Tuesday, September 25, 2001 The God of Statistics has not smiled on Michael Slater lately. Missed buses have outnumbered missed catches. Shuffles across the nightclub floor have outstripped shimmies down the wicket. Runs have been in shorter supply than run-ins. But the tide is turning. "More than 16,510 people," the constantly updating ticker on the anti-Matt Hayden website www.worstaussies.8m.com declared at 4pm yesterday, "think the dropping of Slater is a Queensland conspiracy."

Here's a more scientific stat for Australia's selectors to ponder: Slater has made 90-plus 14 times in 33 Tests on home soil. That's once every 2.36 matches. Only Don Bradman has a better ratio, and only just - once every 1.83 games.

Here's a few more. Slater averages 52.62 in Australia - second only to Bill Lawry (56.36) among regular Australian openers and better than any specialist batsman since Greg Chappell. He averages fractionally under 43 in all Tests - inferior, in a difficult era for openers, only to Saeed Anwar among contemporaries of long standing. He averages fractionally over 43 against South Africa, the team poised to set Australia their trickiest test since they regained the Frank Worrell Trophy in the Caribbean in 1995. And in his first innings for a month at the weekend, Slater dusted off 111 out of 206 for University of NSW in Sydney's first-grade competition.

There is a time for penance and a time for prudence. If Australia are to win both back-to-back series against Shaun Pollock's side - a more ambitious, aggressive team than the safety-first bunch they outwitted four years ago - then Slater, for whom safety-first means slashing the opening ball of a Test over gully's head rather than straight through him, must play.

First ball of the first Test to Slater has become a talismanic moment in modern Ashes contests. In 1994-95 he set the tone by cutting Phil DeFreitas through point for four, and the symbolism surrounding his first ball in 2001 was palpable. Play out Gough, supposedly the world-beater that DeFreitas wasn't, for a dot-ball and the implication was clear: the Poms weren't going to be pushed around this time, little brother. Slater cut it for four, helped himself to 14 more off the over, and the series had effectively ended as a two-horse race before it was a day old.

True, after that day Slater batted as if wielding a pick rather than a Gray-Nic, a bottom-handed shadow of the 23-year-old whose nimble footwork, crisp hitting and crest-kissing passion enchanted all who watched his debut series in 1993. But at least he had the aura of a tortured underachiever; Hayden had the aura of a ticking timebomb which Gough and Caddick were often too dim-witted to detonate. He might have swept all before him on Indian dustbowls, but Hayden's old frailties - thrusting his front foot obstinately forward, leaving the ball outside off more in hope than expectation - returned the moment he had to face anyone zippier than Zaheer Khan.

He will fill his boots, as always, against half-baked attacks before three-quarters-empty stadiums when the domestic season begins in a fortnight. But that's about as relevant as pointing out that Ray Bright was more lethal than Shane Warne when bowling for Victoria. In Slater and Justin Langer - right-hander and leftie, blaster and blocker - Australia may just have unearthed the missing link in the team that has won 20 of its last 23 Tests. And with Matthew Elliott and Michael Hussey, my pick to replace Greg Blewett 18 months ago, heading the queue behind them, Australia might finally be starting to develop a top order worthy of the name.

Back on worstaussies.8m.com, where the pro-Slater index has sputtered along to 16,545, a crude joke is doing the rounds. Who would win a fight between Matt Hayden and Scott Muller? Muller - Hayden would leave the punches coming at him. Leave out the wrong opener against South Africa this summer and it won't be a laughing matter.

Chris Ryan is managing editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly and a former Darwin correspondent of the Melbourne Age. His column appears every Tuesday.

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