If you want to see a perfect example of a batsman 'in the zone', I believe this is it.
Fractionally short? Spanked for six over square leg. He is obscenely quick on the short ball. Fractionally full? Marmalised through the off side courtesy the most beautiful cover drive you could ever wish to see. Fractionally back of a good length outside off? Late cut through the slips.
Good luck bowling to that.
This relly wos a morvellous innings and you could argue it was the point at which England's 2005 Ashes campaign began. This was probably the point at which the England camp noticed that Gillespie was no longer anything like the bowler he had been and could be targeted as the weak link in the Aussie attack.
ReplyDeleteLook first at how many fours Vaughan hits off him, particularly in his first 70 or so runs (after which presumably Waugh decided he'd seen quite enough of Dizzy's balls disappearing over square leg and took him off) and then at how many times the commentators say "That wasn't such a bad ball". This is precisely the point -- he was sticking it in the right place but there was no longer any heat on it, no movement and no unusual bounce. Admittedly Vaughan was in sublime form but what Gillespie was sending down was club standard to any test batsman in decent touch. No wonder they went after him so ruthlessly in 2005.
On the subject of cover drives, this reader disagrees with the CC's assertion in an earlier post that Hussain's cover drives at Edgbaston in 1997 were the equal of Vaughan's.
Hussain's knock at Edgbaston was a supreme triumph of will over instinct, but in terms of pure batting aesthetics there wasn't that much to admire. Everything about Hussain's batting throughout his career was geared towards minimising risk -- playing back, playing late and playing percentage shots. (In the context of the side he joined, you can hardly blame him: England desperately needed a middle order limpet.)
To a batsman of Hussain's conservative instincts, the cover drive was fraught with risk, but he recognised that on that easy pitch in Edgbaston, with 20,000 pissed up Brummies baying for Aussie blood, attacking through the offside was what was needed, so he suppressed his natural game and got on with it.
Look at his footwork and balance in his cover drives -- the front foot barely leaves the crease and even when he hits it sweetly, all his weight is still back. The movements are kind of there but his heart's not in it, and there's a 'drive' (more of a flick) he plays through cover off Warne where his feet barely move at all that wouldn't look out of place in a league match.
Contrast this with Vaughan's effortless flitting around the crease, skipping backwards and forwards, 'charming' the ball to the boundary (props Cardus). It is sublime batting in its true sense: surrendering reason, body and soul to the instant of every shot. There's a kind of moral purity to his cover drives; when he leans into them he does so because it is the right thing to do, he knows it is the right thing to do and so he can utterly commit himself to it to the exclusion of everything else in the universe (cf our discussion some time ago about about Rahul Dravid and Camus' concept of Sisyphean endeavour). Vaughan hit the cover drive we all want to hit, effortless, beautiful -- and perfect, because it's not just the best shot to play to that ball, it's the ONLY shot to play to it.
When Hussain cover drives it's because the Aussies only managed 118 in the first dig and he wants to make the bastards suffer.
On another note, it was after the first innings of this match that Darren Gough -- in so many ways a cricketing forerunner of England's Brave John Terry -- roared to the Currant Bun: "If anyone doubts we can win the Ashes after that performance, they need beheading." Twat.
Marvellous stuff. Right, on Gillespie, I would say correct - up to a point. Certainly I think that knock removed some of the fear factor. Actually Lehmann says in his book that he was the bowler the England batsmen least liked facing - including McGrath.
ReplyDeleteBut until that Test he'd been taking wickets for fun all series. 4-25 and 3-71 in the last game. 4-78 in the Test but one before that. I think - as the commentary says - he'd just bowled a lot of overs. For me the shot that showed he didn't quite have his nip (we'd heard this was the case because he'd struggled against New Zealand, I think) was in an ODI before the 05 Ashes series started - Pietersen charged him, Gillespie bounced him, and KP hooked it for six over mid on. It was an incredible shot but I don't think he could have done that to the Gillespie of a couple of years previous.
As to your magnificently-parsed comments on Vaughan/Hussain - I can only agree. But that's why I love that innings. Nasser was a man motivated by one thing - anger - and frankly I find watching him grouch his way to a hundred (and, say, celebrating it in a distinctly unseemly fashion by signalling his batting position to the press box) every bit as captivating as someone with amazing talent. I find his cover drive great to watch for all the reasons you describe.
Gough - I'm quoted in a book about the Ashes as saying I wanted him shot by the end of his Test career. I think my exact words on the page are 'Having a tattoo and knocking over tailenders does not make you lionhearted.' I feel a bit bad about that, as it's a little unjustified, but the author did get me pissed and it came out.