HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN!

The sudden and unprecedented decline in the performance of the Australian cricket team in all formats of the game at the international level has set the cat among the pigeons, literally. All of a sudden, India and South Africa have started to lick their lips at the prospect of becoming the undisputed world champions in the coming months. Even Sri Lanka, England and New Zealand have probably started entertaining visions of being the world’s best team in the near future. Pakistan, because of lack of match practice, and the West Indies, because their re-birth is still too recent, may be the only ones among the top teams who are not in a position as of now to harbour such thoughts.

This unlikely scenario has come to pass simply because the hitherto invincible Aussies, have started faltering with alarming regularity in all three avatars of the modern game. They have lost to India, to South Africa, and very nearly to New Zealand in recent series. Their defeats at the hands of the effervescent South Africans, led by the resolute and doughty Graeme Smith, in both the Test series and the ODI format, and that too in their own back yard, must have sent shivers down the spine of the Aussie selectors, players and fans alike. Not for decades has Australia suffered at the hands of any team in this manner. The reasons for this fall from grace, and from their once lofty pedestal, of the awesome Aussies, are not difficult to seek. Never before has any international cricket team seen such a mass exodus of talent class and experience from the scene, almost simultaneously.

Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Adam Gilchrist, Matthew Hayden, Damien Martin and
Justine Langer bid adieu to their beloved team in the recent past, thus totally exposing their greenhorn replacements to the mercy of resurgent and determined opponents. Meanwhile the likes of Brett Lee and Andrew Symonds, for reasons related to injury or otherwise, have also become largely unavailable to the already beleaguered Australians. The sheer quality and class of the aforementioned group of players was the reason for the unfathomable run of successes that the Australians enjoyed for years. This was coupled with excellent preparation for each series and a never-say-die attitude that pulled them out of seemingly impossible match-situations to come out triumphant in the face of all odds, time and again.

McGrath and Warne were among the greatest bowlers ever to play the game and they led
their team to one famous victory after another without ever seeming to lose steam. There was even an sms joke after the 2007 World Cup, and Australia’s third-straight triumph at that level, about a plan for simply handing them the Cup in 2011, even without a ball being bowled! How things have changed since!

Perhaps another reason for the decline of Australian cricket could be the lack of
foresightedness in blooding younger players one by one, while the greats were still
around. For example it would have been much easier for new talents like Peter Siddle and even David Warner to settle down nicely at the international level, while the likes of McGrath and Gilchrist were still around on the field and in the dressing room. All through cricket’s history we have seen that when the experienced players were around to pass on their magic to their successors, the transition had been smoother.

Imran Khan had passed on the magic to Wasim Akram, Steve Waugh did the same to
Ricky Ponting, and the incomparable Sachin Tendulkar is still around to follow suit, with the likes of Gautam Gambhir and Rohit Sharma. It is another matter that Tendulkar had already mentored another generation in Yuvraj Singh and Virender Sehwag, who are world class players in their own right today! Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman are still batting superbly at the Test level, even as the younger lot takes over from them gradually. Sourav Ganguly and Anil Kumble have just retired, but then by now, skipper MS Dhoni and Harbhajan Singh are highly respected players on the world stage. India has somehow been able to soften the blow of the transition, either due to a glut of available talent, or due to better planning. This is the way to go! Not the Aussie way, where the cupboard suddenly looks bare.

Is all lost for the Aussies then? Not really! If one looks back, the West Indians suffered a much steeper fall from the top of the cricketing world during the nineties. That they have still been unable to recover from that shock is as much a reflection of the sheer greatness of players like Viv Richards, Clive Lloyd, Gordon Greenidge and the fearsome fast bowlers that they possessed, as also due to the lack of interest in the game of cricket among the youth in that part of the world today. However, under Chris Gayle, the Windies seem to be in the process of rekindling that spark once again and their recent annihilation of the Poms is a case in point.
The Aussies themselves suffered severely in the eighties when Kerry Packer poached
most of their greats. Kim Hughes, followed by Allan Border, was left to pick up the
pieces. The fact that Border went on to become the world’s most prolific batsman of his time and that under his leadership (followed by that of Mark Taylor, Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting), Australia scaled great heights, must give hope to the Australian selectors in their current hour of crisis.

All the same, the mighty have indubitably fallen! While the Australians may not be out just yet, they are certainly down! Much like the once unconquerable tennis champ Roger Federer, who is now struggling to come to terms with Rafael Nadal’s game, the
cricketing Aussies must re-group at the double. Otherwise India and South Africa would be the teams to look out for, not only during the ICC 20-20 Cup later this year, but also in the longer versions of the game. There may, of course, yet be a twist in the plot. Let’s keep that TV remote-control handy!