Scyld Berry: Have England broken deadly spell of Warne? (16 June 1997)

Monday 16 June 1997

Have England broken deadly spell of Warne?

By Scyld Berry

SHANE Warne has since recalled that ball - the one to Mike Gatting at Old Trafford - which launched him into the 1993 Ashes series and on to super-stardom. "It was one of those dream deliveries. It changed the complexion of the se- ries. The Englishmen were never confident against me after that ball."

At Edgbaston Warne began at the opposite extreme, with one wicket for 137 runs. He has yet to change the complexion of this series. But will he? Can he still bowl those dream deliveries which shatter the opposition`s confidence? Or has the spell of Frankenstein been forever broken by the bats of Nasser Hussain and Graham Thorpe, as if they had been burning crosses?

The answers are not readily available in England. En- glish cricketers have much less interest in technique, apart from their own, than their Australian counterparts, which is largely why our counties look abroad for their coaches; and we do not have any Test leg-spinners of note anyway. But, in Syd- ney, Warne`s bowling at Edgbaston was closely watched by his occasional coach at the academy, the former Australian and Somerset legspinner Kerry O`Keefe.

Having studied Warne`s bowling action at Edgbaston frame by frame, O`Keefe makes this analysis: "Shane has never had a technically pure action because he has always dropped his left shoulder at the point of release. But now he is drop- ping it more than at any time in his career so that his left shoulder is pointing at the ground.

"That means he is bowling with only one half of his body, the right side. He is slinging the ball out with his right arm, so he`s not generating the loop and the bounce he wants. In his pomp he used to be beautifully balanced, get his weight forward and bowl across his front leg."

Warne`s change of action relieves some of the strain on his right shoulder, which he originally damaged when he bowled 20 consecutive googlies at practice with Ian Healy at the SCG. He has needed cortizone injections and massage to keep him going since. Then there was the operation he had on his fourth finger last May to tighten a tendon, which seems to have reduced both the degree and the frequency of his leg-break. "In the past Shane couldn`t wait to bowl big leg-breaks. From a standing start he could put more rotations on a cricket ball than anyone I`ve ever seen. His main weapons have always been a big legbreak, a goodish flipper and a reasonable top-spinner, and he would confuse batsmen either with the prodigious turn of his leg-break or with one of those variations. But take away that prodigious turn and you reduce the whole effect.

"Early on in every spell Shane wants to rip a leg-break and see Healy take it up by his hip, and then his confidence soars. But if there is no bounce like at Edgbaston, and he sees Mike Atherton waiting on the back foot, then his psyche changes and he feels he has to push the ball through and frustrate the batsman out. I don`t think Shane`s ever wanted to be a stock bowler but he might feel he`s being forced into it by the pitches in England and by the lack of support he`s getting from the other bowlers.

"At Edgbaston, instead of bowling three or four big legbreaks an over like he used to, he was bowling three or four of these front-of-the-hand nothing-balls and either getting cut or picked off through the leg-side by the right-handers. Previously anybody who did that did it at their peril. When Hussain and Thorpe were about to reach their hundreds, in both cases he gave them the flipper - he always does when a batsman is about to reach a landmark - and in both cases the ball was too short and the trajectory too low because the left side of his body had fallen away.

"Thorpe, to me, is shaping as the linchpin," says O`Keefe. "Most leggies bowl a lot of googlies to left-handers, but Shane can`t really bowl it, so he tries to angle the ball across Thorpe and bowls the zooter which drops short and Thorpe cuts him. I`m not sure he reads everything, but he`s a good sweeper and on your pitches at the moment he`s got the time to adjust after the ball has pitched."

In 1993 Warne was given ideal pitches for himself and Tim May, the off-spinner. "Shane is missing Tim, without question, as a friend with a dry sense of humour and as a bowler who turned it the other way and kept it tight. When Michael Bevan comes on, Shane will never know whether he is going to take five for 40 or bowl five overs for 40.

"In 1993 they had Merv Hughes as well to relieve the intensity and provide some slapstick. Nothing against this party, but there are a lot of pretty intense cricketers in it who don`t smile much. I think we miss having Merv around the room, or shouting from fine leg to the fast bowler at the other end. A lot of Glenn McGrath`s bravado is forced upon him because it`s not his nature as a quiet country boy to be a hit man.

"Merv was also important because Shane has always had a big 90-kg fast bowler to get in close at the other end to make footmarks. Shane is the best user of roughage I`ve seen because he goes round the wicket early and makes the leg break bite - like the Chanderpaul ball at the SCG a few months ago." And only last year, when Mushtaq Ahmed went round the wicket at Lord`s, he precipitated the collapse of England`s last nine wickets in a single session.

The possibility that McGrath might do the same sort of foothold damage as Hughes or Craig McDermott, especially when there is a damp pitch to scuff up, is one big reason why O`Keefe is far from losing hope. Another is his continuing faith in Warne`s quality - "a far better bowler than me" - for all the recent blemishes. Above all, though, is the prospect of England becoming defensive on a bouncy pitch. "The moment you start using your pad against Shane is the beginning of the end as he goes through your legs or behind them. The way to survive is to use your bat against him all the time" - as Hussain and Thorpe did at Edgbaston.

"It comes down to Shane in the end," concludes O`Keefe. "He`s got to find two pitches to his liking if Australia are to keep the Ashes."

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