Craig Kieswetter talks about falling out of love with cricket a little bit and eventually having to give it up

George Dobell22-Jun-2015″Not many people get ‘Jerusalem’ sung to them as they go to work,” says Craig Kieswetter wistfully. “I’ll miss that.”Kieswetter is coming to terms with life beyond cricket. At 26, an age where many are just starting their international careers, Kieswetter played his final first-class game, and has concluded that he will play no more. Not for country, county or club.It’s not that he cannot. It’s that he cannot to the level he once could. And once you have been to the top of the mountain, the view from base camp doesn’t appeal.It looked for a while as if Kieswetter had the world at his feet. Fast-tracked into the England side – he made his debut barely a week after qualifying and declined a late request from Graeme Smith to return to South Africa – he made 107 in his third international match, becoming the second youngest England player (after David Gower) to score an ODI century. Less than ten weeks later, he won the Man-of-the-Match award as England won the World T20 final. He was 22.The moment that changed Kieswetter’s life came in July last year. Struck by a delivery from David Willey that snuck between the grille and lid of his helmet – Kieswetter does not recall whether he top-edged the ball – he sustained a broken nose and fractured orbital socket. While he was able to make a comeback before the end of the season, it soon became apparent that his eyesight was not what it had been. It might have improved over time, but Kieswetter was never really the sort to eke out a career.”The day games were pretty much fine,” he says. “But then I went to play in South Africa, and as soon as I played under lights, I was in trouble. I couldn’t see the ball in the field. I couldn’t see the ball when I batted. The ball was coming down at 90 mph and I couldn’t see it.”He could, he reckons, have fashioned some sort of career. He could have developed into a county stalwart and played at Somerset – the club he hails as “brilliant” for their treatment of him during his crisis – until his mid-30s. But that was never his style.

“I couldn’t see the ball in the field. I couldn’t see the ball when I batted. The ball was coming down at 90 mph and I couldn’t see it”

“I know I can’t play at the level I want to,” Kieswetter explains. “I liked being a swashbuckling player. And I felt I had the talent to play for England. I don’t feel that way any more. I’m not the same player. I’m not as good as I want to be and I never can be.”This game has been my life since I was nine. It was all I wanted. But I wanted to play a certain way and I can’t do that now.”I can still play. I can still be okay. But when I came back at the end of last season, there was a lot of bravado and adrenaline involved. In the end I just thought, there are too many mediocre players in county cricket – and good luck to them – but I don’t want to be another one.”Confidence was a factor too. The man who excelled in the World T20 final of 2010 on a blisteringly fast wicket and against Shaun Tait at his quickest, admits – with some courage – that, with his eyesight impaired, he no longer feels comfortable against quick bowling.”I’m not going to lie to you,” he says. “Of course that’s an issue. Going through what I went through – such a gruesome injury – going through the operations and the pain and the uncertainty… I don’t want to go through that again. Of course that trauma is in the back of your mind, and of course it effects how you play.”The specialist tells me that the injury is muscular. And like most muscular injuries, you can work on it. It can improve. But my sight will never be what it was, and after everything that has happened, I’ve fallen out of love with the game just a bit.”I still love it. I still respect it. But they say that when you know, you know. And I know it’s time to move on. I’m not saying ‘never’. If my sight improves in a couple of years, I might come back. I’ll only be 30. It would be one hell of a story. But Somerset have always been good to me, and I wanted to give them a chance to sign other players. I know this is the right decision.”The high points of his career almost all came early. He talks of making his Somerset debut as an 18-year-old who was still at school, of winning his county cap, and only a few weeks after a career-changing innings for Lions (the day after he qualified for England, he made 81 against the full side to win immediate promotion to the senior squad), making his England debut, scoring that ODI century and winning the World T20 title in May 2010.”It was a surreal three weeks,” he says about the World T20 success. “Of all the England teams I played in over five years, that was the one that had the best spirit.”To be honest, I don’t remember it that clearly: we played golf, we went to the beach and we drank rum. Training tended to be optional. KP was at his best. So were Broad and Swann. But we were a proper team and everyone got on brilliantly.”It was all new to me. I was so innocent. I was just loving playing for England and didn’t even think about any of the stuff that comes with it.”It was not always that way. As England became more successful, so the tensions grew between those in the team. The trappings of success became more important and cliques started to grow.”Success changed people,” Kieswetter says. “It wasn’t just us competing against the opposition; there was a sense that some of us were competing against one another. By the time we were No. 1 in the world, it was a very different dressing room.”Cliques developed. There were jokes made in the dressing room if you had South African background. When we warmed up in training, we were split into sides: South Africans v English. There was lots of talk about it in the media and here we were making it worse. It created an unnecessary divide. A sense of them and us.The world at his feet: Kieswetter’s fifty in the World T20 final of 2010 took England to the title•AFP”The Test players were together so much that, when the limited-overs players turned up, it felt like you were on the outside. The Test guys hung out with each other, the limited-overs guys hung out. The spirit I experienced in those first few weeks was never there again.”While he talks about Somerset with nothing but affection and pride – “the Overton brothers could be phenomenal cricketers” he says at one stage – he describes his relationship with representing England as “love-hate”.”I have some proud memories and I have some frustrations. Sometimes I felt I was messed around a bit, but at other times I was frustrated with myself for failing to adapt to what was required of me.”I started out playing with freedom. I ended up caged. I guess if I was in the current set-up I would thrive, but I had a good record as an opener and they asked me to bat at No. 6. It’s tough, but I’m disappointed with the way I responded to it.”You are ridiculously well paid to deal with the stuff that is thrown at you. But being dropped is gut-wrenching. Really horrible. And dealing with the media is very, very difficult. To see your game picked apart on TV, to hear it criticised… it’s pretty hard to take.”I think I probably came across as aloof. It was just my way of dealing with things. It was a way of not letting yourself become upset or distracted. I sort of regret that, but it’s very hard to deal with that stuff.”And when I talk about cliques, sometimes the ECB made them. Players were exhausted and asking for time off, but would be told they couldn’t have a central contract if they dropped out of one format. They were terrified to miss a game in case it counted against them and they lost their place.”Just compare how Australia treat Ryan Harris: he’s wrapped in cotton wool, he’s kept fresh for the Ashes. While our players are forced to play all the time. It’s not hard to see why we have so few fast bowlers.

“Cliques developed. There were jokes made in the dressing room if you had South African background. When we warmed up in training, we were split into sides: South Africans v English”

“But I don’t regret it. I don’t regret committing myself to England rather than South Africa and I never have. There was the quota thing going on in South Africa and I had the option to play in England through my Scottish mother. I never regretted it.”He is generous in praise of his old friend Jos Buttler, but admits that their relationship was strained by the pressures of competing for the gloves with Somerset and England.”That did become tough. We were good friends and we pretty much grew up together. And it was nobody’s fault and nobody’s intention, but a wedge was driven between us.”He’s not in the least bit malicious. He’s not in the least bit vindictive. Far from it. We both understand that we were two guys competing for one role. It is nothing personal. He’s done brilliantly and I’m pleased for him. But we don’t talk much these days.”Kieswetter will continue to live in the UK. The family are involved in the alcohol industry and he has the security of knowing there is an opening in the business.But he hopes his experiences in cricket won’t be completely wasted. While a future in coaching does not appeal, he thinks he might have a role in the media, where his forthright views on county cricket – he calls the NatWest Blast “a complete shambles” – and England’s limited-overs cricket could be aired.”I’d think I could add something to the T20 commentary,” he says. “A lot of the people doing it never played T20 cricket. And sometimes they are so negative… I think I could bring a bit of entertainment to it.”I loved playing the T20 leagues around the world, and I can tell you our system is archaic. They are too many teams, too many games and too many players. The standard in the Big Bash is higher. It’s as close as I experienced to international cricket. County cricket can be brilliant. But it’s patchy.”I’d hope that all my experiences – the success, the failures, the good and the bad times – could help me provide a perspective that you don’t always hear. I hope I’ve still something to offer the game.”

The Delhi court’s decision to drop the charges against Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan has not only indicated that the case against the cricketers was weak but also that spot- and match-fixing cannot be punished under the Indian penal code

Suhrith Parthasarathy29-Jul-20155:45

Can the players challenge BCCI’s ban?

On 25 July, an additional sessions judge in Delhi discharged 42 individuals accused of having been involved in a systematic racket to bet on, and fix, cricket matches during the sixth edition of the IPL. The list of those acquitted included three cricketers who had participated in that season’s IPL: Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan. The trio has now been exonerated of all criminal charges levied against them, including those under the draconian Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, 1999 [MCOCA]. Their prospects of returning to cricket, while unclear, are certainly enhanced by the judgment.Even in 2013, when the Delhi Police first charged the three cricketers under the MCOCA, its intentions appeared extraordinary. The MCOCA is a special law enacted to counter the dangers of serious organised crime. To think that a cricketer, even one who might have taken money to throw matches, could be involved actively in a criminal syndicate that included, among others, notable underworld dons Dawood Ibrahim and Chota Shakeel, was fanciful, if not incongruous. But that, in substance, was the primary claim of the Delhi Police. Now, more than two years after these allegations surfaced, Judge Neena Bansal Krishna’s judgment has not only lifted the charges against the cricketers, but has also brought to light a void that prevents the Indian state from effectively punishing those guilty of match and spot fixing.In all, Judge Krishna’s ruling makes three telling points. First, even assuming the three cricketers were involved in spot-fixing, there was no evidence on show to establish their nexus with bookies and brutes, as was alleged. Second, the offence of spot fixing – and, for that matter, match fixing – is not specifically punishable under any Indian penal law. Third, it was impossible to conclude based on available evidence that the three cricketers had, in fact, taken money in exchange for performing any specific feat on the cricket field. Each of these findings is instructive.Though the allegations against the three cricketers are distinct on facts, a common thread runs through all of them: a woeful lack of corroborative testimony, which ultimately crippled the prosecution’s claims. In Chandila’s case, the state relied almost entirely on a confessional statement by an individual, Sunil Bhatia, who was purportedly a henchman with links to a number of gangsters involved in the business of fixing cricket matches.Bhatia had claimed Chandila had been gifted money with specific instructions to underperform, at least, on two separate occasions. Both these times, not only did Chandila fail to flounder to the satisfaction of the bookies, but he also returned the sums allegedly paid to him. According to Judge Krishna’s judgment, the prosecution had produced very little evidence to show that Chandila had actually received, and had later returned, these sums of money from the bookies. Their only proof was Bhatia’s statement, which, extraordinary as it was, was later retracted by him. What’s more, there was no evidence offered showing any direct link between Chandila and Dawood and Shakeel, the alleged masterminds of the criminal syndicate.Chavan’s case was based on similarly tenuous ground. The prosecution had claimed he had received INR 60 lakhs to perform poorly in a match involving his team, Rajasthan Royals, and Mumbai Indians on May 15, 2013. But, according to Judge Krishna, there was no direct evidence that was produced, to show that Chavan actually received this sum of money. Additionally, she ruled, the claims made by his team, the Rajasthan Royals, that they felt cheated by Chavan’s actions were incapable of being considered as any proof that he truly underperformed against Mumbai Indians. The entire case against Chavan, therefore, the court held, was conjectural, and completely unsupported by any corroboration.In the court’s opinion, the allegations against Sreesanth were also equally unfounded. The prosecution’s case against Sreesanth was built on a series of intercepted phone calls between the cricketer and an individual, P Jiju Janardhan, and between Janardhan and various alleged bookies. According to the police, Janardhan was a close friend of Sreesanth and had convinced him to accept money in return for conceding 14 runs in a specific over. But, the court held, none of the evidence that the prosecution had presented pointed towards Sreesanth’s guilt.The only fact that was even remotely incriminating, according to Judge Krishna, was a conversation between Janardhan and a bookie, Chandresh Patel. Here, Janardhan tells Patel: “[Sreesanth] is a little stubborn about this. He is playing after a long time and he is risking time … maine usko samjha diya [I’ve explained to him,] but he did not want to take risk.” This conversation, according to Judge Krishna, showed, if anything, that Sreesanth had refused to partake in any form of spot fixing. What’s more, none of the conversations between Janardhan and Sreesanth, according to the court, established any direct link between the pair and Dawood and Shakeel.The future remains uncertain for Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan with respect to their involvement in cricket•BCCIIn spite of these acquittals, the path back to active cricket for Chandila, Chavan and Sreesanth is far from assured. The bans imposed against the trio by the BCCI represent actions independent of criminal prosecution. They are sanctions that flow from the board’s own internal rules and regulations, including the IPL’s Anti-Corruption Code. Unlike criminal law, the standard of proof required to establish wrongdoing under these bylaws is far less onerous. The BCCI would not be required to show beyond all reasonable doubt that the cricketers had indulged in prohibited acts, but would merely have to prove that a preponderance of probabilities points towards such illegality.A reading of Judge Krishna’s judgment appears to suggest that even such minimal evidence, demonstrating any potential offence, might be absent in these cases. The cricketers, therefore, might be in a strong position to approach the BCCI with new petitions to have their bans overturned. Though the BCCI has stood by its original decision, its secretary Anurag Thakur has now confirmed that if a request is made by any of the three cricketers, the BCCI would be willing to consider his case afresh.Such a review would no doubt be conducted under the various internal rules and regulations that bind the board. The board, unlike the criminal court, would merely have to find that a preponderance of probabilities points towards a violation of its Anti Corruption Code. But any decision by the board upholding the life bans is unlikely to be final. Given that the Supreme Court, in January, confirmed that the decisions of the BCCI might be subject to the jurisdiction of the high courts under Article 226 of the Constitution, the cricketers could even conceivably challenge their bans as tantamount to a violation of their civil rights. However, any such process is unlikely to be swift.Though the Delhi court was unable to find any evidence that could have established beyond all reasonable doubt that these three cricketers indulged in spot fixing, the court also thought it necessary to point out that, in any event, it might have been difficult to sanction the trio under the criminal law. This is because both spot and match fixing are not specifically delineated as offences under any legislation. What’s more, according to Judge Krishna, such acts would also not fall within any other general offence, such as cheating, which required a specific transfer of property interests between the accused and the victim, in this case, the spectators. Therefore, it’s arguable that the Delhi police was entirely misplaced in its decision to charge these cricketers of any offence, given that their acts, even if proven, were simply not punishable under Indian penal law.The legalisation of sports betting is often recommended as a potential panacea to the menace of match fixing. The real problems, though, as the failed prosecution of these three cricketers shows us, is a reliance on the criminal law to punish cases of cheating in sport. Even if spot and match fixing were to be specifically criminalised, to burden an already flailing criminal justice system to solve a muddle that was created by cricket’s own maladministration appears to be imprudent.What cricket needs, on the contrary, is a more organised and accountable domestic regulation. Perhaps, the Lodha Committee’s recommendations, when they eventually arrive, will allow cricket the opportunity to clean its own house, and, in the process, to establish a stronger mechanism to counter instances not only of corruption and conflicts of interest, but also offences of match and spot fixing, which strike at the core of the sport’s integrity.

ESPNcricinfo staff02-Nov-2015… as Moeen Ali top-edged a slog sweep to Younis Khan at slip•Getty ImagesIt was another failure at the top of the order for Moeen, who has now scored 62 runs in five innings in the UAE•Getty ImagesAlastair Cook was England’s mainstay in the morning session•Getty ImagesHe added 71 for the second wicket with Ian Bell•Getty ImagesHowever, soon after lunch, Cook fell for 49 to Yasir Shah•Getty ImagesIt was the third time in three innings that Yasir had captured the England captain•Getty Images… and the second time that Cook had fallen to a close catcher on the leg side•Getty ImagesIt was the breakthrough that Pakistan needed to revive their spirits•Getty ImagesJoe Root then fell for 4 to a fine low catch by Sarfraz Ahmed•Getty ImagesRoot initially stood his ground but replays showed the catch was clean•Getty ImagesHowever, Bell endured, growing in confidence as his innings progressed•Getty Images… and James Taylor started well in his first Test since 2012•Getty ImagesBut, after tea, Yasir lured Bell out of his crease to be stumped for 40•Getty ImagesJonny Bairstow arrived at a key moment of England’s innings•Getty ImagesTaylor looked solid as England ground towards first-innings parity•Getty Images

The Porbunder All Rounder at the CCI in Mumbai is a throwback to old-school English-style clubs. But it’s not only about cricket

Firdose Moonda02-Nov-2015Just the description should be enough to put you off a gentlemen’s club. Then, when you consider that the establishment in question actually stands for what can essentially be categorised as elitism, it may drive you to campaign to turn the place into a public square so it can be redeemed. I know I do. And it’s why I am a little embarrassed when I have to admit that I find old-school English-style gentlemen’s clubs quite quaint. I could not escape the charms of Mumbai’s Cricket Club of India (CCI), though it did its best to convince me otherwise.It is a place that was born of racial discrimination, when the Maharaja of Patiala was aggrieved he could not sit with the Europeans at the Bombay Gymkhana and decided to build a place of his own. It has since evolved into a place of class difference. The CCI carries the weight of old money. You can see it in the clubhouse. Spiral staircases, thick columns, heavy curtaining, lots of wood. And then there are the people.All straight backs, swift strides and stiff suits: the mercury has no impact on the dress code. These people need to look the part and they do. They also have the unique ability to see through anyone who doesn’t. An unfamiliar face is not even met with a curious side-eye to try and see if there is the possibility of a stranger dropping in. All the members know each other without needing to look; maybe they communicate by the sound of their footfalls.They’re usually headed in the same direction – to one of the dining rooms, which looked inviting, but as a non-member, I was uninvited. The only one I really wanted to get inside was the Porbunder All Rounder, admittedly because of the name. My family traces its history back to Porbunder, in Gujarat, and I was intrigued that there would be a reference to the place in the middle of Mumbai.Restricted: the entrance to the Porbunder All Rounder•Firdose Moonda/ESPNcricinfoAt the first opportunity I got to ask someone about the name, I did. One of the senior administrative staff, a middle-aged lady, who said she wanted to be a journalist when she was younger but was told by her father it was “not a profession for women”, told me the Maharajah of Porbunder had been one of the many funders of the club, and so had had a room named after him. The All Rounder bit was just a random cricket reference.In fact, cricket can seem secondary to the club overall. There are stories of members complaining that when a match is on it prevents them from taking their walks. On some match days if play overflows past the scheduled time, the members line up at the boundary rope with their cane chairs, agitatedly waiting for play to end so they can set up for their bridge games.Even if they wanted to forget about cricket, they couldn’t. The club exists because of it and if the walls could talk, the only language they would speak is cricket. Every one of them tells a different story, with pictures of Indian teams of the 1930s, to a history of Don Bradman, to a photographic display of all ten wickets Anil Kumble took against Pakistan in 1999. Kumble himself is only in two of the pictures. When I see him, I’m going to ask him what he thinks of gentlemen’s clubs.

At 35 and in the form of his life with Gloucestershire, Michael Klinger hasn’t given up on the hope of playing for Australia

David Hopps18-Sep-2015Rarely has a player gone into a English domestic cup final bearing such a heavy responsibility as Michael Klinger, when he takes Gloucestershire to Lord’s on Saturday. Success brings with it high expectations and Klinger’s success in the Royal London One-Day Cup this season has been extraordinary: all-comers despatched with the broadest bat in the kingdom.In the West Country, many talk optimistically of a Gloucestershire revival, recalling the time around the turn of the century when they dominated English one-day cricket, sensing that Surrey can be conquered to bring their first limited-overs trophy since 2004.But it remains largely unproven whether Gloucestershire’s revival runs deep or whether they have been sustained largely by the exploits of one Australian batsman flowering late. A Lord’s final would not be the best time to have to answer it. Far better that Klinger, with 531 runs in the tournament to his credit – average 132.75, strike rate 92.50 – delivers one more time. Debate it later, preferably while holding a trophy, dripping with champagne.It was a gorgeous late summer afternoon at Nevil Road, where Klinger has been clunking the ball into the new flats behind the arm at regular intervals for much of the summer. To an Australian used to long boundaries, they must seem to have been built on the outfield. Gloucestershire’s players were in attendance for the pre-media day, grouped quietly as if they expected their marginal role. Most interviewers, this one included, predictably awaited a chat with an unassuming Australian whose reputation has never been higher.Michael Klinger has scored three centuries from seven games in the Royal London Cup•Getty ImagesKlinger has additional reasons to succeed, reasons that go beyond his captaincy of Gloucestershire, a county where his reputation has grown steadily in the past years, not just as a batsman but as a skilful, undemonstrative captain. No longer is he one of the least known overseas players on the circuit.He has never represented Australia, but his target is a place in their World T20 squad in India in March. He is 35. Australia do not make a habit of giving 35-year-olds debuts in the modern age. Especially 35-year-olds they have occasionally dismissed without a second thought.But he will not abandon hope while he is scoring so freely: the Sheffield Shield, the Big Bash League (where he was the leading run-maker last season), the Natwest t20 Blast and now the Royal London Cup. The runs keep coming and the statistics are beginning to overpower his date of birth.And Adam Voges, Australia’s third-oldest Test debutant since the war, made a hundred on Test debut in Dominica earlier this year, so even these days there are precedents for a late opportunity beyond the age of 35.Klinger (fourth from right): “There is no doubt that if I was scoring the runs at 25 that I have over the past four or five years then I would have played for Australia already”•Simon Cooper/PA Photos/Getty Images”There is no doubt that if I was scoring the runs at 25 that I have over the past four or five years then I would have played for Australia already,” Klinger said. “That’s my challenge now. In the past 18 months I have gone above and beyond that measure, so I have to keep doing that.”I think the last 18 months where I scored over 1000 runs in Shield cricket in Australia and did well in the Big Bash and then followed it up here in England has been my best prolonged period. It’s important to keep it going for one more game here and then the season back home in Australia. The next step is to hopefully play in the T20 World Cup.”It is tempting to propose that England has belatedly been the making of Klinger. After all, in his first seven seasons with Victoria, he made only two hundreds. He would have made his maiden hundred earlier, but Paul Reiffel, Victoria’s captain, declared when he was on 99 and asserted that it was a team game. It was another four years before he ticked that one off.This was rough justice, if justice at all, for a player who, at 15, had become the youngest to make a century in Victorian district cricket. He was preferred to Michael Clarke as captain of Australia Under-19, but Clarke has just retired from international cricket, a sated, feted Australian captain, whilst for Klinger the call has never come. The call that another Australia captain, Allan Border, said was virtually certain when he made a match-winning 80 on his one-day debut for Victoria, more years ago than he cares to remember.Leading South Australia to the 2010 Champions League semi-finals helped him develop his short-form batting•Getty ImagesHe prefers to remember two breakthroughs. The first came when he moved from Victoria to South Australia at 27, was given the chance to bat at No. 3 and open in one-dayers, and made three first-class centuries, one a double, in his first six weeks. Adelaide, a sociable country town where a side could stick together, also suited him.Easy runs on flat pitches, his detractors suggested, but one of them was at the Gabba, and it was more about him growing in maturity in response to the recognition that he was finally a senior player, assured of his place in the side, expected to deliver, not always giving way to those returning to the fold – be it David Hussey, Brad Hodge, Cameron White, Matthew Elliott.The second breakthrough – his short-form breakthrough – came when he took South Australia to the Champions League semi-final in South Africa in 2010. It is surely an indictment of cricket beyond the international game – or those who promoted it, or perhaps those who sought to undermine it – that this world club tournament failed to gain appeal, but it did good by Klinger. His assessment gives succour to the view that the abandonment of the Champions League is bad for cricket.”When I started to be successful in T20 cricket I captained Redbacks in the Champions League, we reached the semi, and ever since then I’ve been able to develop more of a short-form game and more of a 360-degree game,” Klinger said. “We made the semi-final as underdogs, which for us was excellent. That made me really want to get better and better. You could see how T20 was going.Klinger blossomed as a batsman once he moved from Victoria to South Australia in 2008•Getty Images”I think my late development is just taking experiences in all conditions and learning from them. I have played in India a bit and I have played pressure games in domestic finals in Australia as well. Experiencing those pressure situations helped my cricket. Over the last six or seven years in Australia I have been able to be consistent in all three formats, which is something I’m proud of.”Even with his run-scoring at its height, there have been disappointments on the way. Last year, he moved to Western Australia after South Australia intimated his Shield place could no longer be guaranteed: two months previously he had scored a double-hundred.He left hoping to gain a place in Australia’s World Cup side. They won it without him. He was never thought to be in the running. The call, at 35, may never come – a likelihood that with the World T20 on the horizon he refuses to accept.He came closest to an Australia call perhaps in 2009 when Marcus North was selected instead for a tour of South Africa because of his additional spin-bowling option and made a hundred on Test debut.But back to Lord’s – and the Royal London final against a Surrey side awash with the confidence of youth. What if Klinger fails? Richard Dawson, Gloucestershire’s coach, fields such a provocative question with good grace. He asserts that they would be capable of taking it in their stride – and he has examples too, such as the time when they chased down Worcestershire’s 264 for 8 in early August, Klinger an absentee, but the top four all making runs, to reach the quarter-finals.Team-mate Adam Voges’ (left) Australian debut at the age of 35 should serve as an inspiration to Klinger•Getty Images”We are good enough,” Dawson said. “That Worcestershire match was an interesting one. Michael gets the headlines as he should do, but people have also played around him and in the semi-final Hamish Marshall also took a lot of pressure off Michael by playing the innings he did.Klinger also had the equanimity to consider the possibility of failure. “I failed once along the way in this cup run, so it can happen that you fail, but I will be doing everything I can as an experienced player to perform. The stats will show I have had a good series but I missed three games when I hurt my hamstring and we won two of those.”The most notable of those performances – if not necessarily against the best attack he faced – was his unbeaten 137 in Gloucestershire’s semi-final win against Yorkshire at Headingley. It was a Yorkshire attack far removed from the one that has won the Championship for the second successive season, but Klinger’s 137 not out from 145 balls possessed a certainty that stilled home expectations from an early hour. It was made all the more remarkable because his long-haul flight from Australia after a brief flight home to Perth did not land until Friday night, 36 hours before the game.So what is the secret of getting over jetlag? “A lot of coffee on game day – it got me through,” he said. “That and staring at the ceiling.”As he stared into the dead of night, he would have wondered about the possibility of a Lord’s final, no doubt, as well as that elusive international cap. His brilliance made sure of the first, and, 20 years after he was first dubbed a star in waiting, he will not yet let go of the second. Surrey’s young side will face an old pro still full of drive and ambition.

Jalaj Saxena, who produced the joint second-best figures in the Ranji Trophy, hoped to carry Madhya Pradesh into the knockouts

Shashank Kishore09-Nov-2015Jalaj Saxena’s phone hasn’t stopped ringing. As he settled into his seat and turned his phone on, soon after Madhya Pradesh’s nine-wicket win over Railways in Gwalior, he realised his inbox had far more messages that he normally receives after a day’s play. First he mistook them for Diwali greetings, but realised that wasn’t the case after reading the first message. “A local journalist texted saying I had broken some sort of record,” Saxena told ESPNcricinfo. “I wasn’t sure what exactly, but as I scanned through, I slowly found out. It is a proud feeling to win a game, but all the more special because I could play a part in the win.”This wasn’t any ordinary performance. His incredible figures of 16 for 154 were the joint second-best figures in Ranji Trophy history. Only Anil Kumble, someone he has worked quite closely with during his time with Mumbai Indians, has better figures – 16 for 99 for Karnataka against Kerala at Thalaserry in 1994-95. He equaled the figures held by Pradeep Sunderam, who achieved the feat for Rajasthan against Vidarbha in 1985-86.To put things into perspective, it was Madhya Pradesh’s second successive victory to put themselves back in the running for a knockout berth, something that has eluded them since 2011-12. “It’s an incredible feeling to top the group at the moment, but there are still three games to go, so the message within the group is not to get too ahead of ourselves. We have the team to qualify though,” Saxena said. “What we have been harping on is to cash in on the key moments. We have done that in the last two games.”Saxena, who has picked up 26 wickets this season, said that success in recent times stemmed from better use of the crease and sticking to his strengths. “My stock delivery is the offspin,” Saxena said. “Sometimes, with so much of emphasis on the need to have different deliveries, you tend to get carried away. But the key is to stick to your strengths, that is what Daniel Vettori (coach of Royal Challengers Bangalore, who Saxena represents in the IPL) told me. I’ve also understood the importance of using the crease. But that’s not to say I don’t want to bring in subtle variations.”What do his chats with Vettori revolve around? “He’s a legend, you learn by watching him bowl,” Jalaj said. “I’m trying to get more control over my flight, because on good wickets, you will need to beat quality batters in the air. That is what I tried to do in this game against Railways, and it paid off.”Even before the talk wheels towards the pitches, Saxena is quick to credit the 22-yard strips. “Last two-three seasons, we have had to play on green wickets, where the ball just skidded on. You had to be lucky if you got one long spell,” he said. “This year, the pitches have been better from spinners’ point of view maybe because we started the season in October. The wickets I have bowled on so far have been on the drier side. There have been a couple of good batting wickets too.”It’s easy to get swayed by his record tally of wickets, but Saxena has been a handy batsman too. He is currently the second-highest run-getter for Madhya Pradesh after Aditya Shrivastava, with 391 runs in eight innings at an average of 55.85. “Maybe because of the IPL I am a better striker of the ball, but I have always tried to be aggressive,” Saxena said. “I have worked hard on it, because you need to contribute in all facets.”As part of his learning, Saxena goes back to analyse his bowling spells with Narendra Hirwani, the former India legspinner. “He has been a great influence, especially when the domestic season is on. He is a knowledge bank on spin bowling in general,” Saxena said. “Talking to him about my cricket makes me feel good about my bowling.”What about the aspiration to play for India then? “That is definitely there. When Naman Ojha got picked in the Indian squad for the third Test in Sri Lanka, it wasn’t just a message that domestic performances don’t go unnoticed, but also reinforced belief into everyone that we too can play for India. For now, I would be happy if we first qualify for the quarterfinals and then take it from there.”

A wrist injury put the Australian legspinner’s career and life in a tailspin. But now he’s slowly getting back on track

Tom Morris02-Dec-2015Do you remember James Muirhead? The fresh-faced wristspinner who fell off the scene faster than he burst on it two summers ago. Ring a bell?At the start of the 2013-14 Australian season, Muirhead was not deemed good enough to warrant a Big Bash contract. By the end of it, he was Australia’s first-choice wristspinner in limited-overs cricket.Nicknamed “Vegemite” for his rosy red cheeks, Muirhead has had a journey not yet a fraction complete. Already the uncertainties, tribulations and utter frustrations of being a professional cricketer have forced him to question the path that, in relative terms, he has only just begun.I must confess I share a close bond with Jimmy. I’ve kept wicket to him, batted with him many times, and trained alongside him. I’ve watched him grow from a supremely confident 3rd XI legspinner at Shane Warne’s old club, St Kilda, to an international cricketer who tumbled back down the ranks again.One week he was playing 3rd XI club cricket on the Ross Gregory Oval, the next, it seemed, he was dismissing Indian maestro Virat Kohli in a World T20 encounter in Dhaka.He’s only 22, but already his career reflects a game of snakes and ladders.Muirhead played the last of his five international T20s last March and, in the 18 months between then and now, his troubles have brewed internally and materialised externally in disturbing fashion. Watching from just 22 yards away, I’ve had front-row seats and at times it has not been pretty. The troubles first started in October 2014.

“I used to think I’d dominate no matter what. Now I know I have to work really hard to compete”James Muirhead

In February that year, an article was published on ESPNcricinfo, titled “The rapid rise of James Muirhead”. Even the man himself now concedes it would be fair to write a story that is the precise mirror image of the original. “I was at rock bottom earlier this year,” Muirhead said last week.”I went to South Africa with Australia and then to the World T20 in Bangladesh. It was an amazing experience. I sat next to Dale Steyn after a game in the change rooms and couldn’t even speak, I was in such awe.”I came home and played a Shield game against NSW at the SCG. That’s when my wrist that I rely on for spin began to ache.”Towards the end of last season, the zip and bounce that had been his forte deserted him. I’d watch in amazement as he would ask club captain Rob Quiney to remove him from the attack. “I’m struggling, bruz,” he’d say before trudging down to fine leg. Confidence shot, he was a shadow of his former self. This happened Saturday after Saturday and game after game for months.Throughout this period, fellow Victorian legspinner Fawad Ahmed was on his way to claiming a competition-high 48 wickets for the season, making it almost impossible for Muirhead to force his way back into the team – even if he did bowl well at club level.”I didn’t really tell anyone about my wrist until it got really bad. It wasn’t one incident, it just got progressively worse the more I bowled. I couldn’t hear the clicking sound in my hand when I let the ball go, so I knew something was wrong. When I bowl well, my wrist clicks and the ball fizzes out – this stopped happening,” he said.”Having no confidence really got to me and I struggled to get out of bed some mornings. I didn’t want to train and I have no doubt I was depressed. It was very difficult times. Everything just spiralled down.”In a short span of time Muirhead went from turning out for St Kilda’s 3rd XI to dismissing batsmen in the World T20•Associated PressCricket clubs can be ruthless places, especially successful ones like St Kilda Cricket Club. From 2000 to 2006, the Saints won five two-day 1st XI premierships and this win-at-all-costs mantra still exists today. Every individual gets analysed, people talk, nobody is spared critical judgement.Success is expected, both individually and collectively. Hardened professionals like Michael Beer, Graeme Rummans, Peter Handscomb, Quiney and Muirhead train alongside school teachers, carpenters and University students. So when Jimmy was struggling, it was natural that people would wonder why.”I couldn’t get the revolutions on the ball and I began to worry about what people were saying about me,” he said.”I’d never cared before, but for some reason now I did and it consumed me. It was as if everyone from the firsts to fourths were looking at me thinking I was shit. I didn’t want to train and I just wanted to quit.”I started to think I might have to find a job even though I knew I had three years left on my state contract. Mentally, I was in a shocking place and I now know I will never be lower than that again.”There was one summer evening where he refused to bowl in the nets – unheard of for someone of his standing. I later found out it was because he was terribly embarrassed. He was bowling a long hop every second ball and being belted out of the net. He’d go and retrieve the ball, put on a brave face, and the same thing would happen again. It must have been demoralising. There was nothing any of us could say that could make him feel better. Physically he was struggling with his wrist, but mentally, he had plummeted to an entirely new low.

“You can see he’s a real natural legspinner. There’s a lot of sidespin on the ball. He gets really big turn. I think that’s got everyone excited”Cameron White

Surgery was initially delayed in the hope that rest would be the cure. It didn’t, so in June 2015, Muirhead went under the knife. The recovery period was six to eight weeks, but in reality he is only just finding his old self again now.”I was in such a bad way mentally because of my bowling,” he said. “I couldn’t understand why one day I would be dipping and ripping the ball, and then a couple of months later I was in pain and was hardly spinning it. Surgery allowed me to refresh and almost start again in some ways.”But to paint a picture of eternal doom and gloom would be to dismiss the journey of fellow twirler Brad Hogg, or to a lesser extent Chris Rogers and Adam Voges. For cricket is a pursuit that often favours the stubborn over the skilful – a fact Muirhead, who has a Perth Scorchers and Cricket Victoria contract, is acutely aware of, following a harrowing 18 months. Like so many before him, he knows he possesses the raw skills. Yet at the elite level, pure talent is nowhere near enough.In many respects it has been his close bond with talismanic chinaman and eternal optimist Hogg that has allowed the western suburbs-raised Muirhead to gain perspective in times of despair.”I work very closely with Hoggy at the Scorchers now and he’s really kept me going through the bad times,” he said.”It doesn’t matter where he is or what time of the day it is, he answers my calls and he’s been exceptionally influential on my life. I actually spoke to him yesterday. He rang me to speak to me about my goals and to see how I was going. Without him I am not sure where I’d be.”I understand now it is not going to be easy. I used to think I’d dominate no matter what. Now I know I have to work really hard to compete.”The other person who he credits with helping halt his rapid slide is Cricket Victoria psychologist Tony Glynn.Glynn, who worked closely with Victoria’s cricketers after Phil Hughes’ tragic death last year, has been spending an hour per week with Muirhead for the past eight months – something the legspinner would have laughed off had he been offered psychological assistance three years ago.In an Ashes tour game in November 2013, Muirhead took the wickets of Alastair Cook (twice), Ian Bell and Kevin Pietersen•Getty Images”I would have said, ‘What are sports psychologists for? You don’t even need them. They are a waste of money’,” he conceded. “Now I realise, having experienced the highs and the bad lows, that they are crucial. Tony helps me develop routines, set goals and gives me another person to talk to.”Roger Federer, Adam Scott, Steve Smith, and all these elite athletes have deeply embedded routines. I never thought about it before, but now when I watched these guys play, I see their routine. I didn’t have one but now I do. It allows me to have a default setting for when I play if things go wrong.”When he’s at his pomp, Muirhead’s greatest asset is the wicked revolutions he imparts on the ball. Facing him in the nets, your audible signals are just as important as the visual cues. His legbreak fizzes through the air, the tiny rope on the seam rotating so viciously it creates enough friction to hear quite unmistakably. Probably the only thing more daunting than facing him is keeping to him on a tired wicket.”I’ve stood at slip in the three T20 games he’s played for Australia and you can just see he’s a real natural legspinner of the ball – there’s a lot of sidespin on the ball,” Cameron White said last year. “He gets really big turn. I think that’s got everyone excited, including the people he plays with.”Muirhead, who has played for three Big Bash franchises, does not see himself as the next Shane Warne, despite the early comparisons. He does not aspire to be Stuart MacGill or Yasir Shah, or anyone else, really. As his club and state team-mates will strongly attest, Jimmy just wants to be Jimmy and turn the ball as sharply as his rehabilitated wrist will allow. Last week he played for Victoria’s Futures League team against the ACT at his home ground, the Junction Oval, in a four-day game. Although his figures were modest (one wicket in the first innings), his control was back. “It was a flat deck and was relatively happy with how they came out,” he said. “I’m getting back to where I want to be.”Muirhead has been forced to wade through thick mud. Dirtied and demonised by the terrors in his own mind, he could have thrown in the towel, but he didn’t. If he makes it back to the apex of the cricketing mountain, he will undoubtedly be better for what he has endured. His list of scalps does not include names like Gayle, Pietersen, Duminy, Gibbs and Kohli for nothing.

Plus: most successive Tests since debut, and most 150-plus scores

Steven Lynch17-Nov-2015David Warner and Joe Burns had two partnerships of more than 150 at Brisbane. Has this ever happened before? asked Keith Lucas from England

David Warner and Joe Burns shared stands of 161 and 237 for Australia against New Zealand in Brisbane last week. It turns out that this is the first instance of two 150-plus stands by the openers in the same Test, and only the second time overall: for England against South Africa in Johannesburg in 1938-39, Paul Gibb (making his Test debut) and Eddie Paynter shared stands of 184 and 168 for the second wicket. Warner has now shared four successive century opening stands, another record – two in England with Chris Rogers, and these two with Burns at the Gabba. David Warner scored centuries in both innings against New Zealand in the recent Test. I think he has done it before as well. Who holds the record for doing it most often? asked Aakinchan Sharma from Finland

David Warner’s double against New Zealand in Brisbane – 163 in the first innings and 116 in the second – was actually the third time he had scored two centuries in the same Test. He also did against South Africa in Cape Town in 2013-14 (135 and 145) and India in Adelaide in 2014-15 (145 and 102). That gives him a share of the overall Test record: the only others to do it three times are Sunil Gavaskar (against West Indies in Port-of-Spain in 1970-71 and in Calcutta in 1978-79, and against Pakistan in Karachi earlier in 1978-79) and Ricky Ponting (all in 2005-06, against West Indies in Brisbane and against South Africa in Sydney and in Durban). Ten other batsmen have managed it twice. Warner’s Brisbane brace was the 80th time the feat had been achieved in Tests.Ishant Sharma took his 200th Test wicket a couple of months ago, in his 65th match. Was he the slowest to reach 200? asked Ray from India

Ishant Sharma did indeed take his 200th wicket (Angelo Mathews) in his 65th Test earlier this year, against Sri Lanka at the SSC in Colombo. Three players – all allrounders – took longer to reach 200 in terms of matches. Andrew Flintoff got there in his 69th match, and Garry Sobers in 80, while Jacques Kallis didn’t take his 200th wicket until his 102nd Test match. Ishant has the worst bowling average (36.51) of anyone at the end of the match in which they took their 200th wicket – next come the New Zealand pair of Daniel Vettori (34.74) and Chris Martin (34.69). Sobers took longest to reach 200 in terms of time – over 17 years from his debut in 1953-54. Next come Chris Cairns (around 13½ years) and Bhagwath Chandrasekhar (almost 13).There were only 694 runs scored in the recent Test at Mohali. Was this a record for a match in which all 40 wickets went down? asked Nair Ottappalam from India

India (201 and 200) beat South Africa (184 and 109) in the first Test in Mohali, a match aggregate of 694 runs. Rather surprisingly perhaps, there have been 24 Tests in which all 40 wickets fell for fewer runs, although most of these were long ago – only four were in the current century (most recently 693 runs in the match between West Indies and India in Kingston in June 2006). The lowest of all came way back in 1888, when Australia (116 and 60) beat England (53 and 62) on a rain-affected pitch at Lord’s in a match that produced a grand total of just 291 runs. Said Wisden: “There had been so much rain within a few hours of the start that it was impossible the ground should be in anything like condition for good cricket.” For the full list, click here.Jacques Kallis took his 200th Test in his 102nd match•AFPAB de Villiers played 98 successive Tests after his debut, but missed one recently. Who holds the record now? asked Kerrie Pillinger from South Africa

AB de Villiers, who made his Test debut against England in Port Elizabeth in 2004-05, had indeed played 98 successive Tests before he was rested from South Africa’s recent tour of Bangladesh. The previous record was 96, by Adam Gilchrist from his debut in 1999-2000, which remains the best for an entire career. But Gilchrist’s record – and that of de Villiers – is under serious threat: the Brisbane Test was Brendon McCullum’s 95th Test for New Zealand successively since his debut against South Africa in Hamilton in March 2004. For the full list of players with the most consecutive Tests (not just from debut), click here. Who holds the record for the most scores of 150 and above in Tests and ODIs? asked Davo Kissoondari from the West Indies

Sachin Tendulkar leads the way in Tests, which 20 separate innings of 150 or above during his 200 Test appearances. Brian Lara and Kumar Sangakkara made 19, and Don Bradman comes next with 18, from just 52 Tests. Both Bradman and Lara amassed 4066 runs in these innings (Sangakkara comes next, with 3997). Tendulkar also leads the way in one-day internationals, with five 150s; Chris Gayle and Sanath Jayasuriya made four. Aaron Finch, with 156 for Australia against England in Southampton in 2013, is the only man so far to reach 150 in T20Is.Send in your questions using our feedback form.

New Zealand coach Mike Hesson talks about his long association with Brendon McCullum, whose leadership helped New Zealand cricket grow

Melinda Farrell 19-Feb-2016Brendon McCullum walks into an indoor cricket centre in Otago. He is six years old and he has something to prove.He has tagged along with his brother, Nathan, and his father, Stuart, a respected wicketkeeper-batsman. They practice on the periphery of a match and catch the eye of one of the players, a slightly built 13-year-old. The teenager notices the two small boys and watches with interest. They are younger and smaller than everyone else but their competitive spirit sets them apart, particularly the little brother. He refuses to be intimidated by the size of those around him. He throws himself into everything he does, he clearly has talent, and he wants to win.The thoughtful teenager doesn’t realise as he looks on, but in years to come he will form a partnership with this boisterous little boy that will transform cricket in New Zealand and influence the game across the globe.The teenager’s name is Mike Hesson.

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Hesson is the Felix Unger to McCullum’s Oscar Madison. The neat, quiet, bespectacled band manager to the popular, swashbuckling, entertaining rock star. And he’s about to lose his frontman.He leans back and smiles as he remembers seeing the McCullum boys for the first time.”They just got stuck in,” Hesson recalls. “Regardless of who they were up against, they were highly competitive people, and Brendon, obviously, being the younger brother, was probably the epitome of that. You’re a younger brother, you’re always trying to prove yourself, and you’re competitive in everything you do.”Nine years after that indoor session, McCullum was again demanding the attention of Hesson, who was by then the director of coaching at Otago. The same traits that had singled him out as a small child were still evident. He was playing with others who were older and more experienced, and as a 15-year-old was being selected for Under-17 and U-19 sides.

“I’ve been lucky enough over the last 14 years to grow up from a 20-year-old quite brash person to hopefully what I am today, which is, I believe, a better person”Brendon McCullum

“He was sort of ahead of his time,” Hesson said. “He was playing with kids a lot older than him, so I always felt he had a bit of a point to prove. He was obviously good enough. I just loved the fact he got stuck in.”But the thing I always really liked about Brendon is the fact that he always played to win. He wasn’t the conservative Kiwi who would try not to lose first, and then, if there was a chance of winning, try to win.””His attitude was certainly ‘Let’s look at how we’re going to win this game from here’ rather than the other way around.”That mindset was a key factor when Hesson, New Zealand’s coach, made the difficult, and at the time controversial, decision to replace Ross Taylor as New Zealand captain. While McCullum had proved himself as a wicketkeeper-batsman, there were many who couldn’t see past the tattoos, the brashness, and what they perceived to be a certain recklessness. McCullum didn’t look or sound the way people expected a traditional New Zealand cricketer to look and sound. But Hesson, after watching him develop through the years, felt he was the player and the man to lead the team out of a culture he now describes as “consumed by losing”.”At the time you appoint a captain, you like to think that his performances will improve but not necessarily straightaway,” said Hesson. “But I guess you make change for a reason.”I felt the team was ready for Brendon’s style of leadership and he certainly grew into that role, and he brought a real change in mindset into the team. No longer are we consumed by losing. We’re actually looking at things differently.”It took others a little longer to come around, and McCullum still attracts criticism for the mode of his dismissals and what some perceive to be his inconsistency. Hesson points to the fact that McCullum has been unselfish in moving up and down the order, giving up keeping and taking on any role the team required him to fill.Not your everyday New Zealand cricketer•AFP”As a batsman, when you stop keeping and you bat higher up, you need to contribute in different ways,” Hesson said. “And he’s certainly found a tempo during a two-year period there where he was able to really maximise his skill. Prior to that he was shuffled around and asked to do many different jobs that he perhaps wasn’t best equipped to deal with.”He’s taken on every role the team has required. Whether that’s keeper-bat or whether that’s opening the batting, which in Test cricket I don’t think has ever really suited his game. I think where he is now is right for the way he plays and he can still dictate a game batting at five,” he said. “His record in Test cricket is outstanding. For a keeper-batsman it’s world class. For a No. 5 his average is world class. The stuff in between, maybe not so much.”I think whenever you have someone who puts themself out there and is not consumed by losing, a lot of people almost treat that as a threat and he can become an easy target. Throughout his career he has been a target of many because he’s capable of brilliance, and with that you do get dismissals that at the time look carefree, but I can assure you they’re not carefree.”When he came in and he was a keeper-bat he would stand out because he could turn a game quickly. There were times when he’d get out and people would think that was reckless, but he was always trying to win the game and was playing the way he felt gave him the best opportunity.”And I think over the past few years he’s actually changed a number of the other players in the group as well to think in a similar fashion, not a matter of playing like Brendon but actually starting to think that ‘Hey, we can not only compete with these guys, we can actually beat them.’ So, rather than look at a puzzle and ask, ‘How can we not lose this?’ we’re actually turning it 180 degrees around and asking, ‘How can we actually win this game?’ And that is a major mind shift.”Hesson believes McCullum truly came of age as a captain during the first Test against India at Eden Park in 2014. New Zealand had lost three wickets for only 30 runs when McCullum joined Kane Williamson at the crease. Their 221-run partnership and McCullum’s innings of 224 were instrumental in the eventual victory.

“He wasn’t the conservative Kiwi who would try not to lose first, and then, if there was a chance of winning, try to win”Mike Hesson

“He came out and first of all sucked up all the pressure and then counterattacked in the way we know he can. The sign of a leader is not just about your actions around the group. It’s whether you’re able to step up on the park when you are in trouble, and I think in Test cricket that was probably the catalyst for him and he went on to make three scores over 200 that year. “The next one was, of course, the famous triple-century at the Basin Reserve. The memories of that innings were thick in the Wellington air last week during the first Test against Australia, making McCullum’s dismissal in the second innings difficult to stomach.”Everyone believed it was possible and that’s the beauty of the group,” Hesson said. “We’ve been in far worse positions than we were heading into day four before and we’ve managed to find a way to get out of it and Brendon, Kane [Williamson] and BJ [Watling] have been part of it. When Brendon got out in the last over of day three it was really upsetting because he’d done it before and I think we all believed he was capable of doing it again.”Whether or not Hagley Oval provides the setting for one last innings of derring-do, it seems fitting that McCullum’s international career will end here, with him wearing the “rancid” cap he has carried for 14 years.Plenty of eyebrows were raised when one of the world’s most explosive T20 batsmen announced he would retire just before his country’s campaign to win a World T20 – and Hesson admits he would dearly like McCullum to be there – but in light of the romance of some of those feted matches, it shouldn’t be surprising that McCullum has chosen the Test arena for his final appearance.”It’s nice to be able to go out in the purest form of the game, a game that means so much to cricketers who’ve played for New Zealand over decades,” said McCullum on the eve of his final match. “And to be able to do it in your home town, there’s an element of romance there as well and it’ll be nice. Hopefully we can get the result we want as well and go down to the local pub and have a few beers afterwards.”It is encouraging for New Zealand that Hesson, along with team manager Mike Sandle, will provide some continuity in the environment that has allowed McCullum to develop and thrive.Hesson on McCullum’s 224: “He came out and first of all sucked up all the pressure and then counterattacked”•Getty Images”[Mike Hesson] has been instrumental in the turnaround of this team,” said McCullum. “And Mike Sandle as well, who probably doesn’t get as many accolades as he should. Those two guys have reinvigorated cricket in New Zealand. They’ve allowed us to go out there and just focus on playing cricket and getting good structures and processes in and around the team.”I think their greatest tribute, not just in terms of their organisation, is the freedom that they give guys to go out and just try and push the envelope of their skills sets and try and reach the abilities each player has when they started growing up. Those guys have been phenomenal and the great aspect is they’ll be around for a while longer as well, and allow the next group of leaders to come in and have good solid support around them as they try and take this team to the next level, which I’m confident they will be able to do.”Hesson agrees that the next group of leaders is ready to step into the void left by McCullum but he admits he will miss the stability and equilibrium that the captain brings to the environment.”Every day he’s incredibly positive about where to from here,” said Hesson. “He’s very consistent in how he operates. Whether he’s got a hundred off fifty balls or he’s missed out, you won’t know the next day. He’ll turn up, he’ll train just as hard as he has previously and he’ll expect that of everyone else around him.”His influence over the past few years, in particular in New Zealand but also in other parts of the world too – it’s the smile on the face, the get stuck in attitude. The positive approach to the game in terms of doing things differently and trying to find a different way. His innovation.”McCullum has often expressed a view that international cricketers are merely “custodians” of the game and should leave the sport in a better place than it was when they found it. But it is perhaps a two-way street. Cricket has left its mark.”I’ve been lucky enough over the last 14 years to grow up from a 20-year-old quite brash person to hopefully what I am today,” said McCullum. “Which is, I believe, a better person. Everyone within the group, they would say the same thing about themselves as well.””You look at all the kids around in New Zealand now playing the game,” said Hesson. “And so many of them have been influenced in some way by Brendon. He’s had a huge influence on the game in this country.”

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It is a glaring, hot afternoon in Christchurch. The infectious noise of raucous laughter filters across Hagley Oval as the New Zealand players and staff play the game of kickabout – they call it spot – that precedes any training session.It’s just like the start of any New Zealand training session. McCullum – still smaller in stature than most of the others – is an irresistible presence. The tattoos spill out from under a T-shirt that seems to struggle to contain powerful arms. The cap is worn backwards, the sunglasses scream “cool”. He has a smile on his face. He is getting stuck in. He no longer has anything to prove but he still wants to win. This one, last time.Hesson is there, too, his slight frame almost dwarfed by a long-sleeved shirt that’s topped by a traditional white cricket vest. He wears his cap the right way around. The band manager and the rock star.It’s just like the start of any New Zealand training session but it’s also nothing like those that have gone before.The next time they train, the rock star won’t be there.You sense the void left behind will be huge.

Sri Lanka Under-19 captain Charith Asalanka has risen through the ranks of Sri Lanka’s school cricket system by the sheer weight of his performances and is fitting in well into his role in the side

Vishal Dikshit in Sylhet30-Jan-2016Afghanistan Under-19s chinaman bowler Zahir Khan had just taken two wickets in the 27th over to put Sri Lanka Under-19s on a precarious 96 for 5. Sri Lanka had lost five wickets for 48 runs and, with Afghanistan looking to run through the remaining wickets, Charith Asalanka took strike against legspinner Rashid Khan, the only player in the ongoing World Cup with international experience.Asalanka, the Sri Lanka captain, blocked the first ball of the over and then unleashed three fours – a back-foot cut, a delicate leg glance behind square and a cover drive that pierced the off-side field.”I don’t know about him (Rashid Khan),” Asalanka told ESPNcricinfo with an innocent laugh holding his Man-of-the-Match award for his all-round show. “I still didn’t know he’s an international cricketer, only you told me. But I just played the ball. Whoever bowled it, international cricketer or whoever, I just played the ball.”Asalanka, who top-scored with 71 and struck twice with his offspin in six overs, has risen through the ranks of the Sri Lankan school cricket system with a load of runs and wickets to his name. He was named the Schoolboy Cricketer of the Year and won the national award for the best allrounder last year while representing Richmond College from Galle, which does not have a long history of producing international players. An aggressive left-handed batsman, he scored 780 runs with the help of three hundreds and four fifties in the 12 matches of the previous school cricket season and missed four matches due to the Under-19 tours. In the 2014-15 season, while playing for Galle Cricket Club, he broke a 30-year-old record becoming the youngest player to score a first-class century in Sri Lanka, at the age of 17.Asalanka bats at No. 4 and is a punchy strokeplayer when he gets into the attack mode. On a day when the Afghanistan spinners could have toppled a strong Sri Lankan top order, Asalanka counter-attacked with several boundaries even though wickets fell around him. He took 10 balls to get off the mark and then targeted an in-form Zahir with a six to the midwicket boundary and two consecutive fours in his next over.”I am the captain so I have to play a major role in the team,” Asalanka said. “So I think when we lost quick wickets, I had to change my game and play a different game. When we are in a good position and have lost only one or two wickets then I can play my natural game. When we lose quick wickets, I change my game and play a different game for the team.”Leg side or off side, back foot or front foot, Asalanka took flicks, pulls, cuts and drives out of his bag whenever a loose delivery was offered to haul the team score towards 200. “I think I have an all-round game, I like to play on the off side, it’s my favourite area. When they bowled on the leg side, then I played on leg side.”When Sri Lanka’s turn came to defend the total, Asalanka chipped in with two wickets too to remove wicketkeeper-batsman Ikram Faizi and allrounder Muslim Musa and turn the match in his team’s favour. From 66 for 2, Afghanistan were 74 for 4. It was not considerable turn that got Asalanka the wickets. He bowled flattish deliveries not too far from the off stump to offer hardly any room and both batsmen gave away catches to fielders in the 30-yard circle. Asalanka finished with figures of 6-1-18-2.”From the beginning, I’ve been an allrounder. When I come to the 50-over game I like to bowl flat and be more economical. When I play three-day or first-class matches, I like to give flight.”With two straight fifties and Man-of-the-Match awards, Asalanka has marshalled his team to the quarter-finals with a game in hand against Pakistan. He is already the fourth-highest run-scorer in the tournament, was second on the charts in a recent tri-series involving India and England in Colombo, and if he can curb his instinct to hole out against spinners after building on strong starts, Sri Lanka’s opponents will have to come up with solid plans to cap this force. Does it have something to do with who his favourite player is?”My parents want me to become like Sangakkara. And my favourite player is Sanath Jayasuriya.”