Which of India’s young Test hopefuls will make the step up with the bat during the A-team tour to the West Indies?

Sidharth Monga01-Jun-2012From Delhi to Bridgetown, it’s a 22-hour journey by plane. Three days ago 15 young Indian men came together on that flight. By the time they take the return flight in early July, a few – at least two – of them will have done enough to be on many more flights, with the Indian Test team. The three first-class matches that India A will play in the West Indies will be the last any Indians play before they get into a long home season of 10 Tests. Rahul Dravid has retired, VVS Laxman not guaranteed to last the season and the Indian bowling is one window that never shuts, retirements or no retirements … what a strong whiff of opportunity would have existed on that flight.Imagine the 15 exchanged notes on the 22-hour flight. Three of them, Rohit Sharma, Cheteshwar Pujara and Manoj Tiwary, would have similar stories. Rohit has the story of February 6, 2010. Laxman was not well then, the Indian selectors had not picked a back-up, and Rohit was produced out of nowhere for the Nagpur Test. Minutes before the toss, he injured himself during warm-ups. Laxman was fit by the next match, and the closest Rohit has come to a Test cap since then was the frustrating wait in Australia earlier this year, when he was not considered good enough for a side that lost eight straight Tests away from home.Rohit has been criticised by many for being casual, but it is good to see he is not looking to rest despite having been on the road since the start of that Australian tour. He has been close to it, he wants to taste Test cricket. Pujara, his captain, has had a taste of Test cricket, and might tell his team-mates he loves what he has seen although it can get tough.Pujara twinkle-toed to 72 on his debut against Australia, turning into a cake walk the kind of chase the India of old used to mess up. His next Test came on a green mamba in Durban, where he fought for 81 crucial minutes as Laxman batted India to a defendable target. In the next Test he got a vicious outswinger from Dale Steyn that swung late and alarmingly.Pujara didn’t do anything to play himself out of the role of first-choice Test back-up, except dive for a ball. On May 8, 2011, at the same Chinnaswamy Stadium where he debuted, during the IPL, Pujara went in for a slide at the extra-cover boundary, and his knee stuck in the outfield, injuring it badly enough to require a surgery. The recuperation period was long enough for Virat Kohli to come in and claim a place in the Test side.Tiwary’s fateful dive didn’t come in a match. It was May 9, 2007, India’s warm-up for their first game on the Bangladesh tour. Tiwary was coming off a Ranji season during which he broke long-standing Bengal records. He had impressed both captain and cricket manager on the tour, and was sure to debut in an ODI the next day. During fielding practice at the boundary, he dived, and didn’t come up for minutes. The shoulder injury sent him home. More than four years of sporadic chances and finally an one-day century later, Tiwary has yet to become a certainty in ODIs. On that tour, in that form, given that uncertainty in India’s batting line-up post the 2007 World Cup debacle, who knows what could have transpired?Ajinkya Rahane might not have any such story of misfortune while on the brink, but he might tell them how despite 18 first-class centuries and an average of 60 over 50 games, it’s one IPL century that has made him a box-office hit. He might also remember often being consigned to a corner in the nets in Australia, he and Rohit bowling to each other, not a chance in sight.With Suresh Raina not part of this tour, it is almost certain two of these four batsmen – Tiwary being the least likely, unless this tour suggests otherwise – will be part of the squad against New Zealand in August. When Laxman retires, a third man will be picked. The four might have been kept from a Test spot for a while now, but they are all still young, and will now appreciate the struggles of the likes of Laxman before they became full-time India Test players. A Test spot is knocking at their doors, and they will all want to be the first one to open the door. Over to the West Indies, then.

ESPNcricinfo presents Plays of the Day for the fourth day of the third Test between New Zealand and South Africa in Wellington

Firdose Moonda in Wellington26-Mar-2012The substitute
It’s not unusual to see South Africans who have become New Zealanders – the numbers reflect that almost 50,000 have emigrated here. One of them is Kruger van Wyk, who played in all three Test matches. Another is Barry Rhodes, a first-class cricketer with Wellington. Today, it was South Africa Rhodes turned out for, however. With the visitors carrying two injured players, in Hashim Amla and Jacques Kallis, and needing to send Lonwabo Tsotsobe and Robin Peterson home, they needed an extra fielder and Rhodes was it. A middle-order batsman, Rhodes was born in Port Elizabeth but now lives in Wellington, and has played four first-class games for them.Non-wicket of the day
South Africa searched for wickets in the morning session but did not find the one that was staring at them. Brendon McCullum was on 22 when he inside edged off Marchant de Lange and was caught by Mark Boucher. De Lange’s appeal was stifled and no-one joined in. Replays showed there was definitely contact between bat and ball, and that Boucher completed the catch cleanly. Had South Africa reviewed it, they would have had McCullum even earlier.Duminy drops
JP Duminy took a blow to the head while fielding at short leg on Sunday afternoon but the knock was not serious enough to cause any concussion. He did seem to be functioning at less than optimum though, when he put down three catches in the morning session. The first two were tough chances, off Martin Guptill’s outside edge. Both went to the left of Duminy at gully, which he could not reach despite diving full length. The third was far easier, off McCullum, when the ball was slashed straight to Duminy at catchable height above his knees, although it was dying on him. Now, he could not get his hands around it in time.Injury of the day
The Test match has been headlined by injury so far and day four resulted in the first on the New Zealand side. Ross Taylor was the wounded party after he was smacked on the wrist by a Morne Morkel short ball and evidence of damage was immediate. Taylor’s left arm had grown a massive swelling in the minutes after the blow and he spent a substantial amount of time being treated by the physio and having magic spray applied. Although it did not look as though Taylor should continue, he chose to stay on but only lasted one ball before realising that he could not go on. He was taken to the hospital for scans and was diagnosed with a fractured forearm.Last laugh of the day
Dale Steyn had to put up with jeers from the crowd after he let a ball sneak through his legs for four when he as fielding at mid-off – Kane Williamson drove a Marchant de Lange full toss solidly in Steyn’s direction, which quick should have picked up without much fuss. Instead, his little lapse of concentration gave the New Zealand crowd something to snigger about. It didn’t take long for Steyn to have the last laugh though. In the next over, Dean Brownlie top-edged a pull to fine leg and Steyn had to make good ground and judge it well to take the catch to his left. He crashlanded while completing it but was soon on his feet with a thumbs up for the crowd behind him, who had very little to say.

Steven Taylor has a chance to become America’s first home-grown star in more than a century

Peter Della Penna21-Oct-2012When it was announced that international exhibition matches would be played in Pakistan this weekend, the presence of a former Test veteran like Sanath Jayasuriya in a World XI squad would not have raised too many eyebrows. The presence of an American teenager just might do the trick though.Mixing and mingling with the likes of Jermaine Lawson, Andre Nel and Jayasuriya will be Steven Taylor, an 18-year-old left-hand opening batsman from Miramar, Florida, located 20 miles north of Miami. USA has produced youngsters in recent years that looked like glittering gems at the junior level only to lose their luster before falling short of reaching the senior team. Taylor on the other hand has continued to sparkle and has a chance to become America’s first home-grown star since Bart King led the first-class bowling averages in England in 1908.Taylor played the first of two games for the International World XI against Pakistan All Star XI in Karachi, scoring a run-a-ball 15 while batting at No.3.”If you look at the rest of the Under-19 players in America, Steven is way ahead. He has a tremendous amount of talent,” fellow USA team-mate Orlando Baker said. Taylor first toured with the men at the age of 15 in November 2008 when Baker captained a USA squad at the WICB Cup in Guyana. Taylor earned the nickname “Bob” on the trip after showing up wearing a SpongeBob SquarePants backpack. In the four years since, he has grown into a punishing opener and his intimidating batting style has forced Baker to stop calling him Bob, instead labeling him “the American Chris Gayle.” Baker should know since he grew up with Gayle as the two played for the Jamaica U-19 team together in 1996 and 1997 before Baker moved to America.”Playing with a guy like Chris Gayle, Steven gives me so much resemblance of him in terms of his power, his timing and I just hope he keeps working hard because he has a lot of talent,” Baker said. “When you look and you can find a player like this in America with so much cricketing talent, so much natural talent, you want to nurture this talent.”One of Taylor’s biggest learning experiences was at the 2010 ICC U-19 World Cup in New Zealand when USA entered the lion’s den in their first match against eventual tournament champions Australia. At 16, Taylor had to take strike for the first ball of the chase against Josh Hazlewood, five months away from making his international debut for the Australia senior side with pace hovering around 140 kph.”That experience was very good for me because I never faced pace at that level,” Taylor said. “When those guys were bowling to me, the ball was hitting my bat. The ball was hitting me, I wasn’t hitting the ball. Hazlewood had bowled me a bouncer and the ball didn’t touch me at all but the umpire called four leg-byes. I knew if that had touched me, I would have died. That’s when I knew that the bowling in south Florida was weak. As soon as I came back, I made a 70. The following week I made a hundred.”Taylor has always been physically mature for his age, but his temperament has become more refined during the last 18 months. A turning point for him was when he scored two centuries and finished tied for second in runs with 455 in nine innings at the 2011 ICC U-19 World Cup Qualifier in Ireland. Taylor had a reputation for bullying attacks at home in sunny Florida, but struggled to score runs in unfamiliar conditions. That changed on the green pitches and cool weather in Dublin. Taylor stood head and shoulders above his USA U-19 teammates, drawing the attention of then Papua New Guinea coach and current Australia national selector Andy Bichel when Taylor notched a scintillating 140 off 120 balls with 19 fours and three sixes against PNG. The next highest score for USA was 23 in a six-run loss.”Let’s not forget Steven Taylor’s innings, amazing innings really. He hit the ball with power,” Bichel said after the match. “He’s got a bright future if he can keep everything together, but he’s got the right things about his game at the moment and who knows down the track where he could end up if he does so.”Even though Taylor had a handful of opportunities for the USA senior team in 2010, it wasn’t until 2012 that he fully cemented a place in the starting XI through his performances at the 2012 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier. After a timid showing in the first three matches, Taylor came out of his shell on day four of the tournament against Ireland. He says it was a sequence against Trent Johnston that gave him the confidence that he belonged at the senior level.”Those first few games it was mostly nerves and not being accustomed to the wickets,” Taylor said. “What made me click was when I hit Trent Johnston for six and the next ball he came up and bowled a bouncer and I got a single and he cursed me. He was mad that I hit him for six and then got off strike. For me, that was smart cricket. To think that I hit Trent Johnston, a guy who played in the last two World Cups, that was my turning point.”Taylor went on to finish second on USA’s run-list at the tournament behind captain Sushil Nadkarni and played a key role in USA’s upset of ODI nation Scotland. At ICC WCL Division Four last month in Malaysia, Taylor marked himself out early on as USA’s most prized wicket and finished second overall in the tournament with 216 runs.USA’s cricket teams are frequently derided internationally for being chock full of expats, with one writer calling them the “Guyana Rejects XI” in 2010. But as 2012 winds down, an American-born and raised talent is emerging as USA’s most visible cricket ambassador on a global stage, taking part in a pair of exhibition matches in Karachi alongside Jayasuriya while going up against Shahid Afridi and Umar Gul. Taylor might have retired the SpongeBob SquarePants backpack, but this weekend he’ll be sure to soak up the experience.

ESPNcricinfo presents the plays of the day from Auckland v Kolkata Knight Riders at Newlands

Liam Brickhill at Newlands15-Oct-2012Adjustment of the day
Andre Adams is not the swiftest of bowlers, but does usually at least come off a run of a good 20 or so paces. Today, however, he trundled in from just four. The idea behind this, Adams explained after the match, was that Auckland had a couple of bowlers with long run-ups – Kyle Mills and Michael Bates foremost among them – and so he was trying to buy his captain Gareth Hopkins some time and ensure a healthy over rate by bustling through his overs. Adams still slung the down at a decent pace, with wicketkeeper Hopkins standing back during his four overs.Catch of the day
Martin Guptill might only have two toes on his left foot, but he’s got five fingers on each hand and he put them to superb effect to get rid of KKR captain Gautam Gambhir in the second over. Gambhir had had some luck when umpire Rod Tucker refused to uphold what appeared to be an adjacent lbw call off Michael Bates, but when a leading edge looped low towards extra cover four balls later Guptill swerved to his left and plucked the ball out of the air inches from the turf.All-round battle of the day

Azhar Mahmood and Jacques Kallis boast a wealth of experience in their combined 74 years-plus, but Kallis is thought of as the greatest allrounder of his generation while Mahmood hasn’t played an international since the 2007 World Cup. Nevertheless, it was Mahmood who got the better of their mini-battle at Newlands, the Pakistani finding the South African’s outside edge for a second ball duck. Mahmood then took 10 runs off the nine Kallis deliveries he faced in his match-winning fifty.Tangle of the day

Mahmood returned to bowl the penultimate over, conceding just eight runs despite Yusuf Pathan and Rajat Bhatia’s efforts to smash the living daylights out of the ball. Indeed, Bhatia got himself in such a tangle after charging at a misread slower ball that he ended up prostrate on the ground. The batsman, who’d come out to bat without spikes, saw fit to call for a new pair of boots with just nine legitimate deliveries remaining. Not that it made a great deal of difference, as neither he nor Pathan could find the boundary in the final over.Drop of the day
He bats, he bowls, but can he catch? Mahmood turned from hero to villain when, in the final over bowled by Bates, he set himself under a top-edged Pathan heave at deep square leg. The ball, quite possibly swirling around in the stiff south-easterly wind blowing across the ground ,bounced off his palms and Mahmood couldn’t get close to the rebound.Quick start of the day
Lou Vincent charged out of the blocks in the Aces’ chase, flapping the second ball he faced over mid-off for four and adding a clip to the midwicket boundary and a sky-scraping scoop over wide long-on as a whopping 17 runs flowed from the first over of the innings, bowled by Lakshmipathy Balaji. Shakib Al Hasan was given the same treatment, and the Aces had rocketed to 37 from 17 deliveries before Vincent tried one shot too many and top-edged a hoick off Sunil Narine. Vincent had set the tone for the Aces’ chase, however, and they cantered home with ease.

Plays of the Day from the fifth ODI between Bangladesh and West Indies in Mirpur

Mohammad Isam in Mirpur08-Dec-2012The stumping
Mushfiqur Rahim’s emphatic stumping of Kieran Powell, when seen through the stump-cam, showed the impact of the wicketkeeper’s force on all three stumps. It uprooted two stumps, leaving just the one with the camera intact. Perhaps it was the result of frustration of seeing Powell escape with a few near misses in the previous overs. In the 3rd ODI, Mushfiqur had also stumped the same batsman although on that occasion the bails were whipped off much gently.The release
After the first three overs yielded 17 runs and a wicket, West Indies fell into a hole of 34 balls without scoring. It cost them two big wickets, those of Chris Gayle and Marlon Samuels. The spell that began in the fourth over ended in the middle of the ninth over when Darren Bravo cut Sohag Gazi for a boundary.The execution
Kieron Pollard said after the first ODI that the next time he got a repeat of the short delivery which had just dismissed him he would hit it to Dhaka. He hadn’t done anything of that sort in the subsequent three games. He finally hit his first six on tour, a swing of the forearms that took the ball to the midwicket boundary. He hit seven more – and some indeed, as promised, were in the direction of downtown Dhaka – before he was bowled by Mominul Haque.The favourite
Kemar Roach took Tamim Iqbal’s wicket for the sixth time in ODIs, the batsman he has dismissed the most. This was the second time Roach has removed the Bangladesh opener in two days, having also beaten him by pace on Friday. Roach is also one of two bowlers who have dismissed Tamim the most, the other being Ray Price.The elevation
Mahmudullah batted at No. 5 for only the second time in his ODI career. He made 45 and added 91 runs for the fourth wicket with Mushfiqur Rahim. It helped Bangladesh stage another recovery from a top-order collapse which had them reeling at 30 for 3 in the ninth over, three overs later than when Mahmudullah had arrived at the crease in the fourth ODI.The drop
Bangladesh have dropped six catches in the last two games of the series, but neither did West Indies do themselves any favours when Veerasammy Permaul dropped Sohag Gazi at a critical stage, in the 40th over, when Bangladesh were crawling towards the 218-run target. It was a hard drive that just popped out of Permaul’s grasps, giving the sell-out home crowd another reason to cheer.The anti-climax
Bangladesh were on the brink of a famous win, but then, they forgot to run the winning run. With the scores level, Nasir cut, but the ball failed to reach the boundary. Instead of completing the winning run, the unaware Elias Sunny ran off towards his team-mates, who were coming in from the dressing room. Nasir, meanwhile, uprooted the stumps at the striker’s end. The West Indies players told the umpires that the run hadn’t been completed. The celebrations had to be put on hold, and Nasir faced up again, only to smash it for four this time, ensuring no running was required.The dance
Mashrafe Mortaza had, apparently, prompted the rest of the players to do a as they ran back to the dressing room. It was a little untimely, though, as the West Indies players had lined up to shake hands as their opponents made merry. Still, Gayle saw the funny side of it. Later, Mushfiqur Rahim said that Mahmudullah is the best dancer in the team.

Plays of the Day from the second day of the second Test between Australia and Sri Lanka in Melbourne

Andrew Fernando and Brydon Coverdale at the MCG27-Dec-2012 The catch
Despite having had no fewer than four catches spilt off his bowling in the innings, Rangana Herath pulled off a one-handed stunner at long-on to dismiss Michael Hussey for 34 in the evening session. Hussey went on one knee to slog Dilshan straight, but could neither time nor direct the stroke as he wished as it floated into the vicinity of the fielder. Herath had some distance to cover though, and he did so by cha-cha-ing sideways. Still, he could not get into a position to swallow the catch comfortably, so he threw his left arm over his head, and the ball settled in his outstretched fingers, almost in the same grip with which he bowls. Almost as impressive as the take was his ability to keep the ball in his hand as his momentum took him barrel-rolling across the turf.Cheers of the day
Victorians can be a parochial bunch and that was evident when their current favourite son, Peter Siddle, strode to the crease as Hussey walked off. Enormous cheers went around the MCG, along with a chant of “Siddle, Siddle, Siddle”. When Siddle scored his first run, a tight single pushed to the leg side, the roars went up again from the 39,486-strong crowd, many of whom by that stage of the late afternoon had been imbibing all day. Never before has a vegetarian teetotaller been so popular with an Australian sporting crowd.The stab in the dark
Sri Lanka shelled a fair few chances close to the wicket on day two, but the most amusing fielding mishap occurred at fine leg, when Dhammika Prasad appeared to be fleeing the ball rolling towards him. Prasad had just had Matthew Wade caught at fine leg by Shaminda Eranga, but when Eranga induced a hook from Michael Hussey, he failed to distinguish the ball from the background and picked a direction at random, like a football goalkeeper during a penalty . By the time Prasad realised he was heading in the wrong direction, the ball had almost crossed the boundary about 20 metres behind him.The expected demise
Shane Watson’s poor conversion rate has earnt him a reputation for being a batsman who struggles to turn a start into a big score, and as he passed fifty at the MCG, the focus turned to whether he could progress to his third hundred. Schools of thought that proposed Watson’s vulnerable period was in the fifties declared him safe when he forged onward – though a slower rate than Michael Clarke who hit a hundred despite having arrived at the crease after Watson. But eventually, Watson’s resolve gave way and he reverted to type. Spotting a short ball from Prasad, Watson aimed his favourite pull shot at midwicket, but failed to keep it down, or away from the fielder positioned there for the stroke. Thilan Samaraweera settled under the ball, to send a frustrated Watson back to the dressing room.Arrest of the day
The MCG scoreboard advises patrons that fines of up to $7300 can be imposed on anyone who enters the field of play illegally, but there’s always someone who can’t resist the urge, or the dares of drunken mates. This time it was a shirtless young man who jumped the fence from the Olympic Stand late in the day and sprinted on to the outfield, almost daring the security guards to come at him. He weaved and dodged and evaded as if he were an AFL player trying to clear the ball from a pack, and he was only caught while halfway through the act of hurdling the fence again in an effort to rejoin the crowd. Police officers escorted the man into the bowels of the MCG and his bank account is almost certainly significantly worse off than it was at the start of the day.

The tournament, despite its many peculiarities, had a worthy winner

Firdose Moonda29-Oct-2012When the Champions League Twenty20 began, it had to wade through a sludge of serious issues before it could be deemed credible. Now that it is over, there is at least one reason why it can be called convincing: the best team won.Sydney’s flawless run through the group stage, stunning sneak-through in the semi-final, and absolute dominance as they leapt over the last hurdle, were proof that the Champions League works. To an extent.Despite the organisers’ best efforts to make gimmicks matter more than games, Sydney made headlines because of the quality of their cricket. The tournament was supposed to be a contest between the world’s best domestic sides, but that simple concept was derailed by vested interests. The risk of that happening was always high because the event is owned by three national boards and not the sport’s governing body. While the BCCI, CSA and Cricket Australia have the right to run their tournament, their attempts to portray the Champions League as representing everyone made them easy targets.Instead of simply answering criticisms by saying they are involved in a private endeavour, which they can operate in any manner they see fit, the tournament organisers feigned inclusivity. The cynicism that provoked took away from the actual contests, which to be honest, were decent enough.In this season, Lions, Titans, Auckland, and to a lesser degree Yorkshire in the qualifying stage, all impressed. They evened out the imbalance by knocking out the IPL teams before they had found their feet, and only the best of the four Indian sides, Delhi Daredevils, survived. What that did to the financial model of the tournament can only be gleaned from how the organisers reacted to the threat of a Delhi exit.At the last moment, a reserve day was added to the schedule for the semi-finals. There was rain predicted for the semi-final between Delhi and Lions in Durban, where two matches had already been rained out. A washout would have given Delhi no chance of progress because Lions had more wins. Reading between the lines, it can only be assumed that the organisers wanted to do everything in their power to give the only remaining IPL team as much chance as they could of making the final. That, by their own admission, is how the tournament makes money.Both semis took place without incident, and even the final, which looked likely to be interrupted by showers, did not have a drop of rain. However, it is worth noting that no reserve day was set for the final. That may have been because the window given to the Champions League does not allow for an extra day to be added at the end, or it may have been because none of the moneymaker teams was involved.There were other oddities in the last three matches. At Supersport Park, a fortress for Titans, Sydney were named the home team. It was awkward for the real home team, but fair, because Sydney had topped their group while Titans were second in their pool. All it meant was that Sydney got to occupy the home dressing room and Brad Haddin tossed the coin.

The tournament was supposed to be a contest between the world’s best domestic sides, but that simple concept was derailed by vested interests. The risk of that happening was always high because the event is owned by three national boards and not the sport’s governing body

That rule was not applied in the final, though. Sydney were the team with more wins and should, by all logic, have been the home team. Instead, Lions were given that right, and got to sit where they always do at the Wanderers, and Alviro Petersen tossed the coin. These are small things that may not have any bearing on results, but they point to inconsistencies that were prevalent through the tournament.The qualifying phase was introduced last season as a way to include an extra IPL team. It was expanded this time, but none of the four IPL sides were required to take part in it. However, the best T20 sides from New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, West Indies and England had to. It was impossible to say whether the best of the lot advanced to the main draw, because six teams simply did not play enough. Sialkot Stallions, Uva Next, Hampshire and Trinidad & Tobago were eliminated after playing only one match apiece.If the IPL teams proved one thing, it is that teams needed time to adjust to the conditions. All of them, except Delhi, who played in a derby, lost their first matches. Kolkata Knight Riders lost their first two but, like Chennai Super Kings, came back to win their next one. Mumbai were the only IPL side to leave without a victory but even they had caught up with the conditions by the time they exited.On early-season pitches in a summer that looks set to be wetter than usual, the sight of batsmen playing the pull too early was a common one. Auckland’s batsmen, who had been training in the country from September 22, the two local teams, and Sydney were exceptions, but that does make for an easy argument that the IPL teams underperformed. By the end, which was not that far away from the beginning, they looked ready and did compete as expected.The decision to host the tournament in South Africa was made for logistical reasons but it proved to be a good one from a conditions perspective too. Aside from some rain, the matches were eventful because the pitches assisted the bowlers. In a format where everything seems set up for batsmen, it was refreshing to see the ball dominate for a lot of it.Already talk has begun that the 2014 competition will come back to South Africa. India are set to handle next year’s competition, and Australia have been ruled out of hosting because of their time zones. South Africa’s shareholding is set to increase as well, and they seem to have become default hosts.By then, hopefully one of two things would have happened: the competition will have become what it proclaims to be, an actual league of champions; or the organisers will have developed the gumption to call it what it really is – their competition, which they will run as they please.

Alastair Cook is well aware that all England have done so far in the one-day series is win a single match

George Dobell14-Jan-2013It says much for the shifting balance of power that the England captain, Alastair Cook, was even asked about the dangers of complacency ahead of the second one-day of the series against India.A year ago, as England licked their wounds after a humbling 5-0 ODI whitewash such a question would have been unthinkable. Even now, with one victory in the last six years, it seems laughably premature to raise such a thought. Whatever England’s challenges in the coming months, guarding against complacency should not be among them.As the only major Test-playing nation not to have won a global 50-over event and with a record in Asia that, despite recent improvements, remains grim, England know they have plenty of hard work ahead of them if they are to fulfil their lofty ambitions. They are heading in the right direction, but they have a long journey ahead.Nor is complacency the way of this England side. Cook did not become the youngest man in history to 7,000 Test runs through any sense of self-satisfaction; Ashley Giles has not just been promoted to an international coaching role to see his unit coast; Ian Bell has not won an ODI recall only to waste it and the likes of Craig Kieswetter, Samit Patel and Tim Bresnan are all under pressure to justify their continuing selection beyond their series. Wherever you look in this England squad, you will find motivation. Just about every one of them has a question to answer.It is worth remembering how tight the margins between success and failure were in the first ODI, too. England were reliant on Patel thrashing 38 from the final two overs and Joe Root delivering nine relatively frugal overs to deliver a narrow victory. Such exceptional performances cannot be relied upon as the norm.Root is a talented cricketer with a strong work ethic, but it is asking a great deal of him to make the leap from part-time county bowler – he claimed one wicket in the lower division of the 2012 County Championship – to becoming the man to fill holes in an international attack.Cook knows all this. He has admitted on several occasions that England have been somewhat flattered by the speed with which they assumed the No. 1 ranking in ODI cricket and he knows that, until that global trophy is secured, his side’s improvements – pleasing though there are – will count for little.”Let’s not get too carried away,” Cook said ahead of Kochi encounter. “We’ve played one game in this series. We enjoyed the other night because we won. But it’s a game of fine margins. We are going to have to do the same in the remaining games.”India are a world-class side and statistics show how hard it is to win here, but we’re prepared for that. We will have to keep up our skills and our standard of performances if we want to win this game and the series.”One area where England have dominated through most of the Test series and in the first ODI was in spin bowling. While the success of Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar in the Test series might have been grudgingly accepted by the hosts, to see England’s stand-in offspinner, James Tredwell, maintain the dominance will have stung.Tredwell, in many ways the antithesis of the glamorous superstars that abound in Indian cricket, produced the sort of disciplined, skilful display he has so regularly for Kent to claim four top-order wickets and the Man-of-the-Match award. Rarely has substance trounced style so convincingly. As Cook said, “It just proves that that experience you gain in county cricket can bode well in international cricket.”Perhaps India may reflect on that. County cricket provided valuable experience for the likes of Kapil Dev, Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar. More recently Zaheer Khan owed his international revival, in part, to a spell with Worcestershire. No doubt all would have ‘made it’ without the county game, but every one of them also credits it for helping their development. The BCCI might do well to take note with regard the new generation of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Cheteshwar Pujara et al.India are far from out of this series. England remain too reliant on part-time bowlers for comfort and the hosts will surely attempt to target Root and, perhaps, Tredwell in the rest of the series. But if England’s spinners continue to out-perform India’s, it may prove tough for the hosts to claw their way back.

Greetings Confectionery Stallers, and welcome to the first instalment of the Confectionery Stall’s Ashes result prediction blogs, which will pepper the year from now until the final over of the series

Andy Zaltzman25-Feb-2013Greetings Confectionery Stallers, and welcome to the first instalment of the Confectionery Stall’s Ashes result prediction blogs, which will pepper the year from now until the final over of the series.By the time the action begins in, of all places, Cardiff, I confidently predict that I will have confidently predicted all 21 possible series outcomes. I will therefore be able to march onto The Oval outfield in August as the teams shake hands for the final time, brandishing a print-out of one of these blogs, shouting “I told you so” through a loud-hailer, before being manhandled by over-zealous stewards for attempting to express my historical right to walk on the outfield at the end of a Test series (see sub-blog below).The last couple of months have given many pointers to what will happen in the Ashes. The difficulty is working out which of these are pointing in the right direction, and which are, like Italian road signs, completely and deliberately misleading. Are England plunging into turmoil, or plunging out of it, with Pietersen stung and invigorated and Strauss bringing wisdom and control? Are Australia really weaker than they have been for two decades, or already rebounding from their entertaining-for-the-neutral slump? Or both?ENGLANDAFPMy suspicion is that England’s messy but rapid bout of blood-letting will benefit the team in the short-to-medium term, which in an Ashes year is all that matters. All the evidence suggests that Strauss is a good captain, but he will need several of his players to break out of their current cycles of not-quite-bad-enough-to-be-dropped tolerability.He will also require greater consistency from his one world-class batsman – the deposed captain and victim of one of the oddest coups in cricket or any other walk of life. Pietersen has been hit or miss for some time. He has scored an outstanding 7 centuries in his last 18 Tests (since July 2007), but still averages only 47 in that period. He has been out for less than 20 in 13 of these 32 innings, and has no scores between 45 and 94. He has played great innings, but not great series. England will need one from him in the summer, and they may well get it. If he seriously wants to captain England again, he knows the only way he will do so is by (a) behaving himself, and (b) scoring brontosaurus-loads of runs. Perhaps Pietersen’s entire captaincy reign was an elaborate ruse by the ECB to ensure his continued dedication and a crushingly dominant resentment-fuelled Ashes.(As a possibly interesting statistical appendix to this, Pietersen has on occasion been compared to Viv Richards, and the Master Blaster himself was also not one for destroying his opposition with consistent, merciless unstoppability. After his annus mirabilis in 1976 – six centuries in 8 Tests – over the rest of his career he only once scored more than 400 in a series (446 v Australia in 1988-89), and only once hit more than one century in a series (two, against England in 1980-81). Brian Lara, by contrast, topped 400 in 11 series, and scored two or more hundreds on nine occasions.)On the bowling front, England’s attack may not be the most consistently threatening, but the Ashes is a home series and since 2005, every single England bowler has a better average at home than overseas (apart from Broad, marginally and unimpressively). Panesar and Anderson both have significantly better records in England, and Harmison, since his breakthrough tour of West Indies four years ago, has averaged 29 at home and 46 away.Furthermore, if Brett Lee fails to recover from his injury in time, it is probable that they will face a bowling attack with a grand total of zero Test wickets in England. If England can keep it that way for the duration of the series, they will probably win (barring some some overly cautious declarations, some overly jaunty declarations, an encyclopaedia of run outs, or a two-month monsoon) (although with Cook and Strauss opening, regular scores of 450-0 off 210 overs may not be enough to give the bowlers time to force a victory).AUSTRALIAPA PhotosAustralia’s victory in the Sydney Test has enabled the baggy greens to perch a little less baggily atop the heads of Ponting and his men, and, less importantly, allowed them to retain their position as number-one-ranked cricket team in the world, despite having lost consecutive series to the two best cricket teams in the world.Cricket’s undisputed number-one-ranked sage, Sir Richie Benaud (his knighthood has been bestowed upon him unilaterally by The Confectionery Stall, in recognition of Sir Richie’s services to brightening my summers from 1981 to 2005), famously stated that “captaincy is 90 per cent luck and 10 per cent skill – but don’t try it without the 10 per cent”. Thus, in my book, cricket captaincy is statistically identical to scientific research, veterinary surgery, piloting an aircraft, and seduction. And it should be noted that Benaud had one of the biggest 10 per cents known to mathematics.From 1995 to 2007, Australian skippers were blessed with a healthy wodge of the 90 per cent luck portion of the captaincy cake, simply by being able to say to themselves: “I think I should probably put Warne and/or McGrath on now. Yes, Warne and/or McGrath it is. Yup. Lovely piece of captaincy there Mark/Mr Waugh/Ricky , even if I do say so myself.”Ponting, by contrast, now has Hauritz and MacDonald at his disposal. However much of the 10 per cent you believe Ponting possesses, and it is certainly not all 10, it should be remembered that even Michelangelo would have struggled in the Sistine Chapel if someone had snapped his paintbrush in half, and told him to work with a pair of chopsticks instead.However, with the retirement of Hayden and the injury to Lee, only Ponting remains of the golden era regulars. Perhaps this will help the new generation to play without constant comparisons to the players they are not. Batsmen are queuing up in state cricket, and Johnson and Siddle should be dangerous in English conditions. England may be playing Australia six months too late. After all, Michelangelo would eventually have adjusted to his chopsticks and come up with a half-decent ceiling if the Vatican Painting and Decorating Committee had been threatening to sack him if he didn’t.PREDICTIONThe Confectionery Stall’s first Ashes series prediction, then, is England 2 Australia 2. These are currently two reasonable sides, neither as good as they were in 2005. They should be evenly matched, with England perhaps slight favourites due to home advantage.As an England supporter raised in the 1980s, however, I am pessimistic by inclination, and see the cricketing glass as not merely half empty but also leaking all over my trousers. And thus I am aware that the last time an Ashes series began the sides apparently evenly matched and with England slight favourites, in 1989, England were on completely the wrong end of a seismic, era-defining 4-0 clattering from which it took the team and me 16 years to fully recover. But still, it’s going to be 2-2 this time. As long as the selectors don’t pick 29 different players. And as long as Terry Alderman stays in retirement. And Tim Curtis too.

Plays of the day from the fifth day of the Galle Test between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh

Mohammad Isam and Andrew Fidel Fernando12-Mar-2013The poster
Shahadat Hossain had very little to be amused about in the Galle Test but on the fifth day, he found a bit of entertainment. On the southwestern grass bank, two female fans held up a banner that expressed their affection for Shahadat. Every time it came into focus on the big screen, Shahadat could not stop laughing. After the post-match presentation, Shahadat obliged the ladies for a photograph.The catch
Long spells in the field took a toll on both sides’ catching in the Test, and virtually all the half-chances – as well as some straightforward ones – went to ground on the first four days. However, despite having to field through Kumar Sangakkara and Tillakaratne Dilshan plundering two more centuries on the fifth morning, Jahurul Islam remained alert enough to snatch the sharpest take of the match. Mahmudullah served up a rank half-tracker and though Sangakkara timed his pull well, he hit it close to Jahurul midwicket, who dived quickly to his right and completed the catch centimetres from the turf.The length
Sangakkara’s was not the only wicket Mahmudullah picked up with a short ball. After he had spent two days in the dressing-room wondering what would have happened had he not unnecessarily charged to be stumped for a duck in Bangladesh’s first innings, he kept dropping it short with the ball. Yet, after snapping up Sangakkara, he had another victim to the short ball when Kithuruwan Vithanage chopped on. And in between, the short one claimed Tillakaratne Dilshan, who pulled to deep-square leg fielder, Abul Hasan.The stroke
A reverse sweep is usually one of the last shots most young batsmen will look to play in his debut game, but Kithuruwan Vithanage had no such qualms on this pitch. He had been kept in check after arriving at the crease by a tight line outside off stump and a packed offside field. He eventually had enough, twisting his wrists and bludgeoning his second Test four through the vacant third man area off Elias Sunny.