Warner, "Intent" and Perth

India were blown away at the WACA on Day 1 of the Perth Test. Dave Warner score a blistering century off just 69 balls in reply to India's 161 all out. This has been India's problem all along. The batting has been below par, and has typically been 50-100 runs shy of where they ought to be in a given set of conditions. After being put in to bat on a WACA pitch with plenty of juice, India's openers were separated early for the umpteenth time in recent overseas Tests and the middle order, while it showed glimpses of its old ability to produce periods of calm batting, kept making fatal errors, just when they were beginning to look good. The inclusion of Vinay Kumar, and the suspect batting technique of Mahendra Singh Dhoni meant that India have a longish tail in this game.



Dave Warner came out swinging. He took chances and they came off. But he used an intriguing term - one which in my view is utterly vacuous, to describe his innings. He said, "I showed intent and it came off today". This is a new way of saying something that is as old as cricket itself - that Warner rode his luck and didn't use it up. It made for strange viewing, for Warner struggled whenever the ball was bowled in reasonable areas with even a small amount of persistence. Fortunately for him, he kept getting balls on his pads, short balls and half volleys with remarkable regularity.

Zaheer beat the bat at least once every over, and yet went for 44 in his 7 overs, including at least 12 runs off the edge and a further 12-15 played on the rise (they were middled, but involved extremely risky strokemaking by any reasonable measure of risk).

To some extent, Test Cricket does allow this sort of thing - for batsmen to be able to take chances and get away with them. The willingness to take chances is to be applauded I suppose, because if they come off, they can throw the opposition off their game. Now, you may well argue that it doesn't take much to throw three out of four Indian bowlers off their game, and I'd agree with you.

These days, taking chances is described as "intent". If saying so makes me sound old, I should tell you that most of the cricket in the 1980s was before I was old enough to watch anything seriously for more than 20 minutes.

This Perth pitch has been relaid. It is no longer the Perth pitch of the 2000s on which Matthew Hayden cracked 380, or New Zealand made 500 and Daniel Vettori took 6/87. It is not the Perth pitch on which Glenn McGrath and Brett Lee couldn't force a result against South Africa in 2005.

The wicket was relaid in 2008 and since then it has gotten progressively harder and quicker. After a slow scoring draw early in the 2009 season, the WACA has produced 12 consecutive results in the Sheffield Shield. Even England's in form batting line up was bowled out twice for 187 and 123 by Australia's 2010-11 bowling attack. First Innings scores at the WACA this season have been 176 all out, 273 all out and 93 all out. In 2010-11, they were 250 all out, 160 all out, 324 all out, 291 all out and 529 all out (most recent is listed first). In 2009-10, they were 199 all out, 261 all out, 284 all out, 131 all out and 406/9 declared (most recent listed first, the declaration came in the only game which was drawn).

Low scoring first innings are not uncommon at Perth. Whats more, in the 13 Shield matches since the wicket was relaid, the side winning the toss has chosen to field 8 times. On the 5 occasions when the team winning the toss has chosen to bat first, they have ended up on the losing side 3 times.

If you consider the choices made by the team winning the toss, batting on Day 1 at Perth has not been considered a good idea. Maybe it requires what Warner is pleased to call "intent" (I'd call it taking chances), to score big runs here.

Here's hoping that a proper batsman plays an innings (say a 6 hour century) with real "intent" - Will propped up by something more than itself - propped up by technical virtuosity and severe discipline. There are a couple of players on either side who can produce such an innings. I hope we get to see it before the series moves to Adelaide.

Until then, we'll have to live with the rather unsatisfactory fact that Dave Warner took his chances and they came off. If you believe in karma, given the mediocre control of India's bowlers, they deserved to be at the receiving end.