Tudor must be given his head as England go for win or bust (24 December 1998)

24 December 1998

Tudor must be given his head as England go for win or bust

By Christopher Martin-Jenkins in Melbourne

AUSTRALIAN cricket officials are expecting at least 50,000 spectators at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Saturday; perhaps 70,000. The majority will go because it is Boxing Day in Melbourne; the floating 20,000 or so will take a view on the day, assessing partly the weather - the forecast, alas, is not good - and partly whether England can pick themselves up from the dust and make a contest of the fourth Test.

Curiously, but significantly, almost all Australians will be hoping they can, not just for a day or two, but for all five. The Ashes are in the bag again already and providing England do not win, no-one will mind if the old adversaries perform rather more like enemies, rather less like indulgent friends who drop important catches and crumble like dry bread when the heat is on.

One may hope, but one cannot be sure, that the performance in Hobart on Tuesday was the nadir of England's tour. A surprise here would, in a way, be no surprise. England have, after all, won the next match after surrendering the Ashes in both of the last two series. Nor should too much emphasis be laid on a match lost in Hobart on a very flat pitch after three declarations.

What did seem significant, however, was the attitude of some players, whose fielding and body language suggested far too ready an acceptance of England's fate as Greg Blewett and Corey Richards blazed away at desultory bowling.

In Melbourne yesterday Alec Stewart endorsed everything Graham Gooch, the manager, had said about the nature of the England defeat and added that he had been less than happy with the fielding towards the end of the match against the Prime Minister's XI in Canberra. Some players have already been privately told to pull their socks up but another frank exchange of views was promised for this morning before the team practice at the MCG.

This team were picked with mental tenacity and general character in mind, which makes the current crisis of morale all the more disappointing. It is the uncertain mental state of the England side which makes it all too possible that they might disintegrate before a side who have so far outclassed them and who have just demonstrated so graphically the depths of their reserves.

As if to prove that depth, the Australian selectors sprang a complete surprise to most people when Jason Gillespie pulled out of the 12 yesterday because of a strain to his right knee. His place has gone to the 24-year-old West Australian fast bowler, Matthew Nicholson, whose career was transformed almost from the moment that he hit Mark Butcher above the eye in England's opening first-class match.

Nicholson, 6ft 6in, walks 42 paces back to his mark but gets to the crease in 16 long strides and although most of his 25 wickets this season have come on the slippery surfaces at Perth, he looked a future Test bowler from the moment that he took six for 37 in 17 overs with the second new ball in that England match. He has proved his worth in two one-day games against the touring side as well and he is being tried now partly as an experiment for the tour of the West Indies next spring.

His selection, with Paul Reiffel and Michael Kasprowicz injured, and other recent Test bowlers such as Andrew Bichel, Brendon Julian, Paul Wilson and Simon Cook eclipsed, is a vivid illustration of how fast bowlers can come from almost nowhere in Australia and the comparison with Tudor will be intriguing.

A former Cricket Academy student and Australia Under-19 all-rounder, Nicholson moved from Sydney to get Sheffield Shield cricket in 1996 but lost a full season to the aftermath of glandular fever. It was mixed, according to blood tests, with salmonella and Ross river fever, so it was hardly surprising that chronic fatigue syndrome set in or that he was confined to a fruit and vegetable-based diet, devoid of alcohol, meat and dairy products.

He is expected to win his first cap, with Colin Miller reverting to 12th man. Darren Lehmann for Ricky Ponting is the only other change to Australia's winning side at Adelaide. It is salutary that it has taken Lehmann more than eight years to be picked for a home Test match after being selected as 12th man when he was reeling off the hundreds for South Australia as an 18-year-old. He has made two fifties in his four Test innings to date, one at Bangalore and one in Rawalpindi.

Terrified though they are by the prospect of yet another collapse in the second half of the order, England's tour selectors will probably opt for five bowlers here as they did at Brisbane. The option of playing Warren Hegg as wicketkeeper and No 7 batsman has not been discounted but Alec Stewart was planning yesterday to continue to keep wicket, dropping himself to five in the order, with Mark Ramprakash at four. Graeme Hick will take over from John Crawley at six and be given a licence to try to dominate as he did for a time in the second innings at Perth.

"We have to accept that the option of playing seven batsmen hasn't worked," said Stewart, adding that if five bowlers play (and Crawley is therefore jettisoned) one of them will be a specialist spinner. There will be a bit more bounce in the pitch than there was for the drawn match against Victoria but it may still take five bowlers to take the 20 wickets which England will need if they are to win, barring the remote possibility of a successful fourth-innings run chase after a declaration.

This, and Peter Such's mauling by Blewett and Richards earlier in the week, may increase the chances of Robert Croft being recalled at seven, with Tudor at eight followed by Dean Headley, Darren Gough and Alan Mullally. If, however, Such's Adelaide form is given more credence than his performance in Hobart, the temptation will be for Dominic Cork to be restored at seven at the expense of Headley or Tudor.

Because of his immediate and future potential, Tudor must play. About the only advance of the tour was the promise of a genuinely potent fast attack when he, Gough and Mullally bowled together at Perth. Tudor, as yet, is no better than a No 8, perhaps No 9 batsman in Test company, so it speaks volumes for England's limitations that he might have to go in at seven here. He would not be overawed by the prospect, but as Stewart put it yesterday with jaw jutted: "This time the top six will have to do their job."

If they do not, further embarrassment may be round the corner, but the forecast rain and clouds for the first day might produce some interesting bowling conditions should Stewart finally win a toss.

England have lost nine of the last 10 in Tests against Australia but Mark Taylor will not mind if he loses: "Melbourne's the sort of pitch which is hard to read. You never quite know whether to bat or bowl."

The last eight MCG Tests between Australia and England have produced results, five of them Australian wins. Even the last draw, in 1974/75, was the result mainly of uncharacteristic Australian caution against Derek Underwood on the last evening.

England won the second Melbourne match of that series when Jeff Thomson was unfit and Dennis Lillee broke down and, as was the case then, the time for damage limitation for the present England side has gone. It is win or bust.

The Australian Cricket Board have announced that an inquiry into the effect of gambling on the sport will begin on Jan 12.

The probe, to be headed by Queensland lawyer Rob O'Regan, will last for three weeks, with the report made public at the end of February.

Australian authorities moved on the issue after Test players Mark Waugh and Shane Warne said earlier this month they received money from illegal bookmakers during the tour of Sri Lanka in 1994. Several other players have since come forward claiming that bookmakers offered them bribes.

O'Regan hopes to interview all Australian cricketers since 1992 and also former ACB officials about any involvement with gambling in the sport.

The Teams

Australia (from): *M A Taylor, M J Slater, J L Langer, M E Waugh, S R Waugh, D S Lehmann, -I A Healy, D W Fleming, M J Nicholson, S C C MacGill, G D McGrath, C R Miller.

England (from): M A Atherton, M A Butcher, N Hussain, M R Ramprakash, *-A J Stewart, G A Hick, A J Tudor, D W Headley, D Gough, A D Mullally, R D B Croft, P M Such.

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