A truly fatal four-way

If the Australian selectors are starting to consider playing four pacemen for the third Test against India in Perth, they’re just as muddle-headed as the team they replaced. 

Let’s not go into the ramifications of kicking another promising young spinner in the teeth (cf. Beau Casson, Dan Cullen, Nathan Hauritz and Michael Beer), it belies common sense and, eventually, come back to bite Australia fairly and squarely on the bum.

Since 1990, Australia has played 21 times at Perth.  In those games, their Win/Loss ratio stands at thirteen wins, three draws and four losses.  Australia has played an all-pace attack in three of those games: in the Ashes last year, versus India in 2007-08 and in the 1998-99 Ashes series, where “Funky” Miller got the nod while Shane Warne was injured. 

Although they won the WACA match last year – and against the Old Enemy a dozen years before – they were absolutely pillaged in 2007-08 against the Indians.  This 2-in-3 success rate seems about right for what amounts to a gamble.

There are four iron-clad reasons why an all-pace attack should be vetoed with as much haste as possible.

First, Australia seems to have a great wealth of fast bowling talent at present.  Unfortunately however, the nation seems to be injuring that talent as quickly as it arrives.  With James Pattinson, like Pat Cummins, succumbing to the dread foot stress reaction, Australia are likely to head into Perth dressing the indefatigable Peter Siddle, the injury-prone Ryan Harris and the revitalised Ben Hilfenhaus.  Add a fourth to that lot (Peter George?  Mitch Starc?) and suddenly Australia’s attack, should/when Harris break down again, looks quite thin when compared to a batting lineup boasting near enough to 50000 Test runs. 

Peter George, courtesy: perthnow.com.au

This doesn’t even begin to answer the questions as to whether Starc, who looked game but perhaps overwhelmed against New Zealand, or indeed George, are polished enough for Test level at present.

Secondly, the effects of dropping Lyon would be tantamount to a slap from a wet fish.  Sure, he has cumulative figures of 2/180 so far this series, but he’s played on pitches hardly amenable to spin (Indian compatriot Ravi Ashwin has 4/298).  He’s also on track to be the best off-spinner Australia’s had since arguably since Ian Johnson, who retired in 1956.  He is worth persisting with and needs his captain, coach and even the ball-boys to tell him his place is secure.  Nathan Hauritz, though captained by a man who thinks spin is something that dryers do, was never told this.  And it showed.

This dovetails nicely into the third reason – Australia should play Lyon because he’s better-suited to the Perth pitch than to almost any other strip in the country.  While a bigger turner of the ball than Hauritz (as are many), he still doesn’t rip the ball or have quite the grip and turn of the likes of Saqlain Mushtaq, Harbhajan Singh or Graeme Swann.  What this means is that he’s a thinking bowler, and could – should? – become the Anil Kumble to Swann’s Warne, a player reliant on subtle variations … and aided enormously by bounce. 

Finally, while Australia has opted for a four-pronged pace attack in the past, it has done so when conditions merit.  Those conditions are best defined by the following questions:

           

            Does the pitch take spin - at all? 

            Will the strip break up?

            Can variety be provided by bowlers whose name isn’t Mike Hussey?

            Are the four best available bowlers pacemen? 

            If so, how far ahead of the competition/spinner are they?

            Are any of the four liable to collapse in a screaming heap?

           

Unfortunately for those advocating a fatal four-way, even the most ignorant of cricket fans knows the answer to all the above questions without even needing to think.  Australia would take a retrograde step in taking four speedsters to Perth, a step with both long and short-term implications.

#freeLyon

Patrick Cummins is the future - Or not.

Patrick Cummins is the future.

No, hang on, maybe he's not. It's Josh Hazelwood. Tall, quick, can get it to wobble about a bit. Yes, definitely Josh Hazelwood.

Or perhaps it's James Pattinson. You know, English Darren's brother. Surely he's going to lead the Australian attack into the next decade, he's already played in the coloured clothing for us. I've changed my mind, we should embrace him as our spearhead.

But then where does that leave Peter George? And Mitch Starc? Or Nathan Coulter-Nile, Jayde Herrick, Trent Copeland and Burt Cockley?

Australia has a surfeit of youthful fast bowling talent at present. Not just young fast bowlers, but - on current evidence - good ones. This is a source of much-needed encouragement given recent events in the Baggy Green as defeats to pretty much everyone again conjure memories of all the West Indies lost in their regression from behemoth to basket-case.

Cricket in Australia is far from being completely turned around - in fact, it still may not even be going in the right direction. But CA's done everything it can - commissioning a report to put down in ink what any observer already knew. And the country has raw fast bowling talent to choose from - and it is that which is most crucial to a successful cricket side. The oldest of the fast bowlers named above are 25-year olds Copeland and Herrick.

Why so excited? Every successful postwar cricket team has had pace firepower in abundance. The Invincibles steamed through England behind Lindwall, Miller and Johnston; England of the fifties unleashed Statham, Trueman, Bedser and "Typhoon" Tyson; the West Indies speed vanguard often left their batsmen with little to do and Australia's dominant decades came as a result of the toil of Lillee, Thomson, McGrath and Gillespie.

Fast bowling talent wins games, not bowlers who send it down fast. And there's a difference between the two: Patrick Patterson was outrageously quick, had one of the great intimidatory attitudes, won a few of games for Jamaica and the West Indies, but never amounted to much. The same could be said for Brett Lee - you always felt he should have been better than he was.

There hasn't been this many exciting young Skippy flingers since the mid-eighties where from 1985-1988, Merv Hughes, Craig McDermott, Tony Dodemaide, Chris Matthews (!), Bruce Reid and Dave Gilbert were all young and clamoured for Test selection.

Both the West Indies and Australia have eloquently proved that when fast bowling talent makes way for people who bowl fast (*cough* Mitchell Johnson *cough*), teams quickly begin to lose matches. Most importantly, Pace talent means time not batting is spent attacking a position, rather than defending one. A quality pace platoon also excites onlookers and relieves pressure on their run-scorers. On a broader scale, it also infinitely strengthens batting on a national scale and means Moises Henriques will never play for Australia again.

England's transformation from also-ran to world champion came on the back of talented fast bowlers the ilk of Flintoff, Simon Jones, Bresnan, Finn, Tremlett and Anderson: each is/was able to combine discipline and an ability to make the ball "talk" with swing, seam or bounce. With a combination of some of the talent above, Aussie fans hope the same will happen in the Antipodes.

Australian punters (no, not that one) are excited about nascent fast bowling talent because since that fateful Sydney Test of 2007, the country's bowlers have lacked a leader. The plan was for Stuart Clark to hand over to "Notch" Johnson and Ben Hilfenhaus, which worked about as effectively as a a K-Tel nostril hair trimmer. The hierarchy hopes for a leader to whom they can turn when in trouble: a guy who gets the ball in the right spots to either restrict runs or take wickets.

Any of the current tyros may, in time, be that guy. But to expect Cummins - or anyone else, for that matter - to be a sort of proto-Mohammed Amir is unreasonable, unrealistic and more likely to produce a Lee than a McGrath.

The central board must keep two simple, everyday truths in mind: You almost never find what you're looking for until you stop searching and anointing young, unproven leaders rarely works. This is why Cummins, Copeland, Hazelwood or Pattinson shouldn't be anointed as the next leader of Australia's bowling attack until they have earned that position.

All of our past leaders have had to learn from experience: McDermott, while in his ostensible prime surrendered his Test berth to Dodemaide and Chris Matthews. McGrath emerged only after McDermott's injury - when absolutely noone saw it coming, least of all the West Indies lower order. The term "King-maker" is the epitome of a self-aggrandization, used only by the extraordinary vain and is based upon the flawed principal of anointing unproven "chosen ones" at an early age. Leaders emerge as circumstances allow.

More appropriately, leaders emerge when they conquer those circumstances. McDermott had to conquer immaturity and the stigma of being a ginger kid. Lillee overcame a crippling back injury - twice. Shane Warne fought an unlikely combination of playboy lifestyle and massive girth. McGrath had to rid himself of that horrible haircut.

It's possible, perhaps even likely, that Cummins, Hazelwood, Pattinson and Copeland will all be top-draw seamers. Especially, calling wunderkind Cummins a saviour and future leader is placing remarkable expectations on young, still-developing shoulders. Let him learn. Let him grow into his frame, his profession and international cricket.

This post was originally published on The Sight Screen.