The Australian domestic cricket season is just around the corner, and with a Test series against India and Sri Lanka on the horizon the Big Bash League may well prove the focal point of the summer ahead; that or Fox Sports new cricket commentary team.
Why, one may ask when India are ranked the number one Test playing nation at the current time? The reason is India historically has always struggled in Australia, just as Australia has struggled in India. In fact India has not won a Test series in 11 previous attempts. This takes you all the way back to the nation’s first tour of Australia against Don Bradman’s men in 1947-48. On Three occasions they have drawn the series in Australia in 1980/81, 1985/86 and 2003/04.
Of course if they do win, it will be a Summer to remember. Yet to do that they will have to bowl Australia out twice in five days. India managed to achieve that feat in 2017 in three of the four tests played, twice they scored enough runs to ensure victory, once they did not, but they still claimed the series. However that was on home soil.
The last team to bowl Australia out twice in a Test match in Australia was South Africa in 2016/17 when they won the three Test series 2-1. They bowled Australia out twice in both of the first two test matches.
You have to go back to the Ashes series in 2013/14 and the dead rubber of the fifth Test to find the last time Australia were dismissed twice in an innings prior to that occasion. However they still skittled a hapless England for less, to claim a 5-0 Series whitewash.
In 2012/13 it was South Africa again who achieved the feat and won the series 1-0 after bowling Australia out twice in the third Test in Perth and claiming victory.
The task of winning on the road has become increasingly difficult for touring sides in recent times for a number of reasons. The first being that the touring sides do not play enough meaningful warm up games. The second is the wickets clearly favour not just the home sides, but also the batsmen. The third reason is that world class bowlers these days are few and far between. (A Reason To Stay At Home)
In their victory in Australia in 2012/13 South Africa had one of the few World Class bowlers in recent times Dale Steyn, who in the Test in Perth took seven wickets in the match. In the first innings he dismissed four of Australia’s top six batsman and in the second two of the top six. He was supported by Vernon Philander who took four wickets in the match and Morne Morkel who took three.
In their victories in 2015/16 in the first Test Vernon Philander took five wickets in the match while youngster Kagiso Rabada took seven. Dale Steyn took one wicket and left the field injured. Everyone predicted that with his departure South Africa’s hopes of victory in Australia would also disappear. Yet Philander took five wickets in the first innings of the second test, while Kyle Abbott took three. In the second innings Abbott took six wickets and Kagiso Rabada four to go with his one wicket in the first innings. Rabada was just 21 years of age at the time.
Cricket was always a battle between bat and ball, but sadly over the past three decades that has changed.
In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s the criticism levelled at Captains was that they were playing not to lose, rather than playing to win. In the 1960’s one day cricket came to the fore. In this form of limited overs teams had no choice but to go for victory. However, one day cricket changed the attitude of bowlers. No longer did many bowl to take wickets, they bowled to contain the batsman. The idea was stop the batsman scoring, make the runs dry up and you will have a lower total to chase, and the batting side will in fact lose wickets in the hunt for quick runs.
This still took a great deal of skill and there were some wonderful bowlers who could tie up one end in limited overs cricket. This of course restricted the batsman, whom the marketing people believed were the players who pulled in the punters. So field restrictions came in, which would again benefit the batsman, and in recent times we have seen wickets prepared that offer next to nothing to the bowlers after the first six to ten overs. The pendulum continues to swing the batsman’s way.
One day cricket they told us was dying, so then game T20, which was even more weighted in favour of the batsman. So much so that few young players want to be bowlers these days. In addition the art of bowling has been diminished. There are few World Class bowlers of the ilk of Shane Warne or Glenn McGrath on the international circuit today.
There is no doubt that England fans will argue that James Anderson should be rated as “World Class” on the basis that he is now their all time leading wicket-taker. Anderson has taken at the time of writing, 564 Test wickets in 143 matches and 267 innings. He has also taken 269 wickets in 194 One Day Internationals.
Anderson in his Test match career has taken five wickets in a Test 26 times. He has taken ten wickets in a match three times. Yet of the 26 times he has taken five wickets in a match he has only achieved this feat five times overseas. Once against Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka and the West Indies in 54 matches and 96 innings.
Compare this to Glenn MCGrath who took 563 wickets in 124 matches and 243 innings. McGrath took five wickets 29 times and ten wickets in a match three times. In McGrath’s case 18 of his five wicket halls came away from Australia. He achieved the feat eight times against England in England. He achieved the feat once against New Zealand and Pakistan, twice against South Africa and six times against the West Indies.
Even if we look at Dale Steyn’s record he took 421 Test wickets in 88 test matches. He took five wickets in a match 26 times and on ten occasions he achieved the feat overseas.
Surely that is the test of a “World Class” bowler, being able to take wickets away from home, against top class opponents, in their own backyards.
There can be no doubt that runs will be scored this Summer as Australia and India both have batsman that can make big scores. The question will be whether India has the firepower to bowl Australia out twice on wickets that will not do them any favours. If they are successful not only will it be a series to remember in terms of the cricket that will have been played, but also historically.
If Australia do prevail, as is the trend for the home side to do in modern cricket, then one cannot help harking back to words written by the great John Arlott in 1975 on one day cricket and wonder if first that form of the game and then the dawn of T20, which was never supposed to be more than a ‘hit-and-a-giggle,’ has resulted in the demise of the World Class bowler.
He wrote, “The appeal of “Instant Cricket” depends on fast scoring and the taking of measured or unmeasured, risks to meet a run-rate nicely balanced on the brink of self-destruction.” He went on to say that the lessons learned from one day cricket, then in its relative infancy, were first, that “over-limit cricket is entertaining only if it is played on a fast “belter” of a batsman’s wicket which gives bowlers no chance.” Secondly that “the overriding purpose of the players is to win and the process is not necessarily superficially exciting.”
One question that we have raised repeatedly on “Not The Footy Show” has been why is it that in limited overs cricket bowlers are restricted in how many overs they can bowl? Batsman do not have to retire when they score 50 or 100, so why should a bowler who has found his length and rhythm be forced to be withdrawn from the attack?
Surely if a bowler is fit enough and clever enough to tie up one end then he should be allowed to bowl unfettered, after all the game is supposed to be a battle between bat and ball. If this were allowed in the limited overs form of the game would it produce better bowlers for the Test arena? Would it encourage more young players to become bowlers? Would it in fact see a resurgence of interest in One Day Internationals?
