One of cricket's greatest absurdities

Cricket is definitely a funny old game. It’s a definite cliché that phrase, but it occasionally has a way of throwing a spanner in the works and providing something that just shouldn’t normally happen.

Rewind to Chittagong in 2006. Australia was playing their first test series in Bangladesh, and in the first test Bangladesh gave a spirited fight led by a stirring century from Shahriar Nafees. There was hope the spirit shown by the Bangladeshis would be carried into the Chittagong match. Alas it was not to be.

And the stage was set for the most absurd inning in cricket history.

Jason Gillespie had long been one of Australia’s great fast bowling servants. His partnership with Glenn McGrath was a major factor in Australia’s run of dominance and he could have easily been a top bowler for any other country at his peak.

He has recently been dropped following a disastrous campaign to England in 2005, which effectively spelled the end of his career, and was only called up because McGrath, Kasprowicz, and Tait were missing. He bowled well in the first test, and took three cheap and effective wickets in the first innings of Bangladesh. At the end of the first day, he was sent in at first drop after Matthew Hayden fell for 29, to join Phil Jaques.

He was not removed for the rest of the innings. Day two was shortened because of poor weather, but by the end of day three he had progressed to his maiden test (And first class) century.

Midway through day four, he moved on to an unbeaten 201, the highest ever score by a nightwatchman and also a higher score than many of his more illustrious batsmen. Along the way he chalked a gigantic 320 run partnership with Mike Hussey, who scored a rapid 182.

There was nothing really remarkable of Dizzy’s batting technique. He effectively put his leg as far as he could down the pitch and blocked. Now he was never a fast scorer, but he was incredibly difficult to dislodge. In India in 2004 his defensive innings, along with Damian Martyn’s century, helped draw the second test, setting the stage for Gillespie to take nine wickets in the next test to bowl Australia to victory.

His double century was full of drives, cut shots, and pulls. He had passed fifty twice previously, so everyone knew he could be a real pest if he hung around. This was something different. He bullied and wore down the Bangladesh attack that just couldn’t get past the long front foot. He brought up his double century with a leg glance for four. The commentators laughed with genuine glee, and Dizzy shook his head at the absurd notion that he of all people had scored a test double century.

Sadly, I have been unable to find any video footage of this particular gem. I’d dearly love to see it and laugh again. It always brings a smile to my face just thinking about it.

Only Glenn McGrath scoring a century could be close to more absurd. Or maybe Chris Martin making it into the 20s.

Is there a resolution?

The problems at the moment facing West Indian cricket have been well documented, with the power struggle between the WICB and the WIPA leading to the majority of their superstars refusing to play for their team.

In the meantime, the West Indians played a test series against Bangladesh and became the second team (After the now non-test playing nation Zimbabwe) to lose a series to the Bangas. It was a vastly under strength and untried side, with young hopefuls joining old veterans to form a team who would never even look like getting a game normally (With the exception maybe of Darren Sammy).

Now recent talks between the two parties have recently fallen apart again, and now there is a distinct chance that the West Indian team to travel to Australia to compete for the Frank Worrell Trophy will be led by Floyd Reifer and will feature unknowns who, although facing a weakened Australian side, will most certainly be crucified.

While this is happening, several West Indians will may the journey south to play in the Big Bash over the summer, earning their cash as mercenaries. This may be the future of West Indian cricket now, with the best players heading abroad in search of money they claim is not coming from the board. Chris Gayle has publicly stated his disdain for test cricket, and others are being snapped up by IPL franchises as well.

The reasoning is simple. Why play test cricket for the West Indies when you can earn more money in less time playing Twenty/20?

One hopes that come the end of the day we can have a resolution so we don’t lose a cricket team filled with history, explosiveness, and raw talent. I would hate to see the day when cricket is without the West Indies. Something within the game, maybe excitement, would die with them.

Hilf and North strike a blow for anonymity

Well...................well...................another Ashes series gone by and another result not everyone expected.

In 2005, we watched England down a far superior Australian team boasting several immortals of the game. In 2006/2007, we watched a highly fancied England team get annihilated by ‘Dad’s Army’. What does that leave us with in 2009?

Well it was probably a case of two mediocre teams battling to stop themselves from being the first to drop the ball, which in the end was all that was needed at The Oval. Australia dropped the ball badly and England capitalised in a big way to secure a 2-1 win that no-one really expected to happen.

Now in my opinion, the pitches were once again shite. I hate how curators are turning pitches into bland batting strips. It annoys me that the bowlers are getting the raw end of the deal. Why can’t we see a green pitch for once where the ball moves around like a nightmare? Why can’t we have a dustbowl that turns square? Why can’t we have a bouncy pitch that has a chance to rattle a batsman’s helmet?

But enough griping, on to the point at hand.

The stats make great reading for the series, especially since Australia had three bowlers with 20 wickets and four batsmen with over 300 runs yet still found a way to lose the series. Only one bowler managed to average below 30 as well, a further example of the pitches turning out like the M4 Motorway.

Australia came to England’s shores with a team made up of fledging stars and young guns, with a lot of the hype centred on Phillip Hughes and bowlers Johnson and Siddle.
Yet it was the unknown soldiers Ben Hilfenhaus for the bowlers and Marcus North for the batsmen that provided a solid base for the rest of their team.

Hilfenhaus was unheard of when he came to England. He had been well known in Australia for several season after emerging as one of the best young quicks coming through the ranks, particularly in the season Tasmania managed to win the Pura Cup (Now back to Sheffield Shield thank God) for the first time.

Conditions definitely favoured him, and in the five test series he collected 22 wickets and bowled some magnificent outswingers, although he never took a five wicket haul he so deserved. The English will have a lot of respect for the quiet former bricklayer who worked hard for his wickets.

North came through a different route. Now 30, he has plied his trade for Western Australia and has been a county pro for many years now, playing for five different counties during his time in the country. His selection for South Africa was a gamble, but in England it made perfect sense as he had the years of experience in English conditions.

His two centuries and a 96 left him a formidable object at number six and we could well hold onto that position for some time. And with Mike Hussey out of sorts and on the wrong side of 34, he could even be boosted up the order.

The success of Hilfy and the Australian cricket team’s only smoker are a good sign for the team and a victory of anonymity. Let’s hope that they continue to prosper for Australia’s sake.

A worrying lack of depth

While a lot of the media attention during this Ashes series has been diverted to the Australian form woes and Freddie’s impending test retirement, I’ve noticed something alarming about the England side that no one has really delved into.

KP’s injury was a bad setback for England, which, while I concede he’s not in the greatest form, leaves a big hole in their batting lineup. He is one player who stands head and shoulders above his teammates and is one of the few batsmen in their lineup that thrives against the strongest teams.

Ian Bell is his replacement, a very talented batsman with a technique quite pleasing on the eye and eight test centuries to his credit. That said, Belly (Or ‘The Sherminator’, as Warney calls him) has never scored a test century without someone reaching the mark before him. He has frequently lacked the necessary steel to mix it with the best sides, and his record as England’s number three was decidedly woeful.

There lies the problem. When a regular team member is out, does Ian Bell fit the criteria of England’s next best batsman?

Look into the county system and you’ll start to see the problem. At the top of Division One’s run scoring chart is Marcus Trescothick, now retired from international cricket. Michael Carberry is next, but he’s an opener. The first middle order batsman you find is James Hildreth, whose numbers this year have been partially bolstered by an unbeaten 303 against Warwickshire.

His nearest opponent is Jonathan Trott who, at 28, is a more mature debutant and has been scoring prolifically in the last few years. But he has 18 hundreds as opposed to 40 fifties. Slight conversion rate issue there.

In Division Two, there problem is even worse. The top four players are past their prime as test batsmen (With Martin Van Jaarsveld also a South African!). The nearest young batsman is Alex Gidman, whose record is rather modest. And below him is Phillip Hughes!

I’ve heard a number of calls for Robert Key or Joe Denly, but neither is really true and tested yet. That statement is arguable for Key, who has a test double century to his credit, but at 30 he isn’t really a young face. Denly needs another year or two to really figure out his technique before he gets thrown into the deep end. He didn’t have a particularly good year in 2008 and Division Two isn’t full of the top bowling talent.

England do have decent bowling numbers to fall back on, with Harmison waiting in the wings (Although hopefully they won’t need him) as well as the solid Tim Bresnan, Ryan Sidebottom, the young but sharp Luke Fletcher, and the spectacularly successful Alex Shantry, who has been snatching up wicket for Glamorgan. No spinners are really being noticed though, apart from those currently in the England setup.

Mark Davies was a player I thought needed to be in the test side, but he is struggling to get a regular game with Durham and despite a truly remarkable bowling record, he may become part of the unrecognised heap.

England is not short on keepers, with James Foster a class act and the unlucky and brilliant Chris Read.

But what can England do if they start losing batsmen to injury or retirement?

And the final question for you to ponder on, what will England do when Freddie leaves the test side?

Jimmy, will you please stand up......

England will be banking on its new look bowling attack taking the fight to the Australians during the Ashes. But in my opinion it is not Flintoff that holds the important card, it is Jimmy Anderson.

Jimmy has had a mixed bag of a career, pretty much summed up by one good spell and then six or seven ordinary ones. He looked the goods at times, and then he came crashing back to earth.

His Ashes series in 06/07 was nothing short of a disaster. He collected five wickets at the horrible average of 82.60 and was manhandled by Ricky Ponting and co.

Good signs were showing soon however. During the English summer he collected 5/42 against a powerful Indian batting lineup. The next two tests he was again ineffective. The story was continuing.

It took New Zealand’s tour to England to finally get the best out of Anderson. And he delivered with career best figures of 7/43 to wreck the Kiwis. He swung the ball alarmingly both ways at good pace. Had he finally arrived as a test cricketer or was it another in a long line of false dawns?

He did well against South Africa, fumbled on India’s batting tracks, and then performed brilliantly without much luck against the Windies.

Now, on the eve of the Ashes series, he has taken 5/34 against an admittedly weak Warwickshire side and has established himself as his team’s premier paceman.

England’s success will hinge on his performances. He needs to hassle openers Phillip Hughes and Simon Katich with his swing, and get the ball moving both ways. Hughes was also unsettled by the short ball in his brief stint against the Lions and he may find himself becoming an early Anderson target.

This is Anderson’s greatest test, a series against the oldest enemy Australia in which he is the unanimous spearhead. If he fails, his career will once more hit the stalling point it has hit before. If he succeeds, maybe he will have finally reached his immense potential.

My mate Hughesy

I live in a little suburban town in Sydney where we call a spade a shovel and outdoor sports are a good way to meet and greet the populace. During my failed cricket career, I was privy to meet the then President of my cricket club, Steve Mullally (No relation to a certain England left-arm quick who couldn’t bat), before he became a talent scout for Cricket NSW.

One day I was fortunate enough to bump into him (He’s extremely busy these days), and out of curiosity asked him whether there were any players I should keep an eye out for.

‘There’s a young bloke that’s playing for Western Suburbs called Philip Hughes. He’s going to go all the way’.

And thus I did, being the good cricket tragic that I am, keep an eye out for him. That was about 2006, when he had just come down from his banana farm in Macksville, and he was already setting the Sydney first grade scene alight.

Three years later he is the most talked about Australian cricketer in the world. His astonishing rise to the baggy green might someday become something of a folk legend.

I watched in the papers for Hughesy, but grade cricket receives limited coverage. He was picked up for some under 19’s Australia teams, but he didn’t really achieve much. Finally in November 2007, his big appetite for runs and enormous potential became too much for the selectors to ignore.

He made his first class debut against Tasmania and made a grinding 51 in a game that Doug Bollinger took 12 wickets. Simon Katich, the captain of NSW and then on the road to the most runs in an Australian first class season, took the young man under his wing.

There were several half centuries that season but the youngster has failed to convert them into the hundreds sorely needed to get his name noticed. But then came the Pura Cup final against the strong Victorian team, containing a young fast bowler that would soon come into the Australian team, Peter Siddle.

Hughesy made only six in the first innings. But in the second, backed by the insatiable Katich, he made 116 to become the youngest man to hit a century in an Australian four day domestic final.

I was there the day Hughesy made that century, full of sharp drives, some lucky edges, and some excellent running between the wickets, and I was one of the loudest to cheer when he made the magic milestone. I’m not sure Hughesy remembers the loud guy with glasses in the stand willing him to succeed.

He made appearances for the academy team during the winter, and then came an important season for the young man the next year. Matthew Hayden was fading fast, Phil Jaques was out with injury, Chris Rogers was getting on and Simon Katich, his mentor, was in the side and whispering in ears.

Hughes took the opportunity to have a devastating season, scoring 891 runs against some of the finest domestic attacks in the world. Only Rogers and the reborn Michael Klinger scored more runs that season.

His finest performance that season was a brilliant double of 93 and 108 on a seaming Bellerive pitch where the next highest NSW score was 42.

Suddenly with Hayden retiring, Australia might have a young talent who would fill a big hole left by the powerful Queenslander.

Some were sceptical of the possibility of sending the young lad into what would be a tough debut series against the recently victorious South Africans. But the selectors decided to watch him play against Tasmania in Newcastle to have a second opinion. Hughes made 151 and 82 not out. He had booked his ticket to South Africa.

What followed was nothing short of incredible. After an embarrassing duck in his maiden test innings, Hughes grafted 75 in the second innings to help Australia to a hard fought win. Then he surprised the cricketing world by knocking off George Headley to become the youngest player to hit twin centuries in a test match with 115 and 160, knocking up his maiden century with a towering six.

He finished as Australia’s highest run scorer for the series and was probably only beaten by Mitchell Johnson and AB De Villiers as men of the series. He has now secured his role as Australia’s test opener for as long as his batting oozes runs, which may not be too hard considering his voracious appetite for runs, one usually associated with the truly great players.

As the Ashes loom, England now have a new player to worry about, one that has flogged three centuries and two fifties in five first class innings for Middlesex. One that has already scored test hundreds against arguably the most ferocious attack in the world.

You will hear a lot more about Philip Hughes before his career is over.

An culture of suspicion

An old problem has just been highlighted by Pakistan captain Younis Khan, and one that is always inflammatory and brings out the worst in parochial cricket fans.

He mentioned on Cricinfo following the third ODI that controversies seem to rear their ugly head whenever an Australian team plays a nation from the subcontinent, and some degree he’s right and to some degree he is wrong, although I’m not sure to what context he is speaking.

The problem stems from the recent trouble over suspect bowling actions, with Saeed Ajmal reported for problems with his doosra and before that Johan Botha was called once again during the South African series over his doosra and quicker ball.

Now the suspicion in this case would not have come across in most cases, except that the team involved following both incidents was Australia.

It takes only that sort of evidence for the narrow-minded to draw to the conclusion that Australia, who have struggled recently, are attempting to take bowlers who have had successes against them out of play. And to be honest, it is really easy to see the connection considering the history.

Muttiah Muralitharan was initially called for throwing in Australia in the early 90’s by Darrell Hair, and that sparked a massive controversy. Ross Emerson did the same thing on Sri Lanka’s next tour during an ODI, and that again sparked problems. When the 15 degree rule was introduced, Murali no longer has any problems.

Part of the problems is not with the Australian team as such, but as how the Australian team is viewed. The Australian team that has dominated the greater part of the last decade has played superb cricket, but has come to be viewed as boorish, arrogant, overconfident and aggressive.

That is true in quite a few respects; they were certainly no angels on the field. But there is no such thing as a saint on a cricket field. That issue was mostly developed under Steve Waugh’s ‘Mental Disintegration’ ploy. It’s not like Mark Taylor needed to sledge so intensely to win.

The Australian team has been viewed, primarily in the media, as bad losers and even worse winners and thus a lot of teams have their opinion switched firmly on the dislike. This has not been helped by the controversies that seem to follow them around, some of which they cause and some of which they are unfortunately drawn into.

It wasn’t the Australian team that called Murali, and in the two recent cases the spinners were called by neutral umpires, one of which was from the home country. Saeed Ajmal claimed that Shane Watson spoke to the umpires about it, but I’m sceptical about that claim as there isn’t really any evidence of it and it wouldn’t make any sense for the Australians to do it.

They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The last Indian series was one of the bitterest series in recent memory. Indian fans were baying for blood following the Sydney fiasco (Many STILL go on about it), and the attitude among the newer elements of the Indian team was to match the aggression of the Australian team.

Australia was never going to win that series, but the many on-field and off-field incidents left a bad taste in the mouth.

Australia has become a great scapegoat for problems due to the fact that they are most unpopular team in world cricket. Hell, they are liked less than George W Bush.