What is 24 balls more?

When Steven Smith shook hands with MS Dhoni with 4 overs left in the game at the MCG on December 30, 2014, the heads of many fans exploded. I danced a little jig. I thought it was a great decision. What's more I thought, here is something to be explained about Test cricket. I thought this because this is a unique feature of Test Cricket. Instead, Smith's decision has been widely panned. It has been called "unaustralian" - the ultimate insult for an Australian cricketer.

The narrowest, most utilitarian argument in favor of staying out there for four more overs is that there was no downside to doing so. There was no way Australia could have lost. The only possible outcomes of significance were that Australia would take 0,1,2,3 or 4 wickets in those 24 balls. Even if, by some bizarre twist, Dhoni and Ashwin hit 24 sixes, that would still leave India about 70 runs short. So why not continue?

Why not indeed? Here is something that begs to be explained. When you describe cricket, you have to describe cricket. And cricket is played over 5 days. But it is not a game played to a clock. Time lost due to rain is not made up indefinitely. Games which end after 3 days and 50 overs, end after 3 days and 50 overs. So cricket is not like football or hockey, where a buzzer determines the end of play. It is not a race, in which a pre-determined distance has to be covered by all competitors, and the one who does it fastest, wins. In baseball and a few other sports, a mercy rule is enforced at some levels of competition, but usually not in the big leagues.

Cricket is different. 16.1.6 of the Standard Test Match Playing Conditions(pdf) applicable to the Melbourne Test state the following:

"On the final day, if both captains (the batsmen at the wicket may act for their captain) accept that there is no prospect of either side achieving a victory, they may agree to finish the match after (a) the time for the commencement of the last hour has been reached OR (b) there are a minimum of 15 overs to be bowled, whichever is the later."

The rule also states that on the final day, the 15 overs must be bowled in the final hour, or, that the final hour will be said to begin after 75 overs have been completed on the day. Umpire Kettleborough signalled the beginning of the final hour of play just as Ravichandran Ashwin joined Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni at the wicket. Smith and Australia tried to get them out for 11 of those 15 overs. After a nervy start, Dhoni and Ashwin settled and looked very comfortable once they were focused on keeping the ball out. They didn't look like they were going to get out even against some probing Australian bowling. As Smith said afterwards,

"I don't think there was a win still there to be honest," Smith said after play. "All our bowlers were pretty cooked and it was time to finish. There wasn't much breaking up in the wicket, there wasn't much going on. I think that was it."

By shaking hands, Smith basically conceded that Australia would not be able to beat India in that Test. It was a reasonable cricketing conclusion.

Lets turn to the reaction. Some people think they were cheated out of their money because those last 4 overs were not played. To them, I'd simply say, read the rules. They have no case. To the suggestion that they were cheated, you'd have to believe that a team which tried hard to win for almost 5 full days, played a tactically hard nosed game on a wicket which proved just too good to force a result, was not trying to win. When all along, Smith was trying (successfully) to win the series. The only thing he shied away from was from providing the professional press with a sensational story in the next days papers. In this, he cost the media a lot of money. This may sound cynical, but it is true. The media in cricket is systematically concerned with excitement - manufactured or otherwise. Why else would anybody get worked up about things a 25 year old batsman might say about a 30 year old bowler? Why else would anybody desperately want to know every little detail of every little thing which players say to each other on the field, all the while ignoring basic points of law?

Still others provide bad arguments to support their idea. In and of itself, it is not a bad point, if made narrowly. It is true that Australia had nothing to lose, except the small chance that one of their players might get injured. Might break a finger trying to field a ball, or pull a muscle. But that would be a small chance. Brydon Coverdale pointed out that India's last 3 wickets have not lasted very long in this series.

In the first innings in Adelaide, India lost their last three wickets in the space of 20 balls.
In the second innings in Adelaide, India lost their last three wickets in the space of 18 balls.
In the first innings at the MCG, India lost their last three wickets in the space of 16 balls.
In the second innings at the MCG, India's last 24 balls did not get bowled.

This is anecdotal and includes a very small sample size. None of those instances came with India trying to save a match. Even at Adelaide, as we've been told by the Indian captain, they were going for the win until the very end. Shami was caught at mid-off trying to clear the infield, Aaron was LBW to a really good fast straight ball, and Ishant Sharma was stumped. For most of this year, India haven't faced too many situations in which they had a chance to save a Test on the 5th day. But even conceding all these points, Coverdale's facts are simply wrong. Virat Kohli was 7th out off the 4th ball of the 82nd over. The new ball was in play, by the way.

Even on that Adelaide wicket with its tailor-made rough for Nathan Lyon, and new ball for Mitchell Johnson, with India playing a strange game chasing runs for victory to the very end, the last 3 wickets survived 33 balls (81.5 to 87.1). In the first innings at Adelaide, Saha was 7th out off the 2nd ball of the 111th over. The last 3 wickets survived 37 balls (110.3 to 116.4). Again, this was when they weren't batting with the clear goal of survival. In the first innings at Melbourne, the last three wickets played out 62 balls after Ashwin was 7th out, but Virat Kohli was one of the batsmen at the wicket until he was 8th out. So Coverdale's data points should be

In the first innings in Adelaide, India lost their last three wickets in the space of 37 balls.
In the second innings in Adelaide, India lost their last three wickets in the space of 33 balls.
In the first innings at the MCG, India lost their last three wickets in the space of 62 balls.
In the second innings at the MCG, India's last 24 balls did not get bowled.

Smith was right. As for the people who agree with Coverdale and use his facts to buttress their point, shouldn't they at least get their basic facts right before advancing to the more sophisticated bit about arguing from facts?

If numbers are to be taken seriously, it can be argued that a player's recent record is a better indicator of what he might achieve that his record in just 3 games. This is especially true for tailenders, whose innings are playing in a wide range of situations, and whose skills are limited. Sometimes, they bat with a specialist at the other end in a competitive situation. At others, they bat in utterly hopeless situations. They play accordingly. Chris Martin, test average 2.36, survived 11.8 balls per dismissal over the length of his career. Lets just take the performance of India's available tailenders this year. This is a good measure. All of India's Tests have been played Away, outside the sub-continent, India have typically been behind in these games (sometimes hopelessly so) by the time the tail came in to bat.

Ishant Sharma has 8 dismissals in 209 balls in 2014, Mohammad Shami has 8 in 197 balls and Umesh Yadav has 3 in 65 balls. It is the flavor of the month to deride India's tail, and India's tail is poor when compared to Lyon, Starc and Harris. But even so, 4 overs is a ridiculously small number of overs to play. And I haven't brought up the fact that Ashwin and Dhoni were in at the start of the 4 overs. Even if they fell on the first two balls of the 1st of those 4 overs, the remaining 3 batsmen would have to play out 22 balls, against the old ball, on a good wicket. As bad as they are, they'd have a good chance to do so. Of course, it didn't even look like Dhoni or Ashwin were going to get out. It didn't look like they were remotely interested in anything but keeping the ball out.

Smith was right. The journalists are wrong. An inquiry into manhood (or "the desire to win") is not necessary here. It is not even remotely merited. Fidelity to the facts might be a better place to start. Smith did the correct, classy thing which one would expect of an international Test captain in such circumstances.

Dhoni Retires From Test Cricket

Mahendra Singh Dhoni retired from Test Cricket after helping India save the Melbourne Test on December 30, 2014. He retired as India's finest wicketkeeper batsman in the long form game. He led India in more Tests, and won more Tests than any of his predecessors. Under Dhoni, India dominated at home as they never have before, despite being a team in transition. Overseas, no other Indian captain has won more Tests than Dhoni.

Dhoni drew the ire of the professional commentariat for appearing indifferent to India's 4-0 defeats in England and Australia in 2011 and 2011-12. The obvious sight of an ageing, but celebrated set of batsmen not scoring Test hundreds on these tours as they had on previous ones seemed to upset fans. Yet, as Sambit Bal noted today, the charge of indifference is at the very least, an educated guess. The facts point not to India's batting, but to their bowling in the second half of the Dhoni era. His approach to captaincy has been perpetually criticized.

My view of Dhoni's captaincy has been rather simple. He did not have bowlers who could bowl all six balls in an over exactly where they wanted to. Lacking this basic control, no conventional tactic would have worked. When he tried it, it didn't work. Just look at the number for first sessions on Day 1 in overseas Tests when India's bowlers have delivered poor lines and lengths. When they did bowl well, as on Day 4 at Melbourne in Dhoni's final Test, he looked a different, more effective captain. It is true, as much as commentators might hate it, that a captain is as good as his team. This is true not due to vagaries of attitude or commitment, but due to vagaries of skill. How do the same observers who agree that Ishant Sharma is chronically inconsistent, and Mohammad Shami (or take any other name) lacks basic control, then set these facts aside when they describe Dhoni's captaincy? Not even God would captain well if he couldn't rely on the line and length offered by his bowlers.

Consider the bowling Dhoni has had at his disposal in 29 Tests Away from India. In 2011, Harbhajan Singh was found to be inconsistent and out of favor. Indian fans hated him, and the press wanted him out of the side. Harbhajan Singh took 44 wickets in 12 Away Tests at the cost of 34 runs per wicket (1 wicket every 12 overs) for MS Dhoni from 2009 to 2011. His replacements in the side, Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja have taken 32 wickets at 53 runs per wicket (1 wicket every 18.2 overs). Ishant Sharma played 27 out of 29 Tests Away from home, and took 98 wickets at 37. The best bowlers India have had under Dhoni have been 2 England specialists - Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Praveen Kumar. Unfortunately, these were surrounded by decidedly mediocre bowlers by Test standards.

If India were a team which had good bowlers who could bowl to conventional plans well, but played on wickets which were so flat that conventional plans didn't work, it would be fair to blame Dhoni. But when the bowlers are incapable of bowling to even basic plans, it is hard to charge the captain with not seizing the moment (or whichever other lazy martial metaphor critics prefer to use).

It is inescapably the bowling which failed India under Dhoni. In 10 Tests when India took 20 wickets overseas, they won 5 and lost 3. In fact, in 19 Tests (out of 29) where India took at least 15 wickets, they won 5, lost 4 (most recently, Brisbane) and earned 7 draws (most recently, Melbourne). Given a decent bowling line up, even that ageing batting in 2011 would have produced Test wins. As would the new look line up of 2014. In England this year, India had 2 poor Tests with the bat. In these two Tests they were equally poor with the ball.

At home, MS Dhoni built a record which is decisively superior to Azharuddin, Ganguly, Gavaskar, Pataudi and Kapil Dev. Remember that Pataudi had the great spinners in his team. Kapil had himself, Ganguly had Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh, and Azharuddin had Kumble, Raju and Chauhan. India won 21 out of 30 Tests at Home under Dhoni and lost only 3. Azharuddin has the next best captaincy record with 12 wins and 4 defeats in 19 Tests. Under Ganguly, India won 7 and lost 3 out of 17.

It used to be that any international side which toured India would be a threat. When New Zealand toured in 1999, their batsmen were a problem, as was Dion Nash. India's batsmen won their battle against Nash and Vettori, the bowlers lost their to NZ's batsmen. But under Dhoni, India have always been clear favorites at Home, so much so, that fans don't even rate performances at home today. Even when England visited India with the best off spinner in the world and a strong, experienced batting line up, their win in India was seen as a upset.

India will not always be so dominant in India, and may well look back on the Dhoni era as one of great success.

Dhoni is an underrated Test batsman. In conditions where the ball did not move off the seam as a rule, he was a easily a Test quality run maker. His Test average in India was 47. Yet, even here, as a specialist wicket keeper, he is held to an impossible standard. The first thing you are likely to hear about his batting is that he was poor overseas. The counter example is Gilchrist. Gilchrist was a unique player. We are unlikely to see such a lethal match of stroke making talent, and team strength, as we did in case of Gilchrist. But Gilchrist averaged 33 in 13 Tests in Asia and crossed 50 4 times in 23 innings. Dhoni averaged 31 in 32 Tests in Australia, England, South Africa and New Zealand, and crossed 50 13 times in 60 innings. When you consider that given India's bowling, Dhoni almost always batted under enormous pressure overseas, his record doesn't stack up so poorly compared to Gilchrist's. Gilchrist played 96 Tests to Dhoni's 90.

Dhoni's greatest achievement, apart from all the Test success he brought India, is that he survived the increasingly crazy media circus which surrounds an India player. If there his one thing his successor could learn from him, it is the ability of Mahendra Singh Dhoni to be indifferent to victory, defeat and what writers are pleased to call 'constructive criticism'. If he wants to learn a second, it is from Dhoni's example. Captaincy is impossible with bad bowling.

Day 5 At Adelaide

Australia declared overnight twice in this Test and set India 364 to win in 98 overs on Day 5. They won by 48 runs. A few things contributed to this result. A few things will be said about this result which I think are not true.

1. The idea that India "went for the runs" on the last day.
2. The idea that India "kept going for the runs" even after losing two wickets in the same over to Nathan Lyon.
3. That India play spin poorly.

In real time, some of the shots played by India's batsmen suggested to me that they were indeed going for the win. But on reflection, a two things stand out about this game.

1. The pace of scoring throughout the match. Australia made 354/6 in 89.2 overs at the end of Day 1, or 3.94 runs per over. Their run rate in their first innings would end up 4.31 runs per over. They made 517/7 in 120 overs by the end of Day 2. In response, India made 369/5 by the end of Day 3 in just 97 overs. 3.8 runs per over. India first innings run rate at the end of their innings (444 all out in 116.4 overs) would be 3.8. Australia made 290/5 in 69 overs in their 2nd innings. The run rate over the first 3 innings of the match, was 4.09 runs per over. This suggests a fast scoring ground. Whats more, it suggests a pitch on which timing strokes came easily to most batsmen. 9 players reached 50.

2. The wicket played well. India's tactic of bowling round the wicket to the Australian left handers and Mitchell Johnson bowling left arm over, created the perfect rough outside the right hander's off stump for Australia's classical orthodox off spinner to exploit.

And exploit it he did. India played Lyon in the classic fashion. India have used the same tactic against spinners in overseas Tests for as long as I can remember. Tendulkar and Laxman taking on Brad Hodge, Shane Warne, Nathan Hauritz, Daniel Vettori, Graeme Swann and several others. But Lyon held his nerve and kept plugging away into that rough. He got to bowl into it on Day 3 and Day 5, into a breeze which was at times stiff. Lyon's classical action brought him crucial over-spin and got the ball to misbehave out of that rough. Perhaps most crucially, the rough spots were beyond the reach of most batsmen and couldn't be covered with ease.

Lyon was exceptionally persistent. Over 70 overs and 1 ball, he went for 27 fours and 6 sixes. He conceded a boundary on average every other over. He gave up 286 runs in the match. He was Australia's major wicket taking threat in this Test. Mitchell Johnson and Ryan Harris had to be watched carefully, but they could be played. It was a peculiar game in that sense. It is rare for a bowler to be both his team's main wicket taking option, and the opposition's main target for runs. Its a position a lead spinner should relish.

Australia set India 363 in 98 overs on the final day. The drop-in pitch played well apart from the rough. The middle of the pitch was not cracked. But the run rate Australia set India was lower than the run rate in the match over the first three innings.

Still, India's approach would have been fairly standard in such situation. Try and keep wickets in hand until Tea time and then chase runs afterwards. Without Dhoni or Ashwin, India's batting from number 7 onwards remained suspect due to inexperience.

And it showed. India were in the hunt at Tea time because of one man. Virat Kohli. Murali Vijay played the anchor man to perfection. At Tea he had 85 in 208 balls. At the other end, Virat Kohli has 82 in 112 balls. Had Kohli scored at the usual strike rate of somcwhere between 45 and 55 runs per hundred balls, India would have been 25 runs less than they were at Tea.

Like Ricky Ponting, Virat Kohli seems incapable of scoring slowly unless he deliberately tries to do so. His slowest Test hundred was 103 in 295 balls at Nagpur on a soporific pitch on which getting the ball of the square was a challenge and getting batsmen out was nearly impossible. Each of his other 7 Test hundreds came off less than 200 balls. Kohli has too many stroke all round the wicket. What's more, teams have not yet resorted to trying to bore him out. They're still willing to attack him.

Australia didn't have a choice today. They had to attack both Kohli and Vijay. They knew that with the rough being as lethal as it was, one wicket would bring a brand new batsman to face the rough (all but Karn Sharma being right handers) from Lyon's end, and skilfull reverse swing (Siddle and Harris both reversed the ball both ways) from the other end. The reverse swing could be played, but needed to be watched.

It wasn't easy going for Vijay or Kohli. Between them they could have been out LBW about 7 times during the day. Umpire Erasmus was unwilling to give LBWs which were marginal on height. With the ball jumping out of the rough, it was hard to blame him for such caution. But the odd ball kept low as well and on one occasion, the batsman survived a shooter due to sheer good fortune - the impact was about an inch outside off. On another day, another Umpire might have given any one or more of those appeals, and the batsmen would have had little to complain about.

Australia did get lucky against Shikhar Dhawan and Ajinkya Rahane. But the rest of the batsmen were playing a losing battle against the conditions, especially after Tea. Vijay got himself into a jam as he approached a century and misjudged the length of a delivery from Nathan Lyon which was flatter, on a straight line and turned less than his usual offering. Vijay was plumb LBW.

Both Ajinkya Rahane and Rohit Sharma struggled with the rough. Both play the sweep shot. Played from outside off stump, it is a safe shot as the batsman can cover the line and be assured that the impact would be outside off stump should he miss. Both play the shot hitting down on the ball. In the first innings, Rahane played the sweep early and often. Today, Rohit Sharma was out off the glove at leg gully. Rahane was out bat-pad, though replays showed the ball missed bat and glove on the way to pad. Its not for nothing that they often say that its hard for a new batsman when there is a rough and a spinner is exploiting it. India's spinners know this better than most.

It remains one of the game's greatest contemporary mysteries as to why the Umpire in the TV room can't overrule the Umpire on the field if he sees something clearly wrong. But such is the rule.

Wriddhiman Saha came to the wicket, and perhaps, having seen what happened to Rahane and Rohit Sharma, decided that the only way to play Lyon was to try and hit him out of the attack. He got a four and a six, but then took one chance too many. His wicket was an illustration of just how much of a risk it is to run down the wicket to a spinner, especially that early in one's innings, when the ball is turning.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the chase was that at Tea on Day 5, India needed to score at only 4.3 runs per over, in a match in which scoring at 4 was normal.

Virat Kohli was the supreme batsman in the match. Yes David Warner made 2 hundreds. Yes Michael Clarke and his cricketing doppelganger Steven Smith also made centuries. Smith made 214 undefeated runs in the match. But Kohli's runs came against a very good off spinner bowling on a pitch tailor made for him, a genuinely quick, accurate left arm paceman, and two excellent fast bowlers who reverse swung the ball both ways. Against this attack, on this Adelaide pitch, Kohli's mastery was a sight for the Gods.

The ball before he got out, India needed 60 runs in 16.5 overs. Lyon did drop that ball short, but it was towards the end of the over, and Kohli had Karn Sharma at the other end. I wonder, whether Kohli will wake up tomorrow morning wondering if he should have tried to take to easy single instead of taking on the deep mid-wicket fielder. Until then, Kohli had scored 41 in 30 balls after reaching his hundred without putting a foot wrong. Pakistani great Inzamam Ul Haq had the uncanny ability to play exactly the right shot to each ball even as he tried to push the scoring rate along. Kohli, a master of the limited overs run chase, has this ability too. Of his 175th delivery of the day, his judgment failed him.

Could India have held out? Should India have shut shop? They didn't have the means to hold out. Not after Rohit Sharma was out. Rohit played the perfect foil to the marauding Kohli, holding his end up. He did so for 37 minutes in a stand of 35. But once he fell, unable to keep a leaping Lyon special away from the fielders, it was victory or bust.

An old fashioned Test fan might wonder about a Test lost when it might have been saved. No matter, I say. The age demands belligerence. Kohli provided it.

For a while, it looked as though India's stand-in captain and stand-in wicketkeeper might take India to an improbable win. I wonder what India's veteran wicketkeeper-batsman captain would have made of that. Imagine what Kohli might have said. "Here you go skipper, I made two hundreds, and pulled off the highest successful chase in the 130 year history of the Adelaide Oval. Your replacement played a crucial hand too. Now you can take my spot as captain, and Saha's spot as keeper. No pressure!"

It wasn't to be.  364 turned out to be 50 runs too many. Had India conceded runs at Australia's rate, they would have ended up with 7 runs more than Australia in the match. India batted 14 overs more than Australia did at Adelaide. It is a measure of how poor their bowling was, that they still lost by 48 runs.

No matter. Rohit Sharma is a readily available scapegoat. And Virat Kohli is a batsman of rare ability.

Mitchell Johnson Felled By Bouncer To Virat Kohli

You may have seen some variant of this headline if you are following the Test at Adelaide. Here's a blow by blow account by Jarrod Kimber. I think he's right that a lot of demons are being confronted currently. They will continue to be. But will anything substantially change? Should it?

Mitchell Johnson had just dismissed India's well set opener Murali Vijay and was in the middle of a brilliant spell. Virat Kohli walked in at number 4 and Johnson's first ball to India's captain was a pitch perfect snorter. It reared up at Kohli from well short of a good length and was head for his throat. A brilliant delivery first up. Had Phil Hughes not died, Johnson would probably still have checked on Kohli but the fielders might not have produced the same emphatic display they did here. When was the last time mid-off came to check on a batsman who got hit?

Contrary to what one might imagine, players have never been indifferent to batsmen being hit on the head. I've never seen a batsman get hit on the head (or anywhere higher than the shoulder for that matter) and be met with total indifference from the fielding side. Even in the most cavalier circumstances there's always a bit of eye contact between bowler and batsman.

I don't think Mitchell Johnson's form changed because of the bouncer to Kohli. I think a simpler, more conventional explanation about batting conditions being superb, the wicket easy paced and the ball old, is sufficient. During his recent run of brilliant form, Mitchell Johnson has often bowled indifferent spells. He has also often bowled lethal spells. With his pace, he attacks a lot more than say Ryan Harris or Peter Siddle. As he did against Murali Vijay his short ball - full ball two card trick is superbly executed. It is particularly effective against right handers because his short ball is difficult to evade because of the angle, and his full ball is more effective due to the natural left hander's angle. Australia's struggles came because Peter Siddle, their most important operator, especially on flat wickets, was unwell and far from his metronomic best.

We will soon find out if Hughes has substantially changed the mindset of players about the short ball. If India are fighting to save the Test on the 5th evening, and their tailenders are in, will Mitchell Johnson try to bounce them in a sustained fashion? If the boot is on the other foot, will Varun Aaron try to bounce Ryan Harris or Nathan Lyon? If they do, we can conclude that there is no substantial change in the approach to the bouncer in the game. That this concern is simply a function of how recent the terrible accident involving Hughes has been. It will recede with time.

Should there be a substantial change? I think the bouncer is a legitimate weapon in the game. Against tailenders who are not trying to score, but are simply trying to hold their end up, and are doing so successfully, it is appropriate to use the bouncer as a means of disturbing their equanimity. The bouncer becomes a problem when it becomes part of a tit-for-tat. "I'm going to bounce you simply because you bounced me". That's when it becomes a problem. That's when it becomes a device for intimidation rather than dismissal.

Its understandable that Umpires are that much more vigilant than they might have been earlier. But I wonder if they'll be less patient against intimidatory bowling. That would be welcome real change.

I suspect we won't have to wait long to find out if the game has truly changed.