All posts by h716a5.icu

Faced with an improbable target, Netherlands went after everything, and it all came together in spectacular fashion. Now, their captain Peter Borren says they can repeat the feat against their Super 10 opponents

Firdose Moonda21-Mar-20142:07

Wasn’t thinking about merely winning – Myburgh

A decent target in a 20-over match is generally regarded as anything that requires a chase of more than eight runs an over – 160-plus. Thirty more than that is considered a tough ask. That requires a chase of more than nine runs an over. Chop the overs to 14.2 and you’ve got an almost improbable challenge.That’s 86 balls in which to score 190. A required rate of 13.25 runs an over. More than two runs a ball. Boundaries have to rain. With someone like Chris Gayle or David Warner in the side, it may seem doable but still difficult. Without, who knows.The Dutch knew that. They also knew they had no choice but to try. Winning the match after 14.2 overs would be meaningless. It would give them the same result as losing – a ticket back home. The only choice was to go for it. “We had nothing to lose and in T20 cricket that can be a dangerous thing,” Peter Borren, their captain said. “It just came off tonight.”But Borren refused to pin the result of his side’s chase down to luck alone. Instead, he said it was reward for what has gone on behind the scenes. “I am very proud of the boys. I know how hard this team has worked,” he said. “We came here to make a statement and so far we have. The effort and energy that has gone into this – I feel as if we deserve some luck.”After a few setbacks at the start, Netherlands’ luck changed, with Tom Cooper going on to smash a 15-ball 45 after being dropped on 1•ICCFortune. They had some, but first of the bad kind. Their best bowler in this competition before this match, Timm van der Gugten, was the most expensive of the front-liners today. He conceded at more than 10 runs an over and overall, the Dutch allowed the Irish batsmen too many. Borren was not happy.”At half-time, I was a little disappointed,” he admitted “It was our worst bowling performance of the tournament so far. I thought we bowled really beautifully against Zimbabwe and then well against UAE. But today, we gave away 25 or 30 runs too many. We dished up a few too many half volleys in first six overs.”Then there was fortune of an even worse kind. Michael Swart, the regular opener, hurt his hand and could not open with Stephan Myburgh. Borren decided to promote himself. “We just went hell for leather,” he said.The Irish were stunned. “Everything just disappeared,” William Porterfield said.With Myburgh seeing the ball like a watermelon. the good fortune began. Netherlands scored 91 runs in the powerplay, before they had lost their first wicket.Then it got better. After three quick wickets a fourth was avoided when Tom Cooper was dropped on 1. He went on score 45 off 15 balls and hit six of the team’s 13 sixes. Borren was nervous. “Any time you are chasing that many runs and you need that many runs per over and you lose wickets, you think that’s the end of that dream run,” he said. “But everyone went in there and did it on the day.” Luck? Maybe.Borren understands luck, in any sense, only befalls a team sometimes. “It won’t happen every time but I think this is reasonable reward,” he said. “We can look at this 14-over chase and say that was remarkable and it won’t happen very often or we can look at it and say we played good cricket in the other two matches and things went our way now.”We know which way Borren will be looking at it, especially after Netherlands failed to qualify for the 2015 World Cup earlier in the year. “We didn’t have luck in New Zealand and we let ourselves down there,” he said. “We’ve done much better here.”The reward of qualifying for the main draw also brings a burden: that of living up to the expectations that come with having knocked out of contention some of the teams who were expected to qualify. Netherlands lost to the full member in their group, Zimbabwe, but did not do them the favour of beating Ireland narrowly. And by defeating Ireland by that unbelievable margin, they forced a team that had looked unstoppable to fly home.For Borren, the Dutch have to play in the main draw for both the teams who exited at their hands “I hope this shows what Netherlands cricket can do and what this team is capable of and I hope we can justify our qualification,” he said. “I hope we can do them (the other teams) the justice of performing credibly in the next round.”Netherlands are the only non-Full Member in the main draw, which may come as a relief to the four teams they are up against – Sri Lanka, England, New Zealand and South Africa.”Initially I don’t think they will be too concerned. Hopefully they will have a good look at what we do, actually hopefully they don’t,” Borren said. “But, without mentioning names, I can see a couple teams that we can knock over.”England will likely top that list, especially after Lord’s 2009 but there seems to be someone else in Borren’s sights. Immediately after being asked about his team’s chances in the main draw, Borren made reference to another country when asked how he would celebrate with Man of the Match Myburgh. “We’ve got a nice bottle of South African red and we’re going to sit in his room and have a glass,” he said.South Africa are battling injury and expectation and could be another side Netherlands will look to target. For now, they’re going to party in a city they’ve said made them feel at home with people they’ve never met before who dotted the stands in orange. “We don’t know who they are,” Borren said about the Dutch contingent in the crowd. “They’ve come from the embassy or somewhere. It was fun to have a little orange section. Without that atmosphere it would have been difficult. They got us over the line.”Whether they will travel to Chittagong remains to be seen but the Dutch have promised to take some of their brave approach with them, tempered with sensible cricket. “I don’t think we can just go there and swing at every ball and it will come off every time,” Borren said. “I would love it if it could happen more often but a fearless approach can be very dangerous. I don’t think we can get away with it every day. We got away with it today. But this is not a real fluke.”I hope people have sat up and noticed these matches. Whilst there are limitations to our cricket, we can also play.” That they certainly can.

Stats indicate that England’s fast bowlers have used the conditions at Lord’s better in recent times, and that teams batting first are at an advantage

Shiva Jayaraman15-Jul-2014Not since 1992-93 have England gone nine consecutive Tests without a win. They went winless in ten matches in that one-year period and are close to matching that streak, having not won any of the nine they played since their win in the Ashes, in Chester-le-street last year. However, if there was one venue where England would like to play to end this run, it would be Lord’s. Like most venues in England in recent times, Lord’s has produced results more often than not. Of the 12 Tests played there since 2009, ten have had results.What will comfort England is that they have won eight of the 11 Tests at Lord’s since 2009. The only defeat was against South Africa in 2012. Other than South Africa, Sri Lanka are the only team who have managed, to some extent, to hold their own against the hosts at Lord’s in recent times, drawing both their Tests, including the remarkable one last month.England’s record against India at this venue is good too – 11 wins in 16 Tests. India have lost more Tests at Lord’s than at any other venue – the most matches a team has lost at an overseas venue (outside the Ashes). The only time India won here was in 1986. Since then, England have won three out of five Tests.England’s fast bowlers have had a major role to play in their team’s success at Lord’s. In the last five years, James Anderson – who needs only two wickets to pass Ian Botham and become the highest wicket-taker at Lord’s – and Stuart Broad have shared 93 wickets between them at this venue at an average of 24.29 and a strike rate of 52.2. However, a decisive factor in England’s recent success at Lord’s is that the visiting fast bowlers have not been able to match their English counterparts. While England’s seamers have taken 163 wickets at an average of 25.92 since 2009, the opposition seamers have conceded 11 runs more apiece for their 129 wickets.

Fast bowlers at Lord’s since 2009

TeamMatWktsAveSREco5/10wEngland1116325.9251.82.997/1Opposition1112936.9363.33.497/1Fast bowlers have done better than spinners at Lord’s. Given the helpful conditions, fast bowlers have bowled more and have had greater impact on the matches: in 12 Tests since 2009, they have taken 15 five-fors and two ten-wicket hauls. Spinners have managed only three five-fors. Wickets by seamers have also come cheaper by almost seven runs apiece.

Pace v spin at Lord’s since 2009

Bowling typeMatWktsAveSREco5/10wPace12*31830.4656.23.2515/2Spin12*9137.3970.73.173/0* Australia played Pakistan in a neutral Test at Lord’s in 2010From India’s perspective, the best time for their spinners to bowl at the England batsmen would be the final session on the third day and the first two sessions of the fourth day. This is when when spinners have been most effective at Lord’s in recent times. Of the 91 wickets taken by spinners since 2009, 41 have come in these three sessions. Spinners have averaged 22.10 during these sessions and have had to bowl around 41 balls for each wicket. In the rest of the match, they have averaged 52.55 and have a strike rate of 94.6.

Best sessions for spin at Lord’s, since 2009

SessionsMatWktsAveSREcoDay 3 – session 3, Day 4 – session 1 & 2124022.1040.73.26Other sessions125152.5594.63.33Given the conditions, England batsmen have not had much trouble against spinners either, and have done much better than their opposition at this venue. In 11 Tests since 2009, England batsmen averaged 39.17 at Lord’s, while other batsmen averaged almost 15 runs fewer. Visiting batsmen have only seven hundreds in these 11 Tests, half the number of hundreds England managed during the same time.Ian Bell and Joe Root have done remarkably well at this venue. Bell has 1205 runs at an average of 57.38 and his last four innings here have produced one hundred and two fifties. Root has scored 512 runs from six innings at an average of 102.40 and two of his last three scores at Lord’s are 180 against Australia last summer, and an unbeaten 200 against Sri Lanka last month. Alastair Cook, though, remains a worry for England, given his recent slump in form and also because Lord’s hasn’t been kind to Cook for some time now. Since the India Test in 2011, Cook has scored 246 runs at this ground at an average of 20.50, with only one fifty-plus score in 12 innings.

Batsmen at Lord’s, since 2009

TeamMatRunsHSAveSR100/50sEngland116582
22639.17
56.214/32
Opposition11524619324.7447.77/26

England batsmen at Lord’s

BatsmanInnsRunsHSAve100/50sAlastair Cook301206
10641.58
3/7
Ian Bell26120519957.384/8Matt Prior22871126*45.843/4Stuart Broad1864816943.201/3Joe Root6512200*102.402/1England batsmen may have also benefited from batting first regularly on a pitch that is at its best on the first day of the Test. Since 2009, batsmen have averaged 42.49 on the first day at Lord’s, a fraction over 14 runs more than the average for the other four days. Batsmen average the worst on the fourth day of the Test, scoring just over 26 for every wicket. Of the eight Tests England have won here in the last five years, they batted first in seven. They batted second in the only Test they lost – to South Africa. In the last ten Tests with a result at Lord’s, nine have been won by teams batting first.

Day-wise batting stats at Lord’s, since 2009

Day of playRunsDismissalsAveSRDay 128476742.4950.8
Day 2327211029.7555.1Day 327699628.8450.3Day 425599826.1152.8Day 526354927.5751.3

Unmukt Chand has been given a long rope by the selectors, but the runs are not coming and his temperament has also come under scrutiny; he must repay the faith shown in him soon, before his chances finally run out

Amit Shetty12-Dec-2014Four years ago, Unmukt Chand was in 11th grade in a Delhi school when he showed maturity beyond his years in tackling the seasoned Sanjay Bangar and JP Yadav on a seaming Roshanara track. Although Bangar and Yadav were no Stuart Broad or James Anderson, being veterans of first-class cricket, they knew how to pick up wickets. But Chand still managed a score of 151 in a team total of 295, not bad at all give the ball was also swinging.With that innings, Chand had marked himself as one of the talented young batsmen. There was a flow to his batting that made him exciting to watch. Then the 2012 Under-19 World Cup happened, and Chand, who led India to victory, became the next big thing in Indian cricket.But four years later, there are fears as to whether Chand, now 21, is stagnating. His recent run suggests as much; big scores are few and far between, and the indiscreet shot selection time and again is not doing his – or his team’s – confidence any good.Realistically speaking, he was not in contention for a place in India’s 15-member World Cup squad but not being in the 30-member probables list either – and quite rightly so – is an indication that he needs to have a rethink about his game.He played in three warm-up games against the visiting West Indies and Sri Lanka and although those matches didn’t have List-A status, Chand helped himself to a century and two fifties. But then came a sequence of low scores in the domestic one-dayers – 1, 19 , 11, 3, 2, 6 and 6, making it 48 runs in seven matches.The last of those innings was in the Deodhar Trophy, which means that he was selected in North Zone after scoring 42 in six Vijay Hazare innings for Delhi. Those numbers do not merit selection in the zonal team purely from a statistical point of view, but Vikram Rathour probably picked him on talent alone. He was given an opportunity to prove himself, but how he wasted it; a slash to third man, and gone.If one looks at his first-class average of 35.77 in 32 matches, it’s evident that the selectors think him worthy of a long run in teams like India A or India Under-23s despite a mediocre record in past three Ranji seasons. He scored 268 runs in six matches in the last Ranji season, and was dropped from playing XI in last group game against Karnataka. A season before that fetched him 445 runs in eight matches and prior to that it was 338 runs. For someone who wants to play at the next level, these are not great numbers.His approach in crunch situations can be questioned. Last season, on a green top at Roshanara, he did all hard work to reach 50 before throwing it away against Punjab, when he had all the time in the world to consolidate. In this season’s first Ranji game, he played some flowing drives to reach 28 in no time as Gautam Gambhir seemed to be struggling at the other end. Then he thought of pulling Sudeep Tyagi and was caught at mid-on. Gambhir scrapped and carried on to score 147.Yes, after 56 Test matches, Gambhir has loads of experience, but having batted with him for three seasons, Chand could learn a lot more from his captain about grinding it out.In the second innings, Delhi needed just 16 to win by 10 wickets and get a bonus point, but Chand was bowled by a seamer, his off-stump going for a walk. Delhi missed the bonus point, and one can’t guarantee that that won’t prove costly in a marathon tournament like the Ranji Trophy.Maybe his poor form is all in the mind for Chand, but he certainly needs someone to speak to him about it, be it Virender Sehwag, Gambhir or Ricky Ponting – in the Mumbai Indians dressing room. He needs to convert those pretty 30s and 40s before he starts falling off selectors’ radar.

In the first episode of Contenders, a special ten-part buildup to the 2015 World Cup, Rahul Dravid and Graeme Smith discuss the impact of local conditions on team compositions and the issues surrounding the format of the tournament

ESPNcricinfo staff20-Jan-201531:02

Spinners can be effective in Australia – Smith

As the 2015 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand approaches, excitement is building about what the tournament holds. Who are the players to watch for? Which teams start favourites? Contenders, a ten-part ESPNcricinfo special series, examines the strengths and weaknesses of each team in depth, with two legends of the modern game – former South African captain Graeme Smith and former India captain Rahul Dravid. To kick off the series, Smith and Dravid reflect on the importance of a World Cup for a player, the impact of local conditions on team compositions, the issues surrounding the format of the tournament and the likely effects of the new ODI rules on the games.What they said about… Importance of playing a World Cup
Dravid: You want to make a mark in the World Cup, simply because you felt that the best players in the world were playing that tournament.
Smith: I was fortunate enough to play in three of them and never got to win one but have some great memories of those occasions.Memories of the 1992 tournament
Dravid: I had just started playing first-class cricket. One thing that we observed was the players’ colourful uniforms. We used to look at them and think, ‘Yes it would be nice to wear one of those someday.’
Smith: That was my first ever sort of exposure into international cricket. When I was 9 or younger, we used to lie on the bedroom floor, wake up at odd hours of the morning and watch television.Impact of local conditions on team composition
Dravid: You can’t have one set formula. Even if you are confident enough to qualify as one of the top eight teams, you can never predict where your quarterfinal will be. You’ve got to have a squad that covers all bases.
Smith: The unique thing about playing in Australia is the size of the grounds, it’s one thing that most other nations aren’t really used to. You have to put emphasis on scoring singles and running twos and threes.The format of the World Cup
Dravid: You can almost predict who the top eight teams are going to be. There comes a time in the tournament, when everyone starts to wait for the quarterfinals, because you know that those are the big games.
Smith: The experiences I’ve had with the football World Cup and the rugby World Cup is that every weekend, there’s a big challenge, and you’re looking forward to the next game. I think that’s crucial for us to create to keep cricket on the map and keep it competitive.Impact of new ODI rules
Dravid: When you have five fielders in the ring, it’s very hard to play a part-time bowler, you are almost forced to play five specialist bowlers. You’re going to be forced to attack and look for wickets than just sit back for long periods of play and see part-timers bowl.
Smith: You need to sum up the batting conditions with the two new balls in Australia and New Zealand. You need to set more of a platform and you can catch up in the last 20 overs if need be. The key is not to go three or four down for nothing.

Roger Harper remembers West Indies’ one-wicket defeat to Pakistan at the 1987 World Cup

Alagappan Muthu20-Feb-2015When you log in to Facebook from a new computer or a new country, you might be given a security check. The site asks you to prove you are who you say you are before granting access and one way to do that is by recognising your friends/adversaries/competitors from a set of pictures.The World Cup put West Indies through its version of that test and they are struggling to prove they are who they say they are.Kemar Roach just about picked out Scotland in the warm-ups but, in their first group game, a leprechaun disguising himself in a new fluorescent green outfit (minus the shamrock) confounded everyone. By the time Darren Sammy and Lendl Simmons got the hang of it, West Indies were locked out.So maybe it is good that they play a more familiar face on Saturday. They have met only one team more often than Pakistan in 50-over history (and that is Australia). More pertinently, West Indies have won 68 of those 128 matches against Pakistan and an even healthier six out of nine at World-Cups. As comforting as that is, Jason Holder and his men might be better motivated by pain and the urge to not feel it again.Perhaps they should remember 1987. Roger Harper sure does.Lahore. Imran Khan captaining in Imran Khan territory. The hosts were favourites. The visitors were a fading power, at least in one-day cricket. Partisan crowds. The World Cup like never before.The match see-sawed wildly. An Imran special to start. A Viv Richards counterattack for flavour. An Abdul Qadir six for kicks. A dash of controversy from Courtney Walsh and Saleem Jaffer. West Indies had only 216 to defend, but they did it like it was 116. Pakistan needed two runs off the final ball. Nails were torn off, nerves jangled but the noise never ceased.Two taken. A classic. And a heartbreak. Twenty-eight years later, Harper still retains that feeling of disappointment.”The team had just come back in the dressing room,” he said. “Some things were shared about the importance of the match and what it meant to our chances of progressing in the tournament. It was a World Cup and we had fought our way back into a winning position and then just fell short.”As it turned out, they could have made the semi-finals with one more victory; instead, England and Pakistan progressed from Group B.

“We felt that we had a competitive total, a defendable total. And it would have been had we taken our chances”Roger Harper

It might be jarring to inspect those wounds, but West Indies’ class of 2015 does mirror their seniors. Like Sunil Narine, Malcolm Marshall had pulled out of the tournament. Michael Holding and Joel Garner had run their last. It was a new side; a young side seeking to establish their identity and keep up with their history. The 15 men in Christchurch right now preparing to face Pakistan again might empathise with that.”We weren’t as good as we used to be,” Harper said. “But at the same time we had guys who had been around for a couple of years or so. I still thought we had enough talent. Youth was blended in with the experience of Richards, [Desmond] Haynes and [Jeffrey] Dujon. We were confident of getting the job done.”Pakistan were not lacking talent, either, all the way down to No. 7 Saleem Yousuf. It didn’t matter that he was facing Walsh with his tail up. It didn’t matter that he had walked in with his side 107 runs off their target. It didn’t matter that until then he had worn an ODI average of 14.45 with no fifties. It is understandable that West Indies felt “more in control”, according to Harper, but Yousuf’s 49-ball 56 began creating problems. They were compounded by a deafening home crowd and the noise only escalated when he was dropped.”We were looking to get close to 250. Though we fell short, we still felt that we had a competitive total; a defendable total,” Harper said. “And it would have been had we taken our chances. Yousuf was dropped at, I think it was long-on, off Walsh in the 48th over or something like that and it took Qadir in the end to get them through.”West Indies had squeezed out the ninth wicket in the penultimate over and 14 runs were still needed. Then Qadir defied his position at No. 9 by belting Walsh over the long-off boundary midway through the final over. Blood pumping, breath heaving, field closing in on him, Qadir sliced the final ball of the chase – an attempted yorker – to third man and raised his bat in glory even as he was completing that second run.A half-century for a helmet-less Phil Simmons on debut gained a bitter aftertaste; the way he had milked Qadir and took on Imran and Wasim Akram to very nearly match Richards’ strike rate became consolatory praise. Walsh received more press for choosing not to run out a rapidly backing-up Jaffer at the non-striker’s end as he pulled out from bowling the last ball, than for the spell that returned West Indies’ hopes. Four crucial wickets that cut through the middle order and nearly turned the game around. Nearly.

Not just with the bat, not just with the ball, not just while fielding. JP Duminy led Delhi Daredevils with an enthusiastic and energetic approach against Sunrisers Hyderabad

Arun Venugopal in Visakhapatnam18-Apr-2015JP Duminy is among the first to emerge from the Delhi Daredevils dug-out during the innings break. He goes up to the practice wicket and fires away darts from round the stumps. Duminy has probably done enough with the bat already: coming in at No. 3, he has scored 54 off 41 deliveries to push his team’s total to 167. But Duminy thinks there is more to be done. He is proved right.With two left-handed openers in David Warner and Shikhar Dhawan, Duminy waits for only as long as the second over to deploy himself. He also shuffles his bowling pack niftily, using four of them in six overs. Sunrisers Hyderabad have by then zoomed to 50 with all their wickets intact.Duminy brings himself back. The first ball goes with the arm. The result is Dhawan’s dislodged bails. Two balls later, Duminy dives to his right and springs up with the ball, and a cry of delight. He has sent back his opposite number, Warner. This is more Duminy the captain at work than Duminy the bowler. Spreading the field out on the leg side, he had handed out the invite for an easy single or two. Duminy then seals the deal with a generously flighted delivery. Warner twirls his bat too early. Leading edge. End of story.Time for bowler Duminy to recede into the background. Time for leader Duminy to front up. He is chattier than usual, but isn’t animated. Another round of bowling shuffle ensues. Three spinners – Imran Tahir, Amit Mishra and Yuvraj Singh – are pressed into action. Meanwhile, KL Rahul and Ravi Bopara have rebuilt smartly, and are looking to amp up the scoring.Duminy recalls Angelo Mathews, who went for 12 runs in his first over. Rahul jumps out of his crease and mistimes his stroke. Ball gets plenty of hang time. Domnic Muthuswami comes underneath the ball nervously from mid-off, and spills it. Duminy doesn’t say anything. Next ball, Rahul flits across his stumps, a tad too much, and Mathews hits the stumps. Duminy waits till the end of the over, and goes up to Muthuswami and has a quiet word, probably about the drop. Hands-on but not overbearing.The chase, however, is hotting up. Bopara has woken up from his slumber and is tonking them all. Tahir sends back Naman Ojha just before the strategic timeout. Duminy has a hand in this, too, hurling himself forward from point to take the catch. 48 required off 24 balls. Duminy returns with the ball after the interval. Bopara is in no mood for pleasantries and whacks the first ball over long-off for six.Duminy is probably seeing parallels of his own innings here: conservative beginning, gradual gear-shifting and then a sprint in the home stretch. Maybe he also remembers he has carved up Bopara for two fours in the slog overs – including one that nearly rammed into the bowler’s knee – and a six. He didn’t spare Dale Steyn either, slapping a shortish delivery over long-on for six. But Duminy is in no mood for return gifts here and bowls one full and wide. Bopara pursues the lofted shot but is caught at long-off.There is still Eoin Morgan to contend with. No problem, says Duminy as he goes round the wicket. Morgan backs away, is late on his shot, and once again Duminy has found the stumps. Surely, he has done enough now? Not yet, as Karn Sharma and Ashish Reddy lay into Tahir and Mathews.Ten needed off six now. Duminy has saved up Nathan Coulter-Nile, Daredevils’ most effective pacer, for this. There are suggestions coming in from everywhere. Yuvraj joins in, so does Mathews. Even Mayank Agarwal is gesticulating excitedly from the deep. Duminy puts the lid on the panic state and gets back to his fielding post.Coulter-Nile begins well; after two quiet deliveries and Reddy’s run-out, seven runs are needed off two. Karn almost clears the boundary, but Agarwal smartly palms the ball away even as the momentum takes him past the fence at deep midwicket. Another round of meeting ensues, as five are needed off the last ball. Duminy speaks what looks like no more than two crisp sentences. Full and wide again, and Sharma holes out to long off.Fifty-four runs, four crucial wickets at less than six an over and some proactive captaincy. That’s the stuff team owners and fantasy-league addicts dream of. Duminy calls the impact he has had on the match a “blessed thing”. Daredevils now have two wins in a row. Rest assured the streak will extend if Duminy has more such blessed days at the office.

Is cricket all about records and glory or is it about the dream of being given a chance to be the best one can be?

Ninad Sakhadev15-May-2015Cricket is about big runs. Cricket is about records. Cricket is about glory. Cricket is about becoming Sachin Tendulkar.Everyday there is a kid in India who picks up a cricket bat or a ball in the quest to become the best cricketer on the planet. Everyday there is a star born in dusty lanes, crowded grounds and in unfavourable conditions.Everyday there is someone falling out of love with the game simply because the game isn’t loving back. Everyday there is someone heartbroken because cricket is not enough to make ends meet. Everyday someone is giving up cricket knowing fully well that their time may never come.Cricket can throw up a lot of inspiring stories but there also exists another side to cricket that is depressing, demoralising and maybe even devastating. For every inspirational story, there are hundreds of others that make you think twice about taking up the game.And so for all the Rohit Sharmas, Virat Kohlis and Suresh Rainas, Indian cricket needed a Pravin Tambe.Rajasthan Royals have had their fair share of legal trouble. For all that, they still represent a platform – a chance for a number of fringe players to showcase their talent and as in the case of Tambe, a last chance to make a name in cricket. It is the place you want to be as an aspiring cricketer. It is a place where opportunity is given to someone considered worthy of it. So it doesn’t come as a surprise that Royals handed a cap to a 41-year-old who hadn’t played a first-class match.Bowling legspin is an art and a legspinner is an artist. This form of art is defined by the grip of your fingers, the flexibility of your wrists and the limits of your imagination. You can be made to look stupid if you get your line or length fractionally wrong, even though you have not been bad. Like all artists, Tambe too was just waiting for a stage to perform in front of a big audience and be recognised for it. Age is just a number. Age is whatever you think it is. Life begins at 40. I had heard it all before and now I saw what it meant.He doesn’t have the advantage of bounce or trajectory that Anil Kumble or Shane Warne enjoyed but a low bending action means he always gives the ball a lot of air. His action, which must have been refined over years of playing club cricket, easily allows him to bowl faster if he needs to without compromising line or length. Smaller grounds and unhelpful pitches in club cricket have also helped him develop the attitude of a legspinner: giving each ball more flight, especially when batsmen are attempting big shots.His golden period was most definitely the Champions League T20 in 2013. He got plenty of wickets without going for many runs. He flummoxed batsmen with flight, spin and cunning variations. Some of the overseas batsmen had no answer. The big question was always how would he fare against the big hitters and international superstars in the IPL. In IPL 2014, he proved that he was good enough there too. He had plenty of variations to make the batsmen unsure of his next delivery. He had the presence of mind to read batsmen’s movements and change his deliveries accordingly. He even got a hat-trick against Kolkata Knight Riders. He broke the back of the cruising Knight Riders with the wickets of quality top-order batsmen. I have never seen Gautam Gambhir more upset than that day.This year he has been bowling as beautifully and skillfully as ever. The way he dismissed Brendon McCullum was particularly heart-warming. In the previous match against Sunrisers Hyderabad, McCullum had smashed a morale-destroying century. It took Tambe two balls to get him out. The first one was flighted. McCullum mishit it but the ball fell short of the fielder. The next one, just a tad fuller and a tad faster, was simply too quick for him to go back and pull. He holed out at mid-on. When a bowler gets a batsman like this, you know he has defeated him in his own game. You know he has played with his ego and has got the better of him.However, this year he hasn’t been as successful as 2014. He has been taken for runs on a few occasions. In a game against Royal Challengers Bangalore, AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli got stuck into him. It was just too much for Tambe. You feared this all along. You knew this was coming. But like all good dreams, you wished that it lasted just a little bit longer, that you see the flight and dip once more, that you see the man weave a web of spin one more time.This might be his last IPL. At his age there are no guarantees. And if he is done, we can all cherish a run that may not have shattered records but won many hearts with effort, passion and dedication.Perhaps cricket is about effort and not runs. Perhaps cricket is about passion and not records. Perhaps cricket is about love and not glory. Perhaps cricket is about becoming the best cricketer you can be and not about becoming Sachin Tendulkar.

Sri Lanka give off the sense that they don’t have a pre-ordained idea of what kind of cricket to play. They are simply batting, bowling and fielding with no deference to an overarching philosophy

Andrew Fidel Fernando at P Sara Oval21-Aug-20152:20

‘Getting out at the end a big loss’ – Silva

Transition is a funny thing in cricket. Teams playing badly sometimes pretend they are rebuilding, in order to manufacture some good will. Other times, players who are tipped to lead the side into a bold new age wither at the top level and unsuspected others bloom.Sri Lanka are presently grappling with this whole process. Their XI contains a clump of cricketers who have sparkled in patches, without truly taking grip of their destiny. This transition has also created uncertainty on another front.Sri Lanka players speak of being “positive and aggressive”, because clearly, in the modern game, players are summarily executed if they don’t use either of those words for a day. Sometimes they even play that way – as they did in the back end of the Galle Test.But other times, as at the P Sara Oval on day two, Sri Lanka are anything but positive. They are aggressively running away from being aggressive. India have committed to a manifesto of attack – maybe they had even overcommitted to it, given they have slightly backtracked through their selection of Stuart Binny. Sri Lanka give off the sense that they don’t have a pre-ordained idea of what kind of cricket to play. They are simply batting, bowling and fielding with no deference to an overarching philosophy. Some situations demand belligerence so they reverse-wallop spinners against the turn on a dry tack. Today they felt watching and waiting was the route forward.They waited first on Friday for the lower-order wickets to come. Later in the day, Virat Kohli would pack the slip cordon with bodies even for Binny’s bowling, but Sri Lanka’s plan had been to squeeze instead. They denied Wriddhiman Saha quick runs, put the bait on the hook, and just awaited the mistake. They were unlucky not to have Amit Mishra for 0 when a thin edge went undetected by the umpire. Though that stand would eventually swell to 46, Sri Lanka maintained composure.”We just thought of being patient in the morning session,” Kaushal Silva said of their approach. “We had to restrict runs. They had bowlers to come, but we didn’t take them lightly. Amit Mishra batted well. Saha batted well, too. I thought we restricted them to a good total.”In the next two sessions it was Sri Lanka’s turn to frustrate. They were comically slow at times, and each of the top-four batsmen seemed almost painfully out of touch. Some have remarked that the P Sara crowd has been sparse given the occasion, but maybe the Colombo public is just judicious. Why put yourself through the heat and humidity for this two-session replay of the forward defense? Even the runs Sri Lanka scored were sometimes unintentional. Silva ducked a short ball from Ishant Sharma, but the ball collected bat anyway, and flew to the fence behind the keeper. Next over he wanted to push Umesh Yadav into the off side, but got another boundary to fine leg.Sometimes, unable to thwart India with skill, Sri Lanka could only impede them in more prosaic ways. When a cluster of firecrackers went off during the first over of Kumar Sangakkara’s innings, he backed away from the crease and waited for them to stop exploding. Many overs later, at the non-striker’s end, he dropped his bat in front of the stumps just as Binny was about to enter his delivery stride, forcing the bowler to abort the delivery and trudge back to his mark.Then there were the chances. Silva was caught behind off Binny for 14, but reprieved when the bowler was shown to have overstepped. Sangakkara having made the kind of jerky start typical of his early years, was dropped on 24. He eventually fell to the same bowler-fielder combination, though. Having perished in exactly the same way all through this series, Sangakkara has seemed more irrigation channel than all-time great batsman – his main purpose in life to redirect R Ashwin deliveries towards Ajinkya Rahane at slip.It was telling that Silva – who does an important job for Sri Lanka, but is basically a sleeping pill attached to a bat – emerged from his partnerships with Sangakkara and Lahiru Thirimanne with the superior strike rate. The 107 balls that Silva and Thirimanne faced together yielded only two fours. When edges kept being beaten, and lbw shouts continued to be raised, it sometimes seemed like India had the Sri Lanka batsmen nailed to the cross, only they somehow continued to draw laboured breath.Though Sri Lanka played this way today, tomorrow may be completely different. That is the thing about this Sri Lanka transition, you never know what you will get. Often they have kept in touch with opposition sides on dreary days like this, then hurtled into control on the back of a rollicking knock or a sublime spell.Fans will probably turn up in greater numbers for the last three days. They will hope, of course, for runs from Sangakkara, because his staggering career deserves better than a limp finish. For their sake, maybe their team’s more entertaining avatar will turn up as well.

Has David Warner missed a celebratory jump after scoring an international hundred? On his 31st birthday, we revisited those moments

05-Nov-2015TestsTwenty. The number of Test centuries scored by David Warner. Also, the number of leaps celebrating a hundred (including a double) for him. But there’s one hundred for which he didn’t jump with joy (going by the photographic evidence).ODIsWarner had only four ODI hundreds before 2016, but he’s scored ten in 36 innings since then. Do you remember if he leapt for his last one in Bengaluru?

Put forward as a potential Test opener, Alex Hales has endured a miserable run before the squad is anounced. But will the selectors look beyond his limited-overs form?

Andrew McGlashan at Old Trafford 13-Sep-2015

Alex Hales managed just 56 runs in six innings against Australia•Associated Press

Alex Hales was one of the players who had most to gain from this one-day series. A strong return would have strengthened his case to be called into the Test squad for the Pakistan series next month.That call may still come – the squad will be named on Tuesday – but his poor series against Australia, where he tallied 53 runs in five innings, has come at an unhelpful time for him despite England’s increasing desire to view the Test and one-day games completely separately.”What will happen is that some people will come into one-day cricket and do really well and might get themselves into the Test side. But we’re not using one-day cricket as a vehicle for Test cricket,” Paul Farbrace, England’s assistant coach, said after the series-levelling win at Headingley.So Hales can take solace from the possibility that the selectors will view his first-class returns for this season – an impressive 1015 runs at 53.42 – as more important than his one-day output. And, really, why wouldn’t they when they are picking a Test squad? In some ways this series should have done more damage to Hales’ one-day prospects than any chance of earning a first Test cap alongside Alastair Cook in Abu Dhabi.Take a look at his Championship season. His two standout innings have come against the strongest attacks in the country: 236 against Yorkshire (Bresnan, Brooks, although no Sidebottom) and 189 against Warwickshire (Wright, Rankin, Clarke and Barker). If Championship cricket is to mean anything, that has to be worth something.But, still, timing – and perception – can mean even more. This series was the chance to reinforce that Hales is able to take the step up, especially when facing the sort of pace that is not seen in domestic cricket. There is the contrast with James Taylor who scored a maiden hundred at No. 3 and, although not competing with Hales for the same position, has a good chance of going to the UAE.There has been an uncomfortable manner to Hales’ dismissals in the limited-overs matches. Twice he was beaten for pace by full deliveries from Pat Cummins, in the T20 and at Headingley. In the deciding one-dayer at Old Trafford he nibbled at the lesser speed of John Hastings having barely middled a shot.England’s decision on who will open during the winter is made trickier by the nature of the two series: Pakistan in UAE and South Africa on their home turf. They are shaping as two contrasting challenges for those at the top of the order. They could go horse-for-courses, for example the Moeen Ali route, but that would be mean more chopping and changing.Facing the new ball may be place to bat in the UAE. It is not that Pakistan are without high-quality pacemen – far from it, Wahab Riaz, Rahat Ali, Junaid Khan, Imran Khan can all pose problems, especially if the Wahab from Adelaide in the World Cup, when he worked over Shane Watson, shows up – but the ball coming on to the bat could be preferable to when the spinners get into action.After that, however, comes Dale Steyn, Vernon Philander and Morne Morkel on their patch. That will not be for a faint heart, or a dodgy technique. If the signs from Hales facing Cummins in this series are to be taken as an indicator, Steyn could be a step too far.It might sound harsh to judge on a single one-day series, but you can take Hales’ ODI career to date and see it is underwhelming. He has been harshly treated at times, yet an average of 21.47 from 19 innings is not a sample size to be completely ignored.When the India seamers began finding the gap between his bat and pad last summer the selectors became nervous and he only featured at the back-end of the World Cup when others had failed. He returned against New Zealand and was more comfortable against their pace attack, but has looked progressively worse with each innings against Australia.England’s attempt to find an opening partner for Cook has taken in a variety of options: the county pro who churned out the runs (Nick Compton and Michael Carberry), the younger model who has shone (Sam Robson), the experienced international (Jonathan Trott) and the more attacking route (Adam Lyth).Hales would come into another category – the player who firstly made a name for himself in limited-overs cricket before knuckling down at the red-ball game. So there would be a certain irony if poor one-day returns proved a deciding factor.Ultimately, it could come down to a gut feeling. Those who have watched Hales’ vast Championship innings have often spoken of a player who ‘looks’ ready for Test cricket. If James Whitaker, Mick Newell and Angus Fraser – England’s selection panel – feel the same way they should go that route. Marcus Trescothick and Michael Vaughan had considerably lower first-class averages when they were first selected.One interesting dynamic, though, will be what Trevor Bayliss’ thoughts are. He will not have seen Hales in red-ball cricket. He will need to be guided by the selectors which is, of course, their job. If Hales is the man to get the nod, it will be further evidence of how England are divorcing the formats but it will also be a test of nerve. For all concerned.