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Australian bowler Nathan Hauritz celebrates dismissing Pakistan's Mohammad Aamer. AAP Image/Julian Smith
There’s no two ways about this. This is a column I never would have dreamt writing not all that long ago. I’m sure I’m not the first person to admit that I’ve never been a big fan of Nathan Hauritz as a spin-bowling option.
Just as I maintain about Cameron White now, I also used to think Hauritz was missing the little thing that might make him a useful tweaker: the ability to spin the ball.
So when suddenly Hauritz was taken to India in 2004 instead of Stuart MacGill, the general feeling among my cricket discussion circle was that he was the token “work experience” selection, much like Dan Cullen going to Bangladesh a few years later.
“Surely he won’t get anywhere near the Test team…” we all assumed at the time.
Of course it’s history now that Hauritz is the owner of Baggy Green no.390, having made his debut in the Fourth Test of that Indian series. Taking five wickets for the match, his scalps included the prize wickets of VVS Laxman and Sachin Tendulkar in the second innings.
But reality is a funny beast, and Hauritz copped a harsh lesson in it, where by the end of the following summer, he’d lost his spot in the Queensland side. It got even worse after the 2005/06 summer where having played only a few limited overs state games, Hauritz took a massive gamble and headed south to New South Wales with no state contract and well behind the likes of MacGill and the also just-relocated Beau Casson.
The move payed immediate dividends with Hauritz playing a few First Class matches for NSW in 2006/07, but more so in the limited-overs game, where his form was quite solid. This continued the following season, and suddenly Hauritz found himself back in Australian contention for the first time since 2003.
Hauritz kept plugging away for NSW, and after a whirlwind period following the retirements of Shane Warne, MacGill and Brad Hogg, the Australian spin bowling ranks went into a flat spin.
Suddenly, it seemed that any spinner in the country showing any degree of form was in contention, and we saw Casson, White, Jason Krejza, no-one, Hauritz, Krejza again, Hauritz again, Marcus North, and Bryce McGain playing the part in Tests.
Hauritz by this point was a fixture in the one-day side too, and was starting to emerge as the answer to the nation’s proverbial and literal spinning puzzle. When the squad for the 2009 Ashes series was named, Hauritz was the sole spinner.
But still, something about Hauritz didn’t sit well with me. From the very first moment he made his international debut in a one-dayer in South Africa in 2002, the sight of Hauritz in Australian colours just didn’t look right. The side just had a weird appearance about it, much like when a P-plater puts modern chrome wheels and low-profile tyres on a 25 year-old BMW.
You knew he could do the job, but it was very rarely a smooth ride.
Even when I wrote my early Ashes series column, “Is Hauritz the answer to Australia’s spin woes?” I still wasn’t that convinced. I was happy for him to be the sole spinner in England, and I was happy to support him, but I had lingering doubts.
His Ashes series in the end was quite reasonable I thought, given the amount of doubt and negative comment that surrounded him, both by the public, and the selectors. Perhaps the ultimate compliment for his place in the side is the now widely-held belief that his omission was a major factor in not winning the Fifth and deciding test at The Oval.
Since the Ashes series though, Hauritz’s demeanour and attitude about his cricket has been really refreshing. Where once he came across as having a sense of entitlement, now we see him in media interviews as relaxed and even nonchalant, and leading the way in self-deprecation, almost as if to beat anyone else to it.
And you can see it the field too. Hauritz seems to lead the way in laughing at himself, and picking the difference between his reactions to going for a boundary and taking a wicket can be quite difficult.
Yet this also washes over the real story here, which is the meteoric rise in Hauritz’s bowling. His bowling this summer is light years ahead of what he used to serve up. His lines, flight, and even his much-derided turn have all improved markedly, and have been exactly what you want from a front-line off-spinner. He’s quickly become the perfect foil for the Australian quicks.
His patience is becoming a feature too; no doubt a result of an over-hyped chat with Shane Warne. Whenever a batsman is going after him, you can see he just keeps on with his job, waiting for the breakthrough to come like it inevitably does.
His response to selection Chairman Andrew Hilditch’s demand that he show he can bowl teams out was perfect: back-to-back five-wicket hauls in Melbourne and Sydney.
23 wickets at a decent average and economy, his first and now second Test five-wicket innings, career-best figures, a couple of Test fifties with the bat; it really has been a Boy’s Own summer.
And he’s winning me over to boot.