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Finally a player for all seasons

Source: Telegraph.co.uk - May 15, 2005

Rod Marsh, the former Australian wicketkeeper and current head coach of the England Academy, once proffered a quote that sums up Damien Martyn's international career: "Adventure is discomfort remembered in tranquillity".

Martyn's career has been an adventure that would make a scary roller-coaster ride seem to be no more than a peaceful Sunday bicycle outing.

However, not all the discomfort has been felt by Martyn - the bowlers have shared some of the pain, as I discovered the first time I saw him bat. In a 1992-93 domestic one-day game at Adelaide Oval, Martyn made 17 for Western Australia off 12 balls. It wasn't the number of runs that impressed, rather the manner in which they were scored.

Early in WA's innings former Lancashire and South Australian all-rounder Joe Scuderi dismissed Michael Veletta caught behind from a late outswinger. He then beat Tom Moody two balls in a row before yet another swinging delivery accounted for Geoff Marsh. Three international batsmen all befuddled by Scuderi's late outswing and then Martyn comes to the crease, as calm as you like, and strokes the first delivery past cover point for four. He then deposited the next ball on the roof of the hamburger stall parked beyond the cover point boundary.

It was an eye-catching start for a man just days beyond his 21st birthday and while it didn't last, it stamped Martyn as a player of potential. It was also an indication of a great strength Martyn would later employ to carve up international attacks like a sure-handed surgeon. Throughout his career Martyn has hit the ball square of the wicket on the off-side with the same precision and regularity as former dashing West Indies batsman Richie Richardson.

Following that initial onslaught, Martyn continued to impress with his fluent stroke play, which led to his inclusion in the Test side later that season. In only his second Test he hit an impressive unbeaten 67 against the West Indies at the MCG. An audacious knock, it was compiled against a strong attack on a day when the senior players struggled and it contributed to a dazzling Australian victory as Shane Warne took seven wickets to seal the match. Despite Warne's heroics, Martyn received due credit for a wonderful counter-attacking innings and he was suddenly being talked about in similar glowing terms to those later used to describe Michael Clarke's ultra-successful Test debut.

Despite the promising start things began to spiral out of control for Martyn during the 1993 tour of the UK. In Martyn's only international match of that tour he scored a brilliant half-century at Lord's. This prompted an egg- yolk and ketchup-tie wearing member of the MCC to pose this question: "Chappell, how come Australia has so many good young players?" "Because we actually play them," I replied.

Martyn's scintillating knock was played in the third and final one-day international of a series Australia had already clinched. The Australians wisely took the opportunity to play Martyn while England left 21-year-old Mark Lathwell on the sidelines, ignoring a perfect opportunity to see how the budding right-hander would handle international bowling.

However, that successful knock was the last meaningful sighting of Martyn, as he was omitted from the Test series and his England tour turned into a nightmare. There were whispers he was a cocky, angry young man who tended to speak his mind. Those traits weren't considered abnormal in Australian sides of the Seventies, but by Martyn's time it was becoming hazardous to air your opinion if you weren't a senior player.

Reinstated in the Test side for the 1993-94 series against South Africa he was one of the few batsmen to perform well in the first innings at the SCG. In the second innings he was unfairly deemed the culprit when Australia collapsed catastrophically chasing a mere 116 and lost the Test. Considering Australia were 63 for five (at less than two runs per over) when Martyn entered the fray, it's hard to see how he was to blame. Nevertheless, this was the final straw for those who were wary of Martyn in England and he was discarded for six years.

I later asked Martyn what was said to him by the hierarchy following the SCG second innings, and he replied: "That's the worst part; nothing was said. They virtually shunned me."

When communication was eventually renewed via a recall to the Test side, Martyn was a more technically efficient but a less adventurous batsman, while off the field he tended to mind his own business. Considering what he had to contend with in the early part of his career it must have been a source of immense satisfaction when, at the conclusion of a highly successful 2001 tour of England Martyn was dubbed "the best technician in Test cricket".

Martyn scored 382 runs in the Ashes series with two half-centuries and two three-figure scores. Despite the more subdued approach, his run-rate of nearly 4½ per over was highly acceptable and Martyn's career finally appeared to be on a steep upward curve. However, normal service was soon resumed when, on New Zealand's tour of Australia in 2001-02, they adopted a short-pitched attack backed by a strong catching cordon, square of the wicket on the off-side, to slow Martyn's progress.

He faltered momentarily before rebounding later that season to enjoy another moment of sweet revenge - a century at the SCG to help Australia complete a 3-0 whitewash of South Africa.

"This," it was said, "would exorcise the demons of 1994". However, it didn't put an end to the carping as there was then the small matter of "his uncertain footwork against spinners". To me, Martyn has always had good footwork but perhaps he mistrusted pitches that weren't as hard and true as his home ground in Perth and sometimes appeared a little indecisive.

Centuries in successive Tests in Sri Lanka (2003-04) against Muttiah Muralitharan proved to be the catalyst to trusting his footwork.

Brimming with confidence, he then played superbly in Australia's triumphant 2-1 series victory over India. He displayed the value of brains over brawn in playing good spinners on turning pitches and relied more on back-foot play, while still indulging in the occasional sortie down the pitch.

In Chennai, a patient second-innings hundred helped salvage a draw and then Martyn scored a boundary-studded century in Nagpur to seal Australia's superiority over India for the first time in 35 years.

With his success against good spinners and a Test aggregate second only to Jacques Kallis over the last 15 months, it would appear Martyn has succeeded in rebutting his critics. And considering his next challenge is in England where he's already experienced great success, cricket grounds should finally be a criticism-free zone for Martyn.

Nevertheless, history suggests otherwise. You sense there are more adventures and further discomfort to be endured before Martyn enters the age of tranquillity.

- IAN CHAPPELL