Gillespie has lived up to his nickname of “Dizzy”. He looked dizzy, if not downright stunned, by the assaults on his bowling by Kevin Pietersen in the Twenty20 at the Rose Bowl, where Paul Collingwood also treated him brutally, and in the NatWest Series at Bristol.
Gillespie must have been alarmed at the ease with which he was hit down the ground. At Bristol, his 10 balls to England’s new recruit cost 27, a horrible ending to a horrible afternoon for a bowler whose first over contained four wides and a no-ball. The way Pietersen tucked in, anybody would have thought Gillespie had already opened the pizza restaurant he intends to launch after he’s given up playing. Here you are, Kev, mate, here’s your Six Four Four Seasons.
Perhaps Gillespie had not regained his composure after the shock of the defeat to Bangladesh the previous day, when his failure to hold a regulation catch off Mohammad Ashraful 54 runs into his century was a turning point. Perhaps wisely, Ricky Ponting kept him away from Pietersen in Durham three nights ago.
Hoggard’s rhythm has proved similarly troublesome. A good rhythm is a key component to any bowler’s action but to Hoggard it seems crucial, perhaps because it so often eludes him. When that happens, he also can appear to be serving everybody their favourite dish, as Chris Gayle (who has hit every ball of a Hoggard over for four) and the Lancashire opener Mal Loye (chiefly responsible for Hoggard’s Twenty20 spell last Wednesday costing a record 65 runs) might confirm.
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Hoggard has not been at his best. Five County Championship appearances for Yorkshire have brought him 15 wickets, a tally dwarfed by the limousine-smooth Harmison’s 27 in four for Durham. The problems appeared to begin during the first Test against Bangladesh at Lord’s, when Hoggard delivered a clutch of no-balls on the first morning. It transpired that Troy Cooley, England’s bowling coach, had measured out Hoggard’s run-up incorrectly. He still wasn’t happy by the time he arrived in Durham for the second Test, where in practice he ran in with his eyes closed in an effort to find the correct delivery point.
He picked up eight wickets and the match award, but his verdict was that he had bowled “like a trollop”. He also reported discomfort in his left ankle, although a scan 10 days ago revealed no serious damage.
The problem for Hoggard and Gillespie is that there is so little “proper” cricket before the first Ashes Test on July 21 — just one match each. The cat-and-mouse of short cricket is no place for either to settle down.Their difficulties belie what good exponents of a difficult craft these two shy, hard- working individuals are. Their commitment in the furnace of the subcontinent has been exceptional. Gillespie, the first part-Aborigine to play Test cricket, has bowled heroically on two tours of India and played a big part in Australia winning there last year, when he was their leading bowler with 20 wickets.
India was also the place where Hoggard first convinced England of the size of his heart, leading an attack shorn of Darren Gough and Andrew Caddick with unstinting effort in 2001. England didn’t win a match but held their own in two Tests.
He had won his spurs and was rewarded with a regular place. When the ball swung, as it did in the first innings at Christchurch a few months later, he was a threat; when it didn’t, he was merely a treat for batsmen.
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Perhaps little has changed for him in the interim, save that he was striving to lead the attack then and now has the advantage of Harmison and Andrew Flintoff firing the ball in short at the other end. It was no coincidence that after he lost his place in Sri Lanka two winters ago, Hoggard’s strong comeback in the Caribbean, culminating in a hat-trick in Barbados, coincided with Harmison lifting his game. Since the start of that series their returns from 18 Tests have been similarly impressive: Hoggard 78 wickets, Harmison 80.
Gillespie is a quicker bowler than Hoggard. That speed had an impact on Australia’s past two tours here. Young and raw, he cut England down in a single afternoon at Leeds in 1997, his figures of seven for 37 the best by an Australian in a Test at Headingley. Four years later, at Edgbaston, he broke Nasser Hussain’s hand (admittedly not the hardest thing to do), to deprive England of their captain for two matches.
But his body has felt the strain. In five-Test series Gillespie has proved a spent force by the end. For years he fell prey to all manner of ailments, and after six years he had missed almost as many Tests as he had played. Of late he has remained on his feet, but has perhaps lost a couple of mph and his strike-rate, the truest indicator of a fast bowler’s worth, has slipped back to 54 balls per wickets (the same as Hoggard’s).
Most obviously, Gillespie has suffered from playing regular one-day cricket, as well as Test cricket. Hoggard should be grateful England have rarely considered him for the short form. While Gillespie was being hit around Southampton and Bristol, Hoggard was probably enjoying the more certain pleasure of walking his dogs.
Both have specific tasks to perform in the Ashes: in essence to slip out left-handed opening batsmen. Gillespie must aim to maintain his excellent record against Marcus Trescothick, Hoggard to neuter Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer, as he did Graeme Smith in South Africa.
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Both are expected to justify their places with the ball, but it is conceivable that they might influence a game with the bat. Armed with two of the best forward defensives among Test cricket’s lower orders, they are natural nightwatchmen and capable of holding up an end in company with senior batsmen to significant effect.
Gillespie is the more competent. He has scored 940 Test runs at an average of 16.2, compared to Hoggard’s 274 at 9.1. Since the start of 2003 Gillespie’s average exceeds 20. He spared some Australian blushes by top-scoring in their Twenty20 innings with 24, having walked out at 31 for seven. Last winter he reached 50 in a Test for the first time, and got there again three matches later, although his most important contribution came in Madras a month earlier. He batted four hours for 26 to thwart India’s efforts to level the series.
He can be a frustrating presence, too, when somebody such as Adam Gilchrist is cutting loose at the other end against tiring bowling, as England will recall from the last Test the teams played in Sydney in 2003. Hoggard has reserved his obduracy for home, having never reached double figures in an overseas Test. As last man he shared a 91-run stand with Graham Thorpe at Edgbaston in 2002. Later that summer, on another batsman’s pitch at Trent Bridge, having been promoted to No 10, he put on 103 with Craig White against India.
Perhaps most valuable, though, was a career-best 38 at The Oval last year, when England’s bowlers formed a batting co-operative against West Indies and teed up England’s seventh win in seven for the season.
Hoggard is 28, Gillespie 30. Hoggard’s star appears to be in the ascendant, Gillespie’s on the wane. But these things are relative. Gillespie has been the greater bowler, and may remain so still.