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He used to partner Richard Hadlee for New Zealand; now Ewen Chatfield drives a taxi around Wellington

Sidharth Monga27-Feb-2009
“Once I get that hundred, I’ll be gone. Vanished” © Cricinfo Ltd
“Good morning, Ewen Chatfield here.” The voice is loud, warm and clear. You request an interview, a day before coming to Wellington, where he lives.”Where will you stay in Wellington?” You tell him where you will stay.”So I’ll be there at 1pm.””No, Ewen, I don’t want to bother you. I’ll come and see you.””But I will be driving my taxi then, so I can’t be sure where I will be.”How can Ewen Chatfield drive a taxi? I mean, you cannot drive a taxi in India, and most other places, if you have played 43 Tests and have had a successful pairing with the most iconic player of that country. And Chatfield of all players? He of the unruly hair, the long sideburns and the mo?Next day. Phone rings. “Ewen Chatfield here. I am in the foyer.” You go down and miss him. Most would. Imagine Chatfield with properly parted hair, a dark-grey suit and a tie. Without the moustache.But the name tag on the breast pocket does say “Ewen”. He asks you for some identification to prove you are indeed who you say you are. It’s you who should be asking him for that reassurance.You still can’t get over the fact that he drives a taxi. Not that it’s sad. Far from it. Chatfield has seen hardship at times, but he is a satisfied man with no complaints.Doesn’t he get recognised by passengers? “Surprisingly, it took three or four weeks for somebody to recognise me,” he says. “I look a bit different now. No mo. And I have to wear glasses for driving.” When he was coaching a side, his wards shaved bits off his moustache during a celebration and he had to take it all off. He was told he looked younger and has let it stay that way.If you go by what you read of him, the personality might not be the same either. He was a man of economy – of run-up, of action, of words. He was the man who once got Viv Richards out caught down leg and told Ian Smith, the keeper, “That should have gone for four.” That’s what you read.Chatfield is a funny man with faraway eyes. With long pauses when he speaks. Is idiosyncratic. Makes you laugh when he talks about his debut Test. Except that he almost died during it. Thirty-four years and two days ago; after a bouncer from Peter Lever struck him in the head.”We were going to get beaten. There was no doubt about that,” he remembers. “We had four days, then the rest day, and then the fifth day. Geoff Howarth and I had batted for an hour on the fourth day, which they grumbled a bit about. They wanted to go home. They had been to Australia and had been away from home for long.”On the fifth day the forecast was for rain. So we carried on. We batted for another hour. We frustrated them.”It was just one of those unfortunate things. I don’t remember whether it was a bouncer or whether it was a shortish ball. It hit the top of the bat handle, hit the glove, and ricocheted onto my head.”I knew there was something wrong. And when I got hit, I just went and knelt at the side of the wicket. If it hadn’t been for him – I forgot his name, the England physio [Bernard Thomas] – I wouldn’t be talking to you today. When I woke up on the way to the hospital in the ambulance, I knew exactly what my score was and what Geoff Howarth’s score was. So, yeah, everything was okay.”Lever sobbed on the ground that day. He went to meet Chatfield later. But he never got any of his own medicine in return. “I never bowled a bouncer all my life,” Chatfield says. “I wasn’t quick enough for that.”Was it difficult mentally to come back? “No, it wasn’t difficult. Just carried on as if nothing had happened… I got a helmet.”Chatfield was also a man who very rarely appealed. Not for him the backslaps and the send-offs. “I might have missed a few by not appealing.”India was never the place for him. His first time there, during the 1987 World Cup, he became the final victim in Chetan Sharma’s hat-trick, and in the same match got hit for 39 in 4.1 overs. Sunil Gavaskar scored his only ODI century,a fiery one, in that game.It is Bangalore a year later that Chatfield remembers. “Everybody told me how it was to tour India,” he says. “Guys in the past, like Richard Collinge, came running in to bowl, and kept going. I went the first time and I thought there were no problems. There was no place greater than India.”But after Bangalore, we all got very, very ill. Any New Zealander that was in India could have played for New Zealand. We were down to no one. There was times when guys got out of bed, took the bus, came to the ground, and went back to bed.” When he was coaching a side, his wards shaved bits off his moustache during a celebration and he had to shave it all off. He was told he looked younger and has let it stay that way It hasn’t been a great time after retirement. He coached his minor association, Hutt Valley, for a long while, only to lose the job when Hutt Valley merged with Wellington. His last job before the current one with Corporate Cabs, was that of a lawn-mower. Then two successive wet winters came.”There was no income. I got frustrated that I couldn’t do enough in summer without killing myself to make up for that.” And just like that he called Corporate Cabs, because he “liked driving around”. He got the licence and was employed. In between he has worked as a courier, a salesman at a chip shop, and has driven a dairy van. “One of your compatriots,” he says of the dairy owner.”I start at 5.30 in the morning, and I am only allowed to work for 13 hours a day. That’s all. You think that’s enough? Thirteen hours a day?”He is not in touch with any of his team-mates. He claims he doesn’t get nostalgic, doesn’t watch old tapes (“I haven’t even seen the 50-run partnership with Jeremy Coney, against Pakistan, to win the match”). There’s no bitterness either.What did New Zealand cricket mean to him? “A vehicle to be able to play against the best in the world. It wasn’t a full-time job. I had to work as well. But, yeah, they enabled me to play.” The faraway eyes. “Though I didn’t dream of it when I was young. Later on, when I didn’t get picked [for the 1978 tour to England] I was disappointed.” Pause. “It must have meant something to me.”Does he have any regrets? None, but for that 1978 drop. “But I got over it.”There’s one last wish before he can leave cricket. One hundred. He plays club cricket still, and the quest is on. “Once I get that hundred, I’ll be gone. Vanished.” Simple as that.”We play on artificial wickets, only 40 overs. If they give me a good, flat wicket, and the bowling is not too good, I open the batting. Everybody knows I’m trying to get this hundred, but I’m getting slower and slower. I got to 70. Don’t think it will ever happen.”You want to take a picture before he leaves. “Come out. We’ll do it in front of the taxi. Let’s get them some advertisement.”From a farm boy, to a Wellington player – Wellington, where he knew only five people when he first arrived – to a New Zealand Test player, alongside superstars like Richard Hadlee and Martin Crowe, to a taxi driver, Chatfield is living an extraordinary life in a normal manner. Still being his own idiosyncratic self. Maybe he still is a farm boy. “I wasn’t interested in farming,” he says.

No fireworks from Smith and Gibbs but an enjoyable game nonetheless, at freezing St George’s Park

Barry de Klerk03-May-2009Team supported
Rajasthan Royals. Last year, because of Graeme Smith and also their underdogstatus; this year also because of the way Shane Warne leads the team.Key performer
Yusuf Pathan. He bowled and fielded well. Then when he came in to bat he used the platform established for him and left his successors with an easy target.One thing I’d have changed about the match
Batting form for Smith. A mute switch for the stadium announcer. Oops, two things.Key face-off
The indirect one between Smith and Gibbs. Today it was a case of may-the-least-hopeless-man-win, but maybe Smith will regain his form for in time for the Twenty20 World Cup.Star-spotting
How could anybody at a cricket field be a bigger star than Shane Warne, Adam Gilchrist or Graeme Smith? Of course the perennial star at St George’s is the band, today resplendent in blue turbans.Wow moment
Venugopal Rao dropping Shane Warne in between two sixes.Cheerleader factor
The Royals’ cheerleaders turned up in three different colour schemes. The yellow Royals cheerleaders did once seem to dance for the Deccans, while the skimpy blue Royals cheerleaders were so far away I could barely photograph them even with a telephoto lens.Crowd meter
Just over 12,000 people, less than for the previous two matches. Season-ticket seats and related seats, presumably bought for tax reasons, stayed empty. Crowd alive, but not humming like last week. Old stand, where the band is, still the place to be for the buzz.Local hero
Neither Smith nor Gibbs did well, neither got a lot of response, unlike JP Duminy the other day, who got the whole “” from the old stand. “?” “” is “thing”, often also used for a person. “” is much more complicated to translate. When used for food it means “tasty” or “delicious”. Once, on tour in the West Indies, Gibbs got a Man-of-the-Match award after a spectacular innings, and Desmond Haynes in handing the award to himsaid “Herschelle, that was a lekker innings.” “Lekker” is one of those words that makes Afrikaans such a lekker languageEntertainment
We had an winner called Heinz Winkler performing during the breaks. He was slightly less dismal than some of the other entertainers at previous games.Banner of the Day
“I escaped from prison to be here”Marks out of 10
9. Great match, including pressure and panic, but a subdued crowd. Last week’s crowd would have combined very nicely with this week’s game. Bloody cold on the Duckpond Stand. I left on a high. Great fun.

Mark Ramprakash has ruled the shires for five years but is now reaching the end of his long playing career. He talks about the past, present and future

Interview by Sam Pilger31-Oct-2009″So often when my name and career are spoken about it is in a negative manner. I actually have to keep reminding myself that I am really very proud of what I have achieved in the game.”Having turned 40 in September, Ramprakash recently published his autobiography , which is his counter-attack to redress the balance and take control of his legacy in the game.Don’t expect any Trescothick-style soul baring. Ramprakash does not allow you inside his head to see the anguish he must have felt at failing to fulfill his enormous potential in Test cricket, and there remain traces of bitterness at his belief that a succession of English coaches failed to exploit his prodigious talent properly.But it would be wrong for Ramprakash to be defined solely by his Test career. He could have scuttled away from the game long ago but he has relentlessly accumulated runs for Surrey and become only the 25th batsman in the history of the game to score a hundred first-class centuries. His is a career to be celebrated now, not pitied.While admitting he can come across as aloof, in person Ramprakash proves good company, charming and expansive and seemingly no longer tortured by earlier failures. He believes he is now a contented man, ready to assume an elder-statesman role in the game and to reflect on his life in cricket so far.How have you achieved such longevity?
I suppose I have good genes, but above all else it is an overwhelming love for the game. The players who started at the same time as me have retired a long time ago because they don’t have that same love. My experience has kept me going as well because eight times out of 10 when I go out to bat I’m not feeling as good as I would like, I am not middling the ball, the feet aren’t moving; but experience helps you deal with it.How has the county game changed in the last 20 years?
When I started, the bowling was faster. Back then there was an amazing conveyor belt of West Indians, so every team would have a bowler who could bowl at 90mph. Now there are few bowlers who can push you on the back foot. With the slow pitches, too, it can be very, very hard work for the bowlers.And how would you assess the present quality of spin bowling?
In my formative years there were a lot of spinners, like Vic Marks, Eddie Hemmings, Nick Cook, obviously Phil Edmonds and John Emburey, David Graveney himself. It is very hard to be a young spinner now because you get lashed around with short boundaries, quick outfields and big bats. We have to nurture the spinners more.Does “Bloodaxe” still lurk within or is he long gone?
Angus Fraser gave me that name because when I was younger I was ambitious, and if things weren’t going my way, I would get frustrated. But as you get older you learn more about yourself, and I have been better behaved in my 30s. I have always walked a fine line between being very competitive and it boiling over.

“The selectors have said to me the door is always open but it appears to be closed. People say to me all the time, ‘Ramps, how come you’re not being selected, you have scored over 6000 runs in the last four years and averaging over 90?’ It seems unfair”

Who have been the biggest influences on you as a player?
My idol was Viv Richards and I remember him approaching me once in the pavilion when we were playing West Indies. I was upset at how things were going and he told me: “You have got everything as a player but there is clearly something missing.” I asked him what and he just said: “Belief.” That was so perceptive without even knowing me. To hear him say that was powerful but it didn’t sink in for five years. I had a lot of self-confidence until I was 21 but after a tough start in Test cricket, my confidence began to ebb away and then it came back years later.In your book you say: “An encouraging word [from the England coaches] would have made all the difference but there was no support, no communication.” How much did that hinder you as a Test player?
I don’t want to make excuses for not playing well for England. I had lots of opportunities, I tried my best at the time, so I am happy in that knowledge. But, if you look back and analyse it and compare the set-up of the England side in the early 1990s to now, there are big differences in the way new players are welcomed and integrated. I was just left on my own to get on with it but now England are aware of the pressures and they do everything to help new players.Did you ever seriously think you might be recalled for the fifth Ashes Test at The Oval this summer?
No, because the selectors did not seem open to the idea of recalling me. And that was disappointing. After being dropped in 2002 I went back to Surrey, continued to work hard, scored runs and developed as a person but the selectors’ impression of me is stuck in the past and I have been tagged unfairly. They are out of date in their opinions, they talk about me as if it is 1995 and I have not had success at Test level – but I have. The selectors have said to me that the door is always open but it appears to be closed. People say to me all the time, “Ramps, how come you’re not being selected, you have scored over 6000 runs in the last four years and averaging over 90?” It seems unfair.But you have said you wouldn’t swap winning for the chance of playing another Test? Really?
Yes, that’s true, I wouldn’t swap it because I had such a wonderful time on . I had done cricket for 20 years, so going on the show took me out of my comfort zone. It will stay with me for life.Did you look at Jonathan Trott making a century at The Oval and think you could have done that as well?
He played with a calm assurance you rarely see in a debutant, so credit to them for choosing him. What it does say about Trott is, he has done his time in county cricket, which often gets criticised. I would have loved to have had another go myself. I was ready.Was it a shame the selectors chose a South African-born player in Trott and not someone nurtured in England?
Yes. All English supporters want English players to play for England and by that I mean someone either born here or who has come through the education system. I have heard it mentioned in football as well. There is talk that [Arsenal’s] Manuel Almunia might play for England and plenty of supporters come on the radio and say: “No. He’s Spanish.”Ramprakash with partner Karen Hardy on : “going on the show took me out of my comfort zone”•BBCAfter England’s batsmen scored only two centuries in the Ashes, how can they improve and make bigger scores?
I am a big fan of Ravi Bopara. He is going to be a very good player but I never really fancied him at No. 3. He is at the start of his career, so batting three puts him under pressure. I would have eased him in at five or six. I am a big supporter of Ian Bell too. Technically he is good and there is more to come. Paul Collingwood’s place is under discussion with Trott playing so well.Which county player would you tip to break next into the England side?
When the selectors look at county cricket it is important everyone starts from a level playing field. Michael Carberry has played extremely well for Hampshire, scored a lot of runs, but his name was not mentioned to play at The Oval. It would appear that it is a good time to play for Warwickshire. I am not suggesting that there is anything unfair going on but you have a selector in Ashley Giles who is also a county coach. That is a position England have to be careful with because it can lead to accusations of favouritism.You called the treatment of Monty Panesar “scandalous”…
Yes. Monty has six five-wicket hauls in Test cricket and he has won Test matches for England, yet all I seem to hear is what Monty can’t do. I don’t believe other players get treated that way. There is a lack of understanding of spin bowling. This was reinforced when Adil Rashid performed so well in the first one-day game against Australia but was left out of the following matches. There are other players who can have lengthy poor patches but somehow they seem to be in the ‘In Club’ in the England set-up and continually get to play.What changes would you like to see at county level?
One radical idea, which I don’t see happening, is to create nine regional teams and pair counties together, so you could create a London side from Middlesex and Surrey, pair together Essex and Kent, while creating a Manchester side, a Birmingham side and so on. You would produce a strong competition, one in which you would have to perform at your best in every game.How much longer will you go on playing?
I know I have two years left on my contract but enjoyment is a big thing for me at my age and it hasn’t been very enjoyable lately with Surrey bringing up the rear and losing a lot of games. No longer playing cricket is a scary thought, without a doubt. It has been my life since I was 17, so being without it and dealing with the transition will be difficult. Going into a career in coaching could help.

It is neither a definitive work nor a useful one for reference. At best it’s a match-by-match account

Vaneisa Baksh30-Jan-2010Understanding the strategic intent of an enterprise is useful if one has to assess it. Clifford Narinesingh remarks that there is hardly any substantial literature on West Indian cricket that recognises its role in “creating and fostering a sense of nationalism and solidarity” among its peoples. He says his book, is a response to the requests of critics and commentators for “definitive works” and he suggests that it can also be viewed as “a response to the quest for literature which enhances the drama on the field.”He has chosen Brian Charles Lara as the subject of this work, and although this is not an “authorised biography”, unlike Narinesingh’s book on Sunil Gavaskar, , it gamely attempts a sort of biographical documentation of Lara’s career in West Indies cricket. Narinesingh says he tried to record Lara’s pursuits without “reckless indictment or partisan loyalty”, and it can be said that is what he has done. The book is simply a record of Lara’s career, almost match by match, with scores, and sometimes dates, woven together mainly by liberally quoting various commentators on the game. In that regard it is hardly the seminal contribution that the foreword, written by Balan Sundaram, assures us it is.The book could easily have found great value as a reference work, except that it doesn’t quite have the rigour that would make it reliable.Narinesingh doesn’t name the sources of the phrases locked inside his numerous quotation marks, not all the time, so that sometimes the reader is left wondering which of the earlier cited names is being called upon to comment. In the opening paragraph of Chapter 14, for example, the third sentence reads: “As a result of this image of a fallen or failed cricketing region, the South Africans who were to visit in 2005 were ‘in search of plunder, knowing that the defending forces were in more disarray than ever’.” Since no one was named in that paragraph or the one following, the reader cannot know whence this insight came.The book also doesn’t offer much by way of the analysis that Sundaram describes as a “monumental task”. While it is clear that the author loves cricket and has followed it avidly, his personal testimonies lack depth. Rather, Narinesingh dutifully records what others say about Lara’s performances from match to match; these too are largely confined to comments on the quality of each innings. So Paul Weaver is quoted as saying, “Against the finest attack in the world, and in the context of the immense pressure that surrounded him, with his own captaincy in jeopardy, this was the innings of his life”. This is in reference to the famous 1998 series against Australia, and Lara’s score of 213, and there is not much analysis of the context or meaning of his achievements in that period. Narinesingh restricts his analysis to, “It seemed that the insurrection within had propelled him to greater heights and growth and development as a person.”Later, commenting on the rapid turnover of captains at the turn of the century in the wake of the public’s “unease of defeat”, Narinesingh offers this spare and succinct description:”With the losses suffered, Adams’ captaincy also came to its conclusion. There were no new faces to fill the void except either Carl Hooper or Ridley Jacobs. Walsh had had his turn and then Lara had been at the helm. The selection was Hooper, an elegant batsman who could also weave some spin. It was felt that as a batsman in the classic mold, he had never fully lived up to his true potential. His record reveals that he could have been more consistent. He was called upon to lead the team in a time of low morale and amidst some new faces.”Narinesingh then abruptly goes on to describe the first Test in Georgetown (March 2001), and leaves us hankering for some discussion of how it all came to pass.And so the book goes. It does offer a broad collection of newspaper and match reports and is helpful in that way. It is, though, marred by poor editing, the most irritating part being the misuse of hyphens and dashes and the spaces they inhabit.All in all, what could have been a much more valuable product, is flawed by inattention to detail, and a mismatch of strategic intent and final outcome.Lara: The Untamed Spirit
by Clifford Narinesingh
Royards Publishing Company

Plays of the day for the final of the tri-series between Sri Lanka and India

Siddarth Ravindran in Dambulla28-Aug-2010Watch out for that car
It’s usually only in neighbourhood cricket that you have to worry about breaking car windows. In the 12th over of the day, when Tillakaratne Dilshan hammered Ishant Sharma over long-on for one of the biggest sixes of the tournament, the sponsors would have had an anxious moment as it flew perilously close to the car to be presented to the Man of the Series. Or perhaps they wouldn’t have minded the extra publicity caused by a smashed windscreen.Silva loses his grip
In the 48th over, Sri Lanka needed some big hits to get close to 300. Chamara Silva looked to slog a slower ball from Ashish Nehra towards midwicket, but the bat slipped out of his hand and flew over his head towards the keeper. Just before the bat took off, the ball hit the edge and sailed towards fine leg for four, increasing India’s frustration.Praveen loses his cool
With the ball in hand, Praveen Kumar is usually an intense man, looking angry even when he gets a wicket. With Sri Lanka already set for the highest total of the tournament, Silva tucked Praveen to long-on and scampered two in the 49th over. The throw was wide from the fielder, Dinesh Karthik, and Praveen showed how annoyed he and India were, hurling the ball to the ground in disgust.Malinga’s birthday gift
At regular intervals, the giant screen flashed a picture of Laith Malinga in a white suit and a black bow tie wishing him a happy birthday. He was gifted a wicket in his first over when the umpire, Asad Rauf, deemed Karthik caught-behind though the ball flew off his pad. Karthik was stunned by the decision, leaning on his bat and lingering in the middle in disbelief. On the walk to the pavilion, he looked at the heavens cursing his luck, his helmet falling to the ground as he absent-mindedly tried to put it back on. When he reached the dressing-room, the first thing he did was point to his team-mates where the ball struck him.Sehwag on caffeine
Faced with a huge target, Virender Sehwag seemed determined to get India off to a flier. He put in an all-action 22-ball effort containing everything from delightful offside boundaries, leading edges, manic running, two botched free-hits, before finally ending in a manner befitting the frenzied knock – he was a run-out by a direct hit by Chamara Kapugedera from backward point when attempting a single after a typically vociferous Sri Lankan appeal for lbw was turned down.Benefit for batsmen
It wasn’t the greatest of days for the umpires. On most occasions, it was the batsman who gained from the poor calls: Mahela Jayawardene survived a close lbw call in the first over of the day, Yuvraj Singh nicked his first ball to the keeper but escaped, MS Dhoni was deemed to have an inside-edge on a confident lbw shout on 12. Perhaps the umpires were sympathetic given how difficult it has been to score in Dambulla right through the tournament.Another Rohit no-show
Rohit Sharma has had a wretched run over the past three weeks, and if he was looking for a slice of luck to turn things around, he didn’t get it on Saturday. India picked him as an extra specialist batsman in place of the allrounder Ravindra Jadeja, but Rohit wasn’t able to contribute the runs expected. He fell for 5 after being drawn forward and beaten by the spin of Suraj Randiv; the keeper didn’t collect the ball but, to Rohit’s dismay, it ricocheted off Sangakkara’s boot onto the stumps with the batsman just out of the crease.

How to approach this politely? Ian Chappell was pretty polite. “If his batting was as good as Don Bradman’s,” he said on air, “he couldn’t score enough runs to make up for what he costs them with his keeping.”

Osman Samiuddin in Pallekele08-Mar-2011How to approach this politely? Ian Chappell was pretty polite. “If his batting was as good as Don Bradman’s,” he said on air, “he couldn’t score enough runs to make up for what he costs them with his keeping.”There are many ways in which the depth of denial in Pakistan – in all spheres of life – presents itself to the observer. No better example of it exists than the continued presence of Kamran Akmal in the side, the man to whom Chappell refers so politely. The world knows the worth of Akmal as a wicketkeeper: to be short, he is not one anymore. He is, to steal and twist the wonderful sledge Jimmy Ormond dished out to Mark Waugh once, not even the best wicketkeeper in his family. He’s not even the second-best: Umar Akmal has looked safer than him on the occasions he has kept.Yet as Pakistan has changed everything about its cricket over the last four years – captains, selectors, chairmen, players, coaches – Akmal has remained unchanged, unchallenged in his incompetency. Until the beginning of Pakistan’s last summer in England, when there was still a will left to count, he was fluffing comfortably more than one chance per Test: 32 in 25 Tests. His ODI rate cannot be far behind.There appears no sane reason for it and even an insane one right now would be handy. Shoaib Malik thought him the second-best wicketkeeper-batsman behind Adam Gilchrist during his captaincy, a hallucination rather than delusion. The pair are close, so nepotism was as good a reason as any. But what were the reasons for Younis Khan, Mohammad Yousuf, Salman Butt and now, Shahid Afridi to persist with him?After every show of calamity, when the question is put to anyone in charge, the response is to say it is only one match, that everyone drops a catch occasionally, or the line Waqar Younis trotted out today, that we can’t just blame the one person. We can at least blame those who keep selecting him. Those who argue that he compensates with his batting will kindly direct themselves to the brutality of Chappell’s verdict: no amount of runs can make up for the matches, and as importantly the moments in matches, he has lost.Despite consistently letting his side down, Kamran Akmal has been a mainstay of Pakistan’s team over the last few years•Getty ImagesThe few times he has been dropped in the last four years – for the Asia Cup 2008, after the Australia tour last year, during the English summer – the performances leading into it have been so monumentally negligent that not dropping him might have risked the kind of revolution in Pakistan seen in the Arab world. It would probably take that still to shift him.In any case he has returned back to the side at the first opportunity. Whether they forget or choose to overlook his errors is irrelevant: it is criminal in both cases. He sneaked into this squad only after being cleared by a board integrity committee. A wicketkeeping committee might have been better placed to rule on it.Akmal’s three misses – two off Ross Taylor – set the tone for the rest of the innings, Pakistan’s most bedraggled performance in the field in this tournament so far. Their last one, against Sri Lanka, was sparked incidentally by two missed stumpings.Short of injuring Akmal and sending him back, the only option Pakistan could explore is to play the younger Akmal as a wicketkeeper. In keeping with the cautious nature of the team’s leaders, that seems unlikely. Asked whether they would consider it, Waqar Younis said, “After the World Cup maybe we can think about it, but we are in the middle of the tournament and I don’t think we can make such a change. We have five days off in which we will try to rectify his mistakes because in such a short time we can’t rectify all mistakes. We can’t kick him out at the moment, we can try to make him better for the next game and make sure he won’t make the same mistakes.”Meanwhile, the state of denial Pakistan remains in about the balance of its side should also take a few knocks here, hopefully. They persist in playing a specialist bowler short to buffer their batting. Playing a batsman at eight – Abdul Razzaq may open the bowling but he is no opening bowler, as tournament figures of 21-4-111-1 testify – has not helped their batting much in their last two games, precisely the situations the strategy is aimed at. Razzaq’s 62 will, no doubt, be used as justification at some point in the future.When Umar Gul had to be bowled out during the batting Powerplay – and his fine bowling will not even be a footnote – it left the last four overs to be bowled by someone who wasn’t Gul. Those four overs, shared by Razzaq, Shoaib Akhtar and Abdur Rehman, went for 92. Razzaq’s four overs of the day went for 49, “a bit off-colour” Waqar said: a little yes, like black and white.Yet the top order collapse seemed to confirm to Pakistan they need the batting. “We were 120-7 so we were short of batsmen,” Waqar said. “I think 300 was chaseable. We can’t afford to have another bowler in the side, as we are playing with six if you consider Mohammad Hafeez and Razzaq. I don’t think we can manage another bowler.”

Stuart Broad has almost single-handedly kept England alive in this pulsating Test match. It’s quite a turnaround for someone who was one tough call away from being sent back to county cricket

Andrew McGlashan at Trent Bridge30-Jul-2011Firstly with the bat, then with the ball Stuart Broad has almost single-handedly kept England alive in this pulsating Test match. It’s quite a turnaround for someone who was one tough call away from being sent back to county cricket, but now he has a career-best 6 for 46 and a hat-trick to his name.In a neat turn of events Broad was the third victim of the last Test hat-trick when Peter Siddle struck at Brisbane in the opening Test last November. On Friday he inflicted India’s first three-in-three in Test cricket and the 12th by an England bowler when he had MS Dhoni caught at slip, Harbhajan Singh lbw despite an edge and clean-bowled Praveen Kumar. The sight of a bowler in full, destructive, flow is thrilling viewing and Broad has shown his capability for such bursts before at The Oval and Durban in 2009. This, though, reached a new level.His spell with the second new-ball was worth 5 for 5 as, for the second time in two days, England claimed the final session of the day to keep themselves in touch in a match that was drifting away while Rahul Dravid and Yuvraj Singh, who was dropped off Broad when he had 4, added 128. As Broad hustled through the lower order the atmosphere became electric; a hat-trick always conjures huge emotion but the intimacy of English grounds – and Trent Bridge especially – made this a compelling moment.”The crowd were fantastic today and they lifted us with that second new ball, they knew it was going to be a key period as the players did,” Broad said. “It was quite a fearsome atmosphere for the Indian batsmen to come into.”Fearsome, maybe, but Broad still had to keep his cool and it was a mark of his soaring confidence that the hat-trick ball was full at the stumps when so many are often off target as the bowler gets carried away. His family, including father Chris Broad, were in the stands watching. It wasn’t Broad’s first hat-trick, but he had to go back his teenage years at Oakham School to remember his previous ones.Stuart Broad’s hat-trick dragged England back in contention but India are ahead•AFP”The atmosphere wasn’t quite as good at school with the parents watching,” he joked. “In the context of the game it was important to pick those wickets up quickly so to get a hat-trick was special but it won’t mean much if we don’t go on and win this Test. You always have fond memories when you win so it’s important we go on and build a big score which we have done a lot in the past year.”And that win won’t be easy; the last England hat-trick was taken by Ryan Sidebottom, at Hamilton, in a Test that was lost. They have already lost Alastair Cook, have Jonathan Trott injured, are still 43 behind and will face a fairly new ball in the morning. “We are still a little bit behind in this Test but hopefully we can have a blazer of a day tomorrow and put us in the ascendancy,” Broad said.It could be suggested that if England want to be the best in the world then they shouldn’t put themselves in such difficult positions. However, the character to keep fighting back is not to be sniffed at and something this team has in bucket loads. Remember the World Cup where each calamitous group-stage defeat was followed by an often mind-boggling victory? There is the danger of inconsistency from them, but they have a belief to come back for a difficult session, day or match.”There’s a lot of positive talking in the dressing room,” Broad said. “We are very good at reassessing the position we are in and setting new goals. We knew after tea it would be a huge effort to fight through – we probably weren’t expecting to bowl India out – but we wanted to go at two-and-a-half an over and really clog them down then pick up a couple of wickets. To bowl them out was pretty special but Saturday will be our biggest test in this match to see if we can get 300 runs.”Yet for all the emotion created by Broad’s hat-trick England didn’t make the most of the conditions especially in the first two sessions while dropped catches raised their head again. The match could yet come to be decided by Kevin Pietersen’s spill at gully when Yuvraj was in single figures. The fifth-wicket stand with Dravid wasn’t terminated until they’d put India in the lead.Andrew Strauss played down the missed chances before this game – he was guilty of two at Lord’s – saying the team catch most on offer, but two more here (Alastair Cook shelled one off Ishant Sharma late in the innings) will frustrate Andy Flower and Richard Halsall, the fielding coach, while Strauss told his team at tea to lift their energy levels.Dropping Yuvraj was a bit of a concern when he and Dravid were going well,” Broad admitted. “We knew that new-ball period would be a huge hour for us. Strauss asked as a tea if we could raise our intensity during that hour to put some pressure on the Indian batsmen. Fortunately there was some swing and the edges came our way. We’ve got ourselves back in this game. Like I said yesterday India probably won three quarters of the day and we’ve nicked the last session.”Two post-tea surges have kept England within touching distance, but they can’t afford to keep leaving their best performances for so late in the day if they want to extend their series lead in Nottingham. And Broad would probably be grateful for some help.

In his last season of competitive cricket, Shane Warne looks back at his years with the Rajasthan Royals and at the art of captaincy, but he isn’t wasting any time thinking of what might have been

Interview by Harsha Bhogle14-May-2011Harsha Bhogle: I know you had a stunning career with the Australian cricket team, but what you have achieved with the Royals must satisfy you enormously?SW: I was very lucky to play, I suppose, in a pretty special time in Australian cricket. I got into the squad in first-class cricket in the late 80s and then started playing [internationals] in the early 90s. So I saw the turnaround of Australian cricket when they won the ’87 World Cup and ’89 Ashes, and I sort of got involved. Then I was the first young player with Bruce Reid and Geoff Marsh and David Boon and Allan Border, etc. They made me feel welcome even if not many other teams did. I was smashed all over the park against India, against Ravi Shastri – which he keeps reminding me of all the time. Thanks, Rav!Then we sort of got a squad together where a few guys retired, but we got some good people. [Glenn] McGrath came a couple of years later and a few more. That period, from about 94-95 to 2005-06, around that ten-year period we played everybody home and away, which was a pretty amazing achievement. I was pretty lucky to play in a good era of Australian cricket.But then, you know, to achieve what we did in the first year with the Royals, I think all of Rajasthan would be pretty proud of. I think the squad we had and the players we had, compared to everybody else, and then to go off and win it was…As captain and coach, I had the faith of the owners, so I could create an environment, and I suppose it was justified because we won it. We’ve got the same spirit in the group this year, but now we have got a tough finish to go.HB: The one thing that strikes us about the Royals is that as a team, man for man, they should not have made a single semi-final. And yet they have consistently punched above their weight. People who didn’t have great records in the Ranji Trophy play for the Royals and they play bigger than we have seen them. What is the secret?SW: I think you’ve got to be better planned than everybody else. You have to have better tactics and you have to actually make these guys believe it’s the right tactic.HB: But then that’s easily said. How do you get them to do it? I’m imagining I am Ashok Menaria, I’m 19 years old, I’m bowling to Sachin Tendulkar. My captain, who has been a legend of the game, tells me, “Listen, you can do it.” How do you get him to believe?SW: You ask him the question: in that situation, how would you get him out? And he will say, “He’ll hit one up in the air.” I will say, “No, let’s work on how we can get him out.” So we try to work it out and think of where he is going to try and hit. We’ve got to get the players to buy in and believe it. Otherwise we have got no chance.So once you sort of convince them that those are the right tactics, we talk about it. “Right, if we do this he will hit me over mid-off. He might hit it for six but he might miss it.” So it’s little things like that.HB: A lot of these boys don’t know English too well – definitely not Australianisms.SW: There have been a few times when… I remember a couple of times with Kamran Khan, we had to put Munaf Patel next to him at mid-on [to translate]. I would say to Kamran, “What are you bowling? Bouncer?” He’d say, “Yes, sir.” I would say, “You were going to bowl a slower ball outside off stump, so I could set the field… what happened?” So occasionally that would happen. It’s a bit of a breakdown in communication. We would have a bit of a laugh. I think the key is creating an environment where everyone feels the same and everyone feels equal.

“The environment we created [at Rajasthan] was about having fun. No fitness coaches, no big team meetings, it was all about enjoyment and fun and sitting around and talking about cricket “

I think early on in the first year, having those things like that, certainly they gained respect from the way you communicated with them and made them feel important. But at the end of the day it was my call on a few things, and a couple of tough decisions made in the first year, that I think gained the respect of the group pretty quickly, and that was really important.HB: And those tough decisions, were you taking them yourself?SW: There was one particular decision that really set the tone for the rest of the series.It is really tough to make a squad, the final squad, and there is always disappointment from players on missing the squad. And we were getting a little bit of pressure from certain people about playing certain players, and I said to the owners, who I had only known for 10 days, “Look, that’s fine if you want X player in the squad, but book a flight on the QF9, I’m going home.” They said, “What do you mean?” I said, “Well, I have worked hard to get this squad together and these guys are all here on merit.” I said, “You can make your call, either me or this guy in the squad, or these two guys in the squad – you put them in and I’m out. Simple.” They said, “Are you serious?” I said, “Well, I am, yeah.”[Knowing that] we were all there on merit, that made them feel good straightaway, the way they were treated at training, the environment we created was about having fun. No fitness coaches, no big team meetings, it was all about enjoyment and fun and sitting around and talking about cricket. And I think when you are sitting and talking about cricket, you just pass on things that you know…HB: Is there too little of that?SW: Sometimes you have job justification, whether it be from sports side… I am not saying there is no role. I say there is, at the right time. We don’t need a support stuff of 25 people to do fitness.The players are getting good money to play IPL and international cricket. The guys are going to look after themselves, and if you keep making people do stuff, they sort of rebel against it. They don’t like being told, “Train at this time, go to the gym, we’ve got a fitness test,” all that. No one likes being told to do that.HB: That’s interesting. Your style will probably work very well with a driven cricketer – someone who has a fantastic personal work ethic. But not every player is like that. There would have been players whom you have got to tell, “Listen, you better do this” or they never will.SW: No, because at the end of the day cricket is a perform-and-play game, and if you don’t perform you won’t play. So if these guys don’t want to go to the gym, they won’t get stronger. If they don’t do fitness, they are going to get tired after a couple of overs, and they can’t run in the field and run between the wickets. Their performance will suffer and they won’t play. So it’s up to these guys if they want to do it or not. And then you are able to find out who the hungry cricketers are, and you find out who is really passionate.HB: One of the boys who played under you said it was the first time ever that he was told he was a match-winner. He said “I never knew I was considered a match-winner, and Warnie told me, if I pick you in my XI, it is because I believe you can win a game.” And he said when he walked onto the field, he was walking about two inches higher.SW: I think you’re talking about Yusuf [Pathan], aren’t you?HB: It’s Abhishek [Jhunjhunwala].SW: Ah! Okay.HB: But Yusuf is a good example, because he really became the player he was with you and the Royals.SW: He was. Then there are a few guys who can turn games. You need match-winners in your side. You need guys to bowl here and there and bat all the time – bits and pieces. Guys who can turn the course of a game.HB: What do you look for in a player? How do you identify a match-winner?SW: I think everyone can be a match-winner. If you are going to bowl a bouncer, think: this is the best bouncer I have ever bowled. Or this is the best slower ball I have ever bowled, this is going to be the best yorker… Match-winners have got that attitude about it. They just don’t bowl and get hit for six. “It’s Twenty20, so I got hit for six.”You look for attitude in a player straightaway. You look for different things, the little things – whether they help out other players, whether they throw balls to other players, whether they just do their own thing and don’t worry about anybody else.You look for their technique. You look for awareness of different scoring opportunities. You look at match-awareness, ability to sum up situations. If they sum the situation of the game – like, you’ve got to get a single here, and you can manipulate and hit one down and get mid-off back up so that there is an easy single.”Rohit Sharma could be a match-winner, a world beater, and one of the best Indian cricketers ever”•AFPIf you look at players who can do those sorts of things then you know they think about the game. And once you know they think about the game, you know they’ve got half a chance.HB: I know you don’t rate John Buchanan very much, but he said something interesting to me once. He said leadership is about not just knowing the cricketer who takes the field but understanding the whole person. And without quite saying it, that’s also what you do.SW: Common sense. ()HB: Probably common sense is one way of saying it. But is that what you strive to do as a leader? Understand people?SW: Look, it is a real difficult one sometimes, as captain, because you want to be their friend. I think it is important to be their friend and let them know. Because once you get their friendship and trust then you can talk direct and be honest with them. If you haven’t really built up that trust, you can become a dictator. And there is a big difference between being a dictator and friend. It is a lot easier to accept criticism from you friend or a decision you may not like from a friend.But you still need to keep that distance as a captain and let them know that you are in charge.HB: Is it always you as captain or is it a democracy?SW: We are very lucky that we have had guys like Graeme Smith, Rahul Dravid this year. I love playing with Rahul. I really have admired him as a player for a long time. And I’ve really enjoyed playing with him this year. He is just such a class act.So I watch him prepare, I watch him talk to the younger players. He has been great to bounce a few ideas off as well. But somehow in Twenty20, the way the field is, it is lot harder to talk to players and say, “Hey, mate, what do you think?” So you sort of look around and sometimes you might have to run halfway during the over and in sort of sign language say, “Harsha, mate, which one in the next over? What do you think?”HB: Is your captaincy an extension of your bowling?SW: Probably. It is a good question. Probably is. It shows, I suppose, how I think when I am bowling. And I’m not going to get it right all the time. I’m going to make mistakes. But I think it can only be judged over a period of time, and over a period of time I would like to think that it has come off more times than it hasn’t.HB: I look at the Royals, Warnie. And I think you could have spent three years thinking about what you didn’t have. Instead, I get the impression you have looked at what you have, and that’s a big lesson for everybody else: that you always look at what you have rather than what you don’t.SW: That’s spot on. Because you can’t change what you have got. It is like the past. You can’t change what happened in the past. If I thought about what happened in my past, I could be in a straightjacket and padded cell somewhere. But I can’t change it, so I don’t spend any time worrying about it. It’s what I’m doing now and in the future.So for our guys it’s about just thinking on their feet. Not “We haven’t got this, we haven’t got that.” This is our group, let’s come together as quickly as we possibly can, let’s enjoy each other’s company, create an environment where we all have some fun and enjoyment. We are going to enjoy when other people get their success, and I know I am going to get my turn eventually.

“I think the captaincy seems to bring out the best in me. If I didn’t get the opportunities then so be it”

HB: Is there regret that Warne the leader of Rajasthan Royals could never be Warne the leader of Australia?SW: No, not at all. I was very lucky to play under a couple of good captains. Allan Border was fantastic when I first started and Mark Taylor was probably the best captain I have played under. His communication and I thought his tactics…HB: What do you look for in a firm leader? What do you look for in a leader when you are the player?SW: Very similar. I think you look for someone who is going to back you. Someone who says, “You’re the man, we need you. You perform and we will win.” Someone who always backs you, no matter what. I think their communication, their honesty [are important].HB: There was the feeling that maybe Warne the person, in the eyes of some, came in the way of Warne the captain. The suits in the boardroom said, “Would it be almost embarrassing if we had Warne the person as Warne the captain?” Do you think that was true? Does it rankle somewhere when you think you would maybe have made a great captain of Australia?SW: I think the captaincy seems to bring out the best in me. If I didn’t get the opportunities then so be it. I think the suits and ties, they were probably fair because I have been through a few things. I made poor calls and some poor choices. So they were probably right in the way they were thinking, saying “It’s too much of a risk”. Anything could have happened in that stage of my life. I understand that. I don’t regret it one bit.I think, looking back, it would have been nice to have had the opportunity, but you can’t do anything about it. So I don’t spend any time, I don’t sit and wonder.HB: It’s a great way to live because a lot of people can say that but very few can actually believe it.SW: I live it. I don’t just say that. That’s exactly how it has been.HB: You have seen as much Indian talent now as anybody can see. Are there names that you can look at and say, “Wow, you are a good player”?SW: I saw [Virat] Kohli in the first year and thought, “There is something about the kid.” He could play the short ball well. There are not too many young cricketers in the world who have played just a couple of games and can play with so much comfort. You have to get into stride first.I think the one thing that the IPL has done for these players is let them mix with international players, have exposure with the big crowd.To me Sharma is one. Rohit Sharma has got all the talent in the world – if he could just get his mind right and get his attitude right. If his one thought was “I want to become the best cricketer I possibly can”, every morning he needs to wake up and try and talk to Sachin [Tendulkar] and ask him “Sir, if I could have lunch or dinner [with you]…” I would be hanging out his pocket. “How do you think about batting? How do you approach it in these conditions?” Every minute of the day, until Sachin says, “Mate, can I have five minutes’ break?” Be a pest to him.And ask Malinga: “How are you trying to get the batsmen out?” He should do that every morning he gets up. Think, “How am I going to become the best I can possibly be?”He could be a match-winner, a world beater, and one of the best Indian cricketers ever. He has got that much talent.This interview aired on CNN-IBN in India. Repeat telecasts at 11.30am and 3.30pm IST on May 14 and 3.30pm on May 15

Plays of the Day from the third day of the Galle Test between Sri Lanka and Australia

Daniel Brettig in Galle02-Sep-2011The hair-dryer
Heavy overnight rain and lighter stuff on the third morning meant that play did not start until 12.10 pm. Before then the groundstaff were delayed by a handful of damp spots on the pitch, where water had seeped through the cover. They were evened out by the rather novel use of a hair-dryer, which was applied in small circular motions to the patches of moisture with the help of one of those industrial length power cords that allow the toss and pitch report to be televised. The irony of damp spots on the driest Test pitch many of the Australian players had ever seen cannot have been lost on Michael Clarke and Tim Nielsen as they watched the hair-dryer in action.The target
By the time Sri Lanka dismissed Australia for 210, they were facing a target of 379, the biggest chase in their history if it was to be achieved. The best remains the thrilling pursuit of 352 against South Africa at the P Sara Oval in 2006, when Mahela Jayawardene’s 123 anchored the chase and Lasith Malinga scrambled the winning run after Muttiah Muralitharan had been bowled with two needed. The outlook for the Sri Lankans in Galle was bleaker, given that the highest fourth-innings score here is 210 for 9 by England in 2003, while the highest successful fourth-innings chase is a mere 96, albeit with 10 wickets in hand, by Sri Lanka against India in 2010.The pitch mat
The first two balls of Sri Lanka’s innings demonstrated the narrow margins by which innings and careers can be decided, and why suspicions of imprecision continue to linger around ball-tracking technology. Ryan Harris’ first ball to Tharanga Paranavitana was straight, short of a length and kept low, thudding into his pads in front of the stumps. The Hawk-Eye pitch mat showed the ball had landed millimetres outside leg stump, though Paranavitana declined to review the decision. Next ball, Kumar Sangakkara was struck in line by one that swung back at him, and after the appeal was declined the Australians referred it. Initial replays suggested the ball had pitched in line with the stumps, as it generally has to if it swings back to threaten a left-hander’s pads. However the Hawk-Eye mat subsequently showed the ball landing on the same line as the previous delivery. Sangakkara survived, amid widespread mutterings about whether two wrongs can ever make a right.The follow-through
When Nathan Lyon and Trent Copeland were batting together at the end of Australia’s second innings, discussions broke out over the question of whether or not Lyon had scuffed the pitch with his spikes. Mahela Jayawardene certainly seemed to think so, and he pushed on with his line of inquiry when Copeland was bowling in the late afternoon. Australia’s combative wicketkeeper, Brad Haddin, also became involved, before Ricky Ponting added his opinion during a conversation with the umpires. Given the margin between the teams it all felt a little empty, but the state of the pitch made the issue of its preservation a stickier topic than usual.

Zimbabwe need to give the tour of New Zealand context and look at the little things, which are overshadowed by the magnitude of defeat

Firdose Moonda14-Feb-2012There is no direct flight between Auckland and Harare. The Zimbabwe team probably wishes there was, for they will now have to spend hours in Perth and more hours in Johannesburg. Ample time to reflect on the tour of New Zealand, where they were not only whitewashed in every format but also stripped bare.Only four months ago Zimbabwe had successfully chased 329 in an ODI against New Zealand, and came within 34 runs of winning a Test against them. Those heartening performances, however, were in Bulawayo. Their six-week, seven-match tour of New Zealand could not have been worse.Zimbabwe were bowled out twice in a day in the Test, losing by an innings and 301 runs in Napier. They conceded more than 370 in two out of three ODIs, losing each by an increasing margin, and scored more than 200 only once. They were also blanked out in the two Twenty20s, even though they showed some fight in the shortest format. Zimbabwe’s senior players did not perform and the pressure that created caused the juniors to buckle. Their unit was dismantled piece by piece so much so that all the workhorses and all the trying men couldn’t put Brendan Taylor’s side together again.There are good reasons for Zimbabwe’s blowout. They don’t tour often, especially not down under. Zimbabwe were last in New Zealand ten years ago. This was a maiden tour for most of the current players and to visit a place that is significantly different to anywhere else in the cricketing world was a shock.The weather in New Zealand is colder and more temperamental than in other place, even in summer, and adjusting to it can be a challenge. Besides the discomfort it causes, it also affects playing conditions. On some days batsmen have more seam and swing to contend with, on others bowlers have to fight a stiff breeze.The elements alone did not make Zimbabwe’s stay unpleasant. The hosts’ onslaught was ruthless and they did not relent even after series were won and their dominance left undisputed. Martin Guptill did not stop scoring runs even after suffering a groin injury, and New Zealand’s bowling attack, whatever the combination, did not stop taking wickets. Having made their Test return and begun the 2011-12 season with promise, Zimbabwe ended it annihilated.”Ah, it wasn’t great,” Alistair Campbell, the chairman of the cricket committee and former Zimbabwe captain, said. It is a statement that will be in contention for understatement of the year, especially for its tone, one of casualness despite the serious subject.Campbell, however, is not taking Zimbabwe’s struggles lightly, having experienced the same as a player. “We have to be honest, even when I was playing, we always battled with consistency,” he said. “We haven’t found a formula to be consistent, home or away, yet. Yes, those margins of defeat were too big and when you have results like that, questions have to be asked. But we have to be asking them with the intention to make sure our cricket is on the right path.”That means giving the tour of New Zealand context and looking at the little things, which are overshadowed by the magnitude of defeat. “We have to review the season as a whole, and as a whole we haven’t had a bad series,” Campbell said. Zimbabwe started the summer by beating Bangladesh in a one-off Test and an ODI series, before losing to Pakistan and New Zealand despite a strong showing in the Tests. All those results were at home.

Their unit was dismantled piece by piece so much so that all the workhorses and all the trying men couldn’t put Brendan Taylor’s side together again.

Away from home, Zimbabwe could not compete but Campbell said that was no different to the current trend in world cricket. “We have to put this in perspective, a lot of teams have struggled away from home. India have also lost Tests by an innings and plenty. Add England [in UAE] and Sri Lanka [in South Africa] to that list and Campbell’s argument does not appear too flimsy.Zimbabwe also have some positives from the New Zealand experience. Shingi Masakadza was the joint-highest wicket-taker in the ODIs, with five scalps, followed by Kyle Jarvis and Prosper Utseya on four. Hamilton Masakadza scored half-centuries in both the Twenty20s and Jarvis shared the top-bowler ranking in that series, earning himself a temporary contract with the Central Stags, a New Zealand domestic team. “We finished quite well,” Campbell said. “It would have been easy to give up at that point.”Those few positives do not mask the problems, though. “On tour, you need your senior players to front up and that did not happen,” Campbell said. Zimbabwe were also without two of their most experienced players: Chris Mpofu had a lower-back injury and Vusi Sibanda was ineligible after a grade-cricket stint in Australia. Mpofu has recovered, and Sibanda has returned and recommitted to Zimbabwe and will be available for the next series.Even without them, Zimbabwe had a fair amount of experience but nothing to show for it. “The batsmen were found wanting technically. They were not able to cope with seam and swing,” Campbell said. “And the bowlers could not find the right lengths.” The fielding was awful as well.One of the most disappointing players was left-arm fast bowler Brian Vitori, who struggled to build on his positive start in international cricket. “There were a lot of expectations on Brian,” Campbell said. “He probably got a wake-up call about what is needed to play international cricket.”The experience of players like Vitori is what Campbell hopes will give Zimbabwe motivation to improve. “It’s going to hurt. When they come home, they’ll walk into a pub and they’ll overhear people saying, ‘Zimbabwe were rubbish’,” he said. “And they won’t want to hear that. They will say to themselves, ‘I don’t want to be called rubbish’, and they will go out next time to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”The opportunity to do that will only come later in the year. Zimbabwe host South Africa for five Twenty20 matches in June, an exercise that seems nothing more than big brother trying to beat up a little one. They also have some A tours planned, before Bangladesh visit in August.