When it comes to England in India, it’s all too clear who the poor relation is now

Suresh Menon28-Feb-2006

From the India hater of old, Geoff Boycott has turned into an India-lover on television © Getty Images
The last time England won a Test series in India, under David Gower in 1984-85, the past was still ruling the present. Superpowers England and Australia had the right of veto in the ICC, which was administered by the MCC, a venerable private club whose members hadn’t yet recovered from an attack of modernity in 1965 when the ICC ceased to be the Imperial Cricket Conference.Today, a combination of world-class players, business-savvy officials, a cricket-hungry market and a huge fan base has made India the game’s sole superpower. The media explosion has contributed too. Seven of the 11 who played in the final Test against Gower’s England have turned television commentators, some adding lustre to the profession, others letting the fusion between cricket and language end in confusion.India generates over 60% of the money in the game. That they are attempting to do with money power what England did with colonial arrogance may be a case of bullying by other means, but both England and the ICC have succumbed to the blandishments of the rupee and cannot complain now. You can view at it either as payback, or as the progression of a sport that leaped from the dark ages of colonialism to the modern age of globalisation without a necessary period of enlightenment in between.Gower’s tour is a good starting point. India had won the previous World Cup, and a group of marketing managers had emerged to convert the popular appeal of the game into big money. Colour television had arrived in India only a couple of years earlier, and Indian cricket was at the take-off stage.England lost the first Test after a traumatic introduction to India. Within hours of their arrival, the Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, was assassinated and the capital was in flames. The England team then accepted an invitation from Sri Lanka to practise there. When they returned, they had dinner with the British Deputy High Commissioner, who was shot dead a day later, on the eve of the first Test. As Gower said, “It’s all pretty grim isn’t it?”Laxman Sivaramakrishnan, the legspinner, claimed 12 wickets in the Bombay Test and the visitors were quickly one-down. They then came back to win two Tests and take the series. Madras prepared a “turner” but it was the medium-pacer Neil Foster who took 11 wickets there to settle the issue. Mike Gatting and Graeme Fowler became the first pair of English batsmen to make double-centuries in the same Test. By then the Sivaramakrishnan bogey had been laid to rest by batsmen willing to play the sweep. The new spin twins Pat Pocock and Phil Edmonds had harried India to defeat in the second Test at Delhi. Pocock was 38 at the time, and Edmonds had a reputation for being “difficult”; he was in the team only because Gower said he could handle him.By the time England next came to India, in 1993, their hold on the game, supported by the mindset of their former colonies, was beginning to slip. First there was the 3-0 clean sweep that Mohammad Azharuddin’s men dealt them thanks to the spinners, particularly Anil Kumble, who claimed 21 wickets. This after a spying mission by Keith Fletcher, and his immortal conclusion that Kumble was no bowler, and that England “had nothing to fear”.India won in Calcutta thanks to some judicious help from the fog, in Madras because the prawns at a Chinese restaurant turned the English stomachs more than Kumble turned the ball, and in Bombay because skipper Graham Gooch didn’t shave. England’s chairman of selectors Ted Dexter then kindly volunteered to set up a commission to study the pollution in Calcutta. He didn’t delve into the eating habits of his players, particularly Mike Gatting who, as on the previous tour, swept all before him. In the end Gooch’s face was left bloody but unmowed. In those days it was still possible to make India feel apologetic about thrashing England.Mike Atherton saw it differently in his book, Opening Up. “For the dusty turners of India we prepared on the hard rock surfaces of Lilleshall. We knew we would be facing a phalanx of spinners, so we left out our best player of spin, David Gower. In Kolkata the pitch looked dry and cracked, so we played four seamers. We knew that the food could be dodgy so we ate prawns in Chennai and got food poisoning,” he wrote. Not surprisingly, Atherton was made England captain soon after.Some weeks after the end of the tour, there was a divorce; the ICC became an independent body, with its own chief executive and its headquarters at Lord’s. Significantly, the veto rights were abolished. Eight decades after the founding of the governing body, there was some measure of equality. The two men chiefly responsible for this, IS Bindra and Jagmohan Dalmiya, have since had a falling out.The manner in which India “stole the World Cup” from under England’s nose in 1987 because the Indian board president four years earlier, NKP Salve, was denied extra passes for Lord’s, is part of folklore. The anointment of Dalmiya as the president of the ICC in 1997 did not go down well with the old order in England. Made to feel like an outsider, Dalmiya decided to hit back every opportunity he got. He scheduled matches in Agartala and Jamshedpur on the current tour. The message was clear – India ruled, and England had better realise that. Some months before the tour, however, Dalmiya was voted out of office, and the new dispensation, which had no personal vendetta, agreed to change the venues.There is no telling just how often Dalmiya would have taken world cricket to the brink with his desire to appear a patriotic Indian who wouldn’t kowtow to the former colonial masters. The media lapped up the posturing, and it was fun, if a bit childish, while it lasted. In the new millennium, though, Dalmiya was already an anachronism, as Lalit Modi, the present vice-president of the board has shown.In the decade during which England did not come to India for a Test series, India’s accent shifted from post-colonial angst to global chic. Personal vendetta is passé. It is not the colour of skin that matters, but the colour of money, and India has been telling the leading cricketing nations something along the lines of, “Behave yourselves, listen to us, and there is enough money for all. Rock the boat, and you go down.”It is to this new India that Michael Vaughan leads the 11th English Test squad (if you don’t count the one-off Jubilee Test which England won). England have won only three of those series – the first in 1933-34, and the second under Tony Greig in 1976-77 when Derek Underwood took 29 wickets and made rather better use of the Indian turners than the famous quartet of Bedi, Prasanna, Chandrasekhar and Venkataraghavan. Greig was all praise for the Indian spinners and named the first three as the best of their type in the world. But except in Bangalore, where everything clicked for India, including a brand new fielder at short leg, Yajurvindra Singh, who clung on to a world-record seven catches, England had the upper hand, having won the first three Tests.When India recently threw the ICC’s Future Tours Programme out of the window, most Englishmen asked why Australia are generally given preferential treatment with regard to venues and dates. There is a simple answer: Australia have usually come to India with their best team, led by their reigning captain.Englishmen pulling out of tours on flimsy grounds have always irritated Indians. Geoff Boycott didn’t tour India until the world-record aggregate was within his grasp. In 1981-82 he played three Tests, went past Garry Sobers’s record of 8032 runs, played one more Test in Kolkata (during which he disappeared to play golf in the middle of the match), and was gently asked to go back home. He wasn’t particularly fussed since that was what he had in mind once the record was his anyway. From such an India-hater Boycott has metamorphosed into the India-lover of television. He loves Indian players, Indian actresses, and even Indian food. Such is the pull of television money. The delicate walls of Boycott’s stomach are now lined with Indian rupees.Douglas Jardine’s only tour following the Bodyline series was to India, the country of his birth, in 1933-34; in 1951-52 England were led by a debutant, Nigel Howard. Howard only ever played four Tests, all as captain on that tour. Freddie Brown, captain in England’s previous series against South Africa wasn’t in the team. Nor were Len Hutton, Denis Compton, Godfrey Evans, Alec Bedser, Jim Laker or Peter May. In the next series, in 1961-62, there was no Colin Cowdrey, Brian Statham or Fred Trueman in Dexter’s side. Mike Smith’s 1963-64 squad did not have Cowdrey originally. A decade later another debutant, Tony Lewis, captained England. When Fletcher came to India as captain, he had been in retirement for four years. Such condescension was not guaranteed to endear English cricket to the average Indian fan who was treated to the Benauds and Borders from Australia leading teams while at the top of their games.Vaughan’s team is not the first that will begin the series as underdogs. India have won five series to England’s three, 12 Tests to England’s 10. From here on, the two teams will play each other home and away in four-year cycles. If India get their math right they could host the 2011 World Cup too.England are not just cricketing underdogs vis a vis India (14-1, in the eyes of some London bookmakers), but in other senses too, with a softer voice in international cricket than their rivals. This is a new situation for both, even if India have been heading for superpowerdom for some time now.The new officials will try to divorce India’s performance on the field from their influence off it – the reverse of the West Indies situation in the 1980s, when they were the best team in the world but had no voice in the ICC. India’s current position may have been built on the successes of their teams, but they have known failure too and their administrators, so full of beans and ideas today, will not want to go around with a begging bowl tomorrow. It is not just the Future Tours Programme that comes in cycles. After the first flush of triumph and triumphalism, the Bindras and the Modis will have to look beyond the market, and that is where the relationships they carve out today will be important. If Gower arrived when the past was ruling, Vaughan arrives when the future is set to rule the present.

How Mahela jayawardene and Russel Arnold combined in the partnership which turned the game around

On the ball with S Rajesh and Arun Gopalakrishnan09-Aug-2005The crucial wicket of Sanath Jayasuriya, against the run of play, might have convinced the Indians that they had the match under control. Not so, it turned out, as Mahela Jayawardene and Russel Arnold combined magnificently in a 125-run stand that snatched back the initiative and put India firmly on the defensive. The reason the partnership was so effective was because both batsmen looked to score off every ball, ran hard, and didn’t rely on the boundaries to get their runs. Out of the 125 runs, only for 32 of them did the batsmen not have to run, which means almost 75% of the stand was built in singles, twos and threes. And of the 117 balls they played, only 40 didn’t add to the run tally.The two batsmen also paced their partnership superbly – the first 31 runs took 39 balls, but from there on, they scored at faster than a run a ball, with the last 33 taking only 24. Jayawardene’s first 18 runs took all of 39 balls, but by the time he was done, his strike-rate looked perfectly respectable – 83 off 97 balls.

The Indians seemed to have a similar partnership going when Rahul Dravid and Yuvraj Singh were going strong, but unlike in the Sri Lankan case, the Indian pair never dominated the bowling – their 84 runs took as many as 118 balls, and while it meant the team had a sound foundation, that didn’t translate into a final surge which would have given the Indians victory.

The regular Monday column in which Steven Lynch answers your questionsabout (almost) any aspect of cricket

Steven Lynch05-Mar-2007

Anderson Cummins: West Indian in 1992, Canadian in 2007 © Getty Images
I had an interesting question the other day: apparently five playersfrom the 1992 World Cup are also playing in the 2007 one, who are they? Igot Lara, Tendulkar, Inzamam and Jayasuriya, but can’t find the fifth, whois it? asked Mark Wilson
The fifth one is not obvious: it’s Anderson Cummins, who playedfor the West Indies in 1992 and is now turning out for Canada. Cummins,who is now 40, made his official one-day debut for Canada in January 2007,more than 11 years after playing the last of his 63 one-day internationalsfor West Indies, which included most of the games at the 1991-92 World Cupin Australia and New Zealand.Will Anderson Cummins be the first man to play for two sides in theWorld Cup if he plays for Canada this year? asked Prasad Yavalkarfrom India
Assuming that AndersonCummins plays a match for Canada in the forthcoming tournament, hewill become only the second player to represent two different teams in theWorld Cup: Kepler Wesselsplayed for Australia in 1983, and for South Africa in 1991-92. GraemeHick, who played for England in 1991-92, 1995-96 and 1999, was in theZimbabwe squad for the 1983 World Cup, when he was only 17, but was rathersurprisingly not chosen in any of the matches, when Zimbabwe’s captain wasDuncan Fletcher.How many pairs of brothers have played for India in Tests? asked Bhiman from India
Seven pairs of brothers have won Test caps for India, starting in theirvery first Test, against England atLord’s in 1932, when the side included Wazir and Nazir Ali. In India’snext Test, in Bombay in 1933-34,Amar Singh played alongside his brother L. Ramji, and in the next Test, at Calcutta, CS Nayudu playedalongside his brother CK. Since then the brothers have been spaced outrather more: in the late 1950s/early 1960s there was Arvind and MadhavApte, Subhash and Baloo Gupte, and Kripal and Milkha Singh, while in the1970s Mohinder and Surinder Amarnath played together several times. TheAmarnaths have a good claim to being India’s foremost cricketing family,as their father Lala captained India, and scored their first Test century(in that Bombay match mentioned above). For a full list of related Testplayers from all countries, click here.Who called his autobiography Flying Stumps? asked DarrenWilcox from Canterbury
My first thought was that it was the former Lancashire and England fastbowler Brian Statham, but whenI had a look on the bookshelves it turned out that his 1961 book wasactually called Flying Bails. He’d been beaten by seven years tothe title Flying Stumps: that was written by the Australian fastbowler Ray Lindwall. Both bookswere published in the UK by Stanley Paul.I remember David Smith of Sussex scoring a century but not getting theMan-of-the-Match award in a NatWest final a few years ago. Has anyone elsemade a century in a Lord’s final but ended up missing out on the matchaward? asked George Parker from Brighton

Ray Lindwall’s Flying Stumps ©
David Smith made 124 for Sussex in the NatWest final in 1993, but ended up on thelosing side: Warwickshire won, and Asif Din, who also scored a century,picked up the Man-of-the-Match award. Sussex had made 321 in their 60overs, the sort of score that usually guaranteed victory back then – timeshave changed a little since, as Australia found out last week! The onlyother man to make a century in a domestic final at Lord’s but not carryoff the match award was Nick Knight, whose 118 failed to take Warwickshireto victory in the C&G Trophy final in2005: Sean Ervine won the award for his 104 for the winners,Hampshire.How does the Duckworth/Lewis system for rain-affected one-day matcheswork? asked Shabbir Khan from Karachi
To explain it properly would take rather more space than we have here -the official explanation runs to more than 3000 words. The simplifiedversion is that the method calculates the resources left (the number ofovers left and the number of wickets standing) to the side batting second,and adjusts the target accordingly. The full regulations for the systemcan be found on theofficial ICC website.And there’s an update to last week’s question about one-dayinternationals played in whites, from Vivek Srinivasan andothers
“The last one-day series played in whites was not the Texaco Trophy seriesin 1998, which was the last one played in whites in England. It was theIndia-Zimbabwe series in India in December 2000.”

India’s tour-opening draw against Sussex was marked by the familiar inability to finish off the tail and win the match

Siddhartha Vaidyanathan in London11-Jul-2007

It’s often said that successful cricket teams need a bulldog spirit but
India’s problem has always been the doberman strategy: They’ve been unable to snip off the opposition’s tail. In
Antigua last year West Indies’ No.10 and Jack hung on gamely to draw
the first Test; a few weeks earlier at Nagpur, England’s lower order
frustrated them; in March 2005, Pakistan held on for a fighting draw at Mohali and India were a few
wickets away from clinching the Sydney Test in 2004, a win which
would have soured Steve Waugh’s grand farewell party.And it’s now happened at Hove, where Sussex’s tail thwarted them in
the twilight and hung on grimly for a draw. Admittedly this wasn’t their
first-choice bowling line-up – Zaheer Khan’s presence might have produced
a win – and they were up against the county champions, a side who would no
doubt have faced similar challenges in the past. Also, India’s bowling
line-up was expected to be the weaker suit, what with half their attack
totalling 14 Tests between them, and this was after all the first four-day
game of the tour.The failure to finish off games has dogged them for years, however, and it’s
high time something was done about it. Wasim Akram once said the
best way to bowl to tailenders is either scare them with short balls or
scare them with yorkers. Anil Kumble’s fast, spearing yorkers used to do
the trick in the ’90s, at home at least, but that delivery seems to have
gone into extinction since his shoulder operation in 2001.Sreesanth doesn’t possess a lethal yorker or a menacing bouncer – though
he can be good with the in-between length – and RP
Singh’s strength is conventional swing, and not reverse. Ranadeb Bose and
Ishant Sharma don’t come with any devastating weapons and Ramesh Powar, if
at all he gets a game, is someone who relies more on prising out wickets
with flight and drift.That leaves Zaheer, who can summon the deadly yorker, and helped
Worcestershire clinch several matches last season. He’s the most
experienced of the faster men and it’s on him that the burden of actually
sealing a match will fall.He’s expected to play against England A at Chelmsford, as is Sharma
instead of Bose, and it will provide a hint of what to expect in the first
Test at Lord’s. Zaheer needs to get the early wickets, no doubt about it,
but it’s his ability to nail the tail that will be more vital.India’s batting seemed in fine health on the first two days until cracks
started appearing on the fourth. Wasim Jaffer failed in both the innings and, though that can happen to any batsman, the worrying part was the manner of his dismissals. He was late in getting forward both times – as he has done in the past – and perished as a result. Gautam Gambhir grabbed the opportunity with a solid half-century in the first innings and, coupled with Jaffer’s failure, raised the question of whether he would be sent out to open with Dinesh Karthik at Lord’s.The other question involved the No 7 position, for which the competition appears to be between Yuvraj Singh and Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Dhoni failed twice and Yuvraj didn’t convert the starts he got. But if Dhoni fails in the next tour game as well and even if Yuvraj scores, will India saddle Karthik with both opening and keeping? The next tour game should settle the opening and the No 7 spots.Yet India will take comfort from the fact that they’ve already managed more
practice than West Indies, the tourists in the first half of the summer.
The men from the Caribbean went into the first Test at Lord’s with just
48.4 overs of batting practice and rain even ruined their out-door
training sessions.India are expected to play their first choice XI in the three-day game at
Chelmsford – Sharma is expected to play and it could eventually be a toss
up between him and Bose for Lord’s – and it’s their last chance to get all
the bearings in place.

Ishant Sharma has come on in leaps and bounds and added to his growing stock with another top-class, four-wicket display to take India in to the finals

Nagraj Gollapudi in Hobart26-Feb-2008
Another stirring display from Ishant Sharma took India into the CB Series finals © Getty Images
It’s the time of year when red carpets roll out. If Hollywood glittered at the Oscars on Monday, Brett Lee won the Allan Border medal in Melbourne last night.If there was a gong for best visiting player, Ishant Sharma could just have been the top nomination. It has been that kind of summer for the tall Indian fast bowler. On a flat pitch at the picturesque Bellerive Oval yesterday, he came up with another top performance to add another star to his lapel. Praveen Kumar deserved his podium position after he sent back the nucleus of the Sri Lankan top order, but Ishant ran him close.His moment came in the second half of the Sri Lankan innings. With the last recognised pair of Tillakaratne Dilshan and Chamara Kapugedera battling hard, Dhoni wasn’t about to take the foot off anyone’s throats and went to his go-to man, just as he had all series.Immediately, Ishant brought one in and had Dilshan trapped plumb. Earlier, one that held its line had accounted for Dilruwan Perera’s off stump. Chaminda Vaas tried slogging after failing to get the previous seven Ishant deliveries away, and the mistimed pull landed in Gautam Gambhir’s hands at midwicket.Later, when the eighth-wicket pair of Kapugedera and Lasith Malinga were proving to be a thorn in India’s flesh, Ishant again provided relief, removing the latter in the first over of his third spell. His three spells read: 5-0-27-1, 3-0-6-2 and 2-0-3-1.In just over a month Ishant has transformed himself from first-change to strike bowler. He has done the basics right, as his captain pointed out. “He is bowling in the areas that he needs to,” Dhoni said. “He is not a normal Indian fast bowler in that he’s more of a bowler who hits the deck and gets bounce. And he’s young, fresh”.Ishant’s biggest advantage is his height, but there are and have been many tall fast bowlers who fail to make full use of their long limbs. What Ishant seems to have got right is the ability to hit that elusive length, ball after ball, and supplementing it with extra bounce. Add to that lively pace and you have a fast bowler who allows batsmen little breathing space. He is just 19, but has consistently been displaying the qualities that made Curtly Ambrose and Glenn McGrath, fellow gangly bowlers, so much more intimidating.Players around the world are always keen on touring Australia because of the learning experience on offer. Ishant is no different and has soaked up his lessons well.In Melbourne two weeks ago, when India clashed with Australia for the second time, Ishant had a bit of a horror start: his first ball was a no-ball and his second over went for 18 runs, with Matthew Hayden hitting him for three fours. But he managed to put it behind him. He kept at it, pitching it right, digging it in just short of a length and keeping the speed gun busy. Most important, he made the batsman play – and eventually had the measure of Hayden, Ricky Ponting and Andrew Symonds, all caught behind.Australia never recovered from those strikes and India went on to win. After the game Ricky Ponting had praise for his young opponent: “He’s a dangerous bowler and someone we’re really going to have to pay a lot of attention to as the series goes on”.The temptation is strong for Dhoni is to overuse his trump card, but he is understandably wary of doing so. Already, Ishant has been bowling non-stop more or less from the second Test in Sydney at the start of the year. “Ishant needs rest. We need to preserve him so that he can serve India cricket for a long time,” Dhoni said, but added that in the absence of his other two strike bowlers – Zaheer Khan and RP Singh – he had little choice.Luckily for India they have a four-day break before they arrive at the SCG for the first of the three finals. Ishant will be eager to take it easy these few days, and just as desperate to resume what has become normal service straight after.

A stats analysis of Marvan Atapattu’s international career

Cricinfo staff20-Nov-2007With a tally of 5502 Test runs and 8529 ODI runs, Marvan Atapattu is among the top run-getters for Sri Lanka in both forms of the game – only four batsmen have scored more in Tests, while he ranks third in the ODI list.Among the most elegant and technically accomplished Sri Lankan batsmen to play Tests, Atapattu was especially difficult to dislodge when he got his eye in – he is one of only six batsmen to score six or more double-centuries in Tests, and the only opening batsman to do so.Among those six batsmen, though, Atapattu is the only one to average less than 40; all the others, in fact, average more than 50. The problem for him was getting starts – 63 times he scored ten or less, and a further 43 of his innings were between 11 and 30.

Atapattu’s classical technique and superb temperament meant he was ideally suited to bat at the top of the order – his average of 43.22 as opener is better than his career average of 39.02. He was also at his best when batting in the first innings – 15 of his 16 centuries were scored in the first innings, and his average was nearly 49. In the second innings, though, he was far less successful, scoring just 1458 runs at an average of 25. And when he was handed the Test captaincy, Atapattu managed the difficult task of ensuring it didn’t affect his captaincy, averaging more than 41 during his stint as leader.His style of play was always deemed perfect for Test cricket, but he adapted quite superbly to ODIs as well. In a line-up full of extravagant strokeplayers, Atapattu’s solidity was ideal. Not many rated him as Sri Lanka’s most potent matchwinner, but when he scored runs, Sri Lanka usually won – eight of his 11 centuries, and 43 of his 59 fifties, resulted in wins for his team. He averaged 51.83 in wins, which is next only to Arjuna Ranatunga among Sri Lankan batsmen who scored more than 2000 ODI runs.

What Sri Lankan cricket will miss most, though, is the combination he formed with Sanath Jayasuriya in both forms of the game. The two fell just five short of 10,000 partnership runs in international cricket, but in terms of aggregate they fit into the top five in both forms of the game.

Ian Bell was earmarked for greatness as a boy but supporters are still waiting for a game-changing innings. Was the flattery deceptive?

John Stern20-Feb-2008It was March 1999, a dreary day at the equally dreary Westpac Trust Park in Hamilton. It was not a setting for inspiration or enlightenment. England Under-19s’ six-week tour of New Zealand had come to a bizarre end, a bout of food poisoning depriving both sides of key players for the final one-day match.
Andy Flower: ‘He can do anything with a bat in his hand and I think he’s only just starting to realise that’ © Getty Images
It seemed like a good opportunity for a debriefing from Dayle Hadlee, New Zealand’s academy director, the older brother of Sir Richard, and the coach of their Under-19 side. What had he thought of Ian Bell, England’s baby-faced batsman, who hit a century and a ninety in the three-match “Test” series? “He’s the best 16-year-old I’ve ever seen,” said Hadlee.It is a label that has stuck with Bell and has often hung heavy round his neck. Only now, nine years on from that tour, are we witnessing his flowering. The freckly, timid boy is maturing gradually into a still freckly, still occasionally timid man. And yet he is still not there. In Sri Lanka before Christmas he batted beautifully, matched among team-mates only by Michael Vaughan for pure class. As Kevin Pietersen’s star dimmed towards the end of 2007, so Bell began to look like England’s best batsman. He passed 50 three times in six innings but his top score was 83, made in the first innings of the series.His failure to convert fifties into hundreds has been symptomatic of England’s recent problems. It is not that he was not playing well; indeed the opposite. He has shown what he is capable of. He is on the cusp. He knows it and so does everyone else. Can he deliver on the promise? In other words, how good is Bell?Bell does not look very different from how he did in 1999. He has grown physically, of course, but he is not an imposing figure. He has the sort of compact, athletic stature that is ideal for a batsman. His complexion is fair, his highlighted hair under a baseball cap which remains sculpted to his head throughout our interview. He talks more confidently now but on replaying the tape it is apparent how often he fails to finish a sentence. It is not because he is inarticulate – far from it. He is bright and chooses his words carefully, possibly too carefully. It is as if he is still wary of saying the wrong thing, wary of delivering the punchline. With his batting, it is the punchline we are waiting for, the tour de force that puts him in the highest echelon.When it is put to him that Hadlee’s comment all those years ago was quite a claim, he responds with an ironic “Ye-ah”, half-laughing in bewilderment. Did it help or hinder his development? “It gave me some good exposure but it probably set me back a bit in terms of expectation. I could sense that people were targeting me in county cricket.”The best sportsmen are often ones who do not – or cannot – think about their craft too much. Bell would not come into that category. His self-consciousness is endearing, a very human, very normal quality. His willingness to talk about his shortcomings as well as successes make him a willing interviewee, even if his caution makes him a less spectacular interlocutor than, say, Pietersen.Bell must be the only Englishman who could describe the 2005 Ashes as a low point. He admits to doubting himself throughout the series, and the Australians thought they could smell fear. “I was probably playing those guys [Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath] rather than the ball.” There was much talk about his demeanour, about his bad body language. “It’s something I wasn’t great at earlier in my career,” he says. “Top players send a message to opponents in everything they do, whether it be walking out to bat or taking guard.
“I had to learn to walk out with a bit of …” One senses he wants to say swagger but is worried that might sound arrogant. He continues “… not ridiculously but something that sends a message.”
“And that to me is as important as the way I bat.” He has been mentored by Alec Stewart and Steve Bull, the England team psychologist. “I had to learn to walk out with a bit of …” One senses he wants to say swagger but is worried that might sound arrogant. He continues “… not ridiculously but something that sends a message.”The return series in 2006-07 was a disaster for England but, paradoxically, a success for Bell, who made four fifties. He was still sledged mercilessly by Warne & Co, who labelled him “The Shermanator” after a ginger-haired geek in the teen movie .England carried Bell in 2005; 18 months on he was unable to carry them. His performances did not affect the outcome of either series. That has to change and he knows it. “I should have scored a hundred [in Sri Lanka],” he says. “I’m desperate to score a lot of runs for England. I look at guys like [Kumar] Sangakkara and [Mahela] Jayawardene and I want to do what they do – make an impact, change the face of a game.”Bell has been working closely with Andy Flower, England’s batting coach – more closely, he says, than he did with Duncan Fletcher. “He has six Test hundreds and 17 Test fifties,” says Flower. “That conversion rate isn’t good enough. If he wants to be one of the best in the world, if he wants England to be one of the best in the world, then he’s got to be tougher on himself and demand better results.”Flower, the former Zimbabwean wicketkeeper-batsman, retired with a Test average of 51. Here he was impressive: articulate, thoughtful, engaging and forthright, as those comments indicate. It was almost as if he were talking to Bell.So can Bell do it? Can he be one of the best in the world? “He can definitely do it and I’ve got no doubt he will do it, to be honest,” continues Flower. “He can do anything with a bat in his hand, and I think he’s only just starting to realise that. He’s got to realise his responsibility as one of the best batsmen in the England side and behave accordingly.”Nick Knight played with Bell for Warwickshire and has observed his development closely. He is equally sure that deliverance will come. “We saw that progression in county cricket and there’s no question he will do the same in international cricket,” Knight says. “He’s so aware that he needs to be making big scores, but you can’t preoccupy yourself with those thoughts. You just need to get on and play.”
Lbw to Shane Warne for 0 at The Oval in 2005. Bell made 171 runs in ten innings in that series © Getty Images
Knight empathises with Bell’s occasional insecurity. “He’s pretty comfortable with himself now. He has had a perfectly natural fear of failure. You just have to convince yourself that you can do it.” Knight also raises the issue of Bell’s lack of centuries when batting at No. 3 in Tests – though he has made nine fifties – and prefers him at No. 6. That may well be where Bell ends up in New Zealand now that Andrew Strauss is back.Nasser Hussain reckons that Bell needs to be truer to himself at the crease. “He plays like Ian Bell until he gets to 50 and then he starts trying to play like Kevin Pietersen or Ricky Ponting. The tempo of his innings is always going in one direction. He should bat the same way between 50 and 100 and then 100 and 150 and so on.” By contrast, Bell says he became withdrawn in the second Test at Colombo (when he scored 15 in 80 minutes) because “10% of my mind is thinking, we need to get 500 here; so I played within myself.”It is apparent from talking to Bell that he is utterly devoted to cricket and to self-improvement. For some players talking about the game can seem a chore. Hearing Bell talk about preparing to play Murali – how he went about trying to work him out, his sessions with Flower – was to hear a truly dedicated professional but also a passionate cricket nut who has been on Warwickshire’s radar since he was ten and refers to the late Bob Woolmer, a former county coach of his, as “a Bear through and through”.Bell and Flower both mention the Australian Michael Clarke – a near contemporary of Bell’s – by way of comparison when talking about playing spinners. Clarke did not make a seamless progression into the international game, but it seems that the limelight and its pressures are a bit more to his taste.For Bell that self-belief does not come so naturally. It has to be acquired by achievement. Two mediocre seasons of county championship cricket in 2002 and 2003, when he averaged 24 and 29 with a single hundred, led to a winter playing for the University of Western Australia on the advice of John Inverarity, the West Australian who was Warwickshire coach at the time. “I had been trying too hard and that winter freed me up mentally and got me enjoying batting again,” says Bell.He made his Test debut at the end of the following summer, one in which he scored 1714 first-class runs at 68. He has looked back since but only fleetingly. The forward progress has not been unfettered but it has been consistent. He has all the equipment to make the next step. Everyone knows it – but does Bell?

On this tour Gambhir has been India’s most consistent batsman and key to that has been tackling Murali and Ajantha Mendis

Jamie Alter in Galle02-Aug-2008

Back in January, after captaining Delhi to their first Ranji Trophy title win in 16 years, Gautam Gambhir told Cricinfo of how he inspired his team. “One thing I wanted to do with Delhi was that it should hurt when they start losing. We have seen all kinds of lows in the previous seasons; we faced relegation a couple of seasons back and we wanted to prove a point this season.”It was also a time of hurt for Gambhir, overlooked for India’s Test squad to Australia, despite a good run in ODIs and finishing the second-highest run-getter in the ICC World Twenty20. But like with Delhi, the low preceded the high. Gambhir scored runs at the domestic level, forced his way back into the ODI side, top scoring in India’s CB Series triumph, and finished with 534 runs in the Indian Premier League. Seven months on from the time he last played a Test, Gambhir has shown that he deserves an extended run at this level.Following his 96 against South Africa in 2004, out of an opening stand of 218 with Virender Sehwag, today’s innings was Gambhir’s most significant, considering India’s abject defeat at the SSC and the quality of Sri Lanka’s spin bowlers. It helped India off to a solid start and negated a testing phase after Sehwag’s dismissal for a 52-ball 50, and gave India an opportunity to push for a series-leveling win.Earlier in the match Gambhir dropped two hard chances and missed a run-out opportunity, but came back from those fielding mishaps creditably. Mahela Jayawardene began with a predominantly on-side field, urging the batsmen to play into the off side.Gambhir walked down the track, as his is wont in limited-overs cricket, to his first delivery and every alternate one in the first over from Chaminda Vaas. He didn’t get any runs that over, and was beaten by extra bounce off the last ball, but his intent was evident. There on, either deftly nudging the ball into the yawning leg-side spaces or bisecting gully and point with soft-handed steers, Gambhir offered a gung-ho Sehwag perfect support again.”Test cricket is all about playing in partnerships,” said Gambhir. Ironic in this case, because Sehwag and he form an opening pair that critics would have labelled as limited-overs wonders. But they have been outstanding in this Test. They might be the only pair that opens in all three forms of cricket, and their compatibility has aided India splendidly.They took to their task meaningfully in the second innings as well, incidentally only the second time an Indian opening combination has scored four fifties in two innings of the same Test. As this week’s Numbers Game on Cricinfo highlighted, India’s script read much the same on their last tour to Sri Lanka, in 2001. Then their openers, SS Das and S Ramesh, consistently got the team off to fine starts, only for the rest of the line-up to squander it away. In India’s last match in Galle, Das and Ramesh added 79 for the first wicket, but the team was bundled out for 187. Here in Galle, Gambhir’s role in both innings was pivotal.He took his time, not hitting his first boundary – a lovely square drive off Vaas – until his 29th delivery, by which time Sehwag had 30. Then came two contrasting yet effective shots against Murali – a gorgeous cover drive out of the coaching manual and a meaty swipe across the line. The latter was a harsh hit, more one-day than Test, but sped past midwicket like an on-drive. That summed up Gambhir’s confidence.Gambhir has been in and out of India’s dressing room plenty of times to now know what is required to seal a permanent spot. On this tour, his first Test opportunity since the home series against Pakistan in December, he has been India’s most consistent batsman and key to that has been tackling Murali and Ajantha Mendis. “So far in this match we’ve really played them well and set the game for our bowlers to turn this around,” said Gambhir. “Murali and Mendis have a lot of variation and it’s very difficult, but you have to take whatever they throw against you. That’s the best way to go. You cannot be predetermined to go at them because they have so much variety that you need to react after they deliver the ball.”What is most refreshing about Gambhir is his positive footwork against spin. He credited his success against Murali and Mendis to the amount of spin played in domestic cricket, “on similar tracks that offer spin, turn and bounce”. He negated Murali by using his feet, and at times, very selectively, playing against the turn. Gambhir not only watched the ball “out of Mendis’s fingers, because most of his variations come from there”, but read it off the track, like Sehwag, eliminating any second-guessing. When he defended, he made sure to stretch well forward. His started attacking only after he had judged the length.

Gambhir is a maverick when it comes to stealing singles and rotating the strike, especially with his Delhi team-mate Sehwag. But another, more mature side of Gambhir was revealed soon after Sehwag’s dismissal, as he nursed India through a potentially tricky passage. Gambhir emphatically said he didn’t need to shield an out-of-sorts Rahul Dravid from the strike when he came in at 90 for 1, but what transpired on the field was contrary to his statement. Dravid has looked a walking wicket all series, but a well-set Gambhir shielded him like a pro. It indeed seemed a conscious decision from him, though he denied it. Dravid, who rarely indulges in animated discussions with his batting partners, talked to Gambhir several times during his innings.Gambhir took last-ball singles off Murali’s over three times in a row, and there was a phase where he faced 18 deliveries from Mendis. Whatever Gambhir may say, it breathed a degree of confidence into Dravid, who scored 44, highlighted by some punchy shots against spin. It was just the way Gambhir had played until he was bowled by Mendis. Inching forward to an off-break, he decided to pad it away but the ball cut back in sharply and clipped the off bail.”The ball was drifting a bit, and the one that got me drifted much more,” said Gambhir, “and I’m disappointed at not having made a hundred. It was one of those dismissals, but I hope to handle Mendis well till the end of the series.”India had a point to prove when they landed in Galle, and Gambhir has typified that exemplarily. Despite another middle-order collapse India finished the day 237 runs ahead with six wickets in hand. If they can get a 100 more they will be in the driver’s seat. And they can look back and thank Gambhir for his resilience in setting a platform, and in trying to show the way.

Ishant Sharma has soaked up all the lessons that have come his way to become one of the top fast bowlers in the game

Nagraj Gollapudi29-Oct-2008

Ranjit Nagar is a quintessential Delhi neighbourhood, with leafy lanes and narrow alleyways. Buildings stand within kissing distance of each other, tangled up in snarls of cable TV wire. It is a mainly middle-class locality.It’s a day after the bomb blasts in the city in early September. Despite the clamour and distress of the previous evening, life continues as usual on the streets as I look for Ishant Sharma’s house.The house, when I find it, is a three-storey structure with cream-coloured walls. Ishant and his immediate family live here, with four of his uncles and their families. Outside it, a few men are playing cards, sitting on a wooden cot.Earlier in the day Ishant had asked me to come over, after counting out the number of hours he wanted to sleep. Now he walks in wearing a t-shirt and shorts, greets me with a smile and a yawn, and slumps onto the sofa. “Sleep is the only thing I love too much. I sleep 10-12 hours,” he declares.He has just recovered from an injury during the Sri Lanka tour and is to play in the Nissar Trophy the next day. I had caught him singing a Punjabi tune as he walked into the dressing room after a nets session in the morning, and I prod him to sing a few lines now. He laughs and obliges, singing the first few lines of “Seeti Marke” by his current favourite Punjabi singer, Miss Pooja. (Stop calling me out by whistling at me / stop hassling me every day). His smile grows wide.***On current form Ishant is a frontrunner for the title of the best fast bowler in the world. He staked his claim when he had Ricky Ponting hopping at the WACA earlier this year. There have been others, but that bowling spell remains the one that has come to define Ishant. In the Test before Perth, at the SCG, he went wicketless, but showed he could toil, frail-looking physique or not.”The Perth pitch was good and the ball was moving nicely,” he says. “For me it has always been that if I bowl a length ball it goes in, and if I pitch it up it is a straight ball. The ball that got Ponting out was at the fifth or sixth stump [Ponting edged to Rahul Dravid at first slip].”The previous balls were all length balls but the one that got him was pitched up,” Ishant explains. “Up” for him means a fraction short of length. He bowled only two such deliveries to Ponting in that nine-over spell, and got him with the second. “I grasped that he was not confident and was struggling against the inswinging ball. I worked him out myself.”A month before Perth, Sunil Gavaskar had noted in a newspaper column that playing Ishant so early, against Pakistan in Bangalore, was an error. A couple of days later Ishant had picked up his maiden five-wicket haul, in only his second Test. The previous evening Venkatesh Prasad, India’s bowling coach, had showed Ishant a few clips of his bowling. “We worked on a couple of things which had to do with his gather,” Prasad remembers. “Next day it was completely different. He is a very keen and willing student of the game.”

Ishant’s rise may seem sudden and dramatic, but it hasn’t been for the man himself. “It didn’t surprise me that I’m at this level, because my progress was steady. But I never thought I would play for India so early.”As a teenager just out of Class 10, he went to the Rohtak Road Gymkhana at the Ramjas Sports Complex to ask Shravan Kumar, the coach there, for help getting into junior college at the Ganga International School. Kumar coaches at the school, and has been sports supervisor at Delhi Trasco Ltd (formerly DESU) for three decades.Kumar noticed the “Railway Under-17″ on Ishant’s shirt and asked if he played cricket. Ishant’s height impressed Kumar and when Ishant said he was a bowler, Kumar threw him an old ball.”No one would have said then that he would become a good bowler,” Kumar, who has worked with the likes of Manoj Prabhakar, says. But he saw that the youngster had a very good action, despite the run-up, which was completely awry. Ishant got into the school and Kumar’s role in his early career proved significant.His first job was to work on Ishant’s run-up, to make him aware of how to run, and then catch a rhythm. “He has always been a quick learner,” Kumar says. “That and his ability to do things when told have been his strong points.”Kumar is not a qualified coach and his methods are more practical than scientific. To fire up his students he uses Dilli-speak, playfully sledging them. “” he would yell at Ishant when he slipped up.For 18-odd months Ishant would wake at five in the morning to take the bus to the school, in Bahadurgarh, Haryana. The first four days of the week he would train at the school ground after classes, returning at 8pm. After a day off on Friday he would play for Rohtak Road on the weekend.Eventually his first real cricket game came along: a competitive Under-17 school game, at the Najafgarh sports complex. “I took only two wickets but I started to improve as I played regularly,” Ishant says. As the opportunities came his way he became steadily more confident about his cricket; he had had ambitions of becoming a chartered accountant till then.The rise was quick. He shone against Haryana in an Under-17 game in 2004, taking eight in the first innings to force a follow-on, and then another five. He played for Delhi Under-19s the next year, and later that season in the Ranji one-dayers. The next season he made it to the Delhi senior squad.***When Ishant delivered the back-of-the-hand slower deliveries that got him two quick wickets, including Ponting’s, in Bangalore recently, eyebrows were raised among those who know him well.Pace has been something of an obsession with Ishant. During the CB Series he was desperate to break Ashish Nehra’s mark (149.7kph, set during the 2003 World Cup) to become India’s fastest bowler. He finally did in a league game against Australia, in Melbourne, when he hit 152.6, just a day after he spoke to a good friend back home about setting the record.The slower balls in Bangalore were a little surprising given all that. Ian Chappell spoke of how they were evidence of a fast-maturing mind.”He is somebody who understands situations very well,” Prasad says. “I have not seen many bowlers with his kind of maturity.” All through the Australia tour Prasad watched as Ishant bowled “with the same zeal as he would in his first spell”.It’s not just in his bowling that Ishant is evolving. He has been growing as a sportsman too. In the Sydney Test, after going wicketless for more than 30 overs under a sweltering sun, he got Andrew Symonds. But the Australian stood his ground after Steve Bucknor refused to raise his finger for a deafening edge. Ishant took it in his stride and moved on, and when Symonds got to his century ran up to congratulate him. “Because of the respect. He played very well after that [the edge],” Ishant says.Not that that means he is a throwback to the age of placid Indian fast bowlers. Ishant is not one to start a sledging match, but he isn’t one to shy away from retaliating. “If someone is saying something, you can’t just put your head down and walk back.” He doesn’t mind harmless banter either. In the Sydney Test, as Sachin Tendulkar marshalled the tail in the first innings, Ishant was the last man in. Brett Lee bowled one full and Ishant went for the drive and missed. “Lee said, ‘You can’t hit like that, cowboy.’ I didn’t know then what cowboy was, so I asked paaji” Tendulkar asked him to focus on his batting. And so he did: in the 31-run partnership between the two, Ishant managed 23 runs, more than in all his previous first-class matches put together.***The evening before I met Ishant, Kumar had invited some schoolkids to meet the bowler at the Ramjas ground. Ishant showed up, though an hour late, posed obligingly for photos and signed autographs. Given a choice he’d rather be left alone, but he’s quickly coming to grips with the demands of fame.

“I’m like a role model for youngsters. I accept that responsibility now,” he says with an equanimity that belies his age. He has learned to draw the line when necessary, though. When a prominent national newspaper asked him to be a guest editor for a day, he turned the offer down. “Sometimes it gets irritating,” he says.About a month after the Perth Test, Ishant became the highest-paid bowler in the IPL, despite being the least experienced, when Shah Rukh Khan’s Kolkata Knight Riders bought him for $970,000. Ishant says he was shocked at the figure at first, but goes on to add that it isn’t about the money. “It is about satisfaction; someone is paying you because you have worked hard to earn it.”While he may have adjusted well to his rise, his family is still trying to come to terms with some of the changes that have come with it. “His life has changed. Ours remains the same,” Vijay Sharma, Ishant’s father, says. “When he stays out late, we are worried.””My mom is a little worried about my nightlife,” Ishant says. “She wants me to be back by 10pm, but I keep telling her that’s not possible now. So we have arguments. Even my sister is angry at me.”He isn’t exactly the partying type, though: Ishant likes the company of his close friends, with whom he likes to drive around in his Honda Civic (he recently got a sports model from the same company). Earlier, before people began to approach him in public, they would hang out in places like Khan Market, digging into Khan Chacha’s succulent kebabs.There haven’t been many changes at home. There is still only one TV in the house. Everyone has their dinner, Ishant says with a laugh, “anywhere”. The living room, which is also Ishant’s bedroom, has a sofa and a couple of cushioned chairs upholstered in maroon. At one end are a couple of showcases holding Ishant’s trophies in no particular order. One wall is covered with newspaper and magazine pictures of his various glorious moments. Do they talk cricket in the house? “Never,” Ishant replies instantly.Ishant wears a number of religious threads around his neck and hands, but says he is not overly religious. “I bow if I pass a temple. When I’m on tour I carry posters of Hanuman and Lord Ganesh. I get a sense of peace when I pray.”He comes across as a simple young athlete, with a mind of his own and a free will, who is trying to be his own man.***We have been talking for about two hours. Through the kitchen window across from the entrance to the living room I see the light fade. Outside I hear the wails of playing kids. There’s a thin smog in the air. Ishant stands up to stretch himself. As I get ready to leave, I ask him about his favourite cricketing souvenir. At first he is unable to think of anything but then remembers the ball signed by Anil Kumble after his debut Test against Bangladesh. He plucks it out of the cabinet, wipes it and holds it up so I can see the writing: “Well done. Many more.”

Had England gone to stumps with just the four wickets down, Mahendra Singh Dhoni would most likely have been excoriated for his negativity

S Aga21-Dec-2008
Andrew Flintoff is gone … and Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s methods work wonders yet again © Getty Images
After 50 overs of their innings, England had made 221 for 4, 95 runs more than what India had managed at the same stage. It told you something about how well Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff had batted, with switch-hits for six, clean strikes down the ground and unmistakable intent against pace and spin alike.In the previous series against Australia, there had been a similar passage of play in Nagpur, though neither Simon Katich nor Michael Hussey had been quite as imperious as the English duo. Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s response then was an 8-1 field and wide bowling that stemmed the run-rate, allowed frustration to set in and eventually fetched wickets. It wasn’t good to watch, but with cricket’s rules so often so hazy when it comes to separating the defensive tactic from the illegal one, it had the desired effect. Australia fell away and India went on to clinch a 172-run victory. According to Dhoni, the scoreboard was all the vindication he needed.After that 50th over, Dhoni switched back to Nagpur mode to deny England even more momentum in the final session. Neither Zaheer Khan nor Ishant Sharma got dramatic reverse-swing and it’s doubtful whether it would have been a factor anyway with so many deliveries from Zaheer short and slanting well away from the right-handers. At the other end, Amit Mishra went round the wicket and aimed at the rough, hoping that the odd one would kick off a length and induce the mistake.The runs did dry up. Flintoff steadfastly refused to take the off-stump bait, and though Pietersen kept the Barmy Army entertained with the odd switch-hit against Mishra, India were able to slow things right down. In the 21 overs that followed, only 59 runs were made, a tempo you’d equate with Rahul Dravid and not two of the most attacking batsmen in the game.Had England gone to stumps with just the four wickets down, Dhoni would most likely have been excoriated for his negativity. His luck though remains his strongest suit. With the first ball of the day’s penultimate over, the hitherto lacklustre Harbhajan Singh came round the wicket and trapped Pietersen in front with one that straightened. For England, it was a sickening blow. As weighty as the 144 runs had been Pietersen’s sheer presence, and it left the onus firmly on Flintoff to steer the good ship to safety.Then, in the final over, with Daryl Harper’s light meter out and the umpires deciding that it was fine enough to continue, Mishra dealt a game-changing blow. Back in October, it was Michael Clarke that he got with the googly off the final ball of the day. On Sunday, it was Flintoff, inside-edging the wrong ‘un on to his pad and to Gautam Gambhir at short leg. In the space of 12 balls, 280 for 4 had become 282 for 6, and the whip was once again firmly in Dhoni’s grasp.I’m afraid we are out of the Test. It’s difficult to win the game. If we could have batted a session into tomorrow, we could have forced ourselves into the game. Now, we’ll be happy to get a draw out of itKevin PietersenPietersen was understandably downcast at the end of it all, despite a 15th century in just 45 Tests. “It’s frustrating to lose wickets at the end of the day, to lose myself and Freddie was very very frustrating,” he said. “My decision could have gone my way and with Freddie … well, it’s amazing how the light changes in a couple of minutes.”Pietersen seemed to be of the view that the two late wickets had killed off any chance of a series-levelling win. “I’m afraid we are out of the Test,” he said. “It’s difficult to win the game. If we could have batted a session into tomorrow, we could have forced ourselves into the game. Now,we’ll be happy to get a draw out of it.”Gary Kirsten, India’s coach, was also of the opinion that India were now in control, though he stressed that there would be no gung-ho tactics with the Chennai win enough to give them the series. “Being one up, we can play into a situation where we make sure that we are in a strong position,” he said. “We would like to play winning cricket.”The two late wickets were significant for us. Both of them were playing unbelievably well and it was one of Pietersen’s greatest Test centuries.”But with Dhoni’s luck continuing to hold, it might turn out to be no more than a consolation.