Pace the key to Australia's fortunes
Judhajit
25-Feb-2013
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Australia must consider an all-pace attack for the fourth Test at Headingley in what could be their best shot at a series-levelling win, for the track at The Oval - the venue for the final Test - can be expected to be placid, writes Peter Roebuck in the Sydney Morning Herald.
The Oval can be the flattest pitch in the country. It’s long been the case. In 1938, Bill O’Reilly considered seeking out the curator with a rifle as England collected 7-903. On the other hand, if the teams go to London all square a local outbreak of fusarium can be expected.
In short Australia have to go for broke. Moreover, Headingley tends to favour seam bowling and frown upon spin. And it presents various challenges that can undo the unwary visitor. When it is cloudy, which is most of the time, the ball whoops around like seven-year-olds at a birthday party but when the sun emerges, the track becomes as lifeless as a government backbencher. It’s an odd shape, too, with a slope straight down the ground so that bowlers find themselves running up or down hill. The boundaries are fast and short in some directions.
Just as a low-scoring contest in any sport can be as absorbing as a shoot-out, so the 2009 Ashes series, in its own muddle-headed way, is proving just as fascinating as the 2005 epic. Greg Baum, writing in the Age, calls it the virtue of mediocrity.
It means they’re as bad as each other, which means they’re as good as each other, which means it is impossible to know yet how it all might end.
Yet now, as then, crowds are agog, ratings high, tickets at a premium and all eyes glued. The series has in common sport’s most fundamental appeal, that — for diametrically different reasons — no one knew or knows what to expect next. Except rain.