I wonder if other cricket fans have had this experience: you read expert analysis of the game, you hear television commentators dissect a game finely, and you wonder, do all these fine-grained distinctions really exist, are all the things being talked about--reading the ball out of the hand, setting the batsman up with a sequence of short-pitched deliveries--real, or are they just stories, entertainments for the benefit of the fan? And then, one day, while playing the game, you realize, no, it's true, this thing really does happen out in the middle. When that happens, your appreciation of the game changes, and the next time you watch the game, you aren't watching remote, abstract, heroes any more, but rather, players just like yourself, albeit far more talented, skilled and diligent, that have conquered a challenge you faced as well.

In this post, I'd like to be self-indulgent, and talk about an experience of mine that led me to partially understand how the state of mind of a batsman could change in the course of an innings, from utter diffidence to one of supreme confidence. I focus on this experience because in my professional academic career, it became evident to me that what separates the men from the boys is not so much raw talent as a work ethic, a state of mind that permits diligence to take precedence over distraction. And thus I've wondered about the mental aspects of cricket, about how it is some batsmen can construct long innings while others seem congenitally incapable of doing so. In this experience, while I didn't solve the mystery of how a state of confidence could be maintained over a long period of time, I did come to understand what it felt like, and why staying in that zone can be a pleasurable experience in its own right, and by being an end in itself, lead to the construction and maintenance of a long innings.

Back in 2001, I played in the Northern Sydney Suburbs C-grade competition. We played both one-days and two-days, with outright wins in the latter format ensuring the most points. In one game, we gave up some 270 odds run to the opposing team, and when our turn came to bat, lost 7 wickets rather rapidly. There was plenty of time left on the second day, and we were facing an outright defeat if we got bowled out again after following-on. I went out to bat at #9. The opposition's quick bowlers were making the ball fly all over the place; the slips and gully cordon was chattering away, making perfect nuisances of themselves. I batted for a couple of overs, unable to get bat on ball, all the while fearing for my own physical safety. Two more wickets fell, and we were nine down. Number 11 came out to join me, and somehow we put on 50 or so runs, and more importantly, chewed up a huge amount of time, which resulted in us avoiding an outright defeat.

In the course of my innings, as bat increasingly made contact with the ball, my sense of my abilities grew and grew. I began to play more strokes, I ran harder between wickets, I even sledged back at the slips. I grew to believe I could not get out; I felt I would not even feel the ball if it crashed into my body; the fielding side's visible frustration fed into my confidence; and I wondered if there was any way in which I could possibly be dismissed. More to the point, I felt an intense pleasure at experiencing such total, utter, confidence. And like any good hedonist, I didn't want it to end. Playing cricket can often result in cruel blows to one's self-esteem: was I really that hopeless when I dropped that catch or bowled those full-tosses? This experience was uplifting and exhilarating, and I realized, as I was walking off the field after the No. 11 had been dismissed, that great batsmen, unlike the minnows, are much, much better at finding ways to guard this treasured emotion, this feeling of being at the top of one's game. Perhaps the mystery of how batsmen maintain their concentration in long spells is to be found in their deeper enjoyment of such moments of mastery of this very difficult game.

Integrity? Does it have any place in the modern game? Given the big money stakes and winner-take-all mentality that now pervades professional sport, including cricket, can we rely on outdated notions of integrity and honesty to guide the game? Is it fair on the players/coaches to burden them with this responsibility when they are judged (and employed) purely on the basis of their win/lose ratios?

Should we now accept that all decisions be left to umpires and officials, thereby relieving players of the tensions that seem to be dogging the game when it comes to walking, low catches, excessive appealing or bad light? Many of the recent cases involving bad blood between players or officials can be traced back to some on-field incident where someone’s integrity was questioned. Remove that onus on the players, coaches or managers and hand it all over to the umpires and the match referee. Will that result in a change of atmosphere where decisions are accepted in good grace and players are not looking accusingly at each other.

Think back to last week’s ODI in the West Indies when John Dyson made the wrong call on D/L calculations and (arguably) cost West Indies the game. It boiled down to a simple integrity test that should no longer be in the hands of the players or coaches. It’s clear that bad light is now a strategic tool that is cynically employed to win matches (or avoid losing). It’s no longer about the physical danger to the combatants – last week’s incident proved that teams will accept the bad light offer if it suits them and yet will happily continue batting in that same light if it does not suit them to come off. That’s just the way the game’s going right now – it’s about the bottom line. Winning or losing.

This bad light situation is not just a function of cricket at the top level. Even in Z Grade club cricket, it is rarely ever used as an escape from physical danger. As far as I understand it, light should only be offered when players are in physical danger so why do so many cricketers (including yours truly) treat is as a cynical clause to avoid losing a wicket, dropping a catch or winning/losing/drawing a game? Easy answer? Because we can. It's got nothing to do with physical danger.

Why not just leave it purely in the hands of the umpires to decide when to come off for bad light, irrespective of which team is in front. Are there any other professional sports that leave similar decisions to the players? If we accept that umpires are neutral, then their decision should be accepted with equanimity. If we can’t agree that umpires are neutral, then we’ve got bigger problems.

Likewise with contentious catches and the issue of walking: it’s clear that integrity is not something that can be used as a moral weapon any more. Different players have different codes they stick by. Some players change their own codes depending on the match situation or current form. Some players are known for walking but see no moral contradiction about appealing for catches that are clearly not out. So again, why not take it out of their hands and just leave it to the umpires to adjudicate?

Of course this depends on the players having the maturity to then accept good and bad decisions with relatively few histrionics. Sure, there will always need to be some allowances made for that instinctive flash of disappointment at a poor decision but if the tantrums are prolonged and meant for public consumption, harsh penalties (suspensions) will soon create a culture of respect and good grace.

The referral system accentuates the need for this cultural shift. It further encourages players to stand their ground and see if the third umpire reprieves them, even when they know the truth. Even in rugby codes, players who have clearly dropped the ball over the line, celebrate with their team-mates and hope that the video referee doesn’t spot the indiscretion. It’s cynical but it’s also their profession – why should we expect integrity from professional athletes when their employers and the business world at large are not held to those standards?

Earlier this week, IPL officials and the CEO of Cricket South Africa denied outright that there had been any discussions about the IPL being moved from India. Their indignant denials almost made me feel guilty for daring to believe those crooked journalists. A few days later, the deal is done and no hint of shame from these very same officials who claimed that no such conversations had ever taken place. Clearly, the IPL is not an acronym for Integrity Premier League.

I’m sure the umpires will groan inwardly at yet another responsibility being foisted on them but ultimately, as sport becomes a business and athletes become businessmen, umpires should be the only ones empowered to regulate this market. It is a market governed by the forces of win or loss, and sadly, all too sadly, we may have to accept that cricket will no longer be a canvas for nobler sentiments.

Was it ever thus? Perhaps it is nothing new.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
Oh frabjous day! Calloo, callay” – Lewis Carroll.

At last, England have won a match on tour this winter. Break out the champers, light the fireworks, let joy be unconfined.

Yes, I know it’s pathetic, but there has been all too little to be pleased about this winter, so it will have to do.

Still, this was a special win. Unlike most of England’s rare victories, this one will be remembered for many years. Pub quizmasters will be reminding their punters for decades that for the first time in the history of ODI cricket, batsmen were ordered from the sidelines to accept the offer of light when they would be declared the losers – and when they had been ahead on Duckworth-Lewis until the previous ball.

Both sides’ supporters will claim that their side would have won if the game had run its full course, but the incontrovertible fact is that West Indies carefully laid out a banana skin and then demonstrated how to fall over on it without taking into account that they were doing it for real – unless, that is, they were actually bent on proving that they could equal any incompetence England had managed at Sabina Park.

And it’s West Indies as a whole, not just the coach. John Dyson honourably stood up and took the rap, but ultimately ordering players on and off the field is a captain’s prerogative and he does not escape blame simply because he delegated his responsibility to a member of the support staff.

So West Indies have gone one better than South Africa did when bundling themselves out of the 2002-3 World Cup when they too misread the Duckworth-Lewis rules, thought they didn’t need an extra run to take the win which would have kept them in the competition and blocked out the last ball.

Which, meandering further back into history, recalls the remarkable end to the semi-final of the 1983 NatWest Trophy. Middlesex had managed 222/9 off their 60 overs, and at the beginning of Somerset’s 60th over, they were 222/8 with Botham on strike on 96*. Botham was the captain, and he checked on the rules with the umpires, who confirmed that if the scores were level at the end of 60 overs, the side losing the fewer wickets were the winners. So Botham blocked out a maiden, knowing that that was all he had to do to win.

Returning to the present, there is clearly a distinct risk that several England players will be unavailable for training tomorrow, being on sick parade with sides split through laughing manically at their good fortune. They should stop laughing pretty quickly, though, for they only scraped though by the proverbial coat of varnish.

Shiv Chanderpaul came oh so close to ripping the game out of their hands with that astonishing assault on Steve Harmison. Even Kevin Pietersen must have blinked at the audacity of the sweep over fine leg for six, but the rest of the over was just as destructive. If he hadn’t been out the next ball, he would have won the game and added the Man of the Match award to his string of honours – which as of Tuesday includes Guyana’s third-highest national award, the Cacique’s Crown of Honour. (I’m most disappointed to find out that the Crown of Honour is only a medal with a crown on it: it would have been such fun to see a crowned head walk out to bat.)

But still, a win’s a win, and England’s pro tem coach Andy Flower will be much relieved; it may even get him over the embarrassment of KP revealing in a Sky TV interview that the players refer to him as ‘Petals’.

	What exactly is the role of a head coach © AFP

Every time I stay up all night to watch a game from the West Indies, it ends in farce. It happened in the 2007 World Cup final and it happened again last night. What a waste of a good night’s sleep!

On the subject of waste, I have often wondered what role the coach actually plays at this level of the game. What is his role? Is it to literally “coach” the players in the skills of the game, is it to help with slips catching and fielding drills or is it as tactician/strategist/statistician? John Dyson’s confused actions in last night’s farce begs the question: Was it Dyson’s fault and what exactly is his role?

I have long wondered what value a coach brings to a team at this level of the game. I can see why an individual coach who knows the player well can make little changes to that player’s technique and performance (eg: Gilchrist and the famous squash ball example in the WC Final of 2007). Whether a team coach can honestly help players of this calibre to improve technical aspects of their game is a moot point. In 25 years of senior cricket, I have yet to come across a coach who has made any significant difference to a player’s skills or technique in a team environment. Personalised, one-on-one coaching is a different matter altogether – I’ve seen that relationship work quite well.

To confuse the argument even further, teams at this level have specialist batting, bowling, fielding and fitness coaches. So what does the Head Coach really do then?

Perhaps he is not a ‘coach’ at all in that sense of the word. Perhaps his role is to analyse opposition strengths and weaknesses and to offer strategic or tactical direction. In which case, he is not a coach at all – he is more like the Manager of a football team. Except for the fact that in cricket, the coach doesn’t usually have a direct role in selections and usually leaves tactical decisions to the captain once the game begins. So, by that definition, he is not really a Manager either.

Perhaps he is a psychologist, counsellor and personal confidante to the players. In which case, what are his qualifications for that role? Do you need high-level coaching qualifications to perform this role or are you better off with expertise in other areas?

Judging by Dyson’s miscalculations today, he is certainly no statistician or mathematician. I’m sure he would claim no expertise in this area so why was he then left with the responsibility of making those decisions? Is that the coach’s job, to read complicated Duckworth-Lewis tables and then pull the strings accordingly? If so, why bother with cricket coaching qualifications? Hire a boffin instead!

I’m with Shane Warne on this issue – I’m not convinced that the coach has any significant role to play in teams at this level of the game. If they need other specialists around them, how do they justify their job? Are they merely managers of that human resource environment (in which case, hire HR experts)?

Warne apparently had an instinctive genius for reading the play on the field and cricket has always held a special place for the role of the captain (or other senior players) acting on those instincts on the field. Unlike many football codes which virtually rely on the coach or manager to run game strategy and selection, cricket’s charm lies in the tradition of the captain making those decisions with minimum interference from outsiders. It’s part of the game’s unique character.

This essay is about exploring the role of the Head Coach of a national team and trying to pinpoint exactly what role he is meant to play. There’s no definitive answer I suppose, just a matter of opinion, based on personal experiences. I’m in the Shane Warne camp - those who believe that a coach (at this level) is something that transports you from the hotel to the ground. Right now, Dyson must be wishing that he was the driver of that coach instead of being the person who had to interpret the D/L charts and then decide if the light was really that bad or not.

If Dyson realised that his team was behind the run rate, you can bet he would have thought the light was still good. Perhaps it should be left purely to the umpires to make that decision. Left to coaches or players, it appears that the definition of bad light depends on where your team is in relation to D/L. That sort of cynicism has no place in this great game - either the light was good enough or bad enough but the definition should not rely on whether you're ahead of the rate or not.

	The horror of horrors: Stuart Clark will get essential match practice playing for Kent ahead of the Ashes © Getty Images

The ECB are getting themselves in a lather about Kent signing Stuart Clark to play county cricket before the Ashes, stopping only just short of seeking an indictment of the Kent Committee on charges of high treason. What nonsense, not to mention piffle, poppycock, balderdash and claptrap.

This is the same ECB which was very pleased when last year the New Zealanders allowed Jimmy Anderson to play some state cricket to help him recover from injury, following which he got picked for the Second Test and ripped through the New Zealand top order as England went on to win the match and then the series.

This is the same ECB which arranged an England Performance Squad tour of India to coincide with the senior team’s tour before Christmas, a transparent way of making sure they would have a pool of reserves fit and acclimatised if they suddenly needed someone to step in (otherwise what was Michael Vaughan doing in the party?). It could not have been organised without the good offices of the BCCI, who did not turn the idea down on the grounds that it might help the visitors win a match or two – not that it did, but that is hardly the BCCI’s fault.

The Australians are double-dyed villains who won’t let Poms play in their precious Shield competition so why should we be nice to them, goes the line from some people. But Shield cricket isn’t the only game in Australia: when Ray Illingworth failed to pick him for the 1994-95 Ashes tour, Gus Fraser arranged himself a gig to play grade cricket with Western Suburbs – and was in the England Test team for the Third Test.

Fraser himself is on a subsidiary indictment now because Middlesex, where he is the new director of cricket, have signed Phil Hughes for the early part of the season. But Hughes has been signed to fill in for Owais Shah, whom the ECB have seen fit to allow to swan off to India to play in the IPL, an offer which Hughes turned down. Perhaps the ECB should have put their foot down about IPL stints rather than whingeing when counties respond by signing the best replacements they can.

It says little for the ECB’s confidence in its team if how the opposition prepare is an issue even worth commenting on, let alone vituperating about. It may be understandable, given that the only team to lose the First Test of a series to England in the last four years was Bangladesh, but the obvious fact that the ECB are incapable of preparing a side which is ready when a series starts is a poor excuse for trying to sabotage opponents.

Sure, winning the Ashes is the best thing that can happen to an England team. No other cricket contest reaches into the collective national unconscious the same way or stirs as many young players to redouble their efforts to get good enough to win an Ashes series themselves. But sticking artificial obstacles in the Aussies’ path is a pathetic way to try and engineer it.

So I wholeheartedly agreed when Gus said to Cricinfo, "What should the ECB do next summer? Abolish all comforts for the Australians ahead of the Ashes? Put them in dirty hotels and make them travel on a rickety, old school bus with springs coming out of the seats? No, you want a situation like in 2005, where you had two teams at the top of their games battling each other, and hopefully England coming out on top."

You tell ‘em, Gus!

West Indies have won their first series against serious opposition for five years. For anyone who wishes West Indies cricket well, celebrations are in order. Let’s all have a rum punch or two and dance for joy.

And then let’s wake up and assess what has really been achieved.

Some people were offended that in my last piece I said that England had been slightly the better side, as if winning a series automatically confers superiority, but England themselves are no strangers to winning series against better teams. With a little luck and a lot of grit, England beat a massively superior South Africa in 1998, won in both Pakistan and Sri Lanka in 2000-01 and beat Australia in 2005, but only in the last case was anyone deceived that the better side had won.

England are only now recovering from the self-deception which followed that Ashes win; West Indies will make more progress faster if they don’t allow an upset victory to distract them from the serious business of building their side.

A year or so ago, West Indies ambushed a complacent South Africa in the First Test of a series which they went on to lose as the home side recovered their true form. This time, after mugging an equally complacent and ill-prepared England in the first match, they were able to hang on and stave off defeat in the other games and thus take the series. It was not pretty to watch - but then rearguard actions never are, however much honour and even glory we bestow on defenders like those at Thermopylae or Rorke’s Drift.

Ramnaresh Sarwan’s magnificent performance would have come as no surprise to someone who had seen his early forays in Test cricket back in 2000 and then gone to live on the moon until now. Back then, the 19- and 20-year-old newcomer looked very much like a superstar in the making. His poise, style, and elegance of technique evoked memories of the teenage Tendulkar playing for Yorkshire, when the future Little Master made no centuries but exuded class. That the mature player should become a run machine reeling off ton after ton was surely only to be expected.

His progress has not been inexorable, however. There have been some highs but also plenty of lows; just before Christmas in New Zealand he was hanging on to a spot by the fingernails of reputation, batting as though he were late for an important appointment. It’s been simple to build a case that he is a flat-track bully – a case for which these performances could be used as further evidence. But he is only 28, so likely to be still short of his peak: time will tell whether he has now graduated to the ranks of top batsmen or merely had an amazing purple patch.

The big surprise was Brendan Nash. A few weeks ago I wrote that replacing Chanderpaul was going to be the most difficult problem any side in world cricket faced, a prediction now shown to be hopelessly wrong by Nash’s excellent impression of a limpet. He doesn’t punish bad balls as effectively as the Guyanese barnacle, but he is as resolute a crease-occupier as you could wish for. The trouble is that he was only supposed to be a stand-in for Dwayne Bravo, whose return to fitness now causes a problem. Bravo, Chanderpaul and Nash all want to bat at six, and putting one of them down to seven effectively commits to a strategy of playing for draws. One of them will really have to fill one of the holes currently being papered over by Smith and Simmons at two and four.

The problem remains that the bowling attack lacks penetration. While much attention was focused on England’s inability to bowl West Indies out twice at the ARG and Queen’s Park Oval, the sobering fact is that in neither match were West Indies able to bowl England out even once. When you take the 'Borebados batathon' into account, Andrew Strauss was able to declare six innings on the trot.

Jerome Taylor and Fidel Edwards have become dangerous bowlers, but there is not a lot else. Suleiman Benn was successful at Sabina Park when England had persuaded themselves that his height made him an extremely awkward customer but ineffective and easily frustrated into bowling rubbish when England changed their minds and played him as if he were mediocre. Daren Powell’s resistance with the bat at the ARG was as irrelevant to whether his bowling merits a place as Robert Croft’s in similar circumstances in 1998, and Lionel Baker’s early showings give little cause for optimism.

It was a mighty effort of collective will for West Indies to hold firm and win the series. They have successfully reached “hard to beat” status, making them at least a competitive side. But this is only base camp; a lot more will be required of them if they are to scale any nearby summits.

In Don DeLillo's White Noise, its central protagonist, Jack Gladney, in a meditation on the mixed blessings of the post-industrial age, notes sunsets are more spectacular than they used to be, a result of the increased particulate matter in the air causing increased scattering of the evening light. Thus truly, what the Lord taketh away with one hand, he giveth with the other. In the cricketing context, while one-day night cricket might have led to the pejorative term "pajama cricket" and to the purists eye, a gaudiness and razzle-dazzle unbecoming to the game's dignity, it has also provided a new set of spectacular backdrops to the cricketing action.

I was reminded of this the other day when watching the fourth ODI between India and New Zealand at Seddon Park in Hamilton on March 10th. Even as the rain came down again, disappointingly curtailing the match and introducing umpteen interruptions, the angry black-grey clouds, the gathering Stygian darkness, the bright, angular glare of the floodlights, and the crimson-orange sunset all collaborated to provide an appropriately apocalyptic setting to Virender Sehwag's 125 off 74 balls.

In an earlier post of mine, I noted how cricket photographs have a hold on the cricket fan. But there is more to cricket photographs than just noting players sporting skills. Part of the pleasure in looking at a photograph of the game lies in noting the unique tableau of the game: the cavernous MCG illuminated by the bright, skin-burning Australian sun, the depressing fences of Indian grounds that conjure up gladiatorial action, the English crowds pressed up to the tiny parapets of the boundary lines, the soaring hills behind Port of Spain and Kingston, and of course, Table Mountain at Newlands.

And I've never forgotten the first photograph I saw of the Sydney Cricket Ground (on the back cover of the now sadly defunct World Cricket Digest): a night game between Australia and New Zealand, the white ball and multi-colored cricket uniforms set off beautifully on a tableau of lush green outfields, soaring green roofs of the older stands improbably held up by what seemed like slender cast-iron pillars, and yes, a spectacular sunset in the background.

When the idea of night Tests was first mooted, my initial reaction was one of resistance. How could one imagine Test cricket being played at night? All of the imagery of Tests was bound up with green fields, white uniforms, bright sunlight, and red balls. But watching the spectacular setting of the India-New Zealand encounter, experiencing the sense of a larger drama being played out as the background of frenetic cricketing action, reminded me cricket is capable of taking new settings and making them its own, that the beauty of Test cricket at night may be worth exploring. Many dramatic one-day internationals have been played at night (my personal favorite, the India-Pakistan WC 96 quarterfinal was one such game). The drama of the close chase at night is now an iconic feature of the shorter version of the game. Who knows what intense crackling Test action would be played out in the setting of a night game? Who knows what spectacular light show might illuminate a late collapse, a gritty match-saving partnership (perhaps one involving Fidel Edwards), or a brilliant last-session century?

I might be a purist but this sort of experiment is likely to override my conservative leanings on purely aesthetic grounds.

	No ICL players please © Getty Images

This week's news that the BCCI is throwing its toys around the cricket sandpit because former international player-cum-pundit Craig 'Macca' McMillan might be part of New Zealand cricket channel Sky TV's commentary team is yet another insane, petty and trivial piece of muscle-flexing.

Niranjan Shah was embarrassing on TV3 on Friday night, saying that the BCCI had made a request to the NZC board to ban anyone connected to "an unauthorised tournament cannot take part with our own people". He then went on to say that we "don't want to interfere." No, of course not Mr Shah. But, in the interests of consistency shouldn't we be banishing everyone who partakes in unofficial cricket tournaments? That would rule out commentators Stephen Fleming and Simon Doull (beach cricket) plus all those Black Caps who have played in teams (or competitions) that have been "polluted" with ICL players. It's a nonsensical approach.

Apart from having an ICL bloke having his say about India and Indian cricketers, another crucial issue appears to be the presence of BCCI favourite Ravi Shastri, who does a cracking job in the TV box and doubles as a member of the IPL's governing council alongside heavyweights such as Lalit Modi and Sunil Gavaskar. A Ravi-Macca combination is unpalatable for the BCCI who would probably rather see McMillan in stocks outside the ground.

We shouldn't be at all surprised. There is now a veritable catalogue of intimidatory tactics and unsavoury "anti-ICL" incidents that have had an impact on the New Zealand cricketing milieu:

1. Craig McMillan dares to have a day's work experience in the Hamilton commentary box for Sky TV and is set to be stood down from commentating on the first Test. Why? The BCCI believes McMillan's ICL infection will taint the coverage.

2. Shane Bond is given the "all clear" from NZC to join the Indian Cricket League and then told he couldn't honour his offshore contract. Why? A figurative double-barrelled gun to NZC's head from the BCCI and the ICC.

3. Daryl Tuffey plays for Auckland in a warm-up match against Bangladesh. The BCCI expresses its displeasure. So said Sharad Pawar a year ago: "All the boards had agreed in principle at the last ICC CEO's meeting that any player who is part of an unauthorised tournament will not be encouraged. This is a violation of a gentleman's agreement. Lalit Modi will write to New Zealand Cricket to protest against this move."

4. Nathan Astle, Daryl Tuffey and Craig McMillan are barred from featuring in Victory, a Bollywood film, because of their ICL infections. Why? Astle said: "They have had the hard word put on them by the BCCI to stop us from playing. I understand if they want to take that stance on the cricket field but this goes beyond that, and I think it's quite ridiculous, actually. I mean, this has nothing to do with playing - it's a movie about cricket. I was just supposed to rock up and bowl a few deliveries."

5. Hamish Marshall's presence sees Sachin Tendulkar and Dinesh Kartik walking around Wellington’s Cuba Mall looking at a bucket fountain when they could have been guest stars in a low-key Masters game between Australia and New Zealand in Wellington. The two Indian players were withdrawn at 8am on the day of the game at the BCCI's behest - not that they were admitting it. The Indian board's gushy man on the ground in New Zealand was dismissive: "This match is very insignificant. I don't have to react to this."

6. India is keen for its 6-pack of Test specialists to swagger into the New Zealand first-class cricket competition, the State Championship, for a bit of a hit. But then the fear and loathing of the ICL sets in. As a result no Indian player can turn out for Auckland or Northern Districts because of the presence of the Tuffey and Hamish Marshall respectively. So the BCCI is fine with its players playing in the same competition when it suits, but not in the same team as the ICL-linked riff-raff. Tuffey was even leant on by NZC, under orders from the BCCI, to stand down for the game but he rightly refused.

This recent meddling with Macca is merely another chapter in the book of the Indian establishment's vendetta against the non-establishment Indian Cricket League. Having the evil letter "C" in their Indian domestic cricket competition acronym is not a reason to treat players as untouchables. How much longer can the obsession with these unimportant trifling "threats" to its near-monopolistic position on the game continue?

The old adage that he who pays the piper calls the tune has never been more apt than in cricket at present – and the piper is playing a sitar. But India must not be granted a free license to meddle unfettered in another country's cricket arrangements. Aside from the shameful need for New Zealand cricket administrators to constantly “walk on eggshells” for fear of upsetting the BCCI, these off-field shenanigans are doing something more heinous. They’re detracting from the deeds of Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s team’s cricket on the park. When will it end?

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There is obviously an element of sour grapes to English criticism of the pitches in the Caribbean. Appalling batting in one session back in Jamaica has cost England an entire series, so carping about the conditions seems like bad-tempered refusal to acknowledge how poor England are or the advances made by West Indies, but really, this has not been a series which has been worth the watching.

All that has been revealed by the Tests in Antigua, Barbados and Trinidad is that neither West Indies nor England possess a spin bowler of the quality of Shane Warne or Muttiah Muralitharan, nor do either team have a pace bowler of the calibre of Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall or Wasim Akram. This, however, is not news and two tense final hours were not really compensation for the rest of the fifteen days in which they were embedded.

Pitches which so effectively extract the teeth of bowling attacks that batsmen are only in danger of being gummed to death make Test cricket a test only of endurance. If it makes little difference who is bowling, we are denied the varying conflicts which make the sport exciting.

Still, from an English point of view, it cannot hurt for the batsmen to remember what it is like to score hundreds and run up big totals.

Alastair Cook, Paul Collingwood and Kevin Pietersen scored tons which told us nothing of interest beyond that they were in decent nick, and Matt Prior’s merely turned the spotlight back on his inability to gather the ball cleanly when behind the stumps.

Andrew Strauss’s hundreds were of more consequence. First, they emphatically showed that his batting is not adversely affected by the captaincy, but also welcome was a new adventure in his shot-making. The lofted drive over wide mid-on has not previously been a feature of his game at Test level, and it makes the prospect of shoe-horning him into the ragbag which masquerades as an England one-day team somewhat less horrifying.

The one who failed to cash in was Owais Shah, who did nothing to convince anyone that he is going to fare any better in the poisoned number three slot than Ian Bell. Amazingly, he is a worse judge of a run than either Bell or Mark Butcher; he is also building up an unfortunate record of going off with cramps when one of the chief requirements of a number three is to be able to bat for seven hours. Ravi Bopara’s hundred, albeit from the No.5 position but in hot weather and without cramps, therefore makes him look even more appealing.

The Strauss/Flower regime seems far less afraid of dropping under-performers than we have been accustomed to. Bell, Steve Harmison and Ryan Sidebottom were left out because they failed to do their jobs and there were viable alternatives available, which is as it should be. No-one wants to return to the 1980s/90s one-bad-match-and-out roundabout, but talking about competition for places if the incumbents always win is mere bluster.

So it was fascinating to see Monty Panesar’s reaction to being demoted to second spinner. The Monty who played in Trinidad was almost a new bowler, far more inclined to experiment than the old one and much the better for it. Graeme Swann’s experience and canniness made him the leading wicket-taker of the series; it may now have penetrated even Monty’s extra-terrestrial consciousness that just being able to spin the ball is not enough. Oh, and his wild appealing is no longer endearingly naïve but stupidly annoying.

Stuart Broad continues to progress and Amjad Khan made a shaky debut, but for me James Anderson was England’s player of the series. He is now a bowler of genuine quality, quite credible as the leader of an attack. His haul of nine wickets at 38 is not very impressive, but Fidel Edwards, his effective opposite number, managed to take his nine at a cost of 55 – figures which reflect the unforgiving pitches far better than the awkward hostility both men showed, but also demonstrate that Anderson has conquered his previous habit of having spells where he gets mercilessly collared. In English conditions where his talents for swinging the ball are usually more valuable, he could even be the key to unlock the display case containing the Ashes.

In Test cricket, being the better side means nothing unless you can close the deal by taking the wickets necessary for wins. England were slightly the better side in this series, but not by enough to compensate for an hour of madness at Sabina Park. Underdogs can still win series if they play well and catch their opponents off guard once or twice – a lesson which England may be able to take some comfort in while apprehensively watching the highlights of the series currently in progress in South Africa.

My recent post on left-hand opening batsmen received plenty of intelligent feedback. Someone posed the question about whether left or right-hand openers were statistically more successful and it got me thinking.

Before I embarked on a long and painful date with Statsguru, my initial gut instinct was that the lefthanders would have better numbers. Let’s see what the results show.

I picked recent opening batsmen from each country (excluding Bangladesh and Zimbabwe) and the minimum qualification was approximately 10 Tests. The selection of these batsmen relied upon my imperfect memory so please forgive me for any significant errors. I’ve stuck to just Test matches because I don’t have the resources to trawl through ODI history too.

I also concede that some of these batsmen did not spend their entire careers as openers so their final averages may not tell the full story about exactly how many runs they scored at the top of the order. Nonetheless, I’m sure it will give us some answers to the question.

AUSTRALIA (Average, home, away)
Matthew Hayden: 51, 58, 42
Phil Jacques: 47, 49, 44
Justin Langer: 45, 49, 42
Michael Slater: 43, 53, 35
*Simon Katich: 52, 48, 49
*(Katich’s averages since he opened the batting in 2008)

ENGLAND (Average, home, away)
Andrew Strauss: 44, 41, 48
Alastair Cook: 44, 47, 41
Marcus Trescothick: 44, 51, 36
Michael Vaughan: 41, 46, 37
Michael Atherton: 38, 39, 36

WEST INDIES (Average, home, away)
Chris Gayle: 40, 38, 42
Devon Smith: 25, 28, 19
Daren Ganga: 26, 33, 23
Wavell Hinds: 33, 38, 28
Sherwin Campbell: 32, 30, 35

SOUTH AFRICA (Average, home, away)
Graeme Smith: 50, 44, 56
Neil McKenzie: 38, 39, 38
Gary Kirsten: 45, 42, 48
Herschelle Gibbs: 42, 41, 43

INDIA (Average, home, away)
Virender Sehwag: 51, 51, 51
Gautam Gambhir: 49, 44, 63
Wasim Jaffer: 34, 38, 32
Navjot Sidhu: 42, 54, 34

NEW ZEALAND (Average, home, away)
Stephen Fleming: 40, 34, 46
Craig Cumming: 26, 25, 34
Mark Richardson: 45, 48, 43
Jamie How: 23, 24, 22
Lou Vincent: 34, 28, 43

SRI LANKA (Average, home, away)
Sanath Jayasuriya: 40, 44, 36
Upul Tharanga: 29, 14, 38
Michael Vandort: 37, 44, 30
Marvan Atapattu: 39, 39, 40
Malinda Warnapura: 45, 54, 39

PAKISTAN (Average, home, away)
Salman Butt: 29, 34, 25
Saeed Anwar: 46, 46, 45
Aamir Sohail: 35, 37, 34
Imran Nazir: 33, 46, 36
Taufeeq Umar: 39, 43, 45

The right-hand batsmen are listed in italics to differentiate them from their southpaw colleagues.

Just about every country, with the exception of India (Sehwag) and Sri Lanka (Atapattu) show us that left-hand batsmen do indeed average more than their right-hand counterparts in the last 10 years or so. Mind you, Sehwag and Atapattu don’t average much more than the next best left-hand batsman so the difference is hardly significant.

No surprises that most opening batsmen, left or right, tend to average more at home than away. Gambhir, Fleming, Vincent, Tharanga and Graeme Smith are players whose away averages are significantly better than their home records. Revealingly, just about every South African opener tends to average less on home pitches which may suggest that their country is a tough place to negotiate the new ball menace. This recent Cricinfo analysis by S Rajesh seems to bear that out.

The fact that there are proportionately more left-hand opening batsmen in the game tells its own story even though they are hugely outnumbered in sheer volume (ie: there are much fewer lefties in overall terms). Based on averages and total numbers, left-hand batsmen look more likely to succeed and therefore more likely to be selected to play more Tests. Survival of the fittest? Natural selection theory?

We’ve already dissected the reasons why we think lefties are more successful against the new ball. The most common theory put forward by our bloggers was that the majority of bowlers are right-arm trying to bowl outswing and this makes it easier for the lefties to work them through the leg side, especially with the lbw decisions being in their favour. It makes sense of course. How else can we explain why there seem to be so many left-hand openers and why they tend to average more than right-hand batsmen?

It will be fascinating to compare the averages of all batsmen, not just opening batsmen. Will that tell us a different story? Do right-handers come into their own in the middle order? If so, that might tell us that the new ball factor is a major reason why left-handers go so well at the top of the order.

Mind you, I haven’t got the patience to run those numbers past Statsguru. That’s an argument which will have to be left unanswered…..

Last night, as I watched the India-New Zealand one-day international, Simon O'Doull and Ravi Shastri broke the news of the attack on the Sri Lankan team. I checked the headlines to make sure I'd heard them correctly, looked for updates, and then, still stunned, posted a brief note on my blog, which ended, "What a tragic way to refute the stupidest argument ever made in favor of playing cricket in Pakistan: 'the terrorists won't attack cricketers'". I never found that argument convincing (an attitude implicit in my post last year on why the Australian team was justified in not touring Pakistan), and it clearly doesn't have much mileage now.

Besides attempting to read the minds of unhinged killers, that argument committed the singular fallacy of imagining the terrorists had some stake in winning the hearts and minds of the Pakistani populace. They don't. They were, and are, interested in destabilizing the Pakistani polity, damaging its economy, and showing the Pakistani state is incapable of protecting the lives of its citizens. Why anyone would imagine that a mere cricket team would get in the way of their fascist ideology is beyond me. These folks were killing hundreds of innocent Pakistani men, women and children every year. That wasn't alienating the Pakistani populace? These killers were going to somehow spare international cricketers because they thought that would affect their public relations profile? That somehow the attack on a cricket team was going to be more damaging for their public profile than the much-repeated shots of women and children grieving for their dead?

Imran Khan, who for all his cricketing genius, always struck me as a political and intellectual lightweight, was fond of making the "the militants won't attack the cricketers" claim. Imran had in mind the idea that the violence in Pakistan was part of some massive expression of post-9/11 anti-American sentiment. But far more perspicuous analysis, by Pervez Hoodbhoy the distinguished Pakistani physicist, after the Lal Masjid events of 2007, always suggested the designs of the terror groups were more straightforward and ideological: destroy the Pakistani state from within.

The idea that these killers are cricket fans who in their spare time fire off a few AK-47s was always ludicrous. Indeed, one could make a very convincing argument that given all the focus on the international cricket scene and its security hassles, the terrorists, who do not lack a certain kind of deadly single-minded nous, would step up their efforts to attack a cricket team to completely discredit the Pakistani government. That they have done. In doing so, besides killing innocents, they have set back international cricket in Pakistan by a very long way. I assure you: they do not give a damn what cricket fans think about them.

In all of this, let us not forget that somewhere in Pakistan the families of the slain policemen are grieving. That is the true tragedy of today. The Sri Lankans are safe; one should be grateful for small mercies. And the Pakistani team will find other venues to play in. But the toll in human lives in Pakistan exacted by this insane violence shows no sign of diminishing.