Yes, he only got fifty. Yes, the shot that he got out to was hot-headed and a bit reckless considering the team situation. Yes, he's only 19 and has barely started his Test career. But I'm jumping onto the Umar Akmal bandwagon. Perhaps jumping isn't the correct -ing verb - more of a tentative step. However, here I am.
What really impressed me about this kid was the way he played the short ball once he'd been hit. Other nebulaic players lacking in stature like JP Duminy and Phil Hughes have been shown to be vulnerable to short-pitched bowling. Not Umar. Once he'd been clonked on the helmet by a ball that stayed down, he decided that he'd show off a few shots. Out came the pull, out came the hook, out came the hoick, out came the leg-glance and the glide to third man. And before the audience could blink, up came the half-century. Sadly he couldn't go on with it today, but there's always the second innings, and many more innings to follow with such obvious talent as this.
There, Samrain, are you happy now? Have I worshipped your hero enough? Or would you like a few more adjective-laden paragraphs?
Showing posts with label MG. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MG. Show all posts
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Well
Well, well, well. Where can one start? As is well-known, there is a lot of cricket played these days. If an Ashes Test isn't on, it's a World Cup ODI final, a crucial IPL group match or a thrilling battle between Ireland and Bangladesh. There is always something on. Usually, the duty of a cricket fan is to watch the match that is currently the most entertaining, while keeping an eye on the scorecard of the other three or four.
However, over the past few days, we've been spoiled. Dreadfully spoiled. Like a gazelle who has just noticed three different lions on three different hills, my eyes have been rapidly dashing between the close fought tussles in Sri Lanka's ODI series in India, the intriguing spin battle in England's first Test in South Africa and the ferocious and often downright nasty stand-off between Australia and the West Indies. We'll all need a cricket holiday after this, although with the series just started in South Africa and a long summer ahead in Australia respite seems very far off.
Firstly, the Perth Test. We probably haven't seen so much bad blood in a Test match since the infamous SCG game versus India in 07/08. This hasn't quite got down to a public mud-slinging match, but it's had its fair share of controversial claimed catches (and run-outs), verbal send-offs and pushing and shoving. Needless to say, it hasn't been played in the correct spirit (especially in my perhaps not-quite-objective eyes by the Aussies), but I must ask a question - is this just what Test cricket needed? Is this just what West Indian cricket needed? The Windies have shown in the past two matches that they care desperately, firstly because of the barrage of bagging from the media after Brisbane, but even more so after the behaviour of Ponting, Watson and Haddin in this match. Nobody wants to throw away their wicket to the enemy, for enemy the opposition have become. No longer does it seem a rivals on, mates off relationship between the teams. Both want blood, and Kemar Roach nearly had it with his bowling to Ricky Ponting on the first day.
Now, as the match and series is on the eve of a finish, what a finish it could be. 51 runs to win for the West Indies after a brilliant bowling performance yesterday and a feisty showing from Deonarine, Nash and the tail in the final innings. Australia need just the one wicket. Even if the men from the Caribbean lose the final wicket without a run added tomorrow, they must be applauded for coming such a long way from conceding 520/7, from the three-day innings defeat in Brisbane, from the player strike and the series loss to Bangladesh. I think it's the appropriate Australian thing to do to commend them for standing up to their critics and showing the world that the West Indies is far from a side resigned to extinction. And for me, I'll be cheering every ball Roach and Tonge face tomorrow with even more passion as I cheered Anderson and Panesar's last wicket stand in Cardiff, and Duminy and Steyn's partnership in Melbourne. Go on, boys, get as many as you can and hold your heads high.
Phew, some passion was released in that last paragraph. Let me get my breath back. Where was I? Of course, on a mental plane to South Africa where Graeme Swann and Paul Harris are busy demonstrating that finger spin is most certainly not a lesser form of bowling. In a perfect world, either one will get the Man of the Match honours mattering on who wins this fascinating match, but in truth it will probably go to some batsman who scores a valuable 50 and gets out, or Jacques Kallis for his hundred on what was a pretty flat pitch first day. Batsmen always have the edge in this sort of game. Except maybe Bell, who might just have played his last Test innings yesterday and robbed England supporters of a good few more years of ranting at the selection panel.
But Swann is the man for me - fifer and top scoring in England's second innings with an 81-ball 85? Digging them out of a deep, deep hole and giving them a sniff of a chance? Two switch-hits that made KP's version in previous instances look like something that Murali might do? Brilliant tweets to keep us all entertained in the few seconds that a cricket match isn't happening somewhere? What a guy, is all I can say. WAG! However, my other favourite cricketer (AB de Villiers) is currently doing a good job of digging South Africa out of a hole of their own. They were 4/48 at one stage, just over 100 runs ahead on an admittedly dodgy pitch, but he's batting at a strike rate of over 70 and is closing in on his half century, slowly but surely pushing this game out of England's grasp.
Finally, the series I've probably been following less closely than the other two, merely due to the fact that it's not my favourite format and it clashes rather horribly with my timezone - the series between India and Sri Lanka. South Africa would have been proud of the way Sri Lanka managed to choke in the first game, losing by four runs when they'd been cruising for most of the match. The game, as I understand, had the second highest number of runs scored in it in total since the epic 434 match at the Wanderers. That may not be true. I might have completely fabricated that piece of information; it wouldn't be the first time. Always thought I would have made it alongside the likes of Donald Rumsfeld in government.
Anyway, in the second match Sri Lanka narrowly avoided the choke with Matthews recovering their cause from a late collapse to make Dilshan's effort good. 1-1 and two of the best LOI openers in cricket of any form on display in Sehwag and Dilshan. If I find a way to live without sleeping, I'll be giving this series my full attention.
All I can say is, long live cricket.
However, over the past few days, we've been spoiled. Dreadfully spoiled. Like a gazelle who has just noticed three different lions on three different hills, my eyes have been rapidly dashing between the close fought tussles in Sri Lanka's ODI series in India, the intriguing spin battle in England's first Test in South Africa and the ferocious and often downright nasty stand-off between Australia and the West Indies. We'll all need a cricket holiday after this, although with the series just started in South Africa and a long summer ahead in Australia respite seems very far off.
Firstly, the Perth Test. We probably haven't seen so much bad blood in a Test match since the infamous SCG game versus India in 07/08. This hasn't quite got down to a public mud-slinging match, but it's had its fair share of controversial claimed catches (and run-outs), verbal send-offs and pushing and shoving. Needless to say, it hasn't been played in the correct spirit (especially in my perhaps not-quite-objective eyes by the Aussies), but I must ask a question - is this just what Test cricket needed? Is this just what West Indian cricket needed? The Windies have shown in the past two matches that they care desperately, firstly because of the barrage of bagging from the media after Brisbane, but even more so after the behaviour of Ponting, Watson and Haddin in this match. Nobody wants to throw away their wicket to the enemy, for enemy the opposition have become. No longer does it seem a rivals on, mates off relationship between the teams. Both want blood, and Kemar Roach nearly had it with his bowling to Ricky Ponting on the first day.
Now, as the match and series is on the eve of a finish, what a finish it could be. 51 runs to win for the West Indies after a brilliant bowling performance yesterday and a feisty showing from Deonarine, Nash and the tail in the final innings. Australia need just the one wicket. Even if the men from the Caribbean lose the final wicket without a run added tomorrow, they must be applauded for coming such a long way from conceding 520/7, from the three-day innings defeat in Brisbane, from the player strike and the series loss to Bangladesh. I think it's the appropriate Australian thing to do to commend them for standing up to their critics and showing the world that the West Indies is far from a side resigned to extinction. And for me, I'll be cheering every ball Roach and Tonge face tomorrow with even more passion as I cheered Anderson and Panesar's last wicket stand in Cardiff, and Duminy and Steyn's partnership in Melbourne. Go on, boys, get as many as you can and hold your heads high.
Phew, some passion was released in that last paragraph. Let me get my breath back. Where was I? Of course, on a mental plane to South Africa where Graeme Swann and Paul Harris are busy demonstrating that finger spin is most certainly not a lesser form of bowling. In a perfect world, either one will get the Man of the Match honours mattering on who wins this fascinating match, but in truth it will probably go to some batsman who scores a valuable 50 and gets out, or Jacques Kallis for his hundred on what was a pretty flat pitch first day. Batsmen always have the edge in this sort of game. Except maybe Bell, who might just have played his last Test innings yesterday and robbed England supporters of a good few more years of ranting at the selection panel.
But Swann is the man for me - fifer and top scoring in England's second innings with an 81-ball 85? Digging them out of a deep, deep hole and giving them a sniff of a chance? Two switch-hits that made KP's version in previous instances look like something that Murali might do? Brilliant tweets to keep us all entertained in the few seconds that a cricket match isn't happening somewhere? What a guy, is all I can say. WAG! However, my other favourite cricketer (AB de Villiers) is currently doing a good job of digging South Africa out of a hole of their own. They were 4/48 at one stage, just over 100 runs ahead on an admittedly dodgy pitch, but he's batting at a strike rate of over 70 and is closing in on his half century, slowly but surely pushing this game out of England's grasp.
Finally, the series I've probably been following less closely than the other two, merely due to the fact that it's not my favourite format and it clashes rather horribly with my timezone - the series between India and Sri Lanka. South Africa would have been proud of the way Sri Lanka managed to choke in the first game, losing by four runs when they'd been cruising for most of the match. The game, as I understand, had the second highest number of runs scored in it in total since the epic 434 match at the Wanderers. That may not be true. I might have completely fabricated that piece of information; it wouldn't be the first time. Always thought I would have made it alongside the likes of Donald Rumsfeld in government.
Anyway, in the second match Sri Lanka narrowly avoided the choke with Matthews recovering their cause from a late collapse to make Dilshan's effort good. 1-1 and two of the best LOI openers in cricket of any form on display in Sehwag and Dilshan. If I find a way to live without sleeping, I'll be giving this series my full attention.
All I can say is, long live cricket.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
MG's early thoughts on the UDRS (guaranteed chock-full of bias)
Thank you, Sir Wernich, for the excellent introduction.
Well, I've been a bit wishy-washy on the topic of the UDRS, previously known as the Referral System. I was a quiet advocate at first, mainly because of the notorious Sydney Test match, but was very much for it being used only on marginal decisions. Before it was first implemented in South Africa and the West Indies in early 2009, I wrote a list of considerations, published on this blog for the very first time *drumroll, wild applause*:
The position the system was at during the aforementioned series was not satisfactory. Camera angles were causing issues, umpires were very shaky on the rules and marginal decisions were being overturned. I felt that the game had in no way been improved, but further delays had been introduced and at times incidents were becoming farcical. Especially when Daryl Harper was involved.
The new system (with the brand new acronym that could easily be one of the Sri Lankan players' initials or at least some of them) is far from perfect, but it is a move in the right direction. Hawkeye technology has been implemented remarkably intelligently (considering we're talking about the ICC) and I do like the leeway given to marginal decisions. In fact, I think the improvement to LBW decisions has been fantastic and something I didn't think really possible. I also agree with the reduction of three referrals per innings to two, as the time it takes with all the technology involved (especially when waiting for Hawkeye and Hotspot) is quite lengthy.
Hotspot is an issue though. It seems that currently the third umpire is not taking it as the final word on things, even when the portion of the bat under scrutiny is visible (which is not always and will become less as batsmen learn to hide their edges). Either it should be used as the definitive or it should not be used at all. I believe that better investment could be made into more super-slow-motion cameras which, while having issues with depth of field do show impact most of the time. Hotspot, if it doesn't work well enough, should not be used because cost would then far outweigh any benefits it brings.
Where my major rankle comes, however, is in the player behaviour toward the umpires. Despite the reviews, there seems to be increased disappointment when a decision is made against a team (whether referred or not). This was highlighted by Ponting and Bollinger's rather appalling, childish behaviour in the recent Adelaide Test against the West Indies, but has been evident elsewhere as well. It seems that the umpiring is under even more scrutiny and that players have now been granted license to visibly show disappointment and even obviously complain about a decision. Frustration is also created by the fact that none of the process is shown on-field and thus no-one is really sure why the secondary decision has been made. Even if this is shown after the fact, it should be shown. I believe the umpires in the middle, at least, deserve to see the factors behind the decision for themselves.
To this point (under the UDRS), I haven't seen much change in the decision-making of umpires (whether they're giving more or less wickets before review) but I am hoping to statistically track it at least by sample and provide initial results and findings sometime next year.
Well, I've been a bit wishy-washy on the topic of the UDRS, previously known as the Referral System. I was a quiet advocate at first, mainly because of the notorious Sydney Test match, but was very much for it being used only on marginal decisions. Before it was first implemented in South Africa and the West Indies in early 2009, I wrote a list of considerations, published on this blog for the very first time *drumroll, wild applause*:
- How it will affect umpires' decision-making
- How it will affect the role of umpires
- What improvements to technology use could there be
- The use of Hawkeye
- How it will affect umpire-player relations
- How it will affect the nature of appealing
- Whether it will improve (or not) the decision-making in the game
- The time it takes to make a decision
- The number of referrals a team can make
- Any anomalies that may surface
My thoughts are, so far, generally negative. The camera technology currently in use is too crude to base decisions on. One just has to look at the (non-referral) catch made by Andrew McDonald in the SCG Test - from one angle it looked out, the other not out. As I have stated elsewhere, I think it may encourage excessive appealing, lazy umpiring and a lack of accountability for on-field umpires, while at the same time undermining their authority (and getting under their skin). And while extra technology could improve it, it will also add more time to an already lengthy process.So far, it's been an interesting thing to follow. A good deal too much is made of it, admittedly - in other sports such as rugby league, rule changes and technology implementations happen with barely a blink of an eye. People just accept the new terms and move on. However, cricket has always been a game of tradition, and the followers are firmly divided between the camps of preservers and innovators.
The position the system was at during the aforementioned series was not satisfactory. Camera angles were causing issues, umpires were very shaky on the rules and marginal decisions were being overturned. I felt that the game had in no way been improved, but further delays had been introduced and at times incidents were becoming farcical. Especially when Daryl Harper was involved.
The new system (with the brand new acronym that could easily be one of the Sri Lankan players' initials or at least some of them) is far from perfect, but it is a move in the right direction. Hawkeye technology has been implemented remarkably intelligently (considering we're talking about the ICC) and I do like the leeway given to marginal decisions. In fact, I think the improvement to LBW decisions has been fantastic and something I didn't think really possible. I also agree with the reduction of three referrals per innings to two, as the time it takes with all the technology involved (especially when waiting for Hawkeye and Hotspot) is quite lengthy.
Hotspot is an issue though. It seems that currently the third umpire is not taking it as the final word on things, even when the portion of the bat under scrutiny is visible (which is not always and will become less as batsmen learn to hide their edges). Either it should be used as the definitive or it should not be used at all. I believe that better investment could be made into more super-slow-motion cameras which, while having issues with depth of field do show impact most of the time. Hotspot, if it doesn't work well enough, should not be used because cost would then far outweigh any benefits it brings.
Where my major rankle comes, however, is in the player behaviour toward the umpires. Despite the reviews, there seems to be increased disappointment when a decision is made against a team (whether referred or not). This was highlighted by Ponting and Bollinger's rather appalling, childish behaviour in the recent Adelaide Test against the West Indies, but has been evident elsewhere as well. It seems that the umpiring is under even more scrutiny and that players have now been granted license to visibly show disappointment and even obviously complain about a decision. Frustration is also created by the fact that none of the process is shown on-field and thus no-one is really sure why the secondary decision has been made. Even if this is shown after the fact, it should be shown. I believe the umpires in the middle, at least, deserve to see the factors behind the decision for themselves.
To this point (under the UDRS), I haven't seen much change in the decision-making of umpires (whether they're giving more or less wickets before review) but I am hoping to statistically track it at least by sample and provide initial results and findings sometime next year.
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