The Australians may have walked off the SCG with a warm fuzzy feeling, but that would have been somewhat diminished by the fact they lost the series. Things have really gone 180 degrees from the time when Australia’s biggest problem was losing the dead rubbers.
With Greg Norman heading into the final round of a major on top of the leaderboard and both Hawthorn and Manly winning their Grand Finals, it felt more like 1988 than 2008. And Australia winning a dead rubber at the SCG only reinforced it.
That’s what they did three times in the space of six years during the 1980s – win the only match of an already lost series at the SCG.
If Channel 9 would have any sense of historical justice, they would have had Bill Lawry commentating the final moments like he did in 1987 against England.
Things may not change so quickly in the commentary box, but they do on the field.
South Africa only fielded four players from the side which played at the SCG four years ago (de Villiers, Smith, Kallis and Boucher), while Australia only fielded three (Hayden, Ponting and Hussey).
From the SCG Test played just 12 months ago against India, over half the side weren’t there now (Jaques, Gilchrist, Symonds, Hogg, Lee and Clark all absent).
This definitely is changing of the guard time for Australian cricket, and the holes that retirements have caused have been exacerbated by injury.
Maybe it’s the absence of Errol Alcott, but one of the things you took for granted about the Australian cricket side was that hardly anyone missed a game due to injury.
English touring sides of the 1990s came to Australia and they would suffer so many injuries that the replacements to the replacements ultimately needed replacing.
But not even Mr and Mrs McDonald would have thought their son was a Test cricketer. Otherwise they would now be multimillionaires from the $5 bet they would have placed on him one day wearing the Baggy Green.
From the odds they would have received, you would have forgiven them if they were in Monte Carlo and not the SCG.
Timing is everything and Michael Hussey, Phil Jaques, Brad Hodge and Darren Lehmann would be ruefully nodding along. Collectively they had at least 30,000 first class runs between them when they made their Test debuts.
Compare this to David Warner who has been selected for Australia’s Twenty20 side without having played a single first class game!
Australia has a busy 2009 ahead of them.
They host South Africa and New Zealand now in the shorter form of the game until mid February.
Straight after, they jet off to South Africa for two months for three Tests, two Twenty20 games and five 50-over contests.
They have nothing in May, but they have the Twenty20 World Cup in England in June followed by an Ashes tour which lasts until late September.
Australia may be reveling in England’s problem with their captain and coach, but they have demons of their own to deal with.
Is Nathan Hauritz the long-term solution to the vexing spinning question? Is Andrew Symonds going to be back? What about Brett Lee? What about Richie Benaud?
Forget about Shane Warne, if next year’s Test Match at the SCG is going to be the last time he wears the blazer, Australian cricket will have truly lost an irreplaceable figure.
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Who Needs Melon said | January 9th 2009 @ 10:12am | Report comment
Unfortunately in Australia, once a team starts winning, selectors tend to get a bit “it’s working, don’t touch it!” and so replacements that should be made aren’t made for fear of upsetting the appelcart.
When a few losses start to creep in you hear messages that to my ears sound like “it’s still good – it’s still good!” then…
When players eventually retire or get to the stage where they absolutely HAVE to be pushed out, suddenly you’ve got this whole “regime change”, “changing of the guard” thing happening… and we wait for it to all come good again.
In retrospect players like Hussey, Jaques, Hodge and Lehmann should have been introduced earlier. A CONTINUOUS “look to the future” policy needs to be adopted. If a player is on the rise but still perhaps slightly inferior to a player who was once great but is on the fall, you’ve got to take a risk, look to the future and pick the player who is on the rise, don’t you? If the once-great comes back, proves you wrong in the grades and ends up improving again faster than the other guy then good on them.
The NZ All Blacks selectors seem to always have the right ideas.
Who Needs Melon said | January 9th 2009 @ 10:23am | Report comment
I comment more on rugby on this site than anything else hence my divergence into that here but there are such close parallels I’m going to cr*p on about it even more with a couple more examples…
1) Gregan was a great player and captain but we kept him around for too long, even when we knew he was on the decline. he probably WAS still the best halfback in the country but there were others on the rise that should have been given their chance sooner. Instead I think some of them withered on the vine – Cordingly? Whitaker?
2) Mortlock is still our best 13 and a good captain but there are others up and coming that are only going to get better whereas Mortlock is only going to get worse. And the risk of his injury increases. You’re better off changing the captaincy NOW and phasing Mortlock out via the bench then waiting until a decision gets made for you.
Sorry – what were we talking about?
Scotty said | January 9th 2009 @ 10:39am | Report comment
Interesting analogy to choose, WNM. Over the same period that the Australian cricket team has been highly successful (around 15 years) the All Blacks have also mostly been the no 1 team in the world (with exceptions for England, South Africa and Australia for a while). However, while the Australian cricket team has won three cricket world cups and almost every test match series home and away in that time, the ABs have won precisely zero world cups. So I’m not sure that you can really say that the All Black selectors are better at it than the Australian cricket selectors!
Who Needs Melon said | January 9th 2009 @ 10:55am | Report comment
I think we USED to get it right. One obviously can’t complain about the 90s and first few years of this century. I don’t know if it’s been a change in selectors or what but I feel that in the last 5 years or so we’ve hung on to a few ‘undroppables’ for too long.
Mattay said | January 9th 2009 @ 1:30pm | Report comment
If I can somewhat divert a tad, I feel the major issue with the current Australian team is it’s bowlers. It’s strange, all you hear about in the media is Hayden needs to go, Hussey is struggling, is Katich the answer? when will Hughes be given a cap?
Very little is heard about Lee needing to go (he does), Johnson not being in the top 5 bowlers in the world (he isn’t), and of course our poor spin bowling options.
Okay, you hear a bit about how we miss Warne and McGrath, but oh have things have changed. We had the brilliance of W, McG and Gillespie, but we also had in reserve Kasprowicz and MacGill. (Oh and Lee I suppose if you must).
I am optimistic that Siddle, Johnson and Bollinger (he impressed me very much, not just with his bowling but his aggression) can be good future test players, but the poor spin bowling options is a concern, and has me thinking why this is the case. I think I know.
How long have we had 4-day games in Shield cricket? Do you think the switch from 5 to 4 has come at a cost of developing our spin bowlers?
We all know spinners excel on days 4 and 5, when the pace bowlers have left their treadmarks, and the pitch is turning for all and sundry. Now, at best, one sides spinners may get to bowl on a deck that is 3 and a bit days old, whereas the other sides spinner will get a 3 day old pitch if he is lucky.
Add the fact that cricket as a whole has become too batsman focussed with most rule changes of late favouring the batsman over the bowler. It also appears most pitches are prepared with the eye on lots of runs and a full 5 (or 4) days play.
Are the days of the Australian spinner becoming obsolete?
Who Needs Melon said | January 9th 2009 @ 2:33pm | Report comment
Mattay,
You’re right.
I’ve been curious why we haven’t had hordes of little tykes coming through following in Warnies footsteps having trained their little fingers on Warnie novelty balls since they were seven years old. Yours are the best reasons I’ve heard yet.
Let us pray that the days of the Australian spinner are NOT obsolete. I always thought Warne was heralding the start of a new spin era.
David Wiseman said | January 9th 2009 @ 4:32pm | Report comment
Who Needs Melon – You make a good point and the All Blacks are up their with the best in maintaining their dynasty. Their assembly line of world-class players never seems to stop while Australia can only produce one John Eales or Mark Ella every couple of generations.
Scotty – Its one of sports mysteries why New Zealand have won only one world cup. Mind you Brazil have only won two World Cups without Pele…
Mattay – I don’t think the spinner will ever be obsolete. Shield cricket is an interesting beast though. Guys at Test level don’t seem to perform as well at Shield level and that can be for a number of reasons – they aren’t as motivated, the opposition is extra motivated, etc. What’s odd is the differences in selection policy. Krejza and Hauritz weren’t going to be picked by their states for recent games but yet wanted by Australia. Warne was a once in a lifetime bowler in that he had the perfect action combined with the right personality/make-up. If either isn’t up to scratch the spinner, particularly the leg spinner will struggle.
westy said | January 11th 2009 @ 12:01am | Report comment
David ..You and I know that Australia has had weak sides in the past. As I have pointed out elsewhere if Mcgill and Warne’s careers had not been in parallel but Mcgill had followed Warne we would simply not be having this conversation. We would have won in either perth of Melbourne or both. This was not to be.
I saw Smith four years ago under pressure as a captain against Australia. Bluntly his captaincy affected his batting. he was in poor form
Ponting has never been a great tactical captain but it is rare for him to let it affect his batting across an entire tour as Smith did.in 2005/6. Ponting average in the tests was 103.
Without in anyway belittling Smith who by the way i greatly admire I have no doubt at all with 20 overs to go to save a test Ponting would also have batted. Ponting has often let his batting do the talking. His batting record is exceptional.There are few tons against Zimbabwe and bangladesh.
dasilva said | January 11th 2009 @ 3:22am | Report comment
the problem with lack of spinners is pretty similar to the problems of youth development is in football
Results vs development
Australian teams at all levels play to win. This is a good thing at one level as Australian sides has a reputation of tough competitiveness that has won us many test. However this is at cost of a decent spinner (1-2 world class wrist spinner in the last 40-50 years in Australia is a anomaly and a fluke and shows nothing about a good system producing spinners). Spin bowling is difficult and unforgiving art. It’s very risky and likely they will get tonk for runs. Therefore they are often underbowled, not picked in preference of pace bowlers. If they are picked they are often asked to bowl ecconomically and then bowl darts afraid to rip the ball or give the ball flight. This combined with lack of experience by captains in how to set fields for a spinner has resulted in this spin crisis.
This may help clubs sides or state sides to win matches but in the end it hurts what really matters, results for the national team.
Due to this neglect in youth development. The national selectors often have to pick young and inexperience players with potential and have them developing at test levels as they are not developing at lower levels (this explains why Hauritz and Krejza being selected despite not playing much first class game). People forget that that’s what they did with Shane Warne. Pick a nobody test spinner with a poor first class record and try to mould him to a test class bowler. Shane warne still only average about 35ish for Victoria which accounts that before he became a regular bowler for Australia he was largely poor for victoria.