Ten years Strauss’ junior, Rory Hamilton-Brown has already made waves as a leader. In conversation with Ed Kemp, the youngest captain in England reflects on the unique challenges of fronting up a county outfit. We also take a look at the science behind the art, and the support systems in place for the 21st century general, while Bob Willis gives his considered opinion on the pscychology and practicalities of leadership.

Elsewhere, it’s out with old and in with the new as Steven Finn takes over from Jimmy Anderson as our new diarist (trust us, his first effort is a belter) and we celebrate the end of one year and the start of another with ‘AOC’s Big Fat Quiz of 2011’. Needless to say, we’ve got some great prizes up for grabs – including a bat worth £380!

Back on the pitch, we rejoice in the impressive resilience of Misbah-ul-Haq’s Pakistan, and cautiously analyse the resurgence of Australia by speaking to four Aussies in the know, including Ashes winner Darren Lehmann. We’re not worried… honest.

Adding meat to the bones, the great Tony Cozier remembers the good old days of West Indian cricket, Alastair Cook does his best to keep his dignity while answering our 10 (infamous) questions and editor Phil Walker faces up to the fire and brimstone of… Joe Denly.

Just for good measure we’ve thrown in some considered analysis on the spot-fixing controversy, thrown on this year’s finest cricket shirts and had a drink with Sir Ian Botham. It’s another beefy issue…

All Out Cricket Issue 89 is in all good newsagents from February 2. Click here to save yourself a walk.

And just like that it was over. No, not England’s second innings against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi, but the guts of the Australian cricket season. On the same day that Australia completed a series whitewash over India, the Big Bash also reached a conclusion with Sydney Sixers’ victory over Perth Scorchers.

Of course, that isn’t really the end – there’s the obligatory mishmash of international ODIs and the domestic game will move on from the Twenty20 competition to its less glamorous day job of Sheffield Shield cricket – but the “cricketathon” that has seen my girlfriend struggle to comprehend just how much cricket one man can watch has now been reduced to a level that she can just about get her head around.

There has been something of symmetry to the storylines in the Test series and the Big Bash. While India’s batting stars are being accused of being over the hill, Australia’s victories have been based heavily on the renaissance of a man of whom the same was being said six months ago. And Ricky Ponting – who averaged 108 in the series – has been ably supported by a fellow wrinkly Mike Hussey at over 58 (his average not his age).

Meanwhile, a quick rundown of the best players in the Big Bash includes spin seniors Stuart MacGill, Shane Warne and Brad Hogg, who has remarkably forced his way back into Australia’s Twenty20 side at the age of 40. With the bat, my new favourite Aussie Brad Hodge starred, Matty Hayden scored plenty and the most successful international import was Herschelle Gibbs. This, it seems, is indeed a country for old men – as long as they aren’t Indian.

Undoubtedly there are some great young prospects in Australian cricket – James Pattinson, Pat Cummins and Dave Warner are enough to excite anyone, the improvement in Peter Siddle and Ben Hilfenhaus has been remarkable and the form of skipper Michael Clarke has been awesome. But the batting strength has been largely reliant on a couple of old timers, and bringing a 40-year-old into the Twenty20 team suggests something is missing.

But in the opinion of the Aussie press, the only thing missing is another Ashes series. 503. Apparently that’s how many days until Australia get the chance to play England again in Test cricket. The Australian performance combined with England’s demise in the UAE has seen them forget about recent history and they’re now confident of reclaiming the urn, Clarke is the best batsman on the planet and they possess the most lethal bowling attack in the world. In short, they believe they’re ready for England.

But there is so much hyperbole. Such an assessment conveniently ignores a top three that failed on numerous occasions against a toothless bowling attack, the fact their keeper is struggling with both bat and gloves and that Warner – as astonishing as his innings was at Perth – appears to have an Achilles heel in the form of spin bowling.

Australia are without doubt a better side than the one that got trounced by England a year ago but there is plenty of work still to be done. To be fair to Clarke, there has been no tub-thumping from him. He’s safe in the knowledge that the Aussies are on the up, but realistic enough to know they are far from world-beaters. At some point he’ll be hoping to share a matchwinning stand with someone who’s his junior. For now though, Australia are just thankful to their old guard.

Paul Winslow is a freelance journalist based in Melbourne. Check out more of his work at www.thewinslowboy.com.au

India are probably ready to leave Australia already, but at least the torment of the Test series is over, and they now have the chance to do what they failed to do in England last summer: win a game.

The visitors looked unathletic and uninspired during the four five-day contests, but there appears to be far more menace in their T20 ranks. The addition of Suresh Raina (also an excellent fielder) and Rohit Sharma adds explosive batting to the middle-order, while the presence of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja means that the visitors have plenty of spin options.

Australia’s squad is an extraordinary mix of veterans and rookies, with the likes of Brett Lee, Mike Hussey and 40-year-old Brad Hogg mixing it alongside James Faulkner and Mitchell Marsh (whose combined ages only just trump Hogg).

With Travis Birt, Aaron Finch and Victoria’s highly-rated keeper-batsman Matthew Wade also included, the Australian public will be seeing plenty of new faces this week, while new skipper George Bailey looks to have a tough job on his hands, as he tries to get the best out of himself and his new look team in the pressure cooker environment of international T20 cricket.

That said, punters on Betfair are still, understandably, behind the Baggy Greens, with an Australian series win currently priced at 2.42 [7.5], with India at 5.4 [9/2]. The latter’s odds seem a little long, but even with a revamped outfit I can’t see them beating their more energetic hosts twice in a week.

As such, I make Australia marginal favourites, and can see the value in laying India at 5.5.

For all the latest odds check out www.betfair.com

In this short film, Fields describes her battle back to fitness and her pride in representing her country.

Click here to watch a video interview with Australian fast bowler Ellyse Perry

It was a case of more of the same for a despondent India at the WACA, as the tourists were swept aside inside three days by a rampant Aussie bowling attack and fell to their fourth innings defeat in seven matches.

Virat Kohli’s sledge to Dave Warner in this midst of the Aussie opener’s blitzkrieg rather summed up the problems within the Indian camp. During his innings of 180, Kohli told Warner that he wouldn’t find life quite so easy when he came to the sub-continent. Given that Warner had just equalled the record for the fourth fastest century in Test history and won’t be touring India until February of next year, he unsurprisingly wasn’t too fazed by the comments.

If India are to rouse themselves and claim a consolation win in the fourth Test at Adelaide they will need to start living in the here and now and come to terms with the fact that Test cricket involves being taken out of your comfort zone. And that means finding a way to counter Australia’s seamers.

English fans who witnessed Australia’s attack repeatedly being put to the sword last winter would have been bemused to hear Virender Sehwag’s comments in the lead up to the final match of the series. “I think it’s the best bowling attack I’ve ever seen, especially against Australia,” said the out of form opener.

In the absence of the injured James Pattinson, the attack that took to the park in Perth was largely the same one that England disposed of with such ease in the last Ashes series. That Sehwag should speak in such glowing terms of an attack featuring Ben Hilfenhaus perhaps betrays the crisis of confidence crippling India’s batsmen, but it also demonstrates how dramatically the Tasmanian’s fortunes have changed over the past year.

Against England last winter, Hilfenhaus took seven wickets in four matches at an average of 59.28 and went through long spells where he never looked like taking a wicket. Three matches into the series against India he has 23 wickets at 16, catapulting him into the top 10 Test bowlers in the world for the first time in his career. So, what’s changed?

During the last Ashes, the perception was that Hilfenhaus had become something of a one-trick pony, down on pace after a niggling injury and swinging the ball straight from the hand, giving England’s batsmen plenty of time to choose their shot accordingly. At the end of series he was axed from the side and sent back to state cricket to sharpen up his game and learn how to take wickets again.

After working hard with Tasmanian bowling coach Ali de Winter to add more subtlety and variation to his game, the results started to show. “Hilfy is someone who needs to see the results before he believes something, but there is no doubt I think if he can learn to use the crease a bit more, come from wider and angle in before taking it away, he will not need to swing it as much as he thinks he needs to,” said his state captain and Australia’s newly appointed Twenty20 skipper George Bailey.

And the results have been immediate on Hilfenhaus’ return to the Test side and, while India’s batsmen have played a significant role in their own downfall, he appears to have rediscovered the zip that saw him finish as leading wicket-taker in the 2009 Ashes. Messrs Anderson, Broad and Tremlett might have something to say about Sehwag’s claim that Hilfenhaus is a member of the world’s best attack, but the Tasmanian workhorse has undoubtedly added some steel to Australia’s battery of seamers and with his pack of pacemen is such fine form and India’s confidence so low, Michael Clarke will fancy his chances of turning over India for the fourth match on the trot at Adelaide.

When I first sat down to write this piece, India were in the process of being bowled out for 161 by Australia at Perth. A spicy pitch with pace and bounce, but not the minefield that this distinguished Indian batting line-up would have had you believe. David Warner brutally dismantling India’s ailing attack on his way to the fourth fastest Test century was clear testament to that.

Test cricket hasn’t been the happiest of hunting grounds for India across the last 12 months. When playing at home and on top, there are few teams that grind their opponents into the dirt so attritionally. Stack the odds against them away from home, however, and the most startling of transformations takes place all too often.

Two away series – England and Australia – have seen more collapses than the average household ironing board, but the root of this problem appears to extend far beyond batting alone. Wayward bowling, even from proven world-class individuals such as Zaheer Khan, has been backed up by a worrying lack of energy and enthusiasm in the field whenever the opposition has been in the ascendency, a rather frequent occurrence in the aforementioned series.

A recent comment made by Australian wicketkeeper Brad Haddin summed up India’s plight perfectly: “We spoke about a bit of that when we were batting. The longer we could keep them out on the field the bigger chance we had of breaking them. We know this side can be as fragile as any team in the world if things aren’t going their way and they can turn on each other and the media turns on them pretty quick. We knew if we could keep them out there and put the numbers like we did on the board we knew we’d get the rewards because they break quicker than anyone in the world.”

Such showings initially led me to question the mental strength of the Indian players after numerous abject performances in the face of adversity, but maybe that is a little unfair. Of course, technique is another issue for batsmen that are unused to foreign conditions, but when you consider that this is the much vaunted line-up of Sehwag, Gambhir, Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman, arguably boasting the finest middle-order that the world has ever seen, that surely cannot be the key factor, either.

But what of culture? Could it be that the seemingly endless production line of talented cricketers coming out of India has led to many being brought up on the notion that cricket is about batting and bowling, and thus a neglect of basic fitness and conditioning? It is likely only because of such a wealth of talent that previous Indian sides have been able to ‘get away with’ this lax attitude in past years, but with the game now moving in to the professional era, and their rivals taking fitness more seriously than ever before, India have found themselves left behind.

As alluded to previously, it is a sometimes unfortunate trait of the Indian sides that their fielding lacks energy and, on occasion, effort. Let’s take the current India team as an example. An ageing group they may be, but if we compare Indian players of similar age to their Australian counterparts, there is little contest. Ricky Ponting, 37, moves with far greater vigour in the field than Sachin Tendulkar, 38, while VVS Laxman, 37, is the proverbial tortoise to the hare in comparison with Mike Hussey, 36. Fitness, it seems, is sadly lacking in the current Indian side, and may well be the crux of their problems.

Perhaps tellingly, a recent ESPN Cricinfo appraisal of the current Indian side suggested that you would only want six of that team on the field when faced with the prospect of a toilsome day. That six comprised of MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Ishant Sharma and Sachin Tendulkar, and of those perhaps only Dhoni and Kohli are of the fitness levels that would be deemed of a high enough standard for an international cricketer.

Any top sports psychologist will tell you that physical fitness is directly related to mental fitness. If you aren’t physically fit, you cannot be in the best possible mindset to perform to the best of your abilities. During Michael Clarke’s monumental 329 not out in the second Test at Sydney he and Michael Hussey were still running hard twos and threes late in the evening session after batting throughout the day. Had the roles been reversed, and Virender Sehwag had been batting, could we have expected the same? Batting is mentally very taxing, and if the body isn’t in the right condition to spend hours doing so it greatly enhances the likelihood of a lapse in concentration or a general drop in performance.

There is, nevertheless, some hope for India. Their ODI side has evolved into an athletic outfit with the introduction of several fit and agile youngsters, namely Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja and Suresh Raina. Of these, only Kohli has cemented himself a place in the Test side to date, but with the inevitable changing of the guard in the next six to 12 months we can expect to see a far more sprightly Indian side. It hasn’t happened yet, but contrary to the beliefs of many dispirited Indian fans, there is indeed a glimmer of light at the end of this particularly dark tunnel.

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“Bollyline” in Sydney will go down in history as a kind of cricketing sixday war. It was all too real and nasty while it was happening, but it was over almost as soon as it had begun. By the start of the next Test in Perth 10 days later, there was such peace and harmony on the surface it was as if nothing had ever happened.

As in real wars, circumstances conspired fatefully. Questionable sportsmanship, poor umpiring and alleged racism set the second Test at Sydney on a daily more precipitous edge, and tipped it over as Australia pursued a record-equalling 16th successive win on the last day in typically relentless fashion. They did snatch improbable victory from the jaws of stalemate, but it seemed to be made Pyrrhic in its moment by the engulfing firestorm.

There were casualties, not least among them the game’s dignity. Harbhajan Singh was given a three-Test ban (later rescinded). Posturing Indian authorities threatened to abandon the tour. Commentator Peter Roebuck called for the sacking of Ricky Ponting. Steve Bucknor lost his umpiring commission, and seemed unlikely ever to regain it. India’s captain Anil Kumble dramatically invoked the spirit of a previous cricket war when he declared that “Only one team was playing in the spirit of the game.”

But the least-expected damage was collateral. Up and down the country, there was an outpouring of anger at the disposition of the Australian side. Roebuck’s controversial call for the captain’s head polarised the public in a way that shocked the team. More broadly, this war deepened unresolved tensions between Australia and India, cricket’s on-field superpower and its financial powerhouse. Their scramble for the high moral ground made for an unedifying spectacle.

An animus had been brewing for months, since the World Twenty20 championship in South Africa. Some of the Australians thought India’s victory celebrations in that tournament were disproportionate to the achievement: Andrew Symonds was one who said so publicly. During a subsequent one-day series in India, the crowds taunted the distinctively daubed and dreadlocked Symonds with monkey chants, perhaps imitating the European soccer many of them now watch on pay TV, prompting a clampdown by the authorities. Later, the Australians alleged that Harbhajan also taunted Symonds on the field. Publicly, Harbhajan said the Australians were in no position to complain; they were as vulgar as ever. Behind-the-scenes manoeuvres to broker a peace between Symonds and Harbhajan evidently failed. But Symonds seemed unaffected; he played brilliantly in India and was named Man of the Series.

India’s preparation for their tour of Australia was short and rushed, and they were thrashed in the Boxing Day Test at the MCG. But there was little sign of rancour. Some of the tourists remarked on how pleasantly surprised they had been by their warm reception in Melbourne, and on the Australian public’s deep affection for Sachin Tendulkar. The spirit between the teams appeared passably good. Kumble was the first visiting captain to accept Ponting’s standing proposal that the teams should take each other’s word about low catches, since technology had shown itself to be manifestly inadequate.

Outwardly, the humour remained intact as the teams moved on to Sydney for the New Year Test. In its unfolding, it was a classic, with a century every day – including a gem from Tendulkar – and a breathtaking denouement, with occasional spinner Michael Clarke taking the last three wickets in five balls when all seemed drawn.

But at another level the match was slowly deteriorating. A series of shocking decisions by umpires Bucknor and Mark Benson had an unsettling effect. It began on the first day when Ponting was wrongly given not out and then wrongly given out, to Harbhajan, his bête noire. The Australian captain registered his dismay, which was something of a cheek in the circumstances and an act he said later he regretted. It became item one of the evidence when Australia’s sportsmanship was at issue later in the match and after it.

Later that first day, the impressive teenager Ishant Sharma was denied Symonds’s wicket from an edge so obvious that even Symonds subsequently admitted he had hit it. He was 30 at the time; he made 162 not out. The preponderance of bad decisions was against India, though not all. Tendulkar was haplessly lbw to Clarke when he was 36; he made 154 not out.

More troublesome decisions followed. Partly, the players had only themselves to blame, as much intemperate appealing put pressure on officials already losing confidence. Superficially, the spirit between the sides remained intact. Sharma congratulated Symonds on his innings, Lee congratulated Tendulkar on his, and Ponting refused to claim an apparent catch from Rahul Dravid at second slip because he was unsure whether it was clean.

But there was a quickening undercurrent. As Harbhajan played a defiant hand in support of Tendulkar, which propelled India into a first-innings lead, a slanging match erupted. Principally, it was between Harbhajan and Symonds, whose mutual dislike was now well known. Ponting reported to the umpires that Harbhajan had uttered a racist epithet, perhaps “monkey” or “big monkey”. Some said Ponting acted preciously, even provocatively, given Australia’s history of waging so-called “mental disintegration”. Unsustainably, some even alleged that Ponting seized on the race card in an effort to rid himself of Harbhajan, whose bunny he had become (he fell to him twice more in this match). Others, including Ponting, said he did only what he had been enjoined to do by the ICC in its anti-racism campaign.

A hearing before referee Mike Procter was set down for the end of the match. Tension escalated. The last day was at once ugly and memorable. Ponting extended Australia’s second innings, gaining Mike Hussey another century but seemingly leaving himself too little time to bowl India out again. Playing for time, India used elaborate and cynical ruses to slow the over rate, which would remain problematic throughout the series. Left 72 overs to survive, India faltered, but time was tight, and two dropped catches looked likely to cost Australia dearly. Both sides felt the heat. After tea, Bucknor gave Dravid out caught at the wicket from a ball that plainly brushed only his pad. India were doubly enraged – that there had been an appeal in the first place, and then that it was upheld. Shortly afterwards Clarke, backed by Ponting, claimed a low slip catch from Sourav Ganguly. The batsman stood his ground, but was given out. Later, India would argue that, despite the agreement between the sides about catching, they were under no obligation to take the word of Clarke, who the previous day had refused to walk when cleanly caught at slip first ball.

This contretemps led to another between Ponting and Indian journalists after the match. Victory, gained in long shadows with nine minutes to spare, prompted unbridled jubilation among the Australians, leaving Kumble, who had played a gallant unbeaten innings, to cool his heels. “That’s about as good a win as I’ve been in,” chortled Ponting. But at a press conference soon afterwards, Kumble charged Australia with a lack of sportsmanship as grievous as Douglas Jardine’s in 1932-33. It was an overwrought claim: though Australia had behaved less than nobly, India were also guilty of breaches of the game’s spirit. Indians objected to Australia’s triumphalism at the end, but forgot the exuberance of Harbhajan upon dismissing Ponting in the second innings, when he ran almost to the pavilion and performed two inelegant forward rolls on the turf before teammates caught him.

In the small hours of the next morning, after a long hearing, Procter suspended Harbhajan for three Tests. Meantime, India brought a countercharge against Brad Hogg for referring to them as “bastards”. The next few days were inglorious. India’s authorities claimed, bizarrely, that it was impossible for an Indian to be racist. They threatened to call off the tour unless Harbhajan’s ban was overturned, and the team, instead of travelling to Canberra as scheduled, took refuge in their Sydney hotel. The ICC called in their chief referee Ranjan Madugalle to broker a truce between Ponting and Kumble. They also replaced Bucknor with Billy Bowden for the next Test, saying they were acting in the best interests of the umpire and the game, but –absurdly – denying that they had yielded to pressure from India.

Meantime, Roebuck’s demand for the removal of Ponting reverberated around the country, prompting fulminations on letters pages and websites worldwide. One of the noteworthy aspects of this controversy was the role of the internet in fanning it so widely and quickly. In the cacophony, many ill-considered voices were raised. In his newspaper column, Indian legend and ICC cricket committee chairman Sunil Gavaskar questioned Procter’s role, saying “millions of Indians want to know if it was a white man taking the white man’s word against that of the brown man”. Symonds scarcely helped by saying that a bit of racial teasing between friends was fine, but not between strangers.

A frivolous debate arose about the word “monkey” and whether or not it was a pejorative in India. Protagonists asked us to believe that crowds in India were possibly offering Symonds endearment. The idea that the ill will between the teams was all down to cultural misunderstanding was the greatest nonsense of all. International cricketers travel widely, make friends across team divides, and learn to grasp cultural nuances. Whatever Australia and India said and did to one another in Sydney, they meant it. The “spirit of cricket” is unambiguous in any language.

At length, cooler heads prevailed. Harbhajan was given leave to enter an appeal, which – conveniently – would not be heard until after the series. The Indian board’s threat to abandon the tour had always been fatuous anyway, given the television interests involved. The Indians moved to Canberra for their tour match, then on to Perth. Madugalle met Ponting and Kumble, and negotiated a peace of sorts, each captain declaring that the game was more important than any individual. But, curiously, the pact on low catches was torn up. The Hogg hearing was set for the night before the match, but at the eleventh hour, the Indians withdrew the charge in what was widely praised as a magnanimous gesture.

Still, twists remained. Having been cleared to play, both Harbhajan and Hogg were dropped anyway, not for the sake of goodwill, but because the WACA pitch looked to be back to its fast, bouncy old self, and each side wanted an extra paceman. (Both had been paradoxical performers: Hogg had made a valuable 79 at Sydney, but not taken a wicket on the last day; Harbhajan was good for only three wickets a match but, likely as not, two were Ponting.) The effect was to remove from the game two of the central players in the Sydney drama, and the sacking of Bucknor made it three. Benson, the other umpire, had not been scheduled to stand in Perth anyway. Following the anthem ceremony on the first morning, all the players on both sides shook the hand of every other. So, notionally, did Bollyline finish, 10 days after it began.

The twists were not quite done yet. India won the third Test, the first Asian side ever to win at Perth, snapping Australia’s winning streak at a record-equalling 16. To what extent Australia were distracted by the minicrisis of Sydney was impossible to say; Ponting thought not at all. To what extent India were galvanised was also impossible to say; some of the Indians thought plenty.

But India won the match wholly on their merits. They outplayed Australia in their own conditions. Both sides misread the pitch, which was bouncy but only moderately paced. Shaun Tait, replacing Hogg, proved a liability, and two weeks later announced that he was quitting cricket for the time being. Irfan Pathan, replacing Harbhajan, won the match award. Australia secured victory in the series after a high-scoring draw in the Adelaide Test, Adam Gilchrist’s last. The next day, an independent hearing before New Zealand judge John Hansen downgraded the charge against Harbhajan from racism to abusive language, rescinded the ban, and fined him half his Sydney match fee instead. Justice Hansen said that in such a serious case, a higher standard of proof was necessary: the word of three Australian players was not enough. He made it clear that Symonds had been the provocateur. He also amplified confusion about whether Harbhajan had said “monkey”, “big monkey”, or “teri maki”, words in Hindi that sounded similar.

For the previous week, the former Indian board chairman I. S. Bindra had been in Australia, negotiating with Australian officials. Simultaneously, Indian board vice-president Lalit Modi was reported to have said that, unless Harbhajan was cleared, the tour would be cancelled and India would reconsider future engagements with Australia. He also said that an adverse finding would affect the prospects of Australians in the new Indian Premier League. Australian players muttered anonymously about how India’s money was now ruling the game, which was a bit rich – pun intended – since many of them were greedily eyeing the vast spoils available for the new Twenty20 tournament in India. Justice Hansen indignantly denied media reports about a deal between the two countries, or that he had been under pressure to reprieve Harbhajan for the sake of future series, and rebuked the Indian authorities for even allowing that impression to form. He had, he said, reached his decision independently. But Hansen regretted the ICC’s incomplete data about Harbhajan’s disciplinary record, which might have affected his sentence.

So ended Bollyline – for now. Three things were clear. Hypocrisy still drags the game down. The ICC remains toothless. And India, failing to learn lessons from long periods of powerlessness, are intent on throwing their newly acquired weight around at every opportunity.

© John Wisden & Co

First published in 1864, The Wisden Almanack is still recognised throughout the cricket world as the definitive recorder of the game. Click here to buy the 2011 edition of the Wisden Almanack

Pat Howard freely admitted he knew little about the game when taking over as Cricket Australia’s head of high performance in October of last year. Now it seems the former Wallaby centre has kept true to his word after revealing new selection guidelines that suggest future Test selections will be governed by the quality of opponents, and not the form of players.

Consequently, lower-ranked sides such as New Zealand, Bangladesh, West Indies and Sri Lanka will not face a full-strength Australia – who will save star performers for ‘icon series’ against England, India and South Africa. Normally the actions of the Baggy Greens bear little significance in Black Cap heartland, but this admission will have put noses out of joint across the Tasman, and with good reason.

“We do look at different series differently,” Howard told the Sydney Morning Herald. “For India, it was very much about trying to get the best players on the field so if a player was touch and go we’d probably push him for this series. For New Zealand we took more of a conservative approach, took the chance to get people right.”

Introducing an effective and efficient rotation policy is as logical as it is necessary and Howard and his panel of selectors can obviously choose whoever they want to represent Australia. But there appears to be a fine line between doing what is best for the side and being downright rude to opposing nations.

“We’re never going to go in with a B-team against anybody, that’s for sure,” Howard reassured. But try explaining that to New Zealand and the rest of the lower-ranked sides, expected to turn up and face a side devoid of first-teamers – with their fans tuned in at home while the Aussies save themselves for the ‘icon series’.

Howard would argue that the superb performances of James Pattinson and David Warner in the recent series against the Black Caps give this selection policy some credibility but the idea of calling New Zealand’s tour a development series is arrogant and wrong. The Black Caps fought damn hard in Hobart – unearthing talents of their own in the process – and a performance that brought an end to a 26-year wait for victory on Australian soil should not be undermined.

Howard is misplaced in his thinking and it is a policy more likely to devalue playing for your country than restore pride in it. And let us also not forget that Test playing nations are at a premium and using lower-ranked teams as cannon fodder will only hurt the longer format of the game.

Yet Howard adopts these guidelines at his own risk, scarred by the knowledge that these so called ‘lesser sides’ can come Down Under and win. If Howard wants Australia to use teams classed as beneath them as mere stepping-stones then good luck to them, but be warned ­– more pitfalls await.

Click here to read James Henderson’s review of New Zealand’s victory over Australia in Hobart.

Just a few years ago you wouldn’t have got much sentiment from a cricket follower on these shores over Australian players and their fortunes. Too many bad memories and fresh wounds. Too much pain. It’s tempting sometimes to think you’d enjoy watching the Aussies fall into terminal decline, to rejoice in their humiliating second innings 47 in Cape Town and to lament their growing recovery. But cricket needs Australia, and England being No.1 in the world would be most fun if Australia were No.2 – and if the Ashes really was the shootout for world supremacy that we all crave.

So Ponting and Clarke’s partnership at the SCG against India was more than just statistically formidable and ruthlessly executed – it was a pivotal moment for two cricketers, a nation’s supporters and the cricket world’s ever-more curious onlookers.

From the start of the second morning the captain and his predecessor were positive, in footwork and shot selection, but importantly in body language too. Clarke had been gradually marking his authority on the Aussie captaincy with match-defining knocks on the tours to Sri Lanka and South Africa, but went to Sydney in a mini-slump after three Tests without runs and with last winter’s Ashes lockout still fresh in Australians’ minds. Acceptance and “respect from the Australian public” – as he would say after completing his maiden triple-century on day three – has always been Clarke’s primary objective ever since the dashing, tattoed youngster with the TV girl on his arm first emerged, flashily, to update the image of Australian batsmen.

He took the job under a cloud of failure, at the fag-end of that botched Ashes series. But since then his batting and leadership of a developing, transitional and intriguingly rocky side has impressed more so with every match. At Sydney he seized a big opportunity to prove himself as Australia’s leader – a worthy, modern successor to Border, Taylor, Waugh and, of course, Ricky Ponting.

As much as Clarke’s unbeaten triple-century stole the headlines, backed by his canny decision to pass up the chance to haul in Bradman’s and Taylor’s highest Test score – an act that will do wonders for his reputation as well as his team’s chances of victory here – it was Punter’s knock that most stirred the soul. The sight of the scarred old warhorse stepping muddied off the turf to celebrate the most long-awaited of his 40 Test centuries must have tugged the ticker-strings of even the most fervent anti-Aussie. This giant of the game is not quite the player he once was, but he remains possessed of a concrete cricketing heart.

It’s only since chinks in the Tasmanian’s armour emerged – and, perhaps, since England started beating the sides he captained – that it’s been possible to truly sympathise with Ponting. But over the last year or so, the former runscoring superman has looked nothing more than human at the crease, and it’s endeared him to a new quarter of the cricket world. A great player and a great cricket man, struggling for once, like the rest of us, against technique and the march of time. And in his last few Tests, secretly at least, we’ve all been rooting for him.

Although the trademark strut and bluster initially survived a spell of poor form, Ponting had struggled for so long that latterly he looked a shadow of himself. The pull shot particularly – once such a trademark of his dominance – he just can’t play like he used to, and he kept getting hit. Every batsman takes the occasional tap on the grille, like Ponting himself did in 2005 (remember the plaster on the cheek?) but he’s started to take regular blows in the last few months. But still he refuses to put the pull shot away, although his continued attempts are perhaps as much a mark of an instinctive technique as of bravery and self-belief. But the realisation that he no longer had all his old shots, the successive blows and low scores, had made him look a smaller figure at the wicket – even, dare one say it of the old beast, a touch timid.

So to see him march out on that second morning alongside Clarke, strutting purposefully, striding out at the ball once more, was a pleasure. He is no longer the devastating shotmaker who in 2006 and 2007 hit seven tons in 14 matches at more than 76, but he is still one of the greats – Australia’s post-war best. And, after years of admiring (through the gaps between our fingers) his seemingly unimaginable gifts, we should now salute his resilience in adversity, and his enduring love for a game which had started to turn on him.

No one’s saying he’s back for good. The Ashes in 2013 still seems a long way off. But here at Sydney, he has added another layer to the Ponting story. After scampering and diving to complete a single to reach his hundred, he hauled himself up, covered in dirt, spat the dust from his mouth and smiled like a kid. Clarke congratulated him, and the Aussies marched to another commanding position. It was an important moment for Ponting and for Australian cricket, which looks to be in revival. The game would be the poorer without either of them.

How did you practise bowling?
When you were bowling in the nets you didn’t try to bowl flat out and knock somebody’s head off, you learned accuracy. Richie Benaud and myself had been to England in ’53 and in ’56; we were travelling back home from practice at the Sydney Cricket Ground on the train and we were talking about why it was that Jim Laker could put the ball on a thrupenny bit, why could Alec Bedser put it on a thrupenny bit, and we said: “Because they bowl, bowl, bowl.” And from that day on we made a pact that we were going to bowl for three hours straight without a break and there was only going to be two of us in a net, instead of three, and we’d say you only have 30 seconds between balls and that’s what we did for three hours. And by the end of that you were absolutely zonkered. Today, bowlers are inaccurate because they don’t spend enough time in the nets.

How big a role did coaching play in your career?
I was never coached a day in my life. I was a good watcher. I watched blokes like Ray Lindwall and Bill Johnston bowl. Bill was a left-armer and he could bowl everything: spin or seam.  I used to watch what he did and say: “How did you do that grip?” and I’d try it, and if it didn’t work for me then I would try a grip of my own.

Who’s the best batsman you ever bowled to?
Oh, Len Hutton. Technically he was absolutely the most perfect batsman I have ever seen. He was a marvellous player. In fact, I learned to bat by bowling to him because his technique was so tremendous – his back foot was the first thing to move, the balance he had and the way he stayed side on, he had the most perfect technique of anyone I have ever seen. There’s nobody today that plays as correctly as he did.

How do the current England crop compare to the best of years gone by?
If you take the ’58 side when you had Trueman, Statham, Tyson, Bailey, I don’t think any of the current lot would be in. You’ve got to remember the batting that was in that side too, they had people like Peter May, Colin Cowdrey, Graveney, Dexter and then there was another bloke that was hiding in the woods waiting for a game – Barrington. You’ve got to look at things in perspective. We are talking about greats of the game, they were greats of the game. This England side at the moment is a very, very good side and it’s a well-balanced side and their best years are going to be in the future .

What are your tips for fast bowlers?
To me, pace is nothing. Line, length and control was a motto when I was a little boy and it should still be the motto now. Line and length – it means everything, pace doesn’t mean a thing.

To read more from Alan Davidson and a host of other legendary pacemen, including Richard Hadlee, Colin Croft and Andy Roberts, pick up a copy of AOC 88 – in shops on December 29. 

As the Big Bash is inherently quick and dirty I feel no shame in a five-point rundown of the tournament’s opening exchanges. Six games in and, unsurprisingly, it’s hard to not talk about Shane Warne…

1. 19 – 7 = Brilliant

What’s the difference between 7 and 19? It’s not a trick question – the answer is 12, or in this case two sixes. This exercise in basic arithmetic came to mind as I watched Fox Sport’s Inside Cricket Show and inevitably their discussion on the first round of Big Bash matches turned to Warnie’s return to competitive cricket.

If you didn’t notice The Blond’s first performance you can be forgiven because it was of the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it variety. He came, he saw, he bowled two overs, got knocked for 19 and then returned to his fielding and wasn’t asked to turn his arm over again.

According to one of the pundits, Warne actually bowled very well and “if you take out the two sixes he only conceded seven from 10 balls.” Now, I don’t know about you, but the last time I looked sport, and cricket in particular, doesn’t work like that. It’s not a case of woulda, shoulda, coulda, it’s a case of what actually happened. The fact is he got hit for two sixes, went for 19 runs and they’re the only stats that count.

2. It’s Better On TV

That last subhead was incredibly difficult to write and I feel dirty and in need of a shower having done so. Live sport is something I have devoted a large part of my life to. Being there makes sport more enjoyable, more visceral, more immediate. You become part of the spectacle you are enjoying. And yet cricket can also be frustrating in that you don’t have the benefits of replays, it can be difficult to work out how much the ball is moving, how much a ball is turning or get an appreciation of those finer things that technology unravels for us.

This was all surmountable until Warnie decided to mike himself up for the Big Bash. Usually the gimmick of being able to talk to players while on the pitch is just that – a cheap gimmick that adds nothing to the game. But Warne talks you through his overs. He tells you what he is thinking, what his plans are and what he is going to bowl. Hearing him tell the world he was going to push through a quicker one to surprise Brendon McCullum before doing just that to bowl him out was magical and absolutely brilliant television.

3. The Odd Couple

I never imagined that in my cricket-watching career I would witness Luke Wright bowling in tandem with Shane Warne. It’s incredibly incongruous and more than a little perturbing. Wright must feel like a kid at Christmas; despite the fact he’s 26, he still does have the look of a kid. Sadly, he’s not quite holding up his end of the deal after being smashed at just shy of 10 an over from his eight so far, but the weirdest thing about it was that while Warne was mooching about in the field during the first game and not bowling his full complement the Sussex allrounder did go through his. Sod global warming and financial crises, when Wright bowls four overs and SK Warne only bowls two, you know the world is seriously in turmoil.

4. English Roses Are Wilting

Luke Wright is not the only Englishman to struggle so far. His Melbourne Stars teammate Jade Dernbach has also had a miserable start to the tournament, returning figures of 0-36 and 1-44 in his first two matches, and at least Wright can point to an unbeaten 27* in the first match and a couple of catches to justify his place. The Surrey paceman dropped two against Brisbane Heat, including one absolute sitter from Brendon McCullum when the Kiwi had made just 13 of his 36.

Meanwhile, Paul Collingwood had a game to forget in his first outing for Perth Scorchers, bowling two overs for 20 runs and scoring just four off 13 balls. He did effect a couple of run outs, one of them on his compatriot Owais Shah. Shah’s performance seems unremarkable, scoring 24 off 19, but in a game with only 249 runs for 20 wickets he was the third top-scorer and arguably one of the biggest differences between the two teams, so we should cut him some slack and give him the credit he deserves. Nottinghamshire batsman Michael Lumb’s opening 18 had less impact on the Sydney Sixers’ win over Brisbane Heat, but there is one English representative having a huge effect…

5. Hurley Mania

Liz Hurley is absolutely everywhere. You can’t turn the TV on without seeing her. You can’t open a newspaper without seeing her. The fact she kissed Warne in public was headline news. She was even wheeled out to perform the toss before Warne’s first game. The joy at watching Warne talk through his overs live on TV is offset by the fact that every 30 seconds they cut from footage of him to gauge her reaction. Anyone would think that Prince Philip was playing and the Queen was watching.

When Oprah visited Australia last year it was like a god had popped in from above and deigned to spend some time here. When anyone of international acclaim arrives on these shores they are welcomed as if they are a deity. The resultant gushing, fawning excitement over Hurley’s presence here is remarkable and a bit sickening. Even ex-cricketers who have played at the very top of the game, visited the world and met great statesmen talk about meeting her in hushed tones of awe. It’s Liz freaking Hurley for god’s sake. Who really cares?

Paul Winslow is a freelance journalist based in Melbourne. Check out more of his work at www.thewinslowboy.com.au.

Click here to read his reaction to Australia’s defeat to New Zealand.

Asking an Australian cricket supporter to be objective is a bit like asking the kids to shut up about Santa. Cricket Australia’s decision, therefore, to allow the viewing public decide the Man of the Match award during the recent Test series against New Zealand was never going to work.

After New Zealand’s thrilling victory (their first in 26 years on Australian soil) during the second Test of the series, the Man of the Match award went to… yep you’ve guessed it – an Aussie! New Zealand’s Dougie Bracewell finished with nine wickets for a measly 60 runs and demolished the Australian middle order in the second innings taking three wickets in nine balls to set up his team’s victory, but that wasn’t enough to impress the Australian public.

He could have rescued kids from a burning house during a drinks break, found a cure for cancer during the tea interval and taken all 10 wickets in the second innings without conceding a run and it still wouldn’t have been enough. An Aussie will always be man of the match when Australians are the ones casting the votes.

The guy named man of the match, Aussie David Warner, made an unbeaten 123 for the hosts and only failed to get his team over the winning line because of the failures of those around him, but the margin of victory during the MOM polling (Warner got more than twice as many votes as Bracewell) highlighted that an overseas player has no chance of winning over a parochial audience.

Can you seriously imagine the English voting for Ricky Ponting in overwhelming numbers or the Pakistani fans picking up the phone to vote for their favourite Indian player? It’s just not going to happen, so a different transparent system needs to be found. Not the one where one of the TV talking heads gets to play God, we need one where the viewing public knows what’s going on and how the decision has been arrived at.

Cricket Australia have distanced themselves from the Warner verdict, stating that the procedure was just a trial and that they will be returning to a TV pundit picking the MOM for their next home series. That’s a bit sad, having identified that the selection process needs to be a bit sexier and carry more weight than just one pundit’s opinion they should continue trialling methods until they come up with a winner.

How about this? At the presentation ceremony at the end of the match, the skippers of each side could be asked to nominate the man of the match from the opposition giving a couple of reasons why they went for the guy. That would just about guarantee that the right two men get in the frame because the players know who has performed above and beyond and which player has hurt them the most. The match referee then picks one of the two nominees, simple and effective and invariably the right man will get the nod.

There are a hundred variations on the theme but it shouldn’t be too hard to come up with a better system than the one in place at the moment.

Anyway, the Australians are back in Test action again with the Boxing Day Test against India. Australia are 2.26 to prevail in the series with India at 3.25 and the draw at 3.9. There are two conflicting trains of thought: 1). India are a superb side and are overpriced. 2). India were so pitiful against England in England that the 34.0 available on Australia to whitewash MS Dhoni’s men should be snapped up.

A logical correlation is that the team that gains the most man of the match awards should win the series – as long as it’s not a public vote!

For all the latest odds check out www.betfair.com

Last Australian summer, England went Down Under knowing they had their best chance of claiming a series win over Australia in Australia for 24 years. They did it, and emphatically at that. A couple of weeks back New Zealand crossed the Tasman confident they could claim a first Test win in their neighbour’s backyard for 26 years. They did that too, in dramatic style.

Now it’s India’s turn to arrive at what used to be an impenetrable fortress, and you know what? They fancy their chances of turning over Michael Clarke’s side and claiming their first ever Test series win on Australian soil.

The articles and blogs written about the demise of Australia’s batting have been getting repetitive of late for one simple reason: they keep doing the same thing! Australia lost to New Zealand in Hobart thanks to a batting collapse when they should have won at a canter, having just a few weeks previously thrown away a commanding position at Newlands in spectacular fashion. And this isn’t a recent phenomenon either; their batsmen’s struggles against the moving ball have been evident and well documented for quite some time. It’s about time it was dealt with.

Fortunately, recently appointed coach Mickey Arthur agrees. He has identified some of the problem batsmen and told them to pack up their swags and tents and high-tail it off to batting camp, where I imagine they will boil gruel in billy cans over a camp fire by night and test their mettle against swing bowling by day. At least I hope so, because India never fail to rouse themselves for a battle against the Aussies and, like England and New Zealand, they sense history in the making.

India aren’t without their own problems as they prepare for the Boxing Day Test. Injuries have left them with a set of inexperienced bowlers, but included in that bunch is fiery paceman Umesh Yadav, who will be relishing the opportunity to bowl on pitches which should offer pace and bounce. Zaheer Khan makes a welcome return from injury and MS Dhoni will be mightily relieved to have the wily left-armer back to spearhead his attack.

Australia’s own bowling, despite being just as inexperienced as India’s, is its strong suit. They will be missing teenage paceman Pat Cummins and Mitchell Johnson due to injury, but Peter Siddle, James Pattinson and Mitchell Starc all performed admirably against the Black Caps. An Indian batting line-up featuring Sehwag, Dravid, Tendulkar and Australia’s nemesis Laxman represent a much sterner test for the Aussie paceman, however, while Nathan Lyon will also have his hands full against a side so accomplished against spin.

Both sides have injury problems and raw bowling attacks; both sides have recent battle scars in Test cricket and both have experienced batting line-ups, although, as discussed, Australia’s has proved their Achilles heel in recent times. Allied with Australia’s unpredictability of late, this series is a difficult one to call and much will depend on whether Arthur’s boot camp can rejuvenate Australia’s floundering batsman. If not, India could well be the third side to make history on Australian soil within the space of a year.

Kirby Meehan is a displaced Aussie who threw her weight behind the Australian team, for good or bad, when she started the blog Thoughts from the Dustbin. You can follow her on Twitter and on her Facebook page.

Click here to read Kirby’s thoughts on the dilemmas facing the Australian selectors. 

Australia may no longer be the best side in the world but they are rapidly developing into Test cricket’s great entertainers having followed up a thrilling (if regrettably short) trip to South Africa with another wonderfully topsy-turvy series against New Zealand.

For many years, the machine-like efficiency of Australia had become an all too familiar sight for cricket fans across the world. They weren’t exactly boring – no team containing the batting pyrotechnics of Adam Gilchrist or the magical twirling fingers of Shane Warne could be accused of that – but the certainty of an Australian triumph was rarely in doubt. When their superiority was threatened, such as in India in 2001 or England in 2005, the encounters were absorbing and the cricket was of the highest class.

Whilst their standard of cricket has slipped markedly, the uncertainty of what will occur has increased greatly. Indeed, with Misbah-ul-Haq bringing calmness and consistency to a hitherto erratic Pakistan side, it is Australia who now wear the crown of the most unpredictable and inconsistent side on the planet.

The causes of this unpredictability that has seen the same side dismissed for 47 one week and then chase down 310 to win a Test the week after are there for all to see: a brittle batting line-up with its most senior members in terminal decline; a complete and collective inability to cope in swing-friendly conditions; a mercurial, wayward and injury-prone seam attack and a cast of thousands auditioned for the role of spin doctor.

However, it is the propensity of the batting to collapse that is their major Achilles heel and this is by no means a new phenomenon either. For instance, it cost them back in 2009 at The Oval when they slipped from 73-0 to 111-7 in the blink of an eye to effectively surrender the Ashes. The malaise has worsened since, with Australia failing to reach 100 on three occasions in the last 18 months.

The worst aspect of this severe dose of ‘collapse fever’ is that it can strike without warning and to devastating effect. At Cape Town, Australia were in complete command having bowled out the hosts for just 96 to secure a 188-run lead on first innings, but inexplicably slipped to 21-9 and 47 all out to lose the initiative and, ultimately, the match. Then in Hobart, victory looked assured at 159-2 with just 82 more runs needed against the Kiwis who hadn’t won a Test in Australia since 1985, but once again panic set in and the team’s glaring weakness against the moving ball was exposed once again.

So, what to make of a side that can fold so dramatically, but has also been able to become the first team to win a series in Sri Lanka for four years and then chase down 310 on a lively Johannesburg wicket against an attack spearheaded by Dale Steyn? Despite its schizophrenic nature, there are signs of a recovery. James Pattinson and Pat Cummins have the makings of a potentially lethal new ball attack, Nathan Lyon has performed admirably since he came into the side and if they can get Ryan Harris fit to compete with Peter Siddle for the third seamer’s slot, then the basis of a good bowling attack is there.

The batting unit too is showing some glimmers of hope. Michael Clarke’s batting seems to have benefited from the added responsibility of captaincy, whilst Shaun Marsh and David Warner have both made a positive initial statement of intent. With Shane Watson to come back – possibly at No.6 as the allrounder – that leaves three more places in the top seven to fill.

Assuming that Phillip Hughes will be put out of his misery, the selectors may find they have to make a choice between Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey. Both have been great champions, but Ponting’s famine without a Test ton now stretches back 31 innings and whilst Hussey was immense in Sri Lanka, he has averaged 12 since. Having a senior batsman in the side to help the younger players makes sense, but there is perhaps only room for one.

Meanwhile, Brad Haddin’s habit of playing irresponsible shots when his team least needs it means that he needs a really good series against India to keep his place – indeed, if Tim Paine hadn’t succumbed to a finger injury, the 34-year-old stumper may already have been cast out into the wilderness.

If we assume that all bar Cummins and Paine will be fit for the Boxing Day Test against India, Australia could line up something like this at the MCG: Warner, Cowan, Marsh, Ponting, Clarke, Watson, Haddin, Harris, Siddle, Pattinson and Lyon.

That is a side that, on paper, should run India close, but whatever happens, it seems likely that this wholly unpredictable Australian side will be serving up thrills and spills in equal measure for some time to come yet.

David Green is the warped mind behind The Reverse Sweep cricket blog and regards Douglas Jardine as his ultimate cricket hero. You can follow David on Twitter @TheReverseSweep

Click here to read David Green’s thoughts on the decline of Ricky Ponting. 

Michael Clarke, Ricky Ponting, Shane Warne, Steve Waugh, Sir Donald Bradman, Richie Benaud – are you reading? Your boys took one hell of a beating! Kiwi paceman Doug Bracewell made history as he ripped through the heart of Australia to claim a seven-run win and ensure the Black Caps’ first Test victory across the ditch for 26 years.

Unsurprisngly, the Aussie press have focused their attention on their own side’s shortcomings rather than the stunning comeback from their rivals, but over here in New Zealand, Ross Taylor’s men are receiving due praise – and in particular their matchwinner Bracewell who returned match figures of 9-60 after a shaky start to the series in Brisbane.

Journalists in Hobart blamed another middle-order collapse for Australia’s defeat, but that doesn’t do justice to a devastating performance from the Kiwi seamers that saw Clarke, Ponting, Mike Hussey and Brad Haddin fall for less than 50 runs collectively in a chaotic rush of wickets.

It looked as though even two balls delivered at once would have struggled to dismiss David Warner, who roared to an unconquered 123 and provided the only resistance in a toothless final innings for the hosts. But even the short-format specialist couldn’t win the Test single-handedly. Desperate to shield Nathan Lyon from the strike, he was powerless to prevent Bracewell nipping one back off the seam to breach the spinner’s defences and send waves across the Tasman.

Bracewell’s performance was undoubtedly the stand-out as the 21-year-old proved both menacing and economical and provided welcome support to the old warhorse Chris Martin, who led the attack superbly and the made the crucial inroads in Australia’s first innings.

Youngster Trent Boult, thrust into Test cricket on the morning of the match after Daniel Vettori succumbed to a hamstring injury, also deserves praise for four wickets and some very handy tail-end runs, while Dean Brownline built on a promising to start to his Test career with a backs-to-the-wall half-century in the first dig.

There was an element of risk in introducing inexperienced cricketers to face New Zealand’s old foes in a crunch Test series but the move paid dividends for the selectors and it is that combination of youth and experience that should stand the side in good stead for the future. Kiwi fans are now eager to see how their side get on in the one-off home clash with Zimbabwe in January before the huge test of South Africa in February.

As the crowds dispersed from Hobart in disbelief, Taylor’s troops returned to the field to spray bubbly and celebrate a victory that has been a long time in coming. Granted, the result does not suddenly make New Zealand world-beaters and the top-order in particular is prone to folding alarmingly, as witnessed in both Brisbane and Hobart. The Kiwis remain ranked eighth in the world in Test cricket but the skill, persistence and passion demonstrated at the Bellerive Oval bodes well for the future.

A drawn series may have seen Australia retain the Trans-Tasman Trophy but New Zealand regained something more substantial with a famous win in Hobart – their cricketing pride.

Click here to read an Englishman living in Melbourne’s reaction to Australia’s defeat. 

Reading the views of some on my Twitter timeline during the second Test between Australia and New Zealand, you could have been forgiven for assuming the two sides had stumbled upon some form of deathtrap in Hobart. Indeed, with the match finishing comfortably inside four days and neither side scoring more than 233 in an innings the pitch clearly had plenty in it for the bowlers, but it will come as little surprise to those that have read my thoughts in recent times that I question the technique of the modern batsman.

Many reasons have been touted, from the proliferation of Twenty20 cricket through to an overcrowded schedule preventing players from having sufficient opportunity to refine the faults in their game. One area that I’ve referred to previously is the standard of Test match pitches across the world. I’ve often said that there are too many flat, brown, up-and-down tracks that simply do not make batsmen work hard enough for their runs.

In many respects, events in Hobart – and also recently at Cape Town – have shown this to be true, giving the impression that many modern day batsmen are ill-equipped to deal with lateral movement whether it be seam or swing – both of which were prevalent down on the Tasman Sea. When I turned on the television on day one of the match I had to take a second glance to ensure the colour tube on my television wasn’t broken, so green was the pitch. It was a pitch not too dissimilar to those seen regularly through the 70s and 80s (and long before) at the likes of Headingley, Trent Bridge and Christchurch. They were known as a seam bowler’s paradise, but didn’t it make for compelling viewing? Watching great batsmen test their skills against a bowler in their element.

One of the great knocks that I was privileged enough to see was Graham Gooch’s 154 against a West Indian attack containing Marshall, Walsh and Ambrose at Headingley in 1991. On a pitch which was green and offered assistance throughout, Gooch stood firm under the most extreme pressure to play an innings that would prove the difference between the two sides. I suspect he values that innings above most others in his illustrious career. Likewise, despite filling his boots on the subcontinent, I would venture that Dilip Vengsarkar values his 102 and 61 at Headingley in 1986 – in a match in which England could muster only 230 in two innings – above most of the knocks from his career.

Perhaps the greatest ever performance in those kind of conditions came from Gordon Greenidge in 1976 at Old Trafford. On a wet pitch, green to the point of being unrecognisable from the rest of the square, West Indies were invited to bat by England in the third Test. West Indies were dismissed for 211 on day one, with only three men reaching double figures. Of that total, Greenidge made 134. He would make 101 in the second innings, meaning that he alone beat England by an innings and 38 runs. The first knock, particularly, was one of rare class on a morning where Viv Richards, Alvin Kallicharan and Clive Lloyd made six runs between them.

There are many other examples of batsmen who thrived in seaming, swinging conditions that were primed for quicker bowlers. Those truly wonderful players were able to make adjustments to their techniques to play the moving ball, and do so very proficiently. Australia slumped to 136 and 233 in Hobart against a mediocre Black Caps attack. How would they have fared against the likes of Sir Richard Hadlee or Malcolm Marshall?

I said similar of the Australians when they were skittled out for 47 in Cape Town last month. Yes, there was seam movement and yes, there was bounce, but the struggles they had in countering those factors spoke volumes about the modern-day batsman. But the Australians are by no means alone in this malaise, as we witnessed last summer when the much-vaunted Indian batting line-up were all at sea in English conditions. We are too often seeing batsman seemingly incapable of dealing with the demands that proper Test match cricket wickets place upon them.

Former Kiwi skipper Jeremy Coney spoke recently about players making judgements based purely on line and not length, the result being that the beautiful art of leaving the ball outside the off stump and drawing the bowler to you is becoming lost. One only had to watch the match in Hobart to see batsmen falling victim of trying to drive on the up outside off stump. That could be a technical deficiency or a case of too much short format cricket. But either way, it is time for coaches in the modern game to get to work and start equipping batsmen with the wherewithal to cope with the rigours of tough Test match cricket.

All Out Cricket has teamed up with sports forum 606 v2 to discuss the game with thousands of like-minded cricket fans. To discuss this article and hundred of other cricketing issues, check out 606 v2 today.

Schadenfreude is one of my favourite words because it has that perfect combination of wonderful pronunciation and delicious meaning. If you’re a sports fan then it is an essential part of your make-up. I remember going berserk when Bulgaria knocked Germany out of the 1994 football World Cup, not because I had any affinity to the Bulgarians but because Germany lost. More recently, the footballing fraternity enjoyed a good laugh at Manchester United’s expense when they were beaten 6-1 by City, not because they were City fans but because it was funny to revel in United’s capitulation.

Now, Aussie sports fans have had plenty of opportunity to practise it during England’s sporting wilderness years. Every embarrassing batting collapse was met with smirks by those supporting the world’s best cricket team. How they laughed when they beat us at football in a friendly game that they still talk about. How they enjoyed our continuing football mishaps in major tournaments. And then the tide slowly turned.

We won a rugby World Cup and subsequently knocked Australia out on our way to consecutive finals. We started to win more Olympic medals. But more importantly than all that, we won the Ashes in 2005. We may have handed them back two years later, but since then we’ve slowly but surely overhauled them to become the world’s number one team as they have dropped down the rankings. Now England batting collapses are a rarity while Australia’s are a dime a dozen.

All of which means it’s a wonderful time to be an Englishman living in Australia. Mention the Ashes and desperate attempts to change the subject ensue. Cough “47 all out” at a dinner party and even the biggest sports fan will begin talking politics. Talk of Phil Hughes (or ‘Phil Hughes c Guptill b Martin’, as he is now known) and eyes glaze over. And now they’ve lost their first Test to New Zealand in 18 years.

Not that you’d know all this from watching the coverage over here. It remains heavily biased towards the Aussies; if you weren’t aware of the match situation you’d never be able to work out what the score was as they extol the virtues of the Australian team even as they lose their last seven wickets for 74. The ultimate bias came in the award of the Man of the Match to Dave Warner. Awesome innings though it was, Doug Bracewell’s match return of 9-60 was clearly the performance that mattered most as it carried his team to victory.

To be fair, the commentators had already made it clear that out of the two players, the one who ended on the winning team would be deserving of the award. The fact that Warner won it was down to the fact that it was not decided by a panel of experts, but instead by the general public using Vodafone’s smartphone app ­– which, quite frankly, is a joke. It’s a joke for two reasons. In a game such as this people should not be voting on the Man of the Match until the denouement and they were busy pushing buttons before the last wicket fell when they should have been concentrating on the drama unfolding in front of them. The second is that you’re inevitably going to get bias towards the home country if it’s predominantly their fans that are voting. It doesn’t take a genius to work that out.

I’m sure Bracewell was far too busy revelling in the victory to get too upset, and it was noticeable that the Man of the Match only got an ornamental bat – there was no cheque involved so he didn’t miss out financially. But it makes a mockery of the award. I can’t wait to see which Australian will win it when Sachin Tendulkar reaches his 100th hundred during the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne…

Meanwhile the Big Bash kicks off this weekend. Warney has burnt his hand which may mean the star attraction can’t play, but I’ll be there to see him if he is. Watch this space with bated breath and if you can’t wait for that then why not follow me on Twitter.

Paul Winslow is a freelance journalist based in Melbourne. Check out more of his work at www.thewinslowboy.com.au.

When South African maestro Dale Steyn is bowling with his tail up, it is safe to assume there is no specialist batsman in world cricket that enjoys the prospect of facing him. Unleashing swinging, accurate exocets in excess of 90mph, Steyn is a menacing presence.

In the second and final Test between South Africa and Australia at The Wanderers a last month, that is exactly the proposition 18-year-old paceman Pat Cummins was greeted with when walking to the wicket with his side 292-8 with 18 runs needed to win, and just two wickets remaining in Australia’s second innings.

One could have forgiven Cummins for thinking that this wasn’t part of his job description when he was picked to earn his first Test cap, but crucial passages of play in a high-pressure atmosphere are often where hot prospects sink or swim. Where more experienced and illustrious names had failed, Cummins took to his task with the fearlessness of youth, swiping Steyn and co for two boundaries on his way to making 13 not out and winning Australia the match and a share of this compelling and criminally short Test series.

His batting heroics were nevertheless only the icing on the cake of what was a terrific Test debut for the New South Wales man. Whilst Cummins had looked the most threatening Australian bowler in South Africa’s first innings, his modest return of 1-38 did him little justice. It was the second innings, however, where this rising star of Australian cricket really began to burn brightest.

One over in particular caught the eye as the tyro gave Jacques Kallis, a man who has made 40 Test centuries, an almighty working over, before removing the great man with an angled delivery outside off stump. The cunning old fox had been out-thought and out-smarted by the new cub on the block.

Australia, it must be remembered, were still busy peeling themselves from the canvas after that crushing and traumatic trouncing in Cape Town. This was a side carrying more issues than the average Jeremy Kyle Show line-up, and how it showed in Johannesburg.

Ricky Ponting was embroiled in his own almighty struggle for each and every run as he looked to finally post a score of note, Mitchell Johnson was bowling off a shortened run-up as an experimental means of gaining accuracy and swing, and wicketkeeper Brad Haddin had clearly decided that blazing his way back in to form through a series of audacious slogs and extravagant drives was the solution to his own batting woes.

A man whose only issue was how much carnage he could wreak on a stellar South African batting order was Pat Cummins. Experience is key in any sport, with participants constructing a mental portfolio that helps to sees them through the toughest of situations. This memory bank also contains the mental scars of past failures, however, which Cummins is yet to encounter.

Whilst his effect upon this particular Test match was undoubtedly critical, it is the wider impact that the emergence of Cummins has on Australian cricket which is likely to be the most resounding. In truth, Australia have struggled for a fast bowler with genuine quality and a real cutting edge since the retirement of the peerless Glenn McGrath.

Mitchell Johnson is a mercurial bowler capable of destroying the best of line-ups, but those performances have become all too infrequent of late and he is currently recovering from surgery on his left foot. Ryan Harris and Peter Siddle are what you would call solid performers that won’t let anybody down, but there is no doubt that a world-class attack needs a leader that oozes class and wicket-taking threat whenever the ball is in his hand. It is early days, but Cummins is well on his way to filling this void.

He bowls with a maturity well beyond his years, and is clearly a ‘thinking bowler’ always looking to out-smart batsmen. Such attributes were consistently on display throughout the T20 Champions League tournament where he found great success with New South Wales on the flat pitches of the Indian subcontinent. Tall, fast and with the ability to extract prodigious bounce from just back of a length, the raw materials of a fast bowler of the very highest bracket are there in abundance. Add to that the promising early signs that he has an ice cool temperament required for the big occasion, and Australia may just have unearthed a gem.

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It was little more than 18 months ago that Michael Clarke was battling with a messy break-up and left the Australian squad during a tour of New Zealand. It led some to question whether he was the right man to succeed Ricky Ponting and take on what former prime minister John Howard once described as the most important job in Australia.

Having broken off his engagement with Lara Bingle, Clarke made a triumphant return and scored 168 in the first Test in Wellington but a slump in form against Pakistan and India, followed by a horrid run in the Ashes, saw the critics rear their head once again and left Cricket Australia in something of a fix when it came to naming Ponting’s replacement.

But despite widespread scepticism as to whether Clarke had the minerals for the role, Cricket Australia stuck with the heir apparent and he has fought back with a vengeance since assuming the captaincy, answering his critics with both runs and results. He is in a rich vein of form with the bat and his hundred in a losing cause at Newlands will be remembered as one of the great innings of the modern era. As his teammates shouldered arms, Clarke took the challenge head on. “I remember Shane Warne saying to me years ago that the better the bowling, the more positive you have to be,” said Clarke after his ton in Cape Town. “I knew I was facing a pretty good attack and needed to do something to put a little bit of pressure on them.”

He may not look it from the outside, with a baby face and a boyish smile, but Clarke is a tough nut to crack and in his short tenure as skipper so far he has already shown a resilience and toughness that have long been hallmarks of Australian captains. But he has also marked himself out as a shrewd tactician who is prepared to gamble and unafraid to think outside the box – something that Ponting was increasingly criticised for failing to do as leader.

Clarke publicly advocated the selection of rookie fast bowler Pat Cummins – despite the fact the 18-year-old only had three first-class games under his belt – stating that: “It brings excitement to the game…I’ve never had any concerns about young guys getting their first opportunity.” He has also brought freshness to the side on the field and refused to allow matches to meander when Australia are in pole position.

His utilization of Nathan Lyon in the first Test against New Zealand at Brisbane is a case in point. On a typically seam-friendly Gabba pitch, in heavily overcast conditions, Clarke lobbed the ball to the offspinner in the first session and he promptly dismissed Kane Williamson before lunch. Lyon went on to finish with four wickets in the first innings and collect an impressive seven in the match. But Clarke, knowing full well the number of Aussie spinners post-Warne that have been built up only to be knocked down twice as hard, was balanced in his appraisal of the promising offie. “He will continue to get better, but there will be some tough times,” warned Clarke. “So long as the expectation from outside stays consistent, I think he’ll be fine.”

Mike Brearley, one of the game’s most celebrated captains, once stressed a captain needs a “good rapport with the team you lead and a sound cricketing mind”. It is still early days, but so far Clarke has scored favourably on both counts. However, as Brearley himself agreed, the real test lies when things aren’t rosy with one’s own game. “It is the inevitable dip in form and how a captain juggles that with the pressures of leading the side that determines the true metal of a leader,” said the former England captain. Clarke has had the luxury of exemplary form since taking the reins but a stern test in shape of India looms large.

For now though, Clarke can feel justifiably proud in his achievements and those who were vociferous in their opposition of his appointment have been hushed for the time being at least. A solid victory in Sri Lanka – who hadn’t lost a home series in five years – a come-from-behind series draw against South Africa on their own patch and a crushing first Test win against New Zealand with an inexperienced side represents a promising start. Unlike Ponting and Steve Waugh, who were handed down great sides, Clarke has been given the task of picking up the pieces and starting from scratch and as a member of the selection panel he has more influence than any captain before him.

Clarke and Allan Border ­– who resurrected Australia during the 80s – are in many ways polar opposites but their willingness to take the bull by the horns and shift plagued mindsets make them perhaps more similar than first impressions suggest. Australian fans will be hoping Clarke’s tenure will prove just as fruitful as AB’s.

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