For the second time in a month, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd watched as those around him were unable to find a breakthrough on climate change. This time it was Australia’s cricketers. On fire as they power past 50 this summer, they freeze before reaching 100.
Like Copenhagen, all in the Australian camp are talking of the need to change things. Like Copenhagen, no one can quite make it happen.
As Australia took a stranglehold on the first Test against Pakistan at the MCG on Sunday with Mr Rudd watching on, Mike Hussey and Nathan Hauritz made it 20 successive half-centuries without cracking the ton for the host team.
It has become the summer’s most quirky and mysterious statistic – how the zone between 50 and 100 has become Australian cricket’s Bermuda Triangle.
Batsmen enter, then disappear before two digits can become three.
Opener Shane Watson, caught short of a century three times this summer, suggested it was perhaps a mental block.
How the PM must have wished it was as simple as providing a stimulus package for all Australian batsmen – a simple ‘1’ to insert ahead of their totals.
“No one goes out there to not get 100 – the batsmen all put the time and effort in to get that three figures,” said Hauritz, who made an entertaining 75 as a nightwatchman from the previous day.
“It’s a positive there are so many half-centuries coming along. It’s (a century) going to come, it’s just a matter of when.”
By the time Hauritz became another statistic following Hussey’s dismissal for 82, Mr Rudd had seen enough.
Warmer climes beckoned.
He was being mobbed like a rock star at a McGrath Foundation breast cancer fund-raiser held next door to the MCG, after earlier launching an anti-binge drinking initiative at the cricket.
As century-shy as Australia’s batsmen have been of late, it may matter little to the result of this Test – Pakistan teetering at 4-109 at stumps in reply to Australia’s mammoth 5-454 declared.
Paceman Mitchell Johnson started the rot, trapping Pakistan opener Imran Farhat LBW for nine.
Hauritz struck to remove Faisal Iqbal for 15 to a sharp Michael Clarke slips catch, before Watson dismissed Salman Butt for 45.
Then Peter Siddle saw off dangerous Pakistani skipper Mohammad Yousuf for 22 with the second-last ball of the day, thanks to the video referral system.
Now an Australian victory or a draw look the only possible results.
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