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Celtic could be set to miss out on signing reported transfer target Ola Solbakken this summer.

What’s the news?

According to a recent tweet from transfer expert Fabrizio Romano, the Norwegian is a “top target” for Italian club AS Roma this summer. The journalist also added that “negotiations are progressing” between Roma and Bodo/Glimt behind the scenes over the potential transfer switch.

The winger joined his current club in January 2020 from fellow Norwegian club Ranheim IL. Since then, the 23-year-old has gone on to make 72 appearances in total for Bodo/Glimt across all competitions, scoring 17 goals and delivering 18 assists along the way.

Taking this into account, it’s easy to see why Celtic were linked with a move for him and why Roma are reportedly in talks to add him to their ranks.

Bad news for Celtic

With 19 appearances to his name this season, the attacker has found the net eight times and provided five assists in the process.

Having netted three goals in four games against Jose Mourinho’s side, along with scoring one goal and supplying one assist in two matches against the Hoops in the Europa Conference League, this will have given both clubs a good look at the player and his talent.

Given the clear attacking talent he has and the versatility to be able to play on both the left and right flanks, it would certainly be bad news for Celtic if they let the player slip out of their grasp and sign for Roma this summer.

As the winger was linked with a move to Parkhead as a contingency plan if they were not able to secure a permanent transfer deal for on-loan attacker Jota, Solbakken’s potential move to Italy would ramp up the pressure on the Bhoys to make sure that they secure the Portuguese star’s signature.

If Celtic are keen to sign the Bodo/Glimt deynamo, then they should be doing all they can to make sure they rival the Europa Conference League holders and get him to make a move to Glasgow instead of Rome.

If not, they will then just have to move on and focus on other attacking targets that they may have in their sights.

In other news: Celtic now eye move for 19-year-old “breath of fresh air”, he could be their new Scott Brown

While it is undeniable that both Andrea Radrizzani and Victor Orta pulled off an astonishing feat in getting Leeds United back into the Premier League after a 16-year absence, since the Whites’ promotion back in 2020, the club have had something of a hit and miss record in the transfer market.

Indeed, spending just shy of £100m in the summer before their return to the top flight, Orta very much hit the jackpot with a few of his deals, with the likes of Raphinha, Illan Meslier and Joe Gelhardt undoubtedly being fantastic acquisitions by the Spanish sporting director.

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However, the same cannot be said for some of the big-money signings completed in the same window, with the likes of Rodrigo, Helder Costa, Robin Koch and Diego Llorente all already having varying levels of question marks hanging over their respective futures at Elland Road.

It was a similar case last summer, with both Kristoffer Klaesson and Jack Harrison – despite the former Manchester City winger enduring something of a below-par campaign this time out – looking to be solid longer-term investments, while the likes of Junior Firpo and Dan James have both struggled following their big-money moves to LS11.

However, it is undoubtedly the latter of the aforementioned players who has been the biggest transfer disappointment, with the £30m signing from Manchester United very much failing to live up to his incredibly hefty price tag.

Indeed, over his 34 Premier League appearances in the current campaign, James has struggled to find any real level of form for the Whites, scoring four goals, registering four assists and missing eight big chances, as well as completing an average of just 9.9 passes, ceding possession of the ball 9.4 times and winning a mere 2.9 duels – at a success rate of 39% – per game.

These returns have seen the £16.2m-rated man who Darren Bent dubbed “headless” average an extremely disappointing SofaScore match rating of 6.64, ranking the 24-year-old as Jesse Marsch’s ninth-worst player in the top flight of English football.

As such, considering the fact that the £52k-per-week forward is now worth roughly 46% less than the £30m fee Orta paid for his services last summer, in addition to the fact that the Wales international has endured an incredibly torrid season at Elland Road, it is clear for all to see that the Spaniard had a nightmare when bringing James to the club.

AND in other news: Marsch must place trust in “unbelievable” Leeds sensation, he thrives “under pressure”

Like any club, Celtic will have been left to rue certain transfer decisions made over the years, with one such potential Parkhead blunder having been that of former Hoops defender, Jack Hendry.

Plucked from Dundee on a £1.5m deal on deadline day back in January 2018, the centre-back went on to fail to make his mark for the Old Firm outfit, making just 27 appearances in all competitions during his time in Glasgow.

That struggle to secure a more prominent role ultimately led to a loan move to Australian outfit Melbourne City in January 2020, only for the Scotsman to suffer a serious knee injury on just his second appearance for the A-League in what was another unwanted setback in his career.

Having fallen out of favour back at his parent club under Neil Lennon, the 6-foot-5 colossus was subsequently shipped off to Belgian side KV Oostende on loan for the 2020/21 campaign, with the hope of finally beginning to rebuild his career.

The one-time Wigan Athletic man managed to do just that as he went on to enjoy a fine season during that temporary stint abroad, having been voted the best player in Belgium as a result of his stunning displays by respected outlet Sport Voetbal.

That form saw Oostende opt to activate an option to buy to sign the Glasgow-born gem for a fee of around £1.75m – albeit with Transfermarkt suggesting that the deal was at little as £990k – with the Hoops potentially taking a loss on their initial investment.

The 17-cap brute was then swiftly moved on to fellow Pro League side Club Brugge that same summer, with Sky Sports reporter Anthony Joseph suggesting that the fee was large as £8.6m.

Having already suffered the blow of seeing their former asset sold on for a relatively hefty price tag, those at Celtic Park then had to witness Hendry blossom during his time at the Jan Breydel Stadium.

The central defender particularly caught the eye during the club’s Champions League voyage last season, notably managing to keep a Paris Saint-Germain forward line consisting of Kylian Mbappe, Neymar and Lionel Messi at bay in a 1-1 group stage draw.

He would go on to rack up 38 appearances in all competitions for the club during the 2021/22 campaign, including 29 league outings in which he won an impressive 68% of his aerial duels and won 66% of his total ground duels – with current Celtic man Carl Starfelt only recording 66% and 51% for the same two metrics, for example, in the league last term.

Somewhat surprisingly, the Scotland international has since been moved on loan to Serie A side Cremonese after slipping down the pecking order under new boss Carl Hoefkens, although that is seemingly not a fair reflection of what was an impressive campaign last time out.

The 27-year-old – who has been lauded as a “weapon” for his attacking threat by former boss Alexander Blessin – has also been handed a more regular role under Steve Clarke at international level of late, notably scoring in a 2-2 draw with Austria back in March.

A player who could well continue to thrive in Italy this season – and for his country – it looks as if the Hoops made a major mistake in letting him depart, particularly for such a small fee.

With regular appearances in ODIs and his recent show against Australia, Shami is proving to be an all-format asset

Shashank Kishore21-Jan-2020Jasprit Bumrah is feeling his way back into international cricket after a stress fracture. Bhuvneshwar Kumar is injured. Umesh Yadav isn’t an automatic pick in 50-overs cricket anymore. Ishant Sharma is a Test specialist. So whom does India turn towards for vital breakthroughs? Mohammed Shami, of course. Upfront with the new ball, his job is to pick wickets. In the middle overs, he does a containing job to allow Kuldeep Yadav and/or Yuzvendra Chahal to come into their own. At the death, with teams looking to play out Bumrah and capitalise at the other end, Shami comes into his own, spearing his yorkers at will and slicing through lower orders.Virat Kohli has been vocal about Shami’s presence in the white-ball set-up for his pace, yorkers and death bowling. His new-ball efforts have flown under the radar, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In the Rajkot ODI against Australia, he struck upfront in Australia’s steep chase of 341 to remove Warner, although the credit for that should entirely go to Manish Pandey’s athleticism. That was the only highlight for Shami in an otherwise forgettable first spell, where he went for plenty. But later, he rode on Bumrah’s brilliance to nip out the tail, removing Ashton Turner and Pat Cummins with searing yorkers, even though the game had gone beyond the visitors by then.Australia’s lower order of Alex Carey, Turner and Ashton Agar isn’t quite as intimidating as Carey, Glenn Maxwell and Marcus Stoinis. Turner was returning to ODIs after nine months, best remembered for his unbelievable 84 off 43 balls in Mohali last year that helped Australia pull off an incredible chase of 359. It proved to be a turning point in their series win last year. But against a rip-roaring Shami this time, Turner stood no chance because he had to attack from the outset. He was a split-second late and the off stump had been flattened. Ditto with Cummins. This was a clear case of one man softening the opposition with his hostility and another wiping them out.Mohammad Shami was on target at the death in the last two ODIs against Australia•ESPNcricinfo LtdA similar story panned out in the series decider in Bengaluru. Shami nailed his yorkers in the death overs again to remove Cummins and Zampa, even as Steven Smith waged a lone battle. It proved to be the difference between Australia getting 330 and finishing with 286. Death bowling was India’s game changer without doubt, but Shami left his mark much earlier when he removed Warner in the fourth over by getting one to swing back in and have him nick off. This was a classic Test match dismissal that busted any one-dimensional theory there may have been about Shami only being effective at the death.Bumrah may have finished the Australia series with just one wicket to Shami’s seven, but in building up pressure with his pin-point accuracy, he only aided Shami to nip them out at the other end. When in full flow, this is a modern-day bowling partnership to be savoured. And for that, Shami deserves almost as much credit as Bumrah.The changes in Shami’s work ethic and fitness have contributed a great deal to this resurgence. Between the 2015 World Cup and the start of 2019, when India toured Australia for a limited-overs series, Shami played a grand sum of five ODIs. His fitness wasn’t upto the mark, he used to build up steam at a leisurely pace, four good balls would invariably be followed by a boundary ball, and pressure wouldn’t be sustained. But in New Zealand, it all changed. He just let it rip. It’s become a sort of a pattern in his ODI career ever since.Since his ODI comeback in October 2018, Shami has picked up 52 wickets in 26 innings at an average of just under 25, strike rate around 26 and economy rate of under six. Nearly 40% of his dismissals have been bowled, six of them nailed into the blockhole. He is far from one-dimensional, or at least that is the perception around him in ODIs. Death bowling is simply another bow to his string. It allows him to derive confidence from his end-overs execution on days when he is taken for runs upfront, like Rajkot last week.Getty ImagesShami’s ODI rejuvenation began exactly a year ago in Napier, the ODI series opener. He busted all the shackles around him and let loose. Venom, bolt upright seam position, movement off the deck and all that in an incisive opening spell of 4-2-13-2 that set the tone for India’s 4-1 series win. Shami would finish with nine scalps – joint-most with Chahal – from four games at an economy rate of just 4.75.Bumrah’s absence made Shami’s impact all the more remarkable because India had then risked playing their spinners in grounds with short boundaries. And they cashed in on Shami’s brilliance. He kept threatening the stumps, moving the ball away to get batsmen nicking, hitting the seam to sneak through the gap between bat and pad.This was Shami unleashed, bowling without the fear of injuries, without the fear of having fluids sucked out of his ankles every day. His improved fitness, owing to his restriction of carbohydrates, weight training and bans on biryani, sweets and bread, all helping him pound in from get go. There wasn’t any real doubt about his skills, as much as there were question marks over him as an ideal package in ODIs, because Shami doesn’t quite have the slower variations or the knuckleball. He was either hell or high water.Associated PressPace and nip off the deck is his calling card, and with reverse swing – a major weapon in his arsenal taken away from the ODI game because of two new balls from both ends – he needed to reinvent himself going into the 2019 World Cup. He did, by delivering death-over masterclasses and thriving in situations where oppositions had to attack him because they would invariably look to play out Bumrah at the other end.He has been nipping out big wickets after the batsmen have played themselves into a hole by trying to play out the trump card at the other end, without realising Shami himself is one. These qualities helped him go all out at the World Cup, where he went from being in the reserves to a hat-trick hero and a bonafide match-winner.Against Afghanistan, he was designated to bowl the final over after Bumrah bowled the penultimate over, in which he delivered four yorkers that proved difficult to get away. This gave Shami 15 to defend off the final over to prevent an upset, and he did. How? By delivering yorkers of his own after getting tonked first ball for a four. Three of them, full fast and on the stumps with the ball moving in a tad late. The hat-trick was his, the match India’s. Bumrah’s pressure-soaking had made it possible for Shami to thrive. Against West Indies, he burst through the top order to leave his mark again.Kumar’s injury had given Shami a window, and that was enough for him to ransack the house. While little separated them statistically, Shami showed he was better suited to break partnerships in the middle overs and keep the pressure on. It has not often been India’s strength. Back those with his ability to deliver searing yorkers and surprise short balls with his extra pace, and he becomes lethal. Now as he heads back to New Zealand, he has a chance to prove his mastery in the shortest format too. With Kumar and Deepak Chahar injured, Shardul Thakur and Navdeep Saini just feeling their way in and Khaleel Ahmed far below in the pecking order, the field is open for Shami to become an all-weather specialist.

Beating Australia in Mirpur was historic, but was it really unexpected?

ESPNcricinfo staff30-Aug-2017Bangladesh are becoming a Test force at home
The second Test of last year’s Bangladesh-England series, in Dhaka, followed a similar trajectory to the Mirpur Test against Australia. Bangladesh scored just above 200 in the first innings before knocking over England’s top order cheaply. The lower order got England back into the game, but a strong second innings ensured Bangladesh set England 273 to chase, eight more than Australia had to in Mirpur. Bangladesh ended up winning that Test by 108 runs.In the series against England, Bangladesh proved they were a difficult team to play at home. In the first Test, despite losing the toss, they ran England close, and fell short by just 22 runs in the end.In their home series against South Africa in July 2015, Bangladesh took a first-innings lead before rain curtailed the first Test.ESPNcricinfo LtdAustralia have struggled in Asia
Australia impressed by pushing India when they toured there earlier this year, but that was an aberration. In the past five years, they have won just one and lost 12 of the 14 Tests they have played in Asia. They were whitewashed in Sri Lanka in 2016, by Pakistan in the UAE in 2014 and in India in 2013. When they last toured Bangladesh, in 2006, they scraped home by just three wickets in the first Test in Fatullah.ESPNcricinfo LtdBangladesh have the more experienced batsmen
While Bangladesh’s top six batsmen have played 199 Tests between them, Australia’s have played just 168. Only two of Australia’s top six – David Warner and Steven Smith – have played more than 50 Tests, while Tamim Iqbal, Shakib Al Hasan and Mushfiqur Rahim have each played more than 50 Tests for Bangladesh.The toss is crucial in Bangladesh
In the past five years, Bangladesh have lost at home just twice when they have won the toss. They have won the toss, batted first and won four times. So Bangladesh were favourites to win when they won the toss in Mirpur. On the flipside, when Bangladesh have lost the toss in the past five years, they have won just once and lost twice.

Plays of the day from the IPL match between Delhi Daredevils and Kings XI Punjab

Deivarayan Muthu15-Apr-2016Dropped and run out
That Zaheer Khan was playing his first competitive match in 11 months was apparent in Delhi Daredevils’ IPL opener against Kolkata Knight Riders. He was sluggish on the field against Kings XI Punjab too, but it somehow worked in his favour. Seeing Kings XI opener Manan Vohra aim for a big shot, left-arm spinner Pawan Negi slowed the ball down and deceived the batsman. The outside edge lobbed up but Zaheer, lumbering to his left from cover, could not catch it and the ball bounced towards the point boundary. Vohra and Vijay had completed a second run by this time and looked for a third. And Zaheer, with a little help from team-mate Karun Nair, outsmarted them. Zaheer under-armed the ball to Nair, who threw it flat and hard to the wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock to effect the run-out of Vijay for 1.Mishra does a Bravo
Dwayne Bravo had broken the back of Kings XI’s middle order on Monday by dismissing Glenn Maxwell and David Miller in one over with contrasting yorkers. On Friday, Amit Mishra, playing his 100th IPL match, repeated the feat. Mishra trapped Miller lbw with a skidder that pitched on leg stump, beat the sweep shot, and hit the batsman’s pad in front of middle. Maxwell then departed for a three-ball duck when he shovelled a tossed-up ball to Carlos Brathwaite at long-off.Morris also does a Bravo
Chris Morris hit speeds north of 140 kph consistently and unleashed pinpoint yorkers against a sinking Kings XI batting line-up. He began with an inducker, which zipped through Shaun Marsh’s defences. His fifth ball did the same, and pinged the batsman’s back boot. Morris belted out an appeal for lbw, but replays showed the ball had pitched marginally outside leg. The fast bowler finished his spell with a 146 kph yorker, but it was the slow yorker, clocked at 125 kph, à la Bravo, which caught the eye. Morris lobbed one up in the penultimate over of the innings and got it to dip late on Pardeep Sahu, who managed to jam it down the ground.Iyer’s misfortune
Shreyas Iyer was one of the reasons Dardevils went looking for unheralded talents at the IPL auction. He was pushed down to No. 3 and bagged a duck in his first game this season. Iyer’s bad luck continued despite a return to his opening position and Sandeep Sharma bowled an innocuous delivery down the leg side in the third over and Iyer tried to play a glance. There was a noise, and after a prolonged appeal the umpire adjudged Iyer caught behind. Snicko, however, picked up nothing.

Eden Park is not South Africa’s turf but on two days in another area, in another generation, in a different sporting code, it was. And that may be all they need to remember

Firdose Moonda23-Mar-2015New Zealand. South Africa. Eden Park. Big matches. Now the biggest. And the irony? It’s not even rugby.South Africa’s cricketers face the biggest challenge of their ODI careers when they take on New Zealand at the place their 1921 rugby side christened by playing the venue’s first rugby Test and their 1937 side won at to earn the title of the best team to leave New Zealand. The Springboks have not won at Eden Park since, and the cricketers have a superior record at the ground (three wins from seven completed matches compared to two from ten), but AB de Villiers will still want to take inspiration from the double World Cup winning rugby side as his men go in search of a first one.The Springboks built tournament success around their biggest names and brute force. Likewise, this is the occasion for the Proteas’ most potent players to step up.Hashim Amla, de Villiers and Dale Steyn have owned moments of games so far but have not needed to take it on themselves to single-handedly win a match. De Villiers’ record-breaking 162 was eye-catching but only served to rub salt in an openly wounded West Indies’ side. Amla’s century against Ireland could be regarded in much the same light.Both performances served to confirm the quality of the men producing them, they did not come in South Africa’s hour of real need. Steyn got closer to that when he played a role in opening up Sri Lanka but it was Imran Tahir’s wily weaving that did the rest. All three of these players are what Francois Pienaar, Victor Matfield and Bryan Habana are to the Springboks: the heart, the brain, the veins. They will have to decide which direction the blood should flow.But that does not mean individual brilliance cannot come from outside that circle. Jannie de Beer scored five drop goals in a quarter-final in 1999 to knock England out. South Africa will need a few wildcards and on that score they have everyone prepped. Five of the top six have scored centuries so far and the one who hasn’t, Quinton de Kock, is fresh of a redeeming half-century which justified the decision to stick with him even as he battled to find form.South Africa’s leading bowler is not Steyn. Tahir leads the charts, Morne Morkel is next. Between them, they are proving difficult for batsmen to get away and South Africa are holding out hope Vernon Philander will join that club. Philander has been battling a hamstring injury but has performances in New Zealand which surpass what he has done anywhere else where he has played at least five ODIs.Philander has an average of 16.12 in New Zealand and with that record in mind, South Africa will have to make their biggest call ahead of the crunch game: whether to go back to Philander or stick with Kyle Abbott. De Villiers called it a “difficult” selection so do not be surprised if South Africa do as the Springboks would have done when things get tricky and go back to what they know they can depend on.Trust has been the basis for a lot of Springbok success. The players have always backed each other to come good and the country has backed them because of it. The cricket team is trying to evoke that same sentiment.Already, they have shown an immense faith in their own abilities, so much so that a day before both their quarter-final and semi-final clashes, they have skipped training to concentrate on some of the other areas of preparation. The mental areas. The areas that can only be addressed away from the field. The areas that prompt hot heads to stay cool when all calm has dissipated.South Africa will need that. Their lids have been known to pop off when the pressure cooker gets too hot, but in the quarter-final they showed that is not always the case. Then, they were the ones controlling the temperature when they took early wickets and gave themselves an easier job than was anticipated. They may not be able to have as much of a say at Eden Park.It is not their turf even if they claim to have a solid understanding of its “unusual corners and angles,” as de Villiers put it. It is not their turf even if they know the short straight boundary was made for de Villiers and David Miller to clear. It is not their turf even though the dimensions even invite bowlers to hold back their lengths and the bouncer is one of South Africa’s weapons of choice. It is not their turf but on two days in another area, in another generation, in a different sporting code, it was. And that may be all they need to remember.New Zealand. South Africa. Eden Park. Big matches. The biggest and it’s cricket. You’d better believe it.

It would be wrong to presume England suffered too bad a day, they bowled well for much of it as they came up against a batting line-up less obliging and feeble

George Dobell at Old Trafford01-Aug-2013There will be those who look at the scoreboard from the first day of this game and presume it was the moment the Investec Ashes series turned.It is true that Australia, batting with a skill and resilience that has been absent from much of this series to date, took full advantage of winning the toss on a fine pitch and an increasingly clear blue sky. It is true that, on a surface which is expected to provide more assistance for spin bowlers as the game progresses, they have established a fine platform that could define the game.And it true, too, that there was a time, with the sun beating down, Stuart Broad off the pitch for treatment on his calf and Graeme Swann taking painkillers for a sore throat, when the flaws in England’s strategy were apparent and they appeared devoid of ideas in the field. A four-man attack has served England well, but it is an approach that will always leave them just a little vulnerable in case of injury, illness or on the flattest of pitches.But it would be wrong to read too much into this scoreline and it would be wrong to presume England endured too bad a day. On an excellent batting surface, Australia’s best batsman complied an impressive century and won good support from two colleagues. It was, by some distance, Australia’s best day of the series to date but, as Tim Bresnan put it: “I’m sure we would be in a similar position if we’d won the toss and batted. They’ve won the toss on a nice wicket with the sun out.”England actually bowled pretty well for much of the day. Swann, gaining surprising turn on a first day wicket, probably bowled better than at any time in the series, while Bresnan beat the outside edge on several occasions and Broad again bowled well without fortune. England might claim, with more than a little justification, some misfortune with at least three umpiring decisions, though they would have to admit an enormous slice of fortune with the wicket of Usman Khawaja.Most of all, England came up against a highly motivated Michael Clarke who provided a master-class in the art of batting against spin bowling. It is no disgrace to come second best in such circumstances.But this was not, by any means, a perfect performance from England. In searching for swing, the seamers were guilty of overpitching to Chris Rogers, in particular, while James Anderson, by his own high standards, was not at his best and conceded an uncharacteristic 13 fours in his 21 overs. In all England conceded 40 boundaries in the day’s 90 overs, more than would leave them comfortable.It wasn’t that they bowled worse than they had at Lord’s or Old Trafford. It was more that they came up against a batting line-up less obliging and feeble. As a consequence, there were times they looked a little flat and a little toothless.But that has happened before. Usually, in such circumstances, England “bowl dry” – their expression for cutting off the batsmen’s run-scoring options – and wear their opposition down with persistence and pressure. It was just that on this occasion they lacked the consistency to limit the run-scoring or build any pressure in quite the way they would have liked.Might a second spinner or extra seamer have helped? Of course. The extra bounce of Chris Tremlett or the variety of Monty Panesar might well have provided an edge the attack lacked through much of the day.But England’s policy of playing six specialist batsmen and Matt Prior at No. 7 has served them well and may yet prove vital in this game. Until they are able to select a Test quality allrounder – in due course, perhaps, Ben Stokes – they will have days when the tactic is slightly exposed.Both sides suffered with poor umpiring decisions during the day. While some may claim that the errors evened themselves out, such a laissez-faire attitude does not sit comfortably in the modern, professional game. Not only can individual’s careers be defined by such moments – Khawaja was the victim of a particularly feeble piece of work from a TV umpire whose reputation has been ruined by this series – but it brings too strong an element of chaos and chance into a meritocratic contest. A strong argument could be made to suggest the ICC should not be appointing neutral umpires, but simply the best.But England would be wise not hide behind such issues. While they may well have a point in claiming that Steve Smith, who could have been out half-a-dozen times before he reached 30, should have been given out caught behind off Anderson when on 18 and the subsequent loss of a review saw them denied the chance to overrule a clear leg before decision that went against them off the bowling of Broad when Smith had 24, they might also reflect that they have had the best of such decisions in the series to date. The truth is that both sides have suffered through poor umpiring.They would also be wise not to hide behind some problems with the footholds. Broad and Anderson, in particular, were inconvenienced by the crater created on the popping crease by their front feet. While the pitch is hard, the landing area is surprisingly soft and has crumbled under impact, leaving the ground uneven and uncomfortableBut these things happen. Coping with them is part of the lot of professional bowlers and, as Bresnan suggested, “you’ve just got to adjust. You’ve got to come in front of it or wide of it or whatever. It plays around with your rhythm a bit, but you have to use your experience and try not to land in that massive hole that someone else has created. It doesn’t affect you that much.”The best players don’t search for excuses, they search for answers. And, as was the case at times in India, there were times when Broad seemed a little more preoccupied with the former than the latter.Bresnan was content with England’s bowling performance and credited Clarke, in particular, for Australia’s success. “He played well,” Bresnan said. “He’s left the ball well. He’s identified that it’s a batting day – it’s not done a lot out there – and he’s got stuck in. The conditions were pretty good for batting.”But we’re quite pleased with the way we stuck in there. It’s not like we didn’t create chances. We passed the outside edge frequently and, on another day, those might have been nicks. Had the luck been with us, the plays and misses that we did get could have taken the outside edge and they could be six down.”We were expecting a fight. Every time you play against Australia you expect them to fight hard. Their backs are against the wall so why wouldn’t they push even harder back.”

Rajasthan’s bowlers were struggling in the early stages of the Ranji Trophy. Then Meyrick Pringle took over as the bowling coach and turned their fortunes around

Nagraj Gollapudi28-Dec-2011It was the final day of their penultimate league match and Rajasthan had just 72 overs to bowl Saurashtra out and claim the outright victory they needed to keep their dream of defending the Ranji Trophy title alive. The task before them was not easy one, with the likes of India batsman Cheteshwar Pujara and Shitanshu Kotak in the opposition batting line-up.It was then that Meyrick Pringle, Rajasthan’s short-term bowling coach, called a fast bowlers’ meeting. It was a first for Rajasthan’s fast men. Never before had such a meeting been called at such short notice.”He asked us to focus on the beginning,” Sumit Mathur, Rajasthan’s senior most fast bowler, recollects. “If we get a good start, we walk in with a positive mind, then we can win. If we could get two to three wickets in the first ten overs then we can dominate.”Pringle, a former South Africa fast bowler, put the responsibility for the opening breakthrough on Pankaj Singh, Rajasthan’s leading wicket-taker this season. Mathur, along with Rituraj Singh, who was making his debut at 21, were told to build pressure in the middle overs. The strategy worked beautifully.”Before the lunch break they had lost three wickets,” Mathur said. “Pringle asked us to play it by ear: if they attacked us, then we need to go slightly on the defensive. But they were on the defensive, then he stressed we had to attack the opposition more. The plan worked and Saurashtra came under pressure and collapsed.”Saurashtra were bundled out for 143 in 56.5 overs as Mathur picked up 6 for 33, the second-best figures of his career.In the final league game, Rajasthan demolished Orissa inside three days. Mathur took a five-for in the first innings while Rituraj picked up 6 for 75 to wrap up the match. The bonus point for an innings victory proved crucial, enabling Rajasthan to pip Saurashtra for the final spot in the quarter-finals.You can draw a distinct line between before Pringle joined Rajasthan and after. The defending champions had only four points from their first four games. In three of those matches, opponents had piled up 500-plus scores. Twice, against Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan had been forced to follow-on, indicating that the pitches had something in them for the bowlers. Somewhere, Rajasthan’s quicks were missing a trick.Pringle had arrived in Jaipur in February to coach at a private coaching academy. The offer from the Rajasthan Cricket Association (RCA) came unexpectedly, just days before the game against Punjab in the first week of December. In the preceding months, Pringle had learned how things were done in India. That made it easier for him to fit in with the Rajasthan dressing room. In addition, he had watched a few of Rajasthan’s home matches earlier in the season, so he had some knowledge of their fast bowlers.”My inputs were mostly on the technical and mental side of fast bowling,” Pringle said, hours before leaving for South Africa to celebrate Christmas with his family. “I just showed them and gave them inputs based on my experience at the first-class and international level.”In his first match as bowling coach, there was no evidence that Pringle had brought in a change of any sort. Playing in Jaipur, Punjab made 597 against a Rajasthan bowling attack comprising three fast bowlers: Pankaj, Mathur and Deepak Chahar. Between them they shared four wickets. Pankaj took a further two in Punjab’s second innings but Rajasthan gained just one point. Their ambitions of clinging to a place in the Elite group, which they had earned after much hard work the previous year, was now in danger.Pringle, though, had been focused on building camaraderie. “He built a good atmosphere. As a person he is very cool, calm and (very nice),” Mathur said. “He never made us realise there was a gap between us and him, a former international fast bowler. He treated as like a friend.”The first sign that the relationship was working came in the match against Saurashtra, who also needed a good result to bolster their chances of making the knock-outs. The visitors’ fast-bowling attack, comprising Jaydev Undakat, Siddharth Trivedi and Sandeep Maniar took all 10 wickets as Rajasthan made 396. It was clear that the pitch was conducive for seam movement. Pankaj lead Rajasthan’s response with a five-wicket haul and received good support from Mathur and Rituraj, who took two wickets each. Rajasthan eventually set their opponents a target of 373. Mathur then finished the job.

“It was bundled up in their mind that they had to perform and people are watching them, the defending champions. It was a mental block.”

According to Pringle, who shot to fame with a spectacular performance in the group match against West Indies in the 1992 World Cup, he wanted to focus on the simple things given his limited time with the team. “There were some useful things they needed to take into the game and learn which they did not have and now they do and that added quite a lot of value to their bowling.”However, he first had to get them to forget their start to the season. “Because of the season Rajasthan had in the beginning, the fast bowlers thought they had not performed,” Pringle said. “It was bundled up in their mind that they had to perform and people are watching them, the defending champions. It was a mental block.”Pringle, who has coached like the Netherlands and Namibia in the past, also noticed that the fast bowlers were training hard. “They train a lot more here in India than in South Africa. They tend to put too much pressure on themselves.” So he told the bowlers to relax and enjoy themselves. “They were very tense in the early part of the season. They thought they had to take wickets and win games quickly because other people were knocking on the doors to take their place. So I worked on their psychology.”As for the technical stuff, it was mostly minor fixes. “Mathur was not following through properly at times,” Pringle said. “At time he used to bowl at 80% and not 100%. It just needs someone to stand up or clap a hand or give a signal that ball was not 100% and mentally recharge him.”As for Rituraj, Pringle said he has problems with his front foot but they are being addressed. Aniket Chaudhary, a left-arm fast bowler out of the Jaipur Cricket Academy, is working hard with Rituraj. “I tend to push him a lot but he has a good future if he continues in the same vein.”Pankaj’s problems, on the other hand, were medical. Pringle has told him to sit out the domestic 50-over tournament that starts in February to let his knees heal. “He can only get better from where he is now,” Pringle said. “He has to follow the programmes, the eating habits and he will definitely get better. Once he follows the programme and takes a break to sort his knees I am confident Pankaj can easily add another 20-25 kph to his speed.”All three bowlers said Pringle had made a difference. “Many times you forget the basics,” Mathur said. “You then need someone like Pringle to point out the minor things, essential in those moments, to get back on the track.”Having played for some time we have the idea where to pitch the ball and such. But there are small, minor things that need to be pointed out from time to time, which is what Pringle did. For example when you take two or three quick wickets you tend to get over excited at times. He has stressed that on such occasions you have to stay calm and continue bowling [the same way]. And he taught us how to use the angles and how best to use the crease to create good angles.” Pringle is pleased with the “vast” improvement he has seen in Rajasthan’s fast bowlers and would be keen to come back if the RCA offers him for a long-term contract.For the moment, though, the man who turned around Rajasthan’s fortunes is happily enjoying a family holiday in Port Elizabeth.

The nature of pitches in the Champions Trophy meant that batsmen, fast bowlers and spinners all had a chance to shine

S Rajesh06-Oct-2009The 2009 Champions Trophy was billed as a tournament which could decide the future of one-day cricket. Going by what most captains had to say, the event was a resounding success: the short duration of the tournament helped, as did the type of pitches, which gave the bowlers more of a chance than conditions in most parts of the world for one-day cricket. The overall numbers for the competition reflect the same: 214 wickets fell in 15 matches – an average of 14 per game – at an average of 30.36. The average runs per over was 5.05, which means the average 50-over score in the tournament was 253 for 8 (rounded off to the nearest whole number). That score suggests both batsmen and bowlers had opportunities to make a mark.There were five scores of more than 300 – England, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Pakistan and South Africa all managed to pass that mark – while three times teams were bundled out for less than 150 (West Indies (twice) and England).

While the overall numbers were impressive, the tournament still failed to provide the kind of thrillers one would have expected from a competition in which several teams seemed so evenly matched. Looking at the margins of wins in the 15 games, it’s obvious that most of them weren’t close. Three matches were won by a margin of 50 or more runs, with Sri Lanka’s 55-run victory against South Africa being the highest. The next was Pakistan’s 54-run win against India, while Australia beat West Indies by 50.Overall, though, teams batting second had the advantage, winning nine out of 14 games which produced results, including both semi-finals and the final. Of those nine wins, most were pretty comfortable ones, both in terms of wickets in hand and balls remaining. Seven games were won by five or more wickets, of which only one, New Zealand’s semi-final win against Pakistan, came with less than three overs to spare. The only really close game of the tournament was Australia’s two-wicket, last-ball win against Pakistan in Centurion.

Australia were involved in the most tense game of the competition, but they also ensured the semis and final ended up being quite one-sided. Their batting average of 47.16 was by far the highest of all teams, while the bowling average was bettered by only one team. The two leading run-scorers in the tournament were both Australians, but the bowlers were slightly hampered by the fact that they bowled in one less innings than the other teams, as their match against India was washed out.What’s also striking about the table below, though, is how closely the teams are bunched. Apart from West Indies and Australia, all teams had batting averages between 28 and 34, and run rates between 4.84 and 5.61. (The highest run-rate, ironically, belonged to South Africa.)Among the bowling sides, Sri Lanka struggled the most, with only 18 wickets in three games. Muttiah Muralitharan had one of his worst tournaments, taking one wicket at an average of 106 and an economy rate of 5.88, and that hit the team badly. West Indies were awful with the bat but did themselves no dishonour with the ball, with an average that was better than two other teams. Three of their bowlers – Nikita Miller, Gavin Tonge and Darren Sammy finished with sub-four economy rates.

The batting PowerplaysOne of the aspects of team strategies that was analysed closely throughout the tournament – and which will undoubtedly be scrutinised further over the coming weeks – was the use of batting Powerplays. Experts went hoarse trying to urge teams to take them relatively early, when a strong partnership was in progress, but most times teams preferred to wait till they were closer to the final overs.In the 15 matches, the batting Powerplay was taken 26 times (three times it wasn’t taken by the team chasing – England against Sri Lanka, and Pakistan and India against West Indies – while India didn’t get to bat at all against Australia). Of these 26, on nine occasions the batting team took it after 44 or 45 overs. Only three times did teams take it before the 30th, and on two of those instances the batting team was forced into taking it – West Indies collapsed so quickly against Pakistan and India that they had no option but to take them. The only other instance was by New Zealand against England, when they smartly opted for it in the 11th over to take advantage of a blazing start after Andrew Strauss had declined to take the fielding Powerplay. That was the only instance of the batting Powerplay being taken before the fielding one.

Overall, the Powerplays yielded an average of 7.71 runs per over, and slightly less than 21 runs per wicket.

Among the eight teams, Australia used the batting Powerplays the best, averaging more than ten per over and losing only two wickets during this period. They scored 69 in those five overs against West Indies, the most by any team. (The only other side to get more than 60 was New Zealand, who blasted 61 against Sri Lanka.) Fittingly, Australia ended their semi-final and final with a flurry of big hits in the batting Powerplays, scoring 28 from 11 balls against England and 12 from two against New Zealand.New Zealand and Sri Lanka didn’t do badly either, but Pakistan were disappointing, averaging only slightly more than seven per over and losing nine wickets during this period. India only used the Powerplays once, losing four for 16 against Pakistan.Australia were also excellent with the ball when their opponents took the batting Powerplay – they took nine wickets during this period, the joint-highest with South Africa, and conceded only 6.40 runs per over. New Zealand, on the other hand, struggled to take wickets, managing only one in 105 deliveries they bowled, for a bowling average of 137. Sri Lanka conceded nearly ten per over, while West Indies leaked 69 against Australia on the only occasion they were forced to bowl during the batting Powerplay.

Pace and spinThe nature of pitches can be further gauged from the fact that both fast bowlers and spinners did reasonably well. Spinners were slightly more economical, while fast bowlers had a slightly better average.