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Why didn't Michael Bevan make it in Test cricket?

Slog

Slog

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18,000+ runs over 15 years of FC Cricket in Sheffield shield and County cricket at an eye watering average of 59.8!!!

Much superior to some of the greats who played for Australia in the time period

so why did he not make it big in test cricket
 
Slog said:
18,000+ runs over 15 years of FC Cricket in Sheffield shield and County cricket at an eye watering average of 59.8!!!

Much superior to some of the greats who played for Australia in the time period

so why did he not make it big in test cricket
Click to expand...

I think too much pressure to succeed in that legendary line-up. Probably couldn't do it mentally.
 
one of the great mysteries of cricket

personally i feel he just wasn't mentally up to it, he could never let go of the tag of being an ODI player.
 
Just like Hafeez and Misbah: couldn't survive against a slip cordon.
 
I remember Michael Bevan's career, was a kid at the time. Mostly, the consensus at the time was that he had issues with the short ball. But I loved watching him play and always thought he would do well, especially since he was such a gun player in ODI's.

Combination of a tough Aussie side to break into and Aussie tendency to make snap judgements on players and then stick to their guns on it (e.g. Glenn Maxwell for ages, Nathan Lyon for a long time, Damien Martyn who was dropped unnecessarily for a number of years, list goes on...)
 
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Couldn't make the step up and Australia was spoiled for talent at the time.
 
Bevan was never a hitter. He was a master accumulator. He would run 2's all day and was supremely fit.

To me, he should have succeeded in Tests. I guess his technique was up to it against the moving ball as well as the turning ball.
Also, when he played, Aus team was full of Great Players. Hard to find a place after a few failures.
 
From what I remember he struggled against the short ball and in Test cricket there is no place to hide.
 
doesn't look like he was tested much, only played 30 innings.

an average of 54 over 196 odi innings is incredible!
 
Born in wrong time, in a wrong country. He had some issues with short balls, but it wasn't such that he couldn't have fixed that. For a batsman, playing in AUS domestics of 1990s, average of 58 is actually better than Test average of 50 that time.

What happens to be that, he was never a regular because from 3 to 6 he had to fight it out with Waugh twin, Border, Ponting, Martin, Langer, Boon, Jones ..... in fact, it was tough to get into that NSW team, if every player was available - Taylor, Slater, Mark, Steve, Mathews, Bevan ...(Gilchrist left NSW for a regular spot in Shield team!!!!!).

It's his bowling that allowed him to play more in AUS team than Law, Cox, Maher & few others. He has a 10fer in Test as well. May be for any other team, he could have got couple of years of regular run, which should have been enough for him to cement his place for next decade.
 
Got a reputation as being unable to handle the short stuff so got pigeonholed as an ODI specialist.
 
Technical issues against the short ball early in his career. You could tuck him up much like Shoaib peppering Ganguly in 99 and he would invariably get into all sorts of strife. The Australians had so many great players playing first-class cricket in that era that if a batsman betrayed any semblance of weakness, he'd be effectively jettisoned.
 
Saj said:
From what I remember he struggled against the short ball and in Test cricket there is no place to hide.
Click to expand...

100% spot on here, he struggled against short pitched stuff and moving ball more so in his short test career.
 
Feel his short ball issue is over-rated.

I bet if he debuts now, he will have a very good atleast 40-45+ average international test career.

He has an amazing domestic record, amazing ODI record at a time when ODIs weren't played on pattas...nothing to suggest he would have flopped.
 
sensible-indian-fan said:
Feel his short ball issue is over-rated.

I bet if he debuts now, he will have a very good atleast 40-45+ average international test career.

He has an amazing domestic record, amazing ODI record at a time when ODIs weren't played on pattas...nothing to suggest he would have flopped.
Click to expand...

Don't think it is. ODI regulations at the time did not allow any deliveries over shoulder high so bowlers were effectively banned from bowling the bouncer. I remember guys like Donald, Pollock and Schultz causing all sorts of trouble to Bevan during the 97 tour when the selectors were trying to shoehorn him into the side as a wrist-spin bowler. The pitches were lively and he struggled to lay a bat on the ball during most of that tour. He was different class in ODIs obviously, but it's the age old trap of trying to equate success in one format as proof that a player can cut it under all conditions.
 
He did have issue with short ball and got away with it in ODIs. Then Aus batting line up was not bad to start with so it was not easy to get in with reputation of short ball problem.
 
pakistanigoneaussie said:
one of the great mysteries of cricket

personally i feel he just wasn't mentally up to it, he could never let go of the tag of being an ODI player.
Click to expand...

Along with Graeme Hick and Mark Ramprakash and Fawad Alam (last one was a joke) could never translate great first class form into the test arena. Great shame as they all had bags of potential.
 
Slog said:
18,000+ runs over 15 years of FC Cricket in Sheffield shield and County cricket at an eye watering average of 59.8!!!

Much superior to some of the greats who played for Australia in the time period

so why did he not make it big in test cricket
Click to expand...

Couldn't play the short ball against quality quicks.

Feasted on bowlers well below test standard.
 
sensible-indian-fan said:
Feel his short ball issue is over-rated.

I bet if he debuts now, he will have a very good atleast 40-45+ average international test career.

He has an amazing domestic record, amazing ODI record at a time when ODIs weren't played on pattas...nothing to suggest he would have flopped.
Click to expand...

Yeah.

People just blindly commenting the same line i.e short ball weakness.
 
Bit like Stuey McGill I guess very unfortunate. Any other time both would have been shoo-ins.

Bevan in an interview few years back

Allan Border's retirement handed you your international chance in 1994…

AB had called it a day and I suppose you could say that I was the first player to take his place in the Australian side, and for a 23-year-old they were pretty big shoes to fill.

How was your first tour, to Pakistan?

Travelling over there was a new experience, but I was pretty excited to be making my Test debut and playing with some of the legends of the game. I scored 80 in my first innings and had a good series. It was probably the best I'd hit them in Test cricket, even though I had a pretty dubious start. I remember taking strike against Wasim Akram for my first ball and he nearly took my head off. After that I did pretty well and I've no doubt it was because the wickets and the reverse-swing in Pakistan were similar to what I had been used to at the SCG. In the end we lost that first match by one wicket after Heals [Ian Healy] fumbled a stumping and the ball ran for four byes. He was distraught walking off afterwards.

You played two matches of the Ashes series after that Pakistan tour and were then dropped. Was that hard to take?

Funnily enough, being dropped from the Australian team in an Ashes series was probably the first time I had learnt anything about myself and my game, and I actually improved as a player after that. Looking back now, that was obviously a good thing, but starting that Ashes series so poorly was a real low because I couldn't work out why I wasn't performing.

You had such a great record in England but struggled in the Ashes. Why was that?

I played two Ashes series and in both of them I did particularly poorly. I think I averaged over 50 against West Indies and over 60 against Pakistan but against England I averaged 8 and 13, so there was no in-between for me at that point. It's hard to put your finger on why that might have happened but, while playing in the Ashes is something that every Australian cricketer looks forward to, from a personal perspective it was a pretty challenging time and ultimately it's always hard to enjoy it when you're going through that kind of trot.

A lot of people blamed your failures at Test level on a weakness against the short ball. Was that fair?

I couldn't work it out at the time because I'd never really had an issue with it in the past but the more it happened, the more of an issue it became. I don't think I helped myself. I probably put too much focus on trying to play it well and gave it too much priority. I probably lacked a little belief that I could play it, even though a first-class average of 60 would suggest that it shouldn't have been a problem. I think in the end that my problems at Test level were more psychological than anything physical or technical.

Did you ever see yourself as a one-day specialist?

I never saw myself as being just a one-day player. It's just a tag I was given and have to live with. I guess when I first started I hoped I would play 100 Tests, but obviously it didn't pan out that way. In the end I think I was dropped from the one-day side too soon. I was left out because I think my role at No. 6 had been diminished by virtue of us having so many great players - I was simply required less.
Click to expand...
 
sensible-indian-fan said:
Feel his short ball issue is over-rated.

I bet if he debuts now, he will have a very good atleast 40-45+ average international test career.

He has an amazing domestic record, amazing ODI record at a time when ODIs weren't played on pattas...nothing to suggest he would have flopped.
Click to expand...

His domestic record wasn't that good.

Bare in mind that every Australian batsmen filled their boots in county cricket and the big jump in his shield record came post 2000.

And no people who actually watched him could see that the short ball issue was real and unacceptable for an Australian test batsman.
 
No way he would have averaged close to 60 in Oz pitches back in those days if he actually had obvious technical issues with the short ball. Even the top bats most of them would be sus against the short stuff if every time they go out to bat they get peppered with short stuff. As he has said in that interview it was probably down to over thinking things than any thing out of the regular. Test cricket just wasn't meant to be for him I guess.
 
TK – Michael, you have an outstanding first-class average, 57.32. In the form of the game, what do you put your success down to?

MB – It was initially in the first phase of my career where I was a very hard worker, very determined, which in conjunction with the talent I was given led to good results.

The first part of my career came from those two factors. When I look back now, I also had a lot of fluctuating performances also. At the start of my career I had a lot of high moments and a lot of low moments and so I think halfway through my career I averaged around 50, then worked on other aspects of my game and improved in my consistency halfway through.

I think my average was 65 or 70 at the back end of my career which helped me improve my average. Generally speaking, as a cricketer, hard work and determination helped me get to a pretty good degree of success.

TK – 1994 was a huge year for you. You made your Test debut against Pakistan and your one day debut against Sri Lanka. Take me through how you got the call-up and some insights into those debuts?

MB – I guess when I got selected it was on the back of a pretty good season. I had an extremely strong start to my first class career. I had a pretty lean 90/91 season and got dropped, then came back a more consistent player off the back of a year-and-a-half of good performances and that came about, I’m pretty sure when Allan Border retired.

They picked two or three guys like Stuart Law and me to tour and it was pretty much between us to fill his role. We had a short one-day tour to Sharjah, followed by the tour of Pakistan. I think it came to those preliminary performances and I got the nod ahead of those guys.

I got to play with my heroes who I watched on TV and then I got to play against Pakistan, who had one of the best bowling attacks at that time with Waqar Younis, Wasim Akram and Mustaq Ahmed. My first tour to the sub-continent was both eye-opening and challenging. An interesting, all-round great experience.

TK – You mentioned some legends there. Now that you’re retired, is there anyone you feared going up against?

MB – This question you get a lot as a cricketer and batsman and I never know how to answer it but I do and I give the same answer over again. The times I found I was in form, there weren’t too many bowlers that were hard work.

You find your groove against some of the best in World like the West Indies and Pakistan. Then I went up against England in the Ashes and, at the time, you wouldn’t say their attack was as good as the West Indies or Pakistan but I performed really poorly in those series.

I suppose it depends whether you are in or out of form. For me, playing a lot of my cricket in the one-dayers, the scoring rate was important. The ones I found hard to score was the off-spinners like Saqlain Mushtaq and Muttiah Muralitharan. Those were the guys who gave me trouble with the off-spinners firing into my pads.

TK – You were a part-time with your spin and I heard Adam Gilchrist say you’re the hardest person to pick and Mark Taylor. Tell me about your bowling?

MB – From my bowling perspective, I did quite well against batters who couldn’t pick my wrong’un and I bowled quite quickly so, I guess it was harder to see out of the wrist.

I had some great results against the West Indies because they couldn’t pick the wrong’un, except Brian Lara, so he was really tough to bowl to. The other series I featured against the South Africans, I also did well, as they couldn’t pick the wrong’un either.

I wasn’t the most accurate bowler so I pretty much relied on deception and just putting a few doubts in the batters’ mind.

TK – What was your reaction when Mark Taylor and the selectors said they wanted to make you the second spinner in an attack led by Shane Warne?

MB – I must admit I was a bit uncomfortable with it. It first happened in South Africa and we played on a green top. I was the fourth bowler and I didn’t even know where I was going to land the ball. So having a full-time role was a bit scary.

I did do well on occasions and went to England and went with a bowling focus. I was a little more uncomfortable than I should have been and it wasn’t a huge focus for me. I didn’t really want to be known as a bowling all-rounder.

It was something that was good and gave me an opportunity to be more part of the game. I did well at times and not so well at other times.

http://www.theroar.com.au/2018/02/09/qa-australian-cricket-legend-michael-bevan/
 
His FC average is probably over 60 - his Test career is pulling it down to 57+ level :(

He played some of the best ODI innings against WI, SAF & PAK, when bouncers were allowed, hence I don't think it's his weakness against short ball - players groomed in 1980s in AUS wickets can't be weaker against short staff, than many batsmen from other countries, who went on to play lot more Tests.

It has to be competition - he was contemporary of Waugh twins who kept 2 slots block for 15+ years and in between the generations of Border, Boon, Jones ... then Ponting, Martyn, Langer, Symonds. He could have easily adjusted had he been given 20-25 Tests' run, and there after could have played for a decade. Scored lots of runs in County as well in wet English condition, hence I don't think slip cordon was any issue either.
 
Australia had an ATG team. He missed out just like Law.

For any other team, he would have played more games considering he bowled pretty well in tests.
 
Bevan struggled against the moving ball much more than the short-pitched bowling. The fact is that in ODI's the margin of error is much greater for the batsman; you can hide flaws thanks to wickets being more benign, the white ball doing less than the red, and the fact that there's only 1 short ball allowed per over.

He's similar to Raina/Yuvraj in that regard. Both good ODI players, whose weakness was brutally exposed in Tests.
 
He's from my town, he went to my high school (although he's a fair bit older). I watched his career with interest obviously.

It WAS the short ball issue. In ODI they couldn't bowl as many at him, In tests you could see that he really couldn't deal with the short ball well. He might survive a few on a slower deck but it always looked awkward & once he got out to it a few times & it became clear he couldn't find a solution... then he was never going to get picked.
 
Can't believe people are still peddling this myth about bouncers in the 90s. For those that can't be bothered to do some basic googling: http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/story/106585.html

Bowlers were only permitted to bowl a single bumper an over in ODI cricket after the turn of the century. So anyone claiming that Bevan played high class innings in ODI cricket in the 90s and must have faced a barrage of short pitched bowling is talking absolute rot.
 
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MMHS said:
His FC average is probably over 60 - his Test career is pulling it down to 57+ level :(

He played some of the best ODI innings against WI, SAF & PAK, when bouncers were allowed, hence I don't think it's his weakness against short ball - players groomed in 1980s in AUS wickets can't be weaker against short staff, than many batsmen from other countries, who went on to play lot more Tests.

It has to be competition - he was contemporary of Waugh twins who kept 2 slots block for 15+ years and in between the generations of Border, Boon, Jones ... then Ponting, Martyn, Langer, Symonds. He could have easily adjusted had he been given 20-25 Tests' run, and there after could have played for a decade. Scored lots of runs in County as well in wet English condition, hence I don't think slip cordon was any issue either.
Click to expand...

Kinda like Rahane being Indian can't be weak against spin? Rahane has near 60 average in Ranji and still can't read flight of the spinning ball every now and then and doesn't use his feet against spin correctly.
 
Bevan had issues with Short ball like lots of people have already mentioned here in the thread. I watched his entire career and I used to wonder the same in the 90's when he was scoring loads of runs in ODI's. The problem also for Bevan was that Australia had such an amazing pool of players to pick from that he did not get a long rope at the level. Still he played around 18 tests which is much more than someone like a Stuart Law who I felt was a fantastic player.

Bevan's case was similar to Vinod Kambli from India. Kambli had a fantastic start to his Test career, failed in that one series against West Indies in 1994/95 and showed vulnerability against short pitched bowling, never played for India again in Tests. Kambli still averages 54 in Tests and 1995 was the last time he played Tests for India.
 
Yuvraj singh for all his silky smooth timing had one of the worst defensive technique. The way he defends the ball is always in straight line. He would not factor in turn or spin or movement anything. In Tests your defensive technique is tested often times
 
giri26 said:
Bevan had issues with Short ball like lots of people have already mentioned here in the thread. I watched his entire career and I used to wonder the same in the 90's when he was scoring loads of runs in ODI's. The problem also for Bevan was that Australia had such an amazing pool of players to pick from that he did not get a long rope at the level. Still he played around 18 tests which is much more than someone like a Stuart Law who I felt was a fantastic player.

Bevan's case was similar to Vinod Kambli from India. Kambli had a fantastic start to his Test career, failed in that one series against West Indies in 1994/95 and showed vulnerability against short pitched bowling, never played for India again in Tests. Kambli still averages 54 in Tests and 1995 was the last time he played Tests for India.
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One of the very few who would jump when the short ball is at him and make it even harder to play. Atleast Raina would try to stand and bat in an ugly way. This guy would jump and do something silly. Azharuddin was another poor player against short ball. But later on he adopted "two eyed stance" to counter that. THat is when he played that brutal 102 in 74 balls in Kolkatta test followed by his magical 122 at capetown. Ganguly had this lap shot against short ball. After Tendulkar until we had Dravid nobody could pull the ball with any authority.
 
Was too young to watch and understand Test Cricket in late 90s, although I do remember Bevan taking ODIs game till the end with his singles and doubles. Every time Aus lost early wickets in a chase, you knew Bevan would take them home.
 
didnt like the short ball.
was a bit unsure of how to construct his innings in test cricket. a bit like neil fairbrother
 
Some players are not cut out for test cricket as some are not cut out for odi cricket. Younis khan and dhoni are prime examples.
 
Australia batting line up was really strong in the era that he played. Think it was more due to that than his issue versus the short ball.
 
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