© 2004 - 2006 CAITE
All rights reserved.

Martyn shoulders pressure

Source: The Australian - February 24, 2006

For the second time in as many matches, Damien Martyn will set foot on the verdant turf of Wanderers Stadium knowing his international future is on the line.

Dropped from the Test team as the initial scapegoat for last year's Ashes loss, Martyn was the least productive of his team's specialist batsmen during the recent one-day series at home.

It seems that despite his undisputed claims as one of the most fluent strokeplayers in world cricket, Martyn, 34, is never free from scrutiny over his place in the national team.

But if he needed reassurance as to how quickly the doubters can be silenced, tomorrow's combination of a Twenty20 international being played at the famous Johannesburg venue provides the ideal scenario.

It was at Wanderers in 2003 that Martyn played an innings he still regards as one of the defining moments in his career.

He defied the physical and mental pain of a badly fractured index finger on his right hand to play a crucial role in Australia's historic World Cup final victory.

It was as much a win for Martyn as it was his team, silencing sceptics who had argued he was not a player for tough situations and putting to rest fears he had done the wrong thing by his peers and his country by declaring himself available to play.

The finger had been shattered in a fielding mishap a week earlier, but the five breaks were all so small that they could not be pinned which meant he did not undergo surgery.

In consultation with team physiotherapist Errol Alcott, Martyn gambled on the possibility that playing in a match with the damaged digit anaesthetised would cause irreparable long-term damage and possibly finish his career.

"It was one of those days that I'll never forget for that reason," Martyn said yesterday of the match in which he made an unbeaten 88 off 84 balls and figured in a then-Australia record one-day partnership of 234 with skipper Ricky Ponting.

"Having to fight through the physical and mental side of the finger, and just to get through it and be lucky enough to make runs. We weren't sure leading into that game just how bad the break was, and I really didn't want to know.

"Errol spoke to me before the game and said, 'look, this could affect your whole career'. I might not have played again if I had really hurt it badly.

"But it was something in my career where I received a mental tick, to know I played through injury and played in a big game like that and made some runs at the same time."

Three years later and with a modest triangular one-day series at home behind him, Martyn knows he must produce, particularly with the winds of change howling through the team before the next World Cup.

With 283 runs at an average of 31.44 and just two half-centuries from 11 matches in the VB Series, Martyn needs a big score or two over the next fortnight to silence the whispers about his future.

And given the remarkable 96 from 56 balls he spanked as an opener in Australia's previous Twenty20 international - against South Africa in Brisbane last month - the stand-and-slog form of the game might work in his favour.

He is expected to open the batting in the low-key tour opener in the early hours of tomorrow (AEDT) against a revamped South Africa.

The licence to go for his shots from ball one might unleash the sort of stroke-making he displayed on his previous innings on South Africa soil, and set him up for the five-match one-day series that begins in Pretoria on Sunday.

The only player certain to miss tomorrow's match is batsman Michael Hussey who remains in Perth where his wife, Amy, was due to give birth to their second child yesterday.

- ANDREW RAMSEY