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The home side has had a lot to say about nature of the SuperSport Park track, but on the field they have found a way to make it work for them

Firdose Moonda in Centurion16-Jan-2018So much for home advantage, hey?Yes, South Africa have moaned on every occasion they’ve had about this atypical SuperSport Park pitch, and how. On the eve of the match, Faf du Plessis was said to be unhappy. After the first day, young opening batsman Aiden Markram said, “Ideally we would have liked it quicker.” On the second day, debutant Lungi Ngidi said the surface “wasn’t what we thought it would be”. On the third day, Morne Morkel said it was “100%” like bowling in India. And on the fourth day, Dean Elgar said it was “disappointing” to play on a surface like this at home. Yet, with the fifth day to come, South Africa hold the aces.Let’s forget the reputation of Highveld pitches as fire-spitting green mambas and just concentrate on the kind of contest this tamer, browner surface has produced. It has been tense, gripping and, most importantly, even. Run-scoring and wicket-taking have been equally difficult, skill rather than brute force has been required from both sides, and small things have really mattered.The fourth day was a good example of this. South Africa came into it with about a 120-run lead and eight wickets in hand, on paper a position of strength. With AB de Villiers well-set overnight and Dean Elgar ever-stubborn, it could even have been thought of as a position of dominance especially when the pair started positively. De Villiers, who has three times in four innings in this series alone shown his ability to change the tempo of an innings, scored 30 runs off 43 balls in the first hour and Elgar 24 off 30. Together, their runs came at 4.5 per over.But then things changed. When de Villiers was dismissed, South Africa slowed down. Elgar only managed one more run off his next 12 balls before he was frustrated into picking out the man at deep square leg. The expletive he uttered as he walked off the field was heard all around the ground.BCCIThis was not a situation for Quinton de Kock, who edged four times in five balls, so it was up to Vernon Philander and Faf du Plessis to start a blockathon of sorts – seemingly pointless given that South Africa would need quick runs to give themselves enough time to bowl India out, but vital in hindsight. Du Plessis and Philander batted together for most of the second session, when South Africa eked out 57 runs in 27 overs. The intent that has been the talking point of the series seemed lacking for the rest of the innings – after de Villiers’ dismissal, South Africa scored 114 runs in the remaining 50.2 overs at a rate of 2.27 to the over – but on closer inspection, that period was key.Du Plessis and Philander got to see first hand what the surface was doing for the bowlers and, as the captain and one of the key members of the pack, they shouldn’t have minded too much. There was some reverse-swing for Mohammed Shami and Hardik Pandya’s use of the offcutter provided clues as to the approach South Africa would need to employ later. It is not their default strategy, but this attack has often been quicker to adjust than their line-up. With variable bounce on offer, they showed that in a testing hour-and-50-minute passage of play before the close, in which India’s big fish had been caught.”It was a good day for us and the cherry on the top was the way the bowlers put their hands up. They have been doing that the whole year for us, whether it is a new guy or the seasoned campaigners. We seem to be hitting the mark a lot quicker than what we are used to in the past,” Dean Elgar said, admitting that having a Kohli-less India makes tomorrow’ job easier. “It’s massive for us and I think it’s massive for India, knowing he is not batting. I am sitting here with a smile on my face knowing there is one less very competitive, very talented guy that we have to deal with.”But even if South Africa stroll to a series win – the evidence so far suggests they will have to work fairly hard for the victory – some part of the assessment of this match will be focused on the pitch. And, on that front, South Africa may actually be changing their minds about this most subcontinental of home pitches, which they remain unhappy about, but only if they lose.”It’s working out, the wicket is playing into our favour,” Elgar said. “If the shoe was on the other foot, I think we would feel quite hard done by. It’s a little disappointing to have a wicket of this nature because it’s not what we would choose to play a subcontinent side on, but, so be it, we are done complaining about it. We just need to crack on and try and win a Test.”The wicket will play into our hands nicely with our seamers and [left-arm spinner] Keshav [Maharaj] coming in on what is proving to be a decent spinning wicket. Our fast bowlers thrive on bowling on wickets like this. If they can get the ball to reverse as soon as possible, it will be a massive asset.”

Playing with a chance to salvage their season, the Serie A giants fell flat in a 1-0 final defeat

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• Milan fall 1-0
• Bologna lift Coppa Italia
• Pulisic and co. face fight to make Europe next season

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  TELL ME MORE

  AC Milan suffered a massive, massive blow on Wednesday as they fell, 1-0, to Bologna in the Coppa Italia final. The game's defining moment came early in the second half, with Dan Ndoye netting in the 53rd minute to provide the only goal needed for Bologna to lift the trophy. This trophy is their first since 1998, when the club won the Intertoto Cup.

  The first half was generally tense, with the two sides trading chances and yellow cards. Three cautions were handed out in the first 45, including one dubious one to U.S. international Christian Pulisic for what was perceived as a foul while chasing the ball. The American started and played 88 minutes but was generally ineffective, amassing just 33 touches and only one in the opposition box. Pulisic's USMNT teammate Yunus Musah was on the bench but didn't appear in this contest.

  Milan were able to create a few chances in the second half, but nothing quite as clear cut as Ndoye's goal, which saw him patiently weave around Milan's defense before smashing a shot past Mike Maignan to score what turned out to be the game's only goal.

  With the loss, Milan's hopes of playing European soccer next season are out of their hands. The winner of Wednesday's match earned a Europa League spot, and with Milan sitting all the way back in eighth with two games remaining, this was their best chance at earning that spot. Now, they'll need some help, as they trail sixth-place Roma by three points for a Europa Conference League spot and fourth and fifth-place Juventus and Lazio by four points with just those two games remaining.

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  THE MVP

  Every instinct in Dan Ndoye's head would have told him to blast it, but the Swiss winger didn't do that. Instead, he patiently waited for his chance and, when it came, he made no mistake. In addition to the goal, Ndoye created the most chances (three) and was the most fouled player in the game (four). Those stats add up to a clear-cut Man of the Match recognition for the 24-year-old Bologna attacker.

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  THE BIG LOSER

  Pulisic is so often the man who makes things happen for Milan, and on Wednesday, he, like the rest of his teammates, couldn't do much of anything. He attempted just 18 passes, was 0-for-3 on dribbles, and was hardly noticeable in the final third. In general, Milan's attack sputtered, but throughout the season, Pulisic has shown the ability to lift them out of those moments. It wasn't to be on Wednesday, though, and so Milan lost this trophy chance.

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  WHAT COMES NEXT?

  The good news for Milan is that they face one of the teams above them this weekend when they travel to face Roma on Sunday. After that, they'll conclude their season at home against Monza, although it remains to be seen what hope they'll have heading into that finale.

Liverpool have agreed a transfer package with Eintracht Frankfurt for Hugo Ekitike that could be worth as much as £79 million ($106m).

• Reds in the market for more firepower
• French frontman lured away from Germany
• Summer of big spending at Anfield

• WHAT HAPPENED?

  The reigning Premier League champions have been eager to bolster their attacking ranks during a summer of big spending at Anfield. It has been decided that French frontman Ekitike is the man to provide further firepower for Arne Slot.

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  THE BIGGER PICTURE

  According to , Liverpool have reached a compromise with Eintracht when it comes to Ekitike’s valuation. The deal in question will include an initial £69m ($93m) fee, with the potential for £10m to be paid at a later date in add-ons. The German club had been holding out for a total fee of £82m ($110m).

• DID YOU KNOW?

  Ekitike is now set to thrash out personal terms, with no issues expected there, before undergoing a medical and flying out to link up with his new team-mates on their pre-season tour of Asia.

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  A six-year contract has been lined up for the 23-year-old forward, who was linked with Newcastle when Liverpool were said to be exploring the possibility of prising Alexander Isak away from St James’ Park.

Both made fifties as India chased down 173 in just 15.4 overs after Axar throttled Afghanistan

Hemant Brar14-Jan-20243:09

Can Dube be India’s World Cup spin-hitter?

Scintillating half-centuries from Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shivam Dube helped India beat Afghanistan by six wickets in the second T20I in Indore and take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series. This win also extended India’s unbeaten streak in bilateral T20I series at home to 15. The last time they lost a home T20I series was in 2019, when Australia beat them 2-0.After being sent in, Afghanistan rode on Gulbadin Naib’s 57 off 35 balls before India applied the brakes. But a late assault from Karim Janat and Mujeeb Ur Rahman, who scored a combined 41 off 19, lifted the visitors to 172.During the chase, Fazalhaq Farooqi bowled Rohit Sharma for a first-ball duck. Rohit was out without scoring in the first T20I as well, where he was run out off his second ball. Virat Kohli, playing his first T20I since the 2022 T20 World Cup, also looked to attack right away. He was a lot more successful than his captain, scoring 29 off 16.The stars of the match, though, were Jaiswal and Dube. The two seemed to be competing against each other with the Afghanistan bowlers looking incidental. Jaiswal reached his fifty off 27 balls and Dube off just 22 as both tried to send every possible ball to the boundary. As a result, India chased down their target in just 15.4 overs.Axar Patel took 2 for 17 in his four overs•BCCI

Naib leads Afghanistan’s charge

Rahmanullah Gurbaz gave Afghanistan a quick start, hitting the first legal delivery of the first over for a four and the first one of the second for a six. But his stay was short-lived as he fell to Ravi Bishnoi for 14 off nine.No. 3 Naib ensured Afghanistan did not lose their momentum. He hit back-to-back fours off Mukesh Kumar before topping it with 6, 4, 4 off Bishnoi in the next over. He ended the powerplay with yet another boundary, taking Afghanistan to 58 for 2 after six.At the other end, Shivam Dube castled Azmatullah Omarzai with a back-of-the-hand slower ball. But Naib took a liking to him, hitting the medium-pacer for two sixes in his next over, the ninth. Between those two hits, he had a slice of luck as well, when Kohli, charging in from long-on, shelled a difficult low chance. Naib was on 41 then. He brought up his fifty shortly afterwards, off just 28 balls.

Axar applies the brakes

Axar Patel has looked a far more complete bowler since his return from the quadriceps strain that had ruled him out of the 2023 ODI World Cup. During the forced break, he worked on slowing down his pace and is now reaping the rewards.Introduced in the sixth over, he turned one past Ibrahim Zadran’s outside edge to hit the off stump. Then, in the 12th, he bowled one from well behind the popping crease, thus changing the length without a change in action, to have Naib caught at short midwicket. Bowling his four overs in a single spell, Axar finished with 2 for 17. Naib’s wicket put the brakes on the scoring rate – Afghanistan managed just 27 in five overs, from 12 to 16.

Afghanistan finish strongly

Najibullah Zadran was on 6 off 15 before he got stuck into Bishnoi. In the 17th over, he hit the legspinner for two sixes and a four. When he departed, Janat and Mujeeb took over and smashed Dube for 20 in the penultimate over of the innings. Despite Arshdeep Singh giving away only eight in the final over, which included four wickets (including two via run-outs), Afghanistan scored 55 in the last four.Virat Kohli marked his T20I comeback with an attractive cameo•BCCI

Rohit-Kohli watch

Rohit was run out in the first T20I when Shubman Gill did not respond to his call for a quick single. Tonight, in his 150th T20I, his early dismissal owed less to misfortune. Facing his first ball, he moved towards the leg side in an attempt to pull Farooqi. He missed and Farooqi hit the top of off stump.Kohli, who had missed the first game for personal reasons, opened his account by smashing Mujeeb over extra cover. In the same over, he swept a similar delivery to the deep midwicket fence. In all, he hit five fours in 16 balls. When he was caught at mid-off off Naveen-ul-Haq, the crowd was disappointed, but this might have been exactly the approach the team management wanted him to adopt.

The Jaiswal-Dube show

Jaiswal had kicked off India’s chase by cutting Farooqi to the point boundary. In the seamer’s next over, he hit a straight six before offering a return chance. Farooqi failed to hold onto it and then watched the next ball sailing over deep square leg for six more. Jaiswal was equally severe on Mujeeb, hitting him for a hat-trick of fours in the fifth over. At the end of the powerplay, India had raced to 69 for 2.Dube took some time to get going. He was on a run-a-ball 7 but soon he was outpacing Jaiswal. It started with him launching Noor Ahmad over long-off before he clobbered Mohammad Nabi for three successive sixes. After ten overs, India’s required rate had come down to 5.70.Jaiswal and Dube added 92 in just seven overs. By the time Jaiswal was out for 68 off 34, India needed only 19 off 45 balls. Jitesh Sharma fell for a second-ball duck before Dube, 63 not out off 32, and Rinku Singh took India over the line.

Manchester City and Manchester United have been put on alert as Gianluigi Donnarumma is set to leave Paris Saint-Germain this summer. The European champions have agreed personal terms to sign Lucas Chevalier from Lille. PSG have identified the Frenchman as a replacement for Donnarumma, who has entered the final 12 months of his contract.

• Donnarumma set to leave PSG
• Eyeing move for Chevalier from Lille
• Premier League giants on alert

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  WHAT HAPPENED?

  Donnarumma is close to leaving PSG in the summer transfer window. The French giants have initiated transfer talks with Lille after agreeing personal terms with Chevalier as a replacement. They are expected to submit an initial bid worth €40 million (£35m/$47m), according to .

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  THE BIGGER PICTURE

  PSG have failed to convince Donnarumma to put pen to paper on a fresh contract and he has entered the final 12 months of his current deal. Club officials do not want to go through a similar situation to Kylian Mbappe's when the France captain walked out of the club as a free agent in the summer of 2024 and joined Real Madrid. Thus, PSG will be willing to part ways with the Italian in the coming weeks.

• DID YOU KNOW?

  If Donnarumma decides to move back to his homeland then Juventus and Inter are his likely destinations, however, the Italy international reportedly wants a move to the Premier League.

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  WHAT NEXT FOR DONNARUMMA?

  Several top English clubs like Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea are still in search of a quality goalkeeper and could make a move for Donnarumma. It remains to be seen where the 26-year-old ends up.

Some of our correspondents have written about great series fightbacks from the past. We’d love to hear from you about similar fightbacks

01-Sep-2005

Two Tests into his captaincy, Don Bradman’s reign was in rain-soaked tatters. Boosted by wet wickets, England opened the 1936-37 series with victories by 322 runs and an innings and 22 to place his leadership in doubt. “After the second Test in which Bradman scored 0 and 82 I heard many strong opinions to the effect that the great man was on the downward path,” wrote Neville Cardus in . Not after the next match, or the two that followed it. The weather broke again at Melbourne for the third Test, but Bradman employed the shrewd tactic of turning the order around so his batsmen could escape the pitch’s dangers. Arriving at No.7, Bradman struck 270 in a sixth-wicket partnership of 346 with Jack Fingleton, which is still a Test record. Scores of 26, 212 and 169 followed as Bradman’s Australia not only retained the Ashes, but won three matches in a row to take the series. “His performances in these games stagger credulity,” Cardus said. Could the phrase “leading by example” been coined from this series?

England were playing catch up through out the series after Graeme Smith,
South Africa’s fresh-faced but passionately driven captain began the
series with back-to-back double-hundreds. South Africa dominated the
first, won the second and, but for a shocking last-innings batting
collapse, should have won the third. Gary Kirsten played his last great
innings on an unreliable pitch at Headingley to take South Africa ahead, and
at 290 for 1 at more than four runs per over on the first day of the Oval
Test, they seemed to have sewn up the series. But after spanking 35 fours
and a six, Herschelle Gibbs heaved across the line to get himself out and
England somehow managed to dismiss South Africa for 484, hardly a
pittance. Marcus Trescothick put England on par with a muscular 219, but
England were only 18 in the front when the 8th wicket fell. Andrew
Flintoff had scored a hundred in the previous Test throwing his bat about
when all had been lost. But here he played his first truly significant
Test innings, scoring a scorching 95 off 104 balls. The ninth wicket
produced 99 runs to which Steve Harmison contributed only six. England
then chipped away at the South African batsmen to dismiss them for 229 and
raced away to a series-leveling victory. South Africa had no business
losing the series and it was all downhill for them from here. For England,
it was the beginning of the Michael Vaughan era.

It was a four-match series after the World Cup, not on the face of it one
of the epic Test encounters. Yet on both sides of the fence the result
resonated for years to come.For England the writing should have been on the wall. They had a new
captain (Nasser Hussain) and no coach (Duncan Fletcher had been hired but
would not take charge until October). They had bombed out of their own
World Cup at the first hurdle.But somehow they won the first Test despite trailing by 100 on first innings (226 to 126). Andrew Caddick bowled his compatriots out for 107 and then England chased down 208 as if it was a benefit game losing only three wickets. They even found a new hero, the fast bowler Alex Tudor who had come in as nightwatchman and finished on 99 not out with 21 fours.New Zealand lost their pace bowler Simon Doull through injury and England
started dream of a comfortable series win. And they started to
under-estimate New Zealand, which is just how the Black Caps like it.England continued their hateful relationship with Lord’s losing by nine
wickets and losing their new skipper with a broken finger. England were
outplayed again at Old Trafford with Mark Butcher in charge but saved by
the rain. Selectors Mike Gatting and Graham Gooch resigned in an
increasingly gloomy atmosphere.Chris Cairns was the difference in the decider at The Oval, rescuing New
Zealand’s floundering second innings with 80 off 94 balls to set England
246 to win. At 123 for 2 they were in with a shout but collapsed yet again
to 162 all out, Dion Nash taking four for 39.It was only the ninth time in Test history that a side has won a series of
fewer than five matches after going behind.For England the result meant they were officially the worst Test side in
the world. And the rebuilding started in South Africa two months later.
New Zealand felt aggrieved that they had not been given due credit for
their achievement, a resentment that seethed for three years until
Hussain’s England took on Stephen Fleming’s New Zealand in 2002.

For a month, between March and April 1988, Pakistan’s tour of the West Indies seemed a typically Pakistani rabble. Imran Khan, aged, jaded, retired and disinterested had been coerced into returning as captain by President Zia-ul-Haq; fitting that one dictator called back another.Matters and morale plummeted further when Imran publicly questioned the record of the man he perennially replaced as captain, Javed Miandad. Without a century against the West Indies, Miandad, in Imran’s eyes, didn’t warrant comparisons with the greatest batsmen. The ODI series was ominous, a 5-0 blanking only suggesting that the worst was yet to unveil itself, something not many were inclined to disagree with.Then, at the first Test at Georgetown, arrived first some fortune and eventually a rare, stirring Pakistani retort. With Malcolm Marshall and Viv Richards both out injured, Imran forgot a bruised toe, willing himself to his last great bowling performance, an amalgamation of new-ball and reverse swing to dismiss the home side for 292. Whether indignation drove him we will never know, but Miandad then grafted a near seven-hour century. Saleem Yousuf, about to have his nose re-arranged courtesy Marshall two matches later, spanked a fifty, helping Pakistan to a 143-run lead.With Abdul Qadir in tow, Imran again wrecked the West Indians. And when a target of 30 was reached in just over three overs, somehow against possibly even their own expectations (although it is doubtful Imran and Javed between them ever doubted anything much) Pakistan became the first side to win a Test in the Caribbean in the 80s. And it set up what remains, arguably, one of the best Test series from the decade, between the two best teams of that time.

India has succumbed by an innings in the opening Test at Sydney, with Greg Chappell scoring a magnificent double-century in his first Test against them. Sandeep Patil had been one of the few batsmen to show defiance in the face of fearsome fast bowling from Dennis Lillee and Len Pascoe, but he had to retire hurt on 65 after being felled by a vicious bouncer from Pascoe. His response was a glorious counterattacking 174 at the Adelaide Oval, a knock ultimately responsible for India keeping the series alive – they finished with eight wickets down and nails bitten to nothingness after being set 331 for victory.The MCG crowd saw more Australian dominance on the opening four days of the third Test. Allan Border’s hundred gave them a big first-innings lead, but India had wiped off 165 from the arrears when Rex Whitehead’s umpiring once again came to the fore. Having upset the Indians with one debatable decision after another throughout the series, Whitehead raised the finger after Lillee had rapped Sunil Gavaskar on the pads with one that jagged back sharply. Gavaskar gestured to his bat, and was incensed when Lillee resorted to fruity language to suggest that he exit stage left. The team management had to step in and prevent a farce after Gavaskar tried to drag Chetan Chauhan off with him, and the volatile atmosphere had much to do with India adding only a further 159.The sense of injustice inspired the team, though, and after the much under-rated Karsan Ghavri had bowled Chappell behind his legs on the penultimate evening, a spellbinding display from Kapil Dev – bowling after painkilling injections for his hamstring – set up the unlikeliest of victories. Set 143, Australia slumped to 83 all out as Kapil scalped 5 for 28 to give India a share of a series where they had been outplayed from ball one. Kolkata and Adelaide may resonate more with young Indian hearts, but it was the MCG that first saw the phoenix rise.

Dav Whatmore speaks on the progress of Bangladesh cricket and also the shortcomings

Sambit Bal15-May-2007

Depending on which way you are looking at it, Dav Whatmore has either had the easiest or the hardest job in world cricket for the last four years. There were no expectations to manage, and starting at the bottom, Bangladesh could only have gone up. But conversely, dealing with failure
daily and having to work with meager resources and lack of knowledge could have been draining. Whatmore, it must be said, has coped. He kept his chin up through defeats and kept his feet on the ground after the odd moment of glory.The World Cup brought Bangladesh’s finest hours, but somehow aptly, it also ended gloomily, with a defeat at the hands of Ireland in the penultimate match. Whatmore announced his resignation a day after the World Cup campaign ended, but he says it was always meant
to be that way.This interview was conducted a couple of hours after his resignation had become public and Whatmore spoke candidly about a wide range of topics. About Bangladesh cricket, he didn’t hide his frustrations, but neither did he let it cloud his optimism.This will be your last series with Bangladesh. There are clear signs that Bangladesh cricket has progressed under you, so what made you give it up?
After four years, I just felt that the time was right to move on. In those four years I’ve been away from family, which wasn’t the case in Sri Lanka – we’d made a home in Colombo. So we knew that when I took up the job in Bangladesh, we were going to be apart.I guess it was a slow build-up over that time. The team has improved and I just get the feeling that the time is right. And, together with the Bangladesh Cricket Board, we have agreed that at the end of May we should part ways.How was coaching Bangladesh different from coaching Sri Lanka?
We are in the process of becoming a competitive team, and we have shown some really good examples of what this team is can do. We are becoming consistent but we have to get a lot more consistent. When you are developing, you are working with boys who are trying, boys who are a product of their own culture. Domestic cricket here has not been as well developed as in India,
Pakistan and the western countries. So you are expecting these boys to play locally and then pick them to play pretty tough international competition. To me that is the number one thing that
needs to be addressed over time and it is being addressed – they are doing as good a job as possible in preparing a tough domestic competition from which you pick the national team.
Then you have to look at their background, their ability to understand, the ability to then go and apply it. It’s all to do with being able to cope with stressful situations. And this is where the boys fail a bit. I mean, they can play fantastic shots as batsmen, but being able to make the right decisions in stressful situations in the issue.Yes, sometimes I wonder about basic cricket knowledge. We know
that when a right-hand batsman is facing a left-arm fast bowler trying to
bowl quick across your body, trying to pull is harder, and that is the
natural thing that you expect to be taught when you are younger but
it is unheard of. The lack of basic knowledge is a bit staggering really.
When these young cricketers were growing up in youth cricket, they weren’t
told about the basics of cricket.How much of the batting really flows naturally and how much can be
ingrained?
You can teach. If there is an area that is weak, improve that. But not to
the point where, if you have a favourite shot and a least favourite shot, no matter
how much you practice you are not going to bring it up to the level of the
favourite shot. But you can improve skills in areas where you are deficient
and it is enough to get you out of trouble. People are bouncing you all the time and
knowing how to handle it and to be in a position to get there a fraction
earlier will help you.But coaching Bangladesh is perhaps very different from
coaching any other international side.
Not so very different but the boys need more guidance, a bit
more technical assistance.

You have had four years with Bangladesh. How much of the distance has been
bridged in that time?
First of all, we have jumped from 9 to 8.But, that’s because Zimbabwe have disintegrated completely.
Now they have, they were still beating us earlier. Only about a year ago,
when we went there they won 3-2. On the next tour, inside 12 months, we beat
them 3-1. It’s significant for us to go to Zimbabwe and win there. For the
first time, we went out and won outside our home conditions. To win abroad
was still a difficult task for us at that time. But now we can. That’s an
indication of the team growing.Is there a belief now that at your very best you can compete with anybody?
We have shown we can win a game. We have done so against Australia, South Africa, India twice, Sri Lanka and New Zealand in a practice match. When you are
looking at progress in the team, you will also have boys like Rafique,
who are getting on in years. We might make a change or two with our senior
players and we might have a horrific loss of form with a good youngster.
Teams will change. We are averaging around 23 years but there will
still be some changes. You have to be lucky sometimes to be around with
an era of good youngsters coming through. At the moment we are okay, we
have found Saqibul Hasan, Aftab Ahmed, Tamim Iqbal, a few more coming
around too. When you look at the prognosis you have to contend with
that too, other teams are also facing the same thing. Are they going
to move further ahead, or will we bridge the gap? It’s not always
easy to forecast.What you can confidently project is that the domestic competition can get
better. They are going to put more money into the four-day game. Parallel to
that is the cricket board’s commitment to developing the under-19
programme, which has a World Cup every two years. We have done very
well in that.That’s one of the noticeable changes. There seems to be a sense of
confidence and belonging among the guys who have come through the under-19
route that wasn’t the case 4-5 years earlier.
They have the added advantage of being exposed to more
contemporary coaching and techniques, because we have had a
couple of Aussies here. We still haven’t got the infrastructure and
facilities like other countries. Maybe even India, what they’ve got is more than what
has been the case in the past. The youngsters are getting a bit more
confident with the help of the Australians coming in and coaching
them. Now that they have done well in the World Cup, it has given their
confidence a boost. It’s a snowballing effect. I want to see
temperament in the team. I want to see a nice ordinary guy doing
extraordinary things on the field. I want people to look at you and admire
you for what you do.A lot of them have the hardware, but the software they need to improve on.
We have all seen Aftab Ahmed play unbelievable shots but he get to the 20s and gets out. His intensity is high because he has always had this desire to do well. He has learnt fairly quickly and we all can see it. It’s a big contrast from what it began as. He is a brilliant fielder too. But he needs to be more disciplined. It needs a bit of discipline to ensure you get to that timing in the middle just flows.

The two teams you beat in this World Cup you beat quite comprehensively, it wasn’t a fluke. It wasn’t that you beat them on their off day. You beat them because you were the better team
that day.
I always felt that when we start well we are much better. If we don’t start that well, then it becomes a much bigger job to bring it back in line. This has happened very often. The ability is there, but sometimes it just clicks. So it may be that on those days you don’t have
to be as disciplined to get into the zone. That doesn’t happen very often, that’s when you have to work to get through difficult periods to be in that comfortable zone. That’s when sometimes the boys don’t work hard enough. They are better used to slogging rampantly to get out of trouble. They are trying to work harder now in terms of discipline. But still some way to go!But there were times when they just couldn’t close out anything. They would get themselves to a winning situation and blow it. We have seen in a couple of Test matches, it happens a bit more now.
We were close to winning against Australia. It was so much of a disbelief. We had a lead of 150. We got out in the second innings with a target of 300 plus for Australia to get. The one thing that everyone overlooked was the condition of the pitch. You could have played eight days on it. The bloody thing wouldn’t turn either, and still if Mashrafe [Mortaza] had taken Ponting’s catch we would have been close to winning a Test match. We were close on Pakistan too, but we were desperately unlucky with a few decisions. There have been some good first innings performances in Test matches. The players are not versatile enough, batting in the second innings is not the same as batting in the first innings. They still haven’t acquired this skill completely. It will happen, with the help of the four-day games in domestic cricket.Now a tough question. There is a belief that Bangladesh are not yet Test -ready and it actually doesn’t help anyone, including themselves, if they get beaten hopelessly so often. We have seen how competing and winning against Zimbabwe and other Associates has helped develop their one-day game. Would not a similar approach help them develop their Test cricket too?
The fact that we play a few associate countries in one-day internationals gives us the winning habit and keeps the boys doing well. We haven’t played Test match cricket in 12 months but, in the games that we did play, there were some very encouraging signs though at the end of the day we were still beaten. There are two schools of approach to this; one is as you have put it, and the other is to continue playing games against strong opposition so you understand the level of competition, what you have to do over a five-day period to end up winning.Can Bangladesh look at the possibility of playing Duleep Trophy to improve their abilities at Test cricket, instead of being thrashed by teams like Australia?
I don’t think its possible. But I am aware that the cricketing world wants to see a strong Bangladesh Test team because it has naturally the ingredients in the country – the population, the interest, the money, it has all the prerequisites that you think they need to become a pretty decent team in time. How we get there is the question. We are a full member country, I don’t think stripping it will help. What we need is assistance. Maybe it is a course of thinking that would be acceptable to the cricket board and also to the ICC and other countries.That they consider this as an interim situation, where we don’t play as many a games against full members but to do something similar to what we have done in the one-day competition, especially when we play higher ranked teams. It has to be done with everyone’s full cooperation, with the express concern being that we need Bangladesh to be a strong team in Test cricket. It has to be something like an interim condition, where they remain a full member country. We need to create conditions for them to compete and play proper Test cricket.

More people are flocking to Australian domestic Twenty20 games than before and the board plans to cash in with an extravaganza that sounds a lot like the one in India

Brydon Coverdale21-Jan-2010A funny thing has been happening this month: people have been going to domestic cricket in Australia. A lot of people. Last week, 43,125 turned up to the MCG to watch Victoria beat Tasmania in a Big Bash match. This wasn’t the tournament final, you understand (that’s this Saturday at the Adelaide Oval); it was just a regular Twenty20 game between two states. Fewer fans showed up for day three of the Boxing Day Test this summer.By contrast, going to Sheffield Shield cricket at the MCG is like watching a school play at the Sydney Opera House – only family, friends, and a handful of curious onlookers bother showing up. A four-day game between the same sides at the same venue would be lucky to attract 1000 people a day, and you half expect the batsmen to be distracted by tumbleweeds rolling across the field.It’s not surprising that Cricket Australia is excited, for it is already planning a bigger Twenty20 tournament that will rewrite the way domestic cricket is played in Australia. For the 2011-12 season, Australia’s Twenty20 tournament will not feature teams like Western Australia and Queensland. Those sides will be Perth and Brisbane. The six state capitals will field teams and there will be two extra sides, likely to be based in non-capital-city growth areas like Geelong or the Gold Coast or Newcastle.A national draft is on the cards, meaning that a state icon like Brad Hodge, if he’s still playing, could line up for Sydney instead of his beloved Victoria. Foreign players will be in the mix as well, although whether teams could choose any more than the current limit of two is undecided.It all sounds suspiciously similar to another tournament that held a player auction this week, and while there are strong parallels the Bigger Bash, or whatever it’s ultimately called, will never rival the IPL. For starters, the teams won’t be privately owned in the beginning – the state cricket associations will run the city sides.Mike McKenna, the general manager of marketing at Cricket Australia, is in charge of a working group looking at how to structure the new competition. He said franchising of teams could be a possibility in the future, but for the time being the aim was simply to build a club-like following among fans, similar to that seen in the Australian Football League or the National Rugby League, with the teams funnelling into the existing Champions League.”The IPL has been one of the references,” McKenna told Cricinfo. “We’ve looked more at Australian sport for an example of what’s worked. There are plenty of good examples, we’ve got some fantastic professional sports leagues. We’ve got to get the foundations of the game right before we can even talk about private investment. Sport in Australia is not full of great successes in private investment.”The IPL, one of the things they have is an unbelievable amount of money. We’re never going to get that sort of money. It means we can’t splash around the way they do. One of the things we will focus on is the quality of cricket in our teams. From year to year, hopefully our teams will do well at the Champions League and prove that it’s a very good quality competition.”There’s an argument that the Big Bash is already a high-quality tournament. New South Wales won the inaugural Champions League and so far this year, Big Bash crowds are up 80% and the television viewing audience is up 15% on last summer. But Cricket Australia wants the eight teams so it can not only push into parts of Australia where cricket is a massive participant sport without an elite presence, but also to expose more players to the top level.

For the 2011-12 season, Australia’s Twenty20 tournament will not feature teams like Western Australia and Queensland. Those sides will be Perth and Brisbane. The six state capitals will field teams and there will be two extra sides, likely to be based in non-capital-city growth areas like Geelong or the Gold Coast or Newcastle

Of course, it’s not that simple. Many questions are yet to be answered. With more elite positions up for grabs, will young players focus on winning a Twenty20 spot with the Gold Coast Gold-Diggers, and the IPL deals that could follow, rather than on breaking into their state’s Sheffield Shield team? Cricket Australia’s party line is that the baggy green will remain the ultimate goal for emerging players, but that’s of little relevance if they have spent their junior years slogging sixes instead of building patient innings on difficult pitches.When can it be played? If foreign stars and Australia’s Test and ODI players are to take part, and Ricky Ponting believes that must happen for it to be a success, the options in peak holiday time are limited. Late January is a possibility but the scheduling raises another even more important question.Will the Sheffield Shield be cut back to make way? Money and pizzazz aside, that’s the question that could most shape the future of Australian cricket. Six teams play each other twice in the Sheffield Shield, which results in 10 first-class games a season and one of the most elite domestic competitions in the world. It’s where the baggy-green stars are born, and if 10 matches becomes nine or eight or seven, then Australia’s Test team cannot help but suffer.”There’s not actually a real problem at the moment,” McKenna said. “We’ve done some modelling around it and the modelling is based around the principle that we keep the same number of Shield games we’ve got now. We see it as the pathway to the Australian cricket team.”We’re not looking to tinker with that too much. The reality is the season, when it’s bookended by the Champions League at one end and the IPL at the other, and other sporting codes, that there’s only so much time to play. So our expansion at the moment is based on that principle. If it changes, we have to be very careful how we handle that from a talent-development point of view.”For now, the details remain sketchy. But fans of domestic cricket in Australia should prepare for a big shake-up.

Within the next week or so, several of the Stanford Superstars must come back to earth and link up again with the established WICB management

Tony Cozier10-Aug-2008

As Julian Hunte and Donald Peters were at their kiss-and-make-up lunch in Antigua last week, settling an issue that had absolutely nothing to do with the depressed state of West Indies cricket, 30 players were going through the rigours of training and coaching nearby.They were all West Indian but, even though the next official West Indies assignments are the Associates tri-series in Toronto in August and the Champions Trophy in Pakistan in September, they weren’t there as a West Indies team.While president Hunte occupied himself with chief executive Peters’ handling of a report claiming the WICB paid for the work on his office in St Lucia, no side had yet been announced for either Toronto or Pakistan – and still hasn’t.What is more, confusion remained over Chris Gayle’s resignation as captain.
There were no such distractions for the players in Antigua, members of the initial Stanford Superstars squad for the breathtaking US$20 million one-off winner-take-all challenge match against England, devised and financed by Texan billionaire Allen Stanford at his ground adjoining the VC Bird International Airport, almost three months distant on November 1.They were there for a fortnight’s training camp, ending on Wednesday, that the Stanford organisation said was “designed to upgrade the fitness levels of the players and fine-tune their all-round cricket skills”. There would also be “emphasis on other critical aspects of the game such as team work, strategy formulation and video analysis review”.The Superstars are under the direction of head coach Eldine Baptiste and his deputy Roger Harper, the former West Indies allrounder with compelling coaching credentials. Sir Viv Richards, the chief selector, and Lance Gibbs, the manager, are the West Indies icons who are part of the event. Cardigan Connor, the Anguillan who played for several seasons with Hampshire, will be Gibbs’ assistant.They were augmented by “specialist advice from several of the legends of West Indies cricket on the Stanford 20/20 board of directors and other experts including the internationally-renowned fielding coach Julian Fountain”.As his investment of unprecedented millions into the game confirms, Stanford doesn’t deal in half-measures. He has no intention of depositing his US$20 million into English bank accounts and has called in West Indian heavyweights to ensure that he doesn’t have to. If those picked do not benefit from the exercise, they had no right being there.Yet it gives rise to an obvious dichotomy. Within the next week or so, several of the Superstars must come back to earth and link up again with the established WICB management for the upcoming tournaments.Coach John Dyson, assistant David Williams and manager Omar Khan are all relatively new to their jobs. They are still feeling their way, trying to overcome the inconsistent performances of the team and the consistent bungling of the board.Now their main charges return from a fresh experience under different coaches, presumably with different methods. It is a situation to be repeated over the next five years that these multi-million dollar, one-off extravaganzas are scheduled.For the past two weeks in Antigua, the adrenaline of Stanford’s Superstars would have been driven by the hype surrounding the November 1 event. They would have been flattered by the close and constant attention of the West Indies greats and five-star amenities. Not least, they would have had ample time to contemplate the unprecedented wealth on offer.They now have to return to reality, to a low-key series against Canada and Bermuda in Toronto, followed by the Champions Trophy in Pakistan that most players would rather avoid. November 1 can’t come around fast enough.It all adds up to a formidable challenge for Dyson and his associates to assert their influence once more.

The two offspinners, Jason Krejza and Harbhajan Singh, had a day to remember in Nagpur. Cricinfo looks at a few statistical highlights for the two

Cricinfo staff07-Nov-2008:

• After his poor showing in Australia’s tour game – he took 0 for 199 in 31 overs – Krejza was overlooked for the first three Tests, but he finally got his chance in Nagpur. After taking 3 for 138 on the first day, a devastating spell of five wickets in 26 deliveries restricted India to 441. He finished the innings with 8 for 215, the eighth-best figures in an innings for a bowler on debut – the fourth-best by an Australian bowler, after Albert Trott’s 8 for 43 and Bob Massie’s 8 for 53 and 8 for 84.
• Harbhajan became the third Indian bowler, after Kapil Dev and Anil Kumble, to take 300 Test wickets. He’s the fifth spinner – Muttiah Muralitharan, Shane Warne and Kumble top the list of wicket-takers for all bowlers, and Lance Gibbs is the only other spinner in the list of 22.
• Krejza’s eight wickets cost 215 runs, the most conceded by a bowler on debut. He’s only the third Australian bowler to go for more than 200 runs in an innings – his team-mate Brett Lee was the second, against India in Sydney in 2004.
• Harbhajan’s 300th Test wicket was also his 200th at home. He fares far better in India than away: in 40 home Tests, he averages 26.74, while his 100 wickets away have come at 39.69 apiece.
• Krejza’s is the most expensive eighth-wicket haul in an innings – Saqlain Mushtaq had previously taken figures of 8 for 164. Among bowlers who have taken more than five wickets in an innings, only two bowlers – Bishan Bedi and Kapil – have conceded more runs.
• Harbhajan’s 300th victim was Ricky Ponting, fitting perhaps given their rivalry. Ponting is the batsman Harbhajan has dismissed the most – no other bowler has been as successful, in terms of dismissals, against Ponting. It was the tenth time Harbhajan got Ponting out, and to cap it off, he bowled Ponting for the first time. His 73 wickets against Australia is his best against any team. Thirty-two of those wickets came in the three Tests at home in 2001. (Click here for Harbhajan’s career bowling summary.)
• Krejza’s figures were the third-best by a visiting bowler in India – Lance Klusener’s 8 for 64, also in his debut Test, being the best – and the best for an away spinner in the country. Krejza, Klusener and Stuart MacGill, who took 8 for 108 against Bangladesh in Fatullah, are the only non-subcontinent bowlers to take eight wickets or more in an innings in Asia.
• With Anil Kumble’s retirement, Harbhajan now takes over as India’s leading spinner. Of his 300, 220 have come in Tests where he has played alongside Kumble. While Kumble averages 28.36 in those games, Harbhajan’s wickets have come at 32.60 apiece. In 18 Tests not involving Kumble, Harbhajan’s average improves to 26.81. His strike-rate is 56.6 for those 80 wickets; in matches with Kumble, it’s 69.1. The two had become only the second spin pair to play 50 Tests (among bowlers who have bowled at least 90 balls per Test on an average) in April this year.