From distant lands to Derbyshire: Michael Slater

Michael Slater will go down in Test cricket history as a very good player. To a great extent, he broke the mould of how the international five-day game should be played and often set the pace for the outstanding Australian side of that era.

With Slater opening the batting, a wide half volley on the first ball of the match would no longer be allowed to go through to the wicket-keeper, as a sage opening batsman assessed the bounce and the pace of the track. Slater usually creamed it through the covers to the boundary and his approach to the game was one of asserting dominance. He took the attack to the opposition and scored centuries at unseemly pace for the international game at that time.

From the winter of 1992-93, he had become a fixture in the Australian side and had maintained an average of around 50 in playing shots all around the wicket. It was breathtaking stuff, yet the summer of 1997 had brought him down to earth, with the Test series against England seeing him average under 20 with a highest score of just 47.

Part of the problem was that assertive nature. Slater liked to make sure a new bowler knew who was boss, and rather than have a look at a new man and his action for a couple of overs, aimed to put him on the back foot straight away. When it worked, it was magnificent. The problem came when it didn’t, which in Derbyshire colours was all too often.

That 1997 summer suggested that sides had worked him out to some extent. Set the field, frustrate him for a while, then watch him get himself out. It worked for England, yet those in charge at Derbyshire still saw enough to engage him for the 1998 season. It was a major disappointment. In 24 knocks, he had just under 850 runs at 35. There was a magnificent 185 at Derby against the visiting South Africans, Pollock, Ntini et al, but the highest championship score was 99 at the Oval and his championship average was just 27, way short of requirements for an overseas player.

Innings’ tended to follow similar patterns. There would be an explosion of dazzling shots and he would race to 20, then was usually caught behind or in the slips as ambition overtook common sense. It was not what a poor batting side needed and we struggled as a consequence. It perhaps didn’t help that he was forever being compared unfavourably with Dean Jones.

You can see him in action below, making 169 against a very good Pakistan attack at the Gabba in the winter of 1999-2000. It contains all the trademark shots, yet for all its brilliance, there are a few where, on another day, he would have been gone.

He returned in 1999, his average rising to 31 but again largely caused by one innings – 171 against Northamptonshire where he added 296 with Steve Titchard. Had it not been for that one knock, that average barely scraped twenty. There were some decent efforts in one-day games but also a realisation that a batsman of his style and ability perhaps could and should have done better. For all the fours from good balls and shots that only the very gifted can play, we watched Michael Slater with the understanding that it would not last. It rarely did.

Fourteen Test centuries confirm the talent of the man, though nine dismissals in the nineties – more than any other player – suggests that nerves could get the better of him. His Test average ended higher than that for either Derbyshire or his home New South Wales, confirming a player who was seen at his best on the big stage.

He has subsequently become an intelligent and able commentator, while the disclosure that he is a long-term sufferer from bi-polar disorder explained a few things. Cricket is an unforgiving game. When you are doing well it is fantastic, but bad trots can bring self-doubt and perhaps the expectations and burdens of the overseas role, especially in a fairly ordinary side, must have weighed heavily on Michael Slater.

In conclusion? A fine player, delightful to watch. But a long, long way from being a success as an overseas import.