As everyone who is, or ever has ever been, a smoker knows there are some cigarettes you enjoy, and many more you don’t. It’s all to do with circumstances. The ones with a coffee, over a pint, after a meal, they’re the good ones. Then there are the rest, the ones you have though you know you don’t want them, the ones you suck down fast when you’re stressed, the ones that only leave you feeling worse about yourself. Late on Thursday afternoon, Darren Lehmann was at the back of the pavilion at Edgbaston, having a fag. And you didn’t need to be a smoker to guess whether he was enjoying it or not. Inside the ground, Australia were 101 for five.
On the first day, Australia had been bad. After stumps the bowling coach, Craig McDermott, had lashed his own attack. He told them they had wasted the best of the conditions by bowling too wildly, that they had been too wide too often. Lehmann and the senior players let the batsmen know that they hadn’t done any better. But it was early in the Test, and though they were behind, there was still some hope. It didn’t last long. On Thursday, despite everything Lehmann and his fellow coaches had said the night before, Australia were as bad all over again. By the time Lehmann stepped outside for a smoke, the game was all but up already. It looked like it may even end that evening.
So no, safe to say this wasn’t one of the few good cigarettes. Lazy lot as we are, journalists have always used Lehmann’s smoking habit as a shorthand for his qualities as a coach. That’s Boof. Old school. Likes a beer and a fag and a belly laugh. Keeps it simple. Looks after his mates. When he was appointed in 2013, he made it seem so straightforward. Two years on, Lehmann’s life is a little more complicated. And the fags don’t seem like a sign of how laid back he is, but instead how stressed.
This past week, Lehmann has had to confront some difficult questions, ones that have cut deep because the answers he has reached have conflicted with his own tenets as a coach. At the heart of it all, the decision to drop Brad Haddin. Since criticised by Matthew Hayden, Ricky Ponting, and Shane Warne. And you can be sure that when there is that much anger among the players only recently out of the dressing room, there is a measure of it among those still inside it, too. Especially when you consider how close those three are to some members of the current squad.
Lehmann says it was “the hardest decision I’ve had to make as a coach, or even as a player”. He sounded a little like he was still trying to persuade himself that he had done the right thing. This even after Haddin’s replacement, Peter Nevill, scored 59 in the second innings. “We all love Hadds,” Lehmann said. “The players love Hadds. So everyone’s going to have different emotions with it, but that’s part of professional sport and we try and deal with it as best as we possibly can.” The cold, hard facts, Lehmann says, are that Haddin’s form has not been good enough. Which is true. Since the end of the last Ashes series, Haddin has scored 259 runs in 12 Tests, at an average of 15. Trouble is, Lehmann’s philosophy has never just been about the cold, hard facts.
Under Lehmann, Australia introduced a family first policy for the players. And he was at great pains to point out that it is still in place. “We had Ryan Harris missing a tour to the West Indies with no guarantee he was going to play the first Test here,” he said. “David Warner missed Zimbabwe for the birth of his child.”
Haddin missed the second Test at Lord’s so he could be with his family while his daughter was in hospital in London. He missed the third because Nevill had played so well in that match the selectors didn’t think they could leave him out. “It doesn’t say much for the family-first policy,” said Hayden. “It just doesn’t sit right‚” said Ponting. “I just don’t agree,” said Warne.
On Thursday Lehmann posted a link on his Facebook page to an article about Haddin published on the Mamamia Women’s Network. The headline was “An Australian legend has been fired for being a good father”. So either he is uneasy with the call himself or he doesn’t know how to use social media. It gets more complicated. Haddin was also a good friend of Michael Clarke.
He didn’t make much of an effort to hide how he felt about it. “It’s obviously a lot harder for me because I have that attachment to Hadds,” he said before the Test. “I’ve grown up playing cricket with him, we’ve spent a lot of time together and I love the fact that he’s still here working hard.” Not so long ago, Clarke was a selector and so would have had a say. Not any more.
Clarke’s position is already weak, because he is in such poor form. The decision to drop Haddin hasn’t made it any stronger. Not least because, along with the decision to drop Shane Watson, it makes this summer feel like a watershed for the older players in the team. Clarke has few runs, and little time. It all leaves Lehmann with a lot to worry about. Like how he can balance his loyalty to his players with the need to revitalise the team. You can bet he enjoyed his cigarette breaks a lot more in the last Ashes series than he has done this time around. That’s the thing with smoking. The longer you go on, the rarer the good ones get.
