Opinion No longer Awestralia
Two knocks of fortitude and gumption in alien,cauldron-like conditions. Both orchestrated at a time their team was sinking in the mire.
Two knocks of fortitude and gumption in alien,cauldron-like conditions. Both orchestrated at a time their team was sinking in the mire. In what proved to be a calamitous sojourn in India,Moises Henriques and Steven Smith were among a handful of Australians to walk away with their pride intact and their credentials embellished.
At a time when the batting stocks Down Under have depleted to a scary squat,the two young New South Welshmen had provided the beleagured Australians with a silver lining. Their reward? Being left out of the central contracts list announced less than a month following their brave-hearted heroics.
David Hussey,the most experienced of Australias contemporary batsmen,too has been dropped with the selectors indicating a focus on grooming the future. At the same time,however,35-year-old Brad Haddin,whose career looked finished till a month back,retains his contract and so do the aging likes of Ryan Harris and Ben Hilfenhaus. If anything,Australias central contracts list reeks of ambiguity with the selectors vision incessantly skewed.
The latest faux pas though only epitomises the era of confusion and disarray that Australian cricket finds itself in. Long gone are the days when Do it like they do it Down Under was touted as the winning mantra for countries around the world. A time when Australian cricket was the envy of the world.
But now with the Aussies brought back to earth,the chinks in their armour have begun to get exposed. Now,they too seem to have rifts between senior players and divisions in the camp like the Pakistanis. While they prided on injury management of their bowlers at their peak,their fast bowlers like their Indian counterparts too spend more time on the physios table rather than on the field these days.
Australian coaches were in vogue all over the world while Ponting & Co thrashed all comers,but they themselves now have a South African at the helm. While their batting depth seems real shallow now,many experts had recognised a worrying trend as early as the mid-2000s. The top run-getters in the Sheffield Shield remained 30+ guys on their last legs. The bastion of world-class batsmanship had failed to produce a major star since Michael Clarke.
There was a time Australias domestic cricket was hyped as a breeding ground for superstars. But the factory has dried up rather quickly. Where the likes of Michael Hussey and James Maher had to score 10,000 runs to attract the selectors attention,these days a single century or a three-wicket haul seems good enough to earn a Baggy Green.
Probably these discrepancies were always there but remained hidden behind the smokescreen of Australias unprecedented success. The indomitable run was masking the fact that the Australian system instead of being infallible was as good or bad as any other in the world.
(Bharat is a senior correspondent based in Mumbai)bharat.sundaresan@expressindia.com
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