Very Very Stupid

The Indian media are well known for being reactionary in their views. This is evident at two particular times - first, when the BCCI come out and give their opinion on a situation in world cricket, such as the DRS. Even if the rest of the cricketing world disagree with them, Indian newspapers and commentators will back their board to the hilt. Quite what their motive for this concordance is, we can only speculate. Secondly, we have a situation like the one I read on Cricinfo the other day - that VVS Laxman should be dropped for the Perth Test in favour of Rohit Sharma.

Now I can fully understand the clamour for change. India were simply woeful in Sydney, save for a good opening burst by Zaheer Khan in the 1st innings and some graft with the bat once the game was already lost second time around. They capitulated in the first innings and they will need to find something from somewhere for the next Test starting on Friday, on a pitch that is expected to be quick and bouncy, quite unlike the subcontinent. There is no doubt that India will benefit from phasing out their senior batsmen (Laxman, Tendulkar and Dravid) gradually and I realise that this was seen as an opportunity to blood a new player instead of Laxman, whilst his peers are still in form. However, in this instance a more short-term view is required. Laxman has been there and done it as far as touring Australia is concerned. He has made tricky runs in important situations and has done it in style. He grafted his way to 66 in Sydney and did look in good nick, which may well carry forward to the WACA.

By contrast, Sharma is yet to make his Test debut. He has however played 72 ODIs, so most people in world cricket are aware of him. My feeling is that he scores easy runs against mediocre opposition. Averaging 34, he only has two hundreds, which were made back-to-back in Zimbabwe. 6 of his 11 50s have come on the subcontinent, with a further 3 in the West Indies. Whilst he offers something to the team in limited overs with his fast strike rate, useful off-spinners and sharp fielding, I can't help but think he is hardly the solution in what has become a dogfight Down Under. But then again, there is no other suitable batsman in the squad. You could include him at the expense of Virat Kohli. However, Kohli has a far superior ODI record and still hasn't really proved he is able to translate that onto the Test arena. My gut feeling tells me he eventually will establish himself, but that Sharma should remain a limited overs specialist. Laxman's time will come soon, but this would be too soon - give him until the end of the series, so that we have at least two more matches to watch one of the most stylish batsmen of his generation at work.

RM

When It's Broke, Fix It

Make no mistake about it, England will be up against it in their 3 Test series against Pakistan, starting next Tuesday (very exciting after no England games since the end of October!). They have never played a Test match in the neutral venues of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, unlike their opponents, who have made the UAE their home following the shooting of the Sri Lanka team bus in their last home series. England proved how much they struggle on the subcontinent against spin in particular, a discipline in which Pakistan have recently excelled. The pitches are flat and generally unresponsive and as close to Pakistani pitches as you can get really, so the home advantage is with them. Finally, there is the resurgence of the Pakistan team since the spot-fixing scandal on their last tour of England in 2010. The cupboards have been spring cleaned from top to bottom at the PCB and the results were obvious in an excellent Test year in 2011. Admittedly, the opposition was far from the strongest, but there was enough to suggest that the No.1 Test team in the world would be given a run for their money. Here is the run down of their squad:

Mohammad Hafeez - 2011 record: 10 matches, 647 runs @ 40.43, 2 hundreds, Best: 143. 15 wickets @ 25.93, Best: 4/31. An all-rounder quite unlike the typical Pakistani model set by Shahid Afridi and Abdul Razzaq. More a batsman who bowls, Hafeez finally reaped the rewards that his talent deserve in 2011 after previously flattering to deceive. He has a solid technique but is capable of scoring quickly at the top of the order, with a wide array of strokes. England will do well not to underestimate his bowling as well. He frequently operates at first change, and has an arm ball that causes left-handers a lot more bother than it should. Strauss and Cook must be wary.

Taufeeq Umar - 10 matches, 831 runs @ 46.16, 3 hundreds, Best: 236. Less flashy than Hafeez, Taufeeq has nonetheless contributed excellently in the first settled opening pairing that Pakistan have had for as long as I can remember. A gritty player who either tends to score big or fail with nothing in between. Has occasionally appeared troubled by the spinning ball, but has the ability to make opposition bowling attacks toil on the flat pitches of the UAE.

Imran Farhat - Did not play in 2011. Likely reserve opener, should Taufeeq or Hafeez lose form or fitness. A mediocre player at best, England have held the Indian sign over him for quite some time and would like the opportunity to continue to do so.

Azhar Ali - 10 matches, 732 runs @ 45.75, 1 hundred, Best: 100. 1 wicket @ 35.00. Best: 1/4. A man who was given a fair working over by the England bowlers in 2010, Azhar has made great strides since that time and is another gritty player, quite unlike Pakistani batsmen of recent times, who would do anything to throw their wicket away. Capable of occupying the crease for long periods of time, Azhar does have a tendency to make 50s without converting them into 100s. Whilst this is not a terrible habit to have, as displayed by his solid average, he knows he has more to offer at No.3 than he is currently giving.

Younis Khan - 8 matches, 765 runs @ 85.00, 2 hundreds, Best: 200*. The first of the elder statesmen in the middle order. Younis has been part of the disruption within Pakistani cricket over the past 5 years, but now that the dust has settled, he has come out of it maintaining the quality that he has always possessed. He knows how to pace an innings to perfection, can judge the state of the match and adapt his game accordingly and is one of the most reliable catchers in the team. Probably still the key man in the batting lineup after all the upheaval.

Misbah-ul-Haq (captain) - 10 matches, 765 runs @ 69.54, 1 hundred, Best: 102*. Misbah can take an awful lot of credit for the way he has transformed the fortunes of the Pakistan side. For the first time in many years, he has got all of the players pulling together and they are now beginning to see the results of his efforts. He is often criticised for his defensive mindset, both in his batting and his field placings in captaincy, but the upshot of this is that he has made his charges extremely difficult to beat, even if they don't win as many games as perhaps they could. At 37, he may not have long left at the top, but the nation can certainly be grateful for the good work he has done.

Asad Shafiq - 9 matches, 409 runs @ 37.18, 1 hundred, Best: 104. Will be fighting it out with Umar Akmal for the No.6 slot in the order. Another solid and unspectacular batsman, albeit one who clearly has a lot of potential to succeed at this level, even if he has not quite done so as yet. If he is selected, this series could be the making or breaking of his Test match credentials.

Umar Akmal - 3 matches, 181 runs @ 36.20. Best: 56. A frustratingly mercurial talent, like brother Kamran before him. However, at 21, there is still plenty of room for improvement, particularly in the temperament department. He has all the shots in the book at present but without the knowledge of when it is best to play them, hence a number of irritatingly soft dismissals since he burst onto the scene in 2009 with an innings of rare quality against New Zealand. I certainly would enjoy seeing him more than Shafiq at No.6, but I do feel that he is the riskier selection. Exciting performances in ODI cricket has reminded the world that this boy is still a potential star of the future. The only thing stopping him is himself.

Adnan Akmal (wk) - 8 matches, 211 runs @ 35.16, Best: 53. 29 catches, 4 stumpings. Another member of the Akmal dynasty, Adnan is the least spectacular but also the one who fills his fans with the least dread. Nowhere near as good a batsman as Kamran, but he does not have to be given the solid contributions from those above him. The thing that sets Adnan apart is the quality of his keeping. Yes, he will still make the odd error, but you would do well to find a keeper who doesn't in the modern game. He does deal with an attack with much variety, so his record when you consider the bowlers he keeps to is pretty good.

Abdur Rehman - 8 matches, 109 runs @ 15.57, Best: 40*. 36 wickets @ 26.27, Best: 4/51. The second spinner in the side, Rehman is essentially an orthodox left-armer. He doesn't really possess any real variation, but will mix up his pace, whilst putting the ball in a consistent area. Has deserved a maiden Test 5fer, but as yet hasn't quite pushed over the line. Another player who should not be underestimated.

Umar Gul - 8 matches, 60 runs @ 7.50. Best: 19. 34 wickets @ 25.67, Best: 4/61. The new ball bowler, more well known for his exploits in limited overs cricket. Gul is more a seam than swing bowler, but is particularly dangerous with the older ball when it begins to reverse swing. England will need to look to Gul if they are to be successful in the middle of an innings. He has bowled better than his record suggests and remains the spearhead of their attack.

Wahab Riaz - 4 matches, 23 runs @ 11.50, Best: 11*. 8 wickets @ 40.50, Best: 3/38. A controversial character named in the spot-fixing trial, Wahab has been recalled after a period of exile following this incident. A decent performer and probably the quickest of the Pakistan bowlers in the squad, with the added bonus of the left-arm variation. Depending on the nature of the pitches and the fitness of Junaid Khan, Wahab might just squeeze into the starting XI come the series. England will remember his debut at the Oval in 2010 and will be wary.

Saeed Ajmal - 8 matches, 87 runs @ 17.40, Best: 28. 50 wickets @ 23.86, 3 5fers, Best: 6/42. A quality operator and the biggest single threat to England's batsmen, despite the fact that he probably chucks the ball. He is an unorthodox off-spinner with every variation in the book, including the best doosra currently in the world game. No-one every really looked in against him in any form of the game in 2011. He also claims to have an individual plan for every England batsman in the upcoming series. If they cannot adapt their plans against quality spin, then it is highly likely that they will come unstuck.

Aizaz Cheema - 4 matches, 1 run, Best: 1*. 19 wickets @ 24.78, Best: 4/24. Hardly a new kid on the block at the age of 32, but Cheema is, like Ajmal, a successful latecomer to Test cricket. A skiddy new ball bowler who can swing it at most stages of the innings, Cheema has impressed with his pace and accuracy thus far. A fairly unknown quantity to the England lineup and will probably start the 1st Test in Dubai next week.

Junaid Khan - 4 matches, 6 runs @ 3.00. Best: 6. 13 wickets @ 29.46, 1 5fer, Best: 5/38. An impressive young talent, boosted by his experience of county cricket with champions Lancashire in the summer (he was certainly a better acquisition than Farveez Maharoof!). Included in the squad subject to his recovery from injury, Junaid burst onto the scene with 5 wickets against the Sri Lankans in October. Another left armer, he probably still needs to put on a yard of pace but if fit, would probably get a chance at some point in the series to show what he's made of. Another name to look out for in years to come.

Mohammad Talha - Did not play in 2011. A one Test wonder thus far, that Test being the fateful game in Lahore in 2009. Talha is unlikely to add to his tally in this series, given the talent ahead of him in the pace department, and is included in the squad to cover for injury.

RM

It's All In The Ed

I admit, two innings is not much to go on when judging a man. However, having spent a lot of the lull between Christmas and New Year catching up on the Boxing Day Tests from Melbourne and Durban, I think I have gained enough to qualify the statement that I'm about to make. Which is this - debutant Australian opener Ed Cowan should be given a future at this level as he brings an important dimension to the side.

Let me look into my crystal ball and see the eventual retirements of Ricky Ponting and Mike Hussey, both of whom are big reasons why Australia are still in the current Test match with India. Surely skipper Michael Clarke will move up to No.4 in the order, with Shaun Marsh at 3, and Shane Watson returning to bat at 6 to save his ailing body for his useful role as the 5th bowler in the longer form of the game. I back Usman Khawaja to come good eventually and make big runs in state cricket to fill Hussey's shoes at 5. Which leaves David Warner at the top. With the exception of Khawaja, you have a group of players whose natural game it is to play their strokes, generally successfully. Whilst Watson and Warner are naturally aggressive, Clarke and Marsh are technically gifted and more liable to play shots to make the purists purr. However, some balance is needed at the top to allow them all to play with freedom. And this is where Cowan comes in.

68 and 8 are scores not necessarily indicative of great things. But the grit shown in the first innings, coupled with solid technique and a range of strokes to put the bad ball away, suggested that Cowan had the fundamentals to succeed at this level. He generally judged the ball's line and length very well (aside the one he left from Umesh Yadav to be stone lbw in the 2nd - however this looked more just a simple error than a technical flaw and should hopefully be disregarded) and covered the seam movement that the Indians extracted from the drop-in pitch very effectively on the 1st day. What impressed me most was the confidence that Warner, Ponting and Clarke all showed in him. All of them got starts and, although they died by the sword, they got to decent scores playing naturally. Because they knew the man at the other end would survive and graft his way through the innings. Take the last great Australian team. Who was there to support the brutal Matthew Hayden at the top of the order? Nuggety wee Justin Langer. Cowan is Langer's heir apparent for the next few years. To say he is the next Simon Katich would be slightly more unkind, but again the method of building an innings is similar, even if the batting technique is not.

I said I didn't have much to go on in judging Cowan, but I had come across him in a different guise before, even if I had never seen him bat until Christmas Night. He has a regular column on ESPNCricinfo, which is always intelligently written (better than this shite anyway), making profound arguments for and against the game we all love and generally raising the standard of writing amongst current players well above that of Graeme Swann. You can see the intelligence in the way he bats. I have played with "intelligent cricketers" in the past and they can be infuriating characters, the limits of their ability forcing them to develop new theories which never can quite come off but which, in more talented hands, would take that player a long way. Cowan clearly has the ability to go with the nous. He knows the game inside and out and therefore has the potential to be a dangerous customer for opening bowlers around the world.

So the argument may be an unconventional one, but believe me, Ed Cowan can go a long way in Test cricket, even as he starts out at the ripe old age of 29!

From Devon,

RM

Turning a Corner

After failing to qualify for the World T20 in the Caribbean and the 50-over World Cup in the subcontinent, it appeared as though Scottish cricket had reached its' lowest ebb. Which when you consider the lack of real highs over the years, is saying an awful lot about the state the game had got itself into north of the border. And yet there is still a demand for cricket in a country where rugby dominates the minds of the middle class and football that of everyone else. I was up north this weekend, and the number of (currently frozen) cricket grounds I passed was certainly disproportionate to the size of the population. And there are signs that things are improving.

Cricket Scotland made a number of significant announcements this week, which will ensure the exposure of the game in this country to a wider audience. Every couple of years, England pop up to Edinburgh to hand out a hiding to the Scotland side in an ODI. However, 2012 will be the first occasion that Sky Sports will televise this event. It probably won't look pretty, and in all likelihood will probably rain, but it is at least a chance to showcase some of the talent that we have hiding up here. Add this to the news that England will play a tour match in Dubai next month against an XI made up of Associate players, and you see the chances that are being given to elevate the stature of the likes of Kyle Coetzer and Majid Haq, the Scottish contingent in that squad. Incidentally, Somerset's great new hope George Dockrell, Murali Kartik's replacement in the spin department, will also feature, with Warwickshire's William Porterfield skippering the side in the 3-day warm-up before the Pakistan series.

Our young players are also being afforded opportunities to learn their trade abroad. 3 Scottish lads have been chosen by the ICC European Academy to spend part of the winter in Pune, India, learning the skills required to succeed on the subcontinent, much like the England Lions, led by James Taylor, will attempt to do in Bangladesh in the New Year. One of my teammates for the university has just broken into the Scotland squad and is taking a year out to play grade cricket in Australia, where I gather he is doing rather well.

All of this points towards a group of players moving slowly but surely towards a greater level of professionalism. As a cricketing nation, we have fallen behind other associates such as Ireland, Afghanistan and the Netherlands in recent times, but with a group of young players being afforded great opportunities and players being given a higher profile, there is now little to get in the way of the Scottish side moving forward. After the ICC reneged on its' attempt to bar Associates from the 2015 World Cup, qualification for that tournament needs to be a long-term aim, and to get there with the majority of the side as professional cricketers.

From a snowy Crieff,
RM

Sri Lankans left Phil-oundering

Apologies for the terrible pun first and foremost. This isn't the start of a series where I review every single day of Test match cricket around the world. It's just that today's play gives me an opportunity to declare another of my cricketing biases and how today's play was relevant to it.

Having grown up in the cricketing backwater of Devon, I have followed Somerset CCC in English domestic cricket for a good number of years now. I was pretty disappointed when Murali Kartik left the club at the end of this summer, having guided us to numerous runners-up positions over the past couple of seasons as an overseas player. As a left-arm spinner, his replacement Roelof van der Merwe simply will not fill the void in first-class cricket, although he does have plenty to offer with the bat. However, VDM isn't available until June, so Brian Rose and Andy Hurry have spent the winter looking for an overseas player for April and May. They appear to have found their man in South African seamer Vernon Philander.

As I predicted yesterday, the Centurion pitch was a green top, with the Saffer seamers extracting plenty of movement to skittle the tourists for just 180, aided in part by some woeful stroke play. Philander was the pick of the bowlers with 5-53, although he can feel that at least two of these were slightly fortunate - Angelo Mathews played a booming and loose drive in the search for quick runs with the tail in, and Kaushal Silva got the faintest of gloves down the leg-side first ball, with only the DRS giving any indication that he was actually out. However, the dismissals of Tharanga Paranavitana (I won't be doing any analytical pieces on him for the sake of my fingers) and Thilan Samaraweera (likewise) showed what Somerset will be gaining in April. Both moved away from the right-hander in the air before nipping back, cleaning up Paranavitana (a leftie) through the gate, and getting another faint nick off Samaraweera's edge through to Mark Boucher. Moreover, this was Philander's 3rd 5-wicket haul in as many games since his debut against the Aussies in that ridiculous wicketfest in Cape Town.

In early season conditions, Philander can reasonably expect to find plenty of green tops both at and away from Taunton. With a seam attack that largely flattered to deceive in last year's Championship, Philander will be a key in getting us off to a flier, in the hope that youngsters such as Adam Dibble and Lewis Gregory can carry on where he leaves off when VDM arrives in June. The best part of all of this is that I texted my brother yesterday when the news of his signing broke, saying what a good acquisition he is (he can bat a bit as well), and to watch out for him in the Centurion Test match! I love it when I'm right!

From Edinburgh,

RM

Attack of the Quickmen

Test cricket is not dead. As far as I, and most cricket fans in this country, are concerned, you can keep your IPL, Big Bash League and (ahem) Stanford Super Series, for the longest form of the game will always be the best. However, that is not to say that Test cricket is not going, has not gone and will not go through times of transition and therefore difficulty. The ebb and flow of the game as a whole mirrors that of an individual Test match. However, I am going to bold enough to say that we are just on the cusp of a period of "flow". The main reason? The re-emergence of the seam bowler as a threat all over the world, in all conditions

There are various explanations for this outlandish statement. I will endeavor to step you through each of them in the hope (if not expectation) that some of you may agree with me:

1) The best teams are built around their pace attacks. Quite simply tell me the reasons why England and South Africa are ranked Nos 1 and 2 by the ICC. What do opposition fear the most when facing these teams on their own patch? Is it the thought of being ground down to death by Jonathan Trott or Graeme Smith? Fine players though they are, no. It is the threat of a trio of quick bowlers who between them possess the ability to swing the ball both ways, reverse it in the later stages of an innings, top 90mph regularly and take your head off with a surprise bouncer. In England, you have Anderson, Broad and Bresnan, South Africa currently favour Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and Vernon Philander. But should any of the frontliers lose form or break down under the rigours of the ludicrous Future Tours Programme, there is plenty of reserve in both countries - Chris Tremlett, Steve Finn and Graham Onions would be good enough to play Test cricket anywhere else, and Lonwabo Tsotsobe and Rusty Theron will surely make better use of international opportunities in the future. Should England succeed this winter, they will have proven themselves on the subcontinent, the last frontier for their world domination

2) So many emerging young players are genuine quicks. Think of the more meaningful performances in recent Tests. Both Junaid Khan of Pakistan and Pat Cummins of Australia took 5fers on debut. Doug Bracewell drove the Kiwis to a rare victory against their Antipodean rivals last week in only his 3rd Test, in a series where James Pattinson showed that not all of his family are total donkeys. India have finally unearthed a couple of gems in Umesh Yadav and Varun Aaron - guys who can swing the ball quickly, rather than just whanging it down on a length on a dead pitch, thus making their side a force to be reckoned with in the future outside the subcontinent in years to come (the Aussies had better watch out for Yadav in the upcoming series). Finn is only 22 and already has 50 test scalps to his name. When these guys hit their peak in five years time or so, batsmen had better tightened up their techniques, or the trend of low scores we have seen recently will only become more common. Which brings me nicely on to...

3) Twenty20 has changed the temperament of batsmen. Admittedly this argument would have held more water had David Warner, a product of the shortest form, not produced a magnificent rearguard innings in defeat in the Hobart Test this week. But this was the exception, not the rule. Witness the Aussies collapsing to 21-9 in Cape Town. Some of the shots the Indians played in England this summer. Bangladesh. Nothing specific, just everything about Bangladesh's batting. Players like Rahul Dravid, Shiv Chanderpaul and Jonathan Trott are becoming rarer and rarer these days. Because of the riches that can be garnered from slogging during a 120 ball innings, many batsmen have lost the defensive technique, patience and in the case of Chris Gayle, the will, to build an innings, play yourself in and take few unnecessary risks. Yes, it may not be as entertaining but it can be the difference between 250 and 400 on a flat deck. You couple this with bowlers who have increasingly had to study video footage of their opposition in order to get their dues on unrewarding pitches in recent years and you can understand why teams are struggling to post imposing scores in whites. Case in point Phil "Caught Guptill Bowled Martin" Hughes. Angle it across him outside off stump and he'll nick off. Watch the videos and you'll see how far he pushes away from his body.

4) Pitches are getting spicy. In countries where Test matches are king, curators have tended to leave some grass on to make the game a more even contest between bat and ball. Trent Bridge has been a fine example of this over the years, but now Australia and South Africa are following suit. Both the Gabba and Bellerive Oval nipped around on every day of the series with New Zealand as wickets tended to fall early, only for the batsmen to consolidate later in the day. I'm also told that tomorrow's pitch in Centurion promises to cause the floundering Sri Lankan top order to have a restless night tonight! These kind of pitches are what we want to see - a match in which neither bat nor ball is automatically dominant, but it is the team who scores the runs when the ball is hooping round corners or the team who takes wickets when things are flattening out who will come out on top. Fun though it is, there is no real joy in seeing Virender Sehwag plunder another quick ton on a road at Bangalore. Nor is it truly joyful to see Murali take 8-32 on a pitch spinning square on the first morning in Galle. Give us a pitch where there is something for everyone throughout the five days!

5) Times change. Back to the ebb and flow hypothesis. I read in the Guardian yesterday of an innings by West Indian opener Roy Fredericks, who hooked and pulled his way to a better than a run a ball 169 at the fearsome WACA in 1975. This innings was all the more remarkable given the Aussie pace bowling lineup of Lillee, Thomson, Gilmour and Walker at the time. This was just a time when pace bowlers were the biggest threat to the opposition in the Test match arena. Ditto the Windies of the 1980s - Marshall, Roberts, Garner, Holding, followed by Ambrose and Walsh. In between times, there have been batsmen who have been the leading lights, or blonde legspinners. Could it just be that the era of the paceman is beginning once again?

From Edinburgh,

RM

Welcome to Over the Sightscreen

After much deliberation, I decided I could no longer keep abreast of every sport sufficiently to produce articles of a quality that I was happy with regularly enough to keep Beyond the Cliche going. So that little adventure of the past 18 months is over.

However, I did enjoy being my forays into amateur sports journalism, and this blog allows me to keep that up in an area that I will remain dedicated to anyway. Regular readers of BtC (there must have been some of you out there, you just never bothered to subscribe!) will know of my love of cricket and so I decided to focus in on that area with Over the Sightscreen.

As well as dropping in short pieces on stories that have amused or annoyed me, I will aim to put together one "quality" article once a week, to keep people abreast of goings on in the cricketing world, only delivered in my less than conventional (and occasionally less than PC) manner. I really would appreciate it if you would take some time to read things, comment and generate a bit of debate. It really would make my life a bit more interesting for one thing. One rule: if you are reading this from the subcontinent, I could do without the "India is amazing, Michael Vaughan is a wanker" kind of comments. Please try and back up what you have to say with a bit of evidence and thoughtful writing. This isn't YouTube.

In terms of my own cricketing background (so that you are aware of my own biases), I am a more prolific-than-I-deserve left-arm spinner who occasionally gets lucky and scores some streaky runs and I catch more than I drop (just about). My University 2nd XI captaincy record at home is excellent, but shocking abroad!

Finally, owing to the rush hour traffic, I spent my bus journey home today thinking of possible names for this blog. Amongst those discarded were: Silly Point, Backward Point, Top of Off, From the Pavilion End, Beyond the Boundary and The Breaks Are Off. Oh hang on, I actually don't think that last one was me (thankfully I have no responsibility for that aberration of a title!). If you feel I have missed a trick or should change to something else, drop me a line.

Which leaves me to sign off in the style of nuggety former Aussie opener Justin Langer:

From Edinburgh,

RM