Did you know Pragyan Ojha speaks funny Telugu, collects Tendulkar memorabilia, and sleeps on the side of the bed facing the door?

Interview by Nagraj Gollapudi02-Apr-2013Of your 100 Test victims, whose wickets do you consider most important?
There are two I enjoyed the most. Getting Sri Lankan captain Mahela Jayawardene caught at slip with a classical left-arm spinner’s delivery [in the second innings at P Sara in 2010] is one of my favourites, especially since Jayawardene is a such a good player of spin. The other was bowling England captain Alastair Cook in Ahmedabad. England were following on but Cook had stayed resolute, so to get past his defence was to get a very important wicket, keeping in mind the state of play.Tell us more about the time when VVS Laxman shouted at you while he marshalled the tail in a thrilling chase against Australia in Mohali.
The situation was tight and he explained to me that anyone would have gotten upset since it was such a close game. That after putting so much effort, if we had done something silly and lost the match, nothing could have been worse. I have never seen Laxman angry.What was the positive for you that came from that situation?
When you play like that and help your team win a Test match, it is always amazing. The kind of confidence you derive from defeating a team like Australia is huge, and such situations help you grow as a player.You once opened the innings and scored a century for your school.
Thanks to my coach [Vijay Paul], who was a batsman himself, and wanted me to focus on my batting. I am still trying to make sure I get some runs each time I go to bat.Have you ever spoken to Bishan Singh Bedi about the art of left-arm spin?
I haven’t spoken to him one-on-one, but recently at a private function in Chennai, he told me to work hard and focus on my game and that I had a long way to go. It was great advice from a legend like him.Is there an incident that motivated you to do well?
There is one incident I will never forget. I was playing for Hyderabad Under-17 against Andhra Pradesh at the Waterworks ground, which is on the outskirts of the city. I had not been getting wickets but nobody informed me that I hadn’t been selected for the match. I travelled some 40km to get to the ground. I was putting my shoes on when the coach asked me if I had not read the newspaper. I told him how would I read the paper at six in the morning when all I had done was wake up and rush out to play. I was really upset that I hadn’t been picked, and the worst part was that people told me since I had come that far, why didn’t I stay back and have food. That really hurt me. That was one of the turning points of my life.What is the advantage of being a married sportsman?
The most important is that you become more responsible. You are no more a boy, you are a man, and those things reflect in your game. There is more stability and you do not take decisions in haste. You give them more time.On a cricket field what is the tightest spot you have found yourself in?
Laxman has given always given me a lot of advice. One incident I can never forget is when I was 18 and playing my second Ranji season. We were playing Maharashtra [in Karad] in 2006-07. A day before the match, Laxman told me, “You have to win this game for Hyderabad. I don’t know how or what you can do but you have to win the game.” I was shocked because I was very young, but my captain had told me he had a lot of confidence in me. I ended up taking six wickets. [The match was a draw and Hyderabad earned two points]. I could not believe that I had really done so well. From that day I started to believe more in my ability.Do you have a unique cricket souvenir?
I have the impression of Sachin ‘s right palm in Plaster of Paris, which I have framed and will hang in my new house, which is under construction.Did you move from Odisha to Hyderabad exclusively for your cricket?
I was born in Bhubaneshwar but I moved because my parents felt Hyderabad had better resources and opportunities in terms of education. So, no, I did not move for cricket.Your Hyderabad team-mates say you speak “funny” Telugu.
Thanks to my driver, who does not understand any language other than Telugu, I have had to learn it. I have become much more fluent in it now.Gotta hand it to him•AFPWho has hit the longest six off your bowling?
Albie Morkel hit me almost out of Chepauk in the first IPL, in 2008.What is this story about you wanting to sleep on one side the bed whenever you had to share a hotel room with a team-mate?
Right from childhood, I have slept on the side of the bed near the door. Even my wife is amused about that habit. I do have a couple of superstitions: I carry a picture of Siddhivinayak [Hindu deity] in my bag, and I never forget to call my parents and my coach before a match.What interests do you have outside of cricket?
I had to always take permission from my parents before buying motorbikes in the past. Recently I bought a Harley Davidson, during the England Test series. It is fun driving the bike on highways early in the morning.

The company he keeps on a list of England centurions under the age of 23 points to a dazzling future as a climber of milestones

Andy Zaltzman04-Jun-2013The final instalment of the little-noticed, oddly named and perfectly formatted ICC Champions Trophy begins in Cardiff on Thursday. Where I have been, the sense of anticipation has been as indiscernible as that of a highly experienced cow about to be mechanically milked for the 1000th morning in a row. Admittedly, I have been in Norway, where the build-up to major cricket tournaments seldom features high on the national news bulletins, shunted aside by more locally relevant stories about how great it is to have been sensibly long-termist with oil money, how herrings are a surprisingly excellent breakfast ingredient, and the latest government refusal to apologise to Britain for what the Vikings did on our shores.Fortunately, I therefore missed the first two ODIs in England’s series with New Zealand, in which the home team have ticked off box 1 on their Champions Trophy to-do list – avoid peaking too early. In the few hours between the end of the ODI series and the start of the Champions Trophy, I will post the Official Confectionery Stall tournament preview, and, if I can make sense of what is currently a veritable Jackson Pollock canvas of indecipherable stats, some thoughts on Jonathan Trott’s ODI career to date. As a teaser, I can tell you:(a) Since Trott’s ODI debut in August 2009, England have played 85 completed ODIs. Trott has played in 57 of them – 31 wins, two ties, and 24 losses. Of the 28 ODIs that Trott has missed since his debut, England have won 14 and lost 14. Over the previous four years, England played 83 completed ODIs – 36 wins, one tie, and 46 losses.(b) Trott averages 52.7 in those 24 defeats – almost ten runs ahead of the next highest-averaging player who has batted in 20 or more ODI losses (Michael Hussey, who averaged 43.0 in defeats), an almost Bradmanesque statistical isolation. But what does it mean? I have no idea.In the meantime, a quick left-over stat from the Test series. Of the many positives to emerge from England’s second Test performance was the continued emergence of a new generation of batsmen. Root and Bairstow became only the third pair of England batsmen both aged under 24 to score 50 or more in the same Test innings since the war – Cook and Broad did so twice against South Africa in 2008, and Gower and Botham twice against Pakistan in 1978, but on none of those four occasions were the two youngsters at the crease together.Root and Bairstow thus created the first occasion that England have had two batsman aged 23-and-under batting together with 50 or more runs to both of their names since Len Hutton and Denis Compton scored 196 and 120 respectively at Lord’s against West Indies in 1939. Let us all hope and pray to any available gods, real or otherwise, that the young 21st-century Yorkshiremen’s joint success does not rile the current German leader Angela Merkel quite as much as Hutton and Compton’s brilliant stand of 248 in 140 sparkling minutes clearly irritated her predecessor all those years ago.Hutton and Compton were already established Test stars by then, and had become the fifth and sixth Englishmen to score Test centuries before their 23rd birthdays. Root became the 14th. The list of under-23 England Test centurions of the past 80 years now reads as follows: Hutton, Compton, Bill Edrich, Peter May, Colin Cowdrey, Ian Botham, David Gower, Mike Atherton, Alastair Cook, and Joe Root. Not too many duffers in that list, I am sure you will agree.Root has thus elevated himself into illustrious statistical company. Those nine men before him on the list have collectively amassed 150 Test centuries, and 802 Test caps, 200 of which have been as captain. Seven of the nine have become England skippers, including all six previous 22-or-younger England centurions since the war. None of this definitely guarantees that Root will navigate a similarly Himalayan statistical career. But it probably guarantees it.Historically, England have not trusted in youth as much as other nations. One hundred and three of their 655 Test players (15.7%) have made their debut before turning 23, compared with 737 of the 2077 Test players from the rest of the cricketing universe (35.5%). But amongst that 15.7% has been an unusually high proportion of batting leviathans. It was not only the Yorkshire crowd and the English cricket media who were rampantly excited at Root’s superb innings. It was Statistics.

South Africa are a team in transition, and their coach has his plate full managing the rebuilding process

Firdose Moonda19-Jul-2013A Rwandan proverb asks a question Russell Domingo and his new management will have to answer over the next two years: “If you’re building a house and a nail breaks, do you stop building or do you change the nail?”The answer seems obvious. But what if the window panes, the floorboards, some of the doors, and even a wall or two are no longer usable? Maybe then you have to stop building, reassess, get a different supplier and start again.At the moment Domingo is attempting to rebuild South Africa’s limited-overs squads using the resources available to him, while finding ways to fix or replace the broken nails.To start, he will need some perspective, which has not been easy to get in the aftermath of South Africa’s semi-final exit from the Champions Trophy. Their defeat to England stung because it reopened wounds that had barely healed.While it exposed their biggest weakness – the inability to perform under pressure – it did not dump the team to the bottom of the pile or turn them into inadequate has-beens. They are ranked No. 4 on the ODI list and No. 6 in T20, which is fair considering their focus has largely been on Tests over the last two years.Adjusting priorities so that he is not as single-mindedly looking at the five-day format as Gary Kirsten was will be Domingo’s first job, and the fixture list has given him no choice but to do so quickly. Over the next eight months South Africa play eight Tests and they are all tough assignments. They face Pakistan away and India and Australia at home. They also play 17 ODIs and ten T20s before the World Twenty20 in Bangladesh, and many more ODIs will no doubt be organised ahead of the 2015 World Cup.Winning one or both of those tournaments could define Domingo’s days in charge, and the administrators have made sure he will have enough time with both teams to not have any excuses about lack of preparation.That is not the only area they need to assist him in, though. The performance of a national team is a reflection of what is taking place at lower levels, and a glance reveals a few things to worry about. Boeta Dippenaar is one of the people who believes the limited-overs squads’ current problems have their roots in South Africa’s domestic game.He identified the amateur one-day competition, the semi-professional level below the franchise system, as a source of major concern. “If you look at that competition, the one-day games are always played after a three-day day game on the same pitch, which means you’re not getting the best surface,” he said. “The scores will be lower, so you get bowlers with false perceptions of how good they are, and batsmen that don’t know how to chase down 300, or bat 50 overs, and when to take calculated risks.”The average length of a first innings in the 50-over amateur competition over the 2012-13 season was 45.06. Previously the games were 40-over affairs, and although the format now mirrors international cricket, that statistic indicates the players have not made the transition to a longer game fully yet. The average first-innings score was only 201.Dippenaar is not the only one who subscribes to the theory that the pitches are to blame. Rob Walter, who spent several years as fitness and fielding coach of the South African team, and has taken over as head coach of the Titans, agrees that domestic surfaces are not often of the same standard as international ones.”There is a distinct difference in terms of preparation of facilities,” he said. “One-day pitches around the world are so good – there is no lateral movement and very little turn, but locally sometimes the guys can end up playing on sub-par pitches, and that affects the game.”It eventually affects the development of players’ skill sets, and the quality of personnel being produced for the national team. “If you look at the current South African attack, sometimes they lack something when there is not a lot in the pitch,” Dippenaar said. “That’s because in some of our domestic competitions we produce pitches where as long as you put the ball somewhere in the right area, you can take wickets.” Although outright pace, like Dale Steyn or Chris Morris offer, always has a role to play, the subtleties that bowlers like Lonwabo Tsotsobe, Rory Kleinveldt and Ryan McLaren rely on are not being honed as a result of conditions in the domestic game.Walter can see the same happening with batsmen. “If we have too many situations where teams are three or four down early, we’re not getting to the phase of the game where you need to improve your skills,” he said. “That’s at the back end of the innings, and that’s what helps give guys a very real understanding of what is required at international level.”On tricky pitches, top-order batsmen don’t have enough time at the crease, leaving middle orders exposed too early – an issue that has affected the South African team.Dippenaar would like to see a “national cricket strategy” and a window created for the amateur domestic one-day game that will see it being played independently of the three-day competition. Financial considerations such as travel costs are among the speed bumps on the road to achieving that.What CSA has done is make changes to the level above: the franchise one-day competition. This summer will open with the one-day competition in October-November, which will mean pitches different from the late-season ones usually used for the tournament. The change in the schedule was prompted by the requirements of the national team, which opens its home campaign with seven ODIs against India.The board has also planned the domestic T20 tournament for January and early February, with the World Twenty20 in mind. An added benefit is that the national players will be available for the bulk of this tournament as well.South Africa’s one-day top order has suffered from too much of a reliance on AB de Villiers and Hashim Amla•AFPThis solution only goes one level deep but it could still have an impact higher up, even on players who are already part of the national set-up. In fact, they are probably the ones who need the most work because they have already been identified as torchbearers for the limited-overs cause.Domingo believes the squad he has at his disposal now is “the best available group of players that we can choose from”. When Steyn recovers from the niggles he suffered during the Champions Trophy, he will be added to that list.Even with that addition, the outfit is obviously lacking in seniority. Although Graeme Smith was often criticised for lack of one-day form, the difference he made was massive, and the longest he went without a half-century was 13 innings in 2004-05. Smith captained the team for eight years and was one of its constants.In his absence, South Africa have failed to find a stable opening pair, with no one ready to partner Hashim Amla full-time. Without certainty in the top two, and minus the rock that is Jacques Kallis at No. 3, the rest of the order is always on the cusp of fragility. “We saw in the Champions Trophy that Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers felt the pressure of not having anyone to turn to other than themselves,” Dippenaar said.Early indications from Domingo’s strategic think tank are that he will do away with the concept of a floating batting line-up. That will ensure role definition is clearer. South Africans teams have shown in the past that they perform better when given obvious direction.An understanding of how his players operate is Domingo’s strength because he has been coaching within the structures for a decade and a half. However, finding a reliable bowler and settling on a top order are pressing concerns. Moulding the mindset of the limited-overs squads is necessary.Having been scarred by the manner in which they have been knocked out of previous ICC events, pressure continues to cripple South Africa in must-win situations. There is no easy fix for that but Dippenaar hopes Domingo will institute a long-term plan to help change the team’s psyche.”We tend to bring in help in that department just before a World Cup, and when there is a crisis, and we think if someone comes and waves a wand, everything will change,” he said. “That does not work. We should have someone available all of the time so those who want to make use of it can.” If that nail too is replaced, the house could end up standing pretty soon.

Plays of the day from the second day of the second Ashes Test at Lord’s

Jarrod Kimber, Rob Smyth and Daniel Brettig at Lord's19-Jul-2013Worst ball ever of the day
Chris Rogers’ ludicrous dismissal has a case for being the worst wicket in Test history. Usually a wicket comes from a combination of excellence and error. Here as many as five people were at fault, and none in credit. Graeme Swann bowled a high full toss; Rogers missed it; Marais Erasmus gave him out even though the ball was missing leg; Rogers then decided not to review after a discussion with Usman Khawaja; he surely would have gone upstairs but for Shane Watson’s indulgent waste of Australia’s first review before lunch. It was a five-piece farce, but only England were laughing.Review of the day
You need a lot of confidence in your ability to make it as a professional sportsman. Watson certainly has that. What he doesn’t always have is an awareness of the world around him. There were people on double-decker buses on Wellington Road that saw Watson was plumb, but the man himself didn’t see it that way. He decided to review the decision. Shockingly to no one at all, it remained out.Lost saviour of the day
Bonnie Tyler wasn’t at Lord’s, but when Ashton Agar walked out every Australia fan was whispering “I need a hero”. Agar’s groin and finger injuries so far this series have limited his effectiveness as a bowler, but as a batsman, well, you know. In collapses, kids who didn’t take things too seriously and haven’t been beaten down by life can often stand up and do well. Instead Brad Haddin refused to run on Agar’s call, and Agar almost completed two runs. Australia lost their magical No. 8 for only 2.Walk of the day
Stuart Broad snicked James Pattinson behind to present Haddin with his fifth catch and end the England innings. But the hosts had a review left, and Broad would not have been sufficiently fulfilling his role as Australia’s chief agitator if he had not called for it. So the third umpire was summoned, and the replays were forensically examined. Broad stood and waited, as did the umpires. But the Australians were in no mood to continue the charade, and bounded off the field, not waiting for Tony Hill’s verdict to be relayed. They seemed in a hurry to start batting, and were equally enthusiastic about ignoring Broad.Drop of the day
Khawaja never once looked comfortable against the spin of Swann, and it was not much of a surprise when on 7 he prodded at an offbreak and snicked straight into the hands of Jonathan Trott at slip. More startling was that, having been offered such a friendly chance, Trott spurned it, the ball slipping to the turf. It was the kind of missed opportunity that good players make a fielding side pay for but, on this day, Khawaja would not prove himself up the task. A mere seven runs later, he advanced with neither conviction nor precision to loft Swann, and succeeded only in popping a skier to mid-off.

ESPNcricinfo looks at five reasons for Australia’s dominance in winning back the Ashes

Brydon Coverdale17-Dec-2013Johnson falls into place
Mitchell Johnson would not have played at the Gabba had Australia had a fully fit corps of fast bowlers. James Pattinson and Mitchell Starc would likely have been ahead of him, maybe even Jackson Bird. Even when they were all ruled out due to injuries, it seemed a gamble to pick Johnson alongside Peter Siddle and Ryan Harris, given his fragile history against England. But Johnson had matured since his previous Ashes experiences – marriage and fatherhood had given him a sense of perspective – and he’d been searingly quick in the recent ODIs in India and in the early Sheffield Shield rounds. At the Gabba and Adelaide Oval, England had no answers to Johnson’s pace and improved consistency and with strong support from Harris, Siddle and Nathan Lyon, they were repeatedly shot out. Johnson took 17 wickets in those two Tests, won both Man of the Match awards, and the Ashes were all but regained.Warner fires at the top
David Warner may become the most consistently destructive batsman in world cricket, or he may never reach this level of reliability again. But whatever happens, he has been enormously important in Australia’s Ashes campaign, just as his failure to fire – or even allow himself to be selected – was critical in the Ashes in England this year. Had Michael Clarke not declared with him on 83 at Adelaide Oval, he may well have had three second-innings centuries from the first three Tests of the series. True, first-innings hundreds may have been preferable, but if the door was slightly ajar for England in any of those matches he slammed it shut on them. His power ensured there were no fightbacks.Haddin holds the fort
And on the subject of fightbacks, Brad Haddin could vie with Johnson for the Player of the Series honour, if it was judged at this point. When he skewed a catch to point chasing quick runs in the second innings at the WACA, it was the first time in the series he had failed to reach fifty. Most importantly, his runs had come with the team under pressure. In Brisbane he came in at 5 for 100 and fell just short of a century but steered Australia to 295. In Adelaide he walked out at 5 for 257, and his hundred helped put the match completely out of England’s reach. In Perth he arrived at 5 for 143 and together with Steven Smith saved Australia from a potential collapse. Add to that his outstanding work behind the stumps – his diving take of Joe Root’s edge on the fourth day in Perth but one example – and his contribution has been immense. England would be happy had Matt Prior had half the series Haddin has had.A 7-1 victory
No, not in matches won, in hundreds made. While the series was alive in England this year, the Australians managed only two centuries; Ian Bell scored three alone. It was symptomatic of Australia’s batting troubles in the English conditions. Similarly, England’s batsmen have struggled to build on their starts on the quicker pitches in Australia. Only Chris Rogers and George Bailey of Australia’s top seven have failed to score tons so far in this Ashes. Ben Stokes became the first England player to get there after six innings. The hefty scores meant Australia were able to set England 500-plus totals in each of the first three Tests. Of course, winning three tosses helped too.The Lehmann effect
Yes, Darren Lehmann was coach for the Ashes in England, but he had no part in picking the squad or the long-term planning that went into the tour. And yes, Australia might have found themselves in this same position had Mickey Arthur stayed on – who can know for sure? But Lehmann’s approach – relax and play with intent – has now had time to sink in with the squad. Of course, there will be times when aggressive play backfires, as it has done for Australia in the past. But the players seem more comfortable than at any time in recent memory and for this series, against this England outfit, the Lehmann effect has been palpable.George Dobell on how England contributed to their own downfall

Plays of the day for the match between Rajasthan Royals and Otago in Jaipur

Kanishkaa Balachandran01-Oct-2013The bizarre shot
Rahul Shukla needed just one over to prove that his selection for this game was an inspired one. After sending off Hamish Rutherford and Brendon McCullum within the first three balls of his first over, a third wicket was gifted to him. It was a short ball and Derek de Boorder was caught in two minds whether to hook or leave it. The ball came on quicker than expected and the indecisive de Boorder merely showed his bat at the ball. The ball took the top edge and tamely lobbed up to Shukla, who couldn’t believe how easy that wicket was. Otago slipped from 16 for 0 to 20 for 3 in the space of six balls.The howler
James Neesham should have been out on 0. Kevon Cooper knew it. With Otago reeling at 30 for 4, the in-form Neesham drove at a fuller delivery from Cooper and there was very audible sound as the ball passed him. The catch was taken cleanly by the wicketkeeper and Cooper started celebrating, only to look back to see the umpire Paul Reiffel unmoved. Replays showed a thick inside edge. Neesham went on to score a quickfire 32.The embarrassingly bad delivery part II
Shane Watson’s having trouble gripping the ball in this tournament. Two days earlier against Perth Scorchers, the ball slipped out of his hand at his delivery stride and looped to Simon Katich who swished at thin air. It happened again today to Watson, but this time the ball swirled so far from the pitch that it was headed towards point. A warning to unassuming fielders to pay attention when Watson’s bowling.The catch
For a while the Otago fielders could only watch as Ajinkya Rahane gave Royals a rapid start in their chase. Otago knew they needed to create something out of nothing to stop Royals in their tracks and it came via Nathan McCullum’s sharp catching. Rahul Dravid got a thick outside edge to the left-arm spinner Nick Beard and the ball ballooned towards point. McCullum pedalled backwards and realised that the ball was evading him quickly. In a split second he turned around managed to pluck the ball on the flip. It was the inspiration Otago needed.

Jimmy Cook, who coached a young Graeme Smith, talks about the extreme focus, technique, and ability to chatter about the game non-stop that marked his protege

Sidharth Monga05-Mar-2014Jimmy Cook is a former South African opener who spent almost his entire career out of international cricket because of apartheid. He now coaches kids in Johannesburg. After net sessions, he sits around with the kids and often tells them of a 12-year-old boy. “A naughty little bugger.”When Cook first saw this kid, he was bowling in one of his cricket clinics. One of the many kids in Cook’s nets. Another kid asked him something as he waited his turn to bowl. And our boy said, “Leave me alone. I am bowling.” The other kid gave him a look you would give a weirdo. Cook himself thought he had an “odd boy” on his hands. “He must be a strange kid.”Then our boy went to bat. He insisted Cook stand next to him. Every time he hit the ball, he would look to the coach, never mind the others waiting. He would ask after every ball, “Everything okay? All fine?” At the end of the net, he would sit down with the coach and go, “What did you think? How did it go? How did I do?” And just speak cricket.”Jeez, the practice finishes, and he’s high-fiving everybody,” Cook said, “and playing and running around like a normal kid. But while he was playing, there was no one else [that mattered] but what he was busy doing. Totally, totally focused. To this day, I have never seen a kid like him. Ever.That, and the questions the young Graeme Smith used to ask are the things Cook remembers the most about his protégé. “‘What was it like opening the batting? What should I do here? How should I play here?’ God, he never stopped.”

“Jeez, the practice finishes, and he’s high-fiving everybody, and playing and running around like a normal kid. But while he was playing, there was no one else that mattered”Jimmy Cook on Smith

Cook didn’t do private lessons, but this youngster’s ways had a certain persuasive power. Cook’s son Stephen was a year younger. And there was another boy, called Matthew Harris, who played 50 first-class games as a wicketkeeper-batsman. Cook used to pick the three up from King Edward School, reach the Wanderers indoor nets at around 3pm, and they bat for hours. Two of the kids would take turns to throw balls to each other, and Cook would use the bowling machine for the third. They would rotate and rotate and talk cricket until the two other dads would come to fetch them at 7pm.And Smith would say, “No, no, dad. Just one more bat. Just one more net.”Cook says watching young Stephen and Graeme bat together, and talking cricket to them, were some of the best years of his life. “He’s been a very special guy in my life.”Except that Smith wasn’t always pleasant to watch as a batsman. You ask Cook what stood out about Smith’s batting when he was that young, and he laughs, “Apart from all the flaws he had?”He had a funny way, Graeme. He scored runs even when he wasn’t playing well. Stephen was probably slightly more technically good. Graeme was more like a strong boy who hit the ball hard. Many a Saturday, I used to watch and think, ‘Eh, Graeme hasn’t played really well today.’ Mind you, he’s got 15 not out, so he’s doing all right. Half an hour later you think, ‘It’s not been his day today.’ Mind you, he’s got 35. And the number of times you would do that on a Saturday… ‘You know what, he didn’t play that well, but mind you, he did get 85 so that’s not bad.’ He always had a knack of making runs.”That was something that needed to be nurtured. Smith never had a cover drive back then. His bottom-handed grip, almost locking his hands when he looked to play to off, made him a strong leg-side player, but he was always going to have problems when bowlers took the ball away from him from outside off.”We were probably never going to get the grip 100% right, so he wouldn’t be a big driver of the ball,” Cook says. “But we worked on other things. I could see he was strong there []. And mentally, I’ve never seen a kid so strong here []. He knew what he was doing. And very quickly we came up with a plan for him. And we said to him, if we play according to this plan, we’ll be okay.”So how did they overcome the lack of off-side shots? “Don’t play them,” Cook says. “Just don’t play that ball. If you bowl him a half-volley outside off stump, when he’s got 70, he’ll hit you through cover. Early on, he tries not to. Yes he’s developed that side of his game to a certain degree, but early on in his career, we tried to leave it alone. He was very strong on his legs, and I told him, ‘They’ll try to bowl wider because they don’t want to bowl on your pads. So we’ll work on your cut.’ And the ball slightly wide of off stump, he can hit it straight.”Smith the captain was strong from the outset with the senior players•PA PhotosSo without a cover drive, looking ungainly, this boy kept racking up the runs. When Smith was 16, Cook asked Lions to sign him up. They passed. Next year Smith was in the South Africa Under-19 side. Almost every province wanted him by then. Cook kept Smith in Johannesburg but not for long. Physically he would move to Cape Town; emotionally and spiritually he would become South Africa’s.Within a year of Smith’s becoming an international, South Africa would go through a captaincy crisis. The 2003 World Cup disaster consumed Shaun Pollock, who had stepped in after the Hansie Cronje fiasco. Jacques Kallis was too engrossed in his own game, and Mark Boucher would have been low after blocking the ball that saw South Africa go out of the World Cup. It was around this time that Cook went on a TV discussion show as a pundit, to discuss prospective captains. Cook obviously knew the big news – Smith’s father had told him – but he was not allowed to disclose it to anybody.The anchor brought up the rumour about the 22-year-old Smith. Cook had to control his excitement, and blabbered something about how he could be good but was young and so on. Cook had himself been surprised the captaincy had come so early. If he had any doubts they were soon taken away.”I’ll never forget before they went to England [in 2003],” Cook says. “The batsmen were doing some shuttles. The bowlers had finished their training and were sitting and having a cold drink. He stopped doing shuttles and said, ‘Everybody here.’ And I was there helping out with the camp. ‘You bowlers, don’t you ever go and have a cold drink until we are done with practice. You come here, stand here and you cheer the guys on, and help the guys with the fitness that we do. Don’t you ever do that again.'”And there’s Shaun Pollock and Allan Donald and all standing there. And he put his point across. And I thought, ‘You know what, we’ve made the right choice here. We’ve made the absolute perfect choice. If he’s going to be that strong from the outset with the senior players, we have got a winner here.’ And he always was one.”And he wanted to captain. You sometimes get guys – Kallis doesn’t want to captain. I almost got the impression that Sachin [Tendulkar] didn’t want to captain. I always got the impression, ‘Genius, let me play. I’ll give you ideas from time to time. I can see what’s going on. But I don’t want to be the guy who has to do interviews and spin the coin.’ Whereas Graeme thrived on it. He loved that part.”Eleven years later, having retired England captains, having ruined Ricky Ponting’s farewell, having played some of the truly great crisis innings of our times (never mind broken hands and other injuries sustained during or before those innings), having spent most of his adult life as a Test captain, having gone five years without a series defeat, the Iron Man has given in to a combination of ordinary form, the demands of a young family, and the off-field headaches that South Africa’s captaincy brings.In a corner of a cricket field, though, after the long net sessions, Jimmy Cook probably still regales his new kids with the stories of the 12-year-old bugger who couldn’t be bothered about anything else other than what he was doing.

Imam-ul-Haq may not have too much in common with his famous relative Inzamam, but the hunger for run-scoring is the same all right

Kanishkaa Balachandran01-Mar-2014There was a time Imam-ul-Haq hated playing cricket. As a child, his ambition was to be a model, and he did not want his skin to tan, running about under the sun. His sedentary lifestyle meant he began to put on a few extra pounds. Cricket, he realised, was his best way of beating the fat.”When I was in school I was very, very fat,” says Imam. “I always loved food and never used to train. Then things started to change. I started to watch TV, see Shahid [Afridi], Younis [Khan] and my , and I too wanted to be famous.” The Imam refers to is his uncle Inzamam-ul-Haq. For years, Inzamam had to deal with tasteless taunts about his own weight and Imam wasn’t going to go down that road.Their names rhyme and both love to bat, but that’s where the similarity ends. Imam bats left-handed, is slimmer, and his spectacles give him a scholarly look. While Inzamam is sparing with his words, Imam is anything but reticent. Even the most seasoned shorthand expert would have trouble keeping up with the bubbly, articulate 19-year-old.It could be that the excitement of the semi-final at the Dubai International Stadium hasn’t yet sunk in. After Pakistan Under-19s’ eighth-wicket pair of Zafar Gohar and Amad Butt kept their World Cup hopes alive with a jailbreak against England, Imam was among the first to dart from the pavilion to celebrate with his team-mates, risking his injured hamstring.Imam, an opening batsman for his side, was the tournament’s leading run scorer at that point, with a century and two 80s, sharing an important partnership with his captain, Sami Aslam, at the top. He pulled his hamstring early in his innings against England and struggled between the wickets, but fought for as long as he could. Retiring hurt was out of the question, but an lbw sent him back for 28, and he spent the next couple of hours a nervous wreck in the pavilion watching his team-mates swim against the tide and claw back.That brings up another comparison with his uncle. “We both have very different personalities,” Imam says. “He was very cool and calm and I can be very impatient, aggressive and emotional. He always tells me to be calm because when you play for Pakistan, you will have to face this kind of pressure and challenges.Imam is already a veteran of two U-19 World Cups. Before embarking on his first in 2012, he learnt about conditions in Australia from Inzamam, who took part in the first-ever junior World Cup, in 1988. That Imam made it at 17, despite being a relatively late starter to the game, is testament to his rapid rise.Originally from Multan, his parents moved to Lahore because they wanted Imam to attend a better school. It was one that helped him with his communication skills, for it punished students for speaking in any language other than English. Badminton was his preferred sport at the time, and he even won the school championship. Before cricket came along, he would spend his time at a badminton court near his house. One summer, during the holidays, he enrolled in a cricket club and there was no looking back. “I was a very good student,” he says with a laugh. “I played an U-16 game and from then I started to take cricket very seriously.”Till then his summer holidays used to be spent in London, helping his dad in his business. Breaking into the U-16 team was a big deal, he says, given the competition in Lahore. He talks of an incident that spurred him to dream big. “I was watching the 2010 U-19 World Cup final [between Australia and Pakistan], and there were two players, Babar Azam and Usman Qadir, who played U-16 with me. I was thinking, ‘, they are so lucky.'”That year Imam got a call from Pakistan International Airlines when he was spending the winter holidays with his family and was asked to report for an U-19 tournament. “I scored 700 runs and, seriously, I don’t know how I scored that!” he says. “Then the Pakistan U-19 team went to South Africa and I was literally crying because my name was in the reserves but not in the team.”He didn’t have to wait long for his opportunity. The failure of the openers on that tour gave him a chance against the touring British Universities side and he made it to the Asia Cup in Malaysia, where he scored four fifties in seven games. That was his ticket to the World Cup a few months later. “I’d walk in my colony and people would recognise me and say that I will play for Pakistan,” he says.His rapid rise in age-group cricket was acknowledged by his father, but his mother insisted he take his studies seriously; it took a while for her to accept that professional cricket was his calling. “I spoke to her before the last game and she said that since I was the leading run scorer I was getting really famous on Facebook,” he says with a chuckle.He says doctors have advised him to switch to contact lenses from glasses, but he finds them uncomfortable and plans to have corrective laser treatment instead after the World Cup.Now that he is already a first-class player, Imam’s cricket commitments will only increase, but he says he hasn’t abandoned his studies. “In my opinion, education is very important whether you play cricket or not,” he says. “It will help me when I become a dad and I will tell my children they should study. I will try my level best to continue my studies.”Before that, four years after watching his former team-mates fail to get their hands on the trophy, he has a chance to help bring it home.

Did England underestimate Sri Lanka’s pace attack, or did the Sri Lankans bowl out of their skins?

Andy Zaltzman25-Jun-2014England’s two-Test early summer series against Sri Lanka, the seventh-ranked of the eight major Test nations, scheduled directly against the football World Cup, would not have been expected to end in (a) defeat, (b) rabid excitement, (c) complaints that the series was too short, (d) recriminations, and (e) calls for the England captain’s head. Even in the aftermath of England’s Ashes Armageddon, and the sudden disintegration of a side that had been largely unchanged for five years, any of these outcomes would have seemed far-fetched. A year ago, they would have been quietly set aside as the deluded rantings of a lunatic.As it was, all five scenarios materialised, after a spellbinding micro-series that contained two of the most spectacular Test match finales ever seen. The last three-and-a-bit days at Headingley provided the mesmerically fluctuating drama that only Test cricket can create, with subtle shifts in the narrative, wild momentum swings, and drawn-out, slowly ratcheted tension, plotted out by individual and collective brilliance and frailty. All ending in the biggest pile-on ever seen at the home of Yorkshire cricket. Or at least the biggest since Lord Hawke, the Honourable FS Jackson and Wilfred Rhodes got a bit overexcited after beating Kent by an innings in 1899, sparking the Yorkshire members to join in a 150-man bundle in exactly the same spot where the Sri Lankans leapt all over each other on Tuesday. (There are no known photographs that show the 1899 pile-on happening.) (But there are also no known photographs of it not happening either. So we must assume that it did happen.)For Sri Lanka, a glorious victory, built on the batting of one certified and one potential great, and sealed by a pace attack that, before this series (and, at times, during this series), would have given few batsmen nightmares. Other than, perhaps, Sri Lankan batsmen, worrying about how long they would have to be in the field. However, Shaminda Eranga, initially rusty after injury, confirmed the promise of his early Tests, and Nuwan Pradeep, Angelo Mathews and, most spectacularly, Dammika Prasad bowled far better than they ever had done before in Tests – way, way better than their statistics suggested they could – and made cricketing history for their nation. It was Sri Lanka’s first Test series win in England (at the fourth attempt), and their third Test match victory here, but the first achieved without a genius spinner taking the majority of the wickets (Murali took 16 at the Oval in 1998, and 11 at Trent Bridge in 2006).For England, a first defeat in 15 early-summer series, and a shuddering beginning to the post-KP, post-Flower, post-Swann, post-Trott era. They wasted a chance to win at Lord’s, and squandered a position of total dominance at Headingley. Their new players showed encouraging promise, their old ones displayed a range of frailties that ranged from the mildly concerning to the borderline alarming. And their captain is besieged by his form, footwork, statistics, critics, results, tactics and decisions. Since securing the series win against Australia with victory in Durham last summer, Cook has led England in eight successive Tests without success, their longest winless run since 1996-97.On Monday, while Rangana Herath was cutting loose, Mathews was batting with the controlled mastery and immovable certainty of a peak-era Rembrandt in an Under-8s portrait-painting competition, and the remnants of England’s world-conquering attack were looking as full of fizz, vim, verve and incision as a lump of stale cheddar, it was hard to remember a worse day for England in the field in any recent home Test.Then, when Prasad defied his own statistics with that brilliant spell of zippy, pitched-up wobblers, and Liam Plunkett submitted an extremely strong entry for the prestigious Worst Ever Shot By A Nightwatchman title, it became almost impossible to think of anything that could have gone worse for England on the fourth day. Other than Sri Lanka bringing on Kevin Pietersen as a substitute fielder. Or England’s poached coach Paul Farbrace pulling off his mask, Scooby-Doo-style, to reveal a chuckling Arjuna Ranatunga underneath. Or a giant Mitchell-Johnson-shaped blimp floating over the ground, trailing a banner reading, “See you next year”, piloted by Shane Warne, armed with a megaphone, shouting: “Put six more slips in, you loser.”It is understandable that Cook’s and England’s confidence is fragile. Most people’s would be after an unanaesthetised two-month bout of invasive abdominal surgery performed by an unqualified Viking doctor, which is what the Ashes amounted to. India’s unimpressive-looking pace attack will have been encouraged by what Sri Lanka’s unimpressive-looking pace attack has achieved. India’s batsmen, inexperienced in English conditions, will be inspired by Mathews’ magnificent performance on his first Test tour here. Another fascinating series between two flawed teams looms.England’s final-day resistance at least brought considerable dignity in defeat. It may even be that Cook’s captaincy was saved by Moeen Ali, the supposed allrounder whose bowling the captain had trusted so little. Moeen’s innings was, for me, in terms of both substance and style, the most exciting played by a new England player since Pietersen’s Ashes-clinching 158 at the Oval in 2005. He is the brightest of the several shafts of hope amidst the rubble of this series defeat. He, Robson and Ballance will all have their techniques forensically examined in Tests to come this year and, especially, next. Moeen promises runs, style and excitement. England need all three.

It became almost impossible to think of anything that could have gone worse for England on the fourth day. Other than Sri Lanka bringing on Kevin Pietersen as a substitute fielder. Or England’s poached coach Paul Farbrace pulling off his mask to reveal a chuckling Arjuna Ranatunga underneath

* Did England underestimate the Sri Lankan seamers? Accusations of complacency are an easy, and often unjustified, gripe of first resort in the aftermath of a defeat. I doubt that they did. And it is undeniably true that, based on their previous performances, the Sri Lankan pacers overperformed (a) surprisingly, (b) impressively, and (c) enormously.Eranga: Eight competitive overs in the five months before this series – took 11 wickets at 32 in the two Tests, smashing the record for most wickets taken by a Sri Lankan pace bowler in a series in England (Suranga Lakmal and Chanaka Welegedara took seven each in 2011; Chaminda Vaas only took nine wickets at 77 in his six Tests here).Pradeep: Eight wickets at an average of 89 in his six-Test career before Lord’s. Took only six wickets at 50 in the series but regularly posed problems, and his two victims at Leeds (Robson in the first innings, Root in the second) were important dismissals of well-set specialist batsmen.Mathews: Nine wickets at 90 in 34 Tests since November 2009, with a career best of 2 for 60 (the only time he has taken more than one wicket in an innings). Hauled Sri Lanka back to the verges of contention with his 4 for 44, the best figures by a Sri Lankan seamer in England since Rumesh Ratnayake’s 5 for 69 in the one-off Test in 1991.Prasad: Nine wickets in his previous eight Tests at an average of 81. Quickly surpassed that, his 5 for 50 being the best figures by a Sri Lankan seamer in England, beating (a) Mathews, (b) Ratnayake, (c) the England top order, and (d) reasonable expectation.It was, almost certainly, the finest spell of bowling ever by a bowler who had taken nine wickets in his previous eight Tests at an average of 81. Admittedly, this is a little-occupied statistical niche, but in terms of bolts from the statistical blue, Prasad’s burst of 4 for 11 in 24 balls was one of the boltiest. In his previous 17 Test innings, he had never taken more than one wicket for less than 100 runs (having taken 3 for 82 and 2 for 60 in his debut, against India in 2008). He finished with 5 for 50 off 22 overs. In his entire 19-innings Test career until this performance, he had only gone for less than three runs per over twice (on one of which occasions he only bowled four overs).England might have expected Kumar Sangakkara to prove his greatness, Mahela Jayawardene to make significant contributions, and if they had been studying recent form, Mathews to be a major obstacle. Sri Lanka’s seamers had been an apparent weakness. They stepped up to the plate and ate all their vegetables.* Rangana Herath’s batting was a similarly unexpectable swinging anvil to England’s cricketing solar plexus. In a superb supporting role to Mathews’ masterpiece, Herath added 149 with his captain. Previously in the series, Sri Lanka’s seventh-to-tenth-wicket partnerships had totalled 89 runs for 12 wickets.Although Herath had once scored 80 against India, and batted well in England three years ago, he had not passed 15 in his last 26 Test innings, dating back to December 2011, when he scored 30 against South Africa. Since then, in 18 Tests, he had averaged 5.2 with the bat, been out on average once every 14 balls, and hit a total of 11 fours. In this match, with 14 not out in the first innings in a useful last-wicket thrash with Pradeep, and his partially match-winning 48 in the second, he scored 62 runs, hit ten boundaries, and remained undismissed by England’s bowlers in 98 balls, before being run out.His previous seven Test innings had been 3, 0, 6, 0, 0, 2 and 1 (including three golden ducks). He began his innings with England, despite their struggles with the ball, still in a winning position. He ended it, against a team now in the throes of another full cricketing meltdown, batting like Garry Sobers. Albeit like Garry Sobers after spending a month wearing a large rock as a hat.

Sri Lanka arrived at Lord’s on the cloud of confidence their limited-overs cricket has generated, but on a tour in which they have sometimes felt besieged they failed to press home an early advantage on the sport’s most celebrated stage

Andrew Fidel Fernando at Lord's12-Jun-2014At the tail-end of 2012, Sri Lanka’s last marquee Test became one of their lowest points in their professional era. On a springy but manageable Melbourne deck, the batsmen collapsed twice, fielders shelled simple chances, and bowlers surrendered easy runs.At the end of the debacle, Sri Lanka’s coach spoke of how the team had perhaps imploded under the pressure they had loaded on themselves. That match had been the cricketing equivalent of going to the biggest job interview of your life, only to race manically around the room, having somehow set your own pants on fire.Eighteen months on, Sri Lanka arrived at Lord’s on the cloud of confidence their limited-overs cricket has generated. They have only played one full tour against a top-eight side in the interim, but on a tour in which they have sometimes felt besieged, Sri Lanka yearned to prove themselves on the sport’s most celebrated stage.They have been the boys who excel in blue for some time, but here, with a full-house 28,000 strong in attendance, they might have been the men who shone in white as well.The first three hours had been so promising. Nuwan Pradeep – the catalyst of Sri Lanka’s best win of the year in Dubai – had the ball swerving sharp and late, while Nuwan Kulasekara boarded up one end, pitching the ball on the straight and moving it down the slope. That mix of security and venom lured a muddled innings from Alastair Cook and loose strokes from Sam Robson and Gary Ballance.There was energy in the field and vocal support for the men in the ring. At one stage, Kulasekara, who rarely clocks in at over 130kph, had four slips and a gully. Ambitious though the plan was, it suggested a brimming over of belief; a team riding on momentum, feeding off good vibes. In Melbourne, Sri Lanka had meandered listlessly, but here was heartening direction: clear plans, and fleshed out lines of attack.But how quickly bad habits can return. In Australia, Sri Lanka had allowed the opposition to beat them back again and again whenever they threatened an advance, and at Lord’s a swift partnership between debutant Moeen Ali and embattled Joe Root stole the visitors’ initiative. Rangana Herath toiled on an unresponsive surface, but as the sun beat down on the quickly-browning pitch, the fast men wilted around him. It didn’t help that the surface flattened quicker than Sri Lanka had anticipated at the toss.”We thought the pitch would have more bounce and pace than it did,” Kaushal Silva said. “But maybe at the latter part of the day it got slower. Sometimes the odd ball was keeping low as well. Hopefully, tomorrow morning, with the new ball in our hand, we can do something.”Angelo Mathews’ decision to bowl first with blue sky overhead raised English eyebrows early on, but it was an understandable, given the top order’s history. Sri Lanka coped with the moving ball in the ODIs, thanks in part to Tillakaratne Dilshan’s circumspection, but those skills have sometimes diminished when a red ball series arrives.
Even at home, Sri Lanka have collapsed against good swing bowling. Knowing his attack is doughty rather than indomitable, Mathews had perhaps reasoned the zip in the pitch represented Sri Lanka’s only chance of achieving a definitive edge with the ball.”When you have the advantage of a green pitch, you should take that. We have three quality fast bowlers, so there was doubt for Angie to take that decision.”Sri Lanka’s decision to rest their spearhead-by-default Shaminda Eranga in the Northampton match, also had creditable reasons. Eranga had not played competitively since injuring his ankle in Bangladesh in February, but with Suranga Lakmal already laid low, Sri Lanka felt it wise to preserve him.
He has returned from long breaks to deliver long, testing spells in the past, and he was perhaps entitled to a poor day on this return. He swung the ball at pace at times, but an economy rate of 4.77 was a fair reflection of his waywardness.As evening came on, Sri Lanka began to serve up freebies, allowing Root unchecked progress to his hundred, and Matt Prior a smooth return to his free-flowing best. In the last half-a-session, England raced on at close to five runs an over.Sri Lanka’s attack has only succeeded when it has hunted as a pack and made run-making difficult on unresponsive surfaces. A poor end to this day may not necessarily spell doom for the Test, but already outgunned in English conditions, Sri Lanka cannot afford too many sessions like it.At 344 for 5 and two men well set, England have the firmer grip on the match. Sri Lanka have so often been tenacious in ODIs and T20s, roaring back from near-impossible situations, refusing to accept defeat. If they can discover some of that intensity in whites, they may tip the match back in their favour and avoid another disappointment at one of cricket’s cherished venues.