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Rudi Webster, who has worked as a mental skills coach with West Indies for three decades, believes Darren Sammy’s side have a fear of winning

Nagraj Gollapudi16-May-2012The West Indies team led by Darren Sammy have a fear of winning. That analysis was made quite recently by Rudi Webster, who has worked with some of the great West Indies teams as a mental skills coach over the last three decades.According to Webster, each time Sammy’s team have found themselves with controls in hand, they have retreated. That is because they found themselves in unfamiliar territory and did not know how to seize the opportunity.”I don’t think deep down the fellas believe that they can win,” Webster said. “Consciously, they will tell you ‘of course, we can win.’ But when you question them and you get below the surface, belief is not there.”It is that lack of belief, he contends, that is negating all the other positives Sammy and the coach, Ottis Gibson, are steadily constructing in the background; the magic card that the likes of Frank Worrell and Clive Lloyd used to inspire their teams is missing.”At this level performance revolves more around self-belief than around talent or potential,” Webster said. “Worrell and Lloyd did one thing that lifted West Indies cricket to greater heights: they were able to get the players to change their self-image and to start believing in themselves. Their self-belief was so firm and strong that nobody could beat them.”Webster presented a ready example to justify his claim. “If you look back at West Indies they were in a similar position in the late 90s. Remember we went to South Africa and got beaten very badly. And then played Australia at home and almost won the series. Everybody said we were improving. And then see what happened subsequently. So, although we have performed better in the last two Test series, it does not mean that we have turned the corner.”The figures support him. In 1998 West Indies travelled to South Africa under Brian Lara’s captaincy. They were mauled 5-0 in the Tests and then drubbed 6-1 in the ODI series. But Lara and the West Indies bounced back triumphantly when they fought hard against Australia to share the Frank Worrell Trophy 2-2. The ODI series was also shared, 3-3 with a tied game. Lara scored three scintillating centuries including a memorable 153 at Bridgetown when West Indies chased down 308 to lead 2-1 in the series. But just like a birthday candle, any hopes of a West Indies revival were blown away quickly as the slide over the last decade indicates.Back in the present, the same sort of optimism has been present in the past 12 months. Late last year, West Indies lost the three-Test series in India 2-0, but on two occasions they relinquished a firm grip on the match. In the first Test in Delhi, West Indies had a 95-run lead but squandered it as they were bowled out for 180 in the second innings. India successfully chased the target of 276.Then in the final Test in Mumbai, the West Indies batting bonded well to raise a formidable 590 and then took a 108-run lead as their bowlers responded strongly, too. But once again, as their hopes started soaring, they plunged equally fast as they were bundled out for 134. If there was any consolation, the match finished as a draw.Then at home this April, Sammy’s side initially dominated the first Test against Australia in Barbados. West Indies had made 449 after electing to bat and when Australia were struggling at 250-7, West Indies dared. But the bowlers suddenly lost the plot as the Australian tail wagged. Incredibly, Australia took the lead in the series with a three-wicket victory. In the third Test, chasing 374 with enough time in hand, West Indies lost the match by 74 runs and the series.So here they are in England, where in the last ten Tests spread over three series, West Indies have lost nine. In these 10 matches they have scored six centuries, while England have scored 20 hundreds. Shivnarine Chanderpaul (3), Ramnaresh Sarwan (2) and Chris Gayle (1) are the only ones to score a Test century in England during this period. England’s bowlers have taken a wicket every 46 balls in these 10 Tests; West Indies’ have taken a wicket every 78 balls.Much of the English media has been blunt in giving a thumbs down to Sammy and his team, even going to the extent of asking how Sammy could hold his place in the team when he has failed miserably as a batsman. At every given opportunity, the West Indies players have been reminded that their top order has a spine weaker than a straw, their bowlers seem to be unfit and how the best players are plying their trade in the IPL.To their credit, Sammy and Gibson have so far successfully ducked all such arrows, while keeping their heads still. Both have been modest in suggesting the main challenge will be to last five days against the No. 1 team. Hence you can understand Sammy when he says that it is not as frustrating to lose players to the IPL as it is to hang the pendant of belief on the remaining players each time they take the field.”It’s about getting victories under our belt and that is something that will come when we play more together and believe even more in ourselves,” he said on the eve of the first Test. “I’m not really frustrated by who’s here and who’s not.”In Sammy’s 16 Tests as captain, West Indies have won 2, lost 6, and drawn 8. That compares favourably with the 17 Tests before Sammy took over the captaincy when they won 1, lost 8 and drew 8.The major improvement has been in bowling. From a bowling average of 44.18 runs per wicket in those 17 Tests, West Indies’ bowling average has improved to 33.61 runs per wicket during Sammy’s time and you can definitely predict a strong hand of Gibson here. Although any batting improvement has remained insignificant (30.63 before Sammy, 28.96 during Sammy), there is more than a whiff of promise.Sammy did not discount Webster’s analysis. “We keep finding ourselves in winning positions and some way we keep letting it go,” he said. “When you are playing against a champion team, they find a way to win so we need to have that way when we are on top not to collapse and stuff.”That’s been happening to us: in India, India in the Caribbean and Australia recently. We’ve been competing and pushing teams down to the wire, if you look at the last series, the 2-0 scoreline doesn’t reflect the way we played. Hopefully we can eliminate these things in this series here.”

Aaqib Javed, the former Pakistan fast bowler, has signed a three-year contract as head coach of United Arab Emirates

Umar Farooq07-Mar-2012Aaqib Javed, the former Pakistan fast bowler, has signed a three-year contract as head coach of United Arab Emirates. He is already in the UAE but will start the job full-time from April 1. Javed had emerged as a candidate for the position in February while he was still employed as bowling coach of Pakistan during their series against England in the UAE. Dilawar Mani, the chief-executive officer of the Emirates Cricket Board (ECB), said the board wanted to wait till that series was over before announcing Javed as UAE coach.”The ECB is delighted with Aaqib’s acceptance of its offer,” Mani said. “He signed a standard contract of three years that can be extended by mutual agreement. An earlier announcement would have been inappropriate due to Aaqib’s key role as assistant and bowling coach of Pakistan, and would have caused a distraction from his primary responsibility”He has played with distinction for Pakistan and performed most commendably as bowling coach. His contribution to Pakistan cricket has been most invaluable.”Javed had been involved in coaching in Pakistan for a decade, having started at the Lahore Regional Academy and then moved on to stints as Pakistan Under-19 coach and head coach at the National Cricket Academy in Lahore. He had been involved with the Pakistan national team on-and-off since 2009, with stints as bowling coach as well as assistant coach.Javed landed in the UAE on Tuesday and observed UAE’s match against Scotland in the ICC World Cricket League Championship on Wednesday, in Sharjah. His first assignment will be the Intercontinental Cup tour of the Netherlands in July, followed by the ACC Elite Cup in October. UAE have been training without a coach since Kabir Khan resigned from the job to return to the job of Afghanistan coach, which he held before moving to the UAE.Apart from Kabir, former Pakistan spinner Mushtaq Mohammad, former Sri Lanka fast bowler Champaka Ramanayake and Madan Lal, the former India allrounder, have coached UAE. Madan Lal took UAE to their only World Cup appearance in 1996.Javed said his job would include planning the future of UAE cricket in conjunction with the ECB. “I shall dedicate myself to producing results and nurturing the talent in the UAE,” Javed said. “I shall work closely with the ECB management to strategise the planning process for the creation of a high-class squad.”Edited by Dustin Silgardo

A four-wicket haul from Sohail Tanvir and a fluent stand between captain Misbah-ul-Haq and Umar Akmal were the stand-out features of Pakistan’s convincing win in the dead rubber played on a slow pitch

The Report by Siddhartha Talya23-Nov-2011
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
Umar Akmal guided Pakistan home•AFPA four-wicket haul from Sohail Tanvir and a fluent stand between captain Misbah-ul-Haq and Umar Akmal were the stand-out features of Pakistan’s convincing win – they took the series 4-1 – in the dead rubber played on a slow pitch. The pair didn’t get bogged down at the fall of two wickets off successive deliveries and their positive approach kept their team on track, but the platform for a win was set up by a superior bowling attack that restricted Sri Lanka, whose batting let them down again, to a gettable total.Plenty of talent and depth in their bowling reserves served Pakistan well again. In conditions that were aiding swing and movement initially, and not discounting the advantage of using new balls at each end, Pakistan’s seamers stepped up, and were supported by their spinners later on. Tanvir didn’t have the pace of the man he replaced, Aizaz Cheema, but made up with his prodigious swing – by Middle East standards – and wily, selective variations. He fooled opener Upul Tharanga with an away swinger after feeding him three deliveries on the trot that moved in through the air. He was more threatening when he pitched the ball short of a driving length, something he realised quickly after being driven down the ground by Dinesh Chandimal. He worked at him with a spate of away-going deliveries and held one back a little more, prompting an attempt at a steer from Chandimal that was snapped up by slip.In the interim, Umar Gul forced a loose shot from Tillakaratne Dilshan, who was caught behind. Thirty two for 3 soon became 46 for 4 when Chamara Silva, replacing an injured Mahela Jayawardene, was sucked in by a length ball that he nicked straight to slip, giving Junaid Khan a wicket in his first over.The only batsman unflustered by the travails around him was Kumar Sangakkara, once again charged with the responsibility of rebuilding his team’s innings. Despite the early assistance for the seamers, he didn’t hesitate lurching forward to execute his favourite drives past extra cover on one knee, and took Tanvir for three fours in an over. The spinners, Shahid Afridi and Saeed Ajmal, erred on occasion, and Sangakkara was quick to latch on. He found an able partner at No.6 in Angelo Mathews, who counterattacked by launching Gul for two straight sixes when that early support from the conditions had withered away, and ran superbly between wickets.Smart stats

For the third time, Pakistan won four matches in an ODI series of five matches against Sri Lanka. The previous such victory came in the ODI series in Sri Lanka in 1994.

Misbah-ul-Haq scored his 18th half-century in ODIs. He has now scored 2418 runs at an average of 42.42.

The 118-run stand between Kumar Sangakkara and Angelo Mathews is the third-highest fifth-wicket partnership for Sri Lanka against Pakistan.

Sangakkara scored his 17th half-century in neutral ODIs. He has now scored 2715 runs at an average of 37.70.

Sohail Tanvir’s four-wicket haul is his third in ODIs to go with one five-wicket haul. It is his second-best bowling performance against Sri Lanka after the 5 for 48 in Karachi in 2008.

The 84-run stand between Misbah and Umar Akmal is the third-highest fifth-wicket stand for Pakistan in neutral ODIs against Sri Lanka.

Umar Akmal’s half-century is his tenth in ODIs. It is also his fourth fifty-plus score against Sri Lanka.

Sangakkara and Mathews did an admirable job, rotating the strike and not getting bogged down in a stand of 118. The field was spread out but a significant proportion of their runs were singles earned by just tapping the ball around the in-field, often in front of cover and point, and sprinting across. The boundaries, however, had dried up and when Sangakkara tried to break the 14-over drought with a drive over extra cover against Mohammad Hafeez, he was caught. Not long after, Jeevan Mendis was stumped off Afridi and Mathews, who’d survived a couple of close shaves while walking across to Ajmal, was eventually bowled round his legs. Sri Lanka only managed two fours and a six in the second half of their innings, struggling to push on as the track got increasingly slow and Tanvir returned to nip out a couple more.Pakistan began their pursuit cautiously, going through a 24-ball runless phase at one stage, but Mohammad Hafeez and Asad Shafiq, in particular, were beginning to get set before losing their wickets. The experienced hands of Younis Khan and Misbah, however, guided them in typical, workmanlike fashion. Misbah was given a life at backward point by Jeevan Mendis, but consolidated well amid periodic bursts of aggression. Younis pulled Fernando past square leg and drove Prasanna inside-out over extra cover. Misbah warmed up by launching a length ball over Mathews’ head, blazed Perera through the covers and reverse-swept a couple of boundaries past short third man.In a little over ten overs together, the pair added a half-century stand and strengthened Pakistan’s position. That was undermined when Younis and Shoaib Malik were trapped in front by Mendis off consecutive deliveries in the 26th over. The hat-trick ball was an early indication of the Pakistani response – Umar stepped out to a flighted delivery and drove it confidently to mid-off, seemingly unaffected by the pressure created by those two wickets. The final ball of the over was a long hop that was promptly dispatched, and the tone of his innings changed little after that.Umar often left his crease to get to the pitch of the ball and comfortably kept the runs flowing. Misbah, on the other hand, opted to play from the crease, sweeping, reverse-sweeping, shuffling from one side to the other restlessly but effectively and keeping the required-rate under control throughout. The boundaries came from the other end: Umar muscled Thisara Perera through the covers, guided Malinga past third man, swatted Dilhara Fernando through midwicket and creamed Seekkuge Prasanna past mid-off. There was a slight hiccup when Misbah and Afridi fell in quick succession, but Pakistan were secure with Umar at the other end; the pressure was off with a couple of crunched boundaries off Malinga and Fernando, and the win followed shortly after.

Matthew Hoggard says his Leicestershire side are underdogs for the Champions League Twenty20 2011 because they do not have star players

Abhishek Purohit in Hyderabad17-Sep-2011The contrast could not have been more obvious. Six Leicestershire players swaggered in for the media briefing behind their captain Matthew Hoggard, who was grinning from ear to ear, trying his best to appear excited and interested. After seeing that the reporters were sitting about 20 feet from his table, he even implored them to “shout” out the questions, before realising that there were microphones in place.A couple of hours later, a pale-looking Mahela Udawatte trudged in, his only accompaniments being Ruhuna coach Sumithra Warnakulasuriya and a weak promise of a possible late appearance by Sanath Jayasuriya.Given the gregarious mood Hoggard was in, it did not take him long to move beyond the standard phrases which press conferences are routinely littered with. “We are the underdogs. Everyone expects us to go home,” Hoggard said. Why should a side that has just won a gruelling domestic Twenty20 tournament – after 16 league matches and a tied semi-final decided by an eliminator – be treated as the underdog? Hoggard had an answer. “We do not have too many star players,” he said.”But we have got some good solid match-winners. We have Andrew McDonald, Abdul Razzaq. It’s going to be an interesting tournament. India is a tough place to come and get results. Two games [per side for the qualifiers] is a bit of a lottery but it also takes only two good games to take it away from the opposition. We have come with high hopes.”Leicestershire have sufficient reason to hold sky-high expectations. They had a loss of £400,000 last year and Mike Siddall, their chief executive, admitted earlier that it has been a financial struggle for the club. They stand to gain substantially if they can make it through to the main draw of the Champions League Twenty20.Money was the last thing on Hoggard’s mind though. “You don’t play for money. It is a challenge for us to come here and test ourselves at this level against competitive and top sides from around the world. The money looks after itself.”Testing themselves against top T20 opposition is something that Sri Lankan sides haven’t found too easy in the previous editions of the Champions League but Udawatte was hopeful of a turnaround this time. “We’ve got a good side of youngsters as well as experienced players like Sanath,” Udawatte said. “Batting is our strength but we have also got some decent spinners and fast bowlers.”It is the bowlers that are absent though that are a cause of worry for coach Warnakulasuriya. “We are missing out on Chanaka Welegedara, Suraj Randiv and Shaminda Eranga who are all doing national duty against Australia. The bowling department is a bit weak.”Not having heard such an honest admission throughout the day, all the reporters suddenly went very quiet. Udawatte tried looking at some positives. “We are really lucky to have Sanath. He is always giving good ideas in the dressing room.”The mood wasn’t getting uplifted so easily though. And when it was finally announced that Jayasuriya was not going to make an appearance after all, the briefing ended in disappointed groans.

Australia’s cricketers must be mature enough to accept changes to the team for reasons of balance or rotation will become more frequent under the new team performance regime

Daniel Brettig06-Dec-2011Be they bowlers or batsmen, Australia’s cricketers must become mature enough to accept that changes to the team for reasons of balance or rotation will become more frequent under the new team performance regime, the head coach Mickey Arthur has said.As the national selectors, Arthur among them, deliberate over whether to bolster Michael Clarke’s bowling resources with the allrounder Daniel Christian for the Hobart Test against New Zealand, the possibility of wider and more frequent rotation is dawning on the team.The senior batsman Michael Hussey has expressed reservations about shuffling batsmen in and out for fear that it would flirt with form and confidence, but Arthur said all players had to be prepared to accept the possibility, irrespective of their role. His words echoed those of the Argus review about “adult conversations” surrounding selection.”That’s a maturity that we want to try to get into the group getting down the line,” Arthur told ESPNcricinfo. “Players need to be mature enough to realise that it is a balance shift or something like that, and we’ll communicate that all very well to the guys and they’ll understand exactly where they’re at.”Christian remains a chance to become Australia’s 427th Test cricketer, pending assessments of how the bowling quartet has backed up from a comprehensive defeat of New Zealand in the first Test in Brisbane. Also a factor in discussions is the tendency of the Hobart pitch to flatten out into a strip less reminiscent of the Gabba than Allan Border Field, where the visitors batted far more comfortably against Australia A.”You always want that extra bowling option, an allrounder in the team is like gold,” Arthur said. “So with Shane [Watson] not playing there is a position there for an allrounder within our squad and the selectors have felt that he’s the next best.”We’ll just have to see when we get down to Hobart how all the different permutations work out. We need to keep rotating guys through the summer because there is just so much cricket, guys are going to break down and we need others ready to come in at any given time.”Phillip Hughes’ present troubles are less physical than technical, and Arthur stressed a balance needed to be struck between advising the 23-year-old on how to straighten his bat and granting him the freedom to indulge the appetite for runs that has already reaped 17 first-class centuries.”I think we need to see him tighten up his technique just a little bit, because he’s getting out in the same ways and that’s, not the alarming thing, but that’s an area of concern that he keeps getting out in exactly the same way,” Arthur said.”But he is an incredibly talented player with a very big future, so we just want to tighten up his technique but give him the wings to fly with the bat, because he’s still got a major role to play down the line for Australian cricket.”In planning ahead for the series against India, Arthur is aware that the problems posed for Hughes by Chris Martin are most liley going to be magnified through the lens of Ishant Sharma, who delivers with a similar trajectory and a knack for shaping the ball across left-handers.”One hundred per cent [we’re aware of Ishant coming up],” Arthur said. “Chris Martin has troubled a lot of left-handers because of his angle, and he is going to continue to do that, but it’s not going away, that is always going to be a challenge for the left-handed batters, and Hughesy in particular, so that is something we’ve got to make sure we get right.”

Junaid Siddique has made plenty of starts in one-day cricket but now needs to convert that into a major score

Sidharth Monga in Chittagong09-Mar-2011The last time Junaid Siddique played England at home was more than a year ago, in February 2010. He scored a duck then. Since then, Junaid has played 19 ODIs, and has been dismissed in single figures only twice. Even those two instances have occurred only recently, after an unbroken run of double figures in 14 games. That’s a record any No. 3 in the world would trade, but then again this coin has the other side too. Twelve of those promising starts have ended for scores less than 40, which is Junaid’s average for the same period is 35.Of late, though, Junaid seems to have shown a bit of confusion as to what his role in the side is. He has become more free flowing, but that seems to have cost him his wicket too often. And in a side that has shown it needs somebody to put a heavy price on his wicket, someone who puts his head down and faces the heat, Junaid’s recent adventures haven’t quite helped.Two days ago, the coach Jamie Siddons identified Junaid as one of the men capable of playing long innings. “Imrul [Kayes] and Imrose [Junaid] are the two players that are expected to do that,” Siddons said. “Imrose was playing a lot of shots, I have spoken to him about that. That’s not his role in the team.”Junaid still believed that it was important to be positive, but acknowledged he needed to convert the starts more often. “I have been playing a few shots because I think playing positive cricket will count in the end,” he said. “I have been playing well getting starts, but have not been able to carry on. I am scoring the first 30-40 runs very confidently, but getting out. My coach has also told me, and everyone is also helping me prepare. I don’t want to get out in the next match, and that is what I have been trying at the nets.”His last sentence is important. Bangladesh nets sessions are usually a place where the batsmen don’t spend a lot of time defending or fine-tuning defensive shots. Perhaps it is just because this is one-day cricket, perhaps the recent defeat makes it more conspicuous, but the Bangladesh nets sessions seem to feature much more merry hitting than other teams’. Over the last two or three days, though, Junaid and Mushfiqur Rahim have been more focused on playing the correct shots first before the adventurous one.”Yes, we have not been able to put up big partnerships in any of the three matches so far, and that is the main reason why our batting could not perform,” Junaid said. “We have to try that and ensure a big score from our top order. That is the target of our top order. We have always played shots at the nets, and now we are sincerely trying to stay there.”On a personal level I have been trying for some time now to get a big score, play a long innings. I am going to try and do that against England. If I get a start, I will definitely try and play a big knock on Friday.”

The new Edgbaston drainage system helped Durham as they headed towards their fourth County Championship win of the season

George Dobell at Edgbaston26-May-2011
ScorecardSometimes progress comes at a cost. For the second time in a couple of weeks, Warwickshire were made to rue their new, fast-draining outfield, as Durham took advantage of brief opportunities between the showers to tighten their grip on this game.The new outfield at Edgbaston has already cost Warwickshire eight points after it contributed to the dry pitch – deemed poor by an ECB pitch panel – that was utilised for the game against Worcestershire.On this occasion it allowed Durham enough time to move significantly closer to their fourth victory of the championship campaign. Under normal circumstances, enough rain had fallen at Edgbaston to prevent any play at all on the third day.In truth, it is not the outfield that has put Warwickshire on the back foot in this game. It is their poor bowling and their quite wretched batting.There was no improvement for them on the third day. Even though just 15.2 overs were possible amid the storms, it was enough time for Durham to claim four wickets. Ben Stokes, bowling with excellent pace to defy the sluggish pitch, continued to impress, but Warwickshire’s batting was remarkably feeble. It speaks volumes that, of the 13 dismissals of Warwickshire batsmen so far, six of them have failed to score a run.After Stokes ended Warwickshire’s first innings just eight balls into the day – Michael Di Venuto at second slip taking his first of three catches in the day as Phil Mustard parried the ball in his direction off substitute player Andy Miller – the hosts were obliged to follow-on 416 runs behind.Varun Chopra, prodding away from his body as if providing catching practise, fell in the second over of Warwickshire’s second innings, before a leaden-footed Ian Westwood edged his lavish attempt at a drive and Mohammad Yousuf suffered the first king pair of his 15-year career when he shuffled in front of a full delivery. It was only the second pair of Yousuf’s career and means that his last three first-class innings against Durham have lasted just six balls combined and not resulted in a single run.Jim Troughton and Darren Maddy saw Warwickshire to the close without further mishap but, with much better weather forecast on the last day, Warwickshire are facing the prospect of one of the biggest defeats in their history. Not since 2002 have they taken just one point from a Championship game.The only metaphorical cloud on the horizon for Durham was the absence of Steve Harmison in the final session. Harmison reported a back strain and it is unclear whether he’ll be able to participate on the fourth day.

Karnataka made heavy weather of a 177-run target but Amit Verma saved their blushes with a serene 57 to guide them to the Ranji semi-final

ESPNcricinfo staff27-Dec-2010
Scorecard
R Vinay Kumar, the Karnataka captain, was a nervous man through the day, but Amit Verma triggered celebrations in the camp with his assured knock•ESPNcricinfo LtdKarnataka made heavy weather of the 177-run target they were set, but Amit Verma saved their blushes with a serene, unbeaten 68 to guide them to the Ranji Trophy semi-finals. The Karnataka coach Sanath Kumar was miffed with his batsmen for wasting starts in the first innings and they threatened to repeat the same mistakes in the second, but Verma held the chase together with a responsible knock.Verma himself was one of the batsmen Sanath had criticised for throwing his wicket away in the first outing. “Amit is not getting the big runs,” Sanath said then. “I have been speaking to him about it, and gave him a piece of my mind.” It’s not known whether it was the talk that did it but Verma seemed a transformed man today. He showed great patience in leaving deliveries outside off stump and rarely played a false stroke. His judgement of length was precise – he was rarely caught at the crease – and employed square drives against the seamers, and cuts against the spinners to great effect.The other batsmen, barring CM Gautam, lacked the same discipline and wickets fell at regular intervals. KB Pawan was trapped lbw, Manish Pandey ran without looking at his partner after pushing to mid-on, Ganesh Sathish collected a pair, Robin Uthappa holed out to mid-off, and Stuart Binny poked one to silly point. However, Uthappa and Binny managed to contribute some vital runs to ease Verma’s burden. Uthappa, in particular, tried to play a responsible hand – he faced 92 balls for his 37, but the mode of his dismissal would rankle him. He had just survived a plausible shout for lbw against left-arm spinner Ankit Sharma but charged down the track the very next ball and couldn’t clear mid-off.Binny, too, survived a good shout for lbw against Sharma, with Karnataka on 84 for 4, but recovered to play some positive strokes. He cut and slog-swept the offspinner Jalaj Saxena before Sharma induced a fatal prod to silly-point.Madhya Pradesh might have sensed an opportunity when Binny fell to leave Karnataka wobbling at 109 for 5 but Verma found good support in Gautam, the wicket-keeper batsman. Gautam played a few stylish drives and punches and hit five boundaries in his unbeaten 31. Karnataka have reached the semis but they won’t be entirely happy with the way they got there.

One of the chief contributors to Australian cricket’s sharply declining fortunes over the past few summers, the Futures League, will be drastically overhauled.

Daniel Brettig11-Jun-2011One of the most widely cited contributors to Australian cricket’s sharply declining fortunes over the past few summers, the Futures League, will be drastically overhauled for next season.At the same time Simon Katich was raging against the compromises and inconsistencies he saw in Cricket Australia’s management and selection structures, the board signed off on a plan to tear up most of the measures introduced to the Futures League – formerly the second XI competition – in 2009.Age restrictions limiting the number of players over the age of 23 to three per team will be relaxed to allow six players over 23, while matches will be returned to four days’ length rather than three. Restrictions on the number of overs in each innings – 96 in the first innings, 48 in the second – have also been thrown out.The changes were recommended to the CA board by the playing conditions sub-committee, which included Mark Taylor, Matthew Hayden, Greg Chappell, Shane Warne, players’ union chief executive Paul Marsh and CA chairman Jack Clarke.Marsh said the Futures League, a gambit largely introduced by Chappell when he was head of the Centre of Excellence in Brisbane, had severely weakened domestic cricket by thinning out the number of experienced players available to state sides.”The Futures League with the restriction of only having three players over the age of 23 has made it a very weak competition,” Marsh told ESPNcricinfo. “The players would say almost universally that the gap between grade and first-class cricket has never been larger than what it is now.”Therefore the Futures League or second XI competition, which sits in between those competitions, is even more important than ever. Yet it’s being made artificially weak by these age restrictions. One of the outcomes of the playing conditions committee meeting was that they would lift that restriction to allow six players over the age of 23, which is a step in the right direction.”From our perspective I’d prefer to see no age restrictions in there; you only need to have a few good young players coming through your system but you want to make sure that they are getting the best possible development opportunities.”You want them to have the best possible development through that pathway and I think we’ve gone away from what’s made us strong through our grade system and through our first-class system.”The views of Marsh have been echoed by numerous players and coaches, including Tasmania captain George Bailey, who led them to the Sheffield Shield title last summer.”It’s become really difficult to have guys who aren’t in your best XI, consistently playing good, hard cricket against other teams, with that under-23 rule,” Bailey said. “I’ve got no doubt that cricket and the way the bodies are, you play your best cricket after you’re 23, and it’s much the same as the Australian team. I think the best Australian players are better for having a really strong first-class system and we’re much the same.”Domestic cricket is only as good as the depth in squads, and the guys who, when they do enter first-class cricket, are ready to play. So that’s been a real challenge: to keep the guys who aren’t in your immediate XI or XII playing at the level that you expect of them at first-class level.”

Steven Finn has been ruled out of the first Test against India in Ahmedabad due to the thigh strain that limited his warm-up participation to four overs in the first match in Mumbai

ESPNcricinfo staff14-Nov-2012Steven Finn has been ruled out of the first Test against India in Ahmedabad due to the thigh strain that limited his warm-up participation to four overs in the first match in Mumbai.England captain Alastair Cook confirmed that Finn would not be considered for the opening match of the series as it would be a significant risk. England are still likely to field one fast bowler under an injury cloud with Stuart Broad set to play after recovering from the bruised heel that meant he has bowled just 10 warm-up overs on tour.While Finn and Broad bowled with impressive pace at practice on Sunday, it was always unlikely that the England management would two risk two bowlers in the same Test. Finn barely participated in fielding practice and did not bowl a single delivery in the nets. While he is not thought to have suffered any injury setback, it seems the England management are keen not to risk his recovery; particularly in a Test that will be played in hot, arduous conditions.The problem for Finn now is that there are no further matches on the tour outside of the Tests so he will have to regain form and fitness in the nets.The most likely replacement for Finn appears to be Tim Bresnan who bowled well in the second innings of the final warm-up match against Haryana where he found useful reverse swing. Graham Onions, Stuart Meaker or a second frontline spinner in Monty Panesar are the other options and Cook is happy with the depth available.”I wouldn’t call them back-up bowlers, they’re all vying for a place to play in this XI, to be lucky enough to play for England,” Cook said. “They’ve all worked hard to get used to these conditions and as selectors we’ve got a tough decision to make.”