Archive: December, 2011

The ball is coming out of the hand well

We were reading about Australia’s latest call-up, Daniel Trevor Christian today. Aside from wondering whether a West Indian cricketer could trade him a surname for one of his first names, we were also struck by his use of the phrase ‘the ball is coming out of the hand well’.

We were struck by this, because it was the third time we’d read that phrase in the last week. Australian bowlers seem to talk about little else but their ability to release the ball.

Is this an issue in Australia? Is grade cricket awash with bowlers who neglect to let go in their delivery stride before pointlessly appealing for a catch when they then discover the ball in their hand?

James Pattinson and Australian desperation

It’s been a great period in Australian cricket. There have been so many poor performances that the nation attained that blissful state where everyone’s running around screaming ‘do something!’ without any agreement as to what that something might be.

It didn’t matter who was right and who was wrong, just so long as you had an opinion. For the most part, the wrong opinions were the ones that won out though, which was just excellent. Top quality opening batsmen were dropped and incompetent opening bowlers were shown ‘faith’. The decisions were inexplicable. All that was important was to be seen to be doing something. Anything.

Clinging to competence

The chaos became so complete that everyone lost confidence in Australian cricketers. Perform semi-competently and a bowler could retain his place in the side even if he could only manage two successive days of cricket without getting injured. It seemed worth gambling on someone who was semi-okay, because what was the alternative?

Well, get enough injuries and you find out. The alternatives were the likes of James Pattinson and Patrick Cummins who both had stunning debuts. Even if they don’t maintain those standards, they’ve still done enough to indicate they’re probably a better bet than Mr Glass and a left-armer who’s basically a bowling machine mounted on a potter’s wheel.

Add to that the fact that Nathan Lyon hasn’t been dropped yet, despite having played several matches, and there’s a worrying possibility that Australia could actually have bottomed-out. There’s even talk of dropping Phil Hughes in favour of a batsman.

David Warner’s Twenty20 reputation

We’ve some sympathy for the young, millionnaire cricketer, David Warner – and it’s not just because he’s Australian. We feel that sympathy – just a small amount – because he’s been branded a Twenty20 player.

Warner’s done well off the back of Twenty20, but he’s always going to have to strive that little bit harder for respect now, no matter what he achieves. Like a left-handed artist or a left-handed carpenter or a left-handed teacher, his triumphs will only be reluctantly acknowledged by the public.

That Twenty20 brand will always be there. It’ll fade when he bats well, but it’ll shine like a xenon headlight bulb every time he fails. There’s something a bit snobby about it all.

Twenty20 and Test cricket aren’t different species with a common ancestor, they’re the same species. They can interbreed. A successful Twenty20 batsman is likely to have a good eye, which is a quality shared by all the best Test batsmen. A successful Test batsman will be a good decision-maker, which is also a great attribute in Twenty20.

If there were no Twenty20 cricket, David Warner might not be making his Test debut, but that’s hardly his fault. If anything, he seems to be approaching his Test career rather admirably. With three first-class hundreds in 11 games and an average of 60, he’s doing his bit on the pitch and apparently he’s spent long hours in the nets simply to practise batting for a long time.

He was out for three on his Test debut today, playing a short ball like he’d never seen one before. Maybe he hadn’t.

Australia pick the wrong bowlers

With New Zealand 176-5, you may disagree with that. That’s not really our point. Our point is that we haven’t got anything to say about James Pattinson and Mitchell Starc.

We were hoping Ben Cutting would get the nod. His training revolves around distance running, not weight-lifting – an approach we approve of – and he avoids no-balls by humming trance music to himself in his head as he runs in.

We’re a bit disappointed if we’re honest, but not so much that we’re going to get angry. We’re something of a connoisseur of disappointment and this is at the lower end of the spectrum.