Time for a word in Stewart's earpiece (29 May 1999)

29 May 1999

Time for a word in Stewart's earpiece

Ted Dexter

I wish I could have used the South African walkie-talkie system on two occasions during England's first two weeks of the World Cup. Both times it would have been to speak to Alec Stewart - once to congratulate and once to beg for a change of heart.

At Lord's against Sri Lanka, I looked up to see Alan Mullally bowling to three slip-fielders well into the second hour of the match. He was bowling to the most dangerous of their long batting list, Sanath Jayasuriya, who was 29 not out and starting to attack. This was high-risk strategy which England captains seldom pursue.

I had already marked it down as a gutsy piece of captaincy when the prolific left-hander was neatly taken at second slip within the over and I would love to have verbally patted the captain on the back for a brave bit of cricket on the first morning of the competition.

It was at the Oval against South Africa that I wanted to shout a warning and felt thoroughly frustrated at being so helpless. Perhaps there is a role for earpieces and transmitters after all.

The South Africans had just lost a clutch of wickets, after a solid start, with the overs about halfway through. There was that wonderful late moving ball from Mullally which plucked out the off-stump of Jacques Kallis and the agonising refusal of an lbw appeal when an identikit ball hammered into the pads of Hansie Cronje. Nevertheless, England tails were up, with a chance of an upset.

Dermot Reeve, a successful one-day captain, echoed my sentiments on television that this was the moment to press home the attack. Bring back Darren Gough? Yes was the clear reply, but Stewart decided to pick the weakest of his bowlers, Andrew Flintoff, rather than the strongest.

Flintoff did reasonably well, as he should have done bowling to new batsmen who were in no position to take risks. He even took a wicket in his spell, but the chance to make the opposition feel thoroughly threatened was passed up in favour of settling for what seemed a safety-first option.

The psychology interests me because it was the way we might have played it against a lesser side who we thought we could beat anyway, whereas a realistic assessment of our chances against South Africa meant that we had to take every possible opportunity and that we failed to do.

As for direct communication between the dressing-room and the players on the field, the ICC did the right thing to suspend the practice, subject to closer consideration. I can see some useful instructional benefits while fearing the nightmare of a schoolboy captain under continuous instruction from an over-zealous coach.

I have been largely proved wrong so far in my forecast of the role of the best spinners, mainly because the white ball has proved to be such a huge benefit to the faster bowlers in English conditions. It is not often that odds-layers get things totally wrong but the five-fold increase in the projected number of wides by Sporting Index says much about how much the ball has swung.

Having said that, one of the most fascinating contests so far was Saqlain Mushtaq bowling the crucial final overs against Steve Waugh in the wonderful match at Leeds when Australia just failed after a stirring run chase. Waugh, renowned for his flat bat pulls to leg, simply could not make clean contact, bar the once, as Saqlain teased him with loop and bounce, more top spin than anything, and even one or two which went from leg to off.

There has been rather more confrontation between bowlers and batsmen than I expected. The fierce exchanges between Pakistan's new fast bowler, Shoaib Akhtar, and Steve Waugh seemed to start when the batsman had to run round the bowler when taking a single. This is a fairly new development and it forces batsmen to cross the pitch. It is a hard one for umpires to deal with as there is little to choose between deliberate obstruction and simply following through into an obstructive position.

More surprising were the tiffs between some of the New Zealand bowlers and West Indian opener Ridley Jacobs. I always wonder why the batsman stays facing the bowler and gets sucked into these staring matches. Why not simply turn away and concentrate on the next ball - and why not wear ear-plugs?

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)