Charles Bannerman

When Hamish Rutherford reached 166 in the Dunedin test he moved into the top ten highest scorers on test debut. Nick Knight, who was commentating at the time on Sky, mentioned this landmark, noting that he passed C Bannerman in the process. It was obvious from Knight's tone that he had no idea who he was, but Charles Bannerman not only holds a unique place in test cricket history, he is also the holder of a record that still stands today. 

Born in Woolwich, Kent, Bannerman was a proud New South Welshman when at around 1pm on March 15th 1877 he faced the first ball in what later became recognised as the first ever test match. He then had the distinction of scoring the first test run from the second ball of Alfred Shaw's over and went on to play the first great test innings. 

At the end of the first day, Australia were 166-6 but apart from Bannerman, who was 126 not out, no-one had passed twenty. At this stage Bannerman had scored a staggering 75.9% of his team's runs, a truly remarkable performance, especially as this was his first first class century and no Australian had ever scored a hundred against an English side before. 

On day two, with good support from Jack Blackham, the Prince of Wicket-keepers, and eighteen year old Tom Garrett, he advanced his score to 165 before a ball from Ulyett split his finger and he had to retire hurt. The Australian innings didn't last long without him and they were all out for 245, Bannerman having contributed 67.34% of the total runs. Astonishingly, this is a record that still stands one hundred and thirty-six years later and only Michael Slater, with 123 out of 184 at Sydney in 1999, has ever really come close. Perhaps even more remarkably, this was not only Bannerman's only test hundred but the only first class hundred in a career in which he averaged just 21.62. He played two more tests and then umpired a further twelve between 1887 and 1902, his first class career having been cut short by illness. 

Charles Bannerman wouldn't make it into the top ten Victorian cricketers by any stretch of the imagination and it is clear that he is all but forgotten today, but over two days in Melbourne in 1877 he played an innings that in some ways still hasn't been surpassed today and which has only just been knocked out of the top ten debut scores in test history, which is significantly more than Nick Knight ever achieved in test cricket.

All Round View

In the years following Ian Botham’s retirement and, some would argue, for a number of years before it, England’s selectors were so fixated on all rounders that they handed out test caps to just about anybody who batted above number nine in county cricket and also bowled a few overs. The thought of Derek Pringle batting at number six and of Mark Ealham or Phil Newport playing test cricket still makes me wake, screaming, in the middle of the night.

Now, however, it is Australia who are applying the ‘not good enough with either bat or ball so must be an all rounder’ logic or, as John Inverarity might put it, putting their faith in multi-skilled cricketers (he’s fooling no-one). There is a shortage of test standard spinners in Australia at the moment, but the selection of Glenn Maxwell as number eight batsman and second spinner, apparently on the basis that he’s a decent limited overs player and is called ‘The Big Show’ and so, therefore, must be good, was the stupidest selectorial decision since trying to shoehorn Cameron White, a better batsman but even worse bowler, into the same role a few years before.

It’s not even as if they can plead ignorance: England had already amply demonstrated this winter that a batting all-rounder and part time spinner, in their case Samit Patel, is not what is required in Indian conditions against Indian batsmen. Unless the Australian management team watched the Ahmedabad test with their hands over their eyes this should have been obvious, and yet the selection of the palpably inadequate Maxwell was their solution to the travails of the first test. It takes a special kind of genius to take a struggling bowling attack and make it worse, for the selection of Maxwell was compounded by the promotion of Xavier Doherty, a worthy trier and one day toiler who is also well short of test class, while Nathan Lyon carried drinks and Steve O’Keefe languished in Australia.

Of course defeat in Hyderabad wasn’t just down to the bowlers and it’s possible to sympathise with the desire for lower order runs given the feeble state of the top order in alien conditions, but when the next mooted solution is to play Steve Smith then you are in trouble. Smith may have improved his batting (although so has Phillip Hughes), but his bowling (forty-six first class wickets at over fifty-six) will make the Indian batsmen think that they are in heaven, or at least an all you can eat buffet.

Australia are hampered by the fact that their one proper all rounder is currently unable to bowl, although they aren’t helping themselves by labouring under the misapprehension that he’s a top order batsman, but this fixation with allegedly multi-skilled cricketers really isn’t doing them any good. There is a logic to playing Moises Henriques, especially in a side with two proper spinners, since he batted well in the first test and can operate as a useful third seamer in a five man attack, but they must stick to their guns with the rest of the attack and pick the best bowlers. It might cost them a handful of runs, but it may also give them an outside chance of bowling India out for less than 500. 

The Curious Case of Shane Watson

During the recent Twenty20 series between Australia and Sri Lanka Ian Harvey, a regular talking head in the Sky studio, was asked to look ahead to the composition of the Australian side for the forthcoming tour of India. His first observation was not that they would need to find players who could bowl and play spin but rather that Shane Watson should be fit and so would resume his rightful place in the top order. Now that the series is two tests old I see plenty of online comments criticising the make-up of the Australian side, but not one stating what seems to be the obvious: that Shane Watson is a useful all rounder when he is fit enough to bowl but that he is ill equipped both technically and mentally for a position in the top four of a serious test side.

When Watson was promoted to open the batting at the expense of the shell-shocked Philip Hughes it was a decision that was greeted with widespread derision. To Watson’s credit he performed far better than his critics, and his first class record to that point, suggested would be the case, but he now seems to be enjoying an enhanced reputation largely off the back of the fact that he was less rubbish than most people expected him to be. In forty tests he averages thirty-six with just two test centuries, a poor return for a player batting in the top four and one which would not be indulged by any of the other top test sides, particularly not in a player who is approaching his thirty-second birthday. Worse, he averages just 25.2 over the last two years, a period that has included a third of his tests and in which he hasn’t scored a single century. Without his bowling, which is going to be less relevant as injuries heal more slowly, and taking into account his fielding, which has all the athleticism and grace of a man running through knee deep mud, he simply isn’t worth his place in the Australian test side. It has reached the point where a Watson test innings can be predicted fairly easily: some crunching boundaries early on, a slowing down in the scoring rate once the ball is softer and the initial adrenalin rush has passed, a spot of comedy running and then a dismissal either playing around his front pad or pushing with hard hands outside off stump.

He deserves credit for taking on a challenge to the best of his ability when it was given to him and he remains a fine and destructive one day and Twenty20 player, but Australia will not improve in testing conditions until they accept his shortcomings and either play him as an all rounder batting at six or don’t play him at all. Given John Inverarity’s apparent enthusiasm for multi-skilled players and a general, if inexplicable, high opinion of his abilities I’m not expecting this to be any time soon, however. 

How do you solve a problem like Sachin?

With Ricky Ponting finally calling time on his test career, not before time, so all eyes turned to India and the struggles of another of the true greats of his generation. It seems almost inconceivable that it will be twenty-three years this summer since I first saw Sachin Tendulkar play, a seventeen year old in Sunil Gavaskar style pads who made his maiden test hundred at Old Trafford that summer. It was obvious that he was going to be very good, but his record in the years since is mind boggling. Comparisons with Bradman are pointless, but it seems very likely that his record of one hundred international centuries will stand the test of time in the same way that 99.94 has.

Now, however, he is an increasing problem for the Indian team and for their selectors. Having laboured to his hundredth hundred he hasn’t scored a test century for over two years, a remarakable statistic given his propensity for three figure scores. A fighting seventy-six at Kolkata aside, he struggled against England’s attack, scoring just thirty-six runs in his other five innings and it was clear that the England bowlers saw him more as an opportunity to precipitate a collapse than as a legend of the game. Sourav Ganguly has spoken of Sachin’s desire to finish in a blaze of glory with a big score, but the risk is that he keeps going in fruitless pursuit of that objective at the expense both of his legacy and of the long term development of the team. The announcement of his retirement from ODIs suggests that he is in no hurry to fall on his test match sword just yet, so the selectors may well end up with the dilemma of either being the people who terminated the Little Master’s career or of seeing him clog up the Indian middle order for as long as he likes. Rather them than me.

Farewell Punter

Great players deserve to go out with a bang but Ricky Ponting’s departure, following a heavy defeat in a series in which he averaged just 6.40, was the saddest of whimpers. The trademark swivel pull, once a stroke of withering power, had long since become more of a reflex paddle, and his footwork, once so sure, had become a shuffling, jumping mess. Where once his arrival at the crease had bowlers full of trepidation he had become a minor inconvenience to swat aside. For all that his many admirers willed him to succeed he had failed to see the writing on the wall, which by now was in pretty big letters, and the spinelessness of the selectors in allowing him to pick his moment to retire meant that it was always likely to end in tears. 

This is a shame, because I can’t think of many batsmen of the last thirty-five years that I’ve enjoyed watching more. At his best, and his best spanned quite a period, he was dismissive of all but the very best bowling, pulling balls that were only fractionally short and driving straight with power that seemed entirely incommensurate with the effort put in. Add his scintillating fielding just about anywhere into the mix and you have a truly great cricketer, although his greatness, in truth, never really extended to captaincy. Much of his tenure as captain was a success but this was as much due to the staggering talent at his disposal as to any spectacular nous on his part. The 2005 Ashes showed that his great side lacked a plan B, although the following series in Australia showed that the plan A had a lot going for it. He was a good leader of a great side for they, mostly, respected him as a great player in his own right, but once the retirements started and the side entered transition he was, understandably, less able to bring the best out of his side, although it was a challenge that would have tested the greatest skippers.

In truth, though, the light burned out some time ago, albeit with a brief flicker against India last winter. Since the start of the last Ashes series he averaged 108.80 against India and 20.14 against everyone else. Between the start of 2006 and the end of 2008 his average never dropped below 57 but it ended as 51.85 – still highly impressive, but not a reflection of the player that he was at his best. It’s easy to understand why he wanted to carry on after the Ashes series of 2010/11, but he would surely have been better advised to call it a day in triumph after victory over India rather than subjecting himself to a final series. As an unashamed admirer of his cricket, if not always his demeanour, I find that sad and can only hope that history remembers him as it should.

Oval and out (nearly)

One of the risks inherent in blogging is your words coming back to haunt you. The Ancient Greeks called in hubris, but I prefer to think of it as invoking the spirit of Shane Watson, for rather like Watson it was not so much that many of my pronouncements were proven to be wrong, rather that they were never given a chance to be proven at all. It may well be that keeping wicket will have a negative impact on AB De Villiers’ batting and there is no doubt that it is a long tail, but if you make 637-2 then such matters are a mere trifle.

The historic failure of South African batsmen to make test triple centuries has long been a statistical anomaly, but anyone watching the early stages of Hashim Amla’s innings on Friday afternoon could have been forgiven for thinking that it was an anomaly that would remain in place for some time. After the rain, however,he batted with an assurance and range of shot that was delightful to watch - by any reckoning this was a fantastic innings. He stands with his feet closer together than almost any modern batsman with a long backwards trigger movement and a flourish of the bat in the backswing that is no longer as exaggerated as at the start of his career, when he resembled a majorette as much as an international batsman, but which still gives his technique a dash of individuality and flair and from which he scores all around the wicket. Of all the batsmen in test cricket at the moment he is among the easiest on the eye.

No one could ever accuse Graeme Smith of being enjoyable to watch, but there is no doubting his effectiveness and sheer bloody mindedness.  I once sat through a long partnership between Smith and Gary Kirsten that was like watching ugly paint dry and which drove large numbers to the bar, but there was a sense of inevitability about his hundred here. If ever there was a man who made the most of limited talented it is Smith and he should be applauded for it. As for Jacques Kallis here, truly, is a great cricketer. There is little joie de vivre about anything that he does on the cricket field, which may be why he is so consistently underrated, but his test record is up there with Sobers as the greatest all rounder of all time, although there’s no doubt as to which would make a better companion for a night out.

As for England, this was a truly horrible few days, especially after having controlled the first day so convincingly. They will re-group and come back, for they are a resilient group, but I fear that all is lost for this test. For every Cardiff or Centurion there is a Perth or Abu Dhabi and it is hard to see how they can escape today. This further shows the stupidity of scheduling just a three test series: if there were five tests then this would be a mouth watering opening act to go along with Cardiff in 2009 or Lord’s in 2005, but instead it is a massive step towards winning the series for a South African side who for three days have played cricket as good and remorseless as I have seen for a very long time.

It's preview time

It takes a lot to shift the fundamentally pessimistic nature of an English cricket follower. Those of us who lived through the ineptitude of the second half of the eighties, during which time England won only one test, through the tenures of Ted Dexter, Ray Illingworth and David Lloyd and who remember the boos echoing round the Oval in 1999 bear scars that have taken a long time to heal. For those whose stock in trade is jokes about the state of English cricket the events in the UAE in the winter must have come as a blessed relief, but there is no doubt about it: this is a formidable cricket team. 

A year ago it was the all conquering Indians who were going to put us firmly in our place. One glance at the cricinfo message boards would have sent England scurrying for cover such was the misplaced optimism of the Tendulkarati, but by the end of the summer it was England who were leaping about in slightly embarrassing fashion as the World champions (credit where credit is due) slunk out of the back door of the Oval. 

A few short weeks ago the bloggerati were at it again, convinced that England’s run of success in fifty over cricket was about to brought to a juddering halt by an Australian juggernaut boasting Xavier Doherty and Peter Forrest. Shane Watson took it upon himself to take on the Glenn McGrath role with some ill-advised observations about England’s balance (which may, of course, have been proven correct had Australia managed to get down to England’s number seven), but the outcome was decidedly chastening for a side that suddenly found that they had rather more problems than they had previously thought. 

And so we come to the South Africans. They have a rich vein of talent running through their side, but I can’t help feeling that they are being talked up in the way that both India and Australia were before them (although I would be amazed if the series turned out to be as one-sided). For all of Gary Kirsten’s pronouncements about their ‘perfect’ preparation (and, to be fair to Kirsten, it’s hard to know what else he could have said), they feel undercooked, a victim both of the schedule and of the poor weather, and in a three match series you have to hit the ground running, as England found to their cost in the winter.  There are also vulnerabilities – for all of Graeme Smith’s capacity for proving the aesthetes wrong the opening partnership feels slightly sketchy, Jacques Kallis has a poor record in England although, of course, he will be seeking to address that and there is a very real risk that the decision to give the gloves to AB De Villiers will reduce his effectiveness as a batsman while also saddling the Proteas with a sub-standard keeper and taking away their best fielder. Even through the selection of JP Duminy theoretically strengthen the batting and protects a rather long tail, his record against England is poor and he has only played one test in the last two years. 

The effects of the loss of Mark Boucher will provide a fascinating sub-plot. His was a horrible injury and an awful way for his career to finish, but in truth he has never been in the top bracket as a keeper batsman. His keeping, although it improved through his career, was good without being outstanding, the Akmal-esque comedy of his early career being superseded by high competence and his batting, while very effective on its day, patchy and has largely fallen away over the last couple of years. Where his influence was felt most, and will be most keenly missed, was as the focal point of the team, the gutsy character who acted as a confidante to the captain and whose importance in the dressing room, we are told, was inestimable. 

South Africa’s bowling has been the most hyped facet of their play, and with a certain amount of justification. Dale Steyn is a truly excellent fast bowler with natural pace, the ability to move the ball and a nasty, skidding bouncer. Not for nothing is he the number one bowler in the world. Vernon Philander has made a stellar start to his test cricketer, bowling an excellent line and, at times, obtaining extravagant movement, but facing England in England represents an entirely different challenge. The conditions should suit him but he will also be against batsmen who are more at home against pace than spin and it should be the biggest hurdle of his career so far – if he thrives then South Africa will be right in the series. Morne Morkel had the worst imaginable start to his tour and probably wakes up in the night thinking of Peter Trego’s extravagant tattoos – he is a very handy bowler, generating uncomfortable bounce, but there is a touch of the Steve Harmison about him and England will look to score off him. Finally there is Imran Tahir, who ironically came to prominence playing county championship cricket, a useful leg spinner but, again, a bowler that England will look to attack. 

None of this, of course, is to say that England are perfect or that the series will be a walk in the park. Ravi Bopara gets another chance to kick start his test career and England look stronger with him at six rather than Jonny Bairstow – he looks a more mature and compact batsman than he did even a year ago but the South African pacemen will look to target him early in his innings, especially playing away from his body outside off stump. The only other sub-plot is whether England will go with Steven Finn or Tim Bresnan – the likelihood is Bresnan, but Finn would add another dimension to the attack and his chance will have to come sooner or later. 

The final imponderable, of course, is the weather, but assuming that the deluge ceases at some point then 2-0 to England is the prediction. Bring it on.