Changing Hughes

Homeworkgate has given the struggling left-hander an unexpected window of opportunity

Net spinner to Phillip Hughes,ball one. The young Sardar,whose chin is yet to sprout a beard,spins the ball around his kada for effect. Hughes adjusts his helmet by the grill and gets into a wide,front-on stance. A moment before kick-off,the off-spinner offers a quick prayer by kissing his necklace. But by the time the ball pitches,good length and on Hughes middle stump,he realises that the man tapping the ground nervously with his bat is perhaps the one in need of luck.

It is never a pretty sight when a professional cricketer roots a dislodged stump back in with the handle of his bat. Especially when the bowler in question is a wide-eyed,star-struck novice. While the ball still revolved in the air,Hughes had rocked back to cut it. But not long after it had gripped the soil,the Australian must have realised that it wasnt the right length to cut. So instead,he offered the driving face of the bat square and dragged the ball onto his off-stump. Somewhere,Ravichandran Ashwin must have had a bout of hiccups.

If the hawk-eyed Michael Di Venuto,Australias batting coach and a former left-handed opening batsman like Hughes,had felt a kick in the chest while watching this,he did well to gulp down and focus. This was no time to delve into the negatives,such as Hughes pricked-nose approach to spin. In the aftermath of the drama that played curtain raiser to the Mohali Test 8212; where four Aussies got their knuckles rapped 8212; Hughes,incredibly,became the third most experienced member of this Australian squad. This,then,was the moment to find the few-and-far-between positives in the Australians batting 8212; his ability to deal with pace and bounce. And his bouncebackability factor.

Off the field in this series,Hughes has been a lot more fortunate than many. By sheer serendipity,the suspension saga occurred just when he was certain to receive the chop from the Test side. Consider this. Against spinners in the first two Tests,Hughes has faced 51 balls. Off those,he has scored six runs and lost all four of his wickets. Ashwins figures while bowling to Australias number three in this series read such: 7.2-7-1-3. One run in 44 balls for three wickets. Usman Khawaja must have arrived at the Chandigarh airport with his pads on.

Big top-order hope

But now,with no Khawaja to replace him and no Shane Watson to shuffle up the order,Hughes,24,is not only a likely starter,but their big top-order hope. The main reason being that for these Australians to move on from the stench raised in the dressing room on Monday,it has become of paramount importance that those with the backing of the team management get their acts together by Thursday. And in his career of 22 Test matches,Hughes has shown glimpses of why he could be the man for just this occasion.

There are two ways to look at the New South Welshmans in-again-out-again Test life. The first way,the most obvious one,is to notice that his batting isnt quite what it used to be. In his first two Tests,Hughes scored two hundreds and a fifty in a sum total of 350 runs. In his last two Tests,he has two ducks,a 6 and a 19. The steep gradient is of course evident. But there is another way to approach the same set of numbers 8212; by observing that every time the out-again man finds himself in,he enters with a real bang.

Everyone is aware of the Bradmanesque start to his career in 2009. But few know of his incredible run after the South Africa series. Still a teenager then and with the world at his feet,Hughes left for England to get some practice for the Ashes. And practice he got. For Middlesex,he scored 118 amp; 65 against Glamorgan in the opening game,139 against Leicestershire in the next game,and 195 and 57 against Surrey right after that. At this point,some even called him Don Hughes.

A comeback man

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However,swift was his fall. Finding Andrew Flintoff a bit too spicy for his liking in the 2009 Ashes,Hughes was dropped for the first time after he had played just five Tests. The story of his life then became about comebacks. And every time he came back,he came back big. In January 2010,Hughes was called back for the tour of New Zealand. He scored a sparkling unbeaten 86 in a chase of 106. The third time he returned was in August 2011,when he hit a hundred in Pallekele against Sri Lanka and churned out 88 runs in Johannesburg 8212; Australias highest individual innings on that tour. His fourth chance saw him enter a side that had just lost Ricky Ponting in December 2012. In Mike Husseys farewell series,he stole the limelight with two 80s against the Lankans.

Now,Homeworkgate may have just saved Hughes from being dropped again. But for the sake of his crisis-stricken team and his own,Hughes will do well to treat Mohali as his fifth comeback.