The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 77

Saturday, October 24, 1992 77 rm CRICKET EI BASEBALL The Sydney Morning Herald Sport electors Ponting an apple of the eye in Tasmania's view feel lieat (TOO itiery I if I LcT Grand slam keeps the Braves in series race TORONTO, Friday: Lonnie Smith's grand slam powered Atlanta to a five-run fifth inning and a 7-2 victory over Toronto yesterday, to keep the Braves alive in the 1992 world baseball series. The Braves narrowed the gap on the Blue Jays to 3-2 in the best-of-seven series, which moves back to Atlanta tomorrow. Atlanta are trying to become only the seventh team in history to overcome a 3-1 series deficit. Smith, a designated hitter, sealed the win with his grand slam home run in the top of the fifth off Toronto starter Jack Morris. It was the 16th grand slam in series history, and marked the end of Morris's game.

Atlanta's lead-off hitter, Otis Nixon, opened the game with a double, stole third and was run in by Terry Pendleton's double to give the visitors a 1-0 lead. Toronto pulled level in the second inning as catcher Pat Borders singled to drive in John Olerud. Both teams scored in the fourth, David Justice grabbing Atlanta's first home run of the. series, blasting nearly into the second deck of seats at the SkyDome. Borders added another ran batted in, again scoring Olerud, to level at 2-2.

In the fifth, Nixon led off and singled to centre. He stole second and scored on Deion Sanders's single. Pendleton hit a ground ball inside the first base line that rolled to right field. Sanders could have scored, but a fan touched the ball so he was stopped at third with Pendleton on second. Justice was walked intentionally, and then Smith came up.

With the bases loaded, he fired over the right field wall. It was the biggest margin of victory so far in the '92 series. Now they meet again in Atlanta tomorrow night, Steve Avery pitching for the Braves against Toronto's David Cone. Ricky Ponting may be the best thing since thick-cut marmalade. He is 17, wears a tiny, defiant goatee beard, a shadow of a moustache, has a pale face and feet that fairly skim across the turf.

Already he is- a batsman of intuition, power and confidence, one with a sense of stillness and space and a glint in his eye that belies his calf-country, Launces-ton, the country cousin of a country cousin. Last year, aged 16, he was the second highest scorer in the Australian under-19 carnival, two runs adrift of Anthony McGuire of Wollongong, both players averaging 60 (mind you, the only thing averages prove is that mankind has a testicle). As a 12-year-old he scored 100 and 70 in an under-1 6 carnival, at 11 he hit four hundreds in five innings during an under-13 Cricket Week. He admits all this in the quiet, matter-of-fact voice of a bloke who can't stand fuss but is not afraid of his record, or of the treacherous step between promise and fulfilment. He can certainly bat.

Colleagues call him Sachin, after Tendulkar, and one says he is" "easily the best cricketer of his group in the A week ago he scored 150 as the Cricket Academy trounced Queensland's Second XI. Runs did not flow so freely afterwards against NSW but he did play some searing backfoot shots and straight drives, did once move out to a spinner and, finding himself short, used arm and wrist not to scotch but to guide gently past mid-off to the fence. He batted with maturity in the four-day game until being given out caught behind for 37, while in the 50-over contest he forgot the old adage that "it is with our passions as it is with fire and water, they are good servants but bad Since April, Ponting has attended the Academy in Adelaide, yet, happily, he is as much traditional as thoroughly modern. For a start he was not an especially dedicated scholar. "It wasn't much of a contest between homework and cricket training.

I copped it a few times but mostly got away with it. I left school as soon as I could," he said. By 16 he was working as a groundsman and as a cricketer, representing Tasmania at under-17 and under-19 carnivals. He is mindful that good and bad springs from his birthplace. "You get noticed more quickly in the sticks," he said.

"But we don't play positively enough in Tasmania because we don't think we're as good as they are. Take our under-19 game with Victoria last year. At tea we needed 100 with six wickets left and lost by three." Atlanta second-inning pitcher John Smolz seems a little worried after allowing hit during their world series clash in Toronto. The heat's on the Blue Jays a ahead with eye on of a Australia's cricket selectors grasped a 2m straw in Tom Moody as an opening batsman for the tour of Sri Lanka, and now they are in the same bind as they were 18 months ago after the losing campaign in the West Indies. Richie Richardson's West Indian team arrives in Perth next Wednesday.

Entitled to be in anything but a settled frame bf mind, the Australians will be most queasy with Ian Bishop, recovered from his stress fracture of the back, Curtly Ambrose, Patrick Patterson, Courtney Walsh, Anderson Cummins and new man Kenneth Benjamin about to land on their doorstep. And on every side, the national selectors find themselves confronted by the image of Geoff Marsh Marsh's mistake-free 121 for Western Australia against Queensland at the Gabba this week, his 28th first-class century, was good news for one of the best men in the game, a player Allan Border advocates he wants returned to the Tests. The bad news is that Marsh, 33, is not the man to open the innings against the West Indies with Mark Taylor, Marsh came back from the West Indies with a Test return of 226 runs at 25.11 with two half-centuries from nine innings. If his efforts were modest, he was not Robinson Crusoe on the Caribbean beach. Only five Australians surpassed his Test performances Mark Waugh, Mark Taylor, Allan Border, David Boon and Dean Jones.

From 50 Tests, Marsh has 2,854 runs at 33.18. Of greater relevance, in 1 0 Tests against the West Indies he has 453 runs at 23.84. Marsh's technique of moving on to the front foot makes him vulnerable against the West Indian fast men. It is too late for change. "They'll kill him," one good judge said.

"They'll blast his head off on our fast wickets." The selectors were apprehen- Damien Martyn I another century. First-innings century-maker Geoff Marsh fell to a Craig McDermott edge which wicket-keeper Healy snapped up. Then, Mike Veletta, also on one, fell Ibw to Dirk Tazelaar and an out-of-form Tom Moody was caught behind off Tazelaar for a duck as the visitors slumped to 3-11. One is having of Sydney Blues. They finished with the ABL's wooden spoon.

"I see a lot of similarities between the Blues and the early days of the Blue Jays," Ault said. "Back then we Blue Jays were regarded as an easy win. Every team couldn't wait to play us for that reason. "There was a lot of losing in that first season. But we didn't have any ambitious plans to win the World Series in our first few years.

"Sydney have a lot of talented young players and I can honestly see them as the dominant team in the years to come. "They're doing everything the right way." Ault has brought four Blue Jays players, each a member of his Myrtle Beach Hurricanes team in Canada, to spend the season with the Blues. MICHAEL COWLEY "But then all of a sudden there were almost 50,000 people there, and just about everyone in Toronto was out there with shovels getting the snow off the field. I guess that's when I realised we were going to play. Tm fairly glad that we did because my first two times at bat, I hit home runs.

I became the first player to hit a home run at Exhibition Stadium, and the first Blue Jay to hit a home run." Ault's reason for being thousands of kilometres away from Toronto during the Blue Jays' finest hour, is for his second stint as manager of Australian Baseball League team Sydney Blues. Ault has mixed memories of his first season at the helm of the PETER ROEBUCK From his neck hangs a miniature cricket bat and in his eye is a look that says "and that won't happen Tasmania's need for cricketers of competence and combativeness is urgent, and already their ranks are being swelled by players like Nick Courtney and Michael di Venuto. Ponting will soon follow. After his outstanding under-19 carnival, Ponting was invited to attend the Academy, which now runs from April to December, allowing students to return to challenge for club and Shield places. Ponting was picked to tour South Africa last Autumn and found it "sensational, seeing other ways of life, seeing how the blacks are treated which isn't good is it? We did some coaching clinics and they're certainly talented, if they get the opportunity." Then it was back to Adelaide and early mornings, swimming and training, and practising cricket in the afternoon.

Ponting believes his fitness has "picked up a lot" and he's also, found the psychological instruction valuable. "I didn't used to think about it a lot, about having little goals through the day but feeling happy with yourself as you walked off if it had" gone well. It sounds nothing but it means something to me." No matter what the stick-in-the-muds say, athleticism is important to cricketers in 1992, and it is technique's friend rather than its sworn enemy. But it has not all been muscle and sweat. Ian Chappell taught him to attack spin by using his feet to dominate, and Rod Marsh has also given a tip or two.

Not too much coaching, though, because there is no blueprint. Not all coaches agree with that. My old Somerset coach once told a boy he was holding the bat wrong. "But sir," said the boy "this is how Don Bradman held it and he scored lots of runs." "Yes, lad," replied the coach "but imagine how many he'd have scored if he'd held it right." Ponting may be just the cricketer Tasmania and. Australia needs, aggressive and exciting.

But it is a long and rocky road. Anthony McGuire is out of form, just now, and cannot get a guernsey in the "Academy Queensland's fine day in the field left them with almost a day-and-a-half to get the required 334 runs for victory. At stumps, the Maroons were 1-69, still 265 runs short of the target, with Matthew Hayden on 43 and Peter Goggin 15. But it was Storey's day as hie outwitted three of his victims, took a neat caught-and-bowled to remove Justin Langer five runs short of his half-century and skittled Bruce Reid before he could score a run. After a season in Peter Taylor's shadow last year, Storey said that instead of seeking advice to re-establish his Shield career he would rely on his own judgement "I've walked away from getting help from other bowlers and just back myself," said Storey.

"I lost confidence bowling-wise but you have got to have confidence in yourself before you can do anything." Western Australia were in immediate trouble yesterday. The Big Storey's inspired spell gives PHILWILKINS sive about Marsh after the Australians lost in the Caribbean, 2-1, but no worthy opener emerged to shunt him aside. The selectors felt they were damned if they dropped Marsh, and damned if they didn't They were especially reluctant to promote Boon to opener again as he adapted to the rigors of No 3 with the assurance of a Charlie Macartney. Boon rewarded the selectors with three centuries in successive Tests against India. The opening problem remained unresolved.

The selectors dropped Marsh after the fourth Test against India, promoting Victorian Wayne Phillips. He made eight and 14 in his only Test in Perth and missed Sri Lanka. Tall men are notoriously bad openers. They make good targets. Moody was no exception.

He opened in Sri Lanka with Taylor and failed with 71 runs at 1 1.83 in three Tests. Once and for all, he proved he was a middle-order batsman. The search goes on. Queensland's Matthew Hayden, 21 next week, was not good enough for the Australian under-19 team to England, but in his debut season last summer made 1,028 runs at 54.10. The concern is a perceived flaw on the off stump.

My choice to open with Taylor would be WA's tough No 3, Justin Langer, the man who came in with the Sandgropers reeling at 3-3 in their second innings in the last Sheffield Shield final and finished with 149. Players such as Langer, 21, and Damien Martyn, 21, the young middle-order maestro from the west, will get their opportunities against the West Indies in first-class matches for WA and then the Australian XI in Hobart before the first Test Regardless of how strong the West Indies' batting is, their new array of brazier-burners is extremely dangerous. Australia are in for the most volcanic of summers. victory Queensland commited a rare mistake in the field when the usually reliable Goggin dropped a sitter at second slip, giving Langer a life when his score was on seven. While Storey shone with the ball, 21 -year-old Martyn gave the small Gabba crowd another glimpse of his brilliance.

And he joined a select group of batsmen who have scored a century in both innings of a Shield match. Martyn was dropped twice just before Storey deceived him with a delivery around his legs and Healy stumped him. McDermott claimed his 500th first-class wicket when he dismissed tailender Jim Angel for a duck. Then WA player-coach Terry Alderman became Shield cricket's second leading wicket behind Clarrie Grimmett (513) dispatching Queensland opener Trevor Barsby his 368th career victim. its biggest one Maroons chance past Pitchers Al Montoya and Ben Weber, catcher Marc Loeb, and Myrtle Beach's leading batter, Joe Lis, are in Sydney to improve their games and enhance their prospects of a major league career.

"The system of bringing our up-and-coming players out here works both ways," Ault said. "They are all players that we want to' keep in the Blue Jays organisation. We bring them out here to hone their skills and learn more about the game. "But also the system works the other way too. I act as a scout and assess the local talent "One thing that you've got here that we haven't, is that there is a lot of enthusiasm in the kids.

Back home they seem to take the sport a bit for granted, and you can't beat enthusiasm." Michael Lynagh or Marty Roebuck will take the goalkicking against Ulster. The decision will be left to Lynagh. Ulster will be formidable opponents with six Test players, including hooker Steve Smith and breakaway Gordon Hamilton, who scored the runaway try which almost saw the demise of Australia in the World Cup quarter-final last October. The teams are: AUSTRALIA: Roebuck. Carozza.

Little. Horan, Campese. Lynagh (captain), Siattery. Gavin, Wilson. Ofahengaue, Eales.

McCall, McKenzic. Kearns. Llllicrap. ULSTER: Wilkinson. Carey, Field.

McCall, Crossan. Russell. Matchett. Elliott. Robinson, Hamilton (captain).

McKinty, Johns, Tweed. Millar. Smith. complete tense journey to Belfast BRISBANE: Queensland part-time bowler Steve Storey sent Western Australia into a spin with a career-best five wicket haul in the Sheffield Shield match at the Gabba yesterday. Storey undermined the belief that spinners have little place on bouncy early season Gabba pitches with a superb performance for 5-55 off 22.5 overs.

Although chosen for his batting, the bespectacled spinner has given Queensland a good shot at achieving an outright victory that did not seem possible on Thursday when the Maroons avoided folio wing-on by the barest of margins one run. In a remarkable day, Queensland bundled out Western Australia for 184 in their second innings, 1 12 of which came from the bat of brilliant youngster Damien Martyn his second century in less than 24 hours. Martyn was one of Storey's five victims, cleverly stumped by wicket-keeper Ian Healy. Looking Doug Ault makes no apologies. He would dearly like to be thousands of kilometres away from Sydney today.

Ault has nothing at all against the Harbour City, it is, after all, his second home for five months of the year. It's just that with baseball history in the making in the World Series, he should be back home in Toronto. After all, Ault helped lay the foundations of the Toronto Blue Jays 15 years ago. "April 7, 1977. It was the Blue Jays' first game in the American League.

It was the coldest day I can recall and the snow belting down," Ault said yesterday. "We were due to play the Chicago White Sox and I remember thinking that there was no way in the world we would be able to play. The field was covered in snow. 13 RUGBY Wallabies From Page 78 The Wallabies have in recent months discovered that they cannot remain oblivious to the troubles of the outside world, as shown in South Africa during August where they were surrounded by armed bodyguards. But the Wallabies have no reason to be concerned about safety.

They are staying in a plush 1 9th century hotel, which was originally an official palace for the Bishops of Down and stands in five hectares of beautiful secluded gardens and woodlands. The Australian selectors resisted the temptation to rest four Test players against Ulster and instead picked their top side. ever. Entries Australian coach Bob Dwyer overnight was contemplating giving hooker Phil Kearns, flanker Willie Ofahengaue, second-rower Rod McCall and centre Jason Little a chance to overcome minor injuries and illnesses by missing the Ulster match. Instead, Dwyer was advised by Australian team physiotherapist Greg Craig that the four players were fit and the selectors had no hesitation in picking them.

Dwyer also made it clear that except for No 8, Troy Coker, no members from the Wednesday team defeated 22-19 by Munster in Cork warranted inclusion in the main side. This team to play Ulster is certain to be the Test line-up against Ireland at Lans-downe Road on October 31. "The main reason we have picked this side is that obviously not too many people on Wednesday put pressure on the Test players, except for Troy who did play quite well," Dwyer said. Dwyer said he was calling for greater commitment from the back-up team, who lacked passion when confronted by a vigorous Munster outfit "Maybe some of the new guys were lulled into thinking that you only had to wear the green and gold, run on to the field, and you naturally won. It's not that easy," Dwyer said.

He is still uncertain whether Tuesday. mm mMfi(Q)m Me Im mm go on sale next IOT 8643B.