Give some credit where credit is due the Aussies are good
Peter Robinson
If revenge is a dish best tasted cold, Australia have stuffed themselves to bursting point this summer. It’s not yet clear whether they’ve called for a feather and a bucket, but they can’t want any more, can they?
In 1970 the last Springbok team knocked spots of Bill Lawry’s side, and if two decades of isolation were mostly dark, miserable and lonely, well, at least South Africans could comfort themselves that they once had the best cricket side in the world; a great team, in fact.
That’s all shifted around now, but the point of this is not to bemoan the current state of South Africa cricket, but to give some credit where it’s due. Just as Ali Bacher’s 1970 side was a great team, so too are Steve Waugh’s current Australians.
As Bacher discovered in 1970, it doesn’t half do your captaincy record a power of good if you have great players to lead. Graeme Pollock, Barry Richards and Mike Procter were great players by any standards, and the rest of the team could play a bit too.
It’s a risky business to tag cricketers as great while they’re still playing, but Shane Warne qualifies. As Waugh noted at Newlands on Tuesday, he writes his own scripts. Matthew Hayden, Glenn McGrath and the extraordinary Adam Gilchrist are there or thereabouts, too.
But the great achievement of Waugh and his team (which includes the contributions of coach John Buchanan) is to have simplified a sometimes complicated game, one which is too often overcomplicated.
Traditionally Australian team selection has been a straightforward matter six batsmen, four bowlers and a wicketkeeper with the captain coming out of the 11. The fact that Gilchrist is probably the most devastating hitter in the game today helps a bit, and the abilities of Warne and Brett Lee are a bonus. But the formula is simple.
In terms of scoring rates, Australia have upped the ante on all the Test-playing nations. Where three an over was once the aim, Australia have made four the norm. They are, unquestionably, a thrilling batting team and if Mark and Steve Waugh have been out of sorts a little, what has come before and after them has been exceptional.
Australia bowl one side of the wicket and set fields accordingly. This requires trust and confidence in both the captain and the bowlers. It hardly needs to be said that you would be hard pressed to find Australian short of such confidence.
The great achievement of this Australian team is that they have changed the way people see and think about Test cricket. As a spectacle the Test cricket played by Australia is every bit as thrilling as the one-day form of the game. It has already pointed the way forward for the modern game.
Australia, it is true, are notoriously uneasy about playing on the sub- continent but no team, not even this one, is perfect.
They are, though, one of the greatest teams of all time. We have been privileged to have had them in South Africa.
Peter Robinson is the editor of CricInfo South Africa