The Shorter Wisden 2013 (57 page)
Read The Shorter Wisden 2013 Online
Authors: John Wisden,Co
All series, the talk had been of West Indies missing some illustrious names. Now, they shuffled their existing pack: Sunil Narine – finally part of the tour after helping Kolkata Knight
Riders win the IPL – and Assad Fudadin were handed Test debuts, and Deonarine and Best drafted in; Kirk Edwards and Shillingford were dropped, while Roach had been ruled out of the rest of
the tour with a shin injury, and Chanderpaul was said to have suffered a side strain. But none performed half as entertainingly as Best. His innings – part of a West Indies record last-wicket
stand of 143 with Ramdin – was also used as evidence that England had erred in resting both Anderson, left out of the squad entirely, and Broad, omitted shortly before play eventually started
on the third day.
Neither was thrilled by the decision, though it had been defended with some passion by team director Andy Flower, and created room for the recall of Finn and Onions, playing his first Test since
January 2010 after recovering from a career-threatening back injury. But after Strauss won the toss, England were soon missing Anderson, if not necessarily for his bowling. Barath had made only
four when he edged Onions to Bell at third slip, Anderson’s regular haunt between overs: down went the chance. Then, in the second over after lunch, Bell dropped Barath, on 40, in the same
position, this time off Finn.
Onions quickly took Bell out of the equation, trapping Barath leg-before in the next over. England’s seamers – headed by Bresnan, soon to surrender his record of winning every Test
he had played – belatedly located a better length and began to chip away at the batting. But as at Trent Bridge, Samuels responded well to the bowlers’ chatter and completed an elegant
fifty by striking Swann for six and four off successive balls, then pointed his bat at Onions in recognition of their ongoing joust. He eventually fell to Bresnan for 76, and the end of the innings
appeared nigh when Rampaul was caught behind off the third ball next morning.
But Best promptly cracked Finn through mid-off for four, then held the pose, paving the way for an unreal session in which he drove England to distraction and the ball to the fence in equal
measure. Relatively unnoticed at the other end was Ramdin, who had 63 when Best came in, was dropped on 69 by Pietersen in the gully off Finn, and completed a wicketkeeper’s hundred, full of
cuts and deflections. It was his second in Tests, both against England – and was immediately overshadowed when he produced a piece of paper from his pocket bearing the scrawl: “YEA VIV,
TALK NAH”.
That followed criticism from Viv Richards during the Second Test, when he had described Ramdin as looking “totally lost”. Given that Richards still seemed in the physical shape of
his playing days, Ramdin could hardly be said to have chosen a soft target. Unimpressed by his bravado, the ICC fined him 20% of his match fee.
Meanwhile, boundaries flowed from Best: Bresnan was upper-cut for four and driven for a six. England’s hope was that, like the Australians here in 2005, the closer Best got to an
improbable target, the more nervous he would become. So it proved: on 95, he slashed at a wide, slower ball from Onions, and Strauss ran back from the slips to hold on. The manner in which he threw
the ball away told of Strauss’s frustration, despite equalling the England record of 120 Test catches, shared by Colin Cowdrey and Ian Botham.
Best had faced only 112 balls, cruising past the highest score by a Test No. 11: Zaheer Khan’s 75 for India against Bangladesh at Dhaka in December 2004. His partnership with Ramdin fell
eight short of the tenth-wicket Test record of 151, held jointly by Richard Collinge and Brian Hastings, for New Zealand against Pakistan at Auckland in 1972-73, and Azhar Mahmood and Mushtaq
Ahmed, for Pakistan against South Africa at Rawalpindi in 1997-98.
The canny Rampaul quickly removed Cook, before Trott and Strauss – superbly caught by Bravo at first slip off a joyous Best – followed cheaply. At 49 for three, England were in a
spot of bother. But Pietersen, in his first innings since announcing his retirement from limited-overs internationals, and Bell batted sublimely, while the only mystery surrounding the Test debut
of the feted off-spinner Narine appeared to be why he had failed to live up to the hype. Pietersen looked determined to bring him down to size before, equally unsurprisingly, falling to the less
celebrated off-breaks of Samuels.
In the midst of their fluent stand of 137, the umpires twice took the players off for bad light, even though the floodlights were on. At Lord’s, the match had carried on under artificial
light when it had been far darker, but that was now forgotten. Umpire Tony Hill lamely justified the decision by saying spectators wouldn’t wish to bat against Best in such conditions, and
that his colleague, Kumar Dharmasena, was struggling to see the ball from square leg. On the final day, however, despite a downpour, the officials didn’t call off play until well into the
afternoon. To England the series, but to Best imperishable glory.
Man of the Match:
T. L. Best.
Attendance:
54,620.
Men of the Series:
England – A. J. Strauss; West Indies – M. N. Samuels.
Umpires: H. D. P. K. Dharmasena and A. L. Hill. Third umpire: Aleem Dar.
Series referee: R. S. Mahanama.
THE HIGHEST TEST SCORE BY A No. 11
A
LAN
T
YERS
Tino Best fixes me with an intense, earnest look. “I went out there, and I told myself I’m going to play for Denesh Ramdin to get his century,” he says.
“I’m going to play sensibly.”
We glance over at the hotel-room TV, which is playing a DVD of his 95 in the Third Test. Best is aiming an enormous slog at his third ball, and missing. “Well, it was a beautiful
miss,” he says. “I think I followed through very well on the shot. Very entertaining for the crowd.”
Best laughs heartily. He laughs and smiles a lot, an animated, straightforward face atop a physique of broad-shouldered, gym-dedicated power. “After I got going, Ramdin told me to express
myself. I told him if it’s close enough to me I’m going to lick it.” He chuckles with satisfaction on reviewing a joyous drive on the up through mid-off, complete with a
showboating, hold-the-pose flourish for the benefit of the photographers – and the affronted bowler, Steven Finn. His company is as infectious, and as guileless, as his batting.
If part of sport’s delight is watching athletically gifted people do incredible things we could never ourselves achieve in a million years, perhaps the most satisfying cricket fantasies
have at least a tiny element of plausibility. OK, you definitely wouldn’t be able to bowl like Tino Best in a Test but, given a bit of luck, you might have a chance of batting like him. For
two hours and 18 minutes at Edgbaston, Best was living the dream of every club slogger and village hopeful: he was giving it some porridge in a Test match – and it was coming off.
“I give thanks and praise to God that I’m not lacking in confidence,” he says. “I back myself to play my shots, and I like to look stylish doing it.” It was a
method both effective and entertaining on a frenetic Sunday morning, when boundaries – many genuine, some slashed – came as quickly as records. First, the highest score by a last man
for West Indies against England, beating a mere 19; then a fifty, matching Wes Hall’s record for any West Indian No. 11; then passing his own previous firstclass high of 51. On 76, he became
the highest-scoring No. 11 in Test history. Each was ticked off with a sense of theatre and freedom.
“I was thinking about my uncle Carlisle,” says Best of the batsman who played eight Tests up to 1990. “He says to me: ‘You’re a Best, you’re from the
Caribbean. You grew up with the legends – show the flair, the determination they played with. This is in your blood.’”
Today’s West Indian players have sometimes found the deeds and words of retired legends more of a burden than an inspiration. Indeed, in this innings Ramdin chose to mark his century by
holding up a note answering back to Viv Richards.
“I had no idea he was going to do that,” says Best. “It’s each man to himself. Myself, I feel connected to the past of West Indian cricket. We as a people have come a
long way and had a lot of struggles. For us, cricket was something to fight in. People might say I’m over the top, but this is me, a West Indian, playing my cricket the way I live my
life.”
As Best’s score grew, so the good humour of England’s bowlers disappeared. There was no mention of the “Mind the windows” incident (when, at Lord’s in 2004, he was
stumped after being goaded by Andrew Flintoff into trying to slog Ashley Giles into the Pavilion). For this, Best says, was “a much more serious situation”.
With the temperature rising, his former county colleague Tim Bresnan was treated to some smears over midwicket and a straight six. “Bresnan said to me: ‘We never saw you bat like
that for Yorkshire.’ I told him: ‘Don’t you worry about that – this is the big time now. This is the big stage.’”
As the innings blossomed and England wilted, when did he think a century was a possibility? “I was just playing my shots, trying to have a bit of chat, trying to annoy them,” he
says. “It wasn’t until I was on 88, and Matt Prior said to me: ‘I bet you can get there in two hits.’ I said, ‘All right, then,’ and he laughed and said,
‘You’re something else, mate.’”
Only on 93, he says, did the magnitude of the situation hit him. Best had stoically resisted the temptations of Jonathan Trott’s dobbers, and survived the short stuff from Finn. With lunch
put back up to half an hour, Andrew Strauss had switched his attack again. “I thought, ‘Oh heck, I’m 93 against England in a Test match.’ I tried to hit Onions, and it
landed short of Bairstow for two. I tried to get a quick single, but I hit it too hard.” Ramdin rightly sent him back: it would have been a suicidal run. Nerves were jangling.
“As Onions came in, I said to myself: ‘If he pitches this ball close to me, I’m going to lick him back over his head.’ I saw him fidget with his hand as he bowled it. I
felt my eyes light up! But of course it was the slower ball, and I was through the shot too quickly.” He skied it, and was caught by Strauss, running back from slip.
“I can’t watch it again,” Best says. “It’s too sad.” But then came another loud laugh. “Still, 95 in a Test match, though! My goal now is to score a
hundred. I showed I have the talent. I have been misunderstood but I have a talent and I have something to offer. When people think back to Tino Best, I want them to smile and laugh and say:
‘Oh yeah, Tino!’”
Alan Tyers is the author of
WG Grace Ate My Pedalo
and
CrickiLeaks – The Secret Ashes Diaries.
One-day internationals (5): England 4, Australia 0
Australia’s players arrived in England with the threat of strike action hanging over negotiations for a new pay deal with their board. As a one-sided NatWest Series
unfolded, thoughts of a return home must have seemed increasingly alluring: while the issues concerning terms and conditions were resolved during the trip, questions of a different kind began to
emerge – principally, how was it that a side at the top of the ICC rankings could suffer their heaviest defeat in any head-to-head limited-overs campaign?
The scoreline hardly flattered England. If rain had not washed out the third match at Edgbaston, they might easily have completed the 5–0 whitewash required to dislodge Australia and move
top of the rankings in all three formats; such dominance would have been unprecedented (even if the Twenty20 listings had been introduced only the previous October). As losses piled up, the
tourists did not mince words. Australia’s coach, Mickey Arthur, described his team as “submissive”, “bullied”, and lacking presence, while captain Michael Clarke spoke
of “a wake-up call”. It could not have been louder had it been rung from the bells of St Paul’s.
If this all seemed very un-Australian, then England were very English. Team director Andy Flower built a strategy perfectly suited to home conditions and the personnel available. Batsmen with
Test-standard techniques were included to combat the two new balls in often tricky conditions, and a bowling attack heavy with specialist pace was threatening throughout. It takes far more than
good organisation to overpower Australia so comprehensively, but Flower was entitled to wonder whether his plan could have gone any better. Only the number of dropped catches can have caused any
alarm, with the notable exception of Craig Kieswetter’s athleticism behind the stumps. By the end, England had extended their sequence of one-day wins to ten (excluding washouts) since the
start of the year.