Clarke under the pump. Everyone else, well, under the pump
Australian cricket has enjoyed a series of mini-dramas this week, none more so than the array of pot shots being taken at Test skipper Michael Clarke. Strangest and most unintentionally amusing of all was the sight of Steve Smith assuring the media that his public ticking off at the hands of Clarke in Abu Dhabi was a simple misunderstanding. Smith wasn’t having a friendly chat with his opponent, he was sledging the Pakistan batsman. Well, thank goodness for that.
Not everyone was tipping a bucket on the skipper. Sitting next to Ian Chappell and Mark Taylor at the launch of Nine’s summer of cricket coverage, Shane Warne said he thinks Clarke is the best captain in the world. Chappell knocked that on the head quickly, suggesting Clarke was completely incapable of drafting a batting order. When he could get a word in here, Mark Taylor claimed that the Australian Test squad for Brisbane should be based on the selectorial plans for the Ashes series that follows the World Cup. Thus Chris Rogers, he says, should be picked for either all or none of those nine Tests.
The hypothetical selection session then went into overdrive. Taylor claimed that youth is the answer and probably made Western Australian opener Marcus Harris choke on his cornflakes when he threw the left-handers’ name in the mix. Battling away with a first-class average of 26.63 from 55 innings, Harris might also have just chuckled at the thought. Other picks were more rational. Phil Hughes was a chance too and Shane Watson should bat at three with Mitchell Marsh at six, according to Chappell.
At that point all three just started throwing up names at random. No fewer than 10 extra players from outside the Abu Dhabi Test XI were mooted (Watson, Harris, Hughes, Usman Khawaja, James Pattinson, Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins, Fawad Ahmed, Adam Zampa and Cameron Boyce). Australia’s infamous 17-man squad for the Brisbane Test of 2010-11 started looking conservative. Add Ian Healy’s concurrent claims that Chris Hartley and Peter Nevill were both well placed to nick the gloves from Brad Haddin and the Floyd Reifer era of West Indian Test cricket started looking solid in comparison.
None of this sort of speculation should be taken too seriously, of course, but it did highlight both the fragile position in which so many of Australia’s current Test men sit and the opportunity that could present itself for hopefuls. Possibly not Marcus Harris though.
Ratings through the roof, hyperbole in overdrive
With the star-depleted and largely forgettable early-season T20I engagements now over between Australia and South Africa, Cricket Australia wanted to talk up the blockbuster TV ratings (1.17, 1.29 and 1.65 million for each game, respectively) the games received this week. Rightly so too when the same fixtures only half-filled the revamped Adelaide Oval, drew just 21,538 to the 100,000-capacity MCG and saw 24,187 patrons spread across a little less than a third of Stadium Australia.
Cricket has undoubtedly morphed into a spectacle best consumed via large TV screens (yes yes, on mute), but what do numbers like the ones above tell us about the present position of the game in the hearts of Aussie spectators? Some say that punters have been force-fed too much sport (a theory with some merit), others that the South African series came too early in the season and more still that cash-strapped families are buckling in for the endless buffet of cricket that the Australian summer and World Cup will provide. A mixture of all three would be pretty well on the money.
CA boss James Sutherland’s claimed that, “they’re pretty good numbers – most grounds around the world would be pretty happy with 25,000,” is technically correct, but it was unnecessary to add, “Who knows, by the end of the season we might see 100,000.” For a World Cup final? Sure, but not for Marchant de Lange and Nathan Reardon. The CEO was far less convincing in claiming that there were also extenuating circumstances in the form of Melbourne Cup week and the fact that two of the games fell on school nights. Both excuses could have led you to believe that it was some unknown meddler, and not CA themselves, who actually scheduled the things.
Still, it wasn’t even Sutherland’s most head-scratching moment of the week. That came when he rather bizarrely claimed that the sparse crowds in the UAE for Australia’s recent Test series with Pakistan were an “open and shut case” for night Tests rather than, say, a reflection of the fact that the games were played in 40C heat in the middle of the week in neutral territory. All of you uncommitted Pakistan fans who refused to travel over by the plane-load know where to send your emails.
Stars on a streak
Another string of wins came this week in the Southern Stars’ T20I series against West Indies, a cricket nation for whom a truly awful week was compounded by receiving a clean-sweep thrashing in the four-game series. In doing so Australia progressed to its 13th straight women’s T20 win, an impressive feat in a format that lends itself to fluctuations of fortune and form. That was backed up by a three-wicket win in the first one-day international yesterday. It might be looking a gift horse in the mouth to suggest the (excellent) GEM coverage should be bumped to Nine, but surely it would rate. Jess Jonassen picked up the player of the series award for her all-round efforts.
Get well Richie – Part 2
It surely saddens all of us to ponder the mortality of Richie Benaud, one of the game’s true gentlemen and a commentary god whose absence from the Nine box over the past year has only amplified the shortcomings of his replacements, but he was at least inspiration for the loveliest vignette to emerge from the network’s season launch this week.
Cutting short the talk of Benaud’s skin cancer scare and the need to slip, slop and slap, his old sparring partner Bill Lawry looked back on Richie’s glory days in signature style; unscripted, un-PC and straight from the heart. “He’d burst through the gate with the shirt open and the Brylcream and the tan, it was just magnificent,” said Lawry. “Forget the skin cancers Richie, you looked beautiful back then.”
Got a problem batting on turning decks? Outsource it
Having trouble moving your feet to the spinners? Stumped by those dastardly slow, turning decks? Unable to turn the ball off the straight when the other guys are tossing up grenades? Fear not, there’s no problem so great that it can’t be outsourced to India.
CA’s high performance manager Pat Howard said this week that Chennai-based consultants Cricket 21 would be performing a review of Australia’s diabolical tour of the UAE in the hope of gleaning some understanding, beyond what was blindingly obvious to the naked eye, about what went wrong. What do you think they’ll say about Glenn Maxwell’s reverse sweep? We’ve probably heard enough about that one already, I guess.
“We don’t want to interfere with performances during the summer so we’ve made sure that we really go and test our thinking – we want a non-Australian point of view,” Howard told Fairfax on Sunday. It’s an interestingly worded statement if you cast your mind back to January, when outgoing national coaching assistant Steve Rixon claimed that “they [Howard and CA] interfere with a lot of the cricket decisions…” Maybe this is part of Howard’s new unobtrusive approach.
Equally interesting to note is that these very same consultants have actually been used before, specifically to prepare the tourists for facing the likes of Pakistan spin duo Zulfiqar Babar and Yasir Shah. Based upon the results you’d suggest that the advice was either useless or fell on deaf ears, but then you can’t fend off a wrong ‘un with a spreadsheet, can you? Any well-run organisation will naturally seek fresh ideas and opinions from outside the tent, but moves like this make the cynic wonder exactly what it is that the coaches already on the CA payroll are being paid to do.
The Sheffield Shield – Disco Round
Orange balls and floodlights were the order of the day in this week’s Sheffield Shield action, which produced a thriller and two other results that were every bit as lopsided as the more traditional fixtures that opened the season. Convincing winners then, Victoria’s top-order buckled badly against Tasmania at Bellerive. Peter Handscomb (96 of Victoria’s 279) and Ed Cowan (105 of Tasmania’s 253) dominated their sides’ respective first innings but the Bushrangers managed just 173 (Dan Christian 46) in the second. Undefeated Jordan Silk (97) and Jon Wells (47) made light work of the 200-run chase to secure an 8-wicket win for the home side.
Jason Behrendorff’s stealthy rise up the ranks of Australia’s quick bowlers continued with a 10-wicket match haul (7 of them in the second innings) in Western Australia’s 8-wicket demolition of Queensland. Violently ill before and during that day’s play, Behrendorff actually spent an hour off the ground at one point, such was his discomfort. Still only 24, 76 first-class wickets at 24.06 should have him on the radar of national selectors. Enigmatic Shaun Marsh peeled off 111, most of them under the Waca lights, and Cameron Bancroft 99 in the Warriors’ first innings total of 357, to which they needed to add only 17 for the win.
To finish with we had not so much a close one as a nail-biter when South Australia clawed their way towards that unlikeliest of all first-class results: the nervy draw under lights. Johan Botha’s 6-34 had sliced through the Blues for 230 in the first innings and the Redbacks replied with 293 thanks to Tom Cooper (121). By the time New South Wales had erased the deficit and set South Australia 330 to win with their 392-5 declared (Larkin 130, Henry 142), time still remained for a New South Wales win.
From 79 without loss, South Australia slid to 121-7 with only ‘keeper Tim Ludeman left to save the game but that was where things got very interesting for those of us fortunate enough to have happened across the quite brilliant live stream and commentary provided by the locals. Running out of partners at regular intervals, Ludeman edged to a disciplined 17 from 137 balls, wearing a fierce blow to the head from Mitchell Starc along the way. Sadly it wasn’t enough, with his determined stay ending when he shouldered arms to be bowled by Starc with only overs remaining. Steve O’Keefe was the chief destroyer for the Blues with 5-24 from 25 unerringly accurate overs.
Weekend Warriors
Other than rare father-son centuries for Flemington Colts pair Peter and Fergus O’Neill, things were a little quiet on the club cricket front over the weekend. If you have a grassroots cricket story to share, send it through to russell.jackson@theguardian.com
