Making minds spin

By Tim Lane
January 1, 2005
Yousuf Youhana is caught by Ricky Ponting off Shane Warne.

Yousuf Youhana is caught by Ricky Ponting off Shane Warne.
Photo: Ray Kennedy

While the housemate is now convinced I'm a genius, the manner of her unlikely epiphany has been confidence-shaking in other ways. She's having to deal with the twin possibilities that the umpires are a pushover and the Aussies are, well, let me express it for her, perhaps not quite as committed to the "Spirit of Cricket" as Jolimont would have us believe.

It was day three. A dose of post-Christmas something having rendered this columnist a literal cricket tragic, he was forced to resort to the television. While the gaps between the ads are largely filled with spruiking and promotions these days, you do occasionally see some interesting cricket. So it was as Shane Warne came on to bowl to first-innings century maker Yousuf Youhana, easily the most dangerous of the Pakistani batsmen. This was a critical period in the Test match, with Pakistan still in a position to set Australia a challenging target.

Cricket can never have had a more masterly performer, in every sense, than Warne.

His capacity to zero in on leg stump, or just outside it, is uncanny and born of complete confidence in his control of length. Why doesn't Stuart MacGill bowl that line? I suspect because he doesn't quite dare. But I digress.

Warne does more than zero in on leg, he sets out to convince the batsman he must play even at balls that pitch outside the line. Against as competent a player as Yousuf, this isn't easy, as the Pakistani has the trigonometry of the playing area pretty well etched in his brain. So Warne must convince him, and to do this he draws on resources that go well beyond even his own devastating skills. He uses the force of an 11-man team and he uses the power of insinuation.

So, when a strident, Warne-led chorus of an appeal for leg before wicket is turned down, the tension mounts despite the fact - or is it because? - the ball pitched appreciably outside leg. The bowler and his team are getting inside both the batsman's and the umpire's heads. Yousuf is unsettled and struggles through that over. Next over from the spinner, he survives another, closer shout, but the noose is tightening.


It's at this point that the bilious cricket tragic transforms into prophet.

"They're building pressure on the umpire," I observe. "Any minute now, he'll make a blue."

The words have barely left the lips before the Aussies erupt in something resembling an appeal, but which was more stated fact than question posed. Yousuf had played and missed at Warne, the ball had bounced from his pad and been taken by Ponting close up on the off side. The Australian captain celebrates without looking at the umpire. Rudi Koertzen's finger is on the inexorable climb. Yousuf, caught Ponting, bowled Warne. Game over.

"The man's a genius," I observe. "You are," she enthusiastically confirms. Poor Yousuf, meanwhile, having immediately responded like an innocent man who somehow knows he will be condemned, can only cop his medicine and walk away in defeat. If it's any consolation to him, he's not the first and he won't be the last.

He's against the masters of the game. Ponting and Warne are at the centre of the huddle as another cricketing coup is celebrated.

Koertzen, meanwhile, blows the smoke off the top of his left index finger and one is left to ponder how his gun possibly remained in the holster a day earlier when Michael Clarke was struck on the pad in consecutive overs from Mohammad Sami. In the first of those instances, the batsman offered no shot and it was unfathomable that he survived. "Hawkeye", for what its worth, had that one hitting off stump and the next one hitting middle. Perhaps the little-known Sami simply lacks the clout and machismo of Warne and the world champions.

Those of you who begrudge visiting teams the merest glimpse of success here will no doubt feel that the writer's post-Christmas infirmity affected his mind. If so, it didn't prevent successful navigation to the MCG on the final day and a cordial chat with one of this country's most honourable cricketers, Colin McDonald.

Apart from believing strongly in the ideal of "walking", McDonald says it is time to apply the available technology to onfield decision-making as far as is reasonably possible. Among other things, he argues, it would prevent fielding teams from conning umpires.

While this column has previously argued passionately against such change, it is in the umpires' hands. If they are unable to stand firm and consistently deliver justice, it will happen.

That's another confident prediction, and I know of at least one person who believes me. She's wavering, though, on Rudi Koertzen and the "Spirit of Cricket".