tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2009:/eyeontheashes/118 2007-01-05T15:14:23Z Gideon Haigh's Ashes blog for Cricinfo Movable Type 3.34 tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2007:/eyeontheashes//118.3071 2007-01-05T07:36:24Z 2007-01-05T15:14:23Z

‘I’d be upset if I wasn’t upset about it.’ Justin Langer.

Gideon Haigh Several times today the Barmy Army bugler Billy Cooper showed off a new addition to his repertoire: the Last Post. This is mine at Eye on the Ashes. I have filed a report for Guardian Unlimited, and a series round up for the newspaper, so here are just a few passing observations. Andrew Flintoff spoke well at his press conference – as well as he has, at least. He wore his England cap, as he usually does: a statement of allegiance now that the statement of intent is irrelevant. He was asked some good questions, and gave no excuses. Christopher Martin-Jenkins asked him about England’s circumscribed preparation. Flintoff declined to use it as a prop for England’s meekness at Brisbane: ‘I was ready to play a Test match.’ The question remains, I think, whether he was ready to play a Test match against Australia in Australia. Justin Langer, Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath bounced beautifully off one another. Langer, as ever, spoke in tongues, saying that he was upset on the eve of the match, although this did not upset him: ‘I’d be upset if I wasn’t upset about it.’ Unimproveable. Asked about what he would do with his cap, he said he thought it deserved the protection of thick glass, not the cap from the outside world, but the outside world from the cap, which stank to high heaven. ‘He’ll have to find something else to wear to bed now,’ said McGrath. In fact, I’ll miss Warne and McGrath for their comic timing as well as their cricket. ‘5-0,’ said McGrath, a propos of nothing, as he sat down ‘It’s nice that Pigeon got one right,’ said Warne. ‘I only got one wrong,’ retorted McGrath. Pure gold. Ponting himself looked slightly flushed, maybe even a little teary. He admitted, in fact, to avoiding TV cameras on the field, as he had been feeling quite emotional. Me, I'm beat. I’ve written more than 100,000 words in the last six weeks for various outlets, so I must confess to feeling a selfish pleasure at the last day of the series. The Australians have been scintillating to watch, like the Harlem Globetrotters in their skill; England have looked, not surprisingly, like the Washington Generals. I’m delighted for Warne, McGrath and Langer that they should have gone out under circumstances that became them. There is a sneaking satisfaction, too, that Rudi Koertzen is one series closer to retirement. Thanks to those who corresponded, except to those who were deliberately or gratuitously unpleasant, who I hope suffer miserable lives and painful deaths. Comments to blogs are evidently as graffiti to the toilet door: inevitable but greatly varying in quality. My favourite comment was Crullers’ timely recollection of the Wonder Twins. Thanks to those who were so solicitous of Trumper the Cat: alive, well, and probably asleep at home in Melbourne, in my girlfriend’s tender care. As I compose this last post in the SCG press box, far beneath me on the outfield there continues a long, sprawling, noisy and cheerful game of cricket using bins, plastic bats and tennis balls. Over the last three or so hours, it has involved about a hundred people, from children of six to men of sixty, plus a score of girls, all either groundstaff, caterers, or bar staff. That must be almost as reassuring a sight for Australian cricket as what we saw this morning. Now, it’s back to the studio. tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2007:/eyeontheashes//118.3057 2007-01-04T02:38:11Z 2007-01-04T05:20:51Z

A fast bowler of enormous gifts, but a cricketer who makes Martin McCague look like a lionheart.

Gideon Haigh

'This is his 50th Test, and Harmison is a middling first-change bowler: the personification of English underachievement' © Getty Images

Steve Harmison bowled pretty well yesterday and fronted the media last night with rather more fight and aggression than he showed in his first over in Brisbane. ‘At the end of the day I don’t know what else we could have done.’ ‘At the end of the day I try my hardest’. That’s the trouble, really: from Harmison, it’s always at the end of the day. This is his 50th Test, and he is a middling first-change bowler: the personification of English underachievement. Having loosened up, Harmison also gave a surly interview to Mike Atherton on Sky. Was he sad to be going home at the end of the match? No. Looking forward to putting his feet up. What would he be doing to make sure he was ready for the first test of the English summer? Didn’t know: waiting for Duncan Fletcher to tell him. I'll give him points for candour, but the sentiment was subtly revealing. ]]> You'd never catch an Australian player giving an interview so doltish and doleful. Then again, this is also the man quoted a couple of days ago by my esteemed Guardian colleague, Richard Williams, as saying: ‘The only reason why people are saying all these things about under-preparation and loss of team spirit is because we're 4-0 down. If we were 4-0 up they wouldn't be saying any of it.’ Well, yes, and were I Harmy’s height, noone would call me ‘Shorty’. Frankly, he may not be that much of a loss to this touring party: a fast bowler of enormous gifts, but a cricketer who makes Martin McCague look like a lionheart. tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2007:/eyeontheashes//118.3055 2007-01-03T08:28:34Z 2007-01-03T08:55:13Z

‘Awwwww, everyone else’s got a trophy. Why can weeeeeee have one too?’

Gideon Haigh

© Getty Images

News, like nature, abhors a vacuum. Thus the preposterously good run enjoyed by Sir Richard Branson’s brainstorm of feeling ‘uncomfortable’ about flying the Ashes urn back to MCC, on grounds that…well…it’s really not clear, and nor is it immediately obvious why he has anything to do with it. But it was a quiet news day, and RB and a quiet news day were made for one another. Branson’s grasp of the Ashes, it is fair to say, is not sophisticated; but nor is the issue itself completely straightforward, because the trophy is twice incarnated, as the Ashes (Actual) and the Ashes (Symbol). For those who’ve just joined us, let me briefly explain. The Ashes (Symbol) derive from the original death notice for English cricket in the Sporting Times after the Oval Test of 1882, placed there by Reginald Brooks aka Watkinshaw, a pioneering work of English sporting masochism but also a riff on the cremation debate. The first cremation in England wasn’t until January 1884 - the work of the latterday druid Dr William Price – and it was at the time of the Oval Test a proverbial hot potato. ]]> The Ashes (Actual) were a colonial jest, a present to Ivo Bligh when he led an England team to Australia a few months later. Noone intended them to become a trophy for anything. Marylebone refers to them, rather endearingly, as a ‘love token’, for one of the instigators of the gesture, Florence Morphy, married Bligh: they became Lord and Lady Darnley. You can trace the modern history of the Ashes (Symbol) to England’s 1903-4 tour of Australia – the first under Marylebone’s auspices – when the visitors won 3-2. England’s captain Pelham Warner adopted the ‘Ashes’ as a motif for his team’s quest, and wrote a book called ‘How We Recovered the Ashes’. He, however, seems to have been referring to the obituary, not to the urn, which he had never seen. Competition, moreover, actually proceeded for some years without precise agreement about what the Ashes (Symbol) actually denoted. When England visited Australia in 1920-21, for instance, captain Johnny Douglas denied absolutely that the Ashes were at stake. ‘As to the ‘Ashes’,’ he told Australians, ‘people here seem to be labouring under a wrong impression. When an English team took them home [England] some years ago, my idea was that they were to stay there until an Australian XI went home next year to recover them. In the meantime I have just brought an XI here to get some practice for that great occasion.’ In other words, Douglas believed that the Ashes were only at stake on English soil. Not surprisingly, this cut no ice in Australia; the only practice that Douglas’s team experienced was at losing, incurring five consecutive defeats. It’s possible, I think, to have a civilised disagreement about this. I can understand why some regard the separate existences of the Ashes (Actual) and the Ashes (Symbol) as sub-optimal. Imagine if Arthurian legend ended with Gawain telling Lancelot: ‘I’ve quite a nice cup at home that would pass for a grail. Sod this quest - let’s go jousting instead.’ No Australian expects the Ashes to feature in an extravagant presentation ceremony, manhandled by horny-handed, Foster’s-flourishing cricketers. They simply crave the custody of an object that, originating in Australia, is as much part of its past as England’s. That, however, is an argument to do with modern sentiment, not with history. The historical argument is cut and dried: Australia is not entitled to the Ashes (Actual). There’s even something slightly petulant and adolescent about the protest: ‘Awwwww, everyone else’s got a trophy. Why can weeeeeee have one too?’ Myself, while I can accept that others may hold other views, I like the difference. To me, Australia and England play for an idea, and should have the courage of the uniqueness of their rivalry. It is for other lesser sports and nations to play for trinkets and gew-gaws. tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2007:/eyeontheashes//118.3054 2007-01-03T08:26:48Z 2007-01-03T08:48:11Z

It was hard to imagine Johnny Carson without Ed McMahon’s preamble: ‘And now, heeeeere’s Johnny.’ But does the world’s greatest Test wicket-taker really need an introduction as elaborate as he received today? Having given his hat to the umpire, dropped...

Gideon Haigh It was hard to imagine Johnny Carson without Ed McMahon’s preamble: ‘And now, heeeeere’s Johnny.’ But does the world’s greatest Test wicket-taker really need an introduction as elaborate as he received today? Having given his hat to the umpire, dropped his bowling disc on the ground and begun the disposition of his forces, the SCG announcer thundered: ‘Change of bowling at the Randwick End. Ladies and gentlemen, would you please make welcome…[wait for it]…Shane Warne!’ Was this to distinguish him from Shane Watson, perhaps? It’s fair to say that this was not a talent the announcer confined to Warne. When play resumed after rain, the umpires were greeted like long lost friends. ‘Ladies and gentleman, please welcome onto the SCG, Aleem Dar…and Billy Bowden.’ Such was the pause between the first and second names that one half expected Aleem Dar…and Sir Richard Branson. Not as silly as it sounds. tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2007:/eyeontheashes//118.3037 2007-01-02T05:18:18Z 2007-01-02T05:21:38Z

They never keep tracks of the stats that matter.

Gideon Haigh GOING OFF IN BAGGY GREEN AND GOLD: Seen at Melbourne airport yesterday: the smiling images of Justin Langer and Glenn McGrath exhorting Aussie fans to ‘Go Off In Green and Gold’ this summer. A useful reminder: retirement not only denies Cricket Australia their services as cricketers, but as recognizable and marketable personalities. The rebuilding challenge was embodied in the photo’s third face: Shane Watson. Perhaps Central Casting was asked for a blonde called Shane. There’ll be one fewer in a week. THE POWER OF GLOVE: They never keep track of the stats that matter. Today I decided to keep track of England’s glove touch rate. Strauss and Cook reached 20 in the ninth over; at one point, Cook was 0 not out with four glove touches. At this point I lost interest, but the standard rate seems to be something around two an over, usually between overs, with an occasional mid-over touch being the pretext for a particularly good leave outside off stump. Can anyone remember where this habit began? Does anyone feel, as do I, the urge to say ‘shazam’ whenever they see it? Do English cricketers now greet people socially with a jab of the fist rather than a handshake? A BOUNDARY BEYOND: Most journalism is couched as criticism or complaint, so perhaps it’s worth saluting a worthwhile development in this series that may not be immediately obvious to viewers from afar. Cricket Australia have this summer finally reversed the steady tidal encroachments of the boundary rope. At each venue this summer, the rope has been in far enough to guarantee player safety but no more, so batsmen are working just a little harder for their boundaries and spinners have a little more margin for error. To the power of modern high-performance bats, this is an overdue corrective. Another testimony, perhaps, is the effectiveness of the short cover position, where Bell was caught in Perth, Collingwood in Melbourne and Pietersen might have perishing here: recognition that bats encouraging players to go through with shots for the sheer pleasure of the physical release might also tempt them into indiscretion. tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2006:/eyeontheashes//118.3030 2006-12-31T07:42:16Z 2006-12-31T07:44:24Z

How much has it enhanced our appreciation of these two giants of the game that we have been able to study them through television and its evolving technologies?

Gideon Haigh Tucked in the corner of the ‘Eyes, Lies & Illusions’ exhibition at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image is some footage from an old Kinora: a device, invented by the Lumiere brothers, in use a hundred years ago for screening short movies in the home. Its period of popularity was brief, for the movies themselves were very brief, usually about 25 seconds long, and the Lumiere’s new-fashioned cinematographe was about to sweep the world. The display case promises ‘A Game of Cricket’, and what should pop up, between 25 seconds of a silently trumpeting elephant and 25 seconds of a smoke-shrouded dreadnought, but 25 seconds of Ranji and C. B. Fry, essaying a few strokes in front of what looks like Crystal Palace? Ranji, sleeves buttoned to the wrist, signs a square cut with a little extra wristy flourish; Fry, brim of his sun hat tilted rakish upwards, moves as stiffly as a tin soldier. Alas, whomever out of shot was doing the bowling was not exactly landing it on a sixpence. Ranji gets two full tosses, and has no chance to show off his trademark glance; Fry flashes the errant bowler a severe look when he receives a wide one he cannot reach. Then it’s on to the battleship’s salvoes: reels being expensive, there was no chance to go back for more. When Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath take the field in their final Test on Tuesday, how lucky we will be. Every ball, every moment, every tiny musing will be accessible and retrievable, in real time and replay. How much has it enhanced our appreciation of these two giants of the game that we have been able to study them through television and its evolving technologies? I’ll never forget the first time, on Australia’s 1995 tour of the West Indies, that I saw Warne bowl in what they used to call Spin Vision, but which they no longer bother to name because it is so commonplace. Or indeed on Sunset & Vine’s ARRI Tornado super slo-mo camera last year, his fingers undulating like piano keys as they set the ball rotating. We’ll remember McGrath, too, for the exquisite straightness of that back-spinning seam as the ball went on its way. We are a sports consuming generation that tends to takes its blessings for granted. A hundred years ago, when the Kinora was the best thing going, you took your chances. tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2006:/eyeontheashes//118.3029 2006-12-31T02:04:59Z 2006-12-31T02:11:51Z

Free Foresters represent a love of cricket strong enough to travel long distances at considerable expense to unfamiliar grounds and an uncertain welcome; what do the rich and pampered England cricket team represent?

Gideon Haigh In his press conference cum inquest after the Melbourne Test, Andrew Flintoff offered the praise for his team and its retinue that they were ‘a fantastic blend of people’, which made it sound like he had put together a particularly successful dinner party. On the other hand, the combination of personalities does matter in a touring side. Yesterday, after my daily 2000 words, I popped out to Yarraville to watch composite teams from the Victoria Turf Cricket Association, in which I’m a player, and Free Foresters CC, the wandering English amateurs, whose wanderings have brought them to Australia this summer. Free Foresters are one of those English clubs - see also I Zingari, Incogniti, Frogs, Cryptics, Yellowhammers et al - whose provenance and purpose leave Australians slightly puzzled, engendering tremendous loyalty with apparently no more than a dazzling blazer (crimson, green and white), mysterious symbol (a Hastings knot, loosely tied) and paradoxical motto (‘United, Though Untied’). Its origins lie 150 years ago in the Forests of Arden, famous as the backdrop to As You Like It, and of Needwood, not famous at all, and known only to tree tragics. Eighty-eight Foresters have played for and thirty-three have captained their country, including Douglas Jardine, Gubby Allen and Colin Cowdrey, even if this is now more a vestige of the Gentleman/Players distinction: star player on this sojourn is Cambridge blue 'Nutter', who made a stroke-filled 114 yesterday, before his father-in-law Phil the Farmer came in to save the day with a forward prod or two. Australia does not have a wandering club tradition, believing in associations, grades, fixture lists and home grounds, although that’s a historical and geographical outcome rather than a deep cultural aversion: when club cricket was organizing in the twenty-five years or so before the First World War, Australia was a pretty hard country to wander round. With travel cheaper and people more prosperous, that could change: Perth-based Forester Jerome Griffin is in the process of setting up an antipodean chapter of the club. By all accounts, too, the touring party of players, wives, kids and friends have had more pleasure from Australia than Freddie’s ‘fantastic blend’, from youthful Joe the Teacher, who wore his Foresters tie for the duration of the flight from England, to elder statemen John the Slip and Jeremy the Veteran, apparently locked in intense rivalry over the number and variety of injuries they can sustain. They had just come from playing in my hometown, Geelong, and were full of praise for Darren Hauenstein and the South Barwon CC: ‘a great bunch of young guys who were everything good about club cricket’. The VTCA turned on an excellent afternoon tea – of a quality, it must be conceded, seldom seen in the association itself (albeit strangely devoid of that traditional Australian delicacy, the Barbecue Shape). The ghost at the feast was Flintoff, whose team this season have so bitterly disappointed English hopes. Many heads were shaken, many chagrined words muttered. Free Foresters represent a love of cricket strong enough to travel long distances at considerable expense to unfamiliar grounds and an uncertain welcome; what do the rich and pampered England cricket team represent? At his last press conference, Flintoff referred to the steadfastness of the Barmy Army, still singing, still chanting, still cheering despite all that has befallen his team: an endearing phenomenon, it is true, but a deluding one. English people, it is true, don’t necessarily scorn a beaten team; this, however, has been the kind of tour when one could very easily grow completely fed up with English cricket. What will it take to get through to England’s captain, their coach and hierarchy, how badly they have let their supporters down this summer? tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2006:/eyeontheashes//118.3013 2006-12-29T07:47:51Z 2006-12-29T08:15:21Z

I wasn't in a position to see a replay of Rudi Koertzen's refusal of the lbw appeal against Alistair Cook, so suspended judgement, and have only just caught up with it. Laughable. Perhaps there's something significant in Koertzen using his...

Gideon Haigh I wasn't in a position to see a replay of Rudi Koertzen's refusal of the lbw appeal against Alistair Cook, so suspended judgement, and have only just caught up with it. Laughable. Perhaps there's something significant in Koertzen using his left hand, and he would give correct decisions if he swapped to his right. Umpires build reputations as 'outers' and 'not outers', according to the burden of evidence they expect for upholding an appeal. The trouble with Koertzen is that he seems completely unpredictable, giving everything one day and nothing the next. Anyway, happy new year and maintain your rage. tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2006:/eyeontheashes//118.3006 2006-12-28T00:53:48Z 2006-12-28T00:55:49Z

There have been a few legends involved in this game, but only two 'Legends'. The Australian and St George’s flags were escorted onto the field on Day One by local and visiting 'Ashes Legends'. In the baggy green and gold...

Gideon Haigh There have been a few legends involved in this game, but only two 'Legends'. The Australian and St George’s flags were escorted onto the field on Day One by local and visiting 'Ashes Legends'. In the baggy green and gold corner, Bill Lawry; from the Anglosphere, Dennis Amiss. In the latter case, the word ‘legend’ must have been used in its liberal modern interpretation. No disrespect intended to a stout-hearted opening batsman – and one who was kind enough to give me his autograph at Kardinia Park in 1978 – but his main contribution to the Anglo-Australian game was the enrichment of Dennis Lillee’s legend: he made 305 runs in Ashes Tests at 15.25. Surely a greater Ashes Legend was on hand. Derek Pringle doesn’t look very busy at the moment. tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2006:/eyeontheashes//118.3005 2006-12-28T00:51:47Z 2006-12-28T00:52:57Z

"I just close my eyes and whang it down anyway, so there's not much planning there." Thus Matthew Hoggard, bringing the house down at his press conference last night, in response to the mysterious straying of England’s bowling plan. And...

Gideon Haigh "I just close my eyes and whang it down anyway, so there's not much planning there." Thus Matthew Hoggard, bringing the house down at his press conference last night, in response to the mysterious straying of England’s bowling plan. And quite so: the plan is mainly of curiosity rather than strategic value. Mind you, noone would be surprised were it Sajid Mahmood’s copy, as he was not bowling to any recognizable logic either. He has an athletic run-up, a good turn of speed, and bowls a remarkable variety of deliveries, including a change-up that reminds me of the pitcher Tommy Johns’, whose slower ball was said to be so slow that he could walk alongside it. But he is as raw as sushi: an international bowler must be able to bowl consecutive deliveries in the same place. If Martin Johnson hadn’t used it to describe Devon Malcolm, he would deserve the tag ‘Lightning’ for never striking twice in the same place. tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2006:/eyeontheashes//118.3004 2006-12-28T00:48:55Z 2006-12-28T00:51:01Z

Ho-hum.

Gideon Haigh Another day, another Koertzen clanger. Symonds (56) hit on the back leg by Panesar, the ball seemingly headed for middle stump, about six inches from the top. Nope. Ho-hum. At least he’s another day closer to retirement. tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2006:/eyeontheashes//118.2991 2006-12-26T13:21:23Z 2006-12-26T13:58:47Z

I was at the Melbourne Test just over 30 years ago when Lance Gibbs broke Fred Trueman’s record of 307. It seemed like the scaling of Everest. Now we have a new Everest, and Murali’s K2.

Gideon Haigh

'We have a new Everest [Warne], and Murali’s K2' © Getty Images

Before the day’s play, there was a certain amount of press-box debate not merely about Shane Warne’s chance of a 700th wicket, but of his chance of a 706th. Warne took six wickets in last year’s Super Test. What might happen were that pretty daft and pointless game to have its Test status revoked? It can happen. After all, Wisden gave Alan Jones a Test cap for playing against the Rest of the World in 1970 only to confiscate it later. Some press box talking points last longer than others: this one seems to have been more or less disposed of by today’s events. Unless, of course, it’s decided that the entitlement to top level status of Tests against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe should be reviewed. In which case Warne would have rather less to lose than Muttiah Muralitharan: 17 wickets versus 137. But however you count it, 700 is a stupendous quantity of Test wickets. I was at the Melbourne Test just over 30 years ago when Lance Gibbs broke Fred Trueman’s record of 307. It seemed like the scaling of Everest. Now we have a new Everest, and Murali’s K2. ]]> Both Warne and Murali, of course, are slow bowlers: hard yakka at the best of times. ‘Bowling spin can be a lonely business,’ Warne observes in his new book. ‘A lot of the time you are the only spinner in the team.’ That being so, however, where a seam bowler on an overcast day or faced with a lush wicket might have to split the overs three ways, a spinner usually faces little competition for overs when conditions are favourable. So while we’ll probably continue fetishising the new ball, it’s likely that our major long-distance wicket takers will be those who use the old. Some commenters objected to this blog’s criticisms of Rudi Koertzen during the Perth Test. Mind you, when you’ve been branded an English sycophant and an Australian jingoist, you tend to take comments with a grain of salt; nor did Koertzen do much today to quiet my mind. By my reckoning, he rejected five good lbw shouts: Collingwood when he was 0 and 6, to Clark; Panesar when he was 4, to Warne; Hayden when he was 6 and 9, to Hoggard. Worse, he was not consistent. Having added a foot to the height of the stumps in Perth, he seemed here to have shrunk them by a foot. To say that ‘umpires are only human’ is a fatuity: so are cricketers, and they are understood to pass in and out of form, and be subject to promotion and demotion. Koertzen is, to me, out of form as an umpire. Let us, though, be constructive. How do umpires practice? How do umpires find their form? We’re apt to complain that international players are expected to produce their best at the drop of a helmet. But what about our decision makers? Once an official joins the Elite Panel, he leaves first-class umpiring behind, which countries protect for the encouragement of their own domestic officials. There is no opportunity to rehearse one’s skills in a less fraught environment; no chance to test one’s concentration over standard days' play. Is it possible, then, that the process devised to eliminate the impression of bias in umpiring has had the effect of corroding competence? tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2006:/eyeontheashes//118.2983 2006-12-24T11:58:45Z 2006-12-24T12:18:50Z

One day, the story goes, a barracker from the hill shouted to Ken Mackay: 'Piss off Slasher. You've been bumming Christmas dinners off us for long enough!'

Gideon Haigh Had a hit today with a few of my Yarras teammates. We'd all been out to see bands the night before. I'd been to see The Models at the Espy, they'd been to see Mick Thomas at the Corner, and had passed a considerably heaver night. Found myself, as a result, in relatively sparkling form. It's all about preparation. We no longer play cricket in Australia on Christmas Day - except maybe in the backyard in the afternoon, to stave off post-prandial stupor. Oddly, perhaps, given how long Sabbath observance persisted in Australian cricket, we used to. West Indies won a Test at Adelaide Oval on Christmas Day 1951, and the ground also developed a tradition of Queensland v South Australia Sheffield Shield matches at the time. One day, the story goes, a barracker from the hill shouted to Ken Mackay: 'Piss off Slasher. You've been bumming Christmas dinners off us for long enough!' These days, however, Christmas is merely Boxing Day Test Match Eve. So enjoy whatever you're up to and I'll meet you back here in a couple of days. tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2006:/eyeontheashes//118.2977 2006-12-23T07:56:07Z 2006-12-24T11:54:41Z

Glenn McGrath’s post-practice press conference to announce the end of a career so splendoured seemed extraordinarily subdued, like the Rolling Stones being reduced for their farewell gig to playing covers in a pub.

Gideon Haigh Most natural disasters are low-key by comparison with the retirement of Shane Warne, but Glenn McGrath’s post-practice press conference to announce the end of a career so splendoured seemed extraordinarily subdued, like the Rolling Stones being reduced for their farewell gig to playing covers in a pub. In his keenly observed account, my colleague Andrew Miller describes it as ‘strangely fitting’, McGrath being a cricketer without affectations or flourishes, and he may well be right. Yet it was also another confirmation of the Warne phenomenon which, like a fire exhausting all the oxygen in the room, somehow manages to leave little over for colleagues – even one as marvellous as McGrath. The humourist Beachcomber (J. B. Morton) famously defined ‘bombshell’ as ‘the omission of a cricketer from a team’. Much of cricket season also overlapping with ‘silly season’ in news and current affairs, Warne's valediction has much the same effect. It’s not that long since I watched McGrath use the Lord’s slope to rout England in the last Ashes series. An electron microscope could not have submitted the batsmen’s techniques to closer examination. Yet, since that Test, his figures have been 47 wickets at 28.14: respectable, but a falling off from his stellar standards. At times this summer he has genuinely laboured. At Adelaide he was comfortably the least of the Australian bowlers, denouncing the pitch as ‘ridiculous’, even though others made an impact where he did not. There is an argument, moreover, that Stuart Clark might be more effective still with unquestioned custody of the new ball, which he used adeptly in South Africa. Which raises the question: how effective would McGrath be without it? In all, though, what a wonderful bowler. And, from everything I have observed of him off the field, what a decent man. About seven years ago, Wisden Australia, of which I was then editor, anointed him International Cricketer of the Year, and hosted him at a lunch in Brisbane. Quite prepared to take an altogether unreasonable dislike to him, I found McGrath improbably but naturally modest, and extremely perceptive about cricket in general, rather than simply about 'putting it in the right areas' and 'bowling in the corridor'. Funny, too: even now, nobody gives a more drolly self-deprecating press conference. Oddly, perhaps, I’d also like to salute his batting. The sight of McGrath with a bat used to be as incongruous as an obese smoker in lycra: the impedimenta just seemed completely superfluous. But he worked his way to being a capable tailender – probably as good a number 11 as any in the world - and that old reputation became a subtle advantage. If McGrath kept a fielding team waiting even a few overs for his wicket, you could sense the irritation and frustration intensifying. ‘Can’t get McGrath out? Wassamatter with ya?’ In last year’s Boxing Day Test, he drove South Africa to distraction, keeping Michael Hussey company from 50 to a brilliant 100. Having started his career as Australia’s batting postscript, he became the sting in its tail. tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2006:/eyeontheashes//118.2967 2006-12-21T08:23:33Z 2006-12-21T09:09:45Z

Warne was mandated by nature to bowl slow.

Gideon Haigh

Shane Warne possessed a fast bowler's aggression in a slow bowler's skin © Getty Images

I seem to have been talking about Shane Warne all day, to people who know lots about cricket, and many who don’t, because he was the cricketer of whom everyone had heard, and on whom everyone held an opinion. My mum had a view on Warne. The girl at the post office and the guy at the servo, who know I’m into cricket, wanted to talk about him. I didn’t get to the presser because I had to field talkback calls about him on the ABC: it is fair to say that there was a wide range of very emphatic views. It was said of Augustus that he found Rome brick and left it marble: the same is true of Warne and spin bowling. But just because Warne has done it with such apparent ease, noone should underestimate the degree of difficulty involved. Have you tried to bowl a leg-break? I’ve been playing club cricket since I was nine, and I would give anything to be able to bowl a proper one, but they either hurtle into the ground or fly off into outer space like a malfunctioning satellite. Yet Warne can drop them as precisely as a dragon fly alighting on a lily pad. ]]> Warne was mandated by nature to bowl slow. He has a surprisingly gentle handshake, but you can feel the strength in those big fingers. He has broad shoulders and a powerful back leg drive, so that he almost body surfs into his delivery: the contrast is MacGill who does most of his work with his arm. And that action – so simple, so grooved, so efficient. It is nothing other than a miracle of coordination. Above all, perhaps, is the mentality: that fast bowler's aggression in a slow bowler's skin. All the Warne books in my library seem to feature a cover shot of him appealing. If you knew no better, you'd think they were the work of a bowler who tried to bust open people's heads for a living. He only threatened eardrums. What a combination. If you doubt this, check the landscape. It’s often stated that Warne made every kid in Australia want to bowl leggers. Warne says in ‘My Illustrated Career’: ‘My biggest contribution has been to make slow bowling exciting and even fashionable.’ But MacGill is still the second-best leg spinner in Australia, and Cameron White and Cullen Bailey do not a renaissance make. It might be exciting. It might be fashionable. But it’s no easier. More over at Guardian Unlimited, if you're interested.