Stuart MacGill's Postcards

WEDNESDAY 24 JANUARY 2001
Stuart MacGill reflects on the events of a crucial summer

Regular readers of this site will perhaps notice that I have failed to contribute further since my opening article on the eve of the First Test in Brisbane way back in November. As well as being an indicator of the heavy workload that international cricketers face, it may serve as a guide to how crucially I viewed this past series to my future in Australian cricket.

My goal has always been to make the most of my opportunities, as most of you know. This year, having been presented with a golden opportunity, I felt challenged in a number of ways. I had placed a lot of pressure on myself to earn a place in the touring parties to be selected at the end of the season, and had set targets in domestic cricket that would lead me there. When I was selected to play for Australia ahead of schedule, I saw a real chance to really turn the screws on players competing for my spot. This is something that I normally avoid, believing that any focus on other players detracts from my own performances. Whether it was deliberate or otherwise, I failed to concentrate consistently on my job, or more specifically the next ball I bowled, and this has cost me.

Playing the first two Tests on surfaces extremely unforgiving to inaccurate spin bowling really brought the best out in me. In Brisbane I was brought into the attack very early on the first day and, as luck would have it, took the very first wicket of the summer. In Australian cricket we often say that the first blow of any match often determines the outcome of the game,but I must admit that, after an eighteen month break from Test cricket, that was the furthest thought from my mind. The enormous sense of relief that washed over me showed me that no matter how much I claimed to be unfazed by not playing for Australia, I was very, very pleased to have taken my sixtieth Test wicket. In fact, I was praying that a catch didn't come my way next over as I was in a bit of a dream.

The Test in Brisbane was, of course, the game in which we drew even with the greatest side of all, the West Indies team which won eleven straight Tests between 1983-84 and 1984-85, and I was very pleased with my contribution.

I remember feeling extremely nervous, however, about my selection for the Second Test in Perth as I took nothing for granted following my exclusion there during the Ashes series. Following the announcement of the team, I set my mind to playing a Test in my city of birth, something that once seemed like a foolish dream. Bowling on wickets like the WACA requires extra patience, a trait that I don't have a lot of, so I was determined to take a deep breath every time I started to stray. Consequently I bowled as well as I felt I had done all summer, and took the wicket of Brian Lara, which I would come to regret in Adelaide! To be a part of the team that secured the greatest number of consecutive victories in Test match history was very satisfying, and needless to say the celebrations were exhausting ... .

Everyone has bad games occasionally, and I can say with little regret that I played poorly in Adelaide. The upside of that was that I added two Test wickets to my tally, but the downside was that I cost myself a place in the Boxing Day Test match, which is a game to which everybody looks forward. For the first time in the series, we saw a determined Brian Lara and, unfortunately for me, he was determined to smash me out of the attack. As I said to the NSW players a few weeks later: just because you poorly execute a plan, it doesn't mean that the plan didn't work. I had certain ideas about bowling to Lara and because I did, he had made runs, and I assumed that they didn't work. I should have trusted my instincts and realised that I just bowled badly.

I stuck to my guns in Sydney and this paid off unbelievably well on day one. I remember looking at Glenn McGrath's Test figures in my first match, and being amazed that he had taken an 8-wicket haul against England. Three seasons later, now I find myself with two 7s! I can honestly say that, even if I never play another Test that I have achieved more than I ever dreamed of doing. The euphoria of the first innings was replaced by disappointment in the second when I failed to get a wicket for the second time in the series. Perhaps the weight of expectation got to me, but I now believe that this was a contributing factor to me being excluded from the one-day squad. It was a sign of inconsistency that nobody likes to see and, although I didn't feel as if I had bowled badly, I know that people wondered how you could go from seven wickets to none in the space of a few days.

A couple of successful Australia A games and unsuccessful Mercantile Mutual games later, I find myself once again staring down the barrel of a stalled international career. The upside is that, if I am excluded from the touring party for India, I will be able to play for NSW in their bid to complete their most successful season in a decade. As NSW is a team for which I feel as though I have underachieved in the last couple of years, I consider this to be a great challenge. And who knows, it may well be the Blues hoisting up the Pura Cup in March.

More Postcards 20 November 2000 Stuart MacGill on the opportunities presented by a new summer