Spinners need intelligent, trusting captains to thrive

V Ramnarayan in Cricinfo

Anil Kumble set a fine example as captain in managing the slow bowlers  © AFP

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To consistently give their best, bowlers need their captains to have confidence in them. This is particularly true of spinners, who must rely on craft and cunning more than the quicker bowlers do. Rarely do we come across spin bowlers thriving under captains who do not believe in their ability or have an inadequate understanding of their trade.

For starters, the better captains allow at least four or five overs for the spinner to settle into an even rhythm. This is the time the bowler takes to ensure that every ball lands where he wants it to, before he can launch into any variations. Some of the greatest spinners in the game have been known to attempt nothing dramatic during this period. 

Only once he has found his length will the sensible bowler try out variations of flight and turn. He is aware of the subtle variations inherent in deliveries, even without his attempting them; no human can actually bowl six identical balls, though they may look similar to the naked eye. A good captain therefore starts with a fairly defensive field, and brings his men in only after the bowler has found his groove.

In contrast, not only do some bowlers, even at the international level, appear to try too many tricks too soon, some captains too expect their bowlers to start attacking from the word go, impatient with the relative lack of flight and turn in the early overs. The result can be overpitching, or bowling rank short balls, or bowling down the wrong line altogether, giving the batsman free runs and a bonus dose of confidence.

The ideal delivery by a spinner has the batsman playing forward but unable to reach the ball, the arc caused by the spin dropping the ball just short and deflecting it in a direction not intended by the batsman. The genuine spinner hates it when the batsman can play him off the back foot, a much more damaging prospect than being driven off the front foot.

While close catchers on either side of the wicket are essential for the bowler to have any impact on the batsman, the rest of the field is just as crucial to the effectiveness of the bowler, as we all know. In addition to slip (and gully) for the legspinner, or forward (and backward) short-leg for the offspinner, short extra cover and short midwicket are excellent attacking positions, ready to hold on to miscued drives. To a right-hand batsman, a sweeper on the off side for an offspinner, or a deep midwicket for a legspinner would indicate either a criminal lack of confidence on the part of the bowler or complete ignorance on the part of the captain and/or the bowler.

The question of who sets the field, the bowler or his captain, is something we hear discussed in the commentary box, and my view is that the bowler must bowl to his captain's field, assuming that the captain knows what he is doing.

This is where it is handy to have experienced bowlers in the side, because they can save the captain the trouble of setting their field, unless the captain is shortsighted enough to overrule the bowler who knows his bowling, and imposes his own views on him.

With young or inexperienced bowlers, however, the onus is on the captain to decide the line of attack, guide the bowler and set the field appropriate to the bowler, batsman, wicket, or state of the innings.

Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi and Ajit Wadekar - each in his own distinct way - were captains who knew how to bring out the best in their spinners. In his first stint as India captain, Pataudi was young and inexperienced, but by the time the new crop of spinners (soon to become known as the quartet) came into the side in 1967, he was five years old in the job, and I suspect had gained much practical wisdom in the company of such captains in the South Zone as V Subramanya of Karnataka and ML Jaisimha of Hyderabad. The famed close-in cordon of the Indian team perhaps had its origins there. Wadekar's captaincy was shaped in a relatively defensive mode, but when he took over from Pataudi in 1971, he had the advantage of leading a highly experienced combination of spinners, who helped deliver India's first series victories in the West Indies and England.

In the decades that followed, captains from Bishan Bedi down to Rahul Dravid led spin attacks in varying degrees of efficacy and different styles of handling, but I am partial to the manner in which Anil Kumble marshalled his spin resources, thanks to his superior domain knowledge. I believe he was the best when it came to managing the slow men. Unfortunately, the Indian captaincy came to him late in his career. After all, the idea of a bowler-captain is not the most popular theory around.

Failing the Tebbit test - Difficulties in supporting the England cricket team

by Girish Menon





The article by second generation British writer Kishan Koria applying the 'cricket test' to examine the behaviour of Britons of Asian origin was interesting and revelatory but it may be a case of blaming the victim and not the perpetrator. So, I am going to raise some issues which are never raised in the politics of Tebbit's followers. 

Firstly, why should it be a natural assumption that if you have resided in England for years you must support the English cricket team? If England's home advantage against India is reduced to fixing the pitch to suit its bowlers then so be it. The English cricket team must earn the support of the ticket buyers with its acts on and off the pitch.

The spectator in a cricket match has paid a high price to be there. That s/he should cheer for the England cricket team was never a condition of the contract. She is a free agent and can support whoever she pleases. 

The manner in which the English cricket establishment has treated players like Pietersen and Panesar gives the outsider an impression that they don't care about the views of their followers in any case. I'm sure even Bopara may be surprised at the number of times he has been in and out of the England team. 

The cricket blog The Full Toss has often highlighted the uncaring way the ECB deals with the supporters of the English cricket team. So, will it not be natural for cricket lovers to express their disgust in manifold ways? 

As far as citizenship in a land goes so long as residents pay taxes and obey the laws of the land then they are free to do what they like with the rest of their lives. This is usually the argument of free marketers like Tebbit, so why then do they wish to deny choice to these consumers of cricketainment with the nanny state telling them who to support in a cricket match? 

So, the likes of the ECB should be happy that it is the English citizens of Indian origin who are putting the bums on stadia seats and the brown pounds in their coffers. Many English bums (pun unintended) stay away from cricket stadia for a variety of reasons  including ticket prices, poor team selection policies etc. Hence the ECB should not further risk their luck by telling these high fare paying spectators who to support. Instead they should earn their support by fair minded policies and listening to the voices of their dwindling support base.

Personally, I fail the Tebbit test every time England play India and I have been unable to understand why. This is funny because in my growing years I supported the Mumbai team against other Indian teams even though my parents were immigrants from the state of Kerala (far away from Mumbai), and despite there always existing  a violent campaign against immigrants in Mumbai. 

It maybe out of alienation in a land where me and my family's future fortune lies. It maybe the jingoism in the highly conservative media. It maybe the 'institutional racism' referred to in the Macpherson report. It may be the 'barging of Gavaskar by Snow'; the negative lines bowled by Giles; the Zaheer Khan jelly beans incident; the failure to criticise Anderson for his foul mouthed pronouncements in the quest for victory; the failure to understand the invalidity of the predicted path in a DRS while castigating the non believer as a Luddite; or invoking the spirit of cricket argument selectively.  As for the booing of Moeen Ali, a fine prospect, to my mind this appears to be a continuation of the Indo-Pak rivalry which has been carried forward by the diaspora. 

However, I have also noticed periods when I begin to like the English team but then something happens and the old English superiority biases surface in the commentariat and I am driven once again to dislike the team, probably wrongly, probably not due to the players' actions. But, most importantly, the overriding reason is the brand of cricket the team plays. I have for long been a fan of the Pietersen, Botham and Gower brand of English cricket. But, so long as the clones of Boycott and Tavare dominate the approach to batting it is a trifle difficult to stay awake let alone support the England team. 

Operation “Get Nawaz Sharif”

Najam Sethi  TFT Issue: 05 Sep 2014

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The “conspiracy” to get rid of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been exposed. Although the circumstantial evidence was compelling, no one, not even the government and parliament, had hard-core facts to prove who was doing what and why. That’s why the government’s political and administrative response to the unfolding crisis was confused, weak and vacillating. Then the Heavens parted and Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf President Javed Hashmi descended like an angel to “save” the government by making a clean breast of things. The story can now be stitched up safely.

The old guard in the military left behind by General Ashfaq Kayani – a master spy who occupied both high offices in ISI and GHQ by turns and fashioned the military’s strategic policies for over a decade – was unhappy with the proposed foreign policy initiatives of Nawaz Sharif towards India, Afghanistan, USA, and his stance on non-state actor “assets” and the war against the Pakistani Taliban. Mr Sharif’s choice of General Raheel Sharif as COAS, number three in the lineup and totally apolitical to boot, also queried their pitch. The dye was cast when Mr Sharif hauled up ex-army chief General Pervez Musharraf for treason because this move threatened to drag in General Kayani and many other senior military officers who had backed the coup maker. It was also feared that, come October 2014, when several key generals from the “Kayani guard” would face retirement, Mr Sharif would appoint another relatively apolitical general to the powerful DG-ISI post, thereby seizing the “national security” initiative from the military. It may be recalled that the fear was not unjustified: on two previous occasions as prime minister, Mr Sharif had taken exactly such steps when he sacked Lt Gen Asad Durrani in 1991 and appointed Lt Gen Javed Nasir as DG-ISI and when he appointed Lt Gen Ziauddin Butt as DG-ISI in his second stint as prime minister and later tried to make him COAS and triggered a coup by General Musharraf.

According to the Kayani doctrine, a serious “threat” of a coup is a better instrument of military policy than a coup itself because coups can be messy business in this day and age with a weak economy, an independent judiciary, ubiquitous media, obstreperous civil society institutions and bullying international state and non-state actors. Far better, they say, to pull strings via the military’s intelligence agencies from behind the political scenes and achieve the required objectives by pitting one actor against another and bringing things to such a pass that a coup seems like a real possibility. This is exactly how Gen Kayani brought the Zardari regime to heel on foreign policy and the war against terrorism on matters such as relations with India, USA and Afghanistan, Kerry-Lugar Bill, Memogate, etc. And this is exactly how his remnants wanted to deal with Nawaz Sharif when he threatened to disrupt or disown their doctrines.

Accordingly, a plan was hatched to oust Nawaz Sharif, with the threat of a coup, and before October when some of the key conspirators were due to retire. On the one hand, Imran Khan and Tahir ul Qadri, two desperadoes dying to become prime minister by hook or by crook, were roped in with the assistance of evergreen military “assets” like Sheikh Rashid, the Chaudhries of Gujrat and notorious elements in the media. On the other hand, potential oppositionists in the media like the Geo-Jang group were attacked and put down, while Supreme Court judges were scared off from interventionism by an attack from Imran Khan on ex-CJPs Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and Tassaduq Hussain Jilani and ex-CEC Fakhruddin G Ibrahim. The pretext of a “rigged and polluted” election was perfect because in one fell swoop all potential oppositionists were routed at the hands of the country’s leading “populist” forces in the shape of Imran Khan and Tahir ul Qadri. Unfortunately, both Geo and PMLN played into the hands of the conspirators by outraging the nation, the first by directly targeting the DG of an “esteemed national security institution” like the ISI and the second by precipitating a bloody crisis in Model Town, Lahore.

Fortunately, three things went wrong for the conspirators. First, the million-strong crowds didn’t materialize. Second, the scared government didn’t resort to further violent measures to stop the marchers, thereby denying a pretext for Mr Sharif’s head as in the case of Shahbaz Sharif. Third, just when things seemed to be slipping out of the government’s hand, Javed Hashmi came along to spill the beans, expose the mala fides of the conspirators and galvanise parliament and civil society to unite behind the prime minister.

Mr Sharif has made errors of judgment and policy that have weakened him considerably. Imran Khan has been exposed as a “match-fixer”. The conspiratorial rogues have been identified. Only General Raheel Sharif has come out looking reasonably good. Along with PM Sharif, he needs to help restore Geo and the credibility of all those unfairly targeted by the conspirators and build a trust-worthy civil-military relationship.

The unquestioning loyalty of the cricket nut

Russell Jackson in Cricinfo 

Innovations like LED bails may come and go. Fans may frown at it, but they will continue watching  © Getty Images

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Many moons ago, during my university years, I had my first and last commerce-based epiphany while sitting through a marketing lecture. The speaker, whose name, voice and face I couldn't place if I tried, started talking about the way in which the Harley Davidson motorcycle company essentially had a huge portion of their customers in the palm of their hand because these diehard riders and motorbike enthusiasts displayed what marketers called "loyalty beyond reason".

This meant that no matter how the company behaved, how tacky the licensing deals they pursued or how ubiquitous their brand name became, the lifestyle that surrounded their product and the emotional pull of their bikes for rusted-on diehards was too strong for those customers to resist or abandon. The Apple brand is now probably a more salient example, such is the unquestioning faith a huge number of their customers place in both the brand and the cult of Steve Jobs.

At the time, this idea of loyalty beyond reason made me question whether there were people or ideals or products that I clung to with unquestioning faith. Thinking as loftily of myself as university are wont to do, I concluded that I was a person of intellectual fortitude and couldn't be pushed around and told what to think. In hindsight, not only was this wrong but it was a supremely ironic thing to think as I sat bored stiff in a lecture theatre, partaking in one of life's great symbolic rituals of conformity and fulfillment of parental expectation.

What I failed to admit then was that my almost daily displays of loyalty beyond reason are tied to sport. Cricket primarily, but also Australian Rules football, basketball, tennis, soccer, and any number of other essentially trivial events around which I organise my entire life and to which I've devoted the lion's share of my discretionary waking hours.

Maybe you're a little like me and think that your cynicism and finely-tuned worldview acts as a shield to the avarice, corruption and simmering sense of discontent that characterize modern sport but I'd follow up the establishment of that point by asking you how many times you've sat and watched these sports in the last two weeks. In my head I can tick off a checklist of many ills that have blighted cricket in the last ten years and many more reasons for which a perfectly reasonable person could abandon the sport and take up a new hobby. I don't though because they've got me by the balls.

It makes me wonder just how bad cricket could get before I stopped watching it. That's no insult to the game in its current form because I love it as I always have, but the last ten years have proven that all of the subtle shifts in the landscape have a cumulative effect of altering the game markedly and not always for the better

I'll probably end up paying $400 for a World Cup final ticket, I'll upgrade my pay-TV subscription so I can watch a meaningless 10-game ODI tournament and I'll probably even buy the reissued 1992 Zimbabwe World Cup shirt because I'm a cricket nuffy. I decry the gauche incursion of monster trucks on the Big Bash League but then I'll go ahead and watch nearly every single game of the tournament. My loyalty goes beyond reason, as yours might too, and the marketing people know it. They could drive the monster trucks onto the ground mid-over and I'll keep watching.

In a way it makes me wonder just how bad cricket could get before I stopped watching it. That's no insult to the game in its current form because I love it as I always have, but the last ten years have proven that all of the subtle shifts in the landscape have a cumulative effect of altering the game markedly and not always for the better. By the time I'm 70 years old there might be no suitable willow left to make bats so they'll use aluminum ones or some composite fibre that hasn't even been invented yet. India, England and Australia might be the only teams playing in ICC events. The ICC might have been disbanded. Grounds might be half the size and the spectacle unrecognisable to what we see today, but it will still be called cricket and therefore I'll still be watching it.

This fan dilemma plays out elsewhere obviously. Hardened football fans who romanticise about the away days at ramshackle suburban pitches of the '70s might be physically repulsed by the obscene wages paid to English Premier League players and the ludicrous cost of a seat at the new mega-stadia, but mostly they keep watching, reading and forking out their dough to take part. Sport lovers are like those Harley Davidson-riding bikies and not just in a tribal sense, the love of these games that lives within them is as crucial to the beating of their hearts as the atrial septum.

One thing I would say is that for me sport has never stood in the way of maintaining a healthy amount of interpersonal relationships, but increasingly I find that it fills most other crevices of life. I'm more resigned to this than chastened or sad, but there are times when you've got to question that level of loyalty. I'll probably just wait until the cricket has finished though.