Boxing Day Test - WI vs Aus 2015

This morning Australia, after reaching a score of 180/3, declared their innings and sent West Indies to bat.  The Australians could have batted a lot longer and scored more runs than they did. The pitch stayed good for batting till the end of the Test Match. 

When West Indies came to bat, all the top six batsmen got starts, however none of them went on to get a hundred or even a 80+ score,in batting too captain Holder had to step up. He batted aggressively, played positive cricket and scored a good 68 of 86 balls. He was aptly assisted by wicketkeeper Ramdin who scored 59.

The Ramdin-Holder partnership contributed a hundred runs to the total. This time however the tail did not wag unlike the first innings. However one can't help thinking that, if the top 5 batsmen had had some decent partnerships or if one or two of the top order batsmen had gone on to make a century, West Indies could have come closer to the score of Australia. In fact they might well have beaten Australia because the pitch was excellent to bat on. 

It would have been interesting to see if Steve Smith would have made such a courageous declaration against a team like South Africa, India or England. Unfortunately West Indies has the talent but the talented players are just not playing the game. Where are the likes of Chris Gayle, Kieron Pollard, Andre Russel, Dwayne Bravo, Dwayne Smith etc. 

The West Indian selectors should be blamed for not picking the best 11. The selectors are just happy to see their Team lose. Although the popularity of cricket in West Indies has come down as compared to the 70s, even now they have enough quality players to create a very powerful cricket team.

For cricket, a strong West Indian side is very important. For decades West Indies cricketers have mesmerised cricket fans across the world. One can just hope that Jerome Taylor and Kemar Roach bowl better in the New Year Test match. The cricket loving fans across the world will love to see this West Indies beat Australia in Australia.

Better performance by West Indies in MCG Test.

This Morning West Indies played far better than what they did yesterday. The lower order batsmen of the Windies showed the regular batsmen how they should have batted. The last four West Indian batsmen added 188 runs to the total. Darren Bravo played way better today, he went on to score 81 and was the last man out. 

Debutant Carlos Brathwaite went on to compile a good 59 runs of 126 balls. The Birthwaite- Bravo partnership contributed 90 runs to the total. The next batsmen Roach , Taylor and Warrican contributed 22,15 and 11 runs respectively. West Indies reached a total of 271, had the upper order of the West Indian batting applied themselves like the lower order. The Windies could have reached 450+ runs. 

There was really no devil in the wicket it is a good wicket to bat on. The Aussies did not enforce the follow on inspite of having a 280 run lead. The Australians came back to bat in 32 overs they scored 179 runs for the loss of 3 wickets. 

The two West Indian strike bowlers Taylor and Roach were ineffective and went for quite a few runs. The wicket takers were captain Holder and debutant Brathwaite. Left arm spinner Warrican was not able to make any impact at all. Usman Khwaja hit a half century and captain Steve Smith who is in the form of his life hit another half century and he is currently batting at 70. It is very likely that he may get another century tomorrow. 

If the weather does not play spoilsport then another Aussie victory looks inevitable. However since Cricket is a game of glorious uncertainties anything can happen. West Indies will have to bat out of their skins to draw this Test Match. 

West Indies at MCG

West Indies, the cricket team that was once feared by all teams across the world, today is nowhere near its original glory. In the recent boxing day test math played at MCG, the West Indian bowling was so weak that it can take only 3 Australian wickets in one and half days. In 135 overs the Aussies easily scored 551. 

The West Indian bowling looked toothless. Jerome Taylor picket up two wickets, but the other fast bowler Kemar Roach, who is coming back after a soldier injury looked quite ineffective. He was down on pace and the Aussie batters were able to score of him pretty easily.

The only batsmen who missed out on the run feast was David Warner, unfortunately he was in too much hurry. All other batsmen helped themselves to century. If the Australians wanted they could have batted much longer and Steve Smith and Voges, who were unbeaten could have helped themselves to double or even triple centuries. However Steve Smith put his team's interest ahead of his own personal records and declared the innings. 

When the West Indians came to ball they started slowly but steadily. Off spinner Nathan Lyon got the first wicket. However after that carnage followed. The old ball started reverse swinging. As I have mentioned in my earlier article, reverse swing is now a major weapon of fast bowlers all around the world. Two beautiful reverse inswinging balls claimed the wickets of Chandrika and Marlon Samuels, on both occasions the bowler was James Pattinson. 

Blackwood was batting well. While on the other end Darren Bravo, who scored a century in the previous test match was stuck, he was not even working the balls in the gaps for singles. The pressue increased on Blackwood, when Nathan Lyon came back to bowl, he came down the track and hit the first ball for a six. However in the same over he tried the same again, this time he was not able to reach to the pitch of the ball and ended up giving an easy catch to Lyon. 

Peter Siddle came to bowl and he bowled one inswing ball to Ramdin's pads, which he flicked straight to the hands of the square leg fielder Joe Burns. West Indies's misfortune continued, their captain Holder was bowled in the next ball, it was a fast reverse swinging yorker. 

In a pitch which is supposed to be a belter West Indies at the end of second day are reeling at 91/6. Although West Indies has talented players, it is just not match to Australia at MCG. 

Evolving cricket skills - Reverse Swing

With time everything changes and improves. This is the law of life, the game of cricket is no exception. With time players have added new skills to their repertoire, to make themselves more and more effective. At times adding new skills has been a necessity for success. Reverse swing, the skill that has changed the art of fast bowling is one of them.

The art of reverse swing was invented by Pakistani fast bowler Sarfaraz Nawaz. He shared the secret with captain Imran Khan. They worked on it and became better at bowling reverse swing. The next generation of bowlers like Wasim Akram, Waqar Yunus, Aquib Javed, Sohaib Akhtar etc were brilliant at bowling reverse swing.

Wasim and Waqar had pace and they formed one of the best fast bowling pairs in the history of the game. All Pakistani bowlers were more lethal with the ball when it was around 30 overs old. That was the time when reverse swing started. The skill of reverse swing played a vital role in Pakistan winning many matches.

Now what is reverse swing and how it is bowled. When the game starts the red cricket ball is new the ball would swing towards the side where the seam of the ball is pointed. But as the game progresses the ball gets older and the swing of the ball reduces.

Swing also depends on weather. In cloudy and cold weather the ball swings more. When there is slight grass on the pitch the ball swings more. However in Pakistan the weather is mostly dry, the outfields were rough. The ball used to get scuffed up early. So the fast bowlers got very little traditional swing.



However it was observed that if one of the side of the ball was kept shiny and if you let the other side become rough naturally, after 30 overs or so. The ball would start deviating towards the shiny side of the ball, when it is bowled with good pace. This swing was very dangerous since it was late swing. It was exactly opposite to traditional swing since in case of traditional swing, the ball swings away from the shiny side, when it is bowled.

Reverse swing stayed for a long period of time as compared to traditional swing. Pakistan's victory in 1992 World Cup can be attributed to reverse swing, at one point of time England were cruising towards the Pakistani total. Wasim Akram came to bowl the ball was a little old and started reverse swinging, one ball swung in and Allan Lamb was clean bowled, the next ball swing the other way and Chris Lewis was clean bowled. England fell short of Pakistani total by 22 runs.

Later on other players from other countries got to know about the secret of reverse swing bowling and they started implementing it as well. India, Sri Lanka have similar conditions as Pakistan. The fast bowlers of this two countries and now excellent at reverse swing bowling. 

Today fast bowlers of all countries are able to ball reverse swing and it has become a major weapon of fast bowlers. The innovation of reverse swing went a long way in developing fast bowling in the Indian sub-continent. Without reverse swing fast bowling would have been played easily by the batsmen, considering the kind of pitches that we have in the subcontinent. 

Many such innovations have happened in the game of cricket. I will write about them in my future posts. 

South Africa's Performance In Recent Test Series Versus India

The best rated team in the world in Test cricket was completely floored in the just concluded Test series in India. South African batsmen had no idea how to counter Indian spin bowling on Indian pitches. In the last test match played in Delhi's Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium, where the pitch was not really a big time turner it seemed that the South African batters had lost the match in their minds even before the started batting. 

While India managed to score 334 runs in the first innings. South Africa struggled to score even 121 runs, they scored  6 runs less than what Ajinkya Rahane scored in the first innings. India managed to bat even better in the second innings and reached a score of 267/5 in the second innings, with captain Virat Kohli scoring a nice 88 and Rahane getting his second ton of the Test Match. Setting a difficult total of 481 runs for the Proteas.

The South Africans had more than 160 overs to try and achieve the target. But right from the onset the did not try at all to get the runs they were only focused on blocking the ball. So the game started becoming more and more dull. The first wicket went at 5 in the last ball of the 4th over. The next wicket went at a score of 49 in 42.4 overs. Throughout their entire innings the Proteas maintained a run rate of 1 run an over. Miserably slow by the standards of modern cricket and even in old days this rate of scoring would have been considered extremely boring.

Some of the best batsmen in the world like Hasim Amla and AB De Villiers also batted miserably slow. So slow that they created a world record of the slowest partnership(minimum 200 balls) in the history of the game. Amla and Devilliers partnership was of 27 runs in 41.5 overs. The next partnership between Faf Du Plessis and Devilliers was the second slowest in the history of the game Faf was finally floored by Jadeja, who had an extremely good series with the ball. 

The wicket of JP Duminy was taken quickly by Ashwin, but the Protea wicketkeeper Dane Vilas gave a strong resistance for the next 13 overs. Till tea it seemed like South Africa will manage to save the match but the game completely changed after Tea. Umesh got the wicket of Dane Villas and Ashwin go the wicket of De villiers, yes the same Abraham Bejamin De Villiers who scores at lightning pace scored only 43 runs in 297 balls, some of the boundaries he got were of the outside edge of the bat. 

The next three wickets fell fast and South Africa were all out for 143 runs. It would have been much better for Test Cricket had South Africa been more positive in their approach and scored faster. It would have been better for Test Cricket as well. From a cricket fan's point of view the performance of Hasim Amla and De villers was very disappointing to say the least. 

De villers and Amla did not do justice to the people who came to see them bat, even if South Africa had managed to salvage a draw, the game of cricket would have been the loser. The main problem was not in the pitch but in the minds of the South African batsmen. The horrors of the turning wickets of the previous three matches seems to be haunting their mind. 

There are times when teams do play for a draw. However even in those situations batting is positive and runs are scored at a much faster clip. The South African batsmen were even blocking balls that they could have hit for boundaries. 

Only that cricket team is capable of calling itself the best Test Team in the world which is capable of competing and winning Test Matches in all conditions anywhere in the world. The RSA performance in India proves that the Proteas currently do not deserve the title of the best Test Cricket Team in  the world.