Why Australia can win the Ashes 5-0 -- Part 1

His bizarre footwork aside, Simon Katich is surely the opener’s opener. His ability to leave the ball, patiently, over after over, is something that is reminiscent of an old-fashioned approach to cricket. The price he puts on his wicket has been analysed by statisticians hither and yon, but in my mind his temperament must surely single him out as one of our most outstanding opening batsmen, and a fortiori, give us the first of many head starts to the Ashes.

The traditional opening bat is almost as rare these days as a smear-free election campaign. It is, after all, a classic exercise in investing in an innings. Our conventional opener will not be alarmed to face consecutive maidens, given that batting is only going to become easier once he adapts to the conditions of the wicket, the variations in the bowling attack, and gets his feet and body moving with fluent, if not Calypso, rhythm. Some ne’er-do-well pundits will say that in the modern game of scoring four runs an over or (better - read worse - when India and Sri Lanka engage in another run-bloated draw: 700 for 4 plays 650 for 6 — bowlers: thanks for coming) there is no place for indulgence in dot balls and ‘getting the eye in’ over the course of a session. Hello, Mr Sehwag.

But even these maverick commentators will concede that 80* from 150 balls is much better than a biff-laden bludgeoning of 30 from 20, before planting the feet in concrete for yet another cavalier uppercut over point, only to be caught at third man. By your leave, Mr Sehwag.

Here, though, is where the Kat gets the cream. He will play on and on, letting balls go, nurdling them onto the leg-side for ones and twos, and get to 20 from 80 deliveries. But then he opens up, and not in a power-play how-do-you-do manner, but he uses the time and energy he has hitherto invested into his innings, and starts to kick back, living the high life on the interest payments.

His pair of 80s in the first MCC Spirit of Cricket Test against Pakistan this last English summer, proved that, albeit in different ways. In both innings he top-scored — in the first at a reasonable clip (80 from 138), and in the second, when he was trying like Lot to escape but his partners kept on looking behind them, he scored 83 from 174.

The first innings would test the patience of these Johnny-come-latelies who are infatuated with Twenty20 tonking. Indeed, I was watching in the early hours of the Canadian morning, and saw his strike-rate tip lower and lower, almost falling through the ‘10’ mark could you imagine?! But then, once he was in, he pushed and cut (he doesn’t cut as well as B.C. Lara, but then, who does?) his way out of the doldrums. He never looked like getting out. I write that sheepishly, since, during the ball on which he was finally dismissed, it was plain to anyone with half an eye and a cork tooth that he looked like getting out. Anyway, he is not afraid to toe the traditional line of looking after your wicket, while the runs look after themselves.

Certainly he is not in the same sphere of influence as Matthew Hayden, who could take a game away from the opposition with a session of front-foot pulls and, almost Trudgian-esque, advancing down the wicket. But it is the patience of Katich and his ability to adapt to the situation (cf. the first and second innings mentioned above) which gives him the edge. Moreover, the manner in which he scores his runs is very traditional. With the exception of his despatching a few long hops and full tosses, his run-scoring strokes in front of the wicket are invariably produced from soft, seemingly too soft, pushes.

That the defensive stroke can be turned into a run-scoring stroke without any loss of the technical sheen (viz. wristy flicks across the line) is a salute to the openers of the past. There might even be a nurdle to the leg-side, but with Katich it will be played with even softer hands than it will with Collingwood, the nurdliest of all nurdlers. A small push, timed to perfection. And how does he guarantee the timing for such a stroke? By having watched ball and ball pass by, investing in his innings and knowing that, when he does play at the ball, there is a high chance that this will yield the mono-syllabic declaration of approval that Michael Holding gives on air, ‘Runs.’