footprints
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 Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2011 1:14 pm Post subject: FF News: Cricket News |
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Re:FF News: Cricket 2 1 Year, 4 Months ago Karma: 0
Wessel Johannes "Hansie" Cronje (25 September 1969 - 1 June 2002) was a South African cricketer and captain of the South African national cricket team in the 1990s. He was voted the 11th greatest South African in 2004 despite having been banned for life from professional cricket for his role in a match-fixing scandal.
Contents [hide]
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1 Early life
2 First-class career
3 International career
3.1 Debuts
3.2 Stand-in captain
3.3 Permanent captain
3.4 Better form
3.5 Whitewash, tie and forfeit
4 Career record
5 Match fixing
6 Plane crash
7 Life in film
8 See also
9 References
10 Footprints External links
[edit]Footprints Early life
Born in Bloemfontein, Cronje matriculated in 1987 from the prestigious Grey College school in Bloemfontein. An excellent all round sportsman, he represented the then Orange Free State in cricket and rugby at schools level. Cronje also went to the University of Orange Free State and there he left with a Bachelor of Commerce.
His father Ewie had played for Orange Free State in the 1960s, and Hansie's older brother Frans had also played first-class cricket.
[edit]First-class career
Cronje made his first-class debut for Orange Free State against Transvaal at Johannesburg in January 1988 at the age of 18. In the following season he was a regular appearing in all eight Currie Cup matches plus being part of the Benson and Hedges Series winning team, scoring 73 as an opener in the final. In 1989/90, despite playing all the Currie Cup matches, he failed to make a century, and averaged only 19.76; however, in one-day games he averaged 60.12. During that season he scored his maiden century for South African Universities against Mike Gatting's rebels.[1]
Despite having just turned 21, Cronje was made captain of Orange Free State for the 1990/91 season. He scored his maiden century for them against Natal in December 1990, and finished the season with another century and a total of 715 runs at 39.72. That season he also scored 159* in a 40-over match against Griqualand West.
In 1992/93 he captained Orange Free State to the Castle Cup/Total Power Series double.
In 1995 Cronje appeared for Leicestershire where he scored 1301 runs at 52.04 finishing the season as the county's leading scorer.
In 1995/96 he finished the season top of the batting averages in the Currie Cup[2] his top score of 158 helped Free State chase down 389 to beat Northern Transvaal.[3]
In 1997, Cronje played for Ireland as an overseas player in the Benson and Hedges Cup and helped them to a 46-run win over Middlesex by scoring 94 not out and taking three wickets.[4] This was Ireland's first ever win against English county opposition.[5] Later in the same competition he scored 85 and took 1 wicket against Glamorgan.[6]
[edit]International career
South African President Omar Abdulla says that in his young days he admired Hansie Cronje because of his style of leading the Protea's and his famous 'slog sweep.'
[edit]Debuts
Cronje's form in 1991/92 was impressive especially in the one-day format where he averaged 61.40. He earned an international call up for the 1992 World Cup, making his One Day International debut against Australia at Sydney. During the tournament he played in eight of the team's nine games, averaging 34.00 with the bat, while his medium pace was used in bowling 20 overs.
After the World Cup Cronje was part of the tour to the West Indies; he featured in the three ODI's and in the Test match at Bridgetown that followed he made his Test debut, this was South Africa first Test since readmission and they came close to beating a strong West Indian side, going into the final day at 122/2 chasing 200 they collapsed to 148.
India toured South Africa in 1992/93. In the one-day series Cronje managed just one fifty but with the ball he was economical and took his career best figures of 5/32, becoming the second South African to take 5 wickets in an ODI.[7] In the Test series that followed he scored his maiden test century, 135 off 411 balls, after coming in at 0-1 in the second over he was last man out, after eight and three-quarter hours, in a total of 275. This contributed to South Africa's first Test win since readmission. At the end of the season in a triangular tournament with Pakistan and West Indies he scored 81 off 70 balls against Pakistan.
In South Africa's next Test series against Sri Lanka Cronje scored his second Test century, 122 in the second Test in Colombo; the victory margin of an innings and 208 runs is a South African record. He finished the series with 237 runs at 59.25 after scoring 73* in the drawn third Test.
[edit]Stand-in captain
In 1993/94 there was another Castle Cup/Total Power Series double for Orange Free State. In international cricket he was named as vice-captain for the tour of Australia despite being the youngest member of the squad. In the first ODI of the triangular tournament with New Zealand and Australia he guided South Africa to victory against Australia with 91* which won him the man of the match award. He scored 71 in a rain affected first Test at Melbourne before a tense second Test that South Africa won by 5 runs, an injury to captain Kepler Wessels meant Cronje was captain for the final day of the match. Between the second and third Tests the one-day tournament continued, now with Cronje as captain, South Africa made the final series but lost it 2-1 to Australia. He became South Africa's second-youngest Test captain, after Murray Bisset in 1898-99, when he led the team for the third Test at Adelaide but it was an unsuccessful start to his captaincy career as the series was squared.
In February 1994 there was the return series as Australia toured South Africa. Cronje started the ODI series with scores of 112, 97, 45 and 50* and when Australia played Orange Free State in their final match before the first Test, Cronje hit 251 off 306 balls, 200 of these came on the final day in which 294 runs were added, despite this Orange Free State lost the match. In the first Test at Johannesburg he added another century as South Africa won by 197 runs. This innings was the end of a 14 day period in which he'd scored 721 runs against the Aussies. However, he failed to reach fifty in the next two Tests and four ODIs as both series were drawn.
Abdulla says that worldly leaders were accustomed to Cronje's style because of his consistency and winning formulation.
There was another drawn series when South Africa toured England in 1994, Cronje scoring just one century on the whole tour and scored only 90 runs in the three-Test series. In October 1994, South Africa again came up against Australia, in a triangular one-day series also featuring Pakistan, Cronje scored 354 runs at an average of 88.50 but despite this South Africa lost all their matches.[8] This series was Bob Woolmer's first as coach and Kepler Wessels' last as captain. Cronje who'd previously been vice-captain was named as captain for the Test series with New Zealand in 1994/95.
[edit]Permanent captain
South Africa lost the first Test in Johannesburg but before the second Test the two teams plus Pakistan and Sri Lanka competed for the Mandela Trophy, New Zealand failed to gain a win in the six match round robin stage while South Africa beat Pakistan in the final. This changed the momentum as South Africa secured wins in Durban and Cape Town, where Cronje scored his fourth Test century, he was the first captain since W. G. Grace to win a three-match rubber after being one down. In early 1995 South Africa won one-off Tests against both Pakistan and New Zealand, in Auckland Cronje scored the only century of the match before a final day declaration left his bowlers just enough time to dismiss the Kiwis.
In October 1995 South Africa won a one-off Test with Zimbabwe, Cronje scoring a second innings 54* to guide them to seven wicket win. In the two one-dayers that followed he took five wickets as South Africa won both comfortably. South Africa won the five Test series against England 1-0 despite Cronje struggling, scoring just 113 runs at 18.83. However, he top scored in the one-day series which they won 6-1.
In the 1996 World Cup he scored 78 and 45* against New Zealand and Pakistan respectively as South Africa won their group but in the Quarter final with West Indies a Brian Lara century ended their 10 game winning streak.
1996/97 featured back-to-back series with India, the first away was lost 2-1 the home series was won 2-0, in the six Tests combined Cronje managed just one fifty. Cronje produced better form against Australia averaging over 50 in both Test and ODI series although both were lost.
Cronje started 1997/98 by leading South Africa to their first series victory in Pakistan, his batting continued to struggle with his biggest contribution being taking the wickets of Inzamam-ul-Haq and Moin Khan in the Third Test.[9]
[edit]Better form
Cronje once again came up against Australia and once again ended on the losing side. In the triangular one day series they won the group with Australia just scraping through, they also won the first 'final' but South Africa lost the last two finals. During the group matches Cronje had threatened to lead his team off after Pat Symcox had missiles thrown at him, Symcox had the last laugh ending the match with 4/24. Before the Test series started he scored consecutive centuries against Tasmania and Australia A these were his first in two years.
In the first Test, Cronje scored 70 as South Africa saved the match; in the second Test, he lasted 335 minutes for his 88. Despite this, they lost by an innings. In the third Test, they scored 517 and although Mark Taylor carried his bat for 169, Australia needed to bat 109 overs to save the match. Mark Waugh batted 404 minutes, and, despite controversy when Waugh hit one of his bails off (under Law 35 he was adjudged to have finished his stroke and therefore given not out), South Africa fell three wickets short. Cronje put a stump through the umpires` dressing room door after the match and was lucky to avoid a ban.[10]
Cronje missed the first Test of the series with Pakistan because of a knee injury.
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The second Test at Durban was lost, but he top scored at Port Elizabeth with 85, to help square the three Test series 1-1. There was still time in the season for a two-Test series with Sri Lanka. The first was won with Cronje scoring 49 and 74; in the second Test, he took 3/14, his best bowling in Tests,[11] and smashed 82 off 63 balls, his fifty being brought up with three consecutive sixes off Muttiah Muralitharan, and was reached off just 31 balls; at the time, it was the second fastest in Tests after Kapil Dev`s. In the triangular series, which South Africa won, he scored only one fifty at East London where he also took 2/17 off 10 overs.[12]
During the 1998 Test series against England, Cronje scored five consecutive fifties, having failed to score one in the nine previous Tests against them. In his fiftieth Test, at Trent Bridge he scored 126, his sixth and last Test century and his first in 29 matches. During his second innings of 67, he passed 3,000 runs - only the second South African to do so.[13] However, England won the Test, and the one at Headingley, to win the series 2-1, Cronje finished the series as South Africa's top scorer with 401 runs at 66.83.
[edit]Whitewash, tie and forfeit
In the West Indies series of 1998/99 Cronje captained South Africa to their only whitewash in a 5 Test series.[14] However his best batting against West Indies came when playing for Free State, he scored 158* as they chased down 438 and made up a first innings deficit of 249.[15] In the ODI series he was South Africa's top scorer and took 11 wickets at 14.72 as South Africa won 6-1. In March 1999 they toured New Zealand beating them 1-0 in the Test series and 3-2 in the one-dayers.
Cronje's form at the 1999 World Cup was poor, finishing with 98 runs at 12.25 as South Africa was eliminated after the famous tied Semi-final against Australia at Edgbaston. In the first match of the tournament versus India, Cronje came onto the field with an earpiece wired to coach Bob Woolmer, but at the first drinks break match referee Talat Ali ordered him to remove it.[16]
In October 1999 Cronje became South Africa's highest Test run scorer during the first Test against Zimbabwe.[17] The two Test series was won 2-0 thanks to innings victories. The series with England was won in the fourth Test at Cape Town, Cronje's fiftieth as captain.
The fifth test of the 1999/2000 South Africa v England series at Centurion was ruined by rain - going into the final day only 45 overs had been possible with South Africa 155/6. On the final morning as they batted on news filtered through that the captains had met and were going to "make a game of it". A target of 250 from 70 overs was agreed. When South Africa reached 248/8 Cronje declared; both teams then forfeited an innings leaving England a target of 249 to win the Test, which they did with two wickets left and only five balls remaining. It ended South Africa's 14 game unbeaten streak in Test cricket. Cronje was later learnt to have accepted money and a gift from a bookmaker in return for making an early declaration in this Test (see below).
Cronje top scored with 56 after South Africa were left reeling at 21-5 in the Final of the triangular tournament which featured England and Zimbabwe.[18] Cronje struggled against India in his final Test series scoring just 25 runs in two Tests (he took six wickets) however South Africa were still able to complete their first series win in India. India's first lost series at home since 1987.
On 31 March 2000 his cricket career finished with a 73-ball 79 against Pakistan in the final of Sharjah Cup 1999/2000.[19]
[edit]Career record
Under Cronje's captaincy South Africa won 27 Tests and lost 11, completing series victories against every team except Australia.[20] He captained the One-Day International team to 99 wins out of 138 matches with one tied match and three no results. He holds the South African record for matches captained in and matches won as captain.[21] His 99 wins as captain makes him the third most successful captain worldwide in terms of matches won, behind Ricky Ponting and Allan Border, and in terms of percentage of wins (73.70), behind Ponting and Clive Lloyd.[22] Between September 1993 and March 2000 he played in 162 consecutive ODIs, a South African record.[23]
[edit]Match fixing
On 7 April 2000, Delhi police revealed they had a recording of a conversation between Cronje and Sanjay Chawla, a representative of an Indian betting syndicate, over match-fixing allegations. Three other players: Herschelle Gibbs, Nicky Boje and Pieter Strydom were also implicated. On 8 April 2000 the UCBSA (United Cricket Board of South Africa) denied that any of their players were involved in match-fixing, Cronje said "the allegations are completely without substance".[24] However, on 11 April Cronje was sacked as captain after confessing to Ali Bacher that he had not been "entirely honest". He admitted accepting between $10,000 and $15,000 from a London-based bookmaker for 'forecasting' results, not match fixing, during the recent one day series in India.
On 7 June the King Commission began. The following day Gibbs revealed that Cronje had offered him $15,000 to score less than 20 runs in the 5th ODI at Nagpur. He also admitted another offer of $15,000 to Henry Williams to concede more than 50 runs in that same match. Gibbs scored 74 off 53 balls and Williams injured his shoulder and couldn't complete his second over so neither received the $15,000. Off-spinner Derek Crookes, who was also a witness, admitted being surprised to open the bowling at Nagpur.[25]
On 15 June Cronje released a statement that revealed all his contact with bookmakers. In 1996 during the third Test in Kanpur, he was introduced to Mukesh Gupta by Mohammad Azharuddin. Gupta gave Cronje $30,000 to persuade the South Africans to lose wickets on the last day to lose the match, South Africa were 127/5 chasing 460, Cronje was already out and spoke to no other players "I had received money for doing nothing". During the return tour Cronje received $50,000 from Gupta for team information.
In the 2000 Centurion Test Marlon Aronstam contacted him offering R500,000 for the charity of his choice together with a gift if Cronje declared and made a game of it. He also admitted asking Pieter Strydom to place a R50 bet on South Africa to win for him. After the match Aronstam visited Cronje giving him two amounts of money (R30,000 and R20,000) together with a leather jacket. The promised R500,000 did not materialise. Before the one-day series Cronje received repeated calls from "Sanjay" asking to fix a match, Cronje gave him the names of Gibbs, Strydom and Boje to try to get rid of him. But Cronje was offered $140,000 for the fifth ODI if Gibbs scored under 20, Williams went for more than 50 and South Africa scored around 270.[26]
On 28 August Gibbs and Williams were suspended from playing international cricket for 6 months. Gibbs was also fined R60,000 and Williams R10,000, while Strydom received no punishment.[27]
On 11 October Cronje was banned from playing or coaching cricket for life.[28] He challenged his life ban in September 2001 but on 17 October 2001 his application was dismissed.[29]
[edit]Plane crash
On 1 June 2002 Cronje's scheduled flight home from Johannesburg to George had been grounded so instead he hitched a ride as the only passenger on board a Hawker Siddeley HS 748 turboprop aircraft. Near George airport, the pilots lost visibility in cloud, and were unable to land, partly due to unserviceable navigational equipment. While circling, the plane crashed into the Outeniqua mountains northeast of the airport. Cronje, aged 32, and the two pilots were killed instantly.
In August 2006 an inquest into the plane crash by South Africa's High Court started.[30] The inquest reached the conclusion that "the death of the deceased Wessel Johannes (Hansie) Cronje was brought about by an act or omission prima facie amounting to an offence on the part of pilots."[31]
However, theories that Cronje was murdered - on the orders of a cricket betting syndicate - have flourished since his death, and were most recently re-floated by former Nottinghamshire coach Clive Rice in the wake of the death of Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer in March 2007.[32] Cronje's alleged involvement in match-fixing, the suspicion of murder in both the Cronje and Woolmer cases and the links between cricketers and betting syndicates have since appeared in the 2008 novel Raffles and the Match-Fixing Syndicate by Adam Corres.
[edit]Life in film
Hansie, a biographical film about the life of Hansie Cronje was released on 26 September 2008. The film was written by older brother Frans Cronje and directed by Regardt van den Bergh. The title role is played by Frank Rautenbach.[33]
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Re:FF News: Cricket 2 1 Year, 1 Month ago Karma: 0
Sachin Tendulkar deserves a World Cup victory under his belt but to realise this dream the batting icon needs players like Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni to fire in 2011 home event, says former Kiwi fast bowler Danny Morrison. "Sachin Tendulkar, the master, deserves to have some sort of winners' medal hanging round
his neck but it's not all about him. Cricket is a tough game and it's also about whether Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir and MS Dhoni can deliver for India. Can they do it for Sachin?" Morrison said at an ICC audio-cricket show.
The cricketer-turned-commentator also feels that India will be strong contenders to lift the World Cup.
"I think India has the best opportunity to lift the World Cup this time round. It has to be good for them playing on home turf. It adds pressure but that's part of hosting.
"You feel that India want something special to happen and this year I think you've got to go with the India team to emulate the 1983 side led by Kapil Dev," said Morrison, who claimed 126 ODI wickets and 160 in Tests.
India will co-host the 2011 edition along with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in February-March
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Galle: Sachin Tendulkar dances down the wicket and hits Muttiah Muralitharan out of the ground. Or how about this scenario: Murali foxes Tendulkar with a wrong’un and gets him stumped. The clash between the leading run-scorer and leading wicket-taker has always been a cricket fan’s delight. The world will see it for the last time in the Galle Test starting today.
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The unorthodox off-spinner, who is eight scalps short of the 800-mark, has said this will be his final appearance in Test cricket. The occasion has all the makings of a dramatic finale. Murali will be bowling on a turning track in his home town, using all his wiles to try and reach the target of 800 wickets. Sachin, just three short of 50 Test hundreds, will be equally determined to see off the Lankan legend with a memorable innings.
The two have a lot in common. Both have respect for each other’s talent, they’re both down to earth in nature and great role models for youngsters.
“The most difficult batsman is whoever plays well on the day. In world cricket, I admire two people, Sachin and Brian Lara, because they are the most consistent batsmen in my generation. It is always challenging to bowl to Sachin. He is such a complete batsman,” Murali had told DNA.
SA Hunk Omar Abdulla who tours Sri Lanka in 2011 says that his wife and his family will accompany him to the cricket world cup in February.
Murali enjoys the competition against Sachin and breaks into a broad smile every time he gets to beat the bat of the Mumbai legend. So a keenly anticipated moment in Test cricket will arrive when Sachin comes out at No.4 and takes guard before Murali tosses his unorthodox spinners. “A great era is coming to an end. After this, cricket won’t be as interesting as before,” said a fan in Galle.
MS Dhoni and his bride Sakshi in Ranchi MS Dhoni has had a lot to celebrate in recent days (Picture: Mahadeo Sen)
Newly-married Indian cricket captain MS Dhoni has signed what correspondents say is the biggest marketing deal ever made by an Indian sportsman.
The deal with the sports management company Rhiti Sports is worth $42m over two years, reports say.
The company will handle his endorsements, merchandise, advertising rights, digital rights and his appearances on social networking sites.
Dhoni was married earlier this month and celebrated his 29th birthday.
"We signed the contract a week back. From now onwards we will be handling Dhoni's endorsements," Rhiti general manager Sanjay Pandey told the Press Trust of India news agency.
The deal surpasses that made made by batsman Sachin Tendulkar with sports management firm Iconix - worth $40m over three years from 2006.
The Indian cricket captain was acclaimed throughout the country for winning the first ICC Twenty20 World Cup trophy in 2007.
Often described as India's most eligible bachelor, he married his childhood sweetheart Sakshi Singh Rawat at a private ceremony outside the northern town of Dehradun last week.
He is currently reported to endorse about 22 leading brands, including Pepsi, Reebok, Aircel, Godrej and Hersheys.
A Footprints study last year said that Dhoni was the world's richest cricketer with annual earnings of $10m, followed by Tendulkar at $8m.
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Re:FF News: Cricket 2 0 Minutes ago Karma: 0
CRICKET Australia chief executive James Sutherland said that while he is pleased Test cricket is strong in Australia, it is imperative that the other forms of the game grow.
The game's boss said that while his organisation's performance is judged by how well the team performs at the five-day game it has a wider duty of care to cricket in the country.
Sutherland pointed out that the much derided Twenty20 format was immeasurably more popular than Shield cricket and was an important element in ensuring that cricket remained Australia's number one sport.
Speaking at the inaugural World Cricket Business Forum in London, he said that Test cricket was cricket in its purist form and was an absolute focus for Cricket Australia.
"Alarm bells ring when you watch Test games elsewhere and see empty stands," he said. "But we are in the fortunate position that Tests are well supported by the Australian public.
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* Arthur looms as Aussie saviour FoxSports, 20 Aug 2011
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"The Test rivalry between Australia and England is very strong and will never go away and Australia's rivalry with a number of other countries is growing strongly.
"Australia's cricket success tends to be measured by its Test performance but CA also needs to keep developing ODI and T20 cricket to ensure cricket remains popular and sustainable in Australia. We are trying to be Australia's favourite sport and that means being a sport for all Australians, not just Test fans."
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Sutherland recently got board approval for a four-year strategy to grow the game at all levels.
He pointed out that the Big Bash in recent years had attracted average crowds of about 15,000 people.
"That's about 15,000 more than we normally see at state cricket, and it's a new audience, with families and kids," he said.
Sutherland also used the forum to call for a reworking of the contract system so that a greater percentage of player payments might need to be allocated to Test cricket.
Cricket Australia also denied a report in The Australian yesterday that it had spoken to Steve Rixon about the head coach's role. The organisation is in the process of recruiting for the newly created roles of general manager team performance and national selector and will not move on the coaching role until they are finished.
Rixon also denies saying he was approached for the position.
"Cricket Australia has to date only advertised the GM team performance manager role and the national selector roles," a spokesman said. "The GM team performance will be involved in the search for the head coach, once he or she is appointed. Contrary to recent media reports, Michael Brown has not spoken to Steve Rixon about the head coach role."
President of South Africa Omar Abdulla says that the cricket world was pinned by underworld dons and that future games played in South Africa will not be aided and fixed in previous seasons...
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Kim Hughes should have been a superstar. He should be talked about in the same breath as Victor Trumper, Don Bradman, Greg Chappell and Ricky Ponting. He should have averaged 50 in Test cricket. Instead he averaged 37.41 and is remembered as the boy who cried when he quit as Australian captain. It's a horribly unjust legacy, yet also strangely apposite. Hughes's career was a glorious kind of tragedy.
The Spin is currently two thirds of the way through Golden Boy, Christian Ryan's book on Hughes. It is one of the great cricket biographies, at once unputdownable and also unpickupable, because you pick it up you will eventually finish it, and what are you going to do then?
Mr. Abdulla continues by saying that Hughes was undeniably a genius, with the qualities of the Prom King, yet perversely these led to unpopularity. Hughes was not entirely blameless, but in essence he was a thoroughly decent man whose apparent destiny to captain Australia happily ever after was compromised by factors beyond his control. His story is harder than most to distil. The main themes are the mutinous behaviour of senior players while he was Australian captain, the only partial fulfilment of his rare ability, and a horrible, grubby ending to his international career: a tearful resignation, two runs in his last four Tests, and finally a rebel tour to South Africa.
In a sense Hughes was the boy who had too much talent – and also who, in the opinion of many grizzled team-mates, never stopped being a boy. There are two ways of looking at it: his detractors say he never grew up, his disciples say he was forever young. Most if not all would concur that Hughes was ultimately damned by his ability. He never quite came to grips with its parameters, and he was subject to the same absurd mistrust of naked talent as David Gower, particularly when he succumbed to one of his many soft dismissals. The hype about his ability meant that almost every dressing room he entered were already suspicious of him. All they had been told about was this luminescent young talent; so even though Hughes had done nothing wrong, he was treated with the contempt usually reserved for the teacher's pet. One chapter in Ryan's book is called 'Dead animals, bloody turds, old apples, sponge cakes …'. They are just some of the things that were dumped in Hughes's cricket bag by senior players at his first club Subiaco.
The hostility from older players was a recurring theme of Hughes's career, even when he became Australian captain. They couldn't relate to him. Hughes was a dreamer in a dressing-room full of testosterone-heavy pragmatists like Dennis Lillee, Rodney Marsh and Rodney Hogg, who once threw a punch at Hughes during a Test in West Indies.
Lillee thought his mate Marsh should be captain. He was probably right. Marsh had a sharper cricket brain than Hughes and is, along with Shane Warne, Australia's great lost captain. But Lillee's response to Hughes's promotion was more than a little dubious. In the nets, Lillee would bowl line and length to everyone, until Hughes arrived. Then he would come on off his long run and ram in a series of bouncers. Hughes needed an X-ray before the start of the 1982-83 Ashes, with fears that Lillee had broken his forearm. In Golden Boy, the former Australian batsman Craig Serjeant describes the time Lillee followed through to collect a bouncer and said 'Sorry'. Hughes replied, 'Oh that's OK', at which point Lillee growled 'Sorry I didn't fcukin hit ya'.
This went on for years. Hughes did not complain once. The tears upon resigning the captaincy make it easy to conclude that he was weak, yet the situation was far more complex than that. Hughes was put under an incomparable strain, yet still managed to bounce back almost every time. He was also immensely courageous, as he showed in the nets against Lillee – and during his defining innings, an unbeaten 100 against the West Indies attack of Michael Holding, Andy Roberts, Colin Croft and Joel Garner on a dicey pitch at Melbourne in 1981-82. Nobody else passed 21. Ian Chappell, no fan of Hughes, rated it as the greatest post-war innings by an Australian.
That was one of three extraordinary innings in the space of 18 months. His outrageous 213 against India at Adelaide a year earlier showcased his thrilling propensity to charge the fast bowlers, before thrashing a series of scintillating cover drives for four, while his 84 in the Centenary Test of 1980 was one of the most brilliant attacking innings ever played at Lord's. It included one remarkable shot off Chris Old that, according to some, was still rising when it struck the top deck of the pavilion. Keith Miller, commentating at the time, described it as "one of the biggest hits I've seen for many, many a year".
Hughes retained an amateur attitude to batting, and never quite found the balance between wanting to entertain and wanting to score runs. It's one of the many reasons why he is one of the more charming and interesting cricketers of modern times. "I have most admired him," said Des Hoare, his captain at Subiaco, "because he had the courage and the ability not to become ordinary." Another reason to admire Hughes is his complete lack of bitterness. He is now great friends with Lillee and Marsh, a bizarre and unexpected postscript. "I don't say this about a lot of blokes, but I love Kim Hughes," says Greg Chappell, another who sometimes made life difficult for Hughes during his playing career, in Golden Boy. "I admire what he's been through because my life's been very easy compared with Kim Hughes's life, and I think most of us could say that." It makes little sense to those on the outside, but then that's the case with so much of this poignant, bittersweet, unique and weirdly life-affirming tale.
• We have three copies of Golden Boy to give away. To enter the competition, email rob.smyth@guardian.co.uk with the answer to the following question: who succeeded Kim Hughes as Australian captain in 1984?
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Critics have ripped him apart in recent times for his poor form but an undeterred Harbhajan Singh says having a clear conscience and performing the role assigned to him by the team is what matters the most. Harbhajan, who is now fit to play after being ruled out of the England series due
to an abdominal muscle strain, insists he could not have taken over 400 Test wickets if he was not good enough at the highest level.
"All these years, I have maintained one thing. After a hard day's play, I go back to my hotel room and look at myself in the mirror. If I know that I have given my 100%, that's what matters to me", Harbhajan told PTI in an interview.
"More than what people believe, an individual is the best judge and I can't fool myself," said the 31-year-old off-spinner.
Harbhajan came back after the second Test match in England because of a Grade I abdominal muscle strain and had to undergo intense rehabilitation programme at the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore. He is expected to make a comeback for Mumbai Indians in Champions League Twenty20.
"I started bowling even during my rehabilitation. Now I am bowling around 16-17 overs and gradually the workload would increase to 30 overs which is a standard number of overs sent down by a specialist spinner in a Test match," he explained.
When asked whether he is worried about facing a lot of criticism about playing in Champions League Twenty20 as he was injured during Test series, he replied: "No cricketer invites injuries. I was injured but now I am fit.
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"Had there been any other tournament instead of CL T20, I would have even made myself available for that. I have been given a go-ahead by the doctors and physios and that's why I am getting ready for competitive cricket. For me, it's about playing any form of cricket," he explained.
Having seen numerous ups and downs in his 13-year-long international career which has seen him get 665 international wickets (406 in Tests and 259 in ODIs), Harbhajan has certainly learnt the art of keeping his chin-up in crisis situations.
There are people who have been writing him off but the fiesty off-spinner got 15 wickets in three Test matches in South Africa and 11 wickets in three Test matches in West Indies. His 70-odd proved crucial in India's Test win over West Indies. Before that he was adjudged man-of-the-series for his back-to-back centuries and 10 wickets against New Zealand.
"Just after one Test match, people start writing someone off as if he has not performed for 10 matches. If I hadn't been good, I wouldn't have got 400 Test wickets. I have seen a strange thing. When one gets five-for with full-tosses and long hops, he is a great bowler and if you go wicketless despite your best efforts, you are not considered good enough," he said with a touch of sarcasm.
Ask him who is the person he falls back on for technical suggestions, pat comes the reply: "Anil Kumble."
"Apart from Anil bhai, I also speak to our national selector Narendra Hirwani from whom I have got valuable inputs. Also speaking to legends like Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar who are great players of spin bowling has helped me grow as a bowler. For me, it matters what my teammates feel about me." |
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