Crane takes comfort in Warne’s debut
On paper, Mason Crane hasn’t had a very memorable international debut so far. The English legspinner has sent down 17 wicket-less overs so far in the final Ashes Test in Sydney, and with 58 runs picked off him, he is the most expensive of the England bowlers.
Crane, 20, did threaten on occasion, and was even unlucky not to snare the wicket of Usman Khawaja after inducing an edge. However, there were also visible signs of nerves – there were two consecutive false starts, before eventually bowling a full toss to Steven Smith. The Australian captain put that away for his first boundary.
He has tasted success at Sydney Cricket Ground before, taking a five-wicket-haul during his stint at New South Wales in a Sheffield Shield match last year, and could yet repeat the feat at the international level.
Crane, in fact, took encouragement from another legspinner who debuted at this very venue in 1992 – Shane Warne returned just 1/150 on against India at the time. He went on to become the greatest legspinner in the game, with 708 wickets.
“I’m hoping for slightly better figures (than Warne’s),” said Crane. “At the end of the day that’s how it goes, he turned into a great bowler and I’m sure it was character building for him.”
Crane did threaten the batsmen at times, but he wasn’t ruing the missed chances too much. He said: “There were periods where we had a couple of inside edges that didn’t quite get to short leg or to slip, but that happens. That’s the game and you keep plugging away and hopefully they go my way tomorrow.”
Crane admitted to some nerves when Joe Root, his captain, threw the ball to him. The butterflies soon passed though, and he is now looking forward to getting back out there. “It was awesome. Naturally, I was a little bit nervous, but I was also really excited,” he said. “I had great fun out here and I can’t wait until tomorrow.”
Steve Smith, the Australian captain currently unbeaten on 44, has already notched up three figures thrice so far this series, including a double century, and Crane pinpointed him as the key wicket for England. “He’s a key player for them. I feel if we can get him out and we can take a couple more wickets then we can hopefully get a first-innings lead,” he said. “He’s got out four times in this series, he’s playing it very well, he’s seeing it very well but he’s only human so we’ll keep plugging away tomorrow and hopefully get him out.”
Another bowler who struggled a bit on the day was Australia’s Pat Cummins. The paceman peppered Stuart Broad and the rest of the England tail with bouncers, but was taken to the fence time and again. Despite that, Cummins ended as Australia’s highest wicket-taker in the innings, returning 4/80.
Asked if there was ever a temptation to bowl fuller to Broad once he started picking the bouncers, he said it was still the best bet to get him out. “Not really, to be honest,” he said. “Every ball to Stuart you feel like you’re in the game. He does hit a couple of them clean but it still feels like you’ve got enough catchers out there. A couple of them only just missed our fielders.
“Smithy (is) driving that (bouncer strategy). Us bowlers are all happy to follow along. It’s a plan that’s worked all summer and again, they got a few runs but I still think we got a few wickets there are the end and the pitch was pretty flat and the ball was starting to get a bit soft. So, it didn’t feel like we were going to get too many genuine nicks.”
