Simon Hughes: Australia`s men of letters spell trouble for England (12 May 1997)

Monday 12 May 1997

Australia`s men of letters spell trouble for England

By Simon Hughes

THE great West Indies side of the 1950s was dominated by the three Ws: Worrell, Weekes and Walcott. England`s three Gs, Gooch, Gatting and Gower, made their mark in the 1980s. But in the Nineties when the team ethic supercedes individuality, the Australians base their success on the three Ss: style, stamina and sledging. The international judges would give them dix points in all three categories.

The quality of Australian pitches and the intensity of their domestic game ensures that players from the Great Outdoors exude style. Even within their worst sides there was a feistiness that made them compulsive viewing. Kim Hughes`s 1981 team were always on the offensive, despite being mugged by Ian Botham, and members of the relatively feeble 1985 touring party like Greg Ritchie, Wayne Phillips and Greg Matthews still provided rich entertainment.

Not long after this debacle, Bobby Simpson became national coach and injected a harder edge to the squad, paying great attention to fitness and fielding. This transition percolated right down to club level, and I became acutely aware of it when I spent a season playing grade cricket in Perth. That they played a merciless brand of cricket in Western Australia was common knowledge and English pros often went there to get knocked into shape.

I didn`t realise this meant bump-starting a two-ton 1971 Falcon several times a week to get to the club, or being obliged to complete a mini-triathlon on the beach after bowling flat out in the nets for two hours. The twice-a-week practice sessions were ultra-competitive - everyone bowled to damage your pride as well as your person - and the build-up to matches involved lots of emotive speeches and tub-thumping. Doing situps in the long grass before a game, you realised there were more stinging, biting, life-threatening organisms in Australia than on any other continent. That`s before you set foot on the field.

Allan Border added the final ingredient to the Australian package. Sledging had always been prevalent in their domestic cricket - well, most of their galumphing fast bowlers were incapable of expressing themselves in polite English at the best of times. As quick as you could say XXXX, Border metamorphosed on the field from one of Smiley`s people to Captain Grumpy and by the late 1980s had encouraged anyone and everyone else under his charge to follow suit.

Michael Holding, who incidentally never uttered a word when he was bowling (apart from Howzattt!) remembers its origin. "I was batting and the left-arm spinner, Murray Bennett, was bowling. AB [Border] pushed his spikes into the pitch and I said `Hey you don`t need to do that` and he replied `Huh, you blokes don`t like it when the boot`s on the other foot do you?` I`d never had a problem with anyone before that, but since then it`s just got worse and worse."

And now it is accepted as part of the game, worldwide. We do it, Kiwis do it, even people with degrees do it. The West Indian fast bowlers have joined in recently with their "Hey man, he been to the 10th floor, now take him to the 12th," but the Australians are supreme. Their offerings range from Steve Waugh`s sly suggestions in the gully, to Glenn McGrath`s stream of outright expletives (he even hurled his bat and loud abuse when I got him out in the Adelaide nets), to Shane Warne`s smiling provocation.

"Come on, why don`t you hit a proper one," he`ll say, having been slogged for a couple of fours, or he might pull his `Fishbowl` face (poking his tongue out like a Maori doing the haka) or indulge in a bit of cryptic conversation with Ian Healy. Warne explains: "We use different tactics for different players. I might say something like `Oi Heals, what hole are we playing today, ninth at the Capital? What club are you gonna use, eight-iron?` "The batsman`s thinking `What`s going on here, golf?` It might just make him lose a bit of concentration, go for a big drive or something. I`ll always sledge a bloke if I think it`ll have an effect. Always."

How do England`s three Ss shape up? The team are not short of style, man for man their stamina is probably almost on a par with the Aussies, and their recent two-day motivational course has taught them, among other things, to "scale mountains rather than subside into valleys". But the Australians are destined to win the sledging downhill, and they`ve brought their own three Ws - Warne, Waugh and Waugh - for good measure.

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