“Most people live life on the path we set for them, too afraid to explore any other. But once in a while people like you come along who knock down all the obstacles we put in your way.” – Harry Mitchell, The Adjustment Bureau (2011).
Cricket Australia’s justified postponement of its Bangladesh tour could be viewed as a rather fortunate reprieve for an embryonic Test batting order that was set to face a difficult initiation in unfamiliar conditions.
On the surface New Zealand possess a more dangerous bowling attack than Bangladesh, but on the respective batting surfaces of Brisbane and Chittagong it’s a vastly different story.
It would hardly be surprising if there had been legitimate concerns in the Australian camp – if not out loud then certainly deep within – that the next generation might unravel on such spin-friendly wickets, even against the team ranked ninth in the world.
However, one hopes the individual batsmen have reacted to this news with regret, not relief, for the abandoned tour of Bangladesh is an opportunity missed.
Yes, the likes of Cameron Bancroft, Joe Burns, Usman Khawaja and the Marsh brothers will now attempt to lay the foundations of long stints in the national team on turf that behaves far more to their liking.
This might be a short-term advantage, but it’s a long-term loss. Forty per cent of Test-playing nations are from the subcontinent, and any team with designs on being the best of them must learn to adapt and win in their backyards.
While the best way to learn is by gaining experience, the right way to learn is by changing expectations. You must want to play the best spinners in the world on the most notoriously challenging pitches. Barren dustbowls are obstacles to trample, not irresistible forces to fear.
Where is it written that the nation’s finest willow wielders are preordained to fail on any pitch offering above average turn at a below average trajectory?
Okay, one might argue it was written on the disastrous scoreboards of Australia’s subcontinent Test tours over the past decade and beyond – a few notable exceptions aside – but when the writing’s on the wall, champions don’t turn around and head for the pavilion.
In the 2011 romantic sci-fi thriller, The Adjustment Bureau, David Norris (Matt Damon) embarks on a mission to alter the future Fate has planned for him. Norris is so relentless, so Matt Damon-like, that even the rather sinister bureau feels compelled to rewrite his story. It is a stubbornness Australia’s batsmen would do well to channel.
If the bad news for Bancroft, Burns, Khawaja et al is the weight of recent history, the good news is the most notable of those exceptions: Matthew Hayden. On the 2001 tour of India the big Queenslander refused to accept failure was a formality. He ignored the fates of great Australian players who had come and gone cheaply before him.
Hayden literally swept to glory, unleashing an unprecedented array of vicious, calculated sweep shots that yielded plenty of his 549 runs, at an average of 110, against a home spin attack featuring Australia’s nemesis, Harbhajan Singh.
Yet it wasn’t just those barely conceivable numbers that damaged the opposition. It was the manner of their making and the message it sent: I will not be denied.
Like Norris, who also fought back against his pre-determined destiny, Hayden was willing to risk it all. For a Test batsman, similar dismissals get critics shouting and selectors whispering. Had Hayden fallen for a few low scores when attempting unnecessary aggression, his floundering career average of just over 24 in 13 Tests might never have soared to its eventual lofty heights.
Indeed Hayden and Australia might not have returned to India in 2004 with the confidence to claim a momentous series victory.
Each Australian batsman must employ his own method, whatever it may be, with total conviction. He must believe that his path is his own, and not be afraid to explore it when he finds himself on the subcontinent in future.
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