The week in brief
You really know that summer has kicked into gear when the Shane Watson stories get obscure and slightly embarrassing. This week we learned of “the Watto diet”, if not a contender to the Atkins throne then at least apparently the root cause of the all-rounders’ improved moods. The secret? The more fat you eat, the more you lose. It must be stated at this point that results may and probably will vary if you’re not a professional athlete.
Further rumours of the Clarke/Lehmann rift emerged and the one between the Aussie skipper and Proteas paceman Dale Steyn continued to fester, not particularly covering either player in glory. “I didn’t want it to start a massive thing,” said Steyn, who has done a remarkable job of making it appear a massive thing in a succession of press conferences and games since Clarke’s original, apparently unsatisfactory apology.
For the second week running Australian cricket and the favourite national past-time of armchair selection (“The eight men who could replace Clarke”, said News Ltd) has been humming along in the knowledge that no-one is quite sure which players are fit enough or good enough to claim the spots grabs heading toward the Brisbane Test.
Josh Hazlewood (an impressive performer in the second ODI at Perth), Pat Cummins, Shield centurion Callum Ferguson, Phil Hughes, Shaun Marsh, Alex Doolan and even Victorian long-shot Peter Handscomb have all received a push at various points. Pleasingly that all made a great show of the recently completed round of Sheffield Shield fixtures. Meanwhile, the strings on the back of the Glenn Nostra- McGrath-mus talking doll have received their yearly yank, revealing that Australia should advance to a 4-0 whitewash no matter who is picked.
Howard down Pat
More light was shone on the ways of Australia’s high performance manager Pat Howard this week in a fascinating profile by Cricinfo’s Greg Growden, a man with an ear for stories coming out of the rugby world from which Howard emerged.
Howard emerges as a lateral thinker and innovator who charges at his tasks at a million miles an hour without necessarily considering the consequences (for further reading see ‘Watson, Shane’). To his former ARU boss John O’Neill, Howard was “Halley’s Comet: plenty of fizz and spark. Spectacular. Then just as quickly, gone.” Within eight months in that case.
A pharmacist and a Wallaby too, the strangest factoid to appear is that Howard spent his early life as a “carny” whose parents operated a sideshow alley. You’d hope that background at least imparted on him the ability to spot a clown when he sees one. In international cricket circles, that never hurts.
Shooting Stars
The Southern Stars’ domination of the West Indies continued this week with Australia wrapping up a 4-0 ODI series win on the back of Ellyse Perry’s player-of-the-series performances with bat and ball. In the final game Perry (74*) and Meg Lanning (84) got the lion’s share of Australia’s 275, a total that their opponents less than halved in reply. Perry’s innings was her fifth successive ODI half-century, making her the seventh Australian woman to achieve the feat. Australian players will now return to their respective state sides, with no international action scheduled until the mid-year Ashes of 2015.
The greatest oddity of the game was that having been reduced to ten players by injury the West Indies had to call upon Rachel Martin, skipper of Australia’s Army Women’s team, to field during their innings. Martin had arrived at Bowral expecting a relaxing day in the crowd but can now lay claim to a unique cricketing feat.
The Week in Sheffield Shield Cricket
It’s worth starting the domestic cricket wrap by again congratulating Cricket Australia for the continued initiative of providing live streams of each Sheffield Shield encounter through cricket.com.au. Special praise to our friends from South Australia for providing not only vision, but high quality commentary as well. I’d hazard a guess that as a result of this minimalist and highly addictive service, Shield cricket now draws more eyeballs than at any point in the last 30 years. Long may the clandestine browser tab live in the workplaces of this nation.
On the topic of South Australia, the Redbacks collapsed to a shambolic innings defeat thanks to the efforts of Victoria’s Peter Siddle. The Test paceman fired out five of South Australia’s top six as they were routed for 130 – this on a pitch on which Victoria had just declared at 607-7. Callum Ferguson, Tim Ludeman, Chris Rogers and Peter Handscomb all compiled centuries as batting looked like easy going on the first three days, but Siddle and Fawad Ahmed (3-12) made a mockery of the home side to claim the outright win.
Ryan Harris also emphatically declared his availability for the upcoming Tests against India with a 7-wicket match haul that fired Queensland to a 188-run triumph over New South Wales. Man-of-the-match Harris claimed 4-59 from 14 overs, while Joe Burns (183 in the 1st innings) and Nic Maddinson (118) also impressed. Test aspirant Chris Hartley collected a contentious pair, with the latter drawing the ire of his coach Stuart Law.
Finally, Australian discard James Faulkner (67*) helped Tasmania scrape through for a hard-fought draw against Western Australia in Hobart. Michael Klinger (100 and 45) and Adam Voges (41 and 109*) churned out more runs for the Warriors and their young quick Simon Mackin picked up 8 wickets for the game.
Vale Ian Craig
Sadly this week saw the passing of former Australian captain Ian Craig, the 27th of 44 men to captain Australia in the Test arena. It’s somewhat poignant that Craig should depart amid Australia’s current captaincy predicament – holder Michael Clarke injured, his deputy Brad Haddin under a cloud too – because should someone else (Steve Smith perhaps) have it thrust upon him now the situation will partly resemble that faced by the greenhorn Craig when he lead Australia on its 1957-58 tour of South Africa.
“When you’re offered the captaincy of Australia, you don’t turn it down,” Craig later said, but he also carried the far greater burden of being the first and probably most noteworthy of the “next Bradman” batsmen. If only his father John had known what was to come when he’d wishfully said as much himself after his son’s birth. He never went close to living up to the tag but then neither has any player since.
Craig was a boy wonder to say the least of it. Australian schoolboys rugby and New South Wales baseball representation had taken precedence over cricket in his early teen years but by 16 (and 249 days) he became his state’s youngest debutant, a bantamweight junior who deftly worked the men of South Australia for a neat 90 in his first innings late in the 1951-52 season. Eight games later he was first-class cricket’s youngest double-centurion at just 17 when he took the South African tourists for an undefeated 213. Thereafter the lofty predictions came thick and fast. After all, The Don was two years older and 13 innings more experienced when he’d first scaled that summit.
Winning a Test debut at 17, he celebrated his 18th birthday as a member of Australia’s 1953 Ashes touring party but the only memorable impression Craig left did not involve bat or ball. Asked by Queen Elizabeth II whether it was the fresh-faced batsman’s first tour he responded, “Yes, your Majesty, and unless my batting improves it will be my last.” The cover of Jack Fingleton’s account of the tour, The Ashes Crown the Year, depicts a smiling, slightly sheepish Craig looking to the ground in the fraction of a second following his bon mot.
Ian Craig was cricketer of a different era in every sense. Pharmacy studies and national service wiped out his 1954-55 domestic summer yet before he’d turned 21 he was back in England with the 1956 Australians. This time food poisoning took him out until the 3rd Test but after the rain-affected draw at Old Trafford he could at least lay claim to the unique feat of surviving four days of Jim Laker’s bowling to stave off defeat. Of that 4 ½ hour vigil Ray Robinson said, “Such events get no reflection in the cold mirror of averages.” Craig’s Test numbers (358 at 19.88 in 11 Tests) said nothing of his abilities.
The story of his national captaincy still makes remarkable reading. A 21-year old veteran of just 6 Tests when he was given the nod as Australia’s youngest ever leader, he made such a decent fist of it that many teammates later viewed his brief reign as a catalyst for better things. At that tender age he lead his squad to South Africa without so much as the assistance of a team manager.
Of course none of those Test matches was being beamed into Australian living rooms but Craig later said he felt the weight of the nation on his shoulders. It only showed in his batting. By the end of 5-Test series - a 3-0 victory to Australia - he had to be convinced by fellow selectors Neil Harvey and Peter Burge not to drop himself from the Test XI. He was the kind of captain who’d rather send a teammate in prematurely to knock off the winning runs in a modest chase.
Craig’s captaincy record is perhaps underrated; in 48 games at the helm of various state and touring teams he lost just twice. Struck down by hepatitis in 1958-59 and thereafter missing the national selection boat, his sights were soon fixed elsewhere from cricket. A bracing encounter with a young tearaway named Jeff Thomson convinced him to give even club games away in 1969.
Ian Craig packed much into such a short career. Should Steve Smith be required to take the reins prematurely for next month’s Test opener, he’ll be only a year younger than Craig was when he announced his premature retirement from first-class cricket. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore.
And now a word from our broadcast partners…
Rightly in most cases, KFC have copped a lot of grief in recent years for their corporate take-over of Australian cricket. The restaurant in the sky at the SCG was bad, the endless and unwanted appearances of the Madden brothers even more, well, maddening. The summer game didn’t seem to have enough refresher-towels to mop up a spiritual grease stain of equivalent length and width of the Exxon Valdez, but out of the blue these last few weeks the Colonel has finally cracked one through the covers.
It’s no Come on Aussie C’mon and probably stretches the historical product association a little far, but the fast food chain’s new television commercial at least appeals to the nostalgia glands. Through a time lapse narrative it tracks the life of a family whose every summer seems to revolve around cricket and fried chicken. Fashion, facial hair and gender stereotypes all clash together in retro style and most of us will see a scene that is vaguely familiar. My personal favourite is 1993-94 era Dad’s Ricky Pontingesque goatee beard, though the poor bloke looks uncomfortably like Colonel Sanders himself by the end.
Weekend Warriors
At some point of the season, most club cricketers are faced with situations where compromises need to be made in order to stay in the good books at home. Last weekend Crib Point cricketer Brad Davidson desperately wanted to turn out against the Peninsula Old Boys of the Mornington Peninsula Cricket Association but there was a hitch; his partner Roxy was heavily pregnant and the game was 25 minutes from home – too far to make a quick dash if he was required.
In order that he could still have a hit, Davidson dropped himself to the 2nd XI, who were playing around the corner from home. The results of his strategy were surely unprecedented as Davidson annihilated POB’s bowlers to the tune of 238 runs (a club record) as teammates kept a close eye on his phone. A daughter, Ava, was born on Sunday morning, says the Frankston Standard Leader, to cap off a memorable weekend for player and family.
If you have a grassroots cricket story to share, send it through to russell.jackson@theguardian.com
