From one mystery to the next

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Posted 12 hours ago by Will

If you’re not following Cricinfo on an hourly basis, it’s almost impossible to keep track of what’s happening with no-ball gate at the moment. I’ve not been around much the last couple of days, and so much has changed. Amir, Asif and Butt were initially “rested” by Pakistan for their match against Somerset today, but the ICC – in a rare show of authority and have-balls – then suspended the trio. Did they have a choice? Not really.

Wajid Shamsul Hasan, the Pakistan high commissioner to the United Kingdom – a prestigious, important position – thinks the players were set-up. I’m sorry? What? By whom, and what was the motive? We’re witnessing some outstanding allegation action from all parties here. It’s an allegation smackdown and who’s next?

Well I’ll tell you who’s next: it’s only Mohammad Asif’s former girlfriend, Veena Malik. Miss Malik’s been making all manner of noises about her former beau, claiming he’s been loitering with reasonable intent among Indian bookies. She’s also 18 million rupees short and wants her money back. That’s a little over US$200,000.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s kit suppliers, the appropriately titled BoomBoom, have severed ties with Amir and might cut the whole shabang (shabash?) with the team. Rumours of a name-change to BustBust were unconfirmed at time of writing.

As sporting scandals go this takes some beating, don’t it? A foul but heady mix of uncertainty, mystery, rumour and whisper, with allegations flying around at every turn. Unmissable, yet heartbreaking to witness.

And I don’t care if you think I’m biased, because I know you’ll agree with me: throughout all this, Cricinfo’s coverage has been simply outstanding.

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Yawar Saeed and Somerset

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Posted yesterday, in the late evening by Jonathan Calder

Pakistan played Somerset at Taunton today. The two teams first met there in 1954.

Remarkaby, the current Pakistan manager Yawar Saeed played in that game. Even more remarkably, he was playing for Somerset.

In Sunday’s Observer Vic Marks wrote:

Saeed, 75, is no stranger to Taunton. In a more innocent age he played 50 games for the county between 1953 and 1955. Life was surely simpler for Saeed when he lined up alongside Maurice Tremlett and Peter Wight for Somerset.

The team he played in was pretty useless: it finished bottom in all three of those seasons, but no one seemed to mind too much – even when Saeed, an enthusiastic medium pacer, overstepped.

Cricket Archive records that in those 50 games he took 78 wickets @ 35.73.

Jonathan Calder blogs at Liberal England.

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Patrick Kidd on the match-fixing scandal

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Posted 3 days ago, around lunchtime by Rich Abbott

For those of you unable to access friend-of-the-blog Patrick Kidd’s posts on the paywalled Times’ cricket blog, Cricket Central (formerly Line and Length), he has written about the match-fixing scandal over at his excellent (and free) personal blog, The Questing Vole. It’s well worth checking out.

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Pietersen f**k up

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Posted 3 days ago, around lunchtime by Rich Abbott

I was absentmindedly checking Twitter on my phone a couple of minutes ago, when this popped up from Kevin Pietersen:

My first thought was that his Twitter account must be fake after all, but then it emerged he’d deleted the post, suggesting that he hadn’t meant to publish it in the first place.

Quite apart from what this means for the ECB’s stance on Twitter, there’s two big stories there: KP rested from international cricket for the rest of the summer and signing for Surrey (for what sounds like the rest of the season). He doesn’t sound too happy about it, but I think it’s very good news for England. Back to county cricket, out of the limelight and back in the runs. Hopefully.

A big week for cricket stories.

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How do you react to the spot-fixing trauma? (poll)

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Posted 4 days ago, in the wee hours by Will

(vote on the poll at the main site, on the right). This post is a late-night and deeply frustrated ramble; apologies

Every radio station I’ve turned to today has been talking about it. My car journeys have not been the escape I’d hoped. All I have thought about has been the game, the sport, the scars this trauma leaves. And Mohammad Amir. One thing really hit me about the enormity of the the last 24 hours, when I heard Michael Vaughan describe Amir as the most talented 18-year-old cricketer he had ever seen. It is a view shared by most seasoned observers too.

So, I just watched the highlights on Channel Five. Big mistake. The depression burrowed further and deeper. To see Amir at the impossibly contrived and uncomfortable post-match ceremony, held in the Long Room for various reasons, was to witness a boy whose world had just crumbled before him. That teenage realisation of shame and guilt and regret, perhaps paradoxically tinged with rebellion and a fuck-you to the world. “OK, ok, I made a mistake. Didn’t YOU make a mistake when you were 18?” I can imagine him saying to his parents, friends or colleagues. I know I would. He looked upset and insanely embarrassed, but mostly terrified.

We can’t judge him yet. Someone that young is easily swayed by older, evil hands. Quick success, especially in a country whose society relies upon cricket above most other forms of entertainment for their go-to form of escapism, will inevitably expose vulnerabilities in a teenager to crooks who hover like vultures, sharpening their dollar-stained talons while they wait. Amir’s career may be over – that’s all out of our hands for the time being. Cricket owes it to his successors that he is the last young victim of the corruptors. The ten-year-olds with makeshift bats and splinters in their feet and dreams of emulating Afridi, playing gully or street cricket – they are who the game and authorities must focus on in the coming days. Pakistan has already become an international amputee and is now being terrorised by nature herself. Don’t deny them cricket. The sport needs a healthy Pakistan. Amir may have strayed, but no other country could have produced someone of such rabidly refined talent at such a young age.

And so, only a firm hand will do now. It’s not going to be easy.

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Iain O’Brien on bowling deliberate no-balls

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Posted 5 days ago, around lunchtime by Rich Abbott

Posted on Twitter earlier today:

To all those who think it’s easy to deliberately bowl a no-ball or a wide. It’s not. You’ve got to leave all you respect for yourself and this great game at the gate.

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Pakistan Lord’s Test allegedly rigged; Amir, Asif, Butt

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Posted 6 days ago, about 9ish by Will

Been out of the loop on holiday, relying on TMS (and, interestingly, Twitter), only to hear the sickening rumour that three Pakistan cricketers have been linked in connection with spot-fixing (and possibly match-fixing) for this Test match against England at Lord’s. The News of the World is the rag making these hugely damaging allegations, with reported video footage available tomorrow. Scotland Yard are already involved, and I’m already feeling a little nauseous.

Update It goes without saying that you should head to Cricinfo for the most in-depth coverage.

In the most sensational sporting scandal ever, bowlers Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif delivered THREE blatant no-balls to order.

Their London-based fixer Mazhar Majeed, who let us in on the betting scam for £150,000, crowed “this is no coincidence” before the bent duo made duff deliveries at PRECISELY the moments promised to our reporter.

Armed with our damning dossier of video evidence, Scotland Yard launched their own probe into the scandal.

Millions around the world watched Pakistan star bowlers Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif deliver three no-balls in the Test against England on Thursday and Friday at the historic home of cricket, Lord’s in London.

Salman Butt is the alleged “ringleader”. The damage this will do to Pakistani cricket doesn’t bear thinking about. They are already the forgotten son of the international game, a sporting amputee owing to the country’s political instability. The ICC – perhaps even the game of cricket – might wonder whether Pakistan’s membership as part of the elite is worth anyone’s while any longer.

Anyway. These are all allegations, of course, but the information already seems damning enough. Either way, it’s going to scar the final day against England tomorrow and cast a dark shadow over a sport which thought it had nipped such bastard behaviour in the bud.

A little later: the most alarming name in all the three is surely Amir’s. Likened to Wasim Akram, he has wowed us and Australia all summer. His performances alone have given hope to many that Pakistan does have a Test future. Were he to be implicated in these allegations, what does that say about young Pakistani cricketers? Hell, what does it say about Pakistan education as a whole?

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Boom! Stuart Broad finds form

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Posted 6 days ago, just before lunchtime by Rich Abbott

It was going to take something special to usurp Mohammad Amir’s magical morning spell as the story of yesterday’s play, but that’s exactly what Jonathan Trott and Stuart Broad achieved. England really did look sunk at 102-7. The eighth-wicket partnership is now England’s highest against Pakistan for any wicket and we’re at that stage where records and milestones are tumbling with every scoring shot. The Lord’s spectators’ hands are getting a workout and yet again this England side have shown they deserve not to be written off.

In the last Test of last summer’s series, Broad produced a display that softened the blow of Flintoff”s retirement. Since then, while still developing his bowling at a pleasing rate, he’s encountered Pietersen’s problem of losing form with the bat and trying to recapture it at an elite level. He’s still learning to bat, but against the likes of Dale Steyn and Mohammad Amir. Now that’s an education. In many ways it’s not ideal – for months Broad has looked helpless with the bat in Tests – but he’s always played proper strokes (you can tell he started out as an opening bat) and the going-overs he’s received recently appear to have battle-hardened him.

Regaining form through playing Test cricket is a product of England’s fluid and loyal selection policy and of the evolution of modern cricket; Broad is seen primarily as an England player – only a drastic loss of form is likely to see him sent back to his county. England players are earmarked from an earlier age these days, so feats such as scoring your first first-class hundred in a Test match is less outlandish as it once seemed. Eoin Morgan was picked for Test cricket – as a specialist batsman – on the back of only six first-class tons. Times are changing.

Broad jr has just passed his father’s highest Test score (162). Let’s hope he harnesses his competitive nature for good this winter as he bids to equal his dad’s achievement of winning the Ashes down under and beat him by winning the urn twice.

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I say ‘Amir’, you say ‘Aamer’

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Posted Friday, last week by Rich Abbott

You know what, this boy’s rather handy. We should probably learn how to spell his name.

It’s been a strange feature of the summer that there’s a major discrepancy over the spelling of the name of one of its main protagonists. I’m sure it’s kept fellow cricket fans, writers and bloggers awake at night. (No? Just me?) Do you go with the scoreboards at the ground? Or one of the media outlets: Sky maybe, or the BBC? Or the oracle that is Cricinfo – have they ever got anything wrong, ever? If you consult more than one of these sources, you’re likely to get confused.

Ramiz (or should that be Rameez? Oh, I give up) Raja (pretty sure about that one) said today that he suspected Amir to be the correct spelling, with the emphasis on the first syllable. So until someone actually asks the man himself – now there’s an idea – I’ll go with that.

Amir: how ever you spell it, damn this guy can bowl

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Batting collapse has little consequence for Ashes

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Posted Friday, last week by Rich Abbott

As Mohammad Amir swept through the England batting order this morning, I received a number of despondent texts from mates and all over Twitter people seemed to be revising their Ashes predictions. Why? What did this morning teach us?

We learnt that England struggle against the moving ball; that Mohammed Amir is a brilliant bowler; that Cook, Collingwood and Morgan – who all received good deliveries – are in dodgy nick; that KP is no where near the races right now; that England’s batting is fragile and, frankly, isn’t strong enough to merit just five batsmen and that these days, more often than not, one or two guys will stand up in a crisis.

In other words, we learnt nothing we didn’t already know. It’s also nothing the selectors didn’t already know, which is why they’re willing to heap a load of pressure on an off spinner in a four-man attack for an Ashes tour.

This morning’s events didn’t alter my Ashes outlook one little bit (I’m predicting Australia to edge a tight series 2-1, or maybe 2-2). I seriously doubt Australia would have done any better in the same situation. The two batsmen to have fared best from England’s summer have been Jonathan Trott – who has been superb in showing Jo’burg ’10, and not The Oval ’09, to be the aberration of his Test career – and Ian Bell, who has been England’s best batsman in the last nine months and deserves to slot straight back in the middle order for Brisbane.

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The Village Cup

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Posted Monday, last week by Rich Abbott

There’s a big match coming up at Lord’s, and I’m not talking about the final Test match of the summer. The lineup for the Village Cup final is now known, and following Shipton-under-Wychwood’s (Oxfordshire) win over Rowledge (Surrey) yesterday, they will take on Sessay (Yorkshire) at the home of cricket on September 12th.

I was covering yesterday’s semi final at Shipton – my first taste of the competition – and will subsequently be doing all I can to attend the final. It’ll be a great occasion, but as everyone I spoke to yesterday affirmed, there’ll be less riding on it than there was yesterday.

Shipton-under-Wychwood CC take on Rowledge CC

The Village Cup semi is the match you dare not lose. Defeat at Lord’s is at least tempered by contact with its turf. Lord’s itself is the prize, a win merely the icing. Defeat in the previous round has absolutely nothing to recommend it. Like coming fourth at the Olympics, the achievement of getting as far as – but not further than – the Village Cup semi final is an afterthought submerged almost entirely by gloom.

The match was engrossing, not dominated by either side for significant periods of time. Both teams were well supported by a crowd of over 400 but the pull for me, as a neutral, was the stakes; witnessing how the players – amateurs, mortals – coped with the pressure as the game reached its dramatic conclusion. Shipton, buoyed by home support, held their nerve to edge a narrow win.

I genuinely don’t think I’ve seen a more devastated group of cricketers and fans than the Rowledge brigade as their last wicket fell. The last time they made the final was 1985, none of the players are guaranteed to get as far as this again, and some will know it was their last chance.

Watching their reaction to defeat and the camaraderie of both camps as they converged on the pitch for drinks, summed up the spirit of the day.

If you fancy a trip to Lord’s this summer but have baulked at the prices for the Test match, I can guarantee you one thing: you won’t know any of the players, may not have heard of either of the places, but you won’t see two sides more happy to be playing a game of cricket all summer.

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Finally, a proper test

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Posted Saturday, last week by Rich Abbott

England were tested – properly tested – for the first time yesterday, on day three of the fifth Test match of the summer. A little belated, certainly, but at least it arrived in the end. The situation going into the morning’s play – England 6/1, 69 runs behind with a struggling Alastair Cook on 0* – ensured the day would offer perhaps the first glimpse of where England really are in terms of Ashes preparation. The question’s loomed over us all summer, but too often the opposition have rendered the evidence null and void. At last, the summer’s missing ingredient, pressure, was here.

To go on yesterday’s performance, England are not quite ready to rip it up down under just yet. Alastair Cook showed his mettle yet again, providing the hundred that England surely needed to have a chance in this game, and at tea, they could be delighted with their effort: nightwatchman Anderson and centurion Cook the only men out, Trott and Pietersen in and settled (the former boasting an endearingly retro strikerate of 28).

For two thirds of the day’s play, England had passed their test. The pragmatic, no-dramas approach of their management team was evident in the way the top four, plus Anderson, had equitted themselves. While the conditions and bowling styles were not easily comparable with that that awaits England this winter, the quality of the attack and pressure of the situation was. Good signs, then.

But before the first meaningful conclusions of the summer could be drawn, seven wickets in the space of just 28 runs – in other words, an old fashioned batting collapse – clouded the issue once again.

England finished the day on 221-9, only 146 ahead. As I write, Amir has just fixed Pakistan’s target at 148.

That would probably be enough against Pakistan sans Yousuf. As it is, his influence should be enough to usher them over the line. Either way, and this is the main thing, England will be tested for the second day in a row.

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Top order aren’t pulling their weight

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Posted 1 month ago by Rich Abbott

It’s funny isn’t it, but other than Alastair Cook – who I’d drop for Lord’s but still, as it stands, want opening is Brisbane, providing form and state of mind recover – I’m happy with England’s batting lineup at present. I imagine most England fans are. Some might want KP dropped, and clearly there’s a debate to be had regarding Morgan and Bell when he returns, but in general, the top order garden’s rosier than usual. Isn’t it?

Today Matt Prior comfortably outscored England’s top six combined. Hmm. These things happen in cricket, and against this Pakistani outfit the lower down the order you are, the safer you are (kind of the direct opposite of the 1992 series); but it’s the second time Prior has achieved this feat in this series, the first coming in the second innings at Trent Bridge.

Matt Prior made 84 not out on day one at The Oval

Great that Prior’s in such vintage form – excellent signs from Broad today too – but a little worrying from those above them.

These warning signs are nothing new. Take the 2009 Ashes, a series victory which was achieved with roughly the same batting lineup as played today (Morgan the only man not to play a part). Of the seven innings in which every member of the team batted, the players selected for their batting alone (numbers one to five in the batting order) – were outscored by the all-rounders and bowlers (numbers six to eleven, plus extras) on five occasions, coming out on top just twice. Take extras out of the equation and the non-specialist batsmen still come out on top, four-three.

Last winter in South Africa, England passed 300 only twice, one time being that blueprint of a top order performance at Durban (two 100s, two 50s), the other in their first innings of the series.

All this shows a commendable team spirit, a side which quite possibly performs as more than a sum of its parts and a tail we’d have killed for in the ’90s. It also highlights a feature of England’s batting of late: different combinations of players finding form at different times (Strauss and Prior in the Ashes, Cook, Bell and Collingwood in South Africa), which is a strength as well as a weakness.

For some reason, I’m not too worried about the thought of our batsmen in Australia later this year. But looking at some of these stats, maybe I should be.

An unqualified success?

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Posted 1 month ago by Rich Abbott

Sorry for recent inactivity – I’m still recovering from both man flu and Saturday night’s FP T20 final. I have drugs to treat the former, but, as a Hants follower, could have done with something to deal with the latter. What a day. Three good games, fantastic entertainment – even if, like me, you could only follow it on tv – and a showcase of all that’s good and healthy about T20. Well, that’s how I saw it.

The Telegraph’s Steve James has a differing viewpoint, and would prefer to do away with the finals day format, reducing the final to one-off match status. It’s not often that I disagree with Mr James, but I do here. I wrote last week that I felt Saturday would be one of the few elements of the T20 competition that the ECB have got right. Now, the other side of the tunnel, I stand by that view.

James’ principal reasons are sound. Ideally, counties deserve to stage money-spinning semi finals, and the fact that come the final half the spectators could be fans of defeated semi finalists is a little odd. But, did anyone that was there have a problem with that? The atmosphere didn’t seem to suffer much to me, though home advantage was clearly a factor. And likewise, did anyone that was there find the day too long (another of James’ complaints)?

I just think the pros of the day as a whole smash these little niggles out of the park.

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Twenty20 vision

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Posted 1 month ago by Rich Abbott

It’s Twenty20 Finals Day at the Rose Bowl on Saturday, the culmination of a long and drawn-out tournament. It is, weather permitting, likely to be the only segment of the tournament not met with criticism. The day’s formula – two semis and a final – is tried, tested and makes great sense.

Accepted wisdom is that the group stages didn’t. You’ll no doubt be familiar with the criticisms: too many games, spread over too long a period, tickets too expensive… you know the score (unlike in this year’s competition – What? You mean there was a game on last night?!)

I’ve been to a good number of group games this year, though admittedly all at The Oval, which hardly represents a balanced diet. I’ve enjoyed it, but grown frustrated at a structure that clearly isn’t working. That much we do know, because the grounds have not been full. A format that lacks even the nuances of 40-over cricket relies desperately on atmosphere; full grounds are a minimum requirement for T20, without them the experience is impoverished.

I agree with most of the standard FP T20 criticisms, but not necessarily with one of the most popular: that there were far too many games played.

Less is certainly more with international tournaments (a point lost on the 50-over World Cup organisers) and a two-week World T20 is a necessity, and has therefore been a success. But adopting a similar model for English domestic cricket would result in a tournament resembling the IPL.

Dean Wilson made this valid point via Twitter:

Indian population 1 billion (ish), games in ipl = 60. UK population 70 million (ish), games in FP T20 = 151!!!!!!!

All true, but the IPL is an international tournament in spirit – not interspersed in a domestic calendar, all-eyes-on-India for a short period of time – and thus was, I felt, about three weeks too long. Something as condensed in this country would, despite the reduced number of games, still represent overkill. I propose a group stage interspersed with the other domestic competitions, but with a regular designated evening a week, say Thursdays, for matches (this year, Surrey played on every day except Monday). Scheduling may not always allow this, but matches on consecutive nights, or three games in five days have proved buzz-killers and must be avoided.

This is all a little dry, so here's a picture of Dirk Nannes

T20 is the ECB’s killer domestic product: family-friendly entertainment. Heck, it’s the one form of the game that I can even drag my sister along to – providing I convince her that Stuart Broad’s playing (“Hampshire v Sussex… is Stuart Broad playing?” – “Yeah, should be…”)

I see T20 cricket in this country becoming cricket’s answer to football’s Premier League. It needs a structure overhaul and, approaching perfect world territory here, lower ticket prices including family-orientated offers and season ticket opportunities. Maybe a few less group games too – 16 is a bit absurd. Three groups of six, everyone playing each other home and away, would make ten games each before the Quarter Final stage.

I don’t suppose any solution eradicates all the problems. This proposal is far form perfect, not least because it poses problems concerning shipped-in foreign stars and asks players to flick between formats like an indecisive channel-hopper. But as Saturday is bound to show, domestic T20 is a great product and for that reason the ECB must get it right for more than just one day a year.

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