Camkerala win first game of green winter sport season

by Girish Menon

On the first day of the green winter* sport season CamKerala beat Burrows Green (from Newmarket) by 18 runs thanks to good performances by Austin, Vincent, Shinto, Jijo and a two wickets off two balls burst by Manuel. The game played at the Hills Road Sports Centre cricket pitch off Sedley Taylor Road, had a good pavilion but a slow pitch with small square boundaries and a heavy outfield.

Vincent won the toss and elected to bat. In the third over Vibin tried an uppish on drive which refused to spill out of short midwicket's hands. Girish and Austin played the next 7-8 overs carefully seeing off a good offspinner. At the first bowling change, Girish tried an expansive drive and was bowled by a slower ball. this led to a minor collapse with Austin and Manuel following Girish back to the pavilion. Vincent steadied the ship on one side, while Anil dispatched his first two balls for six over the midwicket area, one of the balls went on the railway tracks and a new ball had to be used. Anil perished in his cavalier way and then a good partnership between Vincent and Shinto rescued Camkerala. Govind in his debut match of proper cricket, as against the rubber ball cricket that he played before, managed 11 runs and the rest of the team folded quietly on 135 in 35 overs.

A good batting partnership by the opening pair of Burrows Green had CamKerala worried as they reached 55 runs without any loss. At this point Shinto held a well judged catch off Austin and the first breakthrough was achieved. Then Manuel in his first over bowled two batsmen off consecutive balls and was unlucky to miss a hat trick. Jijo then held an excellent catch on the square leg boundary and another  at point which allowed Austin to get a 5 wicket haul. Vincent then bowled well to get the tail end wickets. There was some panic towards the end as the scores got close but when Vincent bowled the last man there was relief all around. Joshy laboured hard on the field and Matthews was unlucky not get any wickets in his six overs.

Overall, it was an auspicious start to the season. To look at the positives, Austin and Vincent bowled good lengths which resulted in wickets. Shinto and Jijo held good catches which turned the game. But the old frailty of not batting the entire 40 overs seems to persist and this is a cause for concern. Nonetheless a win is a win.

*Green Winter - An African writer explaining the weather in North Europe stated that there were two seasons here. White winter and green winter. He said he preferred the white winter because they'd put on the heaters. This writer turned up for this game wearing thermals.

Time to make leg slip a regular fielding position?

V Ramnarayan in Cricinfo

 

Most batsmen are rarely in control of the leg glance or flick off fast bowling  © Getty Images

Enlarge

"What is unlucky about being caught behind down the leg side?" asked Samir Chopra in a recent blog post. He set me thinking about a cricket problem that has puzzled me for years.

Why is it that some of the greatest batsmen in the game fail to, or do not care to, keep the ball down while glancing or flicking it on the leg side? And why are such shots not considered poor except when the batsman is caught (and even then it may be regarded as a piece of bad luck or a fantastic catch by the keeper or both), when even a thick outside edge that goes for four is described as one? 

The answer is quite simple, in my opinion. You can get away with playing the ball in the air (actually, the batsman is rarely in control of the leg glance or flick off quick bowling, just as he is not with a poorly executed hook shot), because there is rarely a leg slip in position until after a missed opportunity, and the catch can often elude the wicketkeeper's grasp.

The leg slip or leg gully is rarely deployed because of the rule restricting the number of fielders behind the popping crease on the leg side to two. While that is normally understandable, especially when a bowler's stock delivery is an outswinger, I have often wondered why at the highest level of cricket, inswing bowlers tend to bowl to a three-slip, no-leg-slip field. At the college or junior level, a leg slip is quite a common sight when an inswing bowler is in operation, and that, to me, seems to make sense.

Madras batsmen of my vintage were advised by our coach KS Kannan to force short-of-length deliveries around the leg stump off the back foot rather than flick or glance them without foot movement, or with a tentative forward movement, as many of them were wont to do. This way they would also present the full face of the bat and watch the ball all the way on to it.

Kannan was then assisting the Derbyshire and England professional TS Worthington, whose approval he enjoyed. To the best of my knowledge, none of the boys in our camp followed Kannan's advice, and they merrily played the ball in the air between fine leg and midwicket whenever it landed in a sort of blind spot around the leg stump.

Two great batsmen of that era who were almost always in perfect control over such deliveries were GR Viswanath and Sunil Gavaskar. Vishy, whose wrists and forearms John Arlott once likened to those of an ironmonger, was perfectly capable of whipping short or long deliveries on the leg stump, or even the off stump, in a wide arc from mid-on to fine leg, keeping the ball down, unless he deliberately lofted it. Gavaskar was the complete master of anything on his legs, rarely missing a scoring opportunity in that region. Mohammad Azharuddin and VVS Laxman had the powerful wrists to roll firmly over the ball, virtually treating it with contempt. Sachin Tendulkar could, of course, make the ball do his bidding, rarely giving the diving wicketkeeper a hope on the leg side.

My question is, why should lesser mortals get away with edges and uncontrolled leg-side shots, instead of being punished in the same way as they are for flirting with deliveries outside the off stump? To enable a transformation, should there be a change in the laws of cricket so pace bowlers are encouraged to field leg slips?

In other words, to add yet another outrageous suggestion to ones I have already made in this column, why not raise the limit of two fielders behind the popping crease on the leg side to three? True, the rule came into being to prevent leg theory being used either to intimidate or hurt the batsman or as a negative ploy, but we now have the restriction on bouncers per over to prevent or reduce bodyline, and in any case, even under the present laws of cricket, negative leg theory is not an unusual sight in Test cricket, with left-arm spinners or legspinners sometimes resorting to it under the pretence of exploiting the rough caused by other bowlers' footmarks. Any such unfair tendency can also be countered by judicious declaration of deliveries deliberately aimed outside leg stump as wides.

While such an amendment of the rules can give the inswing bowler (and perhaps the offspinner) more teeth and another catching option in the deep off the bouncer, it will force batsmen and batting coaches to work on improving the techniques needed to negotiate well-directed inswing bowling or deliveries pitching on or around the leg stump.

In conclusion, I admit such a fundamental change will never even be considered, as it could make batting against top-quality fast bowling a nightmare. I am prepared to be proved to be absurdly wrong in my thinking by experts on the game.

How do you play cricket without becoming a machine?

The challenge for most cricketers- and other sportsmen - is to retain their personality while getting better at the game

Ed Smith

September 26, 2012

Comments: 25 | Text size: A | A

	Afghanistan haven't yet had the joy ironed out of them by the cricket grind © Getty Images  Enlarge
Related Links Series/Tournaments: ICC World Twenty20 Teams: Afghanistan

"The challenge is to play cool without being cold." That was the assessment of the great jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. What he said of playing jazz is also true of playing cricket. A sportsman cannot be at the mercy of his moods and emotions. And yet sport becomes dull and lifeless when it is drained of warmth and spontaneity. Sportsmen must search for the right emotional bandwidth: they want enough coolness to feel in control, and yet sufficient rawness and authenticity to feel excitement.

There is no doubt where the Afghan cricket team lies on that continuum. They are joyful, volatile, emotional, unpredictable and deeply expressive. That is why they are wonderful to watch and have lit up this T20 World Cup, even without winning a game. Their performance against India was deeply moving because you could see how much it mattered to the Afghan players. Every six was joyous, every fielding error was agony.

These were not the learnt, mannered responses of professional sportsmen playing to the gallery. The Afghan cricketers have not yet learned how to hide their feelings. In time, they will become more controlled and clinical. But hopefully not too much. Indeed, we can all learn something from the spirit and the naturalness of the Afghan cricketers. Joy - even vulnerability - has its practical uses, too.

There is a counter argument to my view, of course. Some argue that sport is not about self-expression or enjoyment at all, but rather resilience and reliability under pressure. I've never seen this view better expressed than by Chad Harbach in his excellent novel about baseball, The Art of Fielding. (I make no apology for quoting it at length):

The making of a ballplayer: the production of brute efficiency out of natural genius […] This formed the paradox at the heart of baseball, or football, or any other sport […] Baseball was an art, but to excel at it you had to become a machine. It didn't matter how beautifully you performed sometimes, what you did on your best day, how many spectacular plays you made. You weren't a painter or a writer - you didn't work in private and discard your mistakes, and it wasn't just your masterpieces that counted. What mattered, as for any machine, was repeatability. Moments of inspiration were nothing compared to elimination of error […] Can you perform on demand, like a car, a furnace, a gun? Can you make that throw one hundred times out of a hundred? If it can't be a hundred, it had better be ninety-nine.

It is a wonderful passage, full of insight. But while I agree with many of the steps, I cannot follow all the way to Harbach's final conclusion. Sport is not quite about the elimination of human individuality, or the progress - if that is the right word - towards machine-like efficiency. True, a good player cannot be too vulnerable, he cannot allow his human weaknesses to surface so often that they undermine his performance.

But nor do the best sportsmen, I believe, allow themselves to lose touch completely with their human dimension. We must think carefully before trying to turn ourselves into machines: we may find we lose more than we gain. There is a balance to be struck: between naturalness and pragmatism, between voice and efficiency, between joy and control. Crucially, that balance is different for every player (and every team).

Inevitably there are outliers on that continuum - some players are exceptionally self-denying where others are extraordinarily natural. Rafael Nadal's game is based on the fearless elimination of error, the repeatability of relentlessness. In contrast, Roger Federer's is freer and more intuitive. Federer has said how he cannot bear to "play the same point twice". He needs to be trying something new, at least to some extent, in order to fully engage his talents.

	There is a balance to be struck: between naturalness and pragmatism, between voice and efficiency, between joy and control

It is a myth that sportsmen can simply choose to adopt the best strands from the personalities of other players. Instead, they must search for the right balance that suits them. The natural, laconic David Gower would not have benefited from trying to become more like the dedicated professional Graham Gooch - nor vice versa. The quest for self-improvement must be tempered by the retention of authenticity.

The same balance applies to teams as well as individuals. Every team has an instinctive personality, a natural temperament. The challenge is to develop and strengthen that collective personality without losing what makes it unique. Over decades as a rugby fan, I have noticed that France play best when they keep their innate flair but harness it within collective discipline. They are much less successful when they rely too much on flair or when they travel too far in the direction of self-denial. To win, France must be France - they cannot pretend to be England.

This logic has consequences for the way we think about getting better at sport. Development - for both the individual and the team - is only partly about honing skills and perfecting techniques. Perhaps the bigger part of the story is learning how to be yourself. This can become harder, not easier, with experience, which explains why many players do not improve with age, but regress. The more they try to become machines, the worse they become. That is why the art of coaching - yes, the art, not the science - is at least as much about understanding people as it is about imparting technical knowledge. What kind of player might he become, what kind of person?

Where does all this leave Afghan cricket? Yes, they need to become more consistent. Yes, they will need to become better at controlling their emotions. Yes, their techniques will have to become more polished and reliable.

But all those things must be developed within a context of remaining true to themselves. They should not lose sight of the spirit and innocence that makes them such a compelling team to watch, and such a dangerous team to play against. In the lovely phrase of ESPNcricinfo writer Sharda Ugra, they "bring to a somewhat tired global community the fresh, bracing air of the mountains".

Afghanistan's cricketers are so refreshing because they aren't like everyone else. It would be a shame if they merely become part of the crowd.

Shouldering the pain of throwing

Andrew Leipus in Cricinfo

Able to bowl but not throw because of shoulder pain? Or maybe you have lost power in your throw? Have to throw side-arm? Does your whole arm go "dead" for a few seconds after you release the ball? Or you are now experiencing a click, crunch or clunk when you lift the arm? These are just some of the many symptoms and behaviours that can be present in the cricketer's shoulder and which can help clinicians diagnose what your underlying problem might be. 

There can't be a shoulder discussion without a brief anatomy lesson. In terms of understanding the basics, the glenohumeral joint is a shallow ball-and-socket design, allowing a huge amount of mobility yet remaining as stable as possible. It also has to tolerate massive torques or rotational forces generated. Some people equate the head of the humerus (HOH) and its relation to the scapula with a golf ball sitting on a tee, i.e. easy to topple over. But it is actually more like trying to balance a soccer ball on your forehead, with both the ball and the head/body constantly moving to maintain "balance" and stop the ball from dropping off. It is this balance between the socket joint and the scapula position which we need to consider in the cricketer's shoulder as it is where a lot of problems begin and where a lot of rehab programmes fail.

As is the case with all injuries, the anatomy often lets us down by not being able to cope with the functional demands. Some injuries develop acutely, such as occurs with one hard throw when off balance, and some develop over a period of time through lots of high repetition - degenerative type injuries. The two most commonly injured structures in cricket are the infamous rotator cuff and the glenoid labrum.

The cuff is a group of small muscles acting primarily to pull and hold the HOH into its glenoid socket. The long head of biceps tendon assists the rotator cuff in this role. The labrum is a circular cartilage structure designed to "cup" or deepen this socket and provide attachment for the biceps tendon.

An injury to the labrum results in the HOH having excess translatory motion and not staying centred in the glenoid. The cuff then has to work harder to compensate for this structural instability. This translation often results in a "clunky" shoulder or one which goes "dead" when called upon to throw at pace. Anil Kumble's shoulder had a damaged labrum due to his high-arm legspin action. Years of repetitive stress had detached his labrum from the glenoid, resulting in the need for surgery. He's not alone. Muttiah Muralitharan and Shane Warne also had shoulder surgeries in their careers. And it's not just spin bowling, as many labral compression injuries occur during fielding when diving onto an outstretched arm.

Injury to the cuff, however, also results in a dynamic instability, whereby the HOH is again not held centred, and subsequently over time stresses both the labrum and cuff. Impingement is a common term used to describe a narrowing of the space in the shoulder that can result from this loss of centering. The cuff doesn't actually need to be injured for this to occur - repetitive throwing can tighten the posterior cuff muscles and effectively "squeeze" the HOH out of its normal centre of rotation in the glenoid. It really is a vicious circle and cricketers compound any underlying dysfunction by the repetitive nature of the game. They might not throw much in a match but when they do it is usually with great speed. The bulk of the throwing volume occurs during their practice sessions.

And when talking about shoulder mechanics we need to also understand critical role of the scapula. In order to ensure that the HOH remains remain centred in the glenoid, the scapula must slide and rotate appropriately around the chest wall (that soccer ball example). Any dysfunction in scapula movement is typically evidenced by a "winging" motion when the arm is elevated or by observing the posture of the upper back. Whether the winging comes before the injury or as a consequence is hotly debated. Either way it needs to function properly. And to complicate things even further, the thoracic spine also needs to be able to extend and rotate fully to allow the scapula to move. Kyphotic or slouched upper backs are terrible for allowing the arm to reach full elevation and is a big contributor to shoulder problems.

It should be clear that in order for a cricketer's shoulder to be pain-free, there needs to be a lot of dynamic strength and mobility of the upper trunk and shoulder girdle. But throwing technique is equally critical to both performance and injury prevention. Studies have shown that the shoulder itself contributes only 25% to the release speed of the ball. To impart this 25%, the angular velocity of the joint can reach 7000 degrees per second. However, what is interesting is that a whopping 50% is contributed by the hips and trunk when the player is in a good position for the throw (allowing for a coordinated weight transfer). But when off-balance and shying at the stumps, as often occurs within the 30-yard circle, the shoulder alone can be called upon to produce more than its usual load. Thus it is important to remember that throwing should be considered as a whole body skill.

	Injury to the deep joint capsule ligaments and biceps tendon are difficult to diagnose but can account for that "problem" shoulder © Getty Images Enlarge

Often a player will be able to bowl without experiencing symptoms, but will struggle to throw. In these cases, it is common to find pathology involving the long head of biceps or where it anchors superiorly onto the labrum. The latter is also commonly known as a SLAP lesion. In the transition from the cocking to acceleration phase of throwing, the shoulder is forcefully externally rotated. The biceps is significantly involved in stabilising the HOH at this point and often pulls so hard that it peels the labrum off the glenoid, giving symptoms of pain and instability. The overhead bowling action, however, does not put the shoulder into extremes of external rotation and hence symptoms do not usually occur. If pain is experienced during the release phase of throwing then there is a good chance that technique is again at fault. In order to decelerate the arm after the ball is released, the trunk and arm need to "follow through", using the big trunk muscles and weight shift towards the target. Failure to do this results in a massive eccentric load on the biceps tendon, also potentially tugging on its anchor on the glenoid. Throwing side-arm to avoid extremes of external rotation and pain is a common sign that all is not well internally.

As you can see, an injury to the shoulder is not a simple problem. And there are many other types of pathology found. It requires thorough assessment and management of a host of potential contributing factors which are mostly modifiable when identified. And whilst a lot can go wrong in a cricketer's shoulder, there is a lot that can be done to make sure it stays strong and healthy. Because prevention is always better than surgery in terms of outcomes, next week I'll discuss some shoulder training and injury prevention tips used by elite cricketers.