Are you enjoying your cricket? More specifically, are you enjoying the sight of a moustachioed Aussie fast bowler sending down 150 km/hr thunderbolts to English batsmen tentatively backing away?
If you’re 18 or thereabouts and completed your HSC this year, then you’ll understand intimately how I felt back in the summer of 1974/75.
Back then I was 18 and finished high school. It was the summer of great un-responsibility. All my dreams, hopes, failures and regrets were far in the future.
Working the holidays down the South Coast, middies cost 10 cents and you could get a rump steak that filled your plate (uncooked) for 20 cents! And inflation was supposed to be rampant.
We tried to catch as much of the cricket as we could on TV, or at worst, listen to the radio.
The great refrain from that summer: “If Lillee don’t get ya, Thommo must.”
Mitchell Johnson with his moustache is imitating Dennis Lillee, although Jeff Thomson was the star in 74/75. His fastest thunderbolts were timed at 160 km/hr, but there are those who believe his fastest deliveries were never recorded.
There are one or two other similarities between 1974/75 and 2013/14. England held the Ashes, and the manner in which the season unfolded was quite unexpected.
Lillee was returning from a serious back injury that kept him out of the entire 1973/74 domestic season. No one was sure if he would make a successful comeback. He did!
Thomson had played a single Test in 1972/73 with a broken foot and gone wicketless. NSW didn’t want him in 1973/74 bar the last match, when he captured nine Queensland wickets, including seven in the first innings.
Queensland was so impressed they decided they would rather have Thommo bowling for them than against them.
The Roar‘s own David Lord brokered a rich deal for Thommo in 1974 with Brisbane radio station 4IP. This made Lordie one of the earliest, if not the first, player-managers in Australia.
The English tourists thought all the fuss around Thommo’s awesome pace was mere hype. Even some Aussies weren’t sure if he was the real deal.
He was. Thomson captured 33 wickets in five Tests and Lillee 25 wickets in six Tests. Thommo had arrived and Lillee was back.
Aussie cricket fans mocked the English batsmen backing away, but in retrospect, this was terribly unfair. This was before helmets and myriad body protection.
Back then a batsman had a box, gloves, perhaps some homemade body harness, leg pads, his bat and his wits. That was it.
What’s the excuse for today’s English batsmen?
They have helmets and face visors, gloves with much more padding, box, body protection, leg pads, even thigh pads.
And they have bats that have a 90 percent sweet spot whereby a mishit will fly to the boundary for four. Not to mention beautifully manicured outfields whereby the ball races to the boundary after penetrating the infield.
I have this theory that today’s batsmen, indeed those of the past decade or so, have their batting averages inflated by about three to five percent.
Conditions have been so much in favour of batsmen in the past decade or so. They can play shots without fear of serious injury – a luxury never afforded the English batsmen who faced Thomson and Lillee in 1974/75.
Conversely, is it possible a fast bowler like Dale Steyn, with his phenomenal strike rate against pampered batsmen, might possibly be the greatest fast bowler in history?
I don’t think many Aussie cricket fans expected to see what has happened so far in two Tests. Most of us hoped for an Aussie renaissance, but this?
Leading 2-0 and an England team in disarray. Hurrah!
Mitchell Johnson is the single greatest reason for the turnaround. He didn’t play in England and in just two Tests has taken 17 wickets. The England batsmen can’t cope with his pace and are clearly out of sorts.
Johnson has received wonderful support from Harris (eight wickets), Siddle (seven wickets) and Lyon (six wickets).
Many people have had a hand in the “new” Johnson. Dennis Lillee and Terry Alderman worked on his technical faults.
His wife and newborn baby daughter have given his home life stability and purpose.
Victoria Cross winner Ben Roberts-Smith seems to have done wonders strengthening his mental discipline.
Darren Lehmann is the right man to guide him off the pitch, providing encouragement but with a firm hand. Michael Clarke has used him imaginatively and intelligently.
Lehmann and Clarke are proving a formidable combination. Lehmann provides the outstanding off-field man-management, focus, discipline and right work-play balance.
Clarke’s on-field leadership has always been admired for its flexibility, inventiveness and daring. He leads from the front, averaging over 60 with the bat as captain.
David Warner is making me eat my words with two outstanding Tests to date. Clarke needs some stable support in the batting. Warner is one player who has put his hand up, now others must do likewise.
Brad Haddin seems to have a new zest for life. It’s almost like the days of Gilly all over again.
A bowling team struggles hard to dismiss four or five batsmen, then Haddin proceeds to undo all their work.
Haddin had a tough time of it following Adam Gilchrist. He was always going to be in Gilly’s shadow, but he is an outstanding keeper/batsman in his own right.
Most Aussie cricket fans felt comfortable our strong suit was the bowling, and that continues to be the case. Johnson, Harris, Siddle and Lyon are an outstanding top four, with cameo appearances from Watson and Smith.
As for England, the tumbling batting averages of Pietersen, Cook and the departed Thorpe, provide the proof that today’s Test batsmen are mostly over-rated.
They don’t look so hot up against a top quality fast bowler.
It’s been quite a turnaround this summer, bringing back memories of 1974/75. Double the pleasure – enjoying the present and reliving the past.
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