Shining duty a dull call
AUSTRALIA insist they won’t be sweating over their treatment of the ball this summer in their first Test on home soil since sandpapergate.
“Ball management” is something no one took much notice of in international cricket before Cameron Bancroft was infamously caught redhanded in Cape Town.
There were plenty of sweaty palms in Australian cricket that day and in the months since, but Josh Hazlewood has declared the shining of the ball will be a perspiration-free zone this summer.
Slips fielders Usman Khawaja and Aaron Finch have emerged as possible candidates to be in charge of the ball management against India … simply because they don’t sweat.
“To be honest the people who shine the ball are the ones who don’t sweat, it’s as simple as that,” Hazlewood said.
“The bowlers sweat a lot when they bowl and you don’t want it getting wet, you want to keep it dry and shine it.
“It’s two guys who don’t sweat, simple as that.”
That said, Hazlewood can’t see reverse swing being a is fit as a fiddle after dropping 10kg in the past eight months.
The Queensland captain started shedding the weight after Australia’s scandal-ridden tour of South Africa and is now reaping the rewards.
It was initially feared Khawaja could be in doubt for this week’s four-Test series opener when he suffered a knee injury in the UAE.
But the 31-year-old recovered major factor in this first Test in Adelaide like it was in South Africa earlier this year and in the UAE more recently.
For the first time in several years the Adelaide Test has reverted to a daytime contest and turning the lights off is likely to take the art of reverse swing out of the equation.
“It’s pretty common sense … this ground and Perth are not ideal for reverse swing, so it’s more normal seam and swing,” Hazlewood said.
Australian cricket has been under a glaring spotlight since the South African disaster but with precious little match play to change the focus.
Although the Aussies have played overseas in England, Zimbabwe and the UAE since Justin Langer took over, this is the first time the nation will be watching.
Hazlewood said the team is at ease with that expectation.
“I don’t feel extra pressure. I feel a lot of extra excitement,” said Hazlewood.
“There’s potentially a debutant. It’s always good to have that around the group.
“It’s the excitement of the Australian summer coming around again. There’s nothing better than playing Test cricket in Australia.” ahead of schedule, allowing him to return via the Sheffield Shield last week.
James has been known to go to extraordinary lengths to maintain his imposing physique, spending more $2 million a year taking care of his body.
Khawaja suggested the threetime NBA champion, who is 33 but continues to defy Father Time, has been an inspiration.
“I just wanted to make sure that I was the best version of myself,” he told RSN.
“One of my favourite athletes, LeBron James, does that as well as anyone else. I had a good Ashes campaign but I just felt like it was something I needed to work on. I just started chipping away at it.”
Langer is known for putting a high value on fitness but Khawaja, who insisted he felt no pressure from Cricket Australia, started his training regime before the former Test opener was appointed coach.
“It wasn’t a thing where I was like ‘CA’s coming down on me telling me to lose weight and I have to do it or else I’m not playing’,” he said.
The left-hander demonstrated his fitness in the UAE with a marathon nine-hour knock of 141 that helped Australia salvage a draw. AUSTRALIAN super mare Winx has been voted the world’s most popular racehorse in a global online poll. Winx has been awarded the prestige Secretariat Vox Populi Award for 2018 which recognises the racehorse “whose popularity and racing excellence best resounded with the general public and gained recognition for thoroughbred racing”. Winx was the top choice among international fans representing a record 60 countries. The other nominations were unbeaten US triple crown winner Justify, European super mare Enable, America’s champion older horse Accelerate and three-year-old filly Monomoy Girl.