India and South Africa willing, 2009 could be the year of challengers

But the longer Australia remain in denial, the more difficult it will be for them to retain the champion’s crown; one they have worn with enormous distinction. For years, everytime they were in trouble, they found a champion to rescue them and eventually they took that for granted. It was like watching a thriller where you knew who the murderer was and so only had to figure out how he was going to do it. Now the comebacks aren’t happening and without the runs to dominate, the bowlers are looking deficient. Australia are having to defend, to retreat. It takes time getting used to that.

Two reasons spring to mind. Australia have always been the best at knowing when a player’s time was up. Good selection is as much about bidding goodbye as saying welcome. Maybe they had alternatives, maybe there wasn’t so much pressure because the team was doing well or maybe, as Ian Chappell had said at the time, it wasn’t as much about how well Australia were playing as it was about how pathetic the opposition was. Now a debate rages over Matthew Hayden, one of the modern greats, where earlier a Michael Bevan was eased out of the one-day game so smoothly.

The decline has also coincided with a drop in standards of domestic cricket. Or maybe there is a correlation there. If it weren’t for the fact that we are such a small group of nations, and therefore a very small sample size, we could’ve checked if there is eventually a correlation between affluence and decline. Initially, affluence draws the best players, excited by the idea of making a good living doing what they love best. In course of time, the money in the domestic game becomes a retirement nest. Players don’t go away because the money is good; they end up, as Mark Taylor said recently, playing for the money rather than for the dream of playing for the country. It has happened in England and it is something India must be alive to in a few years.

And so the challengers encircle the champions. First India and then, the team of the year, South Africa have shown that if you believe, you can win, Far too many teams in the past have been guilty of not believing they could beat Australia. Now that aura has gone. It isn’t merely a coincidence either that both teams have young, aggressive leaders and have a core of young but reasonably experienced players. Young players and, as Graeme Smith knows, young captains, need time to make mistakes. Perfection doesn’t emerge out of a computer programme or a shopping bag.

Smith himself is an example of that. He is almost a veteran now, has gone past anger and impatience, has mellowed and become mature and is still only 27. He himself is batting better than ever before and now has a core of Amla, de Villiers, Prince, Duminy and Steyn, with Morkel on the way there, around whom to build a team that will last the distance. More crucially they have erased the scars, of defeat and diffidence.

Suddenly India v South Africa, home and away, is the series to look forward to. But there are two others that will give us an insight into whether the challengers are ready to play as leaders. Australia vs South Africa in South Africa with the home side favourites and India vs New Zealand with the visitors expected to win are going to be critical.

So there is much to look forward to 2009. Apart from the emergence of a new champion, or maybe the return of the king, there are the Ashes, the IPL, the T20 World Championship and who knows, maybe a Champions League and a Champions Trophy as well!