Ashes 2009: Headingley Ramble

Underwhelmed by this series I am struggling to imagine anything meaningful or worthy to impart. Obviously, Australia have everything to play for at Headingley, not least the prized Mace that they fought so fluently to retain in South Africa.

Neither side has played anything that resembles excellent cricket for more than a session. England’s bowling led by Onions and finished by Anderson on the second morning at Edgbaston stands out as the superior session of the entire contest but apart from that both teams have either cashed in on wayward bowling or horrific shot selection to gain advantage.

Hopefully, the Yorkshire Test will provide something memorable. It usually does.

In living memory the most famous is the 1981 encounter. A Test where an inspired Bob Willis assisted Ian Botham in becoming a legend and where Dennis Lillee and Rodney Marsh infamously placed wagers on the opposition, an act of conveniently forgotten subversion that is, in my opinion, the lowest, most treacherous act in Australian cricket history.

Speaking of treachery, in 1975 some well intentioned but embarrassingly misled vandals dug up the Headingley pitch preventing what promised to be a thrilling fifth day’s play in the deciding Test of the series. These idiots were protesting the imprisonment of a cab driver for armed robbery and he was eventually released only to reoffend within the year by attempting to rob a bank. Four of the five people involved received suspended sentences for their miserable protest and considering they conceivably cost England the Ashes they were fortunate indeed to get off so lightly. I can only presume the judge wasn’t a cricket fan!

The last Ashes Test at Leeds in 2001 saw Adam Gilchrist lead the side in Steve Waugh’s absence and on the back of a ridiculously optimistic declaration and Mark Butcher’s finest innings Australia lost by six wickets after leading handsomely on the first innings. It was an impulsively naïve decision and was undoubtedly remembered when Cricket Australia decided to leapfrog Ponting over Gilchrist when the captaincy became available on Steve Waugh’s retirement.

In 1989, Steve Waugh announced himself as something more than a bits and pieces all-rounder by producing an innings that would stand as a blueprint for his and the nation’s future success. It was an outstanding innings of gritty defence and flashing cuts, drives and pulls and his fruitful partnerships with the tail, where he refused to farm the strike, set a tone that changed the way that teams the world over approached their late innings batting.

There was also plenty of advice for the bowlers, something Allan Border actively encouraged and something I’d like to see from this current team regardless of the administrators disdain of what Steve cutely coined, mental disintegration.

If I may digress on the subject of sledging, it is apparent that without it Australian cricketers lose their edge. We saw it after the infamous Border-Gavaskar Test in Sydney where a chastised Australia looked lost in Perth and Adelaide. Again, after the tense and aggressive South African series a missive was delivered sternly from the administrators that mental disintegration should cease immediately and as we have seen during The Ashes Australia have appeared unsure of the boundaries and have erred on the side of caution allowing England to have the upper hand when it comes to psychological aggression.

Perhaps I’ll write more fully on this subject at a later date but for now back to Headingley.

Paul Reiffel is another that excelled in Yorkshire snaring back-to-back five wicket hauls in 1993 and ’97. Alderman, McGrath and Gillespie also excelled while Shane Warne was made to look average on most occasions. With this in mind Hauritz should be dropped and hopefully Stu Clarke will be resurrected in 2009.

Of the 23 Tests between the countries at Leeds one stands apart from a perspective of individual performance and that is Don Bradman’s mammoth 334 in 1930. He broke literally every batting record that stood at that time and finished unbeaten at stumps on 309. Imagine, if you can, what that innings must have been like. A chanceless triple century in a day containing 46 boundaries where he brought up his first century in 90 minutes with his team’s total on 127!

I’ve been privileged to witness more than my fair share of centuries in a session and all have seen the bowling obliterated. The England bowlers weren’t trundlers either with Larwood and Tate among them and those crammed in like sardines at Headingley on that first day 79 years ago must have remembered that innings fondly for the rest of their lives.

From lunch on that first day in 1930 Bradman was afforded a standing ovation by the Headingley faithful whenever he entered or exited the arena. The Don returned the favour by scoring another triple on his return four years later and two more centuries in 1938 and ’48 and I imagine that tickets for those Tests were just as hard to procure as they are today.

In 2009, it is very unlikely that we will be witness to anything resembling Bradman or Botham. So far this series has seen some very ordinary cricket between two teams lacking confidence, consistency and quality and I guess the best we can hope for is a result. With The Trumpet informing that his home paddock of The Oval is as flat as the Nullarbor it would appear that this Test is the one that will decide where The Ashes resides until the next contest in 2011.