A few years back, I found myself on a late-morning train journey from Brighton to London, savoring the rare luxury of a quiet carriage, an empty table seat, and a functional plug socket. I had strategically spread my belongings around, creating the illusion of company that had just stepped away for a moment, all to deter anyone from sitting near me. Rest assured, the rest of the carriage was entirely vacant, your honour. With my laptop and notebook open, I was preparing to tackle the crossword in this paper when a figure dressed entirely in black slipped into the seat opposite.
A mix of confusion and irritation surged through me as I stealthily glanced at the intruder through the window's reflection. The person had a shock of jet-black hair, an expansive forehead, flared nostrils, sunglasses perched on a low-slung shirt, and more bling on his fingers than Bobby George or even Amol Rajan. It was Nick Cave. Now, this is a cricket column (we'll get to that), so the full details of our encounter will have to wait for another day. However, I will say that engaging with a challenging G2 cryptic crossword alongside the Grand Lord of Gothic Darkness made me feel quite alive. As the train pulled into Victoria Station, Cave locked eyes with me and left me with the words, 'Keep the flame burning.' I often reflect on that encounter and those four words, especially after watching Virat Kohli and Marnus Labuschagne bat in Perth.
Cave frequently writes about 'nurturing the flame.' In his line of work, it's a metaphor for creativity and ideas, how these intangible things must be tended to and coaxed in their early stages and kept burning throughout a lifetime. 'A little flame that you hunch over and cup with your hand and pray will not be extinguished by all the storm that howls about it,' he drawls in his distinctive antipodean baritone in his 2014 documentary, 20,000 Days on Earth. 'If you can hold on to that flame, great things can be constructed around it.' Watching Labuschagne scratch and scuffle on the biscuit-colored wicket at Optus Stadium last week was akin to witnessing a man desperately trying to keep his flame burning in the face of a gale. In this instance, Cave's flame represents form. In cricket, form is what batters thrive or falter on; it's capricious and elusive. In good times, form can be managed and harnessed, and in bad times, it can seem so out of reach that it barely exists.
Labuschagne struggled to score two runs off 51 balls in the first Test against India before looking utterly baffled by a straight delivery from Mohammed Siraj. In his second innings, he offered another glimpse into his scrambled mind by leaving a delivery from Jasprit Bumrah that hit his pads squarely in front of the stumps, knocking him off his feet and leaving him sprawled on all fours, resembling a pub-drunk who has spilled his coins on the carpet at the crucial moment. Labuschagne is experiencing the worst form of his international career. His Test average has plummeted from a three-year period in the 60s to 24.50 this year. He has managed just 123 runs in his past 10 knocks, with 90 of those coming in one innings. He appears woefully out of touch, grasping and groping at the crease; the histrionics that once seemed to fuel his innings now reek of distraction and desperation. 'NO RUN.' Indeed.
Labuschagne's flame clings to its wick. Failure looms with every delivery, though you might not necessarily guess it from his demeanor in the field, where a mic'd-up Marnus oscillates between braggadocio stag-do shit-talker and a hem-hugging party-toddler hopped up on e-numbers from one delivery to the next. All batters endure dips in form; a flame burning blue and true can dwindle to the size of a matchhead seemingly without rhyme or reason. Labuschagne undoubtedly drew some comfort from watching Kohli restore his own blaze after the Indian great scored his first Test ton since July 2023. Whereas Kohli once swept all before him like a raging scrub fire, his past 35 Test matches have seen him smolder to an average just under 33.
Nowadays, international sides are packed with Test batters averaging in the 30s. Something Ricky Ponting, and his dad, would probably scoff at. Ponting's 2011 quote that 'if you were averaging 35 when I was playing, your dad would go and buy you a basketball or a footy and tell you to play that' was recently reshared on social media by Kevin Pietersen with the words 'FACT.' Both men were perhaps guilty of wearing rose-tinted glasses rather than a microscope when it came to their own form, having suffered significant losses of form in 2001 and 2010, respectively. England begins their Test series against New Zealand with Ben Stokes, Zak Crawley, and Ollie Pope all averaging in the 30s and all going through a lean patch. Jacob Bethell is due to bat at No 3 and will make his Test debut without having scored a professional century. England has taken the biggest gamble of the Bazball era on him because they believe he is a future great in the making and, crucially, he is on fire, form-wise. Whatever happens, he would do well to look and learn from the man below him in the batting order. Playing his 150th Test and averaging more than 50, Joe Root knows how to keep the flame burning.
Source link: https://www.theguardian.com
