What a game!

It was riveting stuff, it really was. Two teams evenly matched in a low-scoring game. And a last over finish to boot, culminating in a two-wicket victory. A left-arm spinner decides the fate of the game (no, it’s not Monty Panesar, you poor Pom) with figures of 10-2-22-4 (that he made an unbeaten 23 in a chase of 125 adds to the impact). Other dream figures include 10-4-11-3 and 10-3-21-3, both from the losing team. It made me get back to blogging, so you can imagine how much it captured my attention. Pity the teams were evenly matched not in their intensity to win but in their inability to do so.

See the scorecard if you must here.

The future cricket 4 (Half-and-half)

With the advent of Twenty20, what seems to be under the most threat is the full-day 50-over variety. Test matches continue to have their charm, albeit to a specialized and increasingly diminishing audience, but one-dayers seem to be in freefall. So this piece, and the one to follow in this series, focuses on messing up with the one-day version.

How do we get rid of the anti-insomnia pill that is the middle overs of a one-day international? The Twenty20 was one option the administrators came up with, but did we really need to truncate the game so badly? How can we play the whole day and still not have the middle overs?

Surely test cricket and some of its rules have something right about them? And Twenty 20, notwithstanding the criticism on the IPL and ICL, isn’t a n absolute evil either? So what happens when we mix test cricket with Twenty20? Well, to begin with, you get this post.

This suggestion is not dissimilar to the earlier one on limited overs tests. And it is something that one has heard whispers of in the past as well. Presenting, the two innings one-day international.

The simplest format for this would be to treat it exactly like a limited overs test, with twenty- overs per innings. But then that would become little more than playing two back-to-back twenty-five over shoot-outs, wouldn’t that? And attract weird names like (Twenty-five25)² or 25x4 or just plain and useless Test 25. So let’s queer the pitch up a bit more.

To begin with, a team will have only ten wickets to play with between the two innings. So while they can treat their first innings like a Twenty20 game, they wouldn’t have much of a second innings. On the other hand, they can save wickets for a second innings bash, but could then run out of overs.

Secondly, bowlers will have a limit on the number of overs they can bowl in the match, but this can be distributed freely between the two innings. This means I can save an entire ten overs of my lead bowler for the second innings. Or bowl out my potential weak link in the first. So when will you bowl Muthiah Muralitharan? And Ajit Agarkar?

A third, more complex rule could be that the two innings need not be equally spaced. The toss-winning captain could, as with the limited overs tests idea, choose the length of each innings for both the teams, in five-over slots with a minimum of 10 overs per innings. So we could have one innings of 10 overs and one of 40. I can already see Shaun Pollock declining the captaincy.

Think I should stop this insane series? I have at least three more ideas to throw.

Earlier posts in this series

50Fifty

More new balls

Limited over tests

And the award goes to . . .

The man deserves all the accolades he’s got – upwards of 3500 runs in both tests and one-day internationals and more than 800 wickets between the two forms is no mean achievement. And to upstage an uncle of such calibre as Graeme takes more than just an elegant cover drive with the willow and nagging accuracy with the cherry. Yes, Shaun Maclean Pollock has to count (he may not agree with the choice of word here considering what happened in the 2003 World Cup) as the greatest all-rounder South Africa has produced, and one of the best in the world.

But there is one thing that perhaps should not have gone Shaun’s way. The reference here is to the man-of-the-series award Shaun received (albeit jointly) in the just-concluded one-day series between West Indies and South Africa. Figures of six wickets in 47 overs in the five matches and an aggregate of 43 runs surely didn’t decide the series? Of course, the man was parsimony itself, conceding just 131 runs in those 47 overs, but that’s hardly series-deciding material, is it?

The choice of man of the match and man of the series is one that can be as fascinating as it can be frustrating. Batsmen seem to have the advantage; wicket-keepers never seem to get noticed; and increasingly, a heroic performance in a losing cause doesn’t seem to attract much attention.

In the WSC games of the 1980s (as also in some tournaments at Sharjah around the same time), quite often the choice of the man of the match was made (and even announced) before the game was over. The World Championship of Cricket in 1984 tried a unique points system for deciding the man of the match. Thankfully, it was abandoned – no one outside of those who conceptualised it thought it would really work. And England still has the practice of announcing one player from each team for the man-of-the-series for test matches. (More often than not, that was the only way to fill up trophy cupboards in England, especially in the 1980s and 1990s.)

Rambling time over; it’s time for a stroll down memory lane. Here are five individual award decisions from the 1980s that stick in my mind.

The magnificently named Robert George Dylan Willis, if not for his commentary stints now, could well have become the forgotten man of English cricket. Yes, 325 wickets 90 tests in no mean achievement (especially considering he didn’t manage a single ten-for in a match), but the man seemed to be perennially battling his own demons and peers with more personality. But there is one thing Old Bob can dangle in front of his more publicity-savvy peers – a man-of-the-match award for captaincy in a World Cup game against Sri Lanka in 1983. Rum thing isn’t it, for he who was never really considered captaincy material before this game? And, as it turned out, after?

The fallacy in the points logic for deciding the individual award in the World Championship of Cricket in 1984 stood out starkly in the semi-final between New Zealand and India. Ravi Shastri bowled well enough to take 3 for 31 off his 10 overs, but Madan Lal had picked up 4 for 37 in 8 and Kapil Dev had bowled tightly as usual for figures of 1 for 34 in 10, and he had led the team astutely as well. And when Shastri holed out for a laborious 53 off 84 balls, India was left with 105 runs to get, at, if memory serves me right, close to eight an over – an unthinkable proposition in those days. May be Kapil Dev didn’t think – he just went after the bowling, finished with 54 off 37 balls, and with Dilip Vengsarkar contributing a relatively sedate 63 off 59 balls, India was home with plenty to spare. Man of the match? You got it, Ravi Shastri for his “all-round performance.” Well, he made the game competitive all right. And oh yes, he went on to pick up the man-of-the-series award as well, though that seemed a touch more deserved.

Cut to the Rothmans Cup at Sharjah in the same year. In a series where no batsman really got going, Sunil Gavaskar ended up as the man of the series. Surely 2 runs off 9 balls and 20 off 50 are not match-winning knocks? Well, the little master picked up five catches in the two matches, including four in the famous 125-87 game between the sub-contintental giants.

When Courtney Walsh picks up four wickets for 31 runs in 9.4 overs and Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes slam half-centuries in a nine-wicket rout of Pakistan at Sharjah in 1986, surely one of them should’ve been the man of the match? But a small man came in the way – Gus Logie pocketed three sensational catches (and was involved in the odd run-out as well), and the individual trophy in the bargain.

Chetan Sharma would probably rank as one of the more unfortunate cricketers to have played for India. He was the only one to take a test match ten-for in the golden tour of England in 1986, but that’s not even a trivia question in a local quiz competition. And when he takes the first hat-trick by an Indian in a one-day game (and a World Cup game at that, in the 1987 edition in the sub-continent), the victims are Ken Rutherford, Ian Smith and Ewen Chatfield, not quite tigers with the bat. And to rub salt into the wound, Sunil Gavaskar comes in and plays a thunderous innings, a one-in-a-lifetime affair, and walks away with the man-of-the-match award. But hold on, Gavaskar remembers poor Chetan’s feat, and the award gets shared. Now if only Javed Miandad had been half as generous…

It’s an ill wind . . .

It wasn’t quite easy watching the proceedings at the ‘Gabba, and it was really a relief that the weather interfered rather more decisively than it tends to in England. It was a pointless game in a pointless one-day series. (It is a relief to remember that this is to be the last tri-series tournament in the annual Australian cricket calendar, at least until the BCCI realises how to make money off it). No, I’m not saying this because I’m an Indian and the Indians didn’t quite cover themselves with glory with their batting performance. Yes, I did watch Brett Lee bowl give yet another great exhibition of fast bowling. No, it’s not because the game ended resultless. But… you know what I mean.

Yet, and trust a die-hard cricket follower (especially on an otherwise eventless Sunday) to find something to talk about even in a game like this…

It was the third over of the Australian innings. Irfan Pathan was bowling to James Hopes. He starts with a dot ball; then bowls a real wide down the leg side, follows up with another good dot ball; and then disappears to the fence for the next three. Then he comes up to bowl the last ball of the over. It was another delivery on the leg stump, and brushed past the batsman’s pads. Hopes attempted to tickle it to fine-leg but missed. The umpire spread his arms wide. Groan. Pathan had to bowl that one again.

But the batsman’s reaction was instructive. Hopes was practising the shot again and berating himself for missing out on what could have been a certain boundary. If the ball was that close to being hit for a boundary, is it fair that it be declared a wide just because the batsman missed it?

I know it’s a tight call with these leg stump wides, but may be they should be treated like lbws? That is, the umpires have to decide whether the ball was really un-hittable rather than just going by the mechanical definition of a ball just going down the leg side? I know the current trend is to take away as much decision-making as possible from the on-field umpires but surely there are some things they can decide on? And only they can decide on?

Changing colours

The Indian team for the upcoming one-day tri-series in Australia is due to be announced today. Fresh from the WACA euphoria, here are some mis-steps the selectors may make.

First up is the case of Virender Sehwag. Dropping him from the test squad was a mistake the selectors made in the past; picking him for the limited overs team was a second, perhaps larger mistake. Think of Sehwag as India’s Michael Slater (plus the bowling and the tactical nous). An unpredictable, game-changing opener best saved for test matches.

VVS Laxman could perhaps come up for discussion as well. His Sydney 167 of many moons ago got him to stay back for the one-day series down under. Great as he is in whites, putting him in coloured clothing again may not be a good idea, not least because it will be a step back for the successful youth selections of late.

Rahul Dravid is a tricky selection. He was discarded half-way through the home one-day series against Pakistan. Should he come back now, on the back of what looks like a return to test match form? I wouldn’t vote for it.

Ishant Sharma is a temptation the selectors would do well to resist. One good spell doesn’t a wizard make. Let Ishant take his time and settle down in the test team, and then we can think of him in the other forms of the game.

Seven players from the test squad pick themselves for the one-dayers – Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Harbhajan Singh, Rudra Pratap Singh and Irfan Pathan. Of the others, I reckon Shantakumaran Sreeshanth, Gautam Gambhir and Robin Uthappa would be shoo-ins. The other six should be interesting selections. Murali Kartik or Piyush Chawla? Praveen Kumar? Rohit Sharma or Mohammed Kaif or Suresh Raina or Subramaniam Badrinath? Yusuf Pathan? Some total newcomers like Cheteshwar Pujara? An interesting day ahead.

Worth reading, again and again and again

It’s an article that’s more than nine months old; it’s about a cricketer who retired about eight months ago; and it’s about the cricketer’s lesser abilities. But this article on Cricinfo keeps resonating in my mind. It’s perhaps the best article I have ever read, for its sheer ability to tickle the funny bone without stating anything except the bare facts. Even the adjectives are not over the board and are always substantiated by numbers. It’s a glorious example of brilliant wit using simple statistics, this piece on Glenn McGrath by Tim de Lisle. Stop everything and read this, if you haven’t already. If you have, another read (and another, and another) won’t hurt.

Who next?

So the hoped-for has happened – Michael Vaughan has stepped down as England’s captain for one-day internationals. The selectors must has heaved a huge sigh of relief, because it saves them the task of having to carry him in the one-day squad – you can’t drop a self-appointed captain, can you?

So who are the alternative candidates?

Paul Collingwood is touted as the favourite and he is well likely to end up with the job. He has been the model of consistency in the English team (in both forms of the game) over the last few seasons. But is he captaincy material? He looks more like a capable foot-soldier, someone who was perennially in the fringes until he blossomed over the last two seasons. So will he provide the kind of overt leadership that England needs in one-dayers, a form of the game they seem almost reluctant to master? Moreover, considering that all three facets of his game will come to the fore in one-dayers, will captaincy be an additional load on Collingwood?

What do we make of all the talk about Kevin Pietersen being in the running? Now this could be an interesting choice. England desperately need to invent themselves as far as one-dayers go. So it may be worth considering someone who comes across as so unorthodox, as KP certainly does. His lack of experience (he has played only 51 one-day internationals so far) may be counted against him, but perhaps that is precisely what England needs. Someone with too much experience may just continue with the old mindset.

If he gets back to full fitness, can Andrew Flintoff walk back into the one-day team as captain? Well, Vaughan did that in the test arena, didn’t he? After a promising start, Flintoff’s captaincy came apart in Australia. But then, Australia is Australia, and the Ashes may not have been any different if England had had a different captain. Of course, it is an additional load on Freddie considering the all-round expectations from him, but the one-day game is more his métier and he has the personality to garner the troops, so he may just be an option.

Is there a fourth candidate? Not within one’s sight, but you never know with England and one-dayers. Remember Norman Gifford? Remember Adam Hollioake? It’s not just the weather that is unpredictable in England.

What England need in ODIs

Graham Thorpe suggests that Michael Vaughan retire from one-day internationals and England make Kevin Pietersen their captain for the limited overs version of the game.

Enough has been said about Vaughan’s performance (or lack of it) in the 2007 World Cup. His performance in one-day internationals overall hasn’t been glorious either. An average of a mere 27.15 over an 86-game career without a single century to his name speaks for itself. So may be he should do a Steve Harmison vis-à-vis the one-day game.

But should Kevin Pietersen be the captain? Will it be too early? (Memories of a certain Ian Botham come to mind.) Will the responsibilities of captaincy curb Pietersen’s free spirit? If Andrew Flintoff were to come back to full fitness, would he be a better candidate for captaincy? However, inasmuch as Pietersen (apart from Flintoff, when he is not on the surgery table) is the only automatic selection into the England one-day squad, may be his name should at least be discussed.

But captaincy is not the core of England’s concerns when it comes to the one-day game. Their bigger problem is that they just don’t seem to have grasped the gestalt of the game, notwithstanding the plethora of one-day games that are played as part of the county season. The so-called one-day specialists are too one-dimensional (Who was that opener who hit one swept six off the fast bowlers per game and nothing much else?) and journeyman-like; the test specialists are too rigid in adapting to the limited overs game (Vaughan himself and Ian Bell come to mind; Graham Thorpe in the past was not dissimilar either, with due respect). But its not about the players; the England management seems to be lost in terms of one-day strategies, team selections, and the like.

May be what England really need is a coach specifically for the one-day game. A coach who understands the one-day game. A coach who will build a one-day team for a few seasons and not tournament by tournament. A coach who will fill the team with the optimal mix of solid players and floaters. A coach who will get the team to take the one-day game seriously. And a coach who is not an Englishman.

It’s a challenge that can daunt a John Buchanan. And tempt him too. Imagine he takes up the gauntlet. And gets England to lift the big cup in 2011 (with a finals victory over Australia)? Won’t he go down the annals of cricketing history as the greatest coach ever?

Bev or Viv?

Today’s issue of Mint (the financial newspaper of the Hindustan Times group, in association with the Wall Street Journal) carries a story on how two actuaries have come up with a new system to calculate batting averages of batsmen in limited over internationals.

The most significant change that has been introduced is the treatment of unbeaten innings. The two actuaries Sanchit Maini and Sumit Narayanan argue, and rightly so too, that adding to the numerator but not to the denominator is not quite fair. Sanchit and Sumit use insurance principles like risk and exposure to play with the calculations.

“According to the new method, if a not-out batsman has played fewer balls than his own average (number of balls faced on an average in his career) up till that game, it is not counted as a not-out. For instance, if a cricketer has played 10 innings, facing an average of 41 balls in each innings, and remained not-out in four, but faced at least 41 balls in only one of these four innings, then he is counted as having been out in three of his ‘not-out’ innings. His average will fall because his score in this 10 innings will now be divided by nine (the number of innings in which he is considered out), and not six as it would have otherwise been.”

It doesn’t sound as complex as Duckworth & Lewis, for sure, so that’s a start. But if the ICC does take it up and starts adding more variables to it, you never know what may come out.

However, the question really is this: Do we really need different statistics to evaluate batsmen? Michael Bevan’s average is much higher than that of Sir Vivian Richards, but does even a rabid Australian think Bevan was better than Sir Viv? Sure, Sanchit’s and Sumit’s formula puts this pecking order in place, but isn’t that retro-fitting?

Any way, let me not quibble. The fun in cricket analysis lies in looking at the game through different lenses – and the number lens is perhaps one of the more interesting. Good shot, Sanchit and Sumit. Now if only you could find a useful way to measure fielding averages…

Seven Centuries in an Innings

Australia beat South Africa by 83 runs in the only meaningful encounter in Group A. This means that Australia go in with points into the Super 8.

Yes, Mathew Hayden bulldozed South Africa; yes Ricky Ponting made another big score (ho hum); and yes, Michael Clarke got among the runs. (No, Pollock and McGrath were not their usual parsimonious selves, but that’s a different story.)

But here’s a chilling statistic. Every single Australian scored at more than run-a-ball, and seven of them came out to wield the willow. Gilchrist got an even 42 of 42, Hayden 101 of 68, Ponting 91 of 91, Clarke 92 of 75, Symonds 18 of 13, Watson 14 of 9, and Hussey 5 of 3. Even in that game at the Wanderers, this did not happen.

I don’t want to sound like I’m old-fashioned and say that cricket has degenerated into a batsman’s game. The batsman is as integral to the game as the bowler. And let’s face it, from the perspective of the lay watcher (the backbone for cricket’s commercial success), Pollock’s parsimony is not half as exciting to watch as Gibbs’s six-hitting. (But then, unfortunately, I am an old-fashioned cricket fan who enjoys watching McGrath bowling in the corridor ball in and ball out.)

Is it not possible to make the game exciting for the lay watcher from a bowler’s perspective? After all, a four and a six are the main scoring shots that attract the commercial cricket fan. The wicket-taking equivalents of these are shattered stumps and breathtaking catches. The subtlety of a tight over is as interesting to watch as six boundaries (or even sixes) being hit in an over.

Alternatively, should we stop recording and analyzing bowling statistics? After all, football scores are only for goals scored, the defenders have no formal statistics to back them up. And the same is true of basketball and many of the other major games.

And with the Twenty20 World Cup coming up, it may be a good transition point for the game. It could be the end of the game as we know it, but then perhaps the game needs to reinvent itself to survive. It’s a business now, after all.