The Roar
The Roar

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Australia for the win, but prepare my soapbox anyway

7th January, 2015
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Shane Watson admits he wasn't the best at using DRS. (AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts)
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7th January, 2015
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Steven Smith will be a contented captain as his team takes the field on Day 3, and after two days of sheer, unadulterated domination, the Test is his for the winning.

When Ryan Harris is flaying boundaries for fun, you know the top order has done a job. When Mitchell Starc is winning the immediate approval of Shane Warne, you know it’s been a good day.

FOLLOW SCORES FROM DAY 3 OF THE CRICKET IN SYDNEY HERE

For the first time in the history of the great game, as I’m sure you heard, the top six of an Australian team all passed 50. One of them, especially, wasn’t able to push it to three figures for 24th time in Tests.

I really didn’t want to get into yet another discussion about the fortune and misfortune of Shane Watson, but it’s almost impossible to avoid. And it was evident from the outset again yesterday; whereas Smith just picked up where he left off on Day 1, Watson continued to poke and prod and scratch and scrape.

Mohammed Shami struck Watson in the fourth over of the day, with the ball flying away for three leg byes off his helmet. Watson waved away the Australian physio when he appeared, but he took his time before looking comfortable again.

Smith, meanwhile, just raced from his overnight score of 82 into the nineties, and brought up just another superb Test century inside 45 minutes. The way he raised the ton was so typical of the series, too; a heavily offside-stacked field saw a knee-height full toss delivered on leg stump, which Smith promptly whipped through midwicket for four. It was Smith’s 683rd Test run for the series, and it was just too easy.

Watson on the other hand was making batting look tough. Ravi Ashwin was keeping him tied down with a very straight line and four catchers around the bat on the leg side. You could set your watch for the likelihood of Watson wanting to belt his way out of the shackles.

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Shami banged one in short, and Watson with acres of room on the leg side managed to quite skilfully pick out Ashwin at deep midwicket. Everything that could possibly infuriate you about a Shane Watson dismissal was there to take in.

For starters, the field. India have had a mid wicket at varying depths since Watson first came to the wicket on Tuesday afternoon. They know he likes to pull on the front foot, and he knows they know he likes to pull on the front foot.

So sure, pull on the front foot Shane, but hey, any danger of rolling your wrists? Or, you know, if you can see it so early that you can pull on the front foot, why hit it down the throat of the only bloke between you and the fence? Even just five metres either side of the man would’ve seen it go for four!

It’s seriously blood boiling. And here I am, up on the bloody soapbox again when I said I didn’t want to. That’s the gravitational pull of a Watson dismissal. He plays a stupid shot, straight to the only bloke on the fence between Paddington and bloody Wollongong, has the blank ‘oh, there was a bloke out there’ look on his face, and trudges off in the slowest possible way while your blood pressure goes through the roof.

Geoff Lemon was stationed in the press box row immediately in front of me, and it takes all of my inner strength to not take his “Hey, Watson!” rant from the last Ashes series in England and colour it bluer than anything Kevin ‘Bloody’ Wilson could have managed. Infuriating.

(Because who doesn’t want to relive it right now?)

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It shouldn’t be like this. A Test batsman with more than 50 Tests behind him shouldn’t have this sort of effect on people. The skipper has just peeled off his fourth consecutive first-innings ton for the series, and I’ve overlooked it like it’s standard fare.

What’s more, Watson and Smith put on 194 for the third wicket, a crucial union coming immediately after Australia lost both openers within six balls of each other. Part of the reason Shaun Marsh and Joe Burns were able to accelerate and bat so freely in the afternoon session was because of the platform relaid by Watson and Smith. Likewise, Harris’ nine balls of manly awesomeness.

So why do we allow ourselves to get so angry with Shane Watson? Why does Shane Watson do things to make us so angry?

Late yesterday afternoon, though, I had an epiphany.

Watson has the most publicised, most scrutinised, most criticised set of Test numbers in my lifetime. And it’s all part of his cunning plan; he’s playing us all for fools.

If the mantra of ‘all publicity is good publicity’ is true, then Watson has enough credit to play Test cricket well into his 50s. He knows we can’t help but talk about him, and he knows we’re all sweating on another exasperatingly unconverted fifty.

Playing us for fools, he is. Like. A. Fox.

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And short of adopting a Simpsons-like conclusion of ignoring him like a rampaging killer neon sign, we’re in this for a good number of years yet.

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