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…

Administrator Views Alastair Cook, Alec Stewart, Andrew Strauss, Bangladesh, England, Hobart, Ian Bell, Joburg, Mike Atherton, New Zealand, Pakistan, Paul Collingwood, Pietersen, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thorpe

INAIA IS NOW the world’s top team in Test cricket. The move to ensure that india plays more Tests is a step in the right direction and can help this format regain its popularity

For cricket’s hardcore devotees, the purists who insist that Test cricket is the real form of the game, September 24, 2007, was no day for celebration.

It was the day Mahendra Singh Dhoni led a team short of full strength — a squad for which top batsmen such as Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly had made themselves unavailable — to victory in the ICC World Twenty20 in Johannesburg. The game that we knew, relatively gentle, moderately fashionable and acceptably paced, took on another dimension.

It was not as though fans suddenly woke up to the joys of big hitting to the detriment of all else —after all, the subcontinent has been serving up flat decks in one-day internationals (ODIs) for some time now. It was just that India’s administrators, who till then considered Twenty20 cricket a creation of marketing men in England, wholeheartedly adopted the shortest version.

If sociologist Ashish Nandy’s assertion that cricket was “an Indian game accidentally discovered by the British” was a bit of an exaggeration, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) strove to make this a reality with T20s. The hurried establishment of the Indian Premier League ushered in the era where T20 is king.

One-day cricket became popular in India after the country won the World Cup in 1983. T20 got wide acceptance in 2007. Now it is to be seen whether India rising to top position in Test cricket leads to revival in interest in this variety of the game.

When India beat Sri Lanka 2-0 to become the No. 1 Test team in the world, the men counting the coins in the BCCI’s vault discovered there were things that didn’t figure in a balance sheet but they mattered a lot to the game’s stakeholders.

Suddenly, being the best in the world, rather than briefly occupying top spot thanks to a quirk in the rankings system, became the goal. Reaching the top has forced the board to request the visiting South Africans to convert February’s five-ODI series into one comprising two Read more…

Administrator Indian Cricket Australia, BCCI, Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Eden Gardens, England, ICC, Kolkata, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Nagpur, New Zealand, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Test Cricket, Twenty20, VCA, VVS Laxman, Yuvraj Singh

Not even a surprising decision by a third umpire prepared to ignore the evidence provided by Hot Spot, and so the review system, could take the gloss off a superb chase by the West Indies or a deserved victory by Australia. The West Indians can be proud of their performance. In times past they were granted five-match series but their stocks have fallen and they stand near the bottom of the rankings.

On the face of it, a 2-0 defeat has not significantly improved their reputation but the result conceals a substantial improvement reflected in sharper fielding, improved running between wickets and more committed lower-order batting. Lazy habits had taken hold and the basics had been neglected. Now a healthier culture has developed. The players looked like cricketers and performed with their hearts and heads. As much could be told from Kemar Roach and Gavin Tonge’s audacious and ill-starred last-wicket thrust.

Twice in the series the touring team came back from cricketing death. Further humiliations were feared after their heavy defeat at the Gabba. Instead, the visitors stirred sufficiently to shake up the hosts in Adelaide.

Heavy defeat was likewise expected after the tourists fell 208 behind in the first innings in Perth. Instead, the West Indies skittled Australia for a paltry total and chased with such grit that at one stage their chances of taking the spoils were put at 3-1. In the end they fell short but they went down fighting.

Numerous members of a hitherto mostly anonymous outfit made their marks. Hardly any of them had previously toured Australia. Roach’s sizzling pace, Sulieman Benn’s stilted legs and climbing tweakers, Adrian Barath’s daring strokeplay and bright fielding, Dwayne Bravo’s skills and gusto, Narsingh Deonarine’s pluck, Travis Dowlin’s grit and Denesh Ramdin’s promise all attracted high praise. The West Indies can build around these players. Australia have lost some lustre but remain hard to conquer. These blokes had a good crack at it.

Chris Gayle deserves credit for the awakening of his side. Plain and simple, he saved the series. Beforehand his leadership had been questioned, not least hereabouts. The criticisms Read more…

Administrator Australia, West Indies Adelaide, Adrian Barath, Australia, Blogs.CMDN.com, Brisbane, Cardiff, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Denesh Ramdin, Dwayne Bravo, England, Fidel Edwards, Gabba, Gavin Tonge, India, Jerome Taylor, Marcus North, Michael Clarke, Michael Hussey, Mitchell Johnson, Narsingh Deonarine, New Zealand, Pakistan, Perth, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Ricky Ponting, Simon Katich, South Africa, Sri Lanka, WACA

The last few weeks have had some different characters making their way into the sports pages. Tiger Woods made himself a permanent resident, with one sordid tale after the other adding to his hassles. Virender Sehwag rattled off a string of scarcely believable performances and his photo kept appearing, thankfully for the right reasons.

But something else also happened. Indian cricket’s high-profile administrators, Lalit Modi and N Srinivasan, were in the news. First there were stories of how the two did not get along. Then there were flat denials of any such problem. Excerpts from a letter Modi sent to Srinivasan, however, showed just how obvious the problem was.

Why should any of this be on the sports pages, you might ask. Well, with administrators playing such a hands-on role in how the game is run, any change of policy, or even equation between members of a committee could directly affect fans. Also, it’s often necessary to see if those who run the game are accountable enough, and whether they’re transparent in their dealings.

Over the years, one of the strongest grouses against administrators in India has been that they do not care about the fan. The man, or woman, who pays hard-earned money to buy a ticket and sit in the stands to watch cricket in India is taken for granted on a routine basis. The seating is substandard, the facilities incredibly poor and the atmosphere one of hardship rather than fun. In places like New Zealand, England, Australia and South Africa, a trip tops the ground to watch cricket is a picnic, a party, a social occasion. But, to be fair, the basic standards of infrastructure in all walks of life - roads, public utilities, government organisatons - is generally much superior in these countries, so cricket could just be a reflection of this.

While some of this is on the mend, with new grounds in India trying to improve the spectator experience, we’ve never really addressed the reverse question.

As fans, do you actually care about what administrators are doing? Do you want to know if there’ a development that could affect you? Are you bored by what Modi, Srinivasan and others Read more…

Administrator Indian Cricket Australia, Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, England, Lalit Modi, N. Srinivasan, New Zealand, South Africa

When the Indian Cricket League emerged as an unsanctioned competition, there was gnashing of teeth, frothing at the mouth, voodoo dolls at the ready and an almighty hue and cry from cricket administrators screaming about the dangerous monster that is cricket that has not been endorsed by the BCCI and the ICC.

At the time, back in August 2007, the ICL was heavily criticised as an agent attacking the fabric of cricket, and its financial lures were derided as blood money only to be taken by international cricket’s player mercenaries.

NZC boss Justin Vaughan was quoted as saying: “Events such as the ICL could have the potential to compete with official international events and erode their value. Added to this, the proposed rebel league is scheduled to directly conflict with the [New Zealand] tour to South Africa as well as the start of our domestic season.”

How ironic, then, that it was never the shambolic ICL that threatened the weave of the game. As NZ Cricket Players’ Association boss Heath Mills predicted at the time, it was always the “official” BCCI-endorsed Indian Premier League behemoth that had the most potential to disrupt the primacy of international cricket.

It is the IPL and its ilk that are now competing with official international events and threatening to erode value. If the reports in the Sunday Star-Times are to be believed, the Indian domestic tournament and its clones, little brothers, and off-shoots are most likely to lure the players away from the black cap - and these players and the international cricket that they play are the geese that lay NZC’s golden eggs.

The NZC chief executive also said at the time: “We depend upon the value of the media rights associated with official international events to provide a majority of our income. It is therefore in the best interests of New Zealand Cricket not to support unofficial events such as the ICL.” But the ICC, and NZC, share of revenue from these domestic events is minuscule. They might be official but they are much smaller money-spinners for NZC than the status quo: a strong NZ side that other teams want to play, complete with highly recognisable players that the Read more…

Administrator New Zealand BCCI, Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Heath Mills, ICC, icl, IPL, Justin Vaughan, New Zealand, NZC, South Africa, T20

Honours just about even.

New Zealand might disagree and bemoan the rain which ruined a likely march to victory over Pakistan yesterday - and their first significant series victory since beating the West Indies three years ago - but a one-all draw was a reasonable outcome.

Put it this way: New Zealand won a thriller at Dunedin which could have gone either way; Pakistan walked the second at the Basin Reserve against a wretched batting display; and New Zealand had a clear edge in the decider but ran out of time on a pitch which, despite confident predictions that it would be perkier than usual for the bowlers, proved to be another examination of their spirit and perseverance.

There wasn’t much between the teams and that added to the intrigue. Some of the cricket was of pretty poor quality - from both teams.

Pakistan spilt a barely believable 17 catches over the three tests; New Zealand had the batting horrors over the first two matches; but both had bowlers with penetration and skill.

The final test threw up a bright newcomer in debutant opener BJ Watling, who turned on a dazzling little cameo, slipping into one-day mode in the vain chase for victory; and an unexpected bonus in Martin Guptill’s offspin which - and don’t snigger here - might yet turn into a handy backup option on a hot day for the specialists.

Neither team was good enough to get and maintain dominance, and so there could be few complaints at a drawn series.

Pakistan’s best? Teenager Umar Akmal - top scorer in the series on debut with 379 runs at 63.16 - and new ball champion Mohammad Asif, whose 19 wickets at a terrific 19.78 apiece was comfortably the finest return of the bowlers.

As for New Zealand, the batting needs more work.

Even at McLean Park, the best batting surface in the country, there were those among the top six who missed out. Hard questions need to be asked and Daniel Flynn may have used Read more…

Administrator PAK vs NZ Basin Reserve, BJ Watling, Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Daniel Flynn, Dunedin, Martin Guptill, McLean Park, Mohammad Asif, New Zealand, Pakistan, Umar Akmal, West Indies

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…

Administrator Australia Australia, Bangladesh, Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, Rahul Dravid, Ricky Ponting, Sourav Ganguly, South Africa, Tiger Pataudi, Trent Bridge

Sometimes we focus so much on what is wrong with Test cricket that it is easy to forget the joy it continues to provide, never more so than in this particularly frenzied period of Tests.

The recent series between India and Sri Lanka may have been too batsman-friendly but it provided some extraordinary passages of play. Who could not have wished to see Virender Sehwag’s assault in the third Test, elegant and brutal in equal measure? For Sri Lanka, Tillakaratne Dilshan’s innings were also moments when you had to bin ideas of work and focus on some ball-by-ball Test cricket. There were personal narratives too – Sreesanth, suddenly the grounded, almost geeky bowler of immaculate line and length, Murali suddenly lacking in fizz and accuracy. And Angelo Mathews – doing an Atherton when on 99 and in sight of his first Test hundred.

The Ahmedabad pitch immediately came under fire in the first Test of that series and rightly so: it failed to offer the bowlers enough on day five. But up until that point it was a good, subcontinental Test match. India will not provide the seamer-friendly conditions found elsewhere but that is the appeal of Test cricket around the world – players must adapt to different conditions and this brings a rich variety to the cricket.

Over in Australia, the prospect of a series against West Indies underwhelmed the local media, but there were things to admire about the visitors even in that first Test drubbing: Kemar Roach bowling at 150kmh, and pitching the ball up admirably (as he has done all series); Adrian Barath, a 19-year-old debutant, making an attacking hundred in the second-innings and scoring half of his side’s runs.

In the second Test the West Indies would hold the upperhand throughout. Chris Gayle, who apparently has no time for defensive shots or for Test cricket, played with fascinating constraint to set up possible victory and Dwayne Bravo, outstanding in both disciplines throughout the Test, nearly conjured a win on the final day.

The New Zealand-Pakistan series is the ace in the pack. Two sides entirely uncertain of themselves and bowler-friendly conditions have produced tumbling wickets and Read more…

Administrator Views Adrian Barath, Ahmedabad, Angelo Mathews, Australia, Blogs.CMDN.com, Chris Gayle, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Dwayne Bravo, India, Kemar Roach, Murali, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Test Cricket, Tillakaratne Dilshan, West Indies

Framroz Court is a graceful Art Deco building on Mumbai’s Marine Drive. A portion of the building faces the Arabian Sea, another overlooks Brabourne Stadium, which hosted the third Test between India and Sri Lanka. Some people watched the match from the terrace of Framroz Court. Prashant Bhaabal, a policeman, was one of them. He was there as part of security for the match (the dome of the Taj Mahal hotel was visible in the distance).

Bhaabal likes cricket. His cherished memory is spotting a young Sachin Tendulkar buying clothes at Dadar TT. But Bhaabal likes a shaded corner more. He moved his chair to one and sat, his rifle and lemonade by his side (he has low blood pressure).

This was on the second day of the match, when Virender Sehwag scored 284 of his 293 runs. At some point, the realisation that something special was unfolding on the Brabourne turf must have dawned upon the small gathering atop Framroz Court. Bhaabal must have risen from his chair and, like the other bystanders under a large red and white HSBC umbrella, leaned against the terrace railing for a better look. The harsh sun and blood pressure fears wouldn’t have deterred him. Not for a while at least.

It was not just yet another run glut on an Indian pitch. That day, 31-year-old Sehwag pushed the boundaries of strike-rate and endurance. He reached 200 in 168 balls, 14 less than his previous fastest. It was the fastest double hundred by an Indian and the second quickest in Test history, after Nathan Astle’s 153-ball effort. Had Sri Lanka not batted a bit on the second morning, he may very well have become the first since Sir Don Bradman to score 300 runs in a day. What must Brendon Kuruppu, the Sri Lankan manager, have thought while watching from the pavilion? Kuruppu scored the slowest double in Tests—an unbeaten 201 against New Zealand in 548 balls and 777 minutes in Colombo in 1986-87. Sehwag took only 257 minutes to reach 200 and 366 minutes for his entire innings.

The official cricket board and press box scorers for the match were the busy and enthusiastic three musketeers—Uday Gharat, Deepak Joshi and Ramesh Parab. In fact, Gharat completed 20 years as a scorer during the Test and was felicitated by senior cricket writer Ayaz Memon. As journalists clapped, Sunil Gavaskar turned around and looked at the proceedings Read more…

Administrator IND vs SL Blogs.CMDN.com, Brabourne Stadium, Brendon Kuruppu, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, New Zealand, Sachin Tendulkar, Sehwag, Sri Lanka, Virender Sehwag

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…

Administrator Sri Lanka Aravinda De Silva, Arjuna Ranatunga, Asanka Gurusinha, Australia, Bangladesh, Chaminda Vaas, England, ICC, India, Mahela Jayawardena, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Mathews, Muttiah Muralitharan, New Zealand, Pakistan, Prasanna Jayawardena, Sanath Jayasuriya, Sangakkara, South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies