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As Steven Smith and Mitchell Marsh marched on the thought dawned that, while England require 16 more wickets to win this match, you wonder if they’ll take 16 more in the series

George Dobell in Perth16-Dec-20173:14

Vaughan: No swing, no seam, no spin, no express pace

And people wonder why they drink.It must have been days like this that persuaded Douglas Jardine to adopt the Bodyline approach. Days like this when the seeming inevitability of Don Bradman’s vast scores persuaded Jardine to try something different. Days like this that persuaded Joseph Conrad to write and Edvard Munch to paint.Unfortunately for Joe Root, he has no Harold Larwood or Bill Voce to enforce the tactics employed by Jardine. He has no spinner like Hedley Verity, either. And while it may be stretching a point to compare Steven Smith to Don Bradman, the basic principle is the same: Australia have developed a batsman who, in these conditions at least, renders their bowlers impotent. Really, for much of this series, it’s been like trying to kill an elephant with insults.We can pick fault with some of England’s tactics – the use of one slip at the start of the day, the lack of short balls, the one maiden in the first session – but it’s doubtful any of that would have made a difference. It is increasingly hard to avoid the conclusion that Australia are simply better than England. And in Smith, in particular, they have a player for which England have no answer. He’s just too good for them. They have been outplayed.The most depressing aspect of the day from an England perspective was the apparent inevitability of proceedings. The tactics that have at least slowed Smith on previous grounds could never work on this pitch and with this outfield. Instead it seemed England’s only hope was that, one day, Smith would grow old and retire.In such circumstances, any criticism of the England attack should be measured. There was no lack of effort from any of them. Craig Overton deserves a special ‘mention in dispatches’ for playing on despite a cracked rib but really, nobody can ask more for them than their best, and they gave that. And, as James Anderson and Stuart Broad got through 57 overs between them without taking a wicket – a record for them – the thought dawned that, while England require 16 more wickets to win this match, you wonder if they’ll take 16 more in the series. Really, Burke and Wills had a better trip through Australia than England’s bowlers. They just haven’t been good enough.Overloaded overseas

Overs bowled by England in eight most recent overseas Tests
162 – Rajkot
129.4- Vizag
138.2 – Mohali
182.3 -Mumbai
190.4 – Chennai
130.3 – Brisbane
148 – Adelaide
152* – Perth
Average of 155 overs before Perth.

Those bowlers might well be forgiven for looking at their batsmen, however, and asking: ‘You only managed 400? On THIS?’ England’s total of 403 looked about 403 too few by lunch on day three and, bearing in mind they reached 368 for 4 on day two, they should feel they let a chance slip.England’s issue – one of England’s issues – is that they have a glut of fast-medium seam and swing bowlers in a land where pace rules. Like being violinists in a war zone, they found their subtle skills irrelevant at a time when henchmen were required. Anderson is an artist but, if you want to knock down a wall, a violin isn’t much use. Sometimes you need a hammer.There are few simple answers for England. There are no fit fast bowlers lurking in the shadows of county cricket who would have made a difference here. Yes, the likes of Olly Stone, George Garton and Jamie Overton are promising. But two of them are still recovering from injury and Garton is still at the stage of his career where he may slip a beamer in between the yorkers. While Mark Wood and Liam Plunkett are more viable options, it might be remembered that Wood underwhelmed with his pace in two Tests against South Africa while Plunkett featured in just two Championship games for Yorkshire in 2017 and is not considered fit enough for a Test by the England management.If England really want to avoid days like these – and days like these are happening rather too often at present (even before this, they had bowled an average of 155 overs in the first innings of their most recent seven overseas Tests – see table) to be dismissed as an aberration – they have to look at the underlying reasons. They have to reflect on the marginalisation of the County championship campaign which has diminished the need to produce fast bowlers and spinners (why bother with such skills, if 70mph medium-pacers can hit the seam and bowl unplayable deliveries?), they have to look at the lack of technical coaching throughout the English game and look at why Bluffborough, for all the millions invested in it, produces nothing but jobs for former players.Really, if all the money pumped into Bluffborough had instead been spent on donkey sanctuaries in Suffolk, English cricket would be no worse off. And donkeys in Suffolk could wear tiaras and Gucci saddles.But you know this already. And the ECB know this already. But their priority – not entirely unreasonably – is T20 cricket which they see as the vehicle for growth in the game. While they insist that a mid-season window is an essential part of that agenda, while they prefer coaches who won’t rock the boat to those that could engender change, any success abroad is going to be rare.Amid such barren displays, it might be unfair to highlight the performance of one bowler. And it is true, Broad bowled no worse than anyone else and there are no obvious replacements that are better than him. As ever, really, he ran in hard, he put the ball in good areas and he demanded respect. It’s a long, long time since he bowled poorly in a Test.But we have to set the bar a little higher than that. And all the evidence suggests Broad’s ability to shape games would appear to be diminishing. His last five-wicket haul came in Johannesburg in January 2016 and his last four-wicket haul in November 2016. In 2017, his bowling average in Test cricket is 38.28 and his best bowling figures are 3 for 34. That is not a small sample size.There are some caveats. Broad has suffered more than most through dropped catches – 11 went down off him during the two Test series in the English summer of 2017 – but, bowling on the same surfaces with the same new ball, Anderson has taken his Test wickets in 2017 at a cost of 17.63.There’s been an element of denial about some of Broad’s comments in recent times. When he now says he was never really one for swinging the ball, he swung it enough when taking 8 for 15 against this side in 2015. And when he says he was never one for generating outright pace, he looked pretty sharp when he took 6 for 50 against them in Durham in 2013. The truth is, he has lost just a bit of pace and just a bit of his ability to move the ball away from the right-hander. As a consequence, he isn’t the bowler he once was.He’s no scapegoat for this performance, though. For it wasn’t the English team that was thrashed around the WACA, it was the English system.

The problem of suspect actions has plagued Bangladesh cricket right through its history, and the BCB remains slow to respond to it

Mohammad Isam21-Apr-2016If it hadn’t been for the international sanctions on Taskin Ahmed and Arafat Sunny during the World T20, the BCB, by its own admission, would not have taken suspicious bowling actions seriously. The Dhaka Premier Division Cricket League, the domestic one-day tournament that begins on Friday, is the first chance to take a look at the problem but the board has not created its proposed bowlers’ review committee yet, and remains relaxed in letting bowlers with illegal actions play in the competition.There is talk of including a board director, a coach and an umpire in the committee, but the BCB has so far only circulated the draft regulations among the board directors. Upon approval, the BCB CEO Nizamuddin Chowdhury said, “the committee will be formed in two to four days”. Apart from this delay, questions have been raised about the permission given to Taskin, Sunny and Sanjit Saha, the offspinner reported during the Under-19 World Cup, to play in the domestic tournament before their bowling actions have been approved even by the BCB.Taskin and Sunny have been training with their respective clubs since the April 10 players draft, meaning they have had little time to work on their actions. The board hasn’t yet mentioned when either of the duo will be prepared to undergo their second bowling-action assessment. Taskin has mentioned recently that he will need eight to ten weeks to get ready, while nothing of the kind has been heard from or about Sunny. Sanjit is said to have worked hard with a local coach without making much progress.But the problem of suspicious actions is not new to Bangladesh, and isn’t limited to these three bowlers. For decades, illegal bowling actions have plagued the domestic competitions, where a lack of technical knowledge, and technology, has hampered proper analysis.Only after Bangladesh gained Test status in 2000 did the BCB discover that some of its bowlers had kinks in their arms. Just two months after Bangladesh’s inaugural Test, the then captain Naimur Rahman, an offspinner, and left-arm spinner Mohammad Rafique were reported by the ICC. In 2004, it was another left-arm spinner, Abdur Razzak, who was reported for a suspect action. He was suspended from bowling in December 2008, before the ICC was satisfied with his action within four months. In 2014 it was Sohag Gazi and Al-Amin Hossain who were suspended and had their bowling bans upturned after successful second assessments.In domestic cricket, hardly any bowler has had to suffer a prolonged suspension due to a suspect action. The BCB had worked with a few bowlers in 2007 but there was no procedural follow-up. Though umpires have reported bowlers from time to time, the BCB has not taken any concerted action.BCB director Khaled Mahmud, the former national captain who is now the Bangladesh manager as well as Abahani’s head coach, said the board should have taken suspicious bowling actions seriously at least three years ago. “There has been work with suspect bowlers in the past but we should have continued with it,” he said. “It would have created a system, possibly we could have built the lab that we are now thinking of. I think now these things will get implemented.”Nazmul Abedeen, the BCB’s national game development manager and an experienced coach who has worked with bowlers with suspect actions, said performance is often given more importance than technique in domestic cricket, resulting in more bowlers getting ahead by gaining an undue advantage with suspect actions.”I think we have been putting a lot of emphasis on performers, without always checking their bowling action,” Abedeen said. “I think many bowlers with suspect action get advantage over those with cleaner actions, and when they perform, they get selected. I think this is a lesson for us, and we should take it very seriously.”Soon after Taskin and Sunny were slapped with suspensions during the World T20, the BCB went up in arms. It demanded a review of Taskin’s ban while also realising the problem back home. Nazmul Hassan, the BCB president, said last month that the bowling review group would be created soon.”In our domestic cricket we don’t concentrate much with our bowling action that’s why many players fall in trouble in international cricket,” he said. “We have to review our players’ bowling actions. We are creating a group who will monitor these bowlers so that we don’t get in trouble in international cricket.”With the final domestic tournament of 2015-16 about to get underway, the proposal still only exists on paper.

Adam Milne’s stunning boundary catch, Tim Southee’s searing yorker to Moeen Ali, Brendon McCullum’s hitting – there was plenty of action in Wellington

George Dobell and George Binoy in Wellington20-Feb-20151:20

‘Cake Tin defeat take the cake’

The ball
There was little swing and Moeen Ali had just hit three successive boundaries off him, but Tim Southee was not to be denied. After delivering a sharp bouncer to start the over – a little reminder to Moeen that he couldn’t just wait on the front foot – he delivered a perfect yorker two balls later. Swinging late, it punished Moeen for his lack of foot movement – perhaps due to that bouncer – and swung past the edge to hit off stump. It was probably the pick of a spell that also included wonderful deliveries to account for Ian Bell and James Taylor.The field
Brendon McCullum provided warm words towards his “champion” friend, Eoin Morgan, ahead of the match. But when the England captain came to the crease, McCullum went in for the kill. Looking around the field, Morgan would have seen three slips, a gully, a point and a short cover when Trent Boult bowled to him. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t a power-play period, McCullum knew that Morgan was in poor form and sensed a chance to cut deep into England’s middle-order. It was a moment that typifies the aggressive, unconventional approach of McCullum and a far cry from England’s formulaic method.The six
There were arguably more people wearing orange – the Dutch might have felt at home here – than any other colour in the crowd. All of them hoping a six would come their way and that they would catch it one-handed to earn a slice of a million-dollar pie. While England kept them waiting in vain for 33.2 overs, McCullum delivered second ball. With lightning hands he slashed, carving the ball high and far over point. It wasn’t caught one-handed by an orange-wearing fan, though.The save
Daniel Vettori is the old man in this New Zealand side so the sprints across the outfield and the crazy diving that his team-mates perform with nonchalance may not be for him anymore. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t save runs in the field. McCullum had sprinted in from mid-off to short cover and he swung around after picking up to try and run out Joe Root with a stinging throw. He missed, but Vettori was good enough to get to the stumps quickly and solid enough to collect the ball behind his body. England might have got five otherwise.The catch
Morgan had just punched Vettori towards long-on. Only the ball didn’t get that far because McCullum flew from midwicket and stopped the ball after it had already passed him. So Morgan decided to take McCullum out of the equation four deliveries later and lofted the ball straight towards the sight-screen, only to encounter another flying Kiwi. Adam Milne sped to his right from the boundary and timed his full-length dive to perfection to catch the England captain with both hands.The rule
With New Zealand requiring only 12 more runs to win and their batsmen going like a train – they were scoring at 12.44 runs per over – the game stopped for the interval. While common sense – and respect for the paying spectator – cried out fore the game to be played to an immediate conclusion, there is little room for common sense within the playing conditions. Instead the packed house was forced to wait for 45 minutes, by which time many people had gone home and a great deal of the atmosphere built by McCullum’s magnificent stroke-play had dissipated. Only in cricket….There are reasons, of course. In some circumstances it might have rained a few minutes into the break and England might have escaped with a point; Pakistan benefited similarly in the 1992 World Cup. But on a bright day with the weather set fair and the atmosphere building to a peak, it was a frustrating delay for the spectators.

Sri Lanka was Russell Domingo’s fact-finding mission and he seems to have discovered how much South Africa has to do to become contenders for the forthcoming ICC tournaments

Firdose Moonda08-Aug-2013Like Russell Domingo, Gary Kirsten lost his first ODI series in charge of South Africa. It was not as dramatic a defeat: 2-1 to Australia at home with AB de Villiers out injured in his first series as captain and Hashim Amla reluctantly leading in his place compared to a 4-1 drubbing courtesy of Sri Lanka away with de Villiers looking as though he cannot handle being captain anymore and senior players such as Graeme Smith and Dale Steyn recovering from niggles.Unlike Domingo, Kirsten was all smiles in the aftermath. He said the series was merely about getting players “game-ready,” ahead of Tests, which was ultimately Kirsten’s major focus. Domingo wore a stern look and issued a surprisingly strong criticism of his team.Sri Lanka was his fact-finding mission and he seems to have discovered how much South Africa has to do to become a team that can realistically challenge for an ICC trophy in Bangladesh next year and Australia and New Zealand in 2015. Before anyone could ask Domingo about what he has learnt, he delivered a soliloquy answering questions about everything from the opening partnership to the inability to take wickets in the middle overs. The seriousness he showed was best-summed up in one simple statement, “We were found wanting in those conditions.”Apart from a brief visit to Sri Lanka for the World T20 last year, South Africa had not toured the island since 2006. The seven-year gap meant the only members of the squad to have played an ODI in the country prior to this tour were Robin Peterson and JP Duminy. Turning tracks, heat and noisy crowds are not new concepts to any cricketers but they were foreign to many of those on this tour and combined with inexperience, they proved intimidating as well.”Sri Lanka is a hell of a tough place to tour. The record shows that more experienced sides have gone there and been turned over,” Domingo said. “And it has highlighted shortcomings in that format that we need to address going forward.”In short: all of them. That would suggest a major overhaul of South Africa’s current structures but Domingo emphasised he did not want to dump his chargers onto the used pile. “All the players that are there are not bad players, they just had a tough tour,” he said. “I can’t see too many drastic, dramatic changes. Unless somebody does what Quinton de Kock did and smashed down the door, I’m happy with the group of players I’ve got.”De Kock caught the national selectors’ eyes with his form at Under-19 level and by finishing in the top five run-scorers in the 2011-12 domestic T20 competition and his ability to also keep wicket saw him fast-tracked into the South African side. While he has showed promise and even improved, it’s likely the “exciting player who is still learning his trade,” may be sent back to the franchise system to hone his skills.The 20-year old was one half of a problematic opening partnership that also rotated between Colin Ingram, Alviro Petersen and Amla in the ODIs and Henry Davids in the T20s. South Africa went the entire eight-match tour without a single first-wicket stand of 50-plus.Domingo identified not having Amla fit for all the ODIs and missing Smith as one cause for that failing. But he also blamed those that were used for not being able to grab their opportunities. “The players who did come in did not cement a place and did not make the impacts we were hoping for,” he admitted. Amla will retain his position there but it seems clear Domingo is hopeful of Smith’s return to add stability.Domingo did bring in a degree of consistency by sticking to a middle order throughout the series which saw JP Duminy at No.3, de Villiers at 4 and Faf du Plessis at 5 throughout the tour. The trio initially struggled for runs with Duminy coming good in both formats, de Villiers scoring a half-century in the final ODI and du Plessis doing the same in the last T20.They lacked fluency together which left the middle order at the mercy of Sri Lanka’s spinners. “It was a massive problem for us and the lack of experience was highlighted. There were times when our middle order was exposed against their quality spinners under those testing conditions,” Domingo said.De Villiers said he “does not have to panic,” about his lack of runs because he “felt in good form,” while du Plessis admitted he was weighed down by his inability to contribute with the bat. “I’m at that stage where I want to performing for South Africa consistently and it was a tough time,” du Plessis said. “We needed to pull each other through the tour.”The bowlers faced exactly the same dilemma. On surfaces which required a different set of skills to what they are used to – slower balls, cutters and spin as opposed to bouncers on spicy surfaces at home – they were unable to find lengths at first, never mind wickets. With 58 wides bowled in the ODIs, Domingo said that was one of the biggest disappointments. “As South Africans, we pride ourselves on being meticulous and in the way we plan. It was unacceptable the way we started.”But he was also concerned that they allowed Sri Lanka’s batsmen to settle in because there was an “inability to take wickets after the new ball had been used.” Domingo bracketed overs 15 to 35 in which South Africa took just ten wickets across the five matches.Their bowling improved in the T20s, with the inclusion of both Wayne Parnell and Imran Tahir and Domingo indicated both have made cases for consideration in other formats. “Wayne is an x-factor player and he is as strong as he has ever been,” he said. He added that the legspinner has “massive value to add.”Many critics questioned why Tahir did not play the ODI series but Domingo explained he had to “be fair.” With Peterson and Aaron Phangiso the most recent spinners to play for South Africa, Domingo said it would have been “grossly unfair,” to allow Tahir to usurp one of them, without giving them a chance to continue in the role first.His decision in that regard shows that under him, the players can always be assured they will get a decent run to prove what they can do but they should also expect a thorough critique of their efforts during their time.

Plays of the Day for the third day of the second Test between Bangladesh and Pakistan

Siddarth Ravindran19-Dec-2011The missed stumping
On Sunday, Shakib Al Hasan had been within sight of breaking the record for the highest individual Test score by a Bangladesh batsman but didn’t after being run-out due to a poor call from his captain Mushfiqur Rahim. He had shuffled off yesterday after several angry glares at Mushfiqur. There was more reason for him to be displeased with Mushfiqur on Monday. Shakib had Taufeeq Umar, on 56, playing for the arm ball when it actually spun past the pads. Mushfiqur collected and was so sure then was an edge that he jumped up-and-down in appeal without accepting the stumping chance on offer.The bouncer -1
It had been a tough day for Shahadat Hossain, repeatedly overstepping as he strived for pace. He couldn’t get the ball to jag around, and the batsmen dealt with him comfortably despite the high-decibel grunts that showed the effort he was putting into each delivery. He finally got one ball to lift sharply, a perfectly directed bouncer at Taufeeq. Even though Taufeeq was well past 100, he couldn’t get out of the way, and the ball struck his helmet just above the ear, before trickling away for a four towards third man. And to Shahadat’s dismay, it was a front foot no-ball, which meant a total of five runs against his name.The bouncer-2
While Nasir Hossain is a handy bowler in one-dayers, he isn’t quite as effective in first-class matches. He normally bowls offspin, and when he was tossed the ball in the 72nd over, the move nearly worked as the in-form Younis Khan whipped a catch towards deep midwicket, only for it to be dropped. When the second new ball was taken, the quicks had it seaming around, prompting Bangladesh to call on Nasir again, this time to try some medium-pace. The speed was nowhere near express, but when Misbah-ul-Haq casually drove him past mid-on for four, Nasir responded with the usual fast bowlers’ retort – a bouncer. Misbah evaded it, and grinned at the impudence of attempting a 116kph bouncer.The breakthrough
By the third session, Bangladesh’s fielding was ragged, the bowling flat and Pakistan’s batsmen looking forward to a pile of runs. They were buoyed though through a testing spell of quick bowling from Nazmul Hossain. The high point was the wicket of the well-set Taufeeq. First Nazmul had Taufeeq searching for the ball outside off as it nipped away off the seam, and two balls later he induced the outside edge to second slip, ending Taufeeq’s innings on 130.

Spectators were left watching an empty playing field at Lord’s as players constantly took the light, which isn’t doing the game any favours

Andrew Miller at Lord's16-May-2008

What on earth can the unconverted have made of the nonsense that was played out at Lord’s today? Five thousand miles away in India, the realisation has dawned that cricket is a spectacle to be enjoyed, and as an upshot, we have the lights, glitz, cheerleaders, and non-stop action of the Indian Premier League. That tournament is an abomination in the minds of many traditionalists, and yet, at least it can be said that those who turn up to each match get their money’s worth. This evening in Mumbai, for instance, the Kolkata Knight Riders were bundled out for 67, and the game was done and dusted in 17 swishes of Sanath Jayasuriya’s bat. It’s not cricket, perhaps, but it’s undoubtedly entertainment.All such fripperies have been stripped away for this series, and rightly so, because Test cricket doesn’t need to be dressed up to the nines to be riveting. It does, however, need to played to be enjoyed, and for the 26,000 punters who sat through the gloom at Lord’s today, there was nothing on offer but frustration in the freezing cold. The average price of a seat at Lord’s is £65, and yet for vast swathes of the day, those who had coughed up did nothing more than stare at an idle hovercover, as 41.3 overs were lost – in five infuriating batches – to cricket’s most curse-worthy blight, bad light.It was desperate to witness – it was almost as if Test cricket, like some brilliant but bloodyminded grandparent, had decided that obstinacy was the best way to win an argument. Barely a year has gone by since the single biggest light-related fiasco in the history of cricket, and ironically, the circumstances then were entirely opposite to those that we have witnessed today. On that occasion, at the World Cup final in Barbados, the players were ushered back out in unplayable pitch-black conditions, to contest a match that was well and truly over.Now, 13 months on, a match in its formative stages has been halted repeatedly and without any valid reason. The blame lies not so much with the umpires who were booed throughout the day, but with Law 3.9, redrafted in 2003, which is a shambles. The first three of its six subclauses all refer to some nebulous concept of unsuitability, which goes undefined until the umpires have taken their first light-meter readings. The agreement of both captains is required to over-rule them – something that will almost never happen in high-stakes world of Test cricket – and it is only at clause 3.9.d, halfway down the ream of regulations, that any mention of players’ safety comes into consideration. By that stage, however, the players have long been tucked into the pavilion.It’s an unsatisfactory state of affairs, and one that has to be addressed at the highest levels of the game, because Test cricket does not deserve to be mocked in such a way – and nor, in the cricket’s current climate, can it afford to be. In his Cricinfo Talk column, David Lloyd, a former umpire himself, suggested that 99% of bad light calls are made for tactical reasons alone. Safety, he added, shouldn’t come into it except in extreme cases. “This is a big boys game,” he said. “It’s a hard ball, and part of the thrill is the contact with the ball. The hurt. That element of danger is part of the drama.”There wasn’t a lot of drama in evidence today, but nor was there any danger either. Jacob Oram battled hard for his two-and-a-half hour 28, but admitted at the close that personal safety was far from his thoughts during the breaks in play: “When it gets dark, sooner or later one might just have your name on it, if you don’t pick it up right, or you don’t quite see it quite in time,” he said. “But I don’t think it got to that point when the batsman couldn’t see it at all. I don’t think it was quite that dangerous.”In fact, for Oram, the real frustration came when he was bowling. During the Hamilton and Wellington Tests in March, England scarcely managed to get Oram’s bowling off the square, but today he was milked for 15 runs in five stop-start overs. “I found it tough today,” he admitted. “We went off for the first light break, warmed up again, then went off, then came back on, then went off for an early tea. We had a five-minute warm-up afterwards, only for the umpires to say, “not now”, so I cooled down again and was sitting around for 30-40 minutes. Then I came straight back into it without even a five-minute warning. It was pretty tough to get the body going and into the game.”And yet, by the end of the day, with England coasting along on 68 for 0, he admitted that being off the field was “a godsend”, which is hardly surprising given how shot to bits his rhythm must have been. “They got away from us a bit and the momentum was totally with them at the end,” he said. “I’m not surprised they took the light though. There’s a lot of the game left and to be honest, it was quite dark. We were having trouble in the field picking it up, though that could have been because of the background with lots of black or grey coats.”In between the irritations, Ryan Sidebottom was the pick of England’s bowlers with four wickets for five runs. “They came off so why shouldn’t we?” was his opinion of the lost overs, which is fair enough, because it’s not his job to judge the conditions in which the game is played. But it’s a pretty sad state of affairs nonetheless. Couldn’t someone, somewhere, have suggested they should both crack on regardless?The richest irony may yet arrive during Saturday’s play, for which the weather is expected to be cold, wet and miserable. Lord’s has done its utmost to combat the vagaries of the English summer, and last year, the decision to invest £1.25 million in a state-of-the-art drainage system paid off in a single afternoon, as the super-absorbent outfield mopped up the entire contents of the Brahmaputra River, after a deluge on the Friday of the first Test against India. What’s the betting that more overs are squeezed in amid the showers tomorrow than were managed on a bone-dry day today?Maybe the next time the dark clouds roll over, one of the MCC committeemen could lob the umpires one of the pink balls that were trialled here earlier in the season. Or perhaps England’s kit suppliers, adidas, could bring out a fluorescent range to replace the “brilliant white” togs that the players have been donning in this game. Anything to aid them in seeing what’s going on out there, and get on with a game that, today, stood still for far too long.

Cricket South Africa took the decision anticipating protests targeting Teeger for his pro-Israel comments last year

ESPNcricinfo staff12-Jan-2024David Teeger has been relieved of the South Africa Under-19 captaincy a week before the World Cup over concerns for his safety following his comments in support of Israeli soldiers in the ongoing conflict with Palestine.Cricket South Africa are bracing for protests at the tournament, which begins on January 19, and said there was a risk that they could “result in conflict or even violence, including between rival groups of protestors”.The decision to remove Teeger as captain, CSA said, was taken “in the best interests of all the players, the SA U-19 team and David himself.” He will continue to remain with the squad as a player and a new captain will be named “in due course”.South Africa’s campaign begins next Friday in Potchefstroom, where they will play West Indies, followed by matches against England and Scotland. The tournament, which was moved from Sri Lanka last November, will also be played in Benoni, which will host the semi-finals and final, Bloemfontein, Kimberley and East London and CSA expects protests at all of them.”As is the case with all such events, CSA has been receiving regular security and risk updates regarding the World Cup. We have been advised that protests related to the war in Gaza can be anticipated at the venues for the tournament,” CSA said in a statement. “We have also been advised that they are likely to focus on the position of the SA Under-19 captain, David Teeger, and that there is a risk that they could result in conflict or even violence, including between rival groups of protestors.”CSA has a primary duty to safeguard the interests and safety of all those involved in the World Cup and must accordingly respect the expert advice of those responsible for the safety of participants and spectators.”In all the circumstances, CSA has decided that David should be relieved of the captaincy for the tournament. This is in the best interests of all the players, the SA U19 team and David himself.”Spectators showed their support for Palestine during the New Year’s Test between South Africa and India at Newlands•AFP/Getty Images

There has already been at least one incident in relation to Teeger’s appointment as South Africa’s U-19 captain at a cricket match in the country. A group of pro-Palestinian supporters picketed outside the main gate at Newlands during the New Year’s Test between South Africa and India. They were then escorted by police to a specifically designated spot from where they continued to question Teeger’s selection. Another group of fans sat in the North Stand with Palestinian flags during the game. CSA expects the numbers of protestors to escalate in light of Teeger’s dedicating an award to the soldiers of Israel last year.On October 22, 2023, Teeger was named the Rising Star at the ABSA Jewish Achiever Awards ceremony and in his acceptance speech, said the following: “But more importantly, yes, I’ve been awarded this award, and yes, I am now the rising star, but the true rising stars are the young soldiers in Israel… So I’d like to dedicate this award to the South African family that married off one son whilst the other is still missing. And I’d like to dedicate it to the state of Israel and to every single soldier fighting so that we can live and thrive in the diaspora.”Teeger’s comments were reported in the South African Jewish Report on October 26 and have since been widely published across South African media. In response, the Palestinian Solidarity Alliance (PSA) lodged an official complaint with the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee. Subsequently, CSA, Lions (the domestic union where Teeger plays), four Johannesburg-based cricket clubs, one concerned cricket supporter, the Abu Asvat Institute of National Building (a civil society group), and a director of a company that sponsors Lions all issued statements of grievance. CSA referred the complaints to advocate Wim Trengrove, who conducted an independent adjudication. Trengrove found that Teeger had acted in accordance with his constitutional right to freedom of expression and did not engage in any unbecoming or detrimental conduct. CSA has accepted the report.However, the PSA said Teeger’s comments caused a “significant rift within the cricket community,” and they continue to question whether he is “fit to represent a diverse South African team and more so, whether he has the necessary capacity to lead any such team.” The PSA called for Teeger’s suspension from the U-19 World Cup squad and vowed to protest during the tournament. Pro-Palestinian sentiment is surging through South Africa after the country took Israel to the International Court of Justice this week.