July 2009 Sampler

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".4-3#.6“I’M NOT AWARE OF ANYONE ELSE WHO PLAYS THE REVERSE-REVERSE SWEEP…”

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M I TCHELL JOHNS ONhe

are they really the future of cricket?

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G LEA DEIN DGE 20.05.2009 SHO CK

18.05.2009 WASH OUT No Test series in England has ever started earlier than the West Indies rubber that kicked off at Lord’s on May 6.

Spectators were reluctant; and so, apparently, were some of the players. Having lost their last warm-up (so-called) by ten wickets to the England Lions, the Windies lost the Tests by ten wickets (Lord’s; bowled out twice in a total of 104 overs) and then by an innings (Durham, despite the second day being completely washed out). The first ODI at Headingley was washed out too. The notion that the Windies had to replace the Sri Lankans (who had replaced the Zimbabweans) to fulfil the fixture and somehow fill the ECB coffers proved flawed.

True, the ECB kept their side of the deal with Sky, but despite the feelgood factor for England the series was a poor advert for the game.

With Lord’s finishing before the weekend, just 3000 advance tickets sold for the first day at Durham, refunds all round at Leeds and sales sluggish for the last two ODIs too, the tour was hardly a license to print money. International sport should feel like a must-see event.

CHRIS LEWIS’S JAIL SENTENCE The former England allrounder was found guilty of attempting to smuggle £140,000 of cocaine inside cans of fruit juice through Gatwick Airport last December. Sentencing Lewis to 13 years in jail – he can expect to serve half – Judge Nicholas Ainley said that he had been “knowingly… engaged in major organised crime”.

20.05.2009 AX ING SYMO OUT OF ASHES When news emerged – to Punter Ponting’s apparent surprise – that Andrew Symonds had been left out of Australia’s 16man Ashes squad, the consensus was that the selectors had wearied of Roy’s antics: sent home for going fishing instead of going to a team meeting last August; getting in the headlines for a bust-up in a pub in November; carpeted for calling Brendon McCullum a “lump of shit” in a radio interview in January.The Aussies, observers felt, couldn’t trust Symo to spend three months in a country with a Wetherspoons just round the corner from every ground.

Except Symonds is in their ICC WorldT20 squad. So the Ashes omission of their mighty all-rounder can only be a cricket-based decision. And some kind of kamikaze act.

14 SPIN JULY 2009

this month’s biggest…

18.05.2009 WATERSHED

At the start of the summer, the Ashes talk was still revolving weirdly around former glories: a comeback for Vaughany? A final gee-up for Harmy? A call-up for Jonesy, straight from the operating theatre? And what about throwing in the late Sir Len Huttony too? Andy Flower’s first series in charge chucked the nostalgia out the door and put Graham Onions (five wickets on debut) and Ravi Bopara (three tons in successive Tests) in the box seat for Ashes places. Yes, handing out a thrashing to the hopeless West Indies flattered England but at least we all had something new to talk about.

18.05.2009 S I GN OF HOPE Seven weeks out from hosting the first AshesTest, rumours that Glamorgan’s SWALEC stadium will not be up to scratch were starting to get louder, as the ECB fined the county two points (from next year’s FPTrophy campaign) for a “poor” pitch after the game against Essex.The problem?The level of turn was “excessive.” (In the match in question, Essex’s legspinner Danish Kaneria had taken 4/16 off 10 overs to bowl Glamorgan out for 124). With Australia bringing just one inexperienced spinner with them for the Ashes, the omens for England appeared good.

And Graeme Swann looked set fair to be the man to lead the team back into Ashes fever and – this time, surely – knighthoods.

Graeme Swann! Can that be right?

Gordon Bennett.

13.05.2009 SPAT SMENT 15.05.2009 EMBARRAS raph had g that the Daily Teleg

e revealin Private Eye magazin ers. Opting to use county cricket report invented a legion of off the real ency copy, af ter laying ag s ou ym on an r) pe (chea likes of ‘Oliver Telegraph made up the county reporters, the as names to be ’ ah ‘Matthew Hann d an s’ ter Pe tin us ‘A Clive’ only came to light the bogus reporters of it ce de e Th . ed credit ers appeared to be non-existent newcom when several of the ent sport s) at fer mes (and indeed dif covering different ga y. Doh! da county on the same opposite ends of the

23.05.2009 RE BIR TH Peter Moores spent 18 months telling us that a corner would soon be turned and resu lts were going to get bet ter. And, just one job-swap later, he has been proven correct after all. Under the ex-England gaffer’s leadership, Lancashire won six out of eight Friends Provident group games, then stormed past Essex, the holders, in the quarter-finals. Two wins out of three left them second in the champions hip too.

Chris Gayle v Andrew Strauss So, out of the goodness of your heart, you’ve walked away from a job that pays £140k a week in a nice, warmish climate to come and – effectively – lead an Arctic expedition for a fraction of the reward. And people keep saying you should have done it sooner. Eventually you’re going to crack. Chris Gayle – who arrived on the eve of the Test series after staying longer at the IPL – cracked in a phone interview with the Guardian’s Anna Kessel. He didn’t exactly rage against his critics; it was more a kind of mumbled grumble, as he warned Andrew Strauss to “stay out of people’s business…

Focus on his team, don’t worry about West Indies, don’t worry about me. Tell him don’t sleep with Chris on his mind; tell him get Chris off his mind.”

Gayle added that if T20 replaced Tests, he “wouldn’t be so sad” but that Strauss might be because “there is no way he can make the change. So tough luck.”

As for the Windies’ captaincy, “It’s definitely not something I’m looking to hang on to. I need some time for myself, to be honest with you.”

Churchillian it wasn’t.

JULY 2009

SPIN 15

G LEA DEIN DGE

SUSPECT ACTION TERRY JENNER

Caribbean in 1934/35. Yet the There’s something inspiring in Jamaican is remembered Jenner’s story of rehabilitation. primarily as the only Test After his career as a leg-spinning cricketer known to have been all-rounder finished in 1977, executed. He was found guilt of Jenner lost his focus and by 1988 murdering his wife after she had was sentenced to six-and-a-half admitted adultery. His claim that years in prison for stealing from he had attempted to shoot his employer to repay gambling debts. Released after 18 months, Inzy: don’t mess he rebuilt his life as a spinbowling coach and is now widely credited for his work with Shane Warne and with England’s young leg-spinners.

LESLIE HYLTON Few mention fast bowling when they talk of Hylton. He was, however, one of the quickest bowlers in the world in the 1930s and performed admirably against the MCC tourists in the

himself but missed was undermined by the presence of seven bullets in his wife’s body.

It meant he had stopped and reloaded the gun.

INZAMAM-UL-HAQ The former Pakistan captain was arrested in Toronto after attacking a spectator with a bat.

The spectator had been using a megaphone to heckle Inzamam, repeatedly calling him ‘potato.’

Charges were eventually dropped, though Inzi was suspended for two ODIs.

SHIVNARINE CHANDERPAUL The West Indian left-hander once exchanged shots with police officers who he mistook for ‘bandits.’ “It was really

scary,” his wife, Amy recalled.

“We were eating some Kentucky Fried Chicken on the sea wall, then out of nowhere appeared these men.” Alarmed by bright lights being shone into his car, Chanderpaul opened fire and shot a uniformed policeman in the hand. He then fled, but was stopped at a roadblock. After compensating the policeman, charges were dropped.

FRANK FOSTER A truly tragic figure, Foster could have been one of the greatest of them all. An outstanding left-arm quick bowler in the style of Wasim Akram, and an aggressive righthanded batsman, Foster led Warwickshire to their first championship in 1911 and played 11 Tests with some success. His bowling played a major role in the 1911/12 Ashes triumph and he is widely credited with the

YOU ARE THE UMPIRE

20 SPIN JULY 2009

PICTURES: PA PHOTOS

Questioned, arrested, jailed, bailed and, in one case, executed: 13 cricketers who have fallen foul of the law

Shiv: shot at police

invention of leg theory (aka Bodyline). Alas, he was injured in a motorbike accident during the First World War and never played again. It precipitated a sharp decline.

Mental illness and a huge thirst accelerated his descent and he spent several nights in prison in connection with a murder trial (he was cleared despite being found in bed with the deceased) and for hitting a bailiff. He was banned from Edgbaston and ended his days in an asylum.

MARK VERMEULEN Another sad story, but one that might yet have a happy ending.

The Zimbabwean opener’s career appeared to be over after he was charged with arson – he set fire to the Harare Sports Club and the Zimbabwe National Academy. He was cleared on the grounds of mental illness, however, after medical evidence proved that he had suffered epilepsy after sustaining a broken skull in early 2004 after being struck on the head by a bouncer. Encouragingly, and against all the odds, Vermeulen

appears to be on the road to rehabilitation and was recently named in the Zimbabwe A team.

He also offered to help rebuild the academy.

three months’ probation, though in summing-up the judge commented: “I hate to think English sport has sunk so far that brutes will be tolerated because they are good at games.”

JOHNNY SHILTON Shilton was a brilliant left-arm spinner whose bowling helped Warwickshire achieve first-class status. His tastes exceeded his budget, however, and he resorted to shoplifting and ‘borrowing’ to fund his lifestyle.

Committee minutes from Warwickshire relate that Shilton missed the 1895 season through “being in prison for debt” and he drowned his sorrows, dying from liver failure, aged just 37.

WALTER GILBERT A cousin of WG Grace, Gilbert was a quality all-rounder in his own right and represented Middlesex and Gloucestershire in 175 first-class games. His career came to an abrupt halt, however, when he was found stealing from his colleagues’ pockets in the dressing room and, shamed and disgraced, he emigrated to Canada.

trouble / umpire

GARTH LE ROUX

ROY GILCHRIST Mean spirited and quick tempered, Gilchrist could bowl like the wind; he is one of very few fast bowlers to have hit the sight screen first bounce. His Test career came to an end, when he was sent home from India in 1959 for bowling beamers – sometimes from 18 yards – and for “an incident with a knife”.

Playing in the Lancashire leagues, Gilchrist once hit a batsman with a stump. But it was his wife, Novlyn, who felt the full force of his vile disposition after he held her against a wall and branded her with a hot iron during a domestic disagreement in 1967. He escaped with just

Taken from You Are The Umpire by Paul Trevillion and John Holder (Observer Books, £12.99), which we reviewed last issue. The book is a compilation of the strip that appears in The Observer every Sunday throughout the summer

A strong, fast bowler and belligerent batsman, Le Roux would surely have enjoyed a successful international career had his peak years not coincided with South Africa’s exclusion from world cricket. He was rated as fast as anyone in World Series Cricket and served Sussex with distinction between 1978 and 1987. Last year, however, Le Roux was sentenced to four years in prison for tax evasion.

VALLENCE JUPP An off-spinning all-rounder who played eight Tests for England and became captain and secretary of Northants, Jupp’s career was interrupted in 1935 when sentenced to nine months in prison for manslaughter. He had been involved in a car accident that killed the pillion rider of a motorbike.

ABDUL QADIR The 1980s Pakistan leg-spinner once ‘did a Cantona’ and jumped into the crown in Barbados to hit a spectator.

Charges were dropped after Pakistan cricket made a contribution to police funds.

TED POOLEY He should have been England’s wicketkeeper in the first Test ever played, but instead died in poverty without a single appearance at the highest level.

Instead of playing at Melbourne in 1877, Pooley found himself on trial in Christchurch after a violent disagreement over an unpaid gambling debt. Though cleared of serious charges, Pooley literally missed the boat to Australia and was never selected again.

Research by George Dobell.

(Thanks to Robert Brooke for additional material).

JULY 2009

SPIN 21

T20 SPECIAL EOIN MORGAN

WHEN I STARTED at Middlesex I was a conventional player. But I began to feel I needed other options.

Limited-overs cricket is pushing the game forward and scores of 300 in 50-over cricket are par now. You can’t afford to be bogged down and scoring at a run a ball is no longer acceptable. In Twenty20, especially, you have to go at eight or nine an over at least.

I went through a period where I was getting a bit tied down and, not being the size of someone like Graeme Hick, I was looking at other scoring opportunities rather than just hitting over the top. That’s when I started to practise these sweeps.

I don’t think I’ve ever played out a maiden in Twenty20 cricket.

I started playing the sweep shots about three years ago. I hadn’t played much

The hardest bowlers to face in Twenty20?

Ryan McLaren is very good at yorkers and Azhar Mahmood has the best slower ball.

It’s very hard to read. As for slow bowlers, it’s very hard to beat Shaun Udal or Murali Kartik. They’ve great control and variation.

It’s great to put some pressure on the bowler; to make them change their plans; to get them wondering where they’re going to bowl next. Sometimes I’ll play the shot just to get them to change the field.

Often they’ll move mid-wicket to protect them from the reverse sweep and that opens up a gap. I like it when you can hear the fielding side becoming irritated.

Bowlers hate the sweeps, too: they just don’t know where to bowl.

It does make it very hard to set a field.

If the field is set for it, I probably won’t even play it at all. But the line-up we have at Middlesex confuses sides; we all have different style that complement one

this winter was another step closer.

Everyone in Ireland knew that and they’ve all been pleased for me. I haven’t heard one begrudging word. It was a great way to finish, too. Ireland have qualified for the T20 World Cup, the next (50-over) World Cup and they‘re the champion associate country. Hopefully they can gain Test status within a few years.

It was heartbreaking not to play in the (cancelled) champions league with Middlesex. But Stanford was a fantastic event. We were looked after brilliantly and the organisation was excellent; not the way it’s been portrayed in the media at all. We didn’t really have a chance in the games.

Trinidad and Tobago had been given a couple of weeks to practise on the pitch and under the lights; we didn’t have that.

It was my father that got me into cricket.

He was demented about the game. My older sister played for Ireland and my

HOWDOESHEDOTHAT?

Flick shots. Reverse sweeps. Reverse-reverse sweeps.

Middlesex and England’s Eoin Morgan has some amazing T20 shots in his locker. In a SPIN exclusive, he tells us how he developed them – and then, over the page, shows us how… limited-overs cricket until then and Twenty20, in particular, has given players a real spur to improve. I’ve practised the shots hard – as much as I would practise the cut or a pull – and while I started out only playing them against the slow bowlers, I’ll play them against anyone now.

I play them in the championship, too.

I think I played the reverse sweep twice during my last championship hundred, against Leicestershire.

You do have to premeditate the strokes, but the idea is that they feel like second nature. I don’t feel any need to play them just because people know I can. That’s the whole point of practice; it becomes instinctive. I still hit most of my sixes over mid-wicket with flicks off the seamers.

Even though the shots are premeditated, you still have a few options once you’re committed. The base is the same whichever side of the wicket you play the shot, so I’ll decide exactly what I’m doing as soon as I pick up the line and length. There are times when you miss out on a conventional shot by trying to play the sweeps – it happens all the time – but you only have to get bat on ball and you should get runs.

28 SPIN JULY 2009

another. It must be difficult to try to set fields for us.

No-one has ever tried to talk me out of playing reverse sweeps. I was out a couple of times last season playing them and I’m sure I will be again in the future, but it also bring me a lot of runs.

Andy Flower was a great influence. I only played against him once, when he ended about 40 not out to help Essex beat us in a limited-overs game, but he was an inspiration. He was a brilliant player and had loads of different sweep shots. He knew how to dictate the pace of a one-day innings.

I don’t play the switch hit. It’s just not one of my shots. I’ve only played it once in a match and it went for six, but it’s not something I’m planning on playing again soon.

Playing with Ireland in the [2007] World Cup was unbelievable; the best time in my life. We beat Pakistan and Bangladesh and tied with Zimbabwe and qualified for the Super 8s. Some say that it gave the whole of Irish cricket a kick-start.

It was always the dream to play for England, though. I only qualified in May 2008]and knew that going on the Lions tour

younger sister plays for Ireland A. Later on, Ed Joyce became a bit of a role-model to me and Ireland had a strong link with Middlesex. Me, Ed, Boyd Rankin all went to the club and Paul Stirling [an 18-year-old batsman] has come recently. Kevin O’Brien is at Notts, Will Porterfield at Gloucestershire, Niall O’Brien is at Northants: there’s a lot of talent.

I’d love to play in the IPL. I’d play for free. I caught a few games while I was in South Africa with Ireland and I’ve been watching on TV since I got back. It’s taking the whole game forward. The skill levels are unbelievable and you can see new ways of thinking all the time. One of the things that has stuck out this year is the aggression of the bowling sides. They’re using the powerplays as opportunities to take wickets. And there’s no better to way to slow a batsman down that getting him out!

I’d love to prove myself in the IPL. I’m not aware of anyone else who plays as many sweep shots, or who plays the reversereverse sweep.

INTERVIEW GEORGE DOBELL PHOTOGRAPHY RICHARD STANTON

“I LIKE IT WHEN YOU CAN HEAR THE FIELDING SIDE BECOMING IRRITATED.”

JULY 2009

SPIN 29

ICC WORLD T20 STUART BROAD

Second time

lucky

Stuart Broad was the first player to get picked for England thanks to his T20 form. The first World T20 didn’t quite work out for him. But this time he’s at the very peak of his game…

Stuart Broad is arguably the

first product of cricket’s Twenty20 generation. No player before him and not many since have made their international debut on the back of T20 performances. But it was the teenage Broad’s part in Leicestershire’s triumphant Twenty20 Cup team – his economy rate of 4.50 runs per over was bettered only by Ryan Sidebottom and Andrew Flintoff – that first grabbed the attention of the England selectors in 2006.

A year later, T20 also gave Broad the nadir of his career to date, when Yuvraj Singh pasted him for six sixes in the ICC World T20 at Durban. Now, only Paul Collingwood and Kevin Pietersen have played more times than Broad for England’s everchanging Twenty20 side.

Still only 22 – he turns 23 the day after the ICC World Twenty20 final at Lord’s – Broad is now inked into the England team in all formats, having played 16 consecutive Tests since coming in for Matthew Hoggard (or, possibly Steve Harmison) in New Zealand in March 2008. Broad is a rare example of England picking a promising player and sticking with him as he makes visible improvements to his game. It

INTERVIEW DUNCAN STEER

doesn’t hurt that, having spent most of his teens as an opening batsman before a belated growth spurt turned him into an opening bowler (he is now 6ft5), Broad is plainly all-rounder material: his Test batting average (31.35) is only a whisker below Andrew Flintoff’s (31.69).

Earlier this year, Broad turned down the opportunity to play at the Indian Premier League, insisting he wanted to focus on his duties with England this summer. His stellar showings for Nottinghamshire and England in the first weeks of the season suggested that Broad – who by the time of the NatWest Series with the West Indies, was bowling at 90-plus mph – is still getting better and better...

You look at the England Twenty20 side and it’s hard to say what the side actually is.

We’ve played 15 T20s and used 43 players with 11 different opening partnerships. It’s hard to say ‘England aren’t any good at T20 cricket’ because the team has changed so dramatically. England need to settle on a side that they think can move forward and not keep chopping and changing every game.

It comes because we don’t play a huge amount of Twenty20 cricket. They’re few and far between. Before we played in Trinidad in the winter, we’d played one against New Zealand last summer, then Stanford in November, then nothing for months again. It’s hard to get a settled role.

Forty-three players in 15 games is a lot...

You started your career in a very successful Leicestershire Twenty20 team. You’ve now played 12 times for a not-very-successful England T20 team. What’s the difference?

Leicestershire were very successful because they had a good plan and each player knew what role they were going to play. I always bowled four overs up front, tried to get a couple of wickets. Then we had three spinners – Jeremy Snape, Dinesh Mongia, Claude Henderson – who’d come in and tie it down. Darren Maddy would hit it up front and Paul Nixon in the middle would take the spin apart with his reverse sweeps.

Do you really know all these statistics off the top of your head?!

Well, that was only because we had Steve Davies and Amjad Khan making their debuts in Trinidad and their shirts had their numbers on. And we were all going, ‘We can’t have used 43 players.’

When people say ‘England don’t get off to a good start’ it’s hard to know exactly who hasn’t made a good start because it’s

INTERVIEW MITCHELL JOHNSON

INTERVIEW SAM PILGER 32 SPIN JULY 2009

COMING

SOON

Mitchell Johnson was already the world’s best bowler. Then he started batting like Adam Gilchrist. England, get ready…

M

itchell Johnson can’t remember the most important 35 minutes of his life. That afternoon in Perth last December when he rose up and took five South African wickets in the space of 21 balls for the loss of just two runs remains a blur.

He really couldn’t tell you how he did it.

Before it all began he does recall an emboldening sense of calm take hold of him.

Earlier, when fielding down at the boundary at the WACA on the second day of the first Test, he could hear his newly adopted ‘home’ crowd call him a Queenslander, but now he could block everything out and there was only an eerie quiet around him.

As he nursed the ball in the palm of his hand, he could faintly hear the shouts of encouragement from his team-mates, but they were muffled and he couldn’t make out the exact words. Any nerves or the lingering doubts that sometimes plagued him were long gone; instead a sense of power and belief coursed through him.

Standing at his mark in front of the LilleeMarsh stand all he could see was a batsman directly in front of him.

“The whole experience felt like a dream,” he says with a bashful smile. “I was in what felt like a tunnel where I didn’t notice anything else around me. I suppose I was ‘in the zone’, which I have heard other sports people talk about, but I think this was the first time I had been in it too.

“It was then all a bit of a blur, I just kept coming in, but I can remember feeling as though I could do whatever I wanted.

I knew I had something over these batsmen and could intimidate them. When I ran in I thought I could take a wicket with every ball.”

Johnson allowed his instinct to take over; he didn’t think, he didn’t plan, he just trusted himself to bowl as he knew he could, and when this spell was over, when his focus began to sharpen again and the colours, noise and cloying heat of the WACA began to flood back to him he was now in possession of a very different career.

Not only had Johnson sent five South Africans back to the changing room and helped to record what would eventually be

“ I KNEW I HAD SOMETHING OVER BATSMEN I THOUGHT I COULDTAKE A WICKET WITH EVERY BALL.” the best-ever figures in cricket history for a left-arm bowler with a total haul of 8/61, he had managed to transform himself from just another promising youngster in to Australia’s leading bowler.

“Since that day in Perth, I have been bowling better than ever; I am full of confidence, and really comfortable in the team,” he says. “I’m not going to lose my spot easily now, so that helps me relax and

play my best cricket. I am just keeping it simple and letting instinct take over in my game, and just going out there and doing it.

“There was a time I used to really study videos of batsmen, but it got to the stage where I was thinking too much and got frustrated when things didn’t happen. Now I don’t look at them so much and just believe in my ability to do the job.”

Since his Test debut only 18 months ago this approach has brought Johnson a staggering 94 Test wickets, more than any other bowler - with the exception of Dale Steyn - over the same period.

Even more impressively after his first 20 Tests, Johnson already has more wickets than Glenn McGrath, Richard Hadlee, Malcolm Marshall or Curtly Ambrose did at the same stage of their careers.

But not content to simply assume Glenn McGrath’s mantle as Australia’s most prolific and reliable bowler, Johnson used the home and away series in South Africa earlier this year to also announce himself as the new Adam Gilchrist, the solution to Australia’s all-rounder problem. He suddenly looked likely to be the difference between the Australians and England in the Ashes.

There were glimpses of his ability with the bat during the Australian summer when he had posted a career-best 64 at Sydney, and outscored Matthew Hayden and Mike Hussey during the three-Test series against South Africa. In January, even though then in the possession of a Test average of just 25.82, he had confidently told SPIN that he expected to score a Test century soon.

Within just two months he had kept JULY 2009

SPIN 33

FEATURE MONGOOSE BAT

LITTLE

WONDER

PICTURES: PA PHOTOS

Scientists say that Mongoose bats – with a blade that’s just 12 inches long – can hit the ball harder and further than ‘normal’ bats. Stuart Law and Lou Vincent are signed up to use them. So: are they a gimmick – or a cricket revolution?

42 SPIN JULY 2009

“I was playing cut shots off the toe of the bat and they were speeding away for four” Stuart Law

I

n a studio five minutes walk from London Bridge, the Australian cricketer Stuart Law is swishing a bat around and being filmed, by a video crew and two photographers. It is a curious scene and not just for the sheer number of cameras in the room. The bat Law is wielding appears to be crazily small – about two-thirds the size of a normal bat in fact. It does not look as if it might be something that a player like Law, who has played in World Cup finals and been a professional for the last 20 years, might ever contemplate using in a serious match.

In fact, he already has used a version of the bat, in a game for Derbyshire against Essex the previous week.

He scored 95 with it.

There have been no changes to the basic design of a cricket bat for over 200 years, until the development of this bat – the Mongoose. Over the course of the day, its inventor, a club cricketer and ex-advertising man called Marcus Codrington Fernandez, will be outlining his one-man mission to convert the cricket world to using smaller bats; very much smaller bats.

The MCC approved the Mongoose – six inches shorter in the blade than a standard bat – 12 months ago. Why wouldn’t they?

While the rules on bats are strict and detailed – Ricky Ponting’s carbon-backed Kookaburras, for example, were shown the door back in 2006 – the notion that a smaller hitting area might provide a player with any kind of advantage comes straight from left-field. The main principle of the bat laws are that the bat must not be wider than four-and-a-quarter inches and that both handle and blade must be made of wood.

The Mongoose complies.

Codrington Fernandez used the Mongoose himself through last season. He averaged 80 in club cricket when for the last 25 years he had, he says, always averaged 37.

He says he took a lot of stick off opposition players when he walked to the middle with his tiny bat. But the stick tended to last only until he had played an attacking shot, until they had seen exactly how much more powerful the Mongoose was than the conventional bat.

At first glance, the whole story seems to make no sense at all. But it works like this: 1) batsmen hardly ever use the very top part of their bat; and never use it to score runs, only as a matter of last-ditch defence.

JULY 2009

SPIN 43

ICC WORLD T20 TEAM-BY-TEAM

TEAMS ❱❱ GROUP C ❱❱ AUSTRALIA SRI LANKA W INDIES

11-2

ODDS

(3rd favourites)

Australia

68 SPIN JULY 2009

spinner in the squad but, as Brad Hogg found last time, there’s no guarantee of selection. Australia could instead go with the part-time spin trio of Dave Hussey, Michael Clarke or Andrew Symonds.

Many key Aussies opted out of the IPL

BIG NUMBER

2288 The world record number of T20 runs scored by Brad Hodge.

But he has been left out of the Aussie squad for this tournament…

and many Aussies – or at least the ones who haven’t retired – have yet to fully apply themselves to cricket’s newest format. Australia were caught cold at the 2007 tournament and even coach Tim Nielsen’s recent assertions that T20 should now be treated more seriously seemed slightly belated. Can the side see this as anything other than a precursor to Australia’s main priority this summer?

Squad Ricky Ponting (capt), Nathan Bracken, Michael Clarke, Brad Haddin (wk), Nathan Hauritz, Ben Hilfenhaus, James Hopes, Michael Hussey, David Hussey, Mitchell Johnson, Brett Lee, Peter Siddle, Andrew Symonds, David Warner, Shane Watson.

Coach Tim Nielsen, 41. London-born, ex-South Australia ’keeper promoted to the top job after the 2007 World Cup, having spent five years with the national side and as head coach of the Aussie Academy.

PICTURES: PA PHOTOS

T

he 2007 World Twenty20 was the first time a Ponting-led limited overs side had failed to win a major tournament, as they fell 15 runs short of India’s total in the semi-final in South Africa.

Australia’s two top runscorers in that tournament were none other than Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist. You may also remember them from the 2009 IPL, in which they amassed more than 1000 runs between them at strike rates of 144.81 and 152.30 respectively – but both will be absent here and it’s hard to see a Dave Warner-Michael Clarke or Brad Haddin opening combination worrying bowlers as much as the old guard.

The key change at the top of the order aside, there’s still plenty of experience in the team: seven players in the squad played in that 2007 semi defeat, including the pace trio that is likely to be the core of Australia’s bowling efforts here: Nathan Bracken, Brett Lee and Mitchell Johnson.

Nathan Hauritz, veteran of just one international T20, is the sole specialist

0 2 Y T N E W T 0 D 2 L Y R T N O E W T W D C L ICICCWOR Who’s missing?

Key man

The Victorian trio of Brad Hodge, Dirk Nannes and Cameron White. The Bushrangers have been the most successful Twenty20 team in the world, with three consecutive titles and a final hurdle fall in 2008-09 but they have just two representatives (Peter Siddle and David Hussey) in the squad. Hodge’s advice on T20 has, however, been sought out by coach Nielsen. Nannes, meanwhile, will play for Holland,

He has disappeared off the radar in the long form of the game, despite working on his spin bowling skills to increase his worth, but Nathan Bracken remains a key bowler for Australia in one-day cricket.

The left-arm pacer’s variation and accuracy make him a perfect candidate to bowl at the death – both to contain and to remove batsmen. No Aussie bowler has taken more wickets in than him (19) in international T20s.

New face?

Selection issues

Dave Warner has big shoes to fill as opener but his international debut last year – smashing 89 from 43 balls – suggested he is, at the very least, capable of a Gilchrist-like blitz. And at that point he hadn’t even played a first-class 50.

That remains his only international fifty despite Australia sticking with him for the next four games. If fit, Shane Watson may challenge Warner for that opening spot.

As is the case with the series that will follow, the main headache is sorting out which all-rounder(s) to use. But if the inevitable Shane Watson injury does eventuate, that will reduce Hilditch’s headache – and ensure Warner an opening spot.

Twenty20 record Played: 21: Won 11, Lost 10

HAWKEYE’S VI EW

The graphic on the left shows the left-armer Nathan Bracken’s pitch map to England’s right handers, coming round the wicket during the World T20 in 2007.

He bowled at the start and end of the innings, and was a crucial part of keeping England to a modest total of 135 – he conceded just 16 runs from his four overs and claimed three victims (white balls), including Pietersen. (Reds are dot balls). Bracken used variations in length – often accompanied by a change of pace – to restrict England’s batsmen from scoring and increase frustration.

Dave Warner signed with IPL side Delhi just before his rapid rise to international cricket. His return of 163 from seven innings was a tad disappointing but he did manage one 40-ball fifty against Chennai. The wagon wheel from that innings (right) shows his favoured scoring areas: through cover, behind square leg and, of course, the loft over mid-wicket.

LAST TIME… Yuvraj Singh’s six sixes

Having beaten no-one but Zimbabwe, England are already out of the tournament when they take the field against India on Day Nine. Things look OK after 18 overs with India at 171/3. Then Stuart Broad bowls the 19th over to Yuvraj Singh and goes for a maximum.

Six over mid-on. Six over fine leg. Six over mid-off. Six over backward point.

Six over mid-wicket. Six over mid-wicket (again). It’s the first time a major international team has conceded 36 runs in an over. India finish on 218/4. England lose by just 18 runs.

Sreesanth skittles Aussies

Apparently coasting to the 189 they need to win the semi-final, despite another Yuvraj special (this time 70 off 30), the Aussies are stopped in their tracks by Sree Sreesanth. The Angry Youth proves he’s not just in the team for his theatrics and break-dancing as he delivers two perfect late-swinging yorkers to upend the stumps of first Adam Gilchrist and then Matthew Hayden. Sreesanth’s send-off of Hayden is magnanimous and gentlemanly. If punching the ground with both fists and shouting and snarling can be regarded as such.