The End Of The Dynasty

It Ain't Just The Yankees
Australian cricket is at a turning point. After 15 years of winning and 10 years of being the world's best, they are being found out by a young, resurgent English cricket squad. If you compare the woes of Yankees to the Australians, there is something very similar going on, namely, the age factor, the inflexibility of the roster and vulnerability to injuries as a result of the two problems being ignored.

I saw this article by the great Peter Roebuck in The Independent that seemed to underscore the very problems I've been predicting for some time:

Not since The Prince And The Pauper have roles so decisively been reversed. A rapidly deteriorating Australian side faces a formidable task as it attempts to save this crucial Test match. Mental disintegration could be detected in their work in the field and that bodes ill for their prospects. Ricky Ponting, especially, has looked rattled. Sometimes, though, it only takes one stirring innings to turn things around. At present Shane Warne is holding the side together. The time has come for vaunted colleagues to pull their weight.

Australia's senior batsmen must make a stand. Fifth-day heroics alone can atone for their failures. Extras have contributed more runs than four members of a highly regarded order. No one has scored a hundred. No one has scored ugly runs. Only Justin Langer has made the bowlers dig him out. Lower-order rallies have stood between Australia and batting ignominy. Reputations and records are coming under scrutiny. Naked figures are no longer enough. Performances against strong sides in tough situations are a better guide.

Confronted with the toughest bowling some of them have faced in their Test careers, a supposedly powerful line-up has wilted. Even at Lord's it was clear that England - more appropriately the British Lions - had the capacity to launch a more physical and varied attack than Australia had encountered for years. It was a throwback to the early days of Steve Waugh's career, when batsmen spent much of their time fending off bumpers. It was a reminder of how impoverished international bowling had become.

Peter Roebuck then goes on to write:

Suddenly this Australian team is looking its age. Sometimes, when the end comes, it is quick. Regardless of the outcome of this series - and it is worth remembering that England stand second in the rankings and that Australia lost by only two runs in Birmingham and that the score is level - the selectors will need to take stock.

Michael Hussey's time may be at hand. Rejuvenation is needed. Not that Australian cricket has an abundance of emerging talent. Nor is the series over. Australia might yet retain the Ashes. Right now they would settle for that. Harder days, though, lie ahead.

Well, exactly my point. There have been a couple of really bad trends in the Australian squads since the last days of the Steve Waugh captaincy. Waugh himself probably over-stayed by 18-months as there was nothing that he accomplished in that period that added to his legacy. It was 18months that was better spent with blooding a younger player. The age factor has been particularly prominent, but mostly been ignored. The average age of this Australian squad is higher than at any point in the last 15 years because it's basically been the same guys for a good decade. And while Steve Waugh was eased out of the squad 18 months ago, the side still has over-30 players in Hayden, Langer, Martyn, Gilchrist, Warne, McGrath, and Gillespie. These guys are older than captain Ricky Ponting, and while there is some value to their veteran presence, some of these names date back to the very early 90s. Let's face it, they remind one of the stodginess of Graham Gooch, Ian Botham and Michael Gatting at the end of their days. England are coming at the Aussies full-tilt, and our guys look a little like rabbits cuaght in the headlights.

The younger guys in the squad are Brett Lee, Michale Clarke, Simon Katich. The latter two really need to be given time and space to grow into their roles. There are probably any number of names that could be thrown into the mix instead of the stalwarts who created the golden age. Based on the results, we can announce the golden age as closed. Win lose or draw the Ashes, it's time for the selectors to get bold and engineer the next generation. however, that takes guts to make the roster more flexible.

The Australian cricket squad is a lot more inflexible than one would imagine for the simple reason that the whole country is asked to invest its emotions into this group of players. So the selection policy is always, "hard to get in, hard to get out". Now, with Warne and McGrath having amassed a colossal number of Test wickets between them, it should be clear that the selectors err on the side of veteran players. Now, what escapees scrutiny is that while they have collected the numbers at a great rate across their careers, there's nothing to say the last 100-200 wickets couldn't have been taken by other players at a similar rate. Yet there's a feeling that the current Test Squad is somehow a young squad in need of growth pains.

"Whatever happens on this Ashes series," Australia's coach John Buchanan told his interlocutors on Saturday evening, "we will grow as a group as a result."
This great Australian team is certainly broadening its life experiences, with yesterday's another distinctly unfamiliar one: trying to restrict the building of a potentially match-winning lead.

And though they have stormed Gallipoli, visited Villers-Bretonneux and penned more bad poetry than a tortured teenager, the challenge that Ricky Ponting's side face today is as acute, and for them as rare, as any: batting all day to save a Test.

For Australians in recent years, time has flown; today it may drag. This Ashes tour has become such compulsive viewing as to outdo reality television. What began as Celebrity Love Island, when Shane Warne's private life became public knowledge, has now become an edition of Survivor.

There is even talk of a rift in the lute of the Australian team, specifically between Warne and Ponting. This is perhaps inevitable. Steve Archibald, or maybe his literary ghost, came up with a memorable line about team spirit always being "the illusion glimpsed in the aftermath of victory". The corollary is that disunity is the impression usually gleaned in the event of adversity.

It made for a day that hummed with speculation when not buzzing with activity. After an edge from Andrew Strauss off Brett Lee bisected Warne and Ponting at first and second slip just before lunch, for instance, there was what seemed a pregnant silence in the Australian cordon. Were they simply disappointed, or contemplating how to blame one another in their tour diaries?

When Ponting tossed Warne the ball for the seventh over of the innings, was it is a case of "let's do it for the baggy green" or "if you're so clever you bloody win it for us, fat boy". When Warne wrapped an arm round Ponting's shoulders before an over after tea, was there just the hint of a headlock?

It may not matter overmuch. There have been bones of contention in Australian teams on their last few visits: over the form of Mark Taylor in 1997, over the omission of Warne in 1999, over the eventual omission of Michael Slater in 2001. Victory, as it were, washed away all sins.

One worries about this perception problem. The thing is, it's not the young guys who are creating the big problems. It's that Warne is still there to have the ball tossed to him by Ponting after all these years. It's not his fault for having been a great player; it's the selectors' collective fault for wanting to have him do it one more time, once too often.