Plays of the Day from the second day of the third Test between Australia and Sri Lanka in Sydney

Andrew Fernando at the SCG04-Jan-2013The welcome
Few cricketers inspire the kind of universal admiration Michael Hussey has enjoyed in his career, and the spectators and his opponents at the SCG put on a fitting ovation as he arrived at the crease in the second session. The 26,420-strong audience, some of whom had adorned their nose and lips in Hussey’s signature zinc, rose to applaud him onto the arena, while Sri Lanka formed a guard of honour often reserved for the greats of the game. Hussey’s international career was too short perhaps for him to be considered among cricket’s finest, it is difficult to begrudge him the honour his opponents bestowed on him in his last match.The dismay
Clarke has barely put a foot wrong both with the bat and as captain in the past 12 months, but if Hussey does not bat again in the game, Clarke will have committed a blunder he will have a hard time forgiving himself for. Clarke pushed Dhammika Prasad to the left of the point fielder and called Hussey through for a tight single, but Dimuth Karunaratne rounded the ball and threw down the stumps to find even the sprightly, diving Hussey short of his ground. Clarke’s head dropped as he turned around to see the Sri Lankans celebrate at the other end, and he sank to his haunches on the pitch when the third umpire confirmed the visitors’ delight.The blows
Lahiru Thirimanne had spilt two catches at short leg in the third session, but when he finally caught one that Sri Lanka and umpire Dar thought had hit Matthew Wade’s bat, the decision was overturned on review. Almost as a punishment, Wade swept powerfully two balls later to collect Thirimanne painfully in the thigh, before the batsman’s aim improved and he got the fielder in the box with a similar stroke next ball.The trend
When Ed Cowan was caught short for 4 attempting to take a second, Australia had lost a top-three batsman to a run out in each Test this series. The dismissal was largely of Cowan’s own making as he sauntered a first, then stuttered when he saw Warner charging back for two, while Nuwan Pradeep had hauled the ball in and released it with speed, accuracy and power. Not since the Ashes series of 1977 had one of Australia’s top three been run-out in three consecutive matches.The missed chance
Sri Lanka had given Michael Clarke two reprieves in Melbourne, and their largesse continued in Sydney, albeit with the help of umpire Aleem Dar. Rangana Herath struck Clarke on the pad first with one that pitched outside off stump and straightened, but Dar turned down Sri Lanka’s voracious appeal as he had been doing for much of the day. Mahela Jayawardene considered asking for a review, but with only one remaining to them, the uncertainty writ on Herath’s face was enough to deter him. Replays showed however, that the ball had hit Clarke in line with off stump and would go on to hit middle.

India knew there would be long sessions in the field at some point – though you wonder whether DRS may have crossed their minds, even momentarily

Sidharth Monga18-Nov-2012At 3.30pm, with a minimum of 13 overs to go in the day, the final drinks break was called for. The India team gathered around in the one part of the field that provided them shade, with a stand coming between them and the setting sun. They all sat down, and rested for a good six minutes. It was an instructive image.The over-rate wasn’t a worry for them, so there was no one asking them to hurry up. They had been in the field for 189.2 overs (202.2 by stumps) after having enforced the follow-on. R Ashwin had bowled 48.2 overs (52.2 by stumps) without a wicket. They were bowling to a batsman in Alastair Cook playing – for the match state and the scale of it, if nothing else – one of the best Test innings played by a batsman visiting India. The pitch had slowed down, England had become more used to the conditions – less panicky, more sure with their footwork – and it was hard to imagine where the next wicket would come from.From the time the ball refused to bounce rib high on day one, India would have known they would have to go through such a day, when they would need to stick to their disciplines and work hard for their wickets. There wouldn’t be many flying off the shoulder of the bat to short leg, and the turn would be slow enough to let the batsmen recover even when beaten in the flight. India worked pretty hard for them in the first two sessions, and were gifted two too: one by Kevin Pietersen and another by Tony Hill.Pragyan Ojha continued to make use of the pitch, Zaheer Khan showed good skill in the morning, and most encouragingly Umesh Yadav ran in hard and bowled fast reverse swing on a pitch where England bowlers hovered around 130kmph. Yadav acknowledged the pitch was becoming flatter every passing minute, and that it called for a lot of effort to extract life out of it. Even at his pace, he said, he had to bowl in certain areas to get the ball to carry some. He said on such a pitch you needed to put in all your effort and wait also for the batsmen to make a mistake. Those mistakes weren’t forthcoming.India are still ahead in the game but they know if England bat another 45 overs on day five they will have a tricky chase on their hands, with one of their openers not allowed to bat in the top six unless Cook allows him. Gautam Gambhir has been away after his grandmother, whom he absolutely adored, died during the Test. He is expected to be back on Monday morning, and it is hard to question his absence.The obvious question after a hard day that yielded five wickets will be what India could have done differently. You won’t find many different answers. Possibly Ashwin could have been more patient. He tried too many variations: his carrom ball always started too straight, the mystery ball was too obvious and never came out right, and he even tried to run in like a left-arm spinner. As expected, Ashwin won’t give you a pitch map as concentrated as Ojha’s. He tries a lot of things when bowling, and when you have the discipline of Ojha at the other end, you can afford him to do so.That’s all good when you are getting the wickets, but perhaps when the batsmen are settled you need him to do the other, dirty job too. Sanjay Manjrekar made an interesting observation, citing from his playing days both in Test and domestic cricket, about how they used to get batsmen in driving mode by pitching up to them for overs on end and plugging the straight field with mid-off, cover, mid-on and straight midwicket. That’s when, with the batsmen used to driving, the variation becomes more effective, especially on a slow and low pitch where the batsman can hang back. India didn’t do that.You also wonder if – when getting up from their final drinks break or at any other point during the match – even for a fleeting moment India thought of what would have been if there had been DRS. This is to not reignite a tired debate that won’t go anywhere until the ICC takes ownership of the concept. This is not to highlight that Cook was reprieved when on 41.This is only to imagine DRS in a purely tactical sense. Forget the tangible results: there have been some plumb lbws off spinners turned down, and two not-outs off quicks given. The absence of DRS has left the umpires more conservative than they have been since the introduction of DRS. That is a big difference between England facing Saeed Ajmal and Abdur Rehman in the UAE and England facing Ojha and Ashwin in India. Pakistan got 22 lbws in that three-match series. Only three of them came through reviews, but it cannot be denied that the umpires felt empowered enough to go with the bowlers on marginal calls.It is out of question that India would have gone for DRS just for this tactical use. Nor will they be regretting it, but its absence has levelled the playing field a little.

Back in 1977, this correspondent was at the inception of World Series Cricket. (Sort of)

Steven Lynch14-Jan-2013Even before his untimely death on December 29 I’d been thinking about Tony Greig. Someone had kindly sent me a DVD of – the story of the World Series breakaway – for Christmas, and I’d been watching it in fits and starts, stopping the action when the kids appeared, in case Kerry dropped yet another f-bomb.The actor who played Greig was fairly convincing, although he wasn’t quite tall enough. Back in 1970, when he was first selected to play for England against the Rest of the World, a school friend and I made a terribly early start to go and watch Greig play a county match at The Oval. We were rewarded with a seat next to the dressing-room balcony, and a view of our lofty new hero (alongside John Snow, who spent most of the day reading a newspaper, lowering it agonisingly slowly if there was an appeal, which might force him to the inconvenience of putting the pads on). After that we followed Greig’s fine international career closely, and I was later delighted to meet him in various press boxes, when he would unhesitatingly answer any manner of question – including a cheeky one about his exact height: “Six foot seven while I was playing. But I seem to have shrunk a bit – only about six-five now!”On the whole, the programme was very well done. Lachy Hulme as Packer was imposing and menacing in equal measure: it must have been a daunting task to play the legendary ex-boss of Australia’s Channel 9 on a show made by Channel 9. The action sequences actually looked as if real cricketers were involved, although “Andy Roberts” did perhaps seem a bit more leisurely than the real thing. They were able to splice in archive footage from the time, and I couldn’t help comparing it with the missed opportunities of the mini-series, made around 20 years earlier, in which the players wore bizarre home-knit sweaters and most of the “Test action” took place on an outfield covered with more leaves than you’d see at an Under-11 game.Some of those players, too, were pretty unconvincing: “Bill Voce” looked about 50, which is probably why he bowled almost round-arm, while “Gubby Allen” was about a foot taller than the genuine article. The real Gubby was once reduced to apoplectic silence in an MCC committee meeting, when someone mischievously told him he’d been watching and didn’t think much of his bowling action.All the matches in seemed to be played out in front of exactly the same stands, but visited a few more places – even though a bit of nifty camerawork must have been necessary when they went to VFL Park on the outskirts of Melbourne, the scene of Packer’s first floodlit games, where all bar one of the stands have now been demolished.

I was there on the day in 1977 that Packer swept in through the Grace Gates for his momentous meeting with the ICC. I sneaked out of the office and watched as he and Richie Benaud got out of a big black car

The cricketers of also looked more like the real thing, especially an eerily feline Greg Chappell, and a doppelganger for Max Walker (he looked like him, anyway; wonder if he could do that famously tangled bowling action). Ian Chappell, speaking on Australian radio, suggested that some of the players had been ringing each other up and asking who was supposed to be who, but the main men were well defined, although a fondness for perms and moustaches understandably made identification a little difficult. Chappelli said he’d met the actor who played him, who admitted he’d had to lose a few pounds: “Mate,” replied Ian, “actually I reckon you should have put a few on!” The clothes, too, were spot on for the swinging ’70s: ideas man John Cornell sported a series of shirts whose collars would have been a hazard in high winds, and it might be better to say no more about some of the safari suits on show.I did think the first programme was a bit slow to get going, and that the second one ended rather suddenly – did it really take only a couple of decent gates at Packer matches to make the Australian board cave in? And what did the players think about the sudden outbreak of “peace”?The part I enjoyed most were the scenes supposedly filmed at Lord’s. Because I was there on the momentous day in 1977 that Packer swept in through the Grace Gates for his first meeting with the ICC. I sneaked out of the office and watched as he and Richie Benaud got out of a big black car. I may be wrong, but I think that was the first time that Benaud’s involvement with the new venture was made public.I didn’t have much more to do with the visit. As a cellar-dweller then, a terribly junior clerk, I was generally confined to life literally below stairs – the MCC ticket office at the time was in the old boiler room, below ground level in the pavilion. We got used to working out what was happening in matches by the crowd noise reverberating through the Long Room floor, and occasionally invented errands to dart outside and snatch five minutes of actual cricket action. At the opposite end of the age scale to me was Old Jim, who had already been given a gold watch for 50 years’ service on the railways, then worked part-time at Lord’s for 25 more before finally retiring as he approached 90. Jim was in charge of the filing – and, almost as importantly, the tea, which he made with stately precision at 11am and 3pm each day. It was great tea, too.Anyway, the day Packer came to Lord’s, Jim strolled out to start the brewing process just before three o’clock, and returned with even more of a genial smile than usual: “I’ve just seen that Terry Packer,” he announced – it must have been around the time Packer famously waltzed out of the meeting “for a look around”, leaving the Establishment to absorb his radical proposals. “Crikey, Jim, did he sign you up for World Series Tea?” I asked, before nipping out to the wash basins myself for a glimpse of the Distinguished Visitor. But he’d gone by then. A shame: maybe Ask Steven might have got going a bit sooner!

From TS Trudgian, Canada

Cricinfo25-Feb-2013
Brad Haddin – much improved over the past two years•Getty ImagesThere is a gambling element to B.J. Haddin’s wicketkeeping. When Australia took on South Africa in Sydney 2009 he came up to the stumps while Andrew McDonald was bowling. McDonald is not an express bowler, but he is quick enough to make a wicketkeeper think twice. With the gloves Haddin is no Jack Blackham, nor is he Bertie Oldfield. The former stood up to even Fred ‘The Demon’ Spofforth, and took gave the quick man two stumpings; of the latter it is said that he exuded such grace and elegance that he would knock off just one bail when effecting stumpings off the quicks. But Haddin chose to approach the stumps and these were days before the Hannibal Lecter facemasks made popular by the World Twenty20 in 2009.By standing up he kept the batsmen back in the crease, and since McDonald bowls such a straight line, the slightest seam movement could have him in with a stumping wrought from a lazy South African back foot. As it was, Boucher played a flamboyant cover drive, producing a thick outside edge which would have flown comfortably Haddin’s gloves … if he had been standing back. Not the best advertisement for keeping up the stumps, sure, but at least Haddin was willing to put the burgeoning partnership under pressure, doing something. He almost affected a leg-side stumping several overs later — there is little better reward for a keeper.Rod Marsh — who should know a thing or two about keeping — says that a keeper should be judged on the number of catches he holds, not of byes he concedes. What a relief: ‘Bad Hands’ had a torrid time keeping a clean sheet in the start of his career. (It would belie Anglo-Australian rivalry if I did not make mention that the record for the most byes conceded in a match is 52, held by Matt Prior.) Of course, Haddin is no Gilchrist, but we must move beyond that. His keeping has improved steadily since his permanency in the Australian side. Plenty of give off the inside hip, the patented Ian Healy flick of the heels in leaping for overhead balls, and the odd bit of inspired play make him the pick of the possible keepers during the Ashes.He can bat too, although had he survived the second over at Lord’s back in 2009 — see Vol. II — then world-record run chases and my Dad’s pessimism could have been broken, and two-dozen schoolkids could have learned the lesson on which I was bred: Australia beat England at cricket — fact.

Plays from the IPL game between Chennai Super Kings and Pune Warriors in Chennai

Sidharth Monga15-Apr-2013The shot
It is a reverse lap. It is a reverse flick. It is a reverse leg glance, or an off glance if you will. It is Steven Smith up to mischief. It is a huge six. In the last over of Pune Warriors’ innings, Smith switched the stance early, but not the grip. Dwayne Bravo bowled one that would have hit the top of off had Smith not sent it sailing over short third man and some 20 rows behind the boundary. The most incredible part of the shot: it wasn’t a switch hit.The crossing that wasn’t
In the 18th over of the match, Mitchell Marsh cut Bravo in the air and straight to third man, and was so consumed by his disappointment he didn’t bother to even look up. Smith, though, was alert and wanted the strike, but to his chagrin he was the only one making that effort. By the time the catch was taken, Smith had reached within diving distance of the stumps at the strikers’ end, but Marsh hadn’t moved, and the new batsman faced the next delivery.Smith would encounter similar disappointment in the last over when Manish Pandey would refuse to try a single and get bowled when slogging, leaving the new batsman to face a dot ball: no run off the last two balls.The introduction
You know a Twitter joke has overstayed its welcome when it has reached Ravi Shastri, admittedly not an admirer of the micro-blogging site. At the toss, after introducing the captains, he went on to the match referee, “… and not Sir Ravindra, but Rajendra Jadeja.” SMH.The drop
You are a batsman who has not been sent out to bat even though seven others have had a hit. You are unlikely to get a bowl. It’s not quite an evening you are enjoying, and in the second over of your fielding effort you have a sitter coming your way at mid-on and you spill it. M Vijay, the beneficiary of your benevolence, goes on to add 23 more. You are T Suman, and where is the hole you can hide yourself in?

Steven Finn and Graeme Swann were very good on the third day, but were they as good as New Zealand made them look?

Jarrod Kimber at Headingley26-May-2013It’s a stormy night. You’re in a strange house. The power goes out. You’re phone won’t work. You hear a door open. Followed by footsteps. What do you do?At Lord’s New Zealand ran up the stairs.England set them a target of 239. It was on paper a number you could chase. But in reality on a pitch where England had only one batsmen in their last seven who scored double figures, the chase was going to end for New Zealand in much the way it does for the thousands of young actresses who runs up the stairs.Sixty-eight was a bloody way to end. But on a pitch with movement, the ball swinging, a fragile top order, a fired up Stuart Broad, an unplayable James Anderson and injuries, New Zealand could have almost been forgiven for not handling the pressure. It was bad, but bad with reasons.On the third day at Headingley the reasons and excuses are harder to find.The easiest is Graeme Swann. Swann drifted the ball away, landed it in footmarks, and made batsmen look stupid. Yet noted ferret Trent Boult managed to hump him around the field. In fact, the whole bottom order seemed to handle Swann far better than any of the so called batting experts. It takes a skilful offspinner to rip the ball through bat and pad. But no offspinner in the world can manufacture the gap in the first place.Before lunch Headingley was cloudless. The sun was shining about as much as the Yorkshire Gods will allow. The pitch was coming on beautifully. The outfield was not slow. Anderson couldn’t get anything to happen. Broad’s performance was very sub Lord’s.It was as if New Zealand had ordered the conditions for themselves.Hamish Rutherford was picking which part of the offside boundary he wanted to hit. Peter Fulton was flicking the ball easily with his awkward tall-guy style. New Zealand skipped to a 50-run opening partnership without any real concerns. They even shut up the West Stand.It was such a good start that it meant some people started wondering if England would even have a first innings lead.Then on this clear day, out by the beach with friends, with good mobile phone coverage, and no one else around, New Zealand found a way to still end up dead.Fulton, who had been waiting for full balls to flick away, seemed to completely misread the length of a Steven Finn delivery, and flicked it off a leading edge straight up in the air.Rutherford who looked like he could boss England on a pitch this flat, was super-bossed by Finn. Rutherford was beaten for three successive balls, and then still decided to try a no-footwork drive on the up to the second last ball before lunch.

Their opening partnership was 55. Their last wicket partnership was 53. They made 174. Something is desperately wrong with these numbers

Finn hit Ross Taylor first ball. And then a few overs later cramped him up and hit his stumps.Dean Brownlie and Martin Guptill left Swann-sized gaps in their defence, Guptill providing a passable impression of Robocop playing a forward defence. Kane Williamson over compensated. Once that had happened, New Zealand had been killed by an axe wielding maniac in their own mind.Their opening partnership was 55. Their last wicket partnership was 53. They made 174. Something is desperately wrong with these numbers. And while a fired-up Finn and a suped-up Swann were good, they don’t explain or excuse how only 174 was scored.With one less day in this match, the follow-on target moved 50 runs further from New Zealand, which did them no favours.New Zealand deserved no favours. Considering how well New Zealand have fought for the majority of this cross-continental five-Test series, they would be embarrassed at how they played with so much in their favour.It was only England who seemed to help New Zealand. If you didn’t know Alastair Cook or Andy Flower, you’d assume the decision to not enforce the follow-on was a pity move, and not a professionally thought out conservative decision based on the matches to follow.At 116 for 1, England they showed that this pitch, and the conditions in general couldn’t be much better for batting. They also forced New Zealand’s overworked bowlers into the ground. Boult went off with a side strain. Doug Bracewell came on as third change and only bowled six overs. Tim Southee looked like a man who wanted the follow-on to be enforced.They couldn’t even rely on the demon footmark that Swann had used, as Williamson could hit it, and get some spin, but Nick Compton and Jonathan Trott dead-batted everything that was dangerous with the sort of techniques that New Zealand only dreamed for. At the other end Cook showed it was also easy to score. Not that England needed to show New Zealand that, they’d proved it themselves.Boult will be getting more treatment tomorrow. He probably won’t bowl again in this match. But with an unbeaten 24 and a five-wicket haul, he’s already done more than most of his team-mates. Much like New Zealand’s chances, not much can improve by him playing tomorrow.Just more pain. And they’ve inflicted enough on themselves.

S Badrinath isn’t too affected by the lack of batting opportunities in the IPL as long as his team, Chennai Super Kings, is winning matches

Amol Karhadkar02-May-2013Balance is S Badrinath’s forte on and off the field. When it comes to the topic of him hardly getting a knock for table-toppers Chennai Super Kings in the sixth edition of the IPL, that balance comes to the fore.”To be honest, it is definitely not easy. To not be able to bat every game [while] playing as a batsman is something that’s really not enjoyable,” Badrinath said a day after Super Kings beat Pune Warriors. “I think I’ve got used to it a little bit, even though I would love to get more knocks and contribute with the bat.””Fortunately, we have a strong batting line-up. We have some of the best Twenty20 batsmen in our line-up, so with the flexibility that we have in our batting order, whenever we get off to a good start, I know it’s difficult for me to get a look-in. And I would always put the team’s priority over my personal aspirations.”Badrinath, along with captain MS Dhoni and IPL’s highest run-getter, Suresh Raina, has been a constant in virtually every Super Kings game. While Raina has batted in 87 innings in 91 matches and Dhoni has played 77 innings in 88 matches, Badrinath has played 64 innings in 87 matches.The difference is prominent when Badrinath’s statistics are compared to players with the most IPL appearances. With 87 matches, Badrinath shares the fourth spot along with Virat Kohli, behind Raina (91 games), Dhoni and Rohit Sharma (88 each). None of these batsmen, except Badrinath, have played less than 75 innings.At the end of IPL 2011, Badrinath had had a bat in 50 of the 62 matches he played. Last year saw him get nine knocks in 15 appearances while this year he has taken guard in just five of Super Kings’ 10 games so far.These numbers have a lot to do with his role at Super Kings as well. Badrinath has been utilised primarily as a rescue man, someone who walks in whenever Super Kings lose a couple of early wickets.”Whenever the openers get going, it gets difficult [for me] to get a bat,” he said. “During IPL 2009, in South Africa, Matthew Hayden was in such stupendous form that once he got his eye in, he was finishing games for us. That made it difficult for me to get a bat consistently.”Similarly, Michael Hussey has been in such great form this year that he has been playing the sheet anchor and the aggressor’s roles to perfection. And with Dhoni being phenomenal with the bat, I don’t mind not contributing in terms of runs to the team’s victory.”Against Warriors, he came in to bat after the openers had been dismissed early and his crucial 75-run stand with Raina set up a platform for Dhoni to finish the innings on a high note. Badrinath realises that, more often than not, he will end up being the silent contributor to the cause of the team. With the Super Kings outfit “remaining almost unchanged through the six seasons”, players know their roles, with little room for confusion, he adds.”T20 is a format where the top three batsmen invariably get the big scores,” he said. “But even without big numbers, players can make significant contributions. I would rather see Super Kings at the top of the table, instead of batting in every match.”Badrinath, who made his debut against South Africa in 2010, was recalled to the national side for the Test series against New Zealand last year. However, he was dropped without being given an opportunity.A prolific run-scorer at the domestic level, he entered IPL 2013 on the back of a mediocre season (by his standards), scoring 347 runs in six games at an average of 49.57. The IPL, thus, is the last opportunity this season for him to prove that he is still in form. But the 32-year-old isn’t too concerned about it.”Playing for Super Kings and playing for Tamil Nadu are two different things,” he said. “And even though I have been able to get limited opportunities with the bat so far, the IPL isn’t over yet.”As for the Ranji season, it’s true I haven’t had a [typical] Badrinath season, but the fact that I missed two games due to injury can’t be ignored. Besides, I don’t understand the double standards that are applied. Why are those who have scored just about as many runs as me without missing a match considered to have had a very good season and why am I told otherwise? Why is it that for Badrinath, a good season means getting a thousand runs and for others, even 500 runs are exceptional?”

Essex continue to produce talented young players but they need to find the right blend from their squad to challenge for promotion and silverware

George Dobell28-Mar-2013Last year 5th, CC Div 2; Quarter-finals, FLt20; 5th in Group A, CB40.2012 in a nutshell Disappointing. Bearing in mind the talent available in the Essex squad, there were realistic hopes that the club would achieve promotion and challenge for a limited-overs trophy in 2012. In the end, they did neither and, to increase their frustration, a seamer they had released – Chris Wright – played a prominent role in helping Warwickshire to the Championship title. They finished below Netherlands in the CB40 and won only three games in Division Two – only Northants did worse. There are some mitigating factors: the club was weakened by IPL absences – Owais Shah and Ryan ten Doeschate both missed several weeks of the season – Ravi Bopara played a peripheral part due to personal issues and England call-ups, and poor weather did little to help gain any momentum. Had they prevailed in a brave run-chase against Hampshire – they fell three short when chasing 360 at Chelmsford in July – their Championship season may have ended differently. Still, there is no escaping the fact that too few of their promising young players have developed as anticipated and too much is required of senior players such as Graham Napier, David Masters, Shah and Bopara. The decision to release Michael Comber and the loss of Adam Wheater to Hampshire underlined the impression that the club continues to struggle to develop their players once they graduate from the academy to the professional game. Chopping and changing the side has not helped.2013 prospects The squad remains as strong as any in the second division and is seemingly well suited to limited-overs cricket, too. The bowling attack has a nice blend of youth and experience and the batting looks strong, long and explosive. Their new acquisitions are intriguing: Australian Rob Quiney looks a modest overseas signing but, keen to force his way into Ashes contention, has all the motivation required to succeed, while Sajid Mahmood, for all his qualities, has been frustrating his coaches for more than a decade. Quite why a club blessed with so much young bowling talent requires such an addition remains open to debate. Shaun Tait should prove an eye-catching signing in the T20 and, along with the likes of ten Doeschate, Bopara and Napier, gives Essex several potential match-winners. Anything less than qualification to the quarter-finals of the T20 should be considered a failure, while they really should be able to mount a serious promotion challenge.Key player If Bopara is available for the entire season, he could play a huge role for Essex. He topped their batting averages in the Championship and the CB40 last year and, requiring outstanding performances in order to revive his international career, should be motivated. Quite what frame of mind he may be in remains to be seen but, if Bopara is fit and firing, he could well lead a promotion challenge.Bright young thing Essex is a club bursting with young talent. Ben Foakes, a wicketkeeper batsman, has already been fast-tracked into the England Lions side and looks set to start the season playing as a specialist batsman. Tymal Mills, a left-arm bowler of unusual pace, is equally exciting. But the real gem may turn out to be another left-arm bowler, Reece Topley. Blessed with great height and an ability to swing the ball, Topley appears to have all the attributes to develop into a high-class performer.Captain/coach Paul Grayson, the head coach, and James Foster, the captain, have been together for a few years but, despite assembling a strong squad, have yet to gain the success that was anticipated. The fact that Essex have just appointed a new chief executive – Derek Bowden succeeding David East – could herald change if 2013 is another year of underachievement.ESPNcricinfo verdict On paper, they have the talent to challenge for limited-overs trophies and promotion but if they are to prosper they will have to work out which is their best team and stick with it.

First-class cricket has been a struggle for Alex Hales this season, but in Twenty20 he remains a highly dangerous player looking to make a global name for himself

Jon Culley07-Aug-2013Alex Hales must have suspected Twenty20 might be his game when he took part in a tournament at Lord’s as a 16-year old and, taking advantage of three no-balls, smashed eight sixes and a four in the same over. Somewhat ironically, he had been invited along because he had been showing potential as a bowler.”It was a thing organised by Neil Burns for London County Cricket Club,” Hales recalled. “I was a tall lad, six foot by the time I was 13 and saw myself as a fast bowler who could bat a bit. When that happened, I realised I should probably take my batting a bit more seriously.”Eight years on and even taller now at 6ft 5ins, Hales has shown himself capable of wreaking similar havoc even against the best bowlers in the world, particularly in the shortest form of the game. His 81 matches have brought 18 half-centuries, five of them for England, for whom he shares with Luke Wright the distinction of almost scoring a T20 century. Hales scored a brilliant 99 on his home ground, Trent Bridge, against West Indies last June.”Twenty20 has always suited me,” he said. “It is not really my natural game to block it. I like to try to get on top of bowlers, which sometimes can be my downfall in red-ball cricket but has come off for me in T20.”His struggle to establish consistency as an opening batsman in four-day cricket has been particularly acute this season, when a run of poor scores cost him his place in Nottinghamshire’s Championship side, requiring him to seek to rebuild his form and his confidence in 2nd XI cricket. Yet he has been able to step back into the T20 spotlight seemingly untroubled, as was evidenced in the stunning 52-ball 82 in the final Nottinghamshire group game against Lancashire that secured the county’s right to host Thursday’s Friends Life t20 quarter-final, against Essex.”A couple of years ago I found some form across all the competitions but I’ve struggled a bit in four-day cricket this year and I missed a couple of games deservedly,” he said.”But I’ve found it relatively easy to put bad form in county cricket out of my mind because the technique and mindset for opening in T20 are completely different.”In four-day cricket, the bowlers are looking to tie you down and look for you to make mistakes and the stereotypical approach for openers against swinging conditions in England is to get your head down and work hard.”But in T20 a lot of the time the bowlers are bowling different deliveries, trying different things to out-think you but and that gives you plenty of opportunity to score without taking too many risks. If you stay still and watch the ball more often than not you are going to get good chances – and all you’ve got to do is beat the infield and it is four runs. And the white ball tends to not swing or do a lot off the pitch.”Nottinghamshire will attempt to reach Finals Day for the third time against Essex, whom they have never previously met in the competition. Hales identifies Shaun Tait, Ravi Bopara, Hamish Rutherford and Graham Napier as four Essex players posing a particular threat but believes his side are as well equipped as ever to win the competition.”This is as good a chance as we have ever had, with the quality we’ve got in our batting line-up, with someone of Chris Read’s calibre coming in at eight, which gives the top order even more licence to attack the bowlers.”Among our bowlers Graeme White has really shone this year, Samit Patel gives you real class and, of the seamers, Harry Gurney has been outstanding.”Determined though he is to become an accomplished opening batsman in first-class cricket, there are clear opportunities for Hales to enhance his standing – and earnings – from T20. Having caught the eye with a breathtaking 89 off 52 balls for Melbourne Renegades in the last Big Bash League tournament, he has already signed with Adelaide Strikers for another stint down under, and the temptations of the IPL will loom large again in the winter.Along with Samit Patel and Michael Lumb, Hales was prevented from taking part this year when Nottinghamshire insisted that their commitments at Trent Bridge had to come first. It may be a contentious issue again and Hales hopes the opportunity does not remain closed to him.”Ideally there will be a change in the dates that would allow us to play and not miss Championship cricket but I’m not sure that is going to happen in the near future. I would like the chance to play in that tournament – you see such a lot of world-class players involved and it would be a chance to develop your own game.”Notts Outlaws host Essex Eagles in the last of the Friends Life t20 Quarter Finals on Thursday evening. Quarter-Finals and Finals Day tickets are available from ecb.co.uk/flt20

With Sri Lanka’s seniors still going strong, Dinesh Chandimal will have to get used to batting lower down for some time. He wants the youngsters, including himself, to start contributing more if a crisis hits

Andrew Fidel Fernando in Colombo22-Jul-2013Dinesh Chandimal’s year could hardly have begun much better. Having sat the last half of 2012 on the sidelines, he was added to the New Year Test side after Kumar Sangakkara fractured a finger, and impressed with both bat and the gloves, hitting 62 not out alongside the tail in the second innings.Two months later, he made his maiden Test century on a batting paradise in Galle, but followed that with a much more valuable hundred in Colombo, against Bangladesh. In between, he had become his nation’s youngest ever captain in any format, when he was handed the Twenty20 reins, and he celebrated by leading his side to a first-up win.The last few months, though, haven’t quite gone according to plan. In April, he opted to turn down soft offers from the IPL, in order to work intensively with Sri Lanka’s batting coach on technical flaws that hindered his limited-overs game, as well as to learn some English. He has emerged with a slew of phrases that every sportsman finds useful in his career, but the rewards of learning are less evident in his ODI batting. In seven innings since the start of June, Chandimal has made 86 runs, at 14.33.His development in limited-overs cricket has to some extent hampered by the presence of Sri Lanka’s three top-order juggernauts. Chandimal has excelled in Tests, where he has had the time to construct innings, but his batting yet lacks the power to make good use of the finishing spots he has been saddled with in ODIs. With Sri Lanka’s senior batsmen reluctant to retire before the 2015 World Cup, Chandimal has figured he must adapt to batting lower down, as he may remain there for some time yet.”I need to know how to bat from No.1 to No.11. I think that’s what the best cricketers do,” Chandimal said. “When you have such good players in your top order, you have to fit where the team needs. In my last two tours there have been some small weaknesses in my batting and I have had to bat in different places in different matches, but I can’t be disheartened by that.”Chandimal also called on the other young batsmen in his side to begin contributing, after the senior batsmen had carried the side through tournaments in the UK and West Indies, without a great deal of support from the middle order. Sri Lanka’s 180-run victory in the first ODI was similarly propelled by Kumar Sangakkara’s 169, which constituted more than half of the team’s total.”We can’t always rely on our experienced players to score runs. As youngsters we are expecting that on the days when they can’t score, we will stand up and perform,” Chandimal said. “We have a lot of good young players – Upul Tharanga, Lahiru Thirimanne, myself. I think we have a lot more experience now than we did when we first started playing.”We’ve been given a big opportunity, as I’ve been given the captaincy and Lahiru is the vice-captain. As young players we need to know how to take hold of that opportunity with both hands.”Tharanga’s presence at the top of the order has helped settle the opening combination, after Kusal Perera could not find form in the Champions Trophy last month. Tharanga has 13 ODI centuries, including a career-best 174 since returning to the side last month, but he has in the past been wildly inconsistent. With so much youth in the middle order, however, Chandimal feels Tharanga’s 168 matches worth of experience, provides a better overall balance.”He has done really well since coming back into the team in the last tour. We saw how well he used his experience in the last few games. If you look at his statistics there’s no doubt he’s a talented cricketer. That opening combination is good. Because of the two new balls, you need that experience.”