cricket

1. australia beware: freddie flintoff still has a sting in his tail | mike selvey

   
   
   andrew flintoff will be determined to leave test cricket as a wounded hero, not a spent forcethis has been coming for some while now. ever since the operation on andrew flintoff's ankle, and the relentless hours of rehab with rooster roberts that led all too quickly to another injury and more hours on the treadmill and the moors, it has been blindingly obvious that his body would no longer tolerate without violent protest the rigours of 18 stone of fast bowling muscle slamming like a piledriver into unforgivingly hard test pitches.it is a chain reaction: orthotics and boots designed to protect an ankle distorted by the angle it comes down in delivery impact elsewhere because each muscle and joint had become attuned to the response of its neighbour. one out all out, as it were. if the spirit remains undiminished to produce the quantity of high-octane overs required to sustain a test match career, then the body has rebelled. the solution is to take the chosen path, to one-day internationals, twenty20 and the riches on offer from the indian premier league. so we get to see more fred, and he gets to bowl in short bursts that will do less damage to his knee, and allow better recovery afterwards. and if it all serves to make him even wealthier, then where is the harm in that? everyone is a winner.the timing of his announcement will be regarded by some as an inappropriate and selfish distraction from the job in hand but this is a churlish view. the distraction has come only in the uncertainty that seems to surround every match for which he is selected. now a decision has been made, he, his team-mates and the england management know precisely where they stand in the longer term.in truth, neither andy flower nor peter moores before him have been factoring flintoff into their equation, projecting a fredless future while regarding any appearance as a bonus. if once he was the hub of the side, he has long since been the cherry on top of the cake instead. he and his employers will have thought long and hard about whether such an early statement of intent will channel public interest away from the series and into a valedictory tour around the country. the sort of attention heaped on steve waugh when he played his last series is not the kind of diversion that this summer needs.but just consider the opposite effect, the force of which the australians might come to regret. it would be entirely consistent with the way in which flintoff plays the game that the finite time he has left playing cricket's supreme form will be spent trying to elevate his game to the highest level, to show that he is not going out as a spent force but as a wounded hero. there is no pretence any more, no wondering if he throttles back here, then he can go for broke there. the chances of him completing five full test matches are remote, but it won't be for the want of trying. when given the opportunity, he will bludgeon his way into the australian batting like a wrecking ball into a derelict building, ramping it up, like nigel tufnel, to 11; he will bat without fear; and he will catch swallows.of equal importance, though, is the impact that he will have on his team-mates. for some while now, he has ceased to be the totem that once he was, becoming a player who has to slot into a team unit rather than one who feels the team cling to him like a comfort blanket. it is possible to get on without him, they have shown. on the whole though they would rather have him there than not and now, knowing that all too soon he will be gone, they may be galvanised by his desire to leave test cricket on the highest of highs, having, as captain against australia last time, known the lowest low that an england captain can experience.how, when the boots come off for the last time, will he be viewed? is he one of the greatest of all-rounders? his bare statistics say not, an excellent reputation enhanced into legend by one stupendous series and its aftermath. of the dozen england bowlers with 200 or more wickets, none has fewer five-wicket hauls than his two, neither of which came in the last four years. not one of his five centuries has come since the one he scored against australia at trent bridge four years since. he is close to but still the wrong side of the criterion for a high-class test all-rounder, averaging 31.69 with the bat and 32.51 with the ball, when it is generally accepted the bowling average should be lower than that for batting.england, it is said, have fared significantly better in his absence in recent times than with him (although this ignores the fact that low-profile series have come when he has been in rehab). no bangladesh or zimbabwe for him. the downturn in performance has to be related to his injury level. this is statistics and bikinis, concealing as well as revealing. his bowling has often been caught between the role of spearhead and defender, his length shorter than optimum as a result. his natural slant in, with no marked ability to cut the ball away, makes top right-handers able to use the angle productively and he is far more potent against left-handers, the best in the game from around the wicket, especially when the ball reverse swings and he finds a fuller length.beyond that, he is the battering ram that opens the breach for others to pour through. his batting changes the course of matches in a session. he would no more survive as a batsman for whom runs were his sole source of bread and butter than ian botham did. one discipline feeds from and allows licence to the other. they are interdependent. on the glory days he can galvanise by example those around him. posterity will see him as a genuine folk hero, a man of charisma, the colossus as he was first called in these pages. a champion cricketer and one with a sting in his tail yet.andrew flintoffashescricketengland cricket teamengland cricket seriesguardian.co.uk © guardian news & media limited 2009 | use of this content is subject to our terms & conditions | more feeds
   
   




2. to play's the thing ? the enthusiasm that makes sachin tendulkar great | dileep premachandran

   
   
   india's star batsman is as happy piling up runs in cuttack as scoring a century at lord'sone of the advantages of having a partner who isn't especially interested in sport comes in the form of observations that are stripped bare of the fake patinas that we aficionados love to add on. soon after sachin tendulkar's unbeaten 96 had guided india to the easiest of victories in cuttack, i was thinking out loud: "how does he still motivate himself to go to such venues and score runs?" she looked perplexed for a moment. "don't people go to watch the games there?" she asked. "do they pay less money to get in?"touchй. when you follow a sport like cricket, steeped in tradition, it's easy to succumb to what i call the houses-of-the-holy syndrome. when a batsman makes a century or a bowler bowls a game-changing spell at a venue like lord's, the mcg, eden gardens, the wanderers or the kensington oval, there's a tendency to imbue it with mythical qualities. a hundred made at the barabati stadium or the arbab niaz in peshawar isn't viewed in quite the same rose-tinted way.tendulkar, though, scoffs at this particular form of snobbery. for years now, he has been a disciple of the first commandment that the great bill shankly preached; that it's "their [the players'] privilege to play for you [the fans]". unlike the big-time charlies who came to english football and became mice among men during trips to the wintry wastes of wearside and north lancashire, he has made it his business to score runs wherever he goes.his 45 one-day hundreds have been distributed across 31 different venues, with colombo's premadasa stadium having been witness to four, including his first way back in 1994. the 43 test centuries have been spread across 30 venues. apart from the absence of a test hundred in zimbabwe and a limited-overs one in the caribbean, there are no gaps in the rйsumй.in 2009, despite india's threadbare test schedule and being absent from a few one-day games, he has already amassed 1,505 runs, 964 of them in coloured clothes. each of the three one-day centuries has been memorable. the 163 not out in christchurch lit the touchpaper for a tour of new zealand from which india returned triumphant in both forms of the game. in colombo in september, he scored 138 from 133 balls to win a tri-nation tournament. and at hyderabad two months later, he produced one of his greatest-ever innings (175 from 141 balls) against the side that he has always saved his best for, australia. unfortunately for him, the rest of the team chose that day to emulate some of their spineless predecessors, falling down in an ugly heap around him.there were some murmurs of dissent from fans the other night, with poor dinesh karthik being skewered for not being more scoreboard-conscious. but the old-timers in cuttack had already seen him make a hundred, more than a decade ago, in an era when the old firm of tendulkar and kambli was expected to lead india to world cup glory.tendulkar himself won't lose sleep over a landmark missed. he has more important things on his mind, like another world cup on the subcontinent. he was just starting to obliterate school records when graeme gooch swept india out in the semi-final of 1987, and nine years later, his magnificent riposte after aravinda de silva's minor masterpiece on a minefield of a pitch was largely forgotten because of the collapse and rioting that followed.perhaps no other cricketer has been so conscious of the legacy that he leaves behind. having saved a test match at old trafford as a 17-year-old, he then had to endure a decade of veiled insinuations that his batting wasn't really up to snuff in moments of crisis. despite averaging 10 runs more in the fourth innings of matches than steve waugh ? did anyone ever call him a choker? ? tendulkar's fallibility was constantly highlighted, with the epic 136 at chennai in 1999 (india fell 12 runs short) the main exhibit.it was perhaps poetic justice then that he returned to the same ground to draw a line under such loose talk. at chennai last december india needed 387 to beat england over the final four sessions. no team had ever chased down even 300 on indian pitches, and 246 were still needed when he came to the crease on the final morning. he walked off 317 minutes later with an unconquered 103, as india romped home with more than an hour to spare.another box had been ticked in australia earlier that year, with a century and 91 ensuring that india were the last team to win the tri-series that was once such an integral part of the australian sporting summer. but the last page still needs to be written, and that can only happen on home turf at the wankhede stadium on 2 april 2011.when someone suggested a few years ago that tom moody wasn't a big enough name to coach india, a friend of mine said: "he still has two world cup winners' medals that tendulkar doesn't have." the man himself is acutely aware of that, and if india can solve their new-ball woes over the next 12 months, the cinderella ending is still very much possible.so what is it that has kept him going this long? a few years ago, when talking about his first matches in the india cap, he told me: "to be honest, i remember little of my first tour of pakistan. i was just so excited to be part of the indian team. i just wanted to go out and play as much as possible." when i suggested that not much had changed, he just smiled.that boundless enthusiasm, rather than the mountains of runs and all those centuries, is at the heart of his greatness. instead of focusing too much on that pristine back-foot punch through the covers, it's the attitude that every young player should emulate. cuttack or lord's, those that pay to watch deserve only the best.sachin tendulkarindia cricket teamcricketdileep premachandranguardian.co.uk © guardian news & media limited 2009 | use of this content is subject to our terms & conditions | more feeds
   
   




3. today in sport ? as it happened | alan gardner and martin rose

   
   
   discuss the day's big issues, send us your favourite links, follow us on twitter and take a look at our 2010 sport calendar8.45am: good morning and welcome to our daily sports news blog. throughout the day we'll update this page with news, links and what's expected to happen in the hours ahead. time permitting, we'll try to wade in below the line, answering your questions and comments. ag9.15am: after coming off the bench to secure manchester united's third league cup in five years, wayne rooney has insisted that he doesn't mind the demands of being asked to win games for club and country:"i don't feel any pressure or burden really," he said. "to be honest i have probably had pressure since i was 16 so it is something you get used to and deal with in your own way."rooney is a doubt for england's friendly against egypt, however. perhaps a good excuse for him to have the week off? ag10.17am: england have just announced a provisional 30-man squad for the world twenty20 in the west indies next month. it includes five uncapped players - middlesex pace bowler steven finn, hampshire batsman michael lumb, yorkshire slow left-armer david wainwright and seamers peter trego (somerset) and chris woakes (warwickshire) - although the squad will be cut to 15 for the tournament which begins on april 30. mr10.35am: here is what we're expecting today:* an england press conference ahead of the egpyt game (1.30pm)* john toshack media day ahead of wales v sweden (1.30pm)* both ireland and brazil have pressers ahead of tomorrow's game* england have named their provisionalworld twenty20 squadmeanwhile on the site today we have:* kevin mitchell's boxing blog* columns on serie a, la liga and the bundesliga* barney ronay on what we learned from the weekend* and our football weekly podcast will be live by 5pmsi12.15pm: sid lowe's la liga blog is just making its way through the system, and the podsters have gone off to record (expect football weekly later this afternoon) ... but while you await those delights, some england (rugby and cricket) news: firstly, danny care has spoken about the disappointment of losing to ireland in the six nations, and called on his team-mates to "come back firing" for the scotland game on 13 march.in bangladesh, meanwhile, stand-in england captain, alastair cook, has thanked his lucky stars for paul collingwood:"he's our most senior player and he showed his class again in the way he saw us home from what was a potentially very tricky situation ... he took the right options again and again and has been doing that for the past 18 months or two years. it's very reassuring having him come in at no4, knowing what he can do."for england fans, is there a more soothing sight than colly out in the middle these days? ag1.10pm: the start of the third edition of the ipl is now just under two weeks away but how much you hear about it is still very much in the balance. the news media coalition has today said international agencies, such as reuters and associated press, will not cover the event unless planned restrictions are relaxed:"without changes international news agencies are bound to consider not attending this year's event to provide editorial coverage ... as many publishers the world over rely upon news agencies for news material the stance taken by the ipl can only serve to limit news and free promotional value of their event and brand."indian news broadcasters have already decided to boycott the 2010 event; and there have been similar disputes in each of the previous editions of the tournament. are you interested in following the ipl? and are lalit modi and co damaging their 'brand' by trying to control reporting so tightly?in other, lighter, ipl news, the mcc's pink ball is to be trialled by three of the league's franchises during net sessions. ag2.25pm: blogs dept. sid lowe looks at atlйtico's weekend win over valencia in his la liga round-up; and barney ronay critiques arsenal's treatment, craig bellamy and a low ebb for bbc punditry in five things we learned from the premier league.news dept. victor cattermole is still hoping to buy pompey; gary neville has said that england and united can't afford to lose wayne rooney; stoke's glenn whelan has spoken about trying to comfort aaron ramsey on the britannia pitch; and zinedine zidane has claimed he 'would rather die' than apologise for his headbutt on marco materazzi in the 2006 world cup final. phew. ag2.55pm speaking at an england press conference, wayne rooney said that he hopes to be fit to play against egypt in midweek. he also offered his opinion on the terry-bridge business, describing terry as a "great player" and adding:"there's been no difference in the team since the squad met up last night. since we've been here we've had no meetings ? it's been the same as a usual england squad."ag3.36pm: rooney shouldn't have any distractions in south africa this summer after revealing that his wife, coleen, will be staying at home. "last time we were all together in the hotel and that was a bit of a problem. my wife's just had a baby so she's not going anyway," said the manchester united forward. mr4.32pm: a couple of european blogs for you if you haven't discovered them already: there's paolo bandini on whether palermo keeper salvatore sirigu could be the heir to gianluigi buffon and raphael honigstein on how bayern have filled their rivals with a dreadful sense of deja vu.5:45pm: that's it blog-wise for the day, but we'll leave you with today's offering of the fiver and football weekly, with that shawcross tackle featuring heavily in both. thanks for your comments and see you again tomorrow.alan gardnermartin roseguardian.co.uk © guardian news & media limited 2010 | use of this content is subject to our terms & conditions | more feeds
   
   




4. release of $350m adelaide oval plan angers afl - australian football league

   
   
   afl ceo andrew demetriou has been angered by the south australian cricket association's decision to reveal confidential plans for the upgrade of adelaide oval, including plans to secure afl games. on saturday, saca chief executive mike deare revealed ...
   
   


Execution took 0.070284 seconds to complete.