Former Australia fast bowler and South Australia coach Ryan Harris believes the current generation of batsmen are not as technically sound in Test cricket because of T20s but says the shorter version of the game has contributed to teams trying to make runs faster. The 45-year-old also talks about the paucity of openers in Australia, why India has done well in Australia and dismisses speculation that the Australian team is faction-ridden. Excerpts.
That ball to Alastair Cook in Perth (2013). Do you still watch it?
Yes it still pops up on my TV now and then… mostly every year around October for my birthday. To this day I am not sure how I bowled that ball. I’ve been trying to bowl one of those balls for probably 15 years before that. It was just unique in how it sort of pitched and then moved a bit after it pitched and was able to just hit that bail. It’s very nice that people still remember it.
The way I understand it, it’s more of an artificial colouring. So it’s not known to last as long as, say, the red ball. We just completed a South Australia versus Western Australia game at Adelaide Oval last week. And it was a day-night game. And the ball didn’t seem to go as soft as it probably has in the past. So there’s been a lot more work done on the pink ball. It used to flake off with the colouring. That didn’t happen last week. For us it swung around and nipped around for around 15-20 overs. But after that it did flatten out a little bit. The middle overs is where the batters can definitely cash in. What the wicket looks like and how much grass is kept on it will be determining factors.
Are the current batsmen less competent than they were in your days?
Yes. I believe the techniques of batters probably aren’t as good. There seems to be the mentality of hit out or get out and not stick around. I think T20 has probably caused that. In a good and a negative way. The Virats, the Smiths, they’ll dig in because they’re that good. Whereas the younger guys will probably go, ‘I might as well try and hit one before it gets me’. T20 has helped the game of Test cricket because we’ve seen the scoring rates go up and we’ve seen 350 to 400 scored in a day. But I think technical stuff is not as good. And I see it probably in the Australian youngsters. Whacking the ball is probably more of a priority over trying to master a good technique or a good defence.
Was it unfair on Nathan McSweeney that being a middle-order batsman all his life he had to open the innings at Perth?
I think he’s got the game to be at the top. He is technically sound and has the temperament and mindset to excel at this level. I’ve seen it first-hand. He can handle Test cricket.
Is there a lack of openers in Australia?
Yes, to an extent. We’ve got two openers that have been making runs for a number of years — Marcus Harris and Cameron Bancroft. And the selectors seem to have given them a go and aren’t happy. So they’re obviously not really keen to go back to them. So the idea now is to try to find the next opening pair. Hopefully, Uzzy (Usman Khawaja) will go through this series and gets onto the Ashes. We’ve got another young kid Sam Konstas in New South Wales who has scored a century for PM XI. I don’t believe he’s ready yet. Everyone’s saying, throw him in. But once they throw him in and he fails twice, then they’ll say, ‘oh no, now we put him in too soon’. Let Sam make four or five hundreds in two seasons. I think he’s not going to do that when he’s worrying about his place and worrying about who’s bowling at him in Test cricket.
How do you rate the quality of fast bowling in this series?
I think it’s the battle of the bowlers in this series, Obviously, the batsmen have got to get runs, but it’s the battle between the bowling units. Bumrah stood up in the first Test.
Will Australia be able to bounce back?
You don’t like being upstaged in your own country. Pat Cummins is a fighter. He’s a perfectionist. And you know, he’ll be asking his players to step up in this Test match. So, there’s no doubt that Cummins will be looking to bounce back and make sure that the plans are a bit better and tighter.
Do you think India has cracked the code of how to win in Australia?
They have, no doubt. I mean West Indies drew the series last year but we haven’t lost any other series except to India. So there’s no doubt that India have found a way to win. They don’t fear the pitches. They don’t fear the pace. They don’t fear the bounce. And they’ve obviously done a lot of homework.
Is there a faction in the Australian cricket team?
Look, there are no factions. That’s just all garbage. I’ve even heard Mr (Sunil) Gavaskar coming out and saying there’s some faction. That doesn’t happen in Australia. I know it happens in India. I’ve lived there. The Australian media have jumped on it, because we went so bad in Perth. But you’re allowed to be outplayed. What the Australian media and people have got to realise is that India have won here the last couple of times and they’re a very good team. I have all the respect for Mr Gavaskar but he’s just throwing a little grenade over here and the media are having a feast.
Is wrist position more important for a swing bowler than the sideway action?
That’s a good question. For me, it was the wrist position. Trying to get my wrist as much behind the ball as possible. And then also, if my swing gets down, I can live with it. When I jump in my action, I cock my wrist back so I can give that ball a really good flick. That, for me, was the main thing.
How did you develop a wobble seam?
For me, it was more about trying to keep the seam as straight as possible or on a slight angle to get the ball moving where I want it to go. I wasn’t a big fan of the wobble seam. We see Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazelwood do a lot of that (wobble seam). My wobble seam was… I didn’t grip my wrist right so the ball would come out wobbly. I wasn’t trying to bowl a wobble seam at all. Ultimately, I’m trying to swing the ball as much as I can both ways.
Who has the most beautiful seam position in modern day?
Mohammad Shami has this beautiful upright seam position, wrist position. I’ve spent a year with Shami at Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings), played against him, and to me, he’s unreal. He runs in fast and delivers the ball as fast as he can, but he’s able to do it with a beautiful seam, beautiful wrist. It’s a beautiful length.
Do you think you, at some point in your career, you’ve achieved the ideal wrist position?
Yeah, I think I did. With the risk of sounding arrogant, the majority of my Test career, I felt as though my action and my wrist and my arm and everything felt really good. I was able to execute a lot of the balls that I was trying to bowl. For that to happen, you have to be in a really good place with your action.It was probably only in the last six months of my career that I was struggling with my body a bit. I felt as though I was losing a bit of that. But then I had a second wind when I went away and had a bit of a break, and then did some training and found that again.