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Write to 23 YardsClick here for the 23 Yards homepageClick here for the first post on this subject, or just scroll downTuesday, August 17, 20049.40pm IST – What the chuck!I received a number of interesting mails after my first post on this topic, about the rather convincing documentary Muttiah Muralitharan has made to prove his innocence, the nature of the optical illusion that his action creates, the unrelenting attitudes of both his supporters and his opponents, and the possible solutions to the whole issue of chucking. A lot of people agreed that Murali has done enough to be spared the trauma of repeated accusations; but a number of others raised objections that were reasonable and well argued.Martin Brown, Arvind Sampath, Martin Bride and Chris Higginbottom all felt that bowling with a brace – and, thus, a legitimate action – for a documentary does not prove anything, because it does not mean that his action will remain in a match situation. Bride wrote, “If there was an inadvertent straightening that resulted from forces on his bowling arm the brace would prevent that from happening. Then, when he bowled without the brace, the same degree of straightening would occur.”Well, the documentary did prove one thing to me, that I had doubted earlier: that there is an optical illusion caused by Murali’s bowling action. If he appeared to be straightening his arm with the brace on, when he obviously could not have done so, then the mere visual evidence alone, during a match, is not enough to convict him. It is not enough to exonerate him either, but we do presume a man innocent until proven guilty, and the fact that he appears to chuck is no case for the offence.Another objection, raised by Vivek Shenoy and Prasanna Ganesan, is that he may have bowled his usual repertoire of deliveries cleanly during the tests, but he could still be chucking the odd ball during matches. Prasanna writes that the process of judging a bowler’s action has “a fundamental flaw. It assumes that either a bowling action is flawed or it is not, and does not admit the possibility that a bowler can chuck the occasional ball without chucking all the time.”That’s absolutely true – of any bowler. The effort balls of fast bowlers and the doosras of offspinners are often considered suspect, and this is a problem that the ICC will have to address at some point of time. Prasanna says, “In an ideal world, we would run an instantaneous test on every ball that is bowled to check whether it is a chuck or not. Technology to enable that seems far away. But the least we can hope for is to identify whether a ball is chucked or not from video footage of a match.” I’m not sure if that is possible yet, given that a camera essentially throws up a two-dimensional picture that is often flawed, as in Murali’s case, but I’m sure that if a bowler’s action is covered from every angle, one can come to a judgement while accounting for optical illusions. In any case, that argument holds true for any bowler, so why should Murali be regarded with special suspicion?The popular belief that Murali chucks is due to the optical illusion his action creates, but Arvind and Martin (Bride) also point out that his action for the doosra was, after all, found to be illegal recently, as per the current guidelines which define five degrees as the acceptable limit of flexion for spinners. The University of Western Australia, which came to this conclusion (and corrected his flex from 14 degrees to ten), also recommended that the ICC review their guidelines for chucking as they were flawed. If one accepts their authority for one observation, then why ignore the other one?As the ICC recently admitted, some degree of elbow straightening has been detected in 99% of bowlers, including the likes of Courtney Walsh and Glenn McGrath. By the letter of the law as it has stood for over a century, thus, most bowlers are chuckers. In the light of this, the law clearly needs to be amended, and the ICC has tried to do just that, with its recommended guidelines of what degree of flexion is permissable. These guidelines, as Mukul Kesavan explains in the excellent piece that I linked to in my last post, are arbitary, and should be modified so that they are “uniform and enforcable”.The big question here is: what degree of flexion is acceptable? As Dave Richardson said, “Even a solid metal bar if rotated fast enough will display a degree of movement.” Do we put the limit at the extent that is caused by these physical laws of movement and resistance? The opinion of the biomechanical experts, like the ones who made the recommendations of revisiting these guidelines, is critical here, and until the ICC delivers its judgement on this matter, and its rationale for that judgement, I’ll remain an agnostic on whether 14 degrees is too much or not.(Note that if you accept the report of the biomechanical experts that shows the flexion of the doosra to have been 14 degrees, you should also accept previous reports which have cleared Murali’s offspinner and topspinner, and accept that the 500 or so wickets he took before he started employing the doosra are legitimate. Let’s not be selective in our acceptance of the evidence here; that would be the confirmation bias at work.)Among the others who wrote to me was Rajakumar, who said: “While the entire cricketing world was focussed on Murali’s action, many of the fast bowlers have merrily chucked their way to glory and profit.” Hmmm. Well, I have heard from reliable sources that a fast bowler whose name has been taken quite often in this context was found by the biomechanical dudes to have a flexion of forty degrees. This information isn’t in the public domain yet, perhaps for political reasons, but clearly, something needs to be done about it. Whatever happens in that case, though, Murali deserves the benefit of the doubt.Will he get it from the Australian prime minister? Theena writes to me: “I am going to sit back and wait for John Howard to amaze us with his cricket acumen if asked to comment on Murali’s action. I wonder if he would say – ‘Yes. They proved it on TV with that brace thing.'”Now, wouldn’t that be fun?Monday, August 16, 20043.00pm – Facing up to the truthIt must have taken Murali a lot of courage to decide to do this: to put on a brace on his bowling arm that did not allow him to straighten it, and to go out and bowl, in front of television cameras covering him from various angles, the three staple deliveries in his arsenal – the prodigious offbreak, the guileful topspinner, and the controversial doosra. You had to wonder: was there ever a point in the last few years that the thought crossed Murali, “What if they are right? What if I really do have a problem with my action?” Here, in front of the cameras, with that brace on, there was no escape from the truth.But Muttiah Muralitharan believed in himself; and now, so must we.A couple of days ago I finally saw ESPN-Star’s re-enactment of the Channel 4 documentary in which Murali bowls with an elbow brace on to prove that he doesn’t chuck. I had read Mark Nicholas’s account of shooting the original with Murali, and I was keen to see for myself if this really cleared things up. Frankly, despite being a cricket writer, there were elements of the Murali controversy which I never quite understood. If there was an optical illusion created by his unusual action, what caused it? What was this whole “degrees of flexion” business all about? How could Murali not be chucking when he appeared to be? What on earth did biomechanics have to do with it?The show was anchored, with the zeal of a crusader rather than dispassionate neutrality, by Ravi Shastri. (Coincidentally, Shastri’s company, Showdiff Worldwide, recently signed on Murali as one of its clients.) Sports presenters often go over the top, but that is a quality born out of neccessity, given that their job is to evoke drama even through the most banal passages of play. But what was on show here was hardly banal – the biggest cricketing controversy of our times was about to be resolved.First, Murali (and the doctor who made that brace for him, Mandeep Dhillon) showed us what that birth defect was all about. Murali’s bowling arm does not straighten fully, as all our arms do. Second, and far more pertinent, we got a close-up view of where the momentum comes from in Murali’s bowling – not a straightening of the elbow, but an abnormal rotation of the shoulder-joint on its axis, far more than most people can manage. This gives him momentum and sets him up for the moment of delivery, when his unusually supple wrists impart prodigious spin to the ball.And now for the elbow brace. Created by Dr Dhillon, it was made of steel rods held together by heat-moulded plastic, and both Nicholas and Shastri attested that you couldn’t straighten your arm in it. Murali put it on, walked to the bowling mark, and proceeded to bowl each of the three types of balls he commonly bowls. They turned as you’d expect them to, though they were a bit slower – the weight of the brace would have accounted for that. Remarkably, despite the brace, it still appeared as though he was straightening his arm, even in the slow-motion replays – it was, clearly and uncontestably in this case, an optical illusion.Our human illusionsAn optical illusion is not a party trick – the mechanism behind it is central to how we perceive the world. Our faculties of vision make what is remarkably complicated – in terms of depth, colours and motion – seem beguilingly simple. As VS Ramachandran puts it in his wonderful book, :

Seeing seems so effortless, so automatic, that we simply fail to recognise that vision is an incredibly complex – and still deeply mysterious – process. But consider, for a moment, what happens each time you glance at even the simplest scene … all you’re given are two upside-down two-dimensional images inside your eyeballs, but what you perceive is a single panoramic, right-side-up, three-dimensional world.

Our brain uses a variety of short cuts to achieve this and one of those – to use layman’s language – is a filling in of blanks. We do not view the 32 frames in a second of film as 32 separate images, but as one seamless sequence of motion, and we process the images in the world around us similarly. (The simplest example of this is how we fill in our blind spot with a continuation of the image around it; click here to find your blind spot and see how this happens.)A classic illustration of this is the neurological condition known as motion blindness – people who suffer from this do so because of damage to one of the 30 (according to Ramachandran) areas of the brain that process visual information, the middle temporal area. The visual filling in that makes motion appears seamless does not happen in such patients, and vision consists of a series of still images for them; to go back to the analogy of watching a film, they see all 32 frames as discrete images.Another shortcut the brain takes is of noticing just the salient points of an image, and filling in the rest with those. In Ramachandran’s words, “redundant or useless information is discarded wholesale and certain defining attributes of the visual image – such as edges – are strongly emphasized. (This is why a cartoonist can convey such a vivid picture with just a few pen strokes depicting the outlines or edges alone; he’s mimicking what your visual system is specialised to do.)” To see a wonderful example of how this works, click here.So why is this relevant to Murali? Well, I believe that this filling-in process explains why he seems to be straightening his arm to us. Take two points: A is where his arm goes above the shoulder, and B is where the ball is released. (My example holds even if you take 30 or 50 or 80 points instead of two; for the purpose of clarity, I’m being simplistic here.) Now, our brains are not actually processing every bit of information that our eyes receive; instead, they are taking the salient features, and using them to fill in what we think we see, and they do this within the framework of what we already know about motion and the human body and the act of bowling.Now, Murali’s arm, shoulder and wrists all possess abnormal properties, which we do not take into account because they do not exist in that mental framework. The only explanation within that framework for how he gets from Point A to Point B is that he straightens his arm, and that is what we see – and even when he is wearing the brace and our brains knows that he cannot straighten his arm, we still see a chuck. (Note the example I’ve linked to in the last para, for example – even after I know that the guy on the left is Clinton, my eyes still see Gore. What we know does not control what we see.)Here are a few optical illusions that demonstrate how our eyes are easily tricked by unusual elements in what we see, and that reveal some of the visual shortcuts we take: the Flash-Lag effect, Stepping Feet, Motion-Induced Blindness and the Poggendorf Illusion. One with particular relevance to cricket is the Motion-Bounce Illusion, which demonstrates that sound can actually determine what we see. An umpire could, thus, hear bat striking pad at the exact moment when ball passes bat, think it is an edge, and perceive a slanting away of the ball, caused by a continuation of late swing, as a deviation caused by bat hitting ball. That is plausible, and a common umpiring error.Another optical illusion that causes umpires to make mistakes is the parallax error, relevant both for lbw decisions and third-umpire decisions on catches taken close to the ground. Humans aren’t perfect, and what we see may not be what actually happens, especially when depth and rapid motion are involved, which is why I have always argued that umpires should use technology, whenever it is proved to be reliable, to help them in their decisions.What does this say about ?The interesting, and saddening, aspect of Murali’s story is the collossal arrogance on both sides of the debate. Murali’s opponents brushed aside all talk of an optical illusion, preferring to trust their eyes, while his supporters were just as convinced of his innocence, despite having, for much of this time, as little evidence to support them. Both sides had deeply entrenched biases – often on the basis of nationality – and they would both have determinedly ignored all evidence that suggested they were wrong. This is known in behavioural psychology as the confirmation bias – the tendency to take into account only the evidence that confirms our beliefs, while ignoring everything else.None of us are immune to this: when we want to believe something, we’ll find a way to do so, and there are so many conflicting facts in the real world that we’ll always find a few that fit into our scheme of things. Conspiracy theorists, especially, display the confirmation bias. This kind of arrogance, that closes people to accepting that they might be wrong, is especially harmful in politicians, because their actions affect so many people. Australian prime minister John Howard’s insensitive comments about Murali made sure that Murali opted out of Sri Lanka’s recent tour of Australia, but far more harm has been caused in recent years by politicians with the best intent, but the most stubborn of biases.Murali has cleared his name – I find it hard to imagine that anyone who sees the documentary can still believe he chucks – but questions still remain about chucking. Mukul Kesavan recently pointed out the loopholes in ICC’s current system of having different tolerance levels for bowlers, and the ICC, to be fair to them, are aware that many ambiguities remain to be sorted out in the law and its implementation. Dave Richardson, the ICC’s general manager, was recently quoted as having said, “We need to decide whether the current tolerance levels are appropriate. Is a throw defined by the point at which the bowler gains an advantage? Or is it when it becomes noticeable to the naked eye?” These are important questions to answer, and at least an effort is being made. As Frank Tyson explained in an excellent piece a couple of months ago, there are “no simple answers to chucking”.Let me, however, point out ways in which we should not proceed, even if they have popular support. It is not a solution to say that the chuckers should remain in the game because they are so attractive to watch, as Ian Chappell implied a few years ago, in the context of Shoaib Akhtar and Brett Lee. Angus Fraser recently wrote, “I turn up at cricket matches hoping to be entertained, and Muralitharan seldom lets me down. What if Muralitharan does throw the odd ball? Cricket is littered with bowlers with questionable actions, and he is not going to kill anyone.”This is anologous to condoning Mussolini because he had been a schoolteacher and journalist, or Idi Amin because he was a good boxer. If a bowler contravenes the law, he should be punished, regardless of what other qualities he may bring to the game. Mike Tyson has his redeeming features too, but he did go to prison after committing rape, and he darned well should have.It is also not a solution to say that umpires should be empowered to decide on what does and does not constitute a chuck, and call accordingly. If there is one thing we ought to have learnt from Murali’s case, it is that the naked eye cannot decide such things accurately, and that we are subject to falling prey to optical illusions. Umpires have enough of a burden on their shoulders, one that should be made lighter using technology. Until the technology develops to the extent that we can determine in real time if a player is bowling legally or not (whatever that then means), the current system, of a player being reported to the ICC and going through their review process, is the best one. Sure, the process needs to be transparent, and the science behind it needs to be better understood, and better explained to all of us. Also, we need to keep politics out of it.Justice delayedAnd what of Murali? This is a man with an extraordinary talent, a man we should have felt privileged to watch on the cricket field and yet, all these years, so many of us have called him a cheat. All of us who did so should hang our heads in shame. (I am doing so now, and looking at the keyboard instead of my computer screen.) And yet, at least it is over. Rohit Brijnath recently wrote:

A great ambiguity surrounds Muttiah Muralitharan; some paint him as sinner, others sketch him as saint. He is proof of wondrous skill for some and evidence of rules being conveniently bent for others; he is champion yet he is cheat. Argument over Muttiah Muralitharan is unending, it is alive with bias (both ways), and it is absent of conclusion except this: the page on his life will be marked with an asterisk. It suggests something villainous, and perhaps it does not.

Well, it’s about time we removed that damn asterisk.Amit Varma is managing editor of Wisden Cricinfo in India.Write to 23 YardsClick here for the 23 Yards homepageMore 23 Yards
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The Asian Cricket Council (ACC) will send a development officer to Afghanistan next month for an orientation tour. According to a report by Reuters, Iqbal Sikander, the development officer, will visit Kabul to study the infrastructure there.”The ACC has approved my visit to Kabul next month," Iqbal said. "The basic purpose being to initially inspect the cricket infrastructure, facilities and standards there. I have been asked to inform the ACC what can be done to help out the Afghanistan cricket association.”Afghanistan has been an affiliate member of the ICC, but was included as an associate member of the ACC only last month. Since then, officials from the Afghanistan Cricket Association (ACA) have visited India, seeking help to develop the game in a country which has been ravaged by war for many years.Despite the war, cricket has deep roots in Afghanistan. Iqbal stated that according to feedback from the ACA, there were regular matches played between the locals from Kabul and the British troops posted there. Earlier ACC reports had indicated that more than 50 cricket clubs existed in the country, but most of them were in need of funds to buy equipment.Afghanistan played in Pakistan’s domestic season two years ago, but did not approach the Pakistan board for an appearance this season. According to Zakir Khan, the PCB cricket operations manager: “They didn’t come to us with any request to play in our domestic cricket or we would have been happy to accommodate them.”

Somerset took total control of this match when they dismissed Essex for 172 to gain a first innings lead of 219 at Chelmsford before the home side safely negotiated the remaining 12 overs of the day. They will resume in the morning still needing 194 to make Somerset bat again with all their second innings wickets intact.This was the eighth time that Essex had been forced to follow-on this season and the perpetrators of their demise on this occasion were the contrasting Richard Johnson and Keith Dutch.Paceman Johnson took 5-40 to shatter the heart of the innings while his slow bowler colleague claimed four wickets including that of opener Darren Robinson who scored more than half his side’s runs in reaching 89 before turning a ball into the hands of short leg soon after the tea interval.Dutch had twice afforded his opponent a let-off having failed to complete a difficult catch at slip when the Essex batsman had scored 39 and then he failed to hold on to a powerfully struck drive off his own bowling when Robinson had added six more runs.Seizing on his good fortune, Robinson played aggressively, striking eight more boundaries and 17 in total before his dismissal.Johnson had undermined the home side’s response to a Somerset first innings total of 391 when he ripped out Paul Grayson and Richard Clinton with only 31 runs on the board before Stuart Law joined Robinson in a third-wicket stand worth 52. However, the Australian seldom looked at ease as he struggled with his timing and Johnson induced at least three false shots early in his innings.Law eventually fell to a mistimed square cut to be caught by Jamie Cox in the gully and although Ronnie Irani batted obdurately for 45 minutes in scoring six, from the moment he dragged a delivery from Dutch on to his stumps, the Essex innings capitulated in the face of some impressive and incisive Somerset bowling.The next three wickets fell in the space of four overs with Johnson and Dutch bowling in harness to inspire their side towards the runners-up position in the Cricinfo Championship.Earlier in the day, after the start had been delayed for 45 minutes because of rain, Somerset had lost their remaining five wickets for 87 runs in the chase for quick runs with Jamie Cox adding only nine to his overnight 175.There was some concern for the visitors when Rob Turner was hit on the forearm by a rising delivery from Ashley Cowan in the fourth over of the day and was forced to retire although he later returned. He failed to take the field when Essex began their reply but resumed his customary wicket-keeper’s role after the tea interval.

Mushtaq Ahmed has ended speculation over his future by signing a new two-year deal which will keep him at Sussex until the end of the 2009 season. There had been reports linking him with a move to Warwickshire.”Sussex is a family club and it is an honour for me to be playing here,” Mushtaq said. “Signing a two-year contract is great news and I feel blessed and very pleased.””Obviously I am delighted to have Mushtaq back again next year,” Mark Robinson, the cricket manager, said. “It was always going to be the case; it was just a question of whether he still had the desire and passion for the game. He clearly still has a lot left in him so actually completing the deal with us was just a formality. Once again he has won games for Sussex and I am sure this will continue to be the case.”Chris Adams, the captain under whom Mushtaq has played throughout his time at Sussex said: “What can I say about Mushy? I, along with the rest of the playing staff are delighted that the best bowler to ever have pulled on a Sussex shirt is staying with us for another two years. And I know that whenever Mushtaq wears a Sussex shirt we will be highly competitive in all forms of cricket.”In 77 matches since he joined Sussex in 2003 Mushtaq has taken 443 wickets at 24.78, including a hundred in 2003 and 2006, Sussex winning the Championship in both those years.Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, Sussex’s other overseas player, will now have to find another county if he is to continue to play domestic cricket in England. From next season counties will be allowed one overseas player only.

Muttiah Muralitharan attributes his recent good form to the abuse that he faced during VB series in Australia this January. “If there is one thing that maybe has helped me this year it was the experience I had in Australia,” Murali told Bigstarcricket website.”It may sound a strange thing to say as it was a very tough tour for me on and off the field, especially with the abuse we received.”Murali was greeted with chants of ‘no-ball’ by Australian crowds during the series. He was first no-balled at Melbourne by umpire Darrell Hair in Sri Lanka’s tour of Australia in 1995.”If you go through difficult times and come out the other side, you become a stronger character for it,” Murali said. That’s what happened to me. I like to think that I am quite strong mentally anyway. But these sort of experiences only make me more determined.”Murali has had a phenomenal run of form the past year collecting 108 Test wickets at an average of 19.37, from 15 matches between September 2005 and August 2006. But in one-day cricket during that period, Murali has got only 36 wickets from 28 matches. “Cricket is like this, wickets can come all at once and at other times you can bowl well and maybe not receive your rewards,” Murali said.”I am in some good form but I wouldn’t say it is necessarily the best form of my career. I am just bowling well and have found some good rhythm. For the last year I have bowled well and I haven’t done anything different in these series than at other times,” he added.

It has been announced this afternoon that Warren Hegg, the Lancashire and England wicketkeeper, has retired from first-class cricket. Following the injury to his hand in last week’s championship match against Essex at Chelmsford, Hegg is unable to take part in the final two fixtures of the season for his county.He had announced his intention to retire in May, but had hoped he would play a full season with Lancashire. Speaking from Old Trafford this afternoon, Hegg, 37, said: “I’m extremely disappointed not to be playing at Old Trafford again. I’d always hoped that my last game would be at Old Trafford, but it’s not to be. I can’t complain however, I’ve had a relatively injury free career and getting an injury is an occupational hazard. You have to accept it, and move on. I’ve been so lucky, enjoyed a great career and leave with some fantastic memories.”Hegg played two Tests for England, both against Australia, on the 1998-99 tour; he made his debut for Lancashire in 1986. Both his batting and wicketkeeping have always been consistent, and he was appointed captain of Lancashire in 2002, taking his side to third place (2002) and second place (2003) in Division One of the championship. In 348 matches, he scored 11,302 runs at 27.90.Jack Simmons, Lancashire’s chairman, said: “I am greatly saddened Warren has not had the opportunity to break George Duckworth’s wicket keeping record of 925 dismissals; falling 6 short of the total. However injury is one of the things you put up with and part and parcel of the game.”Warren has been an exemplary professional and a great ambassador for Lancashire County Cricket Club and cricket in general. It is a shame he can’t finish his career at Old Trafford. He is always welcome at Old Trafford and the Club would like to place on record its thanks for his loyal service to the county and wishes him all the best his future career.”

“The England attack today was Ashley Giles,” said Brian Lara after West Indies were bundled out for 267 on the fifth day at Lord’s. Giles, who took 5 for 81 in that innings to go with his four wickets in the first, will now have his name painted in gold on the honour boards at Lord’s – the first English spinner to take a five-for there since Phil Tufnell against Sri Lanka back in 1991. The British papers were united in their praise for Giles, once derided as a “wheelie bin”, but now acclaimed as “the next Steve Harmison”.”To England the spoils; to Ashley Giles the plaudits,” wrote Mike Selvey in The Guardian. “Given a pitch offering assistance, a bag of runs with which to play and the opportunity to book himself in at the Nursery End as something other than the ice-cream salesman in the interval, the Warwickshire left-arm spinner bowled his side to victory in the first Test by 210 runs.”In the same paper, David Hopps summed up Giles’s last few months. “Baited last month, feted this: the summer has brought quite a transformation for England’s senior spinner. He began it burdened with criticism, so much so that he half-toyed with retiring from Test cricket. Now he is burdened with wickets and is probably the only player for whom Thursday – and another Test on his home patch at Edgbaston – cannot come soon enough.”However, Hopps was quick to point out that despite Giles’s excellent performance against touring sides this summer, some fans were still not convinced of his use to England before his matchwinning effort on the fifth day. “Do not blithely presume that the criticism of Giles has entirely abated,” he said. “Late on Friday, as West Indies saw out the day, a desultory chant of ‘Giles, you’re boring’ sounded in the Compton Stand. By Sunday the hosannas from the Mound Stand as he began his dismantling of West Indies’ second innings were edged with English irony. Only yesterday was the applause simple and heartfelt.”In the Daily Telegraph, Simon Briggs put England’s latest win, their seventh against West Indies in the last nine meetings, down to Michael Vaughan’s ability to “combine commitment with contentment. Put simply, he has got England smiling again”.Briggs went on: “No-one exemplified this trait more than Ashley Giles, a man who told the current issue of a leading cricket magazine: ‘I’ve been a miserable bugger at times.’ Having secured the match award for his nine wickets, Giles came to last night’s press conference with Vaughan, his captain and close friend, and could hardly stop cracking jokes. That is what happens when you have just castled Brian Lara, the world’s most remorseless destroyer of spin, with the kind of wonderball more usually associated with Shane Warne.””It’s smiley Giley!” gushed The Sun’s headline, continuing the theme, as John Etheridge applauded Giles’s sharp turner that bowled Lara yesterday. “It turned at least two feet, and Warne or Muralitharan could not have purveyed a more deadly delivery. When Lara’s stumps were disturbed, Giles embarked on a manic sprint in the general direction of Notting Hill, pursued by joyous team-mates.””This was Giles’s match,” stated The Times‘s Christopher Martin-Jenkins, before going on to put Giles’s performance in perspective. “Damned with the faintest praise since he made his first Test appearance on a typical modern pitch at Old Trafford in 1998 (he took 1 for 106), he has always been underestimated, criticised for a lack of flight largely because of his height and for a lack of spin less because he does not give the ball as much of a tweak as orthodox finger-spinners of old. That is to some extent a false impression, however, because covered pitches, heavier bats and the more aggressive approach of the average batsman have combined to make life significantly harder for all bowlers of his type.”The last England spinner to take more wickets than this in a Lord’s Test was Derek Underwood on a drying pitch against Pakistan in 1974. Those were days when rainwater often seeped under the covers down the Lord’s slope overnight. Now the unique hover-cover … ensures pitches as dry as old bones.”Martin-Jenkins concluded that it was Giles’s “curving arm balls and skilful changes of pace and trajectory” that brought him his first five-wicket haul in England, and his fourth overall. “The other three came in places a few miles east of St John’s Wood: Faisalabad, Ahmedabad and Kandy. He will treasure his Man of the Match award all the more for that.”

As if the prospect of playing two Tests against Australia wasn’t daunting enough for Bangladesh, John Buchanan, Australia’s coach, has warned that his side won’t be easing off during next month’s two-Test series.”Our game will always be to be as aggressive as we can be, and to try and put our opposition under as much pressure as we can, right from the word go, so that won’t change,” he said. As for fatigue on the part of his players, he said, “Those players who played both the one-day and the Test matches were certainly feeling the pinch through the West Indies tour.”He explained that the prospect of playing at new venues – the Tests will be held at Cairns and Darwin – would offset any weariness in a side who have been on the road almost continuously for 18 months. “With four or five weeks off, coming to a new venue, playing a new team, in something that will begin a tradition, I think really excites them.”But Buchanan did have some encouraging words for Bangladesh, particularly with regard to Dav Whatmore, their new coach. “I think what he’ll do is bring them direction, I think he will bring them some discipline and give them some shape,” he explained. “Whether that happens immediately, time will tell. But I think that’s a very good move for them, and something that will improve their cricket a little bit quicker than maybe what it has done in the past.”

Mathew Sinclair might be starting to think about the task that awaits him in Pakistan next month, but his Yorkshire league club Cleethorpes will be looking for one more big performance from him before the end of their summer.Since returning from the Sri Lankan Coca-Cola Cup tournament earlier this month, Sinclair has struggled to regain the touch which saw him make an outstanding start to the summer, but he started to get his game back together during Cleethorpe’s three victories over the Bank Holiday weekend.His last game will be on Saturday for an important clash with York.On Saturday Cleethorpes scored 156/9 against Hull. But when defending that total left-arm slow bowler Nick White took six for 33 in a 19-over spell. Sinclair picked up a couple of late wickets as Cleethorpes took a 40-run win.Sunday proved a great day for Cleethorpes. It turned the form book on its head and Sheffield Collegiate were eliminated from the Yorkshire League Cup.Collegiate were hot favourites in the semi-final but the reigning league champions and current league leaders were met with a performance full of character and skill which took Cleethorpes through to a September final.The Meggies batted first in the 50-over contest and there was a welcome return to form for Sinclair who made 60 in a solid opening stand with Mike Smith who made 27. Cleethorpes scored 199/7.Some tight bowling resulted in Cleethorpes taking a seven run win with Sinclair again picking up wickets to take two for 41 from his 10 overs.Cleethorpes now advance to a September final against Hull or the Yorkshire Academy but Sinclair will miss the final.An outstanding weekend for the club was completed when a 74-run win was achieved over top club Scarborough.Sinclair scored 35 as his side reached 184/9.In reply, Scarborough were in trouble at 28/4 and were eventually all out for 110.Meanwhile, in the Lancashire league Tana Canning continued a late run of form with the Accrington club. On Sunday, the his club’s 24-run win over Enfield he scored 65 and then took five for 55.On Saturday, Burnley proved too good for Accrington. But of his side’s 119 runs, Canning scored 48 and took three for 53 in Burnley’s 163/8.On the previous weekend in the rain-affected game against Church he scored 47 of 155/9 and on the day before in another rain-affected match he scored 51 of Accrington’s 92 against Colne.

Chris Cairns has been compared to disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong for bringing shame on the cricket world. Summing up the prosecution case against Cairns at Southwark Crown Court, Sasha Wass, QC, said that the evidence he was involved in match-fixing was “overwhelming”.Cairns has been on trial for the past five weeks, during which time a number of former team-mates have come forward to give evidence against him. He denies two counts of perjury and perverting the course of justice relating to his 2012 libel case against Lalit Modi.Wass said the testimony of nine witnesses should be considered the “building bricks creating a wall of evidence” against Cairns. She warned the jury that attempts would be made by the defence to undermine the claims of Lou Vincent and Brendon McCullum, among others.Vincent has accused Cairns of ordering him to fix matches at the Indian Cricket League (ICL), while McCullum told of approaches made by his childhood “idol”. Vincent’s ex-wife Ellie Riley also testified against Cairns, saying he was confident he would not be caught because “everyone was doing it in India”.Wass said Cairns had not provided a “single, credible reason” to question their motives. Vincent’s confession to Riley about his involvement in fixing in 2008 undermined the idea that the story of Cairns’ involvement had been concocted “late in the day”, she said.”It’s unlikely he would have cooked up this plan to stitch up Chris Cairns in 2008 and spent five years working out how to bring his downfall,” Wass said of Vincent.She added: “Why Ellie Riley would lie? She has no great love for her ex husband.”Wass also referred to evidence given by McCullum, as well as Cairns’ former New Zealand team-mates Daniel Vettori, Kyle Mills and Chris Harris, and Australia batsman Ricky Ponting, suggesting none of them had reason to lie. McCullum interrupted his preparation for a Test match against Australia to appear in court in London.”The defence say Mr McCullum is lying,” she said. “But not a single reason has been put forward why a man, at the height of his career, would come to the Southwark Crown Court to falsely incriminate a man he held in such high regard.”She rejected the idea that the ICC wanted Cairns as a “scalp” in the fight against match-fixing, comparing the case to that involving Armstrong and saying his actions had tarnished the sport.”Why would anyone, let alone the governing body of cricket, want the scalp of an innocent man,” she asked. “The last thing [the ICC] would want to do is bring accusations against an innocent man who has captained his country, represented New Zealand for 17 years.”On the other hand, the ICC would want to bring a cheat who corrupted others to justice.”The jury heard that Cairns had shown “arrogance beyond belief” in taking Modi to court. Wass said that he and Andrew Fitch-Holland, who denies perverting the course of justice, “should be ashamed of themselves” and that both were “guilty of the charges laid”.She added that the amount of indirect evidence against Cairns was “unanswerable”.”He has made a mockery of the game of cricket, the fans, the game,” she said. “We know not only that he cheated, he encouraged others to cheat.”We say the evidence against Chris Cairns in respect of match-fixing is overwhelming.”Cairns’ defence barrister, Orlando Pownall, QC, is expected to present his closing arguments on Monday. The trial continues.