Archer hit on Smith revisited in doco
Scyld Berry
One of England’s finest coaches, Duncan Fletcher tells
why he is happy with life away from cricket.
If you go for a walk or a bike ride at 5am every morning, few places on earth are more enticing than Hermanus Bay – and you might have expected that England’s most ingenious cricket coach would live there.
Duncan Fletcher has had both knees replaced recently, yet he gets on his bike or walks round the bay in Hermanus on South Africa’s south coast. No finer place to see southern right whales diving and leaping a couple of hundred yards off shore in season; and the bay is lined with beaches of dazzling white to match the spume of the wind-whipped waves.
‘‘He was the best,’’ Michael Vaughan says about the coach who took England from bottom of the rankings in 1999 to the summit when they won the greatest Ashes – or any other – series in 2005. ‘‘He was ahead of his time in cricket coaching, he saw the game technically better than anyone else I worked with. Would still, in my opinion, have a huge amount to offer, particularly with younger players we now have.’’
As in the rest of life, the merits of those who do not play politics and blow their own trumpet are insufficiently recognised.
Fletcher was perceived as stern beneath his sunhat and shades, whereas he still has, at 71, the most boyish grin when he laughs and wrinkles his nose. Had he revealed that the captain, Andrew Flintoff, was getting paralytically drunk on the 2006-07 Ashes tour when England lost 5-0, he could have saved his neck, but did he heck: he pulled them together so the team at least won the subsequent one-day series.
Fletcher is an autodidact. ‘‘I never went on a course,’’ he said, ‘‘I always teach myself.’’ He applied his ingenuity to cricket initially when he captained Zimbabwe in the 1983 World Cup and the rank outsiders beat Australia, then had India – eventual winners – 78-7 in another qualifier. If the match had been staged at a more illustrious international venue than Tunbridge Wells, with its short boundary on one side, Kapil Dev might not have saved India with 175.
Outside cricket, Fletcher’s ingenuity was manifested in the Treasury data department in Harare when his job was to renumber Zimbabwe’s car number plates. ‘‘To help the police identify hit-and-run drivers, I decided on six digits followed by a letter, excluding I and O. If the driver who had been hit only remembered the first two or three digits and the letter, and the colour of the car, the police could narrow it down.’’
In the late 1980s he moved to Cape Town to work for a computer company, got into coaching with the university, then Western Province, and in 1997 led Glamorgan to their only County Championship in the past 50 years, before being appointed England’s head coach in 1999.
He had two bits of luck: central contracts had just been introduced, so players did not burn themselves out in county cricket, and he had an England and Wales Cricket Board chairman he could do business with in Lord MacLaurin, who had already decreed that players should no longer share twoto-a-room. ‘‘One mismatch can wreck team spirit,’’ Fletcher said.
As Vaughan suggested, Fletcher was six years ahead of his time when he urged the International Cricket Council in 1998 to adopt the Decision Review System, which we all accept now. ‘‘The system interests the public in the game because it makes them into umpires – and the correct decision is made.’’
Last summer, Stuart Broad was admired for completely dismantling David Warner’s defence. Here is another of Fletcher’s legacies: this was how Flintoff disarmed Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist in 2005, by bowling round the wicket, whereas it had been the rule for England’s right-arm pace bowlers to bowl over the wicket and across lefthanders.
‘‘Unless you’re Jimmy Anderson, the only way you can get a left-hander out from over the wicket is if he nicks a catch. If you’re round the wicket, you can get him caught or bowled or lbw. Cricket is all about angles.’’ Ah well, it only took English cricket about 120 years to work that one out, and even then, it was a Zimbabwean.
Twenty years ago England’s record in Asia was lamentable because of their batsmen’s inability to play spin. Under Fletcher, they achieved their only test series victory in Sri Lanka until last winter, and in Pakistan they won for the only time apart from 1961-62: indeed, they have played spin well in all formats since, another Fletcher legacy. Sir Andrew Strauss has recounted how he thought he could play Shane Warne at the start of the 2005 series and was found out. He went ‘‘scurrying back to Duncan’’ – and made two hundreds in the last three tests.
Fletcher’s two main precepts against spin: first, ‘‘get down lower in your forward stance so you get your eyes underneath the ball and can judge its length’’ (the forward press); second, ‘‘when you are surrounded by close catchers, hit the ball into the ground’’.
Nowadays Fletcher is liable to turn sideways or suddenly look over your head. ‘‘Look, a starling – that’s what your Cecil Rhodes brought to South Africa.’’ For since coaching England and India, he has become an avid birdwatcher and photographer.
Of 960 birds known south of the Zambezi, he has spotted 650, the most recent being the African pitta, after driving five hours on a dirt road from Harare. ‘‘It may look like a little brown job, but when you photograph it, you realise the fantastic colouring. Or take the swift – it switches off half its brain and sleeps at night while flying at
10,000 feet.’’ Ingenious, even by his standards.
He watches a bit of cricket, especially Sam Curran, son of his late friend Kevin. ‘‘Sammy had an amazing understanding of the game when he was 13. I wish he was less impatient when he bats.’’ And he wants to know where Ben Stokes has been. ‘‘If you don’t have characters like that in your dressing room, you don’t have team spirit. He’s 28 – why wasn’t he in the 2015 World Cup?’’ Because other selectors and coaches are not so ingenious.
And maybe he continues to say today what everyone will accept in a few years’ time. ‘‘The danger is that this generation which loves test cricket will die out and nobody will replace them. Test matches should last four days, with 200 or
220 overs for each side. You can bat however long you like in your first innings, say 150 overs, then leave yourself the rest in the second.’’
England, and other countries, should experiment in domestic four-day cricket. Usually Fletcher has been right, years ahead of the rest of the game.
– The Daily Telegraph
Cricket Australia has released stunning footage of the aftermath of Steve Smith’s frightening hit during the Ashes, detailing the shock that swept through the Australian camp as he lay stricken on the middle of Lord’s.
Viewers are given extraordinary access inside the Australian dressing room during Smith’s pulsating duel with England speedster Jofra Archer in the second test, including the distressing scenes after the batsman is felled and the moment he walks back into the pavilion.
It also shows an inconsolable Smith sitting with his head in his hands after being dismissed at a key moment in the game.
The vision is from the docuseries The Test: A New Era for Australia’s Team filmed by CA and to be streamed on Amazon in March. It is an eight-part series which tracked the Australian side from last summer’s test series against India to the World Cup and their successful campaign to retain the urn in England.
For many Australian fans, Smith’s hit brought back memories of Phillip Hughes’ tragic death in 2014 after being knocked unconscious by a short ball during a Sheffield Shield game. It provides context to the reactions from players and support staff.
The Australian camp react differently to the chilling events unfolding before them, but the concern is palpable. The severe impact the blow has had on Smith clearly rattles Steve Waugh, who had a reputation for being the Ice Man during his decorated career.
‘‘We need someone out there, we need someone out there big time – that’s nasty,’’ Waugh says.
Coach Justin Langer cannot bring himself to watch. Team manager Gavin Dovey stands motionless with his arms folded, an expression of shock horror across his face.
Vice-captain Travis Head and veteran Peter Siddle try to work out where Smith was hit, both presumably aware it is eerily close to where Hughes was fatally struck.
‘‘I think we were all in shock,’’ Siddle recalled in a later interview. ‘‘I think the worst was when he was laying there. That was probably the scariest moment for us all.’’
As Smith returns to the dressing room, players obey instructions to give their former captain space. Langer is concerned for the welfare of his player and also aware how big a blow it will be for his team if Smith is ruled out of the test.
He is passed fit to complete his innings but is later subbed out of the game due to delayed concussion symptoms.
‘‘There was a lot of discussion after being hit. One, the concussions protocols, they were so strict. Two, he was adamant: ‘Nah, nah, I’m ready to go’,’’ Langer said.
Langer had earlier feared Smith had broken his arm after being struck on the elbow by Archer.
‘‘All the protocols were met but it’s a fine line: you want to win the test match but you want to look after your boys as well.’’
‘‘What’s the story Beaks?’’ Langer asks via the walkie talkie to team physiotherapist David Beakley.
‘‘It’s got him on the bone, but it’s higher up I think, he’s just got to survive this moment,’’ Beakley replies. ‘‘He’s got a bit of an egg on it, but I think he’ll be OK. His arm’s gone a bit numb, but it should get better in the next over or two.’’
Knowing how neurotic Smith is about his batting, the coach knows the injury will greatly impact the player’s performance.
– Sydney Morning Herald
‘‘He was ahead of his time in cricket coaching, he saw the game technically better than anyone else I worked with.’’