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Elliott injury could signal Slater's return to Test scene

Christopher Martin-Jenkins

5 December 1996


FOR ALL the talk of world league tables, the question which concerns most followers of the game at home is not, I suspect, whether Australia are actually the strongest side in the world at present but whether or not they can be beaten in England next summer, writes Christopher Martin-Jenkins.

The form book, for all the worthy performances of Adam Hollioake's England A side in Australia, suggests not.

It is probably not good news for England, for instance, that they could be facing Michael Slater again. Matthew Elliott's cartilage tear in his right knee was found under anaesthetic yesterday to be worse than had been hoped.

Elliott will miss the third Test against the West Indies in his native Melbourne and should be out of cricket for at least two months. He has done enough to earn a tour batting place to England but the chances are that Slater, a batsman of the highest class, will now return to the Test team.

The West Indies travelled to Melbourne yesterday without Brian Lara who, ominously, was said to be on personal business in Sydney.

There is talk of an additional player being recruited, possibly the leg-spinner Rawle Lewis, who has done well for the A team in Sri Lanka. It was folly to try to play a game in Sydney conditions without a spin-bowler.

England, like the West Indies, will above all have to deal with Shane Warne, or lose. Whatever Taylor might say (''I reckon he's about eight to 9.5 out of 10 now'') the maestro is bowling sensationally well again.

Australian excellence generally is taken almost for granted. Almost, but not quite.

Although there is a self-assurance about every aspect of Australian cricket, it is not permitted by those who matter to reach the point of arrogance. That would imply complacency and would lead, sooner or later, to a fall.

On the contrary, it is because of the decline and fall in the Eighties that those involved in administering the game here are so relentlessly seeking perfection; they battle ceaselessly to maintain cricket as a standard bearer for Australian sport.

That is the stated aim of Graham Halbish, the big, bluff, cheerful, give-it-to-you-straight Aussie, who has been chief executive of the Australian Cricket Board since his fellow-Melbournian, David Richards, moved to Lord's to seek a new direction for the expanding International Cricket Council.

Unlike Richards, and his English counterpart Tim Lamb, both of whom head organisations in a state of transition, the ACB are a body who know exactly what they are about and where they are going.

Halbish joined the Board in 1981, changing from a career as a tax accountant. It was the year that the Australian team to England, including players of the class of Lillee, Alderman, Marsh and Border, were humiliated by Ian Botham. Four years later, following defections of senior players to disapproved tours of South Africa, England had another 3-1 victory and they followed it up, for once, by holding the Ashes in Australia.

``We resolved never again to be caught with our pants down, as we were when those players left for South Africa,'' Halbish remembered.

``We lacked strength in depth and we had to do something about it by getting the game right at the grass roots.''

There is now a logic to the organisation of Australian cricket, simpler to run though it is, with a population a third the size of Britain's. Those who wrestled last season with a suitable constitution for the new England and Wales Cricket Board can only envy the system.

Youth cricket in Australia is active and strong, with everyone getting a chance to learn at school and promising talent quickly spotted and carefully nurtured. ACB's registers of young people playing show an upward trend, and the drive to keep them interested is fostered by a seven-figure advertising budget.

In this respect Halbish is envious of England, where the grounds are smaller and tickets therefore easier to sell. He said: ``We have to work at it all the time, especially for Shield and fiveday cricket. But Shield crowds are actually going up and we exceeded our crowd budgets on both the Brisbane and Sydney Tests.''

The crowd at the Gabba, 48,000, has been exceeded only in 10 previous Brisbane Tests, a reflection partly on the transformation of the ground from rough and hickory to a comfortable modern stadium. At Sydney the overall gate of just over 80,000 was smaller than for a Test during the Christmas holiday.

Halbish's marketing team are apparently happy and can expect a Boxing Day bonanza at Melbourne, when Australia resume their five-Test series against the West Indies with a 2-0 lead.

The ACB have 24 people full-time at the Melbourne office now and a string of associates all round the country. When Halbish and Richards worked together, they were part of a tight little office of three, which had moved to Jolimont Road, close to the Melbourne Cricket Ground, following the retirement of the proudly traditional Alan Barnes, who administered New South Wales cricket for 26 years and the ACB for a further 20.

To Barnes the media were something to be kept not so much at arm's length as at a cricket pitch's. To Halbish and all who work with him - including a full-time media-relations officer, Patrick Keane, who until recently was a hard-bitten young cricket journalist - newspapers, television and radio are all allies in the cause of the national game. Therefore they get co-operation and more.

The boom in the game, evident when England were here two winters ago, is still running.


Source: The Electronic Telegraph
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Date-stamped : 25 Feb1998 - 15:30