It has been a year to forget for everyone
but for Jason Roy it has proved a
frustrating one to boot. His inter-
national summer consisted of six ODIs
and precious few runs, a top score of 24
against Ireland the highlight. There
was a side strain, too. Throw in one first-
class game for Surrey and a handful of
Blast matches and that was that.
The modern cricketer is seemingly
able to find form regardless of match
time, given the nature of the calendar,
but for Roy, 30, the rhythm of batting is
more important. Others, Eoin Morgan
being one, appear able to flourish with
minimal preparation, but Roy needs
“When you go with
that kind of mentality and
something goes wrong, it gets
magnified a hundred times over.
You think the world is against you.
In the 2001 series we believed we could win
by playing aggressive, attacking cricket but
we were stalled by that amazing partnership
by VVS and Rahul, which is probably the
best batting I’ve seen. But you’re right —
there was probably that lack of respect and
maybe more so the lack of understanding
of culture.
“We’re pretty brash and in your face;
India thought we were over the top and sledging
and carrying on, and we thought they were
time-wasting and playing up to the conditions.
Once we got to know each other after those
tours, I realised it’s just the way you are brought
up and they were time-wasting because they
were used to playing in 40-degree heat and had
to conserve their energy.
“The players these days would have no idea
what it was like to play there in the Sixties,
Seventies or even Eighties. It was a tough tour
but immensely enjoyable as well and you had
great life experiences, lifelong memories,
bonding with your team-mates in adversity.
“These days you get straight to a brand-new
airport, the roads and hotels are fantastic, you’re
looked after well; you don’t get sick any more.
You could be playing anywhere in the world.”
It cuts both ways, of course, as India’s playersT
he final frontier, Steve Waugh called it.
India has fascinated him ever since his
fumble at the conclusion of the
Chennai Test in 1986 allowed a
scampered run for only the second tied
Test in the history of the game. After that he
admitted to a love-hate relationship with a
country that is the most colourful, interesting
and exasperating of all cricket’s destinations for
the curious and open-minded.
Waugh, 55, was back there again recently, to
search for and photograph what he calls the
“spirit of cricket”, a journey that took him from
the maidans of Mumbai to the foothills of the
Himalayas. Along the way he celebrated India’s
oldest living Test cricketer, a young prodigy, the
first women’s cricket academy in the country in
Dharamshala and the remarkable perseverance
of blind and physically challenged cricketers.
The result is a stimulating book of
photographs and musings on India, provoking
questions of whether an empathy with and
understanding of the culture of touring
destinations helps performance. Not that
everything in a sportsman’s life needs to
be seen in the context of performance,
but does it help to be curious and open-
minded, or does it not matter? Can you
be equally or more successful simply
sheltering in your hotel room?
It is a question I have often pondered,
without a clear conclusion. As a player,
I was always in favour of embracing local
culture; as a captain, I always encouraged
it in my players. Now I’m not so sure: it
undoubtedly helps to develop life skills,
but does it help to alleviate stress and
pressure and improve performance?
I’m not sure. Each to their own.
Waugh was always one of the more
adventurous, finding interests beyond
the boundary. That said, his cricketing returns
from India were thin: he never won a Test series
there, played in only one winning Test match —
he is quick to stress he played only nine Tests
there in all, at a time when India was not as
favoured a destination as it is now — and
famously came unstuck at the hands of
Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman in 2001, when,
as captain, he enforced the follow-on, only to
get burnt by what he describes as “the best
batting I’ve seen”.
We are chatting on Zoom — inevitably —
before Australia’s marquee Test series at home
to India, and around the launch of his book of
photographs. As an old adversary I know
Waugh favours straight-talking, so I ask him if
Australia’s lack of success in India during his
playing days was because of arrogance and
a lack of humility. Conditions in the sub-
continent demand that players and teams, no
matter how good, bend to their unique rhythms.
Was his Australia team prepared to do that?
“I remember in 1986, we had no idea what we
were getting into because no Australia side had
toured India for at least ten years.
“So we’d only heard the horror stories, like,
‘It’s going be a horrible trip, you’re going to get
sick, the umpires will be against you, the crowds
are going to be shocking, the pitches are going
to turn square.. .’Sport
Waugh’s love-hate affair with India
are well travelled too, and, especially in the
quality of fast bowling, the nature of their
cricket has been changing, better to allow them
to compete abroad. After the Ashes (and bearing
in mind there is little chance of India and
Pakistan engaging in Test cricket right now)
there is no bigger series than Australia v India.
How does he think the absence of Virat Kohli
will affect the tourists, and can a captain
become too dominant, making his absence
even more debilitating?
“We’re about to find out,” Waugh says.
“Kohli is such a strong character, not just [in]
his batting, he doesn’t back down to anyone;
he’s aggressive and positive and a huge icon.
Everyone looks up to him, even his own team-
mates, so he’ll leave a huge gulf when he goes.
“[Ajinkya] Rahane [the top order batsman
who will captain when Kohli goes on paternity
leave after the first Test of the four-match
series] is a very good cricketer and an
underrated player. He’ll obviously have a
different style to Kohli and that will be a
challenge for the players to adapt to. He’ll be
more relaxed and composed. It’s a real shame,
though, because to win a series you want to
play against the best possible opposition.”
Waugh concedes, however, that
nothing beats the Ashes for an
Australian, a truth reaffirmed during
the 2019 series when, in his role as
a mentor, he went back into the
dressing room for the first time
since his retirement in 2004. “The
Ashes is still the No 1, the series all
Australian cricketers want to play in
and want to win and next year’s Ashes
series will be an outstanding duel.”
Back to the photographs: Waugh has picked
out a couple of hundred from the thousands he
took during an 18-day period in the company
of Trent Parke, a former Australian Academy
player turned photographer and the only
Australian member of the Magnum co-operative,
a renowned alliance of photographers. Parke
improved Waugh’s knowledge of the mechanics
of taking a good photograph, and the results
speak for themselves.
I tell him I’ve been doing a series on
photographs from the paper’s archive. What is
his favourite cricketing photograph? He thinks
for a minute and picks out a famous Patrick
Eagar image of himself playing a forward
defensive stroke at Lord’s in 1989, the series
in which he really broke through as an
international batsman.
“It wasn’t a dangerous delivery — Graham
Gooch was bowling — and it was a regulation
shot, the forward defensive, but he captured
something in that photograph. It was the
turning point of my career and you see in that
shot I was in total control, relaxed, confident
and composed. And he got that moment where
I felt I suddenly belonged.” The master
capturing a master.
6 The Spirit of Cricket — India is available from
http://www.stevewaugh.com.auSTEVE WAUGHt s m Y I b w b b t m oIdi
Waugh, inset right, travelled across India to take
thousands of photos of cricket being played,
main. From his career, his favourite is from the
1989 Ashes, showing him in total control, abovethough, b
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Cricket Writer of the YearEngland’s ‘frightening talent’ keeping refreshed Roy on his toes
time at the crease. He is now in Cape
Town, preparing for three T20 interna-
tionals, the first of which is tomorrow,
and three one-day internationals
against South Africa, and he is happy to
put the summer behind him.
“It was a tough summer with an
injury, plus a new environment that was
alien to me,” he said. “Mentally [the
bubble] was very tough; physically,
getting injured wasn’t great and then a
couple of annoying dismissals against
the Australians didn’t help either.
“It was one of those summers to
go, ‘All right, this is where you are at,
sort yourself out and come back
stronger.’ It’s a distant memory, which
is a nice feeling.”Given his lack of cricket over the
summer, the decision to miss the Indian
Premier League to refresh men-
tally was one he agonised
over. “That decision wasn’t
taken lightly but due to
the amount of bubbles
we’ve been in and the
amount of bubbles to
come and the uncer-
tainty of what’s to come,
it was the right decision.
I’m feeling good. I’m
really buzzing to get out
there and being mentally
refreshed is important.”
In this England one-day side, he
knows there are two reasons why hecannot afford to start this series
slowly. The first is the nature of South
Africa’s attack, which includes
Anrich Nortje, the quickest
bowler in the recent IPL,
and Kagiso Rabada, the
leading wicket-taker in
the tournament.
The other reason is
the depth that exists in
this one-day team,
especially at the top of
the order.
With Jos Buttler expect-
ed to open in the T20 series,
that leaves Roy and Jonny
Bairstow scrapping for the other slot
and the competition is underlined bythe absence of Joe Root from the T20
squad, his place instead occupied by
Dawid Malan, the world’s top-ranked
T20 international batsman.
“I can’t remember this amount of
depth,” Roy said. “It’s proved a point in
this Covid time, with bigger squads, and
every single player could be in the XI.
“Sam Billings touched on it the other
day about it being one of the hardest
sports teams to infiltrate. Tom Banton
and Tom Helm are sitting here as
reserves, and they’ve got frightening
talent. It’s a beautiful position to be in,
to be spoilt for choice.”
Roy sounds as though he is on his
toes and ready to put a tough time
behind him.Mike Atherton
South Africa
v England
First T20 international
Tomorrow, 4pm
TV: Sky Sports Main
Radio: talkSPORTthe times | Thursday November 26 2020 1GM 63