The Shorter Wisden 2013

by John Wisden

  It was their first defeat by their arch-rivals, and the first time since 1988, when they did not even send a team, that they had failed to reach the last four of a global tournament. Their captain, the experienced and respected Mithali Raj, said the loss ought to be a jolt for the women’s game in her country. Meanwhile, Pakistan captain Sana Mir renewed her call for more fixtures against the top countries in order for them to improve.

  Group B was thrown wide open by the inconsistency of West Indies and New Zealand. West Indies imploded in a rain-affected game against the hosts Sri Lanka, but bounced back with their first win over New Zealand in a competitive match. The quartet eliminated at the group stage went into play-off matches to qualify for the 2014 tournament in Bangladesh. India beat Sri Lanka to avoid the ignominy of having to go to Ireland for the qualifying competition; South Africa also secured their place, with victory over Pakistan off the penultimate ball.

  Before the tournament, a media furore had erupted when the scale of the pay gap between the genders became apparent. The ICC granted women players a daily allowance of $60, compared to $100 for the men; the women had flown economy class, the men in business; most glaringly of all, prize money of $60,000 for the victorious Australian women was dwarfed by the $1m picked up by Darren Sammy’s West Indians. Despite all that, and a smaller overall budget for the women’s game, an ICC spokesman said it was aiming for “equal everything”.

  Women’s cricket falls under the development arm of the ICC, so staging international events is not a profit-making venture, and it may never reach economic parity with the men’s game. But the ICC must ensure the cricket remains attractive. The standards displayed by Australia and England need to be more frequently matched by the countries behind them. Quicker pitches would help too.

  FINAL

  AUSTRALIA v ENGLAND

  At Colombo (RPS), October 7, 2012. Australia won by four runs. Toss: England.

  Australia’s women defended their World Twenty20 title. Although England took the match down to the last ball, they were always playing catch-up after their successful formula – bowl first, suffocate the batsmen with spin – was thrown off course by Australia’s aggressive openers, Meg Lanning and Alyssa Healy. They harnessed the pace of the ball, and any deviation from the required line and length by Katherine Brunt seemed to result in a boundary. Jess Cameron rattled up 45 off 34 deliveries, including a six over midwicket off Anya Shrubsole in an over that cost 17 as she insisted on bowling full. After that, Charlotte Edwards wisely kept her spinners on until the end. Australia bowled with greater discipline, and England immediately fell behind the rate. But Australian nerves began to fray: four catches went down in the second half of the innings, and Jenny Gunn diluted the equation to 16 from the last over. When Erin Osborne delivered a beamer second ball, England had a sniff. Danielle Hazell needed to hit Osborne’s last ball for six, but she mistimed it to midwicket, and Australian celebrations began.

  Player of the Match: J. E. Cameron. Player of the Tournament: C. M. Edwards.

  Umpires: B. F. Bowden and M. Erasmus. Third umpire: A. L. Hill.

  Referee: G. F. Labrooy.

  AUSTRALIAN CRICKET, 2012

  Clarke… then the rest

  DANIEL BRETTIG

  Michael Clarke and James Pattinson, captain and fast bowler. Their fortunes during the Sydney Test against India in the first week of January 2012 were at once contrasting and for Australia, defining. Clarke epitomised all that was strong about his side, erecting a monumental unbeaten 329 and going on to deliver the most prolific year of all by an Australian batsman. He also led his men with intelligence and aggression, guiding them to three Test series victories out of four. But Pattinson personified all that was uncertain: the transition and tribulation of a team that wrestled with the husbanding of resources and the loss of Ricky Ponting and Mike Hussey. Though he removed four of India’s top five on the first day, Pattinson ended the match with a foot stress fracture, having been selected against the advice of medical staff who held data suggesting his workload had entered a zone of high risk. The rest of his year was a tale of recovery, inconsistency, further injury, frustration and back-room battles over his availability, as Cricket Australia tried to implement a rotation and management policy that had yet to produce the hoped-for fruit.

  If 2011 had been the year of introspection, recrimination and change, 2012 was a time for Australian cricket to bed down, and possibly mark time. The Argus Review was largely reinforced but occasionally undermined, while the conclusions of a governance review pushed the CA board into a new structure that was both slimmer and better rounded. The AGM witnessed the appointment of the first three independent directors, including the first woman, Jacquie Hey. Elsewhere, the team-performance and commercial arms of CA haggled over players who were expected to build towards sustained success in the international game on the one hand, and act as billboards for the Big Bash League on the other. It was not an easy balance to strike.

  Overall, a sense pervaded that much of the sparring on and off the field was a primer for the confrontations of 2013 – from the Test team’s tilt at returning the Ashes, to the board’s pursuit of a better broadcast-rights deal, which for the first time since World Series Cricket was genuinely open to offers beyond those of Channel Nine. CA had been reinforced for this task, but the team was weakened by retirements. Ponting’s exit was hastened by the pained concession he could no longer bat the way he and the team desired; Hussey’s departure arrived at a moment when he was arguably more valuable than ever. The selectors were thus forced into a hurried reassessment of the modest batting at their disposal, and players into a rapid assumption of greater seniority.

  Such uncertainty seemed distant when India were being coshed every which way, but there were hints of difficulty when the team ventured to the Caribbean in March. Clarke did not go with the limited-overs party as he recovered from a hamstring strain, and in his absence Shane Watson found the going difficult, as West Indies shared both the one-day and Twenty20 series on pitches that were often slow and low. Sunil Narine’s variations were a source of puzzlement, and there was as much relief at his exit to the IPL as there was at Clarke’s arrival for the Tests.

  West Indies were beaten by performances more artisan than artful, though the conclusion to the Barbados Test was genuinely rousing. The most telling contribution of the series belonged to Matthew Wade, who replaced Brad Haddin as wicketkeeper after Haddin had rushed home to be with his 17-month-old daughter Mia, who was gravely ill with cancer. Wade showed a compelling ability to learn from early tremors during the one-day internationals, and punched Australia’s only century of the series, in Dominica, to ensure they took the series 2–0. It meant Australia retained the Frank Worrell Trophy they had held since 1994-95.

  Less comfortable was a visit to the British Isles for one-day cricket. A rained-off fixture at Edgbaston was the only thing that separated Australia from a 5–0 defeat by England. Hussey absented himself from the trip for family reasons and, as rainy days and injuries to Watson, Pat Cummins and Brett Lee compounded the sting of results, others were forgiven for wishing they had joined him. Lee retired from international cricket after the tour, and only Clint McKay and George Bailey improved their reputations. The coach Mickey Arthur surmised after a hiding at Chester-le-Street: “We’ve allowed ourselves to be bullied, and we’re better than that.”

  Unified by a training camp in Darwin, a more cohesive team performed creditably in the UAE against Pakistan, winning the one-day series and losing the Twenty20s narrowly. In a Twenty20 against India in February, Bailey had made history as Australia’s first captain since the very first Test in 1876-77 to be appointed without having played an international match; later in the year he led Australia to the semi-finals of the World Twenty20, when Chris Gayle, Kieron Pollard and Ravi Rampaul ended the campaign. Shortly before the tournament, Australia had been ranked tenth in the Twenty20 world rankings – below Bangladesh and Ireland – but that was more a reflection of
the ICC’s criteria than any slump. Another long separation from his family during the competition had Hussey resolving privately to quit at the end of the summer.

  Clarke prepared for the home Test season by captaining New South Wales in the earliest start to a domestic season, shoved into September by the dual disruptions of the World Twenty20 and the Champions League. Sydney Sixers added that tournament to their inaugural Big Bash title, but at some cost: Watson lacked a first-class prelude to the Test summer, and promptly suffered another calf strain, while Cummins complained of back soreness, which was later revealed to be a stress fracture, to the horror of the CA team-performance manager Pat Howard and the selectors. Later, Howard noted ruefully that “no one owns the players now”.

  The arrival of South Africa coincided with a quirk in the ICC’s Test rankings: by vanquishing England in their previous series, Graeme Smith’s team offered Clarke’s the chance to pinch No. 1 with a win. Led by another duo of landmark innings by Clarke, double-centuries in Brisbane and Adelaide, Australia came within two wickets of taking the lead. Injury and fatigue were to bite at the most pivotal moments, however. Debutant Faf du Plessis defied Australia’s bowlers in the Second Test, helped by the loss of Pattinson to a side injury in the first innings.

  South Africa’s final-day exertions meant neither Peter Siddle nor Ben Hilfenhaus could be considered for the last Test, at Perth. The selectors’ response was to pick a bowling attack hopeful on paper but unbalanced in practice, leaving Smith and Hashim Amla to carry off the match and the series with two hours of breathless batting after Clarke, for once, failed to make a significant score.

  Amid rumblings his place was no longer secure, Ponting made the Third Test his last, moving Clarke to tears before the match. South Africa afforded Ponting a guard of honour for his final innings that befitted a king. The reality was less regal: he was pouched at slip off Robin Peterson after an insubstantial stay. It was definitely time to go.

  Chastened by their only Test defeat of the year, albeit in the match more pivotal than any other, they collected a 3–0 sweep of Sri Lanka in the showpiece weeks of the season, which had been spurned by South Africa due to their board’s preference for a home Twenty20 on Boxing Day. Overlooked when Australia’s attack was at their thinnest at Perth, Jackson Bird was called up for the Second Test against Sri Lanka when Hilfenhaus fell injured, and showed himself to be an accomplished seamer in the mould of Stuart Clark. Phillip Hughes returned in Ponting’s stead, and David Warner played with a consistency that could make his brazen batting a genuine threat.

  Clarke shrugged off a hamstring strain to make his fifth century of the year, but his deputy Watson hobbled to 83, then informed Arthur he no longer wished to be considered an all-rounder. As he processed that revelation, Arthur was doubly shocked to be tapped on the shoulder by Hussey, who told him and Clarke he would be saying goodbye to Test cricket at Sydney. Another XI somewhat odd in composition slogged their way to victory in a manner far less comprehensive than against India 12 months before. Hussey was in the middle when the winning runs were scored, a fitting conclusion to a career that was truly selfless until, perhaps, the moment he chose to end it.

  Hussey was deemed surplus to the one-day series that followed the Tests, and found himself donning a Perth Scorchers shirt as the second edition of the BBL limped to Christmas, then found better returns in January. A leaked CA report revealed that $A10m was expected to be lost over the first two seasons in an effort to make the BBL look attractive for broadcasters as well as spectators. That kind of money was also being distributed among the players under a new Memorandum of Understanding that contained performance-based weighting as per the dictates of Argus. Given the battles ahead on the pitch and in the negotiation-room, remuneration may yet fluctuate wildly.

  BANGLADESH CRICKET, 2012

  Tearful Tigers

  UTPAL SHUVRO

  During his time as the No. 1-ranked all-rounder in Test cricket, Shakib Al Hasan would smile ruefully: “I don’t know how long I will be there. When I watch Test matches featuring other countries on TV, the thought often comes to my mind, when will I get the chance to play in whites again?” The man Shakib had dethroned, Jacques Kallis, emphatically regained the position in November. Shakib could not mount a fresh challenge, but that was not his fault. Bangladesh played only two Tests in 2012, the fewest in a year since they were handed Test status in 2000, and just nine one-day internationals, the fewest since 2001. Only Zimbabwe played less often.

  When Bangladesh took the field against West Indies at Mirpur in November, it was nearly 11 months since they had last played a Test – and Chris Gayle duly hit the first ball for six. Bangladesh did well to take a first-innings lead, with their highest Test score, 556, but they failed to chase 245 in almost two and a half sessions, then barely put up a fight in the Second Test at Khulna.

  In 50-over cricket, though, Bangladesh enjoyed one of their most successful years, winning five out of nine matches (all at home). They actually had a better strike-rate in 2009, when they won 14 of 19, but there was a difference this time: all Bangladesh’s victories came against top-class opposition.

  In between the Asia Cup in March and a one-day series against West Indies, Bangladesh played a plethora of Twenty20 games, visiting Zimbabwe, Trinidad, Ireland and the Netherlands (where they lost to both the home side and Scotland) in order to prepare for the World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka. It all came to nothing when they exited in the first round, battered to bits by New Zealand’s Brendon McCullum and Imran Nazir of Pakistan.

  Bangladesh had hosted the Asia Cup for the third time, and it turned out to be a tournament to savour. On the nine previous occasions they had taken part, they failed to beat any of their mightier neighbours. Now they surprised everyone, including themselves, by chasing down targets against India and Sri Lanka to qualify for their first final in the competition. It was only their second appearance in a one-day final of any kind, after a triangular tournament in 2008-09. But the nation was heartbroken when Shahadat Hossain failed to hit the last ball for four, and Bangladesh lost to Pakistan by an agonising two runs. Shakib and Mushfiqur Rahim cried in public, which only endeared them further to their fans. Shakib was named Man of the Tournament.

  Emotionally, the Asia Cup had no parallel. But, in the cold light of day, the high point of Bangladesh’s 2012 had to be the one-day series victory over West Indies, who had arrived with a raft of imposing big-hitters. Bangladesh were without Shakib, but won the first two games, including a 160-run mauling in the second, their biggest win in one-day internationals: never had they looked so dominant against a Test-playing nation. West Indies brought it back to 2–2, but the Bangladeshis sneaked the last match by two wickets, igniting a street party outside the National Stadium.

  The find of the year was 21-year-old off-spinner Sohag Gazi, who came in useful against a West Indies side with their share of left-handers. Gazi took the first over on Test debut, and recovered from being hit for six by Gayle off his first and fourth balls to get him out two overs later. It was the first of 12 wickets in the two Tests; he added nine in the one-day series. Mushfiqur was considered by many to be a passionate and intelligent young captain – and revealed another string to his bow when he completed a master’s degree in history from Jahangirnagar University.

  Franchise-based Twenty20 arrived in February 2012, with the Bangladesh Premier League. Although Indian players were unavailable, there were several other international stars. However, the event was marred by controversies, from confusion over the tie-breakers to decide the semi-finalists, to non-payment of players months after the event, and match-fixing.

  Before the tournament began, Mashrafe bin Mortaza reported a spot-fixing approach from a 36-year-old player, Shariful Haque, who was banned indefinitely from cricket by the Bangladesh Cricket Board in September. Both the ECB and the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations remained concerned about the payment structure and policing of corruption in the BPL. Mushfiqur s
lammed the league as “disorganised” – and it had clearly been hurried through to fit a gap in the international schedule. The Pakistan Cricket Board threatened to prevent their players from appearing in the 2013 edition, in retaliation for Bangladesh postponing a tour to their country for the second time because of the security situation. Meanwhile, the BCB extended the franchise model to a new four-day competition, which began in December.

  Bangladesh finished the year without a head coach, after two resigned from the post for similar reasons. Stuart Law completed nine months in the role just after the Asia Cup, and left expressing a desire to spend more time with his family; he took up a position with Cricket Australia.

  Family was also an issue for Richard Pybus, but his stint ended more acrimoniously. When Prothom Alo, Bangladesh’s leading daily newspaper, broke the story that he was working without having signed a contract, Pybus resigned, accusing the BCB of “breaching privacy and confidentiality” through leaking. Pybus claimed an agreement had been struck by both parties that he could spend time at home in South Africa between tours, but it was not written into the contract presented to him – so he did not sign it. He also complained about a clunky administrative process. “I couldn’t even get the board to sign off on providing healthy sandwiches for the players after training,” he said. “Players were going down with food poisoning during camps, so I wanted to offer them something better than a fried egg sandwich. I was told I couldn’t, because that was all the budget could afford.” The episode showed how amateurishly cricket is run by the BCB. Shane Jurgensen, a former Australian first-class cricketer, stood in as interim coach for the West Indies series.