Former Australian captain Mark Taylor has revealed he wrote to the International Cricket Council during the 1995 tour to the West Indies, to highlight a weakness in the laws of the game after a brutal spell from fast bowling greats Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh.
To mark the 25th anniversary of the tour, that saw Australia defeat the West Indies for the first time since the summer of 1975-76, Taylor sat down with Wide World of Sports to reflect on one of the most historic series of his time as skipper.
Billed as the unofficial battle for the world No.1 ranking, Taylor's side arrived in the Caribbean determined to reverse the result of the last meeting between the two teams, a 2-1 West Indian victory in Australia in 1992-93.
That series saw the Australian side come within two runs of winning the series, when the West Indies snatched a famous victory in the fourth Test in Adelaide, before Ambrose ran amok in the final match in Perth.
Despite the heartbreak of that loss, Taylor says there were plenty of positives to be drawn from the series.
"I think what 92-93 taught us was that we were pretty close to being as good, if not better than the West Indies," he said.
"We lost in Adelaide by a single run, and then got smashed in Perth, but up until the last day in Adelaide we were the better side in that series.
"We had a belief that we were getting better, and it's probably fair to say they weren't. We thought we would give them a good run in 1995."
Taylor's point about the decline in the quality of the West Indies side is important. A number of long standing greats, such as Gordon Greenidge, Viv Richards, Malcolm Marshall and Jeff Dujon had all retired in the previous four years.
Former England all-rounder Derek Pringle wrote recently that the West Indies decline started with the retirement of Greenidge in 1991, and then accelerated after his opening partner Desmond Haynes played his last match in 1994.
"I think Derek's point is valid," Taylor said.
"The moment that Gordon wasn't around you could see they were having trouble replacing like for like, and that happens, particularly after a period of domination.
"They had a batting line up of guys like Greenidge, Haynes, Richards and Richie Richardson, the names roll off the tongue.
"Then all of a sudden you've got Stuart Williams and Sherwin Campbell and Phil Simmons. They're good players but they're not great players.
"It's not easy to continually find great players.
"When Gordon went there was a hole, and it got deeper when Dessie went. As the West Indies then found out, when you're continually two or three for not many, you're always in trouble, even with someone like Brian Lara coming through. There's only so much he could do when wickets were tumbling around him."
While the likes of Marshall, Patrick Patterson and Ian Bishop were no longer around, in Ambrose and Walsh the West Indies still boasted two of the all-time fast bowling greats, and with Kenny and Winston Benjamin (no relation) in support, it was still a more than useful attack.
But Taylor says the Australians were ready for the challenge.
"There was no fear in that 1995 side," he said.
"We'd had a good chat prior to the Tests about short pitched bowling. I remember telling the guys that we were going to cop it, and anyone who didn't think we were going to get it shouldn't be sitting in the room.
"It would be fair to say Glenn McGrath's batting in 1995 wasn't that good, but he was as ferocious to their tail as they were to him.
"There wasn't any fear that we were going to be intimidated by the West Indies, we were there to win."
The West Indies won the one-day series that preceded the Tests 4-1, although Taylor says he remembers telling the side that they weren't there for the one-dayers, it was the Test matches that counted.
But before the Test series got under way the Australians suffered a double blow. Opening bowlers Damien Fleming and Craig McDermott both had to return home, Fleming with a shoulder injury, while McDermott was injured in freakish circumstances.
"This will surprise people, but Craig was out running with me, of all people," Taylor said.
"We were running back from the ground at Guyana, and Craig jumped off a sea-wall and ruptured the capsule in his ankle.
"Our two opening bowlers were going to be Fleming and McDermott, two guys who could swing the ball away from their right-handers, and they're both going home before the first Test.
"But out of adversity comes opportunity, and I remember walking up to Glenn McGrath, and telling him that he would be one of the leaders of our attack.
"His reply was 'it's about bloody time' and as it turned out, history will show he was exactly right."
With just 23 Tests between them, McGrath (nine Tests), along with Paul Reiffel (12) and Brendon Julian (two), formed perhaps Australia's least-credentialed pace attack since the nadir of the mid-1980s, although in this case they had the established genius of Shane Warne to support them.
But the Australia bowlers struck hard on day one of the series in Barbados, and when captain Richie Richardson departed the home side had slumped to 3-6. The scoreline came as a surprise to the Australians after the West Indies had won the toss and elected to bat, with Taylor saying they were expecting a high scoring match with few demons evident in the pitch.
But controversy was never far from the surface, and when Steve Waugh claimed a controversial catch to dismiss Brian Lara on the opening day, things turned ugly.
Replays showed Waugh losing control of the ball as he fell to the ground. Waugh said later he had no doubt it was a fair catch, with the ball never touching the ground.
The fans in Bridgetown began heckling the Australians, but Taylor says there was never any question of recalling Lara.
"Steve certainly lost control of the ball as he was falling to the ground. I couldn't see from the slips whether or not the ball hit the ground. What we did was ask Steve if he thought he caught the ball, he said 'Yes' so you let the umpires decide," Taylor said.
"If they'd said it wasn't out then we would have got on with the game, that was how I was always taught.
"The umpires thought he caught it, Steve thought he caught it, so you move on."
Taylor doesn't recall any conversations between either himself and Richardson, or with the match referee, in regards to the catch. But the off-field drama escalated on day two of the match, when Australian coach Bob Simpson was rushed to hospital during the morning session with a blood clot in his left leg.
A case of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) was diagnosed, but once the initial shock had worn off the players found the funny side.
"It was actually quite surreal, because Simmo was such a tough man both as a player and coach," Taylor said.
"To see him taken to hospital for something that wasn't like a physical blow, it wasn't a broken bone, it was a real shock to us all.
"It's never good to lose your coach, but the team bus would drive past the hospital on the way out of the ground and we'd be hanging out the window yelling 'G'day Simmo!'
"Players tend to make light of things like that. We obviously went to visit him to make sure he was OK, but once we knew he wasn't too bad you make light of it."
Australia won that first Test by 10 wickets, with McGrath picking up the first of what would be 29 five-wicket hauls in Test cricket.
Taylor was at the crease when Australia wrapped up victory in the match, but souveniring the stumps proved a challenge for the captain.
"It's true! I had two or three stumps and I'm running off the ground, and then some guy was grabbing me as I was running off the ground," Taylor said
"He's hanging on, and I'm looking at him and he's looking at me. My first thought was that it wouldn't be very appropriate to hit him with my bat! But I think my boot might have been close to him and of course I was wearing spikes.
"So I trod on his foot and he let go and I got off the ground!
"I kept the stumps. I might have given a couple away but I reckon there's still one at home."
During the second Test in Antigua, Taylor and opening partner Michael Slater had to face nine overs on the second evening, with Ambrose and Walsh turning up the pace.
Taylor and Slater survived the searching examination from the legendary bowlers, but not without a degree of pain, with both batsmen sporting large ice-packs on their shoulder in the dressing room afterwards.
Earlier in the series Slater had told the press that the West Indian bowlers held no fear for the Australian batsmen, a comment that wasn't well received by the locals.
According to Steve Waugh's tour diary, published shortly after the series, Ambrose is reported to have told local media prior to the second Test that "Slater is going to have 19 ambulances waiting for him when he goes into bat in this match."
Taylor says that spell in Antigua was one of the most brutal he ever faced.
"I actually wrote a letter to the ICC after that Test match, which finished in a draw. We had a bit of rain and it petered out to a draw," he said.
"But that second night, we faced nine overs. That's 54 deliveries. I think 35 or 40 of them were short pitched balls that went through somewhere between chest and head height.
"Four or five balls an over were short. They were allowed two bouncers, but that doesn't count the balls at the chest. To me that was intimidatory bowling."
The laws of the game had been changed by 1995 to specifically allow bowlers to deliver "two fast short-pitched deliveries an over" with the definition covering only balls passing above shoulder height.
Balls bowled at the ribs did not count towards the two short-pitched deliveries that were allowed.
According to Taylor, who confirmed he never received a reply from the ICC, the extra wording in the law was a step backwards.
"When I wrote to the ICC I was basically saying how much I loved the old law. The old law just spoke about the umpires being empowered to enforce intimidatory bowling," Taylor said.
"If someone is bowling short all the time they're not trying to get you out, they're just trying to intimidate you. The new law to me is not the better law. The old law is better if the umpires administer it properly."
That Test ended in a draw despite both sides being bowled out cheaply in their first innings, but Taylor disputes claims that Australia was still in holiday mode after their comfortable win in the opening match.
"What's the right preparation for a game of cricket?" he asked.
"These days, everyone wants to dot I's and cross T's and make sure everything is just so, and everything is done so rigidly that they think they can't be held accountable for a bad performance.
"My theory was to try and keep everyone as light as possible, without being silly about it. It wasn't about doing no preparation, but it's not always about training the house down.
"Yeah we got bowled out for 216, but then we bowled them out for 260, because we were lighter, and we were enjoying the cricket.
"If you're going to play five day Test matches, seven or eight hours a day, you cannot be switched on for that amount of time.
"If you're tense, or over-prepared, you don't play your best cricket, because you can't live like that for five days."
The drawn second Test left Australia with a 1-0 series lead, setting it up for a show-stopping climax in the last two matches of the series.
Part two of our exclusive interview with Mark Taylor will be published next week.
from WWOS http://wwos.nine.com.au/cricket/mark-taylor-icc-letter-curtly-ambrose-intimidating-bowling/946aa238-39dc-4857-bc63-280e870d51a9
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