The rookies of the year, Pakistan’s predicament, an idea that may have served its purpose, and one that has a way to go yet
Sambit Bal02-Jan-2009
Mendis: Young and devious © AFP
Statsguru will tell you that it was the year of the bat. Twelve batsmenscored more than 1000 runs, notching up 45 centuries between them. VirenderSehwag, the second-most prolific scorer, with 1462, got his runs at a strike-rate of 85.84, faster than Sachin Tendulkar gets his runs in one-day cricket. The top scorer, Graeme Smith, got his runs at 65.81.That these two men open the innings made a huge difference. Sehwag saved aTest in Adelaide, breathtakingly charged to a better-than-a-run-a-ball 319 in Chennai in response to a first-innings total of 540, won the Galle Testalmost single-handed, set up the declaration against Australia in Mohali and made the Chennaivictory possible. Three of Smith’s hundreds came in the last innings of the match — two were insuccessful chases and one saved a match — and five of his six hundreds of theyear were in match-winning causes. That they were the most decisive batsmenof the year brooks no argument.The same can be said about Dale Steyn, who headed the bowling chart, with 74wickets. He bowled with pace and control, and was quite unplayable when hegot the outswinger going. Steyn more than made up for a disappointing beginningin Perth with a series-winning second-innings spell at the MCG.Unsurprisingly, among bowlers who took more than 30 wickets, he is on topin terms of strike-rate, and average too.That was not the case with the next two on list: Mitchell Johnson andHarbhajan Singh, who took 63 wickets each but were way below on strike-rateand average. Steyn took a wicket every 36 balls, at 20, whereasJohnson took a wicket every 55 balls at 29, and Harbhajan a wicket every 67balls at 31.60. For Johnson, apart from one spell in Perth, it was more acase of being the best bowler in a struggling bowling unit. He was strong andspirited but one-dimensional, and rarely looked a match-winner. Harbhajanhelped India win a Test in Galle, but was otherwise disappointing. Hecontinued to bowl to contain rather than to take wickets, and was unable todeliver on wearing last-day pitches at home.Ishant and Mendis: it’s not wickets alone
The sensational bowlers of the year were both rookies. Ajantha Mendis andIshant Sharma didn’t have lots of wickets to show but what an impact they made.It wasn’t Mendis’ fault he played only three Tests, but those three wereagainst India, who have made meals of the best spinners. Mendis firstjolted India’s one-day batsmen in the Asia Cup final with 6 for 13, and arguably bowled the ball of the year to claim Rahul Dravid as his first Test victim. He would keep his hold over Dravid for the rest of the series, during which he also bamboozled VVS Laxman; claimed Gautam Gambhir, India’s bestbatsman in the series, three times; and polished off the tail in a trice. Never have Indian batsmen been made to look so clueless against a spinner. In time, batsmen might be able to read his variations – he bowls offspin, floaters, googlies, and a flicked legcutter that has come to be described as the “carrom ball”, but his real strength is accuracy. Indian batsmen claimed that they could read him, but he still finished with 26 wickets at 18.Ishant’s figures (38 wickets at 31.60 with a strike rate of 61) belie the manner in which bowled and the impact he made. That he took only one wicket in the second innings in Perth was a travesty. But not only was that one wicket the one that mattered, Ishant made Ricky Ponting the world’s best batsman (certainly at that point) look like a novice for over an hour. On a slow and low pitchin Galle, he made a ball zip and curve. He remained a menace for Ponting and Australia throughout on dull pitches in the home series. In him, India have found their first genuine quick bowler.South Africa: an end to quotas?
It was Desmond Tutu, the archbishop of Cape Town, who first used the term”Rainbow Nation” to describe post-apartheid South Africa, and South Africancricket authorities have done their damnedest to get their cricket teamto live up to that ideal – with mixed results. Only the naïve will argue thatquotas have no place in sport: For a nation with South Africa’s past, thehealing power of symbolism cannot be overstated, and the system did yield, inMakhaya Nitni, the nation’s first genuine black cricket hero. SouthAfrican cricket has developed enough to be able to limit affirmative action to thelower levels, which means equipping cricketers of all races with an equalopportunity to compete for a spot in the national side, and not handing outplaces on a platterBut in real terms, quotas should translate to equal opportunity, and SouthAfrican cricket has developed enough to be able to limit affirmative action to thelower levels, which means equipping cricketers of all races with an equalopportunity to compete for a spot in the national side, and not handing outplaces on a platter.International cricket is unforgiving. It has no place for the callow and theunderdone, nor for self-doubt. In 2002 the South African selectorsdestroyed two careers by pushing Justin Ontong ahead of his friend, the more deserving Jacques Rudolph, and they did the same again in 2008 bypromoting Charl Langeveldt ahead of Andre Nel. In what must count among themost significant events in South African cricket, Langveldt sent them amessage by making himself unavailable. Pride is an essential part of sport, and international players must feel that they belong.In that light, the success of Jean-Paul Duminy, a cape-coloured cricketerlike Herschelle Gibbs, is heart-warming and inspirational. Duminy is nearly25; he has done his time on A tours and on the sidelines of the nationalteam. When a place opened up, it was his by right.A rainbow is one of the most magnificent sights in the world, but it can’tbe painted. The South African selectors must now let the natural processtake over.Cricket telecasts in India: the horror, the horror
India’s television-watching millions have made the Indian cricket board thegame’s undisputed, lone superpower, but the experience ofwatching Indian cricket on television has grown proportionately worse with the BCCI’srevenues. Even by its own abominable standards, the coverage of cricket onIndian soil was shabbier than ever in a year in which the Indian board registeredrecord earnings.All the usual irritants made their presence felt – if anything, more frequently: balls went missing, commentators were cut off mid-sentence, advertising got more intrusive, and you had to endure a million commercials before you could watch the replay of a dismissal.Indian broadcasters have often had to fork out huge sums, banking onspeculative earnings down the road. Nimbus, which bid US$612 million in 2006for four years’ rights and has struggled to pay its instalments since,has been forced to squeeze every second of commercial time out of telecasts. Thishas meant depriving the end consumer anything beyond the actual delivery:the captain and bowler setting the field, any banter between overs, theexpressions of joy and disappointment after a dismissal, and everything elsethat makes cricket a game beyond just bat and ball. The least the viewercan expect is for the basics to be covered in a manner that befits the world¹srichest cricket nation. Instead, the coverage remains decidedly third-world.When Ricky Ponting edged Paul Harris onto his front pad and was caught atforward short-leg at the MCG, Channel 9 produced an instant replay that captureda close-up of the deviation. Indian viewers have long been condemned to not being able to watch a replay of a dismissal until the next batsman has played a ball ortwo. And then the replays are often of such poor quality that the viewer is leftnone the wiser in case of bat-pad catches. Mercifully, there has been noreferral system on trial in India: given the quality of replays available, itwould be an even greater waste of time.NeoCricket has brought no innovations apart from new forms of advertising;no new technology — no HotSpot, no Ultra Motion cameras. It has renegedon its commitment to broadcast 72 days of domestic cricket. The concern forthe bottom line is understandable, but in which other business does theconsumer get such a bad deal?
Waiting for the hammer to fall: New Zealand and India had reason to feel they got the rough end of the review stick © Getty Images
Pakistan: cut off and hung out to dry
In the Chennai Test, which England gallantly returned to play after theMumbai terror attacks, I asked an English journalist why Western playersand boards should not be accused of double standards in dealing withsecurity situations in India and Pakistan. His reply was simple, butchilling. It took the terrorists months of preparations to do what they did inMumbai, he reckoned, but in Pakistan there lurks the danger of someonemerely driving in with a van laden with explosives at an hour’s notice. Itwas simplistic, and perhaps exaggerated, but it’s a perception thePakistan Cricket Board can neither fight nor ignore.Last year was tragic for Pakistan cricket. It went by without their teamplaying a single Test; the Champions Trophy was cancelled; and at theend of the year India, among the few teams who would otherwise have travelledto Pakistan, called off their tour. Sri Lanka will go in their place, but they willgenerate nowhere near the amount of money India would have.Cricket cannot afford to let Pakistan fall off its map, or to let the PCB gobankrupt. Cricket needs variety, and at their best, Pakistani cricketersbring a vim and edge those from few other teams can match. At the moment they are running dangerously low on supply after losing a number of players to the ICL, andprolonged international isolation will only exacerbate the problem.Part of solution must come from the PCB itself. Of course it should not giveup persuading the Western countries to tour, but it should beprepared to be flexible. It should also be pragmatic and realistic enough toaccept that a difference does and will exist in the way countries viewthe security situation in India and Pakistan.The facilities at the Abu Dhabi cricket stadium are world-class, and Test cricket has been played in Sharjah: Pakistan must be prepared to adopt these as their home grounds. Theconditions there are decidedly subcontinental, and perhaps the PCB and theICC can persuade the local authorities to hand over the pitch preparation toPakistan to grant them home advantage. Attendance shouldn’t be a concernfor Test matches, not least because Tests are often played to empty grounds inPakistan, especially in the bigger cities. Anything is better than a drought.The review system: work in progress
A decision will have to be taken this year on the umpire reviewsystem, which was tried with mixed results in two series in 2008. Theteams that gained from it – Sri Lanka and West Indies – loved it, whileIndia and New Zealand were understandably not so enthusiastic. Thefindings so far point to one thing: The system was trialled to get rid ofobvious umpiring mistakes, but ended up delivering verdicts in marginal ones.If carried forward, it could change the nature of the game profoundly. Asevident from the India-Sri Lanka series, bowlers are likely to earn many moreleg-before decisions. Dravid was given out sweeping Muttiah Muralitharan on a full-forward stretch, and the impact was only marginallyinside the line.But the bigger problem is that the technology is nowhere near good enough.Thin edges still cannot be picked — the camera can lie, Snicko isn’t reliable, and HotSpot isn’t used. Brendon McCullum was furious thatMark Benson didn’t reverse Rudi Koertzen’s decisionto give him out caught behind in Napier; but you couldn’t blame the third umpire. While the replay didn’t establish a nick, it didn’t prove thatMcCullum didn’t nick it either, so the original decision stood.And then there is the issue of technology malfunctioning, and of human error inapplying technology. Sehwag, the first man to be given out under the systemin the first Test against Sri Lanka in Colombo, suffered on both counts. Koertzen, the third umpire, didn’t spot an obvious deflection off the front pad onto the back one; and Virtual Eye showed the impact to be in front of middle stump, but outside the crease. Sehwag was indeed hit outside the crease – on the front pad, which was in line with leg stump. The second impact was infront of middle stump, but the back foot was within the crease. Dhoni has shades of Sourav Ganguly’s leadership qualities, and on the evidence of his fewmatches in charge, greater tactical nous. Most of all, he seems immune tothe media If the intention is to eliminate the kind of mistakes that nearly created adiplomatic crisis in Sydney last year, there could be a simpler, common-sense solution. Allow the third umpire to be pro-active. If he spots an obvious error, let him tell the man in the middle immediately. It might lead to batsmen who know they are not out lingering on a bit longer, but more or less everyone will accept the marginal ones, and the game will move on.Dhoni: India’s man of the hour
Midway through India’s one-day series against England, a story appeared in a Bengalipaper that Mahendra Singh Dhoni had threatened to quit over a differencewith selectors over RP Singh being replaced by Irfan Pathan in the side. It wasinstantly picked up and played out ad nauseam by the electronic media. Expectedly Dhoni was asked about it at a pre-match conference. He didn’t duck or obfuscate. He said it was “disgusting and disrespectful” that amatter discussed in the selection meeting should be leaked to the media.Many Indian captains have been frustrated and embarrassed by such leaks, butDhoni wasn’t prepared to suffer in silence. He has many distinguishingqualities: the most remarkable among them are his self-assuredness andforthrightness. He finished off by saying that he was confident the issuewouldn’t create a problem within the team because he enjoyed the trust ofboth Irfan and RP. Add to that affection and admiration.India are lucky to have found Dhoni to take them through a crucial hour of transition. He has shades of Sourav Ganguly’s leadership qualities, and on the evidence of his fewmatches in charge, greater tactical nous. Most of all, he seems immune tothe media, which as Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble found, often poses a muchgreater challenge to Indian captains than opponents on the field. So far,admittedly, he is yet to taste the kind of press that drove Dravid and Kumbleto distraction, and he has maintained an aloof, and in fact slightly amused, airabout media criticism.As captain he doesn’t seem burdened by precedents or shackled by the fearof consequences. There is a method to his tactics, but he has allowedhimself to be guided by his instincts. In some ways he is an old-schoolcaptain, not given to over-theorising or over-reliance on the laptop, andguided instead by a cricketer’s reading of situations. As a result, hisdecision-making has come across as uncomplicated and uncluttered. He also seems to possess that intangible thing that all successful captains need: luck.There will be days when his plans misfire and luck deserts him.That will be his true test. Last year was one in which he could do no wrong. Still, allsigns suggest he will be all right.
