Cowan - In the Firing Line: a Diary of a Season

Acknowledgments

It could be well argued that watching someone write is not a very pleasurable past-time. My poor wife Virginia had to endure this day after day during the past season. She not only embraced her cricket-widow stature with compassion and support, but somehow managed to put up with my mental absence long after the day's play had finished and the night's writing had begun. She also skilfully helped type up and edit my handwritten scribble, when the season had finally finished and my motivation to complete the next stage of the diary was waning.

I owe a huge public thank you to Gideon for not only writing the foreword, but also having a little blind faith in the project from the start. His direction and confidence gave me great strength to be brave and honest. Before the manuscript had hit the publisher's desk, his diligent and critical eye had already spent innumerable hours guiding and editing. Without him too, I doubt the diary would exist in its current form.

To the players and coaching staff at the Tasmanian Tigers, thank you for making these past two years the most enjoyable of my career. We all have a special bond that should be cherished. Thank you for letting me document our collective experiences. This diary is not only my story, but the story of our entire team. We now have a record of a remarkably special season. More than anyone, I hope you guys enjoy reading this book.

Diary of a season

Monday, 4 October 2010

There is still snow on the top of Mount Wellington, and icy winds have been sniping about the nets at Bellerive Oval, from which goalposts have only just been removed cricket season must be around the corner. In fact, it's virtually in the house next door. While grade cricket will not start in Hobart for a couple more weeks (having already been well and truly underway in other states), the PKF Tasmanian Tigers' first game of 201011 is only two days away.

Today was essentially the first time the entire squad had been together all pre-season. It was the first time, for example, we had been joined by our new import, Mark Cosgrove from South Australia, who returned yesterday from another successful season with Glamorgan. Cossie is at a crossroad, having been strangely axed by his own state. Privately, we can't believe our luck. He is a player of enormous skill someone who has benefited from playing cricket all year round and in doing so, learning to play the game his way cramming 90 first-class games into his 26 years. He's tough. I've crossed swords with him on the field many times over. Everything's different, though, when you share dressing rooms; in fact, having made the hard decision to come to Tasmania last season, I feel a kinship with him. I hope, like me, he can reinvent himself away from the hometown preconceptions.

Not that he is the only one in our group for whom this season holds greater significance. My friend and captain, George Bailey, could well be in contention for a spot in the World Cup squad come February if he continues from where he left off in last year's limited-over competition. His appointment as leader last year went a long way to making my decision to move to Tasmania all the more clear. He was someone I thought I wanted to play under and for. I saw him first as an opponent, and admired his natural gifts and obvious cricket savvy. I got to know him when we represented our respective state playing groups as delegates on the Australian Cricketers' Association, a serious environment in which he also showed his silly side: at an ACA karaoke night, he performed The Archies' Sugar Sugar with several kilograms of CSR's finest granulated product trapped in his undies.

George has grown into his role as captain, as an on-field strategist and off-field motivator. What he needs now is a knockout season with the bat 1000 runs instead of 700, the kind that lifts him into Test contention. His 160 not out for Australia A in the winter may also be the catalyst for the huge first-class season that his talent deserves.

In a country that has been reportedly bare of a spinner of any substance in the post-Warne era, we are in the sometimes awkward position of having both the next best spinners not playing international cricket in our team, Xavier Doherty and Jason Krejza. Unfortunately, Bellerive Oval has historically given little encouragement to slow bowlers: Stuart MacGill described it once as though he was bowling on glass. But perhaps though if the wicket is grassy this year, the old adage, if it seams, it spins, will ring true.

They are brilliant in their own ways: Xavier has the skill to mix up his pace and rarely bowls a bad ball; Jason turns it big, perhaps as much as anyone in the world.

The real complexity of our situation as a team though is how we are meant to fit both of these guys into our four-day team. It is simply not possible, except perhaps in Sydney on a turning wicket. Either could play Test cricket this year, and yet only one will ever be playing regular four-day cricket. It is not an enviable position whoever is playing is doing so with the other one looming over his shoulder. Xavier is the incumbent, having stormed back into the side last year following four seasons of being typecast as a oneday player. He finished the season as the player voted Player of the Year. This would have no doubt been a dose of tough reality for Jason, who fewer than two seasons earlier took 12 wickets in his Test debut. He probably feels hard done by, but I do think the constant competition has brought the best out in each.

I've avoided the Hobart winter by playing club cricket in the quirky cricket community of the Netherlands. It was an absolutely fantastic cricket and life experience, broken up nicely by some serious cricket for the Australian A series against Sri Lanka. I feel mentally fresh and re-energised, but still aware of the need to lift my mental sharpness being back in a professional environment will help.

As is often the way for Tassie, our first game of the year is in Brisbane at The Gabba. In the past, it has served up vividly green pitches full of pace and bounce. I've known Sheffield Shield games where it's been impossible to distinguish the wicket from the square until the groundsman started up his roller. Three days have generally been long enough for a result.

Our first game, however, is under the new one-day playing conditions a 45-over, split-innings game the brainchild of Cricket Australia, an attempt to revive the one-day game following the challenge posed by T20. Playing condition changes include all 12 players taking part in the game (11 on the field), two five-over power plays (15 and 2025; the opening five overs of the second innings), a maximum of four fielders outside the ring, a maximum of 12 overs per bowler, greater flexibility on leg-side wide adjudication and the allowance of a second bouncer per over (a fantastic addition!). Radical indeed. It disappoints me somewhat that CA did not tinker more with a single-innings game prior to discarding it altogether.

But we've cleared our heads of any initial misgivings and planned how we are going to retain our title as the premier one-day team in the country. We think the key, matchwinning contests of the game are the initial first five-over power play, the five overs leading into the first break and the first five overs after it (also a power play).

For us, long gone are assigned batting orders. Rather, everything is dictated by the situation and flow of the game. We don't want our nurdlers (Cowan) having to force the issue in power plays; nor do we want to expose the hitters (Bailey and Birt) to a swinging new ball (two used) if we lose early wickets. The batsmen have spoken of the need to be able to play controlled, aggressive and instinctive pull-shots to ensure both bouncers are not automatic bankable dot balls, and also the need to develop our sweeping simply to exploit field restrictions. The bowlers have accented early wickets and containing into the break with effective bouncers and the use of our spinners. Fielding, of course, is key. Last year, as champions, we had the highest effected run-out percentage not to say we didn't give away our fair share of chances either, with Cowan and Bailey impersonating the 90s Pakistani middle order on several occasions. We also had the highest percentage of successful catch attempts. As a group we have huge confidence in our one-day game stemming from winning three competitions of the last five, and feel that the playing condition changes really suit our style of play and team balance. We will certainly take some beating my early prediction is that we will be there at season's end holding up another one-day trophy.