Showing posts with label Dhoni. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dhoni. Show all posts
Friday, 18 November 2022
Saturday, 27 April 2019
Why Ashwin was right and Dhoni wrong
The main talking points in an IPL often have to do with the performance of match officials, decisions being challenged, player conduct, and matches finishing well beyond the scheduled time. This season, umpires have come under increased public scrutiny due to a couple of incidents that made instant headlines and continue to make for heated debate.
R Ashwin's run-out of Jos Buttler early on in the season was fiercely discussed by all stakeholders and commentators. Ashwin said it was instinctive. Buttler said it left a sour taste. The MCC, the custodians of cricket's laws, said the Indian player was hurting the spirit of cricket, and that his actions were deliberate.
A few weeks later, another senior Indian player, in fact one of the most venerated, MS Dhoni, charged into the middle to challenge a no-ball call that seemed to be called and then revoked by the on-field umpires. Dhoni subsequently pleaded guilty to the charge and copped a fine.
Let us look at both incidents to try and understand the role of the umpires and the players involved, and who was right or wrong.
Ashwin's Buttler run-out had nothing to do with spirit of cricket
I was in India when the incident happened and I saw it on TV. Subsequently we had an MCC Laws sub-committee meeting and discussed the event. Also present on that call was Geoff Allardice, the ICC's General Manager of cricket, given that a World Cup is just around the corner.
My view on this particular issue is, it has nothing to do with the spirit of cricket. During our discussion, we spoke at length about Law 41.16. The intent of the law is that the non-striker should not leave their ground at the bowler's end before the ball is delivered. This is why the ICC has stipulated within their regulations and interpretations that the bowler can dismiss the non-striker run out up until the bowler's arm reaches the top of the delivery swing.
What I did say to the MCC was that maybe we could help people understand that this incident had nothing to do with the spirit of cricket but rather everything to do with the run-out rule (which is Law 38) by repositioning this clause about unfair advantage under that Law in future.
At Lord's in 2011 I sat on an ICC Cricket Committee meeting, across the table from Tim May, then the players' representative on the panel. May strongly advocated that he wanted to see this type of situation be under the purview of the rules governing run-out dismissals. The committee debated that at length and it was decided to tweak the ICC playing conditions so that it was no longer the back-foot landing that was regarded as the point of no-return in such cases but rather the point of normal release, which is when the bowler gets to the top of their delivery swing. As a result, the bowler would have a lot more opportunity to run out the non-striker. The representatives of the players were in favour of this type of run-out if the non-striker was backing up too far (intentionally or not).
I go back to the intent of Law 41.16, which is to ensure the non-striker stays in the crease until the moment of release. If the non-striker does not do that, he or she is breaching the Law. It is he or she who is gaining an unfair advantage.
All Ashwin did was appeal to the umpire for a run-out dismissal. He stopped short of delivering the ball and did not go through with his delivery swing. For him to be subject to adverse commentary that amounted to character assassination regarding his supposed contravention of the spirit of the game, is incredibly unfair in the way the Laws are written and the way they are to be applied.
Both the on-field umpire and the third umpire did not feel he deceived the non-striker by waiting too long before breaking the stumps within dealing with the appeal - the ball was deemed by them to be still within play.
Several years ago, before answering these kinds of run-out appeals, as umpires we checked with the fielding captain whether they wanted to continue with the appeal first. Around 2011, the captains collectively expressed misgivings about this process, saying they did not want pressure to be put on them about whether to continue with an appeal or not. As a collective, they asked the umpires to simply answer the appeal if one was made.
ALSO READ: Monga: The spirit of cricket is no substitute for the Laws
People also accused Ashwin of premeditation. My response to that would be: well, so what? Bowlers attempt to get batsmen out lbw, bowled, caught, or by any other form of dismissal. Aren't all these premeditated? So I don't see how that is a relevant argument at all.
I also found it interesting that many pundits and players have spoken about how Ashwin should have given Buttler a warning. Giving a warning is a myth; there is nothing in the Laws about it. Given that the ICC Cricket Committee and the MCC have made it clear how they want the game to be played, why is such a warning required? If the non-striker does not want to be run out at the bowler's end backing up, then they must stay in their ground until the ball leaves the bowler's hand.
From an umpire's perspective, it is a situation that is almost impossible to manage on their own, which is probably why the Buttler run-out was referred to the third umpire. It is interesting that it was referred, given that the on-field umpire didn't necessarily think the ball was dead, and at no stage did Ashwin actually get to the point of vertical delivery. It is subjective as to whether or not he actually got to the normal point of release. So it is very understandable that Buttler was given out run out.
There are several challenges in a situation like this for an umpire. It is an incredibly difficult Law (41.16) to enforce at the bowler's end. The umpire's challenge is to watch the back foot and/or the front foot, the point of normal release, the ball coming into view, and whether the non-striker is backing up. And then answer the run-out appeal, making a decision about whether or not the batsman was in their ground or short when the stumps were put down. You can imagine how difficult that would be because you can't watch everything at the same time. It is a very challenging and somewhat impractical law for an umpire to judge, especially without the support of a third umpire.
I believe good umpiring should be proactive. You solve problems before they happen. Personally, if I see a batsman backing up too far, I ask them to come back. If I see a bowler who is getting too close with back foot or front foot, I will tell them they are getting close, and if they continue to do this, it is likely a no-ball will be called. If I see a fielder who is getting pretty close to infringing the fielding restrictions, I would remind them to be in the right position, otherwise a no-ball call is likely. Good umpiring is about maintaining a policy of no surprises and keeping the focus on cricket. That was my style, but the game has moved on a little bit since I have retired.
I was in India and spoke to Ashwin soon after the incident. I reaffirmed to him that it was unfair and not appropriate for various people to pull him up for breaching the spirit of cricket. I made contact with him to make sure he was fine and not affected by the comments, and to support him on a human level. I told him he was within his rights to appeal and to attempt to run out the non-striker.
Dhoni crossed the line
My first reaction at the incident of Dhoni going on to the field to talk to the umpires was that of surprise because one of Dhoni's great strengths that I have seen over the years is his composure and his ability to handle adversity or difficult moments with a high degree of acceptance, to consider his options and then act in a measured, controlled way.
I get that these are high-pressure moments - lots of things are riding on these games, a lot of money is involved, and there is a lot of excitement and passion within the ground and outside it. I do understand this environment, having had first-hand experience officiating in many IPL finals.
But non-participating players or even coaches and managers entering the field of play to approach an umpire is not right. MS acknowledged this by accepting and pleading guilty to the charge imposed by the IPL match officials.
I would have preferred personally that the umpires did not even talk to him, and instead asked him to go away and not involved themselves in a discussion with him at the time. It is important that umpires don't let themselves be surrounded by players, and that they make their decisions without any perception of being influenced.
ALSO READ: IPL's soft signal on Dhoni is a chance put down
From what I observed, MS seemed to be pointing out that the umpire at the bowler's end had raised his arm to signal a no-ball and he later went back on that call. Now, the primacy of the call belongs to the umpire at the bowler's end. As a point of protocol, you do look at your colleague at square leg to help judge accurately the height of waist-high full tosses and bouncers above head height, before calling them.
While the square-leg umpire can raise their arm to signal a wide or a no-ball to their colleague, they are not calling it. Let us be very clear: it is the jurisdiction of the bowler's-end umpire, with support from the square-leg umpire.
In this particular case the no-ball was signalled by the bowler's-end umpire, who stuck his arm out without waiting to confirm the height judgement with his colleague at square leg. And the square-leg umpire himself had not signalled a no-ball. So the bowler's-end umpire perhaps second-guessed himself and (then) decided to retract or discontinue the no-ball call process. He did not revoke his original call, which was for a no-ball. Had he done so, it might have avoided some of the confusion.
Adding to the confusion, the stadium announcer signalled a free hit on the big screen, which obviously left the players further unsure as to what the situation was.
I would have much preferred to have seen the umpire at the bowler's end back himself and be confident with his original call, because from the officiating perspective, normally your first call or gut instinct is the right one. The replays I have seen seem to support the original call in this case.
Be that as it may, there is no reason for the batting captain to come onto the field and contest the decision or seek clarification while the match is in progress. In this case, Dhoni did cross the line.
The unrealistic expectations placed on umpires
High-quality camera work, technological advances in television broadcasting, and the presence of several commentators at each match have allowed TV audiences as well as fans at the ground to get closer to the action. The fans are now being provided a lot more information on the game than in the past. The heightened involvement of the broadcasters and the media in matches means there is more to be shown, more stories to be told, and more to be scrutinised.
Our game is perfectly imperfect. By that I mean that technology does not solve all of our problems. It is almost replacing one set of problems on the field with another. When you add a new element to the game, such as third-umpire technology, while that might seem to solve a couple of problems, it also creates a whole list of other challenges, involving training, consistency, and accuracy of match officials.
ALSO READ: How simple is spotting a no-ball?
Technology is not perfect. Hot Spot doesn't always show a mark. Real-time Snickometer or Ultra Edge don't always show a spike. Ball tracking has an in-built margin of error. The white ball doesn't stay white. The white line of the crease gets scuffed away where the bowlers' feet land.
Even when we have up to four umpires involved in a match - two on-field, a third, and a reserve on the boundary - they all don't necessarily seem to make the same decisions for the same reasons, or they may not always initially agree on one course of action. It is part of the beauty of sport.
But the best in the world make the fewest mistakes. Still, even the best umpire in the world will not have a great performance every day. You have to bear in mind that it is the human aspect that we need to remind ourselves of here.
People expect umpires to be perfect and somehow get better. That is an unrealistic expectation. Umpires cannot be perfect, but they can be excellent. We need to be a little more accepting, and appreciate that everyone is doing their best.
Friday, 2 June 2017
‘Superstar culture afflicts Indian cricket,’ writes Ram Guha as he resigns from panel
Dear Vinod,
It has been a pleasure working with Diana, Vikram and you in the Supreme Court Committee of Administrators. It has been an educative experience, spending long hours with three top-flight professionals from whom I have learned a lot in these past few months. However, it has been clear for some time now that my thoughts and views are adjacent to, and sometimes at odds with, the direction the Committee is taking as a whole. That is why I eventually decided to request the Supreme Court to relieve me of the responsibility, and submitted my letter of resignation to the Court on the morning of the 1st of June.
For the record, and in the interests of transparency, I am here listing the major points of divergence as I see it:
1. The question of conflict of interest, which had lain unaddressed ever since the Committee began its work, and which I have been repeatedly flagging since I joined. For instance, the BCCI has accorded preferential treatment to some national coaches (read Dravid) , by giving them ten month contracts for national duty, thus allowing them to work as IPL coaches/mentors for the remaining two months. This was done in an adhoc and arbitrary manner; the more famous the former player-turned-coach, the more likely was the BCCI to allow him to draft his own contract that left loopholes that he exploited to dodge the conflict of interest issue.
I have repeatedly pointed out that it is contrary to the spirit of the Lodha Committee for coaches or the support staff of the Indian senior or junior team, or for staff at the National Cricket Academy, to have contracts in the Indian Premier League. One cannot have dual loyalties of this kind and do proper justice to both. National duty must take precedence over club affiliation.
I had first raised this issue to my COA colleagues in an email of 1st February, and have raised it several times since. I had urged that coaches and support staff for national teams be paid an enhanced compensation, but that this conflict of interest be stopped. When, on the 11th of March, I was told that that there was a camp scheduled for young players at the National Cricket Academy but at least one national coach was likely to be away on IPL work and might not attend the camp, I wrote to you:
No person under contract with an India team, or with the NCA, should be allowed to moonlight for an IPL team too.
BCCI in its carelessness (or otherwise) might have drafted coaching/support staff contracts to allow this dual loyalty business, but while it might be narrowly legal as per existing contracts, it is unethical, and antithetical to team spirit, leading to much jealousy and heart-burn among the coaching staff as a whole. This practice is plainly wrong, as well as antithetical to the interests of Indian cricket.
I would like an explicit and early assurance from the BCCI management that such manifestly inequitous loopholes in coaching/support staff contracts will be plugged.
Yet no assurance was given, and no action was taken. The BCCI management and office-bearers have, in the absence of explicit directions from the COA, allowed the status quo to continue.
2. I have also repeatedly pointed to the anomaly whereby BCCI-contracted commentators simultaneously act as player agents. In a mail of 19th March to the COA I wrote:
Dear Colleagues,
Please have a look at this news report:
http://indianexpress.com/article/sports/cricket/pmg-signs-up-shikhar-dhawan-for-3-years-2776329/
Sunil Gavaskar is head of a company which represents Indian cricketers while commenting on those crickters as part of the BCCI TV commentary panel. This is a clear conflict of interest. Either he must step down/withdraw himself from PMG completely or stop being a commentator for BCCI.
I think prompt and swift action on this matter is both just and necessary. COA’s credibility and effectiveness hinges on our being able to take bold and correct decisions on such matters. The ‘superstar’ culture that afflicts the BCCI means that the more famous the player (former or present) the more leeway he is allowed in violating norms and procedures. (Dhoni was captain of the Indian team while holding a stake in a firm that represented some current India players.) This must stop – and only we can stop it.
Yet, despite my warnings, no action has been initiated in the several months that the Committee has been in operation.
As the mail quoted above noted, one reasons the conflict of interest issue has lingered unaddressed is that several of the game’s superstars, past and present, have been guilty of it. The BCCI management is too much in awe of these superstars to question their violation of norms and procedures. For their part, BCCI office-bearers like to enjoy discretionary powers, so that the coaches or commentrators they favour are indebted to them and do not ever question their own mistakes or malpractices. But surely a Supreme Court appointed body should not be intimidated by the past or present achievements of a cricketer, and instead seek to strive to be fair and just.
Conflict of interest is rampant in the State Associations as well. One famous former cricketer is contracted by media houses to comment on active players while serving as President of his State Association (read Ganguly). Others have served as office-bearers in one Association and simultaneously as coaches or managers in another. The awarding of business contracts to friends and relatives by office-bearers is reported to be fairly widespread.
Had we been more proactive in stopping conflict of interest within the BCCI (as per Lodha Committee recommendations, endorsed by the Court), this would surely have had a ripple effect downwards, putting pressure on State Assocations to clean up their act as well.
3. Unfortunately, this superstar syndrome has also distorted the system of Indian team contracts. As you will recall, I had pointed out that awarding MS Dhoni an ‘A’ contract when he had explicitly ruled himself out from all Test matches was indefensible on cricketing grounds, and sends absolutely the wrong message.
4. The way in which the contract of Anil Kumble, the current Head Coach of the senior team, has been handled. The Indian team’s record this past season has been excellent; and even if the players garner the bulk of the credit, surely the Head Coach and his support staff also get some. In a system based on justice and merit, the Head Coach’s term would have been extended. Instead, Kumble was left hanging, and then told the post would be re-advertised afresh.
Clearly, the issue has been handled in an extremely insensitive and unprofessional manner by the BCCI CEO and the BCCI office-bearers, with the COA, by its silence and inaction, unfortunately being complicit in this regard. (Recall that the Court Order of 30 January had expressly mandated us to supervise the management of BCCI.) In case due process had to be followed since Kumble’s original appointment was only for one year, why was this not done during April and May, when the IPL was on? If indeed the captain and the Head Coach were not getting along, why was this not attended to as soon as the Australia series was over in late March? Why was it left until the last minute, when a major international tournament was imminent, and when the uncertainty would undermine the morale and ability to focus of the coach, the captain and the team? And surely giving senior players the impression that they may have a veto power over the coach is another example of superstar culture gone berserk? Such a veto power is not permitted to any other top level professional team in any other sport in any other country. Already, in a dismaying departure from international norms, current Indian players enjoy a veto power on who can be the members of the commentary team (read departure of Harsha Bhogle). If it is to be coaches next, then perhaps the selectors and even office-bearers will follow?
5. Ever since the Supreme Court announced the formation of the COA, we have been inundated, individually and collectively, by hundreds of mails asking us to address various ills that afflict Indian cricket and its administration. While many of these issues were trivial or clearly beyond our purview, there was one concern that we should have done far more to address. This concerns the callous treatment to domestic cricket and cricketers, namely, those who represent their state in the Ranji Trophy, the Mushtaq Ali Trophy, and other inter-state tournaments. The IPL may be Indian cricket’s showpiece; but surely the enormous revenues it generates should be used to make our domestic players more financially secure? There are many more Indian cricketers who make their living via the Ranji Trophy than via IPL; besides, for us to have a consistently strong Test team (especially overseas) we need a robust inter-state competition and therefore must seek to compensate domestic players better.
And yet, shockingly, Ranji match fees have remained at a very low level (a mere Rs 30,000 odd for each day of play); moreover, cheques for match fees sent by the BCCI are sometimes not passed on by the state associations to the players. We need to learn from best practices in other countries, where domestic players are awarded annual contracts like those in the national team, while their match fees are reasonably competitive too.
Several months ago, the experienced cricket administrator Amrit Mathur prepared an excellent note on the need for better and fairer treatment of domestic players. Both Diana and I have repeatedly urged action, but this has not happened.
6. I believe it was a mistake for the COA to have stayed silent and inactive when the Supreme Court judgment was being so flagrantly violated by people clearly disqualified to serve as office bearers of state and even BCCI run cricket bodies. The disqualified men were openly attending BCCI meetings, claiming to represent their state association, and indeed played a leading role in the concerted (if fortunately in the end aborted) attempt to get the Indian team to boycott the Champions Trophy. All these illegalities were widely reported in the press; yet the COA did not bring them to the notice of the Court, and did not issue clear directions asking the offenders to desist either.
7. I believe that the lack of attention to these (and other such issues) is in part due to the absence of a senior and respected male cricketer on our Committee. Allow me to quote from a mail I wrote on 1 February 2017, before our first full meeting:
Dear fellow members,
I much look forward to meeting you all later today. I know Vikram already and greatly admire both Vinod and Diana for their remarkable work in their chosen fields, and am truly honoured to be working with them as well.
I presume apart from discussing IPL, etc, with the BCCI representative we will get some time to discuss the way forward separately. I have several ideas which I wish to share with you about our collective responsibility, and wanted in this mail to flag what is most important of these. This is that we must incorporate into our committee of administrators, either as a full member or as a special invitee, a senior male cricketer with the distinction and integrity that Diana has. That will greatly enhance both our credibility and our ability to make informed decisions.
The absence of a respected male cricketer in the COA has attracted a great deal of criticism already, much of it from important stakeholders in Indian cricket. It must be addressed and remedied. The amicus curae had suggested two outstanding names, Venkat and Bedi, both of whom were rejected because they were over seventy. However, there are some cricketers of the right age and experience who fit the bill. Based on my knowledge of the subject, I would say Javagal Srinath would be an excellent choice. He is a world-class cricketer, was a successful and scandal-free Secretary of the Karnataka State Cricket Association and is an ICC match referee, and comes from an educated technical background to boot. I strongly urge the Chairman and the other members to consider approaching him in this regard. He would complement Diana perfectly, and the combination of these two respected and top class former cricketers would enhance our credibility and effectiveness enormously.
While Srinath is in my view the best choice, there are other alternative names too. I hope we can set aside some time at our meeting to discuss and resolve the issue.
With regards
Ram
p.s. Needless to say, I have not discussed this with Srinath or with anyone else.
I raised this issue in a formal meeting of the COA as well, but unfortunately my proposal to invite a senior male cricketer to join the committee was not acted upon. We should have approached the Court to take necessary action, or else incorporated a senior, respected, male cricketer as a special invitee. With such a person on board the COA would have gained in experience, knowledge, understanding, and, not least, credibility. Indeed, had we such a person on board, the BCCI management and the office-bearers would have been compelled to be far more proactive in implementing the Lodha Committee recommendations than they have been thus far. As the only cricketer on the COA, Diana’s contributions have been invaluable; on many issues of administration and the rights of players she has brought a perspective based on a first-hand experience that the rest of us lacked. A male counterpart would have complemented and further enriched her contributions; but perhaps it is not too late to make amends.
8. While all our meetings were held in a cordial atmosphere, between meetings perhaps there was not adequate consultation, and there were several crucial decisions made where all the COA members were not brought into the loop. For instance, a capable, non-political Senior Counsel representing the COA and the BCCI in the Supreme Court was abruptly replaced by another Senior Counsel who is a party politician. Surely other COA members should have been consulted by email or by phone before this important change was made.
I have taken too much of your time already, but permit me to make one last suggestion. This is that the place vacated by me on the Committee of Administrators be filled by a senior, respected, male cricketer with administrative experience.
Let me in conclusion thank you for your courtesy and civility these past few months, and wish you and the Committee all the best in your future endevours.
With best wishes
Ramachandra Guha
It has been a pleasure working with Diana, Vikram and you in the Supreme Court Committee of Administrators. It has been an educative experience, spending long hours with three top-flight professionals from whom I have learned a lot in these past few months. However, it has been clear for some time now that my thoughts and views are adjacent to, and sometimes at odds with, the direction the Committee is taking as a whole. That is why I eventually decided to request the Supreme Court to relieve me of the responsibility, and submitted my letter of resignation to the Court on the morning of the 1st of June.
For the record, and in the interests of transparency, I am here listing the major points of divergence as I see it:
1. The question of conflict of interest, which had lain unaddressed ever since the Committee began its work, and which I have been repeatedly flagging since I joined. For instance, the BCCI has accorded preferential treatment to some national coaches (read Dravid) , by giving them ten month contracts for national duty, thus allowing them to work as IPL coaches/mentors for the remaining two months. This was done in an adhoc and arbitrary manner; the more famous the former player-turned-coach, the more likely was the BCCI to allow him to draft his own contract that left loopholes that he exploited to dodge the conflict of interest issue.
I have repeatedly pointed out that it is contrary to the spirit of the Lodha Committee for coaches or the support staff of the Indian senior or junior team, or for staff at the National Cricket Academy, to have contracts in the Indian Premier League. One cannot have dual loyalties of this kind and do proper justice to both. National duty must take precedence over club affiliation.
I had first raised this issue to my COA colleagues in an email of 1st February, and have raised it several times since. I had urged that coaches and support staff for national teams be paid an enhanced compensation, but that this conflict of interest be stopped. When, on the 11th of March, I was told that that there was a camp scheduled for young players at the National Cricket Academy but at least one national coach was likely to be away on IPL work and might not attend the camp, I wrote to you:
No person under contract with an India team, or with the NCA, should be allowed to moonlight for an IPL team too.
BCCI in its carelessness (or otherwise) might have drafted coaching/support staff contracts to allow this dual loyalty business, but while it might be narrowly legal as per existing contracts, it is unethical, and antithetical to team spirit, leading to much jealousy and heart-burn among the coaching staff as a whole. This practice is plainly wrong, as well as antithetical to the interests of Indian cricket.
I would like an explicit and early assurance from the BCCI management that such manifestly inequitous loopholes in coaching/support staff contracts will be plugged.
Yet no assurance was given, and no action was taken. The BCCI management and office-bearers have, in the absence of explicit directions from the COA, allowed the status quo to continue.
2. I have also repeatedly pointed to the anomaly whereby BCCI-contracted commentators simultaneously act as player agents. In a mail of 19th March to the COA I wrote:
Dear Colleagues,
Please have a look at this news report:
http://indianexpress.com/article/sports/cricket/pmg-signs-up-shikhar-dhawan-for-3-years-2776329/
Sunil Gavaskar is head of a company which represents Indian cricketers while commenting on those crickters as part of the BCCI TV commentary panel. This is a clear conflict of interest. Either he must step down/withdraw himself from PMG completely or stop being a commentator for BCCI.
I think prompt and swift action on this matter is both just and necessary. COA’s credibility and effectiveness hinges on our being able to take bold and correct decisions on such matters. The ‘superstar’ culture that afflicts the BCCI means that the more famous the player (former or present) the more leeway he is allowed in violating norms and procedures. (Dhoni was captain of the Indian team while holding a stake in a firm that represented some current India players.) This must stop – and only we can stop it.
Yet, despite my warnings, no action has been initiated in the several months that the Committee has been in operation.
As the mail quoted above noted, one reasons the conflict of interest issue has lingered unaddressed is that several of the game’s superstars, past and present, have been guilty of it. The BCCI management is too much in awe of these superstars to question their violation of norms and procedures. For their part, BCCI office-bearers like to enjoy discretionary powers, so that the coaches or commentrators they favour are indebted to them and do not ever question their own mistakes or malpractices. But surely a Supreme Court appointed body should not be intimidated by the past or present achievements of a cricketer, and instead seek to strive to be fair and just.
Conflict of interest is rampant in the State Associations as well. One famous former cricketer is contracted by media houses to comment on active players while serving as President of his State Association (read Ganguly). Others have served as office-bearers in one Association and simultaneously as coaches or managers in another. The awarding of business contracts to friends and relatives by office-bearers is reported to be fairly widespread.
Had we been more proactive in stopping conflict of interest within the BCCI (as per Lodha Committee recommendations, endorsed by the Court), this would surely have had a ripple effect downwards, putting pressure on State Assocations to clean up their act as well.
3. Unfortunately, this superstar syndrome has also distorted the system of Indian team contracts. As you will recall, I had pointed out that awarding MS Dhoni an ‘A’ contract when he had explicitly ruled himself out from all Test matches was indefensible on cricketing grounds, and sends absolutely the wrong message.
4. The way in which the contract of Anil Kumble, the current Head Coach of the senior team, has been handled. The Indian team’s record this past season has been excellent; and even if the players garner the bulk of the credit, surely the Head Coach and his support staff also get some. In a system based on justice and merit, the Head Coach’s term would have been extended. Instead, Kumble was left hanging, and then told the post would be re-advertised afresh.
Clearly, the issue has been handled in an extremely insensitive and unprofessional manner by the BCCI CEO and the BCCI office-bearers, with the COA, by its silence and inaction, unfortunately being complicit in this regard. (Recall that the Court Order of 30 January had expressly mandated us to supervise the management of BCCI.) In case due process had to be followed since Kumble’s original appointment was only for one year, why was this not done during April and May, when the IPL was on? If indeed the captain and the Head Coach were not getting along, why was this not attended to as soon as the Australia series was over in late March? Why was it left until the last minute, when a major international tournament was imminent, and when the uncertainty would undermine the morale and ability to focus of the coach, the captain and the team? And surely giving senior players the impression that they may have a veto power over the coach is another example of superstar culture gone berserk? Such a veto power is not permitted to any other top level professional team in any other sport in any other country. Already, in a dismaying departure from international norms, current Indian players enjoy a veto power on who can be the members of the commentary team (read departure of Harsha Bhogle). If it is to be coaches next, then perhaps the selectors and even office-bearers will follow?
5. Ever since the Supreme Court announced the formation of the COA, we have been inundated, individually and collectively, by hundreds of mails asking us to address various ills that afflict Indian cricket and its administration. While many of these issues were trivial or clearly beyond our purview, there was one concern that we should have done far more to address. This concerns the callous treatment to domestic cricket and cricketers, namely, those who represent their state in the Ranji Trophy, the Mushtaq Ali Trophy, and other inter-state tournaments. The IPL may be Indian cricket’s showpiece; but surely the enormous revenues it generates should be used to make our domestic players more financially secure? There are many more Indian cricketers who make their living via the Ranji Trophy than via IPL; besides, for us to have a consistently strong Test team (especially overseas) we need a robust inter-state competition and therefore must seek to compensate domestic players better.
And yet, shockingly, Ranji match fees have remained at a very low level (a mere Rs 30,000 odd for each day of play); moreover, cheques for match fees sent by the BCCI are sometimes not passed on by the state associations to the players. We need to learn from best practices in other countries, where domestic players are awarded annual contracts like those in the national team, while their match fees are reasonably competitive too.
Several months ago, the experienced cricket administrator Amrit Mathur prepared an excellent note on the need for better and fairer treatment of domestic players. Both Diana and I have repeatedly urged action, but this has not happened.
6. I believe it was a mistake for the COA to have stayed silent and inactive when the Supreme Court judgment was being so flagrantly violated by people clearly disqualified to serve as office bearers of state and even BCCI run cricket bodies. The disqualified men were openly attending BCCI meetings, claiming to represent their state association, and indeed played a leading role in the concerted (if fortunately in the end aborted) attempt to get the Indian team to boycott the Champions Trophy. All these illegalities were widely reported in the press; yet the COA did not bring them to the notice of the Court, and did not issue clear directions asking the offenders to desist either.
7. I believe that the lack of attention to these (and other such issues) is in part due to the absence of a senior and respected male cricketer on our Committee. Allow me to quote from a mail I wrote on 1 February 2017, before our first full meeting:
Dear fellow members,
I much look forward to meeting you all later today. I know Vikram already and greatly admire both Vinod and Diana for their remarkable work in their chosen fields, and am truly honoured to be working with them as well.
I presume apart from discussing IPL, etc, with the BCCI representative we will get some time to discuss the way forward separately. I have several ideas which I wish to share with you about our collective responsibility, and wanted in this mail to flag what is most important of these. This is that we must incorporate into our committee of administrators, either as a full member or as a special invitee, a senior male cricketer with the distinction and integrity that Diana has. That will greatly enhance both our credibility and our ability to make informed decisions.
The absence of a respected male cricketer in the COA has attracted a great deal of criticism already, much of it from important stakeholders in Indian cricket. It must be addressed and remedied. The amicus curae had suggested two outstanding names, Venkat and Bedi, both of whom were rejected because they were over seventy. However, there are some cricketers of the right age and experience who fit the bill. Based on my knowledge of the subject, I would say Javagal Srinath would be an excellent choice. He is a world-class cricketer, was a successful and scandal-free Secretary of the Karnataka State Cricket Association and is an ICC match referee, and comes from an educated technical background to boot. I strongly urge the Chairman and the other members to consider approaching him in this regard. He would complement Diana perfectly, and the combination of these two respected and top class former cricketers would enhance our credibility and effectiveness enormously.
While Srinath is in my view the best choice, there are other alternative names too. I hope we can set aside some time at our meeting to discuss and resolve the issue.
With regards
Ram
p.s. Needless to say, I have not discussed this with Srinath or with anyone else.
I raised this issue in a formal meeting of the COA as well, but unfortunately my proposal to invite a senior male cricketer to join the committee was not acted upon. We should have approached the Court to take necessary action, or else incorporated a senior, respected, male cricketer as a special invitee. With such a person on board the COA would have gained in experience, knowledge, understanding, and, not least, credibility. Indeed, had we such a person on board, the BCCI management and the office-bearers would have been compelled to be far more proactive in implementing the Lodha Committee recommendations than they have been thus far. As the only cricketer on the COA, Diana’s contributions have been invaluable; on many issues of administration and the rights of players she has brought a perspective based on a first-hand experience that the rest of us lacked. A male counterpart would have complemented and further enriched her contributions; but perhaps it is not too late to make amends.
8. While all our meetings were held in a cordial atmosphere, between meetings perhaps there was not adequate consultation, and there were several crucial decisions made where all the COA members were not brought into the loop. For instance, a capable, non-political Senior Counsel representing the COA and the BCCI in the Supreme Court was abruptly replaced by another Senior Counsel who is a party politician. Surely other COA members should have been consulted by email or by phone before this important change was made.
I have taken too much of your time already, but permit me to make one last suggestion. This is that the place vacated by me on the Committee of Administrators be filled by a senior, respected, male cricketer with administrative experience.
Let me in conclusion thank you for your courtesy and civility these past few months, and wish you and the Committee all the best in your future endevours.
With best wishes
Ramachandra Guha
Thursday, 13 October 2016
The numbers behind dropped catches and missed stumpings
Charles Davis in Cricinfo
For all its bewildering array of data, cricket statistics still has a few blind spots. One of the most obvious is in the area of missed chances, where there have been few extensive studies. Gerald Brodribb in Next Man In mentioned that statistician RH Campbell estimated that 30% of catches were missed in Tests in the 1920s. I have seen a figure of more than 30 dropped catches by West Indies in Australia in 1968-69, a team plagued by poor fielding. But really basic questions like "Overall, what percentage of chances are dropped?" lack answers.
For a number of years I have collected all the missed chances I could find in ESPNcricinfo's ball-by-ball texts for Test matches. Since the site does not always use standard terms to describe missed chances, and different ball-by-ball commentators have their own ways of expressing themselves, I searched the text for 40 or more words and phrases that might indicate a miss, from "drop" and "dolly" to "shell", "grass" and "hash". The process generally flagged about 100 to 200 lines in the commentary for each Test, which I then searched manually to identify real chances. For some Tests, I also confirmed data by checking match reports and other ball-by-ball sources.
While the commentary goes back to 1999, the textual detail can be patchy in the early years. I logged missed chances from late 2000 onwards, but consider that data to be substantially complete only from 2003. I have compiled a list of over 4000 missed chances in Tests from this century; about a third of all Tests (635) are represented.
Unavoidably, there are caveats. Sometimes opinions may vary as to whether a chance should be considered a miss. I take a hard line: "half", "technical" and "academic" chances are included, and I try to include any chances where the fielder failed to touch the ball but should have done so, if they can be identified. Edges passing between the wicketkeeper and first slip are considered chances even if no one has touched the ball. Since 2005, I have divided chances into two categories, "normal" and "difficult", according to how they are described. About half fall into each category.
There will always be uncertainty about some dropped catches, as there is always the possibility that some others have been overlooked. However, as long as the collection method is as consistent and exhaustive as possible, I would argue that a great majority of misses have been identified and that the data can be collated into useful statistics.
So back to the original question: how many chances are dropped? The answer is about one-quarter; typically seven missed chances per Test. Here is a table showing missed chances by country.
The difference between the top three countries in the last five years is not significant; however, there are more substantial differences down the list. Generally, Bangladesh have had the weakest catching record since they started in Test cricket, although there are recent signs of improvement. Other countries have had fluctuating fortunes. West Indies had a miss rate of over 30% from 2003 to 2009, but have tightened up their game in the last couple of years. India have seen a rate of 33% in 2013 fall to 23% in 2015, and Sri Lanka have also improved their catching significantly in just the last two years.
In some years, countries like Australia, South Africa and New Zealand have seen their rates drop below 20%; the best single-year result was 16.9% by South Africa in 2013, when they were the No. 1-ranked team in Tests. In good years, the proportion of dropped catches rated as "difficult" generally increases; good teams still miss the hard ones but drop fewer easy ones. Typically, two-thirds of Australia's missed chances are rated as difficult, but the same applies to only one-third of Bangladesh's missed chances.
The lucky
As a batsman's innings progresses, the odds of him offering a chance increase. About 72% of batsmen reaching 50 do so without giving a chance, but the percentage for century-makers is 56% in the first 100 runs. Only 33% of double-centuries are chanceless in the first 200 runs. The highest absolutely chanceless innings is 374 by Mahela Jayawardene in Colombo; Lara's 400 in Antigua contained a couple of "academic" chances.
The most expensive missed chance since the start of 2000 is 297 runs for Inzamam-ul-Haq, who made 329 after being missed on 32 in Lahore in 2002. Historically there have been more expensive misses: Mark Taylor (334 not out) was dropped on 18 and 27 by Saeed Anwar, and there was a missed stumping on 40 for Len Hutton (364) in 1938. Perhaps even luckier was Kumar Sangakkara, who made 270 in Bulawayo after being dropped on 0. Sachin Tendulkar was dropped on 0 when he made his highest score, 248 not out in Dhaka. Mike Hussey gave a possible chance first ball at the Gabba in 2010, and went on to make 195. Graham Gooch was famously dropped by Kiran More when on 36 at Lord's in 1990. He went on to make 333.
The data turns up four batsmen who have been dropped five times in an innings: one was Andy Blignaut, whose 84 not out in Harare in 2005 included an extremely rare hat-trick of dropped catches; Zaheer Khan was the unhappy bowler. (There was also a hat-trick of missed chances at Old Trafford in 1972, when two batsmen survived against Geoff Arnold.) The others who have been missed five times are Hashim Amla (253 in Nagpur, 2010), Taufeeq Umar (135 in St Kitts, 2011) and Kane Williamson (242 not out in Wellington, 2014). Nothing in this century quite matches the seven or eight missed catches (reports vary) off George Bonnor when he made 87 in Sydney in 1883, or six misses off Bill Ponsford in his 266 at The Oval in 1934 (as recorded by veteran scorer Bill Ferguson). Wavell Hinds was dropped twice at the MCG in 2000, and still made a duck.
The batsman with most reprieves in the study period is Virender Sehwag, missed 68 times, just one ahead of Sangakkara. About 37% of the chances Sehwag offered were dropped, which is well above average and probably a testament to the power of his hitting.
The unlucky
Broadly, spin bowlers suffer more from dropped catches and (of course) missed stumpings. Chances at short leg, along with caught and bowled, have the highest miss rates among fielding positions, and these positions happen to feature more strongly among spinners' wickets than pace bowlers'. Overall, 27% of chances off spin bowlers are missed, as against 23% of chances off pace bowlers.
In the study period, the bowlers with the most missed chances in Tests are Harbhajan Singh (99) and Danish Kaneria (93). Harbhajan has had 26 chances missed at short leg alone. Bear in mind that these bowlers' careers are not fully covered; the data for about 10% of Harbhajan's career is not available to analyse. Pace bowlers with the most misses, as of January 2016, are Jimmy Anderson (89) and Stuart Broad (85).
Spare a thought for James Tredwell, who has played only two Tests but suffered ten missed chances, including seven on debut, the most for any bowler since the start of 2000. Most were very difficult, with three of them missed by the bowler himself. Also worth mentioning is Zulfiqar Babar, who has had 30 chances missed in his Test career and only 28 catches (and stumpings) taken.
At the other end of the scale, Adil Rashid has had eight catches taken off his bowling with no misses (as of August 2016). Neil Wagner of New Zealand has had only seven misses out of 63 chances, a rate of 11%.
Two bowlers have had catches missed off their first ball in Test cricket: David Warner (Dean Brownlie dropped by James Pattinson, Brisbane, 2011) and RP Singh (Shoaib Malik dropped by Anil Kumble, Faisalabad, 2006).
There is an intriguing case from 1990. Against West Indies in Lahore, Wasim Akram took four wickets in five balls: W, W, 1, W, W. In a surviving scorebook, the single, by Ian Bishop, is marked as a dropped catch at mid-on. If so, Akram came within a hair's breadth of five wickets in five balls, since the batsmen crossed, and Bishop did not face again. (Wisden, it should be noted, says that the catch was out of reach.)
The guilty
When it comes to catching, some positions are much more challenging than others. That will come as no surprise, but putting some numbers to this is an interesting exercise. The table below shows the miss rate for different field positions.
The highest miss rates are seen for caught and bowled, and for catches at short leg. Bowlers lack the luxury of setting themselves up for catches, while short leg has the least time of any position to react to a ball hit well. Many of the chances there are described as half-chances or technical. Slips catches are twice as likely to be dropped as wicketkeepers' catches, a measure of the advantage of gloves.
However, it would be unwise to read too much into the table above. Slip fielders or short-leg fielders are not inferior to those at mid-off; they get much more difficult chances. In the period of the study, Alastair Cook missed more chances than any other non-wicketkeeper, some 62 misses, but since many of his misses came at short leg, his miss rate doesn't look so bad.
While comparing lapse rates of different fielders is risky, it is worth mentioning Graeme Smith, whose drop rate of only 14% is the best among long-serving players by a considerable margin. Between August 2012 and February 2013, Smith took 25 catches and recorded no missed chances. Other slip fielders with outstanding catching records include Andrew Strauss and Ross Taylor on 20%, Michael Clarke on 21%, and Ricky Ponting on 22%. Elsewhere in the field, Warner at one stage took 20 consecutive chances that came to him.
Of those who have recorded more drops than catches, Umar Gul leads the list, with 11 catches and 14 misses. In 2014, Mushfiqur Rahim missed ten consecutive chances that came his way. Oddly enough, he caught his next 13 chances. Kevin Pietersen came to Test cricket with a fine catching reputation, but he dropped the first seven chances that came to him. He then caught his next 16 chances. The most missed chances in a match for one team, in this data set, is 12 by India against England in Mumbai in 2006. The most missed chances in an innings is nine by Pakistan against England in Faisalabad in 2005, and also by Bangladesh against Pakistan in Dhaka in 2011. In Karachi in 2009, Mahela Jayawardene (240) was dropped on 17 and 43, Thilan Samaraweera (231) was dropped on 73 and 77, and Younis Khan (313) was dropped on 92. The combined cost of all the missed chances in the match was 1152 runs, or 684 runs based on "first" drops off each of the batsmen.
There is some evidence of "contagious" butterfingers in teams. In the second Test of the 1985 series in Colombo, India dropped seven catches against Sri Lanka on the first day, on which the only wicket to fall was thanks to a run-out. India also dropped six catches in the space of ten overs in Rawalpindi in 2004, five of them coming in the first hour of the fourth day. It is rare enough for six chances to be offered at all in the space of ten overs at all, let alone to see all of them missed.
Behind the stumps
Here is some data on the miss rates, including stumpings, of various wicketkeepers of the 21st century. Not all are listed, but those with particularly low or high drop rates are given.
The wicketkeeper with the most misses is MS Dhoni with 66 (18%). In his defence, Dhoni had to deal with a high percentage of spin bowling, which presents a much greater challenge for keepers. Miss rates for leading wicketkeepers off spinners average around 30%, for both catches and stumpings, but it is only 10% for catches off pace bowlers. It can certainly be argued that keeping to spinners is the true test of a keeper.
It is not uncommon for keepers to start with a bang but fade later in their careers. Boucher, Watling, Gilchrist and de Villiers all had miss rates in single digits earlier in their careers. Gilchrist's miss rate rose in the last couple of years before his retirement. Others with very low rates, who did not qualify for the table, include Peter Nevill and Chris Read, on 7%. Read, to my eye, was one of the best modern wicketkeepers, but he did not get very many opportunities since he was unable to score enough runs to hold his place.
A short history of dropped catches
In addition to the data for the 21st century I have gathered data from other periods of Test history, using scorebooks that recorded dropped catches. The best sources are scorebooks by Bill Ferguson in the 1910s and 1920s, and by Bill Frindall from the early 1970s to the late 1990s. I have also used a limited number of other sources, including scores by Irving Rosenwater and some by Pakistan TV scorers. I have extracted data from about 200 Test scores in all, dating from before 1999.
Again, there must be caveats. We cannot be sure that the judging of dropped catches was on the same terms throughout, and we cannot be sure of the effect of TV replays on these assessments. I would say, however, that in the case of Frindall we have a meticulous observer with a very consistent style over multiple decades.
Once again, it would be unwise to read too much into each little blip in the data, but in general there is a trend toward lower rates of missed chances. The trend would probably be steeper if the data was limited to Australia and England, as the recent data includes countries such as Bangladesh that have had little or no coverage in earlier decades.
I might add an opinion from decades of observation: I believe that the greatest area of improvement has been with weaker fielders. Today everyone, including those with limited skills, has to do extensive fielding drills and take that part of the game very seriously. This has been one effect of the one-day game. In past decades many took fielding seriously. Jack Hobbs, Don Bradman and Neil Harvey worked hard at it, and I doubt if any player today works as hard on fielding as Colin Bland did in the 1960s (Bland would spend hours picking up and throwing a ball at a single stump: his record of run-outs is superior to that of anyone today). However, there were also players who did much less work on their fielding skills. In the modern game there is nowhere to hide, and everyone must put in the training effort. As a result, overall standards have risen.
For all its bewildering array of data, cricket statistics still has a few blind spots. One of the most obvious is in the area of missed chances, where there have been few extensive studies. Gerald Brodribb in Next Man In mentioned that statistician RH Campbell estimated that 30% of catches were missed in Tests in the 1920s. I have seen a figure of more than 30 dropped catches by West Indies in Australia in 1968-69, a team plagued by poor fielding. But really basic questions like "Overall, what percentage of chances are dropped?" lack answers.
For a number of years I have collected all the missed chances I could find in ESPNcricinfo's ball-by-ball texts for Test matches. Since the site does not always use standard terms to describe missed chances, and different ball-by-ball commentators have their own ways of expressing themselves, I searched the text for 40 or more words and phrases that might indicate a miss, from "drop" and "dolly" to "shell", "grass" and "hash". The process generally flagged about 100 to 200 lines in the commentary for each Test, which I then searched manually to identify real chances. For some Tests, I also confirmed data by checking match reports and other ball-by-ball sources.
While the commentary goes back to 1999, the textual detail can be patchy in the early years. I logged missed chances from late 2000 onwards, but consider that data to be substantially complete only from 2003. I have compiled a list of over 4000 missed chances in Tests from this century; about a third of all Tests (635) are represented.
Unavoidably, there are caveats. Sometimes opinions may vary as to whether a chance should be considered a miss. I take a hard line: "half", "technical" and "academic" chances are included, and I try to include any chances where the fielder failed to touch the ball but should have done so, if they can be identified. Edges passing between the wicketkeeper and first slip are considered chances even if no one has touched the ball. Since 2005, I have divided chances into two categories, "normal" and "difficult", according to how they are described. About half fall into each category.
There will always be uncertainty about some dropped catches, as there is always the possibility that some others have been overlooked. However, as long as the collection method is as consistent and exhaustive as possible, I would argue that a great majority of misses have been identified and that the data can be collated into useful statistics.
So back to the original question: how many chances are dropped? The answer is about one-quarter; typically seven missed chances per Test. Here is a table showing missed chances by country.
| Fielding team | 2003-2009 | 2010-2015 |
| New Zealand | 23.6% | 21.4% |
| South Africa | 20.9% | 21.6% |
| Australia | 23.2% | 21.8% |
| England | 25.5% | 24.8% |
| West Indies | 30.5% | 25.4% |
| Sri Lanka | 25.3% | 26.8% |
| India | 24.6% | 27.2% |
| Pakistan | 30.8% | 30.2% |
| Zimbabwe | 27.1% | 31.9% |
| Bangladesh | 33.3% | 33.1% |
The difference between the top three countries in the last five years is not significant; however, there are more substantial differences down the list. Generally, Bangladesh have had the weakest catching record since they started in Test cricket, although there are recent signs of improvement. Other countries have had fluctuating fortunes. West Indies had a miss rate of over 30% from 2003 to 2009, but have tightened up their game in the last couple of years. India have seen a rate of 33% in 2013 fall to 23% in 2015, and Sri Lanka have also improved their catching significantly in just the last two years.
In some years, countries like Australia, South Africa and New Zealand have seen their rates drop below 20%; the best single-year result was 16.9% by South Africa in 2013, when they were the No. 1-ranked team in Tests. In good years, the proportion of dropped catches rated as "difficult" generally increases; good teams still miss the hard ones but drop fewer easy ones. Typically, two-thirds of Australia's missed chances are rated as difficult, but the same applies to only one-third of Bangladesh's missed chances.
The lucky
As a batsman's innings progresses, the odds of him offering a chance increase. About 72% of batsmen reaching 50 do so without giving a chance, but the percentage for century-makers is 56% in the first 100 runs. Only 33% of double-centuries are chanceless in the first 200 runs. The highest absolutely chanceless innings is 374 by Mahela Jayawardene in Colombo; Lara's 400 in Antigua contained a couple of "academic" chances.
The most expensive missed chance since the start of 2000 is 297 runs for Inzamam-ul-Haq, who made 329 after being missed on 32 in Lahore in 2002. Historically there have been more expensive misses: Mark Taylor (334 not out) was dropped on 18 and 27 by Saeed Anwar, and there was a missed stumping on 40 for Len Hutton (364) in 1938. Perhaps even luckier was Kumar Sangakkara, who made 270 in Bulawayo after being dropped on 0. Sachin Tendulkar was dropped on 0 when he made his highest score, 248 not out in Dhaka. Mike Hussey gave a possible chance first ball at the Gabba in 2010, and went on to make 195. Graham Gooch was famously dropped by Kiran More when on 36 at Lord's in 1990. He went on to make 333.
The data turns up four batsmen who have been dropped five times in an innings: one was Andy Blignaut, whose 84 not out in Harare in 2005 included an extremely rare hat-trick of dropped catches; Zaheer Khan was the unhappy bowler. (There was also a hat-trick of missed chances at Old Trafford in 1972, when two batsmen survived against Geoff Arnold.) The others who have been missed five times are Hashim Amla (253 in Nagpur, 2010), Taufeeq Umar (135 in St Kitts, 2011) and Kane Williamson (242 not out in Wellington, 2014). Nothing in this century quite matches the seven or eight missed catches (reports vary) off George Bonnor when he made 87 in Sydney in 1883, or six misses off Bill Ponsford in his 266 at The Oval in 1934 (as recorded by veteran scorer Bill Ferguson). Wavell Hinds was dropped twice at the MCG in 2000, and still made a duck.
The batsman with most reprieves in the study period is Virender Sehwag, missed 68 times, just one ahead of Sangakkara. About 37% of the chances Sehwag offered were dropped, which is well above average and probably a testament to the power of his hitting.
The unlucky
Broadly, spin bowlers suffer more from dropped catches and (of course) missed stumpings. Chances at short leg, along with caught and bowled, have the highest miss rates among fielding positions, and these positions happen to feature more strongly among spinners' wickets than pace bowlers'. Overall, 27% of chances off spin bowlers are missed, as against 23% of chances off pace bowlers.
In the study period, the bowlers with the most missed chances in Tests are Harbhajan Singh (99) and Danish Kaneria (93). Harbhajan has had 26 chances missed at short leg alone. Bear in mind that these bowlers' careers are not fully covered; the data for about 10% of Harbhajan's career is not available to analyse. Pace bowlers with the most misses, as of January 2016, are Jimmy Anderson (89) and Stuart Broad (85).
Spare a thought for James Tredwell, who has played only two Tests but suffered ten missed chances, including seven on debut, the most for any bowler since the start of 2000. Most were very difficult, with three of them missed by the bowler himself. Also worth mentioning is Zulfiqar Babar, who has had 30 chances missed in his Test career and only 28 catches (and stumpings) taken.
At the other end of the scale, Adil Rashid has had eight catches taken off his bowling with no misses (as of August 2016). Neil Wagner of New Zealand has had only seven misses out of 63 chances, a rate of 11%.
Two bowlers have had catches missed off their first ball in Test cricket: David Warner (Dean Brownlie dropped by James Pattinson, Brisbane, 2011) and RP Singh (Shoaib Malik dropped by Anil Kumble, Faisalabad, 2006).
There is an intriguing case from 1990. Against West Indies in Lahore, Wasim Akram took four wickets in five balls: W, W, 1, W, W. In a surviving scorebook, the single, by Ian Bishop, is marked as a dropped catch at mid-on. If so, Akram came within a hair's breadth of five wickets in five balls, since the batsmen crossed, and Bishop did not face again. (Wisden, it should be noted, says that the catch was out of reach.)
The guilty
When it comes to catching, some positions are much more challenging than others. That will come as no surprise, but putting some numbers to this is an interesting exercise. The table below shows the miss rate for different field positions.
| Position | Chances | % Missed |
| Keeper (ct) | 2188 | 15% |
| Stumping | 254 | 36% |
| Slip | 2062 | 29% |
| Gully | 404 | 30% |
| Third man | 36 | 17% |
| Point | 371 | 29% |
| Cover | 319 | 23% |
| Mid-off | 253 | 20% |
| Bowler | 378 | 47% |
| Mid-on | 340 | 22% |
| Midwicket | 455 | 23% |
| Short leg | 518 | 38% |
| Square leg | 286 | 19% |
| Fine leg | 170 | 30% |
The highest miss rates are seen for caught and bowled, and for catches at short leg. Bowlers lack the luxury of setting themselves up for catches, while short leg has the least time of any position to react to a ball hit well. Many of the chances there are described as half-chances or technical. Slips catches are twice as likely to be dropped as wicketkeepers' catches, a measure of the advantage of gloves.
However, it would be unwise to read too much into the table above. Slip fielders or short-leg fielders are not inferior to those at mid-off; they get much more difficult chances. In the period of the study, Alastair Cook missed more chances than any other non-wicketkeeper, some 62 misses, but since many of his misses came at short leg, his miss rate doesn't look so bad.
While comparing lapse rates of different fielders is risky, it is worth mentioning Graeme Smith, whose drop rate of only 14% is the best among long-serving players by a considerable margin. Between August 2012 and February 2013, Smith took 25 catches and recorded no missed chances. Other slip fielders with outstanding catching records include Andrew Strauss and Ross Taylor on 20%, Michael Clarke on 21%, and Ricky Ponting on 22%. Elsewhere in the field, Warner at one stage took 20 consecutive chances that came to him.
Of those who have recorded more drops than catches, Umar Gul leads the list, with 11 catches and 14 misses. In 2014, Mushfiqur Rahim missed ten consecutive chances that came his way. Oddly enough, he caught his next 13 chances. Kevin Pietersen came to Test cricket with a fine catching reputation, but he dropped the first seven chances that came to him. He then caught his next 16 chances. The most missed chances in a match for one team, in this data set, is 12 by India against England in Mumbai in 2006. The most missed chances in an innings is nine by Pakistan against England in Faisalabad in 2005, and also by Bangladesh against Pakistan in Dhaka in 2011. In Karachi in 2009, Mahela Jayawardene (240) was dropped on 17 and 43, Thilan Samaraweera (231) was dropped on 73 and 77, and Younis Khan (313) was dropped on 92. The combined cost of all the missed chances in the match was 1152 runs, or 684 runs based on "first" drops off each of the batsmen.
There is some evidence of "contagious" butterfingers in teams. In the second Test of the 1985 series in Colombo, India dropped seven catches against Sri Lanka on the first day, on which the only wicket to fall was thanks to a run-out. India also dropped six catches in the space of ten overs in Rawalpindi in 2004, five of them coming in the first hour of the fourth day. It is rare enough for six chances to be offered at all in the space of ten overs at all, let alone to see all of them missed.
Behind the stumps
Here is some data on the miss rates, including stumpings, of various wicketkeepers of the 21st century. Not all are listed, but those with particularly low or high drop rates are given.
| Chances | %Miss | |
| Mark Boucher | 364 | 10% |
| BJ Watling | 119 | 11% |
| Tatenda Taibu | 57 | 11% |
| AB de Villiers | 94 | 11% |
| Adam Gilchrist | 357 | 12% |
| Kamran Akmal | 203 | 20% |
| Sarfraz Ahmed | 63 | 21% |
| Dinesh Karthik | 50 | 22% |
| Adnan Akmal | 77 | 22% |
| Mushfiqur Rahim | 86 | 32% |
The wicketkeeper with the most misses is MS Dhoni with 66 (18%). In his defence, Dhoni had to deal with a high percentage of spin bowling, which presents a much greater challenge for keepers. Miss rates for leading wicketkeepers off spinners average around 30%, for both catches and stumpings, but it is only 10% for catches off pace bowlers. It can certainly be argued that keeping to spinners is the true test of a keeper.
It is not uncommon for keepers to start with a bang but fade later in their careers. Boucher, Watling, Gilchrist and de Villiers all had miss rates in single digits earlier in their careers. Gilchrist's miss rate rose in the last couple of years before his retirement. Others with very low rates, who did not qualify for the table, include Peter Nevill and Chris Read, on 7%. Read, to my eye, was one of the best modern wicketkeepers, but he did not get very many opportunities since he was unable to score enough runs to hold his place.
A short history of dropped catches
In addition to the data for the 21st century I have gathered data from other periods of Test history, using scorebooks that recorded dropped catches. The best sources are scorebooks by Bill Ferguson in the 1910s and 1920s, and by Bill Frindall from the early 1970s to the late 1990s. I have also used a limited number of other sources, including scores by Irving Rosenwater and some by Pakistan TV scorers. I have extracted data from about 200 Test scores in all, dating from before 1999.
Again, there must be caveats. We cannot be sure that the judging of dropped catches was on the same terms throughout, and we cannot be sure of the effect of TV replays on these assessments. I would say, however, that in the case of Frindall we have a meticulous observer with a very consistent style over multiple decades.
Once again, it would be unwise to read too much into each little blip in the data, but in general there is a trend toward lower rates of missed chances. The trend would probably be steeper if the data was limited to Australia and England, as the recent data includes countries such as Bangladesh that have had little or no coverage in earlier decades.
I might add an opinion from decades of observation: I believe that the greatest area of improvement has been with weaker fielders. Today everyone, including those with limited skills, has to do extensive fielding drills and take that part of the game very seriously. This has been one effect of the one-day game. In past decades many took fielding seriously. Jack Hobbs, Don Bradman and Neil Harvey worked hard at it, and I doubt if any player today works as hard on fielding as Colin Bland did in the 1960s (Bland would spend hours picking up and throwing a ball at a single stump: his record of run-outs is superior to that of anyone today). However, there were also players who did much less work on their fielding skills. In the modern game there is nowhere to hide, and everyone must put in the training effort. As a result, overall standards have risen.
Monday, 28 March 2016
The Specious Logic of a TV Cricket Expert
by Girish Menon
As a regular reader of Cricinfo I started this Easter Monday holiday by reading 'Why Ramiz gets Bangladesh's goat' Jarrod Kimber's sensitive enquiry into why Bangladesh cricket fans react so vehemently to cricket commentator Ramiz Raja. Lack of quality among commentators and highly emotional responses by social media users were the conclusions drawn by Kimber. As was habitual for me I then went on to Youtube where the channel recommended that I watch a post match analysis on the India Australia WT20 cricket match played yesterday at Mohali. I clicked on the suggestion and found that it was a Pakistani TV channel show discussing the match with Brian Lara, Rashid Latif, Saqlain Mushtaq and Glenn McGrath as experts.
---Also by this writer
Sreesanth - Another Modern Day Valmiki?
On Walking - Advice for a fifteen year old
----
In the programme Rashid Latif advanced a thesis that Dhoni and Yuvraj collaborated to deceive the umpire Erasmus into giving Steve Smith the Australian captain out caught behind. Rashid admitted that he indulged in similar behaviour in his playing days and recalled an instance in Sharjah when he conspired with Mushtaq Ahmed to get Dravid out in a similar fashion. Glenn McGrath then stated a fact that that the stump microphone had not detected an edge in the Smith dismissal.
Rashid Latif then commented on how a carefully cultivated image enables a cricketer to trick an umpire into giving them the benefit of doubt which enables them to get an unfair advantage in tight situations. He spoke about Gilchrist's carefully built reputation as a walker and how it helped players like him with umpires in situations when the evidence was not clear cut.
From this discussion I realised that in such a situation not using technology gives the benefitting team an unfair advantage. After all the decision to give Smith out (if he was not out?) had a game changing impact on the match with Smith being Australia's in-form batsman. At the same time I'm sure many Indian cricketers will readily admit the number of times they have been at the receiving end of bad decisions because of BCCI's refusal to use technology to help adjudicate umpiring decisions.
However, I was more worried by the specious logic used by the commentator Rashid Latif to insinuate that Dhoni and Yuvraj cheated like he used to in his playing days. Latif's false argument in the world of logic is called 'Shifting the burden of proof'. It consists of putting forward an assertion without justification, on the basis that the audience must disprove it if it is to be rejected.
Madsen Pirie in his book 'How to win every argument' gives another example to help you understand Latif's false logic:
I believe that a secret company of Illuminati has clandestinely directed world events for several hundred years. Prove to me that it isn't so.
Shifting the burden, Pirie writes, is a common fallacy on which rests the world of conspiracy theories, UFOs, monsters, Gods etc. Advocates like Latif make us the viewer accept the burden of proving that his statement is false. As a viewer I would find it difficult if not impossible to disprove his insinuation.
Also, by shifting the onus of proof Latif is able to put forward mischievous views without producing any shred of evidence. This is dishonesty.
Of course the whole programme appeared to have an anti India bias (not surprising) underpinned by the conspiracy theory that events, grounds, pitches and umpires are all collaborating to ensure that India would win the WT20 cup.
I too felt like Kimber's Bangladesh supporters and realised that the only way India can resolve this shifted burden of proof is by not winning the trophy.
The writer plays for CamKerala CC in the Cambs cricket league.
As a regular reader of Cricinfo I started this Easter Monday holiday by reading 'Why Ramiz gets Bangladesh's goat' Jarrod Kimber's sensitive enquiry into why Bangladesh cricket fans react so vehemently to cricket commentator Ramiz Raja. Lack of quality among commentators and highly emotional responses by social media users were the conclusions drawn by Kimber. As was habitual for me I then went on to Youtube where the channel recommended that I watch a post match analysis on the India Australia WT20 cricket match played yesterday at Mohali. I clicked on the suggestion and found that it was a Pakistani TV channel show discussing the match with Brian Lara, Rashid Latif, Saqlain Mushtaq and Glenn McGrath as experts.
---Also by this writer
Sreesanth - Another Modern Day Valmiki?
On Walking - Advice for a fifteen year old
----
In the programme Rashid Latif advanced a thesis that Dhoni and Yuvraj collaborated to deceive the umpire Erasmus into giving Steve Smith the Australian captain out caught behind. Rashid admitted that he indulged in similar behaviour in his playing days and recalled an instance in Sharjah when he conspired with Mushtaq Ahmed to get Dravid out in a similar fashion. Glenn McGrath then stated a fact that that the stump microphone had not detected an edge in the Smith dismissal.
Rashid Latif then commented on how a carefully cultivated image enables a cricketer to trick an umpire into giving them the benefit of doubt which enables them to get an unfair advantage in tight situations. He spoke about Gilchrist's carefully built reputation as a walker and how it helped players like him with umpires in situations when the evidence was not clear cut.
From this discussion I realised that in such a situation not using technology gives the benefitting team an unfair advantage. After all the decision to give Smith out (if he was not out?) had a game changing impact on the match with Smith being Australia's in-form batsman. At the same time I'm sure many Indian cricketers will readily admit the number of times they have been at the receiving end of bad decisions because of BCCI's refusal to use technology to help adjudicate umpiring decisions.
However, I was more worried by the specious logic used by the commentator Rashid Latif to insinuate that Dhoni and Yuvraj cheated like he used to in his playing days. Latif's false argument in the world of logic is called 'Shifting the burden of proof'. It consists of putting forward an assertion without justification, on the basis that the audience must disprove it if it is to be rejected.
Madsen Pirie in his book 'How to win every argument' gives another example to help you understand Latif's false logic:
I believe that a secret company of Illuminati has clandestinely directed world events for several hundred years. Prove to me that it isn't so.
Shifting the burden, Pirie writes, is a common fallacy on which rests the world of conspiracy theories, UFOs, monsters, Gods etc. Advocates like Latif make us the viewer accept the burden of proving that his statement is false. As a viewer I would find it difficult if not impossible to disprove his insinuation.
Also, by shifting the onus of proof Latif is able to put forward mischievous views without producing any shred of evidence. This is dishonesty.
Of course the whole programme appeared to have an anti India bias (not surprising) underpinned by the conspiracy theory that events, grounds, pitches and umpires are all collaborating to ensure that India would win the WT20 cup.
I too felt like Kimber's Bangladesh supporters and realised that the only way India can resolve this shifted burden of proof is by not winning the trophy.
The writer plays for CamKerala CC in the Cambs cricket league.
Sunday, 23 November 2014
The Mudgal report on IPL corruption names five players, as top guns resist capitulation for now
Mihir Srivastava in Outlook India
An IPL Game Of Spot, Bet And Fix
How it all started
Although codewords like ‘Individual 2’ and ‘Individual 3’ have been bandied about, the fact is the report names five Indian players who were part of the World Cup-winning team of 2011. Talented and temperamental, they run cricket academies, invest in the hospitality industry and event management, even advertising firms. Their partners in these ventures are the same set of people who form the link between them and the bookies; some are bookies themselves. Moreover, they are Page 3 regulars.
Take the case of a left-handed all-rounder. He broke down when questioned by Justice Mudgal. There wasn’t any dispute about his involvement, he was just begging that he be not named and pleaded for a life of dignity, says an insider, a cop involved in the investigation. Mercy, not justice, was also sought by a close friend of this cricketer, his teammate in the World Cup squad. A bowler known to pick fights on and off the cricket field, who spends more time in Mumbai, outside his home state.
The ‘Individual 3’ mentioned in Justice Mudgal’s report is a Chennai Super Kings player. A prolific run-getter and a god-fearing man, he visits the Sai Baba temple in Shirdi regularly with two bookies by his side, and has the protection and patronage of top cricket administrators. The fourth is a celebrity fast bowler with a career punctuated by injuries, who was often too unwell to play for the country, but was always fit for the IPL. He, too, has the backing of powerful team-owners. The most significant name is of a top idol, whose incredibly short saga of rags to riches is as exemplary as his passion for speed.
-----India 2011 World Cup team members:
Dhoni, Sehwag, Gambhir, Tendulkar, Yuvraj, Raina, Kohli, Zaheer, Sreesanth, Harbhajan, Y Pathan, Munaf, Nehra, Chawla and Ashwin
----
The flaw, as pointed out over the years by wise men, is in the IPL itself. It had so much to offer to players, administrators, umpires, even commentators, that the whole venture had an unviable air about it. It wasn’t charity either, where the glitterati altruistically invested to lose money. Instead, it turned out to be a money-spinner. With marquee players being bought for millions of dollars, glitz on the ground and expensive after-match parties, intelligent guesses always pointed to dirty money.
The first confirmation came when the Delhi police arrested three players—Sreesanth, Ajith Chandila and Ankeet Chavan—in 2013 for their role in spot-fixing and betting. Neeraj Kumar, the then Delhi police commissioner, refutes the charges that the cops let off the big fish. He confirms that many players were named by the bookies, but that he couldn’t have acted on mere accusations, without conclusive evidence. Rajasthan Royals owner Raj Kundra, he says, confessed to betting, but there was no corroborative evidence, and territorial jurisdiction was an issue. “The investigation was carried out objectively, was able to nail down large number of bookies and set off a chain reaction, with police in other metropolises also ending up investigating betting,” he says. One such investigator was G. Sampath Kumar of the Tamil Nadu police. He was suspended from his job last week on the charges of receiving Rs 55 lakh from a bookie, Uttam C. Jain alias Kitty.
Yellow fever A match involving Chennai Super Kings, now under a corruption-shaped cloud. (Photograph by AFP, From Outlook 01 December 2014)
A family member of one of the three players arrested by the Delhi police met Outlook in a coffee shop at Delhi’s Bengali market. The prosecuted three are just the tip of the iceberg, he says, and the submerged iceberg covers nearly the whole system. The IPL is but a gambling festival, he says, giving examples of how his relative was pulled into betting and match-fixing. “No player can escape the bookies. It’s not a choice,” he says.
---- Also Read
While the Delhi police couldn’t gather enough incriminating evidence against the ‘big fish’, Justice Mudgal is forthright about some of them. N. Srinivasan—the man who controls both the BCCI and the IPL—can be accused of blatant conflict of interest, says a senior lawyer and cricket administrator. “He’s both the umpire and the player,” he says.
The Mudgal report clearly says that Srinivasan was aware of betting and match-fixing, and he preferred to be a mute spectator. His son-in-law, Gurunath Meiyappan, virtually ran Chennai Super Kings. In the nebulous role of a ‘principal’, he attended team meetings and was a regular companion of players on the ground. It’s clear he was anything but what India and CSK skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni told the Mudgal committee—a “mere cricket enthusiast”. Though lying to an apex court committee is considered perjury, Dhoni, also a vice-president of Srinivasan’s India Cements, has consistently batted for his team’s owner. Dhoni’s wife Sakshi was frequently spotted watching IPL matches with former Bollywood actor Vindoo Dara Singh, also an accused in the 2013 IPL spot-fixing scandal. In a sting operation by Zee News, Vindoo outlandishly claimed the match-fixing fiasco was actually the fallout of a fight between ncp (and former BCCI) chief Sharad Pawar and Srinivasan.
Apart from Meiyappan, the Mudgal report says IPL chief operating officer Sundar Raman had admitted doing nothing even after knowing that Raj Kundra was involved in betting. Furthermore, a third team (CSK and RR being the other two)—from the renowned stable of good times—is named in the clutch of outfits where the owners/their family members bet on their own team’s performance.
An eagle eye Justice Mukul Mudgal
Aditya Varma, secretary of the Bihar Cricket Association, treats the battle against corruption in cricket as a personal crusade, and has kept on the warpath in the face of both dire threats and propitiatory wads of cash. He presents a scenario: “If an owner bets, and lets his players, captain and the rest, know that he wants the team to get out on a specific score, say 120 runs, then it’s not betting, it’s match-fixing.”
Varma says there are two categories of culprits—administrators and players. Not bookies, he says, as that’s their job. There are two ways, he says, in which betting/match-fixing takes place: when the match is fixed with the help of owners or administrators, and when players themselves take the initiative for spot-fixing. Bookies are known to live in the same hotel as the players, and interact freely with them during parties. “I will seek an investigation in the conduct of all teams and owners. The story is much murkier than it looks,” says Varma.
As parts of the report have been made public, the government has responded with silence. The top politicians of the country have been, or are, cricket administrators—Arun Jaitley, Amit Shah, Sharad Pawar, Rajiv Shukla and Shashi Tharoor, to name a few. The politics of cricket has little to do with their party affiliations. The Narendra Modi government—seeking a global effort to retrieve billions of dollars of black money stashed in foreign banks—has chosen to ignore the cancer that is eating away Indian cricket. Union finance minister and former Delhi Cricket Association chief Arun Jaitley is mum too. Rajiv Shukla, former IPL chairman and a minister in the UPA cabinet, is anxious about the issue and is actively following the events, says a close friend. Some revered former players have also kept their counsel, perhaps because they are beneficiaries of the system. And Sachin Tendulkar’s autobiography, Playing It My Way, is silent about these murky depths in cricket, though some of his close friends are under the scanner.
In April this year, the SC had rejected the BCCI’s proposal to constitute a three-member committee to investigate the spot-fixing and betting charges, comprising ex-CBI director R.K. Raghavan, cricketer Ravi Shastri and former Calcutta High Court chief justice Jai Narain Patel. Raghavan is an affiliated member of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association, headed by Srinivasan, Shastri is a salaried BCCI employee and Patel’s brother-in-law is Shivlal Yadav, the then interim board president for non-IPL affairs.
The audacious guile that led to the proposal of the panel resurfaced in the belligerence with which the BCCI has made light of the Mudgal committee’s report even before it’s considered by the Supreme Court—belittling it as ‘invalid’, asking the Supreme Court to form another panel and reinstate Srinivasan as BCCI chief (though forced to step down on November 3, he has been effectively in charge through proxy), while the probe is being conducted.
“The ball is now with the apex court, and chances of tampering is less,” says a former cricketer and BCCI office-bearer. With the ball swinging under favourable conditions, wickets might go down in a heap, taking with them reputations and hard-earned records.
An IPL Game Of Spot, Bet And Fix
How it all started
- The IPL betting and match-fixing scam became public when the Pune and Kochi teams were disqualified
- The Kochi team had already seen a controversy involving Shashi Tharoor and the now-deceased Sunanda Pushkar
- The Tharoor row led to the exit of IPL founder-commissioner Lalit Modi and his row with BCCI chief N. Srinivasan
- The conduct of at least 12 players, including two Australians, invited the scrutiny of Justice Mukul Mudgal
- Indians include five members of the 2011 World Cup-winning squad, two of whom are from the same IPL team
- The owners of at least three IPL teams are believed to be involved in the match-fixing racket
- Nearly 70 per cent of players are believed to be involved in betting on matches indirectly, if not directly
- Given the high purchase costs, team owners and associates have an added incentive to pre-decide match results
***
Indian cricket finds itself on a barely playable wicket. Justice Mukul Mudgal might indirectly have a say on India’s World Cup 2015 squad if the apex court makes public names of top Indian cricketers mentioned in his report on the alleged betting and spot/match-fixing in season 6 of the Indian Premier League (IPL). Top sources say that the 38-page report (with 5,000 pages of annexures) names around a dozen names of former and current players, Indian and international, with their roles in the multi-billion dollar scandal. Players, administrators, politicians, film stars and corporate czars are all protagonists in this sordid drama. It seems like the first draft of a crime thriller.Although codewords like ‘Individual 2’ and ‘Individual 3’ have been bandied about, the fact is the report names five Indian players who were part of the World Cup-winning team of 2011. Talented and temperamental, they run cricket academies, invest in the hospitality industry and event management, even advertising firms. Their partners in these ventures are the same set of people who form the link between them and the bookies; some are bookies themselves. Moreover, they are Page 3 regulars.
Take the case of a left-handed all-rounder. He broke down when questioned by Justice Mudgal. There wasn’t any dispute about his involvement, he was just begging that he be not named and pleaded for a life of dignity, says an insider, a cop involved in the investigation. Mercy, not justice, was also sought by a close friend of this cricketer, his teammate in the World Cup squad. A bowler known to pick fights on and off the cricket field, who spends more time in Mumbai, outside his home state.
The ‘Individual 3’ mentioned in Justice Mudgal’s report is a Chennai Super Kings player. A prolific run-getter and a god-fearing man, he visits the Sai Baba temple in Shirdi regularly with two bookies by his side, and has the protection and patronage of top cricket administrators. The fourth is a celebrity fast bowler with a career punctuated by injuries, who was often too unwell to play for the country, but was always fit for the IPL. He, too, has the backing of powerful team-owners. The most significant name is of a top idol, whose incredibly short saga of rags to riches is as exemplary as his passion for speed.
-----India 2011 World Cup team members:
Dhoni, Sehwag, Gambhir, Tendulkar, Yuvraj, Raina, Kohli, Zaheer, Sreesanth, Harbhajan, Y Pathan, Munaf, Nehra, Chawla and Ashwin
----
The flaw, as pointed out over the years by wise men, is in the IPL itself. It had so much to offer to players, administrators, umpires, even commentators, that the whole venture had an unviable air about it. It wasn’t charity either, where the glitterati altruistically invested to lose money. Instead, it turned out to be a money-spinner. With marquee players being bought for millions of dollars, glitz on the ground and expensive after-match parties, intelligent guesses always pointed to dirty money.
The first confirmation came when the Delhi police arrested three players—Sreesanth, Ajith Chandila and Ankeet Chavan—in 2013 for their role in spot-fixing and betting. Neeraj Kumar, the then Delhi police commissioner, refutes the charges that the cops let off the big fish. He confirms that many players were named by the bookies, but that he couldn’t have acted on mere accusations, without conclusive evidence. Rajasthan Royals owner Raj Kundra, he says, confessed to betting, but there was no corroborative evidence, and territorial jurisdiction was an issue. “The investigation was carried out objectively, was able to nail down large number of bookies and set off a chain reaction, with police in other metropolises also ending up investigating betting,” he says. One such investigator was G. Sampath Kumar of the Tamil Nadu police. He was suspended from his job last week on the charges of receiving Rs 55 lakh from a bookie, Uttam C. Jain alias Kitty.
Yellow fever A match involving Chennai Super Kings, now under a corruption-shaped cloud. (Photograph by AFP, From Outlook 01 December 2014)
A family member of one of the three players arrested by the Delhi police met Outlook in a coffee shop at Delhi’s Bengali market. The prosecuted three are just the tip of the iceberg, he says, and the submerged iceberg covers nearly the whole system. The IPL is but a gambling festival, he says, giving examples of how his relative was pulled into betting and match-fixing. “No player can escape the bookies. It’s not a choice,” he says.
---- Also Read
Sreesanth - Another modern day Valmiki?
----
While the Delhi police couldn’t gather enough incriminating evidence against the ‘big fish’, Justice Mudgal is forthright about some of them. N. Srinivasan—the man who controls both the BCCI and the IPL—can be accused of blatant conflict of interest, says a senior lawyer and cricket administrator. “He’s both the umpire and the player,” he says.
|
Apart from Meiyappan, the Mudgal report says IPL chief operating officer Sundar Raman had admitted doing nothing even after knowing that Raj Kundra was involved in betting. Furthermore, a third team (CSK and RR being the other two)—from the renowned stable of good times—is named in the clutch of outfits where the owners/their family members bet on their own team’s performance.
An eagle eye Justice Mukul Mudgal
Aditya Varma, secretary of the Bihar Cricket Association, treats the battle against corruption in cricket as a personal crusade, and has kept on the warpath in the face of both dire threats and propitiatory wads of cash. He presents a scenario: “If an owner bets, and lets his players, captain and the rest, know that he wants the team to get out on a specific score, say 120 runs, then it’s not betting, it’s match-fixing.”
Varma says there are two categories of culprits—administrators and players. Not bookies, he says, as that’s their job. There are two ways, he says, in which betting/match-fixing takes place: when the match is fixed with the help of owners or administrators, and when players themselves take the initiative for spot-fixing. Bookies are known to live in the same hotel as the players, and interact freely with them during parties. “I will seek an investigation in the conduct of all teams and owners. The story is much murkier than it looks,” says Varma.
As parts of the report have been made public, the government has responded with silence. The top politicians of the country have been, or are, cricket administrators—Arun Jaitley, Amit Shah, Sharad Pawar, Rajiv Shukla and Shashi Tharoor, to name a few. The politics of cricket has little to do with their party affiliations. The Narendra Modi government—seeking a global effort to retrieve billions of dollars of black money stashed in foreign banks—has chosen to ignore the cancer that is eating away Indian cricket. Union finance minister and former Delhi Cricket Association chief Arun Jaitley is mum too. Rajiv Shukla, former IPL chairman and a minister in the UPA cabinet, is anxious about the issue and is actively following the events, says a close friend. Some revered former players have also kept their counsel, perhaps because they are beneficiaries of the system. And Sachin Tendulkar’s autobiography, Playing It My Way, is silent about these murky depths in cricket, though some of his close friends are under the scanner.
In April this year, the SC had rejected the BCCI’s proposal to constitute a three-member committee to investigate the spot-fixing and betting charges, comprising ex-CBI director R.K. Raghavan, cricketer Ravi Shastri and former Calcutta High Court chief justice Jai Narain Patel. Raghavan is an affiliated member of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association, headed by Srinivasan, Shastri is a salaried BCCI employee and Patel’s brother-in-law is Shivlal Yadav, the then interim board president for non-IPL affairs.
The audacious guile that led to the proposal of the panel resurfaced in the belligerence with which the BCCI has made light of the Mudgal committee’s report even before it’s considered by the Supreme Court—belittling it as ‘invalid’, asking the Supreme Court to form another panel and reinstate Srinivasan as BCCI chief (though forced to step down on November 3, he has been effectively in charge through proxy), while the probe is being conducted.
“The ball is now with the apex court, and chances of tampering is less,” says a former cricketer and BCCI office-bearer. With the ball swinging under favourable conditions, wickets might go down in a heap, taking with them reputations and hard-earned records.
Wednesday, 29 October 2014
The age of player power
Players, emboldened by free agency, agents and endorsements, are now asserting their rights as never before - and management doesn't like it
Rob Steen in Cricinfo
October 29, 2014
Michael Holding is among those who feel the West Indies players have been cast in the role of sinners in the latest saga © BCCI
Big hitter wanted. Must be comfortable handling money, schmoozing Australian media magnates, worshipping at the Church of Broadcasting on an hourly basis, maintaining an unholy trinity of power, changing course at the drop of a hat, staging events that lack context or go on too long, and treating the talent like worker ants (which of course they are). Imagination, a working set of principles and a capacity to think more than five minutes ahead nice but not essential. Cricketing experience would also be nice, but ex-professionals need not apply. Did we stress "no women" enough? All right then, NO WOMEN.
The "Positions Vacant" column at ICC Towers or BCCI HQ could never adopt that precise wording, of course. The sentiments, nonetheless, wouldn't be terribly different, not in essence. Perhaps the fondest and most self-deluding perception we cricket fanciers suffer from is the idea that, as a species, the game's administrators have the game at heart. Or anywhere remotely near it.
This is why a globally respected former player told me last week, after I'd urged him, for the good of the game, to put on his best suit and apply for his mandarin's licence, that he would just as soon buy a return flight to the sun, or even a lifetime's subscription to the Sun. This is also the fundamental reason why cricket in the Caribbean has just been dumped into what may well prove to be the deepest, muddiest, smelliest bogthis grand old game of ours has ever had the nose-holding, arm's-length displeasure to behold.
As Michael Holding related in his column for Wisden India, the roots of the duel between Dwayne Bravo et al and the West Indies Cricket Board lie in the latter's quest for revenge on the uppity West Indies Players' Association. And not over the shenanigans of Chris Gayle or Sunil Narine - or at least, not directly - but over the insistence that the board honour a pay rise to the players approved by its former CEO, Dr Ernest Hilaire.
To be fair, the CEO had been "conned" - as Holding put it - into sending the incriminating email by Dinanath Ramnarine, the former WIPA president and chief executive (indeed, Holding took a current WIPA official out for dinner and made no bones about his anger at such a shameless stunt). That, though, was scant consolation to Hilaire, or the WICB.
There can be little question, given its lamentable track record in player relations - a track record that has made the WIPA one of the most militant players' unions anywhere - that the WICB deserves public humiliation. And public humiliation can propel even the most intelligent and far-seeing fellows to the most asinine of reactions. Trouble is, when it comes to cricket officials - or, for that matter, officials of any sporting, showbiz or political creed - presumptions of intelligence and foresight may be unduly kind.
Holding, it should be added, has never been a rabid advocate of players' rights. That underlying ambivalence - towards the WICB as well as his on-field successors - has been easy to understand. To someone such as him, a Jamaican for whom playing for West Indies meant something more than representing a region, the ever-rising emphasis on financial reward can at times seem odious. When he was skittling all those England batsmen at The Oval in 1976, Holding will assure you, a win bonus or enhanced contract was an additional, minor incentive, not a cause. The revolution he was fighting, though, has been more or less won; now another needs winning.
That's why Holding has been unable to contain his fury, taking up cudgels on behalf of players who he feels (and not without extremely good reason) have been shat upon from a considerable height and cast, inevitably, as scapegoats. That the owner of the calmest, coolest, unshrillest voice in the menagerie we call the commentary box should feel compelled to raise it to such a pitch should not, cannot, be dismissed lightly.
That Bravo et al cannot even trust their own union rep, Wavell Hinds, ironically a long-time friend of Bravo's as well as a pal of Dave Cameron, the WICB president, emphasises how toxic things have got. Likewise Marlon Samuels' non-solidarity.
****
One of the under-appreciated benefits of the IPL is that it has empowered the players. Now, finally, the wealthy (and not undeserving) few have a shot at controlling their own destinies, free of club or board interference. This has also led down a bumpy road to a spooky place, a place where national teams, for so long the focus and pinnacle of attention, no longer call all the shots, where the highest levels of the game are merely the hors d'oeuvres, net practice for those whose appetites extend to all-you-can-eat feasts in Mumbai and Kolkata.
Nonetheless, amid all this frantic and often confusing relocation of the goalposts, Bravo and company were still willing to take a pay cut if it meant benefiting those labouring on the lower half of their greasy, treacherous pole. How many of us, in our own jobs, would do likewise? Granted, exceedingly few of us earn anything like as much as Bravo or Gayle (or even Jason Holder), but how many bankers or surgeons are queuing up to take a pay cut to help clerks or nurses? Generosity is generosity. For that, surely, these rebels warrant our admiration rather than opprobrium.
That the WICB appears so eager to paint a diametrically opposed picture testifies to its members' desperation to maintain control at any cost to credibility. Before the forceful Ramnarine resigned in 2012, the board refused point blank to deal with him. Garth Wattley summed up the board's approach to the WIPA as "a mixture of conciliation, intransigence, and more often of late, arrogance".
| That Michael Holding, the owner of the calmest, coolest voice in the menagerie we call the commentary box should feel compelled to raise it to such a pitch should not be dismissed lightly | |||
Once upon a time, at the risk of tooting my own horn, I was party to a similar collective effort to aid less fortunate colleagues. When Robert Maxwell suddenly closed the London Daily News in 1987, after the bouncing Czech had lured scores of journalists from safe jobs to launch the paper just five months earlier, those of us who had been on board from the start voted to take a 50% cut in our severance pay. We decided on this course in order to ensure that the latest appointees, who had left their previous publications but had yet to report for duty at the LDN (of whom there were a fair number), could be compensated. It didn't help them enormously but I like to think they appreciated the gesture. On the other hand, I was single and childless at the time; I'm not at all sure I would have backed such a vote 20 years later.
But let's not get distracted. The bottom line could not be clearer. In the centuries-old struggle between management and players, across all major professional sports, the workers, emboldened by free agency, agents and endorsements, are now asserting their rights as never before - and management doesn't like it one eensy-weensy bit. Particularly not when it breeds season-shortening strikes (witness Major League Baseball in the mid-1990s), let alone season-nullifying strikes (witness the National Hockey League in 2004-05). The abrupt cessation of activities in an ODI series, barely a month after FICA, the international brotherhood, welcomed the signing of a collective bargaining agreement between the WICB and the WIPA, is merely another small landmark on the long, steep, rocky climb to respect.
Nothing proclaims the extent to which the tables have turned over the past half-century than a remarkable statistic from the winter of 2012-13: for the first time since Major League Baseball owners consented to salary and contract arbitration in 1974, not one of the 133 players took his claim as far as a hearing, the upshot of the clubs' increasing willingness to sign younger players to multi-year deals, affording even non-stars a degree of security. Unfortunately West Indies cricket is neither wallowing in record attendances nor benefitting from equitable revenue-sharing.
The funny thing about all this - as in funny-peculiar rather than funny-ha-ha - is that this latest downing of tools should happen in India, where resistance to players' unions, among the players themselves, has been fiercest. For all the vicissitudes of the BCCI, the fact that Sachin, Rahul and Anil never felt much, if any need, to form one says a great deal about their contracts, but must also say something at least faintly complimentary about N Srinivasan and his posse.
By the same token, the reality is unavoidable: without Indian support FICA will remain toothless. Fearless as the WIPA is, the day that MS Dhoni and/or Virat Kohli declare public solidarity with their brothers in charms is the day the WICB, Sri Lanka Cricket and their ilk start pondering the wisdom of their conniving and bullying. Only then will professional cricketers truly feel that the pendulum has swung as far as it needs to swing.
It takes two to tango, but it takes a lot more to stop a rot.
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