waqas dar

South Africa There were World Cups before South Africa came back into cricket, and they matter, and all have their own appeal. But through sheer drama, hissy fits, counting errors, dropped sitters, 12th-man sledging, panic-running, Richie Benaud rain calculations and the c word, South Africa have owned the World Cup like no other team since 1992. The only thing they haven’t owned is an actual winner’s trophy. Last tournament they tried to positive-mindset themselves with the “C is for Champions” tag. Clearly New Zealand missed that memo and they went about ensuring that South Africa mentally collapsed. This time they arrive with AB de Villiers having made the quickest hundred in ODI history. They have Amla. And Steyn. They have hard hitters, tall bowlers and wristspin. They are well set up for this tournament. But they are South Africa. That means they will probably crush the Associates, play tough, good cricket against the Test-playing nations, and then the knockout games come along. No matter what you have planned, daughter’s wedding, first kiss, tickets to see Tom Waits, if South Africa are playing a World Cup knockout match, you can’t afford to miss it. ICC stuff-ups The only group who disappoints more at the World Cup than South Africa is the ICC. It has made a mess of so many tournaments, in so many formats, with so many playing conditions, that at this point the biggest surprise is that people still care about the World Cup. People started complaining about the tournament from the moment it was announced. At first the ICC wanted to limit the teams to Test-only, which made people angry. Then it let the Associates in, and that made other people angry. Then when the schedule was looked at, and people realised there is over a month of cricket before a real possibility of major teams going home, that made people angry. So the real thing to watch out for is other reasons this tournament will annoy people. Actually you don’t need to watch out for them – they will find you, annoy you, and moan at you for about six weeks, maybe seven. Though it will feel like longer. India’s chase for 500 Among all those seemingly meaningless games there will be a game that you might think at the moment there is no point in watching. India are playing UAE at the WACA. Now you might wonder why this is a game worth watching. Well here’s why: If India bat first, they have a chance of scoring 500. Yes, they do. India have evolved beyond other teams in terms of ODI batting. They had to, because with their bowling, normal batting would not be good enough. They seem to believe that they can hit the ball into the rope, or crowd, as often as they want, and they have no fear. In the old parlance of the game, they bat like millionaires. And they are actual millionaires. No other team has as many batsmen who can win a game, make a hundred, or a double-hundred, or emotionally destroy bowlers. And no other team has an MS Dhoni. Scoring at ten an over for a normal team would be near impossible, but for a team with this line-up it is possible. And then they have the fast and bouncy wicket against the old and slow UAE bowlers. We could see world records tumble, we could see two batsmen make double-hundreds in the same game, or one make a triple-hundred. We could see anything. Or UAE could bat first, which might ruin it all. Elbow watch Perhaps the biggest villain at the World Cup, with apologies to Mr Srinivasan, is the fingerspinning elbows. It is interesting that Cricket Australia, which has always hated chucking, ECB, which has been very careful with chucking, and the BCCI, which has committed to a behind-the-scenes campaign to stop chucking, would take over world cricket, and then suddenly the many dodgy actions around the world are all called on the eve of a World Cup. Even those who believe chucking should be part of cricket couldn’t argue that the old system was pathetic. Bowlers seemed to travel around the globe with actions that were clearly a problem, and while you can argue that Saeed Ajmal and Sunil Narine were making cricket more exciting, you could also argue that Kane Williamson and Marlon Samuels were not. Now many players have been cleared after improving their actions, and the ICC has promised a quick response on players who are called mid-tournament, so elbow watch will a major part of this tournament. Perhaps the best elbow to watch is that of Prosper Utseya, the Zimbabwean offspinner, who the ICC said was cleared but can’t bowl offspin. It did say his slow and medium-paced deliveries are legal, so he should light up the World Cup with them. Associates The other thing that people tried to stop for this World Cup was the Associates. The original schedule had no time for the countries who have given so much to the World Cup over the years. They weren’t even allowed to qualify. Which, considering Ireland’s recent record, seems extraordinary. When the World Cup squads were announced, Ireland players had scored more ODI hundreds than England players. UAE brings in the oldest players – two are over 43 – and the most inexperienced squad into the tournament. And Scotland have great shirts. 1992 World Cup shirts There will be many shirts bought during this series, but many will be inspired by the 1992 World Cup shirts. You can buy them all around Australia and New Zealand at the moment. They are cheaper and easier to find than the official team shirts. It’s partly because it was the first time a World Cup had coloured shirts. And partly because they are awesome. They match each other. Have great colours. A simple design. And look good no matter your figure. They are the ultimate performers. No cricket wardrobe is complete without at least one. West Indies’ selection West Indies already look incomplete. Dwayne Bravo, picked for the ICC 2014 ODI team of year, is not in the national squad. Neither is Kieron Pollard. Clive Lloyd said that the reasons they weren’t picked were based on their performances while playing for West Indies. In the squad West Indies picked two players who had never played an ODI for their country before. Lloyd also said West Indies had to look at the future, towards young players. This West Indies side has an average age of 29. Bravo is 31, Pollard is 27. Jonathan Carter is also 27. Jonathan Carter is one of the players who played no ODI matches for his country before his World Cup selection. West Indies’ push for youth included one player under the age of 25. Their captain. West Indies now become a side to watch to see how badly they perform, for you to imagine how Bravo or Pollard could help them. The biggest shame was Lloyd having to make up cricketing reasons that a casual fan could see through to justify not picking two players the WICB just didn’t want in the squad. World Cup weirdness World Cups have had Bob Woolmer’s death. Andy Flower and Henry Olonga’s armband. West Indies being stoned mistakenly. But this tournament has already given us weird things before it has started. The England captain has already been involved in a blackmail case. And Bangladesh’s Rubel Hossain was arrested on charges of making false promises of marriage to an actress. Those are both pretty bizarre stories, and we’re not in February yet. Hamilton Masakadza Masakadza has been in international cricket for 14 years. If you follow cricket closely, his name will be familiar. He has played 144 ODIs. He’s also played about 30 T20s and about 30 Tests. Made a Test century before he was 18. You know, he’s been around. On February 15 he will probably take the field for Zimbabwe against South Africa. It will be his first World Cup game. Afghanistan The final will be an important game, but will there be many games of cricket more important than when Afghanistan take the field for their first World Cup game? Taj Malik is a legspinner. Taj Malik is a right-hand batsman. Taj Malik is a cricket coach. Taj Malik is a cricket selector. Taj Malik is a cricket administrator. Taj Malik is Afghanistani cricket. Taj Malik is no longer involved with Afghanistani cricket. In 2001, when Taliban fighters were fleeing their country as the US bombed them, Taj Malik went the other way. He had some clothes, a cricket bat and a ball. Taj was on his way to Kabul from Pakistan. Taj’s dream was to start an Afghanistan cricket team and take them to the World Cup. On February 18, Taj Malik’s dream will come true. Taj Malik did it. He has given his country something amazing: a positive story during some of their darkest days. He’s given them sporting heroes. He’s given them victories. And he’s given cricket Afghanistan. They will lose more games than they win, but them playing is one of the most amazing victories in cricket history. A victory for the country, the sport, and Taj Malik, cricket hero. View the full article

“You were looking good. What happened?” asks Jim Maxwell. “I got out again,” says Shane Watson. Australia have failed to make 300 39% of the time in their first innings since the 2009 Ashes. But what does it mean. Maybe the pitches were to blame. Some probably came in low scoring Tests that Australia won. Is 39% in this era good or bad? This year was the first since 2009 when two Australian batsmen made more than 1000 runs. That seems important. Maybe it isn’t. Since 2009, Australian batsmen have made six double hundreds (one became a triple). Three were made in the same Test series. Brendon McCullum has made three double hundreds (one became a triple this year), and a 195. It’s cute, but does it mean that much? Martin Love is three years older than Brad Haddin and Chris Rogers. He played five Tests. He averaged 46.60. In first-class cricket, he averaged 49.85. Shaun Marsh’s first-class average is 36.61. This is his 11th Test. Different eras. Different worlds. Different. On the TV is James Brayshaw, Channel Nine’s blokey bloke. Brayshaw averaged 42.53 for South Australia. If Brayshaw averaged that in today’s era, he’d be a Test player, not the bloke with the enthusiastic hair who says “dukes” a lot. In the same world, Jason Arnberger would be a legend. Well, more of a Test cult figure. That world obviously can’t exist. The world that does has Test batsmen with first-class averages of 45, 29, 35, 37, 37, 41, 36, 40 and 40. These are the numbers. There are opinions, some pretending to be facts, about why. But the well is dry. The grass is brown. The cows are skinny. It is a batting drought. Every single person who follows Australian cricket knows all this. Even if they do not know the actual numbers, and can’t fathom any real reason why. They’ve seen 88, 98 and 47 all out. But them, and even Don Argus when he wrote his report in Australian cricket, will also know where the runs come from. The wrong end. Whether it was poor little Nathan Lyon trying to save Australia from complete embarrassment in Cape Town, Ashton Agar’s notable 98, Mitchell Starc’s Mohali slapping, Peter Siddle’s twin fifties in Delhi, Pat Cummins’ winning runs or James Pattinson’s almost winning runs, the Australian bowlers have done their jobs, as well as the jobs of their batsmen very well. Pattinson and Starc both average 30. Johnson and Harris both average about 20 since 2009. Nathan Hauritz was averaging 32 in that period. The tail has made 20 fifties in that time. That must mean something, a record, maybe. In this series, the last five Australian wickets have had more 100-run partnerships than the Australian top order. And it’s not just the Australian batsmen they embarrass. They have scored almost 400 more runs than the Indian tail, despite declarations and not being needed much on the final afternoon at the Gabba. For their hard work, the bowlers have been rested. Dropped. Rotated. Sliced. Broken. Managed. Of course, the batsmen haven’t all been useless. Who will forget Michael Clarke’s triple-hundred? You probably have a limited edition lithograph of it staring at you. What about Michael Hussey’s Ashes when Australia took one batsmen into the 2010-11 Ashes? Or Haddin’s superhero routine last Ashes? David Warner and Steven Smith are doing alright, right here, right now. The problem is, if we check our modern cricket lexicon guide, cricket is played by units. And Australia’s batting unit is faulty. It’s as if someone went to the Australian batting switch and turned it from ‘Runs’ to ‘Idle’ in 2009. Before that Ashes, Ricky Ponting was averaging 56, his Tests after that date gave him his runs at 38. It wasn’t even as if the batting line up was made up of blokes Greg Chappell found at bus stops. R Ponting. S Katich. M Clarke. D Warner. S Smith. M Hussey. It just hasn’t worked. It hasn’t gelled. It can’t go properly. It won’t take off. It’s stuck. The batting since 2009 has been Watson-like. It has often looked better than it is. It has that big strife, that powerful hit, the mouth and swagger. But it falters under pressure. It rarely makes the runs needed to win a series. It makes enough to survive, not prosper. He is the biggest unit of their unit. Smith has made more hundreds this year than Watson has in his career. Watson’s four hundreds is as many as Marcus North made. It’s only two more than Matthew Wade made. Watson has made 22 fifties. Which is something. It is. It’s just not enough. It needs someone else to add to it. To save it. To often do it’s job. Watson has averaged 38 since the great drought started. He’s been perpetually useful. There have been three series he has averaged over 50 with the bat, all are three Tests or less, none since 2010. His Test high score is 176, but in a dead rubber of a lost series. He’s scored the second-most runs for Australia since the run drought started. But that just proves he’s been there. At best he is very handy, at worst, an alleged cancer. After his dismissal today (17 caught behind for those of you playing #wattolotto), Clarke talked the audience through it. “A great stride forward, that’s fantastic.” It was. Had it been shown forever from side on, you would have seen this powerful man get right down the wicket and meet the ball. From front on, “When you have a look here, how far away his front foot is from the delivery, he’s had to push away with his hands, and that’s cost him the wicket. “ That has been Australian batting for these last few years. When viewed in one way, it looks perfectly acceptable, even respectable. But if you look from any other angle you can see the Band-Aids, sticky tape and superglue. Today, the top five wickets added 176, the tail has added almost a hundred more, for two wickets. It’s another case of again. It’s a batting unit that has truly earned a record of nine series wins from their last 19 series. They will probably win this series. The bowlers are good at their jobs, and all the jobs. Their batting unit is way behind. Often they look good, but then they get out. Again. View the full article

The last meaningful thing Michael Clarke did on day one was lay face down in the dirt and push at the ground. It is a pointless stretch when your back is that bad. It did nothing. Clarke had to hobble off the field. Physically limited, emotionally drained. The rumours started early in the morning. They hit Twitter soon after. Clarke would bat. He was at the ground. He was in the nets. He was padded up. And then, as Steven Smith bounced onto the ground excitedly, next to him wasn’t Mitchell Johnson, but a slightly rotund looking Michael Clarke. Either wearing a backbrace, or as one Cricket Australia official joked, perhaps he’d eaten too much pasta the night before. Clarke was chunkier. Unlithe. Looking more former athlete, than current. Perhaps because of this, or the sparse damp crowd, it took just a little longer for people to notice it was Clarke on his way out. The shots were different as well. He had brought back his bad-back pull shot. Part international cricketer, part old man moving items on a clothing rack. Cuts were dispatched, often without any need, or ability, to move the feet. Clarke even used the guide over the slips. It was mullet batting. Business on the pads, party outside off. Clarke’s leaves weren’t authoritative or dismissive; they were jumpy and occasionally mildly hysterical. The inside edge of the bat would have been shocked with how much work it had to do. Clarke also gave the early waft, that to be fair, he can perform whether injured or not. He never truly seemed to get out the way of short balls, some just missed him as he shrugged his shoulders, ducked his neck and waited for impact. Crossing from end to end may result in what we call runs, but it’s overstating what Clarke was doing. Singles looked painful and resulted in much effort and little pace. Clarke would often lean forward, hoping the momentum would get him home. India threw the ball at his end like he was Arjuna Rantunga. Clarke complete four twos and one three. All of which looked like the end of marathons, not 44 or 66 yards. The bat seemed amazingly heavy in his hands, it always seemed clutched, not held. When running it seemed to be almost weighing him down. When the rain first started, Clarke was the first man to start leaving the field. It was the only time he was the quickest to move. He looked dispirited when the umpires decided to play on. When they did leave the field later on, Smith ran off, Clarke walked slowly. The stump microphone was more brutal on Clarke than any short ball. Heavy breathing and groaning became the soundtrack for his innings. A cricket phone sexline. If it was turned up louder, you could probably hear his spine clicking in and out of place. Louder still and you’d have heard the internal monologue of pain. The crowd applauded everything, even mishits to the legside that almost got runs. Clarke slashed hard outside offstump, and picked up singles off his hip on the legside. His feet moved to the spinner, but not in any meaningful or attacking way. It was Clarke on lithium. The Clarke we know since his back was attacked by this invisible troll. Not sublime. Not silky. Not smooth. Sore. Slow. Skewed. There was once a Clarke who danced down the wicket, slapped the ball without fear, and attacked like a desperate dog. It now seems like a dream, because the new version has been with us for so long. Crooked and cautious. New and unimproved, but still better. It scores important hundreds overseas. Can bat through bodyline tactics without any movement. Handles broken arms during an innings. We’ve seen all this before. The stretching. The groaning. The slow movement. The target for short balls. The batting handicap. But this added something else. Clarke has buried a friend. Fronted the media. Given a eulogy. There were parts of Clarke’s triple-hundred that appeared stage managed. His overcoming the back injury was done in private at Old Trafford. The hundred at the Gabba was punchy, admirable, but not epic. Cape Town might have had a broken arm, but it was a broken arm we found out about months later. This was on the news. Front pages. Twitter. Facebook. Radio. Kitchen tables. Pubs. Trains. Offices. Schools. Everywhere. When he made it to 98, India even went bodyline. But short of an asteroid landing on a good length, nothing ever looked like stopping Clarke. Career and life-ending problems confronted him, and he shuffled and slashed past them. The young Michael Clarke wouldn’t recognise this broken old man. But he’d respect him. He’d want to be him, injury and all. Because Michael Clarke is now the hero he has wanted to be since he was born. Not just A captain of Australia but one of THE captains of Australia. When he finally made the 100th run, he couldn’t jump. He could barely raise his bat. It wasn’t a celebration. It wasn’t a testimonial. It wasn’t a relief. It was just another struggle to overcome. Clarke was restrained physically, restrained emotionally. His entire innings was the embodiment of what has happened to Australian cricket over the last fortnight. Broken, but not beaten. And somehow, despite it all, stronger than before. View the full article

England had one last chance to win at Trent Bridge. India were 220 in front, seven wickets down, with still more than 40 overs left in the day. The new ball was 13 deliveries old and had just claimed Ravindra Jadeja. The match had stumbled on it’s way to a draw and England knew this was their last chance of winning. Their bowlers put in one last effort. Their sound went from mute to 11. Every single delivery was ooheed, aahed, moaned and groaned. Joe Root found a reason to be as close to the wicket as possible, clapping and yapping, right in the ear of the young number nine. Bhuvneshwar Kumar seemed to barely notice. He batted the same way right through and finished unbeaten on 63. Allan Donald once said of Bhuvneshwar: “He is a very quiet guy, does what he needs to do.” __________________________ Sachin Tendulkar’s record against debutants in Test cricket might lead you to think he underestimates young players. It is probably not true, his record is mostly like that because he has faced more debutants than other cricketers. But it is a feeling that some had. When Bhuvneshwar bowled to him, it was not his first class debut, it was his 13th game. But he did not have an IPL team. He was not an Indian age-group cricketer. He did not come from a big school, club, academy or city. There was no hype or marketing deals, he was just a swing bowler with a tidy action. Tendulkar may not have underestimated him. But he was dismissed by him. For his first ever Ranji trophy duck. Others have underestimated him. In fact, his parents did. It was his sister who suggested he be pushed towards cricket. Even his coach, the metronomic Venkatesh Prasad thought he would be an ideal third bowler for India. In the first Test a five-wicket haul and matching 50s was not enough for him to be Man of the Match. He is at his third IPL team. Yet somehow this overlooked, underestimated player is India’s most important this series. __________________________ 219 for 6 was the score in the 2012-13 Duleep Trophy semi final when Bhuvneshwar came in. North Zone had scored 451 in the first innings. For Central Zone to make the final, they needed to score 233 more runs in that innings, as an outright win looked unlikely. Mohammad Kaif had just departed for 63, the top score so far that innings. Mahesh Rawat put on a small partnership with Bhuvneshwar, before departing for 71. All North Zone needed were three wickets and all Central Zone needed was 201 runs. The invitations to the final were all but written. Bhuvneshwar rewrote them. He shielded the tail. Batted resolutely. Farmed the strike. Scored at a sensible pace. On 99, with his team still behind, he refused singles that would have taken him to his maiden first-class hundred, because they were not the right thing for the team. Bhuvneshwar was eventually dismissed for 128. But only after a tenth-wicket partnership of 127. It earned a lead of 18 runs. And his Central Zone went to the final. __________________________ Bhuvneshwar is straight. Exceptionally straight. His bat, his front arm, his strokes, his wrist, his crease position and his posture. Straight. Probably the only thing that is not straight is the the ball once it comes out of his hand. He has the magic wrist. The sort of wrist position that old bowlers drool over when leaning on bars because their knees can no longer hold them up. It is the wrist that has got him there. Asian batsmen get their wrists festishized by cricket writers the world over, but Bhuvneshwar’s wrist is not wristy, it is swingy. If he did not have the magic wrist he would not be playing. He does not have any height. He has very little pace. He is not a reverse swing merchant. Since uncovered pitches disappeared, the medium-fast bowlers have become rarer and rarer to find, like the seam of a Kookaburra after 35 overs. To be a regular international bowler these days at Bhuvneshwar’s pace, you need to be something special. Just to make it, you need to be. All the academies in all the lands are not looking for the next canny seam bowler, they are looking for height and pace. Movement is an afterthought, and by the way they think, can be taught to any lumbering monster with a fast arm. But every now and then, a slower bowler crawls up through the broken bodies of the wannabe 90mph gang and shows the way. Mohammad Asif was one. Stuart Clark was another. And then there was Praveen Kumar. We might never see Praveen Kumar again. Asif was the surgeon. Clark the slippery lawyer. Praveen was the stoner philosopher. The ball wobbled hypnotically. Batsmen were left wondering which way it would finally dart off. And then his seam position was so perfect, so exact, so romantic, that he also took a bit of seam as well. In six angry beautiful Test matches, Praveen averaged 25 with the ball. Tragically Praveen was not meant for Test cricket, at least, right now. He is an artist, a poet, a self saboteur. And he disappeared. But he had a bowling partner that was like a little brother. Bhuvneshwar Kumar. They played together at Central Zone, UP and at Victoria Park club in Meerut. Kumar the junior saw Kumar the senior all the time. It was like he had an inbuilt mentor and hero. A swing bowling allrounder who did not bowl quick enough to excite selectors. Kumar the junior also went one better than his hero, because he was a more stable person. He did not need to worry about rage to fire him up. He did not fly off unpredictably. He was the Kumar you could take home to mum, or plan the next few years around. The white knight to Praveen’s dark knight. __________________________ Christmas Day , 2012: a slight swing bowler plays in a T20 match against arch enemies Pakistan. His first over has a wicket. He takes three more. In his four overs he only concedes nine runs, yet India still lose. England are 73 for 2 chasing 285 at Kochi. Kevin Pietersen is on a-run-a-ball 42. Bhuvneshwar brings back a ball and bowls him. Two balls later, Bhuvneshwar moves one away from Eoin Morgan who is edging behind. He had already taken Alastair Cook’s wicket. He finishes with 3 for 29 and England lose massively. Chris Gayle made the world go crazy. 175 off 66 balls. Songs were written about it before he finished it. Bowlers were used as dental floss. But in his 175, only 11 runs were scored off Bhuvneshwar. In that match, while he had to run through the remains of his bowling unit, he finished with 23 runs off his 24 balls. In the Champions Trophy, Bhuvneshwar never bowled a full ten overs. He only got three overs in the final. But he also went at only 3.90 an over against the world’s most powerful batting line-ups. The Port of Spain’s rain shortened one of the many ODIs between India and Sri Lanka. India made 119 for 3 in their allocated 29 overs. Bhuvneshwar took the new ball. He took the first four wickets. He took 4 for 8. Sri Lanka lost. __________________________ Duncan Fletcher was a man who loved his 90mph bowlers as much as anyone. He also likes height. But Bhuvneshwar does tick his other two boxes. Movement both ways and being able to strengthen the tail with the bat. There are simply no bowlers in India who tick all the boxes, or many of the boxes. But what India has produced consistently throughout their history is swing bowlers. In Perth, 2008, Australia took in pace, India took in swing. Madan Lal took three wickets in the 1983 World Cup final: Haynes, Richards and Gomes. Adelaide 2003 had a six-wicket haul for Ajit Agarkar. Sreesanth took another six at the Wanderers. And Zaheer Khan‘s nine-wicket haul at Trent Bridge in 2007 won a Test. While the world spent over a decade kissing the feat of India’s many batting Gods, it was Zaheer many heroic spells on flat pitches that took India to No. 1. Bhuvneshwar is just in a long line of swing bowlers. But of recent times, many of them have been tampered with or discarded. RP Singh, Ashish Nehra and Irfan Pathan will all retire having never got the most out of themselves or won nearly enough Tests for their country. Some have been told to bowl faster. Some have been told to change the way they are. India is a country that creates swing bowlers, and often destroys swing bowlers. __________________________ Bhuvneshwar’s first Test was against Australia. He opened up with the first four overs. Then didn’t bowl again for 60 overs. He bowled 13 overs for the entire match, all in the first innings. MS Dhoni, it seemed, had underrated him. But when Bhuvneshwar came to the wicket in the first innings, India were only 26 ahead. He was batting at No. 10. He would make a composed 38. He would use a straight bat. He would be sensible. He would let the senior partner make the decisions. He would let the senior partner make a double century. He would let the senior partner end Australia’s hopes. He would outlast the senior partner. And at some stage during that 140-run partnership, the senior partner, his captain, must have looked at the other end at his new ball specialist from the badlands and thought, this is a man I can rely on. __________________________ The first ball Bhuvneshwar faced came flying back in at him. India’s best batsman this tour had just been outfoxed by James Anderson. The lead was barely 200. And England had the new ball that was 16 balls old. Bhuvneshwar played it with a straight bat. There was no discernible proof to say he was not the next Indian batting sensation, so technically perfect was his defence. His back foot drive off Anderson was just as correct. In fact, through the off side he was a batsman, forget where he was in the order. It was not until he got to 50 that he looked like he was slogging a bit more. But, you are at Lord’s, you are in form, why not smack Ben Stokes back over his head to bring up your first fifty? He had taken the lead from just over 200 to just over 300. Jadeja had managed to sticky tape his technique together and trust himself to counterattack. But it looked like his innings could end any ball. Bhuvneshwar’s looked like it would end when his job was done. In this series he has taken a five-for, a six-for, made an important 36 and three fifties. Almost every single time India have needed him, he has been there. He is slow and unsexy. He is not tall, or a natural leader. And he is no one’s first pick. Bhuvneshwar Kumar just does what he needs to do. View the full article

If every international cricket coach in the world ended up in fight to the death, it would end with Jamie Siddons standing over the corpses of 8 other men, drenched in blood, and heaving with angry short breaths. That is the sort of man Siddons is. More street fighter than coach. A man who looks gloriously close to ultra violence at all times. While other coaches are searching for the cliché book when addressing the media, Siddons just talks to the media like he is a celebrity who has been caught fucking a jack rabbit and has gone onto Letterman to clear the air. That is why it makes perfect sense that mid test he would start abusing the umpiring in this current match. The man is as delicate as Tim Bresnan coming home from a piss up. Tony Hill’s skill as an umpire is similar to Imrul Kayes skill as a batsman. Rod Tucker is slightly better, but he does seem to miss more than the ICC would ever admit. It would have been easy for Siddons to say, “sometimes the decisions go against you, we are just focusing on our own game”. Instead he claimed a conspiracy against poor teams by the umpires, which is true, in all sports at all times. It isn’t like this is his first offence. Last test he abused his bowling unit. Before that he was chasing Mohammad Crashraful around the cricket world with a baseball bat. In this test series every time a Bangladeshi cricketer made a stupid error, the camera will show Siddons straining to stay in his chair so that he doesn’t beat the guy publicly. Some people need to get up, yell, throw things and show you their anger. With Siddons you can see the pure rage in an arching of the eyebrow; he has more vicious intensity in a sideways glance than most people could muster when bashing someone’s head in with a bowling ball. It is an interesting throwback of coaching, more 1960’s aussie rules coach than John Bhooka Naan computer nerd. Siddons is putting biblical fear into his players, “betray me and I shall smite you into oblivion”. Ofcourse it doesn’t take someone as badass as Siddons to scare the average 18 year old play doh tiger. Looking at the footage of him talking to Jeff Crowe, even Jeff Crowe seemed to be looking around for Sas officers to come in and save him. Even before this Siddons was our favourite coach in world cricket, and also also the coach we would most like to get punched by. Now he is our favourite coach who is most likely to be soaked in the blood of his enemies. Or fined by the ICC. View the full article

This contains bug fixes for our December release. View the full article

Our November release contains over one hundred bug fixes and improvements including: SEO improvements with improved crawl efficiency New achievement actions for Commerce and Downloads Achievement ranks and points added to the member CSV export Achievement filters added for bulk mail and group promotion New REST API endpoints for reporting and reacting to content Audio files now play in-browser New emails for when a new rank or badge is earned JSON-LD improvement for Pages and Gallery See the full list of changes below. View the full article

This is our October monthly release. View the full article

This is a maintenance release for Invision Community 4.6. View the full article

This is a maintenance release for Invision Community 4.6. View the full article

This is a maintenance release for Invision Community 4.6. View the full article

This is a maintenance release for Invision Community 4.6. View the full article

What to expect Beta releases have not had extensive testing, therefore you may encounter issues with this release. You should only use Invision Community 4.6.0 Beta 1 on a test site. If you choose to test this release on your main site, please ensure you backup your site first. While we endeavour to support minor issues with this release, we would not want you to lose any data if you had to revert back to a stable release. Please report all bugs into our bug tracker. View the full article

This is a maintenance release to fix bugs. View the full article

This is a maintenance release to fix bugs. View the full article

We are pleased to announce that Invision Community 4.5 is now available and packed with new features, enhancements, and even a new look! Major New Features / Enhancements - New Front-End Design - AdminCP Dark Mode - Site Statistics, Search Insights, and Club Statistics - Marketplace now built into the AdminCP - Mobile App for iOS and Android (Beta) - Zapier Integration for Invision Cloud Communities In addition to these new enhancements, there are countless other additions and improvements. Check out our product blog to see what we have been up to. Before Upgrading Before proceeding with your upgrade, please note that all third party resources are disabled during the upgrade process. We strongly recommend ensuring that all of your installed applications, plugins and themes have Invision Community 4.5 compatible updates available to allow continued use. Please see the full release notes for other important changes, feature removals and deprecations. View the full article

This is the first beta release of Invision Community 4.5.0. Please note: While Invision Community 4.5.0 Beta 1 has limited technical support, we recommend testing an upgrade on a copy of your site. It is likely that any custom themes will need adjusting and any third party apps or plug-ins will need updating to be 4.5.0 compatible. The marketplace application is also not available in this beta. View the full article

View File Larki Chor Aur Sipahi By Inspector Nawaz Khan Pdf Novel Download Book Name: Larki Chor Aur Sipahi Writer: Inspector Nawaz Khan Description: Inspector Nawaz Khan is the author of the book Larki Chor Aur Sipahi Pdf. The author of the book was a retired police officer. He worked first in the British Indian police and later in the Pakistan police. Inspector Nawaz Khan worked in the particular branch of the police before the partition of India. It was the time of the British rule in India. The British officers were very strict about the duty. The author gave many examples of their commitment to the task. During his services in the police department, Inspector Nawaz Khan investigated many incidents as an investigating officer. He found some cases many exciting and complicated. He described these findings in the format of stories. The book Larki Chor Aur Sipahi Pdf is the collection of some crime and social stories of our society. It contains the stories Us Ki Gali Mein, Burqa Aur Juram, Dosti Farz Aur Lash, Aur Woh Badal Gai, Sughran, Baap Beti Aur Woh, Izzat Ki Bhooki, etc. I hope you like it, like other stories of Inspector Nawaz Khan. Here on the site, you can download and read all the stories of Inspector Nawaz Khan in pdf. Submitter waqas dar Submitted 05/29/2020 Category Urdu Novels Writer/Author Inspector Nawaz Khan