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“It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen”. The Australian cricket team and their fans should adopt the slogan from the Pantene shampoo commercials of the nineties as their own.
It won’t help them get better hair, only Advanced Hair could do that for many, but it will help everyone focus on the fact that the series against Sri Lanka is the first step in the rebuilding process for Australian Test cricket.
Australia have done a magnificent job of maintaining success over the past 15-20 years. Apart from gaping hole left by Shane Warne, and I mean that literally and figuratively, someone waiting in the wings has ably filled every void left by retirement or form.
Australian cricket pumped out quality cricketers like Apple does iPods (If Australia were Apple, then England were definitely Microsoft. They worked okay sometimes but they were full of bugs and prone to crashing).
The administration of the game, as pointed out in the Argus Report, has been poor.
However, no one cares all too much about that when Gilly’s getting wickets, Punter’s clearing pickets and Warney’s just the best they’ve ever seen (Side note: I never understood why the writer of the “C’mon Aussie C’mon” song chose the wicketkeeper, Rodney Marsh, to go in the ‘wickets’ rhyme. Surely it would have been more appropriate to have that rhyme for a bowler? Anyhow, I digress).
Times, as they tend to do, have changed. And with the production line of talent drying up like water on hot concrete, as well as the flaws with the governance of game, we find ourselves here.
Australia are fifth in the Test rankings playing Sri Lanka who are fourth.
Yes, Australia are behind Sri Lanka. The little nation that ranks civil war as a national sport and only 20 years ago had about as much chance of winning a cricket match as Arjuna Ranatunga has of losing a hot-dog eating contest.
Today in Galle, most likely in front of stands that will be as bare as Shane Watson’s chest, Australian cricket will begin its journey back to the top.
Even with Muralitharan now retired, Sri Lanka’s spin attack of Ajantha Mendis and Rangana Herath will be a handful for the Australian batsmen.
The Galle pitch, will most likely spin from the first day and by the last will be ragging like chewed carpet. How Australia negotiates the Sri Lankan spinners may ultimately decide the match.
Michael Clarke is Australia’s only world-class player of spin. But Clarke is in such bad Test Match cricket form that one has to wonder whether he was made captain because the selectors felt sorry for him.
Kind of like the kid in school that nobody liked, was terrible at sport, but the teacher had a soft spot for when it came to choosing the ‘Library Captain’.
That being said, Clarke has been in good form in the One Day Internationals and did score a century in the warm-up match.
He has shown mental strength in his short tenure as full-time captain and so far appears ready for the challenge.
Other than Clarke, Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey can hold their own against the spinners but the rest of the batsmen are totally unproven on Test Match-spinning wickets and it could be their undoing.
Additionally, the Sri Lankan batting will be strong. Tillakaratne Dilshan, Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene and Thilan Samaraweera in particular, are all quality players in their own conditions and represent significant challenges for the Australian attack.
On the bowling front for the Aussies, how they bowl with the new ball will be crucial.
Trent Copeland took six wickets in the warm-up match and looks likely to accompany Mitchell Johnson and Ryan Harris in the seam bowling line-up.
One Test veteran Michael Beer will probably be the only specialist spinner.
My prediction is the series will be a 1-1 tie. Both sides lack the world-class bowling attack required to take 20 wickets for every match of a three-Test series and they both have enough batting depth to not be total pushovers.
Over the course of the series, Australian fans should expect some good things that inspire hope like the possibility of Usman Khawaja scoring his maiden Test century.
There will also be some indifferent things that inspire you to roll you eyes like Shane Watson getting out before getting a hundred once again.
However, there will also be travesties of cricket so awful that they would inspire Captain Picard to Facepalm in horror.
There is certainly the potential for a batting collapse of five for one or Michael Beer looking about as much chance to take a wicket as David Boon refusing a can of VB offered to him by an air-hostess.
In other words, all the fun of watching your sporting team as they begin their rise to the top.
Sri Lanka versus Australia
First Test (three Test Series)
At Galle, Sri Lanka
August 31 – September 4, 2011Sri Lankan team (from):
Tillakaratne Dilshan (capt), Rangana Herath, Mahela Jayawardene, Prasanna Jayawardene (wk), Suraj Randiv, Suranga Lakmal, Angelo Mathews, Ajantha Mendis, Tharanga Paranavitana, Thilan Samaraweera, Kumar Sangakkara, Lahiru Thirimanne, Chanaka Welegedara.Australian team (from):
Michael Clarke (c), Michael Beer, Trent Copeland, Brad Haddin (wk), Ryan Harris, Phillip Hughes, Michael Hussey, Mitchell Johnson, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Shaun Marsh, James Pattinson, Ricky Ponting, Peter Siddle, Shane Watson
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