by Gideon Haigh
18 DECEMBER 2010
HUSSEY, WATSON, SMITH
Past, Present, Future
A balmy day, a happy crowd, an England collapse, an imminent victory: it might almost have been an afternoon out of Australian cricket's salad days. Tomorrow is Ricky Ponting's birthday and, while his finger might be sore, they really will all have come at once.
As a victory, it won't be a classic. Australia will finish as they started, a team in transition. But the transition will at least look like it is to somewhere rather than involving further steps into the unknown. And while the bowling will have clinched it, it will have been the much-maligned batting that set it up, having in doing so provided a glimpse of Australian batsmanship past, present and future.
It is not unkind to see 35-year-old Hussey, stoutest and stickiest of Ponting's old band of brothers, in the past tense. He is a representative of Australian cricket's abiding values, having added a cubit to his span by an ethic of unrelenting self-improvement.
Hussey started his career about 25km north of the WACA, at the Perth first-grade club of Wanneroo, where his father Ted is still secretary. At the Roos, he was a contemporary of Damien Martyn, so intimidatingly gifted as a teenager that he would call laconically after each shot – 'one', 'two' or 'three'; fours came too easily to bother.
Regarding himself as nowhere near so talented, Hussey decided that the road to success ran through a valley of vigour and rigour. He has since made servants of net bowlers the world over, among the most willing being Monty Panesar at Northants – so much time did they spend in the nets together that restricted access conditions were finally imposed on them.
The other peculiarity of Hussey's technique is that he is a right-handed left-hander – that is, he does everything except bat the other way round. It's a legacy of 1980s backyard games with his similarly right-handed brother David: one of them had to be Allan Border, and Michael volunteered. Into the same category fall David Gower, Stephen Fleming and Matt Hayden, all powerful through the covers, as well as with the traditional left-hander's on-side partiality. Hussey never thrashes forward of the wicket on the off side: he caresses square and punches straight, a strong top hand always in control, with the minimum of backlift and a truncated follow-through. These were profitable shots at the WACA today, where the boundaries down the ground are shortest.
Hussey's signature this summer, of course, has been his pull shot, which he has played fearlessly, especially in Brisbane. England challenged it today, throwing down the gauntlet of Perth's challenging bounce, but Hussey as a native son made the shot look as safe and conventional as a forward defensive.
When a good batsman trusts himself, he does not think twice – it is thinking twice, in fact, that is inclined to cost you. On 92, Hussey, by now in the tail's company, faced Tremlett, refreshed by having just bowled Haddin, and reinforced by three men on the fence. Hussey was ready, pulling from in front of his face, weight on the front foot to keep the ball to ground, controlling it so precisely that it bisected two of the boundary riders; three balls later, he repeated the shot, this time forward of square, to reach a hundred. Hard work, homespun style, heady strokeplay: this innings was Hussey in excelsis.
Twenty-nine-year-old Shane Watson is Australian cricket present, part of its current make-do-and-mend modus operandi, devised to fill the all-rounder role of Freddie Flintoff, finally coming to rest in the opener's niche left last year by Philip Hughes. He oozes power, his check-drives to mid-off and mid-on fairly fly, and he lets the ball go with a decisive flourish – a good attribute in Perth, as witnessed on the first day.
Watson has always been a textbook cricketer, even if for the first five years of his career the textbook was Grey's Anatomy. That proneness to injury has since been counteracted by a Brisbane physiotherapist, Victor Popov, who weened Watson off weight-bearing exercise by introducing him to Tabata training: a regime of light weights at high speed to consolidate core strength, plus Pilates to enhance flexibility.
But while the musculature has improved, Watson's batting has rather marked time, perhaps because Ponting's reliance on him for relieving overs, perhaps because his innings seem to decelerate as the ball ages and run-scoring gaps are plugged. Often while opening with Simon Katich, he would streak away with early boundaries, only to be caught up by his dogged partner later – their strike rates ended up virtually identical.
Watson was blessed today on both counts. England's first innings was brief enough that he did not have to bowl, while Hussey's buzzing energy kept the singles ticking where sometimes they peter out. This was his best innings of the summer, and at times radiated real authority, although it was also not too surprising when he fell five short of his hundred: he has passed fifty fifteen times in Tests, and only twice pushed on to hundreds. Watson is in transition as assuredly as his team.
Steve Smith is Australian cricket's future. There is already a sense of imminent eventfulness about his presence at the crease, and today he did not disappoint. He almost ran himself out backing Hussey up too far, bowler Tremlett's throw just missing the non-striker's stumps. A top-edged hook from Finn then landed between the advancing Tremlett and Bell, and an upper cut as he limboed beneath a Tremlett bouncer cleared a gasping cordon. A pull shot from the next ball, however, showed off the 21-year-old's precocity. England must have hoped to stride through at this point; he impeded them like chewing gum on the soles of their shoes.
Smith looks a little like the boy at an Aussie club who smashes it round in the juniors so often on Saturday morning that they finally promote him to the seniors in the afternoon, where he does more than plug a gap, and soon makes himself at home; in the boy-among-men role in this team, he recalls the sight of his captain on this ground fifteen years ago. He duplicated his captain's dismissal in this innings too, succumbing to a leg-side strangle when Tremlett came round the wicket.
What becomes of Smith is complicated by his leg-break bowling. Shane Warne has already commented that time spent on his batting will come at a cost to the development of his wrist-spinning skills. There are, after all, only twenty-four hours in a day. But just now, Smith looks like he wants to use all of them. He cannot get enough of cricket – and on days like today, who can blame him?
19 DECEMBER 2010
Day 4
Close of play: England 2nd innings 123 (37 overs)
If it were done when it is done, 'twere well it were done quickly, and all it took today were ten overs for Australia to eradicate the last five England wickets and tie the Ashes of 2010–11 up at 1–1. On the first day, the sum of 268 runs, being Australia's total, looked paltry. Today, the sum of 267 runs, being Australia's victory margin, appeared overwhelming.
There was little drama about the final rites, even an air of conviviality. Shortly after 11 a.m., the strains of 'The Last Post' wafted over the WACA, courtesy of Billy Cooper. What else? A minute or two later, Cooper was at it again. This time it was 'I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside'. As it died, Steve Finn edged to second slip: time for the beach. Say what you like about the Barmy Army, they have a talent for making the best of things – it probably comes of practice.
There was even a sense of right order restored. As Australia lorded it over England, Shane Warne was being reported to have deluged a blonde with obscene text messages, that disorienting brunette interlude apparently an aberration – just like the good old days. There was only one absence this concluding morning, that of Ricky Ponting, marking his thirty-sixth birthday by nursing a fractured little finger on his left hand, sustained late the night before. It was vice-captain Michael Clarke who enjoyed the luxury of deploying four slips, gully, point and short leg, and a bowling attack able to exploit them.
Ian Bell played some shots of quality, rather too good for someone reduced to batting number seven in this second innings by the ineffectual use of the night watchman, before falling lbw – arguably the first time he has been genuinely defeated by a bowler in the series, having twice fallen while hitting out in the
company of the tail. Otherwise, the day was largely for the benefit of man-of-the-match Mitchell Johnson and man-of-any-other-match Ryan Harris, nine for 82 and 106 respectively, the former bowling the potentially irritating Swann all over the place, the undersung latter claiming a Test-best six for 47. Ponting saluted both afterwards, making a good fist of keeping his sense of vindication quiet. Rumour has it that he pressed strongly for Johnson's inclusion, and that the selectors gave in on condition he include a fourth quick bowler in case of another Mitchell meltdown. Having worked against Australia all summer, accidents may now be working in their favour.
'It's transformed him and it's transformed the way he's seen in this series,' said Ponting afterwards, seated alongside Johnson. 'Now is not the time to panic,' said Strauss, inviting the question of when is. On the subject of his finger, Ponting pronounced himself satisfied that it would prove no impediment to his playing in Melbourne, which makes complete sense. He is cut from the same cloth as Allan Border, who so frequently played with broken and chipped fingers that you almost swore he punched walls on purpose. At one-all in the Ashes series, too, he is in the same boat as Macbeth, 'vaulting ambition' ready to 'o'erleap itself'.
19 DECEMBER 2010
RYAN HARRIS
One Crowded Hour
On the flight from Adelaide to Melbourne after the Second Test, reporters were surprised to find Ryan Harris among the passengers. No, he explained, he was not flying home to Brisbane, nor even in transit to Perth for the next game: he had an appointment to see his surgeon, the same surgeon he consults after virtually every game, who takes the measure of the steadily eroding cartilage in his right knee and, if he's satisfied, clears him to play again.
If there is one consolation for England in Harris's nine for 106 against them at the WACA, it is that in an Australian cricket age without a name, he is destined for one crowded hour of glorious life. On days of heavy toil, he experiences the sensations in his leg that athletes colloquially, graphically but matter-of-factly call 'bone-on-bone'. Surgery could repair the structure, but would also cost him up to eighteen months recovery time, and at thirty-one that is simply too long.
So, Harris makes the best of it. When the knee swells, as it did after he took nine for 140 for Queensland against Ricky Ponting's Tasmanians in the Sheffield Shield five weeks ago, there is nothing for it but to rest the joint and decant the excess fluid. But fifteen years ago, Harris would not have been playing at the equivalent stage of his life, because Australian cricket would not have been wealthy enough to sustain him medically and logistically. He is a cricketer lucky in his era. He will not play fifty Tests, but he may play twenty, and that is twenty more than this affable, self-deprecating bowler expected until very recently.
Ponting, moreover, is a stark raving fan. Harris swings the ball away at speed: 150 Tests have taught the captain that bowlers with such a profile win Tests. In an attack so dependent on the shit-or-bust Mitchell Johnson, Harris's old-fashioned hit-the-deck ways are also a set-and-forget reassurance. While his nickname Ryano is hardly original, it does recall Darren Gough's cheery self-description: 'You know why they call me Rhino? Because I'm as strong as an ox.'
As Ponting mingled on the field among his victorious team this morning, he somehow reached Harris last, but it was with Harris he remained longest, patting his back all the way off – with his right hand at least, his left little finger being a tad tender for too much congratulary work. It transpired that this is something Ponting has to do quite a lot with Harris, whom he confided later is one of those perfectionist bowlers who thinks he 'has never bowled a good ball'.
It is hard to reconcile this predisposition with the broad-shouldered, gravelly-voiced, sun-goldened figure on whose head the baggy green reposes rather more naturally than, for example, Johnson, where it might as well be a bandana to go with his body ink. But it makes a certain sense. If you knew your time was short, you would want every ball to be the best of which you were capable; if every delivery was exacting a measurable physical toll, you would not wish to waste a calorie of effort. Twenty wickets from four Tests at less than 20 should comfort Harris, just as twenty wickets for Australia in this match will have comforted Australia's selectors.
The forty-wicket Test match is a rare enough event as to suggest a complete domination of ball over bat these days. In fact, it was a little more complex. Three bowlers (Harris, Johnson, Tremlett) claimed twenty-six wickets at 13 between them, the other specialist bowlers thirteen wickets at 40. From side-on, where most of the press have been congregated, it has looked throughout as though the WACA's famous siren song proved too strong for some bowlers to resist, Steve Finn and James Anderson in particular pitching consistently a yard or two short, excited by the bounce and the tentative Australian batting on the first morning.
Australia took nine unassisted English wickets, five lbws and four bowleds; of England's six, two lbws and four bowleds, two of the latter were dragged on to the stumps. Australia's batsmen played the pull shot repeatedly; England's hardly had the opportunity at all. Strauss exonerated his bowlers from criticism after the match today – one can't help feeling that this was too much an accentuation of the positive. Harris's second innings lbw victims, by contrast, were plumb, the batsmen playing back but the ball hitting the stumps halfway up. Alastair Cook did not even bother to refer his decision yesterday; Ian Bell only did so for form's sake today. Collingwood, too, succumbed to a full delivery that he had moved too far back to do anything but nick. England's batsmen may not have been psyched out by Australia's bowlers, but Australia's bowlers had certainly weighed up England's likely response to the unfamiliar environs.
As for Harris, it was time to accept congratulations, one of the first arriving in the form of a text from his surgeon, who counselled him to look forward to the Boxing Day Test. Harris should: he took six for 68 for Queensland against Victoria there three weeks ago. The salient fact, however, is simply that he will be there. In one crowded hour, every minute counts.
SCORECARDS
THIRD TEST Western Australia Cricket Association Ground, Perth 16–19 December 2010
Toss England Australia won by 267 runs
AUSTRALIA 1st innings
R
M
B
4
6
SR
SR Watson
lbw
b Finn
13
72
40
1
0
32.50
PJ Hughes
b Tremlett
2
10
6
0
0
33.33
*RT Ponting
c Collingwood
b Anderson
12
11
10
3
0
120.00
MJ Clarke
c †Prior
b Tremlett
4
13
10
1
0
40.00
MEK Hussey
c †Prior
b Swann
61
139
104
9
1
58.65
SPD Smith
c Strauss
b Tremlett
7
46
37
0
0
18.91
†BJ Haddin
c Swann
b Anderson
53
119
80
6
1
66.25
MG Johnson
c Anderson
b Finn
62
117
93
8
1
66.66
RJ Harris
b Anderson
3
8
5
0<
br />
0
60.00
PM Siddle
not out
35
69
59
3
0
59.32
BW Hilfenhaus
c Cook
b Swann
13
25
12
3
0
108.33
EXTRAS
(lb 3)
3
TOTAL
(all out; 76 overs; 322 mins)
268
(3.52 runs per over)
FoW
1-2
(Hughes, 1.6 ov),
2-17
(Ponting, 4.5 ov),
3-28
(Clarke, 7.6 ov),
4-36
(Watson, 16.1 ov),
5-69
(Smith, 27.3 ov),
6-137
(Hussey, 40.4 ov),
7-189
(Haddin, 57.3 ov),
8-201
(Harris, 59.5 ov),
9-233
(Johnson, 70.3 ov),
10-268
(Hilfenhaus, 75.6 ov)
BOWLING
O
M
R
W
ECON
JM Anderson
20
3
61
3
3.05
CT Tremlett
23
3
63
3
2.73
ST Finn
15
1
86
2
5.73
PD Collingwood