Monty's dip
After being hailed as English spin’s saviour, Panesar has had a less-than-miraculous sophomore term. Sure the talent is still there, but he needs to get his self-belief back, and get out of his shell some
Andrew Miller25-Jan-2008
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Like a FTSE-listed victim of the global credit crunch, Monty Panesar’s stock has fallen dramatically of late. He’s slipped from his June high of No. 6 in the world rankings to a lacklustre No. 20, he’s lost the one-day spinner’s role that was his during the World Cup in March, and he’s even had to make do with a third-placed finish in the annual
Beard of the Year awards – the title he scooped during his Ashes zenith last winter.This week his England team-mates jet off to New Zealand for the start
of their spring campaign, but Panesar has been asked to take the
scenic route Down Under. Yesterday he arrived in Mumbai with the
England Lions, where over the next couple of weeks he’ll hone his
skills in the Duleep Trophy, India’s premier domestic competition.
Nobody expects it to be a holiday camp – one on famous occasion on the
last such tour in 2003-04, Rod Marsh’s squad somehow allowed South
Zone to chase 501
for victory in the fourth innings – but for Panesar the trip
represents an urgently needed break from the limelight.His game has been stuck in a rut for the past six months, and in Sri
Lanka before Christmas, the frustration was evident. Monty’s mantra
throughout his brief career has been that most enervating of
cricketing clichés, “Put the ball in the right areas”, but for long
periods in all three Tests, he was palpably unable to do just that.
His impact may have been dulled by the broad blades of Kumar
Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene, but instead of backing himself to
bowl maidens and bore his opponents into error, he sacrificed his
established strengths of line and length, and set about searching for
the elusive magic delivery.It was not a recipe for success, personal or collective. Panesar still
finished as England’s leading wicket-taker in the series, but that was
entirely down to the shortcomings of his fellow bowlers. His eight
scalps at 50.62 were his worst return since his debut tour of India in
March 2006, but they mirrored almost exactly the eight at 50.37 he
picked up in his previous outing, the home series against India. If a
mental block is forming in his game, then the selectors should be
praised for spotting the right moment to pull him from the front line.”He didn’t have the best of times in Sri Lanka,” said David Parsons,
the ECB’s performance director, who will oversee the Lions tour. Prior
to his appointment in December, Parsons had worked alongside Panesar
as the England team’s spin coach, and few know the mechanics of his
game better. “Monty’s the sort of guy who wants to play all the time,
so I’m sure he’s looking forward to the trip,” Parsons added. “We all see
this as an opportunity for him to work on his game so he’s ready for
the Test matches in New Zealand.”England’s former coach Duncan Fletcher would doubtless seize upon
this form slump as vindication of his own, controversial, assessment
of Panesar’s talents, but not everyone sees it quite like that. Writing in the Observer, Vic Marks, himself a former England spinner, suggested that Panesar was in need of nothing more than a “10,000-ball check-up”. “Monty is a mechanical bowler rather than an intuitive one, which need not be a major disadvantage,” said Marks.
“But [he] looks as if he’s starting to panic when his tried-and-trusted mechanism is no longer producing the results.”
| If a touch of vertigo is setting in after Panesar’s stellar rise in international cricket, it’s hardly surprising – he has not even completed two years in the Test team, but he has ridden such a tidal wave of hype and celebrity, he’s sure to feel weighed down by inflated expectations. Mind you, his lofty profile is largely self-inflicted |
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If a touch of vertigo is setting in after Panesar’s stellar rise in
international cricket, it’s hardly surprising – he has not even
completed two years in the Test team, but he has ridden such a
tidal wave of hype and celebrity, he’s sure to feel weighed down by
inflated expectations. Mind you, his lofty profile is largely
self-inflicted – in 2007, thanks to some pretty avaricious cash-ins
by his team of advisors, he was the face of everything from DVDs to
potato snacks, and even found time for an unfortunately premature
autobiography.”A few people have suggested I might be getting too commercially
motivated, but nothing could be further from the truth,” said Panesar.
“When you become a recognised face, people want to get to know you and
with that can come opportunities, but I am working as hard as ever on
my cricket.”Few who saw him in the nets in Sri Lanka would doubt that
final assertion, but somehow he lacks a spark of belief at present.
His predecessor, Ashley Giles, also struggled to cope with the burden
that is placed on England’s anointed spinner, but in hindsight Giles had
it easy. In an era dominated by three of the greatest (and weightiest)
wicket-taking spinners in history, no one realistically expected him
to match the matchless. Panesar, for one reason or another, does not
have that luxury.In truth, he’s been pretty unfortunate in his timing. Five of his
first seven series (and 15 of his 23 Tests) have featured one of the
big three – Muttiah Muralitharan, Shane Warne and Anil Kumble – who
currently outweigh his wickets tally by the small matter of 25 to 1.
Coming from a culture where deference to one’s elders is ingrained
from birth, that’s quite some mental hurdle to have to overcome.Panesar’s reaction ahead of each of these series has been the same.
“How can the student be a rival to the teacher?” he said of his
impending meetings with both Kumble and Muralitharan last year. The
answer, to judge by his stats, is that he can’t. Monty’s record in
matches involving the big three is 41 wickets at 41.68, compared to 40
at 23.62 against the spin-light opposition of Pakistan and West Indies.
Moreover, he’s contributed to two victories in 15 attempts in the
first bracket, compared to six in eight in the second.
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That’s not to say he hasn’t had some measure of success in these
games, but at no stage – except arguably in Perth during the Ashes, when
he was pumped to the gunwales with indignation after his earlier
omissions – has he gone in with the same belief that so overwhelmed
West Indies and Pakistan. With that in mind, his next destination,
after the Indian interlude, is an intriguing one. New Zealand’s
captain is Daniel Vettori, the most durable left-arm spinner in the
world today. He’s respected and renowned, but hardly the type to be
revered. In fact, his average of 34.22 is two clicks higher than
Panesar’s, and his strike-rate some ten balls slower.Perhaps that goes to show that Monty’s off-colour moments simply come
with the territory. Despite the hype, he is not the messiah that
England dearly wish him to be. He is merely the best slow bowler that
the country has to offer. A touch more self-belief would not go amiss,
however, and to that end he could doubtless be helped by his captain.
In one of the most candid passages of his autobiography, Panesar tells
of the excitement he felt when selected for his debut against India at
Nagpur. Up he bounded to the room of the then-skipper, Andrew
Flintoff, armed with a bundle of plans and potential field placings.
When I knocked on Flintoff’s door and handed over the results
he seemed a bit bemused.
“This is what I’m thinking of doing,” I said.
“Ah, okay,” he replied, sounding as puzzled as he looked. “No worries
at all, mate. I’ll take it all on board and you have a good night’s
sleep.”
I decided I ought to leave quickly because I wasn’t sure whether he
wanted me in his room
Michael Vaughan, take note. Monty is his own man, and has plenty of
ideas to make his own game work better. But to judge by the passivity
of his recent performances, he could probably do with being coaxed
back out of his shell a touch.