As South Africa’s slump gets deeper after the triangular series exit, ESPNcricinfo looks at three areas that need special focus and could possibly salvage them

Firdose Moonda25-Jun-2016For South Africa, the tri-series in the Caribbean ended in the same sorry way it has so many times before. With “a lot of disappointment.” AB de Villiers said that after his team was knocked out after the round-robin stage.In the bigger picture, this series did not really matter. The next major 50-over event is a year off. But after South Africa had tumbled from No. 1 to No. 6 in the Test rankings, and were booted out of the World T20 before the semi-finals, 50-over cricket was the only thing going right for them. Until now.”It’s difficult to put a smile on your face after a horrible performance like that,” de Villiers said after their 100-run loss to West Indies on Friday. “There’s definitely a belief in the camp that we can win from any position and make it work from anywhere. It’s sad that we couldn’t do that today and in this series. When it mattered most, we couldn’t pull through. That’s very disappointing.”A new season looms, with 11 Tests, including tours to Australia and New Zealand, and a Champions Trophy next July. Considering South Africa are back on square one of their rebuilding phase, here are three things they need to focus on to put things right.Coaching staff Though de Villiers threw his support behind Russell Domingo, calls for the sacking of South Africa’s head coach have only increased.Under Domingo’s tenure over the last three years, they had to settle for an 8-8 win-loss record in Tests but enjoyed have had a better time in limited-overs cricket – 39 wins from 65 ODIs and 20 wins from 35 T20Is.But the wins that really mattered can be counted on two hands: the final of a tri-series in Harare against Australia, the 2015 World Cup quarter-final against Sri Lanka, the three in October to beat India in India, and a hat-trick of victories over England in February to bounce back from 0-2 down.Despite the addition of specialist coaches, South Africa seem to lack for both confidence and a cohesive game plan. Domingo has with him former Test cricketers as fast bowling, spin bowling and batting coaches in Charl Langeveldt, Claude Henderson and Neil McKenzie respectively. So there is no shortage of experience at the highest level.Is it just a matter of change then? CSA has the option to replace Domingo before his contract expires at the end of April, but for a lasting solution, they need to also find a way to incorporate an outsider’s perspective. South Africa no longer have a sports psychologist or motivational guru like Mike Horne in their ranks. And since Michael Hussey’s short stint as batting consultant, they have not had the benefit of working with someone who hasn’t come up their own system.The declining Rand makes it more difficult to attract overseas coaches, but with CSA recently adding a new sponsor, Standard Bank, to their books, it may be worth spending some of the money for this purpose. Though there may be danger of too many cooks, South Africa’s broth seems to need whatever spice it can get.CaptaincyAs good as de Villiers is, captaincy seems to weigh on him, especially in the shorter format. His disappointment over a loss is often nothing more than raw emotion, which is touching, but not problem-solving. The number of times he admits to just not knowing what went wrong is enough to suggest South Africa may need someone more astute.De Villiers is so often assisted by Faf du Plessis and Hashim Amla that it is fair to say South Africa captain in committee, which would mean any of the three could assume the label. But Amla has asked not to have it attached to him too often to make him a viable candidate and du Plessis has had issues with injury and form.So it seems the only way forward for South Africa is to find a way to take better care of de Villiers. They could appoint a mentor for him – Graeme Smith, perhaps – or send him to some form of leadership training.They should also groom a successor, because it may not be too long before de Villiers walks away. There was suggestion in some local media that he was so distraught after the 2015 World Cup semi-final loss that he considered stepping down. His own utterances about needing rest throughout the previous season have led to questions over his commitment, and with Test captaincy also thrust on him, there is a danger that he might consider winding his career down under less stress. Like playing T20 cricket around the world.Selection clarityThe worst kept secret in South African sport is that the four codes that were sanctioned by the minister – cricket, rugby, athletics and netball – have signed memorandums of understanding to confirm their commitment to change. That means they have agreed to put transformation targets close to the top of their agendas, which is not inherently a bad thing, but it will have wider implications that can no longer be ignored.For South Africa to meet the target – 60% representation – they need to field seven players of colour. And they did on two occasions in the tri-series. They even had eight players of colour once. But in their remaining three matches, that number came down to six, which is likely to have a major impact on whether their ban to host major tournaments is lifted.CSA have made clear their aim to comply with the minister’s requirements as far as possible. It is also worth mentioning that the players of colour selected into the XI for the tri-series merited it. Even JP Duminy, who has not scored a fifty in 10 completed innings, was as out of form as de Villiers.The question now is how the team plans to meet transformation targets without compromising on its balance. South Africa were a batsman short in the Caribbean. Their reserves – first Rilee Rossouw, and then, Dean Elgar – were both white and including them would have come at the cost of Duminy or Farhaan Behardien – both players of colour. South Africa could have sacrificed an allrounder, perhaps even the in-form Chris Morris, to lengthen the batting line-up, but that would have left them short in the bowling department.Morne Morkel was benched for two legs of the series – when South Africa fielded more players of colour – and only included for the Barbados games – when they fell short of their transformation targets. His bounce may have been wasted on the slower surfaces in Guyana and St Kitts anyway, but the upshot was he was short on game time and could not find rhythm when it was needed.This is the reality facing South African sport at the moment, but it might help them if there was greater openness and honesty about team selection, which in turn could help the understanding of what is trying to be achieved.

ESPNcricinfo staff31-Oct-2016West Indies’ top order were put under constant pressure by the Pakistani quicks•AFPWhich led to some reckless shots…•AFP… and spectacular catches. Mohammad Amir had gone 20 Tests without one.•AFPYasir Shah had Marlon Samuels lbw for a duck•AFP…and a wild swing from Jermaine Blackwood left West Indies struggling at 68 for 4•Getty ImagesBut opener Kraigg Brathwaite was determined to spend time in the middle•Getty ImagesHe found support in Roston Chase, who scored 50 off 89, and Shane Dowrich, who scored 47 off 90•Getty ImagesBrathwaite put on 83 runs with each of them for the fifth and sixth wickets•Getty ImagesPakistan were left frustrated as the placid track didn’t aid them after their early breakthroughs in the day•Getty ImagesThey tried the short-ball tactic, but Brathwaite was impenetrable•Getty ImagesAt stumps, he was unbeaten on 95 off 206 balls, and West Indies were 244 for 6, only 37 behind Pakistan•Getty Images

With Imrul Kayes and Shakib Al Hasan together, Bangladesh were surging to victory in Dhaka. Then it all went wrong. Here’s how the collapse unfolded

ESPNcricinfo staff08-Oct-201641.3 Ball to Shakib Al Hasan, OUT, he’s gone! The short ball makes the breakthrough. Shakib pulls, can’t keep it down – or beat the fielder – and is taken low down at midwicket41.4 Ball to Mosaddek Hossain, OUT, dragged on! Two in two for Ball. He is pumped. Complete silence in the stadium. Short of a length, nips back, takes the bottom edge into the stumps42.5 Rashid to Mashrafe Mortaza, OUT, and another! He’s nicked a short ball…it was there to smash, really, but he was looking to be careful and guide it to third man and instead just got a thin edge to Buttler44.1 Rashid to Imrul Kayes, 1 wide, OUT, stumped off a wide! Sharp work from Buttler and this is going wrong for Bangladesh. Rashid speared it wide, not sure whether it was entirely to plan, Imrul came down the pitch and was nowhere near reaching it. Buttler hand plenty of time to drag the ball back to complete the dismissal45.2 Ball to Mosharraf Hossain, OUT, it’s all happening! He nearly spoons a catch to mid-off, it falls short then Rashid pulls off the direct hit and they go upstairs. He’s miles out!47.5 Ball to Taskin Ahmed, OUT, it’s five to win the match! Another cutter, fingers rolled over the ball, it was fuller this time, Taskin heaving to the leg side again and he gets a top edge which is well held by Buttler diving forward

Pakistan had six Test captains in the six years before Misbah-ul-Haq took over. He gave the team stability and his numbers are indicative of his success

Bharath Seervi29-Oct-201649 Misbah-ul-Haq’s Tests as captain – the most for Pakistan – when he walks out to toss against West Indies in Sharjah. Imran Khan had led Pakistan in 48 Tests between 1982 and 1992. Among Asian captains, only MS Dhoni and Arjuna Ranatunga have led in more Tests than Misbah.24 Misbah’s wins as captain – ten more than Pakistan won under Imran Khan and Javed Miandad.55.38 Misbah’s average as captain, the best among 11 Pakistan captains to have batted in at least 20 innings. The next best is Saleem Malik’s 52.35. Misbah has made the most runs and centuries as well among Pakistan captains. Of the 20 captains to have played 75 or more innings, only Brian Lara (57.83) averages more than Misbah.

Misbah’s numbers as captain and player

Mats Inns Runs Ave 100s/50sAs non-captain 19 33 1008 33.60 2/4As captain 48 83 3766 55.38 8/31Career 67 116 4774 48.71 10/3521.78 The difference between Misbah’s average when captain and not captain. He averaged 33.60 before becoming captain in November 2010 – scoring 1008 runs in 33 innings with two centuries and four fifties. He began his captaincy career in terrific form, scoring six consecutive fifties in his first seven innings.48 All of Misbah’s Tests as captain came after he was 35 years old; no one over 35 has led in more Tests. Clive Lloyd is second on the list with 45 matches as captain after age of 35. Misbah has led in 21 Tests after turning 40, which is eight more than WG Grace.1.714 Pakistan’s win-loss ratio under Misbah – won 24 and lost 14 out of 48. In the six years prior to Misbah taking over, their win-loss ratio was 0.545 in nearly the same number of matches – won 12 and lost 22. Pakistan had six captains in those six years and only one of them led in more than 10 matches. Misbah missed only once match after becoming Pakistan’s Test captain, because of a suspension for a slow over rate.

Pakistan before and after Misbah became captain

Mats Won Lost Drawn W/L ratio6 years before Misbah 48 12 22 14 0.54Since Misbah took over 49 24 14 11 1.7110 Misbah’s series wins as captain – the most by an Asian captain. MS Dhoni and Sourav Ganguly had nine series wins (in which they captained in all matches). The next best among Pakistan captains is eight by Javed Miandad. Graeme Smith led South Africa to 22 series wins.39 Misbah’s scores of 50 or more as Pakistan captain. Only one batsman, captain or not, has made more 50-plus scores over the same period – Alastair Cook has 45 such scores, but in 134 innings compared to Misbah’s 83.3557 Runs scored by Misbah at No. 5 as captain – the most among Test captains, with Steve Waugh being the only other one with more than 3000. Misbah scored those runs at an average of 57.37.

ESPNcricinfo staff20-Oct-2016Sabbir Rahman was one of three debutants for Bangladesh along with Mehedi Hasan and Kamrul Islam Rabbi•BCB MediaAfter an edgy start, Duckett was the first wicket to fall as Mehedi claimed a maiden Test scalp•Getty ImagesAlastair Cook fell a short while later when an attempted sweep bobbled into his stumps•Getty ImagesAnd England were tottering on 21 for 3 when Gary Ballance was lbw after a smart review from Bangladesh•Getty ImagesThe 18-year-old Mehedi Hasan impressed on his first day in Test cricket having taken the new ball•AFPIn typically robust fashion, Joe Root revived England’s innings…•Getty Images…but he fell shortly after lunch when he edged to slip off the keeper’s pads•Getty ImagesRoot’s departure followed an extraordinary first over of the afternoon session which included three overturned out decisions from Kumar Dharmasena against Moeen Ali•AFPIn between his reprieves, Moeen put away the bad balls with aplomb•AFP… and brought up a vital half-century•AFPBen Stokes provided brief support with 18•Getty ImagesMoeen eventually fell for 68 to become Mehedi’s fourth victim•AFPJonny Bairstow kept England’s recovery going with a half-century, during which he passed 1000 runs for the year•AFPBut his innings ended on 52 when he played back to Mehedi to give the offspinner his fifth wicket•Getty Images

Keaton Jennings must decide whether to remain with Durham after their demotion to Division Two as he pursues an England career in his adopted homeland

David Hopps10-Nov-2016Keaton Jennings’ prolific form last summer has earned him his first experience with England Lions but, even as he relishes his opportunities at the Loughborough national performance centre, he is wrestling with the dilemma of whether to abandon his career with crisis-ridden Durham. On one hand lies his natural sense of loyalty, on the other the notion that an England career is not too far away. He has some agonising ahead.Jennings has held several exploratory conversations with Durham about the possibility of captaining them in at least one limited-overs format, with Paul Collingwood, at 41, retaining the role in the Championship. “There have been a couple of discussions about captaincy but nothing has been decided – not from Colly’s point of view either – but there have been discussions,” he said.Jennings freely admits that his future remains uncertain following the enforced relegation of Durham to Division Two of the Championship, and the issue of points deductions, by the ECB as punishment for the bailout they required from central funds to avoid bankruptcy. Strict financial controls over forthcoming years question whether they can remain able to compete.It was a wholly different world when Jennings signed a four-year contract and he is adamant that the changed circumstances, in which Durham have also been reconstituted as a community interest company under the chairmanship of Sir Ian Botham, leave him entitled to leave should he so wish. The exact nature of that escape route has not yet been revealed.”I was slightly worried when I signed the contract about players staying but at the time I had to make a call and put my head on the block,” Jennings admitted. “It has been a long summer and I have a lot of thinking to do over the next two or three weeks and a lot of conversations to have.”Warwickshire and Yorkshire will be among a clutch of counties monitoring the situation, but they may have to wait a while longer. Jennings, preparing for a Lions trip to Dubai, has other matters on his mind.

“I have never been a guy to put a club under the pump, to say if you don’t give me the captaincy I am going to leave”

“At the moment I am really excited to be here with the Lions and I really want to focus on that first. It is the first time I have been involved with the ECB in any format and mostly I am trying to enjoy the next couple of weeks. At the end of the day everything is open. I am not saying I would like to leave because I love Durham and I love the guys at Durham.”It is a challenging time for him. Much as England seek to plan their international pathway, Jennings, who came close to selection for the Test tour to India – a surfeit of left-handers did not help his cause – has suddenly sprung to prominence, much as have Ben Duckett and Haseeb Hameed, whose international careers are already underway. Duckett has emerged, too, from Division Two of the Championship. Does Jennings think he could do that? “You’d better ask the selectors,” he said.Strikingly, Jennings negotiated his contract without the help of an agent, which makes him a rare individual in modern-day professional sport, especially as a player with realistic international ambitions.At first meeting he is a genial sort, not immediately recognisable as the son of Ray Jennings, a former South Africa wicketkeeper who gained a reputation as a hard disciplinarian during his coaching years. Clearly, though, he has a similar appetite for self-sufficiency and between them father and son negotiated the contract that might yet hold the key to his future. He has no regrets.”I learned quite a lot about myself during the process. It was interesting to call up people and have some hard conversations: in terms of who is the coach going to be, who are the senior players going to be, what role would I play?”If I had given that job to an agent I wouldn’t have learned as much about myself and made the contacts and friends that I have made. It has been an interesting year in a lot of respects but at the time it was the right call definitely.Keaton Jennings has become more expansive in limited-overs mode•Getty Images”I have had a few friends and members of the family say ‘we think you are a little bit crazy’ but I enjoy being hands on. I think my Dad enjoyed it as well. It gave him a little hobby.”News of Durham’s plight broke in early October when he was back in South Africa, labouring through an accounting exam for which he knew, due to the daily grind of the county circuit, he was not remotely prepared.”It was the day I walked into an auditing exam. I’d walked into it having not finished my coursework – during the cricket season you tend to run out of time – and I think I failed the exam which didn’t help but that’s life. Then I walked out of the exam to the news. It is sad what has happened but at the end of the day the guys have got to face the facts I suppose and come back from there.”As players we didn’t have too much of an idea about the extent of what was going on. I suppose there were the previous year’s financial statements we could have looked at but I don’t think we realised the extent it was at. At the end of the day I am not experienced enough to sit down and analyse those statements but those are the sanctions that have been given and unfortunately that is what we have to live with.”During the season there was no talk. There were fears that it was not as financially stable as being said but at the end of the day we didn’t think we weren’t going to get paid or the club was going to deteriorate as quickly as the media had perceived. From a players’ point of view we thought that everything was alright. When you are in the changing room it was a bit of a bubble and you end up caught within your 15 guys and that is your bubble.”Jennings is quick to give much of the credit for keeping spirits high while rumours swirled to Collingwood, who along with the head of the academy and former coach, Geoff Cook, has become symbolic of the good things in Durham cricket while mismanagement has happened all around them and the general economic difficulties pervading the northeast have done their worst”Collingwood is a huge influence in terms of social aspects, of vision and of drive,” Jennings said. “At 40 years old now – he will be 41 next year – he is one of the hardest trainers. After a day’s play he goes in the gym and he sets a standard of what is expected of you as a professional but then he will go away from cricket and really enjoy his time as well and educate the guys away from cricket about how they got that balance.There is no sense that Jennings is now holding Durham to ransom over the captaincy that Collingwood has fulfilled with such vigour. He recoils at the notion. “No, not at all. I have never been a guy to put a club under the pump, to say if you don’t give me the captaincy I am going to leave. That is not who I am. For me whatever is right for the team must happen. If it is right for a team that I will captain I will captain. If it is not right then I am more than happy to play a supporting role.”In his early years at Durham, watching Jennings bat could be a taxing duty. He was a stilted left-hander, wary of stroke, concentrating largely on survival, especially on the demanding pitches at Chester-le-Street. Last summer, though, something clicked. It was more than just the natural progression of a career. His 1548 Championship runs, with seven centuries, spoke of higher ambitions. His improvement had its roots in some prolonged self-analysis when he questioned whether his cricketing obsession was becoming self-destructive.

“My girlfriend says we have been watered down through the generations. My dad is very very stern, very firm”

“It was a special year for a lot of respects,” he said. “I suppose it was down to a slight change of mindset. I had been chatting to my uncle, who was a sports psychologist, over the winter and he went through a process of trying to help be more positive and on the back of that finding happiness and thinking ‘Am I really happy playing cricket or am I happy doing something else?’ I am generally too attention-to-detail for my own good sometimes.”I sat down with my dad and got a bit of happiness outside cricket and I think off the back of that it kind of helped me out. I put a bit more energy into my studies – I am studying financial accounting – although I have deferred it another year and I will finish in 2018.”Then within that I did a bit of coaching, spent a little time with my niece and nephew so outside of cricket I had a bit of balance in my life instead of just being all-out cricket: gym, train, go to the ground. I played a bit of golf, enjoyed a beer and I suppose had good downtime with family.”Which neatly introduces the topic of his father. When he was coach of South Africa, Jennings was once called by the “this rabid disciplinarian with his bristling moustache”. His perfectionism was taken as read, his demands high, his honesty searing. His son, eager to build a cricketing career, looks on it all with equanimity.”My girlfriend says we have been watered down through the generations,” he laughed. “My dad is very – harsh is the wrong word – he is very stern, he is very firm. He is a huge professional and this is how he puts food on the table for the family.”Keaton’s father Ray Jennings coached South Africa•Clive Mason/Getty ImagesHe tells a story of his father’s playing career when, as a wicketkeeper, he grew his own grass at the Wanderers. “He used to bring in his own grass seed and grow it to practice on because he knew if he dived on the grass that was there he would hurt his arms. So he grew his own grass and told the guys not to cut it. He knew exactly how he wanted it.”Jennings senior, 62 now, his moustache bristling in shades of grey, coaches cricket at Dainfern College, a private co-educational school in Northern Johannesburg. The family lives on a golf estate about 2km from the school. Most days, Ray drives his golf buggy up the road and runs the cricket for 5 to 18-year-olds in the afternoon. Keaton tries to help out when he visits.”He has taught me the discipline and hard work aspect of anything in my life. I have never shied away from hard work or doing the hard graft at the right time. He is a character like that – he built his own garden. There was a big unlevelled piece of land where the house is built and he carried in chest-high stones and built this little garden the way he wanted it. He is a hard-working man and very disciplined and I suppose that is what I have taken from him.”

A play about the life and untimely death of Colin Milburn conveys the highs and the lows of a unique cricketer

David Hopps11-Nov-2016Colin Milburn was about as far removed from the identikit picture of the perfect international cricketer as it was possible to be. So overweight that he could have starred in – Morgan Spurlock’s exposé of the fast-food industry. Dishevelled, disorganised and gradually drinking himself to death, it was astonishing even in the 1960s that England ever turned to him. These days, even at county level, he would not get a look in.But that was much of Milburn’s charm. For all his 18 stone (“and the rest” according to some of those who tried to change his ways at Northamptonshire), he was light on his feet, possessed of rapid reflexes and destructive of shot. The ball could disappear many a mile off a Milburn bat. Add his perpetual image of cheery bonhomie, his love for a joke and a night out, and he was an extraordinary antidote to the seriousness that pervaded English cricket half-a-century ago. For all the notion of the Swinging Sixties, in English cricket only the fat man was swinging.An average of 46.71 in nine Tests tells of Milburn’s talent. But the barbs were already out about his fitness when he lost an eye, and damaged the other, in a car crash in 1968. Northants had just beaten the West Indies tourists and Milburn was in celebratory mood. He lost control of the car, heading back to the Abington pub by the Northants ground for some more beers, and crashed through the windscreen. The Road Safety bill had been introduced in 1966, the breathalyser a year later; seat belts became compulsory in 1983. It was a tragedy of its time, not carrying the mantle of shame that it would today.Milburn’s gloriously unlikely career, and the extent of the mental-health issues that welled up after his accident, are explored in , a one-man play written by Dougie Blaxland (aka James Graham-Brown, the former Kent cricketer), which is about halfway through its tour of the county grounds. It has been produced in association with the Professional Cricketers’ Association to promote mental health and well-being. In a desperately unhappy turn of fate, Alan Hodgson, Milburn’s former county team-mate, flatmate for a decade, and a primary source for much of the material, died a few days before the premiere.The strong implication is that Milburn’s seeds of self-destruction were sown even before his car accident, and the fact that this is a one-man performance adds to his sense of isolation. “The more you are hurt, the more you smile,” was actually the cricketing advice of his father, Jack Milburn, a Durham local-league slugger, about how to take a blow from a fast bowler, but it neatly widens out into Milburn’s message for life as he learns from childhood to tell a succession of fat jokes against himself.Remaining dates

November 11 – Durham (Riverside Emirates)

12 – Burnopfield CC

14 – Essex (County Ground, Chelmsford)

15 – Kent (Spitfire Ground, Canterbury)

16 – Sussex (1st Central County Ground, Hove)

17 – Surrey (Kia Oval)

18 – Middlesex (Lord’s)

19 – Teddington CC

21 – Hampshire (Ageas Bowl)

22 – Leicestershire (Fischer County Ground, Leicester)

23 – Nottinghamshire (Trent Bridge Inn, Nottingham)

24 – Northamptonshire (County Ground, Northampton)

25 – West Hallam CC

Only cricket sustains him. A long-standing engagement eventually falters because he prefers to be out with the lads. He cannot hold down a job in the off season. Whenever he seems down, his mates do what men did – still do – and take him to the pub to cheer him up.Milburn’s accident hastened a decline that perhaps was inevitable, although his mother, Bertha, felt that effectively his life was ended on that night. With his left eye lost – his leading eye, unlike in the case of the Nawab of Pataudi, whose example Milburn hoped he could emulate – and his right eye badly scarred, his prospects of a comeback were minimal, but his bedside manner was so defiant the hospital report that year suggested that it was he who was lifting the nurses.Ill-advisedly, Northants allowed him one last heave in 1974 – their version, perhaps, of caring for his welfare – and predictably he did not succeed, save for an hour at Guildford against Surrey in light so bright that “the sun lit up the sky like a meteor”, one of the most moving passages of the play. But then the clouds rolled in and they never departed.”I tell them every fat joke I know… I am ‘Comedy Ollie’, the joker, but it never occurs to you that one day you might run out of jokes.”The play is set in the bar of the North Briton pub in Newton Aycliffe on the last night of his life. It is one last performance for “Comedy Ollie”, a traipse through the highs and lows, the tales, the songs and the bonhomie that characterised his life. Feedback from those former Northants team-mates who have seen it has been highly positive: it connects with the Ollie they knew well. Even now, there is a reluctance to accept that there was too much unhappiness, and to some degree the play respects this. Nevertheless, as Milburn reminisces, there is little sense in Dan Gaisford’s performance of the alcoholic exhaustion that had set in. His moment of death is delicately skipped around: not so much as a sound effect.Inevitably this is theatre at its most rudimentary. There is no set, apart from a table, chair and a large glass of gin and coke. Milburn’s girth is symbolised by a bit of extra padding around Gaisford’s middle, and he is not an overweight man. But by no stretch of the imagination is this austere theatre: there is much laughter to be had. I don’t know if the baby balloon joke was Milburn’s, but it should have been.When I was eight, I would pretend to be Ollie Milburn in a knockaround cricket match on a patch of village green. Overweight at the time as I was, it doubtless had its psychological benefits. The role duly chosen, the intent was to try to hit the ball many a mile, a feat occasionally achieved alongside the tumble of many wickets. “Can you be Boycott instead,” my mate Bob pleaded one day. “We’ve only got one tennis ball left.”Late in his life, in the mid-1980s, I joined Milburn as an emergency fill-in for an hour’s county cricket commentary at Scarborough on a premium telephone service. He was hungover, shambolic and had little to say. This being Scarborough, I was probably hungover too, and had even less to offer. People were expected to phone in and pay about 30p a minute. There was surely nobody on the line. It was probably his last job and it paid his bar bill. His decline was all too apparent. succeeds in capturing Milburn’s uniqueness – not an overused word in this case – conveying something of his life at his highest and lowest moments. It left me hankering for something even more ambitious; in its exploration of the sadness behind the famous sporting figure there were reminders of . Being about football and Brian Clough, that had a successful theatre run. Cricket, by contrast, must take what it can get but all involved in this production, the PCA included, have delivered not only an entertaining night’s theatre but a story that needed to be told.When The Eye Has Gone is part of the PCA’s commitment to mental-health and well-being issues, notably the Mind Matters series, which warns about addictive behaviour through alcohol, substances or gambling and educates about the warning signs of anxiety and depression.

Queensland wicketkeeper Chris Hartley on his record dismissals, the frustration of remaining on the sidelines, and the dangers of fast-tracking young players too soon

Brydon Coverdale08-Feb-2017Since December 19, 2003, Australia’s selectors have chosen ten different wicketkeepers to represent the country in Test, one-day international or T20 cricket: Adam Gilchrist, Brad Haddin, Matthew Wade, Peter Nevill, Tim Paine, Graham Manou, Luke Ronchi, Ben Dunk, Peter Handscomb and Cameron Bancroft.During the same period, eight men have been picked to keep wickets in first-class matches for Australia A, the kind of selection that tells a gloveman he is not far off a baggy green: Haddin, Wade, Paine, Nevill, Ronchi, Bancroft, Sam Whiteman and, going back to the week of December 19, 2003 itself, Wade Seccombe.Why is that date of relevance? Because that is when Chris Hartley, then a 21-year-old understudy to Seccombe in the Queensland squad, made his debut for his state. And it was some sort of an entrance: while Seccombe was in Hobart playing against the touring Indians for Australia A, Hartley scored 103 on his first-class debut at the Gabba. More importantly by Hartley’s reckoning, Queensland won the match.For most of the 13 years since, Hartley has been a fixture of the Queensland team and has been regarded by good judges as one of the best – perhaps at times best – gloveman in the country. Last week, he surpassed Darren Berry’s Sheffield Shield record of 546 wicketkeeping dismissals, which he described as “a very proud personal achievement”.Another remarkable feat is approaching: this week against New South Wales, Hartley will play his 100th consecutive Shield game. Only two other players in history have managed 100 consecutive Shield games, both Tasmanians: opener Jamie Cox, who played 106 in a row from 1994 to 2004, and allrounder Shaun Young who played 104 straight from 1991 to 2001.”I didn’t realise that, but I’ll take a lot of pride in that as well,” Hartley says. “Wicketkeeping is a very physical part of the game, so your physical preparation needs to match that. I’ve taken that very seriously over my career.”It is natural that these feats bring Hartley immense pride. But they are also achievements that have been possible only because higher honours have never been his, in much the same way that Cox never played for Australia and Young gained a baggy green only in exceptional circumstances. Notably, every one of Hartley’s 129 first-class matches and 562 dismissals have been for Queensland.Hartley now holds the Shield record for the most keeping dismissals in a career•Getty ImagesA gloveman could accept not playing a Test – there is only one spot in the team, and always six state keepers competing for it – but never even getting a first-class game for Australia A? That, Hartley admits, has hurt a little. The only time he has ever been called up for Australia A was back in 2005, for three one-day games in Pakistan when Haddin was injured mid-tour.”That’s been an area of frustration for me,” Hartley says. “I was fortunate that I played some one-day games with Australia A very early on. Brad Haddin was injured on a tour of Pakistan and I was given an opportunity on the back of only a few games at first-class level. Certainly selectors were looking at potential there.”What’s been frustrating is that I know that clearly I’ve improved as a cricketer since then, for a long period of time now, and I feel like at some stage through the journey there would’ve been a chance to show at that level again where those improvements were. The feedback I always got over the course of that time was that the selectors … knew what I was capable of and it was about putting performances on the board.”I feel like I’ve consistently been doing that. It is an area of frustration not to be given more chances to represent there, but any time you go out for your state anyway you’re still only one step off playing for your country. Any time I got frustrated I just redirected that back into my training and preparation and making sure I could find a way to play my best cricket for Queensland.”And that he has done with exceptional skill and consistency. A quick look at his stats would mark Hartley down as not a good enough batsman for the next level. A first-class batting average of 33? Forget about it. Such is the superficial view. But that number is skewed by early seasons of lower output. It took Hartley five more summers before he added another hundred to his century on debut.Instead, consider the list of batting averages among wicketkeepers since the start of the 2013-14 season, with a ten-game minimum: Nevill (53.18), Hartley (42.88), Wade (38.61), Whiteman (36.52), Alex Carey (26.82), Paine (22.84), Tim Ludeman (22.25). Make no mistake, Hartley can bat, and is viewed by Shield bowlers around the country as one of the hardest batsmen to dismiss. As an opener in the 2014 Matador Cup, he was third on the tournament run tally.”To me, the best measure of any player is whether they’re contributing to a side winning games”•Getty Images”You hope that your performances do all your talking for you, and that’s where some frustration has come in, because I think certainly in the last three or four years at least, my performances have spoken loudly, particularly in terms of what I can do with the bat,” Hartley says. “People also need to understand that you do different roles for different teams.”In my formative years with the Bulls I probably wasn’t relied on with the bat as much, because of the strong top order that we had. Quite a few times an innings might have been trying to get a few quick runs leading into a declaration, and not getting as many opportunities to have a long innings. Current form is what’s most important and that’s what I’m really focused on.”And if we’re talking current form, then Hartley has all of his contemporaries covered. In the Shield last week, he scored an unbeaten 102 as captain to lead Queensland to a win over Tasmania; this season he has 374 runs at 74.80, more runs and a better average than any other keeper (leaving out Josh Inglis, whose 40 and 49 not on debut for Western Australia last week left him averaging 89).Yet Wade is the incumbent Test wicketkeeper, Nevill the man he replaced, and Whiteman the Australia A gloveman of last year. So where does a 34-year-old Hartley sit in the pecking order? Your guess is as good as his, but he has not given up hope.”I still believe that you pick a cricket team based on the best players,” he says. “Yes, other factors come into it and certainly the selectors will always have an eye to the future. But I think the best teams are the ones that have the best players in them, in terms of form and performances on the board.”While I’m still in the position of not having played a Test match, it will still be a goal of mine to achieve that. I think I’ve got the performances on the board, I think I’ve got the game to play at Test level. I think the wicketkeeping position in the last 12 months has been looked at closely, so if ever there’s a time to be putting some performances on the board, right now is a pretty good time.””I think the [Test] wicketkeeping position in the last 12 months has been looked at closely, so if ever there’s a time to be putting some performances on the board, right now is a pretty good time”•Getty ImagesHe thought 2009 was a pretty good time, too, and that he had a reasonable chance of being the reserve gloveman behind Haddin on that year’s Ashes tour. Instead, the job went to Graham Manou. Undeterred, Hartley signed to play Lancashire League cricket that year in order to be ready and nearby just in case, and when Haddin and Manou were both recovering from injuries in the lead-up to the fifth Test, Hartley got called on to keep in a two-day game against the England Lions.”To be able to watch the preparation of players like Ricky Ponting – even only being there for 48 hours, I learnt a hell of a lot in that space,” Hartley says.But time moves on: both Haddin and Manou are retired, yet still Hartley finds himself somewhere in the middle of the national wicketkeeping queue. Who does he rate highest for pure glovework among current Australian keepers?”Purely on glovework, I think Peter Nevill is the best keeper in Australia,” Hartley says. “He’s clearly done a lot of hard work on his game, because he’s very, very efficient. His basic wicketkeeping technique is very, very sound. That’s why he makes very few errors. He’s a very accomplished gloveman, and I think he’s still at the top of the tree.”I think one to keep an eye on is Alex Carey from South Australia. He hasn’t played a lot of cricket at this level just yet, and it’s not just the fact that he’s taken quite a few dismissals this year – I’ve kept an eye on the way he’s gone about it. He moves well, he’s got some very good basics. That’s key for any cricketer, but certainly for wicketkeepers: if you don’t have your basics in order, when you’re under pressure or fatigued that gets found out.”And pressure is something that Hartley would like to see return to domestic cricket. Pressure to perform, pressure to win. When he first joined the Queensland squad, he was told by Matthew Hayden and Andrew Symonds that team performance was all that mattered. If you focused on the team and on contributing to a win, individual results would naturally follow.Among Australian keepers, Hartley rates Peter Nevill (keeping) as the best, and Alex Carey (batting) as one to watch out for•Getty ImagesThirteen years later, the landscape has changed somewhat. The Matador Cup now features a Cricket Australia XI, designed to expose young players to the elite level even if they are not good enough to make their state squad. Yet because this team is not expected to win, individual performances become the focus. This, Hartley believes, is a concern.”One thing you want to do when you’re developing players is find a way to get them contributing to the team,” he says. “If you’ve got 11 players going out there and basically having a net or trying to put their own name up in lights, that starts to go away from the fabric of the great state teams and Australian teams of the past, that are very team-focused.”And the Sheffield Shield? Winning seems now to matter less than producing players who will go on to represent Australia.”Where players these days feel it might have changed is that the producing of Australian players and the focus of that development side of it has maybe overtaken the competition side of it,” Hartley says. “To me, the best measure of any player, whether they’re young or old, whether they’ve played a lot of games or not many games, is whether they’re performing and contributing to a side winning games.”The Australian side, every time they walk out on the park, should be trying to win games of cricket. So who are the players who are actually going to help win that game of cricket? They’re the ones that should be getting picked. That’s how it was when I first started. That’s how I learnt the game. That’s always been a very successful way for the Australian team to operate. What you want is to try and mirror that at the level below with state cricket. To me, state cricket and international cricket is all about winning.”Instead, it seems at times that the Sheffield Shield has simply become an extension of the pathways system. Greg Chappell, a national selector as well as national talent manager, last week referred to a “pick and stretch policy we have with our young players, to keep exposing them to more challenges at the highest level possible, to help them develop their skills.””For wicketkeepers, if you don’t have your basics in order, when you’re under pressure or fatigued that gets found out”•Getty ImagesThere are times when this even seems to extend to the national side. When fast bowler Billy Stanlake was picked in the ODI squad, selector Trevor Hohns said that “now is the right time to give him a chance to stretch himself”. Of Hilton Cartwright, handed a baggy green in Sydney, Hohns last week said: “He was another young player who we took the opportunity to introduce into the team environment, hoping that down the track, that will spur him on to want to get back there again.”While Hartley understands the balancing act required of selectors to consider the future as well as the present, he believes that development belongs at levels below state and international cricket. The pathways system, he says, has changed since he came through Queensland’s under-age sides and the Academy. As Hartley recalls, his pathway still led to a door that needed bashing down even to earn a game for Queensland.”One of the best things that happened to me at the start of my career was, right at the end of that Under-19 phase. I was stuck behind Wade Seccombe in the state squad, and had to do at least a two-year apprenticeship behind him,” Hartley says. “I was desperate to play for my state as some of my contemporaries were doing – Nathan Hauritz and Mitchell Johnson and Shane Watson – but I had to keep waiting.”One thing that did do for me was it taught me about never taking an opportunity for granted and then when you do get a chance, holding on to that opportunity and making it count. I think perhaps that’s somewhere the game has changed a little bit. We want to give our young players a lot of opportunities to expose them, but we don’t want to give them too much, because we need them to be hungry and we need them to be motivated to push to that next level.”The absolute pointy end of the pyramid is playing for your country. That’s it. That’s where you’ve got to be picking your best XI. That’s where it’s got to be about winning matches and about competition. To me, all the development and the exposure and all of those things happen along the way, in the pathways system.”There really are a lot of opportunities for young guys these days. The way you get those best performances out of people is to make them hungry, and I think if you give them too much too soon and too often, players perhaps get comfortable and they’re not quite as resilient.”And resilience, as anyone who has listened to Steven Smith speak at almost any press conference in the past six months, is what Australia crave right now. Talent is a given, but only resilience will help Australia avoid repeats of the humiliation they suffered in Sri Lanka last year, or at home to South Africa earlier this summer.So maybe in this week of recognising Hartley’s remarkable on-field achievements, Australian cricket should also heed his sensible words. For how many of the new generation will remain as hungry as Chris Hartley in another 13 years?

KL Rahul is probably the only batsman in India’s top five who can play the lofted shots as well as the sweeps and reverse sweeps and is unlikely to tone his game down on raging turners

Karthik Krishnaswamy in Bengaluru02-Mar-2017Unlike descriptions in match reports, ball-by-ball commentary is utterly of the moment and uncoloured by hindsight. KL Rahul’s first-innings dismissal, as we now know, was a key moment in the Pune Test. When it happened, however, Steve O’Keefe Australia’s weakest bowler, and had just delivered a largely unthreatening spell during the pre-lunch session of day two. From here on, he would be anything but.It’s pointless, but ponder nonetheless an alternate universe in which Rahul did not charge down the pitch and attempt to launch O’Keefe for six.On Thursday, two days before the start of the second Test at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, his home ground, Rahul was one of a handful of India players who showed up for an optional training session. He spent some 20 minutes facing the quicks at one net, and another 20 facing the spinners in another.Running in at the fast bowlers’ net were Ishant Sharma and Mohammed Shami – who, bowling mostly off a short run-up, was generating serious pace and seeming to be recovering fast enough from a troublesome right knee and hamstring to be back in contention for the third Test – as well as Dhawal Kulkarni and Barinder Sran, both of whom have been capped by India in ODIs. All four were bowling good-to-full lengths on a fourth-to-fifth-stump line, and Rahul was leaving as many balls as he could.Jayant Yadav and Kuldeep Yadav, both part of India’s Test squad, were bowling at the spinners’ net, as was Axar Patel, who has played a handful of ODIs. The pitch seemed deliberately roughed up, to perhaps mimic Pune-like conditions, and Rahul was batting more or less as he’d done in Pune: going after the spinners, sweeping and reverse-sweeping almost every second ball.Here, it seemed, was a batsman with a clear idea of how he wanted to bat. A batsman aware of a tendency for nerves and looseness at the start of his innings, and aware of the need to give himself time against the new ball, but also a batsman determined to keep playing his shots against spin.While Rahul’s first-innings dismissal in Pune may have looked ugly, there isn’t any real argument to suggest he wasn’t adopting the right approach through his innings. In a low-scoring match, it brought him 30 runs off 45 balls and a control percentage of 89 against the spinners. To put that in context, Steven Smith, during his second-innings 109, managed a control percentage of 73 against India’s spinners. While scoring his 64, Rahul looked in as much ease as any batsman from either side.Rahul’s ability to sweep and reverse-sweep as well as hit over the top is pretty much unique in India’s top five. Some of the others can do one or the other, but not both. It makes him dangerous on turning tracks, where he becomes a key wicket for Australia.How Bengaluru’s pitch will behave remains to be seen. It wore a fine layer of grass on Wednesday, but much of it had disappeared by Thursday afternoon. Australia allrounder Mitchell Marsh said it looked “like a reasonably good wicket” but followed it up by saying it was “pretty dry” and that there were “a few cracks already”. India coach Anil Kumble gave equally mixed messages when he said “it’s generally been a good batting surface and, yeah, I’m sure it’ll be a result wicket”.Given normal batting conditions, Rahul is unlikely to employ his shot-a-ball approach against the spinners. But the way he batted in Pune and during his net session on Thursday suggested India have given him a specific role in case they show up and find themselves on a raging turner. To misuse a baseball term, he becomes their designated hitter.

Players’ proof of patriotism, Mashrafe’s surprise announcement and Malinga’s yorkers feature in the plays from the 1st T20I between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in Colombo

Andrew Fidel Fernando04-Apr-2017The test of patriotismBefore the Bangladesh openers took guard, before Lasith Malinga plodded in to deliver the first delivery, the Premadasa Stadium put the players to a test of their respect for their nation – or at least their national anthem. The drizzle started after began, but by the time it ended, the light shower had become a downpour. Faithfully, and unflinchingly, though, the Sri Lanka side began singing , and were drenched in the rain even before they knew. However, they stuck it out manfully through both verses of the longish anthem, even though there was all likelihood of the players having to swim back to the dressing room by the time it got over.A historic first for MashrafeSome players do it via a statement, others do it at a press conference, and Mahela Jayawardene had once done it in a tweet. But perhaps no international cricketer has announced his retirement at the toss, as Mashrafe Mortaza did today. The announcement followed hours of speculation and, as is characteristic of the man, was made with minimal emotion and fanfare. Having elected to bat, Mashrafe hit an unbeaten nine off five balls, and then claimed two of the Sri Lanka wickets, to remind Bangladesh exactly what they are going to miss.The two-wheeled auto rickshawSabbir Rahman should have made his ground after pushing a ball towards cover and taking off for a quick single in the sixth over. However, instead of running his original line – which would have seen him cover the quickest route to the other crease and may have also brought in the benefit of blocking the throw into the equation – Sabbir appeared to have been spooked by the advancing fielder. He veered sharply to his left, like an auto-rickshaw that has lost one of its rear tyres, and was caught short by a few centimetres after Seekkuge Prasanna threw down the stumps with a sharp throw.Yorkers of yesteryearLasith Malinga might not quite have pace of his younger years, nor the physique, but twice in this match did he muster ripping renditions of the ball that had earned him the reputation a limited-overs specialist. His first ball swung in slightly towards Tamim Iqbal, but was wide of the stumps. The second ball curved back late and lavishly, beating Tamim for pace, as well as movement, and toppled his middle stump. Late in the innings, after a couple of less impressive overs, he gave Mahmudullah’s middle stump the same treatment.