Once upon a time Mark Waugh was batting for NSW in a Sheffield Shield match at the Sydney Cricket Ground, his team in trouble at four for not many.
When Waugh was out hooking, caught at deep backward square, there was a view around the ground, including within the Blues’ dressing room, that, given the circumstances, Waugh might have been a tad more circumspect.
“Christ, Junior,” opined left-arm quick Mike Whitney as Waugh trudged through the SCG home shed, “what the bloody hell was that?”
Waugh and his twin brother Stephen were not known for being especially close – their mid-pitch conversations were comically brief and a run out was never out of the equation.
Yet they were, literally, blood brothers. And close as twins can be. And Stephen was incensed by Whitney’s critique.
“You’re very happy when it comes off, though, Whit? You’re first up if he’s hit that for six, Whit?” And then he stormed out of the shed.
Later the elder Waugh asked Whitney did he want to come and throw a few to him in the nets. Whitney said that he did. And there Waugh explained that he and Mark have always backed their talent. Much of the time it came off and they looked like rock stars. Sometimes it didn’t and they looked like nongs. This was one of those occasions.
However, if you like the diamonds, mate, you have to bloody well accept the occasional gravel rash, too.
Australian cricket fans, who have watched the national team go down two-nil in the four-Test series in India, have not accepted that Australia has rocks among their diamonds.
The prevailing sentiment – and it’s enhanced every summer when we line ‘em up and bounce ‘em out – is that we are number one. We are Australia. We win. Well, here is a thing: we don’t in India. Nobody wins in India except India.
For Australia, India is a dud quarry.
In the last decade, India’s won five of six Border-Gavaskar series. Since Nagpur in 2004 when curators cooked up a wicket so juicy that Sourav Ganguly ruled himself out with “green fever”, according to stand-in captain Anil Kumble, Australia has won one Test in India in 17 attempts.
What to do? As Waugh said to Whitney: back yourself.
Aussie cricket fans are goldfish. For all teeth-gnashing and wailing about Captain Woke, and all that dopey shit, there were parts of this very Test series in which backing one’s self was effective.
How else can you play in India? You stonewall in defence – they’re going to get you. If not Ravi, then Ravi, right?
You just have to play how you play. You have to back yourself.
Not to say you go ape-shit and smash everything. But Travis Head at the top with Usman Khawaja, nice complementary action there.
Travis Head. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
Ditto Marnus Labuschagne at three, Steven Smith at four. That’s a high quality lineup, each with a unique approach. You want them to change? There’s 18,423 Test runs between them. Their averages average 52.2. They just have to play, and do their best. And back themselves.
Granted, sometimes, you’ll still lose 8-28 – India’s spinners are all-time. But it doesn’t mean it won’t work again.
Pete Handscomb has looked assured in his ventures at six and will do at five. And Cameron Green at six, well, good luck, son. Get that long leg down the track and sa-wing, batter. Or whatevs. But do you, baby. Do you.
The sweep? Didn’t work day three last Test match, sure. But, again again, doesn’t mean it won’t work.
Alex Carey’s reverse sweeping in the first dig of the first Test – on a bunsen the locals hadn’t rolled up to a good length outside his off stump at the behest of BCCI’s travelling band of curators, the fiends – saw him profit 36 runs from 33 balls.
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Similarly the dismissal of Pat Cummins in the second innings at Delhi looked bad in the circumstances. Perhaps he could’ve been more circumspect. But Cummins had hit that length ball twice into the stands in the first innings to amass 33 of a a 59-run stand with Handscomb. You back recent muscle memory, surely. You back yourself.
So: here’s the plan, Australia. Scrap and whack and get yourselves upwards of 300 first dig and 200 the second. It’ll give the three spinners something to work with on a day three or four deck. And then, unleash the beast: Mitchell Starc.
That guy’s been stewing on the sidelines. Frothing. His blood boiling. Mightn’t look it. But there’s pent up rage there.
And given the pitch is going to be cooked by those same travelling curators and rolled so that the two Ravis can befuddle Australia’s left-handers in the rough, it means the ball will cut up and get mangy on one side.
So polish the pill on one side and soak it in sweat. And let that big dog feast.
Because India’s bats are like anyone’s: they don’t like it up ‘em. Who would? As David Boon said of facing the West Indies: nobody likes pure pace, it’s just how you handle it. And big Mitch, with the new red rock or scuffed-up old one, swinging it both ways at speed, is the 150-click man for the hour.
Granted, he will need something to bowl at. You can’t be losing 8-28 in sixth grade park cricket.
But again, again, again, for the batters to get the numbers that Starc and the spinners can defend and exploit, they needn’t change their approach. They just need to play hard and back themselves – as the Waugh boys would explain.
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