A total of 10 have been missed in these first two Tests and, if they had been caught, it would have meant a big turnaround.
Three went down on the first day at the Gabba. The first, from Michael Slater to a diving Nasser Hussain at second slip, was not expensive. Australia had reached 178 for 5 when Ian Healy joined Steve Waugh and both should have been out before the close of play that evening.Healy, when he had made 36 on his way to 134, heaved at Darren Gough and was dropped at third man by Angus Fraser and, just before the close, Waugh, who had made 68 and finished with 112, played back to Gough and Hussain, going again to his right at second slip, dropped the catch. If those two had been held, Australia would have been about 230 for 7, or even less, that night. With the new ball only eight overs old, the last three wickets would surely not have been too much of a problem the next morning.England’s first-innings total of 375 would have given them a useful lead and the mood would have been entirely different when Australia began their hectic second innings.
The importance of those two dropped catches becomes ineradicably clear.We moved on to Perth. England’s poor and dispirited batting on the first day has been universally blamed for losing the match, but what if all the catches had stuck? In Australia’s first innings, no less than six were put down.Slater, who made 34, was dropped by Ben Hollioake, on as substitute, in the gully when he was 15. He had scored 10 more when he drove at Alex Tudor and Graeme Hick, at second slip, palmed the ball over the bar. When Mark Taylor, who made 61, had reached 38, he drove at Gough and Hick dropped a straightforward one at second slip at knee height.On the second morning, Steve Waugh, who was 11 at the time, on the way to 33, cut Alan Mullally only just over Mark Butcher’s head at third slip. Later, when he was 20, he drove Gough to Mullally at wide mid off and he missed another straightforward one. At the end, Ricky Ponting, who was nine at the time, hooked Tudor into and out of Gough’s hands at fine leg, although he only made three more.Of course, the effect of these drops cannot be calculated just by adding up the runs scored by each batsman after they had been missed.
If the catches had been held there would have been a knock-on effect as the pattern of the whole innings would have been different.Australia would almost certainly still have had a first innings lead but a much smaller one and a target of 150 or so in the fourth innings could have been a nasty proposition for them. As it was, they lost their first three batsmen for 36, chasing only 64, and, even then, Mullally had dropped an easy return catch from Slater.Unremitting hard work in practice is surely the only cure, although it makes one wonder if all the coaches adopt the right routine in practice. To cure faults are what coaches are for and, if this epidemic continues, one can only ask if they are doing their job properly.It cannot just be down to the greater fallibility of Anglo-Saxons because most, if not all, the Australians are shoots off the same original root. I suspect it has quite a lot to do with mental toughness, determination and the will to success – in fact, with the whole approach to the job – and it is the Australians who point the way here.. West Indies 261 and 170 South Africa 268 and 164-6 S Africa win by four wkts
IT TOOK them almost four and a half tense hours and 62.4 overs, but South Africa’s batsmen diligently accumulated the modest 164 runs they needed to beat the West Indies by four wickets in the first Test at the Wanderers five minutes before tea yesterday.
The result erased the memory of their loss in their only previous Test in Barbados in March, 1992, when their last eight wickets tumbled for 28 on the final day, and it earned them an early advantage in the series, the first between the teams in South Africa.Setting out on their mission from the start of a hot, sunny day, South Africa needed nerves of steel and perfect judgement to overcome the threat of Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh on a difficult last day pitch.
Their potential problems materialised within the first 40 minutes with the wickets of Gary Kirsten, caught by the keeper off Ambrose, and Adam Bacher, taken off an inside edge off Walsh.Ambrose and Walsh had been the destroyers in Barbados and, nearly seven years on and with no signs of declining effectiveness, they applied such early pressure that Walsh conceded a mere eight runs from his opening spell of six overs, Ambrose 14 from his 10.Once they were rested, Jacques Kallis, technically correct and temperamentally cool, held the effort together for three hours and 50 minutes to be unbeaten on 57 when victory was achieved, his second half-century of a low-scoring match.Kallis shared successive match-winning partnerships of 44 with Daryll Cullinan and 66 with his captain Hansie Cronje, both of whom provided the necessary impetus to the effort.”In Bridgetown, we were new to Test cricket and we made mistakes,” Cronje, along with the fast bowler Allan Donald the sole survivor of that experience, said afterwards “We weren’t positive enough on that final day. Now, 50 Tests or so down the line, we’re used to it.”Coming in at 14 for 2, Cullinan seized on every scoring opportunity and rode whatever luck was going to score 35 off 64 balls before Stuart Williams miraculously plucked his fierce pull off Nixon McLean out of the air at midwicket.It was then 58 for 3 and it needed the positive influence of Cronje to counteract the run-choking field-placing of his rival captain, Brian Lara. Caught at silly mid-on off an Ambrose no-ball at 96 for 3, when 17, he eventually fell to a top-edged hook to fine-leg off Walsh for 31.By then, while a famous victory was only 40 runs away, the storm clouds that had broken around tea on each of the previous two days were banking up and Cronje set his team a 4pm deadline to complete the job.As it was, the rain did not materialise and, even though Walsh had Jonty Rhodes caught behind and Ambrose’s full toss was flicked by Shaun Pollock hard but straight to square-leg with the scores level, Kallis remained steadfast until Mark Boucher cut Ambrose square to win the match.Fifth day; West Indies won tossWEST INDIES – First Innings 261 (S Chanderpaul 74)SOUTH AFRICA – First Innings 268 (G Kirsten 62; C A Walsh 4-66).WEST INDIES – Second Innings 170 (S M Pollock 4-49).SOUTH AFRICA – Second InningsG Kirsten c Jacobs b Ambrose 7A M Bacher c Wallace b Walsh 6J H Kallis not out 57D J Cullinan c Williams b McLean 35*W J Cronje c McLean b Walsh 31J N Rhodes c Jacobs b Walsh 9S M Pollock c Chanderpaul b Ambrose 9M V Boucher not out 1Extras (lb2 nb7) 9Total (for 6) 164Fall: 1-14 2-14 3-58 4-124 5-146 6-163.Bowling: Ambrose 15.4-3-42-2; Walsh 21-9-45-3; Lewis 17-4-45-0; Hooper 4-0-13-0; McLean 5-0-17-1.Umpires: C J Mitchley and D R Shepherd.Second test: Port Elizabeth, 10-14 Dec.Third test: Durban, 26-30 Dec.Fourth test: Cape Town, 2-6 Jan.Final test: Centurion Park, 15-19 Jan.. Pakistan 296 and 103 Zimbabwe 238 and 162-3 Zimbabwe win by seven wkts
AAMIR SOHAIL, Pakistan’s dejected captain, yesterday turned on the selectors after his side’s demoralising seven- wicket defeat by Zimbabwe in the first Test at Peshawar.
Pakistan lost their first home series against Australia for 39 years last month, and Aamir responded to the latest setback by admitting: “It’s very demoralising that we have failed against Zimbabwe. The team is really very disappointed.”Questioned on his own future as captain, he said: “It’s up to the board, and I am considering my options. We have lost one match, and I will think about it.”The whole problem is of selection, and we have failed to form a combination We had a green-top wicket and had two spinners in the squad. We had no options, no variety,” he said.Aamir denied some senior players are not co-operating with him, saying: “This is not correct, because if they do badly their head is also on the chopping block.
