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Cricinfo and Wisden writers pick their best and worst moments from 2005

03-Jan-2006

Rabeed Imam

Bangladesh’s first Test victory was an emotional moment © Getty Images
Best
January 10, post lunch session at Chittagong. Mashrafe bin-Mortaza is on the edge of his run up with the last Zimbabwean pair at the crease. Bangladesh are just a wicket away from ending their five-year wait for an elusive first Test win. Mortaza takes a few steps forward, stops and then goes back to the top of his mark again. Another attempt to begin the run up also fails as tries in vain to hold back tears. It seemingly takes an eternity for Mortaza to finally finish that delivery and although it did not fetch him the wicket, those few seconds of inimitable emotion epitomised Mortaza’s own struggles, overcoming immense odds, chasing dreams and turning them into reality.Worst
Brimming with the confidence gained from that now legendary triumph against Australia, Bangladesh headed for Sri Lanka hoping to spring a surprise or two. The first warning came in the three-match ODI series in which they lost all the games handsomely. However, things looked rosy on day one of the first Test at Colombo as Habibul Bashar and Mohammad Ashraful dictated terms. Bangladesh reached 155 for 2 and then Ashraful played an outrageous shot to hole out at extra cover. It was a totally unnecessary and irresponsible act and that moment of indiscretion wrote the series script for Bangladesh. The next seven wickets went down for 33 and the Tigers never reached 200 in the remaining three innings.

Sriram Veera

Back on the attack: Sachin Tendulkar made a memorable comeback against Sri Lanka © Getty Images
Best
October 25, 2005 Sachin Tendulkar returns after eight months of endless visits to air conditioned clinics and what a return it was. Dancing down the track to Murali, pulling the medium pacers and once amazingly at the very last minute, he changed from an intended reverse sweep to an orthodox one. News filtered in later that during those dark eight months he had even thought about quitting. With that backdrop those two ODI innings against the Lankans were a joy. It was like suddenly bumping into your old true love and reliving some magical moments, but you are left with a mixed reaction; will she come back to you or is it just a one-off. 2006 will provide us with the answer.Worst
The continuing crisis in West Indies cricket; the player contracts issue, sponsorship conflicts, board mismanagement and even when a ray of hope was offered by the billionaire Stanford, the reluctance shown by the different regions to accept the terms and the lack of vision to see beyond Chanderpaul for a leader. There has been collapse all round; public sector failure, mismanagement; the greed of private enterprise, holding the players to ransom. The great calypso music has now turned into a dirge, Lara alone turns on some style with a little bit of help from a young new Bravo but it’s not enough to satisfy.

Michael Billington reviews Tom Cartwright – The Flame Still Burns by Stephen Chalke

Michael Billington12-May-2007Tom Cartwright – The Flame Still Burns by Stephen Chalke, £16, Fairfield Books, 224pp

Stephen Chalke has a rare feeling for cricket’s post-war history; and he has here written a lovely, ungushing book about a man whom Dennis Silk calls “one of the great unsung heroes of English cricket.” What comes across is not just the heroic nature of Tom Cartwright’s cricketing achievements but the essential modesty, decency and shrewdness of the man himself. In the end it’s not just a book about cricket but also about the English character.Cartwright came from a Coventry working-class family that was solid Labour: something that explains his own later refusal to kow-tow to patriarchal county chairmen. But, as it charts the young Tom’s rise through the local youth cricket to make his Warwickshire debut at the age of 17, the book turns into a touching testament to the camaraderie of old-style county cricket and the continuity of the game’s wisdom.It is also a celebration of the way cricket knowledge is handed down through the generations. “Pass it on,” says the hero of Alan Bennett’s The History Boys speaking of love of literature; and Chalke suggests the same applies to cricket.The Warwickshire coach, Tiger Smith, who had played alongside Jack Hobbs and kept wicket to Frank Foster and Sydney Barnes, passed on sage advice to Tom Cartwright: that 90% of batting errors stem from the grip, stance and back-lift, that the secret of bowling is to aim with your head. And, playing and coaching for Somerset in the 1970s, Cartwright transmitted Tiger’s tenets to a young Ian Botham.Obviously the book describes in detail Cartwight’s own extraordinary transition from fluently promising batsman to medium-pacer of nagging, metronomic, Glenn McGrath-like accuracy who could send down 1,000 overs a season. But Chalke also suggests that Cartwright’s physical toughness was matched by spiritual obduracy. He left Warwickshire not long after its chairman prefaced a pay-discussion by saying, “I’m not going to tolerate any car workers’ attitudes here tonight.” At Somerset he had a similar encounter with the chairman, in a toilet at Weston, who told him to play when unfit.The book ends with his thoughts on the modern game, many of which had me silently cheering: for instance, “sledging is infantile playground behaviour isn’t it?” and “the England team is like an elite club within a country.”But there is nothing rancorous or mean-spirited about a man who embodied everything that is best in English professional cricket. Tom Cartwright deserved a fine book and he got it.

We’ve observed him from afar, sat through cliché-riddled press conferences and become infuriated at his brooding demeanour. Will the real Duncan Fletcher please stand up?

Will Luke18-Nov-2007


We’ve observed him from afar, sat through cliché-riddled press conferences and become infuriated at his brooding demeanour. Would the real Duncan Fletcher please stand up?At last, in his autobiography, , he has – and how. The week preceding the book’s publication caused an understandable media furore, with revelations of Andrew Flintoff’s drinking and of the back-room decisions Fletcher was forced to make. Equally predictably, though less understandably, Fletcher was made a scapegoat for revealing these brilliantly juicy insights.Anyone who has read the anodyne (and often premature) autobiographies of sporting figures which litter the shelves won’t mind one little bit. may be slightly ill timed – no cautious forward press, here – but dull it is not.Fletcher is a man who places great emphasis on trust and loyalty, and it comes as no surprise that Steve James, his former comrade at Glamorgan and friend of many years, helped write it. Broken up into 13 chapters, the book spans his life from childhood right up to the World Cup, when he resigned.He begins with a fascinating background to his happy childhood in Zimbabwe, growing up on a farm with a protective (and revealingly, loyal) family. His five siblings – four boys and Ann – were, we are told, far more talented at sport than the young Duncan. This rivalry instilled his determination and sharpened his mental focus on his one sport, cricket.It’s the later chapters, involving his time with Glamorgan, and then as England coach, that contain the most salacious insights. His difficulties with David Graveney; his surprise when offered the England coaching job; his spat with Henry Blofeld (surprising), and the “mutual dislike” of Geoffrey Boycott (less surprising). And, of course, the Flintoff saga in Chapter 13 which is rather dramatically entitled “The Winter from Hell”.But something jars. The book lives up to its title – we are certainly given an insight into a previously mysterious man – but it has an underlying seam of bitterness and resentment which, for someone who has achieved so much, is a disappointment and a little sad. Chapters are sprinkled with insistences that the reader “must understand”; that the media twisted his words and cheated the truth; that he is right and everyone else is wrong. If he never cared about the media during his tenure, why bother now?But this is Fletcher, after all. Dogged, determined and stubborn as a mule. Forthright views are no less than we expect. He and James should be lauded for producing a book that remains interesting from cover to cover while never dodging sensitive issues from the past.

Cricinfo looks at the best buys, and those players who surely didn’t do enough to justify their price tags

Mathew Varghese04-Jun-2008
Shane Watson may have cost only US$125,000 for the Rajasthan Royals, but he was surely worth a million dollars © Getty Images
More than three months ago, the Indian Premier League had created a storm with the amounts that players fetched at the first auction in February. What it also did was add a new yardstick to measure and compare player performance. Runs scored, averages, wickets taken, strike-rates etc were used to gauge player performance, but now the IPL franchises will be weighing those alongside the sums, in some cases astronomical, paid to the players. Cricinfo reviews how players fared in the 45-day tournament gone by.Top performers
Mahendra Singh Dhoni was auctioned for US$1,500,000, while Sachin Tendulkar, Sanath Jayasuriya and Yuvraj Singh earned over $1 million, but Shaun Marsh, a $30,000 signing, was the tournament’s leading run-getter with 616 runs at a sizeable average of 68.44. Marsh took around $48 for every run he scored, while Dhoni’s whopping price means his dollars per run scored works out to nearly 3623, more than 75 times that of Marsh’s.

Top run-getters in the IPL (more than 400 runs)

Player Runs Average Strike-rate Price (in US$) $ per run

Shaun Marsh 616 68.44 139.68 30,00048.70 Gautam Gambhir 534 41.07 140.89 725,0001357.68 Sanath Jayasuriya 514 42.83 166.34 975,0001896.89 Shane Watson 472 47.20 151.76 125,000264.83 Graeme Smith 441 49.00 121.82 475,0001077.10 Adam Gilchrist 436 33.53 137.10 700,0001605.50 Yusuf Pathan 435 31.07 179.01 475,0001091.95 Suresh Raina 421 38.27 142.71 650,0001543.94 Mahendra Singh Dhoni 414 41.40 133.54 1,500,0003623.19 Virender Sehwag 406 33.83 184.54 833,7502053.57 Rohit Sharma 404 36.72 147.98 750,0001856.43 Shane Watson, whom Rajasthan Royals purchased for just $125,000, slots in at No. 4 in both the batting and bowling charts, and he rightfully won the Player of the Tournament award. Sohail Tanvir was another of Rajasthan’s stars in the IPL, and his 22 wickets at 12.09 left him heads and shoulders above the rest of the bowlers. In total, Rajasthan spent only $225,000 on both Tanvir and Watson. The two picked up 39 wickets between them, not forgetting Watson’s immense contribution with the bat and in the field. Tanvir took back $4545.45 for every wicket he took, while the corresponding number was over $50,000 for the likes of Irfan Pathan and RP Singh.

Top wicket-takers in the IPL (15 or more wickets)

Player Wickets Average Economy-rate Price (in US$) $ per wicket

Sohail Tanvir 22 12.09 6.46 100,0004545.45 </tr Shane Warne 19 21.26 7.76 450,00023684.21 Sreesanth 19 23.26 8.63 625,00032894.74 Shane Watson 17 22.52 7.07 125,0007352.94 Piyush Chawla 17 22.88 8.30 400,00023529.41 Albie Morkel 17 23.47 8.31 675,00039705.88 Manpreet Gony 17 26.05 7.38 50,000*2941.18 Yo Mahesh 16 23.12 8.77 50,000*3125.00 Farveez Maharoof 15 16.60 6.91 225,00015000.00 Irfan Pathan 15 23.33 6.60 925,00061666.67 RP Singh 15 29.46 8.61 875,00058333.33 Icons and leaders
The IPL had demarcated ‘icon’ players for five cities; coincidentally, all five – Tendulkar [Mumbai Indians], Rahul Dravid [Bangalore Royal Challengers], Sourav Ganguly [Kolkata Knight Riders], Yuvraj Singh [Kings XI Punjab], Virender Sehwag [Delhi Daredevils] – happened to be batsmen. Icons received 15% more than the next-highest player in their franchise, but it was Sehwag, the lowest earner among them – he was the only one with a salary below $1m – who topped the run-scoring charts. Tendulkar’s injury meant he missed half his side’s matches, while Dravid and Ganguly were the leading run-scorers for the Bangalore Royal Challengers and Kolkata Knight Riders – the latter made some vital contributions with the ball as well.

Icon players

Player Runs Average Strike-rate Cost (in US$) $ per run

Sachin Tendulkar 188 31.33 106.21 1,121,2505964.10 </tr Sourav Ganguly 349 29.08 113.68 1,092,5003130.37 Yuvraj Singh 299 23.00 162.50 1,063,7503557.69 Rahul Dravid 371 28.53 124.49 1,035,0002789.76 Virender Sehwag 406 33.83 184.54 833,7502053.57
Shahid Afridi and Misbah-ul-Haq couldn’t repeat their World Twenty20 heroics in the IPL © AFP
All the five icons were also captains of their teams. The remaining three sides were led by Shane Warne [Rajasthan], Dhoni [Chennai Super Kings], and VVS Laxman [Deccan Chargers]. Harbhajan Singh and Shaun Pollock led Mumbai in the absence of Tendulkar. Laxman suffered an injury midway through the tournament, and Adam Gilchrist, the leading run-scorer among keepers, took up charge of Deccan, who finished at the bottom. Although iconless Deccan failed miserably, the other two teams without ‘icons’ made it the final, and Rajasthan, who prevailed in a pulsating final, were the only team whose first-choice captain was an overseas player.How the other heavyweights fared
Andrew Symonds, the player who went for the second-highest price after Dhoni, was available for just four matches, and though he scored a blistering century against Rajasthan, his poor bowling cost Deccan the match. Ishant Sharma fetched a whopping $950,000 at the auction – the most for a bowler – as his performance Down Under was still fresh in memory, but he was completely lacklustre in the IPL, in which he took just seven wickets. That works out to a humongous $135,714.28 per wicket.Jacques Kallis had been dropped from South Africa’s side for the World Twenty20 last year, and his performances for Bangalore were hardly inspiring. Despite that he played most of the matches, probably because it would have hurt the pockets to rest a $900,000 signing. Mumbai lost Harbhajan, its $850,000 purchase to a slap, while Kolkata, who won Chris Gayle for $800,000, had to frustratingly watch as he warmed the bench with an injury before heading back to the West Indies.Another $800,000 signing, Robin Uthappa, was largely unimpressive for Mumbai, and at times sloppy in the field, while Deccan’s Herschelle Gibbs and Shahid Afridi were far from their best. Brendon McCullum and Kumar Sangakkara both justified their $700,000 price tags- McCullum’s 158 to kickstart the IPL left one and all marvelling. Rajasthan, the least-expensive franchise, and the team which spent well below $4m [$5m was the upper limit for all teams], also found its costliest player, Mohammad Kaif at $675,000, scoring just 176 runs at 16 – perhaps they extracted his worth by playing him for all 16 games, utilising his handy presence in the field. Delhi’s top three – Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir and Shikhar Dhawan – were prolific but their middle-order signings – Manoj Tiwary, Dinesh Karthik and Shoaib Malik – failed to fire consistently.

Other players priced $500,000 and above

Player Price Runs Average Strike-rate Wickets Average Economy-rate

Andrew Symonds 1,350,000 161 80.50 153.33 0 – 14.78 Ishant Sharma950,000 11 11.00 100.00 7 47.00 7.80 Jacques Kallis900,000 199 18.09 108.74 1 82.00 8.94 Brett Lee900,000 17 17.00 130.76 4 28.00 7.00 Harbhajan Singh850,000 30 15.00 176.47 5 16.40 8.20 Chris Gayle800,000 – – – – – – Robin Uthappa800,000 320 35.55 114.69 – – – Brendon McCullum700,000 188 62.66 204.34 – – – Kumar Sangakkara700,000 320 35.55 161.61 – – – Jacob Oram675,000 18 18.00 150.00 3 49.66 9.31 Manoj Tiwary675,000 104 26.00 122.35 – – – Shahid Afridi675,000 81 10.12 176.08 9 25.00 7.50 Mohammad Kaif675,000 176 16.00 102.92 – – – Mohammad Asif650,000 3 1.50 50.00 8 37.00 9.25 Daniel Vettori625,000 – – -2 27.00 6.75 David Hussey625,000 319 29.00 123.162 65.00 10.00 Muttiah Muralitharan600,000 0 0.00 0.0011 36.72 6.96 Herschelle Gibbs575,000 167 18.55 109.15- – – Shaun Pollock550,000 147 18.37 132.4311 27.36 6.54 Dinesh Karthik525,000 145 24.16 135.51- – – Anil Kumble500,000 13 6.50 76.477 43.42 7.93 Cameron White500,000 114 16.28 111.760 – 24.00 Shoaib Malik500,000 52 13.00 110.632 42.50 10.00 Aussie rules
While the IPL brought to the fore some of India’s domestic players such as Yusuf Pathan, Manpreet Gony, Amit Mishra and Shikhar Dhawan, Australian players too flourished in the IPL. Seasoned pros such as Warne, Glenn McGrath, Gilchrist, Matthew Hayden and Michael Hussey were top-draw, Watson and Marsh excelled, and James Hopes, David Hussey, Simon Katich, Dominic Thornely and Luke Pomersbach did no harm to their prospects for next season.However, there were also a few NPAs (non-performing Australians), top of the list being Ricky Ponting, who managed just 39 at 9.75, while Kolkata team-mate Brad Hodge didn’t make an impression either. Cameron White and Luke Ronchi came to the IPL with a reputation for hard-hitting batting, but both had a humbling experience in India.

Australian players at the IPL

Player Price Runs Average Strike-rate Wickets Average Economy-rate

Andrew Symonds 1,350,000 161 80.50 153.33 0 – 14.78 Brett Lee900,000 17 17.00 130.76 4 28.00 7.00 Adam Gilchrist700,000 436 33.53 137.10— David Hussey625,000 319 29.00 123.162 65.00 10.00 Cameron White500,000 114 16.28 111.760 – 24.00 Shane Warne 450,0007014.00118.64 19 21.26 7.76 Ricky Ponting 400,000399.7573.58 – – – Matthew Hayden 375,00018963.00144.27 – – – Michael Hussey 350,00016884.00168.00 – – – Glenn McGrath 350,00044.0080.00 12 29.75 6.61 James Hopes 300,00022120.09149.32 7 39.42 9.85 Simon Katich 200,0009696.00139.13 – – – Shane Watson 125,000472 47.20 151.76 17 22.52 7.07 Ashley Noffke 80,0009 9.00 90.00 1 40.00 10.00 Luke Pomersbach 50,000152 152.00 153.53 – – – Brett Geeves 50,000- – – 1 91.00 11.37 Shaun Marsh30,000 616 68.44 139.68 – – – Dominic Thornely25,000 39 19.50 73.58 3 13.33 5.71 Luke Ronchi^ 34 8.50 106.25 – – – Darren Lehmann^ 18 9.00 100.00 – – – Brad Hodge^ 12 4.00 70.58 – – – Best World Twenty20 players at the IPL
Last year Cricinfo had chosen a World Twenty20 XI, comprising the best players from the event in South Africa. Of the ten who played in the IPL, some like Gambhir and Hayden continued their good form in the shortest format, but Afridi, Player of the Tournament in South Africa, had an IPL to forget. Misbah-ul-Haq had used the World Twenty20 to force his way back into the Pakistan Test and ODI sides as well, but he didn’t do too well in his stint with Bangalore. RP was a shadow of the menace he was on the seaming tracks in South Africa, and Yuvraj too was unable to find his sublime hitting form.

Best players at the World Twenty20 in the IPL

Player Price Runs Average Strike-rate Wickets Average Economy-rate

Matthew Hayden 375,00018963.00144.27 – – – Gautam Gambhir725,000 534 41.07 140.89 — Yuvraj Singh 1,063,750 299 23.00 162.50 3 27.669.22 Shoaib Malik500,000 52 13.00 110.632 42.50 10.00 Misbah-ul-Haq150,000 117 16.71 144.44- – – Mahendra Singh Dhoni1,500,000414 41.40 133.54- – – Shahid Afridi675,000 81 10.12 176.08 9 25.00 7.50 Daniel Vettori625,000 – – -2 27.00 6.75 Umar Gul150,00039 13.00205.261215.338.17 RP Singh 875,000 27 29.46 8.61156.75112.50 Young stars not shining bright
Players from India’s Under-19 World Cup-winning side also were auctioned for prices ranging from $30,000-50,000. However, not many got a fair chance in the IPL. Of the lot, Ravindra Jadeja, who was bought by Rajasthan, played the most games – 14, while Virat Kohli, who had led the side, featured in 13 of Bangalore’s 14. Left-arm fast bowler Pradeep Sangwan played seven for Delhi, but it was Bangalore’s wicketkeeper-batsman Shreevats Goswami who won the prize for the best U-19 player, albeit he figured in just four games.

Rashid Latif’s cricket academy, which has been close to a decade in the making, is an epitome of Karachi’s unique cricket ethos

Osman Samiuddin11-Feb-2009

Rashid Latif: perhaps the only person to run a cricket academy who believes he shouldn’t be coaching youngsters at all © Rashid Latif
To the right, as you enter the Rashid Latif Cricket Academy (RLCA), are well-constructed practice pitches – cement, matting and turf. Fifteen, maybe 20, years ago, so go the tales, this very patch was a killing playground, a piece of land notorious for “encounters” between police and young political activists. The ground, for football and hockey, was owned by the city government, but disused and grassless. In the now-demolished old dressing rooms, prostitution shared space with illegal car-parts trade.The area within which the academy sits – Federal B Area – was originally designed for those entrusted with the running of Pakistan, in the days when Karachi was the capital. The country is not run from here anymore, but the roads are wide, the houses old, and here a neighbourhood is still a neighbourhood, not a random collection of houses. It is one of Karachi’s many beating hearts.As is Rashid Latif. More than an academy, his RLCA is a way. It is the way of Rashid Latif, the way of Karachi cricket, a city where is bred a peculiar cricketer. This cricketer is largely self-taught, self-sufficient and rough-edged; when times are tough he fights hard, but he can just as readily regress to a victimised martyr. Disputes are never far, neither is politicking, but loyalty is cherished. The most successful are like gangsters: many people sustain themselves off them; they have flaws, but believe truly what they are doing is for good, in a Robin Hood kind of way. Usually the good outweighs the bad, but not by much.Though the academy has been operational since 2000, the official inauguration was only last week, a Karachi shindig through and through. Most of the city’s cricket grandees were there; Hanif Mohammad, Sallu (Salahuddin Ahmed), Tauseef Ahmed, Mohammad Sami, Azeem Hafeez, Asim Kamal, Saeed Anwar and Moin Khan. Younis Khan – an RLCA alumni and acolyte – who has rooted himself in Karachi, was also there, as was Mohammad Yousuf. The chief inaugurator was Karachi’s man of the moment, Mustafa Kamal, the wildly popular city mayor.It was a warm occasion, egalitarian in spirit. ICL bans meant nothing, as Younis chatted and laughed with Yousuf, Sami mingled with one and all. Ex-players joked with current, and all the while Salahuddin’s poetry flowed. Moin, competitor, rival and contemporary of Latif, had done his bit by donating an expensive bowling machine to the academy. No more suitable an inauguration, in short, for such labour. “Nobody is big or small here, they are all the same… We are about broader things, a way of sitting, standing, a way of being” Rashid Latif It has been almost exactly nine years in the making. The idea initially, says Latif, was to just have a place where he – and others – could practice in the off season. In his early years, the struggle was to find a ground with facilities he could go to for practice and to keep fit. The problem was that there wasn’t such a place. So he got a group of 20-odd first-class cricketers together at the UBL ground and began a regular session of sorts. The location would often change but practice wouldn’t.Latif is of a restless mind, so one thought led, naturally, to another. “We just called it an academy, even though at the start it wasn’t one. I used to practice, others did also, and whatever I understood, or knew, I used to tell them. There was nothing proper about it. Then I got into coaching and learnt many things that, had I known before, I might’ve been a better player. After that I decided that this needed to be more solid, more worthwhile, and something that could carry on after I was gone.”There was more behind it, something resembling blue-collar, populist rhetoric. Private cricket academies in Pakistan are mostly commercial entities. Like private schools they represent both a way of making money and a failure of public institutions. A few, like the RLCA, are run on nothing but unrequited love, like boxing gyms in ghettos. “My kids study in a private school but I am against it,” Latif says. “Education is being sold and it shouldn’t be. Inflation is high and if you look around, mostly players come from lower-middle-class families. They can’t afford to play. So I thought something should be there that is free.”It took four years before a home was found, in which time mass open trials were held and somehow a tour to England was organised. The Karachi City Cricket Association (KCCA) pointed him to this 7.5 acre ground, next to which they have their own ground. In October 2004 he got a 10-year lease from the city government. “We tried really hard to get a ground at a couple of locations. Until then we used to divide time at whichever ground. Once we got this land, then people knew we were pretty serious.”Over four years and more than Rs 50 million (his own and that of a few other investors) later there are 15 practice pitches alongside the main ground. There is that bowling machine, a comprehensive multimedia set-up, and new dressing rooms, without prostitutes. Soon there will be a gym and a biomechanics lab and then a hostel of 12-14 rooms. The plan is for cricketers to come from around Asia, stay here and use the facilities. Flavour of the season Afghanistan are due soon to do just that – in future, hopefully they can also stay here. Plans are afoot to try and revive the city’s moribund club cricket scene, using the ground as a fulcrum.

If you build it, they will come: Latif’s academy arose out of the lack of places to practise in © Rashid Latif
Four days a week, kids from four age groups (U-13 through U-19) come for coaching, plucked from open trials and recommendations. Senior cricketers come in to iron out kinks whenever time permits. What they pick up here is nothing if not unique, for Latif’s take on coaching is, well, a take. Obviously it isn’t bookish; instead it is simply drawn from what he always knew, what he has learnt, what he has seen, those he has worked with. Daryl Foster and Richard Pybus are in it, as well as Latif’s annual bash with Lashings. “That helps my coaching a lot. I get to meet the world’s best players and develop my own methods from that. I take in ideas from Australia, England, New Zealand and West Indies, and you don’t see those things or that approach here.”Not for him is coaching in the nets, and he prefers batsmen to practice without a ball. “It is the start, working on their movements, working backwards in a way, until you finally come to enacting that with a ball in nets.” He doesn’t believe he should be coaching youngsters at all, which, logically and alarmingly, defeats the point of his own academy. “I am 40 and I look at things from that angle. We should get a kid two years older ready and get him to work on the 15-year-olds. Kids teach kids quicker. If I teach U-15s something, I have to tell them 10 times and sometimes they are still not picking up. So it’s better if guys closer to their age do it.”The RLCA will not, Latif insists, produce national cricketers; that isn’t the purpose of an academy. It may be true, but you don’t expect to hear it from the head of a privately owned academy. But it will provide a way – a way not just about high elbows and good wrist positions. Asim Kamal, Khalid Latif, Khurram Manzoor, Younis Khan, Fawad Alam, Danish Kaneria, Sohail Khan: these men represent an ethos.”Nobody is big or small here, they are all the same; but if a player from here goes and does something bad, then the academy gets a bad name. Cricketers have watered grounds, built it from nothing to what it is and run it. We are about broader things, a way of sitting, standing, a way of being.”On balance, it isn’t a bad way to be.

Flintoff did for British cricket what Botham did, invigorating and replenishing. He brought fresh hope for the game’s future

Rob Steen14-Aug-2009As far as I know, the only professional sportsman to inspire a cartoon series was Yogi Berra, the New York Yankees catcher and stupendously daft ha’pworth who was inventively recast as Yogi Bear. That Andrew Flintoff owes his nickname, Freddie, to another animated icon, Fred Flintstone, a Stone Age Homer Simpson, a fellow so flawed but well meaning that you always root for him, is just one of the innumerable reasons for my affection.Yogi (the baseballer) may not have been smarter than the average bear – “Ninety per cent of this game is half mental,” was one of his more accurate proclamations – but he did have a way with profundities. “You can’t win all the time,” he once reasoned. “There are guys out there who are better than you.” To watch Flintoff is to suspect that, much as he disagrees with the latter assertion, it wouldn’t upset him terribly to be proved wrong. Among peers (if not in his 2003-06 pomp), Jacques Kallis, Shakib-al-Hasan and Daniel Vettori may be his superior as multi-string pluckers, but none gladdens so many unbiased hearts, nor opens so many blinkered ones.The danger with confessionals such as this is that they confirm how little we change. Despite having enjoyed nearly 10 decades on Planet Earth, EW Swanton, to take one depressing example, never relinquished a single pang of his boyhood passion for Frank Woolley. So protective was EW that he once strode into the dressing room at Canterbury and urged Steve Marsh, captain of his beloved Kent, to declare: Matty Walker, an amiable journeyman, was poised to break Woolley’s hallowed ground record. To his undying credit, Marsh resisted the entreaties, leaving Walker to overturn EW’s sepia-toned view of the way things should be.Trouble is, I’m partial to change. Just as one’s favourite book, musician, comedian or jam may alter with the acquisition of experience, wisdom and taste, so one’s sporting predilections evolve. Especially when writing about sport becomes your livelihood, instilling a different, or at least more rounded, perspective.I’ve worn out seven champions, each choice reflecting needs and times: Tom Graveney (cricketer as artist), Basil D’Oliveira (cricketer as political symbol), Phil Edmonds (rebel stylist), David Gower (latter-day Graveney; standard-bearer for sport as good-mannered entertainment), Phil Tufnell (Edmonds squared) and Mohammad Azharuddin (Gower cubed). After Azhar’s plummet from grace I found investing emotion in a sportsman impossible. Flirting with unseen ancients – George Headley, Frank Worrell – proved as satisfying as kissing a ghost. Then, in the summer of 2004, Flintoff came of age and I fell hook, line and sinker.As a rule journalists glean as much glee from being proved wrong as they once derived from Prohibition, but I couldn’t be more delighted that Flintoff has made me munch my words. After an infuriatingly sloppy knock for Lancashire in 2002, I suggested his prospects of fruitful maturation were being stymied by a reluctance to engage his brain. I could claim I was being intentionally provocative, trying to stir him out of his stupor, but that would be a fairly massive fib.Inevitably, all his subsequent all-round derring-doings have stirred endless comparisons with one IT Botham, another unreconstructed schoolboy and bon viveur, another stranger to fear, lost causes and self-analysis, another sportsman whose reputation rests on one prolonged streak of magical omnipotence followed by years of pain, self-delusion and sub-par-dom. After the 2005 Ashes, at 27, Flintoff, by then on song and on fire for more than two years, was still on the rise, capable of anything, maybe everything; at the same age most of Botham’s finest hours were memories.Injury, though, soon whipped the carpet from beneath that galloping run-up, leaving only fleeting flashes of the Flashman of yore, of which the most fondly remembered will surely be that 10-over match-winning spell on the final day of this year’s Lord’s Ashes Test, sealing as it did England’s first Ashes victory there since Hitler was taking the new ball for the Germans. All eyes were on him that Monday morning, every emotion riding on him: only he could banish all those ghosts and fears. How he thrived on the responsibility, the demands, the expectations. After snaring his fifth victim, his first such haul in a Test at HQ, he knelt down and closed his eyes, savouring a moment he thought might never arrive. Victory was still one wicket away but still a nation rejoiced.

When Freddie takes guard, even now, even in his cricketing dotage, everybody wants a front-row pew. He still symbolises possibility, still radiates joy

When push comes to shove, Botham’s Test figures, with bat and ball, are considerably more striking and enduring, while Flintoff levels the score in ODIs. But this is not an homage to digits and decimal points.As with Botham, the obvious allure is that muscular, breezy innocence: can it truly be easy to turn work into play? In other respects, they’re galaxies apart. Botham’s success was rooted in that anti-authoritarian, how-dare–question- snarl and Thatcherite sneer, fertilised by the indomitability of the born show-off. Flintoff is less carefree and more sophisticated than he looks, but that’s not saying much. Those massive shoulders appear chip-free, the grin so disarming you want to, well, cuddle him.In most mouths, sledging is the most dubious form of wit, but Flintoff defies objections. Shortly after Tino Best came in to bat at Lord’s in 2004 came some smirking advice from the hulking blond in the slips: “Mind the windows, Tino.” Next ball, the belligerent Bajan was stumped, charging. The ensuing roar of laughter stemmed less from schadenfreude than sheer disbelief that an opponent should have swallowed the bait so readily.In the same Test, Flintoff was clopping up the pavilion steps after a cheap dismissal when an MCC member swatted him with a rolled-up newspaper. Had it been Botham, who spent the rest of his career bridling after the same toffee-nosed gallery sent him to Coventry following a 1981 pair against Australia, the assailant would probably have suffered a volley of abuse or a crisp half-nelson. And deservedly so. Flintoff turned around briefly but rapidly concluded that identifying the culprit would be too lengthy and undignified a process.Flintoff pushed my buttons partly because he seemed to have married the privilege of youth to the duties of manhood (the “Fredalo” incident put firmly paid to that delusion), but mostly because he embodied tomorrow, possibility, hope. In the middle of this decade he did for British cricket what Botham did a quarter of a century ago, beer in hand, capacious of heart, invigorating and replenishing. It is assuredly no coincidence that Channel 4 enjoyed its largest live audiences for four years during the Edgbaston Test of 2004, an auspicious prelude to 2005 and all that. Fearful of jinxing him, Tim Rice used to crouch behind the settee whenever David Gower came in; when Freddie takes guard, even now, even in his cricketing dotage, everybody wants a front-row pew. He still symbolises possibility, still radiates joy.Forget the disappointments. Forget the excesses and the underachievements. At a time when the game, in Britain and beyond, was striving to court and spark a fresh generation, when we fortysomethings could hear only the hissing of long gone summer lawns and had begun to despair that our children would ever be remotely as turned on by flannelled tomfoolery as we were, along plodded Freddie to banish all scepticism. Yabba-dabba-do.

Dwayne Bravo says the board’s unprofessionalism, its inability to improve the quality of first-class cricket, and the lack of facilities are holding West Indies back

Interview by Nazma Muller19-Jul-2009Dwayne Bravo wants more professionalism from the West Indies board•Getty ImagesHow do you feel about what’s happening between you guys and the West Indies Cricket Board?Well, to be honest, I feel bad about it. It’s not something that I like to see happening. It is hurting me a lot. Growing up, my passion was to play for West Indies, to have a long, successful career. Ever since I started, back in 2004, there were problems with both parties – WICB and WIPA – and it just can’t seem to come to an end and now it’s getting worse. It’s starting to affect players emotionally and more so the fans.And that is the worst part of it. Whenever I walk the streets I hear people complaining. Cricket means a lot to West Indian people – it is the only unifying sport that we have in the region and I think it’s time both parties get together and actually solve the problem. I don’t know how long it can go on for. I feel really bad that we are striking and not being able to represent the West Indies but I think we’re doing something that pertains to our rights and I think we should all stand up for our rights and hope for the best.When you first started with the team, what was the reception from the board? How did you feel coming in as a new member of the team?It wasn’t really what I expected. I expected, you know, a bit more. I’m not saying they did anything wrong. But, you know, as a child growing up, your dream is to play for West Indies and that’s all you want to do.And actually, when you finally get there, you say to yourself, “This is it? This is all? It can’t be like this.” It’s sad but like I said, I meet it like that. It reach a stage where I don’t know what to say about the state of West Indies cricket.You’ve talked to players from other cricketing nations, do they have this problem with their boards?All boards and players’ associations have problems but I don’t think it’s as bad as WICB and WIPA. Other boards, to me, respect their players a bit more and have a better relationship with their players. Speaking to other players and sharing information, sometimes they laugh at us to see the situation that we’re in and how they [the WICB] treat us as professional players.You know, they [WICB] keep harping that we are well paid, the third or fourth highest paid in the world. But we’re living in a modernised world now where the salary we get compared to others is chalk and cheese. But we are happy, we are not complaining about our salaries. We just find that as professional players, things should be dealt with in a professional way and our board is not professional enough.What happened with your injury claims? Did you ever get compensation for the eight months you were recovering?

They [WICB] just do things badly. They send guys on tour two days before a series and stuff like your uniform arriving late … My club, Queen’s Park Cricket Club, is more organised than West Indies.

It’s in process now. While I was injured for the eight months, it was nothing like that. They got my surgery done for me. They paid for the flights and that was it. From the time I got back home my whole rehab programme was on my own, everything.So wait, what happened to the team physiotherapist?Well, they were on tours and I had to do my rehab here in Trinidad.And you had to pay for that?Well yeah. [My therapist] doesn’t trust the WICB anymore to bill them. I think they had incidents in the past and so no one really trusts to bill them again. I had to take it out of my pocket, which I don’t really mind because I do extended sessions.I even hire two other therapists to do extra work with me because I want to get back into the game. It’s not about the money that I’m losing. I just want to make sure I can play cricket again and play comfortably. I already wait eight months. I want to manage myself properly and go back into it at the right time.Why isn’t the West Indies team performing?It all boils down to the fact that our team has been chopping and changing – that’s one of the reasons. Our first-class cricket is nowhere near the standard that it should be compared to other teams in the world and we have to compete among the best. The facilities we have in the region are not up to standard for international players.So there are a lot of reasons why the team hasn’t been successful. Obviously a normal fan wouldn’t see that side of it – they’ll only see the performance on the field. Our preparation for the youth players come right up to the A team players is not good and therefore there’s a big gap between under-19 cricket and A team cricket to Test cricket. There’s a big, big gap and players come in to the West Indies team not really prepared for international cricket and they have to go all the way back and start over.I don’t mean to be critical or to bash anyone but we reach a stage in life now where we travel the world and seen how things are set up in different countries and you ask yourself, ‘Why? Why not back home by us?’ One of the reasons why Trinidad and Tobago have been so successful in domestic cricket is because we have the best structure in the region. And if it is they can see we are reaping the rewards, why not try and do it in all the other islands? One academy, one indoor facility in every island would not hurt. Hire coaches to come in. I mean, West Indies produce some of the best players in the world – ever. Everywhere we go in the world you hear about the three Ws, Malcolm Marshall, Viv Richards, Michael Holding.Just to draw a reference to the Stanford Super Series: He hired all the legends to come in and work with the players. Most of us there were West Indian players but it was the first time most of us had the opportunity to speak one on one with some of those legends. A lot of us gained a lot. And you see how the result was? It was a one-sided game. [The West Indians whipped the England team soundly.] So I’m not saying they can turn around West Indies cricket immediately. There’s process and I think we should make use of those legends.We have a very young team, they keep chopping and changing. The guys not getting a good, long enough run so when they come in, they try to play for themselves, to cement their spot for the next series …It affects their confidence. Obviously, and guys can’t play their natural game.How did you feel seeing West Indies lose to Bangladesh?”Cricket means a lot to West Indian people, and I think it’s time both parties [WICB and WIPA] get together and actually solve the problem”•AFPNot good at all, to be honest. I was following the game. I was actually in West Mall when I saw the last wicket and there were people standing around me and my reaction was like, it was like I was on the field when I saw Tino Best play that shot. I fling my hands – I just couldn’t believe the shot that he played at that time, knowing the situation in the game. Which I expected from him because I’ve seen him do it on different occasions.I wasn’t really surprised but I thought being out of the game so long and he gets an opportunity again now, he might have learnt something or be a smarter cricketer, but it shows that he hasn’t done much, hasn’t learnt much.But it all boils down to the fact that when he wasn’t around for the last three or four years, what system we have in place? Did they use anyone to work with him? Because he’s a talented cricketer. He’s a cricketer that if you work with him, he could be one of the best fast bowlers in the world because he can bowl at 90 miles an hour consistently. He’s a great fielder and he also has good batting ability. But that’s a player you need to work with mentally. They have done nothing to help him.And it’s not only him – there are a few names I could call off the top of my head. They come on the scene, show a lot of promise, get an injury or get dropped, no one has done anything to help them recover from their injury or get back in the game. Jermaine Lawson is another player. No one knows where he is at this point in time and that’s sad to see.Would you seriously give up your million-dollar contract with the IPL to play for West Indies? And your new contract with Victoria in Australia?It’s not about the money and people don’t really understand that. Yes, it’s a good opportunity to make another set of income and it’s nice. And it’s a lot of money. But if we weren’t playing for West Indies we wouldn’t be identified by those teams.We wouldn’t have made a name for ourselves so we understand that and know that we have to make sure that we are always available to play for West Indies.Does the WICB or WIPA train or prepare you to deal with the press and criticism?He shakes his head adamantly.Nothing? So basically you are left to cope with negative publicity on your own?Well, yeah, basically you’re left to do a lot for yourself. They keep saying you’re a professional unit but do we get treated like a professional team? I don’t think so. A lot of the players feel the same way.Okay, let’s look at some of WIPA’s grievances: payment for medical treatment on tour, pensions, now this thing about airline tickets – if you are in Trinidad, the WICB doesn’t pay for your ticket to get to where you’re playing?It depends. If let’s say I get a call-up to play for West Indies, I get to the airport, the ticket is there. There are times when you go to the airport and your ticket is not there. Then we call [Dinanath] Ramnarine [CEO of WIPA] and he will buy a ticket. Sometimes you come back from tour – every time we travel we land in Barbados to get a connecting flight. The players go to the desk, no tickets there. You call Ramnarine. That’s what I’m talking about, the unprofessionalism.It sounds like they just need a good PA (personal assistant).They just do things badly. They send guys on tour two days before a series and stuff like your uniform arriving late. No one can actually believe how – the West Indies is the biggest, you can’t go bigger than that in the region. But my club, Queen’s Park Cricket Club, is more organised than West Indies.

A Bangalore fan doesn’t mind the long queues or the fact that her team lost. It was the end of exams and there was cricket to watch

Shweta Mouli26-Mar-2010The game
When I found out that tickets to this killer game were still available with a week left, my plans to celebrate the end of my exams were fixed.Key performer
Kedar Jadhav. We hadn’t heard of him before and so didn’t expect he would take the match away from Bangalore. But he raced to a fifty and kept a healthy run-rate going even in the middle overs. AB de Villiers was stunning in the field and his half-century was also a treat to watch. Every time we blinked, Delhi’s score was 10 runs higher.One thing I’d have changed
The time spent waiting outside the stadium. We headed there after an exam, so we were an hour early. Or so we thought. The line wound round the road and when we finally entered the stadium it was 20 minutes into the match. I was disappointed to have missed watching David Warner bat.Face-off I relished
I had hoped to see Jacques Kallis send the ball flying our way when Amit Mishra came on to bowl. Unfortunately Mishra bowled a few tight deliveries and then dismissed Kallis.Accessories
The Royal Challengers red flag, which I waved after anything that looked like it was going towards the boundary. With me were six cricket-crazy friends and we screamed at every given opportunity.Wow moment
De Villiers leaping up to catch Praveen Kumar right below our stand. We were just about cheering, anticipating a six, when we realised Praveen was walking off.Player watch
When Bangalore fielded, Manish Pandey was often near our boundary. We screamed repeatedly to catch his attention.Crowd meter
The crowd was a mix of Bangalore and Delhi supporters, who cheered every shot, wicket and appearance of the cheerleaders on the screen. They even attempted to get several Mexican waves going (we joined in). There was a funny bunch of people seated behind us, though. They showed their support for every IPL team but the two on the field. They shouted “Go Chargers!” and “”.Banner of the day
“Today’s menu: Sizzling Uthappa”TV or stadium?
Each has its charm. In the stadium we were torn between watching replays on the big screen and watching the action on the ground. But you can’t beat the atmosphere when you’re among thousands of fans cheering every moment. Not to mention the music on the PA, or the thudding heartbeat sound that was played every time a run-out decision was referred.Marks out of 10
8. The home team lost but the crowd got its money’s worth. There were some amazing run-outs, brilliant shots and fantastic entertainment overall. Those were three hours of my life I wouldn’t mind living over again.

The Mitchells have kept the Brisbane pitch in the family for over 30 years

Peter English21-Nov-2010The Gabba pitch has been the Mitchell family business for more than three decades, and the latest offspring is causing excitement and fear ahead of Thursday’s opening Ashes Test. Brisbane’s stereotype is a swing-bowling paradise but the generalisation doesn’t often apply for more than the first couple of sessions in five-day affairs. This time it might be different, threatening old-fashioned thrills for the bowlers and unfamiliar spills for batsmen who have grown up on undeviating wickets.Seam, swing, bounce and speed are the perfect storm for bowlers and the attributes have rumbled during an unusually wet Brisbane spring. Only 31 overs were possible in one four-day game in October and the past two fixtures have been no fun for the batsmen. The Sri Lankans were knocked over for 115 in an ODI that came a week after the local Queenslanders, who say they are used to surfaces “with branches growing on them”, were dismissed for 75 and 96 in the Sheffield Shield.Showers have been predicted in the lead-up to Thursday’s Test and the curator, Kevin Mitchell jnr, is likely to bring forward the intensive phase of his preparation in case there are too many disruptions. The lack of sunshine being forecast will create a ripple of nerves for the groundstaff and run-makers.”If that’s the case over the final days and it’s humid and cloudy for the match, it could be a little bit more lively than usual,” Mitchell jnr told ESPNcricinfo. “Our wickets are definitely quick and pacy, which is what we are trying to do. If the conditions overhead are in favour of the bowlers, you can get a double whammy: swing in the air and cut off the pitch, and bounce and pace as well.”Under Mitchell jnr’s watch, which began when he took over from his father, Kevin snr, in 1991, the Gabba has overtaken the WACA as the quickest pitch in the country. The surface gives character to a ground built on a swamp in the late 1800s, and one that has grown into a modern stadium. For a Test the pitch is usually green on the opening morning, providing the bowlers with a chance, before it loses its colour and supports the batsmen. Towards the end it suits the spinners, who enjoy the extra bounce even if the ball isn’t turning.When the wicket is topped up by Queensland’s summer rain and thunderstorms the usual order becomes mixed up. Two years ago, when Australia were hosting New Zealand, the covers were blown off during a mini-cyclone the night before the game and one set of sails in the grandstand were ripped. Mitchell jnr went into the ground at 1.20am and saw the heavy sandbags had been blown away and water was on the square, but couldn’t believe his luck – there were only two puddles on the side of the Test pitch.”It was not a problem,” he said. “You could have started on time, but we started 30 minutes late.” Australia were bowled out for 214 on the opening day, but it was enough to stay well ahead of New Zealand. New South Wales won outright on their visit north last month by scoring 262 in the first innings. When it’s hot and dry, 400 is not enough in a Brisbane first innings, but when it’s damp or humid a total of 200 can make a side feel rich.

Under Mitchell jnr’s watch, which began when he took over from his father, Kevin snr, in 1991, the Gabba has overtaken the WACA as the quickest pitch in the country

Mitchell snr’s last game in charge was water-damaged, but not weather-affected. It was the Ashes Test of 1990-91, a three-day affair because someone had put a hose under the covers before the match. “Half was green, half was brown,” Mitchell snr said. “It was a shock. Half of it was a wet wicket. It was someone being smart.”Australia won by 10 wickets in a match in which the highest score was England’s 192 on the opening day. The tourists haven’t always been disadvantaged by the Queensland weather. An ear-splitting, stand-wobbling electrical storm made their life easier on the final day in 1998-99. England were 6 for 179, with all their specialist batsmen gone, when the sky almost literally opened up after tea.Mitchell snr, now 75, grew up near the Gabba, collecting bottles at the ground for pocket money as a child, and watching Don Bradman play there in the 1940s. He returned by accident in the 1970s, filling in to help a friend while taking a break from his carpentry business. Soon the main job became vacant and he said he’d do it for the season. “Then I’m off,” he said. “I’d spent 15 years in the army, and being out there on the ground was like being in jail.”His son visited from Mt Isa in 1987, planning a short stay – and still hasn’t left. The pair’s most famous partnership came during a one-dayer between Australia and New Zealand in 1987-88. Mitchell jnr spotted dark storm clouds to the west of the ground and crossed the road to pull his dad from the pub, where he was feasting on mudcrabs. Within a couple of minutes Mitchell snr was racing on to the field – the sun was still out and the sky was blue – to tell the shocked umpires and players that “it’s going to rain like buggery”. He ripped out the stumps, stuck the covers on, and the heavens quickly opened. The unconventional intervention saved the game, which Australia won.If something unorthodox is needed over the next week Mitchell jnr will be well prepared. Having learned off his father, and developed his own techniques, he and his beautiful pitch will be ready. Rain, hail or shine.

The key numbers from a stunning debut game for Pallekele, which became the 178th venue to host an O

S Rajesh08-Mar-2011With his unbeaten 131, Ross Taylor became only the fourth batsman to score a century on his birthday, and his innings was second only to Sachin Tendulkar’s 134 among those four hundreds. That, though, is unlikely to be the stat that would have most pleased him and New Zealand’s think-tank. Far more important was the manner in which Taylor finally shrugged off a poor run and played the sort of innings which will, hopefully, inspire New Zealand onto greater things through the rest of the tournament.In the two-year period beginning March 2009, Taylor had averaged 28.86 before his innings today. His highest in 39 innings had been 95, and his last ODI century had come 48 innings ago.That lack of form was evident in the way Taylor started his innings – that he went beyond seven deliveries was only because of the extreme generosity (incompetence?) from Kamran Akmal. Even after that, Taylor continued to struggle, scoring only 27 off his first 50 deliveries. Off his next 58, his strike rate improved, but he still managed only one four, which meant after 108 balls, Taylor was on 69. In his last 16 deliveries, though, Taylor was completely unrecognisable from the batsman who had struggled so much early in innings. In those 16 balls, he struck seven sixes and four fours, as New Zealand scored an astonishing 114 runs in their last six overs.

How Taylor paced his innings

RunsStrike rate4s/ 6sDot ballsFirst 50 balls2754.003/ 033Next 58 balls4272.411/ 023Last 16 balls62387.504/ 72The entire innings131105.658/ 758Over the course of his frenetic innings, Taylor and New Zealand knocked up several records. Here are some of the key ones: Taylor’s unbeaten 131 is the highest by a New Zealand batsman in an ODI against Pakistan. It equals Brendon McCullum’s effort in Abu Dhabi in 2009. Taylor struck seven sixes in his innings, which is the joint third-highest in ODIs for New Zealand, and their best in World Cups. His blitz, and Jacob Oram’s late contribution, meant New Zealand’s innings had 13 sixes, which is their best in a World Cup game. Taylor’s 85-run partnership with Oram consumed all of 22 deliveries, which makes it the fastest 50-plus partnership in ODIs since 1998. It betters an effort by one of their own: against the USA in 2004, Nathan Astle and Craig McMillan put together 136 in 7.4 overs, a run rate of 17.73 runs per over, which pales when compared with today’s effort of 23.18 runs per over. During the course of that stunning assault, two overs were particularly brutal: in the 49th, Abdul Razzaq deluged 30, including three sixes, two fours, and a couple of wides; a couple of overs earlier, Taylor had taken 28 off Shoaib Akhtar. Those two overs have become the most expensive of this World Cup, going past the earlier record of 25, by Bernard Loots against South Africa, and Sreesanth’s 24 in th tournament opener against Bangladesh.The 114 runs added in the last six overs is the second-highest in ODIs since 2000, but the best against a top side. New Zealand had scored 122 against USA in the match mentioned above.The break-up of his runs against each bowler also shows how uneven his innings was. Against the magnificent Umar Gul, Taylor did little damage, while Mohammad Hafeez kept his quiet too. Razzaq and Shoaib, though, went at more than two runs per ball.

Taylor against each bowler

BowlerRunsBallsStrike rate4s/ 6sUmar Gul92634.610/ 0Mohammad Hafeez122352.170/ 0Abdur Rehman81266.670/ 0Shahid Afridi303293.751/ 1Shoaib Akhtar3616225.004/ 3Abdul Razzaq3615240.003/ 3The result also means New Zealand have at last ended their losing streak in World Cup games against Pakistan – they’d lost six in a row before today’s game. The margin of defeat is Pakistan’s second-worst in a World Cup game, and it was only the late resistance by Razzaq that prevented this from becoming their worst loss.The four teams that will progress from group A are pretty much decided, but with this result the battle for top spot in the group suddenly becomes much more interesting.