The inaugural ICC Women’s World Twenty20 witnessed several statistical highlights. Cricinfo looks at some of the interesting numbers from the tournament

Siddhartha Talya22-Jun-2009

60

Pakistan sunk to the lowest score in Twenty20 internationals against England at Taunton. They were not expected to challenge the hosts, but had done a reasonably good job with the ball to restrict England to 123. However, they were shut out in their reply, as only two batsmen reached double-figures. Just three days earlier, they had been bowled out for 75 – now the third-lowest total – against India, while Sri Lanka had limped to 69 for 8 in England’s previous game.

10

World champions England inflicted a ten-wicket defeat over India in the league stages of the competition at Taunton. It’s the only instance of a ten-wicket win in a Twenty20 international in women’s cricket. New Zealand beat Australia in the league stage by nine wickets, the second-highest margin of victory, but there have been two other instances of teams winning that heavily. At the other end of the scale was West Indies’ three-run win over South Africa at Taunton, which is the third-lowest margin of victory in terms of runs.

122

The World Twenty20 witnessed three of the highest partnerships in the format. Beth Morgan and Player-of-the-Series Claire Taylor added an unbeaten 122 for England in their thrilling eight-wicket win in the last over of the semi-final against Australia at The Oval. The stand is the second-highest in Twenty20 cricket, only bettered by the unbeaten 147-run fourth-wicket stand between Karen Rolton and Kate Blackwell for Australia against England at Taunton in 2005. There were two other century stands in the tournament (there have been a total of five overall): Suzie Bates and Aimee Watkins put together an unfinished 118 in New Zealand’s nine-wicket win over Australia, and Charlotte Edwards and Sarah Taylor added an unbeaten 113 in England’s ten-wicket rout of India. The two partnerships are at No.3 and 4 in the current list of highest partnerships in women’s Twenty20 cricket.Priyanka Roy [left] took only the second five-wicket haul in Twenty20 internationals•Getty Images

27

There have been a total of 70 sixes in Twenty20 internationals, of which 27 were struck in this World Twenty20. The average per match for this tournament was 1.8 sixes, marginally better than the 1.66 overall. New Zealand struck the most sixes in this competition, leading with eight, followed by Australia at six. Lucy Doolan and Aimee Watkins struck three each, while Charlotte Edwards chipped in with three for England. Amita Sharma struck a solitary six for India, while Pakistan managed none. New Zealand had four sixes in their innings against West Indies at Taunton, and Australia cleared the ropes as many times against South Africa. It’s the second-highest number of sixes by a team in an innings, three behind West Indies’ seven against Ireland in 2008.

22

Of the 29 half-centuries in women’s Twenty20 internationals, Deandra Dottin’s effort against Australia at Taunton is the quickest. She raced to her half-century off 22 balls, bettering Suzie Bates’ fifty off 26 balls against South Africa at the same venue in 2007. There were 13 half-centuries in 15 games in this competition, an average of 0.87 per game, significantly better than the figure of 0.69 overall. Aimee Watkins top scored with an unbeaten 89 against India, which, for a while, was the highest score in both the men’s and women’s World Twenty20 competitions taking place simultaneously before Tillakaratne Dilshan’s 96 not out against West Indies in the semi-final at The Oval. Watkins, Claire Taylor and West Indies opener Stafanie Taylor managed two fifties each in this tournament.

21.24

Like in the men’s ICC World Twenty20, spinners proved more effective than pace bowlers. Pace bowlers bagged 85 wickets at an average of 23.75 and an economy rate of 6.11. Spinners captured 62 wickets at 21.24 and conceded fewer runs per over, going at a rate of 5.95. In the men’s version, pace bowlers raked in 184 wickets at 25.68 at 7.97, while the performance of spinners was even better, with 114 wickets at 20.98 and a rate of 6.72 an over. There were three instances of bowlers taking four wickets or more in an innings, and spinners featured twice in the list. Shelley Nitschke, the left-arm spinner, took 4 for 21 against South Africa while Priyanka Roy, the India legspinner, bagged only the second five-wicket haul in women’s Twenty20 internationals, taking 5 for 16 in India’s five-wicket win over Pakistan.

6

Going against the general trend in women’s Twenty20 cricket, the side batting first lost more games than it won. Of the 15 games in the competition, only six were won by the team batting first. Overall, however, the team batting first has won 23 of the 42 Twenty20 matches. Teams opted to bat after winning the toss on 11 occasions in the tournament, winning only five of those games.The highlight for the minnows was Deandra Dottin’s half-century against Australia – the fastest in Twenty20 internationals•Getty Images

18.65

The average runs-per-wicket in the World Twenty20 was only marginally better than the overall stats – 18.35 – for the format in women’s cricket. Australia, England and New Zealand fared well, averaging well over 20. However, it was Pakistan (8.85) that did quite a bit of damage to the overall figures. They managed a highest score of 105 in the tournament, and were bowled out for 60 and 75 in their other two games – they lost all three. India, considered one of the elite teams in women’s cricket, were disappointing, averaging just 14 per wicket, lower than West Indies and South Africa.

163

The highest score chased down in Twenty20 internationals. Australia would have been quite confident of defending the sixth-highest score in the format in women’s cricket but were undone by a superb third-wicket stand between Claire Taylor and Beth Morgan at The Oval, which took England to the final. However, Australia did a better job of defending the highest score of the tournament while batting first – 164 – against South Africa in their league game in Taunton.

3.45

A run-rate of 3.45 is decent going for a minnow team in ODIs but is unacceptable in the Twenty20 format. When Sri Lanka crawled to 69 for 8 against England in Taunton, the second-lowest score in Twenty20 internationals, they also achieved the record of scoring at the slowest run-rate in a completed innings in the format. Pakistan, in their effort of 75 all out against India, achieved the lowest run-rate in a completed innings by a team batting first.

A few key numbers involving Chennai Super Kings, Royal Challengers Bangalore, and Johannesburg, the venue for the second semi-final of the IPL

S Rajesh23-May-2009Matthew Hayden has relished the Bangalore attack, scoring 125 runs in two innings at a run rate of more than ten per over•Associated Press6 – Number of times Chennai have won in the nine games when they have batted first.8.48 – Chennai’s run-rate in the first six overs, which is second only to Deccan’s. Chennai’s average of 41.37 runs per wicket during this period is the best. Bangalore average 21.68 runs per wicket at a run rate of 6.45 in the first six overs.414 – Runs scored by Chennai’s opening pair, at an average of 31.85 per stand and 9.07 per over. Bangalore average 14.50 per partnership, and 5.77 per over – both are the worst by any team in this IPL.10 – Number of times, in 14 games, that Bangalore’s opening partnership hasn’t gone past 10.8.75 – Muttiah Muralitharan’s bowling average against Bangalore. In eight overs against them, he has only gone for 35 runs and taken four wickets.4.75 – Anil Kumble’s economy rate against Chennai. In eight overs he has figures of 2 for 38.125 – Number of runs Matthew Hayden has scored in two innings against Bangalore, for an average of 62.50 at a strike rate of 10.27 runs per over.24 – Number of runs scored by Jacques Kallis, Bangalore’s leading run-getter, against Chennai.10 – Number of 50-plus scores for Chennai, with Hayden contributing half of them. Bangalore have eight, with Kallis getting three.146 – The average score for the team batting first in night games in Johannesburg.80% – The success rate for the team chasing in night games in Johannesburg – the team batting first has lost four out of five. The only side to buck the trend was Chennai, when they beat Delhi by 18 runs.100% – The win percentage for Chennai and Bangalore at this venue in IPL 2009. Bangalore beat Mumbai and Delhi here, while Chennai beat Delhi.24 – Wickets taken by spinners at the Wanderers in this tournament, at an average of 22.95 and an economy rate of 6.40. Fast bowlers have taken 36 wickets at 30.58 and an economy rate of 7.73.

The seven-match one-day international series between India and Australia, with its sellout crowds and high TRPs, has made the talk of ‘the death of ODIs’ sound premature

Judhajit Basu and Sidharth Monga15-Nov-2009The seven-match one-day international series between India and Australia, with its sellout crowds and high TRPs, has made the talk of ‘the death of ODIs” sound premature. Over the last three weeks, the world’s biggest cricket market accepted the format with glee: All six matches played were sold out, and TV ratings in India suggested it got more eyeballs than the three big events that preceded it: the World Twenty20, Champions Trophy and Champions League Twenty20.The whole talk of the irrelevance of the ODI format reached its peak in England in August and September when Australia were beating England 6-1 in a lacklustre series. Curiously, healthy crowds came in to watch those matches but the one-sided contests and consequent lack of meaning in the later games did raise doubts. But the recent series in India seems to suggest it is the scheduling, and not the format, that is at fault.The Indian ratings (TRPs) compiled by TV audience measurement agency Audience Map (aMap) for the two ICC premier events this year – the World Twenty20 and Champions Trophy – go in favour of the shortest format of the game, but not by much.While the average TRP for the 27 games of the World Twenty20 was 2.11, the figure was 3.98 when India’s games were taken into consideration. In comparison, the average TRP for all matches in the Champions Trophy in South Africa that soon followed plummeted to 1.1 as India fell at the first stage, though their three matches fetched an average of 3.16. In fact, India’s matches drew 88 million viewers on the government-run channel Doordarshan 1 (DD1).The ratings, expressed as a percentage, took into account 15-years-plus viewers across all-India cable and satellite households (CS+15), with the top six metros in India under survey.The Indian audiences, however, didn’t quite warm up to the Champions League – a new tournament and a relatively untested domain where clubs from across the globe jostled for supremacy – according to data from another TV audience measurement agency, TAM Peoplemeter System. Among the target group of CS+4, the tournament delivered an abysmally low TRP of 0.74, even though the Bangalore Royal Challengers and Delhi Daredevils promised much.

The return to form of ODIs was signalled by the India-Australia series, aired in India on Doordarshan 1 and Neo Cricket, which had an average TRP of 5.52 – five times that of the Champions League

The return to form of ODIs was signalled by the India-Australia series, aired in India on Doordarshan 1 and Neo Cricket, which had an average TAM TRP of 5.52 – five times that of the Champions League. The highest figure was recorded for the fifth ODI in Hyderabad at 7.1.The 50-over format also seemed to enjoy favour from players on both sides in the series. After that heady Hyderabad match, MS Dhoni said: “Whenever there are ODIs played in India, we see lots of people for them. I don’t think it will die. It’s an art to bat in one-day cricket. [It’s] Still interesting. Games like this make it more interesting.”Dhoni was the second-highest run-getter in the series, and the leading scorer, Michael Hussey, also spoke about the art of one-day cricket that made the format interesting. “I think 50-over cricket has a huge future in the game,” he said before the series. “It caters to a wide range of players, you can have your very aggressive batsmen, you can have the good runners between the wickets, it calls for tactics, you can have good spinners in the middle. Fifty-overs cricket has a big role to play still.”The marketing man seems to agree. “I always believed the talk about the death of ODIs was premature,” said the head of a media-buying agency. “For me the World Cup will always be a 50-over affair. Eventually cricket is not so much about entertainment, it’s all about the quality of the games. And one-dayers, which will continue to be a powerful property, have eventually demonstrated that it is good cricket.”

After enjoying success against mediocre batting line-ups during the last home summer, the offspinner’s limitations have been ruthlessly exposed by India

ESPNcricinfo staff11-Oct-2010The pink-red stains all over Nathan Hauritz’s whites were oddly symbolic as Australia’s inexperienced attack endured a bruising couple of sessions before wickets with the second new ball gave them a thin sliver of hope heading into the fourth day. Hauritz, Mitchell Johnson and Ben Hilfenhaus came into the game with a combined total of 65 caps, while Peter George had played just 19 first-class games. Zaheer Khan alone has 73 caps.Since the retirements of Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath, Australia have had to endure some tough days in the field. When they were around, partnerships like the 376-run one that VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid shared at the Eden Gardens in 2001 were notable exceptions rather than the rule. When Sachin Tendulkar and Laxman put on 353 at the SCG three years later, neither was present, with McGrath injured and Warne serving a suspension for pills that his mum gave him.Since those halcyon days when the mere sight of legends in baggy green was enough to terrify most opponents into submission – India were the exception – the bowling resources at Ricky Ponting’s disposal have dwindled steadily. Brett Lee has faded away, Peter Siddle got injured after a promising start, and Ryan Harris too has succumbed to niggles and pains.The paucity of options was apparent on Monday morning. An early wicket or two and India, 350 behind at the start of the day, would have been under real pressure. Instead, Hauritz bowled two terrible deliveries down the leg side, Tendulkar cashed in to reach his 50 and the crowd came alive.Hilfenhaus was again impressive, hitting the pitch hard and also trying variations unexpected from someone often pigeonholed as an out-and-out swing bowler. But Johnson’s efforts to bounce Tendulkar out were contemptuously swatted away, and the first hour saw India seize the initiative to such an extent that they could ease off either side of lunch.”We were probably a little bit flat when you look at it,” said Johnson after the day’s play. “When we went out there, we probably tried a bit too hard and it didn’t work for us. As the day went on, Vijay and Tendulkar obviously batted very well on that wicket.”With the sun shining and the pitch doing little, Australia created little by way of chances. The one they missed could have changed the game, as Hauritz made a hash of a throw to the keeper with Vijay, then just 49, stranded nearly mid-pitch. Hilfenhaus was unlucky not to have Vijay leg-before when he had made 77, but that and a Tendulkar inside-edge that streaked for four aside, there were desperately few what-might-have-been moments.As the day progressed, Ponting’s mind might have gone back to Perth in December 2008, when South Africa scored 227 for 3 on the penultimate evening, before knocking off the remaining 187 for the loss of just Jacques Kallis on the final day. Tendulkar, in particular, was imperious, punishing every bad ball and threading the ball into gaps pretty much as he pleased.”No doubt it’s tough out there in Test match cricket on wickets like that, and he [Tendulkar] has scored 14,000 runs, so it’s pretty hard yakka out there,” Johnson said. “I said when I arrived that I enjoy the challenges of these wickets and coming up against such great batsmen. But it’s not disheartening. Hilfenhaus did extremely well without any luck. He had a chance almost chopped on from Tendulkar, and bowled extremely well today. We’re sticking together as a bowling unit and we’re going to keep fighting hard to win it.”Ponting plumped for Hauritz over Jason Krejza a couple of years ago because he felt that he would offered him more control. But after enjoying success against mediocre batting line-ups during the last home summer, his limitations have been ruthlessly exposed by India. He has gone for nearly four an over, without presenting anything like the attacking threat that Krejza did on his debut in Nagpur two years ago. With George clearly nervous on debut and mostly entrusted with bouncing Vijay, Johnson and Hilfenhaus were the only wicket-taking cards in the Ponting deck.The second new ball is now 32 overs old and if Australia don’t break through early on day four – a little cloud cover could help a great deal – another long day beckons. On this type of surface, running through the tail is not guaranteed either, and Ponting will still have nightmares of that day at the MCG when JP Duminy, assisted by Paul Harris, Dale Steyn and Makhaya Ntini, added 275 for the final three wickets to transform a game that Australia had under control.MS Dhoni hasn’t done as well against Australia as he has against other teams – he averages 31.66 against a career figure of 41 – but the impetuous stroke that Suresh Raina played to get out right after Ponting had moved the long-on in has given him the perfect opportunity to put the series out of Australia’s reach. With Tendulkar looking serene at one end and little sign of reverse-swing, it could just be a question of surviving half an hour and then batting on as long as they can.It took Hauritz four years to return to the Test side after the Indians took a shine to him at Mumbai in 2004. And if he doesn’t perk up on day four, it’s not inconceivable that another spell on the sidelines beckons. That shirt certainly doesn’t need any more red on it.

Plays of the Day from the tri-series match between Sri Lanka and India in Dambulla

Siddarth Ravindran in Dambulla22-Aug-2010Raina’s reprieve
The Sri Lankan seamers were all over India during the Powerplays, and the visitors were struggling at 59 for 3 by the 17th over. Angelo Mathews then thought he had Suresh Raina caught behind, pumping his fists and setting off in celebration before asking the umpire’s view. Mathews was behind the slip cordon by the end of Sri Lanka’s extended appeal but Asad Rauf was unmoved, though Snicko suggested an edge. The Sri Lankans weren’t disappointed for too long. Raina was given out caught-behind four deliveries later by Kumar Dharmasena, with nothing registering on Snicko.Dhoni on the edge
MS Dhoni was one of the many Indian batsmen seeing it like a table-tennis ball on Sunday. Eight of his 10 runs came off boundaries in the 20th over, both edged to third man. The lone slip was initially wide, and looked on as the first four went between him and the wicketkeeper. Kumar Sangakkara moved the fielder to orthodox first slip, and four deliveries later when the edge came, the slip fielder could only watch the ball fly towards where he was at the start of the over.A bit of Sehwag magic
When the almighty Indian collapse was still some way away, Virender Sehwag showed a touch of wizardry that makes his batting a treat to watch. Knowing how strong he is square on the off side, Sri Lanka packed the region with a deep gully, short point and backward point. In the fifth over of the day, from Lasith Malinga, Sehwag still managed to place it between the miniscule gap between Tillakaratne Dilshan at backward point and Chamara Kapugedera at short point for four.Silencing the crowd
A sizeable crowd had turned up for Sunday’s match and was delighted to see their team steamroller the opposition. Among the few times the partying fans were kept quiet was after Thisara Perera’s hat-trick ball. Ashish Nehra faced it, after receiving plenty of advice from non-striker Yuvraj Singh. The crowd’s roars reverberated around the ground as Perera charged in, but the volume was turned down after Nehra dead-batted to deny him.Jayawardene 1 Praveen 0
By the time the dinner interval came round, there was no doubt about the result of the match. Still, Praveen Kumar was charged up when play resumed. The first two deliveries were dispatched for boundaries by Mahela Jayawardene. On the third, Jayawardene played it back to the bowler, who pretended to throw down the stumps and glared at the batsman, much to the crowd’s delight. Jayawardene was unfazed, though, and when Praveen followed up with a short ball, the batsman swung it down to fine leg for four more.

How to approach this politely? Ian Chappell was pretty polite. “If his batting was as good as Don Bradman’s,” he said on air, “he couldn’t score enough runs to make up for what he costs them with his keeping.”

Osman Samiuddin in Pallekele08-Mar-2011How to approach this politely? Ian Chappell was pretty polite. “If his batting was as good as Don Bradman’s,” he said on air, “he couldn’t score enough runs to make up for what he costs them with his keeping.”There are many ways in which the depth of denial in Pakistan – in all spheres of life – presents itself to the observer. No better example of it exists than the continued presence of Kamran Akmal in the side, the man to whom Chappell refers so politely. The world knows the worth of Akmal as a wicketkeeper: to be short, he is not one anymore. He is, to steal and twist the wonderful sledge Jimmy Ormond dished out to Mark Waugh once, not even the best wicketkeeper in his family. He’s not even the second-best: Umar Akmal has looked safer than him on the occasions he has kept.Yet as Pakistan has changed everything about its cricket over the last four years – captains, selectors, chairmen, players, coaches – Akmal has remained unchanged, unchallenged in his incompetency. Until the beginning of Pakistan’s last summer in England, when there was still a will left to count, he was fluffing comfortably more than one chance per Test: 32 in 25 Tests. His ODI rate cannot be far behind.There appears no sane reason for it and even an insane one right now would be handy. Shoaib Malik thought him the second-best wicketkeeper-batsman behind Adam Gilchrist during his captaincy, a hallucination rather than delusion. The pair are close, so nepotism was as good a reason as any. But what were the reasons for Younis Khan, Mohammad Yousuf, Salman Butt and now, Shahid Afridi to persist with him?After every show of calamity, when the question is put to anyone in charge, the response is to say it is only one match, that everyone drops a catch occasionally, or the line Waqar Younis trotted out today, that we can’t just blame the one person. We can at least blame those who keep selecting him. Those who argue that he compensates with his batting will kindly direct themselves to the brutality of Chappell’s verdict: no amount of runs can make up for the matches, and as importantly the moments in matches, he has lost.Despite consistently letting his side down, Kamran Akmal has been a mainstay of Pakistan’s team over the last few years•Getty ImagesThe few times he has been dropped in the last four years – for the Asia Cup 2008, after the Australia tour last year, during the English summer – the performances leading into it have been so monumentally negligent that not dropping him might have risked the kind of revolution in Pakistan seen in the Arab world. It would probably take that still to shift him.In any case he has returned back to the side at the first opportunity. Whether they forget or choose to overlook his errors is irrelevant: it is criminal in both cases. He sneaked into this squad only after being cleared by a board integrity committee. A wicketkeeping committee might have been better placed to rule on it.Akmal’s three misses – two off Ross Taylor – set the tone for the rest of the innings, Pakistan’s most bedraggled performance in the field in this tournament so far. Their last one, against Sri Lanka, was sparked incidentally by two missed stumpings.Short of injuring Akmal and sending him back, the only option Pakistan could explore is to play the younger Akmal as a wicketkeeper. In keeping with the cautious nature of the team’s leaders, that seems unlikely. Asked whether they would consider it, Waqar Younis said, “After the World Cup maybe we can think about it, but we are in the middle of the tournament and I don’t think we can make such a change. We have five days off in which we will try to rectify his mistakes because in such a short time we can’t rectify all mistakes. We can’t kick him out at the moment, we can try to make him better for the next game and make sure he won’t make the same mistakes.”Meanwhile, the state of denial Pakistan remains in about the balance of its side should also take a few knocks here, hopefully. They persist in playing a specialist bowler short to buffer their batting. Playing a batsman at eight – Abdul Razzaq may open the bowling but he is no opening bowler, as tournament figures of 21-4-111-1 testify – has not helped their batting much in their last two games, precisely the situations the strategy is aimed at. Razzaq’s 62 will, no doubt, be used as justification at some point in the future.When Umar Gul had to be bowled out during the batting Powerplay – and his fine bowling will not even be a footnote – it left the last four overs to be bowled by someone who wasn’t Gul. Those four overs, shared by Razzaq, Shoaib Akhtar and Abdur Rehman, went for 92. Razzaq’s four overs of the day went for 49, “a bit off-colour” Waqar said: a little yes, like black and white.Yet the top order collapse seemed to confirm to Pakistan they need the batting. “We were 120-7 so we were short of batsmen,” Waqar said. “I think 300 was chaseable. We can’t afford to have another bowler in the side, as we are playing with six if you consider Mohammad Hafeez and Razzaq. I don’t think we can manage another bowler.”

Problems with the bat could prompt Pakistan to retain Kamran Akmal despite his wicketkeeping woes

Osman Samiuddin in Pallekele10-Mar-2011Like a particularly spicy , heavy defeats often have a wonderful way of unclogging the head. The fog lifts, everything becomes clearer, easier to comprehend and suddenly there is a flow, a way forward. Pakistan’s loss to New Zealand revealed the folly three wins had clouded, one a long-running personnel issue, the other a question of strategy.But in the here and now, for Pakistan, the result has only muddled matters further, because both flaws are linked, one stemming from the other. The more Pakistan persist with Kamran Akmal the more matches he will cost them, that is a simple truth and cannot be argued. But he is in the squad now and is the only – as much as this is an inaccurate statement – specialist wicketkeeper. They have to suffer him.The reason they must do so, it is becoming clear, is because they have even less faith in their batting than most people do in Kamran’s wicketkeeping. Until the last two games, the batting had actually performed with some solidity over the last few months. The resulting logic from 184 all out against Canada and 120 for seven against New Zealand is not that the top order should simply begin scoring, or that if the top six or seven fail, No.8 will rarely salvage matters. It is that more batsmen are needed.There is no ostensible panic yet, but there is confusion and uncertainty, apparent at a dinner with Shahid Afridi on Wednesday evening. The captain had hinted immediately after the New Zealand game that Umar Akmal would be considered an option as a wicketkeeper. On Wednesday, Afridi appeared truly in a bind: he doesn’t want to risk Kamran again but neither does he want to risk another batting flop, even if Kamran’s batting contributions are not as substantial anymore as they are remembered.He was supportive, as captains must be. “Kamran’s performance is in front of everyone, he is putting in the hard work in the training sessions and he has done a lot of work for this World Cup, but he has not lived up to that level,” he said. “We suffered a lot after he could not perform.”Then there was the glossing over, the retreat into lazy myths. “But I must say he has won lots of matches for Pakistan in the past, he is a very talented cricketer. We are at a stage where we should not panic, there are other players who are not performing it’s not only Kami and we need to back them.”The conclusion? We don’t know. “We will see if he plays the next game or not that we will see later on, but from my side I think we should give Kamran confidence because he is a good player, a good cricketer and there are lots of expectations that he will do good.”The failures of Mohammad Hafeez and Ahmed Shehzad twist the problem further. There is casual talk of dropping Shehzad, for example, and pushing Kamran to open. They could retain the openers and drop Kamran, using Umar behind the stumps. In both cases a spot opens up: bowler or batsman?That another bowler is unlikely still is the only thing there appears to be some firmness on, despite them so missing one against New Zealand. “I don’t think we are playing with a bowler short,” Afridi said, before, like the rest of the team management, simply pretending Abdul Razzaq’s bowling is not a problem. “We mostly struggle in batting and when we play less then people say we are playing with a batsman short, I think the combination with which we are playing is the balanced one. If you see bowlers Razzaq and Shoaib Akhtar are bowling well with the new ball, then we have Umar Gul, we have every type of variety.”For what it’s worth, the younger Akmal, Umar, practiced with the gloves on Thursday in Kandy but so did Kamran. “We might change or even carry on with the same openers,” Afridi said and he was even asked whether he could open himself. “If we make too many changes and start panicking it will be problem for us. Hafeez and Shehzad are not clicking, they need some runs. We are here with perfect openers and I don’t think we can take that chance [of his opening]. Shehzad and Hafeez are there but we might open with Kamran Akmal too.”Nothing is clear, everything is on the table. They may do nothing at all ahead of the Zimbabwe game on Monday and there is a general mood of support within the team for Kamran. With just one loss, who’s to say, in the light of day, they would be wrong in doing so? And who’s still to write off their chances?Afridi, who better captures the ways of Pakistan cricket and cricketers than many others, knows it. “If you look at Pakistan cricket over the last 50-60 years this is quite a normal performance of our team. But this is now done, it’s enough and we have no chance to repeat such performances.Against good teams and in pressure matches my boys play very well, like the game against Sri Lanka. I’m still looking at my team in the semi-final.”

Ricky Ponting’s reigning world champions began with a comfortable victory, but the way they struggled against spin suggested problems ahead

Brydon Coverdale at Motera21-Feb-2011It was no great surprise that the speed of Shaun Tait, Mitchell Johnson and Brett Lee was too much for Zimbabwe to handle. If only, the Australians must be thinking, we could face the same sort of pace ourselves. A 91-run win was a fine result for Ricky Ponting’s men, a solid way to start their campaign for a fourth consecutive World Cup title, but deep down they know they should have made more runs.Their problem, as it was in the warm-up matches, was that they struggled to get used to the conditions and score freely against spin. It’s an issue they need to address, because much stronger opponents than Zimbabwe await them over the next few weeks, and not every team will quiver at the sight of the fast men as Zimbabwe’s top order did when they fell to 44 for 4.Ray Price, Prosper Utseya, Graeme Cremer, Brendan Taylor and Sean Williams sent down 39 overs for Zimbabwe, and by the end the captain Elton Chigumbura was probably wishing slow men had bowled all 50. The pace bowlers, Chris Mpofu and Chigumbura himself, combined for 11overs that cost 76 runs.It’s a lesson that would have been taken in by Australia’s upcoming opponents. Ponting spoke before the match of how it is difficult for batsmen to get settled on the slower pitches on the subcontinent, and so it proved once again. Michael Clarke was the only one of the top five who scored at better than a run a ball, pacing his innings well as he has in his past few games.”We need to play better, there’s no doubt about that,” Ponting said after the win. “We need to have our own games and our own game-plans sorted out for the better spinning attacks. As the tournament goes on, we’re going to need to be on top of our games and we’re probably not quite there just yet, but the more we play and the more we become accustomed to these conditions, the better we’ll get.”Of course, not every team will use five slow bowlers, as Zimbabwe did. But then, many pitches will provide the spinners with more assistance – Price and company didn’t extract big turn, but rather tied the Australians down with skiddy straighter balls and changes in length. Australia’s next opponents are New Zealand, who have Daniel Vettori and they might follow Zimbabwe’s lead and open with a spinner, as Nathan McCullum did against Kenya.If that happens, it’s all the more important that Brad Haddin and Shane Watson go after the seamers with the new ball, which they didn’t do against Zimbabwe. There was one big over, when Haddin showed how he likes the ball coming on to the bat, driving Mpofu over wide mid-off while Watson pulled viciously, but after 13 overs, Australia were 32 for 0. Again, Haddin got a start and failed to go on with it, a trend that Ponting wants him to turn around. It won’t be easy if spinners keep bowling up front.”That’s something that me and Brad are going to have to continue to get our heads around but also, when a spinner comes on, knowing that we don’t have to take a lot of risks,” said Watson, who was the Man of the Match for his 79. “With there only being two guys out on the boundary, just playing good shots [is enough] and hopefully we can get off to a much better start next time and take a bit of pressure off the middle order.”Within that middle order Cameron White’s scratchiness is becoming a bit of a concern. At No. 5, he is supposed to be the man who lifts the tempo after a platform has been set, but he needed a lesson from Ahmedabad’s rickshaw drivers on how to pierce a gap. Not since Australia’s tour of India back in October has White constructed a really strong one-day innings, and although Ponting has given him some advice, he does not believe White’s form is an issue.”I had a good chat to Cam yesterday at training, about his batting and about what I feel he needs to do and what he needs to work on over here,” Ponting said. “The position that he’s batting in the order in these conditions is vastly different than what it is in Australia. When you go in in Australia on the good, hard, bouncy wickets it’s a bit easier to get off strike and rotate strike. It’s a lot harder to do it here when there’s good quality spinners bowling and the field generally comes in when you have the loss of a couple of quick wickets. I’m not worried about him at all.”As White and Clarke chipped the ball around, and the innings ticked past the 40th over, acceleration didn’t become any easier. There were a couple of big hits from David Hussey and Steven Smith in the final couple of overs, but 262 was not quite what Australia had in mind when they chose to bat.In the end, it mattered little, as Johnson, Lee and Tait passed their first test of the tournament, their wicket tally more prominent than their runs conceded. But the challenges, for both batsmen and bowlers, will only become greater as this World Cup wears on.

ESPNcricinfo brings you the plays of the first day of the third Test between South Africa and India at Newlands

Firdose Moonda at Newlands02-Jan-2011The toss
After losing 13 of his last 14 tosses, it was becoming more important for MS Dhoni to practice making the right calls at the toss, than to fine-tune his batting. Indian fans had begun to ask for the captain to send out a representative in his place as he was going through such a lean run of form with the toss. Then, as though by a miracle, he called correctly under cloudy skies. Having been inserted in similar conditions in the first two Tests, he had no second thoughts about asking South Africa to bat.The fear factor
Graeme Smith showed just how nervous facing Zaheer Khan made him when he opted not to take first strike and let Alviro Petersen see off his first two overs. When Smith faced Zaheer, in his third over, he could hardly wait to get off strike. Off the fourth delivery of the over, Smith worked the ball through midwicket and ran one, with a second run comfortably on offer. Harbhajan Singh, who saw Smith waiting at the non-strikers end ambled to the ball, backpedalled a little, stood around and offered the extra run. Smith didn’t budge, leaving Petersen to face the last two balls of that over.The act of caution
Jacques Kallis is not one to see if lightning can strike twice. When Hashim Amla drove a delivery straight back to Zaheer Khan at the Wynberg End, Kallis rushed back to his crease anxiously, fearing a repeat of his Durban dilemma. Then, Kallis was run out at the non-strikers end by Ishant Sharma in the first innings at Kingsmead and his extra backing up today was a sign that he has learnt his lesson.The glee
Sreesanth did not have much to celebrate in his first nine overs, having gone for 47 runs. Hashim Amla had taken a particular liking to him in the post-lunch session, having hit him for two glorious cover drives and an emphatic pull shot for six. His fourth boundary off Sreesanth was an outside edge that evaded VVS Laxman at second slip and the break-dancer’s blood was starting to boil. Two balls later, it was all over. Amla top-edged a bouncer and was caught at deep midwicket, an act that unleashed Sree’s glee. He charged around like an unrestrained border collie and it was up to Hrabhajan to rein him in before he ran right out of the ground.The light
It got too dark to play in the morning and afternoon sessions but Cape Town was saving the best for last. The Mother City revealed her best side as early evening approached. The clouds climbed their way up Table Mountain with blue skies finally unveiled. Bright sunshine soaked the ground and a day that could have been truncated by poor overhead conditions, and had eight minutes short of two hours lost to the elements, ended up having 74 overs of play. There are some benefits to the city technically being in the wrong time zone, it seems.

ESPNcricinfo’s Pakistan Editor examines the Indian team and finds MS Dhoni a calm figure amid much machismo and aggression

Osman Samiuddin in Mohali29-Mar-2011The modern India is predominantly an India of stability, a point that can and often does get swamped by all the sound and fury of Indian cricket. Since Sourav Ganguly took over as captain in March 2000, India has had just four full-time captains for all formats. The more recent India is that of MS Dhoni, who has mostly kept his counsel and preferred to win matches rather than get involved in the screaming and shouting around him since 2007 when he took over as Twenty20 and ODI captain.It sounds unremarkable but how Pakistan would love that kind of unremarkable, where the biggest controversy of the last four, five years has been that of a divisive coach, one that would struggle to make it to the back pages of most newspapers in Pakistan.Since Ganguly took over, Pakistan has had nine full-time captains in all forms of the game. In the time that Dhoni has led India, they’ve had five alone. If India has been Dhoni’s, Pakistan has been everyone’s and, sadly, no one’s. Currently it is Shahid Afridi’s and it isn’t a bad one. But it could be anyone’s tomorrow: Misbah, Younis, Razzaq, Malik, Akmal even, who knows?For many reasons to the outsider, Dhoni remains the most compelling personality in the Indian side, not just because of the way his game has become unrecognisable from what it was when he emerged. In the permanently overheated milieu in which he operates, where a haircut is a mass-spectator sport, he has not been seen celebrating topless at Lord’s and he has not been so consumed by the job that he has had to relinquish it. Both Ganguly and Rahul Dravid had endearing qualities as captain but Dhoni’s equilibrium is startling. It is actually unnerving.Sure, there is probably much more to him than that. He is smart that much
is certain, perhaps too smart, in the way we in the subcontinent might call him and just the number of brands that piggyback off him is ludicrous. There is nothing wrong with that and none of it is actually important because the central point, from here, is that he is MS Dhoni, captain of India, and he has remained that way for some time and probably will do for sometime more.He hasn’t given up the captaincy, he’s not been caught out spot-fixing. If he’s had run-ins with the board, they haven’t been big enough to change the status quo. If he’s had problems with the players, they haven’t been bad enough to inspire revolts. He has even managed to take most of the catches that have come his way. He is mostly unquestioned as captain, given the time and space to build a side, no matter whether it has been successful or not. Whether it has happened by design, or default, it has happened. If you know only chaos, stability soon acquires its own myth.It may become harder in time of course, when time is called on possibly the greatest middle order the game has seen, but that is for another day. It is a fact that no Indian captain has been able to call upon as rich a bounty of talent as have the last few, and especially Dhoni.When you have a man such as Virender Sehwag, for example, as your opening gambit in any game, half the game is often won. Sehwag has not just been a reminder of Pakistan’s problems with openers but he has been a particularly insensitive and brutal one, each innings as abrupt and disorienting as a slap on the face. Few batsmen, maybe Brian Lara on occasion, have been as dismissive of Pakistan’s pride – their fast bowlers – as Sehwag has; triples, doubles, big hundreds, all to go with some of the best sledges.So Dhoni has led arguably the greatest Indian Test side – but not a great one – and an ODI side that hasn’t progressed as much as it should have after early promise. It remains a formidable one particularly at home and it might yet win a World Cup. But the one thing that has held them back is the one thing that has sustained Pakistan over the years: a class fast bowler or two.India has started producing some finally but they haven’t yet worked out what to do with them. One from RP Singh, Sreesanth and Ishant Sharma should currently be much more than they actually are: forgotten, mad and underachieving, respectively. Some edge is missing. Maybe they are too pampered too soon, or over-coached. A little bit of struggle is never a bad thing for a fast bowler.Still there has been Zaheer Khan, himself a tale of redemption fast bowlers can learn from. The comparisons with Wasim Akram are probably unfair to both, but a Zaheer spell is as compelling to witness as one from Mohammad Asif, where the real craft of fast bowling is obvious and apparent. Ball by ball a batsman is worked on, one this way, one that, one shorter, one a change of pace, one reversing, one not; the modern day batsman is such a protected and empowered brute that anytime he is made to look timid and embarrassed is a special moment. The one to get rid of Michael Hussey in the quarter-finals will stand among the deliveries of the tournament.Now Indians are more like what they imagined Pakistanis to be in the 80s and 90s, in their long-haired, moustachioed pomp. Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Sreesanth, Gautam Gambhir are a different breed to the well-behaved, mild-mannered Clark Kents that mostly made up India in the 80s. Now there is attitude, aggression and square-ups.But there doesn’t seem the rawness. Somehow it seems manufactured because, the argument goes from Pakistan, if it was real it would naturally lead to a level of crazy only Pakistan have ever attained. Ganguly’s aggression came from a natural place inside. For those who followed, the sense still can’t be removed that where Pakistan used – and still use – that undirected energy and testosterone to win matches, here it is used to sell cola as well.All except Dhoni who remains hinged. And still sells cola.