Two tours to forget—Sri Lanka and South Africa 2016
There is no point in sugar-coating the tour of Sri Lanka in mid-2016, or the ODI series in South Africa that followed it. Both were disasters.
It’s true we won the two limited-overs series in Sri Lanka that followed the Tests—although I missed the majority of those matches, resting at home—but they followed a 3–0 defeat in the long-form games. And by the time we had been pummelled into submission in South Africa, losing the ODIs there 5–0, it felt like we had forgotten how to win cricket matches.
At the start of the trip, in mid-July, everything seemed to be set fair. We arrived in Sri Lanka full of optimism and with good reason. We had a decent record there over the years—we’d only lost one Test in five tours—were up against an inexperienced home side short of confidence after a difficult tour of the UK and without retired stalwarts like Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara, while our most recent action—albeit in a different format—had seen us secure a ODI tri-series against the West Indies and South Africa in the Caribbean.
An indication of how fragile the home side was feeling came immediately before the first Test in Pallekele. We were due to receive the ICC Test championship mace, awarded to the top side in the rankings in the game’s longest format, after moving to number one following our victory in New Zealand earlier in the year, but the Sri Lankans refused to allow me to be presented with it in front of the media. The implication was that such a presentation might affect the home side’s already shaky nerves. Psychologically it was a shot in the arm for us, but that was about the last one we received for the best part of a month.
It’s easy to look back and be wise after the event but perhaps we should have seen the trouble to come right from the outset. Our one warm-up match ahead of the Pallekele Test was against a side cobbled together in the absence of not only Sri Lanka’s leading players, but also their second string, too, as Sri Lanka A was in action at the same time in the UK. It meant we had a very easy win in just over two days and the reality was it represented very poor preparation for what lay ahead. There was no high-quality spin in the opposition ranks and the pitch assisted the faster bowlers as much as the slow men. It turned out to bear little resemblance to the surfaces we would come across during the Test series.
Did the build-up lead to overconfidence on our part, or any degree of complacency? No, I’d like to think not, but after the first day of the opening Test it was impossible not to be delighted with our position and confident we would cruise to victory given we bowled Sri Lanka out for 117 just after lunch and had replied relatively strongly up to an early close that came at tea time because of rain.
I still wonder whether things might have been different had we played that final session. Usman Khawaja and I were dealing with the Sri Lankan spinners with relative ease, knocking the ball about into the gaps and not looking in a great deal of trouble, and had we gone through to the scheduled close of play that night in the same mode then we would already have been in the lead by some distance and all set to dominate the game. But instead we produced an ordinary batting display when play resumed on day two and I have to shoulder my share of the blame for that.
I have always set out to be positive wherever possible and to dominate the opposition bowlers because I believe if you can put them under pressure by looking to score runs, then they are more likely to err in line or length. But I made a massive misjudgement by attempting to put that philosophy into play from the first ball I received that morning from spinner Rangana Herath.
I looked to go down the pitch and hit him over the top of the in-field but he saw me coming, beat me in the flight and I ended up missing the ball, the second ball of the second over of the day and was stumped by a comfortable margin. And when he dismissed Usman in his next over we were always going to struggle to secure a massive, match-winning lead.
If I had my time again, of course I wouldn’t run down the pitch in the way I did. But my dismissal was symptomatic of the way we approached the tour from a batting perspective—we let ego take hold rather than playing the conditions.
Instead of seeking to dominate the spinners, as we would look to do in Australia on pitches where the ball doesn’t turn a great deal, we should have been far more inclined to sit in, work the ball around and wait for the bad ball—as we had done on that first afternoon before the rain intervened. And we should have been content to tick along at two or three runs per over instead of looking to score more quickly as we would do at home.
Also, we should have been far more inclined to allow ourselves, as right-handers, to get beaten on the outside edge. When you play against the turning ball and a delivery spins past the bat, the natural reaction in your head as a batsman is to think ‘I didn’t look good there, so I should cover the line of that turning ball’. Too many of us thought like that for too long, even though a ball that turned in that way was the exception rather than the rule. What it meant was that when the ball didn’t turn and just skidded straight on, all too often we were playing for the magic ball instead. We lost countless wickets that way during the series with batsmen either bowled or lbw, beaten past the inside edge of the bat, and that was criminal. I was just as guilty as anyone else, too, and my dismissal in the final innings of the series, bowled by Herath trying to cut a ball that skidded through rather than turned, was a perfect illustration of how we kept making the same mistakes over and over again.
It wasn’t as if we didn’t talk about the issue either. We had countless discussions and team meetings, all of them excellent, about how we would put our egos away, play the line of the ball, get our bats out in front of our pads and if we got beaten past the outside edge by that magic ball then, so what? We had to be willing to look silly but the reality was that when it came to putting those plans into action in the middle we failed dismally.
Our tormentor-in-chief was Herath, who took 28 wickets at 12.75 in the series and more than half of those—15—came from batsmen falling either bowled or lbw. I was fortunate, along with Nathan Lyon, to get the chance to pick his brains after the series when the two teams got together in the Sri Lanka dressing room once our defeat in the third Test was sealed, and listening to him explain how and why he did what he did was fascinating.
Herath said that, in essence, he just looked to land the ball on roughly the same spot ball after ball and, to that plan, he added his own variations and the vagaries of the pitch to help him achieve results. He would not only vary his pace, but also his position on the bowling crease and even the height of his bowling arm at the point of delivery. All the changes were subtle but they helped to create doubts and questions in the batsmen’s minds. The additional problem for a batsman was that there was also natural variation to deal with—the fact that some balls spun while others didn’t. A lack of spin might be prompted by the leather of the ball coming into contact with the pitch rather than the seam, but whatever the reason it was an added complication for a batsman to deal with. Herath admitted to me that even if he tried to spin six balls hard, some might not turn at all and he had no idea which would bite and which would simply slide straight on. And if the bowler had no idea then you can imagine the problem in dealing with the situation with a bat in your hand 20 metres away. It was another illustration of why we should have been playing the line of the ball rather than for turn but it was something we could not get our heads around out in the middle.
The batting let us down in Sri Lanka, there is no doubt about that, but it would be wrong to lay the blame for our Test losses solely at that department of our game and the defeats were a collective failing rather than down to one aspect of what we did or didn’t do. The fact of the matter was that time and again we got ourselves into excellent positions with the ball, but we never managed to nail down the home side’s coffin lid. It was a trend that started in the second innings of the first Test and kept repeating itself, just like our batting woes.
In Pallekele we took four Sri Lankan second innings wickets before the opposition took the lead and even allowing for the brilliance of 21-year-old Kusal Mendis, whose 176 was one of only two scores over 50 in the match (an illustration of how tricky conditions were for batting), we should have managed to restrict the home side to a lead well below the 267 it eventually achieved.
The pattern was repeated in the second match in Galle where we took a wicket with the first ball of the match and had Sri Lanka 2–9 only to see it recover to 281. And then in the second innings we reduced it to 5–98 and 6–121 only to see its batsmen reach 237. But worst of all was the final match in Colombo where Sri Lanka posted 355 after being 5–26 inside the first 90 minutes, and then it followed that with 8–347 declared having been 4–98.
The honourable exception to our bowling failings was Mitchell Starc, who took 24 wickets at 15.16 and was brilliant throughout the series. He swung the new ball in and then got reverse swing with the older ball and his pace throughout many long, hot days was always nudging up close to 150 kilometres per hour. He delivered more overs than any other seam bowler in the series and his 11 wickets (5–44 and 6–50) on a slow, spinning pitch in Galle was surely one of the great displays of fast bowling there can ever have been in the sub-continent. It was just a shame we could not back him up.
Nathan Lyon, by contrast, had a tough time. When the Sri Lankan batsmen defended against him he looked menacing, but they broke his spell and frustrated him by looking to play the sweep shot at regular intervals. The way for Nathan to combat that would have been to fire the odd ball in much quicker as variation, but he struggled to mix things up in that way and so although he got 16 wickets at 31.93—only Herath and Starc took more—he was played with relative comfort by the home side’s batsmen. By the time we arrived in India for our tour in early 2017, he had learnt those lessons and looked much more effective, but I just wished he had been able to adapt a little quicker in Sri Lanka.
Of course, a Test series like the one we endured in Sri Lanka is full of what ifs, and another one came in the shape of a hamstring injury to Stephen O’Keefe. Just before he suffered a problem in the first Test, as Sri Lanka was trying to build some sort of lead in its second innings, I thought he looked as though he could take a wicket with every delivery he bowled. He was operating in a similar manner to Herath and had he played for not only the rest of that Test but also the matches that followed then perhaps, just perhaps, the results might have been different and Sri Lanka wouldn’t have wriggled off the hook each time we thought we had them. His departure meant a call-up for Jon Holland but with the best will in the world it was asking a great deal for an uncapped player, even one with the depth of first-class experience Jon had, to fly in and adapt to the demands of the situation without missing a beat.
Problems like the injury to Stephen contributed to an atmosphere of feeling the world was against us and, as captain, I probably didn’t do enough to stamp down on that mood, which became more and more prevalent within the camp as the series went on. We weren’t happy with the pitches prepared for the series, especially in Pallekele and Galle, feeling they were far too weighted in favour of the home side, and we also felt the practice facilities served up for us were far from satisfactory too as the net pitches very rarely replicated the conditions we encountered out in the middle. It was frustrating, but the truth of the matter was we should have dealt with things far more positively than we did. By the time we got to Colombo for the final Test, a real siege mentality had set in. The fact I lost all three tosses in the series didn’t help either as that condemned us to bat last each time in conditions suited perfectly for Sri Lanka’s spinners, but that was something beyond my control.
As a captain, defeat, especially in the manner it arrived, was a real shock to the system, particularly as it was so unexpected. I had been in charge for 11 Tests before the tour and had never lost, winning seven and drawing the other four, so it was a new experience for me and not a very pleasant one, as it asked questions of me both from a personal and a tactical standpoint.
First of all there was my own behaviour around the touring group. I tried not to alter my behaviour and I always sought to make sure I was visible to the players and available to speak with them if they wanted. I’m not a shouter and there would have been little point in me becoming like that in any case, as I believe flying into a rage every time things go wrong is just the type of approach guaranteed to get you off-side with most of your teammates, who look to you, as captain, for calmness and leadership rather than senseless anger. I tried to remain upbeat in my body language, but things did occasionally get the better of me on the field from time to time with the odd shout or gesture of frustration here and there when things went wrong. I just couldn’t help myself.
I can say now, looking back, that I learnt a lot about the art of captaincy on the sub-continent from that tour, painful though the lessons were at the time. The Sri Lankan batsmen liked to hit boundaries and, at times, I needed to be a bit more defensive in my thinking by working with the bowlers to dry up those opportunities. In Australia the first thought is always to attack but I realised that restricting scoring can be just as effective in Asian conditions. If you can go at two runs per over then that can, and will play, on the patience of batsmen in those conditions, batsmen used to scoring freely, and that can be just as effective as posting a whole host of attacking fielders that, at the same time, leaves gaps for rapid run-gathering.
It was still a case of fine margins, of course, and although we were ultimately well beaten in each Test, we got into positions to rule over each match only to fail to do so. We held first innings leads in two of the matches so obviously we did things right some of the time—just not for long enough.
There was the odd bright moment for me personally as I managed to score a Test hundred (119) in Colombo, although even there it was a bittersweet achievement as, rather than being the bedrock of a consolation victory, it turned into a footnote instead. We reached 1–267 at one point with myself and Shaun Marsh (130) both reaching three figures and putting on 246 for the second wicket, only to collapse again, so it was not an innings I will remember with a great deal of joy. I played well, as did Shaun, who was terrific in his first match of the series, but it is hard to take any pleasure in individual success when the team is losing, especially when you are captain.
Criticism, from the media and the public back home, arrived in the wake of our defeats and unfortunately I have to admit that most of it was warranted. There was no real need for me to read most of the stuff written about us because it was blatantly obvious we were poor and none of us, least of all me, needed reminding. All the same, I do follow what’s written and said about the team and myself, and it wasn’t nice to cop it in the way we did. But it comes with the territory and if we are happy to accept the praise and the accolades when things are going well then, equally, we have to front up and accept when the opposite is true.
That criticism of me intensified when I left the tour early, following a heavy defeat in the second ODI in Colombo, with greats of the game including Jayawardene, Michael Clarke and Michael Slater all weighing in against my return home, and the fall-out from that decision and my departure taught me a valuable lesson: no matter how much the team management or anyone else wants me to take a break of that sort in the future, I won’t do it again.
The issue of me returning home to rest had actually been raised by team management ahead of the opening Test, just after we arrived in Sri Lanka. The thinking was that with a busy summer ahead, starting with the one-day matches in South Africa, followed by the home Tests and ODIs, a Chappell-Hadlee ODI series in New Zealand and a tour of India, time away from the game and the pressures of captaincy would do me some good. And the plan for me to leave after the first couple of one-day games in Colombo made sense as, after that, the squad would be going up-country and so getting back to Colombo to fly out would have been taxing. The arguments certainly had some sense behind them, although part of the thinking was based on us doing rather better than we did in the Test series, allowing me to slip away with what we all hoped was a Test series win in my kitbag.
You could argue that because we’d done so poorly in the Test series, bringing with it extra pressure on me as captain, a break was actually more necessary than it would have been had everything gone well, but the fact we didn’t announce it beforehand—with the benefit of hindsight, we should have done—left me open to accusations of being a captain leaving a sinking ship, especially as my departure was confirmed after a thumping loss by 82 runs.
It meant I left Colombo with a heavy heart and strong feelings of guilt, feelings that weren’t really altered by the way we bounced back under David Warner to secure a convincing 4–1 win in the one-day matches before two more wins in the T20I rounded off the tour.
I arrived home to plenty of negative publicity, not only surrounding our displays on the tour, but also because I had left the trip early, and it wasn’t great to read, hear and see all that negativity. It got under my skin and I didn’t like it, but the decision had been taken and I just had to live with it.
I had taken a bit of persuading to buy into the idea and there was no doubt I was worn down and tired by what had gone on in the Test series. But although I did get some downtime back in Sydney, I also watched every ball of the remaining matches, wishing I was out there playing.
The bigger picture was, of course, that it gave David the chance to lead the side and gain experience of the role so that if I were to suffer an injury, or was deemed to be past my shelf-life as a captain in the future, it meant the selectors and the Directors of Cricket Australia, who approve any decision on who captains the side, had the option of turning to a player who had done the job already. That was another positive that came from something that didn’t feel very positive to me at the time.
At least the successes in the limited-overs matches meant the tour ended on a winning note, although that feel-good factor didn’t last very long thanks to the thumping we copped in South Africa.
It was a tough tour as we let ourselves down with the bat, and our attack, without not only the rested Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood, but also the injured quartet of Nathan Coulter-Nile, James Pattinson, Patrick Cummins and all-rounder James Faulkner, simply didn’t have the firepower to trouble the home side’s impressive batting line-up on very good, flat pitches.
You could argue that the batsmen failed—David Warner being the exception—because we were always aware that with our inexperienced bowling line-up we needed to go hard to build a large score to defend, or we were chasing a big total having bowled first. But that would be unfair. If you are a batsman then all you need to do is to concentrate on doing your job without worrying about other factors and that is something we failed to do all too often on the trip. We were pretty much at full-strength in the batting department on the trip—Shaun Marsh pulled out because of a broken finger he suffered in Sri Lanka, to be replaced by Usman Khawaja—and the surfaces were for the most part excellent, so we had no excuse for the failure to post substantial scores on a regular basis.
David really gave us a lesson in what was needed, taking advantage of the batsman-friendly conditions to be the leading run-scorer on either side with 386 runs, including two hundreds. For my part, although I scored 108 in Durban, I managed only 43 runs in the other four matches and that was not good enough. I was fresh after my break but I just did not stand up.
We missed Mitchell and Josh massively. The seam bowlers on the trip—Chris Tremain, Daniel Worrall, Joe Mennie and Scott Boland—did not have Mitchell’s extra pace or Josh’s control and South Africa’s batsmen revelled in the situation. I remember one occasion among many when Faf du Plessis hit one of our seamers over mid-off for four when I was feeling pretty helpless as a captain. I wanted to have mid-off back to protect against that shot but that would have meant bringing fine leg up to ensure I had the required number of men inside the fielding circle. And if I’d done that, then I knew the South African batsmen would start lap-sweeping safe in the knowledge the ball would be full in length and they could get down and play that shot without the risk of getting a 150 kilometre-per-hour ball in the helmet grille. Having proper pace in any form of the game is vital, but in limited-overs action it is essential because it stops batsmen taking liberties.
In an ideal world, of course, you pick your best players in every match and I know the public sometimes feel shortchanged. After all, they are encouraged to buy their tickets early for matches and expect to see the very best players in action, only to find out just beforehand that certain players won’t be featuring after all. But the reality is that in the modern era of almost constant cricket, with the demands on players in terms of athleticism and the changes between the three formats, avoiding rotation simply isn’t possible, especially when it comes to the faster bowlers. They put so much strain on their bodies that injury is an occupational hazard—as one look at that list of players missing from the trip tells you—and so you have to balance the desire to play them with the need for them to rest. And you also need to bear in mind that when players like that have a break, they don’t simply go and sit on a couch or stay in bed. They actually have weights and fitness programs that allow them to build up the muscles that deteriorate when they do nothing but bowl without the opportunity to work on their strength as well.
It can be hard if you get caught in the moment and there were times during that trip to South Africa where I thought about how good it would be to have Mitchell and Josh in harness, especially given how effective they had been against the same opposition in the Caribbean only a couple of months earlier, but ultimately the sense in the strategy was obvious from how both men made it through the six home Tests against South Africa and Pakistan that followed. I hate to think what we would have done if either of them had broken down at any point in those series given we were already without the other pace bowlers I’ve already mentioned.
I felt for Joe, Chris, Daniel and Scott as it meant they were thrown in at the deep end and for them it was just about as tough as it can get in one-day cricket. The wickets, for the most part, were flat, the South African batting was of a high quality and the crowds were partisan. When you add to that mix our failings as a batting side then you have a recipe for a losing tour. My hope at the end of the trip was that the punishment they suffered would act as a spur to improve rather than make them fearful of making the step up again in the future.
All the same, despite my disappointment at the way things had gone both personally and for the team, I was still feeling positive that our fortunes would turn around once we got back home in conditions we knew well. I wasn’t to know at the time that things would get worse before they got better.