Left field

Drugs no help in surfing, says world champ

World surfing champion Kelly Slater is happy to abide by new doping regulations being implemented in his sport but he doubts whether performance-enhancing drugs would make anyone surf better.

Surfing’s image has always been clouded by images of wild lifestyles, of cashed-up athletes treading a fine line between partying and performing.

While the modern professional surfer is a super-fit athlete, the Association of Surfing Professionals still wants to clean up the sport for good.

Slater, speaking at the launch of a world surfing tour that will have its first series of formalised drug testing this year involving standards prescribed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), said he had no problem with the tests.

“Doesn’t bother me,” Slater told Reuters. “I actually don’t know that the performance-enhancing issue applies to us so much. Surfing is a lot of decision making and skill. It’s not just based on speed and it’s not just based on strength.

“I don’t know that if someone takes a drug it’s going to make them win a heat, whereas if a guy is running round a track and he wants to go as fast as he possibly can, a drug probably can make him go faster. I think he probably can cheat. Surfing is a little different.”

The new ASP Anti-Doping Policy will test for both illicit and performance-enhancing substances. Offenders face a minimum one-year ban from the tour.

Wanderers test will not match Newlands. But for better or worse?

Last week’s crazy Cape Town test match between South Africa and Australia, where 23 wickets fell in a day and the visitors narrowly avoided the lowest ever test score, will go down in cricket’s esteemed annals.

They meet again at the Wanderers from Thursday. But would test cricket fans want to see a repeat?

The Newlands match was over in three days and despite all the drama, purists were left wondering whether the flurry of wickets was due to bad batting and a lack of application in the test arena rather than wonderful bowling in conducive conditions.

Australia captain Michael Clarke described his team’s batting as “disgraceful and unacceptable” after they were bowled out for 47.

Players preferring the big-money and rapid nature of limited overs cricket to the concentration-heavy longer format has worried test fanatics for several years, and the five-day game is definitely suffering.

The fact powerhouses South Africa and Australia are only playing two tests in this series adds weight to the argument, as did India’s lack of preparation ahead of touring Engliand earlier this year as the hosts won 4-0 to overtake the Indians as the world’s best test side.

England, who have struggled in 50-over cricket for years, appear to value tests more than some other sides these days as the jailing of three Pakistan players for deliberately bowling no balls for money in a test in England last year shows.

Ponting’s success blighted by Ashes defeats

Respected but seldom loved at home, admired but also reviled abroad, Ricky Ponting led Australia to great success but his captaincy will ultimately be defined by three lost Ashes series. The tough, single-minded Tasmanian always put the team first and that, he said, had prompted him to stand down after nine years in charge of the Australia one-day team and seven as test skipper on Tuesday.

The most test (48) and one-day international (164) wins by any captain as well as successive World Cup triumphs in 2003 and 2007 is an impressive record by any standards, and there has never been any doubt about his quality as a batsman.

And yet, ever since he took over a world-beating side from Steve Waugh, there has always been a question mark hovering over his captaincy.

His honeymoon period as test captain lasted little over a year until he blotted his copy book with the ultimate sin for an Australian captain, the loss of an Ashes series to England.

Ponting silenced the critics the following year, however, leading from the front with a Player of the Series performance to help Australia regain the urn 5-0, the first Ashes whitewash in 86 years.

The retirement of greats like Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Adam Gilchrist, Justin Langer and Matthew Hayden would have weakened any side, however, and so it was for Australia.

A rare home defeat to South Africa was followed by a second Ashes defeat in England in 2009 and the pressure was now weighing heavily on him again.

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Watson the man to lead Australia rebuilding

The cornerstone of Australia’s past and many successes was often their stubbornness and competitiveness but with the nation at an all time low the new way forward is honesty and the equation is a basic one.

Elementary, Shane Watson.

The man can bat, bowl and field, as he showed during the 3-1 Ashes defeat to England and the two Twenty20 internationals, but what was most notable about the all-rounder was his honesty in front of cameras.

Asked in Melbourne if he thought his team could prevent another drubbing, he paused and let out a little laugh.

Contrast this with the captain in Sydney, Michael Clarke, who after day three with his side already 208 runs behind said he thought Australia could still win the match.

Ricky Ponting, Steve Waugh, Mark Taylor and Allan Border, the captains to have guided Australia through the past two decades of unheralded success, would have said the same no doubt, so it is no surprise Clarke responded defiantly in the face of the media.

But the remedy for Australia’s woes is not the old school, it’s the likes of Watson, who performed well in the Ashes despite the constant pressure his side were under.

Momentum the key to World Cup success for England’s cricketers

Look away now Australian cricket fans, this one’s going to hurt like a cricket bat to the groin. Their team has carried their abject 2010 form into 2011 by slumping to another defeat to a rampant England side but this time in Twenty20 rather than tests.

While England notched up their eighth straight victory in the shortest version of cricket – a new world record –  the last ball defeat in Adelaide means Australia have now lost 17 of their last 24 completed matches in all forms of the game.

The prospect of an Australian victory at the moment appears as likely as Inzamam-ul-Haq calling for a quick single.

Australia’s major victory in that run was in the Ashes test in Perth against England to level the series at 1-1, before the Australians were destroyed like a quarter-pounder at a burger eating contest by a particularly ravenous contestant.

Three of the matches Australia have won in that time – two in the one-day series in England and one against Sri Lanka in an ODI prior to the Ashes – have come with the series already gone for the once mighty baggy greens.

But if England are to bring home their first 50-over World Cup form the sub-continent in the coming months the team must keep winning in Australia and carry the momentum through to the tournament, meanwhile trampling all over the current holders’ remaining spirit like an errant infant over its parents’ freshly planted tulips.

Australia have bagged the World Cup winners trophy on the last three occasions, and while they remain ranked as the best one-day side in the world, another home one-day series defeat to England, following its pre-Ashes subsidence to Sri Lanka, will surely spell the end of their dominance in the shorter form of the game.

English cricket celebrates a coming of age

England’s cricketers wrapped up a 3-1 series victory against Australia in Sydney on Friday and held aloft the little Ashes urn for the first time in 24 years on Australian soil.

They should enjoy the moment. It has been hard earned and a long time in coming. The taste of success will be sweet and should be savoured after so much hurt and torment at the hands of the great Australian sides of the last 20 years.

But England will do well to remember the steep fall from grace enjoyed by the national football team in 2001 after the 5-1 victory over Germany, the rugby team in 2003 after their World Cup win and their own Ashes triumph in 2005 which was followed by a 5-0 drubbing the next time.

English cricket BEWARE! “Keep off the moors. Stick to the roads,” to quote an American werewolf in London.

However, getting ahead of themselves should not be a problem for England under captain Andrew Strauss and coach Andy Flower, who are well-versed in keeping a level head.

Witness the way they bounced back from the third test defeat in Perth and made sure they finished off the series in style in Sydney despite having secured the urn in Melbourne.

England have youth on their side as well. Whereas the 2005 vintage side were at their pinnacle, this team should just be starting a golden period of form. Their vitality, enthusiasm and innocence of youth as well as an insatiable appetite for success should also help them deal with any potential setbacks, such as the retirement of Paul Collingwood.

Collingwood exit gives England test dilemma

The retirement of Paul Collingwood from England’s test team was beautifully timed, leaving the selectors with the dilemma of who to replace the versatile batsman but with a long time to contemplate the decision and from a pretty lofty perch.

The 34-year-old brought options with the ball and was arguably the team’s best fielder, so although he has struggled with the bat of late whoever steps into the team has some big boots to fill.

The contenders? Batsman Eoin Morgan will fancy his chances, but all rounder Tim Bresnan must be in with a shout on the back of some fine performances in the last two Ashes tests.

Also in the frame are batsmen Ravi Bopara and youthful all-rounder Adil Rashid.

The addition of an all-rounder would bring balance to the side once batsman Ian Bell and wicketkeeper Matt Prior move up a place each in the order. That would leave a tail comprising Stuart Broad, Graeme Swann, James Anderson, Chris Tremlett and then the eventual Collingwood replacement.

The counter-argument is that it would put too much pressure on the top six batsmen to score runs, and therefore an out and out batsman should slot in at number six or seven depending on Prior.

After all, while not a prolific run getter, Collingwood was resolute and stubborn at the crease and until recently was a difficult opponent to dismiss.

England close to retaining Ashes but eyes should be on bigger prize

England moved closer to bringing the Ashes back from Australia for the first time in 24 years on Tuesday as they reduced the battered hosts to 169-6 at stumps on day three of the fourth test, needing just four more wickets to wrap up victory and still with a lead of 246.

In all likelihood England will require just three more wickets with Ryan Harris off the field with a stress fracture to his foot and unlikely to be forced to bat in such dire circumstances for the home side.

England would do well to remember that victory, assuming a miracle Australian fightback does not deny them, is a mere stepping stone to potentially greater achievements.

Firstly, the team will want to win the series outright in Sydney next week but more importantly England should have their eyes on becoming the best cricket team in the world.

Sydney will be prove the litmus test of whether or not the players have learnt their lesson from Perth where they were obliterated inside three-and-a-half days having just smashed Australia in Adelaide in the previous test.

This time England will need to keep their focus.

I spoke to Andrew Strauss just before the team headed out to Australia, and what struck me about the man was just how confident and relaxed he was about England’s chances in Australia. Without a hint of arrogance, he told me that England no longer feared Australia. And how he and the rest of his team have delivered on his words.

Oh, what to do about the Colly wobbles

With the fourth test steaming up on us like Santa’s sleigh with an inebriated Rudolf at the helm, time is running out for England to decide on what to do about a problem like Paul Collingwood.

Is it me or does “Brigadier Block” always seem more out of form than in form?

In his last 12 innings since his century against Bangladesh in Chittagong, “Colly” (who still averages a respectable 41.14 in test cricket) has managed to reach double figures in a test innings on only four occasions, passing 50 just once in that time against Pakistan in Nottingham in the summer.

Marcus North (2 centuries, 2 half-centuries in his last 12 innings) was dropped from the Australian team for lesser crimes against cricket.

However, of Collingwood’s four double-figured scores in that period, he racked up 42 in Adelaide in the second and 11 in Perth last week. Two double-figured scores in two test matches, is the Durham blocker hitting a rich vein of form?

The messages coming out the England camp, as always, are that they are backing their man and not only will he keep his place in the team, but also retain his position at number five in the batting order, despite Ian Bell’s prolific form.

Bell averages 71.15 since his recall during the 2009 Ashes series, and has a lowest score of 53 on this current tour of Australia.