EXCUSE me. Over here.

EXCUSE me. Over here.

Sorry to intrude, but while some of you have been attending to the weighty matters on the gossip pages, something significant has been happening in the frivolous world of Test cricket.

While you were away — distracted, understandably, by bling and beauty — there has been a significant shift in the long-established pecking order of Australian batting.

A change has come over the landscape out in the middle where men earn their whites through sweat, application and repeated effort.

Over the past three seasons of Test cricket one Michael Clarke has quietly established himself as Australia’s leading batsman.

For the best part of forever Ricky Ponting has sat atop the pile, his character announced by the fact that his batting improved in the early years after he took on the top job.

Ponting is one of the great batsmen of all time, but his raw numbers are in decline and he has not averaged above 50 in the past six Test series.

The captain has slipped out of the International Cricket Council top 10 rankings for the first time in seven years and is now ranked 12th in the world.

Alternatively Clarke has risen to fourth spot and is the leading Australian on the table.

Yes, the ICC rankings are a little skew-whiff.

Simon Katich, who has been a tick behind Clarke over the past 18 months for the Australians, does not even appear in the top 20 (Michael Hussey is, by the way, in freefall having Read more…

Administrator CMDN.com Ashes, Australia, Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Gabba, ICC, IPL, Katich, Mark Taylor, Michael Clarke, Michael Hussey, Ricky Ponting, Simon Katich

From a distance, it has looked like a dreary month in South Africa. Being confined to barracks by the rain in grim places such as East London, as the England players have lately, once reduced a cricket correspondent of my acquaintance to ripping his telephone out of the wall socket and hurling it into the swimming pool below.

When asked by the concerned local tourist board whether it could be of any help, he was heard to shout, “Yes, you can get me a one-way ticket out of here!”

Not much fun, then, for those following the jamboree, but, for England, at least the opening salvoes of this tour have given them a much-needed boost in one-day cricket.

The gloss of becoming only the second team to win a bilateral series in South Africa was diminished slightly by the unsatisfactory nature of it: the washed-out games in Johannesburg and Durban, which reduced the five-match series to the best of three, and the endless hours to kill between the rain and spaced-out games that, to have been productively spent, would have stretched the imagination of even the most enterprising management team.

With England and one-day cricket, though, any success is worth celebrating.

It is with the management team that we must start, because Andrew Strauss and Andy Flower, captain and team manager respectively, have wrought, arguably, an even bigger improvement in England’s one-day fortunes since the drubbing by Australia than they did with the Test side after the debacle in Jamaica — a performance that led to a great deal of soul-searching and, thereafter, to greater honesty. An Ashes victory was the end game of that change in attitude; a World Cup showing better than any since 1992 now their aim in the limited-overs game.

After the meek post-Ashes surrender against Australia and the subsequent exit from the Champions Trophy, they made two key resolutions: that athleticism is non-negotiable Read more…

Administrator England Alastair Cook, Ashes, Blogs.CMDN.com, Champions Trophy, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, England, James Anderson, Kevin Pietersen, London, Paul Collingwood, Shah, South Africa, World Cup

India’s run-fest against Sri Lanka may not be the greatest entertainment, but the crowds in Kanpur will be content with a win for MS Dhoni’s men

What can you say about a series in which 2,133 runs have been scored in 19 sessions for the loss of just 25 wickets? What can you say of the 10 centuries scored already, of a bowler as accomplished as Muttiah Muralitharan being carted all around Green Park? And is Test cricket in India really on an intravenous drip if more than 25,000 take up vantage points in the dilapidated concrete stands in Kanpur?

Over the past 24 hours, I’ve fielded calls from two radio stations, one in the UK and the other in Australia, both wanting to know why pitches in India are so placid, and whether they are responsible for the decline in popularity of the five-day game. Sunil Gavaskar quipped during the Ahmedabad Test that the surface was like a road and, apart from the opening hour of the series when four wickets fell, the contest between bat and ball has been as unedifying as Muhammad Ali reducing Ernie Terrell’s face to pulp while hissing: “What’s my name, Uncle Tom?”

The facts are irrefutable. Over the past five years, nearly 50% of the matches in India [11 of 24] have ended in draws. And unlike a Cardiff 2009 or The Oval 1979, most of the stalemates have been mind-numbingly boring. In the same period, 11 of 35 Tests in England have been drawn. Leading the way in pitch preparation, as on the field, are Australia [two draws in 27] and South Africa [three in 29]. And just to prove that south Asia does not only do touch-of-grey Tests, Sri Lanka have had 18 results from 22 games.

Are Indian curators incapable of producing result-oriented pitches, or have they been led astray by idiotic guidelines put in place by the game’s administrators? The last time a Test was played in Kanpur, India beat South Africa by eight wickets just before the end of the third day’s play. There was all sorts of tripe about “dust bowls” and “sub-standard pitches”, strange when Read more…

Administrator IND vs SL Ahmedabad, Ashes, Australia, BCCI, Blogs.CMDN.com, Cardiff, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, damien martyn, England, Green Park, ICC, India, Kanpur, Muralitharan, Perth, Sachin Tendulkar, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Virender Sehwag, VVS Laxman

It seemed destined to be a hopeless mismatch. An unknown debutant named Clint McKay was running in to bowl at Sachin Tendulkar. With the game and the series hanging in the balance, the fans of Hyderabad were baying for Australian blood.

Tendulkar already had 175 to his name - a monumental innings to rank with anything he has produced in his long and glorious career. He needed only to clear the ropes twice, and victory would be sealed. Instead he flipped the ball unerringly into the hands of fine-leg. India flopped to a morale-shredding defeat.

Perhaps you weren’t watching Sky Sports at the time (around three o’clock last Thursday). Perhaps you have more productive things to do with your afternoons. But this was the defining moment of what has been a surprisingly compelling series. Above all, it illustrated why, despite Australia’s decline as a Test nation, their 50-over form remains all but invincible.

One-day internationals are all about collective responsibility. Each bowler is limited to 10 overs. Each batsman has to risk his wicket for the team. They embody that old cliché “a chain is only as strong as its weakest link”. And because the Australian state system produces more technically sound, mentally tough cricketers than any other in world cricket, Ricky Ponting can turn to someone like McKay in a clutch moment. Surely no other team in the world could have lost nine first-choice players to injury and still beaten the Indians on their home soil.

Tests are different. They are more like theatrical productions because certain people – usually the most proven performers – tend to dominate the stage for long periods of time. If your Hamlet is top-notch, it doesn’t really matter whether Rosencrantz and Guildenstern stumble over their lines: the show will still be a success.

When the Australians whitewashed England in the 2006-07 Ashes, they had a whole host of splendid old thespians trooping the boards. Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Matthew Hayden – these men dominated opponents not only with their runs and their wickets, but with Read more…

Administrator IND vs AUS Ashes, Australia, Blogs.CMDN.com, Clint McKay, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Flintoff, Glenn McGrath, Hyderabad, Matthew Hayden, Michael Clarke, Mike Hussey, Mitchell Johnson, Ricky Ponting, Sachin Tendulkar, Shane Warne, The Oval

As England’s biggest talent (and ego) arrives in South Africa, Stephen Brenkley gauges the mood of the dressing room, from a side that won the Ashes without him

The Brylcreem Boy flies in today. It will not quite be the return of the conquering hero. Kevin Pietersen will arrive largely unheralded at OR Tambo International airport in Johannesburg – though should his latest sponsors insist upon slicked-down hair it may may well turn a few heads – to be met by a liaison officer and whisked to the England team’s hotel.

There, apart from a visit or two to the gym to enhance his recently reacquired fitness (don’t spoil the hair Kev), he will spend the next day kicking his heels waiting for his colleagues to arrive from their business in Bloemfontein. When team and star player are eventually reunited he may find that things have changed, that in his absence they have moved on.

England still need Pietersen’s runs and his outrageous methods of making them but in the last four months the team have demonstrated that they can do without him. It may be to the ultimate benefit of both parties. The rest of the side now recognise they can truly perform and have a terracotta urn containing the Ashes and a Champions Trophy semi-final place to prove it.

Pietersen himself may feel somewhat unburdened and although he has always paid generous lip service to the team ethos in the past, there has always been the suspicion – because it was based on reality – that if he did not do it they might not. Equally some players are transformed by Pietersen at the other end and Paul Collingwood, for instance, looks a better batsman with Pietersen around.

As the off-spinning all-rounder Graeme Swann put it yesterday: “It’s exciting for us that he’s coming back, and, you never know, he might have to fight for his place.” Swann was being typically jocular but it was a joke imbued with a certain seriousness. The top-of-the-bill act has not been indispensable.

Swann, who has visibly grown into an international cricketer of stature while Pietersen has been away, said: “Kev’s Kev, he’s a massive personality and a massive player. He’s got to Read more…

Administrator England Ashes, Blogs.CMDN.com, Champions Trophy, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, England, Johannesburg, Kevin Pietersen, Paul Collingwood, South Africa, Swann

If the selectors want a team guaranteed to perform internationally, they need look no further than Katich and co, writes Will Swanton.

Just pick a NSW-only Test team and be done with it.

Pipe down, Victorians and assorted other non-Blues. NSW have proved themselves as the dominant provincial side in the world, let alone Australia, so the selectors might as well just flood the Test XI with Blues - 10 of them plus captain Ricky Ponting, who lives in Sydney anyway.

And before all those Victorians and assorted other non-Blues start moaning about NSW’s struggles in the Sheffield Shield, come for a meeting in the fair dinkum department - the only reason they don’t win the Shield every year is the unavailability of their premier players who are representing their country.

Cast ahead to the first Ashes Test against England next year. Australia lost the urn, NSW can win it back. A Blues-Only-Plus-Ricky-Ponting Test team isn’t remotely far-fetched.

Phillip Hughes, Phil Jaques, Simon Katich, Michael Clarke, Ricky Ponting, Shane Watson, Brad Haddin, Brett Lee, Nathan Hauritz, Doug Bollinger and Stuart Clark. That’s a legitimate Test team. Every one of those players is already in possession of a baggy green cap. None of them could be considered bolters. Look through the list - every one of them has a realistic chance of making Ponting’s side. So why not all of them?

Of the Australian team that lost the Ashes, only Mitchell Johnson and Peter Siddle could feel aggrieved to be excluded. Johnson is the ICC Cricketer of the Year but even he admitted to being shocked after he misfired throughout most of the Ashes. He struggled against Read more…

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THE extent of the decline of slow bowling in Australia has been revealed, with figures showing the percentage of deliveries sent down by spinners in the Sheffield Shield competition has almost halved in the past four decades.

The figures were prepared for Cricket Australia and presented to the board’s annual general meeting last week, at which chairman of selectors Andrew Hilditch was reappointed for two years, despite the recent Ashes defeat.

Hilditch and his panel have been criticised for sending five spinners through a revolving door to the Test team since Stuart MacGill retired in June last year. But in his report to the AGM, Hilditch said the selectors were placed in the impossible position of having to pluck a spinner, Nathan Hauritz, out of grade ranks for last summer’s Adelaide Test because of the dearth of slow bowlers in first-class cricket.

Australia has had a lack of depth in spin bowling since Shane Warne left the international stage almost three years ago, but the figures expose an alarming decline since the 1960s, when nearly 45 per cent of deliveries were sent down by spinners, compared with 35 per cent in the 1980s, 31 per cent in the ’90s and about 25 per cent this decade. Two of the three leading slow bowlers in last season’s Sheffield Shield - Queensland’s Chris Simpson and South Australia’s Aaron O’Brien - were part-timers, redoubling concerns about the nurturing of specialist spinners in the competition that feeds the national teams.

In five of the past 13 Tests, Australia has not picked a spinner, most controversially leaving Hauritz out of the Ashes decider after mis-reading the pitch at the Oval.

As Bryce McGain said in a recent interview with The Wisden Cricketer magazine, Read more…

Administrator Australia Aaron O'Brien, Adelaide, Andrew Hilditch, Ashes, Australia, Blogs.CMDN.com, Bryce McGain, CA, Chris Simpson, Cricket, Cricket Australia, Cricket Blogs, Greg Chappell, Jason Krejza, Nathan Hauritz, Oval, Sir Donald Bradman, Stuart MacGill

International cricket is littered with players who were only fortunate enough to represent their country on one occasion. As it currently stands, there are 386 One Test wonders, 173 One ODI wonders and 65 women have played just the solitary One Day International match. Of course, some may yet continue their international careers, but here we present a tribute to those cricketers who achieved the highest Reliance Mobile ICC Player Ranking after their fleeting moment in the sun.

Starting in the Test arena, there is a surprising name at the top of the list. Drafted into England’s team for the final Ashes match this summer, Jonathan Trott distinguished himself with 41 in the first innings before becoming the eighteenth Englishman to make a century on his Test debut second time around. That double enabled him to reach 445 points and 52nd place overall. Of course, when he plays his next Test – in all likelihood on England’s upcoming tour of South Africa – the record will revert to New Zealander Rodney Redmond, who reached 434 points after scoring 107 and 56 against Pakistan at Auckland in February 1973. He couldn’t adapt to wearing contact lenses and never represented his country again.

With the ball, it is far more clear cut. Charles “Father” Marriott was picked to play the final Test for England against the West Indies at The Oval in the summer of 1933. Things didn’t look so good when he was dismissed for a duck by Manny Martindale, but he roared back to take 5-37 and 6-59 with his leg-breaks as England triumphed by an innings and 17 runs. Marriott turned 38 before England toured India the following winter, but he wasn’t selected for any of the Tests and never played again. In a distant second place is Aubrey Smith – the only England captain to star in a Hollywood film with Elizabeth Taylor – who reached 262 points after taking seven wickets in England’s first-ever Test in South Africa in 1889.

The late 1980s and early 1990s was a time when the England selectors were notoriously fickle with their selections, so it is perhaps unsurprising that two more Englishmen top the respective lists in the shorter format of the game. Kim Barnett only played one ODI which Read more…

Administrator Views Ashes, Auckland, Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, England, Graeme Hick, ICC, Jonathan Trott, Lord’s, Manny Martindale, Neil Fairbrother, ODI, Pakistan, Ranking, Rodney Redmond, Sri Lanka, The Oval, West Indies, World Cup

Andrew Flintoff admits he got found out at last year’s IPL but is looking forward to putting that right next spring

Andrew Flintoff, with an expert dip and hoist of his crutches, slips into a discreet corner of a restaurant on the outskirts of Manchester. He grins ruefully as he shimmies along to the far edge of the plush cubicle where he can stretch out his damaged leg and slide his crutches under the table.

“Sorry about all that,” Flintoff says, shrugging at the sheer palaver his simplest movement entails these days. “The frustrating thing is that I don’t even feel injured. I’m not in pain but the surgeon warned me it’s going to be a test of patience – and patience is not something I’ve got in abundance.”

In late August, just days after he helped England to regain the Ashes with a series of performances lurching from fiery glory to determined limping, Flintoff underwent major surgery on his chronically injured right knee. The surgeon induced two micro-fractures to a bone, in an attempt to stimulate tissue growth and replace worn cartilage, so that he can return to limited‑overs cricket next summer.

“The rehab is very slow,” Flintoff explains. “I’m on the crutches until November and once the knee is scanned, we’ll see if it’s beginning to work. It helps that the surgeon says the chances of me coming back are high. Obviously there is always the odd case where it doesn’t work but I did my own research.

“You Google the operation and get all these examples. A lot of basketball players have had it and they’re much bigger and heavier and they jump higher than me. And they’ve made full Read more…

Administrator England Andrew Chandler, Andrew Flintoff, Ashes, Ashes to Ashes, Blogs.CMDN.com, Canada, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Dave Roberts, Duncan Fletcher, ECB, England, IPL, Manchester, Michael Vaughan, Reg Dickason, South Africa, St Lucia, Twenty20, World Cup

Cricket is working hard to not lose its place in the sun.

THE faithful are sticking to a time-honoured line - ”cricket is the sound of summer” - but even in Jolimont there is recognition that, more than ever, the traditional staple faces an unprecedented challenge to make itself heard.

A scan of the sporting landscape in the months ahead does little to quell the suspicion there will be louder noises heard than willow striking leather.

Omnipresent football and racing’s spring carnival have already overshadowed Australia’s progression to the Champion’s Trophy final in South Africa, and the horses’ hooves will be thundering by the time Ricky Ponting and friends arrive in India later this month for seven one-day internationals, the form of the game that is struggling most to hold a capricious audience’s attention.

The promoters of Australia’s sprinkling of annual golf tournaments, who a year ago recruited John Daly in the hope of attracting some car-wreck style voyeurism, won’t need smoke and mirrors this time around. Having Tiger Woods on the bill for next month’s Masters at Kingston Heath guarantees an almighty moment in the sun.

The Australian Open has become such a crowd-pulling force that organisers need do little more than string a net between two poles to fill Melbourne Park, an enviable situation that’s not about to change in January, given the backdrop this time around. Think defending champion Serena Williams, post her US Open meltdown; Juan Martin Del Potro taking it up to Federer and Nadal; comeback queens Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin; Jelena Dokic and Bernard Tomic, Read more…

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