Sunday 4 July 2010

Shaun of the Undead

There was a wild thing on the loose at Lord's, something freakish from a bad horror movie let out of its cellar, chucked a couple of chunks of raw meat and allowed to roam free over the glowing, hallowed turf.

Shaun Tait's re-emergence, based around this little concept, did something that all others have failed to: came up with a way of enlivening those middle overs in ODI cricket. The very fact that Ponting was forced, by Tait's physical capabilities, to bowl him in one and two over spells, reinvented the pattern of the innings. Here, albeit by accident, was a new tactic, a blueprint.

T20 has given Tait back to the game. He and Nannes were thrilling at the World Cup, too. It's unlikely that Australia would pick Tait and Mitchell Johnson in the same Test match side [how many other bowlers would you need in the team to cover off the various injuries, brain-fades and meltdowns that those two might have at any moment?]. Tait, ultimately, is not a Test match cricketer. He is something new, something different, something modern. He's a freak who foreshadows the forthcoming era of the freak.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Be bloody funny though and I am an Aus fan. Watching Tait and MJ outdo each other in brain fades at full speed.

Car wreck cricket.

Dean @ Cricket Betting Blog said...

It amazes me that people have been hyping Tait up for the Ashes, how can he get away with bowling two over spells in test cricket?

Personally I think he is pigeon holed as a limited overs bowler these days.

In fairness to him, he did a lot better than Shoaib Akhtar did at Edgbaston on Monday.

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