Can Australia’s captain rebuild an empire ravaged by age and retirement?

John Stern10-Apr-2009Three days before the start of the Test series in South Africa the cream of Australian cricket are in the bar of their Johannesburg hotel; a dozen or so young men in jeans and designer t-shirts, most of them as unrecognisable as the France Under-19 rugby team also touring South Africa in late February. A few yards away at a quiet table their captain, one of the game’s greatest batsmen and an instantly recognisable face, is talking like the boss of an ailing business: re-evaluation, renewal and opportunity.
“We’re going through what any other international team, whatever the sport, goes through,” he says in a matter-of-fact manner that does not begin to do justice to the magnitude of the upheavals in Australian cricket over the past two years. Welcome to earth, Ricky.”Matty … Gilly … McGrath … Warne … Langer.” Ricky Ponting rattles off the names. He might as well have been saying “John, Paul, George and Ringo”, such is the stellar familiarity of these all-time greats. Australia’s line-up for the Sydney Ashes Test in January 2007 was: Justin Langer, Matthew Hayden, Ponting, Michael Hussey, Michael Clarke, Andrew Symonds, Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne, Brett Lee, Stuart Clark, Glenn McGrath. Test caps: 787. Results since October 2005: P17, W16, D1, L0.Their side that faced South Africa in Johannesburg in February read: Phillip Hughes, Simon Katich, Ponting, Hussey, Clarke, Marcus North, Brad Haddin, Andrew McDonald, Mitchell Johnson, Peter Siddle, Ben Hilfenhaus. Test caps: 287. Results since start of 2008 up to the start of that Test: P15, W6, D4, L5.On top of the retirements Ponting had to make do in South Africa without Lee and Clark (both injured) and Symonds (suspended by Cricket Australia). Ponting puts a brave face on this landslide of talent, but he must have had to change the way he captains the side. “You absolutely do. Different scenarios come up in a game where once upon a time you’d turn to a guy to get a job done. Now that experience, and in some cases expertise, isn’t there.” He is being very diplomatic, but one senses that Anglo-Saxon words of one syllable might have cropped up in his innermost thoughts – or, in the case of the overheard expletive during the recent one-dayer against New Zealand, his outermost thoughts.Ponting became a father last year, but he is involved in parenting of a different kind with this Australian team. He must have used the expression “young guys” a dozen times during the course of the interview. It is a bit like Nasser Hussain when Andrew Strauss came on to the scene. He used to bang on about “young lads like Strauss”, who happened to be 27 at the time.Not many of Ponting’s “young guys” are actually that young, and at 36, the Victorian legspinner Bryce McGain is older than the captain, who is 34. But in terms of international experience many are novices and it is that immense challenge that Ponting faces.Allan Border faced it in the 1980s, but he had not enjoyed the all-conquering highs of Ponting and his peers. Border came in when Australia were almost at rock bottom. The only way was up. Ponting thought his side was through the worst of it six months ago, but “we’ve had another couple of retirements and key blokes on the sidelines which puts us right back in that transition phase”.

The admission by Ponting that Australia were in transition and not simply suffering a blip (as Ashes 2005 was widely referred to) seemed a big public statement. “I was just stating the facts,” he says with a ‘what was I supposed to say’ smile.The state of the team has necessitated a total rethink in strategy and tactics. “We have to find ways and means of getting over those hurdles,” Ponting says. “I’m still learning a fair bit about some of these guys and what they can and can’t cope with. There are things that have happened to me in the last three months that haven’t happened to me in my whole international career. You have to sit back, evaluate and re-evaluate where you are and where the team’s at and make yourself a better person and a better player.”He explains that the team now is micro-managed in a way that would have been unthinkable three years ago. “I made it clear halfway through last [Australian] summer to the senior players and coaches that we have to be spot on with everything we do and that we can’t afford to have any confusion. This means that pretty much every week I am sitting down with the coaches to plan everything that is done and said. It’s time-consuming but it has to be done, otherwise you get all sorts of confused messages.”In the March issue of TWC, Mickey Arthur, the South Africa coach, revealed a similar approach but implied it was standard 21st-century practice. The implication, refuted by Ponting of course, was that this attention to detail was not standard practice in what might be termed the Warne-McGrath era. In reality there would have been more devolved responsibility because there could be: great players who knew how to prepare and how to perform.Ponting’s instincts are that players should learn for themselves, and he portrays his own cricket education as a triumph of self-teaching. “I’ve always been good at picking up things other people do. That’s how I learnt about the game. I’ve never had my own batting coach.” One senses that there has been a major cultural shift, a reality check that has been a monumental eye-opener for the captain.An official with the South African squad had noticed a change in Ponting’s demeanour since their series in Australia in December and January: that he had previously been aloof but had now “lightened up”. That observation tallies with the sense that Ponting is gradually coming to terms with the current state of affairs. As in other areas of society the boom years are over. Recession has kicked in.But mention of England and their bizarre month or so of mishaps brings a smile. “Yeah, there’s been a bit happening,” he laughs. “Everywhere they go something seems to go wrong.” But he resists absolutely the temptation for big statements on the Ashes. The old bravado and the McGrath-style 5-0 predictions have gone, relics of a bygone age.”We’ll see what happens,” Ponting says. Is he still optimistic about the Ashes? “Absolutely. The feeling around the whole of Australia has just been doom and gloom but we did some things really well [against South Africa at home]. The gap between our best cricket and worst was too vast. We’re not that far off.” He says he was encouraged, too, by the performances in India late last year: “We had chances to win a couple of Tests.” But these are slim pickings. They lost two major series 2-0 and 2-1, the one victory coming in a dead rubber.It is like listening to an England captain of the 1990s scrambling in the rubble in search of a jewel. The difference is that Australia’s fall, rapid and remarkable though it has been, left them still battling to retain their No.1 status when they began their series against South Africa in late February. All things are relative.A sea change from the last Ashes squad•Getty ImagesA Mike Gatting persona
Ponting arrives for the interview unsmiling and tense, though he relaxes quickly as we get chatting. In one of his annually published diaries he has written that he considers
himself shy and envies Adam Gilchrist’s ability to speak freely in all company. He is small but solid, compact and combative. His upper body looks strong, from thick wrists through swarthy arms to biceps emerging discreetly from his grey collared t-shirt as he leans cross-armed on the small table. His round face, taut and grim at first, creases quickly and often into a cheeky, twinkle-eyed grin. One can picture him easily as a sport-obsessed boy scrapping for recognition in Mowbray, the working-class suburb of Launceston, Tasmania’s second city. He has a steely, driven, self-starting look about him. It is not a huge leap of imagination to picture him getting into those infamous scraps a decade or so ago in India and outside the Bourbon and Beefsteak nightclub in Sydney’s notorious King’s Cross district, incidents that resulted in a very public carpeting by the Australian board.There is something of Mike Gatting about him in persona: both are sport-mad (Ponting, famously nicknamed Punter, owns greyhounds and loves horse-racing, golf and Aussie Rules); both have outrageous batting talent (though Gatting’s remained less fulfilled at the highest level); both appear uncomplicated, governed by instinct more than intellect; both have been captains of mixed success, relative to expectations, and been troubled by their reactions to politically sensitive incidents (Shakoor Rana for Gatting, “Monkeygate” for Ponting).Mark Ray, the cricket writer and former captain of Tasmania, remembers being told by Neville Oliver, the late Tasmanian cricket broadcaster, during the 1980s of a “kid in Launceston who was going to be better than Boonie”. David Boon, also from Launceston and now an Australian selector, was the benchmark for the young Ponting, though another batsman whose name began with “B” is a more legitimate comparison. Or is he? “That’s our game, innit?” Ponting says with a shrug. “Nobody’s comparable to him in our game. It was like he was playing a different game. It’s hard to believe anybody’s played better than Tendulkar or Lara, but there’s someone out there who was twice as good.” Ponting goes on to recount the “unbelievable experience” as a 15-year-old at the Australian academy of meeting Don Bradman at the Adelaide Oval in the early 1990s. Not once does he refer to Bradman by name.Boon was the benchmark but Kim Hughes was the idol. The young Ponting loved his flamboyance, “the way he took on the Windies, hooking and pulling”. It figures. Ponting is the most classically complete batsman in the world. He obviously loves batting and he
loves studying batsmanship. He paints word-perfect batting portraits of the Waugh twins, as if these analyses have been stored deep within his subconscious for years. “I’ve always studied older players. Why was Steve Waugh so powerful off the back foot through the covers? Why was Mark so good at flicking the ball through midwicket? Why was neither that good against the short ball? I analyse it and pick it to pieces.” But the suggestion that style matters is shouted down. “Not at all. It’s not how, it’s how many. That’s what I tell all our youngsters.”Does he have what it takes?
For those “youngsters”, the burden of succession, growing up in the shadow of great deeds must be unbearable. “That’s been the hard thing for our spinners, especially
coming into the side over the last 12 months. They’re compared to Warnie straightaway. It’s not fair on them and it’s important that I and the other senior players don’t look at them that way.” Up to the start of the Test series in South Africa Australia had used six specialist spinners in Tests since Shane Warne’s retirement two years ago. Between them they took 48 wickets at 52.

“I’ve always studied older players. Why was Steve Waugh so powerful off the back foot through the covers? Why was Mark so good at flicking the ball through midwicket? Why was neither that good against the short ball? I analyse it and pick it to pieces”

It is arguably Ponting’s misfortune to be in charge as a remarkable period of dominance comes to an end. He has convinced himself otherwise. “This is a pretty exciting time in my career. There’s a great opportunity for this group of guys to forge their own identity.” Managing the public’s expectations is impossible. “Publicly you want to back your team-mates and you want them to hear some of the positive things you’re saying about them. But by doing that their expectations become a bit higher. It’s a tough one to get right.”He claims not to have thought about packing it in, or indeed when he might end his career. There have been plenty of pundits over the past year who have thought differently, most notably Peter Roebuck who called for Ponting’s head after the Harbhajan Singh-Symonds “monkey” row in January last year in a sensational front-page article for the . It was a reaction that Ponting describes as “well and truly over the top”, taking solace in what he believes to be a supportive public.There are hardly queues of people to praise Ponting’s captaincy. He was made to look ponderous by Michael Vaughan in the 2005 Ashes. Asked if he is becoming a better captain, he says: “You have to think that. You learn things about your team-mates and yourself every day that make you a better captain. There are more challenges now than a couple of years ago but I certainly believe I’m becoming a better captain and a better leader of a younger group of players.”One can surmise that for the first four years of Ponting’s captaincy leadership came as much from within the team as from the top. Now things have changed so drastically that the requirements have also changed. This year will tell us whether Ponting has what it takes. It’s an opportunity for these guys to forge their own identity.

Salman Butt has intrinsically the mind to play a Test innings, but most always finds himself needing to secure his spot

Osman Samiuddin at Bellerive Oval16-Jan-2010The short, interrupted career of Salman Butt tells a great, sad story of Pakistan cricket and its cricketers. It is about the talent of men, not
exceptional perhaps but fit enough to succeed globally, existing anywhere in the world in whatever circumstance. It is also about the poor habits that come with unchecked talent. But it is most about not knowing how the talent should be nurtured and not knowing how fragile it can be.Before the Sydney Test, Butt talked about batting well but not scoring big. Meekly he added that being in and out of the side hadn’t helped much. It is such a usual thing for Pakistan players to say that the significance of what they are actually saying is often forgotten. To remind, Butt has
already been dropped times from the Pakistan team in only 27 Tests. That means he has had to make his way back into the side eight times already by the age of 25 over six years, each time knowing that another edge, a leg-before, a little mistake might be the last, for a
while at any rate.Butt has been dropped when he hasn’t been scoring, and dropped when he has been; once, he scored a fifty and a hundred in Australia and was dropped one Test later in India. That will do as much for your self-belief as finding out your spouse has been cheating on you. A therapist might be more useful than a coach.He is here still after that first trip but he has gone a long, twisted way in five years to get back to where he began. The sadness is that he comes here his career not having gone much further. This series – like that first one – is still about securing his spot.Partly he must admit the fault is his. For such a player, he has careless ways. The running, as Pakistan again discovered, is far too lazy for someone so young. He doesn’t harry nearly enough for runs, content with singles where the more alert sniff out two. Already in his career he has been cautioned a few times for running down the centre of the pitch and in the run-out of Umar Akmal yesterday, he paid for it, running into Nathan Hauritz.The concentration can also be loose and usually at key moments. At the beginning of an innings, just after he has settled, soon after fifties or hundreds, these are dangerous times for Butt. He has good wrists but not the greatest hands, so keeping up a steady patter of singles – an essential batting discipline now – is difficult. More batting sense is needed. A little more in the field wouldn’t be amiss either.But Pakistan needs to know that the good much outweighs the bad and that these are materials that can be worked with. They should’ve known it five years ago but he has to be, from here on in, at least one half-answer to the vexing problem of their opening, in Tests and ODIs.Butt has intrinsically the mind to play a Test innings, to bat long, which is always priceless in Pakistan. He can bat long and doesn’t always get fazed by scoreless periods. Once in Multan, a solid England attack played with his head, placing two short covers and drying up his scoring. He held out for a second Test hundred and a fifty, batting nearly eleven hours in the process. Eight ODI hundreds, in a different way, say much the same thing.His captain reckons he plays better on difficult pitches. Certainly he has prospered enough in Australia now to become a part of that rarest Pakistan fraternity: batsmen who do well in the land of fast, bouncy surfaces.His third Test hundred has come far too long after his second, nearly half a decade. But it was an important one, for him, for Pakistan. Quite a typical one too: moments of carelessness, but prolonged bouts of beauty, patience and good sense. The leg-side game has sharpened and expanded. The touch on the off remains, as ever, finely measured.There came one moment, off Mitchell Johnson, when he no more than guided a ball off the bat, to the left of gully, the right of point and the left of a square, deeper gully as well, guided it as delicately as a cat burglar skipping through the infrared alarms at fancy museums; suddenly the
Bellerive Oval looked even more beautiful than it already is.The innings took some nerve. The dressing room cannot have been a fun place to be in after yesterday’s run-outs and the night would have been spent uneasily taken with the headlines morning would bring. The sense, all in all, was only how he is not more of a player than he has been so far?

The ICC’s new vice-president is a man who is careful to think before he speaks and won’t shy away from being described as a pragmatist

David Leggat10-Aug-2010Alan Isaac is used to cricket challenges. In his playing days, the man slated as heir apparent to the ICC presidency, was a well-respected left-hand batsman in Wellington senior club cricket. He was good enough to captain the province’s B team for three seasons, but that was as good as it got. Finding a place in the senior Wellington side in those days wasn’t easy. Wellington’s batting was strong in the 1980s. Bruce Edgar, Robert Vance, John Morrison, Jeremy Coney and Evan Gray, all Test players, had a lock on batting spots. It was, needless to say, a pretty strong outfit.Those in the know remember the man they call “Zac” as a solid, dependable batsman who knew his limitations and sold his wicket dearly. He had made age-group representative teams, and played senior rugby for three Wellington clubs, mainly at fullback.Isaac was made a partner of accounting firm KPMG at 24, and became treasurer of the Wellington Cricket Association around the same time. Fourteen years ago, he was made chairman of partners at KPMG and retained the job until stepping away in 2006. The 58-year-old businessman faces another set of stiff challenges in the years to come, assuming his path to the presidency, around June 2012, proceeds smoothly.These are testing times for the game. Isaac will serve as Sharad Pawar’s deputy for two years, learning the ropes before stepping up. He sits on a range of boards, including the high-profile Rugby New Zealand 2011 Ltd board, overseeing the biggest sports event in New Zealand since the 1990 Commonwealth Games – next year’s Rugby World Cup – and is well regarded as a seasoned, astute operator.He makes no bones about his disappointment that Sir John Anderson, his predecessor as New Zealand Cricket chairman, could not accept the Australasian nomination for ICC president at the second time of asking.Anderson was New Zealand’s nomination, alongside former Australian prime minister John Howard, when the two bodies first got together to finalise their choice. With the panel of five charged with settling on the candidate comprising three Australians and two New Zealanders, it was no surprise Howard got the nod. This despite Anderson’s long, credentialled career as a cricket administrator versus Howard’s zero experience, allied to Australia’s inability to come up with a cricket person.

“The realities are that when the ICC sells its commercial rights, a large proportion of that value comes from the Indian market. In my 22 months at the ICC table, I’ve had no problems dealing with the Indians or any other countries”Isaac doesn’t believe India’s clout is a problem

When Howard was deemed unacceptable to six of the ICC full members, it was time for Plan B. However, Anderson rejected overtures to put his name up again. Isaac was disappointed when Anderson gave him the news but he was encouraged to put his hat in the ring. Australia, though stubborn in defence of their first choice, have backed Isaac. But if it seems Isaac, New Zealand Cricket’s chairman for the last couple of years, got in as other preferred choices fell away, it doesn’t worry the man himself. ”I don’t feel like I’m second or third pick. I was encouraged through the process to be available by several people,” he said.So what will the ICC get? A chartered accountant who is careful to think before he speaks and who won’t shy away from being described as a pragmatist.Isaac knows the ICC’s reputation is not as good as it should be for a sport’s governing body. Polishing that reputation is among the goals he wants to achieve in the next four years. He defends the ICC against charges that it gets things wrong too often: “Often no one has the right answer, so people who have the responsibility have to get on and make the best of all the information they’ve got. When you’re sitting on the outside and haven’t got all the facts, or have a particular reason for having a different decision made, you are always going to be criticised. Often there have to be compromises as part of getting a more important decision agreed. That’s just life. It’s about being pragmatic.”He is a strong believer in treating others as you would want to be treated. ”It’s about trust and respect. If you don’t have that, you are going to struggle. “My priority is to get that trust and respect and then at the end of the day we can build a better reputation for the ICC.”The ICC will find they have a man who is unequivocal that the international game must remain top of the heap. Isaac cites other sports – rugby, rugby league, football – where club or privately owned franchises have pushed for top billing.In his mind, when it comes to priorities, the question of international versus domestic or privately owned franchised-based cricket is a no-brainer. He supports the idea of some form of Test championship, and in an age where India is singled out for criticism as having too much say in how the game is organised and wielding too heavy a wallet, Isaac takes a practical view. “The realities are that when the ICC sells its commercial rights, a large proportion of that value comes from the Indian market. In my 22 months at the ICC table, I’ve had no problems dealing with the Indians or any other countries.”If a Test championship can be worked into shape, he’ll be happy. “Market research, and the view of administrators and players, is that it would be better if there was some context, but we’re under pressure because of the volume and competing interests.”And those who suspect Isaac might push New Zealand’s barrow with a shade too much energy might be surprised. “The role of the ICC is to act in the best interests of cricket. If I’m elected, that is an honour for New Zealand, but clearly the responsibility is to act in the best interests of world cricket.”

David Lloyd, English cricket’s man of the people loses none of his wacko warmth in print

Rob Smyth08-Aug-2010Life is supposed to begin at 40, but for David Lloyd it hit top gear at 60. Although he had been round the block many times – as an England player, first-class umpire, , and why Piers Morgan should shut his mouth. It has the quality of an all-day session in his local: an infectious, unapologetically laddish and very funny trip through his stream of consciousness. It could be a cure for misanthropy.The diversions are a conceit that could have backfired, but nothing feels forced or inappropriate. In any case, all roads lead inevitably back to Lloyd’s love of cricket. The pen portraits of his Sky colleagues, written with mischief and huge warmth, are exceptional. He does not skip over the flippin’ murder incident in Zimbabwe (“I will always have to live that down”) and the book contains strident opinions on video evidence, Twenty20 (“a form of entertainment using cricket equipment”), the primacy of Tests and the urgent need for red and yellow cards.It is full of anecdotes. Some will be familiar, like the time Jeff Thomson broke Lloyd’s box on a Perth flyer. But there are other lesser-known gems: Jack Simmons’ farcical attempts to signal to his team-mates that he was about to bowl his faster ball, Tino Best whispering sweet nothings about Lloyd’s wife into a stump mic, and Allan Lamb locking Lloyd and his fellow umpire Ray Julian in their dressing room before shoving lit newspapers under the door.This is the story of a life well lived, told with charm and style by one of the good guys. At an age when others are gathering their free bus pass, Lloyd is still starting the car, speeding along in the fast lane with a big dumb grin on his face.Start the Car: The World According to Bumble
by David Lloyd
HarperCollins Publishers
310pp, £18.99

The former batsman, umpire, coach and now commentator answers readers’ questions on bowlers who frightened him, being diplomatic, England’s dry run in the 80s and 90s, and more

19-Nov-2010David Lloyd has done everything in cricket: debuting for Lancashire in 1965 as a spinner, he ended up playing nine Tests as an opening bat for England, hitting a double-century against India in his second game, in 1974. Six months after that, Lloyd played his last Test, one of many casualties of England’s 4-1 Ashes trouncing down under by Lillee and Thomson’s Australia. The left-handed Lloyd was a key part of the Lancashire side that dominated English one-day cricket in the early 70s, winning the first two Sunday Leagues (1969 and 1970) and three Gillette Cups in a row from 1970. By the time he played his last game, in 1985, he had made nearly 27,000 runs all told in a 21-season career.In retirement Lloyd turned first to umpiring and then to coaching, first with Lancashire before being rapidly promoted, to the England job. He was in charge of the national team between 1996 and 1999 before retreating to the Sky gantry. His time as England coach was mixed. Using specialist coaches alongside his own Churchillian approach to team talks, Lloyd’s tenure laid foundations for the future: the win over South Africa in 1998 was England’s first in a major series for 11 years and the side was at least competitive despite losing the Ashes 3-1 the following winter. But failing to win a game on tour in Zimbabwe in 1996 and the debacle of the 1999 World Cup exit cast a shadow.Steeped in cricket and always entertaining, in his decade with Sky, Bumble has become the natural heir to Dickie Bird as cricket’s No. 1 maverick national treasure, and this month he embarks on a national theatre tour to meet his public. There’s plenty of them: at last count he had over 90,000 followers on his Twitter account.When you retired as a player, did you think you would be an umpire for the rest of your career?
No. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a good time in my life. But I probably knew I would go into coaching because I’d done lots of coaching badges. But when I was an umpire my ambition was to be an international umpire – and if I’d got that far, I would maybe still have been doing that, I don’t know.Who first called you Bumble?
John Sullivan, who was at Lancashire in the 60s. He gave me the nickname because I looked like one of the characters on Michael Bentine’s show, the that was very much like .When was the first time you spoke in public?
It would be when I was captain of Lancashire, mid-70s. I’d have a good guess at it being Liverpool Cricket Club. I think I just had to introduce the team and told a couple of anecdotes about each one. Someone in the audience said they’d like to book me to speak at a function and I said, “No, I don’t do any of that.” But it moved on from there…Do you think you should you have played more times for England?
[] No! I came back [into the one-day side] in 1980 and I should never have been picked. Botham was captain and you know how bad a captain he was – he chose me to play in that game. He must have been mad. I couldn’t see, for a start. I mean, I could see all right for county cricket but he brought me back against West Indies. And there was no chance of seeing them.

“Botham was captain and you know how bad a captain he was – he chose me to play in that game. He must have been mad. I couldn’t see, for a start”

Has anyone been as frightening to watch or play against as Jeff Thomson was on that 1974-75 Ashes tour?
One I played with who was ferocious was Colin Croft – and against, Sylvester Clarke [of Surrey]. He was frightening. Both nasty on the field. They didn’t like cricket, I think, basically. They thought the faster we can get this bloke out or kill him, the quicker I can get off.[]
Well, I hope all fast bowlers go out to hurt people. That’s part of the make-up: “I’m gonna hurt you, you’re not going to bat”. Having a ruthless streak is part of it. We had Malcolm Marshall come to Lancashire as a specialist bowling coach once and he said to the fast bowlers: “The first thing you do is break the spin bowlers’ hands.”Who had the best one-day team in the 1970s: Kent or Lancashire?
There’s only one winner there! Bloody hell! () They were good, Kent were a good side. But we kept having to go down to London to play in finals. It were bloody costly to keep going down there to play! You had to pay for your wife… you got a bob or two but you’d spend more than that. I don’t think we got a share of the prize money…Ian Austin opened the bowling for England in the 1999 World Cup. When you were England coach, were you biased towards Lancashire players?
[] No. In Austin’s case we canvassed every opening batsman in county cricket and asked them who were the two most difficult bowlers to play against and they said Chris Lewis and Ian Austin.Andy Flower’s set-up is very different to yours: could you be England coach now or would it not suit your style?
Central contracts are the be-all and end-all. That’s what made England a competent team. Andy Flower is a wonderful bloke, he has a wonderful team. His management set-up is perfect and he has a world-class team, a cracking team. We suggested central contracts when I was coach, then Duncan Fletcher took them on and now Andy is getting the full benefit of it.Is it true that being given a Fall CD changed your musical taste for good? Who gave you the CD and what were you listening to before?
Paul King, who is executive producer of Sky cricket, gave me the Fall CD. And he said, “You’ll either get this or you won’t”, and I got it immediately. But I’m still into the Rolling Stones. You’re either the Stones or the Beatles… and I’m the Stones. I mean, I like Sinatra, I think he’s terrific, but I’m a bit more punk rock.What has been your greatest achievement in cricket?
Beating South Africa, when I was England coach in 1998. They were a hell of a side: Cronje, Klusener, Pollock and Donald opening the bowling. They were a good set of lads and a bloody good side. They had a team and a half.Why did England go 11 years without a major series win in the 1980s and 1990s?
Well, we were playing fewer major series for one thing: we were just embarking on split tours – an odd game here and two Tests there – I remember in ’96 we were just getting our teeth into what would now be a fantastic series against India, but it was over after three matches. We won that 1-0, then Waqar and Wasim’s Pakistan came with a great side and beat us 2-0 and we beat them 2-1 in the one-dayers. The ultimate in that came straight after that South Africa series: we’d given everything to beat them 2-1 and then they stuck a single Test against Sri Lanka at The Oval onto the end. You might as well have played on Galle beach. We just gave Murali a pitch that he wanted. I was up in arms about that. He took 16 wickets and it was just like an exhibition: “Look at these lovely chaps.” They turned us over good and proper.Did you find it hard to keep schtum and be diplomatic when you were England coach?
I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t tow any diplomatic line. If that’s what they wanted when they employed me, then they had the wrong bloke. I come from an area where if someone kicks you once you kick ’em twice. So it wasn’t difficult for me! I wouldn’t change it. I wouldn’t be anything different. I assumed they knew what they were getting.”John Player cricket came in because the rest of it was completely on its arse”•PA PhotosWas that 1974-75 Ashes tour England’s nadir during your whole time following of being involved with or following the England team?
The result was terrible, but as a tour it was enjoyable… I’d never been out of England before. I come from a rough area. We didn’t go abroad. I didn’t come from Weybridge or Maidenhead, I came from Accrington! And there were plenty more on the trip who’d never been out of England. I know Ken Shuttleworth, who went in 1971, had never been out of England…How much have you grown into your role at Sky? How “cast” is it? Don’t you wish you could play the grumpy old man sometimes?
No, no, they pay for what they get and I ain’t changing. I like a bit of fun, I enjoy myself – but I can be serious and fight my corner. There’s no casting. But there are plenty of times where they despair and they’ve got their heads in their hands!Who is the funniest man in cricket?
The man who I think is fantastic – in fact, he’s on my ringtone – is Bill Lawry. “Got him!” I think he’s fabulous. Just the enthusiasm… he’s well into his 70s and his patriotism, his love of the game and his enthusiasm is fantastic. He was a dour player, a very dour player. But as a commentator he brings it all alive. But my all-time broadcasting hero is Fred Trueman. He was the first northern voice on commentary, as far as I can remember. The first one who didn’t speak like Mr Cholmondeley-Warner.Lancashire won the first two 40-over Sunday Leagues, in 1969 and 1970. Was that tournament the Twenty20 of its day: half of cricket people saying it will save the game and half saying it will kill it?
Duncan Edwards. I was 11 when he died in the Munich air disaster. But he was the complete footballer.Who is the best player you’ve seen who never made it at the highest level?
Don Shepherd of Glamorgan. Spin bowler. Just check his record: 2000-plus wickets! [2200 wickets at 21 each, between 1950 and 1972]. I played against him. He was playing into the 1970s and he’s still totally involved in the game now, at 80-odd. He overlapped Jim Laker a little bit, and Fred Titmus and Ray Illingworth, so he never got a chance with England. But he was a wonderful bowler. The lad who’s missed out right now is Glen Chapple. It’s just never quite happened for him: wrong place, wrong time… he’s been in that many squads and missed out.Should England players be banned from tweeting?
No. Definitely not. I’d be quite the other way. Engage with the fans. Graeme Swann and Jimmy Anderson are very clever with it. They tell you if they’ve had a bad day – but don’t go into any details – but there’s also little nice snippets. Swanny’s a card, he’ll have some fun. But they don’t go into anything in-depth that they shouldn’t do. It’s vital. In any sport, players are so isolated from the public – particularly soccer – you just never see them about now.

“My all-time broadcasting hero is Fred Trueman. He was the first northern voice on commentary, as far as I can remember. The first one who didn’t speak like Mr Cholmondeley-Warner”

Do you find it odd that we don’t have a 50-over domestic competition in England, when international cricket is still 50 overs?
Yeah. I think you’ve got to try and mirror international cricket. The 18 counties rule the roost because they are the ECB. But my mild criticism is that I’m not sure they put the England team on the pedestal. I think it should be.Everything should be geared towards the England team, and I’m not sure all the counties take that on board. I’d like the distribution of wealth to be a bit more thought out. Not to give 18 counties £1.5m every year and let them spend it on what they want. It’s unbelievable that so many of them are struggling, on those terms. I like the Australian model. Take the WACA: the money goes to the Western Australia Cricket Association and the state teams get money from the WACA, but a lot of money goes on grass roots. And – just in my opinion – the English game is awash with money, awash with it, and I’m not sure the money gets to grassroots the way it should do.Have you ever “died” when you have been doing after-dinner speaking?
Loads of times! Loads. But I haven’t done after-dinner speaking for years. This tour isn’t like after-dinner speaking. I don’t have to sit next to some bloke I’ve never clapped eyes on before for four hours and drink water… I got out of that game a long time ago because standards were dropping. People were chatting on their mobile phones while you were up there doing your best and getting home at two in the morning. So I took a view: why am I doing this? I could be tucked up in bed!

ESPNcricinfo presents the plays of the day from another one-sided Group A match, between New Zealand and Canada

Nagraj Gollapudi at the Wankhede Stadium13-Mar-2011Drop of the day
Kane Williamson had just made his first run of the World Cup when he faced a simple off-break, delivered wide of the crease from around the stumps by John Davison. Erroneously, Williamson spooned a simple return catch to the bowler. But Davison, on the follow-through, messed up an easy chance as he tried catching it with upright hands. The habit of doing fielding drill with the baseball mitts at times can be a deterrent as Davison proved today. It was a schoolboy error going for the unorthodox technique when he could have taken the offering with straight hands.If-only moment
Rizwan Cheema lined himself up at wide long-on trying to deflect Ross Taylor’s third six in the most expensive over in the day by Harvir Baidwan (Taylor took 28 runs hitting four sixes and one four) . Cheema rubbed his palms at the back of his trousers in anticipation as the ball was on the descent. Suddenly he realised the ball could fly over the ropes. So in a last-minute improvisation he arched back, took the catch, but unfortunately lost his balance as he skipped over the ropes. He did jerk the ball back, but his feet had already touched the ropes. Taylor was on 47, eventually making 74. Matches turn on moments like that. New Zealand were 210 for 4. The story might have had a different narrative, but then…The DRS moment
Hiral Patel went for a wild pull against a short-pitched delivery from Jacob Oram on the off stump. At a distance it seemed it was a hit-and-a-miss shot. But Brendon McCullum, standing behind the stumps, and Oram appealed. The umpire disagreed. New Zealand asked for a review as they were confident they heard a noise. In the absence of Hot Spot or a Snickometer, the question was how could Steve Davies (the third umpire) ascertain if the noise heard was actually ball hitting bat. Davies went on to rule Patel out. One wonders how.Catch of the day
Ross Taylor’s ridiculous one-handed effort to interrupt a thick edge from Ruvindu Gunasekera, which was flying towards the third man, until the New Zealand captain decided to raise his hand.Can-you-believe-it moment
Clearly time has come for Davison to call it a day. That is no exaggeration if you consider the way Davison ran himself out, deciding to walk back casually once he had deflected a Jacob Oram yorker, which had trickled down to the short-fine leg. Showing no urgency to finish the run Davison started ambling initially before deciding to walk the final ten yards. Reacting to the batsman’s lethargy an alert Brendon McCullum lobbed a perfect throw to knock the stumps off. It was a shocking display by the tournament’s oldest cricketer, who showed little respect towards the opponent and the game.

Delhi’s dumping of tradition, the story of Sreesanth’s career in an over and more in a review of the action from the third week of the IPL

Abhishek Purohit29-Apr-2011Kotla’s green break with tradition
“Grass is for cows,” said Ivan Lendl. Curator after curator at Feroz Shah Kotla agreed with the tennis champion, and resolutely refused to let even a blade of green appear on their pitch. But the IPL has left hardly anything unchanged, and after consecutive losses at home, Delhi Daredevils decided to dump tradition into the Yamuna. Suddenly, the brown surface sprouted grass. It was the kind of green that suited Delhi as they proceeded to smash Kings XI Punjab for 231 in a rare win. More curiously than it had appeared though, some of the grass disappeared for Delhi’s next two games, bringing them two more losses, and keeping them in familiar territory, at the bottom of the table.The Shane Warne monitor
Taking a cue from Delhi, Rajasthan Royals took a look at their squad, realised they had Shane Warne, and gave him a dry Jaipur surface that had different-coloured patches, and plenty of unpredictable bounce. Warne, delighted by the Rajasthani hospitality, bamboozled his way to three crucial wickets against Kochi Tuskers. He tossed them up, he slid them in, he even welcomed former team-mate Ravindra Jadeja with a 109 kph bouncer. He also found time to doff his cap and shake hands with the endless assembly that was the presentation party as he collected his Man-of-the-Match award. All was well with the world.The aesthetic accumulator
S Badrinath is doing for the Chennai Super Kings what he usually does for Tamil Nadu. He comes in, pitches tent at the crease, splits the field with the most graceful of high elbows, and just refuses to get out. The man one commentator called India’s version of Mr. Cricket eased his way to 145 unbeaten runs in three games last week. He comfortably beat even Rohit Sharma, no small competitor, in the elegance stakes. Badrinath makes the mow over midwicket appear mellifluous, lofts languidly over extra cover, and slams the straight six with rarely seen serenity. And he makes truckloads of runs. Yet he’s been dumped from the India side after two Tests and three ODIs. Staggering.Thank you, come again
0-4-0 is the national dialling code for Hyderabad. Ishant Sharma decided to add 0-0-0 to it, and put it down on the Kochi scoresheet as Deccan Chargers’ calling card. Kumar Sangakkara had made a masterly half-century on a surface where the ball was talking rudely, and had given Kochi 130 to chase. Sangakkara needn’t have bothered. Ishant was in a tearing hurry, and delivered a spell that brought back memories of Perth 2008. He blew Kochi away with five wickets in eleven deliveries. At one stage, he had figures of 2-0-6-5, Kochi were 11 for 6 after four overs, and that was the end of that.My story, in six balls
If ever an over has revealed everything about the bowler, it was Sreesanth’s second one against Deccan. After seeing Sangakkara carefully defend two straight deliveries, Sreesanth, as has been his wont, went for something extra and the short ball ended up being pulled to the midwicket boundary. True to form, Sreesanth came back with an unplayable brute that pitched on off and took out middle stump. Truer to form, Sreesanth had over-stepped, and Sangakkara lived on. Truest to form, Sreesanth lost it and let the to-be “free-hit” rip, getting an official warning for bowling a beamer, albeit unintentionally. For good measure, he even bowled a wayward wide outside off. Firdose Moonda, ESPNcricinfo’s ball-by-ball commentator for the game, called it “a mixed bag from the Kerala Express”. It was the story of Sreesanth’s career in a nutshell.Sreesanth’s jaffa of a no-ball•AFPThe nail-biter
Royal Challengers Bangalore’s game against Delhi turned so many times that Bangalore’s owner Siddhartha Mallya was out of nails to chew by the end. After Bangalore’s seamers had made the Delhi top order hop around on the pacy Kotla wicket, James Hopes lifted them to a fighting 160. Delhi got Tillakaratne Dilshan second ball to start their ascendance but ran into Virat Kohli, who threatened to drown them in a deluge of boundaries. Delhi began another round of counter-punching with three wickets in three overs but Saurabh Tiwary and Daniel Vettori resisted again. Not to be outdone, Morne Morkel winkled out two in three balls as the Kotla crowd roared with anticipation. Before Mallya could turn his attention on Deepika Padukone’s nails though, Vettori and J Syed Mohammad somehow managed to drag Bangalore home.The double payback
After Chris Gayle gave it back in style to his former franchise Kolkata Knight Riders, it was the turn of Deccan to be paid back, twice over this time. Rohit and Andrew Symonds, who had prowled the cover cordon and scored prolifically for Deccan until last year, made their former franchise pay for not retaining them ahead of the auction. Rohit caressed, Symonds bludgeoned, and a wobbly 70 for 4 turned into a match-winning 172 for Mumbai Indians. Deccan were themselves reduced to 70 for 4 in the chase, but they no longer had the luxury of Rohit and Symonds to mend matters. Soon, a crushing defeat followed.

ESPNcricinfo presents the Plays of the Day from the IPL game between Kolkata Knight Riders and Chennai Super Kings in Kolkata

Firdose Moonda07-May-2011The boundary that almost never came
It took 60 balls to come, but when it did, it came in fine fashion. S Badrinath had showed some intent earlier in Yusuf Pathan’s over, when he charged down the track and swung hard, without achieving the desired effect though. Three balls later, he made some room for himself and hit the ball flat over long-on. For a few seconds, it looked as though Jaidev Unadkat would catch it, but the ball sailed just over into the sightscreen for six.The one that got away – twice
Albie Morkel had already been dropped by Brett Lee on the deep midwicket boundary, when the fast bowler let the ball bobble out of his hands, but Morkel wasn’t done taunting him. Lee was about to bowl his last over, having bowled three beautiful ones earlier in the innings. Morkel’s mandate was to stand and deliver, and Lee’s was to bowl full and a touch wide of offstump to prevent that. Morkel swung hard at the third ball of the over, there was a sound as ball went past bat and Mark Boucher immediately threw it up in celebration on pouching it. Lee was late on the appeal though, Morkel glanced guiltily behind him and Asad Rauf remained unmoved.The accurate predictors
Stephen Fleming was asked in a field-side interview in the previous match Chennai played in, against Kochi Tuskers Kerala, what score he would like them to chase. He said 148, and 148 was the target. This time, Scott Styris was asked for a score prediction. After telling the field reporter that he hadn’t heard the end of it from Fleming after he got it right, Styris threw out the number 114. And, as luck would have it, 114 is what Chennai got. Guess who will be gloating for the next few days?The swirling catch
Gautam Gambhir tried something fancy against R Ashwin, and ended up slicing the ball, sending it high into the Kolkata sky. Doing revolutions that Ashwin himself would have been proud of, the skier approached the vacant cover area. All that swirling didn’t undo Suraj Randiv though. He ran to his left from point, dived full stretch and held on to a remarkable catch.

To see the home side battle on a day where many expected them to just roll over and surrender must have warmed the hearts of the fans

Sriram Veera at Windsor Park08-Jul-2011Rampaul not allowed to bowl on fourth day

Chris Broad, the match referee, has told ESPNcricinfo that Ravi Rampaul will not be allowed to bowl on the fourth day of the Test after he missed the whole of the third day because of a viral infection. In accordance with ICC regulations, Rampaul must spend as much time on the field as he missed before he can bowl, which means he will only be eligible to bowl on Sunday. Broad’s assertion dispels doubts that had arisen due to a tweet from Digicel cricket that had said that the opposing captain MS Dhoni had allowed Rampaul to bowl on Saturday

They were walking wounded by the end of the day. Darren Sammy’s right knee had given up, Fidel Edwards was squeezing out the ice pack, Devendra Bishoo was knackered and the fielders were tired. The physio CJ Clarke was a busy man. Yet, it was a day on which West Indies can look back and feel proud. India held the advantage at the end but they had to really sweat it out to get there.By the end of it, Sammy was a physical wreck. His ankles were heavily taped, he could barely walk, and he was hurting all over. “I can’t even tell exactly where it is hurting,” Sammy said. “The pain is everywhere. We are going about our recovery. We will be fresh tomorrow, ready to battle again.”The West Indian fans must have arrived at the ground on the third day in Dominica concerned. West Indies did not have the services of an injured Ravi Rampaul and were playing with three bowlers. Two and a half if you believe Darren Sammy’s critics. The fans must have wondered how the day would pan out. Perhaps India would pile on the runs and West Indian shoulders would droop. The sun was out, the clouds weren’t pregnant with rain, and the fans might have fretted in anticipation of a long-day’s “licks”.Sammy, though, still had faith that West Indies could bowl India out on the third day. “The belief in the bowling unit is quite high. We knew it was going to be tough, and we said that if we bowl at the right areas and create pressure there is a possibility of bowling them out. We got six wickets on a flat pitch. Kudos to the bowlers.”The bad news for West Indies is that they will have to make do with three bowlers on the fourth day as well. “The umpires have said that Rampaul can’t bowl till Sunday. He has to spend the amount of time he lost back on the field in order to bowl.”After two days of rain, the track on the third day was sluggish but had no venom in it. The ball briefly swung and seamed in the morning, and West Indies took care of M Vijay and Rahul Dravid in that phase. But the movement died out with the increasing ferocity of the sun. Through the series, and even before that, Sammy and Ottis Gibson have been insisting that all is well with the West Indies bowling; it’s the batting that has repeatedly let them down. Friday offered the greatest proof of that. Sure, India ended the day on a high, and have control over the game, but West Indies fought hard through the day.The day’s cricket wasn’t exciting by any means but it was interesting to see an attack try to cope with the loss of a leading bowler. Once the movement evaporated from the track, West Indies’ plans slowly came to the fore. To Abhinav Mukund, they packed the off side and bowled well outside off. It might have been boring to some but it was the right strategy. Abhinav kept leaving. West Indies kept bowling outside off. Slowly Abhinav started to shuffle across and tuck balls away for singles. West Indies stuck to the plan. The runs came at a slow pace and West Indies ensured India weren’t running away with the game.Darren Sammy got the big wicket of Rahul Dravid early•AFPTo VVS Laxman, at one point, Sammy had a short midwicket, short square-leg and mid-on. It’s a tactic the Australians have employed: try to get Laxman by making him wary of playing his favourite shots; or at least keep him tied down. West Indies were able to do the latter. Once, Laxman nearly flicked to the square-leg fielder and Sammy held his head in agony. It was clear that Laxman was aware of the field and he started to push the ball straighter, to mid-on. Deliveries on leg and middle, which he would normally whip away with glee, were being patted down to mid-on.It was some surprise that the breakthrough eventually came from Devendra Bishoo, for he was the worst of the regular bowlers on Friday. The control over length deserted him and he was often short. Sammy then made him go around the wicket and bowl outside leg to Laxman. Again that short midwicket and square-leg hovered around. The runs came in a trickle. Suddenly, Bishoo got one to turn, bounce and stop on Abhinav, who stabbed it to short-leg.Sammy brought on Chanderpaul, who seems to be a crowd favourite in Dominica. They gave him rousing cheers during his batting and were madly behind him when he was bowling. He moved the extra cover a few inches to the left, shifted the deep midwicket two feet to the right and the crowd loved it. And then it happened. Laxman dragged his heel in the air and was pickpocketed by Carlton Baugh, one of the real finds of this tour for West Indies. Earlier he had taken a sharp catch, standing up to the stumps and moving quickly to the leg side, to remove Virat Kohli off Sammy.Baugh had got a half-century for West Indies on the second day, and Sammy said he was always expecting Baugh to contribute both behind the stumps and with the bat. “Baugh has worked hard on his keeping and we all know what he can do with the bat. He has 11 first-class hundreds. It was a matter of time before he contributed. His keeping through the series has been excellent. The more games he plays, the better he gets.”With Laxman’s exit, India were wobbling at 172 for 5. However, West Indies were left gasping for breath, literally, in the post-tea session and the India batsmen took advantage of the tired outfit. The decision of when to use the second new ball was a tricky one and it showed in the relief-soaked cry of Sammy when Edwards removed Suresh Raina with the first delivery after it had been taken. “It was a hard decision to take the new ball. Fidel had already bowled 19 overs. I had bowled 20-plus. It was asking a lot of Fidel to come in running hard, and to get that reward immediately was quite satisfying.”At the start of the day, India would have looked to bat just one innings and try to bowl out West Indies for an innings defeat. By the end, MS Dhoni and Suresh Raina were fighting to extend the lead. It’s still India who hold the advantage of course but to see West Indies fight on a day where many expected them to just roll over and surrender must have warmed the hearts of the fans. And to think that West Indies were playing with two-and-a- half men. Or so they said.Sammy ended his press conference on a note of hope. “The wicket looks quite easy to bat on. When we get another chance, hopefully we can put up our best batting display of the series.”

Did the term for cricket’s most exciting delivery originate from that of the county with the similar name? Or was it derived from slang?

Liam Herringshaw30-Apr-2011

Sporting Old Parson, “I didn’t ask you what a ‘yorker’ was – (with dignity) – I know that as well as you do. But why is it called a ‘yorker’?”
Professional Player, “Well, I can’t say, sir. I don’t know what else you could call it.”
magazine, September 23, 1882

Yorker: a delivery that can make the batsman look like he’s on skates going over a banana peel•PA PhotosWhat’s the most exciting delivery in cricket? A glorious googly? A brutal bouncer? A deadly doosra?All these will have their proponents, I’m sure, but all would be wrong. When it comes to a heart-stopping instant of sheer, visceral pleasure, there is only one winner. Nothing beats the yorker. From Lasith Malinga skittling Kenya with a burst of unplayable missiles, to Waqar Younis blasting Brian Lara off his feet, it is the quintessential death ball, and the most devastating weapon in a fast bowler’s armoury.But why is a yorker a yorker, and where does it come from? I play my cricket in York, where the natives are known, at least in some quarters, as Yorkers. Does this mean that this is the home of the delivery, then, and are the locals experts in bowling the ball? I donned my academic research hat, one that looks suspiciously similar to my regular cricket hat, and set off to find out.Even from a cursory online search, it is clear that plenty of theories abound. For proper etymological work, however, the only sensible place to start is the . There, three forms of yorker are listed – the bowling variety, the demonym, and the cryptically intriguing “something that is used to tie a trouser leg beneath the knee”.The cricketing yorker is first documented from August 1861, when reported that “Buchanan stopped some time, and bothered the bowlers much, as he would not hit even a ‘Yorker’.” Ignoring the fact that not hitting a yorker would surely end a batsman’s innings, rather than prolong it, it is clear that the writer assumed his readers knew what a Yorker was. Less than a decade on, and the inverted commas had gone, as well as any ambiguity, as the (1870) noted that, “A fast Yorker is as disagreeable a first ball as an incoming batsman could receive.”When it comes to why it is so-called, the OED plumps for a geographical explanation, suggesting that it probably was from York, as a ball introduced by Yorkshire players.Michael Rundell, however, finds this “really quite unconvincing”. In his (3rd ed., 2006), Rundell argues that the true story is one of deception; that the yorker is from Yorkshire, but only because “york” is a slang word for cheating.Rundell refers to the , compiled by linguist Joseph Wright at the turn of the 20th century. Wright found that, in various parts of the British Isles, “york” meant being shrewd or sharp, or simply “to cheat”. He cites an example from Warwickshire, where a disgruntled plaintiff complains of an unknown person: “He has yorked me”.Indeed, though this isn’t going to win me many friends in my new home, there is a substantial body of work relating to Yorkers being people whose personal dealings involve various unsavoury attributes. To outsiders at least, Yorkshire folk were always on the look-out for a new way to fleece someone.One of the first cricketing dictionaries to define the yorker (Steel & Lyttelton, 1888) states that it was “called in days gone by a ‘tice’, an abbreviation of ‘entice'”. It seems a simple leap of logic, therefore, to make the crafty-cricket connection, and many have made it.In its version of the yorker story, Wikipedia says “to pull Yorkshire” on someone was to deceive them, but as usual it is slightly wrong. The correct phrase is “to come [or put] Yorkshire” on someone, meaning to cheat or dupe them, as gleefully pointed out by the Lancashire CCC website.

To be “yerked” or “yarked” is to be struck, smacked or hit; to have something thrown at you suddenly; or to have your shoes tied together. It’s entirely correct to mutter, after being yorked, that you’ve also been yarked

I asked David Hall, director of the Yorkshire CCC museum whether he could shed any light on the matter. He told me that they have gone back through the records to the start of the county club in 1833, but don’t have an answer. When pushed, the museum refers (or defers) to the (2006). They therefore prefer the idea “that the ball was invented in Yorkshire, [to] the fact that york was slang for ‘deceive'”.The third option put forward by Leigh and Woodhouse is that yorkers were originally bowled with a jerky action. Even though it is a dialect variation of “jerker”, I can find no evidence that the ball was ever called a “yerker”, so this is perhaps a leap too far.There does seem to some mileage in the many meanings of the verb, though. To be “yerked” or “yarked” is to be struck, smacked or hit; to have something thrown at you suddenly; or to have your shoes tied together. Many a batsman has suffered all these indignities as a yorker knocks them over, so I like the idea of the “yarker”, even if I can’t prove it is the true forefather. Either way, it’s entirely correct to mutter, after being yorked, that you’ve also been yarked.So what are we left with? Hypotheses still, but we can at least do a bit of clarifying. One website claims with certainty that the yorker gets its name from the device for tying your trouser legs below the knee. This doesn’t take into account that the cricketing term appears in the 19th century, whereas the trousering one is not recorded until the 20th. Given that it is quite difficult for an older word to derive from a newer one, barring some kind of quantum delivery, I think we can rule that theory out.We can also rule out 19th century Yorkshire and England star Tom Emmett as the original Yorker. Emmett was certainly a very influential and successful left-arm quick bowler, and, according to Anthony Woodhouse, “perhaps cricket’s greatest character”. Emmett didn’t make his Yorkshire debut till 1866, though, some five years after the yorker was first recorded, so there’s no way he was responsible for inventing the delivery. He did invent his own slower ball, though, one that pitched on a right-hander’s leg stump and then cut away towards off. Emmett called it the “sosteneuter”, and it is surely due for a comeback. Perhaps Zaheer Khan might like to add it to his repertoire?It’s interesting that none of the quoted examples are from Yorkshire, indicating that yorker was a term applied by outsiders, not locals. The early yorkers are also capitalised, suggesting a geographical noun. And as hinted at by the original 1861 quote, temptation and bamboozlement are what the yorker is all about. The deceitful Yorker with his deceptive yorker might just be the true story.Whatever its origins, it’s reassuring to those of us still trying and failing to master it, that Lasith Malinga “didn’t have any idea of how to bowl a yorker” when he was called up to the Sri Lankan national team. He’s certainly nailed it now, and Waqar Younis says his performance against Kenya in the 2011 World Cup “reminded me of myself in the good old days”.And, having apparently honed his skills by bowling at a pair of shoes in the nets, I can’t help but wonder if Malinga is inadvertently giving us a glimpse back into history, and returning the yarker to its boots.