Quite a weekend, that!

The weekend was quite eventful.

First, Marcus Stresscothick Trescothick revealed in his newly published autobiography that during the 2005 Ashes, England tampered with the ball by using mints to polish the ball. Rahul Dravid must be wondering about how stupid he was, not for using a lozenge, but for getting caught while doing so!

Update: I came across Ricky Ponting's response when asked about Dravid being pulled up. He said

I don't think you'll see us doing anything like that.

Ricky's response confirms that Dravid's mistake was in getting caught. Notice that Ponting didn't say "We never do such things". What he said was "You won't see us doing anything like that". i.e. his team would never be caught by umpires, match referees, opponents (live or on television) doing something like that.

However, remember that the ICC, in July, altered the result of a test match two years after the game was completed! So it may not be a bad ploy for Australia to lobby the ICC to reverse the result of the 2005 Ashes series.

Then, the ICC decided that the ICC Champions Trophy would be postponed to Oct 2009, with the proviso that the environment is deemed fit for an international tournament to be staged and there are no security concerns. In case people didn't notice, the boards that wanted the tournament to be moved or rescheduled weren't all 'white'. South Africa and West Indies had concerns as well. In my opinion, this is certainly not an instance of a racial split in cricket, as is often made out to be!

The move is highly likely to cause a lot of ripples in international series scheduling. The ICC's Future Tours Programme doesn't seem to have too much flexibility to accommodate the tournament in 2009. Looking at the schedule, mid-Apr 2009 to early-May 2009 seems the only time period when there's very little international cricket scheduled. West Indies host Bangladesh in that duration, but come on, who cares about that series!

Amidst all the chaos, India have gone 2-1 up against Sri Lanka in the one-day series with a fairly comprehensive 33 run win in the 3rd ODI. But I still don't understand why Sri Lanka were allowed to recover from 59/6 & 94/7. For some bizarre reason, Yuvraj was persisted with despite having done his job in providing the breakthrough (Kulasekara). He's a part-time bowler, yet Dhoni got him to bowl 8 overs on the trot. Naturally, Yuvraj became less effective as his spell dragged on, conceding 16 runs in his last 2 overs. Dhoni should have brought back Munaf or Zaheer or Praveen (in that order of priority) to try and get the remaining 3 wickets (or at least get Jayawardene out).

Sangakkara needs to do something about Zaheer Khan's stranglehold on him. In 6 matches this year, he has been dismissed 5 times by Zaheer and has barely got a run. In the tests, he was driving away from the body and getting caught in the slips. In the one-dayers, he's been troubled by Zaheer getting the ball to cut in. I think this is because Sangakkara is moving a lot outside offstump when the ball is being delivered, possibly to cope with the swing or just as an attacking measure. As a result, he's forced to play at outswingers and when the ball does nip back, he's caught on the move. In any case, I hope he doesn't sort it out for the next couple of games at least!

Charles Davis, an Aussie statistician, seems to have misread his calendar. After a lot of meticulous & painstaking research, he claims to have discovered that 4 runs had to be added to Bradman's test run aggregate, which would give the Don an average of 100. But he seems to have sent in his report around 8 months too early - 1 Apr 2009 would have been the appropriate date for the story!

Darrell Hair, who had been reinstated to the ICC's Elite panel of umpires in March this year, has resigned and will be coaching umpires in New South Wales. There is some ambiguity about when his ICC contract actually expires - Oct 2008 or Mar 2009. In any case, the ICC is really messing up the quality of umpiring in international cricket.

PS: Forget Beefy, I want to know who the heck writes Pietersen's scripts! He got a 100 and England won his first test in charge. Last week, in his first ODI as the official captain, he scored 90, helped England get 270, got two crucial wickets and England won!

Labels: 2009 champions trophy, ashes, autobiography, ball tampering, champions trophy, england, icc, india, pietersen, sangakkara, security, sri lanka, zaheer khan

Thus spake Jagadish @ 5:07 pm | Sledge/Read 2 sledge(s)
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - | | Tweet ]

Bridgetown set for battle of the bounce

Without doubt, the two least interesting teams at the World Cup are England and South Africa. England lurch from one tragi-comic performance to another. As in Australia, they have opted for a flat-cap, belt-and-braces strategy: hope Saj can keep it to less than six an over and pick up a twofer with his slower balls, let Monty wheel away innocuously, completely ignore Bopara, and refuse to change the batting order despite painfully slow scoring.

Lawrence Booth, writing in The Times, says that England don't innovate with their shot-making, and Richard Boock thinks that Graeme Smith's captaincy isn't up to scratch. These are teams struggling for confidence and form, and one of them will probably be thrown to the lions in a semi-final against Australia.

Between them, England and South Africa have two full-time spinners, both left-armers. These are also the only two left-arm bowlers in either side. South Africa have two left-handed batsmen, England have three. Ally this to the fast and bouncy Bridgetown pitch, and this match will see large periods of play in which a right-arm fast-medium bowler bangs it in on (or just short of) a length on (or just outside of) the off-stump of a right-handed batsman.

And yet the nature of the game makes it exciting. Both sides need a win, both sides are haunted by their own inadequacies. The familiar nature of the bowling might not be such a bad thing either: if there's one type of bowler and pitch that both sides should be used to, it's the type they'll encounter here. Fielding could be the key. South Africa, as I said two months ago, drop too many catches. This was highlighted again in their loss to New Zealand. England aren't a good fielding side, but a side with some good fielders. Bell's fielding has improved, and Bopara, Collingwood, and Pietersen eat up the ground in the outfield. But Vaughan, Panesar, and, to a lesser extent, Strauss must be hidden, and Flintoff has dropped from his standards of a couple of years ago.

I'm with Athers: I expect England to lose. In a way, I want England to lose. They have learned nothing, they have been at once rigid and poorly prepared, and they haven't even had the decency to play with any kind of flair. South Africa might be a bunch of robotic, unimaginative chokers, but at least they have batsmen who can hit the ball hard and bowlers who can slice through a side and keep their head at the death. I don't want South Africa to win, but I won't complain too much if they do.

Also: I really haven't been keeping up with who other counties have signed. But it seems that Warwickshire have signed Kumar Sangakkara! And RP Singh (what happened to him?) has cunningly stationed himself in Leicestershire should India suffer any injuries on their tour of England.

Labels: 2007 world cup, boring, england, rp singh, sangakkara, south africa, world cup

Thus spake Geoff @ 3:04 pm | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - | | Tweet ]

I thought he was supposed to be intelligent

Kumar Sangakkara:

Having picked up two valuable points against India, we realistically need to win three out of our six matches to qualify for the semi-finals.

Kumar, India are out. Your two 'valuable' points were Bangladesh, the pseudo-minnow. If everyone else (excluding Ireland) beats Bangladesh (which, although not certain, is more likely than the same happening to India), then those points will be effectively worthless. I want Sri Lanka to meet the West Indies in the final; don't tell me you're going to turn in to South Africa.

Labels: 2007 world cup, minnows, sangakkara, sri lanka, world cup

Thus spake Geoff @ 11:02 pm | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - | | Tweet ]