India win by eight wickets

India took a 1-0 lead in their four match series against Australia earlier this week, winning the first Test in Chennai by eight wickets. It wasn’t a comprehensive win for India though and there are still things that both sides need to address.

For Australia, the obvious problem was spin bowling. It looked like a concern when they announced their squad and so it proved. The pitch was a very dry, turning surface but Nathan Lyon ended up with just 4-244 in the match and 3-215 in the first innings. On a surface where even Ravichandran Ashwin took 7-103 in the first innings, it was nowhere near good enough. The usual response is that Indian batsmen play spin well and that even Warne struggled in India, but a cursory glance at the figures for England’s spinners just a few months ago shows that such objections are rather outdated. This is where Australia must improve for the second Test, but the problem is that Lyon actually is their best spinner. Even if they want to play a second spinner in Hyderabad that spinner would appear to be Xavier Doherty, a man best known for having a Test bowling average over one hundred. (His exact figures are 3-306, for which he can largely thank Kevin Pietersen.) The only other options are Steve Smith and a pair of uncapped all-rounders who bowl spin. None of them would appear to be improvements, however. This is going to be an ongoing problem for Australia and unless they get more seam friendly wickets they are going to need Lyon to step up in the next three Tests.

India would be well advised not to think that a return to winning ways means that all their problems are solved, however. It was certainly a decent win and one in which they did a lot right. But they were helped by Australia playing poorly and there are issues at which to look. The obvious one is that their openers combined for just 37 runs in the entire match. Gautam Gambhir was dropped before the series started, but his replacement did not do any better and the man (well one of them) who should have been dropped, Virender Sehwag, had another poor Test. The middle order, and in particular MS Dhoni, utterly saved them. Four hundred and twelve of their 572 runs in the first innings were scored by three players and whilst that is far from a disaster it must be a bit disconcerting given that only Virat Kohli is really a long term option. Sachin Tendulkar’s days are numbered and not numbered very high whilst MS Dhoni can not be relied upon to consistently rescue his side. As long as Australia continue to struggle with the bowling this probably won’t be a huge problem for India, but they will be a lot happier if more of their batsmen contribute.

But as obvious as the imbalance in the results produced by their batting order is, their bowling is probably a bigger concern. The pitch in Chennai was a turner and after the result produced there it’s fair to expect the next three to be similar. But the Indian seamers did not take a single wicket in the match and Australia did put up 380 in the first innings. India are relying on the pitches actually turning as much as they want and on Australia not improving enough with the bat to negate this. Both are risky assumptions and the Indian spinners have not shown a lot of menace on pitches that have not been tailored to give them extra help. It would not take much to go wrong for India to find themselves looking at a big total.

There isn’t a lot of time for either side to do much ahead of the second Test. I expect that India will use the result as an excuse to go in unchanged, but Australia surely have to make at least one change and give themselves at least more spin options. It would not surprise me if they made two or three changes, perhaps bringing in both Smith and Doherty plus the usual rotation of a fast bowler.

MCC loses its mind over Steven Finn’s knee

The MCC today made an absolutely ridiculous decision to institute a law so that as of 1 October of this year if a bowler kicks the stumps in his run up it will be a no-ball. This is in response to the ongoing ‘problem’ of Steven Finn doing just that. But the affair has been blown wildly out of proportion and this new law is utterly misguided.

Finn is far from the first bowler to regularly to kick the stumps in his delivery stride and his habit of doing so is far from a new one. The issue only cropped up last summer when Graeme Smith claimed that it was a distraction. Whether or not that is true can never be known, though given the very large number of times it had already happened with no complaints from batsmen it seems rather unlikely. Still, Smith was within his rights to say it was a distraction and in that case he should pull out of the shot and the umpire should call dead ball. That is all well and good and as long as it all happens before or just as the ball is bowled there should be no problem.

But then the umpires and ICC mysteriously decided that despite Smith being in an overwhelming minority in finding the bails distracting, they were going to start calling kicking the stumps a dead ball almost every single time. Except sometimes they weren’t and they weren’t ever going to make it clear when they were or weren’t. What ought to have happened and what still ought to happen is nothing. If the batsman is distracted let him pull out, but otherwise play on. Given how often the resulting ball goes for four it seems they aren’t generally too put off. It is a simple solution to what is really an exceedingly minor issue. There is no need to penalise the batsmen certainly and if they are truly distracted they still have recourse. The matter need not go further.

It is good that the MCC decided to deal with the uncertainty surrounding the issue, but deciding to punish the bowler for committing no crime is insane. There is no advantage gained by the bowler in hitting the stumps; he is not releasing the ball unreasonably close to the batsman nor at an unreasonably large angle. If it is distracting then the batsman already has the means to ensure that no advantage is gained by the bowler. (And if the batsman truly is distracted, then that is a matter for a dead ball, not a no-ball. It is just like someone walking behind the sightscreen.) This is another law tilting the scales in even more in favour of the batsmen and with no rational justification at all.

One person who will be delighted at this is Smith. Never in his wildest dreams could he have hoped that his little bit of gamesmanship last August would be this effective.

It still isn’t Trott’s fault

New Zealand won the opening ODI by three wickets last night after England batted first and failed to put up a big score after being in a good position. As usual a lot of the blame for this has fallen on Jonathan Trott who is considered to have scored his runs too slowly. The contention is that by scoring slowly he puts too much pressure on the lower order to score more quickly and get the total up and that this time it cost England.

Trott scored 68 off ninety deliveries though, hardly glacial and was in fact England’s top-scorer. He is in the side to lay a platform for the explosive hitters in the tail and he did exactly that. The problem was not Trott, but that the lower order got out instead of getting quick runs. There’s no reason to think they were under undue pressure after Trott’s innings; Jos Buttler, for instance, has a List A strike rate of 120. He is going to score quickly regardless of the situation and the same is largely true of Eoin Morgan. Their role in the side is to accelerate late in the innings; this should not be a surprising or pressure situation for them. In fact one would not expect them to score quickly for 25-30 overs as they would have to if they came in without a platform. They would either get out or have to slow down. But England’s current tactics mean that they do not need to; they can play freely and score quickly for about ten overs after Trott, Bell and Cook have done their job. The reason England lost is because Morgan et al failed, not because Trott batted too well.

This is borne out by looking at England’s results over the past year and a half. England brought in this tactic about the time that Cook became ODI captain and what the people who blame Trott for England’s losses tend to forget is that England have actually been very successful in ODIs since then. Since the start of England’s home summer in 2011, England have had results in 35 ODIs. In the 28 in which Trott has played, England have 18 wins, nine losses and a tie. In the other seven England have won only three and lost four. The tactic of letting Trott lay a platform has been demonstrated to be a success; it is not why England lost the most recent ODI.

Australia win the Women’s World Cup

What has been a disappointing tournament for England finished with their winning the third place play-off (despite there not being a semi-final) on Friday and today the tournament itself concluded with Australia beating the West Indies in the final after the latter were bowled out well short of their target of 260.

It cannot be said that the best side did not win; Australia paced themselves well and the only match they lost was the dead rubber in the last round of the Super Sixes. The fact that they were able to shrug off the loss of Ellyse Perry was astounding and the only real wobble they had was against England in a match they subsequently won anyway. They now hold the ‘Triple Crown’ of the Ashes, the fifty-over World Cup and the T20 World Cup at least until the one-off Test in England later this summer.

England played well in spells during the tournament, but always seemed to be a little bit off the boil. Both of their losses were very narrow defeats (off the last ball against Sri Lanka and by two runs to Australia), but even in the matches they won it often seemed to be on the back of very good spells and in spite of periods of mediocrity. The biggest example of that was the bowling; they instigated early collapses several times in the tournament, but only once did they convert that into a properly low score. They let each of India, the West Indies and Australia off the hook and it cost them dearly against the Aussies.

The format was a very poor one and it certainly did not help England, but ultimately they have only themselves to blame for missing the chance to defend their title. As much as there should have been at least a semi-final round, England ought to have beat Sri Lanka in the first match and then ought to have beat Australia in the Super Sixes to make it to the final anyway. As it was, they were left hoping Australia did them a favour and it was not forthcoming. England simply did not play like a Champion side in the tournament and I think they can have no complaints about the finish.

England players in the IPL

Just a day after Matt Prior talked of England players being frustrated to miss out on the various T20 leagues around the world, the Professional Cricketer’s Association has said that England’s cricketers are ‘substantially underpaid’ and suggested they be compensated for missing out on T20 leagues. It is a stance to be expected; they are a union at the start of contract talks and if they didn’t say their clients should be paid more then they would hardly be doing their job. They may even be correct; I don’t know how much Cricket Australia, for instance, pay their players relative to the ECB.

But that only applies to the actual pay coming from the boards; the notion that the players be compensated for missing out on T20 leagues is ridiculous. There is no way to know on what sort of money, if any, England are missing out; even a cursory glance at the IPL salaries shows that there is no rhyme nor reason to how much the individual players make and it is nonsensical to try to compensate them for that. There is also the fact that England’s players are eligible to play in the IPL and indeed any T20 league that does not conflict with the international schedule. The most notable example is Kevin Pietersen, but there are several England players who have taken part in these events. They are considered less valuable because they have to play for England, but it is hardly an onerous requirement for the players to put the cricket for which they are centrally contracted ahead of foreign domestic events. Apart from anything else, the fact is that the players are compensated for not playing in the T20 leagues; their compensation is the opportunity to play for their countries. I am not so unrealistic as to think that should be their only motivation, but it certainly is enough to be compensation.

The frustrations of the players for missing out on the high-paying T20 leagues is understandable, but unavoidable. As I have pointed out before, there is simply no time for each of the various events to fit in the calendar and international cricket must come first. Just looking at the IPL, the BCCI are unwilling to compromise on the timing of the tournament (or anything else, for that matter) and there is no more room for the ECB to compromise. The England players are already allowed to play in half of the IPL, any more concessions from the ECB would not be compromise but surrender. Such a surrender would damage the ECB and very possibly cut into the players’ real salaries as certainly would negatively affect most or all other facets of the game in England and Wales. There is nothing for the ECB to gain by giving any more ground to the IPL and as disappointing and frustrating as that no doubt is to the players there is simply no getting around it.

The IPL issue is not going to go away, at least not as long as the BCCI remain intransigent and determined to run roughshod over everything which they do not control. But the conflict between the IPL and international schedule is their fault and not the fault of the ECB. If the PCA or individual players are unhappy about that conflict they ought to direct their complaints to the BCCI. As futile as it would be, it would make more sense than to lobby the ECB for an impossible change.

Final round of Super Six matches

The final round of matches at the Women’s World Cup takes place tonight with Australia already in the final and one of the West Indies, England or New Zealand still with a chance at joining them. The West Indies have the easiest path at the start as they have six points to the four of England and New Zealand. All they need to do is win. England and New Zealand play each other and they both would have to win that match, hope the West Indies lose and then hope that their NRR is better than that of the Windies. England are in the slightly better position in that regard as the White Ferns’ defeat in the previous match was large enough to send their NRR below that of England.

The matches, like the ones in the last round of the group stages, are not simultaneous. This is once again a major oversight by the ICC and tournament organisers and this time gives England and New Zealand a slight advantage. They will know at some point during their match what, if anything, they can do to get into the final.

(Note about numbers: from here the words ‘around’ and ‘roughly’ will be both common and quite important. Extreme scenarios, such as a team defending a total of 100 or taking all of fifty overs to chase such a total would push the NRRs a bit above or below the maxima or minima I give, but they are so unlikely and the differences so small I have rounded.)

The analysis is very simple if the West Indies win the match against Australia: the same two teams will meet in the final. If the West Indies lose, however, both England and New Zealand will look very carefully at the margin. The NRR for both teams will probably drop even with a win, but a very large victory for Australia, something in the neighbourhood of 45-50 runs or with 10-12 overs to spare (or more, in both cases) then the NRR of the West Indies will drop so low it will make the England v New Zealand match effectively a semi-final.

England and New Zealand won’t know their task until late, but they will both know at the start of the match that a high-scoring affair will suit them well. The West Indies’ NRR will not be more than about 0.900 even with a very narrow defeat and whilst the NRR’s of both England and New Zealand could drop well below that (to about 0.785 and 0.725, respectively) the higher the total score in their match is, the less the NRR will drop. For England, a first innings score of greater than 225 (for either them or New Zealand) should be enough to ensure that if they win and the West Indies lose it will be England playing Australia in the final. There is no (realistic) corresponding number for New Zealand, but their required margin of victory also drops the higher scoring the match is. It will still be around 30-35 runs at best, however.

England are in far from an ideal spot, needing help from the Aussies, but it is far from gloom and doom for them. All three teams will probably fancy their chances from here. In summary:

West Indies
Any win will put them in the final and a loss by more than about 45-50 runs or 10-12 overs will send their NRR so low that they will be out of the tournament. Anything between and they are cheering for New Zealand to win by a relatively narrow margin, certainly fewer than forty runs.

England
Need the West Indies to lose first and then need to beat New Zealand. If they score (or concede) more than about 225 in the first innings then any margin of victory will do, but for lower scores they may have to win by as many as 25-30 runs or five to eight overs, depending on how close the first match is.

New Zealand
Need the West Indies to lose and need to beat England, possibly by as many as forty runs or ten overs. If Australia win by a large enough margin, however, any win will do.

India drop Gambhir

India announced a 15-man squad for the first two Tests against Australia, apparently taking a leaf out of the tourists Ashes-preparation manual. The notable feature in it though is that Gautam Gambhir has been dropped and will play for India A instead. It’s not too surprising when one considers Gambhir’s overall form; he has not scored a Test century in over three years and even that was against Bangladesh. (Though he had hit two in three innings in Sri Lanka two months prior to that.)

But recently Gambhir has actually fared okay; he was the lone resistance against England in the second innings at Mumbai and went past fifty in the first innings at Calcutta as well. He finished the series with the second highest average of all India’s specialist batsmen, behind only Cheteshwar Pujara. Whilst that alone would not generally be enough to stay the axe, it is a bit surprising in the context of India’s general woes that it should be Gambhir who was dropped ahead of another. In particular, Virender Sehwag has been just as out of form and arguably looked worse against England. Sehwag has morphed into the very definition of a flat-track bully and has no answer to even slightly above average bowling. That doesn’t mean he won’t get runs at home against Australia, their bowling is so mercurial anything could happen, but of the two Indian openers he certainly looks less likely to make a recovery than Gambhir. And that’s just looking at the openers and saying nothing about a certain SR Tendulkar…

The other aspect of note in the squad is that Harbhajan Singh has been recalled as a third spinner, further underlining the lack of depth India have in the bowling at the moment. India tried many different options against England, including four in the Nagpur Test, and they had very little success as a group, even over the entire series. After looking at all those other options, the fact that Singh is still considered to be the third best spinner in India is quite damming. That said, Australia believe their second best spinner to be Xavier Doherty. For a series in India, the lack of quality spin options on both sides is very interesting; we might be in for some high-scoring matches.

This series may be the start of India’s rebuilding and dropping an underperforming batsman is certainly a step forward. But the Indian selectors have made a soft choice as to which batsman and the squad as a whole still leaves a lot to be desired. The series starts in under a fortnight and I suspect that if India don’t make some difficult decisions before then they will find themselves under a lot of pressure to do so shortly thereafter.

England in the Super Sixes

England resume their Women’s World Cup defence tonight/tomorrow morning when they play Australia the first of three matches in the Super Six stage. The top two teams in the Super Sixes go through to the final and England start out fourth on points/net run rate carried forward after Sri Lanka’s upset of India knocked the latter out. It’ll be a bit of an uphill task, therefore; England have very little room for error now.

England will play Australia, New Zealand and South Africa in this round; Australia are very much the form team and are the only one of the six in the second round to have carried forward maximum points. New Zealand also looked very strong in the group stage until losing to Australia, so the only match in which England will be comfortable favourites will likely be the second one against South Africa. This presents an obvious problem for England, but there is also the subtler problem that the West Indies and Sri Lanka, whilst certainly deserving of their spot in the second round, are going to be underdogs against Australia and New Zealand. (Though given that Sri Lanka have now won twice against heavily-favoured opposition they cannot be counted out.) Because England start out fourth, they will need to actually better the results of Australia and New Zealand. The upshot is that unless England get some help from one of the other Group A teams, they may have to win all three of their Super Six matches.

England looked sharp after their loss in the opening match and knocked off India and the West Indies without a great deal of difficulty, but there is still room for improvement and with Australia in ominous looking form they probably have to improve. Most notable even in their wins in Group A was how England seemed to let up with the ball during the middle overs. This is not uncommon in ODIs, of course, but after getting well on top of both India and the West Indies it was a bit troubling to see them start to let those teams back into the game. Especially in the win over India, the final margin was much closer than it ought to have been. If England manage to take early wickets against Australia they will need to be more aggressive; Australia bat deep enough that they can recover lost ground if they are given the chance. England also have the fitness of Katherine Brunt about which to worry. She came off in the middle of an over after turning her ankle against the West Indies. There’s been no news that I’ve seen concerning how well she has come back from that, but if she is not fit it will be a massive blow for England.

England may have a slight advantage with the match being played in Mumbai; they have already played two matches at the Brabourne Stadium and Australia have to fly over from Cuttack, where the conditions were rather different. The toss will likely be a big factor as well. The conditions in Mumbai have really favoured the bowlers in the early morning before flattening out in the afternoon and in each of England’s three matches the side batting first have got off to a poor start. It’s possible that this might have even been the difference between a win and a loss for England in the opening match. It is another early start against Australia and it is probably too much to hope that Australian captain Jodie Fields will make the same mistake that her West Indian counterpart did in batting first if she wins the toss, so England will very much be hoping for better luck after Charlotte Edwards lost all three tosses in the group stage.

The match against Australia is not quite a must-win affair for England, but to lose would end any realistic hopes of topping the group and throw them into a very open battle for the second spot where net run rate would likely come into play. The early loss against Sri Lanka may yet prove very costly.

South Africa win by 211 runs

As good as South Africa were (and take nothing away from them, Dale Steyn in particular was outstanding) Pakistan left a bit to be desired with the bat. They had given themselves an opportunity by bowling South Africa out relatively cheaply, but utterly squandered it and looked generally clueless for good measure. They went into the series with only one warmup match and without playing a Test in seaming conditions for two years and it showed. England were rightly criticised for not having enough warmup time before they were whitewashed by Pakistan in the UAE a year ago and now Pakistan have made that exact same mistake. With the South African bowlers already on song and very dangerous, Pakistan barely had a chance.

South Africa actually had a chance to enforce the follow-on, which is saying a lot after they were bowled out for 253. I think Graeme Smith was correct to do so though; South Africa had a lot of momentum it was true, but the lead was still ‘only’ two hundred. It’s pretty common now for teams to not enforce the follow-on when the lead is under 250 and even though this was a special case with the scores so small, I think the reasoning still applies. It’s doubtful that Pakistan would have put South Africa under any pressure, but it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility and there was plenty of time for South Africa to simply bat Pakistan out of the match, which they did. It’s easy to see it as another example of Smith’s inherent negativity, and strictly speaking it is, but I think in this case it was justified negativity and certainly it did not hurt his side’s chances.

Pakistan have a two day match against a Western Province Invitational XI ahead of the second Test and they must use it to get some time in the middle for their batsmen. They need to at least get comfortable enough in the conditions to make South Africa work for their wickets in the next two Tests. Pakistan’s bowers can cause damage to the South African batting order, but at least right now their batsmen don’t look like being able to back them up.

The Test was also much hyped as Smith’s hundredth as captain. Technically that is true, but one of those hundred Tests was the farcical ‘ICC Super Test’ from 2005. There is no conceivable justification for that match counting as an official Test and many do not count it at all. Being named captain of that side especially is nothing to celebrate; any member of the XI could have done so for all the difference it would have made. It was worlds away from the considered selection of a national Test captain and should be completely discounted along with the rest of the statistics from that waste of time.

What is particularly annoying about all the misplaced hype is that Smith’s true hundredth Test as captain is the second Test and will go all but unnoticed. Even if one thinks that the Super Test should count, the second Test is still Smith’s hundredth time captaining his country which is a major achievement and should get a lot more recognition than it will. Unfortunately, Cricket South Africa have spoiled the celebrations by staging them too soon.

Women’s World Cup group permutations

The final round of group matches in the Women’s World Cup are tonight and especially in Group A there is a lot for which to play. Unfortunately, the matches are not being played simultaneously. I criticised the tournament format in my preview and this is another poor decision by the organisers. India and Sri Lanka will now have the benefit of knowing the result of the England v West Indies match before their ends and that should not happen.

Those matches are in the more interesting Group A. Sri Lanka’s shock win over England means that all the teams in the group are level on two points and the only difference at the moment is Net Run Rate. (And in a quirk of statistics, since every team have both bowled and batted exactly 100 overs the NRRs are just the run differentials for each team divided by 100.) The West Indies’ crushing win over Sri Lanka wiped out their heavy defeat to India and then some, putting them top of the table with a NRR of +1.04. They’re followed by India and England on +0.73 and +0.26 respectively and Sri Lanka still sit at the foot of the table on -2.03.

The practical upshot of this is that whichever two teams win tonight are guaranteed to go through and whichever of the two losers has the best NRR will join them in the Super Sixes. All four teams could theoretically go out with a loss and the other result going against them, but the danger is greater for England in Sri Lanka than it is for India and the West Indies. In fact, the only realistic way for Sri Lanka to progress is to beat India. Any loss and their NRR is so bad that they will go out. It’s not, therefore, quite a must-win match for England. But if England don’t win then they will be relying on India in the late match because if India lose they would have to do so by a lot to end up with a worse NRR than England. For the same reason, a win for the West Indies will probably make India safe. The most likely way for them to go out is to lose to Sri Lanka and have the West Indies lose to England by a reasonable margin, though if they lose very heavily to Sri Lanka (by enough to send their NRR under that of England) they could go out even with a West Indies win. It’s quite unlikely though. The West Indies are the safest team at the moment; they would need to lose heavily to England and have India narrowly beaten by Sri Lanka to go out.

The other interesting aspect of the last round of matches in Group A is the points carried forward. If England beat the West Indies and Sri Lanka go out then England will actually carry forward maximum points despite their early defeat. The only other team capable of doing so is Sri Lanka and that is quite unlikely as it would require the West Indies to be eliminated. There is no way for India to advance, however, without having lost to one of the other teams to go through and it is very unlikely that the West Indies could do so either. They would have to beat England narrowly and have India lose very heavily to Sri Lanka to send India out.

In Group B things are much simpler. Australia and New Zealand are already through and the winner of the antipodean clash will carry maximum points forward to the Super Sixes. On form, one would actually expect the White Ferns to win; they have dominated their group matches so far whilst Australia have had minor scares against both of their opponents. But Australia have had the better of the recent head-to-head matches, so it should be a very interesting match.

The other match in the group is probably the more important though; Pakistan and South Africa will play each other for the last spot in the Super Sixes. I said in my preview that I though South Africa would pull off a minor upset and I still think that will be the case, but there is not a lot from which to choose between the sides.

My guess is that we will end up seeing England, the West Indies, India and South Africa join Australia and New Zealand in the next round, but there are some good looking matches and it should be very interesting.