Lives in Cricket No 30 - MJK Smith

142 Triumphs and tribulations as Chairman on the larger Australian grounds and also, in comparison with our opponents, in our lack of athleticism.’ Mike draws a parallel with rugby teams who like to ensure they include one good place kicker, as he cites such players as Philip Sharpe whose sure hands in the slips have been similarly able to influence selection. ‘Fred wouldn’t have been too happy if Yorkshire had left Phil out,’ Mike reflects. ‘The same with Dominic Ostler at Warwickshire and what he meant to Gladstone Small and Allan Donald.’ But with eleven men to be placed in the field, the less athletic, chosen for their skills in other disciplines, are usually consigned to positions in the outfield – and in Australia there were too many to hide. Moving on to the bowling, Mike’s report pointed out that there are no losing declarations in Test cricket. Remembering that the last captain to offer one to England was Garry Sobers, he now adds that ‘the Queen was so impressed that she knighted him!’ Mike’s experience of county cricket had been very different: ‘When I started, county matches were three days, so generally you got a declaration to give you a chance for victory, so bowling tight was a common directive rather than getting batsmen out.’ Mike strongly endorses the move to four-day matches, which have brought more emphasis on bowlers taking wickets, thereby helping to identify those with the potential to be Test cricketers. Though four-day championship matches had come in shortly before Atherton’s tour of Australia, it still remained the distinguishing feature of Test cricket that bowlers had to find a way of taking 20 wickets. Addressing this challenge, Mike’s paper highlighted that Australian coaches recognized the importance of teaching bowlers to get the ball to move sideways, seam or spin, whereas those in England concentrated on length and line. Recognizing the problems our seam bowlers faced as familiar ones, Mike now expands on why he believed that the Australians – spearheaded in that series by Craig McDermott with Damien Fleming or, in two Tests, a still unproven Glenn McGrath as his partner – had the edge: ‘In England our bowlers are brought up on movement off the seam off the wicket. There is less of that in Australia, partly due to the harder surfaces with less grass, but also because there is a difference in the manufacture of their cricket balls, in particular in relation to the seam. In the English ball the central seam has six rows of genuine stitches which stand proud of the ball’s surface rather like a band, whereas the Australian Kookaburra is a two-piece ball that has only two inner rows of genuine stitching – the other rows are false, perhaps to comply