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Newcastle United manager Eddie Howe strengthened his team with a host of new signings throughout the January window.

The Magpies head coach was given the funds by PIF to make major additions to his squad in the form of Kieran Trippier, Chris Wood, Matt Targett, Bruno Guimaraes and Dan Burn.

These players, along with the existing playing roster, have propelled the Toon clear of relegation. They are 11 points above the bottom three in the Premier League with three games left to play and look set for another year in the top flight.

The focus may now turn to the summer transfer window and the players they want to bring in to take the team to the next level.

Earlier this season, it was reported that Newcastle are interested in landing Borussia Dortmund gem Axel Witsel at the end of the campaign with a contract offer of €7m (£6m) per season.

They have recently been handed a golden opportunity to go through with that, as the Belgian midfielder has confirmed that he will be a free agent this summer, stating earlier this month: “I’ll be gone next season. I am very happy that I have played here (Dortmund) for four years at the highest level. But I am sad to leave the club. I have many friends and great teammates here.”

Howe must now pounce on this chance to swoop for the enforcer, for whom Dortmund paid €20m (£17.1m), as he would be a superb addition to the Newcastle squad with his quality and experience at the top level.

Dortmund icon Marco Reus previously heaped praise on the Belgian battler, saying: “Axel has a lot of international experience as a number six and a number eight. He radiates calmness and self-confidence – in critical situations, too. Axel showed what he can do at the World Cup. He will make us better.”

These comments show how highly Witsel’s captain rates him, which is understandable when you look at his career. The 33-year-old has played a staggering 120 matches for Belgium at senior level and featured in more than 100 games for each of Dortmund, Zenit and Standard Liege.

Throughout his career, he has averaged an impressive WhoScored rating of 6.98 across 353 outings, making 2.9 tackles and interceptions per game. This shows that the holding midfielder has played to a high standard consistently over the course of many years, which is why he would be a fine player for Howe to call upon.

Imagine him and Bruno Guimaraes lining up in the Magpies’ midfield. Whilst Witsel can use his defensive quality and experience to shield the back four and keep things ticking over, the Brazilian can go forward to inject life into the attack.

The January signing has four goals and one assist in eight Premier League starts, and his attacking flair mixed with the Belgian’s nous can make for an exciting midfield partnership, which is why Newcastle must snap up the 33-year-old on a free transfer.

AND in other news, PIF prepared to make NUFC bid for “well-schooled” £17m tank, Howe would love him…

With the T20 World Cup just over a year away, how far have India come since the previous edition, where they were out-muscled by West Indies?

Karthik Krishnaswamy02-Aug-2019Three-and-a-half years ago, India met West Indies in a World T20 semi-final at Wankhede Stadium. It was less a cricket match than a clash of philosophies.Sent in, India made 192 for 2 in their 20 overs. They only faced 29 dot balls, and hit 17 fours and four sixes. West Indies won by seven wickets, sweeping past their target with two balls to spare. They faced 50 dot balls, but hit 20 fours and 11 sixes.That’s 146 runs in boundaries, to India’s 92.The players most illustrative of their respective teams’ philosophies were the opening batsmen, born six months apart on opposite sides of the globe.Ajinkya Rahane made 40 off 35 balls, hitting two fours and no sixes, and contributed to half-century stands for the first two wickets. In excellent batting conditions, with his partners scoring freely, Rahane looked to rotate the strike, anchor India’s innings, and help set a platform before the slog overs.West Indies lost two wickets inside the first three overs of their chase, but Johnson Charles didn’t look to “consolidate” or “rebuild”. He kept clearing his front leg and heaving the ball into the on side. He made 52 off 36 balls, hitting seven fours and two sixes.It was batting versus hitting, and on that day – as on most days in T20s – hitting won.Andre Russell runs towards his team-mates after taking West Indies home•Getty ImagesIndia’s approach, seemingly adapted from ODI cricket, had helped them scrap their way into the semi-finals, just about, with Virat Kohli’s form making up for an otherwise misfiring top five, and Bangladesh handing them a lifeline with a final-over meltdown in Bengaluru. Most of India’s group games, moreover, took place on tricky batting pitches.Their safety-first approach wasn’t going to serve them quite as well at the Wankhede, with its flat pitch and small boundaries. Not against West Indies, who were playing T20 with minimal carry-over from the longer formats. They only had two specialist bowlers, a multitude of allrounders who could hit big sixes, and, consequently, the kind of depth that freed up their batsmen to play their shots without worrying about getting out.A team’s strategy is dictated by the resources available to them, of course, and if India were taking an ODI approach into this T20 World Cup, it could be argued that West Indies did exactly the opposite in the 50-over World Cup last month.The fact is that India, in 2016, had neither the quantity nor quality of hitters West Indies could call upon. Their squad was a weird mix of the old – Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Ashish Nehra – and the new – Hardik Pandya and Jasprit Bumrah had only just made their India debuts – and there was still room in it for Rahane, who came into the XI for the semi-finals at the expense of an out-of-form Shikhar Dhawan.Rishabh Pant got India moving with some classy strokes•IDI via Getty ImagesThree-and-a-half years on, on the eve of another set of T20Is against West Indies, India’s squad has a fresher, more youthful look to it, with a bigger sprinkling of six-hitters. With MS Dhoni out of the picture for the moment, and Dinesh Karthik – perhaps unluckily, given his recent T20I record – left out, there’s a sense that this could be the time for the next generation of middle-order batsmen to leave their imprint on how the side bats. This generation is perhaps the first one from India – 11 years after the birth of the IPL – that is more attuned to T20 than ODIs.KL Rahul has smoked two T20I hundreds – one of which came in Lauderhill – and boasts spectacular numbers in the format – an average of nearly 44, a strike rate of nearly 150. Unless he’s promoted to open, he will probably slot in at No. 4, and along with Rishabh Pant and the Pandya brothers – of whom Hardik has been rested for the West Indies tour – form a more explosive middle order than the one India had in 2016.With Ravindra Jadeja most likely filling the bowling allrounder’s slot, India shouldn’t lack too much for depth, either. All this should, in theory, free up the top three to bat more expansively.Lauderhill will give us a glimpse as to how well these parts will fit together, against a West Indies T20I squad that is close to full strength for the first time in a long time. This could be the beginning of a journey that might just culminate next November – at the SCG, the Adelaide Oval, or perhaps even the MCG.

Paul Marsh, the former Australian Cricketers’ Association chief executive, shares his views on the pay dispute between CA and Australia’s players

Daniel Brettig21-Jun-2017Having just completed the AFL deal, what’s your perspective on where the cricket negotiation is at?They don’t even appear to be at first base from my understanding of it. With CA not supplying financial information to the ACA it is very hard for them to negotiate a deal. That’s how I see it at the moment.The AFL deal has been reported as being imminent for a long time yet it still took time to finalise. What are your thoughts on CA’s lead negotiator Kevin Roberts going on a roadshow to state squads less than two weeks from the expiry of current MOU?Wouldn’t you think his time would be better spent getting in a room with the ACA, giving them the information, and actually start moving on this? Our agreement has taken a long time to get to where it has got to, and it’s taken us five weeks just to draft the agreement – how these guys get this thing done in the next nine days and mitigate all the risks that come with it not being done, it’s hard to comprehend how it could happen.You mentioned financial information as an issue – how is that a problem for the ACA in trying to reach a deal?No players’ association can responsibly represent its members if you don’t understand what the financial forecasts look like. Historically CA – and the last MOU in 2012 was the best – gave us incredibly detailed and rigorous financial forecasts for their business, for the state associations and for the BBL teams. The reality of it is that your forecasts will end up being different to your actual results, almost by definition it is impossible to look five or six years into the future and get that absolutely right.But in CA’s case they have to be accountable to something, and that’s why the percentage model is so important. If the actual revenues of the industry end up being different to what the forecasts are, then you’ve got something you can tie the players’ payments to. A share of revenue could be more or less than what it has been, that’s all part of the discussion, as is what goes in and what goes out, but it’s about tying what the players get to the actual revenues of the game rather than what the forecasts are.There’s no accountability for CA if they don’t. They can give you whatever set of numbers they want to give you, and if they end up being significantly inaccurate – as they have been for every MOU negotiation since 1998 – then the players are getting shortchanged. Right now CA aren’t even giving the ACA a set of forecasts. That to me is fundamental, and all CA have done is lost the trust of the entire playing group because it looks like they’re trying to hide something.What was the AFL’s attitude to information sharing?I think there’s an acknowledgement from the AFL that they want to do a long-term deal with us for industry stability, but they understand it is impossible for us if we’re being responsible to tie what the players get just to a set of forecasts. They understand that point, and the second that players keep talking about in both sports is partnership. Incentivise us with a model that helps us to both grow the game together. Our model isn’t where the cricket model is currently at because we’ve got 28% of forecast revenue, 28% of the AFL upside and only 11.2% of the clubs’ upside. The ACA at the moment have roughly a 26% share of everything.The club piece is a bigger challenge in the AFL but that’s all up for discussion. The principle of tying player payments to the industry is common to both models now. We think we’ll end up getting a better result for the players and the game, and that’s the galling part of what’s going on at the moment in cricket. Surely the players are going to get a lot more money in this MOU through the percentage model, or the review mechanism as we’re calling it in the AFL, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that for every dollar the players get, the game gets three. Why are they [CA] trying to strip that off? It smacks of pure greed.

I’m incredibly frustrated, as someone who did the last deal and helped convince the players to put $20 million of their own money [from the 2015 World Cup] back into growing the game. Yet the very next MOU the players are told ‘we don’t want to give you this revenue percentage anymore’.

When you left the ACA in 2014 the game’s landscape had already changed enormously due to Twenty20 tournaments and that process is only getting faster. Are you surprised to see this sort of dispute arise when players have more choice than before? Certainly more than AFL players have.I think it’s crazy. For the services of players, cricket is now a seller’s market. The players can choose where to go, and that’s a reality the AFL doesn’t have, players can’t pick up their trade and go somewhere else. But the cricketers can, and for the majority of countries now they can make a lot more money doing that than playing international cricket. I think international cricket is at risk of falling over if the big countries have a period for whatever reason where they don’t play international cricket.Nearly all successful professional sports are club-based, cricket is now half-and-half and could very quickly become a club-based sport. There are some parts of the cricket model at the moment that don’t work for players – say the best player in the world is a West Indian or a New Zealander, what they get for playing for their country may well be less than what an Australian state cricketer gets. So to think they are not going to chase the T20 dollars and get paid what they’re worth is just complete naivety. It seems to me that CA are at risk of pushing the players down that path.The other thing I find incredible is that CA relies on its commercial partners to generate income, and they as of next week no longer have the players locked away from the perspective of protecting their commercial partners. It’s a slippery slope to companies saying ‘we don’t want to invest in cricket because of the risk here, because players can go off and do things with our competitors’, then the whole business model of cricket falls over. Stability and certainty means everyone knows where they stand, CA can go away and do commercial and broadcast deals and organise tours. If they haven’t got that, from a business standpoint it’s chaos. That’s the thing where you look at it and think ‘how could it get to that point?’.One of CA’s major arguments against revenue sharing is that they say it becomes very difficult to invest in new projects when a percentage of all investment must go to players. How can that issue be addressed?The ACA has historically been responsible. If CA have put arguments around needing flexibility around the revenue-sharing model in order to invest in the game, all I’m hearing from the ACA is ‘we’re happy to talk about that’. And it can be negotiated, you can exclude certain revenue streams, and we’ve done that with the AFL deal like in the case of Etihad Stadium. We’ve given the AFL a six-year exclusion to take any money they generate from Etihad that won’t go into our pot.If the clubs make money from it that will be included, but that’s giving them [the AFL] a chance to pay off that investment, and hopefully beyond six years everyone will benefit from that. I think any players’ association will look at good arguments and work those things into the model. But the argument is ‘we don’t want to give you a share of the upside because we might want to spend it, and we’re not going to give you the forecasts because we don’t want to’.I think it is impossible for a responsible players’ association to do a deal on that basis. Certainly if I was in the ACA’s shoes I couldn’t possibly consider anything more than a one-year deal, and even that would have to be under the principle of revenue share – it is just too open to be gamed. CA have all the information, they know what the future looks like as their best guess, and they won’t even share that. It is incumbent on CA to put the details to the ACA to try to work through what sorts of investments they want to make.Another issue is the adjustment ledger. CA have said it is reasonable to take adjustment-ledger money from the current MOU into the next one because that is what happened in 2012. Why was it done then?We did a one-year rollover deal for 2011-12, and it was a season with an India tour. We could have paid the players 26% of the money from that year, but what would have happened was a massive increase for that one year, and then a decrease for the next year and so on. It was only done that way so the player payments were evened out rather than what would have been irresponsible and unfair to most of the players, spiking one year then going down the next.’As much as CA will claim it is Australia’s favourite sport and all that, now I’ve been removed a bit, it doesn’t get the column inches that other sports get, it isn’t necessarily in the consciousness of the Australian public like it used to be’•John Walton/PA PhotosI’m incredibly frustrated, as someone who did the last deal and helped convince the players to put $20 million of their own money [from the 2015 World Cup] back into growing the game. The players took a very responsible decision to invest back into the game. There wouldn’t be another professional sport in the world where the players took that decision, yet the very next MOU the players are told ‘we don’t want to give you this revenue percentage anymore’. I find that incredibly disrespectful and unprofessional in my view.We negotiated that share of revenue fair and square, and the players could have put all of that money in their pocket, and they didn’t. That shows how serious the players were about this partnership, so to then have that thrown back in their face… For CA to use money from this MOU that the players have earned – despite the fact they’ve given $20 million back – and then try to say ‘we’re going to take more money out of what we have to pay you and put it into the next deal’, it’s just contemptible from where I sit.When you left cricket in 2014, did you have much of an idea that CA was moving in this direction in terms of what it wanted out of the next MOU?I was certainly conscious of [CA chairman] David Peever’s business history. I knew David’s philosophies were anti-union, or not seeing the need for a union, which perhaps is a lack of understanding for the difference between a players’ association and a normal employee-type union. There’s differences in 100% membership, players being through these fights before and being incredibly united. I had an inkling there may have been a change coming from CA, but there certainly won’t be one from the players. The irony of what’s going on right now is it will only make the playing group stronger and more united.In terms of the changes CA are seeking, the AFLPA was coming from a similar perspective in terms of wanting to change a system that had existed fairly consistently for a number of years. How did you go about that?CA wanted to change the model, as we [the AFLPA] did, and we had to take the AFL on that journey together. I don’t think CA have done that at all with the players. You’d think they’d be saying ‘guys this is what it all looks like, these are our concerns with the model, we want to meet with you and discuss it’. Instead it looks like ‘here’s our deal, we’re not going to discuss the financials, take it or leave it’. It’s laughable, and if they think they’re going to change the players’ minds now, it just shows how far removed they are from the players’ psyche. By trying to work around the ACA, all they’ve done is make the ACA stronger – the players appoint them and pay them to look after their interests so they don’t have to get involved in all this. By going to the players direct they’ve almost done the ACA’s job for them. It defies belief.So what do you think happens next?There’s no doubt the players have got very strong resolve here. I can’t see a deal done before June 30, so from that point the players become uncontracted, the commercial rights fall away, and potentially we’ll see players going off and doing their own commercial deals, looking for opportunities in tournaments overseas. I think the big tipping point here will be the India tour. If the players haven’t got contracts then, from where I sit that would be one they shouldn’t go on. They’ll effectively be locked out, it won’t be a strike.CA’s approach here is purely and simply trying to bully the players into an outcome that CA want. ‘We won’t give you the financial information, we won’t give you this model, here’s our deal, take it or leave it’ – that’s been the approach to this point. How can it possibly be seen as a ‘win/win’ here? I can’t see how, and from a human-behaviour perspective you just ask who’s going to agree to that then, how will the players say ‘we’re happy with that deal’ and the same for CA. It’s now a win/lose scenario and in my experience, if you’re going to have a relationship with someone, win/lose just doesn’t work.Do you have a different perspective on where cricket is at having been removed from it for a few years and involved in a rival sport?Cricket’s not going that well that it can afford to throw itself open to this. As much as CA will claim it is Australia’s favourite sport and all that, now I’ve been removed a bit, it doesn’t get the column inches that other sports get, it isn’t necessarily in the consciousness of the Australian public like it used to be, and I just think it is a very dangerous game to play.

The team’s “Indian brand of cricket” – not taking undue risks, and playing largely cricketing shots – was shown up against West Indies’ lethal power-hitting

Karthik Krishnaswamy01-Apr-20162:40

Match Day – India’s lack of boundaries the difference

It is the 17th over of India’s innings against West Indies, and MS Dhoni has just taken a walk across his stumps to paddle a low full-toss from Carlos Brathwaite wide of short fine leg. He meets the ball a long way outside off stump and beats the fielder easily. It is as if he has played this shot all his life.A lot of batsmen around the world played this shot all their lives. Given the state of the game, and given the field set by West Indies, this is a perfectly logical shot to play. But this is MS Dhoni, and this is a moment that makes you rub your eyes and cross-check what you’ve seen with everyone else in the vicinity. Has MS Dhoni just paddled a ball past short fine leg? How many years has it been since he last played such a shot? Has he played this shot before?It is also, perhaps, the first time that any Indian batsman has played this shot all tournament. It has taken until the semi-final stage for this to happen.Of late, India have been quite vocal about their approach to Twenty20 batting: taking time to gauge the conditions, not taking undue risks, and playing largely cricketing shots. They do not move around the crease to exploit the V behind the wicket, they do not switch-hit or reverse-sweep, and they do not hit across the line until the slog overs.After India’s seven-wicket loss in the semi-final, Dhoni even called it the “Indian brand of cricket”, when he was asked how difficult it had been for India to set themselves a target, knowing they were playing a power-packed West Indies team on a flat pitch. West Indies chased down 193 with a flurry of boundaries, getting there with seven wickets in hand.”As I said, we have to keep reviewing [our desired first-innings total],” Dhoni said. “What our strength is, if you see the Indian brand of cricket, we take one or two overs, we see how the wicket is behaving, and according to that we see ‘okay, next five overs, let’s do this’, ‘at the end of this over, if we have not lost too many wickets, this is where we should be’.”What happens is, you evaluate every three-four overs, at times in two overs also, depending on who is bowling. And that has been our strength. We always get a score that is a par-plus score. Right from the start if you think about the big hitters and start looking as 210 as a good score, you may end up getting 160 or 170 and that may not be enough on a wicket like this.”So you always look to back your strengths at the same time, go for a par-plus score, don’t go for a score that is an absolute score. What we have seen in this format is that nothing is a safe score. We have seen 220, 230 also getting chased, so depending on your strength and depending on the wicket, we say this is the score and make sure we reach there.”It is a perfectly logical way of going about an innings. It might ensure you post 192 eight times out of 10, rather than 210 five times and 160 five times. However, it also leaves you susceptible to a chase such as West Indies’ on Thursday. And given the simple arithmetic of T20, where a batting side has 10 wickets to exhaust over 20 overs, it is perhaps counterproductive to bat with such a risk-averse approach. On Thursday, India lost their second wicket in the 16th over of their innings. The batsman dismissed at that point was Ajinkya Rahane, who had scored 40 off 35 balls, having only hit two fours.Yuvraj Singh stuck around in tense chases against Pakistan and Australia, but it was clear to see he was a long way past his best•IDI/Getty ImagesDhoni praised Rahane’s contribution, saying he had given India a solid platform from where they could “launch and score those extra 10-15 runs in the last few overs”. Dhoni said Rahane had done “what he does best” and had been picked ahead of Shikhar Dhawan for precisely this reason.By normal cricketing standards, Rahane played an excellent innings. West Indies made him work hard for his runs, and he stuck it out, ran hard between the wickets, and scored as quickly as possible while not taking undue risks. But is that necessarily a good way to bat in T20s?While India stretched themselves to their limits and scored 192 by playing cricket, West Indies chased it down easily by playing Twenty20, clearing their front legs from ball one and hitting through and across the line with abandon. West Indies’ task was made simpler by the impact of dew, and because India’s bowlers fed them plenty of bad balls, but they would have batted the same way regardless. It felt at times like a clash of ideologies – cricket versus Twenty20.It is a bit of a stretch to call the current Indian side’s risk-averse approach the “Indian brand of cricket”. India have had their share of batsmen who have broken the mould in one way or another, and Dhoni, when he first arrived, was just that kind of batsman. If bowlers around the world have had to rethink the value of yorkers at the death, it is partly because of Dhoni, who would sit deep in his crease and hit them for six with a miraculous whip of his bottom hand. And before his genius for calculation subsumed his genius for instinctive hitting, he would play these shots right from the time he walked out to bat.After India’s T20 series loss to South Africa last October, Dhoni himself acknowledged that his calculated approach might not suit T20s as well as it does ODIs. “Personally,” he said, “I feel I use a bit too much of my brain in this format.”Calling the safety-first approach the “Indian brand of cricket”, perhaps, was Dhoni’s way of deflecting attention from the real reason for adopting it: that the shaky form of the batsmen occupying numbers four and five – for the most part Suresh Raina and Yuvraj Singh, in recent months – would leave India under far too much pressure if they were to play lower-percentage cricket and lose early wickets. India’s openers failed to take off right through the Super 10 stage, and they only scraped through to the semi-finals because of Virat Kohli, Dhoni himself, the bowlers, and Bangladesh gifting them a crucial win.

While India stretched themselves to their limits and scored 192 by playing cricket, West Indies chased it down easily by playing Twenty20, clearing their front legs from ball one and hitting through and across the line with abandon

Yuvraj stuck around with Kohli in tense chases against Pakistan and Australia, but it was clear to see he was a long way past his best. Raina made one decent contribution – a jittery 23-ball 30 against Bangladesh that highlighted his discomfort against the short ball – and failed to get past 10 in his other three innings. Neither, in short, gave India’s top order any confidence that they could go out and play their shots from ball one.It would have been unfortunate for India had they only discovered during the World T20 that Yuvraj was no longer the Yuvraj of old or that Raina could be vulnerable against high-quality bowling or in difficult conditions. But that was not the case. Yuvraj had come into the team after two years, at 34, having been dropped following the 2014 World T20 final. The selectors, meanwhile, had left Raina out of India’s last ODI squad and picked him only for the T20s, hardly a vote of confidence in a cricketer who has played over 200 ODIs.That the selectors stuck by Raina despite not being convinced by his 50-overs game, and that they recalled Yuvraj after such a long time out of the team, suggested either that they felt there were no other options, or that the other options were too untested to throw into such a big event. If the latter was the case, then the selectors only had themselves to blame for trying out precious few young batsmen in limited-overs cricket over the last couple of years.Apart from the 23 against Bangladesh, Suresh Raina failed to get past 10 in an innings during the tournament•IDI/Getty ImagesGiven how much credit the IPL gets for “producing” or “discovering” Indian talent, it is curious that none of India’s top six at the World T20 made it on that basis. Even Manish Pandey, who has an IPL century and a match-winning 94 in an IPL final, only got his chance seven years after his first-class debut, after building a solid body of work in the longest format.The selectors have had no qualms in picking bowlers and allrounders based on their IPL performances. Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya and Pawan Negi can all be termed IPL finds. Even Ashish Nehra, who made a comeback at 36, after nearly five years out of international cricket, kept himself in the selectors’ eye only because of the IPL.But they have been rather more conservative while selecting batsmen, even for the shortest format. Since the start of 2014, the only batsmen they have given ODI debuts to have been Kedar Jadhav – who only came into the reckoning after scoring over 1000 runs in the 2013-14 Ranji Trophy season – Pandey, and Gurkeerat Singh – who has a fairly ordinary IPL record, but enjoyed an excellent 50-overs season for India A, last year. The only batsmen they have capped in T20Is in that time are Ambati Rayudu – who has been around since 2001-02 – Jadhav, Pandey and Sanju Samson. Of that lot, only Samson can be termed an IPL product. And he only got one game, against Zimbabwe, before being dropped.All this while, the selectors have shown great reluctance to blood a generation of young batsmen with new-age T20 techniques and excellent first-class records. Karun Nair is a brilliant exponent of the reverse-sweep, Shreyas Iyer upsets bowlers’ lengths by taking stance outside his crease or deep within it, Suryakumar Yadav plays the scoop over short fine leg from the moment he steps into the crease, and Deepak Hooda hits bigger sixes than most Indian batsmen. All have been important cogs in their IPL teams, and all have 40-plus first-class averages, with Nair and Iyer averaging over 50. All are aged between 20 and 25.The 2016 World T20 could have been a breakthrough event for one or two of these batsmen, just as it was for Bumrah, who showed composure beyond his years while bowling at the death, or Pandya, who, though still raw and wayward with the ball, showed glimpses of the exciting allrounder he could become. Instead, India’s batting followed a jaded pattern forced on them by conservative selections, and was held together by a modern great in otherworldly form. With a new season of the IPL only a week away, it is perhaps time for India to tear up the old template and finally, belatedly, rejuvenate their limited-overs game.

English cricket has always had an aversion to the bold and, as a result, it is left with a massive image problem, argues Mark Butcher

Mark Butcher14-Jan-20153:47

Richard Gould, Surrey’s chief executive, defends the 18-team NatWest Blast

The BBL & the IPL. Two T20 competitions in which the existing structure of the game in the host country has been side-stepped. One expanding, the other contracting – though both have decided that 8 is the magic number.Two 20 over competitions that have brought excitement to non-international cricket & to non-traditional cricket audiences, whilst converting many sticklers along the way. The IPL is in its 8th year, The Big Bash its 4th. People over here are suddenly aware of the latter, and are beginning to be swayed by its brand of unapologetic entertainment, though the IPL is still viewed with nervous contempt by many – most of whom have never watched it.For my part, the BBL has merely confirmed a long-held view that a shake-up is required, as opposed to suddenly being hit by a realisation about what needs to be done.Jos Buttler, a brilliant T20 cricketer, rarely gets opportunities in this format•Getty ImagesFranchise cricket was on the agenda before ECB’s first T20 back in 2003. Unsurprisingly, it was rejected and the same old compromise was reached:- “You can try something new, but you must do it in a time-honoured way.”We had the chance to blaze a trail but decided stick to the well-trodden path. Imagine if we’d taken the plunge?The IPL has shown that a traditional, 24-state system can be streamlined into a glamorous, high quality and wildly popular competition (not without issues I grant you). What the BBL has picked up and sprinted with is a style of marketing that pushes the game to the forefront of public consciousness.I am increasingly of the view that we have missed the boat and that any change is therefore unlikely. We have always had an aversion to the bold, an aversion to raising standards by making the spoils harder to come by for players, a pomposity that (in the face of all evidence to the contrary) says: “Those colonials have no idea what they’re doing”.The game has a massive image problem, not least because, at county level, it has no image at all. T20 is about hype, it is about household names, it is about big crowds, it is about generating revenue. It is about getting a new, untapped generation to love the game.It is not about developing players (though that will happen as a by-product of tough competition), it is not about satisfying the member who will watch the odd first-class game a summer, it is not a sentimental throwback to the golden age of county cricket.The IPL & BBL cannot be unseen. They have swaggered into the bar, poked the landlord in the chest, turned up the jukebox and demanded everybody’s attention. Meanwhile the regulars are cowering in the corner, wondering if they will go away quietly and leave their commemorative tankards in one piece.We have to change the way we think about the game in this country. Else, in 10 years time, the audience will have made the change for us by spending its summers elsewhere.

The Plays of the day from the match between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Delhi Daredevils, in Hyderabad

Siddarth Ravindran04-May-2013The appeal
In the second over of the match, Ishant Sharma bowled one of his typical deliveries – a short of length ball cutting in – that beat Virender Sehwag’s inside edge and struck him on the pads. As is the norm, the bowler and the wicketkeeper went up vociferously asking for the lbw. The ball would have missed legstump and the umpire rightly turned down the shout. The most dramatic appeal, though, came from Darren Sammy, who was fielding at a very wide first slip and would have had no idea of the line of the delivery. That didn’t deter Sammy from appealing so vehemently that he sank to his knees while asking the question.The no-ball
It is only this month that the rules have been changed to make it a no-ball when the bowler brushes the stumps during his run-up, a problem most prominently faced by England’s Steven Finn. Bangladesh fast bowler Shafiul Islam became the first bowler to be no-balled for that in international cricket yesterday, and today it was Thisara Perera in the IPL. There is no free-hit for this sort of no-ball, but perhaps the batsman Unmukt Chand was unaware of that, judging from his wild swipe after charging out of his crease on the next delivery.The drop
The IPL’s highlights reels may be stacked with a bunch of terrific catches, but this season has had its share of schoolboyish fielding bloopers. Hanuma Vihari added to that list today, when he didn’t just put down a skier from David Warner, he barely got a hand on it despite settling under it well in time. Luckily for him, Warner’s continued struggles against spin meant the drop didn’t prove too costly.The confusion
Daredevils, like most IPL franchises, have a vast support staff, one of whom should be assigned to give lessons in calling for Irfan Pathan and Shahbaz Nadeem. First, there was a total communication breakdown when they were batting, resulting in Nadeem’s run-out. Initially the striker Nadeem wanted the run and Irfan didn’t, then Irfan did and Nadeem didn’t and in the resulting confusion Sunrisers Hyderabad had time to complete the run-out even though the first throw missed the stumps. Then, in the second over of the chase, a top-edged shot looped towards deep square leg. Irfan ran back from square leg, and Nadeem from deep midwicket; both of them were converging on the ball but at the last moment both pulled out of attempting the catch and watched the ball land between them.

This series might actually be the best way to get the Indian Test team breathing back to normal and ensure that they digest the rest of what awaits them

Sharda Ugra05-Nov-2011When the India v West Indies series, which begins at Feroz Shah Kotla on Sunday, first turned up on the calendar, there was much mumbling and grumbling from the hosts. Sandwiched between the tours of England and Australia, it was given the status of a meaningless shred of lettuce in a double cheeseburger. West Indies are amongst the game’s contemporary strugglers (a fact that is easy to understand but hard to keep writing about), they have not been on a full Test series in India for nine years, during which India toured the Caribbean thrice.To mark the moaning and mourning, the Kotla Test will be the first of three week-day specials, from Sunday to Thursday. Eden Gardens runs Monday to Friday game and Mumbai begins on a Tuesday and ends on a Saturday.Yet, suddenly the lettuce is not quite so meaningless for India – because the first of that burger led to a bout of coughing and choking (no pun intended, honestly) that lasted three months. This series, then, might actually be the best way to get the Test team’s breathing back to normal and ensure that they digest the rest of what awaits them.If England became a case study of the “everything that could go wrong did go wrong” tour for the Indians, the three Tests against West Indies will be a check of whether all their best parts can get back to working order. Had this series not been around, the R&R available for the Indians after the bruises in England would have consisted largely of a few first-class cricket games for every player. West Indies, despite all their recent struggles, are an opposition that will ask far tougher questions.India’s comfort at home is expected to give its injured players a chance to test their recovery, their out of form batsmen a much-needed inner kick of confidence and also a return to even keel, the team’s faith in its ability to create and seize opportunities to win five-day games. For the moment, it has certainly given India’s selectors, a chance to offer proof of their bravado before they actually pick the 15 for Australia.That, however, is weeks ahead. Which is where West Indies want India to be looking, far ahead of them, ahead even of themselves. Captain MS Dhoni was not about to be distracted. When asked about the dramas of England, he said, “There’s no good reason why we should be thinking about England. It is all about looking ahead, that is what we have done.” A few minutes later, a query popped up about the Australia tour, to which he said, “the Australia series is too far away, no point thinking about it.” The immediacy of India’s present involves being up against a team to whom this series is quite completely, the real deal. In the time that West Indies have been kept away from a tour of India, the game’s goalposts itself have shifted. Darren Sammy’s men now know where it’s at.

Sandwiched between the tours of England and Australia, it was given the status of a meaningless shred of lettuce in a double cheeseburger

The Tests against India are not about trial-error-tinkering of any kind. When the captain Sammy called the series, “the biggest” for most of his team, it was not as if he was merely talking the series up. The three Tests will be a demanding examination of West Indies’ capabilities as travellers. Victory in Bangladesh, they know, was enjoyable, welcome, rousing even but not exactly the Normandy landing. Bangladesh is one of only three countries where West Indies have won an overseas Test in the last 10 years, South Africa and Zimbabwe being the other two.
The big benefit from the West Indies win in Dhaka is that they travel to India with match-winning performances from some of their inexperienced players, particularly legspinner Devendra Bishoo, and top order batsmen Kirk Edwards and Darren Bravo. They bring with them a frontline bowling attack – Fidel Edwards, Kemar Roach, Ravi Rampaul – with more Tests between them than India’s main bowlers have played. (Ishant Sharma and Pragyan Ojha are still one short of a combined experience of 50 Tests and Dhoni has promised two debuts at the Kotla).Outside the more familiar parameters of an Indian home series – slow, flat wickets, heaps of runs – the series will test the resolve in the younger West Indian batsmen and the strength of India’s bowling bench. Even without the presence of Chris Gayle, a series once glumly considered of as a mundane afterthought, is now full to the brim with individual stories. The question about the Tendulkar Hundred is the least of them, at the moment, even to the man himself. What is of greater interest is whether he will be back to the match fitness that makes him both confident and relaxed. Virender Sehwag’s shoulder has to be worked to full stretch, his collective with Gautam Gambhir needs to get going again. Darren Bravo must prove that he is a worthy successor to Sir Brian Charles. Marlon Samuels must make himself truly valuable to the West Indies again. Ishant must be ready to lead the bowling regardless of Zaheer Khan’s medical condition (for the moment, reported to be improving) and ankle-muncher wickets.This week, Delhi’s winter suddenly set in with foggy skies, weak dawns and early sunsets. It is exactly what the India v West Indies series had promised to be when first announced: bleakly grey, largely uneventful, predictable even. On the eve of India’s first Test at home versus West Indies in almost a decade, a series of revelations await. Who knows, we may even be witness to a burst of winter sunshine.

Chris Gayle played a typically audacious innings, with some stylishly cool big-hitting, to give Kolkata their first win of the IPL season

Karna S21-Apr-2009Watching Chris Gayle bat takes one back to one’s teens, when the school bully would haunt and mesmerize you with his big hitting. At the cricket clinic, they’d teach you to lift your left elbow high and get in line with the ball. “Get your head over the ball and smell the leather,” the coach would say. And, as you struggled with those instructions, out would stride the local Gayle, tall and cool, merrily swinging his bat. And the ball would fly. Then he’d order you to give him the strike and you’d comply meekly.Today was another instalment of the Gayle show. On the fifth ball he survived a simple drop chance, courtesy the butter-fingered Goel, off an intended short-arm pull. Three quiet balls later, he began his sequence. The loose limbs sent the ball crashing over cover point. The next over Irfan Pathan got it straighter; Gayle almost knocked the umpire’s head off. Pathan tried to change his length with a short ball; it was eventually picked up from the square leg boundary. Pathan then went for a length ball. It sailed over long-on, almost sucked in by the delirious fans who, for the first time in the day, really started to get into things. Gayle has that effect.There is a perception, warranted to an extent by his style of play, that there is little technique; it’s almost village cricket. It’s an accusation levelled at most of the big players who keep the game simple. Watch Gayle closely, though, and there’s a delightfully simple technique at work. He has a wide, spread stance, crouches a touch on bent knees to get the centre of gravity down and stays still. Very still. As the bowler, in this case Irfan, finishes his delivery stride and releases the ball, Gayle uncoils into action. His stance means he doesn’t have to move too far forward or back. The problem is when he is not quite to the length or the ball starts seaming around – Gayle does get squared up a lot on tougher pitches. Not today, though.There was a touch of pre-determination from him but again the movement was late. He moved his back foot across, took his front leg outside the line of the ball and got into a position to swing across to the on side. He lifted VS Malik into the midwicket stands and, when the bowlers dug in short, his balance allowed him to cut it over point.Of course, he had his share of luck. Not only did Goel drop him, Sangakkara too failed to hold on to a nick off the leggie Piyush Chawla. A bully’s luck.The match wouldn’t have been complete without Mr Cool showing his signature style on the field. The batsman Goel edged a flash to the left of first slip, where Gayle was stationed. Second slip lunged to his right. The calm Gayle swayed to his left. There was a blur of activity and for that moment the ball was lost from sight. Slowly, Gayle broke into a smile as his team-mates converged on him. That was as much emotion as one gets from Gayle (unless you are Michael Clarke and have rubbed him the wrong way).Later, his captain Brendon McCullum said he knew that as long as Gayle got going, they didn’t have to bother about those two kill-joy gentlemen Duckworth and Lewis. “The only thing we have decided here, in these conditions, is to take the first two overs quietly. You don’t want to lose an early wicket and keep chasing the game. You sort of get an idea about the D/L score but there were no sheets passed around in the dressing room. With Gayle going the way he did …” His voice trailed off. There was no need to say anything else.

The first two matches had tense finishes. This one was a walkover. Zimbabwe had begun with promise, hitting 35 off their first three overs. But they crumbled rapidly to spin thereafter, losing four wickets to Wanindu Hasaranga, two to Maheesh Theekshana, and one to Dhananjaya de Silva, who was playing his first match of the series.They lost their last nine wickets for 49 runs, and though this was a slow deck given to turn, Sri Lanka had no problems. They sped to the target in 10.5 overs, for the loss of only one wicket, thereby sealing the series 2-1. They had also won the ODIs 2-0.

Six wickets in 27 balls

Where Zimbabwe had shown some tenacity with the bat in their previous two matches, their middle and lower orders were especially meek in this match. In this 6 off 27 sequence, Tony Munyonga was first to go, mis-hitting a Hasaranga ball to the midwicket fielder who had just been installed, in the 10th over.Related

• Mathews blames 'agendas' of former selectors for white-ball wilderness

• Jongwe pastes wallpaper icon Mathews to down SL at the death

De Silva then had Sean Williams caught and bowled next over, before Hasaranga had the hero of the last match – Luke Jongwe – caught at deep square leg off a top-edged sweep.In his next over, Hasaranga struck twice, off his last two balls, both googlies. Wellington Masakadza was hit in front of the stumps. Richard Ngarava was bowled. Theekshana completed the team hat-trick in the first ball of the next over by having Clive Madande caught sweeping.

Mendis and Nissanka smash the powerplay

Although Ngarava and Blessing Muzarabani have been excellent with the new ball through the tour, Sri Lanka were always going to try and break Zimbabwe’s spirits early, given the small chase. The openers hit three fours inside Ngarava’s first two overs, and then they really opened their shoulders.They hit one legside four each off Muzarabani’s second over – the fourth of the innings – before Mendis took Wellington Masakadza apart, and sent Ngarava for six off a fortuitous top edge off the sixth over. They were 50 for no loss after the first six.Mendis would lose his wicket to a terrific delivery from Williams, going for 33 off 27, but Sri Lanka were all but home.Zimbabwe’s fast startAlthough they batted only 14.1 overs, Zimbabwe had an excellent start. Sort of. Brian Bennett was the source of seven early boundaries – all fours, and almost all of them coming from drives of some description. This is partly because Sri Lanka’s fast bowlers pitched full, looking for swing. A nice off-cutter from Mathews ended that 12-ball innings though – Bennett’s eyes lighting up and looking for the big shot over the bowler’s head, but only managing to find mid-on.It was rapidly downhill for Zimbabwe after that.

The Charlotte FC center back claimed that Mauricio Pochettino's side don't think about roster composition amid debates about league strength

• Tim Ream insisted USMNT doesn't question roster configuration
• MLS-heavy squad sparked debate on domestic vs. European soccer
• Pochettino repeatedly backed MLS as a "top league"

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  WHAT HAPPENED?

  USMNT center back Tim Ream insisted that U.S. players don't question the composition of the roster after Mauricio Pochettino named an MLS-heavy unit for friendlies against Japan and South Korea. 

  "I think it's just competition in general. Again, it's one of those things where we don't really look at the roster and say, 'oh, there's this many guys in from this league, or there's this many guys in from Europe.' To us, it's competition… You have to go out there and earn your place, and earn your spot," the veteran defender told reporters Tuesday. 

  Twelve of the 23 players named in the side play in America's top flight, which has led to a reemergence of debates regarding the relative strength of the league. Ream mentioned the debate might be happening externally, but its not a conversation within the locker room.

  "It's talked about a lot, but it's not discussed in any way amongst ourselves," he said. 

  Pochettino has claimed that MLS is a pool worth tapping into, while detractors have pushed for a European-heavy squad with the World Cup fast approaching. 

  "We need to give MLS the value, because I think competing there, I think the player can show that they can perform in the national team," Pochettino said. “It's not necessary to move from MLS to Europe, because sometimes MLS, under my assessment, maybe is more competitive than some leagues in Europe.”

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  THE BIGGER PICTURE

  While several pundits and former players have questioned Pochettino's decision to call up new players with limited international windows remaining until the 2026 World Cup, Ream backed the manager's decision.

  "[Pochettino] is giving guys opportunities to impress, making sure that he can get eyes on everybody who they've been watching from, maybe from afar," Ream said. "And you know that that sends a little bit of a message that places are open. And I think that's only a good thing."

  Pochettino's most recent roster features a handful of surprise inclusions from MLS. Columbus' Sean Zawadzki, Vancouver's Tristan Blackmon, and Cincinnati's Roman Celentano were all named to the side despite having a combined one cap between the trio. It is also worth noting two European-based players in Noahkai Banks and Jonathan Klinsmann, are also aiming to get their first cap in this September camp. 

  "Competition can drive you and push you, it prepares you and hardens you for the coming months," he said. 

• WHAT REAM SAID

  Ream also touched on the rising expectations for the U.S. to build some momentum ahead of next year's World Cup. 

  "We're trying to, trying to move things forward, and make sure that we're in a good position moving forward into the next year and into the World Cup," he said. "And that's down to, obviously, the coaching staff communicating, as they always do, and us as players, you know, translating that message as peers, to make sure that everybody's pulling in the right direction."

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  WHAT NEXT FOR THE USMNT?

  Pochettino and Co. have a duo of friendlies ahead as they face South Korea on Sept. 6 and Japan on Sept. 9.