Protection » tournament -- Canada already had a two-goal cushion. But if it

Watch and read part one of the interview hereDoes the price tag in some way force selection? For instance, Pawan Negi in this IPL had a huge price tag and you had situations where you could not play him in the XI in some games. Youre trying to pick the best XI that works on that particular day, against that particular opposition, on that particular ground. You are not trying to pick people based on the money theyve got. In general, in a selection meeting we do not discuss what somebody has earned. A selection meeting is based on what a guy can offer, his form, his performances, does he fit into the team? At times you find there are good players who have to sit out.You might have come out of an auction with clear areas or holes in your team that you have got to fill, and then youre trying to mix and match and sometimes good players miss out. And there are other players who are lesser in terms of international experience or lesser in terms of current performance in domestic cricket that dont actually get a chance to play, and thats difficult for them, and I can understand that. Its an opportunity for them to further their careers, both in terms of selection and also financially. Its a big tournament and if some of them dont get an opportunity, it can lead to frustration, and thats natural.Arent you now picking XIs based on what you anticipate situations to be and how players will respond to those situations? In the past youve had to rotate players, give them certain roles they may not have been used to. For instance, you asked Brad Hodge to bat lower down the order [at Rajasthan Royals]. Tactics have evolved and people are now picking different kinds of players and theyre not just picking players based on reputation. Youre seeing players being picked based on what they bring to the team.Each of those strategies will be based on the team you have. Hodges role is not a trade secret. Hodge batted lower down the order in that team because we didnt have a gun Indian batsman at that stage. We had Ajinkya Rahane, who was still a developing young player at that stage, but he is clearly more a top-order player. Someone like a Brad Hodge can play that role. There could be another team where Brad Hodge might have been more valuable at the top of the order.Data is a very important aspect of the game in T20. Is that significantly different to how youve seen it in the other formats of the game? I think datas growing in every format of the game. People are coming up with new metrics to view things. A lot of it is really useful. But its how you read that data. I think thats the game changer. Thats where the skills of the coaches come in.A particular batsman faces three dot balls and youre aware then, from the data that youve collected, that he has a particular get-out-of-jail shot. Lets assume its over cows corner. Are you down to that level of strategising? Sometimes we get caught up about tactics and strategy and we forget that the most important thing actually is execution. I always like to use the example of Lasith Malinga. He is a great example of someone, when you were facing him, you knew exactly which ball he was going to bowl at the back end of an innings. Millions of people watching on TV know which ball he was going to bowl. If he executed it brilliantly, like he did most times, theres nothing you can do. Can you execute that particular ball that youre asked to do? Sometimes people ask, Oh what is that tactic? Sometimes the tactic and the strategy is not wrong; its the execution thats wrong and a lot of times people get confused with that.We are hearing a lot more about head-to-head contests in T20s. Is that also a part of your scenario, picking players for particular players? You could, in certain cases, and Chris Gayle is a good example. People have in the past used offspinners against him a lot but if Royal Challengers Bangalore open with either [AB] de Villiers or [Virat] Kohli, youve got to counter that as well. I think it happened in a game in Bangalore where R Ashwin didnt actually bowl an over, or he bowled an over very late in the innings because Gayle had got out and then they had a string of right-handers and maybe the situation didnt come up. I think the teams that win are the ones that have the best balance. They have the ability to play every situation and in all conditions. They are not reliant only on certain things panning out for them to be able to use certain players.Whats your sense of how much batting has developed in T20 cricket? I think batting has the freedom to develop. We are more accepting of failure in T20 cricket than we are in any other form of the game. When a batsman takes risks and plays a paddle sweep or a reverse sweep, youre more likely to view it with a certain degree of acceptability than you would in a Test match or one-day match. If you keep practising something, you are going to get better at it. AB de Villiers has had nine IPLs now - think of the amount of batting opportunities he has had to experiment with this. Hes got gifts that other people dont have, but hes also had so many opportunities to fail, to learn from them and to keep refining his batting technique for T20. People have been allowed to take few more risks.Are power-hitters more valuable in a T20 set-up than the conventional batsmen? Of course they are, which is why a lot of the West Indian players are so valuable in an IPL because they are able to play the kind of shots that are not easy for others to hit. The West Indian team of this World T20 was a brilliant T20 team because it had batting so deep, with power-hitters who could change the course of the game from No. 2 to 8. Its not easy to accomplish that for every other team, especially in the IPL teams for certain because no ones going to allow you to pick eight power-hitters.It is almost sacrilege to start suggesting that players like Virat Kohli or David Warner, while extremely valuable for their teams, may not be quite as valuable as these dynamic power-hitters, who can actually turn the game on its head. And if youve got a team loaded with a few of those, you have a greater chance of success? If your dynamic power-hitter can score 900 runs for you, then yes, but not all dynamic power-hitters can score, which is why Chris Gayle has been one of the most dominant T20 players for a long time because he scores as many runs as he does, at a great rate. These are not easy skills to obtain - consistency as well as power-hitting, and the ability to negotiate pace, spin. Its not like there are many players around who can do all of these things. Theres no way that the talents and the abilities of a David Warner or a Virat Kohli are ever going to go extinct.Is the concept of the par score in T20 changing? I think the batsmen are slightly ahead of the bowlers in terms of the way their skills have improved over the last 9-11 years in T20 cricket, but the bowlers are slowly catching up. We find bowlers coming up with new skills and strategies to counter some of these batsmen. Mustafizur [Rahman] was excellent in this [IPL] tournament. The nature of bowling is such that youre limited physically by the amount you can do. Batsmen can set up bowling machines to mimic certain kinds of balls and you can go on practising. They have a little leeway. You cant obviously go on bowling for two hours every day because youre going to get injured.In terms of embracing innovation, are young batsmen now more accepting of it? When youre growing up, youre a product of the environment you are in, and the environment that a lot of them are in is one where they grow up watching their heroes play these shots. So its only natural that they will take what they have seen the night before and go to their summer camps and try that. You see more and more batsmen today being fearless about the risks they want to take, being more innovative and more creative.How much has captaincy in T20 evolved with time, and is it the most challenging form of the game in which to captain? Because of the nature of the game, one decision to give somebody the ball could actually cost you a game, whereas in a Test or one-day match, you have an opportunity to come back. Sometimes at the back end of a game, you are weighing your options and you get one of those decisions wrong, and sometimes its not even a wrong decision, and thats why I think in T20 cricket it goes down to execution. You have to make decisions a lot quicker, be very flexible. You have to be quick on your feet and clear in your thinking - you cant get muddled. You cant afford to get rattled because the ball is flying all over the place, and its the captains who can actually just hold their own in that kind of situation that are the ones who end up being successful. In a T20 scenario theres more input possibly because the coach/mentor is right there in the dugout. What sort of dynamic does that create? Does the captain want all that input or is he almost shooing you away? Thats unique to different players and different captains. Some captains might like some conversation, some captains might not. I think its just the dynamic of the team, the way its structured, the kind of information the captain is looking at.You have the strategic time-out, where you are actually allowed on to the field to offer inputs. In the strategic time-out you dont get in the way and confuse them even more. Its again something thats very unique to this format and sometimes just to bounce off a few ideas of the captain. Sometimes you realise how different you might be thinking but its the guy on the ground who finally makes a decision, and he should be given the right to make that decision.Where do you see T20 headed over the next two or three years? I think T20 cricket is only going to get bigger and bigger. We need to be a bit careful that we maintain the balance between bat and ball. I see that as one of the major challenges of T20 cricket. What we dont want is for every score to become a 200-plus score, where its always about power-hitting skills. We want to bring the skills of cricket. You want somebody to negotiate a difficult spell, the turning ball, and see if he can score at seven-eight runs an over against a good spinner. I think otherwise you just might put up bowling machines and see who hits it further.Watch ESPNcricinfo Talking Cricket at 9.30pm IST on Fridays and the repeat at noon on Sundays on SONYESPN Josh Allen Jersey . MLS Commissioner Don Garber and Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez also will attend the session, which was announced Monday. The league has discussed placing its next two expansion teams in Miami and Atlanta. Thurman Thomas Jersey . Nathan MacKinnon, Jamie McGinn and Jan Hejda also scored for the Avalanche, who won despite being outshot 38-23. MacKinnons goal, also on the power play, came with just over a minute remaining. http://www.shoptheofficialbills.com/Elite-Bruce-Smith-Bills-Jersey/ . -- Ryan Blaney provided more evidence that Penske Racings No. O. J. Simpson Youth Jersey .H. -- Matt Kenseth made it 2 for 2 in the Chase, holding off teammate Kyle Busch to win Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Dawson Knox Jersey . -- Catcher Brett Hayes has agreed to a $630,000, one-year contract with the Kansas City Royals, avoiding salary arbitration. RIO DE JANEIRO -- The Olympics ended with a game worthy of the surroundings.And in a tournament in which every team showed its imperfections, there was a worthy winner in Germany, which defeated Sweden 2-1 for its first gold medal in womens soccer.All of which made for a fitting send-off for one of the sports most successful coaches.In front of a crowd of 70,000, the game provided all the twists, turns and skill associated with the iconic Maracana. A scoreless first half featured chances for both teams, but it wasnt until Dzsenifer Marozsans goal in the opening minutes of the second half that Germany did what neither the United States nor Brazil could manage in preceding games: force Sweden to play from behind.Germany then doubled its lead on a Swedish own goal, but Sweden quickly cut the deficit to a single goal to set up a tense finish over the remaining quarter of the game, right down to a scramble for the ball yards from the German goal in stoppage time.In the final game of coach Silvia Neids tenure, Germany joined the United States and Norway as the only countries to win both Olympic gold and World Cup titles in womens soccer.More to come after the medals are awarded, but here are some thoughts at the final whistle.1. Healthy Marozsan makes a differenceAn injured Marozsan was far less than 100 percent when Germany and the United States met in a World Cup semifinal a year ago. And the day before the gold-medal game, German coach Silvia Neid suggested Marozsan was the only potential health concern for her team.Well, Marozsan started this final and looked no worse for wear in the first half, as Germany slowly built offensive momentum. And she looked simply world class when a deflected cross fell to her feet in the 48th minute. A few yards outside the 18-yard box and unmarked, Marozsan took her time, picked her spot and curled a beautiful shot past the diving goalkeeper.Time and again, the United States and Brazil hammered away at the Swedish goal in this tournament, but barely any of the shots from a bevy of talented players actually went on frame. Maroszan made the most of her first opportunity. Then her free kick from 20 yards in the 61st minute caromed hard off the post and into Swedens Linda Sembrant, who scored an own goal on a failed clearance.Put it on frame and good things happen. Have a healthy Marozsan and good things happen.2. Sweden played for the goldIt took less than a minute for Sweden to earn a free kick near the German goal. The Swedes accumulated six first-half corner kicks. At times they had all 10 field players in the German end without the added enticement of a set piece. Really, they did. They even had an edgge in possession through the first 45 minutes.dddddddddddd All right, Sweden wasnt trying to pull off a Scandinavian ode to Barcelona. They played their way, which meant two organized and tightly synced lines of four on defense and a lot of long balls over the top. But they played.All the hubbub about Swedens defensive tactics in penalty-shootout wins against the United States and Brazil seemed forced anyway. And Swedens supposedly dire soccer didnt stop 70,000 people from showing up to watch them play for the gold medal. But Sweden played to win -- or lose -- the gold medal for 90 minutes Friday night.The Swedes almost paid for it on a couple of occasions in the first half, and it cost them when the back line found itself stretched on Marozsans opening goal and the sequence that led to the own goal. But it also gave them a chance to threaten Germanys goal -- an Olivia Schough misfire on a Lotta Schelin cross and Schelins missed shot on a counter were moments that will leave some Swedish fans to wonder what might have happened had their team scored first.3. Meanwhile, in Sao PauloA tournament that began so promisingly for the host ended in bitter disappointment. Brazil left without a medal of any kind after a 2-1 loss to Canada in the bronze-medal game played in Brazils largest city. By the time Brazils goalless drought ended late in the second half -- the team going without a goal for nearly seven consecutive hours of soccer during the tournament -- Canada already had a two-goal cushion. But if its a sad finish to what looked like a great Brazilian story, dont expect the Canadians to apologize for playing spoiler.Canada becomes the fifth country to medal in womens soccer in back-to-back Olympics, taking the sting out of its own mildly disappointing showing as host of last years World Cup. Although Christine Sinclair fittingly scored the eventual bronze-clincher against Brazil, Canadas feat is perhaps most impressive for how different the two medal-winning Canadian teams were.In the span of those years, coach John Herdman successfully set the table for the post-Sinclair era. Fridays starting lineup included current West Virginia standouts Kadeisha Buchanan and Ashley Lawrence. And they are all but old-timers compared to 18-year-old Jessie Fleming and 17-year-old Deanne Rose, who scored the opening goal in the game. Add in Janine Beckie, who didnt start Friday but had such a strong tournament, Rebecca Quinn, Nichelle Prince and others, and Canada can celebrate both another medal and what the future holds. ' ' '