Reverse Swing

It was quite something to watch the ruthlessly professional West Indies squeeze Pakistan out of the game at Sabina Park. Tight bowling, spattering the spot, nothing down the legside, and definitely no extras, as they were backed up some athletic fielding, culminating in Bravo’s astonishing left-handed catch off his own bowling to dismiss Gul.

The last sight of the West Indies was in their warm-up game against India when they were giving catching practice. And then there was Tony Cosier’s commentary: does anyone shout more loudly for their own team than Tony Cosier?

Today I shall be cheering on Scotland against the Aussies. Strange how these things work out. If this was a football match then I would be cheering on Australia rather than Scotland.

I know the game didn’t matter in the context of the competition but it was good to see England finally get round to winning a game in this ICC tournament. The Windies may have already qualified but they seemed serious about winning this one, and from their perky fielding to the performances of Bravo and Gayle they looked like a team in form and long on confidence.

I thought England would never do it- after a good start Strauss losing concentration and then Flintoff holing out when he looked to be in and full of runs, and then the needless run-out of Bell followed by the dismissal of Collingwood next ball… you thought they would contrive to lose it. In the end it was Pietersen’ lofted off-drive for 6 off Bravo that took them level, and you knew that even England couldn’t lose it from there.

The victory may not signify that much but it was pretty interesting for a one-day game, and Pietersen’s innings was good to watch – he hung around for a while, keeping his wicket intact, guiding the team to victory by three wickets.

With his ego and his love of the big stage I suspect that Pietersen will revel in the Ashes series, playing in front of Australian crowds.

Good to see the Windies beat Australia today, with young quickie Taylor doing the business. This ICC trophy and one-day cricket stands a chance of catching on with games like this. Not sure how good the result is from an England perspective. Their best chance of winning on Saturday against the Aussies was catching their opponents in an over -confident mood, and rolling them over, but the Australians will now be ready to bounce back.

The match against Australia on Saturday has a significance for England because it’s seen as an Ashes preliminary, a chance to grab the upper hand or not to concede before the test match contest begins. One-day cricket for England supporters is rapidly reaching the stage where its only significance is in the larger context of a test series, particularly the Ashes. This isn’t a good thing, and the only way it will change is when England put together a decent run of form in a one-day series or win the World Cup. The prospect of the latter is now more remote than it’s ever been.

Last night after watching the Somerset batting collapse in the pro-40 against Kent on Sky I took a look at the Stanford 20:20 – Barbados v Anguilla.

The first game in an English dusk looked like a subdued pyjama romp in the post-harvest hayfield with the Taunton church spires in the background. The West Indian game looked sc-fi stuff: shiny black bats, silver stumps, ( wood has been dispensed with) black pads with a yellow central stripe, the jerkin Star-Trek style sleeveless tops the players were wearing, the whole thing set off by the night-time backdrop. The lime green graphics on the screen and the clashing green of the umpires polo shirts added another layer on top. Anguilla played a couple of 15 year olds, and one of them Chesney Hughes played some great attacking shots.

What the two games had in common was the crowds, packed houses at both events, once again proving there is a tremendous appetite for a shortened version of the game that fits around work patterns in contrast to the longer format, designed to fit around the dining needs of the Victorian gentry.

In the West Indies v India test series there was hardly anyone there at some of the matches and there’s been quite a lot written on the declining interest in the game in the Caribbean. But what the West Indian 20:20 showed was the enthusiam for this innovation with Stanford moving through the crowd signing autographs, with the two knights, Richards and Sobers, distributing hugs and signatures in his wake.

When Lara became captain of the West Indies for the third time you hoped that it would be a success. A strong and successful West Indies team is good for the game at international level.

The early signs under Lara’s latest reign were good – a magnificent performance in the ODI international series against India when they took the series 4-1 after losing the first match, completely taking the momentum away from the tourists.
But now they’ve lost the 4th test to India the fall-out has started with Lara unhappy about the omission of Dave Mohammed, and the unusual claim that :

“I found out that I was a selector from May 28th only a day before the Test match [at Kingston],”

So in other words he’s saying for the first three tests he had no idea he was on the selection committee. It makes you wonder what went on. Did he not ask when he was appointed captain whether he would be a selector? You would have thought this would have been one of the first things that was discussed. Did they not invite him to the selection meetings? Did the selection panel ever actually meet? If so did no one ask why Lara wasn’t there?

This selection spat is nothing new as earlier in the series he was told to curb his comments when he said he had asked for an out and out fast bowler and had not been given one.

He went on to throw doubt on whether he would remain as captain:

I feel let down. I must tell you there is a meeting coming up in a couple of weeks, depending on the selectors, I would definitely revisit my decision to captain the West Indies team.

All of this tends to turn the focus away from the India great win – their first in the West indies since 1971 – and the performance of Rahul David as both captain and player.

Collins gets Sehwag

Originally uploaded by caribbeancricket.

It’s in the air. Caribbeabcricket catches the moment when Sehwag finally goes.

On 99 at lunch Sehwag would have become the first Indian to hit a century on the first-day morning of a Test. He had to be content with a score of 180.

5TT2

Originally uploaded by Yamfoot.

Yamfoot’s shot of Munaf Patel warming up.

In the first test against the West Indies I thought India were quite brave to go into the test with three fairly raw quick bowlers – none of them has played test cricket for more than for a couple of months and it was VRV Singh’s debut. The fact that the only other full-time bowler was Kumble, emphasises how much confidence the Indian selectors had in them, or maybe the shortage of other options with Irfan Pathan out of sorts.

I was very impressed with both Munaf Patel and Sreesanth in the test series against England – both of them had pace, with Munaf displaying some mean reverse swing. With quick bowlers it does take them a couple of years to mature on the test circuit – if you think of Flintoff, Harmison , Hoggard, Simon Jones it took them time to become good bowlers. I’m pretty sure that both Munaf and Sreesanth have the potential to be key strike bowlers for India for years to come – the only concern is that too much is expected of them too soon. There will be days when they will go for a few – such as in the first innings in Antigua, but they will also be capable of bringing India back into the game: such as Sreesanth’s pre-lunch spell on the final day. In time they could be great bowlers but over-exposure and an excess of expectation could get to them, and stop them achieving their potential.

It would be easier in some ways if the two of them were working in tandem with a couple of more experienced pace bowlers rather than spearheading the attack. But this option wasn’t available and in Antigua it was down to Munaf and Sreesanth with the debutant VRV Singh. I think they did pretty well.

Unfortunately Sreesanth’s heel injury keeps him out of the second test and Irfan Pathan comes in for him. Pathan wasn’t so impressive against England – although he swings the ball he’s only around 70mph. Apparently he missed the first test through injury and it was suggested, a lack of confidence. The second test gives him the opportunity to get back in the groove, and I’m sure a re-run of the videos of his first over hat trick against Pakistan will help him get in the right frame of mind.

Rahul Dravid provides some insight in how he handled his young pace attack in yesterday’s test. As I said in yesterday’s post, you only get the director’s story when watching a game on TV. It’s good to see Dravid coming out in support of his bowlers – it was certainly Sreesanth taking the wickets of Sarwan and Lara prior to lunch that give India a chance in the game.

Dravid was impressed with the way his youngsters in the team handled the pressure, saying that he didn’t have to do much to calm the nerves. “They showed composure, all of them wanted to have a bowl even under pressure. My job was to just tell them to stick to basics. One of the reasons for standing at mid-off was that we had young quicks, but I prefer to not keep talking too many times and make them confused. They know what to do because they have bowled at this level, I just gave reinforcements.”

He also tried to put some of the hype about his fast bowling attack into perspective.

“They’re young seamers and they need to get their lengths right. Sometimes when we, in India, see young bowlers we label them fast and quick, but we must remember our strengths. We are not going to bowl 150-plus, dig it in short and bounce people; we are good at what we do, we must get away from hype that gets portrayed around these bowlers.”

He ’s certainly right about the speeds yesterday – Sressanth was 80-83 mph, Patel 77- 82 mph, Singh 72-78 mph -  respectable rather than outstandingly quick by current standards but neither the pitch nor the temperature was ideal for the pacier stuff.

the bowlers showed a lot of heart

The last 30 overs of the West indies – India first test was compulsive viewing, even for the neutral supporter. What made the difference in the end was that Darren Ganga was on the field as Fidel Edwards’ runner. From this position he was was able to deliver on-field support, coaching the batsmen on what to do next. Usually, in these situations there is a fair amount of panic between the two batsmen, and the fielding side side can rely on mix-ups ending in a run out as the batsmen try and manipulate the strike. But on this occasion, you could see that Ganga was able to give them a third impartial view on what they should do as well as pumping them up.

In contrast Rahul Dravid didn’t seem to be giving his young bowlers that much vocal support – Patel, Sreesanth and Singh could all have done with someone walking back to their mark with them, an arm round the shoulder and the verbal assurance that the skipper rates them. In the end it was left to Dhoni to rather belatedly walk down and talk to Sreesanth at his bowling mark.

This wasn’t just at the end – earlier in the day, particularly in the wicketless afternoon session you felt that the bowlers were left isolated a little too much. This is how it appeared on television – and I know that the camera work can often distort things but you sensed Rahul spent too much time behind his shades when he needed to interact more with his bowlers.
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India’s 4-1 defeat at the hands of the West Indies means they drop from 3rd to 5th in the ODI rankings.

The West Indies remain in 8th place despite winning this series and the one against Zimbabwe. They’re now only 5 points behind England when previously the gap was thirteen points.

Difficult to read the form with the approach of the World Cup, but from what I saw it looks like India under-performed, and the Windies were at the top of their game.