Geoff Lemon's Blog, page 8
December 27, 2024
Cummins conjures special delivery as Australia heap pressure on India
Batters have signature shots. That’s a given. Certain shapes or sequences of shapes that you associate with that player forever. The Ponting pull, the Lara follow-through over the shoulder, fill your own list. It’s much rarer for bowlers to have signature dismissals. There are so many ways to get players out, so many variations. A Nathan Lyon off break may have a shape you can trace in your sleep, but what happens after reaching the bat has its unique character.
Pat Cummins has the Pat Cummins Ball. The Pat Cummins Dismissal. The one that KL Rahul received on the second day of the fourth Australia-India Test in Melbourne. Somehow, even on a pitch that is not dangerous or during an innings that is flowing the other team’s way, there are times when Cummins can make that delivery appear. It doesn’t bring every wicket that he takes, of course – it is still precious. But it has happened often enough that you know it on sight: part of a rare collection rather than a gem on its own.
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December 26, 2024
Sam Konstas makes debut to remember as Australia edge India on day one
It has been a tour of polygraphic variation for India’s Test team. Down and out to begin in Perth, becoming ascendant by the end. Back to the bottom in Adelaide, dragging themselves out of trouble in Brisbane to finish the draw there on a high. But starting the fourth Test in Melbourne, right in the series at 1-1, was the first time the Indians have looked completely at a loss.
It’s not that nobody has ever batted aggressively in Tests. Gilbert Jessop, David Hookes, Sanath Jayasuriya, Rishabh Pant, most of England’s current lineup – plenty have had their shot. It’s not that nobody has ever played a scoop shot to Jasprit Bumrah in a Test – ask Joe Root, who soon found it didn’t work out so well.
Continue reading...December 25, 2024
Australia v India: fourth men’s cricket Test, day one – as it happened
The teenage debutant Sam Konstas made an audacious 60 to help Australia reach 311 for 6 on the first day of the Boxing Day Test
1st over: Australia 0-0 (Konstas 0, Khawaja 0) There’s a real good lip curl from Konstas on the close-up cam, waiting for Bumrah. The crowd hushes in anticipation… and sighs as he leaves the ball. A big jerky action, shouldering arms over the top of the ball and pulling his bat around to face back down the pitch.
Plays and misses at the next one, a pearler that goes away off the pitch. Bumrah doing heaps early. Draws another leave third ball, but the fourth and the fifth are lovely. Beaten, beaten again, both times drawing Konstas into the defensive shot before seaming past the edge. Perfect seam position, upright then scrambling away.
Continue reading...December 23, 2024
Heat dials up with Sam Konstas to be thrown into MCG cauldron at Boxing Day Test | Geoff Lemon
The 19-year-old opener has been locked in to face India but will have the most fearsome introduction with Jasprit Bumrah firing on all cylinders
Before Christmas has even hit, there is more anticipation about Boxing Day than usual, in more ways than one. Australia and India sit at 1-1 with two Tests to play, the first at the MCG where India won on their last two tours. The ticketing forecast says it will be a full house, the weather forecast says it will hit 40C, and while the latter may suppress the former, it’s the first time that all tickets have been claimed since the Ashes match of 2013. Amidst all this stands a Test debut opening the batting for a 19-year-old, with Sam Konstas’ spot in the XI confirmed on Tuesday by Australia coach Andrew McDonald.
Older generations will remember Doug Walters debuting at 19, and some would remember Neil Harvey doing the same. There have been a few modern bolters at young ages, like Ashton Agar or Matthew Renshaw, and Konstas will have the benefit of a captain in Pat Cummins who debuted at 18. In terms of substantial modern batting careers, though, Konstas most brings to mind Phillip Hughes, who was playing Sheffield Shield cricket by 18, and Ricky Ponting who did the same at 17. Both were in the Test team by 20.
Continue reading...December 17, 2024
Australia denied in third Test draw after India bowlers expose familiar frailties
First of all, you have to say “fair play” to Australia for making a game of it. Losing some time out of day five of the Brisbane Test was already inevitable with the weather forecast. But when most of the first session disappeared due to lightning precautions and then rain, it seemed sure that any hope of a contest had gone too. Instead Australia came back from an early lunch break looking to smash quick runs, then set India 275 to win in 54 overs. It was a great set up, until rain returned to end the fourth innings just after it had begun.
Looking past that boldness, though, it’s hard to shake the feeling that the helter-skelter of Australia’s second innings was a boon to India. Another crop of wickets for the visiting bowlers, and another failure apiece were chalked up next to the names of Australia’s specialist bats.
Continue reading...Australia v India: third men’s cricket Test, day five – as it happened
Australia and India are left frustrated after bad weather again interrupted play during a frantic final day at the Gabba
Here’s a new one. We have a lightning delay. Everybody is leaving the ground, even the ground staff and the camera operators. A big dark thunderhead is cruising by like a container ship.
Ten minutes for Australia to get ready to bat. Then 92 overs left in the day, rain permitting.
Continue reading...Australia frustrated as India avoid follow-on on quirky day four of Brisbane Test
It’s that time again. Not the time when the cricket enthusiasts are paying attention, because we always are – June in Barbados, August in Galle, whatever you’ve got. No, it’s the brief time either side of Christmas when the cricket is high profile enough that everybody outside our odd community also becomes vaguely aware it exists. “Who’s winning?” I’ve been asked twice this week, that dreaded question that gets lobbed from hallways over the backs of couches to torment those of us who know that nobody is ever winning a Test match, they have either won it or not won it. All we have to comfort us is our smug superiority; which is, granted, a consolation.
On the fourth day of Australia’s Test against India at Brisbane, there was a further delight: the game within a game. For the uninitiate, this contest would have looked dead. Australia on 445, India resuming in the morning 394 runs behind and four wickets down. Soon to be five, the captain Rohit Sharma an early departure. Combine the gulf in scores with the rain that had taken the match into its fourth day without completing its second innings, and there was no chance for India to get towards parity and stay in the contest.
Continue reading...December 16, 2024
Familiar problem surfaces with Virat Kohli closest of fading Fab Four to the end | Geoff Lemon
The once dominant batter is experiencing a Groundhog Day which suggests a mind that is tired of finding solutions
A little over a decade ago, cricket writing became all about the Fab Four. Steve Smith, Virat Kohli, Kane Williamson, Joe Root, each starting to flourish as Test batters, each clearly the future for their respective national teams. We said they would all go on to captain their countries, and they did, as they kept racking up the hundreds, piling up runs, a kind of transnational pact in relentless quality. Always playing against one another, they were nevertheless joined in their own smaller team, urging one another on, opponents to mediocrity.
These days none is captain any more, with a range of endings to their tenures that span civility to acrimony to scandal. They are all still playing though, elder statesmen in teams that enjoy their presence. Each of them is still the biggest name, the one greeted by most applause when walking to the middle and prompting most excitement from opponents sending them back. None is the team’s best player any longer, but their reputations make it feel as though they are.
Continue reading...December 15, 2024
Australia v India: third men’s cricket Test, day three – as it happened
India finished a rain-affected day on 51 for 4, still 394 runs behind an increasingly dominant Australia
108th over: Australia 431-8 (Carey 60, Lyon 0) Akash Deep replaces Bumrah after just a couple of overs, and gets clattered! Carey launches a lofted cover drive way back into the stands! Goodness me.
107th over: Australia 424-8 (Carey 53, Lyon 0) Jadeja keeps going, and gets through a quiet over after a Carey single first ball.
Continue reading...Smith steadies Australia and Head puts India to sword on day of two centuries
Steve Smith, Gabba, century. Not a surprising combination of words, for a player with a 10th of his career runs at the venue, one decent innings away from taking that number past 1,000. More surprising given the way that contemporary Smith has been grinding away for a long while without notable success, an engine revving that won’t turn over.
His hundred on day two of the third Test against India on Sunday was his fourth in Brisbane, and could not have been more different to the other three. India in 2014 and Pakistan in 2016 were breezy, boundaries flying, Smith in purple pomp. England in 2017 was a masterpiece of concentration, 326 balls faced, striking at barely 40, batting eight and a half hours to hold together an innings that was slipping away. Never had he worked harder, yet even at its toughest, it still never seemed that he would actually get out. He was so good that success seemed preordained.
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