Plays of the day from Chester-le-Street where England won the series in dramatic style

Alan Gardner20-Jun-20152:44

McCullum pleased with Santner, Wheeler finds

The hang time
With England’s target reduced to 192 from 26 overs, Mitchell Santner was asked to open the bowling. His second ball was slightly short and Alex Hales rocked back to plaster it through square leg; though the shot was in the air, it looked set to clear the man. That man was Kane Williamson, not the tallest, but he produced a leap reminiscent of Durham favourite Paul Collingwood to grab the ball one-handed above his head.The chin music
Batsmen getting peppered is one thing but the wicketkeeper taking a blow off a spinner quite another. When Santner lured Joe Root out of his crease, the ball turned and bounced so much that it hit Luke Ronchi on the chin. Extra credit, then, for snatching the ball on the way down and breaking the stumps before Root could regain his ground. Only afterwards did Ronchi stop to wipe away the blood that was beginning to ooze out.Joe Root was stumped after Luke Ronchi gathered a rebound off his chin•Getty ImagesThe introduction
Andrew Mathieson was expecting to play for Sidmouth in the Devon Premier League this weekend. Instead, he made his international debut for New Zealand. As if that wasn’t enough, he then took a wicket with his first ball – a short wide delivery that Jason Roy top-edged straight up in the air – making Mathieson the second New Zealand bowler, after Shane Thomson, to do so in ODIs. Incidentally, Sidmouth’s fixture was against North Devon, who were missing Craig Overton due to his call up by England.The costly drop
Santner’s three wickets had put New Zealand on course for victory but he lacked composure at a pivotal moment in the chase. Jonny Bairstow was battling to keep England alive, having made his maiden ODI fifty, but it all looked to be over when he ramped Matt Henry towards third man. Santner had plenty of time to steady himself under the catch but made a mess of the take, desperately trying once, twice, three times to gather as he slumped to the ground and the ball rolled away.The valiant effort
Adil Rashid has caused Ross Taylor a few problems this series, despite the New Zealander’s prolific form. With Root stationed at short extra cover, in Taylor’s eyeline, the batsman tried to do what he does best: hit his way out of difficulty. An uppish drive went quickly to Root’s right but although he anticipated it well he could only palm a tough chance away one-handed.The uppercut and thrust
A slightly more forgiving surface for the bowlers put a check on the rampant scoring, with New Zealand becoming the first side not to pass 300 batting first. Martin Guptill adapted well during his half-century, the highlight of which was an insouciant uppercut straight over the wicketkeeper off Mark Wood, to which the Durham bowler could only say “shot!” Wood responded by searing one past Guptill’s outside edge at 90mph; “bowled” may well have been the comment in return.The back of the bat
Grant Elliott struggled against Steven Finn in the Powerplay at Trent Bridge, despite going on to make 55 off 52, and he found himself in a similar position here. One unsuccessful attempt to get Finn away nearly resulted in an unusual dismissal – a bouncer was on Elliott quickly and he missed with a pull, the ball thudding into his shoulder and then hitting the back of his bat as it swung round. The rebound sent the ball in the direction of Jonny Bairstow but it landed a few yards short.

Ravindra Jadeja is back in India’s Test side, and has shown signs in the Ranji Trophy that his troubled shoulder has recovered enough to give his bowling the fizz that, allied to his accuracy, makes him deadly on turning pitches

Sidharth Monga19-Oct-2015Most of the times these days in Rajkot, Ravindra Jadeja is found in his Saurashtra Cricket Association tracksuit and a turban-like cloth tied around his head. It is not the turban Rajputs wear. It is the cloth he took with him to the , a village in Kutch desert that houses the temple of , the deity the Jadejas worship. He walked nearly 350km, his father, a few relatives, a truck full of supplies and cooks, in tow. They would walk around 40km every night, stopping for rest at various places along the way. The cloth is what you spread in front of the deity, asking for her blessings.Jadeja keeps the cloth with him everywhere he goes. He wears it to the ground, trades it for sporting headgear when playing, and comes back with the cloth tied around his head like a turban. He wears it when he goes out. He wears it when he goes home to Jamnagar, 80km from Rajkot. Ask him about the cloth, and he holds it with arms outstretched, as if in , a prayer, and says he took it to the , and now likes to keep it with him.There is no explanation for mostly being seen in the tracksuit, but that is how he has been since the season has begun. He has often been the last person leaving the Saurashtra nets. Even when the nets were called off for a day after they beat Jharkhand in two days. This is a season full of back-to-back matches, but it has been difficult to drag Jadeja off the cricket field in the searing heat of Rajkot. He has taken 24 wickets in the four innings he has bowled in, in 97 overs. Lest it be said he has done so on tailor-made turners, Jadeja has himself scored 91 and 58 in the only two chances he has had to bat.It has been near impossible to take the ball out of his hand. He has bowled unbroken spells of 27.1, 25, 19.5 and 25 overs. Jaydev Shah, his captain, tells his coach Shitanshu Kotak, “I ask him if he wants rest, and he responds, “No, I will get them out and then we can rest for longer.” At the end of each of his four spells, he has taken the balls with him, written his figures on them, the date and the opposition, and kept them for posterity. “When I build my new house, I will showcase them there,” he says.There has been, in his demeanour, in the way he talks, a sort of assuredness that his comeback into the Indian team is around the corner, and that he wants to record this process for a future telling. He doesn’t want that telling done now, though. “I don’t want to say ‘I am ready’ or ‘Look I am doing well’,” he says. “Let the 24 wickets in two matches do that.” This is two days after the end of the match against Jharkhand, a time when international players rush out of the small-town Ranji venues. Jadeja, though, has been camping in Rajkot with his Ranji team-mates.The one reason why Jadeja possibly feels certain of making a comeback is because he feels he is regaining the control that was his hallmark. That control, the ability to bowl on the same spot with slight pace variation every now and then, was why Jadeja became so valued as a Test player, especially on Indian pitches, which have of late begun to assist spinners a lot more than they in the 2000s. In the only full Test series Jadeja played in India, he picked up 24 wickets at 17.45.That Jadeja lost that control was down to the shoulder injury he acquired in Australia. He played the World Cup through pain, but it was plain he was not the same bowler. “It’s not about just putting it there on the spot,” Jadeja says. “I was not being able to do so with action on it.” Jadeja’s bowling is mostly about the action the shoulder puts on the ball. In bowling long spells he has shown the shoulder looks good now, and the ball is getting there with action on it.A week before going to Rajkot, Jadeja was in Bangalore, bowling against a Bangladesh A side that lost to both India A and a second-choice Karnataka side. He wasn’t putting as much shoulder into the ball as he did in Rajkot. Was it the turning pitch that seduced him into doing so? Was it the Group C batsmen who let him bowl with the control that is his prized possession? Was it just the shoulder injury that limited him as a bowler or was it that international batsmen had wizened to his ways and were not letting him bowl the way he wants to?Some of these answers will be found in November, when there is every chance he will play as the third spinner, and perform the allrounder role Stuart Binny played in Colombo, where the ball seamed a little. At his best, Jadeja has shown he can be as good as R Ashwin on turning tracks. They formed a deadly team against Australia at home. Add the old-fashioned legspin of Amit Mishra to the mix, and India have a potentially delightful spin combination to combat some of the best travellers and players of spin in the world. Now it is up to Jadeja to be at his best and fittest.

ESPNcricinfo staff07-Nov-2015Part-timer Stiaan van Zyl, however, removed Kohli, who was smartly caught behind by Dane Vilas•BCCIKohli’s dismissal sparked fresh energy in the visitors’ camp, as Imran Tahir sent back Pujara – who with 77 had made the highest score of the match – two overs later•BCCISimon Harmer then got into the act to dismiss Ajinkya Rahane, Ravindra Jadeja and Amit Mishra in quick succession. After being on 161 for 2, the hosts were bowled out for 200 leaving South Africa 218 to chase•BCCISouth Africa were off to a woeful start, losing Vernon Philander, who was surprisingly sent in as opener, Faf du Plessis and captain Hashim Amla inside the first four overs. R Ashwin and Jadeja reduced them to 10 for 3•BCCIMishra then came to the party with the massive wicket of AB de Villiers. Dean Elgar and Dane Vilas departed not long after, leaving South Africa tottering on 60 for 6•BCCIVan Zyl, with 36, resisted for South Africa, and put on 42 runs for the seventh wicket with Simon Harmer•BCCIJadeja and Ashwin, however, removed both in quick succession, and hastened the end of the innings. South Africa eventually fell short of the target by 109 runs. Both these spinners finished with eight wickets each in the match•BCCI

Mitchell Johnson finishes his career highly placed among Australia’s Test bowlers. It might not have always been a smooth ride for him but when he got into frightening top gear, one could hardly look away

Daniel Brettig17-Nov-20154:54

Chappell: Johnson was very resilient, and terrific for the crowd

Bruce Springsteen’s was written for the Darren Aronofsky film of the same name. It’s a tender portrait of a figure who has given a lot, and a wider rumination on what entertainment asks of its practitioners, particularly those who practice visceral and sometimes bloody arts for the crowds that come to see them.Mickey Rourke’s character Randy “The Ram” Robinson was one of those, a man burnt out by a transient life yet still drawn to the thrill of the arena. Mitchell Johnson is another.Ranking Johnson by his figures leaves him very highly placed among Australian bowlers – only three others sit ahead of him. But the truer measure is to look at how he enlivened the matches in which he was at his fastest, creating merry hell for batsmen and at the same time the rarest of spectacles for cricket watchers. The thrill of his best days caused a surge of energy through grounds that few other cricketers have created. Perhaps only Jeff Thomson has been at once as terrifying to face and as transfixing to watch.But there was a cost to all this also. Johnson’s powerful method was difficult to control, and it took him years of injury followed by more of wildly inconsistent performance to distil what worked for him. It was also a way of bowling that can only work when a bowler is at his most focused, not pausing too much to think about the potential pain that can be inflicted by him hurtling the ball down at batsmen with, to crib from , extreme prejudice.Johnson’s association with Dennis Lillee is well understood. Lillee saw something special before many others did, even if tales of Johnson’s prowess in junior competition are still retold by contemporaries such as Shane Watson, Chris Hartley and Shaun Marsh. As the years have gone by, Johnson has gone back to Lillee several times for advice and support, notably before the Perth Test of 2010 when he turned around a poor display in Brisbane with a show-stopping effort at the WACA, and again when he took an injury-induced sabbatical in 2011-12.

As a piece of biomechanics Johnson was more Tiger Woods than Roger Federer, all violent power and strength to muscle the ball down at the batsman. Like Woods, if Johnson missed, he tended to miss big

What kept Johnson going back to Lillee, while also relying upon other mentors such as Troy Cooley and latterly Craig McDermott, was that his bowling action and modus operandi were so difficult to replicate. As a piece of biomechanics it was more Tiger Woods than Roger Federer, all violent power and strength to muscle the ball down at the batsman. Like Woods, if Johnson missed, he tended to miss big. And when pace and rhythm were absent, he was unable to replicate Lillee’s knack for finding other ways.Another hurdle for Johnson was that he possessed a shy Queensland country boy’s countenance, slow to find his public voice and slower still to get his head around the pitfalls of a high profile. Successes against South Africa in 2008-09 lifted him to the title of the ICC’s cricketer of the year, but also made him a prime target for the Barmy Army in England that year. Combined with tabloid stories about his estranged mother they left him addled in the middle, and struggling to find a way to block it all out. Any thoughts of embracing it seemed the furthest thing from his mind.Initially, he layered on a veneer of brio, manifest in a 2010 confrontation with Scott Styris that featured the odd sight of Johnson offering a gentle head-butt to his helmeted opponent. It looked silly, and nor did it work – New Zealand won the game, and both Johnson and Styris were fined. He had also been sanctioned over a run-in with Suliemann Benn – the only two ICC code of conduct breaches Johnson committed over his career, and he did not persist in that front. This was fortunate, for he always remained an endearingly warm personality without the ball in his hand.One side effect of Johnson’s strong frame and apparent imperviousness to injury was that he ended up playing more matches than any other Australian bowler between 2007 and 2011, irrespective of how well he was bowling. Much of that time he wrestled with his rhythm and technique, yet kept playing due to his inherent value as a man capable of swinging a match.The boom and bust of his bowling reached its nadir in 2010-11, accompanied by the “He bowls to the left, he bowls to the right” chorus so beloved by England’s supporters. That Ashes defeat heralded enormous change in Australian cricket, yet when Johnson resumed in Sri Lanka and South Africa the following season, he felt anything but refreshed, and bowled with more resignation than venom on those tours. Before a freakish foot injury gave him a break, he was last seen trying medium pace off a short run in Johannesburg as Pat Cummins blew past him.In the end, a combination of retirements and selections – or lack thereof – detracted from Mitchell Johnson’s attributes•Cricket Australia/Getty ImagesAway from the crowds and pressures, Johnson had time to ponder what he was, and what worked for him. He spent considerable time with Lillee, and also the Australian soldier and Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith. Between them and his wife Jessica, Johnson worked on refining his body and mind, and importantly took it upon himself to own the overt physical threat inherent in his best bowling. When he returned for Australia in mid-2012, results did not flow immediately, but his confidence was far less easily shaken.There was one hiccup to overcome before Johnson re-emerged of course. The “Homeworkgate” saga in India estranged him and Shane Watson from much of the team, and required the circuit-breaker of Darren Lehmann to mend numerous fissures. Johnson has always thrived on strong relationships and simple advice, two qualities very much in Lehmann’s playbook. As Johnson said last year:”He has been very, very, very good. He has brought fun back into the game, but also what he has done is been brutally honest as well. It’s very important in this game to have that honesty in the team. For me personally he has been able to find my strengths and been able to help improve on those, so he has been a big help in that fact. The game’s meant to be played in good spirit and you’re meant to have fun when you play. So we’re doing that at the moment.”The “fun” featured Johnson frightening the batsmen of Andy Flower’s England in a way no one had before. A moustache grown for “Movember” charities gave Johnson a Mephistophelian presence, something he augmented with a stare more piercing than any of his halting earlier attempts at sledging. Bouncy wickets in Brisbane and Perth helped, but the arguably greater factor was a beautifully balanced bowling quartet: Ryan Harris was surgical, Peter Siddle serviceable, and Nathan Lyon would pick up whatever scraps were left. Together they allowed Johnson to think only of attack, and his captain Michael Clarke only of using him in short, shock bursts.Australia’s cricket had an edge to it, not always pleasant, but decidedly effective. If anything they upped this intensity in South Africa during February and March, helped by a Centurion Park pitch that offered variable pace and bounce to turn Johnson’s bowling downright dangerous. The paradox of this occasionally macabre spectacle was how much the fans loved it. Late in the trip, Johnson spoke of how children had responded to his reign of terror.”I’m getting a lot of fans following me when I’m at the games and I noticed that a lot in South Africa, young kids were wearing the moustache as well. There has been a lot of talk around the team but also my performances personally in the last six months. I wouldn’t say I’m a superstar but I’m definitely at the peak of my game. I did go through a bit of a low point like a lot of players do in professional sport, and it’s really enjoyable now to be back playing cricket well and consistently with my mates.”

The death of Phillip Hughes affected Johnson deeply… Just how difficult it became for Johnson to summon the venom to threaten batsmen only he knows, but he was seldom as fast again

The last day of the series in Cape Town saw Harris win the game with a late burst, but Johnson bowled 21 overs at top pace in considerable heat to keep the pressure on. In hindsight it was his last great and sustained performance, as the wages of a constant cricket schedule (including lucrative IPL involvement) and other factors began to conspire. A few spells would catch the eye, like his first couple of overs in Dubai against Pakistan, or his two brutal throat balls to Jonny Bairstow and Ben Stokes at Edgbaston, but they were mere glimpses of 2013-14.Like Thomson, Johnson prospered best on surfaces offering him some assistance in terms of bounce and pace. Neither man was ever at his most fearsome in England, for instance, and dead pitches could often cause them to wonder at the value of pounding the ball down at high speeds. Towards the end of last summer, Johnson noted the unforgiving nature of the tracks prepared for the India series with weary annoyance; those of that season and this one have been nothing like those cooked up for England.Team composition, too, was an issue that evolved to detract from Johnson’s attributes. By calling in Mitchell Starc, the selectors compelled Johnson to think of himself as a senior bowler, needing to bowl spells designed to contain as well as capture wickets. Harris’ retirement was a mighty blow to Johnson’s effectiveness robbing him of the high class offsider who so complemented him. When Lehmann and Rod Marsh declined to recall Siddle by way of balance, Johnson was left in further conflict over his exact role.Finally, the death of Phillip Hughes affected Johnson deeply, not just in terms of the loss of a good friend but also as a reminder of the destructive capacity of a cricket ball. It has been speculated by Christian Ryan that Thomson was never quite as fast after the death of Martin Bedkober, a flatmate, when struck in the chest during a club match. Among the most indelible images of Hughes’ funeral was at the end of a montage depicting his life: cameras cut to Johnson, weeping openly in response. Just how difficult it became for Johnson to summon the venom to threaten batsmen only he knows, but he was seldom as fast again.Johnson has made no secret that he is a Test match traditionalist. His sadness at the decline of the WACA Ground was made plain before his final match; his distaste for the looming day/night experiment in Adelaide also clear. Several times since its announcement, Johnson has said “I’ve got my views on that but I’ll hang onto them until we get to the match”. Perhaps he never really thought he would make it that far, but he has left a collection of memories many are grateful for.The last of these was a new ball spell to New Zealand where he bounced out Tom Latham and Martin Guptill, rousing a small WACA crowd to noise worthy of a far larger gathering. Like “The Ram”, Johnson went out doing what he loved, but knowing he could no longer do it as he once did.

It drips all week but our intrepid correspondent is not easily deterred

Firdose Moonda23-Nov-2015November 10
While I was sightseeing and eating in Amritsar, the South African team were
assiduously trying to correct their errors from the first Test. At the PCA Stadium in Mohali, they practised on scuffed-up surfaces against a spinning ball. The early reports were that many of them looked a little silly. It turned out to be a dress rehearsal for what would happen at the next venue.Bangalore-bound. As an ESPNcricinfo-ite (I just made that up, although I think ESPNcricinformers would be cooler) this is a homecoming. Our office is based in the city and though I have not visited often, I have fond memories of Brigade Road, MG Road, Koshy’s, Plan B, Cubbon Park and Ulsoor Lake. I can’t wait to see all these places again.November 11
I have celebrated Eid in Istanbul and Heroes Day in Harare but I anticipate being in India for Diwali will be more of an experience than either. There are more people so inevitably there will be more noise, more colour, more of everything.If it’s Diwali, look out for chalk drawings in front of houses•Firdose Moonda/ESPNcricinfo LtdThe morning is spent at Gandhi Bazaar, eating dosa with the locals at Vidyarthi Bhavan, eyeballing the garlands of bright flowers and buying two extravagant salwars that I am not sure I will actually wear. The afternoon is in Indira Nagar, walking the streets where women were drawing chalk patterns in their driveways. The evening is enjoyed at Ebony, a restaurant on the 13th floor of an MG Road building, recommended as a good place to watch the fireworks. They are splashed across the sky as soon as it darkens, several at a time. Every few seconds, a new set sparks, until eventually, they were slicing through the significant smoke. The sight is stunning (and the sound too, but not so pleasantly).November 12
Lal Bagh Botanical Gardens is a kilometre and a half from where I am staying and will be my gym for the next few days. I walk there along Double Road, which looks hung-over from last night’s festivities. Debris is strewn along the pavements and spills onto the street. The stale smell of something hangs in the air. But the garden itself is fresh from a light shower. At 7am, there are very few people about but many dogs. I want to congratulate them for making it through the noisy night.After a couple of days off, South Africa return to training but being back at work brings the blues. During the football warm-ups, Vernon Philander falls to the ground, needs immediate attention and is carried off the field. The incident takes the attention off AB de Villiers, who will play his 100th Test in his adopted home.At the press conference, de Villiers tries to be optimistic about his team-mate. “It could be serious or it could be nothing,” he says. It turns out to be very serious. The diagnoses of multiple ankle ligament tears means Philander is ruled out of the series and faces up to eight weeks on the sidelines. Kyle Abbott is called up to replace him.November 13
Things get even worse for South Africa when Hashim Amla rules Dale Steyn out of the Test too. The depth of their domestic strength is going to be tested.The flower market in Gandhi Bazaar•Firdose Moonda/ESPNcricinfo LtdIt turns out Koshy’s is no longer place to be. It’s a colleague’s birthday and we head to Bootlegger on swanky Lavelle Road to celebrate.November 14
I am told that the Chinnaswamy is close to being sold out and after the empty stands in Mohali I am looking forward to a proper crowd and I get one. The Bangalore faithful are boisterous and busy; they enjoy everything from the gritty struggle of Dean Elgar to the sensational bowling of R Ashwin to the tragic hero’s innings of de Villiers.And one of them just enjoys being there. “I’m so glad my first Test was not at Lord’s,” an American-born, Belgium-based beer-company employee, who is in the city for ten days, tells me. Wesley became a cricket fan through an English friend but he wanted to see his first game away from the stiff upper lips. When he realised his work trip coincided with the Test, he jumped at the chance to attend.His attention to the statistical details of the game astounds me. When Dane Vilas is on 11, he points out that South Africa’s new wicketkeeper has now achieved his highest Test score and then proceeds to quiz me. My memory is more anecdotal than numerical and I can’t recall Vilas’ highest scores but I tell him the story of Kyle Abbott’s debut – he replaced an injured Jacques Kallis in Centurion and became the country’s second most successful debutant after Lance Klusener with 7 for 29 in the first innings against Pakistan.November 15
The day dawns damp, but unlike on the previous few mornings, the drizzle does not show signs of dimming. The Sunday crowd stick around, hopeful and happy for a day out but they are to be disappointed. Play is only called off in what would have been the third session.Wesley was due to play a match with his colleagues. I wonder if they got on the park.A bunch of “ESPNcricinformers” get together for a picture•Firdose Moonda/ESPNcricinfo LtdNovember 16
Back home the country is experiencing it’s worst drought since 1992 but in Bangalore, a 100-year-old record is about to be drowned by the amount of November rain. If only we could deliver some of this to South Africa.It drips and dries, drips and dries for most of the morning, and when it eventually dries, there is a drainage problem on the outfield. An area at short cover is too damp, and after a 2pm start, which is delayed by another drizzle, play is called off. Sigh.November 17
The watershed point has been reached. If no play takes place today, the chances of a result other than a draw will be diluted almost into non-existence. Again, the rain does not rage; it is just relentless. I think of Vilas. He has now played only five days of Test cricket, and two of his three Tests so far have been washouts.November 18
Bangalore has given up on seeing any cricket. No one is at the ground, no one wants to play. A 10am inspection becomes an 11.30 inspection and the expectation is that it will be called off. It is. Match drawn. We have moved nowhere in ten days except that South Africa have lost one bowler and may lose another. They still have not figured out how to approach batting here.At night, the rain is not nearly as shy as it has been all week. Even without thunder, it’s Johannesburg-esque in nature. Some friends back home tell me there has been a hailstorm and the heavens have opened properly for them too. Sweet relief.November 19
The sun sneaks through the clouds and there is a small patch of blue sky, so we might as well make the most of the better weather. We plan what a colleague calls, ” the biggest gathering of cricket talent since the All-Stars”. A get-together of our Bangalore team, joined by some out-of-towners like Alan Gardner, from the UK, and myself.November 20
The generosity of the schedule is magnified because of the washout and I want to make use of the time to see a bit of India off the beaten track. I book a two-night stay close to the Tiger Reserve in Pench. That may sound strange given that I can safari in Africa any time I want. But we don’t have tigers. Here’s hoping I see one and that I see more cricket in the second half of the tour.Pench: sunrise with the chance of tigers•Firdose Moonda/ESPNcricinfo LtdNovember 21

Up at 4:30 to get ready for the first ride of the day. An hour into the ride the sunrise is silent and spectacular. We watch it over a small lake whose stillness allows everything to slow down. It’s my first sight of a brilliant blue sky in 10 days. There are very few people in the Pench tiger reserve, and sadly no tigers wanting to be seen either. An eagle is the best find and I am hopeful the afternoon will bring more.A few minutes into the second safari, we see spotted deer, sambar deer, bison and birds of various descriptions. Then, in front of what seems just another clump of trees, our tracker stops. He tells us to listen to the alarm calls from the deer, which suggests a tiger is near. The high-pitched shrieks seems close enough to touch, then they get further away, and then come closer. We think we have found the tiger and take off in the direction the sound is moving. Then silence. The king of the jungle does not want to entertain visitors today.November 22
Back to work. Make the road journey into Nagpur, a city I remember for South Africa’s win in the 2011 World Cup and an entire street of sweet sellers. I will definitely search for the latter again; South Africa, doubtless, will try to muster the spirit of the former to stay in the series.

The Pakistan captain talks about the many observations, plots and decisions that go into the game’s most important task: taking wickets

Osman Samiuddin21-Nov-2015Two sharp short balls, slightly misdirected either side of Stuart Broad’s body, sandwiched a yorker in the 102nd over of England’s second innings in Dubai. In total, that meant that five of the last six balls Wahab Riaz had bowled to Broad were short. A couple were genuinely hairy, but all were good enough to keep him rooted deep in the crease. Who knows what Broad was expecting fourth ball of that over, but could it have been anything other than a bouncer or a yorker?Who knows, indeed, what Wahab would have bowled to him – in the end he went with the suggestion of Misbah-ul-Haq. The captain already had a conventional forward short leg in place. He decided to place another – another “silly”, he said – in, but finer. He was standing at square leg himself and he told Wahab to bowl a yorker, but a slower one.”We were attacking him with the bouncer and the yorker, so he was prepared for both,” Misbah said a few days later. “His weight was moving back a little and he was prepared for the full yorker. So I felt, if he gets a slower one here, he will get time and his weight will still be on the back foot.”Sitting down, Misbah illustrated the movement he intended to elicit from Broad – a jerky, panicked jab down to the ball, the aim still to prevent it from hitting his toes or stumps but now scrambled by the lack of pace and flight.”With that weight going back, if you go to play a slower ball inevitably you loft the shot in the air. I took two sillys on that side, one fine, one normal, and the plan was that he would lob to either.”Wahab bowled it just right, the slower ball not looping so much but dipping at Broad’s toes with the lazy menace of a paper plane in descent. Broad did exactly as Misbah predicted, half-hopping while hurrying the bat down and lobbing the ball away. It went, with uncanny precision, between the two “sillys”, flirting boldly with both, not committing to either.

Because he is a captain who understands so well the angles of the game, and the consequences of tweaking them to tiny degrees, his handling of spinners has mostly suggested he was born for it

Misbah’s gambit did not come off, though in the way of unrequited love it was no less powerful for its failure.

****

Misbah-ul-Haq has stood between Pakistan and extinction. He has taken Pakistan by the collar and shaken some calm into them. He is a man of quiet integrity and dignity, of exceedingly stable temperament, and it is in this image that he has built his Pakistan side.Five years after he became captain, a year after becoming their most successful captain (in terms of Test match wins), and now closer to an exit than ever before, these, bafflingly, remain the popular and intangible ways in which Misbah is spoken about – that is, we speak of his leadership as man, which in its example of him is ample. We hardly talk of his as cricketer, which is a different thing altogether (see Miandad, J), and when we do, it has swiftly escalated into fractious and tiresome ideological debates about the effect of his batting on his team in ODIs.Which is odd in one sense because, by most accounts, Misbah is a cricket tragic, nerdily wired into the intricacies of the game. This revelation to Hassan Cheema in a recent profile , for example, from a producer when Misbah was working as a TV analyst:

“For him, every ball was something he needed to see. The only time he stopped watching was when he had to pray, but even then, after he was finished praying he would ask me or someone about every ball: who played the shot, what happened, was it a slower ball – he wanted to know everything. He knew about everyone too, and he read the mind of the fielding captains to perfection. Even as Netherlands were bowling their seventh over he would know who would bowl their 15th over, for example, and he would nearly always be proven right.”

The details of that Broad set-up, in fact, Misbah had voluntarily divulged, and in typical Misbah fashion. At the post-win press conference, he had first put on his Misbah face (find wall, stare at wall, answer wall) and spoken in the generalised way about the game that these interactions require. Then, as often happens, he exited the stage, to be encircled by a group of journalists. It is here, usually, that he talks with surprising candidness and more specifically about the game. I asked him about another dismissal that day, which he talked us through, before he asked whether we had noticed the slower ball to Broad.Give Hashim Amla “a doosra from middle and leg”•Getty ImagesA few days later, on the second evening of the Sharjah Test, we sat down to discuss this and the other granules that make up the real substance of a captaincy. England were establishing a loose – and ultimately brief – sense of control over the game and it had been a long day. Misbah looked a little more haggard than usual. He had hemmed and hawed when I first mentioned the idea of the interview, worrying whether, in the middle of a Test, he would be able to summon enough such instances from such a long tenure. But he had agreed to meet and as it turned out, remembering was not a problem. Most of what he recalled was recent but had there been more time, I can imagine him remembering decisions he made in the tape-ball games of his youth.

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The Bairstow wrong’un

On the same day as the Broad near-miss, Yasir Shah bowled Jonny Bairstow with a googly and ran straight to Misbah to celebrate, acknowledging his captain’s role. Until then, Bairstow had played Shah securely, including three full overs late on the fourth day. On the fifth he again looked fairly confident, both in leaving and playing him with the bat. Shah came at him from both sides, and especially when he was over the wicket, Bairstow was recognising and leaving legbreaks pitched outside off so well, each leave carried the force of a firm-intentioned stroke. The googly was observing purdah.The guiding force of Misbah’s on-field captaincy is a deep grasp of the mechanics of batsmanship. It is an acuity that the greatest are sometimes unable to articulate; perhaps because Misbah operates so resolutely within his limitations, he recognises the boundaries within which opposing batsmen operate in different circumstances, as well as, of course, the overarching fragility of batting as a task.”What was happening, actually, the legbreak that was coming on middle he was playing pretty easily. The one outside off, he had clearly made a plan that he was going to stretch out far forward and then leave it. He was leaving it well.

“Sometimes you see when a batsman is set on a plan, you want to mess with his mind a little. You see patterns, so you want to make him play differently, when there are chances of mistakes”

“As a batsman when I am doing this, if suddenly from the same line from where I am leaving I get a googly, even if I know it is a googly, the chances of my making a mistake are high. Even if you recognise it, because the intention from that line is to not play it – mentally you have planned you are going to leave it. Suddenly from there when it is a googly, you decide to try and play, you can still miss it. I said to Yasir, ‘Bowl him two to three googlies in a row so that the intention he has to leave the legbreak from that line [is affected].'”Shah bowled him the first googly that day and from how Bairstow shaped to play it he had clearly picked it. But having gotten used to leaving, or just defending, suddenly another option of scoring through the vacant midwicket – Misbah had a gully instead – affected the execution. That it happened off the very first googly was a bonus.Tying up Hashim Amla

In the field, all captains work to one end: wickets. It’s just that their approach to the cost of getting them – runs – is different. Some, like Michael Clarke, are willing to give up a few more. To Misbah, runs are gold dust. He hates conceding them, whatever the situation. He plans for wickets by not giving away runs, not by setting unusual fields or asking his bowlers to do anything fancy or cute.It is an instinct that served him well in what he says is the one moment of captaincy he will never forget. It came at the death of an ODI in Port Elizabeth in 2013. South Africa, with Hashim Amla and JP Duminy at the crease, needed less than a run a ball from the last two overs (11 off 12). Misbah had Saeed Ajmal and Junaid Khan and it was the penultimate over from Ajmal that won it.He remembers every detail because he talked Ajmal through the entire piece, but not exactly in its right place: he was off on the chronology of the over.”Amla was on 97, Saeed was round the stumps. He asked me, ‘What should I do?’ I said, ‘First ball, a little outside off, he will wait for the ball, push to covers and take one.’ Back foot he will go to play there. So I said to him, make sure you finish on off stump, your offbreak, don’t bowl the doosra. Don’t bowl to middle and leg, bowl the offbreak on off so that if he moves to play it there, if it is a little slow, he will not get pace and he’ll be waiting for the doosra. There is a chance that he does not get a single there. He wants a single, so try not to give him anything on his legs, or outside off.”To Jonathan Trott, “bowl short of length and either cramp him, or just outside off”•Associated PressMisbah mistakenly remembers the first four balls as dots. Amla tucked the first ball, on middle and leg, to midwicket for a single. What Misbah remembers as the last ball of the over, to Duminy, was actually the second ball, though in instruction to Ajmal he was correct: “Last ball Duminy was there. Saeed said, give him a deep midwicket as he will sweep it, so I will bowl off stump. I said, he will sweep from outside off. Midwicket is up, just bowl him a straight offbreak, a bit quicker. If it stays straight he could be leg-before, if he hits it, he hits it.” He tried to sweep and missed it, a dot ball.Duminy got a single off the next, bringing Amla back on strike, on 98, three balls left in the over. The fourth was a dot, Ajmal following Amla’s movement as he backed away. The fifth was the original plan, though probably a little wider than intended. Amla still couldn’t get it away.”He panicked a little, nine needed and it was ball to ball, the panic button was on. Saeed can also panic, of course. So I said to him, if I was a batsman at this stage, I would not be looking for a single, I will look for a boundary, a big shot. Because nine runs off eight [actually seven], however big a batsman, he is under pressure now.”Now he will not try to hit over cover, he will go for a big shot. So I said, now you have to give him a doosra from middle and leg, because now he will hit it. He bowled it and Amla skied it straight up [to be caught halfway to the boundary].”Pakistan won eventually by a run, sealing a first ODI series win in South Africa and the first by a subcontinent side in the country.Fast, slow?
No Pakistani captain has relied as heavily on spin as Misbah, not even Miandad, who, usually in Imran’s absence and at home, was happy to rely on them. Fifty-nine per cent of the wickets taken under Misbah have been by spin; 58% of the overs bowled by spinners. In that, he is an outlier among Pakistan’s major captains. Corresponding percentages for Abdul Kardar, Imran and Miandad are, in order: 23% of wickets and 33% of overs; 29% of wickets and 36% of overs; 46% of wickets and 48% of overs.

Sitting down, Misbah illustrated the movement he intended to elicit from Broad, a jerky, panicked jab down to the ball, the aim being to prevent it from hitting his toes or stumps but now scrambled by the lack of pace and flight

To a degree it has been thrust upon him by circumstance: as much by the attack that was left to him once he took over as by the surfaces on which Pakistan played “home” Tests. Had he the Mohammads, Amir and Asif, who knows how his captaincy would have played out. But because he is a captain who understands so well the angles to which the game is played, and the consequences of tweaking them to tiny degrees, his handling of spinners has mostly suggested he was born for it.He insisted he is as comfortable with fast bowlers, though he let slip a perhaps natural caution in expanding: “If a guy is bowling with control and he knows where the ball is going and how much it is swinging, then it becomes easy. It becomes difficult when the ball is not being controlled, or it is swinging both ways too much, or if he is struggling with line and length.”Control – not conceding runs – is vital to Misbah and it is his spinners who have always given him utmost control. Consequently, in the absence of Asif and Amir, and other than in a few phases, Misbah has sometimes come across as intrinsically untrusting of fast bowlers. He was, for instance, so despondent at the prospect of playing three fast bowlers in the first Test against England last month (Shah was injured, with no back-up) that it felt as if he had conceded the Test before it even began.He has had his moments with them, though. He remembered the dismissal of Dinesh Chandimal in the second innings of the famous Sharjah Test last year. Mohammad Talha had bowled especially well on what was basically a strip of quicksand, and was brought into the attack with a 38-over-old ball. Misbah, at mid-off, had been watching Chandimal grow in confidence and told Talha to bowl a bouncer into his body. Talha did and Chandimal awkwardly ducked under it. He bowled a length ball outswinger next, which Chandimal left.”Now he says, next ball I will bowl another outswinger. I said, ‘Outswing and bouncer he is ready to leave. So from some way out, bring the ball in a little to get him to play a forward defensive.’ It was reversing a little. I thought because of the bouncer, his weight will stay back a little. He will not come forward properly or fully. If you land it on a good spot, even if there is a tiny gap, he’s gone.”It went as Misbah said, though it was helped by the size of the gap Chandimal left. (It is worth noting the degree to which Misbah can be involved in constructing overs, ball by ball, with his bowlers.)Fifty-nine per cent of the wickets taken under Misbah have been by spin•AFPA bigger tapestry to draw upon is Pakistan’s working over of Jonathan Trott in the UAE. In a Test series marked by the control Pakistan’s spinners exerted over England’s batting, Trott being dismissed by pace in three innings out of six was almost anomalous (and more so than for anyone else in the top seven). Sure, at one-down he was always likelier to face fast bowlers than others but there was an undeniable pattern to the dismissals. Misbah and Pakistan had picked up on an imbalance in the Trott shuffle.”He plays on the move lots and the shuffle was always towards off stump and a little moving forward. The back foot does not go back and across, it moves up a little. It is a different shuffle, so the ball that is pulled wide a little, he tries to drive it, he tries to get close to it.”Whenever you bowl outside off to him, short-of-a-length ball, he will be on the move, weight going forward, and that gives you a chance. If you give him one towards his body [], he will be playing that. Sometimes when he moved forward to try and play to leg, he would be a leg-before shout, and he hit so many through midwicket. So we noticed and thought that because he walks towards off, we bowl short of length and either cramp him [at his body], or just outside off. Only the odd ball towards pads. But however much he walks out, you pull him even further so that he plays on the move. We knew spin was our strength, but with him we thought, he will chase a ball outside off, or even a short ball past his ribs.”Trott’s three dismissals to pace: the first, moving across and strangled down the leg side to a short ball; the second, chasing a short-of-length delivery far outside off; and the last, leg-before to one swinging into his pads. Trott’s technical troubles with the short ball came to wider attention in 2013, in encounters with Mitchell Johnson, and it ended his career. But in the relative anonymity of Dubai, long before, Pakistan had already worked him out.

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After a while Misbah was recalling all kinds of little plans and plots without prompting. Each time there was a conversational pause, on the verge of blossoming into an awkward silence, he thought of another, like the two dismissals of Alastair Cook in the second Test in Dubai.

To Misbah, runs are gold dust. He plans for wickets by not giving away runs, not by setting unusual fields or asking his bowlers to do anything fancy or cute

As with the Bairstow googly, they revealed Misbah’s understanding of batsmanship but also a mental nimbleness. The plan was for Shah to attack the rough from round the wicket to Cook, with a man at 45 for the sweep. But Misbah sensed at one point that Cook was well set – “” – so he brought in a leg slip and Shah went over. Cook was gone almost immediately, caught there by Ahmed Shehzad.In the second innings, he reversed it. Shah began at Cook from over the wicket. But during the drinks break before his next over, Misbah asked him to switch, to what was their original first-innings plan. “I said, ‘Bowl to him from round, where he plays well.’ Yasir said, ‘No, this is our plan, this is what we stick to.’ My thinking was that the sweep is his pet shot, he has confidence in it. But this is a fourth-day pitch, the rough is greater, he will hit but he might top-edge. As soon as he went there, he top-edged.”Sometimes you see when a batsman is set on a plan, you want to mess with his mind a little. You see patterns, so you want to make him play differently, when there are chances of mistakes.”One of the more striking descriptions he used was for the body position he wanted to force David Warner into, in the second innings of the Dubai Test last year. Warner scored a hundred in the first and was playing well in the second. Misbah told Zulfiqar Babar, with a relatively new ball, to go round the wicket, convincing him to leave cover vacant. “From this angle if you bowl middle, you’ll get drift and [his shoulders won’t open fully, or move freely] while trying to force a shot. He tried to do exactly that, to force one through covers, missed it – ball went with the angle straight past him and he got stumped.”Shoulder-charged: in Dubai last year David Warner was stumped from a delivery bowled round the wicket and pitched on middle stump•Getty ImagesNone of this is to paint Misbah as a unique and extraordinarily innovative tactician. Captaincy doesn’t work to such simple descriptions. His reading of batsmen is notable, but most captains would – or could – make some of these moves. And any captain still has to have the bowlers to succeed.If anything, an alternative (and not incorrect) interpretation would be that Misbah is extremely fortunate in having the bowlers he has had. Nor is he a solitary decision-maker. Ideas come from unexpected places. In Pallekele this summer, Misbah pointed out, it was Shan Masood who suggested bowling Azhar Ali at Dimuth Karunaratne in the second innings, because his googly would trouble him. Azhar had Karunaratne stumped – off the googly – and he took another wicket next ball, fortuitously, for good measure.But Misbah is rare in the tradition of Pakistan captains, in that very few will recall and then want to talk about such details. Miandad, maybe Mushtaq Mohammad; and Miandad will segue effortlessly into a list of all the injustices enacted upon him. And also, it is worth reminding ourselves that being calm and equanimous doesn’t win matches, not directly anyway. It doesn’t make you your country’s most successful captain. It is these moves, made every few overs, sometimes every few deliveries, that are the real debris of a captaincy.

A glance back at five of Brendon McCullum’s greatest performances in Test cricket

Karthik Krishnaswamy11-Feb-201697 v England, Lord’s, 2008
Four years previously, playing his fourth Test match, Brendon McCullum had scored a third-innings 96 in a seesawing Lord’s Test that New Zealand ultimately lost. Now, on his return to the famous venue, he walked in at 41 for 3 on a cloudy first morning, with James Anderson and Stuart Broad showing an early glimpse of their potential as a new-ball partnership. McCullum had come to England fresh from slamming an unbeaten 158 from 73 balls on the opening day of the inaugural edition of the IPL. This was an entirely different situation, and he showed he was up to it: he got his eye in by leaving eight of his first 16 balls alone outside his off stump, and then went on the attack despite not being at his most fluent, cracking a run-a-ball 97 with 13 fours and two sixes while admitting that he middled only one of them. Once again, he missed a chance to get on the honours board, getting bowled off his pad by Monty Panesar, but his innings paved the way for New Zealand to post a respectable 277 in their first innings, in a rain-ravaged match that eventually ended in a draw.104 v Australia, Wellington, 2010
The opening Test of the 2009-10 Trans-Tasman Trophy was shaping up to become one of those clinical Australian demolitions: centuries from Michael Clarke and Marcus North before a surprisingly early declaration at 459 for 5, and a five-wicket haul from Doug Bollinger to rout New Zealand for 157. Following on, New Zealand were five down and still 119 short of making Australia bat again when McCullum joined his captain Daniel Vettori. On a blustery fourth day punctuated by spells of rain, the pair stretched their partnership to 126, with McCullum playing a smattering of aggressive shots – including consecutive cover-driven fours off Mitchell Johnson – in an innings where he otherwise curbed his natural instincts. Vettori was out for 77, but McCullum carried on to end the day batting on 94, in the obdurate company of Darryl Tuffey. New Zealand had scored 182 runs on the fourth day, for the loss of only one wicket, and given themselves an outside chance of saving the game, particularly given the weather. But Ryan Harris found a way past McCullum soon after he brought up his hundred on the fifth morning, and New Zealand’s last four wickets tumbled for a mere 19 runs, paving the way for a ten-wicket Australian win.302 v India, Wellington, 2014
India have suffered more at McCullum’s hands than any other team in Test cricket. Against them he has scored 1224 runs at 68.00, and made three of his four double hundreds – a match-saving 225 in Hyderabad, a match-winning 224 in an Auckland Test full of outrageous swings of fortune, and, in the very next game in Wellington, his greatest Test-match performance. India were in the ascendancy throughout the first half of the match. They rolled the hosts over for 192, took a 246-run lead, and shortly after lunch on the third day had New Zealand five down for 94. With more than two-and-a-half days remaining in the game, New Zealand needed a further 152 to make India bat again. By the time India got a chance to bat again, it was nearly lunch-time on day five. By then, McCullum had added 352 with BJ Watling, a further 179 with James Neesham, cancelled out New Zealand’s heavy deficit and moved them into a position where they could set a weary, battered India a target of 435. By then, he had played the longest innings in Test cricket by a New Zealand batsman, become their first triple-centurion, and drawn to the Basin Reserve a Test-match throng that signaled a new wave of enthusiasm for cricket in his country.Against Pakistan in Sharjah in 2014: when Brendon McCullum went bonkers with the bat even as the cricket world mourned•AFP202 v Pakistan, Sharjah, 2014
Pakistan ended the first day of the Sharjah Test 281 for 3. Then, the cricket world changed. The next morning brought news of Phillip Hughes’ death. The second day was abandoned, and the Test extended by a day. A ghostly air hung around the ground when play resumed with two listless teams going through the motions. Pakistan collapsed; New Zealand barely reacted to the fall of wickets; no one bowled a bouncer.Then came New Zealand’s turn to bat. Opening the batting was McCullum; he had opened the batting for New South Wales alongside Hughes. An emotionally wrenched McCullum was batting now like he had never batted before. “What you saw,” he later told , “was a team playing without feeling.” With his mind elsewhere, and an air of gloom enveloping the ground, McCullum batted in a manner as close to purely instinctive as possible. The ball kept disappearing. Kane Williamson was scoring at a strike rate of close to 80 at the other end, but he went almost unnoticed as McCullum exploded to the fastest century by a New Zealand batsman, getting to the mark in 78 balls. When he was finally done, he had made 202 – his third double-hundred of the year – off 188 balls. New Zealand went on to complete a series-levelling innings win.In the tragic circumstances surrounding the match, they also discovered how they wanted to play their cricket. McCullum said: “What we learnt was that when you play without any of the pressures and expectations we normally put on ourselves, your skills can be properly expressed.”195 v Sri Lanka, Christchurch, 2014
A month on from Sharjah, New Zealand began their home summer with a first-ever Test match at a packed Hagley Oval. They were in a bit of bother when McCullum strode to the crease, their score 88 for 3, but an air of serenity surrounded their captain. There was a stillness to his batting, a stillness that lasted an extra fraction of a second before those quick hands came into play. By the time he had faced 15 balls, he had hit three fours, those trademark jabs and slaps off the back foot through the off side, needing barely any width to execute them. He was on 27 off 27 when he lofted Angelo Mathews over long-off – that brought up 1000 runs for the year. No New Zealander had ever done it before.On and on he went, carving and lofting, clubbing and flat-batting. In the space of four overs from Tharindu Kaushal and Dhammika Prasad, he hit four sixes. The last of them took him to 99, and he raised his arms to the crowd, believing mistakenly that he had reached his hundred. A single the next ball meant he had reached three figures in 74 balls, breaking his own recently set record by four balls. In his time at the crease, he had scored 100 of New Zealand’s 123 runs. Williamson, who had made a half-century at the other end, later remarked that “it kind of felt like I was the library in a theme park”. McCullum grew more destructive after going past 100, and went from 112 to 138 in the space of six balls from Suranga Lakmal: 466046. Eventually, he holed out within sight of his fourth double-hundred of the year. His 195 came off 134 balls. The fastest Test double-hundred, by Nathan Astle, in the same city in 2002, had come off 153 balls.

Plays of the day from the third T20 between Bangladesh and Zimbabwe in Khulna

Vishal Dikshit20-Jan-2016The stand-out debutantBangladesh let loose as many as four debutants in the match and three of the them in the bowling attack – Muktar Ali, Mohammad Shahid and Abu Hider. While two of them picked up wickets, it was Hider who stood out. All Zimbabwe wickets were falling when the batsmen were offering catches while going for big shots. Five of the six batsmen were caught, except Hider’s maiden international wicket. In the last over of the innings, he sent down an accurate yorker to left-handed batsman Sean Williams who shuffled down the pitch for a flick. Williams missed and Hider trapped him low right in front with the same weapon that had reaped him benefits in the BPL last year.The effective DJThe toss for the match had already been delayed by 20 minutes and the first ball was bowled just in time after a rain interruption. The match got underway and officials, groundsmen, players and fans, all kept getting distracted by the overcast skies that kept the rain threat looming. Just when nobody wanted any more rain, the DJ at the ground played Pitbull’s ‘Let it rain over me’ after the Powerplay and the rain obediently came down right after the seventh over was completed. Not sure if he/she will do that again even when sitting at home on a non-match day.The screamerBangladesh cricket fans and followers are familiar with the noise Mushfiqur Rahim has been making behind the stumps right from the start of his career. Nurul Hasan seemed to have taken over from Mushfiqur, ensuring that there was no respite for the stump microphones. Nurul kept screaming after nearly every ball for catches, fielders, appeals, run-outs, everything. The most cacophonous of the lot came in the 12th over when Williams tried to sweep Mosaddek Hossain and missed. Nurul then let out the loudest squeal the walls of Sheikh Abu Naser Stadium would have heard. With legs spread apart and both hands high in the air, Nurul screamed and jumped as if to let out an SOS call to a helicopter above him. And that too when Williams had gloved the ball onto his pad.The other debutantAs far as reverse hits go, Glenn Maxwell had already started the day in Canberra with a reverse lap to collect four runs in the last over of Australia’s innings to help them amass 348 for 8. A debutant in Khulna – Mosaddek Hossain – displayed a much better version, though. Legspinner Graeme Cremer pitched a ball on length in the tenth over and Mosaddek switched his position around to look just like a left-handed batsman and reverse pulled that well behind square for a cracking four from the middle of the bat. “Shanked it”, as Maxwell would say.The Vettori-like VitoriSabbir Rahman and Soumya Sarkar had been going after the bowlers in the initial overs of the chase as the asking rate approached ten per over. Left-arm pacer Brian Vitori conceded 13 in his first over and changed ends to come back in the fifth over. He was hit for two more fours by Sabbir – both to the leg side – and Vitori then replied with a delivery that would have done Daniel Vettori proud. He dug in a short ball by rolling his fingers over it, sucked the pace out of the ball to make it a slow offcutter and got the reward he wanted – a dot ball.

Despite having most bases covered and unearthing an exciting young talent, defending champions Mumbai Indians endured a frustrating, stop-start season

Sirish Raghavan23-May-2016Where they finishedFifth, with seven wins and as many defeatsHow they got thereMumbai Indians entered the tournament as defending champions and one of the favourites to win the title. They had retained the core of their title-winning side from the previous season – including Rohit Sharma, Ambati Rayudu, Kieron Pollard, Harbhajan Singh and Mitchell McClenaghan – while adding Jos Buttler, Tim Southee and Krunal Pandya to their ranks. It looked a well-balanced side, packed with batting firepower, boasting pace and spin resources, and carrying a lot of good memories and experiences from seasons past. What could possibly go wrong?Quite a lot, actually. The side was struck by injury blows early in the season. Lendl Simmons played only the opening match before being ruled out for the rest of the season by a back injury. Lasith Malinga, Mumbai’s star pacer and the highest wicket-taker in IPL history, was ruled out without playing a match due to continuing struggles with his left knee. An opening loss to debutants Rising Pune Supergiants kicked off another slow start to a season as Mumbai lost four of their first six matches.Three wins on the bounce left Mumbai decently placed by the end of April, rekindling hopes that they would once again shrug off early stutters and peak at the right time. It was not to be. The shift to Visakhapatnam as their home venue in May did not work well for them. The batting unit struggled to adapt to the stickier surfaces and turned in two limp performances that led to two heavy defeats. That punctured Mumbai’s momentum at just the wrong time.Mumbai lost their last league match to close out a patchy, stop-start season that never really kicked into top gear. They certainly had their moments and only narrowly missed out on a berth in the playoffs on the last day of the league stage.HighlightWith promising India allrounder Hardik Pandya already in the squad, Mumbai paid INR 2 crore in this year’s auction to recruit his brother Krunal. And what a buy it was. Krunal impressed from the outset with his sparkling strokeplay, his effective left-arm bowling and his energy in the field. He was the centre of many of the best moments in Mumbai’s campaign. Against Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Wankhede Stadium, Krunal dismissed Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers in the same over to help limit the target to 171, which Mumbai chased down comfortably. In a crunch match against Delhi Daredevils, Krunal’s 37-ball 86 and two wickets were instrumental in Mumbai’s big win. Mumbai seem to have unearthed an exciting young allrounder who could serve them well in seasons to come.DisappointmentMumbai’s principal shortcoming this season was their opening partnership. While Rohit did well – scoring 484 runs at 48.40 while opening – he did not find a reliable partner at the top. Parthiv Patel played 10 matches but managed just one innings of note – a 58-ball 81 against Kings XI Punjab – and, on that occasion, Rohit bagged a second-ball duck. Martin Guptill, drafted in as Simmons’ replacement, played just three matches and registered one decent knock. The upshot was a string of poor starts, which often put the middle order under pressure.Key stats Mumbai’s average opening partnership of 16.07 was the worst among all teams this IPL. They had just one half-century stand Mumbai lost 25 wickets in the Powerplays – the highest among all teams. Their Powerplay run rate of 7.14 was better than only Daredevils’ When bowling in the closing overs (overs 16-20), Mumbai conceded a run rate of 9.87, joint third-best in the tournamentBest winMumbai’s penultimate league match, against Daredevils in Visakhapatnam, was a crucial encounter as defeat would have all but ended their playoff chances. They had underperformed in their two previous “home” matches at the venue. This time, they were dominant from the start. Rohit and Guptill put on 46 – Mumbai’s second-best opening stand of the season – before Krunal made a blistering 86 that propelled the side to 206. This was followed by a strong bowling performance, headlined by Jasprit Bumrah and Krunal, who took 5 for 28 between them. The 80-run win was not only a statement of intent, but also a timely boost to their net run rate.Worst defeatMumbai’s first match in Visakhapatnam was an unmitigated disaster. Poor, indisciplined bowling enabled Sunrisers Hyderabad to score 177 on a sticky wicket where batting was not straightforward. Then the chase went horribly wrong as Mumbai lost half their side for 30. Only some late resistance from Harbhajan helped them limp to a still-embarrassing 92 all out.What they need most next seasonJos Buttler scored 255 runs this season; Kieron Pollard scored 207. Both averaged in the 20s and had strike-rates around 140. Both chipped in with a few bright cameos, in chases and when batting first. Overall, their returns this season were commendable, but not commanding. If these two overseas stars could find another gear and become regular match-winners next season, it could provide Mumbai with the inspiration and intensity that they mostly lacked this time around.

Waqar Younis, who has resigned as the team’s coach, talks about the obstacles he faced in the role, and compares Misbah’s captaincy to Afridi’s

Interview by Umar Farooq09-Apr-2016Will you ever take on the Pakistan coaching job again?
I don’t know. In life I don’t think we should say no to any chance. We are living in a very sensitive world and whatever happened recently had a purpose behind it. I was being ignored for a major chunk of my time and my suggestions were discouraged, that’s why I spoke out. I wanted to make the board understand the problems. I’m glad they finally took my recommendation and made a move to implement them.It doesn’t matter if they realised it only after making me a scapegoat. At least they accepted that I’m right. It’s a win-win situation for me because I fought for Pakistan cricket. I want all the cricketers to fight for the right thing in Pakistan cricket, otherwise we will be left far behind. My war wasn’t meant for me to survive in this system but to make Pakistan cricket move from its standstill position.This was your second term as head coach. Why did you need to resign both times?
The first time was for personal reasons, but both times I have had no regrets. This recent term might have ended in a mess but I have no regrets. The difference is that when I left the job in 2011, it was the board that shed tears and this time it’s me who is in tears.But I know I did my job with honesty and worked very hard. They did offer me three months’ work in various other capacities so I could complete my term and take the Rs 5 million (US$48,000 approx), which I didn’t accept, because it was never about the money.Unfortunately the PCB isn’t in a mood to change, or they don’t have resources, or they don’t want to understand the idea. But if they don’t understand, our cricket surely will suffer.

“I think there should be a performance-enhancing manager working as a bridge between the administration and the cricket. This manager should be a foreigner, because he can come without baggage”

Your reputation as a former fast bowler has been overshadowed by your role as Pakistan’s coach. Let me ask you again: will you ever come back to this culture?
This is the same culture that made me the Waqar Younis the world knows. I understand that some cricketers think their reputations and profiles are bigger than cricket and they don’t want to come into Pakistan cricket to avoid tarnishing those images. I don’t want to count the number of jobs I left for Pakistan cricket, but I came for its betterment and I can come again.What have you learnt from your experience?
My first term was a very short one as the bowling coach with Bob Woolmer. The second time around, I enjoyed it. The board was very supportive. Ijaz Butt [then the PCB chairman] gave me the freedom a coach should have and he was very easily accessible.Unfortunately, in this stint, the biggest issue was having two heads in a family [Najam Sethi and Shaharyar Khan]. Not only for the coach but cricket also suffered overall, because inside the PCB, there are two heads and two different directions. That needs to be looked into.Do you think you made any difference in your second stint?
No, I couldn’t do exactly what I wanted to. I’m always in support of younger players coming through, indulging them. But unfortunately there were forces that didn’t allow me [to do so]. Some people ask why didn’t I leave early. I have faith in the idea that to fix the system, you have to stay in the system. I’ve tried to fix it, but it didn’t work.How hard is it for a coach to work with Pakistani players?
In my IPL experience as a bowling consultant, I saw that every person was looking at the product – how cricket could be enhanced was their No. 1 priority. Here the priority is not perhaps so much about the product.Coaching, as such, is not difficult. If the energies of your board, your first-class cricket system, all parties are aimed at international cricket then things will be fine. I have said previously that people in a cricket board should be coming towards the team, towards the coaching staff. They should be coming towards us to improve things, because they are there for the game. The cricket team is not for them. Here we have a culture where teams beg for things from the board.I think there should be a high-profile position, like a performance-enhancing manager, who can work as a bridge between the board and the players and enhance physios, trainers, the NCA, and only handle cricketing matters. That person could be a foreigner, so there is no baggage.”My relationship with Misbah was excellent, because he has a great temperament for cricket. When you sit with him, he can talk about cricket for hours”•AFPIn your report you have written that there were communication gaps between the selection committee and the head coach and the captain in limited-overs cricket.
A coach should be made a member of the selection committee. He should be there when selecting a team and without his signature things shouldn’t move ahead. The captain should also be a part of selections and everyone should sit together to take a call. If there are three selectors with three votes, the coach and captain can combine to make one vote, if not separate. Can you talk about your relationship Misbah-ul-Haq, Shahid Afridi and Salman Butt?
My relationship with Misbah was excellent, because he has a great temperament for cricket. When you sit with him, he can talk about cricket for hours. I think when you are a captain, you need to absorb a lot of things from the coach.What is a coach’s role? A coach is an experienced man who has seen similar situations and learnt from his experience and is also [good at] man management.I also had a great relationship with Salman Butt and if that unfortunate [spot-fixing in 2010] situation had not happened, perhaps neither Misbah nor Afridi would have been captains.Shahid Afridi’s drawbacks as a captain are for everyone to see. He’s got a temperament issue. He cannot sit for too long to highlight things or absorb things and then go and implement them. I’ve said this in my report. I have been very clear that the report was not for the media but for the board. Unfortunately it was leaked and my relationship with Afridi has been spoilt.That’s why this post [of performance-enhancing manager is required]. Like Pat Howard [for Australia], like Andrew Strauss [for England] – a person who is responsible for everything. He should come and talk to the media about why a coach has done this or why a captain has done this or why the selectors have done this. All these things he needs to look after.Do you have an issue with Shahid Afridi?
Afridi was very junior to me when I was finishing with playing cricket, so there was never an issue with him, like an ego clash or something. All I wanted was to have a good relationship and coordination to achieve one goal – which is to win. Everybody has a unique character, but as long as the goal and the target are the same and are good for the team, I am okay with that.You have been emphasising adapting to modern cricket, but it doesn’t seem to reflect in the players. Why?
I don’t know what I didn’t do to make them understand. I think I couldn’t have done any more to make them understand. I can’t really hold a stick in my hand to get it through them. But they did show glimpses in the Sri Lanka series. Maybe fear of failure and fear of losing their spot in the team makes them not open to modern cricket, the likes of which cricket West Indies have just played, and England and India are playing. If we don’t change ourselves, we will be talking about a Pakistan cricket mess in the coming years again and cursing the system.

“I don’t want to count the number of jobs I left for Pakistan cricket, but I came for its betterment and I can come again”

I tried my best to understand the culture and the mindset, but I think people are probably not ready. They need time, or maybe new faces can come and make a difference.In my 2015 report [after the World Cup], I asked the board to bring new faces because some have been around for six, seven years but have not produced what they should have on the field. Let them play domestic cricket to prove their ability.At one time Pakistan were No. 2 in the Test rankings. But in limited overs they have been at Nos. 7 and 8.
The major difference was the leadership. Azhar [Ali] is a very young captain. You have to give him some time. When we lost to Bangladesh we started becoming sceptical about him as captain, which shouldn’t be the case. He is getting better.Misbah, on the other hand, is a more settled person. He absorbs things, makes plans and executes them – this is what you do as captain.Now Pakistan have named Sarfraz Ahmed as captain for T20s. Don’t expect that he will come and perform miracles. Captaincy adds a lot of pressure. We need to allow him time to settle.You come from the same system you are criticising. Why can’t you work within it?
The PCB’s own governing board has no cricketer. All the major posts are held by non-cricketers. That is the major point of concern. From where have these people come? Do they really deserve to run the cricket affairs? Where are the right people, where are the cricketers? It’s not the time to keep your eyes closed and ignore these facts.I want our first-class cricket to be boosted. Money should be pumped into it. This PSL might a good product but are we really going to produce the players we need from it? Ninety per cent of our cricketers are coming from first-class cricket and you are not ready to invest in it, instead you look at the PSL to give you the best lot?”In my 2015 report, I asked the board to bring new faces because some have been around for six, seven years but have not produced what they should have on the field.”•AFP What were the problems you faced on the field as coach?
It’s complete frustration at this level for coaches that the players coming to us are raw and unaware about the basics of the game. There is a huge difference between domestic and international cricket, so they struggle badly. It’s not just me. The entire coaching staff gets frustrated because at this level there is no time to get the players to work on their technical problems every day. The next coach will have the same problems. Don’t you think [Bob] Woolmer or [Geoff] Lawson or [Dav] Whatmore faced the same problem? They all did.There are no training programmes, physical fitness programmes. Running between the wickets is a problem that we can’t fix in a couple of days or week or months. It’s a part of their grooming when they were growing up in the domestic circuit. Fielding has never been a criterion for the selection. In my report I made that point with regards to selection.Here, if a batsman scores 400 runs or bowler takes 40 wickets, the selectors directly send him on tour without assessing their fitness levels or their fielding ability.We haven’t had a head coach at the National Cricket Academy for more than a year or so. The major infrastructure of cricket academies around the country at major centres are not functioning. And then you blame the head coach – that his relationship with the captain and the selectors isn’t working out. Why don’t you see the bigger picture?How much is a coach to blame for a defeat?
There are limitations to a coach behind the boundary line. A coach makes a plan, the captain executes it. I don’t want to say that Afridi is the only one to be blamed. But if you look at cricket history, you will see the names of captains – Ricky Ponting, Mark Waugh, Steve Waugh – are remembered, not the coach’s name. It’s the captain who operates the show.

“The PCB’s own governing board has no cricketer. From where have these people come? Do they really deserve to run the cricket affairs?”

How much do you rely on analytics and data in your style of coaching?
Of course that’s the integral part of the game and I don’t think we let our players on the field without covering these aspects. We dig up everything on the opposition and pass it on to the players, but at the end of the day the execution mainly lies with the players. In my times as a player we might have been complacent about the significance of data, but these days it’s very important.You have made a big deal about the leak of your report.
Leaking of a confidential report is a big crime. You can’t leak important information meant for the betterment for the organisation. It was leaked and presented in a very negative manner.The whole last week I was the biggest talking point in the news and I am being treated as the only culprit in Pakistan’s recent losses. I am the highest paid employee in the PCB and I gave the right information, out of which the most confidential things were leaked to the media. To achieve what? Maybe to divert attention from the real problem. I got emotional when I saw it on TV, so I took my complaint about the leak to the prime minister. I was hurt.But this isn’t the first time that reports have been leaked in Pakistan cricket.
Maybe reports have never been as honest as mine was. I know information from the dressing room is also leaked to the media. Some TV anchors blackmail and exploit young players, telling them that they will raise their profile on TV, or that if they don’t talk to them, they will bash them on TV. This culture needs to end. Players need to understand that it’s their game that needs to improve, not their image in the media.