You would normally expect India to romp home against Zimbabwe no matter where the match was being played but history would prove you wrong

George Binoy12-Sep-2005

Rahul Dravid has the best record in Zimbabwe among the current Indian batsmen © Getty Images
India are playing a Test series in Zimbabwe after a gap of four years. And a lot has come to pass during this time. India have scaled never-climbed-before heights during the Ganguly-Wright era and are looking to purge memories of a forgettable season so far in 2005 as they are set to play their first Test series with Greg Chappell as coach.Zimbabwe have plumbed abysmal fantastic depths with controversies of all kinds plaguing their cricket and depriving them of some of their star players. Andy Flower, who averages 94.83 against India, and Henry Olonga were banned after they protested against the Mugabe government. Grant Flower, Guy Whittal, Ray Price and Sean Ervine, among others, fell out with the Zimbabwe cricket board after a dispute over the selection process. Murray Goodwin and Neil Johnson have sought their future in Australia and South Africa respectively.You would normally expect India to romp home against Zimbabwe no matter where the match was being played but history would prove you wrong. India have not won a Test series in Zimbabwe, having drawn the 2001 series at one a piece. Zimbabwe have the better record against India at home, having won two of the four Tests that have been played. India have won just one Test and drew another after conceding a 149-run first innings lead.

India in Zimbabwe

Year Match result Venue

1992 Match drawn Harare 1998 Zimbabwe won by 61 runs Harare 2001 India won by 8 wickets Bulawayo 2001 Zimbabwe won by 4 wickets HarareOf the Indian batsmen on this tour, only Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman have played a Test in Zimbabwe before. Dravid, true to his consistent performances in all countries, has an impressive record whereas Ganguly and Laxman will be hoping to improve on their poor performances in Zimbabwe.

Indian batsmen in Zimbabwe

Batsman Innings Runs/Avg 50s/100s

Dravid 5 300/75 1/1 Laxman 4 101/25.25 0/0 Ganguly 5 97/19.40 0/0

Zimbabwe will hope that Heath Streak will draw on his experience to produce the desired results © Getty Images
Apart from Ajit Agarkar, who keeps making brief returns to the team, the other Indian bowlers have fared pretty well in the few matches that they have played in Zimbabwe. Ashish Nehra, India’s best bowler on the 2001 tour with 11 wickets at 19.72 a piece in two Tests, had to be sent home after the Videocon Cup because of a back injury.

Indian bowlers in Zimbabwe

Bowler Matches Wickets Average

Harbhajan 3 13 26.07 Kumble 2 10 22.30 Zaheer 1 4 24.50 Agarkar 2 3 61.33Most of the Zimbabwean players will be playing a Test series against India for the first time. Heath Streak, Zimbabwe’s workhorse-like spearhead, has an impressive record at home against India with 15 wickets in three Tests at an average of 19.26. India will look to win the series comprehensively but will do well not to take their opponents lightly. Zimbabwe have a lot to prove and a win against India will help silence the growing voices that are calling for their suspension from Test cricket.

Marcus Berkmann reviews My Spin On Cricket by Richie Benaud

Marcus Berkmann13-Oct-2005

Buy this bookWhat are we going to do without Richie? It’s bad enough having to adjust to the prospect of life after Channel 4, but the retirement of Richie Benaud from British broadcasting, for the wholly understandable reason that he refuses to work for Sky, has hit cricket fans hard. For the last time, it seems, we have heard him say “Four from the moment it left the bat”, or, when the ball was missing leg stump by a foot, “I’ll leave you to make your own minds up about that one”. Nostalgia kicks in swiftly these days, and before he’s even on the plane to Sydney we have all been looking back with unnatural fondness to the Richie years. Publishers know this, which is why books like this come into existence. Many of the middle-aged men buying it at my local bookshop were apparently in tears, although the rather steep cover price may have had something to do with that.Richie has written many books over the years, and you may well have read one or two of them. I suspect it’s impossible to follow the game with any enthusiasm and not read at least a couple of Benaud books. They are strangely tempting, promising as they do the authority and judiciousness of the World’s Greatest Commentator leavened with his bone-dry humour and terrific anecdotes about Tony Lewis and Peter West. Which is to some extent what you get, as most of them are essentially the same book updated. The exception was 1998’s Anything But An Autobiography, which was the most reluctant memoir in sporting history. Richie doesn’t want to talk about himself, he wants to talk about cricket, with which, thank heaven, he remains completely enthralled.For what sets Richie Benaud apart from his contemporaries – and also, let’s face it, a fair number of people much younger than him – is that he consistently welcomes change. He sees the modern game as an enhancement on former glories, not as a disappointing echo of them. He esteems one-day cricket, thinks technology is marvellous and adores the aggressive batting style of modern Test sides. Asked, because he has seen or participated in more Tests than anyone else, to nominate the best cricketing period he had lived through, he says that the 20 months between May 2003 and the end of January 2005 pretty much beat everything. As it happens, the end of January 2005 was when he finished writing this book, so we can assume that the recent Ashes series would be up there as well. Test cricket has never been more fun: an inspiring assertion, and you can’t imagine Fred Trueman saying it.Richie remains a journalist to his bones, and this is a journalist’s book: topical, snappy and written without much fuss. He is not the greatest stylist, but as consolation every page is infused with the flavour of his commentary. Whenever he calls something “ordinary”, meaning “atrocious”, you want to cheer. Reading it is a little like taking a Radox bath: it’s wonderfully relaxing, and cheers you up for no reason you can put your finger on. May his retirement be long and fruitful. Morning everyone.

A good drainage system is a must for every ground, so that cricket can be played and the spectators are happy

Sambit Bal at Trent Bridge27-Jul-2007

Trent Bridge resembled a lake yesterday and it took three supersoppers to make it look like a cricket ground again © AFP
From a spectator’s point of view, can there be a greater shame than sitting in an open stadium under blue skies, bathed in lovely sunshine, and watching nothing more than one’s heroes having a hit at the nets? The groundstaff at Trent Bridge are hardly to be blamed; it’s been an unthinkably wet summer so far and so much water has seeped under the soil that the outfield has been impossible to dry. Much like large parts of England, the cricket ground here resembled a lake yesterday and it took three supersoppers to make it look like a cricket ground again. Even the spectators understood why the players couldn’t take the field.What a contrast it was from the previous week, when it had taken the Lord’s groundstaff only a couple of hours to get the ground ready after a deluge. The MCC has invested more than one million pounds in installing a new drainage system and the investment has clearly been worth it.The subject of indoor stadiums, or at least the option of retractable roofs, occasionally comes up in cricket and during a summer like this it is understandable why. It is unlikely, though, that cricket will take that route in the near future. Partially because it will be financially unviable to build and maintain an indoor stadium solely for cricket; it would need to be a multi-sport facility. But it’s also because the elements – the sky, the sun, the humidity, the breeze – are a fundamental part of cricket. The Lord’s Test twisted and turned and defied expectations of a batting feast because of the atmospheric conditions. Wet or not, cricket in the English summer would hardly feel the same without the light and shade and drizzle.It is obvious, though, that cricket must do whatever it can to avoid days such as today. A good-natured crowd at Nottingham bore the delay with patience and understanding. But the game mustn’t stretch the indulgence of its primary patrons. Expensive drainage systems must be seen as a necessity, not a luxury.I remember travelling by taxi to the Brisbane cricket ground on the first morning of the first Test between India and Australia in 2003 and the rain was so heavy that it was impossible to see the car in front. It had been raining all night and since I was jetlagged I even considered turning back. But it stopped raining and, incredibly, play started on time. It was a stop-start day because it rained throughout but never was play held up because of ground conditions.It was a similar story from Jamaica last year, where the rain was so heavy the night before India and West Indies were due to play their first one-day match that the teams didn’t even bother to come to the ground in the morning. An agency correspondent famously filed a report announcing not only the abandonment of that match but predicting a similar fate for the next match, scheduled at the same ground a couple of days later. He perhaps went by precedent: on India’s last tour in 2002, the first two one-dayers, also scheduled at Jamaica, had been washed out.A few minutes later a harried Rahul Dravid was spotted at the team hotel trying to get his team together. He had just been told that the game would start in half an hour. And it did. A significant change had taken place in Jamaica since 2002: as part of the preparation for the World Cup, the drainage system had been overhauled and it included sand-based top soil. An improved drainage facility would be, for the West Indies, an enduring legacy of the otherwise wretched World Cup.It should become part of the minimum requirements for every Test ground.

Sehwag’s sole nets session at Eden Gardens today may be insufficient grounds to form an opinion but it was obvious he had done some work on his game in the break from international cricket

Anand Vasu in Kolkata07-Feb-2007

Will all the work in the nets pay off for Virender Sehwag? © Getty Images

While explaining Virender Sehwag’s omission from the squad for the West Indies series, Dilip Vengsarkar, the chairman of the selection committee, had offered a simple prescription: “He has to go back to the nets and sort out his cricket, his batting basically.” Sehwag’s sole nets session at Eden Gardens today may be insufficient grounds to form an opinion – the proof of that can only come when he makes runs in international cricket – but it was obvious he had done some work on his game in the break from international cricket.Sehwag began at the net where the spinners were bowling before moving to the second net where Zaheer Khan, currently the spearhead of the Indian attack, came on especially to bowl to him, and it appeared that there were two changes in Sehwag’s approach.The first was that he seemed to take guard on middle stump, rather than leg stump. It was apparently Ravi Shastri who had first made the suggestion to Sehwag, during the Cape Town Test, as a means of countering his tendency to reach for deliveries outside the off stump. The second change was that Sehwag – who normally stands stock still before playing a stroke – made a slight back-and-across movement in the lead-up to playing a shot.For batsmen, it is sometimes easy to make slight technical changes like this when batting in the nets but harder to stick to them in the heat of battle, when natural instincts take over. For what it’s worth, though, Sehwag appeared comfortable batting in the nets, getting behind the line of the ball nicely and playing some trademark shots square of the wicket on the off side. For about 20 minutes – about the same time all the top-order batsmen spent in the nets – Sehwag batted confidently.There are bound to be some nerves for Sehwag, who is making a comeback of sorts, but at the same time he will know that the team for the World Cup is not going to be picked purely on the basis of the forthcoming two matches. In that sense these two matches are not so much a trial for him as an opportunity to do what he does best.Dravid, who has backed Sehwag in tight spots in the past, and clearly believes in his matchwinning abilities, was all praise for Sehwag in advance. “Sehwag is working hard in different areas, the smile is back on his face. He is keen to perform well tomorrow,” said Dravid. “This is our last opportunity to fine-tune our game before the World Cup and we will be happy to put up a good performance.”India will be hoping Sehwag, who could be a key player in the West Indies, can roar back with a few good performances in this series.

For West Indies, 2007 was a year of tumult, crammed with historical events and twists, ugly politics and blame games. But it ended with a grand victory in South Africa

Vaneisa Baksh04-Jan-2008

	Jerome Taylor is bowled by Steve Harmison at Headingley, sending West Indies to an innings-and-283-run defeat – the worst in their history © Getty Images

Up to the end, West Indies’ 2007 was crammed with historic events and twists. Feverishly, Caribbean territories prepared to host their first World Cup, a logistical feat that cannot really be appreciated without understanding the political, cultural and economic background.The legacy of the tournament itself – despite the immovability of nearly a dozen modern stadia – remains a fluid one, dependent largely on intelligent and creative use of the physical infrastructure that cost more than most of the countries could afford.The games themselves were not fascinating affairs, and it was only after strident complaints about the ICC’s heavy-handed insistence on security measures that stripped away the Caribbean essence that there was finally some relaxation in the rules. Yet the event was clouded by Bob Woolmer’s death, which ended in a murder investigation as bizarre as the death itself. Following closely was the surprise announcement by Brian Lara that he was retiring from international cricket, with rumours surfacing within a month linking him to the new Indian Cricket League. They turned out to be true, but Lara was a dud at the event, and it was clear to see he really had no sporting interest in it.It was also a year of shifts and changes in personnel. In April, coach Bennett King resigned, and after considerable speculation, the position was filled by John Dyson. Ramnaresh Sarwan was also named as captain, and Michael Findlay the new manager. Sarwan and Marlon Samuels later voiced harsh criticisms of King as coach, Sarwan calling him the “worst coach” ever. Whatever the truth, it was evident that team and administrators continued to be at loggerheads.Bruce Ananensen, appointed WICB CEO in February, exacerbated already fractious relations with the West Indies Players’ Association (WIPA). Arbitrators had to be called in to determine who was really saying what in negotiations. By the tour of England, where they lost three matches and drew one (with Sarwan injured and out, and Daren Ganga filling in), things grew even uglier as Aanensen publicly called players “incompetent”. Chris Gayle, named captain for the ODIs, offered his own criticisms of the WICB and was reprimanded by the president, Ken Gordon, who demanded an apology. Gayle declined and went on to lead the team to a 2-1 win in the ODI series.

	Lara had been a divisive force in Wet Indies cricket, but the way he went acknowledged nothing of his large contribution. What it said about the cricket culture was the saddest part of it all

By the time the WICB’s annual general meeting rolled around, things had grown so hostile, it was clear changes had to come again. The long-serving Julian Hunte was voted in with a mission to soothe jangled nerves and restore some harmony to relations. Adroitly, he included WIPA president Dinanath Ramnarine on the board of directors, and promised to be friend and guide to all.
Also on his agenda was the implementation of the comprehensive report of a three-member governance committee, headed by PJ Patterson, to chart a course of rehabilitation for West Indies cricket. One committee member, Ian McDonald, pleaded that the report not end up as a dust magnet like all its predecessors.In the meantime Allen Stanford began his campaign for the 20/20 tournament, which had been a resounding success in 2006, to be held in Antigua in 2008.At the end of the year, as the team headed off to play first Zimbabwe and then South Africa, with Chris Gayle retaining the captaincy and Clive Lloyd as manager and Dyson due to join them, expectations were so low that Hunte’s Christmas letter to the team focused more on putting up a good fight than winning: “If we go down, it must be to a superior team and that we go down fighting. There is no shame in losing, the shame is when you do not put out or give of your best.”That the team outplayed South Africa for more than 90 per cent of the first Test to achieve their fist Test victory in nearly three years could not have been imagined by anyone who has been following West Indies cricket. It was a solid end to a tumultuous year and a really high note on which to start 2008.New men on the block
Jerome Taylor, Daren Powell and Fidel Edwards may not be new kids on the block, but they seem to be new men. All have demonstrated more finesse with their bowling lines and lengths than in the past, and this has been accompanied by greater concentration over longer periods. Even their physical statures have altered, the lankiness of the teens now giving way to the more substantial frames that are necessary for a fast bowler’s stamina and strength.Fading star
It might be extreme to pitch Ramnaresh Sarwan as a fading star, but he’s had an injury-shadowed year that snatched the captaincy away from him before he even had a chance to explore its meaning. Worse for him, it has pitched a bright star up at the helm, thus reducing his chances of reclaiming it when he is fit. Sarwan still has a lot of life as a player, but he may find that it will require more than he was putting out to keep his desired spot.

	Boxing Day Revolution: West Indies outplayed South Africa for the major part of the Port Elizabeth Test © Getty Images

High point
For supporters and players the team’s performance against South Africa in the first Test would have been encouraging. More than anything else, it suggested that West Indies were still capable of resolute batting, strong bowling and alert fielding all at the same time. It had been so long since a Test victory, it felt like a series win.Low point
Brian Lara’s retirement in itself was not so much the low – although he could easily have stayed another year. It was the shabbiness surrounding it. He’d been left out of the tour to England, and it was clear that the board was preparing for an offload. At his last match in Barbados, Marlon Samuels ran him out without a care that people had come to say farewell. Lara had been a divisive force in West Indies cricket, but the way he went acknowledged nothing of his large contribution. What it said about the cricket culture was the saddest part of it all.What does 2008 hold?

Within days, the South Africa encounter will give a broader indication of the state of the cricket on the field. In the meantime the much heralded restructuring of West Indies cricket should begin in earnest, with the implementation of plans such as an academy based in Barbados with supporting arms in the territories.The Stanford 20/20 tournament is scheduled early to set the tone for the new wave of exciting cricket. Following that, Sri Lanka and later Australia arrive for Tests.

Stats highlights from the fifth ODI between India and Australia in Vadodara

HR Gopalakrishna and Mathew Varghese11-Oct-2007

Adam Gilchrist had a field day behind the stumps © AFP
Sachin Tendulkar became the second player after Sanath Jayasuriya to play 400 ODIs. Tendulkar becomes the first to play 400 for a national team, as four of Jayasuriya’s 402 matches have not been played in Sri Lanka colours. Adam Gilchrist took six catches during India’s innings, the ninth time a wicketkeeper has taken six dismissals in an ODI. Gilchrist himself has taken six dismissals on five occasions, but this is his first against India. On two of those occasions – including this match – Gilchrist has scored a fifty as well, making him the only keeper to do so. Gilchrist overtook Moin Khan as the wicketkeeper with the most catches against India. Gilchrist’s 59 is one better than Moin’s 58. Mitchell Johnson picked up career-best figures of 5 for 26, which happens to be the 50th time an Australian bowler has taken a five-for in ODIs. Pakistan are the only other team whose bowler have taken 50 five-fors. Johnson’s previous best was the 4 for 11 he took last year against the same opponents in Kuala Lumpur. Johnson joined Chaminda Vaas, Richard Collinge, Bruce Reid and Ashley Giles as the only left-arm bowlers to take five wickets in an ODI against India. Rahul Dravid’s fifth first-ball duck was also his fourth against Australia, joining Javagal Srinath and Kris Srikkanth as the player with most number of ducks in matches between the two sides. Zaheer Khan and RP Singh’s tenth-wicket partnership of 41 is the fourth-best for India and their best against Australia, going past the earlier record of 32 between Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Sreesanth in the second ODI of the series in Kochi. India’s total of 148 is their lowest first-innings total at home after their 136 against Sri Lanka in Margao in 1990. It’s also India’s lowest total at home against Australia. Harbhajan Singh became the second Indian spinner to bowl the first over of an innings in an ODI. Rajesh Chauhan has done it thrice previously, in the 1997 ODI series against Sri Lanka. However, the two offspinners haven’t managed to pick up a wicket in those innings. With his unbeaten 79, Gilchrist became the highest run-getter for Australia against India. Gilchrist is two runs shy of 1500 runs against India, while Ricky Ponting has 1462. The victory margin of nine wickets and with 145 balls to spare is also India’s worst defeat – both in terms of wickets remaining and balls to spare – against Australia at home.

The controversies, the dancing, the England management’s apathy towards Ramprakash are all here, but nothing on why his career ended at 52 Tests

Steven Lynch23-Jan-2010There’s something missing in this book: it was published after the Ashes series that dominated the 2009 English summer, but because Mark Ramprakash’s life-story manuscript was finished off mid-season, it doesn’t address the feverish speculation about him possibly making one more Test comeback and saving the day at The Oval (in the event, Jonathan Trott did that, on debut, which will no doubt make another book in a year or two). And so there’s a slight feeling of tripping over that non-existent extra step at the top of the staircase – we know there was no England comeback, but the book doesn’t tell us.And what the book struggles to explain is why Ramps’ Test career ended as long ago as March 2002, after 52 caps spread over a dozen or so years and a dozen or so comebacks. Since then, he’s been in the sort of form only Don Bradman matched for long – 12,659 runs in first-class cricket at the stratospheric average of 78.14, with 52 hundreds. How could England’s selectors overlook that sort of form? The answer presumably lies in the number of chances he was given before that final curtain. But, Ramprakash says, he was rarely given a clear indication of what his role was supposed to be, and seems to have had frighteningly little input from the various management teams he encountered.For example, he was recalled to face Australia at The Oval in 1993, scored 64 from No. 7 – and was then shoved up to No. 3 in the West Indies the following winter, apparently without any explanation. Unsurprisingly, he did badly and got dropped again: “I required the England coach, and his support staff, to prepare me fully for the big games. I needed to organise my method, and I needed someone to talk to about it. But there was nothing being offered by anyone.” Two years later, in South Africa, he was expecting a bit more input from Ray Illingworth, who had taken over as the England team’s “supremo”: instead, before the team’s first warm-up game, Illy wandered over and said, “We want you to kick on here and do well on this tour.” Ramprakash replied, “Okay, great”… That was it for three months, he writes.One can’t help thinking that Ramprakash would have fared much better in the current laptops-and-all set-up, and the sad thing is we’ll never know quite how good he was. A superb career will always come with a big “but” attached, just like that of Graeme Hick (who, coincidentally, made his Test debut in the same match as Ramps in 1991).Ramprakash is refreshingly honest, not shying away from the many controversies a volatile temper landed him in over the years. Some cricket purists might jib at the amount of space given to his Strictly Come Dancing exploits (fellow winner Darren Gough and dance partner Karen Hardy provide the two forewords), while some of the season reviews are a bit formulaic: “[Middlesex’s] eventual winning margin was very much down once again to the 68 wickets at 18 and 59 wickets at 20 which John Emburey and Phil Tufnell took… Angus Fraser would not want me to forget his 50 wickets at 24.38 either.”But overall it’s a decent read. And that missing-something feeling extends to the overwhelming suspicion that England have ignored a fine batsman’s best years.Strictly Me: My Life Under the Spotlight
by Mark Ramprakash
Mainstream Publishing
288pp, £18.99, hardback

For all the flaws in the Asia Cup, there lies a positive for India: it provides their fast bowlers with a constructive challenge

Sidharth Monga in Karachi01-Jul-2008
The lifeless conditions in Karachi provide RP Singh and Ishant Sharma the chance to hone their bowling skills in order to be effective on traditional subcontinent pitches © AFP
For all the flaws in the Asia Cup, there is a positive for India: it provides their fast bowlers with the challenge of improving their bowling on cruelly lifeless subcontinental pitches. There will be no better place to learn than in Karachi: nine of the last 14 ODIs here have featured totals over 300, and three over 280. With this tournament in off-season conditions, the pitches have lacked the little life they usually do. The heat has rendered the bowlers even more ineffective and the evening breeze has rarely brought swing.In all this the Indian fast bowlers, who look close to being the best bowling attack on helpful pitches outside the subcontinent, somehow lack the nous required to prise out wickets. It might be a harsh criticism but this is one of the weaknesses of an Indian team that has threatened the world order with its recent performances. “After all they are the same bowlers who did exceptionally well in Australia in conditions more conducive to bowling,” Gary Kirsten, India’s coach, said after the training session at the National Bank of Pakistan Stadium ahead of Wednesday’s Super Four clash against Pakistan.A case in point was RP Singh’s transformation from being incisive in Australia to innocuous in home Tests against South Africa. Admittedly the pitches, bar the Kanpur Test, were not great, but that is the area where the great subcontinental fast bowlers manage to play a role. While Ishant Sharma and Praveen Kumar haven’t played enough in the subcontinent, the statistics of RP, Sreesanth and Zaheer Khan are revealing: in 30 ODIs in Asia RP has given away runs at 5.43 per over, while in 10 matches in Europe his economy-rate comes down to 4.50. Zaheer’s economy-rate of 5.10 in Asia comes down to 4.47 in Africa and 4.67 in Australia and New Zealand. In England and Ireland, though, he has given away runs at 5.01 per over.In Tests, the contrast becomes even more stark. RP averages 47.33 in Tests in the subcontinent, as opposed to an overall 39.10. The corresponding figures for Zaheer are 37.46 and 33.60. Although Sreesanth has more consistent stats for ODIs, he averages 38.84 in Tests in Asia. His overall average is 31.46. Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram, two of the greatest bowlers to have come from the subcontinent, managed to stay just as good in Asia as outside – their stats in fact were better in Asia.”The wicket is very flat,” Kirsten said. “It is not easy to strike on this wicket. But yes we have come up with certain ideas on what we need to do. We have spent some time with the bowlers, and we believe in these bowlers. We need to do some hard work on these wickets, and we are sure the bowlers will do that.”This new crop of Indian fast bowlers is an antithesis of their predecessors, who were good at home, but were unable to use the conditions as well as opposition bowlers when away. One of the reasons could be that most of the current lot were picked at a fairly young age, not having had to bowl for hours on flat pitches in domestic cricket. There are tricks to be learnt in domestic cricket that they might have missed out on. Also, their forte has been the conventional swing, as opposed to reverse-swing. And in the subcontinent conventional swing at times doesn’t even last ten overs, which in part explains India’s problems once the ball in 30-overs old.These bowlers have now been thrown into the worst possible conditions for pace bowlers. In 72 overs so far in the Asia Cup, they have given away 398 runs, and have taken only six wickets between them. They haven’t looked like getting early breakthroughs at all, but surely by the end of this they would have learned a thing or two about bowling in the subcontinent. Wasim and Waqar are doing commentary, and shouldn’t mind their brains being chewed either.India were the favourites going into the tournament, and going into the final stages they have lived up to the billing. The only concern has been the bowlers, and if they do manage to win on Wednesday, it will be a sweeter feeling if it’s the fast bowlers who set it up.

Fazeer Mohammed doesn’t find much to be optimistic about the WICB’s new steps towards revitalising West Indies cricket

Fazeer Mohammed01-Sep-2008

	Will the WICB’s new initiatives contribute to a revival of West Indies cricket? © Getty Images

So now we have more talk and more plans, even as we wait with an increasing sense of despair for real evidence of something – anything – that will at least slow the pace of the slide to irrelevance.Why they would choose a Sunday to issue a press release, I don’t know, but now most of us have the luxury of the post-Independence Day holiday to absorb the latest missive from the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB).Maybe, as much as it attempted to offer some clarity and direction for the coming seasons, the release, dispensed as it was in the name of Dr Donald Peters, was also intended as confirmation that the chief executive officer is fully ensconced once again in his substantive role after it seemed for some time that he would be on his way out together with fellow executive, Tony Deyal, over the leaking of information relating to WICB president Julian Hunte’s office in his native St Lucia.Emphasising that there will be a “full focus” on players and their development in coming seasons, the key elements of the release via WICB media officer Philip Spooner are the re-expansion of the regional season, the re-establishment of the West Indies A team and the development of a new Memorandum of Understanding with the West Indies Players Association (WIPA) that will cover as many as 80 Caribbean cricketers, a significant increase from the current MoU which relates only to players selected in the senior West Indies squad.Most followers of the game would be aware that the first two items, assuming they come to fruition, will be experiencing a reincarnation, and can hardly be described as either controversial or revolutionary, for issues relating to the quantity and quality of cricket played among our territories, together with the difficulty experienced in cricketers making the transition from regional to international level competition, have been ventilated for years.It is the final point, though, for which we await a reaction from Dinanath Ramnarine. Given that he is a non-executive member of the WICB, it is only reasonable to expect that the WIPA president and CEO was consulted on this initiative which will result in all top-level regional cricketers being retained by the Board as professionals with all the attendant contractual details relating to salaries, match fees and performance-related incentives.Still, given the way things go at the level of regional cricket administration, you really can’t take anything for granted. I mean, less than two weeks ago, Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board president Deryck Murray was making it clear that the local body could not wait on the parent organisation to get going with an effective revival plan. Yet Murray is an executive member of the WICB!I wonder if he is prepared for some licks from the bossman and other Board members when they meet again in five weeks’ time for criticising so publicly the administration of which he is an integral member. Then again, after you’ve faced up to Jeff Thomson and Dennis Lillee in full cry on lightning-fast Australian pitches, almost everything else can be fended off with a minimum of fuss.Given their track record, only the perennially optimistic will hold out much hope for this latest callaloo of recommendations getting anywhere close to being even a part of the elusive recipe for a West Indian revival. The concept of the expanded regional season first appeared in 1997, when the general impression was that it was too disjointed and too long, therefore struggling to sustain interest.West Indies A teams hosted visiting squads and also toured, as recently as 2006, while there was also a West Indies B team together with the A side of one of the other top-level countries participating in our regional season in the early years of this decade. Those innovations were discontinued, primarily because of a lack of financial support, and it remains to be seen what effect their re-emergence, together with an MoU covering as many as 80 players, will have on the World Cup-boosted revenues of the WICB, unless sponsors can be attracted to support these ventures.

	Less than two weeks ago, Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board president Deryck Murray was making it clear that the local body could not wait on the parent organisation to get going with an effective revival plan. Yet Murray is an executive member of the WICB!

By the way, what happens if the new MoU meets a few roadblocks from WIPA? Additionally, should most contributors at the “Stakeholders’ Conference” in just over six weeks’ time demand that it is the structure of the WICB more than the structure of the regional season that is in need of urgent reform, will their concerns be brushed aside in pursuit of a plan of action that has apparently already been decided?There are too many questions, too many inconsistencies, to feel anything other than indifference over this latest series of recommendations being trumpeted as a way out of the mire.Not the least of those inconsistencies is Peters’ assertion that, “It is evident by our recent performances that our players need to learn to bat for longer periods and make the right decisions at all times when they are on the field.”How will that be possible with so much emphasis now being placed on Allen Stanford’s Twenty20 bonanza, and where are the incentives to prevent talented young players from taking the easier route to considerably more money at the expense of the longer form of the game, the traditional version that develops the very qualities the CEO hopes to see more of among the current crop of West Indies batsmen.Not for the first time, we just sit and wonder. Not hope. Not expect. Just wonder.

How does one tackle Sri Lanka’s unstoppable mystery spinner? We asked five experts

Interviews by Nagraj Gollapudi19-Sep-2008

Rudi Koertzen does what India’s batsmen should have: watch Mendis © Getty Images

“Step out to his googly”
Gautam Gambhir,
I just played him as a bowler – not as a particular kind of bowler, a spin bowler or seam bowler. I didn’t think a lot about what I would do against him. That makes it difficult. Whatever he threw at me, I reacted accordingly. He has a lot of variety, so it is important when he delivers that you react to it.His variations are the googly, the legspinner, the offspinner and the carrom ball. He bowls two different googlies: the slower googly bounces much more, while the quickish one deviates a little bit.I try to read him from his hand. Once it pitches it is difficult to judge and it gets really late and you can’t score runs. If you can pick him from the hand you can react and look for scoring opportunities. It wasn’t that difficult to pick him from his hand.His greatest strength is that he is pretty accurate and very wicket-to-wicket. And he doesn’t spin the ball a long way, so it is difficult to attack him or take runs.You can only step out once you start picking him. His offspinner and the carrom balls are quick in the air, so it’s difficult to step out against those. On the other hand the googly is pretty slow, so you can try and step out against it.In Test cricket it is difficult because he can bowl long spells of 25-odd overs, so you need to be watchful. In ODIs guys have scored runs – you can try and accumulate runs, try and play in the gaps. In Test cricket you have to really play very good shots to create gaps, because most of the fielders are around you.“Find a shot that can get you a single”
Dean Jones,
Mendis has a wide variety and is terribly accurate, so you’ve really got to watch the ball. If you’re not reading him well out of the hand then you need to concentrate on the rotations. Then you’ve got half a chance. Facing a spinner is no different from facing a quick – you’ve still got to read the length; you’ve still got to go forward or get back. He gets people caught on the crease, so you need to either play on the back foot or get down to him.If you worry too much, you will get beaten in your own mind. You’ve just got to treat him with respect and wait for the bad ball. If you see him in Test matches, I dare say he will give you one ball to hit somewhere – not necessarily for a four, but you can at least work it away.To play great spinners you’ve got to have the mental courage to use the bottom half of your body – to stretch and kick and get down the pitch, all of that. During the ODIs in Sri Lanka, Mendis didn’t have it easy against the left-right combination of Suresh Raina and Mahendra Singh Dhoni, where Raina took him on by coming down the pitch and Dhoni used his feet very well.

	To play great spinners you’ve got to have the mental courage to use the bottom half of your body – to stretch and kick and get down the pitch Dean Jones

I don’t think it is a different ball game in Test cricket. It is still a battle between bat and ball even if the ball might spin more on the fourth and fifth day, but I still feel you must take him on, even in the longer version. You’ve got to play within yourself and not play stupid shots. You’ve just got to be smart. You’ve got to find a shot that can you get you a single.In terms of his variations, half of it is bulls***, half of it is fair and visible. The one that really curves quite a bit is his offie – it won’t turn a long way but it will turn, so you’ve just got to be mindful of it.“Play him like a seamer”
VV Kumar,
Mendis is a not spinner in the normal fashion. He is a bowler with a difficult action who gets the ball to deviate. He is not a normal spinner who forces the ball and then makes it spin and then the revolutions can be seen. It is, in fact, beneficial if you play him as a medium-pacer who cuts the ball. Just like batsmen played Chandra (BS Chandrashekar). If you are able to reach it, play well forward; if it is short, pull him; and if there is flight then go forward and drive him. If in doubt, play forward.Never give him any room, because if you miss the line he will capitalise.During the Sri Lanka Test series most of the Indians played more or less half-cock shots, anticipating the legbreak, but it turned the other way instead.“Take the extra risk”
Arun Lal,
Most batsmen are reading Mendis now but with his tight line and length he is difficult to get away.Generally, you’ve to try and him play him late. When you can’t read him, you’ve got to try and play as late as possible, try and be on the back foot as much as possible, and focus on the ball all the time.

Gambhir had success against Mendis, with an average of 67.33 against him in the Tests, but he lost his wicket to him thrice too © Getty Images

You’ve got to be aggressive. I saw Virender Sehwag do it. By that I don’t mean play across line. In fact, the most fatal thing the batsman can do is close the face of the bat and push the straight ball to the on side. You’ve got to take the extra risk against him: whenever he pitches with a little bit of room, a little short, a little over-pitched, make him pay. Put some pressure on him, because with as many variations as he has, I think if there is more pressure on him he is more likely to bowl a normal offspinner or an orthodox spinner. If you’re after him and he bowls a few bad deliveries and you hit him for a four, he is more likely to crumble mentally.It’s always beneficial to use your feet because you will keep him guessing, make him wary. If any batsman is good at using his feet, like Gautam Gambhir, he can definitely put pressure on Mendis. “Make him change his length”
Laxman Sivaramakrishnan,
You need to try and pick him from the hand – his hand positions are different for the offbreak, googly, and the push-through ball. Then follow it in the air by looking at the rotations – though that may be difficult as he bowls at a fairly decent pace.Since he isn’t a big spinner of the ball you can come to the pitch of the ball, especially against the push-through ball, and then he will have to change his length. And if he goes on to shorten his length you get a little bit more time to pick him off the pitch.A lot of his dismissals are lbw and bowled. Once you pick the line and step out, you’ve mostly got those two modes out of the way. And when you’re a few yards down the pitch it might put doubt in the umpire’s mind. But you’ve got to be very quick on your feet.