Giles new England option (1 January 1999)

1 January 1999

Giles new England option

By Christopher Martin-Jenkins

HORSES for courses has been a catchphrase for the Australian team throughout the Ashes series, which reaches its final breathless chapter at the Sydney Cricket Ground tomorrow.

England have to follow the trend if they are to maintain the impetus gained on the last stirring day in Melbourne. The most pragmatic team for a match to be played on a Sydney pitch guaranteed to help spin bowlers, would contain two specialist spinners turning the ball different ways and the six batsmen best suited to the conditions.

This should mean Alec Stewart captaining, opening the batting and keeping wicket to meet the demands of this one special occasion; a recall for John Crawley in place of Mark Butcher to make use of his skill against leg spinners and a second Test cap for Ashley Giles, who was added to the official England Test squad yesterday after a successful start to his main role as a left-arm spinner and late middle-order batsman for the one-day team.

For Giles, the England one-day squad's match in Brisbane earlier this week against a Queensland Country XI of modest standard under floodlights with a white ball was not a serious preparation for possible participation in a Test match, especially only a few days after arriving from an English winter.

It would be asking a great deal of Giles to push him into a Test after nine overs in the middle and a couple of nets at Trent Bridge's new indoor centre, but Peter Such showed what could be done without match practice by his off-spin performance in the third Test in the heat of Adelaide. Asking Giles to Sydney, along with Crawley and Robert Croft, who both played the day-night warm-up match, is another welcome illustration of flexible thinking on the part of the tour selectors.

David Lloyd's suggestion as coach that Chris Schofield might be thrown in after only two first-class matches for Lancashire was no more than wishful thinking - he has great promise but a bit to prove as yet - but Giles has bowled at Sydney on the A tour two years ago and he is at least as likely as Warren Hegg to get runs at seven.

Stewart is still saying that he would be surprised if Hegg does not retain his place, but quite apart from the fact that Stewart will probably be performing three front-line roles in the one-day matches to come, he must give his side the best possible chance at Sydney by wicketkeeping and going in first with Michael Atherton. In my view the order thereafter should be Hussain, Ramprakash, Hick and Crawley, with Giles and Such in support of the three bowling heroes of Melbourne - Gough, Headley and Mullally.

Stewart said before looking at the pitch, which in drizzly weather yesterday was still quite grassy and green - but essentially dry, a little patchy and certain to turn - that he favoured playing only four bowlers, with Hegg at seven.

"To prepare myself fully for opening in a Test I am better off not keeping," he said. He knows his own mind, and his own game, best, but he did not rule out a change of plan.

In normal circumstances it would be folly to ask Stewart to do too much in a hot climate and even if he took on the jack-of-all-trades part in the fifth Test he would have to be prepared to drop down the order if an England innings were to start after a long time in the field. The alternative would be to leave out Giles and use Mark Ramprakash as the second spinner - which is what will probably happen - or to omit either Alan Mullally or Dean Headley, neither of which would be ideal.

It is true that Australia will have only four specialist bowlers and Ian Healy at seven, but, worthy cricketer as he is, Hegg is not the equal of Healy in either of his roles.

Equally, Mark Butcher would be preferred to Crawley in most circumstances. He has looked much more likely to get runs against quick bowling. But there was no doubt which of them played Muttiah Muralitharan the better at the Oval last August, and that was Crawley.

There is even a case in some people's view for preferring Butcher to Mike Atherton, whose last Test this might be if he cannot improve on an unworthy aggregate of 110 from eight innings in the series to date. Atherton scored a hundred here, his only one against Australia, eight years ago, and although Shane Warne has got him out eight times in Tests, he knows him and plays him better than most.

If the pitch were still to be green tomorrow morning, the possibility that Warne will be 12th man has not been discounted, but it is unlikely, and England are preparing as best they can for a double dose of leg-spin.

Peter Philpott will be on hand in the nets this morning and Ian Salisbury and Chris Schofield will be bowling. Stewart said that, if nothing else, Philpott's lessons on how a leg-spinner operated and thought had made himself and the other batsmen more confident against wrist spin.

Assuming he plays, Warne will bowl in tandem with Stuart MacGill for only the second time, with Colin Miller likely to share the new ball in lieu of Damien Fleming before switching to off-breaks.

Warne is happy to be compared to MacGill, though it is unlikely that they will both tour the West Indies, so they may be rivals as well as colleagues this weekend. Warne was diplomatic about that when he said: "We're different types of leg-spinners. He bowls off stump and I basically bowl more leg-stump so the batsmen will hit across the line. Hopefully we'll work well together."

Australia have lost only to Pakistan at Sydney in recent years, significantly when, once again, they had a fourth innings total to chase. If Stewart is ever going to win a toss against Australia, now is the time to do it.

If it is England, not Australia, who have to bat last, the odds are long on a reaffirmation of Australian superiority.

On a turning pitch logic says that one leg spinner with 313 wickets and another with 35 wickets from seven Tests should prove a match-winning combination, but occasionally, as Tuesday afternoon in Melbourne demonstrated, cricket defies logic.

The Squads

Australia (from): *M A Taylor, M J Slater, J L Langer, M E Waugh, S R Waugh, D S Lehmann, -I A Healy, D W Fleming, S K Warne, S C G MacGill, G D McGrath, C R Miller.

England (from): M A Atherton, *A J Stewart, M A Butcher, N Hussain, M R Ramprakash, G A Hick, J P Crawley, -W K Hegg, A F Giles, R D B Croft, D W Headley, D Gough, A D Mullally, P M Such.

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