Aggers’ Ashes. Jonathan Agnew
PR machine prefers to dwell on the strength of the recovery from England’s poor position, England should not have got into such a mess in the first place. It is all about discipline and there has not been enough of that in the approach of England’s batsmen in recent years. Dashing half-centuries are not what is required. The batsmen have to play the long game.
Even Monty, the nightwatchman, is out hooking. Cook and Trott then add 87, but Cook hoists a catch to mid-on off the left-arm spinner O’Keefe for 60, and Trott miscues a pull shot off Mark Cameron so badly that he gives a flat catch to mid-off for 41. Pietersen hits O’Keefe for 4, but then completely misses what appears to be nothing more than a dead straight delivery that rattles his middle stump. From KP’s reaction at the time, he seems to think that he is the victim of an unplayable hand grenade and departs the crease slowly as if has been betrayed. In the media centre we watch replay after replay trying to work out how he has made such a misjudgement, and, frankly, it is difficult to make sense of it. Is it that Pietersen really does have an issue playing left-arm spin bowlers, who have now dismissed him fifteen times in Tests?
Bell plays fluently from the outset. He and the bottom-handed Collingwood are an interesting combination and there really are shades of Geoffrey Boycott in the way, in particular, Bell drives: it is the perfectly bent left elbow that does it. He absolutely destroys Smith, the leg spinner, endorsing the majority view that there is no way Smith could play for Australia as the main spinner – he simply is not good enough.
I interview Colly at the end of play and feel I have no choice but to ask him about the Sprinkler. “Wait ‘til you see the Lawnmower,” is his cryptic reply.
It’s dinner with Graham Gooch and Derek Pringle [former England player and now of the Daily Telegraph] in a Greek restaurant close to our hotel. Gooch really seems to have found his niche now – he is on call with England as and when Flower wants him and will stay with the tour until the end of the Third Test. He is a hugely respected batting coach, and this role enables him to focus purely on that without having to worry too much about running team affairs. He insists we drink Greek wine to accompany the meal. It is very good but, as usual, Pringle has a damaging impact on the bill by ordering an expensive bottle of Tasmanian red at the end. I’m trying so hard to stick to my beginning-of-the-tour fitness resolution, but discovering that (as Emma would no doubt have forecasted) my willpower really is non-existent.
THE PARADOX OF SHANE WATSON
Oliver Brett | 18 November 2010
How England fans sneered when they saw a familiar blond all-rounder walk out to open the batting for Australia in the Edgbaston Ashes Test of 2009. Here was a man who had produced one solitary fifty in 13 previous Test innings. He apparently had few credentials as an opener, and was more adept, surely, at batting at six or seven and bowling a few overs of fast medium pace. Besides, he seemed to be injured most of the time.
Shane Watson, for he was the man in question, ignored the naysayers, striking 62 and 53 while James Anderson and Graham Onions were swinging the ball sideways. He has played every Test bar one since then, forming a formidable opening partnership with the crab-like Simon Katich, hitting the ball merrily here, there and everywhere with little ceremony spared. Katich has been Australia’s top scorer in all Tests since Edgbaston 2009, but only by five runs. Watson has amassed 1,261 runs in that time at an average of 50.44, leaving Ricky Ponting, Michael Clarke and Michael Hussey trailing in his wake. Whatever your allegiance, it is easy to admire Watson’s second coming.
He could have been a hero in the 2006-07 Ashes, when England were swept aside 5-0, but unrealised potential is often a recurring characteristic of the Watson story. His was then a career mired in uncertainty, notably because of injuries afflicting every part of an ironically powerful physique, with hamstrings, calves and hips taking a battering. So inevitably he was unfit and missed Australia’s glorious summer. Even though he enjoyed the considerable consolation of appearing in the 2007 World Cup-winning side, his Test career appeared in danger of remaining forever unfulfilled.
Now, at 29, he is one of the first names on the Australia team sheet, filling a dual role as Katich’s more effusive foil at the top of the order, while also sending down some handy overs as the fourth sea mer. He proved particularly effective with the ball in the Tests with Pakistan at Lord’s and Headingley in the summer of 2010. The oddity is that many Australian cricket fans find it difficult to admire Watson. There is a view that Watson should not open the batting, despite his success in that role. Former Australian captain Ian Chappell disagrees: “He might have become an opening batsman by accident but he’s quite happy opening and I look upon him as a very effective opener.” An old-fashioned biffer of the ball, he may lack some of the finesse of others but nevertheless has a sound enough defence. The overall package suits Chappell fine.
“If you have an opener who can score quickly, as Watson does, it’s worth gold and makes him very effective,” he says. “There are two types of opening batsman, the type that gets a start, makes the most of it and makes a big score, then you have the type who doesn’t get out early but doesn’t get big scores too often. Watson is in the second category, but if you can’t have the first category I’m happy with the second category. The flaw is that he doesn’t get a lot of hundreds, but he makes up for that in other ways. So long as he doesn’t get out quickly, the guys batting around him are never under pressure to score quickly themselves.”
Chappell is not keen to see Watson increase his bowling workload, however, adding: “The more bowling he’s got to do the more it means the Australian attack isn’t performing as well as you would hope. Watson should be used the way he’s been used in the last 12 to 18 months, purely as a change bowler, a few overs here and then he’s off. Anything you do with him that takes him away from opening the batting effectively would be counter-productive.”
When he picked up the Allan Border Medal in February last year, the annual prize awarded to Australia’s top cricketer, Watson fought back tears. His partner Lee Furlong, a TV presenter whom he has since married, beamed in the audience as her man, clad in a designer suit and with his hair perfectly coiffured, thanked a range of people who had helped rebuild his career. Among them was Victor Popov, the Brisbane physiotherapist who transformed Watson’s training regime. No more pumping weights in the gym to make those rippling muscles even bigger; instead a gentler schedule of pilates and stretching was ordered. Where there was once an occasional beer or two to unwind, now there was a strict teetotal regime.
To the unreconstructed Australian sports fan, Watson is thus something of an anomaly-and it helps explain the paradox that he does not meet with universal approval in his own country. The Australian blogger Jarrod Kimber really sticks the boot in, writing recently: “It takes real talent to be hated when you are pathetic and just as despised when you are good. Even those who have the talent to get to this level of hatred could never do it as well as Shane Watson. When not in front of the mirror, he seems to be able to move 95% of cricket fans into a frenzy of hate, pure detestation, clear revulsion, and a general uneasy sickness of rage.” So he continues, belittling his bowling action by likening it to the movements of “an elderly man getting out of a car”. England’s bowlers will have all sorts of strategies lined up for him when the First Test starts at his home ground, the Gabba. Whether they fall into the camp of being admirers or haters of ‘Watto’ is not strictly relevant. Nevertheless, the renaissance of Watson, and the manner in which it has been received, provides an intriguing backdrop to the opening salvos.
DAY 17: 19 November 2010
Finally, after three weeks in the country, the first sledging article appears in the Australian newspapers. And it’s a cracker! ‘Ten Reasons why the Poms are Duds’ is the headline, alongside a full page photograph of Kevin Pietersen who, thanks to his ‘Movember’ moustache – the month formerly known as November is a moustache growing charity event held each year that raises funds and awareness for men’s health – suddenly looks terribly camp, as if he is a member of the 1970s band YMCA. It should be noted that Mitchell Johnson has also grown a particularly fine specimen. The ten ‘weaknesses’ are 1) Over-rated 2) Pietersen 3) No genuine speedster 4) Over-analysis 5) Passive captain 6) No depth 7) No superstars 8) Chokers 9) Warm-ups 10) Scars. Unfortunately for the writer concerned, he refers to Panesar as an off-spinner