February 03, 2007

 The year 2006 saw a number of great feats achieved in the cricket world, but along with the light moments the mighty Aussies saw the end to some remarkable careers. Opening batsman Justin Langer, middle-order batman Damien Martyn and the mesmerising duo of Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath decided to call quits in the last Test match of the recently concluded Ashes series.

 The four Aussies shared 15897 runs and 1267 wickets between them in a total of 440 Tests played, with Langer and Martyn having the major contribution in batting, while Warne and McGrath contributing in the wickets portion. Let us take a brief look at their careers.

Justin Langer

Justin Langer was perhaps the first Test opener in history to average in the mid-forties yet struggled for his spot in the side. In a land of dashers and crashers Langer was seen as a grafter, a battler, only ever a couple of failures away from oblivion. The reality was somewhat different. Yesteryear’s ugly duckling turned into a stroke-playing swan, scoring more Test hundreds than those national treasures such as Ian Chappell, Mark Waugh and Bill Lawry, and scoring a shocking 1481 runs in 2004.

Always an effective cutter and driver, he indulged in unseemly cross-bat strokes from the very first over. Together with his bludgeoning partner Matthew Hayden, he screwed up record-books, making Greenidge and Haynes look like stroke-less performers.

 Clanged on the helmet by Ian Bishop on debut, Langer fought on to make 54, but played only eight Tests in six years. He returned at No. 3, as the selectors sought to mould him into the next David Boon — and for a while he exceeded even those lofty ambitions. After rescuing the impossible to rescue Hobart Test of 1999-2000 with Adam Gilchrist, then slaughtering a blistering 122 in Auckland, Steve Waugh called him the world’s best batsman. The feeling was mutual; Langer’s devotion to Waugh saw him nicknamed ‘Mini-Tugga’ alongside `JL’ and `Alfie’. His bond with Hayden was even closer. The pair missed each other when apart, exchanged bear hugs in the middle, and gave the impression always of two boys living out a dream.

Langer may be short in stature but he is tall in enthusiasm (he’s already written two books) and boasts a black belt in taekwondo. His strong-willed performances were a highlight in a batting line-up that failed to fire against England in 2005, and with 394 runs at 43.77 as his average, he was Australia’s leading scorer. He also took blows to the helmet and body, which are a common theme of his career. In a season disrupted by a cracked rib and a hamstring problem, Langer’s 100th Test was delayed until the final match against South Africa in Johannesburg, where he turned into a Makhaya Ntini bouncer before scoring a run. Taken to hospital with a head cut and concussion, he spent the rest of the game in the hotel or dressing room and considered quitting altogether before placing the option below regaining the Ashes, and once that goal was achieved, he joined Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath in bowing out at the end of the series.

He played only eight one-day internationals, something that bugged him no end, despite a huge strike rate of 88.88. With Langer, you see, perception was everything.

Damien Martyn
No contemporary cricketer, Tendulkar aside, made batting look as simple as Damien Martyn. But it was not always for the brash 21-year-old who walked into the Australian team at Dean Jones’s expense, batting was an exercise in extravagance.

To defend was to display weakness — a policy that backfired in 1993-94 when Martyn’s airy square-drive at a crucial moment in Sydney triggered a five-run defeat by South Africa and a seven-year hitch to his own promising career. By the time Western Australia had made him captain at 23, Martyn looked a tormented man. All the more remarkable, he blossomed into a relaxed, classical, feathery artist.

 He was an elastic fieldsman and an old-style batsman whose first movement was back and then, if the situation required, forth. He played with a high elbow, a still head, a golfer’s deft touch, and had all the shots, including perhaps the most brutal reverse-sweep in the game that even earned him six runs many-a-time.

Mostly, though, Martyn stuck to the textbook and composed hundreds which, like the feats of the best wicketkeepers, passed almost unnoticed: an observation supported by the fact that, despite a Test average in the fifties, he reached the age of 30 without winning a Man-of-the-Match award. He was the quiet man of the 2003 World Cup-raising side, too, playing a minor role until he spanked 88 not out in the final — with a broken finger that later kept him out of a West Indian tour. His magnificent 13-month streak of 1608 Test runs at 61 and two Man-of-the-Series prizes from March 2004 finally moved him from the dressing-room shadows to the more uncomfortable limelight. Showing his hard-earned versatility, he crafted seven centuries on surfaces ranging from raging turners in Sri Lanka and India to green seamers in New Zealand and the hard bounce of home.

The flood ended in England and following a series of 178 runs and a couple of horrid umpiring decisions he was the major casualty of the Ashes loss. Retaining a one-day spot, he expected his five-day days were over — “If that’s my last Test match, well, I’ve had a great time” —but was reprieved when the selectors wanted experience for the South Africa tour. As the decision to ignore policy by looking back to a 34-year-old became increasingly doubtful, Martyn repaid with a nerveless 101 that led to victory in the final Test. After being a key part in Australia’s first Champions Trophy success, he struggled in the opening two Tests of the Ashes series and swiftly retired.

Glenn McGrath
The young Glenn McGrath was described by Mike Whitney as “thin — but Ambrose-thin, not Bruce Reid-thin”. Much later, Mike Atherton compared McGrath to Ambrose on a vaster scale. Projected from the outback of New South Wales into Test cricket to replace Merv Hughes in 1993, McGrath became, after a faltering start, the great Australian pace man of his time. And after passing Courtney Walsh’s 519 wickets in the 2005 Super Test only Dennis Lillee threatens his title as the greatest Australian fast man of all time — even if he never delivers another international ball. “Whenever people have written me off, I have always proved them wrong,” McGrath said as the obituary writers prepared themselves early in 2006. “I’m the best person to judge how I’m going and I’ve never felt better.”

McGrath bowled an unremitting off-stump line and an immaculate length, gained off-cut and bounce, specialised in the opposition’s biggest wickets — especially Atherton’s and Brian Lara’s — was unafraid to back himself publicly in these key duels, and showed himself to be unusually durable. He was a batting rabbit who applied himself so intently that while playing for Worcestershire he won a bet with an Australian team-mate by posting a fifty. The work eventually paid off in Tests when he made 61, the third-highest score by a No. 11, against New Zealand in 2004-05. Only in his occasional fits of ill-temper did he fail himself.

He rewrote the World Cup record books in 2003 with seven for 15 against the outclassed Namibians, on his way to adding another winner’s medal to a bulging collection.

An ankle injury threatened to derail his quest for 500 Test wickets, but after briefly contemplating retirement he bounced back with yet another five-wicket haul against Sri Lanka at Darwin in July 2004. Three months later, at Nagpur, he became the first fast bowler to play 100 matches in the baggy green, and his greatness was further confirmed when knocking down the brittle Pakistanis at Perth with eight for 24, the second-best figures by an Australian.

Skilful at picking his moments, he chose the first day at Lord’s to reach 500 and his subsequent ankle and arm injuries were crucial to Australia losing the series.

The following summer was also painfully disrupted with the reoccurrence of his wife Jane’s cancer, which called for immediate treatment and McGrath’s full attention. He pulled out of the VB Series finals as well as tours to South Africa and Bangladesh, but he returned to help Australia reclaim the Ashes before calling time on his Test career.

Shane Warne
At first there were nerves and chubbiness, then came wild soaring leg-breaks, followed by fame and flippers. Then headlines, always headlines. The man who in 2000 was rated among the five greatest cricketers of the 20th century was, in 2006, bowling better than ever.

When Warne likened his life to a soap opera he was selling himself short. His story was part fairytale, part hospital drama, part glittering awards ceremony. He took a Test hat-trick, won the Man-of-the-Match prize in the World Cup final and was the subject of seven books. He was the first cricketer to reach 700 Test wickets. He swatted more runs than any other Test player without making a hundred, and was probably the wiliest captain Australia ever had. His ball that deceived Mike Gatting in 1993, bouncing outside leg stump and cuffing off, is unanimously esteemed the most famous in history. He revived leg spin, thought to be extinct, and is now pre-eminent in a game so transformed that we sometimes wonder where the next champion fast bowlers will come from.

For all that, Warne’s greatest feats are perhaps those of the last couple of years of his career. Returning in 2004 from a 12-month pause for swallowing forbidden diuretics, he swept aside 26 Sri Lankan batsmen in three Tests, and the following year scalped a world record 96 victims — a stunning 24 more than in his show-stopping 1993 — and still missed out on the Allan Border Medal.

Forty of those were Englishmen in what sometimes appeared to be a lone stand in a thrilling Ashes series. At the end he was helped by his stockpile of straight balls: a zooter, slider, toppie and back-spinner, one that drifted in, one that sloped out and another that didn’t move. Yet he seldom got his wrong’un right and rarely landed his flipper. More than ever he relied on his two oldest friends: excruciating accuracy and an exquisite leg break, except that he controlled the degree of spin — and mixed it — at will. Like the great classical painters, he stumbled upon the art of simplicity. His bowling was never simpler, nor more effective, nor lovelier to look at.

Maybe, Warne is more famous than he is loved. Maybe we didn’t fully appreciate his genius until he quit at the end of the 2006-07 Ashes series when he achieved his final goal, the reclaiming of the urn; maybe, like Bradman’s, it will become ever more apparent with the passing of decades. One thing’s for sure, though. Cricket was poorer for his going.

Final Word

The retirement of four of the best in the Aussies squad might now lead to the end of the Australian dominance in world cricket. This was on the cards since 1999 when Heath Streak of Zimbabwe quoted “the Aussies have an old tooth in their mouth”. It would be a test for all those youngsters who would replace the legendary Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath in the Test arena. We all might get to experience a downfall of the mighty ones.

 

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