Cricket Talk

Shaun Pollock to Clarke: Two good length deliveries outside the off stump to begin the over. Clarke is forced to leave the first and play a defensive shot of the other since there is not enough room to cut, nor over pitched enough to drive it.

The third delivery is overpitched, though not a half volley. But it is good enough to play a classy cover drive and Clarke goes through the shot, only to realize that it was a well disguised slower delivery. He plays through the shot, an uppish cover drive, and A Devilliers pulls out a splendid catch.Shane Watson comes in, and immediately Pollock readjusts the length so suit the taller Watson, and the over is a maiden.

The next over to Hussey: The first two balls, good length ones outside off stump, Hussey wants to pull, but not short enough. The next ball, is a half volley, short enough to go through the pull shot, and Hussey quickly spots it and grabs the opportunity at once, plays the pull shot with full power. Again the slow ball trick worked! It goes up and straight to the fielder. Lee comes in, hits and misses for the rest of the over.

Polly finishes his spell with the figures reading something like 10-1-23-3, and it really destroyed the Australian innings.

In the next match where South Africa crushed Australia by a mammoth 196 runs, Ntini’s figures are 22/6. Pollock had 7-4-9-0. Mind you, it is a one day figure. One cannot be any more frugal. Seeing this, one gets a feeling that Ntini would not have got 6 wickets had the other end been a bit looser. Need I say anything more how much the South African team needs to be thankful to Pollock?

That is what Pollock is. A thinking cricketer, a very good bowler in both formats of the game, and an effective lower order batsman. He is the epitome of line and length, and consistency. As wise men say that fast bowlers always hunt in pairs, he formed a lethal combination with Donald earlier in his career. It was a nightmare for the batsmen to get through the deadly first spell of firing fast Donald and the consistent machine named Pollock. After Donald’s retirement, he has found a good pair in Makhaya Ntini, and they remind the batsmen about the fierce old days of Donald-Pollock pair. Though he lost a couple of miles of pace, he is still very effective, as he clearly knows where his limitations lie. He bowls a lot slower in one dayers than he does in test matches, which makes it more difficult for the batsman to take him on.

One more side of Pollock is his batting abilities. Given a chance, he always performed with the bat as well, need it be pinch hitting or a slow patient innings. Even in the last one day against Australia, he made a handy knock with the bat. But people always under estimated his batting.

What more to be said is his behaviour in the field. He always looks calm and composed in the field. There are not many sledging incidents involving him, unlike his counterparts, the great contemporary fast bowlers like McGrath who carries an ego larger than him or Brett Lee, who has a frustrating smile provoking the batsman, or Akthar who beams and sledges whenver he gets punished. Pollock minds his business, and leave the batsman to take care of his.

Good batting and great bowling. What else do you require to be rated as a top class all rounder? Despite perfoming far better than the so called best all rounders, why Pollock is not rated as one of the greatest all rounder outside South Africa? Is it because he lacks the flair and flamboyance of Flintoff? Or the killer instinct Klusener displayed for a short amount of time? These days when the critics rate a person who can neither bat properly nor bowl a good spell consistently as a budding and talented all rounder, I seriously don’t know why world cricket preferred not to acknowledge the feats of Pollock. I am not saying that he is neglected, but just that he is underrated and is not getting the respect that he deserves. Hope this gentle sportsman gets respected in course of time, as I feel he has many more years to go before he calls it a day.

# posted by Sreejith Narayanan @ 12:19 AM