Plays of the day from the 4th ODI between England and Sri Lanka at Trent Bridge

Andrew McGlashan at Trent Bridge06-Jul-2011Call of the dayAlastair Cook’s day finished superbly, but it started even better when he won a crucial toss. The Trent Bridge pitch was very green and he had no hesitation in putting Sri Lanka into bat. This was no Headingley, it was made for the fast bowlers. And in James Anderson they have one of the best around for exploiting the swinging ball. As soon as he removed Tillakaratne Dilshan in the first over the feeling was that this would be England’s day. Yes, the conditions were in the home side’s favour but that’s how it should be. To their credit, England were good enough to make it count.Relief of the dayWhen you’ve waited 39 overs (spread over five matches) to take your next wicket it doesn’t really matter how it comes. The pressure has been growing on Stuart Broad and the signs weren’t great in his first over when an edge flew wide of second slip then another boundary flew over cover. So the relief on Broad’s face was unsurprising when Suraj Randiv gloved down the leg side and even though Richard Illingworth’s finger didn’t take long to come up it would have felt an age for Broad.Catch of the dayEngland pride themselves on taking half chances, something that hasn’t always happened in this series, and Tim Bresnan showed the way with a superb caught-and-bowled to remove the dangerous Angelo Mathews. The batsman had been squared up by a touch of extra bounce but the leading edge appeared to be looping into no-man’s land on the off side. However, Bresnan continued from his follow through then stretched full length to grab the ball with his finger tips and, crucially, didn’t let it slip out as he rolled on the ground. Mathews wasn’t sure, but all the TV replay did was prove what a fine take it had been.Quiet achievement of the dayEngland have the best one-day bowler in the world. Take a bow Graeme Swann. The rankings tables on various websites won’t show it because they are only updated after a series finishes, but Swann has moved into top spot to replace Daniel Vettori. Although he went wicketless today on his home ground – even though replays showed he should have had an lbw with his final ball – the seven wickets in the first three matches, and an impressive economy rate of 3.51, were enough to push him to the head of the pack.Chris Gayle impression of the dayThis was Alastair Cook as we’ve rarely seen him and it was an impressive sight. His hundred at Lord’s was incredible worthy but this was, hands down, his best one-day innings for England as a 37-ball fifty set the team well on their way to beating the threatening weather to level the series. The bowling was friendly and 12 off the first over kick-started the innings but, like Mahela Jayawardene, it was authentic, positive batting. How bothered was he to reach a hundred? After what he said about Dinesh Chandimal at Lord’s it was probably a mix of feelings but he was able to prove a point.

Virat Kohli has learnt a lot about himself and his batting over the last year. Bigger challenges than the World Cup lie ahead, but there’s little doubt he’s ready for them all

Sharda Ugra27-May-2011In the season racing past, cricket, to Virat Kohli, must have felt like a washing machine. Through his 12 months with India, Delhi and the Royal Challengers Bangalore, Kohli found himself in all manner of cycles – high-speed tumble, delicate, spin, rinse, permanent press.Just over a month ago, the groundswell of India’s World Cup victory just beginning to die down, Kohli was lining up against players he had wept with at the Wankhede. One day it was his captain, MS Dhoni, but he wasn’t his captain anymore. The next day Yuvraj Singh had to be stopped from scorching turf, Harbhajan Singh had be stepped out to, and a way had to be found to make Gautam Gambhir step over the line. Kohli had played the IPL before, had understood what it was all about, but this year getting right into it took slightly longer.Kohli describes his first week in the IPL as “confusing”. For the World Cup winners, he said, “it was tough, to motivate ourselves, to actually be at our best. We weren’t up to that mental level, to be honest”.Now, though, with only two games left in the tournament’s fourth season, Kohli is second behind Chris Gayle in the run-scoring list, (Sachin Tendulkar is within six runs of both men) and has been among the best fielders in the competition. He has even led Bangalore in Daniel Vettori’s absence, and on Tuesday he did everything to help Bangalore inch closer to the final: an unbeaten 70 not off 44 balls, followed by a gymnastics-floor exercise special in defence of 175 – attacking the ball, diving, somersaulting and giving the ultra slow-motion cameras plenty to drool over.Yet at the end of it all, Bangalore and Kohli tumbled to defeat. Once again on Friday, Kohli will be inside the IPL’s playoffs machine – and the second qualifying final – versus Mumbai Indians. He’ll be asking himself: Again? More?When viewed from a distance, the game often does not make sense as to how it pans out over the course of a season. To Kohli, though, the past year has brought with it clarity about his batting in the limited-overs game. His is a special ability: to retain what he believes is essential, pure even, about his cricket and yet fit into the whirl of Twenty20, with its insane strike rates and volcanic ash cloud of boundaries that blur perspective and logic.Whether in 50 overs or 20, when Kohli and his A game take the crease, the rest of him – his image, the tattoos, the emphatic eyebrows, the fin hairdo, the adverts featuring Bollywood starlets and love bites – evaporates. All that remains is the man and his bat.Off the field, though, Kohli’s engagement with the world is mostly through his image as seller of “youth brands.” When old fogeys get him to sit still for a few minutes, however, he morphs from punk rocker to cricket philosopher; an open, thoughtful speaker. A short conversation is peppered with words like “self-realisation” and “channelised”, and he describes India’s performances in the World Cup knockout stages, much like someone from the Tiger Pataudi generation would: “It was probably the best display of team effort I’ve seen from the Indian team in a long, long time.”In less than four years Kohli has put himself up and ahead of his other contemporaries for a place in what may well turn out to be the new-look Indian middle order in a few seasons. His first step into prominence was as India’s Under-19 World Cup winning captain, whose invective-spewing celebration rang a few alarm bells about what India’s next generation was going to be like. That was followed by the IPL hellraiser and then the supporting role in a once-in-28-years World Cup victory.In between all those monumental events, Kohli has survived the unseen: every young cricketer’s meaningless wander through the jungles of celebrityhood. About a year ago a switch was thrown in his mind about what he really wanted to achieve.”Actually, I switched off.” he says. That’s where all the talk about self-realisation comes from. The junior World Cup victory brought with it mutterings about his bad-boy ways, much like it had for dozens of other youthful sporting success stories. Everyone in Indian cricket is familiar with the tale of how the teenage Kohli resumed his Ranji Trophy innings against Karnataka a few hours after losing his father in December 2006. What happened afterwards is not so well known. Not his lingering personal grief nor the roiling success of the junior World Cup victory.

In a world where “brands” really matter, tags can be terribly destructive things. Kohli tried to shake off a few with some simple questions and answers. “I said, what am I doing? There’s no way I’m going to play for India like that. And that is one thing I wanted to do as a child”

“I had seen a very tough time, when I was about 17, and it was very hard for me to recover from that for the next two years. Not many people have taken that into consideration before giving me that tag and just thinking of me like that.” ‘That’ means the bad boy in fast burn. “I agree, I made a lot of mistakes at that point in time… those were the kind of things I would have done in a normal life but not a stage like the IPL, where a lot of people were watching you.” It is as if, in his mind, he is still sorting through the debris.”I couldn’t handle what happened after we won the World Cup. People looking up at you and thinking that you were someone who could play for India and just giving you tags like ‘blue-eyed boy’ and stuff like that. I couldn’t take it, honestly. I made a lot of mistakes.”In a world where “brands” really matter, tags can be terribly destructive things. Kohli tried to shake off a few with some simple questions and answers. “I realised I’m going on the wrong track. It just came from within. I said, what am I doing? There’s no way I’m going to play for India like that. And that is one thing I wanted to do as a child.”He returned to cricket and the monotony of practice and nets and the ground, trying to erase 18 months of mistakes. “I used to stay on the field as long as possible and come back home and stay at home. I totally cut off from everything else that I was doing for one and a half years. It started to pay off in my cricket.” This shift in his frame of reference has kept Kohli’s game at its simplest, treating Twenty20 as a ladder to a better percentage game in 50 overs. He says the Twenty20 format and the six-week IPL helps a batsman one rung up the ladder – in international 50-over cricket. “You improvise more, and that can help you in the one-day format, say whenever you need to attack in a difficult situation.”He lets field hockey keep its scoops and reverses and just fine-tunes what he already possesses. “I know my strengths and weaknesses and I can’t play a shot that I’m not used to. I haven’t tried to play special shots. I still play the normal shots in Twenty20. But you need to execute them a bit more [thoroughly] than you do in one-dayers just to get results.”Like the delicious six over extra cover – off Albie Morkel – which gave Bangalore the kick in its last few overs on Tuesday night. Twenty20’s short attention span meant that effort was obliterated by Suresh Raina’s match-winning innings that followed. “It’s different to develop a shot over a period of time, but I don’t like to try new shots in every match. I just try to stick to my game plan and score runs sticking to the game plan I have.”That game plan has been mostly about seeking gaps to overturn the field, hard running, and turning over strike before picking the moment to move up a gear. At no stage in his international career has Kohli looked uncertain. Five centuries in 57 ODIs for India, three scored chasing (along with nine of his 13 fifties) – what once used to be considered an Indian impossibility. When India field first, Kohli averages over 55, 10 points higher than his career score. It led ESPNcricinfo blogger Andy Zaltzman to predict that Kohli was so good in the chase, “a post-cricket career as a Hollywood stunt car beckons”.Even if completely devoid of a multi-coloured, surround-sound off-field life, Kohli’s career itself should not be dull. For a start, he is aware of where he stands. The two cup victories, he says, make him feel “a bit lucky” but they are not his path to entitlement. “I feel very good when I think about it – you have played in your first World Cup and you end up on the winning side – but I feel a bit lucky as well. But I don’t want to treat this as if I have achieved something special. Okay, these milestones have come along but I still have a lot of goals I want to achieve. I want to elongate my cricketing career as a consistent player. I have personal goals I would like to achieve someday.”Test cricket, he has often said, is one of those goals, and Kohli is just behind Cheteshwar Pujara in the middle-order queue. After the IPL he will set out on the first leg of India’s six-month travels in what will be unfamiliar terrains. Only 15 of his 57 international games have been played outside Asia. But everywhere India go now, they go as world champions. Kohli says the World Cup win has doubled his confidence in international cricket, “but given all of us a sense of added responsibility as well. If you go on top, you need to remain on top. It takes a lot of character.”He has dealt and survived one heavy round of that character-defining stuff. It helped him seal a spot in the World Cup XI, a title victory and a place among the most promising young cricketers in the international game. There’s no time to celebrate though; on Friday, in the IPL’s second qualifying final, Virat Kohli must go through yet another spin cycle.

ESPNcricinfo presents the Plays of the Day from the IPL match between Delhi Daredevils and Royal Challengers Bangalore

George Binoy26-Apr-2011Impact moment of the day
Virat Kohli had played the ball towards deep midwicket and he and AB de Villiers returned for the second run, taking on the fielder because he needed to get to the ball from deep square leg. That fielder was David Warner, though, who covered ground at incredible speed, reaching the ball quicker than the batsmen anticipated. He picked it up while on the run and aimed at de Villiers’ end, challenging one of the fastest men in cricket. The throw was flat and fast from nearly 60 metres out and it crashed into the stumps at the bowler’s end with de Villiers barely in the frame. The ball went to Warner several times after that, and the batsmen did not even think about a second.The referrals
Tillakaratne Dilshan had flung the ball high in celebration, after catching a stinging slash at point from James Hopes, who was single-handedly dragging Delhi to a competitive score. Abhimanyu Mithun had reason to be relieved, for the ball was full, wide and rather average. The umpire wanted to check whether Mithun had over-stepped, though, and replays showed that he was not behind the line by a fraction. Hopes, on 43, survived. Eleven runs later, Hopes edged Mithun to the wicketkeeper but the ensuing celebrations were dampened again when the umpire checked for another over-step. This time Mithun was okay, by the tiniest of margins.The ambush
Dilshan made a duck, and Chris Gayle had not scored a run. Yet Bangalore were 26 after two overs, due to an astonishing blitz from Kohli, who struck six fours in his first ten balls. Dinda suffered first, getting cut in front and behind point, but Irfan Pathan suffered most. Kohli feasted on his friendly pace and, in the absence of movement, clipped through square, glanced to fine leg, drove through extra cover and flicked through midwicket. Every shot was timed impeccably, and placed with precision.The final lifeline
A seesawing chase had decisively swung Bangalore’s way. They needed two off five balls with three wickets in hand. And then Delhi had a glimmer of hope, as Daniel Vettori spooned an off-drive flat towards Pathan at mid-off. A wicket would have dismissed the last set batsman and left the finish to unaccomplished tailenders. Pathan moved to his right and dived forward, he got both hands to the ball but couldn’t hold on as he was off balance. With that drop, Delhi was truly sunk.

Though India lacked the aura of the No. 1 teams of the past, they had the resilience and results. After the first three Tests in England, nothing remains

Sharda Ugra at The Oval17-Aug-2011As far as world’s No. 1 teams went, India were distinctive because they never really had an aura. In their two-odd years on top, India neither walked the talk like the West Indians of the 1980s and the 90s, nor did they talk the walk like the Australians who followed them. They were never the world’s most athletic Test team nor one that possessed a sharp pace attack. India were more men of specific skill and deliberate measure and taken lightly only by the delusionally arrogant. While they didn’t have an aura, what they did have though was resilience and results.As of last week, India have none of it. The series against England is gone, the Pataudi Trophy is gone, their No. 1 ranking that they said they did not think about, is gone, and the “good cricket” that took them there is gone with it. For the moment, the Indian cricket team is living in every athlete’s nightmare: being seen as yesterday’s person.At their first day of training after losing ground they had earned over two years, the Indians stepped onto the Kennington Oval in South London, now called the Kia Oval, after a Korean car company; the word Kia roughly meaning “arising from Asia” in Korean. On this tour, however, the Indians have not risen, but fallen. Once in The Oval today though, they just vanished. From the sight of people gathered near the old pavilion jammed in-between the old gasworks, the new arch, a clutter of advertising hoardings and empty seats. The team was actually on the far side of the ground, hidden by the billowing pitch covers on wheels. They sat in a circle, most of them cross-legged and listened to the coach Duncan Fletcher speak.It is not known what Fletcher actually said in the talk that lasted about ten minutes, as the rest of the support staff stood by at the nets waiting for the nuts-and-bolts business to begin. The Indian dressing room in the past few years has been a fairly quiet and relaxed place with captain MS Dhoni playing the strong-but-silent man and the support staff, particularly Fletcher’s predecessor Gary Kirsten and his assistant Paddy Upton being the ones behind the motivational speeches and one-on-ones. The focus in the Dhoni-Kirsten era was more on “personal responsibility” with the aim of turning every man into a self-starter when it came to training and preparation, introducing the idea of frequent “optional” nets and eventually making everyone, “better players and better people.” The method was in perfect sync with the team and the time that Indian cricket found itself in; the results that followed after the last tour of England (under five captains in three forms of the game no less) and just before this one were far from illusion, but magic all the same.On this tour, much of it has worn off and a re-tooling is now required by Dhoni, Fletcher and the squad’s senior management team. The nets at The Oval on Tuesday were, however, optional and barring Praveen Kumar, every other member of the team turned up, including RP Singh, who India will turn to as the singular trump card to prevent the deck from once again collapsing. India’s two previous tries – Sreesanth replacing the injured Zaheer Khan at Trent Bridge and Virender Sehwag returning to open the batting in Edgbaston – have not worked. That Praveen, the most military of the medium pacers, is being hailed as the centre-piece of India’s bowling effort is a tale itself.As every Test of the series has become shorter – Lord’s went into the fifth day, and Trent Bridge and Edgbaston ended around tea on the fourth day, one after and one before – it is the desperation of the Indian response that has increased. This is the first time since Australia in 1999-2000 that India have lost three straight Tests; the big difference being that the quality available to the Class of 2011 is far more skilled than what was available then, both in experience and expertise.And still, the succession of defeats and the numbers on the scorecards have left the dressing room even quieter. When being told that everyone at home was wondering about where their fight had gone, a player said, “We fighting, we trying. Everyone is, everyone wants to succeed. Things just aren’t working out.” The opposition has been so well-tuned that India’s resources, or perhaps, as the talk is about fighting, the weapons, are blunted. They are all amplified by scheduling errors, injuries to key personnel and the lack of cohesion around the squad once the World Cup was won and the IPL dived right into.

The series against England is gone, the Pataudi Trophy is gone, their No. 1 ranking that they said they did not think about, is gone, and the “good cricket” that took them there is gone with it. For the moment, the Indian cricket team is living in every athlete’s nightmare: being seen as yesterday’s person

England spinner Graeme Swann said on Tuesday, “Certainly the break that India had from Test cricket worked in our favour. Since we had English conditions playing Sri Lanka building up to this series, it was a chance for everyone to just get ready and raring. Whereas India had those two matches in the West Indies where it was 100 degrees and not swinging.”Swann also described what the temperatures in the two dressing rooms would be like. “When you’re on a roll, like we seem to be at the moment, it’s very easy to carry that on – because your confidence levels are so high, your confidence levels in your team-mates are so high, you never feel like you are behind the eight-ball. You never feel you’re in a position you can’t win a game from.” When things were going badly, what spread was a virus of a different kind. “We all know because we’ve all been in teams that were in a bit of a bad trot [and] losing games. In a losing situation, [when the shoe is on the other] foot you think, ‘Oh my, we are losing this game, we’re in a no-win situation’.”India’s is that kind of a slump, and The Oval is a no-win situation because the series is not on the line; what is however, are questions about the resolve of Dhoni’s men. Swann was quick to say, “I certainly wouldn’t write off the Indian team because they are a class act and if this wicket is good for batting as it normally is, we have to be absolutely on top our game to keep them under 300.”Among many other things, England’s batsmen have been given one simple dictum to work with, as Ian Bell revealed in a recent interview. They are not to think of themselves merely as batsmen, but also quite simply just numbers-men. In an England dressing room under Andy Flower and Graham Gooch, “you’re not so much a batsman” Bell said, “as a run-scorer”. This is the last chance for India’s to land up

For all the dramas and disasters of Hilditch’s five-year tenure as the part-time chairman of selectors, culminating in the loss of the Ashes, the wheel may be starting to turn

Daniel Brettig17-Oct-2011Having presided over a ship that sank during the Ashes, Andrew Hilditch resembles a helmsman somehow still around to see the vessel raised to the surface.To play the Test series against South Africa, Hilditch was able to name a team that included a teenaged fast bowler with rare gifts, Pat Cummins, retained the same spin bowlers taken on Australia’s last tour, and omitted in Dave Warner a young opening batsman scoring mountains of runs because those ahead of him are doing equally well.All these signs of rude health were pointed out by Hilditch on what was probably the final occasion he announces an Australia Test squad, for the appointment of the new National Selector, a full-time position remodelled according to the recommendation of the Argus review, is soon to follow. For all the dramas and disasters of Hilditch’s five-year tenure as the part-time chairman of selectors, culminating in the loss of the Ashes at home last summer, the wheel may be starting to turn.”Short-term success for the side is probably likely to come down to how our experienced players play,” Hilditch said. “But the young talent we’ve introduced progressively I think but also with Sri Lanka and this squad, there’s some really exciting young talent.”So I think we’re certainly going down the right path, Sri Lanka was a step in the process, South Africa’s going to be even harder, but again a big, important part of getting back to No.1 in Test cricket. The big thing is the young players we’re picking are actually impacting and look like they’re ready to play, so it’s a great thing.”Hilditch has retained his pacific exterior throughout a year of vast changes in Australian cricket, many of them geared towards improving the ways and decisions of the selection panel. Bizarrely considering how long he has held on to the job as a part-time concern, Hilditch says has always favoured the role being made full-time.”I was frustrated in the sense we lost the Ashes, that was pretty devastating, but from a selection point of view I’ve always done it because I love cricket,” Hilditch said. “I’ve been really lucky to have my job for as long as I have. It’s my passion, it’s not what I do for a living, I do it because I love it.”I’ve continued to love it and we’ve done the best things we could possibly do in our own minds to try to help Australian cricket. I think [the selection position] had to become fulltime, as simple as that, which has always been my view. And it’ll be a tough job for whoever takes it over but I’m sure they’ll love it.”Many decisions made by Hilditch’s panel have been heavily criticised, and a definitive list of mistakes or miss-steps would take time in recounting. Many revolve around the selection of spin bowlers, and it was a source of some relief to Hilditch that Nathan Lyon was able to grasp his chance so strongly in Sri Lanka.”He did really well in Sri Lanka, obviously a big learning curve and South Africa will be no different, that’s a really hard assignment for the whole team but also for Nathan,” Hilditch said. “But we think he’s up to it, at the moment we’re investing more time [for him] in Test cricket than the other forms of the game and trying to get him as much experience as we can.”The reality is we needed to find the best spinners to play for Australia and there’s been some changes to the spinning stocks. Nathan’s five-for on debut is a great start and we think Michael Beer can bowl as well. But they’re both short on experience, there’s no doubt about that and they’ll be learning as they go along.”In the case of Warner, his absence from the Test squad gave Hilditch cause to discuss one problem of his time as chairman – few players produced the sorts of startling performances that demanded inclusion in the Australian team, an unsatisfactory state of affairs that has been changing in recent months.”He went to Sri Lanka so he’s close,” Hilditch said of Warner. “But Usman [Khawaja] we thought definitely needed to be still in the squad and obviously Shaun Marsh took his opportunities in Sri Lanka really well. So there’s actually quite a few batters at the moment, who are putting their hand up and deserve selection.”So It’s hard on those players but it is a good thing, we haven’t been there for a while where people are actually demanding and pushing hard for selection and that’s a positive thing.”There was one decision about which Hilditch was utterly unequivocal as chairman. That was his insistence that Michael Clarke replace Ricky Ponting as captain whenever the older man chose to finish, a view that was not always shared by the Cricket Australia directors to which Hilditch has reported.”He’s been fantastic,” Hilditch said of Clarke, who led Australia with tremendous poise on his first Test tour as captain in Sri Lanka. “The one thing that has happened after the Ashes is there’s been a lot of changes taken place. The review [means] there will be further changes, but the reality is we’ve had a change in leadership, a few changes in coaching positions as far as fielding coach and fast bowling coaches and a slightly different playing group.”But what they have done is really worked hard and they’ve made a lot of progress so it’s been very encouraging.”

Stats highlights from day three of the first Test in Dubai where Pakistan completed a 10-wicket victory

Madhusudhan Ramakrishnan19-Jan-2012England’s defeat is their first since the loss in the third Test of the Ashes in Perth in December 2010. Between then and this defeat, they had won seven out of nine Tests. It is also Pakistan’s fifth victory over England in Tests played outside England. Pakistan’s last win against England came in the third Test of the ill-fated 2010 tour at The Oval when they went on to win by four wickets. Pakistan’s 10-wicket victory is their third such win against England and their first against them outside England. Overall, England have suffered 10-wicket defeats on 20 different occasions. Their previous such defeat came against South Africa in Headingley in 2008. Misbah-ul-Haq led Pakistan to their seventh win in his 13th match as captain. His win-loss ratio of 7.00 is the best among Pakistan captains who have led their team in at least ten matches. Saeed Ajmal’s match haul of 10 for 97 is the fourth-best by a Pakistan bowler in Tests against England and the best by a Pakistan bowler at a neutral venue surpassing the 8 for 72 by Shoaib Akhtar against Australia in Colombo in 2002. Ajmal’s ten-wicket haul is only the second by a Pakistan spinner against England after Abdul Qadir’s effort in 1987.For the first time since the Perth Test in December 2010, England were bowled out in both innings without aggregating 400 runs in the game. It is also the first time since 2000 that this has occurred against Pakistan and the tenth time overall in the same period.It is also the 11th occasion for England since 2000 and their first since the Johannesburg Test in 2010 when there has been just one fifty-plus score in the Test. Matt Prior was their only player to reach fifty in this match.The aggregate partnership for the top four wickets in the match for England was just 77. This is the fifth-lowest for England since the end of the World War I. Since the end of the Sri Lanka series, Alastair Cook has had a mixed run. In seven completed innings he has failed to go past five on five occasions but in the other two innings against India, he scored 294 and 34. Ajmal also became the fifth bowler to pick up seven lbw wickets in a match. Only Mohammad Zahid and Chaminda Vaas have picked up more lbw wickets in a match (8).

Gautam Gambhir talks about coming to terms with the dip in his form, and looking forward to Australia

Interview by Nagraj Gollapudi13-Dec-2011This will be your first trip to Australia as a Test opener. Are you geared up for it?
It is going to be a very challenging tour but exciting at the same time. As a cricketer you always want to do well in Australia, as that gives you a lot of satisfaction. It is a great place to play cricket in. I played in the CB Series in 2008 and I did pretty well there, and this time I am looking forwarding to opening in Test cricket.Australia are one team that come hard at you all the time. They do not let you score runs easily. They are a tough team to crack and they have always done well under pressure. They have a good fast bowling attack, and even the crowd there is against you When they come hard at you, you need to have a lot of mental strength to tackle them.You are going through a phase where you are getting starts but not converting them. Your last Test century came in January 2010. How much does that affect you in your batting?
It is not that I’m not scoring runs. If I was getting out cheaply or getting very low scores, I would be thinking about it. Sometimes when you think too much about scoring a hundred, what happens is, you start getting desperate for it.I have always believed that when you open the batting you want to make the most of it; you want to score big runs. As an opening batsman you have to face the new ball and you never know what could happen in the next innings. But the most important thing is, you have to give [the team] decent starts. In the home Test series against West Indies we had some good opening stands between myself and Viru [Virender Sehwag], which set the platform for the middle order.I want to score runs and big runs. That is what I have always wanted to do. And when I was scoring big hundreds, I was not thinking about it. I was just staying in the present, watching the ball. That is what I am doing now. In the Indore ODI I thought I would get a hundred, but I was caught. I know I have not scored an international century for nearly a year, but the important thing is to keep scoring runs and keep scoring big runs.You mentioned getting desperate. Have you ever reached a point of desperation?
People will always recognise a batsman if he scores a hundred. And when everyone keeps talking about [how] you have not scored a hundred, it plays on your mind. It is very difficult to take it out of your system. But as I said, if I keep thinking too much, I might not be able to score what I have been scoring and giving good starts. Then I would only be thinking about not scoring a hundred. You start from nought, and from nought to a hundred is a long, long journey.Have you spoken about it to anyone?
This is something I cannot really discuss honestly. There are so many great batsmen who did not score hundreds for a long time, but once it comes you end up scoring a lot of hundreds together. It is just incidental. Before scoring my second Test hundred against Australia, in Mohali, I had said I just needed one and I would try and get lots of hundreds. That was what happened: I scored five in five. And now there is a phase where I have not scored a hundred in a long time. But at least I have been scoring decently and I have been pretty consistent. I do not want to score a hundred in one innings followed by a lot of low scores. I would rather have four or five good, decent scores that will contribute to the team’s cause.Honestly I have not discussed this with anyone because deep inside my heart I know my style and I have scored five consecutive hundreds in five Test matches. So I am not getting worried yet.

“If I keep thinking too much, I might not be able to score what I have been scoring and giving good starts. Then I would only be thinking about not scoring a hundred. You start from nought, and from nought to a hundred is a long, long journey”

The England tour was a difficult time, where you were hit in the field and forced to return home due to concussion.
It is absolutely fine now. In England out of the six innings, I played three with an injury. But that is over now. After that, in the England ODI series [in India] I managed to get some good scores, and against West Indies I was pretty happy with the way I was hitting my strokes.You and Sehwag did not open in all the matches in England, but both of you are now fit and among the runs. That should be a shot in the arm for the Indian batting.
I remember Rahul [Dravid] saying in an interview that it was very good to have two positive openers because they can score runs very freely and very quickly. Whenever me and Viru open the batting, we always discuss scoring runs rather than surviving, because cricket is all about scoring runs. You can survive a whole session and score 30 to 50 runs, but suddenly you get out and realise that you have not taken the team anywhere. Instead, you’d rather have been 100 for 2 than 50 for 2. Both of us always look to be positive. Ultimately you want to score runs and put the opposition under pressure.What does Sehwag scoring 200 in ODI mean to you?
It is very special, even to me. Being the highest run-getter in ODI cricket is no doubt a great feeling. He has done [the job] whenever he has got the opportunity. Hopefully he can continue with this form in Australia. Test matches are a different ball game but he can take a lot of confidence from this 200 against West Indies because having runs under your belt is always good when you go on a tough tour. It puts us in a good position to give good starts. Sehwag revealed that he had with him the DVD of Sachin Tendulkar’s double-century for inspiration. Do you have anything similar to motivate yourself with?
I do have some of my own good Test innings, like the century in Napier, the Wellington innings, the 90 and 70-odd in Cape Town. Watching them helps me get in the frame of mind for Test cricket. When you are constantly playing cricket, all three forms, you hardly get any time to adapt quickly mentally [and get] into the frame of mind needed for each format.

After seemingly being moved aside from the one-day side earlier this year, Ian Bell now has another chance to cement a role as opener following Kevin Pietersen’s retirement

George Dobell at Edgbaston11-Jun-2012Andy Flower has backed Ian Bell’s experience and quality to make a success of his recall to England’s one-day International side.Bell will open the batting in the series against West Indies that starts at West End on Saturday, with Flower admitting the selection has been made with more than an eye to the next World Cup in Australia and New Zealand in 2015.As recently as February, it seemed Bell’s limited-overs international career might be over when he was dropped from the squad to play Pakistan in the UAE and England won the four-match series 4-0. Now, however, with Kevin Pietersen having retired from limited-overs internationals and a recent adaptation to ODI playing regulations meaning that a new ball is used from each end at the start of games, England have decided that Bell has the best all-round game to cope with the demands of the position.”Ian Bell is a very experienced cricketer, even though he’s only 30,” Flower said. “He’s got a lot of international experience and he’s in great form. He is very confident at the moment.”With the two new white balls we want great quality batsmen up front and he is one of those. We believe the man who has got the best chance of making it a success against two new white balls is Ian Bell. He’s really good quality. We believe he can form a successful partnership with Alastair Cook. Of course there are alternatives and we’ve considered them very carefully but I’m really excited to see him take up that challenge.”Bell’s recall will not be universally welcomed. He has enjoyed copious previous opportunities – he has played 108 ODIs; 28 of them as opener – without ever absolutely replicating the confidence and dominance he has shown in domestic limited-overs cricket. Overall he has averaged 34.04 with a strike-rate of 73.31 in ODIs, with one century and 19 half-centuries, while as opener he has averaged 33 at a strike-rate of 70.69 with five half-centuries.Whichever way you look at it, there is room for improvement and it is asking a great deal of him to step into the considerable shoes vacated by the retirement of Pietersen, who has an ODI average of 41.84 and a strike-rate of 86.76.England are not looking for Bell to try to emulate Pietersen’s methods, though. Instead they hope that by giving him time to settle in the opening position, he will prosper with his own style. Bell has rarely enjoyed a settled position in the side. He has batted at every position except No. 8 and No. 10 – though he has batted at No. 3 47 times – and has often hinted at his class without producing many match-defining performances. His ability to open, and the fact that the England squad already contains several relatively inexperienced players, saw him preferred to the likes of Ben Stokes and James Taylor.Flower admitted that, had England been facing more ODI games in Asian conditions, they might have opted for a more explosive option at the top of the order and conceded that the selectors had considered opting for a young man.”On the sub-continent we would obviously consider whether we go with the same personnel up front,” Flower said. “But there’s a lot of time between now and the next sub continental one-day cricket.”The World Cup in Australia was definitely on our mind. We had to weigh up whether to get someone younger than him in. But we think he’s the best option for us and he’s only 30 years old. It is safe to assume he will open. We don’t want him to do a similar job to Pietersen we want him to be Ian Bell and play great international cricket.”Andrew Strauss also welcomed Bell’s recall. While admitting that he no longer had any input into the selection of the ODI side, Strauss referred to Bell as “one of the best players in the world” who can “adapt to any form of the game”.”This might just be the opportunity he needs to cement his place in the one-day side,” Strauss said. “I think we all know his quality and it’s great for him to be back in that one-day set-up.”He has shown plenty of times that he is capable of doing a very good job in one-day cricket, maybe he just hasn’t had that one breakthrough innings that really grabs the game by the scruff of the neck and wins it for England. I think once he does that the world is his oyster. He’s such a fine player that he can be up there with the very best.”

Plays of the Day from the fifth ODI between Sri Lanka and Pakistan

Kanishkaa Balachandran at the Premadasa Stadium18-Jun-2012Akmal v Malinga
Lasith Malinga’s bouncer barrage at Umar Akmal in the fourth ODI had set up the batsman’s dismissal and triggered Pakistan’s collapse. So, much was anticipated when Akmal took guard for the rematch, but Malinga’s first over to him was uneventful. The second one was more action packed. After three dot balls, a short one on the ribs was fended to fine leg. A repeat delivery two balls later was sent to fine leg again, this time with more conviction. In Malinga’s next over, a top edge from Akmal cleared the wicketkeeper. Realising the bouncer wasn’t the right ploy, Malinga hit back in his next spell with a series of fast yorkers outside off stump that Akmal failed to put away. Still, 21 runs off 23 balls for Akmal was an improvement from the horror of the previous game.Tanvir thrills
Shortly after knocking down Tillakaratne Dilshan’s leg stump with a sharp incoming delivery, Sohail Tanvir produced arguably the delivery of the match. Bowling from over the wicket, he landed the ball on a good length, got it to hold its line, beat Upul Tharanga’s drive and sent the off stump cartwheeling almost halfway to the wicketkeeper.Tanvir spills
In the field, though, it was a different story for Tanvir. A drive from Kumar Sangakkara should have been stopped at mid-on, but Tanvir was a bit too late with the dive. His worst was yet to come. Fielding at deep cover, Tanvir sprinted to his right to stop the ball at the boundary’s edge, but decided to take the easy way out and stuck his boot out instead. The ball bounced off his right boot and deflected off his leg to the boundary. A peeved Misbah-ul-Haq, already at his wits’ end thanks to Pakistan’s fielding lapses, banished Tanvir to third man, in front of the noisiest section of the crowd.Redemption for Sarfraz
Tanvir wasn’t the only culprit. Sarfraz Ahmed also wanted to look for the nearest place to hide when he dropped Sangakkara on 25. Sangakkara drove at a length ball and got an outside edge that ought to have been taken by Sarfraz. He fluffed the catch, though, and covered his face for a few agonising seconds, fearing the drop would cost Pakistan the game. Sarfraz, however, had a second chance. Sangakkara, on 40, dropped the ball close on the off side and set off for a run. To his horror, he saw the ball spinning back towards the keeper. Sarfraz collected the ball and in one motion broke the stumps before Sangakkara could get back. The batsman cut a desolate figure on one knee.Lahiru’s luck
Lahiru Thirimanne had two close shaves during his innings. When trying to cut Mohammad Hafeez, Thirimanne ended up getting a bottom edge into the pitch and the ball top spun towards the stumps. He tried desperately to block it with his bat but the ball struck the stumps. The bails, however, did not fall. There was a similar incident in the following over as well. Like Sangakkara, Thirimanne dropped the ball on the pitch and tried to steal a single. Sarfraz collected it and flicked the ball back on to the stumps. Once again the bails did not fall, but Thirimanne had made his ground.

Irfan Pathan has made the most of his latest comeback – now the challenge is to display the same kind of form in Indian conditions

Abhishek Purohit in Pallekele08-Aug-2012Irfan Pathan is back. Again. With consecutive Man-of-the-Match awards. With a role in four of the five Indian wins on this tour. His previous comeback arrived after nearly three years, and lasted eight ODIs and one Twenty20 international before he was left out of the squad for this trip, despite very reasonable figures. Irfan was looking for a county deal; then Vinay Kumar got injured, and Irfan got a lifeline. And boy, he has grabbed it.The highest wicket-taker in the ODI series. The most economical Indian fast bowler in the ODI series, ahead of even Zaheer Khan. Plus, two calm and decisive knocks with the bat when the team was in trouble. And a whole-hearted effort in the field. Twist the package any way you want, you will struggle to call it anything but all-round.Before the series started, people were wondering how many games Irfan would get. The precedent was the way he had been treated in the ODI tri-series in Australia. He played half the number of games Ravindra Jadeja did and took twice as many wickets, and made almost as many runs. Irfan batted at No.9, Jadeja at No.7.Fortunately for Irfan, Jadeja did not make this trip. But Irfan had to earn the team management’s confidence, especially after MS Dhoni spoke about Jadeja’s importance as a bowler before the first match. A first spell of 6-1-20-1 with the new ball in Hambantota set the tone for the series.Irfan swung the ball regularly into the right-handers. His pace was steady, in the mid-to-late 120s, but he got the ball to bounce and zip off the pitch, which he has said creates opportunities for him. Importantly, he did not fall apart at the death. He was involved in two match-winning partnerships with Suresh Raina and Dhoni, sensibly rotating the strike during both stands.Three games, he played as the allrounder, batting at No.7 with four specialist bowlers to follow. In the next three games, the team management developed enough confidence in Irfan’s bowling to play an extra batsman in Manoj Tiwary.Irfan was delighted to be back, and desperate to perform. He had gone through a phase where his back had troubled him so much that he had started to worry more about his body than his career. His action had been through so many ups and downs he had no clue where the Irfan of 2003-04 had disappeared.He had bowled for hours in the nets and local games in his hometown Vadodara to try to get some of the shape back. People didn’t believe him when he said he was prepared for a comeback. He returned to the side, did not get many opportunities, and was dropped again, but destiny probably owed him another chance.Irfan wasn’t going to let it go through want of preparation. Almost every game, he would walk to the side pitches before the start and bowl and bowl. He worked on his delivery stride and on his use of the crease. He did not face the best bowling in the nets as most of the India bowlers would be done by the time his turn came to bat, but he practiced his strokes against what was on offer. He stayed back on occasions after the rest had left to bat against throwdowns.Despite his showing, he is still on trial, in a way. Duncan Fletcher, the India coach, said after the ODI series that Irfan had done a good job “at the moment”. “I think he has got the potential,” Fletcher had said. “We just have got to see him progress from here and see how he bowls in India and bats in India.”He will surely be tested in Indian conditions, and Jadeja could return into the equation as well. But for the moment, India can savour the return of someone who is the closest they have currently to a fast-bowling allrounder.