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South Africa’s plan of bowling short to bridge the gap between India’s experienced, confident batsmen and their own struggles went awry when their inexperienced bowlers erred in line

Sidharth Monga in Johannesburg18-Feb-2018In Twenty20 cricket, it is often the last few overs of each innings that change games, and are hence more analysed. It is less frequent that wickets in the Powerplay seal a game’s fate. Runs scored in a Powerplay that decide a match is even rarer. India scored 125 runs in their last 14 overs, South Africa 134 in theirs, and they did so despite losing wickets in desperate attempts to score quickly. And yet South Africa lost by a big margin.It was a match decided in the period of play when South Africa’s least experienced players went up against India’s most experienced ones. Debutant Junior Dala and Dane Paterson, playing only in his sixth T20I, wouldn’t even have been part of a full-strength South Africa side.Be that as it may, South Africa won the toss and asked for this contest upfront. Two newcomers against a top four that has individually led their batting units in the IPL. What you hope for at these times is well-set plans and spot-on execution. In ran Paterson to start the game with two men back on the leg side and no third man. Rohit Sharma saw one ball, and crunched the second – short and wide outside off – right where third man would have been. Later in the first over, Rohit showed those two men on the hook make no difference on a small ground, comfortably clearing them with a short-arm jab. The next ball he bunted over the infielders on the off side, knowing that’s all he had to do to get four.Dala, with the novelty of his wrong-footed action wearing off, bowled short and wide second ball, and Rohit accepted the same offer to third man. Dala did get a wicket with a straight short ball, primarily because Rohit tried to manufacture something out of the ordinary. In came Raina, and for one ball South Africa had a third man for him. Right after, South Africa went back to bowling short without a third man in place. Raina saw it coming, it was not express pace, and it was deposited over midwicket.Thirty-nine of the 78 runs in India’s Powerplay, with three sixes and four fours, came behind square on the off side. As a plan, you could understand why South Africa did. They were the weakened side, they needed to do something exceptional to take early wickets. “The plan was to try and take wickets,” JP Duminy said. “I felt if we were in that position, we were in a strong position, especially at a venue like this. I wasn’t too unhappy, the mindset and plan was an aggressive one which was to try and take wickets and with that, there are going to be times when you leak a few boundaries.”Associated PressIn the end, India scored 78, and had lost a wicket lesser than the minimum South Africa wanted. It is easy to think South Africa didn’t get the memo that India are currently playing the short ball well. It is not the case. A well-executed bouncer can be difficult for any batsman in the world. It is slightly higher risk but South Africa felt they needed to take the risk to bridge the gap between the two sides. Just that Paterson and Dala kept providing them the width required to exploit the absence of a third man.”To be honest I don’t think they have played it very well,” Duminy said. “It is going to come down to the execution of our skill. If we execute a plan well, it’s potentially going to work, but unfortunately with our plans in place, we didn’t execute as well as we’d have liked. I still believe and feel the plans are good, but especially when it’s a shorter format you have to execute well. Unfortunately there were few missed opportunities throughout the innings. But we’ll definitely come back stronger. I firmly believe that.”Were they asking too much of their young bowlers to bowl short and give no room to the batsmen? “They are inexperienced in terms of international cricket, but they are very experienced in terms of domestic cricket and what they have done at domestic level,” Duminy said. “They have a high standard in terms of their execution, but I’m not blaming that.”At the end of the day the batting has been our main Achilles heel throughout the series and that’s something we have to take on board. You will leak runs in this format, so even though we went for 200, from the way we started to the way we came back there are lots of positives to take.”South Africa could have asked Chris Morris to open the bowling for this plan, and used Paterson towards the end, a role he is more accustomed to. T20 is a format which bridges the gap between sides: South Africa were not behind in the last 14 overs of either innings. It will be interesting to see, in this light, if South Africa persist with the plan or tamper it.

With a bit of help from the conditions in Harare, Barinder Sran was showing what the selectors had seen in him when they included him in the squad for that Australia tour earlier this year

Karthik Krishnaswamy11-Jun-2016Full, angling across the right-hander, swinging back in.. In his first tour as an India player, in an unforgiving Australian summer, Barinder Sran may have forgotten what swing looked like or felt like. He was still in the southern hemisphere now, but five months had passed, and this was Zimbabwean winter, an early morning start, and that mysterious atmospheric alchemy had got to work on his very first ball.It curled back in, late, and Chamu Chibhabha was in no position to play it. The bowler’s angle, from left-arm over, had dragged Chibhabha’s front leg across towards the off side, searching for the off drive. Chibhabha’s front leg had now become a barrier between the incoming ball and his bat. Denied a straight-line path, he had to bring his bat around and across, and by then he was too late. The ball struck his pad, low, as he overbalanced, falling over to the off side.It was the plumbest of lbws, and only Russell Tiffin, the umpire, didn’t think so.On his first ODI tour, Sran played three matches and took three wickets at an average of 56.66 while conceding 6.45 an over. It was a series played on flat Australian pitches where 300 was an inadequate, undefendable total.In Sran’s first two matches, George Bailey scored 112 and 76 not out. Sran should have had Bailey caught behind, down the leg side, off the very first ball he bowled to him, in Perth, but the Indian fielders barely appealed, and Richard Kettleborough ruled it not out. In those two matches, Bailey scored 37 off the 26 balls he faced from Sran.In that series, Bailey was experimenting with a new, unconventional stance, with his front shoulder pointing to extra cover and his front leg further across to the off side than his back leg. It proved wildly successful, and helped him cover the left-armer’s angle particularly well, but everything was simply going across him, with no change in direction. A bit of swing back in, and Bailey might have found himself uncomfortably, and dangerously, closed off. Like Chibhabha.Or like Peter Moor, who, off the last ball of that Sran over, got into a similarly closed-off position, and missed the inswinger as he tried desperately to play across his front pad. This time Tiffin raised his finger.Fifteen years ago, India took a 22-year-old left-arm quick to Zimbabwe, for his first full tour. In two Test matches against a far better Zimbabwe side, he picked up 11 wickets at 19.72, and much of his success was the result of the ball that swerved wickedly into the right-handers.Sran is a year older than Ashish Nehra was in 2001. He isn’t as quick or as skiddy, and is at a rawer stage of his development. But here, now, with a bit of help from the conditions, he was showing what the selectors had seen in him when they included him in the squad for that Australia tour. He has a long way to go, but he sure can swing it.

Older and wiser, Ryan Harris looks back at his career, the injuries he overcame along the way, and the art of swinging it

Interview by Daniel Brettig17-Mar-2015Some of the most fascinating passages in your new book are about the earlier days, before the success arrived. When you went back and looked over those early days, what lessons did you take away?
Certainly how much I’ve matured, how much harder I’ve trained and how much better I’ve looked after myself as I’ve gotten older. How I’ve dealt with injury as well. Some of the injuries I’ve had, people in the medical profession have questioned whether I’d be done, so there’s determination as well. The way I bowl, years ago I didn’t expect to play Test cricket for Australia. So to see where I’ve come from, it’s a good achievement, to show the amount I’ve had to work to get there. I’ve surprised myself, in a way.What would Ryan Harris of 2015 say to Ryan Harris of say 2003?
Apply yourself a bit more, and believe in yourself. Train harder. Once I had that stronger belief, that’s when I started playing well and belonged at first-class level. Just to apply myself a bit more would have been better. You always wish you can go back and change things, but in the end I don’t regret it, it’s part of growing up.You evolved a lot as a bowler in South Australia. You started to learn about yourself and started to flourish before you left there, but was there anything about SA or Adelaide that meant it took a little longer for that to happen?
Not really. Something just clicked in my bowling action, I started bowling a bit quicker, started taking wickets. I got to the stage where I was on the verge again and almost lost my contract, two and a half years before I left. I had a good pre-season and did my knee in the first grade game and then had a longer time out of the game than I should have had. Then I sat down with Wayne Phillips, who was SA coach at the time, and he said, “Look mate, you’ve got to decide what you want to do”, so I came back, trained hard again and got back to bowl at good pace and started taking lots of wickets. Once I got through that injury I bowled as well as I ever had and things started to run for me, so that was probably the belief starting to show. That’s probably when it turned around.Something Graham Manou told me about the 2009 Ashes tour was how different it was being in the Australian side versus South Australia in terms of the attitude to defeat. It was “How did we lose that, we can’t be losing games” rather than “Oh well, we’re not good enough again.”
I don’t know what it was with the South Australian team because at the time I was around the team we had a good side. But it was just finding ways to win games. We didn’t know how to do it. In Queensland it struck me when I moved here how much fighting spirit they had. We won games from where we shouldn’t have – the Queensland boys just had that determination never to give up. That was similar to what I found with the Australian side and the mentality they had. Whereas SA, we just didn’t seem to believe we could do it in certain positions in games. With the side we had – Lehmann, Blewett, Gillespie, David Fitzgerald, Ben Johnson, Brad Young, Paul Rofe, we had a really good side, but just not enough to win things. In the whole eight years, I think we finished fourth once, very close to the Shield final but never got there. And years later they still haven’t.

“I know when I left South Australia, Ian McLachlan said it wasn’t a big loss, I only took 37 wickets. Whether or not they were happy to see me go, who cares. History shows it was probably a mistake for them”

Around the time you moved to Queensland there was this whisper campaign along the lines of: we need to move Ryan because we need to change the culture. It looks an outlandish claim now.
The culture at the time wasn’t too bad. We were starting to win and I was starting to take wickets. I never really knew about that. I know when I left, Ian McLachlan [then SACA president] said it wasn’t a big loss, I only took 37 wickets. Whether or not they were happy to see me go, who cares. History shows it was probably a mistake for them, like it has been every time they seem to establish a team and get good players, then let them go because of some sort of dispute – like Michael Klinger or Mark Cosgrove. At the time I felt there was an issue with Northern Districts players because they let me go, they let Graham go, they let Darren go, and they let Cossie go. But it was just coincidental.You dealt with Darren Lehmann at Northern Districts, South Australia, Queensland and then Australia. You’ve had him in your professional and personal life over a long period. What have you seen change or grow in him?
To be honest, he hasn’t changed. He’s still the same sort of guy as coach that he was as captain. He’s honest and to the point, he’ll tell you if you’re doing something wrong, tell you if you’re doing something right. The Northern Districts boys used to love him going out there and making sure he’d have a beer afterwards. He’d buy them a carton and sit in the rooms. He just loves cricket and he’ll talk about the game forever.On the personal side he’s been a mentor of mine for a long time. I spoke to him about leaving SA. He was probably the second person I told after my dad. I rang him to get his opinion. He got me over to the IPL, and I had him up here with the Bulls, and he’s been great for me and my cricket. In times when I have slackened off, he’s usually been around to kick me in the butt to get me on track.You say he hasn’t changed, but he clearly picked up a few things about coaching along the way?
He’s a great man manager as well as a great coach. But he was like that when he was playing, he’d do the same thing with the young blokes then – he gave you confidence to go out and play the way you wanted to play. If you make a mistake that’s okay, but just don’t make it again. If you keep making it over and over again, that’s when he gets shitty.One thing you shared was that you’ve both dealt with loss. You lost your mum, he lost his mum, and also David Hookes. And you spent a fair amount of time with each other in both cases.
When my mum passed away, he was the first to call in to see me. He was captain at the time and he was fantastic about it. “Go away and take as much time as you want, if you want to play cricket next week, play, if you don’t, you don’t. You do what you’ve got to do.” He was always there ringing me, a good shoulder to lean on, and as a mentor and close mate he was great through that time. Even now with anniversaries, he seems to remember when it happened. I’m a bit sketchy on when his anniversary is but he always seems to remember my mum, there’s always a message. He’s fantastic in that way.With bowling coach Allister de Winter in the nets: “The wrist snap was just a part of my action that started to click”•Getty ImagesOne thing about your career is, it spans a lot of changes to the domestic structure. You arrived when there were a lot of older players around, then a big group left the game in a short space of time, before the Futures League caused a few more to go. How do you look at the Shield now versus when you began?
The Futures League was a mistake from the start. You had a lot of contracted players who were sitting around, not allowed to play 2nd XI cricket like they used to do, and missing out. So guys were thinking, “Well, I can’t rely on grade cricket each week” because guys performing in grade cricket weren’t getting picked in 2nd XI because of the age restrictions, so they’re like, “What’s the point, I might as well go get a full-time job.” These guys were on 40 to 60k, which is okay money, but if you’ve got a trade, you could be earning twice that money, I think that’s why we lost a lot of guys. My theory on that a long time ago was that if the young players were good enough and earning a pot, they’d play anyway, but the competition went down because of that. It took probably three years too long to realise that.The times I as growing up playing 2nd XI cricket, I was playing games against teams then that could have been second 1st teams now, playing as additional states – they were that good. I don’t think there’s enough of that these days. It’s funny because after the big u-turn they did, the Australian Cricketers Association and Cricket Australia now are trying to get more older players back in the game.You and Mitchell Johnson are now the 30-something fast bowlers with a lot of younger guys around you. How have you found Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, James Pattinson, Josh Hazlewood and others to deal with? Can you sense the generation gap?
I’ve spent a lot of time with them and they love the game and love talking about it. They ask for advice and love learning, so that part of it is covered. None of them are “I know what I’m doing, I know the game.” They respect the game for what it is and where they’re at. They’re always trying to learn, trying to bowl six balls in the right spot rather than four and all that sort of stuff. It’s important to get young guys talking about the game and they do that a lot, which is great.A lot of people have marvelled at your strong wrist, how it snaps over and sends the ball down with perfect backspin and seam position. How did that develop?
I’ve got nothing for you there, that just happened. I didn’t even know when that started, whether it started in Adelaide or up in Brisbane. I remember watching replays at some stage and seeing that wrist snap back, and to me it feels like it’s straight up and down. I don’t feel it go back. That was just a part of my action that started to click. It started happening and I got my wrist behind the ball. I always swung it. When I was younger and a bit slower, I could always swing it both ways.How did you pick up reverse swing? Even now it can be elusive for Australia.
I used to love bowling in Adelaide because of that. There’s different theories on it. You try to keep the ball as dry as possible. I’ve learned a little bit being in the Aussie side. We might let the ball go completely, not touch it up or anything like that, which I’d never done before, and once one side goes really bad, you start working on the other side and that works as well. All in all, it’s keeping one side smooth and trying to rough the other one up. Everyone does it these days – throw it into the ground or into the wicket when the keeper runs back. If that doesn’t work, you can go the old-fashioned theory, and that’s load it up one side, wet one side and make it heavier.

“I never thought I’d play Test cricket. If anything I thought I’d play one-day cricket or T20s, but to be able to do that at Test level and sit now where I am, it’s a good feeling”

Have you spoken much over your career to bowlers from other countries about how they did it?
No, because they keep their secrets! Usually in Australia you go for reverse when the ball is a bit softer. But if you can get it going while the ball’s hard, it’s a lot more effective and a lot harder to play, because you get that bounce and zip off the wicket, which doesn’t happen very often. It’s only really happened once in my career in the Shield final in Hobart in the second innings. The ball started reversing after about five overs. It hit the right side enough times and reversed. We had Tasmania 5 for 15, so it’s tough to play.Looking over your Australia career, what do you cherish most? Perhaps apart from your debut.
Winning the Ashes was pretty good, then going to South Africa and winning again was a big few months for us. We played good cricket here, but we spoke about the biggest challenge being to play cricket away from home and winning, and we did that against the best side in the world at the time. That period there was pretty special, but the debut as well. I never thought I’d play Test cricket. If anything I thought I’d play one-day cricket or T20s, but to be able to do that at Test level and sit now where I am, it’s a good feeling.It is a year on from the summer of 2013-14. Does that distance allow you to look on it and work out why it operated so perfectly?
The change of personnel helped. When Darren took over it was a bit of a weight off a few guys’ shoulders and they started to enjoy playing cricket again. Before that they didn’t seem to be doing that, and the way Darren’s handled the team, and also Michael, they’ve done really well. They’ve got us playing positive and entertaining cricket. We were close in England, we knew we were growing close as a team, so if we could come back to our backyard in our conditions, we had a big chance. We hit them pretty hard and they weren’t expecting that at all.In your time in the Australian side the only time you’ve been dropped was from the one-day team in early 2012. Can you remember that, and was it an issue of, like you said, enjoyment or being over-anxious abut your spot?
Exactly that: I tried too hard. I had been injured and out of the one-day team and then wanted so badly to get back in, I tried to bowl too fast and got pumped all over the place. I remember playing India and being quite anxious on the ground, and that was a big lesson to me. I was worrying about my spot, and I never worried about that before. It was how I got to where I did, just bowling and taking wickets. I tried so hard to get back into the team then, I tried so hard I got myself out of it as well.I never ever worried about it before, I just played and let the ball do the talking. For once I tried too hard and I knew I’d mucked it up.Looking ahead, you’ve got a pretty detailed plan to make sure you’re ready to go in the West Indies?
I’m basically doing a pre-season. The opportunity is there to do what I did leading into England in 2013, that was identified as the way to do it. It was a very similar time frame, and every time I bowl now, I’m using up balls that I won’t be able to bowl again, so the decision was made that I wouldn’t play Shield cricket to play another Ashes series for Australia. It’s disappointing not being able to play, but the thought of going to England again one more time and having a crack at the Ashes was something I couldn’t argue with.Cooking with Michael Clarke at a fan event: “Darren and Michael have got us playing positive and entertaining cricket”•Getty ImagesI know the lead-up I had to 2013 was spot-on and when they sat down and said, “We’re going to do what we did last time”, I couldn’t argue because it got me through nine Tests. I didn’t have a very good build-up into the India series after knee surgery, I wasn’t fit enough. At first it was disappointing because a World Cup was there potentially, but I can’t argue with it.A lot of talk has been devoted to the ball that bowled Alastair Cook in the second innings in Perth last summer. Can you think of any other balls to get wickets that stick in your mind?
The one in Cape Town last year to get AB de Villiers in the second innings was a decent ball with the second new ball. Then there was one in Galle in 2011 to get Mahela Jayawardene when he was on a hundred on the last day. I worked bloody hard to get that. That Cook one was a fast bowler’s dream, what you try to do every ball. When it comes off, you look like a genius. The seam was up and it hit the seam and almost swung again afterwards. It was just a freakish ball and I’m trying to do that every time. Keep that seam up. is out now on Hardie Grant Books