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Bevan remains Australia`s most valuable player
Sydney, Jan 28:Adam Gilchrist smashes sixes and snaffles acrobatic catches behind the stumps. Glenn McGrath destroys top orders with his suffocating accuracy.
Sydney, Jan 28:Adam Gilchrist smashes sixes and snaffles acrobatic catches behind the stumps. Glenn McGrath destroys top orders with his suffocating accuracy.
Still Australia's most-valuable one-day player remains the quietest achiever of them all, middle-order batsman Michael Bevan.
While Gilchrist, McGrath and leg-spinner Shane Warne get most of the accolades, Bevan toils away, unfazed and unaffected.
He almost missed the World Cup when he injured his groin in a recent match against England but recovered in time after the damage proved not as bad as initially feared.
Bevan scores his runs almost unnoticed but at a rapid rate. While his teammates try to bash and belt the ball to the boundary, Bevan prefers singles and twos. His genius is that he does it almost every ball he faces. The crafty left-hander has an uncanny knack of being able to thread the ball through the narrowest of gaps. Be it straight drive, a flick off the pads or a deflection to third man, Bevan always finds a way to keep the scoreboard ticking. He steals even more runs through his lightning-fast running between the wickets, hurtling down the pitch for the first to put pressure on the field then scurrying back in the nick of time. He rarely hits the ball along the ground, and never harder than he needs, but his safety-first approach has made him a big winner in a game that encourages risk taking. His average of 54.80 from 196 one-day internationals is the highest in history for anyone who has played a minimum of 20 innings, a figure admittedly boosted by not outs in more than a third of his innings. Bevan usually occupies the crease in the frantic final few overs. It is at those times, when the stakes are highest and there is panic in everyone's eyes, that Bevan is at his best. While most adopt a slash and burn approach, Bevan stays calm, utilising improvisation and versatility as his weapons of choice. He played a key role in the Australian victory in the 1999 World Cup. However, his Test career has been less successful. Despite a promising start and a top score of 91, the perception that he has a weakness against short-pitched bowling has limited his appearances to just 18 Tests. It has long been a source of frustration to him that he can not fight his way back into the Test side but his brilliant contribution and success with the one-day team have proven ample consolation.
Bureau Report
Bevan scores his runs almost unnoticed but at a rapid rate. While his teammates try to bash and belt the ball to the boundary, Bevan prefers singles and twos. His genius is that he does it almost every ball he faces. The crafty left-hander has an uncanny knack of being able to thread the ball through the narrowest of gaps. Be it straight drive, a flick off the pads or a deflection to third man, Bevan always finds a way to keep the scoreboard ticking. He steals even more runs through his lightning-fast running between the wickets, hurtling down the pitch for the first to put pressure on the field then scurrying back in the nick of time. He rarely hits the ball along the ground, and never harder than he needs, but his safety-first approach has made him a big winner in a game that encourages risk taking. His average of 54.80 from 196 one-day internationals is the highest in history for anyone who has played a minimum of 20 innings, a figure admittedly boosted by not outs in more than a third of his innings. Bevan usually occupies the crease in the frantic final few overs. It is at those times, when the stakes are highest and there is panic in everyone's eyes, that Bevan is at his best. While most adopt a slash and burn approach, Bevan stays calm, utilising improvisation and versatility as his weapons of choice. He played a key role in the Australian victory in the 1999 World Cup. However, his Test career has been less successful. Despite a promising start and a top score of 91, the perception that he has a weakness against short-pitched bowling has limited his appearances to just 18 Tests. It has long been a source of frustration to him that he can not fight his way back into the Test side but his brilliant contribution and success with the one-day team have proven ample consolation.
Bureau Report