Australia's Chris Rogers Continues to Shrug Aside Supposed Flaws and Succeed
Chris Rogers clipped a ball through mid-wicket off Bhuvneshwar Kumar. Mark Taylor, a former Australian captain sitting in the Channel Nine commentary box, remarked that it wasn't a natural shot for the left-hander.
Frankly, he's right. It's not.
Rogers looks remarkably awkward playing it. His rigid, side-on stance closes him off to the leg side. Opening up his body to whip the ball off his legs is tricky. His high elbow that seems permanently fixed in its position doesn't really want to try it.
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The whole shot is against his nature; it's a stroke that involves plenty of risk. And Rogers hasn't made a sterling first-class career for himself by taking risks. He invented the term "playing the percentages."
When he attempts the shot, the ball often thumps into his front pad. Or squirts off the inside edge. Or finds a fielder who isn't forced to do much to stop it.
It's often an opportunity missed. And a reminder of Rogers' limitations.
Most of his team-mates can play the shot in their sleep. David Warner crunches it. Shane Watson caresses it. Michael Clarke owns it. Steve Smith flicks it hard and regularly. Brad Haddin likes to chip it. Even fast bowler Mitchell Johnson likes it. Those guys on the other team, India, they don't mind it either.
Rogers might be the only batsman in this series who makes the shot look like hard work. If Mark Waugh once made it look like silk, Rogers makes it look like sandpaper.
And yet he still succeeds.
Rogers got down on one knee and swept Ravichandran Ashwin for two. Ian Healy, a former Australian wicket-keeper sitting in the Channel Nine commentary box, remarked that it wasn't a natural shot for the left-hander.
Frankly, he's right. It's not.
Rogers doesn't like spin. He hates it. It's like he was taught his craft in an alternate universe where spin doesn't exist. Watching Rogers try to decipher Ashwin is like watching an eight-year-old mathematics student trying to decipher calculus
Rogers hates spin so much that, in 2013, he said he was the biggest beneficiary of Graeme Swann's retirement. In 2014, he admitted he was "elated" at not having to face Saeed Ajmal. Given that he once fell lbw to a waist-high full toss from Swann at Lord's, you can understand where he's coming from.
Of course, the sweep is the most difficult of all shots against spin for Rogers. It involves getting down on one knee, playing across the line and using a horizontal bat to a straight ball. Those things are like the Antichrist to him. He just doesn't do them.
It doesn't matter that Matthew Hayden once battered Harbhajan Singh into submission with it. It doesn't matter that Warner plays the reverse version more fluently than Rogers plays any shot at all. It doesn't matter that it's in vogue in limited-overs cricket, having bred itself into countless other variations.
Rogers doesn't sweep. Not willingly, anyway. Only when he's forced to. Here in Sydney against Ashwin, he used it reluctantly to get to 50. In Durham against Swann, he used it reluctantly to get to his maiden Test hundred.
Other than that, the shot is banished to the cupboard. Instead, he likes to stand on the crease, stutter a little, plod forward and block. Even that is ungainly.
And yet he still succeeds.
Rogers stood at the striker's end at the SCG, preparing for another delivery. Ian Chappell, a former Australian captain sitting in the Channel Nine commentary box, remarked that, while most players are taught to take a comfortable stance, it looked as though no one had ever passed that information on to the left-hander.
Frankly, he might be right. It's looks like no one ever did.
He stands there in almost a half-squat. So side on he's almost forced to look back behind his shoulder to see the bowler.
His feet seem uncomfortably far apart. His arms are arranged awkwardly in an unusually high position. The bat hangs in the air, like he's not sure what to do with it.
His whole setup is a little like that kid in school who grips a pen with all five fingers. It might work somehow, but you're still tempted to laugh.
Younger generations might even see an uncanny resemblance in Rogers with those robotic, computerised figures in Shane Warne Cricket '99.
His team-mates show him up, too. Warner stands there like he's holding an axe. Watson, despite his other frailties, is text-book. Clarke looks cool with his pads as low as they can go. Haddin holds the bat so lightly it looks like he doesn't want to break anything.
Nathan Lyon looks better.
It's a stance that looks worse than your drunken uncle's when he decides it's his turn to slog a few in the post-turkey, Christmas Day game in the backyard.
And yet he still succeeds.
During the third Test in Melbourne, The Age's Greg Baum, when describing Australia's opening pair, identified Rogers as the "tortoise" and Warner as the "hare."
Frankly, he's right. In comparison, that's what they are.
At the Oval in 2013, Rogers batted for two-and-a-half hours and faced 100 deliveries to make 23. In Brisbane later that year, it took him 81 balls and more than 90 minutes to reach 16. Shortly after in Melbourne, with the series against England already over, he batted almost four hours for 61.
When he went to the UAE to face Pakistan in Dubai last October, he swallowed up 130 balls for just 39. Against a four-man attack that had eight Test caps and 22 Test wickets between them.
Rogers, in his short Test career, has completed 10 of his 38 innings with a strike below 30. Twenty-five of them with a strike rate below 50. On eight occasions, he's batted for more than three hours. In three of them, he's gone beyond four.
In March, Cricket Australia awarded central contracts to 18 players: 17 of them, including his opening partner at Test level, have represented the nation in limited-overs cricket. Rogers hasn't.
Warner, as the prototypical opener, plays all three formats for Australia. He's played Twenty20 cricket with the Sydney Sixers, Delhi Daredevils, Sunrisers Hyderabad and Northern Districts. His Test strike rate is almost 75. In this series, it's almost 80.
Alongside him, Rogers is a tortoise. He's everything that modern cricket isn't.
And yet he still succeeds.
During the troublesome 2013 Ashes series in England, News Corp Australia described Rogers as Australia's "ugly duckling."
Frankly, the company wasn't right. Because Rogers isn't ever likely to mature into a beautiful swan.
Rogers is colour blind. He sometimes struggles to pick up the red ball out of a cluttered background. In November, he had to pull out of a pink-ball trial in a first-class game between Victoria and Tasmania because he couldn't see it.
It's why he fusses over sight screens so pedantically. Why he aborts the crease when someone in the stand behind the bowler sips their drink. Why he's seen ordering around stray security guards in the background more than he is playing attacking shots.
For a cricketer, owning a style like his is bad enough—there are accountants out there with more chance of ending up on a poster than him. Eyesight issues on top of that are just a kick in the teeth.
But it hasn't stopped him.
"He finds a way to score runs. He is a run scorer," Australia's batting coach Michael Di Venuto said of Rogers in December 2013, per Daniel Brettig of ESPN Cricinfo, after he'd struck a century at the MCG.
"Sometimes you go out and the ball hits the middle of the bat and you are away. Other times it doesn't happen.
"What Chris does, and what he has done his whole career, is that no matter what sort of form he is in he scores runs. That is the name of the game."
Rogers clips balls off his pads awkwardly. He sweeps reluctantly. He stands there funny. He plods along like a tortoise.
According to the world watching on, he cuts, drives, pulls, hooks, glides, dabs, clips and blocks unnaturally.
Everything about Rogers suggests he shouldn't make a ton of runs.
And yet he does. He just gets 'em.
He still succeeds.
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