cricket with balls

As I mentioned in my previous blog, Andrew Symonds was the stand out for Australia in the Future Cup. In game six he made a well earned century after Australia had made a quick start but found itself bogged down in the middle overs when the power plays had ended. The ball had lost its hardness and the Indians had identified the wicket was a slow one and had implemented their medium pacers and spinners to make reaching the boundaries difficult. Harbajan Singh was turning it sideways. Brad Haddin was new to the crease and was attempting to use some initiative and play himself in, with the idea of striking out in the later overs, as he had had a strong series to date. At 6 runs from 29 balls, it wasn’t working and the pressure was building…….

At the other end the old Andrew Symonds would have attempted to hit himself out of trouble, when faced with this scenario, and he would not have necessarily waited for the right ball. Sometimes this worked……more often than not it wouldn’t. In this game he was prepared to rotate the strike and turn singles into twos, without once taking a ridiculous risk. He also displayed a wide variety of deft touch by way of fine late cuts to very fine third man or fine behind square. Finesse never seen from him before. He seems focused on playing a lot straighter and his lofted drives in Game 6 were a feature, eliminating a lot of the risk associated with hitting in the air.

There is no question that even with this steady improvement in technique and attitude that Symonds would never have been able to break into Test cricket 15-20 years ago facing up to the likes of Kapil Dev, Imran Khan, Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh, Malcolm Marshall, Waqar Younis, Wasim Akram etc, who could make that little red ball ‘talk’ in ways we can only dream about now……..and at a very rapid rate that makes Brett Lee look like the Patrick Patterson he is……..

He has a chance of making it in Test cricket these days because there isn’t a single pace bowler in Test cricket that would be worthy of being the same state/province/county (depending where you come from) as the above mentioned legends of the craft of fast/swing bowling. I dare anyone out there to contradict this fact. Living proof is the fact that a no talent, big mouth like Kevin Pieterson can have the sort of record he does in Test cricket when he has the worst technique in the history of cricket. He only knows one way – to slog and thrash his way out of every situation. Swinging across the line at every opportunity, lifting his head, never moving his feet………it makes me sick to think this is what Test cricket has come to.

He has a worthy counterpart in this department in the equally ugly ‘axe man’ in South African skipper Graeme Smith. The only difference is that Smith hasn’t had the same luck, early in his innings as Pieterson. ……….Don’t even get me started on Shahid Afridi!! This style of batting is spreading through the ranks of Test cricket as well as the kids coming through, faster than Equine Influenza.

The Future Cup was a triumph for two veterans of the game in Matthew Hayden and Sachin Tendulkar. Hayden continued his rich vein of form until a worrying, untimely hip injury, which makes you wonder why he has to be played in such a series which has no importance, one month out from a Test series? Hayden is the perfect example of how best to hit out in a one day game at minimal risk. Hayden is the master of hitting through the line of a ball, using conventional cricket shots. He also uses his feet superbly to change the length of balls. When he has his full momentum through a ball, not unlike a golf swing, his timing is amazing and he is almost impossible to bowl to. Ricky Ponting has also mastered this art. Other countries should be adopting this play in an effort to compete with the Aussies.

Tendulkar on the other hand, turned his Future Cup around at the end of the series, after a very shaky start, using the Hayden method of one day attack, minus the power. It was a rare glimpse of the Tendulkar of old, absolutely murdering the bowling at times with his precise driving of anything over pitched on both sides of the wicket. Technically, he is almost perfect and only Ricky Ponting plays the horizontal bat strokes better. He teamed well with Ganguly at the top of the order, but sadly he couldn’t turn his fifties and sixties into a couple of hundreds he deserved. Time seems to have passed The Little Master by, but it is admirable the way he has adjusted his game to counter his diminishing powers.

Other notable performances from the Future Cup for India were the hundred scored against the tidal wave from Yuvaraj Singh, who is a prodigious talent who needs to venture from the dark side and polish his skills to be an impact player in Test cricket. See Matthew Hayden. Yuvaraj’s innings was one that required patience and he was left to carry the load, a role he isn’t familiar with as he has been used solely as a hitter in the past.

I never thought I would see the day when Murali Karthik would take six wickets in a game, let alone against Australia. He took advantage of the slower wickets and bowled very, very well. No batsmen could get hold of him and his variations, although slight were well executed, particularly the arm ball.

Finally, I felt Dhoni did a very serviceable job of captaining the side. He had clearly defined game plans and wasn’t afraid to take the Aussies on. This is a characteristic very few Indian captains have had recently and he looks like he might be able to lead from the front. Rarely was he flustered when things were on the skids and he backed his players to follow through, regardless. Having said that, he too needs to come from the dark side and put a higher price on his wicket and lead by example in the tougher game of Test cricket.

The big question remains, can the Indians expose the Australians lack of bowling depth in the up and coming Test series in Australia, as they did in the last series in Australia? Or, as Big Daddy has outlined earlier, will they wilt under the pressure of five day cricket? I feel they have the quality in there squad to cause us some headaches, but I doubt they have the constitution to follow through, particularly if they continue with some fading stars in Ganguly and Dravid. It promises to be an interesting series none the less, let’s just hope on the ground……….