Darren Sammy isn’t satisfied with West Indies’ recent success. He wants his side to hunger for more

Interview by Mohammad Isam14-Dec-2012″I knew somewhere around the corner, with all the criticism, the lord will shine on me and the team someday”•Getty/ICCThe last time you spoke to ESPNcricinfo was just after you had drawn a Test against Indiain Dominica . A lot has happened since then.
I was at a New Year’s party with my friends and family. They kept telling me to make 2012 my year. It’s funny because my birthday is on the 20th of the 12th month, so this year it will be 20/12 on 2012. This year I will [really] celebrate my birthday!It has been a good year for us as a team. The highlight of it was winning the World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka. We have taken baby steps along the way in Tests and ODIs, things like competing against higher-ranked opposition like Australia in Tests. I always thank and pray to the lord. We had a rough time but now we are seeing a little bit of success, so it is always good.You started the World Twenty20 as one of the favourites but made a slow start. What did you think when the Ireland match was rained off?
We believed that once we played to our full potential, we could win the tournament. The game against Ireland ensured we went through to the Super Eights and we reflected on the previous winner, England, who went through the first round without winning a game.The moment I really believed that we were going to win the World Cup was in the game against New Zealand. After we went through that game, I felt nothing would stop us from winning. I remember during that chase there was little difference between balls and runs. I was on the boundary where I closed my eyes and said a prayer to god. “This is not the way I had envisioned [it], there’s no way we are going home.” Slowly the game unfolded and we all know what happened.The coach has instilled discipline and professionalism, and the guys are making a conscious effort to work hard and play for the Caribbean people. It has paid off.Coming into the final, what did you feel when the scoring rate was slow at the start?
I think we were 42 in ten overs [32 for 2]. [Dwayne] Bravo and [Marlon] Samuels got ten runs in the following over [12th over] – the highest till that point. Our backs were against the wall but I was still smiling. The coach asked me why. I said I just have a strong feeling that we will win the game. The coach said if we score as much as we did against Sri Lanka in the first round, we would win the game. It so happened that we won convincingly.As I was talking to the coach, Samuels just took control of the show. I guess the XI that went out there on the field knew what everybody was capable of doing. It was a complete team effort.Was it also a vindication of your captaincy?
No, no, no. One of the mottos I live by is that everything in life happens for a reason. I knew somewhere around the corner, with all the criticism, the lord will shine on me and the team someday. He waited for the grand finale to shine upon us. We now have a new, revived belief. When we step out, we believe that we can not only compete but win against higher-ranked opposition.

“Captaincy has made me even more responsible, more aware of my surroundings. It has made me become a better man, exercising patience, become strong mentally”

What was your most cherished memory of the final
We know how to celebrate and party. Lifting the cup and seeing all my team-mates and the coaching staff smiling was the most important point in all the celebration.Having said that, the reception Jonathan Charles and I received when we returned to St Lucia was just amazing. Thousands of people came out to meet us at the airport, and as we drove into the city, every community came out to the street to cheer for us. It was something we needed in the Caribbean. For years and years, we have been craving for silverware. Cricket is the one thing that unifies the people, and the manner in which we won, with our backs against the wall, it was very important.I know the players will fall back on these memories whenever we are in a lull. These experiences will definitely make the team stronger. Daren Ganga said it is a matter of time that Trinidad & Tobago plays as a separate nation.
That’s his view. I tend to differ from that. People were probably disappointed in the way in which we were playing, but they still watch. Once we do well, you see them having fun, drinking in the rum shops. If you ask anybody now, cricket is the main sport of the Caribbean.You have now seen both bad and good times as a captain. How much has captaincy changed you?
It has made me even more responsible, more aware of my surroundings. It has made me become a better man, exercising patience, become strong mentally. The pressure that comes with being a captain – you still need to have a level head to go out there day in and day out to work and lead your team-mates; you have to be a strong person.It has made me a stronger individual, a stronger husband and a more family-oriented guy. It has made me cherish life even more. Things are slowly turning around but I know that nothing lasts forever. I still have to put in an honest day’s work and be consistent in what I do. The most important thing is that I know who I am. I understand myself. I accept myself for what and who I am. When I go out there, I could only be me.How has Chris Gayle’s return been for you?
I have never had any issues with Chris and he doesn’t have any issues with me. We all know what happened throughout the time he was out. It wasn’t my doing, [it was] a board decision. It has been dealt with and we are just happy to have him back and the team is doing well.Chris has always been a character in the dressing room. We all love to watch him bat and the youngsters have enjoyed batting with him.I am sure we have passed that stage in our cricket and we are building a stronger, united West Indies cricket team.And have you been enjoying Marlon Samuels’ second coming?
I am really happy for him. After being out of cricket for two years, he has carried the batting with [Shivnarine] Chanderpaul and the rest of the youngsters. He seems very hungry to go out and perform.There are more helping hands for you with the seniors coming back, the coach, and a manager in Richie Richardson, also a former West Indies captain. Has the captaincy burden become lighter?
I wouldn’t call it a burden. It’s good to have experience around you, have people who give you good advice and help you along, because they have been through certain situations. I have made it my duty to involve senior players in decision-making on the field. I am one who is never too big to take advice from any player.We still have a long way to go. The T20 win doesn’t mean West Indies is back on top. We have to beat Australia, England and South Africa. Once we start doing that consistently, the team will be heading in the right direction.How do you remain true to yourself with all that is going on around you?

I give a lot of credit for who I am to the way my parents raised me. I was raised in a very happy home, where I saw my father treat my mother very well. My mother is a fighter. Maybe she didn’t know where the next meal would come from, but she believed that god will find a way. She raised me in a god-fearing home.”We now have a new, revived belief. When we step out, we believe that we can not only compete but win against higher-ranked opposition”•AFPI have made so many mistakes in life but the good thing is that I am aware of what’s right and wrong. I question myself when I do the wrong thing. I got a few simple rules in life.One of them is what I spoke about post-match of the T20 World Cup final – I believe that no matter who you are and what situation you are in, if god knew you couldn’t handle it, he wouldn’t put you through it. When there’s all the talk in the media about me, I say this to myself. And no matter what you’re going through, there’s still somebody who’s going through more than you.I guess I am in a happy stage in my life. I will be 29 years old and I have done what I wanted as a little boy – to play for West Indies. Now I am something that I never thought would be – the captain. I must cherish that.I have a lovely wife who is carrying my child right now. I have two beautiful boys. My parents support me, I have great friendships. I got no reason to be angry at the world. I am just a happy lad and I’m just being me. I don’t let anybody steal my joy.Many captains in world cricket are going through a tough time. Do you have any advice for them?
() I would love to get advice from guys like Michael Clarke. He has batted so well throughout the year. Also Alastair Cook, the way he is batting. Once we ride the tough times and we believe what we are trying to do is the right thing, god will show us the way. Do it with a smile on your face. The more you do that, the younger you look, that’s what I know. People love the way I smile. But I smile only because I’m a happy guy.

With both the bat and in the field, age seems to have forgotten Tillakaratne Dilshan, or he it.

Andrew Fernando07-Nov-2012At some stage in a cricketer’s career, age, not opposition, becomes the greatest obstacle to success. As the grey hairs bloom one by one, time begins to erode the faculties that served batsmen in their youth; the reflexes, the power in their shoulders, the fleet of foot.Bowlers often have their decline laid out unmistakably – even empirically. The lighter hauls correlate with less generous assessments on the speed gun, or a reduction in revolutions and turn. But batsmen, who are more tightly tethered to the vagaries of form, are less sure which is a temporary slump and which is a permanent one.Many trade in panache for consistency, and stave away father time that way. Men who once commanded vast arsenals of punishing strokes smelt their techniques down until only a few well-chosen weapons of torment remain.Last month, Tillakaratne Dilshan turned 36. It is strange to think of him as the oldest member of the Sri Lankan team because age seems to have forgotten him, or he it. In the Powerplays, he fields at backward point, where the sharpest earn their keep. In the middle overs, he ranges the deep, square of the wicket, where only the quick survive. At the death, he is found guarding the straight boundaries, where he recently made a stunning take, leaning over the ropes, clinching Sri Lanka victory where they would have had defeat if the ball had hit the ground. Where are the cushy positions at short fine leg or mid on for Dilshan? He is doing the work of young men.His batting continues to be defined by its chutzpah. He had watched the new ball move off the seam appreciably from the non-striker’s end, yet when he saw Kyle Mills pitch the ball in the corridor on the first delivery he faced, Dilshan sent it screaming through the covers, despite the away movement. It is the same cover drive he played when he first appeared for Sri Lanka, a whirr of arms, wrists and blade. The attitude, if anything, has grown bolder.He continued to flash at the balls he fancied, and almost always, they resulted in fours. The dilscoop had gone out of his game for a while, triggering talk of ailing reflexes, but it has been restored the same as ever. He didn’t play the one that flies over the keeper against New Zealand, but he scooped Jacob Oram square of short fine leg once. He had tried that shot twice already, but two failures were not enough to deter him, even for a stroke as high in risk as that.But his batting is not without its own method. Even the freest spirits need some semblance of structure within which to knead their talent. Once the field goes out, the dasher in Dilshan gives way to the opportunist. The gaps are mined, often and exhaustively. Every chance to eke a second is grasped. He scored more runs in twos than any other batsman in the match, and that is not a statistic he is a stranger to.Moreover, hittable balls almost invariably end up at the fence. The stream of runs into the outfield give the impression that Dilshan has wound down his aggression, but he snaps at the poor balls so readily and viciously, it is as if the wild Dilshan was always just lurking beneath that composed veneer, awaiting the first chance to let rip. Having not hit a boundary in nine overs, Dilshan spotted a rank full toss from Nathan McCullum in the 19th over and was down the pitch in an instant to blast it over extra cover. A few overs later, Trent Boult overpitched, and Dilshan bludgeoned it back at him so savagely, the bowler gave no thought to completing a return catch as he ducked in self preservation. As an opener, Dilshan has 13 hundreds to his 14 fifties. Conversion rates like that don’t materialise without a formula.He also has every shot in the playbook, so manoeuvring the field, as he did today alongside Angelo Mathews, should prove easier for him with the new rule allowing only four men on the fence. “It’s much easier with the new rule, because the bowlers must bowl better than they used to,” Dilshan said after the match. “Even if they make a small mistake, it’s easy to score runs because there are only four men out. We planned to conserve our wickets at the start so that we could score quickly later. If a batsman gets into a good position, it’s easy to exploit the new rule.”In the 30th over, Sri Lanka only had 13 to get to win the match, but Dilshan needed ten more for a hundred. In two balls, he smote a four over cover and a six over square leg to get to triple figures. Later, he was asked whether pulling that delivery onto the bank was an unnecessary risk in pursuit of a personal milestone.”Why shouldn’t I play the pull?” was his response. “It’s my favourite shot and I have made a lot of runs with it. I don’t think it’s a risk for me.”In almost every way, Dilshan’s lustre remains undimmed by experience. He is as free, confident and warlike as he has always been. In a dressing room and a batting order where even the youngsters tend to be thoughtful and measured, the fire in Dilshan’s bones is refreshing.

Sri Lanka need to cultivate the strengths of these five cricketers who’ve made a mark in the opportunities handed to them so far

Andrew Fidel Fernando31-Jan-2013
Dinesh Chandimal should be awarded a regular Test place•Getty ImagesDinesh Chandimal

Perhaps the most impressive cricketer of the lot, and the batsman with the most robust defensive technique – particularly against fast bowling. He had trouble making it into the team in the latter half of 2012, but seemed to have used that time away wisely, fine-tuning scoring strokes that no longer need to be thrashed at as much as they once were.His biggest shortcoming, however, is that he has been wildly inconsistent at home and in Asian conditions, which is strange for a Sri Lankan batsman with a fine domestic record. His stats outline this malaise. He has not yet played enough Tests to provide a satisfactory sample, but in 50 ODIs, he averages 49.80 in Australia, 54.66 in England and 52.75 in South Africa – figures comprising an extraordinary away record – but at home, his average dives to an abysmal 16.84. Even in the recent series against Australia, he has been noticeably less comfortable against good quality spin bowling, and it is against the slow bowlers that he has most room to grow.He should now be rewarded with a regular Test place now, which is the format to which his cricket seems most suited. He can more than justify a specialist batsman’s spot.Akila Dananjaya
He bowled only one over in Australia, and although it went for plenty, his class still shone through, even in six deliveries. The rain robbed him of a second spell, but in the past he has come back strongly when batsmen have targeted him, and his five variations were at once dependable and menacing during Sri Lanka’s World Twenty20 campaign.Sri Lanka have tended to use him conservatively, and only when conditions are stacked in his favour. Perhaps that is a strategy that should be persevered with. It is difficult to imagine another international cricketer with as little professional experience as him, and as tenacious as he seems he is not ready for the training wheels to come off just yet. He will begin his first season of first-class cricket in the month to come, where he cannot just rely on his bag of tricks for success, and with any luck, he will always be encouraged to earn wickets using flight, dip and turn as well as variation.If Muttiah Muralitharan is appointed spin-bowling coach, Dananjaya will have a coterie of spinners around him who can each educate him on various aspects of his craft and spur him to improve. Perhaps no one in the game disguised variations and used them as wisely across all formats as Murali, while Rangana Herath’s career is built upon spin’s subtler arts and a sharp wit. Ajantha Mendis is the cautionary tale, and Tharindu Kaushal, a 19-year-old offspinner who has been piling up wickets in his first season of professional cricket, will in time provide healthy competition for a place in the Test team.Lahiru Thirimanne
One of only two centurions on the tour for Sri Lanka, and a batsman seemingly possessed of a steely temperament and a knack for holding the team innings together. He is adored by Sri Lanka’s batting pundits, and it’s rumoured that it was Aravinda de Silva who talked him into pursuing a career as a cricketer while he was still in school. He has since won over several other high-profile supporters as well.Thirimanne was once an opener before being moved into the middle order, but it seems he is now being groomed for the No. 3 spot that Kumar Sangakkara will eventually vacate. So far, it seems a good fit. Thirimanne starts slowly in limited-overs matches, but that is forgivable if he continues to make substantial contributions from the top order. He does need to develop the ability to rotate the strike with more ease and accelerate his scoring when the situation calls for it, but that should not come at the expense of the fine defensive mettle and judgment he showed in his 91 in the Sydney Test. He seems out of place in Twenty20s, and perhaps he should be asked to focus just on the longer formats – which will not only open up a place for a more aggressive player, but will also help foster the good habits he has already acquired.Dimuth Karunaratne
A Test opener in the aggressive mould, Karunaratne has the ability to pound an attack until their efforts wane, and the batting becomes easier for both himself and whoever is at the other end. Particularly powerful through the leg side, but not bereft of aggressive off-side strokes, his two half-centuries have been entertaining, but the string of low scores between them have smacked of wastefulness. Often, he starts quickly and with assurance, only to be dismissed when all seems set for him to push on. He perished thrice in Australia to the full, seaming delivery outside off stump, and as a left hander that is not a weakness he can afford to leave uncorrected for long.He has seemingly been afforded a long trot in Tests, and perhaps that is where his focus should remain for now. Tillakaratne Dilshan has hinted he may not play the longest format for long, and Sri Lanka have a much keener need for a good opener in Tests than in limited-overs matches, and Karunaratne’s defense could do with better precision.Kushal Perera
The most pleasant surprise of the tour, and the most exciting batting prospect in the shorter formats. Perera seems to have lifted his technique from the Sanath Jayasuriya manual on bullish batting, and like the old man, he has an impressive second skill too. Unlike Thirimanne, Angelo Mathews and Chandimal, Perera has not been shy of starting his innings quickly, and has been both bold and busy at the crease in his few short innings. At the Gabba, he saw Sri Lanka through to their target despite the clatter of wickets around him, and in both Twenty20s, his rollicking starts were instrumental to Sri Lanka’s success. He has not yet played an innings of great substance, but you feel that if more opportunities come his way, it may not be long before he tunes up his judgement and settles in for a long career.In the two matches in which he kept wickets, he seemed a more gifted gloveman than Chandimal, and if Perera’s batting flourishes, perhaps the selectors will be tempted to ask Chandimal to focus on his batting in the long term. A similar strategy has already worked well for Sri Lanka, when Sangakkara’s batting bloomed after he was relieved of the gloves in Tests by Prasanna Jayawardene

Seven months after a freak accident forced his retirement, fans and former team-mates paid public tribute to Mark Boucher

Firdose Moonda at Newlands16-Feb-2013Imagine the inside of your eye exposed and bleeding. Imagine that solidifying and then imagine the residue being scraped away. Mark Boucher lived through those things the first time he went under the knife to operate on his left eye when it was punctured by a bail to end his career.”The worst pain I had was after that first operation. The doctor said it wasn’t going to be a painful operation and it would take an hour but it actually took four-and-half hours. There was a bit of blood on the cornea and they had to sandpaper it away. I was drugged up but not as much as I wanted to be,” he joked as he spoke to the media during his tribute day at the Newlands Test.Boucher retired from the game in July but has had to wait seven months for a send-off. The cricketing schedule and a postponement for personal reasons had something to do with the delay but Boucher’s health was also a concern. The reality is that the damage done was worse than initially expected and has required a much longer recovery time.When Boucher left the UK on July 9, there was hope that he would be back at Lord’s to watch the third match of the England series – what would have been his 150th Test. Travel was not an option at the time so he remained in South Africa but the team honoured him when they raised the Test mace.Smith and Jacques Kallis wrote messages on their shirts which read, “We miss u Bouch,” and “Bouch 150”. Smith’s was framed and handed over to Boucher during the tea interval today. A presentation from his team-mates formed part of the events as Boucher acknowledged fans for the last time. “I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to the crowds before so this was really special,” he said.Despite a mild case of flu, Boucher looked relaxed and had no hesitation discussing the gory details of his injury. “When it happened, I wasn’t sure if the ball or the bail had hit me,” he said. “Having looked at it on YouTube, I don’t like to look at it too much because it freaks me out a bit. The bail hit me in the eye and went two centimetres back.”Within 24 hours, Boucher made one of the biggest decisions of his life. “I sat down with Paddy Upton, Jacques and Graeme. I knew the eye was seriously damaged. I was always going to retire so it was an easy decision make. I didn’t want to go out that way but it could have happened at the beginning of my career and I wouldn’t have been able to play so many matches for South Africa. I have got no hurt over it at all.”The pain has all been physical and there is more to come. Boucher has already had eight operations and is set for four more before the end of the year. “Some of the operations I have been awake for, like when they do this miniature procedure where they take a needle and put it in the eye and drain blood out,” he said, without flinching at the description.Boucher has accepted he is unlikely to see perfectly out of that eye ever again – he lost the lens, the iris and the pupil – although he is hopeful he will regain some vision. “Right now, it is like looking through binoculars that aren’t focused. There is some sort of vision but I haven’t got a lens in, so it’s difficult to determine how much I will be able to get.”They do a test on the retina and at the moment that test is pushing out 50% vision. It’s not to say that I am going to get 50% back but the doctors are very happy with that. I can see colours and shapes. I will only be able to tell people what sort of vision I will have once they put the lens in.”I will never play cricket again. I am back to doing normal things now and I have got to be patient with the healing process. I am not really a patient person but that’s what I’ve got to do.”Boucher has thrown himself into a conservation project since being forced to retire•Getty ImagesUntil then, Boucher’s life is full of new projects. He has launched a conservation project in conjunction with South African Breweries, which aims to raise fund to register rhinos, an endangered animal, on a national DNA database so they can be tracked down if poached.”We are trying to raise a million Rand to give to a veterinary lab,” Boucher explained. “It’s like the CSI of the bush. You find a horn and you find a poacher and you can put the two together for DNA and you can then prosecute on that.” His days also include a lot of golf and his wine label venture with Kallis.Like Ricky Ponting, who retired in December, Boucher misses the camaraderie but not the bootcamp. “I don’t miss the warm ups at all. Jacques and I used to joke in the slips that we’d love to be playing golf and now I can go and play the golf. But, the feeling of hitting the winning runs is special, or taking a good catch.”That is something I will probably never feel again but I’ve got over that. I get the same feeling when we are on a rhino drive and we see the animal get up and move. I’ve replaced it with another passion of mine.”He has also been used as a mentor for the limited-overs’ teams and may become involved with as a wicketkeeping consultant. “I would love to do it with the national team,” he said. “Gary Kirsten asked me to look at a couple of keepers around the country and if I can give back to the game, I would love to, but nothing formal has been set up yet.”Boucher was brought in before the New Zealand series to work with Quinton de Kock and AB de Villiers and said it was more mental than technical aspects that he focused on. “AB has been keeping really well. I don’t think AB needs a lot of work, it’s just about the mental side of things,” he said. “With Quinton, I spent two sessions just talking with him. I was helping not only with keeping but talking to guys, because it’s a young side, that one day side. You won’t see me talking to the Test guys, they can look after themselves.”After his day at Newlands, cricket lovers can be assured that Boucher is doing the same thing for himself.

Stats highlights from the third day’s play in Mohali, which ended with India firmly in control

Madhusudhan Ramakrishnan16-Mar-2013 Dhawan’s century is the fastest ever by a batsman on Test debut. Dhawan, who took 85 balls for his century surpassed Dwayne Smith, who had scored a 93-ball century against South Africa in 2003. Dhawan’s strike rate (at the end of the third day) is the highest ever for a century score by a batsman on debut (completed innings only). Dhawan also surpassed Gundappa Viswanath’s record for the highest individual score by an Indian batsman on Test debut. Viswanath had scored 137 against Australia in Kanpur in 1969. Dhawan needs 103 runs to go past Tip Foster’s record for the highest score (287) by a batsman on debut. During the course of his knock, Dhawan also went past Gautam Gambhir’s 179, which was the highest individual score in Tests in Mohali. Dhawan scored 144 of his 185 runs in boundaries (78%). He scored 122 runs on the off side including 22 fours and two sixes. On the leg side, he scored 63 runs with 11 fours. He scored at slightly under a run a ball (56 off 58 balls) off Mitchell Starc and Peter Siddle. However, Dhawan scored 66 off 42 balls bowled by Xavier Doherty and Steven Smith. Off Nathan Lyon, Dhawan scored 30 runs in 36 balls. The 283-run opening stand between Dhawan and M Vijay is the highest ever in India-Auatralia Tests, surpassing the previous best of 217 between David Boon and Geoff Marsh. It is also the third-highest opening partnership for India. If the partnership touches 300, Vijay will become only the fourth Indian batsman after Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman to be involved in three separate 300-plus partnerships. The Dhawan-Vijay partnership is also 32 runs short of surpassing the highest ever partnership (314) in Tests in Mohali, held by Dravid and Gautam Gambhir. The 283-run stand is the second 250-plus partnership in the series for the India after the 370-run partnership between Cheteshwar Pujara and Vijay in Hyderabad. This is only the second time that India have managed two 250-plus stands in a series against Australia. The previous series was in 2003 in Australia when Dravid and Laxman added 303 in Adelaide, and Tendulkar and Laxman combined to add 353 in Sydney. The partnership run-rate (4.87) is the fifth-highest for a 200-plus partnership for India and the highest for a 200-plus stand not involving Virender Sehwag. The run-rate is also the second-highest for a 200-plus stand in India-Australia Tests behind the 214-run opening stand between David Warner and Ed Cowan in Perth (5.51) in 2012. Starc became the fifth Australian batsman to be dismissed for 99 against India. He is also the only No. 9 batsman to be dismissed one short of a century. For the second time in Tests against India, two Australian batsmen were dismissed in the nineties. The previous time this happened was in the Nagpur Test in 2004, when Damien Martyn and Simon Katich were dismissed for 97 and 99 respectively. It is also only the ninth occasion (fourth for Australia) that three or more batsmen have been dismissed in a single innings for scores between 85 and 99. Australia’s last three wickets added 157 runs after the seventh wicket fell at 251. It is the second-highest aggregate for the last three wickets for Australia in a Test against India after the 193 runs they managed in the Kolkata Test in 2001. MS Dhoni ended with five or more dismissals in an innings for the tenth time in international cricket (all formats included). In matches played since 2000, only Adam Gilchrist and Mark Boucher have had five or more dismissals in an innings more often than Dhoni (20 and 18 innings respectively).

The Plays of the day from the match between Mumbai Indians and Rajasthan Royals and Mumbai Indians in Kolkata

Sidharth Monga24-May-2013The shot
You would have seen bowlers bowling from 23 yards, but batsmen playing from 23 yards? That’s a new one. In the final over of the Rajasthan Royals innings, Dishant Yagnik stood on off to face Lasith Malinga. He had already been going deep in the crease to counter the Malinga yorker, but this time he was outside the line of off and played this one from behind the stumps. It worked, for Yagnik took it on the half-volley and flicked it over square leg for four.Turns out this was not new. It has been done twice in two balls, but not to such good an effect.The shot
How unsettling it must be for a bowler when one batsman has gone behind the stumps and the other – in the same over – walks up and turns it into a 20-yard delivery. Later in the same over, even when Malinga was midway in his run, Brad Hodge had walked almost half the way up the track. For a moment you thought Malinga might pull out of the delivery, but clearly he hadn’t learned from Sahara. Eventually Malinga tried to bowl a slower ball, but it slipped out of his hand so bad it missed the adjoining pitch too. Nor was it his first of that over.The desperation
The match was delayed by an hour because of the evening rain. The Mumbai Indians support staff was clearly the most desperate for the game to be of the longest possible duration. While others twiddled thumbs, Jonty Rhodes joined the ground staff and helped them dry the covers and take them off.The riposte
This was Rahul Dravid channelling his inner . When Rahul Dravid drove Mitchell Johnson straight past him in the third over, Johnson had a word or three to speak. Johnson forgot to back it up with a good ball next up, and Dravid flicked it away regally for four. And Dravid walked up to Johnson and asked him, “You want to say something?” He may as well have asked him, “You talking to me?”

Plays of the day from the game between Mumbai Indians and Kolkata Knight Riders in Mumbai

Sidharth Monga07-May-2013The over
This might be Twenty20, but if you are going to have Sachin Tendulkar’s streaks it is going to be fours and not sixes. He did it to Ryan McLaren in this game, hitting him for five successive fours in the fourth over. First he went over mid-off, then pulled him through midwicket, then picked a slower ball and lofted it over mid-on, and then placed a full toss perfectly between cover and cover-point. Then came the touch of luck, when he looked to cut a ball that wasn’t too wide and edged it over slip.The timeout
When the teams took the first break of the evening, one of the flood-light towers at the Wankhede Stadium did too. For about 17 minutes we watched in the dark despite the Tendulkar fireworks that preceded it. Possibly one of the Mumbai cops thought the party had gone on too long, and began to flick switches off.The catch
It has become so ridiculously common that nobody even exclaims at it anymore. When Rohit Sharma pulled McLaren towards the midwicket boundary in the 18th over, Eoin Morgan set himself under the ball, at the edge of the field, caught it, saw he was going to go over with the momentum, coolly lobbed the ball up in the air, stepped out, came back, took it. The umpires didn’t even need to look at the replay.The ducks
Gold is for the helmets nowadays. When it comes to ducks, diamond is all the rage. Jacques Kallis bagged his first ever serious one during this IPL season. Ambati Rayudu is not content with one that he bagged against Royal Challengers Bangalore, and hoarded his second when he went for a non-existent second and was sent back. That was not enough for the night, though. Harbhajan Singh came in, ran off a bottom edge from Dinesh Karthik, but didn’t quite put the wheels on and was caught short by a direct hit from short fine leg.

Team-mate, rival and friend, Mike Denness was a gentleman cricketer, a man with a happy disposition and a caring soul

Ashley Mallett21-Apr-2013The cricketing gods chose Mike Denness to become the first Scottish-born cricketer to captain the England Test team. (Douglas Jardine, who presided over Bodyline was born of Scottish parents, but he was born in India.) It was a wise choice, for Denness was a man of purpose and resolve, a man with a happy disposition and a caring soul.I first heard of him when I played a season for Ayr Cricket Club in the Scottish Western Union in 1967. There were three things a budding young cricketer whom the club had employed as a professional-cum-groundsman needed to do: learn all about the poet Robert Burns, buy a kilt, and take care not to do anything to upset the club’s ground convenor, Bill Denness, Mike’s dad.Learning about Burns was fine; after all, there was, and is, the Burns Cottage in Alloway, a Mike Denness on-drive from the club ground in Cambusdoon. I settled for a Farquharson clan kilt after getting one on the strength of my mother’s maiden name (West). But for all that, I couldn’t get one past Bill Denness, who like his son presented the broadest of straight bats to the most curly delivery. Bill Denness’ bedroom overlooked the square at Cambusdoon. I succeeded in getting what Bill wanted, a “light and dark” effect: you know, the sort we see at every Wimbledon Championship. Alas, I couldn’t get the cuts with the grain and against the grain straight. My light and dark meandered all over the place, and never did I get it right. Bill Denness hired and fired them, so I might have been dismissed early that summer had it not been for Mike, who was then playing for Kent.I discovered later that Mike intervened, explaining to his dad that wickets taken by the young colonial for the Ayr Cricket Club were of more value than his grass-cutting abilities. So I stayed, and eventually improved enough to get to play for Australia against Mike when he captained England.When I heard that Mike was to lead England’s 1974-75 tour of Australia, I set about organising with an Adelaide car yard a sports car bearing the England colours for his exclusive use whenever he was in Adelaide that summer. I got a photo in a kilt on the Brig-O-Doon and Mike got the use of a stunning car in Adelaide a few summers later.In the Test series Mike and his fellow batsmen copped a battering from Jeff Thomson, who was bowling faster than anyone I’ve seen before or since, and a rejuvenated Dennis Lillee, who returned to the Test arena after more than a year out with a near-crippling back injury.The pair formed a fearsome attack and the England batting was put to the sword; so much so that the captain, Denness, dropped himself from the fourth Test. He need not have bothered because England lost that game and with it the Ashes fell to Australia.Mike returned for the fifth Test, in Adelaide, scoring a gallant 51, then 14, but again the side lost. In the final Test of the series, at the MCG, he hit a magnificent 188 and England scored a massive 529, paving the way for the visitors to win by an innings.Then came the first Test against Australia at Edgbaston in 1975. Mike put us in after winning the toss and we scored a creditable 359. Then it rained, big time. In those days only the ends were covered and the main part of the pitch was laid bare to the elements. On that sodden track, Australia won easily, by an innings, and Denness was blamed. The last address I had for Mike was Hanging Tree Lane, near Hutton in Sussex. It was as if Denness was accused of high treason for putting Australia in after winning the toss. And so, metaphorically he was hanged, drawn and quartered: he was sacked and never again played Test cricket for England.Thankfully he continued to play county cricket and we played alongside one another on the 1976 International Wanderers tour of South Africa. His former Kent team-mate John Shepherd also toured with us, and there was pandemonium one night in Durban when Shep was told to leave a licensed club on the pretext of him not having worn a tie. Mike was one of those to show the way. We didn’t condescend to question the order but left the premises en masse, for we all knew the racist motive behind it: after all, here we were trying to bring cricket to all of the people in a South Africa that was being hamstrung by apartheid. Denness did well in a side that included the Chappell brothers, Glenn Turner, John Morrison, Martin Kent, Bob Taylor, Derek Underwood and yours truly.He hit 81 and 35 in our win against a South African Xl in Cape Town and fielded as enthusiastically and as well at cover point as he had ever done.He also undertook some managerial work during the World Series years in Australia, and while he loved the traditional game, he wanted to further the development of a better deal for professional cricketers worldwide.Mike continued to turn out for Essex until 1980. In all, he played 501 first-class matches. Those back at Ayr Cricket Club will never forgot their favourite son. Blokes like the Simpson clan, Ian “Hank” Johnstone, Derek Thursby and Co will raise a toast in Mike’s memory.Mike played for Ayr and was educated at the Ayr Academy. No doubt he studied the writings of Burns, who wrote a line in his immortal “The Prayer”, which really does apply to this gentleman cricketer: “But thou art good and goodness still.”

For Sri Lanka, the blazing opening stand between Tillakaratne Dilshan and Kushal Janith Perera in Hambantota was a welcome throwback to the days of Jayasuriya and Kaluwitharana

Andrew Fidel Fernando in Hambantota24-Mar-2013There was an age in Sri Lanka when everyone from captain to commoners summoned the notion of a “Sri Lankan brand of cricket”. Its definition would change from series to series and from one leader to the next. For some, it was a batting strategy founded on unfettered strokeplay. For others, the singularity of a varied and vibrant attack capable of contriving dismissals at unlikely times, in unusual quantities. On occasion, it was the ability to rally in the field, and launch a fierce offence on the back of a single, sprawling save.Like most things in the country’s cricket, though, the “Sri Lankan brand” has its roots in the 1996 World Cup. It was there that Sri Lanka’s modern sporting identity was born, and it is the benchmark every ODI side from Sri Lanka strives to achieve. Back then, the “Sri Lankan brand” meant two things: a breakneck start and fearlessness.Against Bangladesh in Hambantota, Tillakaratne Dilshan and Kushal Janith Perera tore open a portal to that past. The first ball, short and wide, scorched a trail through cover point. Next over, the batsmen hit four fours, and upon mistiming one that was hauled in just short of the rope, Dilshan kicked himself for failing to make it five. In 4.1 overs Sri Lanka clocked fifty with ten boundaries having been struck. The openers had been made to sit around for 85 minutes while engineers scrambled to get the floodlights back on, but when the batsmen finally took guard, they batted as if they expected the power to give out again any second.That, between Dilshan and Perera, Sri Lanka possess all the attributes of the opening pair that revolutionised the format will not have been lost on Sri Lanka fans. There is a wicketkeeper-batsman, a leftie-rightie combination, a slow-bowling marauder and two ex-middle order men booted up the order. The components might be spread somewhat differently, but they’re all still there.What’s more, Perera can hardly have adopted Jayasuriya’s homespun technique more completely – the short-arm jab, the brutal bottom-hand, the punishing square blows. Only, Perera is a little more lightening than thunder. Swift bat-speed substitutes for bulging forearms, and fleet of foot for extraordinary hand-eye coordination. Jayasuriya bullied plenty to the fence through sheer power, but he can rarely have used the forward press as well as Perera did in the sixth over, when he rocked back to send Abdul Razzak screaming through the off side.

Dilshan opens up on-side play

Bangladesh’s 259 seemed a challenging total on a pitch showing signs of slowness, and Sri Lanka’s task became slightly stiffer when 238 became their target after nine overs were lost due to a power failure at the ground. Captain Angelo Mathews, however, said there were no concerns in the dressing room about whether the target was achievable.
“I didn’t think 238 was too big a total, because once you start thinking that way, it has a negative effect on the way you bat. There was no talk in the dressing room like that, and we wouldn’t speak in that way. We’re always looking to get a good start, and to get everything right when we chase.”
Tillakaratne Dilshan, who made his 15th ODI hundred in the match, said his innings benefited from technical adjustments he had recently made.
“I’ve hit through the off side well for the last few years, but some of the balls that came straight I was trying to hit to the off side as well, when I should have been playing them to the on side. I’ve been out a lot of times trying to hit those balls to the off side. I worked a lot with Marvan Atapattu to correct that and that, I think, is the biggest reason I was able to play the straight balls well today.”

“It was a good opportunity to give a young player a go, and out of the openers I’ve batted with, I feel like Kushal will be valuable for the team in the years to come,” Dilshan said after the match. “He hit the ball without making anything complicated, and that made it easy for me as well. That kind of start is terrific. When a new player bats like that, I feel that he will play for Sri Lanka for a long time.”By the end of the mandatory Powerplay, curtailed though it was, Sri Lanka had effectively made the result a formality. Their opponents’ effort had not been encouraging to begin with, but it sagged a little more with each new act of violence, and when it suited Sri Lanka to wind down the assault at 83 for 0 after eight overs, they had bloodied the visitors to a mental state from which a recovery seemed unthinkable. Seventeen years ago, Sri Lanka knew the value of an early blitz better than anyone, and with two hyper-aggressive men in the vanguard again, they may find themselves retreading the paths cleared by the 1996 pioneers.”The way these two guys batted, the Bangladesh bowling looked ordinary,” captain Angelo Mathews said. “They actually demolished the bowling attack, which happens. Any attack can fall apart when these guys bat like that – especially Dilshan. The opening stand was vital for us. After that start I thought, ‘We can’t lose from here.'”They put the team in control. We are in a transition period and it’s always better to find a good youngster like Kushal who is fearless and who wants to attack all the time.”Though Perera’s refusal to compromise on belligerence at the top level has brought his demise on several occasions already, mammoth first-class scores suggest he is possessed of astute judgement and a firm defence too. In his last three domestic matches, Perera has hit 203, 97, and a 336 from 275 deliveries. His time behind the stumps in Australia revealed him to be a sharp keeper as well, and given Chandimal’s importance to the side as a batsman, Perera’s second talent may be called upon in the years to come.Sri Lanka will face far sterner limited-overs challenges than Bangladesh at home but a stunning start in Hambantota, which harked back to years gone by, may light the path ahead as well.

It’s a tough life in the arid region of Matabeleland where Heath Streak runs his ranch, but it can also be idyllic and happy

Liam Brickhill06-Aug-2013″Heath’s not here,” explains Nadine Streak when we arrive at the Streak residence in the Turk Mine area 60km north of Bulawayo. “They caught a poacher this morning, so he’s had to go down to sort that out.” Poaching, we are told, has been a problem for a while on the ranch.From up here, though, the surrounding wilderness looks pristine and peaceful. Set atop a small hill strewn with stone , the Streak residence offers a clear view over several miles of scrubby savannah. Nadine, Heath’s wife, offers hot tea to take the chill off the morning and fresh homemade biscuits as we wait in an open-air thatched beneath the Streak house, that host tourists and other guests.The most recent visitors were the Indian cricket team, who spent a day at the ranch in between their matches in Bulawayo. “I told [Jayadev] Unadkat: ‘Before you’ve finished your career, this boy right here is going to bowl you out,'” says Streak with a grin, pointing at his son Harry. The boy is a certainly a chip off the old block, steaming in off his long run as he plays backyard cricket with Nel, Price’s sons and a friend from school. Suresh Raina made a gift of an India shirt and a pair of sunglasses on his visit, and Harry has barely removed either for the last three days, sleeping in the shirt. Cricket, it appears, is in the blood.It’s an idyllic, happy scene – a vision of what has been and what is to come – but one that we must leave if we are to complete the 450km journey back to Harare before nightfall. As we drive back out along the bumpy dirt road towards the main highway, we catch a glimpse of a duiker watching us intensely from beneath the shade of a thorny acacia. A small, deer-like animal, it is a bundle of nervous energy, all twitching wet nose, wide worried eyes and oscillating ears. In arid Matabeleland, life, both human and animal, finds a way to survive.