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Darren Lehmann -
Shrek the Freak |
- Karthik Narayan
 If
patience tests were to be implanted in the game
of cricket, count one cricketer to top that list
- Darren Scott Lehmann. After 11 long years of
First Class Cricket (First Class Season started
at the age of 17), he finally made it to the
Aussie Test Team in 1998.
A late riser from bed as far as Aussie cricket
goes, at least age wise. He broke into the
Aussie team at the age of 28, an age when
cricketers blossom and consolidate on their
early starts in international cricket. But age
did not deter this left-hander born in Gawler,
South Australia in Feb 1970. When he made his
debut in the Bangalore Test in 1998 under the
leadership of Mark Taylor, he made a spirited 52
on debut, which was not bad by any standards.
In his immediately next test, against Pakistanis
in their own backyard of Rawalpindi, he made a
brilliant 98. This meant that he was sublime on
subcontinent conditions against India and
Pakistan, who are considered to be invincible at
home. That start really brought him to the
forefront of test cricket. His first hundred
eluded him till the 10th test of his
career when he came up with a good knock against
the West Indies at Port of Spain. He got a 66 in
the second innings at a good snappy pace to go
along with his century in the first innings.
He missed a sure century in the next test at
Bridgetown, Barbados, when he was dismissed for
96, but he had grown ever since and made 4 more
hundreds in a career spanned over 6 years. Again
he was not a regular in the team, and most of
the time he never got a chance to play. His
first season for Australia came in 1998/99; the
next time he played was in 2002-03 thanks to a
certain Mark Waugh’s retirement from cricket.
Then after wards, he has been a prospect to
figure in the thick of action for Australia. His
batting also came very good against all kinds of
attacks and most importantly his batting in the
sub continent has been really good as compared
to the other Aussie batsmen. He is arguably one
of the best players of spin in the Australian
line up. He made 2 centuries against Sri Lanka
in Sri Lanka 2003-04 at Galle and Colombo, a
land where batsmen dread to set foot on, simply
because of the bomber pitches there, imparting
and taking so much spin.
Give and take a few lower scores that for his
caliber and patience would not be perfect, his
career graph has been really commendable in the
limited opportunities he has been given at this
level. Twenty four Tests, five hundreds, and for
me, each of those five hundreds were very
special, each coming under different conditions.
The first against West Indies in their own
backyard, two at home against minnows
Bangladesh, the next two were very special which
came in Sri Lanka, and his average is high up
there in the Forties, the benchmark for a
quality batsman.
Lehmann really struggled to get into the groove
to meet the ever-increasing demands of ODI
cricket ever since his debut against SL in the
Singer Cup in SL in 1996. He recovered a bit to
catch up later in his ODI career, and again
would get starts, and fail to convert them into
big scores. At times, he would walk in at No. 4
or 5, and make some runs, not quick, but then he
would stick out his bat and hang in there. He
had a long wait to get to his first of the 4 ODI
hundreds, the first one came at Karachi against
the Pakistanis in 1998-99 and the other three
flowed along. In his 108 matches so far, he has
a decent record of a 80 plus strike rate and a
string of 15 fifties to go with his 4 hundreds,
not bad for an old man who struck gold finally
at the mines, and managed to stick his head out
to retain it. His place in the ODI team was not
in as much jeopardy as it was in tests! One
highlight to point out maybe that he scored the
winning run for Australia in the 1999 world cup
final, when he square cut Saqlain Mushtaq for a
boundary.
He is not a stylish batsman in the mould of a
Mark Waugh, yet he is not an aggressive player
like Gilchrist or Hayden. He does not go at the
bowlers at the scuff of their necks. He is a
grafter for runs, unorthodox at times and
defensive at other times. But he is a stroke
maker no doubt about that; he may not be built
in the traditional mould, but he is highly
effective, and he might very well have stepped
into the shoes of a typical Aussie middle order
batsman!
Being an integral part of this invincible Aussie
team is not an easy job, and Lehmann has been
contributing in whatever little way he can. He
does turn his arm over for a few of his slow
left arm orthodox bowling, and in fact he has
been quite successful with his very simple
action with best bowling figures of 4-7 in ODIs
and a 3-42 in Tests.
He is a small stocky bald headed fellow who does
not mind jiggling and fiddling the odd joke and
prank. He is your average person, down to earth,
and ever so joy pervading and he does spread the
funny moment around just to make sure the game
is not played with all the seriousness in the
world. He has loads of experience in First Class
Cricket scoring over 20000 runs, with 69
centuries and 98 fifties and a high-class
average of nearly 57. He played a bit of County
Cricket for Yorkshire, the land of the Super
Mums and Grandmothers, as Geoffrey Boycott would
gladly agree!
Much is left to conquer in the short tenure that
he may stick with this Australian team, which is
on the verge of conquering the Final Frontier.
Cricketfundas.com wishes him success in the next
few years and that he should serve Australian
Cricket with his best.
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