Jerome Taylor (S/R: 59.2)
He’s the guy flying the flag, and I thought he performed very well against the Australians in the two-Test series in 2015. He was well rewarded for his efforts with a first-innings haul of 6–47 in the Second Test. However, Taylor didn’t have any back-up, which I can only imagine must’ve been frustrating for him. Jamaican-born Taylor isn’t as tall as the West Indies bowlers from the past, but he gets the ball through well, he swings it and has that aggressive streak I talk about. He is the man leading the attack and I hope for his sake, and for the greater good of West Indies cricket, that he can get some support—and soon.
Taylor enjoyed a dream run when he was called up to play for the West Indies in the final match of the one-day series against Sri Lanka in 2003, because he’d played in only one game for Jamaica. He was selected for the 2006 Champions Trophy and became known to the Australian team when he took a hat-trick against us in the opening group game. It was a great effort. I think it says a lot for his depth of desire and is testament to old-fashioned determination that nine years down the track he’s maintained the rage.
THE ENGLISH
The wickets in England are a bit slower and the ball tends to nip around a little bit, but the old enemy has a long and proud history of producing quality fast bowlers. Off the top of my head I can nominate the likes of Harold Larwood of Bodyline fame (or as he preferred to call it ‘fast leg theory bowling’), while others who come straight to mind include Freddie Trueman, Frank Tyson, Brian Statham, Bob Willis, John Snow, Ian ‘Beefy’ Botham (although he was considered an all-rounder), Darren Gough and Andy Caddick. I enjoyed bowling in England. I averaged over six wickets a Test, and I really enjoyed the County season in 2000 when I played for Worcester. Something I quickly realised when I first played in England was the need to bowl at a fuller length than we do in Australia, to really hit the wicket; and if you can swing the ball and make it nip around, it can help make life exciting. I really loved bowling with a Dukes cricket ball. People ask how that ball would go in Australia, and my belief is that it might be a little bit too good. I think you’d get a bit more bounce on our decks and there’d be more seam movement; and since it bounces well, it would turn the tables in the bowler’s favour.
Jimmy Anderson (S/R: 57.6)
He’s played in more than 100 Tests and taken over 403 wickets, but he’s someone who I think is very hard to gauge. Some days Anderson looks like a world-beater; he swings the ball and can appear unplayable—like he did in the opening Test of the 2015 Ashes series at Cardiff. But on other days he appears to be pedestrian, and by that I mean when the ball isn’t doing anything (as was the case at Lord’s in the next Test) he seems to be nullified. England is in a position where they need Anderson and Stuart Broad to fire and do well, and when they don’t it definitely has a negative impact on their chance of winning. I think Anderson has the talent and the potential to be the world’s No. 1 bowler, but he won’t reach that mark until he learns to rely less on swing for his wickets.
Stuart Broad (S/R: 56.8)
He’s tall, he runs in hard, hits good areas, gets bounce, gets some seam movement and moves the ball a little bit—so he has all the attributes that are required to be a really good bowler. And I think he’s improved as a result of getting more opportunities to bowl. He was the pick of England’s bowlers in the first two Tests of the 2015 Ashes series and he crowned those performances with his 8–15 in the fourth Test at Trent Bridge. It was a phenomenal effort, where the Aussies were skittled for 60 in the first innings. He isn’t afraid to say his piece, and while that has been criticised as ‘carrying on’, I think a fast bowler needs to be prepared to back himself and to have a bit of fun with the media and the crowd. He’s developing a real toughness with age and that’s helping turn him into a very good bowler. While I’ve said Anderson relies heavily on swing to enjoy success, Broad is one bloke who I think has it in him to do well in any conditions. I was at a function where Broad was interviewed on stage and he said that I was his hero when he was in short pants and dreaming of bringing the Aussies down; I was flattered, it was a huge compliment. I’d like to have a chat to him one day to learn a bit more about his philosophies. He and Anderson bowl well in partnership, especially if the ball is swinging well for Anderson and Broad is hitting the deck with a bit of seam and bounce.
17
THE LITTLE MASTER
Before we left, I remember [Bradman] said to Sachin that he loved the way he batted and of all modern players he reminded him the most of himself. You can’t get a greater accolade than that …
—Shane Warne on the meeting between him, Bradman and Tendulkar
When umpire Daryl Harper gave Sachin Tendulkar out lbw for a duck off my bowling during the Adelaide Test in 1999 many of the Little Master’s fans were outraged and the Cricket Australia headquarters received an unwelcome insight into just how fanatical some of Sachin’s supporters are, because a few death threats were directed at me via their office. As you would expect, the authorities treated the matter very seriously but I really didn’t think there was too much to worry about. It was only some angry—and I don’t mind saying, misguided—fans letting off some steam. The reason I say misguided is because Umpire Harper made the correct decision when he raised his finger to give Sachin out. I have said it before that Indian supporters have never forgiven me for dismissing their idol that day, and 16 years after the event I’ve noticed that the emotions still run strong; there are posts on the internet that describe me as a ‘cheat’—and worse—because my appeal for Sachin to be given out when he ducked into a ball as it was heading straight to the stumps was rewarded.
I’d like to think that after all the tough battles we fought over the years, Sachin and I share a mutual respect. Although, in saying that, I hasten to note that he has been quoted in a book as saying I was the only opponent he ever sledged throughout his long and illustrious career. I rate him as one of the greatest batsmen to have ever drawn breath, but I feel as though we’re going to debate that lbw decision at Adelaide until we’re old men. He wrote in his autobiography that Harper’s was a poor decision, but I’ll maintain until I’m blue in the face he was definitely out.
The drama unfurled when I bowled a bouncer that didn’t bounce. However, when Sachin ducked to avoid the short ball he’d anticipated, it hit him plum on the shoulder and that prevented the six-stitcher from hitting the stumps. Sachin is only a short guy and he ducked that low I could actually see the bails; I believed there was no doubt he was out and I appealed. Harper, who had umpired 95 Tests, had no alternative but to give Sachin out because he was in front of the stumps and he did not play a shot. It created a maelstrom of outrage throughout the subcontinent and within Australia’s Indian community. Like me, Harper—who I found to be a very fair match official—has copped it on the internet. I’ve heard second-hand that it is the one decision from his 13-year career as an international umpire that he would like to forget because it comes up so often from Sachin’s supporters and the Indian media. However, he has never wavered in his belief that Sachin was out and I understand he made an interesting point in light of Sachin’s well-publicised disappointment 15 years after the event in an interview with Cricinfo. Harper has been quoted as saying there was no mention of Sachin feeling aggrieved by the decision in the report that he filed as India’s captain after the match finished.
Throughout his 24 years in top-flight cricket, Sachin Tendulkar defined calmness and composure whenever he was at the crease. While those traits (allied with his talent, obviously) underpinned his success, it says a lot that he was able to block out the weight of expectation he carried—from over a billion fans who considered him a god—whenever he took strike. Sachin was earmarked for greatness long before he made his Test debut against Pakistan as a 16-year-old wunderkind in 1989, and in that match he gave an insight into his mental toughness when he batted on in a bloodstained shirt after being whacked in the mouth by a Waqar Younis delivery. I’ve read the sto
ries about how Sachin spent hours in the nets as a kid, and how after he either retired or was dismissed in one match he’d be ferried to another ground to bat in another game. In 1988, he and Vinod Kambli scored a 664-run partnership (both finished with unbeaten triple centuries) in India’s most prestigious schoolboy competition, the Harris Shield (in 2013 schoolboy Prithvi Shaw scored 546). At 17 he scored the first of his 51 Test centuries, against England at Old Trafford. He was one who liked to be in control. While you never knew what you’d get from Brian Lara when he took strike, Sachin was always the same. It was impossible to use Sachin’s ego against him, and he was prepared to tough it out and wait for a bad ball from which to score runs. Everything he did appeared to be so measured; he was technically correct, mentally strong and very disciplined. His longevity—24 years at the top after making his Test debut, apparently four short years after he started playing with a hard cricket ball—puts him in a league of his own. I also can’t think of too many other cricketers who matched his insatiable appetite for scoring runs and I doubt whether anyone will surpass the incredible 15,921 runs he scored in 200 Tests at an average of 53.78. Sachin has an inner-confidence and he appeared to almost loathe being the centre of attention. I also observed Sachin to be self-assured and confident in who he is—there were no insecurities. If that’s having an aura then, yes, he had an aura.
He also proved patience is a virtue and one of the most astounding examples of his willpower occurred while I was sidelined after an ankle operation during the 2003–04 season. He was caught in slips a few times trying to drive the ball through cover. Those dismissals compounded his form slump and after he posted scores of 0, 1, 37, 0 and 44 leading into the fourth and final Test of the Border–Gavaskar Trophy—with the series locked at one all—he decided to eradicate the cover drive from his game for that match. Just like that! I don’t think any other batsman could have emulated the monk-like devotion to a cause that he showed during that innings, especially when the Aussie attack tried to constantly tempt him to unleash one of his prized off-side drives off either front or back foot by bowling at his off stump. He refused to take the bait, and in the 613 minutes he was at the crease for his unconquered 241—and in which he’d faced 436 deliveries—he didn’t even look remotely interested in playing the cover drive. His decision to refuse to play at any of the many balls the Aussie attack pitched outside his off stump was like the spider who lures the fly into his web. The bowlers changed tack and did what he wanted; they bowled at him, and in one of the game’s great master classes, he used the pace off the ball to score runs.
The first time we crossed swords was in a one-day international tournament at Sharjah in the mid-1990s when he was 20. I remember in the build-up to the series, all of the talk centred around this young bloke and how he would be cricket’s next great batsman. I was keen to see how he performed. When I ran in to bowl he was on six runs and he attempted to play the pull shot, but because I managed to get extra bounce from the ball, he hit it straight to Mark Taylor at short mid-wicket. The next time we opposed one another was in Test cricket in a one-off Test in Delhi and I dismissed him for a duck when the ball found his inside edge and uprooted his leg stump. While our meeting had a great start—for me, at least—it only got harder. In nine Tests I dismissed him on six occasions, and every time I got him was a great cause for celebration. The reason for this was obvious—he was so skilled and, on his day, quite brutal.
That brutality was rammed home in the 1996 World Cup when we played against India in Mumbai. He scored 90 off 84 deliveries before being stumped by Ian Healy off Mark Waugh’s bowling. I enjoyed a good start in that match until Sachin pulled one of my deliveries for four and that appeared to be the catalyst for him to hit the ‘go’ button. Regardless of whether it was a poor delivery or a peach of a ball, he had no problem despatching them around the ground. During the post-mortem I realised we had made a mistake in that innings—he got away with what I think could have been called a lucky shot when he hit that four but we changed our approach to bowling at him. Rather than continuing to bowl just short of a good length, we pitched the ball up and tried to get him with a yorker. It was never going to trouble him, especially on his home ground (on a typical subcontinent pitch that favours the batsman) and in front of a home crowd who treated every shot as though it was a gift from heaven.
Bowling just short of a good length worked better for me in Australia and other countries that favoured bounce, because I could (and did) use it to my advantage when we faced off for World Cup matches in England and South Africa. When we played India in the Super Six stage of the 1999 World Cup, the stakes were high because a loss would have ended our campaign; we naturally earmarked Sachin as a dangerous man but I had him caught behind for a duck by Adam Gilchrist. Then, in the 2003 World Cup final played at Wanderers in South Africa, India was trying to run down our 360 and when Sachin blasted my second ball of the innings to the boundary we took that as his signal of intent. I bowled my third ball to him at a similar length but it was a tad shorter and because it bounced a little more, he hit it straight up in the air and I caught it to dismiss him for four—the groans from the Indian-dominated crowd were deafening.
While I mention two success stories, there were plenty of times when he was mentally switched on and I gripped that ball knowing he had it in him to really destroy any bowler. He rarely spoke while he batted, but Sachin certainly let me know he was out there when we played in the quarterfinal of the 2000 ICC Champions Trophy in Kenya because he decided to sledge me! I was shocked because it went against his character, but he made it clear from the outset that day he wanted to be in charge. Sachin recalled this encounter in a book called SACH and revealed he’d concocted a plan to try and upset my rhythm because it was an overcast day and there had been some light rain—conditions he thought were tailor-made for me to be dangerous. He said he wanted to put me off my game and his account of the sledge was that he said a genteel: ‘Today I will hit you out of the ground’. I remember the language being a little more colourful but after all this time that’s splitting hairs. He was quoted as saying that he believed the jibe got under my skin and that I sprayed the ball around because he made me as angry as a bear with a migraine, but I wasn’t upset by his ‘gamesmanship’. While I was surprised he had a go at me, I accepted that as being a part of cricket. I’d learnt not to be put off by any batsman long before we crossed paths that day in Nairobi. Something I can clearly remember in the lead-up to his sledge was that he attempted to pull one of my deliveries in my opening over, and I watched as it went straight up into the air. I thought to myself, Beauty, that’s out. There was a stiff breeze behind my back, however, and I watched as the ball kept going … and going … and going. Ever the optimist, I believed Sachin would be caught, but the breeze carried the ball over the boundary for six. It was incredibly frustrating to watch it just plonk over the rope and I guess he thought the universe was on his side that day. It provided Sachin with the confidence he needed to chirp. Fifteen years on and I’m still not sure whether I ought to feel honoured or offended, because Sachin has maintained I was the only opponent he ever gave a spray. It certainly set the tone for him in that match because he went for it and set the Nairobi Gymkhana Club Ground alight. He was in a mood and teed off at every ball, and his 39 runs from 38 deliveries included three sixes and the same number of fours. It provided the Indians with a flying start.
After all those years there have been many Indians who’ve been quite keen to remind me of the time I was given a tongue-lashing by their hero and all I can do is smile and say, ‘It’s just a part of the game.’ What I also tell them is I have fond memories of opposing Sachin Tendulkar, who was a great batsman and a worthy opponent. The greatest compliment I can offer him is to say that he was someone who never failed to force me to dig deep and draw out my competitive best.
18
DR JEKYLL AND PRINCE LARA
Where is Brian Lara?
—Former South African preside
nt Nelson Mandela upon his arrival in Trinidad
Brian Lara is regarded as one of the finest stroke players from any era since Don Bradman. If you use big centuries as a gauge for greatness, critics say he deserves to sit at the right hand of ‘The Don’ having scored massive hundreds with the same consistency. I’m a former opponent who readily recalls his quality, his flamboyance, his poise and courage against pace bowling. He was someone who wanted to play all of the shots in the book, and as is the case with all of the game’s genuine free spirits, he never wanted to be tied down. I think the fact that Sachin Tendulkar once said it was a ‘ joy’ to watch him bat says volumes about Brian’s ranking among cricket’s elite.
I remember Brian and Sachin as the best I ever bowled to. When he was on song, I’m not sure if there was ever a better batsman in the world than ‘The Prince’. What made him a formidable opponent was he had the skills to match his sense of daring. While he’ll be forever remembered as the batsman who scored an unconquered 400 during the 2004 Test series against England, and for hitting an unbeaten 501 for Warwickshire against Durham in an English County match in 1994, I found it interesting to learn that he nominated the 213 he scored against us at Jamaica’s Sabina Park in the Second Test of the 1999 series as his best effort.
Test of Will Page 19