Australian cricket legend Ian Chappell blasts cricket’s ‘unfair’ switch hit technique and says Australia still has a way to go to before reclaiming top Test team status.
FORMER Australian captain Ian Chappell has never been one to mince words. And he’s now come out firing about the polarising ‘switch hit’ technique, which David Warner pulled off with aplomb in Australia’s recent T20 win over India.“I think I wrote it first in the 1990s, early 1990s, that it’s ridiculous,” Chappell told Australian Times. “I mean it’s a terrific skill but can someone explain to me how it’s fair? If the bowler has got to tell you which way he is bowling – over the wicket, round the wicket, right arm, left arm – how can it be fair if he then places a fielder for a left hand batsmen and just as he’s about to deliver the ball, the batter becomes a right hander.
Chappell said he “admires” the skill of the technique but has called for balance to be maintained.
“There’s a thing called balance between bat and ball and to me that’s the most important thing that administrators have got to do – to keep that balance pretty even. Now if I was playing the game and someone did that [switch hit], I know exactly what I would be doing. I’d make it known that I’m very unhappy about it and I think it’s unfair. And I’d do something to try and get it changed. I’m not in any doubt at all that sure, very skilful, but no way in the wide world is it fair.”
The cricket legend and now television commentator said he’s impressed with the Australian team at the moment but he’s not sure if they’re back to their world beating best.
“Australia have certainly found a pace attack during this summer and they’ve been well captained and that’s the way to turn things around quite quickly. That’s not to say they still don’t have some flaws there which I’m sure they’d like to fix up, some of the top order batting leaves a bit to be desired and I’m sure they’d like to see some young batsmen coming through but it’s a hell of a lot better than it was 12 months ago.”
Yet he wouldn’t go so far as to say Australian cricket was entering a new golden age.
“No. No I wouldn’t say that. Certainly – our bowling, it’s very good, very strong. You are going to have next summer, if they all get fit, nine or 10 guys who have all played a bit of international cricket with a bit of success and all looking to be in the Test side which is a very good thing.
“But I don’t see a batting lineup at the moment. If you look at some of the heavy lifting in the Test series against India, apart from Warner, a lot of the heavy lifting was done by [Michael] Clarke, by [Ricky] Ponting and by [Michael] Hussey.”
And Chappell agrees that Australia have to reinvest in youth for the future.
“Australian cricket has got to get back to finding young batsmen who are good enough for first class cricket and ready for first class cricket at age 18. And that’s when you start to get a few guys coming into the Test side at age 20-21-22. Ponting and Clarke both came in at around that age and you’ve got to have those guys feeding through and I don’t see those guys at the moment.
“And the other problem area is spin bowling. I think Lyon’s is alright but I’m not so sure there’s much depth there.”
TOP JOB AS TOP DOG FOR PUPHowever Chappell, who captained Australia in 30 Test matches, is particularly pleased with how Australian skipper Michael Clarke has handled the Test captaincy.
“I think Clarke has done a terrific job. A good indicator is how a guy performs as a player when he is captain and five centuries including a double and a triple in 12 Test matches is a good indicator that he’s got the right temperament. In other words, he’s boosted by the responsibility rather than being weighed down by it. I didn’t ever have a doubt that he’d be tactically pretty good because I’ve seen him as a young bloke, seen him captain a little bit in One Day cricket and he’d done a bit of captaincy as a younger guy.
“The thing that has really impressed me is he has put his own stamp on the job and he’s handled what could have been a volatile situation, having the previous captain [Ponting] in the side, he’s handled that very well but it’s his team and he’s been in charge and that’s what I have liked about it.”
PUNTING ON PUNTER
On Ponting, Chappell said he didn’t think it was time just yet for one of Australia’s greatest batsmen to retire.
“I think he would have been gone if we had some young batsmen who were churning out some scores and were ready to take his place but I don’t see anyone who is ready to take his place or Hussey’s at this stage. And that’s a bit of a concern in the Australian team.
“Retirement has changed quite a lot. Keith Miller in my eyes summed it up best. When someone asked him why he retired he said, “I wanted to retire when people were asking me ‘why did I’ rather than of ‘why don’t you’.” But that’s another era and that’s an era that I was certainly part of. When I retired – the first time before I came back for World Series Cricket – it was a very easy decision because I was earning $200 a Test match and I suddenly went in the commentary box and earned the same fee per day. So it was a very easy decision and you came to a point where you had to say to yourself, ‘well this has been great fun but now I have to get on and earn a living’.
But he says that nowadays it is exactly the opposite.
“Ponting, whatever he is earning from cricket now, there’s no way he can replicate that when he retires and that’s why it becomes important at selection panels where you had a natural culling process before because people had to get on and earn a living whereas now you haven’t got that culling process so it’s down to the selectors to make some tough decisions.
“But they haven’t got a tough decision at the moment because there’s no young guys there banging on the door to take either Ponting or Hussey’s place.”
BUILDING A TEAM OF DAVID WARNERS
Luckily though, Chappell has some advice for aspiring Australian cricketers and a few tips he think will make the Aussie team stronger.
“The blueprint for young cricketers in Australia and young batsmen in Australia should be David Warner. He has obviously worked out that if he scores runs, he’ll get rewarded. Now obviously if you score them in an enterprising fashion you’ll get rewarded better. But rather than trying to build a technique that will get you 10 an over on a flat pitch and get you a contract with IPL [Indian Premier League], Warner is a batsman.”
He thinks early critics were wrong when they tried to pigeon hole Warner as “purely a T20 player”.
“People were blinded a bit by comments that ‘he’s a T20 player’. He was never a T20 player, he was always a batsman. He’s an improved batsman, he’s matured well but he was always a batsman and not a T20 player. And if I was talking to any young batsman now, I would say have a look at what David Warner has done and say ‘if you get runs, doesn’t matter which form of the game you’re playing in, you’ll get rewarded, now go out there and build up a technique that will get you runs under all conditions’.
“Hussey is a classic example, Hussey gets runs in all forms of the game. And he’s got a good classical technique and because he’s got that classical technique he can adapt to whatever game he’s put into. So they are the guys I would be saying to young players, have a look at them and follow their principles because it’s not a bad blueprint.”
THE POMS IN A SPINHopefully the blueprint is already there for Australia to recapture the Ashes next year and Chappell sees England’s recent poor form against Pakistan as a telling indicator of things to come.
“They’ve had a weakness against spin bowling, from what I’ve thought, for a long time. But not many teams can export it like Pakistan. I mean England are still a good side but they’ve now got some problems they’ve got to sort out. Because the rest of the world is suddenly energised and think ‘aha, this mob can be beaten’ and that’s when you really have some work on your hands.”
But before the mission to reclaim the Ashes – there is Australia’s current One Day tri-series against India and Sri Lanka. And Chappell thinks Australia have got what it takes to go all the way.
“On current form I’m pretty certain [Australia will] get to the finals. I’m not so sure who will get to the finals with them, probably India I suspect because they have been playing here a bit even though they haven’t been playing well, I still think they’ll be better than Sri Lanka.
No comments:
Post a Comment