Gayle joins calls for IPL window

West Indies captain Chris Gayle has joined a growing band of international cricketers calling for a permanent window for the Indian Premier League.

Gayle leads the West Indians' defence of the Wisden Trophy at Lord's this week, having only been in the country since Tuesday morning due to commitments with Kolkata Knight Riders.

"There should be a window for the IPL where all players should be available, so that everybody can get the chance to be amongst and play against the best," said Gayle. "Make it just like a World Cup event, so that everybody gets a fair share of it."

Both the 29-year-old and Fidel Edwards were participating in the second season of the IPL as were England trio Kevin Pietersen, Paul Collingwood and Ravi Bopara, all of whom were back on these shores by last Friday.

Next year's IPL has been shifted to start in March, which will at least avoid a clash with the English domestic season, and staging it in a slot away from international scheduling appears to be the only way to preserve the pre-eminence of Test cricket.

Gayle was originally scheduled to join up with his colleagues over the weekend but requested to play another match for Kolkata Knight Riders, which meant he did not report to the team hotel until 48 hours before the start of Wednesday's first npower Test.

"We all knew this situation would happen. Basically it was a tour which was slid in," said Gayle, referring to the fact West Indies are deputising for Sri Lanka, who could not guarantee a full-strength side.

"We were all due at the IPL, so with it coming upon us we discussed the situation with the board members and they gave us permission to be back at a certain, particular time.

"It is nothing new, so people should not be surprised. No one is bigger than the game, so I asked for permission to come back a day later."

[the article was orginally published at http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5jNQcT4KzGGIYJvBLWKYZjWZWu8uA]

Andrew Strauss challenges IPL batsmen to rise to Test challenge

Andrew Strauss has challenged his IPL batsmen to prove they can switch from sloggers into battle-hardened Test men in the blink of an eye.

England's mammoth summer of cricket begins today at Lord's, and captain Strauss has his fingers crossed that Kevin Pietersen, Paul Collingwood, and Ravi Bopara can forget the IPL extravwithout aganza and remember what it takes to score a Test ton.

All three have only just returned from a stint in South Africa at the transplanted IPL and will try to prove that a lack of preparation and game time in English conditions won't get in the way of Test success.

"For the guys who've come in from the IPL to Test cricket their mindset the key," said Strauss, who is seeking payback against the West Indies after the series defeat in the Caribbean this winter.

"If they get that right then they'll perform well and at the moment it seems like they're in a good place.

"For the Twenty20 World Cup it was fantastic they were there, but for this Test series, it's important they put all that to the back of their minds and concentrate on what they are good at, Test cricket-wise.

"But they are all good experienced players and there is no reason why they can't do that. You don't want Test cricket to be devalued in any way, shape or form.

"There's a line there, and we certainly wouldn't want our players to be arriving two days before a Test."

Strauss was clearly giving West Indies captain Chris Gayle a nudge in the ribs for his 11th-hour arrival in England for the tour having stayed at the IPL to play in an extra match.

Gayle pitched up at Lord's on Monday having landed that morning to enjoy a blearyeyed net session which he claims did just the trick to get him ready for today's game.

Traditionalists will suggest his claims are nothing more than bravado, yet should he turn on the style at Lord's, then it will go a long way to prove the modern cricketer can have his cake and eat it.

Gayle said: "I'm good and I feel ready to go. Practising the day I got back wasn't difficult because you set your mind to do these things and it was good to have a hit and get a feel of everything so that I'll be ready for the game."

For Strauss the challenge this week is to bring an end to a rotten run of 14 series a win in the first Test match, and whether his men have been to the IPL or not he is demanding a ferocious start.

New head coach Andy Flower admitted in the Caribbean that it was a statistic that bothered him and he would be out to do things differently as a result.

The suggestion is that England players have been too relaxed before. Not this time if Strauss and Flower have anything to do with it.

Strauss added: "It is something we're mindful of and any thoughts of easing into the Test match summer, have to be avoided at all costs.

"A lot of that depends on our mindset and how we arrive at the ground in the morning and we want to put that record straight.

"We had good chats with the players and it looks like most of the guys have hit the ground running this season."

[the article was originally published at http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/2009/05/06/fired-up-or-burned-out-115875-21335716]

English players left lagging as IPL innovators lead the way

"Watch ball, hit ball." This was as profound as Virender Sehwag's masterclass got the other day when he was asked for some advice by Paul Collingwood, his Delhi Daredevils team-mate here in South Africa. For adherents to the G Boycott school of batting, the mantra will come as a disappointment. But for England's players at the Indian Premier League and way, way beyond, it may just be the most useful snippet they will ever hear.

To be an English hack in South Africa these last few days has been - give or take a few breaks for food and sleep - to enter into conversation about the problem with Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen. (Poor old Colly hasn't even made it on to the field; neither have Owais Shah or Graham Napier.) Theories have abounded. So here's another. And it's unlikely to be patented any time soon.

The Slower Ball Theory states that English cricketers are flummoxed by innovation. Flintoff himself admitted his only variation was to bowl a bit quicker and duly flew home for an operation on Friday with IPL figures of 11-0-105-2 after AB de Villiers had taught him a painful lesson about predictability in Durban. Pietersen is less culpable, being England's innovator par excellence, but even he was undone when Kings XI Punjab's Yusuf Abdulla gave him a slower one last week. The result: caught at extra cover second ball for a duck.

This was the tournament that was supposed to show the world how badly the IPL had missed the English in 2008. That was the theory, anyway. But all we've had to show so far is Ravi Bopara's sparkling 84 against Pietersen's Bangalore. When he told this column last night that "I've learned how to open the batting in Twenty20 cricket", the pessimism was briefly stalled. But not for the first time in the history of the limited-overs game, England are being left behind.

Whether or not the Spin would currently be walking around South Africa proudly waving the cross of St George if England's players had been made available for last year's IPL is another matter. The suspicion of otherness, so inherent in English cricket, may have been ingrained decades ago. And it goes hand in hand with the tendency Collingwood picked out when we chatted two nights ago in Port Elizabeth.

"I keep asking Sehwag, 'What's going on technically in your mind when the bowler's running in? Are you saying, I've got to get this right?' And he says: 'No, no, no, watch ball, hit ball.' In England we think about our feet being in the right place, hands going through. We over-complicate it." Hallelujah for the honesty.

But the indoctrination is endemic. In his recently published diary of the 2008 season, Pavilion to Crease ... And Back, the Nottinghamshire batsman Mark Wagh recalls asking his former Warwickshire team-mate Brad Hogg "about his pre-delivery movements". He goes on: "Should I go back and across or press with the front foot?" Hogg, the former Australian left-arm wrist-spinner, replies: "Not a clue, mate, sorry." Wagh's conclusion? "It's funny how aiming to middle every ball causes the rest of your game to fall into place."

Very few possess either the lightning-fast reflexes or eagle eye of Sehwag; even fewer can combine them. But that is no reason for England to play their one-day cricket as if they are knocking it about on a Sunday afternoon at Bath in the John Player League. If Flintoff's latest injury is a worry, then his failure to develop a variation other than quick/quicker is damning. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the only format of the game in which Flintoff is a consistently world-beating bowler is 50-over cricket. In Tests, he lacks penetration; in Twenty20, imagination. Only in ODIs, where batsmen are still allowed a measure of caution, do his back-of-a-length heavy balls pull their weight.

Pietersen's problems here have been less symptomatic. Perhaps he's falling prey to the other English disease of sheer nervous exhaustion. But where was his customary trademark bravado when he was poking and prodding at Pragyan Ojha in Cape Town last week? On Sunday Pietersen insisted he was learning lessons about Twenty20, but England need him to learn them fast. Without him on top form in the World Cup in June, England's chances go from slim to non-existent.

Really though, if they do perform well, they will be bucking a trend. Bopara did it during his 59-ball innings last week, when he provided an object lesson in how time a Twenty20 innings and play the percentages. But can the rest follow? As we've done so many times in the past, it's little more than a case of hoping for the best. Or at least not the worst.

[the article was originally published at http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/apr/28/ipl-england-kevin-pietersen-cricket]