India & Oz: the difference is hunger, consistency

Damien Martyn formed the backbone of the Australian innings with a controlled, and elegant, 100. He was restrained early but exploded in the last ten overs to rip control of the game away from India. He was given good support from Symonds and Bevan who innovated and ran hard as he so often does in these situations.

Martyn is the perfect foil for Hayden, Gilchrist and Ponting at the top of the Australian line-up. He may not have the power of Hayden or Gilchrist, or the range and smouldering rage of Ponting, but he is a class act. His performance in the World Cup final showed that.

Having batted so well the Australians had thrown down the gauntlet to the Indian batsmen who failed to come up with the goods. The partnership between Tendulkar and Dravid looked threatening for a while but, once Tendulkar had gone at the half way mark with the score at 137, it was downhill all the way.

Bracken bowled well in Gwalior and once again claimed Sehwag in the first over, this time letting a ball go that ducked back. Sehwag is a gifted player but has the look of a man who might be overawed by the Australians. Heaven help him when the first-team attack reappears.

The Australian selectors have been criticised by many who can’t see what they see in Bracken’s bowling, but he has put a sock in the mouth of the critics with his last two performances. He has an action with which it should be hard to swing the ball back into the right-hander but he does it anyway, and at good pace. Sehwag, for one, should have learnt something.

Of the other Australian bowlers, Williams was honest, Bichel appeared to miss his usual allies, Symonds and Hogg were fodder to Tendulkar and Dravid while Clarke was the surprise packet.

Michael Clarke is an exciting prospect. In days gone by he may have been rushed into the team more quickly than is the trend in the modern, professional era. He is a player of immense talent with the bat and, as was evident with his bowling, has a healthy dose of self-belief. These experiences in the one-day team will stand him in good stead for the challenges that will surely come his way in both formats in the future.

Whether or not this Australian team has more talent than their Indian counterparts is debatable. Any team that can boast a line up containing Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman, the two Singhs, Kumble, Khan and, when fit, Ganguly, has enough fire-power to mix it with the best of them.

That they don’t mix it with the best consistently enough, considering the available talent, says a lot about the difference between these two teams. This fourth match in the TVS Cup triangular series showed the differences in stark relief.

That the Australians are mentally tougher than the Indians is not in debate. The Australians know it and so, I fear, do the Indians. The Australian team has a focus and a hunger that no other team in world cricket can match and the Indians are in danger of succumbing to their spell.

If India cannot push back and show the Australians that they have the mental fortitude to stand up to them as a team rather than with sporadic individual performances, then not only will the TVS Cup be forfeited, but the Test series in Australia will be lost before it has begun.(Cricket News)