I was thrilled of course that India beat Australia so handily in Mohali – South Africans are almost always happy to see anybody beat Australia (perhaps because we seldom manage it). But Graeme Smith’s and Jacques Kallis’ reaction worried me – you could see the hubris oozing out as they seized on the poor Australian performance as evidence for a massive boost for their (our) chances in Australia in December. Don’t these guys learn? Only four months ago in England, the South African ‘spin machine’ had a lot to say about our pace attack leading up to the Tests (‘up there with the 1980s West Indians’), only to see it go for 600 in the first innings at Lords’. Yes, we got a draw there and won the series, but surely the lesson is to shut up and keep one’s counsel.
Kallis and Smith are not alone in believing that Mohali shows Australia going the way of Wall Street. A lot of commentators have jumped to the same conclusion. I’m not so sure that we can decide, after one bad match, that they are truly in decline. After all, just a week earlier in Bangalore, India had been in some difficulty. The difference between the two matches was perhaps the magnificent first innings centuries by Ponting and Hussey and Stuart Clark’s presence.
Yet, if we look a little deeper at Australia, there may well be grounds for ‘cautious optimism’. (An economist cannot be more positive than that right now.)
For years we’ve been told about Australia’s fantastic cricket structure, which spots talent young and raw, and brings it through to the national team, maturing technical skills in academies and inter-state cricket, and just as important, toughening players up emotionally to deal with the rigours of international cricket. This ‘machine’ has been the foundation, it is claimed, of their incredibly successful cricket culture andon-field dominance for 15 years and more. It’s not been down to luck – the coincidence of a ‘golden generation’ of players - but rather to ‘the system’. Replacements for Warne, McGrath and the rest would roll off the assembly line, ready to go.
For quite a while it looked like exactly that was happening, which is one reason why Mohali was such a shock – the size of the defeat, if not the defeat itself. But in fact the machine has been misfiring for some time – in a more conventional corporation, the human resources department would be under serious fire from the board. Let’s look at the list.
Andrew Symonds, a clear case of burnout as Fox’s humane piece showed, has joined a growing list of ‘problem players’. Not long ago, it was Shaun Tait – he was supposed to be coming back but we don’t hear much of him now. Before that, it was Damien Martyn, who cleared his No. 4 desk from one day to the next and is now relaxing in the ICL. Don’t get me wrong – I am totally sympathetic to these players and the pressures they have to face. But I think it’s pretty lousy management to have three star performers ‘hit the bottom’ within two or three years without apparently noticing, let alone doing anything about it.
Then there’s Ashley Noffke. He’d been moving along the assembly line for quite a while and apparently shaping up as a pretty nifty speedster, when suddenly he was, without notice, dumped on the trash heap. He looks pretty good (on paper at least), but is now also off to the ICL. Again, either really poor man-management, or (if he was deemed a ‘lemon’) the failure of the system to refine his talent into the finished article. And it seems that the two bowlers chosen ahead of him – Siddle and Bollinger – had not even been in ‘the system’, underlining that ‘the system’ ain’t working so good.
On the spin bowling front, mismanagement also abounds. The unfortunate career of Stuart MacGill had an appropriate denouement in his farcical retirement halfway through an away Test. Surely his problems in coming back from injury should have been recognised earlier, or he should have been persuaded to play one more game. Then poor Beau Casson is talked up as the great new hope, only to be dumped after a single match, in favour of two unknowns for the India tour. But when Tweedledum gets injured, he’s replaced not by Tweedledee, but by Cameron White, who was presumably no higher than fourth in line just 3 months back. As with Noffke and the fast bowlers, it’s hard to see a ‘system’ at work here: instead it carries a slight whiff of panic, of impulse rather than deliberation.
So, like all dynasties, Australian cricket may be re-discovering that nothing last forever. But like that other faltering global superpower, the US, it would be rash to assume that it is already entirely down and out.
Posted by: Aussie Din ks at October 29, 2008 3:35 AM
I agree with you up to a point in fact when India was here in Australia you could see that we definitely were not the team we once were but we are still quite good and Australia are still good enough to win many games but we will also loose a few. The gap as definitely narrowed between the teams and I am sure that South Africa are not the only ones that fancy their chances these days. As for them being verbal about it India think they can win this 2nd test and are verbal about it and the English think they can win the Ashes and are verbal about it so why are South Africa not allowed to be verbal about it.
Posted by: Noelene at October 29, 2008 5:25 AM
Tait is back playing for his state.He is doing well.I expect to see Australia beat South Africa at home,but I feel that South Africa may be able to get the better of Australia at home.I don't believe Symonds has hit rock bottom,the Aust cricket team were a bit harsh I feel.He is playing for QLD and not doing too well at the moment,so it may be a while before he is back in the team.The Aussies do have a good talent pool,but nobody expects them to do well straight away,they need a bit of time at international level.
Posted by: Riverlime at October 29, 2008 6:32 AM
Academy, system, blah, blah, blah. Thats all rubbish. The reason for Australia's dominance of the past decade or so was due to two factors. Warne and Mc Grath. Had they been in any other team in the world, THAT team would have dominated.They have gone and like it was for other alltime greats, the aura of their performances lasts for a few years before it fades. Well, it has now faded. It is now time for Australia to experience a West Indies-like (post-VIV) downturn, though perhaps without the financial insolvency.
Posted by: Shane Legge at October 29, 2008 6:37 AM
I agree, and as an ardent Aussie supporter, it hurts me to do so. I think that the system and the assembly line is still there but it seems that the supervisor of it has been bunking off work. There are a couple of promising spinners around but after being tagged as such a couple of years ago, they are no closer to the finished article. In fact, in the case of the spinners, they may have gone backwards. Our first choice for this tour (Bryce McGain) was a bit of a bolter. There are still some good quicks and some great bats but I can't help thinking that they get disillusioned fairly quickly (in some cases rightly so) when they are overlooked. The system is still there, it just needs to be run better.
Posted by: jonathan at October 30, 2008 12:32 AM
Riverlime is on the money (although I'd say the factors were McGrath and Warne). They were the reason for the dominance, and the short period of super-dominance was caused by the fact that for a while no other country could boast much of a bowling attack at all.
The depth produced by the system(s) is good, but not the decisive factor. It's not at all clear that the selectors were a helpful part of the system, but they've made things worse on this tour.
Posted by: redneck at October 30, 2008 3:13 AM
i agree to some point to what you are saying, but i believe india is may be the only place where the aussie pace attack alone can not get 20 wickets. touring south africa or anywhere out of the subcontinent will suit australia far more! warne and mcgrath are irreplacable but aus have won the last 2 world cups with out warne and clark has somewhat eased the pain of loosing mcgrath! i think everyone can agree that its going to be a great summer with aus v s africa. 2 evenly matched teams both with similar strenghts and weaknesses to eachother! and with lee, johnston, clark vs steyn, morkel, nel & ntini who needs spin!? and shaun tait took 5/28 for south aust against new south wales last week on a placid adelaide oval wicket, rest assured he will be in the mix come the next ODI!!!
Posted by: Kelsow at October 31, 2008 6:52 PM
Along with everything you said, It also takes a good opponent team to test Oz. Let's check last 4 tests between India vs. Oz. It's 2 wins for India and 2 draws. That's a sample of things to come.
Samir Chopra lives in Brooklyn and teaches Computer Science and Philosophy at the City University of New York; his academic interests include the philosophical foundations of artificial intelligence and the politics of technology. In his third undergraduate year, he captained Mathematics in the departmental cricket competition (and lost to Chemistry in the first round). Samir played C-grade cricket in Sydney and makes guest appearances for his old club when possible (and desirable). Samir runs the blog Eye on Cricket and the cricket page at The Faster Times.
Paul Ford is a co-founder of the New Zealand cricket supporters' cult, the Beige Brigade. He was once described by a current New Zealand cricketer as "looking spastic" even mucking about with an Excalibur and a tennis ball in the backyard. Paul bowls right-armed Nathan Astlesque "nudes", his batting would make Ewen Chatfield look elegant, and he is a committed fielder. He sometimes grows a beard to hide his double chin and inhabits a periphery of cricket that Cricinfo is proud to be glimpsing through this blog.
Stephen Gelb grew up in Cape Town, a short walk from the beautiful Newlands ground. Always a better student of the game than player, his passion for cricket survived eight years as a student in Canada, where he learned to love baseball too. He lives in Johannesburg doing economic research at The EDGE Institute and teaching at Wits University.
Mike Holmans, a database consultant by profession, has spent thirty summers (and a few winters) going to the cricket. Brought up in one and working in the other, his dearest wish is for a season to end with Yorkshire winning the county championship by beating runners-up Middlesex by one wicket with five minutes to go. If it’s also a summer when England win the Ashes, so much the better.
Born in Colombo, educated at Oxford and now living in Brisbane - Michael Jeh (Fox) is a cricket lover with a global perspective on the game. An Oxford Blue who played first-class cricket, he is a Playing Member of the MCC and still plays grade cricket. His views on cricket might best be described as those of a "modern traditionalist". Michael now works closely with elite athletes in his job as a manager at Griffith University in Queensland.
Saad Shafqat takes special pride that his cricket-watching life began during the three-month interval between Javed Miandad's debut Test in Lahore and Imran Khan's 12-wicket haul at Sydney. Although a practicing neurologist based in Karachi, cricket has never been far from his activities. He has co-authored Javed Miandad’s autobiography Cutting Edge and has been a contributor to Cricinfo since 2005. His regular column Reverse Swing appears fortnightly in Dawn, Pakistan’s leading English daily.
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