IPL 2018 – Top 5 facts about Sunrisers Hyderabad new Captain Kane Williamson

Earlier this week, David Warner stepped down as the captain of Sunrisers Hyderabad for IPL 2018. Australia Cricket has decided to ban him and Steve Smith for 1 year. It was time for Sunrisers Hyderabad to pick a new captain for this season, and it was none other than New Zealand’s skipper Kane Williamson. Let’s

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David Warner breaks his silence for the first time following the ball-tampering scandal

David Warner has arrived home in Sydney, breaking his silence on Australia’s ball-tampering saga with an apology via social media before promising to talk more in coming days. Comforted by his wife Candice and intent on getting his two young daughters to bed, Warner stopped briefly to talk to journalists upon his near-midnight arrival at

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Cricket fraternity reacts to a tearful Steve Smith press conference in Sydney

Things came to a standstill, as a tearful and inconsolable Steve Smith faced up to the press post his disgraceful return from South Africa, after the ball-tampering scandal in the Cape Town Test. Steve Smith and David Warner have been given 12 months ban, while Cameron Bancroft received a nine-month ban from Cricket Australia. During

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Highly emotional Steve Smith breaks down in tears during a press conference in Sydney

Cricket Australia took a bold decision to ban both Steve Smith and David Warner for a one-year period on Wednesday. Smith, who landed in Australia on Thursday from South Africa, attended the press conference in Sydney to say his side of the story. Smith was visibly highly emotional at the press conference, starting his statement

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IPL 2018: Kane Williamson appointed as Sunrisers Hyderabad captain

New Zealand batsman Kane Williamson has been appointed as the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) captain for the upcoming season of the Indian Premier League (IPL). Williamson has been named captain after David Warner resigned as captain following his involvement in the ball tampering scandal in South Africa. Consequently, he was also banned from participating in the

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Alyssa Healy hits back at Sanjay Manjrekar for questioning Australian women’s sportsmanship spirit

Australian women’s wicketkeeper Alyssa Healy has reacted furiously to former Indian cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar’s tweet, claiming that female Aussie cricketers for some reason don’t really appreciate the performances of their opponents. Amidst the infamous ball-tampering controversy involving Australian men’s team, Manjrekar took to the micro-blogging site Twitter on Wednesday and posted a lengthy message to

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Smriti Mandhana debut in Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list

Indian women cricket team’s star player Smriti Mandhana featured in Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2018 list on Tuesday. In total four Indians are on the list of ‘Entertainment & Sports’ category, with the other three being Bollywood actress Anushka Sharma, Badminton ace PV Sindhu and Indian national Polo team captain Padmanabh Singh. Smriti Mandhana

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Twitter reacts as Cricket Australia banned Steve Smith and David Warner for 12 months

Steve Smith and David Warner have been banned for 12 months and Cameron Bancroft for 9 months from playing ‘elite’ cricket following the ball-tampering scandal. However, they can continue to play Grade Cricket, but the trio will be required to undertake 100 hours of voluntary service in community cricket. Apart from the ban neither Smith

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Steve Smith, David Warner out of IPL 2018 after 1 year ban by Cricket Australia

Steve Smith and David Warner have been handed one-year ban by Cricket Australia (CA) following the ball-tampering incident that took place during the Capetown Test. Following CA’s announcement BCCI acting secretary, Amitabh Choudhary has confirmed that both Smith and Warner will not be a part of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2018. Also, IPL Chairman,

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Steve Smith and David Warner banned for 1 year, Cameron Bancroft for 9 months

Steve Smith and David Warner have been imposed with heavy sanctions by Cricket Australia who have decided to hand them a one-year ban. Opening batsman Cameron Bancroft who was caught tampering with the ball during the 3rd Test against South Africa has been handed a nine-month ban, a per the reports as in ESPN Cricinfo.

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The Demon’s Inheritors

JJ Ferris has the second best bowling average in history, paying a mere 12.70 runs each for his 61 Test wickets. He is still second in the list if the 13 cheap wickets he picked up in his one Test for England are disregarded and his record stands simply on his eight Tests for Australia against England.

Charlie ‘Terror’ Turner is sixth in that list, all 101 of his wickets coming in 17 Tests for Australia against England, at a cost of 16.53. Ferris has the second best strike rate as well, or seventh if that England performance is left out of account. The Terror is further down that list, but 41^st over the entire span of Test cricket is still impressive.

In all of Ferris’ Tests for Australia he partnered Turner, so a successful pairing to say the least. It seems remarkable that of those eight matches Australia won just one, and lost all of the other seven. In Turner’s nine Tests without Ferris Australia did better, winning three, but they still lost four.

Another curious feature of the pair is their longevity, or rather lack of it. In an era when cricket careers were generally much longer than they are today Turner played his last Test at 32. As for Ferris he was only 23 when he played his last Test for Australia, and still not 25 when he made that sole appearance for England against South Africa.

Both men were New South Welshmen and worked as bank clerks, although their backgrounds were geographically rather different. The Ferris family had migrated from Ireland after the potato famine that caused havoc there in the late 1840s. When the cricket season of 1886/87 dawned Ferris was 19 and yet to make his First Class debut.

Turner’s forebears came from England, and had left the British Islands a few years earlier than those of Ferris. Turner was 24 at the beginning of the 1886/87 summer and had made his First Class bow four years before that, for New South Wales against Ivo Bligh’s England. Bligh’s side defeated New South Wales by an innings and 144. The debutant took a solitary wicket at a cost of 76 runs. His victim was George Vernon, the Englishmen’s number ten and the last man dismissed. In the intervening three years he had appeared in three more First Class fixtures conceding 62 more runs. He didn’t take a single wicket.

On 19 November 1886 New South Wales began a match against Alfred Shaw’s XI, a side organised by the veteran Nottinghamshire bowler and captained by his teammate, the great professional batsman Arthur Shrewsbury. Later in the tour Shaw’s men were scheduled to play Australia twice, and those matches were the 25^th and 26^th Tests. Faced by an opening attack comprising a debutant and a man with one wicket for 138 in four years the tourists must have been confident.

So what sort of bowlers were these men? Turner was about 5’9’’ in height and weighed about 12 stone, so he must have been a stocky and powerful figure. He was a right arm finger spinner, and was clocked at 55mph in 1888. It would be interesting to know exactly what methodology was used. There is a fairly detailed explanation in Turner’s 1926 book The Quest For Bowlers, but sadly the key item is referred to simply as a delicate machine. It seems certain however that the famous soubriquet was not descriptive of the pace at which Turner bowled.

Some modern sources describe Turner as fast medium, but 55mph does not a fast medium bowler make. Wisden described his pace as above medium, and HS Altham in his History of Cricket, published in 1926, as medium. Both sources were agreed on his pace off the pitch, the fabled heavy ball. The Almanack, unusually effusive, wrote of a fine break from the off and a wonderful yorker. There is, of course, no film record.

Photographs suggest that Ferris was about the same height as Turner, but slimmer. He was a left armer and as a consequence spun the ball in the opposite direction to Turner, although he had a highly effective arm ball. He seems to have been considered slower than Turner and in describing his action CB Fry talked of something uncommon in the flight, a phrase Max Bonnell chose for the title of his biography of Ferris. CB went on to further explain his comment as referring to a tendency for the Ferris delivery to dip at the end of its flight, as it was almost upon the batsman.

Prior to 19 November there had been a couple of matches against odds and, by the standards of the time, a high scoring draw against Victoria. The substandard wicket at the SCG (then known as the Association Ground) notwithstanding Shaw’s men would not have been expecting, on winning the toss and choosing to bat, to be dismissed for 74 in little more than a couple of hours by a pair of unknown bowlers. That is exactly what happened however. Ferris took 4-50 and Turner 6-20. Between them they bowled all but two of the overs.

In their second innings the Englishmen did a little better, bowled out for 98. This time Turner and Ferris got a total of six overs rest. Turner took 7-34 and Ferris 3-49. New South Wales got home by 6 wickets. In a rematch three weeks later Shaw’s side triumphed by nine wickets, but all eleven English wickets that fell belonged to Turner (8-80) and Ferris (3-81).

Turner and Ferris maintained their form through two games against Victoria and both deserved selection for the first of the two Tests back at home at Sydney. The start was even more sensational than that of 19 November. This time it took less than two hours to dispatch the tourists, who were all out for 45. Turner and Ferris bowled through unchanged, 6-15 and 4-27 respectively. It did not however prove to be enough as the English professionals restricted the lead to 74, and then scored 184. Turner was a little out of sorts and took only two wickets. Ferris had 5-76 but their batsmen couldn’t quite carry Australia home. The second Test was more comfortable for the visitors who ran out winners by 71 runs, but there were nine wickets each for Ferris and Turner. They bowled 145 four ball overs between them. The three support bowlers contributed just 27.

Two English sides toured Australia in 1887/88, one led by Arthur Shrewsbury and the other by George Vernon. In early February the two sides combined and what has become classified as a Test match played. The pattern was the same as the previous year, the home side’s batsmen not scoring enough runs to complement the efforts of Turner (12-85) and Ferris (6-103).

In 1888 Turner and Ferris came to England with the side led by Percy McDonnell. There were three Tests scheduled, all of three days duration. In the event none of the matches went to a third day. Australia won the first and England the second and third to take the series. The wickets were poor, as a quick look at the scoring amply demonstrates. Of the ten completed innings in the series (both of England’s successes were by an innings) as many as seven resulted in all out totals of 100 or less.

There was a great deal of work for Turner and Ferris on the tour as a whole. Of the 40 matches Ferris played in them all, and Turner missed only one. For Turner there were 314 wickets at 11.38, and for Ferris 220 at 14.23. The next highest wicket taker was Harry Trott with 48. The 1889 Wisden was the first to carry a photographic plate. The feature Six Great Bowlers was the reason. There were five separate images, the central one being of Turner and Ferris, the only time one of the many great pairings in the game have been treated in that way by the Almanack.

Australia, with their two spearheads, were back in England two years later. The third of the three Tests, at Old Trafford, does not appear in the record books because it was washed out without a ball being bowled. The two Tests that did start were both won by England. This time there were 37 matches, and Ferris and Turner were each allowed to miss two. Their dominance was not much diminished, both managing 215 wickets. Turner paid marginally less for his, 12.15 as opposed to 13.43 by Ferris. This time the next highest wicket taker was the 23 year old coming man, Hugh Trumble, who took 53 wickets in 25 matches. In the two Tests Ferris was as impressive as ever, with 13 wickets at 13.15. Turner was rather subdued in comparison, his six wickets costing 26.50 runs apiece.

The 1890 tour was the last visit by an Australian team to England for three years and by the time Jack Blackham’s 1893 side arrived Ferris was no longer available. On his first trip to England in 1888 Gloucestershire had shown an interest in recruiting Ferris as a professional. It seems they finally managed to persuade him to join them during the 1890 tour. In those days in order to be eligible to play in the County Championship a player had to have lived in a county for at least two years, although it seems the requirement was not always rigorously enforced.

Ferris did return to Australia after the 1890 visit and played against South Australia and Victoria in December, taking 20 wickets, before setting off for England in January 1891. After a seven week sea voyage he arrived, and it seems no one objected to his being treated as having been resident in his adopted county since June 1890. In any event his Championship debut came in June 1892.

In the meantime there was the summer of 1891 during which Ferris had to occupy himself. He took a job with a firm of Bristol stockbrokers, although he still managed to play 25 cricket matches for ten different teams and, in fact, had the most successful of his five summers in England with the ball. He took 70 wickets at 15.57. If that were not enough time off from his work he then spent three months with a private tour of South Africa captained by Walter Read of Surrey, one of only three men in the party to have played for England against Australia. Another team, led by Grace, was actually in Australia and playing Tests at the same time, and Read’s combination was in no way representative of the strength of English cricket. That does not however alter the fact that the penultimate match of the tour, eleven a side and scheduled for three days, now has Test status. Ferris took 13/91 as the Englishmen overwhelmed their hosts by an innings and 189 runs.

Gloucestershire must have been excited by the reports that got back to them about the form of their star signing. On the tour as a whole he took more than 200 wickets at an average of around six. Read described him as the mainstay of his team but the truth is the tourists were victims of their own success, the matches generally being so one-sided that very few spectators bothered to turn up and financially the tour was a failure.

Back in Gloucestershire Ferris’ first season was not a great success. He started it with a first ball duck and ended with 46 wickets at around 24.10 and the county won just once and ended the summer seventh of the nine sides in the Championship. One aspect of the Ferris game that did improve in 1892 was his batting. He had never been an out and out rabbit but a couple of half centuries was the mark of a man capable of a handy innings or two rather than a genuine all-rounder. In England he definitely got better and in 1893 scored 1,000 runs including five half centuries and, with 106 against Sussex, his only First Class century. The other side of the coin was 53 wickets at almost thirty runs each.

The batting improvement in 1893 was not sustained the following summer and whilst with the ball Ferris shaved as many as eight points off his average he was not given the ball anything like as much and his haul of wickets fell to 44. In the 1895 season Ferris turned 28, and should have been in his prime, but instead he suffered a finger injury early on and never produced much in the way of form. The county decided not to renew his contract and he returned to Australia. Wisden was blunt in the extreme writing that he proved an utter failure ……. he had lost his pace, his spin, his action and everything.

Back in Australia Ferris continued to play cricket, and there were three more First Class appearances, but although he did score 51 in the last of them there were only two wickets and he was not persevered with.

In July 1899 Ferris set sail for South Africa. History does not record why but Bonnell is confident that he was simply looking for a new start and new opportunities. In the end he signed up for the South African Light Horse, a volunteer corps, in February 1900. In October he left his military service and went back to civilian life in Durban. As the Light Horse was not part of the regular army few records were kept and of those that were few survive. It is clear from what there is that Ferris did see some action in the Boer War but, on the other side of the coin, that he was discharged ignominiously. Just what his transgression was is not clear.

A few short weeks later JJ Ferris was no more. Over the years the cause of his death has been told and retold as being enteric fever, or typhoid. It is a disease generally contracted through dirty water, and in the Boer War more British casualties succumbed to that than did to the fighting so it was certainly an entirely credible explanation. It is not however one that is accepted by Bonnell. Contemporary reports state that, effectively, a healthy looking Ferris went out, got on a tram and keeled over. He could not have been suffering from enteric fever. He might, like his father before him, have suffered an aneurysm or, opines Bonnell, may have taken his own life. A Reuters cable referred to Ferris having died suddenly, a common euphemism of the time for suicide.

Turner never looked as good again as in his early years, but he did play nine more times for Australia after Ferris decided to throw in his lot with Gloucestershire. He was therefore, like Ferris with Read’s side, also playing Test cricket in 1891/92, against Grace’s side, and he came back to England for a third visit in 1893 before playing a part in the 1894/95 series, aptly described by David Frith as the first great Ashes series.

The 1891/92 tour has an interesting background. Australia was in the grip of a recession and interest in cricket, following the defeats in 1888 and 1890, was not high. A benefactor, Lord Sheffield, stepped in at huge personal cost. He paid Grace an eye watering £3,000, the equivalent of around £350,000 today, as well as making generous provision for the expenses of himself and his family. Grace’s was a strong side and won the third Test by the massive margin of an innings and 230 runs. Australia had however won the first two Tests and therefore took the series. Turner took 16 wickets at 21.12 and was Australia’s leading bowler.

The 1893 tour was not a happy one. Performances on the field were poor and the one decided Test of the three match series was won by England. That it wasn’t 2-0 to England was, unusually, largely down to Turner the batsman. Had he not, despite being in pain from a dislocated finger that WG had had to put back in place for him, hung around for 27 runs in a last wicket partnership of 36 in his side’s second innings England would have had the time they needed to force a win. With the ball no longer was Turner his side’s best bowler in the Tests, and he had a relatively modest haul of 11 wickets at 28.63. His figures on the tour as a whole were still impressive enough, but in the Tests he was bested by George Giffen, a man of whom he was never to have a high opinion. The Terror considered Giffen to be a selfish player.

Following the 1893 tour Turner might have joined Ferris in county cricket. He received an offer of a five year deal at Sussex, which he was prepared to accept. In the event however Lord Sheffield, the county President, was not prepared to commit the funds needed to make the deal work. So Turner had to return to the depressed New South Wales economy where, the bank at which he had previously been employed having ceased trading, he set himself up in business as a ‘general merchant’

Turner took his place in the Australian team for the first Test against Drewy Stoddart’s England side of 1894/95. This was the first and, until an Ian Botham inspired England at Headingley in 1981 repeated the feat, only Test in which a side following on has coming come back to win. Turner took only three wickets, so could certainly have done better. England went 2-0 up in the second Test. It was almost like the old days as Turner took 5-32 in an England first innings total of just 75, but the visitors came back strongly and won again. Injury kept Turner out of the third Test, won by Australia, but was back for their handsome innings victory in the fourth. England were shot out for 65 and 72. Turner took 3-18 and 4-33.

Remarkably Turner was left out of the side for the final Test, one of the great selectorial blunders as Australia’s bowlers allowed England to chase down a fourth innings target of 298, at that time the largest ever achieved by a distance, for the loss of just four wickets. The decision to leave Turner out was ultimately down to skipper Giffen who clearly let personal antipathy get in the way of what was best for the side. Turner was furious and immediately announced his retirement from Test cricket.

As with many such situations the passage of time soothed injured feelings and Turner might well have continued his Test career with a final trip to England in 1896. He was called up at the last minute and accepted the offer but in the end he didn’t go, citing an inability to cover his business commitments at such short notice. That may well have been a factor, but also at work no doubt was a substantial debt to Shaw and Shrewsbury. They had provided him with a stock of equipment after discussions on the 1893 tour, but the supply of cricket equipment was not a business that went well for Turner and he had not been able to pay for all the stock.

Whether Turner would have made any impact in 1896 must be questionable. He was only 34, but had had a modest season by his own standards in 1895/96 and the following season, his last, he managed just three wickets at 72 runs each in his four matches. The only other First Class match he played was 13 years later, his own testimonial match.

Although life after cricket was kinder to Turner than it was to Ferris he certainly struggled in business. In difficult times he was unable to keep out of debt and was taken to court over small debts more than once in the late 1890s. Eventually he threw in the towel and in 1907 went back into banking, and spent another 24 years there until, in 1931 when he was 68, his employer’s retirement policy brought that to an end. Turner did some writing, and also appeared in radio broadcasts talking about cricket. He had a decent run at retirement as well, living on until New Year’s Day 1944 when he died in Manly Hospital of what was quaintly and unattractively described as senile decay – he was 82.

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IPL 2018: Ranveer Singh, Tamannaah and Jacqueline Fernandez among Bollywood stars to perform at the opening ceremony

The IPL opening ceremony has over the years been one of the most spectacular extravaganzas where cricket meets entertainment and it will be no different this year either as the likes of Ranveer Singh, Tamannaah Bhatia and Jacqueline Fernandez among others will enthrall the fans with their performance in the 45-minute show that has been

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England’s star wicketkeeper Sarah Taylor wins heart of her fan on his birthday

England’s women cricketer Sarah Taylor is a well-known name in International cricket. Apart from England, Sarah has a huge fan base in India where cricket is more than a religion. Many girls in this cricket crazy nation have the poster of Virat Kohli or KL Rahul in their rooms and same is the case of

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Team India cricketers wish Mohammad Shami a speedy recovery after the pacer’s road accident

Mohammed Shami met with a road accident on Sunday. He was on his way to New Delhi from Dehradun when a truck hit his car from behind. The Indian pacer got 3-4 stitches after suffering head injuries and is currently taking rest in Dehradun. The news of Shami’s accident went viral on the internet and

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David Warner’s wife Candice gets involved in war of words with Michael Vaughan on Twitter

Former England captain Michael Vaughan has denied promoting ‘personal abuse’ against Australian players during the third Test against South Africa in Cape Town. Vaughan was involved in a war of words with David Warner’s wife Candice on Twitter after making light of the Australian team wants to lodge an official complaint about the abuse they

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This popular Indian actress is a die-hard fan of Rohit Sharma

Cricket is not just a sport, it is a religion which unites people of India. Cricket and Bollywood are the two most popular sources of entertainment in this nation; they both go hand-in-hand. Bollywood celebrities and cricketers enjoy love and respect from fans all across the world. Although a lot of actresses are crazy about

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Danielle Wyatt And Rashid Khan praise each other on Twitter

England woman star all-rounder Danielle Wyatt and Afghanistan star bowler Rashid Khan shared pleasantries on Twitter on Monday. It was Rashid who initiated the conversation. The young Afghan spinner wished Wyatt for her record century in the 3rd T20I against India. Wyatt smashed her career-best 124 off just 64 balls as England Women chased down

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Dinesh Karthik’s wife Dipika Pallikal didn’t watch his innings in Nidahas Trophy 2018 final

Dinesh Karthik played a gem of an innings in the Nidahas Trophy 2018 final against Bangladesh in Colombo. With 5 runs needed off 1 ball, India found a new finisher in form of Karthik, who sealed the T20 international match with a six. The world watched his heroic innings of 29 off 8 balls, but

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Rajasthan Royals appoint Ajinkya Rahane as the captain for IPL 2018

India’s star batsman Ajinkya Rahane has replaced Australia’s Steve Smith as the captain of the Rajasthan Royals (RR) for the 11th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). Smith stepped down from captaincy in the wake of the ball-tampering scandal during the third Test between South Africa and Australia at Cape Town, where the Australia

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Tollywood actress Raashi Khanna opens up about her relationship with Jasprit Bumrah

Tollywood actress Raashi Khanna, who is best known for her work in ‘Supreme’, ‘Jai Lava Kusa’ and ‘Toli Prema’, is reportedly dating Team India’s young pacer, Jasprit Bumrah. She was earlier rumoured to be in a relationship with Naga Shaurya. However, ever since she rubbished those rumours, it is now being believed that she might

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Danielle Wyatt’s response to a meme featuring her and Virat Kohli is damn cool

Danielle Wyatt smashed a breathtaking 124 against India in women’s T20 international as England pulled off a record chase at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai on Sunday. Wyatt scored the second fastest century in women’s T20I history off just 52 balls as England rocketed to the top of the table in the tri-series also involving

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More Like the Colosseum than a Cricket Ground – ODIs in the 1980s: India’s triumph and West Indian dominance

This is the second feature of a series looking at historical team ratings for ODIs, following on from work which resulted in historical Test team ratings. The first part looked at the birth of ODIs in the 1970s, when 80 matches were played – this can be read here. Almost exactly double that number were played in the 1980s, and this second part features ODI matches played in the first half of the decade.

After the 1979 World Cup the teams were rated as shown below:-

RATE TEAM
142 West Indies
108 England
108 Australia
80 Pakistan
72 New Zealand
29 India

The next major ODI tournament was the World Series Cup beginning in November 1979 and which featured Australia, England and West Indies, which naturally was won by West Indies though not before overcoming difficulties facing the home side who, according to Wisden, ‘bowled for wickets instead of adopting the run-saving line and length approach of England’. England did make its mark on the tournament, however, first when Geoff Boycott turned his reputation for slow play on its head with some sparkling performances, including a magnificent 105 at Sydney. The second noteworthy event involving England was during a match against West Indies when, with West Indies requiring three to win off the last ball, Mike Brearley stationed all of his fielders, including wicket-keeper David Bairstow, around the boundary. This action would lead to subsequent fielding restrictions – and where would we be without baseball-inspired phrases like “power play”?

The Australians visited England in the summer of 1980 to compete in the second Centenary Test, while tagging on a couple of ODIs, in both of which the hosts were victorious. As Wisden noted, ‘limited-overs cricket is something at which the Australians have yet to excel.’ And when the Indians toured the Antipodes, the Almanack noted ‘There were clear signs that the excess of one-day cricket at international level, which limits the appearances of Test players in Sheffield Shield matches, would, if continued, be to the detriment of the rising generation.’

But it was the ODI series involving Australia and New Zealand that winter which would really bring ODI cricket to the public forum with a bang. Australia captain Greg Chappell had made no bones about his dislike for the short format, claiming to dislike the defensive nature of it and the need for negative bowling. Yet with New Zealand requiring a six off the last ball to force a tie in a best of five Benson and Hedges Cup match, the skipper instructed brother Trevor to bowl a sneak. As Wisden opined in a piece entitled Sharp practice in Melbourne, ‘For too long the Australian Cricket Board have been over-tolerant of indiscipline and actions of dubious intent.’

England’s tour of India in the winter of 1981/82 saw England lose the ODI series 2-1, where the attendances in India indicated the growing popularity of the one-day game as compared to Test cricket. The ODI team ratings following that series looked like this:-

RATE TEAM
146 West Indies
123 Australia
103 England
95 New Zealand
77 Pakistan
62 India

Though still ranked bottom of the pile, India were clearly starting to get the hang of this one-day thing.

For the 1982/83 World Series Cup, coloured clothing and the white ball were introduced for the first time outside of Packer World Series Cricket – horror of horrors. As Wisden huffed, ‘There were times during the World Series Cup when the game that was being played bore little resemblance to the more sophisticated and skillful form of cricket which had preceded it in the Ashes series…the atmosphere seemed at times more like that of the Colosseum than a cricket ground.’

The 1983 Prudential World Cup

A perfect time then for the next instalment of the Prudential World Cup during the summer of 1983. The tournament underwent its first expansion, as the number of games increased from 15 to 25, though these were played in more or less the same timeframe as previous contests. The tournament began in grand fashion as first little Zimbabwe humbled the mighty Australians with one Duncan Fletcher being named Man of the Match, before the previously invincible West Indians were knocked off by the lowly ranked Indians. Pakistan was without Imran Khan and Australia seemed to be unable to shake off the shock of that first defeat, and the semi-finals featured England, India, West Indies and Pakistan. India saw off hosts England in the first semi-final while Pakistan, missing Javed Miandad with flu, were beaten by West Indies to set up a rematch of the early shock. In perhaps an even bigger shock, the Kapil Dev-led Indian team beat the only team to have won the World Cup since its inception eight years before.

The ratings table following the tournament looked like this:-

RATE TEAM
133 West Indies
106 New Zealand
104 India
103 Pakistan
101 Australia
98 England
31 Sri Lanka

India rocketing up the table then, as a result of that momentous World Cup win, with West Indies slipping in ratings points but still well ahead in the rankings. New Zealand had defeated both England and Australia to climb up to second.

The resurgent Indians beat the Pakistani tourists 2-0 the following winter, but it was another limited overs match which caught the imagination of the public, when a match played for the Prime Minister’s Fund was attended by over 100,000 fans. India was now up to second in the rankings and clearly becoming a force in one-day cricket:-

RATE TEAM
133 West Indies
110 India
106 New Zealand
101 Australia
98 England
96 Pakistan
31 Sri Lanka

This didn’t last long though, as the very next campaign saw India given a 5-0 trouncing at the hands of the West Indians, who also handily beat the Australians in April of 1984. Traveling onto England the home crowds were treated to some of the most magnificent batting ever from Viv Richards, in particular his ODI century at Old Trafford, with 21 boundaries and five sixes including one hit right out of the ground. West Indies were by now a fully formed unit with no flaws, as apart from their batting and bowling heroics their fielding was at a level seldom seen before – witness the run out by Eldine Baptiste of Geoff Miller at Lord’s, when an 80-yard throw took out the middle stump as Miller, considering himself safe, sauntered into the crease.*

India would suffer another whitewash at the hands of Australia in the winter of 1984/85, 3-0 with two matches rained off, but the tour would not be a happy one as Kim Hughes subsequently resigned in remarkable fashion, while the clandestine talks began which would ultimately result in rebel tours to South Africa. India also lost heavily to England as the heady days of the World Cup triumph receded into the distance.

At the end of 1984 the ratings table looked like this:-

RATE TEAM
136 West Indies
122 England
111 Australia
105 Pakistan
96 New Zealand
89 India
58 Sri Lanka

Tests vs ODIs

As the 1980s began, it can be seen that there was a vast difference in quality between the Test-playing nations as regards ODI capability. However, by the end of 1984 they had matured somewhat and it can be seen that the end-1984 ODI ratings are comparable to the end-1984 Test ratings. Of course, West Indies were miles ahead in both formats.

Next time we’ll look at the second half of the decade..

* The Baptiste run-out can be seen at around 3:30 of the YouTube clip below:-

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Twitter Reactions: Steve Smith banned for one match after ball-tampering incident

Australia captain Steve Smith has been given a one-match suspension and fined 100 percent of his match fee for his part in ball-tampering incident during the third test against South Africa in Cape Town, the International Cricket Council recently said in a statement. Smith, who stepped down from the captaincy on Sunday morning, had accepted

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Twitter Reactions: Steve Smith steps down as Australia captain following ball tampering scandal

Steve Smith has stepped down as Australian captain for the remainder of the third Test with South Africa following the now infamous ball tampering scandal. The incident took place on Saturday during South Africa’s second innings and the International Cricket Council has already charged Cameron Bancroft, the player at the heart of the incident which

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6 Interesting facts about Danielle Wyatt that every cricket lover should know

Born on 22nd April 1991, Danielle Nicole Wyatt is a right-handed middle order batswoman who made her debut for the England Women’s Team against India in Mumbai on March 1, 2010. Danielle Wyatt came into the news for her personal life rather than her performance on the field when she proposed to current Indian captain

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Twitter reacts to Cameron Bancroft’s ball tampering scandal against South Africa

Australia opening batsman Cameron Bancroft is likely to face a plethora of questions over an incident captured by TV cameras during the third day of the ongoing third Test against South Africa at Newlands. Bancroft was questioned by umpires Nigel Llong and Richard Illingworth during the 43rd over of South Africa’s second innings after appearing

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Twitter Reactions: Virat Kohli set for county stint ahead of India’s tour of England

India captain Virat Kohli will be heading to Surrey for a county stint ahead of India’s tour to England, starting from July 3 in Manchester. Kohli will become the first Indian to join Surrey, which has been one of the powerhouses of County Championship Division One. The Delhi lad is likely to make himself available

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Virat Kohli’s contract with RCB disallows him to shoot an ad with Deepika Padukone

Virat Kohli led IPL franchise, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), is learnt to have lost Rs 11 crores deal with travel portal Goibibo.com for the upcoming season of the cash-rich tournament. According to a report published in Insidesports.co, the deal was called off because RCB was not able to meet the requirements of Goibibo.com. For the

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Wriddhiman Saha smashes 20-ball century

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Nathan Coulter-Nile ruled out of IPL 2018 due to injury

Australia’s fast bowler Nathan Coulter-Nile, who was bought by Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) during the players’ auction in January, has been ruled out of the upcoming IPL season owing to an injury and has been prescribed ‘ample rest’. New Zealand all-rounder Corey Anderson will replace Coulter-Nile in the RCB squad, the IPL Technical Committee confirmed

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Rohit Sharma asks Mumbai Indians “what’s wrong with Hardik Pandya’s hair?”; gets a brilliant answer from Hardik

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Days Of The Demon

The place of Frederick Spofforth is an enduring one in Ashes folklore. The way the name trips from the tongue is a help, as is the fact that Spofforth played the leading role in the defeat of England at the Oval in 1882, the match that began the whole story. And then there is that splendid soubriquet, ‘The Demon’, and the Mephistophelian appearance of a man who tormented England batsmen through the first ten years in which Test matches were played.

His name apart however there is a general lack of familiarity with Spofforth. His time was before the days of moving pictures and indeed only after his best days were long behind him did the first action photographers start to focus their cameras on the men in the middle. The result of this is that there are many questions that it is now difficult to answer. Uppermost amongst them is the vexed question of just how fast Spofforth was, as well as the side issues that flow from that, as to what his action looked like and what, if anything, he did with the ball.

The man himself was, one suspects, responsible for at least part of the confusion as a story involving Sir Home Gordon illustrates. Gordon eventually inherited a peerage and died as the 12^th Baronet Gordon of Elmo, Sutherland. For present purposes however the old Etonian, well known on cricket grounds for the large carnation he always wore, was a cricket journalist, author and publisher. He was not one of the best writers of his generation, nor always the most accurate, but he was an indefatigable enthusiast and great friend of the game. When he died in September 1956, just shy of his 85^th birthday, it was unlikely there was a man alive who had seen as much cricket.

Gordon knew Spofforth well, and had first seen him play on the Demon’s first visit to England, back in 1878. On that occasion Gordon’s uncle took him to see the Australians play the Gentlemen of England at Prince’s, a famous old ground in Chelsea that made way for developers in 1883. Gordon relates that his Uncle had sympathy for any batsman dismissed by a really fast bowler, detesting the tearaway deliveries of FR Spofforth. As an eye witness it seems that at best Gordon only partly agreed with his uncle. Whilst describing Spofforth’s appearance with the ball in his hand as alarming, and producing the interesting observation that all his body and his limbs seemed to be coming at the batsman like a human octopus, his conclusion was that Spofforth was a master of the ball and could modify pace without suggesting it in his crescentic delivery, only sending down a devastating express now and then. That the Spofforth action was not a thing of beauty was confirmed by Richard Daft in his famous book Kings of Cricket, when he somewhat quaintly observed; the most favourable admirers can hardly call Mr Spofforth’s style a model of grace. It has withal a something truculent and overbearing (sic)

Finally getting closer to the point of the story Gordon’s proudest achievement as a writer was his editorship of The Memorial Biography of WG Grace, published in 1919. Nominally Gordon was only a co-editor, together with two cricketing Grandees, Lords Harris and Hawke, but in truth it was he who did all the work, and indeed later wrote Hawke’s autobiography for him. In any event as he put together his work on Grace Gordon naturally approached Spofforth. On a total of 19 occasions Grace fell victim to Spofforth, and his average in matches in which he had to face The Demon was more than 11 points lower than his overall First Class average. On being contacted by Gordon Spofforth confirmed he would be happy to relate to him all he knew about Grace, but only on condition he would describe Spofforth in the book as the fastest bowler there had ever been!

Long time Somerset skipper Sammy Woods, who played Test cricket for Australia and England as well as Rugby Union for England, was not quite a contemporary of Spofforth, although they did play together once for the Gentlemen against the Players. Woods is a useful judge, having a foot in both camps, and his verdict on Spofforth was he was medium fast with a fast yorker, and had more guile than any bowler I ever saw. He had a perfect follow through, and he delivered every ball with the same action, and as he looked all legs, arms and nose, it was very hard to distinguish what ball was coming along next.

One of the classic cricketing textbooks of the Victorian era was the volume on cricket in the Badminton Library, a book that ran to several editions and even in the 21^st century is not difficult to track down. One of the major contributors was England all-rounder Allan Steel, one of Spofforth’s victims at the Oval in 1882. He describes Spofforth’s bowling as being over medium pace, coming back many inches and often getting up to an uncomfortable height, but ultimately suggests a very substantial range of speeds by echoing Woods; in his bowling the same run, action and exertion were apparently used for delivering a slow or medium paced ball as for a fast one.

The Honourable Robert Lyttelton, a member of a famous aristocratic English cricketing family, confirmed the versatility of The Demon, describing him as having tried and succeeded in all paces, except, perhaps, the very slow. William Ford, one of a famous brotherhood who was an accomplished player and later writer on the game was the same age as Spofforth. They appear not to have played against each other at First Class level, but Ford saw enough of Spofforth to feel able to write that he could, when required, bowl at great pace. As to what took the wickets Ford added that he could put on a big screw or a little screw without altering his pace.

Are we able to deduce anything now as to the circumstances in which Spofforth varied his pace? It seems clear that he did so almost at will, and the fact that 19 of his victims were stumped confirms that wicketkeepers would stand up to him, not of course an indication of express pace. It must be likely he slowed down with age, and we know he began his cricket as a fast underhand bowler, but reading his contemporaries comments it may be that he bowled with more pace on good wickets. His Australian teammate George Giffen makes the point that only on good batting pitches was Spofforth not the best bowler in Australia, judging Harry Boyle and George Palmer to be his superior on true surfaces.

The Demon was born on 9 September 1853 at Balmain, to an English father and a New Zealand mother. The first ‘big’ match he saw was at age eight when HH Stephenson’s English tourists played a XXII of New South Wales. Spofforth immediately decided to switch to overarm bowling and, impressed by the pace and extraordinarily long run up of George ‘Tear ‘em’ Tarrant, he tried to bowl as fast as he could.

It was another English side that made Spofforth stop and think next. He played for XVIII of New South Wales against WG Grace’s tourists in January 1874. Perhaps surprisingly the New South Welshmen won by eight wickets, dismissing the Englishmen for 92 and 90. Spofforth didn’t even get to turn his arm over in the first innings, and in the second returned figures of 13-7-16-2. What impressed Spofforth was the bowling of James Southerton, a slow bowler with immense control.

Three years later another private English tour, captained by James Lillywhite, visited Australia. Spofforth was injured for the first half of the season, but turned out against the tourists for New South Wales in mid January. He took just a single wicket as the tourists scored 270. New South Wales had to follow on, but in the end held on for a draw. Another English bowler of great control, the slow medium Alfred Shaw made an impression on Spofforth. The home side scored their runs at barely a run per four ball over.

Two months on, for the first time, all Australia locked horns with Lillywhite’s men. The match is now recognised as the first ever Test and was dominated by Charles Bannerman’s famous 165,  67.3% of Australia’s total, still a record more than 140 years later. Spofforth was invited to play but would only do so if Billy Murdoch was selected as wicketkeeper. Unsurprisingly the press, particularly in Victoria, accused Spofforth of arrogance – he was after all only 23, and had a career haul of just 20 wickets.

In the second Test, hastily arranged after Australia’s unexpected victory, both Murdoch and Spofforth played, although there was at least something of a climb down by Spofforth because Murdoch did not keep wicket. Lillywhite’s men recovered some pride by beating this apparently stronger Australian side by four wickets. Spofforth took four wickets in the match, and was not particularly effective.

It was in 1878 that, on his first tour of England, The Demon acquired his nickname and his reputation. On the tour as a whole, including matches against odds, Spofforth took 281 wickets at an average of 4.10. In the First Class games, of which there were 15, he took 97 at 11.01. In terms of averages he was bettered by another pace bowler, Tom Garrett whose figures were 103 at 3.28 in all matches and 32 at 9.93 in the First Class arena.

There were no Tests played on the 1878 tour, but strong opposition was played. Early on an MCC side led by WG Grace was beaten by nine wickets at Lord’s, and in the first innings were dismissed for 33, Spofforth producing the remarkable figures of 5.3-3-4-6 including a hat trick. In the second innings the hosts fared even worse after keeping their deficit to a mere eight, dismissed for only 19. Of those runs 16 came from the bowling of Spofforth, who took four wickets. This time the remarkable analysis came from Harry Boyle, 8.1-6-3-6. Even though the game started late at 12.03 it was completed in a day, on a pitch described as a quagmire. Elsewhere there were ten wicket hauls against Lancashire, Surrey, Gloucestershire and the Players, including in that match at Kennington Oval another hat trick.

The following winter Lord Harris took a side to Australia and one Test was played. Again it was not recognised as such at the time, indeed the expression only started to acquire the meaning it has today in 1894 when a South Australian journalist drew up what he considered to be a list of Test matches, an approach that has been adopted ever since. The match was clearly important however, the only one on the tour played against a side styled as Australia. Spofforth cemented his reputation as he helped his side to victory by ten wickets with 6-48 and 7-62 including the first Test hat trick. Harris’ men were some way short of the full strength of England, in particular there being no WG.

Australia and Spofforth were back in England in 1880, although as on their previous visit no Tests were scheduled. In the end one was added and WG made his Test debut and with it an innings of 152 in a comfortable England win. For Spofforth it was a good tour as he built on his reputation by topping the national averages with 40 wickets at 8.40. The pity was that by the time the Test match came round he was unfit, having broken a finger in a match at Scarborough.

Whilst it may seem that tours between Australia and England have increased in frequency in recent years they are still not as regular as they were in the 1880s and England were back down under in 1881/82. There were four Tests scheduled, two were drawn and two won by Australia. What is surprising is that Spofforth missed the first three Tests. Injury may have been in part responsible, he suffered a nasty injury in a fall from a horse at the beginning of the season, but that did not explain all three absences. It has been suggested there was a dispute about money, that conscious of his reputation Spofforth didn’t fancy the third Test as it was due to be played on a plumb batting wicket or that he was simply being arrogant and toying with the authorities and public alike. In truth one suspects that Spofforth was simply out of form and that he knew it. He did play in the last Test and managed the disappointing return of 1-128 in the match.

The lack of success continued in 1882 after Spofforth arrived in England. After five matches he had taken only eight wickets at a cost of almost 40 runs each. He played himself into form however and by the end of the summer 30 First Class matches had brought him a haul of 157 wickets at 13.24. There were five match hauls of ten or more and 16 five-fers, but the highlight was Spofforth’s display in the solitary Test. Murdoch won the toss and batted, a decision which, as his side plunged to 63 all out seemed a poor one, albeit less so when, largely due to Spofforth’s 7-46, the deficit was restricted to 38. Australia did do better in their second innings, but ultimately managed only 122 and England’s target of 85 appeared straightforward, particularly when they got to 52-2 with just the loss to Spofforth of the two Lancastrians Albert ‘Monkey’ Hornby and Dick Barlow. Pace wise this must have been The Demon at full tilt, contemporary reports stating that wicketkeeper Jack Blackham had to stand well back.

The character of the match changed when Spofforth decided to change ends and drop his pace. Almost straight away he got George Ulyett and Boyle removed WG to reduce England to 53-4. Alfred Lyttelton and ‘Bunny’ Lucas then dug in, playing out a dozen consecutive maidens at one point and lifting the score to 66. With both batsmen seemingly comfortable a single was then gifted and, at last with Lyttelton facing him, Spofforth made the breakthrough. He proceeded to take four quick wickets and with Boyle nipping out the last two Australia got home by eight runs and, next day, the famous obituary of English cricket appeared and the Ashes legend was born. Spofforth’s match figures of 14-90 were not bettered by an Australian for 90 years and Bob Massie’s two eight wicket hauls in the Lords’ Test of 1972.

The Honourable Ivo Bligh followed the Australians back to the Southern Hemisphere for a series of four Tests in 1882/83. Spofforth contributed little to the first Test, won by Australia by nine wickets or the second, won by an innings by England, nor indeed to the fourth which was won by Australia by four wickets to tie up the series. Perversely The Demon’s major performance came in the third Test, won by England, in which he took 11-117.

Back in England in 1884 Spofforth played in every single match on the tour, so it was hardly surprising that he was no longer bowling flat out. He had a magnificent summer, taking 207 wickets at 12.82. He was seventh in the national averages, and no bowler got within 70 of his haul of wickets. The next best amongst his teammates was Palmer with 132 at 16.43. Outside the Tests the summer was a long story of success for Spofforth and he took the fourth and last hat trick of his career against the South of England. His performances in the three Tests were less impressive, his ten wickets costing him 30 runs apiece. England won the only decided Test, the second, and to assist them in defending their lead the Surrey club produced a fine batting wicket at the Oval which the Australians made good use of, but although they reduced England to 181-8 in response to their 551 they let the tail wag to the tune of 165 and despite enforcing the follow on never looked like bowling England out twice.

Once more an English side followed the 1884 Australians back with a five match series in the offing. All five Tests were played but it was not a satisfactory series. Spofforth was simply not around for the first Test, marking Adelaide’s first attempt at hosting Test cricket. England won comfortably and after a row about money the South Australian Cricket Association ended up making a loss after trying to appease the two teams. The row rumbled on and for the second Test there was a players’ strike by the Australians. Their team thus contained nine debutants, five of whom never played again. Spofforth was again not available but made it very clear he disapproved of the strike action.

The passage of six weeks between the second and third Tests allowed some reflection and the Australians, back to full strength and now with Spofforth, won an exciting third Test by six runs. They certainly would not have done so without The Demon, who took 10-144 in the match. He took seven more in the fourth Test as the hosts tied matters up, bowling unchanged with Palmer through the England second innings of 77 in which he took 5-30. In the deciding match the Australian batsmen let them down and they lost by an innings. They won the toss and batted before Spofforth found himself coming in at the fall of the ninth wicket with the total on just 99. He had started his cricket career in the lower middle order with some pretensions to batsmanship. By 1885 he had slipped to last on the order but he did take this opportunity to show his teammates up, adding 64 for the last wicket with John Trumble and making exactly 50, his highest Test score.

By the time of the next Australian season, that of 1885/86, Spofforth’s banking career had taken him to Melbourne so it was for Victoria that he turned out in the Sheffield Shield against New South Wales. On debut he took ten wickets, and Victoria won by an innings. He was only destined to play a further four matches for his new state.

As had become the norm before a tour of England there was much speculation as to whether Spofforth would make himself available in 1886. Much of it seems to have been fuelled by the man himself but, as previously, in the end he travelled. Spofforth was not as successful as in the past. The three Test series was won 1-0 by England. Spofforth was comfortably Australia’s most successful bowler with 14 wickets at 18.59 but there were no more than four in any one innings. Overall his haul was well down, taking 89 wickets at 17.15. A month of the tour was missed after Spofforth broke a finger whilst fielding a drive from his own bowling by Lord Harris. He had suffered a similar injury, Harris again being the batsman responsible, in 1884, but this time the effects were more serious, Spofforth himself saying he was never quite the same bowler again, unable in the future to ever work on the ball in the way he had before.

Despite his troubles on the field the tour was a happy one for Spofforth who, in September, married Phyllis Cadman, the daughter of a wealthy businessman with a large portfolio of interests in the retail sector. Returning to Australia with his new bride Spofforth played one more Test taking just a solitary wicket in a narrow England victory. An era was over as the responsibility for the opening overs passed to Charles “Terror” Turner and James Ferris. The day of The Demon had passed.

There was only one more Southern Hemisphere summer in which Spofforth played any part at all, that of 1887/88. He played twice, not with any conspicuous success, before making what must have been a difficult decision to leave his own family in Australia in order to return his homesick wife and children to England. The decision was doubtless made rather more straightforward by the senior position that his father in law offered him within the family company.

The demands of business did not prevent Spofforth playing a very high standard of club cricket with Hampstead for many years and he also turned out for Derbyshire (not at that time a First Class county). Festival matches also attracted him and he did not play his final First Class match until 1897. The previous year had seen The Demon roll back the years. He played three First Class matches, the first for Wembley Park against Harry Trott’s 1896 Australians. The visitors won, but it would have been much easier for them if their old teammate had not taken 11 wickets for exactly 100. Three months later, for the South of England against Yorkshire, Spofforth had match figures of 9-82 in a losing cause before playing for the MCC against the Yorkshiremen. The match was badly affected by the weather and drawn, but 8-74 against one of the leading counties in their only innings was impressive stuff for a man who turned 44 a week later.

The Demon attended the 1921 Test at Trent Bridge and presented a medal to each of the Australian players to mark the occasion of the 100^th Test between the two countries. He visited Australia during the 1924/25 Ashes series where he saw Australia win 4-1. Sadly he did not live to see his adopted country regain the trophy he had unwittingly helped to create two years later. The 72 year old died on the eve of the 1926 series, never having fully recovered from a bout of food poisoning earlier in the year. The measure of his success as a cricketer is a career tally of 853 wickets at 14.95, and as a businessman the Estate he left, which was the equivalent, on current values, of about nine million pounds.

 

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BCCI clears Mohammed Shami of match-fixing charges, offers him Grade B contract

Team India fast bowler Mohammed Shami has been cleared by the BCCI of match-fixing charges levelled against him by his wife Hasin Jahan, who had claimed that the cricketer had received unaccounted money from a Pakistani woman. With this development, the path has been cleared for Shami’s participation with Delhi Daredevils in the IPL 2018

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Decision Review System to be implemented in IPL 2018

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This habit of Rohit Sharma annoys his wife Ritika Sajdeh the most

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Shakib Al Hasan accused of breaking the dressing room door in Colombo

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Photos & Videos: Hardik Pandya, Elli AvrRam spotted together during an ad shoot in a Mumbai studio

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Virat Kohli and Deepika Padukone grab top honours in Instagram Awards

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IPL 2018: Mumbai Indians replace injured Jason Behrendorff with Mitchell McClenaghan

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IPL 2018: Kings XI Punjab to play first 3 games at Mohali, last 4 in Indore

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Bollywood stars hail Dinesh Karthik’s heroics in Nidahas Trophy final

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Cricket World hails Dinesh Karthik for his match winning knock in Nidahas Trophy 2108 final

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Here’s why Rohit Sharma didn’t watch Dinesh Karthik’s last-ball six in Nidahas Trophy final

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Dinesh Karthik reveals the secret behind his finishing skills while talking to Archana Vijaya

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Australia’s women wicketkeeper Alyssa Healy heaps praise for Dinesh Karthik on Twitter

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Twitter reactions: Dinesh Karthik’s last ball six hand India Nidahas Trophy 2018 title

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Cricket fraternity congratulate Kevin Pietersen on his illustrious career

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Alyssa Healy scores first international century, husband Mitchell Starc posts a special tweet for the little legend

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Bollywood actress Neetu Chandra reveals her favourite IPL team and sporting idol

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BCCI announces the schedule for Team India’s home series against Australia

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PL 2018: Delhi Daredevils hike charges for games featuring Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni

Delhi Daredevils (DD) have released their ticket pricing deck for the 11th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). The tickets for the matches featuring Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni will invoke a premium. It has been a routine for the IPL to invoke a premium over the weekend. But this Daredevils also took into

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Shakib Al Hasan, Nurul Hasan fined for breaching ICC Code of Conduct

Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan has been fined 25 percent of his match fees and handed a demerit point for “remonstrating” umpires’ decision during a T20I match against Sri Lanka on Friday. Also, reserve player Nurul Hasan was fined 25 percent of his match fees and given one demerit point for breaching the ICC Code

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Twitter lashes out at Bangladesh players for their exploits in Colombo

Bangladesh beat Sri Lanka by 2 wickets in the last match of the league stage in the Nidahas Trophy 2018 and is now all set to lock horns with India on Sunday in the finals. In the virtual semi-final that was played in Colombo on Friday, Sri Lanka set a target of 160 runs, which

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IPL 2018: PCA requests BCCI for rescheduling of KXIP matches

Preity Zinta co-owned Kings XI Punjab is one of the few teams who is yet to win an IPL trophy in their earlier ten appearances in the tournament. With experienced campaigners like Ravichandran Ashwin, Chris Gayle and Yuvraj Singh and young players who are in great form namely KL Rahul and Karun Nair, the team

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Here’s what Virat Kohli said when Mayanti Langer questioned the Indian skipper about his biopic

After biopic on cricketers Mohammad Azharuddin and MS Dhoni, Bollywood is all geared up for Kapil Dev’s life story in Kabir Khan’s “83” starring Ranveer Singh. Meanwhile, there is one more whose life story would make a great biopic and he is none other than Virat Kohli. The Indian skipper not only has many records

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IPL 2018: Mumbai Indians start the sale of tickets

Defending champions of the Indian Premier League (IPL), Mumbai Indians, have started their online ticket sales for the upcoming season, which begins on April 7. Mumbai Indians, who defeated Rising Pune Supergiant (RPS) to lift the title last season, will play this year’s opening game against the two-time champions, Chennai Super Kings, who are returning

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England women’s cricket team arrives in India for limited over series

2017 World Cup champion, England women’s cricket team has arrived in India for the limited over series. Heather Knight led team England will first play a T20I tri-series against India and Australia beginning from March 22. Later, the Engish players will take on the hosts in a three-match ODI series scheduled to begin from April

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ICC World Cup 2018 Qualifiers Round Up

It looks promising for Afghanistan as they look to make it to their second consecutive World Cup, after Nepal’s win sends the Afghans through from Group B on net run rate.

With three losses to their name, Afghanistan were ahead of Hong Kong on net run-rate and needed a big favour from Nepal in order to progress.

Paras Khadka’s side delivered with a stand of 89 between Rohit Kumar and Sompal Kami that then rescued them from 66-5, having bowled Hong Kong out for 153.

West Indies with big hitter Evin Lewis made it four straight wins at World Cup qualifying after beating the Netherlands in Harare earlier this week.

Lewis hit a massive 84 as the two-time World Cup winners got 309-6 from 48 overs in drenched weather conditions, as the Netherlands had a lot of catching up to do with 167-6.

Evin Lewis

This meant that Windies were top of Group A, with Ireland progressing too with 226-run thrashing of the United Arab Emirates.

Irishman Paul Stirling inflicted a scorching 126 as the Irish got 313-6 from only 44 overs, before wiping out the Emirates for only 91, hardly a surprise there really.

With two points Ireland now head to the next round as the other six sides prepare to battle it out and hope for some luck for the last two spots at next year’s tournament in England and Wales.
One match to look out for is between Zimbabwe and Scotland, after a memorable tie in Bulawayo and with three points each, this promises to be another well contested match.

Scotland lost wickets at regular intervals during the chase but found themselves only needing two from seven balls with two wickets in hand, the Scots lost two batsmen in two deliveries, ensuring a tie.

The Netherlands managed just the one win in the group stage, against Papua New Guinea. Having lost their remaining three fixtures against Ireland, United Arab Emirates and Windies, who topped Group A with four consecutive victories. No doubt they will now be hoping for some luck as we approach the next stage of tournament.

The main concern for the Dutch has got to be their batting, with the vital openers having failed to deliver when it counts and the rest of the line-up not managing to handle the added responsibility that came about following poor performances.

Hong Kong has also had to contend with poor batting, with Christopher Carter, in for Aizaz Khan in HK’s last group encounter against Nepal, but Carter failed to provide a comfortable foundation for Hong Kong. Captained by Babar Hayat, who has been off form of late, meant that Anshuman Rath, who has been among the runs, will once again play a key role in the middle order.

In other news, it’s third time unlucky for Brian Vitori as he was handed a suspension last week by the Event Panel of the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier 2018. The reason being that the left-arm fast bowler uses an illegal bowling action.

The suspension begins with immediate effect, with the ICC citing:

“As per Article 3.6.2 of the ICC Illegal Bowling Regulations, Vitori’s bowling action was filmed in the next match he played after being reported, which was against Afghanistan on Tuesday, and the video footage of his bowling spells were provided to the Event Panel of Helen Bayne and Mark King, who are both members of the ICC Panel of Human Movement Specialists, for analysis and assessment,” said the ICC on Thursday.

“Following its review, the Event Panel concluded that Vitori employs an illegal bowling action, and, as such, in accordance with Article 6.5 of the regulations, he has been immediately suspended from bowling in international cricket.

“Vitori’s latest reporting has been dealt with in accordance with the regulation, for a Specified Event, which includes the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier 2018.

Brian Vitori

Perhaps Vitori has a lot to learn from Brian Booth, considered by many as one of the nicest men to have ever played Test cricket. No one has ever had a bad word to say about Booth. A pious man, he attends a religious service every Sunday on tour, even the party boys have nothing but praise for the man. Booth was also modest to a fault.

Brian Booth

Predictions are still open as to which team will win this tournament, with Windies wiping out all opponents in their way so far. Although it was widely reported that some members of the Windies camp didn’t want to go to the tournament, Jason Holder was reported saying, “We’re looking to win every game in the tournament (and) we’ve come here to beat every single person.”

We can safely assume that having beaten the UAE, Ireland and the Netherlands we are now seeing somewhat of a statement of intent from the Windies for next year’s tournament in England and Wales. Having gained four points already, they should be able to win this tournament.

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Lever of Essex

One of the biggest complaints about the team England sent to Australia this winter was the lack of variety in its pace attack. All were right arm fast medium with not a southpaw or a real speed merchant in sight. It has been eight years now since Ryan Sidebottom last played for England and since then no left arm pace bowler has been chosen for England in red ball cricket. The selectors briefly showed an interest in Mark Footitt, taking him to South Africa in 2015/16, but he seems out of contention now he has left Surrey.

In the game’s shorter formats Reece Topley has bowled well at times, as has David Willey, but neither seem to have been earmarked at any point as Sidebottom’s successor. Perhaps the recent interest shown in Sam Curran and George Garton will see a change, but history tells us that Test quality left arm quicks rarely appear from our islands. The most prolific in terms of wickets taken remains Bill Voce, who took the last of his 98 in 1946.

Second in the list is Sidebottom with 79 victims. Alan Mullally took 58 wickets in the 1990s but ultimately proved a more effective bowler in ODIs. Yorkshireman George Hirst took 59 way back in the Golden Age, but never quite took his prodigious county form into the Test arena. Injury ended the ambitions of perhaps the two best; Frank Foster (45 wickets) and the quickest of them all, Jeff Jones (44 wickets). The only other left armer of note is the man with the third highest aggregate of wickets, John Lever, who took 73 wickets in 21 Tests spread over a decade. Curiously despite taking his wickets at the thoroughly respectable average of 26.72 there was never a time when Lever was sure of a starting berth in the England line up.

Essex born and bred Lever’s progress into the first team was assisted by the unexpected loss of Barry Knight at the end of the 1966 summer. With the veteran Trevor Bailey due to leave the game at the close of the 1967 season Essex, who could never afford to carry a large professional staff, needed to look to the 18 year old to step up to the plate. Although he was never genuinely fast Lever bowled at a lively pace from a long diagonal run and, more importantly, was able to swing the ball both ways without any apparent change of action. At the end of his first season Wisden commented that he created a favourable impression and deserved better figures. He had taken 26 wickets at 30.69 in 13 matches. It was a bowlers’ summer however, no fewer than seven Essex bowlers having a lower average, and the county had a disappointing season, finishing 15^th out of 17.

Gradually Essex’s fortunes looked up, and a significant factor in the improvement was Lever’s new ball partnership with the West Indian Keith Boyce. By 1975 both were riding high in the averages and Lever was beginning to be talked of as a Test bowler, so much so that when his Lancashire namesake Peter was unexpectedly recalled to the England side there were plenty in Essex who believed there had been some sort of selectorial blunder. The following year however JK was certainly the man who did enough to win a place in the England party that travelled to India under Tony Greig. The breakthrough had come.

Out and out pace had never been particularly successful in India, so it was no surprise that Lever’s consistent success at county level earned him a place in Greig’s side. Another factor in Lever’s favour was his durability.  For a pace bowler his fitness record was remarkable and given that England’s two main pace bowlers, Chris Old and Bob Willis, were notoriously fragile it was a simple decision to prefer the variety that Lever offered over the experience of his main rival, Mike Hendrick, another who was more than familiar with the treatment table.

As India were the home side they, of course, provided the balls that were used throughout the tour. Lever found these very much to his liking and did well in the early matches and consequently earned himself a debut in the first Test in Delhi. He got to put his feet up to start with as Greig won the toss and batted, but five wickets went down for 125 and batting became a hard slog. The often unsung hero of English cricket at that time, Dennis Amiss, stood firm at the top of the order and scored 179 in eight and a half hours before being the eighth man out. He had added 94 with Lever who was eventually the last man to go as England totalled 381. Lever had scored 53, and that was to comfortably remain his highest Test score.

In India’s response Willis and Old got no joy out of the new ball, but did manage to get it knocked out of shape, so Lever began his first spell in Test cricket with a replacement ball. Unlike the first this one swung prodigiously, and in the space of three sensational overs Lever sent back Anshuman Gaekwad, Jimmy Amarnath, Gundappa Viswanath and Venkat to break the back of the Indian batting. When, next morning, Sunny Gavaskar and Brijesh Patel briefly threatened a recovery Lever came back and removed them as well. With Syed Kirmani joining his list of victims shortly afterwards he ended the Indian innings of 122 with 7-46*. He got three more in India’s failed effort to avoid an innings defeat and had a match haul of 10-70.

There was a second convincing victory for England in the second Test, this time by ten wickets. There was no major role for Lever this time, but he was right back in the spotlight in England’s 200 run win in the third Test at Madras (Chennai), and certainly not in a way in which he would have wanted. In Delhi the weather had been cool, so much so that Lever had worn a long sleeved sweater. In Madras the heat was stifling and the England bowlers had problems with sweat running into their eyes. Physio Bernard Thomas went out and bought some Vaseline impregnated gauze strips. The idea was that the gauze would direct the sweat away from the eyes. It did not work and having given up on it Lever threw his strips away. The issue became contentious because he did so close to the stumps and the suspicions of umpire Judah Reuben, standing in his final Test (though lest anything untoward be read into that comment it had always been the intention he would retire after the match) were raised that there had a breach of what was then an experimental law; No interference with the natural condition of the ball shall be allowed.

Lever took 5-59 and 2-18 as India were swept aside for 164 and 83 but the Indian crowd was incensed. Cheater Lever Go Home proclaimed one banner, and Indian skipper Bishan Bedi told the press we’ve caught him cheating, adding it is disgusting that England should stoop so low. Forensic testing, unsurprisingly, showed traces of Vaseline were present on the ball. The secretary of the Indian Board announced that following a consideration of all the evidence they were unable to come to a conclusion as to the bowler’s intention. England manager Ken Barrington, seemingly in conflict with that fence sitting exercise, announced that both the Board and Bedi had accepted our explanation that this was not a direct infringement of the laws of the game. No one corrected him. Ultimately the TCCB were content to accept assurances from Barrington and Greig that nothing untoward had been going on.

Greig later described the allegations as groundless and degrading, although he did acknowledge that the swing Lever had obtained was inevitably going to raise suspicions, comparing the case with that of the Australian Bob Massie who had so discomfited the England batsman in the 1972 Ashes series. Greig was equally adamant that Massie’s success was obtained by fair means and not foul although not all his 1972 teammates had agreed at the time. Derek Randall, of the 1976/77 side, wrote that the Indians had made a mountain out of a molehill.

There was damage however. Lever remained deeply unhappy at the behaviour of Bedi, a man he had previously regarded as a friend, and treated him to a few bouncers when the pair met at Northampton a few weeks later. Bedi, no great shakes with the bat, did at least have the satisfaction of remaining unbeaten in both innings. At the end of that summer however Bedi’s contract was terminated by Northamptonshire and he lost an unseemly dispute in an Industrial Tribunal that followed. Was his conduct during the Madras Test in any way relevant to his dismissal? He certainly thought so, and the circumstantial evidence is with him on that although the official line was, naturally, that the two events were unrelated.

When Bedi extended the hand of friendship in 1977 Lever rebuffed the offer and so the schism remained throughout the pair’s playing careers. Eventually however the old rivals ended up playing together in a low key match in the 1990s. On this occasion, realising that nothing useful could be achieved by doing otherwise, it was Lever who initiated a rapprochement.

The most authoritative view of the whole episode came from Christopher Martin-Jenkins who later published an account of the tour. CMJ had no difficulty in accepting that there was no deliberate cheating by England whether in Madras or earlier in Delhi. After all if a bowler wants to surreptitiously alter the condition of a ball he is unlikely to do so with a substance that he takes out to the field with him plastered all over his face as the base of what amounted to a pair of very obvious false eyebrows. On the other hand CMJ also well understood the pressure Bedi was under as captain as the series slipped from his grasp in embarrassing fashion. Ultimately however he recognised that whilst what England attempted with the gauze strips was certainly naïve, and that someone really should have taken the tin of gauze out to the umpires as soon as Reuben, as he had every cause to do, became concerned, that there had been to intention to cheat or mislead.

Although he did not make a substantial contribution to the fourth and fifth Tests, one of which was won by India who were also on top when the final Test ended as a draw, Lever was, with 26 scalps at 14.91, comfortably top of the English averages. Moving on to Australia for the centenary Test there were two wickets in each innings of a memorable encounter that finished with Australia victorious by exactly the same margin as the inaugural match.

The peace of the cricket world was rudely shattered at the beginning of the 1977 summer when all became clear as far as Kerry Packer’s plans were concerned. Lever was as much in the dark as anyone else, Greig never having sought to involve him in his and Packer’s plans. Even if he had Lever, just embarking on a Test career he could see Packer’s actions seriously compromising, would not have been interested anyway. The distracted Australians lost the Ashes. Lever played in the first two Tests before making way for a debutant named Botham, and then came back for the last match of the series, but he only took five wickets in the series.

That winter Lever headed out with England to Pakistan and New Zealand. The Pakistan trip was not a comfortable one. The cricket was tedious and the party badly affected by illness, giving rise to Ian Botham’s well known crack about not even sending his mother in law to the country. Almost alone amongst the tourists Lever remained fit and bowled tirelessly. In the second innings of the second Test his figures were 20-2-62-0. They are nothing special at first glance, but skipper Mike Brearley considered it as important a bowling contribution as Lever ever produced. These were eight ball overs, and Lever helped hold in check a Pakistan side which otherwise might just have been able to create a winning position.

It is surprising looking back that Lever was unable to catch the selectors’ eyes in 1978 as he had a magnificent season, taking 106 wickets at 15.18 and helped Essex to the runners-up spot in the Championship. They went one better in 1979 and the title finally came to the county for the first time. The cost of his wickets was slightly greater this time but there were 106 more victims for Lever. There would doubtless have been more, but he missed two matches because of one of his occasional England call ups. Two wickets in a drawn encounter with India meant that he did not retain his place.

The 1977/78 series in Pakistan was the second and last in which Lever played a part throughout. Leaving aside the one off Jubilee Test in India, in which he did play, he was only selected for one Test in each of five series over the next three years before getting two Tests on the 1981/82 trip to India and Sri Lanka. He caused a mid innings collapse in the second Test against India, but could not prevent the game being drawn and after two wickets in the drawn third Test his tour, insofar as the Tests were concerned, was over and with it, so Lever believed, was his career at the highest level.

A meeting was called for some of the senior players during the brief stay in Sri Lanka at the end of the trip. On the agenda was a tour of South Africa which would pay a tidy sum for what amounted to a month away from home. Lever had enjoyed a decent benefit in 1980 which netted him more than £60,000, but he was still far from financially secure and took the view that at just turned 33 he would not have too many more chances. He had been to South Africa twice before, in the early 1970s, with sides raised by Derrick Robins. This side was raised by South African Breweries and comprised purely English players rather than the multinational sides that Robins had put together, but it was still somewhat naïve of Lever if, as he claimed at the time, he was surprised at the outcry the tour led to.

The South Africans billed their visitors, despite the team’s objections, as England. Although the side was largely made up of veterans it was led by Graham Gooch, still only 29 and with his greatest days ahead of him. How many more of those might there have been had the members of the party not paid for their trip with a three year ban? Lever claimed to be shocked by the severity of the ban, although most saw it coming. His 1982 summer was disappointing, perhaps by way of a reaction, but in 1983 and 1984 he was back to his very best, passing 100 wickets in both summers and helping Essex to back to back Championships.

In early 1986 England suffered their second successive 5-0 reverse at the hands of the West Indies. English cricket was at as low an ebb as it had ever been when they then lost the first home Test of the 1986 summer to India. Lever had shown some decent form in the early part of the season but, at 37 and out of Test cricket for more than four years, it was still a surprise when he was selected for the second Test.

The selectors’ logic was clear. The match was to be played at Headingley, then as now by reputation a swing bowlers ground. It was not however a ground that Lever had much experience of. Despite his twenty years in the game Essex matches in Yorkshire had generally been played on outgrounds and, suffering from nerves and being asked to bowl downhill with the wind in the wrong direction, Lever’s opening overs were wicketless and relatively expensive.

Things did get better for England and they eventually dismissed India for 272. Then the two Indian seamers, Roger Binny and Madan Lal, did the job Lever was picked to do rather better than he did and England were bowled out in 45 overs on the second day for 102. Even then with Lever rediscovering his touch and taking three wickets to help reduce India’s second innings to 70-5 at the close the match was not quite out of reach. Hope did not last for long on the fourth morning however as the Indian lower order, shepherded splendidly by Dilip Vengsarkar, established a platform which, after another inept England batting display, resulted in a big Indian victory to take the series. For Lever there had been six wickets, but he hadn’t done the job he was picked for and did not expect to be chosen for England again.  In that expectation he was proved to be correct, but there was plenty of consolation elsewhere as Essex won another Championship title.

Lever retired at the end of the 1989 season, a summer that saw a two horse race for the Championship title between Worcestershire and Essex. Sadly for Lever Essex could not quite catch their rivals so he had to be content with just the four titles, to which Essex also added two Lord’s final successes, and three victories in the old Sunday League. Lever remained a quality bowler to the end, even if in the natural order of things he was not so formidable in his final three seasons as he had been in his pomp. He might have gone on a year or two longer, but an arm problem which reduced his First Class appearances hastened his eventual retirement at the age of 40. Lever still managed to go out on a personal high though, and to a standing ovation, when in his last innings against Surrey he took 7-48, eerily close to replicating his famous figures in Delhi.

After leaving Essex Lever had more than one opportunity to re-join County cricket in a coaching role, but he preferred to work with the youngsters at Bancroft’s School in Woodford Green. Later he also fitted in some work hosting parties of supporters following England’s fortunes overseas. Lever’s son, also JK and a left arm seamer, tried to follow in his father’s footsteps, but sadly James Lever didn’t quite make it.

A modest man Lever’s own summary of his career was I think I was a better than average county bowler who was fairly average at Test level. He wasn’t an all time great, and was never going to be, but he wasn’t treated particularly well by successive panels of selectors, and to one who saw plenty of his career his own judgment is an unnecessarily harsh one.

*The only other occurrence of a Test player scoring a 50 and a 7-fer in the same Test would appear to be Albert Trott, with 72* and 8/43 vs England in 1894/95

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Four team captains to miss the IPL 2018 Opening Ceremony

The opening ceremony of the Indian Premier League (IPL) is one of the most sought-after events of the year where the best from sports and entertainment come together for an eye-catching event. Like every IPL season, the captains of all the eight teams will pledge their allegiance to the Marylebone Cricket Club’s (MCC) Spirit of

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IPL 2018: CSK CEO reveals how MS Dhoni played a vital role in roping former RCB star

After serving a ban of two years for their involvement in the 2013 scandal, the Chennai Super Kings franchise is ready to make a comeback in the Indian Premier League (IPL). Ahead of the start of the players’ auction, CSK retained its core members MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina and Ravindra Jadeja. Later, Dhoni’s presence helped

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IPL 2018: Yuvraj Singh loves the new jersey of Kings XI Punjab

India veteran Yuvraj Singh is happy to be back to where he belongs after Preity Zinta co-owned Kings XI Punjab grabbed him to get his services for the upcoming season of the Indian Premier League (IPL). The southpaw has been moving from one franchise to the other since his exclusion from the Kings XI Punjab

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Kings XI Punjab co-owner Preity Zinta receives her new jersey for IPL 2018

Preity Zinta co-owned franchise Kings XI Punjab, on Tuesday, unveiled the official jersey of the team for the 11th edition of Indian Premier League (IPL). The new jersey of the team was revealed in a joint press conference with title sponsor Kent RO. Kent will occupy the front of the KXIP jersey in 2018. Get

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Rohit Sharma breaks Yuvraj Singh’s record of most sixes by an Indian in T20Is

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Twitter reactions: Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina help India score 176/3 against Bangladesh

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Preity Zinta, Sarah Taylor and others mourn the demise of great scientist Stephen Hawking

One of the greatest physicists in the history of science, Stephen Hawking, has died at the age of 76. The man who became a household name after publishing his book, A Brief History of Time, died at his home in Cambridge. After being diagnosed with a rare form of motor neuron disease, at the age

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Danielle Wyatt reacts to a warning regarding Anushka Sharma’s whereabouts

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Sania Mirza shared an image watching Team India’s game but fans are going gaga over something else

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Mitchell Santner out for up to nine months due to knee surgery, to miss IPL 2018

New Zealand’s star all-rounder Mitchell Santner will undergo knee surgery later this month and it will keep him out of action for up to nine months. Santner suffered discomfort during the limited overs series against England and had a scan, which revealed a bone defect. Further scans showed the injury had deteriorated and needed surgery

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Twitter brutally trolls KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma despite India’s easy win over Sri Lanka

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Twitter reacts after Kings XI Punjab unveil new jersey for IPL 2018

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Danielle Wyatt responds to a fan’s tweet if she will be cheering for Virat Kohli during the IPL 2018

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IPL 2018: KXIP unveil new jersey for the upcoming season

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