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The Roar

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Philip Hughes - stargazing at the SCG

22nd November, 2007
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22nd November, 2007
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SCG at night, by Zac Zavos
The morning of the opening day of NSW-Tasmania Pura Shield match at the SCG was hot, with a little wind scampering its way across the ground on its way to the ocean in the east.

I like to get to matches early to enjoy the pre-game rituals, the foreplay as Tom Keneally calls it. So I wandered across to the nets and watched Ed Cowan, the aspiring NSW left-hand opener, having throw-downs and some fast bowling off a full run-up from one of the NSW quickies.

One ball of steepling pace hurtled into the back of the net, sending the netting billowing. It dropped out of the net falling somewhere near me. I picked it up and carefully threw it back getting it over the top of the net and under the overhead covering. ‘Nice skill,’ Cowan murmured.

At one point Cowan called out to the bowler to pitch the ball up so that he could practice his drives. The pitch was ‘very slow,’ he noted. ‘It’s one of the slowest I’ve seen here.’ But the practicising didn’t really work out. Cowan was out for 2 to the bowling of the impressive Ben Hilfenhaus. He poked at a ball that held up off the pitch.

This confirmed my long-held view about the uselessness of too much batting in the nets, particularly just before an innings. My theory is that unless you are a great player you only have certain number of good shots in your locker. Too much practice gives you the chance to use up all your good shots. You are then forced to use your bigger locker of bad shots during your actual innings.

I had come to see the NSW youngster Philip Hughes, 18 years old, the youngest new cap for NSW in 30 years aside from Michael Clarke, make his debut as an opener. Some people collect butterflies or stamps. I collect first impressions of possible sporting prodigies: Garfield Sobers, Norman O’Neill among many others, and decades later Kurtley Beale.

Sobers was about Hughes’ age when I saw him open for the West Indies against New Zealand on a sporty Basin Reserve pitch in Wellington some time in the 1950s. New Zealand had a lanky medium-pacer, Tony MacGibbon, who got good lift and pace from the pitch. In the first over of the test Sobers smacked MacGibbon over square leg for six. The ball smashed through the window of the dining room of the old stand.

You knew from that one shot that Sobers had whatever you have to have to be a great player. Would Hughes provide a similar magic moment?

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As he made his way to the middle, after NSW had won the toss, you could see that Hughes is of small stature, 170cm according to the official statistics. He’s chunky, though, and reasonably quick between the wickets. His stance is relaxed. He holds his bat in the air, in the modern manner, as the bowler delivers the ball to him. He doesn’t fidget around at the crease. He waits for the ball to come to him. And, and this is a crucial aspect for an opener, he generally has time to play his shots. Much of his game, particularly the bottom-hand strength of his play, had hints of Phil Jacques about it.

The most impressive part of his game, I thought, was his temperament. He didn’t seem to be anxious about facing 13 balls before getting off the mark. At lunch after two hours of batting he’d scored only 34. After lunch he picked up the pace and played some flowing drives and cuts through the offside field. He was dismissed after he chased a wide ball and top-edged it to point.

After Hughes was dismissed his partner Peter Forrest, a youngster of 22 playing his fifth match for NSW, increasingly took the eye. He’s small, too. Most of the great batsmen have been short, in fact. He is a cultured stroke player who scores runs around the wicket off the front and back foot (an advantage the smaller players have). He was momentarily bogged down when Tasmania set an interesting field of three on the off and six on the leg to him. After he reached his century, his first in first class cricket and off only 133 balls, he started to unveil some big hitting with a couple of sixers down the ground hit with the ease of someone swatting a fly out of the way.

If I had to predict who of the two will play for Australia, I’d go for Hughes. He has a complete game, defensively and a range of attacking shots that don’t involve much risk. His 50 came up in 111 balls, with the run-making tempo raised as his inning progressed. Above all, he appears to have the correct phlegmatic temperament an opener needs. It was noticeable, for instance, that his feel for when a run was on or not was much sounder than Forrest’s.

Later on in the day there was a lovely, relaxed innings from Simon Katich who averages over 80 at the SCG and some fearsome hitting from Brad Haddin, on his way to his third century for the season.

There were 591 people at the SCG apparently to watch a day of cricket that was as well-played as you’d get in any test match. For me the ebb and flow of the game was riveting. Tasmania made an early break-through: NSW were restricted to 80 runs at lunch: the batting, some of it brilliant from Forrest and Katich, dominated the hot afternoon session: and then finally, as the shadows stretches their arms across the ground the new ball checked the flow of runs …

Someone once remarked that cricket was invented by God to teach Englishmen the meaning of the word ‘eternity.’ This has always been heresy to me. For me, cricket is more like a great sprawling novel by a prolific and generous author like Charles Dickens.

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There is time in the novel/cricket match for characters to reveal themselves fully so that we can love them, admire them or occasionally dislike them (Ian Botham and Geoff Boycott). Each session of play with its fluctuating fortunes for the batsmen and the bowlers is like chapter on the book. There are the set piece scenes, like youngster making his debut and facing the new ball (Philip Hughes), or when a batsman is approaching his century (Peter Forrest), to maintain the tension. And then each ball is a perfect like short story, a universe in itself.

It is as impossible to walk away from a cricket match without watching one more ball, and then just one more ball. It was after 6.30 that I left the SCG – a field of marvelous deeds by the greatest players to have graced the cricket field and the fantasies of young, ambitious players – for the mundane world of rush-hour Sydney …

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