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.   

South Africa's first Three Tests in India.

South Africa came to India with a reputation of being ranked No.1 Test team in the world. Now if a team likes to call itself No. 1, then they should be able to do well in all conditions anywhere in the world. South Africa does have a good batting line up and they also have the best batsman in world cricket today, AB De villiers. Their bowling is very powerful as well, lead by the likes of Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and young Rabada. They also have a good spin bowler who is more of an import from Pakistan, Imran Tahir, he became South African by marrying a South African national. 

However their batsmen lack one very vital batting skill, playing high quality spin bowling on turning tracks. Most of the South African batsmen are used to playing in India and know the conditions well since most of them play in the IPL for different franchisees. However that has not been enough to improve their batting skills against spin bowling, probably because IPL comprises of T20 cricket which is a different cup of tea as compared to Test Match Cricket. 

So in India the world no.1 Test team got turning tracks in the first 3 test matches that they played. In the first test match they failed to play the spin of R. Ashwin and and Ravindra Jadeja. Remember that Ravindra Jadeja is a batsman who bowls and not the other way round, but on a turning track they were unable to cope with the left arm spin bowling of Jadeja and batted badly in both Innings. India won the match although India's batting was not that great either. 

In the second Banglore Test the entire South African team was out in the first day of the Test match.  Indian's were batting well at the end of the first day. However the weather played spoilsport. It rained for the next 4 days and the match ended in a draw, with Jadeja again picking up 5 wickets. 

In the third test played in Nagpur again in the first innings the Indian team was all out for 215 runs in the first innings. However the South Africans were to give their worst ever batting performance against India, the entire team was all out for a mere 79 runs, gifting India a 136 runs lead. India again did not score a lot of runs in the bowler friendly wicket and was all out for 177 runs.

The South African reply in the last innings of the 3rd Test match was much better however they had no answer to Ashwin's turn as the entire South African Team was all out for 188, thus handing over a comfortable 124 runs victory to India. 

Many people criticized the pitch. However one must realize that it is Test Match Cricket and South Africa simply failed the test against playing spinners on a turning track. In South Africa, India were always given hard, bouncy, swinging wickets and India played better than what South Africa did in India in this series. 

For the last 9 years South Africa had not lost any Test series overseas. India has now ended their streak. 

South Africa vs India 3rd One Day International, Rajkot

The third one day match was played between India and South Africa in the city of Rajkot. The stadium is relatively new and it is only the second one day international that it was hosting. The pitch was expected to be a good batting wicket. 

India lost the toss and AB Devilliers chose to bat first. The visitors went off to an excellent start, in the first 5 overs they amassed 30 runs and their score at the end of 10 overs was 59. In this match big hitter David Miller was sent to open the match, he did a fair job as an opener scoring 33 runs of 41 balls. However the pitch was assisting Harbhajan's spin bowling, so Miller tried to get after his bowling, he came down the track to one of bhajji's offspinner, he was beaten in flight, the ball took the outer edge of his bat and it went flying to the short third man where Rahane took a brilliant diving catch to dismiss him. 

After this Amla came to bat the Indian bowlers did well to contain him he scored only 5 of 15 balls and then ended up getting stumped smartly by Dhoni off the bowling of Amit Mishra. After that Faf du Plessis came into bat , de Cock and du Plessis formed an excellent partnership of 117 runs, in that partnership du Plessis did get caught but on checking with the third umpire it turned out to be a no ball. 

At this point South Africa lost two more wickets in the 40th over and over number 40.1, centurion Clint De Cock was run out and that gagged the scoring rate, in the 49th and the 50th over there were one six each hit by Steyn and Behardin because of which South Africa were able to reach a total of 270. At that point Dhoni would have been more than satisfied with the job done by his bowlers. 

When India batted they managed to keep wicket in hands and were off to a steady start. Dhawan was not in the best of forms and he struggled in his stay at the crease scoring 13 of 29 balls. When he got out the score was 41, Kohli came at number 3, he played an innings in which his rate of scoring was rather slow. India did manage to reach a total of 113 runs in 23overs, at this point India lost the wicket of Rohit Sharma to Dumini's bowling and this turned out to be the turning point of the match. 

Dhoni came in to bat, however at this point India's scoring rate really slowed down. Dhoni and Virat are recognised as two of the best one day batters who score runs briskly but their partnership was very slow which made the job of the following batsmen very very difficult. The partnership was of just a mere 80 runs in 113 balls. After the fall of Dhoni's wicket, Raina came in tried to go after the bowling from the second ball, but ended up giving an easy catch to the long off fielder. Very soon in an attempt to speed up the scoring Virat and Rahane got out in consecutive balls. 

Axar and Harbhajan tried their best, scored briskly. However their scoring rate was not fast enough to to overcome the South African total. Although Axar hit the last ball for a six. India ended up losing the match by 18 runs. 

Such unprofessional batting was not expected of experience players of the calibre of Dhoni and Kohli it is period between 30 th and 40 th over where India scored the runs slowly that India lost the match. Had a few more risks been taken then, India would have managed to surpass South African total. Although India lost 6 wickets, India still had players like Bhuvaneshwar Kumar and Amit Mishra who are capable of batting. 

As an Indian cricket fan it felt very bad to see the team lose the way it did.