A sure footing gives Mullally helping hand (1 November 1998)

1 November 1998

A sure footing gives Mullally helping hand

Scyld Berry

Scyld Berry in Perth on how the England bowler's strong sense of identity is proving his greatest asset

IT has been a hectic week for the family Mullally. Yesterday Alan opened the bowling for England, 10 years after he had made his first-class debut for Western Australia on the same ground. On Friday his sister was married in Perth. Today the whole family are due to attend the match, their Irish-Australian celebrations permitting.

Of the six modern Anglo-Australians who have represented England, Mullally already has the best - or perhaps the least poor - record, and he will need to be more successful still if England are to make a serious challenge for the Ashes. It could be argued that he has more talent than Jason Gallian, Adam or Ben Hollioake, Craig White or Martin McCague; but it is also relevant that Mullally is secure and decided about his identity.

The Mullallys emigrated from Southend to Perth on assisted passages when Alan still had another metre or two to grow. His father came from Dublin, and retains his accent and a strong competitive instinct which is ready to take on anyone trying to rubbish his son. Alan, brought up in Australia, was born in and represents England: simple as that.

While Mullally's Test career has been confined to nine games so far, he actually goes back as far as anyone in England's party in that he bowled against their 1986-87 side in the nets at Perth. England were having such trouble against Bruce Reid that they couldn't bat, let alone bowl or field, and Perth was scoured for tall left-armers.

The following season he was a direct replacement for Reid in the WA side for their Sheffield Shield final against Queensland during Ian Botham's single season for them. The equivalent would never happen in county cricket: a teenager given the new ball on his debut - ahead of Terry Alderman - in high-pressure circumstances and told to get on with it.

Tom Moody, now captain of WA when not injured, played alongside Mullally in the two seasons which the latter had for the state. "For a bloke thrown in at the deep end, he did very well and had tremendous potential," said Moody yesterday. In 12 Shield games Mullally's 26 wickets cost 47 runs each, expensive going. "He couldn't swing the ball in, only slant it away," explained Moody.

To keep him going, as a teenager among men, then as an Anglo-Australian in England, Mullally seems to have inherited that competitive streak, beneath a casual exterior. "He's always had determination beneath it all," added Moody, by comparison with McCague, whom the Australians dispirited in 1994-95 before he went home. "He was quite conscientious and shy, and very determined," remembers James Whitaker, now Leicestershire's captain, who welcomed Mullally to Grace Road in 1990.

Usually congenial to pace bowlers, Grace Road became more than that in the mid-90s when the county assumed something of Warwickshire's democratic ethos. By 1996 Mullally had blossomed enough to get into the England side, though he had yet to get in close to the stumps, cut down his run to a dozen strides and get his wrist behind the ball, as he does now.

The England tour of Zimbabwe and New Zealand that winter, however, was one of their less purposeful, and must have been a let-down after a championship season at Grace Road. So Mullally drifted away with that languid stroll of his, but worked hard in Perth last winter to strengthen his upper body and his technique. When he returned to the England side under the captaincy of another man of Perth background, Alec Stewart, he was encouraged. Whitaker recalls: "When Alan came back from the one-dayers with England last summer, he kept saying, 'I like this set-up, I feel comfortable'. "

Yesterday Mullally took his first wicket when he swung the new ball away from the left-handed Mike Hussey and had him caught at first slip. A new ball in Australia is gold, and England had taken two wickets in their first three overs.

In mid-afternoon, again with the Fremantle Doctor to help his inswinger, Mullally bowled a high-quality spell. He still tends to drop his leading shoulder and spray his faster ball, but Langer needed all his skill in playing in the crease and his soft hands in defence to keep out Mullally, who eventually took a second wicket when Mike Dighton, in his second Shield match, sliced to gully.

Whether the rough created by Mullally's feet is going to help Robert Croft win the Ashes remains to be seen. The high-clay content at the first three Test grounds in Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide makes that improbable, but the scheme might work at the more yielding grounds of Melbourne and Sydney. Wherever Mullally's feet are though, as he plays for his native country in his adopted land, he knows where he stands.

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