I feel for Sachitra Senanayake

by Girish Menon

When the English mob and commentators unleashed their self righteous 'spirit of cricket' indignation on Sachitra Senanayake I felt the need to find out more about this unheard of cricketer who has caused a minor tempest in England's favourite brew container.

So, I looked up his career stats to find out that Sachitra is 29 and had already played 1 Test, 34 ODIs and 17 T20Is. I also learnt that prior to his 'Mankadding' of Buttler, in earlier ODIs of the current series he had been reported for a faulty action and asked to report to Perth for a bio-mechanical examination about the degree of flex in his action.

I happened to listen to Test Match Special (TMS) at the time of Sachitra's Mankadding incident and at the time the commentators were insistent that Sachitra had not warned Buttler earlier before running him out.  The commentators also alleged that English bowlers, unlike Sachitra and Murali before him, were unable to bowl the doosra since it would be ironed out by coaches at the junior stages itself.

Personally, I feel any bowling action which does not threaten the life of a batsman should be permitted. This will balance the equation between bat and ball and make for interesting cricket.  

In his book Lila, Robert Pirsig describes the English reaction when the first stuffed platypus was shipped there. At first, the traditionalists were aghast that nature had betrayed their classification. Also, they denied that platypi could lay eggs and then suckle their young. The traditionalists also tried to ban the platypus out of existence since it did not meet their classification code. It was only much later that the traditionalists accommodated  the platypus in the field of biology. 

At 29, Sachitra may feel like the stuffed platypus on its arrival in England. After investing so much time and effort in developing his skill, he is now being told that if he does not obtain a clearance from an Australian he will not be allowed to ply his trade.  England may or may not have had a role in the reporting of Senanayake, but surely this could have been done discreetly at the end of the series so that the Sri Lankan team would not be compromised in the middle of the tour. Isn't this a case of giving the home team an unfair advantage?

Yet, when Sachitra legitimately runs out Buttler after warning him twice against cheating, the umpires had the audacity to ask the Sri Lankan captain whether he wished to withdraw the appeal. The crowds aroused by a partisan TMS commentariat then boo the Sri Lankans and Sachitra in particular.

So, Sachitra you are not alone. I empathise with your situation. I also hope that you have an alternative career mapped out for I am not aware of any cricketer who has retained his wicket taking skills after his action has been re-modelled. So power to you.

What's a good pitch anyway?

 Michael Jeh

The 2013 Delhi Test was finished in three days. Ergo, was it a poor pitch?  © BCCI

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Cricket is one of those games where a question does not necessarily require a definitive answer. Merely exploring the parameters of the question provokes enough meaty debate to justify the question being asked in the first place. So on that basis, in the wake of the Ashes Test in Sydney, I pose this question: what defines a "good" Test pitch?

As this is a truly global forum, I expect a varied and sometimes passionate response from the four corners of the world. Assuming we can put aside the obvious patriotic bias, what are some of the qualities of a pitch that define it as good, bad or indifferent? Is it ultimately a question that can only be answered retrospectively, at the end of the game when the result is known, or is it possible to make a judgement call on it on the very first day (or relatively early in the match)? 

 Not long ago, a talkback caller on my weekly radio programme on the ABC was scathing in his criticism of all the pitches in India on Australia's most recent Test tour there, and similarly disdainful of most pitches in England on the last Ashes tour. When I pointed out some facts, he reluctantly conceded that his bias had been fed by lazy cricket writers who were looking for a populist audience, and we then enjoyed a more useful debate about how easy it was to succumb to an argument based on jingoism rather than cricketing knowledge.

So what defines a good pitch then? Is it a pitch where:

Plenty of runs scored at a rate of 3-plus?

Barring bad weather, a game reaches a conclusion some time after tea on day four?

Fast bowlers and spinners have equal opportunities to take wickets (proportionately of course, given that it's usually three quicks and one spinner)?

A few centuries but not too many are made?

The ball carries through to the keeper until about day four, after which uneven bounce becomes more prevalent? (And if there is no uneven bounce late in the game, is that a sign of a poor pitch?)

Conditions do not favour either side to any great extent (keeping in mind the accusations of "doctored" pitches sometimes levelled at home teams)?

The toss of the coin doesn't effectively determine the outcome of the match?

I personally believe home teams are entitled to prepare pitches to suit their strengths. It is up to the visitors to select a team that can cope with those conditions. If the game goes deep into day four and beyond, it suggests a relatively even contest, not necessarily in terms of an outright victor but at least the possibility of a draw. The common thinking that associates "good" with bounce, carry, pace is one of the great misnomers. Cricket's complex global appeal lies in the fact that trying to tame Mitchell Johnson at home on a bouncy deck is as much of a challenge as coping with wily New Zealand seamers on a greentop, or using your feet against three slow bowlers on a pitch that turns from the first day. The notion that it should do plenty for the fast bowlers through the match but shouldn't turn for the spinners from the outset is a theory clearly propounded by those unable to bowl spin or bat against it.

Let's look then at the most recent home Tests played by every country and leave it up to the readers to decide which of these Tests were played on "good" pitches. Remember that this is only a small sample size and invariably favours the home team, but is that enough of a reason to refer to the pitches as "doctored"? Don't most teams struggle to win away from home? In this list (below), not one visiting team won a game but how many of the local media outlets made excuses about "home-town" pitches?

Bangladesh v NZ, Mirpur. Match drawn. Bangladesh 282 all out, NZ 437 all out, Bangladesh 269 for 3. No play on day five.

Zimbabwe v Pakistan, Harare. Zimbabwe won by 24 runs. Zimbabwe 294 all out, Pakistan 230 all out, Zimbabwe 199 all out, Pakistan 239 all out. Match concluded just after lunch on day five.

West Indies v Zimbabwe, Dominica. West Indies won by an innings and 65 runs. Zimbabwe 175 all out, West Indies 381 for 8 decl, Zimbabwe 141 all out. Match concluded after lunch on day three.

Sri Lanka v Bangladesh, Colombo (Premadasa). Sri Lanka won by seven wickets. Bangladesh 240 all out, Sri Lanka 346 all out, Bangladesh 265 all out, Sri Lanka 160 for 3. Match concluded late on day four.

South Africa v India, Durban. South Africa won by ten wickets. India 334 all out, South Africa 500 all out, India 223 all out, South Africa 59 for 0. Match concluded after tea on day five.

England v Australia, London (The Oval). Match drawn. Australia 492 for 9 decl, England 377 all out, Australia 111 for 6 decl, England 206 for 5 (21 runs short). Match concluded day five, close of play.

India v West Indies, Mumbai. India won by an innings and 126 runs. West Indies 182 all out, India 495 all out, West Indies 187 all out. Match concluded before lunch on day three.

New Zealand v West Indies, Hamilton. New Zealand won by eight wickets. West Indies 367 all out, New Zealand 349 all out, West Indies 103 all out, New Zealand 124 for 2. Match concluded after lunch on day four.

Pakistan v Sri Lanka, Abu Dhabi. Match drawn. Sri Lanka 204 all out, Pakistan, 383 all out, Sri Lanka 480 for 5 decl, Pakistan 158 for 2. Match concluded day five, close of play.

Australia v England, Sydney. Australia won by 281 runs. Australia 326 all out, England 155 all out, Australia 276 all out, England 166 all out. Match concluded after tea on day three.

At first glance, I would nominate The Oval, Harare, Colombo and Durban as examples of excellent pitches, but does that necessarily make the others poor? Sydney, for example, barely lasted three days and clearly favoured the home team, but there should rightly be no talk of doctored pitches. England inspected the pitch, selected their best team, won the toss and were still thrashed by a vastly superior Australian outfit. Despite fine centuries from Steve Smith and Chris Rogers, 24 wickets fell on the first two days. Would the Australian media have been silent if that happened in Galle or Chennai? The resoundingly better team triumphed in Sydney, regardless of conditions that clearly favoured their strengths. Similarly when Australia toured India in 2013, despite winning all four tosses, they simply weren't good enough on pitches that suited India's skills. Delhi was the only venue that saw a result late on day three, and was labelled a disgrace by the Australian media, who will now be deafeningly silent about the early finish in Sydney, no doubt. Hence my earlier question - do we only judge a pitch retrospectively after we see who wins?

The recent Ashes series in England was written up by many in the Australian media as being played on "blatantly doctored pitches". Most of these cricket writers are journalists who never really played cricket to any significant level and are therefore sucked into the trap of making excuses that they think will resonate with readers who are supposedly dumb and easily seduced by an appeal to blind patriotism. But they misjudge us badly - the true Australian cricket fan understands the nuances of this great game and can appreciate skill, however it is wrapped, pace or spin. There will, of course, be that small vocal minority that only wants to read about good news (or excuses) but fortunately they are unlikely to be reading a global cricket website like this - the local tabloids will cater adequately to their coarse needs and hoarse voices.

Cricket Commentary - What do they know of cliches...

Russell Jackson 

Ishant Sharma: exactly the bowler his average suggests  © Getty Images

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As is the case with most of the sports we love and talk about, cricket long ago fell victim to a variety of enduring and evolving clichés. We're all guilty of indulging in them from time to time if we're honest with ourselves.

I guess you should consider this a kind of warning shot or manifesto for my appearances on the Cordon. Maybe it can even act as a warning to myself. "Is that really something you think or is it just something that everyone says?" Feel free to give me a nudge when I lapse.

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Cricket clichés find their most obvious and oft-parodied home in the various commentary boxes of the game's major broadcasters. Often they fall into the category of "groupthink", where one ex-player's prattling or agenda comes to be accepted as the prevailing wisdom. A great example of this is the popular theory that, "Ishant Sharma is a better bowler than his figures suggest." Sorry to spoil the party, but aside from a couple of spells to one RT Ponting, Ishant is exactly the bowler his average suggests. A Test bowling average approaching 38 is a bit unlucky if you're a freewheeling rookie on the receiving end of some bad slips fielding, not if you're a 51-Test veteran. We have enough of a statistical sample size now; enough of this nonsense.

There are clichés to be found in the way we think about cricket, the way we talk about it, but most irksome of all in the way we write about it. If only I had a pre-war Wisden for every time some so-called cricket appreciator in the op-ed columns of a broadsheet newspaper has sprinkled that one CLR James quote (we all know the one, don't even say it) into a piece as though that in itself were persuasion enough that the writer does indeed have a thorough, beard-stroking understanding of the game's intricacies.

These James-referencing articles normally fall into one of two categories: ones that provide a ham-fisted or erroneous interpretation of the famous line and others again that present it completely devoid of context; just a bobbling boat of misguided self-importance. It's an attempt at adding a dash of intellectual heft to otherwise pedestrian observations and it usually sticks out like a wicketkeeper's thumb. Have any of these people actually read the damned book? It's great obviously, but please give us something that's not in the Amazon summary or the back-cover blurb.

To borrow the words of James' biographer Dave Renton, in coming to a genuine and considered appraisal of the Trinidadian writer's output and philosophy, "we must scrape through a muck of encrusted cliché". Renton also takes accurate aim at Wisden cliché-peddlers, sagely adding that "usually and lazily termed cricket's bible: more accurately it is the game's hadith: its tradition". Corollary to this is the equally hackneyed concept of the "cricket tragic", a self-description abused with regularity by boasting politicians and celebrity cricket frauds alike. Besides anything, there's actually very little about loving cricket, or any sport, that veers into tragedy. I guess Australians might now pause longer to consider that one.

When the cliché purveyors aren't telling you all about the "wristy" batsman of the subcontinent, they're banging on about the WACA being "a fast bowler's dream"

When the cliché purveyors aren't telling you all about the "wristy" batsman of the subcontinent, they're banging on about the WACA being "a fast bowler's dream". They should really have a word with AB de Villiers about the latter; he has made hundreds in his last two Tests there; or Hashim Amla, who belted 196 at near enough to a run a ball at the other end last November. Their South Africa team piled on 569 in their second innings.

On the topic of pitch-based clichés, Australians most famously view Indian pitches as untamable minefields perfectly curated to expose their side's deficiencies against spin. In actual fact they're not all that bad to bat on once you get yourself in and establish a tempo. Just ask the recently victorious England squad, who found the going far easier than the Aussies. Bad batting is bad batting.

Let's not allow players off the cliché hook either. A month or so back, Matthew Hayden took aim at recently displaced Aussie coach Mickey Arthur, decrying Arthur's leaked utterances about Shane Watson and painting the coach as an unwelcome interloper in his "old boy's club", an irony-gasm of epic proportions to those following the story at even the most superficial level. The former Test opener bellowed, "Correct Mick, we're an old boy's club. We're 450-plus players that have played for our country.

"We're proud of our culture, we're proud of our community of cricketers and one thing we actually can't stand is being interrogated on our watch in terms of criticising the fabric of the baggy green."

It's a sensational sound bite, but as with many evocations on the aura of the baggy green, it doesn't really stand up to much scrutiny. Was Hayden referring to the same tight-knit brethren that teased Scott Muller out of Test cricket? The ones who immediately turned on Bryce McGain the minute he bowled his first Cape Town long hop, or watched on as his spinning colleague Beau Casson rolled himself up into a foetal position and disappeared off the face of the earth?

I myself recently likened the Australian Test team of its recent glory years to the Cosa Nostra, and that's probably more accurate in terms of a family metaphor; if you step out of line or make a false move, you might get whacked.

And as for the present cricket cliché du jour? Well, the BCCI clearly isn't responsible for all of cricket's woes, just a decent heaping of them.