Tabla de contenidos para 2018-19 en Universal’s Summer Cricket Guide

Australia’s top-six batting positions are in the greatest state of flux for 30 years. Rarely have runs on the board been so important this spring, both for the touring team in the United Arab Emirates and back home for the opening of the 2018-19 Sheffield Shield season. The bans imposed on David Warner, Cameron Bancroft and Steve Smith, combined with the uncertainty and lack of recent Test runs in South Africa from Peter Handscomb, Shaun Marsh and Usman Khawaja, have made the selection of Australia’s top six for the coming home-soil Tests against the Indians and Sri Lankans the most open in years. Will the selectors trust the experienced players they have seen and know? Or will they go for a young bolter or two — picking on promise and…

Australia’s national XI, particularly the top six, is in rebuild. The fall-out from the ball tampering scandal in Cape Town saw Australia’s two champion batsmen and team leaders, Steve Smith and David Warner, and the emerging Cameron Bancroft all suspended until 2019. After being outplayed in South Africa in autumn, the thrashings continued in midyear in England. Thank goodness it was only white-ball cricket. Out of the gloom, several young ones, currently unheralded, made some sparks in the dark. Short, Stoinis and Stanlake might not be Chappell, Lillee and Marsh but who is! And from December when the Tests start, we may even see a “bolter” or two emerge, just like a teenage Ashton Agar at Trent Bridge in 2013. It can be difficult to judge rising stars purely at…

TIM PAINE CAPTAIN Having started outside Tasmania’s Sheffield Shield team in 2017-18, Paine’s rise, just six months later, to the Australian Test captaincy was straight from the pages of Boys’ Own annual. First he leapfrogged his state rival Matthew Wade and bypassed NSW’s Peter Nevill to be included in the Ashes series. (He’d played just one lead-up Shield game, in Melbourne as a specialist batsman). Come late March he was in the Australian rooms on the Sunday morning of the Cape Town Test when he was tapped on the shoulder by coach Darren Lehmann. ‘You’re captain’, he said. Team leaders Steve Smith and David Warner had been stood down, pending further investigation after the Warner-initiated ball-tampering scandal. Mitch Marsh was first to step onto the field that final morning, but…

THE CAPTAIN VIRAT KOHLI Born: November 5, 1988, Delhi. Represents Delhi, 175cm (5ft.9in.) Right-hand No. 4 batsman. First-class debut 2006. Test debut 2011. ODI debut 2008. T20 debut 2010. Overall Test record: 69 games, 5994 runs at 54.49, best 243 v Sri Lanka, Delhi 2017, 23 100s. Strike-rate 58; 0 for 76. Test record v Australia: Debut 2011-12, 15 games, 1322 runs at 50, best 169, Melbourne 2014-15, 6 100s; 0-26. Overall ODI record: 211 games, 9779 runs at 58.20, best 183 v Pak., Dhaka 2012, 35 100s. Strike-rate 92; 4 for 665, Best 1-15 v RSA, Johannesburg 2013-14. ODI record v Australia: Debut 2009, 28 games, 1182 runs at 51.39, best 118 Visakhapatnam 2010, 5 100s. Strike-rate 94; 0-82. Overall T20 record: 62 games, 2102 runs at 48.88, best…

BULLS ON THE RISE Queensland coach Wade Seccombe says the reigning Shield champions have a huge “up” side — “and there is more improvement to come”. “We have a well-balanced squad with plenty of potential and we know there are some outstanding opportunities ahead,” he said. “Hopefully we can get a few more of our boys in the Test team regularly. We’ve worked hard to develop our skills further during the winter.” In the final Test in Johannesburg in autumn, two Queenslanders Joe Burns and Matt Renshaw opened up and Bull’s captain Usman Khawaja came in at No.3. If two or all are away for much of the Australian representative summer, it provides further opportunities for emerging top-order specialists like the English-born Charlie Hemphrey, 28, who finished the 2017-18 domestic…

VICS GO FOR YOUTH Having missed playing-off for the Sheffield Shield final for the first time in four years, Victoria is fielding a younger squad in 2018-19. Contracts were not offered to ex-internationals Fawad Ahmed, 39 and Dan Christian, 35. Instead names like Harvey, Evans, Sutherland and Rowe are among those on full or rookie contracts. Batting allrounder Mackenzie Harvey was a prime contender for Victoria’s JLT squad, along with medium pacers Zak Evans and Will Sutherland. Another promising teenager new to the senior squad is 17-year-old batsman-wicketkeeper Patrick Rowe who attends Peninsula Grammar in Mt Eliza. ‘Paddy’ wasn’t born when the team’s elder statesman Cam White first played for the Vics. The transfer of the uncontracted ex-Test player Nic Maddinson from Sydney to Melbourne saw him in immediate contention…

AUSTRALIAN CRICKET SCANDALS KEN PIESSE (WILKINSON PUBLISHING, 208 PAGES, $29.95) STEVE Smith batted 35 hours and 17 minutes in the 2017-18 Ashes series. Not even Don Bradman at his most ruthless could do that. Within weeks, Smith and his Australians were touring South Africa, one of the power teams in world cricket and Smith’s performances were sliding. By Cape Town in late March he was spent, both mentally and physically and like Greg Chappell in 1981, was not fit to be Australia’s captain. On that fateful autumn Saturday in Cape Town, his acquiescence to a plan to tamper with the ball cost him and the mastermind David Warner 12 month suspensions. They were pilloried and condemned and jostled like criminals at Cape Town airport. The reaction back home to their…

Never before has a humble finger spinner promised to wreak such destruction on the dawn of a major new Test series as cricket’s new spin king Ravichandran Ashwin. Ashwin’s likely mastery over Australia’s top six threatens to derail Australia’s bid to recapture the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. His compelling performances over the English in winter could easily see the weakened Australians two-nil down approaching the prestige Tests of the holiday season, in Melbourne and Sydney. So dominant and so psychologically scarring were Ashwin’s whirring varieties of offies, carroms and dippers that viewing the late-night cricket from afar should have come with an ‘X’ rated warning, especially for Australia’s likely set of lefties led by Matt Renshaw and Shaun Marsh. Ashwin may not take 46 wickets like Jim Laker several generations ago prompting…

The Sri Lankans arrive in Australia as holders of the Warne-Muralidaran Trophy after their decisive 3-0 home-soil win over a full-strength Australia in 2016. But holding on to that silverware is a far tougher assignment for Dinesh Chandimal and his men in Brisbane and Canberra from late January… despite a home series victory against powerful South Africa in mid-year. Sri Lankan teams with superior credentials to the current XI have made little headway against Australia on Australian wickets. The scoreline from six previous Test tours down under in three decades since 1988 is 0 wins, two draws and 11 losses. Chandimal had a fine match with the bat himself in the most recent Sri Lankan Test in this country. In what was just his fifth Test, he scored 24 and…

1. Who was the Englishman bowled by that ball, at Old Trafford in 1993? A: Mike Atherton B: Graham Gooch C: Mike Gatting D: Robin Smith 2. How many players represented Australia in the four Tests in South Africa in 2018? A: 12 B: 13 C: 14 D: 15 3. Who is David Sandurski? A: a Hollywood movie producer B: an SBS TV presenter C: curator at the Gabba D: a Cricket NSW rookie 4. This Tasmanian equaled the record for the most catches in a Shield season in 2018-19… A: Alex Doolan B: George Bailey C: Tom Rogers D: Beau Webster 5. Don Bradman holds the record for most Test double-centuries, with 12. Who is next? A: Kumar Sangakkara B: Brian Lara C: Walter Hammond D: Steve Smith 6.…

SIDDONS CALLS FOR MORE RUNS Addressing SA’s batting woes was a major focus for state coach Jamie Siddons leading into the new Sheffield Shield summer. With only one team score of 300-plus in the second half of the season in 2017-18, SA lost four of its last five games to finish last. It was not just coincidence that the batting fallout coincided with the use in the second half of the season of the English-made Dukes balls, which swing significantly more than the locally manufactured Kookaburra. Siddons is among Australia’s elite coaches radically rethinking the way they tutor middle-order batsmen. “We have to increasingly expose them to a new ball at training to enable them to develop a technique more closely resembling an opener’s role,” he said. “Every batsman is…

VOGES IN COMMAND State-of-the-art Optus Stadium hosts its inaugural Sheffield Shield game in mid-December when Western Australia takes on NSW. And Adam Voges has a key role again, this time as head coach of the Warriors and the Scorchers, replacing new national team coach Justin Langer. Now 38, Voges played a farewell Big Bash season in 2017-18. Last summer he also mentored WA’s Under 19 side at the Australian National Championships and was director of cricket at Melville. Voges plans to build on the strong values and squad culture that always make WA teams hard to beat. “I’m thrilled about leading this group of exciting young players,’ he said. ‘Our high performance staff are some of the best in the country and it is wonderful to be working with them…

THE CEC PEPPER STORY Pep, by Ken Piesse (signed hardback $100, softback $45) Twenty-five years after his death, Cec Pepper would be thrilled to know anyone cared enough about his story to document it. Pep loved the limelight and craved recognition. He was a genius with flaws… lots of them. One of Australia’s greatest sporting characters, a six-hitter supreme whose flipper was positively deadly, Pepper’s journey from Parkes and Petersham into the NSW and Australian Services teams and his many dalliances are expertly documented by prominent author Ken Piesse. He even became an umpire, coaching many of the young ones. A limited edition of 400 copies, including 100 hardbacks signed by his family, Pepper’s story will both fascinate and maybe even infuriate. He was different was our Cecil George… AUSTRALIA’S “WISDEN”…

First Test in Australia: 1947-48 Tests in Australia: 44 (Australia won 28, India won 5, drawn 11) Overall: 94 (A 41, I 26, dr. 26, tied 1) Highest total (in A): Aust.674, Adel. 1947-48; Ind. 7-705 dec., Syd., 2003-04 Lowest total (in A): Aust. 83, Melb. 1980-1; Ind. 58, Bris. 1947-8 Most Tests: Ricky Ponting (A) 29; Sachin Tendulkar (I) 39 Most runs: Ricky Ponting (A) 2555 at 54.36; Sachin Tendulkar (I) 3630 at 55 Best average: Steven Smith (A) 84; Ravi Shastri (I) 77 Most runs in a series (in A): Steven Smith (A) 769, 2014-5; Virat Kohli (I) 692, 2014-5 Highest score (in A): Michael Clarke (A) 329 not out, Syd. 2011-12; Sachin Tendulkar (I) 241 not out, Sydney, 2003-4 Highest partnership (in A): 386 (4th wicket), Ricky…

1 Who will win the Tests? India 3-1 and in the New Year, in the Sri Lankans tour component: Australia 2-0. 2 Where will Australia win its Test? Melbourne. 3 How many will attend on Boxing Day in Melbourne? 86,222 4 Who will captain Australia to England? Tim Paine. 5 Will bad boys Smith and Warner be a part of the Ashes squad: Yes. 6 Should they be selected? Form is fleeting, class is permanent. They will have opportunities for meaningful match practice both late in the Australian summer and elsewhere. The Tests in the UK don’t start until August. The 2019 World Cup shares equal billing with the Australians this time around. 7 Will their presence create a problem for Paine’s leadership? No. He and Smith played their first…

THE CAPTAIN DINESH CHANDIMAL (b 18 November, 1989, Balapitiya). RH high-order bat, occasional WK. Test debut: 2011. Mts: 48; 3642 runs at 44.96; HS 164; 100s 11; Str/rt: 50; 74 ct, 10 stmp. Overall record v Australia: Mts: 4; 336 runs at 48, HS 132 (Colombo SSC, 2016). Record in Australia: Mts: 1; 86 runs at 86, HS 62* (Sydney, 2012-13). Previous Test tour to Australia: 2012-13 Captains for the first time down under after a rocky 2018 which saw him suspended from the mid-year Test series against South Africa over ball tampering charges emanating from the St Lucia Test in the Caribbean. Another four match ODI penalty was also imposed by the ICC after Sri Lanka’s temporary refusal to take the field the next morning in protest against the…

This summer, for the first time since 2003, Australian fans are welcoming two new members into an elite brotherhood of Test match cricket venues. The newcomers are almost 4000 kilometres apart on opposite sides of the country. They could not be more different, either, in age or appeal. Optus Stadium in the golden west is a state-of-the-a rt 60,000-seat pristine venue built a few kilometres down the road on the other side of the Swan River from the former long-time home of cricket in Perth, the WACA. It is big, clean, comfortable, slick and cookie-cutter, 2018 style. Like Bellerive Oval just outside the Hobart CBD, Manuka Oval is in the middle of a bustling, picturesque, upmarket township surrounded by beautiful heritage trees, stately expensive homes and elite schools such as…

A NEW ERA BECKONS FOR BLUES There is an air of excitement and expectation in the NSW camp, despite five seasons without a final appearance… and with several champions enforced absentees. The appointments of Phil Jaques, 39, as head coach and New Zealander Andre Adams, 43, as the squad’s new bowling coach are among key wintertime changes — Jacques having been promoted from the team’s batting coach. He’d previously coached the Queensland Bulls. Adams has been bowling coach with Auckland and a consultant for New Zealand representative teams. Cricket NSW General Manager of Cricket Performance, David Moore, said Adams’s wealth of experience is important to a young Blues squad with the number of emerging fast bowlers such as Mickey Edwards, who took five wickets in two maiden Sheffield Shield appearances…

MAINLANDERS ADD DEPTH Gurinder Sandhu’s shift from Sydney could well be a coup as Tasmania looks to again advance into the last week of the Sheffield Shield competition. A former Australian ODI player, Sandhu, 25, will be given immediate new ball responsibility by the Tigers, alongside the seasoned Jackson Bird, Sam Rainbird and ex-schoolteacher Tom Rogers. Given only two matches by NSW at Shield level in 2017-18, Sandhu impressed Tasmania’s coach Adam Griffith with a lionhearted display at the SCG in February when he bowled 40 overs onn a flat wicket. Also new this summer from Sydney is teenage batsman Lawrence Neil-Smith. In his second year as head coach, Griffith says his team’s aim is to again be “in the mix” to make another Shield final. He has two new…

Those who dared cross Don Bradman had a habit of disappearing. Fast. Had Cec Pepper been less loud and opinionated he may have been feted forever as a member of the Don’s 1948 Invincibles, the most-celebrated cricket team of them all. He was an extraordinary talent who could smite the ball over grandstands, zip leg breaks and flippers past the unaware and take screaming catches at slip. His war buddy Keith Miller rated him cricket’s finest wartime all-rounder. In the Victory Tests in 1945 Miller and Pepper were pivotal in the game’s renaissance in England and beyond after Hitler’s suicide and Germany’s surrender. Their cricket was skilful, daring and inspired. Tens of thousands flocked in record numbers to once again see England v Australia. When Pepper hit a huge six…

I was with my Dad at our local beachside library. Seeing me clutching a pile of books, all on cricket, he asked: “Would you like to borrow anything else?” “No, Dad,” I said. “But thanks.” Parkdale’s library had only 16 cricket books and over time I read each and every one of them, cover to cover. From Bradman the Great to Walter Hammond’s Cricket’s Secret History, I’d arrange them tallest to shortest in a small bookcase I’d made for the head of my bed and imagine they were mine. During school holidays, I’d go with Dad to Melbourne and sit in his office devouring the cricket news in all the morning newspapers Australia-wide until it was 9am and the second-hand bookshops opened. And there was a myriad of them. From…