NAGPUR: At the end of the fourth Test, it is clear that Australian cricket is on the downslide. For all their aggression and ‘art’ of mental disintegration, they did not have the ability to pick up 20 wickets. Their superiority complex prevents them from facing facts and once they open their eyes, the fact there is something wrong with their famed academy’s supply chain will stare back at them.
If one looks at teams right from Don’s 1948 Invincibles to Steve Waugh’s turks, you will find that they had a couple of quality bowlers, though not necessarily pacers, in their ranks. Bradman had Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller and Richie Benaud, who was himself a great bowler had the likes of Graham McKenzie in his ranks.
Subsequent sides had quality bowlers like Len Pascoe, Rodney Hogg, Geoff Lawson, Craig McDermott, not to forget Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson. In fact Lillee and Thommo tormented Clive Lloyds’s famed Windies side.With Glenn Mc- Grath and Shane Warne ending their career, the supply chain seems to have come to a halt.
Flaw in the supply chain
An academy needs to breed talent keeping in mind the changing face of the game. With Asia dominating the world scenarios, naturally more matches will be played in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka than say, in the Caribbean. So one needs to groom the right mix of pacers and spinners to counter the placid tracks. If Cameron White, Jason Krejza are the best available talent in Australia, then in comparison Greg Matthews who had fashioned the tied Test in 1986, must be great bowler.
Poor leadership
Ricky Ponting did not lead in the true sprit of the game. While he went out of the way to promote Krejza, he has been giving step-motherly treatment to White and has under utilised Brett Lee on many occasions.
He was not able to have control of players on the field. His spats with Lee and Shane Watson’s act of bowling a barrage of bounces to tailenders Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma speaks poorly of his sportsmanship.
Double standards
In his new book, Ponting speaks of how a senior Indian cricketer asked him to drop racial charges against Harbhajan Singh during ‘monkeygate’.
He states that he is sick of the whole thing. Symonds too is peeved with Indian Board for flexing its financial arm during the Bhajji affair. This off-field distraction has had a direct bearing on the team’s performance.
Inability to harness talent
Players from India who have been to Australia in the Border-Gavaskar scholarship swear that the talent out there (Australia) is very average.
They aver that although the infrastructure and training facilities are good, there is no one to harness natural talent. They crib it is a place where you can find stereotypes. Spotting talent is an art. But for Sir Garry Sobers who was then on talent hunt mission in Sri Lanka, Arjuna Ranatunga would have never played for Sri Lanka.