Dave Hawksworth
Warne still a master of spin
His mischievous ability to leave a trail of breadcrumbs for the media to follow has served him well since he retired from playing
Dave Hawksworth
14-Nov-2013
Just how transferable is the skill set of an international cricketer when they make the transition from their playing career to life in the commentary box? Sure, they have knowledge and experience of playing the game at the highest level, but the real art of commentary is the ability to connect with an audience, and it's debatable whether the media training offered to a cricketer during their playing days will fully prepare them for the demands of being at the other end of a microphone. There's a world of difference between flat-batting questions during a press conference and the ability to pad out a three- hour rain break with insights that stop the audience from channel-hopping, and anecdotes that entertain but don't get you dragged off air for breaching broadcasting regulations.
Even if you can manage that, there are plenty of ex-pros looking to work in the media. So if you want to be invited back, it helps to make an impression; to show a little personality. Perhaps that's why Shane Warne has made such a seamless transition into the commentary box. He was, after all, a cricketer whose playing career included an element of performance beyond just "executing his skills".
His bowling certainly did. The deliberate pause before each delivery, the relaxed determination of his run-up, the aggressive fielding settings, the stare, the occasional comment made to a batsman, expressed with just enough body language that it could be picked up by the crowd - Warne married talent to his force of personality. Unless the opposition were in complete control, when Warne was bowling he was the centre of attention, and for all his considerable skill, part of his success was down to making batsmen feel that they were playing his game rather than their own.
Full postBailey v Swann?
It just might be one of the contests to watch in the Australian summer
Dave Hawksworth
01-Nov-2013
When details of the current Australian ODI tour to India were first announced it was easy to understand why the series would have such appeal. India v Australia is always box office. Even during a rare tour when headlines have stayed predominantly on the back page, the on-field action between the two top-ranked one-day sides in the world has been more than enough to capture the imagination. Stadiums are full. Runs have flowed like a river. TV ratings are higher than Dhawan's Test average. And the BCCI and Cricket Australia administrators have been able to make whatever the equivalent of snow angels are when you're laying on a huge pile of money. For fans of limited- overs action, and those tasked with maintaining cricket's financial health, it has been a series to savour.
Exactly how helpful the timing of the tour is for Australian Ashes chances is more difficult to appreciate. Seven one-day internationals on unforgiving Indian pitches are a risk to the body and confidence of a bowler like Mitchell Johnson, who will need both in top order if he is to take his recent improved form into the first Test in Brisbane in three weeks' time. The 5'10" hustle of Bhuvneshwar Kumar is not exactly like-for-like preparation to face an English pace attack that arrived in Australia last week looking like an East European basketball team. And crucially, key members of the Test team, like Shane Watson, have missed a chance to get practice in home conditions during the opening round of Sheffield Shield games, which started on Wednesday. If Australia wants to "Return the Urn" it's far from ideal preparation.
But there are also benefits for Australian Ashes prospects that can be drawn from their current tour. Most notably the form of George Bailey, who has been so prolific with the bat as to perform the seemingly impossible task of out-Kohliing Kohli in India. It's form that doesn't so much knock on the door of the Australian Test selectors as kick it down, jump on their desk and aggressively twerk in the face of John Inverarity. And judging by Inverarity's recent comments, he's liked what he's seen.
Full postHow soon can India find a new No. 4?
It is important for the game that India remain competitive at Test cricket. Their ability to find a replacement for Tendulkar will go a long way to determine if they succeed
Dave Hawksworth
17-Oct-2013
It's a cliché to say that a player's worth to his team is only fully appreciated in his absence. A cliché that's not always true.
India don't have to wait until they take to the field against South Africa in December for them to understand the difficulties their Test team will face in the post-Tendulkar era. After 24 years, 200 matches, 51 centuries and countless comparisons to Bradman, India's selectors are perfectly aware of the 5ft 5in chasm he will leave in the heart of their Test batting.
There are reasons to believe a smooth transition could be made. Other members of India's recent golden generation of batting have been deemed irreplaceable, yet it was the younger players who took their place who built the foundation of runs for last year's 4-0 hammering of Australia. Of them, Virat Kohli's performances are starting to match expectations - press expectations if not quite his own. Cheteshwar Pujara has the temperament of a genuine Test match opener and a cover drive that could make angels weep. Whilst Shikhar Dhawan arrived in international cricket with a mountain of runs and a moustache that hints at an outrageous degree of self-confidence. Clearly India's production line of batting talent is still rolling.
Full postIllegal streaming sites aren't the problem
Cricket boards must realise that they can't tame the internet. They are better off trying to figure out how to engage cricket's young online audience
Dave Hawksworth
03-Oct-2013
I have a confession to make: I used to run a Twitter cricket parody account. Yes, I know, they are terrible. It's not something I'm proud of. Although in my defence, I was using it to mock the ECB, which is as close to doing god's work as you'll find on social media.
This was at the start of last year, when the English cricket authorities had just produced the Morgan Review, their latest attempt to reorganise domestic cricket by setting fire to common sense and dancing naked around the flames.
The undoubted "highlight" of the Morgan Review was a recommendation that England's domestic first-class tournament, the County Championship, would see the number of fixtures each team played reduced from 16 to 14. Exactly how counties could play the other eight sides in their division home and away for a total of 14 games was never convincingly explained - perhaps the superfluous fixtures would be removed in some kind of David Blaine television spectacular, or Stephen Hawking could change the fundamentals of mathematics so that 8 x 2 was no longer 16?
Full postThe Hoggy I knew
For all his achievements on the cricket field, it's Matthew Hoggard's character that leaves the lasting impression
Dave Hawksworth
20-Sep-2013
Whenever a sportsman retires it tends to be the same few career highlights that are mentioned to sum up the impact they made. The same handful of achievements mixed in with an occasional high-profile failure.
When Matthew Hoggard announced his retirement last week it was fairly obvious where media obituaries of his career would concentrate: the Test hat-trick in Bridgetown, his 12 for 205 in Johannesburg, that match-winning cover drive at Trent Bridge, and perhaps a mention of one of the most incisive contributions to political debate ever made by a sportsman: the time he called Tony Blair a knob.
Fair enough. That's a pretty good highlights package of Hoggard's career. But often when we remember a player it isn't just for the achievements that have captured back-page headlines. It can be a particular moment or a specific match away from the glare of publicity that sums up why we like them.
Full postDo fans really care about over rates?
Why isn't anyone making a din about the exorbitant price of tickets for international matches?
Dave Hawksworth
05-Sep-2013
Question: How long do you think the ball is in play during an average day's cricket? I doubt many of us have undertaken a formal time-and-motion study to work it out, so I'll have a go at a guesstimate.
For the sake of argument let's count the ball as being active from the moment the bowler starts his run-up to the point it either crosses the boundary or is back in the hands of the wicketkeeper or bowler. There can be a lot of variation in that - a dot ball from a spinner will be completed far quicker than an all-run three off a pace bowler with a long run-up - but after timing a few clips on Youtube I'll take a guess that on average the ball is in play for six or seven seconds per delivery.
Over the course of the 90 overs you get in a day of Test cricket that works out to about an hour of play. One hour of actual cricket, with the other five hours in the day filled with umpires handing the bowlers their sweaters back, captains moving long-on to mid-on, changing their minds, then moving them back again, and Jonathan Trott taking guard.
Full postThe year of Bell
Ashes 2013 will be defined by his delicate late cuts, precision drives, and by the sheer weight of runs he produced
Dave Hawksworth
22-Aug-2013
With the final Test at The Oval still to play itself out this might seem a bit premature, but I'm going to call it anyway: the 2013 Ashes has been no 2005. Okay, perhaps that's not a particularly big call to make. Because while the first match at Trent Bridge had a close finish, thanks to an Australian final-wicket stand reminiscent of the Edgbaston Test from eight years ago, and of course there have been other exciting passages of play and impressive individual performances, this just hasn't felt like a classic series.
That's partly because England winning the first two Tests pretty much guaranteed they would retain the urn before we had even reached the halfway point. But it has also been a difficult Ashes to define because there has been a lack of dominant players to define it for us. No Warne or Ponting to steamroll the English players into submission. No Botham or Flintoff to grab matches by the scruff of the neck and shake them until supporters tumble out of hospitality back into their seats. And precious few pyrotechnics from star players like Kevin Pietersen.
Instead much of the series has unfolded as we might have expected. Michael Clarke has led the way with the bat for Australia, but his 187 at Old Trafford aside, he hasn't been as fit as he was in England in 2009, when he managed to pull off heroics regularly. Chris Rogers has put in solid performances you would expect from a man with 15 years of experience and a first-class average of over 50.
Full postBring back host-country umpires
We need the best possible officials out in the middle; till then cricket will never get the best use out of the technology available
Dave Hawksworth
08-Aug-2013
Life as an international umpire used to be a lot easier. Turn up early in the morning, try to look interested at the toss, and don't give yourself indigestion by eating too many cakes during the tea break - simple. What's the worst that could happen? Sure, you could make an incorrect decision on the pitch, but at least you had the remainder of the session before you found out television commentators used an eighth slow-motion replay to prove you wrong, prompting effigy burning in India, or a British tabloid to devote their entire back page to a photoshopped image of you being led around by a guide dog.
Okay, perhaps it wasn't quite so easy back then.
But it was a damn sight better than the current situation. Because now we have the DRS. Technology designed to eliminate blatant umpiring mistakes that instead introduces a new layer of decision-making susceptible to human error. It's a system intended to help umpires minimise embarrassment, but one that actually drags out the process of proving them wrong. There you go mate, you just stand in the middle while we show the world and his wife your incompetence from every possible angle, then you can use that new signal to let everyone in the ground know you've messed up.
Full postWhat can Australia learn from English cricket?
Australians are worrying about the state of cricket in their country. We in England know the drill
Dave Hawksworth
25-Jul-2013
For England fans who suffered the many humiliations that were heaped upon their team during the 1990s there's an uncomfortable familiarity to be found in the current state of Australian cricket. It's not just the sight of supporters enduring defeats, dashed hopes and sleepless nights as they watch yet another batting collapse on the other side of the world; unhappy memories are also revived by the spectacle of a nation's media and cricket administration looping round to chew over the same systematic failures one more time.
For much of its recent history English cricket has endured its own multiple post-mortems, two decades or more of navel-gazing, finger-pointing, and knee-jerking. We see your Cricket Australia Argus Review and we raise you the ECB Schofield Report. We see your debates over grass-roots participation and we trump them with endless post-series self-flagellation. When it comes to worrying about the state of your national game, England has Australia beaten once again.
For English cricket, contemplating change is a never-ending process. Whatever success the national side might achieve, there will still be attempts to tweak the domestic structure just one more time. Even the potential for back-to-back Ashes series wins is unlikely to stop the annual collective supporter face-palm that occurs as yet another set of proposed changes emerges from the ECB.
Full postIs England's talent pool too small?
The ECB needs to find ways of taking the game to the grassroots, of making sure the game is taught in all schools
Dave Hawksworth
10-Jul-2013
I used to live with a woman who came from Nigeria. Nice girl. Smart. Funny. Tolerant of my quirks. But beyond a borderline obsession with Thierry Henry's thighs, not all that interested in sport. Although if being passive aggressive when someone touches your weave was an Olympic event, she could have represented England. And you know what? I'd have been damn proud of her if she did, just as family and friends of the cricketers born outside the country that are in the current England set-up must be proud of them.
They'll also need a thick skin to go with that pride, mind you, as fans and media, particularly during series where England are doing well, like to take any opportunity to dust off the same old tired jibes about "Team UN" and "South Africa B".
They're jibes that often ignore that many of these players have been in England since they were children. Jibes that ignore that we live in an increasingly globalised, increasingly mobile society. A world where notions of nationality can be more complex than in the past. A complexity that is hard to accurately reflect in sporting legislation without leaving sufficient ambiguity for debate to rage over the perceived line between legitimate qualification and opportunism.
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