Aussies, be happy it was Justin and not John

The hottest Ashes news yesterday was not Australia levelling the series 1-1, but Justin Langer's leaked memo/dossier on specific England players & England cricket in general.

If the newspaper ('The Daily Telegraph') really paid to get access to that document, they really have a lot of spare money on their hands. There's nothing in that document that Australia's cricketers or team management would not have already been aware of. Indeed, replace references to England (cricketers or the domestic cricket system) with any other country, and the dossier would still be valid.

John Buchanan made a career out of such well-timed and well-placed leaks.

Australia must actually feel glad that it was Langer's dossier and not one from John Buchanan. At least they could understand what Justin was saying.

Labels: ashes, ashes 2009, australia, buchanan, dossier, england, langer, leak

Thus spake Jagadish @ 1:30 pm | Sledge/Read 4 sledge(s)
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Where have we seen this one before?

Australia embark on high profile tour, with a squad light on bowling. Injuries impact the selection of the XI. Amidst much speculation about his inclusion, a former captain of the host country announces his retirement. While the series is on, one of the host country's main bowlers also announces his retirement.

Australia pretty much dominate the first test, but can't quite close things out. The cricket early on is gripping, but largely attritional with neither side apparently willing to risk defeat while pursuing victory. There are claims related to 'moral victory', 'momentum', etc. after the first test.

The Aussies are thrashed in the 2nd test, at a venue where until then, they'd lost only once in the ground's history.

Somewhere along the way, individual batting records were broken.

Australia's much-hyped & aggressive opener fails miserably.

This is so much 'deja-vu all over again'! Now all we need is an elbowing incident, a ban, some very defensive strategic bowling by the host team and bizarre captaincy by Australia's skipper.

Labels: ashes, ashes 2009, aus v ind 2008, australia, deja vu, england

Thus spake Jagadish @ 12:42 am | Sledge/Read 1 sledge(s)
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Could retainerships in Twenty20 leagues prevent premature retirements?

A couple of weeks ago, Andrew Flintoff announced his retirement from test cricket. He was followed by Chaminda Vaas. These retirements come as no surprise considering the physical strain associated with being quick/fast-medium bowlers. If Flintoff plays the remaining 3 Ashes tests, he would end up with 80 tests. The sad part is that he missed a whopping 63 tests. At 143 tests, he'd have been in the top 5 most-capped test cricketers of all time (behind Steve Waugh, Tendulkar, Border & Warne).

Last year, Scott Styris retired from tests. Earlier this year, Jacob Oram threatened to follow his teammate.

The irony is that the same cricketers who extoll the virtues of test cricket, call it the ultimate form of the game, rate their test cricket achievements as being the pinnacle compared to those in other forms of the game, etc. invariably end up retiring from test cricket. Can you point out anyone who has quit ODIs to continue playing tests? So do we all get this lip-service?

Cricket boards really run the risk of many more quality players quitting test cricket. Is it possible for everyone to have the cake and eat it to? Can T20 leagues & international cricket co-exist without antagonizing everyone involved? Is it necessarily a zero-sum game?

Let's make a few assumptions here - some could be wrong of course!

• Cricket administrators (cricket boards & organizers of T20 leagues) are telling the truth when they say test cricket needs to thrive.
  
• Cricket boards want to exercise maximum control over their players.
  
• Players believe that test cricket is the supreme form of the game.
  
• Players want to maximize their earning potential while they're still able to exhibit their skills well.
  
• Sponsors want the best players to be part of the event (not necessarily play) so that they can be used as great marketing vehicles.
  
• Cricket boards don't get anything from the IPL (or indeed any of the other proposed T20 leagues) when their contracted players participate in the tournament. So, a cricket board's first reaction to such a tournament is either that they won't allow their contracted players, or the players can participate for a ridiculously short period of time.
  
• The player's concerns are to not get injured, to play quality cricket, to earn as much as they can and to be able to fulfill their national commitments & contractual obligations with their cricket board.
  
• The T20 tournament organizer's primary concern is that the best players should be available for the maximum possible period of time, and play well enough in order to make the tournament a great success.
  
• Players are paid only on the basis of the number of games they play in T20 leagues.
  
• The money that cricketers earn from the IPL (or other leagues) is far in excess of what they have been earning so far.

Given all these assumptions, how do we best balance the self-interests of the players and the administrators? The combination of the last two factors hugely influences a player's decision to quit playing test cricket and free up that time to play more and more Twenty20, including at events like the IPL, Champions League, etc. Adam Gilchrist was largely spot-on in the talk he gave as part of the 2009 Cowdrey Spirit of Cricket Lecture (transcript & video) when he said:

An acceptance that professional players will increasingly make pragmatic decisions about their careers, which may involve playing less Test cricket or even perhaps, none at all. That the arrival of rich, franchised based competitions like the IPL will hasten this trend and reduce the primacy of playing for your country or provincial team. That a young first class cricketer in Bangladesh or the West Indies may have an entirely different set of playing priorities and goals to those youngsters playing in England or Australia. goals to those youngsters playing in England or Australia. That Cricket Administrators must adapt to these realities with clever programming of international fixtures to dove-tail off these competitions and if necessary radically change, even jettison the Future Tours Program in order to achieve this.

Let's leave aside for a moment the reality that Gilchrist contradicted himself in that statement. If the FTP was jettisoned, this would directly result in the likes of Bangladesh, West Indies & Zimbabwe playing less cricket against the 'stronger' (cricketing & economic factors) teams like Australia, South Africa, India & England. That would imply a reduction in the quality of cricket they're exposed to as well as revenue for boards. Do you seriously expect a cricketer from West Indies to say "No thanks, I'd rather play a test against Bangladesh because I'm so much in love with my administration"? Of course not! He's going to take the first opportunity available to throw away the WICB contract and play in one of the T20 leagues. So actually, by jettisoning the FTP, you could be increasing the risk that "a young first class cricketer in Bangladesh or the West Indies may have an entirely different set of playing priorities and goals to those youngsters playing in England or Australia". Having digressed, we now go back to the question - how to best balance the self-interests of the players and the administrators? Would a retainership-based payment structure work? What if the IPL (or other T20 leagues) split up the player's payment on a 60-40 basis, whereby 60% of the money they get is based on the number of games they play? But the remaining 40% is actually given to their cricket board. The cricket board could reduce the payment made to the player if he skips commitments (training, other contractual obligations, international games, etc.) because he gave a higher preference to playing in the T20 tournament. That 60-40 split is just a number. It could have been 50-50 or even 70-30, but the split-up needs to provide sufficient incentives & disincentives. Players who are not contracted to their boards would receive a pro-rata amount based on the number of games they played along with other contractual obligations fulfilled. This gives cricket boards enough incentive to release players for the tournament, knowing fully well that they will get something out of it if the players don't honour their side of the bargain. Players have an incentive to balance playing T20 leagues and international cricket. They don't fall under the 'daily wage worker' category, because really speaking when you're paid on a pro-rata basis, that is what you are! The tournament organizers & sponsors benefit since they know that cricket boards and players are both committed to the event because they both stand to gain. What are the potential problems associated with such a model? Manipulative boards (and there're plenty in that category) could reduce the payments on the basis of flimsy arguments. Players could opt out of board contracts, thereby removing the boards from the equation altogether and destabilizing international cricket. Tournament organizers & sponsors could offer incentives for players to give up their existing board contracts.

It may still be an option worth considering. If the model can prevent even one star player from quitting test cricket, I'd reckon it has done its job.

Labels: ashes, ashes 2009, burnout, champions league, colin cowdrey lecture, fatigue, flintoff, future tours programme, gilchrist, indian premier league, lord's, mcc, retire, spirit of cricket, twenty20, vaas

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:35 pm | Sledge/Read 1 sledge(s)
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Close, but no cigar

While it is tempting to think that England's last wicket pair's efforts to draw the Cardiff Ashes test represent a rare feat, the reality is that it has happened three times already in 2009! As this post is being written, it seems like the West Indies "B" v Bangladesh test at St. Vincent is also heading to a closely fought draw. West Indies "B" need to get 122 runs more to win, but have only 3 wickets in hand!

In fact, there were two instances in the same series (England's tour of West Indies). At Antigua and Trinidad, West Indies managed to squeeze out a draw. The third instance was New Zealand against India.

Some other recent tests where a side had already lost 7 wickets and still managed to salvage a draw (criteria being an end-of-game lead <= 50) include Pakistan escaping at Bangalore in 2007, India escaping at Lord's in 2007, West Indies escaping (against India, twice in the same 2006 series - what's it with close draws and West Indies?!) at St. Lucia and Antigua and Australia drawing at Old Trafford the 2005 Ashes.

After the Antigua test of 2006, I wrote about other similar close tests.

However, the interesting part is that out of the 84 "they gutsed it out for a draw" results in test cricket so far, over 30 have been in the last 20 years.

Is it an indicator that it is increasingly becoming easier for tailenders to bat out time? Is it because pitches don't quite start rapidly helping bowlers later on in the game? Is it because umpires nowadays tend to be more cautious when it comes to lightmeter readings? Do umpires not clamp down on ruthlessly enough on obvious time-wasting tactics? Is it about bowlers taking their batting lessons seriously?

I suspect the answer is 'All of the above'.

Then again, if you just looked at the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s, there were 16, 12 & 13 tests across those decades. So maybe there is no pattern there. The number of instances prior to the 1960s is low because the number of countries that played tests then is so low.

Pakistan started out in test cricket in the 1950s while India & New Zealand started playing more regularly from that decade and they got reasonably competitive from the 1960s. I think that explains the spurt in close draws from the 1960s. In addition, the other sides like Australia, West Indies, South Africa and England were also fairly well balanced and that would also have increased the number of close games.

Labels: ashes, ashes 2009, close finishes, statistic

Thus spake Jagadish @ 1:28 am | Sledge/Read 2 sledge(s)
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Should test matches be reduced to four days?

A couple of weeks ago, in an interview to India Today, ICC President David Morgan indicated that reducing test matches to being 4-day affairs was on the agenda.

Q: Other than merely re-emphasising its importance, what is being done on the ground to restrengthen Test cricket?
Another thought that many people have, that we are examining is whether Test match cricket can be played over four days rather than five.
Q: How quickly will we see a four-day Test? Has the mental shift been made?
The mental shift has been made in that it has been talked about and examined, I think that has already occoured. I would be very surprised if within a year you haven't seen some significant changes in Test match cricket. Over rates, pitches, daynight Test cricket … I think in a year's time you will see for yourself changes that have occoured in Test match cricket.

Let's examine if there is any evidence to support the ICC's stand. I took all tests that had been played after 1 Jan 2006 and excluded games involving Zimbabwe & Bangladesh. That's a total of 123 games. Surely that's a decent sample set. Then I excluded the Antigua farce and the terror-impacted Lahore test.

So now I had 121 tests and here're the results expressed in average duration of the test.

• The average duration of a game with a result (draws are 5-day affairs since the Antigua & Lahore tests have been excluded) has ranged between 4.2 and 4.4 days. It was 4.3 in 2006, 4.4 in 2007 & 2008 and 4.2 in 2009 [so far].
  
• West Indies and Pakistan win in the shortest period (average of 4 days), but that data is skewed because they've only won 2 & 5 tests respectively in the time period chosen. Among teams with at least 10 test wins, South Africa get things done in the shortest time - 4.1 days.
  
• The shortest tests also happen in South Africa, lasting 4.2 days on an average. Both these stats indicate that South Africa have been quite ruthless over the past 3.5 years.
  
• Australia have surprisingly taken the most time to win overall (4.6 days) and the number is identical for home games.

You can view the spreadsheet online, copy the data over to your local machine and play around with it to get more pivot reports.

The evidence does seem to suggest that more and more tests are getting over in around 4-4.5 days. So while David Morgan may not be quite right about getting to 4 day tests within the next year, I see it happening after the next 2-3 years for sure. Hopefully the changes include imposing overs restrictions on test innings, including giving toss-winning teams the option to pick the overs limit for their 1st and 2nd innings.

Of course, less than 4 years ago, this same ICC, in their infinite wisdom, staged a six day test! After the dreary draws at Lahore and Faisalabad Faisala-kabhi-nahin during India's tour of Pakistan in 2006, Pakistan's cricket establishment (captain, former players, administrators, etc.) began talking about the need for 6-day tests, especially in winter, since the weather conditions invariably interfered with play. Of course, they conveniently forgot that the Lahore and Faisalabad tests could have really gone on for perhaps another 2-3 days with no chance of a result because the fault was in the pitches used.

In other news, John Buchanan's comments in his soon-to-be-released book which focusses on the Twenty20 game, have surprisingly generated outrage in the Indian media & Indian cricket establishment. It's his book, he has a right to have an opinion. It could be right or wrong. When excerpts from Adam Gilchrist's autobiography caused a furore in India, I wrote:

Adam Gilchrist's autobiography, "True Colours: My Life", is to be released next week. As is to be expected, and as we've seen with cricketer autobiographies (Trescothick, Pietersen, Wright, Fletcher, Flintoff, Hussain or Lehmann), there is a tendency to selectively leak 'scandalous' portions of the book. The aim is to create a buzz around it, with the hope that it translates into more sales when the book is released.

Adam Gilchrist's revelations about Tendulkar are nothing but just that. He has his point of view, and others have theirs. Its his autobiography, and he has a right to choose what to say, and what not to say. If he reckons that the best way to sell his book, when there's an Australia v India series on, is to say things about India's cricketers that rile their fans, then that's his judgement.

Personally, I've never had a great opinion of Buchanan. He's said enough stupid things (blaming losing opponents for his bowlers not executing their skills & predicting that Australia's 2007 World Cup side would have ambidextrous cricketers, just to take a couple of examples). If he really does point out in the book that Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly & Laxman aren't suited to Twenty20 cricket, then is that necessarily a wrong thing to say? In any case, none of them play Twenty20 internationals anymore (Tendulkar is the only one to have played a T20 international) and Laxman probably sat out all of the 2009 IPL edition.

I wrote before the BCCI announced the 2007 Twenty20 World Cup squad that Dravid & Ganguly shouldn't be in the squad while I was ambivalent about Tendulkar. If I had to arrange the 4 batsmen in decreasing order of ability in Twenty20, the order would be Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly and Laxman. So exactly what's new about what Buchanan says? Is the outrage based on "How dare this foreigner tell us our greats aren't good enough at T20!"?

I'm guessing everyone who is outraged actually thinks the same way about Laxman and a lot of people would feel so about Ganguly & Dravid. The only questionable comment is about Tendulkar, and given he averaged 31 (strike rate 106) and 33 (strike rate 120) in the 2008 & 2009 editions of the Indian Premier League, there's enough evidence to suggest Buchanan is right! In any case, I haven't read the book, so I really can't comment on other issues.

Today at Cardiff, the venue for the first Ashes test, Ricky Ponting became the 2nd fastest to reach 11000 test runs, taking 9 innings more than Lara and one less than Tendulkar. Next in his sights - going past Border's Australian record of 11174. After that, he'll go on and get the test runs and centuries records for sure, unless injury strikes him down or he gets totally demotivated after being dismissed 8 times by Graeme Swann in this series.

Last week, India won the ODIs in West Indies to notch up 5 consecutive series wins. I was curious to find out other similar streaks and here's what I found.

• 6 by West Indies in 1985-1986
  
• 6 by Pakistan in 2001-2002
  
• 6 by New Zealand from 2007 to 2009

But the runaway victor in this category is Australia with a whopping 10 consecutive series wins between Dec 2002 and Sep 2004, including an unbeaten 2003 World Cup campaign.

I could have probably excluded series where there were lesser than 3 ODIs. But I couldn't have excluded series involving the minnow teams because they turn up at the various World Cup-like events. Even then, I don't think the results will differ too much from the ones above.

Labels: 11000, ashes, ashes 2009, autobiography, buchanan, innovation, ponting, statistic, streak, test cricket

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:47 pm | Sledge/Read 1 sledge(s)
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BCCI & TEN Sports, ICC "Hall of fame" and Michael Vaughan retires

Sometime last week, the BCCI announced that India would play a tri-series in Sri Lanka, with New Zealand being the third team. The announcement came a few days after India were thrashed at the Super Eight stage of the Twenty20 World Cup leading a lot of folks, including the coach Gary Kirsten, to proclaim that fatigue was one of the main reasons for the pathetic showing.

Maybe the BCCI was making a point - "You chaps can keep bleating about burnout. Until you actually collectively start pulling out of series, we'll keep milking you for what it's worth". So doesn't this previously unscheduled 4-match ODI series present a wonderful opportunity for players like the skipper Dhoni, Ishant, Gambhir and Yuvraj to excuse themselves from this tour?

Maybe there's a commercial angle that doesn't seem so obvious here. This would be the 3rd consecutive unscheduled series (or hastily arranged series) that is being played in a country where TEN Sports has the telecast rights for the Indian TV audience. The first was the ODI series in Sri Lanka and the second is the on-going 4-match ODI series in West Indies.

It does seem too much of a coincidence. But perhaps not when you realize that TEN Sports was in fact launched in India by none other than Lalit Modi and his MEN distributed the channel for a few years.

TEN Sports is partly owned by Zee, and the BCCI has basically not been on talking terms with Zee (Subhash Chandra) ever since he took the BCCI to court over the BCCI's allotment of TV rights 4-5 years ago when Zee Sports first won the rights only for the BCCI to move the goalposts when ESPN-Star bleated.

Now, after the BCCI announced an amnesty scheme for those affiliated with the ICL, maybe the BCCI and Zee Sports are becoming friends again. Maybe, like I predicted a year ago, the ICL would be wound-up and the quid pro-quo would involve TV rights, IPL team ownership, etc.

So maybe the new-found bonhomie explains why the BCCI is scheduling matches in these countries/regions. After all, surely the BCCI would have earned more revenue (gate proceeds, in-stadia advertising, etc.) if the games had been played in India.

Now, moving on to the ICC. At the start of the year, the ICC announced that it was creating a "Hall of fame" and the first list would have 55 players.

That '55' number sounds so arbitrary. Why wasn't it 50, surely a more 'round' number? Or did the ICC think they'd create 5 teams of 11 players each from the first batch of inductees? Given that the only wicket-keepers they've picked are Knott, Marsh and Walcott (who only kept wickets in 15 out of the 44 tests he played in), there's no way they could have got 5 playing XIs.

Ok, so that 55 is just a number picked out of the someone's nose. What was the criteria for picking these players? Test records? ODI records? Contribution to the advancement of cricket [especially applicable for those who played in the first 2-3 decades of test cricket perhaps]? Domestic cricket records? Gut-feel? Only those who'd retired before a specific date? There're a few players who really make me wonder about the criteria.

Barry Richards is universally considered to be among the best batsmen who never got to showcase his wares long enough in test cricket (4 tests at a batting average of 72 against a bowling 'attack' of Garth McKenzie, Ashley Mallett and John Gleeson). Watching this video of him batting convinces me that the perception about him isn't wrong. Yet, the hard facts are that he only played 7 innings.

Was David Gower such a good player? Obviously he was a very attractive batsman to watch, and was good enough to make bowlers look ridiculous. But he didn't do it often enough, and most certainly not when the bowling was of decent quality (averaging 33 against West Indies, for example).

Javed Miandad retired from international cricket multiple times, the last occasion being after Pakistan were knocked out of the 1996 World Cup. Martin Crowe played his last international cricket game 3-4 months before Miandad retired. So clearly 1995 doesn't seem to be the cut-off year. Perhaps it is 1996. Why 1996?

Surely, if David Gower finds a place on the basis of him being lovely to watch, Crowe must be a shoo-in, especially considering he averaged 45 against West Indies, 50 against Pakistan and 48 against Australia!

As noted in multiple tweets, Michael Vaughan retired from all forms of professional cricket yesterday, 11 months after he quit as captain. Exactly 3 years ago, I wrote about how he was only 32 and nearly retired because of his wonky knee.

Vaughan was a very pleasing batsman to watch, especially in 2002 and early 2003 when he was consistently dismantling India's and Australia's bowlers. However, the runs pretty much dried up after that series, and the most he averaged in a year after 2002 was 47.6 in 2007. It certainly wasn't for lack of opportunity, since between 2003 and 2008, he played at least 9 tests every year, including against West Indies, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe.

The reality is that Vaughan under-achieved as a batsman. On that front, I'd rank him alongside Stephen Fleming, VVS Laxman, Sourav Ganguly and Damien Martyn (until 2-3 years ago, Mahela Jayawardene would have also been included in this list). TV commentary, newspaper columns, reality TV adjudication, etc. beckon and I hope he does well in his new roles.

Labels: ashes, ashes 2009, bcci, book cricket, england, hall of fame, icc, lalit modi, retire, ten sports, tv rights, vaughan

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:23 pm | Sledge/Read 6 sledge(s)
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