“If Johnson doesn’t get you, Ronnie must”

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, If Johnson don’t get you, McDonald must….

Well, I’m being silly of course, playing on the poem of 1974-75 describing Thommo and Lillee. Johnson is deserving of substitution in the poem and while it is silly to insert Ronald McDonald, I am going to put my knife away. I’m still sceptical of his ability with the bat, I still think he was lucky to make it into the team (especially via the number six position) but he has done enough with the ball to keep his place. McDonald now has eight wickets, including three in the current innings, at an average of 18.87. Six of those wickets were bowled or lbw. The point is that he does bowl straight and his economy has been excellent from the start (1.91 rpo).

The irony is that if a spinner is required for the next match, McDonald will probably make way. Then again, the selectors may decide to stick with the winning combination that they have “lucked upon”.

I’m happy to say that a miracle occurred at Durban and the pitch has had a personality transplant. For whatever reason, the pitch offered bowlers swing, bounce, pace and movement off the seam. Lovely. While the boys in the Caribbean continued the plunder (England declared at only 6/546 with the obligatory three centurions), in Durban, the batsmen found themselves desperately fending, sparring and ducking and weaving.

In the late starting morning session, Australia crawled their way to 5/348. And suddenly, either side of lunch, it was all over, with Australia losing five wickets for four runs in a combination of bad shots and good bowling. The last three fell for ducks. But it didn’t end there. Mitchell Johnson started with a stunning first over and South Africa was 2-0 with McKenzie and Amla both falling to beautiful deliveries. Seven wickets for four runs and five ducks in a row.

Shortly after, South Africa were 3-6 and in addition, Smith was at hospital being treated for another broken finger, courtesy of Mitchell Johnson. The end of day two sees this Test poised remarkably like the second Test, in Melbourne in the last series. In Melbourne, South Africa trailed by 196 with three wickets in hand. In this Test, South Africa trails by 214, also with three wickets in hand (but two, in reality). The men at the crease are Duminy and Steyn – the same men that made that huge partnership in Melbourne and stole the match for South Africa. But just as the first Test at The Wanderers mirrored the first Test in Perth for much of the way but had a different ending, I see this one departing from the Melbourne script. Unless the pitch changes again.

It should be said that Ponting has won all of the last five tosses and Australia has batted first on all of those five occasions. In general, this has favoured Australia (except maybe in Perth when the pitch seemed to become easier as the match went on). In this match, if you take away the opening partnership, Australia would have made 168 and the match would be evenly poised. Not that you could, or should, take away from Katich and Hughes but just an observation.

How’s that for Openers

Hughes makes his mark, Katich makes amends and Stauss does it again as the openers ran amok. The era of the flat track continued as the Australians and English continued to pile on the runs on flat, benign tracks. Oh to have more pitches like the Wanderers. While it is fun (for a while) to see the batsmen playing super shots all around the ground, it is rather boring not to get results. In the past few weeks, several scores of 600 plus have been posted in the first innings. And in two of those instances, the response was 750. Of course, all of the matches were drawn with little more than a sniff of a result.

I’ve heard in recent times that Tests should be changed to be a maximum of fours days. I must admit that being a traditionalist, my immediate reaction is to reject that suggestion. Besides, it seems to detract from the importance and prestige of Test cricket. But I’ve thought a little more about it and perhaps it is not such a bad idea. For starters, who says five days is tradition? The duration of Test has varied over the years. There were times when they were unlimited and in the 1920′s, in England, they were a maximum of three days (they were played on uncovered wickets, after all).

One of the problems is that every day of cricket played is a chance at revenue – a slice of that fat, juicy cricket pie. That’s why some want four day Tests – that would leave so many more days a year for ODI and T20 to grab a greater share of the pie. I don’t think it is overly cynical to suggest that Test match pitches these days are designed to go the distance. They don’t have to be concrete highways to last five days, but it seems that most groundsmen like to make sure of it. Now, if the match had to last only four days, perhaps we might see a change of approach to pitch preparation. And perhaps we might even get some completed matches. Just a thought.

Last night saw more interesting events around referrals. South Africa lost their first two (and therefore, only) referrals. In the first, they referred an unsuccessful lbw appeal. The referral clearly showed an inside edge and in fact, the leg bye was changed to runs. The second referral was more interesting – the appeal was for an inside edge for Katich. The appeal was spontaneous, unanimous and vigorous. Pundits felt that instinct said it was out. However, there was no deflection and hotspot (now in use, thank goodness) showed nothing. So Katich stayed – and fair enough.

Geoff Lawson for once, made a good observation: Referrals are there to overturn the real howlers. I think he is right. In all the analysis of referrals in the last Test, I don’t think anybody pointed out that none of the decisions were real clangers. Perhaps some were wrong (and were still not overturned) but the fact is that if there were no referrals, the umpires would not have been crucified for any of their decisions. The biggest errors were the two Hughes non-decisions when he gloved down the leg side. But they are always hard. Let’s face it, Boucher himself could not have been too sure, or he would have had the decisions referred. So what chance does the umpire have?

I close in wondering if Phillip Hughes will go on to become the greatest Hughes to play for Australia post-war.