No answers for hard nuts

Bowlers pay high price on some wickets

THERE’s only one Cheteshwar Pujara but every bowler who ever played a Test match knows someone like him.

That nut that just wouldn’t crack.

The batsmen with the bat as wide as a barn door who made them feel as they were hammering on that door and getting nothing more than bruised knuckles.

Former Australian seamer Stuart Clark smiles as he recalls the helplessness he and Australia felt when another Indian master, Sachin Tendulkar, was batting.

“His bat just felt as if it was about a foot and a half wide,’’ Clark said. “He just toyed with us. We didn’t set the field. He basically positioned fieldsmen to where he wanted them to be and we just bowled.

“We just couldn’t get him out. The wicket was flat. The ball was old. We never gave up.

“It’s just ingrained in you to keep thinking of plans but when you look back now that you are older and wiser and you think ‘I was never going to get him out, what was I trying to do?’ But at the time you think ‘We’ll try this’.’

“At one point we put everyone on the off-side and he flicked his wrists and hits it behind square leg. Then we had this big leg-side field and he went the other way.’’

It’s 25 years since Shane Warne faced the square-jawed South African captain Kepler Wessels in Tests yet he still recalls that barn door feeling.

“Kepler, Rahul Dravid and to a lesser extent Mike Atherton were guys who all played a similar way to Pujara — they might not score many runs but they just wore you down,’’ Warne said.

“Wessels just did not look to play an aggressive shot. He looked to wear you down until you bowled a bad ball. Ball after ball he would block. I would much rather players who played shots.”

It wasn’t always the big stars who were hardest to shift. Dennis Lillee once said he found the quirky English keeper Alan Knott awkward to bowl to. Leg-spinner Kerry O’Keeffe agrees.

“Alan Knott was the one for me,’’ O’Keeffe said. “I had real problems with him. If I bowled short outside off stump he swept it. If I bowled short outside leg-stump he cut it. He played the complete opposite shot to the one I wanted him to play. It did my head in.

“I liked people to play the right shot to the right ball. Alan Knott refused to buy into my way. At the top of my mark I did not have any idea what shot he was going to play — and I don’t think he did either.’’

Australian bowlers who toured Pakistan often lament the hopeless feeling that engulfed them when Pakistan’s cheeky batting genius Javed Miandad was set.

Former English spinner John Emburey got the same vibe. “Javed Miandad was always a challenge,” he said. “He liked to dominate bowlers which was frustrating because bowlers like to have control.

“Nathan Lyon has got Pujara out but what makes him so frustrating for Lyon is that he comes down the wicket and kicks him away.

“He plays like an old-fashioned player who plays like players did before DRS. Somehow he makes it work. I am sure Nathan is feeling a bit frustrated by that because he is trying to make things happen and it doesn’t.’’ robert.craddock@news.com.au