Last hurrah for quite a few players at the 2010 IPL?

When the Indian Premier League started in 2008, the likes of Hayden, Gilchrist, Kumble, Ganguly, Tendulkar, Dravid, Murali, etc. were eagerly sought after for being famous [then] current international cricketers. Warne had only recently retired.

In 2011, there will be a new fresh player auction and it is quite likely that the likes of Hayden, Gilchrist, Kumble, Warne, Murali and Ganguly would not be purchased at the auction, especially if they don't perform too well in this year's tournament.

While a Kolkata Knight Riders side sans Sourav Ganguly (or indeed a Rajasthan Royals minus Shane Warne) seems unthinkable, the whole point of organizing a tournament on this scale, with title sponsorship sold for 5 years, mobile rights sold for 8 years and TV broadcast rights sold for 10 years, is to ensure that the tournament outlasts individuals.

Hopefully from next year, the IPL will trim down the number of games by splitting the 10 teams into 2 groups. A 45 day tournament to decide the best T20 side from among 8 is around 15-20 days too long! Having 2 groups, and sticking to the current play-each-other-home-and-away formula would mean a total of 44 games (20 league games per group, 2 semis, 1 wooden spoon game and 1 final) and we could be done with the tournament a month!

The quality of cricket so far has been excellent. While seamers have actually made a mark (Vaas, Angelo Mathews, Malinga and Sreesanth), they'll find it tougher as the pitches ease out over the next 40 days. The fielding has largely been really good and all evidence points to R Sathish as being one of the fielding stars of the tournament. For further evidence of his skills, see one of his catches in the 2008 Indian Cricket League tournament.

While we're at it, why don't you take a shot at who will lose the most matches at the 2010 IPL?

	Bangalore Royal Challengers
	Chennai Super Kings
	Deccan Chargers
	Delhi Daredevils
	Kings XI Punjab
	Kolkata Knight Riders
	Mumbai Indians
	Rajasthan Royals

Labels: fielding, indian premier league, ipl 2010, twenty20

Thus spake Jagadish @ 1:55 am | Sledge/Read 1 sledge(s)
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - | | Tweet ]

Rahul Dravid gets the catches record

Predicting events in cricket can make you look like a bit of a goose. Think about a pitch report analysis offered by the TV commentary team at the start of play. The 'expert' tends to think that what they're saying makes a reasonable amount of sense and have a fair amount of confidence in the prediction succeeding. Us, gullible viewers, fall hook, line and sinker. But like we've seen, "experts" who declare pitches as having something in it for the bowlers look so sheepish (although they're never questioned on their judgement!) when the score reads 340/2 at stumps or when a pitch pronounced a "batting beauty" produces a first innings score of 201 all out in a ODI game.

Over 4.5 years ago, I made a prediction on this blog, that Dravid would have the world record for most catches by a fielder by the time he retired.

I am willing to stick my neck out and say that that he would have the world record when he hangs up his boots, with stiff competition from Fleming. In his last 40 tests, Dravid has taken 61 catches and 33 catches in his last 20 tests. Assuming he plays on till he is 36, which is 4 years away, he'd have played another 40 odd tests which means another 65-70 catches. That'd definitely put him within reach of Mark Waugh's current record of 181. It is certainly not an impossibility.

Today, Dravid caught Tim McIntosh to go past Mark Waugh's record. You could say it was so bloody obvious that Dravid would get past the record, but I made the call, and you didn't, did you?! :)

Dravid's fielding career can be roughly divided into two phases. For the first 4-5 years of his test career, he used to primarily stand at short-leg or silly-point and he excelled in those positions. In those first few years, his catches per innings was 0.63. After that, since 2000, it is 0.78. You could attribute it to multiple factors - a better quality bowling lineup, improving his catching technique, more opportunities (since by then Azhar had been shunted out, Tendulkar had moved out of sight and as captain, Ganguly perhaps felt more comfortable from other positions). But at the same time, VVS Laxman had also started making a mark as a slip fielder, Sehwag too joined in a few years later and over the last couple of years, Tendulkar is back in the slips. So there has been "competition".

The three current players who have a chance are Ricky Ponting (148), Jacques Kallis (147) and Mahela Jayawardene (142). Surprisingly though, Ponting (0.575) and Kallis (0.590) both have rather poor dismissals/innings records. As the youngest among the 3, Mahela is most likely to get past Dravid, considering he averages 0.82 catches an innings in the last 100 innings and he has a lot of opportunities to take catches standing at slip to Murali, Mendis and Vaas. But he'll need to play something like 3-4 to get there (assuming Dravid ends up with ~ 190, that means Mahela needs 48 catches, which would take something like 60 innings in 30 tests across 3.5-4 years) I don't know if that's too likely.

Labels: catching, dravid, fielding, mark waugh, record

Thus spake Jagadish @ 12:10 pm | Sledge/Read 1 sledge(s)
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - | | Tweet ]

The end of the all-round fielder?

I am still reading Mike Brearley's excellent book "The Art of Captaincy".

In a section on field placements, he talks about how Kapil Dev continuously used to ask India's slip fielders to stand a couple of steps closer to the batsman and reckoned that he'd missed out on quite a few wickets due to the fielders' reluctance to do so.

Kapil was a pretty handy slip fielder himself, frequently standing at 2nd or 3rd slip. Steve Waugh writes in his autobiography about his first test innings being cut-off by a superb catch by Kapil at slip.

But, there's more to Kapil the fielder. He was very good in the circle, whether at mid-off, cover, mid-on or mid-wicket. He was also a very good out-fielder with a very good and accurate throwing arm. Towards the end of his career, he probably pioneered the art of using the foot as a means of preventing the ball from crossing the boundary! :)

That set me thinking about other cricketers who I'd watched and were truly all-round fielders in my opinion. There's really just one criterion - you put them anywhere on the cricket field and they've excelled.

The only names (other than Kapil Dev) I can think of are Carl Hooper, Mark Waugh, Mohammad Azharuddin & Sanath Jayasuriya.

I've never really seen Viv Richards, Ricky Ponting or Paul Collingwood field in the outfield, so that's why they doesn't make the list. The argument against Jonty Rhodes, Andrew Symonds, Clive Lloyd or Herschelle Gibbs inclusion is that they haven't fielded at slip too often. Sachin Tendulkar would have made the list had he not missed so many run-outs from mid-on or mid-off through the late 90s & early part of this century and not fielding at slip for nearly 7 years.

In short, there's really no-one from the 'current' generation (despite Jayasuriya's status being unknown perhaps) who'd qualify as an all-round fielder. Actually, the fact that there're so few names in the list is probably an indicator that we may have seen the last of this ilk.

Why's that the case when ODIs and T20 games don't really allow teams to hide fielders at 'safe' positions? So, if anything, there should be more all-round fielders now.

Labels: fielding

Thus spake Jagadish @ 10:16 am | Sledge/Read 6 sledge(s)
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - | | Tweet ]

Abraham Lincoln, on fielding and cricket

Watching the Indian fielding yesterday, it was so obvious that a generational change is needed in the Indian team, for its fielding alone, if for nothing else!

To paraphrase an apocryphal Abraham Lincoln quote - "You can hide some of the fielders all of the time, and all of the fielders some of the time, but you can not hide all of the fielders all of the time."

It's not just the over-35s who're slouches. Yesterday, Australia was taking quick singles and converting singles into twos against just about every fielder.

Ponting said his side would play 'new age' cricket, targetting India's "seniors" (not sure if he meant it as targetting their running between wickets, or their fielding, or both!). Actually it's hardly 'new age' cricket. This is the way modern cricket is. India's fielding positively belongs to the 'pre-90s' era of cricket!

As an aside, I wonder why play only goes on for 90 overs, and stops when 90 overs have been bowled. There was enough sunlight yesterday for at least 30-45 minutes more of play. They could have bowled another 10 overs in that duration, implying 100 overs for the day.

Whenever possible, the umpires should really try and get in 100 overs bowled. If a game starts at 9.30 am and ends at 4.30 pm, with sunlight around till 5.30 pm, it seems such a joke. In contrast, 100 overs will be bowled in a one-dayer played during daytime, starting at 9.30 am going on till 5.15-5.30 pm. Why can't tests also have 100 overs bowled a day? I can understand it if the light isn't good enough to start early or end late, but surely that isn't the case here, or indeed at several other grounds.

If playing an extra half-hour isn't possible, the anachronistic tea break really can be removed. 20 minutes is wasted. Instead, the players can take an extra drink's break, which only lasts 5 minutes. This means 15 minutes extra playing time a day, which is around 4 overs. I'll still take that marginal improvement!

In fact, once it has been established that floodlights can be used in test matches everywhere, I am all for having at least 7 hours of play a day, to ensure that at least 100 overs are bowled, with the lights being used if the sun is playing truant.

Labels: aus v ind 2008, bangalore, fielding, playing conditions, rules, tea

Thus spake Jagadish @ 10:56 am | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - | | Tweet ]

Ponting and Australia play percentage cricket on day one at Bangalore

As mentioned yesterday, I watched the first day's play from the ground (T-stand, to the left of the press and scorer box). I reached my seat just as Hayden was trudging back, for a duck. Given our past history, was I glad or what?!

If any of the readers of the blog were there, you should have raised a hand when I displayed a poster I made which repeated a Cricket 24x7 cliche "When you have the Aussies by their b#lls, you don't let go - cricket24x7.blogspot.com". Admittedly, I was pushing it by claiming that 0/1 in the 1st over was a case of 'having them by the b#lls'!

This isn't a report of the proceedings. Read the Cricinfo bulletin if that's what you want.

For starters, I had a great view of the cricket, sitting a couple of levels above where long-off to the right hander (if the bowler was bowling from the Pavilion end) would have been. The seat was good and there was lunch and tea provided as part of the what I paid (Rs. 1100+) for the ticket. Finding a place to park the bike was a real pain though, since I made two rounds of the stadium before parking in Cubbon Park.

In my opinion, Hayden's early dismissal resulted in two things. Firstly, Ponting was able to come in and face the seamers, rather than starting against spin. Secondly, Australia ended up playing percentage cricket. There were hardly any risks taken. In fact, there may have just been one sweep until tea. Towards the end, I did see Hussey sweep one while Ponting was out lbw sweeping. The batsmen were very content pushing the ball around in the gaps and picking up a lot of singles and twos. There was also no attempt to go over the infield, or play some rasping cuts.

Ponting played a very controlled innings. It was as though he was determined to score a century, even if it meant he'd have to forsake his normal style of play. His celebration was fairly exaggerated, but he totally deserved to do so. After all, he's now improved his hopeless batting average against India in India by 60%!

Katich gave him a lot of good support, including soaking up the pressure from Harbhajan early on. Ponting didn't face a single ball from Harbhajan until the off-spinner had bowled 15 deliveries.

Hussey got far too many of his runs against the spinners off edges past the slips, a lot of them uncontrolled and not deliberate. He did hit some very nice shots through cover though. Clarke pounced on a couple of bad short balls from Kumble, but did little else.

India's bowling was largely tidy. It's very rare that a side keeps Australia down to less than 3 an over. I'd say Zaheer and Kumble were the two best bowlers. Kumble, despite not picking up a wicket, was a little shoddy to start off with, but came back in his next few spells. He didn't bowl too many googlies or other variations early on, but started using them later.

Zaheer was very good almost all day and also experimented with having Dhoni stand up to the stumps to prevent Ponting from lunging forward to cover for the ball's movement. Ishant bowled brilliantly against Ponting but was below average against Katich, bowling far too wide on either side.

Harbhajan, despite picking up Ponting, had a bad day. There wasn't much turn on offer, so instead of sticking to a off and middle line, he frequently erred in length, giving the batsmen time to pick up the runs on the onside. He also didn't try bowling around the wicket too often to Ponting.

I was very surprised that Sehwag bowled so late in the day, and only bowled four overs. He's almost always done a decent job with the ball and has a knack of making things happen. Perhaps less surprisingly (given the last thing India would have wanted was for Australia to race away after a slow consolidation), Tendulkar didn't bowl his assortment stuff.

Overall, India's fielding was very poor. There was one definite dropped chance (Hussey dropped by Dhoni off Kumble when he was on 1) and a couple of half-chances that Gambhir (at short-leg) may have taken on some other day. But the catching wasn't the problem. The batsmen repeatedly stole singles and converted at least half a dozen singles into twos. By my estimate, India conceded around 20 runs through poor fielding, and a further 20 through poor field placements.

Kumble's field placements were baffling a lot of the time, and downright pathetic a couple of times. Harbhajan's first ball to Ponting was nudged through leg slip for four. It was definitely a poor ball, but not having a leg slip to Ponting was asking for a lot of trouble. It meant that whenever the two spinners erred in line and length, Ponting could get an easy single.

He also frequently had a fielder at long on to Ponting. Ponting was never even trying to advance down the track. Katich did it a few times. So why Kumble chose to try and prevent a lofted shot is very tough to understand. Maybe his reasoning was that the mid on (typically Sourav Ganguly or Zaheer Khan) was conceding quick singles due to slow reactions anyway, so might as well insure against an attempted sixer!

Towards the end of the day, when Hussey was cover driving beautifully, he had a deep backward point! When Sehwag (I think) was bowling and Clarke had just come in to bat, there was a deep mid-wicket fielder! In the last over of the day, there was a fielder placed on the point boundary for Clarke!

As for the controversies, there wasn't too much around today, perhaps largely because of Chris Broad reading out the riot act to both sides. It is interesting though that the ICC did nothing earlier this year when Hayden had a go at Harbhajan and Ishant. Better late than never, I guess!

There were some close-ish lbw shouts, including one fairly give-able one against Katich off Kumble. But nothing else was really going to cause alarms for the umpires. There was a moment though when the Indian supporters in the stands would have thought 'Aha, payback time for claiming one-bounce catches'!

Kumble to Ponting, the ball ended up almost as a yorker. Ponting tapped it back to Kumble who caught it and appealed. Koertzen first said no, and then discussed with Rauf, who also felt Ponting had hit it into the ground. TV replays are turned off on the screen at the ground, but after I got home to watch the highlights, it did seem like it was a catch since the ball had come back to Kumble directly off the bat, and not after it had hit the ground. If the umpires had referred to the third umpire, there was a high change Ponting would have been out on 110. Kumble can feel happy about the possibility that Koertzen will do his thing and say 'sorry, mate'.

A totally unrelated question - Close-in fielders use helmets while standing at short leg or silly point. But when the position isn't used, the helmet is placed behind the keeper. This brings in the probability of the ball hitting the helmet, resulting in a five run penalty. Is there anything that prevents the fielding side from asking the square leg umpire to hold on to the unused helmet(s)? After all, if the umpires can hold on to miscellaneous stuff given by the players (caps, sunglasses, mobile phones!, etc.), why not the helmet?!

Overall, I'd say Australia are in front, like Stu wrote, but just about. Perhaps by around half the length of Bill Lawry's nose :)


At tea time, I estimated (and predicted to Ganesh, who is happily holidaying instead of turning up at the ground to watch the game!) that Australia would end at 275/3. This was on the basis of them scoring 75 in the first session and 91 in the second as well as the pitch really not helping any sort of bowling. Hayden's and Katich's dismissals would really have to be attributed to batsman error, Hayden's being umpiring error if you're a one-eyed Aussie :)

My benchmark was that if Australia lost 5 wickets, it was India's day, regardless of the score made. If Australia had ended up losing 3 wickets, it would have been comprehensively their day. At 4 down, it seems to be a fairly even contest, but Australia still have Watson, Haddin and White to come. They can all bat (and score rapidly), but they've never played test cricket in India. In fact, the three have 6 test matches between them, with Cameron White making his debut.

So, the game could still turn either way. If Australia make 400, they'll be happy. If India can get Australia for 350, they'll be more than happy.

From a stat perspective, Ponting's century meant he now had the most centuries by a skipper. At the ground, I wondered if Hayden had the records for most centuries and runs by someone who'd never captained a test. Turns out my guess was right. Kallis could have had the record for most runs, but he skippered in one test!

The corresponding record holders for one-day internationals are Gibbs (most hundreds), Mark Waugh (most runs). Murali, obviously, holds the bowling records (most wickets and most five-fors) in tests and one-dayers!

PS: Congrats, Bangladesh, for beating New Zealand in a one-dayer. Now, only England & West Indies remain!

Labels: aus v ind 2008, bangalore, field placement, fielding, ponting, statistic

Thus spake Jagadish @ 10:14 pm | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - | | Tweet ]

Impact of the IPL

A couple of weeks ago, I thought I'd pretty much seen it all when Munaf Patel raced in from cover (How on earth was he fielding there in the first place?!), cut off a single and threatened to throw down the non-striker end stumps.

Yesterday, one of the players I really can't bear to watch on the field, Ashish Nehra (for his fielding, his hang-dog approach on the field and his ability to waste his talent), made a brilliant diving stop at fineleg to cut off a certain boundary in the last over of the Rajasthan v Mumbai game. Rajasthan needed 15 to win in the last over. They did manage to win, thanks mainly to some hopeless bowling (Fernando - bowling a wide with 3 to get in 1 ball) & fielding (Jayasuriya - butter fingers while gathering the throw from long-off which ensured that the game wasn't tied). But Nehra did the hitherto unthinkable - he dived, and effectively at that!

19.2 Fernando to Jadeja, 3 runs, Jadeja backs away towards leg side but Fernando follows him and cramps him for room, he gets an inside edge past the keeper and the ball runs to the boundary where Nehra sprints and dives full length to his left and saves one run, spectacular effort.

If Munaf & Nehra keep up the good fielding work and make comebacks to the Indian team, it'd make the team so much better, especially in limited over games.

Labels: fielding, indian premier league, ipl 2008, munaf, nehra, twenty20

Thus spake Jagadish @ 12:22 pm | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - | | Tweet ]

A stats post

VVS Laxman got his second test wicket, the first being Adam Sanford, in 2002.

Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble combined for the 51st time in test cricket. They're now level with Taylor & Warne. Murali and Jayawardene have the record, with 63 dismissals.

PS: I really hope India bat out the next 1.5 days at Eden Gardens, ensuring that Pakistan's bowlers are not fit enough to take the field at Bangalore. The escape scripted by Misbah, Akmal and Sami would have given them a lot of motivation, so declaring would be a pretty poor idea.

Labels: catching, dravid, fielding, india, jayawardene, kumble, laxman, murali, pakistan, statistic, taylor, warne

Thus spake Jagadish @ 1:09 pm | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - | | Tweet ]

A view of the future?

Yes, long time no post. But hey, there were one-dayers on! Those are never interesting to write about.

Except when you watch these little skirmishes within the structure of the game.

Like Kevin Pietersen (27, batting avg. > 50 in tests and one-dayers) facing Piyush Chawla (18, 15 wickets from 9 games, including Pietersen twice in successive games). You immediately know this is a 'rivalry' we should be seeing for the next 8-10 years at least.

Ditto when he bowls to Ian Bell or Alastair Cook. The case is the same when Stuart Broad or Monty Panesar bowl to Yuvraj Singh or Dhoni or Dinesh Karthik.

It is in fact sad that Yuvraj is being referred to in the future tense. It has been seven years since he made his international debut. By now, he should have got a permanent slot in the test middle order, by capitalizing on the absence of Tendulkar and Ganguly during last year. Instead, he toured West Indies and made 104 runs in 7 innings.

Akash Chopra must probably be cursing himself and the selectors for spotting him only when there're tough series against Pakistan and Australia coming up. He's in the India 'A' squad which plays South Africa's 'A' team at home. One-day discards Mohammad Kaif and Suresh Raina are in that squad as well.

What would the Indian team in England give for Yuvraj, Kaif, Dinesh Karthik, Raina, Rohit Sharma and Uthappa manning the in-field? I've never seen such poor catching by an Indian team. I'd never expect a team consisting of Ganguly, Dravid, Munaf and Powar to be athletic. The least I thought they'd do is to at least hold the catches that come their way! That isn't the case.

So the best option is have Ganguly, Munaf, etc. 'injure' themselves every now and then so that Uthappa and Rohit Sharma can at least improve the standard of fielding. Alternately, have Powar and Munaf bowl in tandem so that the fielding damage only happens during one section of the innings!

Labels: catching, fielding, future, pietersen, piyush chawla, sloth

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:33 pm | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - | | Tweet ]