Mahela: Kotla wasn't a fair wicket for one-day cricket

Mahela Jayawardene sounded very reasonable, it until he told Cricinfo that his team and the Indian team thought that the Kotla pitch was not a fair wicket to play one-day cricket.

I wonder what his opinion was about the Rajkot pitch where 820 runs were scored across 100 overs. Was that a "fair" wicket for one-day cricket? I'm totally on Jarrod Kimber's side when he writes "If these batsmen want to come out with two inches of unprotected space on their bodies, then they can take whatever comes at them".

The ICC's monitoring process is bound to kick in now since the assumption seems to be that all low-scoring pitches are sub-standard.

The Feroz Shah Kotla could be banned from hosting internationals for at least a year, although it is likely that the punishment could be more lenient considering this was the first adverse report by the ICC for a game played at the venue. There doesn't seem to be any evidence that previous ICC feedback implied that the ground conditions were poor.

Of course there was a risk of physical injury for batsmen yesterday. Of course that isn't fair to batsmen. But life isn't fair either, and I'm assuming all cricketers and cricket fans do agree that cricket mirrors life, to a large extent.

Don't bowlers risk physical injury and permanent mental scarring when they run in (some morons run in nearly 25 metres each ball) pointlessly, especially on hot sultry days? They put in their maximum effort, hoping that the batsman would defend the ball near his chest, only to see that it ended up at his knees and the ball ended up over mid-wicket.

So, who is responsible for the Kotla ODI being abandoned?
	BCCI
	DDCA (Delhi & District Cricket Association)
	ICC
	IPL
	Batsmen-friendly rules and committees

Labels: bcci, ddca, delhi, farce, icc, india, pitch, sri lanka

Thus spake Jagadish @ 5:10 PM | Sledge/Read 6 sledge(s) | Related posts
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What were the umpires doing at Perth?

During the first over after lunch on day two of the Perth test in the Frank Worrell Trophy featuring Australia v West Indies, Sulieman Benn, Brad Haddin and Mitchell Johnson got into a fracas. The sequence of events, which you can see in the video on YouTube, was approximately this:

• Haddin plays a ball towards mid wicket and sees the possibility of a quick single
  
• Benn, bowling from around the wicket, runs across to his right to cut off the single
  
• Johnson put his head down and ran, reviving memories of Forrest Gump
  
• Benn tries to get to the ball, and ends up looking like he was dragging Johnson back with his hand
  
• When the ball is 'dead', Haddin points his bat at Benn possibly asking him to stop coming in the way
  
• Benn is now really mad and keeps chattering & abusing away
  
• Gayle is standing still, first listening to Haddin's point of view and then to Benn
  
• Umpire Billy Bowden then steps in and asks Gayle & Benn to get on with it
  
• Benn, still very angry, asks Haddin some questions, throwing in a couple of obscenities rhyming with 'chuck'
  
• Benn then bowls an absolute ripper of a delivery that Johnson has no clue about. The batsmen cross over for a bye
  
• Benn is still unhappy and chattering away. He even appears to ask Johnson something, while Johnson practices his straight drive at the non-striker's end
  
• Benn bowls to Haddin, who drives the ball straight back. Benn threatens to throw the ball back (unsure if he was threatening to hit Haddin or the stumps) and Haddin provides a view of his stumps, requesting him to take a shot
  
• That was the last ball of the over. Haddin walks down the pitch grinning and saying something to Benn
  
• Benn tries to point out something to Haddin with his hand and accidentally brushes against Johnson
  
• Johnson pushes Benn away
  
• Bowden finally realizes things could be going from bad to worse and steps in

Purely going by what was seen on TV, there were multiple people at fault here:

• Benn - He had no business tugging at Johnson's shirt and trying to drag him back
  
• Haddin - He had no business pointing his bat and interfering with something that Benn & Johnson should have (and could have) sorted out between themselves
  
• Johnson - He can't be blamed too much because it is unlikely he would have realized that Benn brushing him was accidental. But given the heated situation at that time, pushing Benn away was a bad choice
  
• Bowden & Gould - The umpires are the biggest culprits here. The moment it seemed like Benn & Haddin were in a war of words, they should have stepped in and called a halt to the verbal warfare. They didn't, couldn't, or chose not to. Then, when Johnson pushed Benn away, Bowden was almost apologetically pleading with the players to move on. All this while, Gould, the square-leg umpire, was conspicuously absent, probably day-dreaming about the sumptuous lunch he had just finished

A couple of aspects of today's incident are interesting, and give me a huge sense of deja vu.

Symonds v/s Harbhajan at Sydney in early 2008: Harbhajan patted Lee on the back and Symonds, standing quite far away from the scene of action, stepped in quite unwarrantedly to save his mate's arse from Harbhajan.

Today, Benn ran into Johnson and Haddin batted on Johnson's behalf.

A couple of years ago, during the 2nd final of the triangular ODI series in Australia, Michael Clarke, the bowler, nearly pulled down Sachin Tendulkar's pants in order to prevent Tendulkar, at the non-striker's end, from taking a single.

There was no sign of any apology from Clarke, because he was only doing it hoping that Tendulkar's greatness would have 'rubbed off' on him. Tendulkar also seems to have rather enjoyed the fondling. Gautam Gambhir, who played the shot, did nothing. Of course, it is quite likely that this unwarranted & deliberate physical contact, and the absence of any action around it, 'inspired' him to try a similar stunt a year later.

Today, Haddin couldn't keep quiet, and had to intervene. An issue that could have been sorted out in a few seconds dragged on and on. It's quite likely that there will be follow-ups over the next 3 days of the test.

Benn has now been charged with a Level 2 offence while Haddin & Johnson have been charged with Level 1 offences under the ICC's code of conduct for players.

Clause 2.2.4 refers to "Inappropriate and deliberate physical contact between Players in the course of play during an International Match".

If Benn's physical contact (the act of tugging at Johnson, for I am unaware of any other deliberate/inappropriate physical contact) was wrong, Johnson is also guilty of pushing Benn away.

Haddin would be guilty under 2.1.4 (Using language or a gesture that is obscene, offensive or insulting) or 2.1.8 (conduct that is contrary to the spirit of the game or brings the game into disrepute). I don't think he should be charged with a Level 2 offence because he only brandished his bat (admittedly, that did sort of make the whole incident a lot worse than it could have been) and almost definitely needled Benn.

Am I surprised that Haddin & Johnson are likely to get away with a lesser charge laid against them? Of course, not! We know by now who gets away with it.

Benn should actually feel proud that the Australians seem to be targetting him now. That usually happens to combustible folks who're doing well against the Aussies.

On a related note, Malcolm Conn's ghost-writer has once again forgotten to use the magic phrase "India have been the worst-behaved team in cricket over the last decade" in his latest piece.

Labels: australia, ban, benn, frank worrell trophy, haddin, icc, johnson, match referee, perth, spirit of cricket, umpires, west indies

Thus spake Jagadish @ 12:56 AM | Sledge/Read 5 sledge(s) | Related posts
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Re-structuring the ICC Future Tours Programme

The ICC's President, David Morgan, has revealed that the Future Tours Programme (FTP) planned for the period 2012-2020 will relax restrictions around the concept. Teams do not need to play each other home and away over a six year cycle as is the case currently.

What is interesting though is that the current version of the FTP only spans 6 years, and was drawn up in 2006. I find it bizarre that the ICC will be coming out with an 8 year schedule (2012-2020) at a time when a lot of folks, including administrators and players, don't even know what's around the corner 2 years from now. In the last couple of years, cricket has gone through so much change with the advent of private leagues, IPL, Champions T20 league, questions over the relevance of ODIs and tests, etc.

Then again, I'd be stupid if I expected the ICC to actually make any sort of sense.

A two-tiered structure for test cricket, in the form of a test championship, seems a natural solution to rationalize player workload and have better more even contests. Sangakkara has every right to feel aggrieved that Sri Lanka was not included in the ICC's discussions over a 2-tier system. But, does a 2-tier structure mean that a team is shut out from the top tier forever? Of course not.

A 2-tier system does bring with it some uncertainty over whether a team being demoted to the lower tier could mean loss of spectatorship / TV audiences. I'm fairly sure that boards who are opposed to a 2-tier system are mainly concerned about the worth of their TV (& other media) rights if there's no guarantee that their team will play in the top tier instead of battling it out for the wooden spoon. There's no doubt that money from media rights finances the game. So it would be stupid to take on those who pay up the cash!

Yet, if the cycle lasted say 3 years instead of a promotion & relegation every year, TV rights owners have some amount of ability to predict who will play whom where and when. This could mean they are far more likely to dish out the cash than if teams were promoted & relegated every year. The other reason, which I wrote about 5.5 years ago, why an annual promotion / relegation should not be used is to avoid a situation where a team like (say) Ireland just happens to top the 2nd tier in one year, gets promoted to the top tier and gets thrashed by all and sundry.

Assume there are a total of 12 teams - Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, Ireland, Kenya, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies and Zimbabwe (it is likely that at some point of time, if the West Indies 'splits' and individual island countries compete by themselves, we will need a 3-tier system). There would be 2 tiers of 6 teams each (Based on the current rankings, it would look like - Tier-1: India, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Australia, England & Pakistan; Tier-2: New Zealand, West Indies, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Ireland & Kenya).

Only test matches played within the tiers would count for any points. If teams that played for test trophies (Australia-England, England-South Africa, Sri Lanka-Australia, India-Australia, Australia-West Indies etc.) ended up in different tiers, they could still play their 'marquee' series. But the result of the tests and series wouldn't count in the ICC test championship points system. Boards would of course need to remember that if players got burnt out playing the marquee series, then their team's prospects in the test championship could be impacted.

If each team had to play all the other teams in the same tier in test series (of 3 tests each - not more, not less) home and once away, they'd need to play a total of 30 tests (15 home & 15 away) over a 3 year period. That's not much. In the 3 years spanning 2006, 2007 and 2008, 7 of the 9 test teams played more than 24 tests.

The points structure could be fairly simple (10 for a test win, 5 for a draw, 0 for a loss, with bonus points for winning by an innings or anything more than 7 wickets) and also factor in the series result as well as whether the it was a home or away fixture and adjust the weightage accordingly.

There would be no concept of 'Super Eight', 'Super Six', knock-out games or a grand final. At the end of the 3 year window, the team with the most points would be declared the winner of that particular tier. The team that ended up last in the 1st tier would swap places with the team that topped the 2nd tier. In case of a tie, number of series wins away, number of test wins away, points from away wins, etc. would be used to determine who should be ranked higher.

There would also be individual awards for bowling, batting and fielding.

In fact, this sort of 2-tiered structure with equal matches for all would satisfy the demands from the likes of Sri Lanka, New Zealand, West Indies, Pakistan, etc. who claim that a 2-tier system would not benefit them.

For the boards, the TV revenue from 'marquee' series is a much bigger factor. So how do they reconcile themselves to it? Perhaps with the knowledge that if they manage their players well, create a large enough pool to pick from and create sane schedules, their best players would still be available for the marquee series.

Labels: burnout, fatigue, future, future tours programme, icc, test cricket

Thus spake Jagadish @ 12:33 AM | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s) | Related posts
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