Ian Healy, Michael Slater and Ian Chappell (Michael and Ian Chappell will both be working on Test Match Special during the series). I get the feeling that all four are genuinely fascinated by the build up to the Ashes and Australia’s current woes in particular. We have a robust conversation about the spot-fixing allegations surrounding members of Pakistan’s team. There is very little sympathy around our particular table. Eventually Ian and I move next door to the appropriately named Drunken Admiral. Chappell is the most enthusiastic storyteller – about any topic – I have ever met; to be frank he never stops! His tales inevitably involve getting into scrapes with Rodney Marsh, Dennis Lillee and his team-mates from the time when I was just getting into cricket, so I am always fascinated and amused by his anecdotes. Mind you, if you cut out the swear words, they could be told in half the time. But then that’s Ian.
CAN SWANN PROVIDE THE KRYPTONITE?
Ben Dirs | 16 November 2010
You sometimes hear the argument that visiting finger spinners simply aren’t a deciding factor in Ashes series in Australia, an argument that, when scrutinised, appears to be buttressed largely by cherry-picked evidence. Ashley Giles, it is true, was wholly ineffective on the last, disastrous trip Down Under and while his replacement Monty Panesar took a five-for on his Ashes debut in Perth, he was tamed in Melbourne and Sydney.
Yorkshire’s Richard Dawson toiled for scant reward in 2002-03, and even though Phil Tufnell had his successes – including 5/61 in Sydney in 1990-91 – they were few and far between. Yet John Emburey and Phil Edmonds collected 33 wickets between them the last time England won the Ashes in the old enemy’s backyard while Fred Titmus bagged 21 wickets at 29 in 1962-63. While Raymond lllingworth and Tony Greig are among the more illustrious England twirlers to have found the going much tougher in Australian conditions (although it should be remembered Greig also bowled seam), there are two other significant names whose figures do pass muster: Derek Underwood (50 wickets in 14Tests at 31.48) and Jim Laker (15 in four at 21.2).
Those figures will be of some comfort to England fans who believe Andrew Strauss’s party contains the country’s best off-spinner since Laker and best spinner of any kind since Underwood, a certain Graeme Peter Swann. “They say finger spinners don’t have an impact in Australia,” says Tufnell, who garnered 19 wickets in eight Tests Down Under, “but if you’re a good enough bowler you will take wickets, it’s as simple as that. He’s the player the Aussies will fear most, he’s had a phenomenal couple of years in Test cricket.”
“Graeme Swann will be the key,” adds Emburey, who took 35 wickets in 10 Tests in Australia. “He’ll relish the extra bounce and if the pitches do turn, the ball will turn quicker because the pitches are harder. And if it’s not spinning he gets a lot of drift, so if he’s not beating the inside edge he’s beating the outside edge instead.”
Swann is the fastest England spinner to 100 wickets since Kent’s Colin Blythe in 1910, and like Laker and Underwood in their time, he can claim to be the best slow bowler in world cricket. He is currently ranked second overall in Test cricket behind South African quick Dale Steyn, and it is not often an England spinner has been able to say that. His elevated status will make him a target, with batsmen looking to attack him. But Tufnell believes that will only play into the Nottinghamshire man’s hands, especially when he is bowling into the footmarks created by Australia’s left-arm seamers Mitchell Johnson and Doug Bollinger.
“The Australians like to put spinners off their game but that could be good for England,” says Tufnell, who toured South Africa with Swann in 1999-2000. “They’ll make mistakes, try to hit balls that aren’t there. It’s a form of flattery, because they know if they just hang around he’s a good enough bowler to get them out. It won’t faze him at all if the Aussies decide to get stuck into him, he’s that type of character. Whether it’s the first day and the wicket’s flat or it’s a green seamer, you throw him the ball and he believes he can get people out.”
‘Character’ is a word you will find cropping up a lot where Swann is concerned, in part because it’s a quality that has been in such short supply on recent trips Down Under. Swann, in contrast to the stereotype of the buttoned-up, risk-averse England spinner, is confrontational, attack-minded and possesses that ‘unfathomable something’. And it is this ‘unfathomable something; as much as the guile and the drift and the tremendous ‘revs’ Swann puts on the ball, which is kryptonite to many batsmen.
“If he can stay fit, he’s going to be a massive part in us winning the Ashes,” says Giles, who took eight wickets in three Tests Down Under. “He’s a phenomenal bowler at the moment. Every time he comes on, you think something’s going to happen.” When Giles says ‘you’, he means opposition batsmen, too. It is this ‘unfathomable something’ that makes batsmen play the man rather than the ball, convinces them the bowler is trying something on when he is doing nothing of the sort. Ian Botham had it in spades, especially later in his career when the waistline had expanded and the run-up was little more than a saunter; and Shane Warne had it, too, even when a creaking body had pared down his many variations.
Moving from the abstract to the practical, both Tufnell and Emburey concede a finger spinner’s lot is made more difficult by the Kookaburra ball used in Australia, with its flatter, perishable seam that disintegrates into little more than dots. However, both Tufnell and Emburey are quick to point out that, for all his chutzpah, Swann is essentially a team man, able to lock down his ego for the greater good.
“When Phil Edmonds and myself weren’t getting wickets at least we bowled long spells and controlled the game,” says former Middlesex stalwart Emburey. “That’s the key with Swanny, if he’s not taking wickets he’s good enough to keep it tight.” Tufnell adds: “England will be looking for him to be a major wicket-taker, but with a four-man attack he’s also going to be the guy who’s going to look to dry up one end while the seam bowlers rotate at the other.”
A few weeks back, when England’s Lee Westwood became golf’s world number one, his coach Peter Cowen said his pupil had got to where he was because he remained “very comfortable in uncomfortable situations”. It doesn’t get more uncomfortable for an English cricketer than an Ashes tour Down Under, yet you get the feeling it is going to take more than a bit of bullying from the Aussie batsmen and a dumpling of a ball to knock Swann out of his groove.
DAY 15: 17 November 2010
England spring a surprise by fielding their Test batsmen, so the one reserve, Morgan, will have had no cricket before the First Test. There is an element of risk to this, but Flower and Strauss clearly want to give the first-choice players every opportunity to find form and, hopefully, play long and meaningful innings against Australia A’s decent-looking pace attack. The pitch is very green indeed. Strauss wins the toss and no one is surprised when he puts the home team in to bat against his reserve attack.
With Anderson, Broad and Finn looking on before they leave to catch their flight to Brisbane, the support seamers have something of a field day. Conditions are perfect for Tremlett, Shahzad and Bresnan, but it is no surprise that they are all rather ring rusty, well short of match practice. Australia A slip to 118 for 6 from which point England’s frontline bowlers would have ruthlessly finished them off. But fighting half centuries by Steve Smith and Stephen O’Keefe combined with England’s bowlers’ lack of puff, enables Australia to reach 230. It shows that it doesn’t matter how many miles you run or weights you lift, only through bowling in match conditions can you really get fit for cricket.
I hope we get a little closer to understanding and appreciating Chris Tremlett on this tour. He is tall, has a great action and enough pace to hurt you, but his reputation of being rather soft continues to haunt him. Those who watch him play for his second county, Surrey, believe he has hardened up and become more aggressive and self-confident. I hope so because now aged 29, it really is make or break time for him.
