Forty summers ago a Cape Coloured South African playing for England unwittingly threw MCC into crisis over a tour to the apartheid republic

Rob Steen12-Sep-2008″I come down on the side of honesty, a good honest piece of bungling by good honest men.”Thus did Ted Dexter, sometime England captain and one-time prospective Tory MP,characterise the most important selection meeting in sporting history. More recently,in the Sunday Telegraph, the political columnist Kevin Myers delivered much the sameverdict, except that he described the original omission of Basil D’Oliveira from the MCCparty to tour South Africa in the winter of 1968-69 as “cretinous”. In 2003 Observer SportMonthly named it among its “Ten Worst Sporting Decisions”. But were they all too generous?D’Oliveira, the Cape Coloured South African allrounder playing for Worcestershire, was summoned as a replacement for Tom Cartwright three weeks later, whereupon John Vorster, South Africa’s Prime Minister, denounced the party as “the team of the Anti-Apartheid Movement” and MCC cancelled the tour, fuelling the sports boycott that ultimately did much to bring down a despicable regime. Not for nothing would Nelson Mandela convey his heartfelt thanks to ‘Dolly’.It is amazing no film producer has brought this classic political espionage thriller to the screen. It had everything: a battle to beat seemingly insurmountable odds, race, class, Empire and Third World, spies and bribes. The problem is that the jigsaw lies incomplete. For all the decades of denial, the question still demands answering: was D’Oliveira’s initial non-selection politically motivated? Indeed, could the same be said of his demotion to 12th man for the Lord’s Test against Australia two months earlier?Fundamentally the issue was all about power and white supremacy. Cricket was still a game dominated by the white elite. England, Australia and South Africa, the founders of the original Imperial Cricket Conference in 1909, had enjoyed double voting rights until 1958 and the first two would retain their hegemony until India’s improbable 1983 World Cup triumph paved the way for the game’s biggest constituency to assert itself. When the newly formed republic left the Commonwealth in 1961, it continued, with the support of England and the Australasians, towave away any protests by India, Pakistan and West Indies, none ofwhom had ever played South Africa.The growth of the anti-apartheid movement was in keepingwith the climate of the times: free expression, the rejection ofdeference and privilege, dissent going on anarchy. In Octoberthe American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos would hoisttheir Black Power salutes on the Olympic podium in Mexico City.That fateful meeting at Lord’s was on the evening andthrough the night of August 27. There were at least 10 men in thecommittee room: the four Test selectors – Doug Insole (chairmansince 1965), Alec Bedser, Don Kenyon and Peter May – the tourmanager Les Ames, the captain Colin Cowdrey, Billy Griffith andDonald Carr, respectively MCC secretary and assistant secretary,the club president Arthur Gilligan, and the treasurer and allroundomnipotent Gubby Allen, who objected to D’Oliveira on purely cricketing grounds. Only Kenyon,the former Worcestershire captain, could be considered not a member of the establishment. Only three -Bedser, Carr and Insole – are alive now, all over 80.Some, if not all, were privy to the fact that five months earlier Vorster had informed Lord Cobham,England’s senior Viscount, that there would be no tour should D’Oliveira be chosen (their meeting did notbecome public knowledge until the following year). Cobham, who had been Governor of New Zealand,captain of Worcestershire and, like his father and grandfather, MCC president, had been targetedby Arthur Coy, the South African Cricket Association official assigned to persuade MCC not to pickD’Oliveira and hence ensure the tour went ahead.Cobham had considerable business interests in South Africa. In Coy’s words he would “do almostanything to see that the tour is on”. After meeting Vorster he relayed the information by indirect means,keeping it on a need-to-know basis. Had he simply written to Griffith, the secretary would have beenobliged to pass the news on to the club, whose official position, encouraged by Harold Wilson’s Labourgovernment, was that no interference in selection would be tolerated. The tour would almost certainlyhave been called off then and there.”Far more is known about the cabinet meetings of Harold Wilson, or the activities of the secret servicein Moscow, or the details of the Poseidon nuclear missile programme, than what the England selectorssaid and did that night,” reckoned D’Oliveira’s biographer, the political columnist Peter Oborne, who alsocontends that there was “at least one spy” in the room, “feeding information straight back to the SouthAfrican Cricket Association, whence it was instantly passed on to Vorster”. A private letter sent by Coy toVorster a week after the party was chosen promised the “inside story” of the MCC meetings and statedthat D’Oliveira was still a candidate. But the minutes are reported, curiously, to have disappeared.Reviewing Oborne’s book for The Observer in 2004, the Labourminister Peter Hain noted that the “disappearance” of theminutes from that selection meeting would be “both afrustration and a catalyst to the conspiracy theorists. I’m rarelyinclined to join that number but Oborne is persuasive. He contendsthat Vorster used ‘secret pressure, bribery and blackmail’ to preventD’Oliveira being chosen. Which surprises no one. But he adds thatthe MCC, advised by the former Conservative prime minister, SirAlec Douglas-Home, ‘helped to make Vorster’s life as easy as it could’.”Hain, of course, arriving in the UK as a teenager in 1966 as hisliberal parents fled South Africa, formed the “Stop The 70 Tour”campaign that kept Ali Bacher’s tourists from these shores. “Mostanti-apartheid activists didn’t care about sport,” Hain told TWC. “ByAugust 1968 I was 18 and a rank-and-file activist. I’d already seenD’Oliveira bat for England at Lord’s and The Oval: his story touchedme very closely. So when he was excluded I was outraged. All I wasaware of was John Arlott writing an article in The Guardian for whichthe headline read something like ‘Nobody will believe D’Oliveirawas omitted for cricketing reasons’. Everyone knew there was more toit.” When Arlott told the BBC that he would not commentate on thescheduled 1970 tour the most unpleasant letter of condemnation hereceived came from Peter May.Peter Hain, the active anti-apartheid campaigner•Hulton ArchiveIt is via Arlott that D’Oliveira, denied opportunity in hishomeland because of the colour of his skin, entered in the first place.In 1959 a series of pleading letters to him began a chain of eventsthat resulted in a contract with the Central Lancashire League clubMiddleton for 1960, the year of the Sharpeville massacre. Friendsclubbed together to pay the airfares for Basil, his wife Naomi andtheir newborn son Damian. When he was signed by Worcestershirein 1964, he gave the club a false birth date, late by three years, tohelp persuade them he was worth a gamble. He found a fast friend inTom Graveney. Two years later he played for England. In another two,the storm was falling about his ears through no fault of his excepthis talent.The political dilemma/scandal was blowing in the wind at Lord’s inJune. Nine days before the second Test there he had made an unbeaten87 as England crumbled to Australia at Old Trafford. No other homebatsman reached 50. The previous year he had made his maiden Testton against India, represented the Rest of the World XI in Barbadosduring celebrations for the island’s independence and been namedone of Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the Year. In fact, he had missed onlyone Test since his debut two years previously. Five changes might havebeen a justified reaction to the Manchester debacle. That D’Oliveira was one of them, relegated to 12th man, made no sense except as apolitical expedient, cushioning later shock.Insole, challenged last year on this, denied it robustly, adding:”There was never at any stage any objective in the selectors’minds other than that of picking the best team to beat Australia.”D’Oliveira, though, had suspected the chop. At the eve-of-Test dinner,he subsequently revealed, “a top cricket official told me the only waythe tour could be saved would be if I announced I was unavailablefor England but would like to play for South Africa. I was staggeredand angrily said, ‘Either you respect me as an England player oryou don’t.’ The next day an eminent cricket writer put the sameproposition to me.” D’Oliveira was too discreet to name names, evenin an autobiography published in 1980, but the official was Griffith,the cricket writer EW Swanton, long-time ally of Cowdrey.On cricketing grounds only hindsight justifies D’Oliveira’sdropping on the morning of the match: his replacement, BarryKnight, took 3 for 16 as Australia were bundled out for 78, their worstAshes total for 30 years; and but for rain, the rubber would, in alllikelihood, have been squared. Wary that England had been fatallycautious in Manchester, Cowdrey had wanted a seamer like Knightfor Lord’s, not a swinger like D’Oliveira. In Manchester, Cowdreywould write, the latter – deployed, unusually, as first change – had”bowled tidily but without the thrust to keep the pressure on”.The backlash was strong. The “cynics”, noted Cowdrey, “refused tobelieve that D’Oliveira’s exit was not some sort of fascist plot”. Perhapsthey felt that to have him playing in front of Coy and Co, who wereat Lord’s, would have sent a provocative message when conciliationwas so plainly the aim of the game? Or was it simply punishment forD’Oliveira’s spurning the advances of Griffith and Swanton?Cowdrey, for all his antipathy towards apartheid, had had little hesitation in accepting the captaincy for South Africa, albeitonly after requesting assurances that there would be no politicalinterference in selection. Yet he would later write: “Whatever wemight think about apartheid, at least it seems to work in theircountry; it is none of our business.” His role and influence shouldnot be underestimated. When Vorster decreed that his tour party, bythen including D’Oliveira, was not welcome, he wanted to hop on aplane to the republic and talk the PM round. “I had been at the heartof things throughout,” he wrote, “and could answer every question.”Two years later, when the projected visit by South Africa met thesame fate, he told the Daily Mail: “I cannot reconcile an isolationpolicy and boycott with the Christian ethic.”Getty ImagesIn his autobiography Cowdrey related a chat with his friendDouglas-Home, lately MCC president, on the final day of the OldTrafford Test, when he took the opportunity to introduce the formerPM to D’Oliveira. Sir Alec had just returned from meeting Vorsterin South Africa. According to Cowdrey, Douglas-Home “believed themoral issue was not Britain’s to enter into. He was certain that to breakoff cricket relations with South Africa would have no effect on herattitude to apartheid, however long we refused to play against them.”In the Caribbean earlier in 1968, D’Oliveira had struggled with onlyone half-century in the five-Test rubber and lacked penetration orcontrol with the ball. He had also displeased many in authority,Cowdrey among them, with his fondness for alcoholic consolation. Butif the selectors fancied they had an excuse for not picking him in theparty for South Africa, it went in the final Ashes Test.In July letters had been sent to 30 tour candidates, asking whetherthey would be available: he did not get one. Back on the countycircuit he had struggled for runs. Aware that he had damaged his cause, he felt guilty as well as miserable. It was his bowling thatjerked attention back to his cricket when, during the fourth Test, hehad match figures of 11 for 68 against Hampshire. Put on stand-byfor The Oval, he duly reported for duty on the eve of the match afterCartwright and then Knight phoned in sick. When Roger Prideauxpulled out with pleurisy, fate’s fiendish plot was complete.D’Oliveira survived a number of early chances, including a glaringmuff by the keeper Barry Jarman on 31 – the most important missin cricket history, as Swanton dubbed it – then went on to make acentury. May said in his autobiography that good fortune should notmask the reality and D’Oliveira must not tour. But Cowdrey confidedhis fears: “They can’t leave Basil out of the team, not now” – even ifthat contradicts his subsequent assertion at the selection meetingthat he did not warrant a place.Enter Geoffrey Howard. As Stephen Chalke relates in his 2001biography of Howard, At the Heart of English Cricket, the Surreysecretary’s office phone rang shortly after D’Oliveira was out.”The caller was on the line from Prime Minister Vorster’s officein Pretoria. A fellow called Teeni Oosthuizen. He was a director ofRothmans, based in South Africa, and had been trying to contactGriffith, the MCC secretary. ‘I can’t get hold of him, so will you takea message to the selectors. Tell them that, if today’s centurion ispicked, the tour will be off.'”Innings of his life: D’Oliveira during his 158 at The Oval in 1968•Getty ImagesOosthuizen had delivered another message from Pretoria earlierthat summer, directly to D’Oliveira, a key chapter that would notbe revealed until September. Oosthuizen had offered D’Oliveira ahandsomely paid coaching job back in the republic if he declaredhimself unavailable and he went on courting him until late Augustbut D’Oliveira had declined. As he told the Sunday Mirror nearly 30years later, he wanted “to prove that I could bat and that people fromthe black and coloured community, whatever you like to call it, knowhow to conduct themselves”.Asked in 2001 to respond to Howard’s recollections, Insole replied:”No way I’m saying Geoffrey didn’t tell me of Pretoria’s telephonewarning. What I do remember is opening a very long meeting bysaying, ‘Gentlemen, forget South Africa. Let’s just choose the bestMCC cricket team to go overseas, Australia, anywhere … ‘”The tour selection meeting took place on the final evening of theTest. Three evenings earlier Cowdrey had found D’Oliveira alone inthe dressing room and taken the opportunity for a quiet word. “Canwe get away with it without getting too involved in politics?” he hadwondered. D’Oliveira, he decided, “had clearly thought it all out …even down to the kind of social functions he would attend”. Thereply was riddled with guilt: “Look, I know I have put you all on the spot … but the whole situation isbeyond me. I’m in the hands ofpeople I trust.” But was he?When the tour partyannouncement reached theWorcester dressing room thenext day, Graveney was disgusted.Seeing the shock and dismay onhis team-mate’s face, he usheredhim into the physio’s room,where D’Oliveira wept. “I was likea zombie,” D’Oliveira wrote inhis autobiography. “The stomachhad been kicked out of me. Iremember thinking, ‘You just can’t beat the white South Africans.'”Kindly as ever, he has never believed that Cowdrey did not backhis selection.”I would say the original decision was made on the basis ofcricketing ability but it all looked so awful,” conceded Carr recently toTWC. “I think I believed, or was talked into believing, that it was all oncricketing grounds. There had been so much chatter about it. I thinkthere were people high up in the cricketing hierarchy in England whowere talking a lot about it and knew what the possibilities could be.”There was another twist to the tale, though. On September 16Cartwright was advised by Bill Tucker, the orthopaedic surgeonin London who had worked on Denis Compton’s knee, that hecould risk his shoulder but any aggravation could mean never bowlingagain. Back at Lord’s, in conflab with Griffith, Carr and Insole, he wastorn every which way. He went with his heart. According to StephenChalke’s biography of him, The Flame Still Burns, he had seen “a littlenews item” in the Daily Express, which reported that, when the squadwas announced, members of South Africa’s ruling National Partystood and cheered in parliament. “When I read that, I went cold,” hesaid. “And I started to wonder whether I wanted to be part of it.”Cartwright “knew immediately I’d done the right thing, eventhough it created a lot of upset”. Not that it stopped Cowdrey havingone last go. The tour skipper’s 4.05pm phone call from Lord’s greetedCartwright as he came through his front door, though the captain’sautobiography forgets to mention it.”Colin said, ‘Will you agree at least to start the tour? When youget out there, if things go wrong, there are people out there who arecoaching, like Don Wilson, who we could bring in.’ Basil certainlywasn’t mentioned. Nobody had suggested to me that, if I droppedout, Basil would be the one who took my place.” The answer was stillno. Ten minutes later, avowed Cowdrey, a decision was made on hisreplacement: Cartwright out, D’Oliveira in.The intention, said Cowdrey, had been to let the SACA have a listof the official reserves, D’Oliveira among them, “but now it was toolate”. Curiouser and curiouser: 19 days had passed since the originalparty announcement. Did the absence of the list stem from fear ofthe response? Had it, indeed, allowed Vorster to hide his hand?By any standards the switch from Cartwright to D’Oliveira was aleap and a half. Substituting a batsman who bowled a bit for a bowlerwho batted a bit (Cartwright’s days as a potent allrounder had longpassed) made little sense – unless one interprets the decision as anattempt to curry public favour and/or correct the error of August28. Back then D’Oliveira’s exclusion had been explained away on theground that he offered little as a bowler.”I think some people [at theoriginal selection meeting] puta lot of onus on Dolly’s poorishtour of the Caribbean, maybeunfairly,” Carr recalled to TWC.”Cartwright was a perfectly goodchoice as a bowler-cum-batsman.Then he pulled out and we hadthe toing and froing with SouthAfrica in the meantime, and wedecided that Dolly was the bestbet, but it all looked so fearful.Dolly wasn’t anything like asgood a bowler as the chap he wasreplacing but a miles better batsman. Once it had been decided topick him I think people accepted the position, though some fearedwhat the result might be. I felt it had not been very well handled.”If Cartwright was an active participant in the affair, Barry Knightwas innocently passive. He told TWC recently he was not surprisedto be called up for the Lord’s Test. “They picked me quite oftenthere. I did well there. I knew the slope, bowled on it for years – for theRAF, Combined Services, Essex, Leicestershire.” He had been surprised,though, at D’Oliveira’s demotion at Lord’s, “especially after that knockat Old Trafford. He was a terrific batter who bowled a bit. He kept ittight with those gentle outswingers but you never worried about himas a bowler. I never thought he was all that dangerous, and certainlynot a first-change” – which is how Cowdrey used him at Old Trafford,almost as if trying to set him up to fail. Knight’s unavailability for thefifth Test was pure mischance. He had rolled an ankle at Leyton.Was the circuit abuzz with D’Oliveira talk all summer? “Not in theearly part but as soon as he got that 158 at The Oval it was,” Knightrecalls. “God, we thought, that might cause problems. How could theyleave him out after that?” Had he been fit, he was confident he wouldhave been picked for South Africa himself. “I think they assumed Iwasn’t. I certainly don’t remember any phone calls inquiring about myhealth.” Yet, like D’Oliveira, he was not among the 30 recipients of thatMCC availability letter in July. “They probably never bothered to sendthem to the likes of me and Dolly because we were pros. They knewwe’d go anywhere. Pros like us never said no.”While still officially a state secret, rumours about Vorster’scommuniqué had reached the dressing rooms. “We’d heard, certainlyby then, that he’d said the team wouldn’t be welcome there if Dollywas included,” Knight recalls. “We thought the MCC didn’t have theguts to pick him. When the party was first announced, I thought,’They’re as weak as gnat’s piss. They’re kow-towing to Vorster.’ Thepros were revulsed. It was always them and us. We thought GubbyAllen was a snob, a bit up himself. And Basil was one of us.”Hence the widespread delight around the circuit as he progressed tothat Oval hundred. “Pleased? Oh God, yes. For Basil and because he wasmaking it difficult for them at Lord’s. You thought, ‘That’s got ’em!'”Of the three alive now who were ‘got’ then, Carr was askedrecently about those supposedly missing minutes. “I probably wrotethem,” he said. “I certainly don’t know about them being missing.”Yet no one outside that Lord’s committee room that night has everseen them. Forty years on the mystery remains.

Chanderpaul stood head and shoulders above his middling team, and the board bumbled it’s way all through

Vaneisa Baksh03-Jan-2009

When West Indies ended 2007 with a surprise victory in the first Test against South Africa, it invited salutary comments that Chris Gayle’s comradely leadership was suitably laidback so as to eke out the best efforts from his players. But tour results begged to differ, with South Africa winning the next two Tests and easily whitewashing the West Indies in the five one-day matches.It was merely a flutter after all, the kind that typified the year for West Indies. After his retirement, Brian Lara faded from sight, and almost entirely from cricket conversation. He surfaced in January with a century in the regional tournament, but fractured his arm and only flitted across the international scene when he announced he was not taking part in the Indian Cricket League on account of the “permanent problem” with his shoulder.Meanwhile Allen Stanford was overhauling his Antigua ground in preparation for the intoxicating US$20-million tournament that would provide year-round intrigue. Not to be outdone, the West Indies Cricket Board thoughtfully launched its giddy agenda by firing Ian Bishop, Desmond Haynes, Andy Roberts and Courtney Walsh from its cricket committee in February, leaving the four to wonder if their role as Stanford-contracted “Legends” had made them redundant. Frankly my dears, said WICB president Julian Hunte, you don’t fit into our strategic plan, but within a month they were reinstated.Marlon Samuels had his bowling action analysed after the final South Africa Test, but his real trouble came when he was found guilty of breaching the ICC’s Code of Conduct regarding receiving monies disreputably. The WICB banned him for two years, but the CEO, Donald Peters, “offered him all the help needed to get his life in order”. Samuels’ lawyers asked for a judicial review instead, but the ICC was unmoved and upheld the ban.The West Indies captain, whose capacity to unite and inspire had been heralded, revealed the illusory nature of regional bonds during the Carib Beer Series. Complaining about poor umpiring “year in, year out”, Gayle fumed: “Jamaica always seem to have it tough, and decisions always seem to go against us.” The umpires’ association waited to see what the WICB would do, but they had other fish to fry… and according to incoming manager Omar Khan, “a new era” to begin.The WICB was kept twittering with the Indian Premier League schedule threatening to disrupt tours by Sri Lanka and Australia, the prospect of a two-tiered Test ranking system, and the looming Stanford Super Series tournament.Pedro Collins effectively retired when he chose Surrey over West Indies (against Sri Lanka) after two years on the sidelines.For the first time, Sri Lanka beat West Indies on home ground, provoking Ramnaresh Sarwan to complain that the pitch at Providence Stadium lacked pace and bounce, but the WICB made up for that by bouncing the Sri Lankans off their practice match with “flight problems”, and the pitch in Trinidad had enough pace to help the WI draw the two-Test series.Sarwan had starred in the second Test, and was called to replace his replacement as captain against Australia when Gayle’s groin injury flared. Amit Jaggernauth made his debut after heated Caribbean debate about the value of spinners on the team, and though he collected a wicket he was not picked again and the debate continued.Shivnarine Chanderpaul continued his working ways, shrugging off a knock out from a Brett Lee bouncer to score 118 in the first Test, and positioned himself so implacably as a dogged accumulator that he was named the ICC’s Player of the Year and topped the batsmen’s rankings at year-end.Australia won the series 2-0 and it was on to the ODIs, which ended with Gayle declaring his unhappiness with the selectors. By the end of July he sent the WICB a resignation letter, but after “discussions” had a change of heart. At the same time Peters was sent on leave by the WICB and its corporate services manager, Tony Deyal, was fired. Peters was returned to his post within days; Deyal would later give testimony against the WICB in London’s High Court.The matter arose out of Allen Stanford’s $20-million match between the Stanford Superstars and the England team. The sponsors, Digicel, contested the right of the WICB to sell to Stanford what it had in essence already sold to them regarding the West Indies players. The row had raged for months, and it ended in the courts, with the WICB losing and facing legal costs that would easily erase the profit made from staging the World Cup.The match went on as arranged, the Superstars beat England by ten wickets and kept the money, but no end of bacchanal over everyone’s behaviour and moral standings surrounded the event. In December, Stanford disbanded his board of Legends and announced that he would be revising his relationship with cricket in the future.Unfazed, the team went off to New Zealand, where both Tests were drawn, Chanderpaul scoring 126 and Gayle 197 in Napier. As with other matches, and with the consistent exception of Jerome Taylor, no one else ever seemed to do much more than flutter into sight fleetingly.

Off the field, the pace was as dizzying as usual, with no decision standing unchanged, no sign of a cohesive management plan and, with the Stanford funding riding abruptly off into the sunset, no sense that the shadows would ever lift.New kids on the block
Perhaps Sulieman Benn and Brendan Nash are worth watching, and if spinners ever get something like tenure in the West Indies, Jaggernauth may have a thing or two up his sleeve.Fading stars
Barring Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Jerome Taylor and Xavier Marshall, the team seems to be a stagnant bunch inside a comfort zone, without the desire to fulfill the potential that got them thus far. Dwayne Bravo has been strung out on his injury, and while he still seems skittish, may be the only other who demonstrates zest for the game. Everyone else seems to be simply standing in the same place.High point
Shivnarine Chanderpaul deserved all the accolades of the year, proving the value of his stoic, unflappable determination to get on with the game. On the third day of the first Test against Australia, he was knocked flat out after a Brett Lee ball smashed into his helmet. He rose up and resumed his innings, scoring a hundred, and then in a spell of inspired bowling, his team-mates reduced Australia to 17 for 4. The Chanderpaul effect was clear, though they lost the match.Low point
The WICB sank even deeper into the culture of ineptitude, bumbling through the entire year until it finally hoisted itself on the petard of greed as the row with Digicel went to court and the board lost millions in the process; it lost Allen Stanford’s millions too. It was as disgraceful as watching the captain stand his ground after he was clearly out in one of the ODIs against Pakistan in November.What 2009 holds
England tours from February for four Tests and five ODIs before West Indies visit England in May for two Tests and three ODIs and the ICC World Twenty20. India will also play West Indies once venues are confirmed.

The ICL’s second season has some improvements over the first, but there’s a fair amount of work left

Sriram Veera18-Oct-2008

The ICL is hoping the inclusion of “national” teams, like the Dhaka Warriors, will be a draw © ICL
The first leg of games in the second season of the Indian Cricket League is over. The caravan now moves from Hyderabad to Ahmedabad. Cricinfo looks at how the tournament has progressed so far
The timing
The big question is why the ICL hosted the tournament at the same time as the India-Australia series. “We thought about it long and hard. Test match cricket does not clash with our cricket. The evenings are free,” Tony Greig, who is on the ICL’s executive board, said. “We tend to play in the back end and in the front end of English season.”The media strategist for the ICL, Manoj Mayani, adds, “If we are going to wait for everybody to give us a clear time, it would be difficult. The Champion’s League was originally scheduled for last month.”Crowd interest
The tickets have been priced at Rs 100 each. The opening day, obviously, had the biggest audience: 20,000 people packed into the Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium.The matches featuring Hyderabad Heroes, the home team, and Lahore Badshahs had decent turnouts. There was a threat of rain on the first Sunday, which affected attendance, but the subsequent games brought in 8000 to 9000 spectators on average.Last year the games moved from one venue to another without a sustained run in any one city, which affected spectator interest. This year they are playing a week in each city.Television viewership
The organisers claim that, according to the rating agency TAM, the opening game registered a rating of 0.76, which jumped to 1.9 for the close game between Hyderabad and the Dhaka Warriors. Himanshu Mody, the ICL’s business head, is looking to reach a rating of 3, but without star power, it remains to be seen how that is achieved.Quality of cricket
“The best teams in the ICL will finish mid-table in the English County Championship,” says Paul Nixon, the former England wicketkeeper who plays for Delhi Giants. It’s a fair assessment. The average innings scores are rising slowly.”The number of runs scored has not reflected the standard of the surface: 130-140 when the pitch [in Hyderabad] suggested 160-170,” Greig says. “But it is getting better.”IPL v ICL
The IPL has bigger stars, which was reflected in the TRP ratings last year. The ICL has tried to offset that disadvantage by introducing teams like Lahore Badshahs and Dhaka Warriors, thus trying to position it as a battle between nations.”IPL will have bad matches, ICL will have bad matches. The format is like that,” Greig said. Even in the IPL, most games involving Bangalore and Hyderabad, and some of the Mumbai games, were duds. In the ICL, the Mumbai Champs look the weakest team, though they featured in a last-over thriller in the first round. And importantly, Lahore is yet to get going. That apart, the games have been of decent quality.Overseas professionals
The overseas pros have shown impressive commitment. Players like Jason Gillespie, Shane Bond, Craig McMillan, Chris Harris and Damien Martyn have led from the front. They have thrown themselves around on thefield, encouraged the local cricketers, and taken their mentorship role very seriously. The coaches, like Steve Rixon and Michael Bevan, are working hard too. The practice sessions have been intense and purposeful.

Jason Gillespie and the rest of the old hands have taken their task as mentors seriously © ICL
Facilities

There’s no cause for complaint with the infrastructure in the teamenvironment. Every side has professional coaches, physios, trainers, masseurs, the works. “The local Indian cricketers have relied too much on natural talent. Nowit’s a leap from amateurism to professionalism,” says Deep Dasgupta who plays for the Royal Bengal Tigers.However, the Hyderabad ground twice suffered technical glitches with the lights – the first game had to be abandoned mid-way during the chase and decided on the VJD method, and the overs were reduced in the second match.
In Hyderabad there were giant TV screens suspended from the roofs at different points in the stadium, apart from a huge, centrally located screen. However, after a couple of games these just became advertising screens.The cheergirls are ubiquitous . Food and water were available for purchase, and the sanitary facilities were conveniently located.The ICL has reportedly spent Rs 100 million in refurbishing their new stadium in Ahmedabad.Marketing
The promotion spend has been increased to Rs 500 million. There are more adverts and billboards, and large pullout spreads have been booked in many newspapers.In keeping with the tournament’s USP, the promotions have centred on the local cricketers.The telecast net has spread. More than 100 million people in four continents can, in theory, follow this year’s tournament.Highlight
Aging stars are usually considered a negative for a tournament. In this case, though, watching them made for a pleasant experience. Perhaps because this is the only place, barring the odd county game, that you can see these players in action anymore. Watching Saqlain Mushtaq, Gillespie and Bond bowl, or Inzamam-ul-Haq and Martyn bat has been a nostalgic experience.

Despite another horrendous start with the bat, Rajasthan stole this game because they had the players that made sensible decisions when the going got tough

Cricinfo staff02-May-2009″It’s a high-pressure game, and you need cool heads,” said Darren Berry, the Rajasthan Royals director of coaching. He was replying to a question on ageing stars, and the selection of two players who could be considered part of his playing generation – Lee Carseldine and Shane Harwood.Both were playing their first games of the tournament, and both came through with big performances when it mattered. Despite another horrendous start with the bat, Rajasthan stole this game because they had the players that made sensible decisions when the going got tough. It was no coincidence that Harwood was in the middle to help complete the recovery job that
Carseldine had started.Once again though, it was the Rajasthan’s unheralded collection of Indian talent that caught the eye. Kamran Khan may be out for the season with his knee injury, but in Abhishek Raut, a 22-year-old Maharashtran with no claims to fame, they appear to have unearthed another finisher in the Pathan mould. In a previous game, he pillaged 18 from the final over, and here, his 36 from 23 balls saw his team home after both Shane Warne and Yusuf Pathan had succumbed to Bollywood strokes.Jeremy Snape, who takes care of the mental conditioning side of things for Rajasthan, called Raut an “effervescent cricketer”, and he was certainly bubbling at the end after the risky single that clinched the game. The key moments though had come a little earlier, with Yusuf clobbering sixes over extra-cover and square leg. Shoaib Ahmed had starred in the domestic one-day season, with more than 20 wickets, but Yusuf in rampant mood was a completely different proposition. Those two hits brought down the run-rate to such an extent that the rest of the game was a stroll.”There’s so much coaching in the game now that you can complicate things,” said Snape. “Some players overthink. With Yusuf, we keep it simple. He’s one of the cleanest strikers of the ball in the game. So we stick to a simple plan, and a simple thought process.”The decision to keep Yusuf down at No.8 was certainly a gamble, but it worked primarily because Carseldine, Player of the Year in Australia’s Big Bash this season, batted with such composure before a horrendous decision sent him on his way. “The one thing that we really knew about him was how composed he is under pressure,” said Berry. “With Shane Watson [last year’s star] now missing, we needed someone like that at the top of the order.”Deccan Chargers are now in the midst of a slump after four successive victories. In addition to Rohit Sharma’s embarrassing boundary-line gaffe in the penultimate over, there were a couple of missed run-out chances and the simplest of fluffed return catches [Venugopal Rao letting Shane Warne go]. “On another day, the 20 percent that’s bad goes unnoticed,” said a rueful Adam Gilchrist later. “But today, those were the key moments. In general, I thought our fielding was exceptional.”They do need more runs from other sources though. Gilchrist started brightly today, but Gibbs failed, and it was left to Rohit to lead them to a competitive total. But like Rajasthan, there doesn’t seem to be enough depth to the batting. T Suman, who has replaced VVS Laxman in the side,
showed promise again, but with Fidel Edwards leaving for England this weekend, Andrew Symonds can’t arrive soon enough. He could well be the X-factor that Deccan lack in mid-innings. Rajasthan, for all their worries, continue to find the most unlikely ones.

Australia outdid themselves by benching Stuart Clark, but Ben Hilfenhaus ensured Australia’s day wasn’t entirely dominated by defensive tactics from Ricky Ponting

Alex Brown at Cardiff08-Jul-2009Most assumed Steve Harmison’s record for earliest Ashes shock would never be bettered after his opening delivery of the 2006-07 series angled its way to an unamused Andrew Flintoff at second slip. But Australia, ever the innovators, went one better on Wednesday, stunning all and sundry before a ball had been bowled by benching Stuart Clark, the leading wicket-taker of the corresponding series two years ago, in favour of a four-man attack with precisely zero Ashes Tests to their name.The move to elevate Ben Hilfenhaus was widely expected, given Brett Lee’s injury and predictions of heavy atmospheric conditions in Cardiff this week. Though omitted from Australia’s final warm-up match against the England Lions in Worcester, Hilfenhaus’s conventional swing and bustling pace were viewed as desirable assets against an England batting line-up yet to establish itself as an international force.Nathan Hauritz, however, was another matter entirely. If, as one theory goes, selectors should pick their best four bowlers irrespective of conditions, then Hauritz’s record of 2-260 from 68.2 overs in Australia’s two tour matches did not compare with Clark’s 5-151 from 50. His lack of penetration in those matches provided selectors with few grounds for optimism, particularly as they were played on slow, holding pitches similar to the current Sophia Gardens strip against opposition inferior to that offered by England.Clark, undoubtedly, is a force subdued on sluggish pitches, where his generally awkward bounce carries at a less threatening height, but his metronomic accuracy can asphyxiate even the most resolute of batsmen. Still, Australia opted to play for balance and conditions, and the first surprise of this series was sealed before a coin had been flipped. A new Ashes record.Hilfenhaus immediately justified the faith of Andrew Hilditch with an energetic opening spell that yielded the wicket of Alastair Cook. His union with the hard-charging Peter Siddle appeared the most threatening of the morning – the latter roughed up Ravi Bopara and troubled right-handers with inward angling deliveries – but it was Mitchell Johnson who proved the most prolific with the scalps of Strauss and Bopara.The dismissal of Strauss to a brutish, tailing bouncer was comfortably the highlight of Johnson’s outing, which was otherwise notable for a low arm action and, on occasion, a lower head. The intimidating, talismanic paceman of South Africa seldom surfaced on Wednesday, replaced by a throwback model whose lack of lateral movement and periods of inaccuracy blunted his effectiveness. Still, Australia’s prevailing mood was one of optimisim entering the lunch break, with England’s top three back in the pavilion and a jittery Kevin Pietersen to resume.It would not last. Twice in as many hours, Australian fans hollered “why, why, why?” into the ether – the first on account of a Welsh warbler’s rendition of “Delilah”, the second due to a numbing session of play in which Hauritz and Michael Clarke were deployed for an extended period to little effect. Commentators, including Ian Chappell, were underwhelmed at Ponting’s tame field settings, while others questioned the defensive mindset of bowling Clarke, a part-timer, for five overs in the second session of an Ashes series.Hauritz was by no means disgraced, but neither was he threatening after lunch. Extracting subtle turn from the first day wicket, Australia’s oft-criticised spinner was treated with more reverence than in the previous two tour games, albeit at a time when the England run-rate ticked along steadily. His judgement will be deferred until the second innings, when footmarks and a loosening surface should suit, but given his recent history, there must be concern among the Australian camp as to whether he can get the job done.Hauritz will at least be buoyed by the wicket of Pietersen, claimed not so much out of spin or flight but rather the lamentable decision-making of the batsman. Scorecards aren’t so judgemental, though, and the wicket of Pietersen, coupled with that of Paul Collingwood to Hilfenhaus five overs early, rekindled Australian confidence at a time when the day appeared to be lurching England’s way.The tourists’ spirits were lifted further in the final hour when Siddle and his internal V8 engine returned for the wickets of Andrew Flintoff and Matt Prior. Guilty of straying onto the pads in his earlier spells, Siddle tightened his line and troubled England’s batsmen with a full length and swing into the right-handers. Such levels of skill and tenacity are generally associated with spearheads, and it would not surprise if Siddle assumed that mantle from Johnson before the series is out. Hilfenhaus might also have something to say on the matter; the old-ball swing generated in his final spell was Alderman-esque on occasion.

It’s not all wham, bam, thank you ma’am; there’s a science to batting successfully in the shortest format

Aakash Chopra22-Oct-2009We’ve heard it ad nauseam: the Twenty20 format belongs to batsmen. Bowlers are more than bowling machines, serving up balls to be hit to all parts of the ground. If you go by the number of runs being scored in Twenty20, and the economy-rates of bowlers, you’d side with that opinion as well. But let’s look at this game from a batsman’s perspective as well. This is the first part of a mini-series on batting, bowling and team strategy in the shortest format of cricket. I shall be writing about bowling in the next article.Does the quality of the bowling deteriorate in Twenty20?
No, it doesn’t. But good and great bowlers still go for plenty because getting out, which scares the batsmen in other formats, is considered insignificant in Twenty20. In an ODI the top six or seven batsmen are supposed to bat 50 overs, so we see a conservative approach to batting, even in the Powerplay overs, but there’s no such responsibility in Twenty20. In any case one decent partnership is enough to consume the major part of 20 overs, and then the rest of the batsmen can go completely berserk. It’s astonishing to see the kind of shots batsmen – and in some cases even bowlers – pull off when they do not have the fear of getting out.More time than it seems
Let’s look at how batsmen prepare for and look at this format. David Hussey, a successful Twenty20 player, says that there’s more time in a Twenty20 game than one thinks. When a batsman walks in to bat and knows that his team needs nine an over, the natural tendency is to become adventurous from the first ball. But it’s not often that he can hit the first ball for a four or a six. Besides, attempting a big shot before he can see the ball properly would mean a greater risk of getting out and hence putting the team in further trouble. That’s where Hussey’s advice comes handy.You should give yourself at least a couple of balls before exploding. You can always take a couple of singles to rotate strike, and get the blood flowing in the veins. This, in turn, might also ease the pressure and help you assess the situation objectively. There are 120 legal deliveries to be bowled in every game, and if you can reduce the number of dot balls, the pressure that comes from thinking you’ve been holding up the strike and need to hit a big shot is drastically reduced.Balls at a premium
In Test cricket the batsman gets a few overs to get his eye in, in a 50-overs match he gets a few deliveries, but in Twenty20 it is only the matter of a couple of balls. That’s the reason why batsmen in the dugout are always padded up and glued to the game. Information is vital in a Twenty20 game, and hence a batsman, after getting out, informs the remaining players how the track is behaving and what the par score would be. Most batsmen, while waiting for their turn to bat, also make a mental sketch of the areas they would target while facing certain bowlers.

Twelve runs an over from the last three might sound extremely difficult, but 36 off 18 scoring opportunities doesn’t sound that ominous. If you can manage six hits to the fence in those 18 deliveries, you need only singles from the remaining balls

Since balls are at a premium, players who can hit boundary shots are valuable. You can only go so far with just rotating strike; ultimately you should be able to clear the fence.Calculated risk
While it is good to consume a couple of balls before going big, there are certain situations that demand a different strategy. For example, if your team is chasing over 160 runs, it’s imperative to go after the bowling in the first six overs. In such cases the strategy of the fielding team is to form a ring and bowl on one side of the wicket, which makes piercing the field along the ground extremely difficult. That’s why players like Brendon McCullum, Matthew Hayden and Virender Sehwag, who aren’t scared of taking the aerial route, are more successful in the Powerplay overs.It’s not easy to take singles when seven fielders are inside the circle; it’s either a boundary or a dot ball. Batsmen who manage to play with the bowler’s mind are also more successful than the rest. Gautam Gambhir does that effectively. He walks down the track regularly to get the bowler thinking, and then waits on the back foot for the short ball.Identifying the weakest and strongest links in the opposition bowling is important. For example, if it can be avoided, you wouldn’t want to go after Muralitharan or Daniel Vettori in subcontinental conditions. And in seamer-friendly conditions you’d like to play it a little safe against quick bowlers while targeting spinners.A stable base, and staying away from the ball
Keeping a stable base is extremely important when hitting a long ball. Kieron Pollard, Andrew Symonds and Rohit Sharma are good examples of keeping a stable base and head while hitting the ball in the air. Most batsmen, including myself, are guilty of losing the shape of the shot when we try to manufacture shots or slog, which eventually end up looking ugly.Since there isn’t much time in Twenty20, batsmen in the dugout are always padded up and glued to the game•Getty ImagesUnlike Test cricket, where the batsman is supposed to use his feet to get close to the ball, the batsman is better placed if he stays away from the ball in Twenty20 cricket. Staying away from the ball allows him to free his arms and also get under the ball to get elevation.Go-to areas
Every batsman must identify his “go-to” areas and shots, at least one each on both sides of the wicket. Once you have mastered these strokes, which could be over covers on the off and over midwicket on the on side, you either wait for the ball that can be hit in those areas or make room or walk inside the line to create that shot. Hussey says that one should back oneself, especially when it comes to hitting balls in his go-to areas. The idea is that if the first ball is bowled in your area you shouldn’t be afraid to go for it.Thinking in balls, not overs
Another thing that batsmen agree on is thinking in terms of the balls remaining, not overs. One must try to break it down even further. For example, 12 runs an over from the last three might sound extremely difficult, but 36 off 18 scoring opportunities doesn’t sound that ominous. If you can manage six hits to the fence in those 18 deliveries, you’ll only need singles from the remaining balls. Putting it that way makes it sound easier, yet we all know it isn’t; but it surely is slightly less difficult than thinking in terms of scoring two runs per ball.Twenty20 has also taught the batsmen to never give up. Even if the asking rate is 15 runs an over in the last five overs, batsmen have started to believe that it can be achieved.There can be a number of theories when it comes to batting in Twenty20 format, but it boils down to how an individual reacts to the situation when he walks in to bat.

Outplayed from the first ball, the home side are lurching towards one of the worst defeats in their history

Andrew Miller at Headingley08-Aug-2009If England believed that their downward spiral of Ashes misery had bottomed out with their 5-0 thumping in Australia three winters ago, they might just have to reassess that situation before the series decider at The Oval in a fortnight’s time. Barring a late rally that seemed inconceivable in the fading light on Saturday evening, England are hurtling towards their heaviest home defeat in the history of Ashes cricket, and if they fail to scrape an extra 36 runs tomorrow, they will have surpassed the innings-and-226-run trouncing that West Indies inflicted on them at Lord’s in 1973, the single biggest home defeat in England’s entire Test history.Somehow it wasn’t meant to be like this, but much the same was being said 20 years ago to the week at Trent Bridge, when Mark Taylor and Geoff Marsh batted straight through the first day of the fifth Test en route to a cripplingly comprehensive innings-and-180-run victory. Then as now, an unfancied and under-estimated Australian team of rookies had sprung a horrible surprise on their complacent English opponents, seizing the Ashes from a position in which they were apparently at their lowest ebb.Australia’s dominance in the summer of 1989 was reflected in every respect – they took the six-Test series 4-0, and might have won by a tennis score had it not been for rain. This time, however, they are piling all of their pre-eminence into one ultra-effective performance. Marcus North’s century was Australia’s seventh of the summer; England have only Andrew Strauss’s 161 at Lord’s to boast about. Five of their batsmen currently average over 50 (Strauss again is England’s only half-centurion). And they can also lay claim to all three of the leading series wicket-takers, as well as the only three bowlers to average below 30.”Statistics can be a funny thing,” said Marcus North, whose second hundred of the series laid the platform for Australia’s dominance. “The way we look at it is winning the critical moments in Tests. There was a critical day on the last day of the first Test [at Cardiff] and we didn’t win that, and so England walked away with a draw. We saw England win critical moments in the second Test [at Lord’s] and outplay us completely, and I think it was probably even at Edgbaston, but we’re winning the critical moments here. The most important thing for us as a team is winning session by session, and especially the important ones.”Such has been the speed with which Australia have seized control of this match, England haven’t had time to find their bearings at any stage. Minuscule flickers of competitiveness – Steve Harmison’s early strikes with both new balls, for instance – have been swamped by the magnitude of the events that have followed, and Stuart Broad’s career-best figures of 6 for 91 barely even register in the overall scheme of the contest. The loss of five wickets in the closing overs of the day meant his best day’s work of the series came across as a very pyrrhic victory.”We’re disappointed with the way we’ve made the same mistakes with the bat there towards the end of the day as we did in the first innings,” said Broad. “We lost wickets in clumps. We had a really solid start there with Strauss and Cooky, and to lose 5 for 23 is really disappointing. I think the Australians bowled fantastically well, but it was a shame we made the same mistakes we did in the first innings.”

The ease and certainty with which England’s rizla-thin middle-order has been smoked by Australia’s seamers in this contest does not bode well in the slightest. For the first time in 121 years, England’s Nos. 3, 4 and 5 were all dismissed in single figures in both innings of a Test

The debacle leaves England on the verge of their first Test defeat since a performance of equally stunning ineptitude at Sabina Park in February, when – with some bitter irony – Broad once again excelled with his previous best figures of 5 for 85. “We’ve had two average days of Test cricket but we’ve had four or five months of really good Test cricket,” he said. “It’s not something you lose overnight. We’re still a very confident bunch of players. We’re obviously disappointed with how we’ve performed in this game, but confidence is not something you lose over night. We just need to make sure we come out and play positively tomorrow and move forward to The Oval.”That may, however, be easier said than done. The ease and certainty with which England’s rizla-thin middle-order has been smoked by Australia’s seamers in this contest does not bode well in the slightest. For the first time in 121 years, England’s Nos. 3, 4 and 5 were all dismissed in single figures in both innings of a Test, and with Kevin Pietersen laid low for the rest of the summer, and Andrew Flintoff increasingly likely to require further surgery on his damaged knee, there seems little obvious way to paper over such frailties. Broad bridled when it was suggested that Flintoff’s absence has been the decisive factor for England, but the evidence on display is hard to controvert.”You’re obviously going to miss Fred because he’s a world-class cricketer but it’s something the side has dealt with in the past two years and is going to have to deal with for the foreseeable future because he’s retiring from the game,” said Broad. “It’s hard to pinpoint what we’ve lacked in this Test match. They’re a very talented side, and they’ve got something about them. We’re just focussing on what we’ve done badly in this game, because we’ve not learned from our mistakes.”Broad recalled England’s series defeat against South Africa last summer, in particular their ten-wicket humiliation on this very ground at Headingley, when Darren Pattinson’s controversial selection was taken as evidence of the overall malaise in the camp. “We were batting and were bowled out by tea, again pushing at the ball,” he said. “We did similar things here in the first innings. We’ve got many hundreds led by Andrew Strauss and that’s the sort of thing we should focus on.”Avoiding a three-day defeat is surely beyond England’s remotest expectations, but Broad defended his own selection at No. 7 as a positive move, and set out to justify his promotion with morale-salving runs on Sunday. “It’s obviously important,” he said. “We have to remember there are Test match runs and Test match hundreds out there for some batsmen tomorrow. We just need to look to play positively and enjoy it tomorrow. It’s going to be tricky obviously being five-down for not very many, but there’s an opportunity there to score some Test match runs which everyone wants to do.”Australia, however, have wanted those runs more in this series, something that North was very proud to relate. “Our disciplines have shown that,” he said. “We’ve clicked and done that over a long period of time, with the bat and ball, and put a lot of pressure on England. It’s no coincidence we’re in the position we are at the moment.”It’s obviously up to England to assess,” he said. “The game’s not in the bag just yet, we’ve still got five wickets to get so we’ve got to create a few more opportunities, but if we apply ourselves and play as we have in the first two days, the series should be level at one-all.”

In a team shorn of flashy players and big-hitting heavyweights, it was perhaps no surprise that Rajasthan’s win was down to a good old-fashioned all-round effort

Jamie Alter at the PCA Stadium in Mohali24-Mar-2010He wasn’t nearly as quick as Shaun Tait. He didn’t engage in verbal jousts with batsmen or erupt after a wicket like Munaf Patel. He wasn’t the Man of the Match. He didn’t even have the best figures of the game but, as his captain Shane Warne acknowledged later, a “fantastic” Siddharth Trivedi delivered the goods when the ball was thrown to him. Trivedi’s tight first spell revived Rajasthan Royals when Kings XI Punjab were cruising along smoothly and set in motion a dramatic collapse that leapfrogged Rajasthan to joint fourth on the points table.Three nights ago it was Punjab who applied the squeeze on a lacklustre Chennai Super Kings, chipping away with wickets to force a Super Over and then taking the match in tense manner. Tonight, it was their turn to collapse, albeit against a tougher target, from a place of dominance. From a manic 76 for 1 after the Powerplay overs, Punjab lost nine wickets for 67 runs from the time a rampant Manvinder Bisla was dismissed by Warne in the eighth over.Trivedi’s contribution was outstanding. His role, coming in at second change, was not to hurl the ball down at pace but rather to rely on his variations. There was extra bounce on this surface and Trivedi did just that at the right time for success. His first spell came immediately after the Powerplay. At 76 for 1, Punjab had set down a platform, and Bisla was threatening to see them home. From the word go Trivedi settled down to bowl a tight line, using the offcutter and slower delivery to good effect. In his first over he set about the change in tone, conceding just four runs, one of which was a leg bye. Bisla twice tried to skip out and dictate terms, but failed both times. Ravi Bopara, keen to play the sheet anchor’s role, had trouble spotting the slower ball.Only five followed in his second over, during which he surprised Yuvraj Singh with a snorter. The use of the short delivery, particularly against the Indian batsmen, has been successful this season and Trivedi was well aware. In a chase where Punjab needed to score at 9.20 an over, Trivedi had given just nine runs in two overs, and the pressure led to a wicket. Bisla tried to break the shackles against Warne and picked out the fielder in the deep.In his next over, the 11th, Trivedi again repeated the short delivery and got Yuvraj to miscue a pull out to deep square leg, where Michael Lumb put down a straightforward chance. There was hardly time for Rajasthan to react in despair, for two deliveries later Yuvraj misread a slower ball and skied to long-on.Warne kept Trivedi’s last over for later and brought him on for the penultimate over – after Tait bowled a superb 18th – with Punjab needing 43 from 12 balls. The game was Rajasthan’s, but a loose over wasn’t what they required. Trivedi capped his evening with Mahela Jayawardene’s wicket, finishing with 2 for 25.It is important to have wicket-taking options after your new-ball pair and Trivedi provides that. He certainly doesn’t have the conventional fast bowler’s build, but a sprightly leap as he nears the crease and a whippy arm action help him generate decent pace and good bounce. He’s also fairly accurate, and an economy rate of 6.37 after three games is something that some of the established international stars can’t boast of.Trivedi really was a star tonight, bowling at crucial periods, but there were other contributors along the way. Munaf hadn’t had the best of tournament so far – in fact he had yet to bowl a complete spell in any of his matches – but his wobbly medium-pace was ideally suited to conditions under lights. His second and third overs were painful, with Kumar Sangakkara and Bisla tearing into him, but when Warne tossed him the ball ahead of the 13th over, with Punjab 112 for 3, Munaf delivered. Until this time Munaf had appeared disgruntled, and keen to shoot off his mouth at the batsmen, but here he kept a cool head and shut his mouth to bowl a decisive over with two lovely slower deliveries producing wickets.Tait’s evening seemed headed for another poor outing when he had his first delivery put down by the wicketkeeper down the leg side, and soon after when Sangakkara took him for three boundaries in four balls. But Tait banged in a short ball and got the Punjab captain steering to third man. Later, when he was called back to bowl two overs at the death, Tait snuffed out the tail.Punjab’s run-chase stumbled as Warne fell back on his domestic players, and Trivedi and Munaf took pace off the ball in a manner that made them extremely effective in crunch situations. While the master tactician continues to disappoint with the ball, his apprentices are starting to find their feet in this season’s competition. Warne was the first to admit that the manner in which his group responded was brilliant.Much of the credit for this win must go to handy 60-run fourth-wicket partnership between Faiz Fazal and Adam Voges, which in the end was the difference between the two sides. When Rajasthan lost their third wicket wicket they were 111 in 13 overs; Punjab lost their third wicket at 107, after 11 overs. From there, the two innings shaped up differently: while Fazal and Voges lifted Rajasthan’s middle order with a fifty partnership, Punjab’s middle order fell apart in 23 deliveries. Voges, whose last and only two IPL innings have transformed the tone of the innings, was deservedly named Man of the Match.In a team shorn of flashy players and big-hitting heavyweights, it was perhaps no surprise that Rajasthan’s win was down to a good old-fashioned all-round effort.

Also, what does the series draw mean for Australia, and where do the other teams stand?

Dustin Silgardo12-Jul-2022ESPNcricinfo LtdAre Sri Lanka in with a realistic chance of making the final now?
While Sri Lanka are third, their points percentage of 54.17 needs to improve for them to be contenders. They have four Tests remaining – two at home against Pakistan beginning July 16 and two in New Zealand – the defending champions who are out of the running this time – next year. They need to blank Pakistan 2-0 to be in with a serious chance and would still have to win a Test in New Zealand to take their points percentage to 61.11, which may be enough to qualify if other results go their way. South Africa, currently No. 1, have 71.43, while Australia are on 70.What does the series draw mean for Australia?
The loss in Galle was Australia’s first of this WTC cycle and pushed them to second, behind South Africa. They are still in a strong position. If they win all five of their remaining home Tests – two against West Indies and three against South Africa – they will finish with a points percentage of almost 65 regardless of the result in the four-Test series in India next year. If they lose a Test at home, they will need to win one in India to get to 65 percentage points.ESPNcricinfo LtdWhat’s at stake in the Sri Lanka vs Pakistan Test series?
As mentioned, Sri Lanka need a 2-0 win to stay in the hunt. For Pakistan, currently fourth in the table, a 2-0 win would improve their points percentage to 62.96. They would then need to win three and draw two of their five home Tests – three against England, two against New Zealand – to finish above 65 percentage points. If they draw 1-1 against Sri Lanka, they would need to win four home Tests, while losing 0-2 would leave them with no room for error at home.What’s at stake in the England vs South Africa Test series?
The series, starting August 17, is a big one for table-toppers South Africa, who also travel to Australia in December. A 2-1 victory would leave them on a points percentage of 70, meaning even a 1-2 series loss in Australia would still allow them to finish above 65 percentage points as long as they win both home Tests against West Indies. A series loss for South Africa would leave them needing to win 2-1 in Australia to finish above 65 percentage points.Where do India stand?
While India, runners-up in the last WTC final, have slipped to fifth in the table, they will start favourites in the fixtures left in their cycle – a two-Test series in Bangladesh followed by four home Tests against Australia. Winning all six Tests would give India a points percentage of 68.05, which should be enough to make the final. If they lose one out of six, they would finish on 62.50 and would need other results to go their way.

The Plays of the day of the Twenty20 between Royal Challengers Bangalore and South Australia Redbacks in Durban

Sriram Veera in Durban17-Sep-2010Catch that wasn’t
It made you remember Dean Jones who used to fly around the boundary. Dillon du Preez slog swept Aaron O’Brien to deep midwicket where Daniel Harris rushed to his right and flew through the air. He pouched it mid-air and, even more incredibly, held on to it even after he landed on earth. The ball didn’t pop out of his palms but the boundary ropes proved claustrophobic. He released the ball as he slid across but his elbow touched the ropes. His team-mate who had rushed for back-up fired an accurate throw to affect a run out but the third umpire confirmed that it was indeed a four.Worst slower one
Even Ashok Dinda who telegraphs his slower ones has bowled better slower ones that this. Gary Putland attempted to bowl a legbreak but everything went awry; the change in action was easily discernible, the ball slipped out of the hand and ended up a full toss. Ross Taylor whacked it into the midwicket stands.Captaincy move of the day
Ross Taylor was playing a gem to propel Bangalore towards a big total when Klinger brought on Shaun Tait. It was the 9th over and Tait had already bowled two overs. Off the fourth ball, Tait induced a nick from Taylor. The nature of the game changed completely thereafter.Stat of the day
Klinger hit only four run-scoring shots to the leg side. Everything else was on the off side. Time and again, he stood beside the line and blasted through the off side.