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THE 90s: AGE OF … Wisden CricInfo staff - January 1, 1999
the superspinnerTEN YEARS AGO, there was only one slow bowler in the world who could be described as compelling – Abdul Qadir, the Pakistan leggie with the India-rubber action, then coming to the end of his international career. The other spinners offered either plenty of colour but few Test wickets ( Greg Matthews of Australia), or plenty of wickets but little colour or penetration ( John Emburey of England, Ravi Shastri of India). The best team in the world, West Indies, seldom bothered with specialist spinners.In 1991–92, Australia took a punt on a podgy 22-year-old legspinner with a mullet haircut who had played seven games in the Sheffield Shield and taken 13 wickets at an average of more than 50. He never did do much for Victoria: by the end of 1998–99, he had 97 wickets at 38 in the Shield, but 315 at 25 in Tests, a world record for a slow bowler. Has there ever been a better spinner for the big occasion than Shane Warne? As Warne rose, so did two other legspinners, Anil Kumble of India, who against Pakistan in 1998–99 became only the second man to take 10 wickets in a Test innings, and Mushtaq Ahmed of Pakistan, who produced two lethal spells in 1996 to win Tests at Lord's and The Oval. But neither of these men was an innovator. Just when it looked as if offspin might be consigned to history, the trade was revived by being revolutionised. Muttiah Muralitharan of Sri Lanka, even more than Warne, makes the ball turn square on just about any surface: with his whiplash wrist, he may be an offspinner, but he is certainly not a finger-spinner. Saqlain Mushtaq of Pakistan is an offspinner and a legspinner in one, whose killer variation, a legbreak delivered with no apparent change of action, has added a new word to cricket's vocabulary: the doosra – Urdu for the other one. Warne is 30, Murali 27, and Saqlain, according to the records, has just turned 23. If spinners still get better with age, the next decade is going to give us even more of a twirl.
left Slow torturers: Muralitharan, Warne and Saqlain below Triple whammy: Lara breaks the Test recordthe triple-centuryIn the Eighties, nobody made 300 in a Test match – the highest score of the decade was Javed Miandad's 280 not out for Pakistan against India at Hyderabad in 1982–83. But in the Nineties, the colossal individual score came into fashion again, just as it had in the Sixties and the Thirties.First Graham Gooch, at the age of 37, clumped 333 for England against India at Lord's in July 1990, added 123 in the second innings, and thus set a new world record for most runs in a Test (456). Six months later, after a young man named Lara had quietly entered Test cricket with an innings of 44 at Lahore, Martin Crowe of New Zealand made 299 against Sri Lanka at Wellington, and set a new world record for the highest Test partnership for any wicket – 467 with Andrew Jones. Like Viv Richards before him, Crowe never got beyond the nervous 290s. When Gooch fell short of dislodging the most famous of all Test records, Garry Sobers's 365 not out, some said that it would never be surpassed. Less than four years later, it was. On April 16, 1994, Brian Lara went out to bat for West Indies against a resurgent England at St John's, Antigua, in a mini-crisis: 12 for 2. About 48 hours later, he reached 369 with a pull for four off Chris Lewis. A few minutes after that, he was out for 375. Two months later, in England, Lara went 126 better with 501 not out for Warwickshire against Durham at Edgbaston, a new world record for the highest first-class score.
The age of agelessness: Curtly Ambrose, still deadly at 36
It was also the age of … It was only a matter of years before the trend spread to the subcontinent, spiritual home of the individual milestone. In August 1997, Sanath Jayasuriya made 340, the fourth-highest score of all time, against India at Colombo's RPS ground, as Sri Lanka set a new record for the highest total by a Test team (952 for 6 dec). A year later, at Peshawar, Mark Taylor found himself on 334 not out after two days of a Test against Pakistan, equalling Don Bradman's record for an Australian in Tests. While his sister and the stats-fiends of the world urged him to bat on and beat Lara, Taylor decided to declare, and became, as someone observed, best known for a record he did not break. The decade ended in a flurry of one-day mega-knocks (see page 60), with India's high-speed classicists, Tendulkar, Ganguly and Dravid, all threatening to be the first man to make a one-day international double-hundred. A woman, however, beat them to it: Belinda Clark, with a phenomenal 229 not out, Australia v Denmark at Bombay in 1997–98. Meanwhile, by an odd quirk, the highest Test score ever made by an Indian remains relatively modest – 236 not out, by Sunil Gavaskar (against West Indies at Madras in 1983–84). Over to you, Sachin. the subcontinentIn 1992, Pakistan won the World Cup for the first time. In 1996, Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka hosted the World Cup for the first time, and Sri Lanka won it. At Test level, all three spent most of the decade in the middle of the table, but in the corridors of power, they marched to the top. Jagmohan Dalmiya of India became president of ICC. In October 1998, Bangladesh hosted a mini World Cup, and in 1999 they competed in the real one, even beating Pakistan. As a place where crowds of 35,000 will turn up to see a day's domestic cricket, Bangladesh is clearly going to loom larger in the next decade. So is India, whose population, fast approaching one billion, is greater than that of all the other major cricket countries put together.You can tell a lot about a society from its advertising. In India, leading cricketers pose with beauty queens to promote Pepsi-Cola. In England, they pose alone to promote hair-loss remedies. the ageing fast bowlerWhile spinners, like policemen, have been getting younger, the quicks, like rock stars, have got older. Richard Hadlee showed the way by playing on to such a great age that he was knighted before he retired, in June 1990; a month later, he turned 39, and celebrated by taking five wickets in the last 50 balls he bowled in Tests. Imran Khan was equally elderly when he lifted the 1992 World Cup, and bowled tidy inswingers despite a shoulder injury.By November 1999, five of the six most successful fast bowlers in the world were veterans: Curtly Ambrose, 36, and Courtney Walsh, 37; Allan Donald and Wasim Akram, both 33; and Waqar Younis, a very senior 28. No wonder Angus Fraser, 34, and Devon Malcolm, 36, still maintain that they should be in the England team. fielding as an end in itselfIn November, we asked Tim Robinson what had changed most during his time at Nottinghamshire. He replied: `The fielding, including mine, has improved no end.'Past decades had Colin Bland, the young Viv Richards, and Derek Randall. But in the 1990s, the rise of one-day cricket and special coaching drills brought new levels of skill and agility to the outfield. Even unwieldy fast bowlers – like the pigeontoed Damien Fleming– became adept at the sliding stop and the diving catch. The best teams could call on men like Jonty Rhodes and Ricky Ponting, both artists in the pivotal position of backward point. Rhodes's speciality was the elasticated dive, inevitably followed by a springy bounce to his feet and a stump-seeking throw. As Bob Woolmer wrote: `This puts tremendous strain on the neck and back muscles, whereas the normal method of diving allows you to roll and cushion your fall. Unfortunately it also delays the throw.' Ponting was an even more lethal marksman, and rounded off Pakistan's slump in the 1999 World Cup final with a screaming one-handed take. Yet these were only the most famous members of the breed. For every emerging team, there was a dead-eyed Tom, Dick or Harry patrolling the covers. Zimbabwe could call on Paul Strang; Sri Lanka on Upul Chandana. Warwickshire, the best county side of the Nineties, had Trevor Penney – who was never much use as a batsman. Not all of them could equal Bland, but they certainly added spice. the stump mikeIt used to be thought that the wicketkeeper's job was to prevent byes, hold snicks and, once in a blue moon, pull off a stumping. Since the advent of the stump microphone, in the mid-Nineties, it has become clear that most of the keeper's energy is devoted to dishing out praise. The characteristic sound of recent Ashes series was not just the clatter of English wickets but the cry of `Bowled, Shane'. And even at his peak Warne only took a wicket about every six overs, whereas Ian Healy expressed admiration for his work about six times an over. Each keeper has his own copyrighted cry: `Like it!' from Jack Russell, `Shabazz' from Moin Khan, `Bowlin!' from Alec Stewart (no keeper ever uses the word `well').Negative comments, whether on the bowling or the batsmen, are strangely rare. But there was a good one just the other day during the second Test at Hobart between Australia and Pakistan. Scott Muller, the novice fast bowler, sent in a wayward return from the outfield as Shane Warne was waiting at the bowler's end. `Can't bowl, can't field,' muttered a voice heard by Channel 9 viewers. At first this was reported to be Warne. Steve Waugh seemed to think so, because he complained about the intrusion into the players' privacy. But then a Channel 9 cameraman said it had been him, standing near a crowd-effects microphone. The fact that Warne is under contract to Channel 9 was evidently a coincidence. The plot thickened when Muller, playing (well) for Queensland against the touring Indians, dismissed Tendulkar and smilingly addressed the stump mike: `Six for the game, Warnie.' The ACB, showing all the magnanimity and good humour for which cricket boards are admired around the world, reprimanded him.
As we went to press Australia had won 19 more Tests in the decade that any other team, according to a WCM survey of 460 results. They also played most games, but their win ratio of 49% is well clear of South Africa (44%). Mark Taylor's commitment to positive cricket is also reflected in the lowest incidence of draws (28%). England should note that South Africa were the hardest team to beat, losing just one game in five, while the only other side in credit were Pakistan. West Indies and India broke even, while England, perhaps surprisingly, were the best of the also-rans. In the battle of the draw bores, Sri Lanka's flat pitches and greedy batsmen marginally outpointed India's ditto. SB
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