Back after a bit of a break due to inevitable reasons. In the next few days too, chances are that blogging will be off and on a bit due to time constraints. Hopefully will get back to full force soon.
Now to the "Super Series". As of now, the Super Test is all but won by Australia. The optimist in me still hopes that the World X1 put in an inspired performance to salvage some pride - otherwise this is bound to be considered one of the floppiest ideas ever.
Trying to analyze the performance or the lack of it of the World X1 a couple of interesting points come up.
1. Lack of commitment does not seem to be such an issue as is made out to be. If that were the case, it would have been more pronouncedly felt in the field. If anything, this World Team has been less poor in bowling than in batting to put it mildly.
Coming back to the batting (for that has been the real bane) consider the scores of 4 of the World X1 batsmen today
1) Graeme Smith 12 (Career Avg. 55)
2) Rahul Dravid 0 (Career Avg. 58)
3) Brian Lara 5 (Career Avg. 55)
4) Inzamam 1 (Career Avg. 51)
The four of them while expected to score on an average over 200 runs scored less than 20. That is a damning stat. But looking at it from a different perspective, it is not as if they have got starts and then thrown it. (except perhaps Smith a little). The same thing happened in the ODIs where Lara Dravid and Kallis basically never got off to a start.
I do think the timing of this Super Series could be one of the reasons for the sad batting display. With the exception of India and England and to some extent Sri Lanka, all the other teams were completely cold coming into this series.
Normally all teams take some time to get going in a season and it is bound to be far more pronounced when you have a motley collection of individuals like in this case. So the lack of team feeling is in my opinion a secondary issue and not the primary one.
2. Now coming to the use of technology in umpiring decisions particularly lbws - I must say I'm not totally convinced so far. For one in most cases the umpire's intuition turned out to be correct. Which is fine, but with some decisions this might radically change the game - as was the case with Inzy's lbw appeal today (ultimately negatived). For years umpires have been giving the benefit of the doubt to the batsman on close bat-pad decisions and that's the way it should be. Problem is technology is quite inconclusive and unless we can get that straight, I do feel it is best to trust the on-field umpire's judgement and make sure only the best get the job. Also the decisions do take a fair amount of time and despite all this there are times when umpires still give a wrong decision without referring. (like happened to Mark Boucher today). Now there will always be a debate - whether to take the safer option by referring or to trust one's judgement - not an easy choice to make.
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from: kirk@lords.com
SUPERSERIES AGONISTES
To paraphrase Shakespeare, "The fault of the Superseries lies not in the stars of the World XI, but in ourselves."
The disappointments that abounded in the first and possibly last "Super" ODIs & Test match were not due to the failure of a few top cricketers, but the flawed structure into which they were thrust. The list is dismayingly long.
1. Team, team, team -- Despite the media's focus on star bowlers & six-hitting batsmen, real success in cricket depends on the unity and strength arising from partnerships in batting and bowling, and other more subtle team dynamics (left and right handed batsmen, fielding specialisations, etc.). It is highly doubtful that the World XI as presently constituted could have defeated a national side of more modest means and not in too much disarray, such as India or South Africa, much less the top of the ICC Test table represented by Australia.
2. Practise, practise, practise -- Even the best team needs time and opportunity to play together to reach something approaching its full potential. The World XI had no first-class warm-up matches, a standard feature of any tour. In fact, the World XI could not properly be said to be on tour at all. It had all the earmarks of a filibustering junket, filled with players who had not seen action for months and who did entirely too much sightseeing and banqueting. Predictably, the best performers were English and Sri Lankan, who had most recently seen serious international action. Worse still, the all-stars faced a fully blooded Australian team fresh from months of play in England culminating in the closest Ashes contest in memory, with sufficient rest to recover reasonably well from the attendant stress and minor injuries.
3. Home, sweet home -- Not only were the World XI asked to play the best in the world, they had to do so on some of that team's home fixtures. Even England would likely have found the Ashes eluding their grasp had it been played in Australia this year. It is simply too much to ask of any all-star side to do this without some compensatory adjustments. Playing outside the best team's country would likely even the playing field, but would probably depress ticket sales. On the other hand, since most of the revenue comes from broadcasting anyway, perhaps this shouldn't be seen as such an important factor. Less dramatically, something as simple as dispensing with the coin toss and giving the World XI the choice of batting or bowling in each contest might well do the trick.
4. Rain, rain, go away -- Were it not for the ODIs being held in the Telstra Dome, there would have been little or no play in two out of the three matches held in the early southern spring. The Test match turned out to be a very near run thing meteorologically, with no chance of seeing six days of play regardless of the quality of batting. Maddening interruptions for moisture and bad light were a virtual certainty. The timing of the Superseries seemed little more than an afterthought or the result of overscheduling. Perhaps this situation argues even more convincingly than home-advantage for selecting a proper venue as well as a time suitable for play, which may not happen to be in the home nation of the world's best side. If Australia ever does fall from its perch as the best team, there will be no Telstra Dome to save the day anywhere else in the world.
5. Finally, spare a thought for the ICC selectors -- This is probably the least of the structural problems and the one most easily corrected, but the ordinary performance of the ICC board of selectors added more than a dash of vinegar to an already bitter brew. Even before the first ball was bowled there was considerable advance commentary about the World XI's vulnerability in the field, the unaccustomed positions that stars like Inzamam ul-Haq would find themselves playing, the challenges involved in batting partnerships and running between the wickets, lack of recent playing time to develop form, and the thanklessness of the task of captaining the ODI and even the Test side. All of these concerns emerged vividly during actual play. The World XI seemed less like "the Best of the Rest" than simply a collection of crippled cricketers. What besides name recognition guided the selectors' thinking? How much did the selection problems currently plaguing India seep into a panel dominated by its chair Sunny Gavaskar? These are unpleasant questions reflecting perhaps uncharitable suspicions, but such notions come quickly to mind in the wake of the ill-considered Superseries format.
Did anything go well? Fortunately, the answer appears to be yes when it comes to technology. At last the umpires have some long-overdue support while attempting to call no-balls at their feet, spot wides and bouncers, and see and hear faint edges 20 meters away all while peering into the multilayered mysteries of leg-before calls. Does this make the individual umpires seem less like demigods? Almost certainly so, though the system introduced in the Superseries artfully leaves the on-field officials wearing wireless equipped body-vests the option to call for the TV umpire's nonbinding input and make the final decision. The descent of a handful of umpiring egos from Mt. Olympus plus a few extra minutes spent on making proper decisions in a game that lasts for hours seems well worth the virtual elimination of erroneous calls that can change the momentum of an entire match or even a series. The ICC's caution about the future of umpiring technology after the Superseries may seem a bit Luddite, but cricket is after all a famously tradition-laden game that rightly relinquishes only with great reluctance its reliance on human capacity, endurance and good spirits in the face of adverse and occasionally unfair calls. The tone accompanying the changes that are likely to take eventual root is therefore spot-on and pitch-perfect.
One other thing that worked even better than the technology, though in a rather perverse way, was that the Superseries proved through its failures what cricket is really all about. It is a sport that spotlights individual achievement but only in the context of partnerships, clever captaining, and overall team integration. It thrives on emotion and pride of the kind the Australian side demonstrated so magnificently in the wake of its Ashes embarrassments. Overemphasis on stars and sixes gets you exactly as far as the World XI got: precisely nowhere.
So now we can all breathe a sigh of relief that extravagant innovations like the Afro-Asian Cup and Johnnie Walker Superseries are over and done with at least for the time being, and we can all get back to the regular rhythms of international cricket, with normal problems like umpiring mistakes (at least for awhile longer), minnows performances, and the apparent return of Australian invincibility. Whenever these matters begin to bother you, or the new ODI supersub and powerplay rules cause your head to spin like a Shane Warne snorter, just reflect on the outcome of the Superseries and count your blessings.
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