The mystery of Kulasekera

Watching the 4th ODI between New Zealand and Sri Lanka, I was struck by the skill of Nuwan Kulasekera, bowing at Rob Nicol. In his third over, he worked over Nicol, and even with three wides in the over, managed to pick up the wicket with his last ball.

He showcased almost all his skills in just one over, his natural in-swinger swinging big for the first ball, then seaming one slightly away from Nicol, beating the outside edge, and repeating the trick next ball with a lovely out-swinger. He also bowled a couple of good bouncers in-between, which were wided, but would have been fine in a Test match.

He got the wicket with the last ball of the eventual nine ball over, Nicol coming down the track and popping the ball into mid on's hands. The wicket came thanks to the pressure built up through the over, not allowing Nicol a run off the bat, pinning him back with bouncers before beating him with swing and seam.

With such prodigious skill, why has Kulasekera done so averagely throughout his career. His ODI average is high at 33.94 and his Test average is 34.41, having only played 15 matches. It's not as if he is constantly getting better either, his ODI average this year is 41.67 and his Test average is 36.37 He has all the tools to succeed, a big in-swinger, a well disguised straight ball and out-swinger added to his game in recent years, skiddy pace without being all out quick and a decent bouncer.

Maybe he moves the ball too much, sometimes it's the ball that moves a little that takes the wicket. Or maybe it's that the ball swings from the hand, even if he swings it miles, batsmen tend to get bat on it. Perhaps if he used his in-swinger as a shock weapon he'd do better, although as it is his natural ball this seems unlikely for him.

Sri Lanka have the making of a good seam attack, if only they could put it all together, with Lasith Malinga's injuries stopping him playing Tests, Chanaka Welegedera also plagued by injuries, and Kulasekera never quite living up to his promise.

With a good spell of consecutive Test matches, close together – something Sri Lanka won't get for a while – Kulasekera could get into some kind of rhythm. Against Pakistan in 2009 he bowled the most balls in a series by that point in his career, picking up 17 wickets at 15.05. He got that sort of series again against Pakistan, in 2012, and while his performance wasn't great (8 wickets at 36.37) he has the chance in the upcoming Tests against New Zealand to show that he's a good Test bowler.

Inverarity is wrong about the doosra

And so is everyone who says you can't bowl it without chucking. I’ve changed my mind a little over this debate. My biggest post in terms of hits (86) with was this one, about Saeed Ajmal and my opinion that he chucks his doosra.

In one sense I haven't changed my mind, I still think Ajmal chucks his doosra (not to mention his teesra) but I also said in that post that I didn't see how it was possible to bowl the doosra without chucking it. I’ve sort of changed my mind on that one.

Saqlain Mushtaq was one of the first to bowl the doosra well, and there were never to my knowledge any questions about his action. Muralitharan obviously couldn't fully straighten his arm, and I don’t believe he necessarily chucked his doosra.

This brings me to John Inverarity and his comments about not wanting young Australian bowlers to bowl the doosra. Talking to an Australian Cricket Society lunch he said, "The question is being asked now about 'do we develop the doosra bowlers or not'. That's a question of integrity for Cricket Australia. I don't think we do" He also said "We've got to keep our integrity and teach our bowlers to bowl properly"

Would he not even want them to bowl it if they could bowl like Saqlain or had a hyper-flexible/double jointed wrist that allowed them to do so without chucking? What needs to be recognised is that calling someone for chucking can ruin their career, and so encouraging bad actions is a bad thing to do, but not all doosras are produced from bad actions

So, that doesn’t mean that a blanket ban on bowling the doosra should be imposed by Australian cricket. Most off spinners won't be able to manage it, Graeme Swann has freely admitted that he has tried and failed to bowl a consistent doosra, but some might.

Inverarity, in trying to get rid of the doosra, has set himself all sorts of unorthodoxy. Wrong footed actions like that of Mike Proctor, or more currently Jack Shantry, may be a bad thing to teach, but that doesn’t mean they should be coached out of people to whom they come naturally.

Without unorthodoxy, comes no innovation. Bernard Bosquant was impugned for being against the spirit of the game for inventing the googly, yet now nobody would argue against the googly as being a part of the game.

The googly is a good comparison to make, because for a hundred years, leg-spinners have had their ball that goes the other way, surely the off-spinners should be allowed to at least try to bowl theirs? 

Sri Lanka are swimming against the T20 tide

Just when Sri Lanka had a t20 team that could prove as a blueprint to others, they’re looking set to take it back five years by ignoring the formula for t20 success these days.  Sri Lankan chief selector, Ashantha de Mel told ESPNCricinfo that his team needed more “strong hitters who can clear the boundary successfully” and seemed to imply that Mahela Jayawardene and Angelo Matthews weren’t bi g enough hitters.

Way to miss about a century’s worth of evolution in the t20 format. Back in 2003 when the format made its domestic debut in England’s Twenty20 Cup, teams were unsure of how to approach it, most batsmen seeing it as an opportunity to have a slog at every ball, and most bowlers seeing it as a way to ruin their figures.

In just nine years that’s changed significantly. Bowlers are now being discovered in t20, where the ability to keep pressure on is  invaluable, batsmen are learning that rotating the strike is important, and even though it’s just twenty overs, so is keeping wickets in hand.

Just look at West Indies’ win in the World t20 final, they were just 32 for two after ten overs. It was a poor start, but they hadn’t panicked, if they had they might have lost several more wickets, and not given Marlon Samuels the chance to make a competitive, and in the end match-winning target.

Sri Lanka’s strategy after losing early wickets may have been the same, but it didn’t come off for them on the day. Adding two or three inexperienced power hitters like Dilshan Munaweera wouldn’t have necessarily given them a better chance.

All the stats show that classy batsmen are the best in T20 cricket. Out of the ten highest averaging players in T20Is, eight are successful Test batsmen, showing how important class can be if you combine it discerningly with a bit of power at the right times. That list includes no Sri Lankan batsmen, but both Jayawardene and Sangakkara average 30 or over and have healthy strike rates.

By all means, add some power hitters down the order, but Sri Lanka’s top three are as good as any in the T20 game, adding Dilshan to the aforementioned players. The problem is players like Lahiru Thirimanne, whose part in the World T20 was puzzling, as a specialist batsman, batting up and down the order, scoring 27 runs in 4 innings, yet playing all seven games.

His place could be taken by another bowler, allowing Sri Lanka to play Herath and Dananjaya alongside Mendis, or by an all-rounder, both of those solutions would balance the team more. Even if they replace Thirimanne with another batsman, they need to add someone who can bat at four, someone classy, the sort of player who has been a success in the longer forms of the game. They might not be able to find that player, but that’s what they should be looking for. 

Hat tip to Rohit-Cricket for the stats I used, very interesting piece about the best T20 players being good in all formats. 

How interesting is the CLT20

Getting interested in the CLT20 might be a difficult thing for me. It's getting to the stage of t20 burnout, there hasn't been an international in another format since 5^h September and there won't be another one until the beginning of November. Once we get to then there's some tantalising Test and ODI cricket on the way, but before then we have another three weeks of t20 as South Africa plays host to the Champions League.

I'm no huge fan of the tournament, it is skewed ridiculously in favour of the stakeholders for an ICC endorsed event  - it has its own window in the calendar – and the fact that it's in a form of the game that isn't even my second favourite is another sticking point. But it is the only televised cricket - bar a small amount of domestic cricket live-streamed by the Australia and New Zealand boards - on at the moment, so I can imagine I'll end up watching it anyway. If you can't get caviar, you’ll have to make do with fish eggs.

I've got a feeling that I will end up being fairly interested in it, because even though it has its down points, there is a chance to find out about new players that I've never discovered before, from Unmukt Chand of Dehli Daredevils to some of the brilliant fielders in the Auckland Aces team.

Close matches are the most important thing though. The World t20 lost my attention at times in the first group stage, because, as fun as the occasional thrashing can be, game after game of Zimbabwe, Ireland and Afghanistan getting tonked doesn't make for a good tournament. Hopefully the qualifiers will mean that all eight teams involved are well matched, although the four overseas players of each IPL franchise, compared to the two of most other teams, will skew the competition to an extent.

So in summary: it's cricket, so I suppose I will be watching... though I may be bored to death of t20 cricket by the end of it. Thank God for Test cricket in November - even if it is in the middle of the night. Who needs sleep anyway?

Winning on first innings runs: the coward's way out

North Zone's cowardly failure to enforce the follow on against West Zone in the Duleep Trophy Quarter Final is symptomatic of what's wrong with Indian cricket. Let me break it down for you. In their first innings North Zone put a imposing total of 484 then bowled West Zone out for 164.

That left them with a lead of 320 on first innings, more than enough you'd think to enforce the follow on. But North Zone chose to bat again. That's a perfectly acceptable decision, assuming they were going for quick runs. 67 overs later they declared on 208 for seven, setting West Zone 529 in 29 overs at, oh about, 18 an over.

Now why you say would a team set such a ridiculous target and stop themselves having a chance to win the match outright, well because they were ahead on first innings runs they had already secured qualification assuming the match was a draw. There was no incentive for North Zone to go for the win, although the fact that they didn't even try to give themselves any time to win the game with such a big lead reflects badly on captain Shikhar Dhawan.

It's a easy argument to make that rules promoting such a negative form of cricket at domestic level leads to negative, risk-averse players coming through into the international team. Look at MS Dhoni, a man who lacks any kind of initiative to try to force wins. Compare him to Michael Clarke, who has made a point of setting attacking fields and clever declarations to try to force wins out of a team which doesn't have the legends of the previous era.

When they went in to bat in their second innings, North Zone had 14 overs until the end of play. What would Clarke/Brearley/Benaud etc have done? They'd have sent their batsmen out for quick runs, tried to set 400 then declare at the end of the day. 400 as a last day target on a pitch which neither team scored at over three an over in their first innings would have been near impossible, and 96 overs would be ample time to go for the win. Alas it wasn't to be, and it's to the detriment of Indian cricket.

I'm not sure there is a solution to this problem, because there needs to be a tie breaker to put the team through in a knockout cup like the Duleep Trophy. First innings runs is a logical one, but the unintended consequences are dire, so if you've got a better idea stick it in the comments.

The case for a First-class IPL

There are many things to dislike about the IPL: the rampant commercialism, the corruption, the excess, not to mention Danny Morrison. There is however one good idea underlying it. That’s the way that it brings together all the best players in the world, scatters them throughout ten teams, and pits them against each other, regardless of national or regional allegiance.

If you take out the ‘Indian’ part of the name; making it a truly international tournament, remove any player restrictions bar a salary cap, and change the formant, you could have something special. Imagine a global first class tournament, mixing players from every cricket nation. You could have venues across all ten of the Test playing nations, all the great grounds in the world, from Eden Gardens to Lords.

This has been mooted before, by the American Marxist cricket write Mike Marqusee, in an essay named “Nations for Sale.” It’s a prescient piece of writing, almost predicting the IPL. My idea is basically copied from his idea, as he writes:

If I had my way, I’d ban nations from sporting competitions. I’d like to see cricket’s big matches contested by city based clubs, as in football (Bombay v Manchester, Bangalore v Melbourne, Lahore v Cape Town). And, as in football, I’d like to see these city based clubs incorporating players from all over the world. Critics of big time Premier league football will throw their hands up in horror, but remember that it is the unbridled power of commerce that has poisoned the Premier League, not the admixture of nationalities. In cricket, as we have seen, that power inflates the importance of national success or failure. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could undercut it by choosing other types of identities?

These identities can still become poisonous, as club football shows, but I’d argue that it wouldn’t change the essentially generous nature of cricket support. True, you do have fierce rivalries (India v Pakistan, England v Australia, Yorkshire v Lancashire) which can spill over into something poisonous. That doesn’t mean, however, that the support isn’t generally good natured. In what other sport do you generally applaud good play from both teams?

The main difference between Marqusee’s idea and mine is the fact that he envisions this replacing the international sporting arena as it is now, whereas I see it as adding to the cricket world as it is now. Practical issues stand in the way of this happening though; there just isn’t the time for the competition unless you spread it over enough time to stop dead the acceleration of interest. Nobody’s going to follow a competition that takes place in small and sporadic intervals, possibly unless you make it a straight knockout format.

That’s part of the compromise option, which may be the only viable one. For this, the example is the Champions League T20. How about a Club World Championship, based on a knockout format, between the winners of all the first class leagues (or for format convenience’s sake, the top eight Test nation’s leagues). Just think, this year you could have a quarter final draw featuring Rajasthan v Lancashire, Queensland v Northern Districts, Pakistan International Airlines v Titans, Colts Cricket Club v Jamaica. I don’t know about you, but the prospect of that has got me salivating. Put a month window in the schedule and let’s get it on.

Why don’t England have part time spin options?

Today’s ODI against South Africa showcased where they and most other international teams have an advantage over England: part time spin bowlers. The combination of the part time spin of Faf du Plessis, JP Duminy and Dean Elgar picked up 2-39 off 10 overs. That’s a full bowler’s worth of overs at a decent run rate, and two wickets, from three players who were not in any way picked for their bowling.

Most other ODI and T20 teams in the world have this sort of thing. Pakistan are the masters of this, in their T20 team against Australia today, in addition to two specialist spinners they had the part time spinner turned front liner Mohammed Hafeez, and the serviceable off-spin of Shoaib Malik. Australia only picked one frontline spinner in Xavier Doherty, but behind that had Cameron White bowling leggies, off spin from David Hussey and Glenn Maxwell

There also a surprising amount of aggresive openers who bowl off-spin for some reason, the aforementioned Hafeez, Gayle, Dilshan, Sehwag. England don’t have one of those, although if Joe Root gets the vacant openers spot in Tests he bowls some useful off-spin.

At the moment England have Tredwell bowling frontline spin in their ODI team in place of the rested Swann and Patel as something between part time and front line. That’s it though, and there is the problem England might come across in the World T20 in Sri Lanka. Other teams may go in with one or two frontline spinners, but back that up with a bevy of batting all-rounders bowling spin, and part time spinners. England’s squad contains three players who bowl any kind of spin - two specialists and an all-rounder - Graeme Swann, Samit Patel, and Danny Briggs, not a part time spinner in sight.

If Kevin Pietersen had been involved he would have taken that number to four, but compared to every other team’s part timers, he is more of a bowler of flighty filth, rather than of accurate strangulation. Compare that to Pakistan’s squad, which have five frontline or regular part-time bowlers, plus two very occasional leg-spinners. Those five, who are all likely to bowl if they play, and will all be useful. Even New Zealand have five possible spin options, making England look pretty light on the spin front.

That could be a factor which loses the tournament for England. It seems unlikely that the England seamers will have a huge amount of success; Bresnan and Broad are out of form and the pitches are unlikely to be to Steven Finn’s liking. It’s unfortunate that England lack these part time spinners, but it’s hardly surprising, skiddy medium pace of the sort practiced by the likes of Ravi Bopara is more usefully in English conditions. Will this hole in the English attack prevent them winning in Sri Lanka? Very possibly.