India are almost there

The West Indies did not collapse as badly as they might have. They got to 180 and have thus set India 276 to win. It’s a fairly daunting total, but India have gone about it well so far. Sehwag hit his usual run-a-ball fifty before departing to a daft shot and Dravid and Tendulkar are both in the runs. At close they are 152-2 and things look pretty dire for the West Indies.

India need another 124 with eight wickets in hand, but if the Windies can get either Dravid or Tendulkar early on (a big ‘if’ especially for Dravid) they are still in with a shout. The only Indian batsman after Dravid who is in any kind of form is Dhoni, who made a duck in the first innings. It would take an epic collapse by India to lose this test, but it is not beyond the realm of possibility.

Minimum score?

It’s just gone lunchtime in Delhi and the West Indies are struggling with the score on 109-7 in their second innings. It’s a lead of 204, but even that is mostly down to some brilliant counterattacking from Chanderpaul. Still, they need more. At the start of the day I thought they would want about 250 to be favourites. Obviously that is well out of the question now, but they could theoretically defend a lower total than that. The pitch is slow and will take a lot of turn, and the Indian batsmen haven’t posted a good score in a Test match since scoring 364 in the first innings at Cape Town in January. Dravid is in the sort of form that he could almost chase down 200 by himself though. Obviously the Indian batsman play spin well, but they will have to keep their heads; something only Dravid did in the first innings.

All things considered, I can’t see the West Indies defending less than about 250. Certainly anything under 225 is very gettable for India. The West Indies need Chanderpaul to stay in as long as possible. For me, the magic number is 154. Once they get to that, India will have to chase 250 to win and that is never straightforward. On paper they have the batsmen to do it, but those batsmen have misfired all year. The West Indies bowlers have already performed very well to give them a vital first innings lead, but they’ll have to do so again to turn that into a victory.

Game on!

The West Indies managed to scrape past 300 this morning before sensationally bowling out India for just 209. Forget what I said about the Windies needing runs on the board to cope with India’s powerful middle order; the Indians look like they’re still in England! They were fortunate to start well. The openers put on 89, but the opening stand could have been broken long before it was; two edges fell short of the slips, one was dropped and Sehwag was bowled off a no-ball. This was evened out somewhat, as the first wicket was actually a bit unfortunate; Gambhir was run out backing up. After that wicket fell, however, the rest fell in a rush. Only Dravid (of course) resisted with the entire middle and lower order falling away cheaply.

India probably scored about what they deserved to score. Their strokeplay was as bad as it was in England four months ago. Sehwag played with his usual rashness and was fortunate to get to fifty, whilst Tendulkar, Laxman and Yuvraj Singh all flashed at wide deliveries and made just 31 between them. The Windies bowled decently and they maintained an attacking line, but India must now have some serious concerns about their batting. To fail in bowling conditions against the best attack in the world is one thing; to fail on a subcontinent pitch against a second rate attack is quite another.

As mentioned yesterday, India’s bowling looks a bit short as well. Today they opened the bowling with their two spinners! To be fair to Dhoni, it worked as they each picked up an early wicket, but what does it say about (and to) one’s seamers when neither of them can be trusted to open the bowling at a crucial period? India may yet win this match; it is doubtful that they will play so poorly when they come to bat again and they may not have too many to chase. Some in India must hope that they lose though. This is now a side with serious deficiencies and an overhaul looks increasingly needed. Very often the Indian board have used minor results to paper over the cracks in their side. If they lose to the West Indies, however, they may not be able to pretend all is well. A loss may be the best thing for India.

Last day of the series

The Pakistan v Sri Lanka series is shaping up for an exciting finish. Sri Lanka are 164-5 at stumps on the fourth day. (They ought to be six down, but a run out in the 52nd over was not given by the Third Umpire in odd circumstances.) Sri Lanka’s lead is 237 and they don’t have a lot of batting left. Sri Lanka will need at least fifty more runs to set up a declaration, but they won’t be able to score them very quickly with the tail. If Sri Lanka can set Pakistan 300 to win there should be about two sessions left and a draw would be the most likely result. Sri Lanka would probably want more than that, but they have to win the match to salvage a draw in the series. It makes for an interesting decision for Dilshan. I doubt that he will want to give Pakistan much less than 300 to chase, but anything more makes it very, very hard to force a victory. Sri Lanka may be able to get away with a more aggressive declaration since Pakistan have little to gain by chasing victory. An overnight declaration would be a statement of intent and make probably ensure some sort of positive result, albeit most likely a Pakistan victory. I would like to see Dilshan take that risk, since Sri Lanka have little to gain from a draw, but I don’t think that’s likely. Unfortunately I think Dilshan will probably bat deep and take the 0-1 defeat.

Indians v Windians

The West Indies have made the most of a mostly poor performance on the first day at Delhi, reaching stumps on 256-5. The West Indies won the toss and batted, with India handing caps to a pair of spinners, Pragyan Ojha and Ravichandran Ashwin. The Windies didn’t start well, slipping to 45-2, but a solid 63 from opener Kraigg Brathwaite kept the innings together and an unbeaten 111 from Shivnarine Chanderpaul ensured they weren’t embarrassed.

I say the Windies made the most of a poor performance because only two of their batsmen passed 20 (Carlton Baugh is 19 not out overnight). That said, the Indian bowling attack did not look at it’s best. They only played two seamers, neither of whom looked particularly incisive. All five of the wickets went to the two debutant spinners, which looks more like a result of the West Indian batmen not having experience playing spin on the subcontinent. The fact that Chanderpaul looked untroubled for his century bears this out. He is an excellent player of spin, and unless the Indian bowlers improve he could be in for a very prolific series. He will need support though. He had an incredible series in England in 2007, but the Windies still lost 0-3. It’s not clear from where that support may come however and with the Indian top order back to full strength the West Indies will have to come up with something to stand a chance.

Heartbreak

Not for me, mind, for Zimbabwe. My prediction of a heavy New Zealand victory looked good after the Kiwis took a big first innings lead. Vettori took five and Zimbabwe were bowled out for only 313. From a strong position, however, the Kiwis collapsed to 36-3 in their first innings and eventually declared on 252-8. I expect they will have wanted to lose fewer wickets, but it still set Zimbabwe a 366 to win, which looked like too much. New Zealand looked on top at stumps on day four, with Zimbabwe 61-2.

Zimbabwe played very well on the final day, however and needed just 101 more to win when the fourth wicket fell. That wicket was Taylor, however, who had scored 117 and put on over 100 with Taibu. Taibu, however, could not carry on to give his side a win. He got to 63, but with Vettori turning the ball out of the rough Taibu played a rash sweep and miscued it straight to midwicket. It was not the best of shots, and it put New Zealand on top. Zimbabwe fought and fought though. Ncube came in up the order (he batted at eleven in the first innings) and hit Vettori for a big six over midwicket. Zimbabwe just couldn’t quite do enough, however, and the superiority of the Kiwi bowlers finally started to tell and the rest of the tail collapsed. Zimbabwe were bowled out for 331 and lost by 34 runs.

Despite the loss, however, Zimbabwe should take heart from their performance. It’s never easy to get more than 300 in the fourth innings of a match, especially against a spinner of the quality of Vettori. New Zealand are certainly a better side on paper. They ought to have won, especially after taking a first innings lead of over 100 runs. The fact that Zimbabwe lost after being briefly 265-3 will be heartbreaking.

New Zealand, similarly, will have some worries after this match. They’re still a reasonably good ODI side, but the Test side have been slipping badly recently. They very seldom play Test matches anymore and they look a bit out of practise. They have two Test against Australia in December and they will definitely need to improve. They looked a bit flat on the last day when they were pushing for victory and I suspect part of that was due to not having played five days in quite some time. New Zealand is not a major cricketing nation, but they need to find a way to play decent Test cricket to maintain development for the future.

Fixing reactions

It’s been a pretty eventful week in cricket and there have been a lot of very good articles written, with not all of which I entirely agree. I’ve shared a lot of them on my Twitter feed, but I wanted to share them here as well. They are in no particular order:

A cleansing process Andrew Miller’s excellent piece on Cricinfo.

Here at last is the moment at which cheating for monetary gain stops being an in-joke, as acted out by jaded professionals with too many miles on the clock and too few years in which to capitalise on their athletic prime.

Why the spot-fixing scandal shouldn’t shake our faith in cricket Lizzy Ammon in the Mirror wrote a lovely article about why Sangakkara’s Spirit of Cricket speech at the MCC last summer should be remembered in the wake of the spot-fixing verdict.

Cricket must fight to regain its reputation, it’s still a game with a great deal of integrity and even more amount of beauty populated mostly with talented, polite, passionate, respectful players and officials – we really do have to try and remember that.

Does our society breed corrupt sportsmen? Harsha Bhogle writes on Cricinfo about the effect of culture on corruption in sport. Though I disagree with his statement that similar crimes by politicians would not be reported. The MPs expenses scandal has shown otherwise. ‘But sportsmen come from the same society as everyone else. Among sportsmen are the noble, the diligent and the caring, as there are the callous, the cheats and the criminals.’

The loss of innocence The BBC’s Adam Mountford has a much more pessimistic look at the proceedings which, I confess, is closer to my mood.

For me it is this loss of innocence which is one of the saddest aspects of this whole story. What I love about sport is the drama and the unpredictability. When I turn up at a cricket match I love the feeling that anything can happen that day.

Match-fixing: Where it all began Andy Zaltzman has his usual cleverly amusing take on the origins of match-fixing.

The best place to start might be with this game: USA v Canada in 1844, the first-ever international cricket match. It was a suspiciously low-scoring game, in which no batsman scored more than 14, and the USA, cruising to victory at 25 for 0 in pursuit of 82 to win in the fourth innings, lost all 10 wickets for 33.

A strong deterrent After the guilty verdict, but before the sentences were handed down, Nasser Hussain blogged about why this sent a clear message to potential fixers. I’m not sure jail time does this more than a lengthy ban, but I agree with the sentiment.

If the reward for fixing outweighs the risk of being caught, then there will always be those willing to chance their arm – particularly if they are not getting paid much by their cricket board.

As a final note: Whilst Kumar Sangakkara’s moving speech at Lord’s is an excellent reminder of what is great about cricket, The Duckworth Lewis Method‘s lone album has a similar effect. I’ve had it on a loop for most of the last few days.

Pakistani cricket

At stumps on the first day of the Pakistan v Sri Lanka Test Sri Lanka are 245-2. It’s not been a good day for Pakistan, but the scoreline is not the worst of their problems. The ICC have been given access to all the evidence collected by the CPS with regard to the spot-fixing case and are now looking into Pakistan’s matches before the scandal broke. It’s impossible to know what they will find, of course. It may be that all of the allegations are groundless. Any cricket fan will be desperately hoping that is the case, but it does beg the question of what to do if it’s not.

If it transpires that most or all of Pakistan’s matches are suspect and that there is a culture of fixing in the Pakistan side, as have been alleged, what could be done? It would be a problem far too deep to simply eradicate with bans, or the threats thereof. It would not be feasible to throw Pakistan out of cricket until they get their house in order, but on the other hand how could anyone watch them play with any confidence? The one saving grace is that most of the current side are different from the one that toured England, but if the corruption is set into the administration that would count for little in the long run.

Of all the things that have come out in the trial (including the desperately sad testimony by Amir about his pride of playing for Pakistan) this is, for me, the saddest. There does not seem to be any good outcome that is reasonably likely. The best that could happen is that the ICC finds no evidence of further corruption. It doesn’t look likely, but for now we have to keep our fingers crossed.

It’s a fair cop

The sentences in the spot-fixing trial were handed down today. Majeed is to be imprisoned for two years and eight months, Butt for two years and six months, Asif for one year and Amir for six months. Half of the sentences are suspended in each case.

I’ve stated earlier that I didn’t want to see long prison sentences, but I think these are fair. I’d have rather liked to see Amir avoid any jail time at all, though. The judge did make it clear that he considered the effect of the bans already handed down, but they were complicit in fraud. The impression I got from reading the judge’s statement was that the sentences were mainly for the fact that they did defraud bettors, and less for the disrepute brought onto cricket.

This is, I think, the correct course of action. It is not right that players be punished in a criminal court for cheating alone, that is a job for the governing body of the sport. Since the cheating in this case amounts to theft, however, it is reasonable that they be prosecuted for such. Since the prosecution focused on the no-balls and the judge could not determine the extent of the money that was defrauded, these seem like fair sentences. Going into the trial, I had hoped for less, but the judge laid out his reasons quite clearly and took the pleas and earlier bans into account. One can’t say fairer than that, and I doubt the players themselves could have too many complaints.

1-0 the Windies

The West Indies beat Bangladesh this morning by 229 runs to win the series 1-0. It very easily could have been a 1-1 draw, had it not been for the poor outfield drainage in the first Test, though with Bangladesh it cannot be assumed that they would have converted a strong position into a victory. The West Indies continue to look rather mercurial, but generally improving somewhat. Last spring they beat Pakistan in a Test match and did not embarrass themselves against an admittedly reduced Indian side. Then they came to Bangladesh and played very poorly in the first Test. They probably ought to have lost, but only three days of play were possible. Coming on the heels of being bowled out for 61 in ODI, it looked pretty grim for the second Test, but they came back well. They twice bowled Bangladesh out for under 300, and the Bangladeshis strength is their batting. Their captain, Mushfiqur Rahim, was unimpressed with his side’s collapse on the final day, however.

The West Indies now go across the border for three Tests against an Indian side presumably still reeling from their 0-4 tonking in England. The way the Windies have played against Bangladesh they will be clear second favourites. The way India played against England may cast some doubt on that, but a more rested side at home should see off the Windies comfortably. Two-nil, I’d say.