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Craig McMillan says the players should embrace the day-night Test, in the knowledge that it may be a format of the game they are soon playing far more often

Daniel Brettig20-Nov-20153:29

‘Trying not to think about the pink ball too much’ – McMillan

Craig McMillan remembers the inaugural Twenty20 international, played in 2005 between Australia and New Zealand on a warm summer’s evening at Eden Park. He remembers the colour, the crowd and the retro uniforms. He also remembers that the players all thought it was a bit of a joke, and that none could foresee the T20 explosion to follow.This time around as New Zealand’s batting coach, McMillan knows the inaugural day-night Test at Adelaide Oval will be another leap into the unknown. Once again, there will be some level of scepticism among players about the concept. But McMillan is adamant that they should embrace it, in the knowledge that it may be a format of the game they are soon playing far more often.”It was a different feeling, almost a carnival atmosphere,” McMillan said of the T20 game ahead of a pink ball warm-up match against a Western Australia XI at the WACA Ground. “Perhaps it wasn’t taken as seriously as what it should have been. No one had the inkling in eight years time it was going to be the norm and part of the calendar.”That’s why it’s important we prepare properly and we look forward to this, because we just don’t know in three or four years’ time where cricket is going to head. I think it’s important, as a sport, that we’re always looking to encourage different groups, different people to come to the game, and this is certainly a way of doing that.”Ticket sales for the Adelaide Test have been strong, compared to “Ashes levels” by Cricket Australia. McMillan said the prospect of crowds in the region of 50,000 on the first couple of evenings was something the tourists were eager to embrace, even as they took time to adjust to the vagaries of the pink ball and evening air. Then there is the momentum New Zealand built through a highly resilient display in Perth.”I don’t know how the Australians are thinking, all I know is talk of 50,000 on the first day of a Test match, for us, is very exciting,” he said. “We generally don’t play in front of crowds like that in terms of Test cricket. There is a lot of excitement. We’ve heard a lot about the Adelaide Oval, its redevelopment and how it looks. Everyone we’ve talked to says what an amazing stadium it is.”We’re certainly more happy with our performance in the second Test than the first. I think guys have gained a lot of confidence individually and as a group from the performance in Perth. With this being a little bit of an unknown because it’s a different situation – it’s at night, it’s a different ball – there’s an excitement. I think there’s not a lot between the two sides, so it all adds up to an exciting Test match ahead.”One of McMillan’s primary responsibilities right now is to bolster the confidence of the opener Martin Guptill, who is still working to bring the free-flowing elements of his limited-overs batting to the Test arena. To play with freedom is invariably easier said than done, and Guptill must overcome the anxieties associated with spells in and out of the Test team before he can muscle the ball around as he has done so often in ODIs.”Gupps has spent a fair bit of time at the crease and I don’t think he’s too far away,” McMillan said. “Over the last six months coming back into the Test side – he spent some time out – and I don’t think he’s too far away from actually closing that gap between his one-day game and his Test game.”One of the important things I talk to Gupp about is encouraging him to play similar to his one-day game. There’s not a lot of change with the way he should play. He’s still working through it. He’s a quality player at the international level and I don’t think he’s far off producing some of the innings we know he can produce at the top of the order.”New Zealand will try as many options as possible during the two-day fixture, with Trent Boult and Tim Southee both expected to bowl under lights with the pink ball to re-familiarise themselves with it after two daytime Test matches. McMillan has seen predictions of a well-grassed Adelaide surface in order to preserve the condition of the ball.”I’m expecting a bit more grass than what we’ve seen in the last two Test matches,” he said. “Historically Adelaide has generally been pretty flat and at times hasn’t turned. But I wouldn’t be surprised to maybe see more grass and even a hint of green grass on the surface. Certainly more than what we’ve seen in the first two Tests.”To a degree, yes [surprised at flatness of pitches]. I think on previous tours of Australia there’s certainly been a little bit more there for the bowlers at different stages. Certainly the last two Test matches have been taxing on both bowling attacks. So giving everyone a bit of a break over the last couple of days has been really important.”Western Australia XI squad: Ashton Turner (capt), Tom Beaton, Will Bosisto, Ryan Duffield, Marcus Harris, Josh Inglis, David Moody, Liam O’Connor, Joel Paris, Andrew Tye, Jonathan Wells, Sam Whiteman (wk)

Marcus North hit a brilliant 137 not out as Glamorgan made it two wins from two matches in this season’s Yorkshire Bank 40 by overpowering a below-par Middlesex by 26 runs at Lord’s.

06-May-2013
ScorecardMarcus North, seen here for Perth, made his ninth List A hundred•Getty Images

Marcus North hit a brilliant 137 not out as Glamorgan made it two wins from two matches in this season’s Yorkshire Bank 40 by overpowering a below-par Middlesex by 26 runs at Lord’s.Glamorgan skipper and former Australia batsman North led from the front. He hit 16 fours and three sixes in his 98-ball innings and featured in an unbroken stand of 156 in just 16.3 overs with Jim Allenby, who scored 69 not out from 50 balls.Opener Will Bragg also contributed a 72-ball 62, riding some early luck against the new ball after Middlesex had decided to bowl first on an excellent surface.Bragg’s partnership of 86 in 16 overs with North got the Glamorgan innings going again after they slid to 38 for 2 when Mark Wallace was caught at first slip and Chris Cooke, later in the same over, was run out by Joe Denly’s direct hit from cover.Dawid Malan, Chris Rogers and Paul Stirling all briefly threatened to do something spectacular at the top of the Middlesex batting order but Will Owen took three wickets in 18 balls from the Pavilion End, after Allenby had initially removed Rogers.And, with slow left-arm spinner Dean Cosker also putting in a tight spell, it was only a matter of time from 110 for 4 – despite Berg’s late hitting – before Glamorgan’s victory was confirmed. Berg made a brave 75 from 57 balls but it only served to reduce the margin of victory.It was a fine effort by Glamorgan, who had totalled 285 for 7 from their 40 overs in the previous day’s 28-run win against Yorkshire at Colwyn Bay but then had to endure a near five-hour journey to London from north Wales before waking up to prepare for this match.Rogers, fresh from his match-saving County Championship double hundred against Surrey, produced some eye-catching strokes in his 22 before being caught off a leading edge at cover, but Malan had already survived a stumping chance on 35 when he fell at the same score, lifting a catch to point off Owen.Denly went for 11, caught at the wicket driving loosely at a wider ball from Owen, who then struck a crucial blow for his team by bowling the hard-hitting Stirling for 36 through an ugly legside heave.Neil Dexter drove one six over long on against Michael Hogan in his 24, but Hogan soon had him caught at deep cover and Berg was then left with only the tail for company. He hit Owen for two defiant sixes but saw wickets continue to tumble as John Simpson was caught at deep mid-off, Josh Davey was held at deep midwicket and Toby Roland-Jones also hit a catch into the deep. Berg was finally ninth out, bowled by Hogan after hitting six fours besides his two sixes.The North-Allenby partnership was far too much for Middlesex. Hardly anything got past the bat, once they both got their eye in, as they took full advantage of a superb batting pitch and Middlesex’s attack was beginning to look very ragged by the time the overs ran out.The last five overs of the innings brought 60 runs and, in all, 180 runs were plundered from the last 20.3 overs only for the loss of Bragg, who was athletically held by a diving Tom Smith at backward point off Davey.North’s first six was swung over midwicket off a Dexter full toss, just before Glamorgan’s 200 arrived in the 34th over, and he later added a powerful hit into the grandstand off Roland-Jones’s penultimate ball of the innings.Allenby, too, produced some meaty blows as he went past 50 from 39 balls, including a full-blooded club over wide long on from a couple of steps down the pitch against an astonished Corey Collymore.

Andy Flower, the England team director, is keen to ensure lessons are learned on the team’s recent overseas tours are not limited to the senior squad and get passed down the chain to younger players.

Andrew McGlashan08-Apr-2012Andy Flower, the England team director, is keen to ensure lessons are learned on the team’s recent overseas tours are not limited to the senior squad and get passed down the chain to younger players. Flower was boosted by the strides made by the batsmen in Sri Lanka as they fought back to level the series with a convincing eight-wicket win in Colombo following the whitewash against Pakistan in the UAE.The success was set up by Kevin Pietersen’s barnstorming 151 but Alastair Cook, Jonathan Trott and Andrew Strauss all played important innings. But the revival was started by Trott in the second innings in Galle when his 112, although not able to prevent defeat, showed how batsmen can succeed by playing to their strengths.England’s other representative sides – the Lions and Under-19 team – also toured Asia over the last six months with mixed results. The Lions lost in Bangladesh but won in Sri Lanka, while the Under-19s were beaten 5-2 in a one-day series in Bangladesh. Flower wants all levels of the professional game to work together to improve England’s cricket in these conditions.”It is our job, not only to embed all those lessons but also to continue building on want we’ve learnt,” Flower said. “We also need to pass on those lessons to younger English cricketers so that when they are playing international cricket they don’t make the same mistakes as ours did this winter. I think that’s quite important.”It has been a tough winter but our focus has never wavered, our determination has never wavered and I think you would probably have see that best in the field. I think that was a good indication of where the group was. Yes it’s been tough but it’s brilliant to come back and level the series. It’s a real pity that it’s not a three-Test series – both Tests were excellent matches played on good pitches.”England almost left it too late to put in a complete batting performance and while Flower acknowledged it was a lengthy phase of trial and error, the end result has left him very hopeful of what can be achieved in the future.”We all want instant results but the world doesn’t work as easily as that but I do think it’s exciting watching excellent cricketers still have the capacity to learn and improve themselves,” he said. “I think good sides and good players have that capacity and are humble enough to open themselves up to new learning experiences. And I think we did see evidence of our guys learning in the second dig in Galle and out here.”Eoin Morgan was the one batsman to pay with his place after the Pakistan series and there will be focus on Ian Bell and Strauss when England resume action against West Indies in May. Bell has had a poor few months with just one half-century, in the first innings in Galle, to show as reward and his dismissal in Colombo – pulling a long hop to midwicket – was an inglorious way to finish.Strauss, meanwhile, struck an important 61 to lay the foundation alongside Cook in Colombo but has now one Test hundred in 50 innings. From within the team there remains no doubt over his position – something reiterated by Flower – yet he could still do with a productive summer against West Indies and South Africa. Bell, too, will not be dropped although will need to convince the selectors that he has the game to succeed in India next winter with Flower insisting no one is immune to scrutiny.Heading into the home season, No. 6 is the likely spot up for grabs if England revert to their regular balance of six batsmen, a keeper, three quicks and a spinner. Ravi Bopara was the spare batsman on the two recent tours after picking up a side strain in Sri Lanka being overlooked for Samit Patel.”Not one player owns a position in the batting order,” Flower said. “There’s competition for all places. Of course some are more secure than others but I don’t want to comment who’ll bat at six against the West Indies as I need to talk to the selectors. We’ll be having a selection meeting later this month and that’s when we’ll be discussing it in greater detail.”Neither would Flower be drawn on whether he thought the top six that played in Sri Lanka was the ideal combination for India at the end of the year. “I think it’s a little early to say that this batting unit will be there at the end of the year, we don’t know how things are going to pan out,” he said. “Yes, this batting unit is good enough to score heavy runs in India but part of our job is to ensure it isn’t a closed shop and if there are other players in England, we want them pushing the top seven here, constantly. That will drive our standards upwards.”

Kochi’s IPL debut will be against a Bangalore outfit that is virtually unrecognisable from last year, barring Virat Kohli

The Preview by Nitin Sundar08-Apr-2011

Match facts

Barring Virat Kohli, the Bangalore side is unrecognisable from last year•AFP

Saturday, April 9
Start time 2000 (1430 GMT)

Big picture

Surprise, surprise! After being in the news for all the wrong reasons for the best part of a year, Kochi is finally going to play a game of cricket. It all started off with a seemingly harmless tweet from Lalit Modi. From there, the Kochi controversy morphed into an unstoppable avalanche that knocked Shashi Tharoor out of the Indian cabinet of ministers, and Modi off his pedestal as the IPL commissioner. If the franchise’s off-field giant-slaying abilities are anything to go by, their on-field opponents better watch out.The Kochi consortium might be tangled in an unintelligible ownership mess, much like a batsman who can’t read Muttiah Muralitharan’s doosra, but the team is filled with players known to take ownership of the sides they play for. Captain Mahela Jayawardene and Murali will still be smarting from Sri Lanka’s loss in the World Cup final. Brad Hodge will have a point to prove to the selectors of the Australian team. VVS Laxman will have a point to prove to himself, that he can flourish in Twenty20 with the finesse he brings to the purest form of the game. And then, there is Sreesanth who, when he sets his mind to it, can produce deliveries that force batsmen of Jacques Kallis’ calibre into performing back flips at the crease.Kochi’s IPL debut will be against a Bangalore outfit that is virtually unrecognisable from last year, barring Virat Kohli. Among the new names is Tillakaratne Dilshan, who gave Kohli the most vociferous of send-offs after dismissing him in the World Cup final. The team also brings Daniel Vettori and AB de Villiers together, just over a week after they confronted each other in a charged-up World Cup quarter-final. Dale Steyn has been lost in the auction, but Zaheer Khan and Dirk Nannes have come in. Bangalore have picked a strong bunch of foreign players, but seem a trifle short on quality local batsmen. After two very good seasons that ended in heartbreak, will Bangalore finally find a path to IPL glory?

Team talk

Barring fitness concerns, Bangalore’s overseas picks are automatic selections. Captain Vettori will surely play the in-form Dilshan and de Villiers, while Nannes should relish sharing the new ball with Zaheer. There is a question mark over who Dilshan’s opening partner will be, and the toss-up could be between Mayank Agarwal and Jonathan Vandiar, though the latter’s inclusion would mean having to leave one of the other foreign players on the bench. Abhimanyu Mithun and Mohammad Kaif are likely to get a game.Brendon McCullum and Jayawardene should form an interesting contrast at the top for Kochi. Murali, if fit, should walk into the XI, while Thisara Perera could get a game in the lower-middle order, giving the side a distinct Sri Lankan flavour. RP Singh and Ramesh Powar are expected to complete the bowling line-up.

In the spotlight

Saurabh Tiwary and Cheteshwar Pujara represent two sides of the same coin. Tiwary stands back in the crease and thumps the ball with fierce arms, looking for midwicket with the assiduity of a left-handed MS Dhoni. Pujara, on the other hand, invokes Rahul Dravid in his temperament and technique, keeping his drives down, and finishing with his leading elbow high and showing the full face of the bat. Both met with success in the previous IPL, for different teams, and earned call-ups to the senior team, in different formats. This year, they could form crucial additions to the middle order of the top-heavy Bangalore line-up.Ravindra Jadeja has it all to do, once again. He was branded a ‘superstar’ by Shane Warne at the end of IPL 2008, and went on to earn a permanent spot in the Indian one-day line-up. Things have fallen apart for him since, starting with being banned for the 2010 IPL season after trying to negotiate a contract by himself. He has fallen out of the radar of the India selectors now, and a solid performance here will go a long way in re-establishing his oft-questioned credentials as an allrounder.

Prime numbers

Jon Lewis, the Gloucestershire opening bowler, Glamorgan left-arm spinner Dean Cosker and Tim Murtagh from Surrey have been drafted into the MCC squad for the match against Durham in Abu Dhabi next week

Cricinfo staff23-Mar-2010Jon Lewis, the Gloucestershire opening bowler, Glamorgan left-arm spinner Dean Cosker and Tim Murtagh from Middlesex have been drafted into the MCC squad for the match against Durham in Abu Dhabi next week. The trio replace Steven Finn and Chris Tremlett due to their workloads with England and Surrey respectively.The match is the traditional curtain-raiser to the English season, but this year is being played at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium so that trials can continue with pink ball and in floodlit conditions.Finn has played both Tests in Bangladesh so will be rested when the squad return to England ahead of the domestic season, while Tremlett has been removed from the four-day match because Chris Adams, the Surrey cricket manager, wants to managed his workload with Surrey having three Championship matches in three weeks in April.”I’m really pleased and excited to get this opportunity to play for MCC in Abu Dhabi. It will be extremely useful, high quality match practice ahead of the championship season,” Lewis said. “Playing with the pink ball and under lights is a fascinating prospect and I’m eager to learn more about the pink ball and how it behaves.”The addition of Cosker to the squad also allows an extra spin option alongside James Middlebrook if conditions show they are likely to help the slow bowlers. The MCC side boasts a strong batting line-up including Mark Ramprakash, David Sales and James Taylor, who was part of the England Lions tour in UAE.John Stephenson, the MCC head of cricket who will manage the team, said: “I’m glad to have been able to call on the services of three such experienced bowlers for what will be an important step in researching pink balls and floodlit first-class cricket.”The preparations are now in their final stages and all efforts are being directed towards making this a match worthy of its historical setting. I’m looking forward to see how the pink ball will behave under lights, and how these top players will react to it.”Revised squad Alex Gidman (capt), Scott Newman, David Sales, Mark Ramprakash, Dawid Malan, James Taylor, James Foster (wk), James Middlebrook, Tim Murtagh, Steve Kirby, Jon Lewis, Dean Cosker

Gambhir told senior India player R Ashwin that India’s T20I squad selection should be based on IPL performances

ESPNcricinfo staff21-May-20242:26

What impact has Gambhir had on KKR this season?

Gautam Gambhir has said that “creating hype” around young Indian players based on specific criteria such as bowling speeds can “backfire” and “deviate” them from hard work. The Kolkata Knight Riders mentor, who’s also one of the frontrunners to take up the India coach job, said team selection in T20Is should be based on IPL performances but not solely on batting averages or bowling speeds.”In India we start creating so much of hype with these young cricketers coming through,” Gambhir said on R Ashwin’s YouTube channel. “Everyone gets excited if someone is bowling 150 clicks. The point is you need to look at the conditions as well. Going forward in T20 cricket, the average and runs will have no impact. It is the strike rate, when you select a batter, and when you have to select a bowler, it is the kind of tough overs he can bowl. That will be the discussion that will happen in next two or three years.”We keep talking about the amount of runs and averages, and all that stuff, someone bowling 150s. Sometimes when you go in conditions like West Indies or Bangladesh, you don’t need someone bowling 150. You need someone who bowls cutters as well. That is where the vision lies with the selectors. Sometimes you pick raw talent. But creating so much hype after two or three games, we need to have a balanced approach.Related

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“The graph goes [up and down] in India, and it is not good for a young player. That is where the experts and commentators need to be balanced when it comes to these young players. It is easy for them to get deviated from the hard work and the good things they are doing. Because suddenly when you start talking about a young player doing well, it can backfire for them.Gautam Gambhir: ‘Easy for youngsters to get deviated from hard work’•CAB

Gambhir emphasised the importance of domestic cricket and added that IPL performances shouldn’t influence selection for red-ball cricket.”India’s T20I side should be selected from IPL [performances],” Gambhir said. “For 50-over format, it should be selected from Vijay Hazare, and your Test side should be selected from your first-class cricket, red-ball cricket. As simple as that. If you start selecting people for 50-over format or red-ball cricket from an IPL competition, you are making a lot of shortcuts for a lot of these young players to not focus on red-ball cricket or 50-overs format, and you are walking on the edge.”

Gambhir – ‘Two new balls in ODIs the worst thing in cricket’

The introduction of the two new balls rule in ODIs, in 2011, has been “the worst thing” that has happened in cricket, Gambhir said. He also added that the rule has led to fingerspinners fading away, saying that was the reason the likes of Ashwin and Australia’s Nathan Lyon haven’t made it big in the 50-over format then on.”The worst thing that has happened in cricket is the introduction of two new balls,” Gambhir told Ashwin. “You’ve taken the entire skill of a fingerspinner away from the game, whether it’s a left-arm spinner or offspinner. You’ve got two new balls, you’ve got five fielders inside, how do you expect a fingerspinner to get anything out of a surface and how do you expect a fingerspinner to be included in the playing XI?”You’ve taken out two of the best fingerspinners in the world – you [Ashwin] and Nathan Lyon. The reason why you guys didn’t play was there was nothing for you guys. If you were bowling the 20th over, you’re bowling with a 10-over new ball, and with five fielders inside and on a flat track. And with big bats, and with power-hitters, and with small boundaries, and with smaller boundaries and on top of that DRS. It’s not about you and Nathan Lyon. It’s about the job of ICC. The job of ICC is that you promote every kind of bowler who wants to become an offspinner and fingerspinner. Tell me how many youngsters going forward want to take up fingerspin? This art of bowling offspin or left-arm spin? No one would want to, because they know they’ve got no future in white-ball cricket.”Gambhir added that the ICC should have looked to “change the ball manufacturers” than change the rule that has gone on to affect the players.”I love that format or the rule where you had one new ball. It’s not a player’s problem. If the ball manufacturer can’t keep the ball in good shape for 50 overs, might as well change the manufacturer. Don’t introduce two new balls because one ball can’t hold whatever colour for 50 overs. That’s a manufacturer’s problem. When people talk about taking wickets in the middle innings suddenly they realise that the only wicket-takers could be wristspinners. Unless you’ve got a carom ball or a flicker, but where is the art of bowling genuine offspin or a left-arm spin which can beat people in the air or off the wicket as well?”Because there’s nothing off the wicket and you’ve got five fielders inside. So I think ICC has messed it up and we can change it going forward and have one ball for entire 50 overs.”

Not being picked in the Test team despite his monster first-class numbers upset him, but he isn’t about to give up

Kunal Kishore18-Jan-2023It’s the new word doing the rounds in the cricket circuit these days: . It doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily as does, but Sarfaraz Khan will take it. After all, his job, as spelt out by his father Naushad Khan, is “to keep scoring runs, for whichever team, all the time”. Since his second coming, so to say, he has been doing it in first-class cricket better than most others ever do.The ‘A’ tour of Bangladesh didn’t go well for him, but Sarfaraz has since hit three centuries in seven Ranji Trophy innings, following on from his tally of 928 runs from nine innings at 154.66 and 982 runs from nine innings at 122.75 in the two previous Ranji seasons. There were seven centuries in there, including a triple-hundred, against Uttar Pradesh, in January 2020. The latest big one, an innings of 125 in 155 balls, came in a stuttering Mumbai batting effort in Delhi yesterday, when the next best score was Prithvi Shaw’s 40, and the team totalled just 293.The first-class average of 80.47 from 36 matches (before the latest century) was always going to bring Don Bradman into the discussion, and it did after play on Tuesday. “It gives me happiness that I have been close to his [Bradman’s] record in the last three seasons,” he said. “It won’t always be the same, but I am happy to be around him right now.” For the record, while Bradman averaged 99.94 in Tests, his first-class average was marginally lower, at 95.14.Related

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With numbers like these, it’s understandable that there has been a clamour to give him a chance at the Test level. Of late, whenever an Indian Test squad has been announced, and he has not featured in it, eyebrows have been raised. On January 13, when the squad for the first two Tests against Australia was named, the general feeling was: what more does Sarfaraz need to do? It crossed his mind too.”My father came [to Delhi] a couple of days ago, and I trained with him for two days in Ghaziabad [near Delhi] before the game. He knew I was upset [at not being selected],” Sarfaraz said. “So he said, ‘Our job is to keep scoring runs, for whichever team, all the time’. Since I was a child, whenever I have been a bit confused, or things have not gone right, he does the same thing, he just motivates me and gives me confidence, and prepares me mentally.”