The prodigal son returns

Twenty20 is a format Dan enjoys and the opportunity to be part of a team which competes at a world event is enticing for him. He has been encouraged by his team-mates, coaching staff and others at NZC. And we are thrilled to have him in the mix. He will offer a lot to the side.
        National Selection Manager Kim Littlejohn on the return of Daniel Vettori

In a month when Kevin Pietersen announced his retirement from all limited overs international cricket, Daniel Vettori’s decision to come out of retirement and make himself available for New Zealand selection for the World Cup T20 tournament in Sri Lanka, whilst showing his worth to his side, illustrates the difference in riches between cricket’s glitterati and the second tier nations.

Pietersen’s cricket pick and mix

After a great deal of thought and deliberation, I am today announcing my retirement from international one-day cricket. I am immensely proud of my achievements in the one-day game and still wish to be considered for selection for England in Test cricket.
         Kevin Pietersen, 31 May 2012 


The ECB’s Hugh Morris was “disappointed”, at least that was his public sentiment – privately he may well be poking pins into a voodoo doll with a penchant for shades and a love of biltong. Michael Vaughan, in The Telegraph, proclaimed that “when I first heard the news on Thursday my gut reaction was he should never play again and kick him out the team”. Fans, it seems, in a Twitter straw poll at least, are divided between dissecting the perceived short-sighted nature of the ECB’s stance and venting their vitriol at the IPL for ruining our great game – or a combination of the two.

Are there any winners? I can think of a couple of potential ones in Australia if only strike action is averted.

T20 legends - that never were... (Part 1: batsmen)



This year’s Australian T20 Big Bash League (BBL) has seen the re-emergence of a number of retirees into the forefront of the game - Warne, Hayden, Hogg and MacGill. Instead of simply making up numbers or acting as a marketing tool, though they have done that too, all four have shown touches of genius against peers much younger. So, I thought it might be interesting to take a look back at players whose careers had finished prior to the T20 circus, but who would have likely outshone all before them had they played in the current era (the only stipulations – players must have played at ODI level but retired prior to T20I).

It's likely all of us have selected a fantasy team at some stage; a side we'd love to see play, and which ignores nationality, age and era, but in our minds would dominate all comers. I have tried to do nothing more than that - I have selected a T20 team of international legends I would have loved to see in the current format. It'll never take to any field but it's the kind of team I would imagine playing against as a child as I repetitively hit a ball hanging from the rafters in the garage. It's not a definitive list and not driven solely by statistics; they seldom tell the full story. Where I have had to choose between two or more players for one position I’ve gone for the older one. Don’t ask me why – respect for my elders, perhaps? Please keep in mind I'm a Kiwi but I grew up watching the West Indies dominate the international arena - I would have liked just to choose a team full of Windies greats accompanied by Dean Jones and Wasim Raja, but where’s the fun in that?

Like most of the current BBL or IPL squads, I’ve selected 20 players which made it easier for me to include a few more legends too. I’ll cover the squad off in two parts; this blog, Part 1, will look at the top six batsmen, while Part 2 will select a bowling line-up to complement them as well as considering the wider squad. 

The playing XI:

 

1. Roy Fredericks

West Indies. Matches: 12, Runs: 311, Average: 25.91, Strike rate: 70.68 (all ODI statistics)

A batsman who genuinely relished facing the quicks, Fredericks’ international record was solid if not outstanding. So, why pick him? One reason and one reason alone – a 71 ball century at the WACA (in the days when it was ferociously quick) against a bowling attack that included Lillee and Thomson. That effort still stands amongst the fastest test centuries in a game latterly laced with dashers such as Richards, Warner, Gayle, Afridi et al. Imagine what he might do to today’s quicks on T20 roads!

 

2. Romesh Kaluwitharana (Wk)
Sri Lanka. Matches: 189, Runs: 3711, Average: 22.22, Strike rate: 77.70
Along with Sanath Jayasuriya, ‘Kalu’ took batting at the top of the order to a new level during World Series Cricket in Australia in 1995/6. He struck at close to 100 and continued that as he helped Sri Lanka to their first World Cup title on the sub-continent later in 1996. His overall record would scare no-one but for those few short months he set up huge totals with a break-neck start and would likely do the same in T20. I’ve selected him because he can take the wicket keeping gloves, though it was a close run thing with the current England coach.

3. Dean Jones
Australia. Matches: 164, Runs: 6068, Average: 44.61, Strike rate: 72.56
There are very few batsmen who have terrorised fieldsmen with their running quite as Deano did. Even in today’s tip and run format he would have run fielding sides ragged. He changed the way modern batsmen played one-day cricket as he walked down the wicket at the quicks and put them on the back foot. As an outfielder he was unrivalled – an Andrew Symonds of an earlier era.

4. Sir Viv Richards
West Indies. Matches: 187, Runs: 6721, Average: 47.00, Strike rate: 90.20
Imagine being two down in a T20 match and seeing King Viv swagger to the wicket. He was the most destructive batsman of his era and with today’s boundaries constantly being shortened for ‘entertainment’ he would have regularly cleared the ropes. But the key to his brilliant stroke making was an uncanny ability to deposit a length ball through mid-wicket and then smash the same ball through extra cover next up. His skidding off-spinners would have been taxing in a season that has been dominated by spinners, and his cat-like fielding would have tested batsmen looking for a sharp single into the covers.

5. Mark Waugh
Australia. Matches: 244, Runs: 8500, Average: 39.35, Strike rate: 76.90
One of the most elegant stroke makers of any era, Junior could play every shot in the book with consummate ease and often treating even the best international bowlers with absolute contempt. What’s more, he could go the aerial route whenever he chose. His easy off-spin would be an asset as another bowling option, as would his unrivalled athleticism anywhere in the circle.

6. Clive Lloyd (C)
West Indies. Matches: 87, Runs: 1977, Average: 39.54, Strike rate: 81.22
Having led his side to three World Cup finals, the first two as victors, Lloyd would lead my side of superstars. At 6ft 5in. and with huge shoulders, Lloyd wielded a bat most other international cricketers would have struggled to pick up. When in the mood he could dismantle any attack and for a big man was a fantastic fielder in the inner ring.

Given the roads today’s T20 cricket is played on, a total of 200 would be viewed as below par for some of the hardest hitters ever to take guard and face the music. These legends of the game would entertain even the harshest opposition crowds with an unrivalled batting ferocity.

Next up: Part 2 – Bowlers (and the wider squad)

Give those men a microphone

T20 will never be the most beloved of cricket's formats for me, but it is cricket; if it's being televised, broadcast or played, chances are I'll be taking more than simply a passing interest. Like motorists who slow down to rubber neck at a nose-to-tail, curiosity outweighs logic, and I feel compelled to take an interest hoping for some flash of brilliance or the unearthing of a future superstar.

On the surface, Australia's T20 Big Bash League (BBL) appeared that it would be just another domestic T20 league, much the same as the hit and giggle slog fest that seems to take precedence in India, the Caribbean and New Zealand, among others, and whilst there has undoubtedly been a fair proportion of baseball with wickets, the BBL has given us something extra - commentary with context. From a television perspective, two players, not the experts in the commentary box, have been hugely influential in lifting the entertainment value and providing must-see viewing. Surprisingly, that influence hasn't grown through the hard hitting of Travis Birt, Herschelle Gibbs' swagger and bravado or the flowing mullet of crowd favourite Rana Naved. From our lounge rooms, it's debatable whether even Chris Gayle's belligerent six hitting has made the same impression on the viewing public as two forty-something, semi-retired Australian cricketing legends.

Australian cricketing royalty Shane Warne and Matthew Hayden have both been miked up throughout their matches for the Melbourne Stars and the Brisbane Heat respectively. There’s nothing new in that, a number of players with the gift of the gab do it in T20 all around the world; some even at international level, but not quite like these two giants of the game. Anyone with even a basic sporting knowledge knows who Warney and Haydos are, but most of us hear little of their personality or thought processes outside of run of the mill interviews; both on television and in print. This year’s BBL has changed all that and has, at least in part, been responsible for the huge television viewing audience that has settled on the couch with a beer in hand (insert XXXX, VB or Steinlager as you will) most nights for the last three weeks.

So, how are two cricketers who haven’t played at international level for at least three years (five in Warne’s case) making such a hit with the microphone? Easy – by taking the lead, providing insights into the nuances of a game most of us love but will never excel at, then backing it up with their talent, all the time mixing their thoughts with a little of the much-loved Aussie larrikin. When the pair signed on for the revamped, and extended, Big Bash League, the cynics amongst us wondered whether their signatures were for little more than marketing purposes. No-one had expectations of seeing a repeat of feats like the infamous Gatting delivery to start Warne’s first Ashes test in 1993 or Hayden imperiously walking at the world's most feared fast bowlers and depositing them back over their heads without a second thought. That didn’t concern me; I saw that at the highest level of the game for more than a decade. But, and I can’t emphasise this strongly enough, they are still captivating. Their commentary has been nothing short of sublime, not that their returns have been poor - on current form they’d both still waltz into the Australian T20I side.

Every time we settle in to see the Heat or the Stars do battle, we get to understand a little more of the genius of Warne and Hayden, in their own words. Sure, they’ve answered the odd question from Junior, AB, the Bowlologist or Roy, but for the larger part they get little more than a prompt from the commentary box and are left to freestyle, so to speak. Whether they’re waiting for the next delivery, fielding in the circle or preparing to deliver a biting leggy, the pair talk as freely as if the game meant nothing and they were simply going through the motions at training - but it does matter and these two don’t know how not to compete.

Hayden, one of the game’s premier sledgers, provides a very different commentary to that he provided to opposition players who showed any weakness during his international playing days - much of that would have led the Channel 9 team to consider turning down the stump microphone. Instead, during this year’s BBL, as he gets his head together between deliveries, Hayden has talked enthralled viewers through hitting zones, batting tactics and his predictions of what the bowler is trying to do. And with more than 15,000 international runs under his belt, you tend to sit up and listen. Explanations of why he walks at a bowler and slaps him straight down the ground or how he believes pre-meditation has little place in a batsman’s mind set, provide a small window into the psyche of one of the most intimidating batsmen the game has ever witnessed.

It’s Warne though who has taken player commentary to a whole new level. Widely regarded as the best cricketing mind never to captain his country, poker-loving Warne could almost give odds on how he’ll dismiss the man wielding the willow. In the most part he has talked the viewer through almost every delivery he’s bowled, but only after he’s enlightened us as to how the batsman plays, where his weakness is and where he’s going to try and hit the next delivery. The kicker though, is that more often than not he can make his predictions a reality. If you’re in any doubt, Google Warne bowls McCullum. After being given a bit of tap by David Warner in the Stars’ first match, Warne showed his true genius when he dismantled Brendon McCullum, one of the most explosive batsmen in the T20 game, in his next outing. After a quiet first over, Warne predicted McCullum would have a fair crack at him, and sure enough, two balls in McCullum advanced at him only for the miscued lofted drive to fall just out of reach of the cover fieldsman – we (the seasoned internationals in the commentary box included) were all hooked. Warne nodded knowingly, thinking about his next play, just as he would at a private table at the Crown Casino. When McCullum came back on strike, Warne confidently asserted he “might shape to sweep one after that first one, or maybe even go inside out again a bit harder. So, I might try to slide one in there – fast”. As if guided by a Nostradamus prophecy, McCullum moved across his stumps and shaped to sweep a quicker Warne delivery which pitched and turned to bowl him around his legs. Everyone who had listened and watched the magic unfold shook their head in disbelief at the genius they had just seen. And Warney’s response when quizzed about what we’d all just witnessed – “not bad”. All hail, King Warne! A one-off, you might suggest? No - Bravo, Gibbs and Mitchell Marsh, among others, have fallen as foretold by the leg spinning supremo, and we’ve heard every word. 

After the conclusion of this year’s Big Bash League, it’s unlikely we’ll ever have the opportunity to listen to the commentary genius of either Warne or Hayden again – while they’re playing at least. So, take the chance to witness some of the magic in their remaining matches, and Fox – sign up a couple more legends next year!

Every colour but white

How do you prepare an underperforming international cricket team for an upcoming test series? If you're New Zealand Cricket, the answer seems to lie with T20 (with a handful of ODIs thrown in for good measure).

As opposed to donning the whites and throwing themselves headlong into first class cricket to prepare for a one-off test (one test does not a series make, but that's a topic for another day) against Zimbabwe and a three test series against the might of South Africa, Taylor, McCullum, Bracewell et al. will see nothing but a rainbow of cricketing uniforms, white balls, Dilshan scoops and change-ups. Those with intentions of breaking into the squad for the Zimbabwe test will have to do so via a weight of runs and wickets in the shorter forms and hope the selectors are willing to take the gamble they’ll make the step up. Whatever happened to preparing for test cricket, still the pinnacle of our game, on a diet of first class cricket where the only colours on offer are a sporting green wicket, a shiny red ball and the pink tinge of sunburn on the neck of a lone spectator?

The domestic cricket calendar suggests New Zealand Cricket don’t share my views – it seems numbers (read: money) have got out of balance with the common sense cricket management. So, let’s play the numbers game:

• 77: the gap (in days) between rounds of New Zealand’s domestic four-day competition, the Plunket Shield, from early December to mid-February
• 8: New Zealand’s current ICC test ranking (out of 9) – Zimbabwe hasn’t played enough matches to be ranked
• 26: the number of years between New Zealand test wins on Australian soil (2nd test, December 9-12, 2011 – Hobart)
• 5: the number of days of first class cricket the majority of New Zealand’s international players will play between the Hobart triumph and the first test against South Africa in March, 2012 (based on the one-off test against Zimbabwe going the distance)
• 78: the actual number of days between the Australian and South African tests
• 11: international matches New Zealand will play between the Zimbabwean and South African tests – for most of the New Zealand test team, these 11 T20Is and ODIs will be the only cricket they play

Numbers don’t always tell the full story, and they can be manipulated to support most arguments. Think otherwise; ask Stephen Fleming. Commentators and scribes made a big deal of him needing to get 54 runs in his final innings in test cricket to get his career average above 40 so he would be regarded as world-class – at 39.76 he would have still been one of the greats of the New Zealand, and world, game.

During the middle third of the New Zealand summer, half of the test side that subdued Australia in Hobart will play no first class cricket.  Those who play all three international formats will spend that period immersed in T20 and 50-over cricket, both on the domestic and international fronts; some will even pull up stumps and travel to Australia in between domestic rounds to play in Australia’s Big Bash League. Ross Taylor, Brendon McCullum, Martin Guptill, Dean Brownlie and possibly Kane Williamson will have little or no chance to spend long periods at the crease before battling a South African side that continues to unearth fast bowling talents like the All Blacks breed openside flankers. If Jesse Ryder gets over a calf strain in time for the Zimbabwean test in late January, he will have had no time in the middle but will then likely play all the short form international matches prior to the first test against South Africa. That would leave the top six with no first class cricket leading into a series where they’re asked to blunt the bowling of Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel, ranked numbers one and five in the world respectively; a formidable attack even before mentioning Philander or de Lange. Of the bowlers, Doug Bracewell likely be the only one in the same boat – a huge ask for a young tyro still learning the intricacies of his art.

It’s not much easier for those on the fringes who are looking to break into the test side. Given they won’t have played first class cricket for the 54 days leading up to the one-off Zimbabwe test, it’s a big ask to pick them in a test match – fingers crossed Jesse’s yoga and pilates schedule leads to results. Sorry, if their province doesn’t make the HRV Cup (domestic T20) final, they may get a chance in a three-day match against the Zimbabweans that finishes two days before the test. At least the hopefuls will get the opportunity to play in two Plunket Shield matches before the South African test series though they will likely need phenomenal figures to break into the squad. The test specialists; Daniel Vettori, Chris Martin and Reece Young (plus possibly Trent Boult) will have the same opportunities and will need every day they can to hone their skills in anticipation of a fierce battle.

There are a number of issues that have led to the current flood of domestic T20 matches and the continued expansion of the HRV Cup, but will it help New Zealand Cricket be more competitive on the international scene, especially at test level? In short; no, and that creates a conundrum for those involved with the New Zealand game. Currently, we tend to get the requisite fillip of T20I and ODI matches but we get little more than a two test series against the bigger nations away from home. Whilst test and first class cricket is the game’s pinnacle, it doesn’t pay the bills, unless you’re England where it’s rare if the ‘full house’ signs aren’t up for at least the first four days of any test match. New Zealand is a very small market and the big sponsorship dollars are with rugby, so money has to be found elsewhere – at the moment, that’s T20. And let’s be honest, it brings punters to the game who wouldn’t otherwise give cricket a second glance, and that’s a good thing – many of the PlayStation generation don’t have the attention span to watch a one-dayer, let alone even one day of test cricket!

Both the provinces and New Zealand Cricket rely on money from gates and television revenues from T20 to help develop the game at grass roots level, promote it to an audience with a lot more entertainment choices than at any time before, and pay the salaries of those who play the game at the upper echelons. So, they play it through the holiday season to maximise exposure and revenues; they should, that’s what they’re tasked with doing. But, and it’s a but of Sir Mix-A-Lot proportions, should first class cricket be put on the back burner for eleven weeks? Surely domestic 50 over cricket can be fitted in where a gap exists, or be played the day after a Plunket Shield match, which would help cut expenditure as well? That would allow the HRV Cup to keep its current format and dates, and be played entirely between mid-December and mid-January when we are all enjoying time away from work, relaxing in the sun. Then, instead of playing poorly attended domestic 50 over matches in the Ford Trophy, players could get back into first class cricket earlier than they will in the 2011/12 season – a win-win for everyone! Well, for me at least, though I don’t imagine Justin Vaughan (or David White) will be inviting me to join them any time soon.

Spare a thought for the players too. They get publicly slated when they fail, even more so when they play a loose shot or make a decision akin to a brain fart, yet they are put in a position where they get nothing but limited overs cricket in preparation for a test series. They have to change what they do in a physical sense solely by mental application – how many sprinters run a marathon simply by changing their mental outlook?