WATCHED Ricky Ponting's last ever one-day international live last night.
Of course, we didn't know it was going to be his last. It's not often the captain - albeit a stand-in one - gets dropped straight after leading his side to a crushing victory against the world champions.
The determination was there. When Ponting came out to bat he wasn't so much facing India as facing up to his own mortality; watching the ball onto the bat as if he knew that one false stroke would be the end of him. It wasn't even the false stroke that got him either: on another day with slightly less riding on it the ball would undoubtedly have sailed over the fielder's head for six, another contemptuous shot from a man with all the skills.
PONTING'S demise as an ODI player doesn't just signal more change for the Australia cricket team: for many of us it's the passing of an era. I can still remember Ponting's Test debut at the WACA in December 1995. The match itself started two days after my 15th birthday, but I wasn't excited by the 20-year-old debutant: like most parochial Queenslanders I was more excited at seeing Stuart Law finally get his first baggy green. Both debutants made their mark with a 121-run stand that only ended courtesy of a decision that Wisden described as having "cruelly denied a hundred". Law made 54* - and was promptly dropped for the next Test in Melbourne. This left those of us north of the border particularly unimpressed that this youngster could just mosey on in and take his spot, notwithstanding the youngster passing judgement himself.
Fast forward a few years and Ponting drifted in and out of the Australian team the way I drifted through two different university courses. That Ponting had talent was undeniable; that he was having troubles channeling that talent (and dealing with turbanned off-spinners) in no doubt either. Still the talent was there, and with far-sighted selectors sticking with him Ponting's batting took off so successfully that by the time I'd started working a proper adult job, he'd led Australia to a remarkable 2003 Cricket World Cup win without the banned Shane Warne.
It's Ponting's dealings with adversity that best sums up the man though. Who of us would admit publicly to having an alcohol problem in their early 20s when getting ragingly drunk is pretty much the Australian way at that age; who of us would then be able to beat that problem? Even in the Ashes losses of 2005, 2009 and 2010/11 Ponting was quick to acknowledge that England had simply played better: sound advice for young men trying to find someone, something - anything - to blame other than themselves.
So now Ponting's ODI career is over; his Test career can't be too far behind. For those of us of a certain age watching friends get married, have children and acquire mortgages, it's as though that free-spirited chapter of our lives has been closed off as well. And as much as we might have willed that ball to pop out of Irfan Pathan's hands had we known, I guess we always knew this day would come.
Monday, 20 February 2012
Saturday, 7 January 2012
Ed, meet Ed.
THIS sound familiar to anyone? Regular first-class cricketer plays for over seven years, not excelling but not sinking into the abyss as many have before. Mid-table mediocrity so to speak.
Said cricketer then wakes up one morning and discovers the cricket fairies (I'd like to imagine Merv Hughes in a Tinkerbell outfit tip-toeing around the house so not to wake anyone up) have turned him into a batting champion. Centuries flow from his bat like beer from the tap, eventually leading to a long-awaited Test call-up.
Once there our hero doesn't disgrace himself either, battling a difficult pitch and strong bowling attack to make a useful 60-odd before being caught behind; his second innings was less sucessful with an lbw decision against him early on.
Should probably mention at this point that our hero is already a published author.
If you're an Australian cricket fan, you probably know the answer. And if you said his first name is Ed, we'd be in agreement.
But our hero for this particular story isn't new Australian opener Ed Cowan - instead, it's former England player Ed Smith.
Mind you though, most of the above could be for Messers Cowan or Smith - and there's more to it than that. Both made their first-class debuts at a young age for world-famous British universities (Cowan at 20 for Oxford, Smith at 18 for Cambridge); both struggled about 4 years into their first-class careers; and both have a reputation for being intellectual in a career (professional sport) that doesn't always look that kindly on those outside the norm.
Probably the major difference between the two Eds is the timing of their season diaries. Cowan's In The Firing Line is about his 2010/2011 season, where his average average of 34 is partially balanced out by a century in the Sheffield Shield final that helps Tasmania to only their second-ever win. Smith's On And Off The Field narrates his amazing 2003 season, where he hit six centuries in six matches to metaphorically blast the door to English selection down with a cannon, bazooka, laser and anything else that came to hand. Both wrote their diaries with very different home lives as well: Cowan is happily married to media personality Virginia Lette and settled in Hobart, while Smith both broke up from his girlfriend and moved house just before the start of the 2003 season. Smith was already a published author by this point, his Playing Hard Ball: County Cricket and Big League Baseball comparing English professional cricket with Major League Baseball.
What is uncanny about the two though is the similarity in writing styles. Both Eds reveal plenty about themselves in their diaries, how they treated triumph and disaster; and even the little tweeks they made to go from Ed Plodder to Ed Dasher. (No, I'm not going to tell you what they were - you have to read the books for that).
So what happens next? For Ed Smith, that 64 on debut remained his highest score after his remaining four innings gave him just 23 runs and had him fade out of England contention. He continued playing for Kent for one more season before moving to Middlesex, retiring in 2008 before becoming a major writer for The Times newspaper.
For Ed Cowan, that chapter is yet to be written. One hopes that when it is, it's written in a way that will continue to do credit to Eds the cricketing world over.
Said cricketer then wakes up one morning and discovers the cricket fairies (I'd like to imagine Merv Hughes in a Tinkerbell outfit tip-toeing around the house so not to wake anyone up) have turned him into a batting champion. Centuries flow from his bat like beer from the tap, eventually leading to a long-awaited Test call-up.
Once there our hero doesn't disgrace himself either, battling a difficult pitch and strong bowling attack to make a useful 60-odd before being caught behind; his second innings was less sucessful with an lbw decision against him early on.
Should probably mention at this point that our hero is already a published author.
If you're an Australian cricket fan, you probably know the answer. And if you said his first name is Ed, we'd be in agreement.
But our hero for this particular story isn't new Australian opener Ed Cowan - instead, it's former England player Ed Smith.
Mind you though, most of the above could be for Messers Cowan or Smith - and there's more to it than that. Both made their first-class debuts at a young age for world-famous British universities (Cowan at 20 for Oxford, Smith at 18 for Cambridge); both struggled about 4 years into their first-class careers; and both have a reputation for being intellectual in a career (professional sport) that doesn't always look that kindly on those outside the norm.
Probably the major difference between the two Eds is the timing of their season diaries. Cowan's In The Firing Line is about his 2010/2011 season, where his average average of 34 is partially balanced out by a century in the Sheffield Shield final that helps Tasmania to only their second-ever win. Smith's On And Off The Field narrates his amazing 2003 season, where he hit six centuries in six matches to metaphorically blast the door to English selection down with a cannon, bazooka, laser and anything else that came to hand. Both wrote their diaries with very different home lives as well: Cowan is happily married to media personality Virginia Lette and settled in Hobart, while Smith both broke up from his girlfriend and moved house just before the start of the 2003 season. Smith was already a published author by this point, his Playing Hard Ball: County Cricket and Big League Baseball comparing English professional cricket with Major League Baseball.
What is uncanny about the two though is the similarity in writing styles. Both Eds reveal plenty about themselves in their diaries, how they treated triumph and disaster; and even the little tweeks they made to go from Ed Plodder to Ed Dasher. (No, I'm not going to tell you what they were - you have to read the books for that).
So what happens next? For Ed Smith, that 64 on debut remained his highest score after his remaining four innings gave him just 23 runs and had him fade out of England contention. He continued playing for Kent for one more season before moving to Middlesex, retiring in 2008 before becoming a major writer for The Times newspaper.
For Ed Cowan, that chapter is yet to be written. One hopes that when it is, it's written in a way that will continue to do credit to Eds the cricketing world over.
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