Bowling's always the key

We just noticed that Ian Bradshaw had taken a couple of wickets for the Windies. Ian Bradshaw's someone we always forget. We re-read our post about how we always forget about Ian Bradshaw and found this paragraph that we thought was worth reproducing. It's about the Windies, but it applies to everyone.

"The West Indies aren’t as disastrous as people often make out. If they could somehow find a pair of strike bowlers, they could fashion a more than handy team. If they weren’t constantly chasing the game, they have more than enough talent in their batting line-up to make big totals. It’s amazing how much easier it is to bat when you’ve gone past your opponents score. A couple of good bowling performers and we bet that they’d be more up-for-it in the field as well. Bowling’s always the key. Bowlers win matches."

The excellent and ageing Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne are players that come to mind when we think about this. They're two players who we think have indirectly affected Australia's batting over the last ten years.

Give Australia a first-innings deficit and a bowling attack without those two and see how the batsmen's approach differs. Bowlers win you matches, not batsmen.

Kevin Pietersen v Shane Warne

Quite early on yesterday, Shane Warne started bowling round the wicket into the rough at Kevin Pietersen. Perhaps the theory was that Pietersen would get impatient and go for high-risk shots. He didn't.

It's a strange feature of cricket that you can be impressed by someone essentially doing nothing. 'Good leave' is a baffling and hilarious comment to a non-cricket fan, but cricket's a mind game as much as anything. Leaving the ball can show clear thinking and an appreciation of the match situation. It warmed our heart to see Kevin Pietersen spend half an hour kicking the ball away last night.

It said that he knew what he was doing and that he was there for runs - as many as possible. It also said that Shane Warne had pretty much no other idea what to do.

Shane Warne sucks up the pressure and spits it in England's faces

"When Warney’s bowling and the match is in the balance, we have heart palpitations and have to breathe into a paper bag like they do on the telly."

Almost 12 months ago, we wrote the King Cricket top ten. This is what we wrote about Shane Warne who appeared at two.

The theme of that post is that runs are hard to come by and nerves play a massive part when Warne bowls in tight situations. That's what happened today. Warne took 4-49. England were all out for 129.

England's batsmen batted like lunatics, but Shane Warne created that situation. There would have been a little bit of nervousness at first; then, as wickets fell, they would have increased; until before long the batsmen were gibbering wrecks. That factor plays as big a part as any in Shane Warne's success.

The ability to channel the pressure of a match situation solely onto the batsman is Shane Warne's unique skill.

Kevin Pietersen v Shane Warne: A lesson unlearnt

Remember this post about how well Kevin Pietersen played Shane Warne in the first innings in Adelaide?

We were impressed with how Pietersen controlled himself and padded the ball away. In his second innings, with England en route to a catastrophic defeat, Warne pitched his first ball to Pietersen outside leg-stump into the rough. Pietersen tried to sweep it and got bowled.

Pillock.

Shane Warne's retiring

The word on the street is that Shane Warne's going to retire. By 'on the street', we of course mean 'in the world's cricket media'.

He's called a press conference for today and people who know about this sort of stuff think it can mean only one thing.

We'll save our thoughts for now, in case he's just going to announce how much he hates pommie bastards, on a scale of one to a billion.

We'll just say that our first thought was: 'Ha. How are you going to fill THAT gap, Australia.' Then, after a second of thought, we realised that we were massively disappointed. It really will be sad, if he goes.

Shane Warne retires

To quote a friend of ours: "Shane Warne is so damn Australian, it makes me want to cry".

That pretty much summed up our feelings for the first seven or eight years of Warne's international career. Stupid hair, thoughtless idiot always getting himself into trouble, irritating habit of making England batsmen look stupid. What's to like?

Turns out there's actually a lot to like about Shane Warne. He clearly loves cricket; he's massively professional, in the weirdest sort of way; he's a competitor in the most literal sense; he's wildly entertaining with the bat and utterly absorbing with the ball.

If you're reading this, you doubtless watch quite a bit of cricket. In any game there are passages of play which are less than engrossing. Have you ever been distracted while Shane Warne's got the ball in his hand? It's not just waiting for him to demonstrate each of his deliveries. It's not just that he might suddenly decide to spin one at right-angles. It's not just the ham-acting after each near miss.

When Shane Warne bowls, you can spend a good long while working out what he's trying to do. Every delivery has a reason. What's he trying to find out? What's he trying to do? Is he building up to something? Has he seen a weakness? He's moving the field. Why?

Basically, when Shane Warne's bowling, you don't know what's going to happen. That's why we like sport. If it were totally predictable, why would you need to watch? Think back only a couple of weeks to when he paralysed England during the second Test, taking 4-49 as England were all out for 129. That was the sequel to his 4-31 when England won the fourth Test at Trent Bridge in 2005. England got 129 to win, on that occasion, but it was nowhere near as easy as it should have been. That would be Shane's fault.

We'll finish with the first words we wrote about Warne here at King Cricket: "England require 12 runs to win and have all ten wickets in hand. Shane Warne’s bowling and it genuinely feels like Australia are favourites."

Shane Warne's 700th wicket

"Ooh. Look at me. Look at me. I'm retiring. Look at me. Look at me. I can take more Test wickets than anyone else."

No-one's impressed, you know.

Justin Langer on Shane Warne

Not literally. That would be hideous. Perhaps we should have said 'Justin Langer talking about Shane Warne'. Whatever. Here's a quote from his BBC column:

Playing with him and watching the poetry of his bowling has been without doubt one of the privileges of my career.

"The poetry of his bowling". Easy there. And we thought it was just Matthew Hayden who Langer had a soft spot for.

Warne would probably prefer a grittier description, you'd have thought.

Shane Warne bats England to death

In marked contrast to England's duck-and-two-scoring lower-order, Australia's tail wagged. Only that phrase is redundant - Australia don't have a tail; they have lower-order batsmen.

Stuart Clark, batting at 10, hit 35 and Shane Warne hit 71 in what may prove to be his swansong innings. Whereas England scrabbled desperately from 245-5 to 291 all out, Australia flew joyfully from 190-5 to 393 all out.

There have been many differences between these two sides during this series, but this a marked one. It's emblematic of many of England's failings. While their lower-order batting hasn't been the worst in history, it's never achieved anything unexpected. If you've any ambition to be the best, you can't be a slave to expectation.

Warney offers insight into the human condition.

Richie Benaud has urged Warne to keep playing until the 2009 Ashes.

Warne said: "Richie is the man, and if he wants me to try and do that I've got to do everything I possibly can to meet his expectations", thus expressing what we all think.

Richie IS the man. We should all do as Richie tells us. Richie is our overlord.

We're sad because Richie won't help us with our (non) career.

2 - Shane Warne

Look at him standing there, hands on hips, flared trousers rustling in the breeze (although not in this picture). He looks like a spoon, but here’s the situation: England require 12 runs to win and have all ten wickets in hand. Shane Warne’s bowling and it genuinely feels like Australia are favourites.

We always think that we would have been the best cricketer ever, but when Warney’s bowling and the match is in the balance, we have heart palpitations and have to breathe into a paper bag like they do on the telly.