NEVER RULE OUT THE UNDERDOG
Derek Pringle on the Aussie charge of 1989
Cricket supporters, like anyone else seeking to predict the future, look back not just at isolated events but at patterns, those times when the similarities between then and now stack up to such an extent that, well…there is the chance of history repeating itself.
And so it is with the Australia side of 1989, under Allan Border, and the current England one of Joe Root. Border’s side arrived in England clear second favourites for the Ashes just as Root’s do now in Australia, especially as they appear to be shorn of Ben Stokes, their talismanic all-rounder.
Indeed, Border’s men were pilloried for being the weakest Aussie team to have ever toured the UK, though that insult has aired so often by the media of both countries since as to become cliche. Back then though, such a claim would have stung a proud man like Australia’s pugnacious captain.
Unfancied and still rebuilding after losing the 1986/7 Ashes, that 1989 Aussie side eschewed all contact with their opponents, except on the field. There would be no social pleasantries except for the odd “good morning”. Instead, they got down to the gimleteyed business of winning, which they did rather well to take the Ashes 4-0 over a six-match series.
Root’s team will not win by that margin in Australia, the pitches just won’t offer enough for the bowlers unless Mason Crane can miraculously turn into Shane Warne over the next few weeks. But there are those who feel that Australia are not as strong as their propaganda machine makes out. If the half breaks which present themselves during every match go England’s way, the visitors could well exploit that to winning advantage.
It is those small details, ones often forgotten in broad brush overviews, which can turn the crucial moments that determine matches. I played two Tests in the 1989 series (the first and the last), and the immediate point to make is that David Gower’s team were not blessed by calm selection. In all, the panel, headed by Ted Dexter, called upon 29 players over the series, a charade of ‘pin the tail on the donkey’ which suggests the panic button was more or less permanently depressed.
Then there were the balls. All the pace bowlers picked by England for the first Test at Headingley favoured big-seamed Readers balls, which most counties had been using. They swung and seamed more than the Dukes ball, which were also available, the choice being down to each club. Australia objected to the Readers in the Ashes. But instead of telling them to get on with it, the TCCB acceded to their concerns and the two captains tossed for preference in each Test. This was done all on the same afternoon before the opening match. Gower lost the first five tosses and in doing so forsook the use of the cricket ball his bowlers most wanted for 83 per cent of the series.
The other thing before that first match was that Neil Foster and I, but also Graham Gooch, had only a few one-day matches in the fortnight preceding the Test, the last finishing a week before. Even Essex 2nds didn’t have any cricket of note and it was too early in the season for benefit matches, so we had to make do with nets.
Modern players, who eschew unnecessary matches as much as possible, will dismiss this as irrelevant. But both of us had been bowling well for our county and back then maintaining that good rhythm through continued bowling was considered important. We therefore entered that first Test ‘cold’ apart from a few net sessions, using a ball we’d not bowled with for at least a year.
There was another little thing that went against us. Because we’d settled on an all-seam attack, Gower, who won the toss, felt impelled to field first. With the Headingley pitch’s reputation for being a tricky proposition for batsmen when there was heavy cloud overhead, it was the right decision.
Australia, though, enjoyed much good fortune, not only in the amount of times they played and missed on that first morning but also on the occasions bad light took them out of the firing line on that tricky first day. It didn’t help that all four seamers were off beam, simultaneously, but it was undoubtedly a factor as Steve Waugh and Co racked up an enormous 601-7 declared.
Although chasing the game, we still should not have lost, especially after avoiding the follow-on. Needing to bat for two and half sessions on the final day to save the match, we were 66-1 at lunch only to be bowled out for 191 just after tea. It was a nadir of careless batting though one precipitated by a bad decision, David Shepherd having given Gooch out lbw to Merv Hughes for 68 just before tea. I was batting at the other end and it was a shout that had looked both high and too leg-side.
Australia’s success shows the importance of winning the first Test, especially its capacity to banish insecurity and raise confidence levels. Suddenly, four players who’d yet to establish themselves, Waugh, Mark Taylor, Ian Healy and Merv Hughes, assumed the demeanour of old hands with devastating consequences for the
We were 66-1 at lunch only to be bowled out for 191 just after tea. It was a nadir of careless batting
remainder of the series. If Root’s England can win one of the first two Tests, a similar gilding process for Mark Stoneman, Dawid Malan and James Vince might occur, hopefully with similar outcome.
Border’s side could also call upon experienced campaigners like Terry Alderman, Geoff Lawson and himself. Alderman took 41 wickets, taking the lead as James Anderson needs to do this time. Swing bowlers both, it takes wise heads to bend balls to your command while Alastair Cook can assume Border’s mantle (being both an Essex player and left-handed), providing he can stop nicking off early.
Although this piece is essentially a comparison between Root’s England side now and Border’s Aussie team in 1989, there is one similarity with the England side of 1989, too – the absence of an Aussie-slaying all-rounder.
While it is true that Ian Botham played three Tests in that series, he missed the first two, which were lost, and was not really fully fit for the ones he did play. Bar the finger he broke brawling in Bristol, which should just be healed by now, Ben Stoke is fit.Yet, with the England and Wales Cricket Board needing to take a no-tolerance stance over thuggish behaviour from its players, it looks like Root will be denied his services for the entire series.
One thing that won’t happen this time, even if the home team comes under pressure and the players start squabbling among themselves, is for half the side to defect on a Rebel Tour to South Africa – not least because South Africa are back in the fold.
That was not the case in 1989, and disillusioned with England’s scattergun selection policy, eight players who’d played in the first four Ashes Tests abandoned their country to play in South Africa. Suddenly, England’s resources were being tested as never before which is why, with injuries also striking, I was recalled, Ashes gone, for the final Test at the Oval. Mind you, we drew that, one of only two not lost in that dramatic summer in which a bad start, one that might well have been avoided, cost English cricket so dear.