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.

The Left-Handed Pearl

Left-Arm Fast bowler. They are the mythical bunch that is a diamond dozen, but those who have made it to the top have shone as some of the finest bowlers of the game.

Mitchell Johnson has blown his way to the top of Australia’s bowling attack following a humble start, and Zaheer Khan has emerged from a long and difficult apprenticeship to be India’s top bowler. But the main reason they cause excitement is that they are left-arm quicks, and can do things a right-armer would dream about.

The history of left-arm quicks traces all the way back to the very first test, where England fielded Tom Emmett, a bluff Yorkshire professional who could bowl very fast on his day. Australia’s attack, missing Fred Spofforth, opened the bowling with John Hodges, a Victorian bookmaker who played the first two tests and never played test cricket again.

On the return match in England, Fred Spofforth was supported by Frank Allen, once hailed ‘the bowler of the century’, and a man who was allegedly a gargantuan swinger of the ball. He took 4/80 in the match as Spofforth annihilated England.

England would tend to rely on left arm orthodox bowlers in its early history, but they did produce an all-rounder who could be dangerous on his day in the form of George Hirst, who achieved more with the bat than the ball in his few test appearances.

More successful was Jack Ferris, who teamed up with Charlie Turner to form one of the most lethal partnerships in test cricket history. Ferris’ career was blighted by the weakness of the Australian batting at the time, and eventually left to play in England as a professional.

When South Africa initially came into the test arena, they struggled to match the strong Australian and English teams, but they did have Arthur ‘Dave’ Nourse, a left-arm swing bowler who was the ‘Grand Old Man of South African Cricket’.

In the late 1920’s, England unearthed a young lad from Nottinghamshire who would make his mark a few years later as the accomplice of one Harold Larwood. Bill Voce, although yards slower than his older partner, was a key figure in Bodyline where he would set the leg trap and use his awkward angle and great height to create havoc and a long run of bruises.
He would have sporadic success in his career, and his last tour with Wally Hammond’s team in 1946/47 to Australia when he was long past his peak was a disaster.

After World War Two Australia unearthed a candidate for one of the all-time left-armers in Bill Johnston, a droll Victorian who had been a spin bowler before he turned to swing. He took 16 wickets against India in his debut test series and then in the next five took at least 20 wickets. Not bad, especially when you consider that he was competing with Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller for the new ball.

Frank Worrell, a much-underrated bowler due to his batting talent, was often called upon to open the bowling for the West Indies as the struggled to find the next Learie Constantine. He took a best of 7/70, but a younger all-rounder from Barbados would supersede him as an all-rounder and player. Garry Sobers, arguably the greatest all-rounder of them all, took 235 wickets bowling swing, genuinely fast, or any type of spin he felt like.

When Australia toured South Africa in 1957/58, a lot of their hopes were pinned on Alan Davidson, who was finally being given the new ball after having to wait behind the impenetrable Lindwall/Miller/Johnston combination. He was acknowledged as a master bowler, but had played 12 tests and had taken an unremarkable 16 wickets at 34.06.
In the next 32 tests he took 170 wickets at under 20 to reduce that average to 20.53. Doing that he established himself as the finest left-arm quick of that time, and he is only challenged as the greatest of them all by one man.

South Africa had developed Trevor Goddard as a useful all-rounder who at times opened the batting and the bowling for his country. When the arrival of some genuinely fast men gave him better support, the ferocious South African team of the 60’s was born.

The generation gap between the next gifted lefties was bridged by Richard Collinge, a gigantic but gentle swing bowler whose best was overshadowed by Richard Hadlee, but always gave his best for New Zealand.

Lefties struggled to make an impact in the 70’s. Bernard Julien was spoken of as another Sobers but failed to have an impact. John Lever played 21 tests as a classy swing bowler, but had to shake rumours he used slave or something similar to get swing.

Australia produced two with vastly different careers. Gary Gilmour was a spectacular swing bowler and hard hitting batsman who produced his best in the one day game. He struggled later in his career as the increasing professionalism left players of his ilk in the cold.

Geoff Dymock, a maths teacher who struggled with remote postings for many years, was a determined, hard-working bowler who improved to such a state in his early 30’s that he was considered good enough to partner Dennis Lillee during the Post-WSC reunion. He was the first person to dismiss all 11 batsmen in a team at Green Park in India in a match his batsmen still managed to lose.

In the 80’s there was little to be seen of the left-arm quick, and it was thought they had gone out of fashion as quick as the Malcolm Marshall bouncer. Then suddenly out of Pakistan came a young man with a whippy action that could bowl fast and swing the ball both ways alarmingly late.

Wasim Akram took 5/56 in his second test and showed signs of greatness. At the turn of the decade, he was acknowledged the finest fast bowler in the world, even better than Windies beanpoles Curtley Ambrose and Courtney Walsh.
Australian captain Mark Taylor, a man who managed a century against Akram hailed him as the most difficult bowler he had ever faced, and much better than any West Indian of the time. His record is formidable: 414 wickets at 23.62. He suffered during his career from a myriad of scandals, and late in his career he lost a lot of the zip that made him the most feared bowler in the world.

That said, in my opinion Wasim Akram is the greatest leftie of them all.

Australia managed to produce a tall, gangling WA quick that could make the ball swing and lift from a good length. Bruce Reid suffered from back problems his entire career, but managed 113 wickets at 24.63, he was no mug when he got it right.

Sri Lanka, after initial struggles, unearthed an invulnerable warrior who to this day carries their pace attack. Chaminda Vaas was never lightning fast, but he learned progressively as he went. He forsook pace to become a crafty swing and seam bowler, capable of blowing away teams on helpful pitches and containing batsmen with his accuracy.

Nathan Bracken had been earmarked as the next Bruce Reid when he came through the ranks, but it took a long time to make his mark. And now at 31, and having not played a test since 2005, a classy swing bowler seems to have cruelly been cast as a limited overs bowler, despite being widely admitted as one of the finest swing bowlers in the world.

But the leftie rides again. Johnson and Zaheer are at the pinnacle of this class at the moment, but South Africa has Wayne Parnell waiting to take the fight. Pakistan’s Sohail Tanvair is a wrong-footed and unpredictable quick with strong potential. And there is definitely one out there who could be the next Alan Davidson. The next Wasim Akram.

Now that would be a treat.

Bracks left scratching his head

As Steve Magoffin joins Brett Geeves over in South Africa in case Peter Siddle or Ben Hilfenhaus need a replacement, the world’s premier one day bowler must be shaking his blond locks in disillusionment after he went from Australia’s best swing bowler to typecast limited overs gun.

That reasoning has the twang of the ridiculous about as you consider that Bracken, for a long time one of the most talented bowlers in the country, has destroyed teams in the Sheffield Shield/Pura Cup for years.

In 2004/2005, when NSW once again proved that Queensland could not beat them in a final (They still haven’t), Bracken devastated their strong batting line up with 6/27. Earlier that season he had bowled out South Australia for 27 in 15 overs, taking a barely believable 7/4. That evokes stories about the time Keith Miller did something similar to South Australia when claiming 7/12.

Doubters will point to his limited success in five tests, 12 wickets at 42.08. That fails to explain a one day record of 159 wickets at 22.90, with a strike rate of 31.1. In the last four years he has been a major driving force in Australia’s successes in the one day arena.

In the 2007 World Cup, his presence meant that Glenn McGrath was dropped to first change in his last hurrah, with Bracken, McGrath, and Shaun Tait proving a formidable one day attack.

In South Africa, the conditions always favour quicker bowlers with ample seam movement, good swing, and bouncy pitches. Bracken is Australia’s best swing bowler. What has he done to deserve such shabby treatment?

The mecurial Mitchell Johnson

If the Australia’s test win in Johannesburg proved anything, apart from that Australia is not dead and buried yet; it proved that Mitchell Johnson is improving as a cricketer with every test.

His first season as a test cricketer was quite underwhelming, considering the amount of hype surrounding him and the fact he had to fill the quite sizable shoes of the finest bowler of modern times; Glenn McGrath.

I must admit I thought him overrated. He did not swing the ball much, a much needed weapon in a left-armer’s armoury, and could at times be wayward. Fast forward another season and he is the leader of the Australian bowling attack.

For Johnson to go from promising change bowler to Australia’s most dangerous bowler within a year shows how vital Johnson has become, and how much he has improved in such a short time.

Johnson has always been consistently quick, and one of his greatest strengths is being able to bowl at a good pace for an entire day. He can get swing, sometimes quite late, and his variations in pace are clever and well disguised.

His batting has improved dramatically. There is no doubt that when his career is over he will have scored at least one test century. He only narrowly missed out in the previous test when he ran out of partners. His stroke play is crisp and his timing quite exquisite. He may not quite reach that level of ability, but there can be some comparisons made to Johnson and other left-arm all-rounders Alan Davidson and Wasim Akram.

The only problem Australia has with Johnson at the moment is the high workload being forced upon him. When Stuart Clark returns that will be partially remedied, but in the meanwhile he is Australia’s best fast bowler and will be a key part of an Australian team rebuilding following its most successful period.

March 3: Cricket's Day of Tragedy

March 3rd was a tragic day for everyone close to cricket. The most fanatical of Pakistan fans are now weeping what is surely the demise of international cricket being played in their country for some time, while worldwide cricket fanatics, myself included, mourn the fact that not even a sporting team can escape from religious fanaticism.

Sadly there were lives lost. Five members of the security team, the driver of the umpire’s car, and two bystanders were killed. Fortunately none of the Sri Lankan players, the primary target of these terrorists, were killed, although both Thilan Samaweera and Tharanga Paranavitana
were hit by stray bullets.

The repercussions from this will affect cricket on a global scale as they now realise what these cretins, misguided in their religious devotion, will do to get their messages heard.

No international team will go to Pakistan anymore. The writing looked on the wall when teams such as Australia and England were refusing to tour there, blaming the political upheaval. It looked even further doubtful following the Mumbai terror attacks, when India refused to tour the country.

Any hope of the average Pakistan citizen, most of whom worship cricket, seeing international teams compete against their nation on their home turf is now long gone.

That’s part of the tragedy. Pakistan will now be totally isolated from the rest of the cricket world, with its fans forced to watch their team play in neutral venues if they are to keep playing top level cricket. No longer can their fans see the likes of a Jayawadene, Ponting, Pietersen, Tendulkar, or Graeme Smith touring.

I am so glad the Sri Lankan players are safe. If there is any good news we can take out of this tragedy, it is that we have players of the calibre of Samaweera, Sangakarra and Mendis still able to entertain the masses.

We have witnessed one of the most, if not the most, devastating events in cricket history. If the game of cricket can recover from this, it will go on forever.

The Disaster Masters

One of the unexpected laughs of the week came at the expense of England, who showed the world they are still the masters of disaster with a dismal collapse to 51 in their test against the West Indies.

And the reason I laugh? Every pommie supporter has been in my ears or on Cricinfo talking up how Australia will be devastated on their trip for England. Following their ridiculous fall on the weekend, I am completely confident that we will retain our hold on the priceless urn.

England and Australia are often accused of paying too much attention to the Ashes. It is true to some respects, although Australia in its time puts a lot of priority on its duels these days with South Africa and especially India, as well as having a long standing competition with the Windies for the Frank Worrell Trophy.

England, however, are clearly Ashes-obsessed. The tabloids in England are more infatuated with beating Australia than they are with Amy Winehouse’s drunken exploits or what stupid comment the Gallagher brothers have summoned for the week. It’s an old sore that they can’t tolerate, a colony creating its own identity and then emerging as superior in some aspects, as they have with cricket.

The hysteria surrounding 2005, when England thrillingly won to breathe life back into the contest, was a good example of how much they revere the contest, and how much it means for them to win.

There were some that hadn’t ever seen the urn in England’s trophy cabinet following its capture in 1989 and subsequent long term possession by Australia. I don’t blame them for going mad and then giving MBEs top the victorious team. They did the same for the English Union team when they won the World Cup in 2003, having knocked off, you guessed it, Australia for the title.
England were widely rumoured to be treating this tour as an ‘Ashes warm-up’. How that has now backfired spectacularly.

Their reliance on Kevin Pietersen is beginning to grow with every test, especially with the continually lean showings of Alastair Cook and the spineless Ian Bell. Their bowling, apart from the luckless yet venomous ‘Freddie’ Flintoff, is rather frail.

Stuart Broad is developing but can’t hide a lack of real pace. Ryan Sidebottom is steady and accurate, but can be negotiated by a good batting line-up. He went wicket less at Kingston, and that might be playing on their minds.

The less said of Harmison and Jimmy Anderson the better. Neither are the answer for England’s bowling woes. Harmy is way too inconsistent and has problems with his attitude. Now that he is on the wrong side of 30, they need to cut off from a talented but highly enigmatic bowler.

Anderson is a real conundrum. He can bowl prodigious swing at a good pace at times but when he has an off day, which is quite often, he can be plundered for many runs. He was highly ineffectual in the last Ashes series, and the Australian batsmen will be licking their lips if he comes into contention for a place.

Monty is certainly their best spinner. And one would hope he finds his mojo, as he can be considered a far better spin bowler than anyone Australia can muster at the present time.

England needs to have a long think, and so do all you pom supporters out there. Do you really think you can win the Ashes with this inconsistent bunch of underachievers?

Time to gamble on Hughes

As the selectors, in their infinite wisdom, gather this week to decide upon the touring team to South Africa, the vital decision they have to make is who will replace Matthew Hayden as opener.

And my nomination has to be that of Phillip Hughes.

The New South Welshman, only 20 years of age, has set the domestic scene alight in his two seasons at the top level. In season 2008/2009, he has 891 runs from 13 innings at an average of 74.25. And many have been scored spectacularly.

His double of 93 and 108 on a nightmarish track in Hobart was the sign of a player who has the potential to be an all-time great. To put that into perspective, no other NSW players passed 50, the next highest being 42 by Steve Smith.

His career thus far reads 30 innings, 1570 runs at an average of 60.38, with a high score of 198, five centuries, and ten half-centuries. If Hughes was playing for any other country (Possibly apart from India), he would be considered one of the finds of the decade, and would probably already be playing international cricket.

While it can be argued that Phil Jaques is the incumbent and has test cricket already under his belt, it would be a mistake to rush the batsman back into the side when he is still recovering from back surgery.

Michael Klinger is a red hot candidate for the tour, being at the time of writing the only batsman to score over 1000 runs this season. But this is the first season he has been able to apply himself. At 28, he can be considered a gamble if he goes.

The other choices would be for the bowling attack. Johnson is first choice, followed by Peter Siddle. Doug Bollinger and Ben Hilfenhaus should round out the squad. Nathan Hauritz will remain number one spinner, even though he isn’t a particularly strong wicket-taking option, and Jason Krejza will be the back-up, as Australia struggles to look for a permanent Warne replacement.

I do reckon it is time for Australia to dump the foolish notion of fielding an all-rounder. They have fine bowlers and decent part-time options (Clarke, Katich), so they should probably boost their batting a bit by playing a straight batsman, which could open the way for either Dave Hussey or Kilnger at six.

And I am willing to say goodbye to Andrew Symonds. A class player, and one I’ve vastly enjoyed since he started his career. Australia just doesn’t need him anymore.