Ed Cowan leads way at Boxing Day Test

 
Spiro Zavos Columnist

By , 27 Dec 2011 Spiro Zavos is a Roar Expert

Tagged:
 , , , ,

20 Have your say

Related coverage




The outstanding feature of the beginning of the MCG Boxing Day Test, Australia versus India, was the way Ed Cowan fairly bolted out on to the field to start his first Test innings.

To me, setting myself up to a long, langurous and satisfying day watching the cricket from my comfy couch, this was a sign that the newcomer was embracing rather than shrinking from the responsibilities of opening the batting for Australia.

No one could ever accuse David Warner of lacking in enthusiasm but his entry on to the field was sedate by comparison.

The Indians, incidentally, were still in a huddle by the time both openers were already at the pitch.

This slow-motion attitude to the playing of cricket is the infuriating aspect of watching the Indians in the field. Someone once declared that cricket was invented by God to teach the English the meaning of the word eternity. I don’t know what the Indian word for eternity is but they have taken over from the old English pros in the dark and frustrating art of slowing play down.

By team time, for instance, they had managed only 54 overs. Play went on to past 6.30pm, an hour after the proper closing time. This is totally unacceptable.

Ian Chappell and others have suggested that the captains of teams that manage not to bowl 90 overs inside the normal hours of play should be forced to stand down for the next Test. If this was done, there would be none of the infuriating time-wasting that the Indians, particularly, are masters of.

This is written by an ancient who remembers the black and white days of Test cricket when up to 120 overs were bowled in a day.

The highlight of the day from an Australian perspective was the mature, disciplined and restrained (probably too restrained) batting of the Test newcomer, Cowan. He seems to have a method and temperament (rather like that of ‘Barnacle’ Bill Lawry that is made for Test cricket. It was Lawry himself who acknowledged this by pointing out at one stage that Cowan had learnt his cricket playing the four-day game.

I took this to be a response to all the experts, myself included I guess, who have been taken by the way David Warner has used the freedom expected of a Twenty20 player into the Test arena. It is a point well made, I reckon.

It is interesting looking at Cowan’s method. It explains why he could be the barnacle or anchor that the brilliant but fragile Australian batting needs. The first principle of the method is that no ball that does not need to be played is actually played. Cowan let probably 100 balls go past unplayed at.

Providing the judgment is accurate, this is a ploy that could force the frustrated bowlers to bowl at the batsman, thereby opening up both sides of the pitch for scoring shots. To their credit, the Indians refused to play Cowan’s game and at times they pegged Cowan down to a virtual immobility as far as runs were concerned. The lines of Coleridge’s ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ came to mind from time to time: ‘As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean.’

There is a point when staying at wicket, Boycott-like, and not scoring runs becomes a liability for the team. Cowan did not get to this point, although he would not want to bat through another two hour opening session, as he did, for only 14 runs.

The second principle of Cowan’s batting is that, unlike David Warner, he does not deliberately hit the ball into the air. The great Bradman hit only one six in Test cricket. He worked out that there are 9 ways a batsman can be dismissed. If you can eliminate being caught out, which is the most common form of dismissal, then all things being equal you are going to have a good Test career.

Cowan is ‘unorthodox’ in his technique, as well as his method. He plants his feet a long way apart. The commentators reckoned that only Graeme Pollock, who was a tall man, had his feet so wide apart. I would have thought that Dean Jones was another who had a wide, very wide in fact, stance.

The difficulty with this stance is that it makes it hard for a batsman to have twinkling feet. Against this, it simplifies batting. The batsman, and Cowan did this for all of his 174 balls faced, was play back by rocking on to his back foot. And he can play forward by rocking forward.

This simple method for Cowan is enhanced, in my view, by a very simple backlift. Instead of trying to time it with the bowler’s release, Cowan raises his bat, in the Tony Greig manner, well before the ball is bowled. He keeps his elbows tucked into his ribs. I think this is a method that Greg Chappell has spent some time on analysing and developing. Once again, as with the stance, the technique is simple and as Cowan showed it can be very effective.

During the lunch break and after, when there was some rain that delayed play for about 47 minutes, the new Australian coach Mickey Arthur reckoned that 300 would be a good score for his team. It looks like Australia will get there with the splendid partnerships between Cowan and Ricky Ponting (who batted almost as if he were in his prime) and then the undefeated partnership of a restrained Brad Haddin (not out 21) and a typically pugnacious Peter Siddle (34 not out).

The Indians with the new ball and play going on to 6.48pm could not break this partnership. Good. I reckon that there was some justice in this. They had meandered around so much they were forced to stay out on the field so long their bowlers were tired in the last hour of play.

Just as virtue is its own reward, lack of virtue (in this case slow-motion play) has played a devil’s tune against India.

As the cliche goes, the Test is nicely poised. My thinking is that batting first and with 277 runs on the board Australia is slightly ahead of India which will have to bat last, unless they destroy the Australian bowling in their first inning.

Wild Turkey - find out more
The Turkey 10

The Turkey 10 teams have now been selected, as Wild Turkey Bourbon's sport sponsorship kicks into the next exciting phase.

Choose which side you're going to support and get in the running to win $2,500!

Simply visit Wild Turkey Australia on Facebook for your chance to win.

Find out more.

Get a daily cricket email

Our daily emails are only sent if there is content for the sport. You can subscribe to multiple daily emails; or get the daily Roar email with all our content in it.

We value privacy. More.