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Australia 228 and 191 beat England 169 and 139 by 111 runs
Scorecard1st day

Don Bradman’s comeback ends after one ball © The Cricketer

As the Melbourne turf is frequently more suitable to fast howling than other Australian wickets, England’s eleven for the second Test was framed on the policy of ramming home the fast attack with four pace bowlers, so Bowes replaced Verity. This was a bold policy, as it meant that Jardine entered the field with Hammond as the only spin bowler of class. If the move had succeeded it would have been acclaimed, but, although England’s attack did well on a dead wicket, the pitch proved more suitable for Australia’s spin bowlers. Although 46, Ironmonger, the left-hand bowler, forced his way into Australia’s eleven. It seemed a mistake that Nagel should be the bowler omitted, and the dropping of Ponsford was a serious blunder. Bradman was fit enough to resume his place in the team. Lamentable batting displays were given by both sides. Notable work was done by the bowlers, but they profited because most of the batsmen were stodgy and neglected to employ the great influence of the drive. Winning the toss again, Australia scored a laborious 194 for 7 before stumps were drawn. Although none of the early wickets fell to Larwood, his influence was telling. Because of trouble with his boots, he left the field four times, and was off for an hour in all. Opening the innings, Fingleton hung on doggedly for four hours for 83. With Woodfull and O’Brien (who each defended for an hour) Fingleton took some of the sting from the attack, but there were not enough stroke players in the eleven for Australia to benefit. Bradman went first ball, when he tried to hook a short one from Bowes, and touched it on to his wicket. McCabe was not at his best, and made a weak stroke for a slip catch. Clutching twice, Hammond held a brilliant catch when Richardson turned Voce to leg. The day’s play was watched by 63,993 spectators, and the gate receipts amounted to £5,577.2nd day
England’s reply of 161 for 9 was all the batsmen deserved for their display. Again Sutcliffe headed the list, but his 52 was the most scratchy innings he has ever played in Australia. The only one of the first seven to play real cricket was Hammond, even if his stay was short. Attempting a cover stroke, Hammond found a ball from Wall faster than he estimated. In five overs after tea, Wall dismissed Sutcliffe, Jardine and Ames. He bowled a good pace, with his usual determination, but the outstanding bowler was O’Reilly, who mingled leg-breaks,wrong-uns and over-spinners. Varying his pace and making the ball come off at different heights, O’Reilly earned his wickets. In a batsmanlike contribution, Allen provided a contrast to the rest. Apart from him and Hammond, all the batsmen played almost entirely on the back foot. Those who had doubted whether Allen was quite up to Test standard were satisfied by his all-round cricket in this game in which he was the best of England’s fast bowlers.3rd day
The England bowlers fought back splendidly, and at the close of play appeared to have put their side in a favourable position. Australia’s only consolation in a second innings of 191 was an impressive comeback by Bradman, who scored 103 not out, in three hours, while eight wickets fell at the other end. This was a different Bradman not the dasher with audacious strokes, but a batsman fighting grimly to save his side from collapse, and to regain his own confidence and certainty. Viewed from every angle of batsmanship, this innings must be ranked for merit as probably the greatest Bradman has played. The only other things that counted in Australia’s innings were Woodfull’s safe opening and a bright three-quarter-hour by Richardson. Frequently the best bowler does not have the best figures, but Hammond’s ability to spin the ball made him the most difficult of the English attack. Set 251 to win, England made a good start when Leyland helped Sutcliffe to put up 43 before the end of the day. Sutcliffe batted in excellent form, being 33 not out, and Leyland 10 not out. The attendance was 68,188.4th day
England’s sudden collapse came as a shock. Sending the ball into a good breeze, O’Reilly gained in flight and turn by slackening his pace. The legbreak which beat Sutcliffe early broke almost the width of the stumps. The spin of some of Ironmonger’s deliveries was aided whenever the ball pitched on a part of the surface worn by fast bowlers’ feet. Apart from this wear, the bowlers were able to turn the ball a good deal. Whatever Jardine’s motive, changing the batting order did not help. Hammond, who came in at No. 4, went down fighting. Five leading batsmen had tumbled in less than an hour for 34 runs, so the Gloucestershire allrounder then staked all on desperate measures for a desperate situation. Hammond lifted several strokes, and when a mishit and a well-placed fieldsman brought his downfall, the match was lost, although Allen and Wyatt made a plucky stand of 50 for the seventh wicket. Although not much in the picture, because of the success of the other bowlers, Grimmett’s bowling was his best for two years, as he tossed the ball and turned it better. The tenseness of the struggle throughout was a gruelling test of the captaincy of the two leaders, who at one time had runs to play with. Their leadership pleased the critics, Woodfull revealing an unsuspected amount of strategy..The match was an enormous financial success, the attendance being 200,586 and the receipts £16,076.

‘I needed to get a start, and Igot that today’ © Getty Images

Graeme Smith was more than happy after this nine-wicket thumping ofIndia at SuperSport Park. Not only did his side wrap up the series 4-0,but he managed to put his personal travails behind him with a punishing85-ball 79. Most of the credit though went to the bowling attack led byShaun Pollock, who got Man-of-the-Series honours after picking up 10wickets at 8.3 and walloping 86 runs in even time.”Our bowlers were fantastic,” said Smith after the game. “Throughout theseries, they have been magnificent. The fielding backed it up. I thoughtit was a pretty good wicket. We just bowled well, and applied thepressure. We had game-plans for each batter, and we gave them nothing.Maybe they felt the pressure of the last three games on their shoulders.”His opening partnership with Loots Bosman never ignited, but paired withAB de Villiers at Centurion, it was a different story, with 173 runsclattered from 172 balls. “AB has shots all around the wicket, and he’sgained a lot of experience in one-day cricket,” said Smith. “He was superbin the field, and we pushed him higher up the order and he performed. Wegelled well with each other. Our games match each other.”After one run in three previous one-day outings, Smith had been under apretty dark cloud himself, and he admitted as much. “Obviously there was alot of pressure, there was a lot of stress. I needed to get a start, and Igot that today. And I’m still in the top three in the one-day rankings, so thatmeans I can play.”Newspaper reports had been doing the rounds suggesting that Smith’s placein the side was in jeopardy, and after this riposte, he took aim at themedia. “A lot of it [the talk] comes from you guys,” he said, with arueful smile. “The support staff, the convenor [of the selection panel],the [Cricket South Africa] CEO and my team-mates have all been behind me.It was nice to come through, and I want to thank all my team-mates.”Having succumbed to Zaheer Khan four times in succession, including Friday’sPro20 game, he managed to avoid him in the initial stages, with AB deVilliers hogging the strike from Zaheer’s end. By the end, Smith hadredressed the balance a little, clouting Zaheer for a six over long-on asthe game entered its climactic stages.”He’s bowled very well and you’ve got to give credit to him,” said Smith.”He said he’s worked hard on his bowling and it’s paid off for him. Whenhe came back today, we were in a commanding position. We wanted to finishit the way we wanted to.”As for Pollock, who bowled 48 dot-balls in a stupendously accurate spell,he claimed that there was no big secret behind his renaissance as abowler. “I try and keep it as simple as possible,” he said. “Sometimes youget the edges and the wickets, and sometimes Makhaya [Ntini] is going toget the wickets. We work well as partnership. It’s not about the figures,but how it all ends up.”He slammed a few big shots of his own to accelerate South Africa’s surgeto victory, and in the process denied de Villiers the chance of a maidenone-day century. Pollock merely laughed when asked if that was theintention. “AB played superbly and at the end of the day, it was as goodas a hundred,” he said. “From his perspective, he needed a big score whichhe got. It was good to see him go all the way through.”He wouldn’t commit himself when asked whether India had the bowling topick up 20 South African wickets in the Test matches. “We’ll have to waitand see,” he said. “They have a lot of experience. [Anil] Kumble has gotloads and loads of wickets, and Harbhajan [Singh] has done a good job. Itdepends on who they pick. We hope not [bowl us out twice]. Our aim will beto score a lot of runs and bowl them out twice.”Pollock heads into that Test series with 395 Test wickets to his name, andSmith said that the team would take great heart from the emphatic natureof their one-day triumph. “Our confidence is high and we are going to carrythat confidence into the Test matches,” he said. And when asked whetherthe inclusion of VVS Laxman and Sourav Ganguly would firm up an alarmingbrittle batting line-up, he chose to focus on the tension that is said toprevail in the Indian dressing room. “How the experienced guys fit intothe environment of the team is going to be interesting to see,” he said,poker-faced. For the moment, he’s the man holding all the aces.

Rahul Dravid rated Yuvraj Singh’s 103 as “really special” despite India’s loss to South Africa © Getty Images

Rahul DravidOn the outcomeWell, it was pretty obvious that we needed to bat better initially. We didn’t play the first 15 to 20 overs well. Once you’re 35 for 5, you can’t really make a maximum score. I think Yuvraj and Irfan Pathan, and Ajit [Agarkar] and Harbhajan Singh batted really well. It was a really special knock from Yuvraj, and great that we got 249.On what he thought would have been a par scoreOn this pitch, I think we needed 280. It stayed very good right through and didn’t spin as much as we thought it might in the afternoon. Having said that, we took the game to the 99th over and bowled well in patches. We probably needed one more wicket, with Kemp and Kallis going well.On the positives to take from the gameQuite a few. Yuvraj’s batting, the contributions of our lower order, and just the fact that we were able to bat the 50 overs and then take them to 49. Harbhajan Singh bowled well, and Ajit and RP Singh did as well. From 35 for 5, we made a match of it and that’s something to take heart from.On whether Murali Kartik was missed after being subbedWould have been nice to have him as a fifth bowler, but we had to make that call after losing four early wickets. We did have other spin options in Sachin [Tendulkar], Yuvi and Veeru [Sehwag], but it didn’t work today for us. But that’s up to the batting. If we’d played better, we wouldn’t have had to use the batsman.On whether he had expected the South Africans to come at India so hardWe always knew that they would. We knew that they were a very good side. They played some good cricket, but it was a close game.On why RP Singh wasn’t bowled after his first seven overs cost just 18 runsOh, I just felt that it wasn’t easy to hit the spinners. I felt that Yuvraj was doing a good job for us and creating a bit of pressure. As we saw when we batted, when the seamers came on with the old ball, it tended to disappear to all parts. It wasn’t swinging or reversing much and I just thought that the spinners taking the pace off could control the runs and take a wicket. If Yuvraj or Sachin had got a wicket, things might have been different, but credit to Kallis and Kemp.On whether this was a dampener after the euphoria of the 6-1 rout of Sri LankaI don’t think it takes away anything from the spirit. We look at each game on its own, and don’t worry about what’s happened in the past. We can take several positives from this game.On whether he was surprised at being sent in to batNo, I would have done the same thing. There was something in the pitch initially and the first 10 or 12 overs would be tough. With the 9am starts in India, that tends to happen. Their bowlers did quite well, but to be honest, our batsmen have to put their hands up and say that we didn’t bat really well in that period. As Yuvraj and the later batsmen showed, it was a pretty good pitch.On whether an allrounder like JP Yadav could have been chosen as Supersub instead of GambhirIt’s a tricky one. You look for the specialist sometimes. I think if you have that good an allrounder, then you might as well play him in the world. I look around the world and see all the matches being played and people try different combinations. Unfortunately, we didn’t bat well up front and that forced us to play the card. It didn’t work today. I also thought Gautam deserved a chance up front. The ball was still seaming around and he’s an opener who’s also been in very good form for us. It’s not easy either being a Supersub. He was probably sitting down there, not sure if he’s going to play. He’s suddenly asked to pad up and go out, that’s a tricky one and my sympathies are with him.Yuvraj SinghOn all three centuries this season coming in pressure situations, and whether that was a sign of new-found maturity. Batting under pressure, I concentrate more. I play a bit more attentively and try to stay till the end.On how disappointed he was at the lossWhen we got to 249, I thought it was a competitive total, but 25 runs extra would have really put us in the game. I’m disappointed but we’ve got four more games.

Collymore no more for VB Series?© Getty Images

West Indies preparations for the tour of Australia have suffered yet another blow with a side strain rendering Corey Collymore’s participation doubtful. The team’s physiotherapist said that he was the fifth West Indian fast bowler to be afflicted by injury in recent times.Stephen Partridge, the team physio, said that Collymore’s situation was a touch-and-go scenario, because though he would be ready to play, he wouldn’t necessarily be match fit. West Indies open their VB Series campaign against Australia on January 14.”I need to speak with the coach, but my impression is that he is probably not going to have enough bowling,” quoted Partridge. “Around the time the VB Series in Australia starts, I expect Corey to be pretty much close to full steam.”The problem he’ll have is that he would have had very little competitive bowling before that. He will be building his bowling up through the latter half of December and the first week of January when he will be pretty much close to full throttle, but the question then would be that he would not have had match-type conditions. That may prove a barrier for him for the Australia tour.” Collymore had suffered injuries frequently in the past, but Partridge said that the previous ones were multiple-level stress fractures.Tino Best, Fidel Edwards, Jermaine Lawson and Ravi Rampaul were bothered by back injuries and were left out of the 25-man training camp before Collymore joined the casualties list. The injuries added to the team’s dilemmas, which include the contentious issue of signing a playing contract that could affect the players’ image rights.

Steve Waugh has been appointed an Australian tourism ambassador to India by the Australian Minister for small business and tourism, Joe Hockey. Apart from his obvious cricket connection with India, Waugh has distinguished himself with his support for the children’s hostel in Kolkata that assists the children of leprosy victims. He said yesterday that he is looking to raise more money for another centre in Kolkata which will cost A$500,000, and then doing projects in other centres.While the unpaid ambassadorship is seen as a way of tempting the burgeoning Indian middle classes to look at Australia as a tourism destination, it is also recognition of Waugh’s stature in India for his social support for the hostel. Other ambassadors employed in similar roles by the Australians are Olympic champion swimmer Ian Thorpe, surfer Layne Beachley and model Megan Gale.Waugh said his profile as a sportsman made it possible for him to attempt to make a difference in a situation where many would look at the size of the population and think they couldn’t make an impact. He admitted that while there were business opportunities for him in India, where he has some of his biggest sponsorships, his experiences in India had helped him and had changed his life.His initial experiences as a young cricketer had forced him to think about what he had seen and he told ABC Television in a special programme yesterday that the more he went back to India the more he understood. He said he thought the ambassadorial role was a great opportunity because of his affection for India and its people.Waugh also said that while he might seem to adopt an unemotional frame of mind on the cricket field, it was not true away from the game. “As a captain you’ve almost got to put up a brick wall in front of you and not show too much emotion, because you can’t afford to give too much of yourself out there, because in some ways you can be taken advantage of,” he said. “So I generally keep a lot to myself, and share with my family.”I’m a pretty emotional person. I’m basically the opposite of what I’m perceived as on the cricket field . . . When you drop a player as captain, you become emotional. You don’t cry, but you feel like crying. It’s hard to hold back . . . it’s hard to get out what you’re trying to say to a player when you’re dropping someone like Michael Slater or Justin Langer or those sort of guys, because they’re good friends.”Waugh also commented in the programme about his feeling for Shane Warne and his conflicts with controversy. “I think he would’ve learnt from the experience and this may be a turning point in his life and his career. No one’s perfect, we all make mistakes and we all have skeletons in the closet, I’m sure. Shane’s have just been exposed more than others.”There’s no way I’m going to go and criticise him or say, ‘I think he’s an idiot’. It’s his life. I see him as a human being and a friend . . . he may have done the wrong thing, but you’ve got to see the bigger picture. He is a person, he does have feelings and let’s try and help him out . . . rather than throw another knife in his back.”Waugh added that he may have made himself unpopular to some in the media for not wanting to talk cricket over several drinks but that was part of his approach to the captaincy role.With the Australian team to be named for the first Test against Zimbabwe this week, Waugh was able start the pre-Test jousting by warning the Zimbabweans of what they can expect on the bouncy WACA pitch in Perth.As the tourists shape up to a world-class attack of Brett Lee, Glenn McGrath and Jason Gillespie, Waugh told The Daily Telegraph (Sydney): “Perth is a bouncy wicket, it’s unique in world cricket and there is always a chance somebody is going to get hurt over there. You have got to be courageous to score runs in Perth, that’s the nature of the pitch, that’s why it’s a great place to play because it tests you out over there.”

A belligerent century knock by Yashpal Singh enabled Services to score238/8 in reply to Punjab first innings total of 300 runs in the NorthZone Ranji match played at Gandhi Ground, Amitsar.Punjab’s overnight score of 300/9 did not advance any further, and theinnings folded with the third ball of the day from Sayed Javed, whichbowled Babloo Kumar and increased Javed’s wicket tally to four.Services began their reply on a sad note as Gagandeep Singh’simpressive display of swing bowling sent back three batsmen back tothe pavilion with only 27 on the board. Gagandeep struck in the veryfirst over as PM Reddy (0) was compelled to play at an out-goingdelivery and edged it to gully fielder Sandeep Sanwal. Jasvir Singh (1)became the second victim of Gagandeep as he nicked an out-swinger forYuvraj Singh to hold at third slip. Harish Bhaskar (7) was thensurprised by a sharp in-cutter which shattered his stumps.Yashpal Singh & Sanjay Verma showed some resistance and cautiouslyadded 40 runs for fourth wicket. Skipper Verma (11) fell, trapped infront by Reetinder Singh Sodhi with the score on 67.Sarabjit Singh stepped in at the departure of the skipper to joinYashpal Singh, who was shaping well. The pair took the total to 77/4by lunch.Yashpal Singh was in good touch and was stroking the ball well throughthe gaps. In this essay, he completed his half-century in 66 balls.Sarabjit too was facing the challenge with courage, and the pairwrested away the early initiative taken by Punjab. Both scoredfluently and added 93 runs in the session without separated.At tea, Services had scored 170 runs with Yashpal on 83 & Sarabjit on49. The latter, however, was sent back by an accurate direct hit frommid-off by Yuvraj Singh while trying to steal a single to complete hishalf-century, ending a 106-run fifth wicket partnership.Yashpal Singh gave the Punjab bowlers more nightmares as he stood likea rock at one end to keep the scoreboard ticking. He showed his classand temperament during this knock, going to his maiden ton in style ashe lofted a flighted ball from Sawal for a six over long-off. Hiscentury came in 202 balls with 11 boundaries and a six.Yashpal and CD Thomson were stabilising the innings when left-armspinner Babloo Kumar gave a his team a double break as he bowledThomson and trapped Javed in front. The Punjab skipper Vikram Rathoretook the second new ball after 83 overs, with Services on 229/7.Yashpal was retired hurt, being struck on his left forearm by alifting delivery.Gagandeep took his fourth wicket as he got Sudhakar Ghag (0) caught atmid-off by Yuvraj. The end of the day’s play was called at the fall ofthe eighth wicket, with Services still trailing by 62 runs with onlytwo wickets remaining.

Crystal Palace has managed to score 37 goals with 27 Premier League games played so far this season, which is eight more than they had managed by the same point in their previous campaign, showing a significant improvement in the Eagles’ attacking ability in front of goal.

Despite this, one player that hasn’t contributed much to the south London club’s goalscoring record this year is winger Jordan Ayew, who has only found the back of the net on one occasion, which came during their 2-2 draw against Southampton back in December.

The 30-year-old has also managed to rack up a lower average of shots per game (1.2) than Odsonne Edouard (1.6), who has played fewer minutes in the league than the Ghanaian, as well as Conor Gallagher (1.7), who plays in midfield.

With this in mind and the fact that his current contract at Selhurst Park is set to expire in the summer, there’s every possibility that Patrick Vieira may be thinking of getting rid of the former Swansea City attacker at the end of the season if he doesn’t think he offers enough for the team going forward.

If this were to be the case, the 45-year-old may already have an ideal replacement for Ayew, whose performances on the international stage have been described as “worrying” in the past by former Hearts of Oak star Dan Quaye, already in his ranks at the south London club.

Since joining Palace back in the 2020 January transfer window from Scottish side Dundee United, 20-year-old winger Scott Banks has gone on to make 25 appearances for the club’s U23 side, racking up an impressive number of 12 goals and six assists along the way, showing that he certainly knows how to score and set up goals.

In the 12 league appearances he’s made for the U23s this season, there have only been four games where he hasn’t managed to make a goal contribution, showing not only how important he is for them, but how devastating he can be in the final third.

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Labelled as a “smart” player by Vieira, the winger should definitely be in the Frenchman’s mind for a potential senior call up next season. If Ayew ends up leaving, it would give the youngster a clearer path to the first team if he can end this season with more goals and assists to his name.

In other news: Sold for £10m, now worth 82% less: CPFC pulled a blinder over £37k-p/w “disaster” – opinion

Axar Patel has – not entirely undeservingly – earned the unwelcome reputation of being a one-dimensional bowler. A spinner who bowls flat, doesn’t let batsmen get under his deliveries, and takes wickets through containment. That is usually when he is one of the two or three spinners playing for India.When he is leading the Gujarat attack, though, he lets the whole range come out. Not that veers too much, but he is flexible. Against Tamil Nadu in the Vijay Hazare Trophy semi-final, defending just 248, and coming in to bowl at 84 for 0, Axar took six wickets to dismantle the favourites. Four of his wickets were stumpings, three of them to forward defensive shots, which showed he dragged them out by beating them in the flight.”The way the wicket was behaving I thought it was better to bowl a little slower rather than bowling fast,” Axar said later. “To go against my style and get these wickets, four stumpings and catches in the slips, is especially satisfying.”When the batsmen were new to the crease, seeing the pitch and the situation, I knew they wouldn’t go on the attack immediately. My plan was to make them defend as much as possible. Make them drive the ball, which could bring wickets on this pitch.”Axar allowed himself a little chuckle, though, when reminded of Dinesh Karthik charging at him in the first over he bowled. That is something batsmen rarely do against Axar, who said he was surprised Karthik did so so early in the piece without having a look at what the ball was doing and what Axar was trying to do. The other wickets, though, were all beauties, turning past the outside edges of batsmen trying to defend.Hang on, though. Isn’t it the opposite of every self-respecting fast spinner in the world? If the pitch is turning, they bowl fast and go slow only if they have to make the ball turn. Axar agrees, but pointed out a subtle difference here. “I look at what the pitch is like, what the batsmen are trying to do,” he said.”It’s not that I go and bowl slow on every turning pitch. But this pitch had slow turn. So if you bowled slow it was causing the batsmen more problems. Sometimes you get a square turner, and on those pitches I also bowl fast so as to not give the batsmen time to recover. This pitch had slow turn so I bowled accordingly.”With his 19 wickets at an average of 13, Axar is now the joint-highest wicket-taker in the Vijay Hazare Trophy. Having carried his team through to the final, Axar has a chance to go past Punjab’s Siddarth Kaul. He has also contributed a not-small matter of 214 runs to Gujarat’s cause, at an average of 43. Only two of his team-mates have scored more runs.This is perfect preparation for the tour of Australia, and gives Axar a bit of a head-start over Ravindra Jadeja in the competition for the second spinner’s slot in the first XI. Axar, though, doesn’t see it is a competition. “I have always maintained that your competition should be with yourself,” Axar said. “Bowl better than you did in the last match, and you will automatically find a place in the team. If you compete with team-mates, it can cause cracks and clashes in the team.”

Trent Kelly’s move to Western Australia has been justified with immediate selection in the Pura Cup 12-man squad © Getty Images

Western Australia have included their fast-bowling recruit Trent Kelly in their opening Pura Cup squad of the season. Kelly is part of a 12-man line-up for the match against New South Wales at the WACA starting on Sunday.Adam Voges will captain the side as Marcus North spends at least the first fortnight of the summer on the sidelines with a degenerative knee problem. The inclusions of Kelly and David Bandy are the only two changes from the Warriors’ first FR Cup squad, with Shawn Gillies and Sean Ervine left out of the longer game.Kelly, 23, transferred from South Australia at the end of last season after struggling to break into the Redbacks’ first team. He played two Pura Cup matches for South Australia and is unlikely to add to his tally against New South Wales, with Brett Dorey, Ben Edmondson and Steve Magoffin ahead of him in the pace brigade.Squad Chris Rogers, Justin Langer, Shaun Marsh, Adam Voges (capt), Luke Pomersbach, David Bandy, Luke Ronchi (wk), Aaron Heal, Brett Dorey, Steve Magoffin, Ben Edmondson, Trent Kelly.

Abdul Razzaq’s batting has been found wanting in Test cricket © Getty Images

It is a question that comes to haunt Pakistan every now and again. It rears its head once again during this Test. Is Abdul Razzaq really worth a place in the Test side as an allrounder?From his contribution here, over three days, tottering as it has somewhere between damaging and utterly irrelevant, the question isn’t even worth asking. As Pakistan tumbled yesterday morning, runs were the hour’s need. Razzaq proceeded then to make possibly the strangest unbeaten 16 in Test cricket. Off 92 balls, in over two hours, it was almost exactly what West Indies, not Pakistan, needed. He achieved the doubly difficult task of neither farming the strike nor scoring any runs. Singles were refused, yet the tail was still left with entire overs to face, it was inexplicable.It was not a stray incident. At Melbourne in 2004-05, he made a painful, unbeaten four from 76 balls, though it was said he was unwell. In Colombo, also against Australia two years earlier, an excruciating four, from 52 balls, allegedly set the platform from one down for a 300-plus chase. Each time, it was so at odds with the surrounding context that you could only ask why. People say he knows only two gears in his batting – first andfifth – but an experienced ex-Test player and coach also observed that “he gets locked into the two modes, unable to switch between the two.”Move on: he’s an all-rounder, so you expect some compensation with the ball. Except today, Umar Gul and Shahid Nazir might have received more support from West Indian batsmen. Nominally as a third seamer, Razzaq bowled a piddling ten overs all day, many without a purpose other than allowing us to appreciate the breadth of Brian Lara’s off-side game between cover and third man.Waqar Younis disagreed with reporters at a press conference later in the day that Razzaq wasn’t a regular bowler. “All four are regular bowlers. Razzaq isn’t in great form but his batting gives us a big edge.”Ninety-five wickets from 45 Tests at near 40.00, with one five-wicket haul are figures that would concern part-time bowlers. And a circle has more edge than his batting, if just two fifties in his last 25 Tests are anything go by.Whichever angle you look at his Test career from, it doesn’t make for pretty reading. Arguably, on only one Test has he had a genuine all-round influence – against India at Karachi recently, where seven wickets were complemented by innings of 45 and 90. Centuries, a hat-trick, occasional four-wicket hauls he has as well but they’ve been stretched out so much over an entire career it almost isn’t worth noting.Pakistan could have done with either a specialist batsman or a specialist bowler in this Test and currently Razzaq is neither. His place in the ODI side is the subject of less debate and rightly so, for he serves a purpose there but in Tests, increasingly it seems he is there on reputation and hope alone, neither of which is the right criteria. He is a big name in Pakistan cricket but as the West Indies showed with Ramnaresh Sarwan, theyare not indispensable.To be fair, Razzaq isn’t the first, nor will he be the last, to look ordinary when the mood grabs Lara. Certainly not Danish Kaneria, who if he didn’t know it already in his fourth Test against Lara, must know by now that the man can play spin. It’s not as if Kaneria bowled badly and even Lara acknowledged that. He got sharp spin and bounce on occasion and troubled almost everyone else. Sure, the good balls didn’t come consistently enough but he wasn’t as bad as four an over from 41 overs, with only three wickets, was he? Though he rarely seems to bowl a genuinely poor spell, it just isn’t happening for him right now, which can be either cause for worry or frustration. Time will tell.Sometimes though, like Waqar chose to do, you just have to applaud genius. “It isn’t the easiest pitch to bowl on. The bowlers tried their hardest but you also have to give full credit to their batsmen. Lara is a genius and you won’t find many cricketers in the history of the game like him.”