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Real Madrid players were compensated fairly as a reward of a gruelling season and for reaching the semi-finals of the Club World Cup.

Madrid earned a lot of revenue through CWCPlayers' efforts recognised by clubBonuses star players earned revealedFollow GOAL on WhatsApp! 🟢📱WHAT HAPPENED?

According to the Madrid stars were each given a hefty bonus as a show of appreciation from the Spanish giants, despite failing to achieve their goal of winning the summer competition in the United States.

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Madrid reached the semi-finals of the Club World Cup, where new head coach Xabi Alonso was handed a brutal reality check by Champions League winners Paris Saint-Germain. Les Parisiens humbled Los Blancos by slotting four past Thibaut Courtois without a goal in reply.

But, it wasn't all bad for Madrid, especially considering the financial point of view. Indeed, the 15-time Champions League winners earned over €80 million (£69m/$93m) in revenue thanks to their progress to the last-four. The club handed a stunning €280,000 bonus to every first-team player: €50,000 for progressing through the group stage, €80,000 for winning round of 16, and €150,000 for reaching the semi-finals. The team captains decided the bonus amount, the report further added.

DID YOU KNOW?

The bonus amount was the club's way of showing appreciation and acknowledging the players for giving their all during a gruelling season. The Merengues played 68 official games across all competitions, and competed for seven titles: La Liga, Champions League, Copa del Rey, the UEFA Super Cup, Supercopa de Espana, FIFA Intercontinental Cup and the Club World Cup.

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Getty Images SportWHAT NEXT FOR REAL MADRID?

Alonso and his staff will have their task cut out for themselves ahead of the 2025-26 season. The squad will begin their pre-season training on August 4, just 15 days before they kick-off the new campaign in a La Liga opener against Osasuna.

Incident on family game reserve comes years after a crocodile was found under his bed

ESPNcricinfo staff25-Apr-2024Guy Whittall, the former Zimbabwe allrounder, has undergone emergency surgery in Harare after being mauled by a leopard while on a hunting expedition.The incident, which occurred earlier this week, comes several years after Whittall survived another brush with the local wildlife, when an eight-foot crocodile was found to have been under his bed while he slept.Whittall, who played 46 Tests and 147 ODIs for Zimbabwe between 1993 and 2003, now runs a safari business with his family in Humani, in the South East of the country, where it is understood he was tracking a leopard that had previously been wounded by a client.His wife, Hannah Stooks-Whittall, confirmed the incident in a Facebook post, accompanied by graphic pictures of Whittall being treated in the bush after sustaining cuts to his arms and legs, as well as a 5-inch gash to his head.A later picture showed Whittall in hospital with his head heavily bandaged, but giving a thumbs-up to the camera. He lost “a lot of blood” in the attack, Hannah added, but his injuries might have been even more severe had it not been for his “faithful K9″, Chikara, who helped to wrestle the leopard off him.”Chikara [is] coming up tomorrow to the vet after being mauled by the leopard and getting the cat off Guy!” she wrote. “Very special boy.Look what’s under the bed: Guy Whittall had an unexpected guest in 2013•Twitter/Guy Whittall”Guy and I are overwhelmed by the hundreds of messages of well-wishers after Guy’s run in with a wounded leopard earlier today,” she added. “We are very fortunate that he was stabilized at Hippo Clinic by wonderful staff. He was then Airlifted from Buffalo Range by Ace Ambulance to Harare, then transferred to Milton Park Hospital for treatment.”Whittall’s post-cricket career hit the headlines again in 2013 after he discovered an eight-foot, 165kg Nile crocodile had made its way from the nearby Turgwe river into his bedroom at the game reserve and spent the night there.Speaking at the time, Whittall recalled how he had dangled his feet over the side of the bed before leaving the room, and had only been alerted to the intruder by the terrified screams of the housemaid.”He really is one lucky man,” Hannah told MailOnline. “First he had the crocodile and now the leopard, he really is the cat with nine lives.”

The Pollocks happened to be excellent cricketers. One of them was rather more than that

Simon Kuper06-Mar-2006

© WCM
When I close my eyes and think back to the Wanderers, Transvaal are batting and I am queuing for an ice cream behind the stand. The man in front of me, a little bearded white guy, is throwing a temper tantrum at the black ice-cream seller, whom he accuses of being slow. “You’re so stupid,” the bearded man shouts, with dirty words thrown in. “You should not have this job. Quickly give me change.” He enunciates every syllable, the way some white South Africans do. Even as a 10-year-old I can see he is expressing frustrations that come from somewhere else. The black man is silently getting the ice-cream and the change because he is not allowed to say anything back. As a child I am not either. Today I wonder where those two men are now.In those days – the late 1970s and early 1980s – we used tostay with my grandparents in northern Johannesburg during the Christmas holidays. We were refugees from frozen Europe. At home in Holland the week before I would have cycled through the darkness into the west wind to school. In Johannesburg I would toddle off in mid-morning with my green scorebook for a day at the Wanderers. It was only 15 minutes’ walk around the corner and I often went by myself.Inside the ground everyone is white except for one small stand full of blacks. It is the holidays and the crowd is happy. When a pretty girl walks down our terrace towards the exit, the stand accompanies her with a concert of wolf-whistles. The Transvaal has some of the world’s best players, men like Clive Rice, Jimmy Cook and, of course, Graeme Pollock. Life is good in South Africa.Pollock is at the crease. People put down their newspapers when he is batting. He is already a legend, his future behind him: he played his last Test match for South Africa as a 26-year-old in 1970, after which the country was banned from international cricket because of apartheid. His Test average of 60.97 is the highest in history after Don Bradman’s. Though the man I am watching still hopes to play Test cricket again, he never will. We at the Wanderers are among the select few who will ever see him bat.Most white South Africans I meet consider this an outrage. Among them cricket is a daily topic of conversation, not the private perversion I feel it is in England and Holland. Even my aunts offer regular updates on the score at the Wanderers.

‘Pollock could thump the ball through the covers all day. Sometimes he does. It is not just that he is a genius’ © The Cricketer
The wicket is baked and fast. The bowler – perhaps it is Robin Jackman of Rhodesia – drops the ball just short. When Pollock is batting, you get a wonderful sense of where the ball is landing, because he is already in position waiting for it. Watching him taught me that the difference between the great athletes and the rest of us is the time they have. This is true of Wayne Rooney in football or Jason Kidd in basketball: they see everything early. The only batsman I ever saw who picked up the ball as quickly as Pollock was David Gower. I remember Gower once shaping to play a backward defensive against Malcolm Marshall, and then, hearing the cry of no-ball, trying to hook him.But Pollock’s technique is better than Gower’s. When the South African cover drives he does not flap at the ball while falling away. He stands up almost to his full regal height, lifts his bat straight back and thumps the short ball through the covers. The only batsman I have seen hit the ball as hard at the Wanderers is tiny Alvin Kallicharran, opening for Orange Free State, who proves that it is all about timing.Pollock could thump the ball through the covers all day. Sometimes he does. It is not just that he is a genius. Unlike the sportsmen I revere in Europe, he is also an ordinary bloke. As far as I can understand, he has a regular office job in Johannesburg. Cricket is his hobby. It is the same for most of his team-mates: they are part of normal white daily life. Cook is my second cousin’s schoolteacher. Ali Bacher is the husband of one of my distant cousins. Xenophon Balaskas, a Springbok of the 1930s and possibly the best Greek cricketer ever, is a pal of my grandfather who gives me some nets at his house. Pollock’s old team-mateBarry Richards shows up as coach of one of our local cricket clubs in Holland. He umpires a kids’ match in which I take two slip catches and score seven runs, my team’s highest score. Richards says something nice about me. My father invites him round to dinner as a fellow South African. Richards comes round that same evening but by then I have caught chickenpox and cannot go downstairs.Unlike Richards, Pollock never turns pro in England. He, therefore, never falls out of love with cricket. He seems content to play out a largely unwitnessed career. He does not say much about apartheid but, according to my more liberal relatives, he is known to disapprove of it. Recently he told this magazine: “We could have made a bigger noise about apartheid at the time – I think that’s a genuine criticism. In hindsight perhaps we should have done more.”There was a simplicity to the man: to his haircuts, to his batting and to the things he thought and said. It was appropriate that he and his brother Peter and his nephew Shaun and his sons Anthony and Andrew, who both played for a while, had such ordinary names. The Pollocks were not stars. They just happened to be excellent cricketers and one of them was rather more than that.

Dileep Premachandran on Mahela Jayawardene’s Sabina Park epic

Dileep Premachandran in Jamaica25-Apr-2007It takes a lot to impress them here at Sabina Park. Many of the locals who came through the turnstiles were weaned on some of the game’s all-time greats. Some were here in 1983, when Viv Richards hit a violent 36-ball 61 to transform a dying Test into an improbable triumph, and those whose memories stretch back further can recall the silken strokeplay of Lawrence Rowe. So when they started purring towards the end of Mahela Jayawardene’s innings, you knew you were watching something special.At the lunch break, the word most used to illustrate his unbeaten 115 was “sweet”, but those who uttered it didn’t use it as you would to describe a tasty-but-insubstantial dessert. They were marvelling at his range of strokes, the impeccable timing, and an ability to find the gaps that is the preserve of the truly exceptional.A cursory look at Jayawardene’s one-day figures suggests an underachiever, and he would be the first to admit that translating immense talent into innings that matter hasn’t always been easy. It perhaps didn’t help that he was always marked out for greatness, or that people back home saw him as the successor to Aravinda de Silva, the shotmaker extraordinaire and heroof the 1996 triumph.Too often a pretty cameo would be cut short by a lackadaisical stroke and the nadir was reached at the last World Cup, when his seven visits to the crease fetched him just 21 runs. His dismissal, caught behind off Brad Hogg, encapsulated Sri Lanka’s limp surrender in that Port Elizabeth semi-final and you could scarcely blame him for a jittery start when he arrived atthe crease on Tuesday morning.Related

The Murali and Mahela show

Jayawardene-inspired Sri Lanka seal a spot in the final

“We were anxious and nervous,” he said later. “Till I faced my first ball, it was hard to get the butterflies out of the stomach.” The difference this time was that he went into the game with 414 runs to his name and three innings that had showcased a special talent.As he had against West Indies in Guyana, he started extremely cautiously, weighing up the opposition bowling, sussing out the pitch and doing little more than tap the odd ball into the gap. At Sabina Park, as he had at Providence, he scored only 22 off the first 50 balls he faced. This though was a World Cup semi-final, and there was no Sanath Jayasuriya at the other end to tear the bowlers apart while he played himself in.Chamara Silva and Tillakaratne Dilshan helped create some mid-innings momentum, but it was clear that Jayawardene would have to apply the finishing touches. And even though Stephen Fleming brought Shane Bond back into the attack with a view to a quick kill, it was the Sri Lankan batsmen who suddenly started to float like butterflies and sting like bees.In a manner befitting the local legend Rowe – “There was no shot that I couldn’t play” – Jayawardene shed his inhibitions and unveiled a stunning repertoire of strokes. A precise straight loft and a disdainful mow over midwicket had the crowd in raptures, but it was the delicate touches, the tickle to fine leg and the twirl of the wrist that sent the ball speeding to third man, that made him look a class apart from every other batsman in the game. A sweep was played with such precision that the fielders running from deep square leg and fine leg nearly collided, and other shots dragged the fielders all the way to the rope before mocking them by crossing it.

A sweep was played with such precision that the fielders running from deep square leg and fine leg nearly collided, and other shots dragged the fielders all the way to the rope before mocking

It was the sort of innings that defines a career. “I’d probably put this right at the top,” he said. “This was a World Cup semi-final.” In truth, it’s hard to see how he could have played it a couple of years ago. At the press conference, Jayawardene talked of how he had benefited from the responsibilities of captaincy, and a coach who combined an amiable exterior with a tough-love approach. “Tom [Moody] has definitely pushed me to the limits,” he said. “He’s not happy when I’m cruising.” It’s a measure of the man’s humility – and that applies to most of his team-mates as well – that he took chastisement in the right spirit instead of spitting the dummy like other cricketers from the subcontinent.We all know where they ended up. As for Sri Lanka, they are where they always wanted to be. “This was a big hurdle for us to jump, but we’re there now,” Jayawardene said. “We’ve been preparing for that day for some time.” The identity of the opposition doesn’t bother him much. Regardless of whether it’s Australia, the deserving candidates, or South Africa, the back-door entrants, Sri Lanka will have to deal with a fast and bouncy Barbados pitch.The captain, who led with such imagination in the field, isn’t intimidated. “To win the World Cup, you have to beat the best,” he said simply. It helps to have gnarled old hands on board, hands that have previously touched the game’s greatest prize. And though only Muttiah Muralitharan, Jayasuriya and Chaminda Vaas remain from that celebrated bunch, Jayawardene was in no doubt as to how much his crew owed to Arjuna Ranatunga’s world-beaters.”The ’96 guys changed the face of Sri Lankan cricket completely,” he said. “They paved the way for us. Those guys went through a lot of hardships, and we’re reaping the rewards for that.” The biggest harvest awaits on Saturday.

The regular Monday column in which Steven Lynch answers your questions about (almost) any aspect of cricket

Steven Lynch11-Jun-2007The regular Monday column in which Steven Lynch answers your questions about (almost) any aspect of cricket:

David Foot’s book on cricket’s ‘tormented genius’ © Cricinfo Ltd
There have been an awful lot of extras in the current Test against West Indies at Old Trafford. What’s the record for one Test innings? asked Gerry Bowden from Bristol
The record for a single Test innings is 71, conceded by West Indies against Pakistan at Georgetown in 1987-88. Second on that list is 68, again conceded by West Indies against Pakistan, this time at Bridgetown in 1976-77, in a match which produced the record number of extras in total in a Test – 173 (the Old Trafford narrowly failed to beat this, with 167). For the full list of all the instances of 50 or more extras in a Test innings, click here.Who has scored the most runs in Tests between India and Pakistan? asked Amitabh Bhatt from Hyderabad
Leading the way here is Javed Miandad, with 2228 runs in 28 Tests against India, at an average of 67.52. In second place, and the only other over 2000, is Sunil Gavaskar, with 2089 at 56.46 in 24 matches. Third is Zaheer Abbas, who made 1740 runs against India in only 19 Tests, at the lofty average of 87.00.Daniel Vettori took his 200th ODI wicket during the World Cup. Who was the first person to reach that landmark, and who was the first New Zealander? asked Perry Anderson from Christchurch
The first man to do this in one-day internationals was India’s Kapil Dev, who reached 200 wickets when he dismissed Winston Benjamin of West Indies at Sharjah in October 1991. Since then 27 other bowlers have reached 200, as this list shows. Vettori is the third New Zealander to reach the landmark, following Chris Harris, who took 203, and Chris Cairns (201). One of Cairns’s wickets, and eight of Vettori’s, came for teams other than New Zealand in official ODIs.Who was the “tormented genius of cricket”? asked Alistair Russell from Southampton
I suppose there might be quite a few candidates … but the most likely answer is Harold Gimblett, the Somerset and England batsman who thumped a rapid century on his first-class debut against Essex at Frome in 1935. The subtitle of David Foot’s moving biography of Gimblett, who committed suicide in 1978, is “The Tormented Genius of Cricket”.Why did Pakistan follow on at Lord’s in 2001, when they were only 188 behind? Was there a special rule in force for that series? asked Waqas Ahmed from Lahore
What happened in that Test at Lord’s in 2001 was that the first day had been washed out, which reduced it to a four-day match. The Laws of Cricket state that the follow-on can be enforced in a four-day game if the second side trails by more than 150, rather than 200 in a “normal” five-day Test. So England were able to enforce the follow-on despite, as you say, leading by only 188. England won late on the fourth day (the third day of actual play).Who is the oldest man to score a century in a Test match? asked Godfrey Ralli from Hampshire
The oldest person to score a Test century was the great Surrey batsman Jack Hobbs, who was 82 days past his 46th birthday when he made 142 for England against Australia at Melbourne in 1928-29. For a full list of the oldest century-makers, click here. The man in fourth place, South Africa’s “Dave” Nourse, was the oldest man to make his maiden Test century – he was 42 when he made 111 against Australia at Johannesburg in 1921-22.

A statistical look at Inzamam-ul-Haq’s Test career

Mathew Varghese12-Oct-2007

Inzamam-ul-Haq: a batting giant for Pakistan © Getty Images
Fifteen years after his Test debut, Inzamam-ul-Haq signed off a glittering career on the final day of the second Test against South Africa in Lahore. His performance in the sign-off Test wasn’t what he would have wanted it to be, and while that hardly diminishes from an exceptional career, it did mean he missed out on a couple of important landmarks.The 17 runs in his 120th and final Test not only left Inzamam – who finished with a Test aggregate of 8830 – two runs short of equalling Javed Miandad as Pakistan’s leading run-getter in Tests, but also brought his career batting average down to 49.60, marginally below the 50-mark, which is considered by many as a benchmark to distinguish between a good and a great batsman. In Inzamam’s case, however, that definition clearly doesn’t hold.Inzamam’s best year in Tests was 2005, where he scored 1000 runs at 83.33 in eight matches. He was particularly impressive between 2000 and 2003, when he amassed 2963 runs, including 10 hundreds, at an average of 61.73.The last couple of years clearly weren’t great ones for him, though: he averaged 35.36 in 15 Tests since the start of 2006.Inzamam’s overall average slipped below 50, but he still finished with an average of 50.16 for Pakistan, as he played the Super Test for the World XI against Australia, where he made one run in two innings. (For Inzamam’s career summary, click here.)

Inzamam’s career batting record

Team Matches Runs Average 100s 50s

Pakistan 119 8829 50.16 2546 World XI 1 1 0.50 – -The aspect of Inzamam’s career that stands out is his ability to be a matchwinner. When he scored runs, Pakistan usually won. Pakistan’s reliance on him is also reflected in the fact that his average plummets to 28.36 in the 39 Tests Pakistan have lost while he’s played.

Inzamam ‘s record by result

Result Matches Runs Average 100s 50s

Won 494690 78.16 17 20 Lost 39 2156 28.36 2 13 Drawn 32 1984 47.23 6 13He averages a phenomenal 78.16 in matches won by his team, putting him in elite company -among batsmen with at least 3000 runs, only two batsmen average more.

Highest averages in matches won (Minimum 3000 runs)

Player Matches Runs Average 100s 50s

Don Bradman 30 4813 130.08 23 4 Kumar Sangakkara 31 3166 87.94 11 9 Inzamam-ul-Haq 49 4690 78.16 17 20 Garry Sobers 31 3097 77.42 12 11 Rahul Dravid 36 3674 76.54 10 18 Another current player who’s done exceptionally well in matches won is Michael Hussey. Though he hasn’t scored 3000 runs in wins yet, he averages 84.22 for his 1516 runs in the 15 matches won by Australia.Inzamam’s averages soars to a Bradmanesque 94.42 in matches won at home, while Bradman himself hovers above the 150-mark.

Highest averages in home Tests won (Minimum 1000 runs)

Player Matches Runs Average 100s 50s

Don Bradman 21 3361 152.77 17 2 Inzamam-ul-Haq 20 1983 94.42 7 9 Garry Sobers 11 1322 94.42 5 3 With 17 of his 25 hundreds coming in wins, Inzamam squeezes himself right in the middle of eight Australians in the list of batsmen with most hundreds in winning causes. Ricky Ponting tops the list with 26, and barring Don Bradman and Greg Chappell, he’s played alongside the rest – brothers Steve and Mark Waugh, Matthew Hayden, Justin Langer and Adam Gilchrist.

Most hundreds in matches won

Player Matches 100s 50s

Ricky Ponting 78 26 25 Steve Waugh 86 25 25 Don Bradman 30 23 4 Matthew Hayden 64 21 19 Inzamam-ul-Haq 49 17 20 Inzamam also captained Pakistan in 31 Tests from 2001 till earlier this year, winning and losing 11 of the 31 matches in which he led the team, including the controversial forfeiture against England last year. However, captaincy didn’t affect Inzamam the batsman: his average as leader stayed over 50.

Inzamam as captain

Matches Runs Average 100s 50s

31 2397 52.10 7 14It’s inevitable that Inzamam will always be compared to Miandad, and rightly so, as it was Inzamam who took over the mantle of being Pakistan’s mainstay from Miandad. Both Inzamam and Miandad have similar away records, while Miandad averages significantly higher at home.

Inzamam home and away

Venue Matches Runs Average 100s 50s

Overall 120 8830 49.60 2546 Home 49 3709 53.75 1120 Away 68 4821 45.91 13 26 Neutral 3 300 75.00 1 –

Javed Miandad home and away

Record Matches Runs Average 100s 50s

Overall 124 8832 52.57 23 43 Home 60 4481 61.38 14 17 Away 64 4351 45.80 9 26 Inzamam averages over 50 against most teams, but the one blotch on his stats are his numbers against the best teams during his playing days: against both Australia and South Africa, his average dips into the 30s. Even here, the numbers are similar for Miandad. Against West Indies, the best team during his time, Miandad averaged marginally below 30.

Inzamam and Miandad against the best teams

Player Opponent Runs Average

Inzamam-ul-Haq Australia 785 31.40 Javed Miandad West Indies 834 29.78Though Inzamam is widely known for his poor running-between-the-wickets, Miandad is the one who has a higher percentage of run-out dismissals. Inzamam’s run-out woes are largely in ODIs, having being dismissed 40 times in that manner. Inzamam and Miandad have similar dismissal percentages, the only difference being while Miandad has been caught behind far more often.

Dismissal summary (figures in percentage)

Mode of dismissal Inzamam Miandad

Bowled 12.9 12.5 Caught by fielder 46.6 38.1 Caught by wicketkeeper14.622.6 Stumped 3.4 2.4 Leg-before 18.5 19.6 Run-out3.4 4.8 Hit-wicket 0.6 0.0In their 189 and 200 innings, Miandad and Inzamam have remained unbeaten 21 and 22 times during their career.Inzamam, however, has the highest number of centuries for a Pakistan batsman, and he has also scored a triple-hundred, something that Miandad failed to achieve despite being able to convert the hundreds into big ones.

Break-up of scores (figures in percentage)

Runs scored Inzamam Miandad

0-19 39.535.9 20-49 25.0 29.1 50-89 19.0 20.6 90-99 4.0 2.1 100-149 10.5 6.9 150-199 1.02.1 200 and above 1.0 3.2

Andrew Miller presents the plays of the opening day between England and South Africa at Lord’s

Andrew Miller at Lord's10-Jul-2008
Three years and 39 Tests of waiting erupt in a moment of emotion for Kevin Pietersen, who was outstanding at Lord’s © Getty Images
Man of the day
When Ian Botham broke Dennis Lillee’s world wicket-taking record in his comeback Test in 1986, Graham Gooch famously asked: “Who writes your scripts?” After today’s supreme performance, nobody ever needs to pose the same question to Kevin Pietersen. For three years and 39 Tests, KP has been plotting this moment, his glorious return against the country of his birth, and how magnificently he played the lead role. He gave furious notice of his intent back in February 2005, when he lacerated one-day centuries in Bloemfontein, Border and Centurion in a hate-suffused series in South Africa, but this was the innings that really counted. His 13th Test century in his 40th match, but the first that will leave him truly fulfilled.Nervous starter of the day
“I sure he’s going to be hugely motivated to perform well, but I’m sure he’ll feel a touch of pressure as well.” Graeme Smith was prophetic in his pre-match assessment of Pietersen. Rarely has KP looked so ill at ease in a Test situation – he arrived at the crease with England in the midst of their wobble, and he would have run himself out second-ball for a duck if Makhaya Ntini’s shy from mid-on had been gathered cleanly at the stumps by Hashim Amla. Pietersen had progressed no further in his innings when Dale Steyn sconed him with a brute of a bouncer – a helmet-rattler that required a lengthy break for running repairs. But crucially, he endured, and inevitably, he flourished.Déjà vu delivery of the day
Some might say that Steyn has enjoyed a meteoric rise as a Test cricketer, and with 78 wickets in the past 12 months alone, it’s hard to argue with his recent statistics. But for Michael Vaughan, one of only three English survivors from the 2004-05 tour of South Africa, Steyn’s abilities have been as unequivocal as a 90mph leg-cutting yorker. That was what he was served up in the second innings of Steyn’s Test debut at Port Elizabeth, and both men remembered the moment only too well. Steyn needed only two deliveries to repeat the dose today – and though this version was arguably less venomous, Vaughan’s footwork betrayed a man who feared what was coming.Collapse of the day
It had all been going so swimmingly for England. A century opening stand on a misleadingly sluggish surface, against a South African attack for whom only the veteran Jacques Kallis had located the right line and length. But then, as can so often happen, their progress was stymied by a duff lbw decision, and suddenly the pitch was livid with demons. Andrew Strauss fell first, to a Morne Morkel offcutter that pitched outside leg, before Vaughan attracted the wrath of Steyn. Then to complete a meltdown of three for three in 13 balls, Alastair Cook fended a snorter off the splice, for AB de Villiers to pouch a dolly in the slips.Serene starter of the day
Ian Bell, by contrast, arrived in the middle with scarcely a care in the world, which is not what the scriptwriters had envisaged. In the assessment of many, not least the South Africa coach, Bell is a man living on borrowed time, odds-on for the chop as and when Andrew Flintoff is ready to reclaim his place. And yet, while Pietersen prodded and fretted in the early moments of his stay, Bell slipped onto the offensive like the mouse that roared. His first delivery, from Steyn, was eased delightfully through the covers for four, and he added four more in 14 balls to reignite England’s innings. One of them, admittedly, was rather streaky, but the intent was what really counted.Decision of the day
When Smith won the toss, he chose to bowl first – a no-brainer on the face of it. After a week of torrential rain, the pitch showed signs of real juiciness, and Vaughan admitted he’d have made the same choice. But instead of a springboard, the track was a bog, and South Africa’s pacemen sunk deeper and deeper into the mire in a lacklustre first session, as Strauss and Cook helped themselves to a century stand. A brief glance at the honours board might have changed Smith’s mind – he hardly found Lord’s a minefield when he made 259 here on his last visit, while England’s batsmen had mustered 21 centuries in their last nine appearances. But the die of the day had been cast.

S Badrinath has withstood the slings and arrows of fortune, and added to his game without shaking its base

Nagraj Gollapudi08-Sep-2008

In his first match, Badri saw India through a tricky chase © AFP
When the selectors did not pick him for last month’s ODI series in Sri Lanka, S Badrinath was in agony.”I was truly disappointed. I was devastated,” he recalled of the day he sat in front of the TV along with his wife, expecting his name to flash on the screen. Numbness invaded him minutes later when he realised he wasn’t in the side.The feeling was not alien for Badrinath, who had been there before; only, it was more intense this time. He had been sure his chance had come. So affected was he that he bared his emotions in public. “For God’s sake, allow me to fail,” he burst out in an interview, unable to understand what he needed to do to convince the five wise men on the national selection panel.Like in the past, the only pill for the pain was cricket. “That evening I turned up at the ground, did my training,” he said. “I had to continue playing the game. I love playing this game and whatever I have in my hand I will do to the best of my ability.”He found support from the likes of Sunil Gavaskar. “By saying what he did… he brought attention to the selectors’ wandering minds that here was a player who had done no wrong and needed to be given a chance,” Gavaskar wrote in one of his newspaper columns.Closer home, VB Chandrasekhar, the former national and Tamil Nadu selector, who first saw Badrinath as an upcoming youngster during his performances for Guru Nanak College in Chennai, knew where Badrinath was coming from. “He was pushed into a corner and he was left with no choice.”Badrinath doesn’t exactly have age on his side. He turned 28 on August 30. Athletes train all their life to be able to play at the top level, but as the years pass it gets difficult to keep the flame burning when the opportunities don’t come along. It’s even harder when, like in Badrinath’s case, your contemporaries or those younger than you get the breaks ahead of you.As fate had it, Badrinath was called into the Indian squad as a replacement for Sachin Tendulkar, who was injured. When he was last called up, during the ODI series at home against Australia in 2007, he didn’t get a game. This time, though, he made his debut, in challenging conditions against Sri Lanka, and he let his bat do the talking, getting India out of a tight situation and forcing people to sit up and take notice.Mahendra Singh Dhoni is generally averse to hyperbole, so his words was high praise indeed: “He’s very talented, and that’s why he is here,” Dhoni said.The man himself was modest about his contribution in his debut game. “I felt really good to be involved so much. I wasn’t actually under any sort of pressure. I was quietly confident about myself,” Badrinath said. “There is always uncertainty in sport. It is all about taking it as it comes and grabbing the opportunity and doing the job and being a good professional.”Your story, my story
During the IPL, Badrinath had the opportunity to spend time with an individual who had walked a similar path.As he approached the age of 30, with no sign that he would ever make it into the Australian line-up, Michael Hussey had reason to think he was going nowhere fast. He grew frustrated and distracted and his domestic cricket suffered as a result. But after a period of introspection where he made up his mind about exactly what he wanted, Hussey gathered himself together and started enjoying his game again, and eventually played his maiden Test.Badrinath developed a strong acquaintance with Hussey in the Chennai Super Kings dressing room and soaked up all the lessons born of experience on offer. “The way they [the Australians] prepare themselves, the amount of dedication they show, the amount of professionalism they have, is totally different,” Badrinath said during our first meeting, in Mumbai during the IPL. “I learnt a lot from [Matthew] Hayden and Hussey. I spoke to Hussey a lot, because I was amazed that he made his debut at 30. He helped me a lot.”Hearing from Hussey that he was a good player capable of doing a good job made a world of difference to Badrinath’s confidence. “That inspired me, that a player of that class had faith in me and confidence in me. It matter when someone compliments you or praises you or shows belief in you,” Badrinath said.Hearing from Hussey that I was a good player capable of doing a good job inspired me, that a player of that class had faith in me and confidence in me He justified that faith, producing important cameos for the Super Kings, batting in various positions, on their way to the runner-up spot. Importantly, he switched gears depending on the situation and the role he was asked to fulfill. Mostly he batted in the middle- and lower-middle order, so his job was that of a hustler or a finisher – which only the experienced or the gifted manage to accomplish consistently.In the very first game, where Hussey cracked a stupendous 115 not out, Badrinath adjusted quickly, coming in at No. 7 and giving strong support to the Australian with a patient 31 not out. In the middle stages of the tournament, where the Super Kings proved tentative, he calmed nerves more than once, most memorably in the last-ball thriller against Delhi. When he was promoted up the order after Hayden and Hussey had left on international duty, he made two consecutive half-centuries.Chandrasekhar remembered how eyes rolled when he recommended Badrinath as one of the first recruits for the Super Kings. “People wondered why I was picking a grafter for Twenty20. But I felt particularly good when he went out and won matches for us. Finishing ability is what makes a good cricketer.”Technique plus temperament equals versatility
There is nothing imposing about Badrinath in person or physically as a batsman. He is lean, not built to be a big-hitter. His strengths lie elsewhere.”He has a wonderful temperament,” Chandrasekhar said, “not something you associate often with Tamil Nadu cricketers. He transformed from a dour batsman to somebody who was willing to be more creative and allow himself to play shots which were within his framework.”Badrinath himself testified as much. “I’ve been trying to be more innovative and trying to work out a plan around my game that fits within my scheme of things,” he said, when asked if he had changed his technique. “In my domestic cricket I’ve become more aggressive and that has given me more confidence and I’ve started to believe I can make a difference.”He is a player in the mould of Rahul Dravid, who is still perhaps the most technically accomplished batsman in contemporary cricket. “Technique is my base and once the base is strong it is easy to work around. Now I’m playing more shots all around the park. I was a dominant batsman on the off side; I’ve now become strong on both sides of the wicket,” Badrinath said.Even if he does not say much about his expectations of a spot in the Test team in light of the anticipated upcoming middle-order vacancies, his supporters believe he has earned the right to stake his claim by virtue of having toiled for years on the unattractive domestic circuit. After a slow start, following which he was dropped in his second domestic season, Badrinath returned more determined, and soon began to reap rewards.
Not a one-dimensional player, even in the longer form © Cricinfo Ltd
A regular in the A team, Badrinath has been piling up big scores against various oppositions home and away. Before the series against Australia A started, he had four unbeaten hundreds in his last four appearances for India A, including a double-century against South Africa A in 2007. In the 2007-08 domestic season he scored 990 runs at an average of 66 in 12 matches. Recently, in the Emerging Players tournament in Australia last July, he led from the front, cracking 95 and 83 not out.WV Raman, Tamil Nadu’s coach for the last two seasons, wishes people would stop looking at Badrinath as a one-dimensional player fit only for the longer form of the game. By doing well in the IPL, Badrinath has demonstrated that he can play the shorter version, Raman said. “Not the other way round. People maintain that he is a duration game player, but if someone saw him against the South Africa A team last year he would see how he changed as a batsman.”Over the years Badrinath stood by and watched as the likes of Gautam Gambhir, and even younger players such as Rohit Sharma and Manoj Tiwary, got called up into the national squads. He looked doomed to be the good guy who finished last. Now that his chance seems to have arrived, he wants to enjoy the moment.In Dambulla he walked in with India at a precarious 75 for 5 chasing 143. It was left to him and Dhoni to hang around and make sure the job was done. From ball one he stuck to his captain’s brief of keeping it simple. “Dhoni was giving me small tips on how to go about my batting and how to play the likes of [Ajantha] Mendis,” Badrinath said. Working the singles and twos, the pair brought India to the brink of victory.When eight were needed Dhoni was out, and Harbhajan Singh fell quickly soon after. All it would have taken to knock India out cold were three unplayable deliveries from the dangerous Sri Lankan spinners. But Badrinath stayed calm and stuck to his strategy of nudging and steering the ball around, using his wrists to find the gaps for singles. The winning run duly came off a push to extra-cover.”It is mentally that I’ve improved,” Badrinath said. “Once the player starts to believe he can do it and it starts to happen his confidence level goes up.”

Sri Lanka are hungry and prepared for a win in India. Kumar Sangakkara looks ahead to what his side will need to do

Interview by Sa'adi Thawfeeq09-Nov-2009Steve Waugh’s Australians of 2000-01 deemed winning a Test series in India as the “final frontier” because it had been three decades since they had last won in that country. For the record, Waugh’s men failed in their attempt when they lost the three-Test series 1-2. The Sri Lanka team Kumar Sangakkara led to India on the weekend also has similar ambitions. Twenty-seven years and 14 Tests have gone by and Sri Lanka are yet to win a Test in India, let alone a series.”Not only India, but also Australia and South Africa, where we haven’t won Test matches. Those are the ones we should look forward to over the next years,” Sangakkara said before the team left for India on Saturday. “We can go as all our teams have done in the past and come back and say, ‘Well it’s still unchanged’, or we go out there and give everything we’ve got and win the last frontier and then take confidence from that and move on to the one-day series.”The determination to win a Test match in India has been foremost in the minds of the Sri Lankan cricketers, and they have gone about their preparations to achieve that goal diligently. One indicator of how serious they are is in how they brought in about 160 SG balls (which India uses for their home series) to use at practice. “That’s been an advantage going into the series,” said Sangakkara.”We tried to do a lot more skill work, specific training in the nets to play spin, specific shots for spin. That’s been working for us… developing a good defence with the fast bowlers and spinners, and making a solid base getting the guys to understand how we as a team can score 350-400 runs every time we go out. The bowlers – how they can reverse swing the ball and what you can do to make the ball swing late, and learning how the ball generally behaves. We tried to change our training.”We’ve just got to go there with a very strong mind, go all out. Not take a backward step but try to win. We know we are good enough to win and match India if we really want to. We’ve just got to be as tough as possibly as we can, both mentally and physically, if we are going to do well.”Sangakkara rated India as a very good side but mortal. “We beat them in Sri Lanka with the same side, with the exception of Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni. They are two extra challenges when we go there, but again those are the things you’ve got to accept in cricket.”We’ve got to go to India with no baggage, nothing in our heads, clear minds, no complaints, and the right attitude to enjoy that country for 55 days. It’s a tough country to be in for such a long time, and being away from home. We should enjoy playing ruthless, tough, competitive but fair cricket every single time – win or lose it doesn’t matter.”

“We can go as all our teams have done in the past and come back and say, ‘Well it’s still unchanged’, or we go out there and give everything we’ve got and win”

Sangakkara said that if his team is to perform well they have to excel all round. “These are the kind of series where you’ve got to be on the mark all the time – bowling, batting, fielding. You’ve got to make half-chances work, try and get run-outs. Those things change games, especially in the Test scenario. We’ve got to squeeze every little advantage we can.”But the key is to put ourselves at pressure at training and enjoy the game. If we don’t put ourselves under pressure when training, we just go to games under pressure, and I don’t think that’s going to work for us. We’ve just got to do all the hard things at training; challenge ourselves to go out of our comfort zones and go into a match fully prepared and confident and just go hard at them.”Sangakkara is confident that if his side can maintain pressure for long periods of time, they can make India crack. “If they get an advantage they are very good frontrunners. What we’ve got to do is try and put them under pressure right from the start and make them lag behind. If we can do that and keep the pressure on them consistently, I think we can make them crack. Pressure is something they don’t like. If you can be consistently aggressive, those things are going to be the difference that makes us win.”As far as mental strength goes, Sangakkara thinks Sri Lanka is right up there with the Australians. “When you look at the number of players who can do great things on the cricket field – we’ve got so many of them. The key is to believe in yourself and believe in the guy next to you as your team-mate and trust that guy to do the right job. That is why training is so important. The mental strength and belief you have with each other comes with the right preparation. Our guys have actually started realising it now.”The competitive streak has been a part of the Sri Lankan team from the time Arjuna Ranatunga was captain. “Our guys first understood it with Arjuna. He really made them understand that we are good enough to beat any side. One of the main reasons we won the ’96 World Cup was that belief.”When you are low on confidence you don’t really think you can win, but I think our guys have to understand that winning or losing depends on that particular day; that doesn’t make you a good or bad side. If you train consistently with the right attitude you will find yourself more and more becoming a side that consistently plays good cricket, cricket that’s good enough to beat any side in the world. You’ve got to be a good team every day and the key is to win matches even when you are struggling as a team. That’s the real test of the team’s character.”

It was plain from the start of the ODI series that, for some reason, West Indies’ spirit of the Tests had evaporated in the interim. It reflected a general problem of attitude – the one common factor in their desperate decline of the past 15 years or so

Tony Cozier21-Feb-2010Much like his batting, Chris Gayle’s reputation has gone through several phases these past few months. He arrived in Australia in November for the series of three Tests castigated by the Australian media as a villain, a reinstated captain who had openly dissed Test cricket in favour of Twenty20 and a pivotal figure in the disruptive players’ strike that preceded the tour.By the end, he was being widely hailed as a champion, Man of the Series for leading a spirited West Indies revival with two high quality hundreds in the last two Tests and his general leadership.”Gayle has brought some muscle and pride back to West Indies cricket,” Peter Lalor, a previous doubter, wrote in the .Now, just over a month on, at the end of an ill-starred return series of ODIs, Gayle finds himself the butt of the kind of derision usually reserved for clairvoyants who prophesise the end of the world every other Friday.Never shy of expressing an opinion, he proclaimed that his team, even though hamstrung by injuries to several key players, would somehow defeat the most powerful exponents of the 50-overs game–and by 4-to-1, no less.It might just have been another of Gayle’s casual lines to wind up the media. Perhaps he felt it would have given comfort to the new players in his patched-up outfit.Surely he could not have believed his forecast for, through strained backs, damaged fingers, pulled hamstrings and wonky knees, he was without his two most experienced batsmen Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan, his vice-captain and key allrounder Dwayne Bravo, left-arm spinner Sulieman Benn, fast bowler Jerome Taylor and the talented young opener Adrian Barath.Possibly, Gayle expected that the same unity and commitment that was obvious in the last two Tests in December would carry them through, in spite of such handicaps.Had the ODIs immediately followed, as they used to, that might have given them the necessary state of mind to be competitive, if hardly earn a 4-1 triumph.Instead, there was a gap of three weeks between the two during which the players went their separate ways.In spite of contracts with the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), Gayle and Bravo skipped the WICB’s own first-class tournament to remain in Australia for the Twenty20 Bash (during which both were injured).A few sought medical attention for the ailments that would prevent their return. Others went home for a couple of meaningless, sub-standard four-day matches.It was plain from the start of the ODI series that, for some inexplicable reason, the spirit of the Tests had evaporated in the interim.Even from the other side of the planet, the same ‘don’t care’ approach that prevailed during the shameful campaign in England last May was clear through the television coverage.Faces were sullen and shoulders quickly drooped. Straightforward catches were spilled, slack strokes cost wickets.Even David Williams, the always upbeat coach, was moved to say after Friday’s latest humiliation: “It is a blessing for us the ODIs are over. We played terrible in all three departments and to drop five catches in 50 overs tells a lot about our performance.”Reliable, long-standing colleagues in Australia reported that it reflected a general problem of attitude. It is nothing new. It is the one common factor in the West Indies’ desperate decline of the past 15 years or so.The reports of Gayle, Williams and manager Joel Garner, never one known to hold back, should make instructive reading for the WICB. If they correspond to the unofficial accounts out of Australia, it must act on them as it has failed to do in the past.For all Gayle’s braggadocio, no one expected the West Indies, No.8 in the ODI rankings, to win even one match against the No.1 opponents who had just thrashed Pakistan in nine successive matches (three Tests, five ODIs and a Twenty20).What was not expected was the pathetic capitulation. The margins were overwhelming – 113 runs, eight wickets with 141 balls remaining, 50 runs and 125 runs. In each of the last two matches, Australia amassed 324 (for seven and for five). The West Indies could not bat through 40 overs in three matches and only once raise more than 200.It was mystifying why Kieron Pollard languished down the list at No.6 and 7 until the last ODI•Getty ImagesAustralians once flocked in their hundreds of thousands to watch what was their favourite team. Now the smallest crowds on record turned up for the match.Gayle’s failure at the top (7, 0, 34 and 14), each time to his bogey-man, the strapping left-armer Doug Bollinger, was clearly a significant factor.Without Sarwan and Chanderpaul, it exposed Travis Dowlin, Runako Morton, Lendl Simmons and Narsingh Deonarine for the modest players they are at this level. None seemed interested in buckling down, as Dowlin and Deonarine had done when given the chance in the TestsIn the circumstances, it was mystifying why Kieron Pollard languished down the list at No.6 and 7 until the last match.While he has made his global reputation as Twenty20 hitter, the big Trinidadian has shown at regional level that he is more than just that. He compiled 174 against Barbados last year and averages 37 in first-class cricket, better than most of those previously preferred to him in the longer game.With his controlled batting, stiff medium-pace bowling and sharp fielding he has at least provided one bright spot from this series.Jerome Taylor and Fidel Edwards are already out of action with hip and spinal injuries. The sore ankle that eliminated Kemar Roach from the last three matches came as another major worry at a time when fast bowling stocks are in short supply.He is an outstanding prospect who has just started his career. A long layoff, such as both Taylor and Edwards had soon after they began, would be a setback for him personally and for the West Indies.There was apparently such a lack of confidence in Gavin Tonge, the third fast bowler in Australia, that he remained on the bench in all five matches, leaving Ravi Rampaul (another with a history of injuries) to carry the attack.That Dwayne Smith shared the new ball with his unthreatening medium-pace prompted disturbing memories of Clive Lloyd doing the same in the early 70s before the arrival of Andy Roberts, Michael Holding et al.A couple of Twenty20 matches remain in Australia until, as Williams might say, it’s a blessing it’s all over. Zimbabwe at home follow immediately. They are even further down the rankings than the West Indies but, if the attitude isn’t right for their Twenty20 and five ODIs, more embarrassment could be on the way.