From: kre@cs.mu.OZ.AU (Robert Elz)
Subject: 2nd test (WI v Aus) comments
Organization: Computer Science, University of Melbourne, Australia
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 13:47:58 GMT

There doesn't appear to have been anything more than occasional brief
scorecards of the 2nd test in r.s.c so here are a few comments...

I was at the game all 4 2/3 days, which managed to be interrupted by
rain for just one 12 minute period (late second day) which was made up
by simply completing the required number of overs and running a bit
overtime - that itself has to be something of an oddidy for a MCG test
which usually lose at least an hour or two - and especially this year
when each of the last 5 months or something have had above average
rain (December twice the average).  That day (2nd day) it rained hard
about half an hour (or so) after play stopped...

Border won the toss and batted first, Taylor went early, then Boon
and Steve Waugh put on a reasonable partnership before Waugh, and then
soon after Boon, and Martyn went quickly, leaving Aust 4 down for 138
(or about that).  Border joined Mark Waugh, and the pair put on 204,
each reaching 100's.  Waugh played a pretty streaky and lucky innings,
he gave a simple chance to Lara at first slip, which Williams ruined
by attempting to make a simple first slip catch (it was aimed right
at Lara's throat - literally) into a brilliant wicket keeping catch,
and botched it.  That was early in his innings - other balls flew
just over fielders, etc.  Border on the other hand played a great
innings, and never really looked like getting out, it took a somewhat
remarkable ball that followed him, and hit his glove actually behind
his body to get him out.

This was Border's 25th century, his 110 took him to 9975 runs, pity
he didn't get the extra 25.  It was also his first centure in Aust
for 5 years or something (the only between was the one in SL earlier in
the year) and his first against WI in 9 years or something - a long time
ago anyway.  The 204 was just a few (16 or so) below some record partnership
or other against the WI apparently.

The tail added a few to give a pretty reasonable score.   For the WI
bowling was mostly pretty good - Adams got carted about in the few overs
he bowled, all the others were about as everyone has come to expect,
ecept possibly that Ambrose was very economical in his first spell,
too econimical, and mostly because he wasn't putting the ball anywhere
near the batsmen - I think one wide was the only run against him in his
first 4 overs or so - but he remedied that in his second, and later
spells.  Bishop looked pretty fast at times, Walsh was pretty tight as
was Hooper, and Simmons bowled quite reasonably - in fact, it was he
who got rid of Waugh to finally end the big partnership.

The WI innings started about 30 minutes after tea on the second day, and
in the next 90 minutes Hughes removed Haynes, Simmons, and Richardson
to have the WI in a pretty poor position - his spell was pretty lethal.
At the other end McDermott didn't look nearly as dangerous.  Next day
things reversed, and McDermott bowled really well, whereas Hughes seemed
to lose a little.   Lara and Arthurton set about rescuing the WI, just as
they had in Brisbane, and did a fairly good job of it but not quite
enough, then Adams continued with the tail for a good rearguard innings.
McDermott ended with 4, Hughes "just" the 3 from the first day, and
Whitney Steve Waugh amd Warne one each.

Aust started their second innings again soon after tea, third day, with
a lead of 162, and things started looking bad for WI when Boon was
bowled early by Simmons - bad for WI because that ball kept very very
low, making 1 lead of 160 much harder to catch than it might seem.
Warne came in as night watchman, and survived the night, but not long
the next morning, which is about what a night watchman is expected to
do.

Fourth day and Aus started loosing wickets early, Steve Waugh made
just one, Mark only 15 or so, Taylor hung around quite a long time,
and then Martyn scored a good unbeaten 67 with some assistance from
the tail to help Aust to 196, which had looked way beyond what they
could hope for when they were about 7 down.   I think just about
everyone had hoped that Border would get the 10000 in his innings,
but it wasn't to be, he got another that kept pretty low and went
between bat and pad.  He still has about 150 to go to pass Gavaskar's
record.

Still, 369 to win looked beyond any team on this pitch, which was
certainly keeping low sometimes, and bouncing quite a lot others.
What's more, the outfield is still quite slow, making run scoring
difficult, shots that would often be four tend to give only three,
or sometimes two, though with the large outfield, quite a few fours
have been run.   It looked even more difficult when Haynes went in
the short period at the end of the fourth day.

However, everything seemed different in the first session of the final
day when Simmons and Richardson simply ignored the difficulties and
set out going after the runs to win - I calculated that they'd need
to score about 110 in the session (taking their score to about 140)
to have a hope, and lose no wickets, or no more than one, so they'd
still have enough batting to continue at the rate - which seemed out
of the question given that most other sessions had yielded only about
50 runs or so (the exception being the one early 3rd day, when Lara and
Arthurton had sped things up for a while, but still only 80 or thereabouts
and a few very short spurts for Aus).

Well, WI went in to lunch at 2/144 losing just Richardson, bowled by
Warne just before the interval - another that kept quite low.   The
session was remarkable with both batsmen, Richardson and Simmons carting
the bowling all over the place, with apparently no regard paid to the condition
of the pitch at all - this session could have been an entirely different
game.  Simmons flicked Hughes over backward square leg for one very big
six, and drove Whitney over extra cover (maybe mid off) for another.
I'm pretty sure Richardson hit one as well - Hughes had one for Aust
in the first innings - sixes in tests tend to be rare at the MCG, its a
big ground, and what there are tend to be quite straight, to the shorter
boundaries, none of these was straight.

After lunch everything changed again, as wickets started falling
fairly regularly, with only Simmons managing to show any real confidence.
Or probably "confidence" is the wrong expression, "justified confidence"
might be better, Arthurton showed plenty of confidence when he danced
down the wicket to Warne, missed, and was stumped, not really intelligent
batting with the match at stake.  Similarly Hooper attempted to get off
the mark with a wild swing at Warne, and managed to sky it to mid wicket
where Whitney took a good running catch.   Whitney claimed Lara again,
again caught a short leg by Boon, another great catch (Boon took 3 like
this in the innings, Lara twice in just the same way I think) straight
from the bat this one hit quite well and very hard (as were all three
really).  Williams didn't manage to avoid the pair but did at least manage
to see a few balls in the second innings.  Bishop may be the one batsman
truly beaten by a great ball from Warne - pitched about on leg, and spun
away a long way to just take the edge and give Taylor an easy slips
catch.  Simmons completed a fine century, a great innings, his first test
hundred, in fact, his first time past fifty, before finally falling.
in what would have been the final over before tea - it just managed to
get started before 15;40 - Warne took the last two wickets in successive
balls, Walsh last, with another wild swing that went straight up, and
then down into Hughes' hands, giving Warne 7/52 - the first 5 wicket haul
by a leg spinner since O'Reilly in '36 apparently (I wasn't around then...)

Aust won by 139 runs or some number like that, with 2 hours to spare
(actually 34 overs or something like that).

Aust have named the same twelve for the third test in Sydney, it will
be intesting to see who is 12th man, whether both spinners are included,
and if so, who goes, one of the pacemen (Whitney? probably unlikely) or
perhaps Steve Waugh who didn't get a lot of runs (38 & 1) though his 38
in the first innings was third top score (in that innings).  The WI
team is not yet announced, but speculation is that Murray is very likely
to replace Williams (who didn't have a good match at all, he gave away
more byes than runs he scored, and apart from dropping Waugh early, and
perhaps Border as well (didn't see a replay of that one, and it may have
just bounced short - I was behind it) he also missed what should have been
an easy stumping.   Also its possible that Hooper may be replaced by
a specialist bowler, not that he bowled badly, byt Benjamin, Cummins, or
even Patterson should be expected to do better, and any of them may easily
make more runs.   Fielding is what WI would lose, and a specialist spin
bowler (Adams didn't really look quite a test level bowler in his few overs,
though his bnatting was just fine) which they may not want to do without
in Sydney, so Hooper may get one more chance.  I'd speculate that the
rest of the team will be unchanged, none of them really played badly.

I'll also say that Terry Prue is one of the two umpires for the Sydney
test, I heard who the other was, but I've forgotten (not really that
important).  Personally I think Prue shouldn't be umpiring - I think he's
been intimidated by the TV replays, and is concentrating on watching the
bat when he should be watching the stumps being broken, so that he can
get the really close run outs (and stumpings) "right" - this showed in
a couple of his run out decisions in both the first test and one day games,
which were acclaimed as "brilliant" but which I thought were all terrible,
they were way too close to give out, then the Lara stumping convinced
me that Prue's theory is to watch the bat, see its out of the crease
when he hears the wicket broken, and raise his finger - I should also say
that in the Lara stumping, I'm not even sure anyone appealed (Healy,
Taylor, and Matthews certainly didn't).   I think I recall waying before
that umpires should be watching the stumps cleanly broken, and only once
they see that should they even think about whether the batsman is home
or not - certainly close decisions will tend to go in the batsman's
favour (even if the replay does show the batsman out), but that's just fine.

Another thing - if replays are going to be used by umpires then the rules are
going to have to be tightened a lot - eg: exactly when is the "wicket put
down" - at normal (human) speeds it doesn't much matter, but a super slow
motion it can matter a lot.  Is it when the ball (or hand, or glove or
whatever) first touches the stumps, when the bail starts to move off one
stump, when its clear of one stump, when its clear of both stumps, ...
This all happens in a tiny fraction of a second, but so does the bat
crossing the crease when a batsman is running fast.

Anyway, enough of that, the second test was a good one, three centuries,
one five wicket haul and a couple of fours, several sixes, some good
determined batting, and plenty of good bowling on both sites.  And what's
more, not one really controversial umpiring decision (and certainly none
I could see were wrong) - a few appeals turned down, the Australians
thought they had a few bat pad catches, none were given.

With any luck, the third test will be just as good, certainly Sydney has
produced results in I think just about all of the recent tests.

kre