The renaissance man

Wearing his beloved Australian cap and allowing himself a rare smile, Steve Waugh left the Sydney Cricket Ground on Tuesday with an imperish...

Wearing his beloved Australian cap and allowing himself a rare smile, Steve Waugh left the Sydney Cricket Ground on Tuesday with an imperishable legacy to the international game he graced for 18 years. Waugh8217;s singular contribution was to blend both ancient and modern in an Australian team who at their peak could plausibly claim to be the best in history.

Ancient was one appropriate word for a cap threatening to fall apart when the Australian captain finally retired. The battered, baggy green represented a conscious effort to connect the modern generation with their predecessors who had built and nurtured their nation8217;s summer game. Typically Waugh went even further in his efforts to instill a sense of tradition into team mates who were still small children when he made his international debut in 1986.

For the first Test of the new millennium 8212; against India in Sydney on January 2, 2000 8212; the Australians donned replicas of the skull caps worn by Joe Darling8217;s 1901-02 side.

Again, typically, Waugh was not content with mere symbolism. En route to yet another successful Ashes defence in England a year later, Waugh took his team to the Gallipoli Peninsula. There they re-enacted a 1915 photograph showing Australian soldiers playing cricket towards the end of their tragic eight-month campaign in which nearly 9,000 Australians perished.

8220;Even this morning I was in the shower and it started trickling,8221; commented Waugh at the time. 8220;I was standing there thinking the damn shower is no good and then I thought these guys were freezing in the trenches and fighting for eight months so what have I got to complain about?8221;

Back in the modern world, Waugh also successfully challenged the cultural barriers which prevent so many teams from performing at their best on the Indian sub-continent. Instead of retreating to their air-conditioned hotel rooms or seeking refuge by the pool, Waugh urged his team mates to embrace the local culture and welcome rather than reject diversity.

Golden ages by definition exist in the past with time and nostalgia softening their harsher contours. But well before Waugh had finally disappeared from sight on Tuesday, cricket fans around the world realised they had been privileged to live in an extraordinary era for test cricket, possibly the most exciting ever. Pushing back the boundaries in his sport as he had in his life, Waugh persuaded the Australian team to embrace a policy of all-out attack with astonishing results.

Story continues below this ad

Three hundred runs a day was once thought an impossible dream. Waugh8217;s Australians made it a norm. In the series against India, Waugh8217;s last, both teams often averaged four runs an over. An extraordinary 1,747 runs were scored in the final drawn Test and with 90 overs a day now guaranteed, 400 runs is the new target.

Brisk scoring rates are not new. Attack was the watchword of the Edwardian age and Don Bradman scored fast as well as prolifically in the 1930s.

But it is the present Australia side containing Matthew Hayden, the new captain Ricky Ponting and Adam Gilchrist who have changed the game irrevocably with their relentless pursuit of quick runs.

8220;For most of the past 126 years, Test cricket was conducted at a leisurely pace,8221; noted last year8217;s Wisden almanac. 8220;The occasional burst of frenzied activity only emphasised that the standard tempo was sedate. Nowadays, the longest form of the game 8212; of any game 8212; rattles along like a good television drama8230;Test cricket may be more entertaining now than it has ever been.8221;

Waugh has now gone but his legacy will endure.

Reuters