IPL Goes Back in Time
Ali Campbell of UB40
Shock, Horror, Laughter at the IPL launch as they decided to resurrect Ali Campbell of UB40.
International performers Lionel Richie, Bjorn Again singing ABBA old school songs.
Couldn’t they afford more.
Riveting, maybe, in a cringe worthy way.
IS Michael Clarke Strong Enough To Lead Oz?
Over the weekend Michael Clarke will provide more proof that he has the attributes to be Australia’s next Test captain.
During the past five days Clarke has been everywhere but with his team. Instead, his relationship with his fiancée Lara Bingle forced him home to Sydney, where every facial expression is being interpreted by gossip columnists and sports followers.
The liaison has been on and off more than a thigh pad according to the rumours, but what matters to Clarke and his cricket is when he gets to New Zealand. By making it there in time for next Friday’s opening Test in Wellington he will re-affirm his credentials to be Ricky Ponting’s eventual replacement. If a 28-year-old vice-captain can tidy up this sort of mess he can deal with anything that happens in the game.
Unless something even more damaging than a break-up occurs – his partner is a young 22 and facing the glare of a nation – Clarke will be listed at No. 5 at the Basin Reserve. “It’s currently a question of when, not if, he rejoins the squad,” a source close to the team said on Friday.
Cricket Australia has been supportive by giving Clarke time off during an episode few can understand. Over the two years of his engagement to Bingle, Clarke has become the team’s paparazzi player, a role which can create jealousy and divisions.
With the glamorous Bingle on one arm and a firing Slazenger in the other, Clarke joined and embraced the sporting and entertainment A-list. Together they have become almost omnipresent, featuring in television, internet and magazine advertisements while launching their own drink brand. They play some cricket and do photo shoots as well.
The point of over-exposure came earlier in the month when a nude picture of Bingle, which was taken by a former boyfriend, was published. In the steam of publicity, horror, legal action and cheque-book journalism, Clarke left the squad in New Zealand to wade through the trouble with his fiancée. And then it became even more complicated.
The sole focus on the team has been lost briefly for Clarke’s personal gain. Some commentators have said he can’t have a high-maintenance girlfriend and captain the Test side. Former players have been surprised at him being allowed to leave the squad for a relationship matter.
Confronting the former captain Allan Border, who is so cuddly and opinion-less in his television commentary role, for time off in those circumstances would never have been contemplated. Life is different now. Partners are not handbags.
One former Test batsman has the mantra “Happy wife, happy life”. Sure it’s patronising to the partner, but for players who spend most of the year away from home it is necessary to develop a way of maintaining a relationship. A settled family means a less distracted cricket tourist.
Club players in new liaisons quickly learn the tensions created by spending entire Saturdays standing in a field. International cricket is riddled with broken marriages due to the dysfunctional lifestyle of regular, extended travel. Whether Clarke’s goes the same way is between him and Bingle.
Calling off the engagement will not prove Clarke’s suitability for captaincy, but negotiating through these difficulties will. If he becomes the side’s leader he will be a chief counsellor on every tour for cricket and family matters. Whatever the outcome, this episode will help him eventually.
A publicity-hungry model – or any sort of partner – should not prevent a person from getting a job or leading the country’s cricket team. Even if she flips the bird to television cameras, as Bingle did this week from the balcony of their beachfront apartment. Cricket Australia’s boardroom has become less stuffy with the appointments of Mark Taylor and Matthew Hayden, but previous players have been hurt for less.
In 1956 the fast bowler Pat Crawford was prevented from travelling to England on the same boat as his pregnant wife. She had to go on another ship and he had to walk out on the team to attend the birth. By the end of the Ashes tour the marriage was over.
Shane Warne’s after-hours excesses cost him the Test captaincy but in Clarke’s situation he is trying to make everything neat, not worse. In cricket terms the scandal is him doing the best thing by himself and his partner, not the team or country. So far he has pulled out of a couple of one-day internationals, the game’s most disposable form. The next step is the crucial one.
Two years ago Clarke arrived late to the West Indies tour, missing the first Test after Bingle’s father died. He stayed back to support her and arrived for the second match to score a century. There is room in cricket for sensitivity and success. Another mature contribution in Wellington next week will allow Clarke to write off a horrible period and prove he is qualified as Ponting’s successor.
Peter English, CricInfo
Pakistan Stars Face Fines, Bans
Kamran Akmal
Ijaz Butt, the PCB chairman, has promised to take “more than significant” action against leading Pakistan players in the aftermath of an inquiry committee report looking into Pakistan’s recent tour of Australia, during which they lost every single international match they played, as well as tours to New Zealand and Abu Dhabi before that.
Recommendations of the report, compiled by a six-man committee headed by Wasim Bari, include heavy fines and bans on top Pakistan players, including Shahid Afridi, the Akmal brothers, Naved-ul-Hasan and Shoaib Malik.
Butt refused to identify any of the players or the nature of the punishments, though he confirmed that bans and fines were part of the action the board is expected to announce either on Tuesday or Wednesday. “We are looking at fines and bans as punishment and the action that we will take will definitely be more than significant,” Butt told Cricinfo.
The report was discussed on Monday among senior officials in the board and the selection committee, where the selectors were essentially told to keep the 15-man squad for the World Twenty20 as flexible as possible, the implication being that some big names might not be travelling.
Officials who attended the meeting confirmed to Cricinfo that Malik and Naved were possibly facing bans for breaches of discipline on tour, while Afridi and the Akmal brothers would be fined between Rs2-3 million and be placed under probation for a set period.
Kamran and Umar Akmal are likely to be fined for their part in the run-up to the final Test in Hobart, when Kamran repeatedly and publicly insisted he would be picked despite a PCB release stating the opposite, and Umar allegedly feigned an injury and threatened to not play. Afridi is expected to be pulled up for his ball-biting incident while captaining the side in the last ODI in Perth, for which he has already been punished by the ICC.
Though the recommendations have been leaked out, the report itself is not expected to be made public. “We met with the selectors yesterday and discussed the report,” Butt said. “Some of the information was leaked from that and I will not comment on the identity of the players for now. We will make public the actions that we take, not the report itself.
“But I can tell you that the report is very concrete. It has taken inputs from the reports of the captain, the coach, the manager. The committee called these people in as well and asked pertinent questions based on what they read. It is a solid document.”
The inquiry committee also included the board’s legal advisor Tafazzul Rizvi and it is believed that the recommendations have been vetted for their legal solidity.
Osman Samiuddin
Courtesy of CricInfo
Let’s Just Keep Cricket Simple
James Anderson works his magic
Cricket pundits have a hard time accepting that there are things that cannot be legislated for. Even the ‘Spirit of the Game’ is now codified, appearing, constitution-like, as a preamble to the laws.
It is almost paranoid, this impulse to master the game via the laws, as though the beast will run amok and trample the millions of hapless fans who watch it with all its ambiguities.
Some weeks ago, when Shahid Afridi got graphic with five-and-a-half ounces of leather, the legislative urge sparked once again among commentators. Make ball-tampering legal, the call went. The crux of the argument was: It happens anyway, and if bowlers are allowed to maintain the ball, why not allow them to deteriorate it?
Part of the reason one feels sympathy for bowlers, of course, is to do with silly legislation. Batsmen have benefited from changes to the bouncer rule, the no-ball rule, the lbw rule, the free-hit, the fielding restrictions, and other administrative actions not in the laws, such as standardised balls and smaller boundaries. The ground in Gwalior, illuminated by Sachin Tendulkar the other day, was born tiny, but others aspire to its condition. Tampering in the face of this feels like a just form of union action.
I personally cannot rouse myself to moral indignation towards the issue. The most brilliant delivery I ever saw by a fast bowler in Test cricket was Wasim Akram to Rahul Dravid in Chennai in 1999. The ball was just past 20 overs old and Akram was making it sing like only Akram could. For this over he’d been conjuring ruthlessly late inswing from over the wicket, and he almost had Dravid lbw with one such.
The final delivery started outside leg stump, and suggested that, like the previous ones, it would swing further that way. If you watch it in slow motion you will see the mighty Dravid shaping up for a glance. Belatedly, as if having collided with an air-wall, the ball changed course. It snaked across the pitch, hissed past Dravid’s hurriedly readjusted bat, and administered the fatal sting to the top of off stump.
Later that afternoon, Sunil Gavaskar on commentary spotted Akram applying sunscreen to the ball. If that was the effect of sunscreen, I thought, it ought to be made compulsory.
But legalising ball tampering would be a folly. The proposal doesn’t take into account two important points.
‘Making a ball’, to use the colloquial, is not an exact science, and swing itself is a somewhat mysterious process. Bowling teams look to change the ball when it fails to assist them, in the hope that the replacement will. If vandalism is permitted, they are effectively empowered to claim a replacement whenever they like by damaging the ball till the umpire deems it unfit for play. That is why there is inherent sense in permitting shining but not scratching. Shiva is way cooler than Vishnu, but preservation has its uses.
The second point is that the consequence of permission is a whole new set of silly legislation. Should external objects be allowed? If it is legal to scar the ball, does it matter if it is with a fingernail or a switchblade? What acts are to be permitted? Seam-biting is less hygienic than seam-picking, but should it fall foul of the law for that reason? What kinds of creams are to be sanctioned? Minutiae of this kind will be impossible to monitor and will make cricket a more anal game.
By Rahul Bhattacharya
To read the blog in full, go to CricInfo.com
Vaughan Questions Kieswetter And Co
Craig Kieswetter celebrates after reaching his maiden one day century between Bangladesh and England on March 5, 2010.
The South African-born wicketkeeper Craig Kieswetter scored a match-winning century in his third match for England today but his decision to switch allegiance has not impressed everyone.
Kieswetter, in just his third one-day international, hit 107 during England’s 45-run victory over Bangladesh in Chittagong. But the former England captain Michael Vaughan would like to see 11 Englishmen representing the national side.
Vaughan told the London launch of the Jaguar Academy of Sport, in comments reported in The Independent: “I would like to see, in an ideal world, 11 complete Englishmen in the team.”
Vaughan said he could see how the likes of Kevin Pietersen, who had never played for South Africa, could make the move but was unhappy about Kieswetter and the batsman Jonathan Trott, who both played at some level for their native country.
“Someone like Kevin Pietersen made the decision very early to come over to England and he learnt a lot of his cricket here,” said Vaughan.
“I do have a problem when the likes of Jonathan Trott play for England and Kieswetter, who’s played for the South African Under-19s. I think in Trott’s case he even played for the South Africa A team.
“Now that is where I have a problem, that we have almost got a ’ship-in’ system of looking at talent, and a lot of them come over for the money. It’s very, very difficult to stop them. I would like to see, in an ideal world, 11 complete Englishmen in the team but I don’t think that’s ever going to be the case.”
With thanks to the guardian.co.uk
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