Anderson a major doubt for Pakistan Test
Former Australia coach tells Scyld Berry how the lessons of ‘homework-gate’ help in his latest challenge
England face losing leading wickettaker James Anderson for the first Test against Pakistan next month after he was diagnosed with a stress fracture of his right shoulder blade.
Anderson has been troubled by the injury for a while but felt it worsen during the third Test against Sri Lanka at Lord’s earlier this month and has not played since.
He was due to play for Lancashire against Nottinghamshire in a four-day game starting on July 3 to prepare for the first Pakistan Test, which starts on July 14 at Lord’s, but will now miss that match as he attempts to recover from his third injury in 12 months.
Anderson missed the final two Tests of last summer’s Ashes series with a side strain and was also unfit for the start of the South Africa series in the winter due to a calf injury. He has started the summer brilliantly with 21 wickets at 10.80 against Sri Lanka but England have managed well without him over the past year, winning Tests at Trent Bridge and Durban.
Ben Stokes returned for Durham on Friday night after recovering from knee surgery, but he played as a batsman only and will need to step up his recovery if he is to be a realistic alternative to Anderson for the first Test.
The England selectors chose not to blood Jake Ball in the Sri Lanka series, instead sticking with a badly out of form Steven Finn, and the Nottinghamshire seamer may now find he makes his Test debut at Lord’s against Pakistan.
“Due to the nature of the injury, Anderson’s availability for the Pakistan Test series will be determined following ongoing management and review by both the England and Wales Cricket Board and Lancashire medical teams,” said an ECB statement.
Many are the coaching roles held by Mickey Arthur, but none so strange as his new post as the head coach of Pakistan’s cricket team – possibly sport’s most amazing organism.
This summer’s second, and stronger, touring side are spending 10 days at the Ageas Bowl on the outskirts of Southampton, far from the bright lights and distractions of uncles and cousins dropping in for selfies, and less savoury hangers-on. The Pakistan Cricket Board have shelled out more than £70,000 to prepare their team for this tour, such is its importance after the diplomatic disaster of 2010, with the spot-fixing centred on Mohammad Amir in the Lord’s Test.
Arthur coached South Africa from 2005 to 2010 as they grew into a great Test side, then Australia with less success which culminated in “homework-gate” just before the 2013 Ashes in England, from which he has lived and learned. He has coached Twenty20 franchises in Jamaica and Bangladesh, and in the first Pakistan Super League staged in the UAE earlier this year, but it was still a culture shock when he arrived in Lahore to prepare for Pakistan’s tour after the players had done their boot camp at an army base in Abbottabad.
Staying in Suite One in the national academy at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore, Arthur has been like an ambassador sent from England to Constantinople in the Middle Ages, dazzled by the treasures and behaviours of the Sublime Porte. He heard players diving into the swimming pool at 3am. Australian cricketers have been known to do that after a long tour and a few beers, but not every night.
He met the best wrist-spinner on the planet, Yasir Shah, when he wandered into the training camp so unconcerned about the schedule that Shah said: “I’m only two days late.” The young wizard proceeded to bowl variations which Arthur had never seen in his 48 years.
“Having coached in South Africa, you don’t really work with wristspinners – you work with serviceable finger-spinners,” Arthur said. “I was absolutely absorbed watching him [Shah] bowl, the control he had and the amount of deliveries he had, it was amazing.”
At his disposal Arthur also has three left-arm pace bowlers, including Amir “who is swinging it beautifully and he has some serious pace now,” and Wahab Riaz, as fast as anyone when in the mood and a master of reverseswing. The Test sides of England and Sri Lanka do not have one fast leftarmer between them.
On his TV he watched live cricket matches in Karachi that ‘began’ at 11.30pm at night. Not only that: Mohammad Irfan, the tallest bowler in the game and Pakistan’s opening bowler in ODIs, was playing – and had just trained with the Pakistan squad.
This tournament was the Ramadan League, and it makes sense to play the games around midnight, by which time the summer heat in Karachi has become bearable. But the point is that cricket in Pakistan is still so disorganised that an opening bowler could just wander off without a noobjection certificate. So Arthur’s new job is not only to be the consultant to his captain Misbah ul-Haq but also to introduce what has been installed as best practice in other Test-playing countries, like monitoring the players’ fitness, skill-levels and workload.
Another eye-opener has been the self-discipline of Misbah and the senior batsman Younis Khan during Ramadan. They left Lahore at dawn and did not eat or drink until sunset in Southampton which came, with a fivehour time difference, about 20 hours later. “Don’t worry about us, we’ll do everything you need, but we are going to continue our fast,” Misbah said when Arthur told him the training on the nursery ground at the Ageas Bowl would be tough. “I thought that was extremely admirable,” Arthur said. “It’s amazing, the strength of mind to get through that.”
Does any other international team have a tour manager who played Test cricket in the 1950s? Pakistan’s is Intikhab Alam, who took a wicket with his first Test ball back in 1959 – “a quicker leg-break that [Australia’s] Colin McDonald went to cut and missed”, Intikhab still recalls. But Arthur has been free to make other appointments.
“We’ve made a commitment to each other to really improve our fielding,” Arthur said. To this end he has appointed Steve Rixon, the former Australia keeper and the drill sergeant of fielding, to work on what has always been Pakistan’s weakest facet.
Arthur has also appointed England’s former spin-bowling coach Mushtaq Ahmed to be Pakistan’s Test bowling coach – and his translator. “Mr Mickey, you’re the dad on this tour, I’ll be the mum,” Mushtaq said. “No, Mush, I want you to be tough on our bowlers,” Arthur replied. “Ok, Mr Mickey, I’ll be the step-mum,” said Mushtaq.
Arthur has learned not to push too hard too soon after “homework-gate”, when four Australia players were banned for one Test in India after failing to complete a task set by the management on how to improve: a measure described by Wisden as “extreme but sound”. “It was tough coaching Australia,” Arthur reflected. “They were so set in their ways because they have been the right ways – but the culture needed changing because the discipline was shoddy.
“I got through to the young players but the older players, that was tough. I was really close to Michael [Clarke the captain], who wanted to build his own team – and the senior boys felt that and they lost trust in me.” Australian cricket, he reckons, is “in the right place now.”
Although he had not realised it, Arthur’s coaching career started during his two years of national service in South Africa, when he was posted to the army base at Kimberley and organised the sports office. He opened the batting for Griqualand, then Orange Free State, when they were coached by Eddie Barlow to win five trophies in three years: “He was the biggest influence on my career – the zest, passion, work ethic, he wasn’t scared to try things, he was way ahead of his time.”
Back in the present, his enthusiasm undiminished, Arthur said: “I’m really looking forward to this journey because it’s totally out of the comfort zone. It’s cricket I’ve never played and never coached – what a treat!”
As one simplification at least, Ramadan will have ended by Pakistan’s second warm-up game against Sussex, their last match before they return to Lord’s.
‘It was tough coaching Australia. The culture needed changing because the discipline was shoddy’