Simon Hughes, courtesy of The Times and The Australian, circa 20 August 2015
Two 37-year-olds will play their last Test match this week. Two left-handers playing for two different countries on opposite sides of the world bonded by one mission: to achieve their Masters in batsmanship. Chris Rogers and Kumar Sangakkara have, with their thorough research and meticulous preparation and forensic attention to detail, made batting more a science than an art. Both have proved in the past 12 months that you can tailor your game to different conditions and illustrated it is not only important but vital to do so in England. Both have adapted their methods to defy waspish swing and seam, inadvertently highlighting the one-dimensional approaches of their lauded teammates. They are the antithesis of the modern batsman, epitomised by Kevin Pietersen, who justify a failure to an ill-judged shot by announcing, “It’s the way I play”.
Pics from AP
Rogers is Australia’s unexpected leading run-scorer in this series (with 437 at 62.42). But perhaps it is not so surprising. He has spent more than a decade immersing himself in English conditions, first with clubs in Devon and the Midlands, later with four counties. “You have to play differently here,” Rogers said. “You tend to get bowled, leg-before, and caught behind more than on the more trustworthy Australian pitches. When the ball is moving you have to play it as late as possible to allow for the sideways movement.
“But you can use the angles that movement provides. I remember seeing a fantastic hundred by Rahul Dravid at Lord’s (in 2011). The ball was seaming and swinging and he played immaculately. He scored a lot of runs square and behind square on the off side, letting the ball come to him.”
Rogers agrees, however, that the defining example of how to bat in England was provided by Sangakkara in a Test match last year at Lord’s. Especially as Sangakkara has scored more international runs this century — 27,966 in all formats — than anyone else, I went to his home in Kandy this year to interview him. I wanted to ask him about that innings. Like everything Sangakkara does, it was scrupulously planned. Sri Lanka were playing two Tests against England in early June. He had a modest record in England — an average of 30 and no hundred at Lord’s — and he wanted to put that right.
He arranged to play for Durham in the County Championship, purely to get accustomed to English conditions before the Tests. After that and a series of one-day internationals — 12 innings in total during which he averaged 60 — he was ready. “In England I had closed up my stance a lot,” he said. “I didn’t tap the bat too much in the crease, because it drives my hands away from my body and you need to be a bit more restricted in England because of the swinging ball. I changed my back-end-across movement to almost nothing. That allowed me to see the line of the ball a lot quicker and a lot better, especially when I was facing a guy like Jimmy Anderson who swung it both ways. I needed to stay side-on to allow for him trying to open me up with the one that goes across me. In England you don’t need to play straight like people say. Because of the swing, you’re more likely to be playing between mid-off and cover. A lot squarer of the wicket, going with the swing of the ball.”
He had endlessly rehearsed every detail of that innings and there was a beautiful compactness to his batting. His positioning was superb. His defence was impregnable, the ball repelled right under his eyes, played as late as possible, the bat exactly perpendicular and perfectly aligned with his body.
His judgment was faultless. He left anything four inches wide. He played shots, either the push or the drive with a vertical bat or the pull and the cut with a horizontal bat. The ball was placed in the gap with precision. He made 147 with not a single mistake until he was out.
This was a century immaculately conceived and impeccably constructed. Rogers and Sangakkara undertake their final batting examinations this week. But both have already passed their Masters with distinction.
The Times
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