Tuesday, August 7, 2001

Nineteen years ago David Gower played an innings beyond fantasy. No malice, no urgency, only grace. Every stroke was perfectly timed, every ball slithered silently acoss the bowling-green Perth outfield that turns twos into fours and renders threes as rare as rain interruptions. He made only 72 in a runsplendent draw but, to my impressionable eight-year-old eyes, this was as sublime as batting could be.

Until three days ago, when Damien Martyn - a right-handed Gower minus the flashes of fallibility - equalled it. Martyn did it on a darting pitch with Australia three wickets down, their captain crocked and 69 runs needed. Cue three fours in three balls: a cocksure hook, a tickle round his legs, a flawless cover-drive. Game over. Martyn had faced 37 balls, scored 33 runs and briefly elevated batting into a heavenly mix of poetry and science.

For a team that feeds on acts of symbolism - go to Gallipoli, wear baggy green, buy John Williamson CDs, guzzle Crown Lager - it could hardly have been more apt. Seven years ago against South Africa, with Australia five down and needing 48 to win, Martyn scratched out six runs in 106 minutes before unleasing a doomed death-or-glory cover-drive. Australia's punishment was defeat by five runs; Martyn's was 2,256 days in Test purgatory, during which time he remodelled himself from blazing ball-basher to astute percentages man.

Steve Waugh, the master of reinvention, might recognise a bit of himself in Martyn. When Waugh was named one of Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Year way back in 1989, Scyld Berry likened him to Stan McCabe. Twelve years later Waugh, grizzled pro par excellence, could hardly be less like McCabe.

The figures say Waugh is the most successful captain in history. Australia have won 74% of his 27 Tests in charge: the next best among long-serving captains is another Aussie, Don Bradman, with 62.5%.

But figures don't tell the half of it. On Saturday, a target of 158 to retain the Ashes was enough to instantly raise a thousand knowing smiles on English faces. Remember Headingley '81? Some Poms, of course, have forgotten everything since, which is partly why an entire generation knows only of humiliation. It also explains why they still had faith in a myth that was exploded long ago.

Five times since Waugh became captain, Australia have been set between 120 to 250; five times they have coasted home. The last time they flunked a fiddly run-chase was Melbourne 1998, Dean Headley's match. The last time they flunked one when a series was still alive was that Sydney Test seven years ago. The Achilles heel of Allan Border and Mark Taylor's fine teams is a defining strength of Waugh's super-fine team.

Great Australian batsmen have a history of anticlimactic farewells to England. Border eked out 17 in a losing side; Neil Harvey 13 in a winning one. Bradman departed with a duck and a tear. Waugh went one worse: wheeled off, squinting, on a little red stretcher, pain etched deep in every wrinkle, looking closer to 56 than 36, chewing gum ferociously to the last.

Assuming there is no miracle return at The Oval, and no farewell frolic in four years' time, Waugh returns to Oz with a Test average in England of 67.09. His average at Headingley stands at 338 - way clear of Bradman who could manage only 192.60, despite being adjudged recently by Waugh's early admirer Scyld Berry as the "King of Leeds". Arise, King Tugga.

If this really is goodbye, it is not the goodbye Waugh envisaged. But he isn't going home empty-handed.

Chris Ryan is managing editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly

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