We now have a rudimentary fielding average in the BBL, but it’s a crying shame there aren’t any other, more meaningful, measures

Jarrod Kimber05-Jan-2017The ball rebounds off the pads towards point. The point fielder comes in as Inzi is confused about whether he should run, or maybe confused about whether he is running. As he decides to turn back, the point fielder picks up the ball. Inzi is about six metres from the crease, the point fielder is about 12 but has the momentum.The men are two different specimens – one a wounded buffalo trying to find a waterhole to hide in, the other a cheetah looking for an easy, quick kill. It seems, at least on first glance, that the cheetah is moving so fast that he starts flying. The still image shows him flying, hands and feet stretched out like a human torpedo sent to destroy the stumps. And Jonty Rhodes does kill them, he does run out Inzi, he does fly.It t is one of the most famous moments of fielding cricket has ever had. Up there with Joe Solomon’s run-out in the tied Test, Colin Bland running out Ken Barrington, and Kapil Dev taking the catch of Viv Richards.And while that fielding was incredible, there is also the other side we remember. The Fred Tate drop, Chris Scott’s 483-run Brian Lara drop, and Rhodes disciple Herschelle Gibbs dropping Steve Waugh (read World Cup). But how many run-outs did Rhodes complete in his career? Was it more than Ricky Ponting? Did Ponting have a better accuracy when he threw? Who fumbled more? Cricket doesn’t know, and neither do we.

Cricket says catches win matches, and they may, but we don’t count them well enough to check. And we certainly don’t count them at all when they aren’t taken

Chances are you have a favourite fielder, and not just a favourite fielder but probably favourite fielders for different positions. Bob Simpson at first slip, Mohammad Azharuddin at second, Geoff Marsh at gully, Rhodes at point, Clive Lloyd at cover, Brendon McCullum at mid-off, David Boon at short leg, Garfield Sobers at leg slip, and George Bonnor at fine leg. But for all the love they get from cricket fans, cricket doesn’t appreciate fielding, because if it did, it would measure it.Cricket says catches win matches, and they may, but we don’t count them well enough to check. And we certainly don’t count them at all when they aren’t taken. It is one reason why batsmen-wicketkeepers have replaced specialist wicketkeepers, because we count runs, we agonise over them, and if you are lucky, you will see the total catches of a keeper at the end of the column.Fielding stats just don’t exist. Not in any real way. Unless you are Rahul Dravid, the chances are no one will remember how many catches you took. Ponting and Rhodes were great fielders, but which one made more run-outs? While old cricket guys gushed about Bland’s phenomenal ability as a cover fielder, we don’t how many run-outs he was involved in. Before Charles Davis and ESPNcricinfo ball-by-ball, we didn’t even know what the catch-drop ratio of modern players was, or more importantly, have any way at all of tracking dropped catches in cricket.Cricket Australia is trying to change the way people think about fielding; they have developed a fielding average. For people looking for real information on what happens on a cricket field, and not lazy generalisations, this is an important development.A large part of the early sabermetrics revolution in baseball showed that fielding was an overrated skill, and getting on base was an underrated skill. Better athletes were chosen over players who could field better, in less spectacular ways. Baseball fielding has been more athletic and of a higher quality than cricket fielding, but weirdly, it might also be less important in the game.Paradoxically, though fielding is probably less important in baseball, it is also analysed far more•Getty ImagesHow many times have you heard it said of good fielders, “He’s worth 20 runs in the field”? It was something that was often said about Andrew Symonds – that his untold value in the field made him worth far more to his team than a normal player. A proper fielding metric could tell us how much.While batting averages are not a great way of looking at what a top-order player is worth in T20, let’s just say that a decent No. 4 batsman in T20 makes 30 runs a game. Then if you have two options, a player who makes 31 runs a game and another who makes 27, with proper fielding data, you might be able to tell that the 27-runs-a-game player might also bring you two run-outs and four catches more a season, and actively save extra runs in the field than the other player. Then you take the conversation from “He’s probably worth 20 runs in the field” to “He’s worth 8.3 runs and .35 more dismissals a game in the field than the other guy we could pick in the top order.”The ball is fielded far more often in cricket than in baseball, the catching percentages are far lower in cricket, the stakes on errors are presumably far higher, and therefore cricket analytics could prove that fielding is an undervalued skill. The only way we can know is by tracking it.That is what Tim Coyle, an assistant coach of Southern Stars, wants to do. On Cricket Australia’s website a few weeks back there was an article about giving all players in the BBL a public fielding average. “We went through quite a few different ideas on how we were going to present this, and at the end of the day we decided to try and keep this number as simple as possible,” Coyle, who is part of the Australian national fielding panel, said.They didn’t want an entirely accurate fielding-data system but one “that shows fielding performance in a simple way alongside batting and bowling”. What is interesting is that they went away from the traditional runs-based methods of working out a player’s worth and invented a new metric – which is less an average and more an error ratio.

If you have a player who averages 31 and another who makes 27, with proper fielding data, you might be able to tell that the second player might also bring you two run-outs and four catches more a season, and actively save extra runs in the field than the other player

According to the CA method, the fielding average is calculated by expressing the proportion of grade-one chances taken as a fraction between 0 (no chances taken) and 1 (all chances taken). A perfect fielder would be 1.0. A fielder who drops one out of ten would be 0.9; if they dropped two from ten, 0.80.The maths is, as Coyle and the team behind it wanted, simple, as is the basic error system behind it. A grade-one error is the most straightforward chance that no professional cricketer would be expected to miss: throwing from a small distance at three stumps, a catch every player would be expected to take. A grade-two error is marginally above expectations. Grade three is a one-handed blinder, hitting one stump from 25 metres, and fielding that ends up on YouTube.According to the CA data, Rob Quiney is a perfect fielder, at 1.0, and Glenn Maxwell is 0.93. Maxwell has had two grade-one errors, Quiney none. The first problem with this system is that it doesn’t tell us if Quiney has had three missed chances at grade two, and Maxwell hasn’t missed any; or maybe Maxwell has taken one grade-three chance and Quiney missed both his opportunities of that kind. That might make Maxwell a far better fielder than Quiney, but it wouldn’t change his fielding average.Then there is the fact you can’t be better than 1.0. If you take 68 chances from 68, and someone else takes 15 from 15, you will both be perfect. Even if your chances are at the toughest positions in fielding – slip and gully have far higher drop rates than mid-off or square leg – you won’t be rated any higher than someone with a perfect record at an easier position. And because you can’t be better than 1.0, it doesn’t matter how many one-hand blinders you take. If we used a system similar to this for batting, Bradman, Pollock and Headley might all have a perfect batting average, rather than one being 30-odd more than the others. There is also the fact that if you have taken 49 out of 50 chances, and another guy has taken his first 20, he will have a better record.But maybe the most jarring idea in this system is that it is an errors calculation. The same has been used in baseball for generations, but it has also been derided in that sport, where people are using proper data to try and map fielding worth. There is an entire chapter in about the failings of the error system. When you only track the errors, you take out a fielder who simply gets to more balls than others do through pace or desperation. Brendon McCullum might make more errors in the field than Inzamam, but he also stops a lot more.For all his spectacular efforts, Maxwell is rated below Quiney in CA’s fielding stat, which takes account only of “grade-one” chances•Getty ImagesWhen it comes down to it, you can’t have a proper fielding analytics system that doesn’t at least try to take all this into account. CA does have another system – that they keep privately – that looks at fielding impact, and in that, Maxwell is rated higher than Quiney. They are also looking at a fielding strike rate, “the number of dismissals a player gets divided by the number of matches they play”. And Maxwell ranks high there as well.The problem with the fielding average is that in trying to make it simple, “so people understand it” as Coyle says, they have made it almost pointless. I want to know who the best fielder is, not which one misses the most basic balls. What I want isn’t “a simple measure of fielding performance”; I want as close to a comprehensive system to work out what a fielder’s worth is, and that isn’t simple.Think about one of the most simple moments in a T20 match. A batsman gets a well-directed yorker from a bowler late in a T20 game, and all he can do is bunt it out to long-on. The non-striker has bolted and decides to take a two, the long-on fielder is just a bit slow to react, and this allows the non-striker to make it back just as the bowler takes the bails off. In traditional cricket that is two runs – both runs go against the bowler and go towards the batsman and total.But the reason there is an extra run wasn’t the bowler’s fault, and it had little to do with the striking batsman. It was the non-striker and the fielder who combined for the second run, and yet it goes against neither of their names. In a perfect world there would be a metric that allows us to work this out.With a SportVU camera, spatio-temporal pattern-recognition software, and cricket-specific algorithms, we could work out important and previously unanswerable cricket questions. How long it took the ball to get to the fielder, how far the ball was from the fielder, whether the fielder went straight at the ball, if the fielder took off slowly, how often a second run was successfully made in that situation, and the accuracy and speed of the throw. From that, once enough data is brought in, we could start to work out who played the biggest part in those two runs, and it could be used for everything from wicketkeeping dives to run-out chances. We could tell which fielders make plays, and which ones only execute grade-one chances that any player could make.But this is quite advanced, and while something of the kind might end up coming to be reality, we are a long way from a system of this sort.

I want to be able to prove a commentator wrong, or right, when he says Kohli is a good fielder. I want to know how often Martin Guptill gets to a ball quicker than most fielders, and how often he then fumbles it

Cricviz is a fielding data system that, considering Nathan Leamon (England Cricket performance analyst at the ECB) is involved, you can assume is similar to what the England team is using. Cricviz counts every incident that affects the score: catches, run-outs, missed chances, misfields and run-saving stops. Then every one of those incidents gets a plus or minus value, depending on how much it changes the team’s total. So at the end of a T20, a player could be given a sheet and told if he was plus or minus in the field.It’s still subjective – although it’s hard to see how any other system wouldn’t be – as there is still an operator who is making the calls of how hard the stop is, and how many runs should be put against the fielder. And Cricviz seems to be overly generous with players who routinely run around balls rather than straight at them, and is quite soft on what actions top-flight players should be able to perform. But their system, flawed as it may be, is still far better than the public CA model. And it is probably a good indication of what the smarter teams are using privately.Teams are already trying to work out if they are picking the right players. Look at Melbourne Stars, who have kept Ben Hilfenhaus on their roster. Two balls into his season he looked the goods. Two full, swinging balls, two wickets. But despite Hilfenhaus removing the top of their order, Hurricanes recovered when Tim Paine and George Bailey got together.In their partnership, they faced Adam Zampa. It was coming out well for Zampa. His skiddy legbreaks and a long leg-side boundary meant that Paine and Bailey had to try to hit him through the off side. On the short off-side boundary, Hilfenhaus was patrolling at point. He had a lot of work to do. At one stage he let them steal the second run. One ball, he saved a boundary but couldn’t stop the second run again. There was the three he allowed, which, considering the size of the ground, seemed odd. And also a four that was hit very close to him that he couldn’t stop.There are many ways of explaining what happened with Hilfenhaus on the point boundary. Was he often out of place through bad captaincy, or because he wasn’t listening when he was being moved around the field? Should an older fast bowler – even one who is not a terrible fielder – be the man to field on the short off-side boundary when both batsmen are targeting it? Zampa had bowled well, and completely to his plan, but because of the quality of the batting, and the results of the fielding, his dot balls were wasted, given the batsmen could score easily off him later in the over. It meant that Zampa couldn’t keep the pressure on, that he didn’t get a breakthrough, and ultimately that Hobart was able to play him with complete confidence while smashing him in his last over.The decision to field Hilfenhaus at deep point and keep him there wouldn’t appear to be as important as his two wickets. But it could have been important. For most of cricket’s history, where he fielded, or even how he fielded, wouldn’t have been important, but now you know that someone was watching and trying to work out if that is a weakness of Hilfenhaus and his team.Hilfenhaus’ early wickets against Hobart Hurricanes were recorded for posterity, but his costly misfields should also have been quantified•Cricket Australia/Getty ImagesIn making its system public, CA has taken a significant step forward. Even having a national fielding group at all is smart. They also have an interesting mix, with Coyle; Neil Buszard, a fielding coach with a baseball background; Andy Utting, a former baseballer; and Sunny Kaliyar, a performance analyst. But they are only four people.There are probably thousands of minds out there watching cricket who have brains equally or more impressive. Some with sports-analytics backgrounds, some with computer-coding backgrounds, and many more with free time and a cricket obsession. Thinking that a small group of people will be able to answer an equation as complicated as fielding is bizarre.Baseball’s big statistical evolution wasn’t from people in the front office; it was from people in their lounge rooms trawling through the stats and working out that commonly-held beliefs were wrong. Bill James started as a writer of a self-published book that virtually no one read, and then ended up as front-office staff with the Boston Red Sox.Cricket has its own Bill James out there. John Buchanan used Krishna Tunga in the early 2000s, for what Buchanan calls alternative cricket analysis. But while there are some data analysts in cricket, there are far more amateurs out there who would do amazing things if they had access to the modern cricket data. Four people, all of whom are not looking at the data full-time, trying to solve one of cricket’s great equations is nowhere near as good as a thousand or more doing it. And with the data that Fair Play, the data provider that CA has hired, generates, they could also find other ways to improve teams and learn new things about T20 cricket.Even now, without this data, people are poring over websites to prove theories or just find out things. Like the blog Right Arm Chuck, which spent quite a lot of time looking at the numbers of drops and catches by Indian slip fielders. It proves what many of us may have already thought, that Ajinkya Rahane is the best slip fielder in India, by a distance. But not just by eye, in numbers: his catch-drop ratio is 3.27; the closest Indian slipper is Murali Vijay, at 1.57. Most of the other slip fielders, even the oft-abused Ravindra Jadeja, are around the 1.5 mark.

While there are some data analysts in cricket, there are far more amateurs out there who would do amazing things if they had access to the modern cricket data

On the blog Declaration Game, there is a simple piece that looks at the drops in the series between England and India using ESPNcricinfo’s ball-by-ball coverage. According to it, India took 50 of their 76 chances (66%) and England took 47 from 65 (72%). Meaning that, on their recent numbers, both had a poor series. Alastair Cook took four from seven and Virat Kohli five from ten.And then there is Charles Davis, whose blog, and work for other publications, has delved as deep into cricket’s data science as any amateur with a laptop can. He put up a blog post on teams’ missed-chances percentages in Tests between 2013-14 and 2014-15. It was the era when New Zealand, fired up by McCullum, the continued brilliance of Kane Williamson, and the partnership of Trent Boult and Tim Southee had one of their most successful runs ever. It was also when they only missed 20% and 19% of their chances. Go through all the articles on their rise, mine included, and you won’t find those incredibly important numbers. You might hear that they are a good, great, or even the best fielding side, but it’s subjective. Davis isn’t giving us subjectivity; he’s giving us facts and numbers.Not enough people have ever asked why throws in baseball have been better than in cricket for generations, despite the fact that cricketers throw more often. Or wondered why, if 47% of caught-and-bowleds at Test level are dropped according to Charles Davis, teams still almost never train their bowlers in them, though almost as many chances go there as to point. That is two major cricket inefficiencies that could provide teams with improvement straightaway.The fielding in the Big Bash so far has been abysmal. Sydney Thunder could point at dropped chances for two of their losses. When Brisbane Heat travelled to Adelaide, it seemed like both teams had made a pact to field poorly. The two best catches that night were Kieron Pollard’s Superman grab and the security guard’s pouching a six.The SportVU camera, which has featured prominently in the NBA, could also be used to revolutionise cricket fielding data collection•Getty ImagesAnd yet, for all the scorecards I can find online, there is still nothing regular telling me about how important fielding is in each game. It happens, is commented on and then forgotten. I want to know what percentage of the time David Warner hits the stumps. I want to be able to prove a commentator wrong, or right, when he says Kohli is a good fielder. I want to know how often Martin Guptill gets to a ball quicker than most fielders, and how often he then fumbles it. I want to know which players create wickets through their forgotten third skill. I want to know it all.And cricket tells me almost nothing. TV coverage doesn’t have simple catch-drop ratios. Newspapers do little more than mention important drops, and if you are lucky, the numbers of drops a game, day, or maybe a series. Even ESPNcricinfo’s profiles only mention the number of catches or stumpings by a player, with no mentions of run-outs. Even with the fielding average being made public, it has barely made it to any of the coverage of the Big Bash.”We need to walk before we run” is how Coyle described CA’s fielding average. Their system is a toddler in the world of fielding data, but it is the sort of thing that should have happened about a hundred years ago. This article itself is overdue. Cricket has spent many lifetimes ignoring fielding, and even if the fielding average might tell us almost nothing, almost nothing is so much more than we’ve ever had.Ponting completed 12 more international run-outs than Rhodes, Coyle told me. He’s probably right, but it’s not like I can go anywhere to check it. Rhodes could fly through the air, and while that is amazing, what he really should have taught us is not that he was superhuman but that fielding matters. And hopefully one day, we will know how much.

Staring at the prospect of a big fourth innings target, Sri Lanka went through the motions in an uninspiring effort in the field on day three

Andrew Fidel Fernando in Port Elizabeth28-Dec-2016Fielders loiter on the boundary prodding the turf with their boots, and, when the ball comes their way, almost fall over in surprise. Bowlers traipse in with a hodgepodge, hedging-your-bets field, no clear plan about where the ball should go, no visible intent, no zip off the pitch, or movement, or bounce and barely a whimper at the misfields, let alone an angry grunt.The infielders watch balls scorch past, then fail to back up the return throws. Catchers spend hours caressingly shining the ball, then fend it fiercely away when the chance comes.They’ve decided there’s nothing in the pitch. They want their time in the field to end. Welcome to Sri Lanka’s declaration dance.To even call this a dance may be misleading since dances, in general, betoken some form of energy or fun. This from Sri Lanka had none of the greased joy of a baila gyration, or the high-society snobbery of a waltz. This was like watching one of those tortured sloth bears on an animal rescue ad. Day three moved so slowly it may as well have been in chains.It was in the second and third sessions that Sri Lanka were effectively waterboarded for five consecutive hours, but even before then, strategic vexations had set in. Angelo Mathews brought himself on as first change in the morning, as he routinely does outside Asia. However, little in his Test-bowling history suggests he can be effective in that role.Mathews is a prolific beater of edges, not a taker of them. In Tests, he is forever the bowler that looks like he could be handy, without ever actually turning out to be handy. It has been 30 overs now since he has last taken a wicket. The wicket before that had been 53 in the making. All up, that’s 83 Test overs for a single breakthrough, even if he has been the most miserly bowler in most innings. Only 10 of those overs came on the dustier tracks at home.In the evening session, Mathews was seen warming up for another spell when Sri Lanka could have actually used his control to dry up runs, but this time he was the man who looked like he should be bowling without ever actually turning out to be bowling. The lunging and stretching turned out just to be part of the dance. They had a man who conceded only 10 runs from four overs early in the day, but instead Sri Lanka stuck with folks who finished with economy rates of 5.72, 5.69, 4.64, and 3.8. Fifty-seven runs were surrendered in the last 10 overs of the day.Even on toilsome days, when a breakthrough comes, the best teams fence in the next batsman. They put chattering men around the bat, the bowlers lope in with extra pep, the pitch becomes their house and the new man an unwelcome stranger in it. Sri Lanka, meanwhile, were only too glad to treat Faf du Plessis to a spread field and a spread of modest bowling. After about 10 balls du Plessis had raided the fridge for beer, put his feet up on the coffee table, and was scratching his genitals with the TV remote. After 20 balls, he hadn’t struck a boundary but was on 15. After 35, Sri Lanka had effectively vacated the premises and told him he was free to host his own friends, or a rager, or an orgy.And where good teams might, on difficult days, stack the legside and send balls at the ribs, or pack the offside and angle balls right across the batsman, or try something innovative, anything with a little panache, Sri Lanka instead preferred to play without a pulse. Fields were indistinguishable from bowler to bowler. At the end of the day, poor Suranga Lakmal fronted bravely for the media, and suggested Sri Lanka were still trying to win the match.”We actually want to go after the target,” Lakmal said. “We have two full days and we are well prepared. We are determined to chase even 500 runs. Any game can be changed. We need just two batsmen to get set and then even a 500 chase may not be tough.”The pitch, he said, had now started to favour batsmen. Only yesterday Sri Lanka were shot out for 205. At such time as South Africa decide to set Sri Lanka a target, it may turn out that the pitch has become good for bowling again.The thing with the declaration dance is that it rarely fails to be followed by the conga-line collapse.

Today’s countdown looks at players who had their season or two of fame at the IPL, only to fade away since

ESPNcricinfo staff13-Mar-2017Paul Valthaty, 463 runs from 14 games for Kings XI Punjab, IPL 2011A top-order batsman who was part of India’s Under-19 World Cup squad in 2002, along with Parthiv Patel, Irfan Pathan and Stuart Binny, Valthaty’s moment under the sun came in IPL 2011, where he put up a series of blistering performances at the top of the Kings XI batting order, including an unbeaten 120 off 63 balls while chasing 189 against Chennai Super Kings. These led to a breakthrough into the Himachal Pradesh squad, for whom he played first-class and List A cricket. A series of single-digit scores in the next two seasons put an end to his IPL career, and he has not played a competitive game since April 2013.Manpreet Gony,17 wickets from 16 games for Super Kings, IPL 2008Gony shot into the limelight during the inaugural season of the IPL, finishing as Super Kings’ joint-highest wicket-taker and 4th overall in the tournament. His performances, including a spell of 2 for 14 which set up his side’s semi-final win against Kings XI, meant he was rewarded with a place in the Indian side for the Asia Cup that year, where he played his only two ODIs to date. Inconsistent form and injuries have meant he has since faded away, managing only 20 wickets in five subsequent seasons.Swapnil Asnodkar, 311 runs from 9 games for Rajasthan Royals, IPL 2008Not known as a T20 specialist before the IPL, Asnodkar was yet another talent toiling away in domestic cricket before punching well above his weight under Shane Warne’s watch at Royals. Nicknamed “Goa Cannon” by Warne for his aggressive approach at the top of Royals’ order, his captain’s note to him read, “Set up the innings with clever stroke play and use your strong wrists. Run like a rabbit between the wickets. Must be one of the shining lights in the field.” A shining light he was, over those 8 weeks, before his form deserted him in subsequent seasons. Still only 32, Asnodkar continues to ply his trade for Goa across all three formats.Kamran Khan earned a reputation as an end-overs specialist during IPL 2009•AFPKamran Khan, 9 wickets from 8 games for Royals, IPL 2009-10A tennis-ball bowler who had no first-class experience when he was first spotted at a T20 tournament in Mumbai, Kamran Khan was picked after bowling Cape Cobras’ Justin Ontong in a warm-up game ahead of the 2009 season in South Africa. Khan’s slingy action and pace troubled established international stars in helpful conditions that season. After being reported for suspect action, Khan was unable to fashion a comeback in the tournament, but went on to make his first-class debut for Sri Lankan side Colts Cricket Club in 2013.Saurabh Tiwary, 419 runs in 16 matches; strike rate of 136 for Mumbai Indians, IPL 2010Tiwary remains active across formats for both state and franchise even today, but has come nowhere close to repeating his auction-value-inflating run in the 2010 season, where he was among the top 10 run-scorers and impressed with his boundary-hitting capability. As a result, in the 2011 auction, his price went up 40 times his value in 2008. His performances, though, are yet to get back to the heady summer of 2010.Ashok Menaria, 400 runs in 29 matches, strike rate of 113 for Royals, IPL 2011-12A former India U-19 captain who had never played a T20 game before the 2011 season, Menaria impressed with his all-round skills for Royals over two IPL seasons. A free-stroking middle-order batsman who bowls slow left-arm spin occasionally, his promise drew comparisons with the likes of Yuvraj Singh for a while. He has been unsold in the last few auctions, and continues to represent Rajasthan across formats.Yusuf Abdulla, 14 wickets from 9 matches for Kings XI, IPL 2009Signed as a replacement for Brett Lee for the first part of the 2009 season in South Africa, the portly left-arm seamer impressed in familiar conditions, topping the wicket charts at one point. His impressive season earned him a place in the South Africa side for the 2010 World T20 in the West Indies. By 2011, his career had nose-dived significantly, with persistent injuries making things worse. He continues to play the odd List A fixture for KwaZulu-Natal Inland, but it is clear that his career is unlikely to experience the crests of 2009 again.Joginder Sharma, 8 wickets from 8 matches for Super Kings, IPL 2008The months between September 2007 and May 2008 must now feel like a dream for Joginder Sharma, who became MS Dhoni’s go-to man in tight situations. In the inaugural season, Joginder developed a knack of dismissing big guns, and his victims included Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag, Dwayne Bravo and Jacques Kallis. He struggled to get game time in the seasons that followed, and now works as a cop with the Haryana Police, apart from representing his state in cricket.Alfonso Thomas’ tight bowling proved a valuable asset for Pune Warriors in 2011•Associated PressAlfonso Thomas, 11 wickets from 11 games for Pune Warriors, IPL 2011A journeyman for the best part of his career, the South African had a late-career bloom as a T20 gun-for-hire across franchise competitions. His performances in the Champions League T20 for Somerset led to Pune Warriors signing him for the 2011 IPL season, in which he nailed his spot as one of their four overseas players with his disciplined bowling and ice-cold temperament. He returned to the tournament as Delhi Daredevils’ bowling consultant in 2015, and remains the format’s fifth-highest wicket-taker of all time.Veer Pratap Singh, 10 wickets from 9 matches for Deccan Chargers, IPL 2012At 21 years of age, Veer Pratap was considered among the most promising Indian pacemen at that time, and duly found a buyer in Deccan Chargers in the 2012 auction. He impressed with his wicket-taking abilities, despite his economy rate being on the higher side at 8.70. Although Kolkata Knight Riders picked him up in the 2014 auction, he is yet to play an IPL game since 2012, and has not played a T20 game for almost two years.

Plays of the day from the opening T20I between India and England in Kanpur features some good fielding and the ball boy menace

Alagappan Muthu26-Jan-2017Deja vu
There must have been nights when Adil Rashid lay in bed thinking about a catch he dropped on this tour, in Visakhapatnam. It cost 111 runs, and some suggest the Test series turned right there. England, who had begun with a draw Rajkot, lost every match that followed and the reprieved batsman Virat Kohli hasn’t stopped tormenting them yet. He was at long leg when he made that mistake then, and was at long leg again in Kanpur; the sight of the ball coming at him both familiar and butterfly-inducing in the stomach. Nevertheless, Rashid ran forward, slid smoothly on his knees, picked up a catch that was rather more difficult than the one he missed two months earlier and India had lost Yuvraj Singh, one of their power hitters, with 10 overs still left to bat. Not that Rashid could indulge in his relief straight away, the umpires wanted a closer look to make sure it was cleanly taken. England decided that was enough excitement for their premier legspinner and did not have him bowl.The dying dream
The dream for most kids as they shadow practice in the backyard is to smack a fast bowler back over his head for six. The sanctity of that is under serious threat as the age of 360 degree batsmen gains steam. Sam Billings, as early as the second over of the innings, waddled to his right, head perfectly still, eyes firmly on the target, and for his trouble he got the perfect delivery to show off his skills. Jasprit Bumrah pitched it on a length which in the mind of the modern batsmen means it is ripe to be scooped and Billings got so much bat on it that the ball sailed past the boundary behind him.The obstacles in disguise
England are in enemy territory. They have had to worry about India’s spinners. They have had to fret over the size of their totals. The toss. And Kohli. Kedar Jadhav joined the list. Even the dew played against them. Finally, at the tail end of a long series, just as Eoin Morgan’s men thought they had a proper count of all the obstacles they faced, another popped up. The first sighting was in the ODIs, in Cuttack, and Ben Stokes copped a face full of it. In Kanpur, Jason Roy was caught in the firing line. He began courting danger when he decided to chase a lofted Kohli square drive to the boundary and eventually crashed right into it. Poor England. They thought they had planned for everything. But never did they see the ball boys, not the one who hit Stokes on the mouth last week, nor the one who interfered with Roy’s fielding effort tonight.The flashing lights
It was all in the sound. At first, it was thwack, the ball pinging off the middle of Suresh Raina’s bat as a length ball from Ben Stokes disappeared into the night sky and the Green Park faithful erupted for one of their own. But then they were silenced, by a crash, and the sight of flashing red, as the next ball from the angry fast bowler was aimed at the base of leg stump and the batsman had shuffled too far across and was clean bowled by a rip-roaring yorker.

With their playoffs spot on the line, Kings XI Punjab’s decision to take the the high-risk, high-reward path of batting Mumbai out of the game paid off on a true Wankhede surface

Nikhil Kalro in Mumbai12-May-2017When Mumbai Indians opted to bowl first on a favourable chasing ground, Kings XI Punjab were faced with two options in a must-win game: take the safer route of scoring a par total and then depend on their strong bowling attack, or tread the high-risk, high-reward path and bat Mumbai out of the game.Prior to this match, Mumbai had successfully chased four times in five games at the Wankhede Stadium this season. In addition, they had also overhauled Kings XI’s 198 in Mohali inside 16 overs a few games ago. Given the nature of the Wankhede surface as being favourable to even pace and bounce, coupled with the short boundaries and the possibility of dew influencing the game as the night wore on, Kings XI chose the second option.Was it the right choice? Did they give themselves a fail-safe? By attacking from the outset, Kings XI allowed themselves two routes to victory as opposed to one, if they wanted to open the first door.How? Teams batting second prefer to time their chases depending on their target. Low-risk options are used when the field spreads, games drift on with the illusion of control and, as happens in the closing stages of T20s, an event – a wicket, a boundary, even a dot – changes the momentum. So, if Kings XI stumbled to a sub-par score, like they did against Kolkata Knight Riders in their previous game, they could also depend on quality defensive bowling in the second half of a chase. But if their high-risk attacking approach came off, then they would not only negate the disadvantage of losing the toss, but also improve their own chances exponentially.Kings XI promoted Wriddhiman Saha to exploit the fielding restrictions. Martin Guptill didn’t even give himself a sighter. He played two attacking strokes in the first three balls, the second of which flew just over first slip’s hand. It may have been an entirely different narrative if it was caught; so fine are the margins in T20. “In this match, I was told that I have to play hard in the first six overs,” Saha said of Kings XI’s tactics. “With Maxwell, he told me we can’t let the momentum go.”Only Kings XI’s top five were needed to bat. All of them played at least 13 balls each; among them, Axar Patel had the lowest strike rate: 146.15. Kings XI scored 100 runs off the first eight overs and 99 off the final nine. They asked Mumbai to complete the highest successful chase in the history of the tournament to book a spot in the first qualifier.After their bowling effort, captain Rohit Sharma led a spirited talk in a huddle. In an era of big bats, improved batting repertoire and pyrotechnical hitting, Mumbai weren’t out of the game in the face of the mammoth total. England had chased 230 at the Wankhede Stadium in last year’s World T20 in similar conditions. Mumbai even had the advantage of another packed crowd.Mumbai’s openers – Lendl Simmons and Parthiv Patel – added 99 runs in 52 balls, which meant Mumbai were never going to be completely out of the hunt thereafter. Even though they came pretty close to losing their way when Nitish Rana holed out to deep midwicket, their substantial hitting depth kept the chase alive. Kieron Pollard and Hardik Pandya even afforded themselves a couple of sighters. That, however, pushed Mumbai’s target to 83 off the last 30 balls. “When a side scores 230, more often than not, you don’t give yourself a chance,” Pollard said after the match.That’s the game gone in previous generations, even previous IPL editions. But it’s cricket in 2017: burly men, massive bats and thinking cricketers. Not much is out of their range. Not even 83 off 30 balls.The next three overs went for 60, with four fours and six sixes; 10 boundaries in 18 balls. Fatigue, possibly the only hindrance to hitting nowadays, was beginning to influence the game, though. On a typically humid May evening in Mumbai, Pollard, having had to scamper twos to retain strike, was tiring out. “Pollard was batting well, but he was tired,” Saha said. “Even when we were batting, when they bowled good yorkers, we weren’t able to hit, even we were tired.””In this match, I was told that I have to play hard in the first six overs,” Wriddhiman Saha said of Kings XI’s tactics•BCCIJust one boundary, a muscular heave over cow corner, came off the final two overs, and Kings XI kept their playoffs chances alive. Mohit Sharma executed five yorkers in the final over, and conceded two runs off those. Mumbai witnessed another slug-fest, another match completely dominated by batsmen, but it was the bowlers that won Kings XI the game.”We call that a bowler’s graveyard,” Pollard said. “We stuck to our guns, these are the kind of games you want going into the playoffs. It proves we are humans, you can’t win every game. We keep improving; we had a dismal performance against Sunrisers but we bounced back pretty well.”We’re playing against professionals in their own right, it’s not every day you’re going to turn up and win. No need to panic. In life, there’s always someone worse off than you. We’ve qualified. First step in every tournament is to qualify, we haven’t taken our foot off the gas.”These are the moments you practice for. Once you’re in the middle, the pressure is not as hard as actually watching it. For me, it was pretty easy because I was in the middle.”

The BCCI will conduct a special general meeting in Delhi on Sunday, when it will decide on the course of action to take with regard to its unhappiness with the new ICC consitiution

Nagraj Gollapudi06-May-2017International cricket could come to a standstill on Sunday …
A standstill? Why?Because of what might happen at the BCCI’s Special General Body meeting (SGM) …
Another SGM? Why is this one so special?Okay, here’s the lowdown.
According to one segment of the BCCI, the Indian board has lost its influence over international cricket. Once the heavyweight at the ICC, the BCCI was outvoted on crucial resolutions in a coup of sorts at the last two ICC meetings in February and April. The ICC approved a new constitution, a new governance structure, and a new finance model. The BCCI was left fuming.A question of timing

The CoA told acting BCCI secretary Amitabh Choudhary at least twice over the last week that there was no point in sending a notice to the ICC until the SGM took place. Last Thursday, Choudhary sent two emails to the CoA, urging it to send the notice. “I would like to reiterate that it is absolutely imperative that the Notice … asking them to remedy the breach within a period of 30 days be sent today as a matter of abundant caution,” Choudhary wrote.
With India playing their first match of the Champions Trophy on June 4, Choudhary told the CoA on May 4 that BCCI was obliged to file its case to protect its rights because the MPA dictated that a notice would need to be served one month in advance.
The CoA responded by asking how a notice could be sent without “any resolution” being passed by the BCCI. The COA said if time was an issue, why had the BCCI not scheduled the SGM for May 2 or 3.
“We gather from your captioned email that the purport of issuing the notice to ICC today [Thursday] itself is to keep open the option of pulling out from the ICC Champions Trophy 2017 prior to India’s first match on 4th June 2017 because the 30-day notice period would then expire on 2nd/3rd June 2017.
“However, by that time, Team India would already have played two warm-up matches (on 28th and 30th May) and the tournament would have already begun on 1st June 2017. If so, issuing the notice today [Thursday], instead of after the SGM, convened on May 7, serves no useful purpose. Is there any other reason why the notice has to be issued today?” the COA said to Choudhary in an email, according to the .

Why is the BCCI unhappy?
Money, largely. Remember the Big Three’s finance model? The one devised by former BCCI president N Srinivasan, former CA chairman Wally Edwards and ECB president Giles Clarke, which gave the BCCI $570 million out of projected ICC revenues of $2.5 billion, a share way larger than any other country was getting?Well, the BCCI still wants $570 million, but in the new finance model that was approved in April, it gets only $276 million out of projected ICC revenues of $2.7 billion. The Indian board said no to that.The ICC Board then hiked the BCCI’s slice of the pie to $293 million, and the ICC chairman Shashank Manohar placed another $100 million on the table during negotiations. So now the BCCI could have got close to $400 million, but it rejected that offer too, saying the amount was “unfair” and not proportionate to what India contributed to global cricketing revenue.Now what?
A section of the BCCI has been pushing acting secretary Amitabh Choudhary, who was at the meeting when the Indian board was outvoted, to send a notice to the ICC asking why the BCCI should not revoke the MPA.The MPA?
Members Participation Agreement. It’s an agreement between the ICC and a member country that governs participation in ICC events. Under the MPA, either party – in this case ICC or BCCI – can ask for remedy if it feels there’s a “material” breach in the contract. Reducing its revenue share and removing it from influential ICC committees constitutes a breach, in the BCCI’s view.So, where is this headed?
Apart from revoking the MPA, the BCCI also wants to pull the Indian team out of the Champions Trophy, which starts on June 1 in England. This is one of the issues that will be discussed at the SGM, and possibly voted on.You can’t be serious …
Depends on who in the BCCI you talk to. The section led by Choudhary, which also includes Srinivasan …Wait, Srinivasan? Wasn’t he declared ineligible to continue as an office-bearer by the Supreme Court? How is he still an influence?
Yes, but let’s not go down that road at the moment.So, this section of the BCCI wants to send the notice to the ICC and maybe even pull out of the Champions Trophy. But there are many other state associations at the SGM who are not in favour of such a move.What if the majority decides the BCCI should pull out?
It’s possible, but the guardians of the BCCI can overrule such a decision.Guardians? Like the movie?
To cut a long story short, on January 30 the Supreme Court of India appointed a four-member Committee of Administrators (CoA) to supervise and control the BCCI until the Lodha Committee recommendations were implemented by both the Indian board and its state associations.ESPNcricinfo LtdSo what does this CoA think about all this?
The CoA has made clear over the past week that if the BCCI takes a decision, which the CoA feels is harmful to the interests of Indian cricket, it will seek intervention from the Supreme Court. It even told the BCCI to announce the Indian squad for the Champions Trophy as soon as possible so that players are not affected by board politics. The BCCI was the only board to miss the ICC’s deadline of April 25, by when all other seven participating countries had named their squads.Is it possible that the BCCI has in fact been treated unfairly?
Perhaps. The CoA also agrees with some of the BCCI’s objections to the ICC’s new constitution. But it goes not agree with the BCCI’s confrontational approach to the problem. While the BCCI believes it merits more money and power at the ICC because of India’s position as the biggest market in cricket, the CoA told Choudhary: “We believe that the BCCI has not yet given the possibility of a negotiated outcome a fair chance.”So when will I know what happens next?
Let us talk over lunch on Sunday.