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Trueman’s latest biographer does a better job of fleshing out his subject than his more illustrious predecessors – perhaps because he didn’t know him as well

Rob Steen12-Nov-2011Five years ago, when the cricket correspondents, quotes this line with the same relish as that with which he tackles his fascinating subject. It is, of course, both typical and stereotypical Trueman: ornate enough to have been rehearsed and reheated countless times over, arrogant enough to be credible (asked by Michael Parkinson to think of a working title for an autobiography, the response passed straight into legend: “‘Ow about: ‘T’ Definitive Volume Of ‘T’ Greatest Ruddy Fast Bowler Who Ever Drew Breath?'”). If ever a cricketer’s reputation preceded him, it was assuredly Fred’s. None, certainly, has been the subject of more dressing-room yarns or after-dinner wisecracks; some are even true.Trueman was an aggressive, sometimes vicious bowler with a flair for self-mythology, self-promotion and waging the class war on his own. Fame and infamy sat side-by-side on those chipped shoulders. He was big enough in his own time; had he made his Test debut in 2002 rather than 1952, in a world of satellite TV and instant communication, one shudders to imagine how dazzling his star would be. So vast does he still loom in the popular imagination, if a vote were taken to acclaim England’s greatest fast bowler, he would probably still pip John Snow and Bob Willis; Harold Larwood too. Unlike those luminaries, he failed to make an indelible stamp on a victorious Ashes series, but where Larwood, Snow and Willis fanned the flames of controversy almost despite themselves, Trueman did not so much embrace the spotlight as eat it whole. And demand another helping.Waters is Trueman’s third biographer. Unlike his predecessors, Arlott and Don Mosey, he was not compromised by having worked closely with his subject on previous books. It was Trueman, nonetheless, who proposed, shortly before his death in 2006, that Waters write this book. The result is the fullest picture yet of a great sportsman and all-too-human being.Trueman, attested Arlott, “was the kind of fast bowler he had created for himself; a larger-than-life-sized figure compounded in the imagination of a boy from the fancies, facts, loyalties, cricket, reading, traditions and all the other influences of a semi-rural, semi-industrial area of South Yorkshire in the nineteen-thirties”. Waters goes one better by capturing that South Yorkshire, in particular Maltby, the grim and grimy pit town where Trueman grew up in severely straitened times.Besides eliciting memories from several family members and team-mates, Waters extends his net of witnesses to Cecil Kippins, the umpire at the centre of the most notorious incident on Trueman’s maiden tour. Cast as the scapegoat for what the Times called “the second most controversial tour in cricket history”, that Caribbean sortie in 1953-54 begat Trueman’s reputation as a roughneck and a troublemaker, but he was wrongly fingered.Context was all. Emboldened by changes in India, Jamaicans and Bajans and Trinidadians were clamouring for independence. “For God’s sake, beat these people,” Charles Palmer, the assistant manager, recalled members of the white ruling class pleading at official functions, “or our lives won’t be worth living.” During the game against British Guiana in Georgetown, Kippins no-balled Trueman, who was already seething at a dropped catch and a string of rejected lbw appeals. Kippins suddenly walked towards gully, where Hutton, the MCC captain, was fielding, and spoke to him. At stumps, Trueman was accused of calling Kippins “a black bastard”, which despite vehement protestations of innocence saw him docked his £50 tour bonus. Kippins, now living in the US, holds his hands up: “It was my fault entirely. It wasn’t Freddie, it was Johnny Wardle. I mistook one for the other.” He did not correct his error, he added, because he’d fallen out with Hutton.Trueman never played under Hutton again and missed 23 of England’s next 26 Tests. Had he been born in less class-conscious times, he would surely have exceeded Ian Botham’s national record of 383 Test victims instead of settling for 307; bar Simon Jones (59 at 47.8), no English player with 50 wickets on his CV since the First World War has matched Trueman’s strike-rate of 49.4. The year before he died, reunited for the first time in 30 years with the other three standout Yorkshire cricketers of the second half of the 20th century, Boycott, Brian Close and Ray Illingworth, he was still incandescent: “The selectors seemed more interested in picking decent blokes than decent bowlers.”Gallantly, respectfully, Waters allows Arlott the final word: “He could be very harsh and gentle; witty and crude; unbelievably funny and very boring; selfish and wonderfully kind… and he was, when the fire burnt, as fine a fast bowler as any.” Nevertheless, the previous 296 pages do more to explain those contradictions than his vaunted predecessor did.Fred Trueman: The Authorised Biography
Chris Waters
Aurum Press Ltd
A$35

He had to wait more than a decade for his second Test century and it is a moment he says he feared would never come

Firdose Moonda in Harare 05-Aug-2011When Hamilton Masakadza was playing cricket for his primary school, in Highfields, the second-oldest suburb in Harare, his friends gave him a special, but complimentary nickname. They called him “Test cricketer” because of his extraordinary staying power for someone so young.”Growing up I was always patient,” he told ESPNcricinfo. “Tatenda [Taibu] and Vusi [Sibanda] and those guys were the ones being aggressive and I was the one holding up the other end.”It turned out to be an apt description of his character, because Masakadza is one of the most-patient men cricket has seen; the fifth most to be exact, if you take the amount of time between Test centuries as a yardstick. He had to wait 10 years and six days between his first Test century, in 2001, and his second, which he brought up on Friday in Harare, in Zimbabwe’s first Test since returning to Test cricket. That is a length of time surpassed only by India’s Mushtaq Ali and Vijay Merchant, England’s Frank Woolley and Australia’s Warren Bardsley, who waited 13 years and 346 days between his fifth and sixth centuries. All those players had their careers interrupted by the World Wars.Although Masakadza’s wait didn’t involve an event as catastrophic, the political and cricketing turmoil Zimbabwe has been through in the last decade has not made his interval easy. Besides the country’s cricketing woes, he has also had to deal with the expectation that came from registering his first Test hundred – a match-saving knock on debut – at the age of 17, and the disappointment of not being able to push on from that.When the pressures of sport can become overwhelming, Masakadza said strong support kept him grounded and that he felt his early achievement helped build his confidence. “At that age if you don’t do well you will spend a lot of time wondering if you are good enough or not, so I was pleased that I was able to do well for that reason. Even when I didn’t follow it up in the best way, people encouraged me and believed in me.”Those people may have been surprised when, a year after his debut, Masakadza took a break from the game. He went to complete a degree in marketing at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa, where he spent three years. There, he played for the varsity’s club team alongside Ryan McLaren, Cornelius de Villiers and against Rusty Theron.He said the time away from the international game helped him improve. “I learnt a bit more about how to play seam bowling while I was there. I also worked on my off-side game; I think before I was stronger on the leg side but now if you look at my wagon wheels, I play all around the wicket.”When he came back to Zimbabwe, in 2004, he established himself as a regular in the one-day team, but missed out on selection for both the 2007 and 2011 World Cup squads. His career was punctuated with breaks and so he was hardly surprised when it took him eight years to score his first ODI century. “When I eventually scored it, it was one of the highest points in my career,” he said, laughing as he remembered the opposition. “And it was against Bangladesh.”Now, he has brought up his second Test century against the same team, and Masakadza cannot contain his joy at being able to achieve it, especially because there was a time when he thought it would never come. In the middle of Zimbabwe’s self-imposed exile from Test cricket, Masakadza thought he would have to forget his dreams of Test success. “I thought I may have retired by the time we get Test cricket back. That question definitely went through my mind. But now I understand that I am an integral part of the team and I relish being a senior player.”He admits that he had some doubts during the course of this innings in Harare, but they only crept in later on. “I only actually got nervous when I was on 99. [When on 95], I hit the ball through mid-off and I thought it was three and that I would be able to wait at the other end for a while but then I saw it trickled down for four and I knew I was close. Getting past the hundred was the best part of my innings today.”

Though he didn’t enjoy touring, Warren Lees, the former New Zealand keeper and coach, doesn’t get why players are so insular these days

Firdose Moonda13-Mar-2012International cricket is a little like Christmas: in most places it comes only once a year. When it comes to Warren Lees’ town, you can excuse him for feeling like a kid who has kept on Santa’s good side.But despite a lifetime romance with the game, in recent years Lees, the former New Zealand keeper and coach, only keeps one date a year with international cricket. When Dunedin hosts a match, he allows himself to be seduced by it. He doesn’t have the desperation of some ex-players who don’t know what to do with their lives now that cricket is no longer in it. For him it’s like a short-lived but intense love affair.”I’ve drifted out of the game,” he says paradoxically. “I didn’t mean to drift out, because I’ve just realised in the last five years how much I miss it.”One thing I really treasure is doing the radio commentary once or twice a year,” Lees said. “My wife can’t get over the change in my behaviour when I do radio commentary. It’s because it’s only at this time that I meet up with Ian Smith and I see Doully [Simon Doull]. I only want to see them once a year, and they probably don’t even want to see me that often! I just get a buzz being around the circuit and I just realise how much I miss it.”Lees retired from first-class cricket in 1988 but continued being actively involved in the game. He coached his home side, Otago, and then the national team, from 1990 to 1993.People with lesser credentials are now full-time television analysts and there seems no reason why Lees could not join those ranks. Except that he does not want to. He describes himself as a “bit of a home person” who does not like touring. “There would be long tours when I played,” he says. “The first tour I played in was ten weeks long, to India and Pakistan. People don’t have ten-week tours anymore.”Lees does not like the travelling circus that modern-day cricket has become. He says it breeds self-involvement rather than fostering a sense of community. “I couldn’t have the headphones on and loud music on the plane over an eight-hour flight. We used to play cards and things like that. It was a social scene, so our players knew each other very well,” he said. “Some of the cricketers these days don’t know anyone.”He thinks more face-to-face association should be enforced on players on a tour. “We had rules when I was coaching: between 7pm and 10pm, if you were in your room at night, you’d leave your door open so people could come and go. People go in their rooms now and they close their door. I wouldn’t say I am overly interested in what people are doing in their rooms, but it’s like they are not meeting people.”Although he “enjoyed coaching more than playing”, Lees’ first tour in charge was very tough. “We went to Pakistan and we just got thrashed.” New Zealand lost all three Tests and three ODIs, by big margins. “The two openers [Trevor Franklin and David White] almost begged me not to pick them in the last Test. They were making up injuries not to be selected.”Travelling did not get any easier, and they managed only one win on the road, against Zimbabwe in Harare. But there was one standout moment as coach for Lees – the 1992 World Cup.”The highlight for me overall was taking that team and doing so well at the World Cup. There were changes to the team personnel, but on the whole the team was just so broken and everyone had given up. There had been retirements, [Richard] Hadlee had gone, and guys who really shouldn’t have been playing first-class cricket were all of a sudden playing for New Zealand. Taking that team for three years and growing it into a family was great.”New Zealand reached the semi-final of the tournament, losing to eventual champions Pakistan. “The team that I had at that World Cup, just about every one of them I would have been proud to call my son,” Lees said. “They weren’t great cricketers, Gavin Larsen, Rod Latham, Willie Watson, but they were great guys to work with.”While Lees may not have thought of those players as naturally talented, he had one prodigious talent in Martin Crowe, who was the New Zealand captain when Lees was coach. “I found him absolutely fascinating,” Lees said. “He was a fantastic person, he was completely misunderstood and he misunderstood a lot of things about life too. He was a challenge but he was also just a great person to work with. We met at 6:30 nearly every day we were on tour or playing, and he was never late; he was organised.”Eventually, and perhaps ironically, it was a tour abroad that ended Lees’ national coaching role. After the team abandoned their trip to Sri Lanka in November and December 1992, when bomb blasts threatened their safety, Lees knew he would “lose the job not long after”.At that point he felt cynical about how New Zealand cricket was being operated, because of the way the situation was handled and the pressure they were under to continue the tour. “The way people were treated was just disgraceful. In the end you think, ‘How the hell did New Zealand make progress during those years?’ And we didn’t, until we actually treated people the way people should be treated.”He thinks things have changed and will continue to change under John Wright. “Wrighty is a very fair person. At times he needs to be perhaps a little bit more decisive but I think Wrighty’s relationship with the players will be strong.”Lees’ own involvement with coaching today is at the micro-level. He lives close to Alexandra, a town in Central Otago, and spends his days coaching what he calls “country kids”, who do not have access to the same resources as their counterparts in big cities. “I like coaching country kids because they are receptive and they are polite, and in a way even their parents are grateful because they have had no coaching at all. I’ve got a database of 300 kids and I’d say 280 of them had never been coached.”Also Lees, of course, commentates on the Dunedin Test as often as he can and writes a column for a local newspaper. “It’s not about cricket at all. It’s about life,” Lees said about the column. “People seem to laugh at it, or perhaps they are laughing at me, but it doesn’t really matter.”

Australia were hoping to prove that their latest crop of seam bowlers can hold a candle to their attacks of the past, once again the reality was far different from their ambitions

Daniel Brettig at Chester-le-Street07-Jul-2012This was supposed to be the day Australia’s pace attack bared its teeth. Freed from the claustrophobia of the indoor nets by an unlikely break in the Durham weather, they were to be unleashed on England. Four quicks had been selected, the ineffectual Xavier Doherty dropped and the enigmatic Mitchell Johnson left out. In damp air, and on a seaming, tacky pitch, Ben Hilfenhaus, James Pattinson, Brett Lee and Clint McKay were resolved, as Hilfenhaus put it, to “show England what we’re made of”.Not for the first time on this tour, Australia’s lofty expectations were to prove completely out of step with the prevailing reality. Given only 200 runs to defend by batsmen who admittedly had to cope with much the worst of the conditions, the touring bowlers were swatted away by Ian Bell, Alastair Cook and Jonathan Trott without anything like the sort of discomfort anticipated. Their ineffectiveness was to be compounded by a pair of ruinous injuries to Shane Watson and Brett Lee, the latter perhaps walking from the field in England for the very last time.That Australia’s bowlers should struggle to get past England’s Test match proven top three was not in itself a surprise – the hosts had lost only eight wickets across the first two matches before Edgbaston’s wash-out. But the fact that on a seaming pitch the visitors could not even manage to claim one early wicket, let alone pressure England for any length of the chase, added another disheartening chapter to the book that may be written on why the team coached by Andy Flower remains well in advance of Australia’s. For those citing the injuries as a possible excuse, it can be countered that the match was slipping away well before Watson and Lee hobbled off.Of the touring bowlers, only David Saker’s former student McKay has offered a consistent, nagging threat to England on this trip. Fractionally too short at Lord’s, he has improved with each match, and here returned a meritorious 2 for 29. The rest, however, have struggled to put the ball where they need to in the manner of their English counterparts, whether they be experienced or callow.The example for the rest was thought likely to come from Lee, but by the time he left the field at Durham it was possible to ponder how capable he is of providing it. Lee’s calf complaint is the probable end to his tour, but it had already been a frustrating one, for the precision he showed against Ireland in Belfast had not been matched against England. Lee was unable to nail his yorkers at a pivotal time at Lord’s, allowing Eoin Morgan to wriggle the total beyond 250 where for most of the innings 230 was the favourite. The Oval came and went with a similar lack of threat at the required times.

Pattinson has now been introduced to a sensation that has become all too familiar among Australian cricketers: that of defeat against England.

At Chester-le-Street, Lee followed up a shortish maiden in his first over by conceding 12 from his second, either dropping short or drifting wide to force his removal from the attack. A return spell lasted only two balls before Lee was unable to bowl, and he remains short of Glenn McGrath’s Australian ODI wickets record. The question for the national selector John Inverarity is how much longer Lee, at 35, can be permitted to pursue it.Lee had been preceded on his unhappy path to the treatment room by Watson, another who has not met expectations with the ball. One wicket in three games at a cost of 6.11 runs per over left Watson looking very much the fifth bowler on Australia’s team sheet, when for so long his medium paced swing and seam has been arguably the ODI team’s most versatile asset. Watson has been unable to contain or take wickets, leaving Clarke less able to call on him in the Powerplay overs or at the death of an innings, as he had done frequently during the Australian summer. After a lengthy period in which he became admirably robust, injuries have begun to creep back into Watson’s story, a fact arguably more disquieting than the runs he has conceded in these games.Hilfenhaus had conveyed his urgent desire to play in the lead-up to this match, but, as against Ireland, his ODI bowling was to prove curiously muted next to the shrewd and strong displays he had offered against India and the West Indies during the Test matches that preceded it. While a better bowler than he had shown against England during the last Ashes series in Australia, Hilfenhaus was not as much of a challenge for Bell, Cook and Trott as he should have been on this surface. By his own admission Hilfenhaus remains a student of the one-day game rather than its master, but he will have to bowl more incisively than this on the Ashes tour next year.All this left Pattinson with a considerable weight on his shoulders in his first match against England. His first over was bedevilled by an introductory no-ball, and was studded with a pair of Ian Bell boundaries. Pattinson improved in subsequent spells, bowling as well to Cook as his fellow young firebrand Pat Cummins had done at Lord’s. On another day he might have had a wicket or two, and can be said to have bowled better than his figures showed. But he has now been introduced to a sensation that has become all too familiar among Australian cricketers: that of defeat against England.Between the rain, the defeats and the injuries, this has been a most unsatisfactory visit for Clarke’s tourists, and a most sobering one. While the shortcomings of the batsmen are widely known, the selected bowlers have been left in little doubt that they have plenty of work to do also. Sharper teeth will need to be found in time for next year, otherwise the same story will be related.

The route to a draw in this Test was not clearly charted, as both teams sought victory as well as a psychological advantage for the rest of the series

Firdose Moonda at Headingley06-Aug-2012There are winning draws and losing draws. There are boring draws and exciting ones. There are draws that invoke frustrations and elicit criticisms with Test cricket that, unlike the telephone, typewriter and light bulb, it has not evolved enough from its 19th century beginnings. Then there are draws like Headingley 2012.It proved the modern game is every bit as analytical and tactical as it needs to be to fit into times it has been told it cannot keep up with and that a contest, when properly kindled, will burst into flames at just the right time.Although the speed at which the match moved on the final day – 13 wickets, two different innings and all three results still possible until the final hour – was fascinating, the maze of mind games that took place during it will be the legacy of this fixture, because there was no clear winner. For every question England asked of South Africa, someone had an answer. For every answer, England had another question. Just when South Africa thought they had answered all the questions, one more came.Stuart Broad asked it when he plucked five wickets from South Africa’s middle and lower order. In the context of the game, those wickets only hastened what Graeme Smith was aiming to do anyway: end the South Africa innings. But they would have added volumes in confidence to an England attack which, until then, did not look as though they could bowl South Africa out twice.That Smith did not allow them to do that, consciously or subconsciously, by declaring when South Africa lost their ninth wicket could be one of the factors that plays on England minds ahead of Lord’s. While South Africa’s attack have taken 20 wickets in a match this series, England have not.By putting England back in, Smith also took the obvious result, a draw, folded it up, tucked it under his arm and ran around the corner with it, leading England into a labyrinth he hoped they would get lost in. It would have taken a performance of the magnitude of England’s Cardiff efforts against Sri Lanka last year – and batting as inept as the tourists’ was that day – for that to have happened but Smith believed it was possible.He laid down a marker of intent, however unlikely victory was, with his second positive declaration in as many matches. He may even argue that he came closer than Andrew Strauss to achieving what seemed impossible. “We wanted an opportunity to win the Test match and in the end, we were probably one wicket away from having a real go in the last 15 overs,” Smith said.With a bowling attack as varied and charged up as South Africa’s – Dale Steyn bowled what could be the fastest spell of the series – Smith thought he had the trap laid. But Strauss could read the map too and played his ace in Kevin Pietersen at the top of the order. It was just what Smith wanted. “England took the game to us, which I was kind of hoping they would do, because it would give us chances,” Smith said. “When someone is playing like Pietersen there is always an opportunity.”Opportunity came four times in the second innings as the beauty of the game unfolded like a spring flower and the balance shifted. England did not give up the chase until Matt Prior’s run-out and South Africa did not stop trying to take wickets until Jacques Kallis’ last delivery. Given more time, more runs, more overs and less rain, the result may have been something other than a draw.Even though it was, the draw did not struggle out like the last drops from a tap. It was a draw that held attention the way a burst pipe does, because in the space of a few balls the gush could have caused damage on either side. It was a draw that captivated and thrilled at the end because it had been built on a solid, although not always eye-catching, start and both teams deserve credit and praise for their role in that.

“The ECB clearly needs to talk about and with Kevin Pietersen, while South Africa can sit on the other side and continue to play happy families”

To pick the side that inched forward after the five days is not the easiest task. England came back, not as strongly as they promised they would, but they came back nonetheless. South Africa stretched an unenviable record and have not won the follow-up Test after a big victory in their last seven attempts, dating back to 2010. This time, it was not for lack of trying, so they may draw some inspiration from that.What could provide the real impetus is the schadenfreude they may derive from glancing over the fence and peeping at what is going on next door. They don’t even have to look actually, they can just listen because the neighbours are causing such a ruckus.The ECB clearly needs to talk about and with Kevin Pietersen, as his increasing number of issues with playing for his country seem to have no end. South Africa can sit on the other side and continue to play happy families.From a distance it seems not even the sharpest blade could slice the squad apart. Fringe players such as Faf du Plessis have spoken about how they have been made to feel welcome and been embraced into the team culture. No-one is threatening anything, nevermind something as dramatic as what Pietersen is stirring up on the other side.The three walking wounded are on the mend. Alviro Petersen batted, despite his hamstring strain, and should be fully fit within six days. Smith’s knee is strapped but healing and Kallis batted and bowled, having fully overcome his back spasms.It may be a quaint notion but South Africa’s mental edge in the final Test could come from being completely at peace, while their opposition seem to be readying for a big battle with themselves.

When others experience problems and he finds a point to prove, Kevin Pietersen flourishes

George Dobell in Mumbai25-Nov-2012There may have been more reliable batsmen, there may have been more responsible batsmen and there may have been more consistent batsmen. But there have been very few batsmen to have been so destructive, so often, as Kevin Pietersen.Certainly it is hard to think of another England batsman of recent vintage who could have played the innings Pietersen played. On a pitch offering substantial assistance to the spinners and on which other batsmen have struggled for fluency, Pietersen created the illusion that he was operating on a batting paradise. Only when others, some of whom are considered experts in such conditions, prodded and struggled were the true nature of the conditions exposed.This was an innings that many thought could never be played. When Pietersen was dropped from the England team in August, bridges were smouldering and, so deep were the divisions between him and his colleagues, that it looked for a while that there could be no return. It is surely for the best that a rapprochement was achieved. At a time when Test cricket is fighting for relevance and room, talents like Pietersen are to be savoured by anyone from any nation. His return is an asset not just to England, but to the game. Players like this do not come around very often.Pietersen is often at his best with a point to prove. It was after a poor tour of the UAE earlier this year that he produced the innings of 151 in Colombo; as the chasm between him and his teammates grew that he produced the innings of 149 in Leeds and as he sought to restate his worth after “reintegration” that he produced this innings. Most players are at their best when they feel comfortable; Pietersen is at his best when he feels doubted.Each great innings has been produced as his colleagues have struggled. Here, apart from the excellent Alastair Cook, no other England batsman could manage more than 29. At Leeds, Matt Prior, with 68, was the only other man to get out of the 30s and, even in Colombo, where England started well, Pietersen’s departure saw England lose their last five wickets for 49 runs. He has produced three match-shaping centuries in his last eight Tests. No-one in the world has scored more runs in first-class cricket this year, either. He is a great batsman at the peak of his powers. His worth to the team is immense.We should not be surprised. After all, before Pietersen, England had never won a global trophy. Before Pietersen, England had not won the Ashes in nearly two decades. Before Pietersen, England could barely dream of reaching No.1 in the ODI, Test or T20 rankings. It is largely through him that all those hurdles were cleared. He was, remember, the man of the tournament when England won the World T20 in the Caribbean in 2010 and it was his century at The Oval that clinched the 2005 Ashes.

It was masterful innings containing a medley of Pietersen’s greatest hits. But what made it all possible was the fact that he was prepared to wait for the opportunity to play them.

Yet, despite it all, some will never take to Pietersen. They doubt his motives, his commitment and his loyalty. It is a state of affairs that perhaps says more about the doubters than the doubted. Pietersen, like everyone else who has ever played the game, will be a mixture of virtue and vice and it is often unwise to judge a sportsman on anything other than their performance. Whatever Pietersen’s qualities off the pitch – and the truth is that most with an opinion are basing it on presumption rather than evidence – as a batsman it is hard to dispute his greatness.His technique may, at times, look idiosyncratic, but there is thought and logic behind it. At his best, his eyes, his hands and his feet work in harmony consistent with most great players. It is just that, such is Pietersen’s reach, his strength and his range of stroke, that he has more options than most. There will be occasions when he over-reaches or when his ego – so often a power of good in his batting – seduces him into danger. But that’s the price you pay for the wild genius. Viv Richards was not so different.So dominant was Pietersen in the opening session of the third day that he took a game in the balance and stole the initiative for England. He read R Ashwin’s variation and, having done so, was confident enough to use his feet to hit the ball into the gaps and produced strong evidence to scotch the theory that he struggles against left-arm spin: at one staging thrashing Pragyan Ojha for two fours and three sixes in a 17-ball spell.It was masterful stuff containing a medley of Pietersen’s greatest hits: the slog-sweep, the reverse sweep, the scoop, the cover drive, the cut and the lofted drive. But what made it all possible was the fact that he was prepared to wait for the opportunity to play them. There was none of the premeditation we saw in Ahmedabad, as Pietersen demonstrated the patience and the technique to block the good balls and wait for the bad ones. And when you have the arsenal of scoring options of Pietersen, you never have to wait too long.Cook is a different creature but must also be defined as great. Like Pietersen, Cook now has 22 Test centuries – no England player has scored more – and both should have plenty to come. Critics often judge a player’s merit or talent not on effectiveness, but on aesthetics. While it is true that Cook may not time the ball with the sweetness of Ian Bell, the more apt criteria for judgement should be who you would rather bat in your team. Cook, by such a benchmark, scores well. His mental strength and determination may not create the pleasing elegance of Bell, but they will win more matches.The excellence of Pietersen and Cook helped England to a first innings lead of 86 and, just as relevant in the long-term, a score of 400 for two innings in succession. On surfaces designed to exploit their weaknesses, that is an encouraging statistic.It may be mis-leading, however. Cook and Pietersen apart, England’s batsmen continued to struggle against spin. Jonny Bairstow showed some understandable naivety in playing across the left-arm spinner and Samit Patel has yet to justify his reputation against spin. England still look overly reliant for their runs on a couple of individuals.The success of their spinners was a major boost, though. To lose the toss on a wicket tailor-made for the opposition and beat them at their own game would be a remarkable achievement. It may also provide India with some food for thought going into the rest of the series.But let us not get ahead of ourselves. Bearing in mind England’s struggles against spin this year, and the ghost of Abu Dhabi hanging over them, a target of as little as 120 may still provoke discomfort. This beguiling game may offer us another twist or two yet.

Harsha Bhogle, Tom Moody and Peter Kirsten review the tournament, and CSA’s head Jacques Faul offers his assessment of the league

ESPNcricinfo staff30-Oct-2012
Was it a successful tournament from a South African perspective? (2.10 – 3.05)
Peter Kirsten: Definitely. The great thing about the Champions League is that it gives the franchise teams in South Africa a chance to show what they can do against top-class international players of different nationalities. It gives the franchises all around the world not only an opportunity to make a lot of money – if they make the finals or win it – but also show the IPL bosses what exactly they can do. With the Lions making the final, it was a great success for the South African public and the organisers.The best team won in the end… (3.06 – 3.57)
Tom Moody: I agree. The Sydney Sixers showed true form and consistency throughout the tournament. They looked dominant in all three aspects of the game. I thought they were the best fielding side, the best performing bowling attack, and they also showed depth in their batting, particularly after Shane Watson left to go back to Australia early. They showed they were capable of doing something without such a key player around.Why did the IPL teams do badly? And why is it that the South African sides did well? (3.58 – 7.24)
TM: The IPL teams struggled with the conditions – they are a lot different to what Indian players would face in the subcontinent – and it’s early season in South Africa. There’s seam movement, swing, and there was that extra bit of bounce. The most significant point is that the IPL teams didn’t gel as quickly as the other teams. The IPL teams are brought together over a two-month period for an IPL extravaganza in the middle of the year. The teams that tend to do well in the IPL are the ones that get together and gel together quickly. In such a short tournament like the Champions League, there’s not a lot of time for that.PK: There’s quite a lot of national diversity in many of the other IPL teams. If you take the Lions, Titans and the Sixers, there’s only Nathan McCullum and Michael Lumb and [Sohail Tanvir]. The local teams definitely had the advantage, and it’s very difficult for a diversity of national players, such as the IPL teams, to suddenly get it together. And certainly, the conditions suited Australia and South African teams with the bounce. Unfortunately on the day, the Lions batsmen succumbed – yet again a South African team succumbing to the pressure.A well-fought contest between bat and ball… (7.30 – 11.25)
PK: Twenty20 cricket is also about playing good, decent cricket shots as Brad Haddin and Lumb showed in the final. The Lions batsmen played completely across the line against quality fast bowlers and spinners. So definitely, the bowling skills are coming to the fore. In terms of captaincy, I thought it was a masterstroke from Haddin to go with his gut feel and start with the spinners and it worked superbly for him on the day. A good bowling side definitely has a distinct advantage in Twenty20 cricket.TM: When there’s a little bit more in the conditions, it tests a true player and a true team. A player, whether bowling or batting, needs to adapt to the conditions and the situation. That was the beauty of this particular Champions League. It made it an intriguing contest between bat and ball, where it wasn’t one-way traffic. What it showed was that batsmen prepared to play with good technique and composure under pressure were generally the ones that came out on top in those contests.Were you happy with the quality of cricket played? (11.26 – 13.52)
PK: The Sialkot Stallions might have been a decent introduction to the [main round of the] Champions League. They definitely would have drawn the attention of many more Pakistan fans. The standard of cricket was generally pretty good, at this time of the year there’s a bit more movement similar to Australian pitches. Generally speaking, the quality of cricket improved, the fielding was excellent and what the batsmen would have learnt in South Africa is try and play straight down the ground, as you saw with the Sixers batsmen yesterday and Symes of the Lions. Perhaps they would need to look at the structure of the qualifying rounds the next time around.Is the role of spin changing in different conditions? The Indian spinners didn’t do well but the others did. (13.53 – 15.37)
TM: That’s more a coincidence. The Indian spinners didn’t perform, more to do with the fact that their team had no momentum and was playing poor cricket. At the end of the day, the spinners that did do well were complemented by the remainder of their attack. They were made as strong as what they were and their attack was also complemented by the way they bowled. It was a collective effort. Talk about Steve O’Keefe and McCullum – any spinner would love to know that at the other end is a Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood or a Pat Cummins, because it just complements their art.The standard of national teams is above that of franchise cricket, which is sometimes contrary to what we see in football. Also, is the South African national side a fair representation of the best franchise teams in the country? (15.38 – 19.25)TM: The national teams are the cream of the crop in every country. They are well-drilled and at the absolute peak of their powers as cricketers. What you’ve got is a hot-house of the very best of that country that are selected because they are good at that format of the game.PK: The domestic scene in South Africa is very strong. Over the last ten years, dare I say this, we’ve tended to copy the structures of Australian domestic cricket and in many ways it has worked. There is depth in South Africa. Coach Gary Kirsten and the selectors are looking to give guys a chance. Aaron Phangiso, Chris Morris came through beautifully. South Africa still need to pay a lot of attention to the dotting of the Is and crossing of the Ts in Twenty20 cricket. They were found out in Sri Lanka, and again in the final a South African franchise struggled to put it together on a big day. It’s a difficult one for coach Kirsten and the others to get the right team together.Who were the players that excited you in the Champions League? (19.26 – 21.53)
TM: There’s two from the Sixers side. One is Josh Hazlewood: he was the most consistent quick out of that star-studded line-up. The other is Moises Henriques: he was touted a few years ago as a star allrounder, was thrown into the deep end and he struggled. Henriques has had that period out of the international spotlight and he’s ready to go back in. He looked the real deal as an allrounder.

“The domestic scene in South Africa is very strong. Over the last ten years, dare I say this, we’ve tended to copy the structures of Australian domestic cricket and in many ways it has worked”Peter Kirsten

PK: It was wonderful to see Neil McKenzie have such a great tournament. I’ve had a bit to do with Neil’s batting over the years. Playing for South Africa in your mid-30s, mentally you’re strong. Unfortunately for him in the final, he played a poor shot. He was a key batsman in the middle order for the Lions.George Bailey had talked about the need for Australia to have mystery spinners. But John Inverarity has said Australian spinners won’t bowl like that, effectively saying the 15-degree rule is not right for the game. How does Australia approach slow bowling in T20s, for example? (21.54 – 24.10)
TM: I tend to agree with Bailey. You always look to expand and develop your game and if you come up with something different – like the switch hit, reverse sweep – why not. As long as it stays within the rules of the game – the 15-degree rule came over a decade ago – why not try to be a little different? Too often we try to develop players out of the manual. Sanath Jayasuriya, Brian Lara, if you take a look at them through the ICC coaching manual, they probably wouldn’t pass. By goodness, haven’t they passed the test of time of international cricket? As long as it’s kept within the guidelines that’s clearly stated now, I don’t have a problem with it at all.What would you do different to the Champions League? (24.11 – 25.24)TM: I would like to see every country represented in the main competition and there not to be a qualifying stage for them.Excerpts from an interview with Jacques Faul, acting chief executive of Cricket South Africa and a member of the CLT20 governing council.In your view, has this tournament been a success?
The one thing is does do is provide your local domestic player an opportunity to play international stars, also from other countries. From a South African perspective, we’re very happy with the tournament and also because it provides the incentive for two of our six franchise teams to qualify.Are you concerned that viewership ratings are down, sponsorship is changing and as a viewing spectacle, this hasn’t quite taken off the way it should have?
There’s a concern in terms of the volume of entertainment and sport in general in the world. It seems to be escalating. I don’t think it’s isolated to the Champions League in itself, but it’s definitely something you’ve got to be mindful of. But it’s still a good product, if you compare it to other forms of entertainment and sport. The financial incentives are very good, so is the exposure value for players. For our South African teams, it’s a very important tournament. It boosts our domestic product.What does it mean to cricket in that territory to have that kind of money coming in?
They all receive, from CSA, US$600,000 as a yearly grant. That’s an annual grant, so to receive US$1.3 million or even US$500,000, that’s a lot of money. It’s a good incentive for players to win it as prize money. To give you the formula – the players get 50% of it, 25% goes to the winning franchises and the other franchises share in the remaining 25% of it. So, all our professional cricket structures benefit from it.Was the timing right? There was always the threat of rain.
Unfortunately, we had a lot of rain, it’s not the norm. I don’t think it’s a bad window.Were you happy with the number of people who turned up?
We are, but that’s affected by rain unfortunately as well. The opening match was unbelievable. The final, a lot of these matches were sold out. It also brings new people to grounds that have not supported cricket in the past, so very happy with it.Is it a weakness of the Champions League that it’s almost got to be too India-centric?
You can never underestimate the value of Indian teams playing in the tournament. The focus is not to deprecate the IPL, but still have the value of a large IPL influence and yet open it up to the world. It’s wonderful playing the IPL teams – they’re strong, well-structured and coached, but you can benchmark against it as well. Twenty20 brings teams closer. It’s good to have the best of the IPL combined with the rest of the world.How do you make the league stronger? For example, in the qualifying round, teams played one match and then were virtually out after losing.
Stronger teams from the members taking part will make it stronger, with the value in having strong and good players in it. Structurally, you can look at it. We’re going to have a debriefing on the tournament, get inputs from all stakeholders, team owners, officials, also the broadcasters. It is an evolving tournament and I can’t see it staying the same for the next five or six years.Is it possible for the tournament to move to Australia, with the time difference etc?
That’s probably an issue. Ultimately, it’s also important to have a strong television product. The financial model relies a lot on broadcasting rights and you’ve got to take that into consideration. I can’t say we’ll never have it in Australia, but you’ve still got to pay the bills and listen to your biggest investors and that’s probably broadcasting as well. I think there’s something wonderful and romantic about playing in India.Numbers Game (35.43 – 38.02)
Question: In the Champions League 2012, the spinners from which team had the poorest economy rate?

What batsmen want out of their bats has changed over the years – but not so much that they are any less finicky than their predecessors

Paul Edwards18-Feb-2013″Bats no longer have edges. They have a front, a back – and two sides.” Michael Holding’s judgement, given on air during one of last summer’s Tests, was delivered in his typically deep Jamaican tones, and it brooked no disagreement.One has only to look at the weapons being used by first-class cricketers to see that the profile of bats has changed. Long gone is the traditional blade, the 2lb 5oz scimitar. Willows are no longer particularly willowy.Yet, as many league cricketers can testify, while the modern bat may look like a mighty piece of wood with its huge 70mm edges, it is very far from the 3lb clubs used 20 and more years ago by Clive Lloyd, Graham Gooch and their like. The average weight of today’s bats is around 2lb 9oz, and this in a craft where taking an ounce off a blade can make all the difference to those key criteria, balance and pick-up. So how have manufacturers managed to make 41 ounces look like 48 or more?Welcome to the arcane world of pressing, bowing and concave shaping, a realm where professional sportsmen still take delivery of the highly crafted tools of their trade and then put them in the airing cupboard to dry them out a bit. One thing before we start: you can forget linseed oil; that’s just so last century.Pressing the wood is vital to a bat’s performance. All bat makers do this but if they press too little, the bat will be more likely to break, while if they press too much, its responsiveness and performance will be reduced. “There is an optimum amount of pressing,” said Stuart Waterton, brand manager at Kookaburra UK. “It is vitally important to produce the drive, and will vary for each piece of wood.””Each pressing is different, even if you’re making two bats from the same tree,” said Alex Mace, cricket product manager at Slazenger. “We press a bat three times, and under-pressing a bat is better than over-pressing, particularly for the bats we provide for the professionals.”It is expected that our professionals will break more bats given the amount of use they get. You’re only talking about a few per cent but the performance of a professional’s bat will generally be better than what you’d get from a bat bought off the shelf. That’s explained by the pressing techniques. We’d like to get the two more aligned but we’re not there yet.”In the meantime, bat manufacturers attempt to provide their customers in club cricket with the highest-quality product they can. Slazenger’s top-of-the-range Jonny Bairstow-endorsed, limited edition Retro V12 will set you back £425, while Kookaburra’s Players bat retails at 500 quid.”In terms of a top-price bat there’s no difference between the one we sell to a customer and that we provide for a professional,” said Waterton. “The cricketer who buys a Players bat will be getting a bat of pretty much the same quality as that we would provide for a Team Kookaburra Player like Stephen Moore.”And very well-heeled club batsmen visiting John Newbery’s workshop in Sussex last summer could treat themselves to a Cenkos, the first £1000 bat. Reassuringly expensive, some might argue, the Cenkos was custom-built in every respect and came in its own case. Newbery’s made a limited edition of just 25 and sold the lot.Many adjustments need to be made before a cricket bat meets the requirements of either endorsers or customers. Most players prefer a round handle, although some still like an oval shape. Some – Jacques Kallis, for example – opt to have more wood towards the bottom of the bat, while Eoin Morgan requires a medium-high profile. However, it is no longer the fashion for players to use a different profile of bat depending on the pitches in the country where they are playing. “The bats we made for Ian Bell to go to India this winter were exactly the same as he uses in the UK,” said Waterton.The majority of batsmen also prefer there to be a slight bow in the shape of the bat and for its face to be flat. (The traditional view was that the face should be slightly convex, but the current consensus is that this makes the bat look narrow, which is absolutely not the feeling a member of the top order wants to have.)Then there’s the back of the blade to be dealt with. In order that the bat can be as thick as possible without any increase in weight, bat makers have developed a technique whereby the traditionally sloping areas either side of the spine are made a little concave to allow wood to be removed in compensation for the size of the spine.”The holy grail is a big bat with a light pick-up,” said Mace. “People now look at size rather than the grain, even though the grain might be perfect.” Yet a decade ago customers in sports shops could be found closely examining the grain of prospective purchases and regarding it as a vital criterion in their final choice. Maybe some still do, for grain undoubtedly counts for something, but the need for a bat to have seven bands that are as even as the stripes on a Hove deckchair is no longer quite so important.

“I picked up one of the Surrey players’ bats in the changing room very recently and I expected it to feel like a railway sleeper. Instead, I thought to myself that I could almost use that”Micky Stewart

Lancashire’s Tom Smith admits that he tends to go for bats with knots in the wood because he was once told that they were the best bits of timber. Waterton uses an anecdote from his own time as a county cricketer to illustrate the occasional limitations of mere appearances. “I went to a bat maker and he asked me whether I wanted a pretty bat or one that wasn’t so good looking but ‘went’,” he said. “I chose the latter and it was a firecracker, it went like a bomb.”It is true that you can get good bats from all grades of willow but the general rule is still that the higher the quality of the wood, the more likely you are to get a good one.””It’s all about performance and power, and the growth of T20 has aided that,” said Mace. “Batsmen want big edges, a light pick-up and a bigger carry.” The modern cricketer is also, many believe, better physically equipped to take a 2lb 9oz bat and do serious damage with it. Newbery’s chief executive, Neil Lenham, a former Sussex batsman, points out that the current county player spends far more time in the gym than he and his counterparts did. “As a result, the bat speed created is probably greater than it has ever been in the history of the game.”All of which brings us to the Mongoose MMiR, the longer-handed, shorter-bladed bat that, so the argument goes, makes room for a bigger sweet spot and more weight though thicker edges, thus transferring more impact to the ball. Since the MMiR made its debut in 2009, Mongoose has added the conventionally shaped ToRQ to its range, and also the CoR3, a hybrid of the two other styles in which the standard-length blade is cut down by an inch and a half. The firm’s marquee endorser is Marcus Trescothick, but Gareth Andrew and Brett D’Oliveira also use Mongoose bats, and more names are set to be unveiled in 2013.”We saw the popularity of T20 and thought there was a gap in the market for a particular design,” said David Tretheway, Mongoose’s sales and marketing director. “Players were using the same bat for both T20 and Test cricket and yet the type of shots they were playing was very different. The need to help the attacking style gave birth to the short-bladed bat.”When the unconventional Mongoose was introduced, some thought it presaged a revolution in bat design. (In fact, the shape of the new bat in the blockhole was somewhat similar to that favoured by cricketers in the middle of the 18th century. Comparing the Mongoose to the bat held by the fresh-faced Lewis Cage in Francis Cotes’ beguiling 1768 painting makes the point.)It is probably fair to say that so far more players have used Mongoose bats in the nets than have taken them out to the middle. The English county cricketer can be a pretty conservative animal and batsmen the world over will do anything to prolong the life of a favourite willow with which they have scored a pile of runs. Nor is there any demand to limit the number of times a bat can be pressed. Which is probably fortunate, given that pressing techniques are so varied: commercial considerations mean that one bat maker won’t let colleagues from other firms see the machine he uses to press bats.The professionals, most of them anyway, are just as particular about their bats. Lancashire’s Stephen Moore endorses Kookaburra, and his preparation is meticulous. “Kookaburra’s main site is at Corby and I go down there and say what adjustments I’d like made,” he said. “I use an extra short handle and they tinker with the toe a little bit. They’re made precisely the way I like them, although I do tend to let them dry out a little bit more.”When I get a bat, it might be 2lb 9 or 10oz, but by the time I’ve let it dry out in an airing cupboard it’s about 2lb 8ozs. While I very seldom take one out of the wrapper and use it, I’ll use tape or glue to keep a bat going if I’ve scored a lot of runs with it. Bear in mind that I bat at the top of the order, but I’ll probably get through four or five bats a season, sometimes more.”Francis Cotes’ 1768 painting has the young Lewis Cage holding a bat not dissimilar to today’s fashionable Mongoose•Getty ImagesMoore’s habits and foibles needed little explanation to Micky Stewart, who must be a fair contender to be England’s most forward-thinking 80-year-old. Despite having never used a bat weighing more than 2lb 5ozs – and powerful contemporaries like Peter May and Ken Barrington favoured willows of comparable weight – Stewart is entirely attuned to the approach of cricketers in the second decade of the 21st century.”The ball can go off the edge of a modern-day bat and go for a two-bounce four,” he said. “Or players can be caught at third man off the edge. You have sweepers on both boundaries now because that is where the ball goes. When I played, the best batsmen were strokers and placers of the ball, although Peter May and Ted Dexter were exceptions to that. I picked up one of the Surrey players’ bats in the changing room very recently and I expected it to feel like a railway sleeper. Instead, I thought to myself that I could almost use that.” (Quite so. Persuade an ex-player to pick up a cricket bat and he will wonder if a comeback is on the cards.)Stewart’s final statement that “so many of the top players absolutely murder the ball now” is a pithy summation of the dominant characteristic of current batting technique. So it is not surprising that the names given to bats have ballistic connotations. David Warner’s current Gray-Nicolls is called the Kaboom, a word that could have been found in a balloon above the head of a very different batman. A Mongoose slogan is “See the ball, smash the ball.” Thank you, Mr Graveney, we’ll let you know.Yet when it comes to bats, 21st-century cricketers make room for both folklore and fanglements. They are interested in new technologies and changing designs, but they still cling to adages and axioms passed down to them by their fathers’ generation. The majority of bats may now be made in India but that does nothing to reduce the intimacy with which they are viewed by batsmen whose professional careers or deep recreational pleasure depend upon their performance. In Gerald Martineau recounts how James Broadbridge of Sussex carried his bat with him when out walking. Yorkshireman George Anderson took his to bed with him. And Daniel Day and John Bowyer of Mitcham were buried with theirs beside them. Death may have parted them from their wives but not from their willows.Some of today’s cricket widows might empathise, for some current players still lavish oodles of attention on their bats. Others take out a multi-room subscription and keep willows in the kitchen, living room, library, bedroom – and some even more private sancta. The profile of bats has changed, and will probably change again; the players’ approach to the precious implements of their trade remains endearingly unaltered in all its slightly obsessive splendour.

How does the KKR offspinner continue to bamboozle batsmen? Because he knows when to bowl what

Aakash Chopra13-Apr-2013It’s hard to remain a mystery today, what with all the footage available for replays in slow-motion and every player painstakingly scrutinised. The action has shifted from the 22 yards to the editing table.Yet Sunil Narine continues to beat technology and stay ahead of most analyses. Even though he has been scanned time and again, he manages to get the better of batsmen and fascinate spectators.He’s not the first mystery spinner; there have been quite a few who batsmen couldn’t decipher immediately, if at all. Yet there’s something about this lad from the West Indies, with a peculiar hairdo and an equally peculiar action that has enthralled aficionados worldwide.In his debut IPL season, last year, Narine took 24 wickets and helped Kolkata Knight Riders win the trophy for the first time. But it isn’t just his ability to take wickets that makes everyone sit up and take note, it’s the way he spins around hapless batsmen.One particular over that he bowled to his fellow West Indian, Andre Russell, in the opening match of this season’s IPL comes to mind, because it looked like Russell had no idea which way the ball would turn after pitching. Each time almost, he played down one way when the ball was heading the other.It’s not too hard to decipher a doosra or a carrom ball from an offspinner while watching on TV, when the camera gives us the view from the back, but Narine’s variations are hard to pick even for viewers sitting at home. So what chance did Russell have?By bowling even his offspinners with a scrambled seam, Narine manages to keep the batsman guessing which one will head the other way. And since he bowls both his variations from the front of the hand (the doosra is usually bowled from the back of the hand), you have to look very closely at which way his fingers are turning at the point of release – not an easy job.But it isn’t just the variations or his ability to disguise them that make Narine a difficult bowler to bat against in T20. There are many bowlers who have more variations up their sleeve. All good legspinners have three deliveries (legspin, googly and a flipper), and most offspinners these days also possess more than a couple variations (offspin, doosra and a carrom ball), but it isn’t about the quantity, it’s about the quality of execution. Having different types of deliveries won’t mean much unless you know when to use them.In fact, Narine has only two variations in his bag – a regular offspinner and the one that goes away after pitching. But unlike other spinners, he is a master when it comes to using his subtle variations, and he rarely overdoes them.In his first over in this year’s IPL, he did not bowl a single away-going delivery. He realised that there was some turn and bounce on the Eden Gardens pitch, so he was better off bowling offbreaks. In fact, in the entire game, he didn’t bowl a single away-going delivery to the well-set Mahela Jayawardene, having arranged a leg-side field for him. If Jayawardene had picked the variation, Narine would have run the risk of leaking runs. But against Russell, Narine strengthened the off-side field, with a slip as an attacking option, and bowled the other one repeatedly. His ability to judge the demands of the situation and then move from being smart and defensive to brave and aggressive sets him apart.In addition to his game sense and variety, Narine’s pace and his effective stock ball make it very tough to score off him. He bowls really flat and slightly quicker but without compromising on turn off the surface. If there’s something in the pitch for the spinners, he really rips them across the right-handers and away from the left-handers.The delivery that got David Warner in the first match was an example of his ability to turn the ball with bounce at reasonably high speed. His pace and flat trajectory take away the batsman’s crucial attacking strategy – stepping down the track to play the lofted shot. There aren’t many who can hit the long ball without coming out of the crease.If you can’t come down the track, you look to either slog-sweep towards cow corner or go deep into the crease to pull the slightly shorter deliveries. Narine’s extra turn and bounce on pitches like the one at the Eden Gardens make both these shots tough to execute. The turn ensures the ball misses the bat’s sweet spot. If that fails, the bounce ensures the ball’s impact on the bat is higher than the batsman is comfortable with. Either way the batsman rarely gets the intended height or distance.If batsmen look for five or six runs off a Narine over instead of going after him, he might not turn out to be such a prolific wicket-taker. Unfortunately for all IPL teams, Knight Riders’ captain, Gautam Gambhir, brings Narine on either in the Powerplay or during the death overs. That forces batsmen to go after Narine and increases his chances of picking up wickets. I won’t be surprised if he finishes as one of the top wicket-takers this season as well.

We’ve been told Hambledon was the place where organised cricket first flourished. A new book thinks not

Steven Lynch06-Sep-2013It has long been accepted, almost as if it were one of cricket’s ten commandments, that the sleepy village of Hambledon, in the Meon Valley in Hampshire, was where cricket grew up. It is usually – and fondly – known as the “cradle of cricket”, and its picturesque pitch on Broadhalfpenny Down is a hauntingly beautiful spot.Hambledon owes its reputation largely to the writings of John Nyren, whose charming reminiscences of his fellow players were gathered together in a magazine, and later collated and published as The Cricketers of My Time, the game’s first classic book. Nyren’s father Richard captained Hambledon, and was the landlord of the Bat and Ball Inn, where the team would congregate after a game.Clearly there was a flourishing cricket club there, but was Hambledon really the place where organised cricket first flourished? A new book thinks not. Guildford’s Cricket Story, by the distinguished cricket historian David Frith, makes a convincing case for, well, Guildford.The funny thing is that the book was not conceived with this in mind: it is mainly a celebration of 75 years of first-class cricket at Guildford’s homely Woodbridge Road ground, where Frith played for years and was latterly the local club’s president. But what might have been a leisurely recounting of the deeds of Alistair Brown (203 in a 40-over game for Surrey at Guildford in 1997), Justin Langer (342 for Somerset in 2006) and even good old KP (a blistering 234 not out in a rare outing for Surrey in 2012) took on a new slant as Frith started to consider earlier history.”As I cobbled together all the Guildford firsts,” he says, “it began to dawn on me that so much of profound historical significance had taken place in this area that nowhere in England – or anywhere else – can point to such a cluster of fundamental landmarks in cricket history. There had been no original aim to lodge this claim, but the evidence piled up.” He added: “Hambledon is richly historic, and I’m not trying to do them down. Truth is, though, that little by way of landmark came out of Hambledon. It was just that village’s good fortune to have had a great chronicler in John Nyren.”The main plank in the convincing pro-Guildford argument is that the first known mention of the game comes in a document presented to the Guildford Court in 1598. In it, one John Derrick attests (about a plot of land under dispute) that about 50 years earlier he and his friends “did run and play there at Creckett and other Plaies”. So cricket – or creckett, anyway – was played in Guildford around 1550. (Derrick also said that bear-baiting took place on the land, but luckily that seems to have died out rather more quickly.)Guildford doesn’t just have a claim to the beginnings of men’s cricket. The first recorded women’s match was played there in July 1745, after which the Reading Mercury ran an admiring report: “The greatest cricket match that was played in this part of England was on Gosden Common, near Guildford, between eleven maids of Bramley and eleven maids of Hambledon, all dressed in white. The Bramley maids had blue ribbons and the Hambledon maids red ribbons on their heads. The Bramley girls got 119 notches and the Hambledon girls 127. There was of bothe sexes the greatest number that ever was seen on such an occasion. The girls bowled, batted, ran and catched as well as most men could do in that game.” The visiting maids may have come from Hambledon, but it was a nearby Surrey village – not far from Farnham – not the famous one.Guildford has produced several other notable firsts. A local farmer called Bob Robinson was the first to use protection on his legs while batting. They were “pads of two thin boards placed angle-wise, off which the ball went with great noise”. Unfortunately for “Long Bob”, they amused his fellow players so much that “being laughed at, he discontinued them”. Robinson also pioneered spikes “of monstrous length” in his boots to help him stand upright in wet conditions.And it was a man from Guildford – or Send, a few miles away on the road to Woking – whose bowling accuracy led to the introduction of the middle stump. There were originally only two, but Edward “Lumpy” Stevens was such a dead-eye that he was often frustrated when his deliveries passed between the stumps without hitting them: a third one was added in 1775.A re-enactment of a cricket match played in Guildford in the 16th century•David Frith CollectionLike most bowlers, Lumpy relished a helpful pitch, and he was helped by the laws of the time that allowed the fielding side to select their own wicket (within a certain radius). Stevens’ chain of choice was an uneven piece of turf with a rise in the middle, and a famous verse of the time related that “Honest Lumpy did allow /He ne’er would pitch but o’er a brow”.Moving on a little, the man who coined the term “Test match” came from, you’ve guessed it, Guildford. William Hammersley was born in the neighbouring village of Ash in 1826, and later sailed to Australia, where he became a journalist, and was also secretary of the Melbourne Cricket Club for a time. When the first English touring team went to Australia in 1861-62, Hammersley described some of their upcoming games as “test matches”, while dismissing others as of local interest in rural areas.And there’s more, as another Cricket – comedian Jimmy – might have said. “I realised too late,” lamented Frith, “that I might also have included the 1727 Brodrick match agreement – the earliest known precursor of today’s Laws – since his match against the Duke of Richmond’s team was at Pepperharowe, just down the A3100 from Guildford.”And there you have the case for Guildford. By chance, some of the earliest to hear about the claims were the modern-day cricketers and enthusiasts of Hambledon, as Frith had been invited to give a talk at the Bat and Ball earlier this year, just as he was putting the finishing touches to the book. “Things did go a little quiet when I first mentioned it,” he admits, “but they seemed to take it well – though when it sank in later they might have felt differently. It might take time for Guildford’s ‘Cradle’ claim to be accepted – but word is spreading!”, by David Frith, is available from Guildford Cricket Club, Woodbridge Road, Guildford GU1 4RP, or via this link