England spirit is willing but technique is weak (1 December 1998)

1 December 1998

England spirit is willing but technique is weak

By Mark Nicholas

SOME game. A roller-coaster ride of a Test match deservedly won by the better team but lost by a spirited team who did not, whatever the ridiculously short time the whole business took, disgrace themselves.

If that sounds generously sympathetic to a side who were caned by seven wickets and did not manage to top 200 in either innings, then I make no apologies. Neither, incidentally, did Alec Stewart or any of his team when they were interviewed yesterday afternoon. Stewart admitted that England started badly and added that there is rarely a way back from the depths of 112 all out before two o'clock on the afternoon of the first day.

Stewart is handling himself well in public but in private, for the first time as England captain, he is hurting. He can't find any rhythm with the bat and all around him, decent fielders are shelling straightforward catches. England still continue to play one self-destructing session a match, though it is the batsmen who are culpable at present, not the bowlers. There is little the captain can do about this except bang on about the basics. He has an immense amount on his plate and scoring runs will alleviate the increasing pressure he puts upon himself.

The sympathy is driven by the terribly difficult batting conditions on that first morning. It was a brilliant master-stroke of a move by Mark Taylor to bowl first. As he said himself, even the Western Australians were urging him to bat on what looked like a belter of a pitch. He had his own severe doubts, however, and revealed in his press conference yesterday that he had never felt the match would go into a fourth day so the dangers of batting last on a worn pitch did not apply.

By coincidence, a friend of mine in Sydney telephoned yesterday to say that he had met Keith Miller and Alan Davidson for lunch. Neither, he said, had attributed blame to 'the Poms' for their batting during the first hour and a half, when the four key wickets fell. Both of these very special Australian cricketers thought that conditions were perfect for fast bowling and that anyone worth his salt would have caused chaos in the ranks of stronger batting sides than England.

Usually on a pitch of such speed and bounce, it is enough for the batsman to be behind the line of the ball, to play straight in defence, then to cash in when the older ball will still come nicely on to the bat.

The grass on this WACA pitch, though not 'green' by English standards, changed that because not only did the ball swing, as it tends to in Perth, but it moved off the seam, too, so it became nigh on impossible for batsmen to adjust their strokes. Once the ball moves even just a little at that sort of extreme pace, the batsmen is committed to play the original line of delivery and will either miss it or nick it, which means the wicketkeeper and slips can throw a party.

The way England hauled themselves back into the match does not suggest a team who will lie down and die, as recent England teams to Australia have been liable to do. They have a good spirit and give off an atmosphere of good spirit and purpose. There are some technical shortcomings which are exposed by the harshness and efficiency of cricket in Australia but mentally, England appear able to stand their ground.

The worry is that the gulf in pure quality will be too wide for even a willing team to transcend and that England will be pilloried for the wrong reasons. Knock 'em for not been good enough if you must - and at times for being careless - but not for being soft.

A word, finally, for three England players in particular who shone for their bravery amid the debris of defeat. Graeme Hick, probably in spite of himself, played the innings the cricket world has been crying out for, an innings of pride and panache. When he confronts the opposition, he is 10 times the cricketer; when he is reticent, he is rightly omitted. Insecurity leads to his reticence and the tour selectors must give him security by retaining him in Australia. It is surely now or never for Hick and it should be now, for he will be feeling good about himself.

Mark Ramprakash is also insecure but has greater self-belief than Hick, which he is using to play long, stubborn and necessary innings. His critics want him to play more strokes but it is one step at a time for Ramprakash and steady progress rather than a random graph of highs and lows will benefit England in the long term.

So to Alex Tudor, and what better subject to sign off with for now. We knew he could propel a cricket ball at a rate of knots but we weren't sure that he could bowl. He can reflect on the way he got rid of Steve Waugh for as long as he likes because it showed he has a brain for cricket which he can ally to his brawn. The unforgiving Waugh hit him for three fours in one over and much as all of us watching, and certainly Waugh, expected, the first ball of the next over was pitched half-way down and wasted as it flew a mile over the batsman's head.

Waugh was so convinced that the next one would be an angry attempt at a more accurate bouncer that he went immediately way back and across his stumps to deal with it. But Tudor outwitted him, bowled a fullish length, nipped it back off the seam and uprooted middle and off stumps. Eureka! Someone fresh, gifted and intelligent to savour. Here's to Tudor's tour in the coming weeks.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)