In his pomp, at the Ashes
Gideon Haigh's latest collection showcases a fine writer at the top of his game says Chandrahas Choudhury
All Out: The Ashes 2006-07 by Gideon Haigh, Aus $26.95
Black Inc, 298 pp
Black Inc, 298 pp
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When at the WACA last December Ricky Ponting's Australians overwhelmed Andrew Flintoff's Englishmen for the third time in three games, the most eagerly anticipated Ashes series in two decades had proved instead to be among the most one-sided ever. There seemed to be only two reasons for allowing a so obviously dead rubber to continue.
One, Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath announced they were hanging up their boots, which automatically gave the last two Tests a sepia-tinted, valedictory air. And two, Gideon Haigh had been working up a nice rhythm in his reports and dispatches from the games, and to interrupt him at the top of his game, as Mike Atherton once did Graeme Hick in an Ashes Test, would have been too cruel.
Of all modern cricket writers, Haigh is the most versatile and companionable. In our post-post-Cardusian times, when television brings every detail of the great game into our living rooms, and in the breaks grey-haired pundits tell noodle-strapped women everything there is to know, it is still possible to watch a day's cricket and then profitably read Haigh on it the next morning.
He has a great sense of the ebb and flow of the game, an eye for the quirks of character of those who play it, a lovely prose style that throws off sparks of both erudition and sunny good humour, and a cat, Trumper, who was unfortunately left behind when Haigh went to cover the cricket. Most daily journalism has a short shelf life, but the reports and columns collected in All Out merely bring together between two covers and some sturdy binding pieces we were all collecting anyway.
Insofar as the 2006-07 battle for the "sacred soot" was a contest - and England did have their moments - Haigh shows how it was one, and how the visitors gradually lost their way. The decisive moment of the series was at Adelaide, when England, after having controlled the game for four days, faltered inexplicably on the final morning and conceded a victory that surprised even their all-conquering opponents. That left England two games down, and from there they went steadily downhill.
Could it have gone differently? Haigh argues that the itinerary did England no favours: not only did they have little match practice by way of warm-ups, but also the first two Tests were back to back, allowing them little time to regroup after defeat at Brisbane.
A highlight of the series, as of the 2005 Ashes, was the bowling of Shane Warne. In turn, Haigh's writing is never better than when on the subject of Warne. One of the reasons why All Out will prove to be an enduring book is that it enshrines the moods and moves of the greatest slow bowler cricket has seen, during his last few days on the big stage.
Haigh remembers the time he first saw Warne's art broken down on a super-slow-motion camera, "his fingers undulating like piano keys as they set the ball rotating". He evokes Warne's garrulous, hectoring presence: walking back to his mark between deliveries, Warne is always "searching for eye contact, eager for a chirp"; sledged while batting, he protests, "You're making me concentrate!" The only opponent who gets under his skin is his Hampshire team-mate Kevin Pietersen; their simmering face-offs are contests that Warne "affects to enjoy, but which he could enjoy more". Just to see Warne hand his cap over to the umpire was to know that the game was going to rise in pitch. Just as there can never be another Bradman, says Haigh, there can never be another Warne. On these pages, more than anywhere else, Warne will always remain not out.