Slow tracks, knee-high balls, a steady diet of spin – these are some of the conditions England will probably have to conquer to walk away with their second consecutive series victory in Pakistan

S Rajesh10-Nov-2005

Danish Kaneria: all set to turn it on against England © Getty Images
Slow tracks, knee-high balls, a steady diet of spin – these are some of the conditions England will probably have to conquer to walk away with their second consecutive series victory in Pakistan. Going by the stats from the previous series between the two teams in Pakistan, in 2000-01, England will have to face plenty of spin – in the three Tests then, nearly 72% of the overs they played were from spinners – but if England play them as well as they did then, they might even manage to replicate last time’s result. In 459.3 overs of spin that Pakistan bowled in that series, they only managed 30 wickets – that’s one every 92 balls. Pakistan’s fast bowlers – Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Abdul Razzaq – were even less effective, though, with 11 wickets in 183 overs, a strike rate of 100 balls per wicket.In fact, England’s spinners did much better, taking a wicket every 82 balls, despite that inspired selection called Ian Salisbury, who toiled 69 overs for a solitary wicket. Ashley Giles’s 17 scalps came at a strike rate of 64 – an encore will do just fine for Michael Vaughan’s men. Giles’s stats in the subcontinent make for impressive reading too: 49 wickets in 13 Tests at 32.

Eng & Pak bowlers in the 2000-01 series

Overs Wickets Average Strike rate

England fast bowlers 302.4 23 37.3078.96 England spinners 259 19 33.9581.80 Pakistan fast bowlers 183 11 42.6499.80 Pakistan spinners 459.3 30 34.9391.90The spinner that England will probably have to look out for the most is Danish Kaneria. His journey as Pakistan’s latest legspinning hope began in that series, and in these five years he has travelled plenty of miles, with his reputation burgeoning as quickly as his wickets tally – not only has he shown the ability to bowl long spells accurately without flagging, he has constantly been adding more weapons to his arsenal too. In his last ten Tests, beginning with the home series against Sri Lanka, Kaneria has nabbed 60 wickets at 31.47. In these matches, he’s also bowled a not insignificant 580.4 overs – that’s 58 overs per Test.Despite England’s reasonably sound performance against spin last time, Pakistan will probably still plump for slow bowling as their chief weapon in the forthcoming series: they do have a fiery pace attack, but with concerns of fitness, form and attitude hovering over many of them, spin might be a safer recourse. And the stats prove that subcontinental pitches and spin bowling has proved to be an irresistible combination to get at England’s batsmen over the years. In the last 20 years, bowlers ranging from the inimitable Abdul Qadir to Iqbal Qasim to Saqlain Mushtaq have performed significantly better against England at home than against allcomers everywhere. Kaneria is an exception – in 2000-01, his four wickets came at an exorbitant 54.25, but then those were early days for him.

Pak spinners at home v Eng

Home Tests v Eng Wickets Average Career ave

Abdul Qadir 9 61 19.5632.80 Saqlain Mushtaq 3 18 23.9429.83 Iqbal Qasim 6 20 26.4028.11 Tauseef Ahmed 4 10 29.4031.72

Other subcont. spinners at home v Eng

Home Tests v Eng Wickets Average Career ave

Muttiah Muralitharan 7 45 20.3122.23 Anil Kumble 6 40 21.4028.38 Harbhajan Singh 3 13 24.5428.25Traditionally, though, Pakistan’s fast bowlers have done pretty well at home – the placid pitches haven’t come in the way of some matchwinning performances. As the table below shows, most of Pakistan’s great fast bowlers over the last 20 years have a better home record. Among the current crop, Shoaib Akhtar has almost identical home and away averages.

Pak fast bowlers home and away

Bowler Home Tests/ Wickets Average Overseas Tests/ Wickets Average

Imran Khan 38/ 163 19.21 50/ 19925.76 Waqar Younis 33/ 162 20.30 54/ 21126.07 Wasim Akram 41/ 154 22.23 63/ 26024.45 Shoaib Akhtar 15/ 62 24.61 21/ 8224.90 Shabbir Ahmed 5/ 23 26.39 4/ 2321.26 Sarfraz Nawaz 27/ 81 33.17 28/ 9632.41 Mohammad Sami 6/ 17 48.94 15/ 4146.20The Pakistan fast bowlers’ ability to bowl reverse swing also helps them get plenty of bowleds and lbws. Shoaib leads the way with 58% such dismissals – among all bowlers with at least 100 Test wickets, that is the highest percentage. And not far behind is Waqar Younis, with nearly 57% such dismissals.

Bowled & lbws by Pak fast bowlers

Wickets Bowled + lbw Bowled + lbw %

Shoaib Akhtar 144 56 + 28 58.3 Waqar Younis 373 101 + 111 56.8 Wasim Akram 414 102 + 119 53.4 Imran Khan 362 95 + 81 48.6 Sarfraz Nawaz 177 45 + 33 44.1 Mohammad Sami 58 16 + 8 41.4

Max bowled and lbws (min 100 Test wickets)

Wickets Bowled + lbw Bowled + lbw %

Shoaib Akhtar 144 56 + 28 58.3 Sonny Ramadhin 158 62 + 29 57.6 Brian Statham 252 102 + 42 57.1 Waqar Younis 373 101 + 102 56.8 Ray Lindwall 228 98 + 31 56.6 Maurice Tate 155 59 + 25 54.2 Wasim Akram 414 102 + 119 53.38The last time England played a series in Pakistan, Darren Gough’s ability to swing – and reverse-swing – the ball brought him plenty of success – an encouraging sign for Andrew Flintoff. Equally, it also paints a dismal picture for the hit-the-deck type of fast bowler. Caddick took just three wickets in three Tests, at an exorbitant 94 apiece, and a wicket every 190 balls. That doesn’t augur well for Steve Harmison, another bowler who depends more on bounce than swing for his wickets.The table below indicates which type of bowlers have the best record in Pakistan since 1995. There isn’t much to choose between the fast bowlers and the spinners, with the faster only very marginally in front in terms of averages – 31.94 to 32.35. The left-arm fast bowlers have performed much better largely due to the presence of Wasim Akram in that category: Akram has taken 63 of the 132 wickets, at 21.15 apiece.

In Tests in Pakistan since 1995

Bowler type Overs Wickets Average Strike rate

Left-arm fast 1299 132 27.8559.06 Legbreak 1870 183 30.7461.31 Right-arm fast 5701 542 32.9463.11 Offbreak 2343 189 33.3274.37 Left-arm spin 1147 92 33.5574.83What should also give England more cheer – despite the misfortune of the last few days – is that unlike India and Sri Lanka, the two other subcontinent giants, Pakistan don’t seem to relish playing at home – in their last 12 series in their own backyard (excluding the Asian Test Championships), they have won just four, one of which was against Bangladesh. During this time, they have lost to South Africa, Australia, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, England and India.

A review of the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack Australia 2005-06

Peter English24-Nov-2005

© Getty Images

Edited by Greg Baum, Hardie Grant Books, A$55 (available from Cricshop for £19.99)
Click here to order a copy from CricShopThe southern hemisphere’s cousin of the Almanack burst into a full-colour cover-drive last season and the bright outlook has been maintained for 2005-06. A new editor has arrived in Greg Baum, but Shane Warne again appears on the front and this summer his left-arm is draped around a dejected Ricky Ponting in Ashes consolation. Warne is a popular topic but the Ashes are the big issue as Gideon Haigh leads the tour coverage and Baum passes verdict in his .”The Australian dynasty, like all empires, has seemed so invulnerable for so long that the idea it might be at an end comes as a shock,” Baum writes. The age of the team is one concern – he notes the two oldest players are its best – and he also attempts to understand the polarised opinions of supporters towards Warne at home and in England. “It is like the difference between family and friends,” he says. “You can secretly love the roguish genius in another family, but you fret about the one in your own.”Warne is also a subject of Charles Davis, a Melbourne scientist, who looks beyond basic averages to compare him to Muttiah Muralitharan using a maths book full of statistics. “If the figures are to be trusted,” Davis writes, “Murali is the greatest bowler of our time.” John Benaud, the former selector, also writes in the comment section about dealing with criticism and bias, the first glimpse of Twenty20 in Australia is analysed and Keith Miller is remembered through Tony Charlton’s eulogy-in-chief.Geoff Lawson pens a tribute to Glenn McGrath, the Cricketer of the Year, Michael Bevan’s record-breaking summer is recognised with the Pura Cup Player of the Year award and there are the invaluable statistics, match reports and player profiles. “Last year got an exciting makeover,” Baum writes. “This year, we have consolidated and fortified the strength of the publication … we flatter ourselves to think that the mix now is pretty damned good.”

We asked you to pick out the greatest Test you had ever seen (or one you wished you had), and the responses ranged from the famed – Barbados 1999 – to the long-forgotten (Dunedin 1980)

Cricinfo staff26-Aug-2005After our correspondents, it was your turn, and over 200 of you wrote in with accounts of your favourite Test. Some were poetic, others not so, and a couple of our winners managed to strike a fine balance between the dramatic and the humourous. After trawling through all the entries, we picked out nine – an eclectic collection of matches that includes both the famed – Barbados 1999 – and the long-forgotten (Dunedin 1980). Those that missed out can console themselves with the fact that even the cricketing titans of this world fluff their lines sometimes.Warne and the Great Train Robbery
Omar Nawaz on

Shane Warne’s spell launched him into the cricketing world © Getty Images
This match figures as one of the all-time upsets in Test cricket, and Allan Border called it the biggest escape since the Great Train Robbery. What was it like to a Sri Lankan, huddled in a French campsite – without television, TMS, nor internet cafés – to be rudely awakened by Sports Round-up on the BBC World Service to hear the dreaded news: “Australia has beaten Sri Lanka in the first Test in Colombo in one of the most dramatic…”My two children, five and three at the time, did not know what had hit their father. My groan and grunt, louder than that of Maria Sharapova, woke my camping neighbours, whose concerned queries were answered with “rien, rien”. How was I to tell them that Sri Lanka had lost by a mere 16 runs? That was easily translatable to French but I would have had trouble with “lost their last eight wickets for 37 runs”. I remember the incident vividly since it is almost 13 years to the day since Sri Lanka suffered one of its biggest humiliations, and launched Warne on the glory path in cricket – he took the last three wickets for 11 runs in 5.1 overs.Incidentally, Tom Moody, Sri Lanka’s present coach was a member of that infamous – to Sri Lankans – Australian team. I only hope he will do us justice and repair the damage by inflicting a bigger loss on his compatriots one of these days.
Genius thwarts Australian might
Romel Ollivierre on

Irresistable force meets immovable object © Getty Images
In order to understand fully the greatness of this Bridgetown drama one must first understand the disastrous condition of West Indies Cricket at the time. The boys had just returned from a nasty 5-0 licking in South Africa and just did not seem to be able to put up a challenge against your local primary school under-15s, leave alone mighty Austraila. The Caribbean people wanted Brian Lara’s head, but because there really was no one else to take the mantle, the selectors reappointed him captain. The entire team was on “two-Test probation”.The first went as expected as the West Indies were bowled out for a record low of 51, but the genius of Lara emerged in the second Test as his 213 ensured an amazing 10-wicket win in Jamaica. Nothing prepared the cricketing world for the drama to follow.The third test was one of the greatest battles the cricketing world has ever seen. Amazing performances abounded, with heroic knights fighting for the supremacy of their kingdom. Steve Waugh’s brave 199 was ably supported by Ricky Ponting’s 104. Then Sherwin Campbell’s 105 still left the Windies 161 behind at the end of the first innings.It was Ambrose and Walsh who gave us a semblance of a chance bowling the Aussies out for 146, leaving an improbable 308 to win. Enter Lara. The man whom everyone wanted out of cricket a few weeks earlier mastered the mighty Shane Warne, a nasty McGrath and an unplayable Gillespie. I remember the drama when he was hit on the head by a nasty McGrath bouncer – the two icons had to be separated by the umpires – and the sound of the next ball as it crashed into the midwicket boundary. When Lara truck the winning four to the cover fence to carry him to 153, he was proclaimed by Tony Cozier as the “Prodigal son turned Messiah”. The last 63 runs came with Ambrose and Walsh at the wicket.
Fanie’s finest hour
Gysbert Engelbrecht on

GD McGrath c and b PS De Villiers © Getty Images
I had to switch my days and nights around to watch South Africa play Australia – I would sleep during the day and watch the cricket in the early hours of the morning, alone. The first Test was a washout and this game wasn’t going our way at all. The South Africans were inexperienced and were totally outplayed for the first 4 days. Shane Warne took 12 wickets in the game and it looked as if he would take one with every ball he bowled to us.In the end, we set Australia 117 runs to win. On that fourth afternoon, Australia were cruising on 51 for 1. And then Fanie [de Villiers] came back to bowl. He had this irrepressible spirit, and three quick wickets later, Australia closed the day with four down and about 60 runs to get. The odds were still heavily with them. On the fifth morning, Fanie bowled from the start. And this time, Allan Donald joined him, taking three wickets of his own. Australia were wilting under the intensity. They just couldn’t score any runs. Damien Martin looked like a hare caught in the headlights, and got out to perhaps the only stroke he played all morning, having faced almost 60 balls for his 6.Fanie just kept pegging away. At last, he bowled to Glenn McGrath. This was back when McGrath had no illusions about his ability with the bat and a tentative prod from him sent the ball looping gently back to Fanie, who grabbed it with glee. Australia were short by five runs, and it felt as if Fanie’s sheer force of will beat them. I woke up my whole family and we celebrated till morning.
TMS and the German connection
Sebastian Altenhoff on

Nasser Hussain: getting at the Aussies © Getty Images
Although my favourite match has received some attention during the last few weeks, it would, for all its class, not feature in the lists of most other cricket lovers. It was more of a personal experience for me, which was to have a tremendous significance on my life.The Test I have in mind is Edgbaston 1997. Coming to England as a 17-year-old German in February to spend five months at a Northumbrian school, I was completely unaware that something like Cricket even existed. I had decided, however, to soak up anything that looked, smelled, or tasted English, prompting me to spend my lunch breaks and a full weekend in front of a television set watching the likes of Atherton, Hussain and Caddick hammer the Aussies. Not that I understood much about cricket then, but the hype and the excitement had already found their way into my head.Because of my returning to Germany, I wasn’t even able to follow the remainder of the series more closely, yet the images of my first Test match will remain in my memory forever. You could wake me at three o’clock in the morning and ask for the innings totals and the final scoreline, and I would give these figures to you on the spot. By the day we won that match (you do notice that I write “we”, don’t you?), cricket – and England – had gained a most dedicated fan. Imagine a German getting stomach pains from listening to TMS.
Near-part-timers conquer Lloyd’s destroyers
Dylan Cleaver on

The frustration and disappointment were too much for Michael Holding © Getty Images
West Indies and their famed and feared foursome – Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Joel Garner and Colin Croft – had breezed past Australia 2-0 in a three-match series and probably viewed New Zealand as an unwanted and unworthy addendum to their tour. Indeed, Viv Richards was given dispensation to skip the New Zealand leg of the tour and Roberts missed the first Test. However, New Zealand, led by county pro Geoff Howarth and spearheaded by Richard Hadlee, were in the process of gathering the self-belief to become one of the hardest teams to beat at home during the ’80s.This Test was the spark that ignited that belief. Played at Carisbrook, dreary and cold, the Windies were bundled out for 140 with only a Desmond Haynes half-century saving complete embarrassment. Bruce Edgar played a similar role for New Zealand with Hadlee’s hitting at the end providing a 109-run lead. Haynes scored a gritty 300-ball century in the second but when West Indies were again bundled out cheaply, New Zealand needed just 104 to win.Suddenly, it seemed to dawn on West Indies that they might lose to this bunch of predominantly part-timers, and they bowled with a fury never seen on these shores. Howarth had his helmet knocked off twice and wickets tumbled regularly. Just three fours were scored as New Zealand inched their way to glory. Lance Cairns top-scored with 19, though he was bowled without the bail dropping much earlier, but was the ninth man dismissed with four needed. Gary Troup and Stephen Boock, one of the world’s great bunnies, eked out three singles before Boock’s front pad provided the most cherished leg bye – via a missed run-out opportunity – in New Zealand cricket history.
A Junior Waugh special
Sriram Vaidhyanathan on

Mark Waugh: one of the greatest fourth-innings centuries of all time © Getty Images
As far as see-sawing action goes, few Test matches can compare to the thriller at Port Elizabeth in 1997. On what was an extremely green pitch, South Africa struggled to 209 in their first effort, with Australia apparently on top. The next day, the Aussies crumbled to 108, and the South Africans proceeded to march to a 184-run advantage, with all second-innings wickets intact. Mark Taylor – himself in the middle of a horrific run of form – and his men were staring down the barrel, but incredibly, they staged a valiant recovery, leaving themselves a target of 270.Few gave them a chance, but nobody told Mark Waugh. He produced a classic of elegance and poise – 116 of the finest on a minefield against the might of an Allan Donald-led pace attack, in a match where there was only one other half-century. When Healy slogged Cronje over square leg, they had closed out a two-wicket win, replete with some of the most exciting cricket ever seen in South Africa.
Sriram Vaidhyanathan works in the finance industry in Chicago. He is a fervent fan of Brian Lara, desperate to watch him bat live in a Test match at least once before he retires. Cork shows his bottle
Russell Hope on

Cork is ecstatic after sealing a series-turning triumph © Getty Images
England’s recent revival can be traced back to one of the most extraordinary wins ever. They trailed 1-0 to a weak West Indian side coming into the second Test at Lord’s and had already pressed the panic button (remember that?) by making four changes, including the recall of Dominic Cork.The first day, which the West Indies closed on 267 for nine highlighted their batting frailties but no one was prepared for the incredible events of day two. The crowd saw play from all four innings as Caddick knocked over the last man with the first ball of the day. Ambrose and Walsh then put their side’s total into perspective by taking four wickets each as England conceded a lead of 133.If England had gone on to lose the match, and with it probably the series, who knows where they might be now? I’d love to know what was said to Caddick between innings because he produced an unstoppable spell of hostile fast bowling that left West Indies all out for 54.Remember that this was a team England hadn’t beaten since 1970. There was still time for England to start their run-chase, which culminated in Saturday’s diabolically nervous crawl to the depths of 160 for eight, from where Cork’s penchant for limelight-stealing rescued them.Thrilling, emotional stuff.
Greatbatch and 14 hours of adhesion
Michael Thorn on

Mark Greatbatch just went on batting as Australia were left panting © Getty Images
In November 1989, New Zealand played Australia in a one-off Test at the WACA. New Zealand were without Richard Hadlee and Andrew Jones, and were expected to lose heavily against an Australian team that had been rampant in England. The game started predictably enough when Australia won the toss and ground out 521/9. David Boon scored a double-century and Dean Jones was given out to an appallingly bad lbw decision on 99. By the time Jones was dismissed, I had lost almost all hope of New Zealand escaping defeat, so to make up for it, brainless teenager that I was, I jeered at my television as Jones walked from the pitch and tried to soak up as much malicious glee as I possibly could from his expression of anguish.New Zealand started day three with nothing ahead of them except for the distant hope of a draw and the more obvious prospect of a heavy defeat. Terry Alderman bowled Robert Vance almost as soon as play got underway and that brought Mark Greatbatch to the crease. The scorecard tells me that Greatbatch must have spent some of the next three days sitting in the stands and that other people must have batted, but if that’s true, I don’t remember it. What I can remember is that for 221 minutes in New Zealand’s first innings and for 655 minutes in the second, Greatbatch stood firm.Carl Rackemann was ferocious and had the ball bouncing and screaming from the hard and fast WACA pitch, but each of his rockets was met by a Greatbatch defensive stroke which dropped the ball, quiet and dead, to the ground. Even more strongly, I can remember the faint prospect of a draw looming larger and larger and this causing a fear of that hope being crushed to grow at an exponential rate. There were no flashy strokes and no prospect of a New Zealand victory, just a solid forward-defensive shot that acted like a hypnotist’s charm, a buzzsaw of tension and a building realisation that there was a damn sight more to cricket than jeering at Dean Jones.
Inzi stays cool in a Karachi classic
Haris Anis on

Inzamam-ul-Haq’s composed half-century helped Pakistan steal a one-wicket thriller at Karachi in 1994 © Getty Images
Australia had not won a Test match in Pakistan for more then three decades and were looking to break the jinx with their inexperienced bowling attack led by the two future greats, Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne. The Aussies had the upper hand in the first innings getting an 81-run lead but the real drama started in the second innings.Australia started disastrously with Mark Taylor, captain for the first time, gone for his second duck of the match. David Boon played a classy and courageous knock to hold the innings together but the two W’s, Wasim and Waqar, started an all-too-familiar collapse with the last four wickets adding just 26. Pakistan required 314, and ended the fourth day still requiring 159 with seven wickets in hand.On the fifth day, Warne weaved his magic, rattling the home team with his vicious leg breaks. Pakistan slumped to 258 for 9 and were staring at defeat, but a brilliant rearguard led by Inzamam-ul-Haq kept them in the hunt. In the end, with three runs still needed, it came down to the battle of three legends – Ian Healy, Warne and Inzamam. Warne’s leg break pitched on middle stump, turned a little, touched Inzi’s pads and skidded along the ground. Inzamam was out of his crease but Healy missed the stumping much to the joy of home crowd. Pakistan were gifted the winning runs, and Inzamam was the saviour, adding 58 for the last wicket with Mushtaq Ahmed.So ended one of the great Test matches of all time, one that was never out of reach of either side but never in the firm grasp of one or the other. The Aussies were made to wait another four years to win a Test in Pakistan, and Dickie Bird, the legendary English umpire, termed it the best match in which he stood.

Dileep Premachandran on Mahela Jayawardene’s Sabina Park epic

Dileep Premachandran in Jamaica25-Apr-2007It takes a lot to impress them here at Sabina Park. Many of the locals who came through the turnstiles were weaned on some of the game’s all-time greats. Some were here in 1983, when Viv Richards hit a violent 36-ball 61 to transform a dying Test into an improbable triumph, and those whose memories stretch back further can recall the silken strokeplay of Lawrence Rowe. So when they started purring towards the end of Mahela Jayawardene’s innings, you knew you were watching something special.At the lunch break, the word most used to illustrate his unbeaten 115 was “sweet”, but those who uttered it didn’t use it as you would to describe a tasty-but-insubstantial dessert. They were marvelling at his range of strokes, the impeccable timing, and an ability to find the gaps that is the preserve of the truly exceptional.A cursory look at Jayawardene’s one-day figures suggests an underachiever, and he would be the first to admit that translating immense talent into innings that matter hasn’t always been easy. It perhaps didn’t help that he was always marked out for greatness, or that people back home saw him as the successor to Aravinda de Silva, the shotmaker extraordinaire and hero
of the 1996 triumph.Too often a pretty cameo would be cut short by a lackadaisical stroke and the nadir was reached at the last World Cup, when his seven visits to the crease fetched him just 21 runs. His dismissal, caught behind off Brad Hogg, encapsulated Sri Lanka’s limp surrender in that Port Elizabeth semi-final and you could scarcely blame him for a jittery start when he arrived at
the crease on Tuesday morning.Related

• The Murali and Mahela show

• Jayawardene-inspired Sri Lanka seal a spot in the final

“We were anxious and nervous,” he said later. “Till I faced my first ball, it was hard to get the butterflies out of the stomach.” The difference this time was that he went into the game with 414 runs to his name and three innings that had showcased a special talent.As he had against West Indies in Guyana, he started extremely cautiously, weighing up the opposition bowling, sussing out the pitch and doing little more than tap the odd ball into the gap. At Sabina Park, as he had at Providence, he scored only 22 off the first 50 balls he faced. This though was a World Cup semi-final, and there was no Sanath Jayasuriya at the other end to tear the bowlers apart while he played himself in.Chamara Silva and Tillakaratne Dilshan helped create some mid-innings momentum, but it was clear that Jayawardene would have to apply the finishing touches. And even though Stephen Fleming brought Shane Bond back into the attack with a view to a quick kill, it was the Sri Lankan batsmen who suddenly started to float like butterflies and sting like bees.In a manner befitting the local legend Rowe – “There was no shot that I couldn’t play” – Jayawardene shed his inhibitions and unveiled a stunning repertoire of strokes. A precise straight loft and a disdainful mow over midwicket had the crowd in raptures, but it was the delicate touches, the tickle to fine leg and the twirl of the wrist that sent the ball speeding to third man, that made him look a class apart from every other batsman in the game. A sweep was played with such precision that the fielders running from deep square leg and fine leg nearly collided, and other shots dragged the fielders all the way to the rope before mocking them by crossing it.

A sweep was played with such precision that the fielders running from deep square leg and fine leg nearly collided, and other shots dragged the fielders all the way to the rope before mocking

It was the sort of innings that defines a career. “I’d probably put this right at the top,” he said. “This was a World Cup semi-final.” In truth, it’s hard to see how he could have played it a couple of years ago. At the press conference, Jayawardene talked of how he had benefited from the responsibilities of captaincy, and a coach who combined an amiable exterior with a tough-love approach. “Tom [Moody] has definitely pushed me to the limits,” he said. “He’s not happy when I’m cruising.” It’s a measure of the man’s humility – and that applies to most of his team-mates as well – that he took chastisement in the right spirit instead of spitting the dummy like other cricketers from the subcontinent.We all know where they ended up. As for Sri Lanka, they are where they always wanted to be. “This was a big hurdle for us to jump, but we’re there now,” Jayawardene said. “We’ve been preparing for that day for some time.” The identity of the opposition doesn’t bother him much. Regardless of whether it’s Australia, the deserving candidates, or South Africa, the back-door entrants, Sri Lanka will have to deal with a fast and bouncy Barbados pitch.The captain, who led with such imagination in the field, isn’t intimidated. “To win the World Cup, you have to beat the best,” he said simply. It helps to have gnarled old hands on board, hands that have previously touched the game’s greatest prize. And though only Muttiah Muralitharan, Jayasuriya and Chaminda Vaas remain from that celebrated bunch, Jayawardene was in no doubt as to how much his crew owed to Arjuna Ranatunga’s world-beaters.”The ’96 guys changed the face of Sri Lankan cricket completely,” he said. “They paved the way for us. Those guys went through a lot of hardships, and we’re reaping the rewards for that.” The biggest harvest awaits on Saturday.

Glenn McGrath missed Steve Waugh’s Sydney century, but he didn’t miss Michael Vaughan in the 2002-03 Ashes

01-Jan-2007

Is it a bird? A plane? No, it’s Glenn McGrath catching Michael Vaughan at Adelaide © Getty Images
That was the series where Michael Vaughan came out and said I’d target him, which was strange. He said he was their best batsman so I should aim at him. I’d never had a batsman say that about me before and he was prepared to take me on.In the first Test he showed that instead of sitting back and waiting for me to bowl a bad ball he’d come at me a bit. He sort of ran at me and tried to hit me. He got a few away in the first Test [33 and 0] but I picked him up both times. It was the first time someone had a plan to come at me and that was interesting. I enjoyed that because it gave me more chance of getting him out. I felt he was playing away from his normal game and it worked in our favour.During Adelaide he played well and had a little bit of luck [he scored 177 after being ruled not out to a Justin Langer catch at point on 19]. He was a bit unlucky in the second innings [McGrath took a flying catch at deep square-leg]. It was in the fourth Test that I reckon I won the overall battle because I’d knocked him over four times – twice in Brisbane, once in Perth caught behind off an inside edge and I bowled him in Melbourne – and I caught him once, which was more his bad luck than mine. And then there was a run-out in Perth. So that’s four wickets, one catch, one run out, so I had it on him [he laughs].

Glenn McGrath watched Steve Waugh’s century on television © Getty Images
Vaughan had a pretty good series, especially the way he finished with a century in Sydney, and they won that game. Overall he had a fair series, but the fact is we won the first three Tests pretty convincingly. We won the series in 11 days and there wouldn’t be many results quicker than that. They went close in Melbourne – all of a sudden the pressure was off and the series was over – and they relaxed a bit and I thought they played well. Steve Harmison bowled well there.It was the first time we saw Harmy. He looked like he had stacks of potential but seemed to get the yips a bit and lost the radar for a while. He seemed to have real potential and we saw that in the last series in England. He can bowl some lethal spells.I didn’t tear my side in Melbourne but I had some problems with it and I still don’t know what was wrong. That put me out of Sydney. Missing Steve Waugh’s hundred was a shame. I wasn’t even at the ground so that was even worse, but I did see it on television. It would have been an amazing day there, just watching it was amazing enough. Getting his hundred on the last ball of the day.It was quite an amazing series when you think of Vaughan getting three centuries in a team that was thoroughly beaten and Stephen’s hundred. When you think of the potential the England team had, to have it over in 11 days was pretty special.

Friday seems like a decision day at a CA board meeting for Australia coach, whose current deal expires in June

Alex Malcolm02-Feb-2022It has been 17 days since the men’s Ashes finished, nearly two-and-a-half weeks since Cricket Australia (CA) arrived at the can they had kicked down the road in August last year regarding Justin Langer’s contract, when a stand-off with the players almost reached the point of no return.CA had never wavered from their statement that Langer would see out his current deal which expires in June, and discussions on what happens next would not begin until after the conclusion of the T20 World Cup and the Ashes. The time has come though, and the signs are that there will not be a simple outcome.Since the Hobart Test, it appears that very little has been achieved in discussions between Langer, CA CEO Nick Hockley and head of national teams Ben Oliver. The fact that CA felt the need to issue a statement around a media report of a meeting between the trio last Friday did not suggest a situation entirely under control.Related

• Langer 'not edgy' about future as calls to re-sign grow louder

• Cummins eager for clarity over Justin Langer's contract

• No change in Langer contract status despite T20 WC, Ashes glory

Now, the coming Friday is looming as decision day at a CA board meeting, which also has the agenda item of deciding on a new permanent chairman after Earl Eddings’ resignation last year.Why and how CA got here is complicated, and there are a lot of people within Australian cricket seeking clarity. It has been torturous for Langer too, who is currently away from his family due to Western Australia’s hard border restrictions, and has nearly reached the end of his tether.He loves the job, and he wants to continue for an extended period. He feels like he has earned the right. In four years, Langer has taken the Australian men’s team from the nadir of the Sandpapergate scandal through a cultural rebuild to claim No. 1 status in both Test and T20I cricket at various stages. They have retained the Ashes twice – at home this season and away in 2019 – as well as won the T20 World Cup for the first time.On that evidence, why the ink is not already dry on a fresh multi-year contract seems staggering to most looking from the outside, not least the bevy of former Australia greats who are incredulous that Langer is still fighting for his job.But the devil is in the details. A home Test series loss to an under-strength India last summer and two disastrous T20I tours of the West Indies and Bangladesh last year were the catalyst for the current holding pattern.The players, led by current Test captain Pat Cummins, white-ball captain Aaron Finch and former Test captain Tim Paine, with mediation from Hockley and Eddings – had reached a tipping point and asked Langer to change parts of his coaching style. Langer, while in hotel quarantine, held individual Zoom meetings with over 30 players and staff, and took the feedback on board. But it appears as if it was a sticking plaster.Langer feels he has done everything that has been asked of him since, and the results have been evident for all to see. Again, it is laughable to the outside world and to Langer himself that his job is under pressure. But yet again, the devil is in the details.Both Cummins and Finch have since been asked publicly if they would like the coach to continue following the success of the last four months, and both have baulked at endorsing him. Finch said the environment had been great in the World Cup and admitted he would be consulted on Langer’s contract without knowing exactly what it would entail.Meanwhile, Cummins had said the decision was above his pay grade, with the irony being that there is no one in Australian cricket above his salary at the moment.The decision on Langer’s future, it seems, is being framed as whether Oliver, Hockley and the board wish to appease an unspecified number of players or show faith in Langer. But there is a grander question that needs to be answered which seems to have been lost in personality politics: what are the best high-performance and coaching structures of the Australian men’s team for the medium to long term?Like Chris Silverwood is for England, Langer believes he can be head coach for all three formats, aside from being a selector•ICC/Getty ImagesIt seems it is a question that has scarcely been considered by anyone on the eve of what looks like an unprecedented period of cricket for them. As it currently stands, across the next two years, Australia are set to play three Test tours in Asia and an away Ashes, home Tests against West Indies and South Africa, numerous limited-overs assignments, as well as a home T20 World Cup where they are the defending champions, a 50-over World Cup and should they qualify, a World Test Championship final before the Ashes in 2023.Coach, player and staff burnout is a distinct possibility over that period. Langer will already be resting from the upcoming T20I series against Sri Lanka to prepare for the Pakistan tour, with senior assistant Andrew McDonald to step in, as he did for Australia’s ODI tour of India in early 2020 and a T20I series in New Zealand in 2021 when two tours were set to happen simultaneously before Australia called off their series in South Africa.Langer had himself stepped in for his predecessor Darren Lehmann for two white-ball series during the latter’s tenure. Lehmann, who after the ball-tampering scandal said he stayed too long in the job, has been the one former team-mate to advise Langer that now is the time to go.The other point that has been raised is whether the job is too big for one man to handle. Langer is adamant he can handle the load of being the head coach for all three forms, aside from being a selector. He has aired his hesitancy on splitting the coaching roles into two jobs, arguing it is logistically impractical.Only one team, England, has formally tried it with Andy Flower and Ashley Giles, and it failed dismally. It is worth noting Giles gave Chris Silverwood the role as England’s current sole coach and selector for all three forms during a similarly unprecedented period of cricket, and the results have not been good.These scenarios require something other than a myopic view. They require vision, courage and strong leadership. CA can’t kick the can any further down the road.

Like a swearword or a jailed relative, Zimbabwe has become unmentionable in South African cricket circles.

Telford Vice24-Oct-2007

Busy man: Gerald Majola couldn’t find time to talk about the current situation © Cricinfo Ltd
Like a swearword or a jailed relative, Zimbabwe has become unmentionable in South African cricket circles. Why was the grand plan to include Zimbabwe in South Africa’s domestic competitions, which was announced on Monday, put on hold on Wednesday pending a Cricket South Africa (CSA) board meeting on Friday?It is a simple and relevant question, and Tony Irish, the chief executive of the South African Cricketers’ Association, provided what would seem a credible answer when he was quoted as saying that “… some of the players have concerns about playing against Zimbabwe”.The first of those players might have been the Lions, who were scheduled to take on Zimbabwe in a SuperSport Series match in Harare on Sunday. Not so, said Lions chief executive Alan Kourie: “Our players are happy to go to Zimbabwe, that’s not the issue.”That was as far as Kourie was prepared to go. For the rest, he said, we should knock on the doors of “a guy called Gerald Majola or a guy called Brian Basson”.So we did. Or, at least, we tried. Majola, CSA’s chief executive, said he was “in a meeting”, and he proved to be out of reach when we called back in an hour as he suggested. The office of CSA general manager: cricket operations Basson said he was “very busy”.Besides, Basson’s office added helpfully, “He can’t comment [on the Zimbabwe issue] because a board meeting will be held on Friday.”We don’t have to suck our thumbs too hard to deduce that what is irking the franchise teams about the Zimbabwe plan is not the moral dilemma about playing in one of the most economically, politically and socially unhealthy countries on earth.It’s a touching thought, but let’s not kid ourselves. Most professional players wouldn’t know the price of a pair of batting gloves, much less the price of a loaf of bread – when available – in downtown Harare or Bulawayo. No, it’s the inconvenience of having additional fixtures thrust into the schedule that has raised the franchises’ ire. And with good reason: the SuperSport Series is already two rounds old, and plans have no doubt been made for the off-duty weekends.There’s also the way this was done. Surely Friday’s board meeting was the correct forum in which to discuss the Zimbabwe plan, which undoubtedly has merit? Why was this decision, presumably, imposed from on high? Isn’t that a sure fire way to put burrs under the saddles of people who run and play for franchises?We would like to put these questions to people who might answer them, but so far they’ve told us to go Z*****we ourselves.

Kevin Pietersen’s switch-hit has become a symbol of modern batting but new shots have always come into the game – and usually caused outrage

Patrick Kidd10-Aug-2008

The old switcheroo: Pietersen gets left-handed © Getty Images

“Find out where the ball is. Go there. Hit it.” Such a piece of batting advice, credited to the great turn-of-the-century strokemaker Ranjitsinhji, was simplistic almost to the point of absurdity, but it worked for Ranji and it would appear to be a philosophy that Kevin Pietersen follows, too, perhaps with the addition of the words “as hard as you can”. Pietersen’s brace of unorthodox sixes off Scott Styris in the first one-day international against New Zealand at Chester-le-Street in June, cack-handed yet controlled, showed again why he is the master inventor of his day, as wily and ingenious with the bat as Shane Warne was with the ball.It was the shot heard round the world. Yet if Pietersen’s audacious switch-hitting at the Riverside had misfired, the gasps of awe from Durham to Delhi could easily have been replaced by laughter at such vain foolishness. Even his captain winced when Pietersen changed his grip to that of a left-hander as Styris ran in to bowl the third ball of the 39th over and slog-swept it for six over deep backward point (or what had been called deep backward point until Pietersen decided he was a southpaw). “I covered my eyes as soon as he turned his body around,” Paul Collingwood admitted. Four overs later Pietersen repeated the trick, hitting a Styris’ ball over long off.It takes bravery, bravado and sheer bloody-minded self-belief to attempt such a stroke. Few have the strength or the timing to hit so cleanly off their wrong side, but while Pietersen’s extravagance delighted spectators, appalled some former fast bowlers, and sent the MCC law-makers into conclave to decide on its legality, the stroke was not quite as innovative as Pietersen claimed. For a start, he had played it himself two years earlier, switching hands before slogging a ball from Muttiah Muralitharan into the stands at Edgbaston. Middlesex fans swore they had seen a young Jacques Kallis perform the feat when batting for them at Uxbridge in 1997, while some recalled that Craig Macmillan used to try it for New Zealand. Going even farther back, Pelham Warner wrote in the in 1921 of Percy Fender giving “some amusement by hitting [Warwick] Armstrong back-handed on the off side”.Inspired chaos

New or not, it caught the imagination, and in cricket nets up and down the country in the days after
Pietersen’s switch-hit wizardry, schoolboys and grown men were trying to copy him. David Houghton, who has been working as a batting consultant for the ECB at the National Cricket Performance Centre at Loughborough, praised Pietersen’s audacity but said he worries that
children would try to “sprint before they can walk”.

	The idea of the shovel shot is believed to have developed almost 100 years ago when an Australia Test wicketkeeper named Sammy Carter used the stroke to hoick balls over his left shoulder

“The odds with that shot are immensely in favour of the bowler,” Houghton warns. “Pietersen is a one in a million and I’d advise most children not to be preoccupied with all the clever stuff. A lot of very good players score a lot of runs with just the basic shots, and if a youngster comes to me and asks me to help him try some innovative shots, then I have a checklist of the shots they must be able to do first.”But batsmen have always sought to gain an advantage by trying something unexpected, as much as
bowlers try their own new tricks. Take Fuller Pilch, the greatest batsman of the early 19th century, who invented aggressive forward play. Until Pilch, batsmen tended to let the ball come to them. This Norfolk-born innovator had little patience for such play, which on poor pitches carried danger, and so developed the idea of coming well forward to the pitch of the ball and playing it away in front of the wicket.”Pilch’s Poke” caught on and was described thus by Arthur Haygarth in in 1862: “His style of batting was very commanding, extremely forward, and he seemed to rush to the best bowling by his long forward play before it had time to shoot or rise or do mischief by catches.”Doctored shots

WG Grace was another innovator, the first to be comfortable playing both forward and back. Taking an unusual stance, with his left foot turned almost perpendicular to the right and often pointing his left toes skywards, Grace stepped forward and back with equal ease, treating the ball always as the subject of his mastery. Intriguingly Grace appears to have been the first to use a double backlift, in the same fashion as Brian Lara more than a century later, taking the bat to hip height at first and then hoisting it higher for added aggression if the ball was there to be attacked.

Grace had a double back-lift and was equally comfortable playing front or back © Getty Images

Yet the Doctor still tended to play straight. It was his elder brother, EM, who was characterised by
an ungainly but effective style of hitting to leg with a cross-bat stroke, apparently because he
had used too heavy a bat as a child.Ranji, observing Grace play, wrote that “he revolutionised cricket”, adding: “He turned an
old one-stringed instrument into a many-chorded lyre.” Yet the Indian prince would add his own
notes to the composition. Before the 1890s, batsmen treated balls that were missing leg stump with
disdain. It took Ranji to realise that it offered a new means of scoring runs.With supple wrists and immaculate timing Ranji learnt to whip the bat across the front of his pad and steer balls off his legs – and even from in front of middle stump – to the fine-leg boundary.
Combined with the late cut, another Ranji innovation, the Sussex batsman became the first man to make 3000 runs in a season, in 1899, and repeated the feat in 1900. Some thought the leg glance to
be an ugly, immoral stroke, but no less a judge than Neville Cardus praised it as “lovely magic”. What would Cardus think of Pietersen?The batsmen separated by a century were similar in many ways, both outsiders brought into the England team, both quickly elevated to celebrities.
When Ranji went on his first Ashes tour in 1897-98, scoring 175 in the first Test, he was made into a hero and marketing men instantly cashed in with Ranjitsinjhi-branded merchandising. Is it so
different from the dash for cash in today’s Indian Premier League?Repeating history

echoes the same caution about Ranji as Houghton does today about Pietersen. “He can scarcely be pointed to as a safe model for young and aspiring batsmen,” reports the 1897 . “For any ordinary player to attempt to turn good-length balls off the middle stump as he does would be futile and disastrous.”Boldness, adaptability and quick hands are what set the innovative batsmen apart from mere mortals. Take such strokes as the uppercut, a shot developed by Eddie Barlow in the 1960s and perfected in the opening overs of one-day games by batsmen such as Sachin Tendulkar and Sanath Jayasuriya, who use it to counter the extra bounce of fast bowlers and to take advantage of the fielding restrictions. Lesser men would find that they keep edging to slip or gully but those who can play the uppercut well reap rewards.

	Some thought the leg glance to be an ugly, immoral stroke, but no less a judge than Neville Cardus praised it as “lovely magic”. What would Cardus think of Pietersen?

Then there is the cross-court flick – or what became known as the flamingo shot after Pietersen used to play it so often on one leg. Again, it is a way of countering a short-pitched ball, forcing it away
on the on side with turned wrists rather than risking a pull.Few would dream of coaching such a stroke, yet even as long ago as 1952 we find some degree of licence allowed by the hallowed MCC Coaching Manual. “A too exclusive concentration on straight play … and the coach may well have the mortification of seeing his pupils playing with immaculate rectitude but beaten by opponents in whom a good deal of ‘the old Adam’ survives.” That is Adam of Garden of Eden fame, rather than the later Adam whose cross-batted strokes around the world ignited the Australia order in the early 21st century.The important thing for coaches, however, is to let natural flair flourish if it exists. Writing 40 years ago, Don Bradman, who claimed not to have been formally coached, said: “A coach who suppresses
natural instincts may find that he has lifted a poor player to a mediocre one but has reduced a potential genius to the rank and file.”It echoed an earlier sentiment of Wilfred Rhodes, the Yorkshire and England batsman who developed his skill so well that he went from being a tailender to opening the batting. “Tha knows one thing I learned about cricket,” Rhodes said. “Tha can’t put in what God left out. Tha sees two kinds of cricketers, them that uses a bat as if they are shovelling muck and them that plays proper, and like as not God showed both of ’em how to play.”

The scoop that shook the world: Misbah-ul-Haq with the shot that sealed the inaugural World Twenty20 © Getty Images

Appropriately prescient word that: shovel. For the shovel is another stroke that has entered the modern batsman’s arsenal. When Robert Key faced his first ball of this season’s Twenty20 Cup,
from Robin Martin-Jenkins at Canterbury, the Kent captain had no thought of circumspection or seeing what the wicket would do; he knelt down and flicked the ball over the wicketkeeper’s head for four.Key was following in a line of modern shovellers such as Moin Khan, Doug Marillier, and Mohammad Ashraful, who used it to such good effect against Australia in 2005, but the idea is believed to have developed almost 100 years earlier when an Australia Test wicketkeeper named Sammy Carter used the stroke to hoick balls over his left shoulder.The advantage of the shovel is that it uses the pace that the bowler puts on the ball, so all the batsman needs to do is get enough of the face of his bat on the ball to fox the fielders. The disadvantage, as Houghton says, is when it goes wrong. “You need a high level of skill and courage to get down on one knee and play the shovel when the ball is being bowled at 85mph,” he says. “Mal Loye plays that stroke particularly well. It used to be used to defeat fields at the end of an
innings but now it is used from the start.”Arguably a mis-hit shovel led to the creation of the Indian Premier League and the recent rush of money into the game. Had Misbah-ul-Haq, with six needed off four balls to win the first World Twenty20 final against India, not tried to shovel away Joginder Sharma, only to be caught by Sreesanth at short fine leg, Pakistan would probably have won. And would India have had such fervour for Twenty20?Reversal misfortune

It was another mis-hit moment of over-elaboration 20 years earlier that turned a global final away from England. At Eden Gardens, Calcutta, England finally looked as if they might win the World Cup when they reached 135 for 2, chasing Australia’s 253. Mike Gatting was well set when Allan Border decided it was time to try something different. Border was not unknown as a left-arm orthodox spinner but it was getting towards Hail-Mary time. Gatting could have played his first
ball with caution but for some reason a fuse went in his brain and, bending down, he tried to play a reverse-sweep. Sadly for Gatting and England, the ball ballooned up off his shoulder and a surprised
keeper, Greg Dyer, caught it.

	The reverse-sweep re-emerged in the 1980s, and post-Gatting got some form of rehabilitation among the more innovative one-day sides of the 1990s, who saw it as a means of unsettling leg-heavy fields

Gatting, 20 years on, maintains it was the right shot to play. “I knew where he was going to bowl and he knew that I knew,” Gatting says, pointing out that England’s policy of sweeping and reverse
sweeping had worked in the semi-final against India. “If I had left it, the ball would have been a wide by a long way. Instead it was so wide that I tried to fetch it with the reverse-sweep, but instead of clearing my arm it clipped my shoulder and lobbed up to the keeper. We never recovered but I don’t regret the shot.”Two years earlier, after watching Ian Botham make a mess of the same stroke, Peter May, the chairman of selectors at the time, banned England from using it. “I have thumbed through the MCC
coaching manual and found that no such stroke exists,” May said. David Lloyd, not normally a po-faced traditionalist, also decries the reverse-sweep. “It’s like Manchester United getting a penalty and
Bryan Robson taking it with his head,” Lloyd said.As with most of the unorthodox strokes mentioned, the reverse sweep appears to have been tried some time earlier. Duleepsinhji, nephew of Ranji, was said to have played a wide off-side ball “backwards towards third man with his bat turned and facing the wicketkeeper” in a match in the 1920s. The fielders appealed, unsuccessfully, for unfair play.It re-emerged in the 1980s, and post-Gatting got some form of rehabilitation among the more innovative one-day sides of the 1990s, who saw it as a means of unsettling leg-heavy fields. Dermot Reeve’s Warwickshire were particularly keen on it. Mind you, they also tried deliberately throwing down the bat when facing spin bowlers as a means of not getting an edge. That was ruled beyond the pale and not even Pietersen could attempt the same and hope to get away with it.

Tony Cozier looks back on the second day of the second Test between West Indies and Australia in Antigua

Tony Cozier01-Jun-2008
In spite of his limited credentials, Xavier Marshall showed his talent against Australia © Digicelcricket.com
The debilitating effect of five sessions in the field – under a roasting sun, on an unsympathetic pitch and against opponents with the ruthless streak common to all sporting champions – finally took its toll on West Indies in the hour before tea yesterday. An exhibition of sparkling, nerveless, uninhibited strokeplay from Xavier Marshall, their latest opening batsman, quickly lifted spirits again after the fast bowlers, Brett Lee and Mitchell Johnson, had blasted 65 from 55 balls to allow an Australian declaration at 479 for 7 at tea.But just as quickly and depressingly, the pendulum swung again. Michael Clarke, who had earlier defied them with the second hundred of Australia’s innings, was summoned by captain Ricky Ponting to send down his seemingly unthreatening left-arm spin as Marshall and captain Ramnaresh Sarwan became entrenched.Marshall, whose 53 was a virtual shot-a-ball display, was lbw to one of the few he chose to leave alone. Runako Morton replaced him with the end of the day no more than half-hour away, only to slog his fifth ball from Clarke straight into midwicket’s lap, a near repetition of his dismissal in the first innings of the first Test.It is rashness such as Morton’s – and Devon Smith’s slap to point earlier – that has condemned West Indies for so long to their lowly position among their peers on the ICC Test rankings. It completely undermined the effect of Marshall’s uplifting attack. His selection in the final eleven was as unexpected as a shooting star landing in the middle of the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium.Yet, in spite of his limited credentials (first-class average 25 and no hundred yet to his name), the selectors saw star quality in the young Jamaican, just as the previous coach Bennett King had done when he introduced him into international cricket on the 2005 tour of Australia. Others, among them your correspondent, saw only statistics.Marshall provided an immediate remedy to the lingering despair in the dressing room and around the ground with a succession of peerless cover-drives. None was more electrifying than one with knee bent and a full flow of the bat. His dismissal was a clear lapse in concentration, not unusual for a batsman with little experience of batting as long at first-class level but it was a heartening reintroduction to the Test team, especially given the circumstances.Until the Lee-Johnson association, West Indies had stuck stoically to their exacting task, just as they had done on the first day. They restricted Australian batting, keen to press on, to 155 from 45 overs, an unusually pedestrian rate by their standards, when Clarke’s classy innings of 110 was finally ended. All of a sudden, error followed error as tired limbs and minds were exposed. Fidel Edwards, running back from mid-on, muffed a skyer when Lee was 36 and Dwayne Bravo, the safest of fielders, floored another when Johnson was 15. Each time the untiring Darren Sammy was the luckless bowler.As Ricky Ponting signified the previous afternoon, Australia’s aim was to build quickly on their solid overnight base of 259 for three against a hard, new ball that would come more readily off the bat than one progressively softened by the concrete-like surface. If the loss of Simon Katich, whose 113 was the rock on which the foundation of the innings was built, was an immediate setback, it seemed of no significance to Clarke.The elegant right-hander showed the previous afternoon that his late arrival on compassionate leave had done nothing to diminish his class. Two crisp boundaries through mid-wicket in Edwards’ first over with the new ball got him going again. A succession of scintillating off and cover drives followed. Even after the dangerous Andrew Symonds was the second wicket claimed to a leg-side deflection and more so when Denesh Ramdin just failed to grasp his third leg-side catch when Clarke was 63, a deluge seemed certain.The first hour yielded 62 but the West Indies bowlers, lacking variety but not heart, would have none of it, even as Brad Haddin strived to execute Ponting’s advertised game plan and Clarke advanced past his hundred. The second hour to lunch brought only 38, the first of the second session 31. Australia, it seemed, would have to wait longer than they would have wished to get at the West Indies batsmen. Then things fell apart.

Cracks have been forming all over the place during this series. For twoTests the brittleness was Australia’s, but in Sydney the fault lines havebeen shaking South Africa

Peter English at the SCG05-Jan-2009
Peter Siddle: “It [pitch] has deteriorated pretty quickly and the cracks have opened up a fair bit. It’s going to get a little bit worse over the next couple of days” © PA Photos
Cracks have been forming all over the place during this series. For twoTests the brittleness was Australia’s, but in Sydney the fault lines havebeen shaking South Africa. A fractured hand for the captain Graeme Smithwas followed by a broken helmet for Morne Morkel and a total of 327 on apitch that is breaking up ahead of schedule. Batting is not much fun andwill become more fraught over the next two days, with South Africa havingthe tougher task after facing a deficit of 151 at stumps.Two squiggly lines run up the length of the pitch, but the crack holdingthe most danger sits just outside off stump for the right-handers battingat the Paddington End and the lefties facing at the Randwick End. Theywill continue to widen and smaller ones will appear, giving the bowlersother targets to aim for. And when the ball is old and soft it often stayslower on the flatter sections of the pitch, adding to theunpredictability.”It’s up there with the top three toughest wickets I’ve ever had to baton, on day three,” Mark Boucher said after registering a committed 89.”It’s not nice staring down the wicket and making sure you’re running downthe side of it so you don’t fall down.”The batsmen had to convince themselves to play forward and wait for theball to move in, out, down or up, depending on the angle of entry into thegap. Finding rhythm was as impossible as feeling in control. South Africaearned 202 runs on a day when the most courageous batting came fromBoucher and Morkel. South Africa were effectively 6 for 193 when they cametogether – Smith won’t bat – and they weathered and wore the Australianattack for 115.Ponting alternated the left-handers Johnson and Doug Bollinger at thePaddington End for almost five hours. When those fast men were sprintingin there was no respite for any of the batsmen. Australia were holding thestring as South Africa struggled and then scrapped through theBoucher-Morkel recovery, but the advantage did not turn into easy wicketsuntil Siddle charged through late in the day to finish with 5 for 59.Siddle, Andrew McDonald and Nathan Hauritz were used mostly at theRandwick End, where there was less impact and only one wicket. When Siddlewas switched in the final session he captured 4 for 7 in 22 balls,succeeding by aiming for the stumps instead of the gaps in the surface.Morkel, Boucher and Dale Steyn were bowled and Paul Harris was lbw in thesudden shift of tempo.”Coming from that end, and being a right-hander, the crack wasn’t on myside,” Siddle said. “I was just aiming for the stumps, getting a bit ofreverse-swing and trying to attack the stumps. I got a few uneven bounces,some kept low, some got up, and kept the batter thinking.”Bollinger deserved to agree on at least one lbw with Billy Bowden and didwell to remain cool. His flustered reactions were limited to head shakes,hands on hips and a few mutterings. Minor cracking, but no breaking.Johnson accounted for Jacques Kallis and JP Duminy and all the quicks hadthick edges but not many slips.The batsmen were most at ease when the ball left them off the marks, butwhen it came back there was flinching and fending. A delivery from Johnsonre-directed off a crack for four wides down the legside and Boucher wasfloored by one that appeared to brush his shoulder. Another from Bollingerrose to dint Morkel’s helmet.On the second afternoon Johnson’s crack-assisted off-cutter hit Smith’sleft hand and sent him to hospital. He was in Melbourne having treatmenton his elbow while his team-mates jumped, hopped and hoped. Boucher triedto play back as much as possible, looking awkward at times but in as muchcomfort as any of the batsmen since Michael Clarke and Mitchell Johnsonthe previous day. More grit will be required over the rest of the matchfor anyone with a bat.The pitch was in such a dry condition due to the groundsman Tom Parkerexpecting showers in the lead-up to the game. He reduced the amount ofwater he put on the surface, but the rain didn’t come and there were lineson it before the toss.”It has deteriorated pretty quickly and the cracks have opened up a fairbit,” Siddle said. “It’s going to get a little bit worse over the nextcouple of days.”Batting will become even more treacherous during the second innings, butit will be less of a bother for Ricky Ponting’s order. Australia will needto spend only a few hours on it on Tuesday before letting the under-mannedSouth Africa test their bravery again in their bid to save the game. Therewill be no miracle chase in this match, but if the visitors hold on for adraw it will improve their already high standing on this incrediblysuccessful tour.