For the last four years, Bangladesh’s first-class tournament has been won by a side not from Chittagong or Dhaka

Mohammad Isam28-Jul-2012Shortly after lunch on the third day of the five-day National Cricket League (NCL) final in April this year, the Rajshahi divisional cricket team completed their fifth first-class triumph, crushing Khulna.Four of the Khulna batsmen had more than 500 runs each in the competition, with Anamul Haque coming up to 800. Their frontline bowlers finished with about 35 wickets each, but none of these in-form batsmen, left-arm spinners or seamers held a candle to Rajshahi’s self-belief. The difference between the two sides was attitude, and Rajshahi had it in spades. Khulna didn’t seem to be able to get their heads around Farhad Hossain’s bland offspin with the new ball, nor could they come to terms with the way Farhad and Junaid Siddique, when they batted, went after Khulna’s form bowlers after Rajshahi lost both their openers by the second over of their first innings.What made Rajshahi’s win this season more worthy was that they had lost a number of players to Rangpur, which gained first-class status this year after becoming a functional division, the seventh in the country after Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, Khulna, Barisal and Sylhet. Players like Naeem Islam, Dhiman Ghosh and Sohrawardi Shuvo are from districts within Rangpur division, so their departure affected the composition of the Rajshahi side, but it was impressive how youngsters stepped up and into these players’ shoes. Rajshahi dropped only three games out of 11 in the 2011-12 season, and by the time they won the final, it was just like the previous three seasons, in which they virtually strolled home.Their self-confidence took several years of dedication to build, and came about largely thanks to one man’s persistence and the willing sacrifices of several others. Their hard work not only helped build the country’s most successful first-class team, it is helping hundreds of youngsters find hope in a region that has very low employment levels and a poor economic outlook overall.In terms of cricket Rajshahi has remained backwards, but so are the other divisions and districts across the country – the two big cities, Chittagong and Dhaka, being the exceptions. There is not much by way of infrastructural development, apart from the odd stadium, in most regions. Cricket facilities are stadium-based, and net practice is only available in winter, during which most professional cricketers and coaches remain in Dhaka, where the leagues are in full swing. Which means there is no one in the players’ home districts to teach youngsters, who hardly get any practice during the off season (which is mostly dedicated to football anyway). As a result, cricketers are far too dependent on the facilities on offer in the capital.Dhaka’s one-day cricket leagues – Premier Division, First, Second and Third Division – have been the main source of employment for professional cricketers in Bangladesh since the 1950s, and over the years the rise in the game’s popularity has been reflected in the money and competition on offer on the Dhaka club cricket circuit.The first significant shift in topography came about in the late 1990s, when the ICC asked Bangladesh to start a first-class competition to justify the country’s appeal for Test status. So in 1999, the Bangladesh Cricket Board devised a regional competition in which the six divisions would comprise the NCL.The first few years of the league reflected the lopsided spread of cricket in the country, which had by then become the tenth Test-playing nation. In the first six seasons of the NCL, Dhaka won the title three times, and Chittagong, Khulna and Bangladesh Biman the rest.During this period Rajshahi were also-rans. They went winless in the first season, getting bowled out for 57 by Khulna once, and suffering two innings defeats to Chittagong and a loss to Sylhet. Their maiden first-class win came against Dhaka the following year, but they continued to be pummelled by Chittagong both home and away over the next two seasons. The only international cricketer of note in their ranks, Khaled Mashud, played only 11 games for the side in that period, but the poor results hurt him, proud as he is of his roots.”When the NCL began, Rajshahi usually finished at the bottom,” Mashud said, sitting next to a picture of him holding the side’s fourth trophy. “Teams like Dhaka and Chittagong had plenty of stars and they used to steamroll us. We lost four-day games in two and a half days against teams that had [Minhazul Abedin] Nannu and Akram Khan. Our manager used to book bus tickets for the third day of matches we played in Dhaka or Chittagong; it was that easy to predict that we’d lose.”

Rajshahi’s hard work not only helped build the country’s most successful first-class team, it is helping hundreds of youngsters find hope in a region that has very low employment levels and a poor economic outlook overall

Mashud knew the only way Rajshahi would grow was through comprehensive development. He was passionate about the side standing toe to toe with Dhaka and Chittagong, but knew also that it wasn’t going to be easy to fight teams that had real training facilities.After a single win in the second season, the great leap forward came in 2001-02, when Rajshahi finished second, with five wins. They still couldn’t break their Chittagong hoodoo, though.They missed Mashud, who played just three games in the next two seasons, and Rajshahi finished fourth those years. The good news for them came in the form of the emergence of youngsters like Jahurul Islam and Junaid Siddique. Grooming upcoming players was part of Mashud’s plan, and he scoured Rajshahi and its outskirts for a ground suitable for practice. He found there were a large number of tournaments taking place in the districts but there weren’t many opportunities for talented players to improve.”We needed to produce players from North Bengal who could be good enough to compete,” Mashud said. “So I kept playing in small tournaments, where, for example, a young bowler would keep getting hit but eventually take my wicket if he was good enough. This helped me stay in training and also inspired others into taking the next step in cricket.”Rajshahi became the only first-class team in the country that trained actively in the off season. “At the Rajshahi College ground, we used to train together months before the proper NCL camp began, and we started to become the best-prepared side,” said Mashud.”We also used to practise in grounds that had very little facilities. We had to be humble and take care of the ground, roll the pitches, and put up the nets and store them carefully at sunset,” he said. “There [began to be] a lot of competition for places in the Rajshahi team, which was almost unheard of in the past, when all the training we did was 15 days before the first-class tournament started.”Among the hopefuls who looked to break into the side was Naeem Islam, who travelled a hundred miles west, from Gaibandha district, to take a shot. Having apprenticed at Bangladesh Krira Shikha Protishthan, the country’s biggest sports institute, Naeem lost his way after appearing in the 2004 Under-19 World Cup – many Dhaka clubs refusing his services for a perceived attitude problem. Mashud saw in him a reticent boy who needed the right amount of prodding to be made to field in the 30-yard circle, bowl his offspin a bit more, and bat at No. 4. When Naeem got out of his shell, he was a different, more rounded cricketer.”As soon as hungry youngsters like Naeem came through, the results became positive, from the 2004-05 season,” Mashud said. “We won the one-day competition.”Junaid Siddique (left) and Jahurul Islam at the Rajshahi Academy gym, where much of the equipment is fashioned out of scrap metal•Clemon-Rajshahi Cricket AcademyThere was a second-place finish in the NCL that year. Farhad Reza made 769 runs in his debut season. It was also the first season for future internationals Naeem and Sohrawardi Shuvo, and a future Rajshahi mainstay, Farhad Hossain.The following season they won the competition for the first time, with Naeem and Farhad making over 500 runs each and the veteran allrounder Mushfiqur Rahman picking up 39 wickets; they also completed the double by winning the one-day competition.The next two seasons, they were runners-up, despite winning more games than the champions Dhaka (2006-07) and Khulna (2007-08), but some of their top performers, like Junaid, Naeem and Reza, won places in the national team.Though their star performers could not play regularly for Rajshahi, senior players like Mashud and Anisur Rahman stayed on, chaperoning the youngsters who graduated through the age-group and Dhaka league ranks.”Whenever we spot a young talented player doing well in the Under-17s or Under-19s or even in the Dhaka league structure, we call them up to the nets and pick one or two to travel with us,” Mashud said. “It puts a strain on our budget but the divisional sports association takes care of that.Rajshahi have now won the NCL four times in a row, starting with 2008-09, despite the BCB revamping the tournament in 2009-10, since when it has included a final at the end. The new format jeopardises the best team in the competition, invariably Rajshahi these last few years, as it means that the winner of the final, not necessarily the leader on points, becomes champion, but Rajshahi have aced the final all three years running. Players like Jahurul, Naeem, Saqlain Sajib and the two Farhads have bucketfuls of runs and wickets in these successful campaigns. Rajshahi even pinched a Twenty20 title in 2009-10.As Rajshahi started to do well as a team, the players gained big contracts in the Dhaka leagues and salaries to match. That hasn’t made them forget their roots, though. Mashud is proud of how the players helped build a cricket academy to keep their legacy going. The players gave up many end-of-season perks, and bonuses and the team management gathered all the fines from several seasons to set up a fund, headed by Mashud.”Most of these players come from very modest backgrounds,” Mashud said. “Cricket has made them who they are today, but when I asked them if they’d like to contribute to the future of cricket in Rajshahi, they readily got involved.” The financial burden is now off the players, as the Akij Group of companies, convinced by Mashud, sponsors the Rajshahi academy and a few others across the country.The story began with the development of a first-class team that wanted to win matches. When they started racking up the trophies, they set out to make a lasting impact on the region’s cricketing future by setting up an academy – in contrast to the most successful club sides in the Dhaka leagues, which have been built on big money with the sole purpose of winning the season’s trophy. Rajshahi may not be a New South Wales, Yorkshire or Mumbai, but they have showed how it should be done in Bangladesh, where cricket is still a winter sport for those who aspire to play at the top.

During the apartheid years, playing on the county circuit was the only taste of big cricket many South Africans got. Circumstances have changed but plenty still make the annual trip north

Firdose Moonda20-Apr-2012Peter Kirsten and John Wright lived in a flat above a butcher’s shop in the early 1980s. Wright did most of the cooking.”He was a very good cook. So he ate New Zealand lamb and I ate South African lamb,” Kirsten says, with a smile in his voice that suggests the one-liner has been repeated for at least 25 years. Of course, the pair actually ate English lamb, and spent their time chatting about sport.”We both came from strong rugby cultures, so there would be a lot of banter about that,” Kirsten remembers. “And we thought about cricket the same way, so it was just good karma.”Their friendship flowered in Derbyshire, where they were both contracted as overseas players. They decided to share a flat on realising how well they got on and that they could cut costs that way. For both, cricket was a job as much as it was a passion, but there was one significant difference. For Wright, county cricket was simply what he did in the New Zealand winter. For Kirsten, it was the highest level of cricket he could play at the time.South Africa’s sporting isolation, which lasted in varying degrees from the 1960s to the 1990s as part of the worldwide movement against apartheid, meant at least two generations of sportspeople were unable to play sport at national level. For South African cricketers, England provided an opportunity to play with and against quality players from other parts of the world, and to make a year-round career in sport, which otherwise would not have been possible.”It gave me a chance to face bowlers like Malcolm Marshall and Wasim Akram – people we’d only ever heard about. That was an unbelievable challenge,” Jimmy Cook, Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1990, who scored over 7500 runs in three seasons at Somerset, says. “When we as a county used to play against international teams, that was like my Test match.”Brian Rose, Director of Cricket at Taunton, who recruited Cook, agreed that for South Africans there was markedly more meaning to their success in county cricket. “I think that’s true because their Test careers were finished before they even began,” he says.Rose took a keen interest in South African players because of his association with the country. He had taught and coached in Cape Town, at South African College Schools (known as SACS), and he first saw Cook in the 1975-76 season, playing at Newlands. People who Rose knew, like Clive Rice and Eddie Barlow, also spoke well of Cook. “Jimmy came highly recommended by everyone I spoke to,” Rose recalls. When Somerset needed an overseas player, Cook was an obvious choice.For Cook, the opportunity to travel to England was a no-brainer. He had stopped playing football, which had occupied him in the winter, four years before Rose called, and had “always wanted to give county cricket a try”. After checking with Rice that the deal was reasonable and the remuneration fair, Cook accepted.Kirsten got his chance in a similar word-of-mouth way. Barlow had a “sort of trial” for a few Western Province players to see who would be interested in playing in England and Kirsten, who came out on top, was put in touch with Derbyshire.Once in England, it was as though as the world had opened up. Both Cook and Kirsten recall learning and seeing more than they ever did at home. Perhaps more importantly for the counties, both enjoyed immense success in unfamiliar conditions. Even today, South African players sometimes struggle to adjust to the movement on English surfaces, but Cook took to it as though he had played there all his life.

“I see county cricket not only as a cricketing experience but a lifestyle one. They come out of school, they must learn to live without mom and dad and grow up a little bit”Jimmy Cook

Cook put it down to good timing, not with the bat but the year he first started in Somerset, 1989. “My home wicket at Taunton was, at the time, the best batting wicket in England and slightly faster than the other wickets,” he says. “It suited me down to the ground. Early on in my stint there, I managed to play some very slow but longer innings and got used to the conditions. Having played at the Wanderers for so many years, where the pitches were very bowler-friendly, I got to Taunton and found that pitches were batsmen-friendly. So I loved batting every day.”Another aspect of county cricket foreigners can be stumped by is the rigorous schedule. For Cook, that was something to be enjoyed. “To certain people, playing every day isn’t ideal, because they want breaks, but I just loved it,” he says.There was nothing about county cricket Cook did not relish. In his time there, he made Somerset a home, and his wife and two young sons spent time with him there as well. “They didn’t go to school because both my wife and I were schoolteachers, so we just got the work from the school. Mom did the work with them in the morning and they came down to the cricket in the afternoon.”Apart from the lifestyle, Cook says the most important thing county cricket did for him was that it allowed him to keep up with trends in the game. He would often bring home ideas on field placements or particular shots to apply in South Africa.The same went for Kirsten, who remembers seeing and copying the reverse sweep in 1979, and credits county cricket with improving his approach to spin bowling. He also talks about playing a version of cricket that he sees as one of the forerunners to 20-overs cricket. “We used to play ten-over cricket when it rained and our limited-overs games were cut short. We were playing that sort of cricket back then, you know,” he said, with a laugh.Cook, Kirsten, Rice, Stephen Jeffries, Barry Richards and Mike Procter all had opportunities to become better players in the top tier of the English game. But players of colour had to settle for lower levels of competition. League cricket was often where they sought out contracts, and many made a great success of it. Dik Abed was one of the most prominent professionals in the Lancashire League, while Omar Henry made a name for himself in the Manchester League.Mike Procter of Gloucestershire•PA PhotosIt was there that he got an offer from a Scottish businessman, who was also involved in cricket. “He read about me in the Manchester and asked me to go and play in Scotland,” Henry says. “I didn’t even know they played cricket in Scotland. When I got to Glasgow and I saw the cricket field with golf courses on either side, I thought, ‘This is not a bad place to be.'”It was an unexpectedly good result from a decision taken on the fly, to play cricket in the United Kingdom. Henry was 24 years old, lived with his parents and did not have many responsibilities when he took the plunge. “I gave myself three years, where I thought I could live hand to mouth and try to play overseas. It was just my luck that I made it,” he says. “I also saw myself as a bit of a pioneer for other players of colour who did not always have the same opportunities.”Henry was one of very few non-white cricketers who attracted the attentions of a major county, largely because of the lack of exposure players of colour had. South African Cricket Board (non-white) matches were rarely covered overseas. Kirsten thinks that if they were, many more South Africans would have made careers in England. “County scouts were often unaware of the potential of black players,” Kirsten says. “It’s unfortunate because many of those guys would have done very well there.”Since readmission, the South African connection to county cricket has expanded to include all players. Hashim Amla played for Nottinghamshire, Ashwell Prince for Lancashire, Alviro Petersen is currently with Essex, and Vernon Philander represents Somerset, having been handpicked by Rose to join them.Rose has maintained his links with South Africa. Cook coached there for six years and was in charge of youth development, until the role required a full-time employee, which Cook could not commit too. Cook also introduced Graeme Smith, who he coached as a schoolboy, to Somerset. The South African captain led the county to the T20 title in 2005.Cook regularly organises for boys who have just finished school to play league cricket in England, and says he would recommend it as a must-do experience for budding professionals. “If anyone got an opportunity, I’d tell them to jump at it,” he says. “I see it not only as a cricketing experience but a lifestyle one. They come out of school, they must learn to live without mom and dad and grow up a little bit.”Henry agrees, saying although the cricket education is important, it’s the bigger picture that matters more. “What was possibly more important than cricket is that I grew up as a human being.”Money may speak louder than this mantra, though. With leagues such as the IPL contracting players for significant chunks of time, cricketers dedicating time to play on the county circuit is becoming less common. Rose admits that counties sometimes struggle to secure overseas players. “It is much more difficult. The Future Tours Programme is a nightmare for domestic cricket,” he says, although he has found a positive for the local game. “It allows for the development of local young players, which could prove a great benefit for English cricket in the long term.”

The home side can have no arguments that they have been out-played by South Africa and if they have ambitions of reviving their Test fortunes will need to be honest about their problems

George Dobell at Lord's19-Aug-2012Just as summer inexorably turns into autumn, so England’s grip on the No.1 Test status is ebbing away as surely as night follows day. Like a desperate man losing their grip on a cliff face, England will, at some stage on Monday, fall from their perch. As Bob Dylan put it, it’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.Few England supporters would dispute that South Africa have been the better side in this series. They would accept, too, that England, for all their improvements over recent years, have failed to justify their lofty ranking since defeating India about 12 months ago. What seemed, at the time, like the start of a journey, might have turned out to be the end. A record that may well read six losses from 11 Tests this year by the end of Monday tells its own story.It is a story which leaves England with some awkward questions to answer.Firstly, they need to look at why their catching, so impressive when they won the Ashes, has become so fallible. They have dropped nine catches in this series, including chances that might – such as the reprieve of Hashim Amla at The Oval and Alviro Petersen in Leeds – have defined matches. In South Africa’s second innings here, England dropped Amla on 2, AB de Villiers on 8 and Jacques Rudolph on 6. It is hard enough to beat South Africa without allowing their middle order an extra innings each.At present this is a question for which England have no answer. They are not lacking in hard work and good intention but, perhaps, lack the personnel to build an effective slip cordon. It may be that, if they conclude that their slip catching is costing them games – and there is increasing evidence that it is – they need to look at their team selection and ensure they are better covered in such respect.Stuart Broad’s reputation has also declined during this series. Despite one good spell at Leeds, he has been bowling with reduced pace and effectiveness throughout and can no longer be presumed an automatic selection. While the greater potential of his batting might be presumed to see him preferred to Graham Onions, Broad’s batting average in this series – 8.25 – hardly justifies that. The bowling average of 39.72 is hardly encouraging, either.That is not to say Broad should be dropped. He is only 26 and may well come to be regarded in time as one of England’s finest seamers. But England really do need to question – and correct – his loss of pace and hostility with the ball and his loss of form with the bat. He is too good to be allowed to go to waste.But perhaps the most awkward question concerns Andrew Strauss. No-one disputes that Strauss is a fine man with an excellent career behind him. But there are legitimate questions about his future. He has a highest score of 37 and an average of just 17.83 in this series. More to the point, he has hardly looked likely to score runs.Some of his tactical decisions – such as dropping Graeme Swann at Headingley and the leg-side approach to bowling at Graeme Smith – have been muddled and, by the close of play on Monday, it is likely that he will have presided over one series victory in four. The harsh might also suggest that a more sophisticated captain might have nullified any issues between Kevin Pietersen and the rest of the team before they reached the stage they have. They have been brewing for some time.It is true that it is not long since Strauss scored runs against West Indies. And they were not the easy runs some suggest. As Kemar Roach proved to Jonny Bairstow, the West Indian attack is not to be under-rated. But the fact remains that the South African attack is a class above and, if England really aspire to return to the top ranking, they need a man at the top of the order who can see off the new ball with more certainty that Strauss offers at present. The lack of alternatives for his position is a concern, but Jonathan Trott, Nick Compton, Michael Carberry and, perhaps, Joe Root are all possibilities.England’s success has been built – partly, anyway – on the principle of continuity of selection. But there is a line between a settled environment and a cosy environment and it remains to be seen if Andy Flower, for all his excellence in the role of England coach, can regenerate this side in the way that Sir Alex Ferguson has a series of Manchester United sides.Perhaps this series may prove something of a watershed. The emergence of Steven Finn and Jonny Bairstow offers substantial encouragement for the future. Both are young and both will endure some pot-holes on their journey, but they have shown they are men with a future at this level.Finn has claimed eight wickets in this match, bowling with a pace and hostility that would trouble any side. He concedes more runs per over than England would like in an ideal world, but the key is that he takes wickets. It is a skill that outweighs all negatives. He has time to work on his consistency.”I wouldn’t say I chase wickets,” Finn said after play. “I’m a young bowler. I’m not going to get it right every time. That’s part of being a young bowler. Everyone experiences that when they’re growing up. I’m only 23-years-old. I’m still learning a lot about the way I bowl. I don’t run up thinking ‘wickets, wickets, wickets’ every ball. It’s not the way I’ve been taught to operate and it’s not the way the team operates. I went at four-an-over in the first innings, but came back in the second innings and went for less than three-an-over and felt I bowled well.”Finn insisted that England could still win the game on the last day. But to score another 330 in 90 overs against this attack would be an awesome achievement. But perhaps the most damning statistic is this: England have never successfully chased more than 332 to win a Test in a history that started in 1876-77.”As a team over recent years we have enjoyed breaking records and defying people’s beliefs against us,” Finn said somewhat implausibly. “We really do believe in the dressing room that we can win this game. The older ball does a lot less than the new ball and tomorrow we’ll be playing against a ball 15 overs old. When the ball is softer there is no uneven bounce and when the ball is old and the sun is out, it’s a very good wicket to bat on. It’s going to be important to build partnerships and get our foot in the door. Then, later in the day, maybe we can smash through it and win the game.”Maybe. In truth England need a miracle of Biblical proportions to win this game and retain their No.1 ranking. And it is hard to see how even a plague of locusts can help them now.

His body cannot be expected to stand up to the demands that have been placed on it by New South Wales, the Sydney Sixers and Cricket Australia

Daniel Brettig02-Nov-2012Breaking into prominence in Australian cricket as a 17-year-old schoolboy in 2010-11, Pat Cummins seemed too good to be true. Fast as any in the country, he was also tall, sported a late outswinger, and possessed an instinct for how to bowl that is usually the exclusive preserve of only the best and most seasoned of fast men.Two years on, with Cummins facing his second consecutive home summer on the treatment table, it turns out that this story was indeed too much of a fairytale to be sustained in the cluttered reality of 21st century cricket. Cummins’ bowling skills, natural attributes and intelligence have not diminished, but while he is still a teenager, his body cannot be expected to stand up to the demands that have been placed on it by New South Wales, Sydney Sixers and Cricket Australia.A back stress fracture has offered time for Cummins and those around him to think seriously about how the past year since his Test debut in South Africa has unfolded. It has been punctuated by injuries to his foot, side and back, a lot of T20 matches, a great deal of travel, and by his own admission a departure from the bowling fundamentals that put him in the Australian side in the first place.The most recent episode in South Africa does not reflect a great deal of credit on the Sixers. While CA had sent their bowling coach, Ali de Winter, to the T20 Champions League to monitor the workloads of the national team representatives taking part in the event, Cummins’ admission that he was starting to feel sore towards the back end of the event did not reach de Winter, the physio Alex Kountouris, or the team performance manager, Pat Howard, as early as possible.This lapse between Cummins confessing to some minor discomfort and CA’s staff knowing of it may have prevented them from calling him home early. As it was, he bowled in the semi-final and final without feeling too inconvenienced, but no one will now know whether the current stress fracture might have stayed merely a less serious stress reaction without those matches.CA is known to be disappointed at being kept out of the loop, though the Sixers’ reasons for keeping the matter to themselves are unclear. It is plausible that they feared the loss of another key part of their team after already being stripped of the services of Shane Watson as part of a pre-planned move to give the Australian vice-captain more time at home to prepare for the Test summer.Irrespective of when or how it first became clear that Cummins was sore again, the fact of his recurring injuries endorses the view that he has risen too far, too fast. Many were seduced by the possibility that a bowler so young might be ready to win matches for Australia, and his performance in Johannesburg a year ago brought that excitement to a feverish pitch.It must be remembered that not only has Cummins barely played for his state, he has barely played for his club. NSW selectors first chose Cummins at a time when a glut of other injuries had limited their bowling stocks, but they kept picking him because of how impressive he seemed, or more accurately, how impressive he was. Similarly Australia’s selectors – first the panel of Andrew Hilditch and latterly that of John Inverarity – have returned to Cummins several times as soon as he was fit after injury because of how beguiled they were by his combination of speed, skill and intelligence.

“Jason Gillespie, Mitchell Johnson… had a string of injuries over a few years and came out the other side. So I’m not too fussed. I’d love to be playing but I realise it’s not a rare thing to occur”

Now all must acknowledge and accept that Cummins’ path cannot be any different to that of most fast bowlers before him, who have generally endured periods of injury and pain before entering serious national team calculations later in life. Cummins noted the stories of Brett Lee, Jason Gillespie and Mitchell Johnson as examples of this.”There’s other people like Jason Gillespie, Mitchell Johnson, there’s a whole string of fast bowlers who are were pushing the 140-150kph barrier at 18, 19, 20 years old, and none of them went through unscathed,” Cummins said. “They all had a string of injuries over a few years and came out the other side. So I’m not too fussed. I’d love to be playing, but I realise it’s not a rare thing to occur.”The revelation that Cummins had been scheduled to visit the Australian Institute of Sport for examination of his action, and its potential to contribute to his injuries, is telling. It confirms that some among Cummins’ mentors agree that he is still developing, still finding the correct bowling action and method for his body.There are pointed parallels here with the careers of Lee and Gillespie, who both underwent drastic changes to their bowling actions in their earliest days. In Lee’s case, there were five years of setbacks and experiments between his first-class debut in 1994-95 and his first Test in 1999. Those changes were forced by a string of injuries, but ultimately resulted in a bowling method that was both swifter and more durable than the original. In this Cummins can find some consolation, knowing that the action he used to great effect in Johannesburg a year ago does not have to be the one he carries right through his career.For now, however, he must cope with the bewilderment and frustration of another major injury. As he put it: “I’m sick of coming home and not playing the summer.” His minders for state, T20 club and country must be sick of it too, and it is to be hoped that they will now take a longer view to ensure that the promise Cummins has shown so far is not entirely undermined by impatience to have him bowling again as soon as possible.

Cheteshwar Pujara has shown he is willing and able to take Rahul Dravid’s position in India’s Test batting line-up

Nagraj Gollapudi23-Aug-2012In his second Test, in 2010 in Durban, Cheteshwar Pujara hastened to play a pull off Lonwabo Tsotsobe even as the ball rushed on to him and kept rising. Mark Boucher caught the top edge and Pujara trudged back, dismissed for 19. Later, when he sat brooding in the dressing room, Rahul Dravid walked up and asked if he normally played such shots. “Not really,” Pujara said, knowing the ball was not there to be hit, especially since it was outside off stump.”[Dravid] told me I should play my natural game rather than playing too many shots, because if you are not good at something, then it is not worth playing that shot,” Pujara says. “You should play to your strength, which is to hang around and play the shots to a loose ball, and not against a ball that is not there to be hit.”Pujara had learned an important lesson. “I felt it was not the right place, right time and not even the right format to play such a shot. We were playing on the fast pitches in South Africa, not the slower surfaces in India. I told myself I had to learn to play according to situation.” He started to leave the ball more, and that felt natural.At some point this week, Pujara might step into the No. 3 or No. 5 slots now vacant following the retirements of Dravid and VVS Laxman. Virat Kohli will occupy one of the two positions; Pujara will vie with Ajinkya Rahane and S Badrinath for the second. During training on the two days leading up to the first Test against New Zealand in Hyderabad, Pujara batted at No. 3.He wants to make a mark on his return from injury and is unfussy about where he bats. “It is a team game, so most of the time you have to see the comfort of the team, not your own. As a batsman I need to be flexible. I am a youngster making a comeback, not someone settled in the batting order. So I should not be demanding. Once I prove myself at a particular position, then I can say I would like to bat at this and this number.”Mentally adept and patient, Pujara built his reputation by grinding down opponents in Ranji Trophy cricket for Saurashtra, for whom he bats at No. 4. In his first few years he found himself coming in with the new ball barely having lost its shine, as a weak Saurashtra top order faltered frequently. Although he hasn’t had to come to his side’s rescue too often in the last two years, Pujara has grown accustomed to the challenges of a top-order batsman.”There is not much difference batting at No. 3 or 4, as I found out in my time at Saurashtra, where we used to be two down before ten overs.” Pujara is aware of the demands of batting up the order, but he likes it better than the alternative. “It is a challenge, but in another way it is good. That is because you are not under pressure when you bat on top. If you are batting lower down, if you are in a good position then it is fine. But if you are 100 for 3 or 4, the bowlers are on top. The pressure is on you to get runs then. But if you are No. 3, you still can play safe and play your natural game, unlike when you are batting at No. 5 or 6, where you are left to bat with the tail.”Pujara is the sort of batsman who likes to spend time at the crease, tiring bowlers down and punishing loose deliveries. To him the biggest advantage of batting high up is that he likes to feel bat on ball, which he can do against the new ball. “Especially in Indian conditions, the old ball does not come on to the bat on slow surfaces. So if you get in early you can feel the new ball coming nicely on to the bat, and at times you can play strokes.”Batting at No. 3 is often nearly the same as being an opener. Having opened and walked in as one-down for Indian Oil Corporation in the Mumbai corporate cricket league, Pujara is confident he has the right skills and mindset.He didn’t do too badly on the India A tour of the West Indies in June this year. In the first innings of the Barbados match, Pujara came to bat at 1 for 2 and scored a crucial half-century. In the second, he made an unbeaten 96 after walking in at 21 for 3 (nightwatchman Rahul Sharma had been sent in ahead of him before stumps on day three).”The wicket was really bad, with a few balls bouncing from the good-length spot, making it impossible to bat. I got beaten a few times on the penultimate evening.” On day four, India A were reduced to 115 for 8, but Pujara stood strong, and in the company of Shami Ahmed he took his team to a narrow win. In all three first-class matches on the tour, India lost their first two wickets in the first five overs more often than not. Rahane, who opens for Mumbai in first-class cricket, was tried at No. 3 but failed.Pujara displayed a similar calm on his Test debut too, when he scored 72 against Australia in Bangalore, after being promoted up the order to No. 3. However, he played only two more Tests, after which an injury sustained during the 2011 IPL forced him to undergo surgery.Aakash Chopra on why Pujara should bat one-down

Pujara has had only one good Test innings for India, in Bangalore against Australia. He struggled in South Africa, so there are scars that need to be erased. We all like to brush such things aside, but ask any international cricketer who has done well, failed and come back: the biggest challenge is to get accepted again. There are probably more questions now that he has to answer than when he made his debut. This is the mental hurdle he will have to clear.
Pujara has the right temperament to play for long hours with patience, but he is not your regular free-scoring player. So I feel he is best suited for No. 3, and not lower down the order, where, at times, you need to score runs at a fair clip. Playing fearless cricket does not come naturally to a youngster like Pujara. That may be easier for Suresh Raina, but not Pujara, who might find it daunting if he was asked to bat at No. 5 or 6.
If he does bat at No. 3, it’s good to try him out against New Zealand at home, because their bowling attack might not pose enough tough questions for Pujara. He has to be ready to cope with that pressure when England visit at the end of the year. When you are batting at No. 3, you have think and construct your innings like an opener, and against the likes of James Anderson, Steve Finn and Stuart Broad, all tall, clever fast bowlers, Pujara will need to be playing at his best. England will be his real challenge.
Easy runs are never available in international cricket. Those boundaries that come easily in domestic cricket don’t come every over or two in Tests. But Pujara is primed to win that battle because he knows how to bat time.
Being yourself at the international level is difficult, more so for a youngster. At times you tend to believe you need to do things differently to succeed. In Pujara’s case, he needs to do exactly what he does in domestic cricket and be patient.

His hunger to play didn’t subside as he watched from the sidelines. During this year’s IPL, while he did not play many matches, Pujara enjoyed picking the brains of his Royal Challengers Bangalore team-mate AB de Villiers. “He told me he tries to play the ball as late as possible, which allows him to see it till it hits the bat,” Pujara says. “That is helping me a lot: you allow the ball to come to you rather than you reach for it.”He also got some valuable advice from his father, who suggested his son was trying too hard to get his backlift straight, which was making his arms stiff and affecting his strokes. “He asked me to look at my videos when I played with soft hands where the backlift was more natural,” Pujara says.He also keeps in mind what Gary Kirsten, the former India coach, told him – while giving throwdowns during the Australia series – was the essential difference between international and domestic cricket. “He said, in international cricket you need to hang around because you get more good balls than loose ones, while in domestic cricket it is the other way around.”If he bats at No. 3, Pujara will be the important link between the opening pair of Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir and middle-order mainstay Sachin Tendulkar. If he bats at No. 5, the fall of early wickets could put pressure on him to stabilise the innings while also anchoring the lower order. He is not intimidated by either prospect, saying he’ll learn while batting with senior batsmen. “You learn about their games and how they understand the situation by talking in between overs.”When Tendulkar came in to bat [on Pujara’s debut in Bangalore], I was already in my 30s. I knew I would not get out and instead [would] take the team home. Legends like him read the bowlers very well and know the lines and lengths the bowler has in mind – something I might not be able to perceive. So if anything, it only helps to bat alongside senior batsmen.”Pujara missed the home series against West Indies and the tour of Australia and says he has been working hard on making a comeback. “It has been delayed because there were not many games, but I did whatever I could in the domestic format and with India A. But I do not want to rush. I am going to be calm and play my natural game.”Twenty-four now, he leads a disciplined lifestyle, sleeping early and waking up even earlier most days in his hometown of Rajkot to train for long hours. That has been his regimen for most of his life.He was hurt at talk that his list of injuries seems never-ending, but says he remains driven. “This is the moment I have worked hard for. There is hunger, passion, and I am back to playing at the highest level. It is once again a debut game for me.”The biggest challenge, Pujara says, will be to try to fill the shoes of Dravid and Laxman. There is pressure, he says, but not overwhelming. “It is an opportunity for all the youngsters to prove ourselves. If you work in the right direction, the chances are more that you will succeed.”

Aaron Phangiso’s attitude and the natural break in his action has helped him grow quickly as a left-arm spinner

Firdose Moonda24-Oct-2012A decade ago, a team consisting of the likes of AB de Villiers, Faf du Plessis and Neil Wagner established a reputation as the Australia of the schoolboy age. They were the hegemons.Most of that group went on to become fairly well-known professional cricketers soon after. Some slipped under the radar and re-emerged only later. Aaron Phangiso was one of the latter lot. His time appears to be now.Of all the players in the ongoing Champions League, Phangiso has been the biggest revelation. Like Kieron Pollard and Davy Jacobs before him, it seems predestined that he will be offered an IPL contract. Unlike the two of them, it will not be because of his feats with the bat. Phangiso’s left-arm spin is a not rare in India but his big-match temperament and wily use of what his former coach, Grant Morgan, calls the “natural pause ball” could make him a clever buy.”If you look at his action, there’s a slight delay before he delivers the ball,” Morgan told ESPNcricinfo. “That makes him very hard to pick because it’s difficult for batsmen to line him up.” Morgan compared the pause to the likes of Saeed Ajmal or R Ashwin, and said it was particularly unusual for a left-armer.As proof of how effective it has been, Phangiso has had the better of Shane Watson, Sachin Tendulkar, M Vijay and Gary Ballance. Those four significant wickets are part of Phangiso’s tournament haul of eight, which puts him third on the wicket-takers’ list. He is three wickets behind the leader Mitchell Starc and could overtake second-placed Azhar Mahmood, who took 10 wickets.But those are not the most impressive of Phangiso’s statistics. Of all the bowlers left in the competition, he has the second-lowest economy rate which stands at 4.43 per over. Ajit Agarkar has been more miserly, giving away only 4.37 runs per over. He also has the second-lowest average, 8.87, of the remaining contenders. Only Morne Morkel’s is better at 8.80.Perhaps the one that will stand out most, especially from the national selectors’ point of view, is that Phangiso has the best strike rate among bowlers in the two South African franchises. His sits at 12.0, which means on average he takes a wicket every two overs and two in every match. That may be why his captain, Alviro Petersen calls him the “banker” of the team who “never gets the credit he deserves but always performs”.In some ways that has been how Phangiso’s career has gone. He started off at Northerns, where he blossomed despite his humble background. “He was never a big turner of the ball but he had a lot of confidence,” Morgan, who coached him there, said. “He was part of that bunch of boys who were not scared to lose and who had a natural competitive instinct.”Roelof van der Merwe was his major competitor at the union and eventually Phangiso decided to seek a clearer path. He moved to the North West Cricket Union where he became one of coach Monty Jacobs’ favourite players. “He has a very dry sense of humour and always has something to say and is one of the best assets in our team,” Jacobs said.Phangiso also brought a wealth of knowledge to the side, which Jacobs could build on. “He is a very clever bowler and always thinking about the game. One of the things I’ve noticed is that he uses flight very well.”From there, Phangiso was picked for the Lions’ limited-overs sides and would return to the North West (one of the Lions two feeder amateur unions) to play first-class cricket. Even though he seems to be boxed in as white-ball player only, Jacobs said that is not the case.”I think it was even in his mind a little that he could only play one-day cricket, but he has more to offer. He is definitely smart enough to play the longer format. I will only see him again in January, because he will be playing in the one-day cup until then but when he gets back, we will keep working on his first-class game. Lions have a lot of spinners like Imran Tahir and Eddie Leie but hopefully he will get a look in.”Phangiso took a hat-trick for North West against Free State last season, which Jacobs said has become the stuff of legend at the union. After this Champions League, it seems they will have many more stories to tell about him.

Who will win the Champions Trophy? How will the top players fare? Ricky Ponting answers

05-Nov-2012Who do you expect to be the star players at the 2013 ICC Champions Trophy?
The South African team, at the moment, are right up there. Amla is probably the best batsman in both Test and ODI forms. He’s played well in English conditions in the last few months and could have a massive tournament. Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina – although English conditions might not suit the Indian players – are hugely talented and could have a massive impact. Sangakkara is just getting better and better with each year that goes by. The last few years he’s been outstanding, and has done well in English conditions in the past. Ian Bell and Jonathan Trott stand out for England. Trott is just so consistent at what he does, and Bell, when he’s playing well particularly at the top, could be looking to bat through and make big hundreds.And the Australians?
Shane Watson’s going well now and, along with Michael Clarke, will be the two guys leading the way batting wise for Australia. And our young quicks should have a good time if they get favourable conditions – Pattinson, Starc and Cummins – they could play a huge part, all those guys are bowling close to 150kph and swinging the ball, so will be very dangerous. I’ve never seen a more exciting group of young fast bowlers in Australia since I’ve been playing. When you add in Siddle and Hilfenhaus, it’s a great attack. There’s another kid playing in the Champions League at the moment for New South Wales, Josh Hazlewood, who’s a very good bowler. The talent and stocks are very, very good. A couple are still finding their feet at the international level, but next summer and beyond, you’ll see these guys performing as very good bowlers.How do you rate Australia’s chances at the 2013 ICC Champions Trophy?
They’ve got as good a chance as any team, no doubt about it. I know they were very disappointed with results and their form in the UK recently, but England played very well and we were coming off a break from the off season. Come next summer, the boys will be ready to go. I’d single out Australia, South Africa, England, and New Zealand as being the main contenders, considering the conditions. New Zealand always seem to find a way to make the quarters and semis in big tournaments. England face Australia in Group A at Edgbaston. A good chance to gain the upper hand before the Ashes, perhaps?
I don’t think either team will be focusing on the Ashes – when you’re in the Champions Trophy, they’ll be focused on that. You can guarantee both teams will be out there to play the way they always play – with great rivalry and great respect for each other.Do you expect England and Australia to progress from Group A as opposed to New Zealand and Sri Lanka?
Tough pool, that one. England should know the conditions like the back of their hand, so yes, Australia and England should be the two favourites to progress, but in ODIs you just never know. New Zealand always find a way to progress!Who do you think will progress from Group B, among India, Pakistan, South Africa and West Indies?
South Africa and India.Did you enjoy playing cricket in England?
I loved every opportunity to play in UK. It’s the one tour – whether it’s Ashes or not – that all young Australians want to be a part of. The history, the grounds… even little things like travelling around on the coach for a few weeks or months at a time is a great way to see the place and also to learn a lot about team-mates and friends whilst you’re away. Hands down, England is my favourite place in the world to tour and play cricket.What about the three Champions Trophy grounds – The Oval, Edgbaston and Cardiff?
I’ve got lots of good and bad memories of playing at The Oval – we’ve won, we’ve lost and drawn when we’ve needed to win, but it’s such a great place to play. Great ground, very good wicket to bat on, very fast outfield and a just a great vibe of playing in London.Edgbaston is probably the ground I’ve played the least at in England – last time round in the Champions Trophy in 2004, England beat us in the semi-final.I’ve not got too many fond memories of playing in Cardiff. We should have won the 2009 Ashes Test and we lost the ODI game against England comfortably, and lost to Bangladesh there too a few years before that. The ground is totally different to when I started playing in the UK, but when we played the games there in 2009, it was fantastic and had great crowds there.And could it be a big year for you personally, in 2013?
I’m not looking forward too far yet. I’ve got a few Tests left to play in 2012 first, and that’s what I’m focused on. Hopefully, I can continue to do enough to help Australia climb back up that tree to world No. 1.You enjoyed a short but successful spell at Somerset. Can you envisage another spell in county cricket in England at some stage?
Never say never. I really enjoyed my brief stint at Somerset. I arrived at the club and things weren’t going to plan. They hadn’t won a game in a long time. I got there and we managed to string a few wins together. I’m a cricket lover and cricket tragic, and to get a feel for what county guys do day in day out was a lot of fun. It’s a great club full of great people.

It is difficult to pinpoint why New Zealand seem to have lost the ability to dig in, which was once their trademark characteristic. They must rediscover it to have any chance against Sri Lanka

Andrew Fernando29-Oct-2012Over the years, New Zealand had endeared themselves to a legion of overseas fans with their attitude and style. Almost always the underdogs, in the past they have competed with the top teams by striking a unity of purpose that has elevated the collective beyond the sum of its parts. Bowlers would find a way to make runs where the batsmen could not, part-timers would crack partnerships and turn matches, and the team would scrap their way out of adversity – if not always to victory. No longer. The spunk has left their game. It has been gone some years now.New Zealand’s recent record does not make for pleasant reading. They arrive in Sri Lanka less encumbered by expectations as a result, with fans at home becoming increasingly disenchanted with a cricket team whose shortcomings are made all the more stark by the All Blacks’ success. New Zealand have been trounced in their last two away series, and beaten soundly by South Africa at home. Their last Test series win against top-eight opposition was in early 2006. In ODIs, it has been almost three years since they have defeated a top-eight side. More recently, even their Twenty20 game seems to have slipped.Frustratingly, it is difficult to put a finger on a concrete reason for the slide, particularly in limited-overs cricket. They don’t lack for talent with the bat, boasting two of the hardest hitters in the game for their senior batsmen and a decent opener in Martin Guptill. The younger batsmen have some technical deficiencies – for it is difficult for a domestic talent pool as shallow as New Zealand’s to produce complete batsmen – but there are no glaring flaws shared by the group as a whole. Thirty-one wickets to Ravi Ashwin and Pragyan Ojha in the two recent Tests in India suggests a weakness against spin, but that has not been a theme in other series, or in the shorter formats.But there has been a marked dearth in that intangible quality that once made them such a compelling side to watch. There has been an inability to dig in and claw back at more highly fancied opposition. Numbers six to nine were once almost a failsafe top-order, but lately they have been fitting precursors to Chris Martin’s paper-thin blade. A middle order that once used to flourish under pressure now shrinks at the first sight of it. In the field, they have lost that ability to rally after a breakthrough, and to force a collapse through sheer bottle.It is that force of will that they must rediscover if they are to win in Sri Lanka. Their top order may not command the records Sri Lanka’s colossi do, but what they lack in numbers, they must make up for in desperation, as New Zealand sides of the past once did. The bowlers might not have the measure of the opposition batsmen through skill alone, but when a wicket falls, they must feed off each other’s energy to incite panic in the opposition. Fielding is the one discipline in which New Zealand’s standards have remained high, and yet they must find ways to exert pressure through presence. Improving technique and temperament is often a lengthy process, but regaining that hunger and killer attitude need not be.It is difficult to see New Zealand excelling in the Tests, especially at Galle and the SSC, which are not conducive to seam bowling, but to give themselves a chance in the longer format, New Zealand must begin the tour strongly in the limited-overs leg. They will perhaps take encouragement from a World Twenty20 campaign that was a not a disaster. New Zealand tied with both eventual finalists before being bested each time in the Super Over, and they know that an extra run here or there might have seen them qualify for the semi-finals ahead of the eventual champions. New Zealand also played all five World Twenty20 matches at Pallekele, where they begin the tour with a one-off Twenty20 and the first ODI. These may seem contrived sources of optimism, but with a recent record as dire as theirs, New Zealand must find positivity wherever they can.Sri Lanka is no easy place to tour for even the best teams, and the hosts will expect to trounce a New Zealand side at one of their lowest ebbs in the modern era. New Zealand need a breakthrough tour to end their torment and there is little to suggest that this tour will be it, but if they can rediscover the panache that once defined them, they may just catch fire like the sides of yesteryear did.

English cricket isn’t in a crisis

Cricinfo25-Feb-2013Andrew Hughes, United Kingdom
Now, I have to confess that I started to watch England play cricket in the mid eighties so for me, the word crisis has rather lost its sting over the years. Indeed, to connoisseurs of spicy English cricket calamity, this latest pickle is rather tame. A captain who wasn’t very good has been replaced by a better one. Even Eyeore would struggle to work that one up into a crisis.But the c-word just will not go away. Why? Because though your average Englishman will always prefer gossip to investigation, he doesn’t like to admit it. This gives editors a problem. They solve it in the same way governments do when they want to throw large numbers of the populace into jail: by invoking a state of emergency. Old man crisis is brought out of retirement and under his puritanical gaze, we are free to carry on indulging in the soap opera that is the England cricket team. Is Daisy friends with Freddie? Is KP talking to Harmy? It’s all jolly good fun.Of course, should a chap be so uncouth as to suggest, after coughing politely, that the real problem we have is that the vast majority of players in the English game aren’t actually very good, he would be greeted with a stony silence. It would be the journalistic equivalent of telling a knock-knock joke at a funeral.Another English trait is our habit of slandering, mocking and generally abusing our leaders, regardless of their merits. The mendacity or incompetence of anyone in power is a given; they represent inanimate effigies that we can safely lay into over our lattes and bacon sarnies. In itself this trait is harmless, the information age equivalent of the man employed to sit behind Caesar and remind him that he was mortal.But we also have an unrealistically strong faith in the democratic system. Not happy about the state of English cricket? Don’t worry, there’s going to be an election. Get rid of tatty old Giles Clarke and get the new bloke in. Then things will be fine. Democracy of course, can be a blunt but powerful instrument, a savage hammer of justice falling heavily on the incumbent and tearing down the established structure.Unfortunately, the hammer used in ECB elections is made of foam. The upcoming contest for the leadership of English cricket is about as significant as two ducks squabbling over a piece of bread. In the red corner is Giles Clarke, a successful businessman and passionate defender of county cricket. In the other red corner is Lord Marland, a passionate defender of county cricket and successful businessman. Which of them will prevail? A nation is on tenterhooks.English cricket isn’t in a crisis. It’s in a coma. A one hundred and fifty year coma, to be precise; a deep and enduring state of unconsciousness in which we may occasionally bat an eyelid, but soon sink back into silent, uncomplaining numbness.Our game is organised in a way that would warm the cockles of Al Capone’s heart. Huge sums of money are extorted from a profitable national team in order to prop up a loss-making domestic game that no-one watches and which serves no discernable purpose. Meanwhile, members of the public who have the audacity to want to watch their national team must either pay £100 a time for the privilege of squeezing into poky little stadiums like Lord’s or shell out £500 a year for a Sky subscription.The eighteen first class counties run our game in a thoroughly English way, that is, ruthlessly, but out of sight, whilst being able to pretend that they have nothing to do with it. Think of the ECB as a large polished table, around which sit eighteen super villains, from Dr No to Darth Vader. From time to time they pick a new puppet to do their bidding. So who will it be this time? Clarke or Marland? Who cares.

From TS Trudgian, Canada

Cricinfo25-Feb-2013
Doug Bollinger – big, tall, fast and bustling•AFPI was huddled over some remarkably fine streaming coverage of Australia’s tour to New Zealand when I saw some vintage Bollinger. That, I promise, will be the first and last of any champagne moments throughout this article. Anyway, Bollinger took a wicket (I forget whose) and in a classic bout of enthusiasm lowered his head and raised his shirt to kiss the Australian logo on his breast. But it was not the green and gold emblem of Cricket Australia, but that of Victoria Bitter which felt the force of his osculatory might. The smile produced from taking the wicket became even wider after this mis-matching of logos — almost as wide as the VB executives who enjoyed the constant replays and free advertising.But what a character: he does not have the latitudinal expanse of a Merv Hughes, but he is a big, tall, fast and bustling opening bowler. Perhaps Peter Siddle looks more intimidating than D.E. Bollinger (particularly when Siddle has the rather menacing zinc cream wrapped around his gnashing jaws). In any case, Bollinger is certainly an opening bowler’s opening bowler, none of these waving dandy-locks or Rexona advertisements shared by his English opening counterpart.More often than not he bowls over the wicket, but due to his near-vertical release (as opposed to, say, Johnson’s slight round-arm) he can generate a surprisingly wide angle. It is this angle to the right-handers and his pace with the new ball that will ensure he has a dominant part to play in the Ashes (sure, England will have at least four left-handers in the team at any one time … was it Keith Miller who said they shouldn’t be allowed to play the game? Ruining my analysis like that — the nerve).I shall leave it to others to talk about his expertise with the mystical arts of reverse-swing. That is, after all, something which only enters the game after the first session, and so many Tests are decided in the first session’s play. The Doug does not have the prodigious conventional swing of The Hilf, but one can easily adapt Richie Benaud’s oft-heard epithet that the ‘ball need only spin half the width of the bat’ to see that sheer magnitude of swing is not the whole box-and-dice. Indeed, it is in the contrasts of Australia’s opening pair (for it is safe to assume that Bollinger and Hilfenhaus will share the new ball) that make for such a strong start to our bowling. If Stuart Broad could determine his role in the side (that is to say, decide, much like Mitchell Johnson, whether he is best suited at opening the innings or as the useful ‘stock’ bowler), then England might have such a formidable opening pair. Perhaps this is why Steve Finn has been given a run to see whether he can join Jimmy Anderson at the start of the day. Although since Chris Tremlett has been working on his swing (a right hook I think it was), Anderson might not be a dead-cert for the ’Gabba Test.In any case, expect a huge cheer for Bollinger as he steams in, and an even larger one if, when batting, he manages to lay bat on ball.