The cricket world reacts to Zimbabwe beating Pakistan by 24 runs in Harare, to record their first Test win against a country other than Bangladesh in 12 years

ESPNcricinfo staff14-Sep-2013As Zimbabwe closed in on victory, the anticipation and excitement built…”Dare we start to believe.”
“It would be a brilliant test win for Zimbabwe… The players deserve the win after what they’ve been through.”
“GO ZIMBABWE CRICKET!”
After Rahat Ali was run out, the celebrations began…”Well deserved Brendan Taylor and the boys!!! Well done boys!!!! So proud!! Great day ‘babwe!!!”
“Congrats to Zim on their win today, the boys deserved a win after everything they had to put up with !”
“The boys deserve everything for that win!!! Great heart and determination to make a difference! Well done to Brendan Taylor. Great finish”

Bloody amazing!!!!! Zim boys you bloody beauties…

— Mluleki Nkala (@mnkala21) September 14, 2013

“Great result for Brendan Taylor and the lads. With results on the field time for the ZC board to turn up!”
“Great win for the Zimbabweans, considering the fact they have been going thru it’s a terrific achievement. Things will only get better from here.”

Zimbabwe 294 and 199 v Pakistan 230 and 239 https://t.co/GxpDWaDvFV via @espncricinfo BRILLIANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

— Henry Olonga (@henryolonga) September 14, 2013

“Congrats to Brendan Taylor and Zim cricket on your outstanding performance to win the 2nd Test against Pakistan. Making our continent proud.”
“Congrats to Brendan Taylor and to Zim for the tight win over Pakistan. Bar bill could be high tonight Tayls!!”

I think Zimbabwe deserve this win they played well

— Shahid Afridi (@SAfridiOfficial) September 14, 2013

“Absolutely delighted for Zimbabwe cricket. Come on now Zim cricket officials, give them their due. They have shown what they can do.”

Stats preview for the second Investec Test between England and Australia, at Lord’s

S Rajesh17-Jul-2013After all the tension and excitement of Trent Bridge, the Ashes bandwagon moves to Lord’s, a venue which has served England well over the last few years, and one at which Australia have had plenty of Ashes success over the last 65 years.Australia have some catching up to do after their 14-run defeat in Nottingham, but historically Lord’s has been a fantastic venue for them: in 36 Tests they’ve won 16 and lost only six. (This includes a Test against South Africa in 1912, and one against Pakistan in 2010, which was their last Test match at this venue.) Among overseas grounds where they’ve played at least five Tests, only at three venues do they have better win-loss ratios. Before their defeat by 115 runs in the 2009 Ashes, Australia had gone 18 Tests without losing at Lord’s, dating all the way back to 1938 – during this period they won nine and drew nine. That undefeated run was broken in 2009, but Australia have since won another Test here, beating Pakistan by 150 runs in 2010.England’s record against Australia isn’t so hot at this ground, but their recent stats here are outstanding. Given that their top players enjoy playing at this venue, and they’re leading in the series, England will be confident of another strong performance. Since the beginning of 2004, they’ve lost only two out of 19 Tests here, against Australia in 2005, by 239 runs, and by 51 runs against South Africa last year. Earlier this year, England beat New Zealand by 170 runs here.Lord’s has been one of England’s best home venues recently, but it’s their worst Ashes home venue. Their overall win-loss ratio here of 0.42 against Australia is their worst among all grounds in England. Their best is the other venue in London, The Oval, where England have won 16 and lost 6, almost the reverse of their record at Lord’s.

Given that England’s recent record at the ground is terrific, it’s no surprise that both, their batsmen and their bowlers have excellent stats here. Unlike at Trent Bridge, where none of England’s current top-order batsmen average 40, here all of them have 40-plus averages, including Stuart Broad, who averages an impressive 45.33 from 15 Test innings. His highest Test score of 169 was made at this ground, against Pakistan in 2010.Among the current lot, Kevin Pietersen has the highest aggregate of 1228 at a superb average, but his recent efforts here have been patchy: since the beginning of 2009, in 12 innings Pietersen has two 50-plus scores, and an average of 42.60, and even that was largely because of an unbeaten 202 against a ragged Indian attack in 2011. Apart from that innings, he has only scored 224 runs from ten completed innings, at an average of 22.40. Trott has been more consistent here, with seven 50-plus scores in 13 innings and an average of almost 70. Like Broad, Trott’s highest Test score is also at Lord’s – 226 against Bangladesh in 2010. Ian Bell has three Test centuries at Lord’s, though he hasn’t got one here since 2008, while Matt Prior has been extremely impressive here as well.

Among Australia’s current lot, the only batsman who’s played more than a Test here is Michael Clarke – he averages almost 50 from three Tests, one of which was against Pakistan. In the two matches against England, Clarke hasn’t scored much in the first innings, but has made substantial contributions in the second.England’s bowling numbers look pretty good at this ground too, with most of their current bowlers averaging less than 30 here. James Anderson, the hero at Trent Bridge, has taken more wickets at Lord’s than at any other ground, while four of his 15 five-fors have also come here. His most recent Test performance here was memorable too, as he took 7 for 70 in May this year against New Zealand. Broad, who averages 26.82 at Lord’s, was outstanding in that game too, taking 7 for 44 in New Zealand’s second innings to take the Man-of-the-Match award. Steven Finn had a terrible game at Trent Bridge but he just might get another game, given his record at Lord’s: 29 wickets at 20.65, with four four-wicket hauls in the last couple of years.Graeme Swann has been impressive at Lord’s too, with 31 wickets at 27.12, but his stats are highly skewed: against left-handers here, he has taken 21 wickets at 16.09; against right-handers, his ten wickets have cost him more than 50 each. The only batsman he has dismissed more than twice in Tests here is Shivnarine Chanderapaul: three dismissals for 35 runs at an average of 11.67.

England look jaded, joyless and over-reliant on tired players who have too many miles on the clock; it is hard to avoid the sense that their time has passed

George Dobell at Adelaide Oval06-Dec-20130:00

‘Bowlers stuck to task’ – Stokes

As surely as day ebbs into night, so England’s grasp on the Ashes urn is loosening by the session.Yes, England are only one down with three-and-a-half Tests to play and, yes, they have earned through their achievements the respect not to be written off just yet.But it is increasingly hard to escape the feeling that an era is ending in English cricket. The issues that have been masked by individual excellence for some time can be hidden no more: England look jaded, joyless and over-reliant on tired players who have too many miles on the clock. It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.It is hard to pinpoint the moment the music died for this team. Was it during the batting debacle of Brisbane? Was it when Jonathan Trott became the most obvious manifestation of burnout and left the tour? Was it here, when Michael Carberry summed up a wretched fielding effort by putting down a simple chance off Brad Haddin, or when Australia’s No. 10 swung the finest spinner England have produced for decades for successive sixes?It says much about England’s performance in the field that the finest catch of the second day – an excellent, jumping one-handed effort plucked out of the sky – came from a member of the media beyond the midwicket boundary and not from any of the team. No bowling attack had ever conceded so many sixes in an Ashes innings and it is very hard to recall an innings where England squandered seven chances in the field.So it was all those moments and more. Certainly the wonderful batting of Michael Clarke on the second morning here and the vast improvement in the performance of an Australia team that looked hapless only months ago is relevant. The manner in which they snatched this game from England’s grasp was deeply impressive; the positive cricket they played backed up much of the bold talk they have made in recent months. They deserve all the praise they will receive.

While in 2010-11, the tone was set by the run-out of Simon Katich in Adelaide, this time England made basic mistakes. If fielding is the window to the soul of a team, England are in trouble

But it was also the scheduling that saw England obliged to go straight from a Champions Trophy final into an Ashes series; it was the seeping weariness of asking them to play back-to-back Ashes series with all the attendant hype and hyperbole; and it was the relentless demands of a treadmill that sees them regularly play more Tests than any other side in the world, alongside an increased priority in limited-overs cricket. The ECB, desperate to feed a business model that may well not be sustainable, has asked too much of its most precious assets.England have been running on empty for some time. They looked jaded going into the 2011 World Cup, as they did when touring New Zealand at the start of 2013 and throughout the Ashes in England. Perhaps partly as a result of the somewhat intense environment in which the England team operate, there appears to be a lack of levity to relieve the tension. All those night in hotels – anything up to 260 a year – all those big games, all those media conferences and public appearances, have taken their toll. The ECB has been to the well too often.There are other factors that have weakened English cricket. The decision to rid the domestic scene of non-England-qualified players and offer young player incentives saw a generation of experienced professionals replaced by kids who should have been forced to work harder for a career in the game. The turgid pitches that proliferate in England bear little relation to those found in the international game and the introduction of Lions games during the English season have further diluted the standard of domestic cricket. The gap between the county and international games has grown dangerously large.Alastair Cook is one of a number of experienced England players whose performances have dipped•Getty ImagesThe bowlers will attract criticism after conceding such a vast total. It is true, certainly, that there is a worrying theme among them to lose pace the longer they are exposed to the England set-up. Certainly the inability to exploit the vast potential of fast bowlers like Steven Finn reflects poorly on the coaching staff. He has regressed since his elevation to the Test team.But the England bowlers also suffered from a pathetic level of support from their fielders. While some of the missed opportunities were tough, there was a general sloppiness to England’s fielding – including Ben Stokes taking a wicket with a no-ball – that was unrecognisable from the side that won here in 2010-11.While in 2010-11, the tone was set by Trott’s run-out of Simon Katich in the first over of the Adelaide Test, this time England made basic mistakes. So Carberry fumbled a simple run-out and Monty Panesar, ridiculously, found himself at long leg as England attempted a hook trap. If fielding is the window to the soul of a team – and it very often is – England are in trouble.Whatever happens in the future, it should not detract from the achievements of the past. This team have, by England’s standards, enjoyed levels of success not matched for decades. Several of them, and their coach, Andy Flower, will surely be remembered as among the best to have represented England.But all things must pass. And the increasing sense of recent months is of a team, well past its best, desperately trying to cling to the past. The performances of experienced players – the likes of Matt Prior, Alastair Cook, James Anderson and Graeme Swann – have all dipped by a small degree and there is little evidence that all the millions invested in academies and youth teams and coaching structures have created the requisite competition for places.And that is England’s real problem. For these are, give or take a player or two, the best England have and they are capable of much better. But they are weary and spent with ingrained exhaustion and institutional weariness. Against a resurgent Australia team, they are struggling to summon the strength for another fight. It may be a battle too far.

Flat pitches, gorgeous net facilities, and two spinners in one Test – Paul Harris remembers South Africa’s 2010 tour to the UAE

Firdose Moonda11-Oct-2013Paul Harris remembers not being able to go on a sand-dune safari during South Africa’s 2010 tour of the UAE because his wife was pregnant at the time. He remembers them making a trip to some of the many shopping malls instead, an experience he confessed to enjoying immensely.Harris recalls the facilities at the grounds in Abu Dhabi and Dubai as some of the best he has trained at in his career. His memories of the 20 to 25 nets in Dubai, each of which resembled a different ground in the world – Sydney, Cape Town and so on – is vivid, and he still gets excited talking about the ingenuity of the idea.He remembers the sights, the sounds, the smells, even the practices, but strangely he does not remember much about the matches. “I suppose that series was a bit like watching paint dry,” he said. “It was just very, very flat. Probably the flattest wickets, most unresponsive wickets I have ever seen.”Graeme Smith, Hashim Amla and Jacques Kallis scored centuries in the first Test, and Morne Morkel, the one bowler who relies on bounce, took a five-for, which was considered quite a feat. AB de Villiers broke the South African record for the highest individual score in the second Test, and for the first time that Harris remembers, South Africa played two spinners in a Test.Harris and Johan Botha operating in tandem was probably the talking point of the tour, because it was so un-South African. In the final innings of the series, with Pakistan needing 354 to win, the spin twins took the only three wickets to fall.”It was quite nice to bowl with another spinner for a change,” Harris says, “but I wouldn’t say we got anything out of the tracks.” Despite that, he ended the series as South Africa’s leading wicket-taker, a statistic that those who don’t know how unresponsive the pitches were may think of as an illustration of their spin-friendliness.”I mean, if Dale Steyn can’t get wickets on a surface then its unlikely anyone else can.” Steyn looked for reverse swing throughout the series, in what became desperation to get a positive result, but “there wasn’t any of that either,” as Harris remembers.Frustration mounted as the tour wore on and the South African players realised the conditions were not the only catalyst facilitating mundane play.”We could see Pakistan were happy to play for the draw. They didn’t really push on,” Harris says. Pakistan’s run rate was over three only once in their four innings, and even when there was an opportunity to seize momentum, like when they had South Africa 33 for 3 in the second Test, they couldn’t capitalise on it. At that stage, South Africa were not playing the ruthless brand of cricket they have displayed since becoming the No. 1 Test team, and it was easier for them to function at the level of their opposition.”The thing about Pakistan is that when they are on top, they are a very tough side,” says Harris. “But if they are behind and they see a gap, often they don’t take it. They also don’t come back very well.”That much was evident in Pakistan’s most recent outing against Zimbabwe, when their over-reliance on the performance of senior batsmen and Saeed Ajmal was badly exposed. They are still smarting from a defeat in Harare that Dav Whatmore has referred to as “embarrassing”, and Harris expects they will have a point to prove, which could make things difficult for South Africa.He also believes conditions will be different from three years ago. Then, it was the first series Pakistan played in the UAE as their adopted home, and with no knowledge of how permanent their stay in the emirates would be, they may not have paid too much attention to conditions. As it became clearer they would play in the country for what now seems an indefinite period of time, they seem to have worked harder at trying to create conditions that can give them something of a home advantage. England experienced that early last year, when a combination of spin-friendly surfaces and what Graeme Smith said was a lack mental preparation saw them lose 3-0.”They’ve definitely woken up to the fact that conditions need to suit them,” Harris says. “I think they want to put teams out of their comfort zone when they play in the UAE and make it really difficult for them.” The pitches in the UAE will present South Africa with a conundrum they have not faced before. “Which seamer do you drop?” Harris asks.The three-pronged pace attack of Steyn, Vernon Philander and Morkel has formed the backbone of South Africa’s team, and its difficult to imagine who they would be willing to go without. Instead, they seem intent on only using one specialist spinner, who Russell Domingo has indicated will be Robin Peterson, and asking JP Duminy to do more with the ball.Harris is not entirely convinced of that tactic. “If it’s really going to grip and turn, then I would play Imran [Tahir] as the only spinner,” he said. ‘I’d look at Robbie if they think it will only really turn come day four or five.”With some spinner-friendly conditions a guarantee, Harris expects a far more interesting series than in 2010. Although he was not willing to go as far as saying South Africa’s desire was any less on the 2010 tour, he did say it was not among the fiercest battles he has been part of.”The most intense series I’ve been part of have been against England and Australia, and perhaps India in India – that can get pretty hectic as well,” he explained. “There are obviously some series that you will be more up for than others.”This time around, he thinks South Africa will more up for this contest because it could be their headline series of the summer. With the India tour still in limbo, the bumper season South Africa were due to have could end up being severely curbed, and the result from this Test series may be their biggest for some time.A drawn series will result in South Africa not gaining any points on the Test rankings, so they will need to win to extend their lead over India. Harris believes that series will be the pick of the summer, and he will be the commentary box where he has migrated, having called time on his playing days. Even if they don’t, he will be on screens during the Pakistan series, and he sounds like he is looking forward to it a lot more than the one in 2010.

Plays of the Day from the second ODI between New Zealand and India, in Hamilton

Abhishek Purohit in Hamilton22-Jan-2014The triple whammy
For a few overs, during the onslaught by Corey Anderson and Ross Taylor, India just forgot their lengths. The usually reliable Bhuvneshwar Kumar was no exception. He began the 37th over with figures of 5-1-20-0, but his numbers were to soon take a turn for the worse. That was because he hurled down four successive full tosses. Corey Anderson faced the first one, but could only get a single to long-on. Bhuvneshwar wasn’t going to be as lucky with the next three. Taylor came on strike and swung the second full toss to the wide long-on boundary. The third one was paddled past short fine-leg. The fourth one was thick-edged to the fine third-man rope, and also gave Taylor his fifty.The quick reaction
After Taylor was done with Bhuvneshwar, it was Anderson’s turn against R Ashwin. Seeing the batsmen were looking to slog-sweep him, Ashwin tried to cramp Anderson for room by firing a quick one into the batsman. Anderson had hardly any room to swing his arms, but even as the ball was almost onto him, he burst into a slog-sweep that sent the ball soaring into the stand beyond the deep-midwicket boundary. When you have power and such sharp reflexes, why bother about anything else?The emphatic response
Virat Kohli likes to stretch right forward to defend but in the 14th over, his feet did not travel in accordance with the arc of the bat. The ball bounced, took the inside edge, hit the pad and popped up. The bowler Tim Southee tried desperately to reach it before it fell short. The batsman’s response was outrageous. Next ball, a determined Kohli stepped down the track and slammed Southee over extra cover for six.The long hop
There is plenty of sting in Kohli’s batting but there is none in his bowling. A quirky action is probably the only eye-catching aspect of the latter. The same action can lead to the most innocuous of deliveries coming out of his hand. In the 17th over, he bowled one that was so short it took an age to reach Martin Guptill on the slow Seddon Park pitch. When it did, even the recently out-of-sorts Guptill was more than ready to play dispatcher, and heaved it high over midwicket.

Jason Gillespie talks about what separates a good fast bowler from a great one, and why it’s important to find a balance between rest and practice

Interview by Scott Oliver21-Feb-2014England have had a couple of Australian fast bowling coaches in recent times. Troy Cooley was regarded as someone who developed skills, particularly reverse swing, whereas David Saker is renowned as more of a tactical coach. As a former fast bowler, what do you think you can most offer an elite fast bowler who’s already pretty set in his game?
Pump his tyres up. Get him confident. Obviously it depends what’s required, and every individual’s different, but by and large you want that lad going out on to the ground believing he can walk through a wall. How you get there is going to be different for every bowler. Some guys might just need a little technical reminder of one or two things in their bowling. Others might need a reminder about tactics and how they’re going about it.How about you? What did you do?
I felt good walking out on the ground when I knew I’d done everything I could in training. I had a saying: “If I’m preparing myself physically, I’m preparing myself mentally.” If I’d done everything I could physically to make sure I could bowl a cricket ball at high speed for a long period of time, then I was happy. That was my whole game. That and being disciplined with my line and my length. If I do that, then I’m contributing to the team cause, fulfilling an important role. That’s how I approached my cricket. And it worked for me. I wouldn’t say it would work for everyone.What do you think separates a decent quick from a very, very good one?
Pace. The reality is we’ve got some wonderful cricketers playing domestic cricket here in England. David Masters will give you a perfect example. Fantastically skilled bowler; will never play international cricket, purely because of his pace. Imagine if he bowled two yards quicker. Steven Patterson is a great example here at Yorkshire. Wonderfully skilful bowler, bowls mid-to-high 70mph, maybe nudging 80. Is that quite quick enough to be threatening in international cricket?Is that what happened a bit with you near the end? How tough was it on the 2005 Ashes tour, for instance, knowing that the 25-year-old bowler would have been able to push the batsman back – Kevin Pietersen in that ODI in Bristol, say?
Look, it happens. The reality was that I didn’t bowl as well as I could have. My lines and lengths weren’t as disciplined as they could have been and I paid the price for that. It was as simple as that. Maybe I wasn’t quite as fast as I was maybe five years before, but that’s certainly not an excuse. I didn’t perform in that series because I didn’t bowl well enough in terms of line and length.What about heart as a bowler? Courage. That’s something that’s quite hard to measure on a laptop, but the willingness to come back in the last hour of the day – is that something you look out for?
Yeah, definitely. That comes from within. You need a bowler to be willing to run in hard at half-past five on a hot day, after he’s bowled 20 overs, and give you a couple more overs. What you don’t want to see is a bowler throwing the ball back to the captain and saying, “No, can’t do it”. If they can’t do it because they have absolutely given everything, no problem, but if it’s because they haven’t given themselves the best chance by getting themselves as fit and as strong as possible then I would have a bit of an issue with that.You became renowned for long spells with Australia, but do you think your role changed depending on who was the other seamer in there with McGrath and yourself – whether it was Reiffel, Bichel, Kasprowicz, Lee?
Definitely. When Brett Lee and Glenn McGrath played, they both wanted to bowl with the wind and downhill. I was the third seamer, and I just thought, “Well, I want to play international cricket and 50% of the overs need to be bowled uphill and into the breeze, so it may as well be me.” And I was more than happy to take that role on, because it helped the team. Simple as that. You do what you need to do for the team. I’ve seen or heard comments from players – “I deserve to bat here” or “I deserve to bowl here”, “I’ve earned the right”, all these sort of things, and I don’t buy that. You go where the team needs you.

“You need a bowler to be willing to run in hard at half-past five on a hot day, after he’s bowled 20 overs, and give you a couple more overs”

Do you think you got the wickets you deserved in Test cricket? You took 259 but 171 of those were top six batsmen. So perhaps you didn’t pick up all that many cheapies…
Well, it’s a bit hard when Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne were in the side, you know! As soon as six wickets were down, and you had done all the hard work, you’d see McGrath warming up or Warnie just signalling to the captain that it’s time for him to bowl. Look, that didn’t bother me at all – as I said, it’s about performing a role for the side. I quite like the fact that most of my wickets were top six batsmen, because one of my main jobs was to open the bowling and make inroads. Whoever gets the wickets doesn’t really matter. It’s the fact that you get them. If you’re on a flat wicket with not too much sideways movement and you have a tailender sticking around, then a quick’s probably not going to be as effective as the great Shane Warne bamboozling them. You just want to win the game of cricket and get off the park.What do you think was your best spell, or even delivery?
If you play long enough you’re always going to bowl good balls. I suppose what you’re asking is what was the most satisfying wicket. Everyone wants to get the Tendulkars, the Kallises, the Laras – I remember once I had a spell of 6 for 6 in a Boxing Day Test against West Indies, the first six, and I bowled a couple at Brian Lara that went across him then one that just hit the seam, came back a little bit and just clipped the off bail. He let it go and was out for nought. That was a very satisfying wicket because, number one, a plan came off, which is very exciting for a bowler, but also the fact that it was such a great player as Lara. You test yourself against the best and there are times when you get beaten and there are times when you come out on top. That was very satisfying.Which other quicks knocking around in your era did you admire?
Malcolm Marshall was probably my all-time favourite. Obviously I looked up to Glenn. Great friend. Someone I could really bounce ideas off. I always listened to his approach to bowling. I also looked up to a lot of my team-mates. Damien Fleming, best man at my wedding, really taught me a lot about bowling. Mike Kasprowicz, Andy Bichel, Brett Lee, Paul Reiffel – I learned something from them all.That great tradition of the opposition coming in to your dressing room at the end of a series – usually after you’d won. Was there a corner for the quicks where you’d share trade secrets?
Yeah, obviously you’d chat to guys like Allan Donald. Earlier in my career, there was Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Curtly and Courtney. I made my debut against West Indies and in my second Test I did my side and at the end of that Test – we lost it; it was at the MCG – Courtney Walsh came into the dressing room and sat next to me and asked me what happened with my side. We chatted for about ten minutes and he stood up and said, “You’ll be okay, boy” and walked off. That was a massive moment for me: I was this young 21-year-old and a legend of the game has taken ten minutes out to speak to me. I’ll always remember that. Then there were guys like Darren Gough. I remember having a great chat with Matthew Hoggard after the Ashes ’05 – even though I’d been dropped from the side, he gave me one of his shirts, signed, and we spent a bit of time chatting, talking about bowling. He’s a good lad and I enjoyed that conversation.I think I read that Shaun Tait used to make no-bouncer pacts with opposition quicks…
I think he did that for a laugh, really. I never made a pact with anyone because I knew I was going to cop it anyway. And I didn’t mind it. I’m playing Test cricket; I’m not playing in the backyard. This is what it’s all about.I guess your method as a quick bowler varied from country to country…
Yeah, you had certain plans. As a general rule, on wickets that bounced and carried through you’d tend to bowl more of a fourth-stump line looking to get wickets nicking to the keeper and slips. The lower and slower the wicket, you tended to bowl a bit straighter, looking to hit the pads, hit the stumps. That was my basic game, really. And as a game wore on and a wicket became slower and lower you just straighten your lines up and adjust your field slightly, maybe have a bit more protection on the leg side.Gillespie on the bowlers he played with: “I learned something from them all”•Getty ImagesWhen you were seaming the ball, was it always intentional which way it went, or would you sometimes deliberately scramble it to randomise things?
You’d sometimes scramble it but my focus was trying to move the ball away from the right-hander, so 90% of my deliveries would be looking to take it that way and get that nick. And if it nipped the other way off the wicket and I got bowleds and lbws – that was fantastic, but I didn’t actually try to do that unless it was a really slow wicket and I ran my fingers down the side to get some sort of cut on the ball. Generally, it was seam-up.It seemed to me that you had an action that didn’t have a lot to go wrong with it and didn’t need much honing. Was that natural or the result of coaching?
Well, I had to hone my action to an extent. I was a little bit loose in my teens. When you’re younger you’re still growing into your body. You get the right advice, get strength and conditioning programmes to build up muscles and build up your strength, until you sort of get to your early to mid-20s, where your body has settled down and you’ve had a few years of building your strength, learning how to bowl – that’s the Holy Grail at the moment with fast bowlers.You want players to improve their skills so they need to practice, but if there’s restrictions on practice you’re probably getting to a point where someone’s really honing a skill but because of workloads they have to stop bowling. Sometimes as a coach you just think: “They need more. They need more bowling to get the skill right.” So that’s a real challenge, but I understand that you have to work within some of the sports science guidelines because you do need to look after your bowlers and make sure they’re not being overworked. Certainly, I got stress fractures of my back when I was young – I remember bowling three times a week for two hours straight at training.Do you think that was the cause?
It certainly didn’t help. But, on the flipside, I think it actually helped me improve my skills. So there’s a bit of give and take. It’s what the tipping point is; what the saturation point is regarding the amount of bowling. And that’s where I think the sports science guys are discovering things all the time. They’re finding what the balance is between practice and rest and playing. And that’s what all coaches are trying to find, too. Everyone has differing opinions. I’m certainly in the corner where you need to look after your bowlers but you also need to make sure they get that good, hard, solid practice in to improve skills.I guess the other factor in that equation would be precisely how much stress is put on a bowler’s body by their own specific action.
Yeah, that’s certainly taken into account. You look at Pat Cummins for Australia, for example. A wonderful young bowler. I think he’s probably going to have the odd little niggle here and there, but I’m really confident that in a few years’ time, once his body settles right down, I think you’re going to see a lad who’s very resilient. For the next few years he’ll be seen as an injury prone fast bowler, but I think if you ask someone in ten years’ time what they think of Pat Cummins they’ll say he’s very resilient. You just have to cast your mind back to Mitchell Johnson. He’s seen as a very resilient and robust cricketer but when he first started he was in and out of Queensland’s side and lost his place because he couldn’t get on the park often enough because he kept pulling up injured. Ryan Harris as well. But you watch – I’m really confident that the same thing will happen with Pat Cummins.Do you think “laptop coaching” is something you need to be careful of, filling players’ heads with data, particularly young players who might be impressionable or susceptible to being influenced this way and that way?
Well, it’s a bit of a running joke here at Yorkshire, because I can’t use a computer. But I’m a big believer in the coach having all the information. I’m very keen to get as much information as I can. Then I think the key to good coaching is what information you give to your players, taking into account what’s required for a game. The big thing that Darren Lehmann’s done is have clear and simple game plans for Australia to play to, and given them the opportunity to go and do that with a clear mind and some freedom to express themselves.You do have a team plan – Darren, I know he’d be the first one to get stuck into his players if they strayed from the team plan. At Yorkshire, we allow our players to go out there to play positive, aggressive cricket, but we do have team plans and team goals that we don’t want compromised. And if they are compromised, then players will know about it.How has your time at Yorkshire been?
I’m really enjoying my role here. I find it a challenge every day. I jump out of bed in the morning knowing that I’m coming to work at the greatest club in the world. We’re trying to provide as many players for England as we can and we want to win trophies. A real catchphrase of ours here at Yorkshire is “give ourselves the best chance” to be successful, which is what we’re trying to do. That encompasses everything: the efforts and attitudes you have at training; the preparation, challenging the players as much as possible; we encourage them to give it their all and leave nothing in the tank.Do you get involved with the fast bowling coaching on the technical side of things?
We have a coaching staff – I’m first team coach, we have a second team coach, an academy director, a development manager – we all work together. I work with a lot of the quicks, but that doesn’t mean that one of our other coaches can’t work with them. So it’s flexible. Players might identify a bit more with one of our coaches than me, and that’s absolutely fine. There are no egos in our coaching staff. It’s about the player, about getting the best out of them. Whatever words or actions can be delivered – it doesn’t matter which coach.For instance, we’ve got a couple of lads who enjoy talking bowling to Ryan Sidebottom, so how stupid would we be if we didn’t utilise his knowledge and tap into that? I know Ryan’s worked with a couple of our bowlers, talking tactics and things like that.

ESPNcricinfo picks its flops of the IPL 2014 season, with a limit of only four foreign players in the XI

ESPNcricinfo staff03-Jun-2014Batsmen undergoing a baffling loss in form, captains who forgot their better sense, bowlers who looked a shadow of themselves and a wicketkeeper who triggers frustration just as easily as he invokes confidence. What’s the Indian Premier League without a few people tripping up?Though their numbers were a useful guide, some other factors used to populate the list were the player’s importance to the team, the extent to which he could not meet those demands and the subsequent detrimental impact. The investment they represented and eventual yield was also taken into consideration.Virat Kohli’s skills at leading a team were under the scanner and similar focus was also placed Mohammed Shami and his capacity as a spearhead. Neither was able to deliver near their potential.Shane Watson provided a healthy share of head-scratching moments. For a majority of the tournament, Rajasthan Royals looked downright assured of a playoff spot. Perhaps they thought the same, too , and decided to play pin the tail on the most outlandish tactical decision.Mumbai Indians would have felt assured that their top order was sorted having signed Michael Hussey, but his startling loss of form coincided with the team’s worst start to an IPL. Chris Gayle was Hussey’s closest competition. His dot balls piled up, the big hits waned and he looked in pain while running between the wickets. Pragyan Ojha’s tally of four wickets, while conceding over eight an over, was comfortably outdone by uncapped spinners.The same criteria discounted players like Jaydev Unadkat, Rahul Sharma, Parvinder Awana, CM Gautam. They are yet to present a bankable image to fall short of.The team below conforms to the conditions of seven local and four overseas players. Wonder how they will fare against the team of the tournament?1 Michael Hussey (9 matches, 209 runs, strike rate 114, average 23.22)
2 Chris Gayle (9 matches, 196 runs, strike rate 106.52, average 21.77)
3 Virat Kohli (capt) (14 matches, 359 runs, strike rate 122.10, average 27.61)
4 Kevin Pietersen (11 matches, 294 runs, strike rate 126.18, average 29.40)
5 Shane Watson (13 matches, 240 runs, strike rate 122.44, average 20, 7 wickets)
6 Dinesh Karthik (wk) (14 matches, 325 runs, strike rate 125.96, average 23.21, eight dismissals)
7 M Vijay (11 matches, 207 runs, strike rate 107.81, average 18.81)
8 Amit Mishra (10 matches, 7 wickets, economy rate 9.06)
9 Ishant Sharma (3 matches, 3 wickets, economy rate 9.18)
10 Mohammed Shami (12 matches, 7 wickets, economy rate 8.38)
11 Pragyan Ojha (12 matches, 4 wickets, economy rate 8.26)
12th man – Stuart Binny (13 matches, 123 runs, strike rate 101.65, average 12.30, 3 wickets)

Shivlal Yadav had achieved his dream of building a world-class stadium in Hyderabad, but at a price. His challenge as the new interim BCCI chief will be to keep further controversies at bay

Amol Karhadkar and Nagraj Gollapudi30-Mar-2014Shivlal Yadav’s term as the BCCI chief for all matters barring the IPL will begin on a depressingly familiar note: a court hearing in Hyderabad on April 5 in a case related to alleged embezzlement of funds during the construction of a cricket stadium. Yadav is one of 20-odd Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) officials facing various allegations, including misappropriation of funds.But that’s not on top of Yadav’s mind now. In fact, he says he is “not bothered” with the allegations and the three-year-old court case. “When you want to do something good, there will be a few people who will always want to stop you and create hurdles. You can’t stop working because of them,” he told ESPNcricinfo.The statement might sound arrogant but for those who know Yadav it is typical: confident and outspoken. The offspinner played the last of his 35 Tests in 1987 and left the game as one of the few Indians at the time with more than 100 Test wickets. Since then, he’s succeeded in entering the club of officials who run the richest cricket body in the world.He was always going to be an administrator; that much was clear from his statements, as a player, of wanting to build a modern cricket stadium in Hyderabad. The former bank officer at Syndicate Bank started off in 1990 as a managing committee member of the HCA, and two years later became the joint secretary. In 2000, he rose to the most powerful post in the state association – secretary of HCA. He gave it up in 2009 but stayed in the association as its vice-president. In between, he had two stints as a national selector – from 1996 to 1999 that famously sacked Mohammad Azharuddin as captain, replacing him with Sachin Tendulkar and from 2001 to 2002 when the Indian team was recovering after the match-fixing scandal.”My ambition was to build a modern cricket stadium in Hyderabad, something that was missing despite our great cricketing tradition,” Yadav said, when asked about what drove him into administration following a prolonged career on the field. “In fact, once the stadium had been completed, I had resigned in 2009 but my colleagues at HCA asked me to stay on.”He did manage to turn his dream into reality, when the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium on the outskirts of Hyderabad emerged as India’s newest Test venue. Arshad Ayub, another India offspinner who was Yadav’s teammate and colleague at HCA for a long time, gives him credit for the hard work he put in the project. “But it wasn’t only him. No doubt he worked really hard, but there were many others in the HCA who worked as hard. It was a team effort,” said Ayub, a former HCA president.That dream project, however, became the focus of corruption charges; it was alleged that, in the decade 2002-2012, around Rs 100 crore was diverted from the BCCI’s annual funding to HCA. In 2011, the Anti-Corruption Bureau began investigating the alleged financial irregularities following a complaint in 2011 by two HCA members, Sagar Cricket Club and Roshanara Recreation Club. The allegations were levelled against several personnel, including Yadav, former HCA secretary MV Sridhar and Ayub.Yadav challenged the order in the Hyderabad High Court. But on the evidence presented by the petitioners the court passed an order later in 2011 that investigations should be carried forward.A fresh affidavit to expedite the probe by the Anti-Corruption Bureau was submitted in the High Court in December 2013. The bureau served a notice on Yadav and 20 others in February, listing out 199 charges including misappropriation. Yadav sought more time to reply in the court. The next hearing of the case is scheduled for April 5.Regardless of what was happening in court, Yadav’s rise in the HCA continued, with the influential people on his side. Sridhar, one of the most prolific domestic cricketers of the ’80s and ’90s, joined HCA in 1998 and has been around in various capacities. A former Hyderabad captain, Sridhar was appointed the BCCI’s General Manager – Cricket Operations during the BCCI’s annual general meeting in September 2013.Yadav’s growing clout coincided with the rise of N Srinivasan, the two men now staunch allies. Yadav has stood firmly behind Srinivasan ever since the latter has been cornered following the IPL corruption scandal that saw his son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan arrested and chargesheeted. In September 2013, at the BCCI AGM, a few months after Gurunath’s arrest, Yadav was named BCCI vice-president (South zone).His rivals, who prefer to remain anonymous, paint him in colours that most powerful men are painted with. They call him manipulative and say he’s used that quality to retain control. They also say he has not always followed the HCA constitution. They point to money spent without any sanction or any authority, which the committee is then asked suddenly to ratify. There’s also the charge of buying votes.What ran alongside Yadav’s ascension to power and its attendant controversies, was Hyderabad’s dismal on-field record. Ever since the change in the Ranji Trophy’s format from zonal league to knockout to two-tier league cricket in 2002 (two years after Yadav became secretary), Hyderabad has failed to graduate from the lower rungs of Indian domestic cricket. At the time of the change of format, Hyderabad always belonged to the top rung of the premier domestic tournament. Since then, the graph has kept dipped consistently and Hyderabad find themselves in the bottom third of the restructured three-tier Ranji Trophy league format.Hyderabad cricket connoisseurs say the slide has coincided with Shivlal’s brother Rajesh being the coach for a considerable period and his son Arjun a permanent fixture in the team for most of the last decade. A talented player like Ambati Rayudu, who was also involved in an on-field spat with Arjun in 2005-06, left Hyderabad for Andhra. A year later, there was an exodus from the Hyderabad team when the Indian Cricket League (ICL) was launched in 2007; along with Rayudu, seven other Hyderabad players crossed over.Ever since, Hyderabad has lost to minor teams like Kerala, Goa, Jharkhand and Andhra. More than their on-field performances, they have been in the news for other reasons: doling out either under-prepared pitches – as was the case during their home game against Maharashtra that ended in less than five sessions – or flat tracks, experienced during the last season when two of their four home games resulted in drab draws where even the first innings couldn’t be completed in four days. It is a tide that has not turned even as Yadav has risen to high office in the BCCI.Shivlal Yadav has had a controversial and colourful run as an administrator; it is a pattern that cannot be repeated in the seat he occupies now.

Rob Key on his 221 at Lord’s, the best thing about Canterbury, and advice he’d give his 18-year-old self

Interview by Jack Wilson02-May-2014Talk us through that 221 against West Indies. What can you remember from that knock?
It was a good day, I enjoyed that. It was one of the better days on a cricket field I had.Is it true that you snuck out for a cigarette when you were unbeaten at lunch?
() No, never. I had to see the Queen!Describe your England career in one word.
Short.There’s a five-a-side football competition featuring all 18 counties. Who do you pick in your Kent team?
Can I have myself five times?No.
Okay, I’ll have me, Sam Northeast, Ben Harmison, Adam Ball and Sam Billings then.Who wouldn’t be near it?
Mark Davies.And who’s captain?
Myself.What’s the worst thing about captaincy?
Having to go to long media days.You wear No. 4. Why?
It was the squad number I was given. If I’d thought more about it, I would have had 23 like Michael Jordan and Shane Warne.What is the best thing about playing cricket at Canterbury?
There’s a Sainsbury’s at the ground.If you could go back and give an 18-year-old Rob Key some advice, what would it be?
Don’t eat biscuits.There’s some downtime in the Sky commentary box. Who do you least want to be around?
No one, they’re all good value. I enjoy Charles Colville and Ian Ward’s company the most.What would you call a book about your life?
I’ve no idea. It’s not finished yet!Describe yourself in three words.
Very, very realistic.What would you be if you weren’t a pro cricketer?
Trade in the derivatives market.Who is the most naturally gifted cricketer you’ve played with?
Matthew Walker.You have three first-class wickets. Who are they?
Peter Trego, who should have played for England, Ben Phillips, who should have played for England, and David Willey, who is going to play for England.What do you order at Nandos?
It’s quite expensive now. I’ve spent ages trying to get the black card. For years I had chicken with no chips but now I’d probably have chips and less chicken.If you needed one batsman to keep out six balls to save a game, who would you have?
Adam Riley.

A lot has gone wrong with the IPL but as its seventh season begins, the league will brush everything aside and cheer like nothing is amiss

Sharda Ugra15-Apr-2014Drat. It’s that time of year again, when us bad-news brigade types step forward to perform our dual roles of being both eyesore and light bulb. Pitted against the IPL’s One Direction-inspired, high-volume hype machine, they don’t make for much of a performance. Nor have any more impact than a mobile ringing at a Metallica concert.Regardless, we do what we have to. Every time. Like those flight-safety demonstrations, so that in case of turbulence seatbelts are fastened and the location of airsickness bags is known. The last 11 months – between the tailend of the 2013 season and this one – have been turbulent enough to turn innards to water.The hype machine, however, remains poised and perky in a stratosphere of detachment, continuing to whirl around the axis of its central argument: the cricket remains great, the crowds turn up, and there’s enough ka-ching to keep everyone happy. The machine rumbles: stop being party poopers, dudes, get a life, and learn to have some fun. As Quiet Riot would say, come on, feel the noise.It is usually enough to shout down every dissenting voice but IPL2014 follows a nightmare year for the governors of cricket’s richest league. The shenanigans of season six – spot-fixing, betting, arrests – have made previous dramas like the Lalit Modi ouster of 2010, frequent franchise wrangles and player-centric scandals look like kindergarden skits.As the new season arrives with its usual giddy grins and clashing cymbals, it contains an dark undertow of what has gone by and what truths may still lie concealed. Opening night will take place hours after India’s Supreme Court conducts another hearing on how the league’s administrators handled – or mishandled – its biggest scandal. Over the course of the last 11 months, what has gone under is the idea of the League’s integrity and its credibility as an event which, along with its popularity, also happens both clean and plays by the rules.The league now has a court-appointed head in the form of insider-and-outsider Sunil Gavaskar, whose one telling move was to rope in a respected name from corporate India as his advisor and troubleshooter. The introduction of Deepak Parekh’s name itself appears to be a first attempt to regain credibility.It does not help, though, when India and Chennai Super Kings captain MS Dhoni replies to the question “How will you ensure a clean game of IPL this year?” by saying, “We’ll try the laundry, that’s good, will keep us clean.” A funny line, but as his only one on the corruption scandal, it is a bit too glib. It is as if there is a deep disconnect amongst the high rollers of Indian cricket between the reality of what has transpired – arrests, prison, Supreme Court investigations, the use of the word ‘nauseating’ around Indian cricket – and the distraction of the Big Noise and the big pay cheque that comes with it.

As the new season arrives with its gilt and clashing cymbals, there is also the spectre of what has passed and of what truths may still lie concealed

To hear Chennai coach Stephen Fleming say, “There’s a lot going on, I won’t lie. There are a lot of distractions”, was relief of sorts. To be fair, there are many, there are many people who are uneasy about what has gone on but have neither authority or control and are tangled up in the grip of the League’s riches. “Officially, we’re in front of the camera, talking up the event,” said one such. “At the back of our minds we’re thinking, so much has happened, a case is in court, this needs to be sorted out.”The majority of IPL franchises will not admit it in public, but in private they talk about selling inventory at lower rates. Some have struggled to seal shirt sponsorships. All prospective clients, they say, “want more out of less”. Some advertisers on television held out as long as they could to try and grab the lowest rates. The compensation to franchises for playing 20 matches out of 60 outside India has not been formally revealed. While there are official announcements about the rush of ticket-buyers and sponsors, the IPL’s website shows a title sponsor and three partners. One of those partners happens to be the BCCI’s media-rights holder for all other cricket played in India. When the league began, along with the title sponsor, there were spots for between four and six associate sponsors/official partners.In the light of the corruption scandal, moving the event to Sharjah, Dubai and Abu Dhabi is so rich in irony that every expression of outrage is a laugh wasted. It is understood the UAE government convinced the BCCI with the promise that the hosts would ensure a clean environment, free of shady characters. Yes, Sharjah cricket has a somewhat insalubrious past and Dubai is the haven of the illegal cricket betting industry. We must remember however that the one entity which requires ‘cleaning’ and was under the BCCI’s control was the League itself. And they have made a mess of it.In 2010 there was much celebration when the UK-based consultancy Brand Finance declared the IPL’s value had doubled in 12 months to $4 billion. The figure was believed in and revelled in. Three years later, it is only fair to pay attention to Brand Finance’s current assessment. It is arrived at by starting with governance standards, marketing excellence and cricketing performance, and taking into account stakeholder relationships and trust flows, to give a “holistic perspective of asymmetric risks prevalent in any business”, says Brand Finance’s global strategy director M Unni Krishnan. The risk is assessed in the manner in which Standard & Poor’s, for instance, allots its credit ratings – from AAA to the dreadful D.In the space of four years, the IPL, according to Krishnan, is now at “unprecedented risk”. There were no words minced: “The nature of unrest, unravelling of stakeholder relations and alignment have proved beyond doubt that the IPL ecosystem has entered uncharted and treacherous waters. It is at the moment at what we can very much term as catastrophic risk.” The present situation has arisen due to what Krishnan called a “blind to our own blindness” pattern of behaviour of the sort seen in financial service companies before they crash.While “catastrophic risk” is a phrase that can shake a stock market, the IPL may not yet be at a point of no return. A turnaround can come from the body blow of a truth delivered by an outsider or a shake-up driven from the inside. Don’t hold your breath, though. At its darkest hour, the IPL has chosen siege over rescue. It is blowing trumpets and championing its properties, instead of tackling a festering core.