For a batsman whose game is built on brutality, Brendon McCullum’s double-hundred against India has been an essay in renunciation and grit

Abhishek Purohit in Wellington17-Feb-2014You are your biggest enemy. You are also your biggest friend. And when you have won the battle with yourself, there is little that can stop you.Brendon McCullum is a man whose batting has been built around the belief that cricket balls are flies to be swatted away with disproportionate brutality. For nearly two days at the Basin Reserve, he has battled this belief. He has battled what he has stood for, and what the world has known him for. He has overcome his own essence.What it must have cost the man we will never be able to tell. For how many of us can say we have militated against our own nature and succeeded?In overcoming his mind, he has also had to fight his creaking body, battered so much over his career that it is much older than his 32 years. He makes double-centuries, comes back to field at cover, chases balls like a terrier and dives into advertising boards at the boundary, without a care, to save a single run.After the day’s play, McCullum said that he had scraped through the final hour in a daze. Had he not told us, we would never have known. For McCullum would not let us in on the pain and self-denial while batting. Yes, he had taken treatment for his back during the day, and also had a sore shoulder. BJ Watling said his captain was carrying plenty of niggles. From the outside, however, all you could see was a captain, on 277, running hard in his twelfth hour of batting for a third run from Jimmy Neesham’s bat.Over those 12 hours, McCullum had taken denial to another level.Sachin Tendulkar rightfully got the accolades for putting away the cover drive during his unbeaten double-hundred in Sydney in 2004. Tendulkar knew he had been getting out to that stroke, and just excluded that particular risk over a long innings.McCullum’s entire game is risky. And he rightfully gets flak for often throwing it away needlessly in trying to beat the ball to pulp. At times, the flak is uncharitable. As McCullum has gone about losing every toss this series, some have said he is not even doing the only thing he can be expected to do.Forget the detractors, even his staunchest supporters would not have expected this kind of innings from McCullum. The Auckland double was different. India helpfully lost their lines and lengths after having New Zealand 30 for 3 and McCullum is not one to let short and wide go unpunished.India were not giving an inch this time. Those two dropped chances will be forever associated with this innings, but had they not happened, the world would have never discovered that McCullum was capable of such renunciation for so long. There was little else.The Indians wanted him to play strokes, as would any side. He was tempted. He was squeezed. He was set conventional and unconventional fields. He did not yield. There were plays-and-misses, you would be beaten a few times if you batted for 726 minutes. But they were the exceptions, against the run of play. He did indulge himself, and the strokes became more frequent after the first few hours, but he was never reckless.This wasn’t the McCullum we have known, resisting by attacking as hard as he can. This was a captain missing his best batsman, having lost half his side and still needing 153 to make the opposition bat again. This was a captain who did not want to let his side’s glorious summer be scarred by a meltdown in the final game.This was a captain prepared to do anything, even rebel against his own character as a batsman.How many times must he have felt like having a whack at the spinner. How many times must he have felt like letting himself have one, just one, heave against the quicks. But the image that stays behind is of McCullum jerking his bat skywards to let one more pass outside off. Of jumping across, getting behind the line of another lifter and dead-batting it.Virender Sehwag, a batsman similar in intent to McCullum, made two Test triple hundreds staying true to his aggression. Imagine Sehwag restraining himself to a triple. History will, of course, accord McCullum’s innings the place it deserves. It is perhaps no coincidence that he ended the day unbeaten on 281, a number that – thanks to VVS Laxman – is forever associated with the impossible being achieved on a cricket field.

Victory in a short and, at times, low quality one-day series should not be over-hyped but all recoveries have to start somewhere and England’s may just have begun in Antigua

George Dobell in Antigua06-Mar-20140:00

Croft: Fielding first was a mistake by West Indies

The road from Durham to North Sound has been long and has claimed several casualties. But, after a miserable and momentous winter, Antigua may just have witnessed the first signs of recovery from England.In the seven months since they clinched the Ashes in Durham, England have lost the coach, the spinner and the middle-order batsman who did so much to achieve their period of relative success. They have had to abandon their long-held plans and begin again with fresh faces and lower expectations. They are at the start of a journey that may be hard and will not always be pretty.But they have, at last, won their first series since that day in Durham. Not only that, but they have come from behind and won two games in a row for the first time since September. The harsh might point out that they have hardly won one in a row since September.But it was not just the result that was significant here. It was the architects of the result.For this was a victory forged by those young men who have been identified as the future of this side: Jos Buttler, Joe Root and Moeen Ali, among them. All three registered their highest ODI scores, all three demonstrated the class that will surely win bigger games on bigger stages and all three have their best years ahead of them. On such men, will England’s new team will build its foundations.Root, with a century of class and composure, displayed not just his quality but a toughness and bravery that the boyish exterior could easily conceal.The way Jos Buttler built his innings, despite a tricky start, bodes well for England•Getty ImagesHe sustained a nasty blow to his right thumb off the bowling of Ravi Rampaul when he had scored just 1 and, when rain took the players off the pitch a few minutes later, was advised to retire hurt and allow Eoin Morgan to bat in his place. But he insisted on continuing and, with the pain forcing him to limit his game, deflected and nudged his way to a maiden ODI century.In the short-term, he may well be proved unavailable for the World Twenty20 after an X-ray in Antigua on Thursday morning, but in the long-term he surely has a bright future at international level.”One thing that Joe wouldn’t mention is that his was an incredibly brave knock today,” Stuart Broad said afterwards. “His thumb was very ugly and Eoin was going to go out after the rain break, but then two minutes before the resumption, Joe wacked his helmet on and stormed out. It was clear for everyone to see the discomfort he was in.”That is the sort of commitment and desire you want people to have in playing for England. We’ve tried to make a big point of that within this squad about how much it means to play for England and how it must not be taken for granted.”Here we got a real-life example of someone putting themselves through the pain barrier and showing that level of desire. And you saw the passion he showed when he reached a 100. That’s the sort of thing that will help England going forward.”Buttler was equally impressive. While known for his outrageous invention and strength, here he also showed admirable restraint and composure. After 11 balls he had scored only 1 and looked less than confident against the wiles of Sunil Narine.But he retained his calm, built his innings and, towards the end, unleashed the shots of power and ingenuity that will surely become familiar over the next few years. Just as impressively, he did so against the bowling of Narine and Dwayne Bravo that had previously caused him such difficulty. Such skill, such character and such ability to learn quickly bodes well.Ben Stokes contributed, too. While he again failed with the bat – England’s No. 3 position has now contributed 91 runs in eight ODI innings since Jonathan Trott’s departure – he took one fine catch and showed wonderful commitment in diving forwards to attempt another.Some perspective needs to be maintained. England have still only won only four of their last 11 ODIs. They have still lost 16 of their last 21 games in all formats against Test-playing opposition. This was still their first ODI series win since they left New Zealand a year ago.Nor was this a particularly high-quality series. It contained some poor death bowling and a batting collapse from England in the first ODI and some poor batting from West Indies in all three games. Both teams will face sterner opposition in higher-pressure situations.There are clear areas of improvement required, too. England’s reluctance – or inability – to bowl yorkers is a significant weakness (Hawkeye suggests they delivered three in the West Indies innings here) and will continue to hurt them. The preferred policy, at present, is to deliver bouncers of various speeds and hope for the batsmen to make an error. It is like shopping in Harrod’s. It was telling that when Bresnan did, at last, deliver a yorker, it ended Denesh Ramdin’s outstanding innings. “We could have bowled a few more,” Broad admitted afterwards.But the mood of the England squad has been notably lighter on this trip. With young faces replacing the tired and in some cases cynical ones of recent times, there is a heightened sense of enjoyment and purpose that has been reflected in the much-improved fielding performances. That old adage about the fielding reflecting the mood of the side so often rings true.Root and Buttler and Moeen and Stokes are all raw at this level. There will be days, as they learn their trade, that they make mistakes and England fail. The World T20 surely comes too soon in the rebuilding process.But, after a grim winter that has ended the careers of huge figures in England cricket, such players represent hope and progress. And at the end of a winter that has at times been hopeless, such qualities are worth a great deal. Spring is on its way.

A XI that may not have always seen the ball like a football, but would have done well nevertheless

Bill Ricquier23-May-2014Watching Virender Sehwag wearing spectacles in the IPL, made one think of Test cricketers over the years who have been similarly adorned. It is odd in a way, given the number of cricketing clichés suggesting the desirability of Twenty20 vision, that one can put together a highly competitive unit of the optically challenged.There seems to be a belief in the blogosphere, particularly in Asia, that the great West Indian opener Gordon Greenidge wore glasses. Well, maybe he did, once in a while. All I can say is that, having watched him on numerous occasions playing for Hampshire from his debut season in 1970 to his last season in 1987, I never witnessed him wearing spectacles on the field. Either way, Greenidge was not a bespectacled cricketer; that is what we are talking about here.The openers
Now, the openers (Virender Sehwag, like Greenidge, does not qualify as he has not played enough with glasses). They pick themselves – Roy Marshall and Geoffrey Boycott. Apart from the fact that they were both right-handers, one cannot imagine two more different batsmen, picking them to bat together is a bit like hosting an imaginary dinner party for Dorothy Parker and Gordon Brown.Marshall, perhaps the greatest of all West Indian batsmen – enjoyed a stint with Hampshire after making a big impression on the West Indies’ tour of England in 1950. He played very little Test cricket like his successor as Hampshire opener – Barry Richards. But, like Richards, there were fewer more enjoyable players to watch. Both exuded authority at the crease, but while Richards was grace and timing personified, Marshall had a power and flair that were typically Caribbean. His strengths were the front-foot drive and the square cut. In John Woodcock’s ‘One Hundred Greatest Cricketers’, he said that if he had would select players purely for the pleasure they gave, Marshall would have made the list. I can testify to this, the feeling of disappointment when Marshall failed is something I have never quite sensed since.To say that the feeling was exactly the opposite with Boycott would be unfair, but he could be a bit turgid. He wore glasses for the first six years or so of his professional career, switching to contact lenses after the 1968 season. One of his biographers, Leo McKinstry, says that this had a liberating impact on his batting. It is true that, like Bob Dylan, Boycott started old and got younger, at least up to a point. In 1967, he made a double-century against India and was dropped for slow scoring. Many believed that one of his most exciting innings ever was his memorable 146 for Yorkshire, in the Gillette Cup final against Surrey in 1965.Reserves include Pankaj Roy and Anshuman Gaekwad.The middle-order
Zaheer Abbas was a leading batsman for Pakistan for most of the 1970s and into the mid 1980s. He displayed a calmness at the crease that made him very easy on the eye. He made an immediate impact on his first tour of England in 1971, making 274 in the first Test at Edgbaston, and following it up with 240 at The Oval in 1974. He was prolific in first-class cricket, especially for Gloucestershire, and is the only batsman from the subcontinent to have scored 100 first-class centuries.Mike Smith was another highly effective run-getter, principally for Warwickshire and England, from the late 1950s to the mid 1970s. He had a distinctive, open faced style and could smash anything that was even remotely loose. He led England with quiet authority in tours of India, South Africa and Australia in the mid 1960s. South African, Peter van de Merwe, was another bespectacled middle-order batsman, who was also the last man to represent England at both cricket and rugby union.Clive Lloyd, was undoubtedly one of the most daunting opponents in the 1970s and early 1980s. Tall and powerful, he had a languid demeanour that did not give the sense of prowess, both as an attacking left-handed batsman and as a predatory cover fielder. But it was his ascent to the captaincy of West Indies in the mid 1970s that set him apart. A genuine father figure, he and his young brigade had to first endure the trauma of a 5-1 defeat to the Chappells. It was that defeat, however, which convinced Lloyd of the way forward, which was to use four fast bowlers. West Indies’ dominance was unchallenged for a nine-year period starting from 1976 leading up to Viv Richards’ ascension to captaincy in 1985.Other middle-order batsmen include Dirk Welham and David Steele. The latter was distinct for his premature grey hair to go with his glasses, and he was also dubbed ‘the bank clerk’.The allrounders
The No. 6 spot goes to the indefatigable South African, Eddie Barlow. He played 30 Tests, averaging 45 with the bat and 34 with the ball. He was a solid and pugnacious batsman, and a tidy and resourceful medium-pace bowler. He was one of the stars of the series between the Rest of the World and England in 1970, staged to replace the cancelled South African tour. Barlow scored 353 runs at an average of almost 40, and took 20 wickets, including a hat-trick.Jack Crawford was another terrific allrounder, who played for England and Surrey just before the Great War. He had been a cricketing sensation at Repton School, and played his first season for Surrey while still a schoolboy. He was England’s youngest debutant before Brian Close, and although he had a rare talent as a hard-hitting batsman and fast bowler, other interests drew him away from cricket.The wicketkeeper
Two leading wicketkeepers, Paul Downton and Mark Boucher suffered serious eye injuries, the latter’s being career-ending. Dennis Gamsy played two Tests for South Africa against Australia in 1969-70. But my choice is Paul Gibb, a highly eccentric cricketer. He wore glasses for a large portion of his career and was England’s wicketkeeper on several occasions. A Cambridge Blue, he opened the batting for Yorkshire and gained selection for the MCC tour of South Africa in 1938-39 when he scored two Test centuries, including one in the ‘timeless Test’ at Durban. He went to Australia with Wally Hammond’s side in 1946-47, where he shared the wicketkeeping duties with Godfrey Evans. He then disappeared completely from view before returning to play for Essex in 1950. Gibb later became a first-class umpire.Remember when Anil Kumble bowled with glasses?•Mike Hewitt/Getty ImagesThe bowlers
It is perhaps not surprising that there is a veritable cornucopia of bespectacled slow bowlers – Tommy Mitchell, the Derbyshire leg spinner, Geoff Cope and Eddie Hemmings, also from England, Dilip Doshi and Nirendra Hirwani of India and Murray Bennett of Australia.Daniel Vettori turned himself into one of the most useful cricketers of modern times. An outstanding slow left-arm bowler, who took wickets with subtle variations of pace and flight, he also became an immovable object in the New Zealand lower-middle order. He was a match-winner in the limited-overs game.Vettori is unusual among modern cricketers, in having persisted wearing spectacles. The great Indian spinner, Anil Kumble, is far more typical, having abandoned glasses quite early in his career. Kumble was quite different from his outstanding contemporaries – Shane Warne and Mushtaq Ahmed, who relied predominantly on big turning legbreaks. Although billed as a legspinner, Kumble dealt almost exclusively in subtly varied googlies and top-spinners. He finished up as Test cricket’s third-highest wicket-taker.An honourable mention has to go the Jamaican slow bowler, Alf Valentine. As a 19-year-old, Valentine helped the West Indies to their first victory over England in 1950. He started wearing glasses during that tour, no one realised he needed them until it was discovered that he could not read the scoreboard from the middle. Valentine remained a force throughout the 1950s, but he found his second tour of England in 1957 a challenge.Not surprisingly, bespectacled pace bowlers are not quite so plentiful. But Bill Bowes, a strapping Yorkshireman, played a minor yet memorable role in the Bodyline series in 1932-33, when he bowled Don Bradman of the first ball of the second Test at Melbourne. He took over 1600 first-class wickets at an average of just over 16. He became a highly regarded cricket correspondent and his autobiography, , is one of the best of its genre.If you had to invent a bespectacled cricketer, it would be something like Devon Malcolm, although he too in time opted for contact lenses. Take him to the end of a long run-up, put a ball in his hand and point him in the general direction of the stumps and he could do some serious damage. Never was this seen to better effect, than at The Oval in 1994 when he demolished a strong South African batting order with 9 for 57. Sensitively handled, he could have performed like that more often.If you have a submission for Inbox, send it to us here, with “Inbox” in the subject line

Plays of the day from the match between Kings XI Punjab and Rajasthan Royals in Mohali

Abhishek Purohit23-May-2014Sehwag’s start
Virender Sehwag flickers briefly these days but when he does, he is still a sight to watch. He lasted all of eight deliveries this match, but packed in plenty of entertainment in that short time. He was beaten twice in succession by Vikramjeet Malik’s away movement in the first over. He instantly made up for it. The fourth ball was lofted over mid-off for four, the fifth was slashed inches short of the third-man boundary, and the sixth was carved over backward point for four more.Vohra’s lapse
Manan Vohra was in serious touch once more, and had motored to 25 before he committed a schoolboy error. He clipped Rahul Tewatia through midwicket and turned back for what seemed a straightforward second run. It wasn’t to be, though. Vohra took it easy as he approached the crease and made no attempt to ground his bat. To his utter shock, Stuart Binny’s throw hit the stumps direct. Vohra, who was short by about a foot, walked off muttering.Tewatia’s misfortune
In the ninth over, Tewatia lured Shaun Marsh out with some flight. It was the googly, and Marsh realised that after it started to turn away from him. He was some way down the crease, and could have been easily stumped had he missed the ball. However, he managed to prod at it, and the outside edge went to slip on the bounce. The next ball was another googly. Marsh stayed back this time and guided it fine. Shane Watson at slip thought he had a chance again, but it bounced just in front of his outstretched left hand and raced to the boundary.Miller’s midwicket punch
Kings XI were looking for some big late runs after slowing down for a while. George Bailey hit James Faulkner for consecutive boundaries in the 19th over, and Miller weighed in with a fearsome blow. Faulkner bowled a high full-toss on the pads. Miller did not try to slog it. He punched it with a straight follow-through, and held the pose as the ball flew flat over deep midwicket for six. It was like a right-hander lofting the ball over extra cover.Dhawan’s double
Rishi Dhawan stunned Rajasthan Royals with two important blows in the ninth over of the chase. The first ball of the over was pitched up around off stump, and Ajinkya Rahane had a heave at it. The ball moved in a bit and hit the stumps. Dhawan angled the next one in on a good length to Shane Watson. The Royals captain came forward and tried to play with an angled bat, but it seamed in through the gate to rattle the stumps once more.

From their Lord’s awesomeness to their Southampton awfulness, India show you how

Andy Zaltzman02-Aug-2014English cricket roared back to competence and beyond in the third Test, trouncing a flaccid India with a dominant and increasingly positive performance. Cook’s England are back on the horse. Whether they can now jockey that horse to a series victory, and build themselves into Ashes-contending shape by next July, remains to be seen. The horse might unseat them at the next fence, before neighing in a southern-hemisphere accent about the quality of the bowling England will face in their 2015 series against New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. The horse might prove to be a donkey, or a tricycle. At one stage, it appeared that the horse might have its most important leg chopped off by a disciplinary hearing. But as remounts onto a long-lost horse/donkey/tricycle go, England’s win scored high for technical merit and artistic impression.India, riding the momentum of their Lord’s victory like a dead haddock on a 750cc motorised unicycle, gave an object lesson in How Not To Play A Test Match, a nostalgia-fuelled piece-by-piece replica of their rancid form of 2011, and subsided limply with bat and ball in the face of England’s outstanding all-round cricket. Ten days ago, Dhoni and his men had recorded one of the country’s finest away wins, with most of their players having made a significant contribution in one or both of the first two Tests. They now head to Manchester with only two batsmen and one bowler in form. As immediate dismounts from a recently re-mounted horse go, it was a classic, in seven perfectly-executed steps.Step 1: Lose a key bowler to injury

India as a cricketing nation is replete with many things – for example: batsmen with imposing first-class records; money; hype; opportunities; problems; and balls that go to the boundary like tracer bullets. “Endless Test-quality pace-bowling resources” is not on that list. So the loss of Ishant Sharma, immediately after his finest Test performance, was about as welcome in the Indian dressing room as a troupe of Piers Morgan impersonators would have been in England’s.India thus began the Southampton Test with Bhuvneshwar Kumar as their only bowler in anything even slightly resembling form (and without their four highest-rated bowlers in the ICC rankings – Ishant (20th) injured, Zaheer (21st) and Ojha (13th) omitted from the tour squad, and Ashwin (12th) left out again from the team in what appeared to be a counter-productively cautious attempt to play for a draw from 10.30am on day one).Alongside Bhuvneshwar, they selected Jadeja (six wickets at 72 in his previous four Tests), Shami (six at 61 in his last five innings since taking four on the first day of the ultimately disastrous Wellington Test in February), and Pankaj on debut (having taken 2 for 109 in 25 overs in India’s two low-key warm-up games, his only cricket since playing some non-IPL T20 in April). This was not necessarily a problem – provided that Bhuvneshwar maintained his form, and at least one of the other three rose to the occasion, as Angelo Mathews and Dhammika Prasad did for a similarly unimposing-looking Sri Lankan attack in Leeds.The former did not quite happen; the latter did not come anywhere close to happening. Although perhaps, at a stretch, it might have done, had it not been for…Step 2: Drop a simple catch donated by the out-of-form, under-pressure opposition captain, early on day one, after your debutant seamer has exploited that opposing skipper’s long-standing technical glitch in precisely the manner you would have asked him to
I am in no position to criticise anyone for the quality of their slip catching. Since taking two slip catches in my second ever cricket match (an Under-9 encounter, at the end of which I had one more slip catch than runs in my career tally), I have pouched a grand total of zero. Partly, this has been due to lack of opportunity. That lack of opportunity, however, has been thoroughly justified and well earned, based on a sound body of empirical evidence.However, Ravi Jadeja’s blooper may prove to be the pivotal moment of the series. It was certainly the pivotal moment of the match. Lord’s had a seemingly endless series of pivots, as the game slalomed its way through 13 engrossing sessions, until Ishant’s decisive exploitation of England’s short-ball lunacy on the final day. The Southampton Test had one – after Jadeja grassed his chance, England established control, then dominated throughout.Had he taken it, Cook would have been out for 15, his personal pressure ratchet would have been cranked up a couple more notches, England would have been 25 for 1, with their skipper further undermined, Pankaj would have had an early wicket, and India might have been able to build on their performance at Lord’s. The match might have ricocheted off into a very different narrative.As it was, by the time Cook was finally out, he had scored 95 faith-restoring runs, his team were in a position of growing dominance at 213 for 2, Pankaj Singh had bowled 15 wicketless overs, any momentum had long since dissipated, and the vulnerability of their Ishant-less attack had been laid bare.Step 3: Be unlucky
If dropping Cook could not be considered unlucky for India as a team, the reprieves of Bell and Buttler, both on 0, by probably-erroneous and certainly-questionable umpiring respectively, were certifiable misfortune. Had Bell been given out lbw for nought to Pankaj, rather than being reprieved on the grounds that the hot Hampshire sun had probably melted the varnish on the bails together so that Bell’s middle stump would have flown out of the ground without the bails being dislodged, England would have been 220 for 3, with ten overs for India to strive for another wicket before stumps on day on. Perhaps India might then have restricted England to a manageable total; perhaps not. At least, they would have left The Sledgehammer Of Eternal Justice under considerable and justified pressure for his place.Buttler’s duck-avoiding reprieve, after receiving the benefit of the TV umpire’s nagging doubt that a curious mole might have coughed some mud onto the ball whilst poking its snout out of the turf at the very moment that Rahane took a sharp low catch made little difference to the story of the match. Nor did two subsequent fielder-aided escapes, other than by exacerbating the sense that India were playing really badly. England were already past 400 with a dangerous lower order to come. Buttler’s innings was a spicily-flavoured garnish on an already well-cooked stroganoff.But the longer-term damage to India may be seen in the remaining Tests. Instead of extending Cook’s and Bell’s elongated periods of fruitlessness, both head to Old Trafford having scored important and fluent runs, and silenced any potential selectorial grumblings for the rest of the summer at least. Instead of a loudly quacking exhibit supporting the “Buttler is not ready for Test cricket” case (as bizarrely propounded by his own captain and self just a few weeks ago), the newcomer has proved his potential as a five-day destroyer.Cook, Bell, Buttler and England were good enough to exploit their fortune; India were poor enough to compound theirs. Momentum is largely overrated as a factor in cricket, and is certainly a fragile commodity, especially for a fragile side. But India have healed some of the major fissures in the England line-up, and reopened their own.Step 4: Have seven of your top eight batsmen reach 20, without any of them going on to reach 60, for the first time in your nation’s Test history
In India’s first innings, only Shikhar Dhawan of India’s top eight was out for less than 20. Rahane’s 54 was the top score. Much credit to England’s bowlers. Considerable debit to India’s batsmen. Three batsmen reached 20 in the second innings; Rahane top-scored again, with his unbeaten 52. Ten 20-plus scores in the match – but a highest innings of 50. One hundred-and-forty-nine times in Tests India have posted nine or more innings of at least 20. Rahane’s 54 is their lowest highest score in any of those games. It is also India’s lowest highest score in a completed Test since the low-scoring Hamilton Test of 2002-03. Was this the pernicious influence of T20? Or just rubbish batting? More likely the latter, I think. India’s bowling attack conceding 500 might have been expected before the series. The careless subsidence of their high-class batting line-up was far more culpable.Steps 5, 6, and 7: Get smacked around in the second innings; lose one of your two in-form batsmen, the prime candidate to anchor a defiant rear guard, to an infant-level run out; capitulate to a supposedly part-time spinner in a flurry of swipes, swishes and surrender-cricket on the final morningJob done.Note: I will be performing at The Edinburgh Festival from August 13-24, then on a UK tour from September to December. Details here: www.satiristforhire.com.

Our correspondent makes his way from Trent Bridge to Nuncargate to find out more about one of England’s most fearsome fast bowlers

Sidharth Monga10-Jul-2014His ground
I like going to Test venues early. Not training-day early, but early enough that only groundsmen and the permanent staff are there. There is something about the empty stands four days before a Test; you can visualise the future, you can summon up ghosts.Trent Bridge is a beautiful venue. Intimate. Pleasant. Traditional, with its old-worldly dressing rooms; modern, with a new stand that looks like an aircraft wing and gives you an unobstructed 360-degree view; and those compact light towers that look like one end of a retro telephone receiver. Majestic yet not exclusive: gates are thrown open to visitors from 9.30am to 4.30pm.Sit in one of the stands and try to imagine the cheers for the greatest allrounder ever, Garry Sobers, whose home ground this used to be. Or what Richard Hadlee’s swing and seam would have looked like.One ghost who might be reluctant to answer your call is Harold Larwood’s. After Bodyline, he was so disillusioned with the cricket establishment he hardly ever came to the ground that had, at one time, been his escape from working underground in the suffocating, lifespan-reducing coal mines of Nottinghamshire.When he should have been the biggest fast-bowling star in cricket after the 1932-33 Ashes series, Larwood instead played small-time cricket and sold sweets and cigarettes in the seaside tourist town of Blackpool before Jack Fingleton found him and took him to Australia, a country that loved him despite the fact that he had ravaged its team. Larwood, who wouldn’t apologise for Bodyline, had been cut away from official cricket. So he cut himself off from everything that would remind him of it, even selling his house in Nottingham.This great ground on the banks of the Trent river rarely saw him after his retirement, although it honours him with a pub called Larwood & Voce and a gym called Bodyline. Imagine, though, how great it would have been if he had come to watch Test matches, signing autographs for kids who must have heard stories about Larwood while sitting in their mothers’ laps.Larwood’s bowling boots at the Trent Bridge library•Sidharth Monga/ESPNcricinfo LtdHis boots
I make my way to the Trent Bridge library. Peter Wynne-Thomas, archivist, historian, author, and the man in charge of the library, was once coached by Larwood’s mate and new-ball partner for England during Bodyline and at Nottinghamshire, Bill Voce. We start talking about the two bowlers. Wynne-Thomas insists Larwood needed protection from the press and that the then county captain Arthur Carr failed him. Larwood’s name sold newspapers, while Voce stayed inconspicuous.Wynne-Thomas shows me a file he has painstakingly maintained. It has newspaper clippings, scorebooks, photographs, letters, and a copy of Larwood’s first contract, which offered him £2 a week, with no wages to be paid in case of illness. I find my way to the excellent Larwood book written by Duncan Hamilton. It describes the day Larwood came for county trials with his father from his mining village of Nuncargate. Larwood senior was a miner too. He had scraped together £9, six weeks of wages, for a new kit, and a shilling each for the train. They walked five miles to the nearest train station and two more after reaching Nottingham.Larwood wasn’t tall. He didn’t look like a fast bowler at less than 5’4″ (though he went on to add four inches to his height). He began nervously. The selectors, who hadn’t given him a chance, were forced to change their minds once the netting began to “stretch and bulge” as Larwood beat the bat continuously and hit the back net hard. Nottinghamshire only offered him as much as he used to earn working with coal, but he signed the contract without arguing because he wanted to escape the dark mines.Just as I am getting into the book, Wynne-Thomas has a visitor who wants to see . The librarian has received a package from Larwood’s grandson in Australia. It is the talk of Trent Bridge. It contained Larwood’s bowling boots. Hamilton’s book informs me that Larwood was a fastidious collector of his own memorabilia. “It’s for when me memory goes,” he used to say.To look at his boots is to imagine what excruciating hard work it must have been for Larwood to bowl in them. Hard, unforgiving, they don’t look bigger than size 9, and have what look like carpenters’ nails dug in as spikes. You can’t imagine any modern fast bowler bowling in those. Were these the boots, I wonder, that he was wearing when Douglas Jardine forced him to stay on the field – despite a broken bone in his left foot – until that “bastard” Bradman was dismissed for the last time in the series? These were the boots whose spikes batsmen could see as the left foot was raised high in his delivery stride – as Hamilton describes. Were these the boots in which he bowled 1687 Bodyline-series deliveries?His journey
Now that I have acquainted myself with the shoes of the fastest bowler of his time – and probably one of the fastest of all time – I decide to walk a mile as he might have done. Except it is more than one mile to Nuncargate, and I am wearing much more comfortable Asics running shoes.Nearly every man in Nuncargate used to work in the coal mines. You can sense soot and grime everywhere. The place still doesn’t have a train station. Back then even the roads were bad. The nearest station now, Kirkby-in-Ashfield, is somewhere between five and six miles away. In between is not much but wilderness.Opened in the 1990s, the train line that takes you from Nottingham to Kirkby-in-Ashfield is named after possibly the only bigger hero than Larwood that Nottinghamshire has had: Robin Hood. Service on Sunday in infrequent. You can’t book a ticket for the route online.It takes me 15 minutes to walk from Trent Bridge to Nottingham station. The real walk begins only when I reach Kirkby-in-Ashfield. For the first mile I pass a convenience store, an old run-down boxing club, semi-old snooker parlours. The remaining four miles are desolate. Larwood used to make his way down these roads twice a day, and bowl 15 to 20 overs in between, or help roll pitches on the days he was not playing. I am carrying a small backpack with a laptop in it; he used to carry a full kit bag on his shoulders.The house Larwood lived in in Nuncargate•Sidharth Monga/ESPNcricinfo LtdIt gets incredibly lonely after the first mile. The road is narrow; you have to get off it as the odd car passes. Other than that you can’t see a soul for miles on end. This is the stretch where you doubt if what you are doing is wise. At least I have green pastures to look at; Larwood would have walked past the debris and dug-out clay left by the mines, still breathing in soot but not as much as he would have done inside the mines.His village
I finally make it to Nuncargate, and then to Chapel Street, where Larwood grew up, without losing my way. Nuncargate is now much more affluent than you would imagine a miners’ village to be. That’s because the mines are all gone. It’s all green, almost idyllic English countryside, with neat row houses. No. 17 Chapel Street looks no different from the others, except that this was once Larwood’s house. There is a plaque that says as much. A hand holding a ball along the seam, with an inscription that says, “Harold Larwood, Nottingham and England cricketer, lived here from 1904 to 1927.”I stand outside it for five minutes debating whether I should ring the bell. I want to know what it is like to live in this house, how long the new owners have been here, if they had or have any contact with the Larwoods, if they ever knew them, how many times this house has been resold. Should I just ring the bell? Eventually I decide against it. Larwood wouldn’t have approved. It was similar intrusiveness that drove him to faraway Blackpool. Even there he didn’t like sitting at the counter of his shop because people would recognise him.I walk away and find the Cricketers Arms, a pub just up the road. Behind which is the ground where Larwood first played cricket. It is home to the Kirkby Portland Cricket Club. Its pavilion is named after Larwood and was inaugurated by his daughter in 2002, when she flew down from Australia. Inside the pub a plaque similar to the one outside Larwood’s house says, “In memory of Harold Larwood, Nottinghamshire and England cricketer, who spent his early life and cricketing career in this locality.” They also proudly display his birth and marriage certificates. This might be the ideal place to honour Larwood because it has the two things he probably loved the most: cricket and ale. I walk back to the station in a hurry because I don’t want to go through the lonely stretch in the dark.

****

The world is more informed now. People appreciate the skill, endurance, courage and determination behind Larwood’s actions in the Bodyline series. They understand that Larwood was unfairly vilified and shabbily treated by the MCC. A YouTube slow-motion clip of his majestic bowling action lays to rest all implied accusations that he chucked, which you can imagine must have caused him a lot of trauma. You wish you could summon up his ghost to an empty Trent Bridge, watch him beat the bat and thud into the nets, show him the awe with which people come to look at his boots, and tell him that people are willing to walk a mile in them.

Stats highlights from the third day’s action at Basin Reserve

S Rajesh05-Jan-2015522 Kane Williamson’s Test aggregate at Basin Reserve in Wellington, at an average of 65.25. It’s the only ground where he has passed 500 – his next best at a ground is Seddon Park in Hamilton, where he has 242 runs in six innings. At Basin Reserve, Williamson has passed 40 in seven of his last eight innings.66.16 Williamson’s Test average against Sri Lanka – in eight innings against them he has passed 50 four times. His last six innings against Sri Lanka are: 135, 18, 54, 31*, 69, 80*.61.14 Williamson’s average in the second innings of home Tests: he has five 50-plus scores in 11 innings. In second innings of away Tests, though, his average drops to 31.90 in 21 innings.3 The number of times Williamson has passed 50 in both innings of a Test. The two previous instances were both in 2013 – against West Indies in Hamilton, when he made 58 and 56, and against Bangladesh in Chittagong (114 and 74).1011 Brendon McCullum’s Test aggregate in 26 innings at Basin Reserve, at an average of 38.88. The only batsman who has scored more runs in Tests here is Martin Crowe: in just 17 innings he made 1123 runs at an average of 70.18.7 The number of wickets for Nuwan Pradeep in this match, the best in his nine-Test career so far. His previous highest in a match was 5 for 112, against Pakistan in Dubai in January last year.94 The unbroken partnership between Williamson and BJ Watling, which is New Zealand’s third highest for the sixth wicket against Sri Lanka in a home Test. The highest at home is 129, by McCullum and Nathan Astle, in Napier in 2005.311 The highest fourth-innings total at Basin Reserve, by New Zealand against England in 2008. New Zealand lost that match, though. The highest in a victory is Pakistan’s 277 for 3 in 2003, when they won the Test despite conceding a first-innings lead of 170.

Few fast bowlers in the USA are as canny and cagey at working batsmen over and getting them out as Usman Shuja

Peter Della Penna23-Oct-2014A record that stood for more than a decade fell way out in the fringes of Kuala Lumpur on Thursday, being passed on from one class act to another. With the wicket of Janeiro Tucker, his third in an opening six-over burst against Bermuda on the opening day of ICC WCL Division Three, Usman Shuja became USA’s all-time leading wicket-taker in 50-over matches with 48 scalps in 31 games. Shuja surpassed former USA captain Zamin Amin to achieve the new landmark.It is a rich reward for a fast bowler who has worked tirelessly, and often thanklessly, over his career with USA. A lot of hard work had to be put in just to convince decision makers in the USA Cricket Association that a 35-year-old Shuja was worth a recall for this tour after being cut loose ahead of the previous Division Three tournament in Bermuda. USA finished third at that event without Shuja, who some team-mates have described as USA’s heart and soul. Arguably, Shuja’s greatest trait is his work ethic and the sting of being dropped gave him extra incentive to dig deep in training to find a way back into USA’s squad for this tour.Shuja came to America from Pakistan in his late teens to attend the University of Texas at Austin, but at one point traveled to Australia to study fast bowling under Dennis Lillee, as he continued to harbour hopes of making it to the international level. He achieved it for his adopted homeland through a high degree of talent and skill, but also through perseverance and determination. No matter what he does on the field, he frequently sets a shining example for younger players on how to approach the game. In all of his actions and mannerisms, he is the most professional looking player in a squad of amateurs.Other traits of his game that set him apart from so many others around the USA are his toughness and hustle. On USA’s 2011 trip to Hong Kong, Shuja played most of the tour with a broken index finger but refused to be hidden at fine leg once his bowling spells were complete and on one occasion took a blistering catch on the boundary at long-on, gritting his teeth through the pain. Most Associate players also struggle with fitness levels due to the professional demands of day jobs and family life while trying to fit in cricket on the weekends. However, Shuja always shows up to tournaments as the most fit and best conditioned player for USA. If he could pull it off, it became harder for anyone else to make excuses.Shuja has also developed a knack for coming through in clutch situations. After being hammered in one of the tour warm-up matches ahead of 2010 WCL Division Five, Shuja was forced to sit on the bench for the first four matches of the tournament. Yet, on the last day of the group games in a must-win match against Nepal in front of 15,000 screaming fans in Kathmandu, Shuja came out breathing fire in his opening spell to silence the crowd. His returns of 1 for 19 from eight overs do not do justice to what a massive role he played to set the tone for USA as they held Nepal to 162 for 9 in a five-wicket win that clinched promotion to Division Four later that year in Italy.He was at it again against Nepal in Italy, scything through the top order in another showdown which this time produced rewards of 3 for 17 in eight overs as USA once again defeated their World Cricket League arch-rival. Shuja claimed a pair of five-wicket hauls during a golden run in 2008, but one could argue these two spells against Nepal were far more impressive and more meaningful to USA’s success.His batting has never reached the heights in a USA uniform that it probably should have and he has often batted down to his position in the lower order. However, his highest score came in an improbable performance in a situation where it once again mattered most. A day after USA had been shot out for 44 by Papua New Guinea, they were 20 for 7 against Oman at the 2011 WCL Division Three in Hong Kong when Shuja entered at No. 9 and calmly grafted his way to 43 not out, including an unbeaten 71-run ninth-wicket stand with Asif Khan, to give USA a memorable two-wicket win.While his record-setting performance on the opening day of this Division Three tournament shows he still has plenty of gas left in the tank, it’s unclear how much more time Shuja will want to continue pressing on for USA. As savvy as he is with a cricket ball in his hand, he’s just as shrewd off the field. Shuja received his MBA from the prestigious Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University to start off the decade. He has since worked as a consultant with multiple Fortune 500 companies before branching out and joining a start-up. He and his wife had their first child in May and the responsibilities of family life are more acute for an amateur player in the Associate world than they are for professionals at Full Member level.There are plenty of bowlers around the USA who may bowl faster than Shuja, especially one former Test player currently in the same squad with him in Malaysia – Jermaine Lawson. However, few fast bowlers in the USA are as canny and cagey at working batsmen over and getting them out. USA’s pace spearhead is once again on the prowl for wickets. For however long he is committed to continue lacing up his fast bowling spikes, USA will be privileged to have him.

Plays of the day from the second ODI between New Zealand and Sri Lanka in Hamilton

Andrew Fidel Fernando15-Jan-2015The strideIt has been said that in the DRS age, large strides are no longer a defence against being given out lbw. But if you’ve got limbs as long as Daniel Vettori’s, a big step down the pitch can still save you. Jeevan Mendis straightened a legbreak on middle stump to hit Vettori well below the knee roll in the 33rd over, before umpire Ian Gould turned down the appeal. Sri Lanka opted to review it, and were hopeful when the projection suggested the ball would hit the middle stump, then indignant when told the decision would remain not out. Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara were chief among those seeking clarification, and their mood was not improved when Gould told them the decision could not be overturned because the point of impact had been more than three meters from the stumps.The catching practiceMahela Jayawardene had been in the same silken touch he had displayed in Christchurch as he breezed to 27 from his first 28 balls, but like on many other occasions in his career, he fell trying to be too cute. He had already threaded one through the gap between keeper and a very wide slip, but when he attempted to do so again, off Matt Henry in the 32nd over, he was surprised by a little extra bounce, and ended up deflecting the ball directly into Ross Taylor’s bucket hands, at around fourth slip.The shotThe Seddon Park pitch was a dream for batsmen, who played some exceptional shots throughout the match, but from a feast of glorious shots down the ground, Dimuth Karunaratne’s straight drive was perhaps the pick. Henry delivered a length ball just outside off stump in the second over, and instead of coming forward, Karunaratne slid bat and punched the ball firmly past the bowler, and his excellent timing sent the ball screaming to the fence for four.The detourSri Lanka fluffed a straightforward chance to run out Brendon McCullum for 104, but it was McCullum’s own actions in the incident that drew more attention than Sri Lanka’s ineptitude. McCullum tore away for a single when Ross Taylor had hit the ball to short fine leg, but though Taylor initially seemed interested, he turned back to his own crease with McCullum over halfway to the other end. What McCullum did next caused a stir. Instead of turning on the spot and running the same line he had run, McCullum ran across the pitch and over to the side from where the throw would be coming in. That manoeuvre forced the fielder to throw slightly wider of the stumps than he would have liked. Though this prompted suggestions that McCullum had obstructed the field, he could not have been given out anyway, as Sri Lanka had not appealed.

Day one at Wellington was a microcosm of Sri Lanka’s recent fortunes: excellent results emerging without apparent method, followed by a descent back into chaos

Andrew Fidel Fernando in Wellington03-Jan-20152:16

Excited to be back – Bracewell

Bony elbows flapping, bad haircut flailing, Nuwan Pradeep goes flying to the crease like a hare flees from a hunter. He used to bowl a little more round-arm. “The new Lasith Malinga”, or so the hype-stories went. But then his body broke down several times a season. Now he goes taller and straighter, scrawny arms whipping in the delivery stride, and somehow, through the vortex of limbs, scrambles deliveries faster than 140kph.Scramble is what anyone who follows Sri Lankan cricket should be accustomed to. The team rarely looks that good. But in the likes of Kumar Sangakkara and Rangana Herath they have a trusty, ageing engine, so they patch together the rough-cut parts more recently manufactured by the domestic system, and call themselves a semi-decent cricket side.

Bracewell expects pitch to quicken

Disappointment in the New Zealand dressing room had turned to hope of a big first-innings lead between the end of their innings and stumps on day one, seamer Doug Bracewell said. Fifteen wickets fell on the first day, a record for the venue, beating the 14 wickets that fell on day one the last time these teams had met at the Basin Reserve.
“I think there’s enough there in the pitch if you stay in the right area,” Bracewell said. “I think it’s the sort of wicket if you bowl badly you can get punished. But if you stay disciplined, hit good areas and stay patient, then you’ll get rewarded.”
Bracewell expected the pitch to become even better for quick bowlers as the Test wore on. “Usually when there’s a bit of grass on it, the pitch sort of hardens up on day two and three. Depending on the weather, hopefully it’ll get a bit faster.”
The Test is Bracewell’s first since the match in Dhaka in October 2013, and he said he was surprised to play in the XI, after New Zealand had suggested their seam attack would be unchanged. He collected 3 for 23 on the first evening.
“It was very exciting to get the call-up this morning. To get three wickets at the end of the day is a pretty good feeling. It was not quite how I planned to get them, but as a bowler you take the luck when you get it. We’ve got a chance to get them seven down for 70-odd tomorrow.”

Like so many 90s two-stroke three-wheelers on Colombo streets, though, Sri Lanka have been sputtering up hills on this tour, and coughing around the tight bends. On day one, they turned up at a ground nicknamed the world’s largest roundabout (it does look a little bigger than the cricket ground at Galle, which is also a glorified roundabout), and raced around for a little over two sessions, before hitting some serious bumps towards day’s end.The scrambling had begun before play even began. In this squad, Sri Lanka had quicks who averaged 48, 49, 72 and 35 before the innings. So when one of the seamers is pushing for a place with good bowling in the nets, who do Sri Lanka leave out? Of course it’s the man with the best record. If that sounds strange, try this: when New Zealand were shot out for 221 just after tea, that decision was largely justified.Sri Lanka prides itself on its school cricket system, which many say was once the best in the world, but no one told the current Test bowlers, who scrambled together cricket careers in their early 20s. Pradeep himself was discovered in a soft-ball competition run by a TV station. Sri Lanka’s chief destroyer began the day with a worse bowling average than Arjuna Ranatunga, gutted an in-form middle order, and still his numbers remained worse than Geoffrey Boycott’s.It’s a puzzling old thing, is Sri Lankan cricket. Sometimes it’s better not to inspect the improvised parts and pieces of twine holding everything together too closely. There is a chance you might upset something and bring it all crashing down. But then, there will probably be someone to pull it all back together again, because someone always does.Of all the wickets Sri Lanka took, Ross Taylor’s had the most method behind it•AFPThe seamers searched for swing early on, pitching up, inviting the drive, but when that failed on what was expected to be a seaming surface, they scrambled up a range of other plans, switching between these, seemingly on a whim. Suranga Lakmal, the leader of the attack, had three overs from the scoreboard end, then suddenly wheeled around to bowl against the wind, before he made the first incision. The ball was wide, and back of a length – not exactly making the batsman play. But he did play at it, and the edge was collected. Pradeep, who was taken off after two overs with the new ball, returned to the attack and drew a similar dismissal from Hamish Rutherford.Ross Taylor’s outside edge was beaten or collected repeatedly, before Pradeep jagged one back in and had him dragging on. Of all Sri Lanka’s wickets, that one had the most method behind it. Brendon McCullum and Kane Williamson played on too, when the ball did just enough to strike the inside edge, but when Sri Lanka said they had made plans for these batsmen before the match, it’s unlikely that they envisioned balls well outside off would end up on the stumps. James Neesham ducked under torrent of balls at his face when he arrived – clearly another plan. In the end, it was a tame prod outside off that did for him.This New Zealand team has a thin pool of cricketers to call upon too, but at least their domestic system is not a bad joke. They build. They review. They have periods of introspection following which tough calls are made, and new measures implemented, as Brendon McCullum revealed of the meetings that took place following a 45 all out in Cape Town in 2013. In comparison, Sri Lanka’s top team appears to emerge out of chaos. They win at times, excel even, then tend to dip back into chaos again, as they did in the 25.4 overs they faced on Saturday.Perhaps Sri Lanka should see day one’s end as a missed opportunity. Kaushal Silva was unlucky, and Angelo Mathews got a great ball in a bad situation, but Lahiru Thirimanne and Dimuth Karunaratne fell to loose shots, and Prasanna Jayawardene could have done better with the ball that got him out, especially as there were only four more balls remaining till stumps. Hopes of a big first innings lead became a mission to avoid a hefty deficit.A result is almost assured in Wellington now, weather permitting, and this lot will need to scramble a decent total on day two, if they are to end the series 1-1, and not 0-2.