SPIN February-March 2010 Sampler

T HE I NDEP ENDEN T V O I C E O F CR I C K E T

SPIN

GRAEMESWANN

The making of

FEBRUARY/MARCH 2010

INSIDECHRIS ADAMS

KEITH BRADSHAW ANDREW GALE

+IAN BOTHAMEXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

England’s reborn match-winner opens up to SPIN

WWW.SPINCRICKET.COM

ISSU

E 26 D

EC

EM

BE

R 2007

‘I WA

S IN

TH

E BA

R FO

RE

VER

, CH

AS

ING

WO

MEN

BU

T N

OT

ENJO

YIN

G A

SEC

ON

D O

F IT…’

ISSU

E 49 F

EB

RU

AR

Y/M

AR

CH

2010SPIN

+ DERMOT REEVE MERLYN CHRIS TARRANT

20to watch in 2010Spin gives you the heads-up

9771745

299042

02

WITH NEWIMPROVEDEXCLUSIVEHAWKEYE

LEADING EDGE

18 SPIN FEBRUARY/MARCH 2010

Glamorgan

£125

Derbyshire

£145

Gloucs

£155

Surrey

£155Notts

£123

Warw

ickshire

£150

Northants

£160

Yorkshire

£155

Worcs

£170

Som

erset

£179M

iddlesex

£150 A day out for £2.67? Bargain!County membership still offers tremendous value, SPIN finds. But if you want the best, you may have to be prepared to move house…IT COSTS NEARLY twice as much to watch a full season of county cricket in Durham as it does in Nottinghamshire. Cricket supporters in the north-east must pay at least £245 if they intend to go to every Durham home game in 2010; at Trent Bridge, you can see a full season of 46 days’ county cricket for just £123 – a little over £2.67 per scheduled match day.

Cricket continues to offer excellent value in comparison to football: the cheapest season ticket in the Premiership is for Wigan Athletic – £250 a season, covering the 19 home league games, at an average of £13.16 per game.

The prices quoted around this board represent the cheapest way for a standard ‘full’ member to see every home game in every format. Many counties do not offer a single price for admission to all 46 (potential) home match days – with a perceived difference in market between the LV County Championship and the Friends Provident Twenty20 Cup, many

memberships exclude T20 cricket, with T20 season tickets available separately. This offers those members not interested in T20 a better deal but also allows counties to charge a premium price for what they regard as their premium product – or at least their most popular.

To see Durham – the best four-day team in the land – play their entire Championship home programme and all six ECB 40 League games (38 days’ cricket) is £175 – or £4.60 a day. A separate season ticket to see all eight home Twenty20 games (not included in the standard full membership) is £70 (£25 for juniors).

Encouragingly, junior supporters are offered excellent deals across the country:it’s free for under-12s at Derbyshire (which includes all the T20s) and under-13s at Kent (whcih doesn’t); just £12 for under-18s at Essex; and £20 and £10 respectively for juniors at Surrey and Sussex.• For more on county pricing and offers see www.spincricket.com

prices/archives

A considerable personal achievement was recorded at the end of October, one that seems to have escaped the notice of the world’s statisticians and record keepers.

It happened in the Sri Lanka Premier championship, a first-class match between Bloomfield Cricket and Athletic Club and Sri Lanka Army Sports Club at the Bloomfield Ground in Colombo. The player concerned is HKSR Kaluhalamulla. He is usually known by his third and fourth names, Suraj Randiv [below], a 25 year-old off-spinner and useful batter who in seven seasons of first-class cricket has played 64 matches, scoring 1,195 runs (16.36) and taking 247 wickets @ 24.61.

Randiv’s contribution to Bloomfield’s five-wicket victory exceeded anything he had previously achieved; 112 and 48*, 4/78 and 9/109 (the other wicket to fall was a run out). This was outstanding in any circumstances but, even better, according to my research Randiv became only the 12th player in history to score a century and take nine or more wickets in an innings in the same first-class match.

Randiv joins a very impressive list. Apart from him the only non-Test players are Edward Walker, a Middlesex stalwart before the days of Test matches and Frank Tarrant, an Australian mercenary who would certainly have represented his native country had he really wished. Randiv debuted for Sri Lanka in an ODI in December and is still young enough to make a mark in Test matches.

In Test match cricket the nearest to qualifying for the list is Ian Botham, who scored 108 and had innings figures of 8/34 for England against Pakistan at Lord’s in 1978. Robert Brooke

Old School

Real all-rounders

Leics

£155

Surrey

£155

Ham

pshi

re

£190

Esse

x

£195

Ken

t

£200

Dur

ham

£245

Sus

sex

£210

Lanc

ashi

re

£184

VE Walker 108 & 10-74 England XI v Surrey, The Oval 1859WG Grace 104 & 10-49 MCC v Oxford U., Oxford 1886J Briggs 126* & 9-88 Lancs v Sussex, Old Trafford 1888G Giffen 271 & 9-96 South Australia v Victoria, Adelaide 1891/92G Giffen 181 & 9-147 South Australia v Victoria, Adelaide 1892/93GH Hirst 100 & 9-41 Yorkshire v Worcs., Worcester 1911FR Foster 105 & 9-118 Warwicks v Yorksshire, Edgbaston 1911FA Tarrant 101* & 9-105 Middlesex v Lancs., Old Trafford 1914FA Tarrant 182* & 10-90 Lord Willingdons XI v Maharaja of Cooch Behars XI, Poona 191JWHT Douglas 210* & 9-47 Essex v Derbys., Leyton 1921JL Hopwood 110 & 9-33 Lancs v Leics., Old Trafford 1933MS Nichols 159 & 9-37 Essex v Gloucs, Gloucester 1938CT Sarwate 101 & 9-61 Holkar v Mysore, Indore 1945/46Suraj Randiv 112 & 9-104 Bloomfield v Army Sports Club, Colombo 2009-10


PIC

TU

RE

S: P

A P

HO

TO

S

STORY GEORGE DOBELL

Picking up the pieces

INTERVIEW IAN BOTHAM

FEBRUARY/MARCH 2010 SPIN 37

Charity fundraiser SIR IAN BOTHAM returned to Sri Lanka to see how the island had recovered, five years on from the tsunami

INTERVIEW IAN BOTHAM


PIC

TU

RE

S: P

A P

HO

TO

S

SwannThe making of…

GraemeAfter waiting an age for recognition, England’s maverick off-spinner can suddenly do no wrong. He tells SPIN about growing up, the benefits of fame and winning the World Cup

PROFILE GRAEME SWANN


I checked my

watch again. It was 45 minutes past our planned meeting time when a black four-by-four at last swung into the forecourt of Nottingham station and a tinted window lowered to reveal a sheepish-looking Graeme Swann.

“Sorry, I’m late,” he offered, turning down the volume on the CD player. “Get in. I’m afraid time-keeping is not my strong point, as you may have noticed.”

At least the interview we’d planned for the book I was writing was going ahead this time. A couple of weeks earlier I’d been sitting in the Trent Bridge foyer after Nottinghamshire’s morning training session while a helpful receptionist tried to track down the county’s elusive off-spinner. My mobile rang. “I’m so sorry,” began a familiar voice. “I have got a virus and was sent home early – and completely forgot you were coming.”

Scatter-brained and disorganised, Swann ought to infuriate the hell out of you. A decade ago, as a raw 20-year-old on his first full England tour, he managed to do just that to coach Duncan Fletcher by missing the team bus to the Test match at Centurion. But, as writers and broadcasters have been discovering during the remarkable last 12 months of his life, it only takes a few minutes in his company to become charmed and captivated.

The style of his bowling might be considered old-fashioned – a finger spinner taking 54 Test wickets in a calendar year, for heaven’s sake! – but there is nothing orthodox about Swann when he sits in front of a microphone. In a year in which he rose from journeyman county bowler to No 3 in the ICC rankings, his quirky humour and earthy honesty have made him the English press pack’s go-to guy.

And it’s not just something he has belatedly cultivated with an eye on a post-cricket career on the reality TV circuit. As early as 1998, Wisden was saying, “The 19-year-old Swann was a refreshing presence, exuding breezy confidence while others around him appeared careworn.”

That teenage enthusiasm remains largely intact, although he is pleased that maturity has erased the less desirable elements of his embryonic personality. “I think the

‘The cockiness and strut I used to have has gone. You get fed up getting shouted at…’

STORY DAVID TOSSELLPROFILE GRAEME SWANN


!"to watch in 2010

From prodigies you’ve never heard of to unfulfilled talents in the last-chance saloon and all bases between: SPIN names

the players who could step up in the next 12 months

PREVIEW 20 TO WATCH


PREVIEW 20 TO WATCH

20 Loots Bosman, 32 South African opener

Called at the age of 28 to the national colours in 2006 on the back of his brutal domestic Twenty20 record, Bosman failed to find a niche in the Saffers ODI team. But T20? That’s another matter, as England’s ragged bowlers will testify. In the first T20 last November, Bosman hit 58 off 42; in the second 94 off 45 as he and Graeme Smith put on a world record opening stand of 170 in 13 overs. England’s attack – and stand-in skipper Alastair Cook – looked shell-shocked. Bosman starts 2010 in that rare position of a player who has reached the top of his game without being seen very much by the major international teams. He didn’t feature at the first two World T20s. He surely will at the third.

19 Liam Dawson, 19 Hampshire twirler

Dawson has had his card marked for a long time. At 16 the 5ft 8inch whippy left-arm spinner made his debut for England under-19 in January 2007 and for Hampshire that summer. His batting has caught up to make him a genuine all-round prospect.

Gloucestershire are one county that rue letting Dawson slip through their fingers after Tony Middleton, the Hampshire academy director, snapped him up a decade ago. Dawson has become a key part of the Hampshire side and would offer an alternative to England as much more of a bowler than

Loots Bosman: due a big break-through year at the age of 32?


PIC

TU

RE

S: P

A P

HO

TO

S

When Keith Bradshaw was announced as the new secretary of the MCC in 2006, it caused a bit of a stir. Bradshaw, after all,

was Australian and, at 42, half a generation younger than most of his predecessors. What was he doing as the public face of one of England’s most conservative institutions? Now we know: Bradshaw is on his way to turning the MCC – previously a byword for staunch tradition – into a forward-thinking body, turning out maverick proposals – pink balls, floodlight Tests, franchise T20 events – on a regular and unprecedented basis.

Formally, cricket’s power has moved East, away from the private members club in St Johns Wood. The ICC, once administered by MCC, is now based in Dubai. But the MCC has looked to re-assert its position at cricket’s top table since Bradshaw took over. Not just in the world game, but within England. Bradshaw’s blueprint for a nine-team franchise-based English Twenty20 tournament was voted down by county chairmen in 2008, as English cricket explored its post-IPL options.

But the independent thinking just kept coming: at the end of 2009, the MCC was in the papers for funding Middlesex’s T20

signing of Adam Gilchrist and Sachin Tendulkar; there were reports, unconfirmed, that MCC’s views on TV rights at the ‘Crown Jewels’ enquiry had opposed the ECB’s; then there was the talk of playing the traditional MCC-v-champion county curtain-raiser under floodlights in Dubai (true) and reports that Bradshaw was considering renaming Lord’s after a sponsor (absolutely not, he says – though there will be residential blocks at the Nursery End and an underground Academy).

Meanwhile, the MCC’s all-star, self-funded World Cricket Committee was urging the ICC to consider a formal World

INTERVIEW KEITH BRADSHAW

INTERVIEW DUNCAN STEER


All Once a bastion of conservatism, the MCC is now leading moves to modernise cricket. SPIN asks chief exec Keith Bradshaw: ‘What’s going on – and why?’

Test Championship in a bid to re-invigorate the five-day game.

Things are changing in St John’s Wood. But many of the details and motivations have, until now, been misreported. In a full and wide-ranging interview, Keith Bradshaw helped clear up exactly where the MCC – and more importantly, cricket as a whole, is heading in the new decade.

SPIN: If we’d interviewed the secretary of the MCC five years ago, we’d have talked about the past. Today, we’re talking about the future. Is that change down to you personally or to changes in MCC as a whole?

Keith Bradshaw: I think it’s a combination.I think history and tradition is very important and we need to preserve that. It’s one of our strengths. So it’s not about change for change’s sake. I think we can change our image without changing our values. The game is changing and I think as a club we need to embrace that change and in some instances lead it – but at the same time respect our history and traditions.

I think we are probably the only organisation in the world of cricket that is free from conflict… we’re almost the conscience of the game and that’s a really important role.

change


PIC

TU

RE

S: P

A P

HO

TO

S

INTERVIEW ANDREW GALE

GALE IN BRIEF2003 Plays three ‘Tests’ for England under-19 in Australia.

July 2004 Debut, age 20, for Yorkshire. Makes 0 and 9.

July 2006 Maiden first-class century, 149: batting at No 6 in innings win over Warwickshire at Scarborough (Adil Rashid debuts in same game.)

2008 Most productive season to date: 899 runs at 39.08, including three centuries.

Dec 2009 Made Yorkshire captain after just 47 first-class appearances

January 2010 Made captain of England Lions for UaE tour.


FlsjEssequam doloreet aut lorem dolesti ncidunt ing etum vel dolobore te ex esectet ercin vero odo odolobortie feugiam, se velenim iriustrud ea con

INTERVIEW ANDREW GALE

Andrew Gale was made Yorkshire captain just before Christmas –and England Lions skipper shortly afterwards. He tells SPIN what happens next. Story: Graham Hardcastle

SteppingupT

he last time Yorkshire appointed someone as young as Andrew Gale as their captain, the decision worked out very well. Brian

Sellers, given the job aged 26 in 1933, held the job for 15 years and won six county championships. It might be asking too much to expect an exact repeat under Gale, who became skipper in December. But, having changed captain five times in eight seasons and having lost the experienced quartet of Michael Vaughan, Darren Gough, Matthew Hoggard and Deon Kruis over the past couple, the club is certainly ready to enter a brand new era.

Yorkshire will have one of the youngest squads in county cricket next summer, so observers might have expected an experienced leader when Anthony McGrath decided to step down.

Somebody like star batsman Jacques Rudolph would have fitted the bill, while they could have looked for an outsider. But, instead, they decided to appoint their youngest-ever professional captain.

It was without doubt a gamble for Martyn Moxon and Stewart Regan, the club’s director of professional cricket and chief executive, but one they had little choice but to take. Rudolph’s future at the county is uncertain, due to changes in the Kolpak regulations and the player’s rumoured desire to return to

international cricket with South Africa at some point. Joe Sayers is seen as captaincy material, but he does not play limited-overs cricket at the moment.

Gale, a middle order player in the longer format of the game and an opener in the shorter, has an old head on young shoulders having captained various age group teams at the county and toured Australia with England under 19s. Having impressed on the ECB Performance Programme, he was put in charge of a strong Lions squad including Ian Bell and Adil Rashid for February’s tour of the UaE.National selector Geoff Miller said Gale “ticked an awful lot of boxes” and that the appoinment was “the real start of his international career”.

Gale is a straight talking chap from Dewsbury and straightaway refused to promise instant success shortly after being unveiled at Headingley last month. He said: “It might be frustrating at times, we will make some mistakes as a young and developing side, but I still think we will upset a few sides next season.

“I’m not going to make empty promises about winning this trophy or that trophy, but what I will say is that with a lot of hard work and determination I believe that we can compete with the likes of Durham and Nottinghamshire.

“I am desperate to win silverware with Yorkshire, but we are in a developing period at the moment. I am realistic about things – I know we have a young side. I believe that the talent and ability in the side is greater now than it has been for quite a few years.

“It’s exciting. We’ve had 11 players involved from the full England squad to the under 19s this winter, and that shows we have that ability. It’s just about putting

it into use on the field. “We’ve got to make sure

that the lads get the right motivation and direction

on the field to be successful as a unit. We’ve lacked that

consistency as a unit over the past couple of years. We’ve been a good side on paper, but we haven’t performed.

“Some of our experience has gone, of course it has, and you

can’t train that. Even so, the skill levels of the players still has to

improve. We’ll definitely be looking at that over the next

couple of months.” The Yorkshire

72 SPIN FEBRUARY 2010

PIC

TU

RE

S: P

A P

HO

TO

S

ANALYSIS CRICKET’S TRANSFER MARKET

STORY GEORGE DOBELL

FEBRUARY 2010 SPIN 73


MOVING STORIESIs a football-style transfer market on the way to cricket? Or have this winter’s high-profile moves been a blip. SPIN traces the history of want-away players – and on page 78 meets the man at the centre of 2009’s biggest deals, Surrey director of cricket Chris Adams


PIC

TU

RE

S: P

A P

HO

TO

S

‘There’s an immense amount of jealousy out there, isn’t there?’Chris Adams, Surrey director of cricket

In signing Steven Davies and Gareth Batty from Worcestershire on reported salaries of £150k and £90k respectively, Surrey re-ignited cricket’s transfer debate. When they went on to secure the services of Rory Hamilton-Brown from Sussex as their new skipper in December, Surrey and Adams’ critics argued that county cricket was in danger of a split between the haves and the have-nots. Chris Adams, however, is adamant that he has done nothing wrong. Here, he explains the size of the task he faces at Surrey and why he has had no qualms about moving players on – and getting new ones in.

SPIN: Did you know what a huge job you’d taken on when you arrived at Surrey?Chris Adams I knew it was a massive club and I knew that it had been in freefall for a while. I suppose I expected about 70 per cent of what I found; 30 per cent has taken me by surprise. Some things – the way that skills levels and the work ethic that had been allowed to fall away – blew me away.

In what way?The biggest misconception that people –

and by people I mean the next generation of Surrey players – had was that those guys who made up the team in the glory years – the likes of Bicknell, Thorpe and Hollioake – just relied on natural talent. The younger players just didn’t see how hard those guys had to work. Part of the problem was that the members of those successful sides made it look easy. And to some extent, that was probably the image they liked to portray. But when you sit down and talk to them, you soon realise how hard they worked, even though there was no public display of that as a team.

As a result, the younger players adopted the wrong attitudes. Maybe five or ten years ago, you could get away with just turning up and turning it on. But not now. The game has progressed massively and Surrey had been left behind.

The other problem was that the cricket club had lost its identity. Cricket was no longer central to life here. Surrey is fortunate enough to be part of a business that makes quite a lot of money. But over the last few years the business had become the focus and cricket wasn’t as important as it should have been. We’re changing that.

How long do you have to turn things around?When I took the job, it was on the understanding that it would take between three and five years. I hope no-one is expecting overnight miracles, because it’s not going to happen.

Ultimately I’ll be judged on results, won’t I? And I knew that when I started. But success can’t be judged purely by winning trophies. Obviously we want to lift trophies and win more games, but it’s also about developing players who can serve Surrey and England. Within three to five years, I want us producing players again.

Managing expectations is a huge part of the job here. I know some of the members were unhappy last year – they’ve every right to have been unhappy for the last five years – but I hope they can see what the plan is now and I hope they agree we’re making progress. I hope they understand I inherited a staff that meant the club was dysfunctional and, even if they can’t see the results, I hope they can see that we’ve laid a platform. I think we’ve done a lot in a short space of time.

You’ve made some tough – and at times unpopular – decisions.I have, yes. But that’s what I was brought in to do and I’ve had the support of the club’s management in doing it.

Surrey had employed a couple of coaches here since the days of Medlycott and Hollioake and, looking at it, their ideas were good. The problem was they either couldn’t, or wouldn’t, take the tough decisions that were needed. It was a bit different for me. When I came in, Surrey were on their knees. The members were fed up and 15 people have now left the club – some players,

Surrey have been at the centre of much of the close-season merry-go-round. But, Adams explains why they won’t break the salary cap or destabilise county cricket with their big spending – whatever you may have read.




INTERVIEW GEORGE DOBELL

Documents

SPIN February-March 2010 Sampler