For all the strides Indian cricket has made, every now and then they seem they can’t move over from the past

Sidharth Monga14-Oct-2008

For all the strides Indian cricket has made, part of it still cannot break free from the past. When they get a chance to beat England 2-0 away, as they did last year, they forsake it in the fear of losing the opportunity of winning their first series in England for 21 years. That fear marked their reluctance to push for a win against Pakistan in the Bangalore Test last year: they don’t want to risk a 1-0 lead for a mere Test win.When India, favourites at the start of the series against Australia, go into the last day of the Bangalore Test needing a big effort to earn a draw, the thoughts of the collapse in Sydney in January, and other such failed efforts, are very much with them. In the end the draw in Bangalore, managed against a side without a quality spinner and carrying an injured seamer, is celebrated as a heroic one.For the moment it is worth celebrating, because some of the leading Indian batsmen, feared opponents all, have had to live with the blemish that they can’t save Tests in the fourth innings. However, it can only be hoped that the main lesson here is not lost, asit was after the Sydney Test. There, controversies notwithstanding, India failed to bat out 71 overs on a far-from-terrifying pitch, losing three wickets in 11 balls to Michael Clarke. In Bangalore, all through the game they played catch-up with one of the weakest Australian teams to visit India.As much as the stodgy batting on the fifth day on a tricky pitch is worth acclaiming, it is worth acknowledging what Australia have managed to do. They arrived with an unsettled batting order, still coming to terms with life without Adam Gilchrist, and freshly jolted by the Andrew Symonds blow. For all practical purposes they didn’t have a spinner; none of their fast bowlers had bowled in a Test in India before. Still, at the outset, they set the pace. They exploited India’s old legs and tired minds. They threatened to inflict a follow-on. In the second innings, they recovered from a poor start to score enough to make a sporting declaration. Australia were clearly the better batting side in the first Test.The bigger worry for India was that their spinners managed only three wickets. In fact, Harbhajan Singh took all three; but he, Anil Kumble and Virender Sehwag conceded 370 runs between them. In contrast, the Australian spinners picked up three for 166.

Australia can take many positives from this match. Ricky Ponting, the captain, has won a personal battle, the kind Sourav Ganguly won in Brisbane in 2003-04. Ponting’s achievement, perhaps, was more significant: Ganguly wasn’t called upon to lead the batting line-up, nor had he been as hopeless in Australia as Ponting had been in India.It took two freak deliveries – a big reverse-swinger and a topspinner that hit a crack and turned in – to remove the immovable object, Michael Hussey, who ran India ragged in the first innings and threatened to do so in the second as well.Twice in the last five years India have played exciting series in Australia; in both instances they have struggled in the series openers. Ganguly’s brilliance and the weather earned them a draw in one, while they were mauled in the other. It is in stark contrast to how Australia have started this tour.If India have come out scar-free from the first Test, it’s thanks mainly to the batting of Harbhajan and Zaheer Khan. Zaheer and Ishant Sharma are the only Indian players to have come out of the match with credit; also Harbhajan to some extent, because of his batting.Zaheer fired a cheeky salvo after the match: saying that Australia were more defensive than they have ever been. Indeed, they defensive. Perhaps Australia know their own limitations well. Perhaps it was the slow pitch that made them play the way they did. At any rate, the comment came from a member of a side that is not the most aggressive, physically or mentally. Zaheer and Kumble both talked about the toss and the kind of difference bowling last here would have made. But at no point did India inspire confidence that they could run through Australia, on the first day or the last.A close draw is a beautiful result. Both teams look at it as a moral victory: the side that pushes for a victory and the one that plays for time. The two possible moral defeats inherent in such Tests are that the aggressors can start to doubt themselves for not having crushed the opposition when they were down, and the defenders can feel exhausted by the effort of having to keep up for five days. Then, theoretically, they start the next game as equals.With three days between the first two Tests, India have little time to celebrate a ghost that has been exorcised. If, come Mohali, they are to start as equals after the draw in Bangalore, they need to exorcise the cause of the strife.

Chris Gayle played a typically audacious innings, with some stylishly cool big-hitting, to give Kolkata their first win of the IPL season

Karna S21-Apr-2009Watching Chris Gayle bat takes one back to one’s teens, when the school bully would haunt and mesmerize you with his big hitting. At the cricket clinic, they’d teach you to lift your left elbow high and get in line with the ball. “Get your head over the ball and smell the leather,” the coach would say. And, as you struggled with those instructions, out would stride the local Gayle, tall and cool, merrily swinging his bat. And the ball would fly. Then he’d order you to give him the strike and you’d comply meekly.Today was another instalment of the Gayle show. On the fifth ball he survived a simple drop chance, courtesy the butter-fingered Goel, off an intended short-arm pull. Three quiet balls later, he began his sequence. The loose limbs sent the ball crashing over cover point. The next over Irfan Pathan got it straighter; Gayle almost knocked the umpire’s head off. Pathan tried to change his length with a short ball; it was eventually picked up from the square leg boundary. Pathan then went for a length ball. It sailed over long-on, almost sucked in by the delirious fans who, for the first time in the day, really started to get into things. Gayle has that effect.There is a perception, warranted to an extent by his style of play, that there is little technique; it’s almost village cricket. It’s an accusation levelled at most of the big players who keep the game simple. Watch Gayle closely, though, and there’s a delightfully simple technique at work. He has a wide, spread stance, crouches a touch on bent knees to get the centre of gravity down and stays still. Very still. As the bowler, in this case Irfan, finishes his delivery stride and releases the ball, Gayle uncoils into action. His stance means he doesn’t have to move too far forward or back. The problem is when he is not quite to the length or the ball starts seaming around – Gayle does get squared up a lot on tougher pitches. Not today, though.There was a touch of pre-determination from him but again the movement was late. He moved his back foot across, took his front leg outside the line of the ball and got into a position to swing across to the on side. He lifted VS Malik into the midwicket stands and, when the bowlers dug in short, his balance allowed him to cut it over point.Of course, he had his share of luck. Not only did Goel drop him, Sangakkara too failed to hold on to a nick off the leggie Piyush Chawla. A bully’s luck.The match wouldn’t have been complete without Mr Cool showing his signature style on the field. The batsman Goel edged a flash to the left of first slip, where Gayle was stationed. Second slip lunged to his right. The calm Gayle swayed to his left. There was a blur of activity and for that moment the ball was lost from sight. Slowly, Gayle broke into a smile as his team-mates converged on him. That was as much emotion as one gets from Gayle (unless you are Michael Clarke and have rubbed him the wrong way).Later, his captain Brendon McCullum said he knew that as long as Gayle got going, they didn’t have to bother about those two kill-joy gentlemen Duckworth and Lewis. “The only thing we have decided here, in these conditions, is to take the first two overs quietly. You don’t want to lose an early wicket and keep chasing the game. You sort of get an idea about the D/L score but there were no sheets passed around in the dressing room. With Gayle going the way he did …” His voice trailed off. There was no need to say anything else.

Stats highlights from the Compaq Cup final, which gave India only their fourth win in 21 finals since 2000

S Rajesh14-Sep-2009Sachin Tendulkar has notched up scores of 117 not out, 91 and 138 in his last three finals•Associated Press Sachin Tendulkar’s 138 was his sixth hundred in 38 innings in finals, and it pushed his overall average in such matches up to an impressive 55.54. In his last three finals, he has notched up scores of 117 not out, 91 and 138, and India have won each of those matches. In all, Tendulkar has scored 1833 runs in finals, which is easily the highest – Sanath Jayasuriya is next with 1613. Tendulkar also ranks very high in terms of all-time averages in finals: among those who’ve scored at least 500 runs in finals, only three have a higher average. One of them is India’s current coach, Gary Kirsten – in 20 innings, he scored 1019 runs at an excellent average of 69.73. Tendulkar’s stats are very similar to those of Viv Richards, who averaged 55.73 at a strike rate of 84.78 in 17 finals. Brian Lara, on the other hand, has struggled in finals, averaging only 28.16, more than 12 runs below his career average. His one century and two fifties all came in his first four innings; in his last 14 finals, his highest score was 35. The Man-of-the-Match award was Tendulkar’s 59th in ODIs, and his eighth in finals. It was also his 14th Player-of-the-Series award. Tendulkar leads the all-time list in both categories – he is 11 clear of the second-placed Jayasuriya in the match awards and three ahead in the series awards. India’s total of 319 is their second-highest score in finals, next only to the 326 for 8 they scored in their memorable win in the NatWest Series at Lord’s in 2002. Harbhajan Singh’s 5 for 56 is his third five-wicket haul in ODIs, and his first overseas. It’s also his first haul of four or more wickets in almost three-and-a-half years. It also ended a poor run for him in 2009 – in nine previous games this year, he had averaged a wicket per game, at an economy rate of 5.35. Lasith Malinga went for 81 runs in his ten overs, which is his worst performance in a one-day internationals, both in terms of runs conceded and in terms of economy rate. Sri Lanka’s record in finals since 2000 dropped to 12-7 after this defeat. It’s also their first defeat in a final at home since 1998 – India had been the victors then as well, winning a close match by six runs. The star on that occasion too was Tendulkar – his 128 powered India to 307 and won him the Man-of-the-Match award. The only other player from the current line-up who was in that team is Harbhajan.

The final nets are over, there are about 18 hours to the start of the Test. How do cricketers spend that time?

Aakash Chopra24-Sep-2009You may have wondered why Matthew Hayden sits on the pitch on the eve of a match. Does he meditate sitting there? Or why Rahul Dravid shadow-practises shots at both ends? Hasn’t he played enough in the nets? Chris Gayle also does the same thing, albeit in the middle of the pitch. What are these guys up to?All of them use an extremely important tool for preparation, visualisation. Hayden visualised everything, good and bad, that could happen in a match, so as not to be surprised during the match. All of us, knowing or unknowingly, do it.I had my formal introduction to this technique just before the first Test against Australia in Brisbane in 2003. John Bell, an Australian coach I had met in Holland, told me about its application and importance. He told me to walk out from the dressing room on the eve of the match assuming that I was walking out to bat on the first morning of the game.I had to psyche myself into seeing the packed stadium, the Australian team waiting in the middle along with the two umpires. I also had to imagine my partner, Virender Sehwag, was walking alongside me. Then I did my ritual, running a couple of mock runs, before settling in to take strike. To avoid looking completely insane, I skipped the part where I asked the imaginary umpire for a leg-stump guard. Apart from that, I did everything I would in the real match. I mentally drew a line just outside the off stump, to use as a marker for letting balls go. Anything pitched outside that line would be allowed to go through to the keeper and the rest were to be played. Then I’d stand in my stance and visualise all the Australian bowlers running in and bowling in different areas. It is a routine I’ve followed ever since.Ground reality
Every ground and track has a different feel and the earlier you get used to it the better. Batsmen identify certain shots for certain tracks. For example, on slow and low tracks you realise the need to get onto the front foot as much as possible and play with a straight bat. Similarly, on tracks with more bounce and pace, you prepare yourself to stay on the back foot and play horizontal bat shots. That’s exactly why players shadow-practise while standing in the middle. Bowlers also identify the areas they’ll be expected to bowl in, and do mock run-ups to get a feel of the approach to the stumps.Individual approach
Batting and bowling in the nets on the eve of the match is strictly according to each individual’s liking. No one tells you to bat in the nets if you aren’t comfortable, and the support staff does everything to help you get into the groove. Rohan Gavaskar wouldn’t play a single ball in the nets, while Viru likes a long hit. Similarly Gautam Gambhir needs his throw-downs before every match, while Sachin Tendulkar’s batting in the nets depends purely on how he’s feeling about his game at that point of time. While Sachin didn’t bat too often in the nets during the 2003-04 series, when he did, he made someone bowl at him from 15 yards most of the time.There was one extraordinary instance of Dravid and Viru missing the practice session and watching a movie instead. It was before the memorable Adelaide Test in 2003. Sometimes, simply unwinding is the need of the hour.

You often find cricketers sitting together till very late on the eve of a match. That’s to ensure that the moment they walk into their rooms they fall asleep. There’s also the tendency to get up a few times during the night to check if you have slept through the alarm, only to find that dawn is still a few hours away

At the end of the practice session, most batsmen take their match bats with them to the hotel. Some batsmen shadow-practise religiously in their rooms. Others just want the bat handy in case they feel like doing so.Sleepless nights
Sachin didn’t sleep well for 15 days leading up to the match against Pakistan in the 2003 World Cup. He would stay awake planning how to handle each bowler. He admits that he played the entire innings in his head way before it happened on the field. Gautam couldn’t sleep the night before the 2007 Twenty20 World Cup final.You often find cricketers sitting together till very late on the eve of a match. That’s to ensure that the moment they walk into their rooms they fall asleep. The anxiety doesn’t let your mind rest, and that makes it very difficult to sleep. There’s also the tendency to get up a few times during the night to check if you have slept through the alarm, only to find that dawn is still a few hours away.A common dream for batsmen is that a wicket has fallen and you’re slated to go in next. But you haven’t put on the leg-guards and panic sets in. You try your best to get ready but something or the other always goes wrong. In reality, gearing up is a two-minute exercise that has been done a million times, but dreams seldom follow a logical pattern.The morning of the match
Every player has his own routine on the morning of a game. Some, like Dravid, wake up well in advance, read newspapers and have breakfast before boarding the bus. Others sleep till the last possible minute and rush to the bus, grabbing a muffin on the way. Then there are those who indulge in incessant chatter all the way to the ground – and often occupy the last rows of the bus. Still others, like Sachin, listen to music. These routines depend a lot on temperament: some can’t handle the anxiety and hence rush through everything, while others want everything in peace.After reaching the ground
Almost everyone rushes to the square immediately after getting to the field. Although nothing dramatic can happen, since you’ve seen the track the previous day, you need to be certain. It’s like going through your notes one last time before an exam. You want to be 100% certain that you didn’t misread the pitch.Then there’s the eternal wait for the toss. While one part of you wants it to be delayed for another couple of hours so you can hit a few more balls against throw-downs, the other part wants to be done with the suspense. Openers and fast bowlers watch the toss with great interest, and depending on the result of the toss, either prepare or relax.Instead of warming up with cricket, most teams prefer playing a different, non-contact sport, like volleyball, just before the game. It lightens the atmosphere and helps you ease into the match day. Contact sports like football and touch rugby are generally avoided because the chances of getting injured are higher.Gary Kirsten gives Sachin Tendulkar throw-downs after a net session•Getty ImagesBatting first
The environment in the dressing room becomes a lot quieter if your team is batting. Even though the bowlers slip into a relaxing mode, they avoid making unnecessary noise. Both the openers and the batsman at No. 3 are left alone. Everyone wishes the openers luck as they go through their last little routines before stepping onto the field. But there are some batsmen who don’t like to be wished before walking out to bat. One such was Sunil Gavaskar.Some batsmen will watch every single ball being bowled, as they wait their turn, either on TV or from the balcony, and then there are others who’d read newspapers and magazines (Mohammad Azharuddin) or sleep (Sir Vivian Richards) while waiting for their turn to bat. VVS Laxman likes to listen to music, while Yuvraj Singh prefers chatting.I can’t stop myself from watching. Thank god I’m an opener.Bowling first
While batsmen relax, the bowlers are required to be on the field 10 minutes before the start of the game to warm up. But bowlers have the luxury of easing into the match, as they’re not absolutely required to be at their very best right from the beginning. One mistake doesn’t mean the end of the innings for them; an advantage that gets evened out with the heavy workload they have to bear. Their planning and plotting happens more on the field and during the match.The opening batsmen start their preparation again when the opposition loses its eighth or ninth wicket. You see them standing in their stance and looking down the pitch every now and then. They also tend to go quieter in the field after the loss of the ninth wicket.My endeavour through this three-part mini-series on preparation was to tell my readers what goes into the making of a good ball, a marvellous catch, an unsparing shot, a great cricketer. I hope that from now on every time you see a batsman fail or a bowler bowl a half volley, you remember that lack of performance is not necessarily because of lack of preparation. It’s just that, in the game of cricket, like in any other walk of life, it’s only human to err.

On a pre-season tour of Malaysia, Western Australia coach Tom Moody talks
about winning and losing World Cups, Brett Lee’s musical skills, and the possibility of one day taking charge of India

Interview by Jason Dasey14-Sep-2009What brings you and the West Australian team to Malaysia?
Over the past couple of years, we’ve slowly built a strong relationship with
the Malaysian Cricket Association in sharing our expertise in cricket
education. They’ve been keen for us to come up here and use their
facilities. This year, the Champions League prevented our usual pre-season
trip to India, so as an alternative option, we’ve used the terrific facilities in Malaysia.As well as India and Australia, you’ve also coached successfully in England
and Sri Lanka. How do you compare coaching to playing?
I never thought I’d get into coaching. A year out of retirement, I got a
couple of phone calls within the same week to get back, involved with
cricket through coaching. I haven’t really looked back since then. There’s
nothing like playing and the personal satisfaction of scoring runs or taking
wickets, but the positive thing about coaching is that you’ve got 11 chances
to do well. You’ve got 11 players out there and someone may pull out
something special on that day, which is quite rewarding as a coach,
particularly if it’s something you’ve been working on with a player.How’s it been working with all the different nationalities and personalities
in the Kings XI Punjab?
It’s fantastic. It’s a great environment in which to work and a learning
experience for me. You’ve got two extremes: you’ve got a lot of inexperience
in local, domestic Indian players, plus you’ve got a lot of great experience
with your international players, and we’re fortunate at Kings XI Punjab to
have the likes of Yuvraj Singh, Irfan Pathan and Sreesanth.What can you share from inside the Kings XI Punjab dressing room, with all
those larger-than-life characters coming together in the one team?
When I first turned up, I had concerns about how I was going to gel these
players together. They’d only, at best, played against each other on the
international stage. It’s amazing though. When you marry the passion of the game and people who love it into one team it’s amazing how quick a bond is formed. There’s a lot of good friendships that have developed over the first two seasons at Kings XI. Brett Lee has been terrific for our franchise. Not only does he give 150% on the field, but off the field he’s like the glue of the team. He’s very good at getting all the different
cultures together. He does that through entertainment – he plays the guitar, he sings. When we have dinners together or have a few drinks, within five or 10 minutes the guitar comes out and it just brings everyone together. We’ve got a pretty special bond there.How do you look back at being coach of Sri Lanka when they faced Australia
in the 2007 World Cup final?
It was a great honour. I was lucky enough to play in a few World Cups, and to be there as a coach was special. It would have been nice to have had a different result, but Australia, and in particular Adam Gilchrist, had different ideas on that day. But it was a great achievement by the Sri Lankan team to reach that final: there was a lot of hard work and a lot of planning over two years to get us there.

“Brett Lee has been terrific for our franchise. Not only does he give 150% on the field, but off the field he’s like the glue of the team. He’s very good at getting all the different cultures together”

What were the highlights of your many successful years at Worcestershire, as
player, coach and director of cricket?
Probably a few of the Lords’ finals we played in, having a couple of victories along the way. To play alongside Ian Botham was very special because he was one of the game’s greatest players. To stand at the other end from Graeme Hick, who was a phenomenal run-scorer over a number of years was a great pleasure. Also, I was fortunate enough to be given the honour of captaining the county for a few years, which was also a
great experience.You’ve been retired as a player for almost a decade now. How do you reflect
now on your on-field career?
I was proud that I represented my country and honoured that I was able to meet so many good people in the game. I’ve formed many great friendships over the years as a player. The runs and the wickets are all great, but the greatest highlights are the victories. I was very fortunate, both internationally and domestically, to play in many successful sides: World Cup wins in 1987 and 1999, many Sheffield Shield wins for Western Australia, and one-day wins for both Worcestershire and Western Australia. Many sportsmen
go through their careers without winning anything. I’d hate to image how hollow that feeling would be. Where do you rate the World Cup wins in your career achievements?
They’re pretty special. But I’m never one who gloats over personal achievements. It’s more collective things that I tend to rate higher. Of course it’s nice to have played alongside Steve Waugh in some World Cup wins but it’s the team that’s always stood out to me as being the most important thing.You played only eight Tests for Australia before you effectively became a
one-day specialist. What do you consider to be the highlight of your Test career?
I think probably scoring a couple of Test hundreds. I played only five Test
matches in Australia, and to score two hundreds was something I feel proud
of. Just to have the opportunity to play and have a baggy green is great.
You grow up as a kid with that dream and for that dream to come true is
pretty special. I would have loved to have played another 50-plus Test
matches but it wasn’t to be. I was brought up in an exceptional era of
Australian cricket, where there wasn’t a lot of room to move in the top six, and
my opportunities really only came because of someone’s misfortune, whether it
be injury or a rare dip in form.You spent more than four years out of the Australian one-day side before
breaking back in at the age of 31 in 1996. How much of a surprise was the
so-called Indian summer of your career?
It was an interesting four years being out of the side. I think I was
playing pretty good cricket during that period, but obviously the Australian
selectors thought their requirements were a little bit different than what I
could offer. When Steve Waugh and Geoff Marsh, the coach at the time, were plotting the 1999 World Cup, they thought that I could be an important piece to the puzzle in that campaign. They managed to convince everyone else and I found myself on the plane to England for that 1999 World Cup.”I never thought I’d get into coaching”•AFPHow much did you have to reinvent yourself as a player when you faced the
prospect of your international career being over?
I started my international career for Australia in 1987 as a batsman. I bowled a bit but was only thrown the ball when it was 79 overs old and someone had to bowl a beaten-up ball. In the 1999 World Cup I was really picked more for my bowling and then my batting. I batted 6 or 7 and was relied upon to bowl 10 overs. And I was offering the team a little bit more from a leadership perspective because I was a mature player at that stage, having captained both in England and Australia for a number of years.To me, it was the twilight of my career but I was still playing pretty good cricket at the time. I was fit but I realised that the fire was slowly starting to burn out, so it was a swansong, really: a chance to throw everything at it. We had to, at the end, because we didn’t hit our stride in the early games of that World Cup and had to win seven games in a row to be world champions, which we managed to do.In the end, your international career stretched more than a dozen years and
straddled many different interesting eras of Australian cricket. How do you
remember playing with the likes of David Boon and Geoff Marsh under Allan Border in 1987 – to sharing the dressing room with a young Adam Gilchrist and Andrew Symonds in 1999?
It’s one of the pleasures of having longevity that you get the chance to play with a variety of players. When you first start, you’re very young and there’s plenty who are very senior to you. But before you know it, it flips on its head and you’re the very senior one with the grey hairs starting to poke through and having the young players looking up to you, looking for direction and leadership.Who were the greatest players you played with and against?
Wasim Akram was one of the best opponents that I came across. I played against him in international cricket a bit and in county cricket a lot when he was at Lancashire. Allan Donald was another who was a very challenging opponent. I got the back-end of a few of the West Indian players – Viv Richards, Malcolm Marshall – who were exceptional. Among guys that I played with: Steve Waugh was one of the toughest nuts you’d come across, just mentally fearsome and someone that you can’t help but admire and do anything for as a member of his team. And then you’ve got the special, gifted players like Adam Gilchrist, who’s arguably the best-ever keeper-batsman. He could turn a
game – even a five-day Test match – in a half hour. I was fortunate enough to be part of the beginning of Shane Warne’s career in Test cricket. He’s just a match-winner: the bigger the stage, the bigger the performance.

“The positive thing about coaching is that you’ve got 11 chances to do well. You’ve got 11 players out there and someone may pull out something special on that day, which is quite rewarding as a coach”

When Adam Gilchrist moved across to Western Australia in his early 20s,
what inkling did you have that he would become a special player?
He always captured me as someone who had the talent and free spirit as a
player. I remember in that first season he was doing things that you wouldn’t
expect a lot of young players to do. If the first ball was a half-volley, he’d
smack it for four, no hesitation. If it was the last ball of the day and it
was short and wide, he’d cut it for four. He just played with a rare freedom
and a rare spirit of confidence and self-belief, and he never looked back.In your latter years, when you started to have back problems, how much did
you rely on your mental skills than your physical ability?
Oh, 100%. That’s what gets you over the line in the second part of your career: your mental strength and the knowledge you’ve managed to pick up over the years. A lot of players have the skills but it’s the ones who’ve managed to develop the mental side of their game and apply themselves consistently who have longevity.You were in line for the India coaching job a couple of times. How disappointed were you that it never panned out?
It’s not out of the picture. I’m only 43 years old now. In a way it was sort of a blessing that I had the opportunity to coach Sri Lanka first because the Indian job is a very, very big job. Now that I’ve had more experience, including the two years in international coaching, if that opportunity came in time, whether it would be five or 10 years down the track, I’d be better prepared for it. There are plenty of interesting coaching jobs out there. I’m very fortunate to have two very exciting ones – domestically in Australia and in the IPL job – so there’s plenty that keeps me motivated and enjoying what I do.How much longer do you see yourself being involved in cricket for?
I don’t look too far ahead. I’m not one of these people who has a long-term
goal or vision. As long as I’m enjoying what I’m doing and that fire is
burning inside, I’ll be involved in cricket. I’m also someone who could see
myself moving back into business at some stage, but whether that’s in five,
10, 15 years, who knows? I’m very happy with where I’m at, enjoying what I’m
doing and very fortunate to have some exciting challenges in front of me.

Plays of the day from game one of the Asia Cup, between Sri Lanka and Pakistan in Dambulla

Siddarth Ravindran in Dambulla15-Jun-2010Afridi – down but not out
Shahid Afridi had just completed a jaw-dropping century, and was barely able to stand due to severe cramping. Still, when Muttiah Muralitharan tossed the ball up Afridi sashayed down the track and blasted it over long-off for six, falling to the ground in pain after completing the shot. For a severely divided dressing-room, there could be no better example of battling for the team’s cause.Sanga’s moment of magic
Afridi’s counterattack had leveled the game, and the outcome hinged on whether Sri Lanka could dismiss him. Murali had been collared by Afridi but produced a stinger to surprise the Pakistan captain. The ball spun big and climbed onto Afridi, who gloved it as he backed away to cut. The wicketkeeper Kumar Sangakkara was moving towards the leg side to collect the ball but reflexively lunged to the off side after the deflection from Afridi’s glove to snap the ball and turn the game on its head.An exception to the rule
Dropped catches have been a regular feature of Pakistan’s fielding, particularly over the past few months – notably the fiasco of the Sydney Test and Saeed Ajmal’s three blunders against England at the World Twenty20. Today, though, their fielders were spot-on, snaffling a string of sharp catches, the highlight of which was debutant Umar Amin’s diving effort to remove Tillakaratne Dilshan. But the habitually butter-fingered Salman Butt marred a spotless record in the penultimate over, grassing an absolute sitter from Lasith Malinga at mid-off.Malik oversteps the mark
The Butt reprieve was Malinga’s second stroke of luck in two overs. Five deliveries earlier he had clubbed a Mohammad Asif delivery to long-on, where Shoaib Malik scampered across to his right and pouched the ball on the run. The momentum was taking Malik across the boundary, so – as is becoming increasingly common – he flicked the ball into the field of play. It seemed a brilliant bit of fielding, but replays showed that Malik had stepped on the rope as he took the catch, giving Sri Lanka their only six of the innings.A warm welcome
Shahzaib Hasan had the most torrid of starts to his one-day career. He couldn’t pick Nuwan Kulasekara’s bowling first up, barely surviving as he pushed and prodded in a vain attempt to get bat on the moving ball. Next up he had a stern examination from Lasith Malinga, edging two successive deliveries just short of slips, and then nearly ran himself out trying to get off the strike after having plodded his way to 2 off 14 balls.Umar’s manic running
After Pakistan’s shaky start, they were beginning to stabilize through Umar Akmal and Shahid Afridi. After the pair had added 25, Umar pushed to the right of the bowler, Farveez Maharoff, and set off for a non-existent single. There was no response from Afridi and when Maharoof pounced on the ball and let it fly, and Umar survived since the throw was just wide. A few overs later, Dilshan didn’t miss as he swooped onto the ball from short cover and caught Umar short with a direct hit.

Each IPL game fetches upwards of £10 million in legal bets. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Will legalising betting in India end the fixing menace once and for all?

Ashok Malik15-Jul-2010What is the quantum of money bet on cricket in India? An exact number is impossible to arrive at but the few statistics that are authoritatively available are revealing. Betfair is the world’s leading sports betting company. It accepts bets online from registered punters who pay using a credit card. It is also an industry innovator in that odds at Betfair are not set by an individual bookmaker or a consortium but by the market: the odds change as the amount bet on or against a particular team or individual player grows.Betfair was born in the summer of 2000, coincidentally within a few weeks of the Hansie Cronje match-fixing scandal. The two occurrences were, of course, unrelated. Even so the volume of cash Betfair attracts during cricket matches is telling.According to insiders, a top golf tournament, say the US Masters, would attract bets worth £2 to 3 million on Betfair. For a smaller sport, with a very limited geography, cricket seems to do better. During the 2010 World Twenty20 in the West Indies, each match drew bets worth £3 to 4 million. In contrast, this year’s Indian Premier League, which preceded the World Twenty20 by a few days, saw betting amounting to over £12 million on Betfair. “Some of the matches,” says an unimpeachable source, “crossed £15 million in bets.”What do these figures indicate? Frankly, they tell us more about India than about the nature of sport. Cricket is big in India and so is betting. That’s why cricket matches are magnets for such huge betting opportunities. In contrast, golf is not a mass sport in India and there is no great interest in betting on it. Quite obviously, a large percentage of Betfair’s incremental clients – those who become active only during cricket matches and are dormant when it comes to, say, rugby or poker – are either Indian or have an India connection.Betting is illegal in India and Indian credit cards cannot easily be used on betting sites. To access Betfair, an Indian punter has to have either a bank account or a credit card overseas – perhaps borrowed from a friend or cousin. Alternatively, he has to have legal status (as a foreign-exchange earner or non-resident Indian) permitting him to park money abroad. It is not an easy process.It is much smoother, however, to get in touch with a bookie in your town. Indian bookies run trusted client networks. Most of them are honest, in that, even if they cheat the tax man, they don’t lie about the odds available and ensure payments are made on time. If a would-be punter is introduced to a bookie by another client, he can enter the circle, and must play by the rules.When a cricket match is on, all one needs to do is call the bookie. (The bookie changes his mobile number frequently but is certain to keep his clients updated.) On being called, the client is offered two figures and two options: “” and “”.

Indian bookies run trusted client networks. Most of them are honest, in that, even if they cheat the tax man, they don’t lie about the odds available and ensure payments are made on time. If a would-be punter is introduced to a bookie by another client, he can enter the circle, and must play by the rules

This exercise of choice is also a test of the bookie’s business ethics. Let’s suppose India are playing Australia in an ODI and you want to bet on Australia. The bookie offers you the “” (putting) odds. To show he’s not being unfair and giving you incorrect odds, he offers you an option: “” (eating), the odds on betting against Australia, and on India. “In this manner you can back a team or ‘eat’ a team,” says a veteran punter. “The bookie has come clean with you.”How large is this bookie-by-phone market? If an IPL match on Betfair gets about £12 to 15 million per match, it would be a safe expectation that the unofficial, cash-only betting economy is much larger. “I would estimate it is 20-25 times as large,” says a betting specialist, “maybe even 50 times.”Then and now
Online betting wasn’t always this sophisticated or massive, setting odds wasn’t as transparent, and the betting revenue was smaller. Even so, much of the narrative in the section above was true 10 years ago. The secretive network of Indian (or South Asian) bookies and their mobile phones, complete with their code language, still dominated cricket-related gambling and fixing.So what has changed in the past decade? First, the IPL as a phenomenon has gripped not just cricket fans and sponsors but the betting industry as well. That single tournament in the Indian summer attracts a disproportionate amount of betting money. Combined with the fact that the Twenty20 format is so susceptible to a match outcome being decided by just one bad over or one batsman failing at a crucial time, this makes the IPL a potential target for the fixing mafia.These concerns have been voiced elsewhere. The ICC’s Anti-Corruption Unit has spoken on the issue. When the two additional IPL teams were auctioned earlier this year, BCCI officials were worried that if a franchise was won by a small-time bidder that promised to pay an unrealistic licence fee and did not have the backing of an obviously rich business house or billionaire, then it would leave the individual franchise vulnerable to manipulation by the betting mafia. This fear was mentioned in the context of at least one bidder who seemed to have somewhat opaque business links.The methodology of fixing – or attempted fixing, since very few matches have been proven to have been fixed – has also evolved. A Test match lasts five days. To pre-determine its result, a large number of players, including at least one of the captains, may need to be compromised. Twenty20 cricket is a much shorter format. Here, fixing one or two players is all a corrupt bookie needs to do.How does this work? Let’s say a team is 45 for 2, chasing 150. An in-form batsman walks in and is expected to hit his team out of trouble. As he reaches the crease, the odds still favour his team but marginally. If he fails and gets out in single figures, then the odds could change substantially.
Now what if a corrupt bookie knows this cricketer is going to fail? What if he has bet a certain amount using the odds available as the batsman walked in and now waits for him to fail, and for the odds to fall?”It’s a bit like the stock market,” explains a punter. “You agree to sell a scrip at Rs 20 at 2pm. But you don’t actually have the stock. You know there’s a big announcement coming that will cause the stock to drop to Rs 18 at 4pm, and you plan to buy then. So you agree to sell at Rs 20 but wait to buy at Rs 18.”The introduction of market-determined odds and the ability of some websites to allow the punter to – within reasonable limits – set his odds or to “buy” or “sell” his wager on a team at differential odds (and so make a profit) have made such situations feasible.Such parameters create conditions for what is called “spot fixing”: asking a single player to do something – whether get out or bowl three successive loose balls that concede boundaries – that significantly alters the immediate odds but may not necessarily decide the final result. Has this happened in the IPL? Frankly, despite rumours, innuendo and apprehensions, there is no hard evidence. Nevertheless, this is a potential pitfall Twenty20 leagues have to look out for.Would legalising betting in India, like it is elsewhere, help in solving the fixing problem?•Getty ImagesLegalise it?
Will legalising betting in India end the fixing menace once and for all? Would bringing Betfair in as a sort of IPL partner – which Lalit Modi had reportedly considered in his time as IPL commissioner – be a good idea?The answer is a mixed one. In a country that bets on everything from cricket matches to the amount of rain that will fall in a day, legal betting would seem logical. It would earn the government revenue in the form of service tax and income tax. Those who run large-scale betting companies are unlikely to want to corrupt sport and bribe players. A Betfair or a Ladbrokes is a genuine corporate operation, not a cartel of the corrupt.Yet what happens when a betting company becomes the setting – rather than the protagonist – of a sports corruption scandal? A prostitution racket may be run out of a hotel with the hotel’s management being completely innocent of what its guests are doing. Legalising betting, especially online betting, cannot eliminate the potential for fixing.In the end, it boils down to that one cricketer who is induced by a smarmy man in a shiny suit to throw his wicket away or bowl that one very expensive over, with two no-balls and a wide for good measure. At the root of that is temptation and greed. It is a basic instinct; and you can’t use the law to defeat it.

For the first time, India were not beaten in a Test series in South Africa, but they also squandered their best opportunity to win

Sidharth Monga08-Jan-2011Virender Sehwag
Will be disappointed mostly because he survived 10 overs on four occasions without converting any of those starts into a match-turning hundred. Also because he got himself out four out of the six times he was dismissed. Still far from being a mere subcontinent batsman though.Gautam Gambhir
Many doubted his ability, for they hadn’t seen him bat in South Africa, against the best new-ball bowlers in the world. Didn’t run away from the challenge, fought it out in typical Gambhir fashion, scored three fifties in four innings, one of them to eat up four-and-a-half hours when South Africa were pushing for a win on the last day.M Vijay
It would have been too much to ask of a replacement opener to come in and make an impact in the testing conditions of Durban. Still made South Africa work for his wicket.Rahul Dravid
Didn’t score a half-century. Brought up his 200th catch with a beauty. Each time he batted well – and he did, despite what scores say – a peach dismissed him. There were three poor dismissals too, when he chased wide deliveries or ran himself to doom.Sachin Tendulkar
Looked good for the next tour too. Started fourth straight year with a century, and how well he played for it, surviving the most dangerous spell of the series. There was a century in Centurion too, his 50th. Everybody thinks this is his last tour here, everybody is wondering why.VVS Laxman
Magical, frustrating, frustrated. Charmed everybody with arguably the innings of the series, 96 with tail in Durban. While he fulfilled the team cause, he still left without a century in South Africa. Played poor shots in similar circumstances in Centurion.Suresh Raina
Was out of his depth. Left the bat hanging outside off, and duly edged twice without bothering South Africa much. Duly played only one Test.Cheteshwar Pujara
Fought harder than the rewards showed. Had his second-innings fight, 76 minutes in fading light, approved by Laxman. Got an unplayable one from Dale Steyn in Cape Town. Will have loved a fifty from three attempts, but India will settle for the promise he showed. His close catching was special too.MS Dhoni
He was stable. Counterattacked in the second innings in Centurion, regaining the spark with the bat. Was good with the gloves, calm as a leader, but not great with field placements. Criticising Sreesanth in the press seemed unlike Dhoni.Harbhajan Singh
He loved the bounce. Followed up a good New Zealand tour with another to a country where seam bowlers usually enjoy more. Was India’s leading wicket-taker. Fought hard with the bat in hand.Zaheer Khan
Provided the spark and was the turning point for India. Defending a small total, he took out South Africa’s openers early in Durban, giving his team much-needed confidence. His predator-prey relationship with Smith helped.Sreesanth
Went from mercurial to messy. Had trouble with over-rates and crowds, but bowled the three best deliveries by any Indian on the trip. At crucial junctures. AB de Villiers, Jacques Kallis and Ashwell Prince will testify.Ishant Sharma
Never got going. Struggled with no-balls, lack of pace and movement. The odd good spell didn’t translate into a turn of fortunes.Jaidev Unadkat
Was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Should have been playing Ranji Trophy, where he has played only four times, as opposed to replacing Zaheer in the first match of a big series.

From the airy lounges of Brabourne’s pavilion to the charmless, modern edifice that is the Wankhede Stadium

Mike Selvey19-Jan-2011Ever since I was a kid, I had wanted to go to “Bombay”, as we knew it then. Both my parents had spent memorable years in India during the Second World War, and spoke fondly of the city. To a young lad brought up in all the austerity of England in the 1950s, the very name conjured images of what to us was the mysterious East. On the radio I had heard Frank Sinatra singing Sammy Cahn’s lyrics to “Come Fly With Me”: “If you could use / some exotic booze / there’s a bar in far Bombay.” And there on the menu of The Bombay, our local curry house (not so much a restaurant as a purveyor of unidentifiable lumps swimming in searing, primordial gloop), was Bombay Duck, which no one dared order for ignorance of what it actually was.Then, 45 years ago, I went, a wide-eyed teenager in a schools cricket team, for the first time to the teeming city that I was to visit on numerous occasions since, next as an England cricketer and then as a journalist. First impressions count. This one remains vivid. We arrived by Air India 707, in the middle of the night, jaded by the journey that had taken us via the painful winter cold of Moscow airport, where, while the plane refuelled, we were forced to decamp into a deserted terminal. From that chill we went straight to the humid warmth of Bombay, transported from the airport into the heart of the city by a bone-shaking bus.Past the shanties and their unnerving smells we rattled – poverty unimaginable to us, first seen and never to be forgotten – and as we did so, cars pulled alongside recklessly, horns blaring, men and children hanging from the windows, waving and shouting and laughing and smiling. Us schoolboys and we were being greeted thus. The journey seemed brief; certainly not the gridlocked nightmare that the city endures nowadays. Half an hour? Or is that time lending enchantment to the past? But there, glittering, was the palm-fringed curve of Marine Drive, the Queen’s Necklace, and suddenly this really was the exotic place of childhood dreams.We stayed at the Brabourne Stadium, just off Marine Drive. Imagine. One of the most famous cricket grounds not just in India but the world, and we could roll out of bed, walk down some stairs and there we were on the turf. MCC touring parties would stay there. And wasn’t it Brabourne of which Frank Worrell spoke when he said it was the only ground where he could remove his dressing gown and go straight out to bat?Brabourne was opened in 1937, and was the home of the Cricket Club of India, which was India’s equivalent of the MCC, and yet also the headquarters of the Board of Control for Cricket in India. Stadium it may be, as opposed to cricket ground, but it possessed charm: a rectangular rather than circular configuration; the pavilion at one end, art-decoish, with its open, airy lounges and ceiling fans that rotated so gently they barely disturbed the air; wicker chairs and tables laid out right up to the boundary’s edge with the field a small step down from the pavilion; and discreet, turbaned staff serving members their pegs as they smoked and perused the .These were fortunate times for us young lads. We were a London Schools side that had come to India for six weeks to play a series of “Tests” against All India Schools. We travelled the country, generally by train, through Poona, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Delhi, Calcutta, right up to Nowgong in Assam, down to Bangalore, Trivandrum, and finally Madras (these all names as I remember them from that time).In Bombay we were feted. We made the papers regularly: “London Schools pacemen impress”. What was that about first impressions? I can recall as clearly as yesterday the first delivery I bowled in India, in Ahmedabad, to a minute young batsman wearing a sunhat bigger than him. Short of a length, it was pulled like a rifle shot and finished up bouncing down from the at square leg before being thrown back. Not the greatest welcome to the country. But then Sunil Gavaskar was to become some player. So was Eknath Solkar, and the Amarnath brothers, Mohinder and Surinder, and Ashok Gandotra, and Anshuman Gaekwad. Match after match we received cricketing lessons from these brilliant young cricketers.Brabourne’s association with international cricket was not to last, however. A few years later the CCI had fallen out with the Bombay Cricket Association over ticket allocation during MCC’s 1973 tour. So, with no resolution forthcoming, BCA simply took their bats and balls elsewhere, built the charmless, concrete edifice that is the Wankhede Stadium, half a mile up the road, opened it in 1975, and confined Brabourne to a minor role, hosting domestic matches and the odd limited-overs international, until India played Sri Lanka in a Test there in December 2009. It remains, however, the calm antidote to modern cricketing mammon.A double decker bus passes Victoria Terminus, now Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, circa 1965•Getty ImagesEleven years on from that first trip, I returned with England. We didn’t stay at Brabourne anymore, for there was five-star opulence to be had in Bombay. Instead, I woke up early on the first morning to gaze out of a window of the old part of the magnificent, tragic Taj Mahal hotel at the cargo ships at anchor on the hazy harbour, and the vendors, snake charmers and street musicians already setting up around the Gateway of India. The incongruous ceremonial arch, with its blend of Hindu and Muslim architecture, was built to commemorate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary to the city, en route to Delhi for the Durbar of 1911, and it was through the Gateway that, in 1948, the last British troops passed to leave India.Three months after we had landed in Bombay, after a successful tour and with the series won, we returned for the final Test. I was not due to play. My wife had arrived, and I was told that once the match started I could absent myself and see the sights. It didn’t work out like that. With the toss imminent, Chris Old pulled up lame, and I was called into the side at the very last moment to play in front of 45,000 at Wankhede in what proved to be my third and final Test.Scarcely any meaningful bowling in the preceding weeks, on the slow dust bowls that characterised those games between Tests, no preparation, and straight on to the field for a Test match; it never looked promising. The ball did not swing as we had hoped, and I paid a heavy price for bowling too straight to that same Gavaskar, and to Brijesh Patel. Between the pair of them, they shredded me. The chance never came again.

Plays of the day from England’s thriller against West Indies in Chennai

Siddarth Ravindran at the Chidambaram Stadium17-Mar-2011The celebration – 1
England’s openers were getting into top gear, with Andrew Strauss launching the first six of the day in the ninth over. Andre Russell though provided more ammunition to those critical of the decision to open with Matt Prior, by dislodging him for 21 with a length ball that took the inside-edge and cannoned into middle stump. Russell sprinted in jubilation before leaping and clicking his heels, savouring the wicket which came immediately after a loose first over.The uncharacteristic start – Part 1
There have been plenty of questions about the pace of Jonathan Trott’s one-day batting, with not everyone convinced that a mid-50s average makes up for a mid-70s strike-rate. There could be no questions about the pace of his batting today, however, as he began with a flurry of effortless boundaries. Six of his first nine deliveries reached the ropes, not one of them muscled or hit in the air, as he sped to 26 off 9 – an unimpeachable strike-rate of 289.The uncharacteristic start – Part 2
Ravi Bopara is rarely more than a sixth-choice bowler. Kieron Pollard is one of the most brutal hitters in the world. Bring them face-to-face, that too in a Powerplay, and you’d expect the ball to be sailing into the crowd frequently. Instead, Pollard watchfully played out eight consecutive deliveries off the part-timer. A maiden to Pollard in the Powerplay? Put that down in your CV, Bopara.The drop
Perhaps in return for the respect shown by Pollard to his bowling, Bopara gave the batsman a reprieve in the 25th over. There had been more ups and downs than in a dirt-biking circuit, but the game remained even at that stage with Pollard threatening to be the difference. Two balls after a murderous hit over the official scorers’ box, Pollard miscued one towards point; Bopara sprinted from covers and positioned himself under the ball, with his back to the pitch, but couldn’t latch on, to the joy of Bangladesh fans everywhere.The where-does-one-bowl over
Chris Tremlett was one of three England players making their World Cup debut, and his first over couldn’t have been worse. The two deliveries that weren’t scored off were a leg-stump ball that Chris Gayle couldn’t get past short fine leg and a full toss that wasn’t swatted away. In between, Gayle hammered four balls that were short of length for 4, 6, 4 and 4.The pose
Russell had enjoyed himself in the morning with four wickets – three of which send stumps cartwheeling – and he continued to have fun with the bat. He announced his batting skills with a baseballer’s blast over long-on which made the crowd sit up, but the shot he enjoyed the most was a lofted drive in the next over which flew wide of mid-off and went for four – he admired the stroke and held the follow-through for ages to make sure the cameras got a good shot.The catch?
Russell and Ramnaresh Sarwan were wrenching the game West Indies’ way with a big stand, when Russell swiped a delivery from Swann towards long-on in the 38th over. Trott back-pedalled towards the rope, and took a catch tumbling backwards, seemingly inches within the rope. He signalled that he hadn’t touched the boundary, but the TV umpire was called for. An agonising number of replays couldn’t determine whether his floppy hat had brushed the rope, and Russell survived. And to make it worse for England, West Indies got six vital runs as well.The celebration – 2
Trott had a fielding moment to remember soon after though, when Sulieman Benn got the ball towards him at fine leg. He collected and fired in the throw to the keeper, who took off the bails before Benn could make it back for an ill-advised second run. The last wicket was gone, and an ecstatic England team converged towards him to form a delirious huddle. England’s thrill-ride in the World Cup continues.