Gunther glares at Andre Nel retirement press conference

In perhaps not too surprising a move, Andre Nel has announced his retirement from international cricket and will be joining Surrey from this English cricket season. He isn't actually joining them as an overseas player. Since he is South African, and since South Africa has a trade agreement with the European Union (see "Kolpak Ruling" text), he is eligible to ply his trade in the UK and not be treated as an immigrant/foreign worker.

Naturally, this suits Surrey, because now they can actually sign up some other player as an overseas player. The surprising bit though is that as per the ECB rules, players are eligible to be picked as 'Kolpak players' only if they have quit domestic cricket in their country and haven't played first-class cricket in the previous 12 months. In the case of Nel, the latter isn't true, since he's been playing the current domestic season in South Africa. As recently as 3 weeks ago, he was playing for Gauteng. I guess this means the ECB has agreed for an exception on that clause.

The reason I reckon the retirement news isn't too surprising is because he hasn't been picked for South Africa for over a year now, and the likes of the Morkels & Steyn have firmly established themselves as the next-generation quicks.

Andre Nel did a pretty decent job for South Africa, typically bowling first change or second change, and still picking up 123 wickets at an average of ~ 32 and strike rate of 62.

However, it isn't just his bowling that we'll recall. I'm fairly sure he's probably the only cricketer to claim that his alter ego plays cricket, by the name of Gunther. Sounds crazy isn't it?

He was first in the news when he bounced & hit Donald in a domestic game and burst into tears for felling his idol. He's not spent too much time away from the headlines since then.

I daresay he's made a lot of entertaining viewing over the years, with his odd bowling style, his glaring & eye-balling, his antics, constant chattering, etc. At times, he made Dennis Lillee look like Javagal Srinath when it came to body language. The risk with the antics though is that sometimes you're the pigeon, and sometimes you're the statue.

Labels: book cricket, england, kolpak, nel, retire, south africa, surrey

Thus spake Jagadish @ 10:13 PM | Sledge/Read 1 sledge(s) | Related posts
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The state of Zimbabwe cricket

A team from Zimbabwe, called the Zimbabwe Board President's XI, recently participated in India's zonal domestic one-day tournament, the Deodhar Trophy. The team played 2 games, and lost both, to South Zone and West Zone. They failed to get past 200 in either game across 50 overs and the opponents batted for only ~ 40 overs on both occasions.

Zimbabwe have been pathetic overall for a while now, but they did display a lot of fighting spirit against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka recently. However, they haven't been good enough. Participation in the Deodhar Trophy was a wonderful opportunity for Zimbabwe's cricketers, and indeed their administration, to demonstrate that they had it in them to turn the corner.

This was a Zimbabwe BP XI only in name. The bulk of the team was filled up by familiar names from the national side (Chigumbura, Utseya, Masakadza, Matsikenyeri, Price, Dabengwa, to name a few).

Effectively, a Zimbabwe national side lost to two zonal sides from India. I daresay most Ranji Trophy teams would have also beaten, if not thrashed, them.

I have no problems with the BCCI opting to "show its support" for Zimbabwe cricket by sending the national team there for a triseries, also involving South Africa. However, I fail to understand why India's cricketers should be exposed to a cholera outbreak and a country that's pretty much dysfunctional. If there is no problem with the cholera outbreak, I hope the BCCI will use the opportunity to send India's under-19 side. There's absolutely nothing to gain by sending the side that's currently on a big-time roll.

Labels: india, zimbabwe

Thus spake Jagadish @ 6:52 PM | Sledge/Read 2 sledge(s) | Related posts
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IPL facing far too many questions

Before India's general election dates were announced, there was little doubt over the 2009 edition of the Indian Premier League being held. The primary concerns were over what all it would be blamed for, the impact of the attack in Lahore and whether anyone would actually care if Andrew Symonds or Ricky Ponting were missing.

However, it soon became apparent that the Indian government was not quite thrilled with the schedule drawn up for the IPL because the priority in terms of deployment security personnel would (obviously) be for the conduct of elections. After some initial attempts at playing down the issue, the IPL administrators then got into overdrive to accomodate the concerns of the various agencies involved in providing security for the games - the central government, the state police, the state government, etc.

Now, the situation is still in limbo. Revised schedules are being drawn up and I guess things will clear up in the next 2-3 days. I'm sure the IPL administrators will accommodate the government's concerns (as if they had any other choice! It's actually fun to see Lalit Modi actually acknowledging the power of some other authority!). I do believe that the IPL will find in its favour that the government would not want a situation where a sporting event was cancelled for security reasons.

This though doesn't really mean everything else is hunky-dory. Even if the revised schedule is arrived at and announced, there's no guarantee that audiences can actually watch the games. The IPL administration and Sony Entertainment Television (who has the broadcast rights for the Indian sub-continent) are at loggerheads after the BCCI suddenly attempted to remove SET as the broadcaster. That issue is now in the courts.

I do hope that the court also accepts public interest litigations on the actual quality of TV telecasts. I don't think I'm too far away from a stage where I won't bother following a game "live" on TV. Coverage on TV is so irritating to follow, because even as the ball is up in the air and a fielder is getting under it, we're transported to an ad break. The logical next step is that when a bowler loses his run-up, we go for an ad break.

Then of course, there's the whole question of the on-field happenings. I think right now, even 50-over games are forcing bowlers into considering retirement. For evidence, consider the recent India-New Zealand ODI series. It produced the highest ever runrate for a series of 3 games or more and the 2nd highest for a tournament of any length excluding games involving minnow sides (a definition that does include Bangladesh & Zimbabwe but excludes England).

Yes, the grounds were smaller than Ashish Nehra's brain, and the pitches were flatter than Cameron White's legbreaks. But the fact remains that bowlers, by and large, are being made so irrelevant that they might as well not bother turning up. Do I love watching batsmen smacking bowlers around? Sure, at most once or twice a series. Would followers of the IPL T20 games love seeing nothing but sixes and fours? Chances are the answer is no.

Labels: economics, india, indian premier league, ipl 2009, security, tv rights, twenty20

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:40 PM | Sledge/Read 4 sledge(s) | Related posts
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Woeful defensive England

West Indies have won their first series against half-decent opposition since beating India in 2002. They came pretty close to losing the final test, and were 8 down when the game ended. It'd have been very interesting if there was a situation where having exhausted the 2 reviews available to them, they couldn't appeal for (say) a plumb lbw that wasn't given in their favour. This was a situation I outlined in a post after the ICC announced that teams would now only get 2 reviews rather than the previous 3.

Imagine if the test match or series was up for grabs, with the last pair at the crease and an appeal for lbw was made, but the umpire ruled not out even though it was quite plumb. The bowling team finds to its agony that it has exhausted all its reviews. The batsmen go on to save/win the test. I'm guessing that it isn't an altogether unlikely scenario. So why should a team be penalized for using up its reviews even as an umpire getting it wrong totally costs them a test/series?

There's a lot of talk around West Indies being defensive by filling the side with batsmen & picking only 3 bowlers for the last test and preparing dead pitches. There's no doubt that the ICC needs to do something about the pitches. But if anything, England were defensive yesterday and showed no positive intent.

I actually expected England to declare before lunch, immediately after Pietersen had got his century. But bizarrely, they kept batting for around 10 more balls. Could those extra balls have made a difference? Entirely likely!

In fact, when Prior got out, Pietersen was on 80-odd and apparently had issues with the instructions that were relayed to him. Maybe the lure of a personal landmark clouded his judgement. I'm surprised he didn't rewind to just 3 months ago when he was England's skipper enjoying India bizarrely & defensively focussing on Gambhir and Yuvraj getting centuries at the cost of winning the Mohali test.

England made 3 scores of 500 or more in the series against West Indies. It's quite possible this is the first time this has resulted in a series loss.

Labels: england, positive intent, statistic, west indies

Thus spake Jagadish @ 1:58 PM | Sledge/Read 2 sledge(s) | Related posts
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Amjad Khan and Steve Harmison

Amjad Khan, born in Denmark, has made his test debut, representing England, in the extremely soporific test at Trinidad.

Watching him bowl, I got the feeling though that he generally makes Steve Harmison look like one of these accuracy-personified metronomes: (Sir) Alec Bedser, Brian Statham, Curtly Ambrose, Glenn McGrath, Joel Garner, Richard Hadlee, or Shaun Pollock!

Matt Prior must be wondering why he bothered to get back after his kid was born. In fact yesterday, Pietersen (I think) stood at leg slip. Given the lack of bounce in the wicket, I really felt he was there as additional cover for Prior, rather than as a catcher. England should have taken permission from the umpires so that Prior could hand over his left glove to Pietersen in the hope that that between them, they'd have stopped lots of few byes and wides. In fact, having Matt Prior as keeper when Amjad Khan is bowling is enough justification for England getting the long-stop fielder back in vogue. A couple of weeks ago, Martin Johnson, in "The Times", described Matt Prior's keeping ability awesomely

Matthew Prior has improved quite a bit since he came into Test cricket with a catching technique apparently honed by playing the cymbals in a brass band, so we can probably rule out the possibility that he was merely celebrating the fact that the ball had somehow managed to remain inside his gloves.

Labels: amjad khan, debut, england, harmison, prior

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:47 AM | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s) | Related posts
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ICC's weather bureau gets into the act

One month ago, the ICC announced that the next edition (let's not split hairs over whether it is the 2008 edition or 2009 one!) of the ICC Champions Trophy would not be held in Pakistan. While the decision on the new venue was to have been announced in April, there were rumours about Sri Lanka hosting the tournament.

Now, the ICC's general manager, Dave Richardson reckons that Sri Lanka was unlikely to host the event because of concerns over the weather. Well, here's what we tell him. We told you so, Dave!. If only you'd bothered to check with us!

We wrote, a month ago, about the impact of the weather.

There's talk of Sri Lanka hosting the tournament, currently scheduled for September-October 2009. But consider that Colombo, the main cricketing centre there with three international grounds, typically has heavy rainfall from end-September all the way till November. The only international cricket venue which will be unaffected by the monsoon is Dambulla, in the centre of the country. Can the pitch handle 15 matches in a span of 17 days? I suspect not!

Besides, as Patrick Kidd helpfully points out, the 2002 edition of the tournament was held in Sri Lanka in the last 15-20 days of September, and two attempts at a trophy-deciding final were damp squibs.

Spare everyone the torture. Just scrap the concept. Instead, ensure that the time that gets freed up helps test-playing countries play each other for at least 3-test series. Spend some time and come up with a way to get Bangladesh & Zimbabwe to improve more dramatically. If this requires a two-tiered test championship, figure out how to do so in the best manner without impacting TV rights owners.

Labels: 2009 champions trophy, champions trophy, icc, rain, sri lanka

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:19 PM | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s) | Related posts
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