He will only be in his mid 20’s by the time his five-year ban term comes to an end (unless of course the ban is revoked). However, time waits for no one and by the time he is allowed to come back to the international arena, Pakistan cricket may have moved well ahead. Also, he wouldn’t have played any competitive cricket all these years, and one won’t be sure whether his mental scars would have healed by then. Amid the tainted trio, Amir is likely to be the worst sufferer. This is because he is the youngest of the lot and will lose out on his prime years. Butt and Asif would anyway be close to their retirement years by the time their banned tenure comes to an end. Also, the latter was never serious about the game and had been involved in a number of transgressions earlier as well. So one wonders if he is really bothered about the shame he has brought to the nation.

Returning to Amir, another strong raison d’etre why there are slim chances of him returning to international cricket or succeeding even if he returns is because history has proved that it is a next to impossible task. Take the case of Ajay Jadeja and Nicky Boje. They were banned from the game for their misdemeanors at the height of their cricketing powers. And when they wanted to return, there were no takers. Jadeja tried his hand at domestic cricket for a while, and Boje continues to play T20 cricket, alas their international career hit a point of no return as soon as they were penalized for their involvement with unwanted elements in the game.

Of the punished lot, only Herschelle Gibbs managed to make a successful return to international cricket. In fact he did better in his second stint as a player than the pre-banned era. However, his is more a case of an exception rather than a rule. There is no guarantee that Amir can tread a similar path. It has been learnt that the Pakistan cricket Board is ready to counsel Amir if he desires to return to the big stage. However, one wonders if Amir himself would be mentally tough to go through the grind all over again.

If he indeed gets a chance again he would be very lucky. But it is also a fact that the prying eyes of fans, players and administrators all over the world would be on him. Also, it would be tougher for Amir to win back the confidence of the cricket world, for this is second time that the cricket world has been embroiled in the fixing controversy. The sport had only just managed to get over the first shocker when this spot fixing shame was revealed. As such, it would only be fair if fans want such tainted characters to stay away from the game for ever.

Some noble men like Mike Brearley have had the heart to say that Amir should be given another chance considering his raw age and prodigious talent. But here, the PCB’s role will be essentially critical. Even his Amir does not make it back to the path of fame, the PCB must at least ensure that future Amirs don’t fall along this thorny path for the betterment of both their and world cricket as a whole.

By: The Pinch Hitter

Ever since The Pinch Hitter was introduced to cricket at the age of nine, he fell in love with the gentleman’s game. While his desire to take up the sport professionally remained unfulfilled, he substituted the bat with the pen. And since 2003, he has been commenting on the sport for various magazines, websites, enjoying every moment of it. With ‘Over the top’ he hopes to continue enlightening and enlivening ‘cricket companions’ the write way.

Following their ten-wicket loss in the first Test England reassured fans the encounter was more of a ‘hiccup’ than a true disaster. Alastair Cook, in particular, promised that he, alongside Andrew Strauss, would put things right for England, something that seemed to happen in the first innings of the second Test.

Cook was not bending the truth; the opener scored 94 from 220 deliveries, as England headed towards 207 for 5 in Abu Dhabi. Jonathan Trott collected 74 runs, helping the side to 327 in response to Pakistan’s 257. However, a ghost of the first Test, the bowling of Saeed Ajmal, continued to haunt England.

The home side put on 214 to set England a very make able target, but the tourists collapsed to 72 all out, just half of the total they needed for victory. Anyone following the online cricket betting will have been shocked by their capitulation.

With 2012 less than four weeks old, it is perhaps too early to tell if England can hold onto the top spot on the ICC Test Rankings, especially given that they have played precious little Test cricket since gaining the title, last summer but it is clear problems remain.

England have attached greater importance to Test cricket, in recent months, with Graeme Swann calling for ODIs to be abolished, in a bid to improve England’s performance in longer forms of cricket.

A renewed focus on practising on flat, slow wickets, as opposed to the “traditional wickets of green grass”, to quote Michael Vaughan, could also begin to have an effect on England’s ability overseas, over the coming months. England have, in the past, been criticised for failing to react to spin-bowling on a deteriorating pitch and it is obviously something they need to work on.

With their batsmen once again failing to deal with spin, it is clear that the England side have a long way to go if they want to win series played in unfamiliar conditions and if they are unable to address this issue they may not be the number one Test side for much longer.

By: Celia Roche

India has just finished with the latest whitewash, this one in Australia. They have been lucky to not to have been seen by most of their countrymen, thanks to the time zones – but indeed their fan club has taken a dent world over.

Indian side’s deficiencies were exposed last summer at the hands of Englishmen but when the bucks are flowing, and the priorities are different, it really needs something bigger to wake someone from the deep slumber – and that precisely seems to be the case with BCCI’s selection committee and coaching panel.

Story remains the same, albeit noise is gaining amplitude and if we try to measure frustration with some instrument, maybe the needle this time is lying well in the red. This time, shouts are from all over, and above all some comments by Sehwag on media have been making rounds, discussed, criticized, condemned and termed as another attempt to putting problems under the rug. Maybe he has grown habitual of those beautiful cheerleaders dancing on every slog he makes at the boundary, and those adverts where he is trying to come out as somebody next to Gandhi. To his bad luck, either that was a good dream or he is now having a scary one.

Indian cricket and BCCI have become more of a hyperbole lately. It is a bubble which is waiting to bust. Unfortunately, its cricket that has suffered the most. Quality has been replaced with big loud talking mouths. BCCI has become a casino playing Ponzi schemes with all a great cricket loving and cricket crazy nation.

They have a chronic problem with playing overseas, and what astonishes me is that rather than to focus on it and to make changes, they have stuck to same line ups, same strategy as if they cannot read and understand the scoreboard. Indian reliance on same old five i.e. Gambhir, Sehwag, Tendulkar, Laxman and Dravid as if nobody can get a chance to play as long as these five do not voluntarily step down, is what bothers me. All five of them have been playing one innings a match and throwing away their wickets in the other innings throughout the Australian tour. Indian test performances are bound to take another nose dive when these oldies begin to take to exit door because they do not have any developed alternates.

They had no clue absolutely on how to handle bounce. One wonders as whether it was the same team which outclassed Aussies in their last tour four years ago. India has hardly focused on fast bowling. Australia has been bagging wickets with pace and India has had to rely on medium fast and spin. They could have made corrections in second match, when they had the experience of first. But, they did not.

India needs to shift focus on its bowling now. It has been years since they came up with a genuine fast bowler who could generate pace of over 145 150kph. They need to come up with more Irfan Pathans but this time also to tag them as ‘Fragile’ or ‘Handle with care’. Indian problems with seaming wickets in England and bouncing tracks in Australia epitomize their lack of ability to handle this department. They are lacking by miles in this side, and are paying a heavy price for it.

BCCI might be the richest board in the world, and its players might be eyeing properties in Monaco or some estate in Europe but all this does not mean they have the best team. BCCI has been lucky to have grown in clout this much, and it would be very kind of it to also focus on the product it showcases world over.

By: Sheikh Usman N.

“Author is a computer software engineer by profession but a very keen follower of cricket. With his blog ‘Doosra’, he intends to express his views candidly to a wider audience.”

Take the case of the series against West Indies both and home and away. The Indian batting collapsed on more than a few occasions, and they managed to get away only because the Windies weren’t capable of capitalizing on India’s failings. The chief reason for India’s batting failures can be attributed to the length of the T20 tournament. Most of the batsmen’s minds were so conditioned to playing shots that they couldn’t stick at the crease for even a reasonable amount of time. So worried were they of losing their wickets in a tizzy in West Indies, they shut down the chase in one of the Tests when they needed less than 100 in 15 overs with most of their wickets in hand. This was a precursor to what was to follow in England and Australia. Unfortunately, neither Team India nor the BCCI paid heed to any of the warning signals.

Another clear rationale behind India’s debacle in England was that a number of players were either unfit after the IPL or picked up injuries during it. The whole embarrassing situation played itself out in England. Zaheer Khan, who was India’s best bowler throughout the World Cup, struggled in the IPL. That’s not all, he even looked unfit during the tournament. However, instead of being rested he played throughout the event. As a result, he went to England without being 100 per cent fit, and pulled out of the England series on the very first day of the Test. The start couldn’t have been worse for India, and things did not improve as the days progressed on the tour.

All the players’ techniques were tested, but apart from Rahul Dravid no one could get out of the IPL rut. The BCCI did not help matters by sending in an unfit Virender Sehwag to try and work some miracles. The result was the exactly the opposite. Sehwag registered a couple ducks and, apart from the record 219 one-day score at home, has looked all at sea both in England and Australia. Suresh Raina, another played who is a superstar in the IPL, also failed miserably, putting his Test career on the backtrack for the moment. The problem with IPL is that even flukes can look like greats. Take the case of Swapnil Asnodkar and Paul Valthaty, both of whom briefly shone in the tournament, but have done precious little otherwise. Of course, there have been positives too to come out from the IPL – R. Ashwin being the noteworthy case. However, there is no second opinion about it that the harms have outdone the goods.

This is not to suggest that the club tournament must be scrapped altogether. It can exist with international cricket, albeit in a shorter duration format and the timings too shouldn’t clash with international matches. It was senseless to have an IPL tournament merely a week after India’s World Cup triumph. Fans had hardly celebrated the memorable win that the T20 tournament got underway. Also, the BCCI ought to take sterner measures if they want Indian cricket to do well in the future. Having sporting tracks at home, as suggested by some experts, is not a solution. That would actually mean that we play into the hands of the opposition by losing the home advantage. Restructuring the India A tours with more visits to England, Australia and South Africa is the way forward.

If the BCCI, instead, concentrates more on the IPL, it would end up becoming the monster that’s killing Indian cricket, as Arjuna Ranatunga famously pointed out sometime back.

By: The Pinch Hitter

Ever since The Pinch Hitter was introduced to cricket at the age of nine, he fell in love with the gentleman’s game. While his desire to take up the sport professionally remained unfulfilled, he substituted the bat with the pen. And since 2003, he has been commenting on the sport for various magazines, websites, enjoying every moment of it. With ‘Over the top’ he hopes to continue enlightening and enlivening ‘cricket companions’ the write way.

Of course, he was in charge of the team when they won their first Test ever on South African soil, at Durban. However, that had more to do with the individual brilliance of Kumar Sangakkara and Rangana Herath than some shrewd leadership on the part of Dilshan. That said, he did contribute handsomely in one of the ODIs that Lanka won against the Proteas, and his side did manage to finish the series with a respectable 3-2 loss. However, that was far from enough to give Dilshan a longer run at the top. Nine months are enough for a mother to prepare her baby to enter the world, and similarly the same duration should be feasible to figure out whether or not a person is fit to lead his side. In Dilshan’s case, the answer was a resounding no.

For starters, as the old cliche goes, a leader must lead from the front. With Dilshan, it clearly wasn’t the case. He was visibly struggling to cope up with the additional responsibility of marshalling his troops and, as a result, his batting suffered badly. Some captains manage to inspire the side with their charismatic presence even when they themselves are not performing to potential. Mark Taylor is a classic example of such a leader and Sourav Ganguly too, albeit briefly. However, Dilshan clearly does not belong to this rare breed of captains. On the contrary, his struggles only mirrored those of the team’s as Sri Lanka went from one low to another. One doesn’t really know how much of a part the delay in payment of dues demotivated them. However, it certainly wouldn’t have done them any good. Unfortunately for Dilshan, it all combined to compound his misery as the Lankans went on losing one series after the other. And it all culminated with the losses in South Africa, though there were a few positives for the Lankans from it.

Apart from struggling for runs, Dilshan did not do much to impress in his role as captain either. He did not come across as an intelligent tactician nor was he willing to go the unorthodox way when things weren’t going his team’s way. Instead, he looked at loss for ideas, and even the presence of two former skippers Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene did not help much. The result was series losses in Test and one-dayers against England, Australia, Pakistan and, of course, the Proteas. As such, it was only fair that Sri Lanka began looking beyond Dilshan as skipper for the good of the side’s future.

Having said that, it was somewhat surprising that former skipper Jayawardene, who had given up the taxing job in 2009, has been reappointed to the post. The decision was taken possibly because there was no other real option. Vice-captain Angelo Mathews may have been an option, but it is a fact that the all-rounder has cemented his place in the team only recently. He is definitely the captain in waiting for Sri Lanka, the question is when and how. Meanwhile, Dilshan will do well to re-establish his place in the team as a dangerous opening bat, for his performance as a player remains critical to Lanka’s fortunes.

By: The Pinch Hitter

Ever since The Pinch Hitter was introduced to cricket at the age of nine, he fell in love with the gentleman’s game. While his desire to take up the sport professionally remained unfulfilled, he substituted the bat with the pen. And since 2003, he has been commenting on the sport for various magazines, websites, enjoying every moment of it. With ‘Over the top’ he hopes to continue enlightening and enlivening ‘cricket companions’ the write way.

It is a given that all cricketers are judged based on the consistency of their performances. And, on a scale of one to ten, Afridi would be ranked very low. In recent times though, Afridi has done exceptionally well as a bowler. Thus, whatever runs he scores these are considered as a bonus. In short, he has transformed himself into a highly credible bowling all-rounder. While he never came to terms with Test cricket, and, not surprisingly, retired from the long format of the game recently, he still has a lot to offer for Pakistan in ODIs and T20s. And thus, him being the best-selling player during the BPL auction is understandable.

The T20 game is tailor-made to suit big hitters like Afridi and Chris Gayle. The duo and the likes should consider themselves lucky to be playing in an era where T20 is ruling the roost in cricket. Many others bashers like Lance Klusener and Chris Cairns were not so lucky. The significance of boom bang players like Afridi rises in the T20 format for a number of reasons. While in a 50-over-a-side contest, 20-30 runs don’t make much of a difference, the same can prove to be a match-winning knock in the T20 format. And with Afridi one can be rest assured that he will score them at a blistering rate.

What makes the Afridi of now even more dangerous in T20s is the fact that his bowling has come of age, as mentioned above, and backed by the number of five-fors he took in international ODIs last year. Afridi has the ability to both pick wickets as well as squeeze the number of runs as per the demand of the situation, a precious and rarely possessed ability in bowlers, and one that could go a long way in him achieving consistent success at the T20 level. And, not least of all, he is a brilliant fielder. All these qualities combine to make him the perfect T20 package for any side.

As reported in the media, Afridi has decided to skip the BPL dollars in favor of the ODI series against England, a commendable decision made by the destructive batsman. He will be available for the BPL final in case the Dhaka Gladiators make it that far. But, that is another scenario altogether. Before that, he needs to concentrate on doing well in the ODIs and T20s against the Englishmen. Having been their talisman in recent times, the Pakistan team will be looking forward to match-winning performances by him in the upcoming series too. Often in the past he has promised a lot and delivered little. Pakistan cannot afford that scenario now for he is the most experienced hand in their team today, and the former skipper ought to lead from the front.

Afridi’s selection as the most expensive player in the BPL will remain as a jewel in the crown whether he gets a chance to feature in the league or not. More significantly though, he needs to now prove his value as the most versatile cricketer in the Pakistan team, by backing the worth given to him by the BPL with consistent performances against the Englishmen.

Over to Afridi.

By: The Pinch Hitter

Ever since The Pinch Hitter was introduced to cricket at the age of nine, he fell in love with the gentleman’s game. While his desire to take up the sport professionally remained unfulfilled, he substituted the bat with the pen. And since 2003, he has been commenting on the sport for various magazines, websites, enjoying every moment of it. With ‘Over the top’ he hopes to continue enlightening and enlivening ‘cricket companions’ the write way.

Returning to the teesra question, it seems more of a mental disintegration tactic being tried out by Ajmal and less of a lethal weapon in his armoury. And, anyways, it has been proven over a period of time that mystery balls are overrated. Remember, Saqlain Mushtaq made a big name for himself with his doosra, picking up plenty of wickets initially. However, towards the end of his international career, his inability to strike despite possessing the famed delivery proved to be his undoing.

In recent times, the case of Ajantha Mendis stands out as the best example of how over dependence on one wicket-taking delivery can ruin a bowler’s career. Mendis stormed onto the scene with his mystery carom ball, which bamboozled even the wizards of spin bowling, India. Legends like Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman, all failed to read his variations and succumbed to him incessantly during Mendis’ debut series. That was about four years ago. Today, he is not even a certainty in the playing eleven for Sri Lanka. For the record, even Shoaib Akhtar boasted of having developed a special delivery to get rid of Sachin Tendulkar during the 2003 World Cup. He gave it an awesome name – spit rock. The result – on the day of the game he was pounded all over the park by Tendulkar.

There is another problem with Ajmal’s teesra, if he does possess it. His bowling action has been under constant scrutiny, and even though the ICC has cleared him, it wouldn’t hesitate to do a recheck in case Ajmal starts bowling a teesra. And Ajmal would want any such hindrance at this stage of his career, when he is at the top of his game. He should keep the case of former Pakistan captain Shoaib Malik in mind, who lost his bowling ability owing to the constant examination he was subjected to due to his action.

If Ajmal’s teesra sensation is indeed a tactic to get under the skin of the Englishmen, which seems to be the case, it is a masterstroke. As it is, England are far from the best players of spin. And, who knows, this whole teesra talk might well have unsettled them during the first Test. Just like the Indian batsmen in Australia were waiting back for dreaded bouncers which rarely came, English batsmen might have been unsettled, wary of the unseen delivery which never came. Whatever be the case, England’s capitulation has given a major boost to the Pakistan team, and a much needed one at that considering the ugly things that have transpired in the interim.

That Ajmal, with his ten-wicket haul, played the major hand in the win reiterated that he is among the better spinners in the world currently. However, he needs to keep on performing consistently, and in all conditions to be rated the best unanimously, and not just based on rankings. After all, the teesra tactic may have worked against England, but there is no guarantee that it will have the same impact on other nations.

By: The Pinch Hitter

Ever since The Pinch Hitter was introduced to cricket at the age of nine, he fell in love with the gentleman’s game. While his desire to take up the sport professionally remained unfulfilled, he substituted the bat with the pen. And since 2003, he has been commenting on the sport for various magazines, websites, enjoying every moment of it. With ‘Over the top’ he hopes to continue enlightening and enlivening ‘cricket companions’ the write way.

So this season, I’m taking a leaf out of Get A Hundred and setting myself the goal of scoring a maiden club century. Already after one week, I think I may have bitten off more than I can chew. This goal will be very difficult for three reasons.

Firstly, my knee has gone bad again. I had a knee operation in March and while I sailed through the winter season without a hitch, a week of jogging about a month ago has it as sore and aching as it was pre-op. So when I batted last weekend, I always ran the bare minimum speed required to not get run out. It was like Damien Martyn 2005 every ball. I could sense the frustration in the fielding side as I hovered out of my crease and they had to weigh up run-out opportunities versus overthrows. Spending several hours running backwards and forwards will not do wonders for my aging joints.

Secondly, all our matches are on turf pitches this summer. Usually my B grade team gets relegated to synthetic pitches. But this season, one of our teammates Pappy also happened to be on the scheduling committee and ensured we got to play on turf. Which is great – much more interesting than synthetic. Also harder to bat on. I have a bad record on turf. While I haven’t played on it many times, my highest score is 9. Yet to crack double figures, let alone triple!

Lastly, I just wonder whether I can score that many runs in a day. Get A Hundred isn’t satisfied with a club hundred. He’s set himself the goal of scoring it at a run-a-ball. I batted for 1 hour last weekend and scored 9 runs (my top score on turf, remember). Most of my scoring shots were behind the wicket – leg glances, late cuts, outside edges. Scratchy stuff. Somehow I’m going to have to develop some more scoring strokes. Perhaps start using a backlife. Maybe even follow through after I hit the ball.

So that’s the goal. Get a hundred.  I’m off to play in 30 minutes – it’s the second half of a two dayer and I’m one wicket away from batting. I’m taking it one step at a time. First goal – crack double figures on turf. Then I’ll take stock from there. Maybe halfway through the season, I’ll downgrade it to Get a fifty.

I don’t think Ricky Ponting’s captaincy was a contributing factor. Sure, he’s defensive and unimaginative. But his conservative captaincy was matched and cancelled out by Andrew Strauss’ equally conservative captaincy. If anything, the one captaincy howler of the series was Strauss’ decision to bat in the 4th Test. It invoked memories of Ponting’s decision to bowl at Edgbaston in 2005.

A more likely culprit is the Australian batsmen. It was their first innings collapses at Lords and the Oval which lost us two Tests. The batsman that sticks out like a sore thumb is Mike Hussey. He was Ravi-Bopara-like in the energy and enthusiasm he gave to the fielding team. He was always a wicket just waiting to happen. Sure, he may have saved his position with a futile century yesterday. It’s becoming an Australian tradition for one beleagured batsman to save his career with a meaningless century at the Oval every 4 years.

But Mike Hussey is just a symptom. The underlying problem was the selectors had no options, noone to replace him. How could you possibly select a touring Ashes squad with not a single back-up specialist batsman? It seemed unwise at the time. Foresight has only intensified the craziness of the decision.

However, the true cause of Australia’s demise goes further back than our batting collapses at Lords and the Oval. The seeds of our Ashes loss were sowed in the 1st Test. We had every opportunity to finish off England on the 5th day. All it needed was one delivery, one jaffa to finish off the English tailenders. Instead, we witnessed with dismay the unravelling of Mitchell Johnson. It took 3 Tests for him to get his groove back. What happened to our devastating spearhead? How did he devolve from the world beating champion in South Africa to the pie chucking farce in Cardiff? Mentally, he wasn’t all there. Something was happening off-field that had him distracted on the field. And thus we have our answer.

Why did Australia lose the 2009 Ashes? Mitchell Johnson’s mum.

But Australia made it to stumps without loss, knocking up 80 runs off 20 overs. Time isn’t an issue. There will be no batting for a draw. All that matters is runs. Or more importantly, wickets. What would be required for Australia to make those runs would be the improbable combination of the pitch behaving itself, the Australians batting out of their skins, lucky umpiring decisions and the English bowlers having a five or six consecutive bad sessions. If England bowl full and straight at the stumps and extract any hint of movement, Australia won’t win. If the Australian top order make the slightest error, be it poor shot selection or a lapse in concentration, it’s over. If the pitch shows uneven bounce, even if the bounce doesn’t get us, the psychological effect will be deadly. If one or two dodgy umpire decisions rip into our top order, there’ll be no recovering. There’s just too much going against us.

But cricket fans think with the heart, not the head. So I can’t help myself – I can’t keep out hopeful visions of a 150 run partnership between Ponting and Clarke, followed by a 200 run partnership from Clarke and North. Improbable. Impossible. It’s never happened before. It can’t happen now. But I’ll be watching the game on tenterhooks. Just in case.