South Africa vs Australia Series Review – We Have Been Robbed

World cricket is at war.

In one corner, we have the front bench crowd with small attention spans and an insatiable lust for sixes and cheap thrills. They are backed up with cash hungry administrators and sponsors looking to turn the game into a business. And on the other there is the rest of us, those who crave for one simple thing, real cricket.

And by george we got some real cricket.

This series was ample proof of what the beautiful game has to offer in its purest form. It does not require gimmicks, cheerleaders and atrocious piggy backs such as the ‘Free Hit’. The true recipe is two quality sides, zero corruption and a neutral pitch. We live in the insulting batting age where the flat decks of Mohali are termed as ‘good pitches’. This series showed us exactly what a cricket pitch needs to be, reward for skill.

For what it was, the stalemate was the most interesting cricket we have seen in recent times. Neither team, already bitter rivals with a short but incredible history, managed to take the ascendancy. Both teams continued to be the victims of their own insecurities, unwilling to put the opposition to bed once and for all. And we the spectators benefited the most, watching two teams crash back and forth is a mighty load of fun.

Crashing taken literally sometimes © AFP

If you scroll back over the last six months or so, there has been plenty of forgettable cricket. It is no coincidence either that most of this was the limited overs format, does anyone even bother to care who wins these Twenty20 matches? The biggest shambles of them all was the Champions Trophy T20 tournament, which serves more like the idiot cousin of the football equivalent. An ego trip, at best. If we ripped that poor show out of the cricketing calendar, we could have had a third test match.

A third deciding test match, just imagine the tantalizing possibilities.

The solutions unfortunately rely on the likes of the ICC and the BCCI to wake up to these facts. It will rely on a complete implosion of the IPL as well as a large enough outcry from the fans and players alike to rally against poor cricket and support the cream of it. Martin Guptill recently gave up his IPL contract to take on commitments in the longer formats in first class English cricket. There is a shining example.

Much like like a movie trailer, we saw a quick preview of an enthralling spectacle. We have all been left with empty feelings while the players are left scratching the heads, caught in an unsatisfied limbo. There will be no full length motion picture to follow, it shall remain 1:1 and cricketers and spectators alike shall forever remain robbed.

Contributed by : Varun Prasad
Varun’s blog : The Cricket Musings

That man Afridi!

Shahid Afridi is a freak of nature. You can take away the captaincy, take him out of action and blame all the ills of  Pakistan cricket on him; but give him a bat and a ball, and he will proceed to show why he is still the most valuable player in the shorter forms for Pakistan. He may say the darndest things, and even do some of the craziest acts imaginable; but there is no doubting the existence of a fighter in that crazy persona that is Shahid Afridi.

Pakistan is the most resilient cricket team there is, no thanks to their board ofcourse. No other team could face the amount of controversies and upheavals they do, and still manage to produce a side capable of beating any of the top dogs at any given time. Despite losing many world class bowlers over the last few years due to varying reasons, they still possess one of the finest bowling attacks in the world. Now if their batsmen can become more consistent, they could pose a viable challenge for the top rankings in international cricket; and that is saying something.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka are in decline. Their bowling lacks tooth with the absence of Murali and restricted appearances of Malinga, while the batting revolves around Dilshan, Sangakarra and Jayawardene who aren’t gonna last long either. They have a good bunch of youngsters, who unfortunately have been around for long and are yet to realise their full potential. New coach Geoff Marsh has a tough task on his hands to rebuild this side, and he will do well to build it around the exciting Angelo Mathews.

Benny for DieHard Cricket Fans
Follow Benny on Twitter @tracerbullet007

A Question of Cricket

I’ve got back into “A Question of Sport” recently. For any readers outside of the UK who at this point are saying “WTF”, QofS is basically a sporting quiz on the BBC that features famous sportsmen and women past and present. It’s a little bit kooky and with Phil Tufnell on the panel it can even border on “zany” occasionally.

On Monday night, Jonathan Trott was a guest on the show. The guy is a fricken genius. He knew the answers to every sport: rugby, motor racing, football the lot.

It reminded me that he and his England colleagues are finally on a little break from playing cricket, as he cosied up to Matt Dawson et al. He’s been playing cricket solidly for months and months. A rest and an appearance on QofS is just what the doctor ordered.

A little rest and relaxation can do wonders for professional sportsmen, just ask Carlos Tevez.

Not all cricketers are chillaxing right now though, with Australia currently touring South Africa and India playing host to the West Indies. Sri Lanka are also concluding their series against Pakistan with a round of One Day Internationals.

The crowds for all these series have been disappointing though, and in the case of the India vs West Indies series they’ve been atrocious. Less than 1000 people turned up for the opening day of the second test at cricketing institution Eden Gardens, even with the chance of Sachin Tendulkar scoring his hundredth test hundred in the offing.

But can you blame the good people of Kolkata? It’s only a couple of weeks since England played India in back-to-back One Day and T20 international matches there.

Sure, when your national cricket team rock into town it’s a big deal, particularly when it’s your national sport as cricket is in India, but buying 3 lots of tickets for international matches within a couple of weeks of each other is going to stretch anyones purse strings.

Not only that, but the first day of the second test match was on a Monday. Now call me an old stick-in-the-mud but people do need to work occasionally, especially if they are paying exorbitant prices for, amongst other things, going to cricket matches.

Its clear that international cricket is being scheduled around TV stations nowadays, so we shouldn’t be surprised. Despite the miles between India and South Africa, their games have seemingly been scheduled so that they don’t overlap each other, meaning global TV audiences can enjoy both matches without missing a moment (if of course you are that keen to watch both series that is!)

The speed at which wickets have fallen in both series thus far though, notwithstanding India’s gargantuan 631/7 declared in the second test at Eden Gardens means the schedulers need not have worried so, but that’s another issue.

The point is, with the emphasis so obviously on TV schedules and not on the paying public actually going to the ground, is there any wonder Eden Gardens looked like a “morgue” on Monday, as Tony Greig put it?

And it was. And it was horrible to see. But the ICC and the cricket boards (and the TV companies) that schedule these tours only have themselves to blame.

We all love seeing cricket, but let’s keep it sacred. Saturating the market never did anyone any favours.

A lot of people watch cricket on TV and I don’t have a problem with that. It’s a global sport, and the TV companies do a great job in allowing us all to watch cricket wherever it is taking place in the world.

But seeing the empty stands at Eden Gardens yesterday and to a lesser extent Newlands in Cape Town last week, which wasn’t full either – amazing for such a high-profile series, is going to have a negative impact on the game in the long run.

A Question of Sport is, in truth, a little bit dull, but it’s good to have a little rest-bite from the things we love. Less cricket might, for the players as well as the paying public might just do us all a favour.

Tom Huelin for DieHard Cricket Fans
Follow Tom on Twitter @tomhue1

The Australian Collapse: Has It Been Worse?

It was the early hours of the morning when I was tuned into the forever reliable cricinfo.com text commentary for the South Africa vs Australia test match. Fresh off (what I thought then) a career defining 151 from Michael Clarke, I witnessed the (what I thought then) underrated Shane Watson produce a record breaking five wicket haul and a typical South African choke. At 96 all out at nearly 2am in the morning, sleep took quick preference over this supposedly dead test match.

But alas!
In the car on the way to work, and the good folk on talk-back radio were going bananas the next morning. I remember distinctly thinking that 96 all out is a bad effort, but nothing to be flipping upside-down about, what’s all this excited chatter? Then I realized they weren’t even talking about them, the king of chokers were out choked themselves. Repeat after me, 47 all out, Australia. Forty Seven. All Out.

No? Try this one for size, 9 for 21. Nine Australian wickets, 21 runs. Hasn’t quite sunk in yet? Me neither. The most ridiculous result since these two teams produced the 438 run chase.

The first thoughts for everyone were how can a team as good as Australia be quite so abysmal.

• Was it the pitch? Nope, as Amla and Smith showed us with glee.
• Was it the pressure? Not with a huge first innings lead.
• Was it amazing bowling? It was solid at best, but no demolition job.

Excuses nil, it was just bad batting. Exceptionally and inexplicably bad batting. The question I put to you dear reader is, has it ever been this bad? Has a test team of this quality ever been ripped away in such a manner? The Cricket Musings aims to find out (at least for the last decade or so), along with a grading of possible excuses.
Case 1: India Fail. New Zealand Epic Fail
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/64021.html
India were the laughing stock of the world after Shane Bond finished them off the in first test of this series. A series famous for is green tops that made Daryll Tuffey and Andre Adams menacing (!), things were no better as India slumped to a pathetic 99 all out after another inept display. But the real laugh arrived when New Zealand themselves were blown away for 94 all out, three innings in one day. Too bad that India couldn’t capitalize and gave New Zealand a poor 160 as the successfully chased down fourth innings target, but it was nonetheless a harsh lesson for a team only slightly worse than the tourists.

Pitch Quality: D
Bowling Quality: B
Stupidity: B


Case 2: Australia Squander 107
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/64102.html

Having already crashed India’s party at home by bowling them out for 104 with a 2:0 lead in the series, Australia were left to chase 107 after a manic Indian third innings saw Laxman and Tendulkar manage important 50s and Michael Clarke take bowling figures of 6 for 9. Michael Clarke successes are a bad omen it seems, as Australia were bundled out for 93 on what was a dodgy Mumbai minefield. When was the last time Bhajji ran through a line-up? This was probably it.
Pitch Quality: D
Bowling Quality: B
Stupidity: B


Case 3: West Indies Destroy England
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/current/match/63639.html
It was a rare and beautiful thing to see the Ambrose and Walsh machine fire on both cylinders, and when it does happen only devastation is left in its wake. England were the unfortunate victims this time, forget the entirely achievable target of 194 because when you get the greatest fast bowling partnership of our generation, almost nothing is achievable. Given the bowling quality, it seems a miracle they even got to 46.
Pitch Quality: B
Bowling Quality: A+
Stupidity: not applicable

Don't even bother turning around son. © PA Photos

Case 4: West Indies Destroy England – Deja Vu
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/352661.html
Fast forward fifteen years later and we have a strong English unit and a generally woeful West Indies. The poms were looking to wipe away the first innings lead the West Indies had, a measly 73 runs. Too bad then that they didn’t even get that far, as Jerome Taylor in a career one-off performance, smashed England to bits as they succumbed to 51 all out. Those old skeletons of 1994 were back in their glory. England recovered and this wasn’t the defining turning point for West Indies cricket, but what a great piece of nostalgia it was.
Pitch Quality: B
Bowling Quality: A
Stupidity: not applicable

Case 5: The Adelaide Ashes Choke
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ausveng/engine/match/249223.html
Not so long ago England were fodder, and this match was ample proof of it. Having met Australia eye to eye in this important 2nd test, England were faced with one day to play out the draw. They met an inspired Shane Warne instead who helped demolish them for 129 all out in 73 overs of truly aimless batting giving the Australians a target of 168, accepted with glee at more than 5 runs an over. It set the tone for a famous 5-0 whitewash, the most damaging thing being that one of the Glenn McGrath predictions actually came true.
Pitch Quality: A
Bowling Quality: A
Stupidity: A

Case 6: The Fawad Alam Debut From Hell

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/403368.html
Poor Fawad Alam. Ignored by the selectors now, he produced a classy 168 on debut and that too in Colombo. With no Murali around Pakistan were cruising along at 285-2 with a nice healthy lead and their sights on a fourth innings target touching the 300 mark. Wrong, chaos ensued.

2-285 (Younis Khan, 78.1 ov), 3-294 (Mohammad Yousuf, 81.2 ov),4-303 (Misbah-ul-Haq, 86.5 ov),
5-303 (Fawad Alam, 87.2 ov), 6-306 (Kamran Akmal, 88.3 ov), 7-312 (Shoaib Malik, 89.2 ov),
8-316 (Abdur Rauf, 90.2 ov),9-319 (Umar Gul, 95.4 ov), 10-320 (Saeed Ajmal, 96.4 ov)

It all started with Younis Khan attempting and failing a dumb reverse sweep. Sri Lanka knocked off the eventual target of 171, losing nine wickets for 35 in a true definition of losing the plot.

Pitch Quality: B
Bowling Quality: C
Stupidity: A

How about that sprinting career then? © AFP

Case 7: Pakistan’s 50s… In The Same Match
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/64002.html
Arguably the worst performance by a batting team in test match history. Pakistan needn’t have bothered turning up as they registered their lowest score in test history, folding for 59 all out. Not content with that, they lowered their own mark in the same match with a second innings response of 53 all out. The match was over in two days, and in the wise words of Steve Waugh ”You expect to have to fight a bit harder than that to win a Test match”.

Pitch Quality: B
Bowling Quality: A
Stupidity: A+

The bottom line: Australia, you were not alone. Rest a little easier.

Contributed by : Varun Prasad
Varun’s blog : The Cricket Musings

Hang on; The Show goes on !

Cricket is a strange game where amusing things keep happening. So it is neigh say impossible to remain away from Cricket for long; even when India play Sri Lanka in a 21 match bilateral ODI series soon after the IPL. So much fun on the run and how could SPun Doctor miss all the pun ?

So here is my 11 for the week that was or almost.

1] Run Gauty Run: First of all Gautam’s running between wickets has become a Gambhir problem for India. Every time he sets out for a run, he seems to run out of ideas. He needs to contact Abhishek Bachchan immediately to get an idea. GG is just 2G he needs to upgrade to “What an !dea 3G”

2] Limited Sehwagging: Virendar Sehwag probably needs to be reminded of a Test match being played over 5 days and not 20 overs. He last played competitive Cricket for Delhi Daredevils and since then hasn’t seen the 21st over yet. He also has become the most stumped player of all times.

3] No Es-Cape Town: South Africa and Australia collectively lost 20 wickets for 143 runs at one stage during the first test in mildly testing conditions at Cape Town. Australian collapse looked more like West Indian. And short little Raina and other Indian batsmen are supposed to be weak against pace and short pitched bowling.

4] Taylor for the minnows: Zimbabwe on the other hand have shown tremendous guts in their come back to test Cricket. The last day of the Bulawayo test was a great day for Test Cricket in spite of the fact that the underdog lost. It was a Taylor made chase till Brendon lasted. All stitches fell off after his fall.

Taylor played Captain's knock !

5] Capital Punishment: India have been quite benevolent all these years allowing the likes of Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru to live luxuriously at our expenditure and going on postponing the gallows. But for once, Team India escaped from Capital punishment at the national Capital thanks to meek capitulation by West Indies and some special bowling by Ravichandran Ashwin. Conceding 95 runs on first innings against stronger teams would have meant a fifth straight test defeat for Dhoni and Co.

6] Royal British Certificate of Merit: We the Indians somehow need the British to certify our products and prodigies even six decades after they left the shores. It was the Surrey Manager Chris Adams’ certificate that gave Ojha a new lifeline and he has done well to hang on. But has the hangman’s noose fallen elsewhere on a certain Turbanator’s career ? 

7] Complete Retirement Plans: Shahid Afridi has made a awesome welcome back to international Cricket at the tender yet ripe age of 25. When he decides to retire this time, he promises to retire completely ! And until he retires completely, we should not consider his retirement as full and final. We hope he will join Mohammed Yusuf in the retirement home once he does so finally. Or will he ? 

8] Down with the Count Down: Sachinists all over India, abroad and on the Mars should remember one thing. He has managed to score the hundredth run ninety nine times in the past two decades. He can as well do it the hundredth time sooner than  later. But to do so, he needs to score those ninety nine runs first. At least keep peace till he enters nineties. So can we please relax and let him relax too ? And for TENdulkar’s sake, can we begin the count down from Ten rather than Hundred ? 

9] Spots Fixed Butt there still is an appeal: While the Pakistani troika of Butt, Asif and Amer have been fixed to their spots in the UK prison by stringent laws, Pakistan have steamrolled a much stronger on paper Sri Lanka in their home series being played abroad. Pakistan Cricket never runs out of surprises, while the shamed trio is busy making a different kind of appeal ! 

10] Cricket Bravery award of the year:  Siddle and Lyon for saving Aussies from the ignominy of equaling the lowest ever score in a Test innings and also for more than doubling the score from where they came together. So shocked were the South Africans by the Australian batting display that even Morkel failed bowl a single no ball or a wide ball.

11] A Cricket Trivia question: How many times has a number 11 batsman top scored for his team in a Test innings ? Australia achieved the distinction at Cape Town. While the former greats lose sleep, the haloed Baggy Green ain’t green no more !

With a lot more Cricket coming up, SPun Doctor hopes to ‘come back’ with more pun on the run. That honestly doesn’t mean retirement and come back.

Govind Raj Shenoy aka SPun Doctor for DieHard Cricket Fans

Imran Tahir and the Best Test Debut Ever!

Cleaned Up! Tahir on test Debut

The test match going on at Newlands, Cape Town at the moment will be remembered for many things, but being Imran Tahir’s test debut for South Africa is unlikely to be one of them, unless South Africa lose 8 more wickets on day 3 and the former Hampshire spinner is required to score the winning runs.

Unlikely, but hell, crazier shit has happened today!

Australia resumed on day two with captain Michael Clarke a ton to the good and his side in a position to pass 250, the minimum Clarke had deemed as acceptable at stumps on day one.

Clarke took Australia to 285 all out and seemingly “in the match”.

Tahir bowled a handful of tidy enough overs but it was other debutant, Vernon Philander who took the plaudits taking three wickets whilst Dale Steyn’s ferocious fast bowling had the hyperbole-merchants going into overdrive with his figures of 4/55.

What came next was borderline farce. First South Africa capitulated for 96 all out before Australia went one “better”, in the lunacy stakes, by scoring a hundred-year worst of 47 all out, yes, ALL OUT, in their second innings.

18 wickets fell for just 68 runs in the afternoon session in what was a quite unbelievable day of test cricket.

And it was needed, even if you’re an Australia fan. After the negative headlines of the spot fixing trial and the poor attendances of last weeks India vs West Indies test match in Delhi, this scintillating battle has resonated all around the world, confirming what many of us have known for a long time – that at its best, nothing beats test cricket.

South Africa put on 81/1 in their second innings before stumps at the end of day two, needing 155 to win with 9 wickets still in hand and they’ll fancy their chances. It is quite unbelievable that, going into day 3, we are already talking about a 4th innings chase – it’s been a surreal, incredible game of test cricket.

But what of our man Tahir? Well, he might not have much more to do in this game, sadly for him. A dozen or so inoffensive overs, no wickets and two runs with the bat, but I think he might just remember his first game in test cricket rather fondly, if the Proteas seal the deal tomorrow.

Tom Huelin for DieHard Cricket Fans
Follow Tom on Twitter @tomhue1