for my summer. When I got back from Dubai, I had two weeks off on holiday and then I came back and reflected on what I had done poorly in the UAE and made some technical changes. One of them was the balance of my head and the other was my hands moving. It was very basic stuff.”Cook agreed that Morgan’s innings was the difference between the sides, but also provided a reminder of the importance of England’s top three. “To score at a strike-rate of 130-140 was incredible and it took us to a really competitive total,” Cook said. “It was hard work to start with and you saw the ball nipping around. But what was pleasing that we didn’t panic as a batting order. We kept wickets in hands and we all know that at Lord’s and in English conditions you can make up time, particularly when you have people like Eoin down the order.”The start might have seemed a bit slow, but we laid the groundwork for Morgan. I don’t think we could have played much differently in the first 20 overs. It was hard work at the top of the order.”Cook also praised his bowling attack. While Tim Bresnan, still struggling to rediscover the nip he had before his elbow operation in December, had one disappointing spell and James Anderson, hampered by a groin strain, struggled towards the end, there still appeared no weak link in the England attack. Steven Finn, bowling with pace and hostility and skill, was quite magnificent.”It’s very nice to have five experienced bowlers,” Cook continued. “They might bowl the odd bad over, but they don’t bowl many bad spells. We thought 270 was a par score: defendable, but if someone had played out of their skin we probably couldn’t have defended it. But we kept nipping out wickets. It wasn’t a perfect performance in the field – or even close to it – so it’s encouraging to have won.”

The amateurish fielding and a lack of bowling support for Dale Steyn left Deccan Chargers bottom of the table for most of the season

Kanishkaa Balachandran21-May-2012Where they finishedSecond from bottom. A second successive season of disappointment ended with four wins and 11 defeats. Deccan Chargers were one of the tournament’s two whipping boys, languishing at the bottom for most part.Key player
From an Indian perspective, it was pleasing to see an Indian batsman top the run charts. Shikhar Dhawan finished with 569 runs with five fifties and was second behind Chris Gayle (733) in the tournament standings at the end of the league phase. Chargers have depended on him for strong starts, though they could have fared better had he received more support from his more experienced colleagues. It was a continuation of his good form the previous season, when he scored 400 runs. Dhawan has been on the fringes of national selection and his performance this season should nudge the national selectors when they pick the side for the World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka.Bargain buyAshish Reddy, the Hyderabad seamer, was identified by the coach Darren Lehmann as one of the promising newcomers to watch. Reddy finished with 11 wickets and was the third-highest wicket-taker for Chargers. Pace may not be Reddy’s forte, but he made up for it with his military medium pace and legcutters which made him difficult to get away on slower pitches.Flop buyParthiv Patel was their most expensive buy at the auction ($650,000), but the wicketkeeper-batsman failed to live up to his billing. He managed only 194 runs in 13 innings with no half-centuries, despite opening the batting on six occasions.HighlightIn a season with few happy memories, their final league game against Royal Challengers Bangalore in Hyderabad saved them the embarrassment of finishing last. Royal Challengers needed to win to progress to the playoffs, but Chargers launched a spirited fightback, led by a pumped-up Dale Steyn who delivered the spell of the season, to defend a modest 132 against a powerful top order. The win meant that Pune Warriors were the wooden-spoon holders of the season.LowlightThe start of the tournament. It took seven games for Chargers to record their first win. It included five consecutive defeats and a washed-out game, which gave them their first points. From then, it was always going to be difficult to bounce back. Their biggest embarrassment was the fielding, which botched their chances of closing out games. It was routine to see a helpless Lehmann appear at press conferences blaming the defeats on schoolboy errors in the field. On one occasion, he said his team fielded like an Under-14 side. Chargers had Trevor Penney, a sought-after fielding coach, on their coaching staff, but it didn’t have the desired impact.VerdictChargers’ performance wasn’t terribly surprising considering they started the tournament as underdogs. Four of their first five games went into the last over, including Mumbai Indian’s freakish last-ball finish. Against Rajasthan Royals, they failed to defend 196. The loss of points from those games derailed them early.Besides Dhawan, none of the Indians made a significant impact. Steyn was deadly in conditions that suited him and his spells were among the fastest seen on Indian pitches. Sangakkara struggled for consistency, and ended up drop himself for several matches.Looking ahead, Chargers will have to rethink their squad. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to negotiate with other franchises and invest in a few quality Indian players who’ve had few opportunities. A quality bowler to support Steyn will be handy.

A timeline charting the saga of Kevin Pietersen and his availability for England

David Hopps12-Aug-2012May 31, 2012
Kevin Pietersen retires from all international limited-overs cricket with immediate effect because of “the intensity of the international schedule”. He remains available for consideration as a Test match player. The news comes four months before England defend their World Twenty20 title in Sri Lanka and follows failed negotiations between the England officials and Pietersen during the Lord’s Test against West Indies. The sticking point is England’s insistence that Pietersen must be available for all ODIs, as required, as well as Twenty20.June 13, 2012
Pietersen receives support from an unlikely corner: his England team-mate Graeme Swann. “There comes a time when you get towards the end of your career, into your thirties, when something’s got to give,” Swann says. “You can flog yourself to death and fall to pieces or you can start to be quite wise and make a pragmatic decision. I can understand where he’s coming from because there’s certainly times I look at a schedule and just think: ‘How can I do this? My body’s killing me. I haven’t seen my kids, my wife is ready to get up and walk out because I’m never here.’ We’re human beings at the end of the day.”July 13, 2012
After making a scintillating unbeaten 234 for Surrey at Guildford, Pietersen tells ESPNcricinfo that he would “love to play all forms of cricket for England for another three or four years” and reiterated his desire to be included in England’s World Twenty20 squad. Pietersen, fresh from meetings with ECB officials, including Hugh Morris, the managing director of English cricket, complains: “I needed to get away from the schedule. I cannot keep playing every single day’s cricket. I’ve never been looked after.”July 15, 2012
Days before England are due to announce their initial squad of 30 for the World Twenty20, England’s director of cricket, Andy Flower, offers Pietersen little hope of a way back. “The situation is the same as it was when he first approached us,” he says. “The ECB are determined to protect all three formats of the game and part of that is not setting a precedent of allowing players to retire from one-day cricket alone. The intent behind it is that we are serving English cricket in its entirety. We have to take personalities out of the equation.”July 18, 2012
Pietersen, who was Player of the Tournament when England won the World T20 in the Caribbean in 2010 – the only global trophy they have ever won – is omitted from England’s provisional 30-man squad for the World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka in September. But it is confirmed that players can be brought into the final 15 from outside the squad with good reason.July 28, 2012
Starved of all forms of England one-day cricket, Pietersen is believed to be considering a deal to play in Australia’s Big Bash League, with the Melbourne Renegades and both Sydney sides – the Sixers and the Thunder – contesting his signature. Mike McKenna, Cricket Australia’s commercial general manager and the project manager of the BBL, said: “He is definitely one of the top three or four global cricket stars at the moment. He’s an explosive batsman, can bowl, and he would bring a charisma to the Big Bash League.”August 4, 2012
Pietersen plays one of Test cricket’s greatest attacking innings. An audacious unbeaten 149 against South Africa on the third day of the second Test at Headingley lifts England’s spirits. They go on to draw the second Test to stay 1-0 down in the series with one to play. Pietersen becomes the quickest player, in terms of time, to 7000 Test runs.Kevin Pietersen during the press conference in Colombo when a new deal was confirmed•Getty ImagesAugust 6, 2012
Pietersen is enticed into an extraordinary press conference after the Headingley Test in which he says he cannot give any assurances that the next Test at Lord’s won’t be his last. “I’d like to carry on but there are obstacles that need to be worked out. There are other points I’m trying to sort out in the dressing room,” he says. Implied criticism of his England team-mates attracts heavy criticism in the English media and tips many cricket followers into heated pro and anti Pietersen camps.August 8, 2012
Another twist in an increasingly unlikely saga as Pietersen is revealed to be upset over a parody Twitter account @KevPietersen24 – which mocks his egotistical style and which he suspects emanates from the England dressing room. Documentation seen by ESPNcricinfo proves that the account is not directly managed by a player. The account is later closed.August 10, 2012
Another sub-text in a story that is careering out of control. Pietersen’s texts to South African players after the Headingley Test hint at his growing isolation in the England dressing room. English newspapers claim that the captain, Andrew Strauss, was criticised, but provide no evidence and South African officials describe the texts as “just banter.” But England players and selectors are quick to take offence at any imagined slight.August 11, 2012
Pietersen goes to the extrordinary lengths of issuing a video interview on YouTube in which he expresses full commitment to England and makes himself available for all three forms of the game. The England selectors respond by delaying the announcement of their squad for the final Test against South Africa at Lord’s, due at 9.30am the following day, by five hours.August 12, 2012
England leave Pietersen out of the squad for the Lord’s Test, saying that he had been unable to provide an undertaking that he had not sent text messages to South Africa players that were “derogatery” about people in the England set-up. Hugh Morris, managing director of England, said: “The success of the England team has been built on a unity of purpose and trust.”September 7, 2012
Pietersen is not handed a central contract when the list for 2012-13 is announced. The ECB say “discussions are ongoing”.September 18, 2012
Pietersen is left out of the tour squad for the India Test series and says he is “disappointed” by the decision. It later emerges that a four-month contract had been offered, to include attending a training camp in Dubai, but that was declined. Hugh Morris said: “Both ECB and England team management have had meetings with Kevin Pietersen to address the issues that led to his omission from the final Investec Test match against South Africa.”October 3, 2012
At a press conference in Colombo, where Kevin Pietersen had been working as TV pundit during the World Twenty20, it is announced that he has signed a four-month contract which, if a ‘reintegration’ process is successful, could be extended to a full 12-month deal. No decision was taken on his place on the India tour with that now to be determined by Andy Flower when Pietersen attends the Dubai training camp. Pietersen said he did not send tactical information to the South Africans and adds: “I am entirely committed to completing the reintegration process we have agreed over the coming weeks and resuming my England career in all formats, hopefully until the World Cup in 2015, or as long as my body allows.”October 18, 2012
Kevin Pietersen is added to England’s squad for the Test series in India, following his meetings with England team director Andy Flower, so bringing to an end the extraordinary stand-off.

The Plays of the day from the second day of the Mirpur Test between Bangladesh and West Indies

Mohammad Isam in Mirpur14-Nov-2012The signal
Shakib Al Hasan spent most of the morning under his floppy hat, pulled down, with little to do. He came into the picture at the end of the 110th over, when Shahadat Hossain appealed loudly after his short delivery hit Shivnarine Chanderpaul on the shoulder and was caught at slip. Shakib appeared to be asking for a referral to the third umpire by using the signal for a DRS ruling, but it wasn’t as if he didn’t know the system wasn’t in use. The broadcasters usually haven’t made it available in Bangladesh, a point Shakib had noted two years ago during the England series.The chance
In the final 15 minutes of the first day, Chanderpaul chipped one towards mid-off on the first day which Shahadat couldn’t reach. He offered a chance much earlier on the second day, in the 13th over of the morning, but Bangladesh’s specialist slip fielder, Junaid Siddique, couldn’t reach the edge that popped up off Sohag Gazi. It remained the only chance offered by Chanderpaul all day.The slip
Tamim Iqbal bowled the fifth over of his 25-Test career on the second day, but will probably have to wait a while for his next one after an erratic performance. The first two deliveries were down the leg side and then he sent one virtually off the pitch. It was called a wide, as the ball looped to the wicketkeeper on the half-volley. It probably slipped out of his hand, but Tamim managed to correct himself and the rest of the over was largely incident-free.The counter-attack
Tamim smashed Tino Best for four boundaries in the sixth over of the innings, patting one away through midwicket, then two drives, one straight and another through the covers, before finishing it off with an authoritative pull-shot. It appeared to inspire Shahriar Nafees, the man at the other end. Off a short ball from Ravi Rampaul, who had already bounced out Junaid Siddique, Nafees smashed one high over midwicket. The doubts over his ability to deal with the short stuff was momentarily shelved as he went on to smash three more boundaries, but fell to another short ball from the same bowler who beat him for pace.The self-destruction
It was a wide, short ball that Tamim tried to pull towards the leg side, but flapped it straight to Sunil Narine at mid-on, after rattling to 72 in the final session of the day. He had survived a similar, tennis-like shot off the last ball of Sammy’s previous over when his attempt to flat-bat one towards mid-on fell short of Best at mid-on. He regretted the shot later on, but Bangladesh are by now used to such suicidal strokes by their batsmen.

Five years down the line, Rohit Sharma hasn’t played a single Test, is not a permanent fixture in the ODI playing XI and is, if he is indeed picked, a floater in the batting order

Deepika Ravi25-Feb-2013During the 2007-08 ODI series in Australia, India had unearthed an exciting young player. Rohit Sharma had come good during the series. At the end of the series, he was touted by many as the heir to Sachin Tendulkar.Close to almost five years later, watching the 25-year-old play, I wonder: what went wrong? One of Australia’s best and most formidable captains, Ian Chappell had described Rohit as the next best thing to happen to Indian cricket. To begin with, here was a batsman with a really good technique. Next up, you noticed, amid the many sloggers, a man with crisp drives and solid punches. Then came his fielding: energetic, enthusiastic and near perfect. A bonus perhaps was his really useful offspin. All in all, here was the complete package.But five years down the line, Rohit Sharma hasn’t played a single Test, is not a permanent fixture in the ODI playing XI and is, if he is indeed picked, a floater in the batting order. Plenty of opportunities have come his, more often than not he has failed to cash in on them. The accusations levelled against him are being irresponsible, poor running, and throwing his wicket away in tight circumstances. If Rohit takes a reality check he will probably see himself going nowhere.I agree I’ve been a little too harsh on him, for he has had his moments of sheer brilliance. Right up from his debut during the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup through the Australia ODI series, right down to his recent century in the IPL, each and every one of those rare innings were gems, characterised by gorgeous shots. His shortcoming, however, lies in his inability to do it time and again, something the other batsman in his league (the likes of Virat Kohli) do, day in, day out. Far too many chances have been given away and in all probability they will dwindle. One of my personal favourites, an incredible talent, Rohit Sharma must do all it takes to keep himself from going off the radar.