Here was a day that in a sense cuts right to the heart of the way Australia play their cricket. That has to be qualified of course, mostly because ascribing one rigid philosophy to an entire country, their entire history and their multitude of players is ill-advised.
There is also no right answer to this, but on another day of Pakistani dominance in this series, on another day of no reward in Asia for Australia, it is tempting to wonder. Were Michael Clarke to be an un-funky captain, would Australia benefit in Asia?
The glib answer is that they could not possibly get any worse. They have lost nine of their last 15 Tests in India, Sri Lanka and now the UAE, winning just one in that time (Clarke, it is only fair to point out, was not captain for four of those losses).
Clarke was so funky in Abu Dhabi on Thursday, there were rumours George Clinton called him up and asked for his funk back. You can see why, too. The day before the Test, Clarke had quipped he would pray he win the toss so he could bat first: not always but sometimes, the pitch at the Zayed Cricket stadium can be brutal on the first and second days for bowlers.
This, unfortunately for Clarke, was one of those days. That much was apparent right from the first ball. Clarke is proactive to the point of being hyperactive sometimes, so he was tinkering with his bowling from the start.
Mitchell Starc was given just one over before Peter Siddle replaced him. Nathan Lyon was brought on as early as the 13th over of the innings. There would be 22 bowling changes through the day; in the final session there was a period when he had Lyon at one end and an interlude at the other in which he alternated between himself and Steve Smith in one-over spells.
The thing is – because there is no right answer here – many of the changes can probably be justified. Nothing was happening for his bowlers. Sure, maybe Smith was worth persisting with for a longer spell; Starc probably warranted one, and definitely more than his ultimate 11 overs for the day. But why not?
There was something trendsetting about the fields he set as well. At one point he had Azhar Ali and Younis Khan faced an umbrella of fielders in front of them: two short midwickets and two short covers.
To Azhar he also tried three fielders between mid-on and short midwicket and one halfway to the boundary but directly behind the umpire at the bowling end.
And sure, that funkiness is admirable because, essentially, what he is trying to do is force matters and, ultimately, win. To many, this is how Test cricket should always be played.
At the end of a long day, though, in which he used as many as eight bowlers, Clarke said he had run out of ideas. Linger on the monumentality of this: Michael Clarke, cricket’s man of fresh ideas, fresh out of ideas.
Except here is one more. Why not be more patient with his bowlers? Why not be more conventional and boring, and yeah, even defensive with fields and, instead, work away at Pakistan? Despite having scored 1,037 for 11 since they were seven for two on that first morning in Dubai, Pakistan’s batting is not renowned for its patience and appetite for batting big.
Andrew Strauss was whitewashed here in 2011/12, but his bowling plans were successful, in that he worked on the patience of Pakistani batsmen.
Pragmatism can be many things: boring, compromised, stale. But it can be a fruitful way of operating in these conditions, something Clarke’s counterpart Misbah-ul-Haq has become pretty adept at. Nothing fancy; set a pattern and keep to it.
Bide your time; control the damage if there is any. Then strike. MS Dhoni, inside India, has built a legend on it.
Adam Gilchrist, who won Australia’s last series in India in 2004/05, sees the virtue. “What Pakistan did [in the Dubai Test] was play good, old-fashioned, patient Test cricket. Culturally, as a cricketing nation, we find it hard to make that adjustment, particularly initially.
“We are a fast-paced cricket team and have been for decades. Attack is our best form of defence, but there are times when you have to realise the need to shut down. It is not our natural instinct to do that.”
Maybe it is just that Clarke does not have the tools. Maybe Australia have got their selection wrong here.
But maybe it is what Clarke said before the game – “Sometimes you’ve got to be willing to risk losing to win,” – that needs reassessing. Because when the losses are as recurrent as they have been in Australia’s recent tours here, maybe the risks are not worth taking at all.
osamiuddin@thenational.ae
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