Sachin Tendulkar joined an elite group of Test players when he took the field against Bangladesh last month. He became just the fifth person to play Test cricket in four different decades having made his debut as a sixteen-year-old against Pakistan at Karachi in November 1989. Let’s have a look at the players he emulated and how they performed in the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings.

The first man to achieve this most remarkable of feats is also unique in that he participated in Tests in five different decades. That man is Wilfred Rhodes, who started his career as a specialist left-arm spinner in the 1890s who didn’t bat any higher than tenth in any of his first nine Tests. However, by 1912 he had graduated to opening the batting with Jack Hobbs and that pair still holds England’s first wicket record partnership in Ashes Tests with the 323 they added at Melbourne in February 1912. Rhodes also holds England’s record partnership for the tenth wicket too, and by the time he was recalled for his final appearances in 1930 he was back to number 10 playing as a spinner.

Batting-wise, he achieved 646 points and fourth place in December 1913 after he scored 152 against South Africa at Johannesburg in the match that Sydney Barnes took seventeen wickets. However it was with his bowling that he really hit the heights. He spent a total of twelve Tests at the top of the bowling tree between 1904 and 1907 peaking at 823 points. He was unfortunate that despite ending his first-class career just 31 runs short of the 40,000 run / 4,000 wicket double, he never topped the Test all-rounder table thanks to South African Aubrey Faulkner who reached his peak around the same time Rhodes did.

Jack Hobbs made his Test debut in 1908 and ‘The Master’ was only toppled from his lofty perch at the top of the Batting Ratings for one match in the entire period from 1912 to 1928 (by South African Herbie Taylor in 1923). He peaked at 942 at the end of 1912 which is the third-highest points tally ever achieved. His opening partnership with Herbert Sutcliffe was legendary and he spent more than a quarter of his Test career with a Rating of over 900 points. His career records of 61,760 first-class runs with 199 centuries will never be beaten and no-one else has ever scored a Test century at the age of 46. Even when he finally ended his international career Read more…

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India has just scored an emphatic 2-0 victory over Bangladesh. Barring the opening day of the two-Test series that witnessed a middle-order collapse, India were pretty much on top for most of the series.

      Nonetheless, the series also exposed certain chinks in our armour. We need to work on them as sterner test awaits us against South Africa beginning with the first Test on February 6. After all, the series is being billed as the battle for the champion Test team in the world.

      1. Middle-order batting:  Due to injuries, our middle order is suddenly looking brittle. Ok, we have Tendulkar in great nick. But Dravid, Laxman and Yuvraj are likely to miss the first Test. Indications are Yuvraj will miss the entire Test series. So what do we do?

      I think India has adequate bench strength. The question is whether the selectors will go for the real guys or opt for their favourites. If the selectors think that Dinesh Karthik, that little darling of the five wise men, will shore up the middle order, then God help India.

      Sure, we need experience. But I am not saying, call back Ganguly. Or even Mohammed Kaif.

      I have four fresh names: Cheteshwar Pujara, S Badrinath, Manish Pandey and Manoj Tiwary. The last three are among the finest fielders in India.

      Pujara and Badrinath are the two unluckiest cricketers in India today. Each of them has scored centuries by dozens. Badrinath, especially, has also proved his worth during India A tours abroad. Obviously either the selectors don't like his face or they know about a major chink in his batting that nobody else can find on television. I know he is 29 but so what? Even Mr Cricket, Michael Hussey made his Test debut at 30.

      Both Badrinath and Pujara are tailor-made for Test cricket. They have solid defence, decent footwork and play the ball on merit. They can graft and build a long, patient innings. Surely, both deserve a chance.

      Pandey and Tiwary are two of a kind. Both have the game to succeed on the big stage. After his recent stunning ton in the Ranji Trophy, Pandey is high on confidence too. Tiwary has fallen off the mindmap. But his 102 off 123 balls for East Zone against Central Zone, shows Read more...

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In the latest world rankings, released after the Joburg and Hobart Tests, England are without a single batsman in the top 20 for the first time, by my reckoning, since 2002.

Andrew Strauss has slipped seven places over the course of the series with South Africa to No 21 and Kevin Pietersen’s fall has been sharper: down from No 4 at the start of the year to No 26 now.

Pietersen has fallen behind Paul Collingwood (up to No 22 despite not scoring a hundred in his past 11 Tests) and he is only one bad innings away from falling to England’s fourth best batsman with Alastair Cook in 28th place.

Heck, by the end of the Bangladesh tour, Pietersen could even have slipped behind Ian Bell, who is at No 32 and rising.

Four, or even five, batsmen in the top 30 isn’t in itself a bad thing. We’ve had as few as three in recent memory - and no more than six. Sri Lanka and Australia have only four each at the moment. South Africa have five and India have six, but England have two more than New Zealand or Pakistan and one more than the Windies.

That reflects our overall world Test ranking of fifth. The problem is the lack of one or two superstars. Depth is one thing, class is another. There are six different nations represented in the present top ten and England’s finest is 11 places outside that list.

This may be only temporary - Strauss could slip back into the top 20 next week if VVS Laxman (No 17) pays for a poor match against Bangladesh - but it has been a long time since we were without any top 20 representative. Pietersen had been in the top 20 since 2006 and was as high as No 3; before him there was a Trescothick or a Vaughan to fly the flag and, apart from a slump in 2000 and a brief dip in 2002, Graham Thorpe was in the top 20 between 1995 and 2003.

Before him, Mike Atherton and Alec Stewart were regulars in the top ten - and briefly, in 1992, we even had the No 1 and 2 batsmen in the world, in Graham Gooch and Robin Smith. Read more…

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England’s decision to allow “jaded” captain Andrew Strauss to miss next month’s tour to Bangladesh will leave many fans scratching their heads.

At a time when England are looking to lick the team into shape for their Ashes defence against Australia at the end of the year, it seems odd for the skipper not to be leading his troops from the front. Instead, it will be a “very excited” Alastair Cook who takes charge.

Strauss certainly does need to do something about his form. His team were fortunate to tie the four-match series 1-1 in South Africa after scraping two draws in Centurion and Cape Town by the skin of their teeth, and the captain himself was way below his best with the bat, scoring just 170 runs at an average of 24.28.

But rather than an extended rest, he could consider that the best way for a test batsman to regain his form is to play in a test. And given that Bangladesh’s bowlers are hardly the most fearsome in world cricket, shouldn’t an out-of-touch opener be relishing the opportunity?

Now the tour of South Africa is over, England have a four-week break before they leave for three Twenty20 matches in the Middle East ahead of the trip to Bangladesh.

Isn’t four weeks enough for Strauss to recharge his batteries before getting out there again to try to do what a batsman does best — and bat? Read more…

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The last time a Test match was drawn in South Africa was three years ago; since then 17 Tests have produced results. In fact, South Africa have drawn only two of their last 27 matches at home, against England in 2005 and New Zealand in 2006. Australia’s 57 home Tests in this decade produced 48 results.

Australian captain Ricky Ponting says that he fears for the future of Test cricket because of the low percentage of decisive matches in the subcontinent. There are two messages here, the obvious one and the one implied, which is that the subcontinent, or more correctly India, probably hold the future of the longer game in their hands.

Only 29 of 47 matches in India, or 62 percent, have produced results and that is cause for worry. Should public interest and thus television and advertising money move away from Tests as a result of too many inconclusive games, then that format is in danger. A major attraction of the shorter formats is that matches end in victory or defeat. Cricket has seen some exciting draws – but not too many in the subcontinent where the fate of a match is often decided by the third morning and everybody merely goes through the motions thereafter.

But – and this is a point that Ponting has missed – it is not only the tracks that hold the key to a result. There is such a thing as temperament, and psychologically Indian captains play safe, ensuring first that at least a draw is assured before thinking about victory. No Indian captain – Tiger Pataudi, and possibly the early Sourav Ganguly were exceptions – would let go of a bird in hand for a speculative two in the bush. A defeat is such a national disgrace that few captains are willing to take a chance on losing in order to push for victory.

Rahul Dravid’s refusal to enforce the follow on despite a 300-plus lead in the Trent Bridge Test of 2007 or Sourav Ganguly’s similar response after India made 700-plus and restricted Australia to under 500 in the Sydney Test of 2004 are examples of captains who realize that the effigy-burners and editorial-writers are just waiting for a single mis-step to swing into action. It is worse at home where Indian captains are expected to win every time, and the unreal Read more…

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Have you even heard of that story about the King Frog whose hubris finally lead to his demise? It goes like - once upon a time there was a big fat frog who was under the impression that he was the biggest thing that God created ruling a good well with a large number of inhabitants, all smaller than him. At the same time he did not fail to gloat over that fact and made everyone always keep that in mind.

One day a junior member of the tribe had an accidental ride to the surface and while hopping around he happened to see a medium sized cow grazing close to the well. The junior who was living under a false impression could not believe what he witnessed and made a B -line back to the well and reported the matter to his beloved king claiming that he saw a living thing bigger than him. Disbelieving the junior the king blew himself up and inquired “Was he this size?” Then he just kept blowing himself on till he finally died of a heart attack.

That is a good lesson for anyone not to live by a myth.

A while ago the ICC had protruded the Lankan cricketers to be ranked the second best in the world Test rankings and we believed we were there in reality. However we first began to challenge the status quo when the Australians hinted that there should be a division among the Test rankings with the top four of Australia, England, South Africa and India slotted together in the big-league while Sri Lanka, Pakistan, New Zealand, West Indies and Bangladesh playing in a lower rung. This was one their solutions to the problem of the dwindling competitiveness among the Test playing countries. When this call first came Sri Lanka was at the number two slot and obviously we were rather perturbed.

The events that followed made us think more pragmatically. The ICC rankings are given on the current form of a country ranked on the results they yield. Ironically it is only a yardstick, Read more…

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The thought itself is too exciting. If it turns into reality, it will give rise to tingles and inspire jingles. If India beats Sri Lanka at the Brabourne Stadium over the next five days, it will become the world’s No.1 Test team in cricket. Oooo.

Think about it. Right up at the peak with enough time to inhale the rare air. Perhaps that really means having too little oxygen and too much time.

According to a rough schedule on the ICC website, in the next ten months, India are slated to play two Tests in Bangladesh and even two in Zimbabwe. New Zealand are slotted in for three Tests in October-November 2010. Seven Tests in ten months is not what No.1s should be doing.

The same ICC calendar shows that in 2010 England are playing 12 Tests, South Africa 11, Australia could squeeze in ten and New Zealand have nine. Even Pakistan which these days cannot play a match on its troubled soil, might play nine Tests next year including ‘hosting’ Australia for two Tests in England.

So, even if it happens the No. 1 ranking for India will be a historical moment of trumpeting, but it will only be a moment. This will be the result of the BCCI’s miserable scheduling which took place a few yesterdays ago when there was no IPL to serve as a distraction. Today all future scheduling will revolve the IPL’s six weeks which could well become eight weeks in 2011.

The bigger pity is India’s Test team contains a small but very influential clutch of cricketers who have spent a decade pushing their team forward at home and abroad. Along with Mr T, to have batsmen of the quality of Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman play seven Tests in ten months is like limiting an artist’s access to canvas and paint. Or, if artistic metaphors are not your choice, try telling men building a house that their use of brick and cement is being restricted to mood, rather than measure.

Then, this No.1 will mean little to the world. India will neither have the chance to retain control and possession of it by playing enough Test cricket and establishing an Australia-like Read more…

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After a successful year the Bangladesh cricket team looks like a settled one. With India and Sri Lanka visiting in January for a tri-series, followed by a Test series against India, the BCB have one crucial question to answer. Who will be captain of the national team, Mashrafe Mortaza or Shakib Al Hasan?

Mashrafe was made captain of the team before the tour of West Indies in June this year. Unfortunately, he was struck down by a knee injury halfway through the first Test and thereafter the reins were passed to the vice-captain Shakib, who has led in Mashrafe’s absence ever since.

Having presided over Bangladesh’s most successful period (11wins out of 13 in ODIs, and victories in both the Tests), Shakib has made a strong case for full-time captaincy duties. This claim will have to be tempered by the reminder that all those victories came against weaker opposition. West Indies were in disarray when Bangladesh toured, with all of their first-choice players boycotting the series because of contract disputes with WICB, and Zimbabwe are a team still struggling to find their way back into the Test fold. It may justifiably be argued that the results against these teams would not have been much different had Mashrafe been leading.

Against this argument will have to be pitted Shakib’s display as a captain. He has proved to be one of the more proactive captains Bangladesh has had, not waiting for opponents to make mistakes, but trying to induce them through clever field settings and bowling changes.

Another argument against Shakib is that at 22, and only three years into his career, he is too young and would be better off concentrating on his own performances which have been an asset to the team. Till date, he has shown that the burden of captaincy hasn’t weighed him down, but rather has been an incentive to improve. This is borne out in the statistics; his averages are markedly better in both batting and bowling as captain than as just a player.

Even though the statistics favour Shakib, this argument is justified considering that the coming year will pose challenges much stiffer than any he has faced in the matches he has captained. It is realistic to expect that these pressures will be dealt with better by Mashrafe Mortaza, Read more…

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Opposition from India and England must be overcome to give the Test game its pinnacle

It’s been nearly half a century since four mop tops from Liverpool told us, “‘Cause I don’t care too much for money, money can’t buy me love”. That’s certainly been true of the Indian cricket board (BCCI), whose coffers have swelled even as resentment towards it around the world has grown. Some of the anger comes from fossils that still yearn for a time when the far reaches of the Commonwealth were “kept in their place”, but there are many others with not a racist or imperial bone in their bodies disturbed by what they see as the organisation’s two primary mottos: “Show me the money” and “Our way or the highway”.

Back in early October, on the day of the Champions League final, I walked into a suite full of posh toffs and cricket officials from across the globe to talk to Haroon Lorgat, the International Cricket Council’s chief executive. One of the topics we discussed was a proposed world championship of Test cricket. A former player who clearly loves the sport, Lorgat is usually candid and forthright with his views. But when it came to this subject, he was guarded in the extreme. He did admit, though, that the opposition to the idea came from India and England, who feared that a structure or fixed format would eat into the considerable profits that they made from bilateral tours.

The ICC is often a soft target for criticism, especially from those unsure of how it works. The fact is that the executives and committees can only make suggestions. For them to be implemented, the member boards have to ratify the proposals. The chance of pushing through something that’s vehemently opposed by India and England, perhaps the most influential and certainly the richest, is slim to non-existent. That applies to every aspect of the game – the Future Tours Programme, playing conditions and the sharing of revenue.

India have not hosted Bangladesh since they were granted Test status in 2000. They’ve toured their eastern neighbour several times during that period, with the Bangladesh Cricket Board perfectly happy to cash in on the windfall. Without home-and-away tours in place, Read more…

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CRICKET’s World Cup is still too long and remains cluttered with meaningless matches.

The tedious format of the International Cricket Council’s showpiece may have been changed and reduced by a week but the schedule released yesterday for 2011 in the sub-continent is another damning example of television ruling sport.

While the missionary zeal of opening the tournament to lesser nations may have been well-meant in the comfortably paced, almost amateur 1970s, the hectic nature of modern international cricket has made matches against the minnows irrelevant.

With Australia playing its 40th one-day international this year against India in Mumbai tonight, there are already so many meaningless matches in an overcrowded program the ICC should be scheduling fewer more meaningful matches. Two groups of seven will play each other in the next World Cup, meaning teams such as Zimbabwe, Kenya, Ireland, Canada and The Netherlands will each play six matches before the quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals.

The first match is between co-hosts Bangladesh and India in Dhaka on February 19 and the final is not until April 2 in Mumbai.

Australia will spend the first month of the tournament playing just six matches, an average of one every five days, with three of them against non-Test countries Zimbabwe, Canada and Kenya.

Instead of getting the meaningless matches out of the way, the program has been stretched out for television, with no more than two games programmed on any given day.

The ICC tried a four-group format during the endless, soulless 2007 World Cup in the West Indies but that backfired when Pakistan lost to Ireland and India lost to Bangladesh, putting a big hole in the tournament and sub-continent television audience.

With the current format, each country, including the all-important India, must play at least six matches and India would be expected to make at least the quarter-finals. Test opener Simon Katich said that the amount of cricket was a “worry” for the players involved in all three forms of the game and it was important for his performance to have time at home. “They are Read more…

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