Monty Panesar has been cast as the nation’s teddy bear, a byssine Paddington wandering through the bad world of cricket wearing a label that says “please look after this bear”. He is nothing of the kind. He is a lion. I was able to see that clearly when I faced him in the nets at the Adelaide Oval.
The nets here are visitor-friendly. I was able to stand directly behind the stumps — the net in between us — when Panesar was bowling. It was an educational experience. The first thing that always gets you when you get close to any real slow bowler is that he isn’t slow at all, not as we call slow on Tewin village green. The ball comes at you with a vicious eagerness.
Time and again, the ball came out of Panesar’s enormous hands, carried on straight for a few yards and then veered in disconcertingly, seeking you out like a living thing. It then dipped, bounced and turned sharply the other way. All this is impossible to appreciate in the two dimensions of the television or from the safety of the boundary.
And watching in close proximity, it was impossible to miss Panesar’s intensity — the massive personal investment he makes in every ball he lets go. This is no amiable bumbler who takes wickets by a strange kind of magic. This is a man who loves the confrontation of bowling, a Sikh with all the warrior traditions of his race. A Sikh male is supposed to carry a sword with him wherever he goes; Panesar is a cricketer who seeks to live and die by the sword.
It was clear, then, that Panesar is a lion. The traditional Sikh surname of Singh, which most Sikh men carry, means lion and Panesar moves into his cricketing battles like a maned predator. Now, I once stared down an angry lion and when I tell this story — and I tell it as often as people will let me — I always use the phrase: “And there in front of me, just a cricket pitch away . . .”
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I failed to die on this occasion not because of courage, but because the mighty shock of sighting the beast locked my limbs rigid, like a Harry Potter curse, and the lion backed off. This was an atavistic response to an atavistic situation.
Don’t run; hold your ground and stare. Why is this response hard-wired into human beings by the processes of evolution? It can only be because those who stand have a better survival rate than those who run.
Boldness, then, is actually safer than fearfulness. Something to bear in mind as Duncan Fletcher, the England coach, wonders whether or not to select Panesar for the second Test, which starts here tomorrow. In the first Test, he preferred Ashley Giles to Panesar because Giles is a better batsman. This was a decision based on fear.
Another example: the safest way to dive into the water is to keep your head low and your heels high. But this is counterintuitive. Learning divers often fail to summon up the required boldness, half pull out of the dive at the last minute and perform a horrible, painful belly flop. Boldness, then, is frequently the safe option.
But it seems wrong, like not running away from a lion, like abandoning the protection of a solid lower-order batsman. So Fletcher went for fearfulness rather than boldness. I don’t suppose Panesar would have changed the result, not after the way the seamers bowled and the Australians batted, but the selection started England off wrong.
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It “sent the wrong messages”, as sportspeople say. It said, we are afraid; it said, we don’t trust our batsmen; it said, we are not looking to win this match, we are trying not to lose it. The Australians picked up that mood right away, as Ricky Ponting, the captain, made clear in his post-match gloat.
Panesar just bowled his heart out in the nets: fizz, bounce, turn, as Fletcher watched and wondered where boldness ends and folly begins. The intensity of Panesar’s cricket is a glorious thing; you don’t see it on television or from the boundary until he takes a wicket and goes into the most naive celebration routine in sport. He is not theatrical, not a poser or a strutter.
The intensity is not of expresion and gesture; rather, it is expressed in the ball itself, something you can only see when you are just a cricket pitch away. It is crystal clear that cricket is the breath of life to him and that bowling means a great deal more than that. Panesar’s wickets do not represent a triumph of innocence over experience, they represent a triumph of lion over gazelle.
Will he play or won’t he? England have been making great statements about the need to be — wait for it — positive, to play aggressive cricket. Well, that ought to include making aggressive selections. The two-spinner option is the boldest course available, but Fletcher is not guaranteed to take it.
Panesar won’t change losers into winners on his own, but if he plays, England will at least be making a bold statement, saying that this time they don’t intend to belly flop, that this time they have come to fight fire with fire, to match lion against lion.
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Adelaide by the numbers
1
The number of times since 1983 the captain winning the toss has fielded. In 64 Tests in Adelaide, only eight times has the opposition been put in to bat and only once has that yielded a victory
24
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The number of centuries in the past 12 Tests here
31.59
The number of runs fast bowlers have conceded per wicket in Adelaide since 1995. For spinners, it is 35.03
51
The wickets for Shane Warne here, making him the highest wicket-taker at the Adelaide Oval. He averages 29.19 here, though, compared with his career 25.32
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53
Stephen Harmison’s bowling average at Adelaide. In his only Test here, he leaked 106 runs in 28.4 overs
93.33
The percentage of Tests that have produced a decisive result at Adelaide since 1992. In the past 15 matches here, only one has been drawn, between Australia and South Africa in 1997-98
96.50
Damien Martyn’s average at this ground in five Tests
Source: Cricinfo.com