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.