ALLAN Border’s contribution to Australian cricket is almost impossible to measure.

Such is his nature that Allan Border does not notice let alone complain that the true worth of his service to Australian cricket is often unrecognised, unwritten and undiscussed.

So to this end it is hardly surprising that the 25th anniversary of his first appearance as his country’s 38th captain went unnoticed this week.

This is not acceptable. Attention should always be drawn to December 7, 1984 when Border succeeded his mate Kim Hughes as skipper against the West Indies in Adelaide.

It is a date of the utmost significance for it marks the beginning of what is best termed “the age of stability” in Australian cricket.

It is much too easy following the heady successes of the past 20 years under Border, Mark Taylor, Steve Waugh, Ricky Ponting and Adam Gilchrist to ignore, even forget, the confusion, controversy and tensions which so characterised Australian cricket in 1984.

Despite some initial misgivings and an anxious and sometimes grumpy first two years in office Border prospered to become a very fine captain and led Australia on a record 93 occasions over the next nine years and three months.

Aside from his enormous contributions as one of the greatest and most courageous batsmen of any era (11,174 runs at 50.56 with 27 hundreds and 63 fifties) his legacy was the provision of certainty, unity and a collective confidence at a time of great uncertainty — a bequest from which Australian cricket in general and Ponting and his men in particular continue to benefit.

Indeed, it is remarkable that Australia has had just four captains in 25 years and there is no doubt that the many successes of this period have been a direct consequence of the impressive stability achieved and maintained at just about every level of Australian cricket. There is no Read more…

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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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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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The New Zealand cricket team retrieved some ground but still made complete goats of themselves with that first up result in Abu Dhabi.

The players led the charge to get rid of the coach and then copped one of their worst losses of recent times.

Andy Moles wouldn’t have made any difference had he been there but that’s not the point.

Hasn’t the time come when this power of the players was reined in by their employers, or at least harnessed until there was some semblance of consistency about the team’s results?

The way the show is being run at the moment, Daniel Vettori is, by some distance, the most powerful man in New Zealand cricket.

I’ve followed the game and its history in this country most of my life and I doubt there’s ever been a time since the New Zealand Cricket Council was formed in December 1894 when a player held as much influence on the field, at head office and around the board table.

Vettori is undoubtedly the best player in the country and in a team that can only be regarded as dreadful under-performers, he wields huge influence simply by virtue of his on-field deeds.

Even some of the great New Zealand players and personalities of generations past - like Tom Lowry, captain for the first two tours of England, and manager too for the second in 1931, or John R Reid, captain, star all-rounder, national selector, and de facto coach from 1958 to 1965 - never seemed to pull as many strings as Vettori does today.

Ironically New Zealand’s best teams - those with Richard Hadlee and Martin Crowe at their peak between 1985 and 1990 - had so many good players that no individual was able to Read more…

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What is the difference between Daniel Vettori and Brian Tamaki? The Black Caps do not bow when they approach Vettori . . . yet.

Whether it is by circumstance or Machiavellian design, the left-arm spinner has acquired enough power to dim the environmentally friendly and energy-efficient lights over Seddon Park.

He’s now a selector, the stand-in coach, the captain, a leading bowler and one of our best batsmen.

With former coach Andy Moles dispatched, Vettori’s grip on the reins is complete.

Even Brendon McCullum’s voice in the dressing rooms has been muted by his public demotion from the vice-captaincy.

The cricket community and the media seemed to be in unison over Moles’ departure.

No-one, it appeared, was willing to suggest a mutiny had taken place or player power was getting out of hand.

Less than a year into his three-year contract, former Warwickshire opener Moles walked the plank with barely a squeak - no doubt silenced, to an extent, by the size of his pay-out.

Before splashdown he meekly complained about not being given the time to improve, and he rejected the perception he was ill-equipped to take the national side forward.

Given he got the job only when several higher-profile candidates withdrew, criticism was directed at New Zealand Cricket for rushing into the appointment.

Moles’ fate had been sealed by a poor report card on which the country’s leading players questioned whether he was up to the task.

Some of the same players flexed their muscle earlier in the year, when they delayed signing their national contracts until they had clarity around whether the inbound Australian tour Read more…

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It happened again last week - a limp test match performance against Sri Lanka with face saved only by yet another piece of Daniel Vettori batting prowess; followed by a much more convincing showing at limited overs cricket. It leads us to the question, and not for the first time: Why is New Zealand so poor in test cricket? Or, put another way: Why can’t the other Black Caps bat as well as Vettori? Paul Lewis investigates.

It’s embarrassing. As we pointed out in these pages last week, over the past three years, skipper Daniel Vettori is the top or second-top scorer in around one out of every three tests - and that from a No 8 batsman who, by any measure, is not the most attractive nor most talented bat around. We typically see Vettori leading a fightback, face pinched with concentration, defending well and waiting for the ball to come from which he can score. He has a good eye, a small array of shots from which he can profit and is a vastly experienced cricketer with a deep well of guts and stubbornness. He averages in the 30s and 40s for his last 2000 runs in test cricket.

These are qualities this country has previously come to expect from its test cricketers. Fans were raised with few genuinely world-class players like Richard Hadlee, Glenn Turner or Martin Crowe to enjoy. Instead, many well-performed New Zealand batsmen came to the international game with solid defensive techniques and a determination not to sell their wicket cheaply; to occupy the crease, bat time, outlast and out-manoeuvre.

We’re talking your Bevan Congdons, the skipper when New Zealand won its first test against Australia in the 1970s and who made a pair of centuries in successive tests against England, Read more…

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A Test Championship is a great idea. The only trouble is that it is an idea whose time has not yet come.

Nobody has yet come up with a really workable schedule for a Test Championship, not even the most ingenious of thinkers about the modern game, Martin Crowe, New Zealand’s former captain, who made his proposals to MCC’s world cricket committee.

If a Test Championship with semi-finals and a final is desired, then can they each consist of one match, which would hinge on winning the toss on a flat pitch and batting first for several days?

To be fair, the semi-finals and final would have to consist of three Tests each so the rub of the green would be evenly spread; and if we allow for practice games and acclimatisation, we are talking of more than a month for each encounter.

To allow for three-match semi-finals and finals, an enormous amount of time would therefore have to be set aside in the calendar, with knock-on effects. If England reached the semi-finals, at home, they would have to cancel a tour by another country at short notice. Sorry, Australia, Read more…

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The MCC has recently warned us about the potential death of Test Cricket and have called for the introduction of a World Test Championship (WTC). As was reported on Crininfo this view has been supported by many distinguished former and current players like Steve Waugh, Martin Crowe and Rahul Dravid. I have been wondering for some time what form will this WTC take and how a system will be devised to implement this. I have come up with a format which could be implemented. However it may also seem controversial as the concept of tours as we know it now will have to end.

Historically teams toured for long durations and played long series because of the distances involved and the time taken to cover these distances. All this has changed now and travel is obviously much faster but the cricket calendar is still stuck in the early part of the last century. The WTC should consist of 12 teams divided into 2 divisions of 6. Currently there are only 9 Test playing countries since Zimbabwe is suspended, however the top ranked associates can be promoted to Test status to get the full complement of 12. After every season, the bottom 2 teams will get relegated and the top 2 teams from the second division will get promoted to division 1. The initial divisions can be made on the current ICC rankings. The associate nations can also compete to get into division 2 but more on that later.

Each team in the division needs to play every other team twice in the course of a season. This means every team plays 10 test matches in a season and the total number of test matches in a season are 30. Every team gets to play 3 matches at home and 7 matches on neutral or away grounds. Every country needs to host five test matches i.e. 3 involving the home team and 2 test matches involving neutral teams. Every touring country can play a maximum of 2 games and a minimum of 1 game in any other country. Read more…

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