While most of their chase followed the same pattern as their quarter-final heist, New Zealand could not repeat the finish

George Binoy in Townsville23-Aug-2012At the start of the 31st over of the chase in the semi-final, New Zealand needed 109 runs to win with six wickets in hand, and had two set batsmen in Robert O’Donnell and Cam Fletcher, who had played pivotal roles in the quarterfinal heist against West Indies, at the crease. The offspinner Baba Aparajith had been bowling from one end, and Harmeet Singh returned for his second spell.New Zealand were building momentum towards the batting Powerplay and O’Donnell and Fletcher further reduced the equation to 95 off 102 balls. Then Harmeet and Aparajith bowled consecutive maiden overs, pushing the asking-rate over six for the first time in the innings. The Indians on the field were vocal after every dot ball, and those in the crowd also sensed that the game was turning decisively their way. Those two overs opened up a gap between balls remaining and runs required that New Zealand were not able to narrow.”I think there was a period just going into the third Powerplay where we got stuck. We lost a lot of momentum,” said Matt Horne, the New Zealand coach, after his team had been beaten by nine runs. “While we got close, the Indian bowling was better in the end than the West Indian bowling was.”I was impressed with Harmeet, [he was] very subtle and changed his pace. I think we could have attacked the offspinner a bit more, and didn’t quite get that right. At the same time once you lose [top-order] wickets you put yourself under pressure.””No one really took on responsibility apart from Cam Fletcher. We’ve got to look at the top order … it didn’t happen there. I thought Harmeet Singh bowled superbly but it was a gettable score if we got it right.”New Zealand’s chase against India followed a similar pattern to that against West Indies: wickets falling regularly at the start, consolidation in the middle, and a platform from which to sprint to the target. It came off against West Indies, but didn’t today. Fletcher, who played a significant role in both build-ups, had been dismissed in the penultimate over against West Indies. He was out in the 48th against India. In both games, New Zealand needed 18 in the final over. They got them at Endeavour Park, but made only nine at Tony Ireland Stadium.”We had opportunities to win this game, we had opportunities throughout,” Fletcher said. “At the top of the order, if we just put a few things together and got a couple of partnerships, the result could be different. We tried our best.”This New Zealand Under-19 side has not been as fortunate as India’s in terms of pre-tournament preparations and exposure they’ve had to overseas conditions and opponents through tours. To add to that imbalance, they were without allrounder Henry Walsh, who was injured for the two knockouts. Fletcher said they were proud of what they had achieved.”We have worked so hard over the last year-and-a-half to really nail the basics and try and work into our plans. It is really disappointing that we haven’t quite pulled it off today but in a way we are proud of our effort,” he said. “We pride ourselves on our fielding and I thought we bowled and fielded very well today through the middle period and we gave ourselves a chance to set the game up.”I think with the bat, it’s probably an area where we have been on and off this whole tournament. It is disappointing that we didn’t put it together today. We gave it our best shot. We have got no regrets. To make it to the semi-final for us is awesome. We will look back on it and just take everything we can out of it and hopefully that progresses into our games in the future.”Horne also said his players could take a lot of positives from their experience of competing in Queensland. “I think what the guys make of it [the experience] will be the key,” he said “They’ve been exposed to variables they haven’t had before. The one thing we can take from the tournament is that we probably come across as a team that can fight regardless of whatever is on offer. We just didn’t quite get it execution-wise right today. But that’s cricket and we’ll live to fight another day.”That day is Saturday, when New Zealand will play South Africa in the play-off for third place. No one wanted to be playing that day but no one shunned bronze at the Olympics either.

Just as the first gripping contest of the World Twenty20 was unfolding the rain arrived with Australia on top, but West Indies not out of the contest

David Hopps in Colombo22-Sep-2012As the first sign of October monsoon rains struck Colombo, West Indies were left to wonder how their batsmen could bring World Twenty20 alive in such exhilarating fashion and be left with nothing. At last the crowds came, the atmosphere crackled and the sixes rained. Then the storm broke, rivulets of water ran from the roofs of the stand and Shane Watson walked from the field an Australian hero.If it is recognition of sorts to be widely regarded as favourites for a World Twenty20, it brings precious little security. For West Indies to lose on Duckworth-Lewis by as large a margin as 17 runs gives a false impression that Australia, 100 for 1 from 9.1, chasing 192, were comfortably in command, but then D/L does not take into account the fact that Australia’s top three is where their strength lies and that those to follow have considerably lower standing.Darren Sammy, West Indies’ captain, was right to suggest: “We really played a part in what would have been a cracker of a game. We still thought that we were right there in it. We have to put that behind us and still believe that we can win the tournament.”Ireland, though, will be seeking out long-range Colombo weather forecasts. They would qualify along with Australia, and oust West Indies in the process, if they won at Premadasa on Monday night and, as long as some sort of match was played, more rain would probably suit them just fine.Watson had begun his night by dropping Chris Gayle, a diving catch at third man when he was only 4, but he silenced Gayle later with a return catch and then finished unbeaten on 41 as he timed his assault on Marlon Samuels’ offspin as if he was being fed information by the meteorological department. He took 20 from four balls, including a pulled six over midwicket which burst through the hands of Dwayne Smith, one of West Indies’ safest fielders, to as good as settle the game as the first signs of drizzle appeared.Had he played Samuels conservatively that over, the eighth, West Indies might have just about hung on; superiority in T20 shifts in a few balls. But Watson said: “I just knew at that stage that Marlon was going to be the guy for Mike Hussey and me to have to try to take down, knowing that we were going to need one really big over to stay in the match.”Until I saw it was drizzling and the groundstaff running to the covers I had no idea there was rain coming so it didn’t influence the way we batted at all. We knew we had to get the runs to balls down as quick as we could.”It is a fortunate man who drops Gayle and can smile at the memory. “I know how much of a difference it makes to our team if we get Chris Gayle out early,” he said. “I spent a lot of the night thinking what I had done. I was feeling the pain until I did get him out but in the meantime he had done a fair bit of damage.”At times we bowled very poorly. We knew where these guys like to score their runs, especially Chris Gayle and Marlon Samuels, and we didn’t execute anywhere near to the standards we needed to. For us to go a long way in this tournament we need to be better at that.”Gayle had marked his 33rd birthday by philosophising about the secret of six hitting. “You have to let your mind and body flow together,” he said. “You don’t want to be stuck in a two-minded situation. You just try and be natural and things will actually flow for you in the end.”Hundreds of people try that in Sri Lanka every day, but most of them are on yoga and meditation holidays; Gayle does it to propel a cricket ball around 100 metres. It all looks contemptuous, but the way he describes it – a connection of the mind and body – he makes it sound closer to Buddhism.

The path for Alastair Cook to become England’s Test captain has been laid out from early in his career, but that does not make the challenge any less demanding

George Dobell30-Aug-2012It was probably fitting that Alastair Cook did not take the spot light even in the moment that he was unveiled as England’s new Test captain. No, instead of being allowed to bask in the success of another step in a remarkable career, Cook was happy to allow Andrew Strauss to say goodbye in typically decent and self-effacing style and leave questions about Kevin Pietersen as he might balls outside his off stump.Cook is, in many ways, an unremarkable cricketer. He can talk without you recalling a word, score centuries without you remembering a stroke and has achieved great feats of run-scoring without ever being accepted as a great. In an age of sporting prima-donnas he is refreshingly short on style and reassuringly full of substance.He has been destined to assume the Test captaincy for years. A former England Under-19 captain, he was appointed Test vice-captain ahead of the West Indies tour of 2009 and, a year later, led in a Test for the first time when he stood in for the rested Strauss on England’s tour of Bangladesh. He was been England’s ODI captain for 18 months. He was not only the obvious choice, he was the only choice.But a long apprenticeship does not necessarily assure a successful transition. Just ask Gordon Brown.Cook is not an overwhelmingly natural captain. Like his predecessor, Cook is no orator and no tactical genius. But such skills are often over-rated. They are for captains in comics and clichés. When your side is following-on, you do not want a speech in the dressing room: you want a man who will see off the new ball and bat all day. Cook will be that sort of captain. Like Strauss, he is reliable, calm and strong. He is respected by his team as a player and liked by them as a man. He will lead through example and by instilling a unity of purpose. He is a continuity captain. This is not a new era, it is the continuation of an old one.That is no bad thing. Despite recent setbacks, England have enjoyed unprecedented success over the last few years and, right now, they do not need more uncertainty. And while Cook may want to improve his somewhat edgy relationship with the media – as Duncan Fletcher’s experiences showed, it will hurt eventually – he knows the demands of the job he has accepted and, unlike the appointments of Strauss, Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff, has no natural contender for the role. The dressing room is right behind him.Besides, it would be easy to exaggerate the importance of the captain in this England set-up. It is the coach, Andy Flower, who runs the England team. Tellingly, while Flower is part of the selection process, Strauss was not. Not until the morning of the game, anyway.

Cook inherits a team at a crossroads. While England have recently lost their No. 1 ranking in all formats of the game and, with one top-order player having retired and another having alienated himself from the team, could be at the start of a partial rebuilding process

Cook inherits a team at a crossroads. While England have recently lost their No.1 ranking in all formats of the game and, with one top-order player having retired and another having alienated himself from the team, could be at the start of a partial rebuilding process. There are doubts, too, about Graeme Swann’s fitness – when a 33-year-old with a history of elbow problems requires resting just half-a-dozen games after his last break the alarm bells ring – and Stuart Broad’s form. Cook will also have to help put together a new slip cordon. England’s catching – or rather their lack of it – has been a major weakness of late.The most urgent requirement is to find a new opener. In the long-term Joe Root may be the best option though, aged 21 and with just four first-class centuries to his name, it is asking a great deal of him to continue his development at the highest level. In the shorter-term, 31-year-old Michael Carberry and 29-year-old Nick Compton might be considered. The former has not always looked at his best against spin and the latter has been batting at No.3 in recent times, but anyone with Compton’s record – he averages 97.84 for Somerset in first-class cricket this season – surely has the technique and temperament required. Varun Chopra might also be an option.But England will also be tempted to promote from within. Jonathan Trott, Ian Bell and James Taylor could all make a case for opening alongside Cook in India though in the cases of Trott and Bell, such a ploy might only move a problem rather than solve it.While Jonny Bairstow may have done enough to warrant a prolonged run in the No. 6 position, the absence of Pietersen leaves England exposed in the middle-order. While nurturing one or, at a push, two new batsmen into the top order might be acceptable, there is now a possibility that Bairstow will be one of three new faces in the top six. The Pietersen issue continues to hurt the individual and the team, but it is not really Cook’s issue to resolve. Pietersen’s biggest impediment to a return is Flower. And it is a mighty impediment.But if history has taught us anything, it is never to write off Cook. From the moment he scored a century on Test debut as a 21-year-old he has defied his doubters. A testing period in 2010, when it appeared that fatal flaws in his technique had been exposed, gave way to a prolific Ashes success where he scored three centuries. He responded to the ODI captaincy by leading his side to the top of the rankings and reinventing himself as a highly effective limited-overs opener. Behind the somewhat bland façade, Cook has substance and steel.Over to you, captain: Alastair Cook has confronted every challenge thrown at him during his career•Getty ImagesHe will need those qualities over the next couple of years. He will be, barring injury or unforeseen circumstance, the man leading England against India home and away, against Australia home and away and in the Champions Trophy and the World Cup. It is, at once, a daunting and exciting schedule and how Cook navigates those challenges will surely define his legacy. It may be worth noting that, aged 27 and experienced in many of the ups and downs that make a career, he has never suffered long-term failure.Of all the forthcoming challenges, though, Cook could be forgiven for looking at the Future Tours Programme and circling December 2015 with particular trepidation. That is, after all, when England next play a Test series against South Africa. Before the recent series between the two teams, Graeme Smith was described as a “slayer” of England captains, having been partially responsible by dint of his batting and his team’s success in pushing Nasser Hussain and Michael Vaughan into quitting the job. Now, with Strauss following a similar route, he must be considered a serial killer.There is no perfect time to inherit the captaincy. It is only natural that captains assume command in the aftermath of humbling defeats or horrid fall-outs – after all, why would something end if it was working well? – and, while Cook may need to wipe some blood off the tracks, he does at least have the opportunity to build a new team without any immediate worries about his own form or the stability of the England set-up. That is a luxury many of his predecessors would have loved.

Graeme Smith believes his side is ready to end the cycle of repeats that has seen them miss out on No. 1 spot in the Test rankings

Firdose Moonda01-Aug-2012Like and , South Africa’s cricket team have been on your screens doing their thing time and time again. The only difference is that despite numerous episodes and re-runs, too many to count, the team have not come out with a fairytale ending like Rachel and Ross, or laughing like Homer and Bart.When the sporting equivalent of a 30-minute TV episode is over, South Africa have usually found themselves in the same place they were when the opening credits rolled: somewhere close to the top but never actually on top. Frankly, it has not been a bad place to be. Always second- or third-best, although once much lower, it has allowed them to command adequate respect and put them in a position to continually challenge to be the absolute best.That they had only been able to call themselves that for a few months three years ago, illustrates how close but how far they have always been. And here they are again. The scene setter has been broadcast, the jingle has played, louder than on previous occasions, with an innings-and-12 run win at The Oval, and the first ad break has been taken.This time it was spent playing a two-day tour match in Worcester while the captain jetted home to welcome his new-born daughter into the world and the rest having a fancy dress party in the lead up to the second part of the show. While both those are circumstantial differences to the norm, for South Africa to have a different outcome at the end of this series to the one they are usually stuck with, something more substantial has to have changed.In cricketing terms, South Africa cannot do much more. With an unbeaten record away from home that stretches back to 2006, a thundering victory in the first Test and the big name players living up to their reputations, only fine-tuning is necessary. Concerns such as Alviro Petersen’s lack of form on the tour so far, Jacques Rudolph and JP Duminy’s lack of time in the middle and assessing and adapting to conditions at Headingley have been dealt with. It is other terms that South Africa’s real progress will be measured. Having not won consecutive Tests in a single series since 2008 and not won back-to-back matches in two years, maintaining momentum is one of those things.Historically, South Africa have not been able to do it. The last two times they have played against the No. 1 side in the world, which was then India, they squandered a 1-0 lead. In 2010, they won by an innings in Nagpur only to lose in Kolkata, and in the return leg, South Africa were held 1-1 at home, again after opening with an innings victory. Overall, they have lost immediately after going ahead in three of their last four series.Conversely, not allowing the momentum that has taken them to the brink of No. 1 again to sweep them away is another issue that must be addressed. Pressure presents itself in a different form because it is the not anxiety of win-or-lose-everything, situations that have haunted South Africa in knockout matches, but the expectancy of win-and-gain everything that has existed before and will come again. Managing that is going to be the most challenging thing that will face the squad over the next five days.The person who has led the team throughout their seemingly endless hover near greatness and maintained the stoic attitude needed to prevent losing sight of the ultimate goal, knows that best. “Keeping emotions in check is crucial,” Graeme Smith said. “The mental energy that we have in our squad is an important thing. You can feel the intensity among the group at the moment.”A fresher attitude at the key stage of the series is the only tangible thing Smith thinks makes this time different to all the others. They have kept their performance graph a fairly straight line and their gazes firmly fixed on that distant point in the future that has almost always eluded them.

“We’ve got most of our bases covered in terms of players but as a group of men, this is the best group of men that I have been around”Graeme Smith

“Nothing has been too up or too down. We’ve trained as hard and we’ve prepared as well as ever,” Smith said. “We don’t expect England to give us anything for free. We know we are going to have to earn it and we have the mindset where we can do that.”As insurance against making this match the ultimate as far as South African cricket’s future is concerned, Smith already went as far as talking about the need to maintain good form rather than just achieve it for brief periods. “We understand that the job is not done and it’s not done for a period of time, if we want to see ourselves at the top of the rankings consistently,” he said.This is not South Africa’s last chance to become world No. 1, neither is the final Test of the series at Lord’s because they go on to play a three-match series in Australia in November. But it is as clear cut a chance as they have had in recent times.Smith knows it and so coloured his words carefully, making sure he said the immediate goal was the next five days. He also provided extensive evidence that South Africa are ready, not just to win one match and rise to the top but, once they do that, to stay there. “We are training every day to be the kind of team that can consistently go forward. We need to walk that walk out in the middle and win those games now to prove that to people. We would love to be holders of the No. 1 title and be the team that can push forward.”What can dramatically aid that cause is what Smith identified as one of the immeasurables that have made the team he is currently in charge of different to any other. “We’ve got most of our bases covered in terms of players but as a group of men, this is the best group of men that I have been around,” he said. It’s a group he will be hoping are not keen on repeats but who will be eager to break new ground from Thursday.

Geoff Boycott on the key to the opener’s success, India’s spin combination, and what makes Alastair Cook tick

ESPNcricinfo staff23-Nov-2012Siddhartha Talya: Hello and welcome to a special edition of Bowl at Boycs, and I say it’s special because Geoffrey Boycott is in Mumbai, and we’re speaking face to face. Geoffrey, you’ve been to Mumbai on several occasions after your retirement but you played your first Test here, didn’t you, back in 1980?Geoffrey Boycott: A memorable Test match. It was the Jubilee Test to celebrate 50 years of Indian cricket. I met the president of the cricket board, Mr Wankhede himself, I liked him. Surprise, surprise, you were so kind to us – which normally you’re not – you gave us a lovely pitch that seamed and swung. We were a bit better than you at that. We proved when you came to England and we beat you 4-0, and you’re much better when it turns.Ian Botham, you were up against one of the great allrounders, and he got 13 wickets and a hundred. We won by ten wickets, and all the time I’ve been coming here as a commentator, I’ve never seen one like it since. So it was a rare pitch, lovely moment and we played that on our way back from a series in Australia, three Tests and plenty of one-dayers.ST: And then you came back again a few years later…GB: I did, and you won the series then 1-0. So, you’re very tough to beat in India, very, very tough indeed. It was a one-off Test [in 1980] and anything could happen, but you gave us a pitch that was quite extraordinary.ST: We’ll come to the questions now. The first one comes from Anshul in India. He says this is probably the first time you’ve had a good look at India’s spin combination of R Ashwin and Pragyan Ojha. What’s been your first impression, given they’ve had wickets come easy in the first innings, but had to work hard for them in the next?GB: First of all, Ojha is an old-fashioned slow bowler. By that I mean, he tosses the ball up, he gives it air, with spin, but he’s the old-fashioned type of flight and guile. He’s not turned to the modern way – despite Twenty20 cricket – of firing it in because people are going to slog him out of the park. The ball is up in the air so long, he actually gives the impression that it should be easy to hit, but he isn’t. He’s got a simple, orthodox, textbook action. He’s a nice bowler and I have no reason to think he won’t get wickets, not at all. Everything looks nice and smooth in his action, he does spin it and he looks a good bowler.Ashwin is a bit different. His action is all arms, a bit all over the place. Quite frankly, after seeing him get 50 wickets, quicker than any other Indian bowler, I was disappointed. I really was. Why? Because his line and length was all over the place. For example, for too long he attacked Alastair Cook, bowling over the wicket aiming at Cook’s leg stump. There were a lot of the bowlers’ footmarks, rough, outside the left-hander’s off stump, which would have afforded him unpredictable spin, maybe some unusual bounce, the odd ball stopping and lifting and maybe the odd ball keeping low. If he’d bowled around the wicket and aimed there, consistently, often with patience, I think it would have been a much better plan to get Cook out. If you remember, he got Cook out driving off the front foot exactly that way [in the first innings]. If you got the guy out in the first innings like that, why the hell do you want to go over the wicket and bowl at his leg stump. Cook is much better at leg stump. The pitch [there] is not going to turn as much, it is much more pristine. And he hardly bowled there [outside the left-hander’s off stump] in the second innings.Even to the England right-handers, his line and length was all over the place. I don’t think his strategy and planning was good enough. He didn’t have enough patience. Every spinner should have a stock ball he can bowl pretty much at will on a good length and a good line, and he can do it time after time. An offspinner should be able to bowl an offspin ball to right-handed batsmen just outside off stump, pitching it up, on a pretty good length. He didn’t seem to have any consistency or patience. If you saw a map of his bowling, the ball was all over the place, different lengths, different lines. I thought, on a pitch which had such slow turn, that wasn’t the best way to go, so it was a disappointment. Let’s see how he bowls in Mumbai. But what I saw there, I wasn’t impressed.In fact, I think Harbhajan Singh at his best was, for me, a better bowler. But he lost form a little bit, bowling so flat in one-day cricket, which, I’m saying, could happen. It mentally makes the spinners bowl flatter, because if you toss it up, they’re going to hit you out for a six and you can’t afford that too often. Apparently Harbhajan’s coming back a bit. I don’t know. Ashwin’s got wickets so he must be a decent bowler. But, if you ask me, I give you the truth. What I saw was disappointing. That doesn’t mean he’s a bad bowler. There’s another three Tests so we’ll see what happens. Ask me then at the end.ST: Is this where someone like MS Dhoni comes into the picture as well. He’s the captain, he’s standing right behind the stumps. Given that Cook was playing Ashwin so well for such a long period of time, is this where Dhoni could have stepped in and told Ashwin to change his strategy a bit?GB: Yes, he could have. I don’t know what went on and I don’t want to guess what was said. Dhoni’s a good captain. He handles the players and the team and the situations pretty good, so I don’t know. But the bowler in Test match cricket ought to know. He’s been around the park a bit. He’s played IPL for a few years. He’s won two trophies and lost to Kolkata last year, so it’s not like he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Some young kid, playing his first Test, two or three, then maybe a player, ex-player or captain could say, “Hey, maybe you should do this.” But, he’s not exactly a young kid of 20, is he? How old is he?ST: He’s 26, he’ll be turning 26 this year.GB: Yeah, and he’s had a few years playing, so he ought to have been able to sort that out himself. And tell me, you bowl somebody out one way in the first innings, don’t you do that again? The batsman’s already thinking, “I don’t want it there, I’ve got out there.”ST: The Mumbai Test will be of special significance for another Indian player and that’s Virender Sehwag. He is playing his 100th Test overall. Related to that is a question from Srikkanth in the United States. He says: I don’t mean to compare Sehwag to Viv Richards, who was…GB:: No, don’t, There’s no comparison…ST: … and he elaborates, saying, Richards was destructive against superior bowling attacks at a time when helmets were not around. But what has been the key to Sehwag sustaining such a remarkable strike-rate of 82, especially with a consistency that’s given him an average of over 50 in Test cricket, and for such a long period of time?GB: Let’s take the average first. I don’t think we should get too carried away with averages or statistics. They don’t tell you everything about a player. They don’t tell you the type of pitches or the quality of opposition, you’ve already mentioned that. No helmets, fast bowlers, etc.All modern-day players have higher averages than they did 20 years ago. I don’t know what the total answer to that is but there are heavier bats, shorter boundaries, pitches are flatter and prepared better, certainly in England. They’re miles better, as are all over the world. They are a yardstick to measure the quality of a cricketer against other players of era. In the era he’s played, he has been superb.Virender has been a superb player. From my point of view, watching him, oh, he’s fun. He’s an entertainer, a guy who keeps people on the edge of their seats, because in a blink of an eye you could miss him, or miss some fantastic shots. For me, it’s a lack of fear in his batting. He plays by instinct, with superb timing. He is inventive with his strokeplay. And in his best period, he was blessed with great eyesight. That’s important because it means you pick up the line and the length slightly quicker than most people. To play all those shots he plays, he’s got to pick up the length very quickly. He’s always had an uncomplicated, free-flowing bat speed. He picks it up and he hits at the ball and it’s always a free flow. It’s a gift, which, together with his instinct to take on bowlers, particularly on subcontinent pitches, it’s worked brilliantly. He’s mesmerised bowlers in the subcontinent.It’s not so easy for him to play that way on some pitches abroad. That’s why his record is better in the subcontinent. He’s still done well, at times, abroad, but he’s also been shown up at times, like in England. And in his favourite environment where he grew up, which is India, he’s used to the pitches and they tend to have a low bounce that gets lower. And there is hardly any movement with the new ball. So he can hit through the line of the ball. It’s not going to move on him, and he does take the ball on the up, which is chancy. If anything, the pace of the ball is much slower in India and gets slower and slower as the matches go on.In England, that’s totally different. The normal pace is quicker than India and, many times, it will seam, it will swing. If you were playing on the up and extravagant shots and your technique isn’t pretty good – he’s never been a technical player, he’s been an expressive player – then that’s fraught with danger. In South Africa and Australia, some pitches aren’t quick, like Port Elizabeth, but there are others like Cape Town, you’ve got a Johannesburg, you’ve got a Pretoria, and much high above, sometimes in Durban you’re never quite sure what you’re going to get. Australia has bouncier pitches, they are faster and bouncier. All these conditions help the bowlers a little bit more, which give problems to the batsmen. Then it’s not so easy to play these risky shots on the up, over the top, with limited footwork. That’s the key, early on with limited footwork. We’re all playing much better when we’ve got runs, 30, 40, 50, then the footwork is brilliant. It’s early on, they get you out before you go in.It’s difficult for bowlers to bounce him in India. When they bang it in, it takes the sting out of the ball so it sits up nicely to hit. When he goes abroad they can bang it in with more pace and he does get into trouble a lot more. It gets high on the chest and it’s more difficult to handle. So I’ve tried to put the plusses and the minuses and to explain to you, not be detrimental or be highly critical. I love his batting, he’s been wonderful for the game, but when there’s been awkward bounce, and awkward movement, it makes his job or the way he plays much more difficult.He’s always had this quick eye to make up for his technique which isn’t special. And technique is much more vital when there’s pace and bounce and movement.

“There’ll be people with a wider range of shots, there’s Bell, Clarke, Kallis and Amla. But I don’t think they’ll be more effective than Cook. He’s just as effective as them and he’ll keep going on and on and on”

As he gets older, which he is beginning to, he’ll still be able to play, but maybe his eyesight and reactions might just slow down a little bit. It happens to all of us, not just him, and so he should find it a little more difficult to play that way when the ball moves around, bounces and so forth. But, when he’s on song, particularly going well on these slower pitches, going after bowlers in the subcontinent or the odd pitch abroad where it doesn’t move too much, he is exciting and absolutely impossible to bowl at.ST: He’s had a few big scores overseas but, as you said, there are certain technical aspects of his game that may not necessarily help him get more big scores outside of India. But have you noticed any technical adjustments he’s made to his game when he’s gone overseas? Or is the technique so firmly entrenched in his game that, subconsciously, even when you’re playing abroad, knowing that the pitches are much more difficult, it’s still difficult to change your game?GB: I don’t think he really wants to change. He’s got such a phlegmatic temperament. Nothing seems to bother him much. He’ll sing tunes and everything in the dressing room, he takes everything in his stride. That’s a wonderful asset. That’s not a criticism. If you’ve been so successful in a particular way, I think he just thinks, “Well, I’ve done pretty good, why should I change,” and I think he’s going to play that way till the end of his career. I don’t think he’s going to change very much.As you get older, you may lose a little bit of reaction time, a little bit of eyesight, it’s not quite the same, but you should have learnt and gained maturity from playing a lot of cricket around the world. You should have gained experience, you should have gained knowledge, shouldn’t you? So where you lose a little bit on one side, you should have gained something to a kid when you start. If you’re clever, you use one to offset the other, you may play slightly a different way. For instance, Sachin Tendulkar may have to do that, one of the all-time greats. I don’t see Viru doing that. He’s an uncomplicated individual. He’s comfortable in his own skin, comfortable with his own way of playing and, I think, he’ll go out the same way as he came in. And he’ll be remembered and loved.ST: Geoffrey’s favourite question for this show is related to technique as well. It comes from Prajot in India. He says: Alastair Cook has a better average in Australia, Sri Lanka and India than he does in England, showing he has an ability to adapt to conditions quicker than most. What is it about his technique that has brought him so much success? And have you noticed any adjustments he makes when he plays outside of England?GB: I don’t think he changes his technique, wherever he is. He has a very good technique but England is probably the most difficult place to be an opener, because the English climate of rain, cooler weather with small amounts of sunshine, leaves even well-prepared pitches open to more seam and swing. The new-ball bowlers exploit that and opening the batting is always going to be a bit harder in England, just the nature of the country.Cook’s technique is very simple. It’s to get as far forward as he can, whether he is playing spin or seam, so that the ball, after pitching, has the smallest distance to travel after hitting the pitch to him meeting it with his bat. And when it’s short of a length, he uses the crease and gets deep into it, and get as high as he can, to give himself more time to watch the ball spin or seam. That way, he can play pretty late, close to his body, and he is, sort of, over the top of the ball. He has a strong mind, always has had. Every cricket he’s played , every time he’s gone up a notch, he’s played well. He’s got a strong mind, patience, concentration, a good temperament that is unflappable, he is not really fazed by anything. He’s a tough, determined kid under that really nice mild manner. He’s always had a nice, mild manner.And he doesn’t sweat, which has been talked about recently, which helps him when he’s playing in the heat abroad. While playing long innings, you need to change your gloves which get wet. You’re sweating such a lot, you need to get towelled down a bit, it gets you a bit flustered. It doesn’t bother him that way, so that is a help.Apart from this excellent defence and determined strong mind, he does have certain areas or shots that he feels comfortable in. He uses them. Others, that are not his favourite areas, he doesn’t try early on. Some batsmen will have a much wider range of strokes than him. For instance, Bell and Pietersen, in the England side. But he’s clever. He sticks to what he knows he can play or he’s comfortable with. And he only plays the other shots when he’s in, when he’s getting runs, confidence, feet are moving well, and it’s very difficult to get him out of his comfort zone. So that makes a tough cookie to bowl at.Once he’s in, he will expand his range of shots a bit more. But there are certain shots… you don’t see him hooking, he’ll pull. He’s not really an on-driver through the on side, he’ll hit it off his hip on the back foot. I could go through his batting. He’s a very smart cookie. I’m not dissecting him out for criticism, I’m giving you a constructive appraisal where I think he’s a very, very fine player. Let me tell you.”He’s a tough, determined kid under that really nice mild manner”•Associated PressIf he does have a problem, sometimes early on, he doesn’t get right forward. He gets half a stride, so he’s quite a long way from the ball. And if he’s ever out of form, his footwork’s not great, he will get out putting his front foot on the wrong side of the ball. In other words, if you’re playing as a left-hander, your right foot, the front foot, should be on the leg side of the ball so the bat can come down straight and hit the ball. He will sometimes get his foot on the off side of the ball, then he can’t get at the ball with a straight bat, he has to go round his pad going towards midwicket. And as he’s going around, he tends to fall over with his balance. His head falls over because his foot’s in the wrong place. He had that trouble before we went to the last Ashes in Australia. There was talk about him: Would he get a run? Would they drop him? He played at The Oval, got a hundred then went to Australia and played unbelievably well, didn’t he? So, once he gets in good form, he doesn’t give it way, he tends to do pretty well.He’s fairly unflappable, he doesn’t get upset one way or the other. He’s pretty determined. And as batsmen go, there’ll be people more pleasing on the eye, like Sehwag, Pietersen when he’s going. There’ll be people with a wider range of shots, there’s Bell, Clarke, Kallis and Amla. But I don’t think they’ll be more effective than Cook. He’s just as effective as them and he’ll keep going on and on and on. So you better get him out early.ST: Did you see anything similar with Cheteshwar Pujara when he got that double-century? These are players who are in the age of Twenty20 but just seem to be made for Test cricket.GB: He’s not dissimilar. He has a good technique, strong mind, temperament, concentration, just the same and he didn’t change his game. He kept on going. And that’s the secret of making big scores. Just keep going. Why change? There’s an old saying: If it’s not broken, why fix it? So if you’ve got a good technique to get a hundred, why would you change and do something different? Go and get another one. It’s quite simple really. In the end, people talk to me about this shot and that shot, I say: Look it’s simple. It’s cricket. If you’re a batsman, I judge you on how many runs you make. If you’re a bowler, I judge you on how many wickets you take. I don’t judge you on what you talk about, or what you say you might do. I’m not interested in how unlucky you are because that swings on roundabouts. Just tell me how many runs are you going to make for the team, and how many wickets you’re going to get as a bowler. To me, that’s a very, very fine player. And he is.ST: And finally, before we go into the Bombay Test match which starts tomorrow, Stuart Broad missed a training session today, India are without Umesh Yadav, there’s no Steven Finn for the second Test. Not asking you to make a prediction or anything, but how do you see both teams in terms of their balance?GB: If you were to tell me one of the spinners has broken his finger or broken his foot, then that’s a big factor. But if I were a betting man and I was batting tomorrow, I won’t be bothered which seamer was bowling at me.ST: Let’s see how it goes. Thanks for that Geoffrey, we’ve come to the end of this show. We’ll speak to Geoffrey once again in a couple of weeks from now but do remember to send us your questions using our feedback form, and Geoffrey will be joining in from Kolkata.GB: Could be 1-1 then.ST: That will spice up the series but there’ll be a lot who would think otherwise.GB: [Laughs], I’m teasing you.ST: Thanks for that, Geoffrey.

And debating the impregnability of Alastair Cook

Andy Zaltzman25-Feb-2013Things You Should Try To Avoid Doing Early On The Second Afternoon Of A Test Match, Number 1: When fielding at slip, after your team has posted an inadequate first-innings total, and with a rampantly in-form run-machine facing your primary pace bowler early in his innings, drop a straightforward catch.Cheteshwar Pujara has not had a good match so far. He followed his first-day failures, clean bowled by Panesar, with a fielding blooper of disastrous consequence yesterday. With Cook already settling with ominous care, the one Indian to have advanced his reputation so far this series shelled a low but relatively simple catch, when the England skipper edged during a fine spell by Zaheer.The reaction of the Indian players and crowd – a disappointedly irritated wheeze, as if they had just accidentally dropped their great aunt’s ashes into the pancake mixture at her funeral (rendered even worse by the fact that she had suffered from a lifelong flour allergy) ‒ suggested that everyone in Eden Gardens knew that Cook would now inevitably score a large, untroubled and subsequently-chanceless century.This he did with alarming ease, perfect shot-selection, and an impregnable authority, as India meekly subsided with some minimal-intensity cricket. This Indian team is unlikely to feature in too many Greatest Fielding Units Of The 21st Century documentaries, and they appeared resigned to what they seemed to accept as their fate as soon as the great-aunt-ash-fumbling shock had subsided.Over the last 18 months, Dhoni’s team have been embarrassingly easily deflated in the field in Test matches. Yesterday’s play was reminiscent of the 2011 series, when they often seemed to be doing little more to force the fall of a wicket than hoping that the batsmen would be so relaxed by the lack of pressure being applied on them, that they would hallucinate that there was a poisonous anaconda crawling up their middle stump, and try to thwack it off with their bats. The hit-snakewicket dismissals have not materialised, however, partly because their opponents have maintained their concentration, and partly because anacondas are not poisonous, so even in the event of the hallucination being successfully provoked, the batsmen would correctly write it off as a figment to be ignored.Dhoni again did little to try to force errors from the batsmen. Compton began his innings defiantly but strokelessly, offering nothing to the bowlers and even less to the spectator. When he had scored 10 off 47 balls, he was facing Zaheer – with a deep backward point. Had Dhoni seen something in the Somerset Sedative’s demeanour that suggested he was about to unleash an upper-cut for six, or try to reserve sweep India’s lead pacer over the fence?Maybe he had. In which case, the strategy worked. Compton did not attempt to upper-cut or reverse sweep Zaheer for six. So, in hindsight, it was clearly tactically sound. Although it did not immediately appear so at the time.When a previously-hideously-out-of-form Trott came to the wicket late in the day, he was not greeted by a ring of close catchers trying to prey on the doubts that were so patent in his previous innings in the series. Granted, this was the first time this series he had come in to bat with England in a position of dominance, but he must have been delighted to face a field of one slip, a short leg, and a ring of bizarrely-placed fielders set too deep to save the single. Trott also resisted the temptation to chip a ball half-way to the boundary.Cook, meanwhile, is the kind of ice-hearted batsman to take full toll of such generosity. In current form, expecting him to give more than one chance to a fielding side is like waiting for the Pope to moon the crowd in St Peter’s Square. It is not going to happen.He (Cook, not the Pope) now tops the list of Most Test Hundreds By An England Player. Such landmarks are of academic interest, given the vastly increased amount of cricket played by Cook’s generation compared to some of the men he has overtaken, and the increased frequency with which hundreds are scored – 2.04 per Test since 2000, 23% higher than the 1.65 per Test scored between 1945 and 1999. Of more relevance is the fact that he is in the middle of one of the purplest patches an England batsman has ever enjoyed, playing with a technical certainty that escaped him earlier in his career, a range of shots that means he can score at a good rate whilst primarily playing defensively, and an authority that suggests that he will establish himself as one of England’s all-time cricketing greats, as well as the statistical phenomenon he has already become. That said, in England’s two toughest series of the last two years since he found form in Australia, he failed in the UAE against Pakistan, and, after a superb first-day-of-the-series century, at home against South Africa. He is not impregnable. But India are making him look so, with bowling that is as toothless as an orange, and fielding with the fervour of a long-forgotten boiled lettuce.All the while, the patient Eden Gardens crowd roared adequate pieces of fielding as if they had just seen someone juggled ten piranhas without getting bitten even once, and generously, loudly, applauded England’s players. The support given by the spectators in the crowd to the 11 spectators on the field hinted at the atmosphere that could be created if India find a way to break the back of the England batting this morning. On yesterday’s evidence, that is looking like an industrially-sized ‘if’, but it is not inconceivable.More aggressive and inventive tactics in the field yesterday might have made a difference. They might not have made a difference. We will never know.Some stats:Ashwin stat: R Ashwin bowled at Cook with the air of a man who suspected strongly that he would not be unleashing his new personal wicket celebration any time soon. Since inducing a misjudged cut in the first innings of the series, he has now bowled 58.2 overs at England’s bulwark, and taken his wicket once, for a total of 167 runs. And that once was after Cook had already completed his Mumbai century.Cook, however, is the nearest thing Ashwin has to a ‘bunny’ in England’s top order. Since the first innings in Ahmedabad, he is the only top-seven batsman the offspinner has dismissed. In 639 balls, 1 for 329 off 106.3 overs are his figures against England’s top seven in the last four innings. Which is not ideal.Ishant stat: Ishant Sharma bowled creditably but wicketlessly, and looked as confident as you would expect a bowler to be who has not taken more than two wickets in any of his previous nine Tests. In those games, he reaped the meagre harvest of 12 wickets at 87.Cook stat: England’s new standalone record century maker, against all teams other than Bangladesh and West Indies, November 2006 to October 2010: 36 matches, average 33, 4 centuries (out of 18 50-plus scores), highest score 118. Since the start of the Ashes in November 2010, against the same opposition: 23 matches, average 73, 10 centuries (out of 16 50-plus scores), including four scores over 175 (with the likelihood of another today).Another Cook stat: By the close of day one, Cook has scored 82 of his 136 runs in boundaries – 60% – and scored at a strike rate of 57. Both of these figures are currently the highest he has recorded in any of the 21 centuries he has scored against countries other than Bangladesh.

From knocking about with the numerical nobodies, he is now mingling with the mathematical megaliths

Andy Zaltzman08-Apr-2013The sixth edition of the IPL now in full swing (or in full hoick, depending on the player at the crease and the urgency of the match situation). By the time you read that, many IPL incidents will have been described as “unbelievable”. Some IPL incidents may even have actually been unbelievable. But few will have stretched credibility as much as an aspect of the final Test of the 2012-13 international season, a game that provided the ideal psychological bridge for cricket and its supporters between the five-day and three-hour versions of the sport regarded by all right-thinking people as humankind’s greatest ever creation (with all due respect to the esteemed persons who first developed the pogo stick, the sombrero, the internal combustion engine, and, above all, the abdominal protector).The nail-chomping Auckland showdown gave the cricket-watching public the chance to bid a fond temporary farewell to Test cricket with a gripping contest that ended in a gut-clenching tension at the end of the fifth day. And it weaned the viewers onto its new short-form diet with a salvo of six-clonking seldom matched in the annals of the five-day game.It was a contest between the second- and eighth-ranked sides in the Test world. For most of the match, it looked exactly like that – an obviously superior all-round unit imposed technical and tactical dominance, bullying their increasingly fragmented opponents into submission with positive, purposeful cricket. Clearly the ICC ranking official responsible had pinned the numbers 2 and 8 on the wrong dressing-room doors. And he, or she, had clearly also fallen down on his duty to remind Peter Fulton that 34-year-old opening batsmen with a Test career average of 23 and a strike rate of 40 are not supposed to (a) score two centuries, and (b) clout eight sixes in the match.Peter Fulton’s Auckland Extravaganza – by coincidence, also the name of a thrash metal band in which Bill Lawry was bass guitarist in the 1980s – was one of the more unexpected and extraordinary six-smashing displays in Test history. He planked the joint-third most sixes ever by an opener in a Test, and the most by a player aged 33 or over. He became only the second opener to hit three or more sixes in both innings of a Test match, after England’s current batting coach Graham Gooch, who did so in his 1990 Lord’s megamatch against India, against a considerably less highly regarded bowling attack.Fulton also cudgelled the third most ever sixes by anyone in a Test against England. The two men ahead of him are Tim Southee (nine, in Napier, in 2007-08) and Nathan Astle (11, in Christchurch, in 2001-02), meaning that on each of England’s last three tours to the land of the long white cloud, one of the New Zealand batting line-up has claimed a place on the Most Sixes Against England podium. In the nation that has given the world such heroically anti-exciting stonewallers as Trevor Franklin, Bruce Edgar, Mark Richardson and Bryan Young.What made Fulton’s fusillade all the more remarkable was that he not only smote eight sixes, but he also managed to keep his match strike rate below 50 runs per 100 balls. Here was a man intent on bouncing up and down on both ends of his nation’s cricketing spiritual seesaw.Many players with Fulton’s previous Test record would have been discarded by their national selectors. In fact, Fulton himself had been discarded by his national selectors, after four brief and unsuccessful stints in the Kiwi five-day set-up, and a prolonged spell in the statistical doldrums in domestic cricket. Having not scored a century in the previous two domestic seasons, however, a striking resurrection in his first-class form led to him being de-discarded. He posted three hundreds in the Plunket Shield, and paved the way for one of the finest belated breakthroughs in recent Test history.He was, by my calculation, the 15th player to score his maiden Test century aged 34 or older, and only the second this millennium, after Anil Kumble, whose Oval 2007 century in his 37th year was a batting bonus to add to a decade and a half of success in his primary skill, rather than the overdue realisation of a lifelong sporting dream that he himself must have thought would never happen.He was also the tenth player to score two centuries in a Test without having previously scored a hundred. None of the previous nine had played more than Fulton’s 12 century-free Tests. The most any of those nine had played before attaining three-figure nirvana was ten Tests, by Geoff Howarth, who also scored two hundreds for New Zealand against England, back in 1977-78, having begun his Test career even less impressively than Fulton, averaging 19.Since then, only three men had scored twin tons against England – Steve Waugh (who had played 91 Tests, averaged 49, and scored 12 previous hundreds), Matthew Hayden (33 Tests, average 50, nine hundreds), and Inzamam-ul-Haq (103 Tests, average 50, 22 hundreds).Fulton has thus catapulted himself into illustrious statistical company. He also became the 11th player aged 34 or over to score two hundreds in a Test. The previous five to do so were Sangakkara, Kallis, Inzamam, Gooch and Bradman. From knocking about with the numerical nobodies of the Test game, he is now mingling with the mathematical megaliths.● It has been exceptionally rare for a specialist Test batsman to encounter his first hundred-making triumph at such a ripe cricketing age. Some bowlers and wicketkeepers have – Kumble, Pat Symcox and Ray Illingworth; Dave Richardson, David Houghton (both of whose careers began belatedly in any case, due to their countries not playing Tests until they were well into their 30s), and Billy Wade.

Fulton has played 21 Test innings, eight of them in the month that has seen the deaths of, amongst others, Julius Caesar, Josef Stalin and Queen Elizabeth I

Of the batsmen who preceded Fulton in superannuated success, two had had their careers delayed by apartheid (Basil d’Oliveira and Peter Kirsten), and two by the Second World War (Eric Rowan and George Carew). The only other specialist batsmen to score a maiden century at 34 or over are West Indies’ Clayton Lambert (aged 36), England’s David Steele and Tony Lewis (both 34), and Zinzan Harris, father of one-day stalwart Chris, the only New Zealander to score a first Test hundred at an older age than Fulton when he hit his only Test ton in Cape Town in 1961-62. None of those four had waited as long as Fulton, either in terms of time since debut or matches played, to score their first Test hundred.● Batsmen flourish at different times of their career. Some peak young in a flurry of youthful fearlessness that peters out as the seeds of doubt germinate into the flowers of failure. Others mature gradually to reach their best later in their cricketing lives. Peter Fulton peaks in March. He has played 21 Test innings, eight of them in the month that has seen the deaths of, amongst others, Julius Caesar, Josef Stalin and Queen Elizabeth I. In March, Fulton has scored two centuries, two fifties, and averages 58. In his 13 innings in the other 11 months of the year, Fulton has tinkled 194 runs, at an average of 16, with a highest score of 36. He should, quite clearly, be dropped for May’s Test series in England. (On reflection, Fulton has never played a Test in May. It is possible that he only functions as a Test batsman in months beginning with the letters “M” and “a”. In which case he should definitely be picked.)● Overall, New Zealand’s collective effort to whet the cricketing world’s appetite for the impending T20 bonanza was heroic. They hit eight sixes in each innings in Auckland – only the second team ever to do so. West Indies did so in the Antigua Test of 1986, when their lower-order cut loose in the first innings, and Viv Richards went ballistic in the second. The Kiwis’ 16 sixes in the match was the equal fifth-most ever by a team; the record is 18, by West Indies in that Antigua assault, by Pakistan in a Faisalabad run-fest against India in 2005-06, and South Africa, on a St Kitts featherbed in 2010.New Zealand’s 26 sixes in the series is the equal seventh-most hit by a team in any series, and the third-most hit by a team in a three-match series. The record in any series is the 37 maximums that Pakistan smote in the three-Test 2005-06 series against India. Twenty-six is the most sixes New Zealand have ever blasted in a series, and the second-most England’s bowlers have conceded, after the 31 tonked against them in the West Indies in 1986.● In their series in India, Australia’s bowlers saw the ball disappear over the ropes 21 times in four Tests – the equal-fifth most sixes the Baggy Greensters have conceded in a series. Roll on the Ashes.

Plays of the day from the final day of the Auckland Test between New Zealand and England

Andrew McGlashan in Auckland26-Mar-2013Over of the day
With four overs to go in the day, Brendon McCullum threw Kane Williamson the ball. One final throw of the dice – and it so nearly worked. With his third ball, he had Stuart Broad caught at first slip to end 77 balls of defiance and two deliveries later, James Anderson went the same way. It was fantastic bowling from a part-time offspinner. He so nearly sealed the match, too, when Monty Panesar got an inside edge past the stumps. What tension.Cheers of the day
The New Zealand fans were applauding an England boundary. Prior was desperate to get the strike back so he could face Williamson’s final over the match, but when the ball squirted between gully and point, it had enough pace to reach the rope even across a slow outfield. The home support gave it a standing ovation, but their joy was short-lived as Panesar squeezed a single off the next ball he faced, although he needed a desperate dive to make it to the other end.Limp of the day
Shortly before New Zealand’s first breakthrough of the day, McCullum had to chase a ball to the boundary and hurt himself in the process. When the wicket fell, he was actually off the field having treatment, but soon hobbled back on to take his place at second slip and marshal his team as he had done superbly throughout the series.Drop of the day
There were two in the last over before lunch. It was the first of them, Ian Bell put down by Dean Brownlie at fourth slip, that could have been costly because Bell has saved England in the past with a long rearguard against South Africa at Cape Town. Boult drew Bell into playing away from his body and the edge flew at a decent height to Brownlie, who had held a fine catch to remove Alastair Cook on the fourth evening; but he could not cling on.Unmoveable bails of the day
Matt Prior lived a charmed life. On 20, he top-edged a pull just out of the reach of Neil Wagner running back from midwicket, but his biggest stroke of fortune came on 28. This time Wagner had Prior fending off a short ball, which lobbed from the glove down onto the stumps but, despite striking with reasonable force, the bails stayed firmly in place. How he made his luck count.Wicket of the day
Bell had made use of his pre-lunch escape and made it to the brink of tea. Then, however, facing Neil Wagner, in another charged-up spell from around the wicket, he drove at a delivery that should have just been leaving – as he had done to so many – and edged into the slip cordon. This time it was held, by Tim Southee at third, to leave New Zealand on the brink. Or so we thought.Review of the day
Stuart Broad has been in less awkward positions on a cricket pitch than the moment he was given lbw to Trent Boult, collapsed to the ground and called for a review while down on his knees in the crease. The replays showed a thick inside edge so Broad was safe and the immediate concern became his well-being, after the bat handle jabbed him in the throat as he fell down. A red mark was visible on his neck, but after a quick painkiller he was fine to continue. For quite some time.

Plays of the day from the third day of the third Test between New Zealand and England in Auckland

Andrew McGlashan in Auckland24-Mar-2013Welcome wicket of the day
It had been a long time since Tim Southee was able to celebrate a wicket, with his last one coming from the third over of the series, when he bowled Nick Compton. Since then he had gone past the bat plenty of times without reward. So no wonder he was insistent on a review against Compton, almost before Paul Reiffel began shaking his head. It was the perfect call, the ball had struck the pad before bat, and was heading straight for middle stump. New Zealand were celebrating before confirmation came, and none more so than Southee.Near-miss of the day
At the height of their problems, with five wickets down, England were struggling to keep the scoreboard ticking over. In a moment of near desperation, Matt Prior pushed the ball towards mid-on and thought there was a single on offer. It was a grave misjudgment. Fortunately for Prior, Doug Bracewell, on the field as a substitute, could not hit direct, and Prior was able to dust himself and carry on.Boundary of the day
There are few players around who adjust their tempo between formats as well as Joe Root. His innings on the third day was a reprisal of Ahmedabad, where he faced 229 balls on debut, with the dead-bat making a regular appearance. He gained his first boundary off his 19th delivery, then had to wait another 107 deliveries to double that tally, when he tickled Bruce Martin through short fine leg.Predictable dismissal of the day
Stuart Broad’s brief innings could not really have gone more to type – a few edges, a driven boundary, a crunching pull over midwicket for six, then a brainless drive next ball that picked out cover. He has become little more than a hit-and-hope batsman, yet he should be so much better than that. A Test No. 8 has to be able to have a decent defence, which appears to have deserted Broad in the last 12 months. Since his unbeaten 58 in the second Test against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi in early 2012, his highest score was 37 against South Africa at Lords.Decision of the day
The follow-on is out of fashion nowadays. Alastair Cook would not have enforced it last week if it hadn’t been for the weather forecast in Wellington. This time it was Brendon McCullum’s choice, and he decided to bat again, presumably to rest his bowlers, and allow Bruce Martin the last innings on the pitch. It also meant that a unique occurrence remained. The only time New Zealand have enforced the follow-on against England is the 1983-84 Christchurch Test when they rumbled the visitors for double figures twice. At 8 for 3, McCullum may have been feeling a little less sure of his decision.Review of the day
It was another busy, and good, day for the DRS. However, one occasion where its use was wasted, came when Ross Taylor was given lbw. Broad, as he occasionally does, did not really turn around in his appeal, as he was sure it was out. Initially, too, Taylor looked happy to walk straight off, but eventually asked for a review. He only needed to see it once on the big screen to know he was gone, and had almost reached the boundary by the time he decision was confirmed.

After Murali’s retirement, the responsibility to win Tests has again fallen on the shoulders of a lone spinner

Andrew Fidel Fernando in Colombo18-Mar-2013Before Rangana Herath’s 19th over of the day, Sri Lanka were drifting towards trouble. The pitch had begun to bite, and Bangladesh were edging ahead in the third innings with not much fear, for not much menace defied them.In two brutal balls, Herath reeled in the upper hand for his side again. Jahurul Islam, having ground a gutsy 48, stepped down the track to lay down his terms for Herath’s spell, but a dipping Herath ripper wouldn’t have it. Chandimal collected and stumped the batsman well out of his crease. Mahmudullah arrived, received a flatter one that gripped and felled off stump, and was back in the dressing room within two minutes. Later in his spell, Mominul Haque was dropped at mid-on, and Mushfiqur Rahim shelled at slip. Called in to make a breakthrough, Herath served up Bangladesh’s innings on a plate. The chance to shut the visitors out may have been missed, but Sri Lanka will sleep easier with only six more to get on day four.That spell, though, in its impact, raises a series of worrying questions. What if Herath was not playing? What if he had a bad Test? He took five wickets on the first day, and now has three of four on the third. Would Bangladesh have made 100 more in their first dig? 150 maybe? Probably. Would they be cruising towards a big lead in the second innings, as the pitch disintegrates? Also likely. Are Sri Lanka, in their home conditions, a worse Test team than Bangladesh, save for Herath?He has effectively assumed Muttiah Muralitharan’s mantle, only his body was shaped in a mortal’s mould, and he will perhaps never be a great, given he is on the brink of 35. Without Murali, Sri Lanka have won 11 Tests and lost 39. With him, they triumphed 54 times and were beaten in 41. Herath, who has taken five wicket-hauls in three of the four victories since Murali’s retirement, has not only inherited Murali’s responsibility, but his team-mate’s frailties as well. The team has slipped from one one-man-show to another.At present, Herath is at once sledgehammer and workhorse. When his side grows desperate for a breakthrough, Sri Lanka look to him. When an opponent is mowing bowlers down, Herath must be on hand to tamp the blaze. A long, tight spell, a sneaky wicket before day’s end, new ball, old ball, greentop, dustbowl, Herath is the man. The only man. How tiring it must be, though his cricket never seems careworn.On Sri Lanka’s recent walloping in Australia, not only did the other bowlers fail to contribute with notable hauls, they undid Herath’s fine work at one end with waywardness at the other. Worse, they spilled several chances that he created, as they have done again in Colombo. Besting Test batsmen is not a cakewalk for Herath as it often was for Murali. He grafts for wickets – spends eons setting them up. A dropped chance often means that a lengthy process must begin again. How cruel, for a man who gives far beyond his own ability in the field.There were encouraging patches for Herath’s support crew on day three, however. Shaminda Eranga had been one of those whose indiscipline set Sri Lanka back in Australia, but showed commitment to line, length and pace throughout his spells at the Premadasa, and removed Tamim Iqbal. Eranga still lacks the movement, in the air and off the pitch, to be a major Test threat, but Sri Lanka’s pace attack must walk before it can run, and control at least, is a step on that journey.”Eranga’s developing quite well,” Kumar Sangakkara said after stumps. “It’s just a case of day-in-day-out that you have a specific plan to work towards in practice and even in a match. Even if you take the most successful bowlers, not a lot of them are extraordinary bowlers. You’ve had a few like Murali who was a freakish X-factor, or you had Shane Warne, who was probably one of the unique bowlers that you get very rarely. But if you take the rest of the fast bowlers – Glenn McGrath, Wasim Akram, all of them had one thing in common. They were very accurate and they managed to put the ball in the right place. Other than that there was no magic in it.”For Eranga and all other fast bowlers, it’s just a case of understanding that and putting that ball consistently in a place that challenges batsmen and keeps making him play. You can’t try and bowl magic balls, you can’t try and get batsmen out. It’s just a case of bowling to a plan and if there’s swing, letting the ball swing and if there’s seam, letting the ball seam. Your job is to just hit that one spot.”After his five-wickets on day one, Herath said he hoped to have 50 wickets in Galle before he retired. He is only two short, but Sri Lanka’s next home Test there is not until 2015, when Herath will be 37. If he waits that long to call it a day, he may just buy his team-mates enough time to learn to hunt as a pack, and build, with heart, upon each other’s efforts. But, maybe not. Maybe another must emerge, to tread the lonely path Herath has trekked so tirelessly.