Why Australia can win the Ashes 5-0 -- Part 8

I was huddled over some remarkably fine streaming coverage of Australia’s tour to New Zealand when I saw some vintage Bollinger. That, I promise, will be the first and last of any champagne moments throughout this article. Anyway, Bollinger took a wicket (I forget whose) and in a classic bout of enthusiasm lowered his head and raised his shirt to kiss the Australian logo on his breast. But it was not the green and gold emblem of Cricket Australia, but that of Victoria Bitter which felt the force of his osculatory might. The smile produced from taking the wicket became even wider after this mis-matching of logos — almost as wide as the VB executives who enjoyed the constant replays and free advertising.

But what a character: he does not have the latitudinal expanse of a Merv Hughes, but he is a big, tall, fast and bustling opening bowler. Perhaps Peter Siddle looks more intimidating than D.E. Bollinger (particularly when Siddle has the rather menacing zinc cream wrapped around his gnashing jaws). In any case, Bollinger is certainly an opening bowler’s opening bowler, none of these waving dandy-locks or Rexona advertisements shared by his English opening counterpart.

More often than not he bowls over the wicket, but due to his near-vertical release (as opposed to, say, Johnson’s slight round-arm) he can generate a surprisingly wide angle. It is this angle to the right-handers and his pace with the new ball that will ensure he has a dominant part to play in the Ashes (sure, England will have at least four left-handers in the team at any one time ... was it Keith Miller who said they shouldn’t be allowed to play the game? Ruining my analysis like that — the nerve).

I shall leave it to others to talk about his expertise with the mystical arts of reverse-swing. That is, after all, something which only enters the game after the first session, and so many Tests are decided in the first session’s play. The Doug does not have the prodigious conventional swing of The Hilf, but one can easily adapt Richie Benaud’s oft-heard epithet that the ‘ball need only spin half the width of the bat’ to see that sheer magnitude of swing is not the whole box-and-dice. Indeed, it is in the contrasts of Australia’s opening pair (for it is safe to assume that Bollinger and Hilfenhaus will share the new ball) that make for such a strong start to our bowling. If Stuart Broad could determine his role in the side (that is to say, decide, much like Mitchell Johnson, whether he is best suited at opening the innings or as the useful ‘stock’ bowler), then England might have such a formidable opening pair. Perhaps this is why Steve Finn has been given a run to see whether he can join Jimmy Anderson at the start of the day. Although since Chris Tremlett has been working on his swing (a right hook I think it was), Anderson might not be a dead-cert for the ’Gabba Test.

In any case, expect a huge cheer for Bollinger as he steams in, and an even larger one if, when batting, he manages to lay bat on ball.