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England players celebrate after winning on the fourth day of the fourth Ashes cricket test match against Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne, Australia, Wednesday, Dec. 29, 2010. (AP Photo/Andrew Brownbill)
In a long lifetime of watching cricket I don’t think I have ever seen something so stupid and so selfish as Shane Watson’s idiotic call for a short single that resulted in running out Philip Hughes.
Australia was facing a deficit of 415 to make England bat again. More than two days remained in the Test, at the close of play.
A win would give England a 2-1 lead in the series with one Test to play, and ensure that the Ashes were retained by the visitors. Australia had to bat for more than two days to have a chance of achieving a ‘winning’ draw.
Both batsmen were comfortably set, with Hughes, a player who can make big scores once he gets some momentum in his inning, batting splendidly.
Watson ruined any chance of a fairy tale draw by hitting a ball firmly to short cover and taking off for a run. Jonathan Trott, a right-hander, fielded the ball coming to his right hand, sent in a smart return and the wicket-keeper had the bails off with Hughes well short of his ground.
As the two batsmen came out on to the field I made a note that at least there would be no run-outs because the need to push for runs just wasn’t an issue. Watson’s stupidity in going for a tight, extra-tight I reckon, short single is just impossible to explain away.
Watson’s call was selfish cricket of the worst kind. It was self-indulgent, all about himself. In a decent team environment and culture it would involve the punishment of an instant dropping.
But this is the rub. This is not going to happen. For some time the Australian cricket team and its support staff, especially the coaching staff, has worked (unsuccessfully, unfortunately) as a closed shop with the entitlement of the senior players being a driving force.
We see this entitlement in the assumption that Ricky Ponting will be automatically succeeded by Michael Clarke. There was a time when this succession plan made sense.
But it makes no sense now.
Clarke is in miserable form. He has had two different promotions to bat in the crucial number four position. And both these attempts have failed.
If he can’t hold down a number four position, his place in the team in the future must be problematical.
We have seen Brad Haddin, Australia’s second highest scorer in the series, kept at number seven, despite the fact that when Steve Smith came into the side his technique was not up to batting at number six.
Ben Hilfenhaus has struggled to take wickets in every Test. Mark Taylor in several Tests has pointed to the fact that he delivers every ball from the same spot, extremely close to the stumps. The effect of this is to accentuate the banana-like aspect of his stock out-swinging delivery.
Bowlers of line, length and a bit of cut like Glenn McGrath, Richard Hadlee (and Peter Siddle to a lesser extent) can bowl close to the stumps because this forces the batsman to play at every delivery, with the chance of a bit of movement forcing an edge.
But a genuine out-swing bowler like Hilfenhaus needs to angle the ball into the batsman (hence bowl from wider on the crease) to force the batsman to play at the ball which is directed towards his stumps. This angle, too, reduces the big hoop on the out-swing. In turn, this increases the chances of catching rather than missing the edge.
Taylor also reported that the bowling coaches had been working with Hilfenhaus on this. I watched his bowling at the MCG and every ball was delivered from close to the stumps.
Why was Doug Bollinger dropped after one successful Test, and Hilfenhaus retained?
What was the influence of Ricky Ponting on all of this?
I ask this question because it is an unfortunate fact that when ageing, struggling captains of national sides are under the pump they tend to insist on ageing, struggling other players in the side being retained.
Throughout the series I have had the feeling that England has played as a team, while Australia had played as a group of individuals, especially the senior players (with the exception of Michael Hussey) who have put their own individual interests ahead of the team.
As proof of this, there are the collapse in the second innings at Adelaide (when the ground became water-logged 90 minutes after the fall of the last Australian wicket) and the two capitulations at the MCG when the Ashes were on the line.
Sides with a strong team culture can lose matches, and indeed Ashes series. But it was the lack of fight by Australia – and the stupid dismissals – that has been so alarming and revelatory this Ashes series.
At Adelaide, for instance, Michael Clarke, a good player of spin, was dismissed in the last over of play in the second inning, when Australia was trying to bat out a day and half of play. The bowler was Kevin Pietersen, who bowls meat pies masquerading as off-spinners. Clarke managed to lob one of these innocuous deliveries to short mid-on.
He explained afterwards he was thinking about getting a single and getting off strike. This explanation is as stupid as Watson’s call to run out Hughes. If Clarke doubts his ability to block out a couple of Pietersen deliveries he should not be in the Test side.
So this Ashes series has turned to ashes for Australian cricket.
History suggests that the national side will arise, phoenix-like, from these ashes. It should be remembered though that the last time this dire situation occurred it took something like 10 years before the revival was consolidated.
Will the Australian public be so accommodating this time around? Will there even be a revival within a decade? Can the revival be achieved with the sort of cult of celebrity that the modern players seem to indulge in?
A great Australian cricket team in the future is not inevitable just because we have always produced, sooner or later, a great, all-conquering team.
To make the return to greatness inevitable for Australian cricket I have a simple remedy to start with: off with the heads of all those involved with the present debacle, from the management of the game, to the coaches and to a number of senior players.
The future in organising the revival, on and off the field, should be placed in the hands of Mark Taylor, Rodney Marsh, Dennis Lillee, Steve Waugh, Adam Gilchrist and Shane Warne …