India’s demise spurs Australia on

India’s lackluster performances have made this Test and Series as predictable as in England five months previous. The emergence of Umesh Yadav was lauded as the tentative steps in the right direction, following his Boxing Day Test exploits, but facing a dead pitch on day three at the SCG he folded like the rest.

The no.2 Test team was expected to be more competitive Down Under, a fit Zaheer Khan, and the Little Master in search for his 100^th hundred enough to offer a small glimmer of hope for Indian fans. But the side has become an old family pet, age consuming and illness gripping, slowly preventing each extremity from working harmoniously. Michael Clarke choosing to toy with the maimed visitors, before eventually declaring after fellow batsman Mike Hussey reached 150.

Clarke in used the time to score a mammoth 329 not out, becoming only the fourth Australian to score a triple hundred. An innings that might just have won him the public’s admiration he’s craved for so long.

Putting the hosts 468 ahead, the captain gave his bowlers half the day in which to attack India. The pitch groundsman Tom Parker described two days prior to the match as pace-friendly has proved anything but, India toiling in the field for over 79 overs without a single wicket falling. A rejuvenated Ben Hilfenhaus was however, able to demonstrate the reason behind his recall, removing Virender Sehwag four overs into their reply.

Again finding movement, Hilfenhaus continued pressurising, India. Pitching it up, Rahual Dravid’s indecision to go forwards or back cost dearly, his bails knocked off as the ball sailed through an opening between bat and pad.

The conditions favoured any batsman willing to see off the lacquer. Gautam Gambhir struggling to manage that so far, seemed refreshed, as if expectation and the complications that brings had been removed, finishing 68 not out at stumps. Accompanying him was a nervous Sachin Tendulkar, a man that before this Test averaged 221 in Sydney, and will need to reacquaint himself with the patience required to accomplish great scores of yesteryear if he is to prevent India’s demise a little longer.

England No. 1; India No. 2

It would be an understatement to say that the crown of best Test team has passed from India to England.

The crown didn’t pass, it was seized. And England didn’t just seize it. They seized it and then used it to beat India to a bloodied pulp. Then they stood over the carcass and took photos while wearing their new crown at a jaunty angle.

The margin of defeat – an innings and 242 runs – does not deceive. India were murdered in this game. And not just murdered. England murdered them and danced round their grave singing comic songs in a raucous voice.

A dispirited India, ground into the blameless Edgbaston turf by the relentless glacier that is Alastair Cook, were torn apart by the skill of James Anderson. Anderson, gaining life and movement that had been absent when India bowled, claimed the first four wickets to fall in the final innings and has now overtaken both Andrew Caddick and Sir Alec Bedser in list of England bowlers with the most Test wickets.

Where do India go from here? As a Test team, their future is bleak. Most of their best players are far nearer the end than the start of their careers and the priority of the BCCI remains the money-spinning limited-overs game.

It seems the BBCI are emerging as the villains of the piece, but that may not be fair. After all, the IPL was set-up partially to negate the ‘rebel’ ICL. All the Indian board have done is try to meet the insatiable desire for players to earn more. The ECB fell victim to a similar problem with the Stanford event.

In the long-term, Indian players will need to work hard to have any hope of retaining their No. 1 status. They’ll have to be fitter and stronger. They’ll have to play county cricket to experience differing conditions and they’ll have to accept that many of them are hopeless against the short ball. While they remain in denial, they’ll never improve.

They’d be fools to hide behind an injury to Zaheer Khan. England were missing Chris Tremlett, too. These things happen. Instead, they should examine why Zaheer reported for a tour so out of shape and they should reflect on why their bowling resources are so limited.

That Praveen Kumar has been their best player so far tells as much about his tremendous heart as it does about the underachievement of the rest of the team. Kumar is a worthy but limited cricketer making the best of himself; his colleagues – Dravid excepted – are complacent superstars who have become too posh to push. Literally and metaphorically they have grown fat on their success. It remains to be seen whether they have the hunger to regain the top spot.

It’s worth remembering, too, that the first two World Test Championships are to be played in England. It’s hard to see how India can win.

Is there a better bowler than Anderson in world cricket? Probably not. Where once Anderson was a bully in helpful conditions and a liability in others, he’s now a superb on any surface. The ability to move the ball both ways in the air and off the pitch is precious in itself, but allied to Anderson’s accuracy and control and England have a special bowler.

Certainly Gambhir, who prodded Anderson’s first ball of the day to slip, and Laxman, who edged a beauty that left him, were the victim of a fine deliveries.

But perhaps India were also unfortunate. Sachin Tendulkar, batting with an ease that none of his colleagues could match, was run out backing up as Graeme Swann, in his follow through, got just a finger on MS Dhoni’s firm, straight drive. Then Dravid was victim of a poor umpiring decision. He was adjudged caught behind, though replays suggest he hit only his shoelaces. India’s failure to request a review, however, was inexplicable.

Dhoni and Kumar showed some belated heart with a furious counter-attack, but the game was long-since over as a contest. The pair thrashed 75 in seven-and-a-half overs – Swann was slogged for 55 from his last four overs – but even that came at a cost. Kumar sustained a horrid blow to the thumb off Anderson and must be rated as doubtful for the final Test. Sreesanth also sustained a blow to the hand.

The manner in which victory was sealed spoke volumes. Sreesanth, jerking out of the way of a short ball, fenced a catch off the shoulder of the bat to gully. India, battered, bruised and embarrassed had been blown away.

There are, of course, other hurdles to clear before England can claim to categorically be the best Test team in the world. They need to defeat India in India and they need to defeat a South Africa side that, with Imran Tahir involved, at last look to have strength and balance. Both opportunities present themselves in the next year.

England have already proved themselves an excellent side however. People may mutter about the strength of the opposition but that’s not totally fair. Australia had never been beaten by an innings margin three times in a series until the last Ashes series and India – with one of the strongest Test top fives in history – have not lost a series since 2008. England have made both sides look ordinary. It’s not coincidence. England really are very good.

Best of SPIN 5: MCC chief exec Keith Bradshaw goes on the record

First published in SPIN magazine, February 2010 issue

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 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 an 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.

Was all this innovation a part  of your brief when you took over as CEO?

When I did my interview they asked me to do a presentation on my objectives for the first 12 months – I said I didn’t have any, that I wanted to go in and listen and understand and see what issues the MCC was facing and then decide in which direction we should head.

I felt the MCC’s image – in terms of it being crusty or stuffy – I felt it was unfair to a degree. It was probably an impression I had had too, but when I arrived I found that the members were passionate about their cricket, there were a lot of people who were very forward-thinking and could see that the club had to keep pace with the times. For me, it was important to be very open and transparent. There were things we needed to change…. I think Lord’s as a destination, as the home of cricket, is here for everybody.

You compare MCC to the brand of the All England Club and Wimbledon. Is there no conflict between this kind of talk and the members with more traditional views?

I think they can work together. The brand isn’t just about the logo it’s about the way we do things and the way people are treated when they come to the ground.

You may argue that cricketing bodies at the moment are very dependent on broadcasting revenue – part of my challenge is to make sure we diversify. I’m not looking to plaster an MCC logo on every product in the high street… It needs to be appropriate. It’s the same with our sponsors. It’s about the right partners and the right merchandise. One of the concepts we’re looking at is our cricket academies. We’re rebranding the Lord’s indoor school next year as a cricket academy and we think there’s the potential to take MCC cricket academies around the world.

Let’s talk about hosting the Durham-MCC game in Abu Dhabi this season. What’s the reason behind that – is it purely financial?

No, it’s not financial. We received notification of the date of the champion county game from the ECB – 3 April –  and we happened to be in Abu Dhabi at the time. We said, ‘Gee, that’s early’ and last year we lost a lot of play to rain anyway. And we’d just finished our World Cricket Committee meeting where we’d been discussing pink balls and day-night Tests. We’re not saying every Test should be day-night but we were saying that Test cricket needs to be invigorated – not so much in London or in England but elsewhere – and how could we do that? And one of the ideas was day-night Test cricket. And for that you need to get a ball that works – and we think the pink ball is worthy of a trial.

We tried to get a trial at the end of last season but we couldn’t get a county match to stage one so here was an opportunity to have a four-day match with a pink ball in harsher conditions than early season at Lord’s – on a harder pitch, the ball will scuff more. So we thought let’s do it under lights as well. We’re trying to make a contribution to the world game and until this trial happens it won’t progresss. So we thought that for the greater good, for this year, we should go ahead with the trial.

We don’t see it as long-term. We will play more matches in Abu Dhabi but in terms of the traditional season opener, this – Lord’s – is where it should be. This is a one-off for the good of the game. There may not be the need for another trial in any case….

But you do have a long-term arrangement with Abu Dhabi…

We’ve signed a partnership with them.

So it could be a site for one of your academies?

Correct – and we’ll also send our young cricketers out there for pre-season and we have a reciprocal arrangement for members of both clubs and we have usage of their grounds. So it’s mutually beneficial…

It’s been reported that the MCC’s submission to the government’s ‘Crown Jewels’ sport-on-TV committee opposed the ECB line. Is that right?

I don’t think it was significantly different to be honest, though I know it’s been reported that way. We made a few points – we talked about the number of packages that go out to tender from the ECB: was that the right set of packages? Could some modifications be made? I think there was a feeling from our members that they would like to see some Test cricket on terrestrial television. We talked about that but the over-arching message is that it’s not terrestrial at any cost. I think that’s been lost in some of the coverage.

So if you were asked, ‘Should the Lord’s Ashes Test be shown live and in full on terrestrial television’… what would you say?

The response would be… it’s not that simple. You’d have to say, ‘What are the implications for the game?’

But the MCC would be keener to have cricket on terrestrial TV than the ECB?

I think the honest answer to that is that we would be keen to have cricket on terrestrial television if it could be shown that it wasn’t to the detriment of the game in England.

This all plays into the wider issue that Lord’s is not guaranteed a Test match every year from the ECB…

When I first arrived I was staggered to hear that: Lord’s is an icon, it’s a national treasure, why would you not have two Tests here? It seemed preposterous to me that you would shift a Test to another ground. It would be like moving Wimbledon to Eastbourne.

So you are competing on a level playing field with the Rose Bowl and Cardiff and all the newer international venues?

Yes, we all bid in a competitive closed tender situation and tenders are allocated based on the quality of the submissions the grounds make and there’s a scorecard which takes into account 1) how much you are prepared to bid, but also hospitality, geography – so being close to the Oval means that geographic spread counts against us all the time….

The Oval has a long-term agreement – it’s guaranteed Tests every year. That must be grieving for Lord’s…

Well, we see a long -term staging agreement of our own as vitally important for us – for the development of the ground.

You’re hosting one of the Pakistan-Australia Tests this summer – you were, personally, a prime mover for neutral venue Tests even before they became ‘essential’, weren’t you?

I always said whatever we can do to promote Test cricket as a  whole we should be doing and neutral Tests was one of those things. We bid fairly aggressively to get this year’s Test. We saw it as a good thing to assist Pakistan cricket, because Pakistan are not able to play at home at the moment. Commercially, it might not be a great success, given that it starts on a Tuesday and other factors count against it, but we saw it as more important to do whatever we could to have it next year – so we have three Tests here this year.

Will Pakistan be playing here again after this summer?

Yes, to me it seems logical – although there’s been no talks – but if India are playing here in 2011 and Pakistan are looking to play neutral Tests, I would hope there’d be an India-Pakistan Test here next year.

How close have you come to hosting other big neutral-venue games before?

We hosted the Rajasthan Royals [British Asian Trust] game here last summer. It wasn’t about profitability. We made a contribution, we managed to get 22,000 people into the ground with just three weeks for marketing and that proved to us that there is a future for those sort of matches. It was a Monday evening, we bought some Bollywood entertainment in, trying to make it an event. And next summer, we have four Thursday-night Twenty20s here and we want to make that the thing to do on a Thursday night – come to Lords and watch Twenty20 cricket.

It’s about creating an experience that people want. So for Test cricket, we’re not looking to have horns and fancy dress or music. If you want that you can go somewhere else; that’s almost a unique selling point for us. But Twenty20 is a completely separate beast – we want to create the ultimate experience for people to come and watch it. It’s not about sitting down and eating your sandwiches. It’s poles-apart experiences – but we feel we need to embrace both and respect both.

How close has Lord’s come to hosting an actual IPL game?

We’ve had a lot of interest from IPL teams. We’re certainly keen to do it… and I think it’s inevitable that we’ll see IPL matches here in the future. It’s a case of wanting to respect the ECB and their role. It’s a case of working together to bring the IPL here without damaging the local product. But it’s going to happen, no matter what.

Eighteen months ago, myself and [Surrey chairman] David Stewart put forward our proposal to the ECB for a franchise-based Twenty20 competition – one of the arguments for that was that it would compete financially and in terms of attracting the world’s elite players on a par with the IPL.

I have great admiration for the IPL. But you do need competition in any environment and we thought that a nine-team franchise competition would pay the players the same sort of money as the IPL and create a lot of interest here. So, for me, the IPL now has no competition and we’re going to see it continue to grow…

Your new alliance with Middlesex – signing Adam Gilchrist and possibly Sachin Tendulkar for the  T20 – seems almost unilaterally trying to go down that franchise-style route…

Well, we’re moving closer to it. We have a great relationship  with Middlesex and I guess we’ve just become closer and closer over the years. So, for 2010, we sat down and said Middlesex are playing these games at Lord’s – how can we fill the ground? We said okay – we need to have the best players in the world playing.

Is it a partnership in kind, is money changing hands, or can’t you say?

I’m happy to say – we have a profit-sharing arrangement whereby Middlesex get the biggest share. But I guess when we’re talking about paying costs for Tendulkar and Gilchrist, that comes out of a pot….

So you’re underwriting the project…

Yes, effectively that’s how it works.

Is that as far as the deal goes?

Erm… I think there’s the potential to do more with Middlesex though at the moment there’s no plans to take it further.

Does English cricket need 18 counties?

The thing that was very disappointing to David and I was that our Twenty20 nine-team document was leaked to the press. It was an internal discussion document. For instance, the nine teams would each see two counties getting equity and profit share. The way that was then portrayed in the press spooked a lot of counties who felt it would mean they went out of business. The message didn’t get through.

The reality is that the standard of an 18-team competition isn’t going to be as great  as if you have a reduced number playing. Then again,the flip side is the history and the tradition – its not all about finances. I’m not someone that’s advocating fewer counties – let’s put it that way.

But if you were in charge of T20 in England…

I would certainly promote a nine-team franchise competition because I thought that was the way to go and it probably still is. But I’m a big believer of ‘You are where you are.’ Which is why we’re trying to get Gilchrist and Tendulkar. And I hear now that Warney may be coming to a county which – if it’s true – is terrific because it’s rasing the bar.

With the ICC moving to Dubai in 2005, was there a feeling that MCC was becoming a secondary organisation? You’ve certainly increased your ‘profile’ again in the last year or so…

I’m pleased to hear that because I think it’s important we do have a profile. We won’t always be popular for the things we say but the game is moving so quickly I think we have a contribution to make. As an independent voice and as a conscience, we need to make sure we are heard.

And we are the guardians of the laws of the game – that’s a very understated role. For us it’s about balancing the contest between bat and ball: if bats go too far does it change the nature of the game?

Like golf’s graphite shafts and titanium heads – if technology reduces the gap between the elite player and the club player, is that good for the game? In a lot of instances, it’s not.

The MCC World Cricket Committee – is that just the MCC putting itself forward? It’s not formally commissioned by ICC…

It was the brainchild of [former England captain and BBC commentator] Tony Lewis. He felt that world cricket could do with a body of the good and the great. I sit in the meetings and hear those guys talk – Steve Waugh , Barry Richards, Mike Brearley, Geoffrey Boycott, Shaun Pollock… They are there to advise us. It’s funded by us entirely; they make recommendations to us, give us a direction on where they think research should be done – pink balls are high on the list.

We were looking to see what we could
do to promote Test cricket. And the idea
of a World Test Championship came out
of that – there was a phenomenal response in the research on that. People said it
would definitely make a difference to their inerest in Test cricket.

But we just provide research and hopefully the ICC take it into consideration.

But is Test cricket commercially viable beyond the top four or five teams?

Well, that’s the challenge. I think we’re seeing different audiences. Twenty20 has brought a new audience to the game – women, children. People who didn’t realise cricket was so much fun. Our challenge then is to get that group of people interested in Test cricket. I think there’s things we can do around Tests in terms of the experience they have when they’re in the ground.

When you tell the ECB you’re putting down 100s of millions to improve Lord’s, it must be disappointing that they don’t bite your hand off for a long-term staging agreement?
It is a process that’s taking probably longer than I expected. The reality is that a lot of the developments here have been paid for by MCC – the magnificent draining system, the floodlights. We don’t get any grant money for those things – which other grounds do get. Am I disappointed? Well, I’ll be very disappointed if they don’t agree to a long-term staging agreement. We’ve had discussions over the last few months and so far they’ve been positive, so we’re hopeful.

World cricket used to be run from this office; now it’s run from Lalit Modi’s office. How do you read that situation?

Well, once again, we are where we are. It’s important to have good relationships. We have an extremely good relationship with India and India has a great passion for and respect for Lord’s. Our relationships since I’ve been here have been nothing less than fruitful, energising and exciting – so it’s a case of accepting the reality and moving with it.

Yuvraj Singh, new balls and waking up Daniel Vettori: my latest week at the IPL

Last Thursday at Supersport Park, Centurion, something most unusual happened. Yuvraj Singh hit the biggest six of the tournament and in doing so, lost the match for his team. In a rain reduced match against the Chennai Super Kings, the Punjab Kings XI were chasing 185 runs in 18 overs, a daunting 10.3 runs per over. After a couple of wickets and a slow start, the asking rate shot up to 13 runs per over.

And then the fireworks began. Simon Katich hit three consecutive sixes before holing out on the boundary. Yuvraj Singh was joined by Mahela Jayawardene at the crease and their partnership quickly mushroomed as they continued to keep up with the intimidating asking rate. But when Yuvraj hit the monster of all sixes, measuring 119 metres, he lost the slippery wet ball that was coming so readily onto the bat and over the boundary.

The replacement dry ball allowed Chennai captain, MS Dhoni, to put spinners Muralitharan and Suresh Raina on for a few economical overs, thereby winning the game. As in any other form of cricket, the prevailing conditions are never in one’s control.

As Shilpa Shetty, the Bollywood megastar and co-owner of the Rajasthan Royals outfit said in Cape Town at the start of the IPL, “It is the unpredictability of cricket that makes it the best game there is.”

East London, nicknamed “slummies” for obvious reasons, is a coastal city in the Eastern Cape. I went to boarding school 100 miles away in the far smaller town of Grahamstown. Bunking out to the big lights of East London ten years ago offered such great excitement and I hadn’t been back to “slummies” since those exciting weekends away from school, where I remember seeing such fantastic things as indoor laser games for the first time.

And so I decided to visit East London last Friday for an IPL cricket match. On arrival I couldn’t help realise what a small and sleepy town it really is. Not much happens in EL and when it does, it happens slowly. The Xhosas, who make up most of the Eastern Cape population, are a very laid-back people and schedules run on the quintessential African time.

There are no taxis at the airport and the airport to hotel shuttle minibus stopped seven times during an hour and a half journey before dropping me at my hotel, just 15 miles from the airport. To their credit, Neil Mckenzie and Ramiz Raja, didn’t complain once as our driver stopped to run errands and wave at his girlfriends. One of five Wisden cricketers of the year in 2008, Mckenzie, helped a wheel-chaired lady in and out of the minibus and then carried her grandson’s bag to the foyer of their hotel. Mckenzie, who is commentating on the IPL, hadn’t been recognised by the couple, he’s just a great guy.

I had a few hours to kill before watching the Delhi Daredevils thrash the Mumbai Indians so I enjoyed a delicious fillet steak and a pint of castle draught at the Blue Lagoon hotel deck. I shared the deck with a pair of dassies (rock rabbits), who moved slower than the Xhosas as they soaked up the sun. I was contemplating the fact that this obscure animal’s closest living relative is the elephant when a charming Xhosa brought me my bill.

The total damage was R49, roughly a third of the price of the equivalent meal in a Johannesburg or Cape Town hotel. No wonder Lalit Modi and the BCCI chose cities like East London over the original London town when the Indian government decided it would be unable to provide the appropriate levels of security for the tournament.

The cricket ground, Buffalo Park, is only 150 yards from the sea, without a stand in between, and boasts the largest grass bank I have ever seen. Stretching hundreds of yards up a hill at an awkward angle, the bank affords spectators an awful long range view from which to watch the cricket as the offshore wind blows their picnics away. I guess the locals don’t know any better.

Not that many aeroplanes come and go from East London and when I boarded my plane the following morning I found that my aisle seat was next to Mr Daniel Vettori’s. His wife and two month old son, James, were by the window. He recognised me from my asking lots of questions at press conferences and he congenially said hello but he clearly wasn’t after a good old chinwag.

I guess the New Zealand captain and highly economical spin bowler, who is ranked number four in the world ODI bowler’s rankings, didn’t want me to ask him why he played in only the first few matches this season. He has sat out of the next seven matches.

When I looked up the Reliance Rankings, as they are now named, I saw another Kiwi’s name at number two. Kyle Mills is apparently fit as a fiddle and desperate to play for the Mumbai Indians but he is yet to be given a game.

The amount of money wasted on cricket player’s salaries for this tournament would be enough to put a dent inn the battle against world hunger. Consider the fact that Mashrafe Mortaza from Bangladesh receives a salary of 600 000 US dollars per season from the Kolkata Knight Riders and has never even played a match for them.

So I was sitting next to Vettori when I thought I would stretch across his sleeping body and lift up the blanket covering his son’s face to get a good look at the little tiger, only to find the baby breastfeeding. Vettori senior awoke at this delicate point in procedings and I quickly looked the other way.

However East London is a bustling metropolis when compared to Kimberley. The stark beauty of the North Eastern Cape landscape surrounds the airstrip where my 40-seater twin-propeller South African Airways plane landed on Monday. My father calls it mamfa – miles and miles of fuck all!.

The old diamond town was a British stronghold where rogues like Barney Barnato and Cecil John Rhodes found their fortune was famously besieged by the Boers for 124 days over the turn of the 20th Century, during the Boer War. The town is famous for the big hole; a seriously deep crater dug by hand that yielded 15 million carats of diamonds.

I arrived at the De Beers Oval nice and early for the match and mine was the fourth car in the queue to enter the media car park. Amazingly it took forty minutes – the same amount of time Bangalore yesterday took to score 110 runs – to enter the car park. Each car and bag inside it was thoroughly searched and then searched again before it could progress up a ramp so that my car’s underside could be checked for explosives. Fifteen policemen handled the operation and I missed the toss.

The Deccan Chargers posted a formidable 166 runs with newcomer Andrew Symonds making runs for the second time in as many matches at that ground. But it was the Calypso batting of West Indian Dwayne Smith that earned the player of the match (what was wrong with saying man of the match?) award.

The Rajasthan Royals put up a poor fight as they were bowled out for 113 runs. But their biggest potential loss of the evening was that their captain, Shane Warne, pulled a hamstring and may spend the final ten days of the tournament on the sidelines. Warne would prefer to be in the thick of the action but it would allow him more time to play poker and womanise.

The first impressive performance this season by a New Zealander took place last night as the under pressure Kolkata captain, Brendon McCullum, smashed 84 runs from 64 balls to help his side post 173 at Centurion. It looked a winning total but could the side that has won one match from eleven defend it on a pitch that offered assistance to both swing and spin bowlers?

Of course they could not. John Buchanan, who coached Australia in their glory years, is an awful T20 coach and McCullum is a pathetic T20 captain. The relatively unknown Sri Lankan, Angelo Matthews was preferred to Charl Langeveldt, probably the best death bowler in South Africa and Mccullum’s bowling changes were inexplicable.

Mystery spinner, Ajentha Mendis was given the second over when the ball was swinging like a banana. David Hussey was given only one over and that over was during the powerplay. Ganguly, the most economical bowler of last year’s tournament and a bowler that is most effective when the ball is swinging wasn’t given even one over.

Bangalore required 14 runs an over with four overs to go when another Kiwi, Ross Taylor launched his assault on Ishant Sharma, aged Ajit Agarkar and inexperienced Angelo Matthews. Taylor’s 81 came from 33 balls – an astonishing strike rate of 245.45 runs per 100 balls – as he struck seven fours and five sixes and outdid his fellow Kiwi, McCullum, winning the match with four balls to spare.

The Kolkata Knight Riders are the only team of eight that cannot qualify for the semi-finals. Delhi looks safe at the top of the table and Chennai and Deccan look relatively safe just behind. So it looks most likely that Mumbai, Bangalore, Rajasthan and Punjab fight it out for that highly coveted fourth spot. But, of course, it’s not yet as clear cut as that!

Against the odds, a huge success: the IPL’s half-time report

We are now at the half-way point of the double round-robin stage of the second season of the IPL. 28 matches have come and gone and as much as I expected South Africa to host the tournament adequately, I believe the organisers have outdone themselves.

I laughed when Lalit Modi fibbed to us that 90% of tickets for the IPL had been sold within a couple of days. Doing the sums in my head, that is not far off a million tickets. But almost every game has indeed been packed to the rafters. In particular, the South African Indian community has embraced the tournament, turning up in large numbers at all six of the venues used so far.

The two venues that are yet to hold a game are Kimberley and Bloemfontein, both small and predominantly Afrikaans speaking cities. When I initially heard that these two cities would be hosting the Indian Premier League, I guessed that they would struggle to attract more than a few hundred schoolchildren at each game. 

Bloemfontein is the capital of the Free State, a province in which Indians were not allowed to sleep a night until the late 1980s. Ghandi was imprisoned there in 1913. The idea of the big Indian cricket jamboree coming to town seems something of an ironic joke.

But after seeing how South African cricket fans have taken to the tournament across the country, I have no doubt that even Kimberley and Bloemfontein will join the party. The IPL is not only boosting South Africa’s cricket and tourism industries; it is also highlighting the extent to which the country has moved on from the days of apartheid. 

I first had this thought a few days ago at a match in Centurion, Pretoria, where the press box seats are in the grandstand and not a glass box. The ground was full and as usual, boundaries were met with extremely loud music, fireworks and shooting flames. Much of the music was of the Bollywood variety and much of it was in Afrikaans. The DJ continued to alternate between the two and the crowd continued to go bananas. It was terrific.

On another matter altogether, it was pointed out to me that there has been an alarming number of golden ducks in the IPL so far. An explanation I can offer is that South African pitches are very very fast. Middlesex’s Dirk Nannes has looked like Alan Donald at Centurion and the Wanderers. Add this to the fact that Indian batsmen are used to slower pitches, and you get some cheap wickets.

Of course, not all the golden ducks have come from quick pitches. Kevin Pietersen was out LBW to the first ball he faced from Muttiah Muralitharan in Port Elizabeth. He got in trouble for showing dissent to Simon Taufel, who had made the correct decision. KP effected a golden duck himself when his Bangalore side had Brendon McCullum, of the hapless Kolkata Knight Riders, caught at point with the first ball of a match in Durban. 

It was also in Durban that I was lucky enough to witness a live hat-trick for the fourth time in my cricket watching career. I will never forget the first of those when I saw Brett Schultz rip through the old Transvaal at the Wanderers where, aged 11, I sold scorecards. Yuvraj Singh took a hat-trick returning figures of 3/22 before top scoring with 50 runs from 39 balls, in vain, as the Kings XI Punjab lost to the resurgent Bangalore Royal Challengers. 

After last night’s upset nine wicket win by Bangalore over the Mumbai Indians at the Wanderers, things really are heating up on the table. Four teams have eight points, three teams have seven points and the Kolkata Knight Riders languish at the bottom of the table with three points. 

Last night’s match saw Jacques Kallis prove that there is a place for him in the shortest form of the game. He smashed 69 runs off 59 balls at a jam-packed Bull Ring, thereby cementing his place in the South African Twenty20 World Cup squad that was announced today. 

It was the very same Wanderers strip where South Africa scored 438 runs to beat Australia in an ODI and, boy, it was a cracker. Any bat on ball races to the boundary but there is always something for the pace men too. Bangalore debutant, South African Dillan Du Preez, had veteran Sachin Tendulkar out with his third ball. He had Ajinkya Rahane caught in the off-side with his next ball. The double wicket maiden wicket over was followed up with the prized wicket of JP Duminy in his second over to round off the perfect start to an IPL career.

In their pursuit of 150, Bangalore’s Kallis and Uthappa added a record breaking 126 unbeaten runs for the second wicket. Uthappa walloped 66 of those runs off 42 balls against the side for whom he played last season. A straight inter-season swop between himself and Zaheer Khan had taken place during the transfer window period. Khan pulled up with a shoulder injury two overs into his spell.

Cricket is not usually played after the autumn in South Africa and at the Wanderers the press box is again outdoors, on the top floor of the highest stand. Johannesburg winter days are lovely and warm but the nights can be bitterly cold, and last night was no exception. At the highest press box in the world, I managed to contract a cold. I don’t think it is that swine flu hogwash because no-one in the press box has recently been to Mexico. Given the pace of T20 cricket growth, the game might arrive there before H1N1 gets here. 

I have put in a request to the Wanderers for a tender to sell jerseys, scarves, gloves and blankets at the ground. The revenue will surely far exceed that of writing about cricket and I will be able to stay safely on the ground floor. I have heard it said that tickets for the final on 24 May are trading hands at five times their face value, but there is a very real threat the cold winter puts some fans off coming.

John Buchanan, coach of the Kolkata Night Riders, has said that the maximum number of foreign players in each starting eleven should be increased from four, the status quo. Doing so would no doubt increase the standard of play on the field. Paul Collingwood and Owais Shah returned home without getting a game for their franchises and players like Dale Steyn and Daniel Vettori are consistently being left out of theirs.  

Each team is allowed up to ten international players and good money is being wasted to pay these chaps to sit on the bench while inexperienced Indian players drop catches and struggle to get bat on ball.