Video killed the radio star

Or was it the collective greed, and financial disparity, of international cricket boards?

The last week has seen an informed and unbiased debate on the merits of England’s two divergent cricket commentaries – BBC’s Test Match Special and the internet hit, Test Match Sofa – if only…

Instead, Test Match Special stalwarts Jonathan Agnew and Christopher Martin-Jenkins have done little more than throw barbs at their more irreverent couch-bound contemporaries. Their views have come across as sanctimonious, nasty and arrogant – akin to an entitled bully taking pot shots at the quiet kid in the corner minding their business – David is never going to topple cricket’s Goliath. Those who take the views of two seemingly bitter old men to heart would firmly believe that “the Sofa” is destroying the very essence of our great game and putting the financial stability of the ECB at risk.

Book review: Guile and Spin – Stuart Larner

It’s been close to 20 years since I wrote a book review, and dry essays about Shakespearean dramas written for insular school masters don’t qualify me to critique a novel built around our great game. I’ve read more cricketing (auto) biographies than one man should, so why not a work of fiction – Stuart Larner’s Guile and Spin is infinitely more readable, and believable, than most of them and doesn’t require the contrived controversy that mars current cricket books. 

Managing a dilapidated council sports and recreation centre while continuing to coach tennis as a side venture, Jeremy Freeman fills the role of the reluctant hero. Having not played cricket since his schooldays, Jeremy has little more than a passing interest in our great game and but for the influence of an attractive female cricketer, Claire Spedman, the story would likely have died before it started.

Well bowled, Timmy!

The Bangalore visitors' honours board (Courtesy of blackcaps.co.nz)

7/64 on a green seamer at the start of a New Zealand summer would be a fine haul – to achieve it against India on the sub-continent is almost without peer. The extraordinary effort of Tim Southee made for riveting test cricket, albeit a hard-fought loss, and helped dull the pain of an inept New Zealand struggle in the first test. Will it allow him to cast aside the potential tag that has threatened to hang him for the past four years?

A baby-faced Tim Southee announced his arrival on the international scene with 5/55 against England on test debut in Napier – four years and 18 tests later, a more mature 23 year old has finally shown a return on the potential that had started to weigh him down.

Having got his break for Northern Districts as an 18 year old, Southee made the step up to the international arena in 12 short months, but his appearances at test level have been sporadic and often underwhelming. Like Vettori before him, Southee has grown up, both personally and in a cricket sense, almost wholly at an international level - developing in the spotlight is never easy, doing it as an impressionable young man can be a recipe fraught with danger.

What price a wicket?

The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.
           Vince Lombardi - American football coaching legend


How do batsmen define price - value, worth, or dollars and cents? Is the price they put on their wicket something entirely different?

In the IPL, where money abounds and a player’s worth is crudely defined by their price at auction, putting a numerical value on price is easier, or is it? Half a million dollars over 10 innings artificially sets the price of a star’s wicket at $50,000, regardless of the runs they make, or don’t – but isn’t that too simple? Should the amount a player is paid for his services even have a place in the price they put on their scalp? For the sake of the game, let’s hope not.

A tour to India and the World T20 – a Kiwi view

Pallekele International Stadium (courtesy of Getty Images)

For a New Zealand cricket fan, recent history has not been kind. The national team’s dismantling in the West Indies rubbed salt into an already festering wound, and reminded many of the efforts of their efforts prior to Stephen Fleming’s reign at the helm.

A one win – eight loss record across all three formats in Florida and the Caribbean should never be acceptable – most leading cricketing nations would be looking to run a scythe through their line-up but those in the second tier, such as New Zealand, do not have that luxury. That we are in the middle of the off-season means there are even fewer options to call on to step up at international level.

Is T20 a test cricket breeding ground?

With the meteoric rise of T20 sensation David Warner within Australia’s test ranks, there is a growing current of support for the international T20 game as a legitimate breeding ground for attacking test cricketers. However, is Warner simply a one-off talent or will more aspiring young cricketers look to use the shortest version of the game as a genuine path to long term success as test level? Is T20 a playground for developing emerging talent or simply an opportunity to get a glimpse of a young prodigy?

Even those who pay scant regard to the T20 game would have struggled not to be impressed by Warner’s exploits in his international T20 debut against a star-studded South African outfit at the MCG. The diminutive powerhouse, who as yet hadn’t played a first class match, deposited Ntini, Tsotsobe, Steyn et al. to all parts as he fell eleven runs short of a century in his first outing in the green and gold. In 43 balls, Warner cleared the rope six times in an innings that included another seven boundaries. Over the next three years he plied his trade as a hired gun in England, New Zealand and India, whilst still struggling to nail down a permanent opening spot in his native New South Wales first class side – he is yet to pass 1500 runs in the domestic format. However, the same attacking flair he had shown at T20 level propelled him to a test debut against New Zealand late last year with Australia’s opening resources thin at best. Not so anymore. In his second test, Warner put his attack-at-all-costs approach to one side and did something Australian legends Hayden and Langer never achieved in their illustrious careers - he carried his bat, albeit in a historic New Zealand victory. A little over a month later he moved ahead of Chris Gayle to hit the fourth fastest test century (off 69 balls) in 2029 test matches played around the world. In the short term, he has cemented his spot in a rejuvenated Australian side and shown that there is a pathway for players that pundits had previously dismissed. It is still questionable whether others will follow Warner’s example or if it’s the best path for cricketers to choose if all forms of our game are to continue to flourish.

Can T20 really become a breeding ground for test cricketers of the future? At first glance, with the exception of Warner, the jury is out, and with only a handful of test matches under his belt the extent of Warner’s success is still up in the air long term. Whilst he has fashioned a powerful test batting record in the early stages of his career, how he progresses may shed light on T20’s usefulness to the test arena. It is debateable whether the skills learned as a young cricketer in the T20 environment will aid in their long-term success, or adversely create bad habits that stymie their growth as test or first class players. On the positive side of the ledger, T20 has enhanced fielding levels, helped bowlers think under a constant level of pressure and enabled batsmen to understand to what extent they really can push their running between the wickets, but on the whole such benefits are tenuous at best.

Whilst the majority of established (and more mature) cricketers have the ability to move between the formats and draw on previous experiences to avoid the pitfalls of the T20 merry-go round, youngsters do not have the same mental resources. The requirements of the T20 game mean batsmen have no opportunity to build an innings but see success in hitting to unorthodox areas; playing low percentages shots in the search for quick runs. That in itself is not the key issue here; understanding when to put those strokes aside in the longer versions is. Likewise, bowlers lack the time to work out a batsman’s weaknesses and regularly bowl as many as six variations an over. Whilst the development of a varied arsenal is a definite plus, it restricts bowlers from developing any rhythm.  Over time, will the strain that imparts on young quicks cause more of them to pull up short when moving into the longer game, as it has done with two of Australia’s brightest young tyros, Pat Cummins and James Pattinson? Though spinners have dominated the current Australian BBL and its New Zealand counterpart, all but the old guard of Warne, MacGill and the effervescent Brad Hogg have achieved that success with little turn and even less flight – qualities that should remain in the shorter versions. Are the games’ brightest young stars more likely to become long term test (or first-class) combatants with a T20 diet or a smorgasbord of first class contests?

T20 provides a virtual shop window for young cricketers; a personal marketing tool to show their wares on a televised stage in the hope of getting an opportunity in the longer forms of the game. Alternatively, for those lacking the requisite desire or game to play at test, or first class level, T20 provides a path as a cricketing mercenary travelling the world on highly paid short term contracts. The second scenario is already a cricketing reality, but the first requires further debate. Whilst the glut of T20 cricket may not provide youngsters with a solid technical base, it continues to unearth young talent that may otherwise languish in club cricket with limited opportunities to break into the first class arena. From an Australasian perspective (that’s all we get in Aotearoa – if you live abroad, Google it), Pat Cummins has been the first youngster to truly use the T20 hype, getting an opportunity in first class cricket off the back of his performances before a dream test debut. Playing in last season’s T20 BBL as a 17 year old pimply-faced, raw quick bowler, Cummins blew through domestic cricket’s top batsmen and the plaudits flowed. Within two months of the end of his T20 baptism, Cummins was named in the New South Wales first class side, and before the year was out he, like a number of test debutants throughout 2011, had taken a five wicket bag on debut and led Australia’s bowling quartet to an unexpected victory against South Africa. The pity is, he hasn’t played since, and the question will be asked whether the rigours of test cricket was too much too soon – but that’s a discussion for another day. Others such as Nic Maddinson, James Pattinson and Mitchell Marsh have all used the Big Bash to reaffirm that they have the necessary skills to be successful – whether T20 will aid their progress is still unanswered. Whilst constantly described as a young man’s game, is T20 the best route to develop future stars, or are they better served honing their skills with a red ball? On the back of David Warner’s pummelling of India, Tony Greig (the cheerleader more than the commentator) proclaimed that he’d love to see more players use T20 as a pathway to test cricket. I may be little more than an amateur hack, but for the sake of our game, and tests going five days, I think the traditional route offers better value.

T20 has its place – it helps take our game to areas and crowds that cricket had never truly explored. I disagree with a number of the older brigade that T20 is destroying their game; it may not be taking cricket down a path I necessarily like or agree with, but sport must adapt to the audience it relies on for its continued success. It brings revenues into the coffers of both provincial and international associations that administrators never previously dreamed of. In the case of New Zealand cricket at least, those revenues are relied on to develop cricket at every level; without it I fear for the long term development of the game in our little corner of paradise. With all that said, my wish is that the true pinnacle of our game continues to be the epic battles at test level – I just hope we don’t see the instant gratification generation destroy their cricketing development in repetitive three hour slots.

A century of centuries – over-hyped?

On the eve of the third test against Australia, and 22 innings having passed since his last international 100, the pressure continues to grow on the broad cricketing shoulders of the Little Master, Sachin Tendulkar. Or does it? Is the pursuit, and eventual achievement, of 100 international centuries really that important?

If you read the mass of articles written by Indian scribes, or have bought into the media hype created by any number of marketing and PR departments in the West Island (sorry, for those of you outside New Zealand, I refer to the small island due west of us – Australia), then the answer is a loud and definitive yes. If you were to put yourself in the shoes of all but a minority within the Indian press box, would you risk the ire of over one billion Indian fans who view the Tendulkar as a cricketing deity, and not tow the company line about the magnitude of the milestone? Likewise, can you blame the marketing gurus at Cricket Australia, Channel 9, Vodafone et al. for promoting the potential record ad nauseum if it means more punters file through the turnstiles, download the app or watch the live televised coverage, all the time helping grow revenues, ratings and crowds?

That said, does a feat encompassing two very different cricketing disciplines hold much water? There was no unadulterated celebration when the diminutive 38 year old passed 30,000 runs across tests and ODIs or played his combined 600th match – both achieved for the first time by Tendulkar. Consider this; would people think less of Sachin or remember him with only muted fondness if he finished on 99 centuries? No. No one questioned the pedigree of the world's greatest batsmen because he was bowled for a duck in his final innings and finished his accomplished career with a test average of 99.94. Yes, it would have been an ending more befitting Disney if instead, Eric Hollies’ googly had been driven for four, and Sir Donald George Bradman had ended his career with an average in triple figures, but it doesn’t matter a jot. The Don will always be the batting benchmark; a man who sat at the top of the pile with daylight a distant second. In the same vein, regardless of if (or when), he reaches the 100 century mark, Sachin Tendulkar will be widely regarded as the icon of the modern game – not because of that one achievement, but for all he’s achieved during his 23 years in the top flight. Since playing his first test against Pakistan as a skinny 16 year old with a curly afro, Tendulkar has destroyed almost every batting record up for grabs, and created others of his own. His more than 33,000 international runs and 50 plus test hundreds are unlikely to be bettered, and if he can stroke his way to two more ODI tons he’ll go past 50 in that form too – now, that’s an achievement worth celebrating.

But, when the pre-test hoopla and hyperbole has died and the Little Master descends the steps to enter the WACA cauldron, like fans all around the world, I hope he knocks off his 100th century, and then moves on to numbers 101, 102 and beyond with the same poise and humility as he has one hundred times before.