Aussies triumph in series opener

No one can doubt the Australian’s ability to entertain in 2011. Their Test performances have been as exhilarating as they have been inconsistent with drawn series’ against South Africa and New Zealand producing some of the most enthralling Test cricket for years.

The 122 run victory over India in Melbourne will come as welcome relief from this X Factor style entertainment. The face behind the cushion moments of being skittled for 47 in South Africa and losing to New Zealand at home have been replaced by a familiar Australian competitive streak.

James Pattinson led an impressive seam attack which obliterated the dangerous Indian batting line up in the fourth innings, leaving the tourists 122 runs short of their 290 target.

Throughout the series opener, the Australian seamers served up a moving ball, one which the master batsmen of India were unable to cope with. Pattinson was in good company with club mate Peter Siddle and the recalled Ben Hilfenhaus all impressing and sending the Indians into a relapse of their tour of England.

Cheered on by his home crowd, Pattinson looked assured in what was only his third Test. He finished with match figures of 6/108, which underlines his ample ability and promise. It appears that Clarke has been able (in this Test at least) to harness the raw pace and movement of his younger bowlers and get them to bowl effectively to a plan: in this case full and straight.

The emergence of Pattinson has been of great comfort to a nation trying to replace the legends of yester year. Alongside the 18 year old Patrick Cummins, Pattinson tops the long list of emerging international bowlers in 2011, returning 5fors as well as signalling a return to the chirpy nature of the Australian frontline.

It is still clear that this Australian side isn’t a great one. But what is clear is the potential they hold and with such a prestigious recent history to aspire to, a comfortable win over India may just give them the confidence to kick on in this series and into 2012.

Solid batting displays from Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey point to the fact that Australia are still reliant on facets of this fading golden generation. Without their contributions, it may well have been a different story. Although debutant Ed Cowan scratched around for 68 in the first innings, his dismissal in the second innings reeked of inexperience at this level. Moreover, Twenty20 specialist David Warner looks like he needs more time to adjust to the challenge of batting time that a Test match demands.

Despite these misgivings this victory at the MCG is a huge improvement on the performance in last year’s Boxing Day Test. The Santa’s were back in place of the empty seats which decorated this venue last year against England, a sign indicative of public support for this bullish, busy frontline attack.

Australia will take a lot from this performance, not least a 1-0 lead in what promises to be a keenly contested series. They finish 2011 a million miles from where they started, but will need to demonstrate more of the same confidence and will to win in Sydney if this upturn in form is to continue.

It is not like Australia haven’t played well this year in places. Patrick Cummins’ inspired performance in Johannesburg led them to victory over what the second best Test nation in the world. However, this was surrounded by much less noteworthy team performances and remains the exception in 2011, rather than the rule.

As the circus moves onto Sydney, Clarke will know that he needs a repeat showing to convince a sceptical Australian public that this performance signals the new dawn, not another false one.

Alistair Cook

Too tall to ever be considered elegant, Alistair Cook is a left-handed opening batsman that defies convention. Many who have gone before and just as many today have given the left-handed opener an artistic persona, one defined by elegance, grace and ultimately in most cases, fragility. Cook, for better or worse, is none of the above. For every boundary that David Gower stroked through the covers, or for every time Phil Hughes goes about warming second slips hands, Cook has grabbed a leg-side single off his pads: tenfold.

Safe to say then that Cook has his own style. A style which is characterised a lot more by strength of mind than flicks of the wrist. One which is far removed from any stereotypical notion of the left-handed batsman that the mind conjures. However astonishing it may seem, Cook still appears to collect more than his fair share of criticism for this. I have heard pundits describe him as gangly, slow and even boring. Despite this the facts remain: Cook is the second youngest batsman ever to reach 5,000 test runs and looks set to break yet more records as he is still only 27.

766 of his 5,000 odd runs came in the 2010-11 Ashes series at an average of 95.75. We will all do well to remember that Cook was by no means first on the team sheet for this series. Perhaps it was only the lack of a suitable replacement that guaranteed his inclusion after relative failures during the summer of 2010. But if there was ever an example of a boy becoming a man, this was it. Against an albeit dubious Australian attack, Cook imposed his own brand of opening, batting literally for days on end in some cases and notching up plenty of his self styled ‘daddy hundreds’. With his wicket growing in significance, Cook only got better, refusing to quench his thirst for runs. His return in this series was no more than he deserved. Mechanically beautiful.

The expression ‘machine’ seems to be banded around the sporting world quite liberally these days. Often, I find myself sniggering at such a metaphor, Imagining Wayne Rooney as a Dyson DC04 or Ding Jun Hui as some sort of virtual pet. But in the case of Cook, I can think of none better. Whether he is building a meaningful opening partnership or wickets are falling around him, Cook continues to mechanically construct his innings like a finely tuned classic car engine.

Maybe this solidity goes some way to explaining much of the criticism levelled at him. Some may see this approach as one dimensional and inflexible. Indeed, some may view him as an engine without a gearbox, chugging along and incapable of stepping up his run rate when needed. To me however, this is fanciful. Cook is surrounded by the likes of Bell, Pietersen, Morgan and Prior who can all be relied upon to return a strike rate knocking on 150.00 and Cook bats with this in mind. To keep with the metaphor – if it aint broke, don’t fix it.

In the week that Virender Sehwag has just walloped 220 in 149 balls in an O.D.I it may not be in vogue to suggest that Cook is just as valuable in this arena as he is in his sanctuary of a test match. He has proven he can return a strike rate of 100 in this format, both home and away and avoided much of the flack England rightly took for their grounding whitewash in India earlier this Autumn. His captaincy of the O.D.I. side is bringing out the competitor in him and this can only be good with sterner tests awaiting both Cook and England.

We wait with anticipation for the Test Series against Pakistan from the U.A.E. Cook must be in good company salivating over flat tracks which offer little for the seamers over there. But I can’t help my attention drifting toward the South Africa 2012. It will be a test which is sterner than most but I am confident Cook will continue to enthral.