Tabla de contenidos para 2020-21 en Universal’s Summer Cricket Guide

CURRENT AUSTRALIANS: TESTS PLAYED 2010-20 TOP 10s: Batsmen 1 Steve Smith (Aus) 2 Virat Kohli (Ind) 3 Marnus Labuschagne (Aus) 4 Kane Williamson (NZ) 5 Babar Azam (Pak) 6 David Warner (Aus) 7 Cheteshwar Pujara (Ind) 8 Ben Stokes (Eng) 9 Joe Root (Eng) 10 Ajinkya Rahane (Ind) Alltime top batsman: Don Bradman (Aus) Bowlers 1 Pat Cummins (Aus) 2 Stuart Broad (Eng) 3 Neil Wagner (NZ) 4 Tim Southee (NZ) 5 Jason Holder (WI) 6 Kagiso Rabada (RSA) 7 Mitchell Starc (Aus) 8 James Anderson (Eng) 9 Jasprit Bumrah (Ind) 10 Trent Boult (NZ) Alltime top bowler: Sydney Barnes (Eng) Allrounders 1 Jason Holder (WI) 2 Ben Stokes (Eng) 3 Ravindra Jadeja (Ind) 4 Mitchell Starc (Aus) 5 Ravi Ashwin (Ind) 6 Col de Grandhomme (NZ) 7 Chris Woakes…

He has hit more sixes than he has played Test matches. He has three first-class triple centuries, yet rarely bats higher than No.7. Only once has he converted his 15 Test half centuries into three figures. He isn’t selected for every ‘away’ Test but is often India’s standout fieldsman as a substitute. He is the embodiment of the skill set required for IPL and Twenty20 cricket but remains passionate about the traditional five-day format. Ravindra Jadeja is the joyous mass of contradictions that is the spirit of modernday Indian cricket. No player has moved so easily through the formats as this confident 31-year-old from Jamnagar on the west coast of India, not far from Cheteshwar Pujara’s home town of Rajkot and just north of the Porbandar, birthplace of the most…

VIRAT KOHLI CAPTAIN Born: Nov 5, 1988, Delhi. RH No. 4 batsman. First-class debut 2006. Test debut 2011. ODI debut 2008. T20 debut 2010. Overall Test record: 86 games, 7240 runs at 53.62, best 254* v South Africa, Pune, 2019-20, 27 100s, including 7 ‘doubles’, Strike-rate 57; 0 for 84. Test record v Australia: Debut 2011-12, 19 games, 1604 runs at 48, best 169, Melbourne 2014-15, 7 100s; 0-26. Scored 115 & 141 in the 2014-15 Adelaide Test. Averages 55 in Australia and 33 in India. Overall ODI record: 248 games, 11867 runs at 59.33, best 183 v Pakistan, Dhaka 2012, 43 100s. Strike-rate 93; 4 for 665. ODI record v Australia: 40 games, 1910 runs at 54, best 123, Ranchi 2018-19, 8 100s. 0-82. Overall T20 record: 82 games,…

PACEMAN QUEUE So deep is Queensland’s arsenal of fast bowlers that it allowed its leading 2019-20 wicket-taker Cameron Gannon to shift to Perth with its best wishes. Pace bowling places are at a premium with frontliners Michael Neser – the reigning Ian Healy Medallist – Mark Steketee and Billy Stanlake under challenge should they miss matches with injury, or falter in form. The Bulls have eight fast medium bowlers in their squad. Among the next group of aspiring state team regulars are Brendan Doggett, Xavier Bartlett, Blake Edwards and rookies Matt Willans and Connor Sully. Gold Coaster Bartlett had three Shield games last summer and took a ‘five-for’ against Victoria at the Gabba. Edwards and Doggett both played once. Wade Seccombe continues as coach, alongside fellow stalwarts James Hopes and…

OPPORTUNITIES ABOUND, SAYS ROGERS Victoria’s new head coach Chris Rogers says teaching players to be adaptable and resilient is among his key mantras as he looks for success at both domestic and international levels. Only two Victorians were included in Australia’s extended white-ball squad to the UK in September and he says a state as successful as the Vics should have more in contention for higher honors. Excited by the challenge of working alongside so many fine younger players, he says nurturing and improving the older, established ones is also important. ‘We want them all to have an open mindset and embrace the challenges to be consistently trying to improve,’ he said. ‘(Good) Australian players need to learn to be able to play well in foreign conditions. Not just on…

ACROSS 1 Bushranger with the super-high, unusual backlift. (9) 5 1980s Windies paceman who played for Tasmania. (5) 9 Nickname of Andrew Symonds. (3) 10 Cape-coloured, controversial South African-born allrounder. (9) 11 43-Test Pakistani with top score of 236. (4) 12 Opened for England during the 2015 Ashes. (4) 13 1990s Indian with top score of 103. (4) 14 Indian allrounder who debuted against the Aussies in 1960. (6) 16 English fast bowler toured Australia twice in the ‘50s. (6) 17 This Windies fast bowler took a ‘7-for’ in 1998. (4) 20 Fiery Protea paceman between 1955-62. (5) 21 This Windie debutant made 214 and 100 not out. (4) 22 1960s-‘70s Kiwi paceman with top figures of six for 76. (5) 25 This Aussie scored a ton on debut in…

from cricketbooks.com.au…

It was January 1983. Voice of Barbados commentator Reds Perreira was on his way to Kensington Oval and was stopped at a pedestrian crossing by a friend, one of the most revered in West Indian cricket. Tapping on his car window, the man said: ‘Rebel team going to South Africa… do your homework.’ Perreira had a scoop, the biggest of his career. He rang a friend at British West Indies Airways and asked her to check flights to Miami – the first port-of-call for international travellers from Barbados. ‘I need a name,’ he was told. Perreira worked through those on the fringes of West Indian selection. ‘Try Trotman,’ he said. ‘Emmerson Trotman.’ Bingo. He was due to fly out the very next day, with seven others from Barbados. Perreira broke…

SUMMER GUIDE readers can again win tickets-for-two to this summer’s Vodafone Test Series. We have double passes for each of the opening days for all four Tests between Australia and India, courtesy of Cricket Australia. PLUS • Signed-by-Neil Harvey copies of Invincible, the life and times of Sam Loxton (hardback, 384 pages, $50), from cricketbooks.com.au • Geoff Lemon’s new book The Comeback Summer (304 pages,$30) from hardiegrantbooks.com.au • Cricket Digest Annual, Volume 9, Australia’s cricket annual (324 pages, $35), edited by Lawrie Colliver. OTHER PRIZES Also this summer, thanks to the evergreen Harry Solomons and Kingsgrove Sports, a long-time supplier to Australia’s elite players, we have a brand new Attitude kit with bat, gloves and pads, ideal for juniors aged 11 to 14. TO WIN To have a chance of…

Donald Trump looked in the wrong place to find someone capable of building his Mexican wall. The best walls emanate from India and its national cricket team. The original ‘wall’ was the 164-Test icon Rahul Dravid, among the elite to average 50-plus in the game’s fiercest forum. His successor is Cheteshwar Pujara, the man with the Ringo Starr nose, who also keeps time admirably and, like Dravid, brings a rare stability to the all-important No.3 slot. No one in world cricket can so blunt the effectiveness of even the most imposing opposition attacks and allow his team’s middle-order strokemakers a license to play with so much flair and freedom. Ever since he was a starry-eyed child clutching his first makeshift bats in neighbourhood street tests, Pujara has revered the record…

Hardly a man and a dog was present when Queenslander Mitchell Swepson punctuated a lazy spring afternoon in Melbourne in 2019 with a rare Sheffield Shield hat-trick. It mattered little that his three victims were in Victoria’s lower-order: Will Sutherland, James Pattinson and Peter Siddle. It had everyone, temporarily, talking about spin. After Christmas, with the competition rules demanding the use of the higherseamed Dukes ball, Swepson was back to club cricket, being dropped from the return match with the Victorians at the Gabba. With 10 wickets before Christmas and just two afterwards, Swepson was yet another victim of the system, Kookaburra balls being used for the first half of the season and Dukes for the second. Almost everywhere except in Sydney, spinners had the barest of impacts, forcing cricket…

DIZZY DELIGHTS After years of cellar-dwelling, South Australia is determined to lift its status, promote more national players and consistently vie, once again, for some domestic silverware. The Redbacks have finished last in seven of the last 10 Shield seasons, long-time coach Jamie Siddons standing down in early March. The arrival in October of his replacement Jason ‘Dizzy’ Gillespie, SA’s best-ever fast bowler, is seen as a major step in the rebuild. He represented SA in 54 Shield matches and with 71 Tests in his ‘CV’, he is SA’s third-most capped Test player behind Greg and Ian Chappell. Famously he signed off from Test cricket with a nightwatchman’s knock for the ages, a score of 201 not out in his final international against Bangladesh in Chittagong. Now 45, he has…

NO MORE TEST CRICKET AT THE WACA The transformation of the famous WACA Ground into a boutique stadium for 10,000 spectators spells the end of Test cricket at the ground. Instead it will become a sustainable community and sporting hub with cricket at its heart. A $30 mill. funding investment from the State Government was announced in August to embrace high performance training and administration facilities, a 10-lane indoor cricket facility, a reinvigorated museum and year-round access for the WA community. A 50-metre swimming pool and aquatic centre is also planned. All internationals will be played across the Swan river, at the new Optus Stadium, which regularly sits 60,000 for AFL football matches. On the field, the recruiting of Queenslander Cam Gannon and the selection of the uncapped Josh Phillippe…

According to Ricky Ponting, few eat, breathe and sleep cricket like Melburnian Ken Piesse, author of almost 60 cricket books including this fun offering Favourite Cricket Yarns ($40 posted). Ken has witnessed Test cricket from Bridgetown to Bellerive and Johannesburg to Cardiff. He was at Cape Town in 2018 for ‘Sandpapergate’ and collects stories and conducts interviews everywhere he goes. During that infamous autumn-time series at Johannesburg, Barry Richards was guest of honor for Ken’s Australian Cricket Society tourists and spoke of his disappointment that the past achievements of South Africa’s finest, pre-1992, had been deliberately ignored. ‘We don’t even have Test numbers allocated,’ he said, ‘and for champions of the game like Graeme Pollock, that’s simply not fair.’ Asked by Ken what it was like batting with Pollock, the…

First Test in Australia: 1947-48 Tests in Australia: 48 (Australia won 29, India 7, drawn 12) Overall: 98 (A 42, I 28, drawn 27, tied 1) Highest total (in A): Australia 674, Adelaide 1947-48; India 7-705 dec., Sydney, 2003-04 Lowest total (in A): Australia 83, Melbourne 1980-81; India 58, Brisbane 1947-48 Most times captain (In A & I): Ricky Ponting (A) 11, 2004-05 to 2008-09; Nawab of Pataudi jnr (I), 1964-65 to 1969-70, 12 Most Tests: Ricky Ponting (A) 29; Sachin Tendulkar (I) 39 Most runs: Ricky Ponting (A) 2555 at 54; 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, 2014-15; Virat Kohli (I) 692, 2014-15 Highest score (in A): Michael…

It is the great new rivalry of the new Millennium: Australia versus India, the new super power of the game. Awaiting us all is a set of stirring contests, outranked only by the Ashes as the most irresistible Test match contests in world cricket. Modern players from both teams have created an outstanding legacy for which they can be incredibly proud. India’s overall record in Australia may be poor with just seven wins from 48 starts. But since 2000 it has pushed or defeated Australia in four of the last five series, burying the label ‘lambs away from home.’ No country in the world possesses the same set of passionate fans, or the depth of outstanding players via a stream of its cricket academies which have fast tracked the progress…

David Hussey is confident that the Melbourne Stars will again be the team to beat in BBL X – ‘and once we win one, we’ll win two or three and quickly’. Into his second year as coach, Hussey says another disappointment in the play-off last summer means little as his team re-groups and looks to be a power again in 2020-21. ‘Who knows what might have happened if it (the rain-affected final) had been a normal 20-overs each match?’ he said. ‘The shorter the match, the more vulnerable any team can be. ‘Sure we may not have achieved the ultimate goal of winning the title but we integrated some new key players who now fully comprehend to what the Stars family is all about. We’d love to qualify first again…

FIRST TOUR AT 27 The selection of nine from NSW for Australia’s spring-time tour of the UK again highlighted the intrinsic importance Australia’s most successful cricketing state has to the welfare and performance of national teams. Among those chosen for his first national tour was journeyman and white-ball specialist Daniel Sams, 27, a left-arm seamer from Randwick-Petersham. Sams, 27, joined Sean Abbott, Pat Cummins, Steve Smith, David Warner, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood and Adam Zampa in the 21-man squad. Sams was Sydney Thunder’s Player of the Tournament in 2019-20 with 30 wickets, a new BBL record. Also among those who also toured under the NSW banner again was Adam Zampa who returned to Sydney in the off-season after seven seasons with South Australia. The appointment of fast bowler…

SIDDLE SWITCHES The recruiting of Peter Siddle from Melbourne and a new elite coaching structure headed by Jeff Vaughan has raised hopes of a buoyant season for Tasmania. Vaughan’s talents as one of the master batting coaches in the country will now be augmented with more responsibilities at Sheffield Shield level. Wade Townsend will assume some of the batting coaching responsibilities, also advancing his skillset. Adam Griffith remains head coach for the Hobart Hurricanes and a senior offsider to Vaughan at red-ball level. The biggest off-season news, however surrounded the arrival of Siddle, coming off a 32-wicket season with Victoria. While in his mid-30s and now retired from international cricket, he remains as fit and durable as most of the younger pacemen on the staff. His experience and mentorship is…

The euphoria of winning another World Cup in front of 86,000 fans at the MCG in autumn was soon tempered with team members joining millions in lockdown with the Covid-19 pandemic. The Melbourne-based girls from Meg Lanning and Elysse Perry were among those particularly affected with Melbourne and most of Victoria spending much of the winter in isolation. The set of white-ball internationals with the New Zealand White Ferns from late September and early October was the first meaningful cricket most had played since last March. The Australians sent 17 players to Brisbane, with the fitness of champion allrounder Elyse Perry still in doubt. The squad had originally also included express bowler Tayla Vlaeminck, who for the first time during the off-season was granted a starting central contract. However, the…

Jeff Thomson was inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame during the 2016 Allan Border Medal ceremony. His acceptance speech became the stuff of legend and the surprise at the rawness of Thomson’s humour and asides was a fine bookend to the surprise at the rawness of his speed when he began his Test career. In a tour match ahead of the 1974–75 Ashes series, Queensland captain Greg Chappell ordered Thomson to bowl within himself when the state team hosted the visiting English (playing as Marylebone Cricket Club). A combination of that self-limited bowling and his match figures of none for 110 in the sole Test he’d played two summers earlier, left England totally unprepared for the Thomson onslaught that soon followed. Throughout the Ashes series, Thomson combined with…

Few wore the baggy green cap as proudly or with such distinction as Steve Waugh. His original faded cap, famously stitched and re-stitched, would command six figures among collectors. Another Waugh baggy green, unworn, but signed by Steve and from his personal kit, was sold recently for almost $14,500 by Abacus Auctions in Melbourne. The helmet Waugh used in making 99 in Perth before his brother Mark – who was running for him – was run out, made $4500. ‘The WACA was the only regular Test ground where Steve didn’t make a century,’ said Abacus’ cricket expert Max Williamson. ‘Steve was pretty unhappy at falling short of the three figures and the helmet still has the original dent and scuff marks to prove it.’ A South African Test cap from…