South Africa’s immediate preparation didn’t include tours but a gruelling three-month camp at the High Performance Centre in Pretoria

George Binoy in Brisbane11-Aug-2012South Africa prepare for the Under-19 World Cup differently when compared to most other teams of their standing at the tournament in Townsville. Not for them the extensive tour programmes to familiarise their young cricketers with foreign conditions, various opponents and life on the road – experiences their opponents take pains to acquire. Although they visited England in 2011, when they won 4-2, and hosted Pakistan and Zimbabwe, South Africa’s immediate preparation has been a gruelling three-month camp at the High Performance Centre in Pretoria.”We have a different view on how to train our younger guys,” says their Under-19 coach Ray Jennings. “We have programmes in South Africa where we create pressure and intensity for players to develop, whereas the Indians and some other guys tend to create the intensity on tours.””This year, for example, we had a group of players together for three months in a national academy programme. We trained them from six in the morning to six at night, not only from a cricketing point of view but also from a life point of view, [we] try and mature them. It’s a different programme that Cricket South Africa has started. We haven’t gone the route to go on tour. Our three and a half months have been intense, with early morning runs and all sorts of things at the High Performance Centre in Pretoria.”Won’t other teams’ prior knowledge of opponents and conditions in Townsville give them an edge over South Africa at the tournament? “Why should it?” asks Jennings. “I don’t think the players that we worked with fear any opposition. We’re aware that we’re as good as anyone in the world. We don’t have an inferiority complex on skills.”This side is well balanced. We’ve got a really good group of fast bowlers. There are a lot of allrounders in the side, one or two guys who can win games with the bat and the ball.”Their performances in the warm-up games in Brisbane back up Jennings’ confidence in his players. South Africa kept New Zealand to 184 for 8 before their openers Quinton de Kock and Chad Bowes put on 127 to ensure victory before retiring out after 20 overs. De Kock is perhaps South Africa’s premier batsman, having scored 341 runs on the tour of England. He has three international centuries – two against Pakistan and one against Zimbabwe.”I would have preferred if New Zealand had scored more runs so that we could have been challenged in our batting department. But our bowlers bowled well and our batsmen put in a good start,” Jennings said after the warm-up. “But everyday you play at Under-19 level is a different type of challenge.”South Africa’s batsmen were challenged by Bangladesh in the second warm-up the next day, but Bowes scored an unbeaten 104 to help his team achieve the target off the penultimate ball.Jennings has earned the reputation of being a tough coach, a disciplinarian, and the grown-up manner in which these teenagers are treated by umpires and match referees in the World Cup appeals to him. He says there’s zero tolerance for breaking rules, bad behaviour and corruption. It all adds up to nurturing a young cricketer’s character, something Jennings puts a premium on vis-a-vis technical skills at this age.”Technique is important but if you don’t have a character around that technique, it’s not going to be good,” he says. “If you have a bad technique and a good character, you can always get through and work your technique, but you can’t really work on the character of the person. I always look at the character of the person and the technique second.”That strength of character is certain to be tested at the World Cup, and more so in the coming years, when the danger of these cricketers falling off the charted path due to distraction or failure is greatest. “From this age until 23, it’s quite a tough age where a lot of players have other things come in the way – girlfriends, life … and the partying life and things like that,” Jennings said. “There are a lot of distractions in the next two three years but I like to believe we’ve addressed that in the last six months in the national academy.”Will South Africa’s intense and different preparation work at this World Cup? They begin their campaign on Sunday, against Bangladesh, having made the finals in 2002 and 2008 but losing both, to Australia and India. From Jennings’ point of view, winning a maiden Under-19 title would be an achievement to savour, but the satisfaction of watching some of these boys make the senior team is what he wants more.

The highs and lows of the Champions League T20 2012

Kanishkaa Balachandran29-Oct-2012

Highs

Bowlers dominate
Twenty20 is perceived to be a batsman’s game and it is for the most part. It wasn’t during the Champions League in South Africa. In the early summer, the seamers got the ball to nip around and carry, and sometimes the tennis-ball bounce made batting harder. The bowlers forced batting sides to revise their estimations of what a competitive score was. Including the qualifiers, the average first-innings score in completed matches was roughly 146 – well below the corresponding figure for the IPL. A team was dismissed for less than 100 once and, in the final, Lions looked like capitulating for much less at 9 for 4. There were only three scores in excess of 180, the highest being Kolkata Knight Riders’ 188 for 5 against Titans.Phangiso, the revelation
Following the discovery of Sunil Narine in the 2011 Champions League, this edition has all but launched another spinner, the Lions left-armer Aaron Phangiso, a new face to the majority of his opponents. With ten wickets from six games, Phangiso finished joint second with Azhar Mahmood, but it was his miserly economy rate of 5.36 that stood out. He conceded more than five runs an over only twice in a completed spell and also dismissed Sachin Tendulkar and Shane Watson. His spin may lack the element of ‘mystery’ that Narine possesses, but he keeps batsmen guessing with the occasional pause before delivery. Bigger things are in store for Phangiso if the scouts were paying attention and though he’s on the wrong side of 20 – he’s 28 – it may not be too late for the selectors to include him in their Twenty20 plans at least.Lions defy expectations
Two editions of the Champions League have been held in South Africa and on both occasions, a local side made the final (Warriors in 2010). While that wasn’t surprising, the fact Lions made it all the way was one of the stories of the tournament. They had underachieved in finals in the recent past, including in the domestic T20 competition. The sell-out crowd at the Wanderers on Sunday was indicative of their fans’ loyalty and craving to witness them end their jinx. Though it wasn’t to be, there were plenty of positives. A side that lacked star power at the top rallied around the experienced Neil McKenzie to knock out two IPL teams – Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians. They impressed with their temperament while chasing, and their middle order responded under pressure. Besides Phangiso, the likes of Gulam Bodi, Quinton de Kock and Jean Symes made big impressions.Unstoppable Sixers
Brad Haddin, the Sydney Sixers captain, said his side had been preparing for the finals for over two weeks. The Big Bash League winners came in to the tournament with the strongest fast bowling attack, containing the likes of Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood. The future of Australia’s bowling was on show. The Sixers proved they could remain unbeaten even in Shane Watson’s absence, and their overseas picks, Michael Lumb and Nathan McCullum, made telling contributions in the final. Haddin also had utility players at his disposal, and he used the left-arm spinner Steve O’Keefe with the new ball. The ‘pink’ jokes can be put to rest.Sachin Tendulkar had a forgettable Champions League T20•Getty Images

Lows

Tendulkar’s no-show
Sixteen, 7, 2, and 22 are not scores you would associate with Sachin Tendulkar. His fortunes mirrored that of Mumbai Indians, who went home winless. Another problem with Tendulkar’s performance was his strike-rate – less than 100 in all innings. His recent tendency to get bowled was repeated in two innings; even the unheralded Phangiso hit his stumps. It’s difficult to pinpoint the reasons for Tendulkar’s failure. He insists that murmurs over his ‘waning’ reflexes do not affect him. With the England Tests coming up, this wasn’t the ideal preparation.The IPL flop
It was a snub for the organisers that only one out of four IPL teams made the semi-finals. The IPL champions Kolkata Knight Riders made the earliest exit, and Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians hoped in vain for a backdoor entry. Despite having foreign players who represented their IPL sides instead of their ‘home’ teams, they failed to adapt to the conditions. They should have given themselves more time to acclimatise after a four-month break, like Auckland Aces did. For the sake of the tournament and its overwhelming Indian presence, the organisers will want it back in India next season.Weather
There were five washouts, two of which were without a ball bowled. None of the four venues were spared by the rain. The weather affected the chances of certain teams going through to the semis. Delhi Daredevils had the worst of it, with two complete washouts. The extended idle time was of no help to Virender Sehwag, desperate for form and match time ahead of the Indian home season, albeit in a different format. This should be another lesson for the organisers when it comes to scheduling.England’s pull out and the credibility issue
The biggest criticism levelled at the tournament is that it does not have a level-playing field. The introduction of the qualifying round from 2011 only highlighted the gulf between the stakeholders and the rest of the teams. Australia and South Africa are allowed two teams each in the main draw, while India have four. The tournament also took a hit when England said its counties wouldn’t play further seasons because of a clash with its domestic schedule. That the format is still a work in progress after four editions doesn’t inspire confidence.

There are pretty grounds, historic grounds, grounds that ooze atmosphere, and those that make you feel like you’re in the Colosseum. Five writers choose their favourites

19-Nov-2012Galle International Stadium, GalleSambit Bal
Galle: you can watch the action while walking or driving past the ground© Getty Images
There’s a photograph in my digital album titled “Sri Lanka” that always fills me with the warmest memories. In it I am with my wife and close friends. We are on a patch of grass, sitting, sprawling, and leaning on each other. We look relaxed, cosy and happy. Looking at that photo, taken in August 2008, it would be hard to guess we are watching a game of Test cricket – and in the subcontinent at that.We were right behind the sightscreen – years of covering cricket have spoilt me to the point that the view of play from anywhere else in the ground seems a compromise. To our left was the gentle expanse of the Indian Ocean stretching into infinity, and behind us, a quaint little world inviting exploration. And we were not even inside the stadium.We had tickets, and I had a seat in the press box, with a view of the waters, but on an overcast day there is no better place to watch cricket from than the ramparts of the Galle Fort. I have seen prettier Test grounds but Galle gets my nod for the whole package.The stadium is informal and charming: it’s perhaps the only Test ground in the world where you can watch the match while driving or walking past, and though the civil war hadn’t ended when I watched the Test in 2008, the security wasn’t overwhelming. But travelling to watch sport is also a cultural experience, and Galle is enchanting all the way.The other three

Newlands, Cape Town: What can beat Table Mountain as a backdrop?
Adelaide Oval, Adelaide: The canopy rooftop, much imitated now, and the churches in the background
Trent Bridge, Nottingham: Beautiful walk along the river, and both an open and intimate ground

The drive from Colombo, winding and along the coast, is pretty. A new expressway will now take you to Galle in 90 minutes, but if you want memories and a couple of stops along the way for photographs, take the scenic route (at least one way). Stay in one of the boutique hotels inside the fort that, in a maze of lanes and bylanes, houses quaint shops, little houses and rooftop restaurants serving authentic Sri Lankan food. The nights offer the option of driving down to one of the nearby towns for dinner to the sounds of the sea.If you go to watch a Test in Galle – a Test it has to be, because shorter matches are unlikely to provide the space to experience the peripherals – you will not only find that the best seats are free, but that you are likely to come back with a longing to return. As for me, it was perhaps the only place I could have got my wife to accompany me to a Test.Sambit Bal is the editor of ESPNcricinfo

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Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium, DharamsalaHarsha Bhogle
Dharamsala: where the Himalayas watch cricket© Getty Images
So what makes for a good cricket ground? A comfortable chair, a good internet connection, a dry toilet and good coffee? Oh dear, we’ll have to start again, for you could get at best three of those at any ground. A great setting, a large enough car park, easy public transport and a spectator-friendly attitude? We’re getting somewhere, even if the shortlist is very small. Grounds that evoke awe? Grounds that are friendly? Grounds that you can take your kids to?There were three grounds I was most excited about and each disappointed me on my first experience. The MCG was vast, colossal; I felt like an ant, intimidated. I wanted to get away. Lord’s was shocking. Everybody on the staff seemed intent on being rude, almost as if they would be sacked otherwise. And Queen’s Park Oval… well, it seemed like just another ground. I have had better experiences at those grounds since. I quite enjoy the MCG, and quite grudgingly admitted to even liking Lord’s a bit the last time I was there (it was the smiles at the gate and the girls serving coffee in the media centre that did it).Increasingly, I find I am drawn towards grounds in proximity with nature. Queenstown is dramatic; Newlands is very nice too, though Table Mountain can get a touch monotonous; St Lucia is pretty; and while I haven’t been to the Bellerive Oval in Hobart for a while, it must be very difficult to make that less scenic.Indoors is the best place to be in Wellington, though, I find the idea of a large traffic island being used for Test cricket quite unique. The Kotla in Delhi is a lot better now but till very recently the best spot from which to watch a game there was at home. The Wankhede can only get better, and the Chidambaram Stadium (I still prefer to call it Chepauk) has.The next best

For the best combination of history, comfort and warmth I am going to pick: Trent Bridge in Nottingham, the Sydney Cricket Ground (probably the greatest cricket ground in the world), and the Adelaide Oval, with the river flowing lazily by and the grass banks providing quite the most brilliant setting. Somebody told me they are taking the grass banks away, and I said not even the worst villains in the Hindi movies could be so cruel. There has to be an element of the leisurely associated with great cricket grounds (oops, the SCG just lost a point, having done away with its grass banks some years ago). It just goes well with the pace of Test cricket.

But I am not going to be a consultant, merely offering options. For long my favourite grounds were the back field at the Hyderabad Public School (sadly, I visited it again), the “A” ground of Osmania University (sadly, I revisited that too), and the Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium (I said goodbye to the old commentary box, now a hostel, with underwear put out to dry).And then a couple of years ago I flew in a small plane through the mountains to land at a quaint airfield (it wasn’t an airport, if you know what I mean), drove on roads that went up and down according to the terrain, and encountered hill people who smiled and offered local food at prices that were a pleasant shock. The ground itself had me stunned. I saw the pavilion first, a blazing red pagoda, and then I turned around and saw the mountains; not hills, mountains.The rays of the sun glistened off the snow on the peaks, and the sunset was a cinematographer’s delight. Often I found myself looking at the mountains rather than at the cricket, and more than one evening was spent in an open-air restaurant with simple tables and chairs and eager waiters.For the grandeur of its setting and the simplicity of its people, I will go with Dharamasala. Now if only they can keep away the rude, loud 4×4 gang that comes from Delhi and honks all along its lovely curving paths…Harsha Bhogle is a commentator, television presenter and writer

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St George’s Park, Port ElizabethTelford Vice
A hodgepodge of creaking stands and diabolically pokey corners© Getty Images
The biggest single chunk of St George’s Park is also the ugliest.So much so that the Duck Pond Pavilion, which lazes in a slovenly curve on the northern boundary like some obese, rust-coloured slug slowly stinking to death in the sun and salty air, is a cautionary tale against what can result when bricks and steel are stacked symmetrically with not a smidgen of creativity.Had the vast, soulless plastic bowl that is the Gabba existed in the early 1990s, when the Duck Pond Pavilion was “built”, the offending architect, one Terry Baker, should have been sent to Brisbane and told: This Is Not What We Want.But how do we know what is beautiful if we do not have an ugliness to compare it to? The rest of St George’s Park, a hodgepodge of creaking old stands and diabolically pokey corners that seems to exist only to ensure visitors unfamiliar with the ground (let no one who calls the place a stadium make it out of there alive), is its charm.The grandstand along the western boundary is a magnificence of wood and paint and the sense of community that comes with bumping knees and shoulders with your neighbours instead of pretending there is no one in the bucket seat next to you.This is where the St George’s Park brass band is in residence, parping out a well-worn repertoire of standards and occasionally shocking all and sundry with a freshly learned number that might last have been heard on radio ten years ago.The next best

University Oval, Dunedin Zen garden of a ground; nothing superfluous to requirements. And a large, treed hill brooding over everything.
The Bourda Deep, dark verandahs – which have been known to shine with the incredible whiteness of Mick Jagger’s presence – and a moat around the outside of the ground lend the place the irresistible aura of a murder scene.
The Oval The realness of red brick and wrought iron, and proof that not all Poms are yobs or snobs.

Under the grandstand, the good women of the Westering Methodist Church feed the multitude – not with loaves and fishes but with the best hamburgers and pancakes that surprisingly little money can buy. They have been doing so for decades in the name of charity, and they will do so for many more.The eastern boundary is home to a haphazard collection of stands, a grass bank, and the main scoreboard. Other than keeping spectators statistically informed, the board is an important indicator of what the captains should do at the toss. If the wind is coming off the nearby Indian Ocean and blowing over the scoreboard and across the field, insert the opposition. If it’s blowing from inland and towards the scoreboard, bat.Players, umpires, scorers and media are housed at the southern end of the ground. Stand on a particular landing between buildings and the view into the players’ enclosure is clear and frequently instructive – players are far more likely to reveal their emotions when they can’t see themselves on a television screen. So close are reporters to the action that it seems entirely possible to reach out and tap the captain on the shoulder to tell him to put in another slip.The pitch? It is often a desert, sometimes a jungle, and occasionally both – one end dry, the other green.That’s because players come to St George’s Park to be tested, not to be pandered to or protected from the real world. Cricket could do with more places like that.Telford Vice is a freelance cricket writer in South Africa

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Antigua Recreation GroundBy Chloe Saltau
The Rec: an atmosphere all its own © Getty Images
There’s nothing beautiful about the Rec, unless you like your cricket grounds buffeted by prison walls and rough around the edges. It was a place to bat, and bat, and bat – the Rec hosted both of Brian Lara’s world-record innings, 375 and 400. And yet there was something special about this tiny ground in an unpretentious part of St John’s that hasn’t existed since it stopped hosting international cricket.Australians flocked to the Rec for the carnival as much as the cricket. I shouted myself a trip to the Caribbean to celebrate graduating from cadet reporter to graded journalist in 1999. Happily, the journey coincided with Australia’s tour of the West Indies, and Antigua appealed because it was the island home of my cricketing hero, Viv Richards. I have only vague memories of the rambling interview I conducted with a very generous Viv as he sweated profusely in the press box, but he embodied the national and regional pride riding on everything that happened on that sweet batting pitch. The Rec is within walking distance of the street where Viv was raised. With its white concrete walls and ramshackle stands, it blends in with a town that’s edgier than Antigua’s reputation as an idyllic beach paradise suggests. The rum joints inside the gates did business even when there was no cricket, and the smells of jerk chicken and flying fish burgers pervaded the air.My next three

My favourite suburban ground is Holbrook Reserve, home of Brunswick Park Ladies Cricket Club in Melbourne. Tucked beneath the Tullamarine Freeway, it’s small enough that well-struck sixes can endanger cars bound for the airport. It’s also where I learnt to play cricket and how to reverse out of the car park without landing in Moonee Ponds Creek.
On a grander scale, the MCG is more than a cricket ground. It’s a meeting place (especially in the Long Room on Boxing Day), a theatre and a workplace. It was a privilege to witness Shane Warne’s 700th Test wicket from the press box, and a thrill to hide behind a concrete pillar as Sachin Tendulkar had a private net.
I love the Wanderers, in Johannesburg, because of its heady mix of intimacy and intimidation. It felt like a cauldron for the World Cup final in 2003, and the high altitude promotes a breathless atmosphere, where the ball seems to sail for miles.

The ground barely holds 10,000 people, and in ’99 it was bursting at the seams. Everyone was desperate to catch a glimpse of the genius of Lara, who had peeled off a match-winning century in the previous Test in Barbados. He saved his most devastating innings for Antigua, where every exquisite stroke made the Rec vibrate even more violently than the reggae music blasting from the Double Decker Stand.What captivated me most was the intense and sometimes delirious way the Antiguans watched the cricket. Lara’s 82-ball century wasn’t enough to stop Australia winning the Test, and when the Frank Worrell Trophy was retained, I remember an Australian flag fluttering above a haze of ganja.It’s possible the Rec has been romanticised in my memory, simply because there is nothing like it in the age of standardised modern venues. I returned almost a decade later to find the outfield overgrown and the buildings in a state of sad disrepair as a game of intra-island soccer unfolded. Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, the soulless stadium built for the 2007 World Cup, is an abomination, shunned by locals because it’s so far out of town and disliked by the man it’s named after. I’ll never understand why the Rec could not, instead, have been lovingly restored to its former glory. Chloe Saltau is the chief cricket writer at the

ESPNcricinfo presents the Plays of the Day from the second day of the Hobart Test

Daniel Brettig in Hobart15-Dec-2012Surprise of the day
The way Australia’s newspapermen waxed eloquent about Michael Clarke overnight when he was 70 not out, it seemed a century and more was as inevitable as rain in Hobart. This assumption looked a safe one based on Clarke’s stellar 2012, in which he has so far piled up 1432 runs, including three double-centuries and a triple, against India at the SCG in January. But the Bellerive Oval pitch seemed a little zippier and seamer-friendly on the second morning, and in a swift spell Shaminda Eranga extracted enough life to deceive even Clarke, coaxing an edge that was well held at slip. So the expectation of another captain’s century was confounded, at least for today.Drop of the day
For 170 balls, Michael Hussey made barely the ghost of a mistake on his way to 96, maintaining a fearsome record of runs against Sri Lanka. But to the 171st he swivelled to pull Eranga, did not get on top of the bounce, and Angelo Mathews hovered under the chance in the deep. He intercepted it right on the boundary, but spilled the chance, the ball bobbling onto the turf and then over the rope. Hussey celebrated his fifth century in six Tests against Sri Lanka. In the one Test Hussey did not pass three-figures against Sri Lanka, he had made 95.Decision of the day
As the best captains tend to do, Clarke often makes decisions in advance of observers reaching a consensus on what he might do. Hussey and Matthew Wade were having very little trouble at all against Sri Lanka’s bowlers, rolling along at better than five runs per over following the rain, and might have kept batting all day. Instead Clarke called them in 40 minutes before tea the moment the tally reached 450, catching Sri Lanka’s fielders by surprise. Clarke was not rewarded with a wicket in the period up to the interval, but his closure has left the game open to a result despite the chance of more rain interruptions over the next three days.Spin of the day
Tillakaratne Dilshan does not take kindly to being tied down, and he was helped on his way in the evening by an unfortunate piece of fielding from Ben Hilfenhaus. Posted to fine leg, Hilfenhaus’ eyes briefly lit up when Dilshan hooked at Peter Siddle and sent a top edge in his direction. But the ball died late in its path towards Hilfenhaus, and on pitching short of the crouching bowler it spun past his hands and over the rope. Siddle was aghast, but soon had the consolation of Kumar Sangakkara’s wicket.

The West Indies might have had criticism about their performance on tour, but they have warmed the hearts of those who have watched them

PDT Mathieson25-Feb-2013The phrase ‘mind the windows, Tino’ rung out around Edgbaston as the West Indies No. 11 strode to the middle on Sunday. In a session, Tino Best made history and nearly made more. The handsome pose he struck after a stroke (contact was irrelevant), the helmetless dash towards the team balcony on reaching 50, and the barked instructions at the senior batsman, Denesh Ramdin, showcased the joy of West Indies cricket at its best. It infected the English crowd and caused them to groan when he skied the ball to Strauss, who was the man least likely to be sporting enough to drop the catch.The West Indies might have had criticism about their performance on tour, but they have warmed the hearts of those who have watched them. Darren Sammy is one of the most likeable and liked guys in international cricket. His broad, if slightly sheepish, smile on reaching his century at Trent Bridge was shared by everyone who saw it. Everyone was appreciative of a decent attempt at what is a wildly difficult job as captain of a flailing team, done with a good mood and a frequent grin. This is the joy of cricket.Cricket is a well-loved sport. It is full of joy. Our treasured memories of the game are so relatable that we can share experiences with others anywhere in the world. The question is, have England lost this joy?They are probably the best team in the world, and easily the most professional. In 2004, Freddie Flintoff made that famous quip about Best’s stroke play, but such light moments on the field seem rare these days. Talking about their good, intense battle, Marlon Samuels said he doesn’t like Onions, not even in his food. Onions’ reply? That of a serious professional: cliché ridden and hardly uncontentious.Off the field, England often maintain this attitude, with the obvious exception of Swann and occasionally Anderson. They appear from the outside to get satisfaction out of cricket, but not joy.Best, on the other hand, lit up Edgbaston on a day where bad light stopped play twice. Majestic (and self-aware) with the bat and fiery and irresistible with the ball, the chant of ‘Tiiiiiiinooooooo’ rang out instead of an ode to local boy Ian Bell.West Indies win plenty of fans with their passion, and the character with which they play the game. On a day where play was going their way, they had a great time where England seemed indifferent, if not downtrodden. There was no ‘mind the windows, Tino’ moment, except for when the windows were actually in danger.Cricket is entertainment. As you would tell the lead in a West-End musical, “The audience has a good time if they think you’re having a good time.” Lighten up, England.

When overseas, England’s best batsman seems to be playing on a trampoline

Andy Zaltzman15-Mar-2013INTRIGUING KEVIN PIETERSEN STAT ALERT. Strap in, numbers fans.Kevin Pietersen made a carefully constructed and carelessly concluded 73 in Wellington, consolidating the outstanding first-day batting of Nick Compton and Jonathan Trott, before Matt Prior converted it into scoreboard dominance. England’s mercurial superstar thus recovered from a dismal game in Dunedin, in which an excusable first-innings golden duck to a fine Neil Wagner inswinger – bucking the team tactics for the innings by getting out to a good ball instead of planking a bad one straight to a fielder – was followed by a second-innings 12 that was pokier than an agoraphobic’s secret dungeon.England’s well-documented garbageous form in overseas first Tests, which now stands at a solitary victory over Bangladesh in 14 series since 2005, has coincided with Pietersen’s arrival in the team. Pietersen has played in all 14 of those Tests, averaged 29, and scored no centuries (albeit with a couple of very near misses). In the most recent four of those first Tests, he has scored 2 and 0, 3 and 30, 17 and 2, and 0 and 12.However, in few short days between the first and second Tests of away series, Pietersen locks himself in a special magic cocoon, before exploding out for the second Test, like a caterpillar who swallowed a Lancaster bomber, transmuted into an unstoppable force of batting devastation. In 14 second Tests overseas, Pietersen averages 80. He has hit six centuries – including two big ones in Ashes matches in Adelaide, a brilliant 151 in Galle, and his recent Mumbai masterpiece – plus three more half-centuries.Then, with the momentum of a series often turned England’s way, Pietersen once again dons his cloak of vulnerability, a garment he dons and discards with astonishing rapidity. In the third, fourth and fifth Tests of series: 18 matches, two hundreds, average 34. England, therefore, should drop him immediately before his inevitable comedown in Auckland. Or clonk him on the head with an anvil and hope that he forgets the Wellington Test, and plays the third Test as if it were the second.Brendon McCullum might have been out of his mind in suggesting that Alastair Cook is second only to Bradman in the annals of batting magnificence (or talking in some form of secret code to let his wife know that he had left the oven on at home), but he would have been on sounder footing to suggest that Pietersen is in fact better than Bradman. Albeit only in second Tests of series away from home. The Don averaged a paltry 78 in the second Tests of the four rubbers he played away from Baggy Greenland. (To be fair to the statistical Zeus that he was, Bradman outshone Pietersen in the latter stages of away series, averaging a useful 133 in third, fourth and fifth Tests combined.)Pietersen’s scoring in away series constitutes a curious pattern. Particularly when you compare it with his equivalent figures in Tests in England – he averages 56 in first Tests, 56 in second Tests, and 51 in third/fourth/fifth Tests. Reliable equilibrium at home. From low to high and back again like a demented Edmund Hillary everywhere else. If anyone can explain these figures, please alert Pietersen, the ECB, and the International Journal of Psychology.

• Some comparisons with other players in away Tests: Cook: 51 in 1st Tests; 64 in 2nd Tests; 49 in 3rd/4th/5th Tests. Strauss: 41-28-50. Trott: 47-44-44. Bell: 33-49-37. Prior 35.4-37.2-52.9 (only away 100s in 5th Tests)
  A random selection of other leading batsmen’s averages in second Tests overseas: Hobbs 67; Sobers 52; Richards 60; Tendulkar 59; Hutton 49; Kallis 60; Ponting 42; Dravid 52; Miandad 33; Crowe 53; Boycott 38; Greg Chappell 77. A very quick perusal of about 20 leading players found only one who outperformed Pietersen in away second Tests – Wally Hammond, who averaged 104, significantly aided an unbeaten triple in New Zealand.

• Pietersen is not alone in struggling in first Tests overseas. Len Hutton, arguably England’s greatest ever batsman, averaged just 27 in the opening matches of away rubbers. He seemed to warm up as series went on, however, averaging 49 in second Tests, 45 in third, 74 in fourth and 91 in fifth. This pattern was largely replicated in home Tests. Overall, his averages in each match of series ascended as follows: 36-44-58-78-85.
• The first innings in Wellington was the third time in four Tests in 2013 that four New Zealand bowlers have bowled 30 or more overs in an innings. They had done so just three times in their previous 113 Tests over 13 years.
• England’s new Balthazar of Block, Steven Finn, has now faced 304 balls and been out three times in this series. Previously in his entire first-class career, he had faced 1327 balls and been out 61 times – once every 22 balls.
• DRS rightly deprived Bryce Martin of Matt Prior’s wicket, which would have given him the first five-wicket innings haul by a New Zealand spinner in a home Test against England since Stephen Boock, in Auckland in 1977-78. Martin’s nine wickets so far in the first two Tests are already the joint second most by a Kiwi tweakman in a home series against England, behind Dipak Patel’s ten in the 1991-92 series. Daniel Vettori, in his three home series against England, has taken 7, 5 and 7 wickets.

As a senior player with a good record from his previous Tests in India, much more was needed from Shane Watson in this series

Brydon Coverdale24-Mar-2013With a firm drive back to the bowler, Pragyan Ojha, in Australia’s second innings, Nathan Lyon consigned Shane Watson to an embarrassing fate. Lyon, the No. 11, had faced more deliveries in this series than Watson, the No. 4 and supposedly one of the team’s senior batsmen. Both men had played three Tests on this tour. Lyon had shown admirable fight and in two of his innings had lasted more than an hour. Watson managed that only once. Plenty of Australia’s batsmen were culpable on this trip, but none more so than Watson.After the match, Watson spoke of his disappointment at his own poor results but he also defended the wider top-order performance by saying the conditions had been difficult. If they were that difficult, how did Peter Siddle score a half-century in each innings in Delhi? How did Mitchell Starc make 99 in Mohali? Why did men batting at No. 7 or below top score in four of the eight innings? How was it that Lyon (244 balls), Starc (254 in two Tests), Siddle (350) all survived more deliveries over the four Tests than Watson, who faced only 239?In the second innings in Delhi, Watson showed that while the conditions might have been challenging, he wasn’t respecting them. On a pitch offering up-and-down bounce, pulling is fraught with danger. Anything that could threaten the stumps needed to be met with a straight bat. But Watson went for a big pull, the kind of shot that brings him countless boundaries on flat pitches in one-day and Twenty20 cricket, and was bowled when the ball kept low. It was a terrible shot in the circumstances.Watson was the acting captain in Delhi and that made sense for a one-off match, for he is vice-captain to Clarke and was the logical choice as leader. But the vice-captaincy should not guarantee selection and Watson must be sailing dangerously close to losing his place. In the past two years he has scored 627 runs at 24.11 in 14 Tests. That would be acceptable if he was a bowling allrounder, but his primary role in this side is as a top-six batsman. On that alone he should be judged.When the Ashes comes around later this year, Watson is likely to be bowling again. If he is making runs and bowling he provides valuable balance to the side; if he is still failing with the bat that becomes irrelevant. Watson will probably be in the XI for the first Ashes Test and against England’s fast men he could score runs – he averaged 48.00 there on the 2009 tour. But then, he averaged 16.50 in this series having averaged 40.09 on his previous two Indian tours.That Watson performed so poorly having played six Tests in India before this series made him the most accountable of Australia’s batting failures, but he was not alone. The batting throughout the tour was characterised by a lack of patience and an inability to handle the turning ball. There are two sides to batting, the technical and the mental, and on both Australia were beaten soundly in this series.India’s batsmen set the example from the first Test. Collectively they scored six centuries and five of their batsman averaged 50-plus. They were patient and respectful of the conditions, they played with straight bats and they waited for the bad balls to put away. Too often the Australians tried to force the issue, hoping an aggressive approach would put India’s bowlers on the back foot. Cross-bat shots and inadequate footwork proved extremely costly.

Three members of the top six averaged fewer than 20 for the series. It is no wonder Australia lost 4-0 with such a malfunctioning batting order.

Michael Clarke scored a century on the opening day of the first Test in Chennai but no Australian made one after that. Three members of the top six – Watson, Phillip Hughes and Matthew Wade – averaged fewer than 20 for the series. That is a figure that bears repeating. Three of the top six. Fewer than 20. No team can carry such inadequacies. It is no wonder Australia lost 4-0 with such a malfunctioning batting order.As expected, Clarke was excellent in spinning conditions and Steven Smith’s footwork also made him a valuable member of the middle order. Ed Cowan progressed throughout the trip and showed that he could bat time, generally forcing the bowlers to get him out rather than getting himself out. But overall it was a miserable tour for Australia’s batsmen. The bowlers at times let things slip away but always they found themselves defending sub-par totals, often propped up by their own tail-end efforts with the bat.It is becoming a worryingly consistent trend. In the past year, Australia have played 13 Tests. Clarke has scored four centuries and the now-retired Michael Hussey made three. Outside of those two, Australian batsmen have made only four hundreds in those 13 Tests: Wade has made two and Cowan and David Warner one each. It’s more than two years since Watson has scored a century. In the past year, only Clarke and Hussey have averaged 40-plus, of those Australians who have played more than two Tests.Often, Australia have got by on the backs of Clarke and Hussey, for before this disastrous tour the only series they had lost since the 2010-11 Ashes was against South Africa at home, and that could have gone either way. But now Hussey is gone and says he’s not returning. Clarke cannot shoulder the batting burden alone. And a burden it has become.There is merit in showing patience in a young, developing batting line-up. But can that come at the cost of a 4-0 whitewash in India and a couple of Ashes drubbings? The conditions in England will be more familiar for the Australian batsmen, but England’s attack is full of quality. If the batting falters again in England, what then? Australia would face the prospect of retuning their line-up for another Ashes at home a few months later.Australian cricket may not exactly be brimming with batting talent at the moment, as shown by the fact that Ricky Ponting, who retired after a woeful series against South Africa, easily topped the Sheffield Shield run tally this summer. But there are other batsmen worth trying. Usman Khawaja is one. Alex Doolan is another. So is Callum Ferguson. The in-form veteran Chris Rogers would be an ideal Ashes pick if he wasn’t an opener. Australia have enough of them already.But what this tour has highlighted is that substandard batting cannot be tolerated indefinitely, especially from senior men like Watson, otherwise this won’t be the only thrashing Australia will receive this year.

Stats highlights from England’s 247-run win in the second Test against New Zealand at Headingley

Shiva Jayaraman28-May-2013This was the 23rd series win for England against New Zealand in 34 Test series played between them. New Zealand have won only three. Eight series have ended in draws. New Zealand have now lost their third consecutive Test series in England.The 247-run margin of victory for England in this match was their biggest against New Zealand in terms of runs, not including innings-wins. England’s biggest win against New Zealand at this ground, though, was back in 1965 when they won by an innings and 187 runs.Tim Southee was Man-of-the-Series for New Zealand for the first time in his Test career, in his 17th series. Joe Root, England’s Man-of-the-Series, won the award in just his third Test series.Brendon McCullum took five catches in the first innings of this match; he now has collected five-or-more dismissals in an innings on four occasions, equalling Adam Parore’s record by a New Zealand wicketkeeper. McCullum also became only the second New Zealand wicketkeeper-captain to take five catches in an innings after Ian Smith.Alastair Cook hit his 25th Test century in England’s second innings. As England captain, Cook has scored a century on all seven occasions that he has gone past fifty. Cook has taken 6.52 innings per century, the third-least by an England player. Only Herbert Sutcliffe (5.25) and Wally Hammond (6.36) took fewer Test innings per century for England, among batsmen with at least ten Test hundreds.Graeme Swann’s 10 for 132 in this match is the first ten-wicket haul by a spinner at Headingley in over 40 years. The last ten-wicket haul by a spinner in a Test at this ground was Derek Underwood’s 10 for 82 against Australia in 1972.Graeme Swann’s five-wicket haul in New Zealand’s second innings was his first against them. He has now taken 15 five-wicket hauls in Tests – only Derek Underwood has more five-wicket hauls by a spinner for England.Trent Boult took 5 for 57 in the first innings, the second five-wicket haul of his career. His first five-wicket haul also came against England, at Auckland in March this year.Trent Boult and Neil Wagner survived 48 balls in New Zealand’s second innings without scoring a run before James Anderson broke their partnership by dismissing Boult. This is the longest, in terms of balls faced, a pair has batted without scoring a run in Tests.Martin Guptill had played 30 Tests and scored 1714 runs before playing his first Test against England, in this match.In England’s second innings, Nick Compton laboured to seven runs from 44 balls before getting out to part-time spinner Kane Williamson. His strike rate in Tests, 34.68, is the lowest among England openers who have played at least 10 Test innings since 1990.

He has less than 100 runs in four Ashes innings – bringing to mind a number of England captains whose batting suffered when in charge

Rob Smyth29-Jul-2013For such a habitual success, Alastair Cook knows a fair bit about failure. Low scores are an inescapable fact of life for English openers and Cook has had plenty of leanish spells on his way to making 7607 Test runs and 25 hundreds. He is in one right now, with 83 runs in four Ashes innings. An average of 20.75 is slightly down on the 225 he was averaging after two Tests of the last Ashes.It would surprise nobody if Cook made a huge score in the next Test at Old Trafford. He had an even worse start to the summit series against India in 2011, with scores of 12, 1, 2 and 5 in the first two Tests. In the next match he hit 294 at Edgbaston.His Ashes mirabilis in 2010-11 followed the toughest summer of his career. However, the slightly absent-minded nature of a couple of his dismissals against Australia have induced the nagging and persuasive thought that Cook might just be starting to follow the pattern of England captains in the last 20 years: a spectacular start containing some of the best batting of their career – Cook was superhuman in India last year – followed by a slow decline as the incessant and varied demands of leadership take their toll.Cook’s overall average as captain is an outstanding 60.60. His average as full-time captain – since Andrew Strauss’ resignation – is 52.60, four above his career average, but in 2013 it is has dropped to 37.69. Perhaps the novelty is wearing off. Or perhaps it is just a common-or-garden lean spell. Cook does things differently to most batsmen, and he will feel a far more relevant precedent is that of his mentor Graham Gooch, the last Englishman to have extended success as a batsman-captain. Gooch’s improvement was extraordinary. When he took over in 1989-90, his Test average was 37.71. Over the next four years he averaged 58.72 before resigning the captaincy.Gooch was an exception, rule-proving or otherwise. For most batsmen, particularly in England in modern times, captaincy has been the grimmest reaper. Its all-consuming nature compromises a batsman’s relationship with his best friend: concentration. In , Graeme Smith – who has generally dealt extremely well with the twin demands – jokes he would like to lobby the ICC to extend the innings break from 10 to 15 minutes, such is the difficulty for captain-openers to leave the wider concerns at the pavilion gate. “You have so much eating away at you, so much still going on in your head.”

For most batsmen, particularly in England in modern times, captaincy has been the grimmest reaper. Its all-consuming nature compromises a batsman’s relationship with his best friend: concentration

Perhaps the best example of how the captaincy can affect a batsman came during the Ashes Test at Headingley in 2009. England’s build-up on the first day was frenzied. They had to stand outside their hotel for almost an hour in the early hours because of a fire alarm; Matt Prior suffered a back spasm during a game of football, which led to the toss being put back ten minutes; there was an ongoing discussion as to whether Andrew Flintoff would be fit; the masseur, Mark Saxby, was smacked on the head during Australia’s cricket practice. All this with the game due to start in less than half an hour. It was chaos, and Andrew Strauss could not focus on the smaller picture when he went out to bat. He should have been out lbw to the first ball of the match, and soon after, edged a loose drive to slip. The seam wasn’t the only thing scrambled that morning.That was an almost absurdly extreme example of how captaincy can impact, but it is always there. In , Steve Waugh wrote that captaincy “seemed to soak my spare time like a sponge”. In that sense it is almost an extreme form of sporting parenthood – extreme as you have effectively given birth to decuplets. A captain must look after his ten team-mates, with their myriad concerns.Then there are the toss, the media demands, the small talk with the mascots, the small talk with the Queen, the politics, the knowledge that your resting face and body language are being scrutinised at every moment, the angle of the man at fine leg. And that’s only about 0.1% of the demands. What starts as exciting and novel eventually becomes mundane and trying; it’s human nature. Changing your first nappy is one of the most memorable experiences of your life; changing the 2001st nappy is not. Then there is the pressure, the seeds of which are planted the day you take over and which grow over time.There is a school of thought the middle should be the safest place for a captain: his equivalent of a parent’s downtime, or a 22-yard sanctuary in which you can just bat, but it doesn’t always work like that. Cook is better at compartmentalising than most, and seems to be a master of clearing extraneous thoughts, but captaincy will challenge that in ways he could not have imagined. In modern sport everything is done to protect the body. It is much more difficult to take care of the mind; to keep it clear and sharp.That has been a recurring theme of England captains in the last 20 years. Most found the captaincy empowering rather than embattling at first. Mike Atherton, Alec Stewart and Strauss all had their most productive series leading the side in their first series as captain; Nasser Hussain’s average of 61.66 in his first full series was the best of his tenure. Even short-lived or stand-in captains such as Kevin Pietersen and Marcus Trescothick scored centuries in their first and second games as captain respectively, while Flintoff batted superbly in India in 2005-06.Most recent England captains, Andrew Strauss among them, have had productive times with the bat soon after taking charge, before the job began to take a toll•Getty ImagesThe exception is Michael Vaughan – but then he had no scope for improvement. When he assumed the captaincy he had scored seven hundreds in his last 12 Tests and had an average of 50.98. Vaughan was never the same player again; in 51 matches as captain he hit nine hundreds and averaged 36.02, a dreadfully unbecoming record for a man with a touch of genius. He resigned in tears, just like Hussain. It is inevitable that most captaincy careers will end in failure, and equally inevitable that most will struggle to maintain their output in the middle.”At the start of my captaincy, not being able to spend time on my own game was a benefit because it prevented me from being too insular,” wrote Atherton in . “Initially, also, the added responsibility and pressure were empowering and resulted in better personal performances. Eventually, however, as pressure increased over time, my ability to cope clearly decreased. Now, I needed extra time to put my game in order and the captaincy was a hindrance. I was not the only captain whose game suffered.”His mate Hussain’s certainly did. In his second year of captaincy Hussain could barely buy a run – he averaged 13.55 in a 12-Test period – and was increasingly obsessed with the idea that he was not worth his place. One night in Sri Lanka, when he could not sleep, he went to the hotel bar on his own at 1am.”The barman was just packing up,” he wrote in , “but I managed to persuade to him to hang on, ordered myself a rum and Coke, lit up a fag [even though I don’t smoke], and sat there, going through everything.” This is what the captaincy came to do a man. A century in the next Test changed Hussain’s life: he came to terms with it and had a second wind. Others were not so fortunate.The problem does seem to afflict England more than most. In the last 20 years, England captains batting in the top six average 39.98 – above only New Zealand, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, and 10 runs behind Australia.”I always said I would be the only England captain not to go bald, but after days like today, it might not help that,” joked Cook after the Trent Bridge Test. England need him to buck the trend of recent history. These are relatively insecure times for a batting line-up that was hitting 500 in its sleep only a couple of years ago. England cannot afford to lose their best batsman.

Plays of the day from the third ODI between Sri Lanka and South Africa

Andrew Fidel Fernando in Pallakele26-Jul-2013The fireworks
Sri Lanka’s innings had progressed at a crawl from the outset, until Thisara Perera got hold of Robin Peterson and sent his figures flying into the night in a 35-run mauling. Perera began by slogging Peterson over cow corner, his bottom hand coming off in the exertion. The second legitimate ball was bludgeoned slightly squarer, but just as far, before Perera went over cow corner again for the next two deliveries, getting the second of those blows into the midst of a jubilant crowd. Peterson tried to dart the next one in, but Perera hit it straight and hard for a one-bounce boundary, before finishing the over with the biggest blow of all, over deep square leg. With a frazzled Peterson having bowled a wide somewhere in the middle, the over was the second-most expensive in ODIs, after Herschelle Gibbs’ six sixes against Netherlands.The drop
Perera had sent serious scares into the South Africa camp by lifting the score above 150 by the 38th over but the visitors may all have breathed a sigh of relief when they saw him miscue a pull off Morne Morkel, the ball lobbing gently towards Lonwabo Tsotsobe at short fine leg. Tsotsobe had little more to do than reach forward and grasp the ball but, stunningly, allowed it to slip through his fingers, keeping the match alive and the crowd exultant, for a few more overs at least.The close call
With the other two seniors dismissed, Mahela Jayawardene’s early demise would have swung the match firmly in South Africa’s direction and, were it not for one of cricket’s most puzzling quirks, the visitors might have had their man for 21. Jayawardene dragged his back foot forward to defend Peterson’s last ball of the 21st over but missed, and Quinton de Kock whipped off the bails triumphantly. When the decision went to the third umpire, Jayawardene seemed to have nothing behind the line on some replays, and was perhaps just home in others. If the convention was to rule in favour of the outcome that had more evidence supporting it, Jayawardene should have been out. But because replays left room for a little doubt, the benefit of which the batsman receives, he was allowed to continue.The hook
Having helped his side recover from early losses for much of his innings, David Miller only showcased his hitting in the final two overs of South Africa’s innings, but it was not one of his four sixes that was his best stroke. He strode out of his crease before Lasith Malinga delivered the first ball of the last over, and seeing the batsman’s approach, Malinga dug the ball in short. Miller had almost been expecting this strategy, and was on to the hook in an instant. Getting well on top of the bounce, he struck the ball hard and flat, and although a man had been placed in the deep for just that stroke, he had little hope of preventing four.