Mike Gatting: Australia not a one-man team

But England's 1986-87 Ashes winning-captain and batsman Mike Gatting reckons old enemy's batting order is fragile; predicts an interesting series with no draws

England's 1986-87 Ashes-winning captain Mike Gatting has challenged Australia to pick up the pieces if they are caught in precarious situations caused by their wonder batsman Steven Smith departing early. Smith came to the rescue in both innings of the opening Test at Edgbaston where the New South Welshman joined the select band of batsmen to carve two centuries in a Test. His superhuman efforts contributed to Australia beating England by 251 runs earlier this week.

"I am not saying Australia are a one-man team, but I think the batting line-up is slightly fragile. If you get Smith out early, it will be interesting to see how they (Aussies) cope with that. Australia were 122 for eight and Smith held everything together," Gatting told reporters at the launch of Fortune Turners (a book written by Aditya Bhushan and Sachin Bajaj) on the famous Indian spin quartet of BS Bedi, EAS Prasanna, BS Chandrasekhar and S Venkataraghavan. The Global Cricket School-published title also dwells on the spinners who missed out on an India cap while the quartet were ruling the cricketing world. One among those tireless tweakers — Mumbai's Padmakar Shivalkar — was present at the function held at the Royal Bombay Yacht Club.

Uphill task for England

While Gatting is keen to see how Australia cope with possible adversity, he is clear on what the hosts have to do to prevent the men from Down Under from walking away with Ashes honours, something Australia have not done since Steve Waugh's men retained the urn in 2001. "England have a huge hill to climb at the moment. It is going to be an interesting series. Every Test match is going to have a result. The two batting sides are very similar," he said, admitting that England have batting woes too. "It's a question of one or two of our guys getting back into form. What worries me is Moeen Ali, who has not bowled very well. He is a reasonably integral part of the side. He certainly would have been so had he bowled well in Edgbaston," said Gatting, who reckoned that the second Test at Lord's starting on Wednesday would see a greenish track. "I suspect it will be greener than Edgbaston," he remarked.

Dangerous Smith

And what does he think of Smith, who is the talk of the Ashes series so far? "He has been huge for Australia. He is a difficult man to bowl at. He gets his head still and in good position. And he has an amazing way of manoeuvring the ball around; very skilled. It's a question of whether we can get him out early." The umpiring was not top-notch at Edgbaston and while Gatting admitted it, he also had a sympathetic view: "Both [Aleem Dar and Joel Wilson] did not have good game. But look, people make mistakes and people can get better. There are tools out there to help them get better so I think we are on safe ground at the moment." On the topic of ball tampering-stained Smith getting booed at Edgbaston and whether he expects a repeat show at the spiritual home of cricket — his homeground — next week, Gatting said: "I have been back to Australia now and again and you get booed for nothing out there. You remember Stuart Broad not walking [at Brisbane in 2013-14] and they made a huge issue out there and booed him all the way, through the Test series. I suspect it might [booing] die out towards the end of the series. The fact is that it happens also in Australia. It's not nice, but we will see what happens at Lord's."

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