The New King of Spain?

I like Nathan Hauritz. I’ve always admired sportsmen who make the most of whatever talent they have, and Hauritz certainly falls into that category.

As a bowler he is not blessed with the ability to give the ball a real rip, but he compensates by bowling challenging lines and, on good days, getting decent drift away from the right hander. The lack of biting turn makes him less effective on pitches that should, in theory, help him, but it helps to make him more effective in unhelpful conditions, since he has had to learn to bowl cannily rather than spectacularly. As a fielder he is more useful than his rather unathletic appearance might suggest and as a lower order batsman he has become a handy run getter, to the point where it might be worth batting him above the more talented, but flakier, Mitchell Johnson. In short, he is Australia’s Ashley Giles.

As part of Australia’s set-up, however, he has two problems that Giles didn’t face. The first is that he will, inevitably, face unfavourable comparisons with the bowlers that went before him. Anyone would have struggled to fill Shane Warne’s branded boots, but the contrast between the two, both as bowlers and as characters, couldn’t be greater. Perversely, the qualities that Hauritz brings to Australia, not least his self-knowledge and understanding of his shortcomings, are what they need at the moment, but he is always going to resemble warm Tizer after the champagne fountains of Warne and MacGill.

His second problem is his captain. This isn’t necessarily Ricky Ponting’s fault: he has very little experience of captaining spinners who aren’t constantly causing batsmen problems. He, and whoever his successor turns out to be, need to learn fast, though, because they have to make the most of what they’ve got and look forwards rather than back. Ponting needs to understand what fields to set and, most importantly, when and how to use Hauritz, or whoever ends up being Australia’s number one spinner, most effectively, since they can still play an important role without being the genius that was Warne.

A word of caution to England supporters who think that Swann’s superiority over his opposite number will automatically win back the Ashes: in 2005 the spinners on each side were Ashley Giles and Shane Warne, and look what happened then. If Australia’s cricketing brains can work out how to make the best of the resources available to them then their bowling attack could be very dangerous indeed.