From: vigneswa@ecs.umass.edu
Newsgroups: rec.sport.cricket
Subject: Umpiring, Ball Tampering, Lot of Travelling...
Date: 6 Jan 93 12:28:38 GMT

	Peter Ball writes in The Times.....   About Fletcher, Hick and
bowlers...  Also he writes about umpiring decisions and ball tampering.

	The following was taken  from The Times for the benefit of the
"starving" cricket followers.

====
Hick looks to turn passage to India into Test security

By Peter Ball,  The Times, December 28, 1992, Monday

	Eleven years ago, Keith Fletcher's previous trip to India in charge
of an England team ended in tears. The series was lost, and at the end of a
tetchy, unhappy tour, his brief spell as captain was terminated even though
he had refused advances to join an unofficial tour of South Africa.

	Unless the political  situation takes a serious turn for the worse,
his first tour as England's new manager, which  begins today when the party
leaves Gatwick, should have a happier outcome.  Whatever the quibbles about
Micky Stewart's brand of management, Fletcher has  inherited a professional
structure, and, in partnership with his county soul-mate, Graham Gooch, his
quiet but tactically shrewd approach should enhance the team.

	India is no bad place for the new regime to begin. Since Fletcher's
unhappy experiences, cricket there has changed dramatically.

	With a format of only three Tests and six one-day internationals in
India, even the  structure of the  tour is different from the one  Fletcher
knew.  Traditionalists will not welcome  the changes, but at least the one-
day  internationals  will produce  results, which  all  too often are  at a
premium on India's traditionally low, slow pitches, as Fletcher  discovered
in 1981-2.

	The changes have also been reflected on the field. Most people con-
cede that Pakistan  are now the  strongest team in the world;  India are in
considerable  disarray, as  the scores from  South Africa  reveal only  too
clearly, while  Sri Lanka,  who host the party for the final two weeks, are
making quiet progress.

	Geoffrey Boycott described India  recently as the weakest Test team
he'd seen in 28 years. That may be a sweeping statement one or two New Zea-
land sides spring to  mind but the performances in  South Africa, with even
Azharuddin and  Tendulkar failing  to live up to  their  rankings, and  the
bowling  attack looking  limited, suggest  that India will  be considerably
less testing for England than Pakistan were last summer.

	After the long  build-up of training  sessions at Lilleshall, there
is little  doubt that  Fletcher will  be leading the  best-prepared team to
leave these  shores, even  though the David  Gower theory  of net  practice
avoid if possible received further support when Robin Smith injured his toe
in the final session. Certainly, it is hard to see a batting line-up streng
thened by the recall of Gatting, and containing  Gooch, Smith, Atherton and
Stewart, failing to get among the runs.

	In other circumstances, the presence of the winter's cause celebre,
Gower, in the press box might have been an embarrassment to the management.
Against a  limited attack on  generally  slow pitches, Graeme  Hick may  at
last score a mass of Test runs. He is certainly going out with that in mind.

	"If I'm given  the chance, I  want to make sure  that by the time I
come back to England  I'm one of the first names to be put down in the side
for the summer," he said.  Fletcher  will also  hope that Neil Fairbrother,
who looks happiest when the  ball is coming  on to the bat, will also esta-
blish himself as a Test batsman.

	But if the  England batting looks  sound, the  questions about  the
bowling remain.  Much will depend  on the state of the pitches, still some-
thing of an unknown  factor, but  England's ability to win the  Test series
will depend on the ability of the side to bowl India out twice.

	For possibly the first  time in memory, England might have the edge
in India although perhaps not  Sri Lanka  in the spin attak.  There  are no
Bedis or Chandresekhars in the  Indian line-up, Fletcher remarking that the
leg spinner, Kumble, is no Mushtaq either.

	The decision, though, to take  only Salisbury as net bowler for the
early stages of the tour may be regretted, as he could have provided a use-
ful foil for Tufnell; and Emburey, who was in Fletcher's 1981-82 team, will
need to  justify his claim  that he is  still the  best off  spinner in the
country.

	If  he does, he  and Tufnell  could prove  the key.  His  last Test
matches before he went to South Africa did not bode well, but the Middlesex
bowler  is convinced  that he  has  rediscovered  his old verve  during his
absence.  "In the last few Tests, I didn't do myself any favours," he said,
"but not having the pressure of playing in Tests has enabled me to get back
my loop. I'm bowling  with  more dip than I  had done for a few years." "If
you  loop it, you  get more  bounce; it's added  more to the  variety of my 
bowling, and I've been  bowling a wider line too, so I've been getting more
turn.''

	Indian pitches  in recent years  have not always lived up (or down)
to their  image, and it is  possible that they  will be less of a graveyard
for seam bowlers  than in the past.  With  David Lawrence and  Angus Fraser
both still  sadly out of action, that  area is the  unknown quantity.  That
leaves a lot of responsibility on  Devon Malcolm.  The recall of Jarvis and
the blooding of  Paul Taylor, a left-armer who  swung the  ball late, and a 
lot, towards  the end of last  season, was not universally approved, but if
one of them  comes through  to make his mark, it  will be a sizable plus to
come out of the tour.  	Jarvis's fitness suggested  that picking  him was a
considerable risk, but the player insisted at Lilleshall that a change from
running to weights had benefited him and that "in the last 6 weeks  of last
season, I was bowling as quickly as I have done since 1989" .  If he can do
so in India, his selection will be justified. But it is not a team to sweep
all before it, and any judgment of Fletcher's first tour will have to  take
that into account.

	There is one further, perhaps most crucial consideration. Important
as ability, in India  especially, will be team morale. As captain, Fletcher
allowed the siege mentality to take over to his own, and the side's, detri-
ment as heat and dust and doubts about the  umpiring took their toll.  With
the amount of  travelling involved in the  ten-week tour, that  is always a
threat. But as the 1984-5 team under Gower proved, it is possible to remain
positive, rather  than succumb.  Let us hope that the religious tensions do
not surface to throw up  problems even more serious than umpiring decisions
or accusations of ball-tampering.

======

Vicky:
UMass, Jan 06
Newsgroups: rec.sport.cricket