Plays of the day from the first day of the first Sri Lanka-Bangladesh Test in Galle

Andrew Fidel Fernando and Mohammad Isam08-Mar-2013The blowSohag Gazi reaped rewards for his persistence in an otherwise dull day for Bangladesh•AFPSri Lanka batsmen’s bones seem to have been particularly susceptible to upset in the past three months, with Kumar Sangakkara, Prasanna Jayawardene, Nuwan Kulasekara and Mahela Jayawardene all missing Tests due to fractures, and when Dimuth Karunaratne was hit flush on the elbow by a Shahadat Hossain bouncer on 15, he too must have wondered if the same fate would befall him. The outlook seemed grim when Sri Lanka’s physio took one look at the elbow and took Karunaratne off the field, but despite the scare, he returned later in the session to add 26 more runs to his tally.The strokeA cover drive is generally the most alluring stroke in any Sangakkara innings, but though there were plenty of those off the spinners, it was a hook shot that epitomised his mastery of the Bangladesh bowling on day one. Twice Shahadat Hossain tried to bounce him in the 35th over, and both times Sangakkara rocked back in an instant and sent the ball screaming in front of square leg, all along the ground.The dropOf all the fielders, Mohammad Ashraful would know the significance of a Sangakkara wicket, having seen him score two previous double-centuries within a week five years ago. But his slight delay to jump and reach the batsman’s lofted shot cost Bangladesh.Sangakkara, though, added only 31 more before Jahurul Islam caught him at short cover, on the second attempt after parrying the ball with both hands.The wicketSohag Gazi was the day’s best bowler, and his dismissal of Dimuth Karunaratne had him beating a batsman after working him over.Gazi kept the ball up to Karunaratne, the lesser experienced of the two left-hand batsmen at the crease (the other being Sangakkara), and whenever the batsmen drove, he had a small smile on his face. He bowled him a maiden over late in the first session, and kept pegging away until in his 14th over when he brought one back at the batsman. The appeal wasn’t too long as the decision was quick, and it was one of the few bright spots of the day for the visitors.

Despite a slow start in Test cricket, Lahiru Thirimanne already looks the most complete of Sri Lanka’s young batsmen

Andrew Fidel Fernando in Galle09-Mar-2013Even before he was in Sri Lanka’s Under-19s team, Lahiru Thirimanne’s batting was surrounded by hype. Former Sri Lanka batsman Aravinda de Silva has been one of his foremost supporters at home. There is even a story going around that it was de Silva who convinced Thirimanne to focus on cricket, after good O-level results had him thinking about putting sport on the backburner.Yet when he arrived in internationals, there was little in his results to back what de Silva saw. A languid cut and a sharp drive in his first innings revealed a little of his ability but he was also visibly daunted by the England attack, and ended up edging to first slip for 10. There were further glimpses of his class in the second innings but, after being dropped on 13, he did not convey any assurance for the remainder of his stay. Another edge would eventually bring about his demise on 38.The first seven Tests of his career largely followed this pattern, as he was dropped into the team sporadically whenever injury forced a mainstay out. There were flashes of brilliance, but always in between tentative pushes, over-eager lunges and muddled footwork.Home or away made little difference. After his seventh Test, against England in Colombo, he averaged less than 20, with one half-century to his name. For many, he was another gifted youngster who couldn’t quite cut it at the top level. Sri Lanka’s cricket history is littered with players stranded between first-class excellence, and Test-match competence.But in one innings Thirimanne changed all that. Not initially picked for the Tests in Australia, Thirimanne was flown in after Kumar Sangakkara fractured his finger in Melbourne and was thrown straight into the New Year’s Test in Sydney, just 36 hours after landing.Suddenly he was a man transformed. His judgement was precise, the cover drives commanding, and his body language sure. When he walked to the crease most of the SCG’s full house would never have heard of him before. When he exited for a well-played 91, they did not hold back their appreciation, as they rose to applaud him to the pavilion. For the first time, the world saw what de Silva had seen all those years ago.By his own admission, Thirimanne’s challenge in Galle was less arduous than the one he’d faced in Sydney, but he did what any Sri Lanka top-order batsman ought to do on a flat pitch, against a side like Bangladesh. Rarely was a false-stroke drawn from his blade, which came down with equal assurance against the quick men and the spinners.He constructed his century with maturity, making use of Sangakkara’s slipstream early in the second evening, before venturing heavy blows of his own. Often when the bowling deserved punishment, sometimes when it didn’t.

Against Gazi, whose flight is his cudgel, Thirimanne preferred the back foot, and locked away the sweep. To Sunny, whose best asset is turn, he flitted forward to punch down the ground, or clip through midwicket.

“The 91 in Sydney gave me a lot of confidence,” Thirimanne said after his unbeaten 155. “After that innings, I scored a one-day century in Adelaide, and I hope to continue this form for the future. I didn’t change much in my technique. It’s all about the mindset.”What will encourage his coaches was Thirimanne’s ability to assess varying strengths of each bowler, and then adjust his game accordingly. Against Sohag Gazi, whose flight is his cudgel, Thirimanne preferred the back foot, and locked away the sweep. To Elias Sunny, whose best asset is turn, he flitted forward to punch down the ground, or clip through midwicket.Late on day one, he did not withhold his strokes as the sun-beaten attack waned, and the momentum was with the batsmen. On the second morning, when Bangladesh regrouped to produce their best bowling in the Test, Thirimanne hunkered down till the squall had passed.Though the boundaries were regular throughout, Thirimanne’s innings was largely founded upon the ability to work the ball early in his innings – something his young cohorts are yet to master.Both Dinesh Chandimal and Angelo Mathews rely heavily on boundaries for their runs, and while 36 of Chandimal’s fortuitous first fifty came in fours, only five fours were hit in Thirimanne’s far more convincing effort. Mathews also suffers from an inability to convert starts into meaningful innings and is noticeably less comfortable against spin. Though he has played fewer Tests, Thirimanne already seems the more complete batsman.It is also no coincidence that Thirimanne was involved in the two biggest partnerships in the innings. An innate ability to gauge his partner’s mood, taking the strike when the other batsman found the going hard, or feeding him it when he looked to push on, saw Thirimanne put on 203 unbeaten runs for the fifth wicket alongside Dinesh Chandimal.”We’ve batted together since Under-19s level, so we know how to tackle those situations,” he said. “He’s a bit more aggressive than me. I had to bat through the innings, so early on I didn’t take many risks. Batting with Chandimal was easy because the runs came quickly.”On day one, Sangakkara said it would be healthy for Sri Lanka’s young batsmen to compete with each other for runs and hundreds in the years ahead. After a poor start, Thirimanne has found the confidence to make good on his ability in Test cricket, and his young team-mates should take notice, lest they be left in the dust.

From Neeraj Narayanan, India

Cricinfo25-Feb-2013
Why Associates need to play more•AFPOnce upon a time, and a really nice time it was, all that mattered in the world was an evening game of tennis-ball cricket. So even if the sun was blazing, we would run to the neighbourhood park and gather ourselves in poses just like our heroes on ESPN and Doordarshan. Some of us folded our arms and chewed gum like that great Australian captain, Mark Taylor. The bowlers in us swaggered just like Darren Gough each time we walked back to our run-ups. Hell, some of us even ‘did a Sachin’, obscenely picking at our groin, ignoring the fact that we had no guard there to adjust.Coca Cola might have said it first, but it was we – the boys of Sector 55 Noida – who ate, slept and breathed cricket. So we played, and tried to live happily ever after but like always there was a twist in the story. Ever so often, there would be a group of older bullies who would come much later to the ground and take possession of it immediately, irrespective of the juncture at which our match was poised. Of course, you might ask the question as to why I did not stand my ‘ground’, and I will be honest enough to tell you that I would have, but I do not like spanking boys twice my size and age. It hardly reflects well on them, you see. The fact that the one time I did try and poke one of those fellows, albeit gingerly, in his stomach, they sat all over me and made me lick topsoil as well as sub-soil, is a secret that is dead and ‘buried’.The only way we could persuade those ugly buffoons to allow us to stay on the ground was to involve them in a game. But despite their ridicule, we never distributed teams, and insisted on taking on their might and seniority. We lost every time, for they were bigger, stronger and sadly better. It infuriated me, the fact that we never came close to beating them, that we were always put in our place, that we were not good enough. But it made me and my darling team more united, for humiliation might wound and it might hurt, but it also brings one closer to those who suffer that fate. They could toy with our bowling, but not with our pride; they could skittle out our batsmen but not our spirit. Sometimes we came close, but always we lost. They also taught us to enjoy the smaller moments. Every wicket we took, every boundary we hit, the whole team would cheer, sing, cackle, hoot and sometimes even dance in an extremely ungainly fashion that only men can. And we did so because when you don’t have much to cheer about, it is these little moments that you make the most of.And then one day we won. I do not know how or why, maybe they just played awfully badly, or maybe we were lucky, but we did. And I still remember the scenes of delirium. It wasn’t the World Cup, nor the ‘Ashes’, not even an official colony match, but it was our World Cup, our Ashes.Sitting in my office, I was following a warm-up match online, cheering Canada’s every run in their chase against England. In the end they lost, and looked disappointed, but they ran them very close and one day they will beat them too. For that’s how sport is, and will always be. Goliath may crow nine out of ten days, but one day David will rise and beat him. Cricket is a wonderful game, not just because of Warne’s wizardry or Sachin’s genius or even Gough’s swagger. It is also made beautiful by a generously-built Bermuda policeman-cum-prison van driver who weighed 280 pounds and yet almost flew to take a blinder to dismiss Robin Uthappa, and celebrated as if he had won the World Cup. It is also made beautiful by eleven Kenyans kneeling down and kissing the pitch after beating the mighty West Indies in ’96. It becomes a better sport because it gives a war-ravaged country like Afghanistan hope and a little happiness as they notch one remarkable win after another against countries much bigger, much stronger and more fortunate. One day Canada will beat England, and they will know the joy that we knew one day in a small park in Sector 55 Noida.

Mohammad Ashraful’s confession of his involvement in match-fixing and spot-fixing during this season’s BPL has raised questions about the breach of disciplinary protocol put in place by the BCB

Mohammad Isam06-Jun-2013Mohammad Ashraful’s confession of his involvement in match-fixing and spot-fixing during this season’s Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) has brought some questions into the public domain, the most important one being the breach of disciplinary protocol put in place by the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB).The BPL’s problems began even before the tournament did. The domestic Twenty20 tournament was arranged hastily for the second year in a row, and had to deal with a last-minute player pull-out. While the ICC’s Anti-Corruption and Security Unit (ACSU) were present from the start, the BPL governing council had too many issues to grapple with before they could focus on the tournament itself.The ACSU was brought in by the BCB to protect the integrity of the tournament and to maintain the board’s “zero-tolerance” goal of tackling fraud. It was an expensive service (nearly $200,000 for the entire duration of the tournament), but BCB’s inadequate security measures inside stadiums meant that they had to bring in help from outside. ACSU officers were visible during BPL matches in Dhaka, Khulna and Chittagong, and they put in place rules that clearly spelt out the dos and don’ts.The BCB introduced the ACSU to all the franchises before the tournament, and ensured there were enough educational programmes to help a player understand what was expected. During the tournament, there were several warnings from the BCB, significant enough for the players to take notice, regarding people gaining access to the dressing room or dugout. Owners were confined to an area near the dugouts at every venue – a measure the ACSU stressed upon, in spite of pressure to not interfere.The contract with the ACSU also ensured that the standard security procedures of an international match were employed throughout the competition. Unauthorised persons were not permitted entry into the dressing room area, which was called the Players and Match Officials Area (PMOA). There were stringent checks put in place by the ACSU while issuing accreditation cards to those who were needed inside the dressing rooms. Mobile phones were also not allowed in the protected areas.Even before the ACSU came in to the picture, however, there were many red flags. Just a day before the BPL was inaugurated in 2012, Mashrafe Mortaza exposed an offer to spot-fix, made by former Bangladesh cricketer, Shariful Haque who was later banned for life. The matter was immediately reported to the BCB and an inquiry was conducted. Towards the end of the tournament last year, a Pakistani individual, Sajid Khan, was arrested near the dressing room area, as he was trying to gain access. Chittagong Kings owner Sameer Quader Chowdhury later told the media that he had been approached by several people to throw matches.Ashraful’s exact role in this whole episode has not been revealed; the ICC’s ACSU and the BCB have asked for a week before they make the details public. There are a few factors that could, however, possibly explain why players indulge in such activities. First, it is hard to tell whether a team is fixing a match or not. This leads to a second possible reason for players to feel at ease: lack of proper evidence.These factors do not justify a player’s involvement in corrupt practices, but they create unanswered questions about the BPL’s image and integrity. If the BCB wants it to remain a viable tournament, it has to clean up its image, beginning with the punishment meted out to those involved in this issue. Then there are long-term issues that can be dealt with through accountability and shedding of egos.BCB has a mixed track record in terms of enforcing discipline in such cases. After Mashrafe made the allegations, the board dealt with it swiftly and punished Shariful Haque, banning the latter for an indefinite period within seven months of the incident. The board also banned umpire Nadir Shah after an Indian channel’s sting operation had him compromised. But the BCB could not deal with the Sajid Khan arrest in a proper manner. Their security officers handed him over to the local police, but they failed to follow up on the issue and the accused slipped away.Before the BPL can reach the IPL’s levels of popularity, in spite of recent controversies in the Indian tournament, it has to put in the missing building blocks. Some players haven’t been paid their full amount, while others are waiting for half their dues. Many foreign players repeatedly complained about payment issues after the first edition, and have raised their voices again this year. Local players have had a tougher time – some of them haven’t been paid since last year. The BPL governing council itself is supposed to be paid by Game On Sports (the event management firm that organises the event) and the franchises, against whom they are preparing to take legal action.Ashraful could well have opened up a Pandora’s box but his admission of guilt has again underlined the necessity of professionalism. Without it, such incidents are likely to repeat themselves.

With others who had come to the crease at Lord’s prisoners of the conditions, Ross Taylor played an unshackled innings that displayed his wonderful talent

Jarrod Kimber at Lord's17-May-2013Zombie ants will find a leaf about a foot off the ground, on the north side of a plant, attach themselves to the underside and will be eaten away by a fungus that is posthumously controlling them and eating their non-vital soft tissue. The ants have no say in what happens next, they are dead soldiers for their fungi overlords.Batsmen generally don’t have this problem. Most batsmen are living creatures with free will. Sure every player has his own external and internal pressures. Perhaps the coach has told them to put a price on their wicket. Maybe they are worried about their place in the team. Bad form could always be an issue.Then there is a pitch and the conditions. A grey sky or green pitch will play on the mind of any batsman. A grey sky can make the most cocksure batsman shut up shop.Then there is the sideways movement. A little or a lot, it matters. It was not, as early cricket scientists tried to prove, an optical illusion. The cricket ball can dance in a way that can trip anyone up.You can never discount bowlers in this equation (if you’ve been watching the IPL, they are the players who deliver the balls to the maximum hitters). Good bowling can stop a scoreboard; it can bring uncertainty to any situation. Backed by decent field strategies, runs become mythical whispers.At Lord’s all of these things added up to stop every single batsman who walked out. Except one.While the opposition and his team-mates held still like zombie ants on a leaf. Ross Taylor batted. He batted like his last few months haven’t involved a public demotion, his friend almost being killed, and a poor run of form in Test and IPL cricket. He batted like he, and few players, can. Like the opposition and conditions didn’t apply to him. In one knock in trying conditions he outscored his IPL season at a better strike rate.Taylor is an interesting batsman. You feel had he not made it to Test level, he could play every ball on the legside and die a happy man. But despite his obvious talent (he has the 8th best average of any Kiwi Test batsman), he has worked very hard to make himself into a destructive force on the international stage. Yet, he’s not. Not consistently. Not like he could be.Coupling talent with dedication should be a surefire hit. But Taylor struggles away from home. He isn’t as consistent as she should be. He can be ineffectual for long periods.Then you see him today. Jimmy Anderson was crushing New Zealand, two quick wickets had spooked the team that had fought like champs to keep England’s total low.Taylor walked in to a situation that looked dire from the outside. Taylor hit almost as many fours as England did on the entire first day. Taylor scored his fifty at better than a run a ball. Taylor batted like this despite the ball moving around enough to make his team-mates and the opposition find the underside of a leaf to stick themselves to.A Taylor innings on full flow is a sight to see. It’s like KP, but humble. Bowlers are just there to deliver to him. He owns the crease. He hits the ball in a special way that most people can’t do, the way that almost instantly makes the bowler less sure of himself. And he just keeps batting faster and hitting harder until it doesn’t matter where the fielders are. Like he owns the ground and everyone in it. It doesn’t happen often, but when he does it, it’s clear that he’s not just a batsman. He’s something special.You could see it building at Lord’s. The flash through point. The slog sweep. The fifty when everyone else saw a 30 as Everest.Then, with greatness and an often-replayed highlights package within his grasp, he got a ball that kept a bit low. Not a shooter, but just a ball that hadn’t reached the heights it should have. Instead of one of those innings that Taylor plays that makes zealots out of heretics, it was just a cameo.In the full story of Taylor’s career, it felt about right, with everything that has gone with him recently, it felt way short. Taylor is 29, and the next four years should be his best. At the least his average should jump over 45, and he should be demanding that he ends up as one of the greatest New Zealand players of all time.Today was just a taster, all he really did is show us that he was not a Zombie ant, but he can do much more than that.

Shane Jurgensen has quietly worked at improving the team culture in the Bangladesh squad and has been rewarded with an extended contract as head coach

Mohammad Isam04-Jul-2013Shane Jurgensen’s quiet efforts at building a hard-working environment in the Bangladesh team have been recognised, with the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) extending his tenure as a head coach till 2015. The period is long enough for Jurgensen to reach two key goals: climbing higher in rankings and establishing a culture of hard work in the side.The confidence he needs to achieve these targets should come from his understanding of the team over the last two years. During this time, his rise has proved a few theories wrong in Bangladesh cricket. First, he has risen to the position of head coach after working as a member of the support staff, a career path never considered seriously by the BCB. Second, he has broken a myth that only big-name coaches are suitable for Bangladesh.Finally, he also disproved an odd belief that many in the BCB held (and still do) that a coach who played the game as a bowler isn’t right for the team’s batsmen and for the team, as a whole. Given Bangladesh’s ebb and flow, however, Jurgensen’s appointment is as appropriate as Dav Whatmore’s in 2003.When Whatmore joined the team after the 2003 World Cup, Bangladesh desperately needed a leader, someone who could guide them out of a five-year losing streak. Whatmore, with the experience of having coached Sri Lanka’s World Cup-winning side, provided that leadership for four years.In the current scenario, as the team grows into a winning unit, Jurgsensen has become a sounding board for the senior players, who are turning into match-winners, and a strict task-master for the younger group of players who are still coming to terms with international cricket.The lack of off-field drama has also translated into a more stable side. Jurgensen and Mushfiqur Rahim have stressed on personal discipline, although the captain was responsible for the only dramatic incident of the season and later admitted his mistake.After Richard Pybus’ sudden exit last year, Bangladesh have completed a season of progress. They won their fourth Test in 13 years in April, and have also drawn a Test against Sri Lanka in their backyard. They pushed West Indies in Dhaka late last year. But Jurgensen knows that perceptible improvement in the next two years is mostly possible in ODIs. The ODI series win over West Indies at home and the drawn series against Sri Lanka has encouraged him.”As long as the team improves in Test cricket, it will flow into the limited-over formats,” Jurgensen told ESPNcricinfo. “We are a decent one-day side, so my goal is to see the team climb up the rankings. It would be nice to see them move up a spot or two in the limited-over formats.”We have improved as a Test team, especially since our last game was a hard-fought win against Zimbabwe. The batting has been good, setting a few records in our first innings this season. The bowling has a new face now in Robiul Islam, but spin remains our strength.”
Bangladesh have been world cricket’s bottom-placed scrappers for more than a decade now, but they have touched the No. 8 spot a few times in ODIs in the last two years, which explains the confidence of the side compared to even five years ago. The BCB has also appreciated the team’s worth by putting a quiet man in charge, instead of remaining star-struck and seeking out the next Whatmore.

This is the youngest team in the world, so I don’t need to put them under pressure, because there is enough pressure on themShane Jurgensen

Before they became a Test team, Bangladesh needed the likes of Mohinder Amarnath, Gordon Greenidge and Eddie Barlow as much for their star power as their vast experience. It was also the reason why they appointed Whatmore, Stuart Law and Pybus later on. In between, however, Trevor Chappell expected too much from Bangladesh cricket and Mohsin Kamal’s tenure was a misadventure. Jamie Siddons’ hands-on approach wasn’t appreciated by some players, but those who did improved themselves and their average.Jurgensen has risen from within the ranks of the Bangladesh dressing-room – he was appointed bowling coach in October 2011 and became the interim head coach exactly a year later. That arrangement has now developed into a more central role and ensures that the person in charge has the experience of working with the team, and is familiar with the players’ skills, needs and culture.”My style as a person is not to be loud, because it is about the players. I may not be a highly regarded coach, but I am decisive, and I want to develop international cricketers. I like to get personal with the players, try to have a relationship,” Jurgensen said. “My other goal is to create an environment of hard work, but keep it relaxed and enjoyable. This is the youngest team in the world, so I don’t need to put them under pressure, because there is enough pressure on them.”One of his goals is to see the seam bowlers taking the lead, but his immediate goal is the home series against New Zealand in October. He would want to remind the team of the successful 2010 ODI series, where they beat New Zealand 4-0. “I want to have fully fit fast bowlers, and we will try to give the batsmen a feel of longer-version cricket in the next three months.”If the seamers take more responsibility, we can take more wickets with the new ball. It makes it easier for our spinners. I want a complete bowling team, with the batsmen backing up with the runs,” he said.Jurgensen believes Bangladesh need to make an impact in the World Twenty20 to earn their stripes in international cricket.”People respect Bangladesh, but with it comes expectations. We have to keep working hard, and improve ourselves in the next six to twelve months. To have people hold us in high regard, we have to do well in the next big event – the World Twenty20.”Jurgensen is currently the youngest Test coach in the game and one of three Test coaches under the age of 40, alongside New Zealand’s Mike Hesson and South Africa’s Russell Domingo. At this stage of his career, Jurgensen feels his coaching assignment is a privilege, given the company he is keeping among international coaches.Among Bangladesh coaches, he has a lot in common with Stuart Law, who was the head coach between July 2011 and June 2012. Like Law, Jurgensen will also be expected to produce results because a coach’s progress is no longer measured in how many players he can develop into international stars. He will also have to ensure results remain positive, and slip-ups, like the one in Zimbabwe, do not turn into a slide in form.A two-year contract is a good place to start and his challenge will be to hold the team together and find more match-winners. His two years of experience with the team, unlike his predecessors, should work in his favour. But, like all previous Bangladesh coaches, he will face major challenges and see people treat him differently as soon as he becomes the permanent man.

The marginalising of grade and Shield competitions has left a painful legacy for the Test team

Daniel Brettig at Lord's21-Jul-2013Amid the usual sea of opinions leading into this series, Andrew Strauss cut to the core of Australian cricket’s troubles with an observation he made about the last Ashes tour down under. While the Test matches of 2010-11 and their margins were clear, Strauss noticed something a little more far-reaching and disturbing on his travels. The standard of the players and teams his side faced in their tour matches was nowhere near the level that England tourists had come to expect. Where once the visitors expected a serious fight no matter where they played, now they were surprised to feel unthreatened.Three years on, and a very public execution at Lord’s has confirmed the decline Strauss witnessed. First evident among the grassroots, it has now enveloped the shop front of the Australian game. The bewilderment experienced by a succession of batsmen as they trudged off with inadequate scores for the fourth consecutive Ashes innings was mirrored on the faces of the Sunday spectators, Australian television viewers and Cricket Australia staff on both sides of the world. How had it come to this?Shane Watson, Chris Rogers, Phillip Hughes, Michael Clarke, Usman Khawaja and Steve Smith fell in manners familiar and unfamiliar, technical or mental, to pace or spin. There was no underlying pattern. But the death dive of the national team’s recent performances, including a sixth Test match defeat in succession, is the ugliest and most visible symptom of a collective malaise that has been creeping ever wider for some time, hurried along by band-aid solutions and rampant market thinking that has helped to rot the teeth of the domestic game.Among the most troubling elements of Australia’s current state of poverty is that there is no single person in the team nor around it who has the capacity to provide a remedy. Not the captain Clarke, nor the coach Darren Lehmann, the selectors Rod Marsh and John Inverarity, nor even the high-powered general manager of team performance, Pat Howard. Had he still been employed, the estranged former coach Mickey Arthur would have been equally powerless.They all have had influential roles within Australian cricket over the past three years, and all have a genuine desire to see the team winning matches. All are doing their best to prepare players for tasks such as England. But none have complete control over the areas of Cricket Australia to where the game’s decline can be traced. Perhaps not surprisingly, all are often heard to say the words “not ideal”. All should be speaking earnestly to their chief executive, James Sutherland, who despite much financial prosperity has presided over the aforementioned rot.Several issues stand out as causes of the problems on display at Lord’s. The first is the marginalisation of the grade and Sheffield Shield competitions, for so long regarded as the best proving grounds of their kind in the world. In 2013 they sit at the fringes of CA’s thinking. Grade cricket has fallen behind the much vaunted “pathway” of under-age competitions and Centre of Excellence training as the primary providers of players bound for international duty. The Shield, meanwhile, is now played disjointedly and unhappily around the edges of the Australian season, having ceded the prime months of December and January to the Twenty20 Big Bash League.This scheduling stands in marked contrast to the fixtures now produced in England and India, Australia’s two most recent tormentors. For all the buzz and hype around the IPL and the Champions League, neither competition cuts across the first-class Ranji Trophy, which remains a tournament fought in an environment of continuity and cohesion. Similarly, the English county season offers domestic players a greater chance for building up form and confidence in the format most representative of Test matches. Plenty of battles have been fought within England to keep it so, and next summer its primacy will be further embossed by the spreading of T20 fixtures more evenly through the season.Even if the Shield were to be granted a place of greater centrality to the Australian summer, the matter of pitches is also a source of problems. Australia’s glaring lack of batsmen capable of playing long innings can be related directly to the emergence of a succession of sporting or worse surfaces, as state teams chase the outright results required to reach the Shield final. Queensland and Tasmania have been among the most notable preparers of green surfaces, often for reasons of weather as much as strategy, but their approaches have become increasingly popular across the country. This has resulted in a litany of low-scoring matches and bowlers celebrating far more often than they did during the relatively run-laden 1990s. Batsmen are thus lacking in confidence and technique, while bowlers are similarly less used to striving for wickets on unresponsive surfaces so often prepared in Tests, as administrators eye fifth-day gate receipts.Money is never far from anyone’s motivation, of course, and the financial modelling of Australian player payments must also be examined. This much was pointed out by Arthur himself when the BBL was unveiled in 2011, accompanied by the news that state contracts would be reduced on the presumption that every player would also play T20. Arthur’s words should be ringing in the ears of CA’s decision makers almost as much as his anguished complaints now about the loss of his job.”Your biggest salary cap should be your state contracts with the smaller salary cap being your Big Bash,” Arthur had said when coach of Western Australia. “If we’re really serious in Australia about getting Australia to the No. 1 Test-playing side in the world, we should be reflecting that in our salary caps and budgets. You can feel the squeeze just through the salary caps that we have to work with. You’re getting a bigger salary cap for six weeks’ work over the holiday period than you are for trying to make yourself a Test cricketer. I think that’s the wrong way round.”The wrong way round and the wrong way to maintain a strong Test team. The pain of Australia’s players at Lord’s, not least their clearly upset captain Michael Clarke, was patently clear. But having almost conjured miracles at Trent Bridge, St John’s Wood has provided a much more realistic picture of where the team has slipped to, and why. There can be few more humiliating places at which to be defined as second rate than the home of cricket, for so long the home away from home for Australia’s cricketers. In a moment of hubris after their win at the ground in 2005, Ricky Ponting’s team held uproarious court in the home dressing rooms. This time around any visit to the England side of the pavilion will be made far more humbly.

ESPNcricinfo charts the highs and lows of Steve Harmison’s 17-year career

ESPNcricinfo staff06-Oct-2013September 12, 1996: Steve Harmison makes his first-class debut against Leicestershire, going wicketless and scoring 10 runs in an innings defeat.September 2000: Aged 22, selected in the England A squad for the tour of West Indies but has to be replaced after sustaining a shin injury.August 8, 2002: Makes his Test debut for England in a drawn match against India at Trent Bridge. Picks up five wickets during the game, including that of Sourav Ganguly on 99.December 17, 2002: Harmison plays his first ODI, dismissing Kumar Sangakkara and Marvan Atapattu in quick succession to help England beat Sri Lanka by 43 runs in the VB Series in Brisbane.October 21, 2003: Takes his first five-wicket haul for England in the first Test against Bangladesh in Dhaka. He is named Man of the Match after finishing with 9 for 79.March 11, 2004: A notoriously poor traveller, Harmison’s fitness and commitment for the tour of the Caribbean were questioned after breaking down in Bangladesh. However, he removes any doubts by blowing West Indies away runs in the second innings of the first Test, picking up seven wickets for just 12 runs. England captain Michael Vaughan calls it “one of the greatest spells of bowling by an England player”. He follows it up with six wickets in the first innings of the second Test, and ends the series as the highest wicket-taker with 23 scalps from four matches.August 2004: Harmison continues his fine form, taking eight wickets against New Zealand in the first Test at Lord’s and, following another impressive showing against West Indies, he moves to the top of the Test bowling rankings, leapfrogging Muttiah Muralitharan and Shaun Pollock to become the first English bowler in two decades to hold the No. 1 position.April 2005: Following a poor series against South Africa where he took just nine wickets, Harmison drops to eighth in the world Test bowling rankings. More eyebrows are raised when Harmison admits that he may end his career early due to homesickness, saying “I will never overcome it because I never really want to be away.”June 19, 2005: Despite recent struggles, Harmison shows his class in the third ODI against Australia, dismissing Adam Gilchrist, Ricky Ponting and Damien Martyn in a single over, before also sending back Matthew Hayden and Michael Hussey to finish with an ODI-best 5 for 33 and seal a three-wicket win for England.July 21-24, 2005: Harmison makes his mark on Australia’s batsmen early in the Ashes, striking Justin Langer with a painful blow on the elbow and bloodying Ponting with a rising delivery on to his helmet. Harmison takes eight wickets in the first Test at Lord’s, but can’t prevent a 239-run defeat for England.September 12, 2005: England regain the Ashes for the first time in 16 years, as a thrilling series comes to a close with a draw at The Oval. Harmison has a vital part to play in the team’s success, picking up 17 wickets from five matches at an average of 32.29.July-August 2006: Injury rules him out of the first part of the following summer but Harmison shines in the home series against Pakistan with 20 wickets, including 11 in the second Test in Manchester. The series would ultimately be overshadowed by a ball-tampering row in the fourth Test.Harmison was Durham’s leading wicket-taker in their Championship title wins of 2008 and 2009•Getty ImagesNovember 23, 2006: However, Harmison’s nerve betrays him during the 2006-07 Ashes, as he sends the opening delivery of the series in Brisbane straight to Andrew Flintoff at second slip. It sets the tone for what proves to be a dismal outing for Harmison, who picks up 10 wickets at 61.40, and for England, who are whitewashed by the hosts.December 2006: Having been left out of England’s squad for the post-Ashes ODI series, Harmison announces his retirement from the format, three months before the start of the World Cup.May-June 2007: Harmison notches 16 wickets from four matches during the home series against West Indies, including six in the third Test in Manchester, but he suffers a setback with a back injury that keeps him out of action for four months.March 2008: After returning to the England squad for Sri Lanka, where he bowls well on unresponsive pitches, he picks up just one wicket in the first New Zealand Test, a 189-run thrashing in Hamilton. He and Matthew Hoggard are subsequently axed from the team.August 22, 2008: Harmison is persuaded back to ODI cricket by England’s new captain, Kevin Pietersen, after nearly two years in self-imposed exile. He makes his return against South Africa in Leeds, taking two wickets.September 27, 2008: Harmison takes the final three Kent wickets to fall as Durham wrap up their maiden Championship title – 16 years after they became a first-class county – at Canterbury.April 3, 2009: Having never quite reached the heights of his Test exploits, he plays his last ODI against West Indies in St Lucia, finishing without a wicket.August 20, 2009: Despite doubts remaining over his fitness, Harmison is involved in two Tests of the 2009 Ashes and plays what would turn out to be his final match at The Oval. Harmison takes three tail-end wickets in the second innings to help England secure a 197-run win and regain the urn once again.September 12, 2009: Again Harmison takes the final wicket – and again he finishes as the club’s leading wicket-taker – as Durham defend their Championship title with victory over Nottinghamshire at Chester-le-Street.January, 2012: During a BBC radio documentary presented by his former team-mate Flintoff, Harmison reveals he had suffered from depression during his international career.October 6, 2013: Harmison announces his retirement from competitive cricket, aged 34.

The new, tight domestic schedule also allows young regional players a better chance to develop into reliable first-class cricketers

Umar Farooq23-Oct-2013Pakistan’s domestic structure has been constantly transforming over the past decade, with change occurring every two years. But this year the season’s format has remained consistent from the previous year, though the calendar is tightly planned for better financial viability. Two major first-class tournaments will run simultaneously while two List A events happen concurrently. Besides making it financially cost effective, the season has been ideally planned to stop mixing top departmental players with the regional teams in order to allow more young players to feature for the regional sides. If executed efficiently, this calendar could eventually allow an increase in the quantity of first-class cricketers in the country.Last year, the re-structuring of the domestic structure centered around the President’s Trophy, the country’s new premier first-class tournament, with the eminence of the Quaid-e-Azam trophy fading. Previously the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy was the nucleus of the first-class competition in the country, comprising 22 teams (13 regional and nine department teams) in two divisions, based on a promotion and relegation system. It was revamped last year by separating regional and departmental cricket, creating two first-class events with equal quality. This structure has created a sense of stability and promoted a competitive spirit, with the top teams in the President’s Trophy playing against a mixture of tough opponents rather than the rookie cricketers of the region. Players who might have failed in the President’s Trophy, made their way into the regional teams to work on their deficiencies.This year, the board has planned both events concurrently to maintain a balance in the levels of competition. The number of teams in the President’s Trophy has been increased from 10 to 11 with Pakistan Television being promoted to Grade1 cricket. Eleven departmental teams will play a round-robin league phase, with the top two teams making the final.As many as 350 players are registered to feature in the 14 teams in QEA, while around 220 player are signed with the various 11 department teams. The 14 regional teams will field only local and non-departmental players. Teams in QEA will be divided in two groups – the top eight will be in a super-eight group while the remaining six teams will play a plate league. The two top teams from super eights will play the final. Either way, each team will at least play nine matches. Once a prime means for players to earn national call-up, QEA is no more relevant in that regard.

Stats highlights from the thriller between Pakistan and India at Mirpur, Dhaka

Shiva Jayaraman02-Mar-2014

• The margin of victory in this match was the second-closest, by wickets remaining, in matches involving Pakistan and India. The famous Sharjah match in which Javed Miandad hit a six off the last ball is the closest between the two teams. Click here for ODIs with the slimmest margin of wins in terms of wickets remaining.
• Before this match Pakistan had lost the last five ODIs in which they were required to chase 240 or more. Since 2011, this is only the fourth time that Pakistan have successfully chased 240 or more in an ODI from 17 attempts.
• Mohammad Hafeez won the 14th Man-of-the-Match award of his career and his fifth since 2013. Only Virat Kohli has won more such awards in ODIs since 2013.
• Shahid Afridi sealed the match for Pakistan with two sixes in the last over off R Ashwin. The six he hit to win this match was his 50th against India in ODIs. He is the only player to hit 50 or more sixes against two oppositions in ODIs. His 63 sixes against Sri Lanka are the highest by a batsman against any opposition. Sanath Jayasuriya, with 53 sixes against Pakistan, is the only other batsman in ODIs with fifty or more sixes against an opposition.
• Hafeez made an all-round contribution in Pakistan’s win in this match. Apart from scoring 75 runs, he took two wickets and also held two catches. This was just the sixth instance of a Pakistan player hitting fifty-plus runs, taking two or more wickets and effecting two or more fielding dismissals in ODIs. The last such instance was by Shoaib Malik against Zimbabwe in Faisalabad in 2008.
• Hafeez and Shoaib Maqsood added 87 runs for the fifth wicket for Pakistan after they had lost three quick wickets to slump to 117 for 4. This partnership equalled the seventh-highest for Pakistan for the fifth wicket in successful chases against Test nations. Including this one, Pakistan’s last-four partnerships of 87 or more runs for the fifth wicket in a successful chase against a Test nation have come against India. The last such partnership for Pakistan was between Misbah-ul-Haq and Younis Khan in Mohali in 2007.
• Ravindra Jadeja’s half-century in this match was his ninth in ODIs and his first in four innings against Pakistan. This was Jadeja’s 100th ODI. He has scored 1541 at 33.50 from 68 innings and has taken 116 wickets at 33.44. His fifty in this match was only the eighth by an India No. 7 against Pakistan in ODIs.
• Ambati Rayudu hit his second ODI fifty in this match and his first in eight innings. Rayudu has scored 243 runs at 40.50 in eight innings.
• Pakistan’s openers, helped by some ordinary bowling by India’s fast bowlers, added 71 runs before Sharjeel Khan was bowled by R Ashwin. Their openers haven’t had a century partnership in 37 innings. The last time Pakistan’s openers added 100 or more runs was against India in Kolkata in January 2013. Since then, in 37 innings, the openers have averaged 26.44 runs per partnership and have added fifty or more runs eight times.
• Kohli scored only five runs before he was caught behind off Umar Gul. In his last Asia Cup match against Pakistan Kohli had scored 183 runs off 148 balls to chase down a target of 330. Excluding that match, from eight innings, Kohli has managed to score just 83 runs at 11.86 against Pakistan in ODIs.