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Unhurried: The enduring appeal of Mark Waugh

Roar Guru
17th September, 2016
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Mark Waugh was just as tough as his brother to remove at the crease. (AFP PHOTO/Greg WOOD).
Roar Guru
17th September, 2016
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1266 Reads

There’s a well-worn tale of English batsman James Ormond on debut. Aussie Mark Waugh, fielding close, submits an opinion that Ormond isn’t a worthy Test cricketer.

“Maybe so,” replied the Brit, “at least I can say I’m the best cricketer in my family.”

Mark, for mine, was as good as Steve. In his twelve years of Test-cricket Mark’s cool audacity put Australia in as many winning positions as Steve’s soldierly trenchancy did in 17.

People point to Mark averaging just 41. But as somebody somewhere said: whoever paid to watch an average?

Some sports are more excited by numbers than others. Baseball (of which I know nothing) for example, seems near-fixated with stats. It’s true all athletes are made or broken by numbers, by their pure yield: yardage, possessions, tries and assists. Some sportspersons even become synonymous with their numbers, with an average.

Other players are loved and remembered for the way they embellished and uplifted a sport, for finesse and flair. For aesthetics and for tempting fate. For savoir fare.

David Gower was one. Dean Jones was another. Pakistan’s Saeed Anwar had it. Kids, always at a sport’s roots, get a kick out of mimicking these players in the garden, in the park. Adults love these players because they keep alive spontaneity in professional sports, where so many and so much is regimented, reviewed, drilled.

We love these players because they cannot be manufactured.

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Very occasionally one of these players also has prodigious numbers. Think Sachin Tendulkar, Shane Warne or Roger Federer (would’ve made a fine number 3). The knock on Mark Waugh will always be that he didn’t quite have the numbers.

So I’ll say it with less diplomacy: stuff the numbers.

The Mark Waugh knock I remember best was against England at the SCG. After a heavy-rain delay, he decided to reclaim the lost time. As the sun resurfaced gushing he cut loose without warning. He was like some mad wizard brandishing a new wand. “Watch me pull a hundred out of this hat.”

Before the rainbow had its colours set he was fifty, doing all those wristy risky Mark Waugh things: cover-driving balls too short to drive, cutting balls too close to cut, whipping from middle and off through midwicket.

Australia lost the dead-rubber, but nobody there will ever forget the way he splurged, turning an afternoon bound for anonymity into an exhibition.

There was something Zen about Mark Waugh, something yogic. I remember coming out of the surf at Bondi and stopping at a screen, seeing him take an impossible catch at second or third slip, making it look about as taxing as catching a Frisbee.

The white ball had rocketed off a Pakistani edge. He plunged right, plucked it one-handed half an inch from grass. It took a fraction of a fraction of a second but somehow he looked unhurried. And though at full-stretch, the movement had all the stress of a cat stretching. He put the ball in his pocket.

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Batting, Mark Waugh was a picture of Ian Chappell’s description of the ideal batting state: Relaxed Awareness. Waiting for the bowler to run in he looked as if he was waiting for a bus. As non-striker, he looked as if he was mulling which greyhound he’d back tonight.

Even undercutting Curtly Ambrose over slips he was time-rich – another player might have looked as if he was backing away from the towering Jamaican. Waugh just looked as if he’d discovered a fun new move.

Still, Waugh rightly tired of inferences he was less than fully committed. Words like lackadaisical and laid-back flatter at first, but eventually irk any professional sportsperson.

“Not so easy out here after all, is it Mark?” Kiwi Chris Cairns reportedly said, when, for the first time in his career, Waugh was really scraping and scrapping for runs.

Who knows how or if Waugh responded? He knew how good he was. After his century on debut, he said he should’ve been playing years ago. It was tongue-in-cheek and it was also true.

Cricket moves high-speed now. But will anybody move in slow-motion?

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