Anxiety over Thorpe injury (28 November 1998)

28 November 1998

Anxiety over Thorpe injury

By Christopher Martin-Jenkins in Perth

IT COULD be argued that a team who can call on a batsman with more than a hundred first-class hundreds as a possible last minute replacement must have powerful reserves. It would be one way of looking at the inclusion of Graeme Hick in England's shortlist of 14 for the second Test, which was due to start in Perth at 2.30 this morning.

Graham Thorpe's stiff back was sufficiently bad yesterday for him to miss England's net session. The prognosis for the Surrey left-hander last night was not good, and it has become increasingly likely he will not last the duration of the five-Test series.

Thorpe had surgery on a damaged disc in July after being in such pain during the Old Trafford Test against South Africa that he was barely able to walk to the crease. He went home early from England's West Indies tour, but played the first half of the season with only occasional stiffness.

Thorpe and Nasser Hussain are the form horses for England, and Thorpe was somewhere near his best in the first innings of the Brisbane Test, having signed off in Australia four years ago with a fine century on this very ground in Perth.

The exclusion of Angus Fraser, not deemed to be the right horse for Perth's unique course, might be another sign of English strength. He has, after all, taken 56 Test wickets this year alone. But a glance across to the other set of nets, wherein Jason Gillespie was bowling like a fiend at his own batsmen yesterday, suggested that it is in Australia that there really is an enviable depth of cricketing resources.

Within 48 hours of Stuart MacGill's replacement by Colin Miller, Matthew Elliott, out of favour but surely not for much longer, was making his fourth century in three matches at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Shane Warne, also out of the side, was being fined just over £1,000 for criticising an umpire and Michael Kasprowicz, due for replacement today by the menacing Gillespie, was recalling that the best spell of fast bowling in his life had taken place at the WACA.

England's selectors would be joyous if they could find a leg-spinner capable of taking 24 wickets in five Tests at 28 runs each as MacGill has done, because wrist spinners win Tests in the fourth innings, but their record is poor at Perth, so they are keeping him sharp with a Sheffield Shield match in Sydney. Tom Moody, the West Australian captain, was one of those consulted about the substitution of Miller for MacGill.

Miller feels that this might be his only Test in this series but, having performed usefully in Pakistan, he hopes he can do well enough to earn himself a second tour and perhaps a place in the World Cup team. At 34 and having played first-class cricket for 13 seasons, he said on the eve of the game: "I feel like a young debutant playing his first match."

Miller truly is a jack-of-all-trades. He takes the new ball for Tasmania as a right-arm swing bowler, but not only has he made himself into a useful off-spinner rather in the mould of the former West Australian Test bowler, Bruce Yardley, he is also capable of fooling around in the nets with some respectable left-arm, both seamers and orthodox spinners.

This is versatility, or ambidextrousness, of a rare order but there was no messing about yesterday. 'Funky' Miller, originally from the same unpretentious Melbourne club, Footscray, which produced Merv Hughes, loves a party, but he is a serious professional for all his blond-rinsed hair and ear-rings. He has never done anything for a living but play cricket, in England and Holland as well as for three State sides in Australia, and he lives now in a pub in Hobart.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)