well said bro....
still....sum ppl who don;t even know what cricket is watch cricket matches only when Sanath is batting
True machn. I'm that kind of...
Latest ads
-
Power Lifting Lever Belt- SkullVamp
- Updated:
-
port.lk Domain for sale
- Lankan-Tech
- Updated:
-
Colombo Kaduwela - Two Storey House for Sale- dilrasan
- Updated:
-
Wechat qr verification
- Pawan2005
- Updated:
-
🚀 GOOGLE AI PRO 18 MONTHS ACTIVATION 🚀- sayuru bandara
- Updated:
::: CRICKET ZONE :::
- Thread starter kudos_utopia
- Start date
True machn. I'm that kind of...
South Africa v Sri Lanka, Champions Trophy
Sri Lanka drub South Africa in rain-hit game
Sri Lanka 319 for 8 (Dilshan 106, Jayawardene 77, Sangakkara 54) beat South Africa 206 for 7 (Smith 58, Mendis 3-30) by 55 runs (D/L)
Led by a blazing century from Tillakaratne Dilshan and a brace of cameos, the world's No. 5 team started their Champions Trophy campaign in fine style by beating the top-ranked side. Graeme Smith's decision to field was based on the amount of dew around, but bar Dale Steyn none of the bowlers made an impression in the afternoon. Dilshan's 92-ball 106, coupled with significant inputs from captains former and present, lifted them to a daunting total that was well beyond South Africa.
Sri Lanka carried the energy from their powerful batting display into the field and Ajantha Mendis, unlike the home side's spinners, extracted bounce and turn under lights. Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis showed signs of dominance with an 81-run stand in quick time but once Smith was bowled by Mendis' first delivery, and Kallis and JP Duminy fell in successive balls, Sri Lanka had applied the chokehold.
Smith had a smile on his face when the toss went his way and Steyn nipped out Sanath Jayasuriya, but it was soon replaced by a frown. In a 158-run partnership with Kumar Sangakkara, who provided solid support with 54 from 74 balls, Dilshan played anchor and aggressor in equal measure. The first to feel Dilshan's force was Wayne Parnell, preferred to Makhaya Ntini; he struggled to hit a consistent length and went for 39 in five overs. It was a recurring leitmotif in those early overs, Parnell dragging the ball down and Dilshan pinging the deep point and midwicket boundaries. Albie Morkel was thrashed for 22 in two overs as Sri Lanka reached 100 in the 13th over.
The onslaught forced Smith, who refused to delay the Powerplay, to turn to his spin pair to try and stop the destruction. The pair stemmed the flow of boundaries but lacked bite and Sri Lanka ticked along at over six an over. Dabs, drives, flicks, shots off angled bats, and punches all evaded fielders and Sangakkara brought up his first half-century since February. He fell to an innocuous delivery from Duminy, after which Dilshan's boundary blasting - he hit 16 fours and a six - ended when he slashed the first ball of Steyn's return over to third man.
Sri Lanka used the platform extremely well and crossed 300 thanks largely to Mahela Jayawardene's 77 off 61. He was his usual deft self: cutting, nudging and pushing into the gaps with excellent timing. His feet constantly moved as he made room to create singles and, with Thilan Samaraweera playing in a similar vein, Sri Lanka pressed ahead. Before South Africa knew it Jayawardene was 41 off 40 balls - the majority of those runs coming from controlled paddles and sweeps - and the stage was set for a late surge; the final ten overs cost 85. Parnell gave some respectability to his figures by dismissing Jayawardene and Samaraweera in successive deliveries though by then Sri Lanka were 297 for 5 in the 47th over.
Chasing more than a run a ball from the start, South Africa needed a strong platform. They were in early trouble when Hashim Amla was cleaned up by Angelo Mathews off an inside edge in the third over. Kallis joined Smith, looking leaner having shed a few kilos, and the pair milked the wayward Nuwan Kulasekara, who seemed to contract Parnell's problem of bowling short. Kallis was quick to punish him and Kulasekara's fifth over went for 14, with Smith particularly strong through the off side.
While Smith danced down the track at will and shuffled about to unsettle the fast bowlers, Kallis chose to clip the ball sweetly from the crease. Smith looked increasingly confident at the crease, but playing for a Mendis offbreak he missed one that skidded and hurried on and had his leg stump pegged back.
Mendis had again proved a valuable go-to man for his captain by ending the flourishing partnership. Smith's bullish start hinted at the possibility of a Dilshan-style ambush, but inside four overs Mendis ripped the heart out of the batting order. Kallis showed glimpses of his class in compiling a brisk 41 before he was excellently caught at mid-off by a tumbling Mathews. Next ball, Duminy was castled by a flipper.
The required run-rate was already above seven at 113 for 4 in the 21st over, placing too much pressure on the rest of the order. Lasith Malinga, having bowled just one over at the start, returned to dismiss AB de Villiers and later snapped a gung-ho stand between Morkel and Johan Botha before rain interrupted the chase. At that stage Sri Lanka were well in command, and were later adjudged deserved winners.
Sri Lanka had previously lost only once after posting a 300-plus total in one-day internationals and, led by Mendis, the masters of asphyxiation struck. Adapting to early-season South African conditions superbly, Sri Lanka have taken the lead in showing that Asian teams are a force to be reckoned with in this tournament. South Africa, frustratingly, have shown again why their ability in multi-team tournaments has long been questioned.
Sri Lanka 319 for 8 (Dilshan 106, Jayawardene 77, Sangakkara 54) beat South Africa 206 for 7 (Smith 58, Mendis 3-30) by 55 runs (D/L)
Led by a blazing century from Tillakaratne Dilshan and a brace of cameos, the world's No. 5 team started their Champions Trophy campaign in fine style by beating the top-ranked side. Graeme Smith's decision to field was based on the amount of dew around, but bar Dale Steyn none of the bowlers made an impression in the afternoon. Dilshan's 92-ball 106, coupled with significant inputs from captains former and present, lifted them to a daunting total that was well beyond South Africa.
Sri Lanka carried the energy from their powerful batting display into the field and Ajantha Mendis, unlike the home side's spinners, extracted bounce and turn under lights. Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis showed signs of dominance with an 81-run stand in quick time but once Smith was bowled by Mendis' first delivery, and Kallis and JP Duminy fell in successive balls, Sri Lanka had applied the chokehold.
Smith had a smile on his face when the toss went his way and Steyn nipped out Sanath Jayasuriya, but it was soon replaced by a frown. In a 158-run partnership with Kumar Sangakkara, who provided solid support with 54 from 74 balls, Dilshan played anchor and aggressor in equal measure. The first to feel Dilshan's force was Wayne Parnell, preferred to Makhaya Ntini; he struggled to hit a consistent length and went for 39 in five overs. It was a recurring leitmotif in those early overs, Parnell dragging the ball down and Dilshan pinging the deep point and midwicket boundaries. Albie Morkel was thrashed for 22 in two overs as Sri Lanka reached 100 in the 13th over.
The onslaught forced Smith, who refused to delay the Powerplay, to turn to his spin pair to try and stop the destruction. The pair stemmed the flow of boundaries but lacked bite and Sri Lanka ticked along at over six an over. Dabs, drives, flicks, shots off angled bats, and punches all evaded fielders and Sangakkara brought up his first half-century since February. He fell to an innocuous delivery from Duminy, after which Dilshan's boundary blasting - he hit 16 fours and a six - ended when he slashed the first ball of Steyn's return over to third man.
Sri Lanka used the platform extremely well and crossed 300 thanks largely to Mahela Jayawardene's 77 off 61. He was his usual deft self: cutting, nudging and pushing into the gaps with excellent timing. His feet constantly moved as he made room to create singles and, with Thilan Samaraweera playing in a similar vein, Sri Lanka pressed ahead. Before South Africa knew it Jayawardene was 41 off 40 balls - the majority of those runs coming from controlled paddles and sweeps - and the stage was set for a late surge; the final ten overs cost 85. Parnell gave some respectability to his figures by dismissing Jayawardene and Samaraweera in successive deliveries though by then Sri Lanka were 297 for 5 in the 47th over.
Chasing more than a run a ball from the start, South Africa needed a strong platform. They were in early trouble when Hashim Amla was cleaned up by Angelo Mathews off an inside edge in the third over. Kallis joined Smith, looking leaner having shed a few kilos, and the pair milked the wayward Nuwan Kulasekara, who seemed to contract Parnell's problem of bowling short. Kallis was quick to punish him and Kulasekara's fifth over went for 14, with Smith particularly strong through the off side.
While Smith danced down the track at will and shuffled about to unsettle the fast bowlers, Kallis chose to clip the ball sweetly from the crease. Smith looked increasingly confident at the crease, but playing for a Mendis offbreak he missed one that skidded and hurried on and had his leg stump pegged back.
Mendis had again proved a valuable go-to man for his captain by ending the flourishing partnership. Smith's bullish start hinted at the possibility of a Dilshan-style ambush, but inside four overs Mendis ripped the heart out of the batting order. Kallis showed glimpses of his class in compiling a brisk 41 before he was excellently caught at mid-off by a tumbling Mathews. Next ball, Duminy was castled by a flipper.
The required run-rate was already above seven at 113 for 4 in the 21st over, placing too much pressure on the rest of the order. Lasith Malinga, having bowled just one over at the start, returned to dismiss AB de Villiers and later snapped a gung-ho stand between Morkel and Johan Botha before rain interrupted the chase. At that stage Sri Lanka were well in command, and were later adjudged deserved winners.
Sri Lanka had previously lost only once after posting a 300-plus total in one-day internationals and, led by Mendis, the masters of asphyxiation struck. Adapting to early-season South African conditions superbly, Sri Lanka have taken the lead in showing that Asian teams are a force to be reckoned with in this tournament. South Africa, frustratingly, have shown again why their ability in multi-team tournaments has long been questioned.
ICC Champion's Trophy
- 1st match, Group B
South Africa v Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka won by 55 runs (D/L method)
Tillakaratne Dilshan
Some info of Tillakaratne Dilshan
Full name Tillakaratne Mudiyanselage Dilshan
Born October 14, 1976, Kalutara
Current age 32 years 344 days
Major teams Sri Lanka, Asia XI, Basnahira South,Bloomfield Cricket and Athletic Club,Delhi Daredevils, Kalutara Town Club,Sebastianites Cricket and Athletic Club,Singha Sports Club
Also known as Tuwan Mohamad Dilshan
Batting style Right-hand bat
Bowling style Right-arm offbreak
Fielding position Wicketkeeper
Some info of Tillakaratne Dilshan
Full name Tillakaratne Mudiyanselage Dilshan
Born October 14, 1976, Kalutara
Current age 32 years 344 days
Major teams Sri Lanka, Asia XI, Basnahira South,Bloomfield Cricket and Athletic Club,Delhi Daredevils, Kalutara Town Club,Sebastianites Cricket and Athletic Club,Singha Sports Club
Also known as Tuwan Mohamad Dilshan
Batting style Right-hand bat
Bowling style Right-arm offbreak
Fielding position Wicketkeeper
| Teen Boy gets 11 Sixes in 12 deliveries !! |
Teen Boy hits 11 sixes in 12 deliveries
Breaks Sir Gary Sobbers and Yuvraj Singh's Records
11 Sixes in 12 consecutive deliveries
Hithagannath amarui
Of course it was in a county match but still it is so amazing!!
In England by 18 year old Jamie Lee
What he said:
"I smashed most of the sixes straight over the bowler's head. It was a brilliant feeling. "There were some polite claps when I got my first six and then the excitement mounted.
"People were cheering on the boundary and when I got my sixth six in a row, they just went mental."
"His first ball came down to the leg side and I went forward to whack it, but I missed.
"I just decided to carry on hitting and I knocked the next five for six."
Jamie got 132 runs
His team got 208 runs in 13 overs !
Teen Boy hits 11 sixes in 12 deliveries
Breaks Sir Gary Sobbers and Yuvraj Singh's Records
11 Sixes in 12 consecutive deliveries
Hithagannath amarui
Of course it was in a county match but still it is so amazing!!
In England by 18 year old Jamie Lee
What he said:
"I smashed most of the sixes straight over the bowler's head. It was a brilliant feeling. "There were some polite claps when I got my first six and then the excitement mounted.
"People were cheering on the boundary and when I got my sixth six in a row, they just went mental."
"His first ball came down to the leg side and I went forward to whack it, but I missed.
"I just decided to carry on hitting and I knocked the next five for six."
Jamie got 132 runs
His team got 208 runs in 13 overs !
English cricket would suffer financially if Ashes returned to TV's list of 'Crown Jewels'
*
East and west must come together
That extra reach can have an effect. A month after England's 2005 heroics I was in Norfolk and saw children playing cricket after school instead of football (it was October). The incredible narrative of that series was undoubtedly the catalyst for such unseasonal enthusiasm but those kids might never have been touched so directly had the series been on pay-TV, as now.
It was 11 years ago that Lord MacLaurin, then chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, paved the way for the current situation by persuading Tony Blair's government to remove Test cricket from the A-list of sporting events like the Grand National and the FA Cup – the so-called 'Crown Jewels' – that had to remain on terrestrial TV. Now, a review, led by David Davies, is looking at whether the Ashes, though not all Test cricket, possesses enough "special national resonance" to be returned to the A-list and free-to-air television.
There are important consequences to consider. The ECB's latest deal with Sky is worth £300 million over the next four years but any move to put the Ashes back to terrestrial TV, something the Government has the power to make compulsory, would decimate that value. More cricket would have to be offered to bidders just to limit the shortfall, leading to an even greater saturation of the fixture list than prevails now.
With a fifth of the ECB's revenues going toward developing the grass roots and recreational side of the game (the most of any British sport), it isn't difficult to see which aspect would suffer most in the pursuit of larger TV audiences. Reaching new viewers is a laudable ideal but not if it depletes the section in which most would begin their journey. According to one ECB insider, the drop in revenues would be ruinous, with hundreds of people and projects in that sector being made redundant.
County cricket would also be affected with playing staffs being cut back. Even the England players could suffer a reduction in salary, making them prey to parasitic Twenty20 competitions that are certain to have multiplied like pond life by the time the next TV rights come up for sale in 2012.
Excellence costs money and England currently boast an Ashes-winning men's team and the best women's team on the globe. Returning the Ashes to terrestrial TV might improve the wellbeing of the country, providing England are winning, but not the game that spawned them.
Zimbabwe's Mark Vermeulen on the road back from arsonist to international cricketer
Zimbabwe's Mark Vermeulen on the road back from arsonist to international cricketer
Zimbabwe's Mark Vermeulen on the road back from arsonist to international cricketer
When Mark Vermeulen tries to recall that man standing outside the Zimbabwe Cricket Academy, the one with a cigarette lighter in his hand and crazy, incendiary thoughts in his head, he cannot picture himself.
On that night of Oct 31, 2006, the old Vermeulen could not take it any more. Anger, depression and frustration steamed like a pressure cooker inside him.
He was one of his country's finest sportsmen, a gifted Test cricketer, a batsman with a Test hundred to his name, but ever since he had been smashed in the head by a bouncer in a one-day international three years earlier, he had changed. Once just cocky, he was now crazed, quick to be irritated and even quicker to rise to uncontrolled fury.
Only the previous month he had come home from England in disgrace when, after bowling a poor over as a pro for Lancashire League club Werneth, he had reacted to taunting in the crowd by hurling a cricket ball at the spectators, narrowly missing a young girl, and then by marching to attack them, brandishing a boundary-marker spike.
Screaming like a banshee, he had had to be restrained by team-mates and ended up receiving a 10-year playing ban in England, a punishment later reduced to three.
Now back home in Zimbabwe, he was paranoid that cricket did not want to know him any more. He had been left out of the 30-man national squad and could not cope with the rejection.
On Oct 30, he had visited the Harare Sports Club. "The national squad guys were there training and they had totally discarded me. I'd expected to be in that squad," he recalls. "I just thought '------ this, I don't want anyone else to have the opportunity to play if they're not willing to give me the opportunity'."
His way of stopping them was drastic. That night, he determined to burn down the club which housed the Zimbabwe Cricket headquarters and he failed only when smoke from the burning curtains was spotted by someone in an adjacent building.
But the next night, Vermeulen picked another target five miles away for his vengeance; the two-storey national cricket academy set amid Highlands, a plush Harare country club.
"I'd been watching the TV and thought 'I've had enough of this'," Vermmeulen recalls. "I went off in my brother's Chevrolet, which had a South African number plate, and set fire to the building's thatched roof with a lighter. I watched it catch hold and then I drove away."
The place was gutted; computers, video equipment, all the national playing kit and equipment of a relatively impoverished cricketing association destroyed. Fortunately, no one in the national team, in camp there before a tour to Bangladesh, was injured.
Within hours, Vermeulen had been arrested, betrayed by the number plate. During three days' incarceration he accepted that he would probably go to prison. Hard labour and 25 years imprisonment and hard labour was the expected punishment.
Yet as he awaited trial, something "deep down" inside Vermeulen's disintegrating mind told him: "I'll get back. I'll do my time and one day I'll play for my country again."
Incredibly, he was right. In August, he made his return to the national team and, on Monday, he will walk out to open the batting in a one-day international for Zimbabwe against Kenya at the Harare Sports Club, nearly three years to the day since he tried to burn the place down.
So in this year of unlikely sporting comebacks from Lance Armstrong to Kim Clijsters, we are talking about sport's most miraculous resurrection.
How did it happen? Well, Vermeulen will tell you and so will the doctors who went into bat for him. "I was a different completely different person back then. That wasn't the real me," he says.
For the attacker and arsonist of 2006 had not been in his right mind – and the reason for that was down to the game he loved.
****
Vermeulen, talking for the first time about his extraordinary journey with frankness and occasional poignancy, transports me back to its start point in January 2004 with the vague memory of an innings for Zimbabwe in the triangular international series against India at the Gabba in Brsibane.
"I went to pull a rising ball and top-edged it through the gap between the grille and peak of the helmet," he says. "I thought I was OK but when I took off the helmet, the fielders could see the indentation in my skull."
This was not a first; the previous year Vermeulen had been similarly felled, hit in the forehead by a beamer during a net practice. This time, though, it was so serious that he needed urgent surgery.
"The Australian doctor was shaking as he told me 'this is the riskiest operation you could have'. Bone had fractured over my eye and another piece in my sinuses had to be taken out and put back with titanium plates."
Less than four months later he was batting again. Fearfully, though.
Already, he could feel something wrong. "Everything started turning off.Just things in everyday life, like driving, would start making me more mad than in the past. It was frustration, anger and stages when I'd get depressed."
His form slumped; in his next 13 one-day international innings that year, he averaged less than 10. His South African fiancée finished with him. He became moodier, more erratic.
At this point, it should be noted that Vermeulen, a dentist's lad from a well-heeled background, had always had a bit of a reputation for being a bit of a lively character or spoilt bad boy, depending on your viewpoint. As a kid at Prince Edward High in Harare, for instance, he had been banned after walking off with the stumps after he had been given out lbw. In 2003 after being dismissed for two ducks by England in one day of the Lord's Test, he was sent home because he defied management orders by leaving the ground on his own instead of with the team.
But this was different, not mere petulance; after his operation, he had become wild and uncontrollably erratic. He can even smile now about how, in 2006, he tried in vain to gatecrash President Robert Mugabe's palace in Harare to protest about his exclusion from the team. "A risky thing to do," he says wryly.
"It's true I would get upset when I was younger if I didn't perform the way I want and I did have temper tantrums." But arson? Violent attacks? "I definitely would never have dreamt of doing something like that," he swears.
After his arrest, Vermeulen discovered why. "Doctors found my personality was altered by abnormal misfiring in my brain's left hemisphere." Three psychiatric reports, including one ordered by the State, concluded he was suffering partial complex epilepsy and impulsive behaviour disorder, brought on by the injury.
"The illness causes loss of impulse control and compromises anger-management," the court heard. So Vermeulen was cleared on the grounds that he had not been in control of his actions.
Already undergoing medication by now, a contrite Vermeulen wanted to make amends, so suggested to Zimbabwe Cricket that they let him play again and he would donate all his match fees to pay for the US$150,000 (£94,000) damage he had caused.
"Most never wanted me to play for my country again but Ozias Bvute [Zimbabwe cricket's managing director] was willing to give me another chance. Seeing how persistent I was [about repaying the money], they finally agreed in February."
So, for the past seven months, Vermeulen reckons he has donated $75,000 (£47,000) in match fees to help rebuild the academy and Zimbabwe Cricket now considers his debt paid.
Life is good again. With the help of anti-epilepsy medication and regular psychiatrists' sessions, Vermeulen reports: "I'm a totally different person, 30 now, a lot calmer, not much bothers me after all these years of trials and tribulations. People have been supportive, glad to see me back." He felt moved when Bulawayo cheered him to the rafters with his brilliant comeback innings of 92 against Bangladesh in August.
Still, though, a warning from his surgeon in Australia lives with him every day. "I cannot tell you to stop playing but whatever you do do not get hit in the head again because it could be fatal."
"Every time I walk out to bat could be my last but I don't really worry too much about that. I love cricket too much. Everyone on this planet experiences their own journey through life and I've certainly had a pretty eventful one and hopefully now I'll have a quiet end to my career."
Returning to the scene of his crime where a new academy is sprouting from the rubble, Vermeulen can look and reflect: "I was ashamed then and I did regret what I'd done but I was just thankful that no one got hurt during that time when I didn't know how to control myself.
"It will be great to see it rebuilt. I don't know if they will ask me to the reopening but I hope so." It would represent an inspiring conclusion to one of sport's most powerful tales of redemption.
The all rounder
Mark Vermeulent is a gifted all-round sportsmen, having been Zimbabwe national junior javelin champion. The forceful batsman, 30, has played in eight Tests, scoring two fifties and one century. After his injury in 2004, his form deteriorated and he was dropped, until he won a recall in August when he scored his sixth one-day fifty, against Bangladesh.
On that night of Oct 31, 2006, the old Vermeulen could not take it any more. Anger, depression and frustration steamed like a pressure cooker inside him.
He was one of his country's finest sportsmen, a gifted Test cricketer, a batsman with a Test hundred to his name, but ever since he had been smashed in the head by a bouncer in a one-day international three years earlier, he had changed. Once just cocky, he was now crazed, quick to be irritated and even quicker to rise to uncontrolled fury.
Only the previous month he had come home from England in disgrace when, after bowling a poor over as a pro for Lancashire League club Werneth, he had reacted to taunting in the crowd by hurling a cricket ball at the spectators, narrowly missing a young girl, and then by marching to attack them, brandishing a boundary-marker spike.
Screaming like a banshee, he had had to be restrained by team-mates and ended up receiving a 10-year playing ban in England, a punishment later reduced to three.
Now back home in Zimbabwe, he was paranoid that cricket did not want to know him any more. He had been left out of the 30-man national squad and could not cope with the rejection.
On Oct 30, he had visited the Harare Sports Club. "The national squad guys were there training and they had totally discarded me. I'd expected to be in that squad," he recalls. "I just thought '------ this, I don't want anyone else to have the opportunity to play if they're not willing to give me the opportunity'."
His way of stopping them was drastic. That night, he determined to burn down the club which housed the Zimbabwe Cricket headquarters and he failed only when smoke from the burning curtains was spotted by someone in an adjacent building.
But the next night, Vermeulen picked another target five miles away for his vengeance; the two-storey national cricket academy set amid Highlands, a plush Harare country club.
"I'd been watching the TV and thought 'I've had enough of this'," Vermmeulen recalls. "I went off in my brother's Chevrolet, which had a South African number plate, and set fire to the building's thatched roof with a lighter. I watched it catch hold and then I drove away."
The place was gutted; computers, video equipment, all the national playing kit and equipment of a relatively impoverished cricketing association destroyed. Fortunately, no one in the national team, in camp there before a tour to Bangladesh, was injured.
Within hours, Vermeulen had been arrested, betrayed by the number plate. During three days' incarceration he accepted that he would probably go to prison. Hard labour and 25 years imprisonment and hard labour was the expected punishment.
Yet as he awaited trial, something "deep down" inside Vermeulen's disintegrating mind told him: "I'll get back. I'll do my time and one day I'll play for my country again."
Incredibly, he was right. In August, he made his return to the national team and, on Monday, he will walk out to open the batting in a one-day international for Zimbabwe against Kenya at the Harare Sports Club, nearly three years to the day since he tried to burn the place down.
So in this year of unlikely sporting comebacks from Lance Armstrong to Kim Clijsters, we are talking about sport's most miraculous resurrection.
How did it happen? Well, Vermeulen will tell you and so will the doctors who went into bat for him. "I was a different completely different person back then. That wasn't the real me," he says.
For the attacker and arsonist of 2006 had not been in his right mind – and the reason for that was down to the game he loved.
****
Vermeulen, talking for the first time about his extraordinary journey with frankness and occasional poignancy, transports me back to its start point in January 2004 with the vague memory of an innings for Zimbabwe in the triangular international series against India at the Gabba in Brsibane.
"I went to pull a rising ball and top-edged it through the gap between the grille and peak of the helmet," he says. "I thought I was OK but when I took off the helmet, the fielders could see the indentation in my skull."
This was not a first; the previous year Vermeulen had been similarly felled, hit in the forehead by a beamer during a net practice. This time, though, it was so serious that he needed urgent surgery.
"The Australian doctor was shaking as he told me 'this is the riskiest operation you could have'. Bone had fractured over my eye and another piece in my sinuses had to be taken out and put back with titanium plates."
Less than four months later he was batting again. Fearfully, though.
Already, he could feel something wrong. "Everything started turning off.Just things in everyday life, like driving, would start making me more mad than in the past. It was frustration, anger and stages when I'd get depressed."
His form slumped; in his next 13 one-day international innings that year, he averaged less than 10. His South African fiancée finished with him. He became moodier, more erratic.
At this point, it should be noted that Vermeulen, a dentist's lad from a well-heeled background, had always had a bit of a reputation for being a bit of a lively character or spoilt bad boy, depending on your viewpoint. As a kid at Prince Edward High in Harare, for instance, he had been banned after walking off with the stumps after he had been given out lbw. In 2003 after being dismissed for two ducks by England in one day of the Lord's Test, he was sent home because he defied management orders by leaving the ground on his own instead of with the team.
But this was different, not mere petulance; after his operation, he had become wild and uncontrollably erratic. He can even smile now about how, in 2006, he tried in vain to gatecrash President Robert Mugabe's palace in Harare to protest about his exclusion from the team. "A risky thing to do," he says wryly.
"It's true I would get upset when I was younger if I didn't perform the way I want and I did have temper tantrums." But arson? Violent attacks? "I definitely would never have dreamt of doing something like that," he swears.
After his arrest, Vermeulen discovered why. "Doctors found my personality was altered by abnormal misfiring in my brain's left hemisphere." Three psychiatric reports, including one ordered by the State, concluded he was suffering partial complex epilepsy and impulsive behaviour disorder, brought on by the injury.
"The illness causes loss of impulse control and compromises anger-management," the court heard. So Vermeulen was cleared on the grounds that he had not been in control of his actions.
Already undergoing medication by now, a contrite Vermeulen wanted to make amends, so suggested to Zimbabwe Cricket that they let him play again and he would donate all his match fees to pay for the US$150,000 (£94,000) damage he had caused.
"Most never wanted me to play for my country again but Ozias Bvute [Zimbabwe cricket's managing director] was willing to give me another chance. Seeing how persistent I was [about repaying the money], they finally agreed in February."
So, for the past seven months, Vermeulen reckons he has donated $75,000 (£47,000) in match fees to help rebuild the academy and Zimbabwe Cricket now considers his debt paid.
Life is good again. With the help of anti-epilepsy medication and regular psychiatrists' sessions, Vermeulen reports: "I'm a totally different person, 30 now, a lot calmer, not much bothers me after all these years of trials and tribulations. People have been supportive, glad to see me back." He felt moved when Bulawayo cheered him to the rafters with his brilliant comeback innings of 92 against Bangladesh in August.
Still, though, a warning from his surgeon in Australia lives with him every day. "I cannot tell you to stop playing but whatever you do do not get hit in the head again because it could be fatal."
"Every time I walk out to bat could be my last but I don't really worry too much about that. I love cricket too much. Everyone on this planet experiences their own journey through life and I've certainly had a pretty eventful one and hopefully now I'll have a quiet end to my career."
Returning to the scene of his crime where a new academy is sprouting from the rubble, Vermeulen can look and reflect: "I was ashamed then and I did regret what I'd done but I was just thankful that no one got hurt during that time when I didn't know how to control myself.
"It will be great to see it rebuilt. I don't know if they will ask me to the reopening but I hope so." It would represent an inspiring conclusion to one of sport's most powerful tales of redemption.
The all rounder
Mark Vermeulent is a gifted all-round sportsmen, having been Zimbabwe national junior javelin champion. The forceful batsman, 30, has played in eight Tests, scoring two fifties and one century. After his injury in 2004, his form deteriorated and he was dropped, until he won a recall in August when he scored his sixth one-day fifty, against Bangladesh.
East and western cricketers must come together in England national team
East and western cricketers must come together in England national team
The softness of the county cricket scene and Asian attitude takes its toll on burgeoning England talent.
England have made four main omissions from their Test and one-day touring parties to South Africa. One is Steve Harmison who, at 30, has passed his physical prime as a fast bowler. The other three are Ravi Bopara, Monty Panesar and Owais Shah, who are – or should be – in their prime.
Is it a coincidence that all three have an Asian background? Most cricketers, in any country, fall by the wayside as they approach the top. But such is the talent of Bopara, and of Panesar, and of Shah although he has an idiosyncratic technique, that the question needs to be asked – not least because two more players of Asian origin, Adil Rashid and Sajid Mahmood, have been included in the touring parties.
The culture of English cricket has led to many talents being fulfilled only at county level. Bopara to date has been treated like Mark Ramprakash, Graeme Hick and Mike Gatting when young. Old sweats in the England side hang on to the plum berths of No 4 and 5. Young middle-order batsmen have to bat either too high or too low, so their induction is far more difficult than it should be.
A lack of continuity, and sometimes of wisdom, in England's coaches and selectors is also to blame. Bopara, in England's last World Cup match of 2007 and Duncan Fletcher's last game as coach, was promoted to No 3 and, albeit on a belter of a Bridgetown pitch, looked the part.
Then Peter Moores took over, and dropped Bopara from the one-day side, then reinstated him at No 7. Andy Flower went to the other extreme and promoted Bopara to open England's 50-over and 20-over innings, and to be No 3 in the Test team.
It is little surprise that Bopara's career has gone up and down: it has been a reflection of the way the management have fitted him into England's sides. Even after he scored his maiden Test hundred – his team-mates crowding the balcony to watch him take on the fiery bouncers of Fidel Edwards – Bopara was dropped.
In May he joined a list of England's all-time greats when he scored three Test hundreds in successive innings. Since then he has not reached 50.
Perception is another part of the problem, and the hype that greets every new England player. Before the 2006-7 Ashes series in Australia, Panesar was not simply a good – potentially very good – left-arm spinner, but the Greatest English Spinner Ever. His omission from the Brisbane Test was Cricket's Biggest Travesty.
Now Panesar is perceived to have little or no idea about setting a field. Yet in his new book, Ashes to Ashes, Andrew Flintoff relates a story about Panesar on England's tour of India in 2005-6, when Flintoff was captain.
"Two days before the first Test, he came to my room and, using the notepad by the phone, went through what field he wanted to set for each batsman in the India team, in case he was selected.
"He also told me what to look out for when he was bowling, what the signs would be if he was getting tired and things like that. I thought that was absolutely fantastic for someone about to make his debut."
The argument that Asian cricketers are failing to fulfil themselves in the England side because of racism does not seem tenable: not even when Ramprakash, Vikram Solanki and Samit Patel are considered.
But there may well be a lack of cultural awareness. If Asians are brought up to be deferential towards authority, a player like Panesar will be far more reluctant to question his captain's decisions about field-placing.
Another factor is the soft culture that county cricket is only gradually rectifying. Panesar and Shah were not pushed hard enough to improve their fielding at an early, formative age – and the same could be said for Bopara, who could have been an outstanding fielder by now, the successor to Paul Collingwood.
In the Ashes series, Bopara quickly reached double figures in the first two Tests, only for his innings to seize up for various reasons; but it was when he kept fumbling at cover in the Edgbaston Test that it was clear the Australians had got on top of him.
Shah could have made himself far less droppable if he had worked on his fielding when young, but that was not the culture then, as the similar career of his Kent contemporary Robert Key bears out.
In the Champions Trophy match last month when he scored 98, Shah ran in from long-on and dropped a straightforward chance offered by Graeme Smith, who would have won the game with his 141 if he had found a partner. This was perhaps the fatal blow to Shah's career.
As one with an Asian father and English mother, the former England captain Nasser Hussain would be well-placed to assess whether Asian cricketers are being fully integrated. If England are to be world champions in any form of the game, East and west must meet in the national side.
The softness of the county cricket scene and Asian attitude takes its toll on burgeoning England talent.
England have made four main omissions from their Test and one-day touring parties to South Africa. One is Steve Harmison who, at 30, has passed his physical prime as a fast bowler. The other three are Ravi Bopara, Monty Panesar and Owais Shah, who are – or should be – in their prime.
Is it a coincidence that all three have an Asian background? Most cricketers, in any country, fall by the wayside as they approach the top. But such is the talent of Bopara, and of Panesar, and of Shah although he has an idiosyncratic technique, that the question needs to be asked – not least because two more players of Asian origin, Adil Rashid and Sajid Mahmood, have been included in the touring parties.
The culture of English cricket has led to many talents being fulfilled only at county level. Bopara to date has been treated like Mark Ramprakash, Graeme Hick and Mike Gatting when young. Old sweats in the England side hang on to the plum berths of No 4 and 5. Young middle-order batsmen have to bat either too high or too low, so their induction is far more difficult than it should be.
A lack of continuity, and sometimes of wisdom, in England's coaches and selectors is also to blame. Bopara, in England's last World Cup match of 2007 and Duncan Fletcher's last game as coach, was promoted to No 3 and, albeit on a belter of a Bridgetown pitch, looked the part.
Then Peter Moores took over, and dropped Bopara from the one-day side, then reinstated him at No 7. Andy Flower went to the other extreme and promoted Bopara to open England's 50-over and 20-over innings, and to be No 3 in the Test team.
It is little surprise that Bopara's career has gone up and down: it has been a reflection of the way the management have fitted him into England's sides. Even after he scored his maiden Test hundred – his team-mates crowding the balcony to watch him take on the fiery bouncers of Fidel Edwards – Bopara was dropped.
In May he joined a list of England's all-time greats when he scored three Test hundreds in successive innings. Since then he has not reached 50.
Perception is another part of the problem, and the hype that greets every new England player. Before the 2006-7 Ashes series in Australia, Panesar was not simply a good – potentially very good – left-arm spinner, but the Greatest English Spinner Ever. His omission from the Brisbane Test was Cricket's Biggest Travesty.
Now Panesar is perceived to have little or no idea about setting a field. Yet in his new book, Ashes to Ashes, Andrew Flintoff relates a story about Panesar on England's tour of India in 2005-6, when Flintoff was captain.
"Two days before the first Test, he came to my room and, using the notepad by the phone, went through what field he wanted to set for each batsman in the India team, in case he was selected.
"He also told me what to look out for when he was bowling, what the signs would be if he was getting tired and things like that. I thought that was absolutely fantastic for someone about to make his debut."
The argument that Asian cricketers are failing to fulfil themselves in the England side because of racism does not seem tenable: not even when Ramprakash, Vikram Solanki and Samit Patel are considered.
But there may well be a lack of cultural awareness. If Asians are brought up to be deferential towards authority, a player like Panesar will be far more reluctant to question his captain's decisions about field-placing.
Another factor is the soft culture that county cricket is only gradually rectifying. Panesar and Shah were not pushed hard enough to improve their fielding at an early, formative age – and the same could be said for Bopara, who could have been an outstanding fielder by now, the successor to Paul Collingwood.
In the Ashes series, Bopara quickly reached double figures in the first two Tests, only for his innings to seize up for various reasons; but it was when he kept fumbling at cover in the Edgbaston Test that it was clear the Australians had got on top of him.
Shah could have made himself far less droppable if he had worked on his fielding when young, but that was not the culture then, as the similar career of his Kent contemporary Robert Key bears out.
In the Champions Trophy match last month when he scored 98, Shah ran in from long-on and dropped a straightforward chance offered by Graeme Smith, who would have won the game with his 141 if he had found a partner. This was perhaps the fatal blow to Shah's career.
As one with an Asian father and English mother, the former England captain Nasser Hussain would be well-placed to assess whether Asian cricketers are being fully integrated. If England are to be world champions in any form of the game, East and west must meet in the national side.
Somerset beat Deccan
Somerset beat Deccan
The trend of IPL teams biting the dust continued as Deccan Chargers lost their 1st match in the tournament to Somerset. It was a thrilling encounter which went right down to the last ball of the match with the team from England eventually prevailing over the Adam Gilchrist led IPL champions by 1 wicket. Justin Langer opted to field first on winning the toss and his side managed to restrict the opposition to 153/9 in the 20 overs. In response, Somerset after having been in a comfortable position initially started to lose wickets in a hurry. At one stage, the match looked as good as lost for them but some courageous batting towards the end from Alfonso Thomas saw them through.
Gilchrist opened the batting with local man VVS Laxman and it the latter who surprisingly led the early charge. Some uncharacteristically slogs from Laxman set the tempo for the home team and when Gilchrist too got into the act in the 3rd over of the innings, things looked tough for Somerset. But once Gilchrist got out, none of the other batsmen who followed him could maintain the momentum. From scoring at more than 10 runs per over in the powerplay, the overs that followed hardly produced anything as Ben Phillips and especially Peter Trego tightened the screws around the Deccan Chargers. Andrew Symonds and Rohit Sharma, both departed just as they were looking dangerous and Laxman too fell in the pursuit to up the ante. He top scored with 46 that came off 35 balls and some later order hitting from Venugopal Rao ensured that the side got to a competitive 153, a total that was nonetheless far less than what the team would have settled for given the start that they got. Ben Phillips was the most successful bowler with figures of 3/31 while Peter Trego was the most economical with his 4 overs going for only 19. He also picked 2 key wickets, that of Laxman and Symonds.
Somerset’s chase began on a positive note with Trescothick and Langer starting off well. Even after Trescothick departed, Langer in the company of Zander de Bruyn continued to keep the bowlers under pressure and till the 5th over, the scoring rate looked healthy at 9.60 runs per over. Once Langer and de Bruyn, both got out in the 6th over, the pendulum shifted dramatically as wickets then kept falling at regular intervals. Moreover, the spinners in operation then weren’t giving much away as the run scoring dipped sharply. From 48/1 at the end of the 5th over, Somerset slipped to 99/7 at the end of the 14th and with 55 needed off the last 6, things looked bleak for them. It was raining as well then and had the match been suspended at that point in time, the Chargers would have won on the D/W system. But the rains were to stop later and what followed thereafter was a thoroughly spirited run chase.
The required run rate was never an issue for the side for Somerset, wickets in hand was. So, when the 8th wicket pair of Alfonso Thomas and James Hildreth started to get a ‘move on’, things once again looked good for them. 24 runs came of over numbers 15 and 16 as Gilchrist’s move of persisting with the slow bowlers backfired. To compound his problems, Fidel Edwards was called off the attack for bowling a 2nd beamer in the match which meant that he had to turn to his non-regular bowlers. Runs kept leaking and 26 runs were scored of the next 3 as the team now required only 5 off the last over.
The 8th wicket pair that had added 50 runs by now looked in complete command to finish off a memorable chase. But Scott Styris who was called on to bowl the 20th over nearly pulled off a miracle. His 1st and 3rd balls reduced Somerset to 9 wickets down and he’d still not conceded a run in the over till then. However, Thomas who was still there on the crease and got strike on the 4th ball, creamed a boundary to get the scores leveled. A dot ball followed next and with 1 run still required off the last ball, Thomas hit another boundary ensuring that the Chargers’ losing record at Hyderabad continued. He was undoubtedly the Hero of the night for Somerset and not surprisingly was also chosen as the ‘Man of the Match’.
Somerset beat Deccan
The trend of IPL teams biting the dust continued as Deccan Chargers lost their 1st match in the tournament to Somerset. It was a thrilling encounter which went right down to the last ball of the match with the team from England eventually prevailing over the Adam Gilchrist led IPL champions by 1 wicket. Justin Langer opted to field first on winning the toss and his side managed to restrict the opposition to 153/9 in the 20 overs. In response, Somerset after having been in a comfortable position initially started to lose wickets in a hurry. At one stage, the match looked as good as lost for them but some courageous batting towards the end from Alfonso Thomas saw them through.
Gilchrist opened the batting with local man VVS Laxman and it the latter who surprisingly led the early charge. Some uncharacteristically slogs from Laxman set the tempo for the home team and when Gilchrist too got into the act in the 3rd over of the innings, things looked tough for Somerset. But once Gilchrist got out, none of the other batsmen who followed him could maintain the momentum. From scoring at more than 10 runs per over in the powerplay, the overs that followed hardly produced anything as Ben Phillips and especially Peter Trego tightened the screws around the Deccan Chargers. Andrew Symonds and Rohit Sharma, both departed just as they were looking dangerous and Laxman too fell in the pursuit to up the ante. He top scored with 46 that came off 35 balls and some later order hitting from Venugopal Rao ensured that the side got to a competitive 153, a total that was nonetheless far less than what the team would have settled for given the start that they got. Ben Phillips was the most successful bowler with figures of 3/31 while Peter Trego was the most economical with his 4 overs going for only 19. He also picked 2 key wickets, that of Laxman and Symonds.
Somerset’s chase began on a positive note with Trescothick and Langer starting off well. Even after Trescothick departed, Langer in the company of Zander de Bruyn continued to keep the bowlers under pressure and till the 5th over, the scoring rate looked healthy at 9.60 runs per over. Once Langer and de Bruyn, both got out in the 6th over, the pendulum shifted dramatically as wickets then kept falling at regular intervals. Moreover, the spinners in operation then weren’t giving much away as the run scoring dipped sharply. From 48/1 at the end of the 5th over, Somerset slipped to 99/7 at the end of the 14th and with 55 needed off the last 6, things looked bleak for them. It was raining as well then and had the match been suspended at that point in time, the Chargers would have won on the D/W system. But the rains were to stop later and what followed thereafter was a thoroughly spirited run chase.
The required run rate was never an issue for the side for Somerset, wickets in hand was. So, when the 8th wicket pair of Alfonso Thomas and James Hildreth started to get a ‘move on’, things once again looked good for them. 24 runs came of over numbers 15 and 16 as Gilchrist’s move of persisting with the slow bowlers backfired. To compound his problems, Fidel Edwards was called off the attack for bowling a 2nd beamer in the match which meant that he had to turn to his non-regular bowlers. Runs kept leaking and 26 runs were scored of the next 3 as the team now required only 5 off the last over.
The 8th wicket pair that had added 50 runs by now looked in complete command to finish off a memorable chase. But Scott Styris who was called on to bowl the 20th over nearly pulled off a miracle. His 1st and 3rd balls reduced Somerset to 9 wickets down and he’d still not conceded a run in the over till then. However, Thomas who was still there on the crease and got strike on the 4th ball, creamed a boundary to get the scores leveled. A dot ball followed next and with 1 run still required off the last ball, Thomas hit another boundary ensuring that the Chargers’ losing record at Hyderabad continued. He was undoubtedly the Hero of the night for Somerset and not surprisingly was also chosen as the ‘Man of the Match’.
Peter Siddle has won the Emerging Player of the Year gong at the ICC awards in South Africa, after an impressive first year in top level cricket.
The 24-year-old Siddle has 49 Test wickets in his 12 Test matches - quickly establishing himself as the aggressor in Australia's bowling attack (read: he's insane enough to sledge someone even if he's getting tonked).
He's claimed two Michelle's (five-fers) in his career thus far: in his second Test in Sydney, to prove to selectors he was worthy of persevering with, and then his 5 for 21 in the Headingley massacre (where, let's be honest, even Scott Muller would have taken wickets).
"Getting to represent my country is an enormous honour and it has been a great time for me to be part of the team. It's been very enjoyable," said Sids.
"I'm very pleased. It has been an amazing 12 months and part of it is down to the blokes I've been playing with. It is quite a young group, with Mitchell Johnson and Ben Hilfenhaus especially, we all keep each other going and we have all had a lot of success."
Not bad for a bloke who, when given an axe at age two, promptly chopped his own finger off. It was stitched back on without the help of pain killers.
That's just the sort of insanity a fast bowler - and the Australian cricket team - needs.
Strauss hopeful of KP return
Andy Strauss thinks Kevin Pietersen is a good chance to return from injury in time for England's tour of South Africa - for which the squad is named tomorrow.
The Saffer-born Pietersen was forced to have surgery on his achilles tendon, after aggravating an injury during England's Ashes win at Lord's.
Speaking to the Beeb, Strauss - also born in South Africa - said that team management is hopeful Pietersen will take part in the entire Test series.
"He is getting better quite quickly now so we are very hopeful he will make the trip. Hopefully he will play in some one-dayers and then a full part in the rest of the series," he said.
England are set to leave in about three weeks for the tour, which includes two T20s, five ODIs and four Test matches.
Andy Strauss thinks Kevin Pietersen is a good chance to return from injury in time for England's tour of South Africa - for which the squad is named tomorrow.
The Saffer-born Pietersen was forced to have surgery on his achilles tendon, after aggravating an injury during England's Ashes win at Lord's.
Speaking to the Beeb, Strauss - also born in South Africa - said that team management is hopeful Pietersen will take part in the entire Test series.
"He is getting better quite quickly now so we are very hopeful he will make the trip. Hopefully he will play in some one-dayers and then a full part in the rest of the series," he said.
England are set to leave in about three weeks for the tour, which includes two T20s, five ODIs and four Test matches.
Vettori and Bond in New Zealand all-time XI
Two players from New Zealand's current side, Daniel Vettori and Shane Bond, have been voted into the country's all-time XI by a jury of noted cricket writers and ex-players. Three other notable modern-day contenders, Stephen Fleming, Chris Cairns and Brendon McCullum, miss out.
New Zealand is the third country to be covered in Cricinfo's all-time XI series - the two previous ones are Australia and England.
Three players were unanimously picked by the 10 members of the jury - Glenn Turner, Martin Crowe and Richard Hadlee.
The XI also includes two pre-war cricketers, neither of whom played more than 10 Tests apiece - fast bowler Jack Cowie and opening batsman Stewie Dempster. Cowie, who teams up with Bond, Hadlee and Vettori in the bowling line-up, took 45 wickets in the nine Tests he played."Had he been an Australian, he might have been termed a wonder of the age," Wisden said of him. Dempster had an average of 65 in the 10 Tests he played, and is still regarded as among the very best batsmen New Zealand has produced.
Apart from Crowe, the middle order of the side features Martin Donnelly, another highly acclaimed player who figured in only a handful of games at the highest level, and Bert Sutcliffe.
The allrounder's slot was hotly contested - though neither Vettori or Hadlee was in the shortlist in the segment - and finally won by John R Reid, a big hitter who led New Zealand in their first three Test victories, a fine medium-pacer and a fine fielder.
The wicketkeeper's spot goes to Ian Smith. ("More dynamic than Parore, more precise on his feet than McCullum, and possibly more to say than either of them," Richard Boock, one of the jurors said.)
The jury included Don Neely, the president of New Zealand Cricket; Ross Dykes, the former New Zealand chairman of selectors; David Leggat of the New Zealand Herald; and former players John Morrison and Jonathan Millmow.
Cricinfo also asked readers to select their all-time XI, and while the bowling line-up remained the same in that XI, Donnelly and Dempster missed out, Cairns took the allrounder's spot and McCullum the wicketkeeper's, John Wright came in as opener, and Stephen Fleming in the middle order.
Two players from New Zealand's current side, Daniel Vettori and Shane Bond, have been voted into the country's all-time XI by a jury of noted cricket writers and ex-players. Three other notable modern-day contenders, Stephen Fleming, Chris Cairns and Brendon McCullum, miss out.
New Zealand is the third country to be covered in Cricinfo's all-time XI series - the two previous ones are Australia and England.
Three players were unanimously picked by the 10 members of the jury - Glenn Turner, Martin Crowe and Richard Hadlee.
The XI also includes two pre-war cricketers, neither of whom played more than 10 Tests apiece - fast bowler Jack Cowie and opening batsman Stewie Dempster. Cowie, who teams up with Bond, Hadlee and Vettori in the bowling line-up, took 45 wickets in the nine Tests he played."Had he been an Australian, he might have been termed a wonder of the age," Wisden said of him. Dempster had an average of 65 in the 10 Tests he played, and is still regarded as among the very best batsmen New Zealand has produced.
Apart from Crowe, the middle order of the side features Martin Donnelly, another highly acclaimed player who figured in only a handful of games at the highest level, and Bert Sutcliffe.
The allrounder's slot was hotly contested - though neither Vettori or Hadlee was in the shortlist in the segment - and finally won by John R Reid, a big hitter who led New Zealand in their first three Test victories, a fine medium-pacer and a fine fielder.
The wicketkeeper's spot goes to Ian Smith. ("More dynamic than Parore, more precise on his feet than McCullum, and possibly more to say than either of them," Richard Boock, one of the jurors said.)
The jury included Don Neely, the president of New Zealand Cricket; Ross Dykes, the former New Zealand chairman of selectors; David Leggat of the New Zealand Herald; and former players John Morrison and Jonathan Millmow.
Cricinfo also asked readers to select their all-time XI, and while the bowling line-up remained the same in that XI, Donnelly and Dempster missed out, Cairns took the allrounder's spot and McCullum the wicketkeeper's, John Wright came in as opener, and Stephen Fleming in the middle order.
NZ All-time Squad:
Openers
Stewie Dempster, Glenn Turner, Graham Dowling, John Wright, Bruce Edgar, Mark Richardson, Bert Sutcliffe
Middle order
John R Reid, Bert Sutcliffe, John F Reid, Martin Donnelly, Bev Congdon, Martin Crowe, Andrew Jones, Stephen Fleming, Nathan Astle, Craig McMillan
Allrounders
John R Reid, Bruce Taylor, Chris Cairns, Jacob Oram
Wicketkeepers
Ken Wadsworth, Ian Smith, Ken James, Adam Parore, Brendon McCullum
Fast bowlers
Jack Cowie, Dick Motz, Richard Collinge, Richard Hadlee, Ewen Chatfield, Danny Morrison, Chris Martin, Shane Bond
Spinners
Hedley Howarth, John Bracewell, Stephen Boock, Tom Burtt, Daniel Vettori
Openers
Stewie Dempster, Glenn Turner, Graham Dowling, John Wright, Bruce Edgar, Mark Richardson, Bert Sutcliffe
Middle order
John R Reid, Bert Sutcliffe, John F Reid, Martin Donnelly, Bev Congdon, Martin Crowe, Andrew Jones, Stephen Fleming, Nathan Astle, Craig McMillan
Allrounders
John R Reid, Bruce Taylor, Chris Cairns, Jacob Oram
Wicketkeepers
Ken Wadsworth, Ian Smith, Ken James, Adam Parore, Brendon McCullum
Fast bowlers
Jack Cowie, Dick Motz, Richard Collinge, Richard Hadlee, Ewen Chatfield, Danny Morrison, Chris Martin, Shane Bond
Spinners
Hedley Howarth, John Bracewell, Stephen Boock, Tom Burtt, Daniel Vettori
Small pool, big debate
So no Ricky Ponting for Australia, no Herbert Sutcliffe among England's chosen ones.
Far smaller playing numbers mean liberties such as these are not available to those choosing New Zealand's finest Test XI, although there were several points of conjecture among the judging panel, and enough contestable selections to argue that New Zealand has produced its share of top-quality cricketers. Heads were certainly scratched among the panelists.
New Zealand cricket has long had an all-hands-to-the-pump philosophy, combined with a relish of pricking egos and tripping up those with expectations of an easy ride. That has enabled it to punch well above its weight, albeit after a trying start, for much of its Test life.
Of the 37 nominees, 23 gathered at least one vote; just three players got an unanimous verdict - Glenn Turner, Martin Crowe and Sir Richard Hadlee. The marvellous Bert Sutcliffe? Nine votes. So too for John R Reid, the most dominant figure in the New Zealand game for over a decade, and current captain Daniel Vettori.
The final XI comprises two players whose best work took place before the Second World War (Stewie Dempster and Jack Cowie), two from the present team (Vettori and Shane Bond), four from the 1980s - when New Zealand, unbeaten at home for 10 years, enjoyed a golden period with a collection of strong-willed characters (Turner, Crowe, Hadlee and Ian Smith), and four from the 1949 team that set high standards in squaring a four-Test series in England (Sutcliffe, Reid, Cowie and Martin Donnelly).
Turner's selection was easy. A hundred first-class centuries, a brace of them to steer New Zealand to their first Test win over Australia, 1000 runs before May in the 1973 season, all speak of his class. A man with a perfectionist's touch, combined with a remorselessness about his batting, this supreme technician reinvented himself as a free-scoring one-day batsman with an eye for innovation.
Those who saw Dempster bat are long gone, but there are occasions when numbers and legend can be persuasive bedfellows. Ten tests, a 65.72 average, New Zealand's first Test century-maker, and still part-owner of the country's third-highest partnership and the highest opening stand against England, 276 with Jack Mills in 1930. Oh yes, and a Wisden player of the year in 1932.
John Wright and Mark Richardson, doughty scrappers, and Sutcliffe all won support; Sutcliffe in two categories. His numbers were superior as an opener, but a place had to be found, and so it is at No. 3. At a time when Australians insisted Neil Harvey was the game's peerless left-hand batsman, there was, in a small nearby corner of the world, a core of folk who did, and still, forcefully disagree. Opportunities beckoned far less often for the golden-haired Sutcliffe. There is film of him batting, notably in the subcontinent in 1955-56, and it reveals classic strokes and quick feet.
Crowe strove for perfection, and at times got desperately close. His 188 against Australia in Brisbane was central to probably the country's finest all-round Test performance. At his best he had a dismissive quality at the crease and could make batting look easy.
Donnelly spent most of his career in England, where he was a prolific player for Oxford University; scored what remains the only double-hundred for New Zealand at Lord's, in 1949, during a series he averaged 77 in; hit 162 for the Gentlemen against the Players; and was a Wisden Player of the Year in 1947, when he was lauded as the world's best left-hand batsman. Donnelly only played seven Tests, but as with Dempster his fame was achieved from afar.
Stephen Fleming, an elegant left-hand batsman and fine captain, and Andrew Jones, a hard-minded character who averaged 44.27, had their supporters.
New Zealand cricket has yet to produce a more forceful personality than Reid. There were times he carried the national side almost alone, capable of ferocity with the bat, an aggressive medium-pacer and a fine fielder. He would have eaten up the one-day game. Reid captained New Zealand to their first three Test wins, led the World XI against England, and in between was a colossus in South Africa in 1961-62. Chris Cairns and Bruce Taylor had their roles, but neither came close to the man who was New Zealand cricket for years.
Ian Smith was an overwhelming choice as wicketkeeper, part of the celebrated 1980s troupe. Adam Parore was a skilled successor, Brendon McCullum the boisterous man of the moment.
Vettori had a lock on the spinning spot, a player whose mild appearance disguises a steely determination. Which brings us to the most contentious selection. Who to partner Hadlee? Cowie and Bond it is.
Hadlee first. The tree-lined Hagley Oval in Christchurch, among the most scenic cricket spots in the country, had its usual half-dozen senior and second-grade club games in full swing on Saturday, November 9, 1985. Australia had started the second day of the Brisbane Test at 146 for 4, all to Hadlee. Someone shouted out, "He's got six". Shortly after, "He's got seven", and then "He's got eight!" Games ground to a halt as the transistors were turned up around the Oval. Enough said.
Bond provides the genuine speed and a fine average, alongside Cowie, nicknamed "Bull", a tough competitor who bowled with skill and heart, taking 45 wickets at 21.53 in his nine Tests. How good was he? "Had he been an Australian he might have been termed a wonder of the age," wrote Wisden editor Wilfred Brookes
So no Ricky Ponting for Australia, no Herbert Sutcliffe among England's chosen ones.
Far smaller playing numbers mean liberties such as these are not available to those choosing New Zealand's finest Test XI, although there were several points of conjecture among the judging panel, and enough contestable selections to argue that New Zealand has produced its share of top-quality cricketers. Heads were certainly scratched among the panelists.
New Zealand cricket has long had an all-hands-to-the-pump philosophy, combined with a relish of pricking egos and tripping up those with expectations of an easy ride. That has enabled it to punch well above its weight, albeit after a trying start, for much of its Test life.
Of the 37 nominees, 23 gathered at least one vote; just three players got an unanimous verdict - Glenn Turner, Martin Crowe and Sir Richard Hadlee. The marvellous Bert Sutcliffe? Nine votes. So too for John R Reid, the most dominant figure in the New Zealand game for over a decade, and current captain Daniel Vettori.
The final XI comprises two players whose best work took place before the Second World War (Stewie Dempster and Jack Cowie), two from the present team (Vettori and Shane Bond), four from the 1980s - when New Zealand, unbeaten at home for 10 years, enjoyed a golden period with a collection of strong-willed characters (Turner, Crowe, Hadlee and Ian Smith), and four from the 1949 team that set high standards in squaring a four-Test series in England (Sutcliffe, Reid, Cowie and Martin Donnelly).
Turner's selection was easy. A hundred first-class centuries, a brace of them to steer New Zealand to their first Test win over Australia, 1000 runs before May in the 1973 season, all speak of his class. A man with a perfectionist's touch, combined with a remorselessness about his batting, this supreme technician reinvented himself as a free-scoring one-day batsman with an eye for innovation.
Those who saw Dempster bat are long gone, but there are occasions when numbers and legend can be persuasive bedfellows. Ten tests, a 65.72 average, New Zealand's first Test century-maker, and still part-owner of the country's third-highest partnership and the highest opening stand against England, 276 with Jack Mills in 1930. Oh yes, and a Wisden player of the year in 1932.
John Wright and Mark Richardson, doughty scrappers, and Sutcliffe all won support; Sutcliffe in two categories. His numbers were superior as an opener, but a place had to be found, and so it is at No. 3. At a time when Australians insisted Neil Harvey was the game's peerless left-hand batsman, there was, in a small nearby corner of the world, a core of folk who did, and still, forcefully disagree. Opportunities beckoned far less often for the golden-haired Sutcliffe. There is film of him batting, notably in the subcontinent in 1955-56, and it reveals classic strokes and quick feet.
Crowe strove for perfection, and at times got desperately close. His 188 against Australia in Brisbane was central to probably the country's finest all-round Test performance. At his best he had a dismissive quality at the crease and could make batting look easy.
Donnelly spent most of his career in England, where he was a prolific player for Oxford University; scored what remains the only double-hundred for New Zealand at Lord's, in 1949, during a series he averaged 77 in; hit 162 for the Gentlemen against the Players; and was a Wisden Player of the Year in 1947, when he was lauded as the world's best left-hand batsman. Donnelly only played seven Tests, but as with Dempster his fame was achieved from afar.
Stephen Fleming, an elegant left-hand batsman and fine captain, and Andrew Jones, a hard-minded character who averaged 44.27, had their supporters.
New Zealand cricket has yet to produce a more forceful personality than Reid. There were times he carried the national side almost alone, capable of ferocity with the bat, an aggressive medium-pacer and a fine fielder. He would have eaten up the one-day game. Reid captained New Zealand to their first three Test wins, led the World XI against England, and in between was a colossus in South Africa in 1961-62. Chris Cairns and Bruce Taylor had their roles, but neither came close to the man who was New Zealand cricket for years.
Ian Smith was an overwhelming choice as wicketkeeper, part of the celebrated 1980s troupe. Adam Parore was a skilled successor, Brendon McCullum the boisterous man of the moment.
Vettori had a lock on the spinning spot, a player whose mild appearance disguises a steely determination. Which brings us to the most contentious selection. Who to partner Hadlee? Cowie and Bond it is.
Hadlee first. The tree-lined Hagley Oval in Christchurch, among the most scenic cricket spots in the country, had its usual half-dozen senior and second-grade club games in full swing on Saturday, November 9, 1985. Australia had started the second day of the Brisbane Test at 146 for 4, all to Hadlee. Someone shouted out, "He's got six". Shortly after, "He's got seven", and then "He's got eight!" Games ground to a halt as the transistors were turned up around the Oval. Enough said.
Bond provides the genuine speed and a fine average, alongside Cowie, nicknamed "Bull", a tough competitor who bowled with skill and heart, taking 45 wickets at 21.53 in his nine Tests. How good was he? "Had he been an Australian he might have been termed a wonder of the age," wrote Wisden editor Wilfred Brookes
Is it okay that Dhoni should play at number 5? I
Cricinfo
Dhoni and the No. 5 slot
There's been some debate over MS Dhoni's batting position in ODIs, but he's done so well at No. 5 that it's unlikely he'll relinquish it any time soon.
No. 3, No. 4, No. 5, or No. 6? Plenty of opinions have been pouring forth on which batting position is the best one for India's captain, MS Dhoni. Many former players have suggested the one-drop position, since he has been India's best batsman this year and the No. 3 slot will allow him the chance to play the maximum number of overs. Dhoni has steadfastly stuck to his belief that Gautam Gambhir and Yuvraj Singh are best suited to come in immediately after the openers, and has chosen to push himself up the order only if either or both of those players aren't available.
There's no easy answer to the question about the best batting position for Dhoni, but the stats for Gambhir and Yuvraj suggest that they too deserve the chance to play long innings. What clinches the argument in favour of Dhoni at five, though, is his own performances in that slot.
Dhoni and the No. 5 slot
There's been some debate over MS Dhoni's batting position in ODIs, but he's done so well at No. 5 that it's unlikely he'll relinquish it any time soon.
No. 3, No. 4, No. 5, or No. 6? Plenty of opinions have been pouring forth on which batting position is the best one for India's captain, MS Dhoni. Many former players have suggested the one-drop position, since he has been India's best batsman this year and the No. 3 slot will allow him the chance to play the maximum number of overs. Dhoni has steadfastly stuck to his belief that Gautam Gambhir and Yuvraj Singh are best suited to come in immediately after the openers, and has chosen to push himself up the order only if either or both of those players aren't available.
There's no easy answer to the question about the best batting position for Dhoni, but the stats for Gambhir and Yuvraj suggest that they too deserve the chance to play long innings. What clinches the argument in favour of Dhoni at five, though, is his own performances in that slot.
Similar threads
