Is fast bowling a dying art? Five former quicks answer questions on problems plaguing today’s fast bowlers

Interviews by Nagraj Gollapudi27-Oct-2011Andy Roberts: “Pakistan have fast pitches? People are complaining about the lack of fast pitches, yet Pakistan have a number of great fast bowlers”•AFPHave relentless scheduling, placid pitches, and playing in three different formats without many breaks had an impact on the modern-day fast bowler?Glenn McGrath Yes and no. To be a great bowler, to be successful, you have to be able to perform day in and day out, in different conditions all round the world, and then you can probably say to yourself, “I’ve done a pretty decent job.”I’m not sure what the exact problem is with modern-day fast bowlers: even in Australia a lot of quicks are getting injured. In 1995 I came back from West Indies and I had lost a lot of weight. I had torn my intercostal muscle, and I thought if I wanted to be successful at Test cricket and play a long time, I’d have to do something differently. So I found a guy and trained with him and worked as hard as I could to get physically strong, and that helped me stay in good shape. So whether scheduling these days is not allowing that recovery or time off to build your strength back, to get fit and get strong again… maybe that has a little bit to do with it.Would I decide to play one form of the game to prolong my career? Some guys do that. I never wanted to. Test cricket and one-day cricket were two different formats of the game, with different challenges. You had to go with different plans, and I actually enjoyed that. Throw Twenty20 into the mix and again you need a different gameplan and a different way to go about it. So I would play in all three formats of the game.Curtly Ambrose The workload is a bit too much, to be quite honest. I mean, guys are going from one tour to the next without having any time to recover. Your body needs time to recuperate. So some of the guys get injuries so often.Richard Hadlee It is all about the bowling loading. If you condition yourself to playing three different formats, you train differently. And if you are alternating between different forms, you might not be right for one form or the other. In one-day cricket you tend to bowl more wide of the crease and angle the ball in to crack the batsman up. In Test cricket you want to get closer to the stumps, running the ball away, where you have the field set to catch. Now in Twenty20 you bowl similar to one-day cricket – wider, directly into the batsman to cramp him; the field is set differently.It creates different stresses and strains on the body in trying to bowl differently. You cannot avoid that. You have to make a decision about what form of the game you want to really play. If you want to play all forms of the game, you find that you do not become effective in any, and that creates mediocrity.Andy Roberts I do not think it is scheduling. I do not think the reason is the pitches. Pakistan have fast pitches? People are complaining about the lack of fast pitches, yet Pakistan have a number of great fast bowlers. It has nothing to do with a pitch, because the ball does not gather pace once it hits the pitch. You are fast because you are fast through the air. If you are saying you do not get response from the pitch, that is different. But do not say you do not have fast bowlers because there are no fast pitches.How many great fast bowlers did you have in the history of cricket up to 1990? How many of those fast bowlers had back injuries? These modern-day fast bowlers do not bowl half the overs I bowled. In my first season in county cricket I bowled 800 overs between April and August. Then I went to India and bowled 200 more overs.We used to have boots made to specifications. The boots today’s fast bowlers wear are light, and that could also be a problem.Clive Rice It is not about the workload. Just before I started playing, guys in England bowled 1600 overs in a county season. Guys today have it easy. The more you bowl, the better you become. Even when we were playing, there was a theory that we were playing too much. Playing in England, if you were not available to play all the time, with all the rain, you would not have played. If you had a sunny period then you bowled a lot of overs. You were tired, but you could only be pleasantly weary and you got on with it. And you learned. When you were bowling at Viv Richards or at Sunil Gavaskar, you told yourself not to bowl in the wrong spots, because otherwise you would disappear.I am not sure why they are getting injured. Maybe they have moved on to playing on indoor pitches [in training], which have concrete bases that mess up your back. If there is a soil base, there is a bit more give.It is up to the bowler to make sure he stays fit. A fast bowler, to me, is like a sprinter in athletics. You have got to be able to sprint, not just jog in to bowl. Then you can stand up to it. You see the guys with long run-ups, but you are not running 5000 metres. You have got to run in with a purpose.Is speed overrated?

“Anyone who is a fast bowler wants to bowl as fast as he can and bowl the magic 100mph delivery. But at the end of the day you have to have control, bowling at a good pace”Glenn McGrath

Hadlee Speed isn’t everything. But if you have natural speed with a good technique, it is a good asset to have. A lot of youngsters are either too full or too short. But once they start hitting that magical length, beating a batsman off a length, where the batsman is not sure whether to go forward or back and is crease-bound, that is when the fast bowler is going to be effective. It does not matter if he is then moving the ball in the air or off the track. You are creating three ways to get the batsman out: caught behind, lbw and bowled. If you are too full or too short, you are only giving yourself one chance.McGrath My hero was Dennis Lillee. You look at the Windies teams of the 1970s and ’80s – they were incredible, with all their fast bowlers running in, bowling like the wind. Anyone who is a fast bowler wants to bowl as fast as he can and bowl the magic 100mph delivery. But at the end of the day you still have to be consistent. You have to have control [while] bowling at a good pace. I tried to bowl as fast I could, but I had reasonable control, so that helped me.Rice Everyone likes to bowl 90mph. And if you do bowl that sort of speed, the guys batting are under a great deal of pressure because of the speed at which it is coming. It is like driving a Formula 1 car to driving a salon car – there is a huge difference. So the bowler should find out how quick he actually he is, and then when he finds what this top pace is, he should settle down. Vary your pace by bowling 90% and 100%.Are fast bowlers over-coached?Ambrose Back in my time I was never really coached, per se. I learned my craft as I went along. And because I am a very, very proud person I wanted to be the best at what I do. I wanted my team to be the best. So I was forced to learn and learn quickly. But I believe guys should be coached, because when you are in the middle you [the bowler] do not see everything. When you are playing, you focus on some things, but you do not readily see the mistakes. That is where the coach comes in. The coach can point out the mistakes that you make and tries to correct them.But we tend to rely too much on technology when coaching. I am not saying you cannot use it, but sometimes technology is overused. Whatever you put in the computer is what it gives out. The best form of coaching is in the nets. You can go on a computer and map out strategies about getting batsmen out, and everything looks perfect. But when you go in the middle, it is a different ball game altogether. What happens if the batsman decides to change his way of batting?McGrath When I was young I did not have any coaching or did not model myself on anyone else. The first time I had coaching was when I was 22 – with Dennis Lillee – and that was more about refining my action. Sometimes these days young bowlers can be over-coached. They could be over-bowled or even under-bowled. You have to let the guy find his own action – as long as it is not a mixed action which is going to cause stress fractures. If he has got a good basis to build the action on, then let him go and bowl as much as he wants to.Hadlee We bowled and bowled and bowled. We ran. We did not use the gym as much as they do today. You have computers telling you what you are doing right, what you are doing wrong. Those tools are useful to have, but sometimes simplicity is the best way to go.Roberts The teachers who turn into coaches, coming in with their scientific approach to fast bowling, are causing the decline of fast bowling. They are literally changing a fast bowler’s action, from using the body to using shoulders. You cannot bowl fast for long with your shoulder. I am not against the biomechanics, but bowlers are being over-coached and the coaches are coaching the wrong way.Rice We learned certainly from watching other guys bowl, and copied them. Today if a coach has got a particular idea he is trying to instill in a person, maybe that is over-coaching the guy, because that is not the nature of how he wants to bowl or how his body is letting him bowl. As a bowling coach you just need to give him advice in terms of improving his skills and getting the simple things done right. If you change the action and stuff like that, then there will be problems.Has Twenty20 watered down the fast bowler?Hadlee It is a very destructive game for all cricketers, honestly. They get into bad habits. What sort of rhythm can you get into by bowling four overs in two different spells when you have got only 12 minutes to bowl in a match? You cannot become efficient with restriction and limitation in the game like that.Roberts If you have a good fast bowler, he would be more effective in Twenty20 cricket than anybody else. If you bowl a 95-100 mph delivery, it would be very, very difficult for anybody to slog you over long-on or long-off.Andy Roberts: “If you have a good fast bowler, he would be more effective in Twenty20 cricket than anybody else. If you bowl a 95-100 mph delivery it would be very difficult for anybody to slog you”•AFPAmbrose Twenty20 to me has a part to play in cricket because it is exciting and fans love excitement. But it is a game for batsmen, really. However, it should not affect the fast bowler because you are only bowling four overs maximum. As a matter of fact it could be a learning process for the bowler. Twenty20 can be a sort of stepping stone for a fast bowler to work out ways of containing the batsman when he is really going at you.Has cricket generally made it harder for fast bowlers to succeed by protecting batsmen too much?Ambrose There is nothing in it for the fast bowler. Modern-day cricket favours the batsman in aspect. The pitches are mostly flat and not conducive to fast bowling. Then they have this one-bouncer-per-over rule.McGrath I do not mind it too much. Hopefully the rules do not change too much. At the end of the day you have to be able to adjust. As a bowler you cannot just say, this is the way I bowl. If the rules change, you adjust accordingly.I am very much a traditionalist. The way it is being played, I prefer to keep it that way. The modern-day cricketer is playing the same game we played 10, 20, 50, 100 years ago. There have been a few rule changes in this time, but I am fine.Rice It has even become harder for fast bowlers bowling at tailenders, because now they bat with the helmet on and all the padding in the world. When we bowled at them I would say to the tailender, “Are you trying to prove you are a batsman? If you are I am going to hit you in the head.”

Stats highlights from a bat-dominated second day in Cape Town

Madhusudhan Ramakrishnan04-Jan-2012

• Kallis scored his second double-century in Tests in his 150th match. His previous double-century came against India in Centurion in December 2010. Kallis now joins de Villiers, Herschelle Gibbs, Dudley Nourse and Graeme Pollock among South African batsmen who have two double-centuries each. Only Graeme Smith (4) and Gary Kirsten (3) are above Kallis in that category.
• Kallis was involved in his 64th century stand in Tests. He has shared the most century stands with de Villiers (12) followed by Hashim Amla and Gary Kirsten (9 each).
• Kallis’ 224 is the second-highest score by a South African batsman in an innings in Cape Town after Gibbs’ 228 against Pakistan in 2003. The highest score by any batsman at the venue is 262 by Stephen Fleming in 2006.
• The 192-run stand between Kallis and de Villiers is the sixth-highest for the fourth wicket for South Africa. It is also the second-highest stand between the two batsmen for the fourth wicket behind the 224 against India in Centurion in 2010. The partnership is also the second-highest fourth-wicket stand in Tests in Cape Town.
• The South African innings featured three century partnerships. While this is the 11th occasion that a South African innings has seen three or more century stands, it is the first time that there have been consecutive century stands in a South African innings for the third, fourth and fifth wickets.
• de Villiers scored his 13th Test century overall and his first against Sri Lanka. His strike rate of 78.04 is his fifth-highest for a 100-plus score.
• South Africa’s total of 580 is their third-highest total in Cape Town and their highest against Sri Lanka. It is also the 15th time Sri Lanka have conceded 500 or more in away Tests since 2000.
• This is the fifth time since 2000 that four Sri Lankan bowlers have conceded 100-plus runs in an innings.
• The average runs per wicket so far in the team first innings is 121.5. This is the highest at the venue in Tests since South Africa’s readmission.

Bowlers have been rather conservative with the use of the yorker in this tournament. They are more obliged to employ the slower, length balls

Sidharth Monga05-Mar-2012It was an exhibition game in England in 1991. Wasim Akram was representing Rest of the World XI against an England XI. He began bowling length balls, and Kim Barnett, an attacking Derbyshire batsman who played five Tests for England, went after Akram at the start. It was just an exhibition game, and Akram wanted to preserve himself, but his pride took a beating. He began bowling yorkers, and Barnett eventually fell to Tony Dodemaide for 26.As the World XI players waited for the new batsman to arrive, Akram told his team-mates, Sanjay Manjrekar one of them, how he didn’t want to bowl those yorkers. When asked to verify that anecdote, Akram says, ” [It takes a lot of effort to bowl yorkers]. It is easy to bowl bouncers. A bouncer is nothing in comparison.”And when Akram talks of yorkers, he means those speared in, swinging bullets landing on the crease. “You have to dig deep for those.” A good, quick yorker takes as much effort as two or three normal deliveries. It was these yorkers that made it desperately difficult to score at more than a run a ball against bowlers the likes of Akram.During the CB Series, even on the big fields of Australia, even two runs a ball hasn’t looked safe for the bowling side in the last ten overs. Sri Lanka needed 18 off the last over in Perth, and Mitchell Starc bowled either length or the bouncer, and just about came out safe. In Adelaide, with 12 to defend in the last over, Clint McKay bowled length at various paces. When even Lasith Malinga hasn’t relied that much on the basic yorker, what of the other bowlers?Is it too harsh to say that the bowlers perhaps don’t want to “dig deep”? Cricket has changed a lot. The schedules are hectic, there is too much to lose if you don’t prolong your career, and it is possible that the bowlers want to preserve themselves. Malinga’s body wears scars of the most difficult delivery bowled at the most difficult trajectory. He can’t even play Test cricket now. How many bowlers want to go all out and bowl a spell full of yorkers?But perhaps it will be a bit too harsh to look at it this way alone. Batting has changed too. Batsmen have found ways of countering yorkers. They go deep into the crease to convert them into half-volleys. They walk down the stumps and scoop them on the full. They make room and squeeze the ball past point. It is true that earlier there were fewer batsmen who did this – the Saleem Maliks, the Javed Miandads for instance.Batsmen definitely play the yorker better than they did 10 years ago, but not so well that a slower length ball can replace the yorker as the most effective delivery at the death. Michael Clarke, a batsman himself, agrees. “Yeah, look I think the basic and simple yorker is still the best delivery at the death,” Clarke says. “We continually look at Malinga, when he hits his yorker, doesn’t matter what technique, theory, you have to score, it’s the hardest ball to score off.”However, Clarke also sees merit in other variations, especially on the bigger fields in Australia. “For starters I think we have got to hit that yorker, but I think Shane Watson showed as well tonight that his change of pace is crucial,” Clarke says. “It’s such a big ground square of the wicket, the Gabba, you have got to be able to change the pace and get the batters hitting to the long parts of the ground.”Mahela Jayawardene, who captains the best bowler of the yorker today, also wants to use the longer boundaries. “Depending on situations, trying to get batsmen to hit into longer boundaries [as Watson did] with the change-ups [is important], which we did as well to a certain extent,” Jayawardene said. “Different venues, different places, you need to come up with those ideas. That’s the beauty of the game. Because we play each other so often, they know your strengths and weaknesses.”

Either through reluctance or deterioration of skill or the lure of the fancy slower balls, an art from – a breathtaking sight of a batsman saving his toe from breaking – is dying.

Australia’s main problem though with death bowling, which has driven Clarke up the wall, has been the absence of a bowler who can bowl eight to 10 yorkers in his last two overs, which will, in the worst case, go for 15-16 runs, and in the best scenario could pick up wickets for under 10 runs.One example of this was when Ashish Nehra and Zaheer Khan bowled yorker after yorker on a runway in Rajkot in the 414-v-411 game, and defended 31 in the last five overs. Tim Southee did the same when Cameron White was in a hot and crazy pursuit of a 200-plus total in a Twenty20 at the ‘lilliputian’ Jade Stadium in Christchurch. Both were successful. In fact, we have reached a stage where most bowlers feel obliged to bowl a slower ball simply because they haven’t bowled one for four-five deliveries.That we clearly remember two incidents from the last two-three years is a clear indication that the yorker is not employed well or often enough. Either through reluctance or deterioration of skill or the lure of the fancy slower balls, an art from – a breathtaking sight of a batsman saving his toe from breaking – is dying. We need evidence against this notion.Edited by Kanishkaa Balachandran

Ian Botham has been a tireless crusader for cancer research for near on three decades. His 14th charity walk for the cause ends today

Alan Gardner21-Apr-2012Walking may not seem like the most challenging of activities for a champion sportsman. As a player, Ian Botham batted and bowled like a man in a hurry to get the job done quickly (and he often did). Off the field his antics were the antithesis of sedate. But it was for his charity fund-raising, as much as his cricketing feats, that he was elevated to Sir Ian in 2007, and these days walking is as much a part of the “Beefy” brand as Headingley ’81 and his commentary role with Sky.Botham, however, is no stroller. It quickly became apparent when I joined him in Norwich for the eighth leg of Beefy’s Great British Walk, that the drive and determination that characterised his playing career are still present. Early on, as the party set out through the city centre, someone mentioned that the pace (a brisk 4.5mph, on average) was quite testing. “We’re not even warmed up yet,” Botham growled, eyes shielded behind sunglasses, back hunched against the elements.It is 27 years since Botham first marched from John O’Groats to Lands End in aid of Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research, an undertaking inspired by an encounter as a 22-year-old playing for Somerset with children suffering from terminal blood cancer in a Taunton hospital. In that time he has completed 14 charity walks, covering almost 10,000 miles and raising more than £13 million. Correspondingly, the survival rate for children suffering from the most common form of leukaemia has risen from 20% to almost 93%. But he won’t be stopping yet.”The walks are ultimately about one thing and only one thing, and that’s to raise money to go into leukaemia and lymphoma research,” he says. “I’m a competitive person, so if I set out to do something there’s no point in falling short of that mark. I can’t get to 100% survival rate, but I know I can get close to it. We still have major problems with the adult forms of the disease but as we’ve made that many inroads into this form of blood cancer, we believe that somewhere along the line it’s going to open doors to other forms. So there’s a massive incentive for us to keep going, and that’s what we’ll do.”The walks are a family operation, with four generations present on this one. Botham’s daughter Sarah is the coordinator, having taken over from wife Kath. A hardcore of friends and neighbours trudged through the April showers for Beefy’s cause – such as “Big Gaz”, who tagged along to walk with Botham “for ten minutes” when he was a teenager in 1992 and is still a regular participant. A motley selection of celebs, such as Olympic decathlete Daley Thompson, former Norwich footballer Jeremy Goss, and Spandau Ballet drummer John Keeble, also swelled the numbers.

Early on, as the party set out through the city centre, someone mentioned that the pace (a brisk 4.5mph, on average) was quite testing. “We’re not even warmed up yet,” Botham growled

The lead-out car played regimental band music and there was a certain amount of pomp and circumstance to the procession, so much so that in Cardiff a bystander asked if they were doing a practice run for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Even in suburban and then rural Norfolk, plenty of people came to their front doors or wound down the car window in order to donate, while labourers at a burger van nodded in recognition. As we passed by the waterways of Wroxham, boat builders left their workshops and ladies both young and old stopped to smile and wave – but then Botham always did know how to charm the broads.A few miles from the end, the team were joined by a collection of local walkers and fundraisers who wanted to meet the man himself, although the effect was more of them being sucked into Botham’s wake as he barrelled through, his speed slackening only to exchange a few handshakes and pats on the back.It is his cricketing celebrity that fuels the pavement-pounding charity drive, and Botham acknowledges the latter could not exist without the former. At the walk’s conclusion he sat with his feet up on a stool, an ice pack on his knee, signing autographs and posing for photographs in avuncular fashion. A local brewery had provided the ale – named Give It Some Humpty, after Botham’s typically no-nonsense remark to Graham Dilley – and a band playing in the background gave the afternoon an almost festival feel, rain and mud included. You could call it Beefstock.”Cricket is the springboard,” Botham said. “I think a lot of people enjoyed the way I played the game and that’s reflected a little bit in the amount of people we’re seeing turning out.”He is, of course, still a vocal commentator on the fortunes of the England team – and to say Botham has trenchant opinions is a bit like observing that tractors have big wheels. He was not perturbed by members of the South Africa side, such as Vernon Philander and Alviro Petersen, gaining experience of English conditions while playing county cricket but described the length of the series between what is likely to be the two best Test teams in the world (England host South Africa for three Tests this summer) as “ridiculous”.Botham was also confident the 4-1 reverse over the winter, in Test series against Pakistan and Sri Lanka, was merely a blip and that England’s current leader is the right man for the job, describing criticism of Andrew Strauss as “a load of baloney”.”I don’t have any problems with Strauss, I think he should be England captain,” he says. “He hasn’t scored a hundred for a while, so he has to answer some questions; it goes with the territory. But Strauss and Andy Flower have got England to No. 1, we’re still No. 1. We didn’t have a very good winter by our standards, let’s put that behind us and move on.”This latest expedition will be behind Botham too, with their final leg due in London on Saturday. Then he will go fishing, the competitive flames doubtless stoked once again. He is already making plans for a fundraiser to coincide with his 60th birthday – which will also mark the 30 years since his first walk – though he will not be drawn on them yet. Call it a shortened run-up if you like, but Botham is still charging in.

Apparently, the Bangladesh dressing room wasn’t overly nervous when their kingpin, Shakib Al Hasan, was adjudged out with victory still some way off – they knew they still had Mushfiqur Rahim

Mohammad Isam17-Mar-2012Apparently, the Bangladesh dressing room wasn’t overly nervous when their kingpin, Shakib Al Hasan, was adjudged out with victory still some way off. When Shakib was dismissed against England in the World Cup game last year, all hope was lost until Mahmudullah and Shafiul Islam brought the team back from dead. Customarily, the dismissal of Shakib at such a crucial point would have meant most of the crowd slowly turning their backs to the green of the Shere Bangla National Stadium and heading out of Mirpur. But Mushfiqur Rahim walked to the crease, and this is one of the reasons why the loss of Shakib has gradually stopped being quite such a deterrent these days.The Bangladesh captain, especially after his penultimate-ball six to close out a tight Twenty20 against West Indies last October, is now the third force of the team, its other matchwinner after Shakib and Tamim Iqbal.Forty-nine balls in hand and 66 to win. That was the equation when Mushfiqur came out. The upside was that the team had six wickets in hand, but as they had shown in the previous game against Pakistan, things could go belly-up with just one moment of lazy footwork or one poorly chosen sweep shot.Mushfiqur had his little chat with Nasir Hossain, a street-smart guy who kept tilting his head to one side as a sign of agreement to whatever the captain was saying, meaning he knew the game was within their grasp and was charting out plans with his partner accordingly. Someone had to show that he believed as much as the millions across the country. But the start he got off to had Mushfiqur worried.”Oh no, there were a lot of problems,” Mushfiqur said later when told how confident he looked. “After a few dot balls at the start, it seemed like a difficult task. We [then] needed 9.5 and at some stages we needed around 11 an over. Nasir and I wanted to take it to the last over.”Mushfiqur Rahim: “We have a game in hand and we’ll play like we have done so far in this tournament … we will definitely play to win.”•AFPThe pair added just 20 in the next 19 deliveries and were left with 46 to get in the final five overs. But, crucially, Mushfiqur, even from a distance and obscured by his helmet, looked in control of the situation.”We wanted to capitalise on the loose ball,” Mushfiqur said. “I thought that in the last five overs we needed one big over, something like 15 to 20 runs. It would be enough at that stage.”We planned that way since you can’t take 10 to 15 runs from every over. That [Irfan Pathan] over released the pressure.”It was the 48th over when Nasir took a single off the first ball and let his partner have a go at the medium-pacer. Mushfiqur showed finesse with a well-timed flick over square leg for six, before brutally clubbing the next one over midwicket for the same result; the match, at the end of the over, was now well within Bangladesh’s grasp.On the eve of the game, Mushfiqur had pointed out that India’s bowling was their only weakness. “What I meant was that compared to Pakistan and Sri Lanka, they are a bit weak,” he clarified. “But I would give credit to our batsmen for handling them so well, which was the most important thing.”Now he had those bowlers at his mercy. Praveen Kumar was first sliced past point for a boundary and carted over long-on for another six. Nasir then went for glory and got himself out, but Mushfiqur held on till the end – he knew he had to.With his deputy, Mahmudullah, closing out the match in the next over, Mushfiqur, the man who is often the first player to come onto the field at the Shere Bangla National Stadium (often at least an hour before Bangladesh’s training sessions), was the last to leave, mobbed by his team-mates.”We have a game in hand and we’ll play like we have done so far in this tournament. If we can start well and hold on to the momentum … we will definitely play to win,” he said when asked if he had plans to play in the final of the Asia Cup.If Mushfiqur is there till the end once more, Bangladesh could honestly believe it possible.Edited by Nikita Bastian

As the strength in Sri Lanka’s bowling seems to be shifting from spin to pace, Thisara Perera’s all-round skills are proving of great value to his side

Kanishkaa Balachandran10-Jun-2012The challenge for any team visiting Sri Lanka, till some years ago, was taking on an array of spinners on turning pitches. Muttiah Muralitharan and Upul Chandana were a handful, and there was also Sanath Jayasuriya to deal with. Sri Lanka’s present bowling attack, however, has a different make-up.With Murali’s retirement and Ajantha Mendis falling off the radar, a once spin-heavy attack is reliant on seam-bowling allrounders. The emergence of Angelo Mathews and Thisara Perara, two bowlers of similar pace, has expanded Sri Lanka’s options. Perera is turning into one of Sri Lanka’s bigger impact players in the limited-over formats.As a batsman, Perera has been identified as a finisher, coming lower in the order for the slog overs. As a bowler, he slots in as the third or fourth seamer, depending on the composition. His athletic prowess and reflexes make him an asset in the field. In four matches during the ongoing home series against Pakistan, Perera excelled in all three disciplines.He’s created a healthy competition with Mathews. Both started their careers at roughly the same time, though Mathews’ injuries have restricted his bowling. An injury to Mathews before the 2011 World Cup final gave Perera an opportunity, and his unbeaten nine-ball 22 took Sri Lanka to 274.He struggled for consistency in the next couple of tours, but reminded the selectors of his capabilities with a 44-ball 69 in a high-scoring chase in Kimberley, during the tour of South Africa. In the CB Series in Australia, another ‘impact’ innings was an 11-ball 21 in a tense chase against Australia in Hobart. Perera swung Daniel Christian for a four and a six to narrow the equation in Sri Lanka’s favour.Perera missed the Asia Cup due to injury but on his comeback, against Pakistan in the first Twenty20 in Hambantota, he muscled an unbeaten 32 after the main batsmen failed. His knock, plus a diving catch at third man, seemed to perk up Sri Lanka’s body language in their successful defense of a low score.In the second ODI in Pallekele, Perera won the Man-of-the-Match award mainly because he managed what the frontline seamers did not: pick up top-order wickets. His cameo, a 14-ball 24, was an appetiser to what was to come. He came out to bat in a relatively pressure-free scenario, after Mahela Jayawardene gave the innings mileage as Dilshan steadily progressed to his century. Perera sent the ball scorching past Saeed Ajmal to the straight boundary, before slogging him over deep midwicket. He then dispatched Umar Gul over square leg to take Sri Lanka towards 280.After ten wicketless overs in Pakistan’s chase, Perera was called upon as the second-change bowler. He had immediate impact. Mohammad Hafeez chipped the ball back towards the bowler, and Perera managed to fling himself in the opposite direction of his follow through and pluck the catch one-handed. He was denied Younis Khan’s wicket at the start of his fourth over, but the wicketkeeper Kumar Sangakkara made amends for his botched catch four balls later.Perera had taken 2 for 24 in his first spell of five overs. His second, though, was more incisive. He struck with the first ball yet again, trapping Misbah-ul-Haq on the back pad with an offcutter. The pressure began to pile on Pakistan because the boundaries had dried up. Perera, however, was fortuitous in getting Umar Akmal’s wicket, as replays showed the ball missing the edge on the way to the keeper.A new spell brought another wicket off the first ball. Sohail Tanvir failed to clear square leg and Perera had picked up his third five-for in ODIs, to go with his spells against India in Dambulla, and Australia at the MCG.Perera’s rise has won him the praise of his captain Jayawardene, who can only see him getting better. “I have always said that Thisara is an exciting prospect. Even at a young age he showed lot of potential although he hadn’t played that much,” Jayawardene told the . “Obviously with the talent he has got he is like someone like Shahid Afridi, who can clear the boundary.”After Farveez Maharoof failed to nail down the same position despite several opportunities, Perera has been the impact player Sri Lanka have been looking for.

Angelo Mathews’ temperament in high-pressure situations is a promising sign for Sri Lanka’s future

Kanishkaa Balachandran at the Premadasa Stadium19-Jun-2012The ability to handle pressure is intangible. A cursory glance at Angelo Mathews’ ODI career record shows an average close to 35, from 62 innings with ten fifties – decent returns for somebody who’s in the side as a batting allrounder, but not usually at the top of the order. Those numbers don’t indicate the number of occasions Mathews has had to bat with the lower order and tail, shepherding them around with a common-sense approach.His captain Mahela Jayawardene summed it up after Mathews pulled off a heist of sorts with an unbeaten 80 at No.6 to guide Sri Lanka to a 3-1 series win against Pakistan at the R Premadasa Stadium. “He handles pressure better than anybody else I’ve seen,” Jayawardene said.It was a fitting compliment from someone whose task as captain is not just to lead the team on the field but also mentor the next generation, including his second-in-command Mathews. When the vice-captaincy was handed to Mathews after the World Cup, it could have been seen as a brave move, considering his injury record. Nevertheless, his big-match temperament must have impressed the management enough to start grooming him for the top job early.Mathews ended up doing a lot more than was expected of him. A line-up that bats down to No.9 shouldn’t have huffed and puffed to a target of 248. The seniors, including Jayawardene himself, were part of the reason the pressure piled on Mathews. Tillakaratne Dilshan couldn’t produce the opening expected of him, Kumar Sangakkara made a start but took off for a single which didn’t exist and Jayawardene fell to the softest of return catches. It was a test to see if the less experienced players could compensate for those failures.Mathews walked in with Sri Lanka at 97 for 4, still needing just more than a run a ball. His task was not just to see to it that Sri Lanka kept pace, but also ease the pressure off Dinesh Chandimal, trying to work his way back to form. Mathews was unfazed when Umar Gul dished out bouncers, preferring to wait for the delivery that sat up to be hit.The batting Powerplay was a turning point in the chase where Sri Lanka lost Chandimal, trying to clear the rope, and Thisara Perera as the result of a communication breakdown. Sri Lanka were starting to combust due to their own mistakes, and that threatened to overshadow Pakistan’s numerous schoolboy blunders in the field.Mathews preferred to maintain his wait-and-watch approach, milking the singles and trusting his partner Lahiru Thirimanne, batting in an unfamiliar position down the order. Mathews chose audacity over safety when he reverse-swiped Mohammad Hafeez over point and then scooped Mohammad Sami over fine leg, using the pace of the ball to clear the rope.Jeevan Mendis’ cameo of 19 gave Sri Lanka a marginal chance, but with 36 needed off 22 and no specialist batsmen to come, it was touch and go. Mathews had pulled it off before, in more trying circumstances in Melbourne in November 2010, when he had Lasith Malinga joining him at 107 for 8, chasing 240. The pair marauded runs in the batting Powerplay to entertain thoughts of an upset. Malinga tonked his way to 56, while Mathews remained unbeaten on 77 in the most astonishing of finishes between Sri Lanka and Australia.In Perth in the CB Series this year, Mathews took the fight to the end with his 64, but Sri Lanka left a bit too much to achieve, finishing five runs short. At the Premadasa, Mathews had better support, but the stress levels couldn’t have been very different. A sign of his maturity at the crease was his choice of bowlers to attack. Having given due respect to Gul and Tanvir, Mathews picked the weak link in the seam attack and exposed Pakistan’s selection blunder. Sami, chosen ahead of the “rested” Saeed Ajmal, was carted over the sightscreen by Mathews, which gave Sri Lanka the psychological lift in the final over, after which there was no turning back.Mathews’ temperament in high-pressure situations and batting with the tail was honed in his school days, as his coach at St Joseph’s College, Harsha de Silva, testifies. “Angelo can adapt himself to any situation, work the ball around,” de Silva said. “There was a time when he used to throw his wicket away. He then realised that as a middle-order batsman he had to bat with the tail and he had adapted his game accordingly. He seems to take more responsibility now.”Jayawardene said he knew the lower order was in safe hands with Mathews. “When Kumar and I got out there was a bit of a hiccup but we knew we were batting deep today,” Jayawardene said. “It was down to who could take responsibility and Angelo showed that. A lot of people question his role in the side and I don’t know why it keeps coming up. He’s a quality allrounder.”In a sense it wasn’t a terrible thing at all that the seniors fell short, for it revealed Sri Lanka’s template for the future. Chandimal botched it after getting to a fifty, but Mathews covered the slack, not for the first time.

Sunil Gavaskar talks about how innovations brought in by the shortest format are helping cricket break new ground

Peter Della Penna25-Aug-2012Late in the afternoon on a warm Sunday in New York, a car pulls up outside a shop in the Jackson Heights section of Queens. It’s not too far removed from where Eddie Murphy arrived inconspicuously from the fictional land of Zamunda in a classic comedy from the 1980s. Today, a fitting and princely welcome awaits a legend coming to America to greet his adoring fans, with a troupe of bhangra dancers stomping to the beat of the as he steps out of the car.”That bhangra dance, it was really energetic. It was fantastic, very lively,” Sunil Gavaskar said of the raucous reception. “If I wasn’t restrained, I might have actually joined them.” There were other crowds just like it in Dallas, Toronto, New York and New Jersey, where fans had the opportunity to meet Gavaskar, on a promotional tour. Visiting the United States brought back memories of his playing days, and occasional exhibition matches in the country.”We actually played a few games of cricket here, way back in the ’80s,” Gavaskar said. “That was a time when there was no money in the game, so we all came in here and stayed with families. Because the economics didn’t quite work out always for everybody, we would be maybe a party of eight people coming in from India and there would be three other guys playing from the local team and 11 of the club team. If the club had, say, 14 or 15 players, then three of their players would be part of the team that we were in. That’s how we played a fair bit of cricket. We played in Dallas, Houston, New Jersey, New York.”The influx of South Asian immigrants into America over recent decades, and the West Indians who came before them, is one reason why the USA now generates more internet traffic on cricket websites than every country except India. But long before the internet, Gavaskar said, the interest was strong.”Whenever these sort of teams travelled to the USA, like the teams that we brought in, there used to be massive crowds,” he said. “We had India v Pakistan matches here. Obviously we couldn’t call it India v Pakistan because our cricket boards would have objected. So it was an Indian XI v a Pakistani XI or an Imran Khan XI v a Gavaskar XI.”The first time I ever played cricket in the USA was at Shea Stadium. It was the American All-Stars v the Rest of the World. That Rest of the World team was a pretty good team. Tony Greig was the captain, and we had Barry Richards, Alan Knott, John Snow, Majid Khan, Bishan Singh Bedi, and I think Farokh Engineer, so it was a very good team. “I would say there would have been about 14,000 people – that sort of gave you an idea of the interest.”Now they are getting to see cricket. There is live streaming. There is a TV channel that is exclusively for cricket. Such TV channels wouldn’t be feasible if there weren’t enough people subscribing, so the interest level certainly is there, no question about it.”The sizeable crowds for those exhibitions were generated by fans raised on Test and one-day cricket. As T20 continues to spread its wings, many administrators hope that the format will become palatable to Americans outside the expatriate community. However, for any standard of cricket to prosper in the USA, Gavaskar believes that infrastructure is the key stumbling block.”I think the most important thing for emerging countries like USA and China is to be able to get good pitches. I think pitches are so important because the pitches will give the club-level players the opportunity to play on surfaces which they don’t have to worry about. The T20 game is about batting. For the spectators, the T20 game is all about watching the ball sail over the boundary into the stands, where some of them try to catch it. That can happen if you have good pitches. I think one of the reasons why cricket has not quite taken off is that a lot of the emerging countries don’t have turf pitches.”If you have good pitches, I would think 75% of the battle is won. To be able to build on that is what these countries need to do. There is an interest level there. I have seen it in the USA, and in Canada as well. The interest is quite massive and the cricket that they play on Saturdays and Sundays is quite intense.”

“I think the most important thing for emerging countries like USA and China is to be able to get good pitches. The T20 game is about batting. For the spectators, the T20 game is all about watching the ball sail over the boundary into the stands. That can happen if you have good pitches”

Aside from the rise in popularity among fans around the USA, who might gravitate toward cricket because it can be condensed into three hours, corporate sponsors and media in the United States are also taking a greater interest. This year’s World Twenty20, will be broadcast for free on ESPN3 in the USA. In turn, cricketers are getting increasingly better known in the country, which Gavaskar says is due to T20.”For a sport that is not as internationally known as, say, soccer or tennis or even golf, I think cricket is getting the prominence that it is has got because of the T20 format. That’s the one that has excited spectators, has gotten brands to come forward to get mileage for themselves through cricketers and through sponsoring events. I think T20 has certainly played a big role in making cricket, which earlier wasn’t a career option, a very, very good career option now.”It doesn’t necessarily have to be playing the IPL or playing any of the other T20 leagues. I speak as an Indian. Even if you play in the domestic Ranji Trophy, with the kind of funds that the IPL has generated and which have now come into Indian cricket, a guy who doesn’t play in the IPL but just plays Ranji Trophy is able to make a very good living. He earns a lot more than he would if he was working for a bank, an airline or the railways, which were the kind of jobs we did in the 1970s and ’80s.”New on-field strategies have helped make the game more dynamic and helped make it grow more popular in the USA and elsewhere. As a regular fixture in the television commentary box, Gavaskar has gained an appreciation for the way all forms of cricket have transformed as a result of T20 cricket.”The innovation that the batsmen have in playing some shots, the innovations that the bowlers have to resort to, to try and stop the batsmen from smashing them out of the ground, the back-of-the-hand bowling, the slower bouncers, the slower deliveries, the change of pace – these are all innovations that have added so much to the game.”I just like to see the athleticism in the field. The fielding over the years has been outstanding. Also, the kind of physical training that they do. They are a much fitter and much stronger generation. So they hit the ball a fair distance more, they are able to last a little bit more. I love to watch that.””I think I would have loved to have played T20. But on the other hand I’m very happy to have played in the time that I played in. Being in the commentary box gives me the opportunity to see the modern heroes, how the game is changing, how the approach and the attitude toward the game is changing. I can’t thank the good Lord enough for having given me this opportunity to be able to travel around the world, meet different people and see the game that I love so much.”Sunil Gavaskar was interviewed in connection with MoneyGram’s Ultimate Cricket Fan promotion, in which two people will be chosen to travel to the ICC World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka. More info here

Fighting the humidity in Sharjah

Ghazanfar Hyder04-Sep-2012Choice of game
I have watched Pakistan play at home numerous times but never away. Over time,
UAE has proven to be a second home to Pakistan’s national team. It was a crucial match, and the prospect of watching the Australians tackle Saeed Ajmal’s doosra live, was one of the motivating factors to watch this game. However, a visit to the commentary
box, promised by a fellow journalist, certainly increased my excitement.Key performer – Glenn Maxwell
It was a difficult decision, and though the competition between Mohammad Hafeez and Glenn Maxwell was tough, I would vouch for Maxwell. The young allrounder is a joy to watch. The way he played Ajmal under cracking pressure deadened the predominantly Pakistani crowd. The over in which he pulled Shahid Afridi for a six and four completely changed the dimension of the game.Security
One of the most irate aspects of this game was security; I got off to meet a friend in the press box but was instantly given a curt nod by the security personnel. Even after an explanation, he turned me down. The second instance of the security being a hindrance was when I had to go outside the stadium to get a spare battery. On my way back, I was refused entry even after showing my pass. The justification was that I should have gotten another pass when I had come out – highly confusing as there weren’t any passes being given on my way out. After a lengthy debate and ringing my friend, I was finally let in. It was then explained to me that security has been tightened on the orders of the ICC Anti-Corruption Unit after a recent wave of increased match-fixing around the cricketing world, and understandably there would strictly be no compromise on this.The weather
It’s one thing to sit in front of a television and read the weather forecast but it’s entirely different to be physically in the middle of the packed stadium in the humid desert heat. The crowd, however, kept themselves well hydrated at all intervals, so much that the water salesman ran out of supplies. The humidity was so intense, at one point I spotted a journalist waving his passport across his face for air. The Australian players used ice jackets and there were plenty of dressing room visits for ice baths to somehow reduce the effect.Crowd meter
I was seated in the stands near long-on and it provided me with a spectacular
view of the packed stadium with a deafening crowd, playing horns and drums. The man who was playing happened to be seated right beside me, leaving my ear drums ringing after the fall of each Australian wicket. On the downside, the audience was much less friendly to the Australian team, drastically bringing down the sporting atmosphere of the match. There were only half a dozen Australian flags in the stadium and, ironically, were being waved by Pakistanis. Unsurprisingly, this was met by jeering and booing by the rest of the crowd. Overall a highly charged, passionate and thoroughly enjoyable crowd but equally biased.One thing I’d have changed about the day
The strange timing of the matches. On my way to the stadium, a local taxi driver complained how difficult it was to watch a match on a weekday which finishes at nearly 2AM local time. The ICC believed that starting matches earlier in the day would make it unplayable as the heat would be unbearable for the players. However, a different season could have been considered to overcome this problem – the matches could have been pushed a month forward when the weather in the UAE is comparatively cooler in the day (drops down to 23 degree Celsius).Marks out of 10
6It certainly was not one of the most interesting matches I have witnessed. However, the threat posed by the Pakistani spinners and a thrashing reply from Australia, combined with an enthusiastic crowd were definitely the upsides of game. It’s a shame the nature of the local climate and overzealous security took the shine away from the game.

Plays of the Day from the first day of the first Test between Sri Lanka and New Zealand in Galle

Andrew Fernando in Galle17-Nov-2012The comeback
Brendon McCullum showed excellent judgement of when to hit out during his 68, but he might regret having incurred Rangana Herath’s wrath when he thumped an overpitched ball from Herath back over the bowler’s head for six. Herath produced the delivery of the day next ball, when he drifted one in from wide of the crease, pitched it on a length on middle and off, then got it to kick away from McCullum sharply, beating the batsman’s prod and clipping the outside of off stump.The waste
With Sri Lanka Cricket seemingly willing to do anything to save a few pennies, the team initially appeared to be supporting the board’s budget pinching when they refused to take the second new ball as soon as it was due, having only one wicket left to take. After just 2.3 overs though, Mahela Jayawardene abandoned his avarice, and called for a shiny new Test match Kookaburra. Nuwan Kulasekara took only two deliveries with the new ball to knock Trent Boult over, and that is $900 SLC will never get back.The drop
Suraj Randiv was the unluckiest bowler on day one, having got sharp turn and bounce for most of the day without the reward of a wicket. In Tillakaratne Dilshan’s absence he is the best fielder on the team, but even his hands let him down today, when he juggled, then shelled a return chance from Tim Southee, diving to his left.The loose stroke
The New Zealand batsmen were not guilty of being too aggressive on day one, except perhaps Ross Taylor, who was the only one to fall unnecessarily. Taylor had watched Nuwan Kulasekara swing the ball prodigiously in towards the right-hand batsmen all through the limited-overs matches, but opted to take on the movement anyway, after having faced only seven deliveries. The ball swung in, predictably, and collected the inside edge of his booming off drive – played away from his body – before taking off stump out of the ground.The recovery
Angelo Mathews didn’t initially pick up the leading edge looping towards him off Tim Southee’s bat, and hung back at backward point, perhaps expecting the ball to carry further than it did. He managed to complete the catch however, diving forward late, hands scraping along the turf to intercept the ball before it hit the ground.