Watch out for the Bristol Ball
Santhosh S - 27 November 2001
Rohan Gavaskar, son of legendary opening batsman Sunil Gavaskar, walked
out to bat at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium in Hyderabad on the final
day of a three-day match against England last Saturday. He must have
been hoping to thrash the English attack for a few quick runs and, to
his credit, did manage to slam a few boundaries, not wasting any time at
all in the middle.
At one point, Gavaskar stepped out and dismissed a well-tossed-up
delivery from Martyn Ball over mid-off for four, almost in disdain.
There were enough eyebrows raised all around about this 31-year-old off-
spinner's ability to bowl against Indian batsmen, who are so good in
using their feet. Even Ashley Giles' comment that the pitch was not too
good for the bowlers did not hold any water as Murali Kartik and
Sarandeep Singh had extracted a lot of life out of it.
Ball walked back slowly to his bowling mark, wondering what he could do
on tracks such as these against quality batsmen. He trundled up to the
crease, stopped for a slight moment and wheeled his arm over. Gavaskar's
eyes lit up on seeing the flighted delivery, for it had enough loop on
it to be smashed over the top. The ball, however, seemed to stop for a
fraction of a second, dip sharply and adhere to the track. Gavaskar
played the shot but was fooled and spooned an easy return catch to Ball.
The unbound joy of the bowler and his mates were there to be seen; any
spin bowler would be proud of such a dismissal, and Ball had effectively
nudged the selectors.
No one really knew what this Martyn Ball did, and no one even gave a
chance that he might play for England one day. Ball, who was born in
Bristol, was almost living in cricketing oblivion, making his first-
class debut for Gloucestershire in 1988. It says a lot about his initial
years that he had to wait for his county cap till 1996. It was indeed a
surprise for all, including the bowler concerned, when he was summoned
up for the tour to India. England's number one off-spinner Robert Croft
decided to stay back home, which facilitated Ball's entry into the
squad. In his own words, "Crofty made that decision and gave myself and
Dawson a chance."
Ball has been enjoying this new experience of bowling in India. He finds
it interesting and a daunting challenge to bowl to Indian batsmen.
Talking about his bowling in Hyderabad, which has afforded another
option to the selectors, Ball says, "Your margin of error is small
against these players on their own wicket. It was a matter of bowling my
best ball, bit of loop, bit of dip, actually get the pace off the wicket
rather than bowling quick." Precisely what he delivered to prise out the
wicket of Gavaskar.
Ball is a quick learner too; there has been a lot of difference to his
cricket in the last few years. One can see the pride in his eyes when he
talks about the chance to wear the three lions on his cap. Ball had
actually hoped to break into the English one-day team last year after a
string of consistent performance in the domestic season. He has a
confident air about him, which he calls, "football mentality." Although
he is quite happy with his bowling, Ball is disappointed with his
batting effort in Hyderabad, "In the first innings, I had done all the
hard work to make 28. I should have gone on to make 50 or 60, but I
played an attacking shot and gave a catch."
He has been a late developer as a cricketer. The sudden bend in his
learning curve was due to the presence of a Kiwi coach in
Gloucestershire, former New Zealand Test player John Bracewell. The
former Kiwi off-spinner knows a thing or two about bowling at Indian
batsmen and even bowling in India. In 1981 at Auckland, Bracewell rocked
an Indian side that included names like Sunil Gavaskar and GR Viswanath
to finish with match figures of 9/136. Seven years later at Mumbai,
Bracewell helped his team achieve the near-impossible - a victory by 136
runs in India. He returned amazing figures of 17.1-3-51-6, which
included scalps like Navjot Singh Sidhu, Dilip Vengsarkar, Mohammad
Azharuddin and Kapil Dev.
When asked about the advice that he got from his county coach, Ball
said, "He gave me quite a few, and I don't want to let it out, to let
the Indian players know about it. John was been very good to me; he has
been great for the last three or four years for English cricket." If
Ball could do a Bracewell in any of the Test matches that he gets to
play, England would have unearthed a reliable off-spinner with the right
kind of attitude. Watch out for this Bristol Ball!
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