Michael Neser, god of thunder, no longer Australia's fringe dweller

Author Photo
Michael Neser

It’s Christmas Day at the MCG.

Australia have taken a one-nil lead in their series over India in the most destructive manner possible; a perfect Adelaide storm of lightning fast bowlers hurling pink-ball thunderbolts that shattered India’s batting line up for 36 paltry runs.

It was Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc - the holy trinity of Australian pace - who had caused havoc on the third day at Adelaide Oval; now, on the eve of the Boxing Day Test, they are strutting their stuff in the MCG nets. 

Michael Neser is there, too. But there is no strut, no puffed out chest; just the perennial fringe dweller of the Australian squad quietly going about his business of being whatever his teammates need him to be.

He runs in hard, seeming to bowl with his heart as much as his arms or legs, when the batters want to hone their skills against pace and swing and seam.

When the son of assistant coach Andrew McDonald receives the Christmas gift of batting alongside the Australians, Neser obliges by sending down some gentle off spin (they turn beautifully, of course). 

And when the training session is over Neser cheerfully stays behind, helping the support staff to pack up the gear, a smile tattooed on his face.

“I guess it’s just my personality,” says Neser when we chat about it later. “I really don’t want to pump myself up too much.”

“You can't expect to ask for favours of people if you're not giving them out yourself. 

“So, I think if you do good, good will come to you as well.” 

Neser, the ultimate team man who is never the man in the team.

***

Neser can’t really remember a time when he first picked up a cricket bat as a young boy living in Pretoria. He describes his age as “tiny”. 

But he remembers being in grade one at school when he first took part in a proper game and from that moment, playing cricket was all he wanted to do.

He would spend hours in the backyard of the family home pretending to be Lance Klusener or Jaques Kallis while playing with his brother, who was four years his senior and, like many younger siblings, Neser was coerced into bowling.

He liked to bowl fast but he bowled too often and too hard for his young body and by the time he approached his teenage years, after moving to Queensland at the age of ten, he was already suffering stress fractures.

So Neser turned to off spin, in an attempt to play without breaking his body.

But by the time he finished school he decided off spin was boring and returned to pace.

He would never bowl off spin again until that Christmas Day in the nets, to serve the needs of another young boy.

***

The #NeserMustPlay campaign was started by two journalists, Bharat Sundaresan and Adam Collins. 

They had decided Neser was too unassuming and modest to publicly press his claims and too talented never to wear the Baggy Green.

It gained momentum and a kind of cult following on social media as Neser continued to impress in the Sheffield Shield.

And yet, it seemed it might always be a step too far. Not only were The Big Three in the way, there was always someone else ahead in the queue: James Pattinson, Peter Siddle, Jhye Richardson.

After the India series Australia were due to tour South Africa and, after the rigours of the summer, Neser felt there was a real chance he could make his debut in the country of his birth until Covid-19 forced the tour's cancellation. 

“There's a part of you that wants to play so much and I can't be frustrated because I'm so close and I’m in the mix to play for Australia,” Neser told me a few months later. “I think I'd rather be in that position and sitting on the sidelines than be elsewhere. 

“But at the same time, it's kind of given me a drive to stay so motivated this whole time. 

“And it's kept me going, knowing that I'm very close. I was hoping that the South Africa tour might go ahead, maybe, you never know what could have happened there, but unfortunately that didn't go ahead. 

“So, yeah, that was maybe a chance to play or maybe the next tour.

"I'll keep waiting. I'm still in the mix.”

***

Neser has played the waiting game before.

He lingered in the wings for Queensland, hampered by more stress fractures.

It forced him to change the way he trained, eschewing heavy weights for more functional movements.

He realised, for the second time in his life, that out-and-out pace was too damaging and developed his ability to swing the new ball and maintain a nagging consistency that always asked questions of batters; he would rather be hit down the ground while challenging the opposition at the crease than play it safe.

He also kept breaking his right hand, while fielding or batting or in some random accident; as a result, his bowling hand is held together with pins and screws.

This Ashes series shaped up as his best opportunity; Australia were unlikely to select Cummins, Hazlewood and Starc for all five Tests when they were so close together.

When Hazlewood suffered a side injury at the Gabba the door opened a little but Richardson had overtaken Neser in the pecking order and was running drinks for the first Test.

But Neser was still quietly displaying his credentials for Australia A against the English Lions, taking 5 for 29 and 2 for 36 in a player of the match performance.

Two days out from the second Test, the media eagerly awaited a ‘bowl off’ between the two contenders in the Adelaide nets; they batted side-by-side before Neser left without bowling a ball.

There was no bowl off and it was clear Neser would be carrying the drinks once more, the perennial fringe dweller destined to always be one step away.

That step was removed when Pat Cummins was in the wrong restaurant at the wrong time, deemed a close contact of a positive Covid-19 case.

In the chaotic hours before Steve Smith walked out as captain to toss the coin, Neser quietly received his cap, presented by Glenn McGrath, and #NeserMustPlay became #NeserIsPlaying.

***

Of all the grim sights on a miserable day for England, none was more striking than Ben Stokes bowling after tea with eight fielders spread out on the boundary.

It wasn’t so much a field setting as it was an admission of utter defeat and Starc was in no mood to be merciful, clubbing three boundaries off the over.

Saturday is traditionally party day at Adelaide Oval, when revellers fill the marquees behind the Sir Edwin Smith Stand, but it was Starc and Neser making merry on a Friday night as they tonked England’s tired and demoralised bowlers in all directions with gleeful abandon.

The boy who tried to mimic Kallis in the backyard was now a man clubbing Chris Woakes over the deep cover boundary for six.

His first innings for Australia: 36 off 24 balls.

***

A year after The Big Three brought the proverbial lightning to Adelaide Oval, Neser came on to bowl in the seventh over of England’s innings.

This time, the lightning was literal, flashing across the night sky.

Haseeb Hameed pulled out at the last moment and the ball whizzed past off stump; dead ball. The next delivery is edged safely to gully.

As thunder rumbled Neser ran in again, angling the ball in full on middle and off.

It wasn’t the best ball he had ever bowled but Hameed obligingly chipped it to mid on, where Starc was waiting to claim the catch and give Neser his first Test wicket.

There was no aggression or machismo as his teammates flooded in to smother him in hugs, no thought of what the wicket might mean in the context of the match or the series; this was pure elation for a man who has been described as the heartbeat of team in which he’d never played until now.

It is hard to recall such a pure and joyful celebration by this Australian side.

Four deliveries into his second over, Dawid Malan was at the crease and the thunder was growing louder.

Neser tore to the crease and at the moment he released the ball, lightning blazed one last time for the day.

Neser with his busted hand, channeling Thor and his hammer, Mjollnir.

This was worth the wait.

Author(s)
Melinda Farrell Photo

Melinda Farrell is a senior cricket writer for The Sporting News Australia.