The Anti-Hick

The worst thing about Michael Hussey is his nickname. Mr Cricket. A cricketer keen on cricket: who’d a thunk it? It would be worth remarking were he Mr Stamps, or Mr Fossils. But Mr Cricket? Gimme a break. Almost everything else about him, however, is designed to please the purist. His technique is as simple as simple as a join-the-dots puzzle, as hard to break as Enigma. He performs the basics, of manipulating strike and running between wickets, with alacrity. He gives off an air of such pent-up enthusiasm about playing for Australia that it is as though he has been let in on an exciting secret he is bursting to share. And no wonder: his Test average of 77.4 is still to converge with his first-class average of 53.9. Here is a player rising to meet the challenge of the top level rather than being dragged down by it. You could call him the anti-Hick.

Ricky Ponting did not begin his innings today with his usual fluency. The burden of being the go-to guy in Test after Test may have daunted him momentarily. His pull shot to pick out Ashley Giles was a shot both cavalier and careworn. Any suspicion of lack of control, however, disappeared with Hussey’s arrival, and the resting of England’s first-string bowlers: a fifth bowler is generally a useful adjunct to an attack, but not when that fifth is either Steve Harmison or Jimmy Anderson, with two for 467 between them so far this summer. It is one thing to be a great player, but Hussey is also a great partner.

Ponting was a known quantity for these Ashes. England were aware that they would have to overthrow him to invade the Australian middle order; now Hussey looms as a second bulwark, and England are no closer to working him out than they were a month ago.