Eye on the Ashes

At 24, in his 11th Test, and at the 11th hour of this series, Monty Panesar has taken the latest giant step in a career with few small ones. He has already been in line for the BBC Sports Personality crown, and been paid £300,000 to yak to a ghost writer about his life. His face is everywhere, from mags to masks. His name is sport for headline writers raised on British comedy – and there are a few of those, given the inordinate popularity of the formulation ‘Dad’s Army’. Now he has not only taken five wickets in a Test innings at the WACA -where only Daniel Vettori and Bishen Bedi have done so among visiting finger spinners - but contributed delightfully and improbably with the bat.

Panesar didn’t even bowl particularly well on the first day, struggling with the breeze in his face, and needing the support of his captain to get through a spell where he was too often short and wide. Nonetheless, the dimension he added to England’s attack was palpable: his dismissal of Gilchrist was a collector’s piece of slow left-arm bowling. So was his personality, infectious even in the field, where his presence had previously been depicted in such dismaying terms. His wicket-taking celebrations, of course, make Jean Borotra look like Steve Davis.

The wicket-taking party is cricket’s version of the rave: lots of unrestrained and frenetic activity in which it is hard to completely join. What happens on the other side of the boundary is connected in the event but not in the spirit. Panesar somehow unites the two occasions, behaving as we perhaps might ourselves. No sooner had he taken his first wicket on the first day than the Barmy Army was indulging in its choreographed ‘Monty Dance’, involving a lot of leaping and high-fiving. They kept it up – like most things they do – all day and with blissful abandon.

Catch of the Day: Ian Bell usually looks all dressed up with no place to go when under the lid at short leg, but his squat, swivel and dive to collect Gilchrist’s edge was symbolic of England’s new resolve.

Ball of the Day: Bell was its undeserving recipient: the kind of which batsmen have nightmares, short, rearing, compelling a shot, doing enough to get the edge. At least, he can cite it as proof of his improvement since 2005: it is taking better deliveries to get him out.

Moment of the Day: For all the fun and frolic of plucky Panesar, the day’s decisive twist was the fall of Ricky Ponting. ‘He’s Out’ announced the newspaper posters when Bradman’s wicket fell; Ponting now needs as little introduction. The effect on England was like a pinch of snuff. It also underlined just how crucial was Giles’s drop at Adelaide – if it needed underlining.

Unsolicited advice of the day: ‘Why don’t you ring Michael Vaughan and ask him?!’ Anonymous Aussie fan in the Lillee-Marsh Stand as Andrew Flintoff indulged in lots of arm waving with Steve Harmison.

In a poll last year, readers of the Guardian and Observer declared Perth their favourite overseas city. English cricketers cannot have been overrepresented among the respondents. The thoroughfare into which one turns from Perth’s airport towards the CBD is Brearley Avenue. Mike deserves at least a street: he’s the only English captain to win a Test here.

The West Australian Cricket Association Ground had a wild and woolly wicket that season - MCC bowled the home state out for 52 and 78 in the tour match – and England sported perhaps its best pace attack of the modern era: Willis, Botham, Hendrick, Lever. What England would do for any one of these bowlers now. Otherwise, the WACA has been an Australian playground, and its name evocative of pace, bounce, heat, light and, of course, wind – the Fremantle Doctor was to Dennis Lillee what the Sussex sea fret was to Maurice Tate.

The name WACA also conveys something else, referring to both association and ground. Owning its own ground has been both a blessing and imposition for the WACA. It has had a valuable asset against which to secure borrowings, and survived the Great Depression by flogging off the adjacent land for a trotting track. The challenges of providing for the arena’s upkeep now, however, are acute: the WACA looks, frankly, shabby. The fifty-year-old scoreboard is not ancient enough to be historic and not charming enough to be venerable; the twenty-year-old lights, like vertical concrete spatulas, are simply ugly; the temporary seating looks it. Yet nothing much savours of tradition here. A majestic new cast of Lillee, WA’s favourite son and now the chairman of the association, is to be unveiled on 22 December – but outside the MCG, rather than his home sod.

Fortunately, there is a big difference between an empty and a full cricket ground, and Western Australians seem determined to enjoy themselves. Perth has been declared ‘Cricket City’ for ten days including the Test – a tribute to Michael Hussey, no doubt. He, Justin Langer and Adam Gilchrist provide the local content for fans. If Australia win it will be the first time the Ashes have been regained on this ground, and Ricky Ponting may be due to have a whole suburb named for him.

In his account of the evolution of the famous American sports cable channel ESPN: The Uncensored History (2000), Michael Freeman describes a programming discussion between Bill Rasmussen and his son Scott on the eve of its launch. ‘Dad, play football all day for all I care,’ Scott finally exclaimed. ‘I’m just sick of talking about this.’ Bill Rasmussen did a doubletake: ‘Why not? I mean, why not? What’s wrong with football all day?’

Today, owned by Disney Corporation, ESPN is a round-the-clock sports juggernaut: among other claims to fame, it is George Bush’s favourite television entertainment of choice. And now it is in the cricket biz: in conjunction with Rupert Murdoch’s Star Sports TV, ESPN has acquired the rights to broadcast International Cricket Council events/tournaments from 2007 to 2015. Cricket all day? Why, it already is – and the night as well! No wonder the 'bundle' was chased with such avidity, with eventual financial benefit to cricket being tipped to exceed $US1 billion.

Perhaps the most revealing feature of Damien Martyn’s retirement announcement is the admission that he felt unequal to challenge of being ‘more than 100 per cent committed, dedicated, disciplined and passionate about the game’, as among Australians is now de rigueur. The minimum dedication standard was recalibrated last year when Matt Hayden said that he was ‘one billion per cent’ behind Ricky Ponting; the writing may have been on the wall for Marto ever since.

Figures were never uppermost when you watched Martyn bat, playing so late that he almost seemed to be procrastinating, although so easefully that he enjoyed less credit for application and more blame for carelessness than most. Journalists harped on his cheap dismissal under pressure in the Sydney Test against South Africa in January 1994, although what really held him back was that he didn’t break 50 in 21 first-class innings after being busted to Sheffield Shield ranks. He did not return from the wilderness a better player, but he was certainly more conspicuously dedicated, having partaken of that philosophy of Stuart MacGill’s: ‘When in Rome, do as Steve Waugh.’ No Australian batsman in his time was easier on the eye; noone had lovelier trademark stroke than his back foot drive through the covers. But having learned that talent could only take one so far, I suspect he understood better than most the difference between subsisting on ability and genuine body-and-soul conviction.

About fourteen months ago when a sport magazine asked me to name an Australian team for the Ashes series of 2006-7, I included Adam Voges simply for the sake of a new name. I should be modest about my powers of prescience: I expected great things of Simon Katich too. Martyn’s retirement also provides another opportunity for Andrew Symonds, and further opportunity for Michael Hussey, whom it now seems sensible to promote to number four, and for whom billion per cent dedication is merely a preliminary bid.

I’m declaring this Casual Friday at ‘Eye on the Ashes’, in order that I might share a personal story. Some readers acquainted with my book 'The Vincibles' (2002), a diary of a season at my club the Yarras, may recall our stalwart player AB. Anthony Burnell was the inaugural captain of our Fourth XI, and a better bloke at a cricket club there can seldom have been. Noone stayed later, sank more beers or rolled a bigger spliff; noone obtained more hilarity from committee and selection meetings, this being what they were mainly good for; noone was a better karaoke partner, our duet of ‘Submission’ by the Sex Pistols carrying off the Yarras’ most coveted honour six years ago. His dad Ron, and brothers Mick and Rich also played at the club; Rich is still the only teammate I have seen bat in reflecting shades.

Those who’ve read 'The Vincibles' will also know that AB died in May 2001 in an accident, driving the car he once said contained just enough room for a blonde and his cricket gear. He was 31. Few of our boys had experienced death before, and none of us were left unchanged. The back of the club cap is embroidered with ‘AB 1969-2001’. We still play our friends Sacred Heart CC in the annual AB Shield game. AB’s pads remain in the club kit, while his gloves have been handed down to our youngest player. It’s only a few weeks since Ron came to the launch at our clubrooms of a book I’ve written, and I signed copies for Mick and Rich, both of whom are now fathers themselves

AB and I had overlapping literary and musical tastes, and shared lots of books and records. There is a picture of us padded up waiting to bat, apparently oblivious to the game: AB has his nose buried in the essays of Bertrand Russell; I am reading a life of Shostakovich. He also enjoyed a colossal advantage in the round of musical clues at the Yarras trivia nights I hosted, and savoured no cricket achievement so much as one year identifying the opening riffs of ‘Television Screen’ by the Radiators from Space.

Nonetheless, it was with some shock that I received an email a few weeks ago from an old work colleague, who’d bought in a secondhand bookstore a copy bearing my name of ‘It Never Rains’: Peter Roebuck’s bittersweet diary of a county season, which I hold in high esteem. Its provenance was made more mysterious and tantalising by a note signed ‘AB’: could this, she wondered, be from the great Grumpmeister himself? Nothing so exalted. I had lent the book to Anthony and lost track of it, when I guess it was dispersed among his personal effects. When this was explained, she immediately offered me the book back.

Among many views of the Second Test, this next is among my favourites: an email from Tom White, a great servant of the Henty & District Cricket Club, who play in the Holbrook & District CA. I wrote the foreword to the club's history a few years ago: it is a little classic of its kind, populated by such legendary personages as Hulky, Daisy, Sticks, Slabba, Wilba, Maggot, Hooters, Rusty, PP, the Axeman and the Terror. I always enjoy Tom's perspective on the game - in this case, that of the hard-pressed man of the land....

"Whilst listening to the reflections of Peter Roebuck the other day on the wonderful twists and turns on the last day of the test I though once again about the old chestnut,” does life reflect cricket or does cricket reflect life”? We have had a lot of time to think lately, us farmers in Australia, and in particular those in the Riverina, (the food bowl of the nation? Not this year mate).

"I was thinking about how you can plan as much as you like and just nothing seems to go right, the conditions appear to be against you, blunting you best hopes. Australia on the first day. So you throw out the plan and do something completely foreign in the hope that someone else will do something for you. A government hand out possibly. So, you bowl round the wicket, outside the leg stump and wait??? Australia on the second day.

"Then you get back to some sort of basics and do want you know has worked in the past. Press on with some dependable tactics. Ponting, Hussey and Clarke on days 3 and 4. Then on the last day you get the luck and the rub of the green that’s been apparently missing for a while. Warne, Lee etc bowling well, decisions going your way and things again turn out OK.

Thanks to all those commenting on this blog, both those agreeing and disagreeing. I haven't responded directly because I'm a/ very busy and b/ a Luddite, but I've enjoyed your thoughts, and also the occasional greeting from long lost Yarras comrades! The only specific response I would make is to those who think I was somehow dissing Michael Hussey for being called Mr Cricket. It was a joke, dears. Time to move on. Furthermore, while I don't mind civilised disagreement, I will also be deleting comments that contain gratuitous personal insults, especially from those who regard England's Second Test defeat as a triumphant vindication of the Australian way of life, John Howard, beer served cold etc. There are plenty of outlets for you already.

From Dunkirk to Burma, from India to Hong Kong, the English used to excel in tactical retreat and strategic withdrawal. Why have their cricketers become so naff at it? Their display on Tuesday veered between transfixed inactivity to ill-timed spasms of aggression, the prosaic nature of the challenge of playing for a draw seeming to hold no appeal for them. A year ago in Perth, the South Africans Jacques Rudolph and Justin Kemp gave a superb display of positive defence to stalemate Australia. They set themselves to score in certain sectors of the field, but not others. They carefully restarted with every bowling change. They turned over the strike to exploit their left/right-hand contrast. England had noone prepared to emulate their example. Kevin Pietersen might have run himself out in getting off the mark; the sweep to his first ball from Warne then put him in the Private Pike category of stupidity.

Part of the problem, I suspect, which I have raised here before, is the nature of modern preparation for Test cricket, which has become increasingly biomechanical in its emphasis, with training dedicated to the reliable reproduction of skills and match situations simulated by drills. Players are so cosseted because of the concern about their international workloads that they play virtually no first-class cricket; coaches tinker with them in the nets as though they are no more than static mechanisms, and Test matches essentially staggered deployments of resources. How many times had Ken Barrington batted out time in first-class cricket before being expected to do it for England? How many times had Andrew Flintoff?

Nothing prepares a player for cricket matches than other cricket matches. Your skills are tested under different scenarios. Your nerve is assessed under pressure. You are accountable to teammates for your performance. Your performance is taken down on your permanent record. These days, it seems, a good many players are helpless without management telling them their ‘role’, and setting their ‘performance benchmarks’. Management has a vested interest in this: it enhances its own importance. So does the player: it enables them to evade responsibility. My favourite quote of the Champions Trophy was Steve Harmison’s response to his omission in the Daily Mail: ‘I don’t quite know why I was dropped yesterday because the management didn’t tell me, but I can only assume it was because I didn’t bowl particularly well in the first two games.’ Perhaps the memo from human resources got lost.

This won’t change, by the way. Economic forces militate against it. Be prepared for more cricketers who can hit a perfect cover drive under no pressure at all, but who fall apart on the first day of series and blame ‘nerves’.

Uncertainty is a glorious feature of cricket – except occasionally when you’re writing about it. Such an occasion has just been had, when almost to a man the media consigned the Adelaide Test to the oblivion of a drawn, only to see Ricky Ponting’s team turn around and win it. I didn’t explicitly tip a draw, but I didn’t think Ponting had done enough to win it – nor did I think Australia really deserved to. I’ll leave being wise after the event to others. It’s time to grab that mirror and take a good hard look at myself!

I didn’t think England would be as bad as at Brisbane. In fact, they were better for four days and hugely worse on the last, so I can’t take much credit for that. I didn’t think the toss would be decisive, any more than it was during the very similar Test here three years ago between Australia and India; on the other hand, I also believed that Australia had been shut out of the game by the second evening. Poor mad fool.

In a podcast before the game, I said that Les Burdett prepared his pitches with a result in mind in the last hour of the last day, and I thought the pitch played pretty fairly throughout: the best bowlers of the first four days, Clark and Hoggard, got the results. So I refrained from writing a ‘these pitches are destroying Test cricket’ piece. Phew.

Mind you, I also expressed the belief that Australia on the fourth day had reverted to a bad habit of indulging individuals at the game’s expense, and dawdled towards the end of their innings, intent on preserving their series lead rather than striving to extend it: an admission of some weakness. I was surprised that Ponting didn’t do more to make England uncomfortable, whether by pushing on more obviously, declaring earlier, or opening the bowling in the second innings with Warne supported by a flock of close-in fielders, perhaps with Clark at the other end. I expected Warne to be a threat on the last day, but didn’t believe he’d been given enough time to do his thing. So I bollocksed that up. Actually, this wasn’t one of those relentlessly efficient Australian wins of yore. Five players contributed next to nothing. The batting is frightfully dependent on Ponting and Hussey. The bowling is still reliant on Warne’s varying humours; McGrath’s spell on Tuesday was embarrassing. But by golly, they trailed that whiff of victory like a bloodhound, a veritable Hound of the Baskervilles.