All the talk is of New Zealand’s batting woes of late.

And with good reason. The performance of New Zealand’s top six in three of the four innings against Pakistan during the first two tests raised a pile of questions.

But what about the other half of the game?

New Zealand’s fast-medium trio - Shane Bond, Chris Martin and Iain O’Brien at Dunedin in the first test win, and Martin, O’Brien and Daryl Tuffey in Wellington - more than did their part.

They combined hostility with penetration against a Pakistani batting lineup which - teenage star Umar Akmal and captain Mohammad Yousuf apart - has flattered to deceive.

So all’s well in the seam department. But for how long?

Consider the ages of the incumbents and their current situations.

Bond is 34 and after a spectacular return to test cricket is now gone from the five-day side until at least the test against Bangladesh early in February.

Martin turned 35 yesterday and won’t be around for too much longer. He is targeting 200 test wickets and is up to 174, with four tests remaining this summer.

Allowing for good health and the desire remaining, he could be around for another year.

O’Brien is 33 and leaving for a new life in England at the end of the third test starting in Napier today.

Tuffey is 31 and resurgent, after a successful first test back from a five-year absence from the test game.

And then …

A word around the country with some of the first-class coaches came up with some Read more…

Administrator PAK vs NZ Blogs.CMDN.com, Brent Arnel, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, England, Hamilton, Kyle Mills, Martin, McSkimming, Michael Mason, Mohammad Yousuf, Napier, Neil Wagner, New Zealand, O'Brien, ODI, Otago, Pakistan, Southee, Umar Akmal, Wellington

Pakistan finally won a Test after a yawning gap of nearly three years and 12 Test matches. On the face of it, the Wellington win appeared a convincing one because the Kiwis were crushed by 141 runs.

However, with our shoddy performance at Dunedin earlier, where Mohammad Yousuf and his brigade lost a battle they could have won with little more application and skill, predicting the outcome of the Test series would be foolhardy.

And while the grim battle goes on between bat and ball in the Test series, the off-field saga of Aussie tour captaincy is getting more complexed by the day.

As if Younis Khan’s ‘request for rest’ from international cricket was startling enough, we are now experiencing an agonising wait on who would be leading the Pakistan squad to a country where we have never won a Test series.

One wonders whether Younis’ astonishing absence and the subsequent reaction to it by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) can be rated as acts of professionalism by any standard.

A recent media report suggested that makeshift skipper Yousuf, assuming himself to be the captain-designate for Australia, has already proposed changes in the team for the challenging assignment following the mysterious silence of Younis who also missed the recent Quaid-i-Azam Trophy games despite chief selector Iqbal Qasim’s insistence on featuring in the same.

Needless to say, if the hastily-made leadership arrangement for the New Zealand Tests is persevered with, the move will certainly have its ramifications given the complexity of the present national cricket set-up.

Due to this captaincy crisis, Pakistan cricket seems to be in a shambles. Sometimes Read more…

Administrator PAK vs NZ, Pakistan Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Dunedin, Ijaz Butt, Iqbal Qasim, Mohammad Yousuf, New Zealand, Pakistan, PCB, Quaid-i-Azam, Sri Lanka, UAE, Younis Khan, Younus Khan

As someone who played with Shane Bond in his first four tests eight years ago, I was delighted, and pleasantly surprised, by his return to the five-day game at Dunedin last week.

But his latest injury, which has put him out of the current test in Wellington and next week’s third match against Pakistan in Napier, leaves me wondering how long this comeback will last.

The strong suspicion is that his test days are numbered. My advice would be to turn his attention to the one-day game.

The quality of his bowling in Dunedin was no surprise. We’ve long known he has the ability to be among the very best, as a record of 87 wickets in 18 tests shows.

Pakistan captain Mohammad Yousuf, a terrific batsman who has seen the best of the modern game, puts him among the finest he’s played.

The aspect which did surprise me was his pace. He’s 34, has been through the wringer in terms of injuries, and yet he was still able to get the ball through at about 150km/h.

If you’re above 140km/h you’re lively; touch 150km/h and that puts you in a different league.

Bond’s performance in its own right was outstanding, but one point seemed to be missed by most commentators - his work created opportunities for the bowlers at the other end.

Take the eight wickets out of the equation for a moment.

If you watched the Pakistan batsmen, Bond’s presence and pace made them change their game plan.

When he was bowling they were all pretty keen to get to the other end.

They were noticeably more aggressive against the other bowlers, which in turn meant they took more liberties against Chris Martin, Iain O’Brien and Daniel Vettori, and that led to Read more…

Administrator New Zealand Blogs.CMDN.com, Chris Martin, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Daniel Vettori, Dunedin, Iain O'Brien, Mohammad Yousuf, Napier, New Zealand, Pakistan, Shane Bond, Wellington

Pakistan cricket is not alien to crisis. From time to time we have experienced it in every era and the present one is not any different to others.

The reason mainly being poor governance by those at the helm who had little or no ability at all to control the situation and, to save their own skin, they would succumb to all kind of pressures.

Sadly, a great majority of those administrators were forced upon the system to run the game as they pleased. The present lot is not any different.

Already a year in the office, they have neither managed to have a constitution nor have been able to convince their critics about the irregularities in maintaining accounts.

This is a huge scam and even the governing body of the PCB, which is supposed to bring some sort of transparency in the working of the board, has so far failed to make their presence felt.

The few voices of dissent from a couple of members from time to time in the meetings did little but not enough to go past the deaf ears of the PCB chairman who could have done the game some service had he not so far resorted to arbitrary decisions.

The appointment of Mohammad Yousuf as the captain for the tour of New Zealand has also come about in a similar fashion.

The members of the governing body once again have been made to look like the ‘dead ducks’. Their feathers have long been clipped from the time they joined the board and the future members will not be any different.

In a crisis like the one which resulted in Younis Khan quitting the captaincy and the tour, strong management should have made sure to shove off all the nonsense that has been going around within the team and should have made sure to back their captain to set an example Read more…

Administrator Pakistan Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Hafeez Kardar, Imran Khan, Karachi, Majid Khan, Miandad, Mohammad Yousuf, Mushtaq Mohammad, New Zealand, Pakistan, PCB, Wasim Bari, Younis Khan, Zaheer Abbas

When you bowl as inconsistently as the Indians did at Centurion on Saturday, it is bound to cost you. To go down by as many as 54 runs against an inspired Pakistan also makes advancing in the tournament that much more difficult, especially given that it is the Australians who are up next. Being the No 1 team in the world, the pressure was on the Indians and as a consequence they seemed more than a bit nervous.

The worst part was that the inconsistency in the bowling pervaded right through the innings. Ashish Nehra was the stand out bowler but he had no support, not even with the new ball. Both RP Singh and Ishant Sharma seemed to lack in confidence and in a crucial game, the last thing you want to be worrying about is your rhythm when running in.

It didn’t help the Indian cause that Harbhajan Singh had a total off day. He didn’t seem to have hit the right pace to bowl at. Whenever he was slow through the air, he drifted down leg and as and when he tried the quicker trajectory he was wide of off stump and even short. Perhaps, the 25-over wait before he was brought on had an effect.

The spinners bowled too short unlike their Pakistani counterparts. Both Shahid Afridi and Saeed Ajmal got the ball well up and thus got purchase from the surface. What also helped them were a couple of bold decisions that went against Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Suresh Raina. When Simon Taufel is around, you do expect these decisions. Let me put it this way, on such occasions, the bowler is not unhappy if the benefit is given to the batsmen and his appeal is turned down.

The Indian chase was jolted straightway when young Mohd Aamer got rid of Sachin Tendulkar. Also, when you are chasing so many, run outs are the last thing you need. Gautam Gambhir was batting like a dream but his effort to get back to the crease was poor. It showed Read more…

Administrator Champions Trophy, India Blogs.CMDN.com, Centurion, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Gautam Gambhir, Harbhajan Singh, India, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Mohammad Yousuf, Mohd Aamer, Pakistan, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Saeed Ajmal, Shahid Afridi, Shoaib Malik, Simon Taufel, Suresh Raina

Congratulations, Pakistan! Younis Khan's men deserved to win as much as MS Dhoni's boys deserved to lose in the Champion's Trophy game on Saturday. Pakistan weren't just the better team on paper; they were superior on the pitch too. They outdid India in every aspect of the game, including delivering no-balls.
 
We lost because we played mediocre cricket. And that's because without Zaheer, Sehwag and Yuvraj, we ARE a mediocre team. None of our bowlers is good enough to play for Pakistan. Most of their bowlers can walk into our side. The real problem is that we seem to be satisfied with mediocrity. It requires very little for players like Ishant Sharma or RP Singh to find a place in the playing XI.
 
Sharma seems more interested in restricting runs than taking wickets. Just recall how frequently he gets wickets in his first spell. It has been long since he effectively moved the ball. And he seems to lack the fire to bowl fast. His figures 8-2-39-2 will never reflect how ineffective he was.
 
It is the same story with RP Singh. Without pace and movement, he looks like a lamb to the slaughter. Relatively speaking, Praveen Kumar offers a better package: he is a better batsman, a better fielder and certainly has more craft and variation. But, for some reason, Singh seems to be regularly preferred.
 
And one shouldn't dismiss Harbhajan's 1 for 71 (the wicket came of his last ball) as 'one of those bad days'. Like Sharma, he too prefers to restrict a batsman than attack him. I am aware that he has over 200 ODI wickets and that he grabbed 5 wickets in the Colombo final earlier this month. But how consistently does he make effective bowling contributions? Just look at his bowling record in the last 10 games. Apart from the final, he has seven wickets in the other 9 games. One slow bowler who has really impressed in recent times - with his art as well as Read more...

Avijit Ghosh Champions Trophy, India, Pakistan Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Gambhir, Harbhajan, India, Mohammad Yousuf, Mohammed Amer, MS Dhoni, Pakistan, Praveen Kumar, Raina, Sehwag, Shahid Afridi, Shoiab Malik, South Africa, Umar Akmal, Younis Khan, Yuvraj, Zaheer

The ultimate achievement for any international cricketer is to be ranked number one in the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings. Not many have managed it but the upcoming Champions Trophy in South Africa will give viewers the opportunity to watch some of the all-time greats of the game who have dominated over the past decade or more. So here we present the ‘number ones to watch’ – in other words – the players who will be featuring in South Africa who at some stage have topped the ODI batting, bowling or all-rounders table, ranked by the length of time they spent at the number one spot in terms of days:

Batsmen

Ricky Ponting (547 days). He first hit the top spot after his unbeaten 57 against the West Indies at Kingston in May 2003 and fell from the number one place for the last time in March 2008 after three consecutive scores of one in the space of five days against Sri Lanka and India.

MS Dhoni (379 days). He had a one-match stay on top sandwiching Ponting and Adam Gilchrist from 19-22 April 2006 after scoring 59 against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi, but returned to the number one spot in August 2008 with a vengeance and has hardly been bettered since.

Sachin Tendulkar (338 days). He became the youngest player to top the ODI Batting Ratings as a 22-year-old in February 1996, and after a four-year gap managed to return to the top of the tree for five days in March 2008 after scoring 91 against Australia at the Gabba.

Michael Hussey (177 days). Mr Cricket first reached number one in September 2006 when his batting average stood at 81.75! But after a six-month stay on top his form started to dip and he fell behind team-mate Ponting and England’s Kevin Pietersen.

Graeme Smith (168 days). An unbeaten century against Bangladesh in Chittagong in early March 2008 sent the South African powerhouse to number one, and he held the position Read more…

Administrator Views Blogs.CMDN.com, Brett Lee, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Daniel Vettori, Graeme Smith, Jacob Oram, Jacques Kallis, Michael Hussey, Mohammad Yousuf, MS Dhoni, Muttiah Muralitharan, Nathan Bracken, Nuwan Kulasekara, Ricky Ponting, Sachin Tendulkar, Sanath Jayasuriya, Shahid Afridi, Shoaib Malik

After heavy losses in Galle and Colombo, it’s pretty clear that Pakistan are not the triumphant unit all and sundry chose to hail them as post-World Twenty20 success.

Indeed, victory in England was a fairytale-esque comeback for a nation deserved of reprise after a year of off-field woe, but proceedings in Sri Lanka have inevitably undone all that the Lord’s jubilation promised.

The fact that Mohammad Yousuf - who didn’t play in England - and Fawad Alam - who hardly featured - have been the only batsmen to put in notable performances in the ongoing Test series advocates the growing concern that Pakistan’s World Twenty20 winners are comfortably stuck in their recent heroics abroad.

90 all out and nine second-innings wickets for the loss of 35 runs is not the stuff of World Champions and it’s clear that Pakistan are nowhere close to returning to the dominant force they once were. Read more…

Administrator PAK vs SL Blogs.CMDN.com, Colombo, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, England, Fawad Alam, Galle, Intikhab Alam, Mendis, Mohammad Yousuf, Muttiah Muralitharan, Pakistan, Rangana Herath, Shoaib Akhtar, Sri Lanka, Test series, World Champions, World Twenty20

My faith in Pakistan chasing any second innings total didn’t last long. In 1982, I ventured to Edgbaston expecting Imran Khan’s team would score around 300 to beat England. I was filled with the optimism of youth. Looking back, almost any target would have troubled Pakistan. The day turned out to be a rapid and mostly cavalier failure.

I’m not sure I’ve ever recovered. Whenever Pakistan bat in the final innings of a Test match, whether to win or save the match, I expect the worst and desperately look for signs that any success is a turning point.

Younis Khan’s team can’t have found it easy to switch from the glamour of the Twenty20 World Cup to a gruelling Test series in Sri Lanka. But against all expectations they found themselves in a match-winning position. It was a position that they should have turned comfortably to victory. Read more…

Administrator CMDN.com Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Edgbaston, Imran Khan, Javed Miandad, Mohammad Yousuf, Pakistan, Shoaib Malik, Sri Lanka, Test match, Younis Khan