A play about the life and untimely death of Colin Milburn conveys the highs and the lows of a unique cricketer

David Hopps11-Nov-2016Colin Milburn was about as far removed from the identikit picture of the perfect international cricketer as it was possible to be. So overweight that he could have starred in – Morgan Spurlock’s exposé of the fast-food industry. Dishevelled, disorganised and gradually drinking himself to death, it was astonishing even in the 1960s that England ever turned to him. These days, even at county level, he would not get a look in.But that was much of Milburn’s charm. For all his 18 stone (“and the rest” according to some of those who tried to change his ways at Northamptonshire), he was light on his feet, possessed of rapid reflexes and destructive of shot. The ball could disappear many a mile off a Milburn bat. Add his perpetual image of cheery bonhomie, his love for a joke and a night out, and he was an extraordinary antidote to the seriousness that pervaded English cricket half-a-century ago. For all the notion of the Swinging Sixties, in English cricket only the fat man was swinging.An average of 46.71 in nine Tests tells of Milburn’s talent. But the barbs were already out about his fitness when he lost an eye, and damaged the other, in a car crash in 1968. Northants had just beaten the West Indies tourists and Milburn was in celebratory mood. He lost control of the car, heading back to the Abington pub by the Northants ground for some more beers, and crashed through the windscreen. The Road Safety bill had been introduced in 1966, the breathalyser a year later; seat belts became compulsory in 1983. It was a tragedy of its time, not carrying the mantle of shame that it would today.Milburn’s gloriously unlikely career, and the extent of the mental-health issues that welled up after his accident, are explored in , a one-man play written by Dougie Blaxland (aka James Graham-Brown, the former Kent cricketer), which is about halfway through its tour of the county grounds. It has been produced in association with the Professional Cricketers’ Association to promote mental health and well-being. In a desperately unhappy turn of fate, Alan Hodgson, Milburn’s former county team-mate, flatmate for a decade, and a primary source for much of the material, died a few days before the premiere.The strong implication is that Milburn’s seeds of self-destruction were sown even before his car accident, and the fact that this is a one-man performance adds to his sense of isolation. “The more you are hurt, the more you smile,” was actually the cricketing advice of his father, Jack Milburn, a Durham local-league slugger, about how to take a blow from a fast bowler, but it neatly widens out into Milburn’s message for life as he learns from childhood to tell a succession of fat jokes against himself.

Remaining dates

• November 11 – Durham (Riverside Emirates)

• 12 – Burnopfield CC

• 14 – Essex (County Ground, Chelmsford)

• 15 – Kent (Spitfire Ground, Canterbury)

• 16 – Sussex (1st Central County Ground, Hove)

• 17 – Surrey (Kia Oval)

• 18 – Middlesex (Lord’s)

• 19 – Teddington CC

• 21 – Hampshire (Ageas Bowl)

• 22 – Leicestershire (Fischer County Ground, Leicester)

• 23 – Nottinghamshire (Trent Bridge Inn, Nottingham)

• 24 – Northamptonshire (County Ground, Northampton)

• 25 – West Hallam CC

Only cricket sustains him. A long-standing engagement eventually falters because he prefers to be out with the lads. He cannot hold down a job in the off season. Whenever he seems down, his mates do what men did – still do – and take him to the pub to cheer him up.Milburn’s accident hastened a decline that perhaps was inevitable, although his mother, Bertha, felt that effectively his life was ended on that night. With his left eye lost – his leading eye, unlike in the case of the Nawab of Pataudi, whose example Milburn hoped he could emulate – and his right eye badly scarred, his prospects of a comeback were minimal, but his bedside manner was so defiant the hospital report that year suggested that it was he who was lifting the nurses.Ill-advisedly, Northants allowed him one last heave in 1974 – their version, perhaps, of caring for his welfare – and predictably he did not succeed, save for an hour at Guildford against Surrey in light so bright that “the sun lit up the sky like a meteor”, one of the most moving passages of the play. But then the clouds rolled in and they never departed.”I tell them every fat joke I know… I am ‘Comedy Ollie’, the joker, but it never occurs to you that one day you might run out of jokes.”The play is set in the bar of the North Briton pub in Newton Aycliffe on the last night of his life. It is one last performance for “Comedy Ollie”, a traipse through the highs and lows, the tales, the songs and the bonhomie that characterised his life. Feedback from those former Northants team-mates who have seen it has been highly positive: it connects with the Ollie they knew well. Even now, there is a reluctance to accept that there was too much unhappiness, and to some degree the play respects this. Nevertheless, as Milburn reminisces, there is little sense in Dan Gaisford’s performance of the alcoholic exhaustion that had set in. His moment of death is delicately skipped around: not so much as a sound effect.Inevitably this is theatre at its most rudimentary. There is no set, apart from a table, chair and a large glass of gin and coke. Milburn’s girth is symbolised by a bit of extra padding around Gaisford’s middle, and he is not an overweight man. But by no stretch of the imagination is this austere theatre: there is much laughter to be had. I don’t know if the baby balloon joke was Milburn’s, but it should have been.When I was eight, I would pretend to be Ollie Milburn in a knockaround cricket match on a patch of village green. Overweight at the time as I was, it doubtless had its psychological benefits. The role duly chosen, the intent was to try to hit the ball many a mile, a feat occasionally achieved alongside the tumble of many wickets. “Can you be Boycott instead,” my mate Bob pleaded one day. “We’ve only got one tennis ball left.”Late in his life, in the mid-1980s, I joined Milburn as an emergency fill-in for an hour’s county cricket commentary at Scarborough on a premium telephone service. He was hungover, shambolic and had little to say. This being Scarborough, I was probably hungover too, and had even less to offer. People were expected to phone in and pay about 30p a minute. There was surely nobody on the line. It was probably his last job and it paid his bar bill. His decline was all too apparent. succeeds in capturing Milburn’s uniqueness – not an overused word in this case – conveying something of his life at his highest and lowest moments. It left me hankering for something even more ambitious; in its exploration of the sadness behind the famous sporting figure there were reminders of . Being about football and Brian Clough, that had a successful theatre run. Cricket, by contrast, must take what it can get but all involved in this production, the PCA included, have delivered not only an entertaining night’s theatre but a story that needed to be told.When The Eye Has Gone is part of the PCA’s commitment to mental-health and well-being issues, notably the Mind Matters series, which warns about addictive behaviour through alcohol, substances or gambling and educates about the warning signs of anxiety and depression.

Twitter reacts to Australia’s outstanding win in Pune, Steve O’Keefe match-defining performance and perhaps Steven Smith’s best Test century

ESPNcricinfo staff25-Feb-2017Australia on song, Steve O’Keefe the star.

And the coach of India says Steve O’Keefe is “Steady” Well done Steady O’Keefe keep it up #INDvAUS

— Mitchell Johnson (@MitchJohnson398) February 25, 2017

congrats boys. Absolutely brilliant!

— Michael Clarke (@MClarke23) February 25, 2017

Aust, you beauty! Celebrate like there is no tomorrow. Then tomorrow, start focusing on the next one. @CricketAus

— Adam Gilchrist (@gilly381) February 25, 2017

What a win by the boys in Pune.@stevesmith49 @darren_lehmann. Enjoy the moment start of something special.#go Aussies

— Mark Waugh (@juniorwaugh349) February 25, 2017

Incredible Aussie performance in Pune. So happy for Steve O’Keefe!He has toiled so hard for this.@stevesmith49 amazing 100 too.

— Shane Watson (@ShaneRWatson33) February 25, 2017

The victory song anyone?

Sing it LOUD boys! @CricketAus #Proud

— Peter Siddle (@petersiddle403) February 25, 2017

You little beauty!! A convincing win and breaking India’s unbeaten run of 20 Tests at home. Sing the song loud and proud guys!! #INDvAUS

— Lisa Sthalekar (@sthalekar93) February 25, 2017

Steven Smith’s third innings century will not be forgotten in a hurry

That from @stevesmith49 has to go down as one of the greatest of all time … not many people have scored tons on a beach against Ashwin !

— Michael Vaughan (@MichaelVaughan) February 25, 2017

What an outstanding by @stevesmith49 under extremely challenging conditions! #topclass #INDvAUS

— Tom Moody (@TomMoodyCricket) February 25, 2017

Four runs when the ball hits the stumps, and a toe-crusher that actually hurt the bowler feature in the plays of the day for the second ODI between England and India in Cuttack

Alagappan Muthu19-Jan-2017Rocking the traditional
How do you get rid of Virat Kohli? Perhaps you can stick a black cat in his path. Maybe carry around a mentalist to every India series. After all, cricket is extremely accommodating to superstition. For now though, as England showed, there is still merit in exploring traditional tactics. Chris Woakes was smacked down the ground a couple of times for going to the trouble of pitching the ball up. But he didn’t waver. He actually went even fuller, and Kohli, aiming to jam the bat down in line with the ball, ended up slicing a thick outside edge through to Ben Stokes at second slip. No need to reinvent the wheel. Yet.The nostalgia
The fans in Cuttack thronged to the stadium, eager for their share of outrageous batting from India’s next generation. KL Rahul fell for 5. Virat Kohli for 8 and just as they might have been feeling hard done by, Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni wound the clock back and redirected their frenzy. The loudest roars were reserved for sixes and fours, obviously, but a streaky little glide to third man in the 17th over was equally important. That single brought up the first half-century partnership between Yuvraj and Dhoni since the 2011 World Cup final. In all, they amassed 256 runs together, the second-highest stand for the fourth wicket in history.The eye in the sky
It was perhaps the most awful ball of the match. A full toss from Woakes Down the leg side. Waist high. Hit me burnt into the leather. Dhoni opened up his stance, wound up that big bat of his and muscled a pull towards the backward square leg boundary – which was about 60 yards from the batsman. The odds were excellent for India to record another six… until the ball clanged into the Spidercam and came back down to earth with a splat. The umpire signalled dead ball and most of the players were exchanging smiles. Only Alex Hales, the man in the deep, kicked the dirt. Clearly he thought he was robbed of a catch. He might have done some more farming a few seconds later considering Dhoni walloped a six to long-on to bring up the 200th of his career.The stumps don’t matter
Liam Plunkett was brought in to play his first game of the series, but he had a forgettable time, conceding 91 runs in his 10 overs. On a flat pitch, with batsmen exploiting the small ground and fast outfield, there were very few places to hide as a bowler. Plunkett found it out in the hardest way possible in the 44th over. He had overstepped the previous ball, meaning he was running in for the free hit delivery. It was a lovely ball, fast, aimed at the top of off stump and Dhoni swung all around it – knowing fully well the only way he could be dismissed off it was by a run-out. The batsman was bowled neck and crop, then the ball ran away to the boundary and India were gifted four byes.The return of favour
As if to level the scales, Jasprit Bumrah suffered the same misfortune. His front foot finished a bit too far a mere three balls into the over and the ensuing yorker – whose sole purpose was to refuse the batsman any leverage – actually nailed Hales on the pads, forced him off his feet and into an ungainly fall. But while all of that looked lovely for a bowler, the ball itself was hurtling away to the fine-leg fence.The extra that works
In the 32nd over of the chase came the first instance of the bowler benefiting from straying into the wrong. R Ashwin saw Jos Buttler coming down the track. He darted a flatter delivery down the leg side and past the batsman’s reach. It was wide for all money but that didn’t matter. Dhoni collected it behind the stumps. The ball had caught in the webbing of his left glove and, perhaps aware that it could pop out as a result of the speed of his hands moving in the opposite direction, he got hold of it better and then whipped the bails off with Buttler still halfway down the pitch.Oops and ouch
Ben Stokes was hanging in the air. He was perhaps the only man in the ground who thought the vicious pull from Hardik Pandya was an opportunity for a wicket. He moved to his right from deep square leg, timed his jump as well as he could, but the ball still cleared him and at pace too. Stokes was just about picking himself up off his dive and turning around to try and retrieve the ball when it came and hit him square on the mouth. It seemed one of the ball boys had been a little overenthusiastic with his job and for that he earned himself a long, withering stare from the England allrounder, his face was as red as his hairThe umpiring mishap
Confusion like this is hard to come by. As with all remarkable things in cricket, it all began with a full delivery outside off stump. Liam Plunkett moved across the line to try and muscle the ball through midwicket but was struck on the pads. Jasprit Bumrah, the bowler, appealed instantly and umpire Anil Chaudhary gave his approval. It was a rather odd decision considering how far the batsman had moved away from his stumps and when DRS was taken that fact was confirmed. Plunkett was struck outside off while playing a shot, which Kumar Dharmasena ascertained clearly but while relaying that information through to his on-field colleague, he asked Chaudhary to stay with his original decision, which had been out.Chaudhary, caught in the glare of the cameras in a match that had gone down to the wire, followed the instructions to the letter put his finger back up a second time at which point Morgan and Plunkett rounded on him and raised argument. Eventually the right call was made. But the drama wasn’t done. Chaudhary also signalled leg-byes because the batsman had taken a run but that’s when Virat Kohli at mid-on came into the picture, suggesting it should be a dead ball since the batsmen completed the single after Chaudhary had ruled Plunkett out lbw and as such anything that happened after that did not count.

ESPNcricinfo previews Northamptonshire’s prospects for the 2017 season

Alan Gardner01-Apr-2017Last season:

In: Nathan Buck (Lancashire), Max Holden (loan, Middlesex)
Out: Olly Stone (Warwickshire)
Overseas: Rory Kleinveldt (SA), Seekkuge Prasanna (T20)2016 in a nutshell
Northamptonshire had what some critics are calling “their most Northamptonshire season ever” in 2016. They went in with barely 15 men on the playing staff, faced continued uncertainty over their financial position (“we’re counting every loo roll,” said the chairman in May), recovered from a turgid start to finish mid-table in the Championship, lost a thrilling Royal London quarter-final by one wicket off the final ball of the match and lifted the NatWest Blast trophy for the second time in four seasons. Ben Duckett epitomised Northants’ uninhibited approach to the uncertainties around the club, plundering more than 2700 runs in all formats and walking off with the PCA Player of the Year and CWC Young Player awards. The highlight was T20 Finals Day, when their Moneyball approach (perhaps that should be “no-Moneyball”) saw them triumph against the odds once again.2017 prospects
Could well be another rollercoaster. Promising young fast bowler Olly Stone has left for Warwickshire (though he missed most of last season with injury anyway) but Nathan Buck has come in from Lancashire and may prove an inspired signing – still only 25, he was on the radar of England Lions five years ago. What Northamptonshire lack in squad numbers they will attempt to make up for in camaraderie, with continued success in white-ball cricket the primary focus, highlighted by the recruitment of former England batsman James Taylor as a consultant for the Royal London Cup. No team has managed to retain the T20 title but, if Northants can become the first, they will also draw level with Leicestershire on most wins (three). Championship success looks less likely, although they did finish 2016 impressively with four wins out of their last six.In charge
Since taking over in 2012, things have seldom been easy for David Ripley but he has achieved some extraordinary successes. An unexpected Championship promotion came the following year, as well as a first T20 title (Northants’ first trophy in 21 years) as the club began to embrace a data-driven approach to the format, led by their “statto” head coach. Alongside the shrewd captaincy of Alex Wakely, Northants seems to have found an ideal blend, encompassing modern tactics, attention to detail and old-fashioned team bonding. Along with bringing Taylor on board for 50-over cricket, former Wantage Road favourite David Sales is now helping out part-time as batting coach.Key player
Rory Kleinveldt, back for a third season as overseas player, has become symbolic of performance trumping perceptions at Northants. Kleinveldt’s brief international career is now behind him and, although his kit size looks a little closer to XL these days, he is still a vastly effective allrounder at county level. He has taken 124 wickets across all formats for the club, to go along with more than 1200 runs, and is a respected voice in the dressing room where what you can do is valued more than how you look.Bright young thing
Duckett blazed a trail from talented youngster to England international in little more than a season, while 18-year-old allrounder Saif Zaib has long been highly regarded in Northants circles. Hopeful of making a big impact will be Middlesex loanee Max Holden, a year older than Zaib but yet to make his senior debut. A left-handed opener, Holden captains England U-19s in the long format and, on their tour of India earlier this year, scored 170 as part of a record 321-run stand with Somerset’s George Bartlett. Ripley has been a fan for years, having tried to sign him for Northants’ academy in 2011.ESPNcricinfo verdict
When it gets down to brass tacks, you’ve got to credit the Steelbacks. They won’t be much fancied, as the betting suggests, but that will not bother Ripley and Wakely as they look to mastermind further success on a shoestring. The question of whether Duckett finds his groove again, after a mixed winter away with England, might determine how far they go in the white-ball formats and a lack of depth could limit their Championship chances – but for county cricket’s version of the Wimbledon “Crazy Gang”, up against it is how they like it.Bet365 odds: Specsavers Championship: 14-1; NatWest Blast: 12-1; Royal London Cup: 16-1

Pick your two seamers for our all-time IPL XI and help put the team together with our panel of experts

ESPNcricinfo staff02-May-2017The public voting phase of the compilation of ESPNcricinfo’s all-time IPL XI is almost over. All that remains is for readers to vote on which six seamers our panel of experts will choose from. After more than 10,000 votes, Sunil Narine, R Ashwin, Amit Mishra, Yuvendra Chahal, Harbhajan Singh and Shane Warne made it to the shortlist of spinners, while Muttiah Muralitharan narrowly missed out.There are 11 seamers on our long list, from which you can vote for two or three, depending on what you want the balance of your side to be. Your votes will then be used to create a shortlist from which our jury, which includes four former Test players (Sanjay Bangar, Aakash Chopra, Brad Hogg and Ajit Agarkar) and members of our staff, will pick the final XI. In keeping with the IPL’s rules, the number of overseas players in the XI will be restricted to four. The best comments will be part of discussions on the all-time XI during our live shows and video analysis. Keep visiting our all-time IPL XI page for updates on the team selection.Voting on this poll is now closed. The six bowlers selected are Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Lasith Malinga, Dale Steyn, Ashish Nehra, Zaheer Khan and Umesh Yadav.ESPNcricinfo Ltd
All the player stats are as of 19:30 IST, May 2, 2017.

Few batsmen are hitting a cricket ball better than Colin Ingram at the moment as his destructive performances for Glamorgan attract global attention

Vithushan Ehantharajah02-Aug-2017″It just felt like I was meant to be playing out here,” says Colin Ingram, as rain hammers away on the roof of the pavilion at the SSE Swalec Stadium in Cardiff. It’s not long before the deluge ends what might have been a Friday night blockbuster with Surrey, without a ball bowled. Not for the first time in this summer’s NatWest T20 Blast, a Glamorgan home fixture was sodden by the Welsh weather. Ingram has a peek outside, shrugs and smiles.There are not many people hitting a white ball better than Ingram at the moment. The numbers say it all: with three hundreds and two fifties, he made the most runs in this year’s Royal London Cup – 564 – followed by two T20 hundreds in six Blast innings so far. That builds on his 2016 tournament of 502 runs and 29 sixes (equal top with Chris Gayle).It is in the game’s shortest form that Ingram’s work is truly distinctive. Of the 10 players, at the time of writing, who have scored more than 1000 T20 runs in English domestic cricket since the start of 2015, Ingram (1162 – third most) has the highest strike rate – 165.05. As a No. 3 batsman, in that same period, he has developed a near-complete game for the various scenarios packed into 20-over cricket – striking at 151 in the Powerplay, 145 in the middle before shifting up a couple of gears to 210 in the final five overs.Glamorgan worked quickly to secure his services for two more years, solely for limited-overs cricket. The rest of the world are starting to pay attention too: he is currently in talks with the Adelaide Strikes ahead of their Big Bash League season. If there are not many bludgeoning better than Ingram, at 32, it could be because there aren’t many as comfortable in their own skin. For that, Ingram credits his move to county cricket.”It felt like starting a new chapter,” he says of the decision he took in 2015 to draw a line under part of his career and sign for Glamorgan on a Kolpak contract.

Unfortunately I ran into a few really good bowlers when I ended up opening, which wasn’t my preferred position

Although there was anger at the spate and quality of South African players going Kolpak this summer, there was understanding and sympathy for Ingram two years ago. Here was a player with 31 ODIs and nine T20Is spaced out between 2010 and 2013, who batted in every position across the top seven. There are regrets, but none that keep him awake at night.”I definitely feel I held my own at international level and put in performances,” he says. “Unfortunately I ran into a few really good bowlers when I ended up opening, which wasn’t my preferred position. But when you get a chance to play international cricket, you don’t turn it down. It was an unsettling period because I did move around, I was in and out of the side and I didn’t feel backed. But that’s top-end sport. If you’re in the top 15 players in the country, you take whatever you can get. I tried to make the most of it. I’m a positive sort of guy.”A switch of Bays, from Nelson Mandela to Cardiff – at least for six months of the year – has proved cathartic, allowing Ingram to renew his free-wheeling younger years in Port Elizabeth where he learned his trade on slower pitches similar to those in modern county cricket.Failure had changed Ingram, curbing an intent that he has finally rediscovered. “I started off quite fluent and then became a bit of a blocker. As most players do, you wiggle your way through and find a way. Then, in the last couple of years of my career in South Africa, I became quite tight and nervous under pressure all the time. Coming out here, I wanted to let myself loose and rediscover my game.” And how: this season he has hit 28.3% of balls faced for boundaries.”After playing international cricket, when you have a lot riding on each performance, you can get quite tight. So I’ve come out here and really enjoyed my game and rediscovered a lot. The freedom has come with that and it has been great.”Colin Ingram pummels another boundary•Getty ImagesSouth Africa’s limited-overs sides are in a constant state of flux, but no one from Cricket South Africa has asked Ingram to reconsider his position, apart from a moment last year when a national selector shouted across a packed room to tell him he had proved his point and that it was time to come home. A heckle taken with a heavy pinch of salt.Ingram’s affinity for the UK goes beyond his stint as Somerset’s overseas player in 2014. He’d long been wise to the rhythm of county cricket through a childhood of anecdotes from a schoolfriend’s father, Ken McEwan – a stylish batsmen who played for Essex between 1974 and 1985, and who himself was introduced to county cricket by Tony Greig. “I grew up listening to stories from Kenny and, from then, it was something I always wanted to do.”After making his first-class debut for Free State in 2004, before representing Eastern Province, Ingram had his first taste of cricket in England two years later with a stint for Spondon in Derbyshire. “I was only 20-years-old when I came to do that. I needed a job in the winter. I wasn’t really making much money playing cricket at that stage. I was taken in by families and made some great friends.”He returned in 2007 but in a far more precarious state, having lost his domestic contract. In search of the best-paid gig, Ingram spent 2008 north of the border, playing for Dunfermline.

“Those pay cheques are what paid my rent at home and kept me playing first-class cricket. It was an incredible experience at a young age to come out and pro at a club.”

“Yeah, that was… interesting. I didn’t play much cricket. It rained a lot. It wasn’t a particularly great standard but I had lost my contract so I was unemployed. I was just looking for a good deal.”Luckily, he had a supportive girlfriend, who upped sticks in the middle of her university studies to back his attempts to stay in the game and tour Scotland on the side. Ingram can’t help but laugh about aspects of this period – “from being stuck on the tip of Africa to Dunfermline!” – but appreciates the debt he owes to both cricket clubs for the platform they provided him.”Those pay cheques at Dunfermline are what paid my rent at home and kept me playing first-class cricket. It was an incredible experience at a young age to come out and ‘pro’ at a club and have that responsibility. I encourage our guys at home to get out as well; you learn a lot from it.”In 2013, Ingram opened South Africa’s batting during the Champions Trophy and the following year signed for Somerset as cover for his compatriot Alviro Petersen. It was this period at Taunton, with a shrinking window to get his place back in the national side and an enduring desire to experience county cricket to its fullest, that convinced him to go Kolpak. Unfortunately for Ingram, a change of focus at Somerset eventually saw the county reject him.At that point that Glamorgan captain and former South Africa international Jacques Rudolph came to Ingram’s aid. The pair were not particularly close – they’d brushed shoulders on a national camp before, recalls Ingram, but not much more – but their paths did cross in 2014. They bonded over a love of the outdoors.A month or so after his Somerset deal fell through, with every week pushing Ingram out of his eligibility window for a Kolpak deal, he got a defining call from Rudolph. “He just walked out of a wedding in South Africa,” remembers Ingram. “He asked me, ‘Are you keen to come back to England?’ I asked him ‘who do I need chat to.'”A day later, Glamorgan chief executive Hugh Morris called, gave him the sell. That was that. The next conversation would be his hardest. That girlfriend who selflessly moved to Dunfermline was now Ingram’s wife, with a different Celtic adventure put to her. “If that’s what we’ve got to do, it’s what we’ve got to do,” came her reply. So, Ingram, his wife and their daughter made the move. “I’ve been fortunate to have her support.”Ingram’s duty of care extends beyond those within the walls of his Cardiff apartment. Even at his team in South Africa, the Warriors – a “passionate, hard-working” domestic franchise, one of the smallest in the system, “growing with a lot of young guys” – his focus is skewed towards pushing those around him.Hugh Morris has stressed Ingram’s developmental role•Glamorgan CCCPart of Morris’ initial chat with Ingram was to underline that as much as he’d be needed out in the middle, his work behind the scenes would be just as important as Glamorgan bring more Welsh players through.Criticism of a lack of local players in their system has been widespread. Worcestershire director of cricket Steve Rhodes is one figure who took aim at the likes of Ingram and a Glamorgan squad packed full of imports.Ingram bit back: “I know what’s going on under my roof. Maybe for people from the outside it’s easy to look in and make a comment without knowing the full facts. But I know my role here is to work with the young Welsh players and bring them through.”One of those is Aneurin Donald, one of the brightest prospects on the circuit. “We talk a lot about the game,” Ingram says of the prodigy. “I’ve encouraged him to have separate accounts: your white ball account and a separate red ball account. If you structure it up in that way it makes it a lot more clear-cut and you don’t wander between the three formats. When you’re working on your red ball, you’re working on your red ball.”Ingram’s next focus is broadening his horizons on the international T20 circuit. The finer details are due to be ironed out with Jason Gillespie and the Strikers – he has everything crossed after a gig with Sydney Sixers fell through last season – but with this and another two years at Glamorgan, he has a solid base of work lined up.”A lot of the opportunities that have come from playing out here,” he acknowledges. “I’m really grateful for that.” He hopes, too, that he will be able to earn a spot in South Africa’s new Global T20 League this November.Pakistan celebrate dismissing Ingram for a duck•AFPAs for the IPL, that is a little more complicated because of the need for “No Objection Certificates” from Cricket South Africa and, in essence, from Glamorgan: Kolpak players are required to prioritise their county.”It gets quite confusing,” says Ingram. “I play six months back home and I play six months here so both sides feel they have some sort of right to me. But I think I’m moving towards a stage where I’d like to get out to international tournaments in the next two years. That’s my plan. Being 32, I know I’ve got loads of cricket in me. Without international cricket on the table, that’s the next challenge.”Prior to sitting down with ESPNcricinfo, as the rain begins, he is in deep conversation with Surrey’s Kumar Sangakkara, picking his brain about what options might be open to him in the off-season. In fact, Ingram breaks off his chat for this interview.”I’ve not seen Sanga in a while. I’m fortunate that I’ve played against and chatted to these really high, marquee players. So it’s great to touch base with him and throw out a few ideas and see what he thinks. Often in life it’s who you know and not what you know.”Ingram is right. Luckily for him, he is now one they’ll want to know, too.

A World Cup is a celebration of how far the women’s game has come, yet it should not be forgotten that many advancements were a long time coming

Daniel Brettig22-Jun-2017In all the ugliness of Australian cricket’s pay dispute, there has been shared acknowledgement of the growth of the women’s game down under, recognition of its vitality and its equality with men’s cricket. Specifically, members of the national team, state squads and WBBL teams, stand to earn far more money than they currently receive.That shared realisation comes at a time when women’s sport in Australia is experiencing a major upsurge. The inaugural season of the AFL Women’s competition earlier this year was a vibrant success. Netball has undergone a reinvention in the shape of the new Super League. Amid this mood, some have wondered why the AFL’s new collective bargaining agreement does not include women, while Cricket Australia’s next MoU with the Australian Cricketers Association – however long it takes to emerge – will do so.In the days and hours before the start of this year’s women’s World Cup in England, it should not be forgotten that the first global limited-overs tournament was a women’s affair – staged in 1973 with the financial assistance of the businessman, philanthropist and sports lover Sir Jack Hayward, whose name emblazoned the initial trophy.The fact the women’s game had a showpiece of that kind before the men is something to be proud of, but it also serves as a reminder of how long its players and administrators have had to fight for the sort of pay and conditions that had for long been awarded to the men’s game. Were the AFL to follow the same trajectory as Australia’s Women’s National Cricket League, for example, it would be another nine years before any of its players were paid anything at all.It was in 1988 that Australia’s women’s team first gained a coach – Ann Mitchell – before lifting that year’s World Cup at home. Whereas the men’s event had been held more or less every four years since 1975, the women’s equivalent was, until the last decade, held at all manner of intervals in a variety of formats, due to the challenges of finding money for both its organisation and the travel and expenses of competing teams.Similar constraints afflicted the Australian Women’s Cricket Championships, which began in 1930-31, and for more than 65 years were restricted to a two-week carnival affair. When it was finally replaced by the more expansive WNCL in 1996-97, the players continued to take part on annual leave from their day jobs, as they did whenever representing Australia. The season after the inaugural WNCL, that leave was taken up by a visit to India for the 1997 World Cup, an event that featured two moments of transformative significance.The first of these was the uniforms: female players had long worn numerous styles of culottes (split skirts or shorts), a uniform taken to a wider audience by the allrounder Zoe Goss when she made a neat 29 and then dismissed Brian Lara in a charity match at the SCG in 1994. For reasons of health and safety relating to abrasive outfields, competing teams took to wearing pants during the 1997 tournament, and soon found that in terms of fielding especially, the game would go to another level.As was the case for Allan Border’s Australian men’s side a decade before, the team led by Belinda Clark found themselves going all the way to the tournament final, at Eden Gardens. To their surprise and delight, the cricket-loving public of Kolkata turned up in enormous numbers; the estimated crowd of 70-80,000 is still by a distance the largest assembled for a women’s match. Clark’s Australia defeated New Zealand to lift the trophy, then emulated Border and company by making an enraptured lap of honour.A 1993 World Cup match. Till recently, women’s World Cups have been irregular, ad hoc events•PA PhotosThat same year Malcolm Speed was appointed as chief executive of the Australian Cricket Board, and after negotiating his own pay fight with the nascent ACA, he began looking towards the amalgamation of the governing body with the Australian Women’s Cricket Council, later Women’s Cricket Australia. This process, pushed in part by the desire of the Australian Sports Commission to ensure that men’s and women’s sports worked more closely together, was largely smooth, albeit with one hold-up – the ACB’s state-appointed board members were opposed to adding a director from the women’s organisation. Ironically their opposition meant that the chair, Quentin Bryce, went on merely to become Australia’s Governor-General.By way of compromise, a women’s cricket committee was set up, while the ACB’s legal counsel, Andrew Twaits, worked with Bryce and WCA’s executive team on a staged amalgamation. Among other things, this meant opening up access for female players to programmes and facilities like the National Cricket Centre (then known as the Cricket Academy). The national team also benefited from a greater level of support staff. These were steps forward from the dismissive words of the former ACB chief executive Graham Halbish in response to questions about why there were no women at the Academy: he said it was “unashamedly elitist”. At the same time, work began on ways to ensure that women had a pathway into the game beyond the introduction of mixed-gender Kanga Cricket.The ICC followed suit in the mid-2000s, and organisation of women’s global events and development came under the same umbrella as the men. Among the most tangible signs of this change was how events were covered by television; the semis and the final of the 2005 event were broadcast, then ten games were covered in 2009, and more have been at each event since. The World T20 has meanwhile been played as a dual event, with the women’s matches watched by male team-mates. In 2010, Australia’s teams made it to both finals, but it was the women – by now referred to as the Commonwealth Bank Southern Stars – who came up trumps.

Whereas the men’s event had been held more or less every four years since 1975, the women’s equivalent was, until the last decade, held at all manner of intervals in a variety of formats, due to the challenges of finding money

While amalgamation meant bigger events and broader coverage, matters of pay and conditions were still a long way from satisfactory resolution. New South Wales led the way in Australia, first paying the Breakers team small wages for the 2005-06 season, coincidentally (or perhaps not) beginning a run of ten consecutive WNCL titles for NSW. Lisa Sthalekar, the spin bowler so pivotal to the success of both NSW and Australia during this period, remembers the change that wrought.”We weren’t paying for flights and accommodation to play, but it was expected this was the amount of time we had to take off from work and we had to use our annual leave,” she says. “Up to that point, it cost players thousands of dollars a year [in lost work] to represent their state.”It was to be another three years before the national team was remunerated above basic expenses, initially offered retainers of A$5000 to A$15,000. One player who missed out on the modest windfall was Cathryn Fitzpatrick, the fast bowler who retired in 2007 and would later coach Australia to the 2013 World Cup victory in India. This lag period was the cause of some consternation, and there were numerous other flashpoints as the women began to assert their rights as fellow cricketers. Talks with the ACA, eventually leading to full membership in 2011, began in 2006.That was also the year in which the national women’s team felt slighted on Allan Border Medal night, when Clark’s peerless batting record and many years of service to Australia were not recognised in any meaningful way. Alex Blackwell was moved to write a letter to CA’s chief executive, James Sutherland, questioning the oversight. Clark, who has gone on to a vaunted role as head of the NCC in Brisbane, was more suitably recognised with induction to the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame at the 2014 awards presentation.Class of ’97: Belinda Clark and her triumphant side take a victory lap around Eden Gardens•Craig Prentis/Getty ImagesThe forming of a relationship with the ACA allowed players the benefit of access to financial support for university study, an option taken up far more readily by the women, who were used to juggling cricket and other pursuits. “The male players were purely focused on cricket rather than study,” Sthalekar points out. “There was a big push to get them to do other things, but the female players obviously always had a career and cricket was just the ‘hobby’ so to speak. Financially that helped out so many players because it meant they didn’t have to work as much as they had to previously.”On the field, other nations had closed the gap with Australia and the other two traditional powers, England and New Zealand. The 2009 home World Cup was something of an disaster in terms of results for Australia, while away from the middle the team was riven by differences between players and coaching staff.”The 2009 World Cup was our worst ever,” Sthalekar remembers. “We came fourth, lost to India twice, lost to New Zealand via Duckworth-Lewis, and even when we won, we weren’t dominating games. South Africa and the West Indies pushed us a lot more than we would have expected.”That was a bit of a wake-up call. That was when we felt like everyone’s caught us. Also from 2005 to 2009, we still won series but we weren’t dominating.”A bit like the men’s team around that similar period, you had a lot of stars of the game. They left, and so it took some time to regenerate. In 2009 we brought in a lot of younger players for their first tournament, rather than having a mix of youth and experience, which I think hurt us as well.”

“There were some players who had the superstition that if they didn’t have a good night’s sleep, they’d play well. So if you’re rooming with someone like that, it makes things kind of difficult!”Lisa Sthalekar on problems with sharing rooms on tour

Yet out of the chaos, a new breed emerged. Meg Lanning, Ellyse Perry and Alyssa Healy, to name three, had looked likely to be major contributors from their junior years, and in the more integrated environment developed over the preceding decade, were carefully guided through to places at the top level. In Lanning, Australia found a batting talent to rank with Clark, while Perry’s all-round skills and considerably pacy bowling made her the sort of all-trades performer the men’s team envied in the years after coming off second best to Andrew Flintoff in 2005.While the performance of the team improved, there remained areas of consternation. Australia’s men had stopped needing to share twin rooms on tour as far back as 1998. Likewise well-planned itineraries and business-class seats had been central to the sort of environment encouraged by Pat Howard when he became CA’s team performance manager following the Argus review in 2011.”One thing I remember a group of us advocating for in 2012 was single rooms on tour,” Sthalekar says. “We felt that everyone has their different time clocks when you’ve got jet lag, and also when one person got sick, everyone got sick throughout the team. There were some players who had the superstition that if they didn’t have a good night’s sleep, they’d play well. So if you’re rooming with someone like that, it makes things kind of difficult!

In the days and hours before the start of this year’s women’s World Cup in England, it should not be forgotten that the first global limited-overs tournament was a women’s affair – staged in 1973

“So we spoke about that in 2012 and there was a period of time where CA weren’t going to do it. We mentioned as well the class we were flying, because, for instance, in 2012 we won the T20 World Cup and that evening we got on a flight back home from Sri Lanka. We didn’t really get a chance to celebrate, we were all in cattle class, having played a game, a couple of girls were sick, we were exhausted tired and sore, then a week later we started the WNCL. So that wasn’t great.”Now the girls are flying business class and things like that. It’s good to see those changes happen, because all of that helps. As much as people think it is a bit of a luxury, recovery is a huge part of any athlete’s armoury.”Lisa Sthalekar dives to take a catch. Professional contracts have allowed the current generation to “put their whole focus” on cricket, she says•Getty ImagesThese advancements took place in 2013, the year of the most recent World Cup, and following on from similar moves in England. They arrived at the time that CA announced vastly improved payments for the national team and also state players. These ranged from A$25,000 to A$52,000, plus tour payments and marketing bonuses for the national side, fully funded by CA to the tune of just over $1.5 million a year, rising incrementally each year. With the wages came a new mindset.”A lot of girls around that time chose cricket to be their profession for the first time,” Sthalekar says. “That meant a lot of the girls in pre-season were up at the National Cricket Centre, training for longer periods of time. It’s only in the past two or three years that’s happened. This World Cup campaign, they had three weeks and then two weeks. The level of training and preparation they can do is so different to, say, 2005 when we went to India. That was a seven-week tour and maybe a one-week camp before. Because players are getting paid a decent wage, it means they don’t have other work commitments so they’re allowed to put their whole focus on that.”The next step is in many respects the final one. From amateurs meeting at the behest of Hayward in England in 1973, Australia’s players will return home from this campaign in the confident expectation that they will be paid fully professional wages from 2017-18 onwards. Not only that, they will be incorporated into the same pay deal as the men, an outcome driven as much by the years of sweat and toil put in by the forebears of Lanning, Perry and company as by the reforming spirit of Australian women’s sport in 2017.”Both parties believe they should be in this MOU, one agreement for all players regardless of gender,” Sthalekar says. “Then you have CA just recently changing the name to the Australian women’s team rather than being known as the ‘Southern Stars’. It’s not just that but also saying it’s not the Australian team anymore, it’s the Australian men’s team and the Australian women’s team. As little as it cost to do that, I think it sends a very strong message.”

Paul Marsh, the former Australian Cricketers’ Association chief executive, shares his views on the pay dispute between CA and Australia’s players

Daniel Brettig21-Jun-2017Having just completed the AFL deal, what’s your perspective on where the cricket negotiation is at?They don’t even appear to be at first base from my understanding of it. With CA not supplying financial information to the ACA it is very hard for them to negotiate a deal. That’s how I see it at the moment.The AFL deal has been reported as being imminent for a long time yet it still took time to finalise. What are your thoughts on CA’s lead negotiator Kevin Roberts going on a roadshow to state squads less than two weeks from the expiry of current MOU?Wouldn’t you think his time would be better spent getting in a room with the ACA, giving them the information, and actually start moving on this? Our agreement has taken a long time to get to where it has got to, and it’s taken us five weeks just to draft the agreement – how these guys get this thing done in the next nine days and mitigate all the risks that come with it not being done, it’s hard to comprehend how it could happen.You mentioned financial information as an issue – how is that a problem for the ACA in trying to reach a deal?No players’ association can responsibly represent its members if you don’t understand what the financial forecasts look like. Historically CA – and the last MOU in 2012 was the best – gave us incredibly detailed and rigorous financial forecasts for their business, for the state associations and for the BBL teams. The reality of it is that your forecasts will end up being different to your actual results, almost by definition it is impossible to look five or six years into the future and get that absolutely right.But in CA’s case they have to be accountable to something, and that’s why the percentage model is so important. If the actual revenues of the industry end up being different to what the forecasts are, then you’ve got something you can tie the players’ payments to. A share of revenue could be more or less than what it has been, that’s all part of the discussion, as is what goes in and what goes out, but it’s about tying what the players get to the actual revenues of the game rather than what the forecasts are.There’s no accountability for CA if they don’t. They can give you whatever set of numbers they want to give you, and if they end up being significantly inaccurate – as they have been for every MOU negotiation since 1998 – then the players are getting shortchanged. Right now CA aren’t even giving the ACA a set of forecasts. That to me is fundamental, and all CA have done is lost the trust of the entire playing group because it looks like they’re trying to hide something.What was the AFL’s attitude to information sharing?I think there’s an acknowledgement from the AFL that they want to do a long-term deal with us for industry stability, but they understand it is impossible for us if we’re being responsible to tie what the players get just to a set of forecasts. They understand that point, and the second that players keep talking about in both sports is partnership. Incentivise us with a model that helps us to both grow the game together. Our model isn’t where the cricket model is currently at because we’ve got 28% of forecast revenue, 28% of the AFL upside and only 11.2% of the clubs’ upside. The ACA at the moment have roughly a 26% share of everything.The club piece is a bigger challenge in the AFL but that’s all up for discussion. The principle of tying player payments to the industry is common to both models now. We think we’ll end up getting a better result for the players and the game, and that’s the galling part of what’s going on at the moment in cricket. Surely the players are going to get a lot more money in this MOU through the percentage model, or the review mechanism as we’re calling it in the AFL, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that for every dollar the players get, the game gets three. Why are they [CA] trying to strip that off? It smacks of pure greed.

I’m incredibly frustrated, as someone who did the last deal and helped convince the players to put $20 million of their own money [from the 2015 World Cup] back into growing the game. Yet the very next MOU the players are told ‘we don’t want to give you this revenue percentage anymore’.

When you left the ACA in 2014 the game’s landscape had already changed enormously due to Twenty20 tournaments and that process is only getting faster. Are you surprised to see this sort of dispute arise when players have more choice than before? Certainly more than AFL players have.I think it’s crazy. For the services of players, cricket is now a seller’s market. The players can choose where to go, and that’s a reality the AFL doesn’t have, players can’t pick up their trade and go somewhere else. But the cricketers can, and for the majority of countries now they can make a lot more money doing that than playing international cricket. I think international cricket is at risk of falling over if the big countries have a period for whatever reason where they don’t play international cricket.Nearly all successful professional sports are club-based, cricket is now half-and-half and could very quickly become a club-based sport. There are some parts of the cricket model at the moment that don’t work for players – say the best player in the world is a West Indian or a New Zealander, what they get for playing for their country may well be less than what an Australian state cricketer gets. So to think they are not going to chase the T20 dollars and get paid what they’re worth is just complete naivety. It seems to me that CA are at risk of pushing the players down that path.The other thing I find incredible is that CA relies on its commercial partners to generate income, and they as of next week no longer have the players locked away from the perspective of protecting their commercial partners. It’s a slippery slope to companies saying ‘we don’t want to invest in cricket because of the risk here, because players can go off and do things with our competitors’, then the whole business model of cricket falls over. Stability and certainty means everyone knows where they stand, CA can go away and do commercial and broadcast deals and organise tours. If they haven’t got that, from a business standpoint it’s chaos. That’s the thing where you look at it and think ‘how could it get to that point?’.One of CA’s major arguments against revenue sharing is that they say it becomes very difficult to invest in new projects when a percentage of all investment must go to players. How can that issue be addressed?The ACA has historically been responsible. If CA have put arguments around needing flexibility around the revenue-sharing model in order to invest in the game, all I’m hearing from the ACA is ‘we’re happy to talk about that’. And it can be negotiated, you can exclude certain revenue streams, and we’ve done that with the AFL deal like in the case of Etihad Stadium. We’ve given the AFL a six-year exclusion to take any money they generate from Etihad that won’t go into our pot.If the clubs make money from it that will be included, but that’s giving them [the AFL] a chance to pay off that investment, and hopefully beyond six years everyone will benefit from that. I think any players’ association will look at good arguments and work those things into the model. But the argument is ‘we don’t want to give you a share of the upside because we might want to spend it, and we’re not going to give you the forecasts because we don’t want to’.I think it is impossible for a responsible players’ association to do a deal on that basis. Certainly if I was in the ACA’s shoes I couldn’t possibly consider anything more than a one-year deal, and even that would have to be under the principle of revenue share – it is just too open to be gamed. CA have all the information, they know what the future looks like as their best guess, and they won’t even share that. It is incumbent on CA to put the details to the ACA to try to work through what sorts of investments they want to make.Another issue is the adjustment ledger. CA have said it is reasonable to take adjustment-ledger money from the current MOU into the next one because that is what happened in 2012. Why was it done then?We did a one-year rollover deal for 2011-12, and it was a season with an India tour. We could have paid the players 26% of the money from that year, but what would have happened was a massive increase for that one year, and then a decrease for the next year and so on. It was only done that way so the player payments were evened out rather than what would have been irresponsible and unfair to most of the players, spiking one year then going down the next.’As much as CA will claim it is Australia’s favourite sport and all that, now I’ve been removed a bit, it doesn’t get the column inches that other sports get, it isn’t necessarily in the consciousness of the Australian public like it used to be’•John Walton/PA PhotosI’m incredibly frustrated, as someone who did the last deal and helped convince the players to put $20 million of their own money [from the 2015 World Cup] back into growing the game. The players took a very responsible decision to invest back into the game. There wouldn’t be another professional sport in the world where the players took that decision, yet the very next MOU the players are told ‘we don’t want to give you this revenue percentage anymore’. I find that incredibly disrespectful and unprofessional in my view.We negotiated that share of revenue fair and square, and the players could have put all of that money in their pocket, and they didn’t. That shows how serious the players were about this partnership, so to then have that thrown back in their face… For CA to use money from this MOU that the players have earned – despite the fact they’ve given $20 million back – and then try to say ‘we’re going to take more money out of what we have to pay you and put it into the next deal’, it’s just contemptible from where I sit.When you left cricket in 2014, did you have much of an idea that CA was moving in this direction in terms of what it wanted out of the next MOU?I was certainly conscious of [CA chairman] David Peever’s business history. I knew David’s philosophies were anti-union, or not seeing the need for a union, which perhaps is a lack of understanding for the difference between a players’ association and a normal employee-type union. There’s differences in 100% membership, players being through these fights before and being incredibly united. I had an inkling there may have been a change coming from CA, but there certainly won’t be one from the players. The irony of what’s going on right now is it will only make the playing group stronger and more united.In terms of the changes CA are seeking, the AFLPA was coming from a similar perspective in terms of wanting to change a system that had existed fairly consistently for a number of years. How did you go about that?CA wanted to change the model, as we [the AFLPA] did, and we had to take the AFL on that journey together. I don’t think CA have done that at all with the players. You’d think they’d be saying ‘guys this is what it all looks like, these are our concerns with the model, we want to meet with you and discuss it’. Instead it looks like ‘here’s our deal, we’re not going to discuss the financials, take it or leave it’. It’s laughable, and if they think they’re going to change the players’ minds now, it just shows how far removed they are from the players’ psyche. By trying to work around the ACA, all they’ve done is make the ACA stronger – the players appoint them and pay them to look after their interests so they don’t have to get involved in all this. By going to the players direct they’ve almost done the ACA’s job for them. It defies belief.So what do you think happens next?There’s no doubt the players have got very strong resolve here. I can’t see a deal done before June 30, so from that point the players become uncontracted, the commercial rights fall away, and potentially we’ll see players going off and doing their own commercial deals, looking for opportunities in tournaments overseas. I think the big tipping point here will be the India tour. If the players haven’t got contracts then, from where I sit that would be one they shouldn’t go on. They’ll effectively be locked out, it won’t be a strike.CA’s approach here is purely and simply trying to bully the players into an outcome that CA want. ‘We won’t give you the financial information, we won’t give you this model, here’s our deal, take it or leave it’ – that’s been the approach to this point. How can it possibly be seen as a ‘win/win’ here? I can’t see how, and from a human-behaviour perspective you just ask who’s going to agree to that then, how will the players say ‘we’re happy with that deal’ and the same for CA. It’s now a win/lose scenario and in my experience, if you’re going to have a relationship with someone, win/lose just doesn’t work.Do you have a different perspective on where cricket is at having been removed from it for a few years and involved in a rival sport?Cricket’s not going that well that it can afford to throw itself open to this. As much as CA will claim it is Australia’s favourite sport and all that, now I’ve been removed a bit, it doesn’t get the column inches that other sports get, it isn’t necessarily in the consciousness of the Australian public like it used to be, and I just think it is a very dangerous game to play.

He has become adept at rescue acts but Temba Bavuma is still looking to solidify his place in South Africa’s Test side

Firdose Moonda29-Jul-20171:13

Bavuma unfazed by batting rescue acts

I’m Temba Bavuma. I’m short. I’ve been short my whole life – well except for that time in primary school when we were all about the same height and then everyone else grew – so I’ve kind of got used to it.I’m black. I’ve been black my whole life, and how different that life could have been. I was born a year before South Africa were readmitted to international cricket, at a time when society was starting to integrate. By the time I started school, I was able to attend two of the best – SACS, where Peter Kirsten used to go, and St David’s. When I was 11, the school magazine asked us to write a paragraph on where we saw ourselves in 15 years’ time. I wrote, “I see myself in fifteen years in my suit and shaking [then-president Thabo] Mbeki’s hand congratulating me for making the South African side.” I got there two years earlier than planned. I was 24 when I made my Test debut.I was not supposed to play in that match, against West Indies in Port Elizabeth, but Quinton de Kock rolled his ankle in the first Test and they needed someone to bat at No. 7. I scored 10. In the next Test, I scored 15. I didn’t know how soon it would be before I played again but I was taken on the next tour to Bangladesh, in June 2015, because AB de Villiers was on paternity leave. It rained so much that nobody even remembers that series but I do, because I scored my first fifty there. I knew it didn’t matter that much though, AB was back for the next series against India so I went back to being the reserve.I didn’t do much besides be glad I wasn’t playing in that series. The pitches were tough, the ball was turning and India were all over us. All our batsmen struggled so for the last Test, the selectors decided to give Stiaan van Zyl a break and asked me to open the batting. I am not an opening batsman.I was so nervous when I walked out with Dean Elgar at the Feroz Shah Kotla but I knew I had to try. I clipped my fifth ball through midwicket and, although I struggled a bit with my footwork, I even managed to find my drive. I was doing okay, even when they brought the spinners on, even when Dean nicked off, even when Hashim Amla was dropped. After tea, I had to face Ravi Jadeja and he found even more turn than the others. I couldn’t get forward and he beat my inside edge. I was bowled. I faced 55 balls in that innings and made 22.Some people were talking about it as though it was the best I’d played until the second knock when I spent almost two-and-half hours in the middle and faced 117 balls to make 34. I admitted that was the toughest innings of my life. It went against all my natural impulses because it wasn’t about scoring runs, it was about batting time and blocking things out – the ball and the banter. I didn’t know that the next 18 months would be just as tough, hell, maybe even tougher.

In these situations, I can’t think of myself. I have to consider what the team needs and how I can help get them there. I can’t play expansive strokes. I can’t take risks

I got to keep a place in the team for home series against England, which was extra special because it was played over the festive season. I was part of a Boxing Day Test in Durban and a New Year’s Test at my home ground, Newlands. I grew up less than 10km away from the stadium, in the township of Langa. It was basically a different world. In that match it seemed as though the two worlds became one.I scored a hundred. To date, my only hundred. My dad was in the stands when I did it. He had dreamed of this moment as much as me. The whole of Newlands was there, a Newlands crowd with people from Langa in it. They all clapped when I reached the milestone and many of them cried too. I knew I had done something special. I had given millions of people, black African people, hope. Afterwards Hashim, a man of so few words, explained the difficulties players of colour face because we continue to be doubted. Apartheid ended shortly after I was born; its legacy will take much longer to face.I got the sense people thought I belonged after that innings. I suppose a Test hundred will do that for you. I also knew I needed the runs because there was soon to be a selection struggle in the line-up. Over the course of the England series, JP Duminy and Faf du Plessis were both dropped. JP was brought back and I was sure Faf would be too.I had a break until August when we played New Zealand at home. Just before the series, we had a culture camp and were asked to rethink our goals, as individuals and as a team. Getting our Test ranking back up was one of the most important things on our agenda. We had slipped to No. 7. When we beat New Zealand, we moved up to No. 5. Then we headed to Australia.It was my first time there. The Australian media were very interested in my height. A few days before the Perth Test, I was up for a media day and all the questions were about how I had adapted my game because I’m short. They also asked me if I liked facing bouncers. I didn’t want to say too much, especially because the first Test was in Perth. I just told them the Wanderers, where I play my domestic cricket, is a lot like the WACA.When it was my turn to bat, we were 81 for 5. Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood were raising steam from the Perth pitch. I scored 51. Quinton de Kock was with me. He bats much more freely and scores quicker. He made 84. Together, we dragged the team to 242. It wasn’t a great score but we trusted our attack, even after Dale Steyn went down. Australia scored 244 and then we batted them out of the game. We won and I played a small part in it.In Hobart, we bowled Australia out for 85 in some of the scariest conditions for batsmen. The ball was swinging and seaming and when it was my turn to bat, we were 76 for 4. Hashim was with me for a bit, then Quinny was with me and we rebuilt. I scored 74. I thought I was going to get a hundred that day but after four-and-a-half hours, I holed out to point. I was disappointed but we won the match and the series.I knew when I got home that I would have to concentrate on converting my starts and the Sri Lanka series should have been the one to do that. We were told it wouldn’t be easy, because we were going to prepare green tops, but I didn’t expect it to be that hard. I only got into double-figures once in five innings and my series ended with two ducks. Throughout that series, the talk was about who would be replaced by AB, who was coming back after his injury, and I suspected it would be me. At a function in late January, I told some journalists I would understand if I was dropped. But then AB decided to sit out of the New Zealand and England series and I had another chance.Temba Bavuma showed his impressive temperament•AFPIt was my first time in New Zealand. Dunedin was like Hobart weather-wise. We drew. When we got to Wellington, we made it look like the WACA, or the Wanderers. When it was my turn to bat, we were 94 for 6. Quinny was with me. We put on 160 runs together but neither of us scored a hundred. We won the match.Now, I am here, in England for the first time. There is a lot of expectation on our side. After winning three series in a row in Australia since readmission, we could win three in a row in England too. But we are underdogs. At Lord’s, we concede 458 and when it is my turn to bat we are 104 for 4. Theunis de Bruyn is with me. We fight hard, I make 59 and we finish on 361. We lose the match. It’s not a great feeling. But I know this team well enough to know they won’t take this lying down.We come back at Trent Bridge. We square the series. We get to The Oval. We concede 353 and when it is my turn to bat, we are 47 for 4. Quinny has been moved up to No. 4 and he has already been dismissed. Soon we are 61 for 7. Vernon Philander is in hospital and won’t be back today. Will we even get to 100?In these situations, I can’t think of myself. I have to consider what the team needs and how I can help get them there. I can’t play expansive strokes. I can’t take risks. I have to keep my defence tight. I can’t drive or pull as often as I want to. Sometimes I get a ball that just begs to be hit, like the one Ben Stokes pitched up, but mostly, I try to go with soft hands, to guide the ball into gaps. I ran one to third man, deliberately, but I can’t do that too often.I need to look after the tail, I need to stay with them. I have to refuse some runs. I can’t do what I did when I was on 40 and slashed at a Stuart Broad ball and was nearly caught. We might not have avoided the follow-on if Stokes had held on. I can only reach for those when they’re a bit wider like the one Jimmy Anderson bowled to me a little later. I was on 48 then and Morne Morkel got out. I almost didn’t get to fifty at all. But I did and that’ll do for now.I’m Temba Bavuma and I just need a little more time in the middle.

Rahul Johri, the BCCI CEO, talks to ESPNcricinfo about the proposed Future Tours Programme, which he says will ‘ensure the best possible content and context’

Nagraj Gollapudi15-Dec-2017Now that you’ve wrapped up fleshing out the proposed FTP, where does the BCCI stand on the health of Test cricket?The BCCI is committed to Test cricket. It is evident the existing calendar, too. We played an extended Test season at home. We are playing South Africa, England and Australia in 2018-19 (before the World Cup).In the new proposed FTP, India will play 24 out of their scheduled 37 Tests – or nearly 65% – against England, Australia or South Africa. Were there any parameters used to determined the opponents as part of the Test league since points would be at stake?If you look at the framework for the Test league that has been created, we have to play at least six opponents in two years home or away and a minimum of two Tests per series. It is with us the prerogative of how many do we play and with who. We are looking at good content for the Indian fans, the cricketers, for the broadcasters, for all the stakeholders. It is our responsibility to ensure the best possible content and context.Is it true that the operations team focused on performance and stature of the opponent, as some media reports noted, before penciling in the opponent?That is not how we approached it. We have to provide the best cricket for the benefit of BCCI, for the benefit of all our stakeholders. And we feel that if we can deliver the highest quality of cricket then your previous question on [the health of] Test cricket gets answered. Our focus is to deliver the best value for all our stakeholders. With that premise we have built the FTP.India will play 12 out of 19 home Tests and 12 out of 18 away Tests against Australia, England, South Africa. Do you look at this as the marquee series?The top team is India, firstly. For India to have the best context we believed [playing those teams is] the best way forward to build the FTP. There is no doubt India remains a popular opponent but unfortunately it is not possible to play everyone.The media rights for Indian cricket are up for renewal from April 2018. India do not play much cricket till the 2019 World Cup at home. Was that a factor, too, when you chalked out the new FTP?Our ambit was clearly 2019-23 in the new FTP. From the media rights standpoint a good balance between home and away which ensures quality content at home is of paramount importance. Delivering the best value for all stakeholders was a significant premise in every possible way. So we have to strike a balance between all the variables.In this proposed FTP India will play on average two fewer Tests per year than in the current FTP.That is incorrect. If this new proposed structure was not there, under the existing FTP, India were scheduled to play 15 Tests at home and 21 away. But in this new proposed FTP India are scheduled to play 19 Tests at home and 18 away – so overall we are playing two more Tests actually.

“The BCCI sets global benchmarks in terms of revenues or rights fees for every format. A lot was said before the IPL media rights tender too, but the [eventual] IPL rights proved the pre-eminence of Indian cricket and set the benchmark for cricket leagues. I am extremely confident when the BCCI bilateral media rights tender opens it will once again set a benchmark for international cricket.”Rahul Johri

But do you agree that there has been a deep, growing concern about the health of Test cricket and its future in the present form? Did you and other CEOs take that into consideration when you sat for numerous meetings before fleshing out the FTP?Our stance remains to stay committed to Test cricket. The mandate given to us in the BCCI is that Test cricket is a very important component of the overall cricket structure.Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland recently said “alarm bells” have started ringing for Test cricket. According to Sutherland the commercial value of Test cricket has fallen especially in the Indian market. Do you agree?That is James Sutherland’s view. Not for me comment on it. As CEOs of our boards, our primary responsibility is to execute the directions given by our boards. We are not cricket specialists. While economics plays a role in sport, only economics cannot dictate how Test cricket is played.Even Uday Shankar, CEO of Star India, the global broadcaster, says the “economics of Test cricket” do not work. He feels the popularity of the game drives the economics. And the popularity has been falling. How do you look at it?The BCCI bilateral media rights will be out soon. The result of that will deliver the answer. We are extremely confident that we will deliver the best value for Indian cricket. The BCCI sets global benchmarks in terms of revenues or rights fees for every format. A lot was said before the IPL media rights tender too, but the [eventual] IPL rights proved the pre-eminence of Indian cricket and set the benchmark for cricket leagues. I am extremely confident when the BCCI bilateral media rights tender opens it will once again set a benchmark for international cricket.During your tenure BCCI has stuck massive contracts from title sponsorship to team sponsorship to IPL media rights. Do you reckon those deals would play a positive influence on the bilateral media rights next year?The positive trajectory that has been set will continue.Can you talk about what the players and Indian team management have told you on Test cricket specifically. What is their vision of India in Test cricket?We have a constant dialogue with the team management. We take their feedback extremely seriously. And our actions manifest from those conversations.Are the players in favour of five-day Test cricket or are they open to four-day Test cricket?The ICC Cricket Committee has made robust recommendations on this subject. And we endorse those suggestions.The ICC Cricket Committee is not yet in favour of four-day Test cricket. You support that, then?Yes.What about the players on day-night Test cricket? India are the only big Full Member country to not have played pink-ball cricket.I feel it would be too premature to jump the gun on this. It needs a lot of deliberation and hence I said the general body of BCCI will discuss day-night Test cricket threadbare. And whatever decision the BCCI general body takes, we will implement it.You tried playing the Duleep Trophy under lights once, but discontinued that experiment. Why? Did the BCCI’s technical committee weigh in with their thoughts and what were they?The BCCI is an organization which is at the forefront of innovations. We played the Duleep Trophy to experiment with pink-ball cricket. That experiment continues. How it manifests itself is the decision left to the BCCI general body. Once the specialists decide, we will implement it.