India lose home one-day international – West Indies win away

Which is the more noteworthy? Not sure. Not sure it matters. Both facts are pretty striking.

West Indies

West Indies’ tour of the subcontinent, while on the face of it relatively unsuccessful, has been fairly decent in our eyes. It’s a bit sad that expectations have dropped that much, but let’s face it, they have. There’s promise in this side and not the dumb, blind optimism kind of promise either, but real, gritty actually-going-to-make-some-effort promise.

When the Windies last toured England, their captain turned up about four minutes before the first Test. It wasn’t his fault his team were playing an away series in England in May, against opposition they’d finished playing a home series against about a week before, but it still didn’t set much of an example. His side promptly went through the motions in cold weather, in front of few fans and the series never captured the attention, let alone the imagination.

This summer, West Indies again arrive in England in May. We feel faint confidence that they’ll have more stomach for a fight.

India

Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir and Suresh Raina have mustered 69 runs between them in nine innings in this series. Our verdict on this is as follows: three good one-day players haven’t played very well.

The ball is coming out of the hand well

We were reading about Australia’s latest call-up, Daniel Trevor Christian today. Aside from wondering whether a West Indian cricketer could trade him a surname for one of his first names, we were also struck by his use of the phrase ‘the ball is coming out of the hand well’.

We were struck by this, because it was the third time we’d read that phrase in the last week. Australian bowlers seem to talk about little else but their ability to release the ball.

Is this an issue in Australia? Is grade cricket awash with bowlers who neglect to let go in their delivery stride before pointlessly appealing for a catch when they then discover the ball in their hand?

James Pattinson and Australian desperation

It’s been a great period in Australian cricket. There have been so many poor performances that the nation attained that blissful state where everyone’s running around screaming ‘do something!’ without any agreement as to what that something might be.

It didn’t matter who was right and who was wrong, just so long as you had an opinion. For the most part, the wrong opinions were the ones that won out though, which was just excellent. Top quality opening batsmen were dropped and incompetent opening bowlers were shown ‘faith’. The decisions were inexplicable. All that was important was to be seen to be doing something. Anything.

Clinging to competence

The chaos became so complete that everyone lost confidence in Australian cricketers. Perform semi-competently and a bowler could retain his place in the side even if he could only manage two successive days of cricket without getting injured. It seemed worth gambling on someone who was semi-okay, because what was the alternative?

Well, get enough injuries and you find out. The alternatives were the likes of James Pattinson and Patrick Cummins who both had stunning debuts. Even if they don’t maintain those standards, they’ve still done enough to indicate they’re probably a better bet than Mr Glass and a left-armer who’s basically a bowling machine mounted on a potter’s wheel.

Add to that the fact that Nathan Lyon hasn’t been dropped yet, despite having played several matches, and there’s a worrying possibility that Australia could actually have bottomed-out. There’s even talk of dropping Phil Hughes in favour of a batsman.

David Warner’s Twenty20 reputation

We’ve some sympathy for the young, millionnaire cricketer, David Warner – and it’s not just because he’s Australian. We feel that sympathy – just a small amount – because he’s been branded a Twenty20 player.

Warner’s done well off the back of Twenty20, but he’s always going to have to strive that little bit harder for respect now, no matter what he achieves. Like a left-handed artist or a left-handed carpenter or a left-handed teacher, his triumphs will only be reluctantly acknowledged by the public.

That Twenty20 brand will always be there. It’ll fade when he bats well, but it’ll shine like a xenon headlight bulb every time he fails. There’s something a bit snobby about it all.

Twenty20 and Test cricket aren’t different species with a common ancestor, they’re the same species. They can interbreed. A successful Twenty20 batsman is likely to have a good eye, which is a quality shared by all the best Test batsmen. A successful Test batsman will be a good decision-maker, which is also a great attribute in Twenty20.

If there were no Twenty20 cricket, David Warner might not be making his Test debut, but that’s hardly his fault. If anything, he seems to be approaching his Test career rather admirably. With three first-class hundreds in 11 games and an average of 60, he’s doing his bit on the pitch and apparently he’s spent long hours in the nets simply to practise batting for a long time.

He was out for three on his Test debut today, playing a short ball like he’d never seen one before. Maybe he hadn’t.

Australia pick the wrong bowlers

With New Zealand 176-5, you may disagree with that. That’s not really our point. Our point is that we haven’t got anything to say about James Pattinson and Mitchell Starc.

We were hoping Ben Cutting would get the nod. His training revolves around distance running, not weight-lifting – an approach we approve of – and he avoids no-balls by humming trance music to himself in his head as he runs in.

We’re a bit disappointed if we’re honest, but not so much that we’re going to get angry. We’re something of a connoisseur of disappointment and this is at the lower end of the spectrum.

Michael Clarke’s support for Mitchell Johnson is getting ridiculous

Michael Clarke concluded early on in his tenure that his man management of Mitchell Johnson would involve unconditional love, no matter what the tufty-haired purveyor of left-arm ineptitude did with the ball.

Johnson hasn’t taken many wickets recently, but Clarke’s been steadfast in his support. Someone should tell him he can give it a rest now.

Johnson is expected to have surgery on his left big toe this week and is likely to be out of action for about five months.

Seemingly engaging ‘mindless support mode’, Clarke said:

“I think it could have a good impact on him. It will give him more time away from the game to clear his head and get himself fit and strong.”

For once, we’ve got some sympathy for Johnson, because the poor sod’s already at a low ebb and is now going to miss basically a whole season. However, the idea that sitting on his arse with his foot in the air for half a year will somehow improve him as a bowler isn’t all that convincing.

2012 Twenty20 Cup schedule

There’s little point criticising the 2012 county cricket fixture list. They’d made a report saying how they might change it before it had even been released. That said, we still find the Twenty20 Cup schedule bizarre.

They play every day for a month. Then they play quarter finals two-and-a-half weeks later. Then they play the semi-finals and final another month after that.

For a sport so besotted with momentum, they sure know how to screen its calls and forget its birthday.

Cricinfo approval rating dips

Should we take it badly if someone says, “This is the ONLY article that I dont read on Page 2″ about our work?

Hard to say, isn’t it? If they haven’t read it, they can’t really evaluate the quality. Or maybe they’re saying that they take in the article in some other way. Maybe they print it off and then eat it.

If you’d like to read or eat our latest Cricinfo piece, you can find it here.

Great draw – in no other sport does that make much sense

It was a glorious and gleefully shambolic finish to the third Test between India and West Indies. West Indies were one wicket away from a tie, India one run away from a win. R Ashwin was run out going for what would have been the winning run and the match ended in a draw – but the Windies had chances in those closing overs too.

Our initial thought was that it would be boring if we repeated ourself about how a close Test match is generally superior to a close one-day or Twenty20 match. But then we thought, no, to hell with you. We’re incredibly boring in real life and we repeat ourself constantly. It’s our website and if we want to be as repetitive as the snatch of music on a DVD title menu, that’s our decision.

The closing overs of a Test match that’s in the balance

As a child, we loved Lego. We would spend five hours making an elaborate Lego spaceship the like of which had never been seen before. Sometimes, in attempting to secure an awkward piece towards the end of the construction process, we would inadvertently explode the whole damn thing. When this happened, we would make a sound.

The sound started low and quiet, slowly rose in both pitch and volume and culminated in an angry shriek. It was pretty foul. Anyone who heard that sound would have instantly known the emotion behind it. It was borne of the profound frustration you can only feel when you’ve spent bloody ages on something and then made a balls of it at the end.

Where are you going with this?

If there was Lego crumblage in the first few minutes of construction, we didn’t make the sound. Quite simply, you have to have invested time and effort in something in order to feel that level of emotion.

It doesn’t have to be a negative emotion. You’ll generally feel more pride over something you’ve slaved over than something you knocked up in five minutes.

The point is that having made an investment, you care more about the outcome. That is why a close Test match finish feels so electrifying to those who have followed proceedings from day one.

R Ashwin learns from Harbhajan Singh

We like R Ashwin. He seems… keen.

He’s talented too, but talented players are ten-a-penny. Who cares about them? No, what we like is a stony face when someone runs in to bowl; a face that says: ‘Shut up, I’m working. No, seriously, stop it. I’m trying to concentrate. I’ve got to get this finished otherwise I won’t be able to leave on time and I hate – absolutely HATE – staying late’ – that kind of face.

R Ashwin has replaced Harbhajan Singh in the side. We wouldn’t say Harbhajan became complacent exactly, but he did start to cling to his own record and past reputation a little too tightly.

Speaking to us in a fictional interview, Harbhajan reacted to Ashwin’s hundred and five-for against the Windies in Mumbai by saying:

“Obviously, as a senior player, I’m delighted for him. It’s great to see that I’ve mentored these youngsters so well and if they ever want more advice, they know they can count on me as a senior player.

“His performance in this match brings to mind my own in Cape Town earlier in the year. As a senior player, I made a whirlwind 40 and took 7-195 on a pitch that was tougher for both batting and bowling than this one.

“Hopefully, one day, Ashwin will become a senior player and will replicate such astonishing feats. Also, while we’re on this subject, I think it’s important to emphasise that I’m a senior player.”