Hughes shines in Agar's shadow

AUSTRALIAN cricket's revival cannot be accomplished merely one fairytale at a time.

FOR all the heights that Australian team ascended during their long period of global dominance, it made a routine of excellence that grew nearly humdrum. Since their gradual descent to cricketÂ’s mid-table began, Australia has become a perversely more engaging side, human in its strivings, its highs somehow greater for the surrounding proportions of achievement.

Take 19-year-old Ashton Agar, whose 98 today turned this somersaulting First Test on its head … again. Here was a thrilling initiation in international cricket, and a stunning riposte to the surrounding Murraymania and British Lionising, pitching England’s cricketers’ into a triple-dip recession if not the country itself.

Tall, slim, fresh-faced, looking a little like an eastern prince at a western university while unmistakably Australian in his deportment and diction, Agar is the project player made good, who was playing second-grade cricket in Melbourne just eighteen months ago, and whose first contact with his current teammates was as a net bowler to them in Perth in December. A week ago, he was unsure if he would be remaining with the squad, or jetting off to join an Australia A tour of Zimbabwe.

The burden of expectation has yoked players throughout this match, so perhaps it is not completely surprising that the outstanding performance has come from the player of whom least was anticipated, and in his secondary skill at that. Agar was known to be able to bat: a first-class average of 33 from sixteen innings is not merely a trick of the statistical light. But his slot as last man was not a cunning ruse: it was a form of prediction that the teenager interpreted as permission for fun.

Nominally number 11, Agar did not then bat like one, except in his easy insouciance. This was not a step back and swish effort by a tail end Charlie.

Two sixes were launched down the ground with a full 360-degree swing of the bat. Three pull shots sailed through mid-wicket for four. One flick on the up through mid-on was signed off with back foot in the air. One cut, to level the scores, was so late it almost qualified as an epilogue. But these were good strokes, executed with flair while fundamentally orthodox, played with a still head and full face of the bat.

Some of the best shots were the simply defensive ones - compact, unadorned, technically correct. Agar did something most batsmen in this match had hitherto failed to: he discriminated, applied no force where it was not required, took no chance where it savoured of danger. The only time he failed to do so, essaying a pull shot in the air when he knew the man at mid-wicket was back, cost him his wicket. Otherwise, he gave deliveries the respect they deserved.

Trouble was, from England’s perspective, that there were insufficient of these: on the contrary, while fielders jogged between overs in a vain attempt at conveying purpose, the home team neither attacked nor defended with complete conviction.

Certainly neither Finn nor Broad appeared capable of landing consecutive deliveries in the same place. With three slips in place, they bowled straight and on the pads; with fielders at deep cover, they bowled short; with ring fields, they overpitched; in striving for the one ball that might take a wicket, they provided a host of scoring opportunities.

Swann’s vaunted toxicity to left-handers was neutralised. And having bowled eighteen of the innings’s first 37 overs, Anderson struggled to penetrate in third and fourth spells of three overs each. In fact, if you wanted an insight into how acute is England’s dependence on their spearhead, this was it. He should be accompanied to Lord’s by his own personal surgeon and contingent of bodyguards.

All the same, without wishing to disturb the general air of bonhomie that rightfully surround Agar’s feats, he embodies other factors at work in Australian cricket.

He joins a lineage of instant Australian success stories in recent times - Pat Cummins, Jason Krejza, Marcus North, Nathan Lyon, Shaun Marsh, James Pattinson, Matthew Wade, David Warner, and to a lesser degree Usman Khawaja - all of whom have either struggled or have continued to struggle to repeat early proclamations of promise.

Immediate high-impact performances are arguably better for the media than for cricket teams, and they were actually not characteristic of Australian cricket at its peak. There were storied beginnings from time to time during the green and golden age, from Michael Slater to Michael Clarke himself. But it was an era of steady development and patient advances, during which steps back were as formative as leaps forward. Allan Border, David Boon, Mark Taylor, Steve Waugh, Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Ricky Ponting, Matthew Hayden, Justin Langer, Damien Martyn and, yes, Darren Lehmann all took time to find their feet in international cricket, and built top-line careers on deep foundations.

Which is why the more important innings for Australian cricket may turn out not to be Agar’s, a feat he can hardly be expected to repeat in a hurry, but Phil Hughes’, whose enterprising but measured 81 not out was possibly his best and certainly most characterful Test innings since he was left out of the Australian side for Shane Watson almost four years ago.

It seemed to be in England’s cricket hive mind that Hughes remained an exclusively off-side proposition. In fact, if he is not particularly graceful or fluent to leg, his strokeplay has grown a great deal more versatile. While Hughes, as usual, struck eight of his nine boundaries to the off, he also accumulated 35 of his runs to the on, including 21 singles. He was subdued by Swann - 7 runs from 52 balls - but unrecognisable from the jerky, overwhelmed figure enveloped by India’s spinners three months ago.

Without Hughes, Agar might have come to the wicket with another tailender, and perished quickly having a dart. With Hughes in calm control, there was a chance for Agar to prolong the innings, which flowered into a record partnership and the glimpse of a unique feat. And in this there lay a salutary lesson - that Australian cricket’s revival cannot be accomplished merely one fairytale at a time.