Has there ever been a cricketer who made the game look easier than Mark Waugh?
Has there ever been a cricketer who made the game look easier than Mark Waugh?
Mark Waugh World CupImages: Getty Images
Whether batting at second drop in the Test team, opening in the pyjamas, rolling out a spot of off-spin, or standing in the cordon, “Junior” moved with such languid grace he damn-near seemed somnambulant at times. But don’t be fooled by appearances – beneath the lackadaisical front pulsed a determined and canny competitor who thrived on some of the game’s harshest stages. Take his record in India, for example. He hit his highest Test score – a sparkling 153 not out – in the steaming heat of Bangalore. At the ’96 World Cup played in India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, he stroked 484 runs at an average topping 80. He knows how to succeed in the face of tropical heat, wily tweakers and dubious curries. With another Subcontinental World Cup looming, hear his wisdom here, and on Fox Sports’ coverage throughout the tournament.
Let’s start with the ‘96 World Cup – you must have some good memories there?
Yeah. What did I score? Three centuries I think it was ...
Must’ve been infuriating losing to a niggling customer like Arjuna Ranatunga in the final – did you talk to him afterwards?
Don’t think so! No, we shook hands after the game and he was obviously around at the ceremony, but I don’t think we had too much to say to him. Yeah, he definitely got up our noses. Just the way he played the game, the way he strutted around ... But he was just a competitor, wasn’t he? He was a bit annoying at times for sure, bit of a prickly character, but he was always up for the fight, and that’s a good thing. You want to play against someone like that.
Who was the most annoying bloke you played against?
He’d be up there, I suppose. I always remember that day-night game in Sydney where he called a runner after hitting 20 runs and Ian Healy said, “Mate, you can’t have a runner just ‘cause you’re fat ... ” Adam Parore, the ‘keeper for New Zealand, was a pretty chirpy bloke. Particularly given the New Zealanders didn’t beat us all that often.
Mark Waugh in PrimeImages: Getty Images
You mention sledging – have you got any particular favourite?
Oh, I always remember playing against this English bowler called James Ormond. I was fielding at bat-pad and I said a few words to him: “Who’s this guy? Never seen him before. Surely he’s not one of the best 11 cricketers in England?” At the end of the over he walked past me and said, “Maybe not, but at least I’m the best cricketer in my family.” Not a bad sledge.
Did you have a comeback?
Nah. I just laughed and kept walking. Wasn’t a bad one, actually ...
We hear a lot of myths about how hard it is playing cricket on the Subcontinent. Have you got a favourite war story from over there?
Oh, there’ve been more than a few blokes who haven’t quite made it to the toilet when they’ve been out in the field, put it that way. Actually, when I hit my highest Test score I was that sick the night before, I had a doctor by my bedside all night. I was vomiting, I had diarrhoea. I only arrived at the ground just as we were about to get on. Maybe I should’ve got sick a bit more often – might have made a few more runs ...
Both you and Dean Jones ...
Well, I wasn’t quite on a drip, like Deano was back in ’87 ... But we can say I was, can’t we?
And who’ll win this month’s World Cup?
Obviously I’d like to see Australia get up, but I think Sri Lanka will be pretty hard to beat. They’ve got the home ground advantage, they’ve got a lot of very experienced players, they’ve got a quality young all-rounder in that Angelo Mathews. We had a glimpse of them out here earlier this summer and they certainly looked pretty good to me. They’ll be hard to beat and they’re good value, too – I think they’re paying about $6.
What are your thoughts on India?
Yeah, on paper the Indians look to be a very good side. Whether the pressure gets to them a bit playing at home, I don’t know. You’d have to think they’re going to be in the semis.
And South Africa – can they overturn their World Cup hoodoo?
They’re a very solid team. That’s your top three on recent form – Sri Lanka, India and South Africa. But you can’t write off Australia. If we get our best players back to full fitness we’ll give it a shake as well. So there’s your first four, anyway.
Should Ricky Ponting lead the Australian team, given he missed the entire home ODI series against England?
For sure – if he’s fit. I mean, we’ve won the last three World Cups and he’s captained two of them, so he’s definitely the one to lead us.
And what about Michael Clarke? What do the selectors do with him?
Look, I’m sure he’ll come out of this slump. His record suggests that – you don’t average mid 40s in Test cricket without being able to play. I just think he looks a bit tentative at the moment. I think he needs to play a few shots and get back to the way he used to play when he was younger. You know, he used to be a bit of a dasher when he first came on the scene – for some reason he’s gone into his shell over the last few seasons.
He seems to have lost a lot of power with his stroke-making. Particularly in the one-day game, he seems to struggle to hit boundaries ...
Well, he shouldn’t struggle. He’s fit as a fiddle, isn’t he? I think he’s changed his way of looking at the game, decided he wants to occupy the crease and push it into the gaps, rather than being the hitter he used to be. It’s all a mindset thing with him – he got out of the practice of hitting the ball. He’s just looking to find the gaps rather than hit the boundaries. And I think he should change that.
What about the selectors? They’ve picked five quicks and just one specialist spinner for this World Cup. Reckon that’s a bit foolish?
Well, the selectors are obviously looking for the part-timers to bowl most of the spin – blokes like Hussey and Smith and Clarke. I’m confident they’ve got the spin option covered. I think those blokes can do the job of a second specialist spinner.As far as the quicks are concerned, I think Ryan Harris is our best one-day bowler, so his injury’s a real blow. I also think Clint McKay would’ve been in that squad if he wasn’t injured. So with the loss of those two they’ve opted for bowlers like Tait and Lee who are quick through the air, rather than being bowlers who generate pace off the pitch. They’re clearly hoping that if they’re quick enough through the air, then it doesn’t matter how slow and low the wickets are.I think the one glaring omission from the squad is Dan Christian. He’s been one of the form players in the domestic one-day comp all year. He’s a great hitter of the ball who can win you a game with the bat. His bowling might be a little inconsistent, but he gets wickets, and he’s an outstanding fieldsman. I would’ve had him in there ahead of John Hastings, to be honest.
Mark Waugh PortraitImages Getty Images
On that Hastings selection, is that the selectors looking to justify their existence with the stroke-of-genius decision?
Sometimes as a selector you have to go with a gut feeling – it’s not all about facts and figures – and that gut feeling’s part of being a good selector. I also think selectors go with the word around the traps. They listen to certain players talking about other players and they’ll often run with a decision on the basis of that. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
In defence of John Hastings, his performances have been pretty good for Victoria. But, in my eyes, he’s always going to be a good state player who doesn’t quite match-up at international level. Hopefully he’ll prove me wrong.
Is the 50-over format in strife?
At times I think it is, because there are just too many games. I mean, really, why did we play a seven-match series against England? It gets boring for players and spectators and that obviously leads to players not performing their best, or blokes with niggling injuries opting to take matches off. Look, a good game of one-day cricket is still very entertaining and there’s definitely still room for it in cricket’s calendar. But they’ve got to be careful there’s not too much of it, because people get bored watching the same players playing against each other over and over. I think Cricket Australia’s got to look at shortening series to five or even three games maximum.
I also think there needs to be more responsibility on the captains to set attacking fields. If you’ve got a team 4/50, why would you put all your men on the boundary? Keep your men up, keep the pressure on the batsmen, make them hit over the infield a bit more. I think captains tend to fall back on the defensive option too often. They’ve got to play their part in producing entertaining and attacking cricket.
Gideon Haigh has suggested that the one-day game could be improved if all the bowling and fielding restrictions were removed. Reckon this simpler formula would work?
I don’t agree with that. You make those changes and all you’re left with is a one-day Test match. It’s good to have different forms of the game.I think there are changes you could make – for example, it would be good if they allowed one bowler to bowl 12 overs instead of the regulation 10. But I think you want to maintain the basic fabric of one-day cricket.
Going back to the Ashes Tests last summer – we keep hearing talk of the “transition period” but the performances were so diabolical surely there’s a deeper malaise in Australian cricket right now?
Well, look, the transition period’s over – that’s just an excuse now. We’ve got enough good players around the place to move beyond that.
But looking at the state competition at the moment, looking at the standard of players we’ve got there, I don’t think we’ve got the depth of quality players we’ve had in recent years. That’s how simply I see it – we haven’t quite got the quality players. So when we get a few injuries or players drop out of form, we’re not replacing them with guys we’re 100 per cent sure are going to do the job. I think that’s why we’re trying so many spinners, and running through so many fast bowlers – the depth of talent isn’t quite what it was. The reasons for that? I’m not sure.
Do you think that the junior pathways and the Academy system is starting to produce monochrome, robotic cricketers?
I’m not sure about that. When I was growing up there wasn’t a Cricket Academy so we learnt the game playing club cricket. You know, I was playing first grade for Bankstown when I was 17. And that’s a pretty good learning curve for a teenager – playing against grown men, tough competitors, in first grade. Nowadays when you watch grade cricket they’re all just young blokes coming through, and then you get the cream of that young talent going to the Academy to play their cricket. So that may be a reason why we’re not producing as many good players.
In recent years Australian teams have copped a lot of flak for being too aggressive, too confrontational on the field, but in this Ashes series the team looked meek at points. Do you think they’ve subconsciously given in to the criticism?
No, I don’t think that’s right. I mean, look at Mitchell Johnson – he got in batsmens’ faces a few times. Obviously the image of sportsmen these days is put under so much scrutiny in the media, and that then flows on to sponsors and money, which then flows on to the administrators who want the players to be clean as a whistle. So under all that pressure, the players want to do the right thing. But it’s a fine line, isn’t it? You’ve still got to have your players competitive, got to have them in the face of your opponents. When you’re losing you always go into your shell a little bit. It’s hard to sledge and get in blokes’ faces when you’re getting smacked around the park or when you’re getting out for less than ten all the time. It goes hand-in-hand – when you’re playing well and winning it’s much easier to be upfront with the opposition.But even if they’re not as aggressive as they used to be, that’s no excuse for not playing well, is it? Bottom line is: you’ve got to bat, bowl and catch well – it doesn’t matter what you say to the opposition.
It’s been mentioned post-Ashes that a lot of our younger batsmen simply don’t have the technique to thrive in long-form cricket. Is T20 cricket damaging our batsmen?
I don’t think it’s doing any damage whatsoever – that’s just an excuse for batsmen who fail. If anything, the T20 game should give batsmen a broader range of strokes to take into Test cricket. Beyond that, batsmen should be smart enough to say, ‘Right, this is a T20 game, so I’m going to play a different range of strokes to what I’d play in a Test match.’ They should be able to go into any match with their array of strokes and then pick out the strokes that are appropriate depending on the game and the conditions.
– Aaron Scott
