Australian bowler Jason Krejza, center, is congratulated by teammates Ricky Ponting, right, and Mike Hussey for dismissing Indian batsman Ishant Sharma, unseen, on the second day of the fourth and final cricket test match between India and Australia in Nagpur, India, Friday, Nov. 7, 2008. AP Photo/Gautam Singh
Is Jason ‘Krazy’ Krejza injured or kidnapped? I had asked this question on The Roar last fortnight. As I have not received an answer, I presume he is neither. He is forgotten by the selectors.
Strange, because he is a spinner and a spinner is what Australia needs.
Let’s go back to his Test debut in Nagpur in November 2008. He took 8-215 in the first innings and 4-143 in the second.
Expensive but effective. Especially because Indian batsmen are masters at flaying spinners.
To capture 12 wickets on one’s Test debut is rare. Only Australia’s Bob Massie and India’s Narendra Hirwani with 16 wickets each had better initiations in 1972 and in 1988, and England’s Frederick Martin had started off with 12 scalps way back in 1890.
Since the Nagpur debut Krejza has been selected in only one Test, against South Africa in Perth last December. Although expensive as an off-spinner, he batted well in both innings scoring an unbeaten 30 in the first knock and 32 in the second.
Krejza has yet to play in a one-day international.
He is not even a contracted player.
To be picked only once in a Test after a great initiation must be frustrating for him.
Such neglect by selectors reminds me of the sad tale of a West Indian opening batsman. In his only Test, against England six decades ago, he scored a century. And he was never selected in a Test again, believe it or not!
The Andy Ganteaume story defies logic. He was 27 when he scored a century on debut against England in the Port-of-Spain Test of February 1948. He is 88 now and still cannot explain why he was never again picked in a Test after scoring 112 in his only Test innings.
He retired a decade later with a Test batting average of 112.00, the only one to average higher than Don Bradman. It was a pleasure discussing Andy’s bitter-sweet moment with him, his memory razor sharp.
I asked him, “After such a dream start why were you never picked again in a Test?”
“I’ve asked this question to myself for 60 years and cannot get the answer. I was told that I had batted slowly, disregarding my captain’s orders. I disagree. When captain Gerry Gomez sent a note to us to bat faster, Frank Worrell told me to ignore it and said, ‘Let’s sun them [Englishmen] some more.’ ”
Worrell went on to become a legend while Ganteaume is a forgotten man.
“I ask anyone, could you imagine any player of the Establishment being dropped immediately after making a century in his first Test for batting slow?”, he continued. “Had I played the next Test and scored well, it would have been very difficult to bring back injured [regular opener] Jeff Stollmeyer with Geo Carew in brilliant form. It would have been embarrassing for them. Things got curious and curiouser. Them’s my sentiments.”
Krazy Krejza can echo Ganteaume’s sentiments.
marees
Guest
captains should be blamed for not handling the spinners properly. So Ponting should take the rap for Jason krejza's poor career growth, just like taylor can take the credit for Warne's spectacular career. I suggest Ricky take a break from cricket and improve his poker skills. The tricks he learns in Poker, will make him a better captain with better tactical skills and when to play defensively when to go for alternate plans etc. Just look how Warne is using his Poker tricks to help Rajasthan Royals win all the close matches. Also the break from cricket seems to have helped him to re-discover the leg break bowled into the blind spot of right batsmen, as can be judged by Virat Kohli's dismissal in IPL.
Greg Russell
Roar Guru
Severian: of course I have never faced Shane Warne (wouldn't we all love to!), but my understanding is that this is what made him really, really special: his ability to drift the ball into a batsman's "blind spot" on his pads, and then spin the ball back across the pads from that position. Mark Taylor said he had never encountered anything like this or as difficult as this (notwithstanding that Taylor is actually a leftie!), and that's why he knew Warne was going to be a special player, even years out from making his test debut. The "Ball of the Century" to Mike Gatting in 1993 is the example of this rare ability par excellence. It's history now that Warne largely lost this ability with time, but he made up for it by developing canniness. As Peter Roebuck once put it, Warne ended up being a bowler who took wickets by convincing batsmen that he would spin the ball a lot when in fact he didn't. If batsmen could just bring themselves to play Warne as a trundler bowling straight deliveries, they would do much better against him. How canny is that!
Severian
Guest
Greg said "everyone realized from their first sight of Warne that he was something special" What was it that made him special, that made them persist with him? He turned it and flighted it.
Kersi Meher-Homji
Expert
Greg, Hodge anf Gillespie suffered from the embarrassment of riches syndrome Australia was going through before the embarrassment of poverty since 2008. Pity it is a bit late for them to come back. Or is it? Gillespie is the fourth player after England's Andy Sandham (325 & 50), Australia's Bill Ponsford (266 & 22) and West Indian Seymour Nurse (258) to score a double century in his final Test, scond player after Nurse to hit a double ton in his last Test innings and the ONLY one to be made Player of the Match, Player of the Series and make a double ton in his final Test. Strange? Cruel? The explanation was that Gillespie's great performance was against Bangladesh. Also he was in the team as a fast bowler and not as a batsman. And Australia had a surfeit of quickies in 2006. That explanation does not apply to Krejza. We have a famine of spinners now.
Greg Russell
Roar Guru
Jameswm: at the time of Warne's first test, I lived in Germany and there was no internet. So I was oblivious. Let's also call a spade a spade: everyone realized from their first sight of Warne that he was something special (e.g. listen to Mark Taylor about taking the young Warne to Zimbabwe as part of an Australian development team), but with Krejza it's quite different. NSW were quite happy to let him go after they had given him many chances and he had produced nothing. Kersi: would Brad Hodge and Jason Gillespie qualify for a revised version of “Dramatic Debuts and Swan Songs”? Gillespie scored 201 not out in his last test. Hodge scored 203 not out against a strong opponent (South Africa) before being dropped after two more tests against the same opponent, both of which were won by Australia. I am a huge fan of Hodge in limited-overs forms of the game, and I think that even now he should be in Australia's T20I side (as an opener, as he does so successfully for Victoria). However I am more lukewarm on him as a test cricketer. But that doesn't change that he was very harshly treated by the selectors. The only vague explanation I have ever heard for his dropping is that he has a weakness in moving his back foot to balls outside the off stump. Maybe, but it's a very rare batsman who is without a single technical shortcoming! Incidentally, Hodge did eventually play another test, filling in for the absent Michael Clarke in the West Indies last year. He made 67 and 24, which really only adds to his claims for a raw deal. His test career amounts to 6 tests for 503 runs at an average of 56. Not bad, is it.
Jameswm
Guest
Justin That might be a once off, but on so many occasions Ponting has been very defensive in bolwing his spinners. He doesn't really understand how to captain them - oh for Warnie to advise them, or have Heals in their ear out there. I'm a big fan of Ponting, esp his batting, but I do feel his captaincy has lost its way. Too many of them are doing stupod things, such os one test in SA I think it was where 3-4 batsmen (Clarks, Haddin and one other - maybe it was Simmo so maybe it was in Aust against SA) threw their wickets away, slogging, in BOTH innings. Sure, they should have known better, but where is the leadership? Another example of Ponting losing his way, if not directly related to his leadership, is his inability to stop himself driving the ball swinging away from him early in his innings. How often has he been out like this lately, snicking early on while driving? It's a cardinal sin of batting, driving at wide ones before you've got your eye in. He's either too arrogant or too stupid to work this out, and why hasn't anyone told him? When was the last time he did anything even slightly different,k where you thought "great idea"? At last he gave Katich a go, but how overdue was that? How could he be part of a selection committee picking MacDonald for tests (the selectors are a lot worse than him, don't worry). He kept bowling Krejza because he was taking wickets, but Krejza, in his first test, had to work out what to do himself. In the Perth test Ponting was clueless as to what to do when they were going at Krejza.
Justin
Guest
James - you mention Ponting should be blamed somehow. Can you elaborate on this? Ponting was the one who continued to bowl Krazy when he was being smashed all over the park in India. That was brave captaincy, he could have easily shelved him after what Sehwag did to him early on...
Jameswm
Guest
Greg How highly did you rare Warnie after his first test?
Kersi Meher-Homji
Expert
Thanks, Greg. When writing my book "Dramatic Debuts and Swan Songs" in 2001 (ABC Books), I had interviewed Rodney Redmond on phone in Perth. (Another Kiwi, Richard Collinge settled in Sydney, had given me his contact details.) An accountant, Rodney, was then coaching South Perth Clubs in Grades 1-4. He was quite philosophical about his dropping after scoring a century and a fifty in his only Test appearance. "Had it not been for the unavailibility of John Parker and Vic Pollard, I may not have played a single Test, let alone score a debut century." Krejza will be consoled to know that WH Ashley for S Africa v.England, Cape Town, 1888-89 took 7-95 in his only Test innings. Also Charles "Father" Marriott captured 11-96 (5-37 and 6-59) in his only Test, England v. WI at The Oval in 1933. His victims included the great George Headley. At least Krejza got a second chance. May he get at least one more!
Greg Russell
Roar Guru
Kersi et al., Re Ganteaume, do you know the story of Rodney Redmond, the father of current NZ player Aaron Redmond? Here is the relevant portion of Redmond Snr's cricinfo profile: "Brought into the New Zealand side at the age of 28 for the third Test against Pakistan at Christchurch in 1972-73, he cracked 107 and 56 and was an automatic choice for the 1973 squad to tour England. But he struggled to come to terms with new contact lenses and his form on the trip was poor - he managed 483 runs at 28.41 and did not play in any of the Tests. He subsequently missed the 1973-74 season, was never again in the reckoning for a Test berth and played only two more summers before retiring." One often hears in New Zealand that Redmond only played one test because he lost his eyesight. In fact this is rewriting of history. While his form on the tour of England may have been poor (actually, 483 runs at 28.41 is not too bad for a Kiwi touring England!), one would have thought that a player would be guaranteed several more tests given that he made a 100 and a 50 on debut! So, Rodney Redmond is a story very similar to Andy Ganteaume. Kersi, if you are interested in writing a book on this (I know you like such esoteric things), you will find Rodney Redmond in Perth. Aaron grew up in Australia but was lured back to New Zealand during a drive to find NZ-eligible players in Australia. The most famous of that bunch was Lou Vincent, but Aaron and Tama Canning (a Perth all-rounder regarded as good enough to be the state's successor to Tom Moody) have also had brief appearances for the Black Caps. From memory there was a fourth player, but I can't remember who it was. Incidentally, I don't rate Krejza very highly, but that is just my opinion.
Jameswm
Guest
And I think the point needs to be made more strongly - in Krejza's debut in India, the Indianbatsmen absolutely slogged him. Textbook free slogging, plain and simple. It was part of an obvious plan and that's why he went for so many runs, but he had the last laugh. And yes, the disappointingly conservative and narrow-minded Ponting deserves some of the blame.
Jameswm
Guest
What the selectors also haven't worked out is that Krejza would be a good one-day bowler, and they haven't even given him a go. They assume that Haritz is more acurate, so therefore more suited to one day bowling. Right? I'd say wrong. Yes Krejzq does bowl too many long hops and full tosses at the moment, but in the one dayers you have men back protecting the boundaries, which you don't have in the tests. And the attacking bowling - the extra dip and turn and general effort on the ball - picks up wickets in the one-dayers when they're coming at you. In the tests they can wait for the loose one and even play out the odd maiden. If this is obvious to me, a part time cricket thinker, why hasn't it occurred to any of the selectors? And I haven't even mentioned yet how good his batting is.
Rickety Knees
Guest
The Australian Cricket Selectors have much to answer for - not just Krejka. He needs now to just keep getting wickets, scoring runs and taking catches so that he demands selection.
Severian
Guest
Nice article, Kersi. Kreja needs to be persisted with. He doesn't have the accuracy or the nouse yet, but he's got natural dip and turn it, which makes him a potential test winning spinner. Whoever they pick (Cameron White aside, because he's not a spinner or a full time bowler), they need to stick with the guy and give him a chance to learn how to play at international level. I blame Ponting for a lot of this. Kreja is an attacking bowler, not a guy who will keep it tidy. You've got to use him like Stuart MacGill, not Peter Taylor.
Timmuh
Roar Guru
He got tewlve wickets because India batted long enough and nobody else got any. And then he got belted by South Africa. Maybe he will develop into a Test class spinner, at the moment he is raw and expensive. He should not be thrown into limited overs cricket, even at ListA level, as all this would do is entice him to bowl faster and flatter. He is an attacking spinner, if he is to become a Test bowler he needs to keep that instinct and learn a bit more about himself and the game. The short game could well ruin him, and he should be kept away from it until (unless) he develops for the game's true form. There is promise, but he is far from a sure selection just yet.
drewster
Roar Pro
The Australian team has fair list of spin bowling casualties recently Beau Casson, White, Hauritz and McGain although none of these bowlers had the anywhere near the success of Krejza's debut. He also injured his ankle prior to the Adelaide test this summer and his match figures of 1/204 in 49 overs in the WACA test would not have helped his cause. The selectors appear very reluctant to give a spinner a fair go and seem to have forgotten what figures a Mr S. Warne produced in his test debut 1/150 in 45 overs. Only the selectors in their "infinate wisdom" (Pardon the sarcasm) know why he has gone from wonderboy to forgotten man.
david
Guest
Perhaps he doesnt have the right connections.