Table of contents for February 2018 in Inside Cricket

Unwritten laws rely on civility. When beneficial unwritten laws are overtaken by written legislation, a society normally has a problem. An over-legislated society tips over from orderly to oppressed. Some unwritten laws, it’s true, are ridiculous. Many others make the world work. Have you ever noticed what happens when you go into a shop and pay for something on your card? Without exception, normal people adhere to an unwritten law: they look away just as you key in your pin number. Cricket has had its share of unwritten laws. The nonsensical ones have prevented the game progressing creatively. But one has endured for very good reason. The approval of incessant short, fast deliveries to tail-enders has done away with an important safety net. Of all the old “gentleman’s game”, “spirit…

RECORDS GO WEST England’s Dawid Malan (140) and Jonny Bairstow (119) added 237 for the fifth wicket in Perth. They broke the record for the fifth wicket for England against Australia previously held by Denis Compton and Eddie Paynter, who had added 206 in 1938 at Nottingham. In the same Test, Australia’s Steve Smith (239) and Mitchell Marsh (181) put on 301 for the fifth wicket. The highest stand for the fifth wicket against England is 405 between Sidney Barnes and Don Bradman in Sydney in 1946-47. His double century enabled Smith to reach 1000 runs in 2017. This is the fourth time in a row that he has reached 1000 runs in a calendar year – from 2014 to 2017. Only fellow Australian Matthew Hayden has achieved it more…

What do you consider the finest moment of your cricketing career? Trent Bridge, 1965. We won the second Test against England, and the series 1-0. It was quite a formidable England side with a huge batting lineup. My brother Peter got ten wickets in the game, five in each innings. I got 125 in the first innings. We were in a bit of trouble (5-80), ended up with 269 in a low-scoring game. I got 59 in the second innings, so for us brothers it was a big contribution. Those slow, seaming English pitches would have been different from what you were used to in South Africa … I’d been to England when I was 17, in 1961, played a few games for Sussex 2nd XI. Our school coach was…

FIRST TEST, THE ‘GABBA, NOVEMBER 23-27, 2017 The opening Test of an Ashes series in Australia. So often, the Gabba is the tuning fork; the key is struck; the tone established. For two days each side struggled for ascendancy. Then the tide turned England’s way. They made their first-innings score of 302 a yawing chasm after reducing the Australians’ unproven batting line-up to 5-75. Until Steve Smith held back the tide. He didn’t slap them around. The bowlers didn’t allow it, and anyway, the situation didn’t call for it. The longer he stayed, the more little cuts he inflicted. This brilliant graft of a ton told us everything else we needed to know about him. But it told us a lot more: this intelligent, composed English side could be spooked.…

It began on January 5, 1971, and the cricket world has Melbourne’s fickle weather to thank for it. The 1970-71 battle for the Ashes was a Test series of “firsts”. In fact, it was the Test series that ushered in the modern era, in more ways than one. The first two Tests had been tame draws, and, impatient to see off the drab cricket of the 1960s, fearful for the game’s future, the press, especially in Australia, was beginning to question the desire of players and administrators to entertain the cricket public. Later in that series, in an unprecedented seventh Test, Ian Chappell took over as captain from a beleaguered Bill Lawry. By this time, tempers on both sides were frayed by internal, off-field incidents, and the English quicks, especially…

Those old enough to recall the second Test of the 1993-94 series had all the evidence they needed that England was capable of winning the recent Adelaide Ashes Test match after Steve Smith decided against enforcing the follow-on. The circumstances were almost entirely different, but the Proteas proved one thing in that amazing match: a team can receive a hiding for 90 percent of a Test and still win it. Sydney 1993-94, was their Headingley 1981; it was Jeff Harding snatching the world lightheavyweight title from Dennis Andries after having his head pounded for 11 rounds. It was Dave Wottle, Munich 1972, 800m final, who almost the whole time was running last – so last he was almost in the previous race, or the next one. Whatever. The Saffers had…

SPELL-BINDING SPELLS ANINDYA DUTTA. NOTION PRESS. RRP $22.41 AT AMAZON AUSTRALIA Spell-Binding Spells features bowlers’ incredible feats. The legendary Indian leg-spinner Anil Kumble is on the cover – his spell of capturing all 10 Pakistani wickets in the 1999 Delhi Test is the book’s highlight. A banker by profession, author Anindya Dutta goes lyrical, describing England off-spinner Jim Laker’s spell-binding feat of capturing 19 Australian wickets in the 1956 Manchester Test, including all 10 wickets in the second innings. Also included is the mesmerising spell of England’s current quickie Stuart Broad, who captured eight Australian scalps for 15 runs in 9.3 overs in the 2015 Nottingham Test. On Pakistan’s Sarfraz Nawaz’s incredible spell in the 1979 Melbourne Test, Dutta writes: “From nowhere, Sarfraz has conjured up a spell that earns…

CENTENARY TEST STARS HONOURED IN MELBOURNE The Boxing Day Test at the MCG, venue for the Centenary Test 41 years ago (March 12-17, 1977), celebrated the heroes of that astounding match with laps of honour – better late than never! For those of you too young to remember, here are some Centenary Test facts that made it the famous match it was: ▄ Australia won by 45 runs, the same result and margin as that of the first-ever Test at the same venue. ▄ The great Australian ‘keeper Rod Marsh scored 110 not-out in the second innings. ▄ England’s Derek Randall made 174 in England’s chase of 463 and almost got them there. ▄ Marsh caught Randall when he was on 161 and didn’t claim the catch after Randall was…

Any successful person from any walk of life will have memories from their personal and professional lives that make them feel fulfilled. For a cricketer, this might be a successful game, series or season; maybe a match where they reached a treasured milestone or helped win a big competition. Of these memories, the player can feel proud, without inhibition or fear of ridicule or judgement. That is, unless you happen to be a South African cricketer who played during the 1970s and 1980s, the decades during which the country was banned from international cricket as the rest of the cricketing world took a stand against its appalling Apartheid system. In the eyes of the world, a South African cricketer of that vintage was, and still is, a South African first…

STEVE WAUGH, ADELAIDE, 1993-94 After Fanie de Villiers went through the Aussies like epsom salts in Sydney, the series went to Adelaide at 1-0 South Africa’s way. It was an unexpected struggle against a feisty, relatively young South African team. A new, even more determined Steve Waugh was being forged by this time, a formidable batsman rather than a handy spare-parts cricketer. Waugh had missed the first two Tests, and his addition made all the difference. His skilful 164 under immense pressure against a rampaging Allan Donald and de Villiers was one of those made-to-order heroic knocks he was to become famous for. Though he was emerging now as a batsman for the ages rather than an all-rounder, he still managed to pick up 4-26 to help his team to…

Greg Chappell was born into the lore of South Australian, and Australian, cricket. His grandfather was Victor Richardson, an Australian captain, an elite all-round sportsman who loathed Don Bradman. Greg and brother Ian didn’t require family or political connection to reach cricket’s summit. DNA and determination sufficed. Ian became arguably Australia’s greatest captain, certainly cricket’s most visionary activist and, while captain, one of the best first-drops Australia has had. Greg developed into one of history’s preeminent batsmen. By the end of a Test career bookended with magnificent centuries – using a grip suggested to him, ironically, by Bradman himself – he’d become the first Australian to 7,000 Test runs, having scored 24 mostly-memorable Test centuries at an average of 53.86. Like any great artist, he had his phases. A century…

"Some other things, apart from the ‘headbutt' business, were said by Australia in the middle but what they were is staying there … Only if they are said again would the matter go further.” Jonny Bairstow, suggesting Australia crossed several lines in the first Test. "If that's not motivation to the players I don' t know what is. Seriously." Joe Root, on Steve Smith’s open amusement at the post first-Test presser, when Bancroft was relating the story of Bairstow’s “headbutt”. “He was saying I was slow, so it was nice I sort of beat him for pace. That was good.” Craig Overton, on dismissing of Steve Smith in the Adelaide Test. "They have played fantastic ally well throughout the series. They were the far better side.” James Anderson, speaking on…

Australia regained the Ashes with a comprehensive series win over England and in the process rose to third on the ICC rankings. Despite the good result, some issues still linger as the team’s batting line-up is far from consummated. A really good team can’t afford to have a no.3 who occasionally excels in Australia but is regularly omitted on overseas tours. Following his elegant century at the SCG, Usman Khawaja has earned the right to try and cement his spot under all conditions, but to do so he will need to more regularly dictate terms to opposition bowlers. The major concern is “Dashing” Dave Warner’s opening partner. Cameron Bancroft provided glimpses of his potential during the Ashes series, but didn’t do enough to send Matthew Renshaw into a fit of…

It’s a big ground in a big city in the world’s biggest state. And it’s seen things to make a porn star blush. Maybe not a porn star; it’s a cricket ground, not Pulp Friction. But the great deeds at the WACA – and go back far enough you’ll find some massive ones – all seem large and visceral and hard-baked in the white-hot, west Aussie sun. Even the name of the joint speaks of beltings, of wild-west free-for-alls. It’s a bar-fight of a cricket ground. And it’s been a bloody beauty. But time is up for the gnarly old concrete hot-box and that final ball bowled by Patrick Cummins in the third Ashes Test of 2017-18 was Test cricket’s last, odd, angry shot. It’s been emotional. It’s been fun.…

Charles “Buck” Llewellyn In 1896, Buck Llewellyn became the first coloured cricketer to represent South Africa. Llewellyn was a very good left-arm medium-fast bowler and an explosive batsman who would have played more Tests if not for his colour, which caused a stir in conservative white circles once word got around that he wasn’t white. In only 15 Tests, Llewellyn took five wickets in an innings four times and ten in a match once. As a professional for Hampshire, he scored 8772 runs and took 711 wickets, once getting the 100 wickets/1000 runs double in a season. He achieved those milestones often in other different seasons, not together. Jimmy Sinclair Like his contemporary Llewellyn, Sinclair (pictured on the left with Aubrey Faulkner) was a quick bowler and a hard-hitting daredevil…

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