Table of contents for December 2016 in Inside Cricket

This issue of Inside Cricket is all about recognition. Jason Krejza speaks of our spinners going to waste due to lack of patience and encouragement – a situation that has been going on a long time, as we’ll mention in the next issue in our tribute to Johnny Gleeson. The topic for our “Timeless Test” was chosen before Max Walker died, because we felt it was time he was recognised for the real value of his contribution, as a cricketer, not just a personality. With his passing, he’s taken up even more space than we anticipated, for reasons we’d rather didn’t exist. Ian Chappell touches upon the outrageous withdrawal of recognition from past South African greats, thanks to post-Apartheid politics. Our feature on Cricket Australia’s Female Engagement strategy addresses a landmark…

ANZ CRICKETERS WHITEWASHED Australia and New Zealand reached their nadir this October. New Zealand’s Test team was whitewashed 0-3 in India while Australia’s ODI team was whitewashed 0-5 in South Africa. A RUN REPAST! It was Australia’s first loss to South Africa in a bilateral ODI series against them since 2009. Australian opener David Warner’s stunning 173 in the final ODI in Cape Town was the highest ODI score by an Australian against South Africa. But it could not prevent defeat. The third ODI at Durban was a run-rich thriller. Australia totalled 6-371 with centuries from Warner and skipper Steve Smith. But South Africa hit back, registering 6-372 to win by four wickets with four balls remaining. The only higher victory chase in an ODI was also by South Africa…

Which wicketkeeper did you most admire growing up? Rod Marsh. I liked his rhythm and he looked like he was in the heart of the battle. He was a showman, quite magnetic for me as a young wicketkeeper. We had a wicketkeeper in Queensland called John Maclean who was another good one. My first set of gloves were a pair of his. I didn’t really understand the English wicketkeepers, Alan Knott or Bob Taylor, until I worked a lot with a practice partner called Peter Anderson, who was the number one wicketkeeper in Queensland when I was the number two. He loved Bob Taylor and had a pair of Taylor’s gloves. Ando taught me all about the English style. What did you learn from Peter Anderson? How to catch the…

TIP Make sure you are holding the ball across the seam so the ball doesn’t swing and your throw can be as accurate as possible. HOW TO Our regular “How To” section is written by the best in the business, Elite Cricket. The Head Coach and Director of Elite is none other than former Australian off-spinner Jason Krejza, who also took this month’s instructional snaps. Jason applies his vast experience working with the world’s best players and coaches to his own coaching. Jason had a history-making Test debut when his 12 wickets for the match against India in 2010 included eight wickets in the first innings. Elite Cricket was started 14 years ago by former first-class cricketer and Australia A representative, wicketkeeper-batsman Mark Atkinson. Since then, Elite’s innovative coaching methods…

MY STORY - MICHAEL CLARKE MACMILLAN AUSTRALIA. RRP $44.99 HARDCOVER A legen dary over! Excellent line Hit the spot Made us play Through to the ‘keeper Take ‘em off Many commendable aspects of Clarke’s time in the limelight are ignored by those who received unfavourable first impressions and give no second chances. As an on-field captain he was watchful, shrewd and ruthless in the application of decisions. That’s all cricket lovers should want from a captain, really. Clarke’s teams never lost Tests due to tactical stupidity. His public handling of the Hughes tragedy was admirable, considering the demands on him. Despite the world-weary eyerolling of small-minded snipers, he didn’t make it all about him, and he wasn’t over the top or ever-present. Notwithstanding the book’s slightly irritating tendency to jump…

Talented young batsman Matt Renshaw recently suffered a setback to his rise through Australian professional cricketing ranks after sustaining a knee injury during play. Renshaw, batting for Queensland Bulls, retired from a Matador Cup clash against Tasmania and was subsequently replaced by Peter Forrest. The unfortunate injury comes after a stellar couple of years for the left-hander. Earlier this year Renshaw found himself selected as a member of the Australia A and NPS (Nations Performance Squad) teams. He toured with the teams as part of the Quadrangular Series across his home state of Queensland where they took on India A and South Africa A. Renshaw received the news of his national selection from Cricket Australia’s Chairman of Selectors, Rod Marsh, following a morning of golf with mates. During that phone…

Not many pictures of Hasan Raza exist, but here’s a pic of England’s Ashley Giles, who believed he got him out in this shot – corroborated by a teammate! SAY THIS QUICKLY: RIAZ AND RAZA IN SHARJAH Hasan Raza first played Test cricket 20 years ago, for Pakistan. Given that his age today is officially 34, that made him 14 at the time! So far, he’s the youngest man ever to play cricket at the highest level. Now living in Sharjah, he’s set to resume that international career as a representative of the UAE. Raza is months away from qualifying under the UAE’s fouryear qualifying rule. Raza, who played seven Tests for Pakistan, is set to join another former Pakistani national, Riaz Afridi, who played one Test as a bowler…

KANE WILLIAMSON Williamson’s performance against Australia in 2015-16, facing the best attack in the world, was remarkable. He’s a batsman with all the time in the world, and has one trait great batsmen have: he keeps difficult balls out with ease when he’s on top of his game. That’s disheartening for a bowler, particularly when it’s accompanied by a vast array of great cricket shots. Williamson’s stats are slightly misleading, skewed by a slow start. His debut century against India at Ahmedabad in November 2010, was followed by a two-year drought. His career is now gathering a formidable momentum, and he’s demonstrated his all-conditions proficiency with decisive performances in India against their spinners, and in Australia against the quicks. STEVE SMITH Unlike a lot of ridiculously quirky sportspeople, Smith actually…

Remember when Lance Cairns hit six sixes off ten balls against Australia at the MCG in 1983? Two off Lillee, two off Hogg and two off MacLeay? It was the beginning of the most fruitful phase of his career. Remember how heart-warming it was when the appreciative crowd at the MCG roared its approval of this plundering foreigner – probably the most tumultuous welcome any visitor to these shores had ever been accorded? Cairns can’t. He played his entire career almost totally deaf. He was 33 years old then, at the top of his form, but about ten years earlier, his hearing began to deteriorate. According to him it was caused by a job he had at a freezing works, where the nerve ends in his ears were damaged by…

“India’s overdrive in making wickets that blatantly favour their spinners was on display in the Test series against South Africa at home.” The Hindustan Times being unusually frank! "There was a time when Australian teams used sledging cleverly as a strategy. The mindless babble that this group have resorted to is both embarrassing and totally ineffective." The withering assessment of Kepler Wessels, who’d played international cricket for both Australia and South Africa. "If they want to throw stuff at us, obviously they're in front as well, but we're not going to stand back just because we're down. We have a lot of pride in our players, in our team and in our country so we're going to fight back." Ryan Harris’ response to Wessels. "It is Dr Owler's opinion that…

South Africa may be a vastly different country and cricket team from the 1960s Apartheid version, but one trait remains: they are still a highly-competitive sporting nation. Nothing epitomises the modern South African cricket team better than their Houdini-like escape at the Adelaide Oval last time they toured Australia. Chasing an unlikely 430 for victory, South Africa appeared to be dead and buried on 4-77 at stumps on the fourth day. Compounding their problems, a potential saviour in the great all-rounder Jacques Kallis was injured and batting down the order. Totally unfazed by this Everest-like challenge, Faf du Plessis set up camp for the day and South Africa still had two wickets in hand when a stunning draw was achieved. Buoyed by this miraculous escape, South Africa rallied to then…

Max as we last saw him, opening the All-Abilities Championships in Melbourne, 2015. Sometimes, when a beloved figure dies, it feels like an offence against humanity; an injury. When Max Walker passed in September to a sinister disease, nature also brought an end to a condition of a different sort, a contagion that Aussies never wanted cured: Max’s infectious happiness and enthusiasm; a smile that never went away. An indomitable, driven optimism. Max was an achiever without ego. No matter the task – rucking, writing, bowling, broadcasting, hosting – he’d hurl his immense joy against it and not only master it, but somehow change the way it was done. If, back in the 1970s, you read his thoughts about colliding with monstrous ruckmen and bowling to blazing batsmen – the…

Ray Lindwall Ray Lindwall, one of the best fast bowlers cricket has seen, was playing first-grade rugby league before he made his first-class cricket debut. As a player from 1940, he was full-back and goal-kicker. He missed St George’s 1941 premiership-winning season with illness, made his first-class debut a month after that Grand Final, but then that season was cancelled due to the attack on Pearl Harbour and the Allied entry into the war. During 1946, after he’d already made his Test cricket debut, Lindwall was St George’s, and the league’s, top point-scorer, and in the Grand Final, he and his brother Jack scored all the Dragons’ points. Lindwall’s fast-bowling partnership with that other great allrounder, Keith Miller, is storied. Lindwall, like Miller, was an excellent cricketing all-rounder and scored…

The 1972-73 Australian tour by Pakistan might easily have passed from notice, but for its significance for cricket in both nations. It was a three-Test series of intriguing stories; a series that catapulted Pakistan into the consciousness of the cricketing world and gave a solid core of belief to Ian Chappell’s Aussie team, the constitution of which was still in flux. The three-Test set was well-timed for the visitors because, fortuitously, Australian cricket was entering its Age of Enlightenment. For Chappell’s men the series, coming after a tough two-season rite-ofpassage for the young belligerents culminating in a breakthrough drawn Ashes series in 1972, this was an opportunity to flex their growing muscles. The trio who came to be known as the Big Three – Dennis Lillee, Rodney Marsh and Greg…