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A round-up of the fifth round of games in South Africa’s domestic SuperSport Series, with wins for the Titans and the Cobras, a double-ton by JP Duminy, and a century by Albie Morkel

Firdose Moonda19-Dec-2010Rain didn’t only have a say in the Test match between South Africa and India at SuperSport Park in Centurion, but in the SuperSport series too. The first day of the matches between the Knights and the Warriors in East London, and the Cobras and the Dolphins in Paarl were washed out. The Lions and the Titans were the only teams that played on all four days. All three fixtures saw players on the fringes of the South Africa side record good performances.The Cobras slotted into second place with an innings-and-166-run victory over the Dolphins in Paarl. Play got underway on day two after a wet first day and the Dolphins chose to field, hoping to get some assistance from the overcast conditions. The going was tough for the Cobras openers. Alistair Gray took 199 balls to make his 57 runs but he and Andrew Puttick laid a solid platform for the middle order to launch from.Owais Shah made just 20 but Justin Ontong and JP Duminy cashed in. Ontong has been having a quietly successful season and scored 127. Duminy made his claim for national selection as loudly as he could. He became the second batsman to score an unbeaten double-century this weekend (Jacques Kallis being the other) in the country. Duminy’s 200 not out came off just 201 balls as the Cobras declared on 515 for 5. None of the Dolphins bowlers stood out. Imran Tahir, the highest wicket-taker this season, missed the match because of a back injury. Fellow legspinner Keshav Maharaj was the most successful bowler with 4 for 214.The Dolphins had a shocker in reply and were bowled out for 99. Vaughn van Jaarsveld was their highest scoring batsman and scored just 23. Cobras seamer Vernon Philander finished with figures of 4 for 33. With a 416-run deficit, the Dolphins were made to follow on and fared only a little better in their second outing. Van Jaarsveld scored 57 and Ravi Bopara made 74, but the Dolphins line-up left a lot to be desired. Philander’s three second-innings wickets left him with seven for the match.The Titans stamped their authority on the top of the table with a four-wicket win over the Lions in Potchefstroom. The Titans batted first and found themselves in trouble early on, at 57 for 3, but were rescued in magnificent fashion. Titans wicketkeeper Heino Kuhn scored 92 and Albie Morkel made an impressive return to form with 182 runs. Opener Pieter Malan, legspinner Shaun von Berg and seamer Gerhardus Viljoen also made half centuries and the Titans were bowled out for 513. The Lions spinners were the only ones who enjoyed success with Werner Coetsee and Dale Deeb sharing six wickets between them.Coetsee also starred with the bat in the Lions first innings. He put on 166 runs for the fifth wicket with Zander de Bruyn, who scored 109. The Lions were bowled out for 352, giving the Titans a 161-run lead, which allowed them to enforce the follow-on. The Lions were bowled out in their second innings for two more runs than they were in the first. Neil McKenzie’s 130 was the only century of their second innings with Jean Symes’ 43 the next highest score. Von Berg’s 4 for 130 and Viljoen’s 3 for 50 were the best figures for the Titans as they were set a target of 194 to win.Fast bowler Friedel de Wet was the biggest threat to the Titans getting there. He took the first three Titans wickets to reduce them to 72 for 3. Jacques Rudolph’s 60 had a calming effect on a line-up that was losing wickets quickly. Coetsee, Deeb and seamer Craig Alexander took a wicket apiece and even though the Titans were being pegged back, Morkel and von Berg took them to victory. The Lions have dropped from second to third in the table after the result.In East London, the Knights and the Warriors drew after two high-scoring first innings. Warriors fast bowler Wayne Parnell ripped through the Knights top three and reduced them to 65 for 3 in the ninth over. Centuries from Ryan Bailey and Morne van Wyk, who shared a 236-run fifth wicket partnership, took the Knights to a respectable 430 for 8 declared. van Wyk carried over his superb form from the MTN40 tournament and ended on 150 not out.The Warriors had few problems in their innings, with the top five all making healthy contributions. Wicketkeeper Arno Jacobs was one of two centurions after scoring 110. Kelly Smuts was unbeaten on 100 at the end of the match. The captains shook hands on a draw after he reached his century. The Warriors were on 499 for 5 and were ahead by 69 runs.Batsman of the week: For making the national selectors sit up and take notice of his desire to get back into the Test arena, JP Duminy’s 200 not out earns him the award.Bowler of the week: Vernon Philander’s match-haul of 7 for 73 against the Dolphins lifts him to third in the bowling charts with 23 wickets. He has the best average out of the top ten bowlers.

The 2011 World Cup’s format was designed keeping in mind the commercial significance of the top teams making it to the knock-out stages

ESPNcricinfo staff09-Feb-2011The format for the 2011 World Cup was designed to give the top teams the best chance of qualifying for the knockout stage, tournament director Ratnakar Shetty has said.”Economically, we all know that India is the financial powerhouse of cricket,” Shetty said in an interview with . “The exit of India and Pakistan from the 2007 World Cup was a disaster for the tournament. The sponsors, broadcasters, tour operators, West Indies board – all lost a lot of money. The format was changed in such a way that it gives all the top teams a chance to compete. We have gone back to the same format that was used in 1996.”Shetty was satisfied with the improvements at the Wankhede Stadium, one of the four World Cup venues that were running behind schedule. Talking about the Eden Gardens fiasco, he said the BCCI and ICC could not have averted the situation by being more involved. “Unlike in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh where the Boards run the show completely, in India, the BCCI doesn’t run daily cricket. In our case, the stadia are completely managed by the state associations. The ICC has documented the progress of each venue. The BCCI monitored the reports of the venue, but to ensure that the work is completed was the responsibility of the state association.”Apart from security, Shetty identified filling up Indian grounds for non-India matches as the biggest organisational challenge posed by the tournament. “We have directed all the state associations to throw the gates open to the school children to enjoy a good day out. The tickets have been very reasonably priced too. The ICC is running a lot of contests, and free tickets will be issued to the contest winners, so in our capacity we are doing the best to ensure that the stadia will not see empty stands.”Shetty also stressed that the Indian board made a conscious effort to make the Indian grounds more spectator friendly, something that hasn’t been a concern in the past. “To a large extent, the BCCI have taken the spectators for granted, because irrespective of who India plays, the crowds turn up,” he said. “There was a serious discussion in the board to make the stadiums spectator-friendly. We didn’t want to go by just the numbers. Wankhede’s capacity could have been increased, but we have reduced it from 45,000 to 32,000. Similarly the Eden Gardens capacity has been reduced to 65,000. There is more space between the seats.”The toilet facilities, food courts and the media facilities have all been given a massive facelift, so I am sure people will not complain this time. The IPL has brought a lot of female fans to cricket. Female following has tremendously increased, so we have taken all this into account before redeveloping the stadia.”

Round-up of the second day’s play in the third round of matches of the Faysal bank Pentangular Cup

ESPNcricinfo staff26-Feb-2011Resuming on their overnight score of 64 for 3, after a rain-curtailed day one, Federal Areas were propelled to 315 for 6 in their Faysal Bank Pentangular Cup match against Punjab at the Lahore City Cricket Association Ground, thanks to a hard-working 133 from opener Umair Khan. None of the Punjab bowlers were able to get rid of Khan, who finally conceded his wicket through a run-out. Hammad Azam (45) helped Khan put Federal Areas in a commanding position, with the pair putting together a vital 99-run partnership for the fifth wicket after Mohammad Khalil picked up two wickets to leave Federal Areas at a tricky 108 for 4. Imad Wasim (38*) and Jamal Anwar (13*) were at the crease at stumps.Baluchistan’s innings folded on 279 courtesy a four-wicket haul by legspinner Yasir Shah in their match against Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province at the Gaddafi Stadium. Shah was backed-up by medium pacer Nauman Habib who picked up three wickets. Sohaib Maqsood was the only contributor with the bat for Baluchistan, scoring 87. The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa innings did not begin well, with three of their top four batsmen gone before the scoreboard read 20, with Nazar Hussain picking up two wickets. Adnan Raees (51*) strung together a half-century partnership with Aftab Alam, but Alam was dismissed just prior to stumps to leave Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa 87 for 4. Baluchistan currently top the tournament’s points table.

The Board of Directors of the West Indies Cricket Board will meet on Friday and Saturday in Antigua to review the Draft Strategic Plan for 2011-2016

ESPNcricinfo staff25-Mar-2011The board of directors of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) will meet on Friday and Saturday in Antigua to review the Draft Strategic Plan for 2011-2016 which was prepared by the WICB management. The plan will be evaluated by WICB president Julian Hunte, vice-president Whycliffe Cameron and the board directors. Other key issues that will be discussed include the draft Schedule of Cricket for 2011-2012 and the Event Memorandum of Understanding between the WICB and Territorial Boards.The Umpires Pathway document along with a programme for improving the existing skills of ground and pitch curators across the region, the WICB Anti-Doping and Anti-Corruption codes and the Communications and Public Relations Policy are all likely to come up for discussion and approval. The Scotiabank Kiddy Cricket and Digicel Grassroots Cricket programmes targeting youth development will be presented.The WICB will also host its Annual General Meeting on Sunday at the same venue.

Graham Gooch, England’s batting coach, believes that the current squad has the character and ability to go one better than the teams he was involved with during his playing days

ESPNcricinfo staff21-Mar-2011Graham Gooch, England’s batting coach, believes that the current squad has the character and ability to go one better than the teams he was involved with during his playing days, and lift the World Cup for the first time in the country’s history.Gooch played in three World Cups in the course of his 20-year England career, but lost in the final on each occasion – against West Indies at Lord’s in 1979, against Australia at Eden Gardens in 1987, and most gallingly of all, against Pakistan at Melbourne in 1992, when he was captain.”Winning a World Cup didn’t happen for me,” Gooch told reporters ahead of the team’s flight to Colombo for their quarter-final against Sri Lanka. “But it’s a great honour to be involved with the England side. When you come up as a youngster you dream about playing for your country. I was fortunate enough to do that – and now to be asked to help other players, who are representing their country, is a great thrill.”But as part of the management structure of the class of 2011, Gooch believes that the players who scraped into the quarter-finals are battle-hardened and ready to raise their games in the knockout stages of the tournament. The very fact that they had to fight so hard to escape from a tough Group B will, he feels, be to their advantage.”They’ve shown their fighting qualities and their resilience,” he said. “The objective was to get into the knockout stages. We’ve made that, we’ve scraped through, and we’re not going to look back. We’re going to look forward to the next challenge. I hope this team have got it within them to win the World Cup – and I’m convinced they have.””We know we can improve, we know we’ve got better cricket within our team. Our guys need to concentrate on that,” he added. “Each individual has got to commit to his game to be part of our team framework for the big match. We can get better, and if we do we have as good a chance as anyone else.”Often, success in World Cups is as much about peaking at the right moment as it is about sheer quality, as Gooch himself knows only too well, after his team set the standard for the 1992 tournament, only to run out of steam just as Pakistan were hitting their best form ahead of the final. Likewise, Australia had to overcome a dreadful start to their campaign in 1999, before sealing the title with a run of seven unbeaten matches in a row.Having shaded West Indies by 18 runs in Chennai, England’s challenge is now to win three games in a row, starting with Saturday’s showdown in Colombo. And before that match gets underway, there are plenty of selection posers for Andy Flower and Andrew Strauss to consider, among them Ian Bell’s potential shift up the batting order in place of Matt Prior.”Having opened the batting myself, I think it’s a special place to play – and I think every batsman should aspire to open the batting in one-day cricket,” said Gooch. “Why wouldn’t you want 50 overs to bat? Why would you want to come in halfway down? You want to set the tone. You want to set up the game. If you open the batting in one-day cricket, you have a chance to make a mark and set the direction of your team.”Either way, Gooch insisted that England would not be panicked into wholesale changes. “You look at each game individually,” he added. “Our batting fired in the early matches, then we’ve been short of a few runs on lower-scoring pitches in exciting games. We just need to get that quantity of runs to be competitive. Andy Flower and Andrew Strauss will look at the batting order, once we’ve seen the conditions, and decide what’s our best way forward.”

The first edition of the Sri Lanka Premier League will be a seven-team inter-provincial tournament played over approximately 18 days at the end of July and the beginning of August this year at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo

Tariq Engineer08-May-2011The first edition of the Sri Lanka Premier League (SLPL) will be a seven-team inter-provincial tournament played over approximately 18 days at the end of July and the beginning of August this year. The teams will play each other once, with the top four teams qualifying for the semi-finals. All the games will be played the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo and the winner of the tournament will qualify for the Champions League Twenty20.ESPNcricinfo has learnt that the seven provinces that will be represented are Basnahira, Kandurata, Nagenahira, Ruhuna, Uthura, Uva and Wayamba. Sri Lanka Cricket will select the players for each team, with domestic players likely to be allotted to their home provinces, thereby ensuring the teams have local support.Each team will have a mix of Sri Lanka and international players with total squad sizes between 16 and 18 players. The playing XI must consist of a minimum of seven Sri Lanka players and a maximum of four international players, with one Sri Lanka player being a current Under-21 cricketer. Each team will also have its share of icon or marquee players, as well as a prominent ex-Sri Lanka player as a mentor or coach.International players will also be assigned to the various teams by the SLC national selection committee depending on the needs of each team. In this respect, SLC’s approach differs from the IPL, in which teams were sold to franchises who then bid for players in an auction. Among the international players who will be taking part are Kieron Pollard, Chris Gayle, Shahid Afridi, Daniel Vettori, Daniel Christian, Herschelle Gibbs and Kevin O’Brien.The SLPL has also approached a number of Indian players apart from those likely to be playing the Test series against England, and is waiting for the BCCI to approve their participation. The BCCI has already stated it has no problems with the proposed league and that Indian players are free to take part as long as there is no conflict with India’s international or domestic schedule.The league will be run by the Singapore-based Somerset Entertainment, which has bought the rights for five years. The television rights for the tournament have already been sold in Sri Lanka and the goal is to broadcast the tournament across all mediums in every cricketing nation. The matches will be played at 4 pm and 8 pm on most days, although some days will see only an 8 pm game.

A lack of consistency cost England the right to push for victory in the second Test against Sri Lanka, according their captain Andrew Strauss

Andrew Miller at Lord's07-Jun-2011A lack of consistency cost England the right to push for victory in the second Test against Sri Lanka, according their captain Andrew Strauss, after five hard-fought days petered out into a draw on a docile wicket at Lord’s.Given England’s recent run of form in Test cricket – which includes four innings victories in their last six matches, including a remarkable last-session triumph in Cardiff last week – Strauss admitted to a certain amount of frustration that they were unable to close out the Sri Lanka series with a game to spare. However, he conceded that at critical moments, his team lacked the spark and penetration of previous contests, adding that by the final afternoon of the match, they had “run their race”.”We didn’t expect them to fold quite as they did at Cardiff, and they didn’t on a flat wicket,” said Strauss. “Over the last 18 months we’ve prided ourselves on just how consistent we have been as a bowling line-up. But the guys are not machines, and sometimes the rhythm’s not there – and it’s hard work.”England’s realistic hopes of a result were thwarted on the second afternoon, when Tillakaratne Dilshan and Tharanga Paranavitana responded to their team’s 82 all out capitulation in Cardiff with an opening stand of 207. In that period, and again on the third morning, England’s seamers were as off-colour as at any stage in the past 18 months, with the bowling coach, David Saker, describing the number of balls down the leg-side as “inexcusable”.”We’re not going to play the perfect Test match every time – we’ve got to be realistic about that – but the most important thing is we don’t make the same mistake twice,” said Strauss. “I was very happy with the way the guys came back and improved as the game went on, although it is always frustrating when a Test match ends in a draw, because you’ve put in a lot of hard work for five days.”The pick of England’s attack, in terms of wickets, was the 22-year-old Steven Finn, who fought back from a wayward start to claim 4 for 108, and in the process became the youngest England bowler to 50 Test wickets. Despite that acclaim, however, his career economy-rate is close to 4 an over, and with James Anderson on the mend following a side strain in Cardiff, he could find himself back on the sidelines at the Rose Bowl.”I think Steven Finn got a lot better as the game went on,” said Strauss. “He’d been out of the side a little bit, so I suppose he had every right to feel a bit anxious at the start. But all our bowlers bring something different, and certainly Jimmy does with his consistent lines and swinging it a bit more than the others. We are very hopeful he’ll be fit.”It would certainly be a surprise if the man to make way was Stuart Broad, whose recent appointment as England Twenty20 captain was an acknowledgement of his senior status within the England squad. Nevertheless, his record in red-ball cricket is becoming something of a concern, with his two wickets at Lord’s costing 154 and coming at 3.75 an over. After 36 Tests, he still averages an unworthy 35.97.Though Strauss defended his team-mate, he didn’t deny there were concerns. “I don’t think he’s quite getting the rub of the green at the moment,” he said. “He’s bowled some very good balls that are passing the edge, and has probably bowled better than the statistics say. But all of us have to keep trying to improve, and make sure our performances get better.”That goes for the batsmen as well, not least Strauss himself, who made scores of 4 and 0 in his two innings and was nailed on both occasions by the left-arm seam of Chanaka Welegedara. He has now fallen to that style of bowling 22 times in his career, and nine in the past 12 months. With the excellent Zaheer Khan set to lead the attack for India later in the summer, Strauss knows he can’t afford to let the problem spread.”I was obviously frustrated to miss out twice on a good batting surface,” he said. “But I think to some extent that’s the nature of the beast as an opening batsman … sometimes you get a couple of good ones early. But I obviously need to keep working and make sure it doesn’t happen again at the Rose Bowl.”The final-day positives for England included the form of Ian Bell, whose 40-ball half-century on the final afternoon was the most fluent innings of the match, and an impressive display from Kevin Pietersen, who fell once again to a left-arm spinner, but not before he’d racked up a dominant 72. Given that he had started his innings in a no-win situation late on the fourth day, it was a satisfactory upshot in his quest for his former glories.”It wasn’t an easy situation when he went in yesterday, with dark cloud cover and the lights on,” said Strauss. “Lord’s does a lot more in those conditions, so he did have to graft pretty hard then. But he did that outstandingly well and then obviously came out the other side and played some lovely shots today. We always knew he was going to score runs at some stage, and we hope this is the catalyst to go and have a purple patch like Alastair Cook’s having.”There was some criticism of England’s intent as they built towards their eventual declaration total of 335 for 7, and by the end of the innings, the on-field events had been overshadowed by Matt Prior’s run-in with the dressing-room window. Nevertheless, Strauss felt they could not have done much more to force the game.”It was a bit tricky prior to lunch when the left-armer was bowling over the wicket into the rough – it was a bit hard to keep the momentum going, and we lost a little bit there,” he said. “But we still scored at more than four an over, but I think it was always going to be a little bit hard to force a result on the final day here – because we know the Lord’s wicket doesn’t deteriorate.”I just told them what I wanted us to get, and how many overs we had to get it – and we needed to bat pretty quickly. But there are always things in a Test match we could have done better. We hope we do that at the Rose Bowl.”

Teenage left-arm spinner Raza Hasan was the hero for Rawalpindi Rams as he kept his nerve in the Super Over to hand them the Faisal Bank Super Eight T20 title

ESPNcricinfo staff01-Jul-2011
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
Teenage left-arm spinner Raza Hasan kept his cool in the Super Over to give Rawalpindi the title•Dr Naeem Ashraf

Eighteen-year-old left-arm spinner Raza Hasan was the hero for Rawalpindi Rams as he held his nerve in the Super Over to hand them the Faysal Bank Super Eight T20 title. Rawalpindi seemed to have fluffed their chances of victory against Karachi Dolphins at the Iqbal Stadium when they managed only one run in the final four balls of their chase of 165 to leave the game tied. But after they smashed 16 in the Super Over it was Karachi’s turn to flounder, scoring only one off the final four deliveries of their over to slump to defeat. Sohail Khan took five wickets for Karachi but it wasn’t enough to secure victory.Awais Zia did all the scoring for Rawalpindi in the Super Over, slapping two fours and a six to negate the effect of the two dot balls he played. It was a tough target for Karachi but Khalid Latif began with a big six over long-on. The 18-year-old Hasan, though, hit back by getting Latif to top-edge to short fine-leg off the next ball. The third delivery saw a dropped catch which resulted in a single, and then Hasan bowled three dot balls in a row as Shahzaib Hasan struggled to get bat on ball.There was plenty of drama before the closing skirmish too. Karachi had made a sluggish start after being sent in, reaching 34 for 1 in five overs, before the batsman of the tournament, Rameez Raja, gave the innings some impetus with two fours and two sixes in the sixth over. His partner Asad Shafiq was dismissed lbw by Hasan for a 26-ball 36 and that again slowed the Karachi innings. Though they had blasted 91 in the first ten overs, and had wickets in hand, they could only add 73 in the last ten.Rawalpindi’s chase got off to a horror start as Sohail struck twice in the second over. Zia slammed six fours in eight deliveries to inject some momentum into the chase before another double-strike from Sohail, in the sixth over, left Rawalpindi gasping at 56 for 4. A flurry of boundaries from Adnan Mufti kept them alive before a couple of sixes from Hammad Azam evened the game.Two big hits from Mohammad Rameez made it 22 needed off the final three overs with three wickets in hand. Sohail returned to revive Karachi, getting Rameez with a slower yorker and giving away only three runs in the 18th over. Rawalpindi scrambled 10 off the next over and when Umar Amin muscled the second ball of Azam Hussain’s final over for six, Rawalpindi needed only two to win off four deliveries. They couldn’t get them, though, and Amin watched helplessly as wickets fell off the final two balls with the scores level. Any momentum Karachi may have gained from clawing back to tie the game proved meaningless in the Super Over as Hasan repaid the faith his captain showed in him.

Brad Hodge is concerned that young players will stop focusing on Test cricket as their ultimate goal as Cricket Australia’s pushes its resources into the Big Bash League

ESPNcricinfo staff29-Jul-2011Brad Hodge is concerned that young players will stop focusing on Test cricket as their ultimate goal as Cricket Australia’s pushes its resources into the Big Bash League. Hodge is retired from first-class cricket and will play with the Melbourne Renegades in the new eight-team competition, but one of his career highlights was playing six Tests for Australia.Now, with greater opportunities for fringe players to break into domestic cricket in Twenty20 rather than the longer format, and with bigger pay cheques on offer, Hodge is worried that the lines might be blurring for younger players seeking to make it.”My whole life was founded on trying to play cricket for Australia at Test level and I wish the mental side of the younger player was the same, but I’m just not sure it is,” Hodge told the . “Most of the talk around here is about this Twenty20 competition … no one gives a toss about the other two forms of the game at the moment.”It’s hard for me to think about what a young player would want, but the few I have spoken to, what they want is to play IPL, to play Twenty20, and Test cricket is probably not right up there.”Hodge, 36, chose the Docklands-based Renegades over the Melbourne Stars in part because of the team’s pulling power with a pace duo of Shaun Tait and Dirk Nannes. However, he said splitting the city into two teams, while retaining the traditional Victoria side in the Sheffield Shield and one-day competition, could be dangerous.”There is a risk to state cricket … the Bushrangers brand is very fragile. I just can’t see how it’s going to compete against the Stars and the Renegades for market share,” Hodge said. “Shield cricket and one-day cricket are just going to fall off the perch, unfortunately.”The reality is that people want to play Twenty20 and the public want Twenty20 and I’m not sure people are going to be interested in watching Test match cricket or one-day cricket … as much as the administration say they are going to protect [Shield cricket], I think it’s going to fall away and become obsolete.”However, the Victoria coach Greg Shipperd does not share Hodge’s pessimistic views on the future of Sheffield Shield cricket. Shipperd told ESPNcricinfo earlier this month that he believed Twenty20 cricket, far from taking players away from the longer format, would help them develop their game.”I don’t see any players that are really just interested in that form,” Shipperd said of T20. “The ones who have found their way through one-day cricket and T20 cricket into the system are just as hungry to improve their skills and play as many days of cricket as they can. We still see a great appetite for learning the skills in the longer form of the game. By being exposed to these pressure situations in the shorter form of the game, and the need for variety, it actually adds to their skill set.”Shipperd’s theory has been backed up by the development of the batsman David Warner, who played T20 cricket for Australia before he had even made his first-class debut. But despite originally being pigeon-holed as a short-form slogger, Warner has developed his longer game and was player of the series in Australia A’s recent first-class games in Zimbabwe, where he made a career-best 211.”My main focus was to try and score runs in the four-day stuff and it happened,” Warner told AAP. “[Test cricket] is my goal and hopefully one day I think I can achieve that. My aspirations are to get the baggy green and at the moment I’m going the right way about it.”

The company behind Hot Spot, BBG Sports, have said the application of Vaseline to the edge of a bat has no discernible effect on the technology

ESPNcricinfo staff02-Aug-2011The company behind Hot Spot, BBG Sports, has said the application of Vaseline to the edge of a bat has no discernible effect on the technology. A batsman would have to apply a whole centimetre of Vaseline to the edge of a bat for it to have any effect, the company told ESPNcricinfo.A controversy over the system erupted when Michael Vaughan, the former England captain and now commentator, sent out a tweet that suggested India batsman VVS Laxman may have applied Vaseline to the edge of his bat, which helped him escape a caught-behind appeal on the second day of the Trent Bridge Test. England were convinced Laxman had nicked a James Anderson delivery, and though Snicko showed there was a noise as ball passed bat, Hot Spot did not show any deflection. Stuart Broad admitted to checking Laxman’s bat and said he found nothing. Broad also said the England players were not convinced Hot Spot picked up faint edgesBBG Sports decided to undertake tests to see whether the cameras used for Hot Spot could be tricked by the use of artificial substances on the edge of the bat. They have now released a statement saying: “We have done testing over the past two days in our office and can conclude that putting Vaseline on the side of a cricket bat has no discernible effect on our Hot Spot system. Maybe if you were able to apply 10 millimetres [one centimetre] of Vaseline on the side of the bat it would make a difference but we believe that this would be near impossible to achieve.”Warren Brennan, the owner of Hot Spot, had previously said the device’s accuracy was around 90-95% and could be impacted by factors like bright sunshine and the speed of the bat in the shot. He had also suggested at the time that there was a chance a substance like Vaseline could restrict the friction of the ball hitting the bat and therefore reduce the effectiveness of Hot Spot, but after conducting tests BBG have found that it would take too much Vaseline to have that effect.The company will also conduct tests to see if stickers on the edge of a bat can possibly dull the heat created by a nick and thereby reduce its presence on the Hot Spot cameras. The technology providers however said their observations during the Trent Bridge Test were that Hot Spot did register contact with the bats that had stickers on them.Hot Spot has been made a mandatory piece of technology for the DRS system following the ICC’s meetings in Hong Kong last month, where it was also decided to make Hawk-Eye optional. The infra-red cameras have been especially effective at deciding bat-pad catches and whether a batsman has been hit pad first in an lbw appeal, although in the England-India series the DRS is not being used for any leg-before decisions.There have been a number of occasions when Hot Spot has proved inconclusive in caught-behind decisions. During the last Ashes, Kevin Pietersen survived in Melbourne, which incensed Ricky Ponting, while in Sydney Ian Bell survived an appeal which Snicko – which isn’t used with the DRS – later suggested was out.