The Surfer
The drop that cost Durham 483 runs
Chris Scott, who dropped Brian Lara on 18 before he went on to make 501, talks about the long-lasting effect that moment has had on his life
ESPNcricinfo staff
07-Jun-2016
Despite having 300 first-class dismissals to his name, wicketkeeper Chris Scott is mostly remembered for dropping Brian Lara on 18 before he went on to make a record 501. The Guardian's Andy Bull chats with Scott, who relives the famous spilled catch, and talks about how he has become a point of reference whenever a batsman is dropped and then scores big.
Scott has played back that next split-second many times in his memory. He still can't quite make sense of it. "Now, some people say I was celebrating, trying to throw the ball up before I actually caught it. But I have never quite known what happened. I just wonder if I …" He searches for the right word. "… if I froze. Somewhere in the middle. Suddenly I just froze. And then the ball was on the floor."
If you've ever dropped an easy catch you'll have an idea how Scott felt, how his stomach must have emptied out as his blood flooded up to his blushing face. I'm a bad catcher myself. Especially under a high ball, one that gives you too much time to think as it rises but, somehow, far too little to act as its falls. Few things are quite so humiliating. But for Scott, cricket wasn't just a game, but a job. The drop wasn't just an embarrassing slip, but a professional screw-up.
Later, the story would come about that Scott said: "I bet he'll go on and get a hundred now." That was a line he gave to Simon Hughes at a party a couple of years later, which Hughes then used on TV. Maybe Scott did say that. He isn't certain. "I may have said it. But I'm sure it wasn't the first thing I said. The first thing I said wasn't fit for publication."
Full postCharlotte Edwards opens up on England ouster
Despite being compelled to exit the England Women side in less-than-ideal circumstances, Charlotte Edwards retains her positivity and has one eye on the future
ESPNcricinfo staff
05-Jun-2016
In a frank, thoughtful and wide-ranging interview with the Daily Mail's Paul Newman, Charlotte Edwards opens up about how she was informed that the management was looking at other options, her surprise, pain and disappointment on hearing the news, and the avenues she might explore in her post-England career.
"A lot of people have said to me you must hope they struggle but I really don't,' said Edwards. 'There's not a bit of me that wants them to do badly because I've invested so much time in that team and programme. Why would I want them to fail now?
"I wish I was still there with them but I certainly don't want them to fall flat on their faces because there's some amazing talent and perhaps all they need is that warrior mentality that I hope was a big part of my game."
Full postKohli's textbook-derived genius
Virat Kohli has constructed a world-beating T20 game using traditional, textbook strokeplay
29-May-2016
Virat Kohli's Bradmanesque numbers in recent T20 cricket have inspired awe in spectators and fellow cricketers alike. They have also prompted many to seek to dissect the makings of his genius. Writing in the Indian Express, Sriram Veera explains how Kohli's mastery of the shortest form is founded on shots taken straight from the Test batting manual.
What does he do? He reels out the cover drives, flicks, on drives, and the cuts. And runs hard. Incredibly, he has managed to not just run with the hounds but lead the pack. Where others seem to try so hard with all the innovative shots or flex their muscle in power hitting, he has gone retro.
Though he always had the swagger, Kohli didn't initially have the game that made you gasp like other special batsmen. He is someone who has almost willed himself to greater heights by not remaining content in just being a good batsman but desiring a lot more than that. He has reached out and extended himself. And to do it with the conventional shots in the frenzy of the here and now is quite a stunning achievement.
Full postThe McCullum hand in New Zealand's renaissance
Brendon McCullum's methods may have been unorthodox, but they helped bring about a refreshing brand of cricket that made New Zealand the neutral's favourite
ESPNcricinfo staff
19-May-2016
Speaking to Kritika Naidu and Kaushik Rangarajan of Cricbuzz, former New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum opens up on why he retired when he did, what he did to bring back the "fun element" into his team's game, the method that made him a feared ball-striker, and his takeaways from an international career that lasted a decade and a half.
"My leadership style was very much about trying to rediscover the soul of the New Zealand cricket team; trying to bring back the essence of why we got into the game in the first place," he said about his mission when he took over as captain in 2012. "I played for 10 years where I was a part of the New Zealand cricket team but I didn't love the New Zealand cricket team. The last three years, we tried to bring back that real passion. It's amazing how much fun it can be as a player once you've rediscovered the innocence of cricket and why you got into the game in the first place.
Should Lord's continue to host two Tests per summer?
The MCC is pushing to stage two Tests every summer but that demand threatens to leave other venues in the country competing for fewer fixtures.
ESPNcricinfo staff
18-May-2016
Roger Knight, president of the MCC, described Test cricket as a "London-centric" game during the club's AGM. Writing in the Guardian, Andy Bull looks at how this trend affects the other Test venues and ponders the MCC's "public function" towards the game.
Knight's numbers stack up. He pointed out that in the past three years, more than 340,000 spectators have come to Lord's to watch the first Test of the summer. At the same time, the three following Tests, all held at Headingley, have drawn only 110,000, or "32% of the figure for Lord's", as Knight put it. "And in 2012, when there were three Tests against West Indies, the crowd here was higher than the other two grounds added together."
Which is why, Knight suggested, Lord's should continue to stage two Test matches a summer. "It is by no means certain that from 2020 onwards there will be sufficient Test matches to enable MCC to be awarded two per summer," Knight said, "simply because there may not be sufficient Test matches to distribute among the grounds that would expect to stage them." He argues that "Test cricket is thriving in London, the time has come to pay attention to that fact". This time also being the moment in which Lord's faces losing its second Test. With another match at The Oval, three of each summer's seven matches are held in London and the seven remaining Test venues, many struggling for money, are competing with each other for four fixtures.
Full postDecoding MS Dhoni's art of wicketkeeping
MS Dhoni's street smart methods of run-outs, stumpings and saving runs off shots played fine on the off side have helped him be the standard-setter in wicketkeeping today
ESPNcricinfo staff
15-May-2016
Speaking to the Indian Express' Bharat Sundaresan, India's fielding coach R Sridhar talks about how MS Dhoni's swift run-outs and stumpings have not only stunned the opposition batsmen but also the team's staff. Dinesh Karthik, another India wicketkeeper, talks about how Dhoni sets the standard of wicketkeeping today, and how everyone is trying to get to where he is.
"You need to produce 'give' so that you can make your hands soft. But he's able to create that softness even while his hands are going towards the ball, which is amazing. I've tried it. It is very hard. I have not been able to get close to that," says [Dinesh Karthik,] the seasoned Tamil Nadu gloveman.
To understand the 'give' or the softening effect that Karthik talks about and how that distinguishes Dhoni as being one of a kind, think about catching any hard object thrown towards you with your hands. Be it for a normal person or a professional sportsman who's not Dhoni, the natural tendency is to push your hands back upon catching it so as to cushion the blow and absorb the force while ensuring that the object doesn't pop out. It's physics 101.
Where Dhoni is extremely different is his ability to, as Sridhar puts it, 'use force to absorb force', by pushing his hands towards the ball even if it might seem like the most unnatural or counter-intuitive motion for any other wicket-keeper. "While others use their hands to produce that give, he uses his wrists. While his hands are going towards the stumps, there's a slight flick of the wrists in the backward direction. In my opinion, it's not safe hands but strong hands that allow him to do that. That's also the reason you will rarely see him collecting the ball to his side like other keepers," explains Sridhar.
Full postTony Cozier: the soundtrack to West Indies cricket
Cricket writers from around the world on what Tony Cozier's commentary meant to them
12-May-2016
In the wake of Tony Cozier's death, Greg Baum writes in the Age of how all the great West Indies partnerships, through their glorious and not so glorious days, were incomplete without Cozier.
It was Richards batting and Marshall bowling and Dujon taking one in front of slips, and it was Cozier telling it. It was Lara and Ambrose and Walsh and Cozier. Then it was lesser players and leaner times, but it was still Cozier, playing the tune. He described a game and evoked a place. When the West Indies were all the rage, we all fantasised about batting like Viv and bowling like Joel, and we did it in Cozier's accent. Not all who did would have realised then that Cozier was white!
Mike Selvey in the Guardian imagines a cracker of a celestial commentary box.
Somewhere in the great celestial radio commentary box my dream team have been assembled. First the deep Basingstoke claret rumble of John Arlott at his poetic best. Next, The Major, Christopher Martin-Jenkins, clipped, eloquent, meticulous in all but timekeeping, and brilliantly, twinklingly precise. And now another. "After a few words from Trevor Bailey it will be Tony Cozier."
Tendulkar's resume at age 15
A peek at what Sachin Tendulkar did as a boy, and a video of Virat Kohli teaching the cover drive
25-Apr-2016
What were your greatest achievements as a teenager? Learning to drive, perhaps? Or maybe it was a perfectly planned classroom prank. Care to pit them against a certain curly-haired 15 year-old's from Mumbai? His name is Sachin Tendulkar and the details are at Ringside View
At iplt20.com, a man widely reputed to slip into Tendulkar's role, Virat Kohli, deconstructs his batting technique. The video includes tips on how to play the cover drive, the on-drive and the flick through midwicket.
Full postWho is the pink-ball Test for?
Calling the inaugural Day-Night Test in Adelaide in November 2015 an unqualified success is wrong because it wasn't says Malcolm Knox in the Sydney Morning Herald
23-Apr-2016
The concept of playing Test cricket under lights had taken seed to try and address its dwindling popularity. Australia are hoping to play two more such matches next summer even as valid concerns - notably from the captain of one of their oppositions, AB de Villiers - were raised. In this regard, the situation is similar to the rugby league, when a draw became unacceptable to broadcasters, forcing the organisers to introduce extra time, even as the players opposed the idea. It raises the question: who is the pink-ball Test for? Fans, players, administrators or broadcasters? Malcolm Knox of Sydney Morning Herald examines.
Recalcitrants are reminded of the "bigger picture", but what is the bigger picture? The contrivance of a gimmick or the weight placed on the game itself? The cricketers who don't want to play Test cricket as an experiment, just like the league players who don't want their work to boil down to field goals, are conservatives in this sense, but are they reactionaries? Maybe they just see the essence of their sport as worth preserving. And it's not true that all of the fans are lined up behind the money, demanding instant-result football and fast-forward cricket. Many of us think that if you degrade what is at stake in the service of tonight's TV ratings it is you who are losing sight of the bigger picture. Day-night Test cricket? By all means do it when you have developed a better ball, but don't call last year's experiment an unqualified success when it wasn't.
Bhogle ouster small part of larger problem
Harsha Bhogle being left out of the IPL commentary team at the very last minute throws up several uncomfortable questions
ESPNcricinfo staff
13-Apr-2016
Keshava Guha, writing for scroll.in, says that if "loyal professionals" like Harsha Bhogle are treated the way he was by the BCCI, then no one is safe. And that the change in BCCI's leadership has not brought any change in its style of working.
[Anurag] Thakur has openly emphasised his belief that commentators should stick to describing the action on the field, a policy put into place by the previous regime. And far from being the saviour of Indian cricket, Shashank Manohar, as Board president, is complicit in all that took place between 2008 and 2011, from the antics of Lalit Modi to the rise of unchecked conflict of interest. No one doubts his personal probity, but we don't doubt Manmohan Singh either. In a precedent for Bhogle's sacking, the previous regime allegedly engineered Sanjay Manjrekar's last-minute removal from the commentary team for a home series against Australia. At least you could say of Manjrekar that he has often pushed the lines as far as he can in an attempt to express himself honestly. Bhogle is not even guilty of that.
In his column for NDTV.com, novelist and senior cricket writer, Mukul Kesavan makes a compelling point that this jingoism expected from Indian commentators is just a small part in a larger problem.
The men who commentate for the BCCI today made their Faustian compacts with their eyes open; they learnt to suppress inconvenient opinions, to tweak their cricketing souls for commentary contracts. They didn't see it like that, naturally. They saw themselves as pros contracted to do a job of work - and if that job came with rules, well, all jobs did and they were professionals.
Terms of Use|Privacy Policy|Your US State Privacy Rights|Children's Online Privacy Policy|Interest - Based Ads|Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information|Feedback
© 2024 ESPN Sports Media Ltd. All rights reserved