Cricket for the Nawabs

I played cricket in the 1970s in the twin cities of Hyderabad-Secunderabad, a tranquil, overgrown village back then. Today, just like the city, the game there has grown into something unrecognisably frenetic.
It was pretty much somnolent then, and matches did not always start on time. Sometimes the umpires came late, and could then be persuaded by the rival captains to wait for all the players to arrive. Yet in an unexpected theatre of the absurd, there was this provision for two innings in a single day, with bonus points awarded to a team if it won outright. I often witnessed - and participated in - reckless attempts to win a match outright without losing points for falling below the requisite over rate.
My State Bank of India team-mate Nagesh was an expert at running through his overs in seconds, often rushing the batsmen to take guard. These were sheer bullying tactics by the big teams against the weaklings of the league. I rarely got a bowl during a long wait for recognition, yet I once managed to take three wickets in a single over - my only over in the match - when defiant batsmen were frustrating our efforts to enforce the follow-on; only for my captain, Habib Ahmed, to guffaw, "Even Ramnarayan came in useful!"
Motganhalli Laxmanarsu Jaisimha, tall, strong of muscle and lithe of movement - an aesthete in all he did on the cricket field, tennis court or golf course - was the undoubted Nawab of Hyderabad cricket. His Marredpalli Cricket Club was a throwback to the village cricket ambience of the England he last visited in 1959 as a member of Dattu Gaekwad's Indian team.
Jai's MCC was a collection of Sunday cricketers coming together for the love of the game. It could surprise you every now and then with the high quality of its cricket, depending on the availability of players of calibre - for example, Cambridge blue Santosh Reddy, or the Nawab of Pataudi on a visit to the city.
Jai himself added a touch of class with his impeccable defence and breathtaking shots. He was also a clever bowler of medium-pace swing, or offspin, as the occasion demanded, and an astute strategist as captain, marshalling his resources adroitly to beat the top teams of the city whenever he caught them napping.
Hyderabad cricket had more than its share of characters. There was Kalim-ul-Huq the legspinner, of the film-star looks, Elvis Presley hair and flamboyant ways. He had a bustling action and could turn the ball, but alas, was past his best. Like SK Patel and V Kannan of my college days in Madras, Kalim was the most industrious net bowler around. He also enjoyed a reputation as a raconteur of stories starring Kalim-ul-Huq. "Kalim just completed his 100th wicket of the season. In the nets!" his team-mates would cackle.
My own favourite character was the short-sighted old umpire Sultan Saab, who would rub salt into your wound after a batsman had hit you out of the tiny Nizam College ground, by asking, "Kya tha woh, 4 ya 6? Tum kuch bolte nahin! (What was that, 4 or 6? You tell me nothing!)"
There were other personalities like the cricket-mad PR Man Singh. His playing ambitions thwarted by poor eyesight, he diverted all his energies to a life in cricket administration. The stories of his wheeling and dealing were as prolific as those of his chivalry and valour, depending on which of two rival camps you belonged to - Man Singh's or Jaisimha's. You had to support one or the other if you wanted to amount to much in Hyderabad cricket. Each was a great contributor to the game, but a whole generation of cricketers suffered as a result of this rivalry, real or perceived, between them.
The cricket conversations of Hyderabad often revolved around past greats, especially those who did not make it to the highest level despite their undoubted gifts - because of the evil machinations of some villain or other. Tales of such skulduggery were told with relish on the lawns of Fateh Maidan Club over several draughts of the golden liquid. Eddie Aibara, a fine allrounder in the early years of the Ranji Trophy, and later a kindly, wise coach who guided many young cricketers, was one such unhonoured hero.
I was lucky to experience the different ethos of two cricket centres of the south, Madras and Hyderabad. My cricket thinking was shaped by the company I kept in both cities, though ever so slightly dominated by the greats with whom I rubbed shoulders in the twin cities. Yet my adamant shortcomings as much as my rare flashes of inspiration were of my own doing. You cannot blame Madras or Hyderabad for them.

Everything you need to know about how cricket technology works

With technology causing consternation in the Ashes series, here is the lowdown on the four elements that cricket viewers, and players, have come to love and hate.

 

Who provides the technology and what is its background?
Hawkeye: Hawkeye Innovations, based in Basingstoke and owned by Sony, was founded by Dr Paul Hawkins and first used by Channel 4 for its cricket broadcasting during the 2001 Ashes. It will now provide goal-line technology in football.
Hot Spot: BBG Sports, a company based in Melbourne, developed Hot Spot along with Sky Sports. It is also used in Australia, where cricket rights are owned by Channel 9. Four specialist cameras are used at each match at a cost of around £7,500 per day.
Audio: The audio is provided by the broadcasters and originates from sound picked up by microphones in the middle stumps at either end. It was originally invented as a broadcast tool but improvements in audio technology have seen it added to the DRS.
Snicko: Another tool provided by BBG and invented by English computer scientist Allan Plaskett. A new updated snicko is being trialled during the Ashes. Entitled Real Time Snicko it is quicker to process. At the moment snicko is not part of DRS due to the length of time it takes to match up the audio to the visual images.
Pros?
Hawkeye: Takes out the guess work for umpires by using up to seven cameras which track the ball from different angles. The video is then triangulated to create a 3d image and uses the same predictive technology utilised in the launch of rockets.
Hot Spot: It can prove if the ball has struck by the bat. Its thermal imaging detects heat which is caused by the friction between the ball and the bat. It can show up edges not audible.
Audio: Umpires can use sound if Hot Spot fails. By using ‘cricket sense’ and television images they can judge if the ball has hit the bat or bat has hit pad or the ground.
Snicko: The soundwave readout is analysed graphically once the moving image is matched with the audio picked up from the stump mics
Cons?
Hawkeye: It is predictive and there have been suggestions it is not accurate. It is not used unilaterally. There is a rival company, Virtual Eye which provides the technology in Australia.
Hot Spot: Sometimes fails to detect faint edges from fast bowlers due to lack of friction.
Audio: The stump mics pick up audio from batsmen, bowlers and fielders which can distort the sound of contact between bat and ball.
Snicko: It takes too long for the evidence to be collated in time for the DRS. Again, the sound can be distorted by other noises.
How big an impact has it had on this Ashes series?
Hawkeye: Unquestioned and used as normal by the 3rd umpires and players appear to have trust in its use.
Hot Spot: A technician’s error led to an apology from the ICC in the first Test and has subsequently been at the centre of other controversies when it has failed to detect edges.
Audio: Used by 3rd umpire as evidence for edges even though there has not been any Hotpsot marks.
Snicko: Nothing as it is only used by the broadcasters and not the 3rd umpire.
Will it remain part of DRS?
Hawkeye: Yes
Hot Spot: future will be discussed at an ICC meeting in September.
Audio: Yes
Snicko: The new real-time Snicko if it passes independent testing could be part of DRS by the next Ashes series.

Ashes bloggers open new chapter for cricket

encountered them, they were no longer in the bishop’s house, or even his palace. They were lining two long shelves of Blackwell’s book depository. How they turned up there, I don’t know. How my father found himself there is even more mysterious and certainly lost in the mists of time.

But although dad is no longer around, the bishop’s books are and now fill two long shelves of my brother’s home. Some are by this paper’s venerable former cricket correspondent E W Swanton; many concern the controversial 1932-33 ‘Bodyline’ tour; all sport vividly designed covers and clipped, direct titles such as Just My Story by Len Hutton or My Life Story by Sir Jack Hobbs, or The Larwood Story by Harold Larwood.

The books were worth their weight in gold to my father. He pored over them, imbibing every drop of the fascinating mixture of self-aggrandising heroics and self-deprecating description that poured from their pages.

I found myself thinking about their measured tone and how different it is from the sports coverage of today when, by some inexplicable oversight in forward planning, I discovered I had managed to book my summer holiday in Sardinia during not one, but two Ashes Tests – and, to make things even worse, the Open.

Italian TV – or at least the bit we got in our holiday rental – does not believe in cricket. Or golf for that matter. Possibly because Italians excel in neither sport.

Cricket: Waqas steers Omer CC to title

KARACHI:  Mohammad Waqas scored an outstanding 84 to help Omer CC to an easy nine-wicket win against AO Clinic in the final as they won the Dr MA Shah Night Trophy yesterday.

Chasing 135, Waqas and Zain Abbas, who scored 44 with two sixes and three boundaries, produced a 127-run opening stand to take their side home in 15.5 overs for the loss of one wicket. Waqas’s 84 contained seven sixes and seven strikes to the fence. He was named man-of-the-final.
Earlier, AO Clinic had made 134 for four led by Fazal Subhan’s 53 studded with three sixes and two boundaries. Omer CC received winning purse of Rs500,000 while the runner-up had to settle for Rs250,000.

County cricket has been woken out of its slumber by T20

Another night on the county circuit, another sell-out. Last Thursday around 28,000 went to Lord's to watch Middlesex play Twenty20 against Surrey, and the next evening 23,500 more were at the Oval to watch Surrey play Kent. Weird scenes these, for those of us accustomed to watching county cricket in the company of the hardy few. Middlesex's combined Championship attendance in 2012 was only 28,104. As many people paid to watch that one three-hour match as did all the 32 days of Championship cricket the county played at home last season, a statistic which epitomises cricket's current predicament.
It has been 10 years since T20 was launched. In its first season Stuart Robertson, then the ECB's head of marketing, said that the format was not "an end in itself, but a means to an end. The hope is that a 20-over game will be the first rung on a cricket-watching ladder that has a Championship game at its top." It feels as though that hope has been frustrated. But while there is cause for consternation, there is room too for celebration. T20 has drawn the kind of crowds not seen at county matches since before the Second World War.
At Lord's the queue to get in stretched from the Bicentenary Gate down to the Wellington Road. There were even scalpers shilling tickets to people who couldn't be bothered wait the time it took to get from one end to the other. Inside, I was turfed out of my spot by a steward to make more room for the late arrivals. Instead, I squeezed in to the one empty seat in sight, alongside a jovial church organist who mollified me by offering to share his bottle of Chablis and packet of sausage rolls. He was garrulous, and good company.
The match was awful – only two Middlesex players made it into double figures, as they were bowled out for 92 while chasing 178. So in between his bites and slurps the bibulous organist and I spoke of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings, of why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings. He barely grumbled when the bankers behind him fired a champagne cork up over his head and down onto the ground, though the fizz that followed spurted up on to his collar and ran down the back of his jacket. He turned and said "you should twist the bottle, old boy, not the cork." He was distraught when the game ended early, but only because he was barely half way through his second bottle.
Lord's is lucky. It sells itself, and has no need for geegaws, gimcracks, and other gimmicks. The London derby has become a fixture of the high society sports season, and the stands are packed with city folk in suits, jackets off, ties tugged loose of the collar. It is the home of cricket, and also of the scandalous £20 steak sandwich, served, we're told, "in fresh focaccia with "Portobello mushrooms and slow-roasted tomatoes, crispy onion rings, peppery rocket, horseradish coleslaw and pickles".
At the Oval they have to work a little harder. There are fireworks and flame-throwers, which belch columns of fire each time someone hits a boundary. Kia, the club's sponsors, stump up £1,000 prizes for anyone and everyone who takes a clean catch off a six hit into the stands. At half-time their latest model takes a slow lap of the ground while a volunteers hurl freebie merchandise into the stands. Scream if you want a t-shirt. As much as the curmudgeon in me resents the razzmatazz, Surrey have learned how to do it well.
When the stands are this full, the rival sets supporters have distinct identities. Surrey's is more eclectic, and a little rougher around the edges, than the one they get north of the Thames. That night they had more to cheer, because it was a much better match, which Surrey won with five balls to spare. But still the loudest roar was the one received by a streaker, or rather the stewards who clobbered him who broke onto the pitch as the game was reaching its climax.
When Mitch Claydon strolled down to his station at fine leg after his third over he assumed the crowd were applauding his parsimony and gave them a wave of thanks. In fact they were cheering the snake of beer glasses which was being passed around to keep it out of reach of a flailing, frustrated steward. "Feed the snake! Pass the snake! Feed the snake! Pass the snake!" It broke just in front of me, provoking a raucous chorus of boos, and showering everyone in the vicinity in beer dregs, so that by the end of the night the air around is was heavy with the sour scent of stale booze.
Some fans will read all this and think that they want no part of it. The peace, space, and time on offer at a county ground is a large part of the attraction of going to a Championship match, which often act as a kind of day-care for disaffected middle-aged men. And at first I found myself inwardly irritated with the occasional disregard for what was happening in the middle, the disrespect for the old traditions, like not moving from your seat until the end of the over. Afterwards, an old acquaintance rebuked me for being so uppity, reminding me that though those of us who love cricket have long since forgotten how complicated its Laws and rituals can seem to the uninitiated.
A complex game needs simple structures, and the ECB's idea of staging most T20 games on Friday nights through the summer is a good one. County cricket, which has slumbered for so long, is awake again. The Oval is one of my favourite sanctuaries from the teeming city that surrounds it. Last Friday it seemed alive and vital, as busy as any other corner of London. Strange days indeed. But welcome ones.

Cricket: Aussies dig in to save series

Australia's batsmen have vowed to draw on the fighting legacy of former test great Justin Langer and get their hands dirty trying to save the Ashes at Old Trafford.
That David Warner is set to return for a match teammates have sworn to fight for is not an ironic faux pas but perhaps a deliberate ploy.
Disregarding his off-field discrepancies, Warner possesses the second best test record of any Australian batsman behind Michael Clarke.
After his 193 for Australia A last week, it would appear crazy to leave Warner out of the third test, where a win is needed to avoid not only a third straight Ashes series defeat, but the worst losing run in Australian test history.
Most of the Australian squad have played under former test opener Langer, who quit as batting coach only last year.
Langer was one of the most successful players Australia has seen, even though he often gave the impression he was courageously battling for survival.
Rolled for an embarrassing 128 at Lord's in the second test, there's only one man for the Australians to follow according to opener Chris Rogers.

"I think it's just a fight. You've got to get stuck in," Rogers said.
"For Justin Langer, that was his motto and it seemed to work for me. I don't think there's anything else you can do but fight as hard as you can and just try and stay out there and not surrender your wicket, which we've probably been doing a little bit too easily."
Steve Smith is in doubt with a back injury, and if the right-hander was ruled out, Warner would slot straight in at No6.
But if Smith proves his fitness, as Australia expect him to do, Warner will have to come in at the expense of one of the top order - most likely Phil Hughes, causing a reshuffle.
Rogers said Warner had the potential to influence a match from the middle order like an Adam Gilchrist.
"He's one of those guys oppositions know they have to get out quickly," he said. "He's such a destructive player ... if he bats for a while he can take the game away like Gilchrist used to do so hopefully he can do that for us if he does play."
Australia are tossing up between Jackson Bird and Mitchell Starc for the final position in the pace attack. Bird is the favourite to play, with his control and consistency impressive.
Starc offers greater variation with his left-arm pace, but there's concern his footmarks create too much of a target for Graeme Swann to bowl into.
Spin will potentially play a bigger part in this test than at Lord's - where Swann finished with nine wickets to be named man-of-the-match.
England are considering picking Monty Panesar as well.
Australia are likely to choose against the dual-spin option, with the more experienced Nathan Lyon tipped to replace 19-year-old Ashton Agar for the high-pressure match.
England star Kevin Pietersen favoured his injured calf at training yesterday and remains in doubt, with James Taylor on standby.

Five greatest Ashes matches at Old Trafford
1. Ball Of The Century - Australia beat England by 179 runs, 1993 The match will be remembered for the Ball of the Century delivered by Shane Warne in his first delivery in Ashes cricket. The young legspinner pitched outside leg stump and took the top of Mike Gatting's off-stump to leave the England batsman, and the cricket world stunned.
2. House Full On Day Five - Australia draw with England, 2005 After the magic of the second test at Edgbaston, the sides arrived in Manchester locked at 1-1. Set 423 to win, Australia needed to last more than a day at the crease to save the match. More than 10,000 fans were locked out of the stadium due to the over-flowing crowd. Ricky Ponting batted for nearly seven hours for his 156. When he was out four overs from close, it seemed Australia were cooked at nine down. But Brett Lee and Glenn McGrath dug in for a courageous draw and the first in 17 Ashes tests.
3. The Laker Show - England beat Australia by an innings and 170 runs, 1956 England fast bowler Jim Laker took 19-90 for the match. In the first innings, he took the last seven of his nine wickets for eight runs in just 22 balls - with Australia all out for 84 in just 40.4 overs. But in the second dig, Laker got the big 10 - the second time that year he'd taken a full house against Australia.
4. The Comeback - Australia beat England by 54 runs, 1961 After giving up a first innings lead of 177, Australia staged one of the great fightbacks. Bill Lawry batted for 4 hours for 102, as the tourists made it to 432. England had to chase 256 to win with just four hours remaining. At 1-150 they looked the goods. Before the great Richie Benaud struck with 6-70 to skittle England for a famous victory with 20 minutes left in the match.
5. Beefy Bash - England beat Australia by 103 runs, 1981 Ian Botham smashed 118 off 102 balls in under two hours to turn the test. Before Botham came out, Australia were on top, England five down with a lead of just 205. But then Australia had 505 to chase. The Australians batted bravely, but fell 103 runs short on the final day.

Mickey Arthur settles dispute with Cricket Australia

Cricket Australia has reached a "confidential settlement" with its former coach Mickey Arthur, who was taking legal action against his former employer following his abrupt dismissal in June.
Arthur was sacked after Australia's dismal Champions Trophy campaign which followed swiftly on from the 4-0 Test series whitewash they suffered in India in March.
But a statement released by CA confirmed that both parties had reached an agreement. "Both Mickey and CA agree that it is unfortunate that the dispute was not settled prior to the issuing of legal proceedings," it read. "Both parties agree that a resolution now is in the interests of the Australian cricket team and cricket generally in Australia. Cricket Australia appreciates the efforts that Mickey applied to his coaching role, and wishes him the very best in his future career."
That, however, is not the end of legal issues for CA. The former fast bowler Nathan Bracken has gone public with his frustration at the governing body's approach to his claim against it for culpability in the injury that ended his career. Bracken is seeking compensation for the earnings he lost when forced to retire with a knee injury in January 2011 at the age of 33, two years after his last international appearance. The main case is not expected to be heard until next year, but the parties are already locked in a pre-hearing battle over Cricket Australia's refusal to release key documents to Bracken's legal team.
Richard O'Keefe, representing Bracken, said: "All this is about is preventing access to various documents by subjecting them to onerous confidentiality restrictions. That, with respect, is going too far."
However, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, Dominic Priestley, the counsel for Cricket Australia, said his client had already provided ''ten of thousands'' of documents to Bracken, and that it was only asking for a ''handful'' to be covered by a confidentiality agreement. He said Bracken was wasting the court's time by bringing the document dispute to court rather than reaching a solution among the parties.
In a written statement, Bracken was quoted as saying: ''It is disappointing that this argument has arisen in the course of my claim. I would much have preferred to be able to resolve this argument and indeed my claim through private discussions. Hopefully that remains possible."
Cricket Australia seems to have been firefighting on a daily basis for months, with numerous less serious off-field embarrassments – most recently an abusive description of a third-umpire decision at Lord's on their official Twitter feed. They conceded this week that the investigation into that incident had failed to discover what had happened.