Australian cricket captain Steve Waugh (left), and Vice Captain Shane Warne (right) display the World Cup Cricket trophy. Australia's 1 Day Cricket World Cup winning team drove in a motorcade down Sydney's main street to celebrate in a ticket tape parade with over 100,000 well wishers attending. AAP Photo/ Pablo Ramire
Over the weekend, Australia visited two grounds at which its relationship is well documented. Not having lost at Lords since 1934, Australia finally had its 75 year streak snapped.
Australia hasn’t won at Eden Park since 1986 and this drought continued after the All Blacks were simply too strong for the Wallabies.
Ground hoodoos are one thing but the juxtaposition of the two events made me think about how the respective Australian sides are still grappling with the loss of certain personnel.
Forget about once in a lifetime, Shane Warne was a once in a game cricketer, and so it should come as no surprise to see Australia suffer in his absence.
As Martin Johnson wrote, “Compared, for example, to 2006-07, Ponting must feel a bit like the former captain of a luxury cruise liner demoted to the African Queen.
One minute you’re only real problem is whether or not to join in the deck quoits, or whether there are enough olives on board for the dry martinis, and the next you’re trying to work out whether an oily rag and the occasional rap with a spanner is enough to keep the boiler from exploding.”
A leg spinner of Warne’s quality gave Australia such an edge that it almost wasn’t fair. He could bowl the whole day and be accurate and threatening for every ball of it.
You can’t blame Ricky Ponting for wondering why he had to be captain following everyone’s retirement. Should he lose the Ashes, he will probably not have to wonder about that any more.
When John Eales was wearing the Number 5 jumper, the Wallabies were a different team. No one may have actually called him Nobody in real life, but you can’t doubt his freakish talents.
Australia has never won a World Cup or the Tri Nations or defeated the Lions in a series without him.
Twice he played at Eden Park and not even he could play in a winning team there. Notwithstanding he finished his career with an 11-9 record against the All Blacks.
Compare this to someone like George Gregan who had an 8-6 record against the All Blacks when Eales was playing but without him it shriveled to 4-9.
Stirling Mortlock’s first two matches against the All Blacks were with Eales and these were split. Following those, Mortlock has lost 11 of the 15 games he has played against the All Blacks.
Australia may survive without Warne or Eales but they desperately lack the X-Factor that those two provided. When it comes to the Wallabies, who knows if they will ever find someone as good as him again?
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