Ricky Ponting and his team have defeated everyone but this dogged opponent – the court of public opinion. It seems unlikely he will ever win, for every time he gets close, the goalposts are moved.
Lose the Ashes for the first time in 20 years: How could you have sent England in at Edgbaston? How could you have batted so poorly at Trent Bridge?
Win them back 5-0: Yes, but that was such an atrocious England side that, had you not won 5-0, it would have been a disgrace.
Win the last two World Cups: But how come you couldn’t win the last two Commonwealth Bank series’?
Win a Test at the SCG in the closing moments: You won but the way you went about it was disgusting.
Try to maintain the spirit of the game in the decisive fourth Test in India by bowling Michael Clarke and Michael Hussey: There was a Test and series on the line. You could worry about the complications later. Anyhow, whose fault was it in the first place that you were so far behind with the over rates?
Ponting has been an incredibly successful captain, but yet he can’t win.
Win and he is guilty of not winning the right way. Should he not win, he is guilty of the bigger sin of not winning.
So what exactly are Ponting and his troops guilty of?
Could it be that Australians are way too attached to the underdog and this combined with the tall poppy syndrome means that they want Goliath cut down to size?
Only nine teams (not counting Zimbabwe) play Test cricket, and of the nine, you could only say that India, South Africa and England are competitive. Such threadbare opposition is hardly worth beating your chest about.
The law of diminishing returns means that when a side is so successful, wins lose value. The side obviously wouldn’t think so, but the public and media would.
What becomes a sexy story, however, is when there is an upset.
It’s no coincidence that some of the most exciting Test series’ in recent times have seen Australia on the losing end.
When did the Australian public really respond?
When the team was the underdog and did something it hadn’t done in a long time, such as the 1987 World Cup, 1989 Ashes, 1995 Frank Worrell Trophy and 1999 World Cup. Other than that, it seems to be a case of “ho hum here we go again”.
The cricketing public, in particular the Australian public, seemed to love the West Indian teams of the 1980s, even though they were flogging us like the proverbial dead horse. Their swagger was cavalier. Viv Richards wasn’t pompous, he was confident. Joel Garner wasn’t menacing and cold-blooded, he was proficient.
So what can be done about it? Nothing really.
That’s just the way things are.
Ponting should go about his business and not care about what any of the pundits think – that is, if he ever cared to begin with.
And like a former Prime Minister or sacked coach, Ponting will find that people and in particular, the media, are a lot friendlier after he moves on.
He might even find that reporters call him up asking his comments and opinions on the state of the Australian side.
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