England’s captains, Clare Connor and Michael Vaughan

It’s been an exceptional year for England captain Clare Connor. She is used to breaking new ground – in the 1980s, she became the first girl to play for a public school XI as a pupil at Brighton College – but she has undergone a huge amount of change, both in her personal life and her cricket career, since England last faced South Africa.Connor has two major passions: cricket and teaching. This summer she left her teaching post at Brighton College to take up a new career with the award-winning Channel 4 team. She is the first woman to commentate on TV, adding her voice to the npower Test Series and Twenty20 Cup, and she enthuses about her time spent with the likes of Richie Benaud and Michael Atherton.”With broadcasting I’m learning so much and I’m really enjoying it. I’ve had to be successful in cricket to get here and it feels like the next stage to everything I’ve done so far. I love cricket and it feels great to be working in a cricket environment. All I want to do is prove I can do it. Being famous doesn’t appeal but being good at what I’m doing really appeals. Whatever happens, I think I can handle it.”Her presence on Channel 4 has, undoubtedly, provided women’s cricket with a raised profile as she shares her wealth of cricketing knowledge with fellow enthusiasts across the country despite some gentle jibes from fellow teachers: “I’ve had colleagues saying I’m a celebrity – get me out of the staffroom!”Playing the game and leading England, however, is what Clare loves most. She comes into the npower Test Series with her captaincy on the ascendancy having last month led Sussex to the Frizzell Women’s County Championship crown for the first time, so the sabbatical from teaching to play and work in cricket already seems to be paying off.England, like their captain, are on the way up. Connor took over the captaincy during an unsuccessful tour of New Zealand and Australia in January 2000, in which England were dominated in all areas of the game. Ranked fifth at the World Cup that year, the team are now ranked third following the World Series in New Zealand this past winter. More importantly, the momentum is with England.Connor will need all the experience that captaining her country has given her over the past three and a half years as England field a youthful squad to face South Africa. In addition to changes in team personnel, Connor is adjusting to the loss of the head coach John Harmer, who has returned to his native Australia and a high-profile coaching job at the ACB’s famous Academy in Adelaide.Connor feels lucky to have worked with him, even just for two years: “He taught us all so much, and made cricket and playing cricket simple with an over-arching philosophy of enjoying ourselves. When I saw Lucy bowl and Charlotte bat during the winter, I realised they were having the time of their cricket lives.”One thing the England team has following the Connor/Harmer years is confidence. Their finest hour was against the all-conquering Australia in February where England narrowly lost the first Test and drew the second with blistering bowling performances by Lucy Pearson in particular. At The Gabba, Pearson rattled the Australian free-scoring batters; in Sydney, she demolished them, taking 7-51 in the first innings and a world record-equalling 11-wicket haul in the Test.A constant Connor has to rely on is her friend and vice-captain Charlotte Edwards, England’s leading run-scorer. Edwards also struck gold Down Under and proved a return to full fitness following career-threatening cruciate ligament damage which kept her out of the game for a year in 2001.There are also two World Cup winners in the squad. Clare Taylor and Jane Smit were victorious at Lord’s in 1993 as freshers in the squad. Now, Taylor is the first Englishwoman to take over 100 international wickets and has not missed a series for England in the intervening years, while Smit shares the record for most dismissals by a keeper in the women’s one-day game.The youngsters provide the perfect foil to the senior players expected to perform. Two exciting seam bowlers burst on to the international stage last year, Isa Guha (Berkshire) and Laura Spragg (Yorkshire); the first quiet, thoughtful and deadly accurate, the other explosive with match-turning capabilities.Kent has produced yet another class batter following in the Edwards mould. Seventeen year-old Lydia Greenway hit a stylish 88 against Australia A on her full England debut over the winter, and maintained that form in the ECB’s Super Fours competition to secure her place. Connor’s Sussex team-mate, Rosalie Birch, also makes the step up from the hugely successful England U19 team – who toured for the first time this winter – to the full squad and Beth Morgan from Middlesex gains a first call-up having represented England at U17 and U21 level. Hannah Lloyd, who had not played for England since making her debut in 2001, also gains a recall.Connor thinks England have the perfect mix of youthful exuberance and solid experience now, with a backbone in the team strong enough to give some licence to the talented newcomers. “With Super Fours and the England U19s gaining international experience, there is a clear pathway for players who perform to get selected for the England squad and players have earned the right to play international cricket. Competition for places has been tougher that at any time since I became captain. It’s exciting, and after some competitive domestic cricket this season, we’re all looking forward to pulling on our England shirts again.”As well as some bright young players, England women’s cricket welcomes two new major sponsors on board. The npower women’s Test series and NatWest Women’s Series signals the start of a new era under Head Coach Richard Bates which, like the England team, is built on the strengths of what’s gone before and enhanced by the prospect of new and exciting times ahead.The last time South Africa played in England in 2000 they lost a closely contested series of one-day matches 3-2, and in the World Cup later that year beat England into fifth place. As Connor can testify, plenty has changed since then.

Pardon me for interrupting, but in a game which revels in spurious statistics there is one that defies belief doing the rounds in New Zealand cricket at the moment.It seems that the national selection panel of last summer picked up a strange new disease, and we are talking pre-SARS here. But apparently, they were guilty of picking three wicketkeepers in a team! And it wasn’t because the bowlers were doing especially badly.This is seen in some quarters as an especially heinous crime and one that clearly showed the panel had lost their marbles during one or other of their various selection meetings. Remembering that only one person can wear the gloves at any one time, it has to be assumed that the person assigned to the job was the person the selectors felt was best suited, or gloved, as the case may be, to do it.But an interesting point to ponder in this day of wicketkeeping batting aces, is, if you had two or three wicketkeepers who were doing especially well with the bat, and some batsmen who weren’t, who would you put in your team if you were looking for runs? Is a wicketkeeper who is a good enough batsman not deemed worthy enough of being included as a batsman only?It has been obvious for some time in New Zealand now that Brendon McCullum, provided he keeps his game together, doesn’t succumb to injury and sorts out some concerns with his batting, is the long-term wicketkeeping performer on the international scene. At the moment the Test spot is held by Robbie Hart, and that is fair enough. But in the one-day game McCullum is the incumbent.That means Chris Nevin’s chances of wicketkeeping for New Zealand in ODIs are few and far between. So if he is to keep a place in the side it has to be as a batsman. At the moment he is one of the leading contenders for the opening batting role. He went to the Bank Alfalah Cup and played in five matches, as a batsman.There is a point to all this, I’m getting there.Also in the same side was Lou Vincent. Now it is known that Lou has pulled the gloves on for a few occasions and is quite capable in the job, but a wicketkeeper? He is far more use to New Zealand in the field, and will one day come up with the required consistency in the middle-order. So yes, New Zealand did have three wicketkeepers in the team, but they might also have had three Presbyterians, three Catholics, three athiests and two Seventh Day Adventists, which when you think about it might explain some of the batting problems on Saturdays.But the point is, if the players are the choice of the selectors as batsmen, who cares if there are six wicketkeepers in the side?That’s not to forget that Mathew Sinclair was also at the World Cup and he’s kept wickets. And then again in the one-day series against England in New Zealand in 2001-02, Nevin, McCullum and Vincent played in three matches together. Go back to the VB Series before that and McCullum and Vincent played in the same side as Adam Parore in four matches.So is choosing three wicketkeepers really such a worrying event?

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In a previous outburst I alluded to the use of A to describe second XI sides. This remains an irksome habit and one that seems to stem from political correctness more aimed at protecting the feelings of those who are named in a 2nd XI, than acknowledging the fact that while they are players of potential, they are still second-best.What good reason can there be for describing a side as the A side to mean the second best, when the A side is the top team?Is there something wrong with being called the B team? After all, everyone knows what it means.There are any number of reasons why this is a ridiculous practice. After all, A is the first letter in the alphabet, that’s reason enough alone. Algebra was never a strong point but it should be obvious that A = 1 and Z = 26. Then there’s Auckland. Overseas readers might not appreciate this but by way of explanation, in the New Zealand hierarchial structure there are Aucklanders, and there are others – the rest of the population.The Auckland genus is obvious because they call themselves the A team. Whether or not that is their position it doesn’t matter, it makes no difference to them – never has, never will. And they are not saying it because they think they are second best.And then there’s Australia. Now if ever there was anyone deserving to be called the A team, it is Steve Waugh’s Test men and Ricky Ponting’s ODI men. That’s what they are, No 1.So enough of this silliness. Let’s be having a little alphabetical correctitude here and start calling 2nd XIs what they are, B teams. And if the poor little darlings don’t like it, tough, because that’s what they should be, tough enough to take it.

Duncan Fletcher has agreed a new contract that will make him England’s longest-serving coach, and will formally put pen to paper in the next few days.Fletcher’s current deal runs out at the end of the 2004 English season, and there has been considerable media speculation over his future, with suggestions that he was considering a return to county cricket. But after a few weeks relaxing in Cape Town, Fletcher has decided to commit himself further to the England cause.The England & Wales Cricket Board had been pushing for him to sign a deal which would have kept him in the job until the end of the 2007 World Cup, but Fletcher, who is 55, was reluctant to commit that far ahead. Instead the compromise of an open-ended arrangement was agreed.”We believe that the new arrangement removes the scope for distractingannual speculation,” said John Carr, the ECB’s director of cricket. “The decision to move Duncan from a fixed-term contract to a staff contractdemonstrates the board’s own commitment to him and his own commitment to theEngland cause.”Fletcher replaced David Lloyd as England coach in 1999, after successful spells with Western Province and Glamorgan. Apart from two series defeats against Australia, he is widely considered to have done a good job and the news of the new contract will be a boost to England at the start of a hectic year of international cricket.

All Today’s Yesterdays – November 13 down the yearsNovember 12 | November 141995
Another Gabba masterclass from Shane Warne helped Australia rout Pakistan by an innings and 126 runs in the first Test at Brisbane. A year earlier he had taken 11 for 110 against England, and 11 for 77 here gave him 30 wickets in three Brisbane Tests at an average of 10.40. Australia bossed the game from the start. Steve Waugh’s 112 helped them to 463, and in reply Pakistan fell apart for 97, with Warne taking 7 for 23. After they were asked to follow on, Aamir Sohail laced 99, but there was no escape for Pakistan. The nail in the coffin came when Salim Malik, who had been recently accused of attempted bribery by Shane Warne, fell to him for a fourth-ball duck. The Wisden Almanack said that Warne was “cast in the role of avenging angel”.1858
Birth of the only Greek scholar to captain Australia. Percy “Greatheart” McDonnell was a brilliant attacking batsman whose outstanding footwork and hand-eye co-ordination helped him excel on wet wickets. His best innings probably came in the third Test against England at Sydney in 1881-82. McDonnell made 147, adding 199 with Charles Bannerman, who made 70. The rest of the batsmen mustered only 29 between them. He died in Brisbane in 1896 after a long illness, aged only 37.1996
Waqar Younis sliced through the New Zealand top order to give Pakistan a four-wicket victory in the one-dayer at Sharjah. Waqar took 6 for 44 and at one point New Zealand were 60 for 6. They recovered to 192 thanks to a seventh-wicket partnership of 117 between Adam Parore (78) and Lee Germon (52). But despite a late flurry of wickets, Pakistan were never in danger of losing after Saeed Anwar slammed 54 off 37 balls. Whereas New Zealand only managed six fours in their entire innings, Pakistan hit five sixes as well as 11 fours.1951
Australia came out on top in a fascinating battle against Alf Valentine and Sonny Ramadhin at Brisbane. They won the first Test by three wickets, scraping to a victory target of 236 in a low-scoring game. Ramadhin and Valentine bowled 129.7 of 150.4 overs, a whopping 86%. They gave the Aussies all sorts of problems – the only batsman to reach 50 was Ray Lindwall, who had fortune on his side as he swung savagely in the first innings, but they squeezed home thanks to an unbeaten 45 from Graeme Hole.1906
Charles Gregory cracked a mighty 383 for New South Wales against Queensland at Brisbane, the 12th-highest score in first-class history. At the time it was an Australian record. The Wisden Almanack described it as “a record in Australia in good-class cricket”, but said “his play was disfigured by three chances”.1990
In the third one-dayer at Multan, Gordon Greenidge became the sixth batsman to make 5000 one-day runs, but his crawling 110-ball 35 was partly responsible for West Indies’ defeat. Pakistan made 168 for 9 from their 50 overs, with Imran Khan making an unbeaten 46, but West Indies were strangely subdued in their reply. They hit only seven fours in a total of 137 for 7 and were beaten by 31 runs. It gave Pakistan a clean sweep – only the second time West Indies had lost a one-day series 3-0. The first was against England, Monte Lynch and all, in 1988.1998
The Champions Trophy final at Sharjah turned into one of the bigger mismatches in one-day history. Zimbabwe only managed 196 for 9 thanks to an eighth-wicket partnership of 58 between Paul Strang and Eddo Brandes, and Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar flashed India to victory with exactly 20 overs to spare. Tendulkar gave a regal display, carting 124 off only 92 balls, with 12 fours and six sixes. It was his 21st one-day ton.Other birthdays
1901 James Neblett (West Indies)
1940 Jack Birkenshaw (England)
1944 Ken Shuttleworth (England)

Dilhara Fernando, Sri Lanka’s quickest bowler, is ready to return to international cricket after seven months on the sidelines. Fernando, now 24, has battled his way back to full fitness after a stress fracture – the second of his career – during a quadrangular tournament in Sharjah earlier this year.Champaka Ramanayake, Sri Lanka’s fast-bowling coach, was hopeful that Fernando would return to the Sri Lankan side soon, perhaps even for the first Test against England, which starts on December 2 at Galle. Fernando has been selected in the Sri Lankan BoardPresident’s XI, which will take on England in a three-day warm-up match at the Colombo Cricket Club from November 26.”Dilhara has recovered fully from his spine injury and has been bowling long spells for SSC [Sinhalese Sports Club] in the Premier Trophy competition without any discomfort,” said Ramanayake on Monday. “He has been out of international cricket for nearly seven months and needs to get some exposure against an international team to regain his confidence.”He had a technical error in his bowling action which is called counter rotation which twisted his spine and resulted in the stress fracture. We identified the fault and changed his alignment so that he is bowling more upright now.” Fernando has captured 12 wickets for 220 runs in four matches for SSC in the ongoing Premier Trophy, Sri Lanka’s main first class competition.The other likely contenders for Chaminda Vaas’s new ball partner in the Galle Test include Nuwan Zoysa, Dinusha Fernando and Nuwan Kulasekera. Sri Lanka are only likely to play two fast bowlers, unless conditions aid seam bowling.

With the aim of developing future Victorian and Australian cricketers, the Commonwealth Bank and Cricket Victoria today announced an exciting new partnership.The initiative will provide a clear pathway for cricketers from junior representative ranks through to first-class cricket and will be known as the Commonwealth Bank Cricket Victoria Pathway Development Program. The four-year partnership will provide junior Victorian cricketers with enhanced levels of skill and personal development, as well as access to the latest in cricket technology.Commonwealth Bank Regional General Manager, Mr Richard Porter said he was delighted to be associated with the Pathway program. “We view Cricket Victoria’s Pathway program to be consistent with many values and objectives of the Commonwealth Bank. A commitment to community, in particular providing opportunities for young people to strive for achievement is central to our philosophy and as such we are very excited."Cricket Victoria President Mr Bob Merriman said the announcement was another chapter in what has been a successful partnership. “Cricket Victoria’s association with the Commonwealth Bank has been a long and fruitful partnership for both organisations. Their commitment to the game of cricket has been quite outstanding from both a national and state perspective and we are delighted that they are going to partner Cricket Victoria’s quest to develop our state’s young players”.The Commonwealth Bank Cricket Victoria Pathway Development Program consists of a series of programs and competitions for talented cricketers beginning at Under 13 level and includes statewide championships at Under 15, Under 16 and Under 18 age levels. These programs feed players through to the State Youth teams, Victorian Bushrangers and ultimately Australian representation.

Steve Waugh: one last time with the Baggy Green cap © AFP

It’s been a career beyond compare, and with the finishing line in sight, Stephen Waugh insisted that he wouldn’t be doing anything different in preparation for the Sydney Test. “It’s been a pretty relaxed time,” he said, “and it’s mostly been about fine-tuning mentally and getting away from it all. I’ve been doing all the normal stuff I’ve been doing for ten years, don’t want to change that now.”With vocal support expected inside a stadium he reckoned had the best atmosphere of any ground in the world, Waugh said he and his team needed to draw on the goodwill and enjoy the occasion. Twelve months ago, he made a magnificent hundred on the second day, even though Australia eventually lost a dead rubber to England. “I played well, and the team lost,” he said pithily. “We’ll be hoping to change that.” He added that he didn’t feel much different in the build-up, saying, “It will hit home only when I walk away for the last time, I guess. For now, I feel very much a part of the team.”Waugh welcomed the pressure that goes with this Test being the series decider, saying, “It’s a good thing. The guys are on the edge for this game. With dead rubbers, it’s not quite the same, with nothing hinging on the outcome. The guys are ready for this.”He rated the nine-wicket victory at Melbourne as one of his team’s best ever, and suggested that India had the potential to be Australia’s biggest rivals over the coming years. “The platform’s there for that,” he said. “The last two series between the teams have been phenomenal. India will be a force for a long time to come. I’m hoping the tradition will grow. In time, the Border-Gavaskar Trophy will hopefully be as famous as the Ashes.”Australia wouldn’t decide on their playing eleven till the morning of the game, though it was fairly certain that both Brett Lee and Jason Gillespie would be first picks in the race for fast-bowling places. “If I was Indian, they would be the two bowlers I didn’t want to face,” said Waugh, despite both men having struggled with injuries in the recent past.Waugh reckoned that his legacy would be leaving behind a formidable side, one that had the potential to go on to greater glory under Ricky Ponting. “I’d like to think I’ve helped every player in the side in some way. I’m sure Ricky will do a great job, he’s a natural leader, and a player at the peak of his powers.” He added, though, that captaincy did take its toll. “As a captain, I think five years is about the maximum. It’s a huge effort. If you look around international cricket now, Stephen Fleming’s probably the only exception.”He suggested that Ponting would go on to be one of Australia’s greatest players – “he’ll be Australia’s greatest run-scorer and century maker” – and that Matthew Hayden too had the potential to do the same provided he carried on a few more years.As for his own career, he said that he was proudest of the fact that he had hobbled his way to a century at the Oval in 2001, after 19 days of physiotherapy had paved the way for an astonishing farewell to Test cricket in England. “It’s the things you do to get on the park that stick in your mind the most,” he said. As for team highlights, he pointed out Bridgetown last year, when Australia thrashed the West Indies on an unhelpful track, and also the Johannesburg Test of 2001-2002 – “The best I’ve ever seen a side play”.He also pleaded for patience when it came to players new to the side. “When I started, I didn’t think I’d last a second week. The early days were a real struggle. I didn’t score a hundred till my 27th Test. Even Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne took their time to settle. Few come in and do well straight away. Most take 10-15 Tests to settle in.”Waugh insisted that there was no real sadness associated with leaving. “I’ve been lucky. You look at guys like Jamie Siddons and Darren Berry who never played a Test match. I’ve had 168 of them. I’ve been able to travel, meet some great people, experience other cultures. It’s nothing to be sad about.”While he might say that, 40,000-odd spectators who throng to the Sydney Cricket Ground tomorrow will most likely feel differently. If you’re faint of heart, or not one for the emotional occasion – sniffling into the hanky/red rag – it would be best to stay away. But for thousands of people across the world, no matter which team they support, there will be a weird feeling in the pit of the stomach when Stephen Rodger Waugh leads his team out for the last time. And for some, there’ll be a lump the size of a cricket ball in the throat.

Alex Gidman: flying home © Getty Images

England A’s captain, Alex Gidman, is flying home from the tour to India after failing to recover from a hand injury.Gidman sustained the injury before Christmas, after being struck in the nets at Loughborough by his team-mate Simon Jones. Though he was passed fit for the tour, and made 21 not out in the opening match in Malaysia, he has been unable to practice since due to continuing discomfort.An England & Wales Cricket Board spokesman said that Gidman would be flying home from Madras later this week, while Gloucestershire’s website added that he was returning “for rest and treatment, having visited two specialists” in India.Gidman, 22, had been a surprise choice as captain, as he had only completed one full season of county cricket. But he was a pivotal figure in a successful season, and even hit the winning runs in the C&G Trophy final. One of his biggest fans was the chairman of selectors, David Graveney, who said: “I’ve been mightily impressed with Alex since I first saw him playing for Gloucestershire. I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw him playing international cricket sooner rather than later.”James Tredwell has taken charge of the team since Gidman’s injury, and will continue to lead them for the rest of the tour.

Available as hardback, £12.99© Wisden Asia Cricket

I remember eagerly buying and reading, as a schoolboy in the mid-1980s, Kapil Dev’s two earlier shots at autobiography: Cricket My Style, written with the assistance of R Mohan of the Hindu, and By God’s Decree, written with an Indian journalist settled in Australia, Vinay Verma. The most gifted cricketer India has ever produced was then at the height of his popularity; people in all parts of India claimed him as one of their own. As schoolboys we could imagine no greater man in all of history. Kapil was the bowler who had shown that Indians could also bowl fast, the batsman whose incandescent hitting we all held in awe, and the leader who had brought home the World Cup.Both Cricket My Style and By God’s Decree were slim books – the latter just over a hundred pages long. From these books thousands of Indian cricket fans learned, from Kapil himself, of his background and early life as the son of a timber merchant in Chandigarh, his comparatively late entry into organised cricket, his hard work under coach Desh Prem Azad, and his rapid development as a national prospect. From this platform he took off – one chapter in By God’s Decree is called “I Find my Wings” – capturing the Indian cricketing imagination on his debut tour, to Pakistan in 1978-79, during which he made the Pakistani batsmen call for helmets, and lashed the bowlers for sixes even as a night-watchman. We read about Kapil’s memories of the 1983 World Cup, and carefully noted his opinions on various matters of interest: his thoughts on captaincy, what it meant to be an allrounder, his relationship with Sunil Gavaskar. By God’s Decree ended with these striking words, almost like a volley of fierce strokes: “My philosophy is simple. Play to win. Get your runs and your wickets. Never stop trying. Hit the ball, over the slips, over the ropes. Runs on the board count. After seven years of non-stop cricket I have achieved more than I set out to … Cricket has been good to me and for me.”The autobiographies of cricketers are complicated and often multiple affairs: players often have to deal with the approaches of publishers when in mid-career, at a time when their popularity is at its peak, and then sit down again when their decade or two in the spotlight is over, and produce another book that traces a longer arc and supplies opinions on the major issues of the time. Certainly there was much in Kapil’s career post-1986 that was worth describing at length: he played two more World Cups, bowled as well as he had ever done on a tour to Australia, and passed Richard Hadlee as the highest wicket-taker in Tests. These matters, his career in business post-retirement, his embroilment in the match-fixing affair, and his selection as Wisden Indian Cricketer of the Century, are all dealt with in Straight From The Heart, a weighty 374-page tome.Cricketers are rarely good writers, nor are they expected to be, and the preparation of a readable cricketing autobiography, therefore, usually requires the involvement of some competent support staff, such as a good sports journalist or a capable editor. But the only investment made by Kapil’s current publishers in this book appears to have been in a dictaphone and some tapes. Much of this book reads like an unedited transcript, and this explains its rambling and somewhat tedious character. Perplexing statements, of the kind that sometimes enter into speech but not into writing for publication, litter these pages.Curiously, some portions of this book, especially those that deal with Kapil’s career in the early and mid-eighties, seemed to read much better than the others. It required a little background work to explain why: the source for all these events is Cricket My Style, from which enormous chunks have been lifted almost verbatim. Straight From The Heart has made its precursor redundant by consuming it whole.The book’s emphases and omissions are rather irregular. Kapil speaks at length about the events leading up to his overhauling of Hadlee’s record, but there is little insight into Indian cricket in the early nineties. The World Cup in Australia in 1992 is not even mentioned, and nor is Kapil’s blistering century, his last in Tests, against South Africa at Port Elizabeth. There is a long section about the match-fixing allegations levelled against Kapil by Manoj Prabhakar, and the sense of grievance he felt at what seemed to be a trial by press. In this book, as in his responses to the press at that time, Kapil seems to feel the need to make a protracted defence against these charges. One almost sees him glower at his detractors as he once did at opposing batsmen.This is a lengthy book, but as a cricketing autobiography, it offers little that is new, and in fact there is much of interest in the second half of Kapil’s career that finds no mention here. Someone with no personal memories of Kapil, and desirous of finding out what was really so special about him, would gain more from reading the two previous books, even if they cover virtually the same ground, than from this one, which ostensibly covers his whole career.