Shane Watson, cricket's perennial sad clown
With England on top in the first Test the focus is firmly on Australia's senior statesmen - Shane Watson and Brad Haddin, who's performances have left much to be desired
11-Jul-2015
In his column for the Independent Charles Reynolds writes that Shane Watson is never far away from tragicomedy on a cricket field.
There is a melancholic majesty to Watson's play, he often manages to look as if there is not one aspect of cricket that he enjoys. Sullenly clanking in to bowl like a suit of armour breathed into life by a particularly sadistic cricket-loving sorcerer, the whole process appears a waste of his time and energy, a burden on his creaky hamstrings. Fielding is an activity that seems to rank even lower on Watson's list of hobbies, all that unseemly running and diving around just a chance to pick up another injury, the likes of which have plagued his career.
The Telegraph's cricket correspondent Nick Hoult believes (with much evidence to do so) that Watson is battling to save what little is left of his Test career.
Sir Alex Ferguson used to say about the Italian centre forward Filippo Inzaghi "that lad must have been born offside." Ferguson likes his cricket. He is probably now muttering about Shane Watson "that lad must have been born lbw." Watson's dismissal here was the 28th lbw of his Test career. No batsman who has played more than 100 Test innings has a higher percentage of LBW dismissals than Watson's 26.6. Those pads are a magnet for England bowlers in swinging conditions and on pitches of low bounce in this country. Nine times they have had him leg before in England and this was the fourth time Stuart Broad has done so. The question is whether after the second innings of this match England will have another opportunity to add to that tally.
Much of England being in a commanding position in the Cardiff Test can be credited to Joe Root's ton.... and Brad Haddin's dropped catch. The 37-year old wicketkeeper hasn't been spared of any criticism, and The Guardian's Barney Roney feels Haddin has failed to live up to his reputation.
For all that, the suspicion of a slight dwindling away, of a congealing of that familiar menace was already out there. Haddin's non-appearance on the second evening here at the fall of Adam Voges' wicket had struck a slightly jarring note, Nathan Lyon's appearance in the gloaming an abandonment of Waugh's First Dictum, which states that night-watchmen are essentially un-manly, limp, craven, English, an admission - horror of all horrors - of some fatal tremor of self-doubt.