Geoff Lemon's Blog, page 28

Saudi Arabia’s grand sportswashing campaign comes to finish off cricket’s current order | Geoff Lemon

A lucrative T20 tournament is the country’s latest shameless attempt to forge a better reputation for itself – and it seemingly comes without care for the game itself

First the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia came for golf, and I did not speak out, because it’s for men named Chad who want to network while supporting the manufacturers of boat shoes. Then Saudi Arabia came for Newcastle United, and I did not speak out, because frankly it was Newcastle United. Actually, Saudi Arabia already had Formula One racing, but that was a natural fit between those who produce oil and the pastime that most conspicuously torches it. By the time they came for Cristiano Ronaldo he too seemed largely made of hydrocarbon polymer, though he is biodegrading faster.

Now Saudi Arabia is coming for cricket – just another step in the grandest sportswashing campaign in history. The country is an autocratic monarchy run on the fundamentalist principles of Wahhabist Islam. Laws of ‘guardianship’ mean that women cede control of their lives to male relatives. The legal system uses prison, torture or execution against political dissent and anyone outside proscribed sexual or gender norms. The Saudi-led war in Yemen killed hundreds of thousands. The engine driving all this is Saudi Aramco, the biggest oil company in the world, the single biggest driver of our climate crisis, source of over 4% of global carbon emissions since 1965. Its only plan for the future is to increase production.

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Australia opt against rolling the dice with stability key to Ashes squad selection | Geoff Lemon

Selectors have stuck with David Warner and their first-choice bowling attack but the question of reserves is where it gets interesting

Choosing Test cricket teams can be a fraught business. Competing claims and agendas create the conflict that makes selection a staple of reporting on the sport. When a team rarely changes it reflects either a limitation of resources or a period of rare stability. Australia’s men’s team is currently enjoying the latter. Aside from some tweaks for Asian tours, in the last couple of years the team sheet has been pro forma.

It is the same again for the upcoming World Test Championship final and Ashes campaign, according to the squad that covers the first three of those six Test matches in England across June and July. From those 17 names the first-choice XI is an easy pick. David Warner may be running out of road, but he and Steve Smith are still the batting mainstays, first-choice picks for a decade. Usman Khawaja’s late-career revival has made him indispensable as an opener.

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Australia rout India by 10 wickets in second men’s ODI – as it happened

India were bowled out for 117 with Australia racing to their target in a one-day game that lasted only 37 overs

Starc begins with a massive wide that tracks nearer the second of two slips than India’s skipper. Rohit then gets off strike easily with a gentle guide down to third with the angle of the left-armer bowling across him from over the wicket. Another wild wide, this time in the vague direction of Gill. Not sure Starc is at the races yet. Lol. Next delivery he has a wicket. Of course he does. Length outside off – nothing delivery really – and Gill wafts without moving his feet and sends a thick edge straight to point.

Mitchell Starc has the ball. Rohit Sharma is on strike. Let’s cricket!

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India beat Australia by five wickets in first men’s ODI – as it happened

A calm unbeaten 73 from KL Rahul gave India a five-wicket victory in a low-scoring match in Mumbai

5th over: Australia 29-1 (Marsh 13, Smith 5) More extras, leg side again from Shami and this time it clips Smith on the thigh before finding the boundary. And another wide, Shami’s errors undoing some of his good work. He overcorrects in response to those mistakes, gives Smith width outside off, and Smith cracks it through cover for four.

4th over: Australia 19-1 (Marsh 13, Smith 0) Marsh throws the hands at Siraj, not a convincing shot as he slices the drive behind point while aiming through cover, but it gets him four as it rolls slowly into the rope. More convincing next time round though! On the back foot to meet a shorter length, timing it perfectly through cover for four. Then bash, down the ground. On the front foot and lofting his off drive. Three boundaries in the over after a quiet start from Marsh.

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India v Australia: first men’s one-day international – live

Updates from the series opener at Wankhede StadiumAny thoughts? Email them to Rob

5th over: Australia 29-1 (Marsh 13, Smith 5) More extras, leg side again from Shami and this time it clips Smith on the thigh before finding the boundary. And another wide, Shami’s errors undoing some of his good work. He overcorrects in response to those mistakes, gives Smith width outside off, and Smith cracks it through cover for four.

4th over: Australia 19-1 (Marsh 13, Smith 0) Marsh throws the hands at Siraj, not a convincing shot as he slices the drive behind point while aiming through cover, but it gets him four as it rolls slowly into the rope. More convincing next time round though! On the back foot to meet a shorter length, timing it perfectly through cover for four. Then bash, down the ground. On the front foot and lofting his off drive. Three boundaries in the over after a quiet start from Marsh.

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Australia’s ODI series in India may provide more questions than answers | Geoff Lemon

The three games have been shoehorned in to make a few extra dollars and is unlikely to be instructive ahead of the World Cup

Afterthoughts don’t get much less thought than this. Australia’s Test series in India has come to an end after six weeks of scrutiny and emotion, probably leaving the visitors feeling a little satisfaction at some of the gains and a lot more frustration at the shortfalls that cost them a chance to win it. Now players have to switch focus immediately to one-day cricket. Steve Smith, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Marnus Labuschagne, Travis Head and Mitchell Starc are the Test players staying on, with David Warner and Ashton Agar returning from a brief spell at home after leaving the Test tour partway through.

The company line is that this will be useful preparation for the 50-over World Cup in India later this year. That might mean something if Australia did not already have a three-match date in India in September for exactly that purpose. The later series has long been in the calendar, the current one was shoehorned in a couple months ago when it became clear that a few unexploited days could be manufactured between the Tests and the new season of the Indian Premier League. This was also around the time that Cricket Australia cited ethical concerns while cancelling a planned series against Afghanistan due in a similar late-March window.

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Tenacious Australia offer hope for World Test Championship | Geoff Lemon

The Oval showdown in June will provide a fascinating postscript to India’s Border-Gavaskar series victory

In 2017, Australia’s Test team came home from India after four Tests with a 2-1 defeat. In 2023, the scoreline was the same. In the first series, the tourists made the better of a turning pitch to win a shootout, fumbled a game they had in their keeping, batted the last day to see out a draw and had a loss by a substantial margin. This time around they started with a big loss, had their fumble in the second match, won the shootout in the third, and batting out the draw to finish it off.

The results don’t merit rejoicing, but with India having lost three matches and won 36 in more than a decade, the fact that Australia’s tours have produced two of these wins is worth some satisfaction. The sequence of results meant that 2017 was a story of taking a lead and being reeled back in, while 2023 surrendered the chance of a series win in five days, but fought back from that low with unlikely tenacity. It’s a matter of opinion which scenario would leave losing players feeling better about the situation.

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Tenacious Australia offer hope for World Test Championship

The Oval showdown in June will provide a fascinating postscript to India’s Border-Gavaskar series victory

In 2017, Australia’s Test team came home from India after four Tests with a 2-1 defeat. In 2023, the scoreline was the same. In the first series, the tourists made the better of a turning pitch to win a shootout, fumbled a game they had in their keeping, batted the last day to see out a draw and had a loss by a substantial margin. This time around they started with a big loss, had their fumble in the second match, won the shootout in the third, and batting out the draw to finish it off.

The results don’t merit rejoicing, but with India having lost three matches and won 36 in more than a decade, the fact that Australia’s tours have produced two of these wins is worth some satisfaction. The sequence of results meant that 2017 was a story of taking a lead and being reeled back in, while 2023 surrendered the chance of a series win in five days, but fought back from that low with unlikely tenacity. It’s a matter of opinion which scenario would leave losing players feeling better about the situation.

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Virat Kohli’s century one of discipline and flashes of mica in the stone | Geoff Lemon

For years he churned out hundreds like a machine, then it stopped. Sunday offered the best environment to start again

Between March 2011 and and March 2012, the people waited for Sachin Tendulkar. With 99 international centuries, he was on the verge of something nobody else had ever considered achieving. Cricket stats are usually for a niche set of people, but this one grew as time went on. It sprouted tendrils that curled past the nuffies before lacing their way through broader society. For 33 international innings, more and more people watched each time as Tendulkar walked out to bat and returned without a ton. It almost drove them mad.

That wait was a year and four days. Virat Kohli’s version dwarfs it. As the man who succeeded Tendulkar as the centre of India’s batting solar system, Kohli churned out hundreds like a machine. His first three years when he was only playing 50-over cricket took some time, but once his Test career started the longest gap he had to abide was eight months. Across the formats he went back to back routinely, three in a row twice, four in five innings at one stage. Before the interregnum, he scored 70 centuries in just over 10 years.

Then it stopped. Not for any apparent reason. He kept making starts, kept making scores, some of them big, some unbeaten. He just couldn’t get a hundred – the man whose principal skill to this point had been converting those. A year became two, then approached three. The streak spanned 83 innings. In 26 of them, he scored half-centuries. He just couldn’t get over the line.

Of course, it shouldn’t matter. The hundred is an arbitrary number. But batters know that is the measure on which they are judged on most, so of course it matters. Of course it gets in their heads, affects their thinking, which affects their play. The drought across formats finally ended in September 2022, in low-key fashion with a T20 hundred against Afghanistan during an Asia Cup that was treated as a World Cup warm-up. The gap between Test hundreds, though, went on, past three years, out to 42 innings in 24 Tests.

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Graceful Shubman Gill looks like India’s present and future with bat | Geoff Lemon

After a century against Australia in Ahmedabad, the talented batter should finally be given an extended run in the Test side

For reasons that are never fully clear, cricket people gush about the aesthetics of left-handers. Left-handed cover drives are better. Left-handed late cuts are more languid. Shubman Gill is the right-handed version of a left-hander. Aside from the odd dismissal like the Indore Test, he makes all his shots look effortless. He is tall, slender, graceful, bending in the breeze, someone made of willow more than the bat that’s in his hand. He has the power that comes of tensile strength, slimness that snaps back into shape and brings to bear all the force of that movement.

Halfway through the third day of the Ahmedabad Test between India and Australia, as the series finale wound its way along in the severest afternoon heat, Cameron Green tried bowling a bouncer. Gill’s pull shot cracked it away. Only for a run, but it brought to mind the pulls that Green had smashed the day before on his way to a century. This run took Gill to 80. In Green’s next over, Gill lashed two in a row through the covers. Soon enough they were both in the hundred club on Indian soil.

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