Ashes 2013: Australia may have to discard players haunted by England failures

This Australian side is scarred. The captain has played against England on four occasions and lost three Ashes series, winning the whitewash when he was surrounded by the greats. He is going to lose another series in a couple of weeks’ time, making it four out of five. But he is the leader of the team trying to inspire the rest of the players to beat this England side.

England know how to beat them too. Anderson and Swann, in particular, realise that if they turn up and bowl dot, dot dot, the fragility in the Australian techniques will get them a wicket.

Watson is still making the same mistakes in 2013 that he made in 2009. For four years he has planted that front foot over to off stump and played across the front pad. England are delighted to see him continue to play in that fashion.

Compare him with Joe Root. Two or three weeks ago he realised he would be opening the batting and knew Australia were going to bowl full balls at him. He went away and worked hard on coming forward. He did not have an on-drive three weeks ago but now he has added that shot to his game because he has realised you have to learn where the opposition are going to bowl to you.

I do not understand why someone like Watson has not learnt that the England bowlers are going to bowl a channel outside off stump and then get the ball to nip back on to the off stump where they know he will play across the line and be out lbw.

He keeps falling into the trap. Why he has not changed his game? It is down to individuals analysing their own performance and working out exactly how they are going to score against good attacks. These England bowlers are very good. They are clever at spotting weaknesses and you know they are not going to bowl badly for a prolonged period, so as a batsman you have to be strong technically and mentally.

But I do not believe you can be mentally strong and confident to bat for long periods against a good attack when you have the technical deficiencies of Watson, Hughes and Steve Smith. England have too many areas where they can attack them.

To survive it starts with your technique. Will it get you out of trouble if you make a misjudgment in line and length? If you go back to a ball that you should have gone forward to, will your bat come down straight and head be over the line of the ball to compensate for the mistake and help you out of trouble? In Joe’s case yes it did. He went back to a lot of full balls at Lord’s but he his technique was good enough for him to adjust and survive.

I look at the Australian batsmen and believe they have to play perfectly to every ball. If they misjudge the length of a delivery or the line, I do not think their technique is going to protect them.

As a player if you know that your technique is not going to look after you in difficult times, it drains you mentally. You bat with less confidence because you think one mistake and it is all over.

I fear for Australian cricket. How are they going to get out of this hole?

The only way to get anything out of this tour is to stick with the current players for the remainder of the series, minus the injured James Pattinson. The Ashes have gone. They have zero chance of winning the series now. But they might as well use the last three games to find out once and for all about these batsmen. Can they cut it at Test match level? Can they overcome failure and disappointment?

By the time the series is due to end on Aug 25 Australia will know whether or not Hughes, Smith, Usman Khawaja, Brad Haddin and Chris Rogers are Test players.

Once and for all they will be able to draw a line under this crop of players and decide whether it is time to bring in fresh blood.

If that happens it will be hard for the new players starting off against England this winter but you are better off with fresh minds than old baggage.

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Ex-champ Griffith, haunted by sexuality and death in ring, dies at 75

Emile Griffith, a six-time world champion boxer who was known for his vicious and fatal beating of Bennie (Kid) Paret and later for his frank and pioneering discussions of his own sexuality, died in his sleep early Tuesday, according to his friend and biographer, Ron Ross.

Griffith was 75 and had been in poor health, suffering from pugilistic dementia and kidney failure and residing in an extended care facility in Hempstead, L.I., Ross said.

He was the first fighter from the U.S. Virgin Islands to win a world title and headlined Madison Square Garden 23 times.

Griffith, who was beaten by a mob in 1992 after leaving a gay bar in New York, accelerating his dementia, was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990.

Griffith struggled with his sexuality, never openly admitting he was gay. But in later years, as renewed attention was paid to his deadly fight with Paret, notably in the 2005 documentary, “Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith story,” by filmmaker Dan Klores, Griffith seemed to gain a measure of confidence, even comfort from talking about his sexuality, admitting he had romantic liaisons with both men and women.

In doing so, Griffith became one of the first pro athletes in a male-driven sport to come out about his sexuality and surely one of the first boxers to do so. He was a forerunner to the current Puerto Rican featherweight boxer Orlando Cruz, who became the first active boxer to come out last year when he admitted he was gay.

“Emile was a wonderful person and he had nothing to hide,” said Ross, who wrote his 2005 biography, “Nine, Ten and Out! The Two Worlds of Emile Griffith.” “He was very open. He wasn’t a guy that would walk into a gay bar through the side door. He would go through the front door. There was no differentiation between gay and straight. He said, ‘Yeah, I’ve been with men and women.’ But that was all. He didn’t like the word gay because he just didn’t feel it was an appropriate description for him.”

In a brutal sport, Griffith was the exception, known for his smile and courtly demeanor and his friendship with his opponents.

He was working at a hat factory in Manhattan when he was urged to box under the tutelage of trainer Gil Clancy after taking off his shirt and showing a muscular figure.

That reputation for courtesy and kindness all changed after he and Paret fought on March 24, 1962 at the Garden where, as legend had it, Paret uttered a gay slur to Griffith at the weigh-in, igniting Griffith’s fury. As Griffith banged away at Paret in the 12th round, referee Ruby Goldstein watched as Paret sagged against the ropes before finally stopping it. It was too late. Paret was carried out on a stretcher and died 10 days later.

Goldstein never worked again and Griffith seemed to be in a diminished state, lacking the ability to punish an opponent in the 15 years he fought after. He retired in 1977 with a record of 85-24-2 with 23 knockouts. His struggles were chronicled in “Ring of Fire,” where he met Paret’s son in the film’s final, dramatic scene.

“He was a lovely sweet man,” Klores said in a phone interview. “And tortured of course in the sense that had this secret life and yearning that he had to hide, but he was honorable and loyal and as a world champion I think he has to be mentioned in the same category as the Sugar Ray Leonards and the Roberto Durans.”

After his retirement, Griffith trained fighters including Juan Laporte and Wilfred Benitez and was a frequent presence at amateur and pro boxing events around New York, offering youngsters a smile and an autograph until he stopped making the rounds with his health failing. “Attention has to be paid because this was one of the great champions in the history of boxing and one of the best to ever come out of New York,” said promoter Lou DiBella, who published Ross’ biography of Griffith.

Bernard Hopkins, who holds the record for middleweight defenses with 20, called Griffith a “legend” on Tuesday during a Manhattan press conference for a boxing venture involving his Golden Boy Promotions.

But despite the presence of an openly gay boxer in Cruz and more athletes coming out in other sports, Hopkins doesn’t envision more boxers coming out. “I doubt it,” Hopkins said. “One thing is that it’s the nature of the sport. And second, I think that a lot of people will probably look at (an openly gay boxer) different. It will be a long time — not years but it will be a long time before we see the same effect that the basketball player did.”

And that makes what Griffith did — openly discussing his attraction to both men and women — all the more striking.

“His legacy in boxing is that he opened the doors to a much more transparent world where people are able to come through and be themselves,” Ross said. “He was a forerunner where other athletes are coming out today. Emile was the first person to be able to transcend those two worlds and bring it so that people could be themselves.” 

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