It was a strange kind of a whimper to end what was the sort of absorbing and hard-fought series we have come to expect between Australia and India over the last decade. There was a needless run-out, a key batsman was forced to retired hurt and the middle-order was dismissed cheaply. Ingredients, one might think, for a dramatic collapse, echoing events at The Adelaide Oval in 2003 and 2006. But with just one wicket down in the first session, the Indians never looked threatened. Sehwag brought up his century before lunch, the team's total not far advanced beyond his own and the next highest score 11. If that suggests he blazed while others blocked, it is also illusory; by his standards, Sehwag appeared relatively sedate, tending to shun the off-side flail which both his supporters and opponents relish. The four titans of the Indian middle-order, whom Australians may be relieved never to see grace their country in Tests again, all departed subdued: Dravid to a badly-bruised finger; Tendulkar impaling himself on the horns of a sharp single; Ganguly squeezing a catch to cover; and Laxman with a diffident glove through to Gilchrist. That man, one of the most exciting cricketers ever, spent his last day in the Test arena quietly marking time behind the stumps. The Adelaide pitch, which had not failed to produce a result this decade, slept while the people demanded a thrilling end, a fitting farewell to greats and a fulfilling dovetail to the month-long contest. In the end, a series which was at once a joy, a frustration and a powerful fuel for debate unraveled to its natural conclusion, with neither side striving hard or well enough to dispute the inevitability.
This was a game for the individual: Tendulkar, in surely his last Test in Australia, striking his second century of the series, his 39th in all, ascending again to the heights at the one time home of the greatest of them all. Ponting, cussedly pushing all doubt and criticism from his mind and unburdening himself in the way he knows best. His first hundred of the Australian summer was marked as others might a half-century. The helmet stayed on, the emotion bottled up; rarely, though, can runs have meant so much. And Gilchrist, part of so many Australian victories and a crucial factor in a good portion of them, departed with a draw. One of the ironies the Sporting Gods delight in; another perhaps was Michael Clarke's shelling of a chance offered by Sehwag on the fourth evening which would have reduced India to 2-2. The man who sparked victory at Sydney spurning the chance here.
In Gilchrist another link has gone to Australia's almost unadulterated period of success over the last decade or more, while performances which did not match those of their post 2005 vintage have caused the question to be posed of how long their dominance can continue. Matthew Hayden's importance to them was reaffirmed both by his absence in Perth, where the top order lurched, and his return in Adelaide with an unerring century. Yet Hayden is now the team's elder statesman at 36, and cannot be looking far beyond the penance a good Ashes in England in 18 months time would bring him. Brad Hogg is unlikely to play much more Test cricket after his treatment by the Indians. They are, admittedly, the masters against slow bowling, but his deficiencies at this level were exposed not only by the opposition batsmen but one of his own team-mates in Andrew Symonds, whose supplementary off-breaks outdid Hogg's wrist-spin. Stuart MacGill will be hoping for one last twirl, especially if Australia tour Pakistan as planned in the spring, but there is a reasonable chance his knee will decide to retire on him before he himself is ready to call it a day. There ends the feasible list of Australian Test spinners, unless you are willing to entertain the notion of another thirtysomething leggie being drafted in, this time Bryce McGain, who spent much of his career at Victoria in the shadow of not only Shane Warne but the now disregarded bowling talent of Cameron White, who still has the best domestic bowling record of all the young(ish) Australian spinners, although it has long been acknowledged that he operates as a slow, not spin bowler.
Still, there is much to marvel about this Australian side. Brett Lee was a deserved man of the series; he has made the transition from spare part to leading man so quickly and seamlessly that it is hard to recall him as anything else than the top-drawer bowler he now is, bearing the torch not only for fast bowling in Australia but worldwide. Mitchell Johnson was unconvincing at times, but swept up a tidy haul of 16 wickets; while Stuart Clark was wicketless in Adelaide but a threat always. As a trio they complement each other perfectly, with a mixture of pace, bounce, swing and cut all bound together by a collective parsimony, Johnson the most expensive of the three this series at just 3.15 rpo. While the batting generally held up well when led by Hayden, Symonds proved the revelation, chalking up 410 runs to match Hayden as Australia's leading run scorer. Allied to his nine wickets and customary sharpness in the field, he had a series which marked his evolution from sore thumb to key cog, as he has been in the ODI team for some time.
For India, the next few years could also be a tricky period of change. Ganguly and Dravid, both axed from the one-day squad, have begun to look tired, and, at 35, may well be eyeing the Australians' return visit in October as a swansong. There was a heartening resurgence of those who have already been through the cycle of rise and fall so common with Indian cricketers in Sehwag and Pathan, who opened together in Adelaide. That is not a partnership which should last, but hopefully both players will - Sehwag as India's one proven opener, and quite possibly Anil Kumble's successor as captain, and Pathan in the all-rounder's role vacant since Kapil Dev's time.
Also impressive were the visiting seamers, who shone after pack leader Zaheer Khan was injured in Melbourne. RP Singh filled his shoes as senior bowler, his displays of swing and aggressiveness earning plaudits and a good haul of wickets. Way back in the averages, but foremost in most minds is Ishant Sharma, who managed just 6 wickets in 3 Tests but in the process humbled two of the world's best batsmen, Ponting and Hayden, with extended spells of incisive, inquisitory seam bowling, gaining the prized scalp on each occasion. One must exercise a note of caution before singing Sharma's praises to the skies. It has been said of many over the last four years that they are the answer to India's perennial prayer for a good fast bowler: Zaheer, Nehra, Agarkar, Balaji, Pathan, Sreesanth, Munaf and RP Singh to name but eight. Some have fallen by the wayside, others have been and gone and come again, while few have escaped the ravages of injury. Ultimately, there is room for only three, at a push four. On this evidence, Sharma will be a difficult man to displace. With a height few Indian seamers have enjoyed, decent pace and the ability to make the ball bounce and move off the pitch, he has all the right attributes, while his survival in the bearpit of Australia suggests he has the right temperament for Test cricket too.
When all is said and done, Australia still hold the trophy and the whip hand over other Test sides. A series of away fixtures will be telling, as they have not played a Test abroad since mid 2006. With no Test-class spinner available, they are likely to suffer in some circumstances, and four seam bowlers looked an undesirable balance. The loss of so many matchwinning players was always going to affect the Australians, and they can no longer take dominance for granted. That does not mean they will not continue to churn out series wins, just that they have inevitably slipped within reach of the chasing pack. But it is up to the other teams to bridge the still considerable gap, something India made a good fist of; they cannot expect Australia to fall to their level, and it is likely that the slackness which crept into the home side's game, especially regarding catching, will be tightened up on. So less a decline, more unavaoidable recalibration as an era chock-full of brilliant players bleeds into another whose potential is as yet unknown. All that can be said for sure is that Australia's progress over the next year will be tracked with interest, rather than the resignation which their prolonged period of supremacy had forced most to become accustomed to.
Monday 28 January 2008
Saturday 26 January 2008
Changing of the guard
There is a difference between leaving an indelible mark on sport and changing it. One does not necessarily mean the other; but for Adam Gilchrist, who announced his retirement from international cricket the day after taking the record for most dismissals by a wicket-keeper in Tests, they were feats very much united. Pre-Gilchrist, the definition of the ideal wicket-keeper was a top-notch gloveman who could be niggly, aggressive and unconventional with the bat. Take five of the most celebrated post-war examples: Godfrey Evans, Alan Knott, Rodney Marsh, Jeffrey Dujon and Ian Healy. Their averages range from 20.49 (Evans) to 32.75 (Knott); together, they managed 19 Test centuries in 482 Tests. Gilchrist, yet to bat in his farewell game and with a flat Adelaide pitch to look forward to, boasts an average of 47.89, with 17 centuries and a record 414 dismissals from 96 Tests. And those are figures which very much reflect a latter-day slump. As late as his 47th Test match, his average touched 60; 15 of his centuries had been recorded nearly 30 games ago, before he had played 100 Test innings. And that is not to mention one-day cricket.
When the chance arrived, success came quickly for Gilchrist; but the path to international cricket was far from the cakewalk his talent and record might suggest. He could not get a game for his home state NSW, so travelled to the other side of Australia and found a home at Perth, a journey further than London to Cairo. He then suffered the ire of his own fans for replacing the incumbent, something that he was to experience again when he graduated to the Australian Test team. Tim Zoehrer was the darling at the WACA, while he was far from flavour of the month making his Test debut on Ian Healy's patch at Brisbane. He was soon to earn their adulation. His first Test innings almost brought a maiden century, with 81 off not many more deliveries; the next game, he both chalked up his first ton and won a game for Australia, joining with Justin Langer to chase a total of 369 which had seemed impossible from 126-5. That typified Gilchrist; he was not the first wicket-keeper to act as frequent fireman, but it was the manner of his play which set him apart. He dealt not in fighting fifties, rather lacerating centuries; he could turn difficult situations into winning ones within two sessions and often did. Australia might look the deadest of dead dogs, but were never out of it while Gilchrist was yet to have his say.
All the Australian teams Gilchrist played in over a nine-year Test career struck fear into their opposition. With the bat, you could be battered from the off by Slater or Hayden; ground down by Ponting, Steve Waugh or Hussey; regally dismissed by Mark Waugh or Martyn. But not even those stellar names and reputations carried the same aura as Gilchrist. Often he seemed impossible to bowl to, driving and cutting powerfully on the off side; scooping and flicking on the leg. Spinners he swept or charged to bully straight down the ground. It was uninhibited, thrilling and utterly demoralising for bowlers and captains. Well-laid plans and carefully-set fields were frequently rendered meaningless; no better than watching and hoping, the last resort which Gilchrist delighted in bringing about quickly. For an example of his inventiveness, look no further than the first Test of the 2001 Ashes at Edgbaston. Gilchrist, a boundary away from 150, was helping his team reduce England's latest Ashes challenge to rubble just days into the series. Andy Caddick, one ball remaining of his nth over, was determined he would not be the bowler to concede the landmark. He delivered a head high bouncer; Gilchirst stepped inside, and, with a vertical bat, dobbed the ball over Alec Stewart's head for the boundary. One shot that showed all the best attributes of the man: the eye of a hawk, intuitiveness, and a sense of fun which never left him and is one reason he will leave the international stage amongst the most popular players.
If Gilchrist had never gone near the wicket-keeping gloves, he would still be regarded as an amazing cricketer. That he managed such incredible batting feats with the added burden is what places him in the pantheon of the all-timers. Indeed it is probably the recent downturn in his keeping which has brought about what seemed an unlikely decision to retire. He was never a natural, impish gloveman, but at his best he was an extremely capable and reliable one. His athletic diving catches, such as that which dispatched Michael Vaughan at The Oval in 2005, and assured handling of Warne's warheads place him above the class of the artisan, while misses, before the last throes of his career, were infrequent. It is his underplayed wicket-keeping ability which has caused others to flounder while trying to find their own model, England especially. The benefit of a century-scoring batsman at No.7 caused others to ignore the basic Gilchrist brought to the table; wicket-keeping was always the first and last for Gilchrist, as it must be for any gloveman, however crucial the runs.
Adaptability was another feature of the Gilchrist legend. He first fulfilled the opener's role in ODI cricket almost by mistake, but will be remembered as one of the finest ever to play the one-day game. It is unthinkable that any other could hold the gloves in an all-time one-day World XI. With Australia in strife against Sri Lanka in 2004 and Ricky Ponting unable to bat at 3 in the second innings, Gilchrist stepped up and made 144. Australia won by 27 runs. It was Gilchrist, not Ponting, who captained Australia to victory in the 2004-5 series in India, doing what illustrious predecessors Taylor and Waugh had failed to.
It was 2005 when Gilchrist's golden period, along with Australia's, shuddered to a halt. Cramped by the round-the-wicket line of Flintoff and discomfited by the length which made the ball bounce above the flailing blade rather than into its arc, Gilchrist's best in the 5-match series was just 49. Had he been anything like himself with the bat, Australia would have won. Unlike his team, Gilchrist never really recovered, with only two more centuries and an increasing number of chances missed behind the stumps. Occasionally his batting flared, and spectacularly, with stupefying centuries against England, at Perth, and Sri Lanka, in the World Cup final. But they were sparks from a dying light, and it is probably prudent of Gilchrist to end his career now, before the murmurings over his position had a chance to become something more concrete. Perhaps with Brad Haddin's presence in the ODI team alongside him, he has sensed the shadow lengthening, in the same way his own hastened the end for Ian Healy back in 1999. Yet again, Australia can replace the great experience of a Test player with a seasoned pro at domestic level, and Haddin will likely do a very good job. But they have lost another of their golden era, someone whose career spanned both runs of 16 wins. Moreover, cricket has lost a star, a gent, and a player who can be ranked amongst the greatest ever at the very moment he hangs up his gloves for the last time.
When the chance arrived, success came quickly for Gilchrist; but the path to international cricket was far from the cakewalk his talent and record might suggest. He could not get a game for his home state NSW, so travelled to the other side of Australia and found a home at Perth, a journey further than London to Cairo. He then suffered the ire of his own fans for replacing the incumbent, something that he was to experience again when he graduated to the Australian Test team. Tim Zoehrer was the darling at the WACA, while he was far from flavour of the month making his Test debut on Ian Healy's patch at Brisbane. He was soon to earn their adulation. His first Test innings almost brought a maiden century, with 81 off not many more deliveries; the next game, he both chalked up his first ton and won a game for Australia, joining with Justin Langer to chase a total of 369 which had seemed impossible from 126-5. That typified Gilchrist; he was not the first wicket-keeper to act as frequent fireman, but it was the manner of his play which set him apart. He dealt not in fighting fifties, rather lacerating centuries; he could turn difficult situations into winning ones within two sessions and often did. Australia might look the deadest of dead dogs, but were never out of it while Gilchrist was yet to have his say.
All the Australian teams Gilchrist played in over a nine-year Test career struck fear into their opposition. With the bat, you could be battered from the off by Slater or Hayden; ground down by Ponting, Steve Waugh or Hussey; regally dismissed by Mark Waugh or Martyn. But not even those stellar names and reputations carried the same aura as Gilchrist. Often he seemed impossible to bowl to, driving and cutting powerfully on the off side; scooping and flicking on the leg. Spinners he swept or charged to bully straight down the ground. It was uninhibited, thrilling and utterly demoralising for bowlers and captains. Well-laid plans and carefully-set fields were frequently rendered meaningless; no better than watching and hoping, the last resort which Gilchrist delighted in bringing about quickly. For an example of his inventiveness, look no further than the first Test of the 2001 Ashes at Edgbaston. Gilchrist, a boundary away from 150, was helping his team reduce England's latest Ashes challenge to rubble just days into the series. Andy Caddick, one ball remaining of his nth over, was determined he would not be the bowler to concede the landmark. He delivered a head high bouncer; Gilchirst stepped inside, and, with a vertical bat, dobbed the ball over Alec Stewart's head for the boundary. One shot that showed all the best attributes of the man: the eye of a hawk, intuitiveness, and a sense of fun which never left him and is one reason he will leave the international stage amongst the most popular players.
If Gilchrist had never gone near the wicket-keeping gloves, he would still be regarded as an amazing cricketer. That he managed such incredible batting feats with the added burden is what places him in the pantheon of the all-timers. Indeed it is probably the recent downturn in his keeping which has brought about what seemed an unlikely decision to retire. He was never a natural, impish gloveman, but at his best he was an extremely capable and reliable one. His athletic diving catches, such as that which dispatched Michael Vaughan at The Oval in 2005, and assured handling of Warne's warheads place him above the class of the artisan, while misses, before the last throes of his career, were infrequent. It is his underplayed wicket-keeping ability which has caused others to flounder while trying to find their own model, England especially. The benefit of a century-scoring batsman at No.7 caused others to ignore the basic Gilchrist brought to the table; wicket-keeping was always the first and last for Gilchrist, as it must be for any gloveman, however crucial the runs.
Adaptability was another feature of the Gilchrist legend. He first fulfilled the opener's role in ODI cricket almost by mistake, but will be remembered as one of the finest ever to play the one-day game. It is unthinkable that any other could hold the gloves in an all-time one-day World XI. With Australia in strife against Sri Lanka in 2004 and Ricky Ponting unable to bat at 3 in the second innings, Gilchrist stepped up and made 144. Australia won by 27 runs. It was Gilchrist, not Ponting, who captained Australia to victory in the 2004-5 series in India, doing what illustrious predecessors Taylor and Waugh had failed to.
It was 2005 when Gilchrist's golden period, along with Australia's, shuddered to a halt. Cramped by the round-the-wicket line of Flintoff and discomfited by the length which made the ball bounce above the flailing blade rather than into its arc, Gilchrist's best in the 5-match series was just 49. Had he been anything like himself with the bat, Australia would have won. Unlike his team, Gilchrist never really recovered, with only two more centuries and an increasing number of chances missed behind the stumps. Occasionally his batting flared, and spectacularly, with stupefying centuries against England, at Perth, and Sri Lanka, in the World Cup final. But they were sparks from a dying light, and it is probably prudent of Gilchrist to end his career now, before the murmurings over his position had a chance to become something more concrete. Perhaps with Brad Haddin's presence in the ODI team alongside him, he has sensed the shadow lengthening, in the same way his own hastened the end for Ian Healy back in 1999. Yet again, Australia can replace the great experience of a Test player with a seasoned pro at domestic level, and Haddin will likely do a very good job. But they have lost another of their golden era, someone whose career spanned both runs of 16 wins. Moreover, cricket has lost a star, a gent, and a player who can be ranked amongst the greatest ever at the very moment he hangs up his gloves for the last time.
Saturday 19 January 2008
Sparky India short the circuit
It will remain an imponderable whether Ricky Ponting's Australia would have extended their winning streak in Tests to 17 but for the furore rising from events in the Sydney Test. That ensured the rare break in the middle of a series was no opportunity for R+R, and Australia looked uncommonly enervated and underpowered. But perhaps the scars from Sydney were more specifically cricketing: there too, the Australian top-half crumbled to swing and seam, but produced a customary recovery from 134-6, as they have been required to do more than once in their 16 consecutive victories. It proved once too often to the well at Perth, with no way back from 163-6, in reply to a score of 330 considered under-par. Previously the Indians had found two seamers was a cupboard understocked, just as Australia realised too late this time that four was one too many. But with Irfan Pathan recalled and visibly rehabilitated, India had the bowling resources to maintain the assault; Australia, affected by the absence of Matthew Hayden more than they would have hoped or expected, could not stave them off.
This was a match when reality reared its head and crapped all over expectation. Australia, it was felt, could not lose - not at the WACA, its square restored to former glories and where India's last visit had shown them to be as sturdy as a paper wall gusted by the local Fremantle Doctor. Australia chucked the spinner and rolled out their quickest and meanest gun; blood was to be spilt on the altar of Lillee and Thomson. India's response was to salvage from the scrapheap a swing bowler who hadn't been doing much of that for a while. For anyone but to Australia to win at Perth is rare indeed these days; for one of the Asian countries, it is practically unheard of.
If man-of-the-match Pathan was an unlikely hero, one can add to that list several of his colleagues. Whence came RP Singh and Ishant Sharma; the sudden form of Rahul Dravid; the youthful abandon of Sachin Tendulkar, after years of playing like a tortured mortal? It is the preserve of touring teams in Australia to crumble in India's circumstances; the canvas down-under is not a bouncy one. But India, who have generally underachieved in this generation, have far greater gumption and guts away from home than their teams of old. They have had success in West Indies and South Africa, while series wins in England, as they managed last summer, do not come cheap, even taking into account England's recent form. It says a lot for their new captain Anil Kumble; three of his predecessors, all titans, bestride the batting order, yet the team seems vibrant and fresh. In the course of the match, Kumble took his 600th Test wicket, and now trails only the two spinners of his generation who have denied him deserved elegies. Captaincy, which he has come to late and circuitously, suits him no less than spin bowling - he is a special and underrated cricketer.
Before the series, it was the Indian bowling which was considered to be the main difference between the teams. India might score some runs, but it seemed unlikely they would run through Australia with their popgun-looking seam attack. How wrong we were. Seam and swing are the two oldest arts of bowling, but when done well they can discomfit even the best batsmen. It was those features of the English bowling which unseated Australia back in 2005, when they last lost a game. Faced with it again here, they showed that not much has changed, which is an indictment on the standard of quick-bowling worldwide as much as anything else. Again notable was Ishant Sharma, who took on Harbhajan Singh's mantle as tormentor in chief of Ricky Ponting. Moving the ball both ways off the pitch, he picked holes in the world's best batsman, giving credence to the thought that Ponting, had he played out his entire career against the much better pacemen of the Nineties, would have averaged closer to 45, as he did then, that the figure near 60 he has latterly achieved.
While India were in reasonable control for much of the game, nothing quite seemed to fit Australia's script: having done a good job cleaning up the Indian first innings, they did not capitalise on their well-earned ascendancy with the bat; they could not force the issue with India 160-6 in their second dig; and Ponting and Hussey, who might just have crafted a miracle, both fell when set in the chase for 413, and the big push never materialised. Seduced by the prospects of a lightning track, they went for Shaun Tait, who got through barely half the bowling of back-up spin-pairing Symonds and Clarke. The pitch had none of the fire promised; it emerged that it was in fact not one of the relaid surfaces. What umpiring errors there were went against them; they dropped catches. It was all a bit un-Australian, which will probably lead to questions being raised on how they have reacted to their behaviour being questioned in wake of the Sydney game. They would probably have to lose the next Test too for it to become an issue, but were that to happen it would be interesting to see whether the line that winning is worthless when you behave like yobs - easy to trot out when the team is winning - will hold when the opposite is true.
Adelaide will tell us a lot, although India's failure to see out the Sydney game means it will sadly not be a decider. Any defeat of Australia seems momentous, so rare are they, but the match at Perth was no classic; no-one made it to three figures with the bat, no bowler took five wickets in an innings. The man-of-the match gong went to a bloke who took that many in two goes and made a pair of handy contributions with the bat without reaching 50 on either occasion. It was run of the mill in every way, except Australia lost. But twinned with the game at Sydney, which India should never have allowed Australia to win, it does show that the rivalry between these two teams is genuine, which can only be good for the game. What is not good is that India had barely a day of competitive cricket before the series began and that the premier contest in world cricket has not been given a fifth Test. That would probably be too much to ask, as it was for Ponting's team to eclipse Stephen Waugh's record. They may have reached the end of that line, but it should not be forgotten that the 16 consecutive victories came off the back of the 2005 Ashes and proclamations that the Australian era of dominance was over. The response to that was emphatic; and Ponting, who takes defeat along with all other insult seriously and personally, will be looking to start again.
This was a match when reality reared its head and crapped all over expectation. Australia, it was felt, could not lose - not at the WACA, its square restored to former glories and where India's last visit had shown them to be as sturdy as a paper wall gusted by the local Fremantle Doctor. Australia chucked the spinner and rolled out their quickest and meanest gun; blood was to be spilt on the altar of Lillee and Thomson. India's response was to salvage from the scrapheap a swing bowler who hadn't been doing much of that for a while. For anyone but to Australia to win at Perth is rare indeed these days; for one of the Asian countries, it is practically unheard of.
If man-of-the-match Pathan was an unlikely hero, one can add to that list several of his colleagues. Whence came RP Singh and Ishant Sharma; the sudden form of Rahul Dravid; the youthful abandon of Sachin Tendulkar, after years of playing like a tortured mortal? It is the preserve of touring teams in Australia to crumble in India's circumstances; the canvas down-under is not a bouncy one. But India, who have generally underachieved in this generation, have far greater gumption and guts away from home than their teams of old. They have had success in West Indies and South Africa, while series wins in England, as they managed last summer, do not come cheap, even taking into account England's recent form. It says a lot for their new captain Anil Kumble; three of his predecessors, all titans, bestride the batting order, yet the team seems vibrant and fresh. In the course of the match, Kumble took his 600th Test wicket, and now trails only the two spinners of his generation who have denied him deserved elegies. Captaincy, which he has come to late and circuitously, suits him no less than spin bowling - he is a special and underrated cricketer.
Before the series, it was the Indian bowling which was considered to be the main difference between the teams. India might score some runs, but it seemed unlikely they would run through Australia with their popgun-looking seam attack. How wrong we were. Seam and swing are the two oldest arts of bowling, but when done well they can discomfit even the best batsmen. It was those features of the English bowling which unseated Australia back in 2005, when they last lost a game. Faced with it again here, they showed that not much has changed, which is an indictment on the standard of quick-bowling worldwide as much as anything else. Again notable was Ishant Sharma, who took on Harbhajan Singh's mantle as tormentor in chief of Ricky Ponting. Moving the ball both ways off the pitch, he picked holes in the world's best batsman, giving credence to the thought that Ponting, had he played out his entire career against the much better pacemen of the Nineties, would have averaged closer to 45, as he did then, that the figure near 60 he has latterly achieved.
While India were in reasonable control for much of the game, nothing quite seemed to fit Australia's script: having done a good job cleaning up the Indian first innings, they did not capitalise on their well-earned ascendancy with the bat; they could not force the issue with India 160-6 in their second dig; and Ponting and Hussey, who might just have crafted a miracle, both fell when set in the chase for 413, and the big push never materialised. Seduced by the prospects of a lightning track, they went for Shaun Tait, who got through barely half the bowling of back-up spin-pairing Symonds and Clarke. The pitch had none of the fire promised; it emerged that it was in fact not one of the relaid surfaces. What umpiring errors there were went against them; they dropped catches. It was all a bit un-Australian, which will probably lead to questions being raised on how they have reacted to their behaviour being questioned in wake of the Sydney game. They would probably have to lose the next Test too for it to become an issue, but were that to happen it would be interesting to see whether the line that winning is worthless when you behave like yobs - easy to trot out when the team is winning - will hold when the opposite is true.
Adelaide will tell us a lot, although India's failure to see out the Sydney game means it will sadly not be a decider. Any defeat of Australia seems momentous, so rare are they, but the match at Perth was no classic; no-one made it to three figures with the bat, no bowler took five wickets in an innings. The man-of-the match gong went to a bloke who took that many in two goes and made a pair of handy contributions with the bat without reaching 50 on either occasion. It was run of the mill in every way, except Australia lost. But twinned with the game at Sydney, which India should never have allowed Australia to win, it does show that the rivalry between these two teams is genuine, which can only be good for the game. What is not good is that India had barely a day of competitive cricket before the series began and that the premier contest in world cricket has not been given a fifth Test. That would probably be too much to ask, as it was for Ponting's team to eclipse Stephen Waugh's record. They may have reached the end of that line, but it should not be forgotten that the 16 consecutive victories came off the back of the 2005 Ashes and proclamations that the Australian era of dominance was over. The response to that was emphatic; and Ponting, who takes defeat along with all other insult seriously and personally, will be looking to start again.
Tuesday 8 January 2008
The thin red line
Schism is a word which has been bandied about far too often in cricketing circles over the course of this decade for anyone's comfort. Make no mistake, the uproar which has grown out of events at the recent Sydney Test match will not bring down an iron curtain between the Asian countries, who are in possession of the piggy bank, and the rest, principally Australia and England, who would purport to be the guardians of the game. In reality, none of the Test playing countries are guardians of anything but their own bank balances; the much touted "spirit of cricket" is just that - a phantom. We have been here before in recent times - the names Hair and Denness should be sufficient to rekindle the memory of similar shemozzles which left no greater legacy than excess chip paper. But cricket has not existed as the sepia-tinted, much eulogised "gentleman's game" for a very, very long time, it that was ever the case. This year, we mark 75 years since the Bodyline series of 1932-3; other examples fall readily from the tree - Tony Greig in 1976, World Series Cricket, Gatting and Rana. The game is still here and in one piece of sorts; whether the shape of it is satisfactory to cricket lovers and fans is the point in question.
Specific issues arise from the current situation. Have the Australians overstepped the mark with their aggressiveness on the field of play; and was it an isolated example or indicative of a greater trend? What does one make of the Indian reaction, both on micro and macro levels; is that part of a pattern too? Further debate has also been sparked on two old chestnuts: the place of sledging in the game and the extent to which technology should be introduced to help cut down on the most grievous umpiring errors.
It is the behaviour of both teams, especially the Australians, which has been most closely scrutinised. Like it or not, the Australians will always play the game their way; it has ever been so, with examples as far back as the 1920s and the giant in all aspects figure of Warwick Armstrong. Ricky Ponting has not changed the goalposts, but is merely continuing a legacy begat to him by his predecessor Stephen Waugh and Allan Border at one remove. We have heard the, "all's fair in love and war, mate" party-line before and we did again this time. In almost all circumstances, it is a line in the sand which holds for them; no-one wants to be labelled a bad loser or Whingeing Pom. And, lest one forget, aggression is something which has been a characteristic of most winning teams in the modern era; from Clive Lloyd's West Indies side through to the English team whose successful Ashes campaign began with a lethal bombardment by Steve Harmison, the fielders unconcerned as the batsmen wore several hits. People chuntered at the time, but all had been forgotten as the team paraded through Trafalgar square.
But at Sydney, an under-pressure Australia showed an ugly face which Ricky Ponting has been trying to subdue during his tenure and a feature less in evidence since the Australian board made a big show of bringing the team to book in 2003 after a particularly poisonous series in the Caribbean. They happened to pick on the one Indian prepared to give as good, and who said the wrong thing to the wrong man. Whether Ponting was right to report it or not is a moot point; but there is a clear message. That is the need for the abusive side of sledging to be stamped down on; for Cricket Australia to repeat their gesture of four years ago would be mere tokenism, so it must fall to the ICC, nominally cricket's governing body, to set the tone. But anyone with even a lax grasp of cricket politics will realise that the words "ICC" and "action" are two negatively charged poles with a keen interest in avoiding each other, so what are the chances? It should not mean an end to dialogue on the field - after all, cricket history is littered with gems from some of the keener minds and sharper tongues. But those were, mostly, in good spirit, even the profane ones. What we have now reflects little of that great tradition; it is Steve Waugh's so called "mental disintegration" but a simple trade of insults, devoid of wit, exhibits nothing but mental retardation. Ultimately it must be the umpires who control the situation on the field, both by stepping in to avoid heated exchanges and reporting those who cross the line, rather than closing their ears and hoping it is all forgotten. What we see far too often is a posse of fielders surrounding one batsman, which is more than likely to end in some sort of conflict. That is when the officials should intervene and tell them to bugger off back to their fielding positions and get on with the game. Some similar admonishment for those who overtly question decisions, right or wrong, would not go amiss either.
Yet as much as the Australians trampled all over what was acceptable during the game, the reaction of the Indian board, the BCCI, has been similarly overblown. Make no mistake, India were given not only the short end of the stick but several harsh jabs in the solar plexus with it. But the subsequent actions of their board, effectively removing the umpire they disliked from the next game and engineering a situation whereby their banned player Harbhajan can play anyway, have diluted sympathy. It has revealed yet again, as if we needed reminding, that the ICC do not run the game, rather runs errands for the national boards, especially the one containing all three of its initials. Just a glance at the men in the power-broking positions reveals the problem. BCCI chief Sharad Pawar, a politician; James Sutherland, CE of Cricket Australia, a first-class cricketer but a better accountant; Giles Clarke, the ECB's new managing director, a successful entrepreneur and the man who brokered the current television deal in England; and to top it all, ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed, a lawyer specialising in litigation. That is the direction the game is headed in, if it is not there already - witness the formation of the two new leagues, ICL and IPL, two great stinking cash cows, a further development from our old friend the Champions Trophy, coming to some stadia near Pakistan this October. That is not to say the game does not need a commercial or business side and people who know those onions. But that should not be exclusive; where are the former Test cricketers, those who have a genuine love and knowledge of the game? There is so much untapped potential wisdom and know-how; you can read all about it in the press, but we need a higher proportion of minds tuned to cricket, not business, who can directly influence affairs, not just pass comment. Take a long, hard look at the current state football finds itself in - rich and popular as ever, but at what cost? Football, as someone once sagely said, will always be the most popular game because it is the most simple. And that mass of people involved and interested in the game brings money. Cricket can never hope for half the riches or support the national game possesses. And it should not lose some of the precious things it has in aspiring to achieve what it can never attain.
Next week India and Australia should be back playing cricket again. Say a small prayer to the god of back-to-back Test matches that this was the one Test anywhere in the world this winter not to be scheduled three days after the last one. Hope that the specific grievances between the teams can be forgotten, albeit with the important issues arising from them taken in hand by the authorities. The series as a contest is all but over, with Australia having retained the trophy by ensuring they cannot lose it, but that does not mean there is not the potential for some fine cricket to be played. There was plenty of that at Sydney, and hopefully the players will again prove that the game of cricket can ultimately transcend and rise above the problems it sometimes creates. It is in their hands to lift the mood; and that they can, and must.
Specific issues arise from the current situation. Have the Australians overstepped the mark with their aggressiveness on the field of play; and was it an isolated example or indicative of a greater trend? What does one make of the Indian reaction, both on micro and macro levels; is that part of a pattern too? Further debate has also been sparked on two old chestnuts: the place of sledging in the game and the extent to which technology should be introduced to help cut down on the most grievous umpiring errors.
It is the behaviour of both teams, especially the Australians, which has been most closely scrutinised. Like it or not, the Australians will always play the game their way; it has ever been so, with examples as far back as the 1920s and the giant in all aspects figure of Warwick Armstrong. Ricky Ponting has not changed the goalposts, but is merely continuing a legacy begat to him by his predecessor Stephen Waugh and Allan Border at one remove. We have heard the, "all's fair in love and war, mate" party-line before and we did again this time. In almost all circumstances, it is a line in the sand which holds for them; no-one wants to be labelled a bad loser or Whingeing Pom. And, lest one forget, aggression is something which has been a characteristic of most winning teams in the modern era; from Clive Lloyd's West Indies side through to the English team whose successful Ashes campaign began with a lethal bombardment by Steve Harmison, the fielders unconcerned as the batsmen wore several hits. People chuntered at the time, but all had been forgotten as the team paraded through Trafalgar square.
But at Sydney, an under-pressure Australia showed an ugly face which Ricky Ponting has been trying to subdue during his tenure and a feature less in evidence since the Australian board made a big show of bringing the team to book in 2003 after a particularly poisonous series in the Caribbean. They happened to pick on the one Indian prepared to give as good, and who said the wrong thing to the wrong man. Whether Ponting was right to report it or not is a moot point; but there is a clear message. That is the need for the abusive side of sledging to be stamped down on; for Cricket Australia to repeat their gesture of four years ago would be mere tokenism, so it must fall to the ICC, nominally cricket's governing body, to set the tone. But anyone with even a lax grasp of cricket politics will realise that the words "ICC" and "action" are two negatively charged poles with a keen interest in avoiding each other, so what are the chances? It should not mean an end to dialogue on the field - after all, cricket history is littered with gems from some of the keener minds and sharper tongues. But those were, mostly, in good spirit, even the profane ones. What we have now reflects little of that great tradition; it is Steve Waugh's so called "mental disintegration" but a simple trade of insults, devoid of wit, exhibits nothing but mental retardation. Ultimately it must be the umpires who control the situation on the field, both by stepping in to avoid heated exchanges and reporting those who cross the line, rather than closing their ears and hoping it is all forgotten. What we see far too often is a posse of fielders surrounding one batsman, which is more than likely to end in some sort of conflict. That is when the officials should intervene and tell them to bugger off back to their fielding positions and get on with the game. Some similar admonishment for those who overtly question decisions, right or wrong, would not go amiss either.
Yet as much as the Australians trampled all over what was acceptable during the game, the reaction of the Indian board, the BCCI, has been similarly overblown. Make no mistake, India were given not only the short end of the stick but several harsh jabs in the solar plexus with it. But the subsequent actions of their board, effectively removing the umpire they disliked from the next game and engineering a situation whereby their banned player Harbhajan can play anyway, have diluted sympathy. It has revealed yet again, as if we needed reminding, that the ICC do not run the game, rather runs errands for the national boards, especially the one containing all three of its initials. Just a glance at the men in the power-broking positions reveals the problem. BCCI chief Sharad Pawar, a politician; James Sutherland, CE of Cricket Australia, a first-class cricketer but a better accountant; Giles Clarke, the ECB's new managing director, a successful entrepreneur and the man who brokered the current television deal in England; and to top it all, ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed, a lawyer specialising in litigation. That is the direction the game is headed in, if it is not there already - witness the formation of the two new leagues, ICL and IPL, two great stinking cash cows, a further development from our old friend the Champions Trophy, coming to some stadia near Pakistan this October. That is not to say the game does not need a commercial or business side and people who know those onions. But that should not be exclusive; where are the former Test cricketers, those who have a genuine love and knowledge of the game? There is so much untapped potential wisdom and know-how; you can read all about it in the press, but we need a higher proportion of minds tuned to cricket, not business, who can directly influence affairs, not just pass comment. Take a long, hard look at the current state football finds itself in - rich and popular as ever, but at what cost? Football, as someone once sagely said, will always be the most popular game because it is the most simple. And that mass of people involved and interested in the game brings money. Cricket can never hope for half the riches or support the national game possesses. And it should not lose some of the precious things it has in aspiring to achieve what it can never attain.
Next week India and Australia should be back playing cricket again. Say a small prayer to the god of back-to-back Test matches that this was the one Test anywhere in the world this winter not to be scheduled three days after the last one. Hope that the specific grievances between the teams can be forgotten, albeit with the important issues arising from them taken in hand by the authorities. The series as a contest is all but over, with Australia having retained the trophy by ensuring they cannot lose it, but that does not mean there is not the potential for some fine cricket to be played. There was plenty of that at Sydney, and hopefully the players will again prove that the game of cricket can ultimately transcend and rise above the problems it sometimes creates. It is in their hands to lift the mood; and that they can, and must.
Sunday 6 January 2008
Australia's bittersweet 16
The just-concluded Syndey Test match, the first of 2008, was one of undercurrent and sub-plot. It was the game which the Australians had to win to equal the record for most consecutive Test victories; realistically, it was a Test India needed to win too, bearing in mind the spin-friendly surface and their precarious position in the series. But as five days of absorbing cricket, replete with displays of class and talent on both sides, were played out, other more invidious themes developed, picking away at the festering scabs of well-worn issues and debates which dog the modern game.
One of these was the standard of umpiring, which was dismal. Errors made by the officials are under ever-more constant scrutiny, especially with advancing levels of technology which allow the casual viewer or fan to act as judge and jury from the comfort of an armchair. Often their importance is overstated; mistakes they may be, but often they are no more than poor excuses for a losing team. However, so numerous were the errors of umpires Bucknor and Benson that India, against whom the majority of the decisions fell, have some reasonable grievance, which they have formalised with an official complaint. It was yet more evidence that Steve Bucknor, once the nonpareil of white-coats, has overstayed his welcome umpiring at this level. That he has been allowed to continue into his 60s baffles; more so the inability of the ICC to give him the polite but firm push necessary. If there have been hints, perhaps his hearing has been as faulty as when it failed to pick up the deflection off the edge of Andrew Symonds' bat on the first day, a noise discernible to almost all at the ground. Symonds went on to add 132 more to his total, not without several more reprieves, including a refusal by Bucknor to refer a decision on a stumping which was tight but probably out. That was the error on which the game hinged; Bucknor's incorrect execution of Rahul Dravid as India scrapped in vain on the last day just added insult.
The saga over the umpiring decisions will continue to perpetuate, but the news that Harbhajan Singh has been banned for three Test matches will promote the issue of how the players conducted themselves during the game. Harbhajan was indicted for a racist slur on Andrew Symonds, a situation no-doubt owing something to the bad-feeling created during the recent one-day series between these teams in India. Symonds was racially abused by the home crowds, and words were shared both on the field and through the press. As ever when such an issue arises with the Australians involved, the question must be posed of to what extent the exchange was conducted on a dual-carriageway, as opposed to the one-way street the ruling would suggest. The combination of Australian intensity, inclined to boil over into overt aggression when they are put under pressure, as they were by the partnership between Singh and Tendulkar; and Harbhajan, a fierce competitor totally lacking in self-restraint, was always likely to cause ructions. The fact that Harbhajan descended into the realm of the racially abusive makes it hard to defend his case, but that should not be allowed to cover-up the part of the Australians in the affair.
Indeed the game as a whole reflected badly on Ricky Ponting and his team in that aspect. They coerced the umpires into giving Sourav Ganguly out when Michael Clarke took a catch close to the ground, one of those which falls into the grey-area of uncertainty technology is unable to illuminate. Ricky Ponting might have fancied himself as a better umpire than the two poor examples on show, but that is no excuse for the finger he brandished at Mark Benson, who meekly followed suit to dispatch Ganguly. Bad umpiring may be "part of the game" as Ponting suggested after the game, but he himself could have shown a far greater appreciation of this maxim, making his displeasure at being incorrectly adjudged leg-before in the first innings clear, disregarding that he had earlier been wrongly saved by the same umpire. If Ponting is willing to indulge the human-aspect of decision making in the game's great tapestry, he would do well not to give the impression he is only happy with it being part of a game favouring his own team.
There was, lest one forget, a fine game of cricket going on amongst all the controversy. Momentum, the ebb and flow of which has ever defined Test cricket, tends to be something of a one-way thing when playing Australia: allow them to take it, and you will likely never see it again. The pleasant aspect of this game, setting it apart from the formulaic victories which formed much of the 16-game run, was the way in which control of the game changed hands on various occasions, and the match was kept interesting throughout the five days, mercifully only touched by the rain which had been expected to be a more significant blight. India took the first trick, a significant achievement considering their seam attack was down to the bare-bones with Zaheer injured and out of the series. But his understudy RP Singh rose to the occasion, knocking over the Australian openers and allowing the spinners to work away at the middle-order, rather than having to toil against an undamaged batting line-up, which was the Indians' problem in the second innings. Symonds, even taking into account his various helpings of luck, played a strong hand, with his finest Test innings, with all the other recognised batsmen back in the quaint SCG pavilion. Brad Hogg and Brett Lee were more than valuable allies, both recording half-centuries and helping Australia to a total in excess of 450 when 200 less would have been an acceptable face-saving score. The inexperience of the Indian seam duo, Singh and Sharma, was shown up as they failed to do to the lower-order what they had the better batsmen and were knocked off their stride by the poor decision making. Nevertheless, the promise of Sharma, in particular, shone through; with all fit he would be some way off first choice, but he was lively and unlucky with some nippy in-duckers to the right-handers and disconcerting bounce from a wiry frame.
Although the Australians largely wasted the new ball, Brett Lee did manage to set-up Wasim Jaffer perfectly, slipping a yorker under his bat having pushed him onto the back foot with some rib-ticklers. With Dravid still mired in the catacombs of his bad form, it looked as if a familiar story would unfold. Fortunately for India, their next man in was strolling out to his batting equivalent of the Elysian fields: VVS Laxman, against Australia, batting at 3, in Sydney. Rarely has a batsman been more primed for success and Laxman fulfilled both the expectation and the need of his team. Dainty yet lethal, his strokes lit up the SCG and enraptured the crowd, no strangers to batting of the highest class. In the age of turbo-bats and Twenty20 cricket, it was a prescient reminder of how the best batsmanship is based around timing, a golden-age throwback which could have had no more fitting stage than Sydney, still boasting it's 19th century Pavilion and Ladies' stand. The departure of Laxman and Dravid in quick succession, however, brought the match back towards Australia, and one more big effort was needed. With Ganguly and Tendulkar together, only one man looked likely: while the Little Master toiled, Ganguly flowed, showing the benefits of his recent run-scoring exploits as he floated to a half-century. But he gave it away, chipping Hogg lamely to mid-on, which Tendulkar did not. His unbeaten 154 was not quite the effort of four years ago, when he abstained from the cover drive, but it had echoes, with the maestro battling indifferent form and the loss of his old dominance. With Harbhajan, he repaid the compliment to Australia of their first-innings resurgence, raising India over 500 when Australia looked ready to finish them at 345-7.
Their chances of victory dissipated with their failure to break into the Australians early, Jaques and Hayden posting a creditable 85 on a pitch which was beginning to bounce erraticaly and offer significant turn. Hayden was the main bulwark, and his alliance with the unperturbed Hussey meant Australia could absorb the early loss of both Clarke and Ponting, for a third single-figure score in four innings. Delaying the declaration on the fifth day until the stroke of lunch appeared overkill, although Ponting can rightfully point to the eventual victory, achieved dramatically as the innocuous left-arm slows of Michael Clarke, enhanced by the now capricious surface, claimed a trio of wickets in the penultimate over to scotch India's hopes of survival. Australia will celebrate long and hard, the record equalled with power to add, especially on Perth's reviving pitch. It is an undesirable outcome for the neutral, killing a series which a fighting-draw would have brought to the boil, while the resentment will run deep for India. Cricket needed this sort of a contest, two high-quality teams slugging it out; it did not need the various indiscipline of both players and officials and steps should be taken to try and ensure that a Test match with as much potential as this one is not so significantly marred again.
One of these was the standard of umpiring, which was dismal. Errors made by the officials are under ever-more constant scrutiny, especially with advancing levels of technology which allow the casual viewer or fan to act as judge and jury from the comfort of an armchair. Often their importance is overstated; mistakes they may be, but often they are no more than poor excuses for a losing team. However, so numerous were the errors of umpires Bucknor and Benson that India, against whom the majority of the decisions fell, have some reasonable grievance, which they have formalised with an official complaint. It was yet more evidence that Steve Bucknor, once the nonpareil of white-coats, has overstayed his welcome umpiring at this level. That he has been allowed to continue into his 60s baffles; more so the inability of the ICC to give him the polite but firm push necessary. If there have been hints, perhaps his hearing has been as faulty as when it failed to pick up the deflection off the edge of Andrew Symonds' bat on the first day, a noise discernible to almost all at the ground. Symonds went on to add 132 more to his total, not without several more reprieves, including a refusal by Bucknor to refer a decision on a stumping which was tight but probably out. That was the error on which the game hinged; Bucknor's incorrect execution of Rahul Dravid as India scrapped in vain on the last day just added insult.
The saga over the umpiring decisions will continue to perpetuate, but the news that Harbhajan Singh has been banned for three Test matches will promote the issue of how the players conducted themselves during the game. Harbhajan was indicted for a racist slur on Andrew Symonds, a situation no-doubt owing something to the bad-feeling created during the recent one-day series between these teams in India. Symonds was racially abused by the home crowds, and words were shared both on the field and through the press. As ever when such an issue arises with the Australians involved, the question must be posed of to what extent the exchange was conducted on a dual-carriageway, as opposed to the one-way street the ruling would suggest. The combination of Australian intensity, inclined to boil over into overt aggression when they are put under pressure, as they were by the partnership between Singh and Tendulkar; and Harbhajan, a fierce competitor totally lacking in self-restraint, was always likely to cause ructions. The fact that Harbhajan descended into the realm of the racially abusive makes it hard to defend his case, but that should not be allowed to cover-up the part of the Australians in the affair.
Indeed the game as a whole reflected badly on Ricky Ponting and his team in that aspect. They coerced the umpires into giving Sourav Ganguly out when Michael Clarke took a catch close to the ground, one of those which falls into the grey-area of uncertainty technology is unable to illuminate. Ricky Ponting might have fancied himself as a better umpire than the two poor examples on show, but that is no excuse for the finger he brandished at Mark Benson, who meekly followed suit to dispatch Ganguly. Bad umpiring may be "part of the game" as Ponting suggested after the game, but he himself could have shown a far greater appreciation of this maxim, making his displeasure at being incorrectly adjudged leg-before in the first innings clear, disregarding that he had earlier been wrongly saved by the same umpire. If Ponting is willing to indulge the human-aspect of decision making in the game's great tapestry, he would do well not to give the impression he is only happy with it being part of a game favouring his own team.
There was, lest one forget, a fine game of cricket going on amongst all the controversy. Momentum, the ebb and flow of which has ever defined Test cricket, tends to be something of a one-way thing when playing Australia: allow them to take it, and you will likely never see it again. The pleasant aspect of this game, setting it apart from the formulaic victories which formed much of the 16-game run, was the way in which control of the game changed hands on various occasions, and the match was kept interesting throughout the five days, mercifully only touched by the rain which had been expected to be a more significant blight. India took the first trick, a significant achievement considering their seam attack was down to the bare-bones with Zaheer injured and out of the series. But his understudy RP Singh rose to the occasion, knocking over the Australian openers and allowing the spinners to work away at the middle-order, rather than having to toil against an undamaged batting line-up, which was the Indians' problem in the second innings. Symonds, even taking into account his various helpings of luck, played a strong hand, with his finest Test innings, with all the other recognised batsmen back in the quaint SCG pavilion. Brad Hogg and Brett Lee were more than valuable allies, both recording half-centuries and helping Australia to a total in excess of 450 when 200 less would have been an acceptable face-saving score. The inexperience of the Indian seam duo, Singh and Sharma, was shown up as they failed to do to the lower-order what they had the better batsmen and were knocked off their stride by the poor decision making. Nevertheless, the promise of Sharma, in particular, shone through; with all fit he would be some way off first choice, but he was lively and unlucky with some nippy in-duckers to the right-handers and disconcerting bounce from a wiry frame.
Although the Australians largely wasted the new ball, Brett Lee did manage to set-up Wasim Jaffer perfectly, slipping a yorker under his bat having pushed him onto the back foot with some rib-ticklers. With Dravid still mired in the catacombs of his bad form, it looked as if a familiar story would unfold. Fortunately for India, their next man in was strolling out to his batting equivalent of the Elysian fields: VVS Laxman, against Australia, batting at 3, in Sydney. Rarely has a batsman been more primed for success and Laxman fulfilled both the expectation and the need of his team. Dainty yet lethal, his strokes lit up the SCG and enraptured the crowd, no strangers to batting of the highest class. In the age of turbo-bats and Twenty20 cricket, it was a prescient reminder of how the best batsmanship is based around timing, a golden-age throwback which could have had no more fitting stage than Sydney, still boasting it's 19th century Pavilion and Ladies' stand. The departure of Laxman and Dravid in quick succession, however, brought the match back towards Australia, and one more big effort was needed. With Ganguly and Tendulkar together, only one man looked likely: while the Little Master toiled, Ganguly flowed, showing the benefits of his recent run-scoring exploits as he floated to a half-century. But he gave it away, chipping Hogg lamely to mid-on, which Tendulkar did not. His unbeaten 154 was not quite the effort of four years ago, when he abstained from the cover drive, but it had echoes, with the maestro battling indifferent form and the loss of his old dominance. With Harbhajan, he repaid the compliment to Australia of their first-innings resurgence, raising India over 500 when Australia looked ready to finish them at 345-7.
Their chances of victory dissipated with their failure to break into the Australians early, Jaques and Hayden posting a creditable 85 on a pitch which was beginning to bounce erraticaly and offer significant turn. Hayden was the main bulwark, and his alliance with the unperturbed Hussey meant Australia could absorb the early loss of both Clarke and Ponting, for a third single-figure score in four innings. Delaying the declaration on the fifth day until the stroke of lunch appeared overkill, although Ponting can rightfully point to the eventual victory, achieved dramatically as the innocuous left-arm slows of Michael Clarke, enhanced by the now capricious surface, claimed a trio of wickets in the penultimate over to scotch India's hopes of survival. Australia will celebrate long and hard, the record equalled with power to add, especially on Perth's reviving pitch. It is an undesirable outcome for the neutral, killing a series which a fighting-draw would have brought to the boil, while the resentment will run deep for India. Cricket needed this sort of a contest, two high-quality teams slugging it out; it did not need the various indiscipline of both players and officials and steps should be taken to try and ensure that a Test match with as much potential as this one is not so significantly marred again.
Wednesday 2 January 2008
Unhappy New Year
This time last year England began the new year with the onerous task of trying to avert a situation where they had arrived in Australia as Ashes holders and would leave it only the second team in history to lose every Test of an Anglo-Australian series. They failed, setting the tone for a year in which the one-day side hit rock-bottom, failing to win a game of significance at the World Cup; and the Test side threatened to join it, winning matches only against West Indies and losing proud recent records with defeat to Inda and Sri Lanka. As the world wakes to 2008, the slightly less punishing exercise of selecting a team to tour New Zealand is at hand for the English management, although it is a duty they should not be taking lightly.
There are more problems with this England team than will be reflected in the selected 16, unlikely to be much changed from those who toured Sri Lanka. They have a 'keeper who misses too many important chances; a slip cordon of part-timers; an incumbent No.6 batsman with a Test average of 8; six batsmen who produced just one century in three recent Tests; a first-choice spinner who has lost confidence and for whom there is no viable alternative; and a pair of ill-starred opening bowlers, one in a rut of injuries, the other perpetually luckless. Expect Matt Prior to remain as wicket-keeper, his gutsy batting emphasised and the catching and stumping errors glossed over: unless he cuts the mistakes, Ryan Sidebottom might well be giving himself an economy version of that haircut he's been saving up for. Don't hold out much hope for a recall for James Foster, the most balanced alternative; his medical records have evidently not been updated since the broken arm which lost him his place back in 2002.
Ravi Bopara could retain his squad place, but it would take some serious front for him to be given another chance; Owais Shah might just retire in protest. That is the most likely change in the batting, although this would not be a bad time for David Graveney to go cap in hand to Mark Ramprakash's dancing studio. More likely is a recall for Andrew Strauss, which would be an illogical move. Unless you are of the opinion that Strauss will start scoring runs now he has had a break, nothing in his situation has changed since he was rightly axed at the end of the summer following a year without a century. England could do with his catching ability, although it would be well remembered that, at full strength, Strauss is a third slip. There is also no obvious place for him in the batting, with Cook and Vaughan looking like a happy combination at the top, which Strauss and Cook never were. Shah, by the way, is a slip fielder and will bat at either No.3 or 6, the two positions up for grabs. There is not much scope for change in the bowling ranks, with the pace trio of Hoggard, Sidebottom and Harmison all worthy of selection and Graeme Swann, despite having usurped Panesar in the one-day team, not Test match material as a lone spinner.
England are in an invidious position, and not just because of their No.5 ranking. Even if they win every Test of the six they play against New Zealand home and away in the next six months, it will not bring them much credit. Reality has dawned, finally, but expectation takes longer to recalibrate itself. New Zealand are a poor Test side too, with a paucity of high calibre players. But they will scrap hard and produce a good collective effort as they often do, especially against England. For England it must be an exercise in regaining the winning habit in time to give the South Africans a good challenge in the main event of the 2008 season. Another away win for the one-day side would be much more significant, as the Black Caps (the artists formerly known as the Kiwis) are a good one-day outfit, and will be another good barometer for England's improving side, which should be largely the same as that which surprised the Sri Lankans on their own patch back in October.
At such times it is easy and common to blame the "system", such as it is. And there are problems: in a nutshell there is too much cricket at both domestic and international level, and too many mediocre overseas players are pervading domestic cricket. But the much maligned county game has nevertheless, by one means or another, endowed England with 11 players of Test-class. There is a more than decent crop of young players too, the best of whom now get shipped around the globe to learn how to play in different conditions and develop rounded games. The ECB, blundering and money-driven as it is, does not drop the catches, make batting mistakes or bowl badly. Maybe fatigue is a factor in reduced performance. But while the other lot are holding on to the chances and outperforming them with bat and ball it's a poor excuse.
There are more problems with this England team than will be reflected in the selected 16, unlikely to be much changed from those who toured Sri Lanka. They have a 'keeper who misses too many important chances; a slip cordon of part-timers; an incumbent No.6 batsman with a Test average of 8; six batsmen who produced just one century in three recent Tests; a first-choice spinner who has lost confidence and for whom there is no viable alternative; and a pair of ill-starred opening bowlers, one in a rut of injuries, the other perpetually luckless. Expect Matt Prior to remain as wicket-keeper, his gutsy batting emphasised and the catching and stumping errors glossed over: unless he cuts the mistakes, Ryan Sidebottom might well be giving himself an economy version of that haircut he's been saving up for. Don't hold out much hope for a recall for James Foster, the most balanced alternative; his medical records have evidently not been updated since the broken arm which lost him his place back in 2002.
Ravi Bopara could retain his squad place, but it would take some serious front for him to be given another chance; Owais Shah might just retire in protest. That is the most likely change in the batting, although this would not be a bad time for David Graveney to go cap in hand to Mark Ramprakash's dancing studio. More likely is a recall for Andrew Strauss, which would be an illogical move. Unless you are of the opinion that Strauss will start scoring runs now he has had a break, nothing in his situation has changed since he was rightly axed at the end of the summer following a year without a century. England could do with his catching ability, although it would be well remembered that, at full strength, Strauss is a third slip. There is also no obvious place for him in the batting, with Cook and Vaughan looking like a happy combination at the top, which Strauss and Cook never were. Shah, by the way, is a slip fielder and will bat at either No.3 or 6, the two positions up for grabs. There is not much scope for change in the bowling ranks, with the pace trio of Hoggard, Sidebottom and Harmison all worthy of selection and Graeme Swann, despite having usurped Panesar in the one-day team, not Test match material as a lone spinner.
England are in an invidious position, and not just because of their No.5 ranking. Even if they win every Test of the six they play against New Zealand home and away in the next six months, it will not bring them much credit. Reality has dawned, finally, but expectation takes longer to recalibrate itself. New Zealand are a poor Test side too, with a paucity of high calibre players. But they will scrap hard and produce a good collective effort as they often do, especially against England. For England it must be an exercise in regaining the winning habit in time to give the South Africans a good challenge in the main event of the 2008 season. Another away win for the one-day side would be much more significant, as the Black Caps (the artists formerly known as the Kiwis) are a good one-day outfit, and will be another good barometer for England's improving side, which should be largely the same as that which surprised the Sri Lankans on their own patch back in October.
At such times it is easy and common to blame the "system", such as it is. And there are problems: in a nutshell there is too much cricket at both domestic and international level, and too many mediocre overseas players are pervading domestic cricket. But the much maligned county game has nevertheless, by one means or another, endowed England with 11 players of Test-class. There is a more than decent crop of young players too, the best of whom now get shipped around the globe to learn how to play in different conditions and develop rounded games. The ECB, blundering and money-driven as it is, does not drop the catches, make batting mistakes or bowl badly. Maybe fatigue is a factor in reduced performance. But while the other lot are holding on to the chances and outperforming them with bat and ball it's a poor excuse.
Tuesday 1 January 2008
Australia again
When comparing all-conquering teams across generations, the contention most often made is that such equations are fatuous: times, attitudes and the game itself change, evolve, making it impossible to find a completely fair or comprehensive system for judging players of different eras. How, for example. would Don Bradman have done against the West Indies quicks of the 1980s? How would the aforementioned and other plunderers of his day have fared on pitches slightly less favourable than those of the 1930s - depression years for economies; peak times for scoring runs. We shall never know, although it is fun to pontificate.
Even the best players of the same generation are hard to compare: Lara or Tendulkar? Warne or Murali? There will always be a few truly great players in the game, but it is rare that you will get two worldbeating teams in close proximity. But if Ricky Ponting's team win the forthcoming Test at Sydney, they will equal the record for most consecutive Test wins, currently held by a team led by Ponting's predecessor, Stephen Waugh. And with the similarities between the two, perhaps it is possible to judge which of Australia's Sweet 16s is the better.
Waugh's induction into the Australian captaincy was not as easy as his final record and longevity might suggest. He was denied series victory in the Caribbean by the bat of one man, Brian Lara, at the peak of his monumental powers; while rain and the Sri Lankan spinners ensured a 0-1 reverse on the subsequent tour. And it proved to be defeat, rather than stalemate, which bookended the run of victories, as India came form behind to triumph in the titanic encounter of 2001. In contrast, Ricky Ponting has suffered defeat in live games only in the Ashes series of 2005. Since, his team has won 18 of 19 Test matches, with only the South Africans holding out for a draw. So which is the better team?
In terms of appearances, these are the teams which best represent the two winning sides (Colin Miller is replaced by Gillespie, who played two fewer games in that time, in the interest of balance).
1999-2001: Slater, Blewett, Langer, M.Waugh, S.Waugh, Ponting, Gilchrist, Warne, Gillespie, Fleming, McGrath
2005/6-2007/8: Langer, Hayden, Ponting, Hussey, Clarke, Symonds, Gilchrist, Warne, Lee, Clark, McGrath
Five players appear in both line-ups, although with only the unimpeachable greats - Warne, McGrath, Gilchrist - in the same role. One significant player, Damien Martyn, falls between the cracks, having appeared sporadically during both runs but with the bulk of his appearances during the period in between. Symbolic, perhaps.
In terms of batting, there seems a clear divide between the relative quality in the top and middle order. The top 3 of the recent side appears far superior, with Hayden and Langer one of the best statistical opening partnerships ever and Ponitng one of the modern greats at No.3. In contrast, only Slater stands out from Waugh's side; Blewett never really made the Test berth his own, while Langer prospered most when moved up to partner Hayden. In the middle-order however, the trend reverses. Stephen Waugh vs. Hussey would make an interesting battle royale, and one dares not declare the winner on paper. Ponting and Clarke, the young buccaneers of both teams, are also well matched at the same stage of their careers. The elegant insouciance of Martyn would be a better complement to Mark Waugh's exquisite talents than Symonds' rougher edges and although the Queenslander increasingly looks like he belongs in the Test side, he does not match up to any of the middle-order trio in Waugh's team. Gilchrist is the trump card for both sides, but the latter stage of his career has seen only glimpses of his swashbuckling best, and he was a more significant presence in the first team.
In the bowling, McGrath and Warne are constants, although their relative contributions differed during the two runs. For McGrath, the years around the turn of the century were peak ones, with his pace still high and bounce and movement maximised. By the post-2005 period, he was still highly effective, but a pile-up of injuries had dulled his menace. For Warne, the same equation of age vs. effectiveness does not apply: during the years 1999-2001, he averaged in excess of 30, with a strike-rate of over 60. Despite never recapturing the high-noon of 2005, he was still near his best during his last year of Test cricket and if anything he was better for Ponting's side, although he was of course instrumental for both teams. Gillespie was in his prime during the first run; pacy and a real exponent of swing and seam, constantly threatening both edges of the bat. In the post-McGrath era, Lee has shown signs of ascending to that level, but his inconsistency for much of the run means he ranks below Gillespie. Stuart Clark continues to operate at a stunningly high-level, and shades Damien Fleming, no spare-part himself. Overall, Waugh's attack is probably superior: Gillespie's pace and Fleming's outswing were perfect foils for McGrath and Warne, and as a unit it surpasses the quartet of the later team.
What remains is to assess the quality of opposition and the relative merits of the leaders themselves. In fairness, the teams Waugh's side came up against were mostly unexceptional: 5 Tests were against a West Indies side reeling from defeat in England and the retirement of Curtley Ambrose; New Zealand and India were easy meat at home and there was a game against Zimbabwe. 11 Tests were on home soil. If Ponting's team defeat India in the forthcoming Test at Sydney, they will equal the record with the same number of home games. On paper, the more recent team's opponents have been stronger. However, the expected challenge of South Africa and England never materialised - home and away in the case of the former - while tours to Australia these days seem to bring about both injury and managerial delusion for visiting sides. Ironically, the closest Australia were pushed was by Bangladesh at Fatullah, where they conceded a first innings lead and sneaked home by three wickets.
Much derided after losing the Ashes in 2005, Ponting has since developed into an assured and successful captain. The tactical shortcomings which produced gems in 2005 such as all fielders on the boundary to Flintoff with the score at about 170-9 at Edgbaston are long gone, while situations such as his handling of Brad Hogg, nursing him through a mauling by Tendulkar at Melbourne, show how he has grown into the role. Perhaps we will never see him pressurised as he was back in 2005 and how he might cope; it is unlikely he would crack as he did then. In a tight corner you would still want Waugh, all intensity, aggressiveness and with an unbranded tattoo on his forehead that screamed WIN. People lament the inability of any other team to give the current Australian side a contest; a match between these two teams would certainly be that, and this bookie is making Waugh odds-on.
Even the best players of the same generation are hard to compare: Lara or Tendulkar? Warne or Murali? There will always be a few truly great players in the game, but it is rare that you will get two worldbeating teams in close proximity. But if Ricky Ponting's team win the forthcoming Test at Sydney, they will equal the record for most consecutive Test wins, currently held by a team led by Ponting's predecessor, Stephen Waugh. And with the similarities between the two, perhaps it is possible to judge which of Australia's Sweet 16s is the better.
Waugh's induction into the Australian captaincy was not as easy as his final record and longevity might suggest. He was denied series victory in the Caribbean by the bat of one man, Brian Lara, at the peak of his monumental powers; while rain and the Sri Lankan spinners ensured a 0-1 reverse on the subsequent tour. And it proved to be defeat, rather than stalemate, which bookended the run of victories, as India came form behind to triumph in the titanic encounter of 2001. In contrast, Ricky Ponting has suffered defeat in live games only in the Ashes series of 2005. Since, his team has won 18 of 19 Test matches, with only the South Africans holding out for a draw. So which is the better team?
In terms of appearances, these are the teams which best represent the two winning sides (Colin Miller is replaced by Gillespie, who played two fewer games in that time, in the interest of balance).
1999-2001: Slater, Blewett, Langer, M.Waugh, S.Waugh, Ponting, Gilchrist, Warne, Gillespie, Fleming, McGrath
2005/6-2007/8: Langer, Hayden, Ponting, Hussey, Clarke, Symonds, Gilchrist, Warne, Lee, Clark, McGrath
Five players appear in both line-ups, although with only the unimpeachable greats - Warne, McGrath, Gilchrist - in the same role. One significant player, Damien Martyn, falls between the cracks, having appeared sporadically during both runs but with the bulk of his appearances during the period in between. Symbolic, perhaps.
In terms of batting, there seems a clear divide between the relative quality in the top and middle order. The top 3 of the recent side appears far superior, with Hayden and Langer one of the best statistical opening partnerships ever and Ponitng one of the modern greats at No.3. In contrast, only Slater stands out from Waugh's side; Blewett never really made the Test berth his own, while Langer prospered most when moved up to partner Hayden. In the middle-order however, the trend reverses. Stephen Waugh vs. Hussey would make an interesting battle royale, and one dares not declare the winner on paper. Ponting and Clarke, the young buccaneers of both teams, are also well matched at the same stage of their careers. The elegant insouciance of Martyn would be a better complement to Mark Waugh's exquisite talents than Symonds' rougher edges and although the Queenslander increasingly looks like he belongs in the Test side, he does not match up to any of the middle-order trio in Waugh's team. Gilchrist is the trump card for both sides, but the latter stage of his career has seen only glimpses of his swashbuckling best, and he was a more significant presence in the first team.
In the bowling, McGrath and Warne are constants, although their relative contributions differed during the two runs. For McGrath, the years around the turn of the century were peak ones, with his pace still high and bounce and movement maximised. By the post-2005 period, he was still highly effective, but a pile-up of injuries had dulled his menace. For Warne, the same equation of age vs. effectiveness does not apply: during the years 1999-2001, he averaged in excess of 30, with a strike-rate of over 60. Despite never recapturing the high-noon of 2005, he was still near his best during his last year of Test cricket and if anything he was better for Ponting's side, although he was of course instrumental for both teams. Gillespie was in his prime during the first run; pacy and a real exponent of swing and seam, constantly threatening both edges of the bat. In the post-McGrath era, Lee has shown signs of ascending to that level, but his inconsistency for much of the run means he ranks below Gillespie. Stuart Clark continues to operate at a stunningly high-level, and shades Damien Fleming, no spare-part himself. Overall, Waugh's attack is probably superior: Gillespie's pace and Fleming's outswing were perfect foils for McGrath and Warne, and as a unit it surpasses the quartet of the later team.
What remains is to assess the quality of opposition and the relative merits of the leaders themselves. In fairness, the teams Waugh's side came up against were mostly unexceptional: 5 Tests were against a West Indies side reeling from defeat in England and the retirement of Curtley Ambrose; New Zealand and India were easy meat at home and there was a game against Zimbabwe. 11 Tests were on home soil. If Ponting's team defeat India in the forthcoming Test at Sydney, they will equal the record with the same number of home games. On paper, the more recent team's opponents have been stronger. However, the expected challenge of South Africa and England never materialised - home and away in the case of the former - while tours to Australia these days seem to bring about both injury and managerial delusion for visiting sides. Ironically, the closest Australia were pushed was by Bangladesh at Fatullah, where they conceded a first innings lead and sneaked home by three wickets.
Much derided after losing the Ashes in 2005, Ponting has since developed into an assured and successful captain. The tactical shortcomings which produced gems in 2005 such as all fielders on the boundary to Flintoff with the score at about 170-9 at Edgbaston are long gone, while situations such as his handling of Brad Hogg, nursing him through a mauling by Tendulkar at Melbourne, show how he has grown into the role. Perhaps we will never see him pressurised as he was back in 2005 and how he might cope; it is unlikely he would crack as he did then. In a tight corner you would still want Waugh, all intensity, aggressiveness and with an unbranded tattoo on his forehead that screamed WIN. People lament the inability of any other team to give the current Australian side a contest; a match between these two teams would certainly be that, and this bookie is making Waugh odds-on.
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