All posts by n8rngtd.top

Over a 19-year international career, Wasim Akram took wickets all over the world, in Tests and ODIs, with a consistency that was mind-boggling

S Rajesh25-Apr-2010There are several outstanding aspects to Wasim Akram’s international career, right from its sheer longevity – almost 19 years – to the amount of success he had in Tests and ODIs, with new ball and with old, with the red variety and the white. He was pretty handy with the bat – you’d have to be if your highest Test score is 257 not out – but it’s as a bowler of splendid and varied skills that Akram will be remembered.Making his Test debut against New Zealand in the beginning of 1985, Akram needed just one match to make his mark: in his second Test, in Dunedin, he returned match figures of 10 for 128 and was named Man of the Match even though New Zealand won the thriller by two wickets.That set a glorious Test career on its way, but the early years were, as you’d expect for an 18-year-old, somewhat erratic. Even so, there were enough promising performances to prove that Akram was the real deal. In Barbados three years later, Akram took seven wickets in heartbreaker that Pakistan lost, yet again, by two wickets. In his first five years, though, Akram only managed 94 wickets in 29 Tests – a modest average of 3.24 per match.Akram’s best years were about to come. In his first Test of 1990, against Australia in Melbourne, Akram took 11 for 160, and that haul triggered a sensational run that lasted through most of the next eight years. In 48 Tests from 1990 to the end of 1997, Akram averaged five wickets per match, and his average dropped to an outstanding 20.05, before his form finally tapered off in his last four years.

During that eight-year period from 1990 to 1997, Akram had the best figures in Test cricket, barring none. There were several legendary bowlers who were at the height of their craft during an era which we now look back on as a golden one for bowlers, especially the fast ones – Curtly Ambrose, Allan Donald, Waqar Younis and Glenn McGrath were all around, but Akram’s stats stood out even among them. His average of 20.05 was better than anyone else’s during this period (with a cut-off of 150 wickets); in terms of strike rate, only Waqar was ahead.During these eight years, Akram was Man of the Match in 12 of the 48 Tests he played, an incredible average of one every four games. Eight of these were in overseas Tests, including the game in Melbourne and the next one in Adelaide, when he turned in an outstanding all-round performance, taking six wickets and scoring 52 and 123. At the time it was only the 12th instance of a player scoring 150 or more and taking six or more wickets in a Test.

Overall, he won 17 Man-of-the-Match and seven Man-of-the-Series awards, both of which are among the highest. Even better, his rate of winning these awards, one every six Tests, is the best among those who’ve won at least ten such prizes.

Not surprisingly, Akram remains one of the most potent matchwinners in Tests for Pakistan. In the 41 wins that he was a part of, he took 211 wickets at an average which compares well with the best in the business.

Like most fast bowlers from Pakistan, Akram too mastered the art of bowling grassless pitches, where reverse swing becomes a most potent weapon. He is one of only four bowlers to take more than 150 wickets in Pakistan, while in the three major subcontinent countries, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, his average was marginally better than his overall career average.

Through most of his career, Akram formed a destructive fast-bowling combination with Waqar: in the 61 Tests they played together, Akram averaged 21.33, with 20 five-fors and four ten-wicket hauls; in the 43 Tests he played without Waqar, his averaged fell to 28.50, and he only managed five five-fors. His wickets per Tests too dropped to 3.07 per match, from 4.62 when the bowled with Waqar. Some of that was also because the periods he bowled without Waqar were also during the first and last parts of his career, when he wasn’t at his most potent.

Akram’s ODI career was more even, and his stats stayed within a narrow band almost throughout. He announced himself in his third game, taking 5 for 21 against Australia in Melbourne – a haul that included Allan Border, Dean Jones and Kepler Wessels – during the World Championship of Cricket.His best period, though, was between 1992 and 1997, when he had an economy rate of 3.76 and took 14 of his 23 hauls of four or more wickets. At the beginning of that period was the 1992 World Cup, in which Akram was an absolute star, taking 18 wickets at 18.77. The highlight was his 3 for 49 in the final, when he derailed England’s run-chase with the wickets of Allan Lamb and Chris Lewis in successive balls. Even towards the end of his career he remained a significant threat with the ball, and became the first bowler to go past the 500-wicket mark.Akram played five World Cups over his 19-year career, and finished as the second-highest wicket-taker with 55, next only to McGrath’s haul of 71.

With 326 ODI wickets in wins, Akram is next only to Muralitharan in this regard. He’s clearly one of the greatest matchwinners in ODIs, averaging less than 19 at a run rate of 3.70. Among bowlers with at least 150 wickets in wins, only four bowlers have a better average.

Akram’s genius and his ability to burst through batting line-ups is obvious from the fact that he has taken two hat-tricks in Tests and ODIs, the only bowler to do so. He finished with 22 Man-of-the-Match awards in ODIs, which isn’t anywhere near Sachin Tendulkar’s 61, but it’s a significant number considering the fact that ODIs are usually dominated by batsmen. In fact, Akram and Shaun Pollock (who also has 22) have the highest number of awards among players whose major suit isn’t batting.And then there’s the small matter of Akram the captain. In the 25 Tests in which he led Pakistan, they won 12 and lost eight, and his reign included a series win in England, and clinching the Asian Test Championship. His ODI record was impressive too: a win-loss ratio of 1.6, which is the joint-highest for any Pakistan captain who led in more than 50 games.

Every South African fielder has had a role model to look up to: Jonty Rhodes, Peter Kirsten and Sybrand Engelbrecht explain why the country has never lacked fielding talent

Telford Vice05-Apr-2010

When AB de Villiers soared into the Bangalore night to snuff out Praveen Kumar’s innings for the Royal Challengers 10 days ago, he wasn’t only making a seemingly impossible catch spectacularly possible. He was also continuing a tradition of South Africans daring to go where no other fielders, except those from Australia, have regularly gone before.By any standard, de Villiers’ effort shimmered with brilliance. Praveen pulled lustily at the first ball he faced, a short delivery from the Delhi Daredevils’ Umesh Yadav, and sent it arcing towards the long-off boundary. De Villiers scrambled backward and launched his leap with perfect timing. He snared the wannabe six high above his head in his right hand and hung onto the ball as he crashed to earth a foot inside the rope.”Awesome,” was Jonty Rhodes’ description of de Villiers’ catch, and he should know. From 1992 to 2003, Rhodes dazzled opponents and delighted crowds with the kind of catching and fielding that would have won him star billing in PT Barnum’s Big Top. Rhodes was the epitome of the gritty middle-order batsman, and a more treasured team man will never exist. But he will forever be remembered for diving headlong into the stumps to run out Inzamam-ul-Haq at the 1992 World Cup.Click on the first mention of Rhodes’ name in this story, and you will be taken to a profile page illustrated not with a photograph of him playing a fine stroke, but of him flying through the air with the greatest of ease to take another of those impossible catches.This thread can be traced back more than 50 years, at least, in South Africa’s cricket history. Before Rhodes, Peter Kirsten was South Africa’s angel of death in the field. Before Kirsten, Colin Bland, “the Golden Eagle”, preyed on hapless batsmen.”Youngsters tend to look up to their cricketing idols, and in my case that was Colin Bland,” Kirsten said. “Hopefully that means that Jonty was watching me!” Indeed, he was. “Peter Kirsten was my hero,” Rhodes said, unprompted.The modern mantle might just belong to Sybrand Engelbrecht, a 21-year-old blond ghost who haunted backward point with enthusiasm as memorable as his athleticism at the 2008 Under-19 World Cup. He took five catches, some of them positively Rhodesian, in the three matches he played, and added to his value by hurrying and harrying batsmen into and out of singles. If the ball was being hit somewhere he wasn’t, he was in the captain’s ear, nagging to be moved to the hot spot.And Engelbrecht’s hero? “Without a doubt, definitely Jonty. He’s been my role model,” he said.But, according to Rhodes, South Africa’s fielding prowess is more than the preserve of a few shining individuals. “We were untested as an international team when we went to the 1992 World Cup,” Rhodes said. “But [former South Africa captain] Kepler [Wessels] told us there were two areas in which we could dominate: fitness and fielding.”We had Fanie de Villiers out on the boundary and Brian McMillan and Kepler in the slips. They were all excellent fielders. Fielding was something we could compete at even without international experience.” Eighteen years of international experience later that remains true: “You can judge a good fielding side by the fact that they don’t have to hide anyone. That’s the case with South Africa.”Rhodes thinks the reason for that goes down to grassroots level, and he says he has the evidence to back up his claim. “Our fields are just so good and so well-maintained. I wish I could show you the video clip of my son playing in his first outdoor cricket match. There he was, diving and sliding all over the place. And he was five years old!”Fields in Australia are pretty much the same as they are in South Africa, and I think it’s fair to say that those two countries have been at the forefront of fielding over the years.”In other countries, cricket and cricketers could be considered less fortunate. For instance, in India, where Rhodes is part of the Mumbai Indians’ coaching staff in the IPL. “You just don’t get much grass in this part of the world. I was talking to Mark Boucher and he said he can feel the strain on his knees even through his wicketkeeping pads. That’s an indication of how hard the fields are here.”For Engelbrecht, practice makes perfect. “Fielding is about hard work and confidence, and catching hundreds of balls in training,” he said. “People look at someone like Richard Branson and how he makes building a business empire look so easy. What they don’t see is how much time and effort he has put in behind the scenes to make it look so easy.”Rhodes and Engelbrecht belong to a generation of cricketers who don’t need to be convinced of the advantages to be had from superior conditioning and a more intense focus on skills training. Not so Kirsten, who began to make his way in the game when cricket was still something of an amateur pursuit in South Africa. However, early in his career he encountered the forward-thinking Eddie Barlow, who was among the earliest believers in fitness and better training methods for cricketers.

“You can judge a good fielding side by the fact that they don’t have to hide anyone. That’s the case with South Africa”Jonty Rhodes

Kirsten also suffered a serious knee injury that required long, lonely hours of rehabilitation. “I used to train hard individually in the 70s and 80s. That made the difference for me,” Kirsten said.”South Africans are naturally athletic people, and since the 90s fitness levels have improved. These days there is also plenty of sports science around for us to make use of.”But certain aspects of fielding would seem to remain in the realm of instinct. “Anticipation is very important, as is peripheral vision,” Kirsten said. “It’s vital to be able to read the batsman. I suppose there are some things you just can’t coach.” Kirsten held more than his share of unforgettable catches, but his trademark as a fielder was the fluid pick-up-and-throw from the covers that cut down many batsmen short of their ground. He was mercury in motion, and just as deadly. Who knows how many run-outs he would have effected had his career fallen more squarely into the age of electronic umpiring?Bland bestrode the covers from the 1950s to the 70s, a lean, grim reaper. He threw down the stumps almost at will, his reward for endless hours spent in solitary practice sessions, and intimidated batsmen with his sheer presence. “He was brilliant in certain positions,” remembered Trevor Goddard, Bland’s captain in 12 of the 21 Tests he played in the 1960s. “We also fielded him at mid-on a lot of the time, and he was so accurate when throwing at the stumps. When he was patrolling the boundary, he would send these underarm throws whistling in. The batsmen wouldn’t dare take two to him.”Goddard recalled the bleak observation made by former England captain Peter May after a 1956-57 rubber in which he was caught seven times in 10 innings and recorded his lowest Test series average, 15.30. “He said that if you hit the ball in the air when you were playing against South Africa, you should expect to be caught.”Praveen Kumar won’t argue with that.

Plays of the Day from the first day of the second Test between India and New Zealand in Hyderabad

ESPNcricinfo staff12-Nov-2010Comforting moment of the day
On the flattest of pitches at Motera, Tim McIntosh had made a pair, falling to Zaheer Khan both times. He had faced no other bowler in the match. Today, on a juicier surface in Hyderabad, McIntosh remained strokeless in the opening exchanges against Zaheer and played out two maiden overs. The moment he finally got to face another bowler, though, off the last ball of the sixth over, McIntosh strode forward and drove Sreesanth through covers for four. The confidence had clearly grown, for when he faced his 15th delivery from Zaheer, McIntosh played a square drive through point – his first scoring shot off the bowler.Let-off of the day
Martin Guptill had blown it. Dropped for the disastrous tour of Bangladesh, and not selected to play at Motera, he had got his chance in Hyderabad and he had blown it, by nicking Sreesanth to MS Dhoni. He had nearly walked off the ground and Ross Taylor had almost reached the pitch when word reached him that Sreesanth had over-stepped and the umpire Kumar Dharmasena had checked with the third umpire late. Guptill wore a sheepish smile as he walked past Taylor towards the middle to resume his innings. He would get another lucky break soon after, when Dhoni failed to catch an edge, and he made his luck count.Unexpected shot of the day
New Zealand had seen off the new ball, hit only five fours and were chugging along at fewer than three an over in the first 20. The discussions had switched to whether the threatening clouds would cause a rain interruption when Guptill put the cricket back in focus by taking a neat step down to Harbhajan Singh and lofting him over the long-on boundary. The attack came out of nowhere and its follow-through was full but not lavish. A graceful pick-me-up the session needed.Nuisance of the day
Play being held up by malfunctioning sight-screens is perhaps the most annoying interruption in cricket. How hard can it be to put a well-oiled sight-screen in place? Before the second over began after lunch, the sight-screen at the North End decided to act up. It refused to change from displaying the sponsor advertisement to white, and at one stage it showed one half of two logos. Having failed to fix it, the groundstaff attempted to move it out of the batsman’s view by wheeling it to one side. It refused to budge though. There was little choice but to turn violent and, with a couple of shoves, the groundstaff toppled the stubborn sight-screen onto its back and out of view. It had served little purpose anyway because the region behind it was draped with white sheets.Over-dressed fielder of the day
In the 60th over during the final session, McIntosh went back to a long-hop from Harbhajan and cut hard towards cover-point, where the ball was intercepted by a fielder. Nothing unusual about it, except the fielder was wearing a helmet and shin pads. Gautam Gambhir had been stationed at short leg for new batsman Taylor and didn’t bother shedding the extra gear when he was moved to cover-point for McIntosh. Just as well he didn’t have to chase anything.Revelation of the day
McIntosh is a big batsman, taller than Dhoni, who was crouched behind him for the entire day. And yet he almost never showed any sign of power. McIntosh scored 25 runs in the morning session, 30 in the second and toiled for them. Virender Sehwag had come close to 100 in the first in Ahmedabad. And then McIntosh played an astonishing stroke. Shelving the steers, glances and economical drives that had brought him five fours, he took two steps forward to Pragyan Ojha and lifted him over the midwicket boundary. At first it appeared as though the ball might just clear the in-field – so light was his touch – but it went the distance.Landmark of the day
When McIntosh drove Harbhajan to deep mid-on to reach his century, the first by a New Zealand opener away from home since Stephen Fleming at Trent Bridge in 2004, there was initially little applause. Only when he raised his arms aloft and celebrated the achievement did the spectators realise and give him a cheer. The fault was not theirs, though, because the scoreboard at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium shows only the team’s total and no scores for individual batsmen. McIntosh was obviously counting.

ESPNcricinfo brings you the plays of the fourth day of the third Test between South Africa and India at Newlands

Sidharth Monga at Newlands05-Jan-2011The kindness
It was a hot day with the temperatures reaching 36 degrees Celsius, and Jacques Kallis was struggling with bruised and contused ribs. When he collapsed with pain, waiting for the physiotherapist to arrive, he was flat on his back looking straight at the sun beating down on him. Umpire Simon Taufel provided him some relief, using his hat as a shield between the sun and Kallis.The easily movable object
Hashim Amla was batting in front of the same stumps that refused to let go off the bail on the third day when he tried a premeditated sweep off Harbhajan Singh, who bowls at about 55kph slower than the unfortunate bowler Dale Steyn. More pace was taken off the ball as it ricocheted off the pad onto the arm and then softly rolled into the stumps. And lo, down came the bail. Sometimes, when it is not your Tuesday, it isn’t your Wednesday either.The shot
How many times have you seen Jacques Kallis reverse-sweep? Not often. He is such a correct player he hardly ever needs these frills. Today, though, with two batsmen before him struggling with the orthodox variety of sweep, and with strong leg-side fields, Kallis reverse-swept in a calculated manner. Cutting was not easy with the rough outside the off stump, and behind square on the off side was the one vacant area. So, the third ball Kallis faced from Harbhajan he shaped up for the sweep, then turned the bat the other way around, and got four for it. The desired response was instant as India stationed a deep point, and the 16 runs that Kallis got through 10 reverse-sweeps remained the highlight of the innings.The boundary rider
Sreesanth hasn’t had much fun fielding at the boundary during this series. Harbhajan Singh, though, earned some friends in the crowd on Wednesday. He was seen chatting, posing for photographs, and signing autographs. He even borrowed a fake moustache from someone in the crowd, took it with him when he was going to field inside the ring, and brought it back only when he was sent back again. High fives all round. A completely different vibe from the one he drew from the Australian crowds three years ago.The breakthrough
India were out of inspiration, ideas and imagination during the partnership between Kallis and Mark Boucher when MS Dhoni handed the ball over to Sachin Tendulkar. In his second over, Tendulkar produced one that stayed low and trapped Boucher in front. It was his first Test wicket since April 2009. That didn’t provide India with much inspiration, though, as a 54-run eighth-wicket stand between Kallis and Steyn followed.

Nathan Lyon’s emergence from the Adelaide Oval groundstaff to join the ranks of young Australian spin bowlers is a tale drawn from another age

Daniel Brettig03-Jun-2011Les Burdett’s retirement as the Adelaide Oval ground manager had a most unexpected benefit. The man who filled his place on the groundstaff was Nathan Lyon.Plucked from the ranks of those who tend the turf by South Australia’s Twenty20 and now state coach Darren Berry, Lyon made an immediate impression as a classical offspin bowler, in a Redbacks team that hoisted aloft the state’s first domestic trophy since 1996. By the end of the summer he was in the Sheffield Shield team, and he is soon to travel to Zimbabwe with Australia A.Lyon’s is a tale drawn from an earlier age, when first-class cricketers held jobs and were chosen from far more varied stock than the conveyor belt of under-age and “high performance” cricket that typifies the experience of most aspiring players in 2011.As Lyon sees it, his twin careers in bowling and curating gave him the best chance to make something of himself in either discipline. A rapid elevation to the Cricket Australia stable has left him excited but also somewhat breathless. And he has quickly discovered that bowling spin on Australian pitches can be a more thankless task than preparing them.Told in Lyon’s simple words, his journey from Canberra to Adelaide and now the Centre of Excellence in Brisbane is extraordinary. This sort of thing does not happen too often anymore, though the man himself makes sure to preface his story with plenty of self-deprecation.”Oh, it’s nothing exciting,” he told ESPNcricinfo. “I moved to Canberra [from country New South Wales] when I was 18 and took up an apprenticeship at Manuka Oval. I did four years there and just went over there to give cricket a crack with the under-age competition, the Under-17s and -19s for the ACT. I did that and then played a couple of years in the Comets.”Then about 10 months ago a job came up. With Les retiring, they were looking for someone to curate [working under the new oval manager Damian Hough]. I applied for it and had the opportunity with the cricket to train with the Redbacks. I was pretty stoked to be working down there, getting the opportunity to train now and again, just basically be a net bowler and still play for ACT Comets.”But Darren Berry looked at me in the Baby Bash when I was playing it, the Under-23 competition in Melbourne, and he said ‘You’ve been picked in the Redbacks Big Bash squad. Turn up expecting to play, and train hard and see where you get to.'”Where Lyon got to was a key place in the team that won the Big Bash, teaming up with the English legspinner Adil Rashid and the left-arm spinner Aaron O’Brien to spin South Australia to success. The spin trio was Berry’s brainchild, and it reaped handsome results to prove Shane Warne’s theory about the role of slow bowlers in Twenty20 – provided the conditions suit.”Having three spinners, we all got along quite well – that was quite enjoyable, going away with those lads, rooming with ‘the Rash’ was quite a good experience, and we get along quite well, so it was good fun,” Lyon said.”I learned a lot listening to the Rash talk about all the different ways of bowling. But we’re both attacking spin bowlers in our own right, which was a good sign for the Redbacks and really paid off. Darren Berry’s quite intelligent too, the way he kept to a lot of the best spinners in the world, especially Warne, so Darren’s got a lot to offer and I’m really looking forward to working with him for the next few years down in Adelaide.”Lyon’s influences include Warne, whom he “idolised” in his youth, but also the enigmatic figure of Mark Higgs. Flirted with briefly by the Australian selectors a decade ago as a hard-spinning left-arm orthodox and free-wheeling batsman, Higgs had moved from the ACT to New South Wales to South Australia. He eventually found his way back to Canberra, where a young Lyon hung on his advice.”Back in Canberra, working with Mark Higgs was a big thing for myself, working on spin bowling,” Lyon said. “Higgsy’s really tried to help me become an offspinner who hopefully bowls similarly to himself and learns that way. He took me under his wing and really showed me the ropes, especially in the Futures League with the ACT Comets, the whole mental side of spin bowling, but also at training with the technical side and all the different types of balls that a spinner usually has in their equipment bag.”Thus equipped, Lyon caught the eye of most who saw him bowling once he arrived in Adelaide, where he also had the chance to meet and bowl alongside the England offspinner Graeme Swann when the tourists played a pre-Ashes tour match in Adelaide. There are elements of Swann in Lyon, his loop and spin, plus the subtle variation in pace that can cause a batsman to err.”I’m definitely trying to entice the batsman to drive and toss the ball up and give the ball a chance to spin,” Lyon said.Promoted to the SA first-class side, Lyon returned a very promising 4-81 and 2-119 against Western Australia at the WACA in his first match, but he found the going harder in a final trio of three Sheffield Shield fixtures. Having become used to the constraints of the Futures League (the Australian under-age/second XI competition, in which the first innings is capped at 96 overs and the second at 48), Lyon’s arms, legs and fingers were not used to the strain, and his form dipped towards the end.

When Lyon returns to Adelaide Oval after Zimbabwe, it will not be merely as a groundsman but as an SA contract-holder, an Australia A representative and an international traveller. But he retains his place on the groundstaff, and the sense that spin bowling is fickle enough to mean that later in the summer he could just as easily be rolling a fourth day Sheffield Shield pitch as bowling on it.

“First-class cricket’s a lot harder than the Futures League – just the intensity and the sheer talent of all the players you play against,” Lyon said. “It was a big ask and I really enjoyed every moment of it, but it was quite tiring in the end there, playing so much cricket. Not having played and trained at that intensity or that level of standard before is quite interesting and a massive learning curve for myself.”I’ve never done a full pre-season in my life, so I’m working pretty hard in the gym at the moment and getting a few more kilometres in the legs to help me out throughout next season. My main goal is to hopefully play all the Shield games for South Australia, do well and hopefully learn about this first-class cricket environment.”When Lyon returns to Adelaide Oval after Zimbabwe, it will not be merely as a groundsman but as an SA contract-holder, an Australia A representative and an international traveller – he has never ventured further afield than New Zealand, and is inquisitive about Africa. But he retains his place on the groundstaff, and the sense that spin bowling is fickle enough to mean that later in the summer he could just as easily be rolling a fourth-day Sheffield Shield pitch as bowling on it.”That’s the beauty of my job,” Lyon said. “The cricket comes along with the work, so in that respect I’m pretty lucky. ACT cricket were really good to me, gave me enough time off work to concentrate on my cricket, and so have the SACA. My whole goal’s been to play first-class cricket.”

At the very last gasp of a series that began with such expectation, we’re finally seeing the India that the crowds have flocked to witness

Andrew Miller at The Oval21-Aug-2011At the very last gasp of a series that began with such expectation, we’re finally seeing the India that the crowds have flocked to witness. On a day when England’s victory surge was slowed but never halted, Rahul Dravid stopped the clocks around The Oval with a performance to rival any of the ground’s great farewells of the past.He’s not gone yet, of course, but he’s going – just as Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman are heading over the brow of the hill, and just as Sourav Ganguly and Anil Kumble are already waiting in the pantheon of Indian cricket. At the age of 38, Dravid will not be returning to England as a player, the country where it all began for him 15 years and four tours ago, and poignantly his defiance on this fourth day might not make a jot of difference in the final analysis of a humbling series. However, for as long as it lasted – seven-and-a-quarter hours spread across two consecutive innings – it was arguably the most magnificent sight of the summer.Immense batting performances have been two-a-penny in an extraordinary season for statistics, but somehow the sheer weight of England’s numbers have numbed the senses a touch. We’ve had the dour from Alastair Cook and the delightful from Ian Bell; the crushing from Kevin Pietersen and the capable from Eoin Morgan. At too many moments, however, the accompanying air has been one of surrender, belched out from an Indian attack that has lacked the fitness, discipline and depth to remain threatening for more than a few isolated spells at a time.Dravid, on the other hand, has faced the real deal all summer long. The tenacity of England’s bowlers has been a central plank of their success, with India yet to make a score in excess of 300 in seven completed innings – the sort of figure that Sehwag used to rack up in a day. Dravid alone has held firm with a fearlessness that has both shamed those team-mates who have been incapable of carrying the fight, and reminded the series’ many onlookers of what could and should have been.Only seven batsmen in history have carried their bat through a completed Test innings and straight into the follow-on. The last man to do so was Desmond Haynes in 1991, also at The Oval, although his feat was something of a fait accompli, given the dramatic speed with which West Indies’ tail succumbed to Phil Tufnell – 6 for 4 in 33 deliveries all told. India fared considerably better than that, but to make Dravid’s innings even more extraordinary, he was only opening the batting because Gautam Gambhir was suffering from concussion. “I felt I was in the flow,” he said. “Mentally I was ready for it.”Dravid’s shots, when he chose to play them, simmered to the boundary with a defiance that harked back to a bygone era. It was as if the match had been rewound to the turn of the Millennium, to a time just before India’s great awakening, when such incredible feats of endurance were accompanied by the wonder of what might be possible, rather than the complacency of what’s since been accomplished.Rahul Dravid carried his bat through the first innings and straight into the follow-on, to give India a chance of saving the fourth Test•Getty Images”It’s sad for us that, collectively, we’ve all had a tough tour,” said Dravid. “That hasn’t happened to us for a long time, where all the batsmen have failed. People do have bad tours, but this time we haven’t clicked as a unit. No-one’s going out there trying not to succeed, everyone’s been working hard, but we’ve just been found wanting against a better team.”The last hurrah of India’s titans was never meant to be like this. “England v Dravid, the Wall,” was how one placard in the crowd chose to rebrand this contest, and in a summer in which his final average of 76.83 is more than double (and in most cases treble) that of any of his misfiring team-mates, the sentiment could not have been clearer.”There will be mixed feelings,” said Dravid. “There’s a sense of satisfaction at the quality of the way I’ve played, because I’ve always enjoyed batting and playing cricket, and competing and getting the best of myself. I continue to try to do that, irrespective of my age and the situation I’m in. I’m still hoping we will be able to draw the Test match, but when you get a hundred and don’t end up winning, it doesn’t feel nice. I hadn’t experienced it too much in my career [until this tour], so you experience something new all the time.”Instead of reaffirming their greatness in a tussle for the ages, India’s ageing side has been reduced to a slow, sad routine of standing ovations that have become more wistful at every new venue. Sachin Tendulkar, 35 not out overnight and frozen since the World Cup on 99 international hundreds, has one last opportunity in this series to tick off a landmark that has lingered like a gypsy’s curse. A rare fifth-day sell-out crowd will pile through the turnstiles expecting a dose of instant history, but the context of the achievement is in danger of being misplaced amid the chaos of India’s campaign. There are too many vital issues that need resolution once this series is over, and a misleading dose of euphoria would be unhelpful to say the least.For that reason, among others, Dravid’s fourth-day interjection was pitch-perfect. After all, he’s the man India’s fans have never fully appreciated, despite being the absolute bedrock of all the good times to which they’ve been treated. Therefore who better to deliver such a damning verdict on the status quo?He did so first in deed with his run-making but then in word at the end-of-day press conference. The coming generation has, he said, “a lot of talent and ball-striking ability”, a euphemism if ever there was one. But in terms of the skills, discipline and fitness levels that England brought to bear on the series, he added, “we were not up to scratch. This is a mental game; it is about the space of the mind.”Dravid’s four tours of England read like bullet points for the waxing and waning of India’s golden generation. On that first trip in 1996, India were the support act in every sense, overshadowed by the summer’s top billing, the Wasim-and-Waqar-powered Pakistan, and bumped aside by a Nasser Hussain century in their solitary defeat at Edgbaston. Six years later, they were under-rated but on the rise, and when England were routed by an innings on a seamer’s deck in Headingley, it was Dravid’s outstanding 148 that laid the foundations for everything that followed.In 2007, the context was markedly different. India expected, and duly delivered, with their first series win in England for 21 years. But Dravid, now captain, had a troubling personal tour which hit rock-bottom in the final Test at The Oval, where he made 12 from 96 balls to kill the contest stone-dead and so preserve a precious 1-0 lead. He was instantly vilified for his lack of ambition, but on the contrary, such bloodymindedness merely proved how much he cared. As this subsequent tour has demonstrated, overseas glory can be a rare and precious thing.On Sunday at The Oval, Dravid was at it once again. It was a transformed context, but that same unyielding resolve was firmly in situ. “The time I’ve spent away from the tour training, and the fitness work I’ve done has obviously paid off,” he said. “I’m tired, but obviously when you are doing well, you are not that tired. I’d rather have it this way than any other way.”How the game will miss him when he’s gone.

The side’s inspirational captain looks at the possibility of a potential breakaway from the West Indies

Interview by Abhishek Purohit27-Sep-2011Daren Ganga has been content to fly Trinidad & Tobago’s flag since he last played for West Indies in 2008•Stanford 20/20Do you think the WICB has over-reached itself in its handling of player issues?
Given the state of our cricket, there needs to be a certain amount of checks and balances, in terms of the governance of the game in the Caribbean. Whether that balance is carried out or not in the right spirit is another issue. But if you look at all the successful countries, you’ll realise their players’ body and their administrative body work very closely together. They have established a very cordial and respectful manner in which they go about doing things. You look at the Australian Cricketers’ Association and how they operate with Cricket Australia. We’re still stuck somewhere in between, and the faster we can get around that and move forward, the more positively it will impact on cricket.Do you think there has been too much player power [in West Indian cricket]?
I think the board does need to have a certain amount of control. They are the governing body for the game so they need to ensure that it is well protected and guided in the right direction. Globally Twenty20 is influencing the game. Our governing bodies need to be strong enough to ensure there is balance in terms of Test and 50-over cricket. And there needs to be a certain amount of authority for doing those things. You must have people who have that sort of influence, but if the head is not in the right place, that is an issue.Sometimes, they have got to recognise themselves as providing a service to the game rather than the cricket being all about them.Has that attitude been lacking? How flexible do you think the board needs to be?
There needs to be a certain amount of flexibility. What is complicated in the WICB is that it comprises members of each individual territory. It’s a very cumbersome structure that does not allow efficiency and easy decision-making. There is always an insular thought or an insular comment. What is left to be seen is whether we can be mature enough to get past that and see the light at the end of the tunnel, which is that the best decisions are made in the interests of our cricket. That is where all the Caribbean nations need to come together and make sure that the game and its quality in the West Indies are protected.During the 2009 Champions League you said that if things didn’t improve, there would be a day when the individual [national] boards would want to go their separate ways. Has the situation deteriorated or improved since then?
I think it’s closer in that direction [deterioration]. That is what you hear from the people who support you. The common man on the ground… you read sometimes in the editorials and you listen to comments. It’s not always about the people who make the decision. There is a certain amount of influence by the masses. If a certain player is not selected and doing well, public pressure will ask the selectors to get that player in the set-up.I speak from the T&T perspective. There is a lot of discussion about the positives of going in that direction and about certain players who are not being given the opportunity. At the moment, I can’t really say what the other territories are saying. You see the controversies with Chris Gayle not being in the set-up. You are seeing a heavy influence from the Windward Islands in terms of players being selected because of the people who are in power now. Historically, it’s been like that. Whether that changes, we do not know.With the advent of all these third-party competitions [like the Champions League], where individual countries are getting an opportunity, it may fragment the West Indies federation and the West Indies cricket team, which is the only sporting body that allows all the territories to play as one.

“When you play for your country, the country that you were born in and brought up in, and you sing your national anthem, it brings a different individual spirit to you. Saying that you are West Indian, yes, there is a certain amount of patriotism, but there is no West Indian anthem, there is not that sort of closeness”

How long can nebulous concepts like the West Indies legacy – which is now decades old – sustain this unity?
You hear pros and cons for the West Indies federation. How with the advent of global trade and technology, individual countries can sustain. We are seeing in different sports that countries are playing as individual nations. We had the T&T football team that qualified for the World Cup [2006]. We have Jamaica, who are doing very well in athletics. We have a lot of athletes who compete in the Olympics as citizens of individual countries. The more that happens and the more global exposure that each country gets, the more that is going to impact negatively on our collective West Indian effort.Can you foresee a time frame before public opinion in T&T turns irrefutably in favour of going solo?
I definitely think the performance of our team will push that discussion in either direction. If we go on to do well on a global stage such as the Champions League, you are going to have public pressure being applied, where they think that a T&T team can fend on its own and has the opportunity to qualify on its own in the 50-over or the 20-over World Cup. When you do well in a global competition, there is talk that T&T should go on their own. “It will allow so many opportunities for young players. We have the financial backing. Why don’t we do that in terms of positive benefits for the country? The amount of money that we spend on conventions and heads-of-government summits, we could channel that into sport.”Leaving aside the legacy and emotion, do you think it is practically feasible to do that, given that larger countries have struggled?
I think there is an opportunity to head in that direction. The ICC allows a country to apply and go through the process of getting in that member set-up. Whether anyone has the confidence and bravery to go in that direction and to run the risk of breaking that legacy is to be seen. But we all know that it is possible in today’s world.Do you think T&T will take the lead some day? You have always loved that flag, haven’t you?
If you speak to any West Indies player, you will hear them talking about this special affiliation to their country. When you play for your country, the country that you were born in and brought up in, and you sing your national anthem, it brings a different individual spirit to you.
Saying that you are West Indian, yes, there is a certain amount of patriotism, but there is no West Indian anthem, there is not that sort of closeness. Yes, historically we have achieved great things and when you travel across the world, you hear people talking about our legacy. But to be close to it, feel it and interact directly with it on a daily basis, no, it is not present. In the Caribbean we are talking about the CSME [CARICOM Single Market and Economy], which is establishing a common economic market, and still we have had a lot of challenges in getting it on stream. So that in itself is sending a strong message in terms of us collectively as a Caribbean federation.So will it ultimately come down to a pull between the legacy of the past and, say, the love of the T&T flag?
Not really. I think they both go hand in hand. T&T cricket is a subset of West Indies cricket. If you want to effect a change in West Indies cricket, it must come from the subsets, which are the individual territories. We are still not grasping that concept. We are still looking at things from the top and not realising that the change needs to come from our subsets. If I could change that, then it would help and contribute positively to West Indies cricket.”The advent of all these third-party competitions, where individual countries are getting an opportunity, it may fragment the West Indies federation”•Global Cricket Ventures-BCCIComing to leadership, Darren Sammy said that it is overrated. What do you have to say on that?
I don’t think so. There is a lot that a captain can do. But a captain must have the full support of the administration. That confidence has not been
there in the West Indies. Even someone like Brian Lara was placed on probation. While all of us want results, but you cannot put a gun to a guy’s head. A lot more freedom could have been given in terms of selections and choice of support staff. If you ask me, I would have taken it up only if such things were put in place.I’ll bring Sammy again into this. Your batting record has gone against you in the past. Do you think standards have not been applied consistently when it comes to deciding on the captaincy?
I don’t like to comment too much on guys who are given the opportunity to lead, because I don’t know the premise of the board in terms of decision-making and what their intentions are. We can see there is a seeking out of younger players and building a young team. That is what you gather from the decisions of the selectors.But could those same standards have been applied earlier?
It is baffling to me that there was a guy like Ramnaresh Sarwan who was always playing second fiddle as vice-captain and yet he was never given a fair chance to lead West Indies. I can recall him playing under Carl Hooper and Brian Lara and being vice-captain for years. He hasn’t been given that opportunity to lead even in two or three consecutive series. There is no structured manner and clear philosophy and guideline in terms of selecting a captain and players.Players having one good first-class season are thrust into the international arena, while there are players who dominate the first-class scene day in and day out and don’t even get that opportunity. For the last four years I haven’t played for West Indies. This year I am not far behind Marlon Samuels in terms of runs, and I am not involved in any West Indian representative team. Yet I am doing so well for T&T. Marlon was out of cricket for two years. He had one good season and he is playing all versions of the game.Forty-eight Tests spread over almost a decade. You think you were handed a raw deal?
Probably. I am not too sure. There are selectors and powers-that-be who make those decisions. As a player I can only control my performance. For T&T, for the past four-five years, I have been enjoying a great time as a captain and as a batsman. I started playing this game because I love it and not because I want to play for West Indies. It is a great honour to play for West Indies and represent the collective Caribbean. But at the same time, I get my fulfillment from playing the game in the best manner that I can. And as a captain it is not just about winning matches. There is a certain fulfillment you get from being influential in terms of selecting and helping young players and seeing them move on to play and do well in international cricket.How much of a motivation is leadership, and how much of a role does having a solid grounding in education play in leadership?
A lot of leadership has to do with communication and having a certain amount of openness and integrity in terms of your decision-making. Those are the things I stand very close to when leading cricket teams – and anything in life, as a matter of fact. In this T&T set-up all the young players know that they can come and speak to me about anything. They know when they are left out that they can come to me and get a reason. There are always cricketing reasons behind it. The minute you step away from cricketing reasons, you find yourself in hot water.All the players are aware that not everyone can be selected. We try not to take any shortcuts as players, as we know that there is a certain effort and preparation that goes into getting results. We have built that attitude that you have got to work to get the results. That has brought us success as a team.

“This year I am not far behind Marlon Samuels in terms of runs, and I am not involved in any West Indian representative team. Yet I am doing so well for T&T. Marlon was out of cricket for two years. He had one good season and he is playing all versions of the game”

It is probably a touch early to ask you this, but any regrets so far, as a batsman and as a leader?
As a batsman, I think if I had the experience of playing a certain amount of cricket before I got the opportunity to play international cricket, I would have been a lot more mature. I would have been better prepared to think of my responsibilities. My entry to international cricket was very premature. I had just played three of four first-class matches and I was on my first tour with West Indies to South Africa in 1998. Initially I was told by Brian [Lara] and the selectors that it was a learning tour for me and I would be playing most of the practice matches to help my development. I ended up playing in three of the five Tests on that dreaded tour.The experience made me stronger. It built my character as a cricketer. But as a batsman it scarred me very early in my career. I have had to learn my game at the international level, which has been without a lot of success. I always wanted to hone my skills at the first-class level, where you can try and make mistakes and get away with it. In international cricket you make one mistake and you are out. That is my one major regret as a batsman. On the flip side, having had that experience and going through those things has shaped me as a person and built a certain resolve.Do you think that is required as a leader?
Of course. They say that in order for you to enjoy success as a leader and probably as a person, you have to go through great periods of failure and misery. I have gone through mine. That is why I think, over the years, I have enjoyed success. I can also allude to Steve Waugh, if you look at his career and how things went for him. It makes it great in the end because you can see all the trials and tribulations that you have gone through.You would have wanted to do better as a batsman but would you have taken all this to be the leader that you are today?
Yeah, I would. As I said, I have no regrets [on that front]. I am still playing, I can still make that difference, I still believe in my ability. A lot of people in the West Indies do have that belief in me as well. They want to see a change in West Indies cricket. If I could make my difference to a certain period of West Indies cricket, then I would have played my part.We don’t know where it will head. The cricketing landscape globally is changing and we don’t know how it will be in the next 10 years. I just
want to play my part as a cricketer and as a leader, and hopefully look back on a fulfilling career.

ESPNcricinfo presents the Plays of the Day from the second ODI between Pakistan and England in Abu Dhabi

George Dobell in Abu Dhabi15-Feb-2012Drop of the day
Alastair Cook had only made 28 when he edged a delivery from Shahid Afridi. It should have been a routine catch for the wicketkeeper but instead the ball bounced straight into and then straight out of the iron gloves of Umar Akmal. It was a reminder that, for all his ability as a batsman, Akmal is, at present, some way short of the required standard for an international keeper. Cook went on to score another 74 runs and play the match-defining innings. Pakistan must decide whether to persevere with Akmal in the hope of improvement or rethink the balance of their side. At present, Umar is losing them more games with the gloves than he is winning with the bat.Run-out of the day
Imran Farhat was batting well. He had just thumped James Anderson over mid-on and, as Pakistan reached 92 for one in the 22nd over, he seemed to be pacing the reply nicely. But then, having edged a Stuart Broad yorker on to his pads, he lost track of the ball and, belatedly realising that it had rolled obligingly into the hands of the bowler, was unable to regain his ground before Broad’s throw hit the stumps. It was an alert piece of work by Broad but a somewhat sloppy end to a decent innings from Farhat.Cool head of the day
Sometimes it takes confidence to remain scoreless. It takes composure to battle through the barren periods without allowing the pressure to build or force a batsman into a rash stroke. Alastair Cook did not score from his first nine deliveries and, in the first three overs of the England innings, there were only two scoring strokes. The powerplay overs were ticking by but Cook is not the type to allow himself to be flustered. He is batting with immense assurance and backed himself to come through a testing period. As it was, he scored from his tenth delivery and it happened to be a high-class shot: a back foot drive through extra cover off Aizaz Cheema that skimmed to the boundary. Cook never looked back and became the first England captain to register successive ODI centuries.Choice of the day
Misbah-ul-Haq preferring Aizaz Cheema to Umar Gul in the final overs of the England innings. It was a brave decision. Cheema had delivered three wides in succession in his first over, one of which went to the boundary. Gul is the senior seamer, having played 93 more ODIs than his junior partner but the choice paid off with Cheema conceding 18 in a three-over spell that ended the innings. Bearing in mind that England had seven wickets in hand with six overs to go, that represented a decent return from Cheema.Catch of the day
The game was in the balance, 72 were required from 68 balls and Umar Akmal and Misbah-ul-Haq had looked fairly comfortable in adding 37 in six overs. Then Akmal cut Steve Finn to cover where Samit Patel dived low to his left and clung on to a low catch. Indeed, so low was it that the third umpire was called to clarify the legitimacy of the catch. Patel could be forgiven for feeling particularly satisfied: he had spent some time the previous day defending his weight, his fitness, his diet and his fielding to a group of journalists. Here he proved his point in the most eloquent way of all – with his performance.

Despite splashing money this season, Mumbai Indians were rarely at the top of their game and most of their wins came through last-over heists

Siddarth Ravindran24-May-2012

Where they finished

Fourth. A disappointment as it’s a lower finish than last year despite the vast amounts spent on refurbishing the squad, including getting three solid Indian IPL performers to plug perceived weaknesses.

Key player

Once again Lasith Malinga was a stand-out performer, particularly in the first half of the season. His form tailed off a touch towards the end of the campaign and he finished with his worst IPL performance of 2012, leaking 41 as MS Dhoni and Dwayne Bravo went on the rampage in Bangalore. Still, he was indisputably their go-to bowler, and 22 wickets at an economy of 6.30 show why. The cocktail of yorkers, bouncers and slower balls continued to bamboozle batsmen, and underscored why he remains among the finest Twenty20 bowlers around.

Bargain buy

Not too many candidates for this category, as Mumbai Indians’ cheaper acquisitions in the auction didn’t get too many games. Perhaps Dwayne Smith, who joined a month into the tournament in place of the injured Mitchell Johnson, fits the bill. He made a dramatic entry, thumping Ben Hilfenhaus for six, four and four off the last three balls of the match to snatch victory over Chennai Super Kings. There was also an unbroken 163-run stand with Sachin Tendulkar, against Rajasthan Royals, in his first innings as an opener.

Flop buy

Dinesh Karthik was brought in from Kings XI Punjab for a reported $2.35m and though he gave Mumbai Indians the solidity they lacked last season behind the stumps, he failed to put in any match-turning performances with the bat. Given plenty of chances at No. 4, Karthik provided neither the stability when the top order failed nor the power-hitting towards the end of the innings. One of only four Mumbai Indians players to take part in every game of the campaign, he finished with a disappointing 238 runs with a strike rate of 111.73.

Highlights

The opening match of the season featured the two pre-tournament favourites and was a game Mumbai Indians completely dominated: Super Kings’ intimidating batting line-up was dismantled for 112 before South African Richard Levi’s quick half-century on IPL debut completed the demolition. Another highlight was the victory at Eden Gardens that snapped Kolkata Knight Riders seven-game unbeaten run, with Rohit Sharma providing a reminder of his talent with a silken century. Their tenacious defence of 120 against Pune Warriors underlined their never-say-die spirit in a season where they won six matches in the final over.

Lowlight

Undoubtedly, the surrender at home to Delhi Daredevils, when they capsized to the lowest total of the season. They were thrashed in a couple of other matches as well, but there’s a difference to being blown away by an assault from the likes of Chris Gayle or MS Dhoni, to the defeat against Daredevils. The game began with Davy Jacobs’ 10-ball duck, a leading contender for worst innings of the tournament, and hardly improved. At 44 for 6, there were in line for the unwanted record of being bowled out for the smallest total in IPL history.

Verdict

Every year Mumbai Indians seem to fortify their squad, but every season they have ended up short. The arrival of Karthik, RP Singh and Pragyan Ojha seemingly provided them with the strongest Indian contingent of any side in the tournament, but that was offset by mediocre seasons for two of their retained players, Sachin Tendulkar and Harbhajan Singh.Finding a destructive opening partner for the staid Tendulkar (by Twenty20 standards) proved vexing, as the South Africans Levi and Jacobs failed, as did Australia’s Aiden Blizzard and Herschelle Gibbs was injured for much of the tournament. Mumbai Indians ended up trying eight different combinations, with only the James Franklin-Tendulkar combination getting more than three matches together.The tinkering continued lower down the order as Mumbai Indians struggled to find four in-form overseas players. Several of them made a splash in their first game before fading away – Levi, Robin Peterson, Gibbs and even Smith till he was made to open. A settled combination was elusive, and Mumbai Indians tried as many as 24 players in all, the most by a franchise this season along with Deccan Chargers. In contrast, other successful teams used far fewer players: Kolkata Knight Riders (18) and Chennai (17).The team did well in the league stages with plenty of back-from-the-dead wins but there weren’t enough dominating performances by either the team or the individuals – only Rohit Sharma made it to the top 15 run-getters of the season and Lasith Malinga to the 15 most economical bowlers (min 20 overs).

Plays of the Day for the Champions League match between Lions v Sydney Sixers in Cape Town

Liam Brickhill in Cape Town18-Oct-2012The start
Will the real Gulam Bodi please stand up? In the Lions previous two games, he started his innings with a strike rate in the 60s, but against the Sydney Sixers he didn’t waste any time at all getting going. Pat Cummins was glanced for two elegant fours in the very first over, and Mitchell Starc’s fifth ball was flicked onto the grass banks with power and timing. Bodi got to a 32-ball fifty in fifth gear, having cracked three mighty sixes and four fours, but wasn’t given much support as the Lions set a sub-par total.The shake-up

Pat Cummins has pace and enthusiasm in droves, but he has not quite learned fully to harness and control his formidable abilities just yet. In his second over, he flung down a chest-high beamer at Quinton de Kock. One 19-year-old to another, there was nothing personal in the wayward delivery, and Cummins immediately assured de Kock as such. But the batsman was rattled, and though he survived another three overs he never got going and was caught behind for 4 from 14 deliveries.The let-up

After the Sixers’ previous match, captain Brad Haddin suggested that while there was no way he was going to rest any of his quicks, he had no finalised bowling plans and joked that he might even ask Dominic Thornely to open the bowling. That didn’t happen, but Thornely was brought on to twirl down his offies in the seventh over, as soon as the fielding restrictions had been lifted. Gulam Bodi, who’d had Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood to deal with, received the change in attack with glee, taking 14 runs off the over. Thornely wasn’t asked to bowl again, and his day didn’t get much better when he was stumped first ball during the Sixers’ chase.The shot

Hits for six don’t fly as high or as long in Cape Town as they do up in the Highveld, where Jean Symes plays most of his cricket. Wind is also almost always a factor in Cape Town, making it especially hard to hit the ball any distance in the air towards the Wynberg End. That gives an indication as to how well Symes must have timed his six off Cummins in the 17th over. Symes shellacked a monstrous hit over Cummins’ head that scythed through a screaming South Easter wind and landed several rows back in the stands beyond long-off. Some hit.The spell
At the time, his performance against Mumbai Indians at the Wanderers might have been called a once-off. When he bettered his 1 for 17, which included the wicket of Sachin Tendulkar, against Chennai Super Kings with two more wickets and not a run more, people began to take note. Aaron Phangiso has now made it three in three, his career-best 3 for 14 against Sydney Sixers unable to bring about a win but turning heads nonetheless. Taking down a top three that includes Michael Lumb, Dominic Thornely and Shane Watson is no small feat.The innings

When Phangiso removed Watson in the 11th over, the match was in the balance. The required run rate was edging towards seven an over, and the Sixers’ best batsman was in the dug-out. What was needed was a captain’s innings, and Brad Haddin provided just that. With three identical slog-sweeps of Symes, which all went for six in the arc between long-on and midwicket, Haddin brought the required rate under a-run-a-ball and the pressure was off.