Revisiting the 2005 Ashes with those who lived through those thrilling moments

Phil Walker10-Jul-2013Eighteen years. Eighteen years we’d waited. An inferiority complex wrapped in a late-order collapse. Rain, warm beer, crap cricket teams. All our national jokes. It’s the way you tell ’em, and these gags had long run out of gas.But hold on. Things had been changing. Under Michael Vaughan’s suave captaincy, England had just turned up a series victory in South Africa. It was early 2005, and the win had to date been their grandest achievement, eclipsing even their exploits in winning all seven home Tests in 2004.It was June 2005. Australia’s cricket team were here again. Perhaps this time they wouldn’t use the place as their personal playground.

“We were in a great place at the time; we’d gone through the previous summer unbeaten. We’d only lost one in our last 15. When you’re on a roll, it’s very difficult to get knocked out of that, even if you’re up against a great Australian side. ”

To vanquish the Australia of Warne, Ponting and McGrath, England would need their stars to shine. But they would need something else, something other. Implausibly, they were about to find it: ready-made, skunk-haired, utterly at odds, at first glance more inmate than team-mate. He’d just hit three ODI hundreds in South Africa against the land of his birth. It was figured he could play. We hadn’t seen the like. Then at Bristol, in the first pre-Ashes ODI, Kevin Pietersen absolutely nailed it.

“Like so many others, I was converted by Botham in 1981. It left me with a taste for hero-worship, and a capacity for believing that an unexpected England victory might always be round the corner. On June 19, 2005, my brother and I were walking Offa’s Dyke. As we came into Hay, we said to each other, ‘Wouldn’t it be brilliant if we turned the corner, there was a pub showing the match at Bristol, and England somehow won?’ We turned a corner, there was indeed a pub showing the cricket, and England, thanks to an awesome 91 off 65 balls by Kevin Pietersen, posted an odds-upsetting victory. We both felt as deliriously happy that afternoon as we have ever felt watching cricket, sharing in the other’s joy, and in our sudden hope for the forthcoming Ashes series – which we could sense emerging like a crumpled-winged butterfly from an 18-year cocoon. After years of vainly trying to fill a Botham-shaped hole, we finally – thanks to KP – had our new Ashes hero.”

That ODI series would be drawn, a leg bye off Ashley Giles’ left pad tying the finale at Lord’s. Three weeks later they would meet there again.First Test
Lord’s, July 21-24

“It was an unbelievable atmosphere walking through the Long Room that first morning. Normally you’d have a couple of people sitting in the corner thinking, ‘Oh no, they’ve picked him again!’ This time it was standing room only. We knew then that this was different. We set the marker down that morning and bowled them out cheaply. Then Glenn McGrath brought us down to earth! But at the end of that first day you just knew – this was going to be an absolute humdinger.”

A marker indeed. That morning Harmison was unmanageable. He hit Langer on the elbow, Hayden on the helmet, and Ponting so hard in the face that his helmet grille ricocheted into his cheekbone and sent him to hospital for corrective work (though only after play had finished).Australia were all out for 190 and England were padding up before tea. It was McGrath’s turn now. When he was finally hauled off England were 48 for 5 and GD McGrath’s figures read 13-5-21-5.Despite the sapping disappointment, England’s supporters had seen something. Twenty wickets for a start. And something else, glistening among the debris: a rough, diamante-encrusted natural on debut. As McGrath cut through the top order, Pietersen had gotten massively forward, found ages for his shots, and looked immediately England’s best equipped batsman. On the second morning he’d also launched McGrath into the Lord’s Pavilion. Normal people just didn’t do that kind of thing. Australia won by 239 runs

Amid the chaos Flintoff locates Lee, on his haunches away from the hub, and offers him a word

Second Test
Edgbaston, August 4-7What happened next will never be forgotten. After a match like this the clichés would arrive faster than a gloved 90mph bumper. It had more untouchable moments – 400 in a day, the great Harmison slower ball, Warne to Strauss, Vaughan’s run-out of Martyn, the whole last morning – than any other Test in history. Not forgetting a touch of high farce, when McGrath stood on a ball in the pre-match warm-up and was ruled out with a twisted ankle.After scores of 0 and 3 at Lord’s, Andrew Flintoff had taken himself away for a few days with the family. He’d been tense at Lord’s, overwrought. Thereon he’d resolved to play naturally. His captain, Michael Vaughan, saw a different man turn up at Birmingham.

“Captaining Fred, I wanted him to be right for that moment on the pitch. I wanted him to arrive on the Thursday feeling good. I wanted him feeling like he had someone who was supporting him, someone who was going to allow him to play with freedom, attack the opposition and just enjoy his cricket. You didn’t need him to be thinking too much, you just needed him to deliver, so lob him the ball get a wicket or two. Tell him which length, he’d do it. Bowl to the field, he’d do it. Go out to bat and whack it, he’d do it. He got the crowd going. There’s not many players who could get the crowd going like he could and that’s what happened at Edgbaston.”

Flintoff began by playing with dash and daring as England smashed 407 on the first day. Other runs were plundered by Trescothick, Strauss and Pietersen, but Fred’s audacity stole it.

“It was a nice pitch to play on. I hit five sixes that day. Lee bowled a couple short and I pulled him twice for six – blind at one of them, didn’t even know where it was. I used to have a technique of getting deep in my crease and to someone like Lee it works well because it puts you directly into his trajectory. Sometimes, the biggest sixes, you’re not really trying.”

On day two, the summer’s other poster boy, The Blond, watched his side’s top order bat complacently, and caught the mood with a shocking heave himself. Australia finished 100 behind.England were 25 for 0 when Warne took the ball. Going round the wicket to Strauss, he rags a looping, revolving bomb so far outside Strauss’ off stump that he goes to leave it, but it grips and rips past his leg on the side, going behind his body and crashing into his leg stump. The Ball Of This Century.

“The way we attacked them on that first day was brilliant, and we’d had to because of that man Warne. The more press coverage, the more electric the atmosphere, and the increasing profile of the series all meant that one man was going to get better. That was Warne. He ended up getting 40 wickets, but he got them at over three an over. We didn’t nullify him, but we did compete.”

Warne galvanised the baggies, and as day three took its absurd shape – let’s call it Mad Saturday – Edgbaston loyalists were coming to terms with an England collapse of vintage proportions. At least Fred was still there.His second knock showed his class. England were 131 for 9 with a shaky lead of 230 when he was joined by Simon Jones. The width of Flintoff’s bat stood between Aussie victory and the sad tragicomic capitulation of English cricket. No pressure then.When Warne finally got him for 73, Flintoff had hit four more sixes, making it an Ashes record nine in the match. His breathtaking straight six off Lee went fizzing over the BBC’s commentary box. The next highest score in the innings was 21. Fred was starting to dictate the course of the match, to bend it to his will, as only the greats can.To the evening session. Chasing 282, Australia had cruised to 47 for no loss off 12 overs when Flintoff was summoned. “I’d just got 70-odd and I was asking Vaughany every minute to get me on to bowl. I was flying and I just kept saying, ‘Get me involved, get me involved…’ I just felt I could get them out.”England went to work. As the close approached Australia were seven down, 107 shy. Only Clarke remained, magnificent in the murk.

“I’d thrown everything at him. Every question I had asked of Michael Clarke, he had answered them. I thought I should try something different.”

“It turned the game. Harmy, he’s got this slower ball and he keeps wheeling it out, you can see it from slip when he’s going to bowl it. And I thought, ‘Here we go’. Because he comes up and his fingers are split on the ball. ‘Slower ball!’ It’s the best one he’s ever bowled, it was perfect, it’s even faded in to bowl him. It was amazing, amazing.”

The nerve-wracking finish at Edgbaston•Getty ImagesSunday, August 7, 2005. The packed house settled back to watch the procession. How quickly the mood would change. Through Warne and Lee, warriors both, pilfered runs were nabbed – stolen singles, spliced boundaries, thick edges – until, with 62 needed and the crowd hushed, Warne bizarrely back-heeled his stumps. Last man Kasprowicz joined Lee, who wasn’t going anywhere.

“Everything seemed to be going against us, especially when Simon Jones dropped Kasprowicz. And Lee was unbelievable that day – every part of his body got hit but he still had the courage to stay there and try and see them home.”

Suddenly, imperceptibly, when Lee edged one past leg stump Australia were one hit away. Harmison ran in again. Short one. Kasprowicz, who’s looked immovable, ducks underneath it but can’t drop his hand in time, the ball kisses the glove (detached from the bat handle!) like a slobbering drunk and loops to Geraint Jones, who pouches it inches from the turf. Cue pandemonium.

“The old press box at Edgbaston was a tin-pot affair, small and sweaty. It could mean a good atmosphere, though. In many instances, the old canard about journalistic impartiality was cast aside when Harmison won that lucky caught-behind shout against Kasprowicz. And the Aussies working to impossibly tight deadlines for the other side of the world could finally press send on one of the three versions they’d been preparing. The whole thing was pure electricity.” Wisden Almanack

Amid the chaos Flintoff (seven wickets; 139 runs; immortality) locates Lee, on his haunches away from the hub, and offers him a word. It would remain between the two of them, and yet heard around the world. A thick edge from oblivion, but now England were flying. England won by two runs Over…

BALL 1: Flintoff to Langer NO RUN
My first ball was so important. The crowd were up, and the first ball had to be on the money. I knew it was gonna be half-quick – I don’t do warm-ups. I’m picturing the ball I’m gonna bowl. In my head he’s nicking it to slip. I came in round the wicket and it just offered to go away on the reverse. It was pretty much where I wanted to bowl it; I just thought he’d nick it!
BALL 2: Flintoff to Langer OUT! JL Langer b Flintoff 28
This one was meant to be the same as the first, to nip away and take the edge. It held its line and smashed off his elbow onto the stumps. I had a bad shoulder, but I was feeling nothing at this point. Just adrenaline.
BALL 3: Flintoff to Ponting NO RUN
It had just started reversing. I wanted him lbw first ball. The thing with Ponting early doors was he’d get across his stumps and his head would go across, but it was also a strength of his. This one was just a touch too high, but it was coming in beautifully now.
BALL 4: Flintoff to Ponting NO RUN
Same again, nipping back into him, it’s really reversing now. It’s the 13th over and it’s going already.
BALL 5: Flintoff to Ponting NO RUN
Now I’m thinking I’m gonna get him. He’s looking to hit it and you can see from the previous two that his feet are nowhere. It hits him on the pad and it’s not out because he’s got outside the line, but he’s feeling for it, he’s feeling.
BALL 6: Flintoff to Ponting NO RUN (no ball)
This is the first one where I turn the ball around in my hand to get it going away from him. It goes a little bit, but from wide and he’s able to leave it alone.
BALL 7: Flintoff to Ponting OUT! RT Ponting c †GO Jones b Flintoff 0
As I run up, all I’ve got in my head is a picture of what that ball is gonna look like, all the way – I reckon when I was bowling well I could just about do it with my eyes closed. It was reversing both ways by now and I was looking to take it away from him. It pitched and left him and that was that. I was flying…

Third Test
Old Trafford, August 11-15Michael Vaughan had told us he was in good form with the bat. His critics pointed to the three times in four knocks that he’d lost his off stump as evidence that he wasn’t. Glenn McGrath had already trimmed him up at Lord’s, and now Pidge was back, hobbling through a match that had clearly come too early for his busted ankle. On the first day the two would square up again. After a nip-and-tuck start and with Vaughan on 41, McGrath got one to nip back and clatter into his poles for the fourth time in the series. But wait…

“What a moment. McGrath bowled Vaughany, and then for it to be given a no ball, that was brilliant, wasn’t it? McGrath came back for that Test match – he shouldn’t have played. It was more through desperation. And Vaughany went on to get a great hundred and set it up for the rest of us…”

Vaughan’s 166 laid the foundation for his bowlers to extract sufficient reverse swing from a scuffed surface, as Simon Jones left Australia scrabbling to avoid the follow-on. Only Warne’s eye for a ball prevented his team being asked to have another go for the first time in two decades.With a chunky lead already, England took the game away from Australia chiefly through Strauss’ first Ashes hundred (there would be more). It left Australia 10 overs and a full day to bat out the draw.On that final Monday the gates at Old Trafford had to be closed at 8:30am. Queues snaked around the ground, thousands deep. Those turned away trudged back home to join the 7.7 million people watching on TV.

“Look, it’s one of the all-time great series that’s ever been played. I remember being here and seeing what sort of impact it had on the whole country. I remember driving to the ground at Manchester for the last day of that game, when we had to bat out the day to save the Test match, and the streets were lined for kilometres with people around the ground who weren’t able to get in. They’re memories of things you don’t see every day.”

“My greatest Ashes memory is seeing 20,000 people locked out of Old Trafford. I thought there was a bomb scare when I arrived at Old Trafford on that day. I arrived at 9.30, went on the balcony and the ground was full. As I said to the boys, ‘This is special’. We went out of the dressing room just to warm up and the whole ground lifted and stood to their feet to cheer us.

It was a day of tough cricket, and England were relentless. When in late afternoon Clarke fell to a booming inswinger from Jones and Gillespie went for a duck, Australia were seven down. Warne joined Ponting and was able to hang around for an hour, while Ponting, with his Ashes scars and his raging spirit, would not budge.His 156 – the only chanceless hundred of the series – was a masterclass of its kind, and when he was finally strangled down the leg side, he could barely summon the strength to drag himself off. McGrath and Lee were left with four overs to survive.But England were spent. Back-to-back Tests had exhausted them. Those final six balls from Harmison were easily negotiated, and for Lee, indomitable at Edgbaston, this was sweet redemption.In the chaotic mix of emotions that met the finale, Michael Vaughan gathered up his players. Amongst them was Stephen Peters, a sub fielder for most of that last afternoon.

“Vaughan called everyone in to a huddle on the pitch and he said to everyone – I’ll never forget it – he said, ‘Look at that balcony over there celebrating a draw. They’d never have done that in the past. We go to Trent Bridge and we’ll turn them over there.’ From that moment on I knew we were winning that series. You could see the belief in the team. It was great to be part of it, if only very briefly.”

Match drawnFourth Test
Trent Bridge, August 25-28Vaughan was right. England would dominate Nottingham, right up until the death, when Warne – who’d asked for 170 to defend and got 128 – nearly ripped up the formbook.The Australian newspapers react to the Ashes defeat•Getty ImagesAndrew Flintoff made his first Ashes hundred here, and when he quietly raised his bat to the terraces – who needs fanfares when you can hit balls into the road – it seemed to announce the arrival of a great cricketer. The innings was relatively un-Fred-like, his 132-baller containing just the one six. His time at the crease with Geraint Jones, who arrived at 241 for 5 and saw Fred depart 177 runs later, was perhaps the pivotal partnership of the series.

“Freddie and I had an incredible connection when we were batting. We were good mates and I think the way we played connected well. Freddie was very strong driving down the ground. You knew about it when he hit it back at you! Whereas I was more square of the wicket, cuts and pulls. We complemented each other and that probably allowed us to get a few more balls in areas we liked. When we got into it we were pretty fluent.”

Australia may have got away with it at Manchester but Nottingham was not so forgiving. Jones claimed another five-fer, and this time the follow-on was enforced.Second time around Australia were going well at 155 for 2 when Martyn dropped one into the covers and called Ponting through for the single. It was a tight one, the cover fieldsman swooped and Ponting was caught short.Emerging from the mob of Englishmen and hoisted skywards was a Durham reserve called Gary Pratt, sub fielder extraordinaire and the unlikeliest hero of the summer, not that Punter thought so, labelling England’s regular use of a sub an “absolute disgrace” and shouting his mouth off at the England dressing room as he stomped back to the pavilion. Duncan Fletcher, England’s inscrutable coach, was moved to remark: “You want to take a run to a cover fielder and get run out, whose fault is that?” England required just 129 to win. No gimme.

“I was batting with Kevin, under control and Lee came on and just did us for pace. My bat was here and off stump was cartwheeling back. In hindsight and through the clarity of not being in the position I was in then, we were going to win but we just got a bit carried away. We were seven down. We only needed 10 runs, and then Hoggy went out there and played a blinder. He hit that cover drive off a full toss! And then Giles just turned one to win. I couldn’t watch, I think I was punching Straussy, just to vent something… ”

“I’ve worked professionally as a sports journalist for 14 years. Only once have I been unable to read my notes afterwards because my hand had been shaking so much: the Trent Bridge Test. It was the only Test I covered that summer and even then on the Saturday I had to report on West Brom v Birmingham. On that sunny Sunday evening, it seemed I was witnessing yet another England capitulation as Warne transformed the unspoken niggle of ‘They could mess it up, I suppose’ into the full-blown panic of ‘Not a-f***ing-gain’. But then came the proof that this was a different England, a side with backbone and spirit, that did have the guts to edge over the line. When Giles squeezed that two I was almost weeping with relief. I’ve never dared look up the copy I filed.”Blizzard

England won by three wicketsFifth Test
The Oval, September 8-12And so, after 24 days of the greatest battle in sport, it all came down to the last afternoon of the last day of the last Test. Four acts of riotous drama fell to this. England needed to bat out the final day and the Ashes would be theirs. Australia had to take ten wickets by late afternoon and knock off the deficit. It was that simple.Fred on the night to end all nights…

“Look at that! It’s like a beer garden at Wetherspoons! I’m flagging there. Unbelievable night-day. Bizarrely I remember most of it. We stayed at the ground until about 11, just drinking in the dressing room with the Aussies. It was one of those nights where you didn’t want it to end. I remember eight o’clock in the morning there was people signing off one-by-one and I was having a gin and tonic with Mike Gatting. Talking to Gatt over breakfast, a beautiful sight. And then Phil Neale came down in his finery and said ‘Go on, go get ready, we’re going on this bus’. So I went to my room and knocked on the door and my missus said, ‘Where’ve you been?’ ‘Just been downstairs all night’. So she said, ‘Right come on’ and got me in the bath, bathed me and dressed me and put me on a bus. It was like school! So we got on the bus and we did the parade and they gave us champagne on the bus which was a nice touch. We went to 10 Downing Street, and the Trafalgar Square thing was amazing. People were hanging out of windows and even now people say ‘I was there for that’. Then at Lord’s we started to get a bit tired. Sat down, and then I started nodding off. Fell asleep on the bus on the way back to the hotel. That’s when Harmy wrote on me – permanent marker. We got off the bus and Harmy was really concerned about me and I said ‘What’s wrong?’ He put his jacket over my head like I was Michael Jackson and he shepherded me in and I got back to my hotel room. He’s come up with me and he’s going, ‘I’m sorry, Rachael, I’m sorry’. I’ve looked in the bathroom and gone, ‘What’s that? There’s something on the mirror!’ Looked across my head and it said Cant – except without the ‘A’. It was in the

The day begins edgily. Strauss had already been Warned the day before, and after a skittish start Vaughan nicks off. With Ian Bell following next ball, Kevin Pietersen rocks up with the score 67 for 3.The hat-trick ball from McGrath is a brute that KP’s gloves dodge by the width of a diamond bracelet. Not out. Three overs later, Lee bowls Pietersen a full one that he edges to first slip where Warne, who hasn’t dropped a catch all summer, grasses a simple chance.At the Vauxhall End Warne has hunkered down for the day. To his first ball after the drop, Pietersen hits Warne for six. Four balls later, same over, he does it again, same place over mid wicket. This is outrageous behaviour.But for all his audacity England are in strife at lunch. KP is still there on 35, somehow surviving a fearful pre-lunch assault from Lee, but England are five down and only 133 ahead.The game is so finely balanced that one false move tips it inexorably the other way. So this is what happens: Lee bowls three overs in his post-lunch spell, of which Pietersen faces 13 balls. Those balls are dealt with thus: 2, 2, 0, 6, 1, 0, 2, 6, 4, 4, 0, 4, 4.In six overs since lunch KP moves from 35 to 76. One of those fours is executed by flat-batting a rising thunderbolt from outside off stump straight past the scarpering umpire at waist height. It should be defended. It really should be blocked. Yet it’s returned faster than it had arrived, which was, incidentally, 96.7mph.

“It was the perfect, bizarre, unconventional innings for that stage of the game. Watching it, I felt entertained, but I was also thinking, ‘What you doing?’ Going for a draw, pulling them past the umpire! Sometimes when the ball gets faster your bat gets faster and everything gets faster. You start hitting, you just go for everything, out of fear, out of adrenaline. I think that’s what was happening with Kevin that day. He was unbelievable. He started to get going and once he’d started he couldn’t reel it in. I was counting it down, but you just didn’t know what was happening…”

It’s an unhinged masterpiece. His hundred comes up in 124 balls, and at tea England are almost there, seven down and 227 ahead.It’s almost party time. When Pietersen launches his fifth and sixth maximums, the ground takes on a carnival feel. The players relax, Pietersen hits another – make that seven – and gets out, Giles plods a happy fifty and the crowd chant “We wish you were English” to Warne, who doffs his floppy white to the four corners of London town. It’s all rather surreal.Australia face four balls, take the light, the umpires dither and the crowd sings on oblivious – after two months of heart-wrenching drama the bathos works just fine. Finally. At around 6:30pm on September 12, 2005, Michael Vaughan walks gingerly over to that funny little urn, smiles, and screams.Fred, meanwhile, went off to find a beer and cigar… Match drawn
England win the series 2-1

How Pietersen’s unique batting style makes him one of the most difficult batsmen to bowl to

Aakash Chopra04-Sep-2013If a cricket aficionado were to pay to watch a contemporary player bat, Kevin Pietersen would likely be at the top of his wishlist.Pietersen might have looked vulnerable against some left-arm spinners in the past, but when he gets going he’s simply unstoppable. In an age when not many batsmen can instil fear in a bowler’s mind, Pietersen’s stocks are rising by the day.In the second innings of the Oval Test, Pietersen was, once again, in his element and dominated the Australian attack. He not only scored runs but also established his supremacy in a manner that made the bowlers look helpless.His charge down the track accentuates his big frame; his audacity in moving around the crease makes bowlers revise their plans in the middle of their run-up; and then he tops it with an unparalleled ability to find holes in the field.His style makes him one of the most difficult batsmen to bowl at. He’s quick to use his feet to the spinners, to get to the pitch of the ball, and to use his height to get on top of the bounce when the fast bowlers dig it in short. And he’s never shy of playing unorthodox shots or taking the aerial route.Let’s start with his slightly unusual stance, where his feet are wider apart than for most modern-day batsmen. While this stance provides more stability, there is the danger of sacrificing mobility, for most players, but Pietersen’s brilliance lies in how he has found a way around it – his forward-press is quite predominant, to the extent that he often walks towards the bowler, but he is seldom hurried by quick short-pitched stuff. Most bowlers dig it in short when they see a batsman charge towards them, but Pietersen seems to have all the time in the world even when the distance between him and the bowler reduces.While some of it has to do with his natural ability to pick the line and length a shade earlier than the rest, a lot of it is about him putting in the hours to practise playing everything on the front front, even against the quickest bowlers. Once he has lunged forward, he doesn’t try to get onto the back foot, even if the bowler has pitched it short, and that ensures he doesn’t get into odd positions. That’s when his height comes to his rescue too, for he manages to stay on top of the bounce on most occasions in spite of having a long front-foot stride.His style of playing attacking shots – off the front foot to fast bowlers – helps him hit balls in areas that have been left unprotected. For instance, in an earlier Ashes match, Mitchell Starc had a midwicket and a square leg for the whip off the front foot – if he bowled fuller – and off the back foot if he went a little short. But Pietersen played a short ball off the front foot a lot earlier than he would have played it off the back foot, and managed to hit it between the two fielders. Placing the ball is all about the point of impact, and if you can change it effectively, you will hit the gaps often: that’s exactly what Pietersen does on either side of the pitch.

Pietersen has natural ability to pick the line and length a shade earlier than the rest, but a lot of it is about him putting in the hours to practise playing everything on the front front, even against the quickest bowlers

He also walks across the stumps, almost taunting the bowlers to bowl straight and hit the pads. Little do the bowlers who walk into his trap know that he seldom misses the ball. And even when he does, he has come so far across that the impact is invariably outside off stump. Here too, his regulation shots go into the gap and not to the fielders. For example, if the ball is full and slightly outside off, most batsmen would hit an off-drive towards mid-off but Pietersen will probably walk across and play an on-drive. And since his on-drive is played from outside off, it goes between the bowler and mid-on.While Pietersen is always lunging forward to fast bowlers, he’s a completely different package against spinners. He latches on to every opportunity to dance down the track, at times even when the ball isn’t flighted, for he wants to make his intentions known. His stepping out, thanks to his height, is a little different from that of others – he covers more ground than most. As a result, he not only forces the bowler to radically cut down on flight but also finds gaps because he is playing so far down the pitch. The moment the bowler errs and pitches short, expecting the batsman to step out, Pietersen goes deep in the crease to hit powerful shots off the back foot.He is one of those batsmen who encourages a lot of kids to pick up the bat and learn the craft, but they would be wiser if they didn’t try to emulate him, for his brand of cricket comes with a disclaimer “Try it at your own peril.”

Trent Bridge marks the start of an epic Ashes run of ten Tests and it is the result of the second series, which finishes in Sydney, which may give a more accurate assessment of where Australia are

Daniel Brettig at Trent Bridge09-Jul-2013Imagine a Champions League tie in which the result of the first leg has no bearing on the second. A Tour de France which at the halfway point sends every participant back to level pegging. Or a boxing match where all points up to round five are deducted from the final ledger. All these fanciful-sounding scenarios approximate roughly to what Australia and England are about to go through. Ten Test matches spread across two series, five in the UK, five in Australia. Regardless of what happens in the first five, it will be the winners of the second quintet who keep the urn or its replica.The unusual nature of the contest about to begin at Trent Bridge is not without precedent. It was common back in the days when Australia contested England and few others, and last took place as recently as the mid-1970s. But the evolution of the cricket calendar into a veritable snakes and ladders board of formats, nations and brief Test series makes this sequence highly unique, and likely to take a high toll on its participants.For England, the dual series shape as a potentially crowning moment for many of their players, from the captain Alastair Cook and the batsman Kevin Pietersen to their seasoned bowling spearheads Jimmy Anderson and Graeme Swann. Save for Cook, who appears likely to still be batting for England by the time the 2020 Olympics are held in Istanbul, Madrid or Tokyo, the others may be tempted by the thought of leaving on top of successive Ashes victories.Among Australia’s ranks, there will be similar ambitions for a handful of players, including Brad Haddin, Ryan Harris and even the captain Michael Clarke. Returning the urn, as Cricket Australia’s preferred slogan for the Ashes Tests intones, is the kind of parting gift many players have desired for their careers, not least Justin Langer, Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne when they heralded the start of Australia’s decline by demobbing en masse in 2007.But it is also impossible to ignore the fact that a confrontation fought over 10 Tests, eight of them scheduled in the back-to-back style now favoured by administrators but loathed by anyone who either plays in them or has to monitor the physical wellbeing of those who do, will result in more than a few casualties. The majority of these are likely to be among the fast bowlers, a breed undervalued next to their batting counterparts in part because of the inherent cost of what they do.England and Australia have both worked assiduously in recent years to build crops of fast bowlers capable of weathering harsh elements and schedules. It is now a matter of course for Australia to have five fast bowlers on call at any given Test match, and in the case of this tour the inclusion of James Faulkner has provided Darren Lehmann and his fellow selectors with six. It is in terms of such depth that the Australians have their best chance of outlasting England, probably over five matches but almost certainly over 10.Apart from James Pattinson, Mitchell Starc, Peter Siddle, Ryan Harris, Jackson Bird and Faulkner, the Australian fast bowling stable can also boast of Mitchell Johnson, Ben Hilfenhaus, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Josh Hazlewood, Chadd Sayers, Luke Butterworth and that 20-year-old long-term project Pat Cummins. Even the likes of Luke Feldman, sometime Test player Trent Copeland and the South Australian Gary Putland possess quality not terribly far removed from international standard.

The longer view suggests that provided Australian noses are not too bloodied by the encounter on foreign shores, they may be better equipped to stay strong throughout the second instalment of the series down under

By comparison, England’s pace bowling resources are a little more modest, and the reliance on Anderson in particular to maintain his fitness is heavy. For this reason, the outlook for Cook’s team is best in the short-term. A series at home during what shapes as an English summer of generous sunshine and newspaper headlines about “scorching” 29C days will more than likely result in a third consecutive panoramic image of the urn being lifted by England while The Oval rejoices. But the longer view suggests that provided Australian noses are not too bloodied by the encounter on foreign shores, they may be better equipped to stay strong throughout the second instalment of the series down under.Certainly this is the sort of pragmatic view that has emanated every so often from Cricket Australia’s camp, though never in terms so blunt as to publicly say “put on a good show in England and we’ll get them on the home leg”. It was somewhat instructive to witness Clarke, Starc, Shane Watson and others playing cricket on a barge next to the Tower Bridge in London after the Champions Trophy, not to promote this Ashes series but to sell tickets for the next one. CA’s hope is for a return to lasting supremacy over England, and should this take two series to set in motion rather than one, it will still have been worth the planning.In this there are parallels less with 1989, when a building Australian team thrashed England not in contradiction of their own expectations but those of a UK press that had largely ignored the recuperation of the Antipodean game under Allan Border and Bob Simpson since 1987, but 1972. On that occasion a young Australian side led by a dynamic leader in Ian Chappell arrived in England without much serious expectation of defeating what was then acknowledged as the best team in the world.Spearheaded by a battery of pace bowlers that included not only Dennis Lillee but also Bob Massie, David Colley and Jeff Hammond, Chappell’s side surprised Ray Illingworth’s men by fighting back twice from a deficit to square the series 2-2. They had not won the Ashes, but had tilted the balance. Two years later, their stocks augmented by Max Walker and Jeff Thomson, Australia would carry that momentum to victory at home.Forty years on, Australia have again taken a young side stocked with fast bowlers to face a far more accomplished England. They may not win the Ashes immediately, but they can certainly set themselves up for a grand finish – the SCG next January cast as their Wembley, Champs Elysees, or Madison Square Garden.

Despite measures put in place, changes still need to be made to the cricket culture, where domestic players are unwilling to come forward since they depend on cricket to put food on the table

Mohammad Isam14-Aug-2013Till January 2013, knowledge and awareness of anti-corruption measures in Bangladesh cricket had been limited to international cricketers. The domestic cricketers’ first educational programme on this aspect came after BCB enforced its anti-corruption code from January 15, 2013, four days ahead of the Bangladesh Premier League. It is easy to deduce that most professional cricketers in Bangladesh were in the dark before 112 of them took the class. But given the heavy suspicion of corruption over decades, measures should have been taken long ago.The BCB’s own ACSU wouldn’t have been put in place had it not been for the ICC to direct all cricket boards to have its own ACSU and anti-doping codes last year. The BCB had not instructed players in the past regarding corruption in the game, although anti-corruption education had its place in the coaching documents in the country’s first High Performance (HP) unit almost a decade ago. But Bangladesh cricket was desperate to find talented players and make international players fit for that level at the time, and these subjects fell by the wayside.Richard McInnes, head of Bangladesh’s National Cricket Academy, who was in charge of the HP programme in 2003, continues to put in the core values in the country’s future cricketers just as he had done a decade ago.”We have certain values and expected standards of behaviour here,” McInnes told ESPNcricinfo in June. “We talk to the players about such values, and try to reinforce all the time. They’re based around honesty, integrity, good work ethic, being responsible and cooperating with other people. It is a whole range of things, which I suppose are socially acceptable ways to operate in a group environment.”We had these same things [material on anti-corruption] in 2004 when I was here. No one picked up on it, no one really took notice. Everyone focused on the training, but we had values and systems in place. We talked about the same things back then. Of course, corruption [back then] wasn’t as prevalent or getting as much media coverage.”There is just some difference between McInnes’ material at the HP programme and the education programme, particularly as the classes held before the BPL focused on a wide range of issues including how approaches are made by spot-fixers and what to do when bookies come calling. Back then, it was still a theoretical approach.It would be difficult to show evidence of corruption in Bangladesh cricket, particularly in the Dhaka leagues. But almost every season there are newspaper reports on suspicious matches, and not many of these stories have been challenged by those accused. But not a single match has been investigated by the BCB, chiefly because of the lack of evidence. The country’s most popular domestic cricket competition is the Dhaka Premier Divisional Cricket League, but there too has been no effort to put cameras on the field.

The Dhaka University cricket ground has been a hotbed for betting gangs for years. They sit throughout the lower league matches and quite openly offer players (mostly those fielding near the boundary) monetary benefits. It is a classic case of spread-betting, which umpires and cricket officials watch helplessly as the match progresses

Corruption has been difficult to weed out even when it has been practiced openly. The Dhaka University cricket ground has been a hotbed for betting gangs for years. They sit throughout the lower league matches and quite openly offer players (mostly those fielding near the boundary) monetary benefits. It is a classic case of spread-betting, which umpires and cricket officials watch helplessly as the match progresses.While the BCB doesn’t own this ground, it takes control of it during the cricket season and has often deployed security during crucial games. But since there hasn’t been any anti-corruption measure till last season, there was no effort to usher out the bettors from the ground situated in central Dhaka.There has never been a reported case of players being influenced by these gangs, but whether these incidents or those that were investigated in the second edition of the BPL have had an impact, the focus has been on the players. Mushfiqur Rahim has called the Mohammad Ashraful confession as a “loss of pride” for all Bangladesh players while other top-officials within the BCB have asked players to make wise choices in the future.”It comes down to individual’s choices,” said BCB’s acting CEO Nizamuddin Ahmed in June. “We have educated 112 players ahead of this season’s BPL. Someone like Mohammad Ashraful has sat through numerous awareness programmes by the ACSU ahead of various tours and series.”This was echoed by McInnes, someone who has seen more of Bangladeshi cricketers than any other foreign coach. “At the end of the day though, each individual makes their own choice. We [at the Academy] also talk about choices a lot. In every situation you have a choice, whether positive or negative which can help or hinder your career. We talk about simple things like what food they eat,” said McInnes.He also pointed out that Bangladesh has a unique cricketing structure where the professional system runs all the way down to the third rung and elaborated on the pressures of playing in such a system, where cricket is the be all and end all for a large number of players.”One of the unique things in Bangladesh is that a lot of people make a living by playing cricket. In Australia, for example, unless you are in the top 120 players in the country, you pay to play cricket. Out of the 120, some of them don’t make very much.”Maybe that’s part of the problem. So many people rely on cricket to put food on the table, whereas everyone in Australia knows they have to get a job or go to university,” he said.The payment is one-time, on a per season basis, and players are often underpaid because clubs are reluctant to give money when the team or the player does badly during the course of a season. The lack of a professional structure hinders players’ awareness of a lot of problems, particularly because he is always focused on getting that yearly income. The players are held hostage by the clubs through this unscrupulous scheme, and who is to say that these players would do what clubs ask them to do?It could be the lack of awareness among the cricketers on the ways to report corruption in the game, but when the general mood towards corruption has been to ignore it there is only so much that the players can do.The BCB has set up a hotline, a fax number and email address to report any approaches or related incidents, but it will take some time for the process to be fully understood by the average professional who plays in the various leagues across the country. Young cricketers are unlikely to warm up to the idea, because they wouldn’t want to ruffle any feathers, especially because their future would depend on a particular club.Both at the top and at the root, Bangladesh cricket has to foster major cultural changes, and accept a bit of reality.

There have been fall-outs and controversies along the way, but Kevin Pietersen has been a central part of one of the most successful periods of English cricket

George Dobell in Brisbane19-Nov-20130:00

Pietersen’s fun with Aussie journalists

“A great journey” was how Kevin Pietersen reflected upon his career so far. It seems an apt description for the man who will, all being well, become the tenth England player to earn his 100th Test cap when the first Ashes Test begins in Brisbane on Thursday.For various reasons, Pietersen has not always enjoyed the praise his success as a cricketer warrants. Perhaps, as he suggested, it is the belief of some that England is his adopted country – he is actually a dual-national that dilutes the praise; perhaps it is the perception of him as arrogant or brash; perhaps he is seen as selfish or a mercenary. Maybe, in a nation that was, until recently, starved of sporting success for a long time, Pietersen’s single-minded nature struck a discordant chord.But what few could doubt is that he had played a starring role in one of the finest chapters in the history of English cricket. With Pietersen in the side, England have won the Ashes regularly – something that seemed almost impossible not so long ago – they have won their first global limited-overs trophy – the World T20 in 2010 – they have won a Test series in India and risen, albeit briefly, to the top of the rankings in all three formats of the game.It is no coincidence that Pietersen’s career has coincided with a period of such success. He was the Man of the Tournament in that 2010 success, he was the man who supplied the match-defining century when England won back the Ashes at The Oval in 2005 and, over the years, he has played some of the greatest Test innings of the era; three of them in 2012 alone. Only one England player in history – Alastair Cook – has scored more than his 23 Test centuries and only four have scored more than his 7,887 Tests runs.We ask a great deal of our sporting heroes. We expect them to be lions on the pitch and kittens off it. While Pietersen has never been involved in a serious case of dissent, while no-one denies his work-ethic or professional attitude to fitness and while he has never been involved in some of the off-pitch episodes that blighted the careers of Andrew Flintoff and Sir Ian Botham, he has attracted some disproportionately fierce criticism from the media.Positive signs for Prior

Matt Prior came through another tough training session to further boost his chances of playing in the first Test starting on Thursday.
Prior, who sustained a calf tear less than two weeks ago, suffered no ill effects after his training on Monday and was able to take some outstanding catches during a lengthy session on Tuesday to suggest he has a good chance of being fit to play in Brisbane.

“I call it confidence; you guys call it arrogance because it makes for a better headline,” Pietersen said at the Gabba on Tuesday. “I’ve got to be confident in my ability. Clearly as a South African coming into England I had to really fight some tough battles and I had to be single minded in achieving what I had to try and achieve.”A lot of great sportsman have that little bit of something to them that makes them try to be the best and want to be the best and wake up every single day wanting to improve. It doesn’t get documented how much I train, or how hard I train away from the game where no-one sees what I do.”There have, of course, been some notable bumps in the road. Apart from the inevitable fluctuations in form, there was the clash with Peter Moores which cost both men their jobs and saw Pietersen stripped of the captaincy and there was ‘text-gate,’ which saw Pietersen dropped from the Test side for the only time in his career. If the latter was silly – and probably no more than that – the former was an attempt, albeit a clumsy and possibly ill-judged attempt, to improve the fortunes of the England team. Perhaps, as times passes, neither incident appears quite so Machiavellian as it did at the time. Clumsy, yes; Machiavellian, no.Nor is Pietersen blameless for some of the negative press. There have been times when his relationship with the media has been frosty in the extreme and times – at Nottinghamshire, Hampshire and England – when he appeared ambivalent about his team-mates and team. It is not so long ago that, when asked about the performance of Chris Wood, the Hampshire seamer with whom he had just played a game, he replied “Sorry, which one is Wood?”Kevin Pietersen: ‘Do you ever look at things and think why you’ve done things? We all make mistakes’•Getty ImagesPietersen, in an open, engaging and often lighthearted press conference, admitted he had made mistakes, but suggested that, as he had matured, that he had learned from the experiences and that he was now as happy and settled as he has been at any stage of his career.”We all make mistakes,” he said when asked about the incident involving messages about Andrew Strauss. “Do you ever look at things and think why you’ve done things? We all make mistakes. You learn from the ups. You learn from the downs. I had lunch with Strauss yesterday.”We’re all getting on really well within the team. We’re all winning together, we’ve played a lot of cricket together. These things happen. You have it in all walks of life. You have ups; you have downs. We’re a really good bunch at the moment. We’re going really well. I’m so lucky and so proud to be where I am.”Some credit is due to Andy Flower, Cook and the rest of the England management, too. There were times during the texting incident when it seemed the attitude of the England management was unnecessarily punitive. But, 18 months or so later, Pietersen has been successfully ‘reintegrated’ into the team and, according to all reports, is the model professional on and off the pitch. The help and encouragement he has given younger players on this tour has been admirable.History tends to strip its victims to the bone. Characters become caricatures and lives are summed up by a single incident. So Henry VIII is distilled into the king who beheaded his wives, Churchill is distilled into a cigar-chomping war leader and John Prescott becomes the man who thumped a member of the public. The subtleties and contrasts that make any individual tend to get lost.So how will Pietersen be remembered? Will he, like Tony Grieg or Hansie Cronje, be remembered more for his off-pitch influence, or will he be remembered as England’s finest batsman since Hutton, Hammond and Hobbs?Hopefully it will be his exploits on the pitch that escape time’s filter. Few, very few, players inspire the joy and excitement of Pietersen in full flow and it seems petty to focus on the flaws when the good qualities are so overwhelming. Players should be judged on their performance on the pitch, not on their relationship with the media.The story isn’t over, either. Pietersen’s hunger for the game remains and there are a couple of notable ambitions yet to fulfil. It now seems he will play until 2016 at least.”With this side, we’ve won everything,” Pietersen said. “We’ve won a Twenty20 World Cup, Ashes home and away and we’ve won in India.”The World Cup 2015 is something I’d love to have a go at with England. And I’ve got home and away hundreds against each major nation, apart from South Africa. I think our tour to South Africa is in 2015-16. So if the old man can survive until then, I’d like to get there and I’d like to reach 10,000 Test runs.

Every time I put on an Eng shirt I'm incredibly proud & thankful & I'm so grateful for all ur support & the support of my amazing teammates.

— Kevin Pietersen (@KP24) November 19, 2013

“I know there’s been a lot of people talking about my career and saying that I’m probably going to finish at the end of this series. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but it’s my opinion that I’ll be playing for a while yet. I’m loving playing with this side.”The feelings would now appear to be a mutual. Just as Pietersen cannot succeed without the support of his team-mates, so they have come to accept that they are stronger for his presence. Teams don’t need to be affectionate towards one another; they just need to respect each other.The England team, like the England spectators and the England media, will miss Pietersen when he is gone. He may, at times, be frustrating; he may, at times, be infuriating, and he has, of course, made mistakes. But he is a great batsman and such players come along very, very rarely. To see him express those talents on one of the biggest stages of all – an Ashes series – should be a joy.

A leaner Virender Sehwag came in at No. 4 for Delhi in their Challenger Trophy match against India Blue and produced a typically belligerent innings

Sidharth Monga26-Sep-2013A leaner Virender Sehwag emerged to play for Delhi in the Challenger Trophy, batted at No. 4, and scored only his second fifty since being dropped by India in March this year. The runs he scored – 59 off 38 balls, treating the likes of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, R Vinay Kumar and Piyush Chawla with scant respect – are incidental. Sehwag made two statements: like Zaheer Khan and Yuvraj Singh he has come back fitter, and more importantly he might have finally made his mind up to present himself as a middle-order Test candidate, something he said he wanted to do even when he was at the top of his powers as a Test opener.A big crowd built around noon at Holkar Stadium in Indore with the prospect of watching Virat Kohli and Sehwag batting. There was disappointment in store when Sehwag didn’t come out to open. Further disappointment arrived when Kohli went chasing a wide delivery in the third over, and edged it through.At 7 for 2 out came Sehwag, beginning what looks like a longish audition at No. 4. In attendance was chief selector Sandeep Patil, sporting the mo’ and rat-tail that is the trademark of Sehwag’s replacement as Test opener – Shikhar Dhawan. After this Challenger Trophy, the clean-shaven and follically less-blessed Sehwag has two first-class games against West Indies A and the start of the Ranji season before the selectors pick India’s next Test squad.Albeit against an average attack, Sehwag came out with most of his trademark strokes intact. The first three balls he faced – from Bhuvneshwar – were typical Sehwag: a driven four through cover to widish delivery, a cut to third man for two, and then a flick through midwicket. Then came Vinay for his dose: a cut for four and a loft over extra cover for six.The crowd in Indore was getting post-lunch delicacies, and it made its pleasure known through loud cheering. Sehwag pushed their vocal limits with shot after shot of authority. The run-out of Unmukt Chand didn’t slow him down, but a familiar foe soon turned up: spin. Sehwag decided Chawla and Iresh Saxena were not to fit to bowl to him, and fell to Saxena after taking 19 runs off 11 balls of spin.He was down the pitch, beaten slightly in the flight, but went ahead with the drive, and provided Saxena a return catch. It was an interesting end because he will have to face a lot of spin – at least in India – if he wishes to move down the order.Delhi lost by 18 runs with 13 balls still to go. Will Sehwag be thinking a little more discretion against spin might have won them the game? Will he be thinking a little more discretion against spin might help him in the future if he indeed wants to be an India middle-order batsman?

Also, highest total without extras, most match awards in a series, South African centurions in their final Tests, and century stands in both innings

Steven Lynch07-Jan-2014Brad Haddin scored at least a half-century in each Test of the Ashes series. Has anyone else ever done this? asked Steve Austin from Australia
Rather surprisingly, this turned out to be the 23rd time that a batsman had scored a fifty in every match of a five-Test series, the last occasion being by Shivnarine Chanderpaul for West Indies at home to India in 2002. John Edrich (1970-71 Ashes) and Mark Taylor (1989 Ashes) went one better, scoring at least one half-century in every Test of a six-match series. Where Brad Haddin is unique, though, is in the fact that all his half-centuries came from No. 7 in the batting order. Another wicketkeeper, the West Indian Gerry Alexander, achieved the feat in the famous 1960-61 series in Australia, but one of his fifties came after he was promoted to No. 6. Garry Sobers (West Indies v England in 1966) and Chanderpaul in 2002 also made all their half-centuries from No. 6 or lower in the order. No one has ever achieved the feat twice – and one of the closest to doing so is Haddin, who passed 50 in the first four Tests of the 2010-11 Ashes Down Under, before being out for 6 and 30 in the final game.Australia fielded the same team throughout the just-finished Ashes series. How often has this happened? asked Matt from the UK
This was only the fourth time that a team had survived unchanged throughout an entire five-match Test series. The last time it happened was in 1990-91, when West Indies fielded the same XI throughout their home series against Australia, which they won 2-1. The last time it happened before that was in 1905-06, when South Africa were unchanged throughout their home series against England, while in 1884-85 England fielded the same XI in all five Tests of that winter’s Australian tour. India (at home to Pakistan in 1979-80) and Australia (in England in 1989) both used only 12 players in six-Test series.Services made 135 in a recent Ranji Trophy match without any extras. Is this a record in first-class cricket? And what is the highest total without extras in a Test? asked Vikas Vadgama from India
The answer is that it isn’t even close – remarkably, when Victoria made 647 against Tasmania in Melbourne in 1951-52, there wasn’t a single extra. Next on this list is MCC’s 484 against North Eastern Transvaal in Benoni in 1948-49, in the innings in which Denis Compton made a triple-century in three hours. There have been 26 other totals of 300 or more which did not include a single extra, the most recent being Gujarat’s 301 for 6 declared against Orissa in Ahmedabad in 2009-10. The Test record is 328, by Pakistan against India in Lahore in 1954-55.Mitchell Johnson won three Man-of-the-Match awards in the Ashes series – has anyone done this before? asked Bruce Sivewright from Australia
This has really only been done twice before – by Ian Botham in the 1981 Ashes series, and by Michael Hussey for Australia in Sri Lanka in 2011. Hussey’s performance was particularly remarkable, as there were only three Tests in that series! Shaun Pollock also collected three match awards at home against West Indies in 1998-99, but the third one came when the award in the final Test was given to the whole South African side, who had just completed a 5-0 whitewash. Pollock’s own contribution in that match was three wickets, and innings of 13 and 3 not out. It should be pointed out that Man-of-the-Match awards only became a regular feature of Test matches during the 1980s.Is Jacques Kallis the first South African to score a hundred in his final Test? asked James Laird from Austria
He’s actually the fourth, but the first one who retired immediately after doing it. The first South African to score a century in what turned out to be his final Test was Pieter van der Bijl, who made 125 and 97 in the final Test of the 1938-39 home series against England – the famous Timeless Test in Durban. Because of the Second World War, South Africa did not play another Test until 1947, and van der Bijl was nearly 40 by then: the five matches of that 1938-39 series were his only taste of Test cricket. Then, early in 1970, Barry Richards and Lee Irvine both scored hundreds as South Africa completed a 4-0 whitewash of Australia in Port Elizabeth. Shortly afterwards, South Africa were excommunicated from Test cricket because of their government’s apartheid policies, and did not play another one for 22 years. Richards, one of the greatest batsmen of all, played only those four matches, and said later of his 140 at St George’s Park: “If I’d known that was my last Test they’d never have got me out!”Besides Hutton and Washbrook against Australia at Leeds in 1948, and Logie and Dujon against England at Lord’s in 1988, has any other batting pair been involved in century partnerships in both innings of a Test? asked AK Srivastava from India
There have actually been 37 instances of this, including the two you mention – the most recent one being by Peter Fulton and Kane Williamson for New Zealand against Bangladesh in Chittagong in October 2013. The first occasion was in Sydney back in 1924-25, when Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe shared opening stands of 157 and 110 for England. Len Hutton and Cyril Washbrook actually did it twice, as did AB de Villiers and Jacques Kallis (Kallis also did it with Hashim Amla; he and Younis Khan are the only person to feature three times on this list). For the full list, click here. There is only one instance of a pair sharing two stands of more than 150 in a Test: in the first match of England’s 1938-39 series in South Africa, in Johannesburg, Paul Gibb (who was making his debut) put on 184 with Eddie Paynter in the first innings, and 168 in the second.

The Plays of the day of the ODI between Afghanistan and Sri Lanka

Mohammad Isam and Karthik Krishnaswamy03-Mar-2014 Six and out
Mohammad Shahzad is capable of some spectacular hitting. He once struck an unbeaten 72-ball 100 as Afghanistan chased down 225 in 31 overs against Scotland. He showed a glimpse of that ability when he waltzed down the track to Suranga Lakmal and flayed him for a flat six over cover. Next ball, however, he lost his head. He came down the track again, gave himself room again, and lost his stumps as he slogged across the line.The googly
The carrom ball may be Ajantha Mendis’ most talked-about delivery, but some of his most aesthetically pleasing dismissals over the years have been the result of a far more commonplace sort of deception. The googly, often arriving at a slower pace and following a loopier trajectory than most of his deliveries, caused VVS Laxman particular torment during India’s 2008 tour of Sri Lanka. Against Afghanistan’s lower order, Mendis struck twice with the wrong ‘un. Hamza Hotak was lbw playing down the wrong line, Dawlat Zadran was bowled through the gate.The yes-no-sorry
Kumar Sangakkara was looking in the sort of touch that Bangladeshi fans have been seeing for a long time, particularly this season. He was timing the ball well, and battling at times as the run-rate remained steady. But he got out in the 38th over when he tried to take a single but Angelo Mathews first called for the single and turned him down. The throw from Nabi had to be relayed to the stumps, completed superbly by Dawlat Zadran.The surprise

The Sri Lanka openers Kusal Perera and Lahiru Thirimanne would have expected the two Zadrans, Shapoor and Dawlat, to tear into them early on but they had to tackle Najibullah Zadran instead. It was captain Mohammad Nabi’s ploy to surprise the two left-handers. There was pace from one end, but at the other it was Najibullah, a part-time offspinner who was having his first bowl in international cricket. He did tidily to give only nine runs in three overs.The repeat dose

Shapoor Zadran uprooted Lahiru Thirimanne’s middle-stump in the sixth over. The 133kph delivery slanted into the left-hander and kept the angle as it found the gap between Thirimanne’s bat and pad. It was similar to how Shamsur Rahman was cleaned up by the same bowler in Afghanistan’s previous game. The similarity was the loose stroke played by both batsmen, and the gleeful celebrations from Shapoor. This time, it was the flying kiss.

The driving force behind two of India’s world titles had a nightmarish outing, struggling to provide the big hits or Kohli the strike

Abhishek Purohit in Mirpur06-Apr-20142:40

Cullinan: Yuvraj didn’t read the situation well

Harry Potter readers will be familiar with what a magical creature called a Dementor does. It sucks all happiness, all positivity, all hope from a living being. It does not stop at that. It proceeds to suck the very soul out, leaving only the body behind, practically lifeless. The latter act is called the Dementor’s Kiss. Now not even the most cynical person would brand Yuvraj Singh a Dementor even in the extreme emotion of what happened tonight in Dhaka. He has given Indian cricket and its fans numerous reasons and occasions to feel happy and proud about for over a decade. His deeds in limited-overs cricket, especially in the 2011 World Cup, are the stuff of legend.His effort of 11 off 21, however, was the Dementor’s Kiss for India in the World T20 final. It wasn’t only the chasm between the number of deliveries he faced and the runs he scored. It was something more critical. It sucked all the momentum from their innings and left them with a total that did register on the scoreboard, but did little else for their prospects. It was so thorough a soul-destroying operation that it sought out whatever momentum Virat Kohli was building, and killed it. This despite yet another epic from Kohli, who must have felt like screaming out in frustration every time Yuvraj failed to hand him the strike.Twice, Yuvraj consumed half an over to bring Kohli on strike. Two sets of three balls each producing a grand total of two singles. In the 15th and 17th overs, when all batsmen are supposed to be doing in T20 is try to hit the ball out of sight. This with a charged-up, in-form, incandescent Kohli straining to get his chance at the other end.Yuvraj Singh is the picture of dejection after his 21-ball ordeal at the crease sapped India’s momentum and played a massive role in their World T20 final defeat•ICCDenying strike to a batsman in full flow can rob him of his rhythm and the zone he has worked so hard till then to build for himself.Off the fourth ball of that 17th, Kohli charged the bowler, but could only hit it along the ground to long-on, admonishing himself as he trotted to the other end for a single. How much of that anger was directed at Yuvraj, we will never know. Kohli finds it hard to hide his disappointment even when a team-mate misfields. All we saw was that after the game ended and Yuvraj walked up from his position at deep midwicket to shake hands with team-mates and the opposition, Kohli quietly slunk away when the senior batsman came close to him.From the man who Kohli had so much faith in that he had made his franchise owner put in the highest bid of the IPL auction for Yuvraj just over a month ago.India were out of it, barring a miracle, by the time their innings had ended. Yuvraj had left India with little positive vibe at the break, after they had seen their decorated match-winner of years gone past struggle to the extent and for the time he did.West Indies had been 38 for 2 after 11 overs in the 2012 World T20 final, also against Sri Lanka. From there, Marlon Samuels had catapulted them to 137 for 6. India were 65 for 2 after 11 overs in this final. From there, they managed seven runs less than what West Indies had made, after starting 27 in front. Not only does that show you how inspirational Samuels was that Colombo night, it also rams home how dispiriting Yuvraj was this Dhaka night.In the 2013 Champions Trophy final, India had ended one short of the 130 they made tonight. But they had been given a late boost by Ravindra Jadeja, and would have drawn hope from that. Hope can be a tenuous thing to maintain, especially in an all-or-nothing clash like a final. To watch someone as experienced on the big occasion as Yuvraj scratch around for nearly half the duration of a T20 innings can be gutting for the entire side.The delivery that Yuvraj got out to, a high full toss, he would have clobbered for six nearly every time in his glorious past. By the time he holed out, it was the penultimate over, and India had had a gigantic suction pump run over them.They had not got too many freebies from Sri Lanka till now, and they were not getting anything for what remained of their innings. Kohli, indefatigable but helpless Kohli, turned for an impossible second run off the final ball of the innings, trying to regain something, anything for India, and getting run-out for 77 off 58. But it was too late. The Dementor’s Kiss had already been delivered. Most unfortunately for India, it had come from the man who had won them the 2011 World Cup. That is what will be the hardest to digest.

Plays of the Day from the second World T20 semi-final, between India and South Africa

Abhishek Purohit and Alan Gardner04-Apr-2014The dropped baton
Relay fielding is standard procedure these days, so when Faf du Plessis pulled a short ball from Suresh Raina firmly between midwicket and long-on, the sight of two fielders converging on it promised a co-operative collect and throw followed by bum taps all round. Rohit Sharma took on the sliding brief but a wrinkle in the outfield caused the ball to bobble up and over him, leading to an ungainly scramble and then a crestfallen frown as it rolled onto the boundary rope. Virat Kohli, the team-mate in attendance to finish the job, was not in the mood for a high five.The body blow
Du Plessis was beginning to cut loose, taking on India’s spinners in a way they have not been accustomed to, when he managed to play on in a fairly unusual way. Ashwin pitched outside leg and got extra bounce as du Plessis went down on one knee to aim a swinging blow over midwicket. The sweep missed but the ball hit him in the ribs before deflecting down on to stumps and tripping the lights.The legspinner
Amit Mishra has weaved a web with his tossed-up legbreaks at the World T20, but South Africa were in no mood for romance and thoroughly trashed his figures. There was still plenty of success for the ball that spins from leg to off, though, as all three of Ashwin’s wickets came via the carom ball. The best of the lot was the delivery to dupe Hashim Amla, pitching outside leg and spitting off stump in the eye as Amla played against the turn and missed.The long hop
R Ashwin bowled superbly, his four overs going for 22 runs and bringing three wickets for India. The third one came off a rank long hop. Ashwin bowled a short carrom ball that pitched outside leg. It was so short AB de Villiers had plenty of time to set himself up and hit it anywhere he wanted to. He probably had too much time, for he ended up getting too much under it and skied a pull for the fielder to settle under it at the long-leg boundary.The response
Dale Steyn beat Rohit Sharma with a lovely away going delivery, drawing the batsman forward and moving it past the outside edge. He then waved to the man at deep backward square leg, asking him to move squarer. A short ball was on the cards. It arrived, but outside off stump. Rohit made some room, and upper-cut it over the deep backward point rope.