Plays of the day from the fifth and final one-day international between England and Sri Lanka

George Dobell and Alan Gardner03-Jun-2014Missed chance of the day
The game was in the balance when Mahela Jayawardene and Lahiru Thirimanne came together. Sri Lanka were 62 for 3 and looking uncomfortable against both Tredwell and the excellent James Anderson. But if England were to defend their modest total, they needed to take every chance. With the score on 77 and Jawawardene on 8, he edged a probing delivery from Harry Gurney only to see the ball pass between Chris Jordan, at first slip, and Jos Buttler, the keeper. Some will blame Buttler; others Jordan. Certainly the ball appeared closer to Jordan than Buttler. But the fault was more tactical. By trying to spread the reach of the slip, England had positioned Jordan much wider than a traditional first slip position, meaning that such incidents were an accident waiting to happen.Giant slaying of the day
At first glance, it appeared an unequal battle. It pitted Kumar Sangakkara, one of the great players of spin, a man with nearly 13,000 ODI runs, a man who could play spin bowling before he grew teeth, against James Tredwell. That’s James Tredwell the gentle offspinner without a doosra; the gentle offspinner that cannot currently hold down a place in Kent’s Championship side; the gentle offspinner who has played nearly 350 fewer ODIs than his adversary. But on this Edgbaston surface that is starting to gain a reputation as something of a spinner’s paradise, it was Tredwell who prevailed with a peach of a ball, delivered from round the wicket, that drifted in towards the batsman, drew him into a stroke and turned sharply to take the edge. Jordan, at slip, dived to his left to claim a fine catch. But it was Tredwell’s perfect delivery that had earned England a valuable wicket.Tactical change-up of the day
Having moved smoothly enough to 46 without loss from the first ten overs, England chose to take the batting Powerplay at the earliest possible opportunity. Presumably hoping to mitigate damage later in the innings, when losing wickets can put a greater check on the scoring, Alastair Cook and Ian Bell continued in their groove, adding 30 runs from the next 29 balls before Bell plinked a return catch to Ajantha Mendis. Steady but unspectacular: it’s the England way. Just like the collapse that followed.Eventful over of the day
Angelo Mathews began the 31st over with an ambitious review of an lbw appeal against Ravi Bopara, which was proved to be too high, but it was the batsmen who trumped him for scatty thinking. Bopara nearly ran himself out off the third delivery, a tip-and-run to mid-off, then Eoin Morgan had to throw himself back to the crease to beat a direct hit from backward point. Those warnings were not enough to prevent Morgan scooping the next ball, Mathews’ fifth, straight to deep-backward square leg as England slipped to 142 for 5.

Let the umpires do their job. Walking – even when done with the best of intentions – undermines them

Jack Mendel17-Jun-2014In this era of technology and television replays, it’s about time that decision-making was concentrated entirely with umpires. Walking is undoubtedly done with the best of intentions but ultimately, it helps nobody.When Rangana Herath seemingly edged the ball behind in the tense final over of the Lord’s Test, the umpire Paul Reiffel was motionless. Herath thought he was out and walked, and the umpire signaled to the appealing Stuart Broad that the batsman had chosen to exit of his own volition. With only a handful of balls to negotiate to save the Test, a wicket was potentially a match-defining event; and in a series of just two games, potentially a series-defining event.Replays showed comprehensively though, that like with Edgebaston 2005, the ball had hit Herath’s glove when his hand was off the bat. He was technically not out, but had voluntarily walked off anyway. This was the equivalent of someone being falsely accused in a court of law, and admitting to doing wrong because they aren’t aware of their own innocence.In hindsight, Herath looked very silly. If that had led to a Sri Lankan loss, it would have made him public enemy number one.But what does this have to do with the laws and spirit of the game?The perception of the image of cricket; particularly Test cricket, is very important to the ECB and the MCC.Lord’s has the spirit of cricket plastered on numerous boards, on the ground; and it is of course the body that makes the rules and holds the traditions of the game. It wants to preserve those traditions that they purport to have established, such as sportsmanship and playing fair.The integrity of the game is thus crucial, so it is baffling that the laws and traditions are often at times at loggerheads. One such example is walking, whereby the umpire is essentially superseded by a player deciding on his own that he is out, even – like in this case – when he isn’t.If an outsider saw this, she would think – “why not just let the umpires do their job?”There are systems in place too. The umpire should be allowed to function without the need for intervention by players. Each team has a number of reviews to challenge what they deem to be bad decisions.This does not undermine the umpire though, because each team has a limited number of reviews [rightly so], and all reviews are relative to the original decision; with only the most compelling circumstances demanding an overturning of the decision.The DRS system is in there to change bad umpiring decisions using available technology; but it maintains a healthy role and respect for the umpire.Walking doesn’t.In football, a player cannot pick up the ball and overturn the referee’s decision for the sake of playing ‘fair’. In no other sport can the players decide their own fate; so given this fact, it seems odd that in cricket, players are allowed to walk off and decide they are out, and be berated as immoral if they don’t.If an umpire say’s not out, it should be not out. If the fielding side thinks the batsman has hit it, then the fielding side can challenge the decision. If the umpire gives him out wrongly; the batsman can challenge it.That’s how it should be, as that maintains respect for the authority of the umpire, and ultimately that is the cornerstone of playing fair and having an even, respectful game.If you have a submission for Inbox, send it to us here, with “Inbox” in the subject line

Plays of the day for the semi-final between Sri Lanka and West Indies in Mirpur

Alan Gardner in Mirpur03-Apr-2014The bullet arm I
When Tillakaratne Dilshan tried to get off strike in Samuel Badree’s third over, he exposed his fellow senior Mahela Jayawardene to an inglorious way to potentially end his T20 career. Darren Sammy bullocked to his left from point, took the ball on the bounce and rifled a throw over the top of the stumps for Denesh Ramdin to complete the run-out and send Jayawardene on his way for a diamond duck. Luckily, he will have one more crack.The bullet arm II
Not content with seeing off the team’s bellwether batsman, Dilshan did for himself with another piece of risky running. Dilshan laboured for 39 off 39 but that was nothing compared to his creaking effort to regain his ground after Lahiru Thirimanne turned down a quick single to mid-off. Thirimanne’s judgement was proved to be the sounder when Lendl Simmons threw down the stumps with a direct hit.The (sort of) direct hit
West Indies could have picked up a third run-out when Angelo Mathews clipped one off his pads to short fine leg, where Marlon Samuels was lurking. Thirimanne was backing up a long way and Mathews was struggling too at the other end. Thirimanne would have been done for too but, instead, Samuels scored a direct hit on Chris Gayle’s ankle. The big man, who saved an overthrow at cover, was moving even more gingerly than normal for some while afterwards.The flamingo
Thirimanne is still developing his game as a limited-overs player but he showed the panache of a Lara or a Pietersen with one stunning six off Andre Russell. The ball was short and wide but Thirimanne made sure it was aware of its shortcomings by sticking one leg out behind him and scything it over point with a flamingo uppercut.The save
When Seekkuge Prasanna connected with a slog sweep off Sunil Narine, it looked to be sailing over the deep midwicket boundary. Dwayne Bravo had other ideas though, sprinting round the rope before leaping to take the catch and then toss the ball to Andre Russell in one motion as he leapt into the void. Bravo, indeed.The first ball
Prasanna was playing his first match of the tournament in his maiden World T20 and he had a wicket to his name at the earliest possible opportunity. Coming on to bowl in the eight over, his opening delivery was bang on target, skidding on as Simmons tried to cut off the back foot. It might have been a non-turning legbreak, it could have been the slider but it was definitely lbw. Legspinners are just so right now.

South Africa’s go-slow approach may not have been attractive, but it was effective in driving the opposition to desperation. They never shook the belief that they deserved to take the series

Firdose Moonda at the SSC28-Jul-2014The day the Netherlands lift the football World Cup, Sergio Garcia triumphs in a golf major or David Ferrer is crowned Grand Slam champion, they will have a supporter in all of us. All three have been top competitors for significant periods but have not pushed on to the big prize. When they do, we will acknowledge that this time, after all that trying, they ‘deserved’ it.Deserve – To earn something; to have a claim over it; to warrant calling it your own.In sport, we often use the word ‘deserve’ incorrectly because we hope the person or team who we think has been more enterprising or shown more heart will win. If they do, we believe they earned it. On those grounds, we may feel Sri Lanka deserved more from the Colombo Test because, as even AB de Villiers admitted, they “played more of the cricket in this match.” But we would be wrong. South Africa were the deserving ones: of a draw and of a series win because you cannot consider the SSC Test in isolation.South Africa went into it 1-nil up in a series they were probably expected to lose. All they needed was to hold onto that advantage to claim the series and regain the No.1 ranking they let slip three months ago. If it was the World Cup final, they would have been the team that took the early lead and we all know what happens after that. Buses, fleets of buses are parked one behind the other. All that matters is blocking the way, not finding a new road to drive on.Before the second Test even began, South Africa were gearing up for something like this. When Hashim Amla was asked whether he would be satisfied with a draw or if he would try to push for a clean sweep, he said the team would reassess after the first two days. By the end of day two it was clear South Africa had decided on the former.They conceded 421 in the first innings so carving out a win, in the simplest terms, would mean scoring more than 600 and trying to bowl Sri Lanka out to avoid batting last. That meant they had to score quickly. South Africa ruled that possibility out by the way they batted: slowly. Their run-rate barely peeped over two an over, which they attributed to Sri Lanka’s spinners and their unwavering discipline, but it could also have been because of a premeditated mindset.After 98 runs were scored in 52 overs on the second day, it seemed inconceivable that this match would produce the tension that the final day brought. South Africa continued operating with surgical coolness and pragmatism, forcing Sri Lanka to get more and more desperate.Sri Lanka were made to bat quickly, even recklessly, in their second innings to set South Africa a target. Then the captain Angelo Mathews had to consider how much was too much for a side that had, just seven months ago, threatened to make new Test history by chasing over 450 against India. Of course, Mathews would have known that conditions at the Wanderers were far more conducive to run-scoring than the SSC – especially the surface South Africa batted on – but he would still have been aware of South Africa’s stubbornness. They had also seen off Australia in Adelaide 18 months ago. Like Sri Lanka in this match, that Australian side was also a bowler down, theirs through injury, Sri Lanka’s because Ajantha Mendis was not offering much.South Africa tend to sprinkle the opposition’s game plan with uncertainty•AFPIf that wasn’t enough for Mathews to be mulling over, there was also the weather. Rain had stayed away from the first three days but had stolen 65 minutes of play from the fourth and more was forecast for the fifth. With all that on his mind, Mathews set a target which he felt was sufficient to put Sri Lanka on the victory path but against this South African side you never know.That is what Amla and co. thrive on. They sprinkle the opposition’s game plan with uncertainty. Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers dealt with even the best deliveries, dead-batting them into the ground. JP Duminy, with his exaggerated stride forward and awkward shouldering of arms against spin, was content to collect just six runs in the match – three in each innings – and face 123 balls for that.Once they get through all of that, there’s Vernon Philander who can no longer be grouped in the tail. He is not afraid to go forward and smother the turn or stay back and try to swat it away. He trusts his own technique more than most top-order batsmen do.Watching South Africa play when they are in this mood can become difficult. It is not immediately eye-catching especially in an era where Test cricket has become more aggressive. It takes patience. But like anything that takes patience, if you have enough of it, there was a lot to be admired in South Africa’s approach.They sat back and waited for Sri Lanka to make all the moves. Who to bowl, when to bowl them, to attack or defend, how quickly to bat, how many overs to give themselves and how many runs. None of those decisions were South Africa’s to make. They made them correctly in Galle. In Colombo it was up to Sri Lanka to do the same and South Africa were happy to be spectators in that process.In some ways, it was similar to March 2012 in Wellington – the third Test of a series South Africa were also 1-nil up in. There was rain around and South Africa seemed to have scored more than enough runs to push for a win but Graeme Smith waited what seemed like an unnecessarily long period of time before declaring. He did not even bother to dangle a carrot. Later he explained: “I don’t think New Zealand deserved anything more.”There’s that word again. New Zealand did not merit even getting a sniff, according to Smith because South Africa, he believed, had earned the right to win the series. It may not have been pretty or memorable but it was efficient and it got the job done.Some elements of a team is judged by the way they play the game and South Africa’s “negativity”, as Kumar Sangakkara called it in this Test, may not have frustrated some. But the ranking of a team is judged by its results and South Africa are back at No.1. That is what deserve really means.

India’s preparations at the nets, coupled with their policy of not dropping a player after just one game, suggest that Stuart Binny could keep his place in the team at Lord’s

Sidharth Monga at Lord's15-Jul-2014Two days before the Lord’s Test, there remained a right mystery around the Lord’s pitch. It was left uncovered for only a brief while, and looked green, a stark contrast to the sawdust-colour grass on the Trent Bridge pitch.Mick Hunt, the Lord’s groundsman, stayed unavailable for comment. Chris Wood, the ECB pitch liaison officer, was seen in a long conversation with Hunt, but there was no official communication as to how Lord’s was reacting to the widespread criticism and frustration Trent Bridge brought.Intrigue surrounded the pitch as Stuart Broad tweeted it looked similar to two days before the Test against Sri Lanka. The cover over the pitch was not the huge and well-ventilated hovercraft, but an orthodox one, which stayed on surface as opposed to hovering over it, in effect providing a bit of window underneath. A school of thought suggests this was being done to retain some moisture, which would disappear if kept under the hovercraft.There was little uncertainty around the India camp, though. Stuart Binny’s selection – his match-saving fifty on the final notwithstanding – raised a lot of debate, and drew criticism from such experts as Michael Holding, Ian Chappell and Martin Crowe. Those knocking Binny down have been of the view that he is much closer to bits-and-pieces than allrounder, that he bowled only 10 overs which was well short of what his primary role was, and that R Ashwin is a better choice if India do indeed want to go with an extra bowler. Those with Binny suggest the pitch at Trent Bridge was not conducive to his kind of bowling, and that he did play an important role with the bat.Possibly looking at the green grass on the Lord’s pitch, or possibly following their policy of not discarding a player based on just one match, India seem set to play the same XI at Lord’s. When in the nets, the Indians batted in the same order as before the first Test. The three main quicks got a separate net to finish their batting before they could come to bowl in the main nets. The remaining batting order in the nets remained the same as the first Test, with Binny bowling his bit before coming in to bat at No. 8.Rohit Sharma and Gautam Gambhir did not do much in the nets, but Ashwin and Rohit Sharma bowled a few overs towards the end of the session.

Our correspondent takes in experiences familiar and new on the first leg of India’s tour down under

Sidharth Monga23-Dec-2014November 30

“DO NOT USE cameras, sound recorders, mobile phones or electronic forms of communication in this area. Penalty $1000.”First thing of note seen in Australia. At the immigration counter. Wally Hammond would have said, “A fine f***ing way to start a series.” A timely reminder that Australia is a fine country. Take photo of the sign. That rustling sound is the rule book in the wind.December 1
Drive to Macksville, Phillip Hughes’ hometown, about 500km from Sydney. Hughes killed by a routine bouncer in a Shield game. Shock around Australia. Tests rescheduled. Funeral in Macksville in two days. Town’s population under 3000. Will receive at least twice as many visitors on December 3.Go past the Pub With No Beer Hotel, earlier called the Cosmopolitan Hotel, and widely believed to be subject of the Slim Dusty song “Pub With No Beer”. “But there’s-a nothing so lonesome, morbid or drear / Than to stand in the bar of a pub with no beer.” Named fifth-best Australian song of all time by the Australasian Performing Rights Association.Stop at the Star Hotel, by the Nambucca River, for a drink. Michael Clarke, Stuart MacGill and Hughes’ father, Greg, also there. Nice to see them smiling and laughing a little. Have a chat with two regular patrons who have never been out of town. Know Indians as Raj Koothrappali in and those who tell the weather at the Met department. Little do they know, but then they don’t look like folk who have computer problems.December 2
Spend the night in Port Macquarie. Reminded of being in Gosford, another New South Wales town, on the last trip to Australia. In New South Wales, you get stuck and spend nights in strange places. Port Macquarie replaced Newcastle as a penal settlement. Now a retirement destination. Accordingly, town is dead by 8pm.December 3
What have they done to good old Adelaide Oval? It has gone from an intimate ground to an almost intimidating stadium. Big stands all over. One over the top of the other. Cathedral not visible. Nor is the Torrens from the back corridors. Doesn’t strike you as much on this day because people have gathered to pay respects to Hughes and watch his funeral on the big screens. His brother has endearing stories of playing cricket with him in the backyard. Cousin Nino Ramunno has great anecdotes.”The only grumble Phillip had about school was in the final year. After the first day of school he came home and when he was questioned about how his day went, he complained that there were no girls there. We thought that the name Homebush Boys would have given him some indication, but no.”December 4
Bus it down to Glenelg Oval. Locals shocked I have figured out Adelaide buses. They say they have never managed to do so. Explains the empty bus.The Star Hotel in Macksville•Getty ImagesCricket back on after Hughes tragedy. Indians playing two-day tour game against Cricket Australia XI. Virat Kohli hasn’t yet made it back from the funeral, so Ishant Sharma starts as captain.Indians use Karn Sharma before R Ashwin. Bhuvneshwar Kumar not bowling or training, but team management says he is all right. Duncan Fletcher seen on the sidelines asking fast bowlers to go round the wicket. No qualms about bowling bouncers.December 5
Park 25 Oval. Watch Australia train for the first time since Hughes’ death. Nobody knows how they will react. They begin with fun and games. Dances. Brad Haddin and Ryan Harris waltz. David Warner pulls out the worm. Huddles done. Laughs shared. Warner goes into nets. Clearly not prepared for loneliness of batting. Pulls out after a few minutes of scratchy batting. Spends half an hour with team psychologist Michael Lloyd. There is a tear or three. It’s going to be a difficult summer for everyone involved.December 6
Good old Adelaide. Nothing has changed. Feels like coming back to a home town after having spent years away for work. Same friendly man at the Falafel House on Hindley Street still says “beautifuuuul” at every ingredient you ask for in your roll. Without looking up. Hookahs still being smoked all over Hindley Street as if it is rural Haryana. “Sitting in the same chair / As they were sitting in the last year / Talking about the crows / Crooooows,” sang Paul Kelly in “Adelaide”.Crows and Adelaide go back a long way. One of the footy teams is called Adelaide Crows. South Australians are referred to as crow-eaters – a term “first applied to some of the original settlers at Mount Barker who – whether from necessity or a desire to sample strange native fauna – killed, cooked and ate some crows disguised under the term ‘Mount Barker pheasants'”.December 7
One change in Adelaide, though, thanks to the new stands at the Oval. The view of the city from the statue of Colonel Light was obstructed, so it had to be raised.An inscription on the statue – an extract from Colonel Light’s diary – reads: “The reasons that led me to fix Adelaide where it is I do not expect to be generally understood or calmly judged of at present. My enemies, however, by disputing their validity in every particular, have done me the good service of fixing the whole of the responsibility upon me. I am perfectly willing to bear it, and I leave it to posterity and not to them, to decide whether I am entitled to praise or to blame.”December 8
Julius. Security guard at Adelaide Oval. Of Sudanese origin. Worked in the Australian army in the early 2000s. Served for three years in Afghanistan. Talks of his experiences there. How they used to wear x-ray vision glasses, and had to shoot people, no questions asked, if they were suspected of carrying bombs in their clothing. “Doesn’t matter if it is an old lady or a young child. Just shoot.” Julius quit the army after that experience. Doesn’t know much about cricket, but happy with a job that doesn’t involve killing.December 9
Emotional start to series. After all the tributes to Hughes, his mate David Warner scores a century. Batsmen pause on 63 – Hughes’ score when he was killed. They look up on 100. They all believe their little mate is watching over them.India carry through with indications seen at Glenelg Oval. Legspinner Karn picked over Ashwin. Aggressive intent but Karn has little first-class experience. Bowls flat. As do others. More round-the-wicket bowling. Warner scores plenty off it. Surely some independent thinker in the team needs to point out this is not working?If you possess a New Zealand ODI jersey from the early 2000s, tread carefully around Adelaide Oval•Getty ImagesDecember 10
Rain slows game down. Time enough, though, for Steven Smith and Michael Clarke to bring up hundreds. Three of Hughes’ best mates in the team have scored tons, although Clarke is playing in considerable pain.Big screen shows highlights of Chennai tied Test. Find Dean Jones in one of the commentary boxes and talk to him about the match. Fascinating to listen to him. Scandalous how two scoreboards had two different scores. Deano himself and Allan Border were under the impression India needed two to win when it was actually one, and were shocked Ravi Shastri had taken the single and exposed Maninder Singh a run short. Wisdom of taking that single still questioned by some, even if scores were level, but for a few moments Deano and AB thought they had won. Some others knew it was tied. At least one bowler thought they had lost, so fried was he by the heat and humidity.December 11
Mitchell Johnson scones Virat Kohli first ball. Opposition captain in Australia. Hit smack on helmet badge. First ball he faces in Test cricket on tour. Minutes to go to lunch. Normally Australia would be all over him. Johnson would bowl all out, and come back fresh after lunch to finish Kohli off. Not now. Here they all come up to check on the batsman. Kohli finds it all surreal and waves everyone away. Johnson goes a little soft. Kohli scores a hundred. Big moment on tour. Johnson comes back towards the end of the day to bounce Kohli again, and gets him on the top edge.December 12
Adelaide Oval has strange press-box dress code. Need collars on t-shirts. No thongs on feet. Struggle to get through Test with limited supplies of collared shirts. Wear New Zealand ODI jersey from early 2000s. Trouble is, it looks like a Port Adelaide jersey. Abused for wearing it at Crows’ home ground. Apologised to and hugged when said people realise it is New Zealand and not Port Adelaide.It takes only three days before unacceptable behaviour returns to the middle. Kohli starts it with his in-your-face send-offs. Warner gives it back when he discovers the ball that got him is a no-ball. Only gets uglier afterwards. Warner scores another century, India will need 364 to win on the final day.December 13
Mostly one-sided match has come to life because of twin declarations necessitated by rain on day two. India chase in spirited manner. Kohli scores another century. Only man other than Greg Chappell to make two on debut. M Vijay falls on 99. India collapse towards the end, but at 242 for 2 they had been a good chance to win. India can be proud of their batting, but need to remember they took only 12 wickets.Australia relieved. Been a tough week. Emotions pour out when they come out of their changing room hours later to sing the team song. Nathan Lyon, who has inherited song-leading privileges from Michael Hussey, has finally come into his own. Man of the Match with 12 wickets, his first ten-for.December 14
A certain sense of loss when leaving Adelaide. No ODI here on this tour. A certain sense of worry, too, for establishments on Hindley Street when India play Pakistan here in World Cup. Good job they have a police station right here.Cauldron-like at the Gabba in more ways than one•Getty ImagesDecember 15
Brisbane then. Third time zone entered already. Sydney is behind Adelaide, which is behind Brisbane. Neither does it make geographic sense nor do early dawns – as early at 4am – in Brisbane let you sleep in. Missing link here is day-light saving. Queensland doesn’t want to save daylight. Which makes it a butt of jokes. Reasons for its refusing to save daylight, according to rest of Australia: some fear cattle won’t give milk at unnatural times, some feel curtains will fade.Bananabender is to Queenslanders what croweaters is to South Australians. Because Queenslanders are supposed to be spending most of their time putting the bend in the banana.December 16
Kevin Mitchell Jr has been preparing the Gabba pitch for 34 years. Took over from Kevin Mitchell, his father. Remembers the days of the old hill. Old scoreboard wasn’t visible from all parts of the hill. Spectators would go over to the scoreboard and signal the scores to the rest as if playing dumb charades.December 17
A proper Brisbane stinker. Phone app says 42 degrees. Channel Nine says 36 degrees. India win toss and bat first. A flat Gabba wicket is anti-climactic. Can see why, though. One of Australia’s most unsure batting line-ups, considering Clarke is out with a hamstring injury.Hard work for all involved. Drinks breaks every 40 minutes, as opposed to every hour. M Vijay, who scores a century, cramps from the effort of sweeping. Mitchell Marsh tears a hamstring, Mitchell Starc has heat exhaustion, and debutant Josh Hazlewood keeps cramping. Hopefully Bill Bryson is watching. In his lovely book , the American writer calls cricket – because of its easy pace – a “nap with consciousness”.December 18
Before start of play, on air, Ian Chappell is worried about overnight batsman Rohit Sharma, who “bats like in a dream”, or “in a net with no focus on scoring runs”. A dreamy push at a wide delivery from Shane Watson triggers a collapse, and given India have scored runs at a fair clip, they haven’t batted Australia out despite scoring 408. Later in the day, Watson does a Rohit Sharma, and hits powerfully to mid-on without making an effort to keep it down or clear the man. Two men who won’t want this – and massive scores in ODIs and T20Is – to be the stories of their lives.December 19
“How many wickets have you got?” is the question Mitchell Johnson is asked before he is bounced by India. Johnson hasn’t got any, but the sledging seems to have woken the beast. He smacks 88 impactful runs to snatch the game clean out of India’s grasp. When he gets to 50, he looks around at every Indian player. None are sledging. Like a wrestler who has just cleared the field in the middle of a Royal Rumble match.December 20
A strange morning with injuries to two Indian batsmen in the nets. An unsettled side crashes to defeat but not without a fight after an initial collapse. India have shown much better resolve than on the last trip, but halfway into the series the scoreline reads the same: 0-2.Spend night at the Southern Cross Motel near the Gabba. Discover its in-house Italian restaurant, Spizzico, had a special visitor in 2011. To eat meatballs made by owner Angelo Di Bartolo’s mother Rosa. Headline of a news report about Jerry Lewis’ visit uses proudly the phrase Bris Vegas, originally an ironic reference to Brisbane’s lack of nightlife. Also see: Brisneyland.

Plays of the day from the third Twenty20 between Australia and South Africa in Sydney

Daniel Brettig09-Nov-2014The new ball
Australia excelled on a bouncy surface at the MCG, but the Stadium Australia drop-in is notably more sluggish, and after Doug Bollinger extracted precious little life from the first over, Aaron Finch called on Glenn Maxwell to share the new ball, as he had done in the UAE against Pakistan. Conceding only five singles from his six balls, Maxwell did his job effectively, if without the occasionally hare-brained flair of his batting.The straight six
Quinton de Kock was soon into stride in partnership with Reeza Hendricks, and when Pat Cummins entered the attack they had motored to 68 in eight overs. Cummins’ variations in pace have been a feature of his bowling in this series and a reason for his late introduction to the attack. But his fooling of de Kock this first over was poorly rewarded as the extremely short straight boundaries at the ground allowed one miscued drive at a slower cutter to carry for six. Cummins had his revenge next ball however, as a short ball was tickled behind for Australia’s first wicket.The dreaded moment
When David Wiese pitched his fourth ball short, Finch swivelled instinctively to pull the ball, as he had already done once for a boundary. But JP Duminy had posted Marchant de Lange in an unusual backward square leg or square fine leg, perhaps in a nod to the slowness of the pitch. Finch struck the ball at more or less the same moment he realised de Lange was waiting on just that shot, and let out a helpless “Oh no”, as the ball settled into the fielder’s hands.The full Maxwell
Glenn Maxwell has been the subject of much discussion over the past week, from his selection at No. 3 in a Test match to his indignant defence of some intemperate shot selection during the two innings. His brief knock would sum up all there is to enjoy – and decry – about Maxwell’s hyperactive approach to batting. There was one brilliant straight six, a missed reverse sweep, then a far better connection for a boundary, a lucky escape as David Wiese failed to claim a catch diving forward, and finally a dismissal for 23 when trying to slog Robin Peterson out of the ground. It was the full Maxwell.

A new book uses the context around the retirement of India’s biggest cricketer as grounds for further exploration

Samir Chopra31-Jan-2015Sachin Tendulkar’s farewell, in November 2013, was quite easily Indian cricket’s event of the year. It was also, quite possibly, a rather distinctive event in cricket’s history. A special Test series – against West Indies – was arranged by the BCCI, and the 200th and final Test of Tendulkar’s career was scheduled for the Wankhede in Mumbai. For most Indian cricket fans, the country’s favourite cricketing son deserved no less than this deliberate and elaborate goodbye, in the company of his family and at the ground that was his de-facto cricketing home.Tendulkar did not score a century in his last innings, but neither did he score a duck. He delivered a moving farewell speech, bringing tears to the eyes of many who saw it, and then, after the obligatory lap of the stadium, surrounded by a small army of photographers, board officials, security men and various hangers-on, he rode off into the sunset, leaving behind him the memories of a 25-year career. For some – including this writer – his retirement had come two years too late, but there was no doubt that when it did happen, the man at the centre of it all handled it with as much dignity as could be mustered in the midst of the spectacle that it was destined to be.Tendulkar’s last Test, and the context surrounding it, is the subject of Dilip D’Souza’s entertaining little book, . In it, D’Souza uses a close look at action on the pitch as a foundation and scaffolding for brief but wide-ranging looks at a host of topics: the financial power of Indian cricket, the BCCI’s domination of world cricket administration, the political resonances of cricket in Mumbai, including its relationship with the notorious (political party) the Shiv Sena, the decline of West Indies cricket, the obsession with statistics that is the hallmark of the cricket tragic, the peculiar and particular fascination Indian cricket fans have had with Tendulkar over the course of his long and distinguished career.The cricket is, of course, centre stage in D’Souza’s writing – perhaps a little too much even – but our understanding of the cricket action he describes is considerably enhanced by its being embedded in the issues he raises. It lends meaning to what could be a meaningless activity – the knocking around of ball by bat. The action we see on a ground is but the bare tip of an iceberg. There is finance, there is politics, there is economics, there are interpersonal relationships, there are cultural conventions; the sporting action reflects these myriad influences to those who play close attention.D’Souza is an experienced journalist who has often cast a critical glance at many aspects of modern Indian life in his writings over the years, and he brings the descriptive and analytical skills he has acquired over the course of his career to this foray into writing on cricket. The result is a book that will entertain the fan who wants to read about cricket action but also educate those who want to know more about what makes Indian cricket – and its fans and players – the distinctive cultural phenomena that they most certainly are.Final Test: Exit Sachin Tendulkar
By Dilip D’Souza
Random House India, 254 pages
Rs 194 (paperback)

The most English of English batsmen turned an eight-year-old into a lifelong fan of the game

Daniel Brigham07-Feb-2015As a child, Graham Gooch’s favourite meal was spam and chips. Second was bangers and chips. He was also quite a fan of corned beef, with chips.Aged 16, on his first cricket tour, he was stationed with a family in Kenya. On the first night, he sat down at the dinner table with John Emburey, who would become a lifelong friend. Their German host, a rather fierce lady not fond of small talk or, it seemed, teenagers, shoved a plate of sauerkraut hash below their noses. There were no chips in sight. Disaster. Young Graham and John looked at each other with dietary dread. Not a morsel was touched.It provides an easy analogy; you are what you eat, or you eat what you are. While we may imagine David Gower dining out on caviar and Ian Botham hunting wild boar to spit-roast over a roaring fire, Gooch’s fondness for processed meat and chips – not those fancy European frites, of course – is very much in keeping with the Man, the Character. Stodgy, unpretentious, homely, unfussy. Gooch: the most English of English cricketers.This week we get to celebrate him once again, for it marks 20 years since Gooch played his last Test innings, which came 20 years after he had played his first. He finished with a customary walloped drive, straight back at Craig McDermott, the ball striking the bowler in the shoulder, popping up in the air and dropping into his hands. Just 12 balls after receiving a standing ovation from the Perth crowd on his way out to the middle, he was offered another on his way back to the dressing room. Behind him, on 28 fields across seven countries, he left 20 Test centuries and 8900 runs – still an English record.

Aged eight, and idly watching TV, my interest in this trouser-wearing sport rocketed from zero to, well, 333 as this moustachioed man-bear transformed what had seemed a dull sport played by dull people

Five years earlier, Gooch had been my unlikely conduit to cricket. Aged eight, and idly watching TV, my interest in this trouser-wearing sport rocketed from zero to, well, 333 as this moustachioed man-bear, standing with bat raised like he was daring the Indian bowlers to take him on, transformed what had seemed a dull sport played by dull people. I had my first cricketing hero.Yet Gooch stood against everything I would come to love in sportsmen. My heroes would come prefixed with anti: Akram, Maradona, Miandad, Cantona, Le Tissier. Gooch was a straight cop in my town of tricksters, rascals, inventors and mischief-makers. He was patriotic. He was fitness-obsessed. He mishandled Gower. He captained the 1982 rebel tour to Apartheid South Africa. Hero material these things were not.You can’t help your first love, though. And there will always be something irresistible about a batsman who takes the game back to its basic instinct: whacking the ball as hard as he possibly can. And, on that July day when cricket took me, Gooch whacked the ball as hard as he possibly could for longer than he ever had done.Gooch was 37 when he made his 333 (to put that into perspective, since the turn of the millennium only two Englishmen – Alec Stewart and Shaun Udal – have played Test cricket for England past their 37th birthday). By that point Gooch had already been a Test player for 15 years, and it was my duty as a dutiful hero-worshipper to, firstly, immediately start supporting his county side Essex and, secondly, catch up on what he had already achieved.At 21: Graham Gooch played Test cricket for 20 years, finishing at 41•Getty ImagesBefore I had even been born, Gooch had got his international career up and running in the shadow of Packer, had sat on the balcony as Dennis Lillee sauntered out with an aluminium bat, watched from the other end as Michael Holding bowled one of the most famous overs in Test history to Geoff Boycott, lost his form entirely to become a footnote’s footnote in the 1981 Ashes, and played in Sri Lanka’s inaugural Test.That match, in Colombo in February 1982, came a month before the rebel tour, two months before I was born and three years before Gooch would again play for England. When I finally caught up with him, in 1990, it felt like he had been batting since the dawn of cricket.Although I came in at the tail-end of his career, what a parade it became. Gooch had started 1989 thinking he perhaps had another couple of years left as a Test cricketer, and hoped to push his centuries tally into double-figures. Instead, he was made Test captain at the end of the year, played for another six, scored over 4000 more runs and made a further 12 hundreds.Eleven of those centuries came as England captain, and three of them are deserving of a place among the very best in Test history: the 333, his famous lone-ranger against West Indies at Headingley in 1991, and his less remembered 135 out of 320 at the same venue a year later. Facing an attack of Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis (who took 43 wickets between them in that series), Aaqib Javed and Mushtaq Ahmed, Gooch masterfully, obstinately led England to a series-levelling victory.In the very next Test, the series decider, my world changed. Akram, bowling like he was cruising down the motorway with the top down, cigarillo in one hand, hair billowing, destroyed England’s rabbity lower order with a black-magic spell of 5 for 18 in 7.1 overs. I was smitten.Gooch didn’t fall to Wasim that day. My first hero blunted my new hero, just as he had Marshall, Hughes, Ambrose, Waqar, Donald, Hadlee, Bishop, Walsh and Kapil across two decades as a Test cricketer. What a wretched time to be a batsman, but what a rewarding time to be one of the great batsmen.Yet Gooch did it with little fuss, little fanfare. He remained spam and chips throughout his long career, he remained the most English of English cricketers and, as Frank Keating once wrote, “Gooch’s noble cricket had, in itself, ennobled cricket”.

Plays of the Day from the first semi-final, between New Zealand and South Africa in Auckland

Firdose Moonda and Andrew Fidel Fernando24-Mar-2015The sixWith straight boundaries just 40 metres long, it was not supposed to take half an innings for a ball to find its way over them but that’s how long it took. When New Zealand introduced their fifth bowler, Grant Elliott, Rilee Rossouw saw the opportunity to cash in and lofted a length ball straight back over the bowler’s head and over the sightscreen to breach the Eden Park boundaries. They are supposed to be breached.Two toes, three fingers’Two toes, amazing feat,’ read the headline of the after Martin Guptill’s double-hundred in the quarter-final. They can add amazing hands to that now. Guptill was stationed at backward point when Rossouw tried to punch Corey Anderson away but ended up catching the ball with the shoulder of his bat instead. The ball threatened to fly over Guptill but he leapt off his feet, stuck out his right hand and reached high to cling on with jus a few fingers and give New Zealand the breakthrough they so desperately needed.The dropAB de Villiers does not give opposition teams too many chances to dismiss him but when he sunk his bat into a Anderson delivery, he did. De Villiers could not resist the width and smacked the ball to short cover. Kane Williamson had to reach to his left and got to the ball, only for it to burst through his hands. De Villiers was on 38 at the time and had faced 28 balls. Three deliveries later he crossed fifty. Six balls later he presented another chance off a top edge, which three fielders converged on and none called for. New Zealand never did get rid of de Villiers in this game, but Williamson will know he was the man who could have.The disrespect The captains promised there would be no sledging, pushing or shoving as this game would be played in the right spirit with all the talking done in action and neither was lying. De Villiers had done his bit and then Brendon McCullum did his, with just a hint of audacity. At the start of the fourth over of New Zealand’s innings, he charged Dale Steyn, not just any bowler, Dale Steyn and hit him over his head, over the sighscreen for six. Against another batsmen, Steyn may have had a few things to say. To McCullum, he only smiled.The rogue bootIt’s gloves that are usually said to come off when one combatant prepares to lay into the other, but as McCullum was about to trample all over South Africa in the mandatory Powerplay, maybe it was fitting that it was footwear he lost. He took a step forward after defending a short ball but when he slipped as he turned back to the crease, found that his boot had abandoned him. On his hands and knees, McCullum turned back and found it lying a metre-and-a-half down the track, in the developing rough.