All posts by h716a5.icu

Apparently, the Bangladesh dressing room wasn’t overly nervous when their kingpin, Shakib Al Hasan, was adjudged out with victory still some way off – they knew they still had Mushfiqur Rahim

Mohammad Isam17-Mar-2012Apparently, the Bangladesh dressing room wasn’t overly nervous when their kingpin, Shakib Al Hasan, was adjudged out with victory still some way off. When Shakib was dismissed against England in the World Cup game last year, all hope was lost until Mahmudullah and Shafiul Islam brought the team back from dead. Customarily, the dismissal of Shakib at such a crucial point would have meant most of the crowd slowly turning their backs to the green of the Shere Bangla National Stadium and heading out of Mirpur. But Mushfiqur Rahim walked to the crease, and this is one of the reasons why the loss of Shakib has gradually stopped being quite such a deterrent these days.The Bangladesh captain, especially after his penultimate-ball six to close out a tight Twenty20 against West Indies last October, is now the third force of the team, its other matchwinner after Shakib and Tamim Iqbal.Forty-nine balls in hand and 66 to win. That was the equation when Mushfiqur came out. The upside was that the team had six wickets in hand, but as they had shown in the previous game against Pakistan, things could go belly-up with just one moment of lazy footwork or one poorly chosen sweep shot.Mushfiqur had his little chat with Nasir Hossain, a street-smart guy who kept tilting his head to one side as a sign of agreement to whatever the captain was saying, meaning he knew the game was within their grasp and was charting out plans with his partner accordingly. Someone had to show that he believed as much as the millions across the country. But the start he got off to had Mushfiqur worried.”Oh no, there were a lot of problems,” Mushfiqur said later when told how confident he looked. “After a few dot balls at the start, it seemed like a difficult task. We [then] needed 9.5 and at some stages we needed around 11 an over. Nasir and I wanted to take it to the last over.”Mushfiqur Rahim: “We have a game in hand and we’ll play like we have done so far in this tournament … we will definitely play to win.”•AFPThe pair added just 20 in the next 19 deliveries and were left with 46 to get in the final five overs. But, crucially, Mushfiqur, even from a distance and obscured by his helmet, looked in control of the situation.”We wanted to capitalise on the loose ball,” Mushfiqur said. “I thought that in the last five overs we needed one big over, something like 15 to 20 runs. It would be enough at that stage.”We planned that way since you can’t take 10 to 15 runs from every over. That [Irfan Pathan] over released the pressure.”It was the 48th over when Nasir took a single off the first ball and let his partner have a go at the medium-pacer. Mushfiqur showed finesse with a well-timed flick over square leg for six, before brutally clubbing the next one over midwicket for the same result; the match, at the end of the over, was now well within Bangladesh’s grasp.On the eve of the game, Mushfiqur had pointed out that India’s bowling was their only weakness. “What I meant was that compared to Pakistan and Sri Lanka, they are a bit weak,” he clarified. “But I would give credit to our batsmen for handling them so well, which was the most important thing.”Now he had those bowlers at his mercy. Praveen Kumar was first sliced past point for a boundary and carted over long-on for another six. Nasir then went for glory and got himself out, but Mushfiqur held on till the end – he knew he had to.With his deputy, Mahmudullah, closing out the match in the next over, Mushfiqur, the man who is often the first player to come onto the field at the Shere Bangla National Stadium (often at least an hour before Bangladesh’s training sessions), was the last to leave, mobbed by his team-mates.”We have a game in hand and we’ll play like we have done so far in this tournament. If we can start well and hold on to the momentum … we will definitely play to win,” he said when asked if he had plans to play in the final of the Asia Cup.If Mushfiqur is there till the end once more, Bangladesh could honestly believe it possible.Edited by Nikita Bastian

He may profess to being just another member of the attack but Dale Steyn once again showed that leadership comes naturally

Firdose Moonda at The Oval20-Jul-2012Dale Steyn maintains that he does not want to be a hero. Having started life in a small town where idols was more than just a bad reality television show, Steyn understood what it was to worship, because he did it all the time. He knew that it meant leaving people with little room to live as reverence so often turned into suffocation.Since he became worthy of sitting atop the pedestal that he once placed others on, he has done his best to hop off. Even though Steyn regularly does things that put him back on it, such as take two wickets in two overs on the second morning of a Test match that was starting to slip from South Africa, he still shies away from top-dog status. The more he backs away, the more the tag chases him so much so that Morne Morkel confessed that the rest of the attack “follow him”.Steyn wouldn’t like that at all. A week ago, he denied being the leader of the attack. He claimed that any one of the four frontline bowlers could knock a team over by themselves. While that may be the feeling in amongst the South Africa management and in Steyn’s mind, outside it, where the Kumbaya mentality does not exist, it is certainly not.Put simply, Steyn’s reputation totally precedes him. Obviously, the fact that he is ranked the No.1 bowler in Test cricket is a massive contributing factor but in a sport were something as man-made as standings are often scoffed it, it’s what Steyn has actually that has made him so feared. The memories of him flattening Craig Cummings’ cheekbone in Johannesburg, taking twin five-fors at the MCG in 2008 and subjecting India to an unforgiving assault in Nagpur have earned Steyn the responsibility of being the pack’s front man.There’s almost a contradiction in that. To say Steyn has earned responsibility is like saying he would prefer to be paid in wickets instead of cash and the IPL has proven that is not true for anyone. But he has earned it nonetheless because along with responsibility has come respect and admiration, two qualities Steyn commands on just about every pitch in the world game.That could explain why it was so disappointing to see Steyn run in with only half the heart on the first day. He held his pace back and was used in short bursts that were interrupted with un-Steyn-like behaviour such as leaving the field far too often. The rumour that he was injured did the rounds but it was vehemently denied by Allan Donald. Steyn himself made no comments, not even on Twitter, which he has often used as a vehicle for venting.Being a slow starter is not uncommon for Steyn. Being a ‘rhythm bowler’, he takes a while to find his feet and the stats prove it. Steyn got just one wicket in the first Test of the 2008 tour to England and seven in the next match. He took four in the tour-opener in Perth that same year and returned with ten in Melbourne. Although those numbers have come closer together in recent years, he also only took two wickets in Dunedin against New Zealand in March then managed five in Hamilton, where the second Test was played.It was also on that tour that Steyn showed a strange kind of irritability, that one would usually expect of someone with a certain kind of celebrity status. Vernon Philander’s meteoric rise resulted in unfair questions being asked of South Africa’s lynchpin such as why he didn’t take more wickets. The answer was a curt, “Well, there are only 10 wickets in an innings and if Vern is taking them all, it doesn’t leave much for the rest of us.”What didn’t help Steyn’s cause was that he tweeted a picture of his own mangled toe, leading to speculation that he was injured. Graeme Smith had to squash those notions by claiming that all fast bowlers’ toes look, as Donald has put it, “like World War Two”. Steyn, usually an affable and pleasant person to deal with, had become a brat.

“England’s wickets fell through a combination of poor stroke-making and good bowling but there was little doubt that Steyn was the catalyst”

There were signs of all of that again at The Oval. The heavy strapping on Steyn’s ankle resulted in similar simmering of a niggle and the bad temper Steyn spewed on to the field was somewhat unbecoming. By holding on to the advertising boards constantly, pulling faces and getting caught up in intense discussions with the coaching staff, Steyn escalated the image of grumpy fast bowler to something a little meaner.Morkel said there was nothing untoward about Steyn’s actions, even though they invited a tabloid-style scrutiny. “I can kill that fire straight away. There was nothing with anyone,” he said. “Dale is in a good space.”After his first spell of the second day, that may have been so. Steyn returned with greater intensity and also found some of the other ingredients that make him so obviously the leader of an attack he claims not to lead. He found late swing and foxed Alastair Cook, who had left so well on the first day but was induced into a drive and played on. An over later, Steyn got a nervous Ravi Bopara with a bouncer, proving what Morkel said. “He can deliver something special like that at any time.”The rhythm didn’t stay throughout, and his four over post-lunch spell cost 29 runs, but he had made the inroads South Africa needed. “It inspired me and all the rest to follow him,” Morkel said. Although England’s wickets fell through a combination of poor stroke-making and good bowling, there was little doubt that Steyn was the catalyst.In fact, he was the bowler Matt Prior singled out as being a challenge to face because of his class and ability. “In a sick kind of way, it’s quite enjoyable,” Prior said about Steyn. That kind of comment does not get said about someone who does not border close to being a hero.

New Zealand’s batsmen acknowledge their shortcomings in tough conditions and say they want to improve. They are yet to put it into practice, though

Andrew Fernando in Pallekele31-Oct-2012Over the past two years, criticism of New Zealand’s batting has almost become passé. So common have the collapses been, that each fresh clatter of wickets pushes their catastrophes toward the realm of the banal. Several among them are masters of making hay while the sun shines, but all too often, when the opposition have the better of the conditions and the bowlers to exploit them, New Zealand’s returns turn to straw. They will admit that their output has been dismally meagre, but New Zealand’s batsmen have been less able to express what they are doing to rectify their rut.Their shortcomings were laid out emphatically again, on a lively pitch in the Twenty20, and they must learn their lessons quickly if they are to avoid more embarrassment on a similar surface in the first ODI. On Tuesday, the top six managed 20 between them, with a high score of eight. Tom Latham is young and eager to impress, but he might better serve New Zealand if he learnt to size up the bowling and conditions and adjusted his game accordingly. A swipe across the line is not the stroke to play to a seam-up delivery that moves in appreciably through the air. The learning curve is steep at the top level, particularly for freshers who have barely graduated from the New Zealand domestic scene, but the team and Latham himself will gain little by using youth as an alibi for mediocrity.Not that he can learn much from the older lot, who are supposedly more battle-hardened. Brendon McCullum charged and slogged his way to a top edge. That approach brought him screeds of praise when he thumped his way to 123 against Bangladesh at the same venue just over a month ago. But this attack was not Bangladesh, and he was operating on a surface far more difficult to tame. With the side only having made 10 from 3.4 overs, his keenness to aggress might have been understandable. But against one of the best inswing bowlers in limited overs cricket, on a surface that offered even a man of Nuwan Kulasekara’s stature, considerable bounce, playing that release stroke was always going to be Russian roulette. Not long after, having seen Thisara Perera move the ball in appreciably, Ross Taylor tried to cut one that came back at him and nicked through to the keeper.Sri Lanka were not comfortable during their two overs either, but aside from Dilshan Munaweera, who hasn’t yet proven himself at this level, their top-order batsmen largely tend to assess conditions, and shelve or reprise strokes from their armoury accordingly.New Zealand know that if Thursday’s pitch is as green as it is expected to be, they will have to put some shots in the locker, and play attritional cricket. Their temperament has been so woefully inadequate for that restrained style of play, that around a year ago, Taylor spoke of how New Zealand batsmen had been “bored out” on a slow pitch that required knuckling rather than flashing around their attacking strokes. If faced with similar conditions, New Zealand must leave the ball well and often, defend almost as much, and play “boring” one-day cricket, where only the truly bad balls are sent to the fence.”In Twenty20 you’ve only got a short period of time to score as many runs as possible. In fifty overs, you can go out there and you don’t have to be as attacking,” Taylor said ahead of Thursday’s match. “If it’s the same kind of pitch it goes back to the early days of one day cricket, where it’s about absorbing pressure and conserving wickets up front and lower strike rates for the batsmen.”New Zealand are also aware that their spiraling reputation is hurting the number of opportunities they get to redeem themselves, particularly in Tests. They have not played an away Test series of more than two matches since late 2010, and are not due to play an away three-Test series again until mid 2014.”We’d like to play as many Tests as possible and three Test-match series are rare for us,” Taylor said. “We need to get better as a team and start winning and hopefully be able to convince these boards to give us three-Test series. Time is a constraint and sometimes you can’t fit in three Test matches. But hopefully we can keep improving as a Test nation and be more competitive and push these teams. “It is laudable that New Zealand are not in denial about their woes, but acceptance of one’s flaws is not is not satisfactory in elite sport, unless it is followed by remedy. New Zealand continue to say they want to improve, and on a difficult pitch, they now have the chance to prove that they are not just paying that idea lip service.

ESPNcricinfo presents the plays of the day from Sri Lanka v New Zealand in Pallekele

Andrew Fernando in Pallekele27-Sep-2012Catch of the day
New Zealand’s hopes were still alive after four balls in their Super Over, with eight runs required to win. A four would have kept them in the hunt, and a six would have turned it slightly in their favour. Martin Guptill got low and attempted a hoick off a full Lasith Malinga delivery, and though he got plenty on it, the ball ballooned high off the top half of the bat. It hung in the air for what seemed an eternity, but Tillakaratne Dilshan got under it at long off stretched his arms out and snatched the ball from beyond the boundary, where it would have landed, sealing the match for the hosts.Fumble of the day
After Lahriu Thirimanne’s boundary, Sri Lanka needed one to win off the last delivery. Having bowled almost two overs of nothing but pinpoint yorkers, Tim Southee surprised the batsman with a short ball, and it deflected off Thirimanne’s torso towards point. James Franklin swooped in, took aim and sent a bounce throw to Ross Taylor at the non-striker’s end, but Taylor fumbled the throw, and judging by Taylor’s headshaking and Thirimanne’s jubilance, Sri Lanka appeared to have got home. Not so. The decision was sent to the third umpire, who ruled after an eternity that although the ball had fallen out of Taylor’s hands, it had dislodged a bail on the way to the ground and Thirimanne was short.Pep talk of the day
Mahela Jayawardene has championed Akila Dananjaya’s inclusion in the World Twenty20 squad and had picked him for his Sri Lanka Premier League side as well, guiding the 18-year-old as he moves from tier-three school cricket to international cricket in under three months. Before Dananjaya’s first ball at the top level, Jayawardene made a trip to the bowling crease and spoke to the youngster at length, discussing field positions and seemingly offering encouragement. Three balls into his career, Dananjaya had Guptill caught at long off. Jayawardene, predictably, was the first person over to congratulate the beaming debutant.Blow of the day
Dananjaya’s debut wasn’t totally painless, and not just because Brendon McCullum tonked him for two sixes either. Rob Nicol drove the first ball of Dananjaya’s third over back at the bowler, and though Dananjaya got his fingers up, partly in an attempt to complete a caught-and-bowled but mostly to protect himself, the shot was too powerful and Dananjaya wore it in the face. He went down immediately, the physio came out, and after several hair-raising close-up replays, Dananjaya emerged from the huddle of concerned onlookers with cotton up his left nostril, and apparently, fine to continue bowling.Collision of the day
You would put your money on Nathan McCullum in a fistfight with almost anybody, but Tillakaratne Dilshan took him out in the second over, when the two collided near the bowler’s end. McCullum was moving in to collect the return throw from mid-on, but had moved into Dilshan’s way as he completed his quick single. The batsman ploughed on through, adding insult to injury, after he had carted McCullum for 16 in the previous over.Shot of the day
Jayawardene was typically serene as he unleashed carnage on the New Zealand bowlers, but his best shot was not the cover drive off Kyle Mills or the sweep off Daniel Vettori, but the six over midwicket played off the front foot to a length ball. In the hands of any other batsman, it might have been a filthy heave across the line, but when Jayawardene advanced and let the stroke fly, it seemed as graceful and correct as anything played with the full face of the bat.

Don’t be surprised if South Africa rethink their tactics to Michael Clarke after his Gabba double-century and send down more bouncers in Adelaide

Daniel Brettig in Adelaide19-Nov-2012Bodyline first flared in Douglas Jardine’s mind at the Oval Test match in 1930, when he saw Don Bradman flinch at several short balls on a wet wicket. Bradman always retorted quite reasonably that the innings in question only ended when he was wrongly given out caught behind having made 232. But Jardine trusted the evidence of his eyes, and his memory of Bradman’s momentary discomfort bloomed into calculated and effective action, however unpopular.Michael Clarke is no Bradman, and the Gabba pitch was far from damp. Yet Clarke can expect a more sustained barrage of short-pitched bowling from South Africa in Adelaide after long swathes of his unbeaten 259 in Brisbane were curiously allowed to pass without resort to a tactic that caused Australia’s captain considerable discomfort early in his innings.Churlish as it may be to criticise a batsman who peeled off his third score of more than 200 for 2012, the fact remains that Clarke struggled in his play against bouncers at the Gabba. Two attempts at half-hearted pull shots from the bowling of Rory Kleinveldt landed tantalisingly out of the reach of fielders, while Clarke’s difficulty in trying to duck underneath short balls caused him to throw his gloves at several of them in self-preservation, one delivered by Dale Steyn looping fortunately between the batsman and the slips cordon.Why South Africa more or less abandoned the tactic as Clarke’s innings bloomed in the company of Ed Cowan then Michael Hussey is one of the first Test’s major mysteries, and can perhaps be put down to the bowling’s collective lack of thought after the early gains of the new ball were turned back by Australia’s counter-attack. Only once all innings did Clarke reach the boundary with anything resembling a pull shot, swinging Steyn over wide mid-on when given room outside off stump.But most other times Clarke’s usually organised footwork and crisp ball-striking were absent when the bowlers fired the ball at his body or helmet, and his somewhat ungainly attempts to get under bouncers illustrated the kind of inflexibility created by a back condition Australia’s leader has had to manage since his teenage years.Clarke was helped by the fact that both Cowan and Hussey are exemplary players of the pull shot, as befits a pair who have spent significant stretches of their respective careers batting at the top of the order. Cowan’s willingness to play the stroke early on against Steyn was an important moment in the match, and it is possible that the comfort he and Hussey showed in their cross-bat shots left South Africa reticent to pitch short in any case, even after Clarke had shown markedly less enthusiasm for it.Morne Morkel is perhaps the best equipped of South Africa’s pacemen to challenge Clarke with short-pitched offerings, though Steyn’s skidding bumpers are also of sufficient velocity and direction. On an Adelaide surface that may offer some early life before flattening out and then deteriorating to offer variable bounce late in the match, the short ball appears a more likely path to defeating Clarke than pushing the ball up to the bat in the hope of an edge.”Any batsman at first struggles with the short ball,” Morkel said when quizzed about Clarke’s handful of awkward moments in Brisbane. “We’ll probably sit and come up with game plans today, start working on those sort of things. Definitely, that is a plan to use the short ball. Because you’ve got two per over, you might as well use that, but you have to do it in a clever way and we will go from there.”Clever is one way of describing Jardine’s tactics 80 years ago, and a key to their success was the sustained nature of the assault. If South Africa truly wish to curb Clarke’s strokeplay at Adelaide Oval they will need to attack him with greater clarity of purpose, and force him into playing shots that he did not seem terribly keen to employ in Brisbane.

From Andrew Hughes, United Kingdom Typical ECB

Cricinfo25-Feb-2013Andrew Hughes, United Kingdom
Typical ECB. Can’t even organise an exciting double-sacking. Where were the angry shouted questions from a baying mob of hacks? Where were the scuffles with reporters? The tears? The threats of legal action? No, all we get is an exchange of press releases and then timid little Hugh Morris reading out a prepared story as long as the assembled media types promised not to ask him any questions. “Once upon a time,” he began, in a whispery little voice, “there were two nice men called Kevin and Peter. Thenwesackedthembotheventhoughneitherofthemhaddoneanythingwrong. And they both lived happily ever after. The end.” And off he skipped to Neverland.Mind you, Sky News wasn’t much better. Between 5:40pm and 5:55pm we saw the same footage of KP at Durban airport approximately fourteen times. I’ve memorised it now. I can picture him, wearing a light burgundy top with a hint of charcoal. He walks past a Subway (closed) and a man with a shiny forehead who turns to watch him go. The camera lingers on the back of KP’s head for a while. A little later on, we see him handing a ticket to an official. Fourteen times. And Sky had the nerve to call this, ‘Exclusive footage of the England captain.’Thank God then for Bob Willis. Called in to fill the gap between when Sky started to tell us about the 6 o’clock statement and when it actually arrived, old Bob grumbled, whinged and moaned delightfully for a few minutes, managing to explain that KP had been stupid and that the England players didn’t like him. Then it was Gower’s turn. “Is English cricket in a mess, asked the excitable studio presenter. Not really, I was thinking. “Yes it is,” opined David and proceeded to lull us to sleep with a five minute exposition, the finer points of which I may only be able to recall under hypnosis.Of course it’s nothing of the sort. Socrates would have summed it up thus: “Wouldn’t you say that yesterday we had a captain who wasn’t quite up to the job?” “Yes I would.” “And would you also say that we had a coach who wasn’t that great?” “Well, yes, that’s true.” “And would you further say that the captain and the coach didn’t work well together?” “I suppose that is true, yes.” “And that the team was divided, not all of them supporting the captain?” “I would have to say yes.” “And would say that these were bad or good things?” “Bad things, certainly.” “And after today’s mess, do these things still exist?” “Well, no.” “So if it is a mess, isn’t it a peculiarly good kind of mess, in which all the problems which existed yesterday have now been resolved?” “Why, yes it is.” “So can it really be considered to be a mess?” “When you put it like that, no, I suppose it isn’t.” So there you have it.Socrates would have made mincemeat of David Gower. But probably not Andrew Strauss. Which is reason number 94 in the long list of reasons why he should already be captain and we should not be having this conversation.

Australia batting coach Michael di Venuto talks about the adjustments the side needs to make

Interview by Brydon Coverdale11-Mar-2013This is your first tour as Australia’s batting coach. Could there be a tougher introduction?
It’s right up there, isn’t it? Our next two tours will be as challenging as they get for Australian teams but they’re exciting ones. Especially for the group that we’ve got – they’re a pretty inexperienced bunch at Test level and even at first-class level as well. There’s not a lot to fall back on as far as their own experiences. It’s exciting times for a coach.Among the batsmen only Michael Clarke and Shane Watson had played Test cricket in India before this tour. How did you prepare the other batsmen?
That’s why the groups came over in stages, so we could get the guys who haven’t been here before over early to play in a couple of games, to get used to conditions and try to adapt. It’s completely different to what we get at home and it was important that we adapted quickly. We’ve seen in the first two Tests that it hasn’t quite happened. There are lessons that the guys are learning that in the next tours they’ll be able to fall back on. But at the moment we’re in the thick of the battle and learning on our feet as a batting group. We haven’t adapted quick enough as yet.What has gone wrong?
It’s a bit of everything. It’s a very hard place to start your innings over here when you first go to the crease. It’s vital that when we do get a partnership it’s a really big one. The Indians have shown the value of big partnerships and getting the first-innings runs on the board. We’ve virtually failed in our first two Tests to get good first-innings scores. Chennai – it was good to get 380 from where we were, at 5 for 150, but realistically you’d want to be getting up around 450-500 in the first innings here.Is learning to bat in India something you can really only do on the job?
Absolutely. I think a lot of batting is done on instinct. The guys have been brought up in Australia and playing in Australian conditions, where, if you see a ball on a certain length, it normally bounces a certain height. Then you come to a foreign country and all of a sudden it doesn’t bounce like it does at home. You’ve got to go against your instincts. You’ve got to play with your mind and train with your mind. That’s something that we haven’t adapted to quick enough here. The nature of cricket is that you learn from your mistakes. But you don’t just make that mistake once and that’s the last time you do it – you make it over and over and over again. Eventually, through experience it sinks in. But the best seem to learn quicker than most. We’ve got a talented young group of batters and hopefully they can learn quickly.Michael Clarke spoke of his disappointment that so many batsmen have been out to cross-bat shots or playing against the spin early in their innings. Is that an instinct thing as well?
Absolutely. Whether it be nerves… everything comes into it, trying to score… It’s where you’ve got to be so patient and play to your strengths. You have to be so disciplined with your game plan, because otherwise you can get yourself in all sorts of trouble over here, like with cross-bat shots. I think the best way to learn sometimes is to watch how the opposition go about it. The Indians were brought up in these conditions and play so well here. So watch how their batsmen go about things and see what things we can take out of their game and put into our own.Can it be quite a fine line between patience and getting bogged down?
It is. That’s where your footwork is so important, to be able to get down the wicket and then get deep into your crease. At the moment with the fields the Indians are setting, there are a lot of men around the bat. When there are a lot of men around the bat it means there are a lot of holes in the outfield. If you’re nice and sharp on your feet, you can get the ball in the holes.

“The nature of cricket is that you learn from your mistakes. But you don’t just make that mistake once and that’s the last time you do it – you make it over and over and over again”

We’ve seen when we’ve had a couple of partnerships, the Clarke-Henriques partnership in Chennai and Clarke and Wade in Hyderabad, batting didn’t look that difficult. It’s about getting two guys in and developing that partnership. What we’ve also seen is that as soon as that partnership is broken, the game can turn on its head pretty quickly. It can be so hard for batters coming in.Is footwork a difficult thing to teach players when it doesn’t come naturally?
It’s a hard thing to teach if you’re not one to use your feet down the wicket, especially when you’re facing high-quality spin. But we all are good enough to get deep into our crease. That’s a matter of picking up the length and making good decisions more often than not. Unfortunately we’ve seen through the first couple of Tests that at times our decision-making hasn’t been great under pressure.Why are so many players reluctant to come down the wicket?
It’s easier to come down the wicket when the ball is coming in to you, where the second form of defence is your pads and body. It’s a lot harder to go down the wicket when the ball is turning away. The good players go down the wicket either way, whichever way it’s spinning. They’ve generally used their feet from a young age.It’s a confidence thing as well. At the moment our batting group is low on confidence. We’re certainly training hard and trying to fix some flaws but until you have success, sometimes it’s pretty hard to get that confidence up.David Warner and Phillip Hughes were bowled around their legs while trying to sweep in Hyderabad. What’s the secret to successful sweeping?
For the two left-handers who got out on the sweep in the last match, the lines were probably right to sweep but the length for Davey was too full and it got up underneath him. Hughesy just managed to drag one on.If the right-arm offie is coming over the wicket you’ve got a pretty good idea of how he’s going to get you out, and that’s bowled around your legs. If you’re going to sweep, make sure you get your pad in line in case you miss it. It’s definitely a scoring option for players if they want to pick it off the right line. If you’re sweeping off the stumps then you’re giving the bowler a chance.I don’t think we’ve got that many natural sweepers. Matthew Hayden turned himself into an unbelievable sweeper through a lot of hard work. The English players are brought up on wickets that don’t bounce, so they’re brought up playing a lot of sweep shots against spinners. In Australia there’s a lot more bounce. We’re taught to use our feet a lot more rather than sweep and lap. The Indians don’t really sweep that much and these are their home conditions. That might be a lesson learnt, just watching them.Hughes has really struggled against the spin. What can he do to improve?
It’s hard work. It’s getting in the nets and working on your weaknesses. We’ve seen it before with a lot of players. Ricky Ponting was an example of that in 2001, when Harbhajan was all over him whenever he came to the wicket. We’re certainly not the first team to come here and struggle. England in the last couple of years have struggled against spin bowling on tours away but as a group they have learnt the lessons and found a way to combat them. Their series win here a couple of months ago was an outstanding success for them. But it also came on the back of their players experiencing some bad losses and spinners being all over them.”If you’re going to sweep, make sure you get your pad in line in case you miss it”•BCCIWatson made 84 and 60 in the tour match but hasn’t pushed on in the Tests. Is there anything he could be doing differently?
He looked unbelievable in the tour game and has looked terrific in his Test innings to date for starts. That’s the disappointing thing. The captain needs a bit of help and people to stand up. He looks in terrific touch but the runs just haven’t happened.His first-innings dismissal [in Hyderabad] was an instinct shot. He pulls so well off length in Australia. The ball stayed down. But if he plays that with a straight bat then he’s still in and you don’t know where his innings could have gone. He’s just got to keep working hard and has got to get better, it’s as simple as that. The talent is there, the skills are there and he looks in good touch.There weren’t many positives from the second innings in Hyderabad, but were you pleased to see Ed Cowan bat for three hours in challenging circumstances? He was batting a long way out of his crease against the fast bowlers.
He gutsed it out. I’ve seen a lot of Ed in Tasmania. When he gets in his little bubble, he puts a high price on his wicket, which was good to see. He’s finding a way to combat the spin. And for the reverse swing coming around the wicket, he was trying to negate the modes of dismissal of lbw and bowled by going at the bowler. With no slips in place you’re not going to get caught behind the wicket. There was some smart batting at that time, which was frustrating the opposition, and he was working really hard. It was a shame he got out when he did.After such a poor performance in Hyderabad, what can be done in the lead-up to the Mohali Test?
At times like this it’s easy to get really withdrawn as individuals and start worrying about your own game and not [think] too much on what’s going on around you, but the most important thing is to stick together and start looking after your mate. Don’t get withdrawn and into yourself. Start helping out the guy next to you. If everyone is helping each other out, that’s what we want to be as a cricket team. We want to stay really tight and work really hard through this.

Worcestershire’s thin squad will need a dose of luck if promotion is to be contemplated

George Dobell08-Apr-2013Last year: 9th (relegated), CC Div 1; Quarter-finals, T20; 7th, CB40 Group A2012 in a nutshell: Grim. Worcestershire were bottom of Division One in the County Championship – no team in either division lost as many games as their eight – and bottom of their CB40 group. A chronic lack of runs – no one averaged more than 35 and no one who played more than 10 games averaged more than 28 – was the overwhelming issue, though the failure of talented younger players to improve was, in its own way, just as disappointing. Players thought of as the future of the club, such as Richard Jones and Alexei Kervezee, were dropped, as were experienced pros such as Vikram Solanki and David Lucas. Solanki and wicketkeeper Ben Scott paid for their lack of runs by being released at the end of the season. Some of those brought in looked some way short of the standard required in Division One. The one redeeming feature was their progression to the quarter-final stages of the FLt20, which equalled their best performance in the format.2013 prospects: It is hard to be optimistic. With financial constraints widening the gap between the rich counties and the poor, Worcestershire have been obliged to bring in some young and inexperienced players with plenty to prove in the professional game. Most pertinently, it is unclear who will keep wicket, with Ben Cox, 21, and Michael Johnson, 24 and signed from the Birmingham League, vying for the gloves. The batting appears thin, with much required of the overseas player, Thilan Samaraweera, and the likes of Daryl Mitchell and Moeen Ali, while Alan Richardson continues to lead the bowling attack. It does not bode well that they remain so reliant upon a seamer who will be 38 in May. Promotion appears unlikely.But Worcestershire have surprised us before. In 2010, despite similar financial issues and the departure of several players, they bounced straight back into the top division thanks to a close-knit team spirit and some encouraging individual performances. There is some young talent at the club. The likes of Jones, Kervezee and Aneesh Kapil have all promised much at times and, if Gareth Andrew can remain fit, there is a decent first-team squad available, which could challenge any side in Division Two. There are a lot of ‘ifs’ and a concern remains over the lack of depth in the squad and the relative failure of talented young players to develop as they might have done in recent years. Jacob Oram looks a decent T20 signing, so long as he stays fit and complements the club’s other allrounders, and Worcestershire could be dangerous in the shortest format.Key player: Ali, as a top-order batsman in all formats and the main spin bowler, has developed into a valuable player. By his standards, however, he underachieved with the bat in 2012, averaging 26.08 in the Championship, and Worcestershire will need far more from him if they are to prosper. The fact that he is out of contract at the end of the season suggests this may well be his last at New Road.Bright young thing: Kervezee has been around for several years now but has not, perhaps, pushed on as hoped. Now aged 23, it is time for him to kick-on. Kapil, 19, is a richly talented player, too.Captain/coach: Knowing they cannot compete with the salaries offered elsewhere, Worcestershire have made a point of building a friendly, stable club that sticks with its senior staff. Whether that has made the club a little too cosy is moot and there is little doubt that, at many clubs, Steve Rhodes would have struggled to survive some of the setbacks of recent times. Bearing in mind the budget with which he works, however, there is much to be said for loyalty to a man utterly committed to the culture and best interests of the club. With Daryl Mitchell he forms a leadership team devoted far beyond the normal requirements of the job.ESPNcricinfo verdict: At full strength Worcestershire have a decent team. But there is a lack of depth and it will be a surprise if they win promotion or go close to a limited-overs trophy.Read our supporters’ network preview on Worcestershire