The first ball of the past two Ashes series was sent down by the same bowler
to the same batsman and on neither occasion (albeit for entirely different
reasons) was Justin Langer able to make contact. In 2005 at Lord’s, Steve
Harmison’s opening delivery fizzed viciously past the end of Langer’s nose.
In 2006 in Brisbane, Langer would have needed to be Pinocchio or Cyrano de
Bergerac for his nose to get anywhere near it.
On both occasions, that first delivery set the tone for the series and, even
though Australia went on to win that opening Test in 2005, Langer, who
retired from Test cricket with Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne at the end of
the 2006-07 Ashes series, is in no doubt that it had a big bearing in
helping England believe they could end a losing sequence dating back 18
years.
“That first ball flew past me and when Geraint Jones took it above his head, I
looked around to see the England players all over us, in our faces, like
bees to a honeypot,” said Langer. Harmison’s next delivery hit Langer on the
elbow and, after initially giving the bowler an “is that all you’ve got,
sonny?” stare, Langer couldn’t bluff it out and had to call for the
painkilling spray.
“The England boys were buzzing even more,” said Langer. “It felt more like the
rugby World Cup than a cricket match and when I was getting treatment from
the physio I said to Matty Hayden, ‘Jeez, mate, it looks like these guys
really mean business’. It was arguably the best session of Test cricket I’ve
ever experienced. We were five or six down, I think, by lunch, and while I
got through Harmy’s opening burst, the very first ball I ever received from
Freddie Flintoff got me out.
“Then, of course, there was the flipside when they came over to Australia.”
The flipside being that Harmison had gone from being unplayable because
nobody could cope with him to being unplayable because nobody could reach
him.
“We’d been hurt over in England, no doubt about it, so we’d trained hard and
were fit, hungry street fighters ready to go,” said Langer. “So in a
peculiar kind of way that first ball was a real disappointment, because we
were so up for it. And what a difference in the fielders’ body language.
This time when I looked around, they were all looking embarrassed and
staring down at their toes.
“I didn’t have a crystal ball or anything like that but when I went to the
press conference at the end of the first day’s play, I remember saying, ‘I
can’t help thinking that the first ball of this series will turn out to be
significant’. We were hugely confident in any event but I think it just took
the wind right out of England and drained them of whatever confidence they
had.”
Langer, who will be watching this summer’s series when his commitments as
Somerset’s captain allow, is well aware that a spate of retirements makes
this a relatively inexperienced Australian side but warned England that they
needn’t get carried away thinking this means the Ashes are there for the
retaking. “All summer I’ve been hearing that we’re inexperienced, haven’t
got any spinners, all that kind of thing, and some of the criticism makes me
wonder whether we should even bother turning up,” he said. “To be quite
honest, I get quite a giggle out of it. These young guys we’re talking about
are very good players. The fact that Phillip Hughes is only 20 years old
doesn’t matter at all. He’s one of our best batsmen already and I back him
to score a lot of runs in this series.”
Especially, you think, as Middlesex have kindly given Hughes a practice net in
English conditions, facing English bowlers. “Well,” said Langer “it’s an
argument I suppose, but you could also argue that Strauss has also had the
advantage of having a pretty good look at him. But Hughes is such a good
player that I’d back him to be a success this summer whether he had been
playing over here or not.” And what of England? How, for example, does
Langer rate their chances if, say, Andrew Flintoff’s body gives out on him
again? “There’s no way I’d say that England are not capable of winning
without Fred, but he’s a hugely important player for them and one of the
best international bowlers I’ve ever faced,” said Langer. “The main thing
for me, though, is his spirit. He can lift an entire team with his character
and attitude as well as his talent, just like Shane Warne did for us.
“It could all have been different had we not lost that second Test after
coming so close to winning it, but looking back, I think that us losing was
probably a good thing for Test cricket. We’d been winning everything for so
long that we took it for granted, but when we got home the main reaction was
not the result but the cricket itself. ‘But we lost,’ I’d say. ‘Yeah, but
the cricket was brilliant, wasn’t it?’ was the typical reply.”
Maybe, I suggested, that wasn’t an opinion you could have safely floated too
close to Ricky Ponting at the time, especially after his outburst prompted
by being run out by England’s substitute fielder Gary Pratt. It was such a
stupid run that you couldn’t help thinking that there was more than one
Pratt involved and it clearly demonstrated that the mounting pressure had
got to the Australian captain.
“He’s only human, after all,” said Langer, “and credit to England for putting
so much pressure on Ricky and the team. The momentum was starting to go
against us, the captain had to contend with several batsmen being out of
form at the same time, not all the bowlers were firing and the McGrath
injury was a huge distraction.
“But he’s an outstanding captain. The mark of a top sportsman is how he
bounces back and reacts to defeat. I think we saw that from him in 2006-07
and again when we lost at home to South Africa and then went straight over
and beat them on their own patch. Interestingly, Ricky described that as the
highlight of his career. However, the way you react to winning is every bit
as important as how you react to losing. What I’ve noticed about English
sport, and I say this respectfully, is that when you win you seem to go off
the boil, as you did after the rugby World Cup.”
In what might have been a thinly veiled reference to the 2005 orgy of MBEs all
round and open-top bus parades, Langer concluded: “You don’t judge a
champion team by streaks of brilliance but by its longevity.”
Langer: the Aussie battler
TEST CAREER
Played 105 Innings 182 Not out 12 Runs 7,696 Highest
score 250 Average 45.27 100s 23 50s 30
FIRST-CLASS CAREER
Played 348 Innings 606 Not out 57 Runs 27,830 Highest
score 342 Average 50.69 100s 85 50s 107
TEAMS
Australia, Middlesex, Somerset, Western Australia, Rajasthan Royals
A left-handed opening batsman, Langer was born in Perth, Western Australia, on
November 21, 1970. He made his Test debut against the West Indies in
Adelaide in January 1993 and finished his career in an emotional Test
against England in Sydney in January 2007 when fellow Australian stalwarts
Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath also retired from Test cricket. Langer
established a record-breaking opening pairing with Matthew Hayden and was a
star under the captaincy of both Steve Waugh and current skipper Ricky
Pointing, inset. He is now captain of Somerset, having also played for
Middlesex and for the Rajasthan Royals in the IPL. A black belt in tae kwon
do, Langer has also written two books on cricket
