Cover Points

India manage to win what was a close game in style. Mahesh tries to find a turning point:

After the game, I tried to look back at the turning point of the game. Was it Ganguly’s 87 in the first innings, the 46 runs India added for the last wicket or even Sehwag’s double strike of Kallis and Smith?

 King Cricket argues subtly and accurately that in India batsmen face an extreme trial by spin:

Harbhajan Singh opened the bowling for India today, hinting that South Africa’s batsmen were to face an EXTREME TRIAL BY SPIN. South Africa pretty much failed their EXTREME TRIAL BY SPIN, getting bowled out for 121.

Mike Brearley, now head of the MCC, and author of the much admired (and read?) The Art of Captaincy gave a speech about liking the Twenty20 form of the game:

Clearly we have to embrace the fizz-buzz appeal of Twenty20 cricket, but how do we - by we I mean the ICC, ECB and other interested bodies - stop the tail wagging the tiger?

Perhaps this is the wrong question? It leads to a conclusion like this.

 Of course, there could be far more sweeping changes to the structure of cricket, to its administration and to its priorities. If we were going to start from scratch, we wouldn't start from where we are at all. But we are where we are. We have county set-ups. Clearly the Indian tiger in the shape of the BCCI will have to be talked to; and listened to. Inconveniently, this tiger is not going to become extinct. The problem will not go away.

Meanwhile, Jamie Jackson interviews the folks on the business side of the equation:

Andrew Wildblood, the IMG executive who dreamed up the IPL with its commissioner, Lalit Modi, over a cup of tea at last year's Wimbledon, tells Observer Sport: 'Cricket like any "product" has to respond to changes in its consumers' demand and must innovate to protect its future. The authorities need to be at the forefront of this, as has clearly been the case in India. I believe that the ECB should at least consider something like a franchised, private ownership model, or creating new entities playing Twenty20. I think this can be done in a manner that is complementary to the existing structure and creates new value for existing stakeholders.