Cricinfo looks at the stats highlights of the second day’s play

Kanishkaa Balachandran27-Dec-2006

Ashwell Prince needs another 95 to aggregate 1000 runs in Tests in 2006 © AFP
4 – The number of first-ball ducks in Virender Sehwag’s Test career. The first was against Australia at the Gabba in 2003. Today’s was the second such instance of him being dismissed in the slips.46* – Sachin Tendulkar’s highest Test score this year, going past his previous highest of 44 in the first Test at Johannesburg. Since the euphoria of beating Sunil Gavaskar’s record of 34 Test centuries last year, he has gone 13 innings without a fifty, and he would be looking to avoid a repeat of his run drought of 1991, the last time he went through a calendar year without a half-century.50.27 – Ashwell Prince’s Test average so far in 2006, a leap compared to his career average of 39.28. Prince’s purple patch this year includes three centuries and an aggregate of 905 runs in 11 matches. With his batting form in this series, the figure of 1000 shouldn’t be too tough to get.32 – The last wicket partnership between Morne Morkel and Makhaya Ntini. This is the second highest for the last wicket by South Africa against India, the highest being 74 between Brian McMillan and Allan Donald, coincidentally in the same venue, ten years ago.37 – Runs scored on the off side by Tendulkar. This included eight glorious boundaries.45 – Number of runs Prince scored off Sreesanth in 62 balls. Prince was particularly harsh on him, picking up eight boundaries.73 – Number of balls not scored off by India, out of 232 balls. Just like at the Wanderers, the South Africans didn’t make the batsmen play as much and allowed them to shoulder arms regularly.21 – Runs scored on the off side by Morne Morkel. All three boundaries were on the off side, indications that the Indian bowlers were guilty of giving him too much room to play his strokes.

Stats highlights of the second day’s play between India and South Africa at Johannesburg

Kanishkaa Balachandran16-Dec-2006

Sreesanth’s inspired spell caught the South Africans on the hop © AFP
84 – South Africa’s lowest total since readmission into Test cricket in 1991. It also happens to be the third-lowest total by any team against India in Tests, the lowest being 82 by Sri Lanka in 1990, followed by 83 by Australia in Melbourne in 1980-81. It is also the second-lowest in Tests at the Wanderers, next only to South Africa’s 72 against England in 1956-57.20 – The number of wickets which fell through the day. Of these, the fast bowlers accounted for 18 while Anil Kumble chipped in with two.401 – Test wickets taken by Shaun Pollock. He is the first South African to get to the 400-wicket club in Tests.5-40 – Sreesanth’s figures, which is the second best by an Indian fast bowler in South Africa, after Javagal Srinath’s 6 for 76 in Port Elizabeth in 2001-02. The best by any Indian in South Africa remains Anil Kumble’s 6 for 53 at the same venue in 1992-93, which was incidentally his first five-wicket haul in Tests.44 – India’s last-wicket partnership between Sourav Ganguly and VRV Singh, which is their second-highest last-wicket stand in Tests against South Africa, and their highest for that wicket in South Africa68 – Runs scored by the Indians in the third-man and backward point region in their second innings, which includes 14 boundaries.165 – India’s first-innings lead. It’s India’s highest first-innings lead in South Africa.294 for 8 – The highest fourth-innings total scored to win a Test at Johannesburg. Australia achieved it earlier this year, thanks largely to Damien Martyn’s 101. The next highest fourth-innings score in victory is only 220 for 6, by South Africa against New Zealand seven months ago.

At the Bradman Oration in Brisbane last Friday Bill Brown’s 94-year-old charm again showcased him as Australian cricket’s greatest living treasure

Peter English06-Nov-2006

Bill Brown rarely outshone Don Bradman during their playing days. Brown was a cautious accumulator in the 1930s and 40s alongside Bradman’s furious adding machine, but at the Bradman Oration in Brisbane last Friday Brown’s 94-year-old charm again showcased him as Australian cricket’s greatest living treasure.Waiting in the foyer before the fourth celebration of “the Australian spirit of cricket” Brown wondered why the dress code was black tie. Jeans and a business shirt can cover most functions in Queensland in November but the extra layers were requested on a night for remembering Bradman’s unmatchable deeds. During Brown’s first two tours of England in ’34 and ’38 dinner suits were almost standard night attire, but World War II curtailed such luxuries for his final trip in ’48.Bradman’s son John was a guest of honour at the function and told how Brown had stayed with his parents in Adelaide and remained a special family friend. “There’s a picture in the house of Dad’s last first-class game overseas, with he and Bill walking together,” John Bradman said. “It’s a very moving picture and I look at it a lot.”On a busy night Brown was also called to unveil the rescued Sheffield Shield, which was in ruin until the Brisbane jewellers Hardy Brothers spent more than 400 hours attempting to return it to its original appearance. It had been out of action since the entry of the sponsored Pura Cup in 1999 and had almost fallen apart. When asked what it looked like when he played almost 60 years ago Brown said: “I honestly can’t remember. Back then we didn’t really know what we were playing for.”While Brown’s appearances were the most memorable of the program, the Bradman Oration was delivered by Alan Jones, a broadcaster, former Australia rugby union coach and regular lunch guest of Bradman. John Howard, the prime minister, gave the first speech in 2000 and was followed by Michael Parkinson, the English journalist, in 2003 and Richie Benaud in 2005.Preferring to talk about Bradman rather than explore a current issue, Jones said his friend “defied comparison”. The pair exchanged many letters and Jones would fly to Adelaide for lunch up to ten times a year. “We always ate the same thing,” he said. “Vegie soup followed by whiting fillets and dessert. Don always ordered white wine and liked chardonnay.”The pair’s closeness did not prevent Bradman from pointing out errors and in 1989 Jones received a letter following his broadcasting of a television story. “It was kind of you to do a piece on me and the praise was more than generous,” Bradman wrote. “You have given me more credit than I deserve. I didn’t make a hundred in my first Test, but got 18 and 1. I’ll die in the belief that the lbw in the first innings was missing leg and in the second it was the first sticky I’d ever seen.” He was dropped for the second match against England in 1928-29 but returned with a century in the third.

Jones said Bradman was “quiet, unpretentious, extremely argumentative” and sometimes found the public attention “a nightmare”. At the opening weekend of the Bradman Museum in Bowral in 1987 he reckoned he signed 4000 autographs in two days.Praising Bradman’s statistics, Jones recalled numerous quotes about his batting, but none was more powerful than RC Robertson-Glasgow’s “poetry and murder lived together”. No example of his dominance was better than his 100 in three eight-ball overs during a second-class game at Blackheath in 1931. Wendell Bill, a New South Wales opener, managed two singles at the other end. “Wendell, we’ve passed their score,” Bradman said before the onslaught, “I think we’ll have a go.”Despite his occasionally terse letters, Bradman was also generous in passing on his knowledge. And if he could not do justice with his descriptions he found other materials to help make his point. When Jones wondered how good WG Grace was Bradman sent him AA Thomson’s book The Great Cricketer.”Don’t keep it too long, I want to read it again,” Bradman wrote in the accompanying letter. “One day I want to meet WG, touch his shaggy beard and tell him that I walked through the Grace Gates at Lord’s many times and tried to live up to his image.”

Sri Lanka’s first win of any significance on this tour couldn’t have come at a better moment: it will lift the morale of a side that was seemed to be on the slide with one resounding defeat after another

S Rajesh12-Feb-2008
Tillakaratne Dilshan did a task he hasn’t always performed in the past – seeing his side past the finish line © Getty Images
Since October 2007, Sri Lanka have spent a month and a half, spread over two instalments, in Australia and apart from a couple of moments of individual brilliance, given their supporters little to cheer about. Their first win of any significance on this tour couldn’t have come at a better moment: it will lift the morale of a side that was seemed to be on the slide with one resounding defeat after another, and equally importantly, it throws open a triangular tournament that has seldom seen a three-horse race in recent times.It might be argued that the Sri Lankans were helped by the shortened game – it gave their batsmen, some of whom weren’t in form, the license to hit out from the start – but they comprehensively beat an opposition who are the world champions at the shortest version of the game. That can’t be a bad thing for a side which has had little to celebrate in Australia.Player for player, the Sri Lankan team has the skill and experience to challenge any opposition. The batting seems, on paper at least, to be the superb blend of experience and youth: the explosiveness of Sanath Jayasuriya complemented perfectly the class of Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene. Tillakaratne Dilshan and Chamara Silva add a dash of pizazz. The bowing is, arguably, even more varied and classy, with Chaminda Vaas and Muttiah Muralitharan being helped along by a group of promising young fast bowlers. Despite all the individual brilliance, Sri Lanka’s results on this tour have been disappointing.Even in this victory at the Manuka Oval, the bowlers were less than convincing, leaking far too many runs at the end: add the 65 runs in the last six overs today to the 105 in the last ten against India at the Gabba, and Sri Lanka have conceded 170 runs in 16 slog overs against India. The batsmen, though, were up to the task: once the rain reduced the contest to a 21-over bash, they had no option but to launch an offensive from the start, which clearly simplified the situation for them.Mahendra Singh Dhoni made it a point to mention after the match that the mindset of the batsmen would have been different had it been a 29-over run-chase, but it’s unlikely Jayasuriya would have altered his style much. The Australians have worked out the way to bowl to him – just short of a length, into the body, to cramp him for room – but Sreesanth clearly hasn’t got the hang of that technique yet: in the 52 balls he has bowled to Jayasuriya in all ODIs, he has been spanked for 84 runs, with just one dismissal.It’s a match-up Jayasuriya relishes, even if he is out of form; the next time India take the field against Sri Lanka, it might not be a bad idea for Dhoni to hold Sreesanth back till Jayasuriya is out. His blitz gave Sri Lanka an early cushion, but they still had plenty to do when he left, needing 109 from 17.1 overs. Dilshan was largely instrumental in ensuring they reached the target without any hiccups.Since he made his debut in 1999, Dilshan has been seen as a big factor in the Sri Lankan middle order. He is 31, and has played 134 ODIs, but still hasn’t married consistency to the flair that he undoubtedly has – in 21 innings from the 2007 World Cup, he had only topped fifty twice before today’s effort. His tendency for expansive strokes could have cost him early on in this innings as well, but once he settled down, it was easy to see why he is so highly rated. Importantly, he did a task he hasn’t always performed in the past – seeing his side past the finish line.Sri Lanka’s win will have lifted their morale, but they need to ensure the momentum is maintained through the rest of the competition, in 50-over contests which will require their batsmen to pace their innings and bat longer, and for their bowlers to sustain their intensity over three-and-a-half hours. Their next challenge is a mighty one, against a team they haven’t challenged so far, on one of the newly laid pitches at Perth which promises plenty of pace and bounce. It’s a daunting task, but for inspiration they only need to look at what happened the last time a team from the subcontinent took on the home side in an international game at that venue.

Stats preview to the fourth Test between Australia and India in Adelaide

George Binoy23-Jan-2008It’s not often that a visiting team can draw confidence from a previous performance at an Australian venue, especially in recent years. But with one Test to play and the scoreline 2-1 in Australia’s favour, the series moves to Adelaide for the final Test, a venue where India scored a thrilling win in 2003-04. However, leaving that blip aside, Australia have a formidable record at the Adelaide Oval, winning 12 out of 18 Tests since 1990, and eight out of nine since the draw against South Africa in 1998. Since their defeat against India, Australia have had convincing wins against New Zealand, West Indies and England.

Matthew Hayden has recovered from a thigh injury and his return will add considerable strength to the batting order. The third Test in Perth was the first that Hayden missed since 1999 and his absence was felt as Chris Rogers and Phil Jaques added only 12 and 21 for the first wicket at the WACA. Moreover, Hayden has a splendid record in Adelaide, where he has scored 722 runs at 55.53. In fact, all of Australia’s top-order batsmen have excellent records in Adelaide: Michael Hussey averages 315 here for he’s been dismissed only once while racking up scores of 133, 30, 91 and 61.Among the Indian batsmen, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman, who average 115.33 and 55.25 respectively, have performed well here, but Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly have failed. It was Dravid’s 233 and Laxman’s 148 that led India’s revival in 2003 after they were struggling at 84 for 4 in the first innings. Tendulkar, however, has managed only 122 runs from six innings while Ganguly has 117 from four.

India’s inexperienced pace attack exceeded expectations in Perth, which means it will be tough to leave out any of Irfan Pathan, Ishant Sharma or RP Singh to accommodate Harbhajan Singh, who could play a role on an Adelaide pitch that is expected to aid spin. In such a scenario, Wasim Jaffer could make way for Harbhajan with either Irfan Pathan or Rahul Dravid opening the batting. The table below shows the average partnership for each wicket in Adelaide since 1990 and, although Australia have higher figures, the overseas teams haven’t done too badly either. The only significant difference is for the second wicket, where Ricky Ponting, at No. 3, has been a tremendous force for the home side.

Of Australia’s bowlers, Brett Lee is the only one to have played more than one Test in Adelaide and his record isn’t flash: he’s picked up 12 wickets in three Tests at 36.75 apiece.Pathan made his Test debut in Adelaide in 2003 and had a torrid match, finishing with figures of 1 for 160 and an economy rate of 4.70 per over. Anil Kumble has nine wickets from two Tests in Adelaide but has had to labour through 126 overs for them. His average of 42.88 and strike-rate of 84 indicate a success for perseverance rather than brilliance.

There’s rain forecast for the first two days in Adelaide and the groundsman has said that the cloud cover could help the fast bowlers. However, batting first would be the way to go, for the average runs per wicket, for both Australian and visiting teams, have dipped steadily as the match progresses.

Under Daren Ganga’s enlightened leadership, the team is all that counts – and the trophies are a testament to that ethos

Andrew Miller in Antigua28-Oct-2008
Trinidad continued its tryst with the Stanford crowns and it’s no surprise they are the powerhouse of West Indies cricket © AFP
Daren Ganga is becoming cosily familiar with Sir Allen Stanford’s largesse. In 2006, he was the recipient of the runners-up cheque when Guyana pipped Trinidad to the final of the inaugural Stanford 20/20. Earlier this year, he and his team-mates made handsome amends for that setback by winning the follow-up event and the million-dollar cheque that came with it. Now, by seeing off Middlesex in the most compelling match yet witnessed in the Stanford Super Series, he’s claimed a further substantial slice of Texan pie to see him through the economic downturn.It was Stanford himself who handed over the spoils, and he could scarcely have been more satisfied at the outcome. Though the match once again lacked the pyrotechnics usually associated with Twenty20 cricket, the end result was a vindication of the quality that Stanford would have the world believe he is fostering through his involvement with Caribbean cricket. Middlesex arrived in Antigua with pedigree and were the favourites for this contest in many people’s estimation, but on the night they were outwitted – brought low in a tactical battle that arguably had more in common with Test cricket than the biff-bang-wallop format that most people had turned up expecting to see.It certainly wasn’t the manner in which a West Indian side might be expected to make off with the loot, but under Ganga’s guidance, Trinidad have become a cerebral bunch of cricketers. They paced their chase to perfection, keeping themselves in touch with wickets in hand before locating a vein of aggression at precisely the right moment. The match was sealed with a six, a towering clunk over long-on from Darren Bravo, but it had been in the bag for several overs beforehand, during Bravo and Denesh Ramdin’s momentum-shifting stand of 67 in eight overs.”We came here switched on, and we totally deserved our victory,” Ganga said, whose stature as a leader continues to mushroom. Eighteen months ago, he was leading West Indies on a tour of England, and though that appointment unravelled through a debilitating loss of form, the reasoning behind it remains sound to this day. Not so long ago, Trinidad cricket was synonymous with Brian Lara, a consummate genius but a selfish and divisive character. These days, under Ganga’s enlightened leadership, the team is all that counts – and the trophies are a testament to that ethos.In the space of four years, Trinidad has become the powerhouse of West Indian regional cricket. In that time it has won two 50-overs titles, the four-day regional championship, consecutive Carib Beer Challenge Finals, and now two of Stanford’s crowns. “Trinidad & Tobago cricket has a bunch of young players eager to make their mark, who want to enhance their reputation, and our reputation as a team,” Ganga said. “We had everything to play for, and have relished the opportunity to compete against teams outside our region. Our planning has been spot on and it all came to fruition.”Not so long ago, Trinidad cricket was synonymous with Brian Lara, a consummate genius but a selfish and divisive character. These days, under Ganga’s enlightened leadership, the team is all that counts – and the trophies are a testament to that ethosGanga added that people might have questioned the thinking behind the team selection for this series, but sure enough there was no quibbling with the end product. Rather than fret about the vagaries of the wicket or the balance of the side, Trinidad concentrated on the dressing-room first and foremost. Three debutants were blooded in the Superstars match on Saturday evening – Justin Guillen, Kevon Cooper and Rishi Bachan – and all three acquitted themselves well in trying circumstances.For the money match, however, Trinidad delved deeper into their squad and introduced the greater experience of Amit Jaggernauth and Richard Kelly, not to mention the teenage fearlessness of Bravo Jr, whose love of the big occasion could prove every bit the equal of his brother, Dwayne.It all left Middlesex feeling rather bewildered. “When it came to the big occasion, we just weren’t quite up for it,” said their captain, Shaun Udal. “We didn’t bring our A game to the party, which I was confident about us doing. For some reason we were slow out of the blocks with the bat, had a dodgy spell and if it wasn’t for Neil Dexter at the end, we would have been lucky to get 100.”Ultimately the match was won and lost in six balls of bedlam at the end of the 16th over of Trinidad’s chase, which was arguably the first sighting of Twenty20 cricket as the world knows and loves it. With the hapless Neil Carter in the thick of the action, two sixes and two dropped catches marked a momentum shift which stayed till the end.”All the teams have struggled to hit boundaries,” said Middlesex’s opener, Andrew Strauss. “But the way Trinidad did it today was to stay in the game, keep wickets in hand, and then [attack] in the last five overs. This was an important game for us, we were representing our country as Twenty20 champions and it hurts we weren’t good enough. But these are very different wickets to England and we haven’t adjusted quickly enough.”In truth, Middlesex were not allowed to be good enough. The speedy legspin of Samuel Badree, who shared the new ball with the Man of the Match, Ravi Rampaul, left them groping for a response right from the start. Later, when it seemed they might start to reclaim the ascendancy with the ball, they were thwarted first by Ganga – whose unflustered style of accumulation has rarely been so suited to 20-over cricket – then by Bravo and Denesh Ramdin, whose spunky innings of 41 from 28 balls was the real difference between the sides.He was not able to make it to the finish, but as he trooped off the pitch with a satisfied waft of the bat after carrying his team to within two runs of victory, Ramdin offered another insight into why this match had been Trinidad’s to lose, rather than Middlesex’s to win. Three Trinidadians were named in the Superstars squad – Keiron Pollard, Dave Mohammad and Rayad Emrit. Ramdin, the incumbent West Indies wicketkeeper, was not among their number, and there’s no doubt it rankled. “Us players left out of the Superstars (squad) wanted to prove a point,” said Ganga. They’ve done just that, and in some style.

Amit Mishra is wearing a borrowed Test cap, but he has the heart to match the man he has borrowed the cap from

Cricinfo staff19-Oct-2008

It was a pleasant evening in Bangalore after a rain-curtailed first day of the first unofficial Test between India A and Australia A. It hadn’t been a pleasant day for Amit Mishra, though. He had been left out of the playing XI; Piyush Chawla and Mohnish Parmar, the Murali clone whose action has been under the scanner for a while, were selected ahead of him. When asked why he wasn’t in the team, Mishra replied: “They had one legspinner already [in Chawla], and they went for the offie [Parmar] because Australia have many left-handers.” The story of his life.After close to eight years of first-class cricket for Haryana, one of the cricketing backwaters of India, it was his impressive showing in the IPL that had caught everybody’s imagination. The IPL followed his best first-class season, when he got 46 wickets at 18.21. The A games (also against New Zealand A) were his best chance to push for national selection. Despite being omitted for the Australia A Tests, he was not bitter. Responding to a remark that the left-hand batsmen would stay, he said: “Tab to legspinner change karna padega [Then the legspinner will have to change].”That was September 3, and by October 17, the circumstances had changed. Anil Kumble got injured and a replacement was required. Sooner or later the cupboard will open permanently for legspinning hopefuls, with Kumble at the twilight of his career. Mishra, fortunately, has already given India a ready option.He is wearing a borrowed Test cap, but he has the heart to match the man he has borrowed the cap from. “How many spinners have made their debut for India, with the ticker showing 300 first-class wickets to their name already?” asks Vijay Dahiya, who has played with and against Mishra on the Delhi circuit. “It takes a lot of character, and consistency to do that.” In the last eight years, he has come close, without actually making it. A member of the squad against the touring West Indies in 2002, he didn’t get a game. He also played three ODIs for India in 2002-03, and was a forgotten man after that.Even now, Chawla has been talked of as India’s next big spinner after Kumble. When Chawla failed to make the cut, Pragyan Ojha went to Sri Lanka. All through, Mishra was barely considered, but as a testament to his spirit, he kept waiting.Mishra’s big heart shows in his bowling. It is a genuinely refreshing sight: a wrist spinner, on debut, throwing the ball up, giving it serious rip, giving the batsman time to think twice about the shot, drawing them out, and using the googly sparingly. The heavy bats be damned. Legspin is not the job of one who worries about the consequence. Even when he moved away from Delhi, where he wasn’t selected for the Under-17 team in 2000, the consequences were not on his mind.Twenty20 cricket is threatening to take the oomph out of legspin bowling, but even in that format he succeeded because he was not afraid to give it air, much like Shane Warne. It’s fitting he bowled like the man who inspired him to take up legspin, after that mesmerising delivery which stunned Mike Gatting in the 1993 Ashes. “I watched it in awe, and it was magic for me,” Mishra has said before. The Victorian Frankenstein had created a monster who would haunt his own team 15 years later, with a five-wicket haul on Test debut.Only five Indians before Mishra have taken a five-for on their debut. One of them is a national selector right now, and he was seen grinning from ear to ear when Mishra bowled. The inspired selection was not the only reason for Narendra Hirwani’s pleasure. Mishra reminds him of himself – the flight, the slowness, the turn. And even Hirwani tormented a formidable opposition in his debut, West Indies. “Bahut mazaa aaya hai iska bowling dekh ke [It was a big pleasure to watch him bowl]. More so, because I am reminded of myself when I see him flight it,” Hirwani told Cricinfo. “Uska dil bada hai, aur pet khali [He has a big heart, and is hungry], such people rarely fail.”

Hirwani has also worked a bit on Mishra’s bowling, both before and after becoming a selector. One of the main criticisms Mishra has drawn in domestic cricket is that he is slow in the air, and that takes the sting out of the turn he gets. “There was a time when he looked to bowl faster, but I told him to play his own game,” Hirwani said. “But the main thing was to keep the head still. When you bowl a googly, your head tends to fall a bit, and you sometimes continue doing that when you bowl the legbreaks. That way you push the ball through, as opposed to flighting it. I told him that the head was like a camera. Just like you need to keep the camera still for a good picture, you need to keep the head still to bowl legspin.”The head might not have been perfectly still all the times, but Mishra managed both types of deliveries to near perfection in his first bowling effort. His first wicket was a left-hander, Simon Katich, off a well-flighted legbreak. That was followed by the deadly googly, from round the stumps, in the last over before stumps on the second day. It was a delightful piece of bowling, as he got the ball to pitch in line with the stumps, and then brought it in a trifle, beating the bat. Michael Clarke had fallen in the last over again, like he had in Bangalore.Mahendra Singh Dhoni had picked Mishra ahead of Munaf Patel, who had himself made an impressive debut at the same venue against England two years ago. That confidence didn’t show when Dhoni refused singles with Mishra, the No. 11, at the other end. It wouldn’t have flattered Mishra, who is a handy bat himself – his coach had to dissuade him from making a career as a batsman for the first two years of their association – but it perhaps goaded him to make his point with the ball.He generated huge turn on a track that had not afforded any spin for nearly two days. He went on to fox Cameron White and Peter Siddle with the googly. Although he took three of them with the wrong ‘un, it was sparingly used. Shane Watson was probably the most satisfactory wicket, done in with a legbreak that turned a little less than usual. Watson had frustrated India long enough to give them nightmares about their past failures to mop up the tail.The beauty of the Mishra story, though, is that the legspinner could change again once Kumble is fit. And Mishra’s big heart will be tested one more time. At least he has shown that borrowed it might be, but the cap fits.

The confidence with which Yuvraj Singh batted on the fourth evening went a long way towards eliminating the slim possibility of an Indian defeat

S Aga22-Dec-2008
The run-flow had slowed to a trickle before Yuvraj injected some momentum © AFP
Yuvraj Singh’s year started ignominiously, with a sleepwalking performanceat the Sydney Cricket Ground. When he was dropped ahead of India’s famousvictory in Perth, no one raised a voice. One of the prodigals of theIndian game had been given his chance, and he had blown it. What adifference 12 months makes, though. With Sourav Ganguly now gone, and havingplayed his part in the most remarkable of run chases in Chennai, Yuvrajdoesn’t need to look over his shoulder, and the confidence with which hebatted on the fourth evening went a long way towards eliminating the slimpossibility of an Indian defeat.Home turf hasn’t meant happy hunting ground for Yuvraj. This is his thirdTest at the Punjab Cricket Association Stadium and the 27 he made in thefirst innings was his highest score. When he came to the crease midwaythrough the final session, India were just 231 ahead, and the Englishbowlers had slowed the run flow to a trickle.After his repeated run-ins with Kevin Pietersen, who stood at leg slipwhile Yuvraj took guard, there was also the prospect of a few verbalgooglies being tossed his way. Yuvraj says he looked forward to it.”Sometimes it fires you up, sometimes it backfires,” he said. “When youare chatted to, it makes you stronger, more focused. I really don’t mindthe chat.”I actually look forward to it because I think it brings out the best inme. It backfired in the first innings in Chennai, in the second it made mestronger. It’s healthy competition out there, no bad-mouthing. Both theteams are trying to punch the opposition to win the game, so it’s healthycompetition.”Healthy or not, it spurred Yuvraj into playing some fine strokes. Therun-blockade was eased, and India finished the day in an extremelycomfortable position. “It depends on the weather tomorrow,” Yuvraj saidwhen asked about the prospects of an Indian victory. “There’s adisadvantage there because of the weather, we could lose a couple ofhours. Hopefully, we’ll get the maximum possible overs and we’ll be ableto get some runs and bowl them out.”Given the two stunning chases cricket has seen over the pastweek, there were no thoughts on what constituted a safe target. “On thelast day, any target is difficult to get,” he said. “For us in Chennai,387 was tough to get, and I’m sure we’ll set them a tough target.”Chennai was a huge innings for Yuvraj in more ways than one, though heinsisted that the gremlins of doubt hadn’t been keeping him awake atnight. “I never thought that I didn’t belong to this arena because I havethree Test hundreds,” he said. “It’s all media speculation, or I don’tknow what goes on. I never had a doubt and I just wanted to spend sometime in the middle and I knew the runs will come. If you work hard on yourgame, the runs will come. That’s what happened in the second innings.””I never thought that I didn’t belong to this arena because I have three Test hundreds,” Yuvraj said. “It’s all media speculation … If you work hard on your game, the runs will come”Following Virender Sehwag’s run-out soon after lunch, India appeared to havelost their way for the remainder of the session, but Yuvraj was adamantthat this was no one-trick team. “When Viru starts off and gets apartnership, we get into a very good position early on,” he said. “But ifwe lose a few wickets, we need to get a partnership. Gautam and I have hada good one and it has brought the game towards us.”We’re not depending on any particular person. Sometimes it’s Viru,sometimes it’s Gautam. Rahul has shown what a class player he is. Mahibatted so well in the first innings in Chennai. So it’s not anyoneparticular, it’s the whole team. It’s just that the team is gelling verywell, enjoying each other’s success.”I think with Gary Kirsten and Paddy Upton, the atmosphere in the team isgood. We enjoy what we do. If we’re under pressure, we know we have abunch of guys who can come up with match-winning knocks or spells. Ourbowling has been exceptional. Along with Harbhajan, Zaheer has been thefrontline bowler and Ishant is doing well, so we have a great all-roundbunch of players.”The man who leads came in for more than his fair share of praise. “First,he [Dhoni] is very cool-headed, that’s the best part about him. When hetook up captaincy, nobody knew that he could do a great job. He always hasa Plan B. Like when England were batting, we got a few wickets, andthen KP and Freddie got a few runs and he slowed down the game. The momentwe had two wickets, we pounced on the batsmen. He’s always thinking, he’salways asking for suggestions from everyone.”And what of throwing pies? Pietersen was far from amused when Dhonibrought Yuvraj on for the third over on Sunday morning, and he let hisfeelings be known after the day’s play. “When I got up in the morning, Iread the paper, and I said ‘what does this [pie-chucker] mean?’ So I askeda few people there what it meant, and they said it meant a ‘useless kindof bowler’. It shows KP hates getting out to me. Well, a useless bowlergetting him out many times would be because of useless batting, I’d say!But that’s okay.”He’s a phenomenal player and batted like a champion. He’s got 15 hundredsin 40-odd matches – that’s phenomenal. But he tried to get under my skinin the last game and that brought out the best in me. I tried the same andit brought out the best in him. So it’s good competition in the field. ButI don’t have a habit of washing dirty linen in the open, in public. But Ilike the name, eh?”If he can get a few more runs on Tuesday morning and play his part inanother Indian victory, Yuvraj, who cheekily offered Pietersen somebowling tips, won’t particularly care what the English call him. Whenyou’ve come back from oblivion and the team’s winning, nothing elsematters.

Vaughan the captain put you in a good space, Vaughan the batsman was one of the best England had. So what if he isn’t exactly a Yorkshireman?

Matthew Hoggard30-Jun-2009Before I crack on with my eulogy to Michael Vaughan, there is one thing I’ve got to get off my chest: he ain’t a Yorkshire lad, he’s from fricking Lancashire! He always wanted to be a Yorkshire lad, but unfortunately for him he will always be from the wrong side of the Pennines. But we have tried not to hold that against him, and he has probably been at Headingley long enough now to have earned honorary status.Seriously, though, this is a very sad day for Michael and for everyone who played under him during his days as England captain. I remember him from the days when he was just getting into the first team at Yorkshire. He used to be a batter who couldn’t hit it off the square, but then all of a sudden he turned into a fantastic, elegant and free-flowing run-scoring machine.He obviously wanted to get back into the England team and play in this summer’s Ashes, but his not making the squad made his decision for him. His knee is clearly still troubling him, and playing county cricket day in and day out isn’t good for it. But he captained England, took them to an Ashes victory and is one of the most successful captains in recent history. He has done a lot for the game, and now he’s looking forward to new challenges.It was great to grow up with and play alongside a man like Michael, and I particularly remember how my England debut, against West Indies at Lord’s in 2000, was made so much easier by the presence of three of my Yorkshire team-mates, Darren Gough, Craig White and Michael, in the same England dressing room.In fact he had been a team-mate for so long at county and international level that I never really thought of him as a captain until the moment it happened. I know he captained England A before he played his first Test, but when Nasser Hussain stepped down the choice was between Vaughany and Marcus Trescothick. And I remember looking at Tres – and I knew him pretty well by then – and thinking that if he tried to tell me off, I’d just laugh at him. I just couldn’t envisage Tres handing out bollockings, so I thought, “Yeah Vaughany will be the captain.” And what a good captain he turned out to be.He always had a humour about him. Even when things were going against you, he’d come out with a quick one-liner, or a wry little look and a smile, as if to say, “Yeah, we’re in the shit here, but you know what you’ve got to do, get on and do it.” He was fantastic like that – he never got at you, even when you weren’t bowling at your best. Instead he always seemed to know what you were feeling, and would coax the best out of you anyway.Of course he had very high standards, so did we all, but he was a completely different kind of leader to Nasser, who used to kick the dirt and chunter whenever you bowled a bad ball. Vaughany would just roll his eyes at you, and say: “Hoggy, Hoggy, Hoggy, what the f*** are you doing?” Instead of thinking “I need to bowl well because I’ll get a bollocking if I don’t” it was more a case of thinking “Yeah, it’s my performance, I need to sort this out”.

Michael was a completely different kind of leader to Nasser, who used to kick the dirt and chunter whenever you bowled a bad ball. Vaughany would just roll his eyes at you, and say: “Hoggy, Hoggy, Hoggy, what the f*** are you doing?”

But from time to time, he’d have a few harsh words with us. I remember our first game in South Africa in 2004-05. We were hammered by South Africa A in Potchefstroom, and afterwards he got us all into the changing rooms, and said, “Look, I don’t give a f*** about this game, it’s a warm-up, I really don’t care. But this was an absolutely crap performance. We need to improve our game immensely. Again it’s only a warm-up, so don’t take it too much to heart, but get your f***ing acts together.” He got his message through loud and clear, and we went on to win the series.He was great on an individual level as well, and he was the first captain who really managed to spell out what it was that he wanted from me. It was in the Caribbean in 2003-04 when he basically told me he wanted me to be the shop-floor steward, the guy he could rely upon to put the ball on the spot and give him control of the game by not going for more than two or three an over.He told me that the big fast lads, Steve Harmison and the like, would take the limelight and get the wickets. He just told me to do my job quietly and nicely, and if I did the right thing by the team I’d still pick up a few wickets here and there.He used to make me laugh, stationed under his sun-hat at mid-off, and yelling to me, “Hoggy, get off those office steps, you’re not going up there. Now get down and sweep the freaking floor.” It was lovely to be captained with such a fresh approach. He showed no fear of failure, and so long as you were seen to be trying the right thing at the right time, whether you were batting or bowling, it didn’t matter whether you succeeded or failed.As a captain, he was good at hiding the pressure. Even when the heat was on at the height of the 2005 Ashes, he was still the same chilled-out, laid-back guy that I’d always known. Off the pitch he had some tough times like everyone else, but his outward persona around the team and the media, he was still Vaughany, still the same relaxed character you’d come to expect.Scoring centuries at will in Australia, with a broken shoulder•Tom Shaw/Getty ImagesCricket is a cruel game, though, and it was massive bad luck when he was struck down with that knee injury in Pakistan, which effectively ended England’s run of success, straight after the 2005 Ashes. He had been in good form, leading the team well, and it was always going to be tough to lose such an influential captain, and one of the team’s best batters. We didn’t exactly cover ourselves in glory after his injury, but there’s no way that Michael can be blamed for our poor performances in the following seasons.Who knows what might have happened if he’d got the right treatment for his knee straightaway. Unfortunately it robbed him of some of his best years, and it still troubles him. If he turns the wrong way, or dives in the field and lands a bit funny, it clearly troubles him. He played a shot at Warwickshire the other day, and just collapsed. Everyone thought he’d slipped, but his knee had actually given way. It still gives him a lot of gyp.But that’s the thing about Michael. He goes through a lot of pain that nobody knows about. I remember his first Ashes series, in Australia, when he scored three centuries – he actually did it with a broken shoulder. Jason Gillespie hit him on the point of the shoulder in the first Test and broke it. But he still played and not only did he score a massive amount of runs, he didn’t moan on the pitch or complain about the pain. He just got on and did it, which is the Vaughany way.But now that he has taken the decision to retire, the world is Vaughany’s oyster. He can seriously turn his hand to anything. He has got a business brain, he is good at speeches, he’d be a good coach and a mentor, and he has even turned himself into an artist with his Artballing project. And then there’s Sky, they’d be silly not to have him on their books. He will succeed in anything he wants to turn his hand to.

What Simon Katich has done in Twenty20 is understand his limits while playing to his strengths

Nagraj Gollapudi in Delhi09-Oct-2009Simon Katich has been an unassuming character for as far back as one can remember. Today, in New South Wales’ opening game of the Champions League, there was no change in that outward character. This tournament was expected to be the hunting ground for the likes of David Warner, Phillip Hughes and Moises Henriques – his younger, fitter team-mates – but it was Katich who added to the purist theory that playing orthodox cricket remains more beneficial than all the innovative fireworks of the Twenty20 format.One of the hallmarks of Katich’s career has been the strong mindset mandatory in a successful Test opener. Today, when the much talked about Hughes departed ten balls after Katich opted bat on a dicey, re-laid pitch, the New South Wales captain walked out to the middle needing to steady proceedings. And that he did, with little fuss.Katich faced the first three balls on the back foot before neatly sending three of the next four deliveries to the rope. He opened his account with a strong push past cover for the first four of the day; a tuck past midwicket and a cut in front of square got him quickly into his stride. Meanwhile, Warner was still trying to play hard at everything – an exercise as futile, and fatal, as trying to board the notorious Blueline buses in Delhi.Just like JP Duminy’s breathtaking display of classical batting the previous evening, Katich also stayed put till the last second before making his move. He understood pretty quickly that, to handle the slow and skiddy nature of the pitch, he needed to use the pace of the ball more than muscle power. Playing mostly with soft hands, Katich deftly pushed the ball into the wide gaps in front of square and the lush green outfield took care of the rest.The Eagles seemed overawed by the occasion. None of their bowlers could create any sort of intensity or rhythm, thereby allowing Katich to accelerate. He slotted a harmless offbreak from Thandi Tshabalala over the straight boundary for his second six and raised his half century. Even if he failed to add more after that, Katich’s 53 was the highest score of the match, and it made the difference between victory and defeat.Unlike Warner, who announced himself with an assault against South Africa, or Brendon McCullum, whose Bangalore blitzkrieg declared the IPL open in 2008, Katich has never made a telling statement in front of a global audience in a Twenty20. What he has done, though, is understand his limits while playing to his strengths.Little wonder then that respected minds still consider Katich captaincy material for Australia. The man himself feels happy that he is mentoring young men and today was a fresh example of his leadership qualities. With the bat Katich led by example, and in the field he was proactive. He showed fresh legs and an accurate arm to effect two direct hits but, more than anything, Katich stamped his ruthlessness by never allowing his men to take their eyes off the ball. A good example of that came when he rapped Henriques on the knuckles for casually collecting the ball in the field early during the Eagles’ chase.That has been the biggest change in Katich over the last two years. Today he is more expressive and he admits that. It’s a sign of his confidence and maturity. This was a fresh example of that, as he utilised his experience to help his team dominate proceedings. “If you look at the last IPL in South Africa, the top performers were a lot of the experienced cricketers like Matthew Hayden, Adam Gilchrist, Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar,” Katich said in that self-deprecating manner. “Even though it’s a young man’s game you still have to make the right decision at the right time with the bat and the ball.”This format may afford many a level of flash, but experience matters.