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The left-arm spinner is all but certain to retire after this season with Sydney Sixers

Andrew McGlashan11-Jan-2024There will be no helicopter for Steve O’Keefe at the SCG on Friday, but his evening in the BBL Sydney derby could be a much more significant than David Warner’s hasty flight from his brother’s wedding.There’s a chance that the game will be O’Keefe’s final outing at the SCG with this season very likely to be the last of his professional career. However, it may be worth just holding the farewells. Sydney Sixers are still in the running to host a final, and perhaps even the decider if they can get into the Qualifier and defeat Brisbane Heat on the Gold Coast.Related

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Regardless, though, of exactly when, at some point in the next two weeks left-arm spinner O’Keefe will all but certainly hang up his boots. He’s talked of retirement regularly over the last few seasons, but this time he’s serious. He’s relocating to northern New South Wales and has no plans to continue playing cricket.”It will be very hard to play on next year so this could be my last game at the SCG,” he said. “It’s not 100 per cent confirmed, and I’ll make sure the right people know that at the right time.”I’ve had a great time playing it and now the expectation around your training and your body, committing to cricket 12 months of the year is probably something that’s a bit past me at the moment.”I feel really fulfilled with what I’ve done career-wise and very, very happy. I’ve had a lot of fun this year and am certainly still enjoying it.”O’Keefe is currently the third-highest wicket-taker for Sixers in the BBL with 94 at 23.40 and a miserly economy rate of 6.69. The wickets have not been plentiful this season, with just three in six games, but he has still only conceded 6.65 an over. He is confident in the future of the Sixers’ spin bowling with Todd Murphy and Joel Davies part of the current squad.His T20 debut came in the state league, the precursor to the BBL, in 2009. He bowled one over in the game against Tasmania at Stadium Australia and batted at No. 9. One place above him the order was a certain S. Smith. Briefly he was a T20 opener and hit 48 off 46 balls when Sixers won the inaugural BBL title with victory over Perth Scorchers in early 2012.”There’s been plenty of highs on the field…playing for Australia is something that will stand out,” he said. “Unfortunately for me, my lowlights were all off the field, but certainly brought a lot of growth and development. For the Sixers, going back-to-back [titles] was amazing and also when we went to South Africa for the Champions League, that was a lot of fun.”His axing from the New South Wales state list in early 2020 hit him hard, particularly as it came after a solid Sheffield Shield campaign, but he was able to find a new lease of life in the BBL.”I was bitter and twisted for a couple of years,” he said. “Certainly took its toll…certainly takes you aback, especially in an association you’ve been playing cricket for 20 years. The cold-hearted nature of how it happens can be quite a shock. Certainly don’t want to play the woe-is-me card, think everyone goes through it in certain aspects of their life no matter what you do.”I’ve just been privileged and fortunate enough that I’ve been able to extend my career in cricket. A lot of players years ago wouldn’t have had that opportunity to continue. This place [Sixers] has reinvigorated a love for the game which thought I didn’t have a couple of years ago and it’s been so much fun.”O’Keefe has aspirations to work as a spin-bowling coach and may continue to dabble in commentary. “I’d like to help out, think spin bowling is somewhere I can help,” he said. “It’s something I’m passionate about.”For now, though, when the season is done, he will settle into his new home and take “long service leave” after 20 years in professional cricket.”I’m just going to sit in front of the TV and become an armchair expert,” he joked. “I might open a Twitter page and see how much trouble I can get into doing that.”

The expectations are so high that many of us are already bracing to be disappointed

Amit Varma07-Jul-2005The expectations are so high that many of us are already bracing to be disappointed. How can this series live up to the last two between India and Australia, both classics, with evenly matched teams playing cricket of the highest quality? In fact, the last two Test series that India have played, against Australia and Pakistan, featured fabulous cricket. Can lightning strike thrice?The answer to that question rests with India. The Australians play consistently outstanding cricket, series after series, at home and away – that is why they are one of the greatest teams of all time. They did not, in fact, play much above themselves in those two series against India – it was India that turned those into such wonderful contests by playing out of their skins.Sourav Ganguly’s men have, in the past, risen to the big occasion after a disappointing lead-up to it. They reached the final of last year’s World Cup after being thrashed in New Zealand; they went to the verge of a series victory in Australia after a lacklustre show against New Zealand at home. They come into this series after a bad run in one-day tournaments. Can they lift themselves again? Or will Australia win their first series in India in 35 years?Examining Australia – outstanding bowlers, under-rated batsmen

This is the best bowling attack Australia have ever brought to India. Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie, Brett Lee and Michael Kasprowicz are a formidable pace quartet, though at least one of them will be on the bench, with Shane Warne at the fittest – and perhaps the most motivated – he has been coming to India. When else in the last decade has a fit McGrath been uncertain of a place in the final XI, as he is now? Rumours before the warm-up game indicated that Gillespie and Kasprowicz were certainties for the Bangalore Test, with McGrath and Lee vying for the third spot. McGrath was sharper in the warm-up game at Mumbai, though, and seems to have wrapped that up.The spin back-up is weak – or at least the specialist component of it is. Nathan Hauritz, with a first-class bowling average of 44, and Cameron White, with 34, might be investments for the future, but don’t expect them to get a Test here. If Warne needs spin back-up, it will probably come from the part-timers in the team, with the left-arm spin of Michael Clarke, Darren Lehmann and Simon Katich, the last a wrist-spinner, likely to be deployed frequently, especially at Nagpur, where a result is unlikely, and the burden of the Australian specialist bowlers will need sharing.Australia’s batsmen lack star power compared to their last trip here, but not ability. The Waugh brothers were wonderful brands, with formidable reputations, but the less experienced batsmen in this middle order are no lame ducks. Katich, Lehmann and Clarke are all superb players of spin. Katich played Anil Kumble with ease at Sydney earlier this year, where his exquisite 77 not out, after 125 in the first innings, helped Australia save the Test and the series. Lehmann handled the Sri Lankan spinners, including Muttiah Muralitharan, quite comfortably earlier this year on their own turf. As for Clarke, the way he uses his feet against the spinners is a treat for the eyes, and his will be the most overdue Test debut of the year.And then, of course, there are the repeat visitors from last time. Matthew Hayden, who made 549 runs in the 2001 series – more even than VVS Laxman – is at the peak of his powers, and looks to dominate the bowlers from the outset. Justin Langer averaged just 32 in that series, but looked comfortable throughout at the crease. He has a Test average of 45, and 19 centuries to his name. Adam Gilchrist will be keen to prove that his century at Mumbai the last time around was not an aberration, but that his subsequent failures were. Damien Martyn was a tourist the last time around, but has since become a linchpin of the Australian middle order, and one of the prettiest batsmen to watch.Australia aren’t here to be pretty, of course. They’re here to win, and they have the weapons to do so. Can India match them?Examining India – class is permanent … but dammit, form is necessaryHow will India’s woeful one-day form this year affect their performance in the Test series? They will feel self-doubt, of course, and like confidence, that can perpetuate itself. If Australia come hard at them in the first Test, and take a win, India’s fortunes could spiral downwards in the rest of the series. Sachin Tendulkar’s injury looks set to keep him out of action for a while, and Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh have been pilloried in the press for their poor one-day form.

But Test cricket, unlike one-dayers, allows batsmen to play themselves into form. Batsmen like Rahul Dravid and Laxman will not have the pressure of a limited-overs deadline when they walk out to the middle, and will be able to play themslves in. The longer they’ll play, the more confidence they will gain, and the more Australia will start to worry. Their 300-plus partnerships at Kolkata and Adelaide were the pivotal points of the last two series, and with Dravid certain to bat at No. 3 and Laxman, in Tendulkar’s absence, likely to bat at No. 4, they will again be India’s key batsmen. It was heartening for India, also, that Sehwag and Yuvraj got centuries in the practice game at Bangalore. Bowlers seal victories in Test matches, but batsmen set them up, and India have the batsmen to do the job.Their bowling is a worry, though. How long before Zaheer Khan breaks down again? How fit is Ashish Nehra, really? One of the matchwinning bowlers of the series against Pakistan, L Balaji, is absent due to injury, and the other, Irfan Pathan, is the strike bowler of a side he wasn’t even a part of a year ago. Ajit Agarkar, a matchwinner at Adelaide last year, is still inconsistent, more potential and hope than performance and trust. But India are unlikely to need more than two of them in any Test – Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh are virtually certain to be India’s strike bowlers through the series.Kumble was India’s biggest matchwinner in the 1990s, and Harbhajan was an irresistible force the last time Australia toured India. The two of them have rarely bowled at their best together, but they will seldom be more motivated to do so. If any of the pitches are dustbowls, they will be difficult to overcome, but even otherwise, they will be hard to resist. The defining battle of this series may well between India’s attacking spinners and Australia’s counter-attacking batsmen.

Fourteen years into a singular career, Muttiah Muralitharan remains cricket’s most extraordinary performer. Just how great is he?

Mukul Kesavan10-Jul-2006

Normal people don’t think about sportsmen, they watch them. The thinking comes later, it’s a second-order pleasure. There are those of us who add Virender Sehwag’s latest score to his aggregate and divide by the number of innings played (minus the not-outs) to work out how many decimal points his career average has risen, but we do this in secret because we know that it is, like picking one’s nose, a furtive pleasure that not everyone is likely to understand. To understand Muttiah Muralitharan, to appreciate what he means to cricket, we should begin, not with his statistics, but his Presence.The difference between the great and the very good is that the great ones have an aura. Sometimes, first-rate players are undervalued because they lack that je ne sais quoi. Among batsmen, Ken Barrington, Dilip Vengsarkar, Andy Flower, Jacques Kallis, even Rahul Dravid, come to mind as extraordinary players who aren’t given their due because of a certain anonymity, whereas Viv Richards, Sunil Gavaskar, Javed Miandad, Brian Lara, Sachin Tendulkar, Sehwag, even Mahendra Singh Dhoni, walk the field swaddled in an aura that magnifies them and their doings. Among contemporary bowlers, Anil Kumble suffers most in this area, forever typed as a dogged striver, a wonderful senior pro, but not a Master of the Universe, whereas Imran Khan’s cricketing record is lacquered into immortality by his charisma. Glenn McGrath, without question the most dangerous bowler of the modern era, doesn’t get his due because his sour glower – either natural or cultivated – and the mean parsimony of his manner make him hard to like or even admire.Murali lucked out in the business of Presence. He is naturally theatrical, a television camera’s delight. That bobbing run-up, the whiplash speed of his arm action, the helicopter wrist, the eyes huge with effort at the point of release, the conspiratorial smile at his team-mates as he returns to his bowling mark, the radiant joy in playing and competing, reach out to the spectator and draw him in. Murali lacks Shane Warne’s confidence that every ball bowled might have taken a wicket but for the obtuseness of umpires, or the fiendish luck of batsmen; nor does his body language assert, as Warne’s does, that he has an answer to every problem. Sri Lanka have lost too many matches, and Murali lived through too many ambushes, for that kind of swagger. To the spectator, Warne’s minimalist, impassive walk-up implies magic; Murali’s animation suggests electricity.Cricket’s history man
As a bowler, Murali’s standing in world cricket is unique for several reasons.
One, not only is he the greatest offspinner the game has seen, he is an original. He’s the first wrist-spinning offbreak bowler in the history of cricket. Before Murali, offbreaks were finger-spun; Murali’s huge offbreaks are spun from the wrist. Setting aside the controversy about the legality of his action, he has pioneered a new tradition of spin bowling, and his most outstanding disciple is Harbhajan Singh.Two, while he didn’t invent the doosra, the offspinner’s googly (the credit for that belongs to Saqlain Mushtaq), he certainly perfected it. A delivery that might have gone down in cricket history as a freak ball that died with its inventor, is now an established part of the offspinner’s armoury. Along with reverse swing, the doosra is the most radical extension of the bowler’s art in modern cricket, and Murali is its maestro.Three, Murali is the most important cricketer in the game today, because his career and its attendant controversies have changed the laws of cricket and subverted a century and more of cricketing common sense.When Murali was called for throwing by Darrell Hair, he was already a Test-playing veteran. At the time it seemed as if the career of a potentially great spin bowler was on the line. To be fair to the umpire, it was a reasonable call to make. To most cricketers and spectators there was something strange and spasmodic about Murali’s action. Yes, Murali hadn’t been called in all the Tests he had played till then, and yes, Brett Lee’s action had an obvious kink and he wasn’t called, but being inconsistent is not the same as being wrong. Arjuna Ranatunga’s magnificent brinkmanship, Australian insensitivity, and the ICC’s subsequent fumbling with the definition of a fair delivery made sure that the issue became politicised, with Murali cast as villain or martyr, depending on affiliation. Looking back, though, given the laws of cricket as they then stood, Hair was within his rights to call Murali for chucking because to the naked eye Murali’s arm did appear to bend and straighten.The sports scientists called in to adjudicate the matter determined that the bending and straightening was an optical illusion caused by the rotation of Murali’s congenitally crooked arm. This failed to satisfy the doubters and Murali was reported several times afterwards. On each occasion the scientists found in his favour till finally, a comprehensive survey of contemporary bowling actions established a paradoxical and ironical fact: not only was the manifest illegality of Murali’s action an optical illusion, the taken-for-granted legality of the actions of the world’s bowlers was an optical illusion too! Put simply, the scientists found that nearly every bowler in the world bent and straightened his arm, including never suspected paragons of bowling virtue like McGrath and Jason Gillespie. Hostile critics of Murali, like Michael Holding and Ian Botham, turned on a dime and accepted without a murmur the new definition of a legal delivery, which allowed all bowlers to flex their arms up to 15 degrees.
There the matter rests. As things stand, what started as a controversy about an individual’s bowling action has ended by calling into question the traditional wisdom about every bowler in cricket’s history. If all contemporary bowlers flex their arms, then it follows that nearly all bowlers in the past did so too, except that we lacked the technology to capture the flexion. If McGrath chucks according to the old definition, then so did Harold Larwood and Ray Lindwall and Fred Trueman and Wes Hall. In which case, why was poor Ian Meckiff’s career cut short when Shoaib Akhtar and Brett Lee are given the benefit of the doubt? Why did Tony Lock have to change his jerky bowling action and geld his fast left-arm spinners when Harbhajan is allowed the cover of 15 degrees? Having appealed to science, the ICC is now bound to accept its verdict, but even those of us who support Murali’s vindication should acknowledge that cricket has at one stroke repudiated a large part of its common sense and rewritten its past. This is a huge step for a game that otherwise sets store by tradition. Worse, it has done this without solving the problem: players like Harbhajan are reported and cleared over and over again and on-field umpires are forbidden from calling bowlers for chucking. Murali’s vindication has, unavoidably, been achieved by fudging the Laws of cricket in a way that makes them unenforceable.The other one
But this is the ICC’s problem, not Murali’s. As far as he is concerned, the charge of chucking has been conclusively laid to rest, which makes it possible to discuss Murali’s place in the history of spin bowling without being haunted by the spectre of illegality. This essentially means comparing Murali with Warne, because otherwise it would be a very brief discussion. Warne apart, there is no one who approaches the weight of Murali’s achievement. A quick glance at Murali’s five-wicket- and 10-wicket hauls, his strike-rate, his average runs per wicket and wickets per Test, will make it evident that, with the antique exception of Syd Barnes, there’s no other slow bowler who can sustain the comparison.The other reason to make the comparison is that the two of them are intensely aware of each other and posterity. Warne, in particular, is not above implying that Murali’s figures are bulked out by wickets taken cheaply against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. Murali doesn’t reply in kind but he has his champions. Ranatunga rose to the defence of his great bowler, calling Warne overrated, deriding him as a bowler who had built his reputation against sides like England who are notoriously inept at playing spin bowling. Against the best players of spin, the Indians, said Ranatunga, twisting the knife, Warne’s figures were embarrassing.So who is the greater bowler? There are those who will point to the fact that Murali has taken more top-order wickets than Warne. There are others who will argue that the only reason this is true is that Murali is a one-man band and gets more opportunities against the top order whereas Warne comes on after McGrath and company have decapitated the opposition. Murali has had home advantage more often than Warne – is that to count against him? On the other hand Warne has the advantage of McGrath as a kind of siege engine, making the breech for him to surge through – so does that make Murali’s achievement more considerable?The truth is that this race between Murali and Warne is the closest thing to a dead heat that you’re likely to get in cricket. There’s nothing in it statistically. As for the other arguments, Warne can’t be praised or blamed for being part of a great Australian team any more than Murali can be awarded brownie points or black marks for playing a lone hand.Symbol, mascot, lightning rod
If we step back and view the two in the round, not just as cricketers but as representative types, Muralitharan is much the more interesting figure. Warne belongs to the space where Australian laddishness meets modern celebrity. In his adventures with drugs, women and bookmakers, Warne lives the tabloid life. He represents himself, or the amalgam that makes up the modern individual: ability and appetite. He is justly celebrated for both.Muralitharan, famous as he is, carries a weight Warne has been spared – the burden of representation. Murali represents a divided, polarised nation. As a Tamil in Sri Lanka, he is a symbol, whether he likes it or not, of a minority community. Descended from Indian Tamils who migrated to Sri Lanka’s plantations a few generations ago, he has been personally touched by Sri Lanka’s sectarian violence: his family was attacked by gangs of Sinhalas in the anti-Tamil pogroms of the early 1980s. Given that there is a civil war in progress between Tamil separatists in northern Sri Lanka and the government of that country, Murali’s presence in the Sri Lankan cricket team is automatically charged with symbolic meaning.For his articulate team-mate Kumar Sangakkara, Murali is a symbol of reconciliation and peace:”For Murali, caste, class, ethnicity or faith is irrelevant – we are all equals. His life – the exploits on the field, his resilience in the face of intense provocation, his natural kindness and generosity, his remarkable charity work with The Foundation of Goodness – evokes a powerful spirit of reconciliation for a polarised nation.”He has taken much from the game of cricket, but he has given back so much to our society. More than any other public figure in Sri Lanka, he stands apart, a source of joy on the cricket field, an example to us all and an answer to the ethnic conundrum we face in Sri Lanka.”But as anyone familiar with the history of sectarian conflict in South Asia knows, Murali could just as easily have been stigmatised as a Tamil mascot used by the Sri Lankan state to disguise its Sinhala chauvinism. That he isn’t so regarded is a tribute both to Murali and to the solidarity and affection shown him by his team-mates.Murali has lived most of his cricketing life dealing with the consequences of being both a symbol and a lightning rod for forces larger than him. He has symbolised the Tamil in Sri Lanka, he has been Sri Lanka’s champion in the lists of world cricket, he has even been the unwilling focus of lazy attempts to explain the rifts in world cricket in terms of race and colour. He has transcended these attempts to co-opt him by being true to his genius and by playing the game year after year with undiminished pleasure.As an Indian fan who believes that Indian batsmen define the gold standard when it comes to playing spinners, I’ll get off the fence if pushed and declare myself for Murali. Warne is a wonderful bowler but I’ve never seen him reduce an Indian batting line-up. Murali’s record against India, like Warne’s, is markedly less impressive than his overall figures. But the last time Sri Lanka toured India, his bowling at the Feroz Shah Kotla was a revelation. He went round the wicket to the Indians and in one virtuoso spell had them groping, reduced to reading him off the pitch because they couldn’t tell the doosra from the hand, beating the outside edge over and over again, his wrong ‘un spitting and turning like a legbreak. It was breath-taking. He took 5 for 23 in one inspired spell, destroying the Indian top order. Sri Lanka lost that game, but given the quality of the opposition, his 7 for 100 bettered his 8 for 70 against England when he spun Sri Lanka to victory at Trent Bridge in June this year. At Trent Bridge, Murali conquered the clueless – even Warne’s done that. At Kotla, he bamboozled the best.

They do not have a distinct and well-defined approach, like England have, and that has hurt them

Aakash Chopra31-Jan-2022Every team has a certain way of playing in the white-ball format. England go really hard from the get-go and just keep going. Australia are reasonably explosive all through, building towards a late flourish. New Zealand go steady almost throughout the innings, and back their players to do the little things right almost every time.These playing strategies are dependent on the kind of batters and bowlers you have, the pitch, and other playing conditions. If you have a gun bowling attack, you don’t aim too high with the bat. If you have more batting resources, you bat deeper and compromise on attacking bowling options. That last model pretty much defines the path England have taken. So they are almost obliged to score a few above par all the time. That’s the price you pay if you pick bowlers on the basis of how well they can bat.West Indies, on the other hand, are a team of big strikers, who bank on individual brilliance to see them through. If they fail, they come up with performances well below par, like in the recently concluded T20 World Cup.Related

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What is India’s template in white-ball cricket? Since they are a fairly successful and high-profile team, it’s only fair to assume they have a well-thought-out plan in place. Let’s try and decode the plan, and then try to figure out why ICC titles have eluded India for nine years.For the last six or seven years, India have had the world’s best Nos. 1-3, in Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli and KL Rahul. The three from among these four who make up the top three in any given playing XI not only set the stage, they also finish a lot of games for India in both T20 and 50-over formats. During this period, India’s bowling has been quite diverse, with at least three or four wicket-taking bowlers who were picked to bowl and take wickets, and not partly – or at all – for their run-scoring abilities.While this worked pretty well at times, there has been an obvious lack of focus on the batters following the top three, and the days India found themselves 40-odd for 3, they struggled to get to safety. Incidentally, most of India’s knockout matches in ICC tournaments tell the same story – two of the top three (if not all three) fail to score big and India end up with a below-par score or fail to chase a par score.4:15

Manjrekar and Cullinan on what went wrong for India against South Africa

One could either view this as misfortune and move on or try to create a team – and with it a philosophy – that does not hinge on the success or failure of the top three. Rohit Sharma, in his first press conference as full-time captain, stressed this point.Let’s look closer at India’s bowling resources in white-ball cricket. Jasprit Bumrah was world-class and still is the same threat to opposition line-ups that he used to be. However, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Bumrah’s trusted ally for the longest time, has fallen off the radar. The spin of Yuzvendra Chahal is not getting the trust it used to from the team management or the same kind of success on the field in the absence of another wicket-taker at the other end.In short, an attack that had three or four wicket-taking bowlers has been reduced to something like one and a half or two wicket-takers most days now. Before you tell me that India are still picking up a lot of wickets, let’s acknowledge that it’s inevitable for wickets to fall in every limited-overs innings. Let’s not fool ourselves into believing that the majority of the wickets India take are because of magic balls or because of how the Indian bowlers choked the opposition for runs for extended periods of time. India have not been taking wickets with the new ball and that is allowing the game to drift in the middle overs.In the middle overs of games against the top eight ODI teams since the 2019 World Cup, India’s bowling average is staggeringly poor – 42.6. If you look at spin bowlers alone in the middle overs, India are third worst, behind Netherlands and Zimbabwe.Is a radical change imminent in terms of a shuffle of personnel or a different approach? I strongly feel India have not created a team philosophy in the batting department. It’s a team of alpha males, who were allowed – seemingly with reason, at the time – to play the way they wanted to play. The same is not true for the batters assigned to bat at Nos. 4-6; they always need to play the situation.The quality and range of batting skill on offer should have liberated the team from its self-imposed shackles but that didn’t happen with the Indian white-ball team. Big individual scores not only papered over the cracks in the lower middle order, they also didn’t afford those lower-middle-order batters enough opportunities to flourish.England changed their brand of white-ball cricket by having a complete buy-in from the team, and even though Jos Buttler is arguably the best white-ball batter in the world, he isn’t the most important player in the England side; he is a part of the whole. Once a team is unwaveringly committed to a particular style, where the rules are not radically different for every member of the line-up, there’s little scope for it to be affected by the importance of the game. Every game is to be played in the same fashion, irrespective of whether it is a league game or a knockout.A decade is a long time, and it’s about time India changed with the times. The Indian batting unit must start following a philosophy that doesn’t revolve around the best batters in the team. That will make the team immune from the importance of the match.As for the bowling, India must, once again, invest in wicket-takers for an extended period of time. Such bowlers are susceptible to conceding a lot of runs from time to time but that must never be held against them on a match-to-match basis. One bad game for Kuldeep Yadav in Birmingham put him in cold storage for two years, more or less. These bowlers need faith to prosper and that faith has to be absolute. The attempt isn’t to clone England’s formula, but it would be wise for India to build their philosophy along the same lines.

A working man without ego or vanity, Harold Larwood, having beaten the Australians, went and joined them

Peter Roebuck05-Dec-2007

Harold Larwood is my favourite cricketer because he was honest, modest, and the epitome of the properly raised working man. Nothing of the celebrity could be found in him, no hint of glamour or touch of tinsel. Harold was a man without pretension or ego, a man sustained by pride in his performance, loyalty to the deserving, and the satisfaction to be taken from the contemplation of a job well done.He came into the England side as a fast bowler from the mines and left in blood-soaked boots with the Ashes reclaimed. He did the donkey work and the dirty work, and sat back dismissively as his country, or rather its patrician rulers, disowned him. Afterwards, after a long war, he went to Australia, where he was supposed to be hated but was actually understood and admired, and spent the rest of his life there, earning a living in a factory, avoiding the traps and the dazzle and the backslappers, and instead enjoying the simple things: home, family and happy memories.Larwood was born and raised in a mining community near Nottingham, a city of free thinkers from which, in the middle of the previous century, travelling teams of paid cricketers had emerged, professionals who earned their living by playing local teams wherever they went. Nottingham was also a city with a tradition of political radicalism and championing of the working man. Larwood had been born in the right place. He remained independent, believed skill and effort should be rewarded, and retained his beliefs till the last breath left his body.In some respects Larwood was also born at the right time. Don Bradman was running amok and England was crying out for bowlers. Nothing was worse than losing to those brazen chaps from down under. A cry went out across the land for men with heart and pace, and Larwood and Bill Voce, his mate and fellow miner, were listening.Unfortunately the pitches between the wars were dopier than a Woodstock hippy. For years Larwood and chums put their backs into their work and watched as modest batsmen met their most ferocious salvos with graceful strokes played on the front foot. It was an affront. Larwood’s teeth had been pulled before he had even stepped onto the field. Fast bowlers were turners of sods and hewers of wood, not takers of wickets.Larwood’s spirit rebelled. Between them, Bradman and docile pitches had made him feel tame, unable to do his job. He knew he had greatness in him, and the sort of pace that burns grass, but it remained within, an unexpressed desire. He yearned for a captain with the guts to play a hard game, a physical game, a leader willing to let him mount the sort of bombardment that alone could disturb his opponents. Arthur Carr served the purpose at Nottingham, and few visiting batsmen relished the prospect of playing at Trent Bridge when Harold and Bill were taking the new ball.

For England, though, Larwood was forced to pitch the ball up, aiming at the stumps and never the body. He took numerous floggings but the proud man refused to wilt and kept his thoughts to himself. At last England decided they could take no more and asked Douglas Jardine to take the team to Australia. Although he did not know it, Larwood had found the captain he wanted, a man of unyielding determination, ruthless and committed to victory.Jardine’s strategy, an unrelenting assault directed at the body of the genius, Bradman, allowed no room for error. Extreme pace, stamina and supreme control were required or the plan could not work. Everything depended on Larwood, and it was his finest hour, as he pounded the ball down over after eight-ball over. Defying heat and hard pitches, and driven by the desire to prove his worth and win the Ashes, he terrorised and eventually beat the ageing champions of the antipodes. Spectators howled and batsmen squealed but Jardine and Larwood held firm and, against formidable odds, the Ashes were regained. Not until Bradman was dismisssed for the last time in the series did Jardine allow his injured bowler to leave the field. It must have been a poignant sight, the defeated batsman and the hobbling paceman walking towards the pavilion at the SCG, neither man saying a word.Attempts were made to tarnish Larwood’s reputation with film taken of his action during that epic summer. But only a few deliveries looked ragged, possibly the result of weariness towards the end of a gruelling day. Nevertheless, he did not play for England again. Jardine did not last much longer either. Although they had scrupulously obeyed the rules of the game, they had ignored those existing mainly in the minds of the romantics. Neither man ever apologised.Larwood stayed in England, running a sweet shop in Blackpool till Jack Fingleton, an adversary in 1932-33, said he must come back to Australia where a warm welcome awaited. He worked alongside other `New Australians’ and retired in a suburb of Sydney, surrounded by his memories and proudly showing guests an ashtray given by Jardine after the Ashes had been recovered and bearing the inscription "From a grateful captain". He died in his 90s, a man undefeated.Peter Roebuck played for Somerset in the 1970s and 1980s. He writes for the Sydney Morning Herald among other publications.

The selection of players from domestic cricket for contracts doesn’t follow any trend, and has some glaring omissions and inclusions

Sidharth Monga19-Dec-2008

When the Indian board introduced the Grade D in the contracts system last year, the idea was to reward and offer job security to domestic players. The contract was worth Rs 15 lakh a year, and was meant as an incentive to keep the domestic talent in the mainstream at a time when many were defecting to the ICL.The idea is a good one, but the lack of consistency in its implementation this year has left room for plenty of questions: the selection of players doesn’t follow any trend, and has some glaring omissions and inclusions. It doesn’t help that the BCCI will not clarify the reasons for dropping or selecting a player – it never does, especially to the concerned players.According to BCCI officials, the contracts selection committee picked players based on the performances in the 2007-08 domestic season. The committee in question comprised Kris Srikkanth, the chairman of national selectors, Shashank Manohar, the BCCI president, and N Srinivasan, the board secretary. If the selections were indeed based on the performances in the last season, Aakash Chopra should have been retained. He was the season’s leading run-scorer with 1339 runs in 15 first-class matches, at 60.86. Similarly Karnataka’s R Vinay Kumar took 47 wickets at 20.29 to end as the leading wicket-taker, but neither of those two names are in the list. Rajat Bhatia, who scored 674 runs at 48.19 and took 34 wickets at 12.47, is missing too.And what about the performers in the IPL? Swapnil Asnodkar and Dhawal Kulkarni surprised everybody with their performance there, but have not been given contracts. Kulkarni has carried forward the Twenty20 promise into first-class cricket and is the leading wicket-taker after six rounds of Ranji Trophy this season. All this means the most successful batsman, bowler, and allrounder from domestic cricket last season, and the best performers from Twenty20 are missing from the contracts list.The board could perhaps argue that performances in the previous season aren’t the only criteria – it also needs to be convinced that the player has a future with the Indian team. So is it fair to suggest that the board has perhaps picked the 38 players who have the best chance of making it to the Indian team over the next year? A closer scrutiny of the list shows that this argument falls through as well.Wasim Jaffer has a Grade C contract, but at 31 and after several failures at the international level, it’s unlikely he’s among the top names for another comeback – he has as much chance of making a return as Chopra. But Jaffer stays in Grade C, the same grade as Praveen Kumar and Yusuf Pathan, and ahead of M Vijay, who by right should be the stand-by opener for India. S Badrinath’s promotion to Grade B, alongside the likes of Ishant Sharma, Suresh Raina and Rohit Sharma, is also questionable for he is yet to make his Test debut, and struggled in the games against Australia A. Wouldn’t he have been better-placed in Grade C along with Amit Mishra and Yusuf, who have something to show for at the international level?Some of the names in the Grade D raise further doubts: Manpreet Gony, Chetanya Nanda and R Ashwin have been included despite ordinary first-class displays. Gony took 13 wickets in the Ranji Trophy before impressing in the IPL, a similar case as Asnodkar and Kulkarni; Ashwin played only two Ranji games; Nanda managed 29 wickets in the season. On that count Gony, Ashwin and Nanda are not three of the best 38 players in the country. Ashok Dinda and Wriddhiman Saha are both in the list, but are they really in the reckoning for a national place? With so many names and issues to discuss, wouldn’t it be better to have the whole selection committee present to discuss the contracts?Dilip Vengsarkar, whom Srikkanth succeeded as the chairman of selectors, lashed out at these selections. “It’s quite absurd that these two names [Ajinkya Rahane and Kulkarni] are not in the list as they are the leading run-getter and wicket-taker in the national championship this year. Rahane has scored more than 750 runs in Ranji this year and more than 1100 runs last year in first-class cricket,” Vengsarkar was quoted as saying by . “Everyone would like to know the criteria of selecting the players, as it smacks of regionalism. I hope the BCCI takes up this issue at its next working committee meeting and adds these two names to the list.”There is one big positive inclusion in the contracts – that of Sudeep Tyagi. He made a superb debut last season, but lost his way because of injury. He is yet to make a proper comeback from the back injury that kept him out of IPL. But this vote of confidence should keep his morale up.There are still many questions that can be answered only if the BCCI reveals the criteria for handing out the contracts. Like employers in any other profession, it can choose its employees without needing to give reasons. Unlike those employers, however, the BCCI deals with cricket, the most followed sport in the country.

How a senior player and team-mate looked to exploit a younger batsman’s weakness against the short ball

Sriram Veera at the Chinnaswamy Stadium03-Sep-2009It was, ultimately, a sideshow yet for a brief while Rahul Dravid’s attempts to unsettle Suresh Raina with a bouncer attack on a very slow wicket created a palpable buzz in the arena.Raina’s short-ball woes are well-known. Dravid’s ruthlessness is less well-known but it does exist – witness his declaration with Sachin Tendulkar on 194. So when Raina walked in after Sudeep Tyagi had just bounced out Robin Uthappa one sensed it was game on.Prior to this tournament, Raina had spoken confidently about the problem: “Just watch what happens when the next bouncer is bowled.” The first bouncer he got in the first match of the tournament, he pulled to left of square leg where Joginder Singh, the BSNL fielder, couldn’t hold on to the catch.Today Raina walked in with some breathing space; he was at the non-striker’s end as Naman Ojha had crossed over during the dismissal. When his chance came to bat, L Balaji lured him into a comfort zone with four gentle length deliveries. Then the fun started.Balaji fired in a well-directed bouncer. A surprised Raina hopped to fend it off but at the last minute, perhaps due to the lack of sharp pace from Balaji, swayed away. That sign of weakness was enough for Dravid.Next over, with the quicker Tyagi, Dravid waited till Raina took strike before making his moves. He brought a short square leg and moved a man into leg gully. All this was done within Raina’s line of sight. Tyagi kept Raina waiting with full deliveries. Raina played most of them off the back foot as if he was expecting a bouncer any moment. Then the bouncer came but it was outside off and Raina got the width to allow it to pass him by.Even before the over ended, Dravid signalled for the helmets to be brought in. Next over, he moved a man in on the leg side, backed him with a man at square leg and deep square-leg. Raina’s problem against the short ball is that he doesn’t quite know how to leave it. He doesn’t have a defensive option against it. He either goes for an unconvincing pull or hops to defend it even when it climbs to uncomfortable height where the best option would be sway away or duck. Dravid knew that and placed the fielders on leg for that precise reason.Balaji fired in a bouncer just outside leg stump and Raina shuffled across to push at it and the ball went close past the gloves. Dravid held his head in frustration. The next ball was a bouncer but it was played in front of the wicket.Before the next over, Dravid spoke to Tyagi at length. The first ball was full and was lashed through the covers. Tyagi tried three short deliveries in the over but none climbed at an uncomfortable height to trouble Raina. He then lifted P Amarnath, who replaced Balaji, for a lovely straight six. The threat had passed, Raina had got out of jail and went on to play a stroke-filled innings.The exchange evoked memories of the Irani Trophy game in 2003 when Tendulkar tried to attack Virender Sehwag, who had a few problems against the bouncer then, with similar ruthlessness. His weapon then was Ajit Agarkar who, like Tyagi today, couldn’t get his radar working and drew only a few weak swats from Sehwag that fell short of the close-in fielders.What made today’s contest the more fascinating was Raina’s revelation at the end of the game that Dravid was one of the people, along with Gary Kirsten and Sachin Tendulkar, who’d helped him tackle the short ball in the camp before this tournament. What was he thinking when he saw Dravid attack him with bouncers? Raina smiled and said, “He was trying to see how I’d cope with the bouncers now and I wanted to show him how I have shaped up.”

A look at some of the reasons behind Kings XI Punjab’s defeat – their sixth in this competition – at the hands of Mumbai Indians at the Brabourne Stadium

Cricinfo staff30-Mar-2010Yuvraj Singh cut an isolated figure (file photo)•Associated PressYuvraj Singh, an isolated figure

The least he could do in the field was pump up the adrenaline. We have read, and heard from his fellow players, about his ability to enliven the show in the dressing room, and later on the dance floor during the after hours.As Jayawardene orbited the Brabourne Stadium, trying his best to keep the momentum, Yuvraj cut an isolated figure, walking lazily from point to point at the change of overs, never showing any intent in whispering wise words in his captain’s ears or putting a shoulder across the bowler’s arms to provide some inputs.Already, his choice of the shot during Punjab’s batting had raised consternation. Walking into the game with an injured wrist – as Tom Moody had said on Monday – Yuvraj opted to play a questionable scoop shot, from close to his body. It was a lame dismissal. Going forward, Yuvraj needs to own up to his lethargic approach as he still remains a vital cog in Punjab’s wheels.Wide off the mark
Brett Lee bowled within his limits, considering he is still ginger about the injured elbow on the mend. But he couldn’t have hidden his face anywhere after smearing in a fuller and wide delivery, way down Ambati Rayudu’s leg stump, which the stand-in wicket-keeper Manvinder Bisla failed to collect, resulting in five wides.Lee was not the lone culprit as even Piyush Chawla, trying to slip in a quicker leg-break, straight up on his first ball, ended giving away five wides. Other bowlers chipped in, too, with similar mistakes, accounting for an appalling 15 wides. Later, Jayawardene spoke about Punjab falling short by 10 runs. Actually, they could have saved at least 10 runs.Fielding indiscipline

For the better part of the Mumbai innings, Punjab had kept the pressure on, but towards the final five overs those jangling nerves were exposed. One unpardonable error occurred when 20 runs were needed off 17 balls. R Sathish steered one behind point and scampered back for the second run. But Bisla tried to collect the throw in a sluggish manner in front of the stumps. He completely missed the ball, giving away an extra run. Rightly, he earned Jayawardene’s wrath.Another costly error came in the final over: three were required off the final four Lee deliveries, when Sathish pulled a short ball towards fine leg. But a casual Shalabh Srivastava lacked the intensity and the speed to throw the ball quickly, giving away an extra run.Jayawardene makes the wrong calls
It was an over after the batting time-out. The asking rate was still 10-an-over. Lee was hungry to return and even ran up to Jaywardene, but the Punjab captain, wrongly, opted for the slow-medium pace of Ravi Bopara. Though Bopara got Dwayne Bravo off the last ball, Mumbai had got the 10 runs from the over.Then, for the penultimate over, Jayawardene once again picked him ahead of Chawla, his main spinner, whose wristy legbreaks could have been far more dangerous than Bopara’s straighter and gentler lines, which were thrashed for 13 runs, virtually sealing Punjab’s fate.

Sri Lankan batsman Mahela Jayawardene provides an eyewitness account of the pitch fiasco at the Feroz Shah Kotla during the final ODI against India

27-Dec-2009
‘Till the moment Tillakaratne Dilshan got hit, that was when we realised this was getting bad.’•Associated PressWe do not consider the pitch to be dangerous or unfit because of its unpredictability. There have been many occasions when sideways movement or variable bounce poses a great challenge for the batsman to showcase the skills to handle those conditions. This also holds true in instances when the ball keeps a bit low, or once in a while, jumps up on to you. Even today, when the ball was keeping low, the most it could do was hit you on the ankle or the knee. But the ones that were taking off from the good length were really dangerous.Batsmen have very little time to react, especially with guys bowling at 135-140 kph, and that is a concern because you could get hit seriously, and these days it is not such a great thing to sit out with a broken bone for three to four months. It is not about the odd one cutting and hitting your fingers but when the batsmen are put in such a situation [like today] it becomes dangerous. That last ball, after which the game was stopped, from [Sudeep] Tyagi, the way it took off was ridiculous! That cannot happen.Did we foresee anything like that on the eve of the game or even today morning? Personally I had not come for practice on Saturday, as I was injured. But I have played in Delhi in the past and I was here as recently as this September, representing Wayamba in the Champions League Twenty20 where it was quite a different surface. Then it was a very dry-and-bare pitch where the ball kept low. The matches were mostly low-scoring affairs as batsmen struggled to get runs because there was hardly any pace and bounce. But it was still manageable and all teams went through similar experience.But today’s pitch was unusual because it was not the typical grassy one. Whatever grass was there, was in patches, while the rest was bare and the pitch had a hollow sound. We felt they were trying to do something different, trying to help in binding the pitch and the grass [with the top soil]. The groundsmen had informed us in the morning there was a new growth of grass, and since we do not have any knowledge in that area, we took it at face value. We thought there would be a bit of variable bounce too, but more of the tennis-ball variety, which is slow. But we never expected the pitch to behave like that.Till the moment Dilly [Tillakaratne Dilshan] got hit, that was when we realised this was getting bad. Then Sanath [Jayasuriya] got hit couple of times on his fingers. Luckily, most of our batsmen were left-handers, so the ball was actually going away from them. If there were right-handers batting they would’ve probably got hit on the chest or head. Then [Muthumudalige] Pushpakumara got hit on his elbow as well. It was just ridiculous as it had taken off from a length. After that Kanda [Thilina Kandamby] faced a ball which had a funny sort of bounce. As it went over Dhoni, we felt our batsmen would not be comfortable anymore.You’ve got to understand that in such a scenario it is no more a challenge. You are actually being threatened. When you are playing against a fast bowler the batsman has very short time to react. Generally he reacts to line and length. But in a situation like this you do not react. You just wait for something to happen. That is not good. You are hoping that the ball will not take off from that length, and all of a sudden you have to react so it is not a pleasant situation for the batsman.

You’ve got to understand that in such a scenario it is no more a challenge. You are actually being threatened. When you are playing against a fast bowler the batsman has very short time to react. Generally he reacts to line and length. But in a situation like this you do not react. You just wait for something to happen. That is not good.

As soon as Dilly returned into the dressing room they rushed him to the hospital for an X-ray, after he continued to feel uncomfortable despite applying the ice. His reaction was that it was unplayable.When Pushpakumara got hit, Sanga [Kumar Sangakkara] had already lodged his protest to the third umpire and the match referee. Sanath was already icing his fingers. We felt it was too dangerous for our guys and then Kandamby went and told the umpires soon after the Tyagi ball. The Indian camp too, felt the same and that it was not a fair wicket to play an ODI.We tried to see how long we could sustain it. We felt that when the pitch would dry up and the ball got softer, it might settle down. But we stopped the game in the 24th over, so things were not going to improve. It could’ve been worse. Usually what happens is divots are created due to the moisture in the morning and later when it gets drier then it can become much more dangerous. In the afternoon sun, with the harder ball we would’ve bowled in those dents and that would have become more dangerous.Still we should not point fingers at anyone. It is a newly relaid pitch. Curators do not make a pitch purposefully – they try to do a good job, make it lively and get something out of it. The preparation was not good. Usually a freshly relaid pitch takes about good 6-12 months for it to season itself. Obviously it would be a challenge if you play on it before that period. But when you see a pitch behaving like that, you do not take too many risks. You should instead try and season the entire square firstly.It wasn’t a fair contest between bat and ball and I understand it was very hard for the packed house at Feroz Shah Kotla. We all love the game but not to extent where somebody gets injured in a nasty way. If we can prevent that we should take those right decisions at the right time.

Two name changes in six years, and a few other enhancements in store for the World Cup

03-Nov-2010Situated on the banks of the Karnaphuli River, Chittagong is Bangladesh’s second-largest city and the country’s main sea port. The city is home to two international cricket grounds – the MA Aziz Stadium and the Zohur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium. The latter will host two World Cup games.Chittagong has private academies and coaching camps operated by the Bangladesh Cricket Board’s Game development Committee and a thriving club cricket scene. The top tournament is the Port City League (PCL), a Twenty20 competition that started in 2008-09. The top Bangladeshi players are put on auction and Test and first-class cricketers (from Australia, New Zealand, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) have played for different PCL teams. The second edition was held in Sharjah, UAE. Chittagong also has its own limited-overs cricket league.Among the better known players the city has produced are Tamim Iqbal, Akram Khan and Aftab Ahmed.The venue
The ZA Chowdhury Stadium has undergone two name changes since it was established in the run-up to the 2004 Under-19 World Cup. Originally the Chittagong Divisional Stadium, it became the Bir Shrestha Shahid Ruhul Amin Stadium, before taking on the present name. It was granted full international status in January 2006.Unlike the MA Aziz, which is in the heart of the town, this stadium is about a half hour from the city centre. An unremarkable concrete bowl set in agricultural land, it is being virtually rebuilt for the World Cup and the targeted capacity is approximately 18,000. The sea breeze provides a welcome respite for players and spectators alike. Ground page | Fixtures | Map Great matches
Bangladesh v Zimbabwe, 2009

Chasing 222 in a dead rubber, the home side were all but out of it with 35 needed and only one wicket in hand. Naeem Islam, who had Nazmul Hossain for company, turned down many singles before hitting Chamu Chibhabha for three consecutive sixes to seal a thrilling one-wicket win.Top performers in ODIs
Most runs Aftab Ahmed, 142 runs at 35.50 | Top score Brendan Taylor, 118*
Most wickets Abdur Razzak, 13 wickets at 19.38 | Best bowling Tim Bresnan, 4 for 28Home team
The stadium is the base of the domestic team Chittagong Division. They were champions of the National Cricket League one-day competition in 2003-04, and runners-up in the most recent NCL first-class competition, losing out to Rajshahi Division on first-innings points. Nazimuddin, Faisal Hossain and Kamrul Islam are some of the promising players in the side.