Cricket: Starring role for versatile bowler

By RICHARD BOOCK

HAMILTON - Colin Miller is walking testimony to the fact that truth is stranger than fiction.

Two bowlers crammed into one, the exception to most sporting rules, Miller is set to play a prominent role for Australia in the first cricket test at Auckland, after a patella-tendonitis complaint all but ruled out Damien Fleming yesterday.

With the Eden Park pitch expected to provide spin, Australia will almost certainly turn to their 36-year-old jack of all trades, who bowls brisk medium-pace when the ball is new and searching off-spin later in the game.

The man known as "Funky" has already played 11 tests in five different nations, taking 31 wickets at 29.93 - and was in useful form yesterday as he sent back three Northern Districts batsmen in the tour match at WestpacTrust Park.

New Zealand, who yesterday named a predictable squad for the test match, have also included two spinners, but unlike Australia will have to sacrifice someone if they want to play both - probably Shayne O'Connor or Simon Doull.

A veteran of 15 summers of first-class cricket, Miller made his test debut against Pakistan in 1998 as a 34-year-old and continues to be a strong contender for the Australian side, effectively providing two specialist bowling options inside the one skin.

The medium-pace journeyman from Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania persuaded his state captain, David Boon, to give his off-spin a try three years ago, took a wicket with his first delivery, and the next season broke the long-standing Sheffield Shield record, ending with 70 scalps for the season.

Since then, the ear-ringed, tattooed, sometimes peroxided right-armer has opened the bowling for Australia in two tests, as well as proving dangerous with his probing, flattish off-spin. He replaced Shane Warne in the test line-up during last year's tour of the West Indies "Off-spin wasn't a new thing for me," he said yesterday. "I'd bowled a bit of it in the Lancashire league and in grade cricket, but after bowling medium-pace for so long in Australia, there was a bit of a reaction at the start.

"Now, I'm seeing school kids doing both, and there's not a good reason why not. I know [Australian coach] John Buchanan is a big advocate of using everything you've got, using your right and left sides, and this is an extension of that."

In fact, Miller can also bowl serviceable left-armers, and was doing so when he took his last wicket in the Lancashire league.

He was back to his favoured right-arm yesterday, however, taking three wickets as Australia eventually overcame some stubborn resistance from Northern Districts, dismissing the hosts for 280 after solid batting from Grant Bradburn (63), and Hamish (50) and James (40) Marshall.

Requiring 198 to win the match, Australia lost Michael Slater in the ninth over and Adam Gilchrist in the last over of the day, but were still handily placed at 55 for two when stumps were drawn - just 143 short of the target with eight wickets in hand.

The New Zealand selectors, meanwhile, yesterday resisted the temptation to make sweeping changes to the test combination, with Matt Horne and Simon Doull replacing Gary Stead and Dion Nash in the line-up which played the West Indies in December.

New Zealand: Stephen Fleming (captain), Matt Horne, Craig Spearman, Mathew Sinclair, Nathan Astle, Craig McMillan, Chris Cairns, Adam Parore, Daniel Vettori, Simon Doull, Paul Wiseman, Shayne O'Connor.