Adelaide, November 30th 2006
Thought I did okay at Brisbane, stuck a tidy one-fer in my back bin and put my hand up with the bat, but that hasn’t stopped a lot of people talking about Monty. Don’t get me wrong, Monty is a good lad and a fine bowler, but is he what we in the Fletcher era refer to as “a five-tool player”? In layman’s terms, that means can he do five different things. Can he bat? Can he bowl? Can he field? Is he good value in the 19th hole? Is he a hundred and ten percenter?
The jury’s out on Monty, he’s probably a three-to-four tooler: over five Tests, is that enough? He’s arguably a hundred and ten percenter, but even when you multiply his other three, three-and-a-half tools by 110, are you getting the bang for your buck that an Ashley Giles gives you? That’s not for Ash to answer.
Adelaide, Second Test, day three, December 3rd
Obviously, some people would say that dropping Ricky Ponting when he was on 30-odd was a setback. But would, say – picking an example at random – would, say, Monty Panesar have caught that? Tricky one. I’m going to say no. In fact, maybe it’s turned out a lot worse: Monty’s dropped it, it’s bounced off his foot, rebounded and hit him in the face. He’s in agony, Harmy’s run over to check he’s okay, he’s tripped over Monty and done his leg in; it’s a Simon Jones situation all over again. Harmy can’t handle travelling to Edinburgh twice a week for the rehab on his knee, he starts drinking, he loses the plot and next thing you know he’s rattling around the place in a wheelchair, shouting and ranting, like a Geordie version of Tom Cruise in Born on the Fourth of July. To be fair, I’d argue we got off lightly.
Adelaide, Second Test, day five, December 5th
Shane Warne this, Shane Warne that, Shane Warne spun us to victory, blah, blah, blah. Don’t get me wrong, Shane is a special talent, although his methods are definitely a bit obvious for your spin bowling purist. Turning it this way, turning it the other, then the flipper and the zooter. It’s effective, in a showy sort of way.
But we could all be hogging the limelight with our variety if we wanted, couldn’t we? The Spinners’ Union is getting a bit tired of it, to be fair. I’m chairman next season, since Ian Salisbury stood down to spend more time with his tomato plants, and I’m tabling a motion about all these so-called “mystery spinners” with their so-called “mystery balls”. ooh, look at me, I took a wicket with my mystery ball. Fairground showmen, I call them. The whole point of having a mystery ball is that you don’t bowl it: it’s a deterrent. Like, what would be the sense in Britain having a nuclear deterrent if we went and bombed Russia or whoever back to the Stone Age? I reckon it’s a cheap trick, and we, as an international spin bowling community, should be better than that.