Wasim Akram gives M D Crowe a verbal high-five: “I have bowled to both Tendulkar and Lara and I have found Lara more attacking. Tendulkar has a tighter technique, no doubt, but Lara can single-handedly win the game for his team…If you are asking me who the best batsman I have bowled to is, then it’s not Tendulkar and not Lara as well. It’s Martin Crowe… he was an amazing batsman.” Hogan, you rule - no wonder I had your Test run aggregate as my PIN number for a decade. Back in 1990, Crowe was forced to add a grille to his safety armoury for the first time in his career as he faced Waqar and Wasim on their bottle-cap infested patch. He did OK though, with the highlight being an epic 554-minute 108 at Lahore. Crowe has scored more runs than any other NZ batsman against Pakistan.

Coney and Chatfield in Dunedin, 1985: In one of the nation’s most thrilling Test matches, 278 was the target and the six-and-a-bit finest hours of Jeremy Coney were upon us. Self-confessed curmudgeon Ian David Stockley Smith departed and at 217/7 it was all but over, even before Cairns was KO’d by Wasim Akram to effectively make it 217/8. The recalled Bracewell B was back in the pavilion 11 runs later, and NZ still needed 50 to win with the most notorious batsman in NZ cricket history wandering meekly to the crease: E J Chatfield in the world’s baggiest vest. By tea, seven had been crossed off. In the final session, Coney was dropped on 97 from the first ball and the tone was set. As the Wisden Almanac described: “Chatfield showed such willingness to take the strike that in their unbroken, match-winning stand of 50 he had 84 balls to Coney’s 48. Coney reached his second Test century and Chatfield made his best Test score, his runs being almost outnumbered by his bruises.” Legends.

Thomson and Young mow down 324: This was a face-saving win for New Zealand having already lost the Test series. Blonde-maned horse-lover Shane Thomson joined grocer and wicketkeeper-cum-opener Bryan Young with NZ teetering at 4/133. Crucially, Mark Greatbatch and Andrew Jones were back in the dressing room. But the two ND team-mates set about forging one of the most memorable partnerships in NZ Test cricket history, hitting maiden tons, and leading the charge to a brilliant win. It also gave anorak wearers the country over a mouth-watering record: NZ’s highest-ever fourth-innings total to win a Test. (It is a travesty that the efforts of these two players in compiling this magnificent partnership have since been undermined by allegations against players of dubious repute. The Commission of Inquiry’s report here makes Read more…

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Kevin Pietersen may be many things, but he is not into false flattery. When he says he rates someone, he means it.

And although he likes to make big statements, without the conditionals and weasel words of others, he usually has sound reason for what he says. There is always basis for the bluster.

But some may feel he has taken leave of his senses with the comment in his interview with Richard Hobson this morning:

“I truly believe Jacques Kallis is the greatest cricketer ever.”

Eyebrows duly raised? Let’s leave out all the ancient cricketers who Pietersen may not even have considered - the Bradmans and Barneses and Trumpers and Hobbses. Let’s even leave out players of more recent vintage who have dominated but perhaps slipped the infant Pietersen’s attention when he was running about on the farm in Pietermaritzburg rather than watching TV - the Gavaskars, Richardses, Bothams and Soberses.

But is Kallis even the greatest of those to have played in the past decade? Is he better than Warne or Ponting or Tendulkar or Murali? Where does he sit in relation to Gilchrist or Lara or Kumble? Could Sehwag or Sangakkara or McGrath be rated higher?

Perhaps by posing these questions, it just reveals how blessed we have been to be watching cricket in the past decade. So many greats to choose from. And I’m not saying that Kallis doesn’t deserve his place. He averages 55 in Test cricket, 45+ in ODIs and has 500 international wickets. He is a very very fine player. If only he had an English parent we’d have been in there and poached him…

But for Pietersen to say so definitively that he is the greatest? Well, have your say. And Read more…

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As some of you promptly pointed out, I forgot to mention Gautam Gambhir in my post on batsmen who use their feet against spinners. Hell, Gambhir even jumps down the pitch against the quick bowlers, and that takes some nerve. He was India’s best batsman on their last Test tour of Sri Lanka, where some of his more illustrious colleagues struggled to decode Ajantha Mendis. Virender Sehwag’s double-century in
Galle was the innings of the series, but Gambhir was the most consistent and secure Indian batsman on tour.

For sheer viewing pleasure, though, I’d still go for Michael Clarke. Gambhir is quick out of crease, but he is more jerky, and he moves around a bit too much; sometimes he gives himself away by moving out too early. Clarke is more fluid and graceful and he keeps the bowlers guessing.

Traditionally, Indian batsmen have always used their feet against the spinners, as have the Australians. Good players of spin bowling don’t merely hit booming shots after having come down pitch, but often knock the ball around for singles. Sunil Gavaskar, who had the surest footwork, did it all the time, as did Ravi Shastri. Gavaskar never swept. And he rarely lofted
the ball. Read more…

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What’s not to like about MS Dhoni? Even as an outsider, a neutral, someone who just watches cricket for the sheer pleasure of the sport without any patriotic leanings, I find myself drawn towards a character like Dhoni. He is hard to dislike.

Reading his post-match interviews after India’s surprising exit from the World T20 Championship, it is clear that Dhoni is a man who is comfortable in his own skin. He offers reasons, not excuses. He accepts blames, shares it sometimes but never looks to shift it. He concedes mistakes, both by himself and from his team without appearing to be too self-effacing or disloyal. He has a quiet dignity that is able to accept defeat with relative grace whilst still showing the right measure of pain and disappointment. The captain of India needs to walk this line carefully. Too many self-recriminations and the knives will be out. Too blasé and they’ll accuse you of not caring enough. Dhoni looks to have found the right balance.

It was interesting to see that the first person he singled out for blame was himself. He admitted to not doing as well as he would have liked, to not playing the sort of explosive innings that his early reputation was forged on and for getting it slightly wrong with certain tactical decisions. He wasn’t necessarily apologising because he doesn’t need to. Why apologise? He didn’t mean to bat poorly or make tactical errors – it just happened. That’s T20 cricket for you - it’s a very fine line between winning and losing. So he didn’t apologise but he still expressed regret and took responsibility. Read more…

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A new cricket ground has been built in Mbarara, the south west of Uganda, which was opened by Brian Lara. The former West Indies batsman later gave training tips to cricketers from Ntare School, Uganda Martyrs Primary School and the Asian Community in Mbarara.

“Talent accounts for only ten percent, the rest you have to have love for the game and practice [sic],” Lara told the Daily Monitor. “I begun at an early age and by eighteen years I was already [a] star.”

Ntare school’s deputy headmaster, Eliab Tumushabe, took the opportunity to remind the world that cricket remains quite out of reach for many in Uganda. Read more…

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