Scouting players, researching numbers, and even practicising their buying skills – franchises leave nothing to chance

Arun Venugopal and Gaurav Sundararaman19-Feb-2017Numbers, videos and homework
Preparation for the auction usually begins well before the event. While the entire squad has to be rebuilt during the big auction next year, franchises attempt to piece together missing jigsaws in smaller auctions, like the one on Monday.M Lakshminarayanan, Gujarat Lions’ performance analyst, believes only half the job is done at the auctions when the players are bought. A backroom staff comprising coaches, analysts and scouts has to crunch huge amounts of data and watch hours of player footage before zeroing in on who they want. “You need to have options A, B and C, as sometimes the players you want may be bought by other franchises,” Lakshminarayanan says.”If you do proper research and analysis, you end up filling 70-75% of the team. If you are looking for someone who will tick nine of the ten boxes but aren’t able to get him, you must be prepared to pick someone who ticks seven. His industrial average [a combination of different parameters, like his average, strike rate, ability to handle pressure and boundary frequency] may only be 70, but you can get more out of him, extract 75 out of him. The 5% is a big achievement for the team.”Research on player statistics goes well beyond averages and strike rates. Lakshminarayanan, who worked with Chennai Super Kings from 2008 to 2015, says he places a lot of emphasis on parameters like boundary frequency, dot-ball percentage and pressure index”At CSK, we picked Samuel Badree when most teams didn’t pick overseas spinners. The reason was, he had an economy rate of around 6.45. From a pressure-index view, he was very good, as the pressure he created cushioned the bowler at the other end. In the IPL, there are generally three-four main bowlers, while the other two are targeted. So how a bowler helps his partner by building pressure at one end is something we look at before buying him.”In the case of batsmen, he says, even strike rates could at times be misleading, as often two good knocks against a weak side could inflate a player’s figures. “When you need to gauge someone’s boundary-hitting ability – an important attribute, especially when you need quick runs – you need to look at his boundary-frequency data from his previous matches. If a player’s boundary frequency is two boundaries every five deliveries, he is very good. Only when you have two boundaries in an over you can reach an average total of 160, which has increasingly become easy to chase.”Also, you need to look at the batsman’s dot-ball percentage and how he does between overs seven and 15, during what we call the ‘cooling period’.”If I am looking at how someone fares in the slog, I will look at the best death bowlers in Ram Slam or BBL in different categories – right-arm and left-arm fast bowlers, offspinners and legspinners – and see how the batsman has done against those bowlers.”

“If buying a player is only going to help win the IPL, it is discussed, debated, the roles of individuals assigned and the planning done much ahead [of the auction]”Sundar Raman, former IPL chief operating officer

Lakshminarayanan points to Super Kings’ acquisition of Ashish Nehra for Rs 2 crore (about US$300,000) in 2014 as an example of a player picked to execute a certain job. While he finished with eight wickets that year, he picked up 22 the following year at an economy rate of 7.24. “We knew he was a great choice as a death bowler. The data gave us a pretty good picture, and then we had videos. There were quite a few things going for him – left-arm bowler, wicket-taking bowler. But the main thing was his skills at the death.”Mohit Sharma is another example of successful research. He had done well in the Ranji Trophy, but back then I am not sure how many people tracked Haryana’s progress. We had also picked Ankit Rajpoot in 2013. Maybe to others, these might not have seemed great picks at that time, but it was a success story for us.”Monty Desai, a former Rajasthan Royals staffer who was Gujarat Lions performance coach last year, says it is important to validate statistics of players with what they see on the ground. “Just numbers aren’t good enough. We need plenty of match-pressure footage to look at how these players respond to those mini events,” he says. “Do they show fearless skills? Are they executing their skills when needed the most: after getting hit for six, did a bowler respond by executing the best possible yorker to create pressure back on the batsman?”Talent hunt
Over the years, scouting in the IPL has become an increasingly specialised exercise, as franchises look to snap up and nurture lesser-known domestic talent, or even rough diamonds. During the domestic season in India, you will invariably see John Wright or TA Sekhar at some ground scouting for Mumbai Indians and Delhi Daredevils respectively. Teams like Mumbai Indians, in fact, are known to send their scouts out to foreign leagues, like the CPL or the BBL.Kiran More, the former India wicketkeeper and chairman of selectors, has scouted talent for a few years now for Mumbai Indians. He feels it is important to keep track of emerging talent throughout the year. “Any cricket you watch, Under-19 and U-16 also, you just keep your eye on a quality player and how he is going.”Desai says there were a lot of development camps done at Rajasthan Royals, to which they invited potential future buys. “This year, the Tamil Nadu Premier League [where Desai mentored inaugural champions Tuti Patriots] gave me a good close look at the skill sets available in the south.”Teams have to have a list of back-up options for their first picks in case those get snapped up by other franchises•Getty ImagesDelhi Daredevils team analyst Panish Shetty, who has worked with Rajasthan Royals in the past, says scouts look at games in every format to spot talent. “It isn’t only the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament that people see, but also the Ranji Trophy,” he says. “We have seen over the past few years that a batsman who has a strong technique can survive in any form. Also, the local tournaments, like the DY Patil T20 tournament, are looked at.”Desai says the Ranji Trophy 2016-17 helped him make a decision on retaining former India U-19 star Ishan Kishan, who recently smashed a 36-ball 67 for East Zone against Central Zone in the Syed Mushtaq Ali tournament. “I am giving you an example of two young guns – Rishabh Pant and Ishan Kishan – hitting plenty of sixes in the Ranji Trophy. It stood out for me this year and helped me to give my view on helping retaining Ishan Kishan, who we are backing as a potential game-changer.”Mock auctions
Dummy auctions are a minor yet important exercise in the lead-up to the auctions. Roughly speaking, they are a gathering of the team’s officials, the key members of the coaching staff, and sometimes even the captain to replicate the rapid-fire nature of the real auctions. “It is certainly necessary to get a hang of the auction dynamics,” a franchise official says. “A few years ago our coach, who was a foreigner and new to the IPL, suddenly panicked because he had no clue as to how to approach an auction.”Lakshminarayanan says these drills ensure you aren’t surprised by anything that comes up at the auction; he looks at it as a question of building muscle memory. “It’s just something you do to ensure you don’t panic and get into the zone.”Such exercises also help teams prepare for last-minute changes, like the late withdrawal of Mitchell Starc this year.Captains, coaches and team composition
A couple of stories that serve to illustrate the power vested in coaches and captains in some IPL franchises. One franchise had the opportunity of snapping up a leading West Indies allrounder for a throwaway price at an auction, but had to pass up the opportunity as a member of its coaching staff didn’t share a good relationship with the player, who was eventually bought by Kolkata Knight Riders.

“‘It isn’t only the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament that people see, but also the Ranji Trophy. We have seen over the past few years that a batsman who has a strong technique can survive in any form”Delhi Daredevils team analyst Panish Shetty

Another story goes that a south Indian franchise, egged on by its star captain and coach, was keen on going for broke for a leading Sri Lanka player. However, the player’s middling T20 record, accentuated by his inability to hit sixes made the franchise’s team of analysts feel he was not a good pick. According to one of the analysts, it took them a lot of convincing to get the team owner to plump for an uncapped overseas allrounder instead. To the analyst’s relief, the second choice ended up playing a pivotal role in the team’s run to the final.Former IPL chief operating officer Sundar Raman, who currently works with Mumbai Indians’ owners the Reliance Group, thinks teams mirror the styles of the captains and coaches. “Most of the teams have had stable captains for a very long time. Stable captains have obviously built in a certain amount of discipline in the process. They may have a wish list of players.”Non-cricketing (f)actors
Ahead of the auction in 2015, Delhi Daredevils were reportedly under pressure from their sponsors to have a marquee Indian player as captain. It was an open secret that they would go all out for Yuvraj Singh, and they bought him for a record Rs 16 crore, staving off Royal Challengers Bangalore, who had paid Rs 14 crore for Yuvraj the previous year, in a hectic bidding war.So the question remains: how much do business considerations or the owners’ will influence auction decisions? A franchise official complained about the interference of the team’s executive arm. “Sometimes these people tell the coaches which XI to pick,” he says.K Shanmugam, the CEO of Sunrisers Hyderabad, says while certain decisions pertaining to the auctions are made collectively, the team’s coach, Tom Moody, and mentors, VVS Laxman and Muttiah Muralitharan, handle the cricket side of things. “This year we don’t need to really break our heads to find out because we already have a set team in place. We probably might have just few places to be filled in. May be next year we have to really work on the strategies and how to go about,” he says.”We do definitely have meetings on uncapped players. Of course, we have mentors like Murali and Laxman who handle things day to day. They know who would be right, and coach Tom is there. Certain decisions are jointly taken with the management. Laxman, I am sure, is in touch with most of the cricketers and he follows cricket more than any of us do. Their inputs will be correct. In case we have to discuss something that is critical, or something where we feel we will have to take a joint call, then we sit and discuss.”Desai says, “At RR, over a period of time, we [coaching staff] were able to win certain battles. But look, everyone needs to respect difference of opinion,” he says. “We try to challenge a few decisions from our research and experience.”At CSK, we picked Samuel Badree when most teams didn’t pick overseas spinners. From a pressure-index view, he was very good as the pressure he created cushioned the bowler at the other end”•BCCI”Also with trial and error, the fact is, we have also got a few decisions wrong, which I try to own up for. Shivil Kaushik last year was a classic case of risk taken for base price on my request, and I would like to believe his performances, especially in the semi-final against Hyderabad, convinced owners that such calls are also good business calls.”Raman feels owners don’t make sentimental decisions. “I don’t think any owner is interested in acquiring a player. Every owner is interested in winning the IPL,” he says. “If buying a player is only going to help win the IPL, then there is a reason, but these are not discussions that are taken on the fly inside the auction. It is discussed, debated, the roles of individual assigned and the planning done much ahead before all this is entered into the auction room.”Shanmugam says there is a ballpark figure given to the coaching staff about how far they can go for each player. “We know what is required for the team and it is not about paying so much for the player. At the end of the day it should not become a situation where the player also feels that he is overpaid and he gets tense that he has to perform,” he says.Running the show
As COO of the IPL from its inception to 2015, Raman believes a structure has been put in place to make sure the auction follows a smooth pattern. “I think the interesting thing is we set the [system of] marquee [players], and then we have a flow which is starting with the batsman, wicketkeeper, allrounder, fast bowler, spin bowler etc,” he says. “The sequence is maintained, which allows you to sort of prepare yourself from a team-composition standpoint also while you are in the auction. When the player-sets are being made, you make them based on multiple criteria: Test cap, ODI cap, T20 caps, current national players, captain of a national team, captain of a state team, number of franchises who have requested for them.”He says the entire process was simulated ahead of the day of the event. “We used to simulate how the auction will flow, how long it will last, what is the total purse that will be spent, how many players will be bought, the average player price, and who will be outlier players,” he says.”We know that this phase will be the slowish phase because we also need to time-manage the auction as it is a live broadcast. In the sequence of auction, for instance, between the first round of capped players and the first round of uncapped players, we believe there will be a bit of lull. There will be a lot of ‘unsold’ because people are giving 1:20 rather than 1:1 in terms of ratio of need to supply.While he believes the processes put in place are stable, he admits that there is scope to enhance operational efficiency. “The timing of getting the uncapped players into the system [involves] actual contact. Maybe there are better ways to do it,” he says. “Maybe you can say that anybody who has played Ranji Trophy for the state in this current reason automatically gets registered. You could circumvent the process of paperwork and documentation by sending them an e-link. Who knows one day in the future there may be an e-auction?”

Azeem Rafiq drifted out of cricket after struggling to live up to his early potential. But he’s been handed a second chance at Yorkshire and wants to repay the faith

Francis Kelly05-Apr-2017″I can’t tell you that, he’s the head coach now,” Azeem Rafiq chortles, as he holds back from revealing how often he got Yorkshire’s Andrew Gale out in a net session that proved the turning point in Rafiq’s remarkable return to professional cricket last season.Almost two years after leaving the game, the spinning allrounder was back at the Headingley indoor centre he’d attended since a boy, this time attempting to resurrect his career. There was just the small matter of impressing the then-captain Gale and Yorkshire’s coaches.Rafiq offers a smile as he explains the long, arduous journey undertaken, knowing it happily concludes with him re-signing on a one-year contract for the county. A meeting with Yorkshire’s director of cricket development and long-term friend Ian Dews in Dubai the previous winter, where Rafiq was coaching and training, set the wheels in motion. But, as Rafiq puts it, no one could have “envisaged what would end up happening” a few months down the line.”I spoke to Dewsy again at the end of May, mentioning our conversation in Dubai, and I told him I was ready to play,” Rafiq says. “A couple of days after, he called saying Gale was preparing for a Championship game and asked if I wanted to come down. So I bowled at Galey for an hour, which went really well. I guess he must’ve gone and fed that back as I was asked to play a second-team game a few days after.”A little over a week later, Rafiq was back in the first team and picking up the man-of-the-match award in Yorkshire’s first NatWest T20 Blast win of 2016. He would finish the season with 242 runs and 24 wickets – 15 of them coming by way of the T20 Blast, as Yorkshire reached Finals Day for the first time in five years. A county cap would be his, too; the moment of shock upon receiving it forever captured in a touching video released by the club on social media.”I don’t know how many times I’ve watched it now – a lot though. I still watch it. It’s a day in my life I’ll never forget. It caught me completely by surprise. I thought only Jack Leaning and David Willey were getting their caps, but for Gale to say my name first, I was speechless. I honestly couldn’t say a thing. I was so happy. It’s been a really tough couple of years, going on a bit longer than that, so to be the 179th person in 150-odd years is just an incredible achievement and something I’m incredibly proud of.”

‘I know that the times I went through by myself have given me this inner grit. No matter what the situation, I can find a way through’

The pain is still raw for Rafiq as he speaks about those previous struggles. Aged just 23, he recognised the sport he loved was no longer the fun adventure he’d set out on. Frustration had set in. A knee injury stalled his development and he’d been unsuccessful in breaking into Yorkshire’s Championship side.He was released by the club in the summer of 2014 by mutual agreement, with the intention that he could explore first-team opportunities elsewhere. Instead he stepped away from the game.”I don’t think anyone knows what I actually went through,” he explains. “The whole process was a lot longer than when I left here, it was probably a year and a half before I left. I’d been struggling for a while with my confidence and after the knee operation I lost a lot of confidence in my body and confidence in myself as a person.”But I’ve got a lot of inner belief now. I know that the times I went through by myself have given me this inner grit. No matter what the situation, I can find a way through.”How would he describe that period? “Tough,” Rafiq exclaims. “But enjoyable at the same time; an eye-opener. Something that has made me the person I am and the cricketer I will end up being.”Stretched out on a sofa in the indoor training centre, overlooking a pre-season session led by Gale, Rafiq appears at ease with his lot now. While still passionate about the sport, the time out of professional cricket has allowed him to foster a new appreciation and attitude for it compared to the approach his younger self took.”It’s massively changed the way I look at cricket,” Rafiq says. “This is a beautiful game that I think when you’ve had it a bit early – and I think back and I played a lot of my cricket at a young age, a kid – sometimes you take it for granted and I can say I did.”You do the training and you’re sort of sleeping through it. You come in and go away and you don’t know what you’ve done. I think it is easily done. I don’t think it just happens in this sport or this walk of life, I think it happens a lot. And I think when you have that wake-up call, or you get in the real world as I was, you realise how good this is.”Thrust into the demanding rigours of professional sport while in his teens, Rafiq experienced a chastising county debut. Brought along to see what life with the first team was like for a T20 clash against Nottinghamshire in 2008, a 17-year-old Rafiq was propelled into the starting line-up after Yorkshire were shown a track expected to turn. Following completion of the fixture, it came to light that Rafiq was ineligible to play due to registration complications, something he had no control over, and Yorkshire were booted out of the competition. The experience did little to deter him though, quickly overcoming the early set-back in his determined fashion.Marked out as possessing leadership potential, he would go on to skipper the county’s T20 side, becoming the first player of Asian origin to do so. By that point Rafiq had also been mentioned as a future international. He was already working his way through the England junior ranks, captaining the likes of Yorkshire team-mate Joe Root in the process. But was it too much too young?Azeem Rafiq impressed in the T20 Blast on his comeback last season•Getty Images”If you’re being brutally honest, I think it was more than that,” he says. “I think it was that I played a lot of high-level cricket. I was in a high-level environment from the age of 14, I was involved in the ECB skills set with people who were playing international cricket, Test cricket at times. What ends up happening is you just go through the motions, you don’t find that you’re looking to improve. You don’t know what is going on in your game. And before you know it, that can spiral and become an issue. That’s effectively what ended up happening.”So it’s about finding a balance – working to improve but appreciating the game and what challenges it brings and enjoying that. And smiling through it. You’re not going be on the top of your game every day, that’s not going to happen. So you have to find a way. I think mentally I’ve become a lot better.”That resilience will be required this summer if Yorkshire are to reclaim the County Championship crown. After missing out on a hat-trick of consecutive titles on the final day of last season, the county are preparing for this summer with renewed vigour. Rafiq watched from afar as the club twice won Division One silverware under Jason Gillespie’s tutelage, but he is confident Yorkshire will triumph in 2017 with Gillespie’s successor, Gale, at the helm.”Dizzy’s strength was how he managed everyone. He gave you a lot of belief to go out there and play. Gale has a pretty strong demeanor about him, but his hands-on coaching as well as the management side means you’ve got two in one. Everyone has their own strengths, but I’m sure he’ll be as successful at coaching as he was captain. It shouldn’t be forgotten that he has the highest score for Yorkshire and has done a hell of a lot for the club. He deserves a massive amount of credit.”For now, Rafiq is concentrating on maximising a full winter’s training. He’s shed over 12kg of timber – equivalent to nine of the bats wielded by Chris Gayle – and is feeling much better for it. With the extra strength comes the ability to rip the ball that much harder. Yet his focus is very much on the collective rather than the individual these days.”In general I keep my cricket very simple now. I just want to try and enjoy every day. I know that sounds like a cliché but it’s not for me. My mindset is that I try to put an emphasis on how I can help the team, and for my own performances I think that’s really helped me have a wider perspective and a more balanced view of the game. When you concentrate on your own performance every day it can become a very lonely place. So I just think about the team. You’re probably going to have more bad days than good days, so as long as the team is doing okay then I must be doing my job okay.”Rafiq grins once more, gazing down at the ongoing practice net below, eager to be back among the team again. “The coaches and players, I can’t thank them enough,” he says. “When I signed my contract a couple of weeks after getting back involved, Froggy [Martyn Moxon, director of cricket] said it was like I’d never been away. That’s a credit to how the staff and the players made me feel. Every day I can’t wait to get out of bed and play cricket now.”

A distracted and angry team played without passion or practice, in a tournament that is off the radar for Australia’s sporting public

Jarrod Kimber at Edgbaston10-Jun-2017In the gloom of Edgbaston, with England nearly home, the rain about to come, and their million-dollar bowler clutching his hamstring, Glenn Maxwell dropped a catch that he misread so badly it almost hit him. Even when it didn’t rain on Australia’s chances, their cricket was underwhelming.Australia have played only one completed match – and even that was incomplete. They were poor in their first match, and much better in the second. By the end of those two washouts, their tally of two points was exactly what they deserved. If you include their two warm-ups, they’d played in four games in England, and finished just this one.Essentially Australia’s only game of this entire tournament was a knockout game against the only unbeaten team, the favourites, the home team, and they came into it with no proper preparation. Most casual Australian cricket fans don’t even know what the Champions Trophy is, what it means, or how often Australia has won it. Plus, it’s footy season, and this is hardly the Ashes. Besides, the Australian players haven’t had to face anything as hostile on the field as they have from their own board. But even though Cricket Australia’s executives might have played even more reckless shots than their top order, this Australian team never looked right from the moment it took the field in this tournament.The problem started at No.4. Moises Henriques has never made more than 18 in an ODI. His top score for Australia is 81 not out in Tests. He averages 31 in List A cricket. He made two List A fifties in his first nine seasons of cricket. He’s only ever made limited-overs hundreds in domestic cricket. He’s 30. Ten Australian players have scored over 4000 runs in ODI cricket batting at No.4: Michael Clarke, Damien Martyn, Allan Border, Michael Bevan, Mike Hussey, Steve Waugh and Greg Chappell.Henriques has good recent form in the IPL, Big Bash and one-day cup, but at No. 4, in an ICC tournament, it was two or three places too high.It is not Henriques’ fault he is batting at 4: he is there because of a hole in the centre of this team. Australia are a batsman short and a bowler short. And to elongate the batting and rush through the fifth bowler’s overs quicker, Henriques has been brought in to fill this gap. The middle overs in this tournament are when bowling sides try and take wickets – England smashed through theirs with wrist spin and pace to make sure Australia had nothing left with which to strike at the death. But in the 13th to 15th of a must-win game, Australia was bowling Moises Henriques and Travis Head when they needed wickets with no catchers, no hope of a plan other than ‘”let’s hope Ben Stokes does something idiotic”.Would Australia have won the game with Marcus Stoinis instead of Henriques, or even Chris Lynn for Henriques, with Head and Maxwell combining for ten overs? Probably not, because even though the chemistry was wrong, the performances weren’t much better. Pat Cummins has taken two wickets in 25 overs in this tournament, and served up 144 runs – 52 of which came in his first five overs against New Zealand. Today, Stokes took him for 43 runs from 28 balls.Steven Smith was an angry man for much of a sorry Australia performance•Getty ImagesDavid Warner came into this tournament having made a staggering 23.5% of Australia’s runs since the last World Cup: here he failed in two of the three games. Steven Smith makes 16.5% of Australia’s runs; he failed in two out of three as well. Starc looked underdone in the first match, bowled beautifully in the washout against Bangladesh, and clutched his hamstring for much of this game.Australia’s game-plan relies on one of their top three batting big, to make up for their shallowness below them. Instead they lost regular wickets, and then 5 for 15 once the tail was exposed. Australia’s game-plan relies on their fast bowlers taking regular wickets. Instead they started brilliantly but couldn’t keep striking. And that was the ballgame.You could extrapolate this one game and talk about the Ashes, and a psychological dominance that England might feel they now have over Australia, but you probably shouldn’t. The Australians might be embarrassed that a team lost to England with six or seven potential Test players, but you know, they played a better-prepared team with better form in a must-win game, and they lost. Their ODI team might need a stronger allrounder, but other than that, it’s hard to answer any big questions from two washouts and a loss.Plus there are bigger questions in Australia that need to be answered right now, what’s Schapelle Corby up to, who’s winning in the footy and what is the best kind of fusion to win with on a reality TV cooking show?At 35 for 3, Hazlewood raps Stokes on the pad, the Australians are screaming, and one ball later they are coming off. Smith looks frustrated, but he has all day. He was angry when Henriques got out, he was angry when he got out, and he was angry when his team fielded poorly. The only time he wasn’t angry was when the rain came for the last time, then it was relief.Australia, caught rain, bowled England, 0.

Virat Kohli has endured a turbulent period, and the relaxing setting of the Caribbean might be just the tonic he needs

Hemant Buch25-Jun-2017On June 19, tropical storm Bret lashed Trinidad, downing power lines, flooding several low-lying areas and leaving the island in chaos. Just a day before that, a storm named Pakistan had lashed the Indian cricket team, leaving its hopes of retaining the Champions Trophy in tatters.A few days later, the storm clouds had dissipated – both over the island of Trinidad as well as over the visiting Indians. A sense of calm settled over the central business district in Port-of-Spain, where the Hyatt Hotel that houses the India and West Indies teams, is located.It was early morning, and the captain, Virat Kohli, was taking a casual stroll down the esplanade, with no autograph hunters or selfie-clickers in sight. It was a rare moment of peace for the 28-year-old, coming close on the heels of a hectic Champions Trophy campaign, where India lost not just the final, but also their coach.And while that loss to Pakistan could be explained away, either as India having a bad day, or Pakistan just being Pakistan, the resignation of a high-profile and highly successful coach, was a bit more difficult to fathom.Various theories had been doing the rounds, well before Anil Kumble had released his statement that seemed to lay the blame for his resignation on the skipper’s doorstep. After his statement, worthies such as Sunil Gavaskar have weighed in on the affair and the opinion seems to be largely in Kumble’s favour.So, as Kohli settled in for a press conference in the unlikely setting of the Hyatt’s breakfast area, with the Caribbean sea lapping gently a few feet away, he would have been forgiven if the last thing he wanted to talk about was what had led to his team coming across the seven seas to face West Indies without a head coach.Even his hat, with the New York Yankees logo across its front, suggested that cricket was furthest from his mind on a beautiful June day on this idyllic Caribbean island.But the huge media contingent, numbering three journalists and a solitary television camera, had no intention of going easy on him. To his credit, when confronted with the question, Kohli did not move on with a cursory “no comment”. He paused, contemplated, and measured his words, making sure he conveyed what he had to without ending up sounding disrespectful to a cricketer many years his senior and one who has, arguably, been India’s greatest Test match-winner.It has been a tough week for India’s captain, but he remains unbowed, his confidence in his ability, undiminished. He believes he is there for the long haul and is clear that now is the time to stamp his authority and ethos on the team that has clearly moved on from being Dhoni’s team to being Kohli’s.The gentle breeze, the lazily swaying coconut palms, the serene Caribbean sea and a struggling opposition are the perfect setting for Kohli to begin the process of erasing recent memories – of the loss to Pakistan and of the short-lived reign of one of India’s most successful coaches.

While seamer Anya Shrubsole’s six-for was the defining performance of the final, the rest of the tournament was largely dominated by the batsmen

S Rajesh24-Jul-20174.69 – The run rate over the entire tournament, the highest in any Women’s World Cup. It was a 10% increase over the run rate in the previous edition (4.27 in India in 2013), and a whopping 31% increase over the run rate of 3.58 in the 2009 edition in Australia. The average runs per wicket went up significantly too: from 23.94 in 2013, it increased to 29.19, a rise of 22%.15 – Totals of 250 or more in the tournament, the most in a World Cup, and almost twice as many as the previous highest: in 2013, there were eight such totals. The 2017 edition had 30 matches compared to 25 in 2013 (excluding washouts), but that still translates to one 250-plus total every four innings this time, compared to one every 6.25 innings in 2013, an improvement of 36%.111 – Sixes hit in the tournament, the first time 100-plus sixes have been struck in a Women’s World Cup. The previous highest was 67, in the 2013 edition in India. (Complete boundary information for the World Cups before 2000 is not available, but in the 2000 edition, there was a grand total of eight sixes hit in 31 matches, at an average of one every 2074 balls.) There were also 1272 fours struck in the 15,826 balls bowled in this tournament, which means there was a four or a six scored every 11.44 balls. That is almost exactly the same rate of scoring boundaries as in the previous World Cup in 2013 (11.50), but it was a big improvement over the previous editions. The rate of hitting sixes, though, improved by almost 27% over the previous edition. In terms of percentage of runs scored in boundaries, the 2017 edition ranks second with a percentage of 49.27, below the 2013 percentage of 54.45.

70 – Fifty-plus scores in the tournament, the highest among all editions; the next best is 44, in 2013. There were 14 hundreds scored, which is also a record, going past the earlier best of 11 in 2013. Fifty-plus scores were also made more frequently in this World cup than in previous editions, with an average of one 50-plus score every 7.44 innings. The next best is 10.52, in 2013.5 – Of the top ten scores in Women’s World Cup matches came in 2017, which is another indicator of batsmen dominating the tournament. Chamari Atapattu’s unbeaten 178 is the second-highest World Cup score, while Harmanpreet Kaur made 171*, Meg Lanning 152*, Tammy Beaumont 148 and Sarah Taylor 147. In no other World Cup have there been more than three 140-plus scores in a single edition.5.64 – England’s run rate in the tournament, the best among all teams. Two other teams scored at more than five an over – Australia (5.41), and New Zealand (5.14). The losing finalist, India, scored at only 4.69 per over, but they were superb with the ball, conceding only 4.46 per over, which was better than the economy rates for England (4.53) and Australia (4.58). England also topped in terms of most fours (242) and hundreds (five).

410 – Aggregate for England’s opener Tammy Beaumont, who was the top scorer in the tournament. In terms of aggregates in a single World Cup, though, Beaumont’s is joint fifth. The highest remains Debbie Hockley’s 456 runs in the 1997 edition. For the bowlers, the highest haul of 15 wickets, by South Africa’s Dane van Niekerk, is the joint 11th-highest in a single World Cup.73 – Wickets taken by India, the most by a side in the tournament. England, the only other side to play nine matches in this World Cup, managed 66 wickets while Australia took 67. India’s spinners were also the leaders with 44 wickets, well clear of Australia’s, who were next with 32.

Fresh off his coaching and playing stint with Hong Kong, Ryan Campbell is now hoping to help Netherlands get their ODI status back

Peter Della Penna21-Jun-20175:20

‘Have to make Dutch cricket more professional’

“Coming from being involved with Australia, I didn’t even care about Associate cricket back then, because I didn’t know it.” These are the words of a man who now wears his cricket heart on his orange-coloured new Dutch sleeves.Ryan Campbell is just over two months into his tenure as Netherlands head coach, after having spent several years as part of the Hong Kong national set-up. Even with his team four months out from their next one-day fixtures in the WCL Championship, he’s on the road in Edinburgh, getting a look at future opponents Namibia in their one-day series against Scotland. Netherlands have four games left in the competition, against Kenya and Namibia towards the end of the year. If they win them all, they will clinch the title, and with it ostensibly a return to ODI status. (The ICC said earlier this year that the winner will be included in the proposed 13-team ODI league for 2023 World Cup qualification.)The last three years have been trying for Dutch cricket. They have had to expend energy to reclaim the ODI status – and the funding that goes with it – that was lost at the 2014 World Cup Qualifier. But Netherlands are on the cusp of accomplishing the targets they have been craving and Campbell has been tasked with seeing it through.”By winning these four games [in the WCL Championship], we can leave a footprint in Dutch cricket for the next decade, I have no doubt,” Campbell said during his scouting assignment in Scotland. “Then we’ll tackle the next hurdle and get a structure and blueprint that can push Dutch cricket forward for the next ten years, not just the next one or two.”I think that’s what happens in Associate cricket. Everything’s a short-term fix because you don’t quite know what’s going to happen, because the cycle is four years for ODI status. If you’re at the qualifiers and you advance, you get your status and funding and away you go. If you lose it, you’re in trouble.” It’s something Dutch cricket knows all too well now.For Hong Kong, Campbell served as assistant batting coach, and he subsequently made his debut for them as an opening batsman during the 2016 World T20.Campbell had been living and coaching in Hong Kong for several years in his role as the head coach at Kowloon Cricket Club, one of two anchor clubs on the Hong Kong domestic scene. He had also been serving as an assistant coach with the national team, and though he was content with life in Hong Kong, he was in search of a challenge and wanted to see how he could do leading a side as “the main man”.

“Our season in Holland is four months. If that means sending players to Australia, New Zealand or South Africa, or if an Australian with a Dutch passport is playing in Australia, I’d be stupid to say we’re not going to pick him”

Campbell felt strongly about representing Hong Kong because of his ancestral ties to the country; his paternal grandmother was a Chinese woman born in Kowloon. Campbell’s wife was born and raised in Hong Kong, but to Dutch parents, and both he and his wife had Dutch passports.He says he kept tabs on Dutch cricket going back to former batsman Michael Swart’s stint in the national side, something partly set in motion by Campbell.”I had always had a close eye on Netherlands cricket from way back, because I think it started when I was living in Perth and I owned a management company. I did the deal to get [former batsman] Michael Swart to the Netherlands,” Campbell said. “So once he started playing, obviously I kept a close eye on how he was going and met some of the players and knew how they were going and had a bit of a background. In Perth cricket circles, there’s lots of ex-players, the Tim Zoehrers and Michael Dightons, who had always spoken about Dutch cricket.”Campbell said he first applied to be Netherlands coach in 2014 but was passed over in favor of Anton Roux. Last year, the Netherlands board (KNCB) called on him to fill the vacancy left by Roux when he left.When Campbell made himself available for Hong Kong selection heading into the World T20, he had a conversation with coach Simon Cook and director of cricket Charlie Burke in which they asked if he would be available to help out for WCL Championship fixtures through the end of 2017. The top four teams in the eight-team competition would clinch spots in the 2018 World Cup Qualifier.Campbell’s availability for away tours was limited due to his primary job with Kowloon, and he had to withdraw himself from selection for the WCL Championship tour of Kenya last November. However, he was in line to be picked for the home series against Netherlands in February. Just when he was going to make his one-day debut for Hong Kong, he got a call regarding the state of his application for the Netherlands job.”They were in Dubai at the time, at the Desert T20, when I was told that I was going to be the coach,” Campbell said. “The funny thing was, I actually was told by Charlie Burke that I was going to be selected to play for Hong Kong against the Netherlands. Obviously without officially telling them that I was going to be the coach, I withdrew from my ability to play.Journey man: Wicketkeeper Campbell played two ODIs for Australia, three T20Is for Hong Kong before taking on the coach’s role with Netherlands•Getty Images”Look I don’t think I needed to play. I think Hong Kong cricket is getting pretty strong in their batting. As we’ve seen the Anshuman Raths have come forward, but I think Simon wanted that experienced head just for Babar Hayat to talk to during games. We don’t have Jamie Atkinson all the time now, we don’t have Mark Chapman all the time, obviously Irfan Ahmed’s not playing anymore [under ICC suspension]. So there were holes, I guess, and until the youngsters, Shahid Wasif and those ones, can step up, I guess the theory was, let’s have an experienced head in the camp.”Whether he was needed or not as a player, or an assistant coach, Campbell’s departure continues Hong Kong’s brain drain of 2017. Burke departed after seven years, while chief executive Tim Cutler resigned not long after the conclusion of the acclaimed Hong Kong T20 Blitz. Campbell admits that the departures do not leave a good impression on the public, though he believes Cook and Mark Wright, Burke’s replacement as director of cricket, are on track.”In some sense Hong Kong were very lucky that they had such a wealth of talent to go to because the two big clubs, Hong Kong CC and Kowloon CC, happened to hire Simon Cook and me,” Campbell said. “So Charlie had at his access blokes that could help, and obviously he formed a very strong bond.”Tim Cutler came in and did a fantastic job, in my opinion, for the time he was there, and Max Abbott made it very professional and was striving forward with the Blitz having 12 million hits. So yes, it was very successful. Everyone leaving, it’s not perfect. I’m, to be honest, pretty disappointed with some of the stuff that’s gone on.”Obviously Charlie has been such a great person for Hong Kong cricket. Maybe he had gone through enough of the cycle. He needed to probably take a step back and relax. I’m not convinced Tim Cutler should have been outed or left, whatever you want to call it. I just think he is that passionate person that could drive them forward and had views of where they needed to go. It is tough, and I just hope that the board find their way. In the last two or three years, it’s one of the stories that we look at with such fondness because it’s such a success story.”The Hong Kong experience is in the rear-view mirror now. Campbell has settled in the western Amsterdam suburb of Haarlem. In his short time in the job, he says he has made increased use of technological tools a point of emphasis with players. Every player has installed a series of apps on their phone, including one that helps track improvements for daily training and fitness by logging inputs for each session. He has also laid out new mandatory weekly training sessions for Netherlands-based players in an effort to enhance team chemistry.

” I keep saying to the Dutch board, we don’t need 20 or 50 of them to come out at once. We only need two or three quality players in the next five years to bolster the numbers”

“I’m a big believer that the cap that you wear represents more than yourself, and I’ll always push my players to understand that when you play for the Dutch, you bleed orange,” Campbell said. “You give everything. You give your heart and your soul to that cap, that shirt on your back. That’s how we need to be seen.”The Dutch, we don’t have a million brilliant players but we have some battlers who will fight and fight and fight. You just have to look at our captain [Peter Borren] to know that when he crosses that line, mate, he goes to war, and we need ten blokes to go in with him. So we’ll always strive for that and push and push and work as hard as we can.”The first opportunities to demonstrate that are against Zimbabwe this week in a series of one-dayers. Netherlands will also be hosting UAE soon after for 50-over matches, and then heading to Ireland in August for an Intercontinental Cup match. Campbell said he is hoping they may be able to schedule 50-over matches with Ireland too, particularly since Ireland’s proposed series against Afghanistan was called off. The benefit of most of these fixtures is that unlike the four WCL Championship matches with Kenya and Namibia, ODI status isn’t at stake.”Against Zimbabwe, Roelof van der Merwe and Timm van der Gugten will only play the first two games,” Campbell said. “So in that last game there’s going to be names that people haven’t seen very much before. That’s a great opportunity for me to expose them.”You’ll see the Zulfiqar brothers, a young Tobias Visee, a lot more, Fred Klaasen a lot more, Shane Snater will be bowling a lot more. That’s what I’ll have to do to prepare us for the next stage.”As much as Campbell wants the younger players to step up, he is fully aware that when the 2018 World Cup Qualifier comes around, he has no choice but to pick his best eligible XI. As such, he has no hesitation in casting a wide net to find more Dutch passport-holders who may be open to suiting up for Netherlands.”I’m a big believer that the cap that you wear represents more than yourself”•KNCB”We have guys in New Zealand now as well who are pushing their case,” Campbell said. “Our biggest issue for me is that our season in Holland is four months. I need to basically send them all over the world to get them playing a lot more. If that means sending them to Australia, New Zealand or South Africa, or if an Australian with a Dutch passport is playing in Australia in the best competition, I’d be stupid to say we’re not going to pick him.”Despite the team’s position at the top of the WCL Championship table, Campbell said they are far from a polished outfit. They need to find a more consistent opening pair, for instance, before the 2018 Qualifier. However, he thinks the fast bowling unit – spearheaded by van der Gugten and Paul van Meekeren – provides them a legitimate shot at competing with Ireland, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, and most likely West Indies, for one of the two qualifying berths available for the 2019 World Cup.”Can we beat those teams? We’ve seen in the past [Netherlands’] record against England in World Cups is quite amazing. What we need to do to be successful is that consistency, and that’s what I’m striving for, so day one we play exactly the same as day two, three and four. We just need to prepare accordingly to get our player stocks ready to go and expose our youngsters to high-octane cricket.”The West Indies, they’re vulnerable because a lot of their players want to play IPL, so that sucks out a lot of their talent. Afghanistan are a great story. I think all the success stories have been the ones with great supply lines. Ireland, people say they might be slipping, but I still see them as one of those benchmarks, because again, they have a supply line. They have massive numbers playing cricket. Scotland is the same, they have good numbers.”Our test is always going to be the numbers of people playing. I keep saying to the Dutch board, we don’t need 20 or 50 of them to come out at once. We only need two or three quality players in the next five years to bolster the numbers.”The next year or two is going to be very exciting for Dutch cricket. We are at a stage where we want to take the game forward, for Netherlands to be left in a better position than it is now for the next generation of Dutch players and hopefully get more playing.”

Numbers tell you India are not good at slip, and the captain is the worst of them all. When they start travelling to play better oppositions, these drops might start hurting them badly again

Sidharth Monga in Colombo02-Aug-2017Between the comprehensive win in Galle and the Colombo Test, India’s captain and coach have been talking about not being complacent and identifying areas of improvement despite that result. Virat Kohli has said India need to wrap up sides swiftly after getting their specialist batsmen out, alternatively he has said they need to stay composed and disciplined when the opposition puts together a partnership. Ravi Shastri has spoken of the need to stay consistent, to watch out against bad habits that might creep in.However, one elephant remains unaddressed: India at slips, specifically Kohli at slips. The most violent act during the Galle Test was when Kohli slapped the helpless turf after dropping Upul Tharanga at second slip. Tharanga duly obliged by getting bowled two balls later, and once again India got away with it. It is different when conditions and oppositions let your bowlers keep creating enough opportunities, but Kohli will remember how dearly he and India have paid for drops earlier: he himself dropped Brendon McCullum when his triple-hundred denied India a Test win in 2014, and Alastair Cook’s 95 turned a whole series around after he was let off a few months later.India’s ground fielding keeps improving every day, but it is quite possible that catching, especially at slip and more specifically for quicks, has regressed if not stagnated. Numbers will tell you that the captain himself is the centre of the problem. As captain, at slip for the quicks, he has taken six catches and has dropped at least an equal number. Two of those drops have been really difficult chances, but a thread runs through his drops: he gets up too early, he is anxious to get to the ball as opposed to letting it come to him, and he struggles to take them low to his left.Kohli has a better record against spin, but there is still a significant number of misses there. Standing at first slip for spin, he has taken three and dropped at least two, three and two when fielding at gully for spin, and four and one when at backward short leg or leg slip. His record in the outfield – especially at catching cover and midwicket – is far better: he has taken 11 and dropped one, although at least on two occasions his enthusiasm has meant he has ruined the chance for the fielder running in – and thus better placed to judge the catch – while failing to get to the ball himself.

*Half chances – 3In a seminal study on dropped catches over at TCM, Charles Davis found out that a 29% of slips catches went down between 2008 and 2016. Kohli’s rate as captain has been 47%, and an even 50 when slipping for quick bowlers. He is a proud performer, and he will be aware of it. His reaction in Galle said as much.Experts usually point to a relaxed temperament as a prerequisite for a slip fielder. All good slips fielders have traditionally been patient persons who let the ball come to them. Kohli is forever anxious to make an immediate impact on the game; slips fielding is the exact opposite. His getting up early – as seen in the Bangalore Test earlier this year when he dropped two catches – is a technical aspect R Sridhar, the fielding coach, will need to keep working on.The bigger question, though, is, if he has such a poor record at slip, must Kohli field there? He has not always been a natural slips fielder. He didn’t do it extensively when MS Dhoni was captain, and himself started at gully in his first Test as captain. That was the time when R Ashwin still used to field at slip. Ashwin perhaps remains India’s most natural slips fielder, but it is understandable if they have decided to not risk a finger injury to their biggest match-winner in Tests in the last five years. It doesn’t help that all other slips fielders that India have tried have faltered too: KL Rahul has dropped at least three, and M Vijay and Shikhar Dhawan at least two each. Ravindra Jadeja was the man that let Cook off in Southampton after which India squandered the series lead to lose 3-1. He dropped Cook again in India, but this time India created more opportunities.All this should also turn the focus to the fielding coach. During the home series against England last year, Sridhar said that the catching had improved under him, but frequent injuries and the changing cordon presented them with challenges. His preferred cordon, given all in-form players were fit at that time, was Vijay at first slip, Karun Nair at second, Kohli at third and Ajinkya Rahane at gully. Since then, Nair has been dropped, and Vijay has been injured.Dropping catches in slips against tougher teams in tougher conditions may pose tougher challenges for India outside Asia•AFPIndia began the Sri Lanka tour with a new plan. Cheteshwar Pujara, who used to be a slips fielder but had perhaps moved out because of his dodgy knees, was back at first slip. Dhawan was at second, and Jadeja third. Dhawan took two catches at second slip, there was no mishap in the cordon, but for some reason Kohli found himself at second slip again when he dropped Tharanga in the second innings.That is where you suspect if it is DRS that keeps taking him back to slip, and that too at second slip and not third, which might be ideal for him, according to the fielding coach. On a few occasions, when fielding at catching midwicket or catching cover, Kohli has been seen a little frustrated with his wicketkeeper and bowler in DRS scenarios. It is not clear, though, if standing at mid-off for a quick bowler – where he can be in the bowler’s ear too – is much worse than second slip, which is equally disadvantaged when it comes to judging the trajectory of the ball vis-à-vis the stumps.However, most other Test captains spend a fair bit of time behind the stumps. Steven Smith fields at slip for both the quicks and the spinners. Joe Root does it for fast bowlers. Two other captains are wicketkeepers. Faf du Plessis does his share of slip fielding, as do Jason Holder and Dinesh Chamdimal. Kane Williamson is the odd one out: he does gully for quicks, and for spin, New Zealand almost always have Ross Taylor at first slip.Whatever be the reason, numbers tell you India are not good at slip, and the captain is the worst of them all. When they start travelling to play better opposition, these drops might start hurting them badly again. That is something India can work on between what might seem perfect Test results.

What is the appropriate emotion to feel when your boy is hitting you for runs in a fathers v sons game?

The Grade Cricketer04-Nov-2017One of the things I discovered I missed most about playing cricket was the stories. The , if you’ll excuse me using that tired term that Australian and English men are so fond of (it goes without saying that the rate at which a bloke uses the word ‘banter’ is inversely proportional to the number of times he actually performs a witty exchange). Every good cricket team has a premier storyteller, a genuine raconteur who can tell a ripping yarn and leave the other ten blokes in hysterics.And for much of my grade cricket career, that person was Bretty.Last time I’d seen Bretty he was about to head off for yet another English summer. The usual informal arrangement with a mediocre village team: flight and accommodation sorted, a pound a run, substantial bar tab subsidy included. It’s funny how the deals haven’t evolved over the years, but to be fair, neither have the blokes. I’d asked a couple of my old cricket mates whether he was still over there, still tearing up the UK circuit with the fearsome intensity of a thousand suns, but no one knew where he was or what he was doing. He could easily have been dead, perhaps having pushed things a little too hard after a match-winning 30 not out.I’d arranged to meet Bretty at his ‘new digs’ (his words, not mine). The suburb surprised me – he appeared to be residing in an exclusive, high-income postcode. I assumed he was either housesitting for a more successful mate or staying at a five-star rehab facility, so I didn’t give it too much more thought. I walked up the long battleaxe driveway and pressed the doorbell.’Championship!’ he bellowed, pulling me into his chest for a bear hug, as if I’d just taken the key wicket in a second-grade semifinal.’G’day, Bretty!”Come in, mate, make yourself at home,’ he motioned towards the leather couch.I hadn’t seen Bretty for a good eighteen months, but he hadn’t aged a day. That thick thatch of hair, the impressive bicep circumference, that famous twinkle in his eyes. He was wearing a Mossimo singlet and white underpants (no pants), a look that for most people would immediately scream ‘remote coastal town rapist’, but somehow managed to work well on him. All the things that made him such a loveable character, and the lifeblood of any grade cricket team, were thankfully still on show.

Some of the other fathers suggested I be given a reprieve for getting out first ball, but Dad wasn’t having any of it. In retrospect, it was probably a bit over the top for him to point aggressively towards the pavilion and order me to ‘pack ’em, champ’

‘So, mate, any good circuit stories to share?’A mischievous grin lit up his face. Just as he was about to answer, a black Range Rover swung into the driveway and out hopped four boys and a slim, dark-haired woman positively dripping in Prada. Half her face was covered by enormous bug-eyed sunglasses that seemed tinted to match the Range Rover windows. She power-walked towards the door as the children tumbled along ahead of her, a quartet of dark-featured scruffiness. I turned back to Bretty as she fumbled with the house keys.’Mate, is that . . .”Yeah, that’s Simone,’ Bretty said. ‘We got hitched two months back.’In swept Simone and the boys.’Darl, do you remember this bloke?’ Bretty called, thumbing crudely towards me.’Ah, of ! Hello , how you?’ Simone exclaimed, heaving the groceries onto the counter and prancing over, her high heels click-clacking on the marble floor—-to proffer a pretentious European-style two-kiss greeting.’I’m good, thanks. Wow, congratulations!’ I managed, still mentally computing the fact that Bretty–the former Chop King of our cricket club–was presumably now the legal stepfather to four young boys.The kids bounded upstairs together, their little footsteps almost in perfect sync.’, has Bretty asked you yet?’I was confused. ‘Asked me what?’Simone smiled.’Well, we’ve got a wedding next weekend up in Brissy, but Jaxon, our eleven-year-old, has his father and son cricket match on. We can’t miss the wedding, but needs someone to go as his dad.”Yeah, that’s right,’ Bretty interjected. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance you could step in for me, mate?”What, play on the fathers’ team?’In the blink of an eye they’ve gone from placidly watching to embarrassing you on the field•Getty Images’Yeah, that’s right. It’s just 20 overs a side – Fathers XI vs the Sons XI. Don’t go too hard on them!’ he joked, adding a wink as punctuation.I’d be doing Bretty a solid here, nothing more.’Sure. What time should I pick him up?’

****

Ross McGrath was the self-appointed skipper for the Fathers XI. The founder and CEO of a tier-two telecommunications company servicing the corporate and government markets, Ross was just one of several high-flying businessmen on our team. This was a school, after all, and I was playing alongside captains of industry – CEOs, CFOs, COOs – all on $250k-plus, at the very least. I was one of just three players not currently serving on a company board. I made a mental note to take advantage of these networking opportunities during the lunch break.The Sons XI won the toss and had elected to bat. It was a beautiful morning – low twenties, a gentle south-easterly breeze blowing across the field. On so many occasions throughout my fledgling grade cricket career I’d stepped out onto the field on a brutal 43-degree day, wishing I was somewhere else, but today, in these beautiful surrounds, and without the self-imposed pressure of personal expectation, I found myself enjoying the serenity. I half-expected a car full of morons to hoon past and break the silence with a perfectly timed ‘HOWZAT’ – or perhaps an even cruder ‘CRICKET’S SHIT’ – but here I was, miles from the nearest grade cricket ground, in an area ranked among the state’s highest for relative socioeconomic advantages, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ five-yearly census of population and housing.The match was humming along nicely. The kids were a few wickets down now, having earlier cashed in on one particularly poor spell of bowling by Milton Hendricks, a senior counsel who specialised in a variety of different areas of law, most notably intellectual property and consumer protection. Despite his extensive commercial experience and involvement in some of Australia’s most prominent IP cases in recent years, Milton Hendricks was completely useless with ball in hand. I could barely contain my laughter as Timmy Ashcroft – eleven-year-old son of Michael ‘Mick’ Ashcroft, a senior investment banker at one of Australia’s ‘Big Four’ – peeled five straight boundaries off him. It beggared belief that someone could be so professionally distinguished yet lack any sort of physical coordination whatsoever.I was thrown the ball in about the twentieth over. I measured out my run-up – six steps back and two across – and paused at the top of my mark. I came in for my first delivery, a generously flighted full toss. Timmy stepped forward and drove it straight to cover, where his investment banker father, Mick, dropped an absolute sitter. It was obvious that he’d grassed it deliberately, judging by the histrionics.’Sorry, champion! Too much heat on that one – did well to get a hand on it!’ he called over from cover.

He scurried down the pitch and slid his bat into the crease before turning back for the second run, easily making his ground. A strange familial pride overwhelmed me

I smiled sarcastically and returned to my mark for my second delivery. This one slipped down leg, allowing Timmy to swivel on his heels and punish it for four.’Wow, great shot! Cash in on the loose stuff, son!’ Mick called from cover. He was really taking the piss now.Timmy worked my next delivery in front of square for a single, which brought his batting partner on strike, some nameless kid. I lobbed up another loopy off spinner to him and he dollied it back to me. I sheepishly accepted the catch. The mid-wicket congregation was different – there was no ‘yiewing’ to mark the dismissal, nor was there an aggressive send-off for the young batsman. He’d played a terrible shot and had paid the ultimate price. In grade cricket his shot would have been met with mock laughter – it was unheard of to burgle a cheap wicket and not humiliate the batsman straight afterwards. But these were kids, after all, and we were adults. Fathers, even. We knew better than to do that.My wicket brought Jaxy – my ‘son’ – to the crease. At first glance he appeared a highly organised young cricketer. He was wearing his thigh pad on the inside, for a start, which endeared him to me greatly. Most kids under the age of twelve wear their thigh pads on the , which always causes me a certain amount of anguish whenever I happen to come across a juniors’ net session. In I came for my first delivery to Jaxy, a drifting off spinner with a hint of overspin, only to watch him dance down the wicket and clip me elegantly wide of mid-on. He scurried down the pitch and slid his bat into the crease before turning back for the second run, easily making his ground. A strange familial pride overwhelmed me.My next ball was faster, but Jaxy was into position early. With all the time in the world, he leaned back and played a deft late cut past first slip, which sped along the freshly manicured grass and all the way to the boundary. A burst of hearty applause rang out from the pavilion, mostly from the mothers who’d come along to support this good-natured family occasion.I was trying to establish some eye contact with Jaxy, trying to suss him out, but he was resolutely focused, determined. In truth, I was reminded of the way I used to bat – back before years of harsh personal sledging had stolen my innocence and left me emotionally bruised, unable to clear my mind and focus on hitting runs. I was impressed, but also a little embarrassed that my ‘son’ was taking care of business with such clinical precision.’Your kid can play, can’t he?’ McGrath yelled over from slip.I instantly flashed back to my own Fathers vs Sons match in my final year of primary school. I was the school’s star batsman, a dashing player of promise with the cricketing world at my feet. I arrived to the crease just as Dad had come into the attack. Having faced him thousands of times both in the nets and in the backyard, I knew Dad’s bowling inside and out. At the same time, I knew that should I lose my wicket to him, he’d never let me live it down.Allen and UnwinDad had brought three men – literal , adults ranging in age from mid-thirties to mid-fifties – in around the bat, creating Hitchcock-like suspense, before casually ambling in to produce one of the most stunning deliveries I’ve ever faced to this day: a devastating off cutter that pitched on a good length and violently jagged back to clip my off bail. This was my equivalent of the Gatting Ball in the 1993 Ashes series, and Dad was Warney, lapping up his victory with oafish glee. In my defence, it was the first off cutter I had ever faced in my young life, since, generally speaking, eleven-year-old seam bowlers are yet to develop their wrists and fingers to the extent that they can successfully impart sideways movement. Some of the other fathers suggested I be given a reprieve for getting out first ball, but Dad wasn’t having any of it. In retrospect, it was probably a bit over the top for him to point aggressively towards the pavilion and order me to ‘pack ’em, champ’, but he’d been made redundant earlier that week, so I can’t hold it against him for wanting to blow off a bit of steam.To make things worse, Dad still brings this story up every Christmas without fail, exaggerating certain details around the delivery and its general unplayability. Later that match, Dad proceeded to smack my pre-teen teammates to all parts of the ground on his way to an unbeaten 50-odd. Lofted drives, full-blooded pulls, each six bigger than the last. To make things worse, he had a habit of shouting ‘shit ball’ whenever he punished a particularly yuck delivery (a technique he’d picked up during our regular net sessions, which he claimed was all about encouraging me to bowl better). Our opening bowler, Nicholas Thornton, ran to the pavilion in tears after Dad’s third consecutive six, a towering maximum that seemed to hang in the air for months before eventually settling on the roof of the PE centre and was accompanied by a maniacal laugh that echoed around the otherwise silent ground. Like so many kids that day, that was to be Nicholas’s last season of cricket.I vowed to myself that I would be a gracious surrogate parent to Jaxon. Yes, I was a former grade cricketer–and I’d wear that unfortunate tag until the day I died–but those days were over now, and I refused to be defined by my past. I’d grown a lot, emotionally speaking, since my retirement from grade cricket. In that eighteen-month period, I’d managed to successfully reassimilate into normal society. I had a full-time job. A girlfriend. A two-bedroom apartment seven kilometres from the city centre. Yes, I had recently lost all of those things, but still, the fact that I had been able to accumulate them at some point surely meant something in terms of my personal development, didn’t it? This was my opportunity to break the cycle of generational dysfunction. No, I would not obliterate Jaxy’s self-esteem for my own selfish kicks, as Dad had done to me. I completed my over without incident and patted Jaxy on the back and told him to ‘go on with it’.After all, this day wasn’t about me; it was about little Jaxy. Or something.*November 4, 1335GMT: The caption was tweaked to remove the mention of Sydney