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Three years after being banned for attempting to bribe two national selectors, Abhijit Kale is sadder but wiser – and an example of the problems in the pressure-cooker world of Indian cricket

Siddhartha Vaidyanathan22-Jun-2007

In March 1988 he was chosen, along with Sachin Tendulkar, as the most promising junior cricketer in Bombay; in March 1992 he cracked 153 against the New Zealand Under-19 tourists, overshadowing a young Rahul Dravid; in December 1993 he rattled off 132 on first-class debut against Baroda; in November 2001 he made 122 against the touring English at Jaipur; in April 2003 he played his first and only ODI against Bangladesh at Dhaka; and in November 2003 he was accused of offering two national selectors a bribe for a place in the Indian side.Not many had heard of Abhijit Kale before November 2003, far fewer have heard of him since. On November 20, 2003, though, he was front-page material, when Kiran More and Pranab Roy, two former cricketers turned national selectors, accused Kale of offering Rs 10 lakhs (approximately US$21,900 ) for a place in the Indian side. A BCCI enquiry was instituted and Kale tendered a letter of apology to the BCCI in which he admitted that he tried to “influence the selectors” while insisting that he had never tried to bribe them. In June 2004 he was banned from the game, allowed to return only the following January.Since his return to first-class cricket, Kale has slipped into further oblivion. He’s changed his team and gone right across the country, leaving Maharashtra for Tripura, in the part of India that lies east of Bangladesh. He has struggled for runs. He’s a changed person too – “sadder, without as much humour, but more sensible” – and is trying his best to “start enjoying the game once again”. One of India’s most promising junior cricketers and one of the most consistent first-class batsmen is trying to figure out where it all went wrong.”It all happened in too much of a hurry,” he told Cricinfo, “and initially I didn’t have time to stop and think. Suddenly I realised that I’ve been banned for a whole season of four-day games. I was broken.”Being banned for most of the 2004-05 season had a traumatic effect. “I was mentally gone – I put on weight, I didn’t have the motivation to practice, I was totally blank. I used to go to work at Bharat Petroleum but it made things worse. I was so obsessed with the game that taking it away from me had a drastic effect.”There’s not an ounce of anger in Kale’s voice; instead it’s sober and indicates the process of introspection. It helps because the conversation turns into a discussion where he refers to his “big mistake” and “serving punishment”. He mentions “destiny” and admits he can’t blame anyone but himself and “circumstances”. He isn’t too comfortable recounting the details but is remarkably candid while analysing the possible motive.”When I look back now I have a clearer understanding. All my life I have been desperate about being selected in teams. Starting from Under-16, I always felt I was not rewarded for scoring big. I remember making 153 for India U-19 early on, yet I was never picked for Mumbai. For three seasons I was in the Mumbai reserves. I scored heavily in all the local matches, yet there was no recognition. At one point my only aim was to play one Ranji match.

“All this made me excessively focussed towards cricket. Every time I didn’t get picked I would go back and work harder, think more, be more desperate to make it. It used to eat into me almost. Looking back I regret that obsession – I shouldn’t have taken all this so seriously, I should have enjoyed my cricket more.”Kale doesn’t want to make excuses; yet he wishes there was some help at hand. “Maybe a team psychologist could have helped, someone to tell me not to take cricket so seriously, someone who could help me deal with disappointments. Anyway I have served my punishment and look forward to 2-3 years of cricket ahead of me. My only wish now is to enjoy my cricket, something which I never did enough of.”And perhaps get among the runs again. Since his return to first-class cricket he’s managed just two 35-plus scores in 17 first-class innings. “I made a mistake by leaving Maharashtra – they dropped me and I took an impulsive decision to shift states,” he says of his move to Tripura before last season. “It was a communication gap – they didn’t exactly tell me the reasons. Also, there were too many things going on in my head then – I hadn’t yet recovered from that incident. I am trying to move back to Maharashtra; I can’t think of playing for any other state now.”The Tripura experiment was a complete disaster. “It’s the first time in 14 seasons that I’ve failed in first-class cricket and I just want to put it behind me. Somehow nothing clicked.”Several years later, Abhijit Kale will be the answer to a quiz question. It won’t be about a teenage prodigy who dominated bowlers in the Bombay leagues, neither will it involve a ruthlessly consistent domestic cricketer. Kale knows that he will always be associated with that incident. Importantly he’s accepted that and is now trying to move on.

How a stepped-on sandwich sparked a permanent adoration for D’Oliveira

Steven Lynch28-Dec-2006I imagine that for most cricket lovers the favourite player is the one who catches the eye at an early age, when the game is just taking hold. Later on you can relish the thought of going to watch Brian Lara, or Shane Warne, or Andrew Flintoff, but you can never quite recapture the breathless excitement of the moment you got hooked.
I had noticed cricket on the television, watched some of it, asked my parents what was going on. But things changed when I was nine, in the summer of 1966. England were struggling against West Indies. They were messing about with selection. They chose three captains (bettered only by 1988, when they had four). But one of the new caps was a bit different: Basil Lewis D’Oliveira.”Dolly” was a romantic figure – tall, dark and handsome, but with an air of mystery. This stemmed from his past: I knew he had come over from South Africa because he wasn’t allowed to play there. My mother tried to explain why not, but it didn’t sink in. But what I did notice was probably my first technical observation (apart from wondering why Jim Parks used to crouch down to keep wicket with his arms outside his pads, unlike all the other keepers I’d seen): D’Oliveira had almost no back-lift.I was a martyr to tonsillitis at the time, which I suspect got worse when Tests were on, so I was able to follow D’Oliveira’s first series closely. He scored 27 at Lord’s before suffering a freakish run-out. But the shot that cemented Dolly’s place in the pantheon came in the fourth Test, when he smashed Wes Hall – the fastest bowler in the world at the time – straight back over his head for six.Much later I learned about the pressure D’Oliveira must have felt, representing millions of coloured South Africans. He had a few secrets. Unbeknown to the selectors, he could hardly throw the ball in the field after having smashed his arm in a car accident the previous winter. And then there was his age.Ah, yes, his age. When I found out about that, Dolly went up even higher in my youthful estimation. When he joined Worcestershire, he said he was born in 1934, which meant the England selectors thought he was a reasonably youthful 31 when they called him up. It was some time before he owned up. He had felt, probably rightly, that England would not have blooded someone approaching 35. Even that is not quite the end of the story. In his autobiography D’Oliveira wrote: “I can assure you I’m a little older than my birth certificate states… If you told me I was nearer 40 than 35 when I first played for England, I wouldn’t sue you for slander.” I always thought the Playfair Cricket Annual went a little too far in 1979, though, when it gave his year of birth as 1031.Dolly remained a fixture in the Test team for six years, until he was 41 (or 38, or 46, or possibly 941). For all that time he was the only player I really wanted to succeed. I was rewarded in 1970 when he made the first century I ever saw live (105 for Worcestershire against Surrey at the Oval, since you ask).Two years before that, he made another mark in cricket history by becoming the first Test player to speak to me. Nestled on the grass behind the boundary boards at the Oval on my first day of Test cricket in 1968 – sadly, a couple of days after D’Oliveira’s famous 158 at the ground – I was at first delighted, then rather alarmed, as Dolly lumbered towards me, chasing a ball to the boundary. He just failed to stop it, overran the ball, and carried on into the crowd, his boot spiking a neat hole in one of my lunchtime sandwiches as he did so. “Sorry, son,” he said as he returned to the field, leaving me even more in awe than before. I kept the evidence for ages, until my Mum threw away the star exhibit of my burgeoning cricket museum, saying it was turning green.Batting like D’Oliveira was never very likely, so for a while I tried to bowl like him: both arms swooping upwards just before delivery, then a rhythmical, circular sweep of the bowling arm. When he did it, it kept the runs down and broke partnerships at vital moments of Ashes series. My efforts were rather less spectacular, but they lasted longer than later attempts to bowl like Jeff Thomson.If things had been different, Dolly might have been pulverising bowlers for South Africa in the 1950s rather than doing wonders for England in the sixties. I began to have some idea of the hurdles he overcame just to play club cricket in England, never mind county or Test cricket. Throughout he seems to have remained the smiling, modest bloke who apologised when he stepped on my sandwiches. I do know now that off the field he liked a drink, sometimes got a bit loud, and that he didn’t cover himself with glory on his first tour with England, to the West Indies in 1968.But I don’t care. D’Oliveira’s place in history is secure: he was the man who, inadvertently, made the sporting world at large aware of what was wrong with apartheid. And he cemented one small boy’s love of cricket.

South Africa flirted with catastrophe in Tests, and lost the plot on the biggest stage in the limited-overs game

Telford Vice06-Jan-2008

A ship’s captain feels the need to rearrange the deck chairs even as his stricken vessel plummets into churning water; a man realises that the only way he is going to survive being pinned under a boulder is to hack off his trapped arm with a hunting knife. Impending catastrophe does different things to different people. South Africa’s problems in 2007 weren’t quite in the same league, but at times they must have sparked that brand of dread in certain quarters.For a start, the year was bookended by home Test defeats to India and West Indies. That put South Africa in danger of losing series to sides that had never won a Test in the country before. Pakistan followed India to the Republic, and again Graeme Smith’s team faced the ignominy of a home series loss. What with South Africa having lost rubbers at home to Australia and England in the two previous summers, the prospect of defeat against sides that had rarely challenged for series honours in the past rang loud alarms.South Africa managed to pull out of the nose-dive in time to earn 2-1 victories over their Asian opposition, but we don’t yet know how well they will recover from crashing to a loss in the first Test against West Indies. they managed to equalise against West Indies after a crushing loss in the first Test. But they could still lose the series.However, even the disappointment of a series defeat to the West Indians would
pale in comparison to the gloom that spread through the nation after the World
Cup in the Caribbean. Other countries’ supporters might have been satisfied with their teams bowing out at the semi-final stage, but not South Africa’s. Especially not after they threw away a winning position in their pool match against Australia and then somehow lurched to an infamous loss to Bangladesh in the Super Eights.Another beating by Australia in the semi-finals was almost assured, but few would have predicted the hiding that the South Africans endured. They spiralled to 27 for 5 on their way to a dismal total of 149 in which Shaun Tait and Glenn McGrath proved unplayable and claimed seven wickets between them. Australia cantered to victory by seven wickets and with 19.3 overs to spare.Emotionally bruised, Smith’s team returned home to face the repercussions of a leaked report by their fitness trainer that there was a culture of drinking in the squad. A second bombshell was the revelation that the team was riven by cliques, and that Smith himself was at the centre of the malaise.In August, Norman Arendse was elected president of Cricket South Africa, and in
some areas of the game the sharp intake of breath was almost palpable. Arendse, a senior counsel with a streetfighter’s instincts, is firmly rooted in the more progressive sector of cricket administration. “With the help of some hard life lessons I think I’m very well equipped for the challenges that cricket will bring,” Arendse said shortly after his election. “I hate exclusivity, I hate unfairness, I hate all those things that I wouldn’t
want to happen to me.”Jacques Kallis and Mark Boucher would surely agree with the latter sentiment. Kallis was left out of South Africa’s squad for the inaugural ICC World Twenty20 tournament, and when Boucher voiced his disapproval of that decision, he was docked 60 per cent of any match fees he would earn in the event. Kallis was originally told he was being rested. This after he had had three months of doing nothing much else besides play golf. Gradually it emerged that he was thought too slow a batsman for the Twenty20 format. Quite why he wasn’t given this reason first up remains a mystery.South Africa sailed through the tournament unbeaten, until their last group match, when they went down to India. The fact that they couldn’t muster the measly 126 runs in that match that would have put them in the semi-finals at New Zealand’s expense only added to the theory that they don’t know how to win when it matters. That longstanding idea was turned on its head on South Africa’s tour to Pakistan, though.Kallis returned to the team in triumph with centuries in both innings of the first Test, which South Africa won by 160 runs, and another in the drawn second Test. A thrilling one-day series reached the fifth and final match locked at 2-2.Herschelle Gibbs’ 54 and Kallis’ 86 bolstered South Africa’s total of 233 for 9, and Makhaya Ntini and Albie Morkel shared eight wickets to complete a 14-run win.An almost anti-climactic home series against New Zealand followed, in which
Shane Bond didn’t get out of the first Test in one piece and Dale Steyn sent
Craig Cumming home in several pieces on his way to taking 20 wickets in two
Tests. South Africa cruised to convincing victories in both matches.

New man on the block
Dale Steyn was rushed into Test cricket and he faltered. He returned a meaner,
keener bowler, and his 20 wickets against New Zealand were just reward.Fading star
Time was when Makhaya Ntini was bulletproof. That time has passed, and he now
appears increasingly as mortal as the rest of us. But at 30, there are several
good years left in that superbly conditioned body. Perhaps the real fading star
is Shaun Pollock, who found himself being eased out of the Test team in 2007.High point
Winning on the subcontinent is never simple, and South Africa will savour for
a long time yet their twin triumphs in Pakistan.Low point
The look in the eyes of a 23-year-old Durban student who had sold most of his
earthly possessions to finance his trip to the World Cup, as he surveyed the
damage wrought by Australia in the semi-final.What 2008 holds
Forget the home and away series against Bangladesh, the year brims with other,
far weightier challenges, in the shape of tours to India, England and Australia.

South Africa can proudly lay claim to having India’s number throughout the Motera Test

Jamie Alter in Ahmedabad05-Apr-2008

“This was the perfect Test match for us,” Graeme Smith said after the crushing win in Ahmedabad. “We dominated from the start.” Once South Africa grabbed the jugular, they never let go. It was startling in its routine, impressive in its results.Smith needed no second invitations to declare on an overnight 494 for 7 when he showed up at the Motera and saw a bit of cloud cover over a slightly damp pitch. That gave South Africa a huge platform from where to seal a 1-0 series lead and the manner in which they proceeded to do it was most clinical. Their energies were high all day, the bowlers never wavered from their plan, and the fielding was first-rate. South Africa never forgot the basics, contrary to India.Unlike on the manic first morning when sheer pace rattled a trigger-happy line-up, today was about mini-battles and outfoxing the batsmen. Virender Sehwag set about like a runaway caboose, hitting two sixes in Dale Steyn’s first over – perhaps for the first time in Test history – but did little to inspire hopes of a great escape. Makhaya Ntini saw that Sehwag was keen to pull the short stuff, and bowled a full one to take him out, lbw. Tick one to the brain-trust.That method set the tone for the rest. Steyn really turned it on against Wasim Jaffer, hitting lovely lengths and getting the ball to lift. Smith could’ve easily called back Steyn after Morne Morkel had just removed Rahul Dravid, but he gambled on Jacques Kallis and it worked like a charm. After being shaken up by Steyn, Jaffer was drawn into an overconfident drive against Kallis’ gentle medium-pace.Morkel’s dismissal of Dravid was also excellently schemed: pepper him with short deliveries while Ntini invited drives with a fuller length. Notice the sequence of deliveries before the wicket: short and kicking, fuller to draw him forward, back of a length, short on the body and then the quickest of all, banged in short for Dravid to edge to second slip.VVS Laxman dazzled with three early boundaries that almost took the breath away – a smooth off-drive, a caress off the back foot, and a soft-handed straight drive past the stumps – but stunning shots do not always a battle make, and he eventually fell to Morkel. Having just seen an edge fall short of second slip with a full delivery, Morkel pitched full and wide again to draw a fatal nick.Even when Sourav Ganguly and Mahendra Singh Dhoni delayed the inevitable
with a 110-run fifth-wicket partnership, South Africa didn’t wilt. The fielding remained athletic, the pacers ran in hard, and the lone spinner, Paul Harris, didn’t retreat after being thumped. Ganguly got an unlucky decision but Dhoni was also set up well: Ntini and Steyn pushed him further and further back, before Ntini slipped in a full one. Dhoni took the bait and fell hook, line and sinker for a near replica of his first-innings dismissal.Ntini’s performance in the subcontinent had been below-par compared to his career numbers, and with all the attention focused on Steyn he remained almost a phantom in Chennai. But today he followed up three huge wickets on day one with three more, netting Sehwag, Dhoni, and Sreesanth. He ran through short spell and long, irrespective of which end he was bowling from, and his captain was all praise. “It was a transition that Ntini needed to make as the leader of the pack, and he’s led by example. It was hard work for the bowlers today on a heavy outfield but he stuck to it. I’m proud of him.”

South Africa were also supreme in their ground fielding. AB de Villiers was excellent wherever he went, pulling off superb stop-and-flicks from short cover and even closer, but it was in the covers that he was sublime, like a ravenous hound after a hare. Even Hashim Amla, whose calm exterior and flowing beard betray a sage, saved plenty of runs with excellent dives up-close. The slip catching was top-draw, none better than Kallis’ blinder of a catch towards the end of the day, taken in front of his face as he fell backwards. It was in such examples that South Africa were leagues ahead of India.The visitors backed their instinct and it paid off superbly. “This is a very balanced side. We’ve had some tough tours of the subcontinent but we’re better for it. For the first time I have a bowling line-up that can do well out here and I’m most comfortable with this side,” was Smith’s assessment of his unit after the win.South Africa’s quest for a win began with a frenzied opening morning’s play and ended in the dying stages of an extended third day, and bar today’s second session, they can proudly lay claim to having India’s number the whole time. India were beaten in three days by an innings and 90 runs, the first at home since South Africa toured in 2000. This looks the best South African touring side and Smith has a lot to be proud of going to Kanpur.

He’s done the hard yards and bided his time; his chance may finally have arrived

Brydon Coverdale26-Feb-2009

When Australian cricket fans talk about the twelfth man it’s a fair
bet they’re referring to the comedian Billy Birmingham. Or maybe Andy
Bichel, who carried the drinks a record 19 times in Tests. Over the
past couple of years they might have been speaking of Ben Hilfenhaus,
who has been slowly chipping away at Bichel’s mark. Four times
Hilfenhaus has been called into Australia’s Test squad without getting
a game.The day before the Wanderers Test, Hilfenhaus was nervously waiting to
find out if it would be five from five. He was in the 12 and the
humid, cloudy conditions would suit his swing bowling but the whole
situation was frustratingly familiar. A round of golf – Hilfenhaus has
a useful handicap of seven – with the touring selector David Boon and
the coach Tim Nielsen didn’t shed any light on matters.”I’m really just looking forward to getting the first Test out of the
way and going from there,” Hilfenhaus said, hoping that moment would
come in Johannesburg. “Getting your baggy green is every kid’s dream.
I’d be really excited just to get that and hopefully if I do I’ll just
try and do everything I can to represent it well.”Since he first made it into a Test squad in November 2007 there have
been setbacks, notably back stress fractures that stopped him from
embarking on his first Test tour when Australia set off for the West
Indies last year. There have been disappointments as other fast men
such as Doug Bollinger and Peter Siddle overtook him in the pecking
order. Hilfenhaus didn’t complain. He’s not that sort of bloke.He worked as a labourer for a bricklayer when he first moved to Hobart
and then took on a different type of back-breaking toil when he sent
down 509 Sheffield Shield overs two years ago – nearly 200 more than
any other state fast bowler. It was a tally that led to concerns over
his workload and the worries only increased when his injury arrived
the following year to end his Caribbean dream.”In a way it was [frustrating],” Hilfenhaus said. “It’s very
disappointing when you get selected and you find out that you’re
injured. At the end of the season I actually didn’t feel that bad but
general check-up scans revealed otherwise. I probably see myself more
as a bloke who bowls a lot of overs. That’s a role that I enjoy.”Clearly Hilfenhaus knows a thing or two about hard work. He impressed
the coaches during his stay at the Centre of Excellence for being
prepared to tackle any problem head-on. When critics began to question
his ability to take wickets when the ball failed to swing away, he
went off and worked on some new tricks.”If you’ve only got one tool in your bag, you get a bit predictable,”
he said. “I’ve definitely worked on a few different things to counter
for that and hopefully have an answer when blokes start getting on
top. As well as the outswing I’m trying to develop one that goes in a
little bit or straightens. Just to keep them guessing a little bit.
There’s a couple of different slower balls that I’m working on.”

But for Hilfenhaus the outswinger is still king. The conditions in
Hobart usually help him bend the ball in the air and the humidity and
cloud cover in South Africa will do the same. Then of course there is
the Ashes tour later this year. A swing bowler who can hurl the ball
down with genuine speed could be a major weapon in England. If all
goes to plan, 2009 could be the making of Ben Hilfenhaus.If that turns out to be the case, it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
The son of a plumber from Ulverstone in country Tasmania, he calls his
father, Hans, “the old man” and would like it if he could be in South
Africa should a debut arise but thinks it’s a bit far to travel.
There’s not a hint of cockiness in Hilfenhaus, who speaks openly but
succinctly, with only the faintest trace of a rural Aussie drawl.”I still see myself as pretty laidback,” he said. “I don’t like to
over-analyse anything. Just enjoy my cricket and when I’m not playing
cricket I enjoy playing golf and spending time with my girlfriend.”That he has a girlfriend no doubt disappoints the women who snapped up
this year’s Men of Cricket calendar. Hilfenhaus, who wouldn’t look out
of place taking over from Hugh Jackman as the drover in the film
, features as Mr September and shows off a set of
muscles that would rival anyone in the Australian set-up.His mother, Lynette, was so happy with the charity production that she
gave the calendar pride of place in the family kitchen. It might have
to be moved aside if a photo of Ben in a baggy green becomes
available.

Nathan Hauritz became the sixth specialist spinner Australia have used in Tests this year and his chaotic first day at work highlighted how unpredictable life is for his type in this country

Brydon Coverdale at the Adelaide Oval28-Nov-2008

Nathan Hauritz became the sixth specialist spinner Australia have used in Tests this year and his chaotic first day at work highlighted how unpredictable life is for his type in this country. The nation’s leading slow bowlers don’t know where they stand within the haphazard selection policy, so it’s no wonder they serve up a pot-luck selection as well.Two days ago Hauritz was in Sydney, preparing to be 12th man for New South Wales for a second consecutive Sheffield Shield game. He finished his first day of Test cricket since 2004 with a fortunate pair of wickets and plenty of conceded runs and, to add to the drama, a sprained left ankle that kept him off the field for most of the final session but is unlikely to stop him bowling on the second day.Hauritz had played eight first-class matches in the past three years and it should not have been an enormous surprise that he struggled to find his rhythm. His initial over went for 17 as Aaron Redmond slog-swept a pair of sixes and it was a flashback to Jason Krejza’s first Test over in Nagpur. But Redmond is no Virender Sehwag and Hauritz is no Krejza. The former New South Wales team-mates are very different offspinners – the self-confident Krejza is a natural attacker who rips the ball viciously and tosses it up; the more conservative Hauritz feels safer with a flatter trajectory and a liking for arm-balls.Krejza’s aggression earned him 12 wickets on debut but a similar ankle injury has stopped him taking his place in Adelaide. The more defensive approach of Hauritz makes it tougher to collect huge hauls. After the high of his one Test in Mumbai four years ago, Hauritz experienced a first-class trough and inadvertently turned himself into a tight one-day specialist. It is a habit that is changing, but slowly.He grabbed two wickets on his return to Tests, although Jesse Ryder’s misplaced pull to midwicket was more batsman error than threatening bowling. As the day wore on, Hauritz gave the ball a little more air and a well-flighted delivery lured Redmond into holing out to deep midwicket. He also nearly had Peter Fulton, who played for the spin – Hauritz found very little turn all day – and edged to slip, where Matthew Hayden spilled a gettable chance.Gradually, Hauritz had started to feel more relaxed. But it’s hard to disguise the tension when you know that a demotion might be only a few days away. It’s a feeling that over the past few months has been familiar to Cameron White and Beau Casson, who were tried and discarded despite being the only slow bowlers with current Cricket Australia contracts. Hauritz said being called into the Test team when he was the No. 2 spinner at New South Wales behind the struggling Casson was unexpected.”It only takes a couple of wickets here and there to turn it around. He is a confidence player,” Hauritz said of his good friend Casson. “He has shown how good a bowler he is last year and in the West Indies.”Dan Cullen and Cullen Bailey, who had Cricket Australia deals two seasons ago, are playing grade cricket in Adelaide on the weekend as they have both slipped out of South Australia’s starting line-up. Bryce McGain, the Victoria legspinner, is also in Adelaide to watch the Test. McGain knows that but for a shoulder problem sustained in India, he could have been the slow man Ricky Ponting turned to against New Zealand instead of Hauritz.Injuries have played a part in the high attrition rate among spinners but the selectors’ tendency for quantity over quality has been just as much a factor. Their process is like that of a novice photographer – try enough angles and you’re bound to come up with one that works. Digital cameras have made poor photos easily disposable and Australian spinners are becoming just as expendable.”It was a strange chain of events, being 12th man last week and then being picked in this,” Hauritz said after finishing the day with 2 for 63. “It definitely took me a little while to work out what was all going on.”Team balance and a need to improve over-rates – one reason Hauritz bowled 16 overs on the first day of a Test – have prompted Ponting to call on the selectors to pick a slow bowler for 95% of Tests. The problem is the leading wicket-takers among spinners in the Sheffield Shield this year are the batting allrounders Marcus North and Aaron O’Brien.Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania regularly employ a quality seam attack backed by part-time spinners. It means the Australian selectors have been looking beyond the players making regular state appearances and that turns the selection process into a lucky dip. But rather than being worried about the disparity between state and national spin trends, Hauritz is simply happy opportunities are being presented.”You’ve got guys like Brad Hodge who’s scored 100,000 first-class runs but because our side is so strong he can’t make it,” Hauritz said. “But just for the fact that we’ve lost a guy who’s taken 700 Test wickets [Shane Warne] and Magilla [Stuart MacGill], we’re getting more opportunities as young spinners and we’re only going to develop as we get older.”However, Hauritz made the point that as a new man in the team he found it “pretty nerve-racking to start off”. If Australia cannot settle on a spinner and the revolving door stays in place, every Test they might have a man who takes a while to settle his nerves. Spinners thrive on being unpredictable and hard to read but it’s not something they need from their selectors.

Some have found the spotlight, some have found extensions to their career, the lesser known South African players talk about their IPL experience

Firdose Moonda20-May-2009It appears as though South Africa and the IPL have exchanged eternity rings. South Africa, the knight in rainbow-coloured armour, galloped to the tournament’s rescue when it searched for a new home. While not everyone in the country has embraced the IPL with loving arms, South Africa has presented some of its best cricketing crowds to the tournament.The IPL, in return, has gifted its temporary home with a brand of cricket it would never otherwise have had played on its soil, resurrected veterans such as Matthew Hayden, and provided the Twenty20 specialists such as Albie Morkel with a platform to perform. But the tournament’s greatest gift has been the birth of new stars such as Dirk Nannes and Shadab Jakati. More so the South Africans who were little known outside their country.One of those offspring has been 24-year old Roelof van der Merwe. The sturdily built left-arm spinner made his mark during South Africa’s ODI series against Australia in April. He played in four matches and took eight wickets at an average of 18.62. That, and his superb domestic form, earned him a place with the Royal Challengers Bangalore.van der Merwe has had two dream seasons for his domestic franchise, Titans. In 2007-08 he was the third-highest wicket-taker in the domestic Twenty20s, with 13 wickets at an average of 13.92, and received the Player-of-the-Year award. He also took away the Domestic Championship (45-over competition) Player-of-the-Year and Newcomer-of-the-Year awards.He followed that up with 30 wickets, at an average of 13.96, 14 more wickets than any other bowler in the 45-over competition in 2008-09. He has also been selected for South Africa’s World Twenty20 squad. van der Merwe regards his stint with the IPL as the best preparation for that tournament. “Being in a side with a lot of South Africans has meant we have a similar work ethic to the national side, so that’s going to be handy ahead of the World Twenty20,” he says.While he credits his dogged domestic determination for launching his career, he admits that the IPL will thrust him further into the spotlight. “Given the size of the spectacle, and the money involved, if you’re not already on the map, it will certainly put you there. And if you are on the map and do well, I can see it being a big advantage.”Dillon du Preez, who also plays with Bangalore, is hoping the event will bestow on him some of the benefits van der Merwe has experienced. du Preez originally played for the Eagles, but signed as a Kolpak player for Leicestershire in March last year and played a season in England. This year it all went bust.”I haven’t been able to secure a work permit for this season, so I won’t be going back,” he says. “At the same time, I still desperately want to play for South Africa, but given the calibre of players in the set-up it seems almost impossible.”He isn’t rolling over and playing dead just yet, and bared his eagle talons in his debut IPL match, taking two wickets in two balls of his first over, including that of Sachin Tendulkar. He also claimed JP Duminy in that match. Even though his future hangs by a filament, he doesn’t want to rely on the IPL to relaunch his career, and is trying to enjoy it as an isolated experience. “I am really enjoying being in the same change room as guys like Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid – and even Kevin Pietersen,” he says. “The only complaint I have is that I have probably had enough of Indian food for a while. I went for a steak the other night and it was beautiful.”

“Given the size of the spectacle, and the money involved, if you’re not already on the map, it will certainly put you there. And if you are on the map and do well, I can see it being a big advantage”Roelof van der Merwe

Over in the Kolkata Knight Riders side, Morne van Wyk views the event as an extension, and possibly a resurrection, of his career. “There are two things I would still really like to do in my cricketing career: play Twenty20 and ODI cricket for South Africa, and I would like to have a county stint,” van Wyk says. “But whether the IPL will pave the way for that, I can’t say, although I hope it will.”van Wyk, an Eagles opening batsman and wicketkeeper, is a seasoned campaigner and was the highest run-scorer in this year’s domestic competition, with 269 runs at an average of 38.42. Unlike some of the other South African players, who have been grateful the tournament has allowed them to spend time at home, van Wyk says he is looking forward to spending six weeks in India next year. “I was contracted on the day of the auction, long before it was announced that the tournament was coming to South Africa, and I was gearing up to play in India,” he says. “I was really looking forward to crowds of 70,000 or 80,000, the kind we never see at home.”van Wyk seems to see the half full glass in every situation and speaks of Kolkata Knight Riders’ failure without too much disappointment. “We all came into this tournament with high hopes and let our imaginations run wild about how well the team would do,” he says. “To be honest, it’s felt like being in a boxing match most of the time: we work hard and we’re up and ready to go, and then we keep getting knocked down. But it hasn’t been terrible. The real make-up of people is tested when disaster hits, and we have had no bust-ups, which is a credit to the calibre of players and management we have.”While he does hope the tournament will provide a much needed career injection, he is also blissfully soaking up the Bollywood-ness of being part of the most glamorous franchise. “I didn’t know anything about Shah Rukh Khan before this, and when I met him I thought he would be like any other celebrity. It’s been a real eye-opener to meet a man who is powerful yet so humble. He really did take the time to speak to all the players, not just a small chat, but really spent time getting to know us all. He calls himself our big brother, and he really is.”While most of the South African players in the IPL view the tournament by what they can take out of it, some are looking at things a little differently. Charl Langeveldt, also with Kolkata, says, “This is not about what value I am getting from them, but what value they are getting from me. I’ve brought lots of local knowledge and bowling experience to the side.” It has puzzled most that Langeveldt, who was the local Pro20 competition’s highest wicket-taker, with 16 wickets at an average of 13.31, has not played, particularly given the success of another local swing bowler, Yusuf Abdulla. That doesn’t seem to bother Langeveldt much, who shrugged off being left out of the starting XI and said, “The balance of the side is not quite right, which is the reason I will not play.”Morne van Wyk has had his fill of superstars, both cricket and Bollywood•AFPOne who is not laughing off being a paid spectator is Tyron Henderson. With the most wickets in Twenty20’s short history to date, a total of 75 at an average of 21.41, it’s similarly mind-boggling that he is sidelined. “I was initially bought because with the tournament in India they thought I could do a job with the ball, given the conditions,” Henderson says. “But now with Smith and Warne already occupying two of the four positions for internationals, there’s only two left, and unfortunately I’ve been the one who has had to sit out.”Even though he has been forced to warm the dugout, Henderson’s record in the game speaks for itself. In the 2008 Twenty20 Cup he scored 281 runs at 40.14 and took 21 wickets at 16.61 for Middlesex. He thinks this format of the game has given his career new legs, and allowed him to keep playing when he might otherwise have retired. “I’ll be playing in three different competitions: from here, I’m going to Middlesex, then I’ll come back home to play for the Titans in the Pro20 domestic competition and then back to the IPL. So, in a way this has allowed me to become a specialist Twenty20 player and given me a longer career.”Henderson has been serenaded by the IPL because it has given him the opportunity to eke out that extra bit of cricket, while most of the other South Africans’ love affair with the tournament has been sealed because it has allowed them to live some of their dreams. du Preez summed it up perfectly: “It’s really been something wow.”

Tendulkar the cricketer seemingly emerged fully formed when he first picked up a bat. So too perhaps did Tendulkar the luminary

Rahul Bhattacharya14-Nov-2009Sachin Tendulkar comes to the ground in headphones. He might make a racket in the privacy of the bus, who knows, but when he steps out he is behind headphones. Waiting to bat he is behind his helmet. The arena is swinging already to the chant, “Sachin, Sachin”, the first long and pleading, the second urgent and demanding, but Tendulkar is oblivious, behind his helmet.At the fall of the second wicket, that familiar traitorous roar goes round the stadium, at which point Tendulkar walks his slow walk out, golden in the sun, bat tucked under the elbow. The gloves he will only begin to wear when he approaches the infield, to busy himself against distraction from the opposition. Before Tendulkar has even taken guard, you know that his quest is equilibrium.As he bats his effort is compared in real time with earlier ones. Tendulkar provides his own context. The conditions, the bowling attack, his tempo, his very vibe, is assessed against an innings played before. If the strokes are flowing, spectators feel something beyond pleasure. They feel something like gratitude. The silence that greets his dismissal is about the loudest sound in sport. With Tendulkar the discussion is not how he got out, but why. Susceptible to left-arm spin? To the inswinger? To the big occasion? The issue is not about whether it was good or not, but where does it ? A Tendulkar innings is never over when it is over. It is simply a basis for negotiation. He might be behind headphones or helmet, but outside people are talking, shouting, fighting, conceding, bargaining, waiting. He is a national habit.But Tendulkar goes on. This is his achievement, to live the life of Tendulkar. To occupy the space where fame and accomplishment intersect, akin to the concentrated spot under a magnifying glass trained in the sun, and remain unburnt.”Sachin is God” is the popular analogy. Yet god may smile as disease, fire, flood and Sreesanth visit the earth, and expect no fall in stock. For Tendulkar the margin for error is rather less. The late Naren Tamhane was merely setting out the expectation for a career when he remarked as selector, “Gentlemen, Tendulkar never fails.” The question was whether to pick the boy to face Imran, Wasim, Waqar and Qadir in Pakistan. Tendulkar was then 16.Sixteen and so ready that precocity is too mild a word. He made refinements, of course, but the marvel of Tendulkar is that he was a finished thing almost as soon as began playing.The of Bombay are dotted with tots six or seven years old turning out for their coaching classes. But till the age of 11, Tendulkar had not played with a cricket ball. It had been tennis- or rubber-ball games at Sahitya Sahwas, the writers’ co-operative housing society where he grew up, the youngest of four cricket-mad siblings by a distance. The circumstances were helpful. In his colony friends he had playmates, and from his siblings, Ajit in particular, one above Sachin but older by 11 years, he had mentorship.It was Ajit who took him to Ramakant Achrekar, and the venerable coach inquired if the boy was accustomed to playing with a “season ball” as it is known in India. The answer did not matter. Once he had a look at him, Achrekar slotted him at No. 4, a position he would occupy almost unbroken through his first-class career. In his first two matches under Achrekar Sir, he made zero and zero.Memory obscures telling details in the dizzying rise thereafter. Everybody remembers the 326 not out in the 664-run gig with Kambli. Few remember the 346 not out in the following game, the trophy final. Everyone knows the centuries on debut in the Ranji Trophy and Irani Trophy at 15 and 16. Few know that he got them in the face of a collapse in the first instance and virtually out of partners in the second. Everyone knows his nose was bloodied by Waqar Younis in that first Test series, upon which he waved away assistance. Few remember that he struck the next ball for four.This was Tendulkar five years after he’d first handled a cricket ball.Genius, they say, is infinite patience. But it is first of all an intuitive grasp of something beyond the scope of will – or, for that matter, skill. In sportspersons it is a freakishness of the motor senses, even a kind of ESP.

The wonder is that in the years between he has done nothing to sully his innocence, nothing to deaden the impish joy, nothing to disrupt the infinite patience or damage the immaculate equilibrium through the riot of his life and career

Tendulkar’s genius can be glimpsed without him actually holding a bat. Not Garry Sobers’ equal with the ball, he is nevertheless possessed of a similar versatility. He swings it both ways, a talent that eludes several specialists. He not only rips big legbreaks but also lands his googlies right, a task beyond some wrist spinners. Naturally he also bowls offspin, usually to left-handers and sometimes during a spell of wrist spin. In the field he mans the slips as capably as he does deep third man, and does both in a single one-dayer. Playing table tennis he is ambidextrous. By all accounts he is a brilliant, if hair-raising, driver. He is a champion Snake player on the cellphone, according to Harbhajan Singh, whom he also taught a spin variation.His batting is of a sophistication that defies generalisation. He can be destroyer or preserver. Observers have tried to graph these phases into a career progression. But it is ultimately a futile quest for Tendulkar’s calibrations are too minute and too many to obey compartmentalisation. Given conditions, given his fitness, his state of mind, he might put away a certain shot altogether, and one thinks it is a part of his game that has died, till he pulls it out again when the time is right, sometimes years afterwards. Let alone a career, in the space of a single session he can, according to the state of the rough or the wind or the rhythm of a particular bowler, go from predatorial to dead bat or vice versa.Nothing frustrates Indians as much as quiet periods from Tendulkar, and indeed often they are self-defeating. But outsiders have no access to his thoughts. However eccentric, they are based on a heightened cricket logic rather than mood. Moods are irrelevant to Tendulkar. Brian Lara or Mohammad Azharuddin might be stirred into artistic rage. Tendulkar is a servant of the game. He does not play out of indignation nor for indulgence. His aim is not domination but runs. It is the nature of his genius.The genius still doesn’t explain the cricket world’s enchantment with Tendulkar. Ricky Ponting and Jacques Kallis are arguably not lesser cricketers than he, but have nothing like his following or presence. Among contemporaries only Shane Warne could draw an entire stadium’s energy towards himself, but then Warne worked elaborately towards this end. Tendulkar on the pitch is as uncalculated as Warne was deliberate. Warne worked the moments before each delivery like an emcee at a title fight. Tendulkar goes through a series of ungainly nods and crotch adjustments. Batting, his movements are neither flamboyant nor languid; they are contained, efficient. Utility is his concern. Having hit the crispest shot between the fielders he can still be found scurrying down the wicket, just in case.Likewise, outside the pitch nothing he does calls up attention. In this he is not unusual for the times. It has been, proved by exceptions of course, the era of the undemonstrative champion. Ali, Connors, McEnroe, Maradona have given way to Sampras, Woods, Zidane, Federer, who must contend with the madness of modern media and sanitisation of corporate obligation.Maybe Tendulkar the superstar, like Tendulkar the cricketer, was formed at inception. Then, as now, he is darling. He wears the big McEnroe-inspired curls of his youth in a short crop, but still possesses the cherub’s smile and twinkle. Perhaps uniquely, he is granted not the sportstar’s indulgence of perma-adolescence but that of perma-childhood. A man-child on the field: maybe it is the dichotomy that is winning. The wonder is that in the years between he has done nothing to sully his innocence, nothing to deaden the impish joy, nothing to disrupt the infinite patience or damage the immaculate equilibrium through the riot of his life and career.

Plays of the day from game four of the Asia Cup, between India and Pakistan

Siddarth Ravindran in Dambulla19-Jun-2010Some familiar refrains
There aren’t too many Indian or Pakistani expats in central Sri Lanka, and
the agricultural town of Dambulla doesn’t have the drawing power to pull
in too many tourists, which meant the stadium was only half-full even for
Saturday’s much-anticipated contest. Still, a smattering of Hindi could be
heard in the stands and there were plenty of Indian flags about. The
chants of ‘India, India’ and , which are crowd
favourites during matches in India, were frequently shouted and a Sri
Lankan band even belted out a boisterous rendition of a popular
Tamil song from 2002.The Gambhir and Akmal debating society
It had been a mostly good-tempered match, without much of the animosity of old, till the last ball of the 34th over during the chase. That was when Kamran Akmal pleaded insistently for a catch off Gautam Gambhir’s bat, an appeal which was rightly turned down. Soon, the pair were
exchanging words and MS Dhoni had to drag Gambhir away. The drinks break followed, and there was another round of getting in each others’ faces before the umpires broke off the tussle.Shot of the day
A no-contest this – Harbhajan Singh’s heave over midwicket to clinch the
nailbiter off the penultimate delivery. It was the end of a mixed innings
from Harbhajan; two crucial sixes but six dot balls towards the end with
no deliveries to waste. A few moments earlier, a crestfallen Suresh Raina
had walked off the field, run out by inches, and he was the first one out
to hug an enthusiastically celebrating Harbhajan.Afridi starts in a jiffy
One of the biggest cheers during the Pakistan innings was for the entry of
their captain Shahid Afridi. The fans with the ‘Boom, boom’ posters didn’t
have to wait long to see their hero doing what they had come to see. The
fourth ball he faced was lashed down the ground for four, and the next was
pummelled to the sightscreen to bring up the first six of the match.No slip-ups in the cordon
There was a general improvement in India’s fielding, no where more so than
in the slips. First, Virender Sehwag plucked a sharp one-handed catch to
his right to end Imran Farhat’s struggle. But that was outdone by a blinder
from Virat Kohli at first slip – newcomer Umar Amin chopped Harbhajan
Singh towards first slip, where Kohli threw himself to his left and
latched onto to another one-handed catch.Running wild
India’s smart fielding accounted for two other wickets as well. Salman
Butt was marching towards yet another century against one of his favourite
opponents, when he punched the ball towards mid-off. He set off for a single
but the bowler, Ravindra Jadeja, dived to his right to field and threw the ball to the keeper to end Butt’s stay at 74. Later, a rare Indian direct hit got rid of Mohammad Aamer.The wicketkeeper delivers
Kamran Akmal had already shown his value as batsman with a hard-hitting half-century. His wicketkeeping skills were under the scanner yet again, though, when he fluffed an outside edge from Rohit Sharma off Shoaib Akhtar. He redeemed himself in the final over when he was on target with an underarm throw that caught Suresh Raina short when the batsman was trying to nick a bye.

The story of Haryana’s determined effort to excel in Super League

Sriram Veera21-Dec-2010Haryana might never have been a strong team, but they gave us one of the most enduring Ranji Trophy images of all time. In 1991, their year of glory under Kapil Dev, Mumbai’s Dilip Vengsarkar left the field in tears in an intensely fought final. It captured the fierce desire of Mumbai for Ranji success, and also reflected a wonderful moment of rare success for an unfancied team. Haryana have never entered another final again.For years now, they have been wallowing in the middle rung in the domestic circuit. The 2000s decade twice dragged them down to the Plate League, but they re-entered the Super League last year, and have reached the quarter-finals this year. Hope floats.Ashwini Kumar, the coach, is understandably cautious, and modestly ambitious. “We need to stay in the Super League for 3-4 years continuously, gain experience, mature as players and go from strength to strength. Bigger goals can wait. If you keep improving yourself each season, the results will take care of themselves.”Ashwini looks back at the early part of the decade as a rebuilding phase. “Chetan Sharma, Ajay Jadeja, Amarjeet Kaypee all had quit, the experience was thin and a new team was being built.” Haryana were Under-19 champions around 2000. Camps were held across districts, talent hunts were done and the feeder system was beginning to slowly churn out the players.Meanwhile, at the Ranji level, the team was slipping. Amit Mishra, their current captain, sees it as an absence of confidence due of a lack of talent and big players. “It was bound to show on field but we started to turn around things in the last three years. The talent came in, and it was a great feeling last year to get out of the Plate League.”The motivation to remain in the Super League is obvious enough; your performances here are noted. As Mishra says, “Plate (There is not much weightage given to Plate performances). The boys know the importance of staying and doing well in Super”.This season, as witnessed in matches held in North India, the seamers, led by Joginder Sharma, have propelled Haryana. Joginder, fated to be remembered forever for a solitary ball of fame that won India the Twenty20 World Cup, has been on a comeback trail since his shoulder surgery in 2007-08 put him out of action in the next season. “I was struggling for the last two years but I felt fully fit at the start of this season. When I came to the pre-season camp, I was inspired by the hard work put in by the young team-mates and told myself that I have to lead from the front this year.” With 29 wickets, Joginder is the joint-third highest wicket-taker this Ranji season across all teams. The seniors have done well in the past as well: Haryana have three bowlers who have taken hat-tricks – Joginder Sharma, Amit Mishra, and Dhruv Singh – and possess one triple centurion in Sunny Singh.At 27, Joginder finds himself, along with Hemang Badani and Mishra, one of the seniors in this young team. “I am desperate to do well and bring back the name of Haryana. It’s not about winning the Ranji Trophy but being a part of growth. We seniors told the boys that Super League is not something to be fearful about. The skills are the same here. Don’t worry about the reputation of the opposition player; just do your thing. The results are there as you can see.” It’s a sentiment that seems to be prevalent in the think-tank. The coach, the captain and the seniors share that thought and the younger players have responded.Badani came in as a professional this year and has led from the front with 374 runs, just 11 runs short of the top-scorer Nitin Saini. He top-scored on difficult tracks against Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka and proved his worth. ” I came in with an open mind. It was a chance to come back to first-class cricket after playing in ICL. It was a nice opportunity to play with a side with young guys and try to qualify for knockouts; it’s very heartening that we have done that. Coming from Chennai, it was a different experience playing in these seaming tracks here, We have a great bunch of guys who are keen to do well; it has been a very refreshing experience.” According to Joginder, the young batsmen have learnt a lot from Badani.The first challenge came against Himachal Pradesh when they were asked to bat on a pitch that had something for the seamers. Haryana responded by scoring 316, led by Badani’s 65, before bowling out Himachal for a handsome lead. Ashwini sees it as a sign of his batsmen getting better against seamers because of the practice against their own bowlers on such pitches. They turned up the heat against the stronger teams like Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh as well. UP chose to bat but folded for 167 and Haryana gained a 105-run lead before Joginder grabbed a six-for to steamroll UP for 174 in the second. Mishra looks at that win as a great confidence booster. “That game made everyone feel that they not only belong here at this level but that they can excel.”A semi-final spot beckons if they can go past Tamil Nadu, and even if they don’t, their future in the Super League looks secure. Ashwini, as ever, likes to keep it simple. “It will all depend on how hard the boys continue to work.” It might seem a cliché but in the end, everything does depend on that. Haryana don’t want to look at the stars; they just want to walk on the ground. It seems a sensible move. Perhaps, one day not in the distant future, they might provide us with another memorable Ranji moment.